cyanic-selkie/wikianc huggingface dataset:
Russo-Japanese War
Causes of the Russo-Japanese War
To avoid war, Japan wanted to compromise with Russia even if it got the better deal. Japan wanted more of Korea and China than it thought Russia would offer. Japan decided to attack before the railway was ready to help Russia fight a war.
The war started with a Japanese surprise attack on Port Arthur and continued with Japanese victories in Manchuria and elsewhere. The last major battle was at Tsushima Strait and destroyed the Russian Navy.
Mariano Rumor
Mariano Rumor (16 June 1915 – 22 January 1990) was an Italian politician. He was a member of the Christian Democracy (DC). He was the 39th Prime Minister of Italy from December 1968 to August 1970 and again from July 1973 to November 1974.
Russo-Japanese War
Peace treaty and aftermath
United States President Theodore Roosevelt helped Russia and Japan make peace after the war. He won a Nobel Prize for this. Russia had to give up all influence in the Far East. The Russian people were very angry at the government and at czar Nicholas II for not continuing the war because everyone was sure that Russia could have won. This is true because Japan was completely broke and she would have suffered an economic crisis after just a few more months of fighting. Russia's army was also much stronger than Japan's and had very large reserves to replace the soldiers she lost. Japan had no more men with military training to replace her losses and no money to give new men training.
Mariano Rumor
Rumor also was Minister of Agriculture from 1959 to 1963, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1974 to 1976 and Minister of the Interior in two brief times, in 1963 and from 1972 to 1973.
Rumor was also Secretary of the Christian Democracy from 1964 to 1969.
Russo-Japanese War
Peace treaty and aftermath
The Japanese got Port Arthur and the Russian railway in Manchuria. Five years later, in 1910, Japan took over Korea. Japan would continue to grow its empire in Asia until World War II. The Russian defeat was one of the reasons for the Russian Army's great improvement after 1904, which helped start the European arms race that was a cause of World War I. The war also contributed to the Russian Revolution and to the Russian Civil War in 1917. Vladimir Lenin, who helped start the revolution, wanted Russia to lose the war since that showed that the tsar was losing power.
Ytterbium
Ytterbium is a chemical element. It has the chemical symbol Yb. It has the atomic number 70. It is part of a group of chemical elements in the periodic table named the Lanthanides. Ytterbium is a rare earth element. It is soft and silver in colour.
Ytterbium is found in minerals named gadolinite, monazite, and xenotime. In nature it is found as a mix of seven stable isotopes. Ytterbium is used in some steels and is also used to make lasers.
Giovanni Battista Re
Giovanni Battista Re (born 30 January 1934) is an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 2001.
As the senior Cardinal-Bishop to attend the March 2013 conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, he chaired the conclave. Pope Francis approved his election as Sub-Dean of the College of Cardinals on 10 June 2017.
Jake Delhomme
Jake Delhomme is an American Football quarterback for the Houston Texans of the NFL. He played college football for the University of Southwest Louisiana. Delhomme spent most of his NFL career with the Carolina Panthers after bouncing around to and from different teams from different leagues. He became a Pro Bowler in 2005.
Superiority bias
Overview
A second problem is that people interpret a question in different ways, so maybe most are better than the rest of the group each on their own understanding. This interpretation is confirmed by experiments which varied the amount of interpretive freedom subjects were given. As subjects evaluate themselves on a specific, well-defined attribute, illusory superiority remains.
Cognitive tasks
Results were divided into four groups depending on actual performance and it was found that all four groups evaluated their performance as above average, meaning that the lowest-scoring group (the bottom 25%) showed a very large illusory superiority bias. The researchers attributed this to the fact that the individuals who were worst at performing the tasks were also worst at recognizing skill in those tasks. This was supported by the fact that, given training, the worst subjects improved their estimate of their rank as well as getting better at the tasks.
Academic ability and job performance
In a survey of faculty at the University of Nebraska, 68% rated themselves in the top 25% for teaching ability. In a similar survey, 87% of MBA students at Stanford University rated their academic performance as above the median.
Findings of illusory superiority in research have also explained phenomena such as the large amount of stock market trading (as each trader thinks they are the best, and most likely to succeed), and the number of lawsuits that go to trial (because, due to illusory superiority, many lawyers have an inflated belief that they will win a case).
Self, friends and peers
One of the first studies that found the effect of illusory superiority was carried out in 1976 by the College Board in the USA. A survey was attached to the SAT exams (taken by approximately one million students per year), asking the students to rate themselves relative to the median of the sample (rather than the average peer) on a number of vague positive characteristics. In ratings of leadership ability, 70% of the students put themselves above the median. In ability to get on well with others, 85% put themselves above the median, and 25% rated themselves in the top 1%.
