Early life.

William John Simmons III was born on September 25, 1969, to William Simmons and Jan Corbo. His father was a school administrator, and his stepmother, Molly Clark, is a doctor. Simmons was an only child and grew up in Marlborough and Brookline, Massachusetts, before moving to Stamford, Connecticut, to live with his mother after his parents divorced when he was 13. He attended the Greenwich Country Day School and then Brunswick School in Greenwich, Connecticut, for high school. In 1988, he completed a postgraduate year at Choate Rosemary Hall, a prep school located in Wallingford, Connecticut. As a child Simmons read David Halberstam's book "The Breaks of the Game", which he credited as the single most formative development in his sportswriting career.  While attending the College of the Holy Cross Simmons wrote a column for the school paper, "The Crusader", called "Ramblings" and later served as the paper's Sports editor. He also restarted the school's parody newspaper and started a 12-14-page, underground, handwritten magazine about the people in his freshman hall called "The Velvet Edge." He graduated in 1992 with a B.A. in Political Science (his primary focus was the Middle East, which he often cites in his columns by way of saying his sportswriting career has nothing to do with his degree) and a GPA of 3.04. Subsequently, while living in Brookline, Massachusetts, he studied at Boston University where he received his master's degree in print journalism two years later.

Career.

Origins.

For eight years following grad school, Simmons lived in Charlestown working various jobs before eventually landing a job at ESPN. The September after grad school, Simmons started working at the "Boston Herald" as a high school sports reporter and editorial assistant, mainly "answering phones... organizing food runs, [and] working on the Sunday football scores section." Three years later he got a job as a freelancer for "Boston Phoenix" but was broke within three months and started bartending. In 1997, unable to get a newspaper job, Simmons "badgered" "Digital City Boston" of AOL into giving him a column, and he started the web site "BostonSportsGuy.com" while working as a bartender and waiter at night. He decided to call his column "Sports Guy" since the site had a "Movie Guy."  Originally the column was only available on AOL, and Simmons forwarded the column to his friends. He began receiving e-mails from people asking if they could be put on his mailing list. For the first 18 months, Simmons would send it to about 100 people, until it became available on the web in November 1998. The website quickly built up a reputation as many of Simmons' friends from high school and college were e-mailing it to each other. In 2001, his website averaged 10,000 readers and 45,000 hits per day.

"Jimmy Kimmel Live!".

In the summer of 2002, Jimmy Kimmel had been trying to get Simmons to write for his new late-night talk show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" which was to premiere after the Super Bowl. Simmons refused for most of the summer because he did not want to cut back on his columns and move to the West Coast away from his family and Boston teams. Kimmel kept on "badgering" him and by mid-September Kimmel had him "on the ropes." It was crucial for Simmons that he could write for the show and on ESPN.com and in "ESPN The Magazine", which was possible because of the Disney connection with ESPN and ABC. He has also stated that he joined the show because he was burned out from his column, felt he needed a change, and always wanted to write for a talk show.  Simmons left Boston and moved to California on November 16, 2002 and began working in April 2003 as a comedy writer for the show. Simmons called it "the best move I ever made" and said it was one of the best experiences of his life. He left the show in the spring of 2004 after a year and a half of writing for the show. He wanted to focus full-time on his column, since his writing was starting to slip and he did not have enough time to work on columns or even think about them. Simmons remained in California.

ESPN.

Simmons gained fame as "The Boston Sports Guy" which earned him a job offer from ESPN in 2001 to write three guest columns. His second column was "Is Clemens the Antichrist?" which became one of the most e-mailed articles on the site that year. Becoming one of the most popular columnists on the site, Simmons was given his own section of ESPN.com's Page 2, which helped both himself and Page 2 gain widespread popularity. In the first sixteen months which Simmons wrote for Page 2 the viewership doubled. In late 2004 ESPN launched an online cartoon based on his columns which Simmons later called a "debacle" and decided to stop. Simmons wrote a column per month for his page titled "Sports Guy's World."  As a lead columnist, Simmons is one of the country's most widely read sports writers and is considered a pioneer of sportswriting on the Internet. His readership has steadily grown since he started at ESPN.com in 2001. In 2005, according to ESPN, Simmons' column averaged 500,000 unique visitors a month. According to comScore, Simmons' column had averaged 1.4 million pageviews and 460,000 unique visitors a month over the previous six months in November 2009.  In 2007, Simmons and Connor Schell conceived the idea for "30 for 30", a series of 30 documentaries commemorating the 30th year of the "ESPN era." Simmons and Schell took special interest to "stories that resonated at the time but were eventually forgotten for whatever reason." The series premiered on October 6, 2009, with "King's Ransom" directed by Peter Berg. Simmons served as executive producer on the project until he left ESPN in 2015.  On May 8, 2007, Simmons began a podcast for ESPN.com called "Eye of the Sportsguy". On June 14, 2007, the podcast was changed to "The B.S. Report" with a new theme song written by Ronald Jenkees. Simmons creates one or two hourlong podcasts a week, generally carrying one theme throughout, talking to everyone from sports and media notables to his friends. "The B.S. Report" is regularly the most downloaded podcast on ESPN.com averaging 2 million downloads a month. In 2009, "The B.S. Report" was downloaded more than 25.4 million times.  Simmons began writing a bi-weekly 800-word column for "ESPN The Magazine" in 2002 but convinced ESPN after three years to give him 1,200 words. On July 27, 2009, Simmons announced his retirement from the magazine but continued to write for the Page 2 website.  In October 2007, it was announced that Simmons joined the television series "" as a special contributor. In May 2010, it was reported that Simmons and ESPN came to an agreement on a new contract, although no official announcement was made on the terms.  Since 2009, Simmons has also been a moderator and panelist at the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Starting in the 2012-2013 NBA season, Simmons joined the "NBA Countdown" pregame show as a panelist/contributor during ESPN/ABC's coverage of the NBA. He left the show prior to the 2014–2015 season.  ESPN announced on May 8, 2015, that Simmons' contract, which was due to expire in September 2015, would not be renewed.

"Grantland".

Simmons served as the editor-in-chief of Grantland, a website owned by ESPN covering sports and pop culture that launched on June 8, 2011. The website's name was a reference to deceased sportswriter Grantland Rice, though it was reportedly not Simmons' choice for the name. Sports blog Deadspin had previously reported in 2010 that Simmons was working on a "top secret editorial project." Some key contributors to the website included Jalen Rose, Zach Lowe, Kirk Goldsberry and Wesley Morris. In August 2014, ESPN announced that Simmons would be leaving NBA Countdown in order to produce an 18 episode primetime show for ESPN through his site called The Grantland Basketball Show-later changed to The Grantland Basketball Hour-which would debut on October 21, 2014. In these episodes, Simmons discussed NBA-related current events as well as some of his more popular sports columns with his co-host Jalen Rose. Special guests included fellow journalists, pop culture celebrities, as well as current and former coaches and athletes. Months after it decided not to renew its contract with Simmons, ESPN shut down the Grantland website on October 30, 2015.

HBO.

On July 22, 2015, Simmons announced he had signed a new multi-platform deal with HBO starting in October 2015. As part of this deal, he would host a weekly talk show, "Any Given Wednesday". The show premiered on June 22, 2016. It was cancelled in November 2016. Simmons's multimedia deal with the network continued, and he announced there were plans for future projects at HBO. A documentary on André the Giant was co-produced by HBO Sports, the WWE and the Bill Simmons Media Group, with Jason Hehir directing. The documentary aired on HBO on April 10, 2018.  In late July 2018 it was revealed that HBO decided to renew Simmons's contract to remain with the network moving forward.

"The Ringer".

