title: We Made You

text: The music video parodies TV shows "Rock of Love" and "Star Trek" (with the Starfleet insignia replaced with an inverted 2nd Infantry Division), as well as video game Guitar Hero with Eminem against an imitation version background of the notes while the homage to film "Rain Man" was shot at The Palms, a film Eminem has previously referenced in his lyrics. Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" is also homaged. On April 3, 2009, Eminem talked about the music video in an MTV News interview, stating that there is some "Celebrity bashing in it", which is often a feature of his album's lead singles. Celebrities mocked include Bret Michaels, Kevin Federline, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Samantha Ronson, Amy Winehouse and her then-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Jessica Alba, Elvis Presley, Tony Romo, John Mayer, Jennifer Aniston, and Kim Kardashian. Eminem spoofed himself, wearing an ALF T-shirt and holding a cake, referencing a commonly circulated pre-fame photo of him of when he was an adolescent. The video features appearances from Lisa Ann as Sarah Palin, Trisha Paytas as Jessica Simpson, and Derrick Barry, a famous Britney Spears female impersonator, as Spears. The video also features appearances from Dr. Dre and 50 Cent as themselves.


title: We Made You

text: The music video won the award at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Hip-Hop Video and was nominated for Best Male Video as well as Video of the Year. The video also ranked at #81 on BET's "Notarized: Top 100 Videos of 2009" countdown. The music video also features Beats by Dr. Dre Monster headphones.


title: Lean-to

text: A lean-to is a type of simple structure originally added to an existing building with the rafters "leaning" against another wall. Free-standing lean-to structures are generally used as shelters. One traditional type of lean-to is known by its Finnish name .


title: Lean-to

text: A lean-to is originally defined as a building in which the rafters lean against another building or wall, a penthouse. These structures frequently have skillion roofs and as such are sometimes referred to as "skillions".


title: Lean-to

text: A lean-to shelter is a free-standing structure with only three walls and a single-pitched roof. The open side is commonly oriented away from the prevailing winds and rains. Often it is a rough structure made of logs or unfinished wood and used as a camping shelter.


title: Lean-to

text: A lean-to addition is a shed with a sloping roof and three walls that abuts the wall of another structure. This form of lean-to is generally provisional; it is an appendix to an existing building constructed to fulfill a new need. Sometimes, they cover external staircases, as is the case with the lean-to building built in the 15th century against one of the walls of the large chapter room of the cathedral of Meaux. Sometimes, they are built to protect entrances or to establish covered markets around certain large civic buildings.


title: Lean-to

text: A Finnish (plural ), Swedish or , or Norwegian is a traditional ethnic lean-to shelter, a small structure intended for temporary residence during hiking or fishing trips in the wilderness.


title: Lean-to

text: A provides a safe place to sleep during fishing or hiking trips. Visitors are expected to bring their own sleeping bags, as the area has no other sleeping facilities. Most also have a space for a campfire in front of them, but the is built so that a reasonable fire can provide warmth for the night. They are also commonly used as a rest stop along trails during daytime, and for camping cookout (which in Finland usually consists of grilling sausage on the campfire).


title: Lean-to

text: A can also be an improvised structure of the same type, built out of available materials such as branches with leaves or pine/fir needles intact, or moss or animal pelts for the covering, and sturdier, stripped branches or young tree trunks as the supporting structure. These serve as temporary shelters deep in the wilderness, usually for a single overnight stay. This is the traditional meaning of the word. Traditionally, a log fire ( in Finnish, in Swedish and Norwegian) was used, made so that it did not need surveillance during the night.


title: Lean-to

text: In the United States, this same type of structure is commonly referred to as an "Adirondack". Many youth camps use such structures to provide an inexpensive shelter for campers that is sturdier, and more durable, than a textile tent.


title: Lean-to

text: -like tents are also sold, meant for four or five people. Some of the modern nylon ones have a front flap that is pulled down for the night if there is no fire.


title: Sergio Pablos

text: Sergio Pablos is a Spanish animator, director and screenwriter. While at the helm of his company (The SPA Studios), Pablos developed several concepts for animated feature films, most notably the original ideas upon which "Despicable Me" (Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment in 2010) and "Smallfoot" (produced by the Warner Animation Group in 2018) were based.


title: Sergio Pablos

text: Most recently, the SPA Studios has produced Netflix's first original animated feature film, "Klaus", written and directed by Pablos.


title: Sergio Pablos

text: Sergio Pablos is from Barcelona. After working as a key animator on "Once Upon a Forest" (1993), he moved to Paris, France, to pursue a career opportunity at Walt Disney Animation Studios where he worked on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1996) and "Hercules" (1997). Pablos was then promoted to a Supervising Animator position at Disney Feature Animation in Burbank, handling the character of Tantor the elephant on "Tarzan" (1999), and Dr. Doppler on "Treasure Planet" (2002), the latter of which garnered him a nomination for Best Character Animation at the Annie Awards.


title: Sergio Pablos

text: Pablos' first job in animation with Disney Studios in Paris was as a character designer on "A Goofy Movie" (1995). From that connection he moved to Walt Disney Animation Studios and began learning the ropes, working as animator or contributing to character designs on several major 2D animation productions, including "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (character of Frollo), "Hercules" (character of Hades), "Tarzan" (character of Tantor the elephant), and "Treasure Planet" (character of Doctor Doppler). He was nominated for an Annie Award for his work on "Treasure Planet". Subsequent to his departure from Disney, he was hired as character design supervisor on "" for Columbia.


title: Sergio Pablos

text: After several more years working in animation production, Pablos created the "Despicable Me" franchise based on his original screen story "Evil Me" and his own art design. He took the package unsolicited to Universal Pictures where he became the first of several screenwriters on the project as well as executive producer. In 2010, "Despicable Me"—starring Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Will Arnett, and Julie Andrews—was a box office success, received a Golden Globe nomination, and became one of animation's highest-grossing movies. Pablos continued work as a character designer on another animated feature, "Rio" for 20th Century Fox, which was released the following year. He received his second Annie Award nomination for "Rio". After the release of "Despicable Me 2" in 2013, theatrical markets (worldwide box office) and ancillary markets (home media, cable, merchandising, books, video games, TV series, theme parks, etc.), pushed franchise total revenues to over ten figures. He was the writer for the film Warner Animation Group's "Smallfoot". He then formed Sergio Pablos Animation Studios in Madrid, Spain, where he made his directorial debut with "Klaus."


title: Sergio Pablos

text: Pablos shares his time between the U.S. and Spain where he is CEO and Creative Director of The SPA Studios in Madrid.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: The Lathe of Heaven is a 1971 science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. The plot concerns a character whose dreams alter past and present reality. The story was serialized in the American science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories". The novel received nominations for the 1972 Hugo and the 1971 Nebula Award, and won the Locus Award for Best Novel in 1972. Two television film adaptations were released: the PBS production, "The Lathe of Heaven" (1980), and "Lathe of Heaven" (2002), a remake produced by the A&E Network.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: The title is from the writings of Chuang Tzu (Zhuang Zhou) — specifically a passage from Book XXIII, paragraph 7, quoted as an epigraph to Chapter 3 of the novel:


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. (知止乎其所不能知，至矣。若有不即是者，天鈞敗之。)


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: Other epigraphs from Chuang Tzu appear throughout the novel. Le Guin chose the title because she loved the quotation. However, it seems that quote is a mis-translation of Chuang Tzu's Chinese text. In an interview with Bill Moyers for the 2000 DVD release of the 1980 adaptation, Le Guin clarified the issue:


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: ...it's a terrible mis-translation apparently, I didn't know that at the time. There were no lathes in China at the time that was said. Joseph Needham wrote me and said "It's a lovely translation, but it's wrong".


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: She published her rendition of the "Tao Te Ching", "The Book of the Way and Its Virtue" by Lao Tzu, the traditional founder of Taoism (Daoism). In the notes at the end of this book, she explains this choice:


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: The language of some [versions of the "Tao Te Ching"] was so obscure as to make me feel the book must be beyond Western comprehension. (James Legge's version was one of these, although I found the title for a book of mine, "The Lathe of Heaven", in it. Years later, Joseph Needham, the great scholar of Chinese science and technology, wrote to tell me in the kindest, most unreproachful fashion Legge was off on that one; when the book ["Tao Te Ching"] was written, the lathe hadn't been invented.)


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: Translated editions titled the novel differently. The German and first Portuguese edition titles, "Die Geißel des Himmels" and "O flagelo dos céus", mean literally "the scourge [or whip] of heaven". The French, Swedish and second Portuguese edition titles, "L'autre côté du rêve", "På andra sidan drömmen" and "Do outro lado do sonho", translate as "the other side of the dream".


