title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: Before the arrival of the Compañía Bananera de Costa Rica, a branch of the United Fruit Company, and banana plantations in the 1930s, there was dense vegetation in this area. Resources available to Precolumbian inhabitants in this alluvial plain consisted of riverine and ocean resources, including mangrove forests located in the Terraba and Sierpe Rivers.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: The rich alluvial soils of this region facilitated agriculture since the 1930s. The United Fruit Company dominated this southern region with banana plantations as early as the 1920s in Parrita and Quepos. The UFCO entered Palmar Sur in the 1930s under the name of Companía Bananera de Costa Rica in an effort to avoid antimonopoly legislature. Today there are still agricultural fields throughout the landscape which are owned by co-ops and consist of plantain, banana, and palm plantations.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: Scientific research in the alluvial plain, particularly on United Fruit Company properties, began in the 1940s with the work of Doris Zemurray Stone and Samuel Lothrop. Lothrop's work focused on excavation at a handful of sites, one being Farm 4. His work aimed to document all archaeological sites containing "in situ" stone spheres, to record the number of spheres and their dimensions, and to make detailed maps illustrating both their arrangement and alignments.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: After the work of Lothrop and Stone, research in the area took a hiatus for nearly fifty years. In the 1990s, Claude Baudez and a team of researchers set out to establish a ceramic chronology of the region by observing the change in ceramic styles over time. This was accomplished by examining the drainage ditches that were cut into the landscape by the UFCO. Research carried out by Ifigenia Quintanilla, under the direction of the MNCR from 1991 to 1996 was performed in the region under the project titled "Man and Environment in Sierpe-Terraba" focusing on settlement patterns, occupational sequences, and resources utilized in the region.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: Francisco Corrales and Adrian Badilla, archaeologists with the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, have performed continuous research in the region since 2002. Their research began in 2002 and focused on four archaeological sites in the region containing stone spheres and of which comprise a "circuit". These sites include Grijalba, Batambal, El Silencio, and "Farm 6". The purpose of the project was to assess the cultural significance of the sites, to protect the cultural heritage, in addition to beginning research and studies at the sites. Corrales and Badilla produced a booklet entitled "El Paisaje Cultural del Delta del Diquís" which provides a quick overview on the history of the Diquís Delta, the history of banana plantations and the UFCO, the natural environment, archaeological sites in the region, and the importance of the Diquís region as an UNESCO World Heritage Site. Research has continued in the region by Corrales and Badilla focusing on the archaeology and the Precolumbian political structure in the Diquís Delta. Research emphasis was on chiefdoms and their associated archaeological indicators. Their objectives were to study the archaeological sites containing stone spheres in the Diquís Subregion to gain an understanding of community configuration, activity areas, sequences of occupation, and the recording of monumental architecture.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: Research is currently ongoing at the "Farm 6" site under the direction of archaeologists at the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica. The first field season in which archaeological excavations were undertaken was in 2005. Objectives during this field season included defining the area in which two mounds were located, sphere alignments, and various excavations associated with mound 2. In 2007, as second field season was undertaken focusing on archaeological excavations of Mound 1. During this field season, a stone sphere was discovered "in situ" in association with the mound.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: Archaeological tourism is a concept that is still relatively new in Costa Rica. To date, the national monument of Guayabo de Turrialba is primarily the only archaeological site open for tourism. Tourism on a smaller scale is occurring at the site of Farm 6 and is open to visitors upon paying a nominal fee to tour the museum display and then tour the grounds, viewing some of the discovery sites. It is no longer necessary to have an appointment. Future plans of the MNCR are to open the site to tourism on a larger scale and to include other sites nearby in the region.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: The stone spheres are regarded as a national symbol and part of the cultural ethos of Costa Rica, therefore it is common to see them installed in government buildings, such as in the under construction building of the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, where in October 2019, seven spheres lent by the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica where installed inside.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: The stone spheres have been the inspiration for sculptors, such as Ibo Bonilla and Jorge Jiménez Deredia. Also, their symbols has been used by some architects.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: Numerous myths surround the stones, such as they came from Atlantis, or that they were made as such by nature. Some local legends state that the native inhabitants had access to a potion able to soften the rock. Limestone, for example, can be dissolved by acidic solutions obtained from plants. Research led by Joseph Davidovits of the Geopolymer Institute in France has been offered in support of this hypothesis. However, most of the spheres were created from gabbro, an acid-resistant igneous rock.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: In the cosmogony of the Bribri, which is shared by the Cabecares and other American ancestral groups, the stone spheres are “Tara’s cannon balls”. Tara or Tlatchque, the god of thunder, used a giant blowpipe to shoot the balls at the Serkes, gods of winds and hurricanes, in order to drive them out of these lands.


title: Stone spheres of Costa Rica

text: It has been claimed that the spheres are perfect, or very near perfect in roundness, although some spheres are known to vary over in diameter. Also, the stones have been damaged and eroded over the years, and so it is impossible to know exactly their original shape. A review of the way that the stones were measured by Lothrop reveals that claims of precision are due to misinterpretations of the methods used in their measurement. Although Lothrop published tables of ball diameters with figures to three decimal places, these figures were actually averages of measurements taken with tapes that were nowhere near that precise.


title: Glen Benton

text: Glen Benton (born June 18, 1967) is an American death metal musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist and bassist for the death metal band Deicide and was also a part of the band Vital Remains, where he has performed in recording sessions as well as live with them on a few occasions. He is known for very low guttural growls as well as very high shrieks.


title: Glen Benton

text: Benton was born in Niagara Falls, New York but was raised in Tampa, Florida. It was here on July 21, 1987, after guitarist Brian Hoffman replied to Benton's advertisement in a local music magazine, Deicide was formed. Within days the band, consisting of Benton (bass/vocals), Hoffman, Hoffman's brother Eric (guitars) and Steve Asheim (drums), was named "Amon", after the Egyptian deity. Within a month, Amon had recorded the crude "Feasting the Beast" 8-track demo in Benton's garage and had started playing the occasional gig in the Tampa area. In 1989, Amon recorded their second demo, "Sacrificial", at Morrisound with producer Scott Burns. Benton also collaborated on Mexican metal band Transmetal's album el infierno de dante with the choruses, under the production of Scott Burns in Morrisound, which sold almost 100,000 copies.


title: Glen Benton

text: In May 2015 Benton was endorsed by ESP guitars, and has been using a custom-made EX bass with a reverse headstock and EMG pick-ups since then. He has also used Phoenix and Stream bass models.


title: Glen Benton

text: Benton is known for his Satanist and anti-Christian beliefs, and views of "today's corrupt religious systems". He is renowned for an inverted cross he has repeatedly branded into his forehead over the years. According to Steve Asheim, this act was likely in response to previous press attention the band received when Brian Hoffman burned an inverted cross into his arm with a cigarette.


title: Glen Benton

text: Despite having claimed in an interview he shares a "spiritual link" with Lucifer, who tells him "what to say and what to write about," the nature of Benton's 'Satanism' is obscure and a subject of controversy, particularly due to allegations by former Deicide guitarist Eric Hoffman, who dismissed it as insincere and spurious. In early years, Benton was ostensibly a theistic satanist; he implied he had held the belief of the Christian God but worshipped Satan instead. Thus, his beliefs have been questioned by followers of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, which Benton has blasted on the grounds it is an organized religion, promoting what he perceives to be "Hollywood Satanism".


title: Glen Benton

text: Arguably, Benton's claims have always been tongue-in-cheek as his purported "Satanism" has since largely been defined as vehement anti-Christian atheism complemented with theatrics suitable for the band. In the July 2008 issue of "Revolver Magazine", Benton stated there was no ideological agenda in Deicide and the music was first and foremost.


title: Glen Benton

text: The self-titled 1990 debut album of his group Deicide featured a song entitled "Sacrificial Suicide", in which Benton was alleged to have claimed that in order to achieve a life opposite that of Jesus he planned to commit suicide at age 33. This claim that he would commit suicide at the age of 33 continued throughout the 1990s. However, he passed that age in 2000 and did not commit suicide. In 2006, he stated that these statements had been "asinine remarks" and that "only cowards and losers" choose to kill themselves.


title: Glen Benton

text: In the early-to-mid-1990s, Benton was a frequent opponent guest to Christian radio shows, such as Bob Larson's "Talk Back" show. Though a serious discussion rarely took place on the program, the exchanges between the two mainly consisted of taunts from Benton and tongue-in-cheek teasing. Larson continually invited Benton to his talk show, but Benton often declined.


title: Glen Benton

text: In 1992, newspapers reported that Benton had expressed an interest in, and participated in, the burning of live rodents such as rats and squirrels. During an interview with NME Magazine, Benton shot a squirrel with a pellet gun: Benton explained it was to prevent any further damage to his electrical system and other contents in the attic of his home where the interview was held. The publicity led to an attempted bomb attack on Benton during Deicide's Legion tour at the International 2 in Manchester, England, by an animal rights organization. Benton was also beaten up in Bradford. A similar attack was attempted at a previous show in Stockholm, where a supposed small fire bomb was set to detonate during Deicide's set. No one was injured, but the bomb damaged the venue. The bomb was reported to be an M-80. The tour was curtailed.


title: Glen Benton

text: Benton has an interest in motorcycles, which can be seen in the music videos for the Deicide songs "Scars of the Crucifix" and "Conviction." He also has two sons, Daemon Michael Benton and Vinnie Benton. Although Deicide is a death metal band, Benton prefers not to use the "death metal" terminology.


