title: Runtime system

text: Another example is the case of using an application programming interface (API) to interact with a runtime system. The calls to that API look the same as calls to a regular software library, however at some point during the call the execution model changes. The runtime system implements an execution model different from that of the language the library is written in terms of. A person reading the code of a normal library would be able to understand the library's behavior by just knowing the language the library was written in. However, a person reading the code of the API that invokes a runtime system would not be able to understand the behavior of the API call just by knowing the language the call was written in. At some point, via some mechanism, the execution model stops being that of the language the call is written in and switches over to being the execution model implemented by the runtime system. For example, the trap instruction is one method of switching execution models. This difference is what distinguishes an API-invoked execution model, such as Pthreads, from a usual software library. Both Pthreads calls and software library calls are invoked via an API, but Pthreads behavior cannot be understood in terms of the language of the call. Rather, Pthreads calls bring into play an outside execution model, which is implemented by the Pthreads runtime system (this runtime system is often the OS kernel).


title: Runtime system

text: As an extreme example, the physical CPU itself can be viewed as an implementation of the runtime system of a specific assembly language. In this view, the execution model is implemented by the physical CPU and memory systems. As an analogy, runtime systems for higher-level languages are themselves implemented using some other languages. This creates a hierarchy of runtime systems, with the CPU itself—or actually its logic at the microcode layer or below—acting as the lowest-level runtime system.


title: Runtime system

text: Some compiled or interpreted languages provide an interface that allows application code to interact directly with the runtime system. An example is the codice_1 class in the Java language. The class allows code (that is animated by one thread) to do things such as start and stop other threads. Normally, core aspects of a language's behavior such as task scheduling and resource management are not accessible in this fashion.


title: Runtime system

text: Higher-level behaviors implemented by a runtime system may include tasks such as drawing text on the screen or making an Internet connection. It is often the case that operating systems provide these kinds of behaviors as well, and when available, the runtime system is implemented as an abstraction layer that translates the invocation of the runtime system into an invocation of the operating system. This hides the complexity or variations in the services offered by different operating systems. This also implies that the OS kernel can itself be viewed as a runtime system, and that the set of OS calls that invoke OS behaviors may be viewed as interactions with a runtime system.


title: Runtime system

text: In the limit, the runtime system may provide services such as a P-code machine or virtual machine, that hide even the processor's instruction set. This is the approach followed by many interpreted languages such as AWK, and some languages like Java, which are meant to be compiled into some machine-independent intermediate representation code (such as bytecode). This arrangement simplifies the task of language implementation and its adaptation to different machines, and improves efficiency of sophisticated language features such as reflection. It also allows the same program to be executed on any machine without an explicit recompiling step, a feature that has become very important since the proliferation of the World Wide Web. To speed up execution, some runtime systems feature just-in-time compilation to machine code.


title: Runtime system

text: A modern aspect of runtime systems is parallel execution behaviors, such as the behaviors exhibited by mutex constructs in Pthreads and parallel section constructs in OpenMP. A runtime system with such parallel execution behaviors may be modularized according to the proto-runtime approach.


title: Runtime system

text: Notable early examples of runtime systems are the interpreters for BASIC and Lisp. These environments also included a garbage collector. Forth is an early example of a language designed to be compiled into intermediate representation code; its runtime system was a virtual machine that interpreted that code. Another popular, if theoretical, example is Donald Knuth's MIX computer.


title: Runtime system

text: In C and later languages that supported dynamic memory allocation, the runtime system also included a library that managed the program's memory pool.


title: Runtime system

text: In the object-oriented programming languages, the runtime system was often also responsible for dynamic type checking and resolving method references.


title: Placodermi

text: Placodermi (from Greek πλάξ 'plate' and δέρμα 'skin', literally 'plate-skinned') is a class of armoured prehistoric fish, known from fossils, which lived from the Silurian to the end of the Devonian period. Their head and thorax were covered by articulated armoured plates and the rest of the body was scaled or naked, depending on the species. Placoderms were among the first jawed fish; their jaws likely evolved from the first of their gill arches.


title: Placodermi

text: Placoderms are thought to be paraphyletic, consisting of several distinct outgroups or sister taxa to all living jawed vertebrates, which originated among their ranks. In contrast, one 2016 analysis concluded that placodermi are likely monophyletic, though these analyses have been further dismissed with more transitional taxa between placoderms and modern gnathosthomes, solidifying their paraphyletic status.


title: Placodermi

text: Placoderms were also the first fish to develop pelvic fins, the precursor to hindlimbs in tetrapods, as well as true teeth. 380-million-year-old fossils of three other genera, "Incisoscutum", "Materpiscis" and "Austroptyctodus", represent the oldest known examples of live birth.


title: Placodermi

text: The first identifiable placoderms appear in the fossil record during the late Llandovery epoch of the early Silurian. The various groups of placoderms were diverse and abundant during the Devonian, but became extinct at the end-Devonian Hangenberg event 358.9 million years ago


title: Placodermi

text: Many placoderms, particularly the Rhenanida, Petalichthyida, Phyllolepida, and Antiarchi, were bottom-dwellers. In particular, the antiarchs, with their highly modified, jointed bony pectoral fins, were highly successful inhabitants of Middle-Late Devonian freshwater and shallow marine habitats, with the Middle to Late Devonian genus, "Bothriolepis", known from over 100 valid species. The vast majority of placoderms were predators, many of which lived at or near the substrate. Many, primarily the Arthrodires, were active, nektonic predators that dwelled in the middle to upper portions of the water column. A study of the arthrodire "Compagopiscis" published in 2012 concluded that placoderms (at least this particular genus) likely possessed true teeth contrary to some early studies. The teeth had well defined pulp cavities and were made of both bone and dentine. However, the tooth and jaw development were not as closely integrated as in modern gnathostomes. These teeth were likely homologous to the teeth of other gnathostomes.


title: Placodermi

text: One of the largest known arthrodires, "Dunkleosteus terrelli ", was long, and is presumed to have had a large distribution, as its remains have been found in Europe, North America and possibly Morocco. Some paleontologists regard it as the world's first vertebrate "superpredator", preying upon other predators. Other, smaller arthrodires, such as "Fallacosteus" and "Rolfosteus", both of the Gogo Formation of Western Australia, had streamlined, bullet-shaped head armor, strongly supporting the idea that many, if not most, arthrodires were active swimmers, rather than passive ambush-hunters whose armor practically anchored them to the sea floor. Some placoderms were herbivorous, such as the Middle to Late Devonian arthrodire "Holonema", and some were planktivores, such as the gigantic, long arthrodire, "Titanichthys".


title: Placodermi

text: Extraordinary evidence of internal fertilization in a placoderm was afforded by the discovery in the Gogo Formation, near Fitzroy Crossing, Kimberley, Western Australia, of a small female placoderm, about in length, which died in the process of giving birth to a 6 cm ( in) offspring and was fossilized with the umbilical cord intact. The fossil, named "Materpiscis attenboroughi" (after scientist David Attenborough), had eggs which were fertilized internally, the mother providing nourishment to the embryo and giving birth to live young. With this discovery, the placoderm became the oldest vertebrate known to have given birth to live young ("viviparous"), pushing the date of first viviparity back some 200 million years earlier than had been previously known. Specimens of the arthrodire "Incisoscutum ritchei", also from the Gogo Formation, have been found with embryos inside them indicating this group also had live bearing ability. The males reproduced by inserting a long clasper into the female. Elongated basipterygia are also found on the phyllolepid placoderms, such as "Austrophyllolepis" and "Cowralepis", both from the Middle Devonian of Australia, suggesting that the basiptergia were used in copulation.


title: Placodermi

text: The placoderm claspers are not homologous with the claspers in cartilaginous fishes. The similarities between the structures has been revealed to be an example of convergent evolution. While the claspers in cartilaginous fishes are specialized parts of their paired pelvic fins that have been modified for copulation due to changes in the hox genes hoxd13, the origin of the mating organs in placoderms most likely relied on different sets of hox genes and were structures that developed further down the body as an extra and independent pair of appendages, but which during development turned into body parts used for reproduction only. Because they were not attached to the pelvic fins, as are the claspers in fish like sharks, they were much more flexible and could probably be rotated forward.


title: Placodermi

text: It was thought for a time that placoderms became extinct due to competition from the first bony fish and early sharks, given a combination of the supposed inherent superiority of bony fish and the presumed sluggishness of placoderms. With more accurate summaries of prehistoric organisms, it is now thought that they systematically died out as marine and freshwater ecologies suffered from the environmental catastrophes of the Late Devonian and end-Devonian extinctions.


title: Placodermi

text: The earliest identifiable placoderm fossils are of Chinese origin and date to the early Silurian. At that time, they were already differentiated into antiarchs and arthrodires, as well as other, more primitive, groups. Earlier fossils of basal Placodermi have not yet been discovered.


title: Placodermi

text: The Silurian fossil record of the placoderms is both literally and figuratively fragmented. Until the discovery of "Silurolepis" (and then, the discoveries of "Entelognathus" and "Qilinyu"), Silurian-aged placoderm specimens consisted of fragments. Some of them have been tentatively identified as antiarch or arthrodire due to histological similarities; and many of them have not yet been formally described or even named. The most commonly cited example of a Silurian placoderm, "Wangolepis" of Silurian China and possibly Vietnam, is known only from a few fragments that currently defy attempts to place them in any of the recognized placoderm orders. So far, only three officially described Silurian placoderms are known from more than scraps:


title: Placodermi

text: The first officially described and oldest Silurian placoderm is an antiarch, "Shimenolepis", which is known from distinctively ornamented plates from the late Llandovery of Hunan, China. "Shimenolepis" plates are very similar to the early Devonian yunnanolepid "Zhanjilepis", also known from distinctively ornamented plates.


