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State Bar of California

The State Bar of California is an administrative division of the Supreme Court of California which licenses attorneys and regulates the practice of law in California. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate discipline, accepting attorney-member fees, and financially distributing sums paid through attorney trust accounts to fund nonprofit legal entities. It is directly responsible to the Supreme Court of California; however, its trustees are now appointed by the Supreme Court, the California Legislature, and Governor of California. All attorney admissions are issued as recommendations of the State Bar, which are then routinely ratified by the Supreme Court. Attorney discipline is handled by the State Bar Office of Chief Trial Counsel, which acts as prosecutor before the State Bar Court of California. The State Bar has been cited for its corrupt practices during the 21st century, and is subject to reforms issued by its governing body, the California Supreme Court.

The State Bar was legally established on July 29, 1927, when the State Bar Act went into effect. The State Bar of California is the largest in the United States, with over 286,000 living members as of December 2022, of whom nearly 197,000 are on active status. It is headquartered in San Francisco, with a branch office in Los Angeles.

At its inception, the State Bar was a "unified" bar in which disciplinary functions and more traditional "bar association" functions were joined into one entity. In 2018–2019, the State Bar was split into two entities: the State Bar of California became a standalone Government entity with legal enforcement via the State Bar Court.

The new entity split off from the State Bar of California became the California Lawyers Association (CLA) and took over certain functions such as education, lobbying, and annual meetings. Membership in the CLA is voluntary. Membership in the State Bar of California is mandatory for most practicing lawyers in California (the only exceptions being for very specific instances). The CLA is an NGO (Non-governmental organization).

History
The State Bar's predecessor was a voluntary state bar association known as the California Bar Association. The leader of the effort to establish an integrated (official) bar was Judge Jeremiah F. Sullivan, who first proposed the concept at the California Bar Association's Santa Barbara convention in September 1917, and provided the California Bar Association with a copy of a Quebec statute as a model.

It took almost ten years to establish an integrated bar in California. Sullivan, who was also the President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, organized BASF committees to draft and propose appropriate legislation. Both BASF-drafted bills died in the California Legislature, in 1919 and 1921. In 1922, Sullivan finally persuaded the CBA to take action on his proposal; the California Bar Association drafted a new bill, lobbied lawyers and legislators around the state for their support, and persuaded the Legislature to pass the bill in 1925. That bill died by Governor Friend Richardson's pocket veto.

After two more years of lobbying, the CBA tried again. Governor C. C. Young signed the State Bar Act into law on March 16, 1927. On May 12, 1927, the Supreme Court of California appointed the State Bar Commission, which in turn established the State Bar of California as an operating entity with offices at 519 California Street in San Francisco on July 30, 1927. The State Bar immediately mailed out registration forms (demanding a $3 preorganization fee as authorized by the Act) to all California attorneys. Identification numbers were assigned to each attorney as they registered; notably, State Bar Number 1 went to Chief Justice William H. Waste.

By October 1, 1927, 7,872 lawyers had registered. These lawyers then voted by mail for the State Bar's first Board of Governors. On November 17, the State Bar held a preorganization dinner at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, followed by the formal organization meeting the next day. By the time the dinner started, 9,602 lawyers had registered. The next morning, during the State Bar's organization meeting, the CBA yielded to its successor by winding up its affairs and ending its corporate existence.

Integrated bar
In 2018–2019, California joined the majority of American states that operate an integrated (mandatory) bar, in which the statewide bar association is integrated with the judiciary and active membership therein is required in order to practice law. Article 6, Section 9 of the California Constitution states:

"The State Bar of California is a public corporation. Every person admitted and licensed to practice law in this State is and shall be a member of the State Bar except while holding office as a judge of a court of record."

The State Bar acts as the administrative arm of the California Supreme Court in matters involving the admission, regulation, and discipline of attorneys. Its structure, responsibilities and powers are elaborated in the State Bar Act, Sections 6000–6238 of the Business and Professions Code, as well as its own Rules of the State Bar of California and certain portions of the California Rules of Court.

Generally, practicing law in the state of California without being a licensee of the State Bar is the crime of unauthorized practice of law. There are limited exceptions such as for patent attorneys who restrict their practice to the prosecution of patent applications (i.e., the process of obtaining a patent before the United States Patent and Trademark Office); attorneys who practice areas of law exclusively regulated by the federal government (such as immigration) under a United States Supreme Court decision in 1963 that prohibited states from restricting the practice of exclusively federal areas of law; and attorneys from other states who have applied to the California courts for temporary admission pro hac vice to work on a single California case in collaboration with a licensee of the State Bar. Other exceptions include provisions for members of the military stationed with their spouses in California, registered in-house counsel, and registered legal aid attorneys.

Notably, the State Bar's board of trustees is no longer elected by the state's attorneys. Instead, the trustees are now appointed by the Supreme Court of California, the Governor of California and members of the California Legislature.

Divestment of voluntary bar functions
On October 2, 2017, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 36. SB 36, sponsored by Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) which mandated the separation of the sections of the State Bar into a new 501(c)(6) entity. This Association was designed to house the 16 sections of the State Bar of California, as well as the California Young Lawyers Association. The sections provide low-cost continuing education for attorneys, which the State Bar of California requires. The sections also work with legislators to interpret, amend, and propose legislation. While lawyers are required to pay dues to the State Bar of California to practice law in the state, membership within the sections is voluntary. SB 36 helped formalize the separation, reauthorized mandatory dues for two years, and reduced the number of lawyers on the State Bar of California's board of trustees. The separation became official on January 1, 2018, with the launch of the California Lawyers Association.

The State Bar of California no longer performs educational or lobbying functions. Instead, its statutory mission involves activities to protect the public, increase access to legal services, and increase diversity in the legal profession. It administers the biannual bar examination for law students, processes complaints about attorney misconduct and the unauthorized practice of law, disciplines attorneys, and works with the California Supreme Court to consider and draft the Rules of Professional Conduct by which all California lawyers must conduct themselves. It collects and distributes legal aid funds and conducts an attorney census to publish demographics reports. It collects and maintains attorney records and collects licensing fees, and conducts limited services for licensees related to its current mission.

Fee structure
The State Bar of California is one of a small number of State Bars whose member fee structure must be ratified annually by both the legislature and the governor. Without such annual reauthorization, it can charge California lawyers only $77 per year.

In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Keller v. State Bar of California that attorneys who are required to be members of a state bar association have a First Amendment right to refrain from subsidizing the organization's political or ideological activities as was the case with the California State Bar's activities.

In October 1997, Governor Pete Wilson vetoed the fee authorization bill for that year. He pointed out that California's bar had the highest annual fee in the country at $478. He also stated that the State Bar had become bloated and inefficient and criticized its Conference of Delegates for taking positions on divisive political issues like abortion. The State Bar's political and lobbying activities, combined with the compulsory nature of its dues, had already resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the State Bar was forced to allow attorneys to opt out of paying dues to support positions that they found abhorrent, Keller v. State Bar of California,.

As a result, the State Bar was forced to lay off 500 of its 700 personnel on June 26, 1998. For six months, the State Bar's attorney disciplinary system was nonfunctional. On December 3, 1998, the Supreme Court of California unanimously held that it had the power to impose an emergency annual fee of $171.44 on all California lawyers to fund the attorney disciplinary system. See In re Attorney Disciplinary System, 19 Cal. 4th 582 (1998). By then, the backlog of unprocessed complaints had soared to 6,000.

On September 7, 1999, Governor Gray Davis signed a bill that set the annual fee for the State Bar at $395, thus ending the funding crisis. Since then, the State Bar has undertaken several reforms to improve the efficiency of its operations. In 2002, the State Bar split off the Conference of Delegates into a separate volunteer organization, now known as the Conference of California Bar Associations.

On October 11, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the fee authorization bill for 2010. In his veto message accompanying the return of the unsigned bill to the Legislature, he stated that just as in 1997, the State Bar had again become inefficient, scandal-ridden, and excessively politicized.

In 2015 and 2016, the California State Auditor's Office found that the State Bar was inefficient and had failed to properly engage with stakeholders. The State Auditor's Office also determined that the State Bar's financial reporting lacked transparency and had obscured a growing shortfall in its Client Security Fund, masking a high volume of claims that the State Bar expected the fund would be required to pay. Audits also found that the State Bar had created an unnecessary nonprofit organization and then used State Bar funds to cover the nonprofit's financial losses.

Another punitive lapse occurred in 2016, when the State Legislature allowed its session to end without enacting a bill authorizing the bar to collect lawyer fees in 2017.

In 2018, however, the State Bar "split" into two entities, with a newly appointee-only board of trustees. In late 2019, the State Legislature approved the first licensing fee increase for the State Bar in over 20 years. Annual licensing fees for active attorneys now total $510.00.

Admissions criteria
The task of deciding whom to admit to the bar is performed by the Committee of Bar Examiners and the Office of Admissions under procedures set out in the State Bar Act.

Prior to law schools in the U.S., the only way to become an attorney was to "read" for the law. Usually this was done by reading Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England as a textbook, and by interning for a judge or a lawyer for a prescribed period. The Bar candidate would then be questioned by a panel of court justices and accepted or rejected as an officer of the court. If accepted, the candidate was sworn into the Bar.

California requires two years of pre-legal education before beginning the study of law. Once the pre-legal education is met, California has different paths to become a licensed attorney:
 * 1) Attending a law school accredited by the American Bar Association or approved by the Committee of Bar Examiners and passing the California Bar Examination (bar exam).
 * 2) Study law for at least four years by:
 * * Attending a law school authorized by the State of California to award professional degrees that is not accredited by the ABA or approved by the State Bar of California. (including online law schools) and pass the bar exam, or
 * * Participating in an approved course of study in a law office or the chambers of a judge and pass the bar exam. ("Law Office Study Program"; see below.)
 * 1) Already being licensed in another state in the United States and taking the California bar exam. Lawyers who are already licensed (and have been active for four or more years) in another jurisdiction may be able to waive out of taking the Multistate Bar Examination portion of the bar exam.

