title: Anarchist schools of thought

text: Anarcho-syndicalism and other branches of anarchism are not mutually exclusive. Anarcho-syndicalists often subscribe to communist or collectivist anarchism. Its advocates propose labour organization as a means to create the foundations of a non-hierarchical anarchist society within the current system and bring about social revolution. According to the writers of "An Anarchist FAQ", anarcho-syndicalist economic systems often take the form of either an anarcho-communist or collectivist anarchist economic system.


title: Anarchist schools of thought

text: Rudolf Rocker is considered a leading anarcho-syndicalist theorist. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought and why it was important to the future of labour in his 1938 pamphlet "Anarchosyndicalism". Noam Chomsky sees anarcho-syndicalist and libertarian socialist ideas as the descendants of the classical liberal ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, arguing that his ideological position revolves around "nourishing the libertarian and creative character of the human being". He envisions an anarcho-syndicalist future with direct worker control of the means of production and government by workers' councils, who would select representatives to meet together at general assemblies.


title: Anarchist schools of thought

text: Although more frequently associated with labor struggles of the early 20th century (particularly in France and Spain), many syndicalist organizations are active today, including the SAC in Sweden, the USI in Italy and the CNT in Spain. A number of these organizations are united across national borders by membership in the International Workers' Association.


title: Anarchist schools of thought

text: Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes the theme of insurrection within anarchist practice. It opposes formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists support informal organization and small affinity group based organization. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.


title: Anarchist schools of thought

text: Contemporary insurrectionary anarchism inherits the views and tactics of anti-organizational anarcho-communism and illegalism.


title: Death and state funeral of George H. W. Bush

text: On November 30, 2018, George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, died from vascular Parkinson's disease at his home in Houston, Texas. Bush was the first former U.S. president to die in nearly 12 years since Gerald Ford in late 2006. At the age of , Bush was the longest-lived U.S. president in history at the time of his death, a record which was surpassed by Jimmy Carter on March 22, 2019.


text: Shortly after news broke of Bush's death, President Donald Trump declared a national day of mourning and ordered all flags "throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions" lowered to half staff for 30 days after his death. The state funeral of George H. W. Bush was the official funerary rites conducted by the Government of the United States which occurred over a period of four days from December 3 to 6, 2018. About a dozen world leaders attended the event.


text: Bush had incurred a series of health problems in his final years. In 2012, he was diagnosed with vascular Parkinsonism, necessitating the use of a mobility scooter, limiting his speech and his ability to travel across the world (due to this, he did not participate at the memorial service of Nelson Mandela in 2013, opting to send a message of condolence to Mandela's family and watch the event on television instead). He was hospitalized numerous times in serious condition, most notably missing the inauguration of Donald Trump due to being in the intensive care unit at Houston Methodist Hospital.


text: Following the death of his wife Barbara on April 17, 2018, Bush continued to deal with a variety of health issues. He was hospitalized a day after her funeral in critical condition with sepsis, but he was eventually stabilized and released. In May, a month before his 94th birthday, he was briefly admitted to a hospital in Maine due to low blood pressure. Released after about two weeks, he returned to Houston.


text: In late November, Bush's health began to decline again. He received former president Barack Obama at his home for what was described as a "private visit" on November 27. By November 28, he had stopped eating and did not leave his bed, telling his medical staff he did not want to return to the hospital. James Baker, former Secretary of State and a longtime friend of Bush, reported that Bush's condition had improved by the morning of November 30, as he had begun eating again and was able to sit up from his bed and converse with others. According to Baker, Bush's last meal consisted of three soft-boiled eggs, a cup of yogurt, and two fruit drinks.


text: By that evening, however, his health again worsened and death was imminent. Irish tenor Ronan Tynan came and sang two songs for Bush, as his family and friends gathered at the household or were placed on speakerphone calls to say their goodbyes. Bush's son, former president George W. Bush, called from his home in Dallas and told his father that he loved him; the elder Bush replied "I love you, too", which were his last words. Shortly after that conversation, Bush died at 10:10 p.m. Central Standard Time. Baker described the death as "peaceful", adding "If those things could be sweet, it was sweet".


text: Within hours of his death, the former president's office issued a statement indicating that funeral arrangements would be announced "as soon as practical". The exact cause of death was not immediately announced.


text: At 12:49 a.m. EST on December 1, President Donald Trump tweeted that he and Melania Trump's "hearts ache with his loss and we, with the entire American people, send our prayers to the entire Bush family". Former president Barack Obama said in a statement that "George H. W. Bush's life is a testament to the notion that public service is a noble, joyous calling. And he did tremendous good along the journey." Former president Bill Clinton sent a statement that "Hillary and I mourn the passing of President George H.W. Bush, and give thanks for his great long life of service, love, and friendship. I will be forever grateful for the friendship we formed. From the moment I met him as a young governor invited to his home in Kennebunkport, I was struck by the kindness he showed to Chelsea, by his innate genuine decency, and by his devotion to Barbara, his children, and their growing brood." Former president Jimmy Carter mourned his death on Saturday, saying his administration was "marked by grace, civility, and social conscience." Former Vice President Dan Quayle, who served with Bush, said that "the world mourns the loss of a great American" and that he had often told his children to look to Bush as a role model. Former Vice President Al Gore issued a statement calling Bush a "man of integrity". Sylvester Turner, the mayor of Houston – where Bush resided at the time of his death – said that he joined "Houstonians in mourning the death of George Herbert Walker Bush and expressing heartfelt condolences to his children and the rest of the Bush family".


text: U.S. Army Regulation 600–25 provides that United States Army posts are to fire continuous artillery volleys at 30-minute intervals from sunrise to sunset the day after official notice is received of the death of a former president of the United States. As also provided for by regulation, the corps of cadets of the United States Military Academy are to be immediately assembled to be officially informed of the death by the superintendent.


text: At mid-morning on December 1, President Donald Trump proclaimed December 5 to be a national day of mourning. The proclamation further decreed that American flags "on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions" be lowered to half staff until December 30, 2018. In addition, all agencies of the United States Government throughout the United States were ordered closed on the day of mourning and the Supreme Court of the United States announced it would postpone hearing oral arguments in "Gamble v. United States" which had been previously scheduled for that day.


text: The United States Postal Service suspended regular mail deliveries, retail services and administrative office activity on December 5 as part of the national day of mourning although there was limited package delivery to avoid any setbacks for the Holiday season. All of the United States' principal financial exchanges – including the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ – suspended trading for the duration of the day of mourning.


text: The Government of the United Kingdom issued instructions that all government offices in the United Kingdom were to lower the Union flag to half-mast on December 1, 2018. In Canada, flags on all federal buildings were ordered flown at half-mast on December 5.


text: The President of the Republic of Kosovo Hashim Thaçi announced on December 5 the day of national mourning with the flags half-masted.


text: Two hours following the death of Bush, approximately 100 students at Texas A&M University gathered at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and proceeded to a nearby statue of Bush to pay respects. Later that day, on an overlook near the Bush Compound in Maine, people spontaneously gathered to lay flowers, among them including former University of Massachusetts president Jack M. Wilson. A makeshift memorial of flowers, flags, and cards was also created by members of the public outside the gates of Bush's Houston home.


text: The Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas announced on December 1 that it would immediately lay out a book of condolence for members of the public to sign. Also on December 1, the city of Houston announced it would hold a memorial service in honor of Bush on the evening of December 3, 2018, at Hermann Square in front of the Houston City Hall with the Houston Symphony scheduled to provide music.


text: Moments of silence were observed at sporting events in the weeks following George H.W. Bush's death, including prior to the December 3 NFL game between the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field, and before the December 9 Army-Navy Game, among others.


text: Prior to his death, Bush filed a 211-page document with the Military District of Washington, which contains a request for an aerial flyover of fighter jets in missing man formation by the United States Air Force during his state funeral as well as final interment and burial to occur at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas. Bush also indicated that he did not want the presidential fanfare, "Hail to the Chief", to be performed during final interment and burial. In addition, Bush made plans for a national funeral service to be held at Washington National Cathedral in Washington D.C.


text: The Department of Homeland Security designated the Washington phase of the state funeral as a National Special Security Event, as they've done with the state funerals of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, as with other major Washington events since September 11, 2001.


text: Air transport of Bush's remains occurred aboard a VC-25, tail number 29000, of the United States Air Force's 89th Airlift Wing operating under the call sign "Special Air Mission 41" (SAM41).


text: On the morning of December 3, 2018, the casket carrying Bush's remains was moved from Geo. H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home in Houston to a waiting hearse which then proceeded along a specially closed stretch of Interstate 610 to Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. The hearse was escorted by Houston Police Department motorcycle outriders and arrived on the runway by approximately 11:45 a.m. Central Standard Time.


text: A brief ceremony was held on the apron for 100 invited guests, among them George P. Bush, prior to the casket's placement on the waiting "Special Air Mission 41" VC-25 which completed take off by 12:10 p.m. Former president George W. Bush accompanied the casket aboard the aircraft, and was joined by the late president Bush's service dog Sully.


text: At approximately 3:25 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on December 3, Special Air Mission 41 arrived at Joint Base Andrews. The casket containing Bush's remains was removed from the aircraft as the United States Air Force Band performed "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" and a 21 gun salute was executed by the U.S. Army's Presidential Salute Battery. The casket proceeded through a ramp guard composed of U.S. armed forces personnel into a waiting Cadillac XTS Echelon hearse for transfer to the United States Capitol.


