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Law firm

A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other matters in which legal advice and other assistance are sought.

Arrangements
Law firms are organized in a variety of ways, depending on the jurisdiction in which the firm practices. Common arrangements include:
 * Sole proprietorship, in which the attorney is the law firm and is responsible for all profit, loss and liability;
 * General partnership, in which all the attorneys who are members of the firm share ownership, profits and liabilities;
 * Professional corporations, which issue stock to the attorneys in a fashion similar to that of a business corporation;
 * Limited liability company, in which the attorney-owners are called "members" but are not directly liable to third party creditors of the law firm (prohibited as against public policy in many jurisdictions but allowed in others in the form of a "Professional Limited Liability Company" or "PLLC");
 * Professional association, which operates similarly to a professional corporation or a limited liability company;
 * Limited liability partnership (LLP), in which the attorney-owners are partners with one another, but no partner is liable to any creditor of the law firm nor is any partner liable for any negligence on the part of any other partner. The LLP is taxed as a partnership while enjoying the liability protection of a corporation.

Restrictions on ownership interests
In many countries, including the United States, there is a rule that only lawyers may have an ownership interest in, or be managers of, a law firm. Thus, law firms cannot quickly raise capital through initial public offerings on the stock market, like most corporations. They must either raise capital through additional capital contributions from existing or additional equity partners, or must take on debt, usually in the form of a line of credit secured by their accounts receivable.

In the United States this complete bar to nonlawyer ownership has been codified by the American Bar Association as paragraph (d) of Rule 5.4 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and has been adopted in one form or another in all U.S. jurisdictions, except the District of Columbia. However, D.C.'s rule is narrowly tailored to allow equity ownership only by those nonlawyer partners who actively assist the firm's lawyers in providing legal services, and does not allow for the sale of ownership shares to mere passive nonlawyer investors. The U.K. had a similar rule barring nonlawyer ownership, but under reforms implemented by the Legal Services Act of 2007 law firms have been able to take on a limited number of non-lawyer partners and lawyers have been allowed to enter into a wide variety of business relationships with non-lawyers and non-lawyer owned businesses. This has allowed, for example, grocery stores, banks and community organizations to hire lawyers to provide in-store and online basic legal services to customers.

The rule is controversial. It is justified by many in the legal profession, notably the American Bar Association which rejected a proposal to change the rule in its Ethics 20/20 reforms, as necessary to prevent conflicts of interest. In the adversarial system of justice, a lawyer has a duty to be a zealous and loyal advocate on behalf of the client, and also has a duty to not bill the client excessively. Also, as an officer of the court, a lawyer has a duty to be honest and to not file frivolous cases or raise frivolous defenses. Many in the legal profession believe that a lawyer working as a shareholder-employee of a publicly traded law firm might be tempted to evaluate decisions in terms of their effect on the stock price and the shareholders, which would directly conflict with the lawyer's duties to the client and to the courts. Critics of the rule, however, believe that it is an inappropriate way of protecting clients' interests and that it severely limits the potential for the innovation of less costly and higher quality legal services that could benefit both ordinary consumers and businesses.

Multinational law firms
Law firms operating in multiple countries often have complex structures involving multiple partnerships, particularly in jurisdictions such as Hong Kong and Japan which restrict partnerships between local and foreign lawyers. One structure largely unique to large multinational law firms is the Swiss Verein, pioneered by Baker McKenzie in 2004, in which multiple national or regional partnerships form an association in which they share branding, administrative functions and various operating costs, but maintain separate revenue pools and often separate partner compensation structures. Other multinational law firms operate as single worldwide partnerships, such as British or American limited liability partnerships, in which partners also participate in local operating entities in various countries as required by local regulations.

Financial indicators
Three financial statistics are typically used to measure and rank law firms' performance:
 * Profits per equity partner (PPEP or PPP): Net operating income divided by number of equity partners. High PPP is often correlated with prestige of a firm and its attractiveness to potential equity partners. However, the indicator is prone to manipulation by re-classifying less profitable partners as non-equity partners.
 * Revenue per lawyer (RPL): Gross revenue divided by number of lawyers. This statistic shows the revenue-generating ability of the firm's lawyers in general, but does not factor in the firm's expenses such as associate compensation and office overhead.
 * Average compensation of partners (ACP): Total amount paid to equity and nonequity partners (i.e., net operating income plus nonequity partner compensation) divided by the total number of equity and nonequity partners. This results in a more inclusive statistic than PPP, but remains prone to manipulation by changing expense policies and re-classifying less profitable partners as associates.

Partnership
Law firms are typically organized around partners, who are joint owners and business directors of the legal operation; associates, who are employees of the firm with the prospect of becoming partners; and a variety of staff employees, providing paralegal, clerical, and other support services. An associate may have to wait as long as 11 years before the decision is made as to whether the associate is made a partner. Many law firms have an "up or out policy", integral to the Cravath System, which had been pioneered during the early 20th century by partner Paul Cravath of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and became widely adopted by, particularly, white-shoe firms; associates who do not make partner are required to resign, and may join another firm, become a solo practitioner, work in-house for a corporate legal department, or change professions. Burnout rates are notably high in the profession.

Making partner is very prestigious at large or mid-sized firms, due to the competition that results from higher associate-to-partner ratios. Such firms may take out advertisements in professional publications to announce who has made partner. Traditionally, partners shared directly in the profits of the firm, after paying salaried employees, the landlord, and the usual costs of furniture, office supplies, and books for the law library (or a database subscription). Partners in a limited liability partnership can largely operate autonomously with regard to cultivating new business and servicing existing clients within their book of business.

Partner compensation methods vary greatly among law firms. At major United States law firms, the "compensation spread" (ratio between the highest partner salary and lowest partner salary) among firms disclosing information ranges from 3:1 to 24:1. Higher spreads are intended to promote individual performance, while lower spreads are intended to promote teamwork and collegiality.

Many large law firms have moved to a two-tiered partnership model, with equity and non-equity partners. Equity partners are considered to have ownership stakes in the firm, and share in the profits (and losses) of the firm. Non-equity partners are generally paid a fixed salary (albeit much higher than associates), and they are often granted certain limited voting rights with respect to firm operations.

The oldest continuing partnership in the United States is that of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, founded in 1792 in New York City. The oldest law firm in continuous practice in the United States is Rawle & Henderson, founded in 1783 in Philadelphia.

Termination of one's partnership
It is rare for a partner to be forced out by fellow partners, although that can happen if the partner commits a crime or malpractice, experiences disruptive mental illness, or is not contributing to the firm's overall profitability. However, some large firms have written into their partnership agreement a forced retirement age for partners, which can be anywhere from age 65 on up. In contrast, most corporate executives are at much higher risk of being fired, even when the underlying cause is not directly their fault, such as a drop in the company's stock price. Worldwide, partner retirement ages can be difficult to estimate and often vary widely, particularly because in many countries it is illegal to mandate a retirement age.

"Of counsel" role
In the United States, Canada and Japan, many large and midsize firms have attorneys with the job title of "counsel", "special counsel" or "of counsel." As the Supreme Court of California has noted, the title has acquired several related but distinct definitions which do not easily fit into the traditional partner-associate structure. These attorneys are people who work for the firm, like associates, although some firms have an independent contractor relationship with their counsel. But unlike associates, and more like partners, they generally have their own clients, manage their own cases, and supervise associates. These relationships are structured to allow more senior attorneys to share in the resources and "brand name" of the firm without being a part of management or profit sharing decisions. The title is often seen among former associates who do not make partner, or who are laterally recruited to other firms, or who work as in-house counsel and then return to the big firm environment. At some firms, the title "of counsel" is given to retired partners who maintain ties to the firm. Sometimes "of counsel" refers to senior or experienced attorneys, such as foreign legal consultants, with specialized experience in particular aspects of law and practice. They are hired as independent contractors by large firms as a special arrangement, which may lead to profitable results for the partnership. In certain situations "of counsel" could be considered to be a transitional status in the firm.

Mergers and acquisitions between law firms
Mergers, acquisitions, division and reorganizations occur between law firms as in other businesses. The specific books of business and specialization of attorneys as well as the professional ethical structures surrounding conflict of interest can lead to firms splitting up to pursue different clients or practices, or merging or recruiting experienced attorneys to acquire new clients or practice areas. Results often vary between firms experiencing such transitions. Firms that gain new practice areas or departments through recruiting or mergers that are more complex and demanding (and typically more profitable) may see the focus, organization and resources of the firm shift dramatically towards those new departments. Conversely, firms may be merged among experienced attorneys as partners for purposes of shared financing and resources, while the different departments and practice areas within the new firm retain a significant degree of autonomy.

Law firm mergers tend to be assortative, in that only law firms operating in similar legal systems are likely to merge. For example, U.S. firms will often merge with English law firms, or law firms from other common law jurisdictions. A notable exception is King & Wood Mallesons, a multinational law firm that is the result of a merger between an Australian law firm and a Chinese law firm.

Though mergers are more common among better economies, slowing down a bit during recessions, big firms sometimes use mergers as a strategy to boost revenue during a recession. Nevertheless, data from Altman Weil indicates that only four firms merged in the first half of 2013, as compared to eight in the same period in 2012, and this was taken by them as indicating a dip in morale regarding the legal economy and the amount of demand.

Size
Law firms can vary widely in size. The smallest law firms are lawyers practicing alone, who form the vast majority of lawyers in nearly all countries.