title: Placodermi

text: Paleontologists and placoderm specialists suspect that the scarcity of placoderms in the Silurian fossil record is due to placoderms' living in environments unconducive to fossil preservation, rather than a genuine scarcity. This hypothesis helps to explain the placoderms' seemingly instantaneous appearance and diversity at the very beginning of the Devonian.


title: Placodermi

text: During the Devonian, placoderms went on to inhabit and dominate almost all known aquatic ecosystems, both freshwater and saltwater. But this diversity ultimately suffered many casualties during the extinction event at the Frasnian–Famennian boundary, the Late Devonian extinctions. The remaining species then died out during the end-Devonian extinction; not a single placoderm species has been confirmed to have survived into the Carboniferous.


title: Placodermi

text: The earliest studies of placoderms were published by Louis Agassiz, in his five volumes on fossil fishes, 1833–1843. In those days, placoderms were thought to be shelled jawless fish akin to ostracoderms. Some naturalists even suggested that they were shelled invertebrates or even turtle-like vertebrates.


title: Placodermi

text: In the late 1920s, Dr. Erik Stensiö, at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, established the details of placoderm anatomy and identified them as true jawed fishes related to sharks. He took fossil specimens with well-preserved skulls and ground them away, one tenth of a millimeter at a time. After each layer had been removed, he made an imprint of the next surface in wax. Once the specimens had been completely ground away (and so destroyed), he made enlarged, three-dimensional models of the skulls to examine the anatomical details more thoroughly. Many other placoderm specialists thought that Stensiö was trying to shoehorn placoderms into a relationship with sharks; however, as more fossils were found, placoderms were accepted as a sister group of chondrichthyians.


title: Placodermi

text: Much later, the exquisitely preserved placoderm fossils from Gogo reef changed the picture again. They showed that placoderms shared anatomical features not only with chondrichthyians but with other gnathostome groups as well. For example, Gogo placoderms show separate bones for the nasal capsules as in gnathostomes; in both sharks and bony fish those bones are incorporated into the braincase.


title: Placodermi

text: Placoderms also share certain anatomical features only with the jawless osteostracans; because of this, the theory that placoderms are the sister group of chondrichthyians has been replaced by the theory that placoderms are a group of stem gnathostomes.


title: Placodermi

text: Currently, Placodermi are divided into eight recognized orders. There are two further controversial orders: One is the monotypic Stensioellida, containing the enigmatic "Stensioella"; the other is the equally enigmatic Pseudopetalichthyida. These orders are considered to be basal or primitive groups within Placodermi, though their precise placement within the class remains unsure. Fossils of both are currently known only from the Hunsruck lagerstatten.


title: Placodermi

text: Arthrodira ("jointed neck") were the most diverse and numerically successful of the placoderm orders, occupying roles from giant apex predators to detritus-nibbling bottom dwellers. They had a movable joint between armour surrounding the head and body. As the lower jaw moved down, the head shield moved, allowing for a larger opening. All arthrodires, save for "Compagopiscis", lacked teeth, and used instead the sharpened edges of a bony plate, termed a "tooth plate," as a biting surface ("Compagopiscis" had true teeth in addition to tooth plates). The eye sockets are protected by a bony ring, a feature shared by birds and some ichthyosaurs. Early arthrodires, such as the genus "Arctolepis", were well-armoured fishes with flattened bodies. The largest member of this group, "Dunkleosteus", was a true "superpredator" of the latest Devonian period, reaching 3 to as much as 8 metres in length. In contrast, the long-nosed "Rolfosteus" measured just 15 cm. Fossils of "Incisoscutum" have been found containing unborn fetuses, indicating that arthrodires gave birth to live young.


title: Placodermi

text: Antiarchi ("opposite anus") were the second most successful order of placoderms known, after the Arthrodira. The order's name was coined by Edward Drinker Cope, who, after incorrectly identifying the first fossils as being those of an armored tunicate, mistakenly thought the eye-hole was the mouth, and the opening for the anal siphon was on the other side of the body, as opposed to having both oral and anal siphons together at one end. The front portions of their bodies were heavily armoured, to the point of literally resembling a box with eyes, with the sometimes scaled, sometimes naked rear portions often becoming sinuous, particularly with later forms. The pair of pectoral fins were modified into a pair of caliper-like, or arthropod-like limbs. In primitive forms, such as "Yunnanolepis", the limbs were thick and short, while in advanced forms, such as "Bothriolepis", the limbs were long and had elbow-like joints. The function of the limbs is still not perfectly understood, but most hypothesize that they helped their owners pull themselves across the substrate, as well as allowing their owners to bury themselves into the substrate.


title: Placodermi

text: Brindabellaspida ("Brindabella's shield") was a long-snouted placoderm from the Early Devonian. When it was first discovered in 1980, it was originally regarded as a weejasperaspid acanthothoracid due to anatomical similarities with the other species found at the same locality. According to Philippe Janvier, anatomical similarities in the brain of "Brindabellaspis stensioi" and the brain of a jawless fish suggest it is a basal placoderm closest to the ancestral placoderm. Various Early to Middle Devonian placoderm "incertae sedis" have also been inserted in the order.


title: Placodermi

text: Phyllolepida ("leaf scales") were flattened placoderms found throughout the world. Like other flattened placoderms they were bottom-dwelling predators that ambushed prey. Unlike other flattened placoderms, they were freshwater fish. Their armour was made of whole plates, rather than the numerous tubercles and scales of Petalichthyida. The eyes were on the sides of the head, unlike visual bottom-dwelling predators, such as stargazers or flatfish, which have eyes on the top of their head. The orbits for the eyes were extremely small, suggesting the eyes were vestigial and that the phyllolepids may have been blind.


title: Placodermi

text: Ptyctodontida ("folded teeth") were lightly armoured placoderms with big heads, big eyes and long bodies. They have a strong but superficial resemblance to modern day chimaeras. Their armour was reduced to a pattern of small plates around the head and neck. Like the extinct and related acanthothoracids, and the living and unrelated holocephalians, most of the ptyctodontids are thought to have lived near the sea bottom and preyed on shellfish. On account of their lack of armour, some paleontologists have suggested that the Ptyctodontida were not placoderms, but holocephalians or the ancestors of holocephalians. Anatomical examinations of whole fossil specimens have shown that the similarities between these two groups are superficial. The major differences were that holocephalians have shagreen on their skin, while ptyctodontids do not; the armoured plates and scales of holocephalians are made of dentine, while those of ptyctodontids are made of bone; the craniums of holocephalians are similar to sharks, while those of ptyctodontids are similar to those of other placoderms; and, most importantly, that holocephalians have true teeth, while ptyctodonts have beak-like tooth plates. Ptyctodontids were sexually dimorphic, with the males having pelvic claspers and possibly claspers on the head as well.


title: Placodermi

text: Rhenanida ("Rhine fish") were flattened, ray-like, bottom-dwelling predators with large, upturned mouths that lived in marine environments. The rhenanids were once presumed to be the most primitive, or at least the closest to the ancestral placoderm, as their armour was made of unfused components—a mosaic of tubercles—as opposed to the solidified plates of "advanced" placoderms, such as antiarchs and arthrodires. However, through comparisons of skull anatomies, rhenanids are now considered to be the sister group of the antiarchs. When rhenanids die, their "mosaics" come apart, and it has been suggested that the rarity of rhenanids in the fossil record reflects postmortem disassociation, and is not an actual rarity of the species.


title: Placodermi

text: Acanthothoraci ("spine chests") were a group of chimaera-like placoderms closely related to the rhenanid placoderms. Superficially, acanthoracids resembled scaly chimaeras or small, scaly arthrodires with blunt rostrums. They were distinguished from chimaeras by a pair of large spines that emanate from their chests, the presence of large scales and plates, tooth-like beak plates, and the typical bone-enhanced placoderm eyeball. They were distinguished from other placoderms due to differences in the anatomy of their skulls, and due to patterns on the skull plates and thoracic plates that are unique to this order. From what can be inferred from the mouthplates of fossil specimens, acanthothoracids were shellfish hunters ecologically similar to modern-day chimaeras. Competition with their relatives, the ptyctodont placoderms, may have been one of the main reasons for the acanthothoracids' extinction prior to the mid-Devonian extinction event.


title: Placodermi

text: Petalichthyida ("thin-plated fish") were small, flattened placoderms, typified by their splayed fins and numerous tubercles that decorated all of the plates and scales of their armour. They reached a peak in diversity during the Early Devonian and were found throughout the world. The petalichthids "Lunaspis" and "Wijdeaspis" are among the best known. There was an independent diversification event that occurred in what is now Southern China, producing a handful of unique genera that were once placed in their own order, "Quasipetalichthyida", named after the first discovered species there, "Quasipetalichthys haikouensis". Soon after the petalichthids' diversification, they went into decline. Because they had compressed body forms, it is supposed they were bottom-dwellers that pursued or ambushed smaller fish. Their diet is not clear, as none of the fossil specimens found have preserved mouth parts.


title: Placodermi

text: Pseudopetalichthyida ("false petalichthyids") is a group of elongated, possibly flattened fishes comprising three, poorly preserved and poorly studied genera. It is known only from rare fossils in Lower Devonian strata in Hunsrück, Germany. Like "Stensioella heintzi", and the Rhenanida, the pseudopetalichthids had armour made up of a mosaic of tubercles. Like "Stensioella heintzi", the pseudopetalichthids' placement within Placodermi is suspect. The matter is not easy to resolve because there are no complete, undamaged and articulated specimens. The anatomical studies done on the crushed specimens that have been found indicate that if they are placoderms, they may be a group more advanced than the ptyctodonts. As such, placoderm experts consider Pseudopetalichthyida to be the sister group of the Arthrodires + Phyllolepida + Antiarchi trichotomy and the Acanthothoraci + Rhenanida dichotomy.


