text:
Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg

Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg (10 April 1626 – 1 April 1682) was a German count in the Holy Roman Empire. He was prime minister for the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, and at the same time worked for Louis XIV of France influencing affairs in the Empire. Franz eventually became Prince-Bishop of Strassburg.

Early life
Born on 10 April 1626 in Heiligenberg, Franz was an elder son of Egon VIII of Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg (1588–1635), who served with distinction as a Bavarian general in the Thirty Years' War. Around 1640, Franz attended the Gymnasium Tricoronatum with his younger brother Wilhelm. There they met Maximilian Henry of Bavaria, forming a friendship which would guide all three careers.

Career
His religious career started early, joining the cathedral chapter at Cologne at age nine. By 1644 he was a member of the privy council of the Archbishop-Elector.

On the elevation of his friend Maximilian Heinrich to the position of Archbishop-Elector of Cologne in 1650, he went to his court and embraced the ecclesiastical career. Franz was made prime minister for Maximilian. He soon gained strong influence over the elector, and Franz and his brother Wilhelm were instrumental in guiding the Archbishop-Elector as a tool of the aggressive policy of Louis XIV of France.

In 1651, Cardinal Mazarin stayed in Cologne as a safe haven during the Fronde. During that time, he got to know Franz and Wilhelm, and to see the influence they had in Cologne and other lands within the Empire. He began to cultivate them as supporters of French aims within the Empire, supporting their interest in developing Rhineland defensive alliances.

Ecclesiastical preferments were heaped upon Franz. In 1655 he was appointed to a canonry in the chapters of Strassburg, Liège, and Hildesheim. These positions not only provided Franz with an income, but they allowed him to influence the selection of future office holders in these prince-bishoprics, thus gaining political influence. He later became suffragan bishop and dean of Cologne and provost of Hildesheim.

When Ferdinand III died in 1657, the Cardinal asked Franz to help him influence the selection of the next Emperor, even going so far as to suggest Louis XIV of France for the role. The Cardinal instructed his lead negotiator in the Empire, Hugues de Lionne to negotiate with the brothers for their support, indicating that the king would pay them eighteen thousand livres for ongoing dedicated work, regardless of the result of the election of the Emperor. At the convening of the Electors in Frankfurt in 1658, Franz hosted lavish parties for the Electors, and allowed the electors to meet with French representatives. One dinner he hosted for the Electors of Mainz and Saxony went from noon to nine, with the electors joining the dancing on the tables. On 4 June 1658, Lionne, Franz, and Wilhelm signed an agreement detailing French support for the counts should they continue to work "for all the plans and interests of His Majesty in Germany". This included the Cardinal making Franz bishop of Metz.

Following the coronation of Leopold I, Franz and Wilhelm contributed significantly to the establishment of the League of the Rhine in August 1658. This was supported and joined by the French as a further check against the new Habsburg Emperor. The Habsburgs tried to offer the brothers prizes and titles if they would halt the League's formation, but they refused.

When the previous prince-bishop of Strasbourg died in 1662, the crown of France offered large amounts of cash to get Franz elected as the successor. Leopold offered similar amounts of cash to get his cousin Sigismund Francis elected instead. Sigismund had to withdraw when he inherited Further Austria from his brother, so Franz was elected on 18 January 1663. Franz then asked Rome if he would be able to give up this title should another better one come along, as he still held hope of succeeding his friend as Archbishop-Elector of Cologne. Rome denied this request and he consented to the position without the pre-condition.

In 1664, Leopold elevated the territory of Fürstenberg-Heligenberg from a county to a principality, and also extended the title of Prince to Franz and Wilhelm, though their brother ruled the territory. This was done to try and draw the brothers closer to Austria, but did not appear to change much.

Later he was also prince-abbot of Luders and Murbach and abbot of Stablo and Malmedy.

In 1673, Franz moved into the newly renovated Château des Rohan (Mutzig), which became the residence of the bishops of Strasbourg.

On the conclusion of a treaty between the emperor and the elector of Cologne, on 11 May 1674, Franz was deprived of all his preferments in Germany, and was compelled to take refuge in France. He was, however, amnestied with his brother William by a special article of the Treaty of Nijmegen (1679), whereupon he returned to Cologne. After the French occupation of Strasbourg (1681) he took up his residence there and died on 1 April 1682.

title: Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Heiligenberg


text:
Calgary Cowboys

The Calgary Cowboys were an ice hockey team that played two seasons in the World Hockey Association (WHA) from 1975 to 1977. The Cowboys played at the Stampede Corral in Calgary. The franchise was founded in 1972 as the Miami Screaming Eagles, though it never played a game in Miami. The team was based in Philadelphia and Vancouver, known in both markets as the Blazers, before relocating to Calgary. The franchise folded in 1977.

Miami, Philadelphia and Vancouver
Originally in 1972, the franchise was to be based out of Miami, Florida, called the Miami Screaming Eagles. But due to money problems and a lack of a suitable arena, they never played a game in Miami. Instead, they moved to Philadelphia and debuted as the Philadelphia Blazers the same year. After only one season in Philadelphia, the team relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia, and became the Vancouver Blazers in 1973–74, then two years later relocated to Calgary to become the Cowboys in 1975–76.

Calgary
In 1972, the fledgling WHA attempted to place a team in Calgary, to be known as the Broncos in the hopes of a rivalry with Edmonton, and the Oilers. When the team's owner, Bob Brownridge, suddenly died before the WHA's inaugural season, the team abruptly moved to Cleveland to become the Crusaders (having never played a single game as the Calgary Broncos). This prompted the Oilers to rename themselves the Alberta Oilers, with the intention of splitting their home schedule between the two cities. This plan similarly failed to materialize, and the Oilers dropped the Alberta moniker after one season, calling Edmonton their exclusive home. Calgary would get its second chance in the WHA in 1975, when the Vancouver Blazers moved across the Rocky Mountains. Owner Jim Pattison, failing in his goal of taking the Vancouver market away from the NHL's Vancouver Canucks chose to relocate to Calgary. However, by the time the WHA did arrive, the league was already in difficulty, and the team was viewed as minor-league, despite the presence of aging superstars such as Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull in the league.

The franchise played out of the 6,500 Stampede Corral, knowing that its small size would prevent the team from achieving profitability initially. They were hoping for strong attendance figures that would encourage the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede board, who owned and operated the Corral, to expand the facility to 15,000 seats. Such an expansion had been planned by the Stampede board, but with no timelines, and no commitment to finance it.

In their first season, the Cowboys were not expected to ice a strong team, having inherited a franchise that finished in a last place tie with the Oilers the previous year. Calgary finished 41–35–4 however, as a 44-goal season by Danny Lawson and 42 goals from Ron Chipperfield helped the Cowboys finish a surprising third in the Canadian division.

In the 1976 playoffs, the Cowboys met the Quebec Nordiques in the first round. The series is best known for one of hockey's most legendary brawls. The incident began when Calgary's Rick Jodzio cross-checked Quebec's Marc Tardif in the head, causing both teams to leave their benches. The brawl lasted 20 minutes, and ended only when Quebec police gathered at the players benches and escorted the teams back to their dressing rooms. Following a 20-minute break to allow both teams to cool down, the game resumed – minus eleven ejected players. The incident caught the attention of Quebec's Solicitor General Fernand Lalonde, who had the incident investigated as a criminal matter. Jodzio was suspended indefinitely by the league, and later pleaded guilty in a Quebec court to a charge of assault over the incident. Cowboys coach Joe Crozier was suspended for the rest of the series.

Calgary went on to defeat the Nordiques, who had finished 18-points ahead of Calgary in the regular season, but were defeated by the Winnipeg Jets in the second round. The team never really captured the attention of Calgarians, as fewer than 5,000 fans, on average, attended playoff games against the Jets.

During the 1976–77 season, attendance fell to below 4,500 per game. Rumours abounded that the franchise would move again, to Ottawa, though it completed the season in Calgary. Team owner, Jim Pattison, attempted to keep the Cowboys afloat in 1977–78, with the ultimate hope of being a part of the expected amalgamation with the National Hockey League. During preliminary discussions between the two leagues, it was proposed that six WHA teams merge into the NHL. However, the Corral's capacity was barely half of the NHL's then-minimum capacity of 12,500 seats. When the NHL made it clear it had no interest in a team playing out of the Corral even as a temporary facility, it was expected that Pattison would request a two-year leave of absence in the hopes of building a new arena. The NHL voted down the 1977 merger plan, while only 2,000 fans purchased season tickets for the 1977–78 season. With no imminent hope for a new arena, Pattison chose to fold the franchise on August 18, 1977.

Calgary had to wait only three years for the NHL to arrive, however. The Atlanta Flames relocated to the city in 1980–81 as the Calgary Flames. The move came after the WHA had finally merged with the NHL, with its three remaining Canadian teams all surviving to join the NHL. More importantly, by 1980 a strong and ultimately successful bid to host the 1988 Winter Olympics had been submitted to the International Olympic Committee, and as part of this bid serious plans were in the works for a new NHL-sized arena. With the promise of a new home, the NHL allowed the move. The Flames played in the Corral as a temporary home until moving into the Saddledome in 1983.

The last active player from the Cowboys was Warren Miller who retired during the 1982-83 NHL season. The last active former Cowboy was George Pesut who played in Germany until 1994.

Season-by-season record

 * See 1975–76 Calgary Cowboys season
 * See 1976–77 Calgary Cowboys season

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes

Honoured members
One Hockey Hall of Famer played for the Cowboys. Harry Howell finished his 24-year professional career in 1975–76 with Calgary, playing 31 games and recording three assists. At the time of his retirement, Howell had played more major-league hockey games than any other defenceman in history at 1,581.

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

title: Calgary Cowboys


text:
Macedonian Wars

The Macedonian Wars (214–148 BC) were a series of conflicts fought by the Roman Republic and its Greek allies in the eastern Mediterranean against several different major Greek kingdoms. They resulted in Roman control or influence over Greece and the rest of the eastern Mediterranean basin, in addition to their hegemony in the western Mediterranean after the Punic Wars. Traditionally, the "Macedonian Wars" include the four wars with Macedonia, in addition to one war with the Seleucid Empire, and a final minor war with the Achaean League (which is often considered to be the final stage of the final Macedonian War). The most significant war was fought with the Seleucid Empire, while the war with Macedonia was the second, and both of these wars effectively marked the end of these empires as major world powers, even though neither of them led immediately to overt Roman domination. Four separate wars were fought against the weaker power, Macedonia, due to its geographic proximity to Rome, though the last two of these wars were against haphazard insurrections rather than powerful armies. Roman influence gradually dissolved Macedonian independence and digested it into what was becoming a leading empire. The outcome of the war with the now-deteriorating Seleucid Empire was ultimately fatal to it as well, though the growing influence of Parthia and Pontus prevented any additional conflicts between it and Rome.