Research also showed subjects rated friends higher than other peers.
Popularity
In Zuckerman and Jost's study, participants were given detailed questionnaires about their friendships and asked to assess their own popularity. They showed that the participants generally had exaggerated perceptions of their own popularity, particularly in comparison to their own friends.
Relationship happiness
Researchers have also found the effects of illusory superiority in studies into relationship satisfaction. For example, one study found that participants thought their own relationships were better than others' relationships on average. They also thought that most people were happy with their relationships. This study found evidence that the higher the participants rated their own relationship happiness, the more superior they believed their relationship was.
In men, satisfaction was also related to the perception that one's own relationship was superior. Women's satisfaction was particularly related to the assumption that most others were happy with their relationship.
Health
Illusory superiority effects have been found in a study of health behaviors. The study involved asking participants to estimate how often they, and their peers, carried out healthy and unhealthy behaviors. Participants reported that they carried out healthy behaviors more often than the average peer, and unhealthy behaviors less often, as would be expected given the effect of illusory superiority. These findings were for both past self-report of behaviors and expected future behaviors.
Driving ability
Svenson (1981) surveyed 161 students in Sweden and the United States, asking them to compare their driving safety and skill to the other people in the experiment. For driving skill, 93% of the US sample and 69% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50% (above the median). For safety, 88% of the US group and 77% of the Swedish sample put themselves in the top 50%.
McCormick, Walkey and Green (1986) found similar results in their study, asking 178 participants to evaluate their position on eight different dimensions relating to driving skill (examples include the "dangerous-safe" dimension and the "considerate-inconsiderate" dimension). Only a small minority rated themselves as below average (the midpoint of the dimension scale) at any point, and when all eight dimensions were considered together it was found that almost 80% of participants had evaluated themselves as being above the average driver.
Immunity to bias
Subjects describe themselves in positive terms compared to other people, and this includes describing themselves as less susceptible to bias than other people. This effect is called the "bias blind spot".
Patriot Games
Patriot Games is a 1992 American action thriller movie. Harrison Ford plays retired CIA analyst Jack Ryan. Anne Archer plays his wife Cathy Ryan. Thora Birch plays his daughter Sally Ryan. Sean Bean plays the IRA terrorist who wants to avenge his brother's death by Jack Ryan during a failed assassination attempt, and kill Ryan and his family. This movie was released on June 5, 1992. It was a financial success at the box office. It got very good reviews. Its sequel is the 1994 movie Clear and Present Danger.
Delian League
The Delian League was founded in 478 BC. It was an association of Greek city-states under the leadership of Athens. The League had a many cities: at various times between 150 and 330.
The League was led by Athens to continue fighting the Persian Empire. The Greeks had won the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece.
The League's modern name comes from its official meeting place, the island of Delos, where congresses were held in the temple. The treasury stood there, until Pericles moved it to Athens in 454 BC.
Soon after the League was set up, Athens began to use the League's funds for its own purposes. This led to conflict between Athens and the less powerful members of the League. By 431 BC, the League presented a threat to Sparta. This, and Athens's heavy-handed control of the League, started the Peloponnesian War. The League was dissolved after the war's end in 404 BC by the order of Lysander, the Spartan commander.
Kilwinning
Kilwinning is a town in North Ayrshire, Scotland, UK. It is known as The Crossroads of Ayrshire.
Lyle Yost
Lyle E. Yost (March 5, 1913 – April 5, 2012) was an American agriculture equipment manufacturer and inventor.
Yost was the designer and inventor of the 1947 unloading auger, the catalyst for the development of Hesston Manufacturing in Hesston, Kansas. The device was used to unload grain from farm combines. The company's controlling stake was sold to Italian corporation Fiat Trattori in 1977. Fiat Trattori bought the rest of Hesston Manufacturing in 1987. In 1991, a year after being created, AGCO Corporation bought the rights to Hesston Manufacturing.
Yost's success in the agriculture industry led to multiple awards and accolades. This included articles of his success in Fortune and Forbes.
Reye's syndrome
Reye syndrome (also called Reye's syndrome) is an extremely rare though incredibly serious condition that is sometimes fatal. This condition affects primarily the brain and the liver in the body. Aspirin may cause Reye syndrome in teenagers and young adults. The symptoms include but are not limited to vomiting and other problems.
1919–20 Austrian Cup
The 1919-20 Austrian Cup was the national cup in Austrian football.
Joe Sestak
Joseph Ambrose Sestak Jr. (born December 12, 1951) is an American politician. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He represented PA's 7th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011. He was the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate in 2010.