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: The book is set in Portland, Oregon, in the year 2002. Portland has three million inhabitants and continuous rain. It is deprived enough for the poorer inhabitants to have kwashiorkor, a protein deprivation from malnutrition. Although impoverished, the culture is similar to the 1970s in the United States. There is also a massive war in the Middle East. Climate change reduces quality of life.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: George Orr, a draftsman and addict, abuses drugs to prevent "effective" dreams that change reality. After one of these dreams, the new reality is the only reality for everyone else, but George retains memory of the previous reality. Under threat of incarceration, Orr undergoes treatment for his addiction.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: George attends therapy sessions with ambitious psychiatrist and sleep researcher William Haber. Orr claims he has the power to dream "effectively". Haber, gradually believing the evidence, seeks to use George's power to change the planet. His experiments with a biofeedback/EEG machine, nicknamed the Augmentor, enhance Orr's abilities while producing a series of increasingly intolerable alternative worlds based on an assortment of utopian (and dystopian) premises:


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: Each effective dream gives Haber more wealth and status until he is effectively ruler of the planet. Orr's finances also improve, but he is unhappy with Haber's meddling and just wants to let things be. Increasingly frightened by Haber's lust for power and delusions of divinity, Orr contacts lawyer Heather Lelache to represent him against Haber. He falls in love with Heather but is unsuccessful in getting released from therapy.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: George tells Heather the "real world" was destroyed during nuclear war in April 1998. George dreamed it back into existence as he lay dying in the ruins. He doubts the reality of what now exists, hence his concern for Haber's efforts to improve it.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: Heather is present for one of the sessions, allowing her to remember two realities: one where her husband died early in the Middle East War and another where he died just before the truce because of the aliens. She tries to help George but also tries to improve the planet; when she suggests to a dreaming George that the aliens should no longer be on the Moon, they invade the Earth instead. In the resultant fighting, Mount Hood is bombed and the 'dormant' volcano produces a spectacular eruption.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: After that disaster, George dreams about peaceful aliens. For a time, everybody experiences stability, but Haber continues meddling. His suggestion George dream away racism results in everyone becoming gray; Heather's parents are different races, so she never existed in that alternative reality. George dreams a gray version of her with a milder personality, the two marry. Mount Hood continues to erupt, and he is concerned the planet is losing coherence.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: After speaking with one of the aliens, Orr suddenly understands his situation and confronts Haber. In their final session, Haber "cures" George of his ability to dream effectively by suggesting George dream that his dreams no longer affect reality. Haber has become frustrated with Orr's resistance and used his research from studying George's brain during his sessions to give himself the same power. Haber's first effective dream represents a significant break with the various realities created by Orr, and threatens to destroy reality. Orr shuts off the Augmentor as coherent existence is dissolving into undifferentiated chaos. The world is saved, but exists now as a mix of random elements from several realities. In this version, George works at a kitchen store operated by one of the aliens. Haber survives, his mind shattered by his knowledge of unreality, and only exists because George's dreams restored him. Heather is also restored, though she is left with only a slight memory of George. George is resigned to the loss of the Heather he loved, but resolves to romance the one that exists now. The story ends as the two have coffee, while his inscrutable alien employer observes.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: Theodore Sturgeon, reviewing "Lathe" for "The New York Times", found it to be "a very good book," praising Le Guin for "produc[ing] a rare and powerful synthesis of poetry and science, reason and emotion." Lester del Rey, however, faulted the novel for an arbitrary and ineffective second half, saying "with wonder piled on wonder, the plot simply loses credibility."


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: Although technology plays a minor role, the novel is concerned with philosophical questions about our desire to control our destiny, with Haber's positivist approach pitted against a Taoist equanimity. The beginnings of the chapters also feature quotes from H. G. Wells, Victor Hugo and Taoist sages. Due to its portrayal of psychologically-derived alternative realities, the story is described as Le Guin's tribute to Philip K. Dick. In his biography of Dick, Lawrence Sutin described Le Guin as having "long been a staunch public advocate of Phil's talent". According to Sutin, ""The Lathe of Heaven" was, by her acknowledgment, influenced by his [Dick's] sixties works."


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: The book is critical of behaviorism. Orr, a deceptively mild yet very strong and honest man, is labeled sick because he is immensely frightened by his ability to change reality. He is forced to undergo treatment. His efforts to get rid of Haber are viewed as suspect because he is a psychiatric patient. Haber, meanwhile, is very charming, extroverted, and confident, yet he eventually goes insane and almost destroys reality. He dismisses Orr's qualms about meddling with reality with paternalistic psychobabble, and is more concerned with his machine and Orr's powers than with curing his patient.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: The book is also critical of the philosophy of utilitarianism, satirising the phrase "The Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number." It is critical of eugenics, which it suggests would be a key feature of a culture based on utilitarian ethics.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: It has been suggested that Le Guin named her protagonist "George Orr" as an homage to British author George Orwell, as well as to draw comparisons between the dystopic worlds she describes in "Lathe" and the dystopia Orwell envisioned in his novel "1984". It might also have the additional meaning "either / or".


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: An adaptation titled "The Lathe of Heaven", produced by the public television station WNET, and directed by David Loxton and Fred Barzyk, was released in 1980. It was the first direct-to-TV film production by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and was produced with a budget of $250,000. Generally faithful to the novel, it stars Bruce Davison as George Orr, Kevin Conway as William Haber, and Margaret Avery as Heather Lelache. Le Guin was heavily involved in the production of the 1980 adaptation, and expressed her satisfaction with it several times.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: PBS' rights to rebroadcast the film expired in 1988, and it became the most-requested program in PBS history. Fans were extremely critical of WNET's supposed "warehousing" of the film, but the budgetary barriers to rebroadcast were high: The station needed to pay for and clear rights with all participants in the original program; negotiate a special agreement with the composer of the film's score; and deal with The Beatles recording excerpted in the original soundtrack, "With a Little Help from My Friends", which is an integral plot point in both the novel and the film. A cover version replaces the Beatles' own recording in the home video release.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: The home video release is remastered from a video tape of the original broadcast; PBS, thinking the rights issues would dog the production forever, did not save a copy of the film production in their archives. However, a home video has been uploaded and archived on YouTube (see external links).


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: A second adaptation was released in 2002 and retitled "Lathe of Heaven". Produced for the A&E Network and directed by Philip Haas, the film starred James Caan, Lukas Haas, and Lisa Bonet. The 2002 adaptation discards a significant portion of the plot and some of the characters. Le Guin had no involvement in making the film.


title: The Lathe of Heaven

text: A stage adaptation by Edward Einhorn, produced by Untitled Theater Company #61, ran from June 6 to June 30, 2012, at the 3LD Art + Technology Center in New York City.


title: 2022–23 A-League Men

text: The 2022–23 A-League Men, known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons, is the 46th season of national level men's soccer in Australia, and the 18th since the establishment of the competition as the A-League in 2004. The regular season commenced on 7 October 2022. The season features a mid-season break from 18 November 2022 to 8 December 2022 due to the 2022 FIFA World Cup being held in Qatar.


title: 2022–23 A-League Men

text: The 2022–23 season sees each team play 26 games, starting on 7 October 2022, and concluding on 30 April 2023, with a mid-season break between 14 November 2022 and 8 December 2022, due to the 2022 FIFA World Cup. This will be followed by a finals series for the top six teams.


title: 2022–23 A-League Men

text: The finals series is expected to be held in the same format as the previous year, to be run over three weeks, and involving the top six teams from the regular season. In the first week of fixtures, the third-through-sixth ranked teams will play a single-elimination match, with the two winners of those matches joining the first and second ranked teams in two-legged semi-final ties. The two winners of those matches meet in the Grand Final.


title: 2022–23 A-League Men

text: On 12 December 2022, the Australian Professional Leagues announced that the 2023 A-League Men Grand Final would be the first of three successive Grand Finals hosted in Sydney, a move which received considerable backlash.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In Islam, blasphemy is impious utterance or action concerning God, but is broader than in normal English usage, including not only the mocking or vilifying of attributes of Islam but denying any of the fundamental beliefs of the religion. Examples include denying that the Quran was divinely revealed, the Prophethood of one of the Islamic Prophets, insulting an angel, or maintaining God had a son.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The Quran curses those who commit blasphemy and promises blasphemers humiliation in the Hereafter. However, whether any Quranic verses prescribe worldly punishments is debated: some Muslims believe that no worldly punishment is prescribed while others disagree. The interpretation of hadiths, which are another source of Sharia, is similarly debated. Some have interpreted hadith as prescribing punishments for blasphemy, which may include death, while others argue that the death penalty applies only to cases where perpetrator commits treasonous crimes, especially during times of war. Different traditional schools of jurisprudence prescribe different punishment for blasphemy, depending on whether the blasphemer is Muslim or non-Muslim, a man or a woman.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In the modern Muslim world, the laws pertaining to blasphemy vary by country, and some countries prescribe punishments consisting of fines, imprisonment, flogging, hanging, or beheading. Capital punishment for blasphemy was rare in pre-modern Islamic societies. In the modern era some states and radical groups have used charges of blasphemy in an effort to burnish their religious credentials and gain popular support at the expense of liberal Muslim intellectuals and religious minorities. Other Muslims instead push for greater freedom of expression. Contemporary accusations of blasphemy against Islam have sparked international controversies and incited mob violence and assassinations.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In Islamic literature, blasphemy is of many types, and there are many different words for it: (insult) and (abuse, vilification), or (denial), (concoction), or (curse) and (accuse, defame). In Islamic literature, the term "blasphemy" sometimes also overlaps with ("unbelief"), (depravity), (insult), and (apostasy).