From the close of the Macedonian Wars until the early Roman Empire, the eastern Mediterranean remained an ever shifting network of polities with varying levels of independence from, dependence on, or outright military control by, Rome. According to Polybius, who sought to trace how Rome came to dominate the Greek east in less than a century, Rome's wars with Greece were set in motion after several Greek city-states sought Roman protection against the Macedonian Kingdom and Seleucid Empire in the face of a destabilizing situation created by the weakening of Ptolemaic Egypt.

In contrast to the west, the Greek east had been dominated by major empires for centuries, and Roman influence and alliance-seeking led to wars with these empires that further weakened them and therefore created an unstable power vacuum that only Rome was capable of pacifying. This had some important similarities (and some important differences) to what had occurred in Italy centuries earlier, but was this time on a continental scale. Historians see the growing Roman influence over the east, as with the west, not as a matter of intentional empire-building, but constant crisis management narrowly focused on accomplishing short-term goals within a highly unstable, unpredictable, and inter-dependent network of alliances and dependencies. With some major exceptions of outright military rule (such as parts of mainland Greece), the eastern Mediterranean world remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms (with varying degrees of independence, both de jure and de facto) until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It wasn't until the time of the Roman Empire that the eastern Mediterranean, along with the entire Roman world, was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control.

First Macedonian War (214 to 205 BC)
During the Second Punic War, Philip V of Macedon allied himself with Hannibal. Fearing possible reinforcement of Hannibal by Macedon, the senate dispatched a praetor with forces across the Adriatic. Roman maniples (aided by allies from the Aetolian League and Pergamon after 211 BC) did little more than skirmish with Macedonian forces and seize minor territory along the Adriatic coastline in order to "combat piracy". Rome's interest was not in conquest, but in keeping Macedon busy while Rome was fighting Hannibal. The war ended indecisively in 205 BC with the Treaty of Phoenice. While a minor conflict, it opened the way for Roman military intervention in Macedon. This conflict, though fought between Rome and Macedon, was largely independent of the Roman-Macedon wars that followed (which began with the Second Macedonian War and were largely dependent on each other) in the next century.

Second Macedonian War (200 to 196 BC)
The past century had seen the Greek world dominated by the three primary successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great's empire: Ptolemaic Egypt, Macedonia and the Seleucid Empire. The imperial ambitions of the Seleucids after 230 BC were particularly destabilizing. The Seleucids set out to conquer Egypt, and Egypt responded through a major mobilization campaign. This campaign led to military victory against Seleucid incursions, but in 205 BC when Ptolemy IV was succeeded by the five-year-old Ptolemy V (or rather, by his regents), the newly armed Egyptians turned against each other. The result was a major civil war between north and south. Seeing that all of Egypt could now be conquered easily, the Macedonians and Seleucids forged an alliance to conquer and divide Egypt between themselves.

This represented the most significant threat to the century-old political order that had kept the Greek world in relative stability, and in particular represented a major threat to the smaller Greek kingdoms which had remained independent. As Macedonia and the Seleucid Empire were the problem, and Egypt the cause of the problem, the only place to turn was Rome. This represented a major change, as the Greeks had recently shown little more than contempt towards Rome, and Rome little more than apathy towards Greece. Ambassadors from Pergamon and Rhodes brought evidence before the Roman Senate that Philip V of Macedon and Antiochus III of the Seleucid Empire had signed the non-aggression pact. Although the exact nature of this treaty is unclear, and the exact Roman reason for getting involved despite decades of apathy towards Greece (the relevant passages on this from our primary source, Polybius, have been lost), the Greek delegation was successful. Initially, Rome didn't intend to fight a war against Macedon, but rather to intervene on their behalf diplomatically.

Rome gave Philip an ultimatum that he must cease in his campaigns against Rome's new Greek allies. Doubting Rome's strength (not an unfounded belief given Rome's performance in the First Macedonian War) Philip ignored the request, which surprised the Romans. Believing their honor and reputation on the line, Rome escalated the conflict by sending an army of Romans and Greek allies to force the issue, beginning the Second Macedonian War. Surprisingly (given his recent successes against the Greeks and earlier successes against Rome), Philip's army buckled under the pressure from the Roman-Greek army. Roman troops led by then consul Titus Quinctius Flamininus reached the plain of Thessaly by 198 BC. In 197 BC the Romans decisively defeated Philip at the Battle of Cynoscephalae, and he sued for peace. In the resulting Treaty of Tempea, Philip V was forbidden from interfering with affairs outside his borders, and was required to relinquish his recent Greek conquests. At the Olympiad in 196 BC Rome proclaimed the "Freedom of the Greeks", which constituted Rome's (arguably misguided) new policy towards Greece. This was that Greece was now stable and Rome could completely remove itself from Greek affairs without risking more instability. It seemed that Rome had no further interest in the region, as they withdrew all military forces without even attempting to consolidate any gains, and subsequently returned to their prior apathy even when their Greek allies ignored later Roman requests.

Seleucid War (192 to 188 BC)
With Egypt and Macedonia now weakened, the Seleucid Empire became increasingly aggressive and successful in its attempts to conquer the entire Greek world. When Rome pulled out of Greece at the end of the Second Macedonian War, they (and their allies) thought they had left behind a stable peace. However, by weakening the last remaining check on Seleucid expansion, they left behind the opposite. Now not only did Rome's allies against Philip seek a Roman alliance against the Seleucids, but Philip himself even sought an alliance with Rome. The situation was made worse by the fact that Hannibal was now a chief military advisor to the Seleucid emperor, and the two were believed to be planning for an outright conquest not just of Greece, but of Rome also. The Seleucids were much stronger than the Macedonians had ever been, given that they controlled much of the former Persian Empire, and by this point had almost entirely reassembled Alexander the Great's former empire. Fearing the worst, the Romans began a major mobilization, all but pulling out of recently pacified Spain and Gaul. They even established a major garrison in Sicily in case the Seleucids ever invaded Italy. This fear was shared by Rome's Greek allies, who had largely ignored Rome in the years after the Second Macedonian War, but now followed Rome again for the first time since that war. A major Roman-Greek force was mobilized under the command of the great hero of the Second Punic War, Scipio Africanus, and set out for Greece, beginning the Roman-Syrian War. After initial fighting that revealed serious Seleucid weaknesses, the Seleucids tried to turn the Roman strength against them at the Battle of Thermopylae (as they believed the 300 Spartans had done centuries earlier to the mighty Persian Empire). Like the Spartans, the Seleucids lost the battle, and were forced to evacuate Greece. The Romans pursued the Seleucids by crossing the Hellespont, which marked the first time a Roman army had ever entered Asia. The decisive engagement was fought at the Battle of Magnesia, resulting in a complete Roman victory. The Seleucids sued for peace, and Rome forced them to give up their recent Greek conquests. Though they still controlled a great deal of territory, this defeat marked the beginning of the end of the Seleucid empire, as they were to begin facing increasingly aggressive subjects in the east (the Parthians) and the west (the Greeks), as well as Judea in the South. Their empire disintegrated into a rump over the course of the next century, when it was eclipsed by Pontus. Following Magnesia, Rome pulled out of Greece again, assuming (or hoping) that the lack of a major Greek power would ensure a stable peace, though it did the opposite.

Third Macedonian War (172 to 168 BC)
Upon Philip's death in Macedon (179 BC), his son, Perseus of Macedon, attempted to restore Macedon's international influence, and moved aggressively against his neighbors. When Perseus was implicated in an assassination plot against an ally of Rome, the Senate declared the third Macedonian War. Initially, Rome did not fare well against the Macedonian forces, but in 168 BC, Roman legions smashed the Macedonian phalanx at the Battle of Pydna. Convinced now that the Greeks (and therefore the rest of the world) would never have peace if Greece was left alone yet again, Rome decided to establish its first permanent foothold in the Greek world. The Kingdom of Macedonia was divided by the Romans into four client republics. Even this proved insufficient to ensure peace, as Macedonian agitation continued.

Fourth Macedonian War (150 to 148 BC)
The Fourth Macedonian War, fought from 150 BC to 148 BC, was fought against a Macedonian pretender to the throne, named Andriscus, who was again destabilizing Greece by attempting to re-establish the old Kingdom. The Romans swiftly defeated the Macedonians at the Second battle of Pydna. In response, the Achaean League in 146 BC mobilized for a new war against Rome. This is sometimes referred to as the Achaean War, and was noted for its short duration and its timing right after the fall of Macedonia. Until this time, Rome had only campaigned in Greece in order to fight Macedonian forts, allies or clients. Rome's military supremacy was well established, having defeated Macedonia and its vaunted Phalanx already on 3 occasions, and defeating superior numbers against the Seleucids in Asia. The Achaean leaders almost certainly knew that this declaration of war against Rome was hopeless, as Rome had triumphed against far stronger and larger opponents, the Roman legion having proved its supremacy over the Macedonian phalanx. Polybius blames the demagogues of the cities of the league for inspiring the population into a suicidal war. Nationalist stirrings and the idea of triumphing against superior odds motivated the league into this rash decision. The Achaean League was swiftly defeated, and, as an object lesson, Rome utterly destroyed the city of Corinth in 146 BC, the same year that Carthage was destroyed. After nearly a century of constant crisis management in Greece, which always led back to internal instability and war when Rome pulled out, Rome decided to divide Macedonia into two new Roman provinces, Achaea and Epirus.

title: Macedonian Wars


text:
VELAM

VELAM (Véhicule Léger à Moteur, or "light vehicle with motor") was a French automobile  manufacturer that made VELAM microcars under the licence of the Isetta from the Italian Iso. Powered by a 236 cc engine, it was capable of speeds in excess of 50 mi/h. Around 5,000 cars were built between 1955 and 1959.

The Velam was featured in the 1957 film Funny Face and the 1962 French film Adieu Philippine.

title: VELAM


text:
Nicolas Coustou

Nicolas Coustou (9 January 1658 – 1 May 1733) was a French sculptor and academic.

Biography
Born in Lyon, Coustou was the son of a woodcarver, François Coustou, who gave him his first instruction in art, and Claudine Coysevox. When he was eighteen years old, in 1676, he moved to Paris, to study under C. Antoine Coysevox, his maternal uncle, who presided over the recently established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. At the age of twenty-three, Coustou won the Colbert prize (the Prix de Rome), which entitled him to four years of education at the French Academy at Rome. He subsequently became rector and chancellor of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. From 1700, he worked with Coysevox at the palaces of Marly and Versailles.

