title: Diprotodontia

text: Living diprotodonts are almost all herbivores, as were most of those that are now extinct. A few insectivorous and omnivorous diprotodonts are known, and the Potoridae are almost unique among vertebrates in being largely fungivorous, but these seem to have arisen as relatively recent adaptations from the mainstream herbivorous lifestyle. The extinct thylacoleonids ("marsupial lions") are the only known group to have exhibited carnivory on a large scale.


title: Diprotodontia

text: Diprotodonts are restricted to Australasia. The earliest known fossils date to the late Oligocene, but their genesis certainly lies earlier than this, as large gaps occur in Australia's fossil record, with virtually no fossil record at all in geologically active New Guinea. The great diversity of known Oligocene diprotodonts suggests the order began to diverge well beforehand.


title: Diprotodontia

text: Many of the largest and least athletic diprotodonts (along with a wide range of other Australian megafauna) became extinct when humans first arrived in Australia about 50,000 years ago. Their extinction possibly occurred as a direct result of hunting, but was more probably a result of widespread habitat changes brought about by human activities—notably the use of fire.


title: Diprotodontia

text: Two key anatomical features, in combination, identify Diprotodontia. Members of the order are, first, "diprotodont" (meaning "two front teeth"): they have a pair of large, procumbent incisors on the lower jaw, a common feature of many early groups of mammals and mammaliforms. The diprotodont jaw is short, usually with three pairs of upper incisors (wombats, like rodents have only one pair), and no lower canines. The second trait distinguishing diprotodonts is "syndactyly", a fusing of the second and third digits of the foot up to the base of the claws, which leaves the claws themselves separate. Digit five is usually absent, and digit four is often greatly enlarged.


title: Diprotodontia

text: Syndactyly is not particularly common (though the Australian omnivorous marsupials share it) and is generally posited as an adaptation to assist in climbing. Many modern diprotodonts, however, are strictly terrestrial, and have evolved further adaptations to their feet to better suit this lifestyle. This makes the history of the tree-kangaroos particularly convoluted: it appears that the animals were arboreal at some time in the far distant past, moving afterward to the ground—gaining long kangaroo-like feet in the process — before returning to the trees, where they further developed a shortening and broadening of the hind feet and a novel climbing method.


title: Diprotodontia

text: The earliest known fossil of Diprotodontia dates back to the Late Oligocene (23.03 - 28.4 million years ago), and the earliest identifiable species is "Hypsiprymnodon bartholomaii" from the Early Miocene.


title: Diprotodontia

text: In 2020 fossils of "Mukupirna", meaning big bones, was found. This is thought to be the ancestor of the Vombatiformes.


title: Diprotodontia

text: Until recently, only two suborders in Diprotodontia were noted: Vombatiformes which encompassed the wombats and koala and Phalangerida which contained all other families. Kirsch et al. (1997) split the families into three suborders. In addition, the six Phalangeriformes families are split into two superfamilies. The Macropodiformes are probably nested within the Phalangeriformes, though whether they are sister to Phalangeroidea or Petauroidea is debated.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: Noureddine "Nordin" Amrabat (, ; born 31 March 1987) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for Greek Super League club AEK Athens.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: Amrabat played for Dutch national youth teams and once was called up for the senior national side. On 1 October 2009, Amrabat announced his decision to play for Morocco, which he represented at two Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and the 2012 Olympics.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: Born in Naarden, North Holland, Amrabat was released from Ajax at age 13, having suffered stunted growth due to Osgood Schlatter disease. His father recommended Amrabat play at the amateur level while studying for a different profession. He washed dishes, made desserts and vacuum cleaned his school while playing for SV Huizen in Huizen. At age 17, he planned to study Management, Economics and Law.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: After making his study plans, Amrabat was signed by Almere's Omniworld of the Eerste Divisie, contributing 14 goals and as many assists in 36 matches. In 2007, he joined newly promoted Eredivisie club VVV-Venlo, scoring 10 times in 33 matches. One year later, national champions PSV signed him for €2 million, and he represented them in the UEFA Champions League. Amrabat spent three years at the Philips Stadion before moving abroad for the first time, to Turkey's Kayserispor.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: On 12 July 2012, Amrabat signed for fellow Turkish club Galatasaray for a fee of €8.6 million on a five-year contract (€600,000 went to PSV; Kayserispor retained 10%, valued at €800,000). Amrabat made his debut on 12 August 2012 in the 2012 Turkish Super Cup against rivals Fenerbahçe, coming on as a substitute in the 70th minute as the match ended 3–2, with Galatasaray winning the title for the 12th time. On 15 September 2012, Galatasaray manager Fatih Terim picked Amrabat for the starting XI for a match against Antalyaspor, and he duly scored his first goal for Galatasaray in the 2012–13 Süper Lig and provided an assist in a 4–0 triumph.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: In January 2014, Amrabat joined Málaga on a six-month loan deal. On 10 March, he scored his first goal for the club, in a 2–0 away win against Osasuna, and on 6 April, he converted a penalty in a 4–1 derby victory over Granada. Fifteen days later, having earlier assisted Sergi Darder's goal, he received a straight red card in a 2–0 home win against Villarreal for gesturing that referee Álvarez Izquierdo needed glasses.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: In August 2014, Amrabat agreed to extend his stay in Andalusia for the full season. On 30 April of the following year, he was purchased outright for a €3.5 million fee. His permanent spell on the Costa del Sol was less prolific than the temporary one, playing 12 matches without scoring.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: On 18 January 2016, Amrabat joined Premier League club Watford for a £6.1 million transfer fee. He made his debut five days later, replacing Troy Deeney at the end of a 2–1 win over Newcastle United at Vicarage Road.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: On 1 September 2017, Amrabat returned to Spain after agreeing to a one-year loan deal with CD Leganés.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: On 16 July 2018, Amrabat signed a three-year contract with the Saudi Pro League side Al-Nassr. In the 2018–19 season he won league title with his team. He scored 5 goals and he had the highest assist number in the season along with his teammate Abderrazak Hamdallah.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: On 12 September 2021, he scored a penalty to put his team 2 goals up against Ionikos, in the opening game of the League for his team which ended 3–0 for the hosts.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: Amrabat was expected to take part in the 2008 Olympic football tournament with the Netherlands but he and fellow PSV (and future Moroccan) teammate Ismaïl Aissati both failed to make the final squad.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: In November 2011, Amrabat decided to play for Morocco. On 11 November 2011, he made his debut with the "Atlas Lions of Morocco" against Uganda in a 0–1 loss in the LG Cup. Two days later, he scored his first international goal in a friendly match against Cameroon as the match ended 1–1.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: Amrabat was selected to compete at the 2012 Olympics for the Moroccan team, starting all three of their matches in another group stage exit. He also started their first two matches as they fell at the same point in the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: In May 2018, he was named in Morocco's 23-man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Amrabat started all 3 of Morocco's matches as they were eliminated at the Group Stage. The Moroccan coaching team were heavily criticised by FIFA and others after allowing Amrabat to play in Morocco's second group game against Portugal, despite having received a concussion and coming off early in their first game against Iran.


title: Nordin Amrabat

text: Amrabat's younger brother Sofyan is also a footballer, currently playing for Serie A club Fiorentina.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Paul Butler (born 11 November 1988) is an English professional boxer and two-time bantamweight world champion, having held the IBF title in 2014 and the WBO title in 2022. He also held multiple regional titles, including the British and Commonwealth super-flyweight titles in 2012 and 2013, respectively.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler won the 2010 Amateur Boxing Association British flyweight title, when boxing out of the Vauxhall Motors ABC.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler made his professional debut against Anwar Alfadi on 11 December 2010. He won the fight on points, after four rounds were contested. Butler amassed an 8–0 record during the next 23 months, with three of those victories coming by way of stoppage.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler faced John Donnelly for the vacant British super-flyweight title on 9 November 2012 at the Liverpool Olympia in Liverpool, England. Butler won the BoxNation broadcast bout by a first–round knockout. He floored Donnelly with a strike to the ribs after just 59 seconds, which left Donnelly unable to rise in time for the ten–count. During the post–fight drug test, Donnelly tested positive for benzoylecgonine.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Following a fourth–round technical knockout of Anwar Alfadi on 21 March 2013, Butler challenged Yaqub Kareem for the Commonwealth super-flyweight title on 20 April 2013, at the Wembley Arena in London, England. He won the fight by a fifth–round technical–knockout. Butler made his first and only Commonwealth title defense against Najah Ali on 28 June 2013. He won the fight by a fourth–round knockout.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler faced Miguel González for the vacant WBO Inter-Continental super-flyweight title on 21 September 2013. He won the fight by a dominant unanimous decision, with scores of 117–112, 119–110 and 120–108. Butler made the first defense of his secondary title defense against Ruben Montoya on 7 December 2013, with the vacant WBA Inter-Continental super-flyweight title being on the line as well. He once again won by unanimous decision, with scores of 120–108, 120–109 and 118–110.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler moved up to bantamweight for his next bout against Oreste Bernabe Nieva, which took place on 8 March 2014, with the vacant WBA Inter-Continental bantamweight title being on the line. He won the fight by a fourth–round knockout.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler was scheduled to challenge the reigning IBF bantamweight champion Stuart Hall, in the latter's second title defense. The bout was scheduled for 7 June 2014, and took place at the Utilita Arena Newcastle in Newcastle, England, the champion's hometown. The bout was broadcast by BoxNation. Butler won the fight by split decision. Two judges scored the fight 117–111 and 115–113 for Butler, while the third judge scored it 115–113 for Hall. Butler had a slow start to fight, but appeared to take over as the fight progressed.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler faced Ismael Garnica in a non–title bout on 25 October 2014, at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, England. He dominated the fight from start to finish, and won by unanimous decision, with all three judges awarding him every single round of the bout. Following his victory against Garnica, Butler relinquished the IBF bantamweight title, in order to compete against fighters with whom he had size parity, stating "...I’m a natural 115 pounder".