title: Electro swing

text: Electro swing, or swing house, is an electronic dance music genre that combines the influence of vintage or modern swing and jazz mixed with house and hip hop. Successful examples of the genre create a modern and dance-floor focused sound that is more readily accessible to the modern ear, but that also retains the energetic excitement of live brass and early swing recordings. Electro swing groups typically include singers, musicians playing traditional jazz instruments (e.g. trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone) and at least one DJ.


title: Electro swing

text: Some notable songs in the electro swing genre include "We No Speak Americano" by Yolanda Be Cool and DCUP, "Emergency" by Icona Pop, "Doop" by Doop, "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)" by Fergie, Q-Tip and GoonRock and "Bboom Bboom" by Momoland.


title: See Emily Play

text: "See Emily Play" is a song by English rock band Pink Floyd, released as their second single in June 1967. Written by original frontman Syd Barrett, it was released as a non-album single, but appeared as the opening track of the U.S. edition of the band's debut album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" (1967).


title: See Emily Play

text: The song was written by Barrett following the Games for May concert, and became a top 10 hit when released in the UK the following month. The group appeared three times on "Top of the Pops", where Barrett started showing signs of erratic behaviour, which ultimately led to him leaving the group in early 1968. Though Pink Floyd seldom performed the song live, it has been covered by a number of diverse artists and regarded as a classic psychedelic pop single.


title: See Emily Play

text: "See Emily Play" is also known as "Games for May", after a free concert on 12 May 1967 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank, in which Pink Floyd performed. It was the first show where the group set up a quadrophonic PA system, which would be a regular feature of future gigs.


title: See Emily Play

text: The song was reportedly about a girl named Emily, who Barrett claimed to have seen while sleeping in the woods after taking a psychedelic drug. According to "A Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey", by Nicholas Schaffner, Emily is the Honourable Emily Young, daughter of Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet and nicknamed "the psychedelic schoolgirl" at the UFO Club. Bassist Roger Waters later said the woods mentioned in the song were based next to the Gog Magog Hills near Cambridge.


title: See Emily Play

text: It has been suggested by some that the slide guitar effect was produced by Barrett using a Zippo lighter, but elsewhere that he used a plastic ruler.


title: See Emily Play

text: The song was recorded at Sound Techniques studios on 18 May 1967 The exact recording details are unclear because of a lack of paperwork in the EMI archive. Engineer Jeff Jarrett recalls that it was recorded in a much longer form, which was then edited down for the single release. The recording involved backward tapes and much use of echo and reverb; the first piano bridge between the first chorus and second verse was recorded at a slow pace then sped up for the final master. The four-track master tape was wiped or misplaced. It no longer exists and has never been mixed into true stereo; it was reprocessed for Duophonic stereo on the 1971 "Relics" compilation.


title: See Emily Play

text: Barrett, reputedly, was not happy with the final studio cut, and protested against its release, which producer Norman Smith speculated was based on his fear of commercialism. During sessions for the song David Gilmour visited the studio, on Barrett's invitation, and was shocked by the perceived changes in Barrett's personality when he did not appear to recognize him. For many years Gilmour would recall this, saying, "I'll go on record as saying, that was when he changed".


title: See Emily Play

text: The UK single was released by Columbia Records on 16 June 1967, with "The Scarecrow" as the B-side. It reached number 6 in the charts. "Melody Maker" said they recognised the single as Pink Floyd's "by the horrible organ sound" but said it was "much better than Arnold Layne".


title: See Emily Play

text: The US single was released by Tower Records on 24 July 1967, both as a standard issue and a white label promotional pressing. "Cash Box" said that it's "one of those hard to predict outings that could hit in a grand manner or fall flat." It reached number 134 in the charts. A further white label promo was issued on 22 July 1968 with a note asking if DJs would play it.


title: See Emily Play

text: "See Emily Play" later appeared on a number of compilations: "Relics" (1971), "Works" (1983), "Shine On" (1992), "" (2001), "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" 40th Anniversary Edition (2007), "" (2011) and "The Early Years 1965–1972" (2016). The song was also included on the Barrett retrospective "An Introduction to Syd Barrett" (2010).


title: See Emily Play

text: Pink Floyd performed the song three times on BBC TV's "Top of the Pops". The appearances were taped at the BBC Studios in Shepherd's Bush and broadcast on 6, 13 and 27 July. For the final appearance, Barrett complained that the band shouldn't appear, because "John Lennon doesn't have to do "Top of the Pops"". He did perform, but without the enthusiasm of the previous week. This was the first sign of Barrett exhibiting erratic behaviour, which caused problems for the group throughout the remainder of the year, and ultimately leading to him leaving the band in early 1968.


title: See Emily Play

text: The BBC wiped the shows. In late 2009 a badly damaged home video recording was recovered by the British Film Institute containing the first and third show the song was performed on, though only the first appearance was recoverable in part. Parts of the 6 July performance have been recovered from the damaged video recording. It was given a public screening in London on 9 January 2010 at an event called "Missing Believed Wiped" devoted to recovered TV shows. It was the first time any footage of the performance had been seen since its original broadcast. The Pink Floyd management used a copy of the footage in "The Early Years 1965–1972".


title: See Emily Play

text: The band were booked to appear on the German television programme "Beat-Club". The appearance was cancelled, explaining Barrett had suffered "nervous exhaustion" and the band decided to take a month-long break in the hope his health would recover.


title: See Emily Play

text: In February 1968, Pink Floyd travelled to the RTB studios in Brussels to film a TV special for the television programme "Tienerklanken", broadcast on 31 March. The special featured promotional films for "See Emily Play", as well as for "Astronomy Domine", "The Scarecrow", "Apples and Oranges", "Paint Box", "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", and "Corporal Clegg". This was Gilmour's first TV work with the band. The footage for "See Emily Play" was shot in the Parc de Laekan. Though Barrett was no longer performing with Pink Floyd, his departure had yet to be formally announced. Gilmour, Waters and Richard Wright mimed to Barrett's vocals.


title: See Emily Play

text: "See Emily Play" was very different to Pink Floyd's live show, which was based around lengthy instrumentals, and the group avoided playing it. Promoters outside London insisted that they include the song in their live shows to avoid rioting. As a response, the group wrote a piece called "Reaction in G" as a reaction against having to play "See Emily Play" on tour.


title: See Emily Play

text: The song only stayed in the band's set list for a few months; the last documented live performance was on 25 November 1967 in Blackpool as part of a package tour supporting Jimi Hendrix. On the group's late 1971 US tour supporting "Meddle", a fan cried out for "See Emily Play", to which Waters retorted, "You must be joking!"


title: See Emily Play

text: Part of the vocal melody was played on a Minimoog by Rick Wright at the very end of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)" at the end of 1975's "Wish You Were Here", as a tribute to Barrett.


title: See Emily Play

text: The final couplet from "High Hopes" ("The endless river/Forever and ever") recalls a line from See Emily Play, ("Float on a river/Forever and ever"), and inspired the name of the band's final studio album, "The Endless River", released in 2014.


title: See Emily Play

text: "See Emily Play" has been covered by Canadian group Three to One (aka Okee Pokey Band) on the 1967 Yorkville album "CTV After Four"; David Bowie, for his "Pin Ups" album in 1973; Japanese group Salon Music, for their 1984 album "La Paloma Show"; The Grapes of Wrath, as a B-side on the 1991 CD single "I Am Here"; on the 1996 Games for May EP by perfect children; Arjen Anthony Lucassen, on his 1997 album "Strange Hobby"; The Changelings, on their 2002 album "Astronomica"; Judy Dyble, for her album "Spindle"; David West, on the 2001 bluegrass tribute album "Pickin' on Pink Floyd: A Bluegrass Tribute"; Martha Wainwright, on her 2008 album "I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too"; and by 3, on the 2008 re-release of their album "The End Is Begun". John Frusciante has played it live. All About Eve played the song live c. 1992 and recorded a demo, which was not released until 2006 as part of the "Keepsakes" compilation.


title: See Emily Play

text: "See Emily Play" is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll" list. It is also the 277th most acclaimed song of all time according to Acclaimed Music.


title: See Emily Play

text: An EP including the song was released in Spain in 1967, on the La Voz De Su Amo label. All tracks were written by Syd Barrett.


title: Skidamarink

text: Skidamarink or Skinnamarink is a popular preschool sing-along song from North America. . Originally titled "Skid-dy-mer-rink-adink-aboomp" or "Skiddy-Mer-Rink-A-Doo", the initial version of the song was written by Felix F. Feist (lyrics) and Al Piantadosi (music) for the 1910 Charles Dillingham Broadway production "The Echo". Since the title is gibberish, it has had various spellings over the years.


title: Skidamarink

text: In Canada, the song was popularised by the children's music band Sharon, Lois & Bram, who first released it on their debut album "One Elephant, Deux Elephants", and then sang it on "The Elephant Show". "Skinnamarink" became their signature song, and their next television show was named "Skinnamarink TV" after it. A natural ice rink at the Sharon, Lois & Bram Playground in Davisville, Toronto has been named the "Skinnama-rink" in honour of the song. Lois Lilienstein heard the song when she asked her cousin's daughter if she knew any good songs and the girl sang "Skinnamarink", which she had just heard at camp. None of the band members knew the origins of the song, and the track was attributed to "Traditional".