text: Bush lay in state in the United States Capitol rotunda from the evening of December 3 through the morning of December 5.


text: On December 5, at approximately 10:00am EST, the casket was transferred from the Capitol rotunda for funeral services at Washington National Cathedral. The officiating clergy included Michael Bruce Curry, Mariann Edgar Budde, Randolph Marshall Hollerith, and Dr. Russell Levenson, Jr. Rosemarie Logan Duncan was the master of ceremonies. Lauren Bush, Ashley Walker Bush, and Jenna Bush Hager were readers. Jan Naylor Cope provided the Intercession. Tributes were made by Jon Meacham, Brian Mulroney, Alan K. Simpson, and George W. Bush.


text: President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush (Bush's eldest son), and Barack Obama were all in attendance, along with their respective wives, former first ladies Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush (Bush's daughter-in-law), and Michelle Obama. Also attending were Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence, former vice presidents Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and Joe Biden (future president), along with former second ladies Marilyn Quayle, Lynne Cheney, and Jill Biden (future first lady). Presidential children in attendance included Lynda Bird Johnson Robb with Chuck Robb, Luci Baines Johnson with Ian Turpin, Tricia Nixon Cox with Edward F. Cox, Susan Ford, Chelsea Clinton, former Florida governor Jeb Bush (Bush's younger son), and Ivanka Trump with Jared Kushner. Then-senator Bill Nelson, New York Governor George Pataki, political adviser to George W. Bush Karl Rove, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Democratic Representatives John Lewis from Georgia and Jim Cooper from Tennessee, Republican Representatives John Culberson from Texas, who represented Bush's old House district, and Mark Meadows from North Carolina along with many other lawmakers attended as well.


text: Musical tributes were provided by the Armed Forces Chorus, the United States Marine Orchestra, United States Coast Guard Band, Michael W. Smith and Ronan Tynan. The coffin was lifted, turned, and borne out of the cathedral to Ralph Vaughan Williams's 1906 hymn "For All the Saints, Who From Their Labor Rest (Sine nomine)" as five U.S. presidents stood in respect.


text: After the service, the Washington Ringing Society rang a half-muffled quarter peal of Grandsire Caters to Bush's memory. The hearse carrying Bush arrived at Joint Base Andrews at approximately 2:01pm EST and at 2:09pm EST transferred aboard VC25A 29000 via scissor truck as the Bush family boarded Special Air Mission 41 and took off after 2:26pm EST.


text: Bush's remains arrived at Ellington Field at December 5, 4:30 p.m. Central Standard Time where they were greeted by a military escort, transported to St. Martin's Episcopal Church and laid in repose until the following morning. A second funeral service for family and friends was held at 10:00 a.m. Central Standard Time on December 6. Eulogies were delivered by President Bush's friend, former Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff James Baker and grandson George P. Bush. Clergy participating in the service included church Rector Dr. Russell Levenson, Jr., Bishop of Texas C. Andrew Doyle, and former Bishop of Texas Claude E. Payne. During the service, The Oak Ridge Boys sang "Amazing Grace" and Reba McEntire sang "The Lord's Prayer."


text: After the church service, the remains were driven by hearse to the Union Pacific Railroad Westfield Auto Facility and transported by special railway funeral car to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum for interment. The funeral train was led by Union Pacific 4141, an EMD SD70ACe locomotive painted to honor Bush as the first time the remains of any US president had ever traveled on a funeral train since Dwight Eisenhower in 1969. A guard of honor formed by the Ross Volunteers, the Governor of Texas' military escort, attended the removal of the casket from the funeral train.


text: During interment, the United States Navy announced it would perform the largest funeral flyover in its history, with what the Navy described as an "unprecedented" 21 F/A-18 Hornets led by Captain Kevin McLaughlin, the commanding officer of Strike Fighter Wing Atlantic whose own aircraft was painted in a special memorial livery. The flyover was known as the "missing man flyover," and featured 21 aircraft in a unique position as an honor to Bush's Navy pilot service during World War II. The interment ceremony was private; it was not filmed, broadcast on television, or streamed online at the advance request of the Bush family. Only the flyover, as well as the 21-gun salute and the performance of "Taps" that happened at the library grounds, were shown instead. Bush's remains were buried on the early morning of December 7 between the graves of his wife Barbara and his daughter Robin.


text: Throughout the day, all U.S. military posts equipped with artillery fired 21-gun salutes. Meanwhile, the Salute to the Union – 50 successive rounds of artillery fire – was performed by batteries at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Fort Stewart, Georgia, and Fort Drum, New York at 5:00 p.m., a custom traditionally marking the final interment of a former president.


text: As customary, pallbearers during each movement of the casket containing Bush's remains were drawn from personnel of the United States Army, United States Navy, United States Air Force, United States Marine Corps, and United States Coast Guard. In addition, honorary pallbearers were selected for most movements of the casket.


text: Special agents of Bush's former United States Secret Service protective detail served as honorary pallbearers during the movement of the casket from the funeral home in Houston to the hearse that would transport it to Ellington Field.


text: Sailors drawn from the crew of the United States aircraft carrier served as honorary pallbearers for the removal of the casket from Special Air Mission 41 at Joint Base Andrews. A further thirteen honorary pallbearers were selected for the transport of the casket from the hearse to the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, all of whom were former ship or strike group commanders of , including: Admiral John Aquilino, Vice Admiral DeWolfe Miller, Vice Admiral Frank Pandolfe, Vice Admiral Nora Tyson, Rear Admiral Kenneth Whitesell, Rear Admiral David Thomas Jr., Rear Admiral Andrew Loiselle, Rear Admiral Stephen Evans, Rear Admiral William Pennington, Rear Admiral Brian Luther, Rear Admiral Gregory Nosal, Captain Sean Bailey, and Captain Kevin O'Flaherty. Captain Sean R. Bailey, the ship's commanding officer at the time of Bush's death, was unable to serve as an honorary pallbearer as the vessel was making final preparations for deployment.


text: Honorary pallbearers serving during the movement of the casket at points during Stage 3 included Charles F. Hermann (Scowcroft Chair in International Policy Studies at the Bush School of Government and Public Service),


text: Amy Sharp (president of the Texas A&M University Student Government Association), and former Texas A&M football coach R.C. Slocum.


title: Quenching

text: In materials science, quenching is the rapid cooling of a workpiece in water, oil, polymer, air, or other fluids to obtain certain material properties. A type of heat treating, quenching prevents undesired low-temperature processes, such as phase transformations, from occurring. It does this by reducing the window of time during which these undesired reactions are both thermodynamically favorable, and kinetically accessible; for instance, quenching can reduce the crystal grain size of both metallic and plastic materials, increasing their hardness.


title: Quenching

text: In metallurgy, quenching is most commonly used to harden steel by inducing a martensite transformation, where the steel must be rapidly cooled through its eutectoid point, the temperature at which austenite becomes unstable. In steel alloyed with metals such as nickel and manganese, the eutectoid temperature becomes much lower, but the kinetic barriers to phase transformation remain the same. This allows quenching to start at a lower temperature, making the process much easier. High-speed steel also has added tungsten, which serves to raise kinetic barriers, which among other effects gives material properties (hardness and abrasion resistance) as though the workpiece had been cooled more rapidly than it really has. Even cooling such alloys slowly in air has most of the desired effects of quenching; high-speed steel weakens much less from heat cycling due to high-speed cutting.


title: Quenching

text: Extremely rapid cooling can prevent the formation of all crystal structure, resulting in amorphous metal or "metallic glass".


title: Quenching

text: Quench hardening is a mechanical process in which steel and cast iron alloys are strengthened and hardened. These metals consist of ferrous metals and alloys. This is done by heating the material to a certain temperature, depending on the material. This produces a harder material by either surface hardening or through-hardening varying on the rate at which the material is cooled. The material is then often tempered to reduce the brittleness that may increase from the quench hardening process. Items that may be quenched include gears, shafts, and wear blocks.


title: Quenching

text: Before hardening, cast steels and iron are of a uniform and lamellar (or layered) pearlitic grain structure. This is a mixture of ferrite and cementite formed when steel or cast iron are manufactured and cooled at a slow rate. Pearlite is not an ideal material for many common applications of steel alloys as it is quite soft. By heating pearlite past its eutectoid transition temperature of 727 °C and then rapidly cooling, some of the material's crystal structure can be transformed into a much harder structure known as martensite. Steels with this martensitic structure are often used in applications when the workpiece must be highly resistant to deformation, such as the cutting edge of blades. This is very efficient.


title: Quenching

text: The process of quenching is a progression, beginning with heating the sample. Most materials are heated to between 815 and 900 °C (1,500 to 1,650 °F), with careful attention paid to keeping temperatures throughout the workpiece uniform. Minimizing uneven heating and overheating is key to imparting desired material properties.


title: Quenching

text: The second step in the quenching process is soaking. Workpieces can be soaked in air (air furnace), a liquid bath, or a vacuum. The recommended time allocation in salt or lead baths is up to 6 minutes. Soaking times can range a little higher within a vacuum. As in the heating step, it is important that the temperature throughout the sample remains as uniform as possible during soaking.