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: After vacating the IBF bantamweight title, Butler moved back down to super–flyweight in order to challenge the reigning IBF super-flyweight champion Zolani Tete. The title bout was scheduled as the main event of a BoxNation broadcast card, which was held on 6 March 2015. Tete won the fight by an eight–round technical knockout. He floored Butler with two consecutive left uppercuts, which left the challenger unable to rise from the canvas in time to beat the ten count.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: After suffering the first loss of his professional career, Butler jumped up in weight to super-bantamweight, in order to face Gustavo Molina on 11 July 2015. He won the fight by a fifth-round technical knockout. After successfully bouncing back from his loss to Tete, Butler returned to super-flyweight to face Hector Rolando Gusman on 3 October 2015. He won the fight by a first-round knockout, stopping Gusman with a body shot just thirty seconds into the bout.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler faced Silviu Olteanu for the vacant WBO European super-flyweight title on 19 December 2015. He won the fight by an eight-round technical knockout, stopping the Romanian with a well place hook to the body. Butler next faced Sebastian Sanchez for the vacant WBO International super-flyweight title on 12 March 2016. He won the fight by a ninth-round knockout.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler faced Alexis Ruiz on 22 October 2016, in his return to bantamweight. He won the fight on points.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler notched his second ever stoppage victory at bantamweight against Ruben Dario Ruiz on 8 April 2017, as he knocked Ruiz out in the fourth round.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler faced Stuart Hall for the vacant WBA Continental bantamweight title on 17 September 2017. He won the fight by unanimous decision, with scores of 118-110, 118-110 and 117-111.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler was scheduled face the undefeated Emmanuel Rodríguez for the vacant IBF bantamweight title on 5 May 2018, at The O2 Arena, on the undercard of the Tony Bellew and David Haye cruiserweight rematch. Rodriguez was ranked #3 by the IBF at bantamweight at the time. Butler missed weight prior to the bout, which left him ineligible to win the vacant belt. He weighed in at 121.5 pounds, 3.5 pounds over the championship limit. Butler furthermore refused to weigh himself in a second attempt. Rodríguez won the fight by a dominant unanimous decision, with scores of 118-108, 120-106, 120-106. Butler was knocked down twice in the final minute of the first round, and failed to achieve much headway during the remaining eleven rounds.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler returned to action six months later, on 3 November 2018, to face Yoan Boyeaux. He won the fight on points.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler notched his first bantamweight stoppage victory in two years on 18 May 2019, knocking Salvador Hernandez Sanchez out in the sixth-round.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler was expected to face Joseph Agbeko for the vacant WBO International bantamweight title on 25 June 2021. Agbeko was forced to withdraw from the bout due to visa issues, and was replaced by Willibaldo Garcia. Butler won the fight by split decision, with scores of 96-94, 97-92 and 94-95.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: Butler was booked to fight Jonas Sultan on 22 April 2022, at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England for the vacant WBO interim bantamweight title. Butler was originally scheduled to challenge WBO bantamweight champion John Riel Casimero in 11 December 2021 and 22 April 2022, before Casimero withdrew before the weigh-ins due to gastritis, and not being permitted by British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) due to medical guidelines violation, respectively. Sultan was ranked #10 by The Ring, #4 by the WBA, #4 by the WBO and #12 by the IBF at bantamweight. Butler captured the vacant title by unanimous decision, with scores of 116–112, 117–111 and 117–111, utilizing out-fighting tactics to control the fight for the majority of the bout. On May 4, the WBO officially stripped Casimero of the full title and elevated Butler from interim to full champion.


title: Paul Butler (boxer)

text: On 25 August 2022, it was announced that Butler would face undefeated WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, and "The Ring" bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue in a title unification bout. It took place on 13 December 2022, at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan, and was broadcast by Amazon Prime domestically and by ESPN+ in the United States. It was Butler's first fight outside of the United Kingdom. He lost the fight by 11th round KO.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Anti-LGBT rhetoric comprises themes, catchphrases, and slogans that have been used against homosexuality or other non-heterosexual sexual orientations in order to demean lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. They range from the demeaning and the pejorative to expressions of hostility towards homosexuality which are based on religious, medical, or moral grounds. It is a form of hate speech, which is illegal in countries such as the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Anti-LGBT rhetoric often consists of moral panic and conspiracy theories. In Eastern Europe, these conspiracy theories are based on earlier antisemitic conspiracy theories and posit that the LGBT movement is an instrument of foreign control and domination.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In 1969, the Greek junta exited the Council of Europe after being found in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights, judging that the European Commission of Human Rights was "a conspiracy of homosexuals and communists against Hellenic values".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: This discourse, promoted by the governments of Hungary and Poland, alleges that LGBT rights movements are controlled by foreign forces (such as the European Union) and are a threat to national independence and western civilization. Anti-government protests in Russia and the Euromaidan have also been portrayed by the Russian government as the work of a LGBT conspiracy. Furthermore, although Russia considers itself to be a European country, its values are entirely different than those commonly seen within the European Union. More specifically, Russia used to protest against the common European Values in support of LGBT rights, however rather than complaining about these values, Russia has now chosen to openly express their own values, which are entirely against any support for LGBT rights.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In 2013, Alex Aradanas published some articles in the right-wing website "American Thinker" which discussed "LGBT ideology", for instance, "to affirm LGBT ideology is to support abuse". The Italian Catholic philosopher also used the phrase in a 2015 article, equating it with the earlier concept of "gender ideology". In his article he does not define either "LGBT ideology" or "gender ideology". In 2017, several conservative Islamic politicians in Malaysia and Indonesia attacked "LGBT ideology".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: During a sermon on 1 August 2019, Polish Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski called "LGBT ideology" a "rainbow plague" and compared it to the "Red Plague" of Communism. Following this, the Czech cardinal Dominik Duka also commented on "LGBT ideology". However, because Czech society is secular and the Catholic Church has little influence on Czech politics, his comments had little impact. In September 2019, Stanley Bill, a lecturer at Cambridge University who studies Poland, stated "Scaremongering about 'LGBT ideology' has almost become official policy in Poland with often nasty insinuations from members of the government and public media now the norm".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In June 2020, Polish President Andrzej Duda drew international attention when he called LGBT an "ideology" and a form of "Neo-Bolshevism". Agreement party MP Jacek Żalek stated in an interview that the LGBT community "are not people" and "it's an ideology", which led to the journalist asking him to leave the studio; the row caused controversy. The next day, Duda said at a rally in Silesia: "They are trying to convince us that [LGBT] is people, but it is just an ideology." He promised to "ban the propagation of LGBT ideology in public institutions", including schools, similar to the Russian gay propaganda law. On the same day, PiS MP Przemysław Czarnek said on a TVP Info talk show, regarding a photo of a naked person in a gay bar, "Let's defend ourselves against LGBT ideology and stop listening to those idiocies about human rights or equality. These people are not equal to normal people."


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In July 2020, the European Union announced that it will not provide funding to six Polish towns that have declared themselves 'LGBT-free zones', after nearly 100 local governments, a third of Poland's territory, declared themselves "free from LGBT ideology." On 1 August 2020, the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, ultranationalist Robert Winnicki compared LGBT to communist and Nazi ideology. He stated, "Every plague passes at some point. The German plague passed, which was consuming Poland for six years, the red plague passed, the rainbow plague is also going to pass." In August 2020, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro announced a new program for "counteracting crimes related to the violation of freedom of conscience committed under the influence of LGBT ideology". From a government fund intended to help victims of crime, PLN 613,698 was awarded to a foundation to combat the alleged crimes of "LGBT ideology". The project, among other things, explores a supposed connection between LGBT ideology and the Frankfurt School. At the 16 August "Stop LGBT aggression" rally that year, Krzysztof Bosak said that even irreligious people are among opponents of "LGBT ideology" because it is "contrary to common sense and rational thinking". He also said that the LGBT community is "a lower form of social life".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: According to "Krakow Post", a Polish newspaper, "LGBT is not an ideology... The phrase 'LGBT ideology' makes about as much sense as 'redhead ideology' or 'left-handed ideology.'" While the support of many LGBT people and their allies improved LGBT rights, they have differing political views. According to Notes from Poland, "attacks on 'LGBT ideology' – which often rely on exaggerated, distorted or invented claims – result in the marginalisation and demonisation of such people." Center-right presidential candidate Szymon Hołownia, who is a practicing Catholic, stated, "there is no such thing as LGBT ideology, there are [LGBT] people". He said that anti-LGBT rhetoric from politicians could lead vulnerable people to suicide. In protest at the comments made by the president and Żalek, LGBT people have held pickets in various towns and cities in Poland, opposing the idea that LGBT is an ideology. Activists also created a film, "Ludzie, nie ideologia" (People, not ideology) showcasing the families of LGBT people.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: An article in OKO.press compared the anti-LGBT campaign to the 1968 "anti-Zionist" campaign: during the anti-Zionist campaign, people said that they were targeting Zionism as an ideology, but ended up targeting Jews as people. Many Jews were forced out of the country in 1968, and LGBT people are emigrating from Poland in 2020. According to Polish historian Adam Leszczyński, "LGBT ideology" is


