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MacMurray College

MacMurray College was a private college in Jacksonville, Illinois. Its enrollment in fall 2015 was 570. Founded in 1846, the college closed in May 2020.

History
Although founded in 1846 by a group of Methodist clergymen as the Illinois Conference Female Academy, the first class was not held until 1848. Since its beginnings, the college was affiliated with the United Methodist Church. It was one of the oldest institutions of higher education originally for women in the United States.

The school was renamed the Illinois Conference Female College in 1851, with the name changed again to Illinois Female College in 1863 and Illinois Woman's College in 1899. The name was changed to MacMurray College for Women in 1930 to honor James E. MacMurray, who was an Illinois state senator, president of Acme Steel Corporation in Chicago, and college trustee whose commitment led to a substantial increase in the college's facilities and endowment in the late 1920s and 1930s.

The institution remained an exclusively women's college until 1955, when the trustees established MacMurray College for Men as a coordinate institution. In 1969, the colleges were reorganized into a single co-educational institution. This reorganization helped make a larger enrollment overall. However David Jesse of The Detroit Free Press wrote that for much of its history in the 20th century, the 2000s, and 2010s, the college had an unstable financial situation. Its height of enrollment was more than 1,500 students. In the 1990s it had more students than Illinois College, but later its enrollment and finances declined.

Finances and closure
MacMurray struggled financially in its final years, having failed the U.S. Department of Education's annual financial responsibility test in 2011, 2012, and 2013. In 2016, it was placed on probation for a two-year period by its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, which cited "concerns related to governance, assessment of student learning, institutional resources, planning, and performance improvement."

By the start of the 2018–2019 academic year, MacMurray's finances had worsened and the college was pursuing different strategies to resolve them. Proposals included expanding professional and nontraditional programs and a merger with another institution.

On March 27, 2020, MacMurray announced its plans to close at the end of the spring semester in May 2020. The college cited "declining enrollments, rising competitive costs, and an insufficient endowment," as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education.

Arrangements were made to transfer the continuing student body to Blackburn College, Eureka College, Greenville University, Illinois College, McKendree University, Millikin University, and Monmouth College. No severance were provided to faculty and staff, who worked their last day on May 25, 2020.

In November 2020, the real property of the college was auctioned off in lots, with the $1,500,000 in sales going to pay down the college's debt.

Reputation and rankings
MacMurray College was accredited from 1909 through 2014 by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, initially as the Illinois Women's College to 1930, and then as MacMurray. After the North Central Association dissolved in 2014, MacMurray's institutional accreditation was through the Higher Learning Commission.

MacMurray College was ranked 63 of 200 colleges in the 2013 edition of U.S. News Best Colleges in Regional Colleges (Midwest) by U.S. News & World Report.

MacMurray had been ranked a Top 20 School in Washington Monthly magazine's ratings of colleges's "contribution to the public good", placing No. 14 in the nation in 2011 and No. 18 in 2013 among baccalaureate colleges, before falling to No. 80 in 2014 due to septic issues.

Academics
In the 2013–14 academic year, MacMurray offered a 26-major, 16-minor liberal arts curriculum with associate, bachelor, master and doctoral degrees. The school reinforces the liberal arts with an emphasis on professional preparation through academic majors that are career-focused. Some of the college's top majors include nursing, criminal justice, homeland security, deaf and hard-of-hearing education and American Sign Language interpreting, teacher preparation and social work. MacMurray's deaf education and interpreter programs benefit from the college's proximity to the Illinois School for the Deaf, also located in Jacksonville.

Beginning with the fall semester of 2014, MacMurray began offering online degrees in business administration and homeland security. Business administration offered concentrations in organizational leadership, entrepreneurship, human resource management, supply chain management, marketing and management. The homeland security major offered concentrations in counterterrorism, cyber security, emergency management and intelligence.

However, later in the fall of 2014, MacMurray announced it would phase out ten majors or minors with low enrollment and interest among prospective students, including history, English, Spanish, physical education, philosophy/religion and a chemistry minor.

The Center for Learning Excellence provided academic support to students outside of the classroom. Center for Learning Excellence staff members are certified by the Kellogg Institute for the Training and Certification of Developmental Educators.

Jesse stated that the nursing program was "strong".

Student body
Jesse stated that MacMurray students tended to be "blue collar" and studied less highly paid majors than those at Illinois College, with this contributing to the school's woes as it could not get the needed donations from alumni.

Campus
The campus covered 60 acre, and included the administration building Kathryn Hall, the McClelland Dining Hall, the Annie Merner Chapel, the Henry Pfieffer Library, the educational buildings of MacMurray Hall, Julian Chemistry, the Putnam Center for the Arts, the William H. Springer Center for Music, the Education Complex, the Gordon Facilities building, and the five residence halls of Kendall, Norris, Michalson, Rutledge and Jane. Kendall and Norris were unoccupied during the 2009–10 school year while undergoing renovations that included sprinkler systems and aesthetic improvements. They reopened in the fall of 2010.

More than 30 student-led organizations were active on campus. The college encouraged students to be active community members with 84% involved in community work or volunteering. Career Services facilitated work and internship experience. Over 70% of students completed internships facilitated by Career Services.

On June 16–17, 2011, MacMurray College suffered damage from widespread flooding that affected the entire eastern section of the City of Jacksonville. Several dormitories and the Education Complex (EC) were flooded. The Education Complex included the Wall Gymnasium and the MacMurray swimming pool, which had been closed for maintenance. The college estimated the losses at approximately $2 million. On July 26, President Colleen Hester made a plea to all members of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference of the Methodist Church. This plea asked for funds to help cover the uninsured repair work necessary after the flooding. This included a new gym floor in the Education Complex.

The fitness center was in the former Franklin Elementary School (of the Jacksonville School District 117), purchased by MacMurray in 2017.

Athletics
MacMurray's athletic teams were known as the Highlanders. Teams competed in the NCAA's Division III. The football team was part of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC). The college's other teams competed in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC).

Athletic teams included baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, football, men's and women's golf, men's and women's soccer, softball and women's volleyball, and men's and women's wrestling.

Thirty-five percent of MacMurray students were athletes. 45 MacMurray players were named to the Academic All-Conference Team, and 36 student-athletes were named to their respective All-Conference teams.

In 2012, the Highlanders men's basketball team narrowly missed winning the SLIAC conference tournament and an automatic berth in the NCAA Division III tournament. MacMurray lost 58–56 to Westminster College on a three-point shot with 1.7 seconds remaining in the championship game.

MacMurray College was one of the few institutions to have received the NCAA "death penalty". In 2005 the men's tennis team was sanctioned and prohibited from play for two years, with post-season play prohibited for a further two seasons, after coach and mathematics professor Neal Hart—with the knowledge of MacMurray's athletics director, and directors of financial aid and finance—gave over $162,000 in financial assistance from a fund established by his father to 10 foreign-born players, in violation of Division III rules prohibiting athletic scholarships. MacMurray never had a men's tennis team after that time.

In 2016, the school announced the return of its wrestling team after a ten-year hiatus. The school also announced the addition of a women's program and both programs began competition in the 2016–17 season. In 2016, Evan Bolwerk scored 3 goals against Eureka College. He would lead the soccer team in goals that season.

The athletic department ended in March 2020 when the college announced closure at the conclusion of the academic year. College officials cited the on-going coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic disruption factors that hastened the decision based on MacMurray's continued financial struggles.

Notable alumni

 * Elaine Alquist, 1966 — California State Senator
 * Raymond Bonner, 1964 — investigative journalist and author
 * Deborah J. Curtis — president, Indiana State University
 * Nina Burleigh, 1982 — writer
 * E. A. Carmean, 1967 — art historian and curator
 * Frank Carter, 1999 — indoor football player
 * Judy Collins — four-time Grammy Award-nominated singer, songwriter, musician
 * Christine Ebersole, BA 1971, PhD hon, 2002 — two-time Tony Award-winning actress
 * Catherine Petroski, BA 1961, DLit hon, 1984 — author, journalist
 * R. Thomas Flynn, 1964 — college administrator: dean at Rutgers University; president of Monroe Community College
 * Sophie Naylor Grubb, late 1850s — activist
 * Al Lewis, 1984 — columnist: Dow Jones newswires
 * Olindo Mare — football kicker: Chicago Bears
 * Larry J. McKinney, 1966 — federal judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana
 * Patricia S. Morehead — Nebraska state legislator and educator
 * Martha Capps Oliver (1845–1917) — poet, hymnwriter
 * George Whitmore, 1967 — author
 * Cat Zingano — All-American wrestler; professional mixed martial arts fighter, currently competing in the UFC's bantamweight division

Online archives

 * — includes yearbooks (Illiwoco and Tartan), College Greetings student newspaper/magazine, and early issues of Jubilee Greetings
 * Collections at CARLI
 * Digital Images (MacMurray College)
 * Alumnae News (MacMurray College) — Alumni News & Record from August 1922 to November 1926
 * Madrigals and Choir Audio Collection (MacMurray College)
 * Jacksonville Collection (MacMurray College) — various Jacksonville local publications from the college archives
 * IGRC Archives (MacMurray College) — archives of records from closed churches in the United Methodist Church Central Illinois Conference and successor Illinois Great Rivers Conference
 * MacMurray College Digital Collection at the OCLC CONTENTdm — small number of Special Collection scrapbooks and mementos

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

title: MacMurray College


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Bargota

Bargota is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarra, northern Spain.

title: Bargota


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Balli Kombëtar

The Balli Kombëtar (literally National Front) was an Albanian nationalist, collaborationist, and anti-communist resistance movement during the Second World War. It was led by Ali Këlcyra and by Midhat Frashëri. The movement was formed by members from the landowning elite, liberal nationalists opposed to communism, and other sectors of society in Albania.