Simmons announced the launch of his new website, The Ringer, on February 17, 2016. The site was to be run as part of his venture, the Bill Simmons Media Group, that was launched in the Fall of 2015. The media group includes several podcasts focusing on different aspects of sports, pop culture, and technology today, and features writers on The Ringer website as hosts of these podcasts. The website also hired a number of staffers who formerly worked with Simmons at Grantland. The Ringer went live on June 1, 2016.  On May 30, 2017, Vox Media announced that it had entered into a deal to provide advertising sales and access to its publishing platform as part of a revenue sharing agreement. Simmons retained editorial control of the website. On February 5, 2020, Simmons announced that Spotify was buying "The Ringer" with Daniel Ek describing "The Ringer" as "the new ESPN." Simmons stated that "The Ringer" will maintain content and editorial independence.  At The Ringer, Simmons serves as CEO, writing less than during his previous endeavors. He hosts "The Bill Simmons Podcast" which regularly rotates through conversations and interviews with Hollywood personalities, professional athletes, other media pundits, old friends, and family. Regulars include his college roommate Joe House, Sal Iacono, Ryen Russillo, Chuck Klosterman, David Chang, and Simmons' father.

Writing.

On October 1, 2005, Simmons released his first "New York Times" best-selling book, "Now I Can Die in Peace". The book is a collection of his columns, with minor changes and lengthy footnotes, leading up to the 2004 World Series victory by the Boston Red Sox. The book spent five weeks on "The New York Times" extended best-seller list.  In July 2008, Simmons announced that he would be taking 10 weeks off from writing columns for ESPN.com's Page 2 to concentrate on finishing his second book, "", which was released on October 27, 2009. The book tries to find out who really are the best players and teams of all time and the answers to some of the greatest "What ifs?" in NBA history. It debuted at the top of "The New York Times" Best Seller list for non-fiction books.

Style.

When Simmons first started his website, he wrote what he thought friends would enjoy reading because he never understood how people could be sportswriters while claiming they did not care which team won, in the name of journalistic objectivity. Since Simmons was writing on the web he figured that "in order to get people to read it, it had to be different from what people got in newspapers and magazines." He claims that he believed his job was not to get into the heads of the players, but into the heads of his readers, and to do so by updating frequently and being provocative, and get a discussion going with his readers. Simmons has stated that he "...will never write a traditional sports column."  With his column, Simmons aims to speak for, reconnect sportswriting with, and reproduce the experience for the average fan. Simmons' writing in his columns is characterized by mixing sports knowledge, references to pop culture including movies and television shows, his non-sports-related personal life, his many fantasy sports teams, video games, and references to adult video. His columns often mention trips to Las Vegas or other gambling venues with his friends, including blackjack and sports gambling.  In 2007, he was named the 12th-most influential person in online sports by the "Sports Business Journal", the highest position on the list for a non-executive.

Controversy.

A frequent column target for Simmons in the past has been former New York Knicks coach and general manager Isiah Thomas. This led to Thomas threatening Simmons on Stephen A. Smith's radio show in early 2006, saying that there would be "trouble" if they ever met in the street. Upon a meeting in Las Vegas, they both decided they were entertainers at heart. Simmons and Red Sox announcer Jerry Remy feuded over the presidency of Red Sox Nation. The Red Sox asked Simmons to run for the ceremonial position and he accepted. In a candidate's memo, Simmons remarked that he was a better choice than Remy because he is not a smoker. Remy criticized Simmons for about five minutes during the July 16, 2007 NESN broadcast of a Red Sox - Royals game. Simmons later removed himself from consideration and Remy was named president.

Conflicts with ESPN.

Simmons has, at times, had a tense and public battle with ESPN about creative freedom and censorship. In May 2008, Simmons was embroiled in a dispute with management at ESPN.com. When asked by the editors of Deadspin why he had not written a new column in over two weeks, he said that he was writing less because he loved writing his column and believed that he and ESPN had come to an agreement "on creative lines, media criticism rules, the promotion of the column and everything else on ESPN.com" but within a few months all of those things changed.  A month before the feud erupted, Simmons was scheduled to interview then-senator Barack Obama for a podcast. Obama was still running against then-senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination at the time. ESPN nixed the interview, saying that they would only allow its reporters and columnists to interview a presidential candidate once the nomination had been finalized.  In November 2008, according to Deadspin, Simmons had quit the "B.S. Report" due to the content being edited out of them. The controversy revolved around the entry of pornstar Christian into an ESPN fantasy basketball league. Simmons was upset that his explanation of ESPN's refusal to allow him into the league was edited out of a podcast. On November 25, 2008, Simmons returned to recording his "B.S. Report" podcast with a disclaimer, which said "The "BS Report" is a free flowing conversation that occasionally touches on mature subjects."  In late 2009, Simmons was punished by ESPN for writing tweets critical of Boston sports radio station WEEI's "The Big Show". He was suspended for two weeks from Twitter, though he was still allowed to post tweets about his ongoing book tour. ESPN again suspended him from Twitter in March 2013 after he posted tweets critical of ESPN's "First Take".  On September 24, 2014, ESPN suspended Simmons for three weeks for criticizing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case. During his podcast, Simmons stated that Goodell was lying when he claimed that he did not know what was on the tape that showed Rice punching his wife in the face and knocking her out.  On May 8, 2015, ESPN president John Skipper announced that the sports media conglomerate would not be renewing Simmons's contract, which was set to expire in September 2015. On May 15, it was announced Simmons was officially done at ESPN, effective immediately.  In September 2017, Simmons voiced his support for Jemele Hill, who became involved in controversy after tweeting her personal views on Donald Trump.

Personal life.

Simmons is married to Kari Simmons (née Crichton), mentioned only as "The Sports Gal" in his columns. They have two children together, daughter Zoe Simmons (born May 2, 2005) and son, Benjamin Oakley Simmons (initials being BOS, a supposed hat tip to Simmons' hometown Boston) (born November 1, 2007; called "The CEO" by Simmons and his wife). His father, William Simmons (born November 27, 1947), also referred to as "The Sports Dad", was the superintendent of schools in Easton, Massachusetts, for more than 15 years.  Simmons is a devoted fan of Boston's teams including the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, and Boston Celtics. He was a longtime fan of the Boston Bruins and the NHL, but claims that their poor management led to his completely losing interest in them until the 2008 playoffs. He also says he is a fan of English Premier League soccer team Tottenham Hotspur, and he has had playful debates on soccer with previous ESPN colleague David Hirshey, a soccer columnist and a die-hard fan of Tottenham's fierce rival Arsenal.

Influence.

Simmons also has created numerous internet memes, most notably the "Ewing Theory" (though he did not come up with the idea) and the "Manning Face".

William John Simmons III (born September 25, 1969) is an American sports analyst, author, podcaster, and former sports writer who is the founder and CEO of the sports and pop culture website "The Ringer". Simmons first gained attention with his website as "The Boston Sports Guy" and was recruited by ESPN in 2001, where he eventually operated the website "Grantland" and worked until 2015. At ESPN, he wrote for ESPN.com, hosted his own podcast on ESPN.com titled "The B.S. Report", and was an analyst for two years on "NBA Countdown".

William „Bill“ John Simmons III (* 26. September 1969 in Marlborough) ist ein US-amerikanischer Sportjournalist, Analyst, Autor und Podcaster. Berühmtheit erlangte er mit seinem Blog "The Boston Sports Guy" und seiner Anstellung beim US-Fernsehsender ESPN von 2001 bis 2015. Im Juli 2015 unterschrieb Simmons einen Multimedia-Betrag beim Sender HBO und ist aktuell Geschäftsführer der Webseite The Ringer, die in Teilen von HBO mitfinanziert wurde.


Etymology.

The name "Zanë/Zërë" probably derives from, 'voice', with the sense of muse. Alternatively, it may be a cognate of the Latin "Diāna" and Romanian "zână/zînă". From this point of view, it may be related to Proto-Indo-European "Dyeus" ('bright, sky, deity'), both ultimately deriving from "*dyeu"'sky'. An Arbëreshë variant of the name is "Zónja" or "Zónja të Jáshtëme", the latter is found also in standard Albanian as "Jashtësme", an euphemism of "Zana", while "zonjë" is the common term for "lady".