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Dehumanization is a frequent feature of anti-LGBT rhetoric, which may take the form of comparing LGBT people to animals or equating homosexual relationships with bestiality.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: According to one study, "homophobic epithets foster dehumanization and avoidance of gay people, in ways that other insults or labels do not." Another study found that homophobia "results in substantial health and welfare effects".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Anti-LGBT rhetoric also includes calls for violence against LGBT people and suggestions that they should be killed or die, such as in Cyprus, Iran, Russia, the United States, Malawi, or Uganda.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In Serbia, members of Obraz chanted "Death to faggots" () and posted posters stating "we are waiting for you" () next to an image of a baseball bat. In 2012, the organization was banned by the Constitutional Court of Serbia due to extremism.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Anti-gay activists claim that homosexuality goes against traditional family values, that homosexuality is a Trojan Horse, or that it destroys families and humankind through homosexual which will lead to the extinction of humanity.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The argument that homosexuals cause natural disasters has been around for more than a thousand years, even before Justinian blamed earthquakes on "unchecked homosexual behavior" in the sixth century. This trope was common in early modern Christian literature; homosexuals were blamed for earthquakes, floods, famines, plagues, invasions of Saracens, and field mice. This discourse was revived by Anita Bryant in 1976 when she blamed homosexuals for droughts in California. In the U.S., right-wing religious groups including the Westboro Baptist Church continue to claim that homosexuals are responsible for disasters. Homosexuals have been blamed for hurricanes, including Isaac, Katrina, and Sandy. In 2020, various religious figures including Israeli rabbi Meir Mazuz have argued that the COVID-19 pandemic is divine retribution for same-sex activity or pride parades.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Following the September 2001 attacks, televangelist Jerry Falwell blamed "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way" for provoking the aggression of Islamic fundamentalists and causing God to withdraw his protection for America. On the broadcast of the Christian television program "The 700 Club", Falwell said, "You helped this happen". He later apologized and said, "I would never blame any human being except the terrorists".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In 2012, Chilean politician Ignacio Urrutia claimed that allowing homosexuals to serve in the Chilean military would cause Perú and Bolivia to invade and destroy his country.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: An outgrowth of the discourse on homosexuality argues that HIV/AIDS is divine punishment for homosexuality. During the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, mainstream newspapers labeled it a "gay plague". For a few years the misleading technical name for the disease was gay-related immune deficiency.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" appeared during the early years of AIDS in the United States, when the disease was mainly diagnosed among male homosexuals and was almost invariably fatal. The slogan caught on quickly as a catchy truism, a chant, or simply something written as graffiti. It is reported that the slogan first appeared in public in the early 1990s, when Sebastian Bach, the former lead singer of the heavy metal band Skid Row, wore it on a t-shirt thrown to him by an audience member. The slogan "AIDS cures fags" is used by the Westboro Baptist Church.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Describing homosexuality as unnatural dates back to Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas. However, there is no single definition of "unnatural". Some of those who argue that homosexuality is unnatural in the sense of being absent from nature, an argument refuted by the presence of homosexuality in animals. Others mean that the genitals were created for reproduction (either by God or natural selection) and are not intended to be used for purposes they deem "unnatural". Proponents of this idea often argue that homosexuality is immoral because it is unnatural, but opponents argue that this argument makes an is–ought conflation. Some proponents of the "unnaturalness" thesis argue that homosexual behavior is the result of "" or willful sinfulness. However, if the causes of sexual orientation (still a matter of scientific debate) are biological, this undermines their argument to an extent.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Nazi propaganda described homosexuality as a contagious disease but not in the medical sense. Rather, homosexuality was a disease of the (national body), a metaphor for the desired national or racial community (). According to Nazi ideology, individuals' lives were to be subordinated to the like cells in the human body. Homosexuality was seen as a virus or cancer in the because it was seen as a threat to the German nation. The SS newspaper "Das Schwarze Korps" argued that 40,000 homosexuals were capable of "poisoning" two million men if left to roam free.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Some of those who called homosexuality , such as Traditional Values Coalition head and Christian right activist Louis Sheldon, said that if it were proven to be a biologically based phenomenon, it would still be diseased. The psychiatric establishment in the west once medicalized same-sex desire. In the United States, homosexuality was removed in 1973 as a mental disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as it did not meet the criteria for a mental disorder. The Catholic Church still officially teaches that "homosexual tendencies" are "objectively disordered". In 2016, anti-LGBT rhetoric was increasing in Indonesia under the Twitter hashtag #TolakLGBT (#RejectLGBT) and claims that LGBT is a disease. In 2019, Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski claimed that a "rainbow plague" is threatening Poland. In 2020, the education minister defended an official who warned that "LGBT virus" was threatening Polish schools, and was more dangerous than COVID-19.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Closely related to the idea of "homosexual recruitment" is the idea of a "gay lifestyle" or "homosexual lifestyle", which social and religious conservatives in the United States sometimes argue that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have chosen voluntarily rather than having a non-heterosexual sexual orientation.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: However, people typically feel no sense of control over their sexual orientation or attractions, and biological explanations for sexual orientation are favoured by scientists.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: US media in the 1970s frequently used the term "alternative lifestyle" as a euphemism for homosexuality, and the term was employed in an anti-gay context by opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as supporters of California's Proposition 6, which would have barred openly gay teachers in public schools.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Christian right activists may worry that increasing LGBT rights will make the "gay lifestyle" more attractive to young people.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: US president Ronald Reagan used the language of choice to portray the gay rights movement as being in opposition to American culture, saying the movement was "asking for a recognition and acceptance of an alternative lifestyle which I do not believe society can condone".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Many conservative Christians consider homosexual acts to be inherently sinful based on scriptural passages such as ("You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination"), ("If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them"), and 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 ("Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.") The story of Sodom and Gomorrah, two biblical cities which were burned down due to the sins of its inhabitants, is sometimes portrayed as divine retribution for homosexual behavior.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Various inflammatory and controversial slogans, including some listed in the next section, have been used by opponent congregations and individuals, particularly by Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church. These slogans have included "God Hates Fags", "Fear God Not Fags", and "Matthew Shepard Burns In Hell".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Homosexuality is also frequently considered sinful in Islam. In some Middle Eastern countries, acts of homosexuality are punishable by death. Anti-LGBT rhetoric and political homophobia are growing in some Muslim countries.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The slogan "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" alludes to a Bible-based argument that homosexuality is sinful and unnatural.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: A "Christianity Today" article in December 1970 reported on attitudes in San Francisco, quoting a graffiti that said, "If God had wanted homosexuals, he would have created Adam and Freddy." In 1977, in Dade County, Anita Bryant made a similar comment, only her version was "Adam and Bruce". By 1979, Jerry Falwell had used "Adam and Steve". In 1977, it was used on a protest sign, as mentioned in a "New York Times" news service report about a November 19 rally in Houston that year. The phrase was used in "The Gay Bar", an episode of "Maude" broadcast on December 3, 1977. Two years later, Jerry Falwell gave the phrase wider circulation in a "Christianity Today" report of a press conference he had given. The phrase later acquired a certain notoriety, and, when used to name a pair of characters in a work of fiction, helps to identify them as members of a homosexual pair (Paul Rudnick's play "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told", the 2005 film "Adam & Steve" and other works). The phrase was used by the Democratic Unionist Party MP David Simpson during the 2013 British House of Commons' debate on same-sex marriage, although a slip of the tongue saying "in the Garden of Eden, it was Adam and Steve" initially caused laughter in the chamber. Zimbabwean presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa said in an interview that "[w]e must be able to respect what God ordained and how we are created as a people, there are a male and a female, there are Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve". The phrase was also reclaimed by LGBT people and used in blogs, comics, and other media mocking the anti-gay message.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Homosexuality is sometimes claimed to be non-existent in some non-Western countries, or to be an evil influence imported from the West.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia employed anti-gay rhetoric as part of his "Asian values" program, describing homosexuality as one of several Western ills.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Mohamad used it for political advantage in the 1998 scandal involving the sacking and jailing of MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim by Mohamad amidst accusations of sodomy that the "Sydney Morning Herald" termed a "blatantly political fix-up". Anwar was subsequently subjected to two trials and sentenced to nine years imprisonment for corruption and sodomy.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: While in New York for a meeting of the United Nations, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at Columbia University in New York to give a lecture. When responding to a student question afterward, he said, speaking through an interpreter: "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country." In his native Farsi, he used the slang equivalent of "faggot", not the neutral term for a "homosexual".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Other countries and regions viewing homosexuality as a Western disease include Vietnam, China, Ethiopia, Africa, Australian Muslims, and India.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The claim that homosexuals sexually abuse children predates the current era, as it was leveled against pederasts even during antiquity. Lawmakers and social commentators have sometimes expressed a concern that normalizing homosexuality would also lead to normalizing pedophilia, if it were determined that pedophilia too were a sexual orientation. A related claim is that LGBT adoption is done for the purpose of grooming children for sexual exploitation. The empirical research shows that sexual orientation does not affect the likelihood that people will abuse children.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Others have made hoaxes intending to falsely associate pedophilia with the LGBT community by rebranding it as a sexual orientation, including claims that the "+" in "LGBT+" refers to "pedophiles, zoophiles, [and] necrophiles", as well as the invented terms "agefluid", "clovergender" (a hoax executed by users of the imageboard 4chan, whose logo is a stylized four-leaf clover), and "pedosexual".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Starting in 2022, some conservatives started using the terms "grooming", "groomer" and "pro-pedophile" against their opponents and LGBT people over anti-LGBT legislation, such as laws restricting and banning discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Critics say that these usages of the terms diminish the experiences of sexual assault survivors, smear the LGBT community, and are dangerous in general.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The charge of "homosexual recruitment" is an allegation by social conservatives that LGBT people engage in concerted efforts to indoctrinate children into homosexuality. In the United States, this dates back to the early post-war era. Proponents were found especially among the New Right, as epitomized by Anita Bryant. In her Save Our Children campaign, she promoted a view of homosexuals recruiting youth. A common slogan is "Homosexuals cannot reproduce — so they must recruit" or its variants. Supporters of recruitment allegations point at "deviant" and "prurient" sex education as evidence. They express concern that anti-bullying efforts teach that "homosexuality is normal, and that students shouldn't harass their classmates because they're gay", suggesting recruitment as the primary motivation. Supporters of this myth cite the inability for same-sex couples to reproduce as a motivation for recruitment.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Sociologists and psychologists describe such claims as an anti-gay myth, and a fear-inducing bogeyman. Many critics believe the term promotes the myth of homosexuals as pedophiles .