The motto of the Balli Kombëtar was: Shqipëria Shqiptarëve, Vdekje Tradhëtarëve (Albania to the Albanians, Death to the Traitors). Eventually, the Balli Kombëtar joined the Nazi Germany-established puppet government as part of the German occupation of Albania and fought as an ally against communist guerrilla groups. The Balli Kombëtar engaged in significant acts of terror culminating in atrocities committed against Serb and Greek civilians.

History
Although Këlcyra and Frashëri had initiated opposition actions against the Italian authorities almost from the beginning of the fascist occupation in 1939, they had practically not developed any military organization for open struggle against the invader. Albanian nationalists from the end of 1942 began an irregular fight against the Italian garrisons.

The Balli Kombëtar was officially founded in November 1942 by joining the efforts of a series of nationalists. It tried to find an agreement with the Albanian partisans of communist affiliation, led by Enver Hoxha and grouped in the "Movement of National Liberation" (LANÇ, for its acronym in Albanian), trying to attract them to the nationalist cause. However, the Balli Kombëtar condemned any cooperation of the LNC with the Yugoslav partisans, whom it considered natural enemies of Albania, which would soon be a deal breaker.

With Italy on the brink of defeat in 1943, the Albanian National Liberation Movement (LANÇ) and the Balli Kombëtar organized a meeting in the village of Mukje. The Balli Kombëtar entered into a fragile alliance with the communist-led LANÇ, and acted as a resistance group against the Italians. Following the Mukje Agreement, the vague mutual tolerance that had existed between the Ballists and LANÇ quickly evaporated. The Allies too could not guarantee that Kosovo would be a part of Albania, because they stood for the restoration of occupied nations under their borders as they existed prior to World War II.

Despite their lukewarm attitude towards the Allies, the Ballists feared that an Allied victory in the war might well result in LANÇ victory and communist control of Albania. Their lukewarm attitude towards the British was also fostered by their desire to preserve the occupied united Albanian state under the borders drawn by the Italians in 1941, for they bitterly opposed and dreaded the loss of Kosovo and Debar to Yugoslavia once again, and feared that the Allies in their support of the Greeks might prevent them from claiming Chameria and deprive them of their southern provinces of Korçe and Gjirokaster, the heartland of their liberation movement. They regarded the Yugoslavs and the Greeks as their real enemies.

The Mukje Agreement immediately triggered a hostile reaction from the Yugoslav representative in Albania, Svetozar Vukmanoviċ. He denounced the agreement and put pressure on the LANÇ to repute it immediately, and Yugoslav Communist leader Milovan Đilas subsequently described the Balli Kombëtar as "Albanian Fascists".

The Balli Kombëtar, which had fought against the Italians, were threatened by the superior forces of the LANÇ and the Yugoslav Partisans, who were backed by the Allies. In the autumn of 1943, Nazi Germany occupied all of Albania after Italy was defeated. Fearing reprisals from larger forces, the Balli Kombëtar made a deal with the Germans and formed a "neutral government" in Tirana which continued its war with the LANÇ and the Yugoslav Partisans.

Albania
Safet Butka, a hardline Albanian nationalist, tried at various times to cooperate with the Communist-dominated Liberation Front (LANÇ). By January 1943, in Southern Albania, some Partisan units fought alongside the Balli Kombëtar during the Battle of Gjorm where they defeated and routed the Italian troops. In February 1943, he organized a meeting with communist-led LANÇ representatives and an agreement for cooperation was reached in March 1943. He also made another local agreement in August 1943 and was one of the initiators and supporters of the Mukje agreement. The communist-led LANÇ had demanded that Kosovo be ceded to Albania after the war. The LANÇ met with the Ballists in August 1943, agreeing upon the establishment of Greater Albania. The agreement was however short-lived. The agreement was the denounced by Albanian communists. In the south of Albania, the rivalry between the Communists and the Balli Kombëtar heated up. The Communists almost immediately repudiated the Mukaj agreement, and fearing the British might open a second front in the Balkans and lend their support to the Ballists, they issued orders that the Balli Kombëtar be eliminated wherever it was found. These factors contributed to members of the Balli Kombëtar forming a strong hatred for the Communists.

After forming the collaborator government, the Ballists pressed hard against the Communists. They destroyed a fairly large Communist partisan group southwest of Tirana. By the Fall of 1943 the Ballists, assisted by German forces, were also involved in vicious fighting against the Northern Epirus Liberation Front in Southern Albania. This Greek Nationalist group was destroyed during these clashes and was eliminated as a fighting force.

With the Grand Alliance established, the Germans began losing the war. This also affected the situation in Albania as the Germans could not supply the Ballists. With the current situation favouring the Communists, the partisans began a full-scale attack on the Balli Kombëtar. British liaison officers in Albania noted that the Communists were using the arms they received to fight fellow Albanians far more than to harass the Germans. The west noted that the Communists could not have won without the supplies and armaments from the British, America and Yugoslavia, and that the LANÇ were not afraid of murdering their own countrymen.

Kosovo and Vardar
The Ballists in Kosovo and Vardar region rose to prominence following the capitulation of Italy in September 1943. They seized Struga and Debar from the Italians on 9 September 1943, taking much of the military equipment left behind. Following the establishment of the Albanian Kingdom, leading members of the Balli Kombetar from Kosovo became involved in forming the new government. On 6 November 1943, Berlin announced that the regents and the assembly had formed a government headed by Kosovar Albanian Rexhep Mitrovica, who had joined the Balli Kombëtar resistance movement in 1942 and spent much of the Italian period in prison in Porto Romano near Durrës. Mitrovica's cabinet, most of whom had credentials as nationalists as well as some German or Austrian connection, included Xhafer Deva. Deva, a leading Ballist also from Kosovo, was appointed Minister of the Interior in the Government of Rexhep Mitrovica and collaborated with the Germans to oppose the spread of Communist forces in the north, effectively giving him direct command over the forces of the new government. The fighting in Kosovo took on an ethnic and ideological basis with the Albanian Balli Kombetar forces fighting the predominantly Serb Partisans.

In Vardar Macedonia, when it was a part of the independent state of Albania, the German and Ballist forces had occasional skirmishes with Yugoslav partisans. Kicevo, which remained in the hands of Macedonian and Albanian Partisan units following the capitulation of Italy, was attacked by the Ballists of Xhem Hasa in early November 1943. After 7 days of fierce fighting, the Partisans were defeated and forced to retreat from the city. Fiqri Dine, Xhem Hasa and Hysni Dema, as well as three German Majors, also directed military campaigns against the Albanian and Yugoslav partisans. When Maqellarë, midway between Debar and Peshkopi, was recaptured by the Fifth Partisan Brigade, the Germans with the assistance of the Ballist forces of Xhem Hasa launched an attack from Debar, defeating the partisans. The main centres of the Balli Kombëtar in these regions were Kosovska Mitrovica, Drenica and Tetovo. It was noted that the Balli Kombëtar in these regions were more aggressive than the Ballists of Albania. With the tables now turned in their favour many Ballists saw an opportunity to take their revenge upon their Serbian neighbours for the suffering they had endured over previous two decades, burning perhaps as many as 30,000 houses belonging to Serbs and Montenegrins. Most vulnerable to these attacks were Serbs who had settled in Kosovo in the interwar period.

In October 1944, as the German Army began retreating through Kosovo, fierce battles between the Germans and the Partisans broke out. After the Germans had been driven out, Tito ordered the collection of weapons in Kosovo and the arrest of prominent Albanians. The order was not well received and, combined with passions felt about Kosovo, inflamed an insurrection. On 2 December 1944, anti-communist Albanians from the Drenica region attacked the Trepca mining complex and other targets. Numbering at most 2,000 men, these anti-communists managed to hold off a Partisan force of 30,000 troops for two months. Similarly in Kičevo, Gostivar and Tetovo, the remaining Ballists tried to remain in control of the region after the Yugoslav Partisans announced victory. Now "an armed uprising of massive proportions" broke out in Kosovo led by the Balli Kombëtar (which still had around 9,000 men under arms at the time), which aimed to resist incorporation of Kosovo into communist Yugoslavia. It was only in July 1945 that the Yugoslav Partisans were able to put down the uprising and establish their control over Kosovo.

Montenegro and Sandžak region
Parts of Montenegro and the Sandžak were annexed into Albania in 1941. The cities included Bijelo Polje, Tutin, Plav, Gusinje, Rozaje and Ulcinj. Some of the Yugoslav Muslims that lived in these regions sided with the Albanians. Acif Hadziahmetovic, former mayor of Novi Pazar and member of Nexhip Draga's party, and Ballist forces under Shaban Polluzha successfully repelled the combined Chetnik-Yugoslav Partisan forces back from Novi Pazar, and crushed their stronghold in Banja. Novi Pazar remained under the control of Acif Hadziahmetovic who was a member of the nationalist Balli Kombëtar movement, right up until December 1944. During this time the region between Ballist held Novi Pazar and Chetnik controlled Raška, witnessed constant fighting between the Albanians, Yugoslav Muslims and Serbs in the narrow valley that separates the two towns.

