title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: The FWA Footballer of the Year award for 2008 was won by Cristiano Ronaldo for a second successive season. The Manchester United winger saw off the challenges of Liverpool striker Fernando Torres and Portsmouth goalkeeper David James, who finished second and third respectively.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: Cristiano Ronaldo was named the winner of the Premier League Golden Boot award. The Manchester United winger's 31 goals from 34 league appearances helped see off stiff opposition for this award from Arsenal's Emmanuel Adebayor and Fernando Torres of Liverpool. This was the first Premier League season that a player has scored more than 30 goals since Alan Shearer's 31-goal haul for Blackburn Rovers twelve years prior.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina claimed the Premier League Golden Glove award for the third season in succession. Clean sheets in 18 out of the 38 games meant Reina kept more clean sheets than any other goalkeeper in the top flight during the 2007–08 campaign.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: The Premier League Fair Play Award is a merit given to the team who has been the most sporting and best behaved team. Tottenham topped the Fair Play League, ahead of Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal. The least sporting side was Blackburn Rovers who finished in last place in the rankings.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: The LMA Manager of the Year award was won by Sir Alex Ferguson after leading Manchester United to back-to-back league title wins. The award was presented by Fabio Capello on 13 May 2008.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: 2007 winner, Cristiano Ronaldo, was named the PFA Fans' Player of the Year again in 2008. Liverpool striker Fernando Torres finished second, with Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fàbregas finishing third.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: BBC broadcaster and former England and Blackpool full-back Jimmy Armfield received the PFA Merit Award for his services to the game.


title: 2007–08 Premier League

text: Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese winger, collected the Premier League Merit Award for reaching 30 league goals this season.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: Ensign (; Late Middle English, from Old French (), from Latin (plural)) is a junior rank of a commissioned officer in the armed forces of some countries, normally in the infantry or navy. As the junior officer in an infantry regiment was traditionally the carrier of the ensign flag, the rank acquired the name. This rank has generally been replaced in army ranks by second lieutenant. Ensigns were generally the lowest-ranking commissioned officer, except where the rank of subaltern existed. In contrast, the Arab rank of ensign, لواء, "liwa'", derives from the command of units with an ensign, not the carrier of such a unit's ensign, and is today the equivalent of a major general.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: In Thomas Venn's 1672 "Military and Maritime Discipline in Three Books", the duties of ensigns are to include not only carrying the color but assisting the captain and lieutenant of a company and in their absence, have their authority.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: "Ensign" is "enseigne" in French, and "chorąży" in Polish, each of which derives from a term for a flag. The Spanish "alférez" and Portuguese "alferes" is a junior officer rank below lieutenant associated with carrying the flag, and so is often translated as "ensign". Unlike the rank in other languages, its etymology has nothing to do with flags, but instead comes from the Arabic for "cavalier" or "knight". "Fähnrich" in German comes from an older German military title, "Fahnenträger" (flag bearer); however, it is an officer cadet rank, not a junior officer – the same applies to the Dutch "vaandrig", which has a parallel etymology. In the German Landsknecht armies (c. 1480), the equivalent rank of cornet existed for those men who carried the troop standard (known as a "cornet"). It is still used in the artillery and cavalry units of the Netherlands ("kornet").


title: Ensign (rank)

text: In Estonian Defence Forces the equivalent of “ensign” is "lipnik". It is used mainly as a rank for reserve officers.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: During the "Ancien Régime" in France, as in other countries, the ensign ("enseigne") was the banner of an infantry regiment. As in other countries, the name began to be used for the officers who carried the ensign. It was renamed sub-lieutenant ("sous-lieutenant") at the end of the 18th century.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: The Navy used a rank of ship-of-the-line ensign ("enseigne de vaisseau"), which was the first officer rank. It was briefly renamed ship-of-the-line sub-lieutenant ("sous-lieutenant de vaisseau") in the end of the 18th century, but its original name was soon restored.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: Within many French speaking countries, the rank is still used in the naval forces. The ranks are usually split into a first and second class ( and respectively).


title: Ensign (rank)

text: The Royal New Zealand Navy, unlike the Royal Navy – whose uniforms, insignia, and traditions it inherited – created the ensign grade to equal the lowest commissioned RNZAF grade of pilot officer and the New Zealand Army grade of second lieutenant. It ranks above the grade of midshipman. Like the grade of pilot officer, it uses a single thin strip of braid.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: The fact that the Royal Navy has no real equivalent to the lowest commissioned Royal Air Force and British Army grades was one of the driving factors behind the RNZN's decision to create the ensign grade. Another was that, at the time, New Zealand was actively involved with the United States Armed Forces, so it made sense to balance the rank system out with that used by the United States Navy.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: Until 1871, when it was replaced by second lieutenant, ensign was the lowest rank of commissioned officer in infantry regiments of the British Army (except fusilier and rifle regiments, and the Marines, which always used second lieutenant). It was the duty of officers of this rank to carry the colours of the regiment. In the 16th century, "ensign" was corrupted into "ancient", and was used in the two senses of a banner and the bearer of the banner. Today, the term "ensign" is still used by the Foot Guards regiments, for instance during the ceremony of trooping the colour. The equivalent cavalry rank was cornet, also being derived from the name of a banner.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: The rank of ensign was established in the U.S. Army by the act of September 29; 1789, (the first act of legislation after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution); each of the eight companies in the Regiment of Infantry was authorized one captain, one lieutenant and one ensign. With the passage of the act of April 30, 1790, the number of companies in the regiment of infantry was increased to 12 and each of the companies was authorized the same number of officers. The act of March 3, 1791 added a second regiment to the Army strength, doubling the total number of ensigns.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: With the organization of the Legion of the United States authorized by the act of March 5, 1792, ensigns were retained in the companies of infantry and were included in the authorized strength of companies of rifles; in addition, cornets were added to the companies of dragoons.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: The ranks of ensign and cornet were abolished in the United States Army in the Army Organization Act of 1815.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: In the United States Navy, the rank of ensign superseded passed midshipman in 1862. Ensign is the junior commissioned officer rank in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps. This rank is also used in the U.S. Maritime Service and the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps. Ensign ranks below lieutenant junior grade, and it is equivalent to a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, the Marine Corps, and the Air Force.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: Where a newly commissioned ensign is assigned in the Navy is dependent on status as either an unrestricted line, restricted line, or staff corps officer. For unrestricted line officers, depending on assignment to which warfare community, prospective Surface Warfare Officers (SWO) will spend 22 weeks at Surface Warfare Officer School followed by assignment to a warship for qualification as a SWO. Prospective Submarine Warfare Officers will attend Naval Nuclear Power School for 26 weeks, followed by Nuclear Power Training Unit (Prototype) for 24 weeks and Submarine Officer Basic Course for 12 weeks before reporting to their first submarine. Prospective Naval Aviators and Naval Flight Officers have a 12 to 18 month flight training track to earn their wings, followed by a six to nine-month training track in a Fleet Replacement Squadron before being assigned to fly combat aircraft in a deployable Fleet aviation squadron. Sea-Air-Land (SEAL) Special Warfare Officers attend a 6-month Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) course followed by a 4-month SEAL Qualification Training (SQT) course before assignment to a SEAL Team. Finally, Special Operations Officers, primarily Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) / Diver officers will have a training track similar in length to that of SEAL officers, to include schools for EOD, SCUBA, hard hat diving, airborne (parachutists) and combat arms skills training before assignment to their first operational assignment.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: Restricted Line officers, depending on designator, may train, qualify and be assigned as naval intelligence officers, naval cryptographic officers, aircraft maintenance duty officers, meteorologists/oceanographers, information professionals, human resources professionals, public affairs officers, or a host of other specialties.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: Still others may become staff corps officers in the Supply Corps, Civil Engineering Corps, Nurse Corps, Medical Service Corps, or be law school students or medical or dental school students in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, Medical Corps or Dental Corps, respectively.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: While the Coast Guard does not categorize its officers as unrestricted line, restricted line or staff corps, a similar career sorting and training process also takes place, ranging from those in operational fields such as cuttermen aboard Coast Guard cutters, Naval Aviators in Coast Guard Aviation, specialists in maritime safety and inspections, and a host of other Coast Guard officer career fields.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: All ensigns will become branch officers or division officers in their first operational assignments, responsible for leading a group of petty officers and enlisted men in one of the ship's, squadrons, team's or other organization's branches and divisions (for example, engineering, navigation, communications, sensors or weapons aboard a warship, or similar functions in the operations, aircraft maintenance, administrative or safety/NATOPS departments in a flying squadron) while at the same time receiving on-the-job training in leadership, naval systems, programs, and policies from higher-ranking officers and from senior enlisted men and women in the Chief Petty Officer rates.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: Navy and Coast Guard ensigns wear collar insignia of a single gold bar and because of this share the nickname "butterbars" with Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps second lieutenants, who wear the same insignia.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: In the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps – a uniformed service in the United States Public Health Service — those wearing the rank of ensign are part of a commissioned officer student training, and extern program (COSTEP), either junior, for those with more than a year remaining of education in a commissionable degree (JRCOSTEP), or senior, for those within one year of graduating with a commissionable degree (SRCOSTEP). Some officers may hold a permanent rank of ensign based on their experience and education, but then can hold the temporary rank of lieutenant, junior grade.


title: Ensign (rank)

text: In the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps (NOAA Corps) – a uniformed service in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — ensign is the most junior rank. All NOAA Corps officers become ensigns via direct commissions.