Sestak was a three-star vice admiral. He was the highest-ranking military official ever elected to the United States Congress at the time of his election.
On June 24, 2019, Sestak announced his candidacy to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 election. He did not qualify for any of the presidential debates. He ended his campaign on December 1, 2019.
Jamestown, Rhode Island
Jamestown is a town in Rhode Island.
Theo Jörgensmann
Theo Jörgensmann (born Bottrop, 29 September 1948) is a German jazz clarinet player and composer.
WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks is a non-profit organization which uses its website to publish governmental, private data, corporate or religious documents that had previously been secret. The website was started in 2006 by Julian Assange. It had over 1.2 million documents in its database by the time one year had passed. Usually, it does not give out the names and addresses of people who post documents. The site is based in Sweden. Though its name is similar to Wikipedia, it is not related to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation. The name was chosen because WikiLeaks used a wiki model at first, where people could edit the site, but it has since changed and is no longer open for editing.
History
In July 2010, WikiLeaks was in the news for publishing over 76,900 documents related to the War in Afghanistan. In October that same year, WikiLeaks posted almost 400,000 documents that were about the War in Iraq.
This was the largest ever leak of documents about the US Army. It reported mainly on deaths of civilians, soldiers, and sightings of homemade bombs or armed civilians.
On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers - from Spain (El País), France (Le Monde), Germany (Der Spiegel), the United Kingdom (The Guardian), and the United States (The New York Times) - all began to publish the first 291 of 251,287 confidential diplomatic cables from 274 embassies dated from 1966–2010. WikiLeaks plans to release all of the cables in phases over several months.
This leak was widely covered by the international media, as many of the leaks contained information that affected countries other than the United States. Some leaks were published by other news organizations like Fairfax Media. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that an "open and transparent government is something that the President believes is truly important. But the stealing of classified information and its dissemination is a crime".
In August 2016, WikiLeaks posted more than 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that showed they tried to undermine Bernie Sanders.
2010 Detroit Lions season
The 2010 Detroit Lions season was the franchise's 81st season in the NFL. It was Jim Schwartz's second season as head coach.
2010 NFL Draft
The Lions traded their second-round pick, their original fourth-round pick and seventh-round pick 214 to Minnesota for their first-round pick and their fourth-round pick.
The Lions traded their 2010 fifth-round pick and DE Robert Henderson to Seattle for OG Rob Sims and their 2010 seventh-round pick.
Awarded to the Lions as a compensatory pick.
Regular season
Note: Intra-division opponents are in bold text.
Jamestown, Ohio
Jamestown is a village in Ohio in the United States.
La Vita Nuova
La Vita Nuova or Vita Nova (in English: The New Life) is a book written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. It is an expression of the medieval courtly love and it is written in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse. It tells the story of his love for Beatrice Portinari, who also served as the ultimate symbol of salvation in The Divine Comedy.
David Hart Smith
Harry Smith (born August 2, 1985) is a Canadian professional wrestler of English descent who currently works for New Japan Pro Wrestling under the name Davey Boy Smith, Jr..
He also worked for World Wrestling Entertainment. He wrestled on the ECW brand using the name David Hart Smith, as a member of The Hart Dynasty, alongside Tyson Kidd and Natalya.
Socks (disambiguation)
Sock or socks could mean:
David Hart Smith
He has wrestled on its Raw brand and in Florida Championship Wrestling under the name DH Smith ("D" for Davey Boy Smith, and "H" for the Hart family). On August 5, 2011, WWE released him from his wrestling contract. He currently holds the PWA World Heavyweight title.
His grandfather is Stu Hart who was a wrestling promoter. His father was Davey Boy Smith. His first public wrestling match was at age 10. He started wrestling professionally on February 22, 2002 at age 16 and has been continuing since then.
In wrestling
Entrance music
Jamestown, Oklahoma
Jamestown is an unincorporated community in Rogers County, Oklahoma.
Amzie Strickland
Amzie Strickland (January 10, 1919 - July 5, 2006) was an American movie, radio, and television actress. She appeared in over 200 features between 1937 and 2001. She was a well-known character actress.
The West Wing
The West Wing is an American television drama created by Aaron Sorkin that was originally shown from September 22, 1999 to May 14, 2006. The series is set in the West Wing of the White House—where the Oval Office and offices of presidential staff are—during the fictional presidency of Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen).
It first aired on NBC in 1999, and has been shown on many networks in several other countries. The series ended its seven years on television on May 14, 2006.
