title: Bushmeat

text: The suspected index case for the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa in 2014 was a two-year-old boy in Meliandou in south-eastern Guinea, who played in a hollow tree harbouring a colony of Angolan free-tailed bats ("Mops condylurus").


title: Bushmeat

text: Results of a study conducted during the Ebola crisis in Liberia showed that socio-economic conditions impacted bushmeat consumption. During the crisis, there was a decrease in bushmeat consumption and daily meal frequency. In addition, preferences for bushmeat species stayed the same.


title: Bushmeat

text: In Cameroon, 15 primate species were examined for gastrointestinal parasites. Bushmeat primates were infected with "Trichuris", "Entamoeba", "Ascaris", "Capillaria", pinworms, "Bertiella" and "Endolimax nana".


title: Bushmeat

text: A large proportion of "Bitis" vipers sold at rural bushmeat markets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are infected by "Armillifer grandis", which represent a threat to public health.


title: Bushmeat

text: As an alternative to bushmeat, captive breeding of species traditionally harvested from the wild is sometimes feasible. Captive breeding efforts must be closely monitored, as there is risk they can be used to launder and legitimize individuals captured from the wild, similar to the laundering of wild green tree pythons in Indonesia for the pet trade.


title: Info Edge

text: Info Edge (India) Limited is an Indian pure play internet company, based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. It was founded by Sanjeev Bikhchandani in 1995. The company runs an online job portal Naukri.com, a matrimony website Jeevansathi.com, a real estate classifieds platform 99Acres.com, a workplace discover platform AmbitionBox.com and an educational website Shiksha.com. As of September 2020, it also holds minority stakes in 23 online companies including two former unicorns—the food delivery company Zomato (15.23% stake, as of July 2021) and the insurance aggregator Policybazaar (13.3% stake, as of November 2021).


title: Info Edge

text: Info Edge was founded in 1995, initially reproducing classified ads from newspapers on its website. It then launched Jeevansathi.com in 1998, 99acres.com in 2005 and Shiksha.com in 2008. Info Edge went public in 2006 under the name "Naukri". As of 2018, more than 70 percent of the company's revenue comes from the job portal Naukri.com.


title: Info Edge

text: Info Edge was one of the early investors of Zomato (then known as FoodieBay) and reportedly invested in Policybazaar in 2008 before its website was launched. In 2020, the company set up a venture capital fund, Info Edge Venture Fund, to invest in online startup companies.


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: Catherine Celinda Leopoldine FitzGerald, formerly Catherine Lambton, Viscountess Lambton, (born 18 May 1971) is an Irish landscape designer and gardener. She and her husband, Dominic West, also operate her ancestral home, Glin Castle, as a small hotel and event venue.


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: Catherine FitzGerald was born on 18 May 1971. She is a member of the FitzGerald dynasty, an Anglo-Norman, later Hiberno-Norman, aristocratic dynasty that originated in the Welsh Marches, England and Normandy. Her father, Desmond FitzGerald, 29th Knight of Glin, was the last Knight of Glin, as the title could only descend in the male line, and she has two sisters, Honor and Nesta. She grew up at her family's ancestral home, Glin Castle, in Glin, County Limerick. Her godfather was Christopher Gibbs.


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: FitzGerald works as a landscape designer and gardener in Ireland and the United Kingdom; she shares a studio with landscape architect Mark Lutyens in London. She has worked as a freelance writer on landscaping and gardening for "House & Garden", "The Garden", "Interiors Magazine", and "The Telegraph".


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: FitzGerald has worked on the gardens at her family's home, Glin Castle, and has also worked on landscaping projects at Hillsborough Castle, Lansdowne Crescent, Clarendon Park, Holland Park Avenue, Glenarm Castle, and St Olav's Church.


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: FitzGerald married Edward Lambton, Viscount Lambton, the future 7th Earl of Durham, on 19 October 1995. They divorced in 2002. She married Dominic West, whom she had dated while at Trinity College, on 26 June 2010 in a Catholic ceremony at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Limerick. She and West have four children.


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: FitzGerald and West own a town house in Shepherd's Bush, London, a home in the Cotswolds, and share ownership of Glin Castle with her sister.


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: In 2011, FitzGerald’s father died and since her father had no male heirs, the hereditary knighthood of Glin became extinct. FitzGerald, along with her mother and sisters, decided to sell the estate through an auction at Christie’s. The castle, which had operated in the hospitality trade, did not sell, so FitzGerald and West, along with FitzGerald's sisters, bought it in order to keep it in the family. They split their time between Glin Castle and their home in London.


title: Catherine FitzGerald

text: FitzGerald and West first operated the castle as a "bed and breakfast" and now run it as a hotel and event venue (it had previously operated as a boutique hotel for a period).


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge (QC) is a proprietary battery charging protocol developed by Qualcomm, used for managing power delivered over USB, mainly by communicating to the power supply and negotiating a voltage.


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge is supported by devices such as mobile phones which runs on Qualcomm SoCs, and by some chargers; both device and charger must support QC, otherwise QC charging is not attained. It charges batteries in devices faster than standard USB allows by increasing the output voltage supplied by the USB charger, while adopting techniques to prevent the battery damage caused by uncontrolled fast charging and regulating the incoming voltage internally. Usually, chargers supporting Quick Charge 2.0 and later are wall adaptors, but it is implemented on some in-car chargers, and some power banks use it to both receive and deliver charge.


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge is a proprietary technology that allows for the charging of battery-powered devices, primarily mobile phones, at power levels exceeding the 5 volts at 2 amps, thus 10 watts allowed by basic USB standards—not considering the USB Power Delivery (USB PD) standard—while still maintaining compatibility to existing USB wires.


title: Quick Charge

text: The elevated voltages allow for pushing higher amounts of power (wattage) through the cable's copper wires without further heating them up and risking heat damage.


title: Quick Charge

text: Another benefit of the elevated voltage, as described in Ohm's law, is its improved ability to pass through longer USB cables due to its compensation of voltage drops from wires with higher resistances.


title: Quick Charge

text: Numerous other companies have their own competing technologies, including MediaTek Pump Express and "OPPO VOOC" (licensed to OnePlus as "Dash Charge"), the latter of which elevates the current rather than the power supply voltage, relying on thicker USB wires to handle the current without overheating, as described in .


title: Quick Charge

text: Though not publicly documented, the protocol (e.g. voltage negotiations between device and charger) has been reverse-engineered, and a custom voltage can be manually requested from the charger using a "trigger circuit" that simulates the negotiation to an end device.


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge 2.0 introduced an optional feature called Dual Charge (initially called Parallel Charging), using two PMICs to split the power into 2 streams to reduce phone temperature.


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge 3.0 introduced "INOV" ("Intelligent Negotiation for Optimal Voltage"), Battery Saver Technologies, HVDCP+, and optional Dual Charge+. INOV is an algorithm that determines the optimum power transfer while maximizing efficiency. Battery Saver Technologies aims to maintain at least 80% of the battery's original charge capacity after 500 charge cycles. Qualcomm claims Quick Charge 3.0 is up to 4–6 °C cooler, 16% faster and 38% more efficient than Quick Charge 2.0, and that Quick Charge 3.0 with Dual Charge+ is up to 7–8 °C cooler, 27% faster and 45% more efficient than Quick Charge 2.0 with Dual Charge.


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge 4 was announced in December 2016 alongside the Snapdragon 835. Quick Charge 4 includes HVDCP++, optional Dual Charge++, INOV 3.0, and Battery Saver Technologies 2. It is cross-compatible with both USB-C and USB PD specifications, supporting fallback to USB PD if either the charger or device is not compatible. However, Quick Charge 4 chargers are not backward compatible with Quick Charge. It also features additional safety measures to protect against over-voltage, over-current and overheating, as well as cable quality detection. Qualcomm claims Quick Charge 4 with Dual Charge++ is up to 5 °C cooler, 20% faster and 30% more efficient than Quick Charge 3.0 with Dual Charge+.


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge 4+ was announced on June 1, 2017. It introduces Intelligent Thermal Balancing and Advanced Safety Features to eliminate hot spots and protect against overheating and short-circuit or damage to the USB-C connector. Dual Charge++ is mandatory, while in prior versions Dual Charge was optional. Unlike Quick Charge 4, Quick Charge 4+ is fully backward compatible with Quick Charge C 2.0 and 3.0 devices.


title: Quick Charge

text: Quick Charge 5 was announced on July 27, 2020. With up to 100W of power, on a mobile phone with a 4500mAh battery, Qualcomm claims 50% charge in just 5 minutes. Qualcomm announced that this standard is cross-compatible with USB PD PPS programmable power supply, and that its technology can communicate with the charger when charging double cells and double the voltage and current out. For instance, a single battery requests 8.8V of power. The dual cell can then ask the PPS charger to output 17.6 volts and split it in half to the two separate battery, pulling 5.6 amps total to achieve 100 watts. The first phone with this technology was the Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra.


title: Quick Charge

text: On February 25, 2019, Qualcomm announced Quick Charge for Wireless Power. Quick Charge for Wireless Power falls back on the Qi standard by the Wireless Power Consortium if either the charger or device is not compatible.


title: Earth's crust

text: Earth's crust is Earth's thin outer shell of rock, referring to less than 1% of Earth's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper part of the mantle. The lithosphere is broken into tectonic plates whose motion allows heat to escape from the interior of the Earth into space.


title: Earth's crust

text: The crust lies on top of the mantle, a configuration that is stable because the upper mantle is made of peridotite and is therefore significantly denser than the crust. The boundary between the crust and mantle is conventionally placed at the Mohorovičić discontinuity, a boundary defined by a contrast in seismic velocity.


