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Resource curse

The resource curse, also known as the paradox of plenty or the poverty paradox, is the phenomenon of countries with an abundance of natural resources (such as fossil fuels and certain minerals) having less economic growth, less democracy, or worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources. There are many theories and much academic debate about the reasons for and exceptions to the adverse outcomes. Most experts believe the resource curse is not universal or inevitable but affects certain types of countries or regions under certain conditions.

Thesis
As far back as in 1711, The Spectator noted, "It is generally observed, that in countries of the greatest plenty there is the poorest living."

The idea that resources might be more of an economic curse than a blessing emerged in debates in the 1950s and the 1960s about the economic problems of low and middle-income countries. In 1993 Richard Auty first used the term resource curse to describe how countries rich in mineral resources were unable to use that wealth to boost their economies and how, counter-intuitively, these countries had lower economic growth than countries without an abundance of natural resources. An influential 1995 study by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner found a strong correlation between natural resource abundance and poor economic growth. As of 2016, hundreds of studies have evaluated the effects of resource wealth on a wide range of economic outcomes, and offered many explanations for how, why, and when a resource curse is likely to occur. While "the lottery analogy has value but also has shortcomings", many observers have likened the resource curse to the difficulties that befall lottery winners who struggle to manage the complex side-effects of newfound wealth.

As of 2009, scholarship on the resource curse has increasingly shifted towards explaining why some resource-rich countries succeed and why others do not, as opposed to just investigating the average economic effects of resources. Research suggests that the manner in which resource income is spent, the system of government, institutional quality, type of resources, and early vs. late industrialization all have been used to explain successes and failures.

Since 2018, a discussion has emerged concerning the potential for a resource curse related to critical materials for renewable energy. This could concern either countries with abundant renewable energy resources, such as sunshine, or critical materials for renewable energy technologies, such as neodymium, cobalt, or lithium.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, who developed selectorate theory, explains that when an autocratic country has lots of natural resources, the ruler's optimal strategy for political survival is to use that revenue to buy the loyalty of critical support groups and oppress the rest of the population by denying them civil liberties and underfunding education and infrastructure. Education, liberty, and infrastructure can make the people more productive, but they also make it easier for them to organize opposition movements. Since the ruler can obtain sufficient revenue from his country's natural resources, he has no need for a productive populace and therefore does not have to risk liberalization. By contrast, in a dictatorship with few natural resources, there may be a necessity for the ruler to liberalize his society somewhat so that the economy can be organized more efficiently, and to invest in education and healthcare to create a skilled and healthy workforce. Bueno de Mesquita cites Ghana and Taiwan as examples of countries where the rulers permitted democratization out of necessity.

Economic effects
The International Monetary Fund classifies 51 countries as "resource-rich," which are defined as countries that derive at least 20% of exports or 20% of fiscal revenue from nonrenewable natural resources; 29 of those countries are low- and lower-middle-income. Common characteristics of the 29 countries include (i) extreme dependence on resource wealth for fiscal revenues, export sales, or both; (ii) low saving rates; (iii) poor growth performance; and (iv) highly volatile resource revenues.

A 2016 meta-study found weak support for the thesis that resource richness adversely affects long-term economic growth. The authors noted that "approximately 40% of empirical papers finding a negative effect, 40% finding no effect, and 20% finding a positive effect" but "overall support for the resource curse hypothesis is weak when potential publication bias and method heterogeneity are taken into account."

A 2018 study showed that most specifications, the impact of oil correlated with regime leaders as well as being between two and three times larger than the marginal effect of increases during the leader's term.

A 2021 meta-analysis of 46 natural experiments found that price increases in oil and lootable minerals increased the likelihood of conflict. A 2011 study in the journal Comparative Political Studies found that "natural resource wealth can be either a "curse" or a "blessing" and that the distinction is conditioned by domestic and international factors, both amenable to change through public policy, namely, human capital formation and economic openness."

Dutch disease
Dutch disease, defined as the relationship between the increase in the economic development of a specific sector (for example natural resources) and a decline in other sectors, first became apparent after the Dutch discovered a huge natural gas field in Groningen in 1959. The Netherlands sought to tap this resource in an attempt to export the gas for profit. However, when the gas began to flow out of the country, its ability to compete against other countries' exports declined. With the Netherlands focusing primarily on the new gas exports, the Dutch currency began to appreciate, which harmed the country's ability to export other products. With the growing gas market and the shrinking export economy, the Netherlands began to experience a recession.

This process has been witnessed in multiple countries around the world including but not limited to Venezuela (oil), Angola (diamonds, oil), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (diamonds), and various other nations. All of these countries are considered "resource-cursed".

Dutch disease makes tradable goods less competitive in world markets. Absent currency manipulation or a currency peg, appreciation of the currency can damage other sectors, leading to a compensating unfavorable balance of trade. As imports become cheaper in all sectors, internal employment suffers and with it the skill infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities of the nation. To compensate for the loss of local employment opportunities, government resources are used to artificially create employment. The increasing national revenue will often also result in higher government spending on health, welfare, military, and public infrastructure, and if this is done corruptly or inefficiently it can be a burden on the economy. While the decrease in the sectors exposed to international competition leaves the economy vulnerable to price changes in the natural resource and consequently even greater dependence on natural resource revenue, this can be managed by active and effective use of hedge instruments such as forwards, futures, options, and swaps; however, if it is managed inefficiently or corruptly, this can lead to disastrous results. Also, since productivity generally increases faster in the manufacturing sector than in the government, the economy will have lower productivity gains than before.

According to a 2020 study, giant resource discoveries led to a substantial appreciation of the real exchange rate.

Revenue volatility
Prices for some natural resources are subject to wide fluctuation; for example, crude oil prices rose from around $3 per barrel to $12/bbl in 1974 following the 1973 oil crisis and fell from $27/bbl to below $10/bbl during the 1986 glut. In the decade from 1998 to 2008, it rose from $10/bbl to $145/bbl, before falling by more than half to $60/bbl over a few months. When government revenues are dominated by inflows from natural resources (for example, 99.3% of Angola's exports came from just oil and diamonds in 2005), the volatility can disrupt government planning and debt service. Abrupt changes in economic realities that result from this often provoke widespread breaking of contracts or curtailment of social programs, eroding the rule of law and popular support. Responsible use of financial hedges can mitigate that risk to some extent.

Susceptibility to that volatility can be increased when governments choose to borrow heavily in foreign currency. Real exchange rate increases, through capital inflows or the "Dutch disease" can make it appear an attractive option by lowering the cost of interest payments on the foreign debt, and they may be considered more creditworthy because of the existence of natural resources. If the resource prices fall, however, the governments' capacity to meet debt repayments will be reduced. For example, many oil-rich countries like Nigeria and Venezuela saw rapid expansions of their debt burdens during the 1970s oil boom; however, when oil prices fell in the 1980s, bankers stopped lending to them and many of them fell into arrears, triggering penalty interest charges that made their debts grow even more. As Venezuelan oil minister and OPEC co-founder Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo presciently warned in 1976: "Ten years from now, twenty years from now, you will see, oil will bring us ruin... It is the devil's excrement."

A 2011 study in The Review of Economics and Statistics found that commodities have historically always shown greater price volatility than manufactured goods and that globalization has reduced this volatility. Commodities are a key reason why poor countries are more volatile than rich countries.

Enclave effects
"Oil production generally takes place in an economic enclave, meaning it has few direct effects on the rest of the economy." Michael Ross describes how there are limited economic linkages with other industries in the economy. Consequently, economic diversification may be delayed or neglected by the authorities in light of the high profits that can be obtained from limited natural resources. The attempts at diversification that do occur are often white elephant public works projects which may be misguided or mismanaged. However, even when the authorities attempt diversification in the economy, this is made difficult because resource extraction is vastly more lucrative and out-competes other industries for the best human capital and capital investment. Successful natural-resource-exporting countries often become increasingly dependent on extractive industries over time, further increasing the levels of investment in this industry as it is necessary to maintain their states' finances. There is a lack of investment in other sectors of the economy which is further exacerbated by declines the commodity's price. While resource sectors tend to produce large financial revenues, they often add few jobs to the economy, and tend to operate as enclaves with few forward and backward connections to the rest of the economy.

Human capital
Another possible effect of the resource curse is the crowding out of human capital; countries that rely on natural resource exports may tend to neglect education because they see no immediate need for it. Resource-poor economies like Singapore, Taiwan or South Korea, by contrast, spent enormous efforts on education, and this contributed in part to their economic success (see East Asian Tigers). Other researchers, however, dispute this conclusion; they argue that natural resources generate easily taxable rents that can result in increased spending on education. However, the evidence for whether this increased spending translates to better education outcomes is mixed. A study on Brazil found that oil revenues were associated with sizable increases in education spending, but only with small improvements in education provision. Similarly, an analysis of early-20th century oil booms in Texas and neighboring states found no effect of oil discoveries on student teacher ratios or school attendance. However, oil-rich regions participated more intensively in the Rosenwald schoolbuilding program. A 2021 study found that European regions with a history of coal mining had 10% smaller per-capita GDP than comparable regions. The authors attribute this to lower investments in human capital.