Attributes.

Zana is considered to have been the local pre-Roman deity of vegetation, the Albanian equivalent of the Roman goddess Diana, however there is no conclusive evidence of this. Zana may also be related to the Thracian goddess Bendis. The original Zana was escorted by three wild goats with golden horns. In Northern Albania and Kosovo every mountain was said to have its own zana, who appeared as a fair maiden found bathing naked in mountain streams. The zana is believed to be extremely courageous, a formidable opponent, who can bestow her protection on warriors. In Albanian there is a notable expression, "Ai ishte trim si zana", meaning, "He was as brave as a fairy", used to refer to very courageous individuals. The zana is believed to have the power to petrify humans with a glance..

Fate.

In northern Albania, the zana are represented—similarly to the ora and to the southern Albanian fatí—as a group of three mythological goddesses who congregate in the night to decide the baby's destiny at birth and distribute their favors. Three types of Fates are believed to exist among the inhabitants of the Dukagjini highlands: e Bardha (the White One) distributes good luck and provides humans well, e Verdha (the Yellow One) distributes bad luck and castes evil spells, and e Zeza (the Black One) decides death.

Appearances in folklore.

The zana appear in many folktales and in the Albanian oral tradition. A zana appears, for example, in the Albanian folktale "The Lover's Grave". She appears to a young army captain, Bedri, who prostrates himself at her feet and must be reassured that she means him no harm. On the contrary, she warns Bedri to beware a wooden beam and a doe, and that he is not safe when he is "at the root". Bedri goes on to meet a beautiful woman, with whom he elopes, pursued by soldiers who know from his pronunciation of the word for "wooden beam" that he comes from an area with which they are at war. Bedri learns that his beloved's name is Dre, meaning doe, and the soldiers capture and kill the couple outside the town of Nderendje - the name of which means "at the root". They are comparable with the Valkyries of the Nordic mythology, and other branches of Balkan and European folklore like that of the Romanian zina and southern Slav Vila.  From "Albanian literature" by Robert Elsie:  "Lahuta e Malcís", a classic work of Albanian folk tradition published in the 1920s, includes several appearances by zana. In one canto the zana of the Šar Mountains watches over local noblemen as they rally against the Treaty of San Stefano (which awarded areas hitherto under Albanian rule to Prince Nikola of Montenegro), and delights in their speeches and rhetoric. In another, the "great zana" issues a call to arms for all willing Albanian men to avenge the murder of the maiden Tringa by Slav bandits.

Zana ("Zanë" in Gheg or "Zërë" in Tosk pl. "zanë/t", "Zonjë" in Arbëreshë) is an Albanian mythological figure of pre-Roman Paleo-Balkan origin, usually associated with mountains, vegetation and sometimes destiny. The zana are thought to have observed the speeches at the League of Prizren at 1878. Similar Albanian mythological figures are: Ora, Bardha, Shtojzovalle, Mira and Fatí.

Zana ist eine Figur der nordalbanischen Mythologie. Zanen sind Bergfeen, die an Quellen und Flüssen des nordalbanischen Hochlandes leben, wo jeder Berg seine eigene Zana hat. Entsprechend hatte jeder Stamm des Hochlandes eine eigene Zana, die besondere Eigenschaften besaß. Die Zanen gelten als mutig, temperamentvoll und gewähren dem auserwählten Krieger Schutz. Dem Volksglauben nach singen und tanzen sie nachts an den Quellen, pflücken Blumen und baden nackt. Wer sie beim Baden beobachtet, wird von ihnen erschlagen.


Creation.

CIA director David Petraeus first proposed a covert program of arming and training rebels in the summer of 2012. Initially President Obama rejected the proposal, but later agreed, partially due to lobbying by foreign leaders, including from King Abdullah II of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  Timber Sycamore began in late 2012 or early 2013, and was similar to other Pentagon or CIA-run weapons routing and training programs that were established in previous decades to support foreign rebel forces. Greg Miller and Adam Entous of "The Washington Post" stated that "The operation has served as the centerpiece of the U.S. strategy to press Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step aside." The program's principal backers were the United States and Saudi Arabia, but it was also supported by some other regional Arab governments, and by the United Kingdom. While Saudi Arabia provides more money and weaponry, the United States leads training in military equipment. The program was based in Jordan, due to that country's proximity to the battlefields in Syria.  According to "The New York Times", the program initially allowed US forces to train Syrian rebels in use of military equipment, but not to directly provide the equipment itself. A few months after its creation, it was amended to allow the CIA to both train and equip rebel forces. Saudi Arabia has provided military equipment, and covert financing of rebel forces has also been provided by Qatar, Turkey and Jordan.  Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, and the CIA shipped thousands of rifles, hundreds of machine guns, and large amounts of ammunition to Syrian rebels in 2012 before the program's launch. A classified US State Department cable signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reported that Saudi donors were a major support for Sunni militant forces globally, and some American officials worried that rebels being supported had ties to Al Qaeda.  The existence of Timber Sycamore was revealed by "The New York Times" and "Al Jazeera" shortly after "Jane's Defence Weekly" reported, in late 2015, that the US Federal Business Opportunities website was soliciting contracts to ship thousands of tons of weapons from Eastern Europe to Taşucu, Turkey and Aqaba, Jordan.

Scope.

Timber Sycamore was run by the Military Operations Command (MOC) in Amman and provided Kalashnikov assault rifles, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, TOW anti-tank guided missiles, night vision goggles, pickup trucks, and other weapons to prospective Syrian rebel forces. Many of the weapons were purchased in the Balkans or other locations in Eastern Europe, and then routed to Syrian rebel forces and training camps by Jordanian security services. CIA paramilitary operatives trained Syrian rebels in use of the weaponry. According to Charles Lister at "The Daily Beast" there were at least 50 vetted rebel groups fighting in Syria that received weapons or training through the program after late 2012; the exact number is not known.  According to American officials, the program was highly effective, training and equipping thousands of US-backed fighters to make substantial battlefield gains. American officials stated that the program began to lose effectiveness after Russia intervened militarily in the Syrian Civil War. David Ignatius, writing in "The Washington Post", remarked that while the CIA program ultimately failed in its objective of removing Assad from power, it was hardly "bootless": "The program pumped many hundreds of millions of dollars to many dozens of militia groups. One knowledgeable official estimates that the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years."  Timber Sycamore is distinct from the Syrian Train and Equip Program, another Pentagon program established to train Syrian rebel forces to fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)The Pentagon made it clear their goal in Syria and Iraq was 'to fight ISIS and fight ISIS only [and] we've asked [our partner forces] to be committed to that same mission' and that they would not fight Assad's military.  US-backed rebels often fought alongside al-Qaeda's al-Nusra Front, and some of the US-supplied weapons ended up in the hands of the al-Nusra Front, which had been a major concern of the Obama administration when the program was first proposed.  The program remains classified, and many details about the program remain unknown, including the total amount of support, the range of weapons transferred, the depth of training provided, the types of US trainers involved, and the exact rebel groups being supported. However, "The Canberra Times" reported that two thousand tons of Soviet-era weapons were delivered to Aqaba as recently as April 2016.  The US delivered weapons via Ramstein Air Base in Germany – possibly in breach of German laws.

Black market.

Jordanian intelligence arms sales.

According to American and Jordanian officials, weapons shipped into Jordan by the CIA and Saudi Arabia were stolen by Jordanian intelligence officials in the General Intelligence Directorate (Jordan) and sold on the black market. The magnitude of the theft amounted to millions of dollars, and FBI officials state that some of the stolen weapons were later used to kill two American contractors, two Jordanians and one South African at a police training station in Jordan. Arms received via Timber Sycamore have flooded Middle Eastern black markets with heavy weaponry.  Jordanian officials state that Jordanian intelligence officers who stole the program's weapons used the profits to purchase luxury items, with knowledge of superior officers. The thefts were halted after months of complaints by the American and Saudi governments, the program's main backers. According to Jordanian officials, several intelligence officers were fired, but their profits were not confiscated. (In Jordan, the General Intelligence Directorate is second only to the monarchy in power and prestige.) Jordan's minister for state and media affairs Mohammad Al-Momani stated that the allegations were incorrect.