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: A number of verses in the Qur'an have been interpreted as relating to blasphemy. In these verses God admonishes those who commit blasphemy. Some verses are cited as evidence that the Qur'an does not prescribe punishments for blasphemy, while other verses are cited as evidence that it does.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The only verse that directly mentions blasphemy ("sabb") is . The verse calls on Muslims to not blaspheme against deities of other religions, lest people of that religion retaliate by blaspheming against Allah.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Verse 5:33 prescribes prison or mutilation or death for those "who wage war against Allah and His Messenger". Even though the verse doesn't mention blasphemy ("sabb"), some commentators have used to justify punishments for blasphemy. Other commentators believe this verse only applies to those who commit crimes against human life and property.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: 33:57–61 have also been used by some commentators to justify blasphemy punishments. However, other scholars opined that verses 33:57–61 could only have been acted upon during the life of the Prophet and since the demise of Muhammad they are no longer applicable.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Other passages are not related to any earthly punishment for blasphemy, but prescribe Muslims to not "sit with" those who mock the religion – although the latter are admonishments directed towards a witness of blasphemy rather than the guilty of blasphemy:


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: According to Shemeem Burney Abbas, the Qur'an mentions many examples of disbelievers ridiculing and mocking Muhammad, but never commands him to punish those who mocked him. Instead, the Qur'an asks Muhammad to leave the punishment of blasphemy to God, and that there would be justice in the afterlife.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: According to several hadiths, Muhammad ordered a number of enemies executed "in the hours after Mecca's fall". One of those who was killed was Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf, because he had insulted Muhammad.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: A variety of punishments, including death, have been instituted in Islamic jurisprudence that draw their sources from hadith literature. Sources in hadith literature allege that Muhammad ordered the execution of Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf. After the Battle of Badr, Ka'b had incited the Quraysh against Muhammad, and also urged them to seek vengeance against Muslims. Another person executed was Abu Rafi', who had actively propagandized against Muslims immediately before the Battle of Ahzab. Both of these men were guilty of insulting Muhammad, and both were guilty of inciting violence. While some have explained that these two men were executed for blaspheming against Muhammad, an alternative explanation is that they were executed for treason and causing disorder ("fasad") in society.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Muhammad declared that there shall be no punishment for murdering anyone who disparages, abuses or insults him (, ). One hadith tells of a man who killed his pregnant slave because she persisted in insulting Muhammad. Upon hearing this, Muhammad is reported to have exclaimed: "Do you not bear witness that her blood is futile!" () This expression can be read as meaning that the killing was unnecessary, implying that Muhammad condemned it. However, most hadith specialists interpreted it as voiding the obligation of paying the blood money which would normally be due to the woman's next of kin. Another hadith reports Muhammad using an expression which clearly indicates the latter meaning:


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The Quran curses those who commit blasphemy and promises blasphemers humiliation in the Hereafter. However, whether any Quranic verses prescribe worldly punishments is debated: some Muslims believe that no worldly punishment is prescribed while others disagree. Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) of Sunni and Shia madhabs have declared different punishments for the religious crime of blasphemy, and they vary between schools. These are as follows:


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Some jurists suggest that the sunnah in and provide a basis for a death sentence for the crime of blasphemy, even if someone claims not to be an apostate, but has committed the crime of blasphemy. Some modern Muslim scholars contest that Islam supports blasphemy law, stating that Muslim jurists made the offense part of Sharia.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The words of Ibn Abbas, a prominent jurist and companion of Muhammad, are frequently cited to justify the death penalty as punishment blasphemy:


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Because blasphemy in Islam included rejection of fundamental doctrines, blasphemy has historically been seen as an evidence of rejection of Islam, that is, the religious crime of apostasy. Some jurists believe that blasphemy by a Muslim who automatically implies the Muslim has left the fold of Islam. A Muslim may find himself accused of being a blasphemer, and thus an apostate on the basis of the same action or utterance. Not all blasphemy is apostasy, of course, as a non-Muslim who blasphemes against Islam has not committed apostasy.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The punishments for different instances of blasphemy in Islam vary by jurisdiction, but may be very severe. A convicted blasphemer may, among other penalties, lose all legal rights. The loss of rights may cause a blasphemer's marriage to be dissolved, religious acts to be rendered worthless, and claims to property—including any inheritance—to be rendered void. Repentance, in some Fiqhs, may restore lost rights except for marital rights; lost marital rights are regained only by remarriage. Women have blasphemed and repented to end a marriage. Muslim women may be permitted to repent, and may receive a lesser punishment than would befall a Muslim man who committed the same offense. Most Muslim-majority countries have some form of blasphemy law and some of them have been compared to blasphemy laws in European countries (Britain, Germany, Finland etc.). However, in five countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, blasphemy is punishable by execution. In Pakistan, more than a thousand people have been convicted of blasphemy since the 1980s; though none have been executed.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: According to Islamic sources Nadr ibn al-Harith, who was an Arab Pagan doctor from Taif, used to tell stories of Rustam and Isfandiyar to the Arabs and scoffed Muhammad. After the battle of Badr, al-Harith was captured and, in retaliation, Muhammad ordered his execution in hands of Ali.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: According to certain hadiths, after Mecca's fall Muhammad ordered a number of enemies executed. Based on this early jurists postulated that "sabb al-Nabi" (abuse of the Prophet) was a crime "so heinous that repentance was disallowed and summary execution was required".