The show received positive reviews from critics, political science teachers, and former White House workers. In total, The West Wing won three Golden Globe Awards and 27 Emmy Awards, including the award for Outstanding Drama Series, which it won four times in a row from 2000 through 2003. The show's ratings were lower in later years, series creator Aaron Sorkin (who wrote or co-wrote 85 of the first 88 episodes) left the show after the fourth season. It was still popular with viewers who have a high-income.
Crew
The series was created by Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin served as executive producer for the first episode with director Thomas Schlamme and John Wells. Kristin Harms and Llewellyn Wells were producers for the first episode. Michael Hissrich acted as a co-producer.
The first season proper saw the return of all of the pilot production team along with the addition of Ron Osborn and Jeff Reno as consulting producers and Rick Cleveland as a second co-producer with Robert W. Glass as an associate producer. Glass left the production team after only five episodes. Osborn and Reno departed after nine episodes. Paul Redford served as a story editor throughout the first season. Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr. worked as executive story editor for the second half of the season.
With the second season Kevin Falls became a co-executive producer. Cleveland left the production team and Redford and O'Donnell were promoted to co-producer. Peter Parnell, and Patrick Caddell became co-producers and Julie Herlocker and Mindy Kanaskie became associate producers. O'Donnell was promoted again to producer five episodes into the season and Hissrich joined him twelve episodes into the season.
The third season saw the departure of Parnell, Caddell, and Herlocker and the temporary absence of O'Donnell. Director Christopher Misiano became a supervising producer and Patrick Ward came aboard as an associate producer. Redford was promoted to producer. With the thirteenth episode of the third season director Alex Graves became an additional supervising producer and Eli Attie joined the writing staff as a story editor.
The fourth season marked the temporary departure of Hissrich. Misiano and Graves became co-executive producers alongside Falls. Attie was promoted to executive story editor and Debora Cahn became a staff writer. The fourteenth episode of the season saw Redford promoted to supervising producer and Kanaskie, Ward and Attie promoted to co-producers.
The fifth season saw the departure of both Sorkin and Schlamme as executive producers. Schlamme remained attached to the series as an executive consultant. John Wells remained the sole executive producer and showrunner. Co-executive producer Kevin Falls also left the show. O'Donnell rejoined the production team as a consulting producer. Wells also added Carol Flint, Alexa Junge, Peter Noah and John Sacret Young as consulting producers. Andrew Stearn came aboard as a producer and Attie was promoted to producer. Cahn became story editor and Josh Singer replaced her as staff writer. With the tenth episode Flint, Junge, Noah and Sacret Young became supervising producers.
With the sixth season Misiano and Graves were promoted to executive producers. Redford and Junge left the production team and Dylan K. Massin became a co-producer. Cahn was promoted to executive story editor and Singer replaced her as story editor. Lauren Schmidt filled the staff writer role. The fourth episode saw the departure of original crew member Llewellyn Wells. Debora Cahn was promoted to co-producer with the fourteenth episode.
The seventh season saw Noah and O'Donnell promoted again, this time becoming additional executive producers. Attie became a supervising producer. Hissrich returned to his role as producer for the final season.
Cast
The West Wing employed a broad ensemble cast to portray the many positions involved in the daily work of the federal government. The President, the First Lady, and the President's senior staff and advisors form the core cast. Many secondary characters, appearing intermittently, complement storylines that generally revolve around this core group.
Each of the main actors made about $75,000 an episode, with Sheen's most recently confirmed salary being $300,000. Rob Lowe also had a six-figure salary, reported to be $100,000, because his character originally was supposed to have a more central role. Disparities in cast salaries led to very public contract disputes, particularly by Janney, Schiff, Spencer, and Whitford. During contract negotiations in 2001, the four were threatened with breach of contract suits by Warner Bros. However, by banding together, they were able to persuade the studio to more than double their salaries. Two years later, the four again demanded a doubling of their salaries, a few months after Warner Bros. had signed new licensing deals with NBC and Bravo.
John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry, died from a heart attack on December 16, 2005 — about a year after his character experienced a nearly fatal heart attack on the show. A brief memorial message from Martin Sheen ran before "Running Mates", the first new episode that aired after Spencer's death. The loss of Spencer's character was addressed by the series beginning with the episode "Election Day", which aired on April 2, 2006.
Different performers had been originally considered for many of the roles. Bradley Whitford states in an interview on the Season 1 DVD that he was originally cast as Sam, though the character of Josh was the role Whitford had wanted and for which he had auditioned. In addition, Josh's character had been written specifically for him by Aaron Sorkin. In the same interview, Janel Moloney states that she had originally auditioned for the role of C.J., and that the role she eventually received, Donna, was not meant to be a recurring character. Other actors who were seriously considered included Alan Alda and Sidney Poitier for the President, Judd Hirsch for Leo, Eugene Levy for Toby, and CCH Pounder for C.J.
