title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: "Fishsticks" was written and directed by series co-creator Trey Parker. The concept for "Fishsticks" began when Parker, fellow co-creator Matt Stone, and actor Bill Hader attended a writers' retreat in Seattle, Washington and they visited a body of water where they could watch salmon jump. They started joking about a salmon wearing an outfit like the motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel, which eventually reminded them of the music video for rapper Kanye West's song "Touch the Sky", in which West himself dresses like Knievel. This led to them picturing a scene with West on a news program, angrily denying reports that he is a fish, shouting "No, I am not a salmon!" During a four-hour ride in a car, Stone and Parker discussed the joke further, and eventually thought of the "fishsticks" joke that featured prominently in the final episode. The duo said they found it hilarious and told variations of the joke back and forth to each other for the rest of the ride. Stone said, "The van driver we hired was just so bummed because we just kept talking about fishsticks, 'You're a gay fish', over and over. We thought it was so funny, and just the fact that he didn't get it."


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Although the joke originally stemmed from Evel Knievel and not Kanye West, Parker and Stone said they realized West would probably be extremely humorless about the joke and not understand it, so they decided the episode should revolve mostly around him. After coming up with the idea, Parker and Stone waited a long time before they finally wrote the script because, Stone said, "It just seemed too dumb. Are we really going to do a whole episode about this?" Stone said the jokes about Carlos Mencia were "just a complete afterthought" that came about during the writing process. During one scene in "Fishsticks", Cartman steals credit from Jimmy for a joke he did not write. This was inspired by people Parker and Stone have worked with in the television business who were present for discussions the duo had, then later claimed credit for the idea even though they had nothing to do with it. Stone said, "They truly believe they did it. That's the really sinister part. It's not where they're trying to steal part of the glory. ... They actually fully believe that they came up with it."


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Parker provided the voice of West, both in the episode and in "Gay Fish", a full-length song featured at the end of the episode about West's realization that he actually is a gay fish. Parker used a large amount of Auto-Tune pitch audio processing, which he had never used before. Parker said he eventually discovered he had to sing off-key on purpose in order to get the desired effect. Parker said, "You had to be a bad singer in order for that thing to actually sound the way it does." The day after "Fishsticks" was broadcast, the full two-and-a-half minute version of the Kanye West spoof, "Gay Fish", was made available for download on South Park Studios, the official "South Park" website. The site also featured T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts based on the episode. One featured Jimmy asking, "Do you like fishsticks?" The other features text from Kanye West's whiteboard in the episode: "Fishsticks + Me = Gayfish".


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: A Kanye West song in the episode about the fact that he is indeed a "gay fish" is a parody of the West song "Heartless", from his 2008 recording "808s & Heartbreak" and satirizes the rapper's usage of Auto-Tune pitch audio processing. When West first confronts Cartman and Jimmy, Cartman mistakes him for Puff Daddy, another rapper and record producer.


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Carlos Mencia, host of the former Comedy Central show "Mind of Mencia", is portrayed in "Fishsticks" as knowingly stealing credit for a joke he did not write; this is a reference to accusations other comedians have made that Mencia plagiarizes jokes from other people. Mencia's death scene in the episode, as well as his claims that he uses a catheter to relieve himself, are a reference to Lalin, a character who uses a wheelchair in the 1993 crime film "Carlito's Way".


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Talk show hosts Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres were featured in the episode. Kimmel is voiced by his real-life brother Jonathan Kimmel, who previously served as a writer and voice actor on "South Park".


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: During a fantasy sequence, Cartman says "flame on" and turns into a fiery, flying superhero; this is a reference to the Human Torch, a superhero and member of the Fantastic Four.


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: In its original American broadcast, "Fishsticks" was watched by 3.1 million overall households, according to the Nielsen Media Research, making it the most-watched Comedy Central production of the week. It had over 1.2 million more household viewers than the second most-watched Comedy Central show that week, the April 8 episode of "The Daily Show". In June 2009, "Fishsticks" was announced to be the most watched "South Park" episode on South Park Studios, the official "South Park" website, which has all but 5 episodes of "South Park" to date available for viewing.


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Both Kanye West and Carlos Mencia responded within one day of the episode's original broadcast and said they enjoyed the parodies of themselves, although West said on his blog that his feelings were hurt. After the episode was broadcast, Mencia wrote on his Twitter feed, "They just made fun of me on South Park. I thought it was hysterical. Catch the rerun." West wrote on his blog, ""South Park" murdered me last night and it's pretty damn funny. It hurts my feelings but what can you expect from "South Park"!" West thanked the "South Park" writers in his blog entry and acknowledged he has a problem with his ego, but said he was trying to change. Parker and Stone said they were extremely surprised by West's reaction, and felt Mencia was treated far more harshly in the episode than West. Parker said, "It was like, dude, we just said you were a gay fish. What are you talking about? It was so dumb."


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Simon Vozick-Levinson of "Entertainment Weekly" said the post was "a fascinating look at where Kanye's head is at these days", and complimented West for his "humility and honesty". Daniel Kreps of "Rolling Stone" said: "Many have tried, all have failed, but in the end it only took four animated children from Colorado to topple Kanye West's ego. ... One day, we'll all look back on this day and thank "South Park" for ushering in this historic moment in the life of Kanye." Kerrie Mitchell of "Entertainment Weekly" suggested West's modest response was actually a marketing stunt to help sell his upcoming personal fragrance and energy drink. Mitchell wrote, "Did he just get the last laugh on "South Park"? Conspiracy!" In response to the media coverage, West wrote another blog entry on April 10 claiming he had only seen part of the episode and found it funny, but he had been working on his arrogance problem for some time and that "South Park" did not lead to his "ego epiphany". The next day, he said in another blog entry that while visiting The Cheesecake Factory restaurant, the manager brought him a plate of fishsticks as a joke.


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: The episode received positive, if slightly mixed reviews. Ramsey Isler of "IGN" declared it the best episode of the season, calling it a "beautiful Kanye West spoof that was so well-timed, so hilarious and so spot-on" that it became a "phenomenon". Ryan Brockington of the "New York Post" said of the episode, "Best. "South Park." Ever." He particularly praised the West song parody and the fact that "a simple running joke can hold a full episode; brilliant". Carlos Delgado of "If Magazine" said the episode was "another "South Park" classic" which "takes full advantage of Cartman's monumental ego". Delgado, who gave the episode a B+ grade, described the West parody as "awesome" and the final scene with the "gay fish" West song as "spell binding". "TV Guide" listed the episode at number five on the top ten television moments of the week.


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Travis Fickett of IGN said the episode included some good laughs but "never kicks into high gear" and said the themes might have worked better as subplots than a full episode: "'Fishsticks' is one of those episodes that typically occur around now in the "South Park" season. It's not great, not bad – hovering somewhere around amusing towards forgettable." Sean O'Neal of "The A.V. Club" said he was disappointed by the episode and thought the message about celebrity self-delusion might have been better if it focused on only West or Mencia, rather than both. Although O'Neal liked the West song in the episode's final scene, O'Neal said "cramming (West and Mencia) together—even mixed in with Cartman's very funny fantasy sequences—felt too cobbled to me, and the time limits imposed by cutting back and forth between it all made the respective digs start to feel a little too one-note."


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: On September 13, 2009 during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, Kanye West interrupted an acceptance speech from Taylor Swift by walking onto stage, grabbing the microphone and praising her fellow nominee, Beyoncé. The incident received considerable press attention and drew further attention to "Fishsticks", which Comedy Central re-broadcast for two straight hours on September 15, 2009.


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Following a controversial 2008 performance at music festival Bonnaroo, many concertgoers have since sprayed graffiti around the festival grounds, as well as making signs, deriding the rapper as a "gay fish".


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: Kanye West references the episode in the song "Gorgeous" from his 2010 album "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" where he says "choke a "South Park" writer with a fishstick". He similarly referenced the episode on his album "Watch the Throne" in the song "Made in America" when he says ""South Park" had them all laughin'/ Now all my niggas designing and we all swaggin'." It was also referenced in a leaked demo of his 2021 song "Life of the Party" that appeared on the deluxe version of West's 10th studio album "Donda", in which he says ""South Park" had jokes about fish sticks / 'Til this day the whole team can kiss this dick".