title: Placodermi

text: Stensioellida ("[Heintz's] little Stensio") contains another problematic placoderm of uncertain affinity, known only from the Lower Devonian Hunsrück slates of Germany. "Stensioella" was a thin fish that, when alive, looked vaguely like an elongated ratfish, or a skinny "Gemuendina" with thin, strap-like pectoral fins. Similar to those of the Rhenanida, its armour was a complex mosaic of small, scale-like tubercles. The shoulder joints of its armour are similar to other placoderms, and there are superficial similarities in skull plates, and even more superficial similarities between its tubercles and the tubercles of the rhenanids. It is tentatively placed within Placodermi as a primitive placoderm, though some paleontologists believe the rationale for the placement is inadequate. The paleontologist Philippe Janvier has suggested that "Stensioella" is not a placoderm, but instead is a holocephalian. If this is true, then the holocephalians diverged from sharks before the Chondrichthyan Devonian radiation. Critics of Janvier's position say that aside from a bodyplan superficially similar to primitive holocephalians, the two groups have little else in common anatomically.


title: Placodermi

text: The following cladogram shows the interrelationships of placoderms according to Carr "et al." (2009):


title: Placodermi

text: However, the cladogram had changed significantly over the years, and the placoderms are now thought to be paraphyletic, with some being more closer to the Eugnathostomata than others. The updated cladogram (Zhu et al., 2016):


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: The Plague Dogs is a 1982 adult animated adventure drama film, based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Richard Adams. It was written, directed and produced by Martin Rosen, who also directed "Watership Down", the film adaptation of another novel by Adams. "The Plague Dogs" was produced by Nepenthe Productions; it was released by Embassy Pictures in the United States and by United Artists in the United Kingdom. The film was originally released unrated in the United States, but for it's DVD release, was later re-rated PG-13 by the MPAA for mature themes such as animal cruelty, violent imagery, and emotionally distressing scenes. "The Plague Dogs" is the first non-family-oriented MGM animated film, and marks their first adult animated feature by the studio.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: The film's story is centered on two dogs named Rowf and Snitter, who escape from a research laboratory in Great Britain. In the process of telling the story, the film highlights the cruelty of performing vivisection and animal research for its own sake (though Rosen said that this was not an anti-vivisection film, but an adventure), an idea that had only recently come to public attention during the 1960s–70s.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: Rowf, a labrador-mix, and Snitter, a smooth fox terrier, are two of many dogs used for experimental purposes at an animal research facility in the Lake District of north-western England. Snitter has had his brain experimented upon while Rowf has been drowned and resuscitated repeatedly. One evening, Snitter squeezes under the netting of his cage and into Rowf's, where they discover his cage is unlatched. They explore the facility in order to escape until they sneak into the incinerator, where they are nearly killed before finally escaping.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: Initially relieved and eager to experience their new freedom, the dogs are soon faced not only with the realities of life in the wild but with another more terrifying realization—they are being hunted by their former captors. They come to befriend the Tod, a nameless Geordie-accented fox who goes by the local slang term for a wild fox. The Tod teaches them to hunt in the wild in exchange for a share of their kills. Snitter hopes for a new home as he once had a master, but after accidentally killing a man by stepping onto the trigger of his shotgun as he climbs up onto him, Snitter loses hope. As time passes the two dogs grow emaciated, having to steal more and more food while still avoiding capture. The Tod is also proven to be difficult for the dogs to understand and cooperate. When the Tod finds a nest of eggs, he eats them all himself, enraging Rowf. The Tod himself disapproves of their risky behaviour, like killing domestic sheep grazing on the local hills. They go their separate ways for a time, but the Tod eventually returns to assist them by distracting a lab-hired gunman who then falls to his death. The three reconcile and wander about aimlessly, with the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment and the media roped into the pursuit, driven by rumours of the two dogs carrying bubonic plague and killing humans and sheep.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: The Tod parts company with the two dogs after leading them to a train on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. While the dogs escape on the train, the Tod sacrifices his life distracting the humans in order to allow Snitter and Rowf to escape. Thanks to the Tod's distraction, Snitter and Rowf arrive at the coastal village of Ravenglass, but upon departing the train, the two dogs are spotted by an RAF Sea King helicopter and are pursued by it until they reach the shoreline and can run no further. As armed troops approach and prepare to shoot the dogs, Snitter looks out over the water and claims to see an island - he jumps into the sea and begins to swim to it. Rowf is hesitant to follow due to his conditioned fear of water, but his greater fear of the gunmen drives him to jump in as well and catch up with Snitter. Two gunshots are fired at the dogs but seemingly miss; immediately a white mist envelops the pair, and the humans and the helicopter disappear. The dogs swim through the mist towards the island Snitter claims to see but Rowf can't spot, until, at last, Snitter begins to doubt that "there is any island" and he stops paddling, losing hope. Rowf, however, claims to finally spot the island and urges Snitter to continue. The dogs swim onwards through the mist.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: The film was animated in both Britain and San Francisco, California between 1979 and 1982. British animators such as Arthur Humberstone, Alan Simpson, George Jackson, and Colin White came from the unit that had previously worked on "Watership Down". The San Francisco crew included Brad Bird, Phil Robinson, and Retta Scott, a "Disney veteran who had animated the vicious hunting dogs in "Bambi"."


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: Goldcrest Films invested £900,000 in the film and earned £308,000, losing the company £595,000. Jake Eberts who helped finance this and "Watership Down" thought the filmmakers made two errors: the film was downbeat with an unhappy ending, unlike the book, and was made without a distributor (an arrangement was made with Embassy but then the filmmakers wanted to re-negotiate and Embassy pulled out while United Artists became the film's UK distributor).


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: The song, as well as dialogue from the film, was sampled by the Canadian industrial group Skinny Puppy for their anti-vivisection single, "Testure", from their 1988 album "VIVIsectVI".


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: The film had a test screening in Seattle on 17 December 1983. Rosen had difficulty in finding distributors for the film, and it entered a limited release in the U.S. on 9 January 1985. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of based on reviews from critics, with an average rating of .


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: Janet Maslin, in her 1985 "New York Times" review of the U.S. release, praised the visual style: "Martin Rosen treats his "Plague Dogs" almost as though it were live action. He varies the scenery and the camera angles imaginatively [...] Mr. Rosen's direction is quite ingenious, much more so than Mr. Adams's story."


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: There are two versions of the film: An 86-minute version and a 103-minute version. The only country that offered the full-length film on DVD was Australia until it was released in the UK on 7 January 2008.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: While many of the missing scenes in the 86 minute cut were mostly removed to reduce running time, one scene taken from the book was removed because of its shocking content: After the hired gunman Ackland falls to his death from a steep crag from which he was attempting to shoot the dogs, a military helicopter flies over the snow-covered crags and valleys and the soldiers in the helicopter find the body ripped to shreds, implying that the starving dogs had eaten the corpse.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: The original VHS release of the full theatrical cut of the film was released by Thorn Productions in 1982. Only around 8,000 copies of this version were made. A sell through edition of the tape was later released in the UK by Warner Home Video. The 86 minute cut was released on VHS by Charter Entertainment.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: In 2002, Anchor Bay released a Region 2 DVD version of the film, but it contained the US recut. Soon afterwards, the Dutch budget label, Indies Home Entertainment, released a Region 2 disc which also contained the US cut but includes forced Dutch subtitles. In 2004, a DVD version of the film was released by Hollywood DVD in the UK with the US cut. Trinity Home Entertainment released their DVD in the United States the same year; Trinity tried to get the full cut, but when they were unable to obtain it, they ended up settling with using the truncated US version. Trinity's DVD was re-released by Phase 4 Films in 2010.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: In 2005, Australian distributor Umbrella Entertainment, released the full theatrical cut of the film as well as the truncated version on Region 4 DVD (they also released the full theatrical cut of "Watership Down"), sourced from Martin Rosen's private print. This was probably the only full cut of the film in existence aside from the rare Thorn and Warner Home Video VHSes and the original master. The same print was later released on Region 2 DVD in the UK by Optimum Releasing in 2008.


title: The Plague Dogs (film)