Resource extraction driven economies can be argued to potentially have negative effects on human capital through several different means. "Addictive economies" is a term that was coined by William Freudenburg to describe how resource extraction driven economies can lead to short term economic benefits and sometimes short-sightedness by policymakers. Freudenberg also did research in an effort to understand more of the human capital implications of these types of economies and why results vary so widely across regions and industries. Although there is plentiful research of these types of economies, an understanding of the socioeconomic effects are still murky. Researchers Robert Purdue and Gregory Pavela did research on the West Virginia coal mining economy to further investigate these concerns. Their research includes data from all of West Virginia's 55 counties over a 13-year period of (1997-2009). In this research, significant ecological costs can be noted in the area which, in turn, effect the people negatively. The research also poses the fact that West Virginia ranked last on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index in the years of 2009-2010 in the categories of "physical health", "emotional health", "life evaluation", and "overall well-being". Arguments against the "resource curse" often claim economic benefits from the resource. The Purdue and Pavela case study reflects an example of negative economic impacts of this type of reliance on resource extraction; as even when the price of surface level coal goes up on the market, the poverty levels of people within those communities rises alongside it.

Adverse effects of natural resources on human capital formation might come through several channels. High wages in the resource extraction industry could induce young workers to drop out of school earlier in order to find employment. Evidence for this has been found for coal and fracking booms. In addition, resource booms can lower the wages of teachers relative to other workers, increasing turnover and impairing students' learning.

Incomes and employment
A study on coal mining in Appalachia suggests that "the presence of coal in the Appalachian region has played a significant part in its slow pace of economic development. Our best estimates indicate that an increase of 0.5 units in the ratio of coal revenues to personal income in a county is associated with a 0.7 percentage point decrease in income growth rates. No doubt, coal mining provides opportunities for relatively high-wage employment in the region, but its effect on prosperity appears to be negative in the longer run."

Another example was the Spanish Empire which obtained enormous wealth from its resource-rich colonies in South America in the sixteenth century. The large cash inflows from silver reduced incentives for industrial development in Spain. Innovation and investment in education were therefore neglected, so that the prerequisites for successful future development were given up. Thus, Spain soon lost its economic strength in comparison to other Western countries.

A study of US oil booms found positive effects on local employment and income during booms but found that after the boom, incomes "per capita" decreased, while "unemployment compensation payments increased relative to what they would have been if the boom had not occurred."

Tradeable sectors
A 2019 study found that active mining activity had an adverse impact on the growth of firms in tradeable sectors but a positive impact on the growth of firms in non-tradeable sectors.

Other effects
Natural resources are a source of economic rent which can generate large revenues for those controlling them even in the absence of political stability and wider economic growth. Their existence is a potential source of conflict between factions fighting for a share of the revenue, which may take the form of armed separatist conflicts in regions where the resources are produced or internal conflict between different government ministries or departments for access to budgetary allocations. This tends to erode governments' abilities to function effectively.

Even when politically stable, countries whose economies are dominated by resource extraction industries tend to be less democratic and more corrupt.

Violence and conflict
A 2019 meta-analysis of 69 studies found "that there is no aggregate relationship between natural resources and conflict." According to a 2017 review study, "while some studies support the link between resource scarcity/abundance and armed conflict, others find no or only weak links." According to one academic study, a country that is otherwise typical but has primary commodity exports around 5% of GDP has a 6% risk of conflict, but when exports are 25% of GDP the chance of conflict rises to 33%. "Ethno-political groups are more likely to resort to rebellion rather than using nonviolent means or becoming terrorists when representing regions rich in oil."

There are several factors behind the relationship between natural resources and armed conflicts. Resource wealth may increase the vulnerability of countries to conflicts by undermining the quality of governance and economic performance (the "resource curse" argument). Secondly, conflicts can occur over the control and exploitation of resources and the allocation of their revenues (the "resource war" argument). Thirdly, access to resource revenues by belligerents can prolong conflicts (the "conflict resource" argument). A 2018 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution found that rebels were particularly likely to be able to prolong their participation in civil wars when they had access to natural resources that they could smuggle.

A 2004 literature review finds that oil makes the onset of war more likely and that lootable resources lengthen existing conflicts. One study finds the mere discovery (as opposed to just the exploitation) of petroleum resources increases the risk of conflict, as oil revenues have the potential to alter the balance of power between regimes and their opponents, rendering bargains in the present obsolete in the future. One study suggests that the rise in mineral prices over the period 1997–2010 contributed to up to 21 percent of the average country-level violence in Africa. Research shows that declining oil prices make oil-rich states less bellicose. Jeff Colgan observed that oil-rich states have a propensity to instigate international conflicts as well as to be the targets of them, which he referred to as "petro-aggression". Arguable examples include Iraq's invasions of Iran and Kuwait; Libya's repeated incursions into Chad in the 1970s and 1980s; Iran's long-standing suspicion of Western powers; the United States' relations with Iraq and Iran. It is not clear whether the pattern of petro-aggression found in oil-rich countries also applies to other natural resources besides oil. Some scholars argue that the relationship between oil and interstate war is primarily driven by the case of the Iran–Iraq War and that the overall evidence points in the direction of an oil-peace.

A 2016 study finds that "oil production, oil reserves, oil dependence, and oil exports are associated with a higher risk of initiating conflict while countries enjoying large oil reserves are more frequently the target of military actions." As of 2016, the only six countries whose reported military expenditures exceeded 6 percent of GDP were significant oil producers: Oman, South Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Algeria (data for Syria and North Korea were unavailable). A 2017 study in the American Economic Review found that mining extraction contributed to conflicts in Africa at the local level over the period 1997–2010. A 2017 study in Security Studies found that while there is a statistical relationship between oil wealth and ethnic war, the use of qualitative methods reveals "that oil has rarely been a deep cause of ethnic war."

The emergence of the Sicilian Mafia has been attributed to the resource curse. Early Mafia activity is strongly linked to Sicilian municipalities abundant in sulphur, Sicily's most valuable export commodity. A 2017 study in the Journal of Economic History also links the emergence of the Sicilian Mafia to surging demand for oranges and lemons following the late 18th-century discovery that citrus fruits cured scurvy.

A 2016 study argues that petrostates may be emboldened to act more aggressively because of the inability of allied great powers to punish the petrostate. The great powers have strong incentives not to upset the relationship with its client petrostate ally for both strategic and economic reasons.

A 2017 study found evidence of the resource curse in the American frontier period of the Western United States in the 19th century (the Wild West). The study found, "In places where mineral discoveries occurred before formal institutions were established, there were more homicides per capita historically and the effect has persisted to this day. Today, the share of homicides and assaults explained by the historical circumstances of mineral discoveries is comparable to the effect of education or income."

A 2018 study in the Economic Journal found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries." The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to build up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth. A 2020 study determined that low levels of oil and gas revenue actually increases the likelihood of nonviolent resistance in autocratic countries, despite the general logic of the resource curse.

Democracy and human rights
Research shows that oil wealth lowers levels of democracy and strengthens autocratic rule because political leaders in oil-rich countries refuse democratic development because they will have more to give up from losing power. Similarly, political leaders of oil-rich countries refuse democratic development because the political elite collects the revenues from the oil export and use the money for cementing its political, economic, and social power by controlling government and its bureaucracy,   Military spending generally increases with oil wealth and so a military coup, one of the strongest tools in toppling autocracies, is less likely in oil-rich countries since dictators can quell resistance through additional funding. According to Michael Ross, "only one type of resource has been consistently correlated with less democracy and worse institutions: petroleum, which is the key variable in the vast majority of the studies that identify some type of curse." A 2014 meta-analysis confirms the negative impact of oil wealth on democratization. A 2016 study challenges the conventional academic wisdom on the relationship between oil and authoritarianism. A 2022 study found that the resource curse is tied only to easily-extractable oil, not to oil that requires complex extraction. Other forms of resource wealth have also been found to strengthen autocratic rule. A 2016 study found that resource windfalls have no political impact on democracies and deeply entrenched authoritarian regimes, but significantly exacerbate the autocratic nature of moderately authoritarian regimes. A third 2016 study finds that while it is accurate that resource richness has an adverse impact on the prospects of democracy, this relationship has held only since the 1970s. A 2017 study found that the presence of multinational oil companies increases the likelihood of state repression. Another 2017 study found that the presence of oil reduced the likelihood that a democracy would be established after the breakdown of an authoritarian regime. A 2018 study found that the relationship between oil and authoritarianism primarily holds after the end of the Cold War. The study argues that without American or Soviet support, resource-poor authoritarian regimes had to democratize, but resource-rich authoritarian regimes resisted domestic pressures to democratize. Prior to the 1970s, oil-producing countries did not have democratization levels that differed from other countries. Oil-abundant authoritarian governments are suggested to earn high levels of income for oil but spend an extremely minimal amount on social expenditures for individuals being ruled and democracies are suggested to do the opposite.

Research by Stephen Haber and Victor Menaldo found that increases in natural resource reliance do not induce authoritarianism but may instead promote democratization. The authors say that their method rectifies the methodological biases of earlier studies which revolve around random effects: "Numerous sources of bias may be driving the results [of earlier studies on the resource curse], the most serious of which is omitted variable bias induced by unobserved country-specific and time-invariant heterogeneity." In other words, this means that countries might have specific, enduring traits that get left out of the model, which could increase the explanation power of the argument. The authors claim that the chances of this happening are larger when assuming random effects, an assumption that does not allow for what the authors call "unobserved country-specific heterogeneity". The criticisms have themselves been subject to criticism. One study reexamined the Haber-Menaldo analysis by using Haber and Menaldo's own data and statistical models. It reported that their conclusions were only valid for the period before the 1970s, but since about 1980, there has been a pronounced resource curse. Authors Andersen and Ross suggest that oil wealth became a hindrance to democratic transitions only after the transformative events of the 1970s, which enabled the governments of developing countries to capture the oil rents that were previously siphoned off by foreign-owned firms.