Regardless of the path one takes to becoming a licensed attorney, most bar applicants take a special private preparation course for the bar exam immediately following their graduation from law school.

There is no citizenship requirement for admission to the California bar exam; a person can be a citizen of any country and be admitted to practice in California. No particular type of visa, including a green card, is required for admission to the bar. However, applicants must have a Social Security Number to apply. Applicants are able to petition for an exception to the latter rule.

Prospective applicants must also pass the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination and undergo a background check to determine if the applicant has the "good moral character" necessary to practice law in California. A prospective applicant must receive a "positive determination" as to the inquiry on their "moral character" in addition to satisfying all other educational requirements and exam passages to be granted a license to practice law in California.

Accredited law school study
California is one of several states that allow study at law schools accredited by the American Bar Association and as well as other law schools. Through its Committee of Bar Examiners (CBE), the State Bar approves certain California law schools. Study at registered unaccredited law schools, including full-time online law schools, is also allowed. The majority of prospective lawyers studying for the California Bar attend law schools accredited by the ABA or approved by the CBE. Once they receive their J.D. degree from these schools they are eligible to take the bar exam.

Unaccredited law school study
Students may choose to become a licensed attorney through law schools that are not accredited by the ABA or approved by the State Bar of California Committee of Bar Examiners. Students attending these schools must also complete the First-Year Law Students' Examination (FYLSE, popularly known as the "Baby Bar Examination") before receiving credit for their law study.

Students should pass the FYLSE within three administrations after first becoming eligible to take the examination (which usually occurs upon completion of the first year of law study) in order to receive credit for law study undertaken up to the point of passage. It is possible for a student to pass the test after the first three administrations, but such a student will receive credit only for their first year of law study; no courses beyond the first year will be credited if a student takes more law school classes and passes the Baby Bar thereafter.

Law Office Study Program
The California State Bar Law Office Study Program allows California residents to become California attorneys without graduating from college or law school, assuming they meet basic pre-legal educational requirements. (candidates without a college degree may take and pass the College Level Examination Program (CLEP).) The Bar candidate must study under a judge or lawyer for four years and must also pass the Baby Bar within three administrations after first becoming eligible to take the examination. They are then eligible to take the California Bar Examination.

Out-of-state attorney examination
Persons already licensed as attorneys in other states may take the California Bar. Provided they have already taken the Multistate Bar Examination (MBE), they may omit that portion of the California Bar Examination. The attorneys opting to omit the MBE must have four years of being in good standing in their local jurisdictions. Attorneys without the required years of being in good standing take the General Examination, like most other applicants.

California Bar Examination
California's bar exam is administered twice annually, in February and July. It is widely considered one of the most difficult bar examinations in the United States. Several prominent attorneys and politicians have either never passed, or had difficulty passing, the California Bar Exam. Significant among these are former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (a graduate of Peoples College of Law who never passed the bar exam after failing four times), Stanford Law School dean and Harvard Law School graduate Kathleen Sullivan (who failed the bar in July 2005 but passed on her second attempt in February 2006), California Governor and former Attorney General Jerry Brown, a graduate of Yale Law School (who failed his first attempt but passed on his second attempt), former California Governor Pete Wilson, a graduate of UC Berkeley School of Law (who passed on his fourth attempt), former San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Angela Alioto (who failed several times before passing) and former United States Secretary of the Interior William P. Clark Jr. (who failed his first attempt). Unsuccessful applicants have even sued the State Bar—unsuccessfully—on the grounds that the exam is unnecessarily difficult.

Before July 2017, the California Bar Examination consisted of 18 hours of examination time spread out over three days; the only U.S. state with a longer bar exam was Louisiana, at 21.5 hours of testing. (Louisiana law, in contrast to the common law system of the other 49 states, is based partially on civil law and is one of the few exams without a multiple choice component.) Beginning in July 2017, the California Bar Exam adopted a 2-day format.

The exam currently tests 13 different subject areas:
 * Constitutional Law (Federal)
 * Contracts (Common Law and Uniform Commercial Code)
 * Criminal Law and Procedure
 * Evidence (Federal Rules of Evidence and the California Evidence Code)
 * Real Property
 * Torts
 * Wills (California law)
 * Trusts
 * Civil Procedure (Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the California Code of Civil Procedure)
 * Community Property (California law)
 * Professional Responsibility (California law and the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct)
 * Business Associations (Corporations, Agency, all forms of Partnerships, and Limited Liability Entities)
 * Remedies

The written section of the exam, which includes 5 essays and 1 90 minute performance test, accounts for 50% of the total score. Applicants sitting for the California Bar Examination do not know which of the 13 subjects listed above will in fact be tested on the essay portion of the examination. In recent years, it has been increasingly common for the exam to feature one or more "crossover" questions, which tests applicants in multiple subjects. Examples of past tested essays with sample answers are available on the California State Bar website.

California-specific legal knowledge is required only for Evidence, Civil Procedure, Wills, Community Property, and Professional Responsibility; for the other topics, either general common law ("bar exam law") or the federal laws apply. Beginning in July 2007, applicants may be tested on the California Evidence Code and the California Code of Civil Procedure in the essay portion of the exam in addition to the Federal Rules of Evidence and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) portion of the exam accounts for 50% of the total score and is a nationally administered, 200-question multiple choice exam. Of the 200 questions, only 175 questions are scored, while the other 25 are unscored experimental questions used to gauge their appropriateness for future exams. The MBE covers only the topics of contracts (including sales of goods under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code), real property, torts, constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. While the essay section of the exam may test one or more of these areas as well, the MBE section is dedicated to these subjects.

The exam sites are usually large convention centers in Northern and Southern California. Exam security is tight. For example, proctors are assigned to stand in restrooms for the duration of the entire exam to prevent applicants from asking each other for assistance. Additionally, applicants are required to provide fingerprints, photo identification, and a handwriting sample at the testing site.

Overall bar exam pass rates tend to hover between 35% and 55%, and previously were often the lowest in the United States. In October 2017, the California Supreme Court reviewed the passing score of the California Bar Exam, after being urged by various law schools to lower the passing score. After review, the California Supreme Court initially declined to lower the passing score, leaving it intact. Finally in 2020 the California Supreme Court lowered the passing score, effective with the October 2020 bar exam onward. This change was made not only in light of the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also with renewed consideration of the review conducted in 2017. The passing score dropped from its previous requirement of 1440 to 1390.

The lowest pass rate occurred in February 2020 when 26.8% of takers passed. When considering only graduates of ABA-approved schools, the average pass rate for first timers in 2021 was 79%; for repeaters 26%, mirroring the percentage passing rates for all jurisdictions combined. The overall pass rate for the February 2022 California Bar Examination was 33.9%. The overall pass rate for the July 2022 California Bar Examination was 52.4%.

2019 release of test subjects
In early July 2019, State Bar employees provided several high-ranking law school Deans with a list of the test subjects to be given on the bar exam in a few weeks' time. Some of these Deans shared this list with their students prematurely. Learning that some schools had this information and others didn't, the State Bar decided to release the shortened list to all exam takers. A report issued by the California Supreme Court concluded that the release was inadvertent "human error" but redacted the names of State Bar personnel responsible for the error.

Admission of undocumented immigrants
On February 1, 2014, Sergio C. Garcia, an undocumented immigrant, was sworn in as a member of the State Bar of California, making him the nation's first undocumented immigrant to become an attorney. The bar admission came almost one month after the state supreme court held that undocumented immigrants were not automatically disqualified from being licensed as attorneys in the state. Under that ruling, as well as a statute that Governor Brown signed into law taking effect on January 1, 2014 (in order to take advantage of a specific provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act discussed at oral argument before the state supreme court), Garcia was admitted to the state bar. Garcia was brought to the United States as a child and remained, according to court findings, undocumented through no fault of his own. He grew up in Northern California, graduated from college and law school. He passed the California Bar Exam on the first try, and satisfied the Committee of Bar Examiners of his good moral character.

Pre-2018 rules
Prior to November 1, 2018, California was the only state that did not use either set of professional responsibility rules developed by the American Bar Association. From 2001 to 2014, the Commission for the Revision of the Rules of Professional Conduct of the State Bar of California worked on a comprehensive revision of the California rules that was intended to, among other things, convert them into a heavily modified, localized version of the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct. That is, the result would look like the Model Rules, but with modifications to preserve the substance of existing California rules that better reflect local laws and customs.

However, the commission's progress was very slow because there are so many substantive and structural differences between the California rules and the Model Rules. The Commission finally finished nearly all the revisions in 2010, and the State Bar Board of Governors (later renamed the board of trustees) ratified them in July and September 2010. However, the proposed revisions could not go into effect until the Supreme Court of California approved them. As of 2014, 11 of 67 proposed rules had been finalized and submitted to the Supreme Court for its approval.

On September 19, 2014, the Supreme Court of California returned to the State Bar all proposed revised rules that had been submitted for its consideration. The Court's letter directed the State Bar to start the process all over again with a new commission, and to submit a new set of revised rules by March 31, 2017.

2018 revisions
On November 1, 2018, California adopted a new model code largely based on the ABA model rules, with some exceptions. California professional responsibility law is still divided among California Business & Professions Code Section 6068 (the statutory duties of an attorney), the California Rules of Professional Conduct (CRPC), and a number of uncodified cases. A number of innovations in professional responsibility law first arose in California, such as Cumis counsel.