title: Earth's crust

text: The temperature of the crust increases with depth, reaching values typically in the range from about to at the boundary with the underlying mantle. The temperature increases by as much as for every kilometer locally in the upper part of the crust


title: Earth's crust

text: Because both continental and oceanic crust are less dense than the mantle below, both types of crust "float" on the mantle. The surface of the continental crust is significantly higher than the surface of the oceanic crust, due to the greater buoyancy of the thicker, less dense continental crust (an example of isostasy). As a result, the continents form high ground surrounded by deep ocean basins.


title: Earth's crust

text: The continental crust has an average composition similar to that of andesite, though the composition is not uniform, with the upper crust averaging a more felsic composition similar to that of dacite, while the lower crust averages a more mafic composition resembling basalt. The most abundant minerals in Earth's continental crust are feldspars, which make up about 41% of the crust by weight, followed by quartz at 12%, and pyroxenes at 11%.


title: Earth's crust

text: Continental crust is enriched in incompatible elements compared to the basaltic ocean crust and much enriched compared to the underlying mantle. The most incompatible elements are enriched by a factor of 50 to 100 in continental crust relative to primitive mantle rock, while oceanic crust is enriched with incompatible elements by a factor of about 10.


title: Earth's crust

text: The estimated average density of the continental crust is 2.835 g/cm, with density increasing with depth from an average of 2.66 g/cm in the uppermost crust to 3.1 g/cm at the base of the crust.


title: Earth's crust

text: In contrast to the continental crust, the oceanic crust is composed predominantly of pillow lava and sheeted dikes with the composition of mid-ocean ridge basalt, with a thin upper layer of sediments and a lower layer of gabbro.


title: Earth's crust

text: Earth formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from a disk of dust and gas orbiting the newly formed Sun. It formed via accretion, where planetesimals and other smaller rocky bodies collided and stuck, gradually growing into a planet. This process generated an enormous amount of heat, which caused early Earth to melt completely. As planetary accretion slowed, Earth began to cool, forming its first crust, called a primary or primordial crust. This crust was likely repeatedly destroyed by large impacts, then reformed from the magma ocean left by the impact. None of Earth's primary crust has survived to today; all was destroyed by erosion, impacts, and plate tectonics over the past several billion years.


title: Earth's crust

text: Since then, Earth has been forming secondary and tertiary crust, which correspond to oceanic and continental crust respectively. Secondary crust forms at mid-ocean spreading centers, where partial-melting of the underlying mantle yields basaltic magmas and new ocean crust forms. This "ridge push" is one of the driving forces of plate tectonics, and it is constantly creating new ocean crust. That means that old crust must be destroyed somewhere so, opposite a spreading center, there is usually a subduction zone: a trench where an ocean plate is sinking back into the mantle. This constant process of creating new ocean crust and destroying old ocean crust means that the oldest ocean crust on Earth today is only about 200 million years old.


title: Earth's crust

text: In contrast, the bulk of the continental crust is much older. The oldest continental crustal rocks on Earth have ages in the range from about 3.7 to 4.28 billion years and have been found in the Narryer Gneiss Terrane in Western Australia, in the Acasta Gneiss in the Northwest Territories on the Canadian Shield, and on other cratonic regions such as those on the Fennoscandian Shield. Some zircon with age as great as 4.3 billion years has been found in the Narryer Gneiss Terrane. Continental crust is tertiary crust, formed at subduction zones through recycling of subducted secondary (oceanic) crust.


title: Earth's crust

text: The average age of the current Earth's continental crust has been estimated to be about 2.0 billion years. Most crustal rocks formed before 2.5 billion years ago are located in cratons. Such old continental crust and the underlying mantle asthenosphere are less dense than elsewhere in Earth and so are not readily destroyed by subduction. Formation of new continental crust is linked to periods of intense orogeny; these periods coincide with the formation of the supercontinents such as Rodinia, Pangaea and Gondwana. The crust forms in part by aggregation of island arcs including granite and metamorphic fold belts, and it is preserved in part by depletion of the underlying mantle to form buoyant lithospheric mantle.Crustal movement on continents may result in earthquakes, while movement under the seabed can lead to tidal waves.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Charlotte's Web is a 2006 American fantasy comedy-drama film based on the 1952 novel of the same name by E. B. White. Directed by Gary Winick and written by Susannah Grant and Karey Kirkpatrick, it is the second film adaptation of White's book, and a live-action/CGI remake of the 1973 animated version produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The film stars Dakota Fanning, Kevin Anderson, and Beau Bridges, with voices provided by Dominic Scott Kay, Julia Roberts, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Oprah Winfrey, Thomas Haden Church, André Benjamin, Cedric the Entertainer, Kathy Bates, Reba McEntire, and Robert Redford. Danny Elfman composed the film's score.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Produced by Walden Media, Jordan Kerner's The K Entertainment Company and Nickelodeon Movies, the film premiered in Australia on December 7, 2006 and was released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on December 15, 2006 in the United States. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, yet was only modestly and commercially successful. The movie grossed $83 million at the US box office and $61 million elsewhere for a worldwide total of $144 million against an $85 million budget, as well as grossing an additional $95.2 million in home media sales.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: During springtime on a farm in Somerset County, Maine, young Fern Arable discovers her father John about to kill a runt of a litter of newborn pigs. She successfully begs her father to spare the piglet's life; Fern names him Wilbur and nurtures him lovingly. The next morning, Fern sneaks Wilbur into her school desk and she lies to the teacher who forces her to open her desk and sends her to the principal's office.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: When Wilbur has matured, Fern is regretfully forced to take him to her uncle Homer Zuckerman's barnyard. Mrs. Arable feels slightly concerned for Fern's behavior and one night, prevails upon Fern to stay home, do her homework and go straight to bed as a punishment. During this time, Wilbur feels abandoned and is left yearning for companionship, but is snubbed by the other animals - a comedic, mischievous, rebellious, misunderstood, and "potentially dangerous" rat named Templeton; a serious and steadfast sheep named Samuel; a fun-loving and kindly goose couple named Gussy and Golly; two beautiful and laid-back cow sisters named Bitsy and Betsy; and a cowardly and humorous horse named Ike - until he is befriended by Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful barn spider who lives in the space above Wilbur's sty in the Zuckermans' barn.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: When the other animals reveal to Wilbur that he will be prepared for dinner by Christmas, Charlotte promises to hatch a plan guaranteed to save Wilbur's life. With the help of Templeton, Charlotte convinces the Zuckerman family that Wilbur is actually quite special by spelling out descriptions of him in her web such as "Some pig", "Terrific", "Radiant" and "Humble" in the opening to the barn for the Zuckermans to see. These descriptions are even posted in newspapers that the whole town read and came out to see.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Eventually, the Arables, Zuckermans, Wilbur, Charlotte and Templeton go to a fair where Wilbur is entered in a contest. While there, Charlotte produces an egg sac containing her unborn offspring while Wilbur, despite winning no prizes, is later celebrated by the fair's staff and visitors, making him too prestigious to justify killing him. Exhausted from laying eggs, Charlotte cannot return home because she is dying. Wilbur bids an emotional farewell to her as she remains at the fair and dies shortly after his departure, but he manages to take her egg sac home with the help of Templeton.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Wilbur then lives to witness his first Christmas and by the next spring, hundreds of Charlotte's offspring emerge; most of the young spiders soon leave, but three named Joy, Aranea and Nellie stay and become Wilbur's friends.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: "Charlotte's Web" was produced without any involvement from E. B. White's estate. It was the first film based on a book by E. B. White since 2001's "The Trumpet of the Swan".


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Major shooting was completed in May 2005. It was filmed on location in Greendale, Victoria and suburbs in Melbourne, Australia. The fair scene in the story was filmed in Heidelberg in Melbourne, Australia at Heidelberg West Football Club's football ground. The school scenes were filmed at Spotswood Primary School.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: The talking-animal visual effects were done by various visual effect studios such as Rising Sun Pictures, Fuel International, Proof, Rhythm and Hues Studios (which also animated 1999's "Stuart Little", another film based on an E. B. White book, as well as its 2002 sequel "Stuart Little 2"), Digital Pictures Iloura and Tippett Studio. The visual effects supervisor for the film was John Berton, who noted that a live-action version of "Charlotte's Web" has become much more practical in recent years due to advances in technology. Winick "was adamant" that Charlotte and Templeton (the film's two entirely computer-generated characters) should be realistic and not stylized, although they did give Charlotte almond-shaped eyes. John Dietz, visual effects supervisor for Rising Sun Pictures, notes that there was a debate over whether to give her a mouth and that in the end, they decided to have her chelicerae move in what he describes as being almost like a veil as if there were a mouth behind it.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: The three geese which appeared in the movie were procured local to the Nillumbik Shire, Victoria from the Burford Family Farm in Hurstbridge. These were hand raised by the Burford Family, before being sold to the producers for the sum of $50AUD and euthanized in order to allow the movie's taxidermist to prepare the geese for filming. This arrangement led to controversy following the release of the film after one of the breeders was accused of deliberately conducting a "ram-raid" of the local ANZ.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: The film was scheduled for a June 2006 release, but was pushed back to December 15, 2006 to avoid competition with two other films from Nickelodeon Movies - "Nacho Libre" and "Barnyard" - as well as "Over the Hedge" (which also featured Thomas Haden Church in the cast) and "Cars" among other films.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: "Charlotte's Web" was released on DVD on April 3, 2007 in the United States and Canada and on May 28, 2007 in the United Kingdom. It was then released on Blu-ray on March 29, 2011 alongside "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie". Nearly 10 years later, the film was re-released on DVD on January 24, 2017.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: The film debuted in third place at the box office with only $11 million. Having spent 14 weeks in theaters, the film grossed $82 million domestically and $61 million overseas for a worldwide total of $144 million before closing on March 22, 2007.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 78% "Certified Fresh" rating based on 148 reviews with an average rating of 7.0/10, and a 62% audience recommendation based off of 250,000+ reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "Kids will be entertained by the straightforward plot and cute animals, and adults will be charmed by how quiet and humble the production is, a fine translation of E.B. White's genteel prose." On Metacritic the film has a score of 68 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Michael Medved gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "irresistible" and "glowing with goodness". Medved also said that Dakota Fanning's performance was "delightfully spunky". Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" stated that the film was "a bit noisy" but praised the director for putting "the book, in all its glorious tall-tale reverence, right up on screen." He later went on to say that "What hooks you from the start is Dakota Fanning's unfussy passion as Fern." Conversely, Colm Andrew of the Manx Independent gave the film a score of 6/10, saying that the main problem was "the ultra-cute characterisation of Wilbur, resulting in half the audience rooting for his demise" although overall it was "a competent retelling of a classic story that won't offend".