There are two ways that oil wealth might negatively affect democratization. The first is that oil strengthens authoritarian regimes, making transitions to democracy less likely. The second is that oil wealth weakens democracies. Research generally supports the first theory but is mixed on the second. A 2019 study found that oil wealth is associated with increases in the level of personalism in dictatorships.

Both pathways might result from the ability of oil-rich states to provide citizens with a combination of generous benefits and low taxes. In many economies that are not resource-dependent, governments tax citizens, who demand efficient and responsive government in return. This bargain establishes a political relationship between rulers and subjects. In countries whose economies are dominated by natural resources, however, rulers don't need to tax their citizens because they have a guaranteed source of income from natural resources. Because the country's citizens aren't being taxed, they have less incentive to be watchful with how government spends its money. In addition, those benefiting from mineral resource wealth may perceive an effective and watchful civil service and civil society as a threat to the benefits that they enjoy, and they may take steps to thwart them. As a result, citizens are often poorly served by their rulers, and if the citizens complain, money from the natural resources enables governments to pay for armed forces to keep the citizens in check. It has been argued that rises and falls in the price of petroleum correlate with rises and falls in the implementation of human rights in major oil-producing countries.

Corrupt members of national governments may collude with resource extraction companies to override their own laws and ignore objections made by indigenous inhabitants. The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee report entitled "Petroleum and Poverty Paradox" states that "too often, oil money that should go to a nation's poor ends up in the pockets of the rich, or it may be squandered on grand palaces and massive showcase projects instead of being invested productively." A 2016 study found that mining in Africa substantially increases corruption; an individual within 50 km of a recently opened mine is 33% more likely to have paid a bribe the past year than a person living within 50 km of mines that "will open" in the future. The former also pay bribes for permits more frequently, and perceive their local councilors to be more corrupt. In a study examining the effects of mining on local communities in Africa, researchers concluded that active mining areas are associated with more bribe payments, particularly police bribes. Their findings were consistent with the hypothesis that mining increases corruption.

The Center for Global Development argues that governance in resource-rich states would be improved by the government making universal, transparent, and regular payments of oil revenues to citizens and then attempting to reclaim it through the tax system, which they argue will fuel public demand for the government to be transparent and accountable in its management of natural resource revenues and in the delivery of public services.

One study found that "oil producing states dependent on exports to the USA exhibit lower human rights performance than those exporting to China". The authors argue that this stems from the fact that US relationships with oil producers were formed decades ago, before human rights became part of its foreign policy agenda.

One study found that resource wealth in authoritarian states lowers the probability of adopting freedom of information laws. However, democracies that are resource-rich are more likely than resource-poor democracies to adopt such laws.

One study looking at oil wealth in Colombia found "that when the price of oil rises, legislators affiliated with right-wing paramilitary groups win office more in oil-producing municipalities. Consistent with the use of force to gain power, positive price shocks also induce an increase in paramilitary violence and reduce electoral competition: fewer candidates run for office, and winners are elected with a wider vote margin. Ultimately, fewer centrist legislators are elected to office, and there is diminished representation at the center."

A 2018 study in International Studies Quarterly found that oil wealth was associated with weaker private liberties (freedom of movement, freedom of religion, the right to property, and freedom from forced labor).

Research by Nathan Jensen indicates that countries that have resource wealth are considered to have a greater political risk for foreign direct investors. He argues that this is because leaders in resource-rich countries are less sensitive to being punished in elections if they take actions that adversely affect foreign investors. Countries with higher natural resource export share show a correlation between receiving Foreign direct investment and decreasing democracy index, while this correlation is opposite for countries with low natural resource export share.

Distribution
According to a 2017 study, "social forces condition the extent to which oil-rich nations provide vital public services to the population. Although it is often assumed that oil wealth leads to the formation of a distributive state that generously provides services in the areas of water, sanitation, education, health care, or infrastructure... quantitative tests reveal that oil-rich nations who experience demonstrations or riots provide better water and sanitation services than oil-rich nations who do not experience such dissent. Subsequent tests find that oil-rich nations who experience nonviolent, mass-based movements provide better water and sanitation services than those who experience violent, mass-based movements."

Gender inequality
Studies suggest countries with abundant natural resources have higher levels of gender inequality in the areas of wages, labor force participation, violence, and education. Research links gender inequality in the Middle East to resource wealth. According to Michael Ross:"Oil production affects gender relations by reducing the presence of women in the labor force. The failure of women to join the nonagricultural labor force has profound social consequences: it leads to higher fertility rates, less education for girls, and less female influence within the family. It also has far-reaching political consequences: when fewer women work outside the home, they are less likely to exchange information and overcome collective action problems; less likely to mobilize politically, and to lobby for expanded rights; and less likely to gain representation in government. That leaves oil-producing states with atypically strong patriarchal cultures and political institutions." Ross argues that in oil-rich countries, across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the need for female labor reduces as export-oriented and female-dominated manufacturing is ousted by Dutch disease effects. This hypothesis has received further support by the analysis of mining booms in Africa. For the United States, the evidence is mixed. State-level comparisons suggest that resource wealth leads to lower levels of female labor force participation, lower turnout and fewer seats held by women in legislatures. On the other hand, a county-level analysis of resource booms in the early 20th century found an overall positive effect of resource wealth on single women's labor force participation.

Research has also linked resource wealth to greater domestic violence, and a gender gap in education.

International cooperation
Research finds that the more that states depend on oil exports, the less cooperative they become. They become less likely to join intergovernmental organizations, accept the compulsory jurisdiction of international judicial bodies, and agree to binding arbitration for investment disputes.

Foreign aid
There is an argument in political economy that foreign aid can have the same negative effects in the long run towards development as in the case of the resource curse. The so-called "aid curse" results from giving perverse political incentives to a weak body of civil servants, lowering politicians' accountability towards citizens and decreasing economic pressure thanks to the income of an unearned resource to mitigate economic crisis. When foreign aid represents a major source of revenue to governments, especially in low-income countries, state-building capacity is hindered by undermining responsiveness toward taxpayers or by decreasing the incentive for governments to look for different sources of income or the increase in taxation.

Crime
A 2018 study found that in Texas, "a 1% increase in the value of oil reserves increases murder by 0.16%, robbery by 0.55% and larceny by 0.18%."

Petro-aggression
Petro-aggression is the tendency for a petrostate to be involved in international conflicts, or to be the target of them. The term was popularized by a 2013 book by Jeff Colgan that found that petrostates (states with 10% or more GDP from petroleum) are 250 percent more likely to instigate international conflicts than a typical country.

Examples of oil-rich countries engaging in conflict include:
 * Iraq (invasion of Kuwait)
 * Iran (support of Hezbollah and other Shia militias)
 * Libya (Chadian–Libyan conflict)
 * Biafra
 * Indonesia (Operation Lotus)
 * Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, Yemeni Civil War (2014–present))
 * Russia (War in Donbas, Russian invasion of Ukraine )
 * South Sudan (South Sudanese Civil War)

As of 1999, it remained unclear whether the pattern of petro-aggression found in oil-rich countries also applies to other natural resources besides oil.

Oil-rich states also tend to have a poor record of human rights abuses, as well as revolutionary, revisionist ambitions, making them more conflict-prone. Unfortunately, the lack of data allows no way of discerning high oil prices turning petro-states more aggressive as public thought might deduce. Natural disasters turn out to be far more hurtful to the price of oil than any conflict.

Examples in biology and ecology
Microbial ecology studies have also addressed if resource availability modulates the cooperative or competitive behaviour in bacteria populations. When resources availability is high, bacterial populations become competitive and aggressive with each other, but when environmental resources are low, they tend to be cooperative and mutualistic.

Ecological studies have hypothesised that competitive forces between animals are major in high carrying capacity zones (i.e. near the Equator), where biodiversity is higher, because of natural resources abundance. This abundance or excess of resources, causes animal populations to have R reproduction strategies (many offspring, short gestation, less parental care, and a short time until sexual maturity), so competition is affordable for populations. Also, competition could select populations to have R behaviour in a positive feedback regulation.

Contrary, in low carrying capacity zones (i.e. far from the equator), where environmental conditions are harsh K strategies are common (longer life expectancy, produce relatively fewer offspring and tend to be altricial, requiring extensive care by parents when young) and populations tend to have cooperative or mutualistic behaviors. If populations have a competitive behaviour in hostile environmental conditions they mostly are filtered out (die) by environmental selection, hence populations in hostile conditions are selected to be cooperative.

Mutualism hypothesis was first described while Peter Kropotkin studied the fauna of the Siberian steppe, where environmental conditions are harsh, he found animals tend to cooperate in order to survive. Extreme competition is observed in the Amazonian forest where life requires low energy to find resources (i.e. sunlight for plants) hence life could afford being selected by biotic factors (i.e. competition) rather than abiotic factors.