Smaller firms tend to focus on particular specialties of the law (e.g. patent law, labor law, tax law, criminal defense, personal injury); larger firms may be composed of several specialized practice groups, allowing the firm to diversify its client base and market, and to offer a variety of services to their clients.

Large law firms usually have separate litigation and transactional departments. The transactional department advises clients and handles transactional legal work, such as drafting contracts, handling necessary legal applications and filings, and evaluating and ensuring compliance with relevant law; while the litigation department represents clients in court and handles necessary matters (such as discovery and motions filed with the court) throughout the process of litigation.

Boutique law firms
Lawyers in small cities and towns may still have old-fashioned general practices, but most urban lawyers tend to be highly specialized due to the overwhelming complexity of the law today. Thus, some small firms in the cities specialize in practicing only one kind of law (like employment, antitrust, intellectual property, investment funds, telecommunications or aviation) and are called boutique law firms.

Virtual law firms
A 21st century development has been the appearance of the virtual law firm, a firm with a virtual business address but no brick & mortar office location open to the public, using modern telecommunications to operate from remote locations and provide its services to international clients, avoiding the costs of maintaining a physical premises with lower overheads than traditional law firms. This lower cost structure allows virtual law firms to bill clients on a contingency basis rather than by billable hours paid in advance by retainer.

Related innovations include alternative legal services provider (ALSP), legal outsourcing and what is sometimes called "NewLaw".

The largest law firms have more than 1,000 lawyers. These firms, often colloquially called "megafirms" or "BigLaw", generally have offices on several continents, bill US$750 per hour or higher, and have a high ratio of support staff per attorney. Because of the localized and regional nature of firms, the relative size of a firm varies.

BigLaw firms
The largest U.S.-based firms are often referenced as "BigLaw" firms, a phrase often used to describe large law firms that follow the Cravath System's "loosely pyramid-shaped hierarchy of advancement". BigLaw firms typically specialize in all categories of legal work with high billable hour rates, including mergers and acquisitions transactions, banking, and corporate litigation. These firms rarely do plaintiffs' personal injury work. However, in terms of revenue and employee headcount, the largest law firms are still smaller than their counterparts in other types of professional services like consulting and accounting.

In 2008, the largest law firm in the world was the British firm Clifford Chance, which had revenue of over US$2 billion. In 2020, Kirkland & Ellis came out on top with US$4.15 billion in revenue while Hogan Lovells rounded out the list at number ten with US$2.25 billion. Clifford Chance remains the only British firm among the top 10 considered "BigLaw". This can be compared with $404 billion for the world's largest firm by turnover ExxonMobil and $28 billion for the largest professional services firm Deloitte.

Worldwide
The largest law firms in the world are headquartered primarily in the United Kingdom, where they are deemed part of the Magic Circle, and in the United States, where they are known as "BigLaw" firms. Large firms of more than 1,000 lawyers are also found in Australia (MinterEllison, 1,500 attorneys), China (Dacheng, 2,100 attorneys) and Spain (Garrigues, 2,100 attorneys). The American system of licensing attorneys on a state-by-state basis, the tradition of having a headquarters in a single U.S. state and a close focus on profits per partner (as opposed to sheer scale) has to date limited the size of most American law firms. Thus, whilst the most profitable law firms in the world remain in New York, four of the six largest firms in the world are based in London in the United Kingdom. The sheer size of the United States results in a larger number of large firms overall – a 2003 paper noted that the U.S. had 901 law firms with more than 50 lawyers, while there were only 58 such firms in Canada, 44 in Great Britain, 14 in France, and 9 in Germany. During the 21st century, law firms have increased activity in transatlantic mergers, with globalisation of firms reaching an all-time peak in 2021. Both UK and U.S. firms are reported as continuing to seek an increasingly global reach, through mergers and acquisitions, in 2024.

Due to their size, the U.S.- and U.K.-based law firms are the most prestigious and powerful in the world, and they tend to dominate the international market for legal services. A 2007 research paper noted that firms from other countries merely pick up their leftovers: "[M]uch of the competition is relatively orderly whereby predominantly Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian firms compete for business not required by English or American law firms."

Since the early 1970s, the largest U.K. law firms have struggled to break into the much larger U.S. legal market, with only limited success in establishing footholds along the East Coast in important markets like New York City. In 2020, several of the largest U.K. firms began to invest in expansion into multiple regions of the United States, such as Silicon Valley. However, as of early 2024, the largest U.K. firms were losing ground on their home turf in London to rapid growth by the largest U.S. firms and were forced to raise salaries in response. The Americans recruited many British solicitors by offering more generous salaries, but also brought with them a different work-life balance, with higher billable hours requirements and the American expectation that lawyers routinely work on weekends.

Recession
As a result of the U.S. recession in 2008 and 2009 many U.S. law firms have downsized staff considerably, and some have closed. The Denver Post reported that major law firms have cut more than 10,000 jobs nationwide in 2009. On February 12, 2009, Bloomberg reported that 700 jobs were cut that one day at law firms across the country. Among the firms closed included Heller Ehrman, a San Francisco-based firm established in 1890 and Halliwells of the UK. Among those that survived, law firm layoffs became so common that trade publications like American Lawyer produced an ongoing "Layoff List" of the law firms nationwide that cut jobs.

Salaries
Law firm salary structures typically depend on firm size. Small-firm salaries vary widely within countries and from one country to the next, and are not often publicly available. Because most countries do not have unified legal professions, there are often significant disparities in income among the various legal professions within a particular country. Finally, the availability of salary data also depends upon the existence of journalists and sociologists able to collect and analyze such data.

United States
The U.S. is currently the only country with enough lawyers, as well as journalists and sociologists who specialize in studying them, to have widely available data on salary structures at major law firms.

In 2006, median salaries of new graduates ranged from US$50,000 per year in small firms (two to ten attorneys) to US$160,000 per year in very large firms (more than 501 attorneys). The distribution of these salaries was highly bimodal, with the majority of new lawyers earning at either the high end or the low end of the scale, and a median salary of US$62,000. In the summer of 2016, New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore raised its first-year associate salary to $180,000. Many other high-end New York-based and large national law firms soon followed. Two years later, in the summer of 2018, New York law firm Milbank raised its first-year associate salary to $190,000, with other major firms following shortly thereafter. In 2022 Milbank increased first-year compensation to $215,000, with most comparable firms following suit.

The traditional salary model for law firm associates is lockstep compensation, in which associate salaries go up by a fixed amount each year from the associate's law school graduation. However, many firms have switched to a level-based compensation system, in which associates are divided into three (or sometimes four) levels based on skills mastered. In 2013, the median salaries for the three associate levels were $152,500, $185,000 and $216,000 among large firms (more than 700 lawyers), and $122,000, $143,500 and $160,000 among all firms.

Some prominent law firms, like Goodwin Procter and Paul Hastings, give generous signing bonuses (e.g., $20,000) to incoming first-year associates who hold JD/MBA degrees.

Another way law firm associates increase their earnings or improve their employment conditions is through a lateral move to another law firm. A 2014 survey by LexisNexis indicated that over 95% of law firms consulted intended to hire lateral attorneys within the next two years. Though the success for both the attorney and the law firms in lateral hiring has been questioned. The National Law Review reported that the cost of recruiting, compensating, and integrating a lateral attorney can be upwards of $600,000 and that 60% of lateral attorney hires fail to thrive at their new law firms.

United Kingdom
British firms typically practise lockstep compensation. In London, entry-level solicitor salaries (NQ - Newly Qualified) are typically: (i) £40,000–70,000 at boutique and national firms, (ii) £80,000–100,000 at magic circle firms, and (iii) £120,000–155,000 at London offices of leading US firms.

A senior associate with six years' experience may make £68,000-120,000 at a national firm or upwards of £160,000 at a global firm. Salary levels are lower in areas outside London.

Australia
Australia has regional variation in lawyer salaries, with the highest salary levels in Sydney, followed by Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, then Adelaide. Salaries vary between top-tier, mid-size, and small firms. At top-tier firms in Sydney, salaries of lawyers who have been admitted to practice range from $75,000 to $92,000 and partners make on average $1,215,000. In Sydney, mid-tier starting salaries for admitted lawyers range from between $65,000 and $82,000 Most Australian lawyers are not admitted until ten months into their time at their law firm, since the initial period involves supervised legal training before admission is granted.

Typically in Australian firms lawyers are in a lock-step system for the first two years of practice, following which pay increases are dependent on performance assessed, in large measure, by satisfaction of billable hour targets.

Hong Kong
Newly qualified associates at leading firms in Hong Kong typically make HK$840,000 to HK$948,000, with partners in the HK$1.6 million to HK$4 million+ range; many firms pay New York salaries with cost of living adjustments.

Korea (South Korea)
Newly qualified lawyers at leading law firms in Korea, typically, make between KRW 80,000,000 to KRW 90,000,000 per year.

Singapore
At local firms in Singapore, associates in their first three years typically make $60,000 to $100,000, while midlevel (4–7 years) associates make $110,000 to $180,000 and senior (8+ years) associates make $160,000 or more. International firms pay significantly more, with senior associates often making more than $250,000.

India
There is more information available for entry level associates. First-year lawyers earn anywhere between INR 8,000 to INR 1,10,000 per month. Tier 1 law firms provide the best pay package, of about INR 15,00,000 annually. There is wide difference in the salary range depends on the city, law firm, and university of the candidate. The salary is higher in cities like Mumbai and Delhi NCR as opposed to other cities like Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, etc.