Greece
Balli Kombëtar was also active in northwestern Greece, in particular in a region referred to by Albanians as Chameria. Administration of the Thesprotia prefecture was handed over to the Albanians, although this region was not officially annexed into the Albanian kingdom. The "Balli Kombëtar Çam" (Cham National Front), founded in 1943 by Nuri Dino, received full German support since they were willing to fight both Albanian and Greek Communist Partisans. These units were used in anti-partisan operations in Greece codenamed Augustus. By the time Operation Augustus ended, a larger number Chams were recruited for armed support. Their support was appreciated by the Germans: Lt Colonel Josef Remold remarked that "with their knowledge of the surrounding area, they have proved their value in the scouting missions". On several occasions, these scouting missions engaged EDES units in combat. On 27 September (1943), combined German and Cham forces launched large scale operation in villages north of Paramythia: Eleftherochori, Seliani, Semelika, Aghios Nikolaos. In this operation the Cham contingent numbered 150 men, and, according to German Major Stöckert, "performed very well".

Atrocities
Under the idea of creating a racially pure Greater Albania, the Balli Kombëtar enacted campaigns of terror against Serb civilians in Kosovo and Montenegro.. Following the founding of the Second League of Prizren, the Balli Kombëtar combined with the SS Skanderbeg division massacred thousands of Serbs and expelled between 10,000 and 100,000 Serb civilians from the region. In October 1943 during a large-scale German offensive in southern Albania, the Balli Kombëtar in conjunction with German troops attacked Greek villages and committed numerous atrocities including burning villages and executing civilians.

Revival
The Balli Kombëtar was revived in Albania as a political party in the early 1990s. Founded under the leadership of Abas Ermenji, a surviving Ballist, who escaped from Albania when the communists declared victory in 1945. In 1996 it won 5 percent of the popular vote and two seats in parliament. It has since declined. In the 2001 elections it was part of the Union for Victory (Bashkimi për Fitoren) coalition which received 37.1% of the vote and 46 members of parliament.

The National Front has chapters in Kosovo, led by Sylejman Daka & in North Macedonia, led by Vebi Xhemaili.

Ideology
Midhat Frashëri believed that Albanian provinces under the Ottoman Empire were unfairly partitioned during World War I amongst Yugoslavia and Greece. After World War II, Midhat Frashëri began advocating for a Greater Albania. When Midhat Frashëri formed the Balli Kombëtar, it was based on his nationalist ideas and the old ideologies of Abdyl Frashëri, Ymer Prizreni and Isa Boletini. The works of Franz Nopcsa, Johann Georg von Hahn and Milan Šufflay, helped strengthen the nationalists' cause. The Balli Kombëtar believed that Albanians were "Aryans of Illyrian heritage". This helped gaining support by the Nazis. The party had also a strong agrarian socialist wing, which gained the leadership of the party after the war with its leader Abaz Ermenji, and also Zef Pali, Halil Maçi and Vasil Andoni.

The original objectives of Balli Kombëtar were set out in 1942 in the following ten-point program, also known as the "Decalogue" The Decalogue states:

 * 1) We are fighting for the red and black flag, for the defence of the rights of the Albanian people
 * 2) We are fighting for a democratic, ethnic and free Albania with a modern society
 * 3) We are fighting for an Albania in which freedom of speech and thought will prevail
 * 4) We are fighting for an Albania with a proper economic and social balance so that there will be no more exploiters and exploited, that is to say, so that no one will live at the expense of his fellow man, so that there will be no farmers without enough land to live on, so that there will be no blue and white-collar workers without housing and security, i.e. we are fighting for a stable Albania with a thoroughly reformed economic system in accordance with the wishes and needs of the Albanian people
 * 5) We are fighting for an Albania in which the suppressed talents of all strata of the population will come to light, be supported and flourish with the help of Albanian schooling
 * 6) We are fighting for an Albania in which all positive contributions will be properly appreciated, independent of age, region or faith
 * 7) We are fighting to create an Albania run by people who have not been compromised, by Albanians who have done their utmost at every time and under all conditions for the salvation and welfare of their country, by competent and honest working men
 * 8) We are fighting for an Albania that, in a strict and exemplary manner, will punish all anti-patriots, traitors, lackeys, troublemakers, speculators and spies; for an Albania in which there will be no place for hypocrites, sycophants, feudal oppressors and anyone who hinders the development and progress of our renascent country
 * 9) We are fighting to harmonize and unite the creative energies of the nation, to create an intellectual and spiritual union of all Albanians
 * 10) We are fighting to mobilize all the vital forces of the nation against the occupiers in order to realize the ideals of Balli Kombëtar

Aftermath
After World War II ended, the Balli Kombëtar were defeated by Yugoslav and Albanian communists. The Ballists were so thoroughly discredited by their collaboration with the Nazis that there was no chance of them having a role in postwar Albania, though it took until 1945 to finish them off. Ironically, the Ballists' decision to work with the Nazis brought about the one thing they had sought to prevent – a Communist-dominated government. Balli Kombëtar fighters fled the Balkans to Austria, the United States, Australia, Switzerland and South America. The Ballists who did not escape were executed. An organization was set up in exile.

Many Ballists that managed to escape Albania subsequently set up the CIA backed Free Albania Committee, aimed at organising the Albanian diaspora to overthrow Enver Hoxha's Communist regime in Albania. Starting in 1949 British and American trained Albanian fighters (consisting of men from Balli Kombëtar and the monarchist movement, known as Legaliteti) were parachuted into Albania with the aim of organizing a popular revolt against Hoxha, marking the start of the Albanian Subversion. The operation failed, thanks in no small part to infamous double agent Kim Philby, who leaked crucial details of the plan to the communist authorities who were consequently able to intercept many of the fighters upon arrival. The subversion cost the lives of at least 300 men and for a long time was one of the most carefully concealed secrets of the Cold War.

In 1950, the Balli Kombëtar (in-exile) was divided into two wings, one Agrarian headed by Abas Ermenji, and one headed by Ali Këlcyra.

Legacy
Tetovo was once the largest Balli Kombëtar base in Albania and still has strong ties with the name. The Tetovo-based football club KF Shkendija has a large support firm called the Ballistët. They are known in the media in North Macedonia for their use of hardline nationalistic rhetorics in football matches. The most notable Ballist leader in Macedonia was Xhem Hasa from Gostivar. A statue of him has been erected in Simnica, just south of Gostivar, by local Albanians.

title: Balli Kombëtar


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Layer Pyramid

The Layer Pyramid (known locally in Arabic as el haram el midawwar, الهرم المدور, meaning 'rubble-hill pyramid') is a ruined step pyramid dating to the 3rd Dynasty of Egypt (2686 BC to 2613 BC) and located in the necropolis of Zawyet El Aryan. Its ownership is uncertain and may be attributable to pharaoh Khaba. The pyramid architecture, however, is very similar to that of the Buried Pyramid of king Sekhemkhet and for this reason is firmly datable to the 3rd Dynasty.

The pyramid was excavated at the beginning of the 20th century by two different teams who reported conflicting estimates regarding its size and number of subterranean chambers. No artefacts were found over the course of the excavations, and no trace of a burial could be found. For this reason, it is unclear whether the pyramid was used to bury a pharaoh or was abandoned following the premature death of the king.

At the time of its construction the pyramid was surrounded by a necropolis housing large mastabas belonging to the high officials of the 3rd Dynasty state. A mortuary temple was built on the eastern side of the pyramid and a valley temple was possibly located several hundred metres from it. Nowadays, the pyramid is located within the confines of a restricted military area, barring modern excavations of the site.

Research history
The Layer Pyramid was first examined and its surroundings explored in 1839 by John Shae Perring. Soon after, in 1848, the pyramid was identified as such by Karl Richard Lepsius, who listed it as number XIV in his pioneering list of pyramids. Around 40 years later, in 1886, Gaston Maspero unsuccessfully searched for the entrance of the subterranean passages of the pyramid, which was discovered in 1896 by Jacques de Morgan. The latter undertook excavations of the pyramid but stopped after clearing the first few steps of the descending stairway.

Further investigations were then performed in 1900 by Alessandro Barsanti, who uncovered the vertical access shaft leading to the burial chamber. Barsanti, seeing that several corridors and chambers were seemingly unfinished and that all were completely devoid of artefacts, deemed that the pyramid had never been used. Shortly after, in 1910–1911, George Reisner and Clarence S. Fisher worked on the site, excavating the north and east exteriors of the pyramid as well as the cemeteries surrounding it. The dimensions of the pyramid as estimated by Barsanti, Reisner and Fisher differ greatly and even the numbers of subterranean galleries they report are in disagreement. Unfortunately, the pyramid lies within a restricted military area since 1970 and consequently no excavation has been undertaken there since Reisner and Fisher's superficial work, leaving the structures beneath the pyramid in doubt. Furthermore, the pyramid is now sanded up, hampering modern estimations of its dimensions.

Location
The Layer Pyramid lies close to the necropolis of Zawyet El Aryan, 8 km south-west of Giza and 7 km north of Saqqara. The main structure is located on a rock ridge just above the floodplain.

Superstructure
The Layer Pyramid has a square base whose side is about 84 m long, slightly smaller than the step pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemket. Based on the dimensions of the pyramid of Djoser, the egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer estimated that the layer pyramid was originally planned to comprise five steps and would have reached c. 42 - 45 m in height. Today, only two of these steps remain, reaching a height of about 17 m. The current ruined state of the pyramid allows a view of its core, which is an 11 m2 pyramidal mound made of poor quality rough stone blocks taken from the local bedrock. This core is surrounded by a 2.6 m thick casing of the same masonry. This is in turn surrounded by 14 layers of mud bricks bonded with clay mortar and disposed almost vertically, with an inward inclination angle of 68°. Just as the inner-most stone casing of the pyramid core, each mud brick layer is 2.6 m thick.