Criticisms
A 2008 study argues that the curse vanishes when looking not at the relative importance of resource exports in the economy but rather at a different measure: the relative abundance of natural resources in the ground. Using that variable to compare countries, it reports that resource wealth in the ground correlates with slightly higher economic growth and slightly fewer armed conflicts. That a high dependency on resource exports correlates with bad policies and effects is not caused by the large degree of resource exportation. The causation goes in the opposite direction: conflicts and bad policies created the heavy dependence on exports of natural resources. When a country's chaos and economic policies scare off foreign investors and send local entrepreneurs abroad to look for better opportunities, the economy becomes skewed. Factories may close and businesses may flee, but petroleum and precious metals remain for the taking. Resource extraction becomes the "default sector" that still functions after other industries have come to a halt.

A 2008 article by Thad Dunning argues that while resource revenues can promote or strengthen authoritarian regimes, in certain circumstances they can also promote democracy. In countries where natural resource rents are a relatively small portion of the overall economy and the non-resource economy is unequal, resources rents can strengthen democracy by reducing economic elites' fear of ceding power since social welfare policies can be funded with resource rents and not redistribution. Dunning proposes Venezuela's democratic consolidation during the oil boom of the 1970s as a key example of this phenomenon.

A 2011 study argues that previous assumptions that oil abundance is a curse were based on methodologies which failed to take into account cross-country differences and dependencies arising from global shocks, such as changes in technology and the price of oil. The researchers studied data from the World Bank over the period 1980–2006 for 53 countries, covering 85% of world GDP and 81% of world proven oil reserves. They found that oil abundance positively affected both short-term growth and long-term income levels. In a companion paper, using data on 118 countries over the period 1970–2007, they show that it is the volatility in commodity prices, rather than abundance per se, that drives the resource curse paradox.

title: Resource curse


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Ernest Carr

Ernest Shoebridge Carr (28 September 1875 – 17 September 1956) was an Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1906 until 1917 for the electorate of Macquarie, representing the Australian Labor Party until the 1916 Labor split and thereafter joining the new Nationalist Party. He was later a Nationalist member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1920 to 1922, representing the electorate of Cumberland.

Early life and career
Carr was born in Dubbo, New South Wales, the son of a soap manufacturer. He was educated at state schools until the age of 14, when he left school to work in his father's factory. He took over a Dubbo real estate agency at the age of 19 but sold out two years later and entered into partnership as a building contractor at Bourke, with the Bourke Lands Office and Wentworth Post Office among Carr's projects. At 23, he then bought the Orange-based newspaper The Leader and converted it from a bi-weekly into a daily. He edited The Leader for seven years, but sold the newspaper after his election to parliament.

Federal and state politics
Carr won Macquarie at the 1906 federal election. He comfortably held his seat over subsequent elections until his expulsion from the ALP over his support for conscription in September 1916 during the 1916 Labor split. In February 1917, along with the other former Labor MPs expelled during the split, Carr joined the newly formed pro-conscription Nationalist Party of Australia. In one of the closest polling results in Australian electoral history, Carr lost the 1917 election by nine votes.

After the loss of his federal seat, Carr returned to journalism and bought a Hawkesbury based newspaper. He then returned to politics when he successfully stood as the Nationalist candidate for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly electorate of Cumberland in 1920. Carr lost his seat at the 1922 election.

Post-parliament
Carr listed his occupation as "company manager" in the 1920s, when he was recorded as living at Mosman. He was a serial Nationalist preselection candidate for New South Wales-based seats through the 1920s, contesting Cumberland as an independent in 1925 and standing as an endorsed Nationalist at the 1928 and 1929 federal elections. He unsuccessfully sought Nationalist preselection for a final time at the 1930 state election. He was a veteran supporter of the New England New State Movement during the 1920s.

In later years Carr relocated to Parramatta and was again described as a journalist, reportedly associated with Cumberland Newspapers Limited. He was a member of the Granville Chamber of Commerce and in the 1940s was also engaged in tin and copper mining. He was an outspoken proponent of social credit theory in later years, standing as a Social Credit Party candidate at the 1937 federal election, serving as the state secretary of the Social Credit Movement for Australia during the mid-1940s, and writing many letters to the editor on the subject over many years. He was also the state secretary and a key figure in the short-lived One Party for Australia in 1943.

Carr died at Parramatta in 1956 and was cremated at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium. He was survived by his wife, two daughters and two sons.

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

title: Ernest Carr


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User talk:Shaolin129

Welcome!

Hello,, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place  on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! The graphic for Human rights looks great. Could you put a caption on it when you have the chance? -  BanyanTree 04:30, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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Tayshet

Tayshet (Тайшет, lit. cold river in the Kott language) is a town and the administrative center of Tayshetsky District in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located 669 km northwest of Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblast. Population:

History
It was founded in 1897 as a supply point and station on the Trans-Siberian Railway and was granted town status in 1938.

During the 1930s–1950s, Tayshet was the center of administration for gulag labor camps Ozerlag and Angarstroy. Construction of the first section of the Baikal–Amur Mainline started in 1937 and was managed from here. According to some survivor accounts, between Tayshet and Bratsk there is "a dead man under every sleeper." Along with Japanese prisoners from the Kwantung Army, German prisoners of war formed a large proportion of the forced labor contingent, generally under a 25-year sentence, such as Dietrich von Saucken. Surviving German POWs were repatriated in autumn of 1955, after West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow.

Administrative and municipal status
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Tayshet serves as the administrative center of Tayshetsky District, to which it is directly subordinated. As a municipal division, the town of Tayshet is incorporated within Tayshetsky Municipal District as Tayshetskoye Urban Settlement.

Geography
The town is located 669 km northwest of Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblast.

Climate
Tayshet has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc) bordering on a humid continental climate with warm, humid summers and severely cold, drier winters. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from -18.9 °C in January to 18.4 °C. Sunshine is generous and the area receives 2,150 hours of bright sunshine annually.

Transportation
Tayshet railway station is a major railway junction. Here the Baikal–Amur Mainline begins, branching northeast from the Trans-Siberian Railway. This is also where the Abakan-Taishet Railway ends. The town is also on the M53 Highway (Moscow to Irkutsk).

title: Tayshet


text: User talk:80.134.191.181

title: User talk:80.134.191.181


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Strike! (musical)

Strike! is a 2005 historical stage musical depicting the Winnipeg General Strike. It has been adapted into a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio production, a 17-minute short film, and the full-length feature film Stand!.

Content
Strike! focuses on Mike Sokolowski, a Ukrainian immigrant from Galicia who was killed by Royal North-West Mounted Police on "Bloody Saturday", 21 June 1919. The account of his life is heavily fictionalized, and is character is composited with another Ukrainian-Canadian labourer. Sokolowski begins the play as an anti-Semite who loathes so-called Jewish Bolshevism, but learns better due in part to a romantic sub-plot involving his godson Stefan (originally Myron) and his Jewish neighbour Rebecca.

Performances and adaptations
After two private workshops in 2003, a public outdoor "preview" of Strike! was performed at Old Market Square in Winnipeg on 15 May 2004. In May 2005, the full play was premiered at Rainbow Stage in Winnipeg's Kildonan Park as an independent production. The next fall, a revamped version premiered at Saskatoon's Persephone Theatre.

On 15 May 2007, a special performance at Winnipeg's Burton Cummings Theatre was recorded for national broadcast on CBC Radio. The theatre was chosen in part because it had been used as a meeting-place for labour activists prior to the 1919 strike. The radio adaptation was broadcast on Labour Day, 3 September 2007. In May 2009, an outdoor, street spectacle version of the musical premiered in front of Winnipeg City Hall—the site of the original events that inspired the musical. Summer productions of the full-scale musical were held at the Canwest Centre for the Performing Arts in July/August 2009 and 2010. The Edmonton premiere of the musical occurred on 24 April 2013 in conjunction with Workshop West Theatre, at the Timms Centre for the Performing Arts.

Adaptations
A interactive script/CD book based on Strike! was released by Playwrights Canada Press on 10 December 2007.

Mike's Bloody Saturday, a documentary film about the events that inspired the musical (i.e., the controversy surrounding the death of Mike Sokolowski), premiered on 7 October 2011, and was written, produced, and directed by Danny Schur—the composer/producer/co-writer of Strike!.

A 17-minute film adaptation of Strike! was produced in 2007, and was meant to solicit interest in producing a feature film—which came to be with the 2019 film Stand!.

Financing
Strike! was primarily financed by a limited partnership of investors from across Canada, with a mix of arts grants and donations from Canadian labour unions.

Cast and crew
Strike! was created by Danny Schur, who wrote the music and lyrics and co-wrote the text with Rick Chafe.

title: Strike! (musical)


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Tynda

Tynda (Ты́нда) is a town in Amur Oblast, Russia, located 568 km northwest of Blagoveshchensk. It is an important railway junction, informally referred to as the capital of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. Its population has declined sharply in recent years:

Etymology
The name is of Evenk origin and is roughly translated as "on the river bank".

History
The settlement of Shkaruby was founded in 1917 on the present site of Tynda, as a rest stop and winter camp on the route from the Amur to the newly discovered gold fields on the Timpton River, a tributary of the Aldan. In 1928, in conjunction with construction of the highway to Yakutsk, it was renamed Tyndinsky (Ты́ндинский).