text: In 2017, Shout! Factory announced that they had acquired the rights to the film in the United States, and that they would release the film for the first time on Blu-ray on 24 February 2018 under their Shout Select line. In late 2017, Shout! Factory announced that they had delayed the film's Blu-ray release to work with director Martin Rosen in hopes of releasing the original 103-minute version of the film instead of the 86-minute version. In September 2018, Shout! Factory announced that the original 103-minute version of the film would be released on Blu-ray on 15 January 2019. The 2019 release includes both a 2K restored version of the original 103-minute version of the film and the 86-minute version of the film, as well as an interview with director Martin Rosen regarding the production of the film. Screenbound Films also released a Blu-ray of the film in the UK on 10 August 2020, likewise containing both the theatrical and extended cuts.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Sexual content has been found in video games since the early days of the industry, and games featuring sexual content can be found on most platforms and can be of any video game genre.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: The inclusion of sex in games has been subject to varying levels of controversy over the decades, sometimes resulting in calls for increased regulation and legislation dealing directly with adult content.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In Western gaming, the promise of sexual content in games is commonly used as a marketing tool, but many highly-sexualized games do not feature any explicitly adult content. Though some games do use sex acts or nudity as a narrative device, in-game reward, or a gameplay element, purely pornographic games are uncommon.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: However, the Japanese pornographic eroge subgenre is popular worldwide. First appearing in the 1980s, these games vary significantly in narrative complexity as well as level of interactivity, taking forms ranging from the visual novel to virtual reality experiences.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: One of the earliest video games to feature sexual themes was the 1981 text-based "Softporn Adventure", published by On-Line Systems for the Apple II. Despite heavy piracy, the game still sold 25,000 copies, roughly equivalent to 25% of the number of Apple IIs sold at the time. In a 1981 article in "Time Magazine", On-Line reported that they were making a version of the game for straight women, though this never materialized.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Several pornographic games, such as "X-Man," were created for the Atari 2600 in the early 1980s. The video game company, Mystique, released three unlicensed games for the Atari 2600; "Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em", "Custer's Revenge", and "Bachelor Party". The games were poorly received (particularly "Custer's Revenge," which is considered to be one of the worst games ever made), and Mystique went out of business in 1983. Company Playaround purchased the rights to these games and began distributing them under new titles in 2-in-1 cartridges.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In 1983, Entertainment Enterprises, Ltd. released an arcade game called "Swinging Singles," which was mostly meant for bars, adult stores, and sex clubs. The game requires the player to drive through the city maze, gathering dots like Pac-Man before reaching a brothel where the player is required to fight off venereal disease and collect keys to unlock sex scenes.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Also released in 1983 was "Strip Poker: A Sizzling Game of Chance" for the Commodore 64 and other 8-bit platforms, which Artworx Software created.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In 1986, Martech released a strip poker game featuring digitized pictures of Samantha Fox on the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad. The same company would later release the controversial "Vixen", featuring another page 3 model Corinne Russell.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Also, in 1986 On-line Systems (now called Sierra On-Line) asked game designer Al Lowe to create an adult game in the graphical adventure style made popular by their "King's Quest" series. Lowe took the basic elements of "Softporn Adventure", greatly expanded it, and released it as the 1987 game "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards". Sierra didn't advertise the game, and retailers were loath to carry it, so initial sales were low. However, word-of-mouth spread, and soon the Leisure Suit Larry series was a success, spawning two sequels before the end of the decade, 1988's "Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places)", and 1989's "".


title: Sexual content in video games

text: With CD-ROM and multimedia-based games in the 1990s, most adult games featured video clips with limited interactivity. Both pre-rendered and real-time 3D graphics were also used. While most games could be considered nothing more than pornography, some attempted to include actual stories and plots. This can be seen in some games with less explicit content, equal to an R- or PG-13-rated movie.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: 1990 saw the release of the first game in the "Gals Panic" series. The game derived gameplay elements from an older title called "Qix", which didn't have sexual images. The object of the games is to slowly remove pieces of the playing field while avoiding an enemy or groups of enemies. Removing the playing field slowly reveals pictures of models in escalating states of undress. The game had nine sequels throughout the 1990s (with a final game in 2002).


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Voyeur by Philips came out in 1993 for their CD-i console. While the game does not show any explicit nudity, it allows the player to spy on several characters in lingerie, foreplay, and explores taboos such as BDSM and incest.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In the 1990s NEC (on the PC Engine series and PC-FX) and Sega (on Saturn) were the only companies who officially allowed sexual content on their consoles in Japan, but eroge was more prevalent on the NEC PC-98 and FM Towns computer platforms.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Modern console publishers often have policies against depictions of nudity and explicit sexuality, particularly Sony Computer Entertainment with its PlayStation brand of consoles. "BMX XXX" for the PlayStation 2 was censored in the American release, while versions on the Xbox and Nintendo GameCube were not and featured nudity. However, Sony allowed nudity in the title "God of War" (2005), also developed by Sony, a game based on Greek mythology set in Ancient Greece, where nudity was perceived differently. Nudity was subsequently featured in the game's sequels, "God of War II" (2007), "" (2008), "God of War III" (2010), "" (2010), and "" (2013), which were also based on Greek mythology. The full motion video quiz game "The Guy Game" (2004) gained notoriety for its use of an underage model. The scenes in question led to a lawsuit by a woman who explained that she was only seventeen years old when the footage was taken, thus classifying it as child pornography which is illegal to own or sell in some countries.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Sex scenes and nudity have also appeared in Quantic Dream's "Fahrenheit" (aka Indigo Prophecy) and "Heavy Rain", released for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 respectively.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Sexuality and sexual frustration is also a theme prevalent in the "Silent Hill" series of survival-horror games.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: A new generation of adult social games has emerged that bring multiple users together in sexual environments. Examples include "Red Light Center, " and "". While it is not explicitly intended for purely adult-oriented entertainment, the virtual world of "Second Life", which is made up almost entirely of player-made content, has an array of very exotic adult entertainment including nudity and full-on sexual activities.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Adult games may take the form of bootlegs, circumventing mainstream publishers who may have policies against such games. Patches or hacks to mainstream non-adult games may add sexual and pornographic themes, mostly for humor, especially when sexuality was never intended in the original game. Examples include the "Tomb Raider" video games, the "" Hot Coffee mod, "" and "", (which both have multiple such mods), "Half-Life 2"'s FakeFactory Cinematic Mod and ROM hacks for console emulators.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: The Internet has allowed adult games to receive wider availability and recognition, including amateur games in Flash or Java. It has also allowed amateurs to create and distribute adult text adventure games, known as "Adult Interactive Fiction" or AIF.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Modern consumer virtual reality headsets, such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, allow users to engage in virtual sex through simulated environments. An example is "VR Kanojo".


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Blizzard Entertainment's 2016 game "Overwatch" has inspired a notable amount of fan-made porn. Short porn videos featuring official characters have been animated via Source Filmmaker and are popular on porn sites such as Pornhub and YouPorn. Despite its popularity, Blizzard has issued cease-and-desist orders to some of the creators.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Indie games have expanded the reach of adult games, and Steam now allows adult games onto its storefront. Patreon provides direct funding to adult developers, allowing games like "Hardcoded" to appeal to niche markets that previously would not have been created.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: The continuing rise of open-source software development practices has also influenced adult video games, allowing communities of amateurs to collaboratively create and distribute adult games via the Internet.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In 1982, Japan's Koei, founded by husband-and-wife team Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa (and later known for strategy video games), released the first erotic computer game with sexually explicit graphics, "Night Life", an early graphic adventure game for the NEC PC-8801. That same year, Koei released another erotic title, "Danchi Tsuma no Yuwaku" ("Seduction of the Condominium Wife"), which was an early role-playing adventure game with colour graphics, owing to the eight-color palette of the NEC PC-8001 computer. It became a hit, helping Koei become a major software company.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In another opinion, Yuji Horii recalled in 1986 that he saw a demonstration of a Yakyūken-like game running on the FM-8 in the end of 1981, and he considered Yakyūken was the origin of adult games. Some writers say that "" (1981) produced for Sharp MZ computers by Hudson Soft is the first Japanese adult game.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Like with Koei, several other now-famous Japanese companies such as Enix, Square and Nihon Falcom also released erotic adult games for the PC-8801 computer in the early 1980s before they became mainstream. Early eroge usually had simplistic stories and extreme sexual content, such as rape and lolicon. In some of the early erotic games, the erotic content is meaningfully integrated into a thoughtful and mature storyline, though others often used it as simply an excuse for pornography.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In 1999, Key released "Kanon". It contains about 7 brief erotic scenes in a sentimental story the size of a long novel (an all-ages version was also released afterward). "Kanon" sold over 300,000 copies.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: In response to increasing pressure from Japanese lobby groups, in mid-1996 Sega of Japan announced that they would no longer permit Sega Saturn games to include nudity.


title: Sexual content in video games

text: Many fanservice video games with sexual content have some brief nudity. The "M" rated series "Senran Kagura" has some nudity in both gameplay and cutscenes but genitals aren't displayed. Fanservice games rated "T" such as "Hyperdimension Neptunia" offer similar content but less than what "Senran Kagura" has. However, since 2018, Sony has now issued new regulations for PlayStation 4 games with both fanservice and sexual content. For the localized release of "", "Intimacy Mode", a mode where the player can play with the characters' bodies was removed, but by comparison, this mode is still available in the series' previous titles "" and "". The PC release of "Burst Re:Newal" was not changed. Many other recent PS4 games with sexual content are facing the same problem from Sony, including "Neptunia", "Date a Live: Rio Reincarnation", "Death end re;Quest" and the "Nekopara" series, although Sony did allow nudity and a sex scene in "The Last of Us Part II". This controversy had become a problem for the development of "Senran Kagura 7even", in which publishers Marvelous are now reconsidering the game and series producer Kenichiro Takaki is now leaving Marvelous.


title: Jax Jones

text: Timucin Lam (born Timucin Fabian Kwong Wah Aluo; 25 July 1987), known professionally as Jax Jones, is an English DJ, songwriter, record producer and remixer. He rose to fame in 2014 by featuring on Duke Dumont's number-one single "I Got U". He followed this up with his own singles "You Don't Know Me" featuring Raye and "Instruction" featuring Demi Lovato and Stefflon Don in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Jax's debut studio album, "Snacks (Supersize)", was released on 6 September 2019. It was preceded by the single "One Touch" featuring Jess Glynne.


title: Jax Jones

text: Jax grew up in a multi-ethnic household and was exposed to a wealth of influences. His father is Turkish and gave him the name Timucin. His mother is Chinese-Malaysian. After his Nigerian stepfather introduced him to afrobeat via Fela Kuti and rap with a tape of a Notorious B.I.G. album, Jax listened to hip hop, R&B, gospel and traditional African music. His Malaysian mother was into music ranging from Kylie Minogue to Luther Vandross and also influenced him. Producers like The Neptunes, Timbaland and Rodney Jerkins shaped his musical horizons and his fascination with the anatomy of a rhythm section. Having initially studied classical guitar from a young age, Jax took up beat-making at 15 after discovering Cubase on his friend's Atari.


title: Jax Jones

text: On 18 September 2020, Jax announced on his Instagram that his wife had given birth to their daughter, Lawana.