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In 1937, the English gay classics scholar Sir Maurice Bowra referred to himself as part of the "Homintern". However, there are competing claims about who coined the term – including Jocelyn Brooke, Harold Norse and W. H. Auden. A takeoff on "Comintern" (Communist International), it was meant to convey the idea of a global homosexual community.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Auden used the term in the "Partisan Review" in 1950, entitling his review of a book on Oscar Wilde: ""A Playboy of the Western World: St. Oscar, the Homintern Martyr.""


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: "Homintern" was also used by American Senator Joe McCarthy during the McCarthyist scare in the 1950s, who used it to claim that the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman were set on destroying America from within. Attempts were made to link Communism and homosexuality, with "Homintern" a play on the word "Comintern" (the short name of the Communist International). But the word was also used ironically by those in favor of gay rights.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: "Homintern" also appeared in a number of mass-circulation magazine articles during the 1960s – such as "Ramparts", which in 1966 published an article by Gene Marine about the Homintern. It was also frequently used in the conservative magazine "National Review". William F. Buckley, Jr. would warn of the machinations of the Homintern on his TV talk show "Firing Line" – feeding the conservative belief that the Homintern deliberately manipulated culture to encourage homosexuality by promoting camp programs such as the popular 1960s TV series "Batman". Such magazine articles were often illustrated with the color lavender and the Homintern was sometimes called the "lavender conspiracy". It was subsequently claimed that there was a secret worldwide network of gay art gallery owners, ballet directors, movie producers, record label executives and photographers who, behind the scenes, determined who would become successful artists, dancers, actors, and models.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The historian Michael S. Sherry has used the term "hominterm discourse" "for the untidy bundle of ideas and accusations about the gay creative presence".


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The term "Gaystapo" () was coined in France in the 1940s by political satirist Jean Galtier-Boissière for the Vichy education minister, Abel Bonnard. It was subsequently applied by National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen to Florian Philippot, whom he accused of being a bad influence on Marine Le Pen.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: The English critic Kenneth Tynan wrote to A.C. Spectorsky (editor of "Playboy") in 1967 proposing an article on the "Homosexual Mafia" in the arts. Spectorsky declined, although he stated that "culture hounds were paying homage to faggotismo as they have never done before". "Playboy" would subsequently run a panel on gay issues in April 1971.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: "Gay mafia" became more widely used in the US media in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the American daily "New York Post". The term was also used by the British tabloid "The Sun" in 1998 in response to what it claimed was sinister dominance by gay men in the Labour Party Cabinet.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: While the term "Lavender Mafia" has occasionally been used to refer to informal networks of gay executives in the US entertainment industry, more generally it refers to Church politics. For example, a faction within the leadership and clergy of the Roman Catholic Church that allegedly advocates the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church and its teachings.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: For example, the Swedish neo-Nazi party Nordic Resistance Movement runs a "crush the homo lobby" campaign.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: According to the German newspaper "Der Tagesspiegel", advocating for LGBT rights could accurately be called lobbying, but the term ('gay lobby') is insulting because it is used to suggest a powerful conspiracy which does not actually exist.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In 2013, Pope Francis spoke about a "gay lobby" within the Vatican, and promised to see what could be done. In July 2013, Francis went on to draw a distinction between the problem of lobbying and the sexual orientation of people: "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" "The problem", he said, "is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem."


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Misgendering is the act of labelling others with a gender that does not match their gender identity. Misgendering can be deliberate or accidental. It can involve using pronouns to describe someone that are not the ones they use, calling a person "ma'am" or "sir" in contradiction to the person's gender identity, and using a pre-transition name for someone instead of a post-transition one (deadnaming).


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Some terms often considered to be anti-trans such as "shemale, trap," and "ladyboy" are perceived to promote the belief trans women are men masquerading as women. The concept of a person whose gender identity differs from their assigned birth sex has often been twisted into jokes about how repulsive such a person must be.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In response to a growing push for anti-discrimination bills regarding public restrooms, Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee delivered this message to a National Religious Broadcasters Convention during his 2016 bid for the presidency:Huckabee's joke prompted backlash from LGBT leaders, including Rebecca Issacs, the executive director of Equality Federation, who said in an email to "The Huffington Post": "Everyone needs to use the restroom and everyone cares about safety and privacy. Despite recent gains in visibility, transgender people continue to face extraordinarily high rates of discrimination and violence."


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In 2015, conservative group Campaign for Houston released an advertisement targeting Houston Proposition 1, an anti-discriminatory bill that would protect transgender peoples' rights to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. The video, which implies the sexual assault of a young girl, was decried as "the definition of transphobia" by J. Brian Lowder, an associate editor for "Slate" and author for its LGBTQ section.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Some positions within feminist theory have used denialist rhetoric viewed as transphobic. Those that hold these positions are known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or "TERF" for short. This term was coined by feminist blogger Viv Smythe in 2008 as a value-neutral descriptor of feminists that engage in denialism.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: In 1979, American radical feminist Janice Raymond published "". In it, she wrote that, "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves." A common position in radical feminism maintain that trans women are not women in a literal sense and should not be in women-only spaces.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Some second-wave feminists perceive trans men and women respectively as "traitors" and "infiltrators" to womanhood. In a 1997 article British lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys wrote that should be seen as a violation of human rights." Jeffreys also argued that by transitioning medically and socially, trans women are "constructing a conservative fantasy of what women should be. They are inventing an essence of womanhood which is deeply insulting and restrictive." In the late 2010s, this rhetoric evolved into the claim that transgender women force themselves on cisgender lesbians by using accusations of transphobia as a guilt trip.


title: Anti-LGBT rhetoric

text: Hate speech against LGBT people, or incitement to hatred against them, is criminalized in some countries.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Classical pluralism is the view that politics and decision-making are located mostly in the framework of government, but that many non-governmental groups use their resources to exert influence. The central question for classical pluralism is how power and influence are distributed in a political process. Groups of individuals try to maximize their interests. Lines of conflict are multiple and shifting as power is a continuous bargaining process between competing groups. There may be inequalities but they tend to be distributed and evened out by the various forms and distributions of resources throughout a population. Any change under this view will be slow and incremental, as groups have different interests and may act as "veto groups" to destroy legislation. The existence of diverse and competing interests is the basis for a democratic equilibrium, and is crucial for the obtaining of goals by individuals. A polyarchy—a situation of open competition for electoral support within a significant part of the adult population—ensures competition of group interests and relative equality. Pluralists stress civil rights, such as freedom of expression and organization, and an electoral system with at least two parties. On the other hand, since the participants in this process constitute only a tiny fraction of the populace, the public acts mainly as bystanders. This is not necessarily undesirable for two reasons: (1) it may be representative of a population content with the political happenings, or (2) political issues require continuous and expert attention, which the average citizen may not have.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Important theorists of pluralism include Robert A. Dahl (who wrote the seminal pluralist work, "Who Governs?"), David Truman, and Seymour Martin Lipset.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: The list of possible sources of power is virtually endless: legal authority, money, prestige, skill, knowledge, charisma, legitimacy, free time, and experience. Pluralists also stress the differences between potential and actual power as it stands. Actual power means the ability to compel someone to do something and is the view of power as a causation. Dahl describes power as a "realistic relationship, such as A's capacity for acting in such a manner as to control B's responses".