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: The film won the 2006 Critics' Choice Award for Best Live-Action Family Film, and Fanning won the Blimp Award for Favorite Movie Actress at the 2007 Kids' Choice Awards.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Charlotte's Web: Music from the Motion Picture was released by Sony Classical on December 5, 2006. In addition to the instrumental score by Danny Elfman, the soundtrack includes a song named "Ordinary Miracle" by Sarah McLachlan, which she herself performed during the opening ceremonies of her hometown Vancouver Winter Olympics. A CD compilation of "Music Inspired by the Motion Picture" was issued on December 12, 2006.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: A video game based on the movie, developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by Sega, was released on December 12, 2006, for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PC.


title: Charlotte's Web (2006 film)

text: Another game based on the film was released in Europe for the PlayStation 2 by Blast Entertainment on April 5, 2007.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Mohammed Mustafa Amer (; born July 24, 1981) is a Palestinian American stand-up comedian. He is best known for his Netflix comedy special "Mo Amer: The Vagabond", and his role as one third of the comedy trio Allah Made Me Funny. He also starred for two seasons, alongside comedian Ramy Youssef, in the Hulu sitcom "Ramy" as Ramy's cousin Mo, who owns a diner. He stars in the film "Black Adam". He also created and stars in a Netflix TV show called "Mo". The show is loosely based on his own experience growing up as a Palestinian refugee and was released in August 2022.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer is of Palestinian descent, and the youngest of six children. Amer's father worked as an engineer for the Kuwait Oil Company. He attended a British school in Kuwait where he learned English and spoke it in a British accent. In October 1990, at the age of nine, Amer, his sister, Haifa, his brother, and mother fled his birth country of Kuwait during the Gulf War. They emigrated to the United States and settled in Houston, Texas. He was placed in an ESL class where he said he was the only student who spoke English.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Two years later in 1992, Amer's father, a telecom engineer, joined them in the United States. Amer attended school at Piney Point Elementary while his older brothers studied overseas. His brother Omar is a pilot; another brother has a PhD in biochemistry. In 1995, when Amer was 14 years old, his father died.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer's elder brother took him to see Bill Cosby perform at the Houston Astrodome when he was 10 years old. At the age of 14, Amer discovered stand-up comedy at a Texas rodeo.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: After the death of his father, Amer started being truant and taking unsanctioned trips to Mexico with his friends. An English teacher made a deal with Amer that if he performed a monologue from William Shakespeare in front of her class, she would reinstate his grade before his truancy began and allow him to try comedy in front of the class every Friday. Amer graduated and focused on his passion. He then participated in and had leading roles in high school theatre, and started performing stand-up comedy by impersonating family members and developed it over a few years in the comedy club scene. Amer performed at Houston's comedy clubs as often as possible to refine his act while working a day job at a flag manufacturing company owned by a family friend.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: In June 1999, Amer entered Houston's Funniest Person Contest and made the finals. There another comedian directed him to The Comedy Showcase as the best guided comedy room. The owner of The Comedy Showcase, Danny Martinez, mentored and taught him about stand-up. At the age of 19, he was being flown out to play to US troops stationed abroad. becoming the first and only Arab-American refugee comic to perform for US and coalition troops overseas.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer has performed tours in over 27 countries on five continents, including Germany, Italy, Sicily, Japan, Korea and Bahrain, as well as with other Muslim comedians Preacher Moss and Azhar Usman in the Allah Made Me Funny comedy tour since 2006.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: In April 2007, he performed at the Islamic Relief Evening of Inspiration event at the Royal Albert Hall organised by Islamic Relief.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: In July 2008, he performed at the Islam Expo in Olympia, London. In October 2008, he performed at the Global Peace and Unity event in the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London organised by Islam Channel.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: As well as with Allah Made Me Funny, Amer has performed at sold-out shows worldwide, including Royal Albert Hall and Hammersmith Apollo (London), Acer Arena (Sydney), Nelson Mandela Theatre (Johannesburg), Shrine Auditorium (Los Angeles), as well as the Malmö Arts Festival (Sweden), the Amman Stand-up Comedy Festival (Jordan), and the World's Funniest Island Festival (Australia).


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer has been interviewed on television and radio, including on NPR, BBC, and CNN. He has appeared on television, starred in an independent films, and has been interviewed by over 100 major world media outlets, including "The New York Times", "Rolling Stone", and "The Guardian". He was also featured on "Al-Bernameg with Bassem Youssef" (The Daily Show of Egypt) as the only Arab-American comedian to appear on the show.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: In June 2013, Amer featured on an interfaith special, "What's So Funny About Religion?", which was broadcast on the CBS Television Network.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer developed his first solo feature-length documentary-comedy special, working with long-time standup collaborator Azhar Usman, co-produced through their jointly owned production entity, Kalijaga Media LLC. On May 3, 2015, Amer recorded his one-hour special, "Legally Homeless", at the Warner Theatre presented by Live Nation Comedy. He became the first Arab-American to star in his own nationally televised one-hour stand-up special. The show's title is derived from the fact that Amer has traveled to more than 20 countries without a passport, and straddled multiple cultures while growing up in the U.S. "Legally Homeless" includes appearances by Azhar Usman, Bassem Youssef, Hasan Minhaj, Ramy Youssef, and independent rapper Brother Ali.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: From August 10–13, 2015, Amer joined Bob Alper and Ahmed Ahmed for four nights of comedy in Ramallah, West Bank.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer also has co-written an original feature screenplay with award-winning filmmaker Iman Zawahry and longtime stand-up collaborator Azhar Usman.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: In 2018, Amer joined the cast of the Hulu show "Ramy", starring Ramy Youssef, where he plays Ramy's cousin Mo, who owns and operates a diner, where many of the show's characters congregate. Amer is currently in the second season of "Ramy".


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer filmed his first Netflix comedy special on June 27, 2018, at Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas. It was released as "Mo Amer: The Vagabond" on Netflix in 2018.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: He also created and stars in a new TV series on Netflix called Mo, released in August 2022. The series (co created by Ramy Youssef), is loosely based on Amer's experience growing up as a Palestinian refugee.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer's work promotes art and understanding between the diverse cultures of the world, and his ethnic and family background situates him to speak about the problems of religion, terror, and current politics of—through the lens of personal stories about his family and himself. He talks about his Palestinian background, family histories and growing up American.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: Amer lived in Los Angeles with his Mexican-American wife and step-daughter. In his 2021 Netflix special, Mo Amer: Mohammed in Texas, he states he got divorced during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Mohammed Amer