He was remarkable for his facility. Influenced by Michelangelo and Algardi, he tried to combine the best characteristics of each.

A number of his works were destroyed during the French Revolution; the most famous of those that remain are "La Seine at la Marne", the "Berger Chasseur", and "Daphne Pursued by Apollo" in the gardens of the Tuileries, the bas-relief "Le Passage du Rhin" in the Louvre, the statues of Julius Caesar and Louis XV in the Louvre, and the "Descent from the Cross" behind the choir altar of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. His sculpture of Apollo pursuing Daphne is one of a pair bearing the single title that was created with his younger brother, who is ascribed as the sculptor of Daphne. Both have been in the Louvre since 1940 and were restored between 2004 and 2006.

Regularly, he worked closely with his brother, Guillaume Coustou, also a renowned sculptor and director of the academy. Because of their collaborations, it is not always possible to ascribe a particular work to one or the other, thus one may find a single sculpture ascribed to each of them. His brother's son, Guillaume Coustou the Younger, also was a sculptor.

Nicolas Coustou died in Paris in 1733 at the age of 75.

Works in Public Collections

 * Beauvais, cathedral: tomb of Cardinal Forbin Janson, marble, after 1715.
 * Brest: Méléagre tuant un sanglier, 1706.
 * Lyon, place Bellecour : Allégorie de La Saône, 1720, sharing a pedestal with the Monument à Louis XIV by François-Frédéric Lemot.
 * Paris, Notre-Dame cathedral: Descente de croix, marble group, also known as Le vœu de Louis XIV, 1713-1715, in the choir at Notre-Dame. (The figure of Louis XIII is by Nicolas Coustou, that of Louis XIV by Coysevox); Saint Denis, marble, 1721/22.
 * Paris, jardin des Tuileries: La Seine et la Marne, a copy of the original in the Louvre.
 * Paris, Musée du Louvre:
 * La Seine et la Marne, 1712.
 * Le Passage du Rhin, bas-relief.
 * Jules César, terracotta, study for a statue in marble at the Palace of Versailles.
 * Jules César, marble, in collaboration with François Girardon; commissioned in 1696 as a pendant to the Annibal de Soldtz, from the Tuileries gardens.
 * Louis XV en Jupiter, statue en marbre, 1731, commissioned by the Duc d’Antin, set up with its pendant, Marie Leszczynska en Junon de Guillaume Coustou in the gardens of the Château of Versailles.
 * Apollon poursuivant Daphné, marble, from 1713–1714. Paired with Daphné poursuivie par Apollon created by Guillaume Coustou the Elder.
 * Monument funéraire du prince François Louis de Bourbon-Conti, marble; once in the church of Saint-André-des-Arts in the 6e arrondissement.
 * Le Dieu de la Santé Montrant à la France le Buste de Louis XIV, marble, 1693, 90 x 75 cm.
 * Le gladiateur Borghèse, terracotta; copy of an ancient marble, 1683.
 * Chasseur au repos (also knows as) Adonis se reposant de la chasse ou Le repos du chasseur, marble group from 1710; commissioned in 1707 by the Bâtiments du roi, along with the Nymphe de la chasse and Nymphe et la colombe.Charles Dupuis, Nicolas Coustou, 1730, NGA 57090.jpg
 * Versailles, park of the château: Hercule Comode and Bath of Apollo, 1705 –1706.
 * Versailles, Grand Trianon: Decoration of the cornice of the king's bedroom, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, bust in marble, ca. 1715
 * Seignelay, église Saint-Martial: Ange de la Résurrection, bas-relief in marble.

title: Nicolas Coustou


text:
James Brown (disambiguation)

James Brown (1933–2006) was an American recording artist and musician.

James, Jim, or Jimmy Brown may also refer to:

Authors, editors, and publishers

 * J. B. Selkirk (1832–1904), Scottish poet and essayist, born James Brown
 * James Brown (author) (born 1957), American novelist and memoirist
 * James Brown (editor) (born 1965), English editor and media entrepreneur
 * James Brown (publisher) (1800–1855), American publisher and co-founder of Little, Brown and Company
 * James Cooke Brown (1921–2000), American sociologist and science fiction author

Clergymen

 * James Brown (moderator) (1724–1786), moderator of the Church of Scotland in 1777
 * James Brown (academic) (1709–1784), English clergyman and academic
 * James Brown (archdeacon of Perth) (1820–1895), Canadian Anglican priest
 * James Brown (bishop of Louisiana) (born 1932), American Episcopal bishop
 * James Brown (bishop of Shrewsbury) (1812–1881), English Roman Catholic bishop
 * James Brown (dean of Edmonton) (fl. 1959–1981), Canadian Anglican priest
 * James Brown (Scottish clergyman) (1734–1791), clergyman in the Scottish Episcopal Church
 * James Baldwin Brown (1820–1884), British Congregational minister
 * James Mellor Brown, British cleric and scriptural geologist

Film, radio, and television personnel

 * J. Anthony Brown, American comedian and actor
 * James Brown (actor) (1920–1992), American actor
 * James Harmon Brown, American television writer with Barbara Esensten
 * Jim Brown (1936–2023), American former football player and actor
 * Jim Brown (director) (born 1950), American film director
 * Jim Brown (radio host), host of the Calgary Eyeopener
 * James Hall (actor) (James E. Brown, 1900–1940), American actor
 * James S. Brown Jr. (1892–1949), American cinematographer

Military personnel

 * James Brown (sailor) (1826–1905), American sailor who fought in the American Civil War
 * James E. Brown III (born 1954), United States Air Force officer and test pilot
 * James R. Brown (1930–2015), general in the United States Air Force
 * James Sutherland Brown (1881–1951), Canadian general and war planner
 * James Brown (Medal of Honor) (1847–?), United States Army sergeant

Musicians

 * James Brown (Elvis impersonator) (born 1968), Belfast-born Elvis impersonator
 * James Brown (guitarist) (born 1984), English guitarist in Pulled Apart by Horses
 * James Clifford Brown (1923–2004), English composer
 * James Conway Brown (1838–1908), Welsh musician
 * James Francis Brown (born 1969), British composer
 * Jim Ed Brown (1934–2015), American country music singer
 * Jimmy Brown, bassist for the psychobilly band Bodeco
 * Jimmy Brown (musician) (1926–2006), American trumpeter, saxophonist, and singer
 * James Brown, drummer in the reggae band UB40

Australia

 * James Drysdale Brown (1850–1922), member of the Victorian Legislative Council
 * Jim Brown (New South Wales politician) (1918–1999), member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly
 * Jim Brown (Western Australian politician) (1927–2020), member of the WA Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly

Canada

 * James Brown (Canadian politician) (1828–1897), Ontario businessman and politician
 * James Brown (New Brunswick politician) (1790–1870), member of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick between 1830 and 1861
 * James C. Brown (Ontario politician) (1868–1937), Ontario farmer and political figure
 * James Elisha Brown (1913–1974), member of the Canadian House of Commons from 1953 to 1957 and 1962 to 1971
 * James Pollock Brown (1841–1913), Canadian politician
 * James Thomas Brown (1871–1957), lawyer, judge and political figure in Saskatchewan
 * Jim Brown (Ontario politician) (1943–2020), member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 1999

New Zealand

 * James Clark Brown (1830–1891), New Zealand MP in 1870 & 1871–1890

United Kingdom and Isle of Man

 * James Brown (MP for Malton) (1814–1877), British Liberal Party politician
 * James Brown (Northern Ireland politician) (1897–?), MP for South Down, Northern Ireland
 * James Brown (Scottish politician) (1862–1939), MP for Ayrshire, Scotland
 * James Clifton Brown (1841–1917), member of Parliament of the United Kingdom for Horsham, 1876–1880
 * James Gordon Brown (born 1951), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 2007–2010
 * Tony Brown (Manx politician) (James Anthony Brown, born 1950), Chief Minister of the Isle of Man

United States

 * James Brown (Connecticut politician) (1682–1769), member of the Connecticut House of Representatives from Norwalk
 * James Brown (Louisiana politician) (1766–1835), U.S. senator from Louisiana, 1813–1817 and 1819–1823
 * James Brown (South Dakota judge) (c. 1864–1936), Justice of the South Dakota Supreme Cour
 * James C. Brown (Pennsylvania politician), member of the Pennsylvania Senate, and of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives
 * James Harvey Brown (1906–1995), city council member in Los Angeles, California
 * James M. Brown (attorney) (born 1941), attorney general of Oregon from 1980 to 1981
 * James S. Brown (1824–1878), mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1861 and member of U.S. House of Representatives, 1863–1865
 * James Stephens Brown (c. 1857–1947), mayor of Nashville, Tennessee
 * James W. Brown (1844–1909), member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, 1903–1905
 * Jim Brown (interpreter) (born 1953), State Department language interpreter
 * Jim N. Brown (1926–1991), Michigan politician

American football players and coaches

 * James Brown (American football guard) (born 1988), American professional football player for the Chicago Bears
 * James Brown (offensive tackle) (born 1970), American professional football player from 1993 to 2000
 * James Brown (quarterback) (born 1975), American college football player for the University of Texas
 * James A. Brown (1900–1965), American football and basketball coach
 * James M. Brown (coach) (1892–1965), American college football, basketball, and baseball coach
 * Jim Brown (1936–2023), American former football player and actor

Association football

 * James Brown (1890s footballer), Scottish football defender
 * James Brown (Australian soccer) (born 1990)
 * James Brown (footballer, born 1902) (1902–1965), English football goalkeeper born in Barnard Castle, County Durham
 * James Brown (footballer, born 1907) (1907–?), Scottish footballer born in Leith, Edinburgh
 * James Brown (footballer, born 1919) (1919–2005), Scottish footballer born in Glasgow
 * James Brown (footballer, born 1987), English footballer born in Cramlington, Northumberland
 * James Brown (footballer, born January 1998), English-Maltese footballer
 * James Brown (footballer, born June 1998), Irish footballer
 * Jim Brown (footballer, born 1939) (1939–2015), Scottish footballer born in Stirling
 * Jim Brown (footballer, born 1950), Scottish footballer born in Edinburgh
 * Jim Brown (footballer, born 1952), Scottish goalkeeper born in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire
 * Jim Brown (soccer, born 1908) (1908–1994), Scottish-American soccer player born in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire
 * Jim Brown (Cowdenbeath footballer) (died 1955), Scottish footballer born in West Calder, West Lothian
 * Jimmy Brown (footballer, born 1862) (1862–1922), English footballer born in Blackburn, Lancashire
 * Jimmy Brown (footballer, born 1869) (1869–1924), Scottish footballer born in Bonhill, West Dunbartonshire
 * Jimmy Brown (football manager), Scottish football manager
 * Jimmy Brown (footballer, born 1924) (1924–2002), Scottish footballer born in Cumnock, East Ayrshire
 * Jimmy Brown (footballer, born 1925) (1925–2008), Scottish goalkeeper born in Buckhaven, Fife
 * Jimmy Brown (footballer, born 1953), Scottish footballer born in Bothwell, South Lanarkshire