title: Quenching

text: Once the workpiece has finished soaking, it moves on to the cooling step. During this step, the part is submerged into some kind of quenching fluid; different quenching fluids can have a significant effect on the final characteristics of a quenched part. Water is one of the most efficient quenching media where maximum hardness is desired, but there is a small chance that it may cause distortion and tiny cracking. When hardness can be sacrificed, mineral oils are often used. These oil-based fluids often oxidize and form a sludge during quenching, which consequently lowers the efficiency of the process. The cooling rate of oil is much less than water. Intermediate rates between water and oil can be obtained with a purpose formulated quenchant, a substance with an inverse solubility which therefore deposits on the object to slow the rate of cooling.


title: Quenching

text: Quenching can also be accomplished using inert gases, such as nitrogen and noble gasses. Nitrogen is commonly used at greater than atmospheric pressure ranging up to 20 bar absolute. Helium is also used because its thermal capacity is greater than nitrogen. Alternatively argon can be used; however, its density requires significantly more energy to move, and its thermal capacity is less than the alternatives. To minimize distortion in the workpiece, long cylindrical workpieces are quenched vertically; flat work pieces are quenched on edge; and thick sections should enter the bath first. To prevent steam bubbles the bath is agitated.


title: Quenching

text: Often, after quenching, an iron or steel alloy will be excessively hard and brittle due to an overabundance of martensite. In these cases, another heat treatment technique known as tempering is performed on the quenched material to increase the toughness of iron-based alloys. Tempering is usually performed after hardening, to reduce some of the excess hardness, and is done by heating the metal to some temperature below the critical point for a certain period of time, then allowing it to cool in still air.


title: Quenching

text: There is evidence of the use of quenching processes by blacksmiths stretching back into the middle of the Iron Age, but little detailed information exists related to the development of these techniques and the procedures employed by early smiths. Although early ironworkers must have swiftly noticed that processes of cooling could affect the strength and brittleness of iron, and it can be claimed that heat-treatment of steel was known in the Old World from the late second millennium BC, it is hard to identify deliberate uses of quenching archaeologically. Moreover, it appears that, at least in Europe, 'quenching and tempering separately do not seem to have become common until the 15th century'; it is therefore helpful to distinguish between 'full quenching' of steel, where the quenching is so rapid that only martensite forms, and 'slack quenching', where the quenching is slower or interrupted, which also allows pearlite to form and results in a less brittle product.


title: Quenching

text: The earliest examples of quenched steel may come from ancient Mesopotamia, with a relatively secure example of a fourth-century BC quench-hardened chisel from Al Mina in Turkey. Book 9, lines 389-94 of Homer's "Odyssey" is widely cited as an early, possibly the first, written reference to quenching:


title: Quenching

text: as when a man who works as a blacksmith plunges a screaming great axe blade or adze into cold water, treating it for temper, since this is the way steel is made strong, even so Cyclops' eye sizzled about the beam of the olive.


title: Quenching

text: However, it is not beyond doubt that the passage describes deliberate quench-hardening, rather than simply cooling. Likewise, there is a prospect that the "Mahabharata" refers to the oil-quenching of iron arrowheads, but the evidence is problematic.


title: Quenching

text: Pliny the Elder addressed the topic of quenchants, distinguishing the water of different rivers. Chapters 18-21 of the twelfth-century "De diversis artis" by Theophilus Presbyter mentions quenching, recommending amongst other things that 'tools are also given a harder tempering in the urine of a small, red-headed boy than in ordinary water'. One of the fuller early discussions of quenching is the first Western printed book on metallurgy, "Von Stahel und Eysen", published in 1532, which is characteristic of late-medieval technical treatises.


title: Quenching

text: Modern scientific study of quenching began to gain real momentum from the seventeenth century, with a major step being the observation-led discussion by Giambattista della Porta in his 1558 "Magia Naturalis".


title: Quenching

text: During this stage, due to the Leidenfrost effect, the object is fully surrounded by vapor which insulates it from the rest of the liquid.


title: Quenching

text: Once the temperature has dropped enough, the vapor layer will destabilize and the liquid will be able to fully contact the object and heat will be removed much more quickly.


Non-voting members of the United States House of Representatives (called either delegates or resident commissioner, in the case of Puerto Rico) are representatives of their territory in the House of Representatives, who do not have a right to vote on proposed legislation in the full House but nevertheless have floor privileges and are able to participate in certain other House functions. Non-voting members may vote in a House committee of which they are a member and introduce legislation.


title: Non-voting members of the United States House of Representatives

text: There are currently six non-voting members: a delegate representing the District of Columbia, a resident commissioner representing Puerto Rico, as well as one delegate for each of the other four permanently inhabited U.S. territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A seventh delegate, representing the Cherokee Nation, has been formally proposed but not yet seated, while an eighth, representing the Choctaw Nation, is named in a treaty but has neither been proposed nor seated. As with voting members, delegates are elected every two years, except the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico who is elected every four years.


text: Non-voting members serve exclusively in the House of Representatives; the Senate has no non-voting members (with the exception of the Vice president of the United States, who may vote only to break ties) and no members representing the territories or the District of Columbia. All delegates serve a term of two years, while resident commissioners serve a term of four years. They receive compensation, benefits, and franking privileges (the ability to send outgoing U.S. mail without a stamp) similar to full House members. Since 1993, the rules governing the rights of a non-voting member have changed three times, and current delegates—along with the resident commissioner—enjoy privileges that they did not have previously.


text: Territorial delegates existed before the ratification of the United States Constitution. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 allowed for territory with "five thousand free male inhabitants of full age" to elect a non-voting delegate to the Continental Congress. After the ratification of the Constitution, the first United States Congress reenacted the Ordinance and extended it to include the territories south of the Ohio River.


text: In 1790, the state of North Carolina—having recently ratified the constitution, becoming the 12th state—sent its congressional delegation to what was then the federal capital at New York City. Among them was former State of Franklin governor John Sevier, whose district (Washington District) comprised the "counties beyond the Alleghenies". He took office June 16, 1790, however, the government of North Carolina had ceded Washington District to the federal government on February 25, 1790, and it was organized as the Southwest Territory on August 7, 1790. He remained a member of the House until March 3, 1791, when he was appointed brigadier general of the militia.


text: On September 3, 1794, James White was elected by the Southwest Territory, which contained the former Washington District, to be their delegate to Congress. A resolution was put forth in the House to admit him to Congress, but as a delegate was not a position stated in the Constitution, the House debated what, if any, privileges White would have. As the Northwest Ordinance had only stated that a delegate is to sit "in Congress" the first debate was which chamber a delegate would sit in. Resolutions that he sit in both chambers and that his right to debate is limited to territorial matters were defeated. Ultimately, the House voted to allow him a non-voting seat in the House.


text: Following his placement, representatives debated whether he should take the oath. Representative James Madison stated "The proper definition of Mr. White is to be found in the Laws and Rules of the Constitution. He is not a member of Congress, therefore, and so cannot be directed to take an oath, unless he chooses to do it voluntarily."


text: As he was not a member, he was not directed to take the oath, though every delegate after him has done so. He was also extended franking privileges, which allowed him to send official mail free of charge, and compensation at the same rate as members.


text: In 1802 Congress passed a law that specifically extended franking privileges and pay to delegates. An act passed in 1817 codified the term and privileges of delegates:


text: [I]n every territory of the United States in which a temporary government has been, or hereafter shall be established...shall have the right to send a delegate to Congress, such delegate shall be elected every second year, for the same term of two years for which members of the House of Representatives of the United States are elected; and in that house, each of the said delegates shall have a seat with a right of debating, but not of voting.


text: From that point on, until August 1959, there was not a single congress without delegates. During the period from 1870 to 1891, there were as many as ten serving at one time. With the admission of Hawaii, and with Puerto Rico sending a Resident Commissioner, the office temporarily went out of existence.


text: Similar to delegates are resident commissioners, who represented the large areas acquired during the Spanish–American War, and for much of the 20th century were considered colonies, not territories and unlike the previously acquired areas which would become the contiguous U.S. or Alaska and Hawaii, did not have residents with the rights of or to U.S. citizenship. Territories can secede from the United States with the consent of Congress,


text: Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, has been represented by a non-voting resident commissioner since 1901. The resident commissioner holds a status similar to that of a delegate within the House, but serves a four-year term. The resident commissioner is the only individual elected to the House who serves for this duration.


text: From 1907 until 1937, while it was a U.S. territory, the Philippines elected two non-voting resident commissioners to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1937 until 1946, while it was a U.S. commonwealth, the Philippines sent one non-voting resident commissioner to the House. Upon independence in 1946, the Philippines ceased to be represented in Congress.


text: In the mid-1960s, a number of small territories that had no prospects of becoming states began to petition for representation in Congress. Starting in 1970, the House of Representatives started to grant representation to these territories, but with limited voting rights.


text: As the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam had delegates in Washington, D.C., the American Samoa-based "Political Status Study Commission" had meetings with the delegates from these two territories. They came home to Pago Pago convinced of the importance of having this representation in the nation's capital. Members of the American Samoa Fono had already been attending budget hearings in Washington for over a decade by 1970. During a special session held in July 1969, Salanoa Aumoeualogo, the President of the American Samoa Senate, introduced Senate Bill 54 to create a delegate at-large to Washington with four-year terms (without congressional rights), which was approved by Governor Owen Aspinall on August 8, 1969. A. U. Fuimaono was elected at the first delegate at-large in 1970 before ending his term to run unsuccessfully for Governor of American Samoa. A. P. Lutali became the territory's second delegate to Washington in 1975. Fofō Sunia was elected in 1978 after Lutali declined to run for reelection. He went to Washington knowing his term would be limited to two years, since a law had passed establishing an official non-voting delegate seat for American Samoa. Sunia was elected as American Samoa's first congressional delegate in 1981.