Regional trafficking and ISIL.

Prior to the Syrian Civil War, southern Syria and northern Jordan were a conduit for other smuggling operations. The advent of the war transformed the region into a center for smuggling weapons, and the more formal support provided by Timber Sycamore only intensified the scale of smuggling operations on the border. Major smuggling centers include bazaars established at Ma'an in southern Jordan, Sahab in Amman, and in the Jordan River Valley.  An investigation by journalists Phil Sands and Suha Maayeh revealed that rebels supplied with weapons from the Amman MOC sold a portion of them to local arms dealers, often to raise cash to pay additional fighters. Some MOC-supplied weapons were sold to Bedouin traders referred to locally as "The Birds" in Lajat, a volcanic plateau northeast of Daraa, Syria. According to rebel forces, the Bedouins would then trade the weapons to ISIL, who would place orders using the encrypted WhatsApp messaging service. Two rebel commanders and a United Kingdom weapons monitoring organization maintain that MOC–supplied weapons have made their way to ISIL forces.  A 2017 study conducted by private company Conflict Armament Research at the behest of the European Union and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit found that external support for anti-Assad Syrian rebels "significantly augmented the quantity and quality of weapons available to [ISIL] forces," including, in the most rapid case diversion they documented, "anti-tank weapons purchased by the United States that ended up in possession of the Islamic State within two months of leaving the factory." The study traced the provenance of some weapons in detail. However, the study found no instance in which US arms supplied to the Kurdish– and Arab–led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight ISIL ended up in ISIL's arsenal.

Phasing out.

In July 2017, anonymous officials stated that President Donald Trump, in consultation with National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, had decided to phase out support for anti-Assad Syrian rebel forces, possibly redirecting resources to fighting ISIL, to offering rebel forces defensive capabilities, or to other operations in the region.  The officials said that the decision was made prior to Trump's participation in the G-20 summit and July 7 meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Several officials characterized the decision as a "major concession" to Russia, with one remarking: "Putin won in Syria." However, another official stated that ending the program was not a major concession due to Assad's recent victories in the Syrian Civil War, but rather "a signal to Putin that the administration wants to improve ties to Russia." Some members of the Obama administration reportedly had wished to scrap the program because some rebels armed and trained by the program had joined ISIL and related groups.  A related US military program to arm, train, and support the SDF fighting ISIL with airstrikes continued in 2017 through the years 2018 and 2019 into the present.

Commentary.

Press.

According to Rachel Marsden writing for "The Baltimore Sun", the CIA and Saudi Arabia intended for Timber Sycamore to allow independent military forces to drive out Assad, install a Syrian leader friendly to US, Saudi and Qatari interests, and weaken Russia's influence in the Middle East.  Reporter Paul Malone wrote that weapons delivered by Timber Sycamore might be acquired by al-Qaeda in Syria, comparing the program to CIA support for the Afghan mujahideen, or American weaponry being seized by ISIL in 2014 in Mosul, Iraq.  The "International Business Times of Italy" has written that corrupt Jordanian intelligence officials facilitated weapons trafficking that supported the Iraqi insurgency after the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. For this reason, according to the paper, the Obama administration was reluctant to approve Timber Sycamore and debated a year before doing so.  In "Il Giornale", Fausto Biloslavo has reported that despite the program's secrecy, US Vice President Joe Biden was photographed at the center of Zarqa in March 2015.  In April 2014, Seymour Hersh published an essay in the "London Review of Books" in which he explores an anonymous former Pentagon official's claims that the U.S. diplomatic post in Libya's Benghazi "had no real political role" and existed solely to provide cover for a secret arms pipeline supporting Syrian rebels fighting in the Syrian Civil War. According to Hersh's source, the "rat line" was a means for channeling military weapons from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria and into the hands of Syrian rebels. The operation was reportedly funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and was conducted by the CIA in collaboration with MI6.

Politicians.

US Senator Ron Wyden's office has questioned the program, releasing a statement that "the US is trying to build up the battlefield capabilities of the anti-Assad opposition, but they haven't provided the public with details about how this is being done, which US agencies are involved, or which foreign partners those agencies are working with."

Analysts.

Former CIA analyst and Brookings Institution fellow Bruce Riedel has stated that Saudi support for the program has given Saudi Arabia greater say over American policy in the Syrian Civil War.  Robert Baer, a former CIA officer and "CNN" contributor, strongly criticized the Trump administration's cancellation of the program, calling it "a strategic mistake" and "a gift to Vladimir Putin." In contrast, Thomas Joscelyn of "The Weekly Standard" defended Trump's decision, arguing "there is no evidence that any truly moderate force is effectively fighting Assad." In December 2017, Max Abrams and John Glaser observed in the "Los Angeles Times" that "[ISIL] imploded right after external support for the'moderate' rebels dried up," which is consistent with studies demonstrating that "external support for the opposition tends to exacerbate and extend civil wars, which usually peter out not through power-sharing agreements among fighting equals, but when one side—typically, the incumbent—achieves dominance."

Timber Sycamore was a classified weapons supply and training program run by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and supported by some Arab intelligence services, such as the security service in Saudi Arabia. Launched in 2012 or 2013, it supplied money, weaponry and training to rebel forces fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian Civil War. According to US officials, the program was run by the CIA's Special Activities Division and has trained thousands of rebels. President Barack Obama secretly authorized the CIA to begin arming Syria’s embattled rebels in 2013.

Timber Sycamore war ein von den Geheimdiensten mehrerer arabischer Länder unterstütztes Programm der CIA zur Ausbildung verschiedener Gruppen, die im Syrischen Bürgerkrieg der syrischen Armee gegenüberstanden. Beginnend im Jahr 2013 wurden die Milizen dabei an verschiedenen Waffen trainiert, dazu gab es Unterstützung durch die Waffenlieferungen allen voran aus Saudi-Arabien und Katar. Der damalige US-Präsident Barack Obama soll das Programm 2013 unter Geheimhaltung autorisiert haben. Nicht zu verwechseln ist Timber Sycamore mit einem anderen Programm der CIA, das syrische Kräfte im Kampf gegen die Terrormiliz IS unterstützen sollte. Timber Sycamore richtete sich im Gegensatz dazu gegen die syrische Regierung und die syrische Armee.


History.

The first major addition to the building, designed by Hong Kong's One Space Ltd, was completed on 23 November 2006, in the form of a ground floor lobby that improves security access to the upper floors and creates a prestigious reception area. Its design and construction included the installation of the "Asian Story Wall", a multimedia installation consisting of twin banks of 30 seamless plasma screens (the largest installation of its kind in Hong Kong) displaying archived bank heritage and artworks.  The atrium of the HSBC building was the site of the Occupy Hong Kong protests which maintained a presence in the building from 15 October 2011 until their eviction in September 2012.

Design.

The new building was designed by the British architect Norman Foster and civil & structural engineers Ove Arup & Partners with service design by J. Roger Preston & Partners. It was constructed by the John Lok / Wimpey Joint Venture. From the concept to completion, it took seven years (1978–1985). The building is 180 metres high with 47 storeys and four basement levels.The building has a modular design consisting of five steel modules prefabricated in the UK by Scott Lithgow Shipbuilders near Glasgow, and shipped to Hong Kong. About 30,000 tons of steel and 4,500 tons of aluminium were used.  The original design was heavily inspired by the Douglas Gilling designed Qantas International Centre in Sydney (currently known as Suncorp Place).  The new lobby and its two-part Asian Story Wall were designed by Greg Pearce, of One Space Limited. Pearce was also the Principal Architect of the Hong Kong Airport Express (MTR) station. Conceived as a minimalist glass envelope, the new lobby is designed to be deferential to Foster's structure and appears almost to be part of the original.  The building is also one of the few to not have lifts as the primary carrier of building traffic. Instead, lifts only stop every few floors, and floors are interconnected by escalators.