Of all American states, California imposes one of the strongest duties of confidentiality upon its attorneys. There were no exceptions to the duty until 2004, when Business & Professions Code Section 6068 was amended to add a single discretionary exception to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm. The amendment was borrowed from the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

2023 revisions
Responding to criticism of the Bar's corrupt oversight of disgraced attorney Tom Girardi, in November 2023, the Supreme Court of California adopted ethics reforms for State Bar of California officials and judges.

Lawyer discipline
As its primary post-split function, the Supreme Court of California operates the State Bar Court, staffed by judges who specialize in handling only professional responsibility cases full-time.

Complaints against attorneys are investigated and prosecuted by the State Bar's Office of the Chief Trial Counsel. Under the State Bar Act, upon receiving a complaint, the Bar may choose whether to open an investigation. If the Bar does find sufficient evidence of misconduct, decides that it has standing, and decides to take action to impose discipline, it has the power to proceed against accused attorneys either in the Supreme Court of California or in the State Bar Court. The State Bar holds that it may decline to review complaints that are not made by a judge who heard a matter related to the complaint.

Complaints of professional misconduct are usually first prosecuted in the Hearing Department of the State Bar Court. If the lawyer disagrees with an adverse decision, he or she may appeal to the Review Department of the State Bar Court, and from there to the state supreme court. Although the State Bar Court's decisions are technically only recommendations, the distinction is largely academic. Failure to comply with conditions imposed as part of any form of lesser discipline short of disbarment can itself result in a recommendation of disbarment, which is virtually always ratified because the attorney's noncompliance with the State Bar Act will have been clearly established by that point.

In February 2012, Jon B. Streeter, President of the State Bar, said:

"Our role is roughly analogous to that of a criminal prosecutor.... The professional discipline of attorneys is not about punishment. For years, [the State Bar] has carried an enormous backlog ...averaging some 1,600–1,900 uncompleted investigations .... Any backlog—much less one of this magnitude—undermines our credibility with the public .... Only offending lawyers deserving of discipline benefit from delay...."

Licensee services
As a regulatory agency whose mission is now focused on public protection, the State Bar's services are focused on those necessary to meet its mission. The State Bar maintains licensee records and a searchable database of attorney profiles for the public on its website. To collect licensing fees that fund its operations, the State Bar sends out annual fee statements and collects fees.

Under the supervision of the Board of Legal Specialization, the State Bar officially certifies legal specialists in 11 different practice areas. It was first announced in February 1971 as the first such program anywhere in the United States. It began actual operations in 1973 with three practice areas initially available: workers' compensation, criminal law, and tax law.

The Minimum Continuing Legal Education Program, launched in 1990, certifies continuing legal education providers and enforces the MCLE requirement (currently 25 hours every three years) through random audits.

The Lawyer Assistance Program, created in 2002, assists lawyers with mental health and substance abuse problems.

The Mandatory Fee Arbitration Program, created in 1978, resolves attorney-client disputes over attorney fees. It is voluntary for clients but mandatory for attorneys if the client demands it.

With the split of professional association functions in 2018, member services were spun off. For example, an independent organization, CalBar Affinity, now maintains CalBar Connect, a website offering discounted products and services to California attorneys.

In November 2023, the State Bar of California became the first regulatory agency in the profession to pass disclosure and billing guidelines for member use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Other responsibilities
In addition to disciplinary functions, the State Bar still operates several other non-disciplinary functions:

 * The Committee on Judicial Nominees Evaluation, which conducts confidential evaluations of persons identified by the Governor as candidates for judicial office and produces a rating of "exceptionally well qualified," "well qualified," "qualified," or "not qualified."
 * The State Bar's Office of Access and Inclusion carries out strategic objectives around diversifying the profession and supports the work of the Legal Services Trust Fund Commission, which oversees distribution of legal aid funds. The revenue comes from the state Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts program, the Equal Access Fund, which is appropriated by the State Legislature, and the Justice Gap Fund, funded by voluntary donations from attorneys. In 2022, the State Bar distributed nearly $150 million in legal aid funding. The State Bar distributes these funds to approximately 100 nonprofit organizations that provide legal services to low-income Californians. Other access to justice initiatives include certifying lawyer referral services and encouraging and coordinating pro bono representation.
 * The State Bar Client Security Fund Commission operates the Client Security Fund, which provides compensation for clients whose attorneys committed certain types of crimes against them like theft or embezzlement.

Executive Director Joseph Dunn 2014 firing
On November 13, 2014, the State Bar issued a statement saying that former State Senator Joseph Dunn's employment as executive director had been terminated by the board of trustees. The same day, Dunn filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the State Bar challenging the termination because he had exposed malfeasance and "egregious improprieties." The State Bar denied Dunn's allegations, saying the "Board received a complaint from a high-level employee raising serious, wide-ranging allegations about ... Dunn and certain State Bar employees." The lawsuit was eventually diverted into arbitration, and in March 2017, the arbitrator rejected Dunn's claims and exonerated the State Bar for his firing. In July 2022, the State Bar issued a Notice of Disciplinary Charges against Joe Dunn. After dismissing most charges against him, in February 2023, Judge Yvette D. Roland of the State Bar Court of California, in September 2023, denied Dunn's second motion to dismiss remaining charges, setting a trial commencement date of November 29, 2023.

State Bar internal corruption
The Bar hired Los Angeles law firm Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg to conduct an internal investigation in February 2023, which found that State Bar employees had accepted gifts, travel, meals, and other things of value from the Girardi & Keese law firm. This influenced the State Bar to block and bury complaints against the law firm. The State Bar disclosed that, across four decades, during which it had received 205 complaints against Thomas Girardi, the Bar took no action against the attorney and dismissed the cases.

In 2009, long-time member and Girardi & Keese partner Howard Miller had been elected, uncontested, as the State Bar's 85th president. In 2021, the Los Angeles Times reported that Miller had led the board of trustees to force out its director, recruiting another Girardi ally, Joe Dunn, to replace Judy Johnson, its longest-serving executive director following two terms as its chief trial counsel, overseeing attorney discipline in California.

title: State Bar of California


text:
Kadena High School

Kadena High School (カデナ高校) is an American high school located at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa City, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, and is administered by the Department of Defense Education Activity. Opened in 1981, the school is for English-speaking American military subordinates. It is run under the supervision of the Okinawa Department of Defense Dependents Schools District.

Campus
The school is located near the east entrance of Gate 5 with Kadena Middle School on the west side of the Gate. The school has a single main building where most classes and activities are held. Due to a large number of students, an additional 2-story building, referred to as "The Annex", was added. The school pool was filled in due to a bad foundation, and the pool house was subsequently given to the school's AFJROTC unit.

History
When opened in 1981, it included grade levels 7–12, as there were no middle schools at the time. Kadena Middle School (Gate 2 location) closed after the previous year. A new middle school for grades 7 and 8 was built across the street in 1990 with access via a bridge, and later included grade 6.

There were a total of 41 students associated with the KHS class of 1982, with 35 graduating. There are 40 listed are in the yearbook; however, four graduated on January 20, 1982, and 31 graduated on June 2 (one is not listed in the yearbook). The yearbook has 29 student pictures and lists an additional 11 with no picture.

Scandal
According to Pacific Stars and Stripes, in December 1996, Vice Principal James Feller resigned and fled Okinawa after learning he was being investigated for taking sexually suggestive photographs, including partially nude photos, of female students after learning he had been suspended and slated for removal. He left Okinawa without the knowledge of local authorities, and before they could prevent him from international travel. Japanese investigators were brought in to investigate his home outside the military base and to decide if charges should be brought against him. The conclusion of the investigation led Japanese officials to believe that they did not have the jurisdiction to prosecute Feller, as all involved were Americans, and Feller had fled back to America. It is unclear why American military police did not continue their investigation into Feller.

Sports
The school mascot is the Panther and the colors are black and gold.

The school's main rivals are Kubasaki High School and Okinawa Christian School International.

The school has teams in baseball, softball, tennis, golf, volleyball, cheer, basketball, soccer, football, wrestling, cross country, and track.

Recognition
In the 2009–2010 season, Kadena beat Seoul American for the Far East Title 44–0.

Kadena High School's JA-932 Air Force JROTC unit competed in the first DODEA Far East JROTC marksmanship competition involving Air Force cadets, in December, 2011, where one Kadena cadet won a novice 3rd place overall medal.

Kadena High School hosted the 2012 DODEA Far East JROTC drill competition in March 2012. They also hosted it in March 2014, getting 1st place in Overall, Armed Exhibition, Armed Regulations, and Unarmed Regulations, and also getting 2nd place in Unarmed Exhibition and Color Guard. This was their first time winning the competition.

Kadena High School's Honors 10 Literature and 12 English teacher, Sarah McKinney was awarded the Okinawa District "Teacher of the Year" award by the Department of Defense Education Activity DODEA.

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

title: Kadena High School


text:
Intel740

The Intel740, or i740 (codenamed Auburn), is a 350 nm graphics processing unit using an AGP interface released by Intel on February 12, 1998. Intel was hoping to use the i740 to popularize the Accelerated Graphics Port, while most graphics vendors were still using PCI. Released to enormous fanfare, the i740 proved to have disappointing real-world performance, and sank from view after only a few months on the market. Some of its technology lived on in the form of Intel Extreme Graphics, and the concept of an Intel produced graphics processor lives on in the form of Intel Graphics Technology and Intel Arc.

History
The i740 has a long and storied history that starts at GE Aerospace as part of their flight simulation systems, notable for their construction of the Project Apollo "Visual Docking Simulator" that was used to train Apollo Astronauts to dock the Command Module and Lunar Module. GE sold their aerospace interests to Martin Marietta in 1992, as a part of Jack Welch's aggressive downsizing of GE. In 1995, Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed to form Lockheed Martin.