text: The District of Columbia is technically a federal district—not a territory, commonwealth or insular area. However, from 1871 to 1875, it briefly had a delegate to Congress. This situation did not last long and congressional representation was terminated. The district had no other delegates until 1971, when the House of Representatives agreed to seat Walter E. Fauntroy. He then served in that position between March 23, 1971 and January 3, 1991, when Eleanor Holmes Norton was elected. Norton continues in that position.


text: In 1972, the House agreed to admit Ron de Lugo as a delegate from the United States Virgin Islands, which had been a U.S. territory since 1917 after they were purchased from Denmark under the 1916 Treaty of the Danish West Indies. The current delegate, Stacey Plaskett, became the first nonvoting delegate to serve as an impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.


text: In 1972, the House also agreed to admit Antonio Borja Won Pat as a delegate from Guam, which had been a U.S. territory since 1899 when it was ceded to the United States by Spain under the Treaty of Paris. Won Pat had been serving as the Washington Representative since 1965, an office without congressional rights that lobbied to seek a place in the House.


text: For thirty years, since 1978, citizens of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) elected a resident representative, commonly known as Washington representative, an office without congressional rights that was established to represent the CNMI in Washington and performing related official duties established by CNMI law.


text: In 2008, the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, signed into law by President George W. Bush, replaced the position of Resident Representative with a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives. The election of the first delegate took place in November 2008. It was the only contest on the ballot because CNMI elections traditionally occurred in odd-numbered years. Gregorio Sablan won the election and took office in January 2009.


text: The Cherokee and Choctaw Native American tribes have treaty rights to send delegates to Congress. The right to a non-voting delegate to Congress was promised to the Cherokee by the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785 (affirmed in 1835's Treaty of New Echota) and to the Choctaw under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830, "whenever Congress shall make provision for [a delegate]". Congress has never provided for the appointment of delegates from Indian tribes. The Choctaw tribe has never appointed a delegate to Congress and the Cherokee had not until 2019. However, the Choctaw did send a non-congressional delegate to Washington for most of the 19th century as an ambassador to represent them before the U.S. government, the most noteworthy being Peter Pitchlynn.


text: In addition, the first treaty signed between the United States and a Native American nation, the Treaty of Fort Pitt (1778) with the Lenape ("Delaware Nation"), encouraged them to form a state that would have representation in Congress; however, it is unclear if the treaty would allow a delegate without the formation of a U.S. state.


text: A similar situation actively exists at the state legislature level with the Maine House of Representatives maintaining seats for three non-voting delegates representing the Penobscot (since 1823), the Passamaquoddy (since 1842), and the Maliseet (since 2012). The rights of the tribal delegates has fluctuated over time but appears to have been born from a practice in Massachusetts General Court (Maine was a part of Massachusetts until 1820). Unlike the situation at the federal level, Maine's state-level tribal delegates are established by state law rather than treaties. As of 2015, only the Passamaquoddy seat is filled; the other two Nations have chosen to currently not fill their seats in protest over issues of tribal sovereignty and rights. The Wisconsin Legislature, the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick in Canada, and the New Zealand Parliament were allegedly reviewing Maine's indigenous delegate policy for their own adoption (though New Zealand had already established Māori electorates since 1867).


text: There remain, however, untested questions about the validity of such delegates. If tribal citizens are represented in the House by both a voting member and a non-voting delegate, that might be seen as contrary to the principle of “one person, one vote”. Disagreement on which federally recognized tribes would appoint the relevant delegate could also occur (e.g. the Choctaw delegate might represent only the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, say, or also the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians; similarly with the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians). In 2022, the Congressional Research Service published "Legal and Procedural Issues Related to Seating a Cherokee Nation Delegate in the House of Representatives", addressing these concerns and logistical issues.


text: On August 25, 2019, the Cherokee Nation formally announced its intention to appoint a delegate, nominating Kimberly Teehee, the tribe's vice president of government relations, as its first delegate. According to the process used for other non-voting delegates, the House of Representatives must vote to formally admit Teehee. Some congressional leaders have expressed concerns about Teehee being appointed by a tribal government rather than elected by tribal members; Teehee has contended that, since the Cherokee Nation is a sovereign nation, her appointment as a delegate should be viewed analogous to an ambassadorship. An ambassadorial view of Native delegates is consistent with prior history of Native envoys to Washington and Maine's state-level tribal delegates. Teehee's appointment to the House was not finalized in the 116th Congress and has been reported to have been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teehee remained unseated as of September 2022, when the Cherokee Nation government reiterated their insistence that Congress seat her.


text: The positions of non-voting delegates are now a more or less permanent fixture of the House of Representatives, having been supported by Congressional legislation. However, this legislation stipulates that "...the right to vote in the committee shall be provided by the Rules of the House." Under Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the House establishes its operating rules, which allows a majority of the House to change the powers of delegates. Since the 1970s, delegates have served on Congressional committees with the same powers and privileges as members of Congress, including the right to cast votes, but since 1993 their ability to vote on the floor of the House has changed several times.


text: In 1993, the 103rd Congress approved a rule change that allowed the four delegates and the resident commissioner to vote on the floor of the House, but only in the Committee of the Whole. However, if any measure passed or failed in the Committee of the Whole because of a delegate's vote, a second vote—excluding the delegates—would be taken. In other words, delegates were permitted to vote only if their votes had no effect on a measure's ultimate outcome. This change was denounced by Republicans (all five of the delegates either were Democrats or were allied with the Democrats at the time) as a case of partisanship; the Democrats had lost a dozen House seats in the 1992 elections, and Republicans charged allowing delegates to vote would inflate Democratic vote totals. In 1995, this rule was swiftly reversed by the newly seated Republican majority in the 104th Congress; stripping the delegates, all of whom caucused with the Democrats, of even non-decisive voting privileges. Upon re-gaining control of the House in January 2007, Democrats revived the 1993–1995 status for delegates during both the 110th and 111th Congresses. Republicans again objected, and after taking back control of the House in 2011, revoked the right of delegates to vote in the Committee of the Whole starting during the term of the 112th Congress. In 2019, Democrats took back control of the House and delegates have retained the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole since the 116th United States Congress


text: As of the 117th United States Congress, the six non-voting delegates consist of four Democrats and two Republicans. Jenniffer González, of Puerto Rico, a member of the New Progressive Party in Puerto Rico, belongs nationally to the Republican Party.


title: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

text: "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is an English language nursery rhyme and a popular children's song, often sung in a round. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19236.


title: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

text: Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album "101 Gang Songs" (1961). Crosby also used the song as part of a round with his family during his concert at the London Palladium in 1976. The performance was captured on the album "Bing Crosby Live at the London Palladium".


title: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

text: The most common modern version is often sung as a round for up to four voice parts (). A possible arrangement for SATB is as follows:


title: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

text: The earliest printing of the song is from 1852, when the lyrics were published with similar lyrics to those used today, but with a very different tune. It was reprinted again two years later with the same lyrics and another tune. The modern tune was first recorded with the lyrics in 1881, mentioning Eliphalet Oram Lyte in "The Franklin Square Song Collection" but not making it clear whether he was the composer or adapter.


title: Row, Row, Row Your Boat

text: The nursery rhyme is well known, appearing in several films, e.g. Star Trek V, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and . People often add additional verses, a form of children's street culture, with the intent of either extending the song or (especially in the case of more irreverent versions) to make it funny, parody it, or substitute another sensibility for the perceived innocent one of the original. In "Bean", Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) and Peter MacNicol (David Langley) also used this parody singing in the film. Don Music, a muppet character in "Sesame Street", changed the lyrics to feature a car instead of a boat.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Cuyahoga County ( or ) is a large urban county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. It is situated on the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S.-Canada maritime border. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,264,817, making it the second-most-populous county in the state.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The county seat and largest city is Cleveland. The county is bisected by the Cuyahoga River, after which it was named. "Cuyahoga" is an Iroquoian word meaning "crooked river". Cuyahoga County is the core of the Greater Cleveland Metropolitan Area and of the Cleveland–Akron–Canton combined statistical area.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The land that became Cuyahoga County was previously part of the French colony of Canada (New France), which was ceded in 1763 to Great Britain and renamed Province of Quebec. In the early 1790s, the land became part of the Connecticut Western Reserve in the Northwest Territory, and it was purchased by the Connecticut Land Company in 1795. Cleveland was established one year later by General Moses Cleaveland near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Cuyahoga County was created on June 7, 1807, and organized on May 1, 1810. Cleveland (then known as "Cleaveland") was selected as the county seat in 1809. The county was later reduced in size by the creation of Huron, Lake, and Lorain counties.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: In 1831, former U.S. President James A. Garfield was born in what was at the time Cuyahoga County's Orange Township.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the county has an area of , of which are land and (63%) are water. It is the second-largest county in Ohio by area. A portion of Cuyahoga Valley National Park is in the county's southeastern section.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: As of the 2010 census, 1,280,122 people, 571,457 households, and 319,996 families were residing in the county. The population density was 2,800 people/sq mi (1,081/km). The 621,763 housing units averaged 1,346 per sq mi (520/km). The racial makeup of the county was 63.6% White, 29.7% African American, 0.2% Native American, 2.6% Asian (0.9% Indian, 0.7% Chinese, 0.3% Filipino, 0.2% Korean, 0.2% Vietnamese, 0.1% Japanese), 1.8% from other races, and 2.1% from two or more races. About 4.8% of the population were Hispanics or Latinos of any race (3.1% Puerto Rican, 0.7% Mexican, 0.1% Dominican, 0.1% Guatemalan). Further, 16.5% were of German, 12.8% Irish, 8.8% Italian, 8.1% Polish, 5.9% English, 3.7% Slovak, and 3.1% Hungarian heritage.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Sizable numbers of Russians (1.7%), French, (1.4%), Arabs (1.4%), Ukrainians (1.2%), and Greeks (0.7%) were residing in the county; as their first language, 88.4% spoke English, 3.7% Spanish, and 4.9% some other Indo-European language. In addition, 7.3% of the population were foreign-born (of which 44.4% were born in Europe, 36.3% in Asia, and 12.1% in Latin America).


