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Erin Brockovich (film)

Erin Brockovich is a 2000 American biographical legal drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Susannah Grant. The film is a dramatization of the true story of Erin Brockovich, portrayed by Julia Roberts, who initiated a legal case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company over its culpability for the Hinkley groundwater contamination incident. The film emerged as a critical and commercial success at the box-office.

Erin Brockovich received 5 nominations at the 73rd Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (for Soderbergh) and Best Supporting Actor (for Albert Finney), winning Best Actress (for Roberts). For her performance, Roberts also earned the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. Additionally, the film also won the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Director (for Soderbergh, also for Traffic) and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (for Finney).

Plot
In 1993, Erin Brockovich is an unemployed single mother of three children, who has recently been injured in a traffic accident with a doctor and is suing him. Her lawyer, Ed Masry, expects to win, but Erin's explosive courtroom behavior under cross-examination loses her the case, and Ed will not return her phone calls afterwards. One day, he arrives at work to find her in the office, apparently working. She says that he told her things would work out and they did not, and that she needed a job. Ed takes pity on Erin, and she gets a paid job at the office.

Erin is given files for a real estate case where the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is offering to purchase the home of Donna Jensen, a resident of Hinkley, California. Erin is surprised to see medical records in the file and visits Donna, who explains that she had simply kept all her PG&E correspondence together. Donna appreciates PG&E's help: she has had several tumors and her husband has Hodgkin's lymphoma, but PG&E has always supplied a doctor at their own expense. Erin asks why they would do that, and Donna replies, "because of the chromium". Erin begins digging into the case and finds evidence that the groundwater in Hinkley is seriously contaminated with carcinogenic hexavalent chromium, but PG&E has been telling Hinkley residents that they use a safer form of chromium. After several days away from the office doing this research, she is fired by Ed until he realizes that she has been working the entire time, and sees what she has found out.

Rehired, she continues her research, and over time, visits many Hinkley residents and wins their trust. She finds many cases of tumors and other medical problems in Hinkley. Everyone has been treated by PG&E's doctors and thinks the cluster of cases is just a coincidence, unrelated to the "safe" chromium. The Jensens' claim for compensation grows into a major class action lawsuit, but the direct evidence only relates to PG&E's Hinkley plant, not to the senior management.

Knowing that PG&E could slow any settlement for years through delays and appeals, Ed takes the opportunity to arrange for disposition by binding arbitration, but a large majority of the plaintiffs must agree to this. Erin returns to Hinkley and persuades all 634 plaintiffs to go along. While she is there, a man named Charles Embry approaches her to say that he and his cousin were PG&E employees, but his cousin recently died from the poison. The man says he was tasked with destroying documents at PG&E, but, "as it turns out," he "wasn't a very good employee".

Embry gives Erin the documents, which include a 1966 memo proving corporate headquarters knew the water was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, did nothing about it, and advised the Hinkley operation to keep this secret. The judge orders PG&E to pay a settlement amount of $333 million to be distributed among the plaintiffs.

In the aftermath, Ed hands Erin her bonus payment for the case but warns her he has changed the amount. She explodes into a complaint that she deserves more respect, but is astonished to find that he has increased it—to $2 million.

Production
The film was shot over eleven weeks, five weeks of that taking place in Ventura, California.

Erin Brockovich performed well with test audiences but executives at Universal Studios were worried that audiences would be turned off by the title character's use of profane language.

Box office
Erin Brockovich was released on March 17, 2000, in 2,848 theaters and grossed $28.1 million on its opening weekend. It had the second-highest March opening weekend upon release, after Liar Liar. This was also the second-highest opening weekend for a Julia Roberts film, behind Runaway Bride. The film reached the number one spot during its first weekend, beating Mission to Mars and Final Destination. It made $18.5 million while declining by 34% for its second weekend while outgrossing Romeo Must Die, Here on Earth and Whatever It Takes. Then, Erin Brockovich collected $13.8 million in its third weekend, defeating The Road to El Dorado and The Skulls. Overall, it spent a total of three weeks as the number one film until it was dethroned by Rules of Engagement. The film went on to make $125.6 million in North America and $130.7 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $256.3 million.

Critical response
On review website Rotten Tomatoes, Erin Brockovich holds an approval rating of 85% based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10. The critics consensus reads, "Taking full advantage of Julia Roberts's considerable talent and appeal, Erin Brockovich overcomes a few character and plot issues to deliver a smart, thoughtful, and funny legal drama." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted score of 73 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "We get the best of independent cinema and the best of mainstream cinema all in one package. Erin Brockovich, like Wonder Boys right before it, makes the year 2000 seem increasingly promising for movies". Newsweek magazine's David Ansen began his review with, "Julia Roberts is flat-out terrific in Erin Brockovich." Furthermore, he wrote, "Roberts has wasted her effervescence on many paltry projects, but she hits the jackpot this time. Erin, single mother of three, a former Miss Wichita who improbably rallies a community to take on a multi-billion-dollar corporation, is the richest role of her career, simultaneously showing off her comic, dramatic and romantic chops". Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers wrote, "Roberts shows the emotional toll on Erin as she tries to stay responsible to her children and to a job that has provided her with a first taste of self-esteem". In his review for Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B+" rating and wrote, "It's a delight to watch Roberts, with her flirtatious sparkle and undertow of melancholy, ricochet off Finney's wonderfully jaded, dry-as-beef-jerky performance as the beleaguered career attorney who knows too much about the loopholes of his profession to have much faith left in it". Sight & Sound magazine's Andrew O'Hehir wrote, "Perhaps the best thing about this relaxed and supremely engaging film (for my money the best work either the director or his star has ever done) is that even its near-fairytale resolution doesn't offer a magical transformation". In her review for The Village Voice, Amy Taubin wrote, "What's pretty original about the picture is that it focuses an investigative drama based on a true story around a comic performance".

However, film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a two-star review, writing, "There is obviously a story here, but Erin Brockovich doesn't make it compelling. The film lacks focus and energy, the character development is facile and thin". In his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote, "After proving, for about 40 minutes, what a marvelous actress she can be, Ms. Roberts spends the next 90 content to be a movie star. As the movie drags on, her performance swells to bursting with moral vanity and phony populism". Time magazine's Richard Corliss found the film to be "slick, grating and false. We bet it makes a bundle".

Accolades
Julia Roberts became the first actress to win an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Movie Award, Golden Globe Award, National Board of Review Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award for a single performance.

Steven Soderbergh received dual nominations for Best Director that year for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic, winning the award for the latter.

American Film Institute recognition:
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
 * Erin Brockovich – Hero No. 31
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – No. 73

Accuracy
On her website, Brockovich says the film is "probably 98% accurate". While the general facts of the story are accurate, there are some minor discrepancies between actual events and the movie, as well as a number of controversial and disputed issues more fundamental to the case. In the film, Erin Brockovich appears to deliberately use her cleavage to seduce the water board attendant to allow her to access the documents. Brockovich has acknowledged that her cleavage may have had an influence, but denies consciously trying to influence individuals in this way. In the film, Ed Masry represents Erin Brockovich in the car crash case. In reality, it was his law partner, Jim Vititoe. Brockovich had never been Miss Wichita; she had been Miss Pacific Coast. According to Brockovich, this detail was deliberately changed by Soderbergh as he thought it was "cute" to have her be beauty queen of the region from which she came. The "not so good employee" who met Brockovich in the bar was Chuck Ebersohl. He told Erin about the documents that he and Lillian Melendez had been tasked by PG&E to destroy.

George Halaby, played by Aaron Eckhart in the film, along with Brockovich's ex-husband Shawn Brown, alleged that she had an affair with Masry. They also attempted to file a lawsuit against her for $310,000. Halaby was arrested and the lawyer John Jeffrey Reiner was suspended from practicing, convicted of extortion, and later disbarred.

title: Erin Brockovich (film)


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User talk:Najja

Image:Gel filtration.gif listed for deletion
An image or media file that you uploaded or altered, Image:Gel filtration.gif, has been listed at. Please look there to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. BigDT 23:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey
Hi Najja!

I have put together a survey for female editors of Wikipedia (and related projects) in order to explore, in greater detail, women's experiences and roles within the Wikimedia movement. It'd be wonderful if you could participate!

It's an independent survey, done by me, as a fellow volunteer Wikimedian. It is not being done on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation. I hope you'll participate!

Just click this link to participate in this survey, via Google!

Any questions or concerns, feel free to email me or stop by my user talk page. Also, feel free to share this any other female Wikimedians you may know. It is in English, but any language Wikimedia participants are encouraged to participate. I appreciate your contributions - to the survey and to Wikipedia! Thank you! SarahStierch (talk) 22:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

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

title: User talk:Najja


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Kirkpatrick Macmillan

Kirkpatrick Macmillan (2 September 1812 in Keir, Dumfries and Galloway – 26 January 1878 in Keir) was a Scottish blacksmith. He is generally credited with inventing the treadle bicycle.

Invention of the first pedal driven bicycle
According to the research of his relative James Johnston in the 1890s, Macmillan was the first to invent the pedal-driven bicycle. However, he didn't invent the modern bicycle pedals but rather adapted the treadle, known since the Middle Ages, to the draisine. Johnston, a corn trader and tricyclist, had the firm aim, in his own words "to prove that to my native country of Dumfries belongs the honour of being the birthplace of the invention of the bicycle".

Macmillan allegedly completed construction of a pedal driven bicycle of wood in 1839 that included iron-rimmed wooden wheels, a steerable wheel in the front and a larger wheel in the rear which was connected to pedals via connecting rods.

A Glasgow newspaper reported in 1842 an accident in which an anonymous "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" knocked over a pedestrian in the Gorbals and was fined five British shillings. Johnston identified Macmillan as that gentleman.

A 1939 plaque on the family smithy in Courthill reads "He builded better than he knew." Yet MacMillan lived in Glasgow and worked at the Vulcan Foundry during the relevant period around 1840, not in Courthill.

Scepticism
The Johnston doctrine of the bright, modest and industrious tradesman, achieving what others would only do decades later, captured the public imagination, especially in Scotland. It was also well accepted among historians, at least British ones, in the early 20th century.