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: A cryptocurrency called Coinye was created in January 2014. Under legal pressure, the developers had to change the logo from resembling West to resembling "a half-man-half-fish hybrid" instead.


title: Fishsticks (South Park)

text: "Fishsticks", along with the thirteen other episodes from "South Park" thirteenth season, were released on a three-disc DVD set and two-disc Blu-ray set in the United States on March 16, 2010. The sets included brief audio commentaries by Parker and Stone for each episode, a collection of deleted scenes, and a special mini-feature "Inside Xbox: A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of South Park Studios", which discussed the process behind animating the show with "Inside Xbox" host Major Nelson.


title: Supreme Leader (North Korean title)

text: The supreme leader () of North Korea is the "de facto" paramount leader of the Workers' Party of Korea, the state and the Korean People's Army. The title has not been written into the national constitution as a separate office, but it currently states that the president of the State Affairs Commission is the supreme leader of North Korea. Likewise, according to the WPK Charter, the general secretary of the WPK is the supreme leader of the Workers' Party. Formerly, under Kim Jong-il, this title was bestowed on the office of Chairman of the National Defence Commission, who was also the WPK general secretary. The first leader of the state prior to the existence of North Korea was Terenty Shtykov who served as the head of the Soviet Civil Administration, the governing authority controlled by the Soviet Union that ruled the northern half of Korea from 1945 to 1948.


title: Supreme Leader (North Korean title)

text: The first priority political position of the supreme leader is the leadership of the Workers' Party. That post was titled as Chairman from the founding of the DPRK in 1948 until 1966, General Secretary from 1966 to 2012, First Secretary from 2012 to 2016, Chairman again from 2016 to 2021, and General Secretary again since 2021. Propaganda workers began calling Kim Il-sung supreme leader in the late 1940s and the term has since been used to describe the status of Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un. Generally however, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were both referred to as "Great Leader" () and "Dear Leader" () respectively during their tenures as leader.


title: Special Service Group

text: The Pakistan Army Special Service Group or SSG is the special forces unit of the Pakistan Army. They are also known by their nickname of "Maroon Berets" due to their headgear.


title: Special Service Group

text: The SSG is responsible to deploy and execute five doctrinal missions: foreign internal defence, reconnaissance, direct action, counter-terrorism operations, and unconventional warfare.


title: Special Service Group

text: Other operational roles and responsibilities attributed to the SSG include: search and rescue, counter-proliferation, search and destroy, hostage rescue, information operations, peacekeeping missions, psychological operations, security assistance, and HVT manhunts.


title: Special Service Group

text: Chain of command and control of the SSG falls within the domain of the Pakistan Army's Strategic Forces Command (ASFC), and its personnel are directly recruited into the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)'s counter-terrorism division upon their retirements. Much of the SSG's activities and operations are shrouded in secrecy and public knowledge of their work is heavily controlled through selective declassified documents and published literary works by retired military veterans or authorized media.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 1950, the Pakistan Army established the school, Close Quarter Battle School, dedicated for teaching the methods of close quarters combat under Colonel Grant Taylor of the British Army in Quetta, Balochistan in Pakistan– the school was later moved to Attock under Colonel Kahoon, also an officer in the British Army. Citing unknown and unspecified reasons, the Close Quarter Battle School under Col. Kahoon was permanently closed and its passed out personnel who had earlier formed the 312th Garrison Company (312 Gar Coy (FF)), a light infantry, initially attached the military unit to the Frontier Force Regiment (FF Regiment) in 1952— the 312 Gar Coy (FF) still remains to be a part of the Frontier Force Regiment.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 1953–54, the United States Army raised a special forces unit within the Pakistan Army to provide intelligence and combat defense against Soviet Union's expanding sphere of influence in the Central Asia. The U.S. assistance helped raise the special forces unit from the simple infantry regiment, the 19th Baloch, that provided an ideal cover from its covert nature of works. In 1955, the 17th Baloch infantry was incorporated with the 19th Baloch, followed by the special forces training began to conduct under Lt Col. Donald W. Bunte from the Special Forces of the United States Army.


title: Special Service Group

text: On 23 March 1956, the Special Service Group (SSG) was established as a Battalion under the command of its first commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel A. O. Mitha, after founding the School of Special Operations (SSO) under the advisement of army officers from the U.S. Army's Special Forces. The Special Service Group's institution and the physical training remained under the command of Lt-Col. Mitha until 1961–62. The headquarter of the Army Special Service Group was then based out in Cherat, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan.


title: Special Service Group

text: Initially, the SSG were popular as the Green Berets with Baloch insignia in the 1950s, but SSG dropped their green berets in favor of adopting the Baloch Regiment's maroon berets– hence giving them the nickname the Maroon Berets.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 1964, the Parachute Training School (PTS) was established under the watchful guidance of 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, and training on the desert warfare with U.S. Special Forces' Mobile Training Team begin, followed by the Navy SSG established by the U.S. Navy SEALs as a deep diving team, which was known for its physical training in Karachi in 1966–70.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 1970, the Musa Company was established that solely specialized in anti-terrorist operations, receiving training from the British SAS advisers after U.S. had suspended the IMET program with Pakistan in 1981.


title: Special Service Group

text: The Army SSG initially had six battalions and each battalion had specialization units, specialized in the different war spectrum: desert, mountain, long-distance ranger, and deep diving warfare. In August 1965, the operational scope of the Army SSG was expanded from a battalion-size to larger special operation outfit. In 1968–70, the Pakistan Army integrated the Chinese introduced physical training, tactics, weapons, and equipments.


title: Special Service Group

text: The first war time deployment of the Army Special Service Group took place in 1960 with their first special reconnaissance mission in the former tribal belt near the porous Durand Line– the Afghanistan-Pakistan's line of international border. In 1960–61, the Army Special Forces team under Major Mirza Aslam Beg had successfully inserted in Dir and took control of the law and order situation be removing the instigating Nawab of Dir in Chitral in North-West Frontier Province.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 1964–65, the teams of Special Service Group successfully executed the covert operation in Indian-administered Kashmir but the operation failed from the very beginning due to lack of understanding of the local culture and language, eventually met with hostility with locals who alerted the Indian government authorities.


title: Special Service Group

text: The second war with India saw the testing and shaping of the Army Special Service Group when the Indian Army charged and invaded the Pakistan-side of Punjab in response to the covert actions took place in Indian Administered Kashmir. The airborne missions of the Army Special Service Group included performing the combat parachuting at the Indian airbases with an intention of launching a ground assaults in the Indian Air Force's air stations in Pathankot, Adampur, and the Halwara. 180 SSG commandos boarded a Pakistan Air Force's C-130 Hercules, the three airborne formations were flown detected on the night of 7 September 1965, first performing combat jumping at Pathankot at 02:30 hours but the wind velocity led to the scattering of the teams, due to the difficult terrain and poor visibility, none of the teams were able to re-group after the drop. Of the 180 commandos dropped, 138, including all officers but one, were captured and safely taken to prisoner of war (POW) camps. Twenty-two were lynched by villagers armed with sticks, police and even bands of muleteers released by the Indian Army, from the animal transport battalion of the nearby Corps headquarters.


title: Special Service Group

text: Only 20 commandos were unaccounted for and most escaped back to Pakistan under the fog. Most of these were from the Pathankot group, dropped less than 10 km from the border in an area that had plenty of ravines, riverine tracks to navigate back along. One notable, commando-style escape was of Major Hazur Hasnain, the Halwara group commander who, along with his friend, hijacked a jeep and somehow managed to return safe.


title: Special Service Group

text: The Pakistani accounts, the latest of which comes now from several participants in the wake of the 1965 at 50 commemorations, acknowledged the SSG-commando disaster but blamed it on poor briefing, planning and callous arrogance of the commanders. Some of these former Pakistani soldiers even write about having met some of these paratroopers and exchanged notes with them on how badly planned the operation was. Here is the account of Col SG Mehdi, himself a commando officer then.


title: Special Service Group

text: By 1970–71, the Pakistan Army had permanently posted one Army Special Service Group 3rd Commando Battalion in East-Pakistan under Lt-Col. Tariq Mehmood, begin working with local authorities in maintaining security situation in the East-Pakistan, near the border of Eastern India. The performance of the Army Special Service Group was reported to be much better than their performance in 1965, with 1st Command Battalion (Yaldram) and 2nd Commando Battalion (Rahber) engaged in several of their successful sabotage missions against the Indian Army's artillery and infantry regiments, while the 3rd Command Battalion in East oriented towards successfully engaging in the seek and destroy missions. Their final mission included the mounting of the successful defense of the Shahjalal International Airport against the Indian Army-backed "Mukti Bahini", and were the last army special forces formation that had departed from the airport before the Dacca fall to India on 16 December 1971.


title: Special Service Group

text: From 1972–77, the Pakistan Army went into reorganization and major restructuring of its combat services but the Army Special Service Group remained active in successfully tackling the armed insurgency in Balochistan in Pakistan.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 1979–89, the Army Special Service Group had been seconded in covert actions in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union's armed intervention. There have been unconfirmed reports of the Army Special Service Group engaging in armed battles with the Soviet paratroopers in incidents including the Battle for Hill 3234 and the Operation Magistral.


title: Special Service Group

text: When the Battle for Hill 3234 concluded, the Soviet paratroopers found that the Afghan mujaheddin actually wore the black uniforms with rectangular black-yellow-red stripes, and suspected to be Army Special Service Group personnel; Pakistan's government has officially denied their involvement. The American author, Aukai Collins, identified the elements as "Black Storks" who crossed the border to join the Afghan mujahideen – a claim also backed by American author, David Campbell. Another battle was taken place between the Soviet paratroopers and the Afghan mujahideen in Kunar in 1986 that suspected the Army Special Service Group's involvement but the Russians dismissed the claim and noted that the battle was fought between the GRU's 15th Spetsnaz Brigade and Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf's group.


title: Special Service Group

text: When the Indian Army's successful expedition took control of the Siachen Glacier from Pakistan, the ISI's Covert Action Division (CAD) inserted in the region, confirming the intrusion and movement of Indian Army soldiers in 1983. The Army Special Service Group was immediately deployed to engage in the armed battle with the Indian Army at above sea level. Led by Captain Muhammad Iqbal, the only 12-men Army Special Service team had to hiked at the to reach the Indian Army's resting camp. Battle with Indian Army ensued and Special Service Group commandos lost the battle and had to retreat to lower heights of Siachen Glacier, giving Indians one of the first victories in Siachen Glacier battle ground


title: Special Service Group

text: Over the years, the Army Special Service Group have not developed expertise in high altitude warfare, but are regularly deployed in Siachen. Army Special Service Group activities included the hike towards the mountains in Kargil in 1999 but the Indian Army soon discovered Infantry regiments movements resulting in another massive assault on Pakistan that resulted in defeat of Pakistani forces.