Location
Most law firms are located in law office buildings of various sizes, ranging from modest one-story buildings to some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world (though only in 2004, Paul Hastings was the first firm to put its name on a skyscraper).

In late 2001, it was widely publicized that John C. Dearie's personal injury plaintiffs' firm in the state of New York has been experimenting with bus-sized mobile law offices. The firm insists that it does not "chase ambulances". It claims that a law office on wheels is more convenient for personal injury plaintiffs, who are often recovering from severe injuries and thus find it difficult to travel far from their homes for an intake interview.

Rankings
Law firms are ranked both objectively, such as by revenue, profits per partner, and subjectively, by various legal publishers and journalists.

As legal practice is adversarial, law firm rankings are widely relied on by prospective associates, lateral hires and legal clients. Subjective rankings typically cover practice areas such as The American Lawyer's Corporate Scorecard and Top IP Firms. Work place rankings are directed toward lawyers or law students, and cover such topics as quality of life, hours, family friendliness and salaries. Finally, statistical rankings generally cover profit-related data such as profits per partner and revenue per lawyer. Third party attorney ranking services such as Chambers and Partners and Martindale-Hubbell are generally very competitive and can help raise an individual attorney's professional profile, and to catch this marketing advantage, over 1,200 attorney ranking and or awards have sprung up in the U.S. Various state bar associations have taken notice of the prolific growth of attorney honor awards and have determined that lawyers may refer to such honors in advertising "only when the basis for comparison can be verified" and the organization providing the award "has made adequate inquiry into the fitness of the individual lawyer."

In an October 2007 press conference reported in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the law student group Building a Better Legal Profession released its first annual ranking of top law firms by average billable hours, pro bono participation, and demographic diversity. Most notably, the report ranked the percentages of women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, and gays and lesbians at America's top law firms. The group has sent the information to top law schools around the country, encouraging students to take this demographic data into account when choosing where to work after graduation. As more students choose where to work based on the firms' diversity rankings, firms face an increasing market pressure in order to attract top recruits.

In popular culture
A number of television shows, movies and books have revolved around relationships occurring in fictional law firms, highlighting both public fascination with and misperception of the lives of lawyers in high-powered settings.

Suits is a popular American legal drama television series. Boston Legal is a popular American comedy drama, a spin-off of another long running series created by David E. Kelley, The Practice.

The film The Firm was adapted from a book written by John Grisham.

The television series Better Call Saul features several fictional law firms.

title: Law firm


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International Maritime Bureau

The International Maritime Bureau is a specialized department of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The IMB's responsibilities lie in fighting crimes related to maritime trade and transportation, particularly piracy and commercial fraud, and in protecting the crews of ocean-going vessels. It publishes a weekly piracy report and maintains a 24-hour piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The IMB is part of ICC Commercial Crime Services whose other divisions include The Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau, The Financial Investigation Bureau and FraudNet.

FraudNet is the world's leading network of fraud and asset recovery lawyers with 63 lawyers in 56 different jurisdictions.

The bureau, endorsed by the UN's International Maritime Organisation, was founded in 1981. The body has observer status with Interpol and a MOU with the World Customs Organization.

Its present director is Michael Howlett

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

title: International Maritime Bureau


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Fractional Orbital Bombardment System

A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) is a warhead delivery system that uses a low Earth orbit towards its target destination. Just before reaching the target, it deorbits through a retrograde engine burn.

The Soviet Union first developed FOBS as a nuclear-weapons delivery system in the 1960s. It was one of the first Soviet efforts to use space to deliver nuclear weapons. In August 2021, the People's Republic of China tested a weapon that combined a FOBS with a hypersonic glide vehicle.

Like a kinetic bombardment system but with nuclear weapons, FOBS has several attractive qualities: it has no range limit, its flight path would not reveal the target location, and warheads could be directed to North America over the South Pole, evading detection by NORAD's north-facing early warning systems.

The maximum altitude would be around 150 km. Energetically, this would require a launch vehicle powerful enough to be capable of putting the weapon 'into orbit'.

Lead-up to FOBS development
Some USSR officials began expressing a desire for a FOBS-type weapon around the time of Sputnik's launch. By the early 1960s, the Soviet Union felt that pursuing a system like the FOBS would be a natural next step given its belief that the US was already planning to use space to mount nuclear attacks. The success of the Soviet Vostok program which saw a rocket send a human into orbit and then land at a predesignated location made this kind of weapon seem more feasible.

Competing FOBS designs
Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev seems to have been responsible for the first FOBS-type missile design. His offering was the GR-1; it was also known as 'Global Missile 1' within Korolev's design bureau, as SS-X-10 Scrag by NATO authorities, and as 11A513 (or 8K73) by Soviet GRAU index. Korolev's research began as early as 1960 and the GR-1 project was sanctioned by Soviet officials on September 24, 1962.

Korolev brought up the idea of the GR-1 to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in early 1962. Soon after, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union was capable of utilizing "global missiles" that could fly over both the North and South Poles on their way to a target, continuing on to say that this type of weapon would render early warning radar systems practically obsolete and leave the enemy with no time to retaliate before the weapon's impact. Korolev's engineers first estimated that NATO radar systems would detect the GR-1's warhead only two minutes before arrival.

The GR-1 was to use the NK-9 and NK-9V as main engines in its first and second stages respectively. Though the NK-9 and NK-9V weren't created by Korolev's team, the GR-1's 8D726 retrorocket engine was. This engine would prove to be instrumental to the progress of Russian rocketry, specifically for its importance in the development of the Blok-D upper stage of rockets like the N1, Proton, and Zenit.

The GR-1 had three stages and a total vehicle mass of 117 tons. It was 35.31 meters long with a 2.68 meter diameter and could carry a single 2.2 megaton yield nuclear warhead. It was cryogenic liquid propelled, utilizing a mix of RG-1 kerosene with liquid oxygen (LOX).

Two other FOBS-type missile projects emerged around the time of the GR-1's early development. It seems that each of these projects were competing with one another for usage selection.

The first of the two other projects was that of Soviet missile engineer Vladimir Chelomey who proposed two designs: one called the UR-200A (GRAU index 8K83) that was derivative of his UR-200 ICBM and another designated as GR-2 which built off of his colossal UR-500 prototype ICBM and had a much larger explosive yield of 30 megatons. The UR-200A design was eventually selected for further development over the GR-2. It was to use the RD-0202 and RD-0205 engines for its first and second stages respectively and be equipped with an AB-200 aeroballistic warhead. Unlike the GR-1, the UR-200 and its derivatives used storable (or hypergolic) liquid propellants; specifically nitrogen tetroxide and UDMH. Chelomey and his engineers received development authorization for the UR-200 ICBM on March 16, 1961, beginning work on the UR-200A variant at some point after.

The second of the two other projects came from the Soviet missile designer Mikhail Yangel. His proposal was the R-36O (8K69 by GRAU index and SS-9 Mod 3 Scarp by NATO report) which was approved for development by Soviet officials on April 16, 1962. Yangel used an ICBM design of his own, the R-36 (NATO designation SS-9 Scarp), as a base for the R-36O. The missile had three stages, using the RD-251 engine in its first stage and the RD-252 engine in its second stage. The weapon's third stage was related to the deorbiting process as well as warhead guidance and delivery; the Soviets referred to this system as OGCh.

An aiming system inside the OGCh would check and rectify trajectory issues in relation to the desired target location through the use of various instruments (for instance, a radio altimeter used in conjunction with an inertial navigation system). The aiming system would make its checks directly after the missile came into orbit and immediately before third stage ignition. Deorbiting would be induced by the missile's retrorocket, the RD-854 engine, causing the warhead to take on a ballistic path towards its target.

The warhead, retrorocket, and guidance system were each contained inside the OGCh module. A series of nozzles on the RD-854 enabled aerial maneuvering of the OGCh. Other nozzles facilitated the separation of the warhead from the rest of the OGCh, allowing it to fall alone on a ballistic path to the target. The R-36O's 8F021 warhead had an explosive yield between 5-20 megatons according to Soviet sources. Western intelligence suggests that the yield was smaller, being somewhere between 1-3.5 megatons. The missile was 32.60 meters long with a 3.00 meter diameter and a total launch mass of 180 tons. The R-36O used the same hypergolic propellants as the UR-200.

Yangel design selection
In 1965, Soviet military officials worked to select one of the three FOBS projects. The R-36O of Yangel's design bureau was chosen for further development over the others. The reasoning behind the Soviet FOBS design selection process remains somewhat unclear. A particularly confounding factor to consider is that none of the three proposed missiles had undergone a single test flight prior to the R-36O's selection. Even so, there are some explanations as to why Yangel's design was chosen in the end. These revolve around the occurrence of negative events in the competing GR-1 and UR-200A projects that effectively knocked them out of contention.

One strike against Korolev's GR-1 was that it used a cryogenic propellant, thereby rendering the missile a poor candidate for operational storage in a missile silo as the Soviet military desired. Other negative factors include that the GR-1's 8D726 retrorocket was demonstrating a proclivity for failure in its initial tests and, as a cause for yet more worry, the troublesome R-9A, the subject of a different ongoing Korolev ICBM project, was quite similar to the GR-1 in construction. Thus, military leadership was encouraged to look elsewhere for more immediate progress.

The GR-1's ability to deal with US ABM systems and its lengthy fueling process were questioned by Soviet analysts. There were also significant delays associated with the production of the GR-1's NK-9 engine, of which the Kuznetsov bureau was responsible for. Under the weight of these issues, the GR-1 project fell apart in January 1965.