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot is a 2018 American comedy-drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and based upon the memoir of the same name by John Callahan. The cast includes Joaquin Phoenix, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara, and Jack Black, and follows a recently paralyzed alcoholic who finds a passion for drawing off-color newspaper cartoons.


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2018, and was released on July 13, 2018, by Amazon Studios.


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: Alcoholic cartoonist John Callahan meets Dexter at a party, and the two get in a car. Dexter's drunk driving results in a car accident, which leaves John quadriplegic. John falls in love with Swedish physical therapist Annu, who treats him at the hospital and later becomes his girlfriend. After he quits drinking with help from his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor Donnie, John builds a new life, drawing off-color newspaper cartoons.


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: Originally, Robin Williams had optioned the book and invited Gus Van Sant to adapt it. On November 29, 2016, it was announced that actor Joaquin Phoenix was teaming with director Van Sant for the biographical film of cartoonist John Callahan, based on Callahan's autobiography "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot". Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar, and Nicolas Lhermitte would produce the film for Iconoclast, and Steve Golin for Anonymous Content.


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: In December 2016, Rooney Mara and Jonah Hill joined the cast of the film. Hill considers his performance in the film to be the best of his career. In February 2017, Jack Black joined the cast of the film. In March 2017, Mark Webber and Angelique Rivera joined the cast of the film. Principal photography began on March 6, 2017 and concluded on April 6, 2017. The film was shot by Christopher Blauvelt.


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: In March 2017, it was confirmed Amazon Studios would distribute the film. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2018 and also screened at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 20, 2018. It was scheduled to be released on May 11, 2018, then was pushed back to July 13, 2018.


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 76% based on 191 reviews, with an average of 6.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot" avoids inspirational biopic clichés thanks to sensitive work from writer-director Gus Van Sant and the admirable efforts of a well-chosen cast." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

text: David Rooney of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a positive review, writing: "This unwieldy but consistently enjoyable portrait of paraplegic local hero John Callahan is notable for its generosity of spirit and gentleness". Peter Debruge of "Variety" gave the film a positive review, calling it a "life-affirming sweet-and-sour concoction" and writing, "Some will find it entirely too sentimental, others a tad repetitive (Callahan tends to repeat the same stories), but it’s hard to argue with a movie that celebrates the kind of recovery he went through."


title: Cartoon pornography

text: Cartoon pornography, or animated pornography, is the portrayal of illustrated or animated fictional cartoon characters in erotic or sexual situations. Animated cartoon pornography or erotic animation, is a subset of the larger field of adult animation, not all of which is sexually explicit.


title: Cartoon pornography

text: Because historically most cartoons have been produced for child and all-ages audiences, cartoon pornography has sometimes been subject to criticism and extra scrutiny compared to live-action erotic films or photographs. It is somewhat common in Japan, where it is part of a genre of entertainment commonly referred to outside of Japan as "hentai".


title: Cartoon pornography

text: Cartoon pornography has significantly increased in production since the introduction of the internet with the creation of websites dedicated to the adult animation. The internet has also led to animated pornography being distributed on social media.


title: Cartoon pornography

text: One of the earliest examples of erotic animation is "The Virgin with the Hot Pants", a stag film that opens with an animated sequence featuring an independent penis and testicles pursuing a naked woman and having sex with her, then another sequence of a mouse sexually penetrating a cat. Another early example is "Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure", a 6.5-minute silent black-and-white animated film produced in 1928 by three US animation studios, allegedly for a private party in honor of Winsor McCay. It features a man with a large, perpetually erect penis who has various misadventures with other characters and farm animals, plus his penis detaching and doing things on its own. In 1932, Hakusan Kimura (木村白山）completed Japan's first erotic animation using touches of Ukiyo-e style.


title: Cartoon pornography

text: The Golden Age of Porn, which saw mainstream filmmakers and cinemas tentatively experiment with sexually explicit material with fully developed plots and storytelling themes, also saw some renewed interest in similar erotic animation. Examples include O"ut of an Old Man's Head" (1968) by Per Åhlin and Tage Danielsson, "" (1975) by Picha and Boris Szulzinger, and "Historias de amor y masacre" (1979) by Jorge Amorós. Animator Ralph Bakshi produced "Fritz the Cat" (1972) (based loosely on the comic of Robert Crumb), which was the first animated film to receive an "X" rating in the US. The Italian film "Il nano e la strega" (released in English as "King Dick", 1973) was a Medieval fantasy story told entirely by hand-drawn animation. "Once Upon a Girl" (1976) featured live-action framing sequences around pornographic versions of well-known fairy tales. "Animerama" was a series of animated erotic films begun by Osamu Tezuka: "A Thousand and One Nights" (1969), "Cleopatra" (1970), and "Belladonna of Sadness" (1973). In addition, Known as mockbusters: (1969), Do It! Yasuji's Pornorama (1971) released.


title: Cartoon pornography

text: Since the 1980s, erotica has been a popular genre of animation in Japan. Erotic Japanese "anime" – some based on erotic "manga", often released as original video animation – feature sexually suggestive and explicit sex scenes. (See also: Hentai)


title: Cartoon pornography

text: In the early 21st century, producers began applying digital animation technology to erotic material. In 2000, Playboy TV began running the erotic dystopian sci-fi series "Dark Justice", which used 3D animation, and ran for 20 episodes. In 2001, illustrator Joe Phillips released "The House of Morecock", a comedic erotic feature film for gay and bisexual male audiences, made using 2D digital animation.


title: Cartoon pornography

text: The 2006 short "Sex Life of Robots" turned to the traditional technique of stop-motion animation to depict the imagined sexual activities of living robots. In 2013 "Savita Bhabhi", an Indian Hindi-language animated film directed by Deshmukh (Puneet Agarwal) was released as a web film. It was based on Agarwal's Kirtu webcomic character Savita Bhabhi (published online since 2008) and was the first adult animated film from India.


title: Cartoon pornography

text: Animated content has become popular on pornographic video services, which sometimes report terms such as "anime", "hentai", and "cartoon" – all of which are commonly associated with animation – among the top search terms. In November 2020, Ana Valens of "The Daily Dot" highlighted the popularity of "Source Filmmaker porn", referring to SFM porn which is created using Source Filmmaker by "adult creators."


title: Cartoon pornography

text: The legal status of cartoon pornography varies from country to country. In addition to the normal legal status of pornography, some cartoon pornography depicts potentially minor (that is, underage) characters engaging in sexual acts. One of the primary reasons for this may be due to the many cartoons featuring major characters who are not adults. Cartoon pornography does not always have depictions of minors in sexual acts or situations, but that which does may fall under the jurisdiction laws concerning child pornography. Drawings of pre-existing characters can in theory be in violation of copyright law, no matter what the situation the characters are shown in.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Melodrama is the second studio album by New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde. It was released on 16 June 2017 by Lava and Republic Records and distributed through Universal. Following the breakthrough success of her debut album "Pure Heroine" (2013), Lorde retreated from the spotlight, and travelled between New Zealand and the United States. Initially inspired by her disillusionment with fame, she wrote "Melodrama" to capture heartbreak and solitude after her first breakup.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Lorde chose Jack Antonoff as the main collaborator because she felt the need to expand her artistry from the Joel Little-produced "Pure Heroine". The final product is an electropop record incorporating piano-based melodies, pulsing synthesisers and dense electronic beats. Critics viewed the album as a maximalist departure from the minimalist hip hop-influenced production of its predecessor, and considered it a loose concept album chronicling the emotions ensued from a house party. The songs "Green Light", "Perfect Places", and "Homemade Dynamite" were released as singles. Lorde promoted the album through several music festivals she headlined, and the Melodrama World Tour in 2017 and 2018.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The album was Lorde's first number one in the United States and Canada, and also peaked atop the charts in Australia and New Zealand. It received gold or platinum certifications in the said countries and the United Kingdom. "Melodrama" received widespread acclaim from contemporary critics and featured on various year-end and decade-end lists. It won a New Zealand Music Award for Album of the Year, and received a nomination for Album of the Year at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018. In 2020, "Melodrama" ranked at number 460 on "Rolling Stone" revision of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: In December 2013, Lorde announced that she had begun writing material for an upcoming second studio album. The following year, she said it was in its early stages and that it was "totally different" from her debut album released earlier that year; she also said the shift in sound was due to the change in circumstances and settings of her life. Later in 2014, Lionsgate announced that Lorde would curate the for the third installment of "The Hunger Games" franchise, which would be followed by the release of the film's lead single "Yellow Flicker Beat" to critical acclaim.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: In an interview with Australia's Triple J radio network in February 2015, Joel Little, who produced "Pure Heroine", said he was scheduled to join Lorde for a writing session in a recording studio the following month, although a definite plan was not yet established. More than a year later, he reported that even though he had written a few songs for the album, he would not serve as an executive producer, attributing this to Lorde "trying to do something different". Lorde was eventually featured on Disclosure's track "Magnets" which appears on the duo's 2015 album "Caracal".