title: Special Service Group

text: Since 2001, the Army Special Forces have been engaged in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and remote areas in areas adjacent to Afghanistan—their notable antiterror operation included the successful clearance of the Red Mosque in Islamabad from al-Qaeda sympathizers. The Army Special Forces teams also taken parts in raiding and attacking the terrorists elements in near border with Afghanistan, working often with U.S. Army's Special Forces in Afghanistan.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 2014, the Army Special Service Group reportedly successful in their manhunt operation after targeting and killing of Adnan Gulshair, a Saudi citizen known as the Global Operations Chief of al-Qaeda. In January 2013, India accused Pakistan that Army Special Service Group led an attack across the Line of Control in which Indian soldiers were killed and beheaded.


title: Special Service Group

text: Later in August 2013, a patrol of five Indian soldiers were killed 450 metres inside Indian territory, which India also believes was a handiwork of the " Musa company" of Pakistan Army Special Service Group, who works in conjunction with terrorists. These raids are part of cross border raids launched by Pakistan.


title: Special Service Group

text: Due to their selection competitiveness, demanding military physicals, and commitment required per standard of the Army's Special Forces, the Special Service Group was restricted to the Brigade level until June 2003. On 14 June 2003, the major reorganization in the structure of the Army Special Service Group took place when the special forces were moved as a military division with Major-General A. F. Alvi becoming the first general officer commanding (GOC).


title: Special Service Group

text: In an official documentary recognized and known structure of the Army Special Service Group given in "YouTube" is given below:


title: Special Service Group

text: Notes: Source of officially recognized and known structure of the Army Special Service Group given in "YouTube".


title: Special Service Group

text: The early organizational structure of the Army's Special Service Group was initially based on the regimental system, with three battalions specialized in the military diving, airborne, mountain warfare techniques. After the third war with India in 1971, the Army Special Service Group was expanded with the eight battalions that specialized in their own set of war course of actions–each battalions is specialized in their criterion of war and are considered specialists in their fields.


title: Special Service Group

text: The headquarter of the Army Special Service Group was based in Cherat where the special forces schools are located but this changed with the brigade combat teams (BCTs) being deployed in different parts of the country. The operational responsibility of the special operations conducted by the Army Special Service Group, nonetheless, falls under the command of the Army Strategic Forces Command (ASFC) operating from the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi, along with the Army Rangers and Strategic Plans Division Force–the CBRN defense team.


title: Special Service Group

text: The Special Service Group is organized into eight battalions and three companies – all trained and specialists in the specific type of war operations. However, the Army has never issued an actual strength number for the special forces. The official strength of each battalion is treated as classified information.


title: Special Service Group

text: The SSG battalions are each typically commanded by a lieutenant colonel (varies, and depends on availability), and the battalions are organized into groups under the command of colonels.


title: Special Service Group

text: The overall commander of the Special Service Group is a major general whose identity is also kept secret.


title: Special Service Group

text: Sources:. "For a description of the modern special forces, see: global context of the Special forces."


title: Special Service Group

text: The Army specialist recruiter teams usually visit the different headquarters of the army's formation, distributing the pamphlets to the officers at OF-1 rank and enlisted personnel. The military physical standards, examinations, and criteria are same for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines' special forces selections and training, often training in close coordination.


title: Special Service Group

text: The Navy Special Service Group (SSGN) plays an important role in the overall architecture of the special operations forces, their qualification standards, fitness at all levels, and eligibility required for the security clearances.


title: Special Service Group

text: There are three schools that the overall basic eligibility requirements to be considered for entry into the schools of the Special Forces are:


title: Special Service Group

text: The medical standards in various physical courses into the entrance in the maintained to be very high and extremely competitive, resulting in a major dropouts at the very early stage of selection, according to the Pakistan Army's official report in 2013. The Pakistan Army's Medical Corps keeps the qualification and selections standards difficult and competitive in the Pakistani military to only ensure that the suitable and qualified intakes in the Special Forces in the Pakistan military as the special forces cannot be mass-produced nor it can arise in the extenuating situations.


title: Special Service Group

text: Prior to joining the Special Service Group, the interested junior army officers (usually at OF-1 and OF-2) and enlisted personnel must have spent their committed military careers for at least five years and must be volunteered to join the Special Service Group. Once selected through successfully undergoing through the medical evaluation, the interested personnel must report to the Parachute Training School in Peshawar to volunteer for the airborne training, and must get the airborne qualification badge from the airborne training school. The airborne training course held for four weeks where the interested personnel must excelled the HALO/HAHO methods with five-day jumps and three-night military free fall.


title: Special Service Group

text: After gaining their airborne qualification badge, the army personnel then reports to Cherat from Peshawar– a nominal distance between two cities is approximated between – engage through this journey by the foot while wearing their full military gear (30 kilograms). The interested individual must undergoes a 24-week of military training and training process once reported to Cherat.


title: Special Service Group

text: The training courses in the Special Service Group emphasis strong physical conditioning and mental fitness, including the everyday based surprised strategic thinking quiz and a 36-mile march in 12 hours. Violation of the military code and ethics by the trainee soldier resulted in including the march from Cherat to Chapri with full military gear.


title: Special Service Group

text: The curriculum of the basic military training course included the mastery in Judo and Karateka, special weapons training, military navigation, and handling and disarming of the chemical explosives, survival skill training. There are schools of special warfare that the trainee soldier chooses: Snow and High Altitude School, Mountain Warfare School, Airborne Warfare School, Desert Warfare School, Sniper School, and Frogman School. These schools offers the advanced training courses which runs for additional 25–30 weeks (depending on student's choosing of his career), and only successfully passed out personnel are awarded with badges of their specialized fields by their specialized school faculty. The dropout rates of Special Service Group(Army) is 85 to 90 Percent because of extremely tough training process. Every year, thousands of Applicants apply to join the SSG but at the end, maximum of 100 to 120 cadets get their recommendation letter for Special Service Group. The army personnel interested in the underwater demolition must be trained with their Navy counterparts in Manora Island in the Karachi coast including being qualified to get their long-range swimming qualification badge from the Naval authorities.


title: Special Service Group

text: The Special Service Group criteria meet special forces training and selection criteria of the United States Army


title: Special Service Group

text: Since its establishment in 1956, the Army Special Service Group have been regularly interacted and trained together with the United States Army Special Forces–though the Pakistan Army's infantry branch had first participated in "Exercise Vulcan" and "Exercise Handicap" in 1954. Besides training and the interaction with the United States Army, Pakistan Army Special Service Group have held joint special warfare training exercises with the Special Air Service (SAS) of the British Army, Special Forces Command of the Turkish Land Forces, Special Operation Forces of the Royal Jordanian Army, the Special Operation Forces of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Ground Forces, and the Spetsnaz of the Russian Ground Forces.


title: Special Service Group

text: For their overseas deployment for the purpose of the education and training, the Special Service Group have been deployed in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Maldives, United Arab Emirates, Turkmenistan, Egypt, Japan, and Iraq where its operatives have overseen the friendly nations special forces programs.


title: Special Service Group

text: Since 1998, the Army Special Service Group biannually conducts the military exercise with the Turkish Land Forces's Special Forces, which have been designated as the ""Jinnah–Atatürk Series"." The military exercise held in Pakistan is known as ""Atatürk Exercise"" while in Turkey, it is known as ""Jinnah Exercise"." The first of these series of exercise were held in Pakistan, with twenty-one Turkish Land Forces officers and fourteen enlists coming to Pakistan for the exercise– Pakistan reciprocated the visit in 2000. The "Jinnah-Atatürk Series" are oriented and focused towards the snow, high-altitude, and mountain warfare."


title: Special Service Group

text: With renewed military relations with the United States Army in the 1990s, the Army Special Service Group conducted several military exercises with the United States Army Special Forces (SF), known as the ""Exercise Inspired Venture/Gambit"", with first being held in 1993. The "Exercise Inspired Venture/Gambit" is oriented and directed towards focusing on special weapon familiarization, mountain warfare, night time assaults, air assault techniques in counter-terrorism measures.


title: Special Service Group

text: Since 2006, the Army Special Service Group also conducts training with the People's Liberation Army Ground Forces Special Operation Forces, which is known as the "Pakistan-China Joint Exercise Friendship"– this exercise is oriented towards tackling insurgencies and improving methods in counterterrorism. In 2008–09, the Army Special Service Group, together with the United States Army Special Forces, participated in the multinational security exercise, the Operation Bright Star, held in Alexandria in Egypt in 2009 to train with the Thunderbolt Forces of the Egyptian Army.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 2016, the Army Special Service Group conducted the annual military exercise with the Russian Ground Forces' Spetsnaz–the Russo-Pakistani military exercise is known as "Druzhba" (lit. Friendship). The "Druzhba" with Russian Spetsnaz are oriented and focused towards mountain warfare and tactics in counterterrorism in taking out and eliminating the terrorist organizations with first being held in 2016 and the recent being held in 2018.


title: Special Service Group

text: In the 1970s, the Army Special Service Group Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) was standard Khaki but this was changed to British-styled DPM. In the 1990s, the Battle Dress Uniform was changed in favor of adopting the U.S. woodland (or M81) with a maroon berets, a common color for the airborne forces, with a silver metal tab on a light blue felt square with a dagger and lightning bolts, and a wing on the right side of the chest.


title: Special Service Group

text: The counterterrorism teams, on the other hand, include camouflage and black dungarees (for the CT team).


title: Special Service Group

text: The Special Service Group Navy, SSG Navy, is distinguished by a dark blue beret with three versions of the "fouled anchor" navy badge for officers, NCOs and enlisted men. A metal SSGN qualification badge featuring a vertical dagger superimposed over a midget submarine is worn over the left pocket on dress uniforms. Parachute wings are worn over the right pocket.