Whether the pyramid was finished or left unfinished is disputed among experts. The egyptologist Rainer Stadelmann believes that the pyramid was indeed finished, but others, such as Miroslav Verner, think that the building was left unfinished because of the pharaoh's premature death. In particular, no traces of outer cladding were found, which could hint that there never was one because the pyramid was not completed.

Mud bricks were found at the base of the pyramid, which are not associated with the pyramid itself, but are interpreted as remnants of a construction ramp.

Substructure
The disposition of the substructures of the layer pyramid is extremely similar to that found in the Buried Pyramid of Sekhemket. Consequently, Mark Lehner and others suggest that the two pyramids must have been constructed very close in time.

The entrance to the subterranean structures lies on the east, a disposition which would be unparalleled until the construction of the pyramid of Senusret II, almost 1000 years later. The egyptologists Vito Maraglioglio and Celeste Rinaldi proposed that this unique feature was chosen by the Egyptian architects in order to free the north side of the pyramid for the construction of a temple. Aidan Dodson showed however that in this situation, the pyramid construction ramp would have "impinged on any northern temple construction even more damagingly". Rather, he explains this unique eastern entrance as resulting from a desire by the architects to allow for easy access to the pyramid store rooms, located immediately beneath the eastern entrance.

The entrance immediately leads to a 36 m long steep stairway and then down on to a corridor which heads west. The corridor ends in a straight vertical shaft, at the top of which is the so-called upper corridor, an unfinished passage which goes south toward the center of the pyramid. At the bottom of the shaft is a T-shaped crossway. To the left, this crossway leads south to the lower corridor, half-way of which is a narrow stairway, so narrow that a sarcophagus could hardly have been passed through it. The lower corridor then finishes in the king's burial chamber. In this area of the stairway, Barsanti drew another gallery leading above the burial chamber, but this gallery is absent in Reisner's and Fisher's notes. To the right of the T-shaped crossway is a U-shaped gallery system. The ground plan of the gallery system resembles that of a comb, comprising rows of chambers, totalling 32, which were possibly destined to be storage rooms for the gravegoods. The gallery proved to be "clean and empty, as if the workmen had only left".

The king's burial chamber is located 26 m below ground, is nearly square in shape, with a base of 3.63 x, and a ceiling height of 3 m. The burial chamber contained no traces of a sarcophagus, which together with the absence of artefacts in the gallery, hints to the premature death of the king.

Funerary complex
The funerary complex of the layer pyramid shows no trace of an enclosure wall, which is present in both earlier and later pyramid complexes. This could be because the stones constituting the wall were robbed over time, or simply because the wall was never started, being usually the last element of the pyramid complex to be built. At the eastern side of the pyramid, the remnants of brick walls could indicate the presence of a mortuary temple, but the archaeological traces are so tenuous that any closer examination and more precise reconstruction is impossible today. The same goes for the ruins of a building several hundred metres away from the pyramid, and which might have been the valley temple. If this was indeed a valley temple, its east-west orientation would be unique in all pyramid complexes.

Necropolis
The layer pyramid is surrounded by a total of five cemeteries dating to the 1st Dynasty, 2nd Dynasty, late 3rd Dynasty, 18th Dynasty and Roman Period. Of these cemeteries, only the one dating to the late 3rd Dynasty contains large tombs, of which are four mud brick mastabas. Reisner and Fisher observe that this is to be expected of the necropolis surrounding the pyramid of a pharaoh, the large tombs being those of the royal family and court officials. In particular, around 200 m north of the layer pyramid is a huge mastaba, today known as Mastaba Z500, which yielded eight marble bowls inscribed with the serekh of king Khaba. Reisner and Fisher therefore conclude that "if the mastabas belong to people connected with the king who built the pyramid, it is probable that the king’s name was Khaba". This opinion is shared by most egyptologists who attribute the layer pyramid to Khaba.

Date and attribution
The architecture of the layer pyramid allows it to be securely dated to the time span between the reigns of king Sekhemkhet and that of king Snofru, the founder of the 4th Dynasty. Rainer Stadelmann, Miroslav Verner and Jean-Philippe Lauer compare the architecture of the layer pyramid with that of the step pyramids of Djoser and Sekhemkhet, expecting the layer pyramid to have originally consisted of five steps, just as its near-contemporary predecessors. The layer pyramid exhibits at one site both complex developments concerning its substructures and simplifications concerning the building methods employed for the superstructure. According to these egyptologists, the layer pyramid is a clearly advanced version of the buried pyramid of Sekhemkhet.

The remaining problem about the layer pyramid is the question of who had it built. Most scholars today believe that it was likely king Khaba of the late 3rd Dynasty. This conclusion is based on stone bowls and vases bearing the serekh of Khaba discovered in Mastaba Z500, located just north of the pyramid. Rainer Stadelmann goes further and identifies Khaba with king Huni, the last ruler of the 3rd Dynasty. His hypothesis is based on his reading of the Turin canon, a kinglist compiled in the early Ramesside period c. 1300 BC, some 1400 years after Huni's lifetime. The Turin canon credits Huni with a relatively long reign of 24 years. According to Stadelmann, this time would be sufficient to cover the time span needed to complete the building of the layer pyramid. He also argues that royal monuments of the first three Egyptian dynasties only present a king's horus name in a serekh and only later do they record the throne or birth name. Thus, the serekh of Khaba could correspond to the throne name Huni. In this case, the layer pyramid would be Huni's tomb. This conclusion is contested by most Egyptologists who think that Huni instead built the Meidum Pyramid, point to the apparent unfinished state of the layer pyramid and identify Khaba with king Hudjefa II mentioned on the Turin canon.

title: Layer Pyramid


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User talk:Wise

Hello, world!

Public Ivy
Stop reverting cited material. Material is sufficiently cited as per WP standards. Removing it is not only disingenuous, it is akin to vandalism. —ExplorerCDT 04:01, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

 * It is not properly cited. You need a specific source, and a specific date. Wise 04:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * This meets wikipedia guidelines, stop removing cited material. —ExplorerCDT 04:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Uh, I haven't removed anything since last comment... once again, take it down a notch. Wise 04:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

 * RE: Comment on my user talk page: We're talking about four rolls of microfilm, the citation is overwhelmingly sufficient per above. I would advise you also to calm down. —ExplorerCDT 04:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * In all fairness and good conscience, I should thank you also for appropriately transfering the material to the relevant citation on the Ivy League article. —ExplorerCDT 04:42, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The Unscrupulous Gym Employees in Burn After Reading
I have never seen Burn After Reading, but I would like to ask that at the end of Burn After Reading, do the gym employees "Klick it Down" like Brenda Myers-Powell says or do they die?

ArbCom elections are now open!
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:57, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Wise


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Blur

Blur, Blurry, Blurring, Blurred or Blurr, may refer to:

Optics and images

 * Bokeh, the aesthetic quality of the out-of-focus parts of an image
 * Box blur, a graphic-art effect
 * Defocus aberration, blurring of an image due to incorrect focus
 * Gaussian blur, a graphic-art effect
 * Motion blur, blurring of an image due to movement of the subject or imaging system

Fictional characters

 * Red Blue Blur, or The Blur, an alternate identity for Clark Kent in Smallville
 * The Atlanta Blur or The Blur, a character in the Marvel MAX comic Supreme Power
 * Blurr (Transformers), Transformers fictional robot superheroes

Films

 * Blurred (film), a 2002 Australian film
 * Blurs (film), a 2011 Croatian film
 * Blurr, a 2022 Indian horror thriller film by Ajay Bahl

Music

 * Blur (band), an English rock band

Albums

 * Blur (Blur album), a 1997 album by the eponymous band Blur
 * Blur: The Best Of, a 2000 album by the eponymous band Blur
 * Blur (Rachael Lampa album), a 2002 album by Rachael Lampa
 * Blurr (EP), a 1993 EP by Unwritten Law; see Unwritten Law discography

Songs

 * "Blur", a song by Britney Spears from the album Circus
 * "Blur", a song by Imagine Dragons from the album Mercury – Acts 1 & 2
 * "Blur", a song by Johnny Orlando
 * "Blur", a song by MØ from the album Forever Neverland
 * "Blur", a song by We Came As Romans from their self-titled album
 * "Blur", a song by Wretch 32, featured on the soundtrack of FIFA 13
 * "Blurry", a 2001 song by Puddle of Mudd from the album Come Clean
 * "Blurry" (Stand Atlantic song), a 2020 song by Stand Atlantic from the album Pink Elephant
 * "Blurry (Out of Place)", a song by Crown the Empire from the album Sudden Sky

Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media

 * Blur (video game), a 2010 arcade racing game
 * Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload, a book by journalists Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach
 * The Blur, a member of DP 7, part of Marvel Comics' New Universe line

Other uses

 * Blur, in computing, a loss of focus
 * Blur (browser extension), formerly DoNotTrackMe, now Ironvest
 * Blurring, a form of trademark dilution
 * Blur Group, an online marketplace provider
 * Blur Studio, a graphics and video effects company

title: Blur


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User talk:Computerteck5

hey...im realy intrested in paricutin the vacano.

title: User talk:Computerteck5


text:
Barillas

Barillas is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain.

title: Barillas


text:
The Masquerader (1914 film)

The Masquerader is a 1914 film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin during his time at Keystone Studios. This film stars Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle and has a running time of 13 minutes. It is the tenth film directed by Chaplin.