Baseball players

 * Jim Brown (catcher) (1892–1943), American baseball catcher and first baseman
 * Jim Brown (outfielder) (1897–1944), baseball player
 * Jim Brown (pitcher) (1860–1908), baseball pitcher in 1884 and 1886
 * Jimmy Brown (baseball) (1910–1977), American baseball player
 * James Brown (baseball) (1919–?), American baseball player

Other sportspeople

 * James Brown (BMX rider) (born 1989), Canadian BMX rider
 * James Brown (bowls player), Scottish lawn bowls player
 * James Brown (cricketer) (1931–2014), Scottish cricketer
 * James Brown (cyclist), Northern Ireland cyclist
 * James Brown (rugby league) (born 1988), English rugby league player
 * James Brown (sportscaster) (born 1951), American sportscaster formerly for Fox and presently for CBS and Showtime
 * James Victor Brown (1935–2020), Australian rugby player
 * Jim Brown (basketball) (1912–1991), American professional basketball player
 * Jim Brown (darts player) (born 1971), Scottish darts player
 * Jim Brown (ice hockey) (born 1960), retired American professional ice hockey defenseman
 * Jim Brown (sprinter) (1909–2000), Canadian sprinter
 * Jim J. Brown (1925–1995), Australian rules footballer for Geelong
 * Jim W. Brown (1926–2014), Australian rules footballer for Fitzroy
 * Jimmy Brown (cricketer) (1864–1916), cricketer
 * Jimmy Brown (tennis) (born 1965), retired American professional tennis player
 * Jimmy White (aka Jimmy Brown, born 1962), snooker player

Other people

 * James Brown (artist) (1951–2020), American painter active in Paris
 * James Brown (Australian pastoralist) (1819–1890), South Australian philanthropist
 * James Brown (ecologist) (born 1942), American ecologist and academic
 * James Brown (engraver) (1819–1877), New Zealand engraver, caricaturist, and drawing tutor
 * James Brown (hair stylist) (born 1969), Irish hair stylist
 * James Brown (magician), British magic-performer
 * James A. C. Brown (1911–1964), Scottish psychiatrist
 * James Boyer Brown (1919–2009), Australian gynaecologist
 * James Duff Brown (1862–1914), British librarian
 * James Graham Brown (1881–1969), American businessman and real estate developer
 * James Howard Brown (1884–1956), American bacteriologist
 * James Joseph Brown (1854–1922), American mining businessman
 * James MacLellan Brown (c. 1886 – 1967), Scottish architect
 * James Robert Brown (born 1949), Canadian philosopher
 * James Smedley Brown, 19th-century American educator of the deaf
 * James William Brown (1897–1958), English physician
 * Jim Brown (computer scientist) (born 1943), American computer scientist with IBM
 * Jim Brown (multihull designer), multihull sailboat designer
 * Jimmy Brown (Irish republican) (1956–1992), activist and paramilitary leader
 * James Failla (1919–1999), also known as Jimmy Brown, member of the Gambino crime family
 * James Stephens Brown (Mormon) (1828–1902), American mormon, participant of the California Gold Rush
 * James Brown (internet personality), Nigerian internet personality
 * James Campbell Brown, chemist and professor
 * James H. Brown (judge) (1818–1900), West Virginia judge
 * James Johnston Mason Brown, Scottish paediatric surgeon

Other

 * "James Brown", a song by Cage the Elephant from the 2008 album Cage the Elephant
 * "James Brown" (song), a 1989 song by Big Audio Dynamite
 * "James Brown Is Dead", a 1991 song by L.A. Style
 * Jimmy Brown, a character from the animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall
 * "The Three Bells", a 1959 song also known as "The Jimmy Brown Song", "Little Jimmy Brown", or "Jimmy Brown"

title: James Brown (disambiguation)


text:
File:Laser (debit card).png

Summary
Laser (debit card)

Licensing
Copyright retained with Laser Card Services Ltd, symbol shown as it is a corporate logo, image has been taken from www.laser.ie and is reduced in size with general image usage policy. Djegan 17:50, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

title: File:Laser (debit card).png


text:
Bavarians

Bavarians (Bavarian: Boarn, Standard German: Baiern) are an ethnographic group of Germans of the Bavaria region, a state within Germany. The group's dialect or speech is known as the Bavarian language, native to Altbayern ("Old Bavaria"), roughly the territory of the Electorate of Bavaria in the 17th century.

Like the neighboring Austrians, Bavarians are traditionally Catholic. In much of Altbayern, membership in the Catholic Church remains above 70%, and the center-right Christian Social Union in Bavaria (successor of the Bavarian People's Party of 1919–1933) has traditionally been the strongest party in the Landtag, and also the party of all Ministers-President of Bavaria since 1946, with the single exception of Wilhelm Hoegner, 1954–1957.

Areal and dialectal subdivision
There is no ethno-linguistic distinction between Bavarians and Austrians. The territory of Bavaria has changed significantly over German history; in the 19th century the Kingdom of Bavaria acquired substantial territories of Franconia and Swabia, while having to return territories to Austria who had become Bavarian only a few years earlier. Thus, only three of the seven administrative regions of the state of Bavaria are culturally Bavarian: Upper Bavaria (Oberbayern), Lower Bavaria (Niederbayern) and the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz), to the exclusion of Bavarian Franconia (historically inhabited by Franks) and Bavarian Swabia (inhabited by Swabians).

The Bavarian language is divided into three main dialects:
 * Upper Palatinian (Oberpfälzisch) is spoken in northern Bavaria (Bohemian Forest, Regensburg).
 * Danube Bavarian (Donaubairisch) is spoken in central and south-eastern Bavaria and in Central and Lower Austria (Munich, Salzburg, Vienna).
 * Alpine Bavarian is spoken in south-western Bavaria, in southern Austria (Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria) and in South Tyrol.

Origins
Baiuvarii was the term for a population from the Bohemian Forest area (which had been the territory of the Boii during antiquity) from the 6th century. The name is Latinized from the ethnonym *Bajōwarjōz, meaning "citizens of Bohemia" from Proto-Germanic *Bajōhaimaz (Boiohaemum, Bohemia), meaning "Boii home", which was a term already mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania at the end of the 1st century AD, by which time parts of the Celtic Boii had already left the area, leaving it to be dominated by Suevic Germanic groups in close contact with the Romans, such as the Marcomanni in what is now the Czech Republic, and their neighbours the Hermunduri and Varisci in what is now northern Bavaria. On the southern side of the river Danube were the Vindelici in the Roman-controlled province of Raetia.

Bavarians are first mentioned in the mid-6th century, in the foothills north of the Alps, on both sides of the Danube. It is difficult to distinguish the mobile and mixing groups of the Danube in this period archaeologically. The timing comes after the period when the neighbouring Alamanni (to the west) and Thuringians (to the north) had come under Frankish hegemony, and in Italy the kingdoms of Theoderic and Odoacer had come to an end, creating a new power vacuum in the Alpine region. They seem to have been closely related to the Lombards who were developing as a force to the east of them. Their legal system shows heavy Roman influence, and their unification appears to have been under a Duke installed by the Franks (Old Bavarian law codes refer to five main lineages).

The Danubian frontier between the Roman empire and "Germania" had by this time become a region where older populations had been added to significantly by generations of Roman border troops, Germanic clients, and then various "barbarian" peoples from outside the empire, some of whom had been under the hegemony of Attila the Hun. "Elbe Germans", came from the river Elbe to the north, which was under Thuringian rule, and is where the Lombards had also been. But also more northern groups had moved along the Elbe from the direction of the North Sea, as did some Saxons who joined the Lombards, and possibly the Heruls. Also, East Germanic groups such as the Goths had entered the Pannonian region east of the Bavarians in the generations leading up to the empire of Attila. These peoples had not only contributed to the Hunnic empire, but also sometimes been settled peacefully as Roman foederati.

Also entering the area, more contemporary with the Bavarians and Lombards, were Slavs, who particularly settled the Upper Palatinate as well as around Regensburg itself (distr. Großprüfening).

Neighboring the emerging Bavarian people in the 6th to 7th centuries were the Alamanni to the west (with the river Lech as boundary, which remains a dialectal division today), and Thuringians to the north, both dominated to some extent by the Franks as were the Bavarians (in the late 7th century however, there was a period where Radulf, King of Thuringia rebelled and some independence was returned to these three regions for a while). ) Slavs were settling to the north-east, and Goths and Langobards to the east and south were later displaced by Slavs and Magyars.

Much like was the case in neighboring Alemannia, Bavaria was nominally Christian by virtue of being ruled by Christian dukes from the 6th century, but Christianization of its population was a gradual process lasting throughout the 7th century and into the 8th; Saint Corbinian was sent by Pope Gregory II to minister to duke Grimoald and work towards the evangelization of Bavaria; he became the first bishop of Freising. A Diocese of Laureacum (Lorch) had been in existence since the 4th century, in the 8th century moved to Passau, which became a bridge-head for the Christianization of Austria and Hungary. The Bishopric of Regensburg was founded in 739 by Boniface. The Lex Baiuvariorum was a codex of Germanic law, comprising 23 articles of traditional law recorded in the 740s. Bavaria within the Carolingian Empire was bordering on Swabia in the west, Thuringia in the north, Lombardy in the south and Slavic Carinthia in the east.

Holy Roman Empire
The Duchy of Bavaria was a stem duchy of the Holy Roman Empire, established in the 10th century, derived from an earlier duchy ruled by the Frankish Agilolfings during the 6th to 8th centuries. The Margraviate of Austria was formed an eastern march to the Duchy of Bavaria in 976, and became a duchy in its own right, the Duchy of Austria, in 1156, in the 13th century falling under the dominion of the House of Habsburg. In the 14th and 15th centuries, upper and lower Bavaria were repeatedly subdivided. Four Duchies (or "partial duchies", Teilherzogtümer) existed after the division of 1392: Lower Bavaria-Straubing, lower Bavaria-Landshut, Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Bavaria-Munich.

Munich, now the capital and cultural center of Bavaria, was founded in the high medieval period, and was the capital of the "partial duchy" of Bavaria-Munich 1392–1503. In 1503, Bavaria was re-united by Duke Albrecht IV of Bavaria-Munich (although the formerly Bavarian offices Kufstein, Kitzbühel and Rattenberg in Tirol were lost in 1504) and established Munich as the capital of all of Bavaria in 1506. In 1623, Bavaria was elevated to Electorate (Kurfürstentum).