In January 1995, Lockheed Martin re-organized their divisions and formed Real3D in order to bring their 3D experience to the civilian market. Real3D had an early brush with success, providing chipsets and overall design to Sega, who used it in a number of arcade game boards, the Model 2 and Model 3. They also formed a joint project with Intel and Chips and Technologies (later purchased by Intel) to produce 3D accelerators for the PC market, under the code name "Auburn".

Auburn was designed specifically to take advantage of (and promote) the use of AGP interface, during the time when many competing 3D accelerators (notably, 3dfx Voodoo Graphics) still used the PCI connection. A unique characteristic, which set the AGP version of the card apart from other similar devices on the market, was the use of on-board memory exclusively for the display frame buffer, with all textures being kept in the computer system's main RAM. At the time, most accelerators used the CPU for triangle setup and geometry calculations, then handed the data off to the card to apply texture mapping and bilinear filtering. By leaving this data in main memory, and giving the graphics card a high-speed channel to the data, performance could be improved while also reducing the total amount of memory in the system.

In the lead-up to the i740's introduction, the press widely commented that it would drive all of the smaller vendors from the market. As the introduction approached, rumors of poor performance started circulating. In spite of this, pundits continued to agree that its release would have enormous effects on the market. Peter Glaskowsky noted that "Very few of the manufacturers have the access to the [manufacturing plants] that Intel does, S3 could be the big loser here--it doesn't sell to the performance market. Intel has the resources to beat S3 on those terms and they have the performance". The i740 was released in February 1998, at $34.50 in large quantities. A number of companies had cards to introduce on that day.

The i740 was clocked at 66Mhz and had 2-8MB of VRAM; significantly less than its competitors which had 8-32MB of VRAM, allowing the card to be sold at a low price. The small amount of VRAM meant that it was only used as a frame buffer, hence it used the AGP interface to access the system's main memory to store textures; this was a fatal flaw that took away memory bandwidth and capacity from the CPU, reducing its performance, while also making the card slower since it had to go through the AGP interface to access the main memory which was slower than its VRAM.

The AGP Texture concept soon proved to be a tremendous error in design, because the card had to constantly access the textures over a channel that was upwards of eight times slower than RAM placed on the graphics card itself. Although AGP did indeed improve performance of moving geometry, this was wiped away by the growing use of textures, which were much larger. In real-world use it proved to be much slower than existing solutions like the Voodoo2, and was only able to hold its own with slower 2D/3D cards like the Nvidia RIVA 128. The release of the Nvidia RIVA TNT removed even that advantage. By the end of the year it went largely unmentioned in benchmarks against newer 3D products, already forgotten.

In August 1999, after less than 18 months on the market, Intel withdrew the i740 from the market. In September Lockheed announced a "customer-focused organizational realignment" that shed many of its divisions, and then closed Real3D on 1 October 1999 (following Calcomp in late 1998). Intel purchased the company's intellectual property, part of a series on ongoing lawsuits, but laid off the remaining skeleton staff. Some staff were picked up as contractors within Intel, while a majority were hired by ATI and moved to a new office.

Intel also sold the i740 to 3rd party companies, and some PCI versions of the accelerator also were made. They used an AGP-to-PCI bridge chip and had more on-board memory for storing textures locally on the card, and were actually faster than their AGP counterparts in some performance tests.

Successor
In April 1999, Intel announced two successors to the i740: the i752 (code-named Portola) and the i754 (code-named Coloma). Improvements included support for multitexturing, anisotropic filtering, MPEG-2 motion compensation and DVI displays. Both chips would use the same core, the only difference being that the i752 would use a 2× AGP interface and the i754 a 4× AGP interface. However, the i754 was cancelled before release, and the i752 was released in limited quantities before it too was withdrawn, having shown only a marginal performance increase over its predecessor.

The i752 and i754 cores were later used for the integrated graphics in the Intel 810 and 815 chipsets, respectively. Intel no longer hosts i752 drivers, and advises users of i752-based cards to use the 810 drivers.

Another successor that was ultimately cancelled in September 2000 was the GPU (code-named Capitola) to be used in conjunction with the similarly ill-fated Timna processor.

Intel would later re-enter the discrete GPU market with the release of their Intel Arc cards in 2022, over 20 years after the failure of the i740.

title: Intel740


text:
Beth Patterson

Beth Waggoner Patterson is an Irish folk and Celtic musician and singer, based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She combines traditional Irish, Celtic and folk ballads with Cajun, world-beat, and progressive rock influences and her own creative songwriting.

History
A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Patterson began her professional career in her teens as a classical oboist and a Cajun bass player. She spent a year studying traditional Irish music and ethnomusicology at University College Cork in Ireland, where she began to experiment with musical fusion. She later finished her bachelor's degree in Music Therapy from Loyola University New Orleans. Patterson cites the "progressive rock" band Rush as a major musical influence.

Patterson was a founding member of the ensemble the Poor Clares, who debuted in 2003 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to rave reviews. The Poor Clares' albums include Change of Habit and Songs for Midwinter, distributed nationally by Centaur Records. Patterson released her first four solo albums on the Little Blue Men Records label, including two studio productions, the somewhat more traditionally-oriented but still musically eclectic Hybrid Vigor, the world-beat and progressive-rock-influenced Take Some Fire, and the 2005 live album, Caught in the Act. Her 2009 release, On Better Paths, is the most daring, crossing boundaries of form and genre even further. The recording received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album. After leaving Little Blue Men Records, Patterson continued to record solo albums. She has also played on and produced other albums, including Orin (2005) by the French Breton progressive-folk group TornaoD. She has appeared on over two hundred recordings.

Patterson was a regular performer at O'Flaherty's Irish Pub in New Orleans's famed French Quarter, until the Pub closed when Hurricane Katrina hit at the end of August 2005. Patterson has since been playing regularly at other New Orleans venues, particularly the Kerry Irish Pub. She has also performed in twenty countries including Australia & New Zealand, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and Ireland, much of Central America, as well as much of the United States. She is especially a favorite of Celtic music fans in the Washington, D.C. area.

Starting in 2013 into 2018, "Bad Beth & Beyond", Beth Patterson's bawdy and profane alter ego, performed in the French Quarter. "Bad Beth" used the Irish bouzouki, just as Patterson does, while singing risque originals and covers. "Bad Beth & Beyond" released an album that she later voluntarily discontinued, renouncing some material she found to be alienating. She continues to release singles for the FuMP (Funny Music Project) https://www.thefump.com. (See also Bed Bath and Beyond.)

Patterson, singing and bouzouki, and her husband Josh Paxton, on piano, perform as the duo ZoüKeys, as of 2017. Also as of 2019, Patterson performs solo, and with the Round Pegs Duo, the Round Pegs 3 Piece Duo, a duo with Patrick O'Flaherty (also of the Poor Clares), New Orleans Steamcog Orchestra (as "B.P. Hatbox"), as a bouzouki or English horn player, etc.

Instruments
Patterson's preferred instrument is the Irish bouzouki, a teardrop-shaped eight-string instrument of Greek origin that became popular in Irish music in the 1960s. She plays a 10-string bouzouki as well. She also continues to play bass guitar live and in the studio. Patterson uses Infiniti oboe reeds, D'Addario strings, and an Ebow string driver.

Other media
Patterson's film soundtrack credits include the motion pictures Lucinda's Spell, One Eyed King (starring William Baldwin and Armand Assante), and most recently Mike Judge's Extract (on Miramax), starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, and Ben Affleck.

Patterson was mentioned in three of the Griffen McCandles (Dragons) series of novels written by science fiction/fantasy authors Robert Asprin and Jody Lynn Nye: Dragons Wild, Dragons Deal, and Dragons Run. An entire chapter of Dragons Run takes place at a fictional Patterson concert.

Patterson began writing fiction in 2012. She has contributed to over eighty anthologies and published her first novel The Wild Harmonic in 2016. Some of Beth's fiction has been archived in the Lunar Codex time capsule. Her first story to be included was part of Peregrine Lunar Lander payload which traveled just past lunar orbit before returning to earth.

Albums and extended plays

 * Hybrid Vigor (1999, Little Blue Men Records)
 * Take Some Fire (2002, Little Blue Men Records)
 * Caught in the Act (2005, Little Blue Men Records)
 * On Better Paths (2009, Little Blue Men Records)
 * 2 Deep - as "Bad Beth & Beyond" (2011)
 * Hippocampus (2012, Threadhead Records)
 * Caelic - with Patrick O'Flaherty (2012, Speak Jolly Music)
 * Forward (2013)
 * Momotaro! Live in Japan EP (2014, Speak Jolly Music)
 * Senzorga - as ZoüKeys with Josh Paxton (2017, Stone Groove Records)
 * Singles - a collection of singles released 2014-2020 (2021, Stone Groove Records)

With the Poor Clares

 * Resurrected Lover (1996)
 * Change of Habit (1998, Centaur Records)
 * Songs for Midwinter (1998, Centaur Records)

Digital singles

 * Happy Birthday, Butt-Face (2014, Speak Jolly Music)
 * No Strings Attached (2014, Speak Jolly Music)
 * Black Swan Rising - with Randy Jackson (2016, Stone Groove Records)
 * Heat (2016, Stone Groove Records)
 * Matchstick (2016, Stone Groove Records)
 * Wasted Years (2016, Stone Groove Records)
 * Shot in the Dark (2017, Stone Groove Records)
 * My Therapist Thinks You're an Asshole - as Bad Beth & Beyond (2018, The FuMP)
 * Harry Poppins - with the New Orleans Steamcog Orchestra (2018)
 * Air Dance (2019, Stone Groove Records)
 * Digging Up My Bones, lyrics by Gwyndyn T. Alexander (2018, Stone Groove Records)
 * A Winter's Day (2019, Stone Groove Records)
 * Red Lenses- featuring Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes (2020, Stone Groove Records)
 * Return to Our Caves/This Goes to Eleven-featuring Billy Sherwood (2020, Stone Groove Records)