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Potential power refers to the possibility of turning resources into actual power. Cash, one of many resources, is only a stack of bills until it is put to work. Malcolm X, for example, was certainly not a rich person growing up, but received money from many groups after his prison term and used other resources such as his forceful personality and organizational skills. He had a greater impact on American politics than most wealthy people. A particular resource like money cannot automatically be equated with power because the resource can be used skillfully or clumsily, fully or partially, or not at all.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Pluralists believe that social heterogeneity prevents any single group from gaining dominance. In their view, politics is essentially a matter of aggregating preferences. This means that coalitions are inherently unstable (Polsby, 1980), hence competition is easily preserved. In Dahl's view, because "political heterogeneity follows socioeconomic heterogeneity", social differentiation increasingly disperses power. In this case, Hamed Kazemzadeh (Canadian Pluralist and Human rights activist) argues that organizational membership socializes individuals to democratic norms, increases participation and moderates the politics of society so that bargaining and negotiation are possible.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: The pluralist approach to the study of power, states that nothing categorical about power can be assumed in any community. The question then is not who runs a community, but if any group in fact does. To determine this, pluralists study specific outcomes. The reason for this is that they believe human behavior is governed in large part by inertia. That said, actual involvement in overt activity is a more valid marker of leadership than simply a reputation. Pluralists also believe that there is no one particular issue or point in time at which any group must assert itself to stay true to its own expressed values, but rather that there are a variety of issues and points at which this is possible. There are also costs involved in taking action at all not only losing, but the expenditure of time and effort. While a structuralist may argue that power distributions have a rather permanent nature, this rationale says that power may in fact be tied to issues, which vary widely in duration. Also, instead of focusing on actors within a system, the emphasis is on the leadership roles itself. By studying these, it can be determined to what extent there is a power structure present in a society.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Three of the major tenets of the pluralist school are (1) resources and hence potential power are widely scattered throughout society; (2) at least some resources are available to nearly everyone; and (3) at any time the amount of potential power exceeds the amount of actual power.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Finally, and perhaps most important, no one is all-powerful unless proven so through empirical observation. An individual or group that is influential in one realm may be weak in another. Large military contractors certainly throw their weight around on defense matters, but how much sway do they have on agricultural or health policies? A measure of power, therefore, is its scope, or the range of areas where it is successfully applied as observed by a researcher. Pluralists believe that with few exceptions power holders usually have a relatively limited scope of influence. Pluralism does leave room for an elitist situation- Should group A continuously exert power over multiple groups. For a pluralist to accept this notion, it must be empirically observed and not assumed so by definition.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: For all these reasons power cannot be taken for granted. One has to observe it empirically in order to know who really governs. The best way to do this, pluralists believe, is to examine a wide range of specific decisions, noting who took which side and who ultimately won and lost. Only by keeping score on a variety of controversies can one begin to identify actual power holders. Pluralism was associated with behavioralism.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: A contradiction to pluralist power is often cited from the origin of one's power. Although certain groups may share power, people within those groups set agendas, decide issues, and take on leadership roles through their own qualities. Some theorists argue that these qualities cannot be transferred, thus creating a system where elitism still exists. What this theory fails to take into account is the prospect of overcoming these qualities by garnering support from other groups. By aggregating power with other organizations, interest groups can over-power these non-transferable qualities. In this sense, political pluralism still applies to these aspects.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Elite pluralists agree with classical pluralists that there is "plurality" of power; however, this plurality is not "pure" as some people and groups have more power than others. For example, some people have more money than others, so they can pay to have their opinion put across better (i.e. more advertising) than the working class can. This inequality is because society has "elites"; people who have more power, perhaps through money, inheritance or social tradition than others.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Basically, it claims that elites play a big role in decision making. The idea behind reads as follows: in democracies, the people participate in electing the elites who will represent them and, at the end, the ones who are going to make the laws. As Davita S. Glasberg and Deric Shannon highlights, "political elites are not a monoholitic, unified interest group representing their own narrow group of interests but rather are diverse, competitive elites representing a wide range of interests". They have to compete in "the political market place" in order to gain voters being the power equally distributed between all the potential voters. Moreover, the stability in the system is achieved through this competition among the elites, as they have to negotiate in order to pass a bill. And, sometimes, they have to change their positions and points of view in order to reach a common point. Elites respect and follow the policy-making procedures because they are accountable of their acts and they can be replaced through legal procedures of through new elections.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: While Pluralism as a political theory of the state and policy formation gained its most traction during the 1950s and 1960s in America, some scholars argued that the theory was too simplistic (see Connolly (1969) "The Challenge to Pluralist Theory") leading to the formulation of neo-pluralism. Views differed about the division of power in democratic society. Although neo-pluralism sees multiple pressure groups competing over political influence, the political agenda is biased towards corporate power. Neo-pluralism no longer sees the state as an umpire mediating and adjudicating between the demands of different interest groups, but as a relatively autonomous actor (with different departments) that forges and looks after its own (sectional) interests. Constitutional rules, which in pluralism are embedded in a supportive political culture, should be seen in the context of a diverse, and not necessarily supportive, political culture and a system of radically uneven economic sources. This diverse culture exists because of an uneven distribution of socioeconomic power. This creates possibilities for some groups while limiting others in their political options.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: In the international realm, order is distorted by powerful multinational interests and dominant states, while in classical pluralism emphasis is put on stability by a framework of pluralist rules and free market society.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Charles E. Lindblom, who is seen as positing a strong neo-pluralist argument, still attributed primacy to the competition between interest groups in the policy process but recognized the disproportionate influence business interests have in the policy process.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: Classical pluralism was criticized as it did not seem to apply to Westminster-style democracies or the European context. This led to the development of corporatist theories. Corporatism is the idea that a few select interest groups are actually (often formally) involved in the policy formulation process, to the exclusion of the myriad other 'interest groups'. For example, trade unions and major sectoral business associations are often consulted about (if not the drivers of) specific policies.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: These policies often concern tripartite relations between workers, employers and the state, with a coordinating role for the latter. The state constructs a framework in which it can address the political and economic issues with these organized and centralized groups. In this view, parliament and party politics lose influence in the policy forming process.


title: Pluralism (political theory)

text: From the political aspect, 'pluralism' has a huge effect on the process and decision-making in formulating policy. In international security, during the policymaking process, different parties may have a chance to take part in decision making. The one who has more power, the more opportunity that it gains and the higher possibility to get what it wants. According to M. Frances (1991), "decision making appears to be a maze of influence and power."


title: Nibble

text: In computing, a nibble (occasionally nybble, nyble, or nybl to match the spelling of byte) is a four-bit aggregation, or half an octet. It is also known as half-byte or tetrade. In a networking or telecommunication context, the nibble is often called a semi-octet, quadbit, or quartet. A nibble has sixteen () possible values. A nibble can be represented by a single hexadecimal digit (–) and called a hex digit.


title: Nibble

text: A full byte (octet) is represented by two hexadecimal digits (–); therefore, it is common to display a byte of information as two nibbles. Sometimes the set of all 256-byte values is represented as a table, which gives easily readable hexadecimal codes for each value.


title: Nibble

text: Four-bit computer architectures use groups of four bits as their fundamental unit. Such architectures were used in early microprocessors, pocket calculators and pocket computers. They continue to be used in some microcontrollers. In this context, 4-bit groups were sometimes also called "characters" rather than nibbles.


title: Nibble

text: The term "nibble" originates from its representing "half a byte", with "byte" a homophone of the English word "bite". In 2014, David B. Benson, a professor emeritus at Washington State University, remembered that he playfully used (and may have possibly coined) the term "nibble" as "half a byte" and unit of storage required to hold a binary-coded decimal (BCD) decimal digit around 1958, when talking to a programmer of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. The alternative spelling "nybble" reflects the spelling of "byte", as noted in editorials of "Kilobaud" and "Byte" in the early 1980s. Another early recorded use of the term "nybble" was in 1977 within the consumer-banking technology group at Citibank. It created a pre-ISO 8583 standard for transactional messages between cash machines and Citibank's data centers that used the basic informational unit 'NABBLE'.


title: Nibble

text: The nibble is used to describe the amount of memory used to store a digit of a number stored in packed decimal format (BCD) within an IBM mainframe. This technique is used to make computations faster and debugging easier. An 8-bit byte is split in half and each nibble is used to store one decimal digit. The last (rightmost) nibble of the variable is reserved for the sign. Thus a variable which can store up to nine digits would be "packed" into 5 bytes. Ease of debugging resulted from the numbers being readable in a hex dump where two hex numbers are used to represent the value of a byte, as . For example, a five-byte BCD value of      represents a decimal value of .


title: Nibble

text: Historically, there are cases where nybble was used for a group of bits greater than 4. In the Apple II microcomputer line, much of the disk drive control and group-coded recording was implemented in software. Writing data to a disk was done by converting 256-byte pages into sets of 5-bit (later, 6-bit) nibbles and loading disk data required the reverse. Moreover, 1982 documentation for the Integrated Woz Machine refers consistently to an "8 bit nibble". The term "byte" once had the same ambiguity and meant a set of bits but not necessarily 8, hence the distinction of "bytes" and "octets" or of "nibbles" and "quartets" (or "quadbits"). Today, the terms "byte" and "nibble" almost always refer to 8-bit and 4-bit collections respectively and are very rarely used to express any other sizes.


title: Nibble

text: The terms "low nibble" and "high nibble" are used to denote the nibbles containing, respectively, the less significant bits and the more significant bits within a byte. In graphical representations of bits within a byte, the leftmost bit could represent the most significant bit (MSB), corresponding to ordinary decimal notation in which the digit at the left of a number is the most significant. In such illustrations the four bits on the left end of the byte form the high nibble, and the remaining four bits form the low nibble. For example,


title: Nibble

text: A nibble can be extracted from a byte by doing a bitwise logical AND operation and optionally a bit shift depending on if the high or low nibble is to be extracted.