Characteristics.

The main characteristic of HSBC Hong Kong headquarters is its absence of internal supporting structure.  Another notable feature is that natural sunlight is the major source of lighting inside the building. There is a bank of giant mirrors at the top of the atrium, which can reflect natural sunlight into the atrium and hence down into the plaza. Through the use of natural sunlight, this design helps to conserve energy. Additionally, sun shades are provided on the external facades to block direct sunlight going into the building and to reduce heat gain. Instead of fresh water, sea water is used as coolant for the air-conditioning system.  All flooring is made from lightweight movable panels, under which lies a comprehensive network of power, telecommunication, and air-conditioning systems. This design was to allow equipment such as computer terminals to be installed quickly and easily.  Because of the urgency to finish the project, the construction of the building relied heavily on off-site prefabrication; components were manufactured all over the world. For example, the structural steel came from Britain; the glass, aluminium cladding and flooring came from the United States while the service modules came from Japan.  The inverted 'va' segments of the suspension trusses spanning the construction at double-height levels is the most obvious characteristic of the building. It consists of eight groups of four aluminium-clad steel columns which ascend from the foundations up through the core structure, and five levels of triangular suspension trusses which are locked into these masts.

Feng shui.

The early British settlers in Hong Kong had an interest in feng shui; thus, most of the earliest buildings in Hong Kong, and many buildings constructed thereafter, were built with the philosophies of feng shui in mind. The Chinese believe that those who have a direct view of a body of water—whether it is a river, a sea, or an ocean—are more likely to prosper than those who do not (water is strongly associated with wealth in feng shui). The HSBC building has a wide open area (the Statue Square) in front of it, with no other buildings blocking its view of Victoria Harbour; thus, it is considered to have "good feng shui".  In the CBC Television series Doc Zone episode "Superstitious Minds", Writer, Researcher & Associate Producer Tom Puchniak asserts that the design of the nearby Bank of China Building ignored feng shui principles, and created instant controversy by evoking two knife edges, one pointing towards the British Government House, another towards the HSBC building. After the Bank of China building opened, a series of mishaps occurred, including the death of the Governor, and a downturn in the city's economy. It is alleged that HSBC installed two maintenance cranes in the shape of cannons on the roof, pointing directly at the Bank of China, to defend against the negative energy from the Bank of China building. According to feng shui master Paul Hung, this solved the problem, and HSBC experienced "no harmful results after that."

Lion statues.

When HSBC decided to build its third Headquarters at 1 Queen's Road Central, opened in 1935, it commissioned two bronze lions from Shanghai-based British sculptor W W Wagstaff (d 1977, aged 82). This commission was inspired by two earlier lions that had been ordered for the new Shanghai office opened in 1923. Cast by J W Singer & Sons in the English town of Frome, to a design by Henry Poole RA, these lions had quickly become part of the Shanghai scene, and passers-by would affectionately stroke the lions in the belief that power and money would rub off on them. They became known as Stephen and Stitt: an in-joke. Stephen was named for A G Stephen, formerly Manager Shanghai, and in 1923 the Chief Manager of HSBC, and G H Stitt, the then Manager Shanghai. Stephen is depicted roaring, Stitt quiescent, and again insiders said that this represented the characters of these two famous bankers.  Wagstaff worked with "Shanghai Arts and Crafts" foreman Chou Yin Hsiang who in an interview with John Loch of HSBC's house magazine "Group News" in June 1977 recalled that when he first joined Arts and Crafts he worked with Wagstaff for two years to make the lions, without having to learn a word of English: Wagstaff spoke perfect Shanghai dialect. Hunch-backed, Wagstaff was nicknamed "Lao Doo Pei", meaning "Old Hunchback". His son, inevitably, was called "Sau Doo Pei"—"Young Hunchback". Wagstaff had two sons—Don, killed in Naval service in the war, and Alex, killed while interned in Shanghai by the Japanese. Chou Yin Hsiang himself came to Hong Kong in 1935, and by 1977, was the proprietor of Jeh Hsing Metal Works—and still casting bronze for HSBC.  Like the Shanghai lions, the Hong Kong lions became objects of veneration, and foci of the Bank's perceived excellent feng shui. Young couples still bring their toddlers to stroke the paws and noses of the statues hoping for luck and prosperity.  When the 1935 building closed its doors for the last time on 26 June 1981 the Lions had been moved to the annexe on 19 June 1981. Demolition, by China Swiss Engineers, started on 6 July 1981. The lions were temporarily moved on 4 June 1982 to Statue Square, opposite the main entrance. As a mark of the respect the lions were held in, the move to Statue Square, and the move back in 1985, were accompanied by the chairman Sir Michael Sandberg and senior management of the Bank and the placement of the lions both temporarily and in their current locations was made only after extensive consultations with feng shui practitioners.  Their 4-year sojourn in the annexe and Statue Square aside, the lions have only left their positions as guardians of the Des Voeux Road entrance of the Bank once: they were confiscated by the Japanese and sent to Japan to be melted down. Luckily the war ended before this could happen, and the lions were recognised by an American sailor in a dockyard in Osaka in 1945. They were returned a few months later and restored to their original positions in October 1946.  The Hong Kong lions are also called Stephen and Stitt, and the Hong Kong Stephen has bullet or shrapnel scars in its left hind-quarters dating from the fighting in the Battle of Hong Kong. When this pair of lions was used as the model for the pair commissioned for the new UK Headquarters of HSBC in 2002, Zambian-born New Zealand sculptor Mark Kennedy was asked not to reproduce these "war wounds" in the copies as the shrapnel marks were seen as historical battle-scars of sorts.  The following is a list of bronze copies and re-casts of the HSBC lions:  Various other HSBC branches throughout the world feature small-scaled replicas of these originals, with varying degrees of faithfulness. Other HSBC branches often feature guardian lions to different designs, such as Chinese guardian lions.

Lighting scheme.

In 2003, the Hong Kong Tourism Board developed a harbour lighting plan called "A Symphony of Lights", a large-scale multimedia show featuring lighting, laser, music, and occasionally special pyrotechnics effects during festivals, to promote tourism in Hong Kong. The show is based on the illumination of key buildings on the Hong Kong Island side, and is best viewed from the Kowloon side across the Victoria Harbour. The HSBC Hong Kong headquarters building is one of the participating buildings in the show. The building has been installed with 716 intelligent lighting units, including 450 Martin Professional Cyclo 03 colour changing fluorescent fixtures in the glass stairwells, Martin Professional Exterior 600's and Exterior 200 fixtures on five levels, 8 search lights, and over one kilometre of LED lighting around the top. Completed by mid-December 2003, the cost of installation is estimated to be HK$5.5 million.  Intelligent lighting is distributed across six sections of the building:  HSBC has always aimed to adopt a new lighting scheme because Foster did not pay much attention to the illumination of the building at nighttime.

HSBC Main Building is a headquarters building of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which is today a wholly owned subsidiary of London-based HSBC Holdings. It is located on the southern side of Statue Square near the location of the old City Hall, Hong Kong (built in 1869, demolished in 1933). The previous HSBC building was built in 1935 and pulled down to make way for the current building. The address remains as 1 Queen's Road Central (the north facing side of the building was served by Des Voeux Road, which was the seashore, making Queen's Road the main entrance, in contrast to the current primary access coming from Des Voeux Road). The building can be reached from Exit K of Central MTR Station.

Das HSBC-Hochhaus Hongkong oder HSBC Main Building () ist der Hauptsitz der Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited in Hongkong, gegründet 1865 ebendort, die sich heute voll im Besitz der HSBC-Holding in London befindet.


History.