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: In January 2016, "The New Zealand Herald" reported that Lorde and James Lowe, her boyfriend, had ended their three-year relationship. The singer confirmed the break-up during interviews following the release of "Green Light" (2017), leading to her indulging in "heavy drinking" and noticing there was an "element of escapism and exploration" in doing so. Lorde eventually replied to a comment on her Instagram account in late August 2016 that she completed the writing process of "Melodrama" — still untitled at the time — and that she was in the production stages.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The singer went on to announce the album's title on 2 March 2017. She also began posting pictures of herself at Electric Lady Studios in New York City with Jack Antonoff on social media taken in and after December 2015. Further recording sessions took place at Antonoff's home studio in Brooklyn Heights, dubbed Rough Customer Studio, and Jungle City in New York City, as well as Westlake and Conway in Los Angeles. The duo recorded for 18 months. "Melodrama" was released through Universal, Lava and Republic Records on 16 June 2017.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Lorde said that during the early stages of writing content for "Melodrama", she imagined writing the album from the perspective of aliens stepping outside a hermetically sealed environment for the first time, citing the 1950 science fiction short story "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury as an inspiration. This was a reflection of her disengagement with her early fame. She scrapped the aliens idea and decided to write about her own struggles with the early stages of adulthood. Lorde also took notes from conversations with her friends and would fly multiple times between the United States and New Zealand to examine the world around her. The singer also travelled by helicopter to a rental house on Waiheke Island, where she could write without distractions, would continue working through "false starts, fruitless detours and stretches of inactivity" as she retreated from the public spotlight.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: According to "The New York Times", "Melodrama" is about a "grapple with emotions" in the aftermath of a break-up. Interviewed by the publication, Lorde says "Melodrama" is not simply a "breakup album" but is rather a "record about being alone", featuring both the favourable and unfavourable aspects associated with "heartbreak and solitude". She did, however, call "Green Light" a traditional break-up song. In an interview with "Vanity Fair", Lorde said the title of the album is a "nod to the types of emotions you experience when you're 19 or 20." She cites her "love of theater" and drawing parallels to Greek tragedies as inspiration for the album's title. According to Lorde, she had to deal with "very serious, vivid feelings" she needed to express after experiencing her first heartbreak and moving out of her parents' home; as a result, she spent time isolated in her own house.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: While writing content for the album, Lorde took influence from a number of settings and tested new material by listening to demos through earphones at a diner near Columbus Circle, which she did for about four months to understand how the music would sound in everyday life. The diner usually played Top 40 radio, which she said would occasionally distract her from writing, although she sometimes removed her headphones to let the songs "wash over" her. She also took inspiration from strangers' conversations, often hearing certain phrases that she would think about for hours. These phrases also illustrated a "tableau" in her thoughts. In her home in New Zealand, Lorde had a wall of notes for her songs, which she used to "skim" the whole album; it allowed her to find connections to each track and "fill in their blanks". Each song was colour coded due to her sound-to-colour synesthesia; Lorde arranged the colours according to its theme and emotion.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The cover artwork for "Melodrama" was painted by American abstract painter Sam McKinniss, with whom Lorde had communicated by email. The pair agreed to meet and started discussing a collaboration. Lorde later visited McKinniss' studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she took a liking to a full-figure portrait of the cover photograph of Prince's 1984 album "Purple Rain" and a painting of Lil' Kim. Lorde asked McKinniss to create a painting with a "kind of colorful teenage restlessness and excitement and energy and potential".


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: McKinniss and Lorde met in November 2016 at his friend's studio on the 42nd floor of Frank Gehry's 8 Spruce Street skyscraper, which consisted of coloured bulbs on a lighting rig and a space with several windows. For the album shoot, Lorde wore a vintage negligee and posed for two hours. According to McKinniss, the album art is the "converging of two like minds" and "simpatico spirits". The pair considered making the photography session "operatic" and pre-Raphaelite-inspired, but scrapped the idea because they were satisfied with Lorde's facial expressions on the resulting images. McKinniss made two paintings from his photographs; one featured a blue glow with a warm flush on Lorde's cheek and the other has different lighting, with "paler, sweeter" colours. The unused painting was later revealed in an interview with McKinniss for "Dazed".


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: "NME" placed the cover on their list of the best album artworks of the 21st century so far. "Paste" ranked it at number 11 in their year-end list for album covers, and it also appeared on "Billboard"s unranked list. Tatiano Cirisano, writing for the latter publication, said McKinniss "perfectly communicates the intimacy and coming-of-age storyline" of the record with its "hazy twilight hues and bedside setting". Fuse also ranked the cover in their year-end list.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Lorde's vocals on "Melodrama" have been noted for her emotional and multitrack delivery. She cites the emotional vocals of Kate Bush and Sinéad O'Connor, as well as Laurie Anderson's use of vocoder as inspiration for her vocal delivery on the album. "The Daily Telegraph" writer Neil McCormick noted that Lorde's vocals locate "different levels of intimacy in different vocal timbres, multi-tracking her voice so that it often sounds like songs are being delivered by competing versions of herself". According to "NME", different personae of Lorde, ranging from the "strong, composed young woman" to the hidden "psycho", are showcased through her vocal performances on the album.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: "Melodrama" is built around Antonoff's signature production, which incorporates drums, synths, layered vocals and straightforward hooks. Lorde and Antonoff met in early 2014 at a Grammy after-party and later had several "exploratory" writing sessions before Lorde hired him as the main co-writer on the album. Lorde worked on "Melodrama" in Antonoff's Rough Customer Studios in New York City and at her home in New Zealand. The song structures on the record are traditional in construction, with piano-based melodies in contrast with the hip-hop influences on Lorde's first album. The singer took a classicist approach, usually composing a melody and then trying different vocal falsettos; Lorde said that because of this, the whole album can be played in acoustic form. She also cited her desire to explore a "cathartic mode" for the album. Several publications noted its maximalist pop production, a departure from the singer's signature minimalist style. "Melodrama" has been described by critics as a pop, electropop, and art pop record.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The album's lyrics are about heartbreak and solitude. Though it has been denied by Lorde, music critics have described "Melodrama" as a loose concept album. Lorde has stated that the record has only a loose narrative; it follows the framework of a single house party, and the events and moods that ensue. According to the singer, the album's shift in narrative focuses on "I" in contrast with "Pure Heroine"s inclusion of "we" and "us". Lorde wanted to showcase contrast, going from "big and grand" to "really tiny and intimate", as well as desired to reference personal events, headlines and themes associated with the World Wide Web. She drew inspiration from Paul Simon's 1986 album "Graceland", describing it as "enlightenment after love lost". Lorde uses numerous metaphors on "Melodrama", such as the teeth of great white sharks, continuing her incorporation of teeth in her lyrics. The singer also cites Fleetwood Mac, Leonard Cohen, Don Henley, Tom Petty, Phil Collins and Joni Mitchell as inspirations for "Melodrama".


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The album's opening track, "Green Light", features titular metaphors; reviewers interpreted the "green light" as a street signal that gives the singer permission to move into the future. It was described by critics as an electropop, dance-pop, and post-disco song. Lorde was inspired to write the track after attending a Florence and the Machine concert with Antonoff; the writing process took her 18 months to complete. "Sober", which was formed using a bongo drum, was written after Lorde played a show at Coachella. The track's instrumentation also includes a tenor and baritone saxophone, a trumpet, as well as the sound of a tiger's roar, which was added when Antonoff looked through samples on his computer.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Lorde co-wrote "Homemade Dynamite" with Tove Lo. It is the only song on which Antonoff is not credited as a songwriter or producer. Lorde was inspired to write "The Louvre" after listening to Frank Ocean's 2016 album "Blonde". She stated in a podcast interview with "The Spinoff" that she could have made a "big, easy single" but refrained from doing so because she felt it would not mean much to "simplify the journey" or "force a big chorus". She said that the production process was "exciting", stating, "I can use guitars and I can get a big gnarly Flume beat and throw it under water." According to "Newsweek", the singer's cadence in some lines almost turns into rapping, which was compared with cross-genre music. "Liability" is the first piano ballad on the album; in a profile with "The Spinoff", Lorde said was inspired by the track "Higher" from Rihanna's 2016 album "Anti", which she listened to when she took a taxi home from a hike.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The first part of the medley song "Hard Feelings/Loveless" uses a distorted synthesizer and elements of industrial, noise and electronica genres. Antonoff said one of his proudest moments while producing the album was the placing of a "synth at the end [of the song] that sounds like metal bending". The first two lines of "Loveless" were sampled from a documentary about Paul Simon's album "Graceland" Lorde watched. The drum solo used as the transition instrument linking "Hard Feelings" to "Loveless" was sampled from Phil Collins' 1981 song "In the Air Tonight". She often listened to the soft rock music of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon while riding the subways in New York City and taking cab rides home from parties in Auckland.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The following track, "Sober II (Melodrama)", a continuation of "Sober", details the emotions and sense of loneliness after a party is over. The song was originally titled "Sober (Interlude)" before its release. Lorde wrote down the main theme of "Writer in the Dark" after waking up in the middle of the night in a stranger's bed, feeling naughty and empowered while doing so. To her, it was a "cool, painful moment" on the record. The singer was inspired to write "Supercut" after driving through Ponsonby Road in Auckland in a taxi listening to Simon's album "Graceland". Most of the song was constructed using drums, whereas "blanks" were later "filled" with piano sequences. It features an interpolation of a piano riff used in "Green Light". She considered turning "Liability (Reprise)" into an a cappella track before deciding to "be sensible" and adding a backing beat. "Perfect Places" was inspired after the deaths of David Bowie and Prince occurred, two musicians Lorde states were the most influential for the recording of "Melodrama".