In 1932, plans for what would eventually become the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) named Tynda as a possible future hub station. A 180 km long rail line, connecting Tynda with BAM station (known as Bamovskaya) near Skovorodino on the Trans-Siberian Railway was constructed between 1933 and 1937, although this was then dismantled during World War II and the rails reused for other projects closer to the front. In 1941, Tynda was granted urban-type settlement status.

The revival of the construction of the BAM as an All-Union Komsomol Project in the early 1970s saw the reconstruction of the rail line between Bamovskaya and Tyndinsky, followed by the construction of the BAM east and west of the town. The settlement and its hub station were placed under the patronage of Komsomol brigades from Moscow, befitting its status as symbolic capital of the BAM. As its population grew due to the construction, the settlement was granted town status and received its present name on November 14, 1975.

The Amur Yakutsk Mainline (AYaM) also began construction from Tynda, with the section to Neryungri completed in 1977. Since 2019 the AYaM runs passenger services as far as Nizhny Bestyakh on the bank of the Lena River opposite Yakutsk.

The full extent of the BAM opened for full use in 1989, with the exception of the Severomuysky Tunnel. Tynda went into a decline after the BAM was completed, as the utilization of the mainline turned out to be low. Tynda's population has dropped by over 30% since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, from a high of 61,996 inhabitants recorded in the 1989 Soviet Census, to an estimated population of around 38,000 in 2008.

Geography
The town is located at an elevation of 500 m above sea level, near where the Getkan joins the Tynda River, after which the town was named. The Tynda then flows into the Gilyuy, a tributary of the Zeya, a few kilometers east of the town.

Climate
Tynda has a subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dwc) with severely cold, rather dry winters and warm, very rainy summers.

Administrative and municipal status
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Tynda serves as the administrative center of Tyndinsky District, even though it is not a part of it. As an administrative division, it is incorporated separately as Tynda Urban Okrug — an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, this administrative unit also has urban okrug status.

City leaders

 * 1992-2004 — Mark Borisovich Schultz;
 * 2004-2008 — Viktor Anatolyevich Zubovatkin;
 * 7 May 2008 - 14 December 2012 — Mark Borisovich Schultz;
 * 15 December 2012 - 24 May 2013 — Yevgeny Petrovich Cherenkov, as acting mayor;
 * 25 May 2013 - 19 September 2018 — Yevgeny Petrovich Cherenkov;
 * 20 September 2018 - 9 December 2022 года — Marina Valentinovna Mikhailova;
 * 10 December 2022 – Present — Igor Salnikov, as acting mayor.

Mayoral elections 2013–2018
Following the death of Mayor Schultz in 2012, new elections were announced and held on 19 May 2013. Of the eleven candidates who nominated themselves for the post of mayor of the city, six remained.

Voter turnout was low - 32.4%. The candidate from the United Russia party, Yevgeny Cherenkov, became the head of the city, gaining 50.5% of the vote. In September 2018, the post was occupied by communist Marina Mikhailova.

The Blagoveshchensk political observer Yevgeny Ogorodsky, on the eve of the elections, considered that: "Considering the decent federal funds planned for resettlement from dilapidated housing in the BAM zone, the struggle for the seat of mayor of Tynda will be tough. Epstein and Cherenkov are far from the ex-mayor's ratings, so Mikhailova's possible victory will not surprise anyone, although United Russia will try with all its might to prevent this."

After the announcement of the results of the elections for the mayor of the city, political scientist Yevgeny Trofimov commented on the victory of the "party of power": "As expected, candidates from political parties emerged as leaders, while self-nominated candidates had no chance. This is due not so much to the development of party structures but to the technology of elections. Firstly, the elections were held in conditions of low voter turnout, which increased the efficiency of the use of administrative resources and led to the victory of the candidate from the 'party of power.' Secondly, the winner himself was in unequal conditions with other candidates and had the support of the governor. Numerous meetings between the head of the region and the candidate from United Russia and acting mayor of Tynda led to the association of the candidate with the head of the executive branch of government of the region and with the state resources available to the latter."

In September 2018, Mayor Cherenkov lost the election to the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Marina Mikhailova. She voluntarily left the post of mayor of Tynda on 9 December 2022, a few days before a criminal case was opened against her. Mikhailova explained that she departed due to her health. As it turned out later, she was accused of abuse of power during the renovation of Krasnaya Presnya. In July 2021, Tynda received 250 million rubles from the federal budget for major renovations of the main street. In the same year, Mikhailova, as mayor of the city, signed an agreement with the company "Karier-A" to carry out the work. Under the terms of the contract, the contractor agreed to complete the repairs by August 2024. At the same time, the contractor had to be paid money for the work done.

Demographics
Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians make up the majority of the town's population. Around 1,500 North Korean loggers worked in the region as of 2007, strictly prohibited from speaking with journalists and residing in isolated camps which are closed to all other people.

Economy and transportation

Tynda is the crossing point for the Baikal-Amur Mainline and Amur Yakutsk Mainline railways. The town's station is one of the most important on both lines and possesses a large locomotive depot.

Other than railway-related activities, the town's economy relies largely on the timber industry, with the Tyndales corporation based here. The M56 motorway to Yakutsk also passes through the town.

The town is served by the Tynda Airport, located 15 km to the north. After being closed for a number of years, air services from Blagoveshchensk via Zeya resumed in 2007.

Notable people

 * Denis Kolesnikov, radio host

Twin towns and sister cities
Tynda is twinned with:
 * 🇺🇸 Wenatchee, Washington, United States

title: Tynda


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Janet-Laine Green

Janet-Laine Green (born December 31, 1951) is a Canadian actress, director, producer and teacher, active for over 25 years. Best known for her roles in She's the Mayor, Seeing Things and This is Wonderland, this Toronto-based film and television personality has also been a voice actress for animated series such as Jacob Two-Two (as Florence), Franklin, Little Bear (as Mother Bear) and The Care Bears (for which she voiced Wish Bear).

She also provided the voice of the arch villain Xayide in the animated version of The Neverending Story and also Void in WildC.A.T.S..

She has also worked as an associate producer on the film The Circle Game in which she also played as Anna.

Green has been nominated for three Gemini Awards and two Genie Awards.

She is also active on the Canadian stage. In fact, Theatre Saskatchewan has given the province's best stage actors, since 1992, a Lifetime Achievement Award named after her; Green even sponsors it.

Green is the mother of Goosebumps and Redwall actor Tyrone Savage. Her husband, Booth Savage, wrote the play version of Pillow Talk, which Green is now starring in and producing.

She has a production company of her own, Briefcase Productions.

title: Janet-Laine Green


text:
Bill Oakley

William Lloyd Oakley (born February 27, 1966) is an American television writer and producer, known for his work on the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Oakley and Josh Weinstein became best friends and writing partners at St. Albans School; Oakley then attended Harvard University and was Vice President of the Harvard Lampoon. He worked on several short-term media projects, including writing for the variety show Sunday Best, but was then unemployed for a long period.

Oakley and Weinstein eventually penned a spec script for Seinfeld, after which they wrote "Marge Gets a Job", an episode of The Simpsons. Subsequently, the two were hired to write for the show on a permanent basis in 1992. After they wrote episodes such as "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)", "Bart vs. Australia" and "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", the two were appointed executive producers and showrunners for the seventh and eighth seasons of the show. They attempted to include several emotional episodes focusing on the Simpson family, as well as several high-concept episodes such as "Homer's Enemy", "Two Bad Neighbors" and "The Principal and the Pauper", winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for their work.

After they left The Simpsons, Oakley and Weinstein created Mission Hill. The show was plagued by promotional issues and was swiftly canceled. They worked as consulting producers on Futurama, then created The Mullets in 2003. The two wrote several unsuccessful TV pilots, and were due to serve as showrunners on Sit Down, Shut Up in 2009. Oakley left the project over a contract dispute. He has since written for The Cleveland Show and Portlandia, without Weinstein. He also served as co-executive producer and writer on Portlandia, sharing a Writers Guild of America Award with his fellow writers in 2013. In 2018, Oakley reunited with Weinstein as co-executive producer on Disenchantment, Matt Groening's animated series for Netflix. Oakley is married to fellow writer Rachel Pulido.

Early life
William Lloyd Oakley was born on February 27, 1966, in Westminster, Maryland, and raised on a farm in Union Bridge, Maryland. He was a fan of Mad magazine from an early age, which helped shape his comic sensibility. He attended St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., where he met and became best friends with Josh Weinstein in the eighth grade. The two created the school humor magazine The Alban Antic in 1983. Such would be the length of their partnership; the two often finish each other's sentences. Oakley later attended Harvard University, where he wrote for and served as Vice President of the Harvard Lampoon, working on the famous 1986 USA Today parody issue. He graduated in 1988 after studying American history.

Career
Oakley did not land a job on a major comedy series, as previous Harvard graduates who wrote for the Lampoon had done, despite writing numerous spec scripts for shows such as Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman; he thus moved back home. There, he worked in publicity, doing promotion for America's Most Wanted. In their free time, Oakley and Weinstein wrote for local comedy groups, such as Gross National Product. In 1989, they moved to New York City after being hired to write for a game show on Ha!, before writing for a variety show on the network featuring Denis Leary. The two also wrote for the National Lampoon and Spy. An editor of Spy was hired by NBC to run the variety show Sunday Best, and took Oakley and Weinstein to Los Angeles with him in 1991. When the show was canceled after three episodes, they were unemployed for a lengthy period, and Oakley lived on unemployment benefits. He later considered applying to join the United States Foreign Service.