Books

 * Mongrels and Misfits - collection (2014, DarkStar Books/Event Horizon Publishing Group
 * The Wild Harmonic - novel (2016, Hidden World Books, ISBN 978-1943052387)
 * The Spirit of Rodeo - novelette (2021, Black Hare Press)

title: Beth Patterson


text:
Talk:List of longest suspension bridge spans

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 20:23, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Wuhan Yingwuzhou Yangtze Bridge.jpg

typo
There seems to be a typo or a need for clarification, because the years do not match: Wheeling Suspension Bridge 1849–1866 and Queenston-Lewiston Bridge 1851–1866

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:40, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yi Sun-sin Bridge 20130517 161115 (14376287926)2.jpg

Cut-off again
Once again the list too long to be maintained (100+ items). It is a time to cut-off again to 700 m or even 750 m to make it updateable. I will try to import existing data to Wikidata to avoid their loss during cut-off.--Jklamo (talk) 15:59, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Cutt-off done, data imported.--Jklamo (talk) 22:57, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Planned and proposed
Planned and proposed section seems to be just a bunch of crystal ball stuff. I think this section could be deleted. --Jklamo (talk) 23:05, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Removed. --Jklamo (talk) 23:56, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Chadari-Dodhara Bridge of Nepal
Dodhara Chandani Bridge in Kanchanpur district of Nepal is 1452.96 m so it should be also in the list of longest suspension bridge Saurab Mani Rimal (talk) 09:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)


text:
Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hachenburg

Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hachenburg (sometimes called Sayn-Hachenburg) was a German County located in Rhineland-Palatinate, near the river Sieg.

When Count William III of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn died in 1623 without clear heirs, the Archbishop of Cologne occupied the vacant County until the succession was settled. It was settled by treaty in 1648, when the county was given jointly to Countesses Ernestine and Johanetta, two sisters who were granddaughters of Count William, and their mother Dowager Countess Louise Juliane made regent. But shortly after the treaty, the county was split between the two. Ernestine's portion was called "Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hachenburg". Johanetta's was "Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn-Altenkirchen" (or Sayn-Altenkirchen for short). Their mother remained regent for both counties until 1652, when Johanetta and Ernestine separately ruled their respective Counties. Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hachenburg was inherited by Countess Magdalena Christina in 1661 following Ernestine's death. It passed to the Burgraves of Kirchberg in 1715, and to the Princes of Nassau-Weilburg in 1799. The title passed through the female line and is held by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

Rulers of Sayn-Hachenburg (1648–1827)

 * Ernestine Salentine (1648–1661)
 * Louise Juliane (1648–1652) – Regent
 * Maximilian Joseph (1661–1675), also Count of Manderscheid-Blankenheim
 * Magdalena Christina (1675–1715), also Burgravine consort of Kirchberg
 * George Frederick (1715–1749), also Burgrave of Kirchberg
 * William Louis (1749–1751), also Burgrave of Kirchberg
 * William George (1751–1777), also Burgrave of Kirchberg
 * Louise Isabelle (1776–1827), Princess consort of Nassau-Weilburg

title: Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hachenburg


text:
Takeda Nobushige

Takeda Nobushige (武田 信繁) was a samurai of Japan's Sengoku period, and younger brother of Takeda Shingen. He was known as one of the "Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen".

Military life
Takeda Nobushige held the favor of their father, and was meant to inherit the Takeda lands, wealth and power, becoming head of the clan. However, Shingen rebelled against their father and seized the lands and power for himself.

Nobushige nevertheless fought alongside his brother who relied on him for support, He is famous not only for his strategic insight but also his wisdom; he wrote among other things Kyūjūkyū Kakun, a set of 99 short rules for Takeda clan members, some of which are erroneously attributed to Shingen himself from time to time.

Personal life
Takeda Nobushige held the favor of their father, and was meant to inherit the Takeda lands, wealth and power, becoming head of the clan. However, Shingen rebelled against their father and seized the lands and power for himself.

He is also known as Takeda Tenkyū (Tenkyū being another rank he held). Nobushige became an important Takeda general and led large forces on several occasions. In 1544, Shingen had a rebellion on his hands. As part of his punitive effort he sent Nobushige to capture Fujisawa Yorichika's Kōjinyama castle. (He probably succeeded, though sources differ). Katsurao castle, main castle of Murakami Yoshikiyo, fell to Nobushige and Takeda Yoshinobu in 1553. This drove Yoshikiyo to Uesugi Kenshin and was really the last significant act before the start of the Kawanakajima campaigns proper. It was in 4th battle of Kawanakajima, this last battle that Takeda Nobushige gave up his life.

Sanada Yukimura's initial name was, in fact, Sanada Nobushige, named after this very person.

In popular culture
Noritoshi Kashima portrayed Nobushige in NHK's 2006 Taiga drama.

Family

 * Father: Takeda Nobutora (1493-1574)
 * Brothers:
 * Takematsu (1517-1523)
 * Takeda Shingen (1521-1573)
 * Inuchiyo (1523-1529)
 * Takeda Nobumoto
 * Takeda Nobukado (1529-1582)
 * Matsuo Nobukore (ca. 1530s-1571)
 * Takeda Souchi
 * Takeda Nobuzane (ca. 1530s-1575)
 * Ichijō Nobutatsu (ca. 1539-1582)
 * Sisters:
 * Joukei-in (1519-1550), married Imagawa Yoshimoto
 * Nanshou-in (born 1520) married Anayama Nobutomo
 * Nene (1528-1543) married Suwa Yorishige

title: Takeda Nobushige


text:
Carlo Fassi

Carlo Fassi (20 December 1929 – 20 March 1997) was an Italian figure skater and international coach whose students included several World and Olympic champions. As a single skater, he was the 1953 World bronze medalist, a two-time European champion (1953, 1954), and a ten-time Italian national champion (1945–54).

Personal life
Fassi was born in Milan, the son of a builder. He spoke five languages. He married his skating pupil Christa von Kuczkowski (born 16 February 1942) in 1960. They had three children: Ricardo, Monika, and Lorenzo.

Competitive career
Fassi competed in two disciplines at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, placing 15th in men's singles and 13th in pair skating with partner Grazia Barcellona. Appearing only in men's singles, he finished sixth at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway. Fassi won gold at the European Championships in 1953 and 1954, and the bronze medal at the World Championships in 1953. He was the Italian national men's champion for ten years.

Coaching career
Declining to join the Ice Capades, Fassi took up coaching after the end of his competitive career. From 1956 to 1961, he coached at the Olympic Stadium in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, and for four years served as the trainer for the Italian World team. One of his first students was German skater Christa von Kuczkowski who he married in 1960, and who worked in tandem with him as a teacher and coach.

Following the 1961 plane crash that killed the entire U.S. figure skating team and many of the top American coaches, Carlo and Christa moved to the United States, where they established themselves as a successful coaching team, based first at the Broadmoor Arena in Colorado Springs, Colorado, then at the Colorado Ice Arena in suburban Denver, before returning to the Broadmoor in the early 1980s. Carlo later spent three years in Italy in the early 1990s and then returned to the U.S. to coach at the Ice Castle rink in Lake Arrowhead, California.

Their students included World and Olympic champions Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, John Curry, Robin Cousins, and Jill Trenary. They also coached Scott Hamilton and Paul Wylie in the early stages of their careers. Skaters from all over the world came to train with Mr and Mrs Fassi, giving their training package a cosmopolitan atmosphere that was rigorous yet warm and homely.

In addition to being an excellent technical coach, Fassi had the reputation of being a master of political dealings in the figure skating world, with the ability to bring his students to the attention of the judges. In the days of the Cold War judges tended to judge more on nationality and ideological adherence rather than ability. Fassi 'worked the room' in promoting his skaters, advising judges on subtle technical points and making himself 'inadvertently overheard.' His standing in the sport was such that when the comic character Snoopy adopted an alter ego as a figure skating coach (appearing, for example, in the 1980 TV special She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown), it was clearly modelled upon Fassi.

Fassi died of a heart attack at the 1997 World Championships in Lausanne, which he was attending as the coach of Nicole Bobek and Cornel Gheorghe. He was inducted into the Coaches Hall of Fame by the Professional Skaters Association in 2002.

1980 Olympics controversy
After Fassi's death, U.S. skater Linda Fratianne and her coach Frank Carroll alleged that Fassi had conspired to "rob" Fratianne of the gold medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics by masterminding a deal with Eastern-bloc judges to swap votes for his own pupil Robin Cousins in the men's event with those for the East German champion Anett Pötzsch in the ladies' event. The allegations became so well known that the story has subsequently been repeated as if it were fact.

Sonia Bianchetti, referee of the men's competition at those Olympics, has denied that the judging of either event was incorrect, and noted that only two of the nine judges on the ladies' panel were from Eastern-bloc countries —while five other judges also gave their first-place votes to Pötzsch. Benjamin Wright, the American referee of the ladies' event, instead blamed the method of tabulating scores that was in effect at that time for Fratianne's defeat.

Fassi had five students of his own competing in the ladies' event in Lake Placid: Emi Watanabe of Japan, Susanna Driano of Italy, Claudia Kristofics-Binder of Austria, Kristiina Wegelius of Finland, and Karena Richardson of Great Britain.

title: Carlo Fassi


text:
Wallen (singer)

Nawell Azzouz, better known as Wallen (born January 23, 1978) is a French singer. Her stage name comes from the rearrangement of the letters of her first name.

She was born in Saint-Denis, France, to Moroccan parents from Berkane. As a child, she learned to play the violin and developed a passion for singing. She grew up listening to funk, hip hop, and R&B.