title: Special Service Group

text: The Special Service Wing, SSW, is distinguished by maroon berets with PAF Officer, JCO or Airmen insignia on the beret, and a wing on the right side of the chest. The combat uniform of SSW is olive drab camouflage. They also wear their special service wing insignia on the left shoulder "Winged Dragons and lightning bolts".


title: Special Service Group

text: After the second war with India in 1965, the Army Special Service Group had established its personnel physical fitness leading the Pakistan Navy to recognize the need of the special operation force but it had little experience and tradition in the military scuba diving as well as had little understanding towards the nature of the seaborne special operations. In 1966, the Army Special Service Group helped raise the military diving division within the Navy from its frogman team— the Musa Company that remains to be part the Army Special Service Group for inland riverine operations.


title: Special Service Group

text: Introduction and instructions on combat scuba diving and basic training were provided by the personnel from the Musa Company before the Navy Special Service Group moved towards getting trained with the U.S. Navy's United States Navy SEALs. Over the several years, the Navy dependent on the Army to provide training to their Navy SEAL Teams in the Navy Special Service Group on education and training on the combat parachuting, sniper marksmanship, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency.


title: Special Service Group

text: Eventually, the Navy established their own schools on combat parachuting, sniping, counterterrorism, and the counterinsurgency but these schools are influenced and modeled after the Army's Special Service Group training methods whose instructors are the alumnus of the Army schools of special operation forces who tightly followed the army's philosophy, physical standards, and education.


title: Special Service Group

text: The personnel of the Navy SEAL Teams in the Navy Special Service Group adopted to wear the Army Special Service Group U.S. Woodland (M81) Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) with the distinction of the dark blue beret with three versions of the "fouled anchor" with a navy badge (as shown in the footage) and a metal SSGN qualification badge featuring a vertical dagger superimposed over a midget submarine is worn over the left pocket on dress uniforms; parachute wings are worn over the right pocket.


title: Special Service Group

text: In 1965, the Pakistan Air Force had a special operation force established: the Special Service Wing under Brig. Mukhtar Dogar (local rank: Air Commodore) but it was decommissioned in 1972 whose personnel went to join the Army Special Service Group. In 2003, the Pakistan Air Force recommissioned the Special Service Wing and their headgear is distinguished by maroon berets with the airmen wears insignia on the beret, and a wing on the right side of the chest. The combat uniform of SSW is olive drab camouflage. They also wear their special service wing insignia on the left shoulder "Winged Dragons and lightning bolts".


title: Bud Selig

text: Allan Huber "Bud" Selig (; born July 30, 1934) is an American baseball executive who currently serves as the Commissioner Emeritus of Baseball. Previously, he served as the ninth Commissioner of Baseball from 1998 to 2015. He initially served as de facto acting commissioner beginning in 1992 in his capacity as chairman of the Major League Baseball Executive Committee before being named the official commissioner in 1998. Selig oversaw baseball through the 1994 strike, the introduction of the wild card, interleague play, and the de facto merging of the National and American Leagues under the Office of the Commissioner. He was instrumental in organizing the World Baseball Classic in 2006. Selig also introduced revenue sharing. He is credited for the financial turnaround of baseball during his tenure with a 400 percent increase in the revenue of MLB and annual record breaking attendance.


title: Bud Selig

text: During Selig's term of service, the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs became a public issue. The Mitchell Report, commissioned by Selig, concluded that the MLB commissioners, club officials, the Players Association, and the players all share "to some extent in the responsibility for the steroid era." Following the release of the Mitchell Report, Congressman Cliff Stearns called publicly for Selig to step down as commissioner, citing his "glacial response" to the "growing stain on baseball." Selig has pledged on numerous occasions to rid baseball of performance-enhancing drugs, and has overseen and instituted many rule changes and penalties to that end.


title: Bud Selig

text: A Milwaukee native, Selig was previously the owner and team president of the Milwaukee Brewers. The franchise, originally known as the Seattle Pilots, was acquired by Selig in bankruptcy court in 1970, and renamed after the minor league team of the same name that he had watched in his youth and had existed until the arrival of the Braves in Milwaukee in 1953. Selig was credited with keeping baseball in Milwaukee. The Brewers went to the 1982 World Series (but were defeated in seven games by the St. Louis Cardinals), and Selig won seven Organization of the Year awards during his tenure. Selig remains a resident of Milwaukee.


title: Bud Selig

text: On January 17, 2008, Selig's contract was extended through 2012, after which he planned to retire, but he then decided to stay as commissioner until the end of the 2014 season, a move approved by the owners on January 12, 2012, which would take his leadership past his 80th birthday. Selig made $14.5 million in the 12-month period ending October 31, 2005. Selig announced on September 26, 2013, that he would retire in January 2015. On January 22, 2015, MLB announced that Selig would formally step down from the office when his current term expired on January 24, 2015. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2017.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig was born in Milwaukee, and grew up in a Jewish family. His father, Ben Selig, had come to the United States from Romania with his family when he was four years old. Selig graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a B.A. in American history and political science in 1956. He served two years in the U.S. Army before working with his father who owned a car leasing business in Milwaukee. Selig continues to be involved in the automotive industry, serving as president of the Selig Executive Lease Company.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig's interest in baseball came from his mother. An immigrant from Ukraine, Marie Selig attended college, a rare accomplishment for a woman in the early 20th century, and became a school teacher. When Selig was only three, Marie began taking him and his older brother, Jerry, to Borchert Field, where the minor league Milwaukee Brewers played. When the Boston Braves relocated to Milwaukee in 1953, Selig switched allegiances, and eventually became the team's largest public stockholder. Selig was devastated when he learned that the Braves were going to leave Milwaukee in favor of Atlanta. In 1965, when the Braves left Milwaukee, he divested his stock in the team. As a youngster, Selig's favorite player was Hershel Martin. He developed a friendship with Hank Aaron, when the young player joined the Braves. The elder Selig's company provided loaner cars to Braves players, which gave the family access to the clubhouse and players. The pair later attended Green Bay Packers games together and sat together on the team plane.


title: Bud Selig

text: As a minority owner of the Milwaukee Braves, Selig founded the organization Teams, Inc., in an attempt to prevent the majority owners (based out of Chicago) from moving the club to a larger television market. This was challenged legally on the basis that no prior team relocations (in the modern era) left a city without a team. Prior movements had all originated in cities that were home to at least two teams. When his quest to keep the team in Milwaukee finally failed after the 1965 season, he changed the group's name to Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc., after the minor league baseball team he grew up watching, and devoted himself to returning Major League Baseball to Milwaukee.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig arranged for major league games to be played at Milwaukee County Stadium. The first, a pre-season match-up between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins, drew more than 51,000 spectators. Selig followed this up by hosting nine White Sox regular-season games in 1968 and eleven in 1969. One of the games played in Milwaukee that year was against the expansion Seattle Pilots, the team that would become the Brewers. Those Milwaukee "home" games were phenomenally successful, with the handful of games accounting for about "one-third" of total White Sox home attendance.


title: Bud Selig

text: To satisfy that fan base, Selig decided to purchase the White Sox (with the intention of moving them to Milwaukee) in 1969. He entered into an agreement to buy the club, but the American League vetoed the sale, preferring to keep an American League team in Chicago, which at the time was still America's second-largest city. Selig turned his attention to other franchises.


title: Bud Selig

text: In 1970, he purchased the bankrupt Seattle Pilots franchise, moving them to his hometown and officially renaming the team the "Brewers".


title: Bud Selig

text: During Selig's tenure as club president, the Brewers participated in postseason play in 1981, when the team finished first in the American League East during the second half of the season, and in 1982, when the team made it to the World Series, under the leadership of future Hall of Famers Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. Under Selig's watch, the Brewers also won seven Organization of the Year awards. Selig was part of the owners' collusion in 1985–1987, resulting in the owners paying US$280 million in damages to the players.


title: Bud Selig

text: Upon his assumption of the commissioner's role, Selig transferred his ownership interest in the Brewers to his daughter Wendy Selig-Prieb in order to remove any technical conflicts of interest, though it was widely presumed he maintained some hand in team operations. Although the team was sold to Los Angeles investor Mark Attanasio in 2005, questions remain regarding Selig's past involvement. Selig's defenders point to the poor management of the team after Selig-Prieb took control as proof that Selig was not working behind the scenes.


title: Bud Selig

text: On August 24, 2010, a statue of Selig, the "Selig Monument", commissioned by Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and designed by artist Brian Maughan, was unveiled outside Miller Park in Milwaukee.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig became an increasingly vocal opponent of Commissioner Fay Vincent, and soon became the leader of a group of owners seeking his removal. Selig has never stated that the owners colluded, while Vincent has:


title: Bud Selig

text: Following an 18-9 no-confidence vote, Vincent resigned. Selig had by this time become chairman of the Executive Council of Major League Baseball, and as such became de facto acting commissioner.


title: Bud Selig

text: His first major act was to institute the Wild Card and divisional playoff play, which has created much controversy amongst baseball fans. Those against the Wild Card see it as diminishing the importance of the pennant race and the regular season, with the true race often being for second rather than first place, while those in favor of it view it as an opportunity for teams to have a shot at the playoffs even when they have no chance of a first-place finish in their division, thus maintaining fan interest later in the season.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig suspended Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott for a year in 1993 for repeated racially insensitive and prejudicial remarks and actions. The same year, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was reinstated from a lifelong suspension that was instituted by Selig's predecessor Fay Vincent. Pete Rose has claimed that he applied for reinstatement over the years and received no such consideration. Rose, along with his close friend and former teammate Mike Schmidt (who is a strong supporter of Rose's reinstatement into baseball), met with Selig in 2002, where Rose privately admitted to Selig (two years before going public with his admission) about betting on baseball. Bud Selig was a close friend of the late Bart Giamatti, who was the commissioner when Rose was first banned from the sport in 1989.