text: In 2009, Amer became a U.S. citizen which enabled him to travel to Palestine and Jordan and visit family he had not seen for almost 20 years. He also returned to Kuwait and Baghdad for the first time since his family fled.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority Leader, and was a leader of the conservative coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats who prevented expansion of the New Deal. Often referred to as "Mr. Republican", he co-sponsored the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which banned closed shops, created the concept of right-to-work states, and regulated other labor practices.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: The elder son of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States, Robert Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He pursued a legal career in Cincinnati after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1913. With his brother Charles Phelps Taft II, he co-founded the law partnership of Taft Stettinius & Hollister. Taft served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1921 to 1931 and in the Ohio Senate from 1931 to 1933. Though he lost re-election in 1932, he remained a powerful force in state and local politics.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: After winning election to the Senate in 1938 over incumbent Democrat Robert J. Bulkley, Taft repeatedly sought the Republican presidential nomination, often battling for control of the party with the moderate faction of Republicans led by Thomas E. Dewey. He also emerged as a prominent non-interventionist and opposed U.S. involvement into World War II prior to the 1941 Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor. Taft's non-interventionist stances damaged his 1940 candidacy, and the 1940 Republican National Convention nominated Wendell Willkie. Taft sought the presidency again in 1948, but he lost to Dewey at the 1948 Republican National Convention. He opposed the creation of NATO and criticized President Harry Truman's handling of the Korean War.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft again sought the presidential nomination a third time in 1952, and was widely viewed as the front-runner. However, Dewey and other moderates convinced General Dwight D. Eisenhower to enter the race, and Eisenhower narrowly prevailed at the 1952 Republican National Convention and went on to win the 1952 presidential election. Taft was elected Senate Majority Leader in 1953 but died of pancreatic cancer later that year. A 1957 Senate committee named Taft as one of America's five greatest senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert M. La Follette Sr.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, a product of one of America's most prominent political families. He was a grandson of Attorney General and Secretary of War Alphonso Taft, and the elder son of President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Helen Louise "Nellie" Herron. His younger brother Charles Phelps Taft II served as the Mayor of Cincinnati and was the unsuccessful Republican candidate for Ohio Governor in 1952. As a boy Taft spent four years in the Philippines, where his father was Governor-General. He was first in his class at the Taft School (run by his uncle), at Yale College (1910), and at Harvard Law School (1913). He was a member of Psi Upsilon, his father's fraternity and Skull and Bones, and edited the "Harvard Law Review". In 1913, Taft scored the highest in the state on the Ohio bar exam. He then practiced for four years with the firm of Maxwell and Ramsey (now Graydon Head & Ritchey LLP) in Cincinnati, his family's ancestral city. After a two-year stint in Washington working for the Food and Drug Administration, he returned to Cincinnati and opened his own law office. In 1924, he and his brother Charles helped form the law partnership Taft Stettinius & Hollister, with which Taft continued to be associated until his death and continues to carry his name today.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: On October 17, 1914, he married Martha Wheaton Bowers (1889–1958), daughter of Lloyd Wheaton Bowers and Louisa Bennett Wilson. Taft himself appeared taciturn and coldly intellectual, characteristics that were offset by his gregarious wife, who served the same role his mother had for his father, as a confidante and powerful asset to her husband's political career. In May 1950, Martha suffered a severe stroke that left her an invalid, leaving her confined to a wheelchair, unable to take care of herself, and reliant upon her husband, children, and nurses for support. A biographer called his wife's stroke "the deepest personal blow of [Taft's] life ... there was no denying that he suffered." Following her stroke, Taft faithfully assisted his wife, called her every night when he was away on business, read stories to her at night when he was at home, "pushed her about in her wheelchair, lifted her in and out of cars ... tenderly did his best to make her feel comfortable and happy, and helped feed and take care of her at public functions" – facts which, his admirers noted, belied his public image as a cold and uncaring person. They had four sons: William Howard Taft III (1915–1991), who became ambassador to Ireland; Robert Alphonso Taft Jr. (1917–1993), who was also elected to the U.S. Senate; Lloyd Bowers Taft (1923–1985), who worked as an investment banker in Cincinnati, and Horace Dwight Taft (1925–1983), who became a professor of physics and dean at Yale. Two of Robert and Martha's grandsons are Robert Alphonso "Bob" Taft III (born 1942), Governor of Ohio from 1999 to 2007, and William Howard Taft IV (born 1945), Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1984 to 1989.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In 1917, Taft and his wife bought a farm in Indian Hill, a well-to-do suburb of Cincinnati. Called Sky Farm, it would serve as Taft's primary residence for the rest of his life. The Tafts gradually made extensive renovations that turned the small farmhouse into a sixteen-room mansion. On the farm Taft enjoyed growing strawberries, asparagus, and potatoes for profit. During the summer, Taft often vacationed with his wife and children at the Taft family's summer home at Murray Bay, in Quebec, Canada. Although he was nominally a member of the Episcopal church, his biographer James Patterson noted that Taft's "religious inclinations were weak" and that he was a "Sunday morning golfer, not a church-going Episcopalian". When reporters asked his wife Martha what church he attended, she jokingly replied, "I'd have to say the Burning Tree", an exclusive country club and golf course in suburban Washington.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, Taft attempted to join the army but was rejected due to his poor eyesight. Instead, he joined the legal staff of the Food and Drug Administration where he met Herbert Hoover, who became his idol. In 1918 and 1919, he was in Paris as legal adviser for the American Relief Administration, Hoover's agency to distribute food to wartorn Europe. He came to distrust governmental bureaucracy as inefficient and detrimental to the rights of the individual, a principle he promoted throughout his career. He urged membership in the League of Nations but generally distrusted European politicians. He endorsed the idea of a powerful world court to enforce international law, but no such idealized court ever existed during his lifetime. He returned to Cincinnati in late 1919, promoted Hoover for president in 1920, and opened a law firm with his brother, Charles Taft. In 1920 he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives, where he served as Republican floor leader and was Speaker of the House from January 1926 to January 1927. In 1930, he was elected to the Ohio Senate, but was defeated for re-election in 1932; it would be the only general election defeat of his career. He was an outspoken opponent of the Ku Klux Klan, and he did not support prohibition. In 1925 he voted against a bill, sponsored by Ohio state representatives who were members of the Ku Klux Klan, to outlaw dancing on Sundays, and he led the fight against a Klan-sponsored bill requiring all Ohio public school teachers to read at least ten verses of the Bible each day in class. In his speech opposing the bill, Taft stated that religion should be taught in churches, not public schools, and while the Bible was great literature, "in it religion overshadows all else." The bill passed the legislature over the opposition of Taft and his allies, but it was later vetoed by Ohio's governor.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft's period of service in the Ohio state legislature was most notable for his efforts to reform and modernize the state's antiquated tax laws. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Taft was a powerful figure in local and state political and legal circles, and he was known as a loyal Republican who never threatened to bolt the party. He confessed in 1922 that "while I have no difficulty talking, I don't know how to do any of the eloquence business which makes for enthusiasm or applause." A lackluster speaker who did not mix well or glad-hand supporters, Taft was still a tireless worker with a broad range of policy and political interests. His total grasp of the complex details of every issue impressed reporters and politicians. Democrats joked that "Taft has the best mind in Washington, until he makes it up." Taft's loyalty to the conservative politicians who controlled Ohio's Republican Party had a price, as it often caused conflict with his younger brother, Charles, who as a local politician in Cincinnati had gained a reputation as a party maverick and liberal; however, despite their occasional policy disagreements, Charles loyally supported all three of his brother's presidential bids.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft was elected to the first of his three terms as US Senator in 1938. He first defeated Ohio Supreme Court justice Arthur H. Day in the Republican primary, and then defeated the Democratic incumbent, Robert Bulkley, in the general election. Taft engaged Bulkley in several debates and was generally regarded as the winner. He struggled in the earlier debates but later came out on top through assistance from his wife, Martha, who would be regarded as the most valuable asset in his campaign. As a result, Taft gained the upper hand against Bulkley, who had earlier been regarded as the frontrunner in the race, and won the election by nearly 171,000 votes, or 53.6% of the total vote. During his first two years as a Senator, the Tafts rented a home in Washington, but in 1941 they purchased a brick Victorian home, built in the 1880s, in the city's Georgetown neighborhood. The home – despite lacking "the grace and amenities of Sky Farm", their home in Ohio – remained their Washington residence until Taft's death in 1953.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Co-operating with Conservative Democrats, he led the conservative coalition that opposed the New Deal. The Republican gains in the 1938 elections, combined with the creation of the conservative coalition, had stopped the expansion of the New Deal. However, Taft saw his mission as not only stopping the growth of the New Deal but also eliminating many of its government programs.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: During his first term in the Senate, Taft criticized what he believed was the inefficiency and waste of many New Deal programs and of the need to let private enterprise and businesses restore the nation's economy instead of relying upon government programs to end the Great Depression. He condemned the New Deal as socialist and attacked deficit spending, high farm subsidies, governmental bureaucracy, the National Labor Relations Board, and nationalized health insurance. However, he did not always follow conservative ideology; for instance, after investigating the lack of adequate housing in the nation, he supported public housing programs. He also supported federal aid to the states to fund public schools.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft set forward a conservative domestic program that promoted limited government spending, a balanced federal budget, low taxes, pro-business policies to spur economic growth, a limited number of social welfare programs (such as Social Security, a minimum wage, public housing and federal aid to public education), and an adequate national defense focused on strengthening the Navy and Air Force. In foreign policy, he advocated noninvolvement in European wars and military alliances. He also strongly opposed the military draft on the principle that it limited a young man's freedom of choice. Various historians have described Taft, in terms of political philosophy, as a libertarian; he opposed nearly all forms of governmental interference in both the national economy and in the private lives of citizens.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: On Independence Day 1945, Taft announced his intention to combat the Bretton Woods monetary agreement on the Senate floor, adding that his battle consisted of trying to add amendments to the bill through the Senate committee and that he wanted the agreement postponed until conditions had stabilized.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In January 1946, after President Truman delivered a radio address calling for Americans to pressure their representatives in Congress for legislation the president called "vital", Taft asserted that Truman had chosen to follow the economic views of the CIO-PAC and left the Democratic Party split and his legislative recommendations stalled despite the Democratic majority in Congress.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft's greatest prominence during his first term came not from his fight against the New Deal but rather from his vigorous opposition to US involvement in the Second World War. A staunch non-interventionist, Taft believed that America should avoid any involvement in European or Asian wars and concentrate instead on solving its domestic problems. He believed that a strong military, combined with the natural geographic protection of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, would be adequate to protect America even if Germany overran all of Europe. Between the outbreak of war in September 1939, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Taft opposed nearly all attempts to aid countries fighting Germany. That brought him strong criticism from many liberal Republicans, such as 1940 presidential nominee Wendell Willkie, who felt that America could best protect itself by supporting the British and their allies. Although Taft fully supported the American war effort after Pearl Harbor, he continued to harbor a deep suspicion of American involvement in postwar military alliances, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Taft was the representative to speak in opposition to Japanese-American internment.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In 1944 Taft was nearly defeated in his bid for a second term in the Senate. His Democratic opponent, former Ohio Lt. Governor William G. Pickrel, received major support from Ohio's labor unions and internationalists, and lost by fewer than 18,000 votes out of nearly three million cast, or a margin of less than one percent. Taft lost Cleveland, the state's largest city, by 96,000 votes, and he trailed in most of Ohio's largest urban areas, but he ran strong in the state's rural regions and small towns, carried 71 of Ohio's 88 counties, and so avoided defeat. His near-defeat in 1944 "was ever to confound Taft's insistence that he was a potent vote getter", and played a role in his failure to win the Republican presidential nomination in 1948. Following his re-election, Taft became chairman of the Senate Republican Conference in 1944.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In 1945, Taft was among the seven senators who opposed full United States entry into the United Nations.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In March 1946, after the Truman administration pushed for granting Britain a loan of $3.75 billion, Taft advocated for Britain receiving an "outright gift" in place of the loan and said it "would cause irritation" between the latter country and the United States for the next 50 years during his questioning of Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson as part of the Senate Banking committee. Taft asserted that the State Department had acted with "complete secrecy" in negotiating the loan, as no member of Congress had been consulted, and that the proposal would face opposition in Congress for this reason. Taft proposed that Britain could receive the funds it would have had from the loan by adding the US gift of $1 billion with an advance from the International Bank and the International Fund.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In March 1946, Taft joined Senators Lister Hill and Elbert Thomas in introducing a version of the Hill-Thomas Federal Aid to Education bill.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft condemned the postwar Nuremberg Trials as victor's justice under ex post facto laws, in which the people who won the war were the prosecutors, the judges, and the alleged victims, all at the same time. Taft condemned the trials as a violation of the most basic principles of American justice and internationally accepted standards in favor of a politicized version of justice in which court proceedings became an excuse for vengeance against the defeated.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: His opposition to the trials was criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike, and it is sometimes given as a reason for his failure to secure the Republican nomination for president. Other observers, such as Senator John F. Kennedy (in "Profiles in Courage"), applauded Taft's principled stand even in the face of great bipartisan criticism.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: When the Republicans took control of Congress in 1947, he focused on labor-management relations as Chair of the Senate Labor Committee. Decrying the effect of the Wagner Act in tilting the balance toward labor unions, he wrote the 1947 Taft–Hartley Act, which remains the basic labor law. It bans "unfair" union practices, outlaws closed shops, and authorizes the President to seek federal court injunctions to impose an 80-day cooling-off period if a strike threatened the national interest. Taft displayed all of his parliamentary skills in getting the bill through Congress. When President Harry Truman vetoed it, Taft then convinced both houses of Congress to override the veto.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: By early 1949, Elbert Thomas sponsored legislation sent to Congress by the Truman administration that would repeal the Taft–Hartley Act. Taft predicted that a majority of the Taft–Hartley Act would remain in law and began a week-long period of "one hard-pounding argument after another" defending the legislation. Later that month, Senators Wayne Morse and Irving Ives indicated interest in offering a new labor bill that would remove the section of the Taft–Hartley Act allowing the government to have 80-day injunctions to halt critical strikes, the two publicly stating their hope that Taft would back the legislation. In May, amid the Truman administration's attempts to repeal the Taft–Hartley Act through its own legislation, Taft joined fellow Republicans Howard Alexander Smith and Forrest C. Donnell in introducing legislation that Taft promoted as retaining "the best features of the Taft–Hartley law". In June, ahead of the Senate opening debate on labor legislation, Taft stated there would be a battle fought between his amended Taft–Hartley Act and President Truman's proposal for a repeal and confirmed to reporters he was "not contemplating any new concessions". When the Senate resumed debate on June 8, Taft responded to Elbert D. Thomas in a speech charging Democratic members of the Senate Labor Committee with playing partisan politics in their handling of the Truman administration's bill to repeal the Taft–Hartley Act.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: From 1947 to 1949, when the Republicans controlled the Senate for the first time since 1931, Taft was his party's leading voice in domestic policy. He was reluctant to support farm subsidies, a position that hurt the GOP in rural areas (especially in the Midwest) in the 1948 elections. Taft engineered the passage of the Housing Act of 1949, which funded slum clearance and the construction of 810,000 units of low-income housing over a period of six years. It was one of the few Fair Deal proposals of Truman that he liked. In March 1947, Taft charged Senate Democrats with deliberately stalling legislation and threatened to continually request sessions for the purpose of forwarding the Republican legislative program. In January 1948, Taft delivered a speech responding to President Truman's State of the Union address in which he charged the legislative proposals of the Truman administration with leading the United States to bankruptcy and totalitarianism while pledging the Republican-controlled Congress would not allow them to pass, saying they followed the principle of the New Deal in "promising the people something for nothing." Taft added that the Republicans intended to introduce their own program to reduce expenses and cut both taxes and the tax burden. In turn, Truman Democrats labelled the GOP-controlled 80th congress the "Do Nothing Congress", and accused Taft and Republicans legislators of engaging in obstructionism for purely political purposes.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In February 1949, after losing control of the senate to Democrats in the 1948 election, Taft announced the Republican Party policy committee had agreed to support a motion by California Senator William Knowland aimed at changing the rules of curbing filibusters. In March 1949, the Senate Labor Committee approved the Truman administration's labor bill without changing a comma and while overriding Republican protests, Taft responding that the act was "the most heavy-handed procedure" he had seen since being in the Senate. That year, Taft supported a health program calling for federal outlays of $1.25 billion during the period of the next five years and stated no major health legislation would be passed during the current congressional session. In July 1950, as Senate tax writers gathered in Washington for the first time to discuss the tax reduction voted on by the House, Taft publicly admitted his lack of enthusiasm with a provision calling for the payment of corporate taxes to be sped up within the next five years. Taft stated that Republicans would support a general tax increase during the fall. The same month, during an effort by Republicans to suppress the report by Senate Democrats attacking the charges of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Taft joined Kenneth S. Wherry in predicting an effort to send the majority report back to the committee with an order calling for a bipartisan investigation of the loyalty program of the federal government.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In foreign policy, he was non-interventionist and did not see Stalin's Soviet Union as a major threat. However, he called David Lilienthal "soft on the subject of Communism". The true danger, he believed, was big government and runaway spending. He supported the Truman Doctrine and reluctantly approved the Marshall Plan but opposed NATO, as unnecessary and provocative to the Soviets. Consequently, in July 1949, Taft was one of thirteen senators to vote against the ratification of the NATO pact. However, Taft objected not to the treaty's objectives, but to its form and especially to its rearmament aspects. Taft was strongly for the principle of guaranteeing the integrity of Western Europe. He took the lead among Republicans in condemning Truman's handling of the Korean War and questioning the constitutionality of the war itself: "My conclusion, therefore, is that in the case of Korea, where a war was already under way, we had no right to send troops to a nation, with whom we had no treaty, to defend it against attack by another nation, no matter how unprincipled that aggression might be, unless the whole matter was submitted to Congress and a declaration of war or some other direct authority obtained." In April 1949, during a debate on renewal of the Marshall Plan bill, Taft stated the US could see either a tax increase or budget deficit in the event that foreign aid and other government spending were not reduced. Later that month, a compromise European Recovery Program passed both the House and Senate, within minutes of each other. Taft stated he was hopeful the Appropriations Committees would reduce the cash total by ten percent and led an unsuccessful attempt to trim the bill by the aforementioned amount. In June 1949, Taft indicated his support for reducing funding for the European Recovery Program, saying the Economic Corporation Administration could stand a 10 percent cut in the funding approved by the House. In August 1950, Taft stated the United States had invited the attack in Korea, adding that the real problem was whether the United States was going to "outfit the armed forces" or build up American forces in anticipation of a war against Russia in the following two years, and an all-out rearming of the US would lead to World War III.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft was a leading supporter of the new state of Israel, called for an end to the arms embargo to the Middle East, and supported arms shipments and other military aid to the new country. According to historian Brian Kennedy:


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In 1950, Taft ran a more effective campaign for re-election to the Senate. Wooing factory workers, he visited 334 industrial plants and gave 873 speeches. He won a third term by 431,184 votes, the second largest victory margin in Ohio Senate election history until then. He benefited from a weak Democratic opponent – one observer reportedly said of "Jumping Joe" Ferguson, the State Auditor, "If the Democrats want to win, they should send Ferguson on a mission abroad" – but more importantly, Ohio's unions failed to effectively use the Taft–Hartley Act, which they denounced as a "slave labor law," against him. Additionally, Democratic Governor Frank Lausche did not endorse Ferguson and, according to journalist Samuel Lubell, almost openly supported Taft. In a post-election survey of voters, Lubell found that the overly aggressive, labor-backed anti-Taft campaign angered some Democrats. Even many union members reportedly voted Republican to express their opposition to local union leaders, to support Taft–Hartley's ban on the closed shop, or to prevent, as one told Lubell, "the Socialists from taking over the Democratic party."


title: Robert A. Taft

text: By the start of his third Senate term, Taft had been given the nickname "Mr. Republican." He was the chief congressional ideologue and spokesman for the conservatism of the Republican Party and the acknowledged national leader of its conservative faction.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In a January 6, 1951 speech on the Senate floor, Taft criticized the Truman administration for plans to defend Western Europe with the U.S. Army. Taft said the NATO treaty did not commit the U.S. to send an American Army to Europe and wanted no American troops there at this time, being in favor instead of reliance on long-distance air and sea superiority to deter the Russians. Taft supported Congress reducing the number of American soldiers that could be dispatched to assist with the defenses of Western Europe, and accused the Truman administration of concealing the number of American troops and soldiers from other nations that would be furnished in the International Defense Army from Congress as well as the American people and advocated for the United States to supply a single division for every nine put up by European nations. In January 1953, Taft stated that the Truman administration's handling of foreign policy had left the incoming Eisenhower "with the most dangerous foreign problem this country has ever faced."