Chelomey's UR-200A project lost a great deal of support after Khrushchev, his most important political ally, was ousted in 1964. Military authorities under the Brezhnev administration were far less friendly to Chelomey and quick to deem the R-36O a better choice for further FOBS development. Having lost the ability to tap into the Soviet Premier's influence, Chelomey ultimately failed to secure the survival of the UR-200A, its development coming to an end in 1965.

Flight testing and deployment
At its missile range near Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the Soviet Union tested and deployed the R-36O. A testing station and a horizontal assembly facility were constructed for the missile's development initially. Over most of 1965, two R-36 test pads were modified to work with the R-36O for its early test flights. In addition, 18 silos capable of launching the R-36O were built over the mid 1960s to 1971; three rounds of construction occurred with six silos being built each time. Those built in the same area were placed 10-15 kilometers away from one another to prevent the possibility of a single nuclear strike destroying multiple silos.

The Soviet Union originally planned nineteen R-36O launches, but 24 were carried out by 1971. The initial four were to begin from a ground-based testing pad and then fly to the Kamchatka Peninsula. The other tests called for the R-36O to be launched from a silo into orbit where it would then execute its third stage deorbit process over the Pacific Ocean; the missile's payload would be retrofired into Soviet territory. Over 2000 Soviet service people participated in the tests. Six of the tests were outright failures while the others achieved either complete or partial success. Prior to the first launches, the Soviet Union stated that a "space vehicle landing system" was being tested over the Pacific.

The first test flight occurred on December 16, 1965. It missed the landing area by a wide margin owing to a stabilization instrument malfunction. The second test was on February 5, 1966 and was also a failure due to a retrorocket issue. The third test took place on March 16, 1966. Nitrogen tetroxide spilled over the surface pad during fueling due to a miscommunication and the missile was quickly destroyed by fire. Some success was had with the fourth test on May 20, 1966, but the payload didn't break away from the missile's guidance system as intended.

The following tests were conducted from silos. The first two tests of the silo phase ended in the intentional destruction (via self-destruct functionality) of the R-36O as a result of the second stage engine accidentally being activated for too long, sending the payload into an unplanned orbit. NATO radar systems picked up on the large mass of resulting debris. In one failed test case, small pieces of the missile rained down on the midwestern United States.

In 1967, the Soviet Union conducted ten more R-36O tests, nine of them seeing some level of success. In that year and beyond, the Soviet Union used public statements about satellite launch tests as cover for any R-36O test that was intended to put its payload into orbit for some period of time.

On November 19, 1968, about a month after the 20th test, the Soviet Union designated the R-36O as operational and began its deployment in three groups of six. By 1971, all 18 of the Soviet Union's R-36O silos were in service in Kazakhstan. NATO intelligence suggests that a primary target was the US Grand Forks Air Force Base where an ABM system was set to be established in the late 1960s to early 1970s. The R-36O wasn't equipped with a nuclear payload until 1972.

Reasons for development
The Soviet Union identified a number of strategic advantages of the FOBS. The following points prompted its development:

 * The system granted unlimited striking range with a nuclear weapon.
 * The system allowed a strike to be carried out from any direction. For instance, the Soviet Union could launch an attack against the United States using a South Pole or North Pole flight path; technically, it could even execute both of these attack plans simultaneously.
 * The system provided a way of evading early warning radar systems. This advantage comes from two different attributes of the FOBS: (1) that it could attack from any direction, as stated above, and (2) that it could travel along a very low Earth orbital path. The first point has to do with the fact that one of the primary missile defense radar systems of the US around the time of the FOBS' early development was the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS). The BMEWS was oriented to detect ballistic missiles coming from the aforementioned 'North Pole route' (its three stations being located in Alaska, Greenland, and the United Kingdom) and therefore wouldn't detect a strike flying along a southern orbital path. The second point considers that FOBS missiles could fly relatively close to the Earth's surface; they could have a perigee of under 100 miles (160 km) and an apogee as low as 125 miles (200 km) above the ground (see apsis). US radar systems like the BMEWS were configured to detect ICBMs that flew several hundred to upwards of 1000 miles (1600 km) above the surface, not low altitude missiles like that of the FOBS. Thus, the Soviet Union felt that striking with a FOBS would deprive the United States of valuable warning time that ICBMs were likely to give away, time that could be used to mount a devastating retaliatory attack.
 * The system concealed the target location until the payload was dropped out of orbit. Theoretically, the FOBS was capable of staying in orbit for several orbits, at most, due to the exceptionally low trajectory, but could separate its warhead from the FOBS vehicle at any given point in the orbit.
 * The FOBS' flight duration was shorter than that of an ICBM (assuming an indirect route isn't taken for the purpose of radar evasion). A FOBS missile may have been able to reach its target around 10 minutes before an ICBM would.
 * The Soviet Union supposed that the FOBS would be capable of trumping US anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. This was actually a primary objective of the Soviet FOBS from its origin. On one hand, the FOBS was seen as a tool that could boost the effectiveness of a Soviet ICBM strike by first eliminating some of the enemy's safeguards (like ABM systems). Given the notion that a FOBS missile could not be destroyed by an ABM system, it also follows that the FOBS could be used alone to carry out a nuclear attack. In late 1967, US officials indicated that they could develop ABMs to counter the Soviet FOBS, the implication being that it was indeed capable of besting American ABM systems at that time and beforehand.

End of deployment and associated reasons
There are two main technical disadvantages of the FOBS to consider:
 * Its nuclear payload was drastically reduced relative to that of an ICBM due to the high level of energy needed to get the weapon into orbit. According to American intelligence, the FOBS' nuclear warhead mass needed to be roughly $1/2$ to $1/3$ of that of an ICBM, and required a more robust ablative system, due to the higher entry velocities.
 * The FOBS was less accurate than an ICBM. This was empirically demonstrated in the series of Soviet R-36O flight tests that occurred over 1965-1971.

There are a number of other factors to consider that prompted the end of FOBS deployment in the Soviet Union:
 * The FOBS wouldn't be able to overcome later early warning radar system developments made by the US, especially those that came in the form of space-based radar deployments. The US established missile detection systems of this type by the early 1970s. The FOBS was made to counter relatively simple ground-based systems like the BMEWS, not the more expansive radar network that followed it. The Soviet FOBS thus had lost one of its primary capabilities only several years into its deployment, a FOBS strike no longer having an adequate probability of going undetected by the US.
 * An additional primary use of the Soviet FOBS—its ability to counter an American ABM system—was found out to be needless as time passed. Contrary to earlier Soviet projections, the US never built a large ABM system purposed in fending off a Soviet ICBM attack. The only significant American ABM system constructed was Safeguard (initially called Sentinel), but it was shut down by 1976 and mainly China-oriented anyway; it would have been practically useless in the face of anything beyond a limited Soviet nuclear attack regardless of the FOBS.
 * Soviet SLBM technology grew into a good replacement for the FOBS on the basis of low flight time, high range (via the submarine's ability to move near its target), and the element of surprise.
 * The FOBS potentially acted as a dangerous accelerant to the Cold War arms race for the reason that it was most useful in the context of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. A nation observing their enemy developing the FOBS could logically conclude that they viewed a first strike as a viable nuclear strategy; the observing nation may react to this realization by ramping up its own weapon production and perhaps adopting a first strike nuclear strategy as well.

The Soviet Union began decommissioning and dismantling the FOBS deployment in 1982 (officially in January 1983). The R36-O missile was completely removed from service by February 1983. Starting in May 1984, the Soviet Union razed its FOBS-capable silos. There's confusion over whether all 18 silos were destroyed. One source suggests that six silos were instead modified for the purpose of ICBM modernization testing, as per a SALT II agreement (see Outer Space Treaty and SALT II).

Outer Space Treaty and SALT II
Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 stated that: "Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in orbit around the Earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner."

The overriding opinion of US administrators was that the Soviet FOBS did not violate the treaty, mostly for the reason that the system didn't go into a full orbit. For instance, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara argued that the Soviet Union had only agreed "not to place [nuclear] warheads in orbit," continuing on to point out that the FOBS executes its mission on a "fractional orbit, not a full orbit." Senator Henry M. Jackson, chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Subcommittee on Military Applications, countered that the Soviet FOBS was at least a "good faith violation of the treaty," alluding to the notion that the weapon could go into technical orbit.

This is certainly true: the only thing stopping the Soviet FOBS' payload from completing a full revolution around the Earth (and thereby literally going orbital and violating the treaty) was the firing of the system's retrorocket. Even so, McNamara also drew attention to the fact that the treaty did not ban any form of weapons testing—not even the testing of an orbital nuclear weapons system. None of the Soviet Union's test R-36Os were ever equipped with a nuclear warhead; so, even if it were the case that the launches went orbital, they still would not have broken the treaty.

Unlike the Outer Space Treaty, the SALT II agreement of 1979 explicitly prohibited the pursuance and deployment of the FOBS:

"Each Party undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy: (...)

(c) systems for placing into Earth orbit nuclear weapons or any other kind of weapons of mass destruction, including fractional orbital missiles;"

The SALT II agreement was never ratified by the United States Senate. The Soviet Union ultimately complied with its terms anyway, decommissioning its FOBS in 1983 (see the 'End of deployment and associated reasons' section). The agreement also stipulated that 12 of the 18 Soviet FOBS launchers in Kazakhstan were to be taken apart or demolished and never replaced. This was meant to happen within an eight month period following the treaty's ratification. The terms allowed the USSR to modify the six remaining launchers to fit missile modernization testing purposes.