Plot
The West Wing, like many serial dramas, stretches storylines over several episodes or entire seasons. In addition to these larger storylines, each episode also contains smaller arcs which usually begin and end within an episode.
Most episodes follow President Bartlet and his staff through particular legislative or political issues. Plots can range from behind-closed-doors negotiating with Congress ("Five Votes Down") to personal issues like sex ("Pilot", "Take out the Trash Day") and personal drug use (a major plotline throughout the first and second seasons). The typical episode loosely follows the president and his staff through their day, generally following several plots connected by some idea or theme. A large, fully connected set of the White House allows the producers to create shots with very few cuts and long, continuous master shots of staff members walking and talking through the hallways. These "walk and talks" became a trademark of the show. The final two seasons presented a narrative change, with the focus of the show divided between plots in the West Wing with President Bartlet and his remaining senior staffers and plots revolving around the rest of the main cast on the campaign trail for the 2006 election.
Eberbach-Seltz
Eberbach-Seltz is a commune. It is in Grand Est in the Bas-Rhin department in northeast France.
The West Wing
Development
The series developed following the success of 1995 theatrical film The American President, for which Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay, and Martin Sheen played the White House Chief of Staff. Sorkin used some of the same research he had done for The American President a suggestion from a friend to create The West Wing.
According to the DVD commentary, Sorkin intended to center the show on Sam Seaborn and the other senior staff with the president in an unseen or a secondary role. However, Bartlet's screen time gradually increased, and his role expanded as the series progressed. Positive critical and public reaction to Sheen's performance raised his character's profile, decreasing Lowe's perceived significance. In addition, according to Sorkin, the storylines began to focus less on Sam and more on Josh Lyman, the deputy chief of staff. This shift is one of the reasons for Lowe's eventual departure from the show in the fourth season. For the first four seasons, Sorkin wrote almost every episode of the series, occasionally reusing plot elements, episode titles, character names, and actors from his previous work, Sports Night, a sitcom in which he began to develop his signature dialogue style of rhythmic, snappy, and intellectual banter. Fellow executive producer and director Thomas Schlamme championed the "walk and talk," a continuous shot tracking in front of the characters as they walk from one place to another that became part of The West Wing ' s signature visual style. Sorkin's hectic writing schedule often led to cost overruns and schedule slips, and he opted to leave the show after the fourth season, following increasing personal problems, including an arrest for possession of illegal drugs. Thomas Schlamme also left the show after the fourth season. John Wells, the remaining executive producer, took the helm after their departure.
The show aired its series finale on Sunday, May 14, 2006. It had suffered a significant ratings fall after being placed in the same timeslot as ABC's Top 20 hit Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and CBS' Top 30 hit Cold Case.
Realism
The West Wing is not completely accurate in its portrayal of the actual West Wing; however, former White House staffers agree that the show "captures the feel [of the West Wing], shorn of a thousand undramatic details."
Former White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers as well as expert pollster Patrick Caddell served as consultants for the show from the beginning, helping writers and actors depict the West Wing accurately. Other former White House staffers, such as Peggy Noonan and Gene Sperling, have served as consultants for brief periods.
A documentary special in the third season compared the show's depiction of the West Wing to the real thing. Many former West Wing denizens applauded the show's depiction of the West Wing, including advisor David Gergen, Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.
While critics often praised The West Wing for its writing, others faulted the show as unrealistically optimistic. A large part of this criticism came from the perceived naiveté of the characters. Television critic Heather Havrilesky asked "What rock did these morally pure creatures crawl out from under and, more important, how do you go from innocent millipede to White House staffer without becoming soiled or disillusioned by the dirty realities of politics along the way?"
Social impact
Despite acclaim for the veracity of the series, Sorkin believed, "our responsibility is to captivate you for however long we've asked for your attention." Former White House aide Matthew Miller noted that Sorkin "captivates viewers by making the human side of politics more real than life — or at least more real than the picture we get from the news." Miller also noted that by portraying politicians with empathy, the show created a "subversive competitor" to the cynical views of politics in media. In the essay "The West Wing and the West Wing", author Myron Levine agreed, stating that the series "presents an essentially positive view of public service and a healthy corrective to anti-Washington stereotypes and public cynicism."