As a writer
After changing their agent, they wrote a spec script for Seinfeld, which was well received. Amongst those who liked it were Al Jean and Mike Reiss, showrunners of The Simpsons. There were no openings on the staff at the time, but Oakley and Weinstein were hired to write the episode "Marge Gets a Job", based on an idea by Conan O'Brien. The episode aired as part of season four. Their Seinfeld script and The Simpsons episode caught the attention of Diane English, and they were offered a job on a sitcom. Before they accepted this job, they were told that Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky were leaving The Simpsons, and then joined the writing staff on a permanent basis in 1992, in the third season of that show. They began as story editors. They were initially quiet and felt "intimidated", being in the same room as "10 of the greatest minds in comedy", but eventually started pitching jokes with confidence. They wrote their scripts together, working side by side at a computer. Their first episode as staff writers was "Marge in Chains", an existing idea that they were assigned. The first draft of the script was based on research about women in prison conducted by Oakley and Weinstein, making it "slightly more realistic" than the final version of the episode, in which many realistic elements were replaced.

After season four, most of the original staff left the show. Before David Mirkin arrived to take over as showrunner for season five, Oakley, Weinstein, O'Brien and Dan McGrath were the only writers working on the show and spent a month mapping out most of the season's episodes. Oakley and Weinstein wrote several episodes for season five, penning the "Terror at 5½ Feet" segment of "Treehouse of Horror IV", "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)", "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", the show's 100th episode "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" and "Lady Bouvier's Lover". For season six they wrote "Sideshow Bob Roberts", basing much of the episode on the Watergate scandal, in which they had a great interest. They also wrote "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy", and "Bart vs. Australia". The writing staff wanted to do an episode in which the Simpsons family traveled to a foreign country; they selected Australia because they thought that everyone in Australia had a good sense of humor and "would get the jokes", with the episode being intentionally inaccurate. The episode proved somewhat controversial; some Australian fans said the episode was a mockery of their country. Shortly after it had aired, the Simpsons staff received over a hundred letters from Australians who were insulted by the episode. The pair wrote the two-part episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", which was initially proposed by series creator Matt Groening. While deciding who the culprit was, Oakley and Weinstein pitched Barney Gumble because he was a character that could go to jail and it could change the dynamic of the show. Mirkin suggested Maggie because he felt it was funnier and wanted the culprit to be a family member. Oakley and Weinstein were initially unsure about having Maggie as the culprit, and it was decided that the episode would end with Maggie shifting her eyes and making it look like it was not a complete accident.

As showrunner
Oakley and Weinstein were appointed executive producers and showrunners of the seventh and eighth seasons. They were chosen partly because they had been with the show since the third season and understood many of its dynamics. The showrunner is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the show's production. Each episode takes ten months to produce, so the showrunner must "oversee many different episodes in different stages of production all at the same time", with roles including head writer, making notes on the storyboards and working with the voice actors, animators, editors and composers. Oakley and Weinstein often set two script-rewriting rooms in motion at the same time, delegating leadership in the rooms to writers such as Steve Tompkins and David Cohen. Mirkin, who had suggested that the two take over, remained on the show in an advisory capacity, helping Oakley and Weinstein with technical aspects of the show such as editing and sound mixing. When they took over the series, they wanted many of the episodes to be realistic ones that focused more on the five members of the Simpson family and explored their feelings and emotions towards each other. They wanted to produce Treehouse of Horror episodes, episodes about Sideshow Bob, Itchy & Scratchy and several "format-bending" episodes such as "22 Short Films About Springfield", for which Oakley wrote the Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers scene, the latter being his favorite character. Oakley wrote the scene in one afternoon and the finished product resembles almost exactly its first draft. The scene is frequently cited as one of the show's greatest moments and decades later would become a pervasive Internet meme. Writing for Forbes in 2021, Dani Di Placido stated that the scene "serves as a nostalgic reminder of the show’s best years, when a single scene between two side-characters proved so memorable that fans were still quoting it, decades later, and so malleable that it can mutate into one of the internet’s most enduring memes." Oakley stated in 2021 he believed it was the most famous thing he had written and one of his favorites.

They aimed for "at least two episodes per season that 'pushed the envelope', [and] expanded the definition of what an episode could be." This was a style they employed for both seasons they produced. Season eight featured several episodes in which focus was given to secondary characters and in which new issues were explored, such as divorce. Their preferred choice of guest stars were those with unique and interesting voices, and several of their guest stars were "old grizzled men with distinctive voices" such as R. Lee Ermey, Donald Sutherland, Kirk Douglas and Lawrence Tierney. Oakley considered season three to be the single greatest comedic season of television ever produced and so attempted to recreate the feel of that season for the two he ran, focusing on stories with real emotions and situations, as well as some off-the-wall episodes. Season three was their basis for Homer: "We liked Homer the way he was in the second and third seasons. That was what we consciously used as our model. Dimwitted, loving, hyper-enthusiastic, creatively goofy, parody of the American father – drawn with real emotions, though admittedly amplified. This was exemplified in "Mother Simpson", "Lisa the Iconoclast", "Diddly-Dum-Doodly", and a couple others. In some of the less reality-based episodes, i.e. the Beer Baron one – usually Swartzwelder's, we'd treat this stricture with a certain amount of latitude."

One of their most notable episodes was "Homer's Enemy", an episode designed to "push the envelope conceptually." The idea for "Homer's Enemy" was first conceived by Oakley, who thought that Homer should have an enemy. This evolved into the concept of a "real world" co-worker who would either love or hate Homer. The writers chose the latter as they thought it would have funnier results. The result was the character of Frank Grimes, a man who has had to work hard all his life with nothing to show for it and is dismayed and embittered by Homer's success and comfort in spite of his inherent laziness and ignorance. "Homer's Enemy" explores the comic possibilities of a realistic character with a strong work ethic placed alongside Homer in a work environment. In the episode, Homer is portrayed as an everyman and the embodiment of the American spirit; in some scenes, his negative characteristics and silliness are prominently highlighted. By the close of the episode, Grimes, a hard working and persevering "real American hero," is relegated to the role of antagonist; the viewer is intended to be pleased that Homer has emerged victorious. Oakley says the episode was "hyper-meta" and focused on "parodying to some degree the Homer we don't like. That's one of the things that episode is supposed to illustrate – 'Homer gone wrong'. Although, I would argue that in 'Homer's Enemy' he's not even really even all that excessively stupid or immature, actually." Weinstein said: "We wanted to do an episode where the thinking was 'What if a real life, normal person had to enter Homer's universe and deal with him?' I know this episode is controversial and divisive, but I just love it. It really feels like what would happen if a real, somewhat humorless human had to deal with Homer. There was some talk [on NoHomers.net] about the ending—we just did that because (a) it’s really funny and shocking, (2) we like the lesson of 'sometimes, you just can't win'—the whole Frank Grimes episode is a study in frustration and hence Homer has the last laugh and (3) we wanted to show that in real life, being Homer Simpson could be really dangerous and life threatening, as Frank Grimes sadly learned." When the episode was first broadcast, many fans felt it was too dark, unfunny and that Homer was portrayed as overly bad-mannered. On the DVD commentary, Weinstein considers this episode one of the most controversial of the seasons he ran, as it involves sharp observational humor which many fans "didn't get." Weinstein talks about a "generation gap"—the episode was originally panned by viewers, but has since become a favorite among fans who grew up with the show. Other episodes included "Two Bad Neighbors", which sees Homer meet former President George H. W. Bush, a reference to the show's feud with the Bushes in the early 1990s. Weinstein said that the episode is often misunderstood. Many audiences expected a political satire, while the writers made special effort to keep the parody apolitical. Oakley stresses that "it's not a political attack, it's a personal attack!", and instead of criticizing Bush for his policies, the episode pokes fun at his "crotchetiness". Oakley described the episode as a companion piece to "Homer's Enemy", in that a character is juxtaposed alongside Homer and does not get along with him.

Oakley considered working on the show to be similar to working in a bubble due to the lack of interference from the Fox network's executives, as is commonplace on other shows. This allowed them to produce any episodes they wanted, as Weinstein commented: "The great thing about The Simpsons is that we pretty much were able to get away with everything, so there weren't any episodes we really wanted to do that we couldn't do. Even the crazy high-concept ones like 'Two Bad Neighbors' and 'Homer's Enemy' we managed to put on the air because honestly there were no network execs there to stop us." Such was the network's limited input that, when an executive suggested the staff introduce a new character to live with the Simpsons so as to "liven up the show", the staff rejected the idea and instead created the episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", inserting the one-time character Roy, with no explanation as to who he was, or why he was living with the family, as a reference to the executive's proposal. The episode, which marked the point at which The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones for the number of episodes produced for an animated series, was named by the BBC as one of the ten most memorable episodes of the show. They noted "the writers used the opportunity to pay tribute to the art of animation and rail against network interference in their show." The intrusion of the network censors was limited: the normal procedure is for an episode's script to be sent to the censor and then faxed back with a list of lines and words that should be substituted, causing limited problems, as often the offending lines are removed or changed for comedic purposes after animation. The episode "Homer's Phobia" drew the censor's objections. Its script came back with two pages of notes about almost every single line. The censors stated that they did not like the use of the word "gay", or the discussion of homosexuality at all, and closed with a paragraph which stated that "the topic and substance of this episode are unacceptable for broadcast". The censor problems ultimately came to nothing; when the episode came back from animation in South Korea, the then-Fox president had just been fired and replaced, with the censors being replaced as well. The new censors sent back merely one line: "acceptable for broadcast".