title: Bud Selig

text: As acting commissioner, Selig represented MLB during the 1994 players strike and cancelled the World Series, marking the first time the annual event had not been staged since 1904.


title: Bud Selig

text: After a six-year search for a new commissioner, the owners voted to give Selig the title on a permanent basis midway through the 1998 season.


title: Bud Selig

text: During his tenure the game avoided a third work stoppage in 2002, and has seen the implementation of interleague play.


title: Bud Selig

text: Whereas in the past, the National and American leagues had separate administrative organizations (which, for example, allowed for the introduction of different rules such as the designated hitter), under Selig, Major League Baseball consolidated the administrative functions of both leagues into the Commissioner's Office in 2000. The last official presidents of the NL and AL were Leonard S. Coleman Jr. and Dr. Gene Budig respectively.


title: Bud Selig

text: On September 11, 2001, Selig ordered all baseball games postponed for a week because of the terror attacks on New York and Washington. The games were postponed not only out of respect and mourning for the victims, but also out of concern for the safety and security of fans and players.


title: Bud Selig

text: After the conclusion of the 2001 World Series, Selig held a vote on contracting two teams, reportedly the Minnesota Twins and Montreal Expos. This action led to Selig (along with former Expos owner Jeffrey Loria) being sued for racketeering and conspiring with Loria to deliberately defraud the Expos minority owners. If found liable, the league could have been ordered to pay as much as $500 million in total damages. The judge ruled that the Expos could not be moved or contracted until the case was over. The case eventually went to arbitration and was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.


title: Bud Selig

text: A week after Selig's announcement, Hennepin County Judge Harry Seymour Crump issued a temporary restraining order that forced the Twins to honor their lease and play the 2002 season at the Metrodome. In August 2002, the effort to contract the Twins officially fizzled as players and owners reached a consensus on a new labor agreement which extended the team's Metrodome lease.


title: Bud Selig

text: The 2002 All-Star Game, played in Selig's hometown of Milwaukee, was tied 7–7 after nine innings, and remained tied after the bottom of the 11th inning. Due to the recent managerial trend of granting playing time to as many available players as possible within the regulation nine innings, both managers had used their entire roster. Concerned for the arms of the pitchers currently on the mound, Selig made the controversial decision to declare the game a tie, to the dissatisfaction of the Milwaukee fans. Selig later said that this call was "embarrassing" and that he was "tremendously saddened" by the outcome of the game.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig subsequently tried to reinvigorate the All-Star Game by awarding the winning league home-field advantage in the World Series; that practice was initiated in 2003 and continued through 2016. The 2003 All-Star Game had the same U.S. viewership as 2002 (9.5 rating; 17 share) and the ratings declined in 2004 (8.8 rating; 15 share) and 2005 (8.1 rating; 14 share). The American television audience increased in 2006 (9.3 rating; 16 share).


title: Bud Selig

text: On July 1, 2005, Selig suspended Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers for 20 games and fined him US$50,000. The punishment stemmed from an incident on June 29, 2005 during a Rangers pre-game warmup session, where Rogers had shoved two local news reporters and knocked one camera to the ground. One of the reporters resumed filming after picking up said camera, which angered Rogers into shoving him again, after grabbing and throwing the camera to the ground, kicking it. He was then led away by a teammate and later sent home by the Club. While an appeal of his suspension was pending, Rogers appeared at the 2005 All-Star Game in Detroit, where fans loudly booed him. On July 22, 2005, Selig heard Rogers' appeal of his suspension. Selig decided to uphold the 20 games, however, an independent arbitrator ruled that Selig had exceeded his authority and reduced it to 13 games, but upheld the fine.


title: Bud Selig

text: In 2005, Selig faced Congress on the issue of steroids. After the Congressional hearings in early 2005, and with the scrutiny of the sports and national media upon this issue, Selig put forth a proposal for a stricter performance-enhancing drug testing regime to replace the current system. This proposal also included the banning of amphetamines, a first for the major North American sports leagues. The MLB Players Association and MLB reached an agreement in November on the new policy.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig's testimony on the subject has been contradictory. In 2005, Selig told reporters, "I never even heard about them [steroids] until 1998 or 1999. I ran a team and nobody was closer to their players and I never heard any comment from them. It wasn't until 1998 or '99 that I heard the discussion." But a year later, testifying to Congress in 2006, Selig claimed personal credit for spotting the problem early: "In 1994, before anybody was really talking about steroids in baseball, we proposed a program of testing for such substances to the MLBPA. As early as 1998, I began formulating a strategic plan to eliminate the use of performance-enhancing substances from the game." During the 1988 ALCS, Oakland's Jose Canseco had been repeatedly taunted by Boston fans with a chant of "ster-oids, ster-oids, ster-oids." Speaking at the 2013 All-Star Game, Selig complained, "People say, 'Well, you were slow to react.' We were not slow to react. In fact, I heard that this morning, and it aggravated me all over again."


title: Bud Selig

text: By early 2006, Selig was forced to deal with the issue of steroid use. On March 30, 2006, as a response to the controversy of the use of performance-enhancing drugs and the anticipated career home run record to be set by Barry Bonds, Selig asked former U.S. Senator George J. Mitchell to lead an independent investigation into the use of steroids in baseball's recent past. Joe Sheehan from "Baseball Prospectus" wrote that the commission has been focusing "blame for the era exclusively on uniformed personnel", and failing to investigate any role played by team ownership and management.


title: Bud Selig

text: Much controversy surrounded Selig and his involvement in Bonds' all-time home run record chase. For months, speculation surrounded Selig and the possibility that he and Henry Aaron would not attend Bonds' games as he closed in on the record. Selig announced in July 2007 when Bonds was near 755 home runs that he would attend the games. Selig was in attendance for Bonds' record-tying home run against the San Diego Padres, sitting in Padres owner John Moores' private suite. When Bonds hit his 755th home run, Selig refused to applaud Bonds' accomplishment, instead choosing to keep his hands in his pockets and have a look of disdain on his face. Bud Selig also did not attend the San Francisco Giants' game on August 7 when Barry Bonds hit his record-breaking 756th home run against the Washington Nationals; after the event, Selig released a statement congratulating Bonds.


title: Bud Selig

text: On December 13, 2007, former senator Mitchell released his report on the use of performance-enhancing substances by MLB players. The report names many current and former players who allegedly used performance-enhancing drugs during their careers.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig has been widely criticized for not taking an active enough role to stem the tide of steroid use in baseball until it had blossomed into a debilitating problem for the industry. "Chicago Sun-Times" columnist Jay Mariotti called Selig the "Steroids Commissioner." Selig has been called to Congress several times to testify on performance-enhancing drug use. Congressman Cliff Stearns said in December 2007 that Selig should resign because of use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball during his tenure.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig's decision to extend the traditional post-season schedule into November in an attempt to increase Nielsen ratings was met with widespread disdain, both inside and outside the baseball community. Mike Scioscia, manager of the American League West Division Champion Los Angeles Angels, dismissed the decision as "Ridiculous. I don't know. Can I say it any clearer than that? We should have never had a day off last Wednesday. We should never have three days off after the season. You shouldn't even have two days off after the season."


title: Bud Selig

text: Related to the contraction controversy in 2001, Rob Dibble posted an open letter to Bud Selig, criticizing his actions for benefiting only the Milwaukee Brewers. Dibble cites that the contraction of the Twins would benefit the Brewers, as they would potentially claim the Twins' share of the upper Midwest market.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig has made some decisions involving the Houston Astros that were unpopular with their supporters. He ordered the roof at Minute Maid Park to be opened for games three and four of the 2005 World Series, pre-empting the authority held by the Astros. The roof was closed for all prior playoff games and similar weather conditions. For Hurricane Ike in 2008, Selig mandated that the Astros play two home games against the Chicago Cubs in his hometown of Milwaukee despite proximity to the visiting Cubs; the home ballparks for the Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves were both available to host the games. The Astros subsequently were victims of a no-hitter by Carlos Zambrano and recorded a single hit in the following game. In the midst of the playoff race, this decision and its impact deeply affected the playoff race and seedings with eight teams holding winning records at the moment. The Milwaukee Brewers benefited from these events by qualifying in the playoffs as a Wild Card team, only to lose in the NLDS to the Philadelphia Phillies, the eventual World Series winner. In 2011, Selig also demanded that the Astros move to the American League West as a condition of the sale of the franchise to businessman Jim Crane; the team switched leagues in 2013 in return for $70 million discount in the purchase price.


title: Bud Selig

text: United States bankruptcy judge Kevin Gross rendered a stern warning to Selig in regards to the 2011 Los Angeles Dodgers ownership dispute. Treating other teams differently in regards to their media contracts drew accusations that Selig did not act in good faith with respect to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Selig rejected the television deal that Frank McCourt negotiated that intended to bring the franchise out of bankruptcy, claiming McCourt violated the Baseball Agreement. In comparison, no action was taken against New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon despite being in a similar position. Gross stated, "Should the Commissioner falter in proving alleged wrongdoing, the Court may allow LAD (Los Angeles Dodgers) to take further, limited discovery." Some critics have used Selig's handling of the Dodgers to point out a double standard in treatment of MLB owners. More specifically in regards to the Mets, critics point out that with Selig's personal relationship with Wilpon has motivated him to stall any possible removal of Wilpon as that club's principal owner.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig also notably failed to resolve a 6-year conflict between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics regarding the Athletics' proposed move to San Jose. Selig established a blue-ribbon panel in 2009 to resolve the dispute; however, despite years to find a resolution, the blue-ribbon panel completely failed to make any progress toward resolving the issue, leading San Jose to sue MLB. The lawsuit, which is currently ongoing, questions the league's anti-trust exemption and its ability to enforce particular clubs' geographic territories.