title: Jax Jones

text: Performing at open mic clubs around London, Jax eventually came together with Ripperman, a grime producer from Mitcham, at Brixton's Raw Materials Studio, and worked on releases for Big Narstie and Roadside Gs, among others in the scene. His parents encouraged him to go to university at 18. Opting to stay closer to Raw Materials, he declined an interview at the University of Oxford to attend Brunel University in Uxbridge. Despite a two-hour trip, Jax went from lectures to the studio daily to work on his craft, posting beats regularly on Myspace. After graduation, Jax rented a studio in Sydenham after not being allowed back in the family home, bought a Mac tower from Gumtree and worked daily to hone his craft.


title: Jax Jones

text: After meeting Duke Dumont, he developed an interest in house music and together they co-wrote and produced "I Got U", "Won't Look Back" and "Ocean Drive". Jones features on the single "I Got U", the song peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart in March 2014, leading to his breakthrough as an artist.


title: Jax Jones

text: On 24 July 2015, he released the single "Yeah Yeah Yeah". In July 2016, he released the single "House Work". Jax says of the track, "At the end of the day, I started making beats on a four-track, so it feels right to put that DIY energy into my music". In December 2016, he released the single "You Don't Know Me" based on the sampling of the bassline of M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade's 2005 hit "Body Language". The song became his biggest success, reaching number three in the UK and top five status in several European countries, including Germany, Ireland, Belgium and Norway. Jones continued to release songs wherein he collaborated with the likes of Demi Lovato and Years & Years. He released his debut extended play, "Snacks", on 28 November 2018. The EP was later expanded into Jones' first album, "Snacks (Supersize)", which was released on 6 September 2019.


title: Jax Jones

text: Jax also collaborated with fellow DJ Martin Solveig to create the musical duo Europa. Their first song together, "All Day and Night" (featuring Madison Beer), it was included on Jones' 2018 EP "Snacks" and was released as single in March 2019. They released their next single, "Tequila" (featuring RAYE), in February 2020.


title: Jax Jones

text: On 9 October 2020, Jones released the single "I Miss U" alongside Antiguan-German singer Au/Ra. The song peaked at Number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, and a subsequent acoustic version followed. Upon its release, Jones tweeted about the song's message in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, and an inability to see family and friends due to national lockdowns. He said "i miss u is finally out in the world we all miss something right now and i miss u is supposed to highlight that and remind ourselves that it's ok to feel this way sometimes."


title: Jax Jones

text: In January 2021, Jones promoted Irish music producer Emmet Glascott & singer Molly Morgans remix of Jones' song '100 Times' on his Instagram story.


title: Jax Jones

text: On 4 June 2021, Jones released the song "Feels", the lead single off his second EP "Deep Joy", which was released on 2 July 2021.


title: Jax Jones

text: On 13 August 2021, saw the release of "Out Out", a collaborative single with fellow English DJ Joel Corry and featuring the vocals of singer Charli XCX and rapper Saweetie. The song peaked at #6 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Jax Jones

text: On 4 June 2022, he participated in the Platinum Party at the Palace, performing with Nandi Bushell and Stefflon Don, as well as Mabel and John Newman to mark the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II.


title: Jessica Ransom

text: Jessica Ransom (born 1 December 1981) is a British actress and writer, best known for her role as medical receptionist Morwenna Newcross in the ITV drama "Doc Martin" (2011–2022). She won a Children's BAFTA Award in 2015.


title: Jessica Ransom

text: Ransom was born 1 December 1981 in Sheffield, England. She studied GCSE in Expressive Arts and A Level Theatre Studies at High Storrs School in Sheffield.


title: Jessica Ransom

text: After graduating from the University of Birmingham, Ransom did sketch writing and comedy. She appeared at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with two pieces: "Million" and "Unsung Heroes." From 2009 to 2010, she appeared in various side characters in the sketch show "The Armstrong and Miller Show". Thereafter, she appeared in the television improvisation show "Fast and Loose" in 2011 and that year also appeared as Morwenna Newcross, Doc Martin's medical receptionist (known for her mismatched colourful outfits) in the ITV drama "Doc Martin," Ransom remaining a cast member playing that character to the present day.


title: Jessica Ransom

text: In the meantime, Ransom performed in other productions. Ransom took the stage, including work in the 2012 revival of "Posh". Also that year, Ransom appeared in the D.C Moore play, "Straight," at the Sheffield Crucible and then at the Bush Theatre in London. In 2014, Ransom voiced the role of the titular character in the second season of "Poppy Cat", replacing the original voice actress, Joanna Page. She appeared in a Sky TV advertisement with Bruce Willis where she was "totally unlimited" (the advertisement was banned in 2013 for being misleading, but has been re-released with more prominent information on the pricing) and appeared in series 4 of "Horrible Histories" and series 6, 7 and 8 of its 2015 revival winning the 2015 Children’s BAFTA Award for her role as Mary, Queen of Scots. Ransom was also a writer on The Amazing World of Gumball for seasons 3 to 6, and Elliott from Earth. Ransom also wrote an episode of "Danger Mouse" in 2017 called "Live and Let Cry."