American view
The U.S. considered creating orbital bombardment weapons in the early 1960s, but concluded in 1963 that they offered few advantages over the ICBM. So when the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began in 1962 to suspect that the Soviet Union would develop a FOBS-like system, they concluded that Moscow sought the weapon for "propaganda or political reasons", not any militarily significant capacity.

The Soviet Union's R-36O test launches in 1966 and 1967 persuaded the CIA that Moscow was more serious about the military applications (though even through October 1968, around a month before the R-36O was declared operational by the USSR, it remained unclear to the CIA whether the tests they had observed involved a FOBS or a "depressed trajectory" ICBM).

At a news conference on November 3, 1967, Defense Secretary McNamara announced that the Soviet Union might be creating a FOBS. This was the first time that the FOBS project had been explicitly referred to in public (though Khrushchev alluded to this kind of weapon in the early 1960s). McNamara emphasized that the potential Soviet FOBS did not worry him in consideration of its disadvantages compared to the ICBM. At a subsequent congressional hearing, John S. Foster Jr., Director of Defense Research and Engineering, said that the U.S. had since 1963 been developing "over-the-horizon" radar networks that could give about 30 minutes' warning of a FOBS strike, and that such funding would continue.

The U.S.' view that the FOBS was not particularly useful militarily may explain why the Soviet FOBS was defended by McNamara and others as legal under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. U.S. officials may not have been willing to see the treaty break down over a single issue like the FOBS, especially given that they had already evaluated it as a minor threat in the grand scheme of that period's nuclear weapon landscape.

Recent developments
In 2021, United States Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall III said that the People's Liberation Army was developing and testing a FOBS.

In 2021, Russia entered into service a new ICBM that could arguably fit the criteria to be considered a FOBS. The RS-28 Sarmat or SS-X-30 Satan II is a liquid-fueled missile with a range of 10,000-18,000km and a payload capacity of 10,000kg which can be various types of warheads and weapons. The RS-28 Sarmat will be replacing the R-36M2 or known to NATO as SS-18 Satan. The United States Pentagon claims that the RS-28 ICBM can be deployed as a FOBS and could potentially increase the range up to 38,000km. Not only is this idea concerning for security reasons, but the 1967 Outer Space Treaty would prohibit this action likely resulting with responses from NATO, the severity of the consequences would likely depend on the initial action. The RS-28 Sarmat had entered service in 2021, but was not successfully tested until 2022 when it concluded its first test flight. Following Russia's new highly advanced missile, the United States is leaning towards the development of a new missile to replace the outperformed Minuteman III missile. The United States response program would cost ~$85 billion according to the Pentagon.

The results of these missile developments, particularly the RS-28 Sarmat which is capable of FOBS implementation could be a new form of an arms race setting back both countries in the progress made following the Cold War. The Cold War brought many times of uncertainty surrounding nuclear arms which presented many agreements between the two powers. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) are the primary weapon of nuclear capability today. The development of the RS-28 Sarmat classified as a ICBM, but possessing the ability to function as an FOBS is concerning to many world leaders. The specifications that present the primary concern is the extreme range with low trajectory flight to prevent detection from the NORAD system in Alaska, US. The undetected missile could release at-least 10 multiple targeted re-entry vehicles.

In September 2023, the leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin confirmed that the country had deployed missiles that would ensure safety and provide a strong deterrence to any enemy (referring to the Sarmat).

Chinese FOBS Development
China tested a FOBS missile system in July and August of 2021. A rocket was launched into orbital flight and re-entered the atmosphere deploying a glide vehicle that traveled at hypersonic speeds. It is claimed that the warhead missed its unidentified target by roughly twenty-four miles. FOBS are technologies from the Cold War and ICBMs tend to be the go-to for most advanced militaries. ICBMs can hold larger warheads because they do not need retro rockets to get the warhead out of orbit like the FOBS does. The amount of warheads the vehicle can deliver is still unknown. Why China is pursuing a FOBS system instead of increasing the capabilities of its current ICBMs is unknown. One thing that is known is that this testing has raised eyebrows worldwide, sparking debates about strategic security and arms control.

The invention of FOB missiles is nothing new. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union tested these missiles. The development was scrapped in the late 1960s however, because the Soviet government thought they were inadequate due to their decreased payload and easier detection. The Chinese military tested these same missiles using the new Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (or HGVs) equipment. Like other medium and long range ballistic missiles, HGVs can reach Mach 5 speeds easily at around 1 mile per second. The difference between missiles equipped with HGVs and those that are not, are that HGV missiles can maneuver and change course after launch far easier than regular ballistic missiles without an HGV. While these missiles can still be detected, the flight path of an HGV based missile is harder to predict, and could cause trouble for anyone attempting to intercept them.

Despite the testing, there is no change in the balance of power in terms of technological advances between the United States and China. China boasts an amount of 450 ICBMs, where the U.S. has 400. However, China only has 142 operational ICBMs with the others in construction. With this in mind, it is highly unlikely that China has an advantage, even with the created technology that could give them a slight military advantage over the United States. While a FOBS system could essentially bypass missile defense systems located in the northern regions of the United States, the United States has been upgrading existing radar on stationary and mobile platforms as well, which could diminish the strike rate of a hypersonic glide vehicle. The improved radar systems could better predict the HGV based missiles, also leading to decreased strike rates.

If anything, this testing may be doing more harm than good for China. This arms buildup is only feeding growing concerns amongst American distrust and fear of China, which may lead to continued significant perceptual consequences for the country. The distrust could also lead to a bigger coalition to deter China from building more weapons and their other military ambitions. China claimed that the test was simply a routine spacecraft test to see if they could reuse it after it went into orbit, denying their participation in creating a FOBS system. If the Chinese FOBS were detected, the Chinese nuclear retaliation against U.S. cities would decrease to 10 percent, which would be disastrous for the Chinese.

While the testing of their presumed FOBS system is not alarming in terms of a major technological advancement, it is a sign of China’s determination to build up its nuclear arsenal and weapons systems. China has clearly stated that they have a no-first-strike policy, but its actions of ramping up its nuclear arsenal and now testing a new FOBS system are now putting that policy into question. They are projected to have 1,000 nuclear weapons by 2030, which would put them in third place behind Russia and the United States in the amount of nuclear weapons each country possesses. Why China is growing its nuclear arsenal is not known, but it does show that its leaders are concerned about something.

China’s pursuit of creating a FOBS system also raises questions about current arms control mechanisms. Traditional arms control agreements primarily focus on ICBMs and SLBMs, leaving room for loopholes in a FOBS system. The current arms treaty preventing any country from putting nuclear weapons in space, the Outer Space Treaty, does not state that a country could not put conventional weapons in space. Only nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction are prohibited, conventional weapons are not. This also leaves room for other weapons technologies that could theoretically “pass” as conventional, even though they could be highly destructive. It is possible that these FOBs could be used as a distraction for U.S. interceptors and radars, as the missiles using HGVs are more unpredictable, leading to openings in U.S. defenses for other attacks. While China doesn't have the numbers to retaliate evenly against the United States, the loss of any U.S. city would be devastating.

title: Fractional Orbital Bombardment System


text:
Las Ketchup

Las Ketchup is a Spanish girl group founded by flamenco record producer Manuel "Queco" Ruiz. The group, which consists of sisters Lucía, Lola, and Pilar Muñoz (later to be joined by a fourth sister Rocío), is best known for the 2002 hit single, "The Ketchup Song (Aserejé)", a single that sold over seven million copies worldwide. The group's debut studio album, Hijas del Tomate, has sold over two million copies worldwide.

They represented Spain at Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens with the song "Un Blodymary". The group has not released any singles since 2006, but still performs together publicly around Spain and other countries.

2001–2002: Formation
All members of the group are daughters of flamenco musician Juan Manuel Muñoz Expósito, best known by his stage name, El Tomate (Spanish for "The Tomato").

Las Ketchup was originally discovered by the flamenco record producer Manuel "Queco" Ruiz, who signed them to his newly formed, independent Córdoba label Shaketown Music, that he ran together with Manuel Illán.

2002–2005: Hijas del Tomate
In the middle of 2002, they had a major flamenco Europop fusion hit with "Aserejé" (released as "The Ketchup Song" in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries), which reached the top of the charts in many countries, including: Spain, Portugal, Colombia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Albania, France, Finland, Turkey, Syria, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Switzerland, Germany, Romania, Canada and Australia. However, it failed to hit the top 40 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The title and part of the lyrics were in Spanish. The hit also had an accompanying dance. The second single was "Kusha Las Payas" and garnered moderate success. The group re-released "The Ketchup Song" later in the same year, with a new video, as a Christmas song.

2006: Un Blodymary and addition of Rocío
The group took an extended absence from the public eye to write songs for a new album and, during the same period, Pilar had a baby. In 2006, they were joined by Rocío, a fourth sister, and came back as a four girl group to represent Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006. The girls said themselves that Rocío had always been a member of "Las Ketchup", but that had not appeared in the promo material or performances because she was pregnant. They released their second studio album, titled Un Blodymary. The album release was delayed until the beginning of 2006. They planned to release one million copies and their record producer Queco, who also produced and wrote their worldwide single, "Aserejé", indicated that the album displayed their original sound. Their first single from the album was also titled "Un Blodymary" for the Spanish entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006. The song finished twenty-first with only 18 points.

2016–2017
In 2016, the group performed their hit "The Ketchup Song (Aserejé)" as an interval during the first semi-final of the Swedish pre-selection to the Eurovision Song Contest, Melodifestivalen. In 2017, they performed at the Pal Norte in Monterrey, Mexico.