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In August 1951, after President Truman delivered an address criticizing those "trying to create fear and suspicion among us by the use of slander, unproved accusations, and just plain lies", Taft told a reporter that he considered Truman hysterical and called for him to refer to a specific remark that was both false and alleged of him. That month, Taft announced his support for an Air Force increase but opposition to similar boosts for either the Army or Navy, telling a reporter of his concerns that military leaders would ask Congress for appropriations later in the year and that additional increases for other branches would retain deficits he did not believe the US could stand. In December, Taft delivered an address to the American Medical Association, asserting the federal government as attempting to take over all welfare programs through a scheme and stated that doctors were justified in their opposition as Socialists made moves to enact a federal system of socialized medicine. On January 31, 1953, Taft indicated the Eisenhower administration would allow the death of price controls on April 30 and voiced his opposition to the "legal recognition to the principle of controls".


title: Robert A. Taft

text: While outsiders thought Taft was the epitome of conservative Republicanism, inside the party, he was repeatedly criticized by hardliners alarmed by his sponsorship of New Deal-like programs, especially federal housing for the poor. The real estate lobby was especially fearful about public housing. Senator Kenneth S. Wherry discerned a "touch of socialism" in Taft, and his Ohio colleague, Senator John Bricker, speculated that perhaps the "socialists have gotten to Bob Taft." The distrust on the right hurt Taft's 1948 presidential ambitions.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft first sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1940 but lost to Wendell Willkie. Taft was regarded as a strong contender, but his outspoken support of a non-interventionist foreign policy, and his opposition to the New Deal in domestic policy led many liberal Republicans to reject his candidacy. At the 1940 Republican Convention, Willkie, once a Democrat, and a corporate executive who had never run for political office, came from behind to beat Taft and several other candidates for the nomination. That year, Taft first clashed with Thomas E. Dewey, then a New York District Attorney, who had become nationally famous for successfully prosecuting several prominent organized-crime figures, especially New York mob boss "Lucky" Luciano. Taft felt that Dewey was not conservative or consistent enough in his principles for the Republican Party: "Tom Dewey has no real courage to stand up against the crowd that wants to smear any Republican who takes a forthright position against the New Deal ... there is only one way to beat the New Deal, and that is head on. You can't outdeal them." In other letters, Taft described Dewey as "very arrogant and bossy" and worried that "advisers will talk Dewey into too much internationalism ... he comes from New York and sees the group opinions there as a lot more important than they are."


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In the 1944 presidential campaign Taft was not a candidate. He supported Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, a fellow conservative, for the nomination. However, Bricker was defeated by Dewey, who had become the Governor of New York in 1943. Dewey named Bricker as his running mate; the ticket would go on to lose to Roosevelt in the general election.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In 1948, Taft made a second try for the nomination but again was defeated by his archrival, Dewey, who led the GOP's moderate/liberal wing. In the 1948 United States presidential election, Dewey was defeated by the Democratic presidential candidate, Harry S. Truman.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In August 1951, during a news conference, President Truman said Taft was his choice for the Republican nomination in the following year's presidential election, Taft responding by saying that he would let others comment on the remark. In January 1952, Taft stated those seeking the drafting of General Dwight Eisenhower had made the argument he could not win the general election and that he did not understand this perspective as the same argument was being made of Eisenhower's candidacy by his manager David S. Ingalls. On March 20, Taft announced his withdrawal from the New Jersey Republican primary, citing the endorsement of Eisenhower by Governor of New Jersey Alfred Driscoll and insisting the endorsement was part of a move by Driscoll to corrupt the primary's intent.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft sought to reach out to southern Democratic voters in his 1952 campaign. It was his third and final try for the nomination; it also proved to be his strongest effort. At the Republican State Convention in Little Rock, he declared:


title: Robert A. Taft

text: I believe a Republican could carry a number of southern states if he conducts the right kind of campaign. ... Whether we win or lose in the South, we cannot afford to ignore public opinion in the southern states, because it influences national public opinion, and that opinion finally decides the election. ... It is said that southern Democrats will not vote for a Republican candidate. They have frequently done so. They did so in Little Rock last November [1951] when they elected Pratt Remmel mayor. I refuse to admit that if the issues are clearly presented, the southern voters will not vote on the basis of principle. ...


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Taft had the solid backing of the party's conservative wing. Former US Representative Howard Buffett of Nebraska (father of billionaire Warren Buffett) served as one of his campaign managers. With Dewey no longer an active candidate, many political pundits regarded Taft as the frontrunner. However, the race changed when Dewey and other moderates were able to convince Dwight D. Eisenhower, the most popular general of World War II, to run for the nomination. Eisenhower ran because of his fear that Taft's non-interventionist views in foreign policy, especially his opposition to NATO, might benefit the Soviet Union in the Cold War.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: The fight between Taft and Eisenhower for the nomination was one of the closest and most bitter in American political history. When the Republican Convention opened in Chicago in July 1952, Taft and Eisenhower were neck-and-neck in delegate votes. On the convention's first day, Eisenhower's managers complained that Taft's forces had unfairly denied Eisenhower supporters delegate slots in several Southern states, including Texas, where the state chairman, Orville Bullington, was committed to Taft. The Eisenhower partisans proposed to remove pro-Taft delegates in these states and replace them with pro-Eisenhower delegates; they called their proposal "Fair Play." Although Taft angrily denied having stolen any delegate votes, the convention voted to support Fair Play 658 to 548, and the Texans voted 33–5 for Eisenhower as a result. In addition, several uncommitted state delegations, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, agreed to support Eisenhower.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: The addition of the uncommitted state delegations, combined with Taft's loss of many Southern delegates by the Fair Play proposal, decided the nomination in Eisenhower's favor. Despite his bitterness at his narrow defeat and his belief that he had been unfairly ambushed by the Eisenhower forces (including Dewey), Taft issued a brief statement after the convention conveying his congratulations and support to Eisenhower. Thereafter, however, he brooded in silence at his summer home in Quebec, complaining, "Every Republican candidate for President since 1936 has been nominated by the Chase National Bank." As the weeks passed, Eisenhower's aides worried that Taft and his supporters would sit on their hands during the campaign and that as a result Eisenhower might lose the election. In September 1952, Taft finally agreed to meet with Eisenhower, at Morningside Heights in New York City. There, to gain Taft's support, Eisenhower promised that he would take no reprisals against Taft partisans, would cut federal spending, and would fight "creeping socialism in every domestic field." In fact, Eisenhower and Taft agreed on most domestic issues; their disagreements were primarily in foreign policy.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Eisenhower firmly believed in NATO and was committed to the US support of anticommunism in the Cold War.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: Following Eisenhower's election and the Republican takeover of Congress, Taft served as Senate Majority Leader in 1953, and he strongly supported Eisenhower's domestic proposals. He worked hard to assist the inexperienced new officials of the administration. He even tried, with little success, to curb the excesses of red-baiting US Senator Joseph McCarthy. By April, Eisenhower and Taft were friends and golfing companions, and Taft was praising his former adversary. Defeat in 1952, it seemed, had softened Taft. No longer burdened by presidential ambitions, he had become less partisan, less abrasive, and more conciliatory; he was now widely regarded as the most powerful man in Congress.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: On May 26, 1953, Taft delivered his final speech, in which he presciently warned of the dangers of America's emerging Cold War foreign policy, specifically against US military involvement in Southeast Asia, which would later become the Vietnam War:


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In early 1953, Taft began to feel pain in his hips, and after a painful golf outing with President Eisenhower in April 1953 he entered Walter Reed Hospital for initial tests which led physicians to suspect a tumor or arthritis. On May 26, he entered Holmes Hospital in Cincinnati for more extensive tests. The physicians there discovered nodules on his forehead and abdomen, and after doing biopsies of samples of the nodules, found that they were malignant. On June 7, he entered New York Hospital for more tests and treatment; to keep the news that he might have cancer a secret he registered under the assumed name "Howard Roberts, Jr.". While it was agreed that Taft in fact had cancer, the physicians treating him were not in agreement on how to treat him, especially considering that none of them were aware where the primary tumor was (a postmortem examination discovered the tumor originated in the senator's pancreas). Some thought that surgery to remove the tumors would be the best option for Taft, while others felt the cancer had spread too far and thus palliative care, specifically X-ray therapy, was preferable. On June 10, 1953, Taft held a press conference in which he announced his illness and transferred his duties as Senate Majority Leader to Senator William F. Knowland of California. He did not resign his Senate seat and told reporters that he expected to recover and return to work.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: However, Taft's condition continued to deteriorate and with the Senate in recess, he returned to New York Hospital for surgery on July 4. The surgery "did not take long, for the doctors discovered cancer everywhere ... there was no longer any doubt" that his condition was terminal. On July 31, Taft's wife paid him a visit in his hospital room. Several hours after she left, Taft suffered a brain hemorrhage and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. His body lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda, where thousands of mourners offered their respects at his coffin. On August 3, 1953, a memorial service was held in the rotunda; in addition to his family the service was attended by Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, the cabinet, members of the Supreme Court, and Taft's congressional colleagues. Following the service his body was flown to Cincinnati, where he was buried in a private ceremony at Indian Hill Episcopal Church Cemetery.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: In 1957, a committee led by Senator John F. Kennedy selected Taft as one of five great senators whose portraits would adorn the President's Room off the Senate floor. Kennedy would feature him in "Profiles in Courage", and Taft continues to be regarded by historians as one of the most powerful senators of the 20th century.


title: Robert A. Taft

text: The Robert A. Taft Memorial, featuring a statue by the sculptor Wheeler Williams and a bell tower, is located north of the Capitol on Constitution Avenue. The inscription on the tower face behind him reads:


title: Robert A. Taft

text: This Memorial to Robert A. Taft, presented by the people to the Congress of the United States, stands as a tribute to the honesty, indomitable courage, and high principles of free government symbolized by his life.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album "The Beatles" (also known as "the White Album"). It was written by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. Following the album's release, the song was issued as a single in many countries, although not in the United Kingdom or the United States, and topped singles charts in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland and West Germany. When belatedly issued as a single in the United States in 1976, it peaked at number 49 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: McCartney wrote "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" in a cod Jamaican ska style and appropriated a phrase popularised by Jimmy Scott, a London-based Nigerian musician, for the song's title and chorus. Following its release, Scott attempted, unsuccessfully, to receive a composing credit. The recording sessions for the track were marked by disharmony as McCartney's perfectionism tested his bandmates and their recording staff. The song was especially disliked by John Lennon, and a heated argument during one of the sessions led to Geoff Emerick quitting his job as the Beatles' recording engineer. A discarded early version of the track, featuring Scott on congas, was included on the band's 1996 compilation "Anthology 3".