title: Bud Selig

text: On December 1, 2006, Selig announced that he would be retiring as commissioner of baseball upon the expiration of his contract in 2009. Selig earned $14.5 million from MLB over the timespan October 31, 2005 to October 31, 2006. However, in January 2008, Selig agreed to a three-year contract extension, announcing he planned to retire after the 2012 season. He further decided against retirement, and after a two-year extension for the previous deal was agreed to on January 12, 2012, it was announced that Selig would remain commissioner until the end of the 2014 season.


title: Bud Selig

text: In 2021, Selig was appointed as "non-voting co-Chair" (with Jane Forbes Clark) for the December 2021 Early Baseball Era Committee meeting, to consider candidates for election to the Hall of Fame whose major contributions to the game took place prior to 1950. The committee elected Bud Fowler and Buck O'Neil.


title: Bud Selig

text: During Selig's terms as Executive Council Chairman (from 1992–1998) and Commissioner, new stadiums opened in Arizona, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado, Detroit, Houston, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York City (Flushing, Queens and the Bronx), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Arlington, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig and his family served a supportive role on the Advisory Board of the Israel Baseball League during its inaugural season in 2007. In response to issues with the league's financial management, after the season, the Selig family requested that their names be removed from the list of board members.


title: Bud Selig

text: In May 2015, the Milwaukee Brewers honored Bud Selig with the unveiling of the "Selig Experience" exhibit at American Family Field (formerly Miller Park.) The "Selig Experience" is a fifteen-minute documentary showing Bud Selig's life and work for the Milwaukee Brewers.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig has been married twice. He married his first wife, Donna Chaimson, in the 1950s, and they had two daughters: Sari (born 1957) and Wendy (born 1960). The couple divorced in 1976 after 19 years of marriage on the grounds that Selig had been "unduly absenting yourself from the home of the parties and isolating yourself ... in pursuit of your baseball interests to the detriment of your marriage." Chaimson later stated that


title: Bud Selig

text: the marriage ended because her husband "divorced me and married baseball." Since 1977, Selig has been married to the former Suzanne Steinman, who has a daughter from a previous marriage.


title: Bud Selig

text: In 2009, Selig began teaching as an adjunct professor of sports law and policy at Marquette University Law School. His classes have covered numerous topics, including "the history of collective bargaining and free agency, baseball's antitrust exemption, revenue sharing – as well as finer points of sports law like intellectual property rights, ambush marketing, and why baseball does not allow game footage on YouTube."


title: Bud Selig

text: In 2010, Selig endowed the Allan H. Selig Chair in the History of Sport and Society in the United States, as well as a Distinguished Lecture Series in Sport and Society at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The inaugural lecture was given by Adrian Burgos and Prof. Sean Dinces has held the Chair since 2013.


title: Bud Selig

text: Selig was awarded the U.S. Department of the Army Outstanding Civilian Service Award in April 2015 for supporting soldiers, veterans and their families through his work in Major League Baseball. On April 6, 2015, the Milwaukee Brewers retired uniform number 1 in his honor.


title: Bud Selig

text: On December 4, 2016, it was announced Selig was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2017.


title: Bud Selig

text: In 2016, Selig was honored with the "Lombardi Award of Excellence" from the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation. The award was created to honor Coach Lombardi's legacy, and is awarded annually to an individual who exemplifies the spirit of the Coach.


title: The Toyota Way

text: The Toyota Way is a set of principles defining the organizational culture of Toyota Motor Corporation. The company formalized the Toyota Way in 2001, after decades of academic research into the Toyota Production System and its implications for lean manufacturing as a methodology that could be adopted by other organizations. The two pillars of the Toyota Way are respect for people and continuous improvement. The philosophy was popularized by Jeffrey K. Liker in his 2004 book, "The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer." Subsequent research has explored the extent to which the Toyota Way can be applied in other contexts.


title: The Toyota Way

text: The principles were first collated into a single document in the company's pamphlet "The Toyota Way 2001", to help codify the company's organizational culture. The philosophy was subsequently analyzed in the 2004 book "The Toyota Way" by industrial engineering researcher Jeffrey Liker, and has received attention in the fields of business administration education and corporate governance.


title: The Toyota Way

text: The principles of the Toyota Way are divided into the two broad categories of continuous improvement and respect for human resources. The standards for constant improvement include directives to set up a long-term vision, to engage in a step-by-step approach to challenges, to search for the root causes of problems, and to engage in ongoing innovation. The standards pertaining to respect for individuals incorporate ways of building appreciation and cooperation.


title: The Toyota Way

text: In 2004, Jeffrey Liker, a University of Michigan professor of industrial engineering, published "The Toyota Way". In his book, Liker calls the Toyota Way "a system designed to provide the tools for people to continually improve their work." According to Liker, the 14 principles of The Toyota Way are organized into four sections: (1) long-term philosophy, (2) the right process will produce the right results, (3) add value to the organization by developing your people, and (4) continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning.


title: The Toyota Way

text: The first principle involves managing with a long view rather than for short-term gain. It reflects a belief that people need a purpose to find motivation and establish goals.


title: The Toyota Way

text: The next seven principles are focused on process with an eye towards a quality outcome. Following these principles, work processes are redesigned to eliminate waste (muda) through the process of continuous improvement — kaizen. The seven types of muda are (1) overproduction; (2) waiting, time on hand; (3) unnecessary transport or conveyance; (4) overprocessing or incorrect processing; (5) excess inventory; (6) motion; and (7) defects.


title: The Toyota Way

text: The principles in this section empower employees in spite of the bureaucratic processes of Toyota, as any employee in the Toyota Production System has the authority to stop production to signal a quality issue, emphasizing that quality takes precedence (Jidoka). The way the Toyota bureaucratic system is implemented allows for continuous improvement (kaizen) from the people affected by that system so that any employee may aid in the growth and improvement of the company.


title: The Toyota Way

text: Recognition of the value of employees is also part of the principle of measured production rate (heijunka), as a level workload helps avoid overburdening people and equipment (muri), but this is also intended to minimize waste (muda) and avoid uneven production levels (mura).


title: The Toyota Way

text: These principles are also designed to ensure that only essential materials are employed (to avoid overproduction), that the work environment is maintained efficiently (the 5S Program) to help people share workstations and to reduce time looking for needed tools, and that the technology used is reliable and thoroughly tested.


title: The Toyota Way

text: Human development is the focus of principles 9 through 11. Principle 9 emphasizes the need to ensure that leaders embrace and promote the corporate philosophy. This reflects, according to Liker, a belief that the principles have to be ingrained in employees to survive. The 10th principle emphasizes the need for individuals and work teams to embrace the company's philosophy, with teams of 4-5 people who are judged in success by their team achievements, rather than their individual efforts. Principle 11 looks to business partners, who are treated by Toyota much like they treat their employees. Toyota challenges them to do better and helps them achieve it, providing cross-functional teams to help suppliers discover and fix problems to become a stronger, better supplier.


title: The Toyota Way

text: The final principles embrace a philosophy of problem-solving that emphasizes thorough understanding, consensus-based solutions swiftly implemented and continual reflection (hansei) and improvement (kaizen). The 12th principle (Genchi Genbutsu) sets out the expectation that managers will personally evaluate operations so that they have a firsthand understanding of situations and problems. Principle 13 encourages thorough consideration of possible solutions through a consensus process, with rapid implementation of decisions once reached (nemawashi). The final principle requires that Toyota be a "learning organization", continually reflecting on its practices and striving for improvement. According to Liker, the process of becoming a learning organization involves criticizing every aspect of what one does.


title: The Toyota Way

text: There is a question of uptake of the principles now that Toyota has production operations in many different countries around the world. As a "New York Times" article notes, while the corporate culture may have been easily disseminated by word of mouth when Toyota manufacturing was only in Japan, with worldwide production, many different cultures must be taken into account. Concepts such as "mutual ownership of problems", or ""genchi genbutsu"", (solving problems at the source instead of behind desks), and the ""kaizen mind"", (an unending sense of crisis behind the company's constant drive to improve), may be unfamiliar to North Americans and people of other cultures. A recent increase in vehicle recalls may be due, in part, to "a failure by Toyota to spread its obsession for craftsmanship among its growing ranks of overseas factory workers and managers." Toyota is attempting to address these needs by establishing training institutes in the United States and in Thailand.


title: The Toyota Way

text: Toyota Way has been driven deeply into the psyche of employees at all levels that it has morphed from a strategy into an important element of the company's culture. According to Masaki Saruta, author of several books on Toyota, "the real Toyota Way is a culture of control." The Toyota Way rewards intense company loyalty that at the same time invariably reduces the voice of those who challenge authority. "The Toyota Way of constructive criticism to reach a better way of doing things 'is not always received in good spirit at home.'" The Toyota Way management approach at the automaker "worked until it didn't."


title: The Toyota Way

text: One consequence was when Toyota was given reports of sudden acceleration in its vehicles and the company faced a potential recall situation. There were questions if Toyota's crisis was caused by the company losing sight of its own principles. The Toyota Way, in this case, did not address the problem and provide direction on what the automaker would be doing, but managers instead protected the company and issued flat-out denials and placed the blame at others. The consequence of the automaker's actions led to the 2009–11 Toyota vehicle recalls. Although one of the Toyota Way principles is to "build a culture of stopping to fix problems to get quality right the first time," Akio Toyoda, President and CEO, stated during Congressional hearings that the reason for the problems was that his "company grew too fast." Toyota management had determined its goal was to become the world's largest automotive manufacturer. According to some management consultants, when the pursuit of growth took priority, the automaker "lost sight of the key values that gave it its reputation in the first place."