Dr. Staci L. Beavers, associate professor of political science at California State University, San Marcos, wrote a short essay, The West Wing as a Pedagogical Tool, concerning the viability of The West Wing as a teaching tool. She concluded, "While the series’ purpose is for-profit entertainment, The West Wing presents great pedagogical potential." The West Wing, in her opinion, gave greater depth to the political process usually espoused only in stilted talking points on shows like Face the Nation and Meet the Press. However, the merits of a particular argument may be obscured by the viewer's opinion of the character. Beavers also noted that characters with opposing viewpoints were often set up to be "bad people" in the viewer's eyes. These characters were assigned undesirable characteristics having nothing to do with their political opinions, such as being romantically involved with a main character's love interest. In Beavers's opinion, a critical analysis of the show's political views can present a worthwhile learning experience to the viewer.
One of the stranger impacts of the show occurred on January 31, 2006, when The West Wing was said to have played a hand in defeating Tony Blair's government in the British House of Commons, during the so called "West Wing Plot". The plan was allegedly hatched after a Conservative Member of Parliament watched the episode, "A Good Day", in which Democrats block a bill aimed at limiting stem cell research, by hiding in an office until the Republican Speaker calls the vote.
Filming techniques and reactions
In its first season, The West Wing attracted critical attention in the television community with a record nine Emmy wins. The show has been praised for its high production values and repeatedly recognized for its cinematic achievements. With a budget of $6 million per episode, many consider each week's show to be a small feature film. However, many in the television community believe that the true genius of the show was Sorkin's rapid-fire and witty scripts.
The West Wing is noted for developing the "walk-and-talk"—long Steadicam tracking shots showing characters walking down hallways while involved in long conversations. In a typical "walk-and-talk" shot, the camera leads two characters down a hallway as they speak to each other. One of these characters generally breaks off and the remaining character is then joined by another character, who initiates another conversation as they continue walking. These "walk-and-talks" create a dynamic feel for what would otherwise be long expository dialogue, and have become a staple for dialogue-intensive television show scenes.
Lasswade
Lasswade is a town in Midlothian, Scotland, UK. It is between Loanhead and Dalkeith. It merged (joined) with Bonnyrigg in 1929.
Base (chemistry)
A base is a substance that can accept a hydrogen ion (H+) from another substance. A chemical can accept a proton if it has a negative charge, or if the molecule has an electronegative atom like oxygen, nitrogen, or chlorine that is rich in electrons. Like acids, some bases are strong and others are weak. The weak bases are less likely to accept protons, while the strong bases quickly take protons in solution or from other molecules. An acid is a base's "chemical opposite". An acid is a substance that will donate a hydrogen atom to the base.
Bases have a pH greater than 7.0. Weak bases generally have a pH value of 7–9 while strong bases have a pH value of 9–14.
How bases work
Bases can be used to neutralize acids. When a base, often OH–, accepts a proton from an acid, it forms a water molecule which is harmless. When all of the acids and bases react to form water molecules and other neutral salts, it is called neutralization. Acids can also be used to neutralize bases.
Every base has a conjugate acid formed by adding a hydrogen atom to the base. For example, NH3 (ammonia) is a base and its conjugate acid is the ammonium ion, NH4+. A weak base forms a strong conjugate acid and a strong base forms a weaker conjugate acid. Since ammonia is a moderately strong base, ammonium is a considerably weaker acid.
Characteristics
Bases have these characteristics:
Some common household products are bases. For example, caustic soda and drain cleaner are made from sodium hydroxide, a strong base. Ammonia or an ammonia-based cleaner such as window and glass cleaner, is basic. These stronger bases may cause a skin irritation. Other bases, like cooking ingredients sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or cream of tartar are basic, but these are not harmful and suitable for cooking.
Strong bases
A strong base is a base that gives off a hydroxide ion, OH–, when put in water. There are eight of them.
Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana
Avoyelles is a parish of Louisiana in the United States. The parish seat is Marksville. In the 2020 count, 57,576 people lived in this parish.
The West Wing
Awards
In its first year, The West Wing received nine Emmys, a record for most won by a series in a single season. The show also received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003, tying Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law for most won in this category. Each of its seven seasons was nominated for the award. The West Wing ranks 8th all-time in number of Emmy Awards won by a show.
The show shares the Emmy Award record for most acting nominations by regular cast members for a single show in one year. (Both Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law also hold that record). For the 2001–2002 season nine cast members were nominated for Emmys. Allison Janney, John Spencer and Stockard Channing each won an Emmy (for Lead Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress). The others nominated were Martin Sheen (for Lead Actor), Richard Schiff, Dule Hill and Bradley Whitford (for Supporting Actor), and Janel Moloney and Mary-Louise Parker (for Supporting Actress). In that same year, Mark Harmon, Tim Matheson and Ron Silver were each nominated in the Guest Actor category (but none won the award). This gave the show an Emmy Award record for most acting nominations total (including guest performer category) in a single year, with 12 acting nominations.