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Sadakat Kadri writes that the actual prosecutions for blasphemy in the Muslim historical record "are vanishingly infrequent". One of the "few known cases" was that of a Christian accused of insulting the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It ended in an acquittal in 1293, though it was followed by a protest against a decision led by the famed and strict jurist Ibn Taymiyya.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In recent decades Islamic revivalists have called for its enforcement on the grounds that criminalizing hostility toward Islam will safeguard communal cohesion. In one country where strict laws on blaspheme were introduced in the 1980s, Pakistan, over 1300 people have been accused of blasphemy from 1987 to 2014, (mostly non-Muslim religious minorities), mostly for allegedly desecrating the Quran. Over 50 people accused of blasphemy have been murdered before their respective trials were over, and prominent figures who opposed blasphemy laws (Salman Taseer, the former governor of Punjab, and Shahbaz Bhatti, the Federal Minister for Minorities) have been assassinated.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: As of 2011, all Islamic majority nations, worldwide, had criminal laws on blasphemy. Over 125 non-Muslim nations worldwide did not have any laws relating to blasphemy. In Islamic nations, thousands of individuals have been arrested and punished for blasphemy of Islam. Moreover, several Islamic nations have argued in the United Nations that blasphemy against Muhammad is unacceptable, and that laws should be passed worldwide to proscribe it. In September 2012, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), who has sought for a universal blasphemy law over a decade, revived these attempts. Separately, the Human Rights Commission of the OIC called for "an international code of conduct for media and social media to disallow the dissemination of incitement material". Non-Muslim nations that do not have blasphemy laws, have pointed to abuses of blasphemy laws in Islamic nations, and have disagreed.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Notwithstanding, controversies raised in the non-Muslim world, especially over depictions of Muhammad, questioning issues relating to the religious offense to minorities in secular countries. A key case was the 1989 fatwa against English author Salman Rushdie for his 1988 book entitled "The Satanic Verses", the title of which refers to an account that Muhammad, in the course of revealing the Quran, received a revelation from Satan and incorporated it therein until made by Allah to retract it. Several translators of his book into foreign languages have been murdered. In the UK, many supporters of Salman Rushdie and his publishers advocated unrestricted freedom of expression and the abolition of the British blasphemy laws. As a response, Richard Webster wrote "A Brief History of Blasphemy" in which he discussed freedom to publish books that may cause distress to minorities.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Farag Foda (also Faraj Fawda; 1946 – 9 June 1992), was a prominent Egyptian professor, writer, columnist, and human rights activist. He was assassinated on 9 June 1992 by members of Islamist group al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya after being accused of blasphemy by a committee of clerics ("ulama") at Al-Azhar University. In December 1992, his collected works were banned. In a statement claimed responsibility for the killing, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya accused Foda of being an apostate from Islam, advocating the separation of religion from the state, and favouring the existing legal system in Egypt rather than the application of Sharia (Islamic law). The group explicitly referred to the Al-Azhar fatwā when claiming responsibility.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In September 2007, Bangladeshi cartoonist Arifur Rahman depicted in the daily "Prothom Alo" a boy holding a cat conversing with an elderly man. The man asks the boy his name, and he replies "Babu". The older man chides him for not mentioning the name of Muhammad before his name. He then points to the cat and asks the boy what it is called, and the boy replies "Muhammad the cat". Bangladesh does not have a blasphemy law but groups said the cartoon ridiculed Muhammad, torched copies of the paper and demanded that Rahman be executed for blasphemy. As a result, Bangladeshi police detained Rahman and confiscated copies of "Prothom Alo" in which the cartoon appeared.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In November 2007, British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons, who taught middle-class Muslim and Christian children in Sudan, was convicted of insulting Islam by allowing her class of six-year-olds to name a teddy bear "Muhammad". On 30 November, thousands of protesters took to the streets in Khartoum, demanding Gibbons's execution after imams denounced her during Friday prayers. Many Muslim organizations in other countries publicly condemned the Sudanese over their reactions as Gibbons did not set out to cause offence. She was released into the care of the British embassy in Khartoum and left Sudan after two British Muslim members of the House of Lords met President Omar al-Bashir.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The Asia Bibi blasphemy case involved a Pakistani Christian woman, Aasiya Noreen (born 1971; better known as Asia Bibi convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court, receiving a sentence of death by hanging in 2010. In June 2009, Noreen was involved in an argument with a group of Muslim women with whom she had been harvesting berries after the other women grew angry with her for drinking the same water as them. She was subsequently accused of insulting the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, a charge she denies, and was arrested and imprisoned. In November 2010, a Sheikhupura judge sentenced her to death. If executed, Noreen would be the first woman in Pakistan to be lawfully killed for blasphemy.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The verdict, which was reached in a district court and would need to be upheld by a superior court, has received worldwide attention. Various petitions, including one that received 400,000 signatures, were organized to protest Noreen's imprisonment, and Pope Benedict XVI publicly called for the charges against her to be dismissed. She received less sympathy from her neighbors and Islamic religious leaders in the country, some of whom adamantly called for her to be executed. Christian minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti and Muslim politician Salmaan Taseer were both assassinated for advocating on her behalf and opposing the blasphemy laws. Noreen's family went into hiding after receiving death threats, some of which threatened to kill Asia if released from prison.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Governor Salmaan Taseer and Pakistan's Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti both publicly supported Noreen, with the latter saying, "I will go to every knock for justice on her behalf and I will take all steps for her protection." She also received support from Pakistani political scientist Rasul Baksh Rais and local priest Samson Dilawar. The imprisonment of Noreen left Christians and other minorities in Pakistan feeling vulnerable, and liberal Muslims were also unnerved by her sentencing.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti said that he was first threatened with death in June 2010 when he was told that he would be beheaded if he attempted to change the blasphemy laws. In response, he told reporters that he was "committed to the principle of justice for the people of Pakistan" and willing to die fighting for Noreen's release. On 2 March 2011, Bhatti was shot dead by gunmen who ambushed his car near his residence in Islamabad, presumably because of his position on the blasphemy laws. He had been the only Christian member of Pakistan's cabinet.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In January 2011, talking about the Asia Bibi blasphemy case, Pakistani politician Salmaan Taseer expressed views opposing the country's blasphemy law and supporting Asia Bibi. He was then killed by one of his bodyguards, Malik Mumtaz Qadri. After the murder, hundreds of clerics voiced support for the crime and urged a general boycott of Taseer's funeral. The Pakistani government declared three days of national mourning and thousands of people attended his funeral. Supporters of Mumtaz Qadri blocked police attempting to bring him to the courts and some showered him with rose petals. In October, Qadri was sentenced to death for murdering Taseer. Some expressed concerns that the assassinations of Taseer and Bhatti may dissuade other Pakistani politicians from speaking out against the blasphemy laws.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In 2014, an Egyptian state prosecutor pressed charges against a former candidate for parliament, writer and poet Fatima Naoot, of blaspheming Islam when she posted a Facebook message which criticized the slaughter of animals during Eid al-Adha, a major Islamic festival. Naoot was sentenced on 26 January 2016 to three years in prison for "contempt of religion." The prison sentence was effective immediately.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Farkhunda Malikzada was a 27-year-old Afghan woman who was publicly beaten and slain by a mob of hundreds of people in Kabul on 19 March 2015. Farkhunda had previously been arguing with a mullah named Zainuddin, in front of a mosque where she worked as a religious teacher, about his practice of selling charms at the Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque, the Shrine of the King of Two Swords, a religious shrine in Kabul. During this argument, Zainuddin reportedly falsely accused her of burning the Quran. Police investigations revealed that she had not burned anything. A number of prominent public officials turned to Facebook immediately after the death to endorse the murder. After it was revealed that she did not burn the Quran, the public reaction in Afghanistan turned to shock and anger. Her murder led to 49 arrests; three adult men received twenty-year prison sentences, eight other adult males received sixteen year sentences, a minor received a ten-year sentence, and eleven police officers received one-year prison terms for failing to protect Farkhunda. Her murder and the subsequent protests served to draw attention to women's rights in Afghanistan.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Ahmad Al Shamri from the town of Hafar al-Batin, Saudi Arabia, was arrested on charges of atheism and blasphemy after allegedly use social media to state that he renounced Islam and the Prophet Mohammed, he was sentenced to death in February 2015.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Mashal Khan was a Pakistani student at the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan who was killed by an angry mob in the premises of the university in April 2017 over allegations of posting blasphemous content online.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In 2017 in Indonesia, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama during his tenure as the governor of Jakarta, made a controversial speech while introducing a government project at Thousand Islands in which he referenced a verse from the Quran. His opponents criticized this speech as blasphemous, and reported him to the police. He was later convicted of blasphemy against Islam by the North Jakarta District Court and sentenced to two years imprisonment. This decision barred him from serving as the governor of Jakarta, and he was replaced by his deputy, Djarot Saiful Hidayat.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In December 1999, the German news magazine "Der Spiegel" printed on the same page pictures of "moral apostles" Muhammad, Jesus, Confucius, and Immanuel Kant. Few weeks later, the magazine received protests, petitions and threats against publishing depictions of Muhammad. The Turkish TV-station Show TV broadcast the telephone number of an editor who then received daily calls. A picture of Muhammad had been published by the magazine once before in 1998 in a special edition on Islam, without evoking similar protests.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In 2008, several Muslims protested against the inclusion of Muhammad's depictions in the English Wikipedia's "Muhammad" article. An online petition opposed a reproduction of a 17th-century Ottoman copy of a 14th-century Ilkhanate manuscript image depicting Muhammad as he prohibited Nasīʾ. Jeremy Henzell-Thomas of "The American Muslim" deplored the petition as one of "these mechanical knee-jerk reactions [which] are gifts to those who seek every opportunity to decry Islam and ridicule Muslims and can only exacerbate a situation in which Muslims and the Western media seem to be locked in an ever-descending spiral of ignorance and mutual loathing."


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In September 2005, in the tense aftermath of the assassination of Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, killed for his views on Islam, Danish news service Ritzau published an article discussing the difficulty encountered by the writer Kåre Bluitgen to find an illustrator to work on his children's book "The Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad" (Danish:"Koranen og profeten Muhammeds liv"). He said that three artists declined his proposal, which was interpreted as evidence of self-censorship out of fear of reprisals, which led to much debate in Denmark. Reviewing the experiment, Danish scholar Peter Hervik wrote that it disproved the idea that self-censorship was a serious problem in Denmark, because the overwhelming majority of cartoonists had either responded positively or refused for contractual or philosophical reasons. Furthermore, the Danish newspaper "Politiken" stated that they asked Bluitgen to put them in touch with the artists who reportedly declined his proposal, so his claim that none of them dared to work with him could be proved, but that Bluitgen refused, making his initial claim impossible to confirm.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: Flemming Rose, an editor at the Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Posten", invited professional illustrators to depict Muhammad as an experiment to see how much they felt threatened. The newspaper announced that this was an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. On 30 September 2005, the "Jyllands-Posten" published 12 editorial cartoons, most of which depicted the Prophet Muhammad. One cartoon by Kurt Westergaard depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, which resulted in the "Jyllands-Posten" Muhammad cartoons controversy (or Muhammad cartoons crisis) (Danish: "Muhammedkrisen") i.e. complains by Muslim groups in Denmark, the withdrawal of the ambassadors of Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria from Denmark, protests around the world including violent demonstrations and riots in some Muslim countries as well as consumer boycotts of Danish products. Carsten Juste, editor-in-chief at the "Jyllands-Posten", claimed the international furor over the cartoons amounted to a victory for opponents of free expression. "Those who have won are dictatorships in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, where they cut criminals' hands and give women no rights," Juste told The Associated Press. "The dark dictatorships have won." Commenting the cartoon that initiated the diplomatic crisis, American scholar John Woods expressed worries about Westergaard-like association of the Prophet with terrorism, that was beyond satire and offensive to a vast majority of Muslims. Hervik also deplored that the newspaper's "desire to provoke and insult Danish Muslims exceeded the wish to test the self-censorship of Danish cartoonists."


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In Sweden, an online caricature competition was announced in support of "Jyllands-Posten", but foreign minister Laila Freivalds pressured the provider to shut the page down (in 2006, her involvement was revealed to the public and she had to resign).