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Lorde first promoted the album by posting a link to a website called "imwaitingforit.com" to her Twitter account on 27 February 2017. The website featured a short clip of Lorde sitting in a car eating and drinking while a piano-backed track played in the background; this was followed with the dates "3.2.17 NYC" and "3.3.17 NZ" appearing onscreen. The video was titled "M" followed by seven asterisks and ending with "A", which would later be revealed as the album's name. According to "Fact" magazine, the clip was also broadcast on New Zealand's major television channels. The album was leaked online one day prior to release.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: On 2 March 2017, Lorde released "Green Light" as the lead single from the album. The single was universally praised by critics, with many publications placing it in their year-end lists, and was recognized as "NME" Single of the Year. It was commercially successful, earning platinum in the United States and a triple platinum certification in Australia. The following week, Lorde released "Liability" as "Melodrama" first promotional single. She performed it alongside "Green Light" for the first time on 12 March 2017 episode of "Saturday Night Live". This was her first performance in over two years, and gained positive reviews from critics.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Lorde released "Perfect Places" as the second single from "Melodrama" on 1 June 2017. The following week, "Sober" was announced as the album's second promotional single. At the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, Lorde performed an interpretive dance to "Homemade Dynamite", which was met with mixed reviews from critics, some of whom called it "bizarre". Her decision not to sing came after she was diagnosed with influenza. Following her performance, Lorde released a remix of "Homemade Dynamite" that featured guest vocals by Khalid, Post Malone and SZA as the third single from the album on 16 September 2017. To further promote the album, Lorde embarked on a world tour with several opening acts; she announced the tour in June 2017. The tour began at the O2 Apollo Manchester in England on 26 September 2017 and ended on 19 October 2017 in Trondheim, Norway. The Oceania leg consisted of 13 dates. Lorde played an additional 30 shows in North America, which commenced in Milwaukee on 1 March 2018 and concluded in Nashville on 15 April 2018.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: On the US "Billboard" 200, "Melodrama" debuted at number one with first-week sales of 109,000 album-equivalent units, of which 82,000 were pure sales, becoming Lorde's first number one in the United States. The album dropped to number 13 the following week. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) awarded the album a gold certification, which denotes 500,000 units in consumption. "Melodrama" was also her first number-one album in Canada, where it received a platinum certification. It also debuted atop the charts in Australia and New Zealand, receiving platinum and double-platinum certifications in respective countries. It entered the UK Albums Chart at number five and was certified gold in the United Kingdom.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Upon release, "Melodrama" received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 91, based on 32 critical reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: Alexis Petridis of "The Guardian" suggested that the record was a "cocky challenge being issued to her musical contemporaries." In a perfect five-star review, "NME" reviewer Dan Stubbs described "Melodrama" as a "rudely excellent album", praising its introspection, honesty and cleverness. In contrast, Carl Wilson of "Slate" conceded that the record was "kind of a detour" in comparison to 1970s artists such as Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Nolan Feeney of "Entertainment Weekly" awarded the album an A and commended her songwriting skills, describing the album as a "puzzle that’ll keep you busy long after the party is over." "Pitchfork" writer Stacey Anderson concluded that it was "a sleek and humid pop record full of grief and hedonism, crafted with the utmost care and wisdom." Sal Cinquemani of "Slant" echoed Anderson's judgment, describing it as "cathartic, dramatic, and everything else you could want an album titled "Melodrama" to be". "Rolling Stone"s Will Hermes lauded its production, labeling it a "tour de force."


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: "The A.V. Club" writer Meagan Fredette dubbed the record as "rich and cohesive", while "Drowned in Sound"s Joe Goggins concluded that Lorde "[operates] at the highest artistic level yet [puts] it across as easy-access modern mainstream pop." Writing for "Spin", Anna Gaca quipped that "Melodrama" "embodies a strange, studious undoneness, the blacklight black-and-blue of a perfectionist trying to capture imperfect feelings". However, the "Los Angeles Times" critic Mikael Wood was less positive; he critiqued the album's storyline theme but acknowledged Lorde's potency when "owning her newfound authority".


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: "Melodrama" placed second on Metacritic's list of the best-received albums of 2017, based on inclusions in mainstream publications' year-end lists. The album ranked at number four on "The Village Voice"s annual Pazz & Jop mass critics' poll for 2017. Metacritic ranked it the tenth album with most appearances on critics' top 10 best-of-the-decade lists, with 11 points. Regarding reception from music audiences, "Rolling Stone" readers voted "Melodrama" the second most popular album of 2017, while "Pitchfork" readers voted it the tenth greatest album of the 2010s, the highest position for a female artist's album on the list.


title: Melodrama (Lorde album)

text: The album won a New Zealand Music Award for Album of the Year, and received nominations at the ARIA Music Awards and the "NME" Awards. At the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018, it was nominated for Album of the Year, which went to Bruno Mars' "24K Magic" (2016). A day before the event, "Variety" reported that Lorde had declined to perform at the ceremony after the Recording Academy asked her to sing with other artists in a tribute to Tom Petty. Her decision came after other nominees, who were all male, were given the opportunity to perform by themselves.


title: Quadriceps

text: The quadriceps femoris muscle (, also called the quadriceps extensor, quadriceps or quads) is a large muscle group that includes the four prevailing muscles on the front of the thigh. It is the sole extensor muscle of the knee, forming a large fleshy mass which covers the front and sides of the femur. The name derives .


title: Quadriceps

text: The quadriceps femoris muscle is subdivided into four separate muscles (the 'heads'), with the first superficial to the other three over the femur (from the trochanters to the condyles):


title: Quadriceps

text: The rectus femoris arises from the anterior inferior iliac spine and from the superior edge of the acetabulum. It is thus a biarticular muscle. The other parts of the quadriceps arise from the surface of the femur. All four parts of the quadriceps muscle ultimately insert into the tuberosity of the tibia via the patella, where the quadriceps tendon becomes the patellar ligament.


title: Quadriceps

text: There is a small fifth muscle of the quadriceps complex — the articularis genus muscle — that is not often included.


title: Quadriceps

text: In addition, cadaver studies have confirmed the presence of a sixth muscle, the tensor vastus intermedius. While this muscle has a variable presentation, it consistently originates at the proximal femur, runs between the vastus lateralis and vastus intermedius muscles, and inserts distally at the medial aspect of the patellar base. Historically considered a part of the vastus lateralis muscle, the tensor vastus intermedius muscle is innervated by an independent branch of the femoral nerve and its tendinous belly can be separated from the vasti lateralis and intermedius muscles in most cases.


title: Quadriceps

text: All four quadriceps are powerful extensors of the knee joint. They are crucial in walking, running, jumping and squatting. Because the rectus femoris attaches to the ilium, it is also a flexor of the hip. This action is also crucial to walking or running, as it swings the leg forward into the ensuing step. The quadriceps, specifically the vastus medialis, play the important role of stabilizing the patella and the knee joint during gait.


title: Quadriceps

text: The quadriceps femoris muscle is a target for manual therapy and physical therapy from repetitive strain injuries, such as from skiing.


title: Quadriceps

text: In strength training, the quadriceps are trained by several leg exercises including the squat, leg press, and leg extension.


title: Quadriceps

text: The proper Latin plural form of the adjective "quadri" would be "quadricipites". In modern English usage, "quadriceps" is used in both the singular and plural form. The singular form "quadricep", produced by back-formation, is frequently used.


title: Violet Chachki

text: Violet Chachki is the stage name of Paul Jason Dardo (born June 13, 1992), an American drag queen, burlesque/aerial performer, content creator, model, and recording artist best known for winning the seventh season of "RuPaul's Drag Race". Chachki is genderfluid and uses "she"/"her" and "they"/"them" pronouns.


title: Violet Chachki

text: Dardo began performing in drag as Violet Chachki at the age of 19. The name "Violet" was inspired by Jennifer Tilly's character of the same name in the film "Bound", while "Chachki" is a variant of the Yiddish word "tchotchke", used to name a strictly decorative small collectible item or describe a beautiful young lady. She first performed at the bar LeBuzz in Marietta, Georgia. Using a fake ID to perform in local drag shows, she eventually won Miss New Faces at Friends on Ponce in Atlanta and was adopted as a "drag daughter" by drag queens Dax Exclamationpoint (who competed on the eighth season of "Drag Race") and Genre Monster. Later, Chachki was enrolled at the Savannah College of Art and Design at the Atlanta campus for fashion design, but dropped out to focus on doing drag. She became a regular cast member of The Other Show at the bar Jungle in Atlanta which gave her exposure locally and allowed her to perform with Alaska Thunderfuck 5000, Amanda Lepore, and Lady Bunny.


title: Violet Chachki

text: In 2013, she was photographed for "Legendary Children". The project focused on Atlanta's drag scene and was exhibited at Gallery 1526. Two photos that featured her genitals and gaff were covered up after complaints. Later, the censorship controversy caught the attention of "Vice".


title: Violet Chachki

text: In 2014, she appeared on the cover for the single "Cosplay" by Captain Murphy (AKA Flying Lotus). She also appeared in a commercial for the single on Adult Swim. Flying Lotus recorded the song as Captain Murphy for Adult Swim's Single Series.


title: Violet Chachki

text: In 2015, Violet Chachki was announced as a contestant on seventh season of "RuPaul's Drag Race", after having unsuccessfully auditioned for season six. On the show, she was noted for excelling in fashion and design related challenges and her focus on aesthetics and confident demeanor. On June 1, 2015, she won the competition and received a cash prize of $100,000.