Awards

 * 2002 Ondas Awards

– Best New Artist/Group

 * 2004 Billboard Latin Music Awards

– Best Pop Album from the New Generation (Hijas del Tomate)

– Most Played Tropical-Salsa Song by a Duo or Group ("The Ketchup Song (Aserejé)")

 * 2003 Latin Grammy Award

– Best Pop Album By a Duo or Group with Vocals Hijas del Tomate (Nominated, lost to Bacilos's Caraluna.)

 * 2003 MIDEM (Cannes)

– Best New Artist/Group

 * 2003 Amigo Awards

– Best New Group

– Best New Artist

 * 2004 MIDEM (Cannes)

– Border Breakers (Best-selling album out of its country and within Europe with Hijas del Tomate)

Parodies
In 2002, the German comedian Elmar Brandt wrote (using the tune of Aserejé) a Gerhard Schröder parody called "Der Steuersong" (The Tax Song) for the radio program The Gerd Show.

In 2002, a satirical version to the tune of Aserejé by El Grupo Mayonesa circulated in Gibraltar prior to the referendum on a proposal of joint sovereignty, entitled 'Vota Que No, Que No, Que No No No'

In 2003, the Slovak fictional musical duo Krímeš performed in TV show Uragán a satirical version to the tune of Aserejé called "Sereme" (We're Shi*ting).

title: Las Ketchup


text:
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 American science fiction action horror film directed by Eugène Lourié, with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, and Kenneth Tobey. The screenplay is based on Ray Bradbury's 1951 short story "The Fog Horn", specifically the scene where a lighthouse is destroyed by the title character. The film is about the Rhedosaurus, a dinosaur that is released from its frozen hibernating state by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle and begins to wreak a path of destruction as it travels southward, eventually arriving at its ancient spawning grounds, which includes New York City.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was one of the early atomic monster films; it inspired a generation of creature features such as Godzilla.

Plot
Far north of the Arctic Circle, a nuclear bomb test, dubbed "Operation Experiment", is conducted. Prophetically, right after the blast, physicist Thomas Nesbitt muses "What the cumulative effects of all these atomic explosions and tests will be, only time will tell". The explosion awakens a 200 ft long carnivorous dinosaur known as a Rhedosaurus, thawing it out of the ice where it had been held in suspended animation for millions of years. Nesbitt is the only surviving witness to the beast's awakening and later is dismissed out-of-hand as being delirious at the time of his sighting. Despite the skepticism, he persists, knowing what he saw.

The dinosaur begins making its way down the east coast of North America, sinking a fishing ketch off the Grand Banks, destroying another near Marquette, Canada, wrecking a lighthouse in Maine and destroying buildings in Massachusetts. Nesbitt eventually gains allies in paleontologist Thurgood Elson and his young assistant Lee Hunter after one of the surviving fishermen identifies from a collection of drawings the very same dinosaur that Nesbitt saw. Plotting the sightings of the beast's appearances on a map for skeptical military officers, Elson proposes the dinosaur is returning to the Hudson River area, where fossils of Rhedosaurus were first found. In a diving bell search of the undersea Hudson River Canyon, Professor Elson is killed after his bell is swallowed by the beast, which eventually comes ashore in Manhattan. It devours a police officer shooting at it, totals cars, knocks over buildings, and generally causes a panicking frenzy. A later newspaper report of its rampage lists "180 known dead, 1500 injured, damage estimates $300 million".

Meanwhile, military troops led by Colonel Jack Evans attempt to stop the Rhedosaurus with an electrified barricade, then blast a hole with a bazooka in the beast's throat, which drives it back into the sea. Unfortunately, it bleeds all over the streets of New York, unleashing a horrible, virulent prehistoric contagion, which begins to infect the populace, causing even more fatalities. The infection precludes blowing up the Rhedosaurus or even setting it ablaze, lest the contagion spread further. It is decided to shoot a radioactive isotope into the beast's neck wound with hopes of burning it from the inside, while at the same time neutralizing the contagion.

When the Rhedosaurus comes ashore and reaches the Coney Island amusement park, military sharpshooter Corporal Stone takes a rifle grenade loaded with a potent radioactive isotope and along with Dr. Nesbitt climbs on board the Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster. Riding the coaster to the top of the tracks, so he can get to eye-level with the beast, he fires the isotope into its open neck wound. It thrashes about in reaction, causing the roller coaster to spark when falling to the ground, setting the amusement park ablaze. With the fire spreading rapidly, Nesbitt and Stone climb down as the park becomes engulfed in flames. The Rhedosaurus collapses and eventually dies from the isotope's radiation poisoning.

Cast

 * Paul Christian as Professor Tom Nesbitt
 * Paula Raymond as Lee Hunter
 * Cecil Kellaway as Dr. Thurgood Elson
 * Kenneth Tobey as Colonel Jack Evans
 * Donald Woods as Captain Phil Jackson
 * Ross Elliott as George Ritchie
 * Steve Brodie as Sgt. Loomis
 * Jack Pennick as Jacob Bowman
 * Michael Fox as ER doctor
 * Lee Van Cleef as Corporal Jason Stone
 * Frank Ferguson as Dr. Morton
 * King Donovan as Dr. Ingersoll
 * James Best as Charlie, radar operator

Production
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had a production budget of $200,000.

The film was first announced in the trades on July 30, 1951 as The Monster from Beneath the Sea, one of 16 titles the newly formed Mutual Films Corporation were readying for production. This announcement appeared a week exactly after Ray Bradbury had his short story "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" published in The Saturday Evening Post (it was later anthologized under the title "The Fog Horn"). During preproduction, in spring, 1952, according to Ray Harryhausen, Dietz showed him an illustration of the monster from the Ray Bradbury story published the previous year. This story was about a marine-based prehistoric dinosaur that destroys a lighthouse. A similar sequence appeared in the draft script of The Monster from Beneath the Sea. During production Bradbury visited his friend Harryhausen at the studio and was invited to read the script. When Bradbury pointed out to the producers similarities to his short story, they quickly bought the rights to his story. When Warner Bros. bought The Monster from Beneath the Sea from Mutual a year later, they changed the film's title to match the story's title. Bradbury's name was used extensively in their promotional campaign. It also had an on-screen credit that read "Suggested by the Saturday Evening Post Story by Ray Bradbury".

An original music score was composed by Michel Michelet, but when Warner Bros. purchased the film, it had a new score written by David Buttolph. Ray Harryhausen had been hoping that his film music hero Max Steiner, under contract at the time with Warner Bros., would write the film score. Steiner had written the landmark score for RKO's King Kong in 1933. Unfortunately for Harryhausen, Steiner had too many commitments, but Buttolph composed one of his more memorable and powerful scores, setting much of the tone for giant monster film music of the 1950s.

Some early pre-production conceptual sketches of the Beast showed that, at one point, it was to have a shelled head and later was to have a beak. Creature effects were assigned to Ray Harryhausen, who had been working for years with Willis O'Brien, the man who created King Kong. The film monster looks nothing like the Brontosaurus-type creature of the short story. It is instead a kind of Tyrannosaurus-type prehistoric predator, though quadrupedal in stature. The monster was unlike any real carnivorous dinosaur and more closely resembled a rauisuchian. A drawing of the creature was published along with the story in The Saturday Evening Post. At one point, there were plans to have the Beast snort flames, but this idea was dropped before production began due to budget restrictions. The concept, however, was used for the film poster. Later, the creature's nuclear flame breath was the inspiration for the original Japanese film Godzilla (1954).

In a scene attempting to identify the Rhedosaurus, Professor Tom Nesbitt rifles through dinosaur drawings by Charles R. Knight, a man whom Harryhausen claimed as an inspiration.

The dinosaur skeleton in the museum sequence is artificial; it was obtained from RKO Pictures' prop storage where it had been constructed for its classic comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938).

The climactic roller coaster live-action scenes were filmed on location at the Pike in Long Beach, California and featured the Cyclone Racer entrance ramp, ticket booth, loading platform and beach views of the structure. Split-matte, in-camera special effects by Harryhausen effectively combined the live action of the actors and the roller coaster background footage from the Pike's parking lot with the stop-motion animation of the Beast's destroying a shooting miniature of the coaster.

Release
Warner Bros. acquired the film for $800,000 (including a large advertising campaign) and released it on June 13, 1953 in New York and Los Angeles. The film had one of the widest and fastest releases of the time, planning to have most of its bookings in its first two months, opening in 1,422 theaters nationwide within the first week. Original prints of Beast were sepia toned.

Critical reception
In his review of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms for The New York Times, A. H. Weiler was not impressed with the story: "And though the sight of the gigantic monster rampaging through such areas as Wall Street and Coney Island sends the comparatively ant-like humans on the screen scurrying away in an understandable tizzy, none of the customers in the theater seemed to be making for the hills. On sober second thought, however, this might have been sensible".

Hy Hollinger's review in Variety focused more on the impressive special effects: "Producers have created a prehistoric monster that makes Kong seem like a chimpanzee. It's a gigantic amphibious beast that towers above some of New York's highest buildings. The sight of the beast stalking through Gotham's downtown streets is awesome. Special credit should go to Ray Harryhausen for the socko technical effects". Our Culture Mag critic Christopher Stewardson rated the film 3.5 out of 5.

Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 21 reviews and gives the film a 91% approval rating, with an average rating of 6.60/10.