Johnston did not present conclusive proofs, though he wrote that he had them. Sceptics allege that MacMillan design which he presented was a composite of two 1869 velocipedes by Thomas McCall. At the behest of Johnston, Thomas McCall built a replica to be presented as MacMillan's at the 1896 Stanley show (and now at Dumfries Museum) perhaps for financial reasons.

The identification of MacMillan as recipient of an early speeding ticket for his bicycling is doubted by Alastair Dodds on grounds that its application would require an early Victorian newspaper to call a blacksmith a "gentleman". However, that fails to explain what the velocipede of ingenious design was. Misgivings did not deter popular retelling with interesting details from sources unknown, including the detail that, after the accident, his niece, Mary Marchbank, had an illicit ride on the machine, thereby becoming the first female cyclist.

However, it is said that Gavin Dalzell of Lesmahagow copied the Macmillan machine in 1846 and passed on the details to so many people that for more than 50 years he was generally regarded as the inventor of the bicycle.

Other claims to invention
Some historians who have studied the invention of the pedal-driven bicycle, including David V. Herlihy, state that Macmillan was not the first inventor. Herlihy states there is no contemporary documentary evidence that a pedal-crank design was applied to a 2-wheeled vehicle and that letters from customers in Scotland to the Michaux company in 1868 state that all of the human-powered vehicles there are tricycles and quadracycles. A similar claim is made by David Gordon Wilson.

Literature

 * Dodds, Alastair (1992). Kirkpatrick MacMillan - Inventor of the bicycle: fact or hearsay? Proceedings of 3rd International Cycling History Conference, Neckarsulm, pp. 1–25.
 * Oddy, Nicholas (1990). Kirkpatrick MacMillan, the inventor of the pedal cycle or the invention of cycle history? Proceedings of 1st International Cycling History Conference, Glasgow 1990, pp. 24–32.
 * Oddy, Nicholas (1990). Kirkpatrick MacMillan, the inventor of the pedal cycle or the invention of cycle history? Proceedings of 1st International Cycling History Conference, Glasgow 1990, pp. 24–32.

title: Kirkpatrick Macmillan


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G. W. Steevens

George Warrington Steevens (10 December 1869 – 15 January 1900) was a British journalist and writer.

Life
Steevens was born in Sydenham, and educated at the City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was elected a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1893 and also spent some time at Cambridge where he edited a weekly periodical.

As a journalist, he distinguished himself by his clearness of vision and vivid style, and was connected successively with the National Observer, The Pall Mall Gazette, and, from 1896, the Daily Mail.

He was the most famous war correspondent of his time, before being eclipsed by the daring escape of young Churchill from a Pretoria prison. Steevens utilised the articles which appeared in these and other publications in various books, such as Monologues of the Dead (1895), The Land of the Dollar (America) (1897), With the Conquering Turk (1897), With Kitchener to Khartum, chronicling his attachment to British forces during the Mahdist War in the Sudan, The Tragedy of Dreyfus and his posthumous From Cape Town to Ladysmith. He is also the author of In India, a series of articles on India published in 1899.

He was appointed by the Daily Mail as war correspondent to South Africa during the Second Boer War in 1899. Caught in the siege of Ladysmith, he kept up morale during the early months with his mordant witticisms appearing in Ladysmith Lyre (e.g. "a strange sideway out of Ladysmith" for death by disease or starvation). He died of enteric fever (now more commonly known as typhoid) on 15 January 1900, six weeks before the Natal Field Army of Redvers Buller relieved Ladysmith.

In popular culture
Jack London credited Steevens with inventing the cocktail Abu Hamed in the opening paragraph of The Inevitable White Man.

title: G. W. Steevens


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Triloki Nath Khoshoo

Triloki Nath Khoshoo (1927-2002) was an Indian environmental scientist and administrator. He started his professional career as the co-founder of the Department of Botany that moved to Khalsa College, Amritsar, soon after the partition of India.

After a brief stint as Chairman of the Botany Department at Jammu and Kashmir University, he joined the National Botanical Gardens, Lucknow, in 1964 as Assistant Director, where he worked under Kailas Nath Kaul, the Founder Director of the Gardens. He soon became the Director, and due to his efforts, the institution rose to the stature of being the National Botanical Research Institute in 1978.

Government posts
In 1982, he became the Secretary of the newly created Department of Environment in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's cabinet with the responsibility of developing a pro-active environmental policy for the country. In 1985, he joined TERI as a Distinguished Fellow and contributed to public policy discussions at national as well as international forums.

Writings
Khoshoo was a prolific writer. Over the course of five decades, he authored more than 250 research papers on plant genetics and evolution, biomass, energy, forestry, conservation and the utilization and management of natural resources. He wrote seven books and edited eleven more on a wide range of subjects. His book 'Mahatma Gandhi: An Apostle of Applied Human Ecology', published in 1996, was widely applauded for the practical relevance of Gandhian philosophy in today's world.

Decorations
In 1992, Khoshoo was decorated with one of India's highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan.

He was honored by the United Nations in 1996, when he was awarded the Sasakawa Environmental Prize by the United Nations Environment Program.

Cannaceae
The world of the Cannaceae family and the Canna genus has much to thank Khoshoo for, because it is from his work that we have gathered much of our knowledge of the genus. In all, Khoshoo authored and co-authored over 10 separate papers on the subject of Canna, many of which were bought together in a single document called Origin and Evolution of Cultivated Cannas.

Recommended reading

 * Khoshoo, T.N. & Guha, I — Origin and Evolution of Cultivated Cannas, Vikas Publishing House PVt Ltd.

title: Triloki Nath Khoshoo


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Lake Bodom murders

The Lake Bodom murders is one of the most infamous unsolved homicide cases in Finnish criminal history. Sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (EET) on 5 June 1960, at Lake Bodom in Espoo, Uusimaa, Maila Björklund and Anja Mäki (both 15) and Seppo Boisman (18) were killed by stabbing and blunt-force trauma to their heads while sleeping inside a tent. The fourth youth, Nils Gustafsson, then aged 18, was found outside the tent with broken facial bones and stab wounds. Despite extensive investigations, the perpetrator was never identified and various theories on the killer's identity have been presented over the years. Gustafsson was unexpectedly arrested on suspicion of committing the murders in 2004, but he was found not guilty the following year.

Murders
On Saturday, June 4, 1960, four Finnish teenagers had decided to camp along the shore of Lake Bodom (Finnish: Bodominjärvi, Swedish: Bodom träsk), near the city of Espoo's Oittaa Manor. Maila Irmeli Björklund and Anja Tuulikki Mäki were both aged 15 at the time; accompanying them were their boyfriends, Seppo Antero Boisman and Nils Wilhelm Gustafsson, both aged 18.

Sometime between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. (EET) during the early morning hours of Sunday, June 5, 1960, Mäki, Björklund and Boisman were all stabbed and bludgeoned to death by an unknown assailant. Gustafsson, the only survivor of the massacre, had fractured facial bones that appeared to confirm his story of being a victim. He stated afterwards that he had seen a glimpse of an attacker clothed in black with bright red eyes coming for them.

At about 6:00 a.m., a group of boys birdwatching some distance away had reportedly seen the tent collapsed and a blond man walking away from the site. The bodies of the victims were discovered at about 11:00 a.m. by a carpenter named Esko Oiva Johansson. He alerted the police, who arrived on the scene at noon.

Initial investigation
The killer had not injured the victims from inside the tent, but instead had attacked the occupants from outside with a knife and an unidentified blunt instrument (possibly a rock) through the sides of the tent. The murder weapons have never been located. The killer had taken several items which detectives found puzzling, including the keys to the victims' motorcycles, which themselves had been left behind. Gustafsson's shoes were partially hidden approximately 500 meters from the murder site. The police did not cordon off the site nor record the details of the scene (later seen as a major error) and almost immediately allowed a crowd of police officers and other people to trample around and disturb the evidence. The mistake was further exacerbated by calling in soldiers to assist with the search around the lake for the missing items, several of which were never found.

Björklund, Gustafsson's girlfriend, was found undressed from the waist down and was lying on top of the tent, and had suffered the most injuries out of all of the victims. She was stabbed multiple times after her death, whilst the other two teenagers were slain with less brutality. Gustafsson was also found lying on the top of the tent.

Suspects
There have been numerous suspects over the course of the investigation of the Lake Bodom murders, but the following are the most notable.

Valdemar Gyllström
Many local people suspected Karl Valdemar Gyllström, a kiosk keeper from Oittaa known to have been hostile towards campers. Police found no hard evidence to link him to the actual murders. They were skeptical of supposed confessions he was said to have made because they considered him disturbed. He drowned in Lake Bodom in 1969, most likely by suicide. The people in the town knew Gyllström was violent, cut down tents, threw rocks at people who came to his street, and some have later said that it was Gyllström they saw coming back from the murder scene but were too afraid to call the police about him. The police never recovered DNA from Gyllström. A book released in 2006 brings up the theory in detail. The book also claims that the police almost immediately ignored much more evidence that was previously unknown to the public because of language barriers, among other things.

Hans Assmann
Most public suspicion focused on Hans Assmann, who lived several kilometers from the shore of Lake Bodom. A series of popular books promulgated a theory of Assmann committing the Bodom killings, and other murders. It was not taken seriously by the police, as Assmann had an alibi for the night of the Bodom murders (and was said to have been in Germany during the time of another murder). On the morning of June 6, 1960, however, he had shown up at a hospital in Helsinki with bloody clothes. Hans was also a suspect in five other cases, even confessing to one on his death bed.

Pentti Soininen
During the mid-1960s, an individual named Pentti Soininen, known for his violent tendencies, claimed to a fellow inmate that he was responsible for the murders that occurred at Lake Bodom. However, he was approximately 14 years old at the time of the murders. Many question whether he could have single-handedly overpowered four older teenagers, casting doubt on his involvement.

Arrest and trial of Nils Gustafsson
In late March 2004, almost 44 years after the event, Gustafsson was arrested. In early 2005, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation declared the case was solved based on new forensic analysis. According to the prosecution's interpretation of the bloodstains, Gustafsson had been drunk and excluded from the tent when he attacked the other boy, getting his jaw broken in a fight which escalated into him committing three murders.