Twenty Emmys were awarded to writers, actors, and crew members. Allison Janney is the record holder for most wins by a cast member, with a total of four Emmys.
In addition to its Emmys, the show won two Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, in 2000 and 2001, for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Martin Sheen is the only cast member to have won a Golden Globe, and he and Allison Janney are the only cast members to win a SAG award (for best actor and best actress). In both 1999 and 2000, The West Wing was awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.
This table shows award wins by cast members:
W.G. "Snuffy" Walden received an Emmy Award for Main Title Theme Music in 2000 for "The West Wing Opening Theme".
Exploration of real world issues
The West Wing often features extensive discussion of current or recent political issues. After the real-world election of Republican President George W. Bush in 2000, many wondered whether the liberal show could retain its relevance and topicality. However, by exploring many of the same issues facing the Bush administration from a Democratic point of view, the show continued to appeal to a broad audience of both Democrats and Republicans.
In its second season episode "The Midterms", President Bartlet admonishes fictional radio host Dr. Jenna Jacobs for her views regarding homosexuality at a private gathering at the White House. Dr. Jacobs is a caricature of radio personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who strongly disapproves of homosexuality. Many of the president's biblical references in his comments to Dr. Jacobs appear to have come from an open letter to Dr. Schlessinger, circulated online in early May 2000.
The Bartlet administration experiences a scandal during the second and third seasons that has been compared to the Monica Lewinsky affair. President Bartlet was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1992. The scandal centers around President Bartlet's nondisclosure of his illness to the electorate during the election. He is investigated by an opposition Congress for defrauding the public and eventually accepts Congressional censure. Multiple sclerosis advocacy groups have praised the show for its accurate portrayal of the symptoms of MS and stressing that it is not fatal. The National MS Society commented:
For the first time on national television or even in film, the public encountered a lead character with both an MS diagnosis and the hope for a continued productive life. Because [The] West Wing is a fictional drama and not a medical documentary, writers could have greatly distorted MS facts to further their story line [but did not].
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the start of the third season was postponed for a week, as were most American television premieres that year. A script for a special episode was quickly written and began filming on September 21. The episode "Isaac and Ishmael" aired on October 3 and addresses the sobering reality of terrorism in America and the wider world, albeit with no specific reference to September 11. While "Isaac and Ishmael" received mixed critical reviews, it illustrated the show's flexibility in addressing current events. The cast of the show state during the opening of the episode that it is not part of The West Wing continuity.
While the September 11 attacks do not occur in The West Wing continuity, the country does enter into a variation of the War on Terrorism. The war begins during the show's third season, when a plot to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge was uncovered; in response, the President orders the assassination of terrorist leader Abdul ibn Shareef. This storyline draws similarities to the real-world U.S. invasion of Afghanistan as well as U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, as it brings the Middle East to the forefront of U.S. foreign relations and elevated terrorism as a serious threat in The West Wing universe. In Seasons 3, 4 and 5, the fictional Bahji terror group seems to act as a fictional stand-in for the real world Al Qaeda, but in Seasons 6 and 7, characters mention Al Qaeda itself as a threat, despite no clearly stated history of Al Qaeda terror attacks in The West Wing continuity (although Nancy McNally does refer to Osama Bin Laden as a potential threat at the beginning of Season 2.)
In the middle of the fourth season, Bartlet's White House is confronted with the genocide in the fictional African country of Equatorial Kundu which was compared to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. The result was new foreign policy doctrine for Bartlet Administration and military intervention to stop the violence, which came after much hesitation and reluctance to call the conflict a genocide. In reality, the Clinton Administration didn't intervene in Rwanda, making series events look like a moral imperative.
In the sixth and seventh seasons, The West Wing explores a leak of top-secret information by a senior staffer at the White House. This leak has been compared to the events surrounding the Valerie Plame affair. In the storyline, the International Space Station is damaged and can no longer produce oxygen for the astronauts to breathe. With no other methods of rescue available, the president is reminded of the existence of a top-secret military space shuttle. Following the president's inaction, the shuttle story is leaked to a White House reporter, Greg Brock (analogous to Judith Miller), who prints the story in The New York Times. Brock will not reveal his source and goes to jail for failing to do so, as did Miller. In order to stop the investigation, in which authorities suspect Chief of Staff C.J. Cregg, Toby Ziegler admits leaking the information, and the President is forced to dismiss him. In comparison, the Plame affair resulted in the arrest and conviction of Lewis Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. However, Libby was convicted of perjury in testimony to a grand jury. No one was convicted for "blowing the cover" of Plame. (Richard Armitage, an official in the Bush State Department, acknowledged leaking information about Plame to reporters but was never charged with a crime.) Libby's two and a half year prison sentence was later commuted by President Bush, though the other facet of his sentence ($250,000 fine) stands until Libby's appeals were to be considered.