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: The Bitcoin scalability problem refers to the limited capability of the Bitcoin network to handle large amounts of transaction data on its platform in a short span of time. It is related to the fact that records (known as "blocks") in the Bitcoin blockchain are limited in size and frequency.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: Bitcoin's blocks contain the transactions on the bitcoin network. The on-chain transaction processing capacity of the bitcoin network is limited by the average block creation time of 10 minutes and the original block size limit of 1 megabyte. These jointly constrain the network's throughput. The transaction processing capacity maximum estimated using an average or median transaction size is between 3.3 and 7 transactions per second. There are various proposed and activated solutions to address this issue.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: The block size limit, in concert with the proof-of-work difficulty adjustment settings of bitcoin's consensus protocol, constitutes a bottleneck in bitcoin's transaction processing capacity. This can result in increasing transaction fees and delayed processing of transactions that cannot be fit into a block. Various proposals have come forth on how to scale bitcoin, and a contentious debate has resulted. "Business Insider" in 2017 characterized this debate as an "ideological battle over bitcoin's future."


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: Increasing the network's transaction processing limit requires making changes to the technical workings of bitcoin, in a process known as a "fork". Forks can be grouped into two types:


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: Bitcoin Cash ("BCH") is a hard fork of bitcoin increasing the maximum block size. Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited each supported an increase to the maximum block size. On 1 August 2017, the day when BTC forked, the BTC blockchain split into two separate blockchains: one maintained in accordance with the rules currently valid for Bitcoin, and the other maintained in accordance with the rules currently valid for Bitcoin Cash. If one had coins on the Bitcoin chain prior to the fork and has not yet moved them, one could move them on one or the other or both chains. Thus, all holders of Bitcoin also became holders of Bitcoin Cash at the time of the split. Henceforth Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are separate and trade at entirely independent valuations relative to each other, fiat currencies, and other assets.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: Bitcoin SV ("BSV") is a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash and offers a competing implementation of the Bitcoin protocol that aims to solve the Bitcoin scalability problem by implementing an unbounded block cap size, enabling the network to produce blocks of unlimited size.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: In case of a soft fork, all mining nodes meant to work in accordance with the new rules need to upgrade their software.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: Technical optimizations may decrease the amount of computing resources required to receive, process and record bitcoin transactions, allowing increased throughput without placing extra demand on the bitcoin network. These modifications can be to either the network, in which case a fork is required, or to individual node software (such as Bitcoin Core).


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: The Lightning Network (LN) is a protocol that aims to improve bitcoin's scalability and speed without sacrificing trustless operation. The Lightning Network requires putting a funding transaction on the blockchain to open a payment channel. Once a channel is opened, connected participants are able to make rapid payments within the channel or may route payments by "hopping" between channels at intermediate nodes for little to no fee.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: In January 2018 Blockstream launched a payment processing system for web retailers called "Lightning Charge", noted that lightning was live on mainnet with 200 nodes operating as of 27 January 2018 and advised it should still be considered "in testing".


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: On 15 March 2018, Lightning Labs released the beta version of its lnd Lightning Network implementation for bitcoin mainnet, and on 28 March 2018, ACINQ released a mainnet beta of its eclair implementation and desktop application.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: In January 2019 the online retailer Bitrefill announced that it receives more payments in Bitcoin via the lightning network than any other cryptocurrency they accept.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: In June 2021, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador voted legislation to make Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador. The decision was based on the success of the Bitcoin Beach ecosystem in El Zonte that used a LN based wallet. The government will be introducing a wallet utilising the Lightning Network protocol while giving the freedom for citizens to use other Bitcoin Lightning wallets.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: Bitcoin has a block time of 10 minutes and a block size of 1MB. Various increases to this limit, and proposals to remove it completely, have been proposed over bitcoin's history. Litecoin produces blocks four times faster than Bitcoin which leads to a 4x improvement in throughput. Dogecoin has even more throughput with a block time of 1 minute. Bitcoin Cash has a block size of 32 MB and hence 32x more throughput than Bitcoin. Bitcoin SV removed the block size limit altogether.


title: Bitcoin scalability problem

text: Bitcoin Unlimited's proposal is different from Bitcoin Core in that the block size parameter is not hard-coded, and rather the nodes and miners flag support for the size that they want, using an idea they refer to as 'emergent consensus'. Those behind Bitcoin Unlimited proposal argue that from an ideological standpoint the miners should decide about the scaling solution since they are the ones whose hardware secure the network.


title: Allie Beth Stuckey

text: Allie Beth Stuckey (; ; born February 18, 1992) is an American conservative commentator whose podcast "Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey" is owned and distributed by Blaze Media. She has been a regular guest on Fox News. In November 2019, Stuckey testified before Congress in support of the Trump administration's anti-abortion policies.


title: Allie Beth Stuckey

text: Stuckey worked as a publicist and social media strategist in Athens, Georgia. While working as a publicist in Georgia, she began speaking to college students about the importance of voting and, in 2016, started a blog on a Facebook page called "The Conservative Millennial". In 2017, she joined TheBlaze as a contributor and began appearing as a guest on Fox News and Fox Business News while continuing to speak on college campuses, to Republican organizations, and to businesses about the importance of engaging young people. In late 2017, she left The Blaze to start a podcast distributed by Conservative Review TV (CRTV).


title: Allie Beth Stuckey

text: Stuckey launched her podcast "Relatable" in March 2018 with CRTV. In 2019, CRTV and TheBlaze merged to become BlazeTV, which now distributes "Relatable".


title: Allie Beth Stuckey

text: In July 2018, Stuckey released a video on her CRTV Facebook page that depicted a satirical interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in which the politician appeared to give bizarre answers to the questions she was asked by Stuckey. The video used edited footage from an interview Ocasio-Cortez had previously done on the PBS show "Firing Line", and spliced Ocasio-Cortez's answers as responses to Stuckey's questions. The video went viral, with many people labeling the video as a hoax. On her Twitter page, Stuckey responded to the backlash by writing, "If you have to do research to figure out that a video that blatantly absurd is satirical, you shouldn’t be on the Internet." Stuckey said that she was surprised by the response to the video, and that "A lot of people on the left just can’t tolerate someone on the right making a joke, because the only humor now that is protected is humor that is against conservatives or against President Trump."


title: Allie Beth Stuckey

text: On November 14, 2019, Stuckey testified as an expert witness before the House of Representatives in a hearing called "Examining State Efforts to Undermine Access to Reproductive Care" held by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on the issue of abortion in Missouri. Stuckey was the sole witness to testify for the Republicans.


title: Allie Beth Stuckey

text: In 2020, Stuckey's first book, "You're Not Enough (And That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love", a "framework for escaping our culture of trendy narcissism", was published by Penguin Books under .


title: Allie Beth Stuckey

text: Stuckey is a Christian. She married Timothy Stuckey in Athens, Georgia, on September 6, 2015, and they have two children.


title: PGA Tour 2K21

text: PGA Tour 2K21 is a sports video game developed by HB Studios and published by 2K Sports for Stadia, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It is the first game in the series to be released under the "PGA Tour 2K" name and the second game in the overall series to be licensed by the PGA Tour.


title: PGA Tour 2K21

text: "PGA Tour 2K21" received generally favorable reviews, with critics feeling that the game preserved the realism of its predecessors, while adding more difficulty levels and assists to make it more accessible to a wider audience.


title: PGA Tour 2K21

text: "PGA Tour 2K21" received "generally favorable reviews" on all platforms, except for the Nintendo Switch version which received "mixed or average reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: PGA Tour 2K21

text: Owen S. Good of "Polygon" felt that the game addressed almost all of his criticisms of "The Golf Club 2019", and that its assists "[gave] me the certainty of knowing that when my shot goes awry, "I" did something wrong. Moreover, I know what I did wrong, and the game no longer feels arbitrary or punitive."


title: PGA Tour 2K21

text: Tristan Ogilvie of "IGN" similarly noted that given the reputation of "The Golf Club" as being an "uncompromisingly hardcore simulation" of golf (to the point that comparisons were made to FromSoftware games")", the difficulty modes and assist options allowed players to achieve a more balanced experience. Among criticisms were its "static" environments, a lack of any women's tour or tournament options, such as LPGA events, or any licensed female players (although female golfers can still be created), the included PGA Tour characters not being playable, as well as levelling and rival systems that felt "arbitrary". In conclusion, it was felt that the game as a whole was the "most flexible and enjoyable golf game since EA’s "Tiger Woods" series was at its peak".


title: PGA Tour 2K21

text: Barring "minor annoyances" such as its handling of rough, repetitive commentary, none of the tour professionals being playable in-game, and its use of micro-transactions, "GameSpot" felt that "PGA Tour 2K21" was "the most realistic and pure golf experience in a game to date", preserving key aspects of "The Golf Club" while making it more accessible to a wider variety of players.


title: Heide Perlman

text: Heide Paula Perlman (born September 22, 1951) is best known for her work as a television script writer. Perlman began work as a writer on the sitcom "Cheers" from 1982 through 1986; since then she has worked as a writer, producer and/or story editor on "The Tracey Ullman Show", "Frasier", "The George Carlin Show", "Stacked", "The Bill Engvall Show" and others. She has won two Primetime Emmy Awards and has been nominated for eight others.


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies. In the early 20th century, it came to international prominence as Moscow became the capital of Soviet Russia. The Bolshoi has been recognised as one of the foremost ballet companies in the world. It has a branch at the Bolshoi Ballet Theater School in Joinville, Brazil.


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: The earliest iteration of the Bolshoi Ballet can be found in the creation of a dance school for a Moscow orphanage in 1773. In 1776, dancers from the school were employed by Prince Pyotr Vasilyevich Urusov and English theatrical entrepreneur Michael Maddox to form part of their new theatre company. Originally performing in privately owned venues, they later acquired the Petrovsky Theatre, which, as a result of fires and erratic redevelopment, would later be rebuilt as today's Bolshoi Theatre. While some guest dancers come and go from other prestigious ballet companies, such as Mariinsky and American Ballet Theatre, most company dancers are graduates of the academy. In 1989, Michael Shannon was the first American ballet dancer to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and join the Bolshoi Ballet company.