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In France, satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" republished the "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons of Muhammad. It was taken to court by Islamic organisations under French hate speech laws; it was ultimately acquitted of charges that it incited hatred.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In July 2007, art galleries in Sweden declined to show drawings of artist Lars Vilks depicting Muhammad as a roundabout dog. While Swedish newspapers had published them already, the drawings gained international attention after the newspaper "Nerikes Allehanda" published one of them on 18 August to illustrate an editorial on the "right to ridicule a religion". This particular publication led to official condemnations from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and Jordan, and by the inter-governmental Organisation of the Islamic Conference.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In 2006, the American comedy program "South Park", which had previously depicted Muhammad as a superhero ("Super Best Friends)" and has depicted Muhammad in the opening sequence since then, attempted to satirize the Danish newspaper incident. They intended to show Muhammad handing a salmon helmet to "Family Guy" character Peter Griffin ("Cartoon Wars Part II"). However, Comedy Central who airs the series rejected the scene and its creators reacted by satirizing double standard for broadcast acceptability.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In April 2010, animators Trey Parker and Matt Stone planned to make episodes satirizing controversies over previous episodes, including Comedy Central's refusal to show images of Muhammad following the 2005 Danish controversy. After they faced Internet death threats, Comedy Central modified their version of the episode, obscuring all images and bleeping all references to Muhammad. In reaction, cartoonist Molly Norris created the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, claiming that if many people draw pictures of Muhammad, threats to murder them all would become unrealistic.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: On 2 November 2011, "Charlie Hebdo" was firebombed right before its 3 November issue was due; the issue was called "Charia Hebdo" and satirically featured Muhammad as guest-editor. The editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb, and two co-workers at "Charlie Hebdo" subsequently received police protection. In September 2012, the newspaper published a series of satirical cartoons of Muhammad, some of which feature nude caricatures of him. In January 2013, "Charlie Hebdo" announced that they would make a comic book on the life of Muhammad.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In March 2013, Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, commonly known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released a hit list in an edition of their English-language magazine "Inspire". The list included Kurt Westergaard, Lars Vilks, Carsten Juste, Flemming Rose, Charb and Molly Norris, and others whom AQAP accused of insulting Islam. On 7 January 2015, two masked gunmen opened fire on Charlie Hebdos staff and police officers as vengeance for its continued caricatures of Muhammad, killing 12 people, including Charb, and wounding 11 others. "Jyllands-Posten" did not re-print the "Charlie Hebdo" cartoons in the wake of the attack, with the new editor-in-chief citing security concerns.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: In October 2019, Kamlesh Tiwari, an Indian politician, was killed in a planned attack in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, for his views on Muhammad.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: On 2 December 2015, Azam Khan, a politician of the Samajwadi Party, stated that Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh members are homosexuals and that is why they do not get married. The next day, Kamlesh Tiwari retaliated to Azam Khan's statement and called Muhammad as the first homosexual in the world. Thousands of Muslims protested in Muzaffarnagar and demanded the death penalty for Tiwari, with some demanding that he be "beheaded" for "insulting" Muhammad. Tiwari was arrested in Lucknow on 3 December 2015 by Uttar Pradesh Police. He was detained under National Security Act by the Samajwadi Party-led state government in Uttar Pradesh. Tiwari spent several months in jail for his comment. He was charged under Indian Penal Code sections 153-A (promoting enmity between groups on the grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs). Protest rallies against his statement were held by several Islamic groups in other parts of India, most of them demanding the death penalty.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: The protests demanding capital punishment for Tiwari triggered counter-protests by Hindu groups who accused Muslim groups of demanding enforcement of Islamic law of blasphemy in India. His detention under National Security Act was revoked by Allahabad High Court in 2016.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: On 18 October 2019, Tiwari was murdered by two Muslim assailants, Farid-ud-din Shaikh and Ashfak Shaikh, in his office-cum-residence at Lucknow. The assailants came dressed in saffron kurtas to give him a sweets box with an address of a sweet shop in Surat city in Gujarat. According to police officials, the assailants kept a revolver and knife inside the sweets box. During the attack, one assailant slit his throat while another fired at him. Tiwari's aide Saurashtrajeet Singh was sent to bring cigarettes for them and when he returned he found Tiwari lying with his throat slit and his body ruptured with wounds. He was declared dead during treatment at a hospital's trauma centre. The post-mortem report revealed that he was stabbed 15 times on the upper part of body from jaws to chest, two deep cut marks on the neck points to attempt to slit his throat and shot once.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: "Innocence of Muslims" is an anti-Islamic short film that was written and produced by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Two versions of the 14-minute video were uploaded to YouTube in July 2012, under the titles "The Real Life of Muhammad" and "Muhammad Movie Trailer". Videos dubbed in Arabic were uploaded during early September 2012. Anti-Islamic content had been added in post-production by dubbing, without the actors' knowledge.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: What was perceived as denigrating of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad resulted in demonstrations and violent protests against the video to break out on 11 September in Egypt and spread to other Arab and Muslim nations and to some western countries. The protests have led to hundreds of injuries and over 50 deaths. Fatwas calling for the harm of the video's participants have been issued and Pakistani government minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour offered a bounty for the killing of Nakoula, the producer. The film has sparked debates about freedom of speech and Internet censorship.


title: Islam and blasphemy

text: A variety of actions, speeches or behavior can constitute blasphemy in Islam. Some examples include insulting or cursing Allah, or Muhammad; mockery or disagreeable behavior towards beliefs and customs common in Islam; criticism of Islam's holy personages. Apostasy, that is, the act of abandoning Islam, or finding faults or expressing doubts about Allah ("ta'til") and Qur'an, rejection of Muhammed or any of his teachings, or leaving the Muslim community to become an atheist is a form of blasphemy. Questioning religious opinions (fatwa) and normative Islamic views can also be construed as blasphemous. Improper dress, drawing offensive cartoons, tearing or burning holy literature of Islam, creating or using music or painting or video or novels to mock or criticize Muhammad are some examples of blasphemous acts. In the context of those who are non-Muslims, the concept of blasphemy includes all aspects of infidelity (kufr).


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (2001 video game)

text: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon is a tactical shooter video game developed by Red Storm Entertainment and published by Ubi Soft in 2001 for Microsoft Windows. It is the first game in the "Ghost Recon" series. It was ported to Mac OS, PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2002 and to the GameCube in 2003. Ports for N-Gage and Game Boy Advance were planned, but later canceled. Unlike Clancy's other tactical shooter series, "Rainbow Six", "Ghost Recon" is not based on any of his books.


text: Together with "Rainbow Six", "", and "", game industry experts generally credit "Ghost Recon" with defining and refining the tactical shooter genre. "Ghost Recon"s success has spawned 2 expansion packs, "Desert Siege" and "Island Thunder", as well as numerous sequels for video game consoles and the PC.


text: "Ghost Recon" puts the player in charge of the eponymous Ghosts, a fictional squad of United States Special Operations Forces soldiers from Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group. They are organized into three fireteams named using the NATO phonetic alphabet: Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, with space for three soldiers per team (the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions do not have a Charlie team available). However, only six soldiers can be selected per mission. The player enjoys limited tactical control on the battlefield by issuing maneuver commands and rules of engagement for each fireteam through a "command map".


text: The soldiers themselves are organized into four different character classes. Every class can carry a primary and secondary weapon, which are organized into "kits". Even though the primary weapon remains the same in all the kits (being defined by the soldier class — see below), there is a variety of equipment to be chosen as the secondary weapon.


text: For every completed mission in the single-player campaign, each soldier that survives gains one Combat Point to upgrade their attributes. There are four basic categories of skill:


text: The player also unlocks "specialists" from NATO or allied countries by completing extra mission objectives. The specialists are more experienced than the Ghosts and have more Combat Points, making them an essential part of the team. They are also equipped with weapons not available to standard soldiers. Two specialists are armed with the Objective Individual Combat Weapon, as part of field tests and implementation of the U.S. Army's Land Warrior program. The specialist corps includes three women, who are the only female combatants in the game.


text: The game is played entirely from the first-person perspective. A heads-up display relays information such as the name of the soldier the player is controlling, the soldier's assigned fireteam, weapon and ammo counter, a threat indicator, the targeting reticule, health status, and a stance indicator (to show whether the character is standing, crouched, or prone).


text: Bullets will not penetrate most objects, but they will break glass and deflate tires. Explosives or heavy gunfire can be used to destroy wooden doors, and (in the case of explosives) potentially kill anyone within the blast radius on the other side. Depending on a target's armor, it is generally possible to neutralize a threat with one or two well-placed shots.


text: If a soldier is rendered "out of action" during a mission, he or she is considered to be dead, and not available for the rest of the campaign. Wounded soldiers who survive a mission will remain wounded unless they are replaced with a healthy soldier for the next mission.


text: "Ghost Recon" has both single player and multiplayer modes of play. Up to 36 players are supported in the PC version's multiplayer over an internet (TCP/IP) connection or LAN.


text: An ultranationalist regime takes control of the Russian government in Moscow, installing its leader Dmitri Arbatov as president. Russia then takes control over Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, forming the Russian Democratic Union (RDU), a political and military alliance dedicated to recreating the former Soviet Union.


text: In April 2008, the U.S. Army's elite "Ghost" soldiers battle South Ossetian separatist rebels who are harassing the Georgian government and their allies. Their presence forces the RDU to complain to the United Nations that the U.S. has interfered in their internal affairs. The Russian army invades Georgia to assist the rebels. The Ghosts slow down the Russian advance while foreign civilians are evacuated from the country. Eventually, the Ghosts are all that's left of U.S. forces in Georgia and take the last helicopter out of the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi just as Russian forces arrive. The Georgian government sets up a government-in-exile in Geneva, Switzerland while the RDU annexes Georgia, an act publicly condemned by the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany.


text: The Ghosts are soon sent to the Baltic states in response to a Russian invasion launched three days ahead of NATO intelligence estimates. The Ghosts attempt to slow down the attack to buy time for NATO units to arrive in force, with the closest of them coming from Germany. The Ghosts fight alongside U.S. Army elements to push the Russians out of the Baltics, with victories in Rēzekne, Latvia, and Venta Utena, Vilnius, Lithuania. The defeat takes its toll on the RDU government with President Arbatov largely blamed for the disaster and put under house arrest.


text: The Ghosts enter Russia with their first mission being to free U.S. POWs and Russian political prisoners opposed to the RDU. The Russian military executes President Arbatov, which sparks a nationwide rebellion bordering on civil war. The ultranationalists quickly lose public support and many members of the RDU government quit the alliance. The Ghosts later attack several Russian bases such as a naval base at Murmansk and an airbase at Arkhangel'sk, weakening the ultranationalists' combat power. The RDU attracts strong international condemnation and practically dissolve after they detonate a nuclear weapon during a battle north of Moscow between the ultranationalists and a joint force of U.S. and rebelling Russian combat units.


text: Acting Russian Prime Minister Karpin privately requests additional NATO aid in the fighting, prompting the entire 1st Armored Division to be sent over the Russian border. The Ghosts spearhead a NATO assault on Moscow by cutting through a strong ultranationalist defensive line in the woods outside the capital. On November 10, 2008, NATO forces finally reach a deserted Moscow, with the last ultranationalist defenders holed up inside the Kremlin. After a final assault by the Ghosts in Red Square, the ultranationalists surrender and both the Americans and the newly liberated Russians celebrate their victory.