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The "Sonderkommando" photographs are four blurred photographs taken secretly in August 1944 inside the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. Along with a few photographs in the Auschwitz Album, they are the only ones known to exist of events around the gas chambers.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The images were taken within 15–30 minutes of each other by an inmate inside Auschwitz-Birkenau, the extermination camp within the Auschwitz complex. Usually named only as Alex, a Jewish prisoner from Greece, the photographer was a member of the "Sonderkommando", inmates forced to work in and around the gas chambers. Several sources identified him as Alberto Errera, a Greek naval officer. He took two shots from inside one of the gas chambers and two outside, shooting from the hip, unable to aim the camera with any precision. The Polish resistance smuggled the film out of the camp in a toothpaste tube.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The photographs were numbered 280–283 by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Nos. 280 and 281 show the cremation of corpses in a fire pit, shot through the black frame of the gas chamber's doorway or window. No. 282 shows a group of naked women just before they enter the gas chamber. No. 283 is an image of trees, the result of the photographer aiming too high.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The "Sonderkommando" ("special commandos") in Auschwitz were mostly Jewish inmates, and at one point a few Russian prisoners-of-war, who were forced to work in the crematoria. The crematoria contained the "Entkleidungskammer" (undressing rooms), gas chambers and furnaces. In the summer of 1944 the camp had up to 1,000 "Sonderkommando" working in four crematoria (nos. II-V), and a bunker with extra gas chambers, housed in a thatched brick building known as the "little white house".


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: After inmates had been "selected" as unfit for work by the SS, the "Sonderkommando" usually took them to the undressing room, then walked them to the gas chamber, telling them they were being taken to the bathing and disinfection room. To avoid panic, inmates were given a numbered hook for their belongings in the undressing room to make them believe they would be returning.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: Afterwards the "Sonderkommando" moved the bodies out of the gas chamber, removed gold fillings, false teeth, hair, jewellery and spectacles, and disposed of the corpses, at first in mass graves, and later in furnaces and fire pits. Then they cleaned the gas chamber for the next arrivals.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The photographer is usually named only as Alex, a Jewish inmate from Greece. Several sources have identified him as Alberto Errera, a Greek naval officer who was shot and killed after striking an SS officer. Errera's code name was Alekos Alexandridis. Other members of the "Sonderkommando" in the camp's crematorium V—Alter Fajnzylberg (also known as Stanisław Jankowski), brothers Shlomo and Josel Dragon, and —helped obtain and hide the camera, and acted as look-outs. Fajnzylberg, who had worked at crematorium V since July 1943, described how the photographs came to be taken:


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: On the day on which the pictures were taken ... we allocated tasks. Some of us were to guard the person taking the pictures. In other words, we were to keep a careful watch for the approach of anyone who did not know the secret, and above all for any SS men moving about in the area. At last the moment came. We all gathered at the western entrance leading from the outside to the gas-chamber of Crematorium V: we could not see any SS men in the watchtower overlooking the door from the barbed wire, nor near the place where the pictures were to be taken. Alex, the Greek Jew, quickly took out his camera, pointed it towards a heap of burning bodies, and pressed the shutter. This is why the photograph shows prisoners from the "Sonderkommando" working at the heap. One of the SS was standing beside them, but his back was turned towards the crematorium building. Another picture was taken from the other side of the building, where women and men were undressing among the trees. They were from a transport that was to be murdered in the gas-chamber of Crematorium V.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: Fajnzylberg recalled that the camera looked like a German Leica. Szmulewski had hidden it in a bucket, and stayed on the roof of the crematorium as a look-out while Alex shot the film. Fajnzylberg stressed that, although Alex had pressed the shutter, all five men had been present and had acted together. According to Szmulewski, speaking in 1987 to Jean-Claude Pressac, the four photographs were taken within 15–30 minutes of each other. But according to director , the shorter shadows of the deportees in the birch woods, located to the south-east of the shooting, and the light of August indicate that photos 283 and 282 were taken between 10 am and 11.30 am. The direction of the shadows in photos 280 and 281 of the cremation pits, taken in the West-South-West in relation to the shooting, and the August light, indicate that these photos were taken between 3 and 4 pm. This suggests that it is the same transport photographed before and after the same gassing. Taking into account the position of the trees in photo 282 compared to the aerial photos, and considering the testimony of Alter Fajnzylberg, who reports that this photo, as well as photo 283, was taken from the inside, the historian Igor Bartosik put forward the hypothesis that these photos were taken through the opening for pouring Zyklon B into the gas chamber, located at a height of 2 metres, given the large size of Errera.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The black frame of the gas chamber's window, or probably doorway, is visible in photographs 280 and 281. In photograph 281, a fragment of photograph 282 can be seen on the left, which means that the order in which the images were taken contradicts the numbering of the State Museum: the images of undressing in the birch woods precede the images of the cremation pits.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The film was smuggled out of the camp by the Polish underground, hidden inside a tube of toothpaste by Helena Dantón, who worked in the SS canteen. A note dated 4 September 1944 and signed "Stakło", written by political prisoners Józef Cyrankiewicz and Stanisław Kłodziński, was attached to the film. It asked that the photographs be sent to "Tell", Teresa Łasocka-Estreicher of the underground in Kraków:


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: Urgent. Send two metal rolls of film for 6x9 as fast as possible. Have possibility of taking photos. Sending you photos of Birkenau showing prisoners sent to gas chambers. One photo shows one of the stakes at which bodies were burned when the crematoria could not manage to burn all the bodies. The bodies in the foreground are waiting to be thrown into the fire. Another picture shows one of the places in the forest where people undress before 'showering'—as they were told—and then go to the gas-chambers. Send film roll as fast as you can. Send the enclosed photos to Tell—we think enlargements of the photos can be sent further.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: When the photographs were first distributed by the Polish resistance, they were cropped to focus on the figures, with the black frames in the two fire-pit images removed. Photography historian Janina Struk writes that Teresa Łasocka-Estreicher ("Tell" in the note from the camp) asked Polish photographer to make prints, and it is assumed that it was Mucha who decided to crop them.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: Some of the cropped images were published in 1945, attributed to the "Sonderkommando" member David Szmulewski, in a report on Auschwitz-Birkenau by Jan Sehn, a Polish judge. One was exhibited at Auschwitz in 1947, and others were published in 1958 in Warsaw in a book by Stanisław Wrzos-Glinka, Tadeusz Mazur and Jerzy Tomaszewski, "1939–1945: Cierpienie i walka narodu polskiego" (published in English as "1939–1945: We Have Not Forgotten"). Some of the figures had been retouched to make them clearer.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: Struk writes that, in 1960, Władyslaw Pytlik of the resistance movement in Brzeszcze offered testimony about his wartime experiences to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, and brought along three prints of the cropped photographs. It was only in 1985, after Pytlik died and his wife donated his photographs to the museum, including the uncropped versions, that the museum realized the prints they had seen before had been cropped.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: Commentators have argued that the cropping offers a distorted view of events, giving the impression that the photographer was able to use his camera openly. In fact he and the rest of the group placed themselves in great danger by taking the shots; in two of them, 282 and 283, it is clear that he was not even able to look through the lens. The art historian Georges Didi-Huberman argues that the cropping makes the photographs appear safe and erases the act of resistance and the phenomenology of the images, the process that "made them an event":


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The "mass of black" that surrounds the sight of the cadavers and the pits, this mass where "nothing is visible" gives in reality a "visual mark" that is just as valuable as all the rest of the exposed surface. That mass where nothing is visible is the space of the gas chamber: the "dark room" into which one had to retreat, to step back, in order to give light to the work of the "Sonderkommando" outside, above the pyres. That mass of black gives us the situation itself, the space of possibility, the condition of existence of the photographs themselves.


title: Sonderkommando photographs

text: The photographs were referred to in the 2015 Hungarian film "Son of Saul", and were analyzed in the 2021 French documentary "From Where They Stood."


title: Jérémy Doku

text: Jérémy Baffour Doku (born 27 May 2002) is a Belgian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Ligue 1 club Rennes and the Belgium national team.


title: Jérémy Doku

text: Doku began playing football at a young age in Antwerp for KVC Olympic Deurne and Tubantia Borgerhout, then he played for Beerschot. Later on, he moved to R.S.C. Anderlecht in 2012 at the age of 10. He made his professional debut with Anderlecht in a 4–2 Belgian First Division A loss to Sint-Truiden on 25 November 2018, at the age of 16.


title: Jérémy Doku

text: Doku was born in Belgium and is of Ghanaian descent. Doku represented the Belgium U17s at the 2018 UEFA European Under-17 Championship.


title: Jérémy Doku

text: He made his first appearance for the Belgian national team on 5 September 2020 against Denmark in the UEFA Nations League. Three days later, he scored his first goal for the Belgian national team in a 5–1 win against Iceland.


title: Jérémy Doku

text: In the UEFA Euro 2020, held in June 2021, Doku was one of the substitutes for the Belgian national team in their group stage match against Denmark, and was included in the starting line-up for the subsequent game against Finland; he was again named to the starting 11 for Belgium's quarter-final loss against Italy.


title: Jérémy Doku

text: In November 2022, Doku was called up to the Belgium squad that would compete for the 2022 FIFA World Cup held in Qatar by manager Roberto Martinez.


title: Great cormorant

text: The great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), known as the black shag in New Zealand and formerly also known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, and the large cormorant in India, is a widespread member of the cormorant family of seabirds. The genus name is Latinised Ancient Greek, from φαλακρός ("phalakros", "bald") and κόραξ ("korax", "raven"), and "carbo" is Latin for "charcoal".