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Of the 571,457 households, 28.5% had children under 18 living with them, 42.4% were married couples living together, 15.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.9% were not families. About 32.8% of all households consisted of single individuals, and 12.1% consisted of someone living alone who was 65 or older. The average household size was 2.39, and the average family size was 3.06.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The age distribution in the county was as follows: 25.0% under 18, 8.0% between 18 and 24, 29.3% between 25 and 44, 22.2% between 45 and 64, and 15.6% who were 65 or older. The median age was 37 years old. For every 100 females, there were 89.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.2 males.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The median income in the county was $43,603 for a household and $58,631 and for a family. The county’s per capita income was $26,263. About 10.3% of families, 19.4% of those under age 18, and 9.3% of those age 65 or over, and 13.1% of the population as a whole was living below the poverty line.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The Cuyahoga County Council and Executive exercise direct government over unincorporated areas of Cuyahoga County. As of 2012, this consisted of two small areas: Chagrin Falls Township and Olmsted Township.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Cuyahoga County had long been led by a three-member Board of County Commissioners. In July 2008, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents began raiding the offices of Cuyahoga County Commissioners and those of a wide range of cities, towns, and villages across Cuyahoga County. The investigation revealed extensive bribery and corruption across the area, affecting hundreds of millions of dollars in county contracts and business. The investigation led to the arrest of county commissioner Jimmy Dimora; county auditor Frank Russo; MetroHealth vice president John J. Carroll; former Strongsville councilman Patrick Coyne; former Ohio District Courts of Appeals judge Anthony O. Calabrese III; former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Bridget McCafferty; Cuyahoga County Sheriff Gerald McFaul; former Cleveland City Council member Sabra Pierce Scott; Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Steven Terry; and a wide range of attorneys, building inspectors, consultants, contractors, school district employees, and mid and low level county workers.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: On November 3, 2009, county voters overwhelmingly approved the adoption of a new county charter, which replaced the three-commissioner form of county government with an elected county executive and county prosecutor, and an 11-member county council. Each council member represents a single geographic district, with no at-large districts. The elected offices of auditor, clerk of courts, coroner, engineer, recorder, sheriff, and treasurer were abolished. The county executive was given authority to appoint individuals to these offices, which became part of the executive branch of the county. Summit County is the only other Ohio county with this form of government.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: In the November 2, 2010, election, Lakewood Mayor Ed FitzGerald (D) defeated Matt Dolan (R) to become the first Cuyahoga County Executive. The first Cuyahoga County Council was also elected, with Democrats winning eight seats, while Republicans won three.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: On September 25, 2018, Cuyahoga County passed legislation which specifically protects LGBTQ+ people in their anti-discrimination laws. The protections under the bill specify equal access for the LGBTQ+ community to employment, housing, and public accommodations. The County is one of 20 municipalities in Ohio with this specific protection. Alongside the new language, the legislation creates a three-person Commission of Human Rights for Cuyahoga County which would support citizens looking to file a discrimination complaint. This legislation evokes the Ohio Fairness Act, a bill currently stalled in the House and Senate which would amend this anti-discrimination legislation on a state level.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Like many major urban counties, Cuyahoga County is heavily Democratic. Given its New England heritage, diverse population, plus union and labor involvement, the county often provides the Democratic Party with the largest margins in Ohio. In the 19th century, the Western Reserve, which Cleveland is the economic center of "was probably the most intensely antislavery section of the country." It last voted Republican at the presidential level in 1972, when Richard Nixon carried it with a plurality. The last Republican presidential candidate to win an absolute majority was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. However, it has occasionally voted Republican in statewide landslides since then, such as for John Kasich in the 2014 gubernatorial election and for George Voinovich in the 2004 Senate election.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Democratic strength is concentrated in the City of Cleveland and suburbs in eastern Cuyahoga County, such as Shaker Heights and Solon.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Republican strength is concetrated in the southern Cuyahoga County suburbs, such as Strongsville and North Royalton. Suburbs in western Cuyahoga County, such as North Olmsted and Westlake tend to be more moderate.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: In recent elections, formerly Democratic working-class suburbs such as Middleburg Heights and Parma have trended to the GOP, while formerly GOP upscale suburbs such as Bay Village and Chagrin Falls have trended Democratic.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: In 2014, Cuyahoga County ranked 65 out of 88 counties in Ohio for health outcomes. This ranking was based on multiple factors, including: premature death (7,975 years per 100,000 population, of potential life lost), adults who reported having poor or fair health (15%), average number of poor physical-health days reported in a 30-day period (3.3), average number of poor mental-health days reported in a 30-day period (4.1), and the percentage of births with low birth-weight (10.4%). Among these factors, Cuyahoga did worse than the Ohio average in premature death, poor mental-health days, and low birth-weight. Possible explanations as for why Cuyahoga County is lower in health outcomes than the average Ohio county include behavioral factors, access to clinical care, social and economic factors, and environmental factors.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The leading causes of death and disability in Cuyahoga County are chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. The cancer mortality rate for Cuyahoga is 192.7 per 100,000 people, the mortality rate due to heart disease is 204.2 per 100,000 people, and the percentage of adult residents who are obese is 26.2%.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: According to the Fox Chase Cancer Center, a health disparity can be defined as the existence of inequalities that prevent certain members of a population group from benefiting from the same health status as other groups. Cuyahoga County has many health disparities when comparing cities and demographics. The Hough neighborhood of Cleveland and the suburb of Lyndhurst can be compared to illustrate some of the disparities. The communities are both in Cuyahoga County and are less than 10 miles apart. They also have similar populations, but a different racial breakdown according to the 2010 census. The Hough neighborhood's population was 16,359 (96.1% Black or African American and 2.1% White American) and the Lyndhurst's population was 14,001 (6.4% Black or African American and 90.3% White American). A 24-year disparity was seen in life expectancy between the communities. Hough neighborhood residents have a life expectancy of 64 years and residents in Lyndhurst have a life expectancy of 88.5 years. The annual median income in the Hough neighborhood is $13,630 while it is $52,272 in Lyndhurst. Data collected from the Center for Community Solutions indicated from 1990 to 2001, the rate of heart disease for residents of the Hough neighborhood was around four times that of Lyndhurst residents. The Lyndhurst rate of accidental deaths was nine times higher than the Hough neighborhood.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Cuyahoga County receives intercity passenger service by Amtrak by way of Lakefront Station in Cleveland, with destinations such as Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, DC, and many more.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad offers scenic excursion service through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park by way of their Rockside Station in Independence.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Freight rail service is provided by Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad, Cleveland Commercial Railroad, and several other small companies. Norfolk Southern has the largest presence in the county, operating three different lines and several terminal yards.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, also known as RTA, provides public transportation to Cuyahoga County through a combination of conventional bus, rapid-transit bus, and rail transit services, as well as on-demand services. Several other county agencies also serve Cuyahoga County, mostly through downtown Cleveland.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: Greyhound, Barons Bus Lines, and Megabus provide public transportation beyond Cuyahoga County to destinations across the United States.


title: Cuyahoga County, Ohio

text: The Cleveland Metroparks system serves Cuyahoga County. Its 16 reservations provide more than of green space and recreational amenities. The county is home to part of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which extends southward into Summit County.


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: "Electric Avenue" is a song written, recorded and produced by British singer and songwriter Eddy Grant, who released it on his 1982 album "Killer on the Rampage." In the United States, with the help of the MTV video he shot for it, it was one of the biggest hits of 1983. The song refers to Electric Avenue in London, and to the 1981 Brixton riot in the Brixton district of the city.


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: The title of the song refers to Electric Avenue in the south London district of Brixton, the first market street to be lit by electricity. According to Grant he first became aware of the existence of the street during a stint acting at the Black Theatre of Brixton. The area is now known for its high population of Caribbean immigrants. At the beginning of the 1980s, as identified by the Scarman Report, tensions over unemployment, racism and poverty exacerbated by racist policing culminated in the street events now known as the 1981 Brixton riot. Grant, horrified and enraged, wrote and composed a song in response to these events. Shortly after, Grant left the UK to live in Barbados, and his most recent batch of songs was lost during baggage transit. ‘Electric Avenue’ was one of the songs he wrote immediately afterwards to make up for the lost material.


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: Filmed in Barbados, the song's music video helped it to gain popularity in the United States. In the early years of MTV, the network ran music videos almost exclusively by white artists and was criticized by famous musicians, such as David Bowie, for not having black artists on the network. After "Billie Jean" aired and was successful, MTV soon scrambled to get other black artists into their rotation. Once "Electric Avenue" aired, it did not take long for the song to climb up to the No. 2 spot on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: The original B-Side to this song was a non-LP track entitled "Time Warp". The 45 sold more than one million copies in the United States, earning a platinum certification. It was later re-issued with "I Don't Want to Dance" as the flip side.