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: Despite staging many famous ballets, it struggled to compete with the reputation of the Imperial Russian Ballet, today's Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg. It was not until the appointment of Alexander Gorsky as Ballet Master in 1900 that the company began to develop its own unique identity, with acclaimed productions of new or restaged ballets including "Don Quixote" (1900), "Coppélia" (1901), "Swan Lake" (1901), "La fille mal gardée" (1903), "Giselle" (1911), "Le Corsaire" (1912) and "La Bayadère" (1917).


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: The Soviet leadership's preference for uncomplicated moral themes in the arts was demonstrated in Yuri Grigorovich's appointment as director in 1964. Grigorovich held his position until 1995, at which point a series of directors, including Boris Akimov, Alexei Ratmansky, Yuri Burlaka and Sergei Filin, brought more modern dance performance ideas to the company.


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: Today the Bolshoi Ballet remains one of the world's foremost ballet companies, in addition to being one of the largest, with approximately 220 dancers. The word "bolshoi" means "big" or "grand" in Russian. The company operates on a hierarchical system, similar to those used by other leading European ballet companies, with senior dancers ranked as principals, and descending in order of importance through lead soloist, first soloist, soloist and finally, corps de ballet. Due to its size, the company operates two troupes of corps de ballet.


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: The performance style of the Bolshoi Ballet is typically identified as being colourful and bold, combining technique and athleticism with expressiveness and dramatic intensity. This style is commonly attributed to Alexander Gorsky. Historically there has been a fierce rivalry with the St. Petersburg Heritage Ballet Company, the Mariinsky. Both have developed very different performing styles: the Bolshoi has a more colourful and bold approach, whereas the Mariinsky is associated with more pure and refined classicism.


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: In 2013, ballerina Anastasia Volochkova claimed that female dancers were forced to sleep with wealthy patrons, saying: "It mainly happened with the corps du [sic] ballet but also with the soloists. [...] I repeatedly received such propositions to share the beds of oligarchs." American dancer Joy Womack echoed this concern when she left the company after being told that, to secure solo roles, she must either pay $10,000 or "start a relationship with a sponsor."


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: In January 2013, a sulfuric acid attack on art director Sergei Filin once again steeped the company in scandal. Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko was convicted of organizing the attack and was sentenced to six years in prison. Reasons for the attack include corruption within the company.


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: In 2014, 25-year-old ballet dancer Olga Demina mysteriously went missing. In September 2020, Russian investigators announced that they believe Demina may have been killed in a blackmail plot by Malkhaz Dzhavoev, whom she was dating and was allegedly her "manager."


title: Bolshoi Ballet

text: In July 2017, the Bolshoi Theatre cancelled the premiere of a ballet about openly gay Soviet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. The Director General claimed that it was due to poor dancing quality; however, principal dancer Maria Alexandrova claimed it was the first sign of a 'new era' of censorship. It was the first time a show has been pulled in such a way since the collapse of the Soviet Union, sparking rumours about the motivation behind the move.


title: Taxicab number

text: In mathematics, the "n"th taxicab number, typically denoted Ta("n") or Taxicab("n"), also called the "n"th Hardy–Ramanujan number, is defined as the smallest integer that can be expressed as a sum of two "positive" integer cubes in "n" distinct ways. The most famous taxicab number is 1729 = Ta(2) = 1 + 12 = 9 + 10.


title: Taxicab number

text: The name is derived from a conversation in about 1919 involving mathematicians G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan. As told by Hardy:


title: Taxicab number

text: The concept was first mentioned in 1657 by Bernard Frénicle de Bessy, who published the Hardy–Ramanujan number Ta(2) = 1729. This particular example of 1729 was made famous in the early 20th century by a story involving Srinivasa Ramanujan. In 1938, G. H. Hardy and E. M. Wright proved that such numbers exist for all positive integers "n", and their proof is easily converted into a program to generate such numbers. However, the proof makes no claims at all about whether the thus-generated numbers are "the smallest possible" and so it cannot be used to find the actual value of Ta("n").


title: Taxicab number

text: The taxicab numbers subsequent to 1729 were found with the help of computers. John Leech obtained Ta(3) in 1957. E. Rosenstiel, J. A. Dardis and C. R. Rosenstiel found Ta(4) in 1989. J. A. Dardis found Ta(5) in 1994 and it was confirmed by David W. Wilson in 1999. Ta(6) was announced by Uwe Hollerbach on the NMBRTHRY mailing list on March 9, 2008, following a 2003 paper by Calude et al. that gave a 99% probability that the number was actually Ta(6). Upper bounds for Ta(7) to Ta(12) were found by Christian Boyer in 2006.


title: Taxicab number

text: The restriction of the summands to positive numbers is necessary, because allowing negative numbers allows for more (and smaller) instances of numbers that can be expressed as sums of cubes in "n" distinct ways. The concept of a cabtaxi number has been introduced to allow for alternative, less restrictive definitions of this nature. In a sense, the specification of two summands and powers of three is also restrictive; a generalized taxicab number allows for these values to be other than two and three, respectively.


title: Taxicab number

text: A more restrictive taxicab problem requires that the taxicab number be cubefree, which means that it is not divisible by any cube other than 1. When a cubefree taxicab number "T" is written as "T" = "x" + "y", the numbers "x" and "y" must be relatively prime. Among the taxicab numbers Ta(n) listed above, only Ta(1) and Ta(2) are cubefree taxicab numbers. The smallest cubefree taxicab number with three representations was discovered by Paul Vojta (unpublished) in 1981 while he was a graduate student. It is


title: Taxicab number

text: The smallest cubefree taxicab number with four representations was discovered by Stuart Gascoigne and independently by Duncan Moore in 2003. It is


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: The Skeleton Twins is a 2014 American comedy-drama film directed by Craig Johnson and starring Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig. The film premiered in competition at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2014. It won the Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic at the festival. Wiig and Hader play twins in the film. The film received positive reviews; critics praised Johnson's direction and the performances of Hader and Wiig.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: Maggie is in her bathroom preparing to swallow a handful of pills, but she is interrupted by a phone call from a hospital, informing her that her twin brother Milo—whom she hasn't seen in 10 years—has attempted suicide. Maggie visits Milo in the hospital in Los Angeles and suggests that he come to stay with her in their childhood hometown of Nyack, New York. He agrees, and meets Maggie's husband Lance.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: Milo is surprised when Lance tells him that he and Maggie are trying to have a baby, as Maggie never expressed a desire for children. Maggie later confesses to Milo that she's been taking contraceptive pills, both to avoid having a child with Lance and because she had been having sex with her scuba instructor Billy. She worries that she is not worthy of Lance, but Milo reassures her.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: Milo reconnects with his high school English teacher Rich, with whom he had a sexual relationship when he was 15. Rich now has a sixteen-year-old son and is dating a woman. Milo and Rich spend the night together. Later, Milo appears at Rich's house while his son is there. This infuriates Rich, who does not want his past exposed. Maggie is also upset with Milo for resuming contact with Rich, whose teaching career had ended when Maggie exposed their relationship.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: Milo tells Maggie about a boy that had once bullied him, a boy whom their father had assured him would reach his peak in high school and have a miserable adult life. But it turns out that the bully has a successful happy life, and it is Milo who had peaked in high school. Maggie asks for reassurance that he will not kill himself, and he promises to try not to.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: Lance confides to Milo that he is concerned that he may be infertile. Milo mentions that Maggie used to hide cigarettes around the house, leading Lance to find the contraceptives.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: Maggie ends the relationship with Billy and returns home where she is confronted by Lance, who is painfully confused by the birth control pills he has found. She admits to her affairs, then confronts Milo, blaming him for ruining her marriage. Milo retorts that it was no "marriage" and she lashes back suggesting that next time he tries suicide he should do it right. Maggie leaves Milo a voicemail echoing his suicide note and goes to the pool where she had been taking scuba lessons. Tying weights to her body, she jumps into the pool. As she begins to drown, she panics but is unable to free herself. Milo, having heard her message, jumps into the pool and rescues her.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: The film closes with the twins at Maggie's house, looking at their new fish tank filled with goldfish.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: The script went through several iterations, including one in which Milo is a drag queen and the film more closely resembles a road trip movie, but eventually Johnson and his writing partner settled on a more low-key approach inspired by the work of Hal Ashby and Alexander Payne. Said Johnson, "Something I wanted to be a part of this movie was brothers and sisters connecting with their secret language. No one can make you laugh harder, [but] no one can [tick] you off more." Writing the film, Johnson wanted to avoid writing along genre lines, as he believes that comedy and drama are both present in everyday life. He has described the theme of the movie as "dealing with dark shit with a sense of humor."


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: One notable scene features the two main characters lip syncing to "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship. Initially, the song the writers planned to use was "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, but as the song had already played a focal point in Bridesmaids, it was decided to choose another song. Accordingly, Johnson "spent 24 hours listening to every cheesy mid-’80s ballad you can think of and looking in the mirror and lip syncing it myself." The fact that "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" is a duet opened up new possibilities: Johnson said, "the scene became a little more epic because it became about Bill’s character getting Maggie (Wiig) to sing Grace Slick’s part".