title: Violet Chachki

text: Chachki is known for her burlesque performances and aerial work, including aerial silk and aerial hoop. In January 2017, Dardo joined "The Art of Teese", a neo-burlesque show headlined by Dita Von Teese.


title: Violet Chachki

text: In November 2017, she became the first drag queen in a major lingerie ad campaign, for the brand Bettie Page Lingerie.


title: Violet Chachki

text: In May 2019, she attended the Met Gala, where the theme was "", wearing a glove-shaped Moschino dress which was altered by Jeremy Scott. Thus, she became one of the first drag queens at the event, alongside Aquaria and RuPaul. In June 2019, a panel of judges from "New York" magazine placed Chachki 16th on their list of "the most powerful drag queens in America", a ranking of 100 former "Drag Race" contestants.


title: Violet Chachki

text: In November 2019, she teamed up with perfume brand Heretic Parfum as collaborator and muse for the genderless fragrance "Dirty Violet".


title: Violet Chachki

text: She is the fifth most followed queen from "Drag Race", and has accumulated over 2 million Instagram followers as of October, 2021.


title: Violet Chachki

text: On June 2, 2015, Chachki released the lead single from their upcoming EP, "Bettie". Her debut EP "Gagged" was released on June 30, 2015. In May 2018, she released her fourth single, "A Lot More Me", a burlesque track independent from an album.


title: Violet Chachki

text: In July 2021, Chachki released the single "Mistress Violet" with pop singer Allie X. The song was produced by French producer Lecomte De Brégeot and written by Allie X. The accompanying 1980s influenced music video was shot on analog and features themes of power play and BDSM, with the two appearing in haute couture outfits by Schiaparelli. Chachki had previously appeared in Allie X's 2016 music video for "All The Rage".


title: Violet Chachki

text: Violet Chachki's style is characterized by her "obsession with vintage glamour". She has been referred to as "the living embodiment of a 1950s female archetype" and have cited designers Christian Dior, Thierry Mugler and John Galliano as inspirations, as well as "style icons" such as Lady Miss Kier, Dovima, Dita Von Teese, and Raquel Welch.


title: Violet Chachki

text: The influence of fetish fashion and art is a staple in Chachki's aesthetic, with references to the bondage and latex subcultures, John Willie's illustrations, dominatrix imagery and Bettie Page. They told "Design Scene" in 2016: "I think drag in itself is kind of a fetish, it’s kind of uncomfortable and I think bondage and latex are uncomfortable and they have that same feel... I think especially when you’re really feeling it and feeling your look and you’re willing to suffer through the pain to kind of present yourself the way you want to present... I think that’s kind of a fetish. I think it’s exhibitionism almost." Chachki is known for her tightly laced corsets.


title: V. E. Schwab

text: Victoria Elizabeth (V. E.) Schwab (born July 7, 1987) is an American writer. She is known for the 2013 novel "Vicious", the "Shades of Magic" series, and "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue", which was nominated for the 2020 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel"." She publishes children's and young adult fiction books published under the name Victoria Schwab. She is the creator of the supernatural teen drama series "First Kill (TV series)", based on her short story of the same name originally published in the 2020 anthology "Vampires Never Get Old: Tales With Fresh Bite."


title: V. E. Schwab

text: Schwab was born on July 7, 1987 in California and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. Schwab went to an all-girls Southern preparatory school. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2009. She had originally planned to study Astrophysics, but changed directions after taking art and literature courses. She completed her first novel (unpublished) in her sophomore year, and sold her debut novel, "The Near Witch", to Disney before graduating.


title: V. E. Schwab

text: "The Guardian" called "Vicious" "a brilliant exploration of the superhero mythos, and a riveting revenge thriller". Additionally, it received a starred review from "Publishers Weekly", which also named the novel one of its best books of 2013 for Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror. The American Library Association's Reference and User Services Association likewise awarded it the top fantasy book in their 2014 Reading List. In late 2013, the rights for a film adaptation of "Vicious" were bought jointly by Story Mining & Supply Co and Ridley Scott's: Scott Free Productions.


title: V. E. Schwab

text: In 2014, Schwab signed a two-book deal with Tor Books, which included "A Darker Shade of Magic" and its sequel"." The former was published in February 2015, and also received a starred review from "Publishers Weekly". In 2017, she signed another book deal with Tor for "Vengeful", the sequel to "Vicious"; a new trilogy set called "Threads of Power", which takes place in the same world as the Shades of Magic series; and an "homage to "Blade Runner"" called "Black Tabs".


title: V. E. Schwab

text: "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue" was published by Tor Books on October 6, 2020. It was heavily praised and nominated for the 2020 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel"."


title: V. E. Schwab

text: Schwab's short story "First Kill" was published in the 2020 anthology "Vampires Never Get Old: Tales With Fresh Bite." On October 15, 2020, Netflix gave a series order to the production "First Kill (TV series)." Schwab served at the creator and an executive producer of the series and as a writer for a number of episodes. The first season of the series premiered on June 10, 2022 on Netflix.


title: V. E. Schwab

text: Schwab grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and has lived in St. Louis, Brooklyn, Liverpool, and Edinburgh. She first came out as gay at age 28.


title: Slippery slope

text: A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is an argument in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect. The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences. The strength of such an argument depends on whether the small step really is likely to lead to the effect. This is quantified in terms of what is known as the warrant (in this case, a demonstration of the process that leads to the significant effect). This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fearmongering in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. However, differentiation is necessary, since, in other cases, it might be demonstrable that the small step is likely to lead to an effect.


title: Slippery slope

text: The fallacious sense of "slippery slope" is often used synonymously with continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. In this sense, it constitutes an informal fallacy. In a non-fallacious sense, including use as a legal principle, a middle-ground possibility is acknowledged, and reasoning is provided for the likelihood of the predicted outcome.


title: Slippery slope

text: Other idioms for the slippery slope argument are the thin end/edge of the wedge, the "camel's nose in the tent", or "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie".


title: Slippery slope

text: Some writers distinguish between a slippery slope "event" and a slippery slope "argument". A slippery slope event can be represented by a series of conditional statements, namely:


title: Slippery slope

text: The idea being that through a series of intermediate steps p will imply z. Some writers point out that strict necessity isn't required and it can still be characterized as a slippery slope if at each stage the next step is plausible. This is important for with strict implication p will imply z but if at each step the probability is say 90% then the more steps there are the less likely it becomes that p will cause z.


title: Slippery slope

text: A slippery slope "argument" is typically a negative argument where there is an attempt to discourage someone from taking a course of action because if they do it will lead to some unacceptable conclusion. Some writers point out that an argument with the same structure might be used in a positive way in which someone is encouraged to take the first step because it leads to a desirable conclusion.


title: Slippery slope

text: If someone is "accused" of using a slippery slope argument then it is being suggested they are guilty of fallacious reasoning, and while they are claiming that p implies z, for whatever reason, this is not the case. In logic and critical thinking textbooks, slippery slopes and slippery slope arguments are normally discussed as a form of fallacy, although there may be an acknowledgement that non-fallacious forms of the argument can also exist.


title: Slippery slope

text: Different writers have classified slippery slope arguments in different and often contradictory ways, but there are two basic types of argument that have been described as slippery slope arguments. One type has been called "the causal slippery slope", and the distinguishing feature of this type is that the various steps leading from p to z are events with each event being the cause of the next in the sequence. The second type might be called "the judgmental slippery slope" with the idea being that the 'slope' does not consist of a series of events but is such that, for whatever reason, if a person makes one particular judgment they will rationally have to make another and so on. The judgmental type may be further sub-divided into conceptual slippery slopes and decisional slippery slopes.


title: Slippery slope

text: Conceptual slippery slopes, which Trudy Govier calls "the fallacy of slippery assimilation", are closely related to the sorites paradox so, for example, in the context of talking about slippery slopes Merilee Salmon can say, "The slippery slope is an ancient form of reasoning. According to van Fraassen ("The Scientific Image"), the argument is found in Sextus Empiricus that incest is not immoral, on the grounds that 'touching your mother's big toe with your little finger is not immoral, and all the rest differs only by degree.'"


title: Slippery slope

text: Decisional slippery slopes are similar to conceptual slippery slopes in that they rely on there being a continuum with no clear dividing lines such that if you decide to accept one position or course of action then there will, either now or in the future, be no rational grounds for not accepting the next position or course of action in the sequence.


title: Slippery slope

text: The difficulty in classifying slippery slope arguments is that there is no clear consensus in the literature as to how terminology should be used. It has been said that whilst these two fallacies "have a relationship which may justify treating them together", they are also distinct, and "the fact that they share a name is unfortunate". Some writers treat them side by side but emphasize how they differ. Some writers use the term "slippery slope" to refer to one kind of argument but not the other, but don't agree on which one, whilst others use the term to refer to both. So, for example,


title: Slippery slope

text: The metaphor of the "slippery slope" dates back at least to Cicero's essay "Laelius de Amicitia" (XII.41). The title character Gaius Laelius Sapiens uses the metaphor to describe the decline of the Republic upon the impending election of Gaius Gracchus: "Affairs soon move on, for they glide readily down the path of ruin when once they have taken a start."


title: Slippery slope

text: Walton suggests Alfred Sidgwick should be credited as the first writer on informal logic to describe what would today be called a slippery slope argument.