The trial started on August 4, 2005. Gustafsson's defense lawyer argued that the murders were the work of one or more outsiders and that Gustafsson would have been incapable of killing three people given the extent of his injuries. It had always been known that the shoes worn by the killer and hidden by him 500 yard away from the tent belonged to Gustafsson, who was found barefoot on top of the tent. Modern DNA analysis was significant for the prosecution as it showed that the three murdered victims' blood was on Gustafsson's shoes, but Gustafsson's was completely absent.

The prosecution said it followed from the lack of Gustafsson's blood on the shoes, that his injuries had occurred at a different time to the attack on the murdered victims, and that the only explanation of this was that Gustafsson had committed the murders, then faked the theft of items by hiding them, further injured himself and then went back to the tent where (now barefoot) he pretended to be unconscious. The prosecution attempted to bolster their case by alleging an identification by two birdwatchers of Gustafsson as the tall blond man at the scene of the crime, an assertion that he had been overheard making an incriminating remark, and also that a decade after the event he had boasted to a woman about his guilt.

On October 7, 2005, Gustafsson was acquitted of all charges. The court explained the verdict as due to the prosecution’s evidence being inconclusive, failure to show Gustafsson had a motive appropriate to a crime of such extreme seriousness, and certainty about the facts now being impossible given the time that had elapsed. The State of Finland paid him €44,900 for the mental suffering caused by the long remand time, but he was refused permission to sue Finnish newspapers for defamation.

Podcasts

 * The case was covered by the Heart Starts Pounding podcast on July 12, 2023.
 * The case was covered by the Casefile True Crime podcast on October 30, 2021.
 * The case was covered by Morbid: A True Crime Podcast on August 28, 2018.
 * The case was covered by RedHanded in August, 2017.
 * This case was covered by MrBallen on March 17, 2024.
 * This case was covered by De Volksjury in March, 2018.

title: Lake Bodom murders


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Chief superintendent

Chief superintendent is a senior rank in police forces, especially in those organised on the British model.

Australia
In Australia, a chief superintendent is senior to the rank of superintendent in all the Australian police forces excepting the Western Australia Police. It is junior to the rank of commander (Victoria Police, South Australia Police) and the rank of assistant commissioner (New South Wales Police, Queensland Police). Officers wear the insignia of a crown over two Bath stars (or in the case of the New South Wales Police, a crown over two stars) the same as a colonel in the army.

Canada
In the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police, a chief superintendent wears two Bath stars (or pips) below a crown, equivalent to a colonel. In the RCMP, the rank falls between superintendent and assistant commissioner. The OPP rank is between superintendent and deputy commissioner or provincial commander.

Hong Kong
In the Hong Kong Police Force, a chief superintendent of police (CSP) ranks between a senior superintendent (SSP) and an assistant commissioner of police (ACP). A CSP is usually a district commander (DC) or a branch or bureau commander (e.g. Narcotics Bureau). The commandant of the police tactical unit is also a CSP.

Ireland
In the Garda Síochána, the Republic of Ireland's national police force, the rank of chief superintendent is between superintendent and assistant commissioner. Chief superintendents usually command divisions, while detective chief superintendents head the various investigative branches. The rank marking is two red and gold pips over a red and gold bar.

Japan
The Japanese Prefectural police forces formerly used this rank. It has now been replaced by the rank of commissioner. A chief superintendent was chief of a prefectural police force and equivalent in rank to a Japanese army major general.

Papua New Guinea
In the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary, a chief superintendent is normally a metropolitan superintendent or the director of a police division. The rank is between superintendent and assistant commissioner.

Philippines
In the Philippines, chief superintendent is a rank in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology and the Bureau of Fire Protection. It is above senior superintendent and below bureau director and is regarded as the equivalent of brigadier general in the Philippine Army. It was formerly used by the Philippine National Police.

Portugal
Chief superintendent (superintendente-chefe) is the highest officer rank in the Public Security Police (PSP) of Portugal. It is senior to the police rank of superintendent, being roughly equivalent to a general officer in the armed forces.

Chiefs superintendents can exercise the roles of national director, deputy national directors, inspector general of the PSP and commanding officers of major police commands.

The basic rank insignia of a chief superintendent consists of dark blue epaulets bordered with silver leaves of oak and with two PSP stars (six points silver stars with the SP monogram in the center) in the middle. If exercising the role of national director or deputy national director / inspector general, the chief superintendents use instead, respectively, four and three PSP stars.

United Kingdom
In the British police, a chief superintendent (Ch Supt; or colloquially "chief super") is senior to a superintendent and junior to an assistant chief constable (or a commander in the Metropolitan Police or City of London Police).

The rank of chief superintendent was first introduced into the Metropolitan Police in 1949, when superintendents were regraded to the new rank, and has since been adopted in all British police forces. However, the rank had been used previously to this in some forces in certain circumstances. For example, in 1920 the deputy head of Shropshire Constabulary bore the official title of "chief superintendent and deputy chief constable" and in 1927, Lancashire Constabulary had two chief superintendents who were junior to the assistant chief constable.

Between 1949 and 1968, chief superintendent was junior to deputy commander in the Metropolitan Police, and between 1953 and 1974 it was immediately senior to superintendent grade I.

Traditionally, chief superintendents have commanded divisions, but since widespread reorganisation in the 1990s many forces have abandoned divisions for different forms of organisation and the areas commanded by chief superintendents vary widely from force to force. In most forces, however, they still command the largest territorial subdivisions, often known generally as basic command units (BCUs). The rank of chief superintendent was abolished on 1 April 1995 following recommendations made in the Sheehy Report, later confirmed by the Police Act 1996, although officers already holding the rank could continue to hold it. The Home Office officially reintroduced the rank of chief superintendent on 1 January 2002, under the terms of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001.

The senior detective and commander of the criminal investigation department in most forces is a detective chief superintendent (DCS or Det Ch Supt) (although in the Metropolitan Police, a DCS may only command a branch of the CID and the head of CID in each district was formerly also a DCS) and the rank of chief superintendent may also be used by the commanders of other headquarters departments.

The rank badge, worn on the epaulettes, is a bath star ("pip") below a crown, the same rank badge worn by a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army. Metropolitan Police chief superintendents wore a crown over two stars until the abolition of the rank of superintendent grade I in 1974, after which they changed to the latter's rank badge, which was already worn by chief superintendents elsewhere in the country.

A chief superintendent's annual salary starts at £81,156 and rises to £85,614 with an additional London weighting of £2,373 (as of April 2019).

title: Chief superintendent


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James Hutchison Stirling

James Hutchison Stirling (22 June 1820 – 19 March 1909) was a Scottish idealist philosopher and physician. His work The Secret of Hegel (1st edition, 1865, in 2 vols.; revised edition, 1898, in 1 vol.) gave great impetus to the study of Hegelian philosophy both in Britain and in the United States, and it was also accepted as an authoritative work on Hegel's philosophy in Germany and Italy. The book helped to create the philosophical movement known as British idealism.

Biography
James Hutchison Stirling was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the fifth son (and the youngest of six children) of William Stirling (died 14 March 1851) and Elizabeth Christie (d. 1828). William was a wealthy textile manufacturer who was a partner in the Glasgow firm of James Hutchison & Co., which manufactured muslin (lightweight cotton cloth in a plain weave, used for making sheets and for a variety of other purposes). William was known for his deeply-held religious views, many of which strongly influenced his son James.

Stirling studied at Young's Academy in Glasgow, followed by nine years of education (1833–1842) at the University of Glasgow, where he studied medicine, history, and classics. He became a Licentiate (1842, medical diploma) and Fellow (1860) of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Stirling married Jane Hunter Mair (died 5 July 1903), an old family friend, on 28 April 1847 in Irvine, North Ayrshire, Scotland. The couple had seven children (five daughters and two sons), as follows: Jessie Jane Stirling (born 26 June 1850) (who married Rev. Robert Armstrong of Glasgow), Elizabeth Margaret Stirling (11 February 1852 – 1871), Amelia Hutchison Stirling, Florence Hutchison Stirling (1858 – 6 May 1948), Lucy Stirling, William Stirling, and David Stirling. Stirling's daughter Amelia wrote many books on historical subjects, and she was the joint-translator—with William Hale White (1831–1913)—of Spinoza's Ethics (1883). She also wrote a biography of her father James titled James Hutchison Stirling: His Life and Work (London and Leipzig: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912). Stirling's daughter Florence won the Scottish Ladies' Championship in chess five times (in 1905, 1906, 1907, 1912, and 1913).

After receiving a large inheritance from his father's estate in 1851, Stirling left his medical practice. He then set out to learn French and German, for the purpose of being able to better understand continental philosophical trends. In pursuit of this goal, he moved his family briefly to Boulogne-sur-Mer, France (located in the current Pas-de-Calais department of the Hauts-de-France region), then to Paris for 18 months, then to St. Servan (located two miles from the ferry port of St. Malo in the Ille-et-Vilaine department of the Brittany region of France) for four and a half years, and then finally to Heidelberg, Germany. In November 1857, Stirling and his family took up residence in London (at 3 Wilton Terrace, Kensington), where they lived for about three years. After this, in 1860 Stirling returned to Edinburgh—his address there was 4 Laverockbank Road, Trinity, Edinburgh —which then became his permanent residence until the end of his life, and where he wrote on the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and many other subjects. The primary result of his comprehensive Hegel studies was his influential work The Secret of Hegel (2 vols., 1865).

One of Stirling's other major philosophical works—Philosophy and Theology (1890) (consisting of his 20 Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1889–1890)—focuses not on Hegelian philosophical topics, but on Charles Darwin's evolutionary theories.

Frederick Copleston (A History of Philosophy vol. VII, p. 12) wrote: "we may be inclined to smile at J. H. Stirling's picture of Hegel as the great champion of Christianity".

Stirling died in Edinburgh and is buried in Warriston Cemetery on the north side of the city. His grave lies in the centre of the long, upper section north of the vaults, facing south onto an east–west path.