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: Principal photography, which began on November 2012 in Brooklyn, New York, took place over 22 days. Although a full script was written, Johnson encouraged improvisation on the set. Johnson has stated that an entirely improvised conversation between Wiig and Wilson involving Vibram shoes was his single favorite scene in the entire film.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: "The Skeleton Twins" opened in a limited release in the United States in 15 theaters and grossed $380,691; the average take per theater was $25,379, and it ranked #25 at the box office. The widest release for the film was 461 theaters, and it ultimately earned $5,279,678 domestically and $468,848 internationally for a total of $5,748,526, above its estimated budget of $1 million.


title: The Skeleton Twins

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 87% based on 161 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's critics consensus states: "Led by powerful performances from Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, "The Skeleton Twins" effectively mines laughs and tears from family drama." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 74 out of 100, based on 33 critics indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Sky marshal

text: A sky marshal is a covert law enforcement or counter-terrorist agent on board a commercial aircraft to counter aircraft hijackings. Such an agent is also known as an air marshal, a flight marshal, or an in-flight security officer (IFSO). Sky marshals may be provided by airlines such as El Al (who provide sky marshals on every flight), or by government agencies such as the Austrian Einsatzkommando Cobra, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, German Federal Police, National Security Guard in India, Metropolitan Police SO19 (Specialist Firearms Command), Pakistan Airports Security Force or US Federal Air Marshal Service.


title: Sky marshal

text: The history of in-flight security began in March 1962 when the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) directed a program to combat airplane hijackings. In that same year, there were numerous airplane hijackings (all happening one after another) in the United States that were planned with the ultimate aim to fly to Cuba. In response, the FAA created the title of FAA peace officer. FAA peace officers were the first people to provide armed security onboard commercial aircraft.


title: Sky marshal

text: In response to the September 11 attacks, the commonwealth instituted an air security officer (ASO) program under the Australian Federal Police in December 2001. These officers are generally referred to in the media as "sky marshals". The ASO Programme provides a discreet anti-hijacking capability for Australian civil aviation by putting armed security personnel on board aircraft. This involves both random and intelligence-led placement of armed ASOs on flights operated by Australian registered air carriers, on both domestic and international flights.


title: Sky marshal

text: Officers are armed, trained and equipped for a variety of situations on both domestic and international flights.


title: Sky marshal

text: The Canadian Air Carrier Protection/Protective Program (CACPP) began on September 17, 2002, when a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with Transport Canada, the authority responsible for Canadian aviation security, and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), for the implementation and administration of the CACPP. The program is conducted by specially trained undercover armed RCMP officers (known as "aircraft protective officers" (APOs) on selected domestic and international flights and all flights to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Pilots and flight attendants are advised of their presence and the officer is authorized to physically intervene should an unauthorized person attempt to gain control of an aircraft. APOs, however, will not be involved in controlling unruly passengers. While they are peace officers within Canadian territories, they rely on section 6(2) of the Tokyo Convention as a legal basis for intervening in an incident outside of Canadian airspace. By law, such officers are exempt from acquiring a permit for importing or exporting their duty firearms when crossing the border. However, the exact nature of their weaponry is not released to the public except they are "deadly and effective and should not damage the aircraft". The Canadian Forces Military Police members of the Canadian Forces Air Marshal Detail, are responsible for providing security to Canadian forces aircraft, crew and passengers – passengers who may include the governor general, the prime minister and members of the royal family.


title: Sky marshal

text: Sky marshals were introduced by Indian Airlines in December 1999, following the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 in Kandahar.


title: Sky marshal

text: Following the September 11 attacks, private operators like Air Sahara also introduced sky marshals on some flights and stated plans to increase these.


title: Sky marshal

text: In 2003, Air India had an agreement with a US directive to have air marshals on all of its US-bound flights. They are recruited from India's elite commando force National Security Guard. Ipsita Biswas of India's Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory (TBRL) were developing frangible bullets which shatter if they hit a substance that is harder than the bullet is. The application would allow their sky marshals to use these bullets to shoot, or threaten to shoot, hi-jackers on board aircraft, with the assurance that the aircraft itself would not suffer substantial damage.


title: Sky marshal

text: Ireland does not have a dedicated sky marshal agency, although there is a National Civil Aviation Security Committee (NCASC). Limited capabilities are provided by the Garda Síochána emergency response unit (ERU), the national police armed tactical unit, and backup may be provided by the counter-terrorism the Garda Special Detective Unit (SDU) and the Army Ranger Wing (ARW) special forces unit in certain situations.


title: Sky marshal

text: The Irish government allows armed flight marshals from the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Israel, Australia and specific European Union (EU) countries onboard international flights landing from or destined for those countries in Irish airspace, once they are informed of their presence beforehand. Weapons carried by an air marshal in Ireland include a concealed handgun, taser, knife and pepper spray.


title: Sky marshal

text: Undercover agents carrying concealed firearms sit among the passengers on every international El Al flight. Most El Al pilots are former Israeli Air Force pilots. The cockpits in all El Al aircraft have double doors to prevent entry by unauthorized persons. A code is required to access the doors, and the second door will open only after the first has closed and the person has been identified by the captain or first officer. Furthermore, there are reinforced steel floors separating the passenger cabin from the baggage hold.


title: Sky marshal

text: In April 2013, the Israeli government increased payments to El Al to secure 97.5% of the airline's security costs ahead of the Open Skies agreement to take effect in 2014 with the European Union.


title: Sky marshal

text: In Pakistan, armed sky marshals are deployed on all flights. Sky marshals are provided by Airports Security Force (ASF).


title: Sky marshal

text: The ASF was established in 1976 under the Airports Security Force Act LXXVII of 1975, initially as the directorate within the Department of Civil Aviation. After the hijacking of a Pakistan International Airlines aircraft in March 1981, sensing the contradictory requirements of security and facilitation, the ASF was separated, and, in December 1983, was placed under the folds of the Ministry of Defence.


title: Sky marshal

text: Singapore Airlines deploys sky marshals on its flights. Such members are armed with firearms loaded with special ammunition and dart-firing stun guns.


title: Sky marshal

text: Members are usually from either the air marshal unit, the security command or the special tactics and rescue (STAR) of the Singapore Police Force. Members have undergone extensive training to enable them to operate effectively within the confines of an aircraft.


title: Sky marshal

text: An armed Air Marshal program was begun in the United Kingdom in 2002, in response to growing threats to civilian passenger aircraft. The Metropolitan Police Service Specialist Firearms Command SO19 is tasked with operating the Aircraft Protection Operations (APO) Program, for which all UK Air Marshals report to. The extent and size of the program is relatively unknown as few details are released to the media due to the sensitivity of the operation.


title: Sky marshal

text: The US Federal Aviation Administration began its sky marshal program in 1968, which eventually became the FAA Federal Air Marshal Program, in 1982; the program later became the Federal Air Marshal Service in January 2002 and after the handover of FAA security duties to the Transportation Security Administration. In 2005, Rigoberto Alpizar was shot dead by two sky marshals on a jetway at Miami International Airport. Currently, federal air marshal officers are under the Transportation Security Administration. Under the Visible Intermodal Prevention Response (VIPR) system, started around 2005, federal air marshals began to patrol non-aviation sites like bus terminals and train stations.


title: Elliana Walmsley

text: Elliana Kathryn Walmsley (born June 23, 2007) is an American dancer and model. She became known for appearing in Lifetime's reality show "Dance Moms."


title: Elliana Walmsley

text: Elliana Kathryn Walmsley was born in Boulder, Colorado to Yolanda (née Parra) and Kevin Walmsley. She has two older brothers, Jakob and Luke. Walmsley began dancing when she was 18 months old and studied at The Joffrey Ballet, Master Ballet Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona, Elite Dance Academy in Broomfield, Colorado, The Dance Movement, now in Erie Colorado, Michelle Latimer Dance Academy in Greenwood Village, Colorado, and EDGE Performing Arts Center and The Millennium Dance Complex, both in Los Angeles. In 2015, Walmsley participated in the KAR Dance Competition held in Las Vegas and was crowned "Miss Petite Dance America".


title: Elliana Walmsley

text: In 2016, she joined the US reality TV show "Dance Moms", alongside her mother, during Season 6 as part of the ALDC mini team. After the mini team disbanded, Walmsley joined the elite team and became a permanent member of the cast during Season 7 in 2017, before leaving at the end of the year. She returned for some episodes in season 8.


title: Elliana Walmsley

text: In 2017, she participated in a national tour with castmate Maesi Caes to teach dance masterclasses and give solo performances. At the end of 2017, Elliana Walmsley originated the lead role of Grace in the musical "Dance Divas Nutcracker", based on Cheryl Burke's book series: Dance Divas. It was performed off-Broadway from December 13 to December 17 at Theatre Row, New York City, where a portion of the money made went towards the charity "Dancers with Cancer".


title: Elliana Walmsley

text: In July 2017, she competed at the annual national dance competition The Dance Awards, held in Orlando, Florida. She finished in the top ten in the Mini Female Best Dancer category. In July 2018, representing the Michelle Latimer Dance Academy, Walmsley won the title of Mini Female Best Dancer at The Dance Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada. She has toured with 24/7, JUMP, and NUVO dance conventions in their 2019 season as the reigning TDA Mini Female Best Dancer winner at their Las Vegas Nationals. In June 2020, Walmsley competed at The Dance Awards again, but this time, in the Junior Category. She made it to the improv dance-off round and finished in the Top 15.


title: Elliana Walmsley

text: In 2018, Walmsley participated in "" as a professional with Jason Maybaum and Emma Slater. In July 2019, she booked the starring role of Clara in the 2019/2020 "Radio City Christmas Spectacular" show alongside "The Rockettes" after pursuing the role for three years. In 2020, it was announced that Walmsley would star in season 7 of the Brat web-based series "Chicken Girls".