title: Nibble

text: where codice_1 must be a variable or constant of an integral data type, and only the least-significant byte of codice_1 is used.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing and offering of one or more animals, usually as part of a religious ritual or to appease or maintain favour with a deity. Animal sacrifices were common throughout Europe and the Ancient Near East until the spread of Christianity in Late Antiquity, and continue in some cultures or religions today. Human sacrifice, where it existed, was always much rarer.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: All or only part of a sacrificial animal may be offered; some cultures, like the ancient and modern Greeks, eat most of the edible parts of the sacrifice in a feast, and burnt the rest as an offering. Others burnt the whole animal offering, called a holocaust. Usually, the best animal or best share of the animal is the one presented for offering.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Animal sacrifice should generally be distinguished from the religiously prescribed methods of ritual slaughter of animals for normal consumption as food.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: During the Neolithic Revolution, early humans began to move from hunter-gatherer cultures toward agriculture, leading to the spread of animal domestication. In a theory presented in "Homo Necans", mythologist Walter Burkert suggests that the ritual sacrifice of livestock may have developed as a continuation of ancient hunting rituals, as livestock replaced wild game in the food supply.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Ancient Egypt was at the forefront of domestication, and some of the earliest archeological evidence suggesting animal sacrifice comes from Egypt, although it was not a central practice of the religion but was rather a peripherical occurrence that happened away from worshippers. The oldest Egyptian burial sites containing animal remains originate from the Badari culture of Upper Egypt, which flourished between 4400 and 4000 BCE. Sheep and goats were found buried in their own graves at one site, while at another site gazelles were found at the feet of several human burials. At a cemetery uncovered at Hierakonpolis and dated to , the remains of a much wider variety of animals were found, including non-domestic species such as baboons and hippopotami, which may have been sacrificed in honor of powerful former citizens or buried near their former owners. According to Herodotus, later Dynastic Egyptian animal sacrifice became restricted to livestock – sheep, cattle, swine and geese – with sets of rituals and rules to describe each type of sacrifice.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: By the end of the Copper Age in , animal sacrifice had become a common practice across many cultures, and appeared to have become more generally restricted to domestic livestock. At Gath, archeological evidence indicates that the Canaanites imported sacrificial sheep and goats from Egypt rather than selecting from their own livestock. At the Monte d'Accoddi in Sardinia, one of the earliest known sacred centers in Europe, evidence of the sacrifice of sheep, cattle and swine has been uncovered by excavations, and it is indicated that ritual sacrifice may have been common across Italy around and afterwards. At the Minoan settlement of Phaistos in ancient Crete, excavations have revealed basins for animal sacrifice dating to the period 2000 to 1700 BCE. However, remains of a young goat were found in Cueva de la Dehesilla (), a cave in Spain, related to a funerary ritual from the Middle Neolithic period, dated to between 4800 and 4000 BCE.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Animal sacrifice was general among the ancient Near Eastern civilizations of Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia, as well as the Hebrews (covered below). Unlike the Greeks, who had worked out a justification for keeping the best edible parts of the sacrifice for the assembled humans to eat, in these cultures the whole animal was normally placed on the fire by the altar and burned, or sometimes it was buried.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Worship in ancient Greek religion typically consisted of sacrificing domestic animals at the altar with hymn and prayer. The altar was outside any temple building, and might not be associated with a temple at all. The animal, which should be perfect of its kind, is decorated with garlands and the like, and led in procession to the altar, a girl with a basket on her head containing the concealed knife leading the way. After various rituals the animal is slaughtered over the altar, as it falls all the women present "must cry out in high, shrill tones". Its blood is collected and poured over the altar. It is butchered on the spot and various internal organs, bones and other inedible parts burnt as the deity's portion of the offering, while the meat is removed to be prepared for the participants to eat; the leading figures tasting it on the spot. The temple usually kept the skin, to sell to tanners. That the humans got more use from the sacrifice than the deity had not escaped the Greeks, and is often the subject of humour in Greek comedy.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The animals used are, in order of preference, bull or ox, cow, sheep (the most common), goat, pig (with piglet the cheapest mammal), and poultry (but rarely other birds or fish). Horses and asses are seen on some vases in the Geometric style (), but are very rarely mentioned in literature; they were relatively late introductions to Greece, and it has been suggested that Greek preferences in this matter go very far back. The Greeks liked to believe that the animal was glad to be sacrificed, and interpreted various behaviours as showing this. Divination by examining parts of the sacrificed animal was much less important than in Roman or Etruscan religion, or Near Eastern religions, but was practiced, especially of the liver, and as part of the cult of Apollo. Generally, the Greeks put more faith in observing the behaviour of birds. For a smaller and simpler offering, a grain of incense could be thrown on the sacred fire, and outside the cities farmers made simple sacrificial gifts of plant produce as the "first fruits" were harvested. Although the grand form of sacrifice called the hecatomb (meaning 100 bulls) might in practice only involve a dozen or so, at large festivals the number of cattle sacrificed could run into the hundreds, and the numbers feasting on them well into the thousands. The enormous Hellenistic structures of the Altar of Hieron and Pergamon Altar were built for such occasions.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The evidence of the existence of such practices is clear in some ancient Greek literature, especially in Homer's epics. Throughout the poems, the use of the ritual is apparent at banquets where meat is served, in times of danger or before some important endeavor to gain the favor of the gods. For example, in Homer's "Odyssey" Eumaeus sacrifices a pig with prayer for his unrecognizable master Odysseus. However, in Homer's "Iliad", which partly reflects very early Greek civilization, not every banquet of the princes begins with a sacrifice.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: These sacrificial practices, described in these pre-Homeric eras, share commonalities to the 8th century forms of sacrificial rituals. Furthermore, throughout the poem, special banquets are held whenever gods indicated their presence by some sign or success in war. Before setting out for Troy, this type of animal sacrifice is offered. Odysseus offers Zeus a sacrificial ram in vain. The occasions of sacrifice in Homer's epic poems may shed some light onto the view of the gods as members of society, rather than as external entities, indicating social ties. Sacrificial rituals played a major role in forming the relationship between humans and the divine.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: It has been suggested that the Chthonic deities, distinguished from Olympic deities by typically being offered the holocaust mode of sacrifice, where the offering is wholly burnt, may be remnants of the native Pre-Hellenic religion and that many of the Olympian deities may come from the Proto-Greeks who overran the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula in the late third millennium BCE.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: In the Hellenistic period after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, several new philosophical movements began to question the ethics of animal sacrifice.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: According to the unique account by the Greek author Herodotus (c. 484–c. 425 BCE), the Scythians sacrificed various kinds of livestock, though the most prestigious offering was considered to be the horse. The pig, on the other hand, was never offered in sacrifice, and apparently the Scythians were loath to keep swine within their lands. Herodotus describes the Scythian manner of sacrifice as follows:


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The most potent offering in Ancient Roman religion was animal sacrifice, typically of domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. Each was the best specimen of its kind, cleansed, clad in sacrificial regalia and garlanded; the horns of oxen might be gilded. Sacrifice sought the harmonisation of the earthly and divine, so the victim must seem willing to offer its own life on behalf of the community; it must remain calm and be quickly and cleanly dispatched.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Sacrifice to deities of the heavens ("di superi", "gods above") was performed in daylight, and under the public gaze. Deities of the upper heavens required white, infertile victims of their own sex: Juno a white heifer (possibly a white cow); Jupiter a white, castrated ox ("bos mas") for the annual oath-taking by the consuls. "Di superi" with strong connections to the earth, such as Mars, Janus, Neptune and various "genii" – including the Emperor's – were offered fertile victims. After the sacrifice, a banquet was held; in state cults, the images of honoured deities took pride of place on banqueting couches and by means of the sacrificial fire consumed their proper portion ("exta", the innards). Rome's officials and priests reclined in order of precedence alongside and ate the meat; lesser citizens may have had to provide their own.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Chthonic gods such as Dis pater, the "di inferi" ("gods below"), and the collective shades of the departed "(di Manes)" were given dark, fertile victims in nighttime rituals. Animal sacrifice usually took the form of a holocaust or burnt offering, and there was no shared banquet, as "the living cannot share a meal with the dead". Ceres and other underworld goddesses of fruitfulness were sometimes offered pregnant female animals; Tellus was given a pregnant cow at the Fordicidia festival. Color had a general symbolic value for sacrifices. Demigods and heroes, who belonged to the heavens and the underworld, were sometimes given black-and-white victims. Robigo (or Robigus) was given red dogs and libations of red wine at the Robigalia for the protection of crops from blight and red mildew.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: A sacrifice might be made in thanksgiving or as an expiation of a sacrilege or potential sacrilege ("piaculum");


title: Animal sacrifice

text: a "piaculum" might also be offered as a sort of advance payment; the Arval Brethren, for instance, offered a "piaculum" before entering their sacred grove with an iron implement, which was forbidden, as well as after.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The same divine agencies who caused disease or harm also had the power to avert it, and so might be placated in advance. Divine consideration might be sought to avoid the inconvenient delays of a journey, or encounters with banditry, piracy and shipwreck, with due gratitude to be rendered on safe arrival or return. In times of great crisis, the Senate could decree collective public rites, in which Rome's citizens, including women and children, moved in procession from one temple to the next, supplicating the gods.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary sacrifice: in one of the many crises of the Second Punic War, Jupiter Capitolinus was promised every animal born that spring (see "ver sacrum"), to be rendered after five more years of protection from Hannibal and his allies. The "contract" with Jupiter is exceptionally detailed. All due care would be taken of the animals. If any died or were stolen before the scheduled sacrifice, they would count as already sacrificed, since they had already been consecrated. Normally, if the gods failed to keep their side of the bargain, the offered sacrifice would be withheld. In the imperial period, sacrifice was withheld following Trajan's death because the gods had not kept the Emperor safe for the stipulated period. In Pompeii, the Genius of the living emperor was offered a bull: presumably a standard practise in Imperial cult, though minor offerings (incense and wine) were also made.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The "exta" were the entrails of a sacrificed animal, comprising in Cicero's enumeration the gall bladder ("fel"), liver ("iecur"), heart ("cor"), and lungs ("pulmones"). The "exta" were exposed for litatio (divine approval) as part of Roman liturgy, but were "read" in the context of the "disciplina Etrusca". As a product of Roman sacrifice, the "exta" and blood are reserved for the gods, while the meat "(viscera)" is shared among human beings in a communal meal. The "exta" of bovine victims were usually stewed in a pot ("olla" or "aula"), while those of sheep or pigs were grilled on skewers. When the deity's portion was cooked, it was sprinkled with "mola salsa" (ritually prepared salted flour) and wine, then placed in the fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was "porricere".


title: Animal sacrifice

text: There is evidence that ancient Celtic people sacrificed animals, almost always livestock or working animals, as part of ancient Celtic religion. The idea seems to have been that ritually transferring a life-force to the Otherworld pleased the gods and established a channel of communication between the worlds. Animal sacrifices could be acts of thanksgiving, appeasement, to ask for good health and fertility, or as a means of divination. It seems that some animals were offered wholly to the gods (by burying or burning), while some were shared between gods and humans (part eaten and part set aside).