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: The Beatles' decision not to release the single in the UK or the US led to several cover recordings by other artists, who sought to achieve a chart hit with the song. Of these, Marmalade became the first Scottish group to have a number 1 hit in the UK when their version topped the "Record Retailer" chart in late 1968. Despite the song's popularity, "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" has been ridiculed by some commentators for its plain lightheartedness, and appeared in some lists of worst songs ever. Since 2009, McCartney has regularly performed the song in concert.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: Paul McCartney began writing "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" during the Beatles' stay in Rishikesh, India, in early 1968. Prudence Farrow, one of their fellow Transcendental Meditation students there, recalled McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison playing it to her in an attempt to lure her out of her room, where she had become immersed in intense meditation. McCartney wrote the song when reggae was becoming popular in Britain; author Ian MacDonald describes it as "McCartney's rather approximate tribute to the Jamaican ska idiom". The character of Desmond in the lyrics, from the opening line "Desmond has a barrow in the market-place", was a reference to reggae singer Desmond Dekker, who had recently toured the UK. The tag line "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on, brah" was an expression used by Nigerian conga player Jimmy Scott-Emuakpor, an acquaintance of McCartney. According to Scott's widow, as part of his stage act with his band Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Scott would call out "Ob la di", to which the audience would respond "Ob la da", and he would then conclude: "Life goes on."


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: After the release of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" in November 1968, Scott tried to claim a writer's credit for the use of his catchphrase. McCartney said that the phrase was "just an expression", whereas Scott argued that it was not a common expression and was used exclusively by the Scott-Emuakpor family. McCartney was angry that the British press sided with Scott over the issue. According to researchers Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt, in their study of the tapes from the Beatles' filmed rehearsals at Twickenham Film Studios in January 1969, McCartney complained bitterly to his bandmates about Scott's claim that he "stole" the phrase. Later in 1969, while in Brixton Prison awaiting trial for failing to pay maintenance to his ex-wife, Scott sent a request to the Beatles asking them to pay his legal bills. McCartney agreed to pay the amount on the condition that Scott abandon his attempt to receive a co-writer's credit.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: The Beatles gathered at Harrison's Esher home in Surrey in May 1968, after their return from Rishikesh, to record demos for their upcoming project. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was one of the 27 demos recorded there. McCartney performed this demo solo, with only an acoustic guitar. He also double-tracked his vocal, which was not perfectly synchronised, creating an echoing effect.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: The formal recording of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" took place in July and involved several days of work. The first completed version of the track, recorded between 3 and 5 July, featured Scott playing congas and a trio of saxophonists. At McCartney's insistence, the band remade the song in an effort to capture the performance for which he was aiming. In doing so, according to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, "the Beatles were creating another first: the first time they had especially recruited session musicians and then rejected the recording."


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: Work began on the new version on 8 July. In the recollection of Geoff Emerick, the band's recording engineer, Lennon "openly and vocally detested" the song, calling it "more of Paul's 'granny music shit'", although at times he appeared enthusiastic, "acting the fool and doing his fake Jamaican patois". Having left the studio at one point, Lennon then returned under the influence of marijuana. Out of frustration at being made to continually work on the song, he went straight to the piano and played the opening chords louder and faster than before, in what MacDonald describes as a "mock music-hall" style. Lennon claimed that this was how the song should be played, and it became the version that the Beatles ended up using. McCartney nevertheless decided to remake the track once more. During the afternoon session on 9 July, the Beatles recorded a new basic track, which Lewisohn says possibly featured McCartney playing the drums instead of Ringo Starr. Despite this further work, McCartney conceded that the basic track from the previous day was adequate, and the band returned to the 8 July recording for overdubs during the evening session.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: McCartney's perfectionism annoyed his bandmates, and when their producer, George Martin, offered him suggestions for his vocal part, McCartney rebuked him, saying, "Well you come down and sing it." According to Emerick, the usually placid Martin shouted in reply: "Then bloody sing it again! I give up. I just don't know any better how to help you." The following day, Emerick quit working for the group;<ref name="Gerard/PopMatters"></ref> he later cited this exchange between McCartney and Martin as one of the reasons, as well as the unpleasant atmosphere that had typified the White Album sessions up to that point.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: In the final verse, McCartney made an error by singing, "Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face" (rather than Molly), and had Molly letting "the children lend a hand". This mistake was retained because the other Beatles liked it. Harrison and Lennon yell "arm" and "leg" between the lines "Desmond lets the children lend a hand" and "Molly stays at home".


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: The lyrics of Harrison's White Album track "Savoy Truffle" include the lines "We all know Ob-la-di-bla-da / But can you show me where you are?" Like Lennon, Harrison had been vocal in his dislike of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da". According to music journalist Robert Fontenot, the reference in "Savoy Truffle" was Harrison's way of conveying his opinion of McCartney's song.<ref name="Fontenot/About"></ref>


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was released on "The Beatles" on 22 November 1968. As one of the most popular tracks on the album, it was also issued as a single, backed by "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", in many countries, although not in the main commercial markets of the UK and the United States. McCartney had wanted the single released in these two countries also, but his bandmates vetoed the idea. In November 1976, Capitol Records issued the song as a single in the US, with "Julia" as the B-side. The sleeves were white and individually numbered, as copies of the White Album had been. The discarded version of the song, known as "Take 5" and featuring Scott on congas, was released on the "Anthology 3" compilation in 1996.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: The first time the song was performed live by any of the Beatles was on 2 December 2009, when McCartney played it in Hamburg, Germany, on the first night of a European tour. Author Howard Sounes comments that, despite Lennon's derision of the song, it "went down a storm" in Hamburg – the city where the Beatles had honed their act in the early 1960s. McCartney included "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" in his set list for the 2009 tour and in the set list for tours he made through to 2012. He also performed it in front of Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, then at San Francisco's Outside Lands concert on 9 August 2013. McCartney again featured the song in his set list for his 2013–15 Out There! tour and his 2016–17 One on One tour, as well as his 7 September 2018 Grand Central Terminal concert and his head-line appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in 2022.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" topped singles charts in West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Japan over 1968–69. In 1969, Lennon and McCartney received an Ivor Novello Award for the song. When belatedly issued as a single in the US, in 1976, "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" peaked at number 49 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. According to author Steve Turner, it has been described as the first song in the "white ska" style. In Australia, where the song was part of a double A-side single (backed with the Harrison composition "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"), the record achieved sales of over 50,000 copies, being eligible for the award of a Gold Disc.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: In his contemporary review of the White Album, for "Rolling Stone", Jann Wenner called "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" "fun music for a fun song about fun", adding, "Who needs answers?" "Record Mirror"s reviewer said it was the album's "most pleasant and best recorded track" and praised the "chuck-chuck piano and drum sound". Nik Cohn, writing in "The New York Times", gave the double LP an unfavourable review in which he criticised the Beatles for resorting to musical pastiche. He said that "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" was "mock-West Indies" and that like the album's other examples of "mock-[music]", "none of it works, it all loses out to the originals, it all sounds stale."<ref name="Cohn/NYT"></ref> The "NME"s Alan Smith admired the "good-to-be-alive groove" and said the song was "a great personal favourite". He added: "Heard it once, can't stop. Hanclapping fun à la West Indies, sung with warmth by Paul ... This is going to be a smash [hit] for somebody ..."


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: Ian MacDonald described "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "one of the most spontaneous-sounding tracks on "The Beatles"" as well as the most commercial, but also a song filled with "desperate levity" and "trite by McCartney's standards". Conversely, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic includes it among McCartney's "stunning" compositions on the album. Ian Fortnam of "Classic Rock" magazine groups it with "Martha My Dear", "Rocky Raccoon" and "Honey Pie" as examples of the "awful lot of sugar" McCartney contributed to the White Album, in an attempt to make it more "palatable" in response to Lennon's determination to include his eight-minute avant-garde piece "Revolution 9".