title: Slippery slope

text: Sidgwick says this is "popularly known as the objection to a thin end of a wedge" but might be classified now as a decisional slippery slope. However, the wedge metaphor also captures the idea that unpleasant end result is a wider application of a principle associated with the initial decision which is often a feature of decisional slippery slopes due to their incremental nature but may be absent from causal slippery slopes.


title: Slippery slope

text: T. Edward Damer, in his book "Attacking Faulty Reasoning", describes what others might call a causal slippery slope but says,


title: Slippery slope

text: Instead Damer prefers to call it the "domino fallacy". Howard Kahane suggests that the domino variation of the fallacy has gone out of fashion because it was tied the domino theory for the United States becoming involved in the war in Vietnam and although the U.S. lost that war "it is primarily communist dominoes that have fallen".


title: Slippery slope

text: Frank Saliger notes that "in the German-speaking world the dramatic image of "the dam burst" seems to predominate, in English speaking circles talk is more of the slippery slope argument" and that "in German writing dam burst and slippery slope arguments are treated as broadly synonymous. In particular the structural analyses of slippery slope arguments derived from English writing are largely transferred directly to the dam burst argument."


title: Slippery slope

text: In exploring the differences between the two metaphors he comments that in the dam burst the initial action is clearly in the foreground and there is a rapid movement towards the resulting events whereas in the slippery slope metaphor the downward slide has at least equal prominence to the initial action and it "conveys the impression of a slower 'step-by-step' process where the decision maker as participant slides inexorably downwards under the weight of its own successive (erroneous) decisions." Despite these differences Saliger continues to treat the two metaphors as being synonymous. Walton argues that although the two are comparable "the metaphor of the dam bursting carries with it no essential element of a sequence of steps from an initial action through a gray zone with its accompanying loss of control eventuated in the ultimate outcome of the ruinous disaster. For these reasons, it seems best to propose drawing a distinction between dam burst arguments and slippery slope arguments."


title: Slippery slope

text: Eric Lode notes that "commentators have used numerous different metaphors to refer to arguments that have this rough form. For example, people have called such arguments "wedge" or "thin edge of the wedge", "camel's nose" or "camel's nose in the tent", "parade of horrors" or "parade of horribles", "domino", "Boiling Frog" and "this could snowball" arguments. All of these metaphors suggest that allowing one practice or policy could lead us to allow a series of other practices or policies." Bruce Waller says it is lawyers who often call it the "parade of horribles" argument while politicians seem to favor "the camel's nose is in the tent".


title: Slippery slope

text: Given the disagreement over what constitutes a genuine slippery slope argument, it is to be expected that there are differences in the way they are defined. Lode says that "although all SSAs share certain features, they are a family of related arguments rather than a class of arguments whose members all share the same form."


title: Slippery slope

text: Various writers have attempted to produce a general taxonomy of these different kinds of slippery slope. Other writers have given a general definition that will encompass the diversity of slippery slope arguments. Eugene Volokh says, "I think the most useful definition of a slippery slope is one that covers all situations where decision A, which you might find appealing, ends up materially increasing the probability that others will bring about decision B, which you oppose."


title: Slippery slope

text: Those who hold that slippery slopes are causal generally give a simple definition, provide some appropriate examples and perhaps add some discussion as to the difficulty of determining whether the argument is reasonable or fallacious. Most of the more detailed analysis of slippery slopes has been done by those who hold that genuine slippery slopes are of the decisional kind.


title: Slippery slope

text: Lode, having claimed that SSAs are not a single class of arguments whose members all share the same form, nevertheless goes on to suggest the following common features.


title: Slippery slope

text: Rizzo and Whitman identify slightly different features. They say, "Although there is no paradigm case of the slippery slope argument, there are characteristic features of all such arguments. The key components of slippery slope arguments are three:


title: Slippery slope

text: Walton notes that these three features will be common to all slippery slopes but objects that there needs to be more clarity on the nature of the 'mechanism' and a way of distinguishing between slippery slope arguments and arguments from negative consequences.


title: Slippery slope

text: The alleged danger lurking on the slippery slope is the fear that a presently unacceptable proposal (C) will (by any number of psychological processes—see, e.g., ) in the future be re-evaluated as acceptable."


title: Slippery slope

text: Walton adds the requirement that there must be a loss of control. He says, there are four basic components, "One is a first step, an action or policy being considered. A second is a sequence in which this action leads to other actions. A third is a so-called gray zone or area of indeterminacy along the sequence where the agent loses control. The fourth is the catastrophic outcome at the very end of the sequence. The idea is that as soon as the agent in question takes the first step he will be impelled forward through the sequence, losing control so that in the end he will reach the catastrophic outcome. Not all of these components are typically made explicit..."


title: Slippery slope

text: Logic and critical thinking textbooks typically discuss slippery slope arguments as a form of fallacy but usually acknowledge that "slippery slope arguments can be good ones if the slope is real—that is, if there is good evidence that the consequences of the initial action are highly likely to occur. The strength of the argument depends on two factors. The first is the strength of each link in the causal chain; the argument cannot be stronger than its weakest link. The second is the number of links; the more links there are, the more likely it is that other factors could alter the consequences."


title: Slippery slope

text: If the conditional "if p then…z" is understood strictly then slippery slope arguments about the real world are likely to fall short of the standards required for sound deductive reasoning and might be dismissed as a fallacy but, as Walton points out, slippery slope arguments are not formal proofs, they are practical arguments about likely consequences. Rizzo says, "first and foremost, slippery slopes are slopes of arguments: One practical argument tends to lead to another, which means that one justified action, often a decision, tends to lead to another. When we say that one argument (and its supported action) tends to lead to another, we mean that it makes the occurrence of the subsequent argument more likely, not that it necessarily makes it highly likely or, still less, inevitable. Hence the transition between arguments is not based on strict logical entailment." Essentially, if accepting p raises the probability of z sufficiently that the risk of it happening passes a tolerable threshold the argument will be considered reasonable. There is, of course, considerable room for disagreement as to the likelihood of z occurring and what would be a tolerable level of risk.


title: Slippery slope

text: Kahane says, "The slippery slope fallacy is committed only when we accept without further justification or argument that once the first step is taken, the others are going to follow, or that whatever would justify the first step would in fact justify the rest." The problem then arises as to how to evaluate the likelihood that certain steps would follow.


title: Slippery slope

text: Volokh's article "The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope" sets out to examine the various ways in which making one decision might render another decision more likely. He considers such things as implementing A making B more cost effective and implementing A changing attitudes such that acceptance of B will become more likely. He says, "If you are faced with the pragmatic question "Does it make sense for me to support A, given that it might lead others to support B?," you should consider all the mechanisms through which A might lead to B, whether they are logical or psychological, judicial or legislative, gradual or sudden ... You should think about the entire range of possible ways that A can change the conditions—whether those conditions are public attitudes, political alignments, costs and benefits, or what have you—under which others will consider B."


title: Slippery slope

text: Volokh concludes by claiming that the analysis in his article "implicitly rebuts the argument that slippery slope arguments are inherently logically fallacious: the claim that A's will inevitably lead to B's as a matter of logical compulsion might be mistaken, but the more modest claim that A's may make B's more likely seems plausible." A similar conclusion was reached by Corner et al., who after investigating the psychological mechanism of the slippery slope argument say, "Despite their philosophical notoriety, SSAs are used (and seem to be accepted) in a wide variety of practical contexts. The experimental evidence reported in this paper suggests that in some circumstances, their practical acceptability can be justified, not just because the decision-theoretic framework renders them subjectively rational, but also because it is demonstrated how, objectively, the slippery slopes they claim do in fact exist.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Bernie is a 2011 American biographical black comedy crime film directed by Richard Linklater, and written by Linklater and Skip Hollandsworth. The film stars Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey. It is based on Hollandsworth's January 1998 article, "Midnight in the Garden of East Texas", published in "Texas Monthly" magazine. It explores the 1996 murder of 81-year-old millionaire Marjorie Nugent (MacLaine) in Carthage, Texas, by her 39-year-old companion, Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede (Black).


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: The film received critical acclaim for its direction, accuracy in relation to the facts, "Town Gossips" element, and particular praise for Jack Black's performance.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: In small-town Carthage, Texas, in 1996, local assistant mortician Bernie Tiede, a beloved member of the community, becomes the only friend of the wealthy, recently widowed Marjorie Nugent. The townsfolk consider her cold and unpleasant. Tiede, in his late 30s, and the elderly Nugent quickly become inseparable, frequently traveling and lunching together. Tiede's social life suffers because of Nugent's constant demands for his attention.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Tiede murders Nugent after growing weary of the emotional toll of her possessiveness and persistent nagging. For nine months, Tiede excuses her absence in the community with few questions while using her money to support local businesses and neighbors. Finally, Nugent's stockbroker uses Tiede's neglect of previously agreed-upon payments to enlist the help of her estranged family. This results in an authorized police search of her house, which concludes with the discovery of Nugent's corpse in a freezer chest.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: The local district attorney, Danny Buck Davidson, charges Tiede with first-degree (premeditated) murder. Tiede is arrested and he soon confesses that he killed Nugent, while claiming her emotional abuse as a mitigating circumstance. Despite this confession, many citizens of Carthage still rally to Tiede's defense, with some asserting that Nugent deserved to die. Davidson successfully requests a change of venue to the town of San Augustine, 50 miles away, to avoid selecting a biased jury. Despite the absence of evidence of premeditation, Tiede is found guilty as charged and imprisoned for life.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: The film was based on an article in "Texas Monthly" magazine by Skip Hollandsworth, who co-wrote the screenplay with Linklater. Principal photography took 22 days, during September–October 2010, in Bastrop, Smithville, Georgetown, Lockhart, Carthage, and Austin, Texas.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: The film mixes documentary conventions with fictional elements. There are talking-head interviews with Carthage townspeople; some of the talking heads are actors, while some are townspeople playing themselves.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Linklater said the screenplay that he co-wrote with Skip Hollandsworth was a boring read, and that "the gossip element almost kept the film from being made, because it reads boring. I said, 'But they’ll be funny characters. I could just imagine the accents.'”