Selected publications
An extensive bibliography of works by and about J.H. Stirling has been produced by Prof. Colin Tyler (Centre for Idealism and the New Liberalism at the University of Hull, UK). It can be downloaded at: https://idealismandnewliberalism.org/bibliographies/

Other works:
 * Sir William Hamilton (1865)
 * The Secret of Hegel (1865)
 * Text-book to Kant (1881)
 * Philosophy and Theology (1890) (Gifford Lectures)
 * Darwinianism: workmen and work (1894) – In this work Stirling recollects views on Darwin's theory of evolution, including that of Thomas Brown and others, stating: "it is the theory involved which it is also my endeavour, with all honour, to refute." Stirling states "it is not by any means necessary that an evolutionist should be also a Darwinian."
 * What is Thought? or the Problem of Philosophy (1900)
 * The Categories (1903).

More concerned with literature:
 * Jerrold, Tennyson, and Macaulay (1868)
 * Burns in Drama (1878)
 * Philosophy in the Poets (1885).

title: James Hutchison Stirling


text:
Dalian Shide F.C.

Dalian Shide was a professional Chinese football club based in Dalian, Liaoning province, China who played in China's football league system between 1955 and 2012. Their home stadiums were the 55,843 capacity Dalian People's Stadium and then later in 1997 they moved to the 30,776 capacity Jinzhou Stadium.

The club was initially founded in 1955 as Dalian Shipyards and made sporadic appearances within the Chinese national leagues until 1982 when the local Dalian government took ownership of the club and renamed it Dalian Football Club. The club won their first major silverware when they won the 1992 domestic cup title. In 1993, the club was reorganised to become a completely professional football team, renamed themselves Dalian Wanda FC and went on to win the first fully professional 1994 Chinese Jia-A League title. The tycoon Xu Ming and the Shide Group would go on to take over the club rename it Dalian Shide.

Achieving a total of eight league titles from both the Jia A and the rebranded CSL Dalian were the most successful club in Chinese football, while in the Asian Football Confederation the club reached the 1997–98 Asian Club Championship and 2000–01 Asian Cup Winners' Cup finals.

History
The club was founded as Dalian Shipyards in 1955. After the 1982 season the local Dalian government took over its ownership and renamed it Dalian Football Club to represent the city. The club immediately became a major force within the second tier and eventually win promotion to the top level in 1984 when they won the division title. For the next several seasons Dalian were predominantly top tier regulars except for one season in 1989 when they were in the second tier, however they quickly won promotion and soon went on to win their first domestic cup in 1992.

Soon afterwards the Chinese Football Association started to demand full professionalism and sponsorship from all the clubs in China. Dalian went on to be one of the first fully professionalised clubs in China on July 3, 1992. They gained sponsorship in 1993 from the China Hualu group and then the Dalian Wanda Group on March 8, 1994, who changed the club's name to Dalian Wanda FC. In the inaugural fully professional 1994 league season, the club brought in former Chinese national team manager Zhang Honggen to coach the team and under his leadership guide the club to their first ever league title. The following season saw Zhang Honggen decide to not stay on as the club's manager and Dalian were unable to retain the league title, however the club eventually brought in former Chinese international player Chi Shangbin into the club as their new manager. With Wang Jianlin and the full support of his company the Dalian Wanda Group taking full ownership of the club, they started to build a football dynasty by winning the 1996 league season undefeated. Domestic dominance continued in the 1997 league season while Dalian narrowly just missed out on 1997–98 Asian Club Championship and Chi Shangbin decided to leave to take on a position with the Chinese national team. Despite this Dalian had a well-funded and prolific academy that produced numerous Chinese internationals such as Zhang Enhua, Li Ming and Sun Jihai and with another former Chinese national team manager Xu Genbao Dalian were easily able to replicate their success by winning the 1998 league title.

In 2000 at the height of their success, Wang Jianlin decided to pull out from football after publicly criticizing Chinese referees for match fixing and he did not return to football until 2011 when his associated Wanda Group sponsored the 2011 Chinese Super League after former Chinese FA Vice-chairmen Xie Yalong and Nan Yong stood on trial for bribery.

On January 9, 2000, Wang Jianlin sold Dalian to Xu Ming and the Shide Group for 120 million Yuan and the club's name was changed to Dalian Shide. The new owners brought in Serbian Milorad Kosanović as their new manager and win another league title in the 2000 league season. Kosanović made the men's team by far the most successful team in Chinese football by winning the 2001, 2002 league title, 2001 Chinese FA Cup and just missing out on 2000–01 Asian Cup Winners' Cup during his reign. When Milorad Kosanović left to coach the Serbia and Montenegro national under-21 football team the club eventually brought in Vladimir Petrović who guided the team to the recently rebranded 2005 Chinese Super League title as well as 2005 Chinese FA Cup. With the retirement of striker Hao Haidong and Vladimir Petrović leaving to take the Chinese national team management position, the club went through an inconsistent period due to team and coach changes. In 2008, Dalian Shide selected a number of players from its academy to play in a satellite team in the S.League in Singapore, called Dalian Shide Siwu FC.

On 14 February 2010, Zhang Yalin died of lymphoma in Dalian, Liaoning, aged 28, after a two-year-battle with the disease.

On 30 November 2012, Dalian Shide were acquired by Aerbin Group and merged into Dalian Aerbin F.C., although a lot of confusion and rumour surrounded the demise of Shide.

Club name history

 * 1955–1982: Dalian Shipyards
 * 1983–1992: Dalian Football Club
 * 1993: Dalian Hualu
 * 1994–1998: Dalian Wanda
 * 1999: Dalian Wanda Shide
 * 2000–2012: Dalian Shide

Grounds
Dalian played in the 55,843 seat multi-purpose Dalian People's Stadium for much of their early history. In 1997 the club moved to the recently built 31,000 seat multi-use Jinzhou Stadium in Dalian, China.

Retired numbers
26 – 🇨🇳 Zhang Yalin, Midfielder, 2000–2009 posthumous. The number was retired in March 2010.

Managerial history
Managers who have coached the club and team since the team became a professional club back on July 3, 1992

Honours
All-time honours list including amateur period.

League

 * Chinese Jia-A League/Chinese Super League
 * Winners (8): 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005
 * Chinese Jia-B League
 * Winners (2): 1983, 1984
 * Chinese Yi League/China League Two (Third Tier League)
 * Winners (1): 1981

Cup

 * Chinese FA Cup
 * Winners (3): 1992, 2001, 2005
 * Chinese Super Cup
 * Winners (3): 1997, 2001, 2003

Continental

 * Asian Club Championship
 * Runners-up (1): 1997–98
 * Asian Cup Winners' Cup
 * Runners-up (1): 2001

Youth

 * U19
 * U19 Winners Cup Winners: 2006
 * U17
 * U17 Youth League Champions: 2000

Results
All-time League Rankings

 * As of end of 2012 league season.

 * No promotion. : In final group stage. : Deduct 6 points for abandoning a match in protest of a referee's call.

Key

 * Pld = Played
 * W = Games won
 * D = Games drawn
 * L = Games lost
 * F = Goals for
 * A = Goals against
 * Pts = Points
 * Pos = Final position

 * DNQ = Did not qualify
 * DNE = Did not enter
 * NH = Not Held
 * - = Does Not Exist
 * R1 = Round 1
 * R2 = Round 2
 * R3 = Round 3
 * R4 = Round 4

 * F = Final
 * SF = Semi-finals
 * QF = Quarter-finals
 * R16 = Round of 16
 * Group = Group stage
 * GS2 = Second Group stage
 * QR1 = First Qualifying Round
 * QR2 = Second Qualifying Round
 * QR3 = Third Qualifying Round

title: Dalian Shide F.C.


text:
Blue-billed teal

The blue-billed teal, spotted teal or Hottentot teal (Spatula hottentota) is a species of dabbling duck of the genus Spatula. It is migratory resident in eastern and southern Africa, from Sudan and Ethiopia west to Niger and Nigeria and south to South Africa and Namibia. In west Africa and Madagascar it is sedentary.

The blue-billed teal breed year round, depending on rainfall, and stay in small groups or pairs. They build nests above water in tree stumps and use vegetation. Ducklings leave the nest soon after hatching, and the mother's parenting is limited to providing protection from predators and leading young to feeding areas. This species is omnivorous and prefers smaller shallow bodies of water.

The blue-billed teal is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies. The status of the blue-billed teal on the IUCN Red List is Least Concern.

Several authorities still refer to this species as the Hottentot teal, however, as the word "Hottentot" is an offensive term for the Khoisan people, there has been a movement to change the vernacular name.

Taxonomy
Spatula hottentota was previously placed in the genus Anas, called Anas punctata. This name was suppressed owing to confusion over type specimens. It has been also referred as Anas hottentota. and Querquedula hottentota.

Blue-billed teal is considered monotypic, with no subspecies being recognised.

Identification
Adult males have dark brown crown contrasting with paler face, throat, breast and side except for a blackish thumb-shaped patch on the ear region. The back of the neck is spotted with black and this spotting extends down through the neck and become intensively spotted on the breast, the spots appear to be larger and less obvious on the light brown flanks and abdomen, and the posterior underparts and under tail coverts becoming vermiculated with black. The scapulars and tail are dark brown to black, the upper wing surface is blackish as well, with the coverts giving a greenish gloss. An iridescent green speculum exists on the secondaries, bounded posteriorly by narrow black and terminal white bars. The iris is brown, the legs and feet are bluish gray, and the bill is light bluish gray with a blackish culmen and nail.

Females have browner crowns, they have less contrasting facial markings and more rounded scapulars, the under tail coverts are not vermiculated, and the wing is less glossy and colorful than that of an adult male.

Juveniles resemble adult females but are duller throughout the body and less distinctively marked with spots. Ducklings have grayish brown underparts and yellowish grey below, the cheeks is paler with pinky puff wash and grey-brown ear patch.

See External Links for duck external anatomy.

Measurements and weights
The blue-billed teal was described as the smallest known duck by D. D. Thomas and J. B. Condy in 1965.