title: Great cormorant

text: The long white-breasted cormorant "P. c. lucidus" found in sub-Saharan Africa, has a white neck and breast. It is often treated as a full species, "Phalacrocorax lucidus" (e.g. , ).


title: Great cormorant

text: In addition to the Australasian and African forms, "Phalacrocorax carbo novaehollandiae" and "P. c. lucidus" mentioned above, other geographically distinct subspecies are recognised, including "P. c. sinensis" (western Europe to east Asia), "P. c. maroccanus" (north-western Africa), and "P. c. hanedae" (Japan).


title: Great cormorant

text: In New Zealand, the subspecies "P. c. novaehollandiae" is known as the black shag or by its Māori name; "kawau". The syntype is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.


title: Great cormorant

text: The great cormorant is a large black bird, but there is a wide variation in size in the species' wide range. Weight is reported to vary from to . Males are typically larger and heavier than females, with the nominate race ("P. c. carbo") averaging about 10% larger in linear measurements than the smallest race in Europe ("P. c. sinensis"). The lightest average weights cited are in Germany ("P. c. sinensis"), where 36 males averaged and 17 females averaged . The highest come from Prince Edward Island in Canada ("P. c. carbo"), where 11 males averaged and 11 females averaged . Length can vary from and wingspan from . They are tied as the second largest extant species of cormorant after the flightless cormorant, with the Japanese cormorant averaging at a similar size. In bulk if not in linear dimensions, the Blue-eyed shag species complex of the Southern Oceans are scarcely smaller at average. It has a longish tail and yellow throat-patch. Adults have white patches on the thighs and on the throat in the breeding season. In European waters it can be distinguished from the common shag by its larger size, heavier build, thicker bill, lack of a crest and plumage without any green tinge. In eastern North America, it is similarly larger and bulkier than double-crested cormorant, and the latter species has more yellow on the throat and bill and lack the white thigh patches frequently seen on great cormorants. Great cormorants are mostly silent, but they make various guttural noises at their breeding colonies.


title: Great cormorant

text: A very rare variation of the great cormorant is caused by albinism. The "Phalacrocorax carbo" albino suffers from poor eyesight and/or hearing, thus it rarely manages to survive in the wild.


title: Great cormorant

text: This is a very common and widespread bird species. It feeds on the sea, in estuaries, and on freshwater lakes and rivers. Northern birds migrate south and winter along any coast that is well-supplied with fish.


title: Great cormorant

text: In Serbia, the cormorant lives in Vojvodina. However, after 1945 many artificial lakes were formed in Serbia; some of them became potential habitats for cormorants. Currently, on the Lake Ćelije, formed in 1980, there is a resident colony of cormorants, who nest there and are present throughout the year, except January–February 1985 and February 2012 when the lake surface was completely frozen.


title: Great cormorant

text: The type subspecies, "P. c. carbo", is found mainly in Atlantic waters and nearby inland areas: on western European coasts and east across the Palearctic to Siberia and to North Africa, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland; and on the eastern seaboard of North America. The subspecies "P. c. novaehollandiae" is found in Australian waters.


title: Great cormorant

text: The great cormorant often nests in colonies near wetlands, rivers, and sheltered inshore waters. Pairs will use the same nest site to breed year after year. It builds its nest, which is made from sticks, in trees, on the ledges of cliffs, and on the ground on rocky islands that are free of predators.


title: Great cormorant

text: This cormorant lays a clutch of three to five eggs that measure on average. The eggs are a pale blue or green, and sometimes have a white chalky layer covering them. These eggs are incubated for a period of about 28 to 31 days.


title: Great cormorant

text: The great cormorant feeds on fish caught through diving. This bird feeds primarily on wrasses, but it also takes sand smelt, flathead and common soles. The average weight of fish taken by great cormorants increased with decreasing air and water temperature, being 30 g during summer, 109 g during a warm winter and 157 g during the cold winter (all values for non-breeding birds). Cormorants consume all fish of appropriate size that they are able to catch in summer and noticeably select for larger, mostly torpedo-shaped fish in winter. Thus, the winter elevation of foraging efficiency described for cormorants by various researchers is due to capturing larger fish not due to capturing more fish. In some freshwater systems, the losses of fish due to overwintering great cormorants were estimated to be up to 80 kg per ha each year (e.g. Vltava River, Czech Republic).


title: Great cormorant

text: This cormorant forages by diving and capturing its prey in its beak. The duration of its dives is around 28 seconds, with the bird diving to depths of about . About 60% of dives are to the benthic zone and about 10% are to the pelagic zone, with the rest of the dives being to zones in between the two. Studies suggest that their hearing has evolved for underwater usage, possibly aiding their detection of fish. These adaptations also have a cost on their hearing ability in air which is of lowered sensitivity.


title: Great cormorant

text: Many fishermen see in the great cormorant a competitor for fish. Because of this, it was hunted nearly to extinction in the past. Due to conservation efforts, its numbers increased. At the moment, there are about 1.2 million birds in Europe (based on winter counts; late summer counts would show higher numbers). Increasing populations have once again brought the cormorant into conflict with fisheries. For example, in Britain, where inland breeding was once uncommon, there are now increasing numbers of birds breeding inland, and many inland fish farms and fisheries now claim to be suffering high losses due to these birds. In the UK each year, some licences are issued to cull specified numbers of cormorants in order to help reduce predation; it is, however, still illegal to kill a bird without such a licence.


title: Great cormorant

text: Cormorant fishing is practised in China, Japan, and elsewhere around the globe. In this practice, fishermen tie a line around the throats of cormorants, tight enough to prevent swallowing the larger fish they catch, and deploy them from small boats. The cormorants catch fish without being able to fully swallow them, and the fishermen are able to retrieve the fish simply by forcing open the cormorants' mouths, apparently engaging the regurgitation reflex.


title: Great cormorant

text: In Norway, the cormorant is a traditional game bird. Each year approximately 10,000 cormorants are shot to be eaten. In North Norway, cormorants are traditionally seen as semi-sacred. It is regarded as good luck to have cormorants gather near your village or settlement. An old legend states that for people who die far out at sea, whose bodies are never recovered, spend eternity on the island Utrøst – which can only occasionally be found by mortals. The inhabitants of Utrøst can only visit their homes in the shape of cormorants.


title: AmeriCorps

text: AmeriCorps (officially the Corporation for National and Community Service or CNCS) is an independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in service through a variety of stipended volunteer work programs in many sectors. These programs include AmeriCorps VISTA, AmeriCorps NCCC, AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps Seniors, the Volunteer Generation Fund, and other national service initiatives. The agency's mission is "to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering." It was created by the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993. In September 2020, the agency rebranded itself as AmeriCorps, although its official name is unchanged.


title: AmeriCorps

text: AmeriCorps delivers several programs designed to help communities address poverty, the environment, education, and other unmet human needs. The programs include:


title: AmeriCorps

text: AmeriCorps VISTA, or Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), was founded in 1965 as a domestic version of the Peace Corps. The program was incorporated into AmeriCorps and renamed AmeriCorps*VISTA to create AmeriCorps in 1993. VISTA provides full-time members to nonprofit, faith-based and other community organizations, and public agency to create and expand programs that ultimately bring low-income individuals and communities out of poverty. There are currently over 5,000 VISTA members serving in 1,200 VISTA programs nationwide.


title: AmeriCorps

text: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."


title: AmeriCorps

text: AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) is a full-time, residential team-based program for men and women ages 18–26. Members serve at one of four regional campuses located throughout the United States (Vicksburg, Mississippi; Vinton, Iowa; Aurora/Denver, Colorado; and Sacramento, California). Each campus focuses efforts on states within its region but may travel to other areas in response to national crises. Former campuses were located in Washington, DC; Charleston, South Carolina; San Diego, California; Baltimore, Maryland; and Perry Point, Maryland.


title: AmeriCorps

text: AmeriCorps State and National is the largest of the AmeriCorps programs, and provides grants to local and national organizations and agencies, including faith-based and community organizations, higher education institutions, and public agencies. Public Land Corps programs and Urban Youth Corps are specifically authorized for funding. The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act authorizes Education Corps, Health Futures Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps, and Opportunity Corps programs as qualifying for AmeriCorps programs. Grants assist these groups in recruiting, training and placing AmeriCorps members to meet critical community needs in education, public safety, health, and the environment. AmeriCorps State operates through Service Commissions in each state, such as Volunteer Florida and the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service; South Dakota is the only state without a Service Commission. Each state's Service Commission dispenses funding from AmeriCorps to organizations in their states through annual grant competitions. Since the program's inception, thousands of organizations across the nation have been awarded AmeriCorps State and National grants.


title: AmeriCorps

text: AmeriCorps State and National members engage in direct service activities, such as after-school tutoring or homebuilding, and capacity-building activities, such as volunteer recruitment, for the organizations they serve. After successfully completing their term of service, AmeriCorps State and National members may be eligible for an Education Award of up to $6,095 or equal to the full Pell Grant for the year in which service was approved. The Education Award can pay for additional college or graduate school courses, or it can pay off existing student loans. Full-time members typically complete 1,700 hours of service over 11 months; they also receive a living allowance, health benefits, and child care assistance during their term.


title: AmeriCorps

text: The AmeriCorps Seniors umbrella includes three programs that engage seniors aged 55+ in volunteerism: the Foster Grandparents program, through which volunteers teach and mentor children; Senior Companions, through which volunteers help older adults live independently in their homes; and RSVP, through which volunteers can serve in a variety of roles to meet their communities' needs.