Influenced by Aaliyah, Wallen made her recording debut with producer Sullee B Wax, and rapper Sté Strass. In 1998, she was featured on the French RnB compilation "24 Carats", with "Je ne pleurs pas" (I'm not crying).

Her first hit came with "Celle Qui Dit Non" with the rapper Shurik'n. In 2004, she released the album Avoir La Vie Devant Soi which includes the singles "Bouge Cette Vie", "L'Olivier", and "Donna"'. She also sang with Usher on the French version of "U Got It Bad".

With Abd al Malik and a few other rappers she created a group called Beni Snassen, that recorded an album under that name.

In 2008, she released her 3rd album Misericorde. On February 9, 2011, the album Château rouge by Abd al Malik, in which she participated, was crowned with a Victoire de la musique. In 2014, she collaborated on the soundtrack of the film Qu'Allah bless la France, from which the clip L'Amour fou is extracted.

Personal life
She is married to the French rapper Abd al Malik. Wallen has one child and has stopped singing to concentrate on raising her child.

Singles

 * Featured in

title: Wallen (singer)


text:
Category:Comedy-drama films

This category consists of movies that contain elements of comedy films, in addition to being a drama.

title: Category:Comedy-drama films


text:
Greenmount

Greenmount may refer to:

Australia
 * Greenmount Beach, a headland on the Gold Coast of Queensland
 * Greenmount, Queensland (Mackay Region), a rural locality in Central Queensland
 * Greenmount Homestead, a heritage-listed homestead in Queensland
 * Greenmount, Queensland (Toowoomba Region), a rural town on the Darling Downs, Queensland
 * Greenmount War Memorial, a heritage-listed war memorial in Greenmount
 * Greenmount, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth

Canada
 * Greenmount, Prince Edward Island, community in Canada

Ireland
 * Greenmount motte, ancient site in County Louth

New Zealand
 * Greenmount, New Zealand, a suburb of Auckland
 * Green Hill, New Zealand, a volcano in Auckland

United Kingdom
 * Greenmount, Greater Manchester, village in England
 * Greenmount Housing Estate, in Northern Ireland

United States
 * Greenmount, Maryland, in Carroll County
 * Greenmount, Baltimore, Maryland, a city neighborhood
 * Green Mount Cemetery, in Baltimore, Maryland
 * The GreenMount School, in Baltimore, Maryland

title: Greenmount


text:
Talk:Creationism/Archive 13

Constructive criticism
'' Preceding this discussion was a lengthy brawl which has since been archived. ''

That is about ENOUGH How do I am I supposed to know that you are an adult? Because you believe in evolution? That's pretty silly. Grow up, man. I'd like to make several changes to this article:
 * 1) First off, I think the cartoon is uneccessary at this point. I'm going to remove that - and as for the highly militant attack on Creationism as a scientific theory, I will worry about that later.
 * 2) I'm proposing that we go into detail about causality being a factor in explaining the theory that there is a beginning to the universe. Subsequently, this will lead into the argument that the universe shows evidence for design instead of randomness.  For example: When I go to work every day, I don't have to worry about a horse appearing in my lab out of nothing for no reason.
 * 3) You militant evolutionists need to slow down and think for a second or two. Is it appropriate to label Creationism a myth when there is scientific evidence that shows the possibility of His existence?  If that's what you want, then going into more detail about the science of design is propositional.
 * 4) Should we discuss more about the differences/similarities between Intelligent Design theory and Creationism theory?
 * Also - why should Wikipedia be an information database that is dominated by evolutionary doctrine? Would it be reasonable to both intelligence and science to present all sides of different scientific arguments?  This article is not a place to refute or bombard Creationism with maniacal ravings that are crossing the NPOV threshold.

Any advice on any of these items would be appreciated. Regards, Salva 17:07, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I do not have a problem in the article stating what creationists believe, as that is obviously relevant to the article itself. What I do have a problem with is people like you who want to turn this article into a creationist apologetic. I won't stand by and let you get away with bringing down the reputation of wikipedia with your anti-intellectual attacks on reality. Talk about what creationists believe as much as you want, but the second you start attacking science and the truth, I'll be stepping in to stop you. Aaarrrggh 17:44, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) The cartoon is staying where it is. It's relevant, and damnit, it's funny.
 * 2) Wikipedia is not the place to argue the objective validity of subjective belief systems. You can state that such and such a thing is symptomatic of a certain kind of belief or whatever, but you cannot use this place to distort reality for your own agenda. It simply is not the case that "...the universe shows evidence for design...", and I won't let you state it in the article.
 * 3) Creationism is a myth and there is no evidence for it. No amount of screaming on your part will change any of that. It doesn't matter how many times you repeat the same old arguments or cry about a 'heathen atheist close minded brown shirted Nazi conspiracy against God', you will not suceed in using this place as a platform to put forward your vile filth. I will not let you.
 * 4) Because evolutionary doctrine is backed up by cold hard evidence. Overwhelming levels of it. It would indeed be reasonable to both intelligence and science to present all sides of different scientific arguments. This is why it is important to maintain the critical nature of this article, and to prevent attacks on real science by bible thumpers such as yourself.

 * This is getting ridiculous.
 * The cartoon may be a bit near the line, and would perhaps better be moved to the article on the 'creation-evolution controversy'. Still, don't remove it unilaterally.
 * Feel free to refer to the cosmological argument article. Oh, the horse-thing: I wouldn't expect such a horse to appear in a universe ruled by physics either.
 * Going into more detail about the science of design is definately a good idea. I would really love to see a section on the science of creationism.
 * And going more deeply into the differences/similarities between Intelligent Design and Creationism would also be a good idea. Please, someone, add such a section aswell. Just don't refer to them as theories, or make it abundantly clear they are not scientific theories.
 * "maniacal ravings"? In the article? Where? When? -- Ec5618 18:21, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

 * 1) "Science of creationism" is an oxymoron. The two are disjoint in that creationism isn't considered to have scientific basis. That's why creation science is considered an oxymoron.
 * 2) Intelligent Design is already described (correctly) on the page to be a type of creationism. For more information on this, one can be referred directly to the ID article. -- Joshuaschroeder 22:12, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I personally would agree with you, creationism is not science. But that is quite irrelevant. Many creationists claim, on many occasions, that there is science to back up creationism. I would like to see a section on such science for that reason. -- Ec5618 22:24, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * I think what you are interested in is the article Creation science. Joshuaschroeder 06:11, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Should we seek consensus before editing?
I think it would be a good idea for all major edits to this page to be posted here first. And then viewed and voted on here. This should help prevent edit wars and I believe would make the article better. Perhaps I'm a bit naive but I think this article could become a featured article with a little work and consensus. Falphin 22:08, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Featured. I like the idea. -- Ec5618 22:24, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
 * I like that idea too. -- The Consigliere 01:30, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I would love for this article to become featured. However, Wikipedia should be a place where bold editors can make changes as they see fit to the article without first presenting to a peanut gallery for an unspecified length of time. It is always a good idea to explain your edits on the talkpage, but it is a bad idea to declare that we should only make edits after discussing on the talkpage. This would be the equivalent of having creationism permenately protected. Joshuaschroeder 02:07, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

(Dis)Proving creationism
From time to time, this page is visited by fervent creationists and non-creationists who both complain that this article shows clear POV. As a result, we are often left with longwinded discussions, often between two people with opposing viewpoints (with other editors mostly keeping a wise distance). To prevent this talk page from cluttering up, and to prevent edit wars, please note: We have all heard these arguments before:
 * Creation is true, it says so in the bible. Irrelevant. Belief in something does not prove its existence.
 * Natural formation of life has been disproven by science. Which is not true, nor is it relevant on this page.
 * Creation is the only logical theory. This has been put forth by many people, in many ways. It is often followed directly by many scientists are starting to feel so too. As an analogy, a person from last century might have been incredulous had someone told him/her that beams of light and mirrors could be used to create holograms. Nowadays, few people actually understand how holograms work, but few people refuse to believe in them.
 * Denying creation is POV. Its not. Different viewpoints are shown.
 * Denying creation is hating God. Its not. In fact, in most of the world, Christians have long ago accepted that creation according to Genesis might have been a parable, a tale to show 'God's greatness'. The battle is not between creationists and atheists (especially since many "evolutionists" believe in God, and many are devout Christians). It is a battle between a very narrow religious doctrine, not shared by all religious people, and science.
 * Evidence supporting creation exists. Often, creationists will claim that the evidence is out there, you just have to 'do your research'. Open minded people and critical thinkers will accept creation. And they're right, many webpages purport to have such evidence, and they provide it in clear English. Please remember that in the same way, many websites have proven that the [Apollo_moon_landing_hoax_accusations#Issues of photographs|moon landing could not have occured].

To anyone that feels that there is proof of creation, and by extension, of a god or gods, please refer to the page on creation science, and provide said proof. Please do not come to this page proclaiming that such evidence exists. Statements such as "For example, it is the “scientific approach” that has already demonstrated that Life (as we know it) could never have started itself. This is because it is far too complicated and ordered." have no place on this page, for the simple reason that it is not true.