title: Keiichi Okabe

text: Okabe started taking electric organ lessons as a child, covering contemporary pop and film music. Although he did not learn from teachers, he would develop his musical skills through joining a band and recording music. He has cited Henry Mancini, Ennio Morricone, and Ryuichi Sakamoto as being some of his musical influences. After graduating from Kobe Design University, he joined Namco in 1994, with his first work being a handful of tracks for medal game "Spiral Fall". He would also work on titles such as "Air Combat 22", along with some arrangements for the PS1 version of "Tekken 2". This would lead to him scoring "Tekken 3" along with fellow Namco composer Nobuyoshi Sano. Both composers chose to make big beat music for the game as it both fitted the atmosphere of the game and had not been done in video games before. He and Sano would also work on "Tekken Tag Tournament" with other composers in 1999.


title: Keiichi Okabe

text: He left Namco in 2001 to become a freelancer, as he wanted more freedom to work on non-game projects. This led to him composing and arranging a number of songs for various artists, such as Ryuichi Kawamura. Three years later, he founded music production studio Monaca. Although it originally consisted of just Okabe, he would later be joined by ex-Namco composers such as Satoru Kōsaki, who also wanted to work on non-game projects. To this day, the studio frequently compose for both video games and anime, as well as other types of media such as live action films.


title: Keiichi Okabe

text: In 2010, he served as the lead composer for "Nier", being assisted by fellow Monaca composers Kakeru Ishihama and Keigo Hoashi, along with Cavia composer Takafumi Nishimura. To fit with the game's story, he composed a soundtrack that he describes as "mysterious, delicate, and ephemeral". The team were given creative freedom, while working under Yoko Taro's direction, who attended the same university as Okabe and was a 3D graphics designer at Namco. The composers worked with English-Japanese singer Emi Evans, who wrote and sung the lyrics present in the game's songs.


title: Keiichi Okabe

text: Okabe, Ishihama and Hoashi would go on to compose for its 2017 sequel "", while being joined by Kuniyuki Takahashi. Its music was acclaimed; it won the award for "Best Score/Music" at The Game Awards 2017, and was a runner-up for "Best Original Music" at IGN's Best of 2017 Awards.


title: Keiichi Okabe

text: In 2019, he composed for battle royale game "Cyber Hunter" with fellow Monaca composer Ryuichi Takada, both working with violinist Yu Manabe.


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: Raaz: Reboot () is a 2016 Indian horror thriller film written and directed by Vikram Bhatt. It features Emraan Hashmi, Kriti Kharbanda and Gaurav Arora in the lead roles. The film is the fourth in the horror film series, "Raaz".


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: "Raaz: Reboot" was released worldwide on 16 September 2016. Principal photography commenced in January 2016 in Romania.


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: On 4 January 2016. Rehaan Khanna (Gaurav Arora) and Shaina Khanna (Kriti Kharbanda) return to Romania after a few years of their marriage. Apparently, they had lived there when they were unmarried. But when Rehaan got an offer as a Venture Capitalist for the East European Finance Company, Shaina was insistent that he take up the job. Rehaan was reluctant, since he had a secret to hide.


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: On the very first day, while unpacking her luggage, Shaina experiences paranormal activities. Rehaan refuses to believe her. A month later, while on a business trip, Rehaan receives a frantic call from Shaina requesting for help. She is found holed up in a telephone booth in a rural area. Apparently, she had gone there to visit a clairvoyant. And hence, the narrative juggles back and forth as to what plagues them and what leads her to the clairvoyant.


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: The local priest tries to perform an exorcism on Shaina but fails as the spirit knows the priest's past and uses it against him to send him away running. A blind Indian student, Trilok who is studying Psychometry in Romania then enters the scene and then, enters Aditya Srivastava (Emraan Hashmi), to rescue his lady love from the evil spirit. Aditya has some strange premonition about all the events taking place in Shaina's life. He offers to help her to fight the spirit and free her from all the pain she is going through. Although, Shaina doesn't believe him at first, certain series of events make her believe that the spirit has something to do with her husband Rehaan. She finds out that he is keeping a certain secret which has now become the cause of the haunting. Eventually, Rehaan confesses that he had murdered Aditya and the latter's ghost is seeking revenge. Four years ago, just before Shaina's marriage, Aditya had called Rehaan revealing himself as her ex-boyfriend. Aditya had invited Rehaan to his residence and had blackmailed him for insider trading. Aditya told Rehaan he was willing to drop the charges if Rehaan broke off his engagement to Shaina, so that Aditya can rekindle his relationship with her. Rehaan tried to quietly leave but Aditya showed him photos of his intimate moments with Shaina and began to taunt him. Enraged, Rehaan had struck a fatal blow to Aditya on the head, killing him. As Aditya lay dying, he vowed vengeance. The spirit of Aditya then takes complete possession of Shaina's body. To save Shaina from the evil spirit of Aditya, Trilok recites Gajendra moksh stotra. By reciting this mantra, Aditya's evil spirit will have to leave Shaina's body, but there's a condition, that the mantra was to be recited without a break. Though Aditya's spirit stops Trilok and Rehaan from completing the mantra, Rehaan saves Shaina from Aditya. The movie ends with Rehaan and Shaina sitting by the lakeside talking about how there was a lot of ice around their house when they had first arrived but now all of the ice had melted, symbolizing the increased closeness between the couple.


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: The film was shot in Romania in freezing temperature. Apart from Sinaia and other locations the shooting also took place in haunted forest Hoia-Baciu (also known as Hoia Forest), which is known for various mysterious stories and even UFO sightings.


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: The film's music is composed by Jeet Gannguli along with the duo Sangeet-Siddharth. The first single from the film, "Sound Of Raaz" was released on 5 July 2016 by T-Series on YouTube. The song, sung by Jubin Nautiyal is a tribute to the tradition of haunting melodies in old horror films. The whole album was released on 19 August 2016.


title: Raaz: Reboot

text: "The Times of India" gave the film two and a half stars. "Asian Age" rated the film one star out of five, levying criticism at the complexity of the plot and supernatural themes.


title: 2021 AFC Cup

text: The 2021 AFC Cup was the 18th edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).


title: 2021 AFC Cup

text: The winners of the tournament automatically qualified for the 2022 AFC Champions League, entering the qualifying play-offs, if they had not qualified through their domestic performance.


title: 2021 AFC Cup

text: Lebanese club Al-Ahed, having won their first AFC Cup title in 2019, were the title holders, since the 2020 edition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia after several group stage matches and the title was not awarded. However, they were eliminated by eventual winners Al-Muharraq in the West Asia Zonal semi-finals.


title: 2021 AFC Cup

text: The 46 AFC member associations (excluding the Northern Mariana Islands, which became a full member in December 2020 and are not eligible for this season) are ranked based on their clubs' performance over the last four years in AFC competitions (their national team's FIFA World Rankings no longer considered). The slots are allocated by the following criteria according to the Entry Manual:


title: 2021 AFC Cup

text: For the 2021 AFC Cup, the associations are allocated slots according to their association ranking which was published on 29 November 2019, which takes into account their performance in the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup during the period between 2016 and 2019.


title: 2021 AFC Cup

text: Teams in "italics" will play in the AFC Champions League qualifying play-offs, and will play in the AFC Cup group stage if they fail to advance to the AFC Champions League group stage. Should they advance to the AFC Champions League group stage, they will not play in the AFC Cup, and will be replaced by the standby team from their association if such team are available.


title: 2021 AFC Cup

text: On 11 November 2020, the AFC approved a new calendar for the competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where the group stage is played as centralized single round-robin tournament, and the preliminary round, play-off round, and ASEAN Zonal semi-finals and final are played as a single match. On 25 January 2021, the AFC published the schedule of the competition. On 1 March 2021, the AFC announced the hosts for the group stage, except for Group G whose hosts will be decided at a later date. On 27 March 2021, the AFC announced that the West Asia Zone group matches were rescheduled from 23 to 29 May to 21–27 May. On 26 April 2021, the AFC announced that the ASEAN Zone group matches were rescheduled from 22 to 28 June to 29 June – 6 July. On 3 May 2021, the AFC announced that the East Asia Zone group matches were rescheduled from 14 to 20 May to 23–29 June. On 9 May 2021, the AFC announced that the South Asia Zone group matches which were originally scheduled between 14 and 20 May would be postponed indefinitely. On 27 May 2021, the AFC announced that the ASEAN Zone group matches which were originally scheduled between 29 June – 6 July would be postponed indefinitely. On 7 July 2021, AFC decided to cancel the matches in ASEAN Zone.


title: Greasy spoon

text: A greasy spoon is a small, cheap restaurant – either an American diner or coffee shop, or a British or Irish cafe – typically specializing in fried foods or home-cooked meals. The term "greasy spoon" has been used in the United States since at least the 1920s and is used throughout the United Kingdom. According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the term "greasy spoon" originated in the United States and is now used in various English-speaking countries.


title: Greasy spoon

text: The earliest appearance of the term in print (MacMillan's Magazine, 1906), refers to events of an earlier time: a restaurant in Paris was visited daily by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1874.


title: Greasy spoon

text: "...the Cremerie in the Rue Delambre, - an eating-house much frequented by artists, and familiarly known as The Greasy Spoon..."


title: Greasy spoon

text: Nicknaming cheap fried food restaurants after an unwashed spoon dates back at least to 1848: "The Gabbione [in Rome]... has withal an appearance so murky and so very far removed from cleanliness, that the Germans have bestowed upon it the apellation of the 'Dirty Spoon'."