Leaving the show
Oakley and Weinstein stood down as showrunners after season eight because they "didn't want to break [the show]." Oakley said: "We always said we'd never do a joke that we'd done before." They felt the showrunner should not stay for more than two seasons. Due to the pressures of having to work on two seasons at once (writing season eight, while doing post-production of season seven), Oakley said that at least two episodes from season eight would ideally have been rewritten, had there been sufficient time, and that towards the end, they were "treading water". As they were working on post-production of season eight, they were credited as consulting producers for season nine, which was in its initial writing stages. Oakley stated that they contributed "somewhere between 0 and .0001%" of the season, only attending the table readings of the scripts.

They produced three episodes held over from season eight, which aired as part of season nine: "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", "The Principal and the Pauper" and "Lisa the Simpson". "The Principal and the Pauper" was negatively received due to the sudden revelation that long-time character Seymour Skinner was actually an imposter. For example, in his book Planet Simpson, Chris Turner describes "The Principal and the Pauper" as the "broadcast that marked [the] abrupt plunge" from The Simpsons ' "Golden Age", which he says began in the middle of the show's third season. He calls the episode "[one of] the weakest episodes in Simpsons history". As such, Oakley considers it the most controversial episode from his tenure as executive producer. He and Weinstein advise viewers to treat "The Principal and the Pauper" as an "experiment". They surmise that the negative reception was partly due to the fact that it was not immediately apparent to viewers that this was such an episode (as opposed to, for example, "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase"). They describe the ending of the episode as an attempt to reset the continuity and allow fans to consider the episode on its own. "Lisa the Simpson" was their final involvement with the show. The duo wanted to end on a good note—Weinstein stated that the episode "was meant to embody the humor, depth, and emotions of The Simpsons,"—and they were pleased with the result.

Awards and critical reaction
Oakley won three Emmys for his work on The Simpsons, and shared them with the other producers. When Oakley was the showrunner and executive producer, "Homer's Phobia" won the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less) in 1997. The previous year, "Treehouse of Horror VI" was submitted for the award. The staff felt the 3D animation sequence "Homer³" would have given it the edge. The episode eventually lost to Pinky and the Brain. Oakley later expressed regret about not submitting an episode with a more emotionally driven plot, such as "Mother Simpson". In 1996, during season seven, the show received a Peabody Award. Oakley shared the awards for "Lisa's Wedding" and "Trash of the Titans" in 1995 and 1998 respectively. Oakley and Weinstein themselves were nominated, along with the show's composer Alf Clausen, for the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics for writing "Señor Burns" from "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)".

Many of the episodes by Oakley and Weinstein are considered amongst the show's best. For example, in 2003, Entertainment Weekly included six episodes they produced ("Homer's Phobia", "A Fish Called Selma", "The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson", "22 Short Films About Springfield", "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" and "The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show") and one episode they wrote ("Who Shot Mr. Burns?") as part of their list of the show's 25 best episodes. Robert Canning of IGN said the episode "You Only Move Twice" from season eight "may well be the greatest Simpsons episode of all time. In my book, it's at least tied," with "Marge vs. the Monorail". A. O. Scott described their era as "reach[ing] a pinnacle of zany self-reference with "22 Short Films About Springfield" and "Simpsons Spin-off Showcase"." The two are popular amongst the show's fans, and in the early days of the Internet, Oakley read and participated in fan discussion of the show on newsgroups such as alt.tv.simpsons. In 2005 and 2006, they participated in two question-and-answer sessions on the fan message board NoHomers.net.

Mission Hill and other work
After Oakley and Weinstein left The Simpsons, they created Mission Hill in 1997, a show about a hip, lazy, 24-year-old cartoonist named Andy French, and sold it to The WB for a fall 1999 debut. They pitched the show in 1998 "as an animated series for young adults with a sophisticated, ' Simpsons ' -style sensibility." They aimed to make the show about realistic issues affecting young adults, which were too mature for The Simpsons. The network was impressed and initially ordered 13 episodes; they ordered five more once the first was completed. Oakley explained: "The audience we're going for is one that's sophisticated, that likes high and low humor, that's very savvy in animation. [But] this show is definitely a case where a lot of people don't get it. It's not setup, setup, setup, punch line. It's observational humor. It's jokes told in a weird way, in the background or with a bizarre sound effect." The show was plagued by "public relations" difficulties, which meant it was "tarnished" from the start. A badly edited two-minute promotional video for the show, sent to advertisers in April 1999 for the annual upfronts, was poorly received. Oakley and Weinstein had been informed that the upfronts did not matter. Similarly, because no episodes were finished in time, journalists were not able to see anything of the show at the network's schedule presentation in July. Subsequently, as Weinstein commented to The Washington Post, "for seven months, the only impression people had of the show was based on a two-minute tape that looked terrible. Six major publications panned it before they even saw it." The pilot garnered largely negative reviews from publications such as The Deseret News; and earned a positive write-up in Variety. Furthermore, the show was forced to change from its originally planned title of The Downtowners due to its closeness to an MTV show. All of these factors combined to ensure the show received little attention, and the WB ran only a few commercials for it. Weinstein stated: "I don't know exactly why America doesn't know about this show. It's like Teen People came out with its fall preview, and we're not even in it." Mission Hill came at a time when the TV schedules were already saturated with animated shows; some of the response could be chalked up to its genre.

The show was put out on a Friday, a night on which the WB had never broadcast before, at 8:00 pm, a time Oakley felt was inappropriate, and aired in front of The Wayans Bros., The Jamie Foxx Show and The Steve Harvey Show, all shows with which Oakley felt it was "incompatible". The show's poor reviews and ratings of an average of 1.8 million led to its swift cancellation. Oakley concluded that the pair had been "very naive" with regard to producing the show, and that it "would've been better on cable anyway because it would never have appealed to a broad enough audience due to the subject matter." The 13 completed episodes were later aired on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block and the show garnered a worldwide cult following. After lobbying from Oakley and Weinstein, the WB eventually released the series on DVD.

From 2001 to 2002, the two served as consulting producers on Futurama. They worked for two-and-a-half days a week, contributing jokes and helping with stories. They worked most substantially on the episodes "That's Lobstertainment!" and "Roswell That Ends Well". They produced The Mullets for UPN in 2003. Oakley and Weinstein have written and produced several television pilots. These include a CBS dramedy entitled 22 Birthdays, Business Class, a comedy for NBC about two traveling salesmen, The Funkhousers, an off-the-wall comedy for ABC about a close-knit family which was directed by Frank Oz and The Ruling Class for Fox, about a high school class who all got along, regardless of their social group. They have written two feature film screenplays: The Optimist for New Line Cinema, in which Seann William Scott was slated to star as a man born with no unhappiness gene, and Ruprecht, a Santa Claus-related comedy for Disney.

Along with Weinstein, Oakley was to serve as an executive producer on the Fox television series Sit Down, Shut Up in 2009. Oakley ended his involvement with the show due to a contract dispute between the staff and Sony Pictures. Sony refused to offer a contract which operated under the complete terms of the Writers Guild of America. Weinstein continued working on the show. His two subsequent projects have been without Weinstein. In late 2009, NBC commissioned a pilot for Oakley's sitcom about "the youngest judge in a circuit courthouse." He wrote the 2010 episode of The Cleveland Show "Gone with the Wind". Amongst other projects, Oakley planned a live-action show where the characters are all robots, which would be made by the same people who produce the children's show Yo Gabba Gabba!. Oakley began writing for the sketch comedy show Portlandia in its second season. He became a co-executive producer from the show's third season, co-writing every episode with Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein and Jonathan Krisel. He and his fellow writers shared the Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing Comedy/Variety (Including Talk) – Series in 2013. Oakley and Weinstein teamed up again to co-write and co-executive produce 22 Birthdays, the failed pilot they originally produced for CBS, as a pilot for Bravo. It was slated to air in 2013. Oakley subsequently worked on as a co-executive producer on the Matt Groening-created series Disenchantment.

Since 2018, Oakley has regularly produced short reviews of various fast food items from restaurants across the US, uploading them to his Instagram channel. This led The Wrap to christen him "the Gordon Ramsay of fast food". He created the annual Steamie Awards to credit what he felt were the best items he reviewed each year in various categories.

In 2022, Audible released Oakley's original sci-fi comedy Space: 1969, starring Natasha Lyonne and a full cast.

Personal life
Oakley and his wife Rachel Pulido have two daughters Mary and Bitsy, and a son named James. He and his family live in Portland, Oregon.

Pulido graduated from Harvard, where she was a writer for the Harvard Lampoon. She wrote for The Simpsons and Mission Hill and was the only Hispanic staff writer in the twenty-year history of The Simpsons. She is of Mexican heritage. Pulido wrote the episode "Grade School Confidential", and the Bumblebee Man segment of "22 Short Films About Springfield".