Other issues explored in The West Wing include:
Domestic
All contemporary domestic government officials in The West Wing universe have been fictional. President Bartlet has made three appointments to the fictional Supreme Court and maintains a full cabinet, although the names and terms of all members have not been revealed. Some cabinet members, such as the Secretary of Defense, appear more often than others. Many other government officials, such as mayors, governors, judges, representatives, and senators, have been mentioned and seen as well.
Fictional locations inside the United States have been created to loosely represent certain places:
San Andreo
San Andreo is a fictional California city. It is near San Diego. It has 42,000 people. The San Andreo Nuclear Generating Station is there.
A near meltdown at the nuclear plant becomes the focus of an October surprise for Republican nominee Senator Arnold Vinick during the 2006 presidential election, due to Vinick's strong pro-nuclear stance and revelations of his active lobbying for the construction of the plant. This was seen to be a key factor in Vinick's narrow defeat in the election by Democratic nominee Congressman Matt Santos.
Hartsfield's Landing
Hartsfield's Landing is a fictional town in New Hampshire. It is stated to be a very small community of only 63 people, of whom 42 are registered voters, that votes at one minute past midnight on the day of the New Hampshire primary, hours before the rest of the state, and has accurately predicted the winner of every presidential election since William Howard Taft in 1908. It is based on the true New Hampshire communities of Hart's Location and Dixville Notch, which in real life do vote before the rest of the state during the primaries, and also loosely upon the concept of "bellwether states" in US presidential elections.
Foreign
While several real-world leaders exist in the show's universe, most foreign countries have fictional rulers. Real people mentioned in The West Wing include Muammar al-Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, Queen Elizabeth II, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, King Carl Gustaf, Thabo Mbeki and Osama bin Laden. However, when a peace accord was worked out between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at the start of the show's sixth season, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority was the fictional Nizar Farad, not Arafat. (By that time in the real world, Arafat was dead and a successor, Rawhi Fattuh, had been elected.)
Qumar
Qumar, a fictional oil-rich, terrorist-sponsoring Middle Eastern state, is repeatedly a source of trouble for the Bartlet administration. According to maps on the show, Qumar is in southern Iran, directly across the important Strait of Hormuz. After the September 11 attacks, it became the main venue for the show's terrorism subplots.
Jabal Nafusah (also the name of a real-life Libyan city) seems to be the largest city and the capital, according to maps shown of the country. Qumar is an absolute monarchy, ruled by a sultan and his family. The country is a former British protectorate. The nation was first introduced in the third season where it was mentioned as a close ally of the United States. Qumar continues on the show to be a U.S. ally, though the sultan and other officials were extremely troubled by the Bartlet administration's assassination of Defense Minister Abdul ibn Shareef, and a bombing campaign and invasion that followed Zoey Bartlet's abduction by Qumari extremists (ostensibly in retaliation for Shareef's murder). As a result of the air strikes, gas pipelines were damaged, leading to economic troubles for the country and its European allies.
During the final season episode "The Cold", a situation room map shows the Persian Gulf clearly, but omits Qumar.
Equatorial Kundu
Equatorial Kundu is a fictional African nation blighted by AIDS and a civil war resembling the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
When Kundu was first mentioned in season 2, it is led by President Nimbala who is executed by the end of the episode. In January 2003 of the series' timeline ("Inauguration, Part I"), the Arkutu-run government of President Nzele (described as a "sadistic madman") begins an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Induye in Bitanga, killing 200 people. The violence soon spreads outside Bitanga and into the countryside. In President Josiah Bartlet's second inaugural address ("Inauguration Over There"), he announces the new Bartlet Doctrine for the use of force: America shall intervene whenever there are humanitarian interests at stake. With that new doctrine, Bartlet sends a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division, and a Marine Expeditionary Unit, a force of 11,000 troops in total, to Kundu ("The California 47th"). As of the episode "Twenty Five," US forces are still operating in Kundu.
Fictional timeline
However, through timeline analysis, it can be assumed that while Richard Nixon was the last President to hold a real-life presidential term, Ronald Reagan was the last real-life President. These are the Presidents and their terms in the West Wing universe:
Skewed from reality
Fictional Presidents who served between Nixon and Bartlet include one-term Democrat D. Wire Newman (James Cromwell) and two-term Republican Owen Lassiter.