title: Greasy spoon

text: Many typical American and Canadian greasy spoon diners focus on fried or grilled food, such as Salisbury steak, fish and chips, deep fried chicken, sausages, bacon, waffles, pancakes, Spam, fried or scrambled eggs, and omelettes. Sandwiches are also popular, including hamburgers, hot dogs, steak sandwiches, and deli meats. These are often accompanied by sides of baked beans, hash browns, toast, french fries, onion rings, coleslaw. Soups and chili con carne are generally available. Regional fare is often served. Since the 1970s, many Greek immigrants have entered the business. Coffee, iced tea, and soft drinks are the typical beverages, as alcohol is usually not offered due to the prohibitive cost of a liquor license. Pie and savouries and ice cream are popular snacks and desserts.


title: Greasy spoon

text: A typical American greasy spoon or diner may offer a full meal for a special price, sometimes called a blue-plate special. A British or Irish cafe will typically offer a "full cooked breakfast" all day.


title: Greasy spoon

text: A greasy spoon diner is often located alongside a main road to serve passing motorists, particularly a truck stop catering particularly to truck (lorry) drivers; this is known as a transport cafe in Britain.


title: Greasy spoon

text: Although there are now far fewer establishments due to the dominance of corporate fast food restaurant chains, the greasy spoon diner is still nostalgic thanks to "counter service, jukeboxes and hearty comfort cuisine". The greasy spoon is a common setting in movies and TV shows.


title: Greasy spoon

text: Restaurateur and television personality Guy Fieri, on Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives", pays visits to such diners across the United States.


title: Herzliya

text: Herzliya ( ; ; ) is an affluent city in the central coast of Israel, at the northern part of the Tel Aviv District, known for its robust start-up and entrepreneurial culture. In it had a population of . Named after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, Herzliya covers an area of . Its western, beachfront area is called Herzliya Pituah and is one of Israel's most affluent neighborhoods and home to numerous embassies, ambassadors' residences, companies headquarters and houses of prominent Israeli business people.


title: Herzliya

text: Herzliya, named after Theodor Herzl, was founded in 1924 as a semi-cooperative farming community (moshava) with a mixed population of new immigrants and veteran residents. During that year, 101 houses and 35 cowsheds were built there, and the village continued to grow. The 1931 census recorded a population of 1,217 inhabitants, in 306 houses.


title: Herzliya

text: Upon the establishment of the state in 1948, Herzliya was a town of 5,300. Large numbers of immigrants settled there, and it had 12,000 residents within a few years. In 1960, when the population reached 25,000, Herzliya was declared a city.


title: Herzliya

text: Under current plans, the city's population will triple to around 290,000 by 2030, with 52,000 new homes and new industrial developments and hotels built, with more dense construction in the city center while expanding the city to the north and southwest.


title: Herzliya

text: According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, residents of Herzliya are among the wealthiest in Israel. In 2003–2005, average monthly salaries were ILS 8,211, or about ILS 1,500 above average in a survey of Israel's 15 largest cities. However, there is a large gap between the city's seven working-class neighborhoods, among them Yad Tisha, Neve Yisrael and Neve Amal, and upscale Herzliya Pituah. The population is older than that of other cities in the Sharon region: 18% are under 14 years old, compared to a national average of 27.5%.


title: Herzliya

text: Investment in education was higher than all other cities in the survey and more high school students were eligible for a bagrut matriculation certificate. The Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center is a private college that was founded in 1994 by Prof. Uriel Reichman, who serves as its president to this day.


title: Herzliya

text: Israel's largest television and film studio, Herzliya Studios ("Ulpanei Herzliya"), is located in Herzliya, Also RGE studios that serviced the Kids channel and Sport 5 channel. the IDC television and radio center located in the city with some other local radio stations like Eco99fm and 103fm. The Herzliya Marina was built in the 1970s. The city has a small airport, three shopping malls (Arena Mall, Seven Stars Mall and the Outlet), movie theaters, museums, cultural centers and a stadium. In 2008, the Herzliya Cinematheque opened in the downtown area of the city.


title: Herzliya

text: In a 2008 survey of 15 Israeli cities, Herzliya ranked second in fiscal management. The Herzliya municipality ended 2006 with a sizeable budget surplus.


title: Herzliya

text: One of the founders' homes has been turned into a museum Beit Rishonim documenting the history of Herzliya. The Herzliya Museum of Art is part of the Yad Labanim memorial complex. West of Herzliya is Sidna Ali, a Muslim holy site. To the northwest is Tel Arsaf (Arsuf) and the Apollonia National Park. Inhabited from the Persian period until the Crusader period, the site contains the remains of the Crusader town of Arsuf, including a fortress surrounded by a moat. Another archaeological site, Tel Michal, lies on Herzliya's Mediterranean coast south of Arsuf.


title: Herzliya

text: Since its inception in 2000, the Herzliya Conference has become an annual summit of the most influential Israeli and international leaders. The conference is attended by government ministers, Knesset members, senior defense officials, leaders of the Israeli business community, senior academicians, media representatives from Israel and abroad, delegates of world Jewish organizations, foreign dignitaries and Israeli diplomats.


title: Herzliya

text: The city has two football clubs, Maccabi Herzliya and Hapoel Herzliya, both of which are based at the 8,100-capacity Herzliya Municipal Stadium. The Bnei Herzliya basketball club plays its games in the HaYovel high school arena. Herzliya is also one of the centers of rugby union in Israel.


title: Herzliya

text: One of the city's main attractions is Sportek Herzliya, an outdoor, 30 acres, sports compound open for public usage.


title: Herzliya

text: The city is served by the Herzliya railway station, which provides connections to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Beersheva, as well as to Ben Gurion Airport. The station is located in the middle of Highway 20.


title: Herzliya

text: Some of Israel's most expensive homes and finest beaches are in Herzliya Pituah, a neighborhood on the west side of Herzliya. Herzliya Pituach is a sought-after venue for high-tech companies, and its marina, many restaurants and entertainment spots have turned this part of Herzliya into a vibrant hub of Israeli nightlife.


title: Herzliya

text: A makeshift strip located around the current Herzliya Airport was used as the main operating base of Israel's first true fighter aircraft (as opposed to makeshift use of light planes), Avia S-199, during 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The airfield was used as it was a bit back from the front-lines, and was clandestine since it was a purpose built strip, that was constructed after the beginning of hostilities, in between the orange orchards around Herzliya, and didn't appear on published maps.


title: Herzliya

text: On June 11, 2002, Hadar Hershkowitz (14) was killed in the 2002 Herzliya shawarma restaurant bombing. On May 30, 2006, Re'ut Feldman (20), a resident of Herzliya, was killed in the Kedumim bombing.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science. He is a younger relative of the famous memoirist the Duc de Saint-Simon.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Saint-Simon created a political and economic ideology known as Saint-Simonianism that claimed that the needs of an "industrial class", which he also referred to as the working class, needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy. Unlike conceptions within industrializing societies of a working class being manual labourers alone, Saint-Simon's late-18th-century conception of this class included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society such as businesspeople, managers, scientists and bankers, along with manual labourers, amongst others.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Saint-Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the "idling class", that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work. Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government. Saint-Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring no hindrances to productive work and reducing idleness in society, regarding intervention beyond these as too intrusive.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Saint Simon's conceptual recognition of broad socio-economic contribution, and his Enlightenment valorization of scientific knowledge, soon inspired and influenced utopian socialism, liberal political theorist John Stuart Mill, anarchism through its founder Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who was inspired by Saint-Simon's thought and Marxism with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identifying Saint-Simon as an inspiration to their ideas and classifying him among the utopian socialists. Saint-Simon's views also influenced 20th-century sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, including Veblen's creation of institutional economics that has included prominent economists as adherents.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Henri de Saint-Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat. His grandfather's cousin had been the Duke of Saint-Simon. "When he was a young man, being of a restless disposition ... he went to America where he entered into American service and took part in the siege of Yorktown under General Washington."


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: From his youth, Saint-Simon was highly ambitious. He ordered his valet to wake him every morning with, "Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do." Among his early schemes was one to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by a canal, and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: During the American Revolution, Saint-Simon joined the Americans, and believed that their revolution signaled the beginning of a new era. He fought alongside the Marquis de Lafayette between 1779 and 1783, and was imprisoned by British forces. After his release, he returned to France to study engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mézières.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: At the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, Saint-Simon quickly endorsed the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. In the early years of the revolution, Saint-Simon devoted himself to organizing a large industrial structure in order to found a scientific school of improvement. He needed to raise some funds to achieve his objectives, which he did by land speculation. This was only possible in the first few years of the revolution because of the growing instability of the political situation in France, which prevented him from continuing his financial activities and indeed put his life at risk. Saint-Simon and Talleyrand planned to profiteer during the Terror by buying the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, stripping its roof of metal, and selling the metal for scrap. Saint-Simon was imprisoned on suspicion of engaging in counter-revolutionary activities. He was released in 1794 at the end of the Terror. After he recovered his freedom, Saint-Simon found himself immensely rich due to currency depreciation, but his fortune was subsequently stolen by his business partner. Thenceforth he decided to devote himself to political studies and research. After the establishment of the Ecole Polytechnique in 1794, a school established to train young men in the arts of sciences and industry and funded by the state, Saint-Simon became involved with the new school.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: When he was nearly 40 he went through a varied course of study and experiment to enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage in 1801 to Alexandrine-Sophie Goury de Champgrand, undertaken so that he might have a literary salon. After a year, the marriage was dissolved by mutual consent. The result of his experiments was that he found himself completely impoverished, and lived in penury for the remainder of his life. The first of his numerous writings, mostly scientific and political, was "Lettres d'un habitant de Genève", which appeared in 1802. In this first work, he called for the creation of a religion of science with Isaac Newton as a saint. Around 1814 he wrote the essay "On Reconstruction of the European Community" and sent it to the Congress of Vienna. He proposed a European kingdom, building on France and the United Kingdom.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: In 1817, in a treatise entitled "L'Industrie", he began to propound his socialist views, which he developed further in "L'Organisateur" (1819), a periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte collaborated. One of Saint-Simon's major beliefs was that the world should be linked with canals.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: "L'Industrie" caused a sensation, but brought few converts. A couple of years later in his writing career, Saint-Simon found himself ruined, and was forced to work for a living. After a few attempts to recover his money from his former partner, he received financial support from Diard, a former employee, and was able to publish in 1807 his second book, "Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIX siècle". Diard died in 1810 and Saint-Simon found himself poor again, and this time also in poor health. He was sent to a sanatorium in 1813, but with financial help from relatives he had time to recover his health and gain some intellectual recognition in Europe. In February 1821 "Du système industriel" appeared, and in 1823–1824 "Catéchisme des industriels".