Meanwhile, lets try to stick to the NPOV that creationism is believed only by Christians. -- Ec5618 20:11, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * that's not npov. it's not even true.  the story of the 6 day creation, adam, eve, enoch, and noah is held by millions of muslims and jews, worldwide.  Ungtss 21:49, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Quite true. I had started that sentence and had not properly checked it when I clicked 'save page'. My apologies. -- Ec5618 23:14, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * no worries:). good edits on the criticism section, btw:).  Ungtss 00:01, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

The Scientific Position
Perhaps it is well to remember that all of us are in search of the truth as best as we can understand it. Creation theory rests on an axiom and scientific theories rest on axioms. Scientific theories rest on axioms that are either evident in nature, or logically necessary, occasionally "guesses" partially supported by either two. Creation theories rest upon the axiom that a creator exists. Science provides detailed explanations for its axioms, explanations that depend upon logic, and further, points out axioms that currently lack proof. It is constantly struggling with itself concerning all these axioms. Indeed, the most celebrated scientists are those who have done the most to supplant long established theories from Copernicus to Newton and Einstein. In this science can be shown to be self critical, demanding intellectual honesty and humility to such an extent that scientists are willing to accept the possibility that creation theories may indeed be correct despite all their efforts. It is in challenging longstanding axioms that we as humans show our quality, our doubt in all things, which reveals our nature, and to do so we are only being honest. The scientific community does not so much take issue with creation theories as it does with it's methods, it's willingness to accept some scientific evidence but not other, obviously based upon the need for a predetermined result, a logically untenable position. Creation theories are dogmatic regarding it's axioms, condemning as sin any doubt. It is as this point that creation theories break down in terms of integrity, logic and eventually believability. Science in general has much to say about its own limitation, particularly since the paper on the Gödel's Incompletenes Theorem []Stephen Hawking's paper on the Big Bang Theory[]where theory breqks down "inside" singularities, (though they are neccessary for the theory) both of which draw clear limits on how far our understanding may reasonably go at this point in time. Therefore, there is room for a creator in scientific theories, it is not atheistic but agnostic, a "psychologically honest" pursuit where we all together wrestle with our doubt.

Personal commentary
I'm on Holıday ın Turkey as I type thıs, but couldn't help myself from checkıng wıkıpedıa whıle I was checkıng my emaıls. I just wanted to say I'm lıkıng the evolutıon (see what I did there?) of thıs artıcle at the moment. The idea of splitting the criticism section up into relevant segments seems good to me. I shall contribute more to the article when İ come back from holiday, but for now İ just wanted to say well done, and İ'm sure you will be hearing from me soon ;) Aaarrrggh 12:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Elementary, my dear Wikipedians! This article has evolved (through the intervention of intelligence and not randomness) to become a splendid document. I will continue to contribute what I can. Also, when are we planning to merge this article with Abrahamic Creationism? Salva 17:03, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Do not misunderstand me Salva. I was not necessarily saying I am happy with the criticism section as yet, merely that I was happy with the idea of splitting it up into relevant sections. The criticism section still needs work, and I will be chopping and changing it again soon. Aaarrrggh 23:21, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

The Soul
This section was removed as it is completely irrelevent to the article as it was written. This isn't a repository for Christian/monotheistic theorizing about spiritual matters -- it is an article about creationism. Joshuaschroeder 09:14, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Finally, this section has been in the article since it was moved, basically, from a Christian encyclopaedia. Maybe we should put a short note on Talk:Soul. They might want it/get a kick out of it. -- Ec5618 09:53, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Scientifically accepted definition of theory
In the aritcle there is a paragraph that needs to be changed [inside a longer section that will then need to be completely revised].

 * Creationists sometimes minimize the explanatory power and validity of evolution theory by criticizing it as being "just a theory" implying that the word "theory" is synonymous with "conjecture" or "speculation", instead of the technical, scientifically accepted use of the word "theory" to mean a model of the world (or some portion of it) from which falsifiable hypotheses can be generated and be verified through empirical observation. In this sense, evolution is a very powerful theory.

The first problem with this is that Creationists tend to attack "macroevolution." What 'falsifiable hypotheses' are proposed that can be tested against empirical observation for macroevolution. Conflating macroevolution and microevolution in an article on creationism is inappropriate since scientists defending creationism typically attack one and not the other.

The second problem is that this paragraph does not mention the rather important point that the best theories are predictive for which controls and variables can be used to test in experiments (rather than simply theories that can explain field data after the fact). Since this paragraph discusses Creationists viewpoint of evolution as a scientific theory, that needs to be addressed. A famous quote by Niels Bohr [I think that is the right attribution] is "A first rate theory predicts, a second rate theory forbids, a third rate theory explains after the fact."

Thirdly, the claim that creationism is not a theory allowing for falsifiable hypotheses to be tested against empirical observation is simply false. Just as evolution suggests daughter theories regarding the age of the earth and other theories, creationsim [in particular the creationism discussed in this artiel] is linked to other theories which falsifiable hypotheses can be drawn.

Here is an example of such a falsifiable hypothesis:

Creationsim calls for a young earth, and therefore predicts that crystalline lattices found in primordial rock will show evidence of youth. One could draw a falsifiable hypothesis based on the C_14 content of such diamonds [for example]. There are many others.

For these three reasons, this section needs to be revamped.

Kent Hovind; Bringing down specific people
It does seem that Kent Hovind's doctorate is worthless (he got it in a correspondence course from Patriot University). It got me thinking though; it seems that many vocal creationists have stated their reasons for advocating creation. Many of these reasons have been subsequently shot down by science. Many specific creationists have also been discredited in scientific circles.

Would it be a good idea to try to give a little background about specific creationists? To discredit specific creationists in the critisism section? To add a section on famous or vocal creationists? -- Ec5618 13:38, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

 * The problem is that the basic form of Creationism(a god or gods creating the universe or making it start) is a popular belief around the world  that many variations have developed and getting  a leader from each group and then discrediting each one will take a lot of research and time. If we do add this, Kent Hovind wouldn't be a good choice however because many groups like Aig reject his beliefs. It might be better to use Phillip E. Johnson or someone like that from the Yec group.  Oec would be Hugh Ross and for ID Michael Behe, creationists that believe in a guided evolution process I don't know. But if we do that would be a start. We would also need a Jewish, and Muslim figure as well. Falphin 21:18, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

 * As this article deals with creationism in christian, jewish and islamic faiths, I don't see your first point to be much of a problem.
 * And you have no problem with the basic concept of describing the people behind creationism?
 * Please note, I'm only asking for opinions, not suggesting anything at this point. -- Ec5618 23:21, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
 * The point I was making is that you need to take a leader from every group. Which would take time but if you want to do it thats fine. And that Kent Hovind shouldn't be the example. As long as the article doesn't attack the person but instead discredits his theories/beliefs, I'm fine with it. Falphin 19:21, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

multiple reverts on the "no conflict" passage
Instead of going back and forth, can we discuss in a little more detail what the views are pro/con on the passage? Seems like it would be more straightforward than these multiple reverts.

Here's the latest version of the passage:

 * Others try to reconcile faith and science in various ways. Some see no conflict with science and consider evolution to simply be a tool that the Creator used.

Aaarrrgh, can you give a little more explanation on why you view it as misleading and poorly worded, and why it doesn't belong in the introduction? I personally have little patience for creationists, especially when they try to influence pubic school curricula in ways that I believe are inappropriate, but I thought this passage was a pretty good way to represent the views of a sizable chunk of people who care about this issue, while preserving neutrality. But I'm pretty new to wikipedia, and may be missing a larger issue. -- John Callender 08:34, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Just for the record, I made my latest edit just before noticing this newly added section to the talk page. I have changed it to this:

 * "Not all creationists believe themselves to be in conflict with science, evolutionary creationists see evolution as a tool, used in creation. While this position allows an element of reconciliation between science and faith for believers, it should be noted that it is not a scientific position within itself, and is not a position taken by most scientists."

 * The problem I have with it is that to me it makes it sound as if reconciling faith with science presents no real problems and is even a scientifically sound thing to do. The fact is that it does present problems and it is not a legitimate position to take from a scientific perspective. However, it is true that many believers do adopt such a position, so I do not have a problem in making some mention of this; I just think it should be qualified, and that it should be clear that this is just a position taken by believers who are struggling to come to terms with the revelations of science, as opposed to being a perfectly sensible position in pefect harmony with science itself. Aaarrrggh 08:54, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Au contraire, I think Aaarrrggh is being too fundamentalist. It is perfectly possible to reconcile a scientific attitude to the development of the Universe while still being able to believe that there was a Creator who somehow set up those conditions and initiated the Big Bang. There is no evidence available before the Big Bang. Aaarrrggh may choose to believe that the condition occurred spontaneously, but that is pure faith, a religious view, and not falsifiable and scientific. Dabbler 10:35, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Nicely said, Dabbler. Evolutionism is obviously a religious faith for a number of our editors, though of course, they would deny this. It's also obvious that some are on a jihad against any form of creationism, which must be stamped out by any possible means. The fervor, the evangelistic zeal, the scorn - identify the religious evolutionists, for which evolution is not just a scientific tool but a deeply held fundamentalistic ideology. Pollinator 12:50, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
 * Before you get too excited Pollinator, I would like to emphasise that I can accept as a proposition that a Creator God was the fundamental initiator of the creation of the Universe in the Big Bang billions of years ago, as there is no evidence to the contrary. I also am one of those who believe that the mechanism of evolution accounts for what we see around us. I can accept that there is a God but not that Genesis is a literal description of how He brought the world into being. Genesis as far as I am concerned is a collection of nomads' folk tales which describe how they perceived their relationship with God but not a complete and scientific history of the world. I am not one of those whose faith in a benevolent supernatural being is so weak that any deviation from the literal truth of Genesis destroys their belief in God. Dabbler 15:37, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm not excited, Dabbler. And you bring a refreshing honesty to the page, unlike some of the rabid religious evolutionists that frequent the page, who exhibit the same rigid and intellectually dishonest traits that they seem to find in creationists. Pollinator 19:45, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

 * Evolution is not a faith position, and I am not even prepared to waste my time arguing this point with religious creationists such as pollinator. I never mentioned anything about spontaneity of any kind. I am merely mentioning that there is no actual scientific reason to invoke a creator to explain away anything. This is merely something religiously minded people do to reconcile their beliefs with actual reality as exposed by honest science. As for your attempts to explain whichever version of that 'god' thingy it is that you believe in Dabbler, these kind of things always amuse me. I love to sit back and watch as a person creates a god before my very eyes. Take a few variables, make way for scientific revelations, and voila! Insta-god. It's like god by numbers. Regardless, the argument I have stated is still valid. Aaarrrggh 17:32, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I wonder, Aaarrrggh, if you can cite any sources for the "is not a position taken by most scientists" statement in the latest version of the passage. I'm not disputing its accuracy, just wondering if it can be sourced.
 * I dispute its accuracy. Pollinator 19:45, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

I think the article's neutrality is stronger with this latest version of the statement added than without it, though I remain concerned about the slight sense of editorializing I still get from it: the fundamental identification of those holding this view as creationists ("Not all creationists believe..."), and the implicit (albeit mild) denigration I hear coming from "While this position allows an element of reconciliation between science and faith for believers" (emphasis added), and "it should be noted" (why are we emphasizing the "shouldness" of it? if it should be noted, shouldn't we just note it?) And, again, the unsourced assertion that it is not a position taken by "most" scientists. Even if we have an objective poll of scientists on which to base that, I'm not sure it's helpful in the current context. If the number of people who hold the position is only a substantial minority, I'd think the concept still deserves a neutral presentation, not one that editorializes on it even as it's being stated.