Box office
The film earned $2.25 million at the North American box office during its first year of release and grossed more than $5 million.

Legacy
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was the first live-action film to feature a giant monster awakened/brought about by an atomic bomb detonation, preceding Godzilla by 16 months. During the production of Godzilla, its pre-published story was very similar to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and was titled The Giant Monster From 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (海底二万哩から来た大海獣). As above-mentioned, the Rhedosaurus was originally planned to breathe "atomic flame" similar to Godzilla's atomic heat beam. The film's financial success helped spawn the genre of giant monster films of the 1950s. The success of RKO's re-release of King Kong in 1952 and the release of Beast in 1953 prompted other producers to cash in on the giant monster market. This craze included Them! the following year about a colony of giant ants (the first of the "big bug" films of the 1950s), the Godzilla series from Japan that has spawned films from 1954 to the present day, and two British features directed by Beast director Eugène Lourié, Behemoth, the Sea Monster (U.K. 1959, U.S. release retitled The Giant Behemoth) and Gorgo (U.K. 1961). Harryhausen himself admitted the extensive similarities with his work and Godzilla in an interview regarding Peter Jackson's King Kong in 2005 and expressed a bitterness towards the Japanese series. Harryhausen would later reuse the Rhedosaurus model to portray the dragon in the 1958 film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Additionally, Harryhausen's baby Allosaurus within the 1966 film One Million Years B.C. was followed by Toho's Gorosaurus in the 1967 film King Kong Escapes where both theropods were grey-blue colored man-eaters and surviving descendants of Allosaurus, and giant snakes and apes or ape-men appeared in both films.

The film Cloverfield (2008), which also involves a giant monster terrorizing New York City, inserts a frame from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (along with frames from King Kong and Them!) into the hand-held camera footage used throughout the film.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.

The film was distributed by Daiei Film in Japan in 1954, the company which later yielded various tokusatsu productions most notably Gamera and Daimajin franchises where the 1965 film Gamera, the Giant Monster also depicted the titular monster was awoken by a nuclear explosion in the Arctic and later destroys a lighthouse. Prior to this, Daiei Film distributed the re-released edition of RKO's King Kong in Japan in 1952, making it the first post-war release of monster movies in Japan, and these distributions presumably influenced productions of the first films of Godzilla and Gamera franchises.

title: The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms


text:
John Lawrence LeConte

John Lawrence LeConte MD (May 13, 1825 – November 15, 1883) was an American entomologist, responsible for naming and describing approximately half of the insect taxa known in the United States during his lifetime, including some 5,000 species of beetles. He was recognized as the foremost authority on North American beetles during his career, and has been described as "the father of American beetle study".

Early life
A member of the scientifically inclined LeConte family, John Lawrence was born in New York City, the son of naturalist John Eatton Le Conte. His mother, Mary A. H. Lawrence, died when John Lawrence was only a few months old, and he was raised by his father. Most reliable sources spell his name "LeConte" or "Leconte", without the space used by his father, and samples of his signature show the preference for "LeConte".

He graduated from Mount Saint Mary College, Emmettsburg, Maryland, in 1842, and from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, in 1846. He worked as a chemical assistant to John Torrey and after receiving his medical degree he briefy practiced medicine. He also married Helen Grier and in the same year he gave up medical practice. During the civil war he again worked as a medical inspector and received the rank of lieutenant colonel. Having inherited enough money to make himself independent, LeConte did not practice medicine professionally. Influences in his life included Louis Agassiz and Hermann Rudolph Schaum who stayed in the Leconte home.

While still in medical college, in 1844, John Lawrence traveled with his cousin Joseph LeConte to the Great Lakes. Starting at Niagara Falls, they visited Detroit and Chicago and traversed Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois before returning up the Ohio River to Pittsburgh and on to New York. John Lawrence published his first three papers on beetles that year.

Travels
After graduating from medical college John Lawrence LeConte made several trips west, including to California via Panama in 1849. While in San Francisco, he sent 10,000 beetles preserved in ethanol back to his father. Another 20,000 beetle specimens were lost in a fire in 1852. LeConte also traveled to Europe, Egypt and Algiers. He spent two years exploring the Colorado River, and was in Honduras for the building of the Honduras Interoceanic Railway, and in Colorado and New Mexico with the party surveying for the Kansas Pacific Railroad. He moved to Philadelphia in 1852, residing there for the rest of his life. He died in Philadelphia on November 15, 1883.

Military service
During the American Civil War he enlisted in the Army Medical Corps as a surgeon. He was promoted to the position of medical inspector and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel by the end of the war.

U.S. Mint
In 1878 he became the chief clerk (assistant director) of the United States Mint in Philadelphia. He retained that position until his death in 1883.

Scientific societies
LeConte was active in the scientific societies of his time, with stints as vice-president of the American Philosophical Society (1880–1883) and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1873). He was a founder of the American Entomological Society, and a charter member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Legacy

The genera Lecontella, Lecontellus, Lecontia, and Contia and several hundred species (mostly beetles) are named after him, including a bird, LeConte's thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei), which he discovered while on a beetle-collecting trip to Arizona, and was named after him by George Newbold Lawrence. LeConte communicated with and collected birds and other natural history specimens for Spencer Fullerton Baird, a distant cousin and assistant director and then director of the Smithsonian Institution for a total of 39 years. In turn Baird asked other naturalists to collect beetles for LeConte.

In the 1850s, LeConte collected some crystals from a cave in Honduras being mined for bat guano. It was later found to be a new mineral that was named "lecontite" in his honor.

Works

 * Catalogue of the Coleoptera of the United States. (1853) Frederick Ernst Melsheimer, revised by Samuel Stehman Haldeman and John Lawrence LeConte
 * Classification of the Coleoptera of North America (1861, 1873)
 * New Species of North American Coleoptera (1866, 1873)
 * Classification of the Coleoptera of North America. Part II (1883) - with George Henry Horn
 * Classification of the Coleoptera of North America. Part II (1883) - with George Henry Horn
 * Classification of the Coleoptera of North America. Part II (1883) - with George Henry Horn

Taxon described by him

 * See Category:Taxa named by John Lawrence LeConte

title: John Lawrence LeConte


text:
Sushilkumar Shinde

Sushilkumar Sambhaji Shinde (born 4 September 1941) is an Indian politician from the state of Maharashtra. He was the Minister of Home Affairs, Minister of Power in the Manmohan Singh government, and the Leader of the House in Lok Sabha until 26 May 2014. He previously served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra from 18 January 2003 to 4 November 2004.

Early life and education
Shinde was born on 4 September 1941 at Solapur to Sambhaji Rao Shinde and Sakhu Bai. Shinde completed his education with an honours degree in arts from Dayanand College, Solapur and LLB from ILS Law College and New Law College, University of Bombay, Maharashtra.

Early career
Sushilkumar Shinde started his career as a bailiff in the Sessions court of Solapur where he worked from 1957 – 1965. He then joined the Maharashtra Police as a constable. Subsequently, he served in the Maharashtra CID for six years, as a sub-inspector of police, under Amukuraj Patil, his CID mentor.

Political career
In the year 1971, Shinde became a member of the Congress Party. He won the Maharashtra state assembly elections in 1974, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1992, 24 May 2003 to August 2004–(General) by-election, September 2004 to 2 October 2004–(General). Shinde was elected to Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra during July 1992 to March 1998. In 1999, he acted as campaign manager of the Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi in Amethi, Uttar Pradesh. In 2002, Shinde lost the election for the post of Vice-President of India contesting against the National Democratic Alliance candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. He served as the chief minister of Maharashtra from 2003 to 2004. He was appointed the Governor of Andhra Pradesh on 30 October 2004 replacing Surjit Singh Barnala, who became the Governor of Tamil Nadu. He left the office on 29 January 2006.

Shinde was elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha for the second time from Maharashtra on 20 March 2006. Shinde became the leader of Lok Sabha after his predecessor Pranab Mukherjee was elected President of India. Shinde served as Power minister of India from 2006 to 2012. Later, he was appointed Home Minister of India in 2012. His tenure as a Home Minister saw two major decisions of hanging the terrorists Afzal Guru and Ajmal Kasab.

During the 2012 northern India power grid failure, Shinde deflected criticism by observing that India was not alone in suffering major power outages, as the United States and Brazil had both experienced similar blackouts within the previous few years. Officials in Uttar Pradesh, where the problem was believed to have begun, said the grid could not keep up with the huge demand for power in the hot summer. Uttar Pradesh power corporation chief Awanish Kumar Awasthi stated that the grid collapse was due to the states drawing more than their allotted power to meet the summer demand.

In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Shinde was the Congress party nominee. He was defeated by BJP Candidate Mr. Sharad Bansode.

Sushilkumar Shinde contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Solapur. Shinde was the Congress party nominee. He was defeated by BJP Candidate Mr. Siddheshwar Maharaj by a margin of 156,261 votes.

According to him, 2019 Indian general elections were the last Lok Sabha elections contested by him.

Personal life
Shinde married Ujwala Shinde on 1 May 1970. The couple has three daughters. One of his daughters Praniti Shinde is MP of Solapur, Maharashtra India.