title: Jessica Ransom

text: Ransom has run the London Marathon four times, in 2012 for Mencap, in 2014 for Age UK and in 2015 and 2017 for Bloodwise.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Lieutenant General Lloyd Ralston Fredendall (December 28, 1883 – October 4, 1963) was a senior officer of the United States Army who served during World War II. He is best known for his leadership failure during the Battle of Kasserine Pass, leading to one of America's worst defeats of World War II, for which he was relieved of his command.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: He was in command of the Central Task Force landings during Operation Torch in North Africa, and led II Corps during the early stages of the Tunisian Campaign.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: In February 1943, while in command of the II Corps, his forces were defeated by German forces commanded by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim in the Battle of Kasserine Pass. After this debacle, Fredendall was relieved of command of II Corps by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in North Africa, and replaced by Major General George S. Patton.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: In spite of being relieved of command, Fredendall was promoted to lieutenant general in June 1943, assumed command of Second Army and was greeted in the United States as a hero.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Lloyd Ralston Fredendall was born on December 28, 1883, at Fort D. A. Russell near Cheyenne, Wyoming. His father, Ira Livingston Fredendall (December 7, 1846 – February 6, 1935), was on active duty in the United States Army when Fredendall was born. Ira became sheriff of Laramie County before receiving a commission in the Quartermaster Corps during the Spanish–American War. The elder Fredendall retired as a major in 1914, returned to active duty during World War I to supervise construction at several bases in the western United States, and retired again as a lieutenant colonel. As a result of his father's connections in the service and with local and state politicians, Fredendall secured an appointment from Wyoming Senator Francis E. Warren to enter the class of 1905 at the United States Military Academy (USMA). Described by a classmate as "a very soldierly little fellow, but extremely goaty in mathematics," Fredendall performed poorly in math as well as in general deportment, and was dismissed after just one semester.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: His mother persuaded Senator Warren to re-appoint Fredendall the next year, but he dropped out again. Although the senator was willing to nominate him for a third attempt, the academy declined to readmit him. Instead, Fredendall attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1903 to 1904 as a member of the class of 1907. He took the officer's qualifying exam in 1906, and scored first out of 70 applicants. On February 13, 1907, he received his commission in the United States Army as a second lieutenant in the Infantry Branch.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: After service in the Philippines and other overseas and stateside assignments, Fredendall shipped out to the Western Front with the 28th Infantry Regiment in August 1917, four months after the American entry into World War I. He held a succession of instructor assignments in the army's schools in France, and commanded one of its training centers. He built a record as an excellent teacher, trainer, and administrator, and ended the war as a temporary lieutenant colonel.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: The Armistice of November 11, 1918, saw Fredendall assigned, like many other officers, to a variety of staff and training duties. He was both student and instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School; was a 1923 distinguished graduate (placing 31 out of 151) of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff School; and in 1925, he graduated from the U.S. Army War College. He also completed tours of duty in Washington at the Statistics Branch, the Inspector General's Department (September 1934 to March 1936) and as executive officer (XO), Office of the Chief of Infantry. These postings led to important contacts that later furthered his military career.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: In December 1939, during World War II (although the United States was still neutral at this stage), Fredendall was promoted to the one-star rank of brigadier general, serving with the 5th Infantry Division. In October 1940, he was promoted to the two-star rank of major general, and given command of the 4th Infantry Division until July 1941.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Fredendall's rise to military command in World War II was facilitated by General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff; and Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, the commander of Army Ground Forces, a friend and colleague. McNair had included Fredendall on a list of the top three generals he believed capable of commanding all U.S. Army forces being sent to Great Britain. Marshall, in turn, had recommended the swaggering Fredendall to Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower for a major command in the Allied invasion of North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch. Marshall was especially fond of the youthful-looking, cocky Fredendall, describing him as "one of the best" and remarking in a staff meeting when his name was mentioned, "I like that man; you can see determination all over his face." Fredendall himself was convinced that neither Eisenhower nor his deputy, Major General Mark W. Clark, wanted him in Africa since he was above both in pre-war rank. However, with such glowing testimonials from senior commanders, Eisenhower chose Fredendall to command the 39,000-man Central Task Force (the largest of three) in Operation Torch. Eisenhower cabled Marshall on November 12, 1942, four days after the invasion, "I bless the day you urged Fredendall upon me and cheerfully acknowledge that my earlier doubts of him were completely unfounded." Eisenhower, in notes dictated to Harry C. Butcher on December 12, 1942, said, "…Patton I think comes closest to meeting every requirement made on a commander. Just after him I would, at present, rate Fredendall, although I do not believe the latter has the imagination in foreseeing and preparing for possible jobs of the future that Patton possesses." Eisenhower later came to regret both this assessment and his selection of Fredendall for the command.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: After the Torch landings, Fredendall became the "de facto" military governor in Oran. Orders from his headquarters in the Grand Hotel of Oran were headed with "II Corps – In the Field," which prompted derision from his troops, who were living in spartan conditions.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Fredendall was assigned to command the U.S. II Corps in its advance into Tunisia against German forces. (He thus became the second-oldest of the 34 generals to serve as a U.S. Army corps commander in World War II, after Innis P. Swift, commander of the I Corps in the Pacific.) II Corps served under the British First Army, whose commander, Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson, considered Fredendall incompetent well before the loss at Kasserine. Fredendall was given to speaking and issuing orders using his own slang, such as calling infantry units "walking boys" and artillery "popguns." Instead of using the standard military map grid-based location designators, he made up confusing codes such as "the place that begins with C." This practice was unheard-of for a general and distinguished graduate of the Command and General Staff School, who had been taught to always use standardized language and procedures to ensure clarity when transmitting orders under the stress of combat. Fredendall's informality often led to confusion among his subordinates, and precious time was lost attempting to discern his meaning.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: During the advance into Tunisia, Fredendall used an engineer company of the 19th Engineer Regiment to build a large, dug-in corps headquarters bunker behind the front in a place called Speedy Valley (nine miles southeast of Tébessa). Blasted and drilled out of solid rock, the bunker (actually two U-shaped complexes running into the hillside) took three weeks to construct. An anti-aircraft battalion was emplaced to protect the headquarters. Fredendall also ordered a bulletproof Cadillac similar to Eisenhower's, and regularly phoned Oran to find out why it was not being delivered faster. Then-Brigadier General Omar Bradley called the headquarters "an embarrassment to every American soldier," and General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in North Africa, after viewing the elaborate structure, reminded his senior commanders that even generals must assume personal risk in combat. Fredendall rarely visited the front lines, and had a habit of disregarding advice from commanders who had been farther forward and had actually reconnoitered the terrain. He split up units and scattered them widely, and at critical defense points had positioned U.S. forces (against advice) too far apart for mutual support or effective employment of artillery, the strongest American arm.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: During the Battle of Kasserine Pass, Eisenhower sent Major General Ernest N. Harmon to report on the fighting, to assist Fredendall and the other Allied commanders, and to determine whether Fredendall or his 1st Armored Division commander, Major General Orlando Ward, should be replaced. Harmon noted that Fredendall and his superior, Anderson, rarely saw each other, and failed to properly coordinate and integrate forces under their command. Fredendall was barely on speaking terms with Ward, whom he had deliberately left out of operational meetings after Ward had repeatedly protested the separation of his command into weaker 'penny packet' forces distributed across various sectors of the front.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Allied forces were bereft of air support during critical attacks, and were frequently positioned by the senior command in positions where they could not support each other. Subordinates later recalled their utter confusion at being handed conflicting orders, not knowing which general to obey—Anderson or Fredendall. While interviewing field commanders, Harmon heard much criticism over what many Allied officers viewed as a cowardly, confused, and out-of-touch command. Noting that Fredendall seemed out of touch (and at one point, intoxicated), he requested and received permission to go to the front and intervene where necessary to shore up Allied defenses.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: On March 5, 1943, after the American rout at Kasserine Pass, Eisenhower visited II Corps headquarters and conferred with Brigadier General Bradley. Eisenhower asked "What do you think of the command here?" Bradley's response was "It's pretty bad. I've talked to all the division commanders. To a man they've lost confidence in Fredendall as the corps commander." British General Sir Harold Alexander, the 18th Army Group commander, informed Eisenhower that he would welcome a replacement for Fredendall. Eisenhower offered the II Corps command to Harmon, who declined on the grounds that it would be unethical to appear to personally benefit from his negative assessment of Fredendall. Eisenhower then decided on Major General George S. Patton as Fredendall's replacement. On March 5, 1943, Eisenhower personally flew to Tebessa to inform Fredendall of his decision to replace him, which he couched in terms of a routine reassignment. Eisenhower arranged the replacement so that Fredendall's reputation was not formally brought into disrepute, an action some believe he soon came to regret. On March 6, 1943, Patton replaced Fredendall. When Patton arrived at II Corps headquarters, Fredendall was at breakfast. Patton had disliked Fredendall in 1941 when they were both division commanders at Fort Benning, Georgia. After a brief conference, Patton formally relieved him, saying II Corps "was primarily a tank show and I know more about tanks." Patton noted in his diary that Fredendall was "Very nice, conducted himself well – very well." In a letter to his wife Beatrice that day, Patton even wrote that "Fredendall is a great sport, and I feel sure, is a victim largely due to circumstances beyond his control." However, only a week later, after an initial inspection of his new command, Patton had completely changed his mind: "I cannot see what Fredendall did to justify his existence."


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Fredendall was the first of seven American corps commanders in World War II to be "relieved of command" (most for medical reasons), but despite this, he received one more promotion: in June 1943, he was advanced to lieutenant general.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: At Eisenhower's recommendation, Fredendall returned to the United States. Eisenhower's aide made a report on Fredendall to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, where he communicated, without elaboration, Eisenhower's view that Fredendall should be reassigned to a training command. As a result, Fredendall spent the rest of the war in training assignments in the United States. Because he had not been formally reprimanded by Eisenhower, he was eligible for appointment to lieutenant general and three-star assignment, which he duly received, along with a hero's welcome on his return to the United States.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: While commanding the Central Defense Command and the U.S. Second Army at Memphis, Tennessee, Fredendall supervised training and field maneuvers, gave away brides, and at first even granted interviews to members of the press. However, after a sarcastic comment on his generalship by a "Time" magazine reporter, Fredendall changed his mind, and largely blocked further press coverage of his command. The widespread custom of theater commanders to transfer senior commanders who had failed in battlefield assignments to stateside training commands did not in any way improve the reputation or morale of the latter, who were now saddled with the difficult job of convincing a disgraced commander to take the lead in advocating radical improvements in existing army training programs—programs which, like Fredendall himself, had contributed to the embarrassing U.S. Army reverses in North Africa.


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Author Charles B. MacDonald described Fredendall as a "man of bombast and bravado in speech and manner [who] failed to live up to the image he tried to create." Historian Carlo D'Este has described Fredendall as "...one of the most inept senior officers to hold a high command during World War II." The 2nd Armored Division commander, Major General Ernest N. Harmon, in his after-action report for the Kasserine battles, called Fredendall both a moral and physical coward and later said he was "a son of a bitch".


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: Fredendall died in San Diego, California, on October 4, 1963. He is interred at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery Officers Sections, Site 52-A, along with his wife Crystal Daphne Chant (July 23, 1890 – April 30, 1972).


title: Lloyd Fredendall

text: In "The New Normal", an episode of the television series "Blue Bloods", New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan negatively reviews the performance of a precinct commander by drawing a parallel between the captain's poor leadership of his precinct and Fredendall's conduct at Kasserine Pass.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: The Double is a 2011 American spy film directed by Michael Brandt, written by Brandt and Derek Haas, and starring Richard Gere, Topher Grace, Stephen Moyer and Martin Sheen. The film tells the story about a retired CIA operative working with a rookie FBI agent to solve the murder of a US senator caused by a Soviet assassin. It was released on October 28, 2011. The film garnered negative reviews from critics, and was a box office bomb.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: Two FBI agents are conducting surveillance at a warehouse. As U.S. Senator Dennis Darden walks out of the door, he is approached by an assassin from behind who slits his throat and escapes. The agents rush to the scene to find the man dead. However, they could not identify the assassin as he committed the murder in darkness. Later, CIA officers arrive on the scene and take charge.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: Retired operative Paul Shepherdson is summoned by CIA director Tom Highland to look into the murder. He is introduced to a young FBI agent, Ben Geary who is an expert on a former Soviet operative known as Cassius. Geary reasons that Cassius is the assassin due to his signature throat-slitting (garrotting) method.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: Paul and Ben visit Brutus, one of Cassius's proteges, who is locked up in prison, to learn the whereabouts of Cassius. They provide him with a radio and leave. The prisoner then swallows the batteries from the radio and fakes a poisoning/upset stomach. Upon arriving at a hospital, he regurgitates and spits out the batteries, overpowers the medical staff, and escapes. In the basement's garage, he is attacked by Paul, who reveals himself to be Cassius himself, the very operative who had previously trained the fugitive. Cassius slits his throat. He then moves to eliminate Ben too, only stopping when interrupted by Ben's wife—Cassius is unable to murder Geary in front of his family. Upon investigating the crime scene, Ben grows increasingly suspicious of Paul. Meanwhile, a Russian terrorist and murderer, Bozlovski, has entered the U.S.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: As the investigation deepens, Paul warns Ben to pull out, due to the possibility of harm not only to himself but his family. Ben, who has become obsessed with the idea that Paul is Cassius, starts his own parallel investigation. Meanwhile, Paul tries to contact Bozlovski in a factory where he escapes after an intense firefight. Ben examines another throat-slitting murder of Bozlovski's associate at the same site and is now convinced Paul is indeed Cassius.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: Ben pieces together the events of Paul's life and determines that not only is Paul actually Cassius, but also that he is systematically murdering the people involved in the death of his wife and child, who were assassinated by Bozlovski.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: Paul has now tracked down Bozlovski to a shipyard warehouse. A while later, Ben also arrives at the building. After being confronted with the evidence, Paul confesses everything. Paul then confronts Ben with the fact that Ben is a Russian spy, which Paul learned at one of Ben's informant drop-offs. He is able to convince Ben that Bozlovski is the actual threat. When Ben reveals that he has plans to return to Russia after this is over, Paul tries to convince him to stay in the FBI and with the family he has grown to love.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: Together they hunt down Bozlovski inside the shipyard's warehouse. Bozlovski attacks Paul and Ben, and in the ensuing struggle, a mortally wounded Paul slits Bozlovski's throat using his garrote-watch. However, Paul himself later succumbs to his own injuries. As the only witness, FBI agent Ben relays the incident to his superiors and claims that Bozlovski was Cassius, thereby securing Paul's reputation and recognizing his heroism. As Ben departs, the CIA director Highland asks him whether he would ever consider working at the CIA.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: The film ends with Ben returning to his home. Whether he has silently defected to the American government or just became an even deeper Russian asset is left to the audience.