Modern history
The Kingdom of Bavaria was established at the Peace of Pressburg (1805), in the wake of the French victory at Austerlitz. The kingdom's territory fluctuated greatly over the following years, eventually fixed at the Treaty of Paris (1814), which established most of what remain the borders of the modern state. The kingdom in 1837 was divided into eight administrative regions (Regierungsbezirke), Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia, Upper Palatinate and Palatinate. Ludwig I of Bavaria changed his royal titles to Ludwig, King of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, Duke in Swabia and Count Palatinate of the Rhine.

As of 1818, the total population of the kingdom was at 3.7 million, rising to 4.4 million by 1840 and to 6.2 million by 1900, reaching 6.5 million in 1910. Modern Bavaria has 12.5 million inhabitants (as of 2012); the population of Altbayern or Bavaria proper is at 6.7 million.

Scientists

 * Johann Schmidlap (16th century), fireworks maker and rocket pioneer
 * Joseph von Fraunhofer (1787–1826), physicist known for discovering the dark absorption lines known as Fraunhofer lines in the sun's spectrum
 * Max Joseph von Pettenkofer (1818–1901), chemist and hygienist
 * Johannes Stark (1874–1957), physicist, laureate of the 1919 Nobel Prize in Physics
 * Feodor Lynen (1911–1979), biochemist, laureate of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
 * Rudolf Mössbauer (1929–2011), physicist, laureate of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics

Business

 * Johanna Händlmaier (?–1950), company co-founder of Händlmaier and creator of a recipe for a sweet Bavarian mustard
 * Stefan Schörghuber (1961–2008), businessman

Politicians

 * Maximilian II of Bavaria (1811–1864), King of Bavaria (1848–1864)
 * Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845–1886), King of Bavaria (1864–1886)
 * Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (1900–1945), Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel and a leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) of Germany
 * Franz Josef Strauß (1915–1988), politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (1978–1988)
 * Roman Herzog (1934–2017), politician, judge, and legal scholar, President of the Federal Republic of Germany (1994–1999)
 * Edmund Stoiber (1941–), politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (1993–2007)
 * Horst Seehofer (1949–), politician, Minister-President of Bavaria (2008–2018)

Artists

 * Asam brothers, Cosmas Damian (1686–1739) and Egid Quirin (1692–1750), sculptors, workers in stucco, painters, and architects
 * Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787), composer
 * Franz Hanfstaengl (1804–1877), painter, lithographer, and photographer
 * Carl Spitzweg (1808–1885), painter
 * Richard Strauss (1864–1949), composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist
 * Ludwig Thoma (1867–1921), writer
 * Emerenz Meier (1874–1928), folk poet
 * Franz Marc (1880–1916), painter and printmaker
 * Karl Valentin (1882–1948), comedian
 * Carl Orff (1895–1982), composer and music educator
 * Michael Ende (1929–1995), writer
 * Franzl Lang (1930–2015), singer and actor
 * Gerhard Polt (1942–), writer, filmmaker, actor, and cabaret artist
 * Werner Herzog (1942–), filmmaker, actor, and writer
 * Uschi Glas (1944–), actress and singer
 * Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982), filmmaker, actor
 * Patrick Süskind (1949–), writer and screenwriter
 * Bernd Eichinger (1949–2011), film producer, director, and screenwriter
 * Ottfried Fischer (1953–), retired actor and Kabarett artist
 * Jonas Kaufmann (1969–), operatic tenor

Sportspeople

 * Franz Beckenbauer (1945–2024), former professional footballer and manager
 * Rosi Mittermaier (1950–2023), alpine skier
 * Philipp Lahm (1983–), former professional footballer and captain of the German national team which won the 2014 World Cup
 * Magdalena Neuner (1987–), former professional biathlete
 * Thomas Müller (1989–), professional footballer

Others

 * Herenaus Haid (1784–1873), theologian
 * Traudl Junge (1920–2002), from 1942 to 1945 secretary of Adolf Hitler
 * Joseph Ratzinger (1927–2022), professor of theology and from 2005 to 2013 Pope Benedict XVI

title: Bavarians


text:
Greg Luzinski

Gregory Michael Luzinski (born November 22, 1950), nicknamed "the Bull", is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a left fielder from to, most prominently as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies where he was a four-time All-Star player and was a member of the 1980 World Series winning team.

Luzinski was the National League (NL) RBI champion and, in  he was named the recipient of the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award for his involvement in local community affairs. He ended his career playing for the Chicago White Sox. In 1998, Luzinski was inducted into the Philadelphia Phillies Wall of Fame.

Biography
Born in Chicago, Luzinski attended Notre Dame High School in Niles, Illinois. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies with the 11th overall pick in the 1968 MLB draft. He made his MLB debut on September 9, 1970, at age 19, pinch-hitting for the Phillies in a loss to the New York Mets at Shea Stadium.

Playing career
At 6 ft and weighing 255 lb, Luzinski was a well-liked Phillie. He was a poor defensive left fielder but a feared slugger with a good batting average despite frequent strikeouts. He hit .300 or better for three consecutive seasons during the prime of his career, and was a career .276 hitter, with 307 home runs, and 1,128 RBIs. Luzinski was selected to be a National League (NL) All-Star every year between 1975 and 1978, highlighted by the home run he hit off Jim Palmer in the 1977 All-Star Game. In 1978, Luzinski was the top NL All-Star vote-getter. He was also the National League’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) runner-up in 1975 when he led the National League with 120 RBIs and 322 total bases; and in 1977, when he posted career highs in batting average (.309), home runs (39), and RBIs (130).

He hit safely in every postseason game — and had at least one home run in each of the three National League Championship Series (NLCS)—played by the Phillies from 1976 to 1978, though Philadelphia did not advance to the World Series in any of those years. In the ninth inning of pivotal Game 3 of the 1977 NLCS, Luzinski misplayed a two-out Manny Mota fly ball, trapping the ball against the left-field wall and allowing the inning to continue. The Dodgers scored three runs in the inning and won the game, and eventually won the series.

One of the first Phillies to buy seats at games for impoverished children, Luzinski was honored with the Roberto Clemente Award in 1978. In 1980, he suffered a major slump with injuries in the regular season, batting just .228, with 19 home runs, and 56 RBIs in 106 games, but came back with two game-winning hits in the 1980 National League Championship Series: a two-out two-run home run in the bottom of the 6th inning in Game 1 (the only home run hit in the entire 1980 NLCS); and a pinch-hit RBI double to score Pete Rose in the top of the 10th inning of Game 4, as Philadelphia went on to beat the Houston Astros in five games. Those hits against Houston, the biggest hits of his career, were among the most significant in franchise history; that team went on to bring the Phillies their first world championship, beating the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 World Series, 4 games to 2. At one time, Luzinski held the consecutive-game-hitting streak record for a league championship series with 13.

He joined the Chicago White Sox the next season and became one of the top sluggers and designated hitters in the American League. With the White Sox, he was chosen the Designated Hitter of the Year for 1981 and also in 1983, the season when he set a then-record for most home runs in a season by a designated hitter with 32, and thrice hit the roof of the old Comiskey Park in Chicago. Luzinski hit five home runs in five consecutive games, a franchise mark, which has since been tied by Ron Kittle, Frank Thomas (twice), Carlos Lee, and Paul Konerko. Luzinski returned to the postseason in the 1983 American League Championship Series, which the Sox lost to Baltimore three games to one.

Luzinski also hit grand slams in two consecutive games in 1984. Luzinski became a free agent at the end of the 1984 season but chose to retire on February 4, 1985.

Post-retirement
From his retirement from professional baseball in 1985 until 1992, Luzinski was the head baseball coach, and later head football coach, at Holy Cross Academy in Delran Township, New Jersey.

Still a fan favorite in Philadelphia, he started "Bull's Barbecue" in Section 104 at Citizens Bank Park when the Phillies opened the new stadium in 2004. The barbeque stand was inspired by "Boog's BBQ" at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, and Luzinski can usually be found there until after the seventh inning for all Phillies home games.

He lives in Bonita Springs, Florida.

His son, Ryan, was the first-round pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1992 Major League Baseball draft. Ryan was a promising power hitter when he spurned a letter of intent with the University of Miami to sign with the Dodgers. However, he bounced around the team's farm system until a trade to the Baltimore Orioles in 1997. In eight minor league seasons, he hit .265 with 49 home runs and 296 RBI but could never make the move from AAA to the Majors.

Honors and awards
The Roberto Clemente Award, given annually to a Major League Baseball player who demonstrates sportsmanship and community involvement, was presented to Luzinski in 1978.

In 1989, Luzinski was inducted into the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.

title: Greg Luzinski


text:
United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is a committee of the United States Senate charged with oversight in matters related to the American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native peoples. A Committee on Indian Affairs existed from 1820 to 1947, after which it was folded into the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. A new Native Affairs Committee was created in 1977, initially as a select committee, as a result of the detachment of indigenous affairs from the new Committee on Energy and National Resources, which had succeeded the old Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. The committee was initially intended to be temporary, but was made permanent in 1984. The committee tends to include senators from Western and Plains states, who have more Native American constituents.

Summary
In 1977, the Senate approved which re-established the Committee on Indian Affairs as a temporary select committee. The Select Committee was to disband at the close of the 95th Congress, but following several interim extensions, the Senate voted to make the Committee permanent on June 6, 1984. The committee has jurisdiction to study the unique problems of American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native peoples and to propose legislation to alleviate these difficulties. These issues include, but are not limited to, Native education, economic development, land management, trust responsibilities, health care, and claims against the United States. Additionally, all legislation proposed by Members of the Senate that specifically pertains to American Indians, Native Hawaiians, or Alaska Natives is under the jurisdiction of the committee.

Early era
Until 1946, when the Legislative Reorganization Act abolished both the House and Senate Committees on Indian Affairs, the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs had been in existence since the early 19th century. After 1946, Native affairs legislative and oversight jurisdiction was vested in subcommittees of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate. While this subcommittee arrangement may not have specifically reflected a diminishment of the consideration given Native affairs by the Congress, the revised arrangement historically coincided with a 20-year hiatus in Native affairs known as the "Termination Era" – a period in which the prevailing policy of the United States was to terminate the Federal relationship with Native tribes or transfer jurisdiction over tribal lands to the states.