Credits
Episodes listed are those Oakley has been credited as writing or co-writing.
 * Sunday Best (1991) – writer
 * The Simpsons (1992–98) – writer, producer, story editor, supervising producer, consulting producer, executive producer, showrunner (all episodes with Josh Weinstein)
 * "Marge Gets a Job" (1992)
 * "Marge in Chains" (1993)
 * "Treehouse of Horror IV" ("Terror at 5½ Feet" segment) (1993)
 * "$pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)" (1993)
 * "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy" (1994)
 * "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song" (1994)
 * "Lady Bouvier's Lover" (1994)
 * "Sideshow Bob Roberts" (1994)
 * "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" (1994)
 * "Bart vs. Australia" (1995)
 * "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" (Parts 1 & 2) (1995)
 * "22 Short Films About Springfield" (Skinner and Chalmers scene) (1996)
 * Mission Hill (1999–02) – creator, writer, executive producer, voice of George Bang
 * "Pilot"
 * Futurama (2001–02) – consulting producer (season 3 only)
 * Ruling Class (2001) – writer
 * The Funkhousers (2002) – writer
 * The Mullets (2003) – creator, executive producer
 * 22 Birthdays (2005) – writer
 * Business Class (2007) – creator, writer
 * The Cleveland Show (2010–12) – writer
 * "Gone with the Wind"
 * "American Prankster"
 * "All You Can Eat" (story with Assem Batra)
 * Regular Show (2010) - writer
 * "Just Set Up the Chairs"
 * "Caffeinated Concert Tickets"
 * "Rigby's Body"
 * Portlandia (2012–13) - writer, consulting producer
 * With Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein and Jonathan Krisel, Oakley co-wrote "Brunch Village" and all of Season 3
 * Disenchantment (2018–19) - writer, co-executive producer
 * "Dreamland Falls"
 * "In Her Own Write"
 * Close Enough (2020–22) - writer, executive producer (season 3)
 * "100% No Stress Day"

title: Bill Oakley


text:
Talk:Dale Earnhardt

GA/FA Push?
Hi. I'm probably thinking about getting this article to GA or FA status with the intention of featuring it as a TFA on February 18, 2016 (the 15th anniversary of Earnhardt's death) and April 29, 2016 (what would have been his 70th birthday). Here are a few things we need to look at.

 * The lead section should be a summary of his whole life, and legacy.
 * The NASCAR career section may need to be trimmed and shoehorned into the biography section. His early life and personal life can be separated into it as well.
 * We also need to summarize the death section and aftermath as well too, but leave in important information as well (the rest of it is covered in the main article, Death of Dale Earnhardt, which I also plan to take it to GA sometime soon).

Any thoughts or ideas on how to improve the article would be appreciated. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 23:00, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We'd probably have to start making a push now if we wanted a TFA February 18. At first glance, it seems like there's some trivial fancruft that could be removed, and maybe some of the headers under the NASCAR career section could be merged. I took up Sam Hornish, Jr. for a GA push in August, and after getting looked at by the GoCE, it's waiting for a review at GAN. It's also probably in the best shape of any NASCAR biography, so perhaps it could be used as a point of reference (of course, Hornish doesn't have the same notability level as Earnhardt, but regardless...). --Bentvfan54321 (talk) 17:50, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, Would you mind double-checking the results tables and making sure they are all sourced and accurate? Thanks, --Bentvfan54321 (talk) 17:52, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yep no problem. I'll ping you once I double-checked all results. Jahn1234567890 (talk) 10:50, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

His 70th Birthday would be in 2021, which is five years from now. Paul T. "Ptb1997" Backes (talk) 15:33, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Contradiction on ownership of "No. 3" ?
Section "Aftermath":

"Childress, who holds the rights from NASCAR to the No.3"

Section "No. 3 car":

"A common misconception is that Richard Childress Racing "owns the rights" to the No. 3 in NASCAR competition (fueled by the fact that Kevin Harvick's car has a little No. 3 as an homage to Earnhardt and the usage of the No. 3 on the Camping World Series truck of Ty Dillon), but in fact no team owns the rights to this or any other number."

I don't know which if either is right, but one of you who does might find one or both of those to be in error and needing an edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.27.72.99 (talk) 05:01, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Intimidator (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 11:46, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Dale Earnhardt


text:
Rout

A rout is a panicked, disorderly and undisciplined retreat of troops from a battlefield, following a collapse in a given unit's command authority, unit cohesion and combat morale (esprit de corps).

History
Historically, lightly-equipped soldiers such as light cavalry, auxiliaries, partisans or militia were important when pursuing a fast-moving, defeated enemy force and could often keep up the pursuit into the following day, causing the routed army heavy casualties or total dissolution. The slower moving heavy forces could then either seize objectives or pursue at leisure. However, with the advent of armoured warfare and blitzkrieg style operations, an enemy army could be kept more or less in a routed or disorganized state for days or weeks on end. In modern times, a routed formation will often cause a complete breakdown in the entire front, enabling the organized foe to attain a quick and decisive victory in the campaign. In the blitzkrieg warfare that characterized World War II, the French Army was decisively defeated in the Battle of Sedan (1940) opening a 20 km gap in Allied lines into which Heinz Guderian poured his mechanized forces. German tanks kept the rout going, and the Allies were unable to stabilize the situation before the Wehrmacht occupied Paris and forced the capitulation of the French government.

Tactics
Feigned routs may be used as a military deception to entice an enemy into pursuing the "retreating" force, with the intent of causing the enemy to abandon a strong defensive position or leading the enemy into an ambush. This carries some risk because a feigned rout can quickly turn into a real one.

It was a favourite tactic of the Vikings and it is thought that Norman cavalry successfully performed a feigned rout at the Battle of Hastings.

In the Battle of Cowpens, Daniel Morgan's planned retreat of the unreliable forward militia was interpreted by the British commander Banastre Tarleton as a rout, as intended. In over-aggressively pressing the attack, the British lost cohesion and were overwhelmingly defeated in the resulting double envelopment by the Americans. This feigned rout tactic had several benefits: it was a ruse de guerre that played off British expectations that an undisciplined militia would rout on contact, creating British overconfidence; the militia screened the main American force from the British view; and by asking for only two volleys before the retreat Morgan set an achievable goal for shaky and poorly trained militia facing British regulars, as well as allowing the militia units to remain intact for later parts of the battle.

Leading up to the French decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon ordered his forces to retreat. Desperate to lure the Allies into battle, Napoleon gave every indication in the days preceding the engagement that the French army was on the brink of collapse, even abandoning the dominant Pratzen Heights near Austerlitz.

Other uses of the term
A "rout", or rout-party, was in Georgian England a relatively informal party given by the well off to which large numbers of people were invited. The term covered a variety of styles of event, but they tended to be basic, and a guest could not count on any music, food, drink, cards, and dancing being available though any of them might be. "Rout-cake" was a particular type, mentioned by Jane Austen in Emma. Often, all there was to do was talk. James Gillray's caricature of 1796 shows Lady Georgiana Gordon (1781–1853, presumably "Lady Godina"), not yet Duchess of Bedford and indeed only about 16 at most, gambling at a game called Pope Joan, with the winning "Curse of Scotland" in her hand. At left is Albinia Hobart, Countess of Buckinghamshire, perhaps the hostess. She was famous for hosting gambling parties. Behind the card-tables is a tight crush of people.

The events sometimes became rather disorderly, and the name presumably originates as a metaphorical extension of the military term.

"Rout" is often used to mean "an overwhelming defeat" as well as "to put to disorderly retreat" or "to defeat utterly". It is often used in sports to describe a blowout.

In English common law, a rout is a disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons acting together in a manner that suggests an intention to riot although they do not carry out the inferred act. As a common law offence, it was abolished in England and Wales by the Public Order Act 1986.

Rout is personified as the eponymous deity in Homer's Iliad as the cowardly son of Ares.

"Rout" is also one of several collective nouns for a group of snails.

title: Rout


text:
Merri Creek Trail

The Merri Creek Trail is a shared use path for cyclists and pedestrians that follows the Merri Creek through the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Route
The path commences at Dights Falls near where Merri Creek enters the Yarra River, and then takes a winding route, mainly following the creek all the way to the Western Ring Road Trail. Hazards include a steep section, unmanageable to all but the most hardy cyclists and close to a school, at Heidelberg Road in Clifton Hill, and a missing section in North Fitzroy that requires leaving the river cutting to cross St. George's Road.

The route is now sealed for its entirety, with the last unsealed sections replaced in 2008. Along the way it passes by CERES, the Brunswick velodrome and the Coburg Lake park.

At the Western Ring Road Trail, heading west will lead you to the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail, Brimbank Park and the Maribyrnong River Trail. La Trobe University Bundoora campus can be accessed by following the trail east.

Landmarks

 * CERES Community Park
 * Brunswick Velodrome
 * Coburg Lake
 * HM Prison Pentridge
 * Merri Creek Labyrinth

Connections

 * The path joins the Western Ring Road Trail in the north.
 * In the south, it meets the Yarra River Trail.
 * In April 2010, connections to the Capital City Trail were improved with the addition of a new bridge across Merri Creek, 160m south of the junction of Union Street and Merri Parade.

North end at -37.69467°N, 144.9675°W. South end at -37.78314°N, 144.99263°W.

title: Merri Creek Trail


text: User talk:68.221.125.247

title: User talk:68.221.125.247