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" is often the subject of ridicule. In 2004, it was included in "Blender" magazine's list titled "50 Worst Songs Ever!" and was voted the worst song of all time in an online poll organised by Mars. In 2012, the "NME"s website editor, Luke Lewis, argued that the Beatles had recorded "a surprising amount of ropy old toss", and singled out "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "the least convincing cod-reggae skanking this side of the "QI" theme tune". That same year, Tom Rowley of "The Daily Telegraph" said the track was a "reasonable choice" for derision, following the result of the Mars poll, and it subsequently came second (behind "Revolution 9") in the "Telegraph"s poll to determine the worst Beatles song.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: The Beatles' decision not to issue "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as a single in the UK or the US led to many acts rushing to record the song, in the hope of achieving a hit in those countries. A recording by the Scottish pop band Marmalade, released in late 1968, became the most commercially successful of all the cover versions of songs from "The Beatles". It reached number 1 on the "Record Retailer" chart (subsequently the UK Singles Chart) in January 1969, making Marmalade the first Scottish artist to top that chart.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: Marmalade's recording sold around half a million in the UK, and a million copies globally by April 1969. During the group's TV appearance on BBC One's "Top of the Pops" to promote the track, four of the five band members wore kilts; their English-born drummer instead dressed as a redcoat. Reflecting the song's popularity in the UK, according to author Alan Clayson, comedian Benny Hill included the band's name with Cream and Grapefruit in a sketch where a hungover radio disc jockey is continually confronted by phone-in requests that exacerbate his nausea.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: Aside from Marmalade, two other acts achieved hits in Europe with "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da".<ref name="Fontenot/About2"></ref> In 1968, a recording by the Bedrocks, a West Indian band from Leeds, peaked at number 20 on the "Record Retailer" chart. In a discussion at Twickenham Studios in January 1969, McCartney and his girlfriend, Linda Eastman, said they both liked the Bedrocks' version best out of all the cover versions up to that point, including a recent single by Arthur Conley. Also in 1968, the Spectrum reached number 19 on the German singles chart with their cover.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: Happy Mondays included "Desmond", which used part of the melody from "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", on their debut album "Squirrel and G-Man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)", released in 1987. Partly through the involvement of Michael Jackson, who owned the Beatles' Northern Songs catalogue, the track was removed from later pressings of the album because of the strong similarity.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: A version of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" by Patti LuPone and the cast of "Life Goes On" was the theme tune for the 1989–1993 drama of that name on ABC in the United States. The DVD release has a replacement theme song at the beginning of each episode, with the exception of the show's pilot. The replacement was due to high licensing costs for the Beatles' song.


title: Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

text: Gabriela Bee posted a cover version of the song on YouTube in 2019. By November 2021, the song had earned more than 29 million views.


title: Square

text: In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adjacent sides. It is the only regular polygon whose internal angle, central angle, and external angle are all equal (90°), and whose diagonals are all equal in length. A square with vertices "ABCD" would be denoted .


title: Square

text: A square is a special case of a rhombus (equal sides, opposite equal angles), a kite (two pairs of adjacent equal sides), a trapezoid (one pair of opposite sides parallel), a parallelogram (all opposite sides parallel), a quadrilateral or tetragon (four-sided polygon), and a rectangle (opposite sides equal, right-angles), and therefore has all the properties of all these shapes, namely:


title: Square

text: Since four squared equals sixteen, a four by four square has an area equal to its perimeter. The only other quadrilateral with such a property is that of a three by six rectangle.


title: Square

text: In classical times, the second power was described in terms of the area of a square, as in the above formula. This led to the use of the term "square" to mean raising to the second power.


title: Square

text: Because it is a regular polygon, a square is the quadrilateral of least perimeter enclosing a given area. Dually, a square is the quadrilateral containing the largest area within a given perimeter. Indeed, if "A" and "P" are the area and perimeter enclosed by a quadrilateral, then the following isoperimetric inequality holds:


title: Square

text: The coordinates for the vertices of a square with vertical and horizontal sides, centered at the origin and with side length 2 are (±1, ±1), while the interior of this square consists of all points ("x", "y") with and . The equation


title: Square

text: specifies the boundary of this square. This equation means ""x" or "y", whichever is larger, equals 1." The circumradius of this square (the radius of a circle drawn through the square's vertices) is half the square's diagonal, and is equal to formula_23 Then the circumcircle has the equation


title: Square

text: can also be used to describe the boundary of a square with center coordinates ("a", "b"), and a horizontal or vertical radius of "r". The square is therefore the shape of a topological ball according to the L distance metric.


title: Square

text: The following animations show how to construct a square using a compass and straightedge. This is possible as 4 = 2, a power of two.


title: Square

text: The "square" has Dih symmetry, order 8. There are 2 dihedral subgroups: Dih, Dih, and 3 cyclic subgroups: Z, Z, and Z.


title: Square

text: These 6 symmetries express 8 distinct symmetries on a square. John Conway labels these by a letter and group order.


title: Square

text: Each subgroup symmetry allows one or more degrees of freedom for irregular quadrilaterals. r8 is full symmetry of the square, and a1 is no symmetry. d4 is the symmetry of a rectangle, and p4 is the symmetry of a rhombus. These two forms are duals of each other, and have half the symmetry order of the square. d2 is the symmetry of an isosceles trapezoid, and p2 is the symmetry of a kite. g2 defines the geometry of a parallelogram.


title: Square

text: Every acute triangle has three inscribed squares (squares in its interior such that all four of a square's vertices lie on a side of the triangle, so two of them lie on the same side and hence one side of the square coincides with part of a side of the triangle). In a right triangle two of the squares coincide and have a vertex at the triangle's right angle, so a right triangle has only two "distinct" inscribed squares. An obtuse triangle has only one inscribed square, with a side coinciding with part of the triangle's longest side.


title: Square

text: Squaring the circle, proposed by ancient geometers, is the problem of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle, by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge.


title: Square

text: In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem, which proves that pi () is a transcendental number rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients.


title: Square

text: In spherical geometry, a square is a polygon whose edges are great circle arcs of equal distance, which meet at equal angles. Unlike the square of plane geometry, the angles of such a square are larger than a right angle. Larger spherical squares have larger angles.


title: Square

text: In hyperbolic geometry, squares with right angles do not exist. Rather, squares in hyperbolic geometry have angles of less than right angles. Larger hyperbolic squares have smaller angles.


title: Square

text: A crossed square is a faceting of the square, a self-intersecting polygon created by removing two opposite edges of a square and reconnecting by its two diagonals. It has half the symmetry of the square, Dih, order 4. It has the same vertex arrangement as the square, and is vertex-transitive. It appears as two 45-45-90 triangle with a common vertex, but the geometric intersection is not considered a vertex.


title: Square

text: A crossed square is sometimes likened to a bow tie or butterfly. the crossed rectangle is related, as a faceting of the rectangle, both special cases of crossed quadrilaterals.


title: Square

text: The interior of a crossed square can have a polygon density of ±1 in each triangle, dependent upon the winding orientation as clockwise or counterclockwise.


title: Square

text: The K complete graph is often drawn as a square with all 6 possible edges connected, hence appearing as a square with both diagonals drawn. This graph also represents an orthographic projection of the 4 vertices and 6 edges of the regular 3-simplex (tetrahedron).


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: Duke of Marlborough ( ) is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created by Queen Anne in 1702 for John Churchill, 1st Earl of Marlborough (1650–1722), the noted military leader. In historical texts, unqualified use of the title typically refers to the 1st Duke. The name of the dukedom refers to Marlborough in Wiltshire.


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: The earldom of Marlborough was held by the family of Ley from its creation 1626 until its extinction with the death of the 4th earl in 1679. The title was recreated 10 years later for John Churchill (in 1689).


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: Churchill had been made "Lord Churchill of Eyemouth" (1682) in the Peerage of Scotland, and "Baron Churchill" of Sandridge (1685) and "Earl of Marlborough" (1689) in the Peerage of England. Shortly after her accession to the throne in 1702, Queen Anne made Churchill the first "Duke of Marlborough" and granted him the subsidiary title "Marquess of Blandford".


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: In 1678, Churchill married Sarah Jennings (1660–1744), a courtier and influential favourite of the queen. They had seven children, of whom four daughters married into some of the most important families in Great Britain; one daughter and one son died in infancy. He was pre-deceased by his son, John Churchill, Marquess of Blandford, in 1703; so, to prevent the extinction of the titles, a special Act of Parliament was passed. When the 1st Duke of Marlborough died in 1722 his title as "Lord Churchill of Eyemouth" in the Peerage of Scotland became extinct and the Marlborough titles passed, according to the Act, to his eldest daughter Henrietta (1681–1733), the 2nd Duchess of Marlborough. She was married to the 2nd Earl of Godolphin and had a son who predeceased her.


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: When Henrietta died in 1733, the Marlborough titles passed to her nephew Charles Spencer (1706–1758), the third son of her late sister Anne (1683–1716), who had married the 3rd Earl of Sunderland in 1699. After his older brother's death in 1729, Charles Spencer had already inherited the Spencer family estates and the titles of "Earl of Sunderland" (1643) and "Baron Spencer" of Wormleighton (1603), all in the Peerage of England. Upon his maternal aunt Henrietta's death in 1733, Charles Spencer succeeded to the Marlborough family estates and titles and became the 3rd Duke. When he died in 1758, his titles passed to his eldest son George (1739–1817), who was succeeded by his eldest son George, the 5th Duke (1766–1840). In 1815, Francis Spencer (the younger son of the 4th Duke) was created "Baron Churchill" in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. In 1902, his grandson, the 3rd Baron Churchill, was created Viscount Churchill.


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: In 1817, the 5th Duke obtained permission to assume and bear the surname of Churchill in addition to his surname of Spencer, to perpetuate the name of his illustrious great-great-grandfather. At the same time he received Royal Licence to quarter the coat of arms of Churchill with his paternal arms of Spencer. The modern Dukes thus originally bore the surname "Spencer": the double-barrelled surname of "Spencer-Churchill" as used since 1817 remains in the family, although many members have preferred to style themselves simply as "Churchill".


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: The 7th Duke was the paternal grandfather of the British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, born at Blenheim Palace on 30 November 1874.


title: Duke of Marlborough (title)

text: The 11th Duke, John Spencer-Churchill died in 2014, having assumed the title in 1972. The 12th and present Duke is Charles James Spencer-Churchill.