text: The game was in development as early as November 2000. Motion capture was used for character animation. The lead designer was Brian Upton and the soundtrack was composed by Bill Brown.


text: "" is a 2002 expansion pack, released for Microsoft Windows as a separate purchase and can be unlocked as a new campaign in the PS2 version of "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon". It is also bundled with the Mac port. The expansion pack adds 2 new multiplayer game types (Domination and Siege), 5 new multiplayer maps, new weapons for use in multiplayer, and an eight-mission single player campaign, which also unlocks a new specialist soldier (Jodit Haile). In the PS2 version, players who start Desert Siege by finishing the "Ghost Recon" campaign first will also retain the soldiers they used in the campaign, including their statistics.


text: "" was released in late 2002 as an expansion pack for Microsoft Windows, and as a standalone game for Xbox. It contains eight new single player missions, 12 new weapons, 5 new dedicated multiplayer maps, 3 new multiplayer modes (Cat and Mouse, Defend, and Behemoth). On the Xbox, "Island Thunder" features five additional missions and twelve multiplayer maps.


text: "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Island Thunder" was never released for the PlayStation 2, but its content was combined with eight new single-player missions set in Colombia and additional multiplayer maps and released under the title "" in 2004.


text: In addition to the official expansion packs, the very active "Ghost Recon" modding scene (over 1,000 mods have been published as of January 2013) has produced a large number of unofficial expansions packs for PC. Free expansions like "Frostbite", "CENTCOM", "Heroes Unleashed", and "Year of the Monkey" (among others) have gained huge popularity, with download counts in the hundreds of thousands.


text: "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" received "mixed or average" for the Gamecube and PS2 versions while the Xbox and PC versions received "generally positive" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.


text: "Ghost Recon" was a commercial success. By the end of 2001, sales of its computer version had reached 430,000 units. The series' sales surpassed 760,000 copies by the end of March 2002. In the United States, the computer version of "Ghost Recon" sold 240,000 copies and earned $10.1 million by August 2006. "Edge" named it the country's 83rd best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. Combined sales of all "Ghost Recon" series computer games released between those dates had reached 620,000 in the United States by August 2006. The computer version of "Ghost Recon" also received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.


text: Sales of the game's PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions surpassed 2 million copies by the end of June 2003, and helped to drive Ubisoft's Q1 2003/2004 revenues to a record high for the company. By July 2006, the PlayStation 2 version of "Ghost Recon" had sold 1.1 million copies and earned $39 million in the United States alone. "Next Generation" ranked it as the 46th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country.


text: The editors of "PC Gamer US" presented "Ghost Recon" with their 2001 "Best Sound" and overall "Game of the Year" awards, and wrote that "few games have made us cringe in shock, roar with aggression, or exult in victory the way "Ghost Recon" has." "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" was also named "Best Game of the Year" in 2001 by IGN. "Ghost Recon" was a runner-up in IGN's "Best Action Game 2001" and "Best Use Of Sound" ("Reader's Choice"). Wargamer gave it three bronze awards in "Game of the Year", awarded Red Storm with "Game Developer of the Year", and gave "Game Publisher of the Year" to Ubisoft.


text: "Ghost Recon"s Xbox version won "GameSpot"s 2002 "Best Sound on Xbox" award, and was nominated for "Best Online Game on Xbox" and "Best Shooter on Xbox".


text: In August 2008, the Russo-Georgian war began, with a number of commentators noting on the coincidence, that this real world event was somewhat similar to the plot of "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon".


title: Jack Bannon

text: John James Bannon (June 14, 1940 – October 25, 2017) was an American actor. He was best known for his role as Art Donovan on "Lou Grant", a role he played for the duration of the series, from 1977 to 1982.


title: Jack Bannon

text: Bannon was born on June 14, 1940 in Los Angeles, California. His parents were actors Jim Bannon and Bea Benaderet. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1963.


title: Jack Bannon

text: At age 24, Bannon began working as a dialog coach on "Petticoat Junction," the sitcom on which his mother starred. In 1963, he appeared in the Season 1 episode "Kate's Recipe for Hot Rhubarb" of the series as Bobbie Joe's date, Roger. In 1969, Bannon was seen again on "Petticoat Junction" (after his mother died in 1968) appearing as Buck in the episode "One of Our Chickens Is Missing".


title: Jack Bannon

text: Bannon portrayed Buck Williams in the drama "Trauma Center" (1983). He also appeared in other television series of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", "Daniel Boone", "Kojak", "The Rockford Files", "Charlie's Angels", and "Simon & Simon".


title: Jack Bannon

text: Bannon's signature role was that of Art Donovan on "Lou Grant". Bannon's obituary in "The Hollywood Reporter" described the character as an "amiable assistant editor" of the fictional "Los Angeles Tribune" newspaper. The actor appeared in all 114 episodes of the series.


title: Jack Bannon

text: The actor's film career included "What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?" (1969), "Little Big Man" (1970), and "Death Warrant" (1990). On stage, he acted for 20 years in the Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre company.


title: Jack Bannon

text: Bannon died on October 25, 2017 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, from cancer at the age of 77. He was survived by his wife, Ellen Travolta, an actress and elder sister of John Travolta, a sister, and two stepchildren.


title: Sustainable living

text: Sustainable living describes a lifestyle that attempts to reduce the use of Earth's natural resources by an individual or society. It is referred to as zero wastage living" or "net zero living". Its practitioners often attempt to reduce their ecological footprint (including their carbon footprint) by altering their home designs and methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet. Its proponents aim to conduct their lives in ways that are consistent with sustainability, naturally balanced, and respectful of humanity's symbiotic relationship with the Earth's natural ecology. The practice and general philosophy of ecological living closely follows the overall principles of sustainable development.


title: Sustainable living

text: One approach to sustainable living, exemplified by small-scale urban transition towns and rural ecovillages, seeks to create self-reliant communities based on principles of simple living, which maximize self-sufficiency particularly in food production. These principles, on a broader scale, underpin the concept of a bioregional economy. Additionally, practical ecovillage builders like Living Villages maintain that the shift to alternative technologies will only be successful if the resultant built environment is attractive to a local culture and can be maintained and adapted as necessary over multiple generations.


title: Sustainable living

text: Sustainable living is fundamentally the application of sustainability to lifestyle choices and decisions. One conception of sustainable living expresses what it means in triple-bottom-line terms as meeting present ecological, societal, and economical needs without compromising these factors for future generations. Another broader conception describes sustainable living in terms of four interconnected "social" domains: economics, ecology, politics, and culture. In the first conception, sustainable living can be described as living within the innate carrying capacities defined by these factors. In the second or Circles of Sustainability conception, sustainable living can be described as negotiating the relationships of needs within limits across all the interconnected domains of social life, including consequences for future human generations and non-human species.


title: Sustainable living

text: Sustainable design and sustainable development are critical factors to sustainable living. Sustainable design encompasses the development of appropriate technology, which is a staple of sustainable living practices. Sustainable development in turn is the use of these technologies in infrastructure. Sustainable architecture and agriculture are the most common examples of this practice.


title: Sustainable living

text: Lester R. Brown, a prominent environmentalist and founder of the Worldwatch Institute and Earth Policy Institute, describes sustainable living in the twenty-first century as "shifting to a renewable energy-based, reuse/recycle economy with a diversified transport system." Derrick Jensen ("the poet-philosopher of the ecological movement"), a celebrated American author, radical environmentalist and prominent critic of mainstream environmentalism argues that "industrial civilization is not and can never be sustainable". From this statement, the natural conclusion is that sustainable living is at odds with industrialization. Thus, practitioners of the philosophy potentially face the challenge of living in an industrial society and adapting alternative norms, technologies, or practices.


title: Sustainable living

text: On a global scale, shelter is associated with about 25% of the greenhouse gas emissions embodied in household purchases and 26% of households' land use.


title: Sustainable living

text: Sustainable homes are built using sustainable methods, materials, and facilitate green practices, enabling a more sustainable lifestyle. Their construction and maintenance have neutral impacts on the Earth. Often, if necessary, they are close in proximity to essential services such as grocery stores, schools, daycares, work, or public transit making it possible to commit to sustainable transportation choices. Sometimes, they are off-the-grid homes that do not require any public energy, water, or sewer service.


title: Sustainable living

text: If not off-the-grid, sustainable homes may be linked to a grid supplied by a power plant that is using sustainable power sources, buying power as is normal convention. Additionally, sustainable homes may be connected to a grid, but generate their own electricity through renewable means and sell any excess to a utility. There are two common methods to approaching this option: net metering and double metering.


title: Sustainable living

text: Net metering uses the common meter that is installed in most homes, running forward when power is used from the grid, and running backward when power is put into the grid (which allows them to “net“ out their total energy use, putting excess energy into the grid when not needed, and using energy from the grid during peak hours, when you may not be able to produce enough immediately). Power companies can quickly purchase the power that is put back into the grid, as it is being produced. Double metering involves installing two meters: one measuring electricity consumed, the other measuring electricity created. Additionally, or in place of selling their renewable energy, sustainable home owners may choose to bank their excess energy by using it to charge batteries. This gives them the option to use the power later during less favorable power-generating times (i.e.: night-time, when there has been no wind, etc.), and to be completely independent of the electrical grid.