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: The film's world premiere was as the opening-night film of the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival. Millennium Entertainment released the film on April 27, 2012.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 88% "Certified Fresh" rating, based on 166 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Richard Linklater's "Bernie" is a gently told and unexpectedly amusing true-crime comedy that benefits from an impressive performance by Jack Black". On Metacritic, the film has a 75 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" enjoyed the film, giving it 3.5 stars out of 4. He praised Black's performance as well as Linklater's direction, saying "His genius was to see Jack Black as Bernie Tiede."


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film a masterpiece, describing it as a companion piece to Linklater's 1998 film "The Newton Boys", and saying the writing is:


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: so good that the humor can’t be reduced to simple satire; a whole community winds up speaking through the film, and it has a lot to say. In fact, it’s hard to think of many other celebrations of small-town American life that are quite as rich, as warm, and as complexly layered, at least within recent years. He put it on his Top 10 of the 2010-2019 decade.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: In a positive review in "Slate", Dana Stevens lauded the performances of the three leads, saying that both Black and McConaughey are at their best when working with Linklater. But she reserved her highest praise for "the good people of Carthage, who, sitting on porches or the hoods of their cars, recount the strange story of Bernie Tiede and Marjorie Nugent".


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: If I hadn't already read Skip Hollandsworth's "Texas Monthly" article recounting the tragicomic tale of Carthage's assistant funeral director Bernie Tiede, I'd swear this film adaptation was based on one of Joe R. Lansdale's East Texas gothics. As ever, truth proves itself stranger than fiction and the human heart (which is stranger and more inscrutable than anything). And Jack Black redeems himself (for "Gulliver's Travels", among other things) with a subtly quirky performance that's one of his personal best.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Gregory Ellwood of HitFix said the film is "not as funny as Linklater wants it to be...". But he praised Black's performance: "Black is simply great... making you believe someone like Bernie could really exist and while accenting his funny characteristics also portraying him as three-dimensional character."


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Eric Kohn of indieWIRE called it "an oddly endearing love letter to Southern eccentricities". He found the film hard to categorize, saying: ""Bernie" is a shape-shifting genre vehicle set apart from anything else in Linklater’s career. There’s a loose sensibility to this mockumentary—mysterious comedy? comedic mystery? It’s tough to categorize as anything beyond an enjoyable experience."


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Mary Pols, writing in "Time", gave the film an unfavorable review: "You would be hard pressed to find a film that feels more true to a reporter’s experience of an event. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, at least not cinematically... The movie translation is playful and cunning but never escapes the reportorial trap; observation after the fact rarely matches the energy of experience... The big problem with playing this same note over and over again is that while the pairing of an 81-year-old harridan and the 39-year-old effeminate mensch, whether off on a cruise together or dining at the local taqueria, may sound funny, it’s mostly just sad."


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the film as one of the top ten films of 2012, calling it a "deviously droll light-comic tabloid docudrama".


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: The film divided citizens of Carthage, the small town in East Texas where Nugent was killed. In the film, Linklater includes interviews with several Carthage residents about their feelings of support for Bernie Tiede. Some citizens hope the film will stimulate an increase in tourism, while others have voiced anger that a comedy film was derived from the events surrounding the murder of an 81-year-old woman.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: "You can't make a dark comedy out of a murder," says Panola County District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson (portrayed in the film by McConaughey). "This movie is not historically accurate," adds Davidson, who says that Nugent's story is missing. "The movie does not tell her side of the story."


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: "If it was fiction it might be funny, but this was a real person in a real town and no, I don't think it's funny at all," says Carthage resident Toni Clements, who knew both Tiede and Nugent.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Owners of the Hawthorn Funeral Home in Carthage, where Tiede met Nugent, refused to allow the film to use the name of the funeral home. “We felt we did not want the Hawthorn Funeral Home name or family name thought of in a dark comedy... you always know locally these are real people and families so there is a sting.”


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: "I've now seen the movie "Bernie" twice and, except for a few insignificant details ... it tells the story pretty much the way it happened," Joe Rhodes, Nugent's nephew, wrote in "The New York Times Magazine" shortly before the film's general release. Rod, Nugent's only child, did not return his calls. His lawyer sent Rhodes a letter strongly suggesting the possibility of legal action for his remarks. Rhodes said, "I guarantee he [Rod] won't like it."


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: "Bernie" earned nominations for Best Feature and Best Ensemble Performance at the 2012 Gotham Awards. At the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards, the film was nominated for Best Feature and Black was nominated for Best Male Lead.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: The National Board of Review included "Bernie" in their Top 10 Independent Films. The Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated "Bernie" for Best Comedy, Black for Best Actor in a Comedy, and MacLaine for Best Actress in a Comedy.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: A reader survey by the "Los Angeles Times" ranked it as the "most under-appreciated" film of 2012, from a shortlist of seven films selected by the newspaper.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: "Bernie" won Rotten Tomatoes' 14th annual "Golden Tomato" award for the best reviewed comedy released in 2012.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Jack Black's performance as Bernie Tiede earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Matthew McConaughey's portrayal of Danny Buck Davidson received several nominations and won for Best Supporting Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle and from the National Society of Film Critics.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Having seen the film, Austin-based attorney Jodi Cole met with director, Richard Linklater, for further information about the case. After meeting with Tiede at the prison, she began work on a "habeas corpus" petition in his case, raising issues not addressed in his previous direct appeal. Tiede was released from his life sentence in May 2014 on $10,000 bail, with the condition that he live with Linklater in Austin, Texas.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Nugent's granddaughter expressed shock that the release was granted, suggesting that it was due to the film's portrayal of Tiede.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: On January 2, 2015, an Austin, Texas news channel reported that the district attorney agreed to release Tiede and was not ruling out a future prosecution. Panola County prosecutor Danny Buck Davidson said that he had met members of Marjorie Nugent's family. He believed the film led to successful efforts to have Tiede paroled early from a life sentence. Out on bond, Tiede was due back in court March 2015.


title: Bernie (2011 film)