By the mid-1960s, this Termination philosophy was in decline as a failed policy and the Congress began to include Native tribes in legislation designed to rebuild the social infrastructure of the Nation and provide economic opportunities for economically depressed areas. In the early 1970s the Termination era was decisively ended with the enactment of the Menominee Restoration Act of 1973. Although a number of important legislative initiatives affecting Natives were enacted in the early 1970s, it became clear that the existing subcommittee structure was not providing an adequate forum for legislating appropriate solutions to problems confronting Native country. Legislative jurisdiction over Native affairs was fragmented among a number of committees. Overall, more than 10 committees in the Congress were responsible for Indian affairs, a situation which resulted in a sometimes disjointed treatment of Native affairs and in an often haphazard development of Federal Native policy.

Re-establishment of committee
In 1973, Senator James Abourezk introduced to establish a Federal commission to review all aspects of policy, law, and administration relating to affairs of the United States with American Native tribes and people. The Senate and the House of Representatives both adopted S.J. Res. 133 and on January 2, 1975, the Resolution was signed into law by the President, thus establishing the American Indian Policy Review Commission. As the work of this Commission progressed, it became readily apparent that a full Senate committee with full legislative and oversight authority was needed to receive the report of the American Indian Policy Review Commission and to act upon its recommendations. Indeed, one of the final recommendations of the Commission was that a full-fledged Native Affairs Committee be established in the Senate.

At the same time the Commission was formulating its recommendation for the establishment of a Native Affairs Committee, the Senate was developing a far-reaching proposal for reorganization of the entire Senate committee system. Under this proposal, the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs under the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs was to be abolished with its natural resource functions to be distributed among other newly formed Senate committees and its human resources functions to be transferred to the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. In view of the pending report of the American Indian Policy Review Commission and its anticipated recommendations, however, the Senate revamped its committee reorganization proposal to include the establishment of a temporary select committee to receive the Commission's report and to act on its recommendations. Thus, there was included within of February 4, 1977, the Committee System Reorganization Amendments of 1977, a provision to establish a Select Committee on Native Affairs with full jurisdiction over all proposed legislation and other matters relating to Native affairs. With the commencement of the 96th Congress, the Select Committee on Indian Affairs was to expire and jurisdiction over Native matters was to be transferred to the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.

As the Select Committee on Indian Affairs grappled with the report of the American Indian Policy Review Commission and the many other Native issues that were presented to it during the 95th Congress, it became increasingly evident that if the Congress was to continue to meet its constitutional, legal, and historical responsibilities in the area of Native affairs, an ongoing legislative committee with adequate expertise and resources should be re-established in the Senate.

, to make the Select Committee on Indian Affairs a permanent committee of the Senate, was introduced by Senator Abourezk on February 22, 1978. The measure was amended by the Rules Committee to extend the life of the committee for two years until January 2, 1981, and was agreed to by the Senate on October 14, 1978. In the 96th Congress, Senator John Melcher, who was at the time chairman of the Select Committee, introduced to make it a permanent committee. The Resolution had 28 cosponsors, and was reported by the Rules Committee with an amendment to extend the select committee to January 2, 1984, and to expand the membership to seven members commencing in the 97th Congress. S. Res. 448 was adopted by the Senate on December 11, 1980.

Permanent committee
On April 28, 1983, Senator Mark Andrews, Chairman of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs in the 98th Congress, introduced to make the committee a permanent committee. This Resolution had 28 cosponsors. On November 1, 1983, the Committee on Rules and Administration voted unanimously to report the Resolution without amendment, and the Resolution was so reported on November 2, 1983 (S. Rept. 98–294). On November 18, the last day of the first session of the 98th Congress, the Senate agreed to an extension of the select committee to July 1, 1984, in order to allow time for later debate. By the time the Resolution was brought to the floor for consideration there were 60 cosponsors. On June 4, 1984, the Select Committee on Indian Affairs was made a permanent committee of the Senate. In 1993, the Select Committee on Indian Affairs was redesignated as the Committee on Indian Affairs.

115th Congress
Source

Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, 1820–1947

 * David Holmes (R-MS) 1820–1821
 * Henry Johnson (R-LA) 1821–1823
 * Thomas Hart Benton (R/D-MO) 1823–1828
 * Hugh Lawson White (D-TN) 1828–1832
 * George M. Troup (D-GA) 1832–1833
 * Hugh Lawson White (W-TN) 1833–1840
 * Ambrose Sevier (D-AR) 1840–1841
 * James T. Morehead (W-KY) 1841–1842
 * Albert White (W-IN) 1842–1845
 * Ambrose Sevier (D-AR) 1845–1846
 * Arthur Bagby (D-AL) 1846–1847
 * David R. Atchison (D-MO) 1847–1853
 * William K. Sebastian (D-AR) 1853–1861
 * James Rood Doolittle (R-WI) 1861–1867
 * John B. Henderson (R-MO) 1867–1869
 * James Harlan (R-IA) 1869–1873
 * William Alfred Buckingham (R-CT) 1873–1875
 * William B. Allison (R-IA) 1875–1879
 * Richard Coke (D-TX) 1879–1881
 * Henry Dawes (R-MA) 1881–1893
 * James K. Jones (D-AR) 1893–1895
 * Richard Pettigrew (R-SD) 1895–1899
 * John M. Thurston (R-NE) 1899–1901
 * William Stewart (R-NV) 1901–1905
 * Moses E. Clapp (R-MN) 1905–1911
 * Robert J. Gamble (R-SD) 1911–1913
 * William J. Stone (D-MO) 1913–1914
 * Henry F. Ashurst (D-AZ) 1914–1919
 * Charles Curtis (R-KS) 1919–1921
 * Selden P. Spencer (R-MO) 1921–1923
 * John W. Harreld (R-OK) 1923–1927
 * Lynn J. Frazier (R-ND) 1927–1933
 * Burton K. Wheeler (D-MT) 1933–1936
 * Elmer Thomas (D-OK) 1936–1945
 * Joseph O'Mahoney (D-WY) 1945–1947

from 1947 to 1977, Indian Affairs were the responsibility of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, which was superseded by the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 1977.

Chairmen of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, 1977–1993

 * James Abourezk (D-SD) 1977–1979
 * John Melcher (D-MT) 1979–1981
 * William S. Cohen (R-ME) 1981–1983
 * Mark Andrews (R-ND) 1983–1987
 * Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) 1987–1993

Chairpersons of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, 1993–present

 * Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) 1993–1995
 * John McCain (R-AZ) 1995–1997
 * Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) 1997–2001
 * Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) 2001
 * Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) 2001
 * Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) 2001–2003
 * Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO) 2003–2005
 * John McCain (R-AZ) 2005–2007
 * Byron Dorgan (D-ND) 2007–2011
 * Daniel Akaka (D-HI) 2011–2013
 * Maria Cantwell (D-WA) 2013–2014
 * Jon Tester (D-MT) 2014–2015
 * John Barrasso (R-WY) 2015–2017
 * John Hoeven (R-ND) 2017–2021
 * Brian Schatz (D-HI) 2021–present


text:
Nerf

Nerf is a toy brand formed by Parker Brothers and currently owned by Hasbro. Most of the toys are a variety of foam-based weaponry, with other Nerf products including balls for sports such as American football, basketball, and baseball. Their best known toys are their dart guns (referred to by Hasbro as "blasters") that shoot ammunition made from "Nerf foam" (partially reticulated polyether type polyurethane foam). Their primary slogan, introduced in the 1990s, is "It's Nerf or Nothin'!". Annual revenues under the Nerf brand are approximately US$400million.

History

Parker Brothers originally developed Nerf, beginning with a 4 inch polyurethane foam ball. In 1969, Reyn Guyer, a Minnesota-based games inventor, and Minnesota Vikings kicker Fred Cox came to the company with a football game that was safe for indoor play, and after studying it carefully, Parker Brothers decided to eliminate everything but the foam ball. In 1970, the Nerf ball was introduced as the "world's first official indoor ball", the name "Nerf" being a slang term for the foam padding used in off-roading. Marketing slogans promised that one can "Throw it indoors; you can't damage lamps or break windows. You can't hurt babies or old people." Some of the first TV commercials for the balls were joint promotions with General Foods' Kool-Aid drink mix, with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones and Michael Nesmith of the Monkees playing with the balls on a living room soundstage (Kool-Aid sponsored the 1969–70 Saturday morning reruns of the Monkees' 1966–67 TV series). The ball filled a strong consumer need and by the year's end, more than four million Nerf balls had been sold. The 4 in ball was followed by a large version called the "Super Nerf Ball". Shortly after, in 1972, a basketball game called "Nerfoop" and the Nerf football (developed by longtime NFL kicker Fred Cox ) joined the family, with the latter quickly becoming Nerf's most popular ball.

The company continued to add to the Nerf line until they handed control to Kenner Products, a sister company. In 1987, Kenner was bought by the Tonka Corporation, which itself was purchased by Hasbro in 1991, which then became the owner of Nerf. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the Nerf brand served under the subsidiaries OddzOn and Larami before Hasbro took full control of the brand.

Nerf released the first foam dart blaster in 1992. Over the years, Nerf has continued to expand the line, adding new looks to existing products, with later lines of Nerf products ranging from sport balls and foam dart blasters to video games and accessories.

In February 2013, Hasbro announced the release of its "Rebelle" line, a sub-line aimed at girls, with its first products released in fall of 2013.

In November 2013, POW! Books published The Ultimate Nerf Blaster Book. Written by Nathaniel Marunas, the book highlights the history of Nerf and provides details on every N-Strike, Dart Tag, and Vortex blaster produced at the time of the book's release.

In 2015, the Rival line of blasters was first released. The first products released were the Rival Apollo XV-700 and the Rival Zeus MXV-1200. These blasters fire a new type of ammunition, known as "High Impact Rounds", which are small foam balls that can reach a higher velocity than foam darts. The Rival line is targeted towards an older audience, with each product listing the age of 14+ on the box.

In 2021, the Hyper line of blasters was announced. Initial products included the Hyper Rush-40, Hyper Siege-50, and Hyper Mach-100. Hyper rounds are similar in design to Rival rounds, but are smaller and made of a thermoplastic elastomer material that is more rubber-like than the foam used in Rival rounds.

Nerf Blasters
Nerf's most popular product type are Nerf blasters, which are toy plastic guns that shoot foam darts. These darts have different-style tips, including Velcro-tipped in order to stick to Nerf vests (typically shipped with Dart Tag blasters), suction cup darts designed to stick to smooth surfaces, streamlined darts to fit into magazines (referred to as clips by Nerf), and darts able to whistle in flight. Darts may also have different colors, such as colors that reflect certain sub-lines, camouflage, and glow in the dark. Most Nerf blasters also have rails, known as tactical rails, which can accommodate different attachments, as well as special adapters such as barrel and stock adapters. The "N-strike" sub-line was launched in 2004, and is styled more like a real weapon than previous Nerf products. It was updated in 2012 as N-Strike Elite.