The ship canal project began in 1911 and was officially completed in 1934. Prior to construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, otherwise known as the Salmon Bay Waterway, water used to exit Lake Washington via the Black River which flowed from the south end of Lake Washington into the Duwamish River.  As early as 1854, there was discussion of building a navigable connection between Lake Washington and Puget Sound for the purpose of transporting logs, milled lumber, and fishing vessels. Thirteen years later, the United States Navy endorsed a canal project, which included a plan for building a naval shipyard on Lake Washington. In 1891 the US Army Corps of Engineers started planning the project. Some preliminary work was begun in 1906, and work began in earnest five years later. The delays in canal planning and construction resulted in the U.S. Navy building the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, which is located across the Sound from Seattle.

Early efforts.

For centuries, people had been dragging boats between the lakes, giving names like "carry a canoe" "sxWátSadweehL" to the crossing points. In 1854 Seattle pioneer Thomas Mercer proposed canals connecting Lake Union and Lake Washington to Puget Sound in a speech at the first Independence Day celebration of the Seattle area's first permanent white settlement, shortly after its founding. Mercer gave the lakes the names they are presently called, over the original Lushootseed names used by the Duwamish, "tenas Chuck" or "XáXu7cHoo" ("small great-amount-of-water") for Lake Union and "hyas Chuck" or "Xacuabš" ("great-amount-of-water") for Lake Washington. Lake Union was chosen to suggest the future canals merging the waters, and Lake Washington for George Washington.  In 1860 local landowner Harvey L. Pike tried to dig a ditch by himself with pick and shovel at Montlake to transport logs between Portage Bay and Union Bay, in the hopes of increasing the value of his property along the route. Giving up on digging the first Portage Canal himself, in 1871 he joined Thomas Burke and Daniel Gilman in incorporating the Lake Washington Canal Company, deeding his land to the company. Instead of finishing the canal, the company instead built a tramway to carry coal brought by barge across Lake Washington. In 1883, David Denny and Burke hired a crew of Chinese laborers to complete the canal at Montlake, creating a channel that included a lock, capable of floating logs down from Lake Washington to Lake Union.  The Army Corps of Engineers investigated Puget Sound for military defense purposes and chose Lake Washington as the best location for a Naval base, due to the security of the waters, proximity to supplies of fresh water, coal and timber, and the less corrosive effect on wooden ship hulls of a fresh water port. A report by Lieutenant Thomas H. Hardy of October 13, 1871, forwarded to Congress by Army General Barton S. Alexander of the Board of Engineers of the Pacific Coast said the coal fields of Seattle Coal and Transportation Company, two miles east of Lake Sammamish, supplied 1,500 tons per month of steam ship grade coal, and potentially twice this amount. The route directly across the narrowest part of Seattle, that is, Semple's Canal from Leschi straight across to present-day Harbor Island, was rejected in this report because of the 200 to 300 foot height of the hills that would have to be cut through. The route via the Black and Duwamish Rivers would be crooked and several miles in length, would let out into shoals rather than deep water, and would have to be frequently dredged to remove sand brought by river flooding. As to connecting Lake Union to Shilshole Bay—the route ultimately chosen—Gen. Alexander had "serious objections", including the expense and the need for dredging a channel, and that the canal line let out in shoal water that was exposed to heavy seas, and would be less defensible in wartime, being "exposed to the cannonade of an enemy". Alexander was less opposed to digging straight south from Salmon Bay through Interbay to Smith Cove, but would still terminate in shoals and be just as costly as his preferred route from Lake Union through Mercer's Farm into Elliott Bay, while being less defensible. The estimated cost for the project was $4.7 million.  In the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1902, Congress directed the Secretary of War to appoint a committee of three officers to study the feasibility of a canal and lock system to connect Puget Sound to Lake Washington. Lieutenant Colonel William H. Heuer, Captain William C. Langfitt and Lieutenant Robert P. Johnson met August, 1902 in Seattle and conducted a survey of possible routes. They examined the route of the Lake Washington Waterway Company, via Shilshole Bay, as well as a route from Lake Union to Smith Cove, the Montlake coal tramway, and Thomas Mercer's farm. In November 1902, a public meeting was called in the Chamber of Commerce hall, but was quickly adjourned because no one came to speak.  In 1906, as local debate over the location of the canals continued, and funding from Washington, D.C. was delayed, Seattle developer James A. Moore, known today for the Moore Theatre and Moore Haven, Florida, proposed a canal that could accommodate small ships, with two wooden locks connecting Salmon Bay to Shilshole Bay. Moore secured Congressional approval for his project, granting him rights to build. In April of the same year, Hiram M. Chittenden came to Seattle as the new Army District Engineer. Chittenden favored the same route to Shilshole Bay as Moore, but found the plan too modest, and potentially unsafe. Chittenden said Moore's hope-for budget of $500,000 was insufficient, and the locks should be built to accommodate larger vessels, and that the wooden locks would eventually deteriorate and collapse, draining Lake Washington into Puget Sound.  Instead, Chittenden proposed a double concrete lock with steel gates, allowing small craft to pass with less waste. A single set of locks on the western end of Salmon Bay would be used in place of the small wooden lock near Fremont Avenue, which would lower Lake Washington to the same level as Lake Union. Having a single lock between Puget Sound and the freshwater lakes would reduce the risk of flooding and reduce overall cost of the project. Before he could move forward, Chittenden had to sway local leaders away from supporting Moore's project. After enthusiasm for his canal eroded and funding dried up, Moore transferred his rights to a public-private entity, the Lake Washington Canal Association, in 1907. Though Chittenden hoped to cap his career with the construction of the Locks, ill health forced him to retire in 1909, though he continued lobbying Congress for the project, and served as a consulting engineer and as a Seattle port commissioner until his death in October 1917.

Canal crossings.

The Canal's crossings, from east to west, are:

Seattle landmarks.

The Lake Washington Ship Canal and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Montlake Cut, along with the Montlake Bridge are City of Seattle Designated Landmarks (ID #107995).

The Lake Washington Ship Canal, which runs through the city of Seattle, connects the fresh water body of Lake Washington with the salt water inland sea of Puget Sound. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks accommodate the approximately difference in water level between Lake Washington and the sound. The canal runs east–west and connects Union Bay, the Montlake Cut, Portage Bay, Lake Union, the Fremont Cut, Salmon Bay, and Shilshole Bay, which is part of the sound.

Der Lake Washington Ship Canal, der durch die Stadt Seattle verläuft, verbindet den Süßwassersee Lake Washington mit dem salzwassergeprägten Binnenmeer des Puget Sound. Die Schleusen des Hiram M. Chittenden Locks überwinden die etwa sechs Meter Höhenunterschied zwischen den Wasserspiegeln des Lake Washington und des Sunds. Der Kanal verläuft in Ost-West-Richtung und verbindet die Union Bay, den Montlake Cut, die Portage Bay, den Lake Union, den Fremont Cut, die Salmon Bay und die Shilshole Bay, welch letztere Teil des Sundes ist.


Career.

Petrova began her training at the age of five at Trakia Plovdiv Club in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, coached by Natalia Moravenova. By 1991, she was coached by Neshka Robeva at the Levski Sofia Club. In her first World Championship appearance, Petrova placed second in the team competition after a hoop drop.  Petrova was one of the favorites to win gold but found herself finishing in fifth in the all-around finals at the Barcelona Olympics after a penalty of.20 was imposed due to the zipper on the back of her leotard that had broken during her hoop exercise. A few months later, at the World Championships, Petrova took second place behind Russia's Oxana Kostina and ahead of Belarusian Larissa Lukyanenko.  In 1993, Petrova performed with her Panovaesque ball to an Indian melody. She also competed in a ribbon exercise, and a small-toss filled clubs routine to Suzanne Vega's ""Tom's Diner"". Her final performance to Carmina Burana caused a great crowd ovation. She went on to win the all-around World title, as well as three more gold medals (ball, hoop, ribbon) and a bronze medal (clubs).  She went on to win one more European title and two more world titles (shared in 1995 with Yekaterina Serebrianskaya), tying her with countrywoman Maria Gigova for the most wins in the latter category.  Competing in her second Olympics, Petrova was one of the front runner to win the gold at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, however a series of mistakes left her finishing in 5th place in the All-around Finals behind Russia's Amina Zaripova.  Although she had tried to retire several times after her first World title, Petrova continued competing as a favor to the Bulgarian national team, which was in a rebuilding phase after the Eastern European Communist collapse.  Petrova shares the world record for most individual world all-around rhythmic gymnastics titles with Maria Gigova, Evgenia Kanaeva and Yana Kudryavtseva. Petrova's three titles were earned in 1993, 1994, and 1995 (shared).  She is currently a judge in rhythmic gymnastics.