 * Length: 330–350 mm
 * Weight: 53-288 g
 * Wing: 147–157 mm
 * Tail: 55–66 mm
 * Bill: 32–42 mm
 * Eggs: 43×33 mm in average, creamy, 25 g

Distribution and habitat
The range of the blue-billed teal extends in Africa from Angola, Zambia, eastern Congo, Malawi, northern Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, southern Ethiopia, Sudan and Madagascar. They are mainly found in tropical eastern Africa: Ethiopia to Cape Province, westward to northern Botswana and Namibia, and Madagascar.

See External Links for their distribution map.

The blue-billed teal prefers habitats with abundant floating-leaf plants and fringe vegetations, including shallow fresh-water swamps, marshes, streams, shallow small lakes and ponds with fringed edges of reeds or papyrus. They are observed to spend the twilight and night hours dabbling in very shallow waters and move to deeper and safer parts of the marsh during daytime.

Behavior
The blue-billed teal is sedentary in West Africa and Madagascar but partly migratory elsewhere, following a regular but unpredictable short-distance migration routes (up to 700 km) in southern and eastern Africa in response to changing water levels.

Feeding and diet
The blue-billed teal prefers feeding at muddy edges, it will also feed on lands and flooded fields like rice paddies, and in waterside that is disturbed heavily by livestock. It feeds in well-vegetated areas by dabbling, swimming or on foot. No diving during foraging is recorded. It is omnivorous, although its diet consists mainly of grass seeds, especially of the grass Sacciolepis, however it may also consume aquatic invertebrates almost exclusively such as crustaceans like ostracods, molluscs, water insects such as beetles and their larvae, if these are super abundant.

Molt
Molt is poorly understood in the blue-billed teal, there is no identified eclipse plumage in males, but breeding males are much brighter than females and the breast spots are more distinct.

Vocalization
Both sexes produce series of clicking notes, given as harsh ke-ke-ke when they are disturbed, during flying or within flock. Males produce a highly distinctive wooden rattling call that sounds like a mechanical rattle, while the female has a typical quack and a decrescendo call of only a few notes.

Social behavior and reproduction
The breeding behavior of the blue-billed teal is relatively undemonstrative. Based on current research, the bond of blue-billed teal does not extend beyond the female's incubation period, suggesting the bond is presumably reestablished annually. Although majority of breeding is observed in summer, this species also breed in winter, and thus courtship behavior can be seen throughout the whole year. The most common display in this species is the combination of female inciting and male turning the back of the head. Female blue-billed teal incites males by doing lateral movements silently or nearly silently, and males usually respond by swimming ahead and turning the back of the head. However, the males may respond by drinking, they raise their neck vertically and produce a soft mechanical series of call notes (burping) and they sometimes combine these two displays in a burp-drinking order. Moreover, during social display, the duck frequently perform a wing-flapping and both-wing-stretch sequence of behavior that seems to be a significant part of the display. Pre-copulatory behavior consists of mutual head pumping, and post-copulatory display by the male may vary from no perceptible activity to a swimming shake, wing flapping, or burping. The female most usually only bathes after copulation. The cluster size for this species ranges from 6 to 8 eggs with 7 being the most frequently encountered number. However, based on Clark's observation on the Witwatersrand, the ducklings in families ranges from 1 to 7 with 3 predominating. Incubation period ranges from 25 to 27 days for naturally incubated clutches. The male may remain nearby as the female incubates, but there is no indication of further male participation in brood rearing. So far as is known, the species is not multiple-brooded, although nest failure may lead to re-nesting.

Status and conservation
It is a least concern species on the IUCN Red List. However, habitat degradation is a threat to this species. Protecting wetland and waterside vegetation and controlling hunting will help maintain the population.

title: Blue-billed teal


text:
Edgar Whitcomb

Edgar Doud Whitcomb (November 6, 1917 – February 4, 2016) was an American attorney, writer and politician, who served as the 43rd governor of Indiana. His term as governor began a major rift in the Indiana Republican Party as urban Republicans became more numerous than rural Republicans, leading to a shift in the priorities of the party leadership.

Whitcomb found himself opposed by speaker of the house Otis R. Bowen on a number of measures and for control of the party leadership. Despite his opposition, Whitcomb was able to increase tax revenue by 8% without raising tax rates through improved collection and auditing techniques, created a panel of business leaders to recommend governmental reforms aimed at increasing efficiency that allowed the state to reduce its workforce by 10% and fought for a number of budgetary saving measures primarily through reducing state employee wages and spending in non-essential areas.

After leaving office, Whitcomb ran for the U.S. Senate in 1976 but was defeated in the Republican primary by Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar. Whitcomb returned to the practice of law and moved to Seymour, Indiana. In 1985, he retired, divorced from his wife of thirty-three years and took up sailboating. He sailed around the Mediterranean Sea, across the Atlantic Ocean in 1990 and geographically sailed around the world in 1995, although he was not able to return to his exact starting point, because his ship ran aground on a reef in the Gulf of Suez. After two days of trying to free the ship, he made the decision to abandon it. Returning to Indiana, he moved to a secluded log cabin on the banks of the Ohio River within the Hoosier National Forest near Rome, Indiana in 2000. He married for a second time in 2013 and died in 2016, aged 98.

Family and military career
Whitcomb was born on November 6, 1917, in Hayden, Indiana, the second child and first son of John Whitcomb and Louise Doud Whitcomb. An outgoing and athletic youth, he was a member of his high school basketball team. He entered Indiana University in 1939 to study law, but quit school to join the military at the outbreak of World War II.

He enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in 1940 and was deployed to the Pacific Theater. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1941 and made an aerial navigator. He served two tours of duty in the Philippines and was promoted to First Lieutenant. During the Philippines Campaign, Whitcomb's base was overrun; he was captured by the Japanese and was beaten and tortured by his captors, but was able to escape. Recaptured a few days later, he escaped a second time and was hunted for several more days but was able to evade his pursuers. He escaped by swimming all night through shark-infested waters to an island unoccupied by the Japanese army. He was eventually able to secure passage to China under an assumed name where he made contact with the United States Army and was repatriated in December 1943. He wrote a book about his experience entitled Escape from Corregidor, published in 1958. He was discharged from active duty in 1946, but he remained in the reserve military forces until 1977 holding the rank of colonel.

Following the war, he returned to and graduated from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He met and married Patricia Dolfuss on May 10, 1953, and the couple had five children.

Early political career
Whitcomb was a member of the Republican Party. He was first elected to public office in 1950, serving for three years in the Indiana State Senate before resigning to begin his law practice. Indiana General Assembly sessions were held biennially during his time in that legislative body; there were no sessions scheduled to convene while he was still in office.

Whitcomb passed the bar exam in 1954 and began a law practice. He set up a successful law firm in North Vernon, but in later years he moved his practice, having offices in both Seymour and Indianapolis. His law practice helped him build his political base for a run for statewide office.

In 1966, Whitcomb was elected to serve as Indiana Secretary of State, a position he used to springboard for his political career. He was appointed by the Governor of Indiana to serve on the Great Lakes Compact Commission, a commission with representatives from the Great Lake states who oversaw joint projects for preserving and developing the Great Lakes. He held both offices concurrently until his resignation in December 1968.

Election and infighting
At the 1968 Republican state convention, Whitcomb competed to win the nomination for governor against Indiana House of Representatives minority leader Otis R. Bowen and future Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. Backed by the party leaders of several large counties, Whitcomb overcame Bowen and Butz to secure the nomination. Bowen, after being nominated for governor in 1972, advocated the nomination of candidates for governor and US Senator by primary elections. Whitcomb's opponent in the general election was Democratic candidate Robert L. Rock, and the campaign focused largely on tax policy and national issues. Although Democrats had taken strong majorities in the state government in the past two elections, the 1968 election returned the Republicans to power, giving them strong majorities in the General Assembly, and a win in all the congressional and statewide elections, except one. Whitcomb was among the beneficiaries of the cycle and took office on January 13, 1969.

During his term, the state adopted a new districting system that for the first time granted more seats in the Indiana General Assembly to urban areas. The situation created by the new development caused a split in the party between the urban and rural Republicans. Urban Republicans and their representatives tended to favor increasing government-provided services and spending, while the rural Republicans tended to favor reduced spending and more limited government. Whitcomb found himself in party with the rural Republicans, while Bowen, who had become speaker of the house, grew to become a leader among the urban members. Whitcomb vetoed a number of spending bills passed by the assembly and began a fight for control of the party leadership. Whitcomb suffered a stunning political setback on November 25, 1970, when aides failed to block what the Indianapolis News called "a unanimous vote" to elect former Whitcomb supporter and State Treasurer John K. Snyder to the post of Republican Party chairman. The Indianapolis Star, under the front-page banner "Snyder to Head State GOP" on Nov 25, chronicled the Whitcomb political disaster. Highlighting the depth of the defeat, then-President Richard Nixon personally wrote Snyder on December 15, 1970, to express his personal support. (In later years Whitcomb and Snyder resumed their former friendship, which in 1970 was described by the Indianapolis News as "bitter.") In a hardball political move following Snyder's election, Whitcomb diverted Republican political contributions to a special fund in the Governor's office and nearly bankrupted the state party. Snyder subsequently resigned from his leadership position and Whitcomb installed a new chairman, Jim Neal, a newspaper editor from Noblesville, who remained friendly to his positions, but neutral at the 1972 convention. Contemporaneously, Whitcomb resumed collection of the fund to state party coffers. Bowen, meanwhile, had been able to install a number of people in key county leadership positions that effectively gave his wing of the party real control.

Government efficiency reforms
Despite the party infighting, Whitcomb was able to successfully advocate for the passage of a number of bills to expand the state highway system, to repeal laws passed during his predecessors’ terms that distributed funds to the county governments and to computerize both the state's criminal records and its Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Significant constitutional development took place during his term. Also on the ballot during his election campaign were a number of constitutional amendments, among them a reorganization of the state court system, changing the legislatures sessions to occur annually rather than biennially, a change that would allow governors to begin serving consecutive terms again, and the placing of a new cabinet position(s) in the constitution. Whitcomb however, could not run for a second term because he had been elected under the prior version of the constitution. Another significant event occurred during his first months in office when the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the pocket veto was unconstitutional, which passed into law several bills that had been pocket vetoed by his predecessors. Whitcomb requested that General Assembly pass an act repealing all laws that were enacted because of the Supreme Court decision, some of which were nearly a century old. The assembly complied with the request and passed a blanket repeal.