title: Sustainable living

text: Sustainably designed (see Sustainable Design) houses are generally sited so as to create as little of a negative impact on the surrounding ecosystem as possible, oriented to the sun so that it creates the best possible microclimate (typically, the long axis of the house or building should be oriented east–west), and provide natural shading or wind barriers where and when needed, among many other considerations. The design of a sustainable shelter affords the options it has later (i.e.: using passive solar lighting and heating, creating temperature buffer zones by adding porches, deep overhangs to help create favorable microclimates, etc.) Sustainably constructed houses involve environmentally friendly management of waste building materials such as recycling and composting, use non-toxic and renewable, recycled, reclaimed, or low-impact production materials that have been created and treated in a sustainable fashion (such as using organic or water-based finishes), use as much locally available materials and tools as possible so as to reduce the need for transportation, and use low-impact production methods (methods that minimize effects on the environment).


title: Sustainable living

text: In April 2019, New York City passed a bill to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The bill's goal was to minimize the climate pollution stemming from the hub that is New York City. It was approved in a 42 to 5 vote, showing a strong favor of the bill. The bill will restrict energy use in larger buildings. The bill imposes greenhouse gas caps on buildings that are over 25,000 square feet. The calculation of the exact cap is done by square feet per building. A similar emission cap had existed already for buildings of 50,000 square feet or more. This bill expands the legislation to cover more large buildings. The bill protects rent-regulated buildings of which there are around 990,000. Due to the implementation of the bill, around 23,000 new green jobs will be created. The bill received support from Mayor Bill de Blasio. New York is taking action based on the recognition that their climate pollution has effects far beyond the city limits of New York. In discussion of a possible new Amazon headquarters in NYC, De Blasio specified that the bill applies to everyone, regardless of prestige. Mayor de Blasio also announced a lawsuit by the city (of New York) to five major oil companies due to their harm on the environment and climate pollution. This also raises the question of the possible closing of the 24 oil and gas burning power plants in New York City, due to the aimed declining use of these sources of energy. With the emission cap, New York will likely see a turn to renewable energy sources. It is possible that these plants will be transitioned to hubs of renewable energy to power the city. This new bill will go into action in three years (2022) and is estimated to cut climate pollution by 40% in eight years (by 2030).


title: Sustainable living

text: Many materials can be considered a “green” material until its background is revealed. Any material that has used toxic or carcinogenic chemicals in its treatment or manufacturing (such as formaldehyde in glues used in woodworking), has traveled extensively from its source or manufacturer, or has been cultivated or harvested in an unsustainable manner might not be considered green. In order for any material to be considered green, it must be resource efficient, not compromise indoor air quality or water conservation, and be energy efficient (both in processing and when in use in the shelter). Resource efficiency can be achieved by using as much recycled content, reusable or recyclable content, materials that employ recycled or recyclable packaging, locally available material, salvaged or remanufactured material, material that employs resource efficient manufacturing, and long-lasting material as possible.


title: Sustainable living

text: Some building materials might be considered "sustainable" by some definitions and under some conditions. For example, wood might be thought of as sustainable if it is grown using sustainable forest management, processed using sustainable energy. delivered by sustainable transport, etc.: Under different conditions, however, it might not be considered as sustainable. The following materials might be considered as sustainable under certain conditions, based on a Life-cycle assessment.


title: Sustainable living

text: Insulation of a sustainable home is important because of the energy it conserves throughout the life of the home. Well insulated walls and lofts using green materials are a must as it reduces or, in combination with a house that is well designed, eliminates the need for heating and cooling altogether. Installation of insulation varies according to the type of insulation being used. Typically, lofts are insulated by strips of insulating material laid between rafters. Walls with cavities are done in much the same manner. For walls that do not have cavities behind them, solid-wall insulation may be necessary which can decrease internal space and can be expensive to install. Energy-efficient windows are another important factor in insulation. Simply assuring that windows (and doors) are well sealed greatly reduces energy loss in a home. Double or Triple glazed windows are the typical method to insulating windows, trapping gas or creating a vacuum between two or three panes of glass allowing heat to be trapped inside or out. Low-emissivity or Low-E glass is another option for window insulation. It is a coating on windowpanes of a thin, transparent layer of metal oxide and works by reflecting heat back to its source, keeping the interior warm during the winter and cool during the summer. Simply hanging heavy-backed curtains in front of windows may also help their insulation. “Superwindows,” mentioned in , became available in the 1980s and use a combination of many available technologies, including two to three transparent low-e coatings, multiple panes of glass, and a heavy gas filling. Although more expensive, they are said to be able to insulate four and a half times better than a typical double-glazed windows.


title: Sustainable living

text: Equipping roofs with highly reflective material (such as aluminum) increases a roof's albedo and will help reduce the amount of heat it absorbs, hence, the amount of energy needed to cool the building it is on. Green roofs or “living roofs” are a popular choice for thermally insulating a building. They are also popular for their ability to catch storm-water runoff and, when in the broader picture of a community, reduce the heat island effect (see urban heat island) thereby reducing energy costs of the entire area. It is arguable that they are able to replace the physical “footprint” that the building creates, helping reduce the adverse environmental impacts of the building's presence.


title: Sustainable living

text: Energy efficiency and water conservation are also major considerations in sustainable housing. If using appliances, computers, HVAC systems, electronics, or lighting the sustainable-minded often look for an Energy Star label, which is government-backed and holds stricter regulations in energy and water efficiency than is required by law. Ideally, a sustainable shelter should be able to completely run the appliances it uses using renewable energy and should strive to have a neutral impact on the Earth's water sources


title: Sustainable living

text: Greywater, including water from washing machines, sinks, showers, and baths may be reused in landscape irrigation and toilets as a method of water conservation. Likewise, rainwater harvesting from storm-water runoff is also a sustainable method to conserve water use in a sustainable shelter. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems replicate the natural systems that clean water in wildlife and implement them in a city's drainage system so as to minimize contaminated water and unnatural rates of runoff into the environment.


title: Sustainable living

text: As mentioned under Shelter, some sustainable households may choose to produce their own renewable energy, while others may choose to purchase it through the grid from a power company that harnesses sustainable sources (also mentioned previously are the methods of metering the production and consumption of electricity in a household). Purchasing sustainable energy, however, may simply not be possible in some locations due to its limited availability. 6 out of the 50 states in the US do not offer green energy, for example. For those that do, its consumers typically buy a fixed amount or a percentage of their monthly consumption from a company of their choice and the bought green energy is fed into the entire national grid. Technically, in this case, the green energy is not being fed directly to the household that buys it. In this case, it is possible that the amount of green electricity that the buying household receives is a small fraction of their total incoming electricity. This may or may not depend on the amount being purchased. The purpose of buying green electricity is to support their utility's effort in producing sustainable energy. Producing sustainable energy on an individual household or community basis is much more flexible, but can still be limited in the richness of the sources that the location may afford (some locations may not be rich in renewable energy sources while others may have an abundance of it).


title: Sustainable living

text: When generating renewable energy and feeding it back into the grid (in participating countries such as the US and Germany), producing households are typically paid at least the full standard electricity rate by their utility and are also given separate renewable energy credits that they can then sell to their utility, additionally (utilities are interested in buying these renewable energy credits because it allows them to claim that they produce renewable energy). In some special cases, producing households may be paid up to four times the standard electricity rate, but this is not common.


title: Sustainable living

text: Solar power harnesses the energy of the sun to make electricity. Two typical methods for converting solar energy into electricity are photo-voltaic cells that are organized into panels and concentrated solar power, which uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight to either heat a fluid that runs an electrical generator via a steam turbine or heat engine, or to simply cast onto photo-voltaic cells. The energy created by photo-voltaic cells is a direct current and has to be converted to alternating current before it can be used in a household. At this point, users can choose to either store this direct current in batteries for later use, or use an AC/DC inverter for immediate use. To get the best out of a solar panel, the angle of incidence of the sun should be between 20 and 50 degrees. Solar power via photo-voltaic cells are usually the most expensive method to harnessing renewable energy, but is falling in price as technology advances and public interest increases. It has the advantages of being portable, easy to use on an individual basis, readily available for government grants and incentives, and being flexible regarding location (though it is most efficient when used in hot, arid areas since they tend to be the most sunny). For those that are lucky, affordable rental schemes may be found. Concentrated solar power plants are typically used on more of a community scale rather than an individual household scale, because of the amount of energy they are able to harness but can be done on an individual scale with a parabolic reflector.


title: Sustainable living

text: Solar thermal energy is harnessed by collecting direct heat from the sun. One of the most common ways that this method is used by households is through solar water heating. In a broad perspective, these systems involve well insulated tanks for storage and collectors, are either passive or active systems (active systems have pumps that continuously circulate water through the collectors and storage tank) and, in active systems, involve either directly heating the water that will be used or heating a non-freezing heat-transfer fluid that then heats the water that will be used. Passive systems are cheaper than active systems since they do not require a pumping system (instead, they take advantage of the natural movement of hot water rising above cold water to cycle the water being used through the collector and storage tank).


title: Sustainable living

text: Other methods of harnessing solar power are solar space heating (for heating internal building spaces), solar drying (for drying wood chips, fruits, grains, etc.), solar cookers, solar distillers, and other passive solar technologies (simply, harnessing sunlight without any mechanical means).