Plot
The film revolves around making films at Keystone Studios. Charlie plays an actor who bungles several scenes and is kicked off the studio. The next day a strange, beautiful woman appears to audition for the film - it's Charlie in disguise. After doing a perfect impersonation of a female, Charlie has drawn the attention of the director who hires the new "actress" for his films. The director gives the beautiful woman the men's dressing room to change in. While there, Charlie returns to his tramp costume. When the director returns looking for the woman, he finds Charlie and realizes he has been tricked. Angry, the director chases Charlie through the studio until Charlie decides to jump into what he thinks is a prop well. The film ends with the director and other actors laughing at Charlie as he is trapped in the bottom of a real well. The plot involving a man dressing up as a woman was quite popular in silent movies.

Reception
A reviewer from Bioscope wrote, "Here we have Mr. Chaplin rehearsing for a cinematograph production, in which he gives a really remarkable female impersonation. The makeup is no less successful than the characterization, and it is further proof of Mr. Chaplin's undoubted versatility."

Cast

 * Charlie Chaplin - Film actor
 * Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle - Film actor
 * Chester Conklin - Film actor
 * Charles Murray - Film director
 * Jess Dandy - Actor/villain
 * Minta Durfee - Leading lady
 * Cecile Arnold - Actress
 * Vivian Edwards - Actress
 * Harry McCoy - Actor
 * Charley Chase - Actor
 * Frank Opperman - Actor

title: The Masquerader (1914 film)


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Category:Fellows of Wadham College, Oxford

Fellows and Wardens of Wadham College, Oxford.

See also former students.


text:
Albert Edward Kemp

Sir Albert Edward Kemp (August 11, 1858 – August 12, 1929) was a Canadian businessman and politician. Kemp was a Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence and Minister of Overseas Military Forces during World War I. A Conservative and Unionist, Kemp was elected five times to the House of Commons of Canada as the Member of Parliament for electoral district of Toronto East. He was appointed to the Senate of Canada by Prime Minister Arthur Meighen in 1921.

Background
Edward Kemp was born in Saint-Georges-de-Clarenceville, Quebec in what was then Canada East. Kemp's father was a farmer and country merchant who was an immigrant from Yorkshire, England; his mother was Canadian-born. He was raised near the village of Clarenceville, where he attended Clarenceville Academy, and later studied at the academy in Lacolle, excelling in mathematics, but he did not finish. Leaving home at 16, Kemp headed to Montreal and eventually gaining employment as a bookkeeper at a hardware store.

Business ambition
At the age of 20, Kemp became engaged to Cecilia Wilson. Soon afterwards, he and a partner opened a manufacturing and retailing shop on St Catherine Street in Montreal. He and Cecilia moved to Toronto in 1885, where he entered into partnership with Thomas McDonald, owner of the struggling Dominion Tin and Stamping Works. In 1888 Kemp bought out McDonald and formed the Kemp Manufacturing Company with his younger brother, William Arthur, who had left the lumber trade in Quebec to apply his talents in Toronto. Kemp served as president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association in 1895 and 1896, and as president of the Toronto Board of Trade in 1899 and 1900. The brothers expanded their operations and opened plants in Montreal and Winnipeg, eventually reorganizing their business as the Sheet Metal Products Company of Canada Limited in 1911.

Political ambition
Kemp was elected five times to the House of Commons of Canada as the Member of Parliament for the Ontario electoral district of Toronto East. He was first elected in the Canadian federal election of 1900, and was re-elected in 1904. He lost in 1908 to an "independent Conservative", Joseph Russell, who had been nominated by some constituents who were unhappy with Kemp's connections to the Albany Club and Toronto's wealthy class, and who also charged that Kemp was hiring foreign workers at low wages at the expense of Canadians. Out of office, Kemp threw his efforts into rebuilding the Conservative machine in Ontario as well as paying off its debts. He used his business connections to rally opposition to the Laurier government's Naval Service Act as well as its plans for reciprocity with the United States - a campaign to which he recruited prominent Ontario Liberals. Through Kemp's efforts, he regained his seat in 1911 and helped Robert Borden defeat Laurier to become Prime Minister. Borden rewarded Kemp by appointing him minister without portfolio in his first Cabinet.

World War I

During World War I Kemp sat as a Unionist in the coalition government formed under Robert Borden. Kemp played an increasingly important part in the government of Canada during the war years. In 1915 he was appointed chairman of the War Purchasing Commission; in 1916, he succeeded Sam Hughes as Minister of Militia and Defence; and in 1917 he went to London as Minister of Overseas Military Forces of Canada, a portfolio which he retained until the demobilization of the Canadian overseas forces was completed. In 1918 he was a member of the Imperial War Cabinet; and in 1919 he was one of the commissioners representing Canada at the Paris Peace Conference. For his service during World War I, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1917.

On November 4, 1921, Kemp was appointed to the Senate of Canada on the recommendation of Prime Minister Arthur Meighen. He represented the senatorial division of Toronto, Ontario until his death.

Personal
Kemp married Cecilia Amanda Wilson (1858–1924) in 1879 and had three daughters: Alice Irene (Mrs. Walter Scott Waldie), Hazel Beatrice (Mrs. Francis Chattan Stephens), and Florence Evelyn (Mrs. Albert Henry Proctor).

Hazel married Captain F. Chattan Stephens of Montreal, who was a son of liberal politician George Washington Stephens and half-brother to Saar president George Washington Stephens Jr. Their only son, John H. C. Stephens, and F. Chattan's mother, Frances McIntosh Stephens, perished in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915.

After the death of his first wife Kemp remarried to Virginia Norton Copping on March 3, 1925. By her first marriage to Norman Judson Copping she had two daughters, Cynthia Dana Copping and Virginia Norton Copping. Norman Copping's parents, George R. and Emma (Black) Copping, were victims of the RMS Lusitania as well. With Virginia, Kemp had another daughter, Katharine Edward Hanley Kemp Cross (1926–2001).

Albert Edward Kemp died at Pigeon Lake in 1929 and was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto.

He was a member of the Orange Order.

Archives
There are Albert Edward Kemp fonds at Library and Archives Canada and the University of Toronto.

Electoral record

 * Conservative
 * Albert Edward Kemp
 * align="right"| acclaimed
 * }

title: Albert Edward Kemp


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User:Korvac

Brief summary:

Virology lab technician, future molecular biology graduate student, comic book fan. Mostly doing article cleanups until I get the hang of Wiki.

title: User:Korvac


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Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech

The Scottish Corpus of Texts & Speech (SCOTS) is an ongoing project to build a corpus of modern-day (post-1940) written and spoken texts in Scottish English and varieties of Scots. SCOTS has been available online since November 2004, and can be freely searched and browsed. It reached 4.7 million words by 2015.

The project is a venture by the Department of English Language and STELLA project at the University of Glasgow. SCOTS is grant-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Language variety
SCOTS contains texts in Scottish English and varieties of broad Scots, including Doric, Lallans, urban varieties such as Glaswegian and Insular Scots. SCOTS contains a geographical spread of texts as well as a demographic spread. Each text is accompanied by extensive metadata, including such information as author's decade of birth, gender, occupation, birthplace and place of residence, and details about the text such as publication information, audience, date and genre.

Genre and mode
SCOTS is a multimedia corpus, containing written texts and spoken texts, available as orthographic transcriptions, accompanied by source audio or video files. SCOTS includes a large number of genres and text types, including prose fiction, poetry, business and personal correspondence, religious texts, parliamentary and administrative documents, emails, conversations and interviews.

Search and analysis
SCOTS can be investigated in various ways, depending on the user's interest. The corpus can be browsed, for example by the author's name or date of the text, and all texts can be downloaded in plain text format.

Transcriptions are synchronised with audio / video files, which are streamed and may also be downloaded.

An Advanced Search facility allows the user to build up more complex queries, choosing from all the fields available in the metadata. Geographical results are plotted on an interactive map, so regional variation may be investigated.

Advanced Search results can also be viewed as a KWIC concordance, which can be reordered to highlight collocational patterns.

title: Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech


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Chi Aurigae

Chi Aurigae, Latinized from χ Aurigae, is the Bayer designation for a binary star system in the northern constellation of Auriga. It is visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 4.74. The distance of Chi Aurigae is determined at 3,900 ly based on spectroscopic observations. Parallax measurements by the Hipparcos spacecraft were unsucessful because the parallax error was bigger than the value itself, while the Gaia spacecraft measured the parallax with a 22% error, giving a distance of $-0.812$. The brightness of the star is diminished by 1.26 in magnitude from extinction caused by intervening gas and dust.

Chi Aurigae is a spectroscopic binary with an orbital period of 676.85 d and an eccentricity of 0.12. The primary component of this system is a supergiant star with a stellar classification of B5 Iab. It is over 190,000 times more luminous, around 20 times more massive and around 70 times larger. Its surface has an effective temperature of 14,600 K. It has a stellar wind that is causing mass loss at the rate of 0.38–0.46 × 10−9 solar masses per year, or the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 2.4 billion years.

title: Chi Aurigae


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Connolly Column

The Connolly Column (Columna Connolly, Colún Uí Chonghaile) was the name given to a group of Irish republican socialist volunteers who fought for the Second Spanish Republic in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. They were named after James Connolly, the executed leader of the Irish Citizen Army. They were a company-strength unit of the XV International Brigade, which also included the US, British and Latin American battalions in Spain. The name is now retroactively applied to all Irish volunteers who fought for the Spanish Republic.

Origins
On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, support for the Spanish Republic grew among left-wing organizations, taking tangible form in a decision in September 1936 to form an International Brigade of volunteers to fight with the Republican government against the fascist-dominated Nationalist rebels. This decision was echoed in Ireland by various left-wing groups; the chief organizers of this effort were Sean Murray, Peadar O'Donnell, and Frank Ryan.