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: On March 9, 1823, disappointed by the lack of results of his writing (he had hoped they would guide society towards social improvement), he attempted suicide in despair. Remarkably, he shot himself in the head six times without succeeding, losing his sight in one eye.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Finally, very late in his career, he did link up with a few ardent disciples. The last and most important expression of his views is , which he left unfinished.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: In 1817 Saint-Simon published a manifesto called the "Declaration of Principles" in his work titled "L'Industrie" ("Industry"). The Declaration was about the principles of an ideology called industrialism that called for the creation of an industrial society led by people within what he defined as the industrial class. The industrial class, also referred to as the working class, was defined as including all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, emphasizing scientists and industrialists, but including engineers, businesspeople, managers, bankers, manual workers, and others.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Saint-Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class, that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work. He saw the origins of this parasitic activity by idlers in what he regarded as the natural laziness of humanity. He believed the principal economic roles of government were to ensure that productive activity in the economy is unhindered and to reduce idleness in society.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: In the Declaration Saint-Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond these two principal economic roles, saying that when the government goes beyond these roles, it becomes a "tyrannical enemy of industry" and that the industrial economy will decline as a consequence of such excessive government intervention. Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy, such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government. His views were radical for his time. He built on Enlightenment ideas which challenged church doctrine and the older regime with the idea of progress from industry and science


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Heavily influenced by the absence of social privilege he saw in the early United States, Saint-Simon renounced his aristocratic title and came to favor a form of meritocracy, becoming convinced that science was the key to progress and that it would be possible to develop a society based on objective scientific principles. He claimed that feudal society in France and elsewhere needed to be dissolved and transformed into an industrial society. As such, he invented the conception of the industrial society.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Saint-Simon's economic views and ideas were influenced by Adam Smith whom Saint-Simon deeply admired, and referred to him in praise as "the immortal Adam Smith". He shared with Smith the belief that taxes needed to be much reduced from what they were then in order to have a more just industrial system. Saint-Simon desired the minimization of government intervention into the economy to prevent disruption of productive work. He emphasized more emphatically than Smith that state administration of the economy was generally parasitic and hostile to the needs of production. Like Adam Smith, Saint-Simon's model of society emulated the scientific methods of astronomy, and said "The astronomers only accepted those facts which were verified by observation; they chose the system which linked them best, and since that time, they have never led science astray.".


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Saint-Simon reviewed the French Revolution and regarded it as an upheaval driven by economic change and class conflict. In his analysis he believed that the solution to the problems that led to the French Revolution would be the creation of an industrial society where hierarchy of merit and respect for productive work would be the basis of society, while ranks of hereditary and military hierarchy would lessen in importance in society because they were not capable to lead a productive society.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Karl Marx identified Saint-Simon as being among whom he called the "utopian socialists", though historian Alan Ryan regards certain followers of Saint-Simon, rather than Saint-Simon himself, as being responsible for the rise of utopian socialism that based itself upon Saint-Simon's ideas. Ryan also distinguishes between Saint-Simon's conceptions and Marxism's, as Saint-Simon did not promote independent working-class organization and leadership as a solution to capitalist societal problems, nor did he adhere to the Marxist definition of the working class as excluded by fundamental private property law from control over the means of production. Unlike Marx, Saint-Simon did not regard class relations, vis the means of production, to be an engine of socio-economic dynamics but rather the form of management. Furthermore, Saint-Simon was not critical of capitalists as exclusive owners, collaborators, controllers, and decision-makers. Rather, he regarded capitalists as an important component of the "industrial class." Ryan further suggests that by the 1950s it was clear that Saint-Simon had presaged the "modern" understanding of industrial society.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: In opposition to the feudal and military system—the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the restoration—he advocated a form of technocratic socialism, an arrangement whereby industrial chiefs should control society, similar to Plato philosopher kings. In place of the medieval church, spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science. Men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it. The conflict between labour and capital emphasized by later socialism is not present in Saint-Simon's work, but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control of production is to fall, shall rule in the interest of society. Later on, the cause of the poor receives greater attention until, in his greatest work, "Nouveau Christianisme (The New Christianity)", it takes on the form of a religion. This development of his ideas occasioned his final quarrel with Comte.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Prior to the publication of the "Nouveau Christianisme", Saint-Simon had not concerned himself with theology. In this work he starts from a belief in God, and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to its simple and essential elements. He does this by clearing it of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects that he says gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it. He propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity this precept: "The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end." This principle became the watchword of the entire Saint-Simon school of thought.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had very little influence; he left only a few devoted disciples who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they revered as a prophet. The most acclaimed disciple of Saint-Simon was Auguste Comte. Others included Olinde Rodrigues, the favoured disciple of Saint-Simon, and Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, who together had received Saint-Simon's last instructions. Their first step was to establish a journal, "Le Producteur", but it was discontinued in 1826. The sect had begun to grow, and before the end of 1828 had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard, who gave a "complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith" in a long course of lectures in Paris, which was well attended. His "Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon" (2 vols., 1828–1830), which is by far the best account of it, won more adherents. The second volume was chiefly by Enfantin, who along with Bazard stood at the head of the society, but who was superior in philosophical acumen and was prone to push his deductions to extremities. The revolution of July 1830 brought a new freedom to the socialist reformers. A proclamation was issued demanding community of goods, abolition of the right of inheritance and enfranchisement of women.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: Early next year the school obtained possession of "Le Globe" through Pierre Leroux, who had joined the school. The school now counted among its number some of the ablest and most promising young men in France, many of the pupils of the École Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm. The members formed themselves into an association arranged in three grades, and constituting a society or family, which lived out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny. Before long dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man of stolid temperament, could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism with lax notions as to marriage and the relations between the sexes. In the name of progress, Enfantin announced that the gulf between the sexes was too wide and this social inequality would impede rapid growth of society. Enfantin called for the abolition of prostitution and for the ability for women to divorce and obtain legal rights. This was considered radical for the time.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example. A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character. They moved to Ménilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a communalistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Although the monks of Enfantin's school were required to be celibate, rumors were spread that they engaged in orgies. Shortly after, the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings prejudicial to the social order and the sect was entirely broken up in 1832. Many of its members became famous as engineers, economists and men of business. Enfantin would go on to organize an expedition of the disciples to Constantinople, and then to Egypt, where he influenced the creation of the Suez Canal.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: French feminist and socialist writer Flora Tristan (1803–1844) claimed that Mary Wollstonecraft, author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", anticipated Saint-Simon's ideas by a generation.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel "The Possessed", 'Saint-Simonist' and 'Fourierist' are used as derogatory insults of others by many of the politically active characters.


title: Henri de Saint-Simon

text: According to Fr. Cyril Martindale, Robert Hugh Benson got the idea of his dystopian science fiction novel about the Antichrist, published in 1908 as "Lord of the World", from his friend and literary mentor Frederick Rolfe who also introduced Monsignor Benson to the writings of Saint-Simon. According to Fr. Martindale, as Benson read Saint-Simon's writings, "A vision of a dechristianised civilisation, sprung from the wrecking of the old régime, arose before him and he listened to Mr. Rolfe's suggestion that he should write a book on Antichrist."


title: National Security Intelligence

text: The Directorate General of National Security Intelligence (), commonly known as the NSI, is the principal civilian intelligence agency of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The NSI's headquarters is in 1 Segunbagicha, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The NSI is the leading body of the Government of Bangladesh in the field of internal security, counter terrorism, counter intelligence and foreign intelligence. NSI is the largest among the intelligence agencies in Bangladesh, the others being the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), SB, CID, PBI and intelligence directorates of armed and paramilitary forces. The agency stands under the direct authority of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh.


title: National Security Intelligence

text: This is an independent civilian intelligence agency. Today, its internal security functions are similar to the British Security Service MI5, while the foreign intelligence function does not quite resemble the MI6. Like other intelligence agencies, NSI is believed to have offices in foreign countries, which are based on Bangladeshi diplomatic missions abroad. The NSI also has territorial units in all of the 64 districts of Bangladesh, headed by a Joint Director/Deputy Director.


title: National Security Intelligence

text: Being the only independent civilian intelligence agency in Bangladesh, the NSI's principal activities are gathering information about foreign governments, individuals, corporations, political parties, different religious groups; counter-terrorism, counter-intelligence, political intelligence, and giving protection to the VIPs & VVIPs are among its major functions.