Indiana's income had been problematic in the two decades preceding Whitcomb's term and had necessitated major tax increases to fund the growing budget. Whitcomb had committed to not increasing the tax burden on the state in his campaign, but the state was not permitted to take on debt and was in need to growing its reserve funds. To increase the budget surplus, Whitcomb embarked on a number of cost reduction measures that required no legislative support. He created by executive order a commission of sixty business leaders to examine the entire operation of the state government and recommend changes to improve its operational efficiency. He used their findings to alter work flows that resulted in an annual savings of $12 million. They also made recommendations that would improve the efficiency of state taxes through better auditing techniques that once implemented raised state revenue by 8%. Additional savings were realized when because of the vastly improved government efficiency, less staff was needed to complete the work allowing the state to cut its workforce by 10%. Whitcomb also saved money by withholding non-mandatory pay raises for most state employees.

Whitcomb's cost savings plans were strongly opposed by the state teachers’ union, Democrats and a large part of the urban Republicans aggregate. The public, however, was pleased with Whitcomb's actions and he left office with a high approval rating on January 8, 1973. After leaving office he returned to his law practice.

Later years
In 1976, Whitcomb sought the Republican nomination to the United States Senate, but was defeated in the primary by Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar. He then returned to his private law practice which in turn he soon moved to Seymour, Indiana. He served several years as the director of the Mid American World Trade Association and took a job for a media company based in Indianapolis and spent time traveling the United States setting up a network of FM radio stations.

Whitcomb retired from his law practice in 1985, at age 68. He and his wife divorced in 1986 after a thirty-three-year marriage. Whitcomb's second book, On Celestial Wings, was published in 1995. Whitcomb took up sailing as a hobby and purchased a 30 ft boat. He sailed solo around the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic and with Jeff La Dage in the Pacific Ocean. In 1995, while attempting to sail around the world, his ship hit a reef in the Gulf of Suez and sank. He was rescued and returned to the United States. He wrote a book about his sailing experiences that was published in 2011, titled Cilin II : a solo sailing odyssey. In 2000 he purchased a secluded cabin in Rome, Indiana, on the Ohio River within the Hoosier National Forest. The home has electricity, although cabins he owned did not, and he spent most of his time there gardening, fishing and chopping firewood. During his last public interview in 2004, he told a reporter that he never reads the newspaper and was totally uninvolved in anything, and that he was "living in heaven." He married his long-time partner Evelyn Gayer in a private ceremony at their home in February 2013.

Whitcomb died in his sleep on February 4, 2016, at his home in Rome, Indiana, at the age of 98. He was the last living former American governor born in the 1910s. He is buried at Hayden Cemetery, in his hometown of Hayden, Indiana.

title: Edgar Whitcomb


text:
Philippine duck

The Philippine duck (Anas luzonica) is a large dabbling duck of the genus Anas. Its native name is papan. It is endemic to the Philippines.

It eats shrimp, fish, insects, and vegetation, and it frequents all types of wetlands.

Taxonomy
The Philippine duck is a dabbling duck and a member of the genus Anas. It has no subspecies and so it is monotypic. It belongs to the Pacific clade of Anas along with the koloa, the Laysan duck, the Pacific black duck, and the extinct Mariana mallard.

The scientific name comes from the Latin Anas, 'duck' and the Philippine island Luzon.

It is known in the Philippines as papan.

Description
The Philippine duck is a large conspicuous duck. It has a black crown, nape and eye stripe, with a cinnamon head and neck. The rest of its body is greyish brown with a bright green speculum. Its legs are greyish brown, and its bill is bluish-grey. The female is somewhat smaller than the male, but is otherwise the same.

Distribution and habitat
The Philippine duck is known to inhabit all of the major Philippine islands and 8 minor islands, but since the 1980s most sightings have been on Luzon and Mindanao. Long-distance vagrants have been sighted in Okinawa and Taiwan.

It is found in all types of wetlands within its range, but its preferred habitat is shallow freshwater marshland.

Conservation status
The Philippine duck is rated vulnerable on the IUCN Red List with the population estimated to be 3,300 - 6,700 mature individuals remaining. The species has experienced steep population decreases since the 1970s mainly due to hunting and habitat loss. The ducks have been heavily hunted since the 1960s with thousands being hunted a year through the late 1980s.

Habitat loss is mainly due to wetland drainage, aquaculture, mangrove destruction and fishpond creation.

The species occurs in multiple protected areas including Manleluag Spring Protected Landscape, Mounts Iglit-Baco National Park, Naujan Lake National Park, Bataan National Park, Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park and Olango Island, a Ramsar wetland. However, as is with most of the Philippines enforcement from hunting is lax.

title: Philippine duck


text:
Angus Og (comics)

Angus Og (originally Angus Òg) is a comic strip created by Scottish cartoonist Ewen Bain. It ran from 1960 to December 1989, first in the Glasgow Bulletin and then in the Daily Record and The Sunday Mail.

Background
Set on the fictional island of Drambeg (dràma beag, a wee dram) in the Utter Hebrides (Outer Hebrides in Scots slang), it featured the eponymous Angus Og, and a whole host of other characters, including:
 * Mrs Og, Angus's mother, and facially his virtual twin, distinguishable from Angus only by a headscarf and apron
 * Donald, Angus's brother
 * Lachie Mor, Angus's best friend
 * Mairileen, Angus's erstwhile girlfriend, who is rarely seen without her black beret, and Bain's Hebridean homage to Marilyn Monroe
 * Mr MacSonachan, the Minister
 * Rosie the Highland Cow
 * Granny McBrochan, the local spey-wife
 * Constable McPhater

The first story, published in the Bulletin in 1960, introduced Angus Og as a 'Highland beatnik', under the title "A Teenage Tangle of the Isles". "Òg" is Scottish Gaelic for "young", and "Angus" was seen as a stereotypical Highland first name. Angus Og was also the name of a figure in Gaelic mythology, a kind of love god, and a Scottish historical figure, a Lord of the Isles: it is possible that the name was an ironic reference to this.

Bain used eye dialect for the strip to approximate (and knowingly stereotype) a Western Isles accent: hence chentleman (gentleman), Tonald (Donald), effery (every) as well as aspects of Scots, such as bachle (clumsy or useless person), crater (creature) and the near-ubiquitous Ochone! (Oh no!) whenever things went wrong, as they invariably did. Given the largely Lowland readership of the Daily Record, Bain used virtually no Gaelic beyond Angus's name, and the occasional Ciamar a tha thu? (How are you?). Whenever the story featured Glasgow or Glaswegians (Angus's relatives all seemed to come from Glasgow), Bain took a similar approach, resembling the Parliamo Glasgow stereotype popularised by Stanley Baxter.

Angus Og has been described as the "archetypal cartoon teuchter". When he leaves the confines of the islands to go on holiday abroad, he still wears his wellington boots on the beach.

Bain wrote over 100 stories during the strip's 28-year existence. Most stories ran to around 70 daily instalments, around 2 months each. However several were shorter. The final story, The Devil to Pay, was unfinished at the time of Bain's death.

The original strips are now held at the Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre at Portree, having been donated by Bain's daughter in 2019. A touring exhibition in 2024, beginning at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow and subsequently in libraries across western Highland, showcased many of the original strips.

Plots
Originally, Bain introduced an element of fantasy to the stories, with Angus befriended by a 'wee man', a fairy-like spirit who helps him become a pop star chanter player. However, after joining the Daily Record, Bain was persuaded to ground the stories in more real-life situations, often featuring topical issues such as the change from and to British Summer Time (an issue of considerable controversy in the Highlands) and featuring figures such as the Prime Minister of the day. Bain himself was politically a supporter of Scottish independence and many of the strips satirised Westminster politics.

Following publication of The Kelpie between November 1983 and January 1984, a story involving the return of salmon to the upper Clyde, Bain was presented with a certificate from the Clyde River Purification Board in recognition of him raising awareness of the issue of river quality.

Some of the other memorable storylines included Drambeg being towed away to the Caribbean one night, and the islanders experiencing their own version of Whisky Galore.

Angus Og of Puckermuck Cove
A comic strip of the same name also appeared in Canada, as part of the Puckermuck Cove series, but was completely unrelated. The character hosted a website entitled "Every Celtic Thing on the Web" until 2000. It was created by Michael D. McNeill

Books
Four collections have been published, two in Bain's lifetime. Most feature complete stories, and together contain about a dozen complete, with the 21st anniversary collection featuring extracts only. As of 2015 all are out of print.
 * Bain, Ewen (1974) Angus Og (Glasgow: Daily Record)
 * Bain, Ewen (1981) 21 Years of Angus Og (Glasgow: Daily Record and Sunday Mail)
 * Bain, Ewen (1990) The Best of Angus Og (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Company Ltd) ISBN 1-85158-377-7
 * Bain, Ewen (1999) Angus Og: from the Og Logs (Glasgow: Zipo Publishing) ISBN 1-901984-04-4

title: Angus Og (comics)


text:
Hylaeosaurus

Hylaeosaurus (Greek: hylaios/ὑλαῖος "belonging to the forest" and sauros/σαυρος "lizard") is a herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur that lived about 136 million years ago, in the late Valanginian stage of the early Cretaceous period of England. It was found in the Grinstead Clay Formation.

Hylaeosaurus was one of the first dinosaurs to be discovered, in 1832 by Gideon Mantell. In 1842 it was one of the three dinosaurs Richard Owen based the Dinosauria on, the others being Iguanodon and Megalosaurus. Four species were named in the genus, but only the type species Hylaeosaurus armatus is today considered valid. Only limited remains have been found of Hylaeosaurus and much of its anatomy is unknown. It might have been a basal nodosaurid, although a recent cladistic analysis recovers it as a basal ankylosaurid.

Hylaeosaurus was about five metres long. It was an armoured dinosaur that carried at least three long spines on its shoulder.