Murray was chairman of the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) at the time, and a fine orator. he was in contact with Bill Scott, a volunteer with the Thälmann Battalion who sent regular reports of conditions in Spain, and which Murray published in the party newspaper, The Worker.

O'Donnell, a socialist and Irish republican, was in Barcelona for the "People's Olympics" – held in opposition to the Olympic Games being held in Berlin under the Nazi regime. O'Donnell sympathised with the anarchist workers' militia that defeated the attempted military coup in the city and joined one of their militias on the Aragon front. On his return to Ireland, O'Donnell urged the formation of Irish volunteer regiments to support the Popular Front government. Ryan had fought during the Irish Civil War and was a member of the communist-orientated Republican Congress, and had also been a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was keen to form a volunteer group to join the International Brigades and fight.

Most of the Irish volunteers came from the Republican Congress. From the period of 1925–1931, the IRA received money from the Soviet Union in return for spying on the United Kingdom and the United States. This had led to many Communist Party of Ireland members joining and even setting up front groups such as Saor Éire. This attempt to form a synthesis of republican and communist concerns had largely failed and within the IRA the communist-element declined in prominence by the early 1930s, leading these people to found the separate Republican Congress.

Motivation
As well as sympathy for the Spanish Republic, many Irish Republican volunteers were also motivated by enmity towards the Irish Brigade, an 800 strong force that volunteered in late 1936 to fight on the Spanish Nationalist side. This antagonism dated back to the Irish Civil War of 1922–23, when some of the predecessors of the two factions had fought on opposing sides. In 1932–33 small groups of IRA men and Blueshirts had fought each other in the streets with fists, bats and occasionally guns; the Blueshirts were outlawed in 1933.

Some of these men on both sides saw the Spanish conflict as a continuation of Ireland's own civil war. Neither group had a candidate elected in any Irish elections, despite the hardships of the Great Depression. Already a small group, some left-leaning IRA or ex-IRA men had formed the breakaway Republican Congress in 1934, which also divided later that year.

Not all the volunteers were Irish Republicans, however, as the Irish International Brigaders included many other strains of socialist and left wing ideology. They even included a communist ex-clergyman, Robert Hilliard.

Bill Gannon, former IRA member who had been among the assassins of Justice Minister Kevin O'Higgins in 1927, and who later joined the Irish Communist Party, had a major role in the recruitment and organising.

In Spain
In December 1936, a group of eighty volunteers, led by Frank Ryan, arrived in Spain. The majority came from the Irish Free State, but there were also a group of republican socialists from Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland. Those who went included Michael O'Riordan, Charles Donnelly, Frank Conroy, Eddie O'Flaherty, Paul Burns, Jackie Hunt, Bill Henry, Eamon McGrotty, Bill Beattie, Paddy Roe McLaughlin, Bill Henry, Peter O'Connor, Peter Power, Johnny Power, Patrick Smith, Liam Tumilson, Jim Stranney, Willie O'Hanlon, Ben Murray Fred McMahon and Tommy Wood, aged 17. Many were members of the Communist Party of Ireland, and Wood was a member of Fianna Éireann.

After travelling through southern France by train to Perpignan, they assembled in Madrigueras and in December 1936 constituted the "James Connolly Centuria" of the International Brigade, colloquially known as the "Connolly Column". The unit first saw action on the Andalusian front near Cordova as part of the 12th (French) IB battalion where they helped repulse a Nationalist attack. Later that month they fought at the battle of Madrid, where they lost a number of men.

In January 1937 the unit was re-organized, with new recruits from Ireland and elsewhere, and placed with the newly formed                                                                           (English-speaking) XV (Abraham Lincoln) Brigade. The Connolly's formed a company of the 16th (British) Saklatvala Battalion, but some Irish volunteers refused to serve in the British battalion due to their Irish Republican convictions. Ryan wrote of the importance of workers solidarity outweighing national sentiment, though he also on one occasion threatened to shoot an English volunteer when he found out that he had served in the Black and Tans in the Irish War of Independence. As a result of these tensions, some of the Irish left the British to join the 17th (American) Lincoln Battalion, another part of the XV Brigade. However these volunteers were not a formal unit in that battalion and other Irish volunteers also fought in other units of the Brigades. With the XV Brigade the Connolly's suffered heavy losses at the battle of Jarama, near Madrid, in February 1937. Charlie Donnelly, Eamon McGrotty, Bill Henry, Liam Tumilson and Bill Beattie were all killed during this battle.

Frank Ryan was also badly wounded at Jarama in February 1937 and returned to Ireland to recuperate. On his return to Spain he was appointed adjutant to the Republican General José Miaja.

In June 1937 they went into reserve, where they were joined by men from the Anglo-American company of 20th Battalion which had fought earlier near Pozoblanco in southern Spain. In July the XV Brigade took part in the battle of Brunete, where the Saktvala battalion suffered 450 casualties; the Connolly's, fighting around Villanueva de Canada, lost 7 men killed and many others wounded. In August XV Brigade was fought the battle of Belchite, where Paddy O'Daire of the Connolly's took command of the British battalion during the battle following the wounding of Peter Daly.

In October they moved to the Aragon front, a quiet sector, but in January 1938 they took part in the attack on Teruel; in March during the battle of Gandesa they were forced to retreat when the front collapsed, and Ryan was captured.

In July 1938 the Connolly's fought their last battle; en route for home after the Spanish Republican government agreed to repatriate all foreign soldiers, the Connolly Column returned to the front to take part in the Battle of Ebro the last, doomed, Republican offensive of the war.

The surviving Irish volunteers were repatriated to Ireland after September 1938, when the Republican government disbanded the International Brigades in the vain hope of securing military aid from other democracies and of getting the fascist troops from Italy and Germany to withdraw.

Ryan was captured during the Aragón offensive on 1 April 1938 and was held at the Miranda del Ebro detention camp. He was sentenced to death but after representations from Éamon de Valera his sentence was commuted to thirty years hard labour.

Michael O'Riordan went on to become General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland in 1970.

Though a small unit, sources differ on the numbers involved. The Brigade's British and Irish roll of honour lists 36 Irishmen killed in Spain in the war. O'Riordan listed 145 men, and "..of that number 61 never came back". Returning to Dublin, Connolly Column was greeted by the solitary figure of Fr. Michael O'Flanagan, who unveiled a banner in their honour.

Related material
Christy Moore's song "Viva la Quince Brigada" is about the Irish volunteers who fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and was inspired by Michael O'Riordan's book, Connolly Column.

title: Connolly Column


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Ax-les-Thermes

Ax-les-Thermes (Ax or Acs) is a commune in the Ariège department in the Occitanie region of south-western France.

The commune has been awarded one flower by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom.

Geography
Ax-les-Thermes is situated in the Pyrénées, close to Andorra, and stands on the confluence of the Oriège, Ariège and Lauze rivers. some 75 km west of Perpignan and 35 km north-east of Andorra la Vella. Access to the commune is by Route nationale N20 from Garanou in the north-west which passes through the village then south through the commune to Mérens-les-Vals. The D613 goes north from the village to Sorgeat and the D25 branches from this to go east to Ascou and Mijanès. The railway line from Foix passes through the commune with Ax-les-Thermes station just north-west of the village. The line continues south to Merens-les-Vals. Apart from the village there are the hamlets of Premiere Bazerque, Deuxieme Bazerque, Troisieme Bazerque, Petches, and Ax-Bonascre to the south. The Ax 3 Domaines Ski resort is located at Ax-Bonascre south-west of the village and is accessed by the D82 road from the village. The commune is alpine in nature with extensive forests and rugged terrain.

The Ariège river flows through the commune from south to north at the start of its journey to join the Garonne at Portet-sur-Garonne. The Ruisseau des Estagnols rises in the south of the commune and flows north to join the Ariège in the south of the commune. The Ruisseau de Risl and the Ruisseau de Font Frède both rise in the east of the commune and flow west to join the Ariège. The Oriège flows from the east to join the Ariège in the village and the Lauze flows from the east to join the Ariège just north of the confluence of the Oriège.

The Spa
Ax (from Latin Aquae – water; French Thermes – hot springs), situated at an elevation of 700 m, is well known for its sulphurous hot springs (25 to 78 C). The waters, which were used by the Romans, were historically claimed to treat rheumatism, skin diseases, and other maladies. The springs were developed in the medieval period on the orders of Saint Louis to treat soldiers returning from the Crusades afflicted with leprosy. From the 19th century, a spa tourism industry developed.

The Bassin des Ladres (Lepers' Pond), in the centre of the commune, is fed by hot springs supplying water from the ground at a temperature of 77 °C. The best known fountain is the "fountain of cannons". A hospital is situated only one metre from the basin. The pond was built by Roger IV, Count of Foix, during the reign of Saint Louis in 1260. Every year on St John's Day the people of Ax-les-Thermes, having been daubed with ashes, bathe in the Lepers' Pond for fun.

Administration

List of Successive Mayors

Demography
The inhabitants of the commune are known as Axéens or Axéennes in French.

Economy

Local economic activity is based mainly on livestock (cattle and sheep), Hydrotherapy (there are 60 sources at temperatures ranging from 18 to 78 °C, feeding three spas: Couloubret, Modèle, and Teich. The waters treat especially sciatica, rheumatism and certain respiratory diseases), winter sports, and tourism in general. Its proximity to Andorra enables cross-border shopping. The Ax 3 Domaines winter sports resort is situated in the commune and served as the finish line for stage 14 of the 2010 Tour de France.