Rebelle
Released in 2013, the Rebelle line was a series of blasters predominantly aimed at the female demographic, with similar internal mechanics to the Nerf N-Strike elite line, sporting pink, purple and teal colors.

Zombie Strike
The Zombie Strike line was launched in 2013, and is geared for fans of Humans vs. Zombies games. All blasters have a distinct zombie apocalypse theme, with newer blasters featuring a DIY aesthetic.

Rival
Nerf Rival blasters (branded as RIVAL) fire small foam balls referred to by Nerf as "High Impact Rounds", but usually referred to as “Rival Balls” or "Rival Rounds" by the Nerf community. Nerf Rival blasters are targeted towards an older target market than Nerf's better-known dart blasters.

Nitro
In 2017, Hasbro released the Nerf Nitro line, which consists of blasters that fire foam cars into obstacles and stunt ramps.

Ultra
Released in September 2019, Nerf Ultra (branded as ULTRA) blasters fire a new, propriety dart design that is marketed as "THE FARTHEST FLYING DART EVER. Darts can travel up to 120 feet." The new Ultra darts are constructed from a lightweight foam that is notably different from traditional darts in that they are made with closed-cell, rather than open-cell foam. This construction allows for fins to be molded into the rear of the darts. Size-wise, Ultra darts are between N-Strike Elite darts and Mega darts in diameter, but shorter than both in length. They cannot be fired from any previous Nerf line or off-brand compatible blasters, nor can any other lines' darts be fired from Ultra blasters. This design was created in response to the growing number of third-party darts, including exact knockoffs from China, available for N-Strike Elite blasters at a much lower cost than Nerf-brand darts.

Super Soaker
Originally owned and marketed by Larami, Super Soaker is a popular line of water guns. Recently, Hasbro has released a line of Nerf-branded Super Soaker blasters.

Lazer Tag
Lazer Tag, a popular laser tag toy line from the mid-1980s, is also currently part of the Nerf banner. The current generation of Lazer Tag blasters attach to iPhones or iPod Touch units for enhanced playability.

Nerf Dog
In June 2013, Hasbro and Grammercy Products unveiled Nerf Dog, a line of Nerf-inspired canine retrieving toys made of rubber, nylon, and plastic. Nerf Dog was launched at Walmart stores, and debuted at pet specialty stores in Fall 2013.

Based in Secaucus, N.J., Gramercy Products, Inc. is the manufacturer of Nerf Dog products.

The Nerf Dog Tennis Ball Blaster mimics traditional Nerf blaster designs and shoots a ball up to 50 feet in the air. The toy uses special softer balls to reduce the risk of injury.

Video games
Nerf has also produced video game accessories for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DSi, DS Lite, 3DS and the Wii. Visionary Media, Inc. released the first-person shooter Nerf Arena Blast (or NAB, sometimes Arena Blast) in 1999. EA Games, in association with Hasbro, released the 2008 video game Nerf N-Strike and its 2009 sequel Nerf N-Strike Elite. Both games feature the Switch Shot EX-3, which doubles as a functional dart blaster and a Wii Remote accessory. In June 2019, Raw Thrills released the Nerf Arcade game. GameMill Entertainment published Nerf Legends, a first-person shooter game released on 19 November 2021 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. In 2021, an online multiplayer first-person shooter titled Nerf Strike was developed by The Gang Stockholm and released by Metaverse Team under license from Hasbro on the online platform Roblox. In August 2022, developers Secret Location under licence from Hasbro released the Virtual reality game multiplayer shooter titled NERF Ultimate Championships for the Meta Quest 2 platform. In February 2023 Secret Location announced on a now deleted developer update on the Meta Horizon Store listing that the studio was shutting down, meaning that support for NERF Ultimate Championships will soon end it will be delisted off the Meta Horizon Store.The game was shutdown and subsequently delisted on August 31st 2023. April 2023, they collaborated with the game Stumble Guys to add a Nerf-themed mini game to their game. N

Awards
In 2011, the Nerf N-Strike Stampede ECS was awarded "Boy Toy of the Year" and the Nerf Super Soaker Shot Blast won "Outdoor Toy of the Year" at the 11th Annual Toy of the Year Awards, which is held at the American International Toy Fair in New York City.

In 2014, the Nerf Zombie Strike Crossfire Bow won the award for "Best Action Toy" at the 2014 U.K. Toy Fair.

Legal issues
In June 2010, Hasbro sued Buzz Bee Toys and Lanard Toys for patent violation of its Nerf and Super Soaker brands. The lawsuit stated that Buzz Bee and Lanard infringed two U.S. patents for the Nerf N-Strike Disc Shot blaster, while Buzz Bee infringed on a Super Soaker patent. In November of that year, Hasbro won its patent case against Buzz Bee with the latter banned from producing certain water guns.

In April 2012, Hasbro contacted the Australia-based fan blog "Urban Taggers" for leaking information on unreleased Nerf products found on the Chinese marketplace website Taobao. Hasbro allegedly tricked one of the bloggers into disclosing his home address for their lawyers to mail him a cease and desist letter. The incident resulted in fans setting up a campaign on Facebook boycotting Hasbro.

title: Nerf


text:
Guillaume Coustou the Elder

Guillaume Coustou the Elder (29 November 1677, Lyon – 22 February 1746, Paris) was a French sculptor of the Baroque and Louis XIV style. He was a royal sculptor for Louis XIV and Louis XV and became Director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1735. He is best known for his monumental statues of horses made for the Château de Marly, whose replicas now stand in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

Life
Coustou was a member of a family of famous sculptors; his uncle, Antoine Coysevox, was a royal sculptor; his elder brother, Nicolas Coustou was a sculptor, and his son Guillaume Coustou the Younger also become a noted royal sculptor. Like his older brother, he won the (Prix de Rome) of the Royal Academy which entitled him to study for four years at the French Academy in Rome. However, he refused to accept the discipline of the academy, gave up his studies, set out to make his own career as an artist. He worked for a time in the atelier of the painter Pierre Legros, and eventually returned to Paris.

Upon his return to Paris, he assisted his uncle Coysevox in making two monumental equestrian sculptures, Fame and Mercury, for the Château de Marly, the new residence of Louis XIV near the Palace of Versailles, where he went to escape the crowds and ceremony of the palace. He later (1740–1745), made his own horses, the Marly Horses, his most famous works, to replace them. The horses reinvent the theme of the colossal Roman marbles of the Horse Tamers in the Piazza Quirinale, Rome. They were commissioned by Louis XV in 1739 and installed in 1745 at the Abreuvoir ("Horse Trough") at Marly. The horses were considered masterpieces of the grace and expressiveness of the French Late Baroque or Rococo style. After the Revolution they were moved from Marly to the beginning of the Champs-Élysées on the Place de la Concorde. The originals were brought indoors for protection at the Louvre Museum in 1984.

Coustou was received into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1704. The work he made to mark his entrance was Hercules on the Pyre, now in the Louvre. It displays the special hallmark of the Baroque, a twisting and rising transverse pose, as well as highly skillful carving.

Following the death of directeur Louis de Boullogne on 28 November 1733, the painter Hyacinthe Rigaud proposed that the four rectors of the Académie, Coustou, Claude-Guy Hallé, Nicolas de Largillière, and himself, rotate the post. This oligarchy would persist until the election of Coustou as sole director on 5 February 1735.

Coustou also created two colossal monuments, The Ocean and the Mediterranean among other sculptures for the park at Marly; the bronze Rhone, which formed part of the statue of Louis XIV at Lyons, and the sculptures at the entrance of the Hôtel des Invalides. Of these latter, the bas-relief representing Louis XIV mounted and accompanied by Justice and Prudence was destroyed during the Revolution, but was restored in 1815 by Pierre Cartellier from Coustou's model; the bronze figures of Mars and Minerva (1733–34), on either side of the doorway, were not interfered with.

In 1714 for Marly he collaborated in two marble sculptures representing Apollo Chasing Daphne (both at the Louvre), in which Nicolas Coustou sculpted the Apollo and Guillaume the Daphne. About the same time he was commissioned to produce another running figure in marble, a Hippomenes designed to complement an Atalanta copied from the Antique by Pierre Lepautre: each was placed at the center of one of the carp pools at Marly.

In 1725, the Louis Antoine de Pardaillan de Gondrin, Duke of Antin, general director of the Bâtiments du Roi, commissioned a pair of life-size marbles of Louis XV as Jupiter and Marie Leszczyńska as Juno for the park of his Château de Petit-Bourg, which adjoined the park of Versailles, to which it was added after the Duke's death.

A number of his sculptures were for the Tuileries Gardens, most notably a bronze Diane à la biche ("Diana and a Deer"), and Hippoméne (1714), which was originally in the goldfish pond at Marly, then moved to the Tuileries until 1940, when it was brought into the Louvre.

Coustou's marble Bust of Samuel Bernard is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guillaume often worked with his brother Nicolas Coustou, particularly in the decoration of royal domestic architecture at Versailles.

title: Guillaume Coustou the Elder


text:
United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics is a select committee of the United States Senate charged with dealing with matters related to senatorial ethics. It is also commonly referred to as the Senate Ethics Committee. Senate rules require the Ethics Committee to be evenly divided between the Democrats and the Republicans, no matter who controls the Senate. However, the chairman always comes from the majority party. The leading committee member of the minority party is referred to as the Vice Chairman rather than the more common Ranking Member.

History
The Senate Select Committee on Standards and Conduct was first convened in the 89th Congress (1965–66) and later replaced by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics in the 95th Congress (1977–78).

Membership
Pursuant to Senate Rule 25, the committee is limited to six members, and is equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. This effectively means that either party can veto any action taken by the committee.

Chairs
List of chairs of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics

112th Congress
Source:

113th Congress
Source:

114th Congress
Source:

115th Congress
Members of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, 115th Congress


text: Category:Hawaiian architecture

title: Category:Hawaiian architecture


text: User talk:217.208.145.41

title: User talk:217.208.145.41


text:
User:TimRiker

Someone else made a main page for Tim Riker in wikipedia, but then it got deleted. Ah well. My 15 minutes of fame are up. :)

 * http://Rikers.org/
 * http://Twitter.com/TimRiker
 * http://LinkedIn.com/in/TimRiker
 * Infobot
 * BZFlag

title: User:TimRiker


text:
Willie Miller

William Ferguson Miller MBE (born 2 May 1955) is a Scottish former professional football player and manager, who made a club record 560 league appearances for Aberdeen. Sir Alex Ferguson described Miller as "the best penalty box defender in the world".