History of discovery
The first Hylaeosaurus fossils were discovered in the Grinstead Clay Formation, West Sussex. On 20 July 1832, fossil collector Gideon Mantell wrote to Professor Benjamin Silliman that when a gunpowder explosion had demolished a quarry rock face in Tilgate Forest, several of the boulders freed showed the bones of a saurian. A local fossil dealer had assembled the about fifty pieces, described by him as a "great consarn of bites and boanes". Having doubts about the value of the fragments, Mantell had nevertheless purchased the pieces and soon discovered they could be united into a single skeleton, partially articulated. Mantell was delighted with the find because previous specimens of Megalosaurus and Iguanodon had consisted of single bone elements. The discovery in fact represented the most complete non-avian dinosaur skeleton known at the time. He was strongly inclined to describe the find as belonging to the latter genus, but during a visit by William Clift, the curator of the Royal College of Surgeons of England museum, and his assistant John Edward Gray, he began to doubt the identification. Clift was the first to point out that several plates and spikes were probably part of a body armour, attached to the back or sides of the rump. In November 1832 Mantell decided to create a new generic name: Hylaeosaurus. It is derived from the Greek ὑλαῖος, hylaios, "of the wood". Mantell originally claimed the name Hylaeosaurus meant "forest lizard", after the Tilgate Forest in which it was discovered. Later, he claimed that it meant "Wealden lizard" ("wealden" being another word for forest), in reference to the Wealden Group, the name for the early Cretaceous geological formation in which the dinosaur was first found.

On 30 November Mantell sent the piece to the Geological Society of London. Shortly afterwards he himself went to London and on 5 December during a meeting of the Society, in which he for the first time personally met Richard Owen, reported on the find to large acclaim. However, he was also informed that a paper he had already prepared, was a third too long. On advice of his friend Charles Lyell, Mantell decided instead of rewriting the paper, to publish an entire book on his fossil finds and dedicate a chapter to Hylaeosaurus. Within three weeks Mantell composed the volume from earlier notes. On 17 December Henry De la Beche warned him that the changed conventions in nomenclature implied that only he who provided a full species name was recognised as the author: to Hylaeosaurus a specific name needed to be added. Mantell on 19 December chose armatus, Latin for "armed" or "armoured", in reference to the spikes and armour plates. As Mantell himself put it: "there appears every reason to conclude that either its back was armed with a formidable row of spines, constituting a dermal fringe, or that its tail possessed the same appendage". In May 1833 his The Geology of the South-East of England appeared, hereby validly naming the type species Hylaeosaurus armatus. Mantell published a lithograph of his find in The Geology of the South-East of England; and another drawing in the fourth edition of The Wonders of Geology, in 1840.

Hylaeosaurus is the most obscure of the three animals used by Sir Richard Owen to first define the new group Dinosauria, in 1842, the other genera being Megalosaurus and Iguanodon. Not only has Hylaeosaurus received less public attention, despite being included in the life-sized models by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins placed in the Crystal Palace Park, it also never functioned as a "wastebasket taxon". Owen in 1840 developed a new hypothesis about the spikes; noting they were asymmetrical he correctly rejected the notion they formed a row on the back but incorrectly assumed they were gastralia or belly-ribs.

The original specimen, recovered by Gideon Mantell from the Tilgate Forest, was in 1838 acquired by the Natural History Museum of London. It has the inventory number NHMUK 3775 (earlier BMNH R3775). It was found in a layer of the Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation dating from the Valanginian, about 137 million years old. This holotype is the best specimen and is composed of the front end of a skeleton minus most of the head and the forelimbs, though only the parts on the face of the stone block are easily studied. The block measures about 135 by 75 centimetres. The holotype consists of the rear of the skull and perhaps lower jaws, ten vertebrae, both scapulae, both coracoids and several spikes and armour plates. The skeleton is viewed from below. For a long time no further preparation had taken place, beyond the assembly and chiselling out by Mantell himself, but in the early twenty-first century the museum began to further free the bones by both chemical and mechanical means. This has proven difficult because the acids used tended to dissolve the glue and gypsum with which the fossils had been repaired, causing the blocks to fall apart. The limited information gained by the preparations by Mark Graham since 2003, was published in 2020, together with a revised description.

Several finds from the mainland of Britain have been referred to Hylaeosaurus armatus. However, in 2011 Paul Barrett and Susannah Maidment concluded that only the holotype could with certainty be associated with the species, in view of the presence of Polacanthus in the same layers.

Additional remains have been referred to Hylaeosaurus, from the Isle of Wight, (the Ardennes of) France, Bückeberg Formation, Germany, Spain and Romania. The remains from France may actually belong to Polacanthus and the other references are today also considered dubious. However, possible remains were reported from Germany in 2013: a spike, specimen DLM 537 and the lower end of a humerus, specimen GPMM A3D.3, which were referred to a Hylaeosaurus sp.

Later species
Hylaeosaurus armatus Mantell 1833 is currently considered the only valid species in the genus. However, three others have been named. In 1844, Mantell named Hylaeosaurus oweni based on the same specimen as H. armatus, wanting to honour Richard Owen. This has been sunk as a junior objective synonym of H. armatus. In 1956 Alfred Romer renamed Regnosaurus into Hylaeosaurus northhamptoni. Polacanthus Owen 1865 was by Walter Coombs in 1971 renamed into Hylaeosaurus foxii. These last two names have found no acceptance; H. foxii remained an invalid nomen ex dissertatione. It has also been suggested that Polacanthus is simply the same species as Hylaeosaurus armatus and thus a junior synonym, but there are a number of differences in their osteology.

Sometimes bones from the Hylaeosaurus material have later been made separate species. In 1928 Franz Nopcsa made specimen BMNH 2584, a left scapula referred by Mantell to H. armatus, part of the type material of Polacanthoides ponderosus. Though in 1978 synonymised with Hylaeosaurus, Polacanthoides is today considered a nomen dubium, an indeterminate member of the Thyreophora.

Description
Gideon Mantell originally estimated that Hylaeosaurus was about 7.6 m long, or about half the size of the other two original dinosaurs, Iguanodon and Megalosaurus. At the time, he modelled the animal after a modern lizard. Modern estimates range up to 6 m in length. Gregory S. Paul in 2010 estimated the length at 5 m, the weight at 2 tonne. Some estimates are considerably lower: in 2001 Darren Naish e.a. gave a length of 3-4 m.

Many details about the build of Hylaeosaurus are unknown, especially if the material is strictly limited to the holotype. Maidment gave two autapomorphies, unique derived traits: the scapula did not fuse with the coracoid, even when the animal was of a considerable size; there were three long spines on its shoulder. Even these traits are not very distinctive: Mantell and Owen had attributed the lack of fusion to ontogeny and the total number of spines cannot be observed. Hylaeosaurus is often styled as a fairly typical nodosaur, with rows of armour plating on the back and tail combined with a relatively long head, equipped with a beak used to crop low-lying vegetation.

In 2001 the skull and lower jaws remains were described by Kenneth Carpenter. The damaged and shifted skull elements provided little information. The quadrate is laterally bowed. The quadratojugal has a high attachment point on the shaft of the quadrate. A triangular postorbital horn was present. In 2020, it was concluded that the presumed quadrate was in fact the jugal.

Several distinguishing traits were established in 2020. On the shoulder blade, there is a sharp angle of 120° between the acromion and the proximal plate. The acromial process is shelf-shaped instead of thumb-like or folded, from a point positioned at a third from the top edge projecting obliquely to below and sideways instead of strictly laterally. The top edge of the proximal plate is curved sideways. The sides of the centra of the neck vertebrae show a horizontal ridge. Apart from these autapomorphies, the undersides of the side processes of the back vertebrae are exceptionally concave.

The spines at the shoulder are curved to the rear, long, flattened, narrow and pointed. Their underside shows a shallow trough. The front spine is the longest at 42.5 centimetres; to the rear the spines become gradually shorter and wider. A fourth spine, of about the same build but more forward-pointing, is present immediately behind the skull. In 2013 Sven Sachs and Jahn Hornung suggested a configuration in which there were five lateral neck spines, the new German spine having a morphology adapted to fit in the third position.

Phylogeny
Hylaeosaurus was the first ankylosaur discovered. Until well into the twentieth century its exact affinities would remain uncertain. In 1978 Coombs assigned it to the Nodosauridae within the Ankylosauria. This is still a usual classification, Hylaeosaurus being recovered as a basal nodosaurid in most exact cladistic analyses, sometimes more precisely as a member of the Polacanthinae, and thus being related to Gastonia and Polacanthus. However, in the 1990s, the polacanthines were sometimes seen as basal ankylosaurids, because they were mistakenly believed to have small tail-clubs. A more popular alternative today is that they formed a Polacanthidae, a basal group outside of the nodosaurids + ankylosaurids clade.

A 2012 study finding Hylaeosaurus to be a basal nodosaurid but not a polacanthine is shown in this cladogram:

It was defined as a non-ankylosaurine ankylosaurid in a phylogenetic analysis by Zheng et al. (2018). Below is a simplified cladogram from that study:

In one of two phylogenetic analyses by Xing et al. (2024) Hylaeosaurus is resolved as a non-euankylosaur ankylosaur. Below is a simplified cladogram from that study. Zheng et al. (2018) dataset + Datai (14-taxon deletion):

title: Hylaeosaurus


text:
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light

'Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light', later released in Japan as Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters: Pyramid of Light (遊戯王デュエルモンスターズ 光のピラミッド), or simply Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie, is a 2004 animated adventure fantasy film produced by 4Kids Entertainment based on the Japanese manga and anime Yu-Gi-Oh! It stars the cast of the Yu-Gi-Oh! television series in a new adventure that takes place between the third and fourth seasons of the show.

The film was first released in theaters in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures under their Warner Bros. Family Entertainment label on August 13, 2004, and was released on DVD and VHS on November 16, 2004. The film was released in theaters in Japan by Toho on November 3, 2004, and aired on TV Tokyo on January 2, 2005. A remastered version of the film was released in theaters by 4K Media Inc. in 2018 on March 11 and 12 in the US, 25, April 28, and 29 in Canada and June 13 in the United Kingdom, and was released on Blu-ray by Konami Cross Media NY and Cinedigm on October 8, 2019. The film was a critical and commercial failure.