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Archaeologists have found evidence of animal sacrifice at some Gaulish and British sanctuaries, and at the Irish site Uisneach. Accounts of Celtic animal sacrifice come from Roman and Greek writers. Julius Caesar and Strabo wrote of the Gauls burning animal sacrifices in a large wickerwork figure, known as a wicker man, while Pliny the Elder wrote of druids performing a 'ritual of oak and mistletoe' which involved sacrificing two white bulls.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Some animal sacrifice or ritual slaughter continued among Celtic peoples long after they converted to Christianity. Until the 19th century, on St. Martin's Day (11 November) in rural Ireland a rooster, goose or sheep would be slaughtered and some of its blood sprinkled on the threshold of the house. It was offered to Saint Martin, and was eaten as part of a feast. Bull sacrifices at the time of the Lughnasa festival were recorded as late as the 18th century at Cois Fharraige in Ireland (where they were offered to Crom Dubh) and at Loch Maree in Scotland (where they were offered to Saint Máel Ruba).


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Animal sacrifice, or "blót", was an important ritual in Old Norse religion. The blood was sprinkled on altars, idols and the walls of temples. A "blót" was made at seasonal festivals as well as at funerals, before battles and perilous journeys, or after the conclusion of business between traders.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: In the 11th century, Adam of Bremen wrote that human and animal sacrifices were made at the Temple at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden. He wrote that every ninth year, nine men and nine of every animal were sacrificed and their bodies hung in a sacred grove.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: In Judaism, the is any of a variety of sacrificial offerings described and commanded in the Torah. The most common usages are animal sacrifice ( זֶבַח), (the peace offering) and (the "holocaust" or burnt offering). A was an animal sacrifice, such as a bull, sheep, goat, or a dove that underwent "shechita" (Jewish ritual slaughter). Sacrifices could also consist of grain, meal, wine, or incense.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The Hebrew Bible says that Yahweh commanded the Israelites to offer offerings and sacrifices on various altars. The sacrifices were only to be offered by the hands of the Kohanim. Before building the Temple in Jerusalem, when the Israelites were in the desert, sacrifices were offered only in the Tabernacle. After building Solomon's Temple, sacrifices were allowed only there. After the Temple was destroyed, sacrifices was resumed when the Second Temple was built until it was also destroyed in 70 CE. After the destruction of the Second Temple sacrifices were prohibited because there was no longer a Temple, the only place allowed by "halakha" for sacrifices. Offering of sacrifices was briefly reinstated during the Jewish–Roman wars of the second century CE and was continued in certain communities thereafter.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The Samaritans, a group historically related to the Jews, practice animal sacrifice in accordance with the Law of Moses.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Christianity has long expressly opposed all forms of animal sacrifice, and the practice's "very possibility ... has been generally rejected as unreasonable and hostile to Christian theology". Most Christian denominations believe that the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ permanently abolished animal sacrifice, primarily based on the teaching in the Epistle to the Hebrews that Jesus was the "Lamb of God" to whom all ancient sacrifices pointed. Most Christian sects believe that the "bloodless" sacrifice of the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, entirely replaces the Old Testament system of sacrifices. Consequently, animal sacrifice is rarely practiced in Christianity.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Despite this opposition, a few rural Christian communities sacrifice animals (which are then consumed in a feast) as part of worship, especially at Easter. The animal may be brought into the church before being taken out again and killed. Some villages in Greece sacrifice animals to Orthodox saints in a practice known as "kourbania". Sacrifice of a lamb, or less commonly a rooster, is a common practice in Armenian Church, and the Tewahedo Church of Ethiopia and Eritrea. This tradition, called "matagh", is believed to stem from pre-Christian pagan rituals. Additionally, some Mayans following a form of Folk Catholicism in Mexico today still sacrifice animals in conjunction with church practices, a ritual practiced in past religions before the arrival of the Spaniards.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Muslims engaged in the Hajj (pilgrimage) are obliged to sacrifice a lamb or a goat or join others in sacrificing a cow or a camel during the celebration of the Eid al-Adha, an Arabic term that means "Feast of Sacrifice", also known as "al-Id al-Kabir" (Great Feast), or "Qurban Bayrami" (Sacrifice Feast) in Turkic influenced cultures, "Bakar Id" (Goat Feast) in Indian subcontinent and "Reraya Qurben" in Indonesia. Other Muslims not on the Hajj to Mecca also participate in this sacrifice wherever they are, on the 10th day of the 12th lunar month in the Islamic calendar. It is understood as a symbolic re-enactment of Abraham's sacrifice of a ram in place of his son. Meat from this occasion is divided into three parts, one part is kept by the sacrificing family for food, the other gifted to friends and family, and the third given to the poor Muslims. The sacrificed animal is a sheep, goat, cow or camel. The feast follows a communal prayer at a mosque or open air.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The animal sacrifice during the Hajj is a part of nine step pilgrimage ritual. It is, states Campo, preceded by a statement to intention and body purification, inaugural circumambulation of the Kaaba seven times, running between Marwa and Safa hills, encampment at Mina, standing in Arafat, stoning the three Mina satanic pillars with at least forty nine pebbles. Thereafter, animal sacrifice, and this is followed by farewell circumambulation of the Kaaba. The Muslims who are not on Hajj also perform a simplified ritual animal sacrifice. According to Campo, the animal sacrifice at the annual Islamic festival has origins in western Arabia in vogue before Islam. The animal sacrifice, states Philip Stewart, is not required by the Quran, but is based on interpretations of other Islamic texts.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The Eid al-Adha is major annual festival of animal sacrifice in Islam. In Indonesia alone, for example, some 800,000 animals were sacrificed in 2014 by its Muslims on the festival, but the number can be a bit lower or higher depending on the economic conditions. According to Lesley Hazleton, in Turkey about 2,500,000 sheep, cows and goats are sacrificed each year to observe the Islamic festival of animal sacrifice, with a part of the sacrificed animal given to the needy who did not sacrifice an animal. According to "The Independent", nearly 10,000,000 animals are sacrificed in Pakistan every year on Eid. Countries such as Saudi Arabia transport nearly a million animals every year for sacrifice to Mina (near Mecca). The sacrificed animals at Id al-Adha, states Clarke Brooke, include the four species considered lawful for the Hajj sacrifice: sheep, goats, camels and cattle, and additionally, cow-like animals initialing the water buffalo, domesticated banteng and yaks. Many are brought in from north Africa and parts of Asia.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Other occasions when Muslims perform animal sacrifice include the "'aqiqa", when a child is seven days old, is shaved and given a name. It is believed that the animal sacrifice binds the child to Islam and offers protection to the child from evil.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Practices of Hindu animal sacrifice are mostly associated with Shaktism, Shaiva Agamas and in currents of folk Hinduism called Kulamarga strongly rooted in local tribal traditions. Animal sacrifices were carried out in ancient times in India. Some later minor Puranas forbid animal sacrifice though the upapurana, Kalika Purana, describes it in detail.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Animal sacrifice is a part of Durga puja celebrations during the Navratri in eastern states of India. The goddess is offered sacrificial animal in this ritual in the belief that it stimulates her violent vengeance against the buffalo demon. According to Christopher Fuller, the animal sacrifice practice is rare among Hindus during Navratri, or at other times, outside the Shaktism tradition found in the eastern Indian states of West Bengal, Odisha and Assam. Further, even in these states, the festival season is one where significant animal sacrifices are observed. In some Shakta Hindu communities, the slaying of buffalo demon and victory of Durga is observed with a symbolic sacrifice instead of animal sacrifice.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The Rajput of Rajasthan worship their weapons and horses on Navratri, and formerly offered a sacrifice of a goat to a goddess revered as Kuldevi – a practice that continues in some places. The ritual requires slaying of the animal with a single stroke. In the past this ritual was considered a rite of passage into manhood and readiness as a warrior. The "Kuldevi" among these Rajput communities is a warrior-pativrata guardian goddess, with local legends tracing reverence for her during Rajput-Muslim wars.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The tradition of animal sacrifice is being substituted with vegetarian offerings to the Goddess in temples and households around Banaras in Northern India.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: There are Hindu temples in Assam and West Bengal India and Nepal where goats, chickens and sometimes water buffalos are sacrificed. These sacrifices are performed mainly at temples following the Shakti school of Hinduism where the female nature of Brahman is worshipped in the form of Kali and Durga.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: In some sacred groves of India, particularly in Western Maharashtra, animal sacrifice is practiced to pacify female deities that are supposed to rule the Groves.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Animal sacrifice "en masse" occurs during the three-day-long Gadhimai festival in Nepal. In 2009 it was speculated that more than 250,000 animals were killed while 5 million devotees attended the festival. However, this practise was later banned in 2015.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: In India, ritual of animal sacrifice is practised in many villages before local deities or certain powerful and terrifying forms of the Devi. In this form of worship, animals, usually goats, are decapitated and the blood is offered to deity often by smearing some of it on a post outside the temple. For instance, "Kandhen Budhi" is the reigning deity of Kantamal in Boudh district of Orissa, India. Every year, animals like goat and fowl are sacrificed before the deity on the occasion of her annual "Yatra"/"Jatra" (festival) held in the month of "Aswina" (September–October). The main attraction of "Kandhen Budhi Yatra" is "Ghusuri Puja". "Ghusuri" means a child pig, which is sacrificed to the goddess every three years. Kandhen Budhi is also worshipped at Lather village under Mohangiri GP in Kalahandi district of Orissa, India. (Pasayat, 2009:20–24).