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: In 2001, Peter Black remixed "Electric Avenue" as the "Ringbang Remix", which was released on 28 May 2001. The single featured and reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart in June 2001, as well as number 16 on the US Dance Chart.


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: Grant initially released it as a single in 1983, and reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. In 1983, CBS decided to launch the single in the U.S., where it spent five weeks at No. 2 on "Billboard" Magazine's Hot 100 charts and hit No. 1 in "Cash Box" Magazine. (It was kept out of the No. 1 spot on "Billboard's" Hot 100 by two different songs: first by "Flashdance... What a Feeling" by Irene Cara and then by that year's song of the summer, "Every Breath You Take" by the Police.) "Electric Avenue" was a hit on two other US charts: On the soul chart it went to No. 18, and on the dance charts, it peaked at No. 6. It was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best R&B Song of 1983, but lost to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean".


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: Grant sued former president Donald Trump and his administration over the use of the song in an advertisement in 2020.


title: Electric Avenue (song)

text: In 1997, Refugee Camp All-Stars covered the song for the original soundtrack of the movie "Money Talks." This cover was titled "Avenues" and featured reggae artist Ky-Mani Marley.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: The Indian agriculture acts of 2020, often termed the Farm Bills, were three acts initiated by the Parliament of India in September 2020. The Lok Sabha approved the bills on 17 September 2020 and the Rajya Sabha on 20 September 2020. The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind, gave his assent on 27 September 2020.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: The laws would have deregulated a system of government-run wholesale markets, allowing farmers to sell directly to food processors, but farmers feared that this would result in the end of government-guaranteed price floors, thereby reducing the prices they would receive for their crops. This inspired protests against the new acts.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: On 12 January 2021, the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the farm laws and appointed a committee to look into farmer grievances related to the farm laws. In a televised address on 19 November 2021, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, announced that his government would repeal the laws in the upcoming parliamentary session in December. On 1 December 2021, the laws were formally repealed. The Supreme Court appointed committee report was made public on 21 March 2022.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: India is self-sufficient in the production of various types of food. Despite this, nutrition and hunger are endemic issues in the country despite the large-scale nation-wide welfare schemes in the area. Farmer suicides, and farmer incomes are also serious challenges that have remained unresolved for decades.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Almost 50% of India's 1.3 billion people rely on agriculture to make a living, though agriculture accounts for less than 20% of India's GDP.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: The Constitution of India, Article 246, has three lists; the state list mentions "agriculture" 6 times, the union list 4 times, and the concurrent list 2 times.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Both the Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian National Congress have had farm reforms as manifesto promises for years.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: In 2017, the central government released a number of model farming acts. The Standing Committee on Agriculture (2018–19), however, noted that several reforms suggested in the model acts had not been implemented by the states. In particular, the Committee found that the laws that regulated Indian agricultural markets (such as those related to agricultural produce market committees or APMCs) were not being implemented fairly and honestly or serving their purpose. Centralization was thought to be reducing competition and (accordingly) participation, with undue commissions, market fees, and monopoly of associations damaging the agricultural sector.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: A committee consisting of seven Chief Ministers was set up in July 2019 to discuss implementation. The committee is yet to submit its report. The centre promulgated three ordinances in the first week of June 2020.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: On 12 January 2021 the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the farm laws. The Supreme Court appointed a committee to look into the grievances related to the farm laws. The committee asked the public for suggestions related to the farm laws by 20 February 2021.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: The Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh state assemblies tabled bills to counter and amend the centers three farm laws.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: On 20 September 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to the bills as a watershed moment in the history of Indian agriculture and stated the bills will "ensure a complete transformation of the agriculture sector" and empower tens of millions of farmers. In the Prime Minister's "Mann ki Baat" radio address on 29 November 2020, he said that "all political parties had been making promises to the farmers but now these promises had been fulfilled."


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Several Union Ministers urged farmers not to have misconceptions about the reforms. Rejecting demands for the inclusion of Minimum Support Price (MSP) as a mandatory provision in the Farm Bills, Narendra Singh Tomar, the Minister of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare said that, while the government was committed to MSP, it was "not a part of the law" earlier and "is not" today.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Modi announced on 19 November 2021 that his government will repeal the three bills once the new session of Parliament started later that month. "I urge the protesting farmers to return home to their families, and let’s start afresh." Modi stated in a televised address.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Gita Gopinath, the Chief Economist of International Monetary Fund, said the "farm bills and labour bills are very important steps in the right direction". She also stressed that the implementation of these laws must be right. In January 2021, 866 academics from several educational institutes signed an open letter, expressing their support for the three farm laws. The signatories were from "DU, JNU, Gorakhpur University, Rajasthan University, Gujarat University and others". In February 2021, the US State Department expressed support for the laws stating that they would improve market efficiency and private investment, while encouraging dialogue between the government and those who oppose the laws.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Kaushik Basu, former chief economist of the World Bank called the new farm bills are "flawed" and "detrimental to farmers". In February 2021, 413 academics from across India and several foreign universities said in a statement that the new farm bills pose a major threat to Indian farming communities and urged the government to abandon it. The signatories to the statement were from Jawaharlal Nehru University, IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras, IISc Bangalore, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata, Delhi University, Panjab University, IIT Bombay, IIM Calcutta, London Film School, University of Johannesburg, University of Oslo, University of Massachusetts, University of Pittsburgh and others.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: The Shetkari Sanghatana, a farmers union in Maharashtra, supported the bills and wanted the market to decide the prices of agricultural commodities. It argued that the minimum support prices have actually weakened farmers, instead of empowering them.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: On 31 December 2020, the Kerala legislative assembly passed a resolution against the farm reforms seeking their withdrawal. It was the fifth state to do so after Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan and Delhi. The West Bengal assembly became the sixth state on 28 January 2021. The Punjab assembly passed another resolution against the central farm laws in the beginning of March 2021. Various opposition parties alleged that the bills were passed "unconstitutionally" in "complete disregard" of parliamentary norms and are anti-farmer and corporate-friendly. The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), a farmers organization, has demanded that the government send the bills to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture and questioned the government's haste to get the bills passed.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: The acts have faced protests from farmers in various parts of India alleging that it will hurt their earnings. The main reasons for opposition is the uncertainty regarding the implementation of the reforms, controversy surrounding the minimum support prices (MSPs) and low bargaining power of the farmers are some of the fears that have led to the opposition to the bills. Lack of statutory support in the bills for the MSP is a major point of concern, especially for farmers from Punjab and Haryana, where 65% of wheat (2019) is procured at MSP by the Food Corporation of India and state agencies. The protesters pointed out that the deregulation of the sugar industry in 1998, which paved the way for private establishments, did not result in a significant improvement in farmers' productivity or incomes. A state-led attempt in Bihar to deregulate the APMCs in 2006 has not resulted in an increase in farmers' income or improved infrastructure.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Several farmers' outfits announced an intensified agitation against the acts and called for a "Bharat bandh" on 25 September 2020. This was supported by as many as 10 central trade unions and 18 political parties. Since the proposal of these laws, different protests have been held in different states of India. These protests are the first large-scale farmer protests since the Narendra Modi government came into power in 2014. On 26 November 2020, farmers from Haryana were stopped from entering Delhi by Haryana police. At the border near Ambala, protesters were struck with water cannons and tear gas shells by the police forces; protestors threw stones and tossed police barricades into the river. In response, the police used water cannons. Media have reported that trenches were dug by the police on certain routes into Delhi; the Haryana government dug the National Highway connecting Haryana and Delhi. Sand-filled trucks and bulldozers were also placed on the path of the march to Delhi. Earlier, the house of Haryana's Chief Minister was blocked by farmers.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Farmer leader and Bharatiya Kisan Union chief Rakesh Tikait were the biggest faces of the ongoing movement against agricultural laws. An attempt was made to take administrative action on the farmers agitating under the leadership of Rakesh Tikait on the Ghazipur border of Delhi, but Rakesh Tikait did not budge with his intentions and during this time pictures and videos of 'tears' in his eyes appeared in the media. And it gave a new 'edge' to this movement of farmers.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: On the occasion of Gurupurab on 19 November 2021, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, announced that his government would repeal the three acts during the upcoming winter session of Parliament in December. In a televised address, Modi lamented his government's inability to convince farmers of the law's advantages, saying:


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: Experts and poll watchers suggested that the forthcoming state elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh in 2022 had an effect on Modi's decision. On 29 November 2021, the Indian parliament passed the bill to repeal farm laws in the country. The bill was passed without a debate in both the lower house i.e. Lok Sabha and the upper house i.e. Rajya Sabha, despite several demands of it. The farm laws repeal bill was passed within four minutes of being tabled in the Lok Sabha. It was tabled at 12:06 pm and passed by 12:10 pm, while the opposition demanded a discussion.


title: 2020 Indian agriculture acts

text: The national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, Rakesh Tikait, stated the protests would only cease once the laws were repealed, and if a Minimum Support Price guarantee law is passed through the Parliament, by the will of the government and also to form a committee for the purpose of direct communication for other farm interests of farmers with the Government of India and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare.