I'm intrigued by the idea that on both sides of this issue there are sincere, well-meaning people who believe they see in the other side an insufficient appreciation of the deeper meanings embodied by the world as it is. Richard Dawkins, no friend of creationism, wrote the following in the conclusion to The Ancestor's Tale, which by coincidence I just finished reading last night:

 * I have not had occasion here to mention my impatience with traditional piety, and my disdain for reverence where the object is anything supernatural. But I make no secret of them. It is not because I wish to limit or circumscribe reverence; not because I want to reduce or downgrade the true reverence with which we are moved to celetrate the universe, once we understand it properly. 'On the contrary' would be an understatement. My objection to supernatural beliefs is precisely that they miserably fail to do justice to the sublime grandeur of the real world. They represent a narrowing-down from reality, an impoverishment of what the real world has to offer.

I think a lot of the heat surrounding this issue would dissipate if the more-zealous in each camp were willing to do more listening to the other side, rather than simply attributing to it an inverted straw-man of their own deeply-held views.

Anyway, I think the following version would make me happier from a neutrality standpoint. What would you think about this, Aaarrrggh?

 * Some people, including some scientists, believe that science and faith can be reconciled by viewing evolution as the means used by the creator to bring about creation. Scientists opposed to this position would point out, however, that this view is not, in and of itself, scientific.

-- John Callender 18:29, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Yep -- a whole lot less POV than a deletion. Pollinator 19:45, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

 * To be perfectly honest, I admit that the statement 'most scientists...' was perhaps a little lazy on my part. I wasn't totally happy about that when I wrote it, although I'm sure it is actually true regardless. The assertion that this is not, within itself, a scientific position to take I think would perhaps be more appropriate. I will have a little dabble to see if I can create a slightly better wording, while removing the 'most scientists...' element. Aaarrrggh 19:53, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I have edited this section now, and have made mention of the fact that asserting a creator (from a scientific perspective) unncessarily violates the law of occam's razor. I hope this is better now. Aaarrrggh 19:59, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * For myself, I still prefer the version I posted above, for the reasons cited there. The current version still seems to me to be going out of its way to assert superiority to those who hold the creation-is-compatible-with-science viewpoint. I'm not saying you don't have a valid argument in saying that. I just think that the article's NPOV would be enhanced by your refraining from making that argument, especially right at the top of the article like that. The article seems stronger to me if it just sticks to a neutral statement of what the parties on each side of the issue say. John Callender 21:09, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I lost this in an edit conflict but found it again. While I am usually amused by zealots of all sides, I find it distasteful when they choose to be rude with it. While I may have been a slight troll wrt Aaarggh's comments, I would point out that there was a serious intent. His belief system does not allow for any God, even one who lurks in the unexplorable gaps. His religion is to be atheistic and he is as zealous a proponent of that as others are of their theistic explanations. I see both sides. I support science, despite proponents like Aaarrggh, because it has a factual basis. When someone goes beyond the facts to make definitive statements that cannot be proven, they descend into their belief system which I do not choose to accept. Contrary to what Aaarrrggh states, it is perfectly legitimate and in harmony with science to speculate about a God and have ideas about His activities, if any, in the absence of evidence. It just may not be very scientifically productive until you find a hypothesis that can be tested. To dismiss such speculation out of hand is the act of a zealot not a scientist.

I also feel that invoking Occam's razor is the evolutionary equivalent of quoting Genesis to prove something. Its a nice bit of folk lore but not a scientific Law. Dabbler 20:19, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, first of all, Occam's Razor is not a scientific law. It is a principle that one hopes to be able to adhere to, but it is by no means a requirement. Furthermore, it is subjective because it asks the evaluator to determine which of two things is simpler. For example, it is certainly unclear that abiogenesis is any less complicated than special creation. In fact, from one standpoint, special creation is much less complicated. If you are going to have living beings coming from somewhere does it make more sense to assume a higher intelligence caused it or not?

There are many scientific theories that are certainly hard to swallow, for example the story of how the Earth's atmosphere came to be in its present state is a story of improbably stages appealing to a host of unstable equilibria. Just how complicated does a naturalistic theory have to get before it becomes less easy to believe compared to a paranormal one? Once again, a subjective question.

And the fossil record has forced scientists themselves to find less and less easier to swallow theories due to lack [or scantiness] of transitional forms. We have over a quarter million types of fossils (millions of actual fossils), and still many paleontologists are wondering where all the transitional forms are. This is what gave rise to the hopeful monster theory and punctuated equilibrium theory, but are those particularly simple?

Phantym 21:01, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Occam's Razor effectively says "do not employ more entities/assumptions than necessary if you can explain the same with less". If you find an assumption is necessary AND no more complex than the alternatives AND it doesn't contradict the rest, then it is valid to incorporate it to a theory. That's how I understand it. However, I Occam's razor is not a scientific law, but a rule of thumb, and I really don't how it belongs there. It'd be better to rephrase... "it is not the position of most scientists, because it introduces a new level of complexity into the theory", or "a supernatural element...", or something like that. --Pablo D. Flores 21:29, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

 * Probably best to say that it does not fit into the naturalistic framework of modern science. -Phantym 20:00, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:Creationism/Archive 13


text:
Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn

Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn was a county of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, comprising the lands of the region of Sayn. It was created as a partition of Sayn-Wittgenstein in 1607, although it was not until the next year that it obtained fully the Countship of Sayn. The succession was never clear, leading to the annexation of the county in 1623 by the Archbishop of Cologne. It was not until a treaty in 1648 (at the end of the Thirty Years' War) that it was decided the county would pass to the sisters Ernestine and Johanette of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, under the regency of their mother, Countess Louise Juliane von Erbach (1603–1670). They partitioned the county into Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn-Altenkirchen and Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hachenburg soon after.

Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, First Creation

 * William III (ruled from 1607–1623), third son of Count Louis I; married Countess Anna Elizabeth of Sayn-Sayn (1572-1608), the niece and heiress of Henry IV, Count of Sayn-Sayn.

Counts of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, Second Creation
Count William III's sons from his second marriage with Countess Anna Ottilie of Nassau-Weilburg (1582-1635) became Counts of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn. The branch became extinct in 1846 with the death of Count Gustaf zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (1811-1846).

Princes of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn
Count Ludwig Franz II of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg (1694–1750) founded a branch which in 1834 became Prussian princes of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg and in 1861 princes of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn. The present head of this branch is Alexander, Prince zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 1943), the 7th prince.

Line of succession

 * Ludwig Franz II, 1st Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg (1694–1750)
 * Christian Ludwig Casimir, 2nd Count of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg (1725–1797)
 *  Ludwig Adolf Peter, 1st Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg (Prussia) 1834 (1769–1843)
 * Ludwig Adolf Friedrich, succeeded to Prussian titles 1843, 1st Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn 1861–1866 (1799–1866)
 * Peter, succeeded to Prussian titles 1866 (1831–1887)
 * Friedrich, succeeded younger brother Ludwig as 3rd Prince 1876–1879, resigned in favor of younger brother Alexander, succeeded older brother in Prussian titles 1887 (1836–1909)
 * his descendants hold various Prussian and Russian titles
 * Ludwig, 2nd Prince 1866–1876 (1843–1876)
 * Alexander, 4th Prince 1879–1883, resigned in favor of his son (1847–1940)
 * Stanislaus, 5th Prince 1883–1958 (1872–1958)
 * ''Prince Gustav Alexander of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (1880–1953)
 * Ludwig Stanislaus, 6th Prince 1953–1962 (1915–1962)
 * Alexander, 7th Prince 1962–present (born 1943)
 * Heinrich, Hereditary Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 1971)
 * Prince Ludovico of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 2006)
 * Prince Casimir of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 1976)
 * Prince Alexander of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 2002)
 * Prince Johann of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 2020)
 * Prince George of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 2023)
 * Prince Ludwig of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 1982)
 * Prince Peter of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 1992)
 * Prince Peter of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 1954)
 * Prince Constantin of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (born 1994)
 * Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (1916–1944)

title: Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn


text:
Entropia

Entropia may mean:

 * Entropy a scientific concept that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty.
 * Entropia Universe (formerly known as Project Entropia), a popular MMORPG-style online virtual universe.
 * Entropia, Inc. (company), a defunct company that produced commercial distributed computing software.
 * Entropia (album), a music album by the Swedish progressive metal band, Pain of Salvation.
 * Entropa, a satirical art installation depicting member countries of the European Union

title: Entropia