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The religious belief of "Tabuh Rah", a form of animal sacrifice of Balinese Hinduism includes a religious cockfight where a rooster is used in religious custom by allowing him to fight against another rooster in a religious and spiritual cockfight, a spiritual appeasement exercise of "Tabuh Rah". The spilling of blood is necessary as purification to appease the evil spirits, and ritual fights follow an ancient and complex ritual as set out in the sacred "lontar" manuscripts.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Human sacrifice is also mentioned in Hinduism in the Kalika Purana. Chapters 67 through 78 of the text constitute the Rudhiradhyaya, which discusses bali (animal sacrifice) and of Vamacara Tantrism. The Rudhiradhyaya section is notable for its uncommon discussion of human sacrifice. The text states that a human sacrifice may be performed to please the goddess, but only with the consent of prince before a war or cases of imminent danger. However, it was not until 2014 when the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) started collecting data on human sacrifice. According to the bureau, there were 51 cases of human sacrifice spread across 14 states between 2014 and 2016. The alleged case of human sacrifice was recorded as late as 2020.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: During Shang and Zhou Dynasty, the noble used to practice a complicated and hierarchical sacrificial system. The noble would sacrifice dogs, cows, pigs, goats and other livestock, sometimes human slaves or family members


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Confucius formulated the sacrificing scale of every strata from the Zou system, not including human sacrifice, in "The Book of Rites". The names of the offering scales from honorable to low are 'Tai-lao'(太牢), 'Shao-lao'(少牢), 'Te-sheng'(特牲), 'Te-shi'(特豕), 'Te-tun'(特豚), 'Yu'(魚), 'La'(臘), 'Dou'(豆) and else. The Tai-lao class, now only practiced in the ceremony of worshipping Huang Di or Confucius, use whole cows, whole goats and whole pigs.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Buddhism prohibits all forms of killing, rituals, sacrifices and worship and Taoism generally prohibit killing of animals. In Kaohsiung, Taiwan, animal sacrifices are banned in Taoist temples.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Some animal offerings, such as fowl, pigs, goats, fish, or other livestock, are accepted in some Taoism sects and beliefs in Chinese folk religion. The offerings would be placed at the altar or the temple after being slaughtered. The amount sacrificed is up to the worshippers, who can eat all of the offerings after the rite. In folk, some regions believe that high-status deities prefer vegetarian food more, while ghosts, low-status gods, and other unknown supernatural spirits like meat. Therefore, whole pigs, whole goats, whole chickens, and whole ducks will be sacrificed in the ghost festival. Some vegetarian believers make dummy pigs or dummy goats from vegetarian food like bread or rice for sacrifice.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: The U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 decision "Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah" upheld the right of Santería adherents to practice ritual animal sacrifice in the United States of America.


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Likewise in Texas in 2009, legal and religious issues that related to animal sacrifice, animal rights and freedom of religion were taken to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of "Jose Merced, President Templo Yoruba Omo Orisha Texas, Inc., v. City of Euless." The court ruling that the Merced case of the freedom of exercise of religion was meritorious and prevailing and that Merced was entitled under the Texas Religious Freedom and Restoration Act (TRFRA) to an injunction preventing the city of Euless, Texas from enforcing its ordinances that burdened his religious practices relating to the use of animals, (see Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 110.005(a)(2)).


title: Animal sacrifice

text: Atayal, Seediq and Taroko people believe that bad-luck or punishments of 'Utux', which refers to any kind of supernatural spirits or ancestors, would infect the relatives. When a member in relatives has violated a taboo or met with misfortune, a ritual will be held. It must be done in the ritual to sacrifice a pig, which means the misfortune and sin would be washed away by the blood, and apologize to the Utux with gift.


title: Johnny Buss

text: Johnny Hatten Buss (born October 18, 1956) is part-owner and vice president of strategic development of the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He previously held positions as president of the Los Angeles Lazers professional indoor soccer team and the Los Angeles Sparks professional women's basketball team. He is the oldest son of former Lakers owner Jerry Buss. After Jerry died in 2013, his 66% controlling ownership of the Lakers passed to his six children via a trust, with each child receiving an equal interest.


title: Burnout 3: Takedown

text: Burnout 3: Takedown is a 2004 racing video game developed by Criterion Games and published by Electronic Arts. It is the third instalment in the "Burnout" series, which is characterised by fast-paced arcade racing. A staple of the series is the use of boost, earned through risky driving, to rapidly increase a car's speed. The central mechanic introduced in "Burnout 3" is Takedowns, which allow players to slam their opponents until they crash. Takedowns work in conjunction with the boost system by filling up and extending the boost meter. Aside from standard circuit races, the game features modes focused on performing Takedowns on rival vehicles and causing monetary damage at a junction occupied with traffic. Each game variant is featured in a single-player campaign mode called World Tour, which serves as the primary method for unlocking new and faster cars. The game supports both online and split-screen multiplayer.


title: Burnout 3: Takedown

text: Before the creation of "Burnout 3: Takedown", UK-based development studio Criterion had been collaborating with publisher Electronic Arts (EA) on a skating video game. However, disagreements over the game's creative direction led to its cancellation and falling out between the two companies. EA later approached Criterion about reuniting and partnering on a game, and so Criterion began developing "Burnout 3: Takedown" in June 2003 on the condition that EA would not interfere in the creative process. Over a year later, EA acquired Criterion and the "Burnout" series; their high expectations for "Burnout 3: Takedown" was influential in the acquisition. The game launched in September 2004 on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox video game consoles.


title: Burnout 3: Takedown

text: Upon release, "Burnout 3: Takedown" received critical acclaim from the video game press becoming one of the highest-rated racing video games of all time and is considered by many to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Critics were enthused by the shift to a more aggressive style of racing game and the addition of gameplay mechanics like Takedowns. The addictive gameplay and visuals were widely praised by reviewers, many of whom ranked "Burnout 3: Takedown" among the best games released on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The game went on to win numerous awards including three from the British Academy Games Awards. Retrospective coverage of the game has been highly positive with some publications declaring it as the greatest arcade racer game ever made and the peak of the "Burnout" series. A successor to "Takedown", titled "Burnout Revenge", was released in September 2005.


title: Burnout 3: Takedown

text: "Burnout 3: Takedown" is a racing video game with arcade-style gameplay that emphasises dangerous and fast-paced driving. The game features standard circuit races which take place on carriageways and city streets populated with traffic. The Single Race mode pits the player against five AI opponents in a single or multiple lap race. During a race, boost, which is earned by acts of reckless driving such as drifting around corners, near misses with traffic, and driving in oncoming lanes, can be used to rapidly increase a car's speed. Boost can be used immediately in "Burnout 3", unlike previous "Burnout" games which required the boost meter to be full. The quickest method for earning boost is a Takedown—a central mechanic introduced in this instalment of the series. A Takedown involves shunting opposing vehicles until they crash. Each one fills the boost meter and can provide an additional boost segment, causing the meter to extend up to four times its initial size. Ramming opponents will cause them to behave more aggressively in return; their level of hostility is indicated by a coloured arrow above their vehicle. When the player crashes or is taken out by an opponent, boost is lost and a bonus boost segment is withdrawn. During the crash sequence, a slow-motion mode called Impact Time can be activated. In Impact Time, the Aftertouch mechanic can be used to manoeuvre the wrecked car chassis into an opponent to get a Takedown, which acts as a recovery move by negating the penalty of crashing.


title: Burnout 3: Takedown

text: Road Rage is a new game mode in which the player must achieve a certain number of Takedowns in a preset time limit or before their vehicle is totalled. Cars continuously spawn in Road Rage so that there are always vehicles to perform Takedowns on. The Crash mode from "" returns but has been enhanced to accommodate the Aftertouch feature. The goal of Crash mode is to create the largest amount of monetary damage in a multi-vehicle collision at a junction full of traffic. The game includes a total of one hundred Crash junctions. When a set number of vehicles become involved in the pileup, a Crashbreaker is available which allows the player to detonate their vehicle to cause further damage Cash bonuses, score multipliers, a speed boost, or an immediate Crashbreaker can be obtained by driving through power-ups that lie on the junction in Crash mode. One particular power-up, the Heartbreaker, has a negative effect by reducing the total score.