Awards & honours

 * 15 January 1977: Selected in Ten Noteworthy Youth of the country by Indian Jaycees.
 * 1978: Second choice as most popular Minister in the survey by 'Manohar' a weekly.
 * 1981: Honoured with Basav Bhushan Award as "Ideal Youth" by Congress Party.
 * 9 March 1996: "National Citizen Award" as a Best Member of Parliament at the hands of Mother Teresa.
 * 2003: Bhai Bagal Award 2003, Third place at India Today – Reader's Choice The Best Chief Minister.
 * 2005: Guruvarya Shankarrao Kanitkar Award at the hands of senior journalist Arun Tikekar.
 * 22 September 2005 to 21 September 2007 & 21 November 2007 to 24 December 2009: Tilak Maharashtra Vidhyapeeth Chancellor.
 * 23 January 2007: First D Lit. awarded by D Y Patil University. (Subject – Literature)
 * 9 September 2007: Second D Lit. degree awarded by Srikrishna Devrai University, Andhra Pradesh. (Subject – Literature)
 * 18 February 2009: Third D Lit. awarded by Rajiv Gandhi Technical University, Bhopal. (Subject – Science)
 * 9 May 2009: "Navshakti Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar" awarded by Navshakti Times.
 * 19 July 2009: Government Award of "Ideal Teacher" in memory of Education Officer Hon. B.C. Dhegale.

Positions held
Source:
 * 1974 – 1992: Member, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly
 * 1974 – 1975: Minister of State for Sports and Cultural Affairs, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1975 – 1977: Minister of State for Finance, Family Welfare, Sports and Cultural Affairs, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1978: Cabinet Minister for Labour and Tourism, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1983 – 1985: Cabinet Minister for Finance, Planning, Sports and Cultural Affairs, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1985: Cabinet Minister for Finance, Planning, Environment, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1986: Cabinet Minister for Finance, Planning, Industry, Law and Judiciary, Social Welfare, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1988 – 1990: Cabinet Minister for Finance, Cultural Affairs, Sports and Planning, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1990: Cabinet Minister for Urban Development, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1991: Cabinet Minister for Urban Development, Law and Judiciary, Government of Maharashtra
 * 1992: Elected to Rajya Sabha
 * 1998 – 1999: Member, Twelfth Lok Sabha
 * 1999 – 2003: Member, Thirteenth Lok Sabha
 * 2003 – 2004: Member, Maharashtra Legislative Assembly
 * 2004: Chief Minister, Maharashtra
 * 2004 – 2006: Governor of Andhra Pradesh
 * 2006: Member, Rajya Sabha and Union Cabinet Minister of Power
 * 2009: Re-elected to 15th Lok Sabha
 * 31 May – 31 July: Union Cabinet Minister, Power
 * Aug 2012: Union Cabinet Minister, Home Affairs
 * 30 Aug 2012: Leader of the House, Lok Sabha

Theatre & films
The Marathi film, Dusari Goshta (2014) and a documentary film Andherese Ujale Ki Aour are based on his life from childhood to becoming a popular politician.

title: Sushilkumar Shinde


text:
User:Calebbell

Howdy!

I am a former student of Texas A&M University, and I graduated with a degree in computer science and a minor in Logic and Philosophy. My current contributing interests center around enriching the encyclopedic content regarding the State of Texas and Texas A&M University.

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title: User:Calebbell


text:
Talk:Upper respiratory tract infection

Reason: Redirect Common Cold
Common cold page is much more expanded.

This page includes several errors:

Infective agents do not incude bacteria or fungi.

Antibiotics are not recommended for common cold upper respiratory infections in patients with COPD; they might be used in lower respiratory tract infections - bronchitis or pneumonia.

Moved the lecture link to Common Cold not understood why they dont just say...you have a cold drink something warm and have some vitamins i dont know but ohwell

The Flu and Cold link is in the MedlinePlus link.

Petersam 05:11, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't quite agree - the terminology is not the same - the common cold ==/== to an Upper respiratory tract infection though the common cold is a type of URTI. URTIs would include things like pharyngitis, bronchitis, sinusitis, rhinitis, even otitis media - which are certainly not part of the common cold. If this article contains errors and the common cold page is more expanded, the correct thing would be to expand this page and correct errors here. Reverting redirect. Alex.tan 09:01, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Nasal infection
Why is it that sometimes when you have this common cold that everything, including the air, smells strange? Graham P. 3:12, 29 March 2005 (UTC)

It because when you get this, your sensoric organ also get affected Pinto Sjafri 14:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect information
"Recent studies show that up to 98% of all cases are viral in nature." ... "Although viruses are the most likely cause of URIs and do not respond to antibiotic treatment, antibiotics continue to be widely prescribed for this illness. Judicious use of antibiotics can reduce unnecessary adverse effects of antibiotics as well as out-of-pocket costs to the patient. But more importantly, decreased antibiotic usage will prevent development of drug resistant bacteria..."

This is, at best, [b]extremely[/b] misleading. Yes, viruses are most often the underlying initial cause for the buildup of fluids; however, the terms "sinus infection" or "upper respiratory infection" often refer to the *secondary* infection, which is almost always bacterial in nature.

If you ever have gotten sick and blown your nose or coughed up something and it's been yellow or green (usually with an unpleasant smell/taste), that's a bacterial sinus/UR infection.

They're not at all rare--in fact, virtually every single time I've ever gotten a cold (or the flu) I wind up with a secondary bacterial sinus infection. Most people do, I think (why else would most people associate snot with the color green? "Healthy snot" and even "virus-only-infected snot" is clear or white), but most are able to fight it off on their own... unfortunately, not me. For me, it takes 1-3 months to clear up on its own--with antibiotics, it takes 1-2 weeks.

Now, before the WP:NOR trolls beat me to death:

The source used to support the anti-antibiotic claims ([1]) actually refers to laryngitis only. Laryngitis != Upper Respiratory Infection. Laryngitis is merely one very specific aspect of upper respiratory infections. It is not present in all respiratory infections (it's happened only a couple times to me, and I get a sinus infection no less than twice a year), nor is an infection required for the larynx to become inflamed (e.g., severe allergic reactions.) Thus, the conclusions of a laryngitis-specific study cannot be used to support statements applicable to upper respiratory infections as a whole.

Now let us examine [2]. It says:

"Use of antibiotics (regardless of the type) reduced the risk of patient deaths by 77% and the risk of the patient not responding to medical intervention by 53%. In addition, the chances of sputum remaining coloured (green-yellow) were reduced by 44%."

Since antibiotics don't affect viruses, this implies that either people with COPD are MUCH more vulnerable to bacterial infections or the [b]uncited[/b] statement "...are caused by bacteria in less than 2% of all cases" is inaccurate.

In short, the sources don't back up the assertions that 98% (or even "most") sinus infections are completely viral in nature and thus completely unresponsive to antibiotics. I am removing the uncited (and in fact possibly contradictory) statements.

As an aside, I am completely sympathetic to the plight of drug resistance. A lot of people do think that their cold/flu-induced fever/malaise/whatever will get better after antibiotics, and prescribing antibiotics for these things (when they're clearly viral in nature) must stop. However, that doesn't mean we need to start spreading misinformation about upper respiratory infections. Most people who're coughing up green crap do indeed have a speedier recovery if given antibiotics. I don't have a source handy for that, but I don't need one in order to remove unsourced statements. --Lode Runner 16:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * The section could use a rewrite, btw. I have simply removed the offending statements (feel free to add them again, if you really do have the proper sources to back it up, but I don't think you'll find such sources because I'm pretty sure it isn't true), but I wanted to leave in the bits about drug resistance. --Lode Runner 16:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Incidence of Acute URI in the U.S.: One Billion??!! (raises pinky to corner of pursed lips)
Um, let's see... That's four infections per year for every man, woman, and child in the US (including all those that died or were born throughout the year). I don't think that needs a citation--I think it needs to be deleted. Whaddya say?146.23.4.23 (talk) 19:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Clearly 24.160.241.39 (talk) 19:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes and children get even more, like 8 per year. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 19:02, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Reviews

 * Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Acute tracheitis as URTI
Trachea is usually classified as part of lower respiratory tract. But according to the ICD-10 classification acute tracheitis is classified as upper respiratory tract infection and some books classify tracheitis the same way. Moreover some American Family Phisician journal articles added acute bronchitis to UTRI : "Upper respiratory tract infection involves inflammation of the respiratory mucosa from the nose to the lower respiratory tree, not including the alveoli. In addition to malaise, it causes localized symptoms that constitute several overlapping syndromes: sore throat (pharyngitis), rhinorrhea (common cold), facial fullness and pain (sinusitis), and cough (bronchitis)."

Wikipedia definition must include information that some literature includes tracheitis to URTI. --D6194c-1cc (talk) 17:22, 9 May 2021 (UTC).

Acute vs chronic URI
Upper respiratory tract infections are used in context of acute infection. I didn't find any information about classification of upper respiratory infections as chronic. ICD-10 has only ″Acute upper respiratory infections″ section and chronic diseases of upper respiratory tract are under ″Other diseases of upper respiratory tract (J30-J39) ″ section. I'm not a medic but as I think host defenses plays major role in chronic infections so underlying medical conditions could be considered as part of a disease. Naming a disease as chronic URI is less favorable for grouping disease, it has no sense. I found definitions of upper respiratory tract infection only as acute infection, for example : "“URTI” is therefore a nonspecific term used to describe acute infections involving the upper respiratory tract (nose, paranasal sinuses, ear, pharynx, and larynx)."

I think we need to specify that the term is used to describe acute infections and usually is not used to describe chronic infections. Can somebody suggest any counterarguments? --D6194c-1cc (talk) 15:10, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I wrote this mainly in context of icd-10 classification from wikidata (displayed in the bottom of page). --D6194c-1cc (talk) 15:25, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Upper respiratory tract infection