title: The Double (2011 film)

text: "The Double" received mostly negative reviews from critics, holding a approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews, with an average score of . Stephanie Merry of "The Washington Post" gave note of Brandt's scripting of the story, saying that "questionable motives and unbelievable decisions are relatively small potatoes compared with the Sputnik-size plotholes." She also gave credit to his style of direction for having "sweeping shots of the nation's capital, along with some claustrophobic shots that add anxiety to early scenes" but said that "It's not enough to boost up this botched attempt to tinker with something that, while predictable, is at least dependable." Randy Cordova of "The Arizona Republic" criticized Brandt's direction and screenwriting for lacking any "menace or mystery to the proceedings" and its two main leads' characters for having no chemistry and feeling by-the numbers, saying that, "With its convoluted plot and fading stars, "The Double" feels like a straight-to-DVD feature that somehow sneaked onto the big screen. It's simply not very good." In a review for the "A.V. Club", Noel Murray gave the film a "C−". He felt that Brandt and Haas waste their premise by setting it up like "a typical episode of any basic-cable action series" saying that "while it holds a few surprises, the twists feel writerly, not organic." Roger Ebert highlighted Gere's "subtle catlike body language" in his performance that displays his well-worn screen presence but was critical of Brandt and Haas's script containing thriller clichés and "familiar action-movie tropes" compared to their previous effort "", concluding that it "doesn't approach it in terms of quality. None of it is particularly compelling. Most of the time we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. When, very late in the film, the screenplay comes up with a third shoe, that's going too far." "Paste" writer Annlee Ellingson gave the film praise for being "a throwback genre flick, complete with a throwback lead that gives away its double cross early yet maintains enough mystery to keep viewers moderately intrigued."


title: Spider-Man in television

text: The character of Spider-Man from Marvel has appeared in multiple forms of media besides the comics, including on television numerous times, in both live action and animated television programs.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: The character was first portrayed in live action by Danny Seagren in "Spidey Super Stories", an "Electric Company" segment which ran from 1974 to 1977.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: In 1977, a short-lived live action television series was produced called "The Amazing Spider-Man", starring Nicholas Hammond in the title role. Although the series earned good ratings, the CBS Television Network canceled it after just two seasons, along with "Wonder Woman", to avoid being labeled as "the superhero network." The series was broadcast only sporadically during the second season. Several episodes from this series were turned into full-length motion pictures outside the U.S. Three movies were released overseas: "Spider-Man" in 1977, "Spider-Man Strikes Back" in 1978, and "" in 1981.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: In 1978, a "Spider-Man" live-action tokusatsu series was produced for Japanese television by Toei Company. Due to a request by Bandai that the show include giant robots and vehicles, it was not a faithful adaptation. Instead of Peter Parker, Spider-Man is . It was not related to Ryoichi Ikegami's earlier 1970 "" manga. Toei planned to follow the series with a new show starring a Japanese counterpart of Captain America called "Captain Japan", which was revamped into "Battle Fever J", the first official installment of Toei's "Super Sentai" franchise (barring the retroactive recognition of "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger" and "JAKQ Dengekitai" in later years). The concept of costumed superheroes piloting giant robots introduced in the Japanese "Spider-Man" was carried over to "Battle Fever J", which became a tradition in the "Super Sentai" franchise.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: The first animated series was simply titled "Spider-Man", and ran on ABC from 1967 to 1970. The show's first season was produced by Grantray-Lawrence Animation, which soon went bankrupt. In 1968, animator Ralph Bakshi took over. Bakshi's episodes, which suffered from extremely low budgets, were stylized and featured dark ominous settings and pervasive background music. One episode reused complete background animation, characters, and storyline from an episode of "Rocket Robin Hood". The series may be best remembered for its theme song. In recent years several internet memes gained prominence that use the simplistic art style and awkward situation of this series for comedic purposes. Spider-Man was voiced by Paul Soles.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: In 1981, with the creation of the animation studio Marvel Productions Ltd., Marvel endeavored to translate more of their comic characters to television. To garner the attention of the major networks, Marvel first created a new syndicated Spider-Man cartoon that was partially based on the old 1960s show. The strategy worked, and NBC became interested in having their own Spider-Man cartoon. Spider-Man was voiced by Ted Schwartz.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: Towards this end the cartoon series "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" was created for NBC featuring Spider-Man, Iceman of the X-Men, and a new character, Firestar. Actor Dan Gilvezan gave voice to this incarnation of the wall-crawler. This series also featured a number of Marvel guest stars, and shared many of its character designs with the solo Spider-Man show produced just before it.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: The 1994 Spider-Man animated series was made for the Fox Network, with Christopher Daniel Barnes providing the voice of Spider-Man. This series had a bigger budget and used a novel system of one large story arc per season, developed by John Semper. As a result, each of the individual 65 episodes (starting with season 2) were called "chapters". This was the longest Spider-Man series, with 65 episodes in five seasons, until 2012's "Ultimate Spider-Man" surpassed it.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: In 1999, an animated series named "Spider-Man Unlimited" was developed for Fox in which Spider-Man is transported to an animated Counter-Earth inspired by the one created by the High Evolutionary in early 1970s comics. This series was cancelled after one season. Spider-Man was voiced by Rino Romano.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: In 2003, another television series adaptation, "Spider-Man: The New Animated Series" this time using computer animation was produced by Mainframe Entertainment for Sony Pictures Television and broadcast on MTV; it featured characters and continuity from the 2002 "Spider-Man" film, as well as Michael Clarke Duncan voicing the Kingpin, reprising his role from the 2003 live action "Daredevil film adaptation". The show lasted only one season, which contained 13 episodes. Spider-Man was voiced by Neil Patrick Harris.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: This television series is heavily inspired by both the early Lee/Ditko and Romita "The Amazing Spider-Man" stories and the Bendis/Bagley "Ultimate Spider-Man". Peter Parker is still a teenager living in contemporary New York, as in Bendis' Ultimate version, but many of the cast members borrow from both the early and later years of Spider-Man comics. Many of the original supporting cast, including Flash Thompson, have been translated into modern terms but are still very true to the comics, and some have altered ethnicities: Liz Allan is Hispanic and Ned Lee (formerly "Leeds") is Korean. The first season follows several plot arcs drawn from the comics. Two seasons of the series were aired, each containing 13 episodes. The series ended when Sony Pictures relinquished its rights, which it had licensed from Marvel, to produce animated works using Spider-Man and associated characters. Spider-Man was voiced by Josh Keaton.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: "Ultimate Spider-Man" aired on Disney XD. It started airing on April 1, 2012. Spider-Man/Peter Parker is voiced by Drake Bell. The show's third season is subtitled "Web-Warriors", and the fourth season is subtitled "vs. The Sinister Six".


title: Spider-Man in television

text: The series ended in a two part series finale on January 7, 2017, bringing the episode count to 104 and making it the longest running Marvel animated series ever at that time. "Avengers Assemble" animated series passed this benchmark in 2019 and has aired 126 episodes.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: "Spider-Man" features Spider-Man (voiced by Robbie Daymond) teaming up with Miles Morales as Spider-Man II, Gwen Stacy as Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider, and Anya Corazon as Spider-Girl.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: A new children's television series titled "Spidey and His Amazing Friends" premiered on August 6, 2021 on Disney Junior. Peter Parker / Spidey is voiced by Benjamin Valic.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: "Spider-Man: Freshman Year" explores Peter Parker's origin story and early days using the Spider-Man persona. It is produced by Marvel Studios for Disney+, part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) franchise, and takes place in an alternate timeline from the MCU in which Norman Osborn meets and mentors Parker in place of Tony Stark in the films "" (2016) and "" (2017). The series will feature a style that "celebrates" and pays homage to the early "The Amazing Spider-Man" comic books.


title: Spider-Man in television

text: Announced in November 2021, Jeff Trammel serves as head writer and executive producer for the series, with the cast featuring Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil (reprising his role from previous MCU media) and Paul F. Tompkins as Bentley Wittman. The series will debut on the streaming service Disney+ in 2024, with a second season, subtitled "Sophomore Year", in development.


title: Orange chicken

text: The variety of orange chicken most commonly found at North American Chinese restaurants consists of chopped, battered and fried chicken pieces coated in a sweet orange-flavored chili sauce, which thickens or caramelizes to a glaze. While the dish is very popular in the United States, it is most often found as a variation of General Tso's chicken in North America rather than the dish found in mainland China. Chef Andy Kao claims to have developed the original Chinese-American orange chicken recipe at a Panda Express in Hawaii in 1987. Since Panda Express is closely associated with this dish, Panda Express uses orange chicken as a promotion tool by having a dedicated food truck tour the country distributing samples of orange chicken.


title: Orange chicken

text: Orange chicken is called Chinese food in North America, but orange chicken is rarely found in Chinese restaurants in China. Andrew Cherng, owner and founder of Panda Express, said that orange chicken is just a variation of General Tso's chicken, another dish that is almost unknown in China. Journalist Jennifer 8. Lee says that both "General Tso's chicken and Orange Chicken are Americanized mutations of sweet and sour dishes found in China." Orange chicken has also entered the menus of the mainstream U.S. by being served in school cafeterias, and in military bases' chow halls, and also found in the supermarket frozen meal aisle.