Personal life.

In 1998, Petrova married Bulgarian footballer Borislav Mikhailov.

Maria Petrova () (born November 13, 1975 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian rhythmic gymnast. She is a three-time (1993, 1994, 1995) World All-around champion and a three-time (1992, 1993, 1994) European All-around champion.

Marija Petrowa (; englische Transkription "Maria Petrova"; * 13. November 1975 in Plowdiw) ist eine ehemalige bulgarische rhythmische Sportgymnastin und mehrfache Welt- und Europameisterin.


Racing career.

Taylor was the Scottish Sidecar Champion with passenger Lewis Ward in 1977. He won races at East Fortune near Haddington, Beveridge Park in Kirkcaldy and at Knockhill near Dunfermline as well events in England with some success. In 1978 he decided to tackle the odd Grand Prix race and the British Championships and parted company with Ward and teamed up with a new passenger from nearby Haddington called Jimmy Neil. It took some time for the new partnership to gel but by the end of the season they were regularly winning races in England. In 1979 Taylor acquired a Seymaz hub centre steering type outfit and found it not to his liking after two accidents that left Jimmy Neil with a fractured wrist and caused the death of stand-in passenger Dave Powell at Oulton Park in a high-speed crash. With Neil still injured, Taylor used veteran passenger Jimmy Law for the German GP at Hockenheim on his old Windle framed Yamaha where they finished fifth. Although Neil returned at Assen in Holland, it was when he teamed up with former Swedish 125 cc rider Benga Johansson that Taylor took his first Grand Prix victory at the Swedish TT at Karlskoga shortly after. There were further successes towards the end of 1979 in Britain where he finished runner-up in the British Championship behind Dick Greasley. In 1980, Taylor and Benga Johansson won 4 Grand Prix races, and finished on the podium in all seven events they finished. He won the British Championship and won the Isle of Man Sidecar B race to win the Sidecar TT overall. In 1981 he retained his British title and he went on to become a four-time TT race winner. In 1982 Taylor and Johansson raised the sidecar lap record at the Isle of Man TT to 108.29 mph (ca. 175 km/h), a lap record which stood for 7 years.

Death.

In the 1982 Finnish Grand Prix, held in Imatra under very wet conditions, Taylor and Johansson's bike aquaplaned and slid off the road and collided with a telephone pole along the closed public road course that was used once a year for the Finnish GP. The emergency services were removing him from the wreckage when a second sidecar team slid off into them. Taylor was sadly killed in the second accident. He was buried in the local cemetery at Pencaitland, and a memorial to him has been erected in the village in December 2006. A memorial also stands in Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy, overlooking Railway Bend on the old motorcycle racing circuit. Jock Taylor has also a memorial in Imatra, near the paddock of Finnish championship racetrack.

Restoration.

Jock's World championship, and TT 108.29 mph lap record-winning sidecar was bought by friend and fellow competitor Jack Muldoon from Jock's sponsor Dennis Trollope. Jack rescued Jock's outfit from the 5-man consortium who were supposed to restore the bike to its original condition and display it in a museum in Alford, Aberdeenshire. That never happened in the four years that it lay up in Alford in bits in a shed.  Jack Muldoon and family bought Jock's bike in March 2012 and started the restoration work immediately. The sidecar was completely stripped to a bare chassis, with months spent with emery cleaning and polishing the chassis. Due to the 26 years it lay at Donington in the museum and then 4 years up in Aberdeen, the chassis and all components were covered in rust and everything was seized: every component on the bike had to be stripped and cleaned, all bearings in all parts of the chassis were replaced, and the engine was completely rebuilt. It was done with the help of Bill Howarth and Dennis Trollope for all the Yamaha TZ700 parts required in the engine rebuild; Terry Windle, Stuart Mellor, Lockheed, HEL Performance Brake Pipes, Paul Drake Koni Shockers, Yolst Silkoline Oils. By August the restoration was 90% complete – it was the first time in 30 years that the TZ700 engine had run, and it was paraded at the Jock Taylor Memorial race weekend at East Fortune near Edinburgh in August 2012, a few miles from where Jock was born and brought up.

Annual Jock Taylor Memorial Race.

In the year following his death an annual end of season race was established at Knockhill called the Jock Taylor Trophy and it has always attracted the very best crews. Every year sidecar racers travel from all over the UK to race in what has become a prestigious race. In 2012, the race was held at East Fortune where Taylor started his racing career nearly 40 years ago.

Jock Taylor (9 March 1954 – 15 August 1982) was a Scottish World Champion motorcycle sidecar racer. John Robert (Jock) Taylor was born in Pencaitland, East Lothian, and entered his first sidecar race at the age of 19, as the passenger to Kenny Andrews (1974). The following year he took part in his first race as a driver. Taylor died in Finland as a consequence of a racing incident in 1982.

John Robert „Jock“ Taylor (* 9. März 1954 in Pencaitland, Schottland; † 15. August 1982 in Imatra, Finnland) war ein britischer Motorradrennfahrer.


Life and career.

The daughter of a seamstress, who had herself previously considered a career in acting, Dalayman went on to become a student at the Stockholm Opera Conservatory. Whilst still at college, she had already sung Sieglinde (from Wagner's "Die Walküre") in public. Her debut was as Amelia in Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" at the Royal Opera Stockholm in 1991.  Since then, notable engagements have included Marie in "Wozzeck" at Stuttgart (1993), Metropolitan Opera (2001) and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (2001), Brangäne in "Tristan und Isolde" at New York Met (2002), Kundry in "Parsifal" at Paris Opera (2001) and Dresden (2008), Sieglinde at Covent Garden (2005), and Brünnhilde in the Stockholm Ring Cycle (2005-2008).  Later engagements included Brünnhilde in Aix en Provence (2008) and at the Metropolitan Opera (2009) and at the Osterfestspiele Salzburg (2009–10); Judith (Bluebeard's Castle) in the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona (2008); Isolde at the New York Met (2008); Brünnhilde; Kundry at the New York Met (2013).  After training to a mezzosoprano, she returned and sang Fricka and Waltraute in the 2017 brief revival of Valdemar-Holm's Wagner Ring Cycle in Stockholm. In the beginning of 2018 she created a well reviewed Klytaemnestra in the revival of Valdemar Holm's Elektra (the same production she sang the main role Elektra in 2009), also in Stockholm.  Dalayman's recordings include: Berg – "Wozzeck" (Marie/Marietta), Berwald – "Estrella de Soria" (Zulma), Johan Hammerth – Stockholms Kantat, Korngold – "Die Tote Stadt" (Marie/Marietta), Wagner – "Götterdämmerung" (Brünnhilde), Wagner – "Tristan und Isolde" (Brangäne), and Wagner – "Parsifal" (Kundry).  With her sister Maria Dalayman and tenor Thomas Sunnegårdh Dalayman runs the opera agency Good Company.

Personal life.

Dalayman lives in Stockholm, Sweden, and has two sons.

Katarina Dalayman (born January 25, 1963 in Stockholm) is a Swedish former soprano that has transitioned into a mezzosoprano. She has found critical acclaim singing major operatic roles by composers such as Wagner, Berg, Shostakovich and Bartók, among others. In a recent interview, she commented that Wagner's music "[has] always been closest to my heart, always, since I started singing".