title: Mad (TV series)

text: Mad (stylized as MAD) is an American animated sketch comedy television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The series was based on "Mad" magazine, where each episode is a collection of short animated parodies of television shows, films, video games, celebrities, and other media, using various types of animation (CGI, claymation, stop-motion, photoshopped imagery, etc.) instead of the usual animation style that Warner Bros. Animation is known for. The series premiered on the evening of September 6, 2010 on Cartoon Network at 8:30 P.M. right after the series premiere of "Regular Show". The series ended its three-year run on December 2, 2013.


title: Mad (TV series)

text: Series developer Kevin Shinick worked as a writer, producer, and voice actor on Adult Swim's "Robot Chicken", and many people cite "Mad" as a "kid-friendly version of "Robot Chicken"".


title: Mad (TV series)

text: Outstanding Short Format Animated Program for "Kitchen Nightmares Before Christmas / How I Met Your Mummy" (Nominated)


title: Mad (TV series)

text: The DVD "Mad – Season 1, Part 1" was released on September 20, 2011, with a matted 1.33:1 picture and an English stereo track. The extras on the DVD are trailers for "Young Justice", the 2011 "ThunderCats", and "The Looney Tunes Show". The rest of the first season was released on January 17, 2012.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Ragini MMS 2 is a 2014 Indian erotic horror thriller film directed by Bhushan Patel and co-produced by Jayasinh Gupta and Sunil Maurya Pradhaan under Balaji Motion Pictures and ALT Entertainment. The movie is the sequel to the 2011 horror movie "Ragini MMS". "Ragini MMS 2" features Sunny Leone and Saahil Prem in lead roles in a continuation of the plot from the prequel. Unlike the first film, the movie is not shot in a found footage format. The film received an A certificate.The film was a major commercial success, being declared a hit at the box office, and catapulted Sunny into the general public conscious in India as a mainstream actress.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: The film begins where the previous film ended. Ragini since that incident has been at Thane Mental Asylum and even there she has been disturbed by the ghost of that house where she went. Meanwhile, Ragini's MMS tape has gone viral - along with rumours of the house's haunted nature, where the MMS was filmed. This catches the attention of a sleazy director, Rocks (Parvin Dabas) who decides to make a movie on the haunting. He signs an ex-porn star, Sunny Leone (Sunny Leone) as the lead actress and decides to shoot the movie in the same house where the MMS was recorded.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Sunny, who takes an instant liking to the script, seeks permission to meet the real Ragini (Kainaz Motivala), (who is now in a mental asylum), to get a better in-depth look of the character she wants to portray. But the meeting goes horribly wrong when Ragini stabs herself brutally in the neck.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Later, the cast and crew arrive at the haunted house to shoot and strange things begin to happen, especially to Sunny. Elsewhere, Dr. Meera Dutta (Divya Dutta), a psychiatrist who specialises in cases for which science has no answers, takes up Ragini's case. After going through old news paper clipping and video tapes of Ragini, she finds the truth regarding the haunting.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: She finds out that the ghost haunting the house, in life was a married woman with two daughters and a son. She loved her son more than her daughters since she had conceived him after much difficulty and praying. One day, the boy and his two sisters were playing hide and seek when the boy slipped into a well and drowned. This drove his mother insane and caused her to embark on a desperate quest to resurrect him from the dead. A Baba who claimed to perform black magic arrived and convinced her the only way to bring her son back was to sacrifice both of her daughters. The insane mother agreed and the Baba chopped off the daughters' heads. He put the sword in her hands, told her to close her eyes, and chant. While she did that he stole all of her money and ran. When the villagers finally arrived, they assumed that the mother was practising witchcraft and punished her by hanging her from a tree, stoning her, and burning her alive. The woman survived, finally dropped from the tree, and after cursing them all, killed herself by stabbing herself in the neck with the rattle-toy her son used to play with.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Dr. Dutta then rushes to the shooting location to inform the cast and crew to abandon their shooting and leave the house immediately. But it is too late as the ghost has already possessed Sunny and started killing the film's cast and crew by either luring them into having sex or killing them by catching them off guard. Only the scriptwriter Satya (Saahil Prem) and actress Monali (Sandhya Mridul) are left alive.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: As Dr. Dutta, Monali and Satya attempt to drive the ghost out of Sunny, Monali gets killed. Afterwards, when Satya accidentally steps on the rattle toy with which the woman committed suicide prior to becoming a ghost, it causes Sunny temporary pain, and thereby forces the ghost to temporarily leave Sunny. Dr. Dutta realises the toy's importance and urges Satya to destroy it. Eventually the ghost is destroyed along with the rattle. And Sunny, Satya and Dr. Dutta leave the house, having exorcised the ghost and solving the mystery behind the haunting. At the end of the movie a rocking chair is shown rocking back and forth and a child's voice is heard, signifying that there is still a ghost in the house.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Sunny Leone, who plays female lead in "Ragini MMS 2", says this movie is more commercial in nature than its prequel.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Director Bhushan Patel says that there is a lot more sex, scares and a lot of glamour with the songs. The movie was scheduled to be released in the month of October 2013. However, Balaji Motion Pictures officially confirmed the release date, scheduled to be on 17 January 2014. The release date of the film was further postponed to 21 March 2014.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: The soundtrack of "Ragini MMS 2" is composed by Meet Bros Anjjan, Yo Yo Honey Singh, Pranay Rijia & Chirantan Bhatt.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: The first song "Baby Doll" featuring Sunny Leone was released on YouTube receiving great response and went on to be a chartbuster. The song's video is heavily inspired by the track "Dance Again" by Jennifer Lopez from the album "Dance Again... The Hits". The second song "Chaar Botal Vodka" featuring Sunny Leone along with Honey Singh was also a great success receiving more than 5 million views in 5 days.


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Madhureeta Mukherjee of the Times of India rated the movie 3.5 out 5 and said, "The film provides the usual creepy cliches – creaking windows, ghostly shadows and bedraggled ghosts. There are a few spooky moments, but fewer leap-out-of-your-seat scenes. Sunny looks deathly desirable and plays the sexed-up baby doll with abandon. While her 'act' is good, her 'performance' doesn't really climax. Yet, she gives us a 'drool-worthy' adult-horror film – one of its kind for Bollywood."


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Mohar Basu of Koimoi rated the movie 3 out 5 concluding, "Ragini MMS 2 is quite a pleasant surprise. It is not everyday that you begin your morning watching a Sunny Leone film, where she actually manages to bewilder you something close to a performance. Interestingly threaded with ample hair raising minutes, the film's ability to seem unrelentingly real is what makes it an entertaining watch. Not worth an Oscar but worth spending your popcorn over this weekend for sure."


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express rated the movie 2.5 out 5 stating, "Despite its harum-scarum script and barely-there logic, I quite enjoyed 'Ragini MMS 2' in the portions when Sunny Leone is in full stride.Where it falters is in the lack of novelty in the scenes that feature the spirit, and its bloody trail: there are a couple of scenes that send a shiver down your spine, but then it all becomes familiar. A little more attention to that, and to the storyline, and this will become a solid franchise."


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: Namita Karkera of "Rediff.com" gave the film a score of 1.5 out of 5 noting, "Sunny Leone looks hot alright but with scary scenes being average at best, Ragini MMS 2 isn't half as scary as it is supposed to be. At best, the film seems like a spoof. The second half of the movie however fares better. Overall the movie still manages to scare at some shots, make us laugh and enjoy Sunny Leone in her skimpy outfits."


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: "Ragini MMS 2" had a very strong opening day with the film collecting 80 million despite competition from T20 World Cup but some how managed an opening weekend of 240 million. Despite the strong opening and Good reviews as an adult film the movie unfortunately buffered in its 2nd week and collected hardly 65 million. The film continued with a rapid rise and fall in its 3rd week by collecting almost 70 million and a total of about 470 million from the three weeks


title: Ragini MMS 2

text: The movie was not launched in Pakistan because the authorities there believed that it violated the viewership laws of Pakistan as it contained a lot of adult content. The ban had the potential to impact the film's revenue as box-office take from Pakistan (which can make up to 8% of the average movie's earnings) was restricted as a result.


title: Utkarsh Sharma

text: Utkarsh Sharma (born 22 May 1994) is an Indian actor. The son of director Anil Sharma, he made his first screen appearance as a child in the 2001 Blockbuster film "", which starred Sunny Deol and Ameesha Patel. As an adult and lead actor, he made his debut with action thriller film "Genius".


title: Utkarsh Sharma

text: Utkarsh Sharma is the son of Bollywood director Anil Sharma, who is well known for his movie "". He has studied Bachelors of Fine Arts in Production and Direction from Chapman University USA, and Method Non Acting from Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. After working as Charanjeet in , Utkarsh is playing a lead role in the movie Genius (2018 film), an Indian action thriller with co-star Ishitha Chauhan. Utkarsh character in the movie Genius (2018 film) is an orphan from Mathura and Vrindavan area in Uttar Pradesh, who lives with priests. He is into Bhagavad Gita and science so has his own unique philosophy. The movie Genius (2018 film) is set to release on 24 August 2018, directed by Anil Sharma and produced by Soham Rockstar Entertainment. The movie also stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui along with veteran Mithun Chakraborty.


title: Alt-tech

text: Alt-tech are social media platforms and Internet service providers that have become popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extreme or fringe opinions, in the belief that these alternatives moderate content less stringently than mainstream internet service providers.