title: Orange chicken

text: Jimmy Wang, executive director of culinary innovation at Panda Express, claims orange chicken is one of the most creative dishes in the past thirty years. In most countries in the western hemisphere, the names "orange chicken", "orange peel chicken", "orange-flavored chicken", and "tangerine chicken" are typically used for this particular dish.


title: Orange chicken

text: This dish may have originally come from the "tangerine chicken" dish from Hunan province, China. In Chinese, this dish is known as "陳皮雞", literally "dried citrus peel chicken", referring to dried orange or tangerine peel. However, the taste and recipes of this dish differ due to cultural and geographical factors. In American Chinese restaurants, the use of tangerine was changed to the use of fresh orange peel or no orange at all. Tangerine is used in traditional Chinese medicine as well as cooking. Tangerine chicken tastes fresh and spicy, but orange chicken tastes sweet and sour. Orange chicken is crispy cooked in a sweet and little spicy orange sauce. The sweetness of orange chicken was introduced to cater to American tastes.


title: Orange chicken

text: Orange chicken is the signature dish of the American fast food chain Panda Express, which sells over 100 million pounds of it every year. In the TV series "The Big Bang Theory", the character Sheldon's favorite Chinese food is orange chicken.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill (29 December 1934 – 26 May 2017) was an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. He served twice as DGP for the state of Punjab, India, where he is credited with having brought the Punjab insurgency under control. While many see him as a hero, there are accusations that he and the forces under his command were responsible for multiple cases of human rights violation "in the name of stamping out terrorism." He was also convicted in a sexual harassment case. Gill retired from the IPS in 1995.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Gill was an author, editor, speaker, consultant on counter-terrorism, and served as president of the Institute for Conflict Management and president of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF).


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Gill joined the Indian Police Service in 1958 and was assigned to the Assam and Meghalaya states in northeast India.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In the early 1980s, Gill served as Inspector General of Police in Assam. Vinayak Ganapathy, writing for rediff.com in 2003, noted "Gill's no-nonsense style of functioning, which earned him the sobriquet 'supercop' in Punjab, made him unpopular among influential sections of the population" in Assam and called him "a controversial figure". While Director General of police in Assam, Gill was charged with kicking a demonstrator to death, but was acquitted by the Delhi High Court. Gill lived in the northeast region of India for 28 years, returning to his home state of Punjab in 1984.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: During this era when Sikh extremists in the Khalistan movement were active in Punjab, there were reports of human rights violations in the Punjab region.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Amnesty International reported that, from 1983 to 1994, armed groups struggling to form an independent Sikh state, assassinating perpetrators of the 1984 Sikh pogroms or Congress Party members, and taking hostages. It further reported that the police responded with a "crackdown", illegally detaining, torturing and killing "hundreds of young men".


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that from the 1980s Sikh separatists were guilty of targeted assassinations and attacks upon Hindu minorities in the Punjab state.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: HRW also reported that the government response resulted in further serious human rights violations against "tens of thousands". HRW report in 1991 described the security forces using "increasingly brutal methods to stem the militant movement, resulting in widespread human rights violations." Thousands of civilians and suspected militants were summarily executed in staged "encounter" killings. Many "disappeared" while in police custody and thousands were detained without trial and subjected to torture. The post-1991 period coincides with Gill's second tenure as Director General of Punjab police. It is this period that witnessed the most serious escalation of violence.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In May 1988, he commanded Operation Black Thunder to flush out militants hiding in the Golden Temple.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In what was reported as a successful operation, around 67 Sikhs surrendered and 43 were killed in the encounter.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Gill stated that he did not want to repeat the mistakes made by Indian army during Operation Blue Star.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: 1991 saw the peak of violence in Punjab, with more than 5000 reported killed. In 1992, the Indian government, "intent on retaking Punjab from terrorism", appointed Gill as Chief of Police in Punjab. The police and army instituted a crackdown, and in 1993 the reported death toll was less than 500. In 1993, "The New York Times" reported, the people of Punjab no longer feared the Sikh "rebels or gangs", but instead feared the army and police. Patricia Gossman describes Gill as having a "goal to eliminate, not merely arrest, militant Sikh leaders and members. KPS Gill also expanded a bounty system of rewards for police who killed known militants – a practice that encouraged the police to resort to extrajudicial executions and disappearances." The police were awarded financially for killing militants. "India's central government created a special fund to finance Punjab's death squads, to pay the network of informants who provided information about militants and those suspected of supporting militants, and to reward police who captured and killed them". The reward was about ₹50,000 ($1,670). In an article in "India Today" on 15 October 1992 it was written that "the rush of claiming cash rewards is turning police into mercenaries. Besides the rewards for killing militants (annual outlay for the purpose: 1.13 crore [$338,000]), the department gives 'unannounced rewards' for killing unlisted militants".


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Jaswant Singh Khalra was a human rights activist who was taken into custody by Punjab Police on 6 September 1995. Human Rights Watch reported that an 11 September 1995 writ of habeas corpus from the Supreme Court was presented to Gill, and officials denied that police had detained him. (2005 testimony by Special Police Officer Kuldeep Singh indicated that Gill later visited Khalra in October 1995, a few days before Khalra was killed.)


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Under Gill the scope of tracking down and arresting militants went beyond Punjab to other parts of India. "There were several reports during 1993 that Punjab police "hit teams" were pursuing alleged Sikh militants in other parts of India. On 17 May, one such team raided an apartment in Calcutta looking for alleged militant Lakshmi Singh. According to neighbours, Punjab police commandos broke into the apartment early that morning, shot Singh and his wife in their bedroom, then fled with the bodies. The government of West Bengal lodged a protest with the Punjab government, but no disciplinary action was reported against the police commandos".


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In 1997, the Chief minister of Assam state, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, requested his services as security advisor.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: However, since the sexual harassment case against him was pending he was not able to take this appointment.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In 1999, Delhi Police arrested Richhpal Singh, who was allegedly a Babbar Khalsa suicide bomber on a mission to assassinate Gill.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In an interview after this incident, Gill claimed that he had been a target of four or five such assassination attempts by Babbar Khalsa and other Sikh militant groups. Gill stated that he was not afraid.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In 2000 the government of Sri Lanka sought his expertise as an anti-terrorism expert to help them draw a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam He was approached by Lakshman Kadirgamar who was the foreign minister of Sri Lanka After the defeat of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam the similarity in the tactics used by Sri Lanka with the tactics used by Gill in Punjab was noted in an article published in India Today


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Gill was appointed security adviser to the state of Gujarat after 2002 Gujarat violence. Gujarat Chief minister Narendra Modi, commenting on his appointment, stated "It is good to have an experienced person such as Gill as my security advisor. Gill had very effectively tackled the Punjab terrorism problem." He requested deployment of 1,000 extra specially-trained riot police from Punjab state to combat the violence. He was credited with controlling violence after his appointment. He arrived in Gujarat on 3 May 2002 He subsequently blamed a "small group" of people for the Gujarat riots.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In April 2003, there was a report that Gill was being considered for the position of governor of Assam. The Northeast Study Group, of which Gill is a member, had advised against assigning a state's previous security personnel to a state as governor. The Chief minister of Assam agreed.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Martin Regg Cohn argued in a "Toronto Star" editorial that policies followed in Punjab by Gill should be utilised in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: An academic paper, "The Gill Doctrine: A Model for 21st Century Counterterrorism?", analysing his tactics in the successful fight against the Punjab insurgency was presented at the annual meeting of American Political Science Association on 30 August 2007.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: The government of Chhattisgarh state in India appointed him a security adviser to help control Naxalites in 2006. After an attack by Naxalites killed 55 policemen in 2007 Gill commented that the issue was one of "underdevelopment in police forces. The state policy was to leave these tribal areas alone and that gave Naxalites a base. There used to be just 3,000 police for an area the size of Switzerland. That is now changing but it will take time. But yes, it is a winnable war.".


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: In March 2008, India's hockey team failed to qualify for the Olympics for the first time since the team's debut in 1928.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Narender Batra, one of 11 IHF vice presidents, on resigning his position over the failure to qualify, accused Gill of "autocratic functioning", and called on the entire IHF staff to step down. Gill responded that the critics were "professional mourners" who were proud to "run down the establishment", and stated "I will respond to these things at a later stage. We do not have an instant coffee machine that you can get results instantly."


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Alok Sinha, writing for "India Times", noted that the top two executives, Gill and the Secretary-General, did not even talk to one another.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: There were rumours that the secretary general of the IHF, leader of the anti-Gill faction, would also resign.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Less than a month after the qualification failure, in April 2008, Aaj Tak Television reported that it had caught the Secretary-General of the IHF taking a bribe on camera to choose a player in a "sting". There were renewed calls for Gill to resign.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: After the allegations of corruption, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) suspended the IHF indefinitely on 28 April 2008. IOA president Suresh Kalmadi said in a press conference that "We have great respect for K P S Gill and it is not personal."


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: As of September 2009, Gill remained president of the Institute for Conflict Management. As of July 2009, he was also winding up the affairs of the suspended Indian Hockey Federation as it merged with its replacement, Hockey India.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) female officer named Rupan Deol Bajaj filed a complaint against Gill for, in 1988, "patting" her "posterior" at a party where he was alleged to be drunk. In August 1996, he was convicted under Section 354 (outraging the modesty of a woman) and Section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult a lady), generally summarised as sexual harassment.


title: Kanwar Pal Singh Gill

text: Gill was sentenced to pay a fine of ₹2,00,000 and to suffer three months rigorous imprisonment, followed by two months' ordinary imprisonment, and finally to serve three years of probation.