Club career
Born in Glasgow, Miller was raised in the Bridgeton area of Glasgow. He had little interest in football as a young child, and when he did become drawn to the game he played initially as a goalkeeper. He was scouted by several professional clubs while playing as a forward with Glasgow Schools and Eastercraigs Boys Club.

Having been on unofficial schoolboy terms in 1969, Miller signed full-time for Aberdeen in 1971 at the age of 16 and spent a season on loan with Peterhead in the Highland League, scoring 24 goals; upon his return he was converted to a central defender/sweeper in the reserves on the advice of Teddy Scott, winning the SFL Reserve Cup in 1973, established himself in that position in the first team in place of Henning Boel, and by 1975 had been made captain by manager Ally MacLeod.

Miller's central defensive partnership with Alex McLeish was integral to Aberdeen's success in the 1980s, as they won all the major domestic honours and the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1983. He made at least 40 appearances for Aberdeen in 14 consecutive seasons, amassing a total of 12 trophies won as well as appearing in several other finals. His total of 797 competitive appearances for the club is comfortably (by more than 100 matches) the all-time record.

He retired from playing in 1990 due to an injury picked up whilst playing for Scotland. A farewell testimonial match in his honour took place in December 1990 with Aberdeen facing a 'World Cup XI' (featuring Kenny Dalglish, David O'Leary, Mark Hughes and Danny McGrain among others) at Pittodrie Stadium. He had already received a testimonial in 1981 against Tottenham Hotspur.

In 2003, Willie Miller was voted the greatest Aberdeen player of all time in a poll to mark the club's centenary. In 2015 it was no surprise when he was named in Aberdeen's 'greatest ever team' by supporters of the club.

Miller was voted Scottish Football Writers' and SPFA Players' Player of the Year in 1984. He had been runner-up for the SFWA award in 1983.

International career
Having appeared at under-21 and under-23 level, Miller won 65 full international caps for Scotland between 1975 and 1989, scoring one goal. His 50th cap came against West Germany during the 1986 FIFA World Cup. His international career was effectively ended by an injury suffered during the last game of 1990 FIFA World Cup qualification. Although he did not play in the 1990 FIFA World Cup finals, Miller was presented with the match ball from Scotland's 1–0 loss to Brazil to thank him for his contribution to Scottish football.

He was an inaugural inductee to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in 2004, and is also on the international roll of honour, having won 50 international caps. In 2010, Miller was chosen as one of the eleven members of Scotland's Greatest Team, by viewers of the Scottish Television documentary series, which sought the fans' opinion on the best Scotland players since the 1960s. Viewers also chose Alex McLeish as his partner in central defence.

Managerial career
In February 1992, he was appointed Aberdeen manager, replacing the sacked Alex Smith. Despite two second-place finishes in the league and two losing cup finals in 1992–93, Miller was sacked in February 1995 with the club in danger of being relegated for the first time in its history (survival was eventually achieved via a playoff).

In May 2004, Miller was appointed to the Aberdeen board and given executive responsibility for football. He played a large role in the appointment of Jimmy Calderwood (a friend from their Glasgow Schools days) as manager, as well as progressing the club's youth academy.

In June 2011, he was appointed as Aberdeen's Director of Football Development, with the responsibility of finding new playing talent for the club. He departed again in 2012.

Career outside football
Miller has worked for the BBC, particularly for Radio Scotland, as a football commentator and analyst. He has written two autobiographies, The Miller's Tale and The Don, the latter being published in 2007. His third book, Willie Miller's Aberdeen Dream Team, was published in 2011.

During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum Miller was a supporter of the Better Together campaign against Scottish independence.

International

 * Scores and results list Scotland's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Miller goal.

Player
Peterhead
 * Aberdeenshire Cup: 1971–72

Aberdeen
 * Scottish Premier Division: 1979–80, 1983–84, 1984–85
 * Scottish Cup: 1981–82, 1982–83, 1983–84, 1985–86; finalist 1977–78
 * Scottish League Cup: 1976–77, 1985–86, 1989–90; finalist four other times
 * Drybrough Cup: 1980
 * European Cup Winners' Cup: 1982–83
 * European Super Cup: 1983

Scotland
 * The Rous Cup: 1985

Manager

 * Scottish Cup: runner-up 1992–93
 * Scottish League Cup: runner-up 1992–93
 * Aberdeenshire Cup: 1992–93

Individual

 * PFA Scotland Players' Player of the Year: 1984
 * SFWA Footballer of the Year: 1984
 * Scotland national football team roll of honour: 1986
 * Scottish Football Hall of Fame: 2004

title: Willie Miller


text:
Darren Jessee

Darren Michael Jessee (born April 8, 1971) is an American musician best known as the drummer of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five. He has also worked as an instrumentalist for Sharon Van Etten and Hiss Golden Messenger and released three solo albums and four albums as singer and songwriter for indie band Hotel Lights. His first solo album, The Jane, Room 217, was released on August 24, 2018, to near-universal acclaim from critics.

Jessee formed indie band Hotel Lights in 2004, with whom he has recorded 4 studio albums and an extended play. Ben Folds, on an iTunes Originals compilation, credited the Jessee-penned chorus for "Brick" as the missing element to a song that he had tried to compose for a long time.

Darren can also be heard drumming on the song "Strangest Thing" from The War on Drugs' 2017 album A Deeper Understanding, Hiss Golden Messenger's Hallelujah Anyhow (2017), and Josh Rouse's album Under Cold Blue Stars, released in 2002.

Discography
Darren Jessee
 * The Jane, Room 217 (2018)
 * Remover (2020)
 * Central Bridge (2023)

Ben Folds Five
 * Ben Folds Five (1995)
 * Whatever and Ever Amen (1997)
 * Naked Baby Photos (1998)
 * The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner (1999)
 * The Sound of the Life of the Mind (2012)

Hotel Lights
 * Hotel Lights (2004/2006)
 * Goodnightgoodmorning (2005)
 * Firecracker People (2008)
 * Girl Graffiti (2011)
 * Get Your Hand in My Hand (2016)

Songwriter
Hotel Lights is the project name for songwriter Darren Jessee. Notable Jessee songwriting contributions for Ben Folds Five include:

 * "Magic" (Jessee) – The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner
 * "Sky High" (Jessee) – The Sound of the Life of the Mind
 * "Brick" (Folds / Jessee) – Whatever and Ever Amen
 * "Song for the Dumped" (Folds / Jessee) – Whatever and Ever Amen
 * "Kate" (Folds / Jessee /Anna Goodman) – Whatever and Ever Amen
 * "Amelia Bright" (Jessee) – unreleased track performed live by the band 1999–2000; later featured on the Hotel Lights album Firecracker People. A 2000 studio version of the track by Ben Folds Five was included on Folds' retrospective album The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective (2011)
 * "Leather Jacket" (Jessee) – No Boundaries: A Benefit for the Kosovar Refugees
 * "Wandering" (Folds / Jessee) – Speed Graphic (Note: this is a Ben Folds solo EP)
 * "Stumblin' Home Winter Blues" (Jessee) – originally released on Hotel Lights' self-titled debut album in 2006; later recorded by Ben Folds Five for The Best Imitation of Myself

title: Darren Jessee


text:
File:The-encyclopedia-of-australian-rock-and-pop-cover.jpg

Summary
Front cover of "The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop" by Ian McFarlane.


text:
Laser (debit card)

Laser was a debit card scheme in Ireland between 1996 and 2014.

The Laser scheme was maintained and operated by Laser Card Services Ltd., a not for profit body owned by four leading financial institutions in Ireland and overseen since 2008 by the Oversight Unit of the Central Bank. The scheme was launched in April 1996, and in 2010, there were almost three million Laser cards in circulation.

195 million transactions worth almost €11.2 billion were carried out on those cards in 2009. From 2007, the financial institutions which had issued Laser cards began to replace them with Visa or MasterCard debit cards. Laser cards were withdrawn from the market on 28 February 2014.

Use
Laser was primarily an electronic point of sale debit card, but could also be used by telephone and internet, at ATMs and to pay regular bills by direct debit.

When purchasing goods or services with a Laser card up to €100 cashback could be given to cardholders and this value was simply added to the purchase price. Some retailers set a lower maximum cashback value, depending on what cash was available to them in the till or their own policy. Many Irish businesses that operate online accepted Laser cards prior to their discontinuation.

From 2005, some Laser card holders were provided with co branded Laser/Maestro cards; from 1 January 2008, all Laser cards were co branded. The co branded cards were chip and PIN cards with both Laser and Maestro functions. The Laser facility was for use in the Republic of Ireland only whereas the Maestro facility was, in theory, used both domestically and internationally, but international Maestro payments were quite often rejected.

The Maestro facility was not usable internationally online or by telephone. While it was possible for any bank in the Single Euro Payments Area, regardless of location, to join the Laser card scheme, no interest in joining the scheme was expressed by banks outside Ireland.

Participating financial institutions
In 2007, Halifax Ireland announced that it would be the first bank in the Republic of Ireland to offer a Visa Debit card rather than the Laser debit card (Halifax was never a member of Laser Card Services Limited). In 2008, Ulster Bank dropped Laser, in favour of Visa Debit. Permanent TSB withdrew Laser cards and began to replace them with Visa Debit cards in September 2010.

In the end of October 2010, Bank of Ireland announced they were ceasing their involvement in the partnership in 2011.

On 9 February 2011, EBS Building Society said that it would issue MasterCard debit cards instead of Laser from the second half of 2011.

In July 2011, AIB announced that it would cease issuing Laser cards from 2011, leaving National Irish Bank as the final issuer in the Laser card system, leading to speculation that the scheme would close in 2012. It was reported that banks were turning away from Laser because of some difficulties encountered by consumers in making online purchases.

However, customers began to complain almost immediately about numerous difficulties caused by the premature withdrawal of Laser cards. Some retailers who were able to give cashback on Laser cards were unwilling or unable to do so on the replacement cards; Permanent TSB issued a second replacement Visa Debit card to its customers in April 2011 due to the initial replacement chip and some older terminals not being compatible (resulting in refusal of cashback).

Other retailers who had been charged a small flat-rate per-transaction fee for Laser transactions found that they were charged a percentage of the value of the transaction for the replacement cards. Organisations such as Betfair which did not charge customers for Laser card transactions began to charge these customers 1.5% commission on transactions using the replacement Visa Debit cards.

Merchant services companies did not advertise whether there were any differences in their charges for the two types of debit card. Some customers reported being charged foreign usage fees on Visa Debit cards in Northern Ireland, which had not been charged on the old cards.

Website and e-commerce system gateways
Ogone, ICEPAY, WorldPay, Netbanx.com, Moneybookers.com, CreditCall, DataCash, Realex, TNS and SagePay provided Laser payment gateways.

title: Laser (debit card)