title: Sustainable living

text: Wind power is harnessed through turbines, set on tall towers (typically 20’ or 6m with 10‘ or 3m diameter blades for an individual household's needs) that power a generator that creates electricity. They typically require an average of wind speed of 9 mi/hr (14 km/hr) to be worth their investment (as prescribed by the US Department of Energy), and are capable of paying for themselves within their lifetimes. Wind turbines in urban areas usually need to be mounted at least 30’ (10m) in the air to receive enough wind and to be void of nearby obstructions (such as neighboring buildings). Mounting a wind turbine may also require permission from authorities. Wind turbines have been criticized for the noise they produce, their appearance, and the argument that they can affect the migratory patterns of birds (their blades obstruct passage in the sky). Wind turbines are much more feasible for those living in rural areas and are one of the most cost-effective forms of renewable energy per kilowatt, approaching the cost of fossil fuels, and have quick paybacks.


title: Sustainable living

text: For those that have a body of water flowing at an adequate speed (or falling from an adequate height) on their property, hydroelectricity may be an option. On a large scale, hydroelectricity, in the form of dams, has adverse environmental and social impacts. When on a small scale, however, in the form of single turbines, hydroelectricity is very sustainable. Single water turbines or even a group of single turbines are not environmentally or socially disruptive. On an individual household basis, single turbines are the probably the only economically feasible route (but can have high paybacks and is one of the most efficient methods of renewable energy production). It is more common for an eco-village to use this method rather than a singular household.


title: Sustainable living

text: Geothermal energy production involves harnessing the hot water or steam below the earth's surface, in reservoirs, to produce energy. Because the hot water or steam that is used is reinjected back into the reservoir, this source is considered sustainable. However, those that plan on getting their electricity from this source should be aware that there is controversy over the lifespan of each geothermal reservoir as some believe that their lifespans are naturally limited (they cool down over time, making geothermal energy production there eventually impossible). This method is often large scale as the system required to harness geothermal energy can be complex and requires deep drilling equipment. There do exist small individual scale geothermal operations, however, which harness reservoirs very close to the Earth's surface, avoiding the need for extensive drilling and sometimes even taking advantage of lakes or ponds where there is already a depression. In this case, the heat is captured and sent to a geothermal heat pump system located inside the shelter or facility that needs it (often, this heat is used directly to warm a greenhouse during the colder months). Although geothermal energy is available everywhere on Earth, practicality and cost-effectiveness varies, directly related to the depth required to reach reservoirs. Places such as the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, Iceland, California, and Nevada have geothermal reservoirs closer to the Earth's surface, making its production cost-effective.


title: Sustainable living

text: Biomass power is created when any biological matter is burned as fuel. As with the case of using green materials in a household, it is best to use as much locally available material as possible so as to reduce the carbon footprint created by transportation. Although burning biomass for fuel releases carbon dioxide, sulfur compounds, and nitrogen compounds into the atmosphere, a major concern in a sustainable lifestyle, the amount that is released is sustainable (it will not contribute to a rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere). This is because the biological matter that is being burned releases the same amount of carbon dioxide that it consumed during its lifetime. However, burning biodiesel and bioethanol (see biofuel) when created from virgin material, is increasingly controversial and may or may not be considered sustainable because it inadvertently increases global poverty, the clearing of more land for new agriculture fields (the source of the biofuel is also the same source of food), and may use unsustainable growing methods (such as the use of environmentally harmful pesticides and fertilizers).


title: Sustainable living

text: Digestion of organic material to produce methane is becoming an increasingly popular method of biomass energy production. Materials such as waste sludge can be digested to release methane gas that can then be burnt to produce electricity. Methane gas is also a natural by-product of landfills, full of decomposing waste, and can be harnessed here to produce electricity as well. The advantage in burning methane gas is that is prevents the methane from being released into the atmosphere, exacerbating the greenhouse effect. Although this method of biomass energy production is typically large scale (done in landfills), it can be done on a smaller individual or community scale as well.


title: Sustainable living

text: Globally, food accounts for 48% and 90% of household environmental impacts on land and water resources respectively, with consumption of meat, dairy and processed food rising quickly with income.


title: Sustainable living

text: Industrial agricultural production is highly resource and energy intensive. Industrial agriculture systems typically require heavy irrigation, extensive pesticide and fertilizer application, intensive tillage, concentrated monoculture production, and other continual inputs. As a result of these industrial farming conditions, today's mounting environmental stresses are further exacerbated. These stresses include: declining water tables, chemical leaching, chemical runoff, soil erosion, land degradation, loss in biodiversity, and other ecological concerns.


title: Sustainable living

text: Conventional food distribution and long-distance transport are additionally resource and energy exhaustive. Substantial climate-disrupting carbon emissions, boosted by the transport of food over long distances, are of growing concern as the world faces such global crisis as natural resource depletion, peak oil and climate change. “The average American meal currently costs about 1500 miles, and takes about 10 calories of oil and other fossil fuels to produce a single calorie of food.”


title: Sustainable living

text: A more sustainable means of acquiring food is to purchase locally and seasonally. Buying food from local farmers reduces carbon output, caused by long-distance food transport, and stimulates the local economy. Local, small-scale farming operations also typically utilize more sustainable methods of agriculture than conventional industrial farming systems such as decreased tillage, nutrient cycling, fostered biodiversity and reduced chemical pesticide and fertilizer applications. Adapting a more regional, seasonally based diet is more sustainable as it entails purchasing less energy and resource demanding produce that naturally grow within a local area and require no long-distance transport. These vegetables and fruits are also grown and harvested within their suitable growing season. Thus, seasonal food farming does not require energy intensive greenhouse production, extensive irrigation, plastic packaging and long-distance transport from importing non-regional foods, and other environmental stressors. Local, seasonal produce is typically fresher, unprocessed and argued to be more nutritious. Local produce also contains less to no chemical residues from applications required for long-distance shipping and handling. Farmers' markets, public events where local small-scale farmers gather and sell their produce, are a good source for obtaining local food and knowledge about local farming productions. As well as promoting localization of food, farmers markets are a central gathering place for community interaction. Another way to become involved in regional food distribution is by joining a local community-supported agriculture (CSA). A CSA consists of a community of growers and consumers who pledge to support a farming operation while equally sharing the risks and benefits of food production. CSA's usually involve a system of weekly pick-ups of locally farmed vegetables and fruits, sometimes including dairy products, meat and special food items such as baked goods. Considering the previously noted rising environmental crisis, the United States and much of the world is facing immense vulnerability to famine. Local food production ensures food security if potential transportation disruptions and climatic, economical, and sociopolitical disasters were to occur.


title: Sustainable living

text: Industrial meat production also involves high environmental costs such as land degradation, soil erosion and depletion of natural resources, especially pertaining to water and food. Mass meat production increase the amount of methane in the atmosphere. For more information on the environmental impact of meat production and consumption, see the ethics of eating meat. Reducing meat consumption, perhaps to a few meals a week, or adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet, alleviates the demand for environmentally damaging industrial meat production. Buying and consuming organically raised, free range or grass fed meat is another alternative towards more sustainable meat consumption.


title: Sustainable living

text: Purchasing and supporting organic products is another fundamental contribution to sustainable living. Organic farming is a rapidly emerging trend in the food industry and in the web of sustainability. According to the USDA National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), organic agriculture is defined as "an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain, or enhance ecological harmony. The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil life, plants, animals and people." Upon sustaining these goals, organic agriculture uses techniques such as crop rotation, permaculture, compost, green manure and biological pest control. In addition, organic farming prohibits or strictly limits the use of manufactured fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators such as hormones, livestock antibiotics, food additives and genetically modified organisms. Organically farmed products include vegetables, fruit, grains, herbs, meat, dairy, eggs, fibers, and flowers. See organic certification for more information.


title: Sustainable living

text: In addition to local, small-scale farms, there has been a recent emergence in urban agriculture expanding from community gardens to private home gardens. With this trend, both farmers and ordinary people are becoming involved in food production. A network of urban farming systems helps to further ensure regional food security and encourages self-sufficiency and cooperative interdependence within communities. With every bite of food raised from urban gardens, negative environmental impacts are reduced in numerous ways. For instance, vegetables and fruits raised within small-scale gardens and farms are not grown with tremendous applications of nitrogen fertilizer required for industrial agricultural operations. The nitrogen fertilizers cause toxic chemical leaching and runoff that enters our water tables. Nitrogen fertilizer also produces nitrous oxide, a more damaging greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Local, community-grown food also requires no imported, long-distance transport which further depletes our fossil fuel reserves. In developing more efficiency per land acre, urban gardens can be started in a wide variety of areas: in vacant lots, public parks, private yards, church and school yards, on roof tops (roof-top gardens), and many other places. Communities can work together in changing zoning limitations in order for public and private gardens to be permissible. Aesthetically pleasing edible landscaping plants can also be incorporated into city landscaping such as blueberry bushes, grapevines trained on an arbor, pecan trees, etc. With as small a scale as home or community farming, sustainable and organic farming methods can easily be utilized. Such sustainable, organic farming techniques include: composting, biological pest control, crop rotation, mulching, drip irrigation, nutrient cycling and permaculture. For more information on sustainable farming systems, see sustainable agriculture.


title: Sustainable living

text: Preserving and storing foods reduces reliance on long-distance transported food and the market industry. Home-grown foods can be preserved and stored outside of their growing season and continually consumed throughout the year, enhancing self-sufficiency and independence from the supermarket. Food can be preserved and saved by dehydration, freezing, vacuum packing, canning, bottling, pickling and jellying. For more information, see food preservation.