Plot
5,000 years ago, the heroic Pharaoh Atem imprisoned Anubis, the Egyptian lord of the dead, after he tried to destroy the world by persuading the kings to play the mysterious Shadow Games.

In the present day, Anubis' tomb is uncovered by archaeologists, amazed by his strongest and most valuable treasure: the Pyramid of Light. At the same time, Yugi Muto completed the Millennium Puzzle which contains Atem's soul, releasing dozens of monsters and turning Yugi into a heroic Pharaoh named Atem under his control, under the alias of Yami Yugi, and banishes the monsters back to the shadow realm and a devastating spiritual force unleashes from the relic and liberates the Egyptian sorcerer. Anubis, now free, intends to conclude his plan.

3 years later, the Battle City Finals have recently concluded, and Yugi has achieved international fame by defeating his arch-rival Seto Kaiba and obtaining the 3 Egyptian God Cards: Slifer the Sky Dragon, Obelisk the Tormentor, and the Winged Dragon of Ra. Kaiba, determined to defeat Yugi once and for all, turns to Maximillion Pegasus, the creator of the Duel Monsters card game, to obtain any new cards designed to defeat the almighty God Cards. Pegasus tells Kaiba that he has a card he is looking for, but will only give it to Kaiba if he can beat him in a duel. Kaiba defeats Pegasus and claims 2 cards, one of which was secretly planted by Anubis.

Meanwhile, Yugi and Téa Gardner go to the local museum where Anubis' corpse and the Pyramid of Light are on display. They meet up with Yugi's grandfather, Solomon, who reads a foreboding prophecy:

 * The eye that sees what's yet to come
 * Its vision shall be fulfilled
 * Unless blinded by events predetermined
 * Thus light and shadows both be killed

It is then that the vengefully dark spirit of Anubis attacks the group, with Yugi having a vision of Anubis himself manipulating Kaiba and Yami Yugi being hurt in a Shadow Game. He awakens to find Anubis' body and the Pyramid of Light missing. Kaiba's younger brother Mokuba arrives, and Yugi is taken to Kaiba's Duel Dome with his friends Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor in pursuit. Kaiba forces Yami Yugi into a duel, unaware that Anubis is manipulating him into using one of the 2 new cards, Pyramid of Light, which covers the field in a huge replica of the actual pyramid and destroys the God Cards. Yugi, Joey, and Tristan are sucked into the pyramid while Mokuba flees the crumbling building.

Yugi, Joey, and Tristan awaken within the Millennium Puzzle, finding Anubis' tomb within. Anubis reveals that his monsters will destroy the modern world. Yami Yugi and Kaiba continue their duel, each blow to their in-game Life Points draining away their physical energy. Compounding matters, Kaiba's Deck Destruction Virus sends more than half of Yami's deck to the Graveyard, leaving him with barely any cards, and attacks from his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon (his 2nd new card), both with 4500 Attack Points, drop Yami's Life Points to 200. Pegasus figures out what is going on and arrives in a helicopter to rescue Téa, Solomon, and Mokuba. Téa sends her soul into the Millennium Puzzle to aid Yugi, Joey, and Tristan. Yugi finds the Dagger of Fate within Anubis' tomb and uses it to destroy the all-seeing eye, as predicted by the prophecy.

When Kaiba deviates from Anubis' plan and attempts to destroy the Pyramid of Light, Anubis materializes, casts Kaiba aside, and takes command of the duel, leading Yami to discover that Anubis is the real mastermind behind the duel. Yami, reunited with Yugi, destroys the Pyramid of Light card with Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon and then uses Kaiba's planned strategy to summon the God Cards and end the duel by destroying Anubis.

However, Anubis transforms into a monster and allows any monster to become real when summoned. This proves to be his undoing when Yugi and Yami summon Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon to defeat Anubis, ultimately destroying him for good. An injured Kaiba departs with Mokuba, with the promise to defeat Yugi the next time they meet. Yugi thanks the spirit of Yami, and his 3 best friends for their strong enduring friendship which he claims makes him a true winner.

Soundtrack
''Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie Soundtrack'' feature various vocal artists (most notably The Black Eyed Peas, who contributed the song "For the People") from the English version. It was released on August 10, 2004, on RCA on Audio CD and Compact Cassette. The score for the film was never released.

Production
In July 2003, it was announced Warner Bros. had acquired the distribution rights to the then untitled feature-length Yu-Gi-Oh! movie (excluding Asian territories) hoping to match prior success with distributing the first 3 Pokémon films.

The English-language version of the film retains most of the regional changes made to the TV show, like the use of different character names (for instance, the character known in Japan as "Anzu Mazaki" is named "Téa Gardner" in other markets). Unlike the regular series, the trading cards seen in the film look like their real-life counterparts; the English-language series would normally edit them to alter their appearance.

The version of the film released in Japan featured 13 minutes of additional animation. It utilized the characters' original names, along with the original soundtrack and sound effects heard in the Japanese version of the television series. Also, a different ending theme is used in the Japanese version, being the song Fire by groove metal band BLAZE.

Promotion
Attendees of the premiere got two of four free Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game cards (Pyramid of Light, Sorcerer of Dark Magic, Watapon, and Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon) when filmgoers purchased tickets for the film.

Novelization
A tie-in novelization for the film was released in 2004, written by Junki Takegami. The novel is divided into a prologue, 5 chapters, and an epilogue. It is virtually identical in terms of plot, save for a few minor changes, such as explaining that Akhenaden created the Pyramid of Light for his son Seto as a failed recreation of the Millennium Puzzle, and extra exposition, such as giving out detailed deck-lists for each character. The novel was never released and translated to English, and is now rare since it has gone out of print.

Home media
The film was released on DVD and VHS on November 16, 2004.

The film debuted on the Blu-ray format in the United States for the first time on October 8, 2019.

Box office
''Yu-Gi-Oh! – The Movie: Pyramid of Light'' opened at 2,411 screens across the U.S. and made a theater screen average of $3,934. By the end of the weekend, it made $9,485,494 and place #4 on the Box Office Top 10 behind Collateral, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, and Alien vs. Predator, which opened up on the same day and took the #1 position. It is currently the #3 Japanese animated film in the US Box Office, after Pokémon: The First Movie and Pokémon: The Movie 2000. The film grossed $19,765,868 in the United States and Canada, with only $29,170,410 worldwide, making it a box-office bomb compared to the success of the first three Pokémon films dubbed by the same company.

Critical reception
The film was met with poor reception from critics. Criticism likened it to the Pokémon films in that it was only appropriate for fans of the franchise. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 68th in the "100 Worst Reviewed Films of the 2000s", with a rating of 5%, based on 66 reviews while the consensus reads, "Don't watch the TV show or play the card game? Then this movie is not for you." The film was the lowest-rated animated film on Metacritic until it was surpassed by 2017's The Emoji Movie, with an average of 15 out of 100, meaning "overwhelming dislike", based on 18 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it is the second lowest-rated animated film of the 2000s behind Happily N'Ever After. In a retrospective review for the Radio Times Guide to Films, film critic Lucy Barrick awarded the film two stars out of five, describing the narrative as "largely incomprehensible" and the animation as "bog-standard".

Fathom Events re-releases
On February 1, 2018, it was announced by Fathom Events and 4K Media Inc. that the film would be getting a remastered re-release in 800 American theaters through March 11 to 12.

In October 2018, a trailer for the Remasters preview for the current Yu-Gi-Oh anime, Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, was shown alongside the film, in which the Yu-Gi-Oh film is on Blu-ray, which came out on October 8, 2018.

title: Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light


text:
Meller's duck

Meller's duck (Anas melleri) is a species of the dabbling duck genus Anas. It is endemic to eastern Madagascar. Although a population was established on Mauritius in the mid-18th century, this is on the verge of extinction due to habitat loss and competition by feral domestic ducks. The species name of this species is after the botanist Charles James Meller, and its generic name is from the Latin for "duck".

Description
The Meller's duck resembles a large female mallard. At 55 - 65 cm, it averages slightly larger than a mallard and is at the top size for the genus Anas. However, as opposed to most mallard relatives, they lack a supercilium. The speculum feathers are green as in some of its relatives, but unlike in these, it is bordered white as in the mallard. Its body is dark brown with narrow paler fringes to feathers on upper parts and wider fringes on lower parts. Its bill is pale grey, with dark patches at the base, and is larger than normal. Its feet and legs are orange.

Behaviour
Meller's duck breeds apparently during most of the year except May–June on Madagascar, dependent on local conditions; the Mauritian population has been recorded to breed in October and November. Unlike most of their closer relatives—with the exception of the African black duck—they are fiercely territorial during the breeding season; furthermore, pairs remain mated until the young are independent.

Conservation
This species is listed as an endangered species by the IUCN Red List. The Lac Alaotra wetlands, where historically the largest number of these birds was to be found, have suffered habitat destruction on a large scale in the latter half of the 20th century, and local waterbird populations have declined dramatically. The Madagascar pochard was rediscovered in 2006, though not in the Lac Alaotra area.

The conservation of this species was long hampered by its—entirely erroneous, see below—dismissal as a variant of the mallard which deserved no special interest. Due to its drab plumage and territorial habits, this species is not very popular among aviculturalists, although it reproduces readily in captivity like most ducks if enough space and good habitat are provided. Although a captive breeding program exists (part of the European Endangered Species Programme), the species is not very often kept in zoos either; it can be more frequently seen in Europe, such as in EEP members Cologne Zoo, Edinburgh Zoo, Durrell Wildlife Park, and Zürich Zoo.

Relations
Due to the outward similarity of Meller's duck to the female mallard, it was commonly placed close to that species. Based on records of quasi-forced hybridization under unnatural conditions, it was even proposed to be a mere color morph of the mallard.

Nowadays, it is regarded as one of the most distinct species in the mallard group, based on behavioural and mtDNA D-loop sequence comparisons. Its closest relatives is apparently the yellow-billed duck, another early divergence of the mallard clade, in which these species and the African black duck are basal, but the exact relationships of Meller's and the yellow-billed ducks to that species are fairly obscure. (The dates in these studies are probably far too recent in the face of the Early Pleistocene fossil record of mallards and the crude methodology used to arrive at the estimate.)

title: Meller's duck