title: Alt-tech

text: The term has been used to both describe platforms created specifically to cater to extremist users with similar functionality to mainstream alternatives, as well as more broadly for mainstream platforms that have less stringent content moderation policies, attracting users who were banned or restricted from other mainstream services. In the 2010s and 2020s, some conservatives banned from other social media platforms, and their supporters, began to post and view content on alt-tech platforms. Several alt-tech platforms describe themselves as protectors of free speech and individual liberty, which some researchers and journalists have described as a cover for far-right userbases and antisemitism on such platforms.


title: Alt-tech

text: Alt-tech websites were first described as such in the 2010s. They have seen an increase in popularity in the later part of that decade, as well as the early 2020s. This has been attributed, in part, to "deplatforming", bans, and restrictions of activity imposed by companies such as Facebook and Twitter, sometimes described pejoratively as "Big Tech". One prominent example is right-wing groups' claims that these companies censor their views.


title: Alt-tech

text: After the Unite the Right rally in August 2017, Internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter were criticized for failing to adhere to their own terms of service, and reacted with policies aimed toward deplatforming white supremacists. Hope not Hate researcher Joe Mulhall identified the deplatforming of Britain First in 2018, and Tommy Robinson in 2019, as two major events that spurred British social media users to join alternative platforms. Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci further referenced the August 2018 deplatforming of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as a pivotal moment.


title: Alt-tech

text: In October 2018, alt-tech platform Gab received extensive public scrutiny following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, after it was found that the sole suspect of the attack, Robert Gregory Bowers, had posted a message on Gab indicating an immediate intent to cause harm before the shooting. Bowers had a history of making extreme, antisemitic postings on the site. After the shooting, Gab briefly went offline when it was dropped by its hosting provider and denied service by several payment processors.


title: Alt-tech

text: The popularity of alt-tech platforms surged in January 2021, when United States president Donald Trump, and many of his prominent followers, were suspended from Twitter and other platforms. Parler, a website with a large proportion of Trump supporters among its userbase, was taken offline when Amazon Web Services suspended their hosting several days after the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol. It was restarted with a new host on February 15, 2021.


title: Alt-tech

text: In July 2021, an example of alt-tech hardware was announced as the "Freedom Phone"—a smartphone that promoted privacy-oriented features and an "uncensorable" app store. It was found that the device was merely a white-label version of a Chinese smartphone produced by Umidigi, with a modified Android firmware pre-loaded with apps popular among the target audience, and a rebranded version of an open source client for Google Play Store (rather than the independent app store implied in its promotional materials).


title: Alt-tech

text: By 2022, "The New York Times" and "The Guardian" described a crowded marketplace of alt-tech platforms. "The Times" noted that alt-tech platforms claiming censorship by Twitter, such as Gettr, Parler, and Rumble have mostly advertised themselves on Twitter.


title: Alt-tech

text: In February 2022, Trump launched a Twitter alternative, Truth Social, after establishing a messaging platform outside of Twitter, such as a cancelled Trump blog. During development, Truth Social did not at first acknowledge using Mastodon's open source code, and was given an ultimatum by Mastodon, quietly admitting to the use of Mastodon code later on. Truth Social's launch was accompanied by substantial technical difficulties. The platform's terms of service include an incongruous clause that users may not "disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site." According to a report from consumer rights group Public Citizen, alt tech platforms with a supposed focus on free speech include the censorship of some liberal and conservative viewpoints, as well as the routine content moderation on other platforms, creating an "echo chamber". Based on the report. Truth Social was found to shadowban users that disagree with the site's narrative as well as a swathe of other content including some conservative content. "Truth Social" has banned content mentioning liberal views on abortion and the Congressional hearings on the January 6th Capitol attack.


title: Alt-tech

text: Deen Freelon and colleagues, publishing in "Science" in September 2020, wrote that some alt-tech websites are specifically dedicated to serving right-wing communities, naming 4chan (founded in 2003), 8chan (2013), Gab (2016), BitChute (2017) and Parler (2018) as examples. They noted that others were more ideologically neutral, such as Discord and Telegram. Discord later worked to remove right-wing extremists from its userbase, and became a more mainstream platform. Joe Mulhall, a senior researcher for the UK anti-racism organization Hope Not Hate, also distinguishes groups of alt-tech platforms: he says that some of them, such as DLive and Telegram, are "co-opted platforms" which have become widely popular among the far-right because of their minimal moderation; others including BitChute, Gab, and Parler are "bespoke platforms" which were created by people who themselves have "far-right leanings". Ethan Zuckerman and Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, in contrast, described alt-tech services in explicitly political terms in an article for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University:


title: Alt-tech

text: Researchers have also found that alt-tech platforms can also be used by far-right extremists for mobilization and recruitment purposes, which is more dangerous than just spreading their viewpoints.


title: The cake is a lie

text: "The cake is a lie" is a catchphrase from the 2007 video game "Portal". Initially left behind as graffiti by Doug Rattman to warn that GLaDOS, the game's main villain, was deceiving the player, it was intended to be a minor reference and esoteric joke by the game's development team that implied the player would never receive their promised reward. It became unexpectedly popular among "Portal" players, and has since become a widely distributed Internet meme where the phrase is co-opted and becomes associated with new meanings outside of the original context of the game.


title: The cake is a lie

text: The original context of "The cake is a lie" was to convey the message that a reward is being used to motivate Chell, the player character of "Portal", without any intent of delivering. Early use of the phrase among "Portal" fans indicated a wry state of knowing; it represented a shared experience, and a way to flag down false sources of motivation.


title: The cake is a lie

text: The phrase eventually became far removed from its original context and purchase through repeated use in Internet culture. For example, the phrase has been used as an idiom to refer to the pursuit of an empty, unattainable goal, or as a reference point in discussing protests about the flaws of the British education system's algorithm by a research academic. "The cake is a lie" is also used to refer to actual cakes, whether as fan art which references "Portal", or as a literal descriptor of cakes which are designed as lifelike replicas of people and objects.


title: The cake is a lie

text: The phrase first appears in the 2007 video game "Portal". It can be found scribbled in an unhinged manner within hidden cubby-holes throughout the test chambers that players must complete, with the phrase written multiple times by the last surviving scientist of Aperture Science neurotoxin incident, Doug Rattman. It is in reference to the fact that an AI entity that guides Chell through the chambers, GLaDOS, promises cake as a reward if she accomplishes all of the test chambers. However, GLaDOS turns out to be duplicitous, and Rattman left the message as a warning. The cake is referred to in lyrics of the song featured in the game's closing credits, "Still Alive".


title: The cake is a lie

text: "Portal" writers Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek developed the phrase as a plot device, "a thematic anchor that offers a chuckle or two in its setup, reveal, and post-credits wink" with no consideration given for its potential to become a viral phenomenon, as Wolpaw and Faliszek had anticipated that an innocuous hoop that falls from the sky after the player character escapes the exploding facility would catch on with fans instead. The idea of using cake as the proposed reward came about at the beginning of the "Portal" development process, where the writers convened as a group to determine which philosopher or school of philosophy their game would be based on. A consensus was reached when a team member suggested that a lot of people like cake. The cake element, along with additional messages given to the player in the behind-the-scenes areas, were written and drawn by Kim Swift. Swift was inspired by a version of the Black Forest cake offered by the Regent Bakery and Café in Redmond, Washington, which is located near the previous offices of Valve Corporation, the developer and publisher of "Portal".


title: The cake is a lie

text: "The cake is a lie" became frequently quoted on numerous message board forums and blogs across the Internet. Don Caldwell, managing editor at the website "Know Your Meme", said catchphrase memes like "the cake is a lie" are easily spread across the Internet and have a very low barrier to entry for participation in their proliferation.


title: The cake is a lie

text: Interest in the phrase waned in early 2009 before it experienced a revival in popularity on July 6 of the same year, which Caldwell attributed to an "xkcd" comic referencing the phrase. Tyler Wilde from "GamesRadar" noted that "The cake is a lie" became one of the most repeated video game quotes by the year 2009. Stephen Totillo, who was an editor at MTV.com in 2008, attributed part of "Portal"s widespread acclaim to the phrase, along with its theme song, "Still Alive", and the Weighted Companion Cube. James Davenport from "PC Gamer" formed the view that a pivotal contributing factor to the meme's popularity was due to the year it debuted in, 2007, "in which some of the most legendary memes gained notoriety and cemented themselves near the head of the wacky, inexplicable semiotics parade". Amanda Brennan agreed and suggest that 2007 marked a point where internet culture transcended from niche forums such as 4chan and entered into "its own ecosystem", attaining mainstream appeal in the process.


title: The cake is a lie

text: Usage of the phrase in popular culture experienced a resurgence in the year 2020 in response to the spread on social media of another cake-based meme, where it is used as a literal description of a hyper-realistic cake being made to look like something else.


title: The cake is a lie

text: The meme has been referenced in fan films, as well as discussions about other video games by video game journalists or as an Easter egg within the game itself. Examples include "'Splosion Man", "", "World of Warcraft", and "".


title: The cake is a lie

text: The phrase has also been encountered in other contexts. It was featured on a sticker posted at an anti-Scientology demonstration in front of the London Scientology Office in March 2008. A KJRH-TV story which focused on Sooner Paranormal of Oklahoma, a group dedicated to "paranormal investigations and research", depicted a group member walking through a supposedly haunted building and discovering the phrase scrawled on a chalkboard, with the implication that the scrawling had paranormal or unusual origins.


title: The cake is a lie

text: References to the "Portal" cake has been used in various forms of merchandising, both official and unofficial. The phrase has also been frequently used as references in Internet culture about actual cakes since the release of "Portal".