text: Davidson eventually agreed that Tiede was wrongly sentenced for first-degree murder when he deserved a lesser sentence. On April 22, 2016, after a resentencing hearing in Henderson, Texas, a jury deliberated for four-and-a-half hours. They sentenced Tiede to serve a prison term of 99 years to life.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: The 2014 United States Senate elections were held on November 4, 2014. A total of 36 seats in the 100-member U.S. Senate were contested. Thirty-three Class 2 seats were contested for regular six-year terms to be served from January 3, 2015 to January 3, 2021, and three Class 3 seats were contested in special elections due to Senate vacancies. The elections marked 100 years of direct elections of U.S. Senators. Going into the elections, 21 of the contested seats were held by the Democratic Party, while 15 were held by the Republican Party.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: The Republicans regained the majority of the Senate in the 114th Congress, which started in January 2015; the Republicans had not controlled the Senate since January 2007. They needed a net gain of at least six seats to obtain a majority and were projected by polls to do so. On election night, they held all of their seats and gained nine Democratic-held seats. Republicans defeated five Democratic incumbents: Mark Begich of Alaska lost to Dan Sullivan, Mark Pryor of Arkansas lost to Tom Cotton, Mark Udall of Colorado lost to Cory Gardner, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana lost to Bill Cassidy, and Kay Hagan of North Carolina lost to Thom Tillis. Republicans also picked up another four open seats in Iowa, Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Democrats did not pick up any Republican-held seats, but they did hold an open seat in Michigan.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: This was the second consecutive election held in a president's sixth year where control of the Senate changed hands, the first being in 2006. This was also the first time that the Democrats lost control of the Senate in a sixth-year midterm since 1918. With a total net gain of nine seats, the Republicans made the largest Senate gain by any party since 1980. This is also the first election since 1980 in which more than two incumbent Democratic Senators were defeated by their Republican challengers. Days after the election, the United States Election Project estimated that 36.4% of eligible voters voted, 4% lower than the 2010 elections, and possibly the lowest turnout rate since the 1942 election.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: As of 2022, this remains the last time that a Republican has won a U.S. Senate election in Colorado. This is the most recent Senate elections where any Republican flipped an open Democratic-held seat. It also remains the last time that the president's party has suffered a net loss of Senate seats in a midterm.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: For a majority, Republicans needed at least 51 seats. Democrats could have retained a majority with 48 seats (assuming the two Independents continued to caucus with them) because the Democratic Vice President Joe Biden would become the tie-breaker. From 1915 to 2013, control of the U.S. Senate flipped in 10 of 50 cycles, or 20% of the time. Republicans had lost ground in the 2012 elections, leading to an internal fight among the Republican leadership over the best strategies and tactics for the 2014 Senate races. By December 2013, eight of the twelve incumbent Republicans running for re-election saw Tea Party challenges. However, Republican incumbents won every primary challenge. Although Democrats saw some opportunities for pickups, the combination of Democratic retirements and numerous Democratic seats up for election in swing states and red states gave Republicans hopes of taking control of the Senate. 7 of the 21 states with Democratic seats up for election in 2014 had voted for Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election compared to just 1 state with a Republican senator that voted for Barack Obama. Democrats also faced the lower voter turnout that accompanies mid-term elections.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Poll aggregation website FiveThirtyEight gave the Republican Party a 60% chance of taking control of the Senate as of September 28. Another poll aggregation website, RealClearPolitics, gave the Republican Party a net gain of 7 seats. Due to the closeness of several races, it was initially believed that Senate control might not be decided on election night. Both Louisiana and Georgia were seen as competitive, and both states require a run-off election if no candidate takes a majority of the vote.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Two independent candidates (in Kansas and South Dakota) refused to commit to caucusing with either party. In the final months of the race, polls showed them with viable chances of winning, leading some analysts to speculate on the possibility of an "Independent caucus" that could also include Maine Senator Angus King and possibly Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. However, no Independent won a Senate race in 2014, and King and Sanders continue to caucus with the Democratic Party following the 2014 election.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: By midnight ET, most major networks projected that the Republicans would take control of the Senate. The party held all three competitive Republican-held seats (Kentucky, Kansas, and Georgia), and defeated incumbent Democrats in North Carolina, Colorado, and Arkansas. Combined with the pick-ups of open seats in Iowa, Montana, South Dakota, and West Virginia, the Republicans made a net gain of 7 seats before the end of the night. Republicans defeated three incumbent Democrats, a task the party had not accomplished since the 1980 election. Five of the seven confirmed pickups were in states that voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, but two of the seats that Republicans won represent states that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 (Colorado and Iowa). Of the three races that were not called by the end of election night, Alaska and Virginia were still too close to call, while Louisiana held a December 6 run-off election. Virginia declared Democrat Mark Warner the winner of his race by a narrow margin over Republican Ed Gillespie on November 7, and Alaska declared Dan Sullivan the winner against Democratic incumbent Mark Begich a week later, on November 12. Republican Bill Cassidy defeated Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu in the Louisiana runoff on December 6.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Altogether, at least $3.67 billion was spent by candidates, parties, committees and outside groups in the 2014 election. Spending on the 2014 Senate elections by outside groups (i.e., organizations other than a candidate's campaign, such as super PACs and "dark money" nonprofit groups) more than doubled from 2010. In the 10 competitive races for which data was available, outside groups accounted for 47% of spending, candidates accounted for 41% of spending, and parties accounted for 12% of spending. The Senate race with the most outside spending was in North Carolina, at $80 million, a new record.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Going into the elections, there were 53 Democratic, 45 Republican and 2 independent senators (both of whom caucus with the Democrats). In all, there were 36 elections: 33 senators were up for election this year as class 2 senators, and 3 faced special elections (all from Class 3). Of all these seats, 21 were held by Democrats and 15 were held by Republicans.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: In these special elections, the winners were elected during 2014 and seated before January 3, 2015 — except that one was seated on January 3, 2015, the effective date of the predecessor's resignation.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: In these general elections, the winners were elected for the term beginning January 3, 2015; ordered by state.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Several websites used poll aggregation and psephology to estimate the probability that the Republican Party would gain enough seats to take control of the Senate.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Republicans needed to win at least six in order to gain a majority of 51 seats and Democrats needed to win at least seven in order to hold a majority of 50 seats (including the two independents who currently caucus with the Democrats) and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Joe Biden.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Three-term incumbent Republican Jeff Sessions had been re-elected with 63% of the vote in 2008. Sessions sought re-election. Democrat Victor Sanchez Williams ran against Sessions as a write-in candidate. Sessions won with 97.3 percent of the vote against assorted write-in candidates.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: One-term incumbent Democrat Mark Begich had been first elected with 48% of the vote in 2008, defeating six-term Senator Ted Stevens by 3,953 votes (a margin of 1.25%). Begich was 52 years old in 2014 and was seeking re-election to a second term. Stevens, who would have been almost 91 years old at the time of the election, had already filed for a rematch back in 2009, but was killed in a plane crash the following year.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Republican Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell, 2010 nominee Joe Miller, State Natural Resources Commissioner Daniel S. Sullivan, and Air Force veteran John Jaramillo ran for the GOP nomination. In the August 19 primary, Sullivan won the Republican nomination with 40% and defeated Begich in the general election.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Two-term incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor had been re-elected with 80% of the vote without Republican opposition in 2008. Pryor was running for a third term.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Freshman Representative Tom Cotton of Arkansas's 4th congressional district was the Republican nominee. In the general election, Cotton defeated Pryor.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: One-term incumbent Democrat Mark Udall had been elected with 53% of the vote in 2008. Udall was running for re-election.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Congressman Cory Gardner of Colorado's 4th congressional district was the Republican nominee; his late entry into the race caused numerous Republicans to withdraw their candidacies. Gaylon Kent was the Libertarian Party nominee. Unity Party of America founder and National Chairman Bill Hammons was the Unity Party nominee.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Democrat Chris Coons won in the 2010 United States Senate special election in Delaware caused by Joe Biden's election as Vice President, winning by a 57% to 41% margin. Coons sought re-election. His Republican opponent was engineer Kevin Wade, whom Coons went on to defeat in the general election.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Two-term incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss had been re-elected with 57% of the vote in 2008 in a runoff election with former state Representative Jim Martin; Georgia requires run-off elections when no Senate candidate wins over 50% of the vote. Chambliss did not seek a third term.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Political activist Derrick Grayson, Representatives Jack Kingston of Georgia's 1st congressional district, Paul Broun of Georgia's 10th congressional district, and Phil Gingrey of Georgia's 11th congressional district all declared their candidacy for the Republican nomination, as did former Secretary of State Karen Handel. In the May 20 primary, no candidate received a majority of votes, so the top two candidates faced each other in a runoff; Perdue narrowly won against Kingston in the runoff primary election on July 22 with 50.9% of the vote.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Michelle Nunn, CEO of Points of Light and the daughter of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, won the Democratic nomination. Other declared Democratic candidates included former State Senator Steen Miles, psychiatrist Branko Radulovacki, and former US Army Ranger Todd Robinson. Amanda Swafford, a former Flowery Branch, Georgia city councilwoman, received the Libertarian Party of Georgia nomination.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Daniel Inouye, the second longest serving United States Senator in U.S. history, died on December 17, 2012, after respiratory complications. Hawaii law allows the Governor of Hawaii, to appoint an interim Senator "who serves until the next regularly-scheduled general election, chosen from a list of three prospective appointees that the prior incumbent's political party submits". Governor Neil Abercrombie did so, selecting Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz to fill the Senate seat. Inouye had been re-elected in 2010 with 72% of the vote. Schatz was challenged in the Democratic primary by Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii's 1st congressional district, who Inouye had hoped would be his successor. Schatz defeated Hanabusa in the primary with 48.5% to 47.8%.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Campbell Cavasso, former State Representative and nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and 2010, was the Republican nominee.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: One-term incumbent Republican Jim Risch had been elected with 58% of the vote in 2008. Risch sought a second term.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Three-term incumbent and Senate Majority Whip Democrat Dick Durbin had been re-elected with 68% of the vote in 2008. Durbin ran for a fourth term.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: State Senator Jim Oberweis was the Republican nominee. He defeated primary challenger Doug Truax with 56% of the vote.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Five-term incumbent Democrat Tom Harkin had been re-elected with 63% of the vote in 2008. Harkin announced on January 26, 2013, that he would not seek a sixth term. Congressman Bruce Braley was the Democratic nominee.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Doug Butzier, who was the Libertarian Party's nominee, died in a plane crash on October 13, 2014, but still appeared on the ballot.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Three-term incumbent Republican Pat Roberts had been re-elected with 60% of the vote in 2008. Roberts sought a fourth term. He faced a primary challenge from radiologist Milton Wolf, a conservative Tea Party supporter. Roberts defeated Wolf in the Republican primary by 48% to 41%. Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor won the Democratic nomination. Randall Batson from Wichita was on the general election ballot as a Libertarian. Also, Greg Orman qualified for the ballot as an independent.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: On September 3, Taylor announced he was dropping out of the election, leading to speculation that Democrats would support Orman's candidacy. On September 18, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that Taylor's name had to be removed from the ballot.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Five-term Republican incumbent and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had been re-elected with 53% of the vote in 2008. McConnell sought re-election to a sixth term. McConnell defeated businessman Matt Bevin in the Republican primary on May 20.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, with support from much of Kentucky's Democratic leadership, won the Democratic primary. Actress Ashley Judd publicly claimed to be considering a run for the Democratic nomination, but ultimately decided against it.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Ed Marksberry pursued an independent bid after dropping out of the Democratic field in September 2013.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Three-term incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu had been re-elected with 52% of the vote in 2008. Landrieu ran for a fourth term.


title: 2014 United States Senate elections

text: Louisiana uses a unique jungle primary system that eschews primaries in favor of run-off elections between the top two candidates; this run-off can be avoided if the winning candidate receives over 50% of the vote. Democrats Wayne Ables, Vallian Senegal, and William Waymire ran against Landrieu in the election, as did Republicans Bill Cassidy (representative of Louisiana's 6th congressional district), Thomas Clements (small business owner), and retired Air Force Colonel Rob Maness. Electrical Engineer Brannon McMorris ran as a Libertarian.