Civil heritage
The commune has two sites that are registered as historical monuments:
 * The Bassin des Ladres (Leper's Pond) (13th century) is fed by hot spring water at a temperature of 77 °C.
 * The Teich Park Ornamental Garden (1838)

 * Picture Gallery

Religious heritage

 * The Church of Saint-Jerome (formerly the Chapel of the Blue Penitents) contains several items that are registered as historical objects:
 * An Altar Painting: Christ on the Cross (1841)
 * The Choir Enclosure (18th century)
 * The Front of the Altar (18th century)
 * A Tabernacle and 6 statuettes (18th century)
 * The Altar, Retable, 2 statues, Painting: Saint Jerome, Saint Madeleine, Christ on the Cross (18th century)
 * The Church of Saint-Vincent contains several items that are registered as historical objects:
 * A Chalice (16th century)
 * A Crucifix from the Blue Penitents (1650)
 * A Chalice (16th century)
 * A Painting: Saint Vincent in Ecstasy (18th century)
 * A Bronze Bell (1512)
 * A Painting: The mystical marriage of Saint Catherine (17th century)
 * A Painting: Christ on the Cross with Saint Madeleine and the Virgin at his feet (1875)

Notable people linked to the commune

 * Saint Udaut (405-452), priest and martyr
 * Peire Autier, Albigensian leader
 * Louis Gareau (1769-1813), General of the Armies of the Republic and the Empire
 * Émilien Dumas (1804–1873), palaeontologist and geologist, died in Ax-les-Thermes
 * Gatien Marcailhou (1807-1855), composer and "inventor" of the waltz. He was the first teacher of Gabriel Fauré. His most famous composition, Indiana, inspired Camille Claudel in his group La Valse.
 * Pierre Bertrand de Mérignon

title: Ax-les-Thermes


text:
Talk:Zeth Höglund

Civil war in Finland
Am changing this: "On his way back to Sweden, Höglund also visited the revolutionary communist government in Finland, which would soon be overthrown by international counterrevolutionary forces." "International counterrevolutionary forces" sounds quite dated and biased. New version: "On his way back to Sweden, Höglund also visited the Reds in Finland, which at the time was in the thrushes of a civil war which soon ended in White victory."
 * Okay, sounds good. Bronks 09:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

mayor of stockholm?
I removed (temporary) the part that said he was "the mayor of stockholm 1940 - 1950". He was not mayor, he was finansborgarråd, or is it the same thing??? Bronks. 13 october 2005

Street name in Leningrad
Höglund got a street named after him in Petrograd (later Leningrad) in the early 1920s. They didn’t change the name of the street until the mid 1930s, during Stalin’s purges. Therefore I think it’s better to write after the rise of Stalinism the street name was changed instead of after Höglund's departure from the communist movement the street name was changed.

They changed the name of the street because Höglund was criticizing Stalin, not because he had “left the communist movement.” He still considered himself a communist all his life. Bronks. 29 December 2005

A few comments, explains an edit of Propaganda

 * On his parents' church: were they Christians? Lutheran?
 * State Knowledge: is that law or government?
 * I have edited propadanda to agitation to reflect what was then current usage. See Plekanov's formula -- Propaganda = many ideas to a few people; Agitation = one idea to many people. --Duncan 11:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * 'Statskunskap' (literal translation 'State Knowledge') is Swedish for Political Science. A Swedish Christian at the time, if not mentioned otherwise, is most likely affiliated to the Church of Sweden. --Soman 12:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

 * Höglund's parent's were Christians, and I assume Lutherans (as the vast majority of the Swedish people were back then.) Bronks

title: Talk:Zeth Höglund


text:
Hymen Lipman

Hymen L. Lipman (c. 1817/1823 – November 4, 1893) is credited with registering the first patent for a pencil with an attached eraser on March 30, 1858.

Hymen L. Lipman was born March 20, 1817, in either Kingston, Jamaica or in the Bahamas, to English parents. He immigrated to the United States around 1829 with them, arriving in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he resided for the remainder of his life.

In 1840, Lipman succeeded Samuel M. Stewart, then the leading stationer in Philadelphia. Three years later, he started the first envelope company in the U.S.

In August 7, 1848, he was married to Mary A. Lehman, daughter of Peter Lehman, one of the founders of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in Philadelphia. They had a son and two daughters.

In 1862, Lipman sold his lead-pencil and eraser patent for $100,000 to Joseph Reckendorfer, who went to sue the pencil manufacturer Faber for infringement. In 1875, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Reckendorfer, declaring the patent invalid because his invention was actually a combination of two already known things with no new use.

An incorrect picture of Hymen Lipman that surfaced on the internet in an April 3, 2012, YouTube post (Mr. Hymen Lipman - The Father of Modern Content Editing - This Day in SEO History - Vol 4 by Fathom) has been subsequently used by many others on the internet. The picture most often used is not of Hymen Lipman but rather Crawford W. Long of Georgia, credited with first using ether for surgical anesthesia on March 30, 1842. Another picture occasionally used as Lipman on the internet is an artist's rendition of a younger Edgar Allan Poe.

title: Hymen Lipman


text:
Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Thames

 * The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for adminship. Please do not modify it.

thames
[ Vote here]  (26/3/1) ending 15:30 20 October 2005 (UTC)

– I've found Thames to be a very level-headed editor, I don't think he's ever been in a serious conflict despite the fact that he specializes in political philosophy articles that attract a lot of dispute. Take a look at his contribs, and you will find plenty of "rvv"s- articles on his watchlist apparently attract a lot of POV-pushing vandals and I think Thames will find it easier to deal with them once he has the tools. Those suffering from editcountitis will be glad to hear that he has passed the 3000 edit mark recently. While most of his edits are in article space, a quick look at his user page will show that he has a firm grasp of wikipedia policies and philosophy (note the essay at the bottom). Borisblue 15:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

 * Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I accept Borisblue's nomination.

Support
 * 1) Borisblue 15:33, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Support plenty of edits, and satisfactory answers. freestylefrappe 16:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) Support. KHM03 17:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 4) Support. Good user. --Bjarki 20:23, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 5) Merovingian (t) (c) ( e ) 21:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 6) Support. El_C 22:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 7) Support. If he doesn't have time to use his powers, will it really do any harm? The candidate's amount of time available to spend on Wikipedia in the future shouldn't be a primary consideration in granting or withholding admin powers.--Scimitar parley 22:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 8) Support CambridgeBayWeather 22:41, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) Support Privat  e   Butcher  00:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 10) Support, good user, reasons for opposition so far are weak at best. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 11) Support I simply had to oppose those who oppose on grounds of the user's lack of time. This is, in my opinion, one of the very worst reasons I see for opposing adminship.  It does not mean that the project would not benefit from a user having sysop access nor does it imply that one is at all untrustworthy, uncivil, or not knowledegble about policy (although it may mean that these things take longer to show.)  Y0u (Y0ur talk page) (Y0ur contributions) 00:53, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 12) Support A part time, trustworthy admin is worth having --Rogerd 02:36, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 13) I actually like the honesty of admitting not having much time. Why is it that worse than people claiming that will fix everytihng on wikipedia even if they won't? – (drini's page| ☎ ) 05:34, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 14) Support - Lot of dedication in vandal fighting – Obradović Goran ( t  al  k  09:30, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 15) Support - Harmless. And many an intention to concentrate on school in favor of Wikipedia has gone awry ;) Haukur Þorgeirsson 00:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 16) Support user's on statements regarding lack of time show levelheadedness and honesty... passes my bar.  ALKIVAR ™[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 10:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 17) Support deserves the recognition.  Dl yo ns 493   Ta lk   16:29, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 18) Support - I don't see how not having a lot of time to do stuff means that you should not get admin tools - having lots of people fixing stuff now and again is surely healthier than having a few obsessives working flat out. A solid editor by all accounts. Lupin|talk|popups 03:09, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 19) I think it's refreshing when a potential admin admits that he won't be on the Wikipedia 24/7. People who use that against him trouble me. Hot support. Mike H (Talking is hot) 08:51, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 20) Andre ( talk ) 20:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 21) Support good admins are always useful, even if they don't edit all that often.  Grue  21:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 22) Support He can have the mop, even if he doesn't use it much. -DDerby- (talk) 04:39, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 23) Support. Opposing due to warning that he won't be an active admin is new to me. There are several very good contributors here who have admin tools but don't use them much, Camembert is one I can think of off the top of my head. The good work and experience is enough for me to support, even though I haven't interacted with Thames much, just reviewed his contributions. Sjakkalle (Check!)  14:48, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 24) Support per Scimitar. the wub  "?!"  16:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 25) Support --MONGO 03:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 26) Support. Inactivity shouldn't be a problem.   Ral  315   WS  07:26, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 27) Support. I don't understand the insufficient activity concerns.  If an editor is suitable for the tools, give them the tools.  Another admin doing janitorial work once in a while is better than none at all, right?  Friday (talk) 02:29, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 28) Support The Minister of War 10:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Oppose
 * 1) Oppose (reluctantly): The answer to question 1 below is curious. You want to be an admin (you accepted the nom), but doubt you'll have time to do admin things? Why do you need the tools then? The things you say you'd like to spend time on do not need admin tools. Use of edit summaries is a touch lower than I like to see (59% overall, 76% over last 500 edits), and activity level is a bit lower than I like to see (7 edits a day over last 90 days, and that average has been slowly but steadily dropping for the last six months). Your intention of beginning a PhD program means this average will drop further. Also, I am a bit concerned about possible overuse on your part of the fairuse tag on various images that you have uploaded. About 1/4 of the images you've uploaded have been tagged with this tag, which really shouldn't be used if possible. Lastly, 352 of your last 500 edits have been marked as minor. Are you perhaps over-using the minor edit box? This edit and this edit, for example, do not seem minor to me (but I readily admit this is subjective). Convince me as to why you need/want admin tools when you won't be using them, and I'll probably change my vote. All the best, --Durin 18:02, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I nommed him because I noticed he does deal with a lot of vandalism despite not being an active rc-patroller- this is due to the nature of the articles he is interested in. And stuff about being busy- well, I would think that it's more important to be sure our admins don't abuse their powers rather than be sure that they do use them. There was an interesting discussion pertaining this in here. Note in particular that last comment by dab.Borisblue 18:26, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your comments, as nominator, but I'm hoping for an answer from the nominee. In particular, he says "If I had the time, I would likely involve myself in this project: WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles". So he doesn't have time, but wants the admin tools? This doesn't make sense, to me anyways. --Durin 18:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Durin, you raise several relevant points. I wanted to make very clear that I was nominated—I didn't request the nomination myself, the reason being that I did not feel that I could find the time to perform regular maintenance tasks.  That's something that everyone considering this nomination should weigh.  As for your other concerns, a good portion of my edits without summaries are done to my own user page, which is the only page I edit without summarizing (perhaps I should start, but I never thought my own user page was a big deal).  I also did make clear that my ability to contribute is limited by my real world activities (job, PhD), although one cannot go simply by number of edits alone—some are quite minor, like reverts, others are rather larger, like some of my recent edits to Isaac Newton, wherein I used the preview button in order to limit the number of edits I made.  I only upload images when an article I'm editing needs one, and in many cases a public domain image does not exist.  I am conscientious about tagging all of my images, and have been from day one.  I am not indifferent, however, to the free nature of wikipedia, and my use of fair use images is not indiscriminate.  Finally, you are correct that some of my edits are tagged as minor when they shouldn't be—I have the "This is a minor edit" box checked automatically in my preferences, and sometimes, when editing in haste, I forget to uncheck it.  I don't mark edits as minor in some sort of attempt to obfuscate my changes from other wikipedians.  Finally, I certainly don't need admin tools, but if approved to have them, I believe I could use them prudently when needed. Yours,   —thames 20:32, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Oppose. User admits to not having the time to do admin chores. Also, with the projects that he/she wants to be involved in, no admin powers are needed. User is a good editor, though. I will support when he/she is "ready". Or an   e   (t)  (c)   (@)  22:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Oppose WHats the point of having admin powers if you don't have the time. And if you did't want to be nominated you could have just declined. Job  e  6  [[Image:Peru flag large.png|20px]] 23:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Neutral
 * 1) Remaining neutral - this is a good user who could benefit from having admin abilities, however openly admits to not having the time to actually do admin things. – Francs2000 [[Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg|25px| ]] 22:40, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Comments
 * 1) I would like to quote dab in a recent wikipedia talk comment, since he has wise advice that deals with admins that can't commit that much time to Wikipedia. Context is found here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_29 Borisblue 18:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I notice there are a lot of nominations lately. Having enough admins is good, because it lets us be picky about candidates. If there is some doubt, or if they do not clearly have enough experience, vote oppose. However, if the candidate is obviously good, there is no reason not to vote for them. Note that not all admins spend all day fixing things. I'm one, and I don't feel obliged to clean up after WoW when I prefer to spend my time adding content (I'm not paid for  this after all) So, while I make occasional good use of my admin powers, blocking the odd vandal here or  deleting some nonsense there, I am not a dedicated member of the mopping-up squad. Now, 5,000 good editors doing the occasional admin work are at least as good as 50 full-time admins. Bottom line, be picky, but keep nominating trusted users! dab (ᛏ) 21:25, 6 September 2005 (UTC) (quote by Borisblue)
 * The number of pages and articles per admin has been steady over the last month, as has the # of edits per day per admin. I don't see any reason to be less picky about who we select. I personally like to see active admins. I always have. That does not cast any judgement on the worthiness of an editor. --Durin 18:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Since I'm not familiar with the candidate, no vote, just a comment: what does it matter if he won't have much time to do admin chores? It's not as though promoting him takes up a place someone who has more time might get; there's no limit. If he also does a little, that a little less work everyone else has to do. I don't believe there's any reason to deny a trustworthy editor admin rights. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 04:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Getting somewhat ahead of yourself, aren't you? jguk 16:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Hehe, I like to think positive. If it doesn't work out, it can easily be changed.   —thames 22:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

A few generic questions to provide guidance for voters:
 * 1. What sysop chores, if any, would you anticipate helping with? (Please read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.)
 * A. Unfortunately, this is an area where I may not be able to shine as an administrator. My real world job, and the fact that I'm going to be applying to PhD programs in the next month or two, will mean that I will have very little time to perform regular maintenance, or assist in various projects.  My own watchlist is rather small (about 500 articles), and I'm mostly concerned with defending article quality there.  If I had the time, I would likely involve myself in this project: WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles.  (In real life, I was able to go to the DC Wikipedian's meetup, which I very much enjoyed, and was able to advise on the founding of the U.S. Chapter of Wikimedia.)  But as far as chores, I just don't have the time right now, and that's worth considering as you vote on my nomination.

 * 2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any about which you are particularly pleased, and why?
 * A. I've been a regular participant in the Wikipedia Collaborations of the Week, which I think is a very important community institution. I also helped to create the Collaborations overview page, in order to assist others in setting up more collaborations.  In the real world, I'm a research assistant in a think tank, so a large number of my contributions come out of my reading: either news stories on current events, or history books.  Some of my most contentitious editing has been in various templates (Template:Christianity, Template:Islam, Template:Communism sidebar) where I've consistently tried to fight bloat and enforce talk page consensus.  I've also worked on NPOV issues, such as the Rendition page, which I created, and on Neoconservatism (Japan), which I also created.  Some of my larger and longer contributions are Geopolitik, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Oswald Spengler, and Decline of the West—all of which are still works in progress.

 * 3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
 * A. I've had one instance of copyvio, which I disputed because I didn't think that corporate bios were copyrighted (see my talk page). Outside of that, I've not had any particular transgressions.  As I said above, most of my editing conflicts were in trying to enforce talk page consensus and anti-bloat measures on templates.  I had a bit of a tiff over whether the dissolution of the Soviet Union counted as Decolonization, where, again, I relented.  I defended Neoconservatism (Japan) from VFD, where I cited enough sources that those opposed to my article relented.  I defended Chickenhawk (politics) from User:Walabio's very POV assertions.  Other than those relatively minor incidents, I've not really had any full-out conflicts with other users, something I'm particularly proud of.  Generally, if you approach others with respect, cite your sources calmly, and let other Wikipedians know that you enjoy editing with them, most conflicts can be avoided before they have a chance to begin.

 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.

title: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Thames


text:
Upsilon Aurigae

Upsilon Aurigae, Latinised from υ Aurigae, is the Bayer designation for a single star in the northern constellation of Auriga. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 4.74, which means it is bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. Based upon parallax measurements, this star is approximately 500 ly distant from the Earth. It is drifting further away with a radial velocity of +38 km/s.

This is an evolved red giant star with a stellar classification of M0 III. It is a suspected variable star and is currently on the asymptotic giant branch, which means it is generating energy through the fusion of helium along a shell surrounding a small, inert core of carbon and oxygen. The star is two billion years old with 1.64 times the mass of the Sun and has expanded to 61 times the Sun's radius. It is radiating 1,165 times the Sun's luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of $1.64$.

title: Upsilon Aurigae


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neocron republic

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was DELETE.  Rob e  rt  01:04, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Neocron republic
nn gamecruft, few google hits for both "Neocron republic", "Neocronians" and "Galactic Ascension". Punkmorten 15:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Seems to be something from someone's private RP. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 15:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom. MCB 05:36, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as per nom Pete.Hurd 05:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.


text: File:Samsara film.jpg

title: File:Samsara film.jpg


text:
Category:Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Fellows and Masters of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.


text:
Boston Common (TV series)

Boston Common is an American television sitcom created by David Kohan and Max Mutchnick that aired on NBC from March 21, 1996 to April 28, 1997. In its first season, it ranked 8th for the year, with a 15.6 household rating, but with a move to Sundays in its second season, it dropped to 52nd place.

Plot
Boyd Pritchett is a genial, easy-going twenty-something from Virginia who delivers his sister Wyleen to college in Boston. Then Boyd falls in love with Joy and decides to stay, much to Wyleen's dismay. Boyd eventually gets a job at the college to help pay his sister's tuition and shares an apartment with Wyleen whose inclination is to be sexually active, but Boyd tries to inspire her with his chaste pursuit of Joy.

Main

 * Anthony Clark as Boyd Pritchett
 * Hedy Burress as Wyleen Pritchett
 * Traylor Howard as Joy Byrnes
 * Tasha Smith as Tasha King
 * Steve Paymer as Leonard Prince
 * Vincent Ventresca as Professor Jack Reed
 * Roger Rees as President Harrison Cross (season 2)

Recurring

 * Sam Anderson as President Wesley Butterfield
 * Margot Kidder as Cookie de Varen
 * Zach Galifianakis as Bobby
 * D.C. Douglas as D.C.

Guest stars

 * Robin Duke as Brenda Nidorf
 * Leah Lail as Anna
 * Larry Miller as Warren
 * Shelley Long as Louise Holmes

title: Boston Common (TV series)


text:
Basaburua

Basaburua is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain.

title: Basaburua