Katarina Dalayman (geboren 25. Januar 1963 in Stockholm) ist eine schwedische Opernsängerin der Stimmlage Sopran, die zuletzt Rollen als Mezzosopranistin übernahm.


Rock Climbing Routes.

Liberty Bell Mountain features 18 named traditional climbing routes. "Liberty Crack" is featured in "Fifty Classic Climbs of North America". The first ascent was on September 27, 1946 by Fred Beckey, Jerry O’Neil, and Charles Welsh by way of what is now known as the Beckey route.  Climbing Routes on Liberty Bell Mountain

Climate.

Weather fronts originating in the Pacific Ocean travel northeast toward the Cascade Mountains. As fronts approach the North Cascades, they are forced upward by the peaks of the Cascade Range (Orographic lift), causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the Cascades. As a result, the west side of the North Cascades experiences high precipitation, especially during the winter months in the form of snowfall. During winter months, weather is usually cloudy, but, due to high pressure systems over the Pacific Ocean that intensify during summer months, there is often little or no cloud cover during the summer. Because of maritime influence, snow tends to be wet and heavy, resulting in high avalanche danger. The North Cascades Highway east of Washington Pass has the distinction of being among the top areas in the United State for most avalanche paths per mile of highway.

Geology.

The North Cascades features some of the most rugged topography in the Cascade Range with craggy peaks, ridges, and deep glacial valleys. Geological events occurring many years ago created the diverse topography and drastic elevation changes over the Cascade Range leading to the various climate differences.  The history of the formation of the Cascade Mountains dates back millions of years ago to the late Eocene Epoch. With the North American Plate overriding the Pacific Plate, episodes of volcanic igneous activity persisted. In addition, small fragments of the oceanic and continental lithosphere called terranes created the North Cascades about 50 million years ago. Like many of the peaks of the Washington Pass area, Liberty Bell Mountain is carved from granite of the Golden Horn batholith.  During the Pleistocene period dating back over two million years ago, glaciation advancing and retreating repeatedly scoured the landscape leaving deposits of rock debris. The "U"-shaped cross section of the river valleys are a result of recent glaciation. Uplift and faulting in combination with glaciation have been the dominant processes which have created the tall peaks and deep valleys of the North Cascades area.

Liberty Bell Mountain is located in the North Cascades, approximately one mile south of Washington Pass on the North Cascades Highway. Liberty Bell is the most northern spire of the Liberty Bell Group, a group of spires which also includes Concord Tower, Lexington Tower, North Early Winters Spire, and South Early Winters Spire.

Liberty Bell Mountain ist eine Berggruppe der nördlichen Kaskadenkette im amerikanischen Bundesstaat Washington, ungefähr zwei Kilometer südlich des Washington Pass am North Cascades Highway. Der Hauptgipfel Liberty Bell Mountain ist mit einer Höhe von 2353 m der nördlichste Gipfel gleichnamigen der Gruppe, im kurzen Gratverlauf, der die Grenze zwischen Chelan County und Okanogan County bildet, folgen nach Südsüdosten Concord Tower, Lexington Tower, nördlicher und südlicher Early Winters Spire. Den Namen erhielt Liberty Bell Mountain wegen seiner Form nach der Freiheitsglocke Liberty Bell, die (angeblich) bei der Verlesung der Amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitserklärung 1776 in Philadelphia geläutet wurde.


Production.

Background.

TakeOver is a series of professional wrestling shows that began on May 29, 2014, as WWE's then developmental league NXT held their second WWE Network exclusive live broadcast billed as TakeOver. In subsequent months, the "TakeOver" moniker became the brand used by WWE for all of their NXT live specials. New Orleans was the 19th NXT TakeOver event.  Former Indianapolis Colts punter and current Barstool Sports personality Pat McAfee was announced to join the Pre-Show panel.  This was the first ever TakeOver event to feature Spanish play-by-play commentary live from ringside, as Spanish color commentator Marcelo Rodriguez announced via Twitter.

Storylines.

The card comprised five matches. The matches resulted from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portrayed heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters that built tension and culminated in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the NXT brand, while storylines were produced on their weekly television program, "NXT".  On the February 28 episode of "NXT", Andrade Cien Almas and Zelina Vega boasted about their victory over Johnny Gargano. Then Aleister Black and Killian Dain came out and the three brawled. The following week, Black defeated Dain to become the number one contender to the NXT Championship and would face Almas at TakeOver: New Orleans.  At, Ember Moon defeated Shayna Baszler to retain the NXT Women's Championship. After the match, Baszler attacked Moon. On the February 7 episode of "NXT", Baszler stated that Moon was afraid of her. Later, a tweet from Moon was shown challenging Baszler to a rematch from TakeOver: Philadelphia for the title for the following week. The following week, the rematch ended in a disqualification when Kairi Sane attacked Baszler, thus allowing Moon to retain. Two weeks later, after defeating Sane, Baszler called out Moon. On the March 14 episode, after a match that saw Dakota Kai defeat Lacey Evans, Baszler came down and attacked Kai. Moon came out and then proceeded to brawl with Baszler, which saw Moon stand tall after an Eclipse. The following week after Moon defeated Aliyah, Baszler and Moon argued back and forth.  On the February 21 episode of "NXT", NXT General Manager William Regal announced that there would be a Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and the winner would receive a shot at NXT Tag Team Championship at Takeover: New Orleans. The tournament began on the March 7 episode of "NXT". Over the next couple of weeks, The Authors of Pain, Sanity, Street Profits and Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong, who replaced the previously announced Tyler Bate and Trent Seven after Bate suffered a knee injury, advanced to the next round by defeating TM-61, Riddick Moss and Tino Sabbatelli, Heavy Machinery and Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan, respectively. The semifinal saw The Authors of Pain and Dunne and Strong advance to the finals by defeating Street Profits and Sanity, respectively. The finals featured The Authors of Pain face the team of Strong and Dunne, which ended in a no contest when The Undisputed ERA interfered. Regal then scheduled a triple threat tag team match for the tag team titles and the Dusty Classic trophy at TakeOver: New Orleans.  On the March 28 episode of "NXT", NXT General Manager William Regal announced the introduction of the new NXT North American Championship. He was interrupted by EC3, who was making his return to WWE after previously appearing under the ring name Derrick Bateman. EC3 was subsequently announced by Regal as one of six wrestlers who would compete in a ladder match at TakeOver: New Orleans to crown the inaugural champion. Later that night, Regal also announced the other five participants as Adam Cole, Velveteen Dream, Lars Sullivan, Killian Dain and the debuting Ricochet.  At in May 2017, Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, then teaming together in DIY, were defeated by The Authors of Pain in a ladder match, failing to win back the NXT Tag Team Championship. After the match, Gargano and Ciampa stood on the stage, expressing sadness of defeat. Ciampa then turned on Gargano, attacking him and putting him through two tables. Ciampa explained his attack by revealing that he had sustained an ACL injury and would be out for several months, during which time he suspected that Gargano would try to replace him in their team. At TakeOver: Philadelphia, Gargano was defeated by Andrade "Cien" Almas to retain the NXT Championship. After the match, with Gargano leaving up the ramp, Ciampa made his first appearance since the betrayal by attacking Gargano with a crutch. Gargano subsequently put his NXT career on the line for another title shot against Almas, only to lose after interference from Ciampa, costing Gargano his NXT contract. Over the next few weeks, Gargano developed an obsession for getting back at Ciampa, going as far as ambushing him outside the WWE Performance Center and attempting to break into his house. An unsanctioned match (due to Gargano no longer being contracted to NXT) between the two was made official on the March 28 episode of "NXT", with the added stipulation of Gargano being restored to NXT if he won.

Event.

Preliminary matches.

The event opened with a musical performance from Cane Hill. The first match on the card was a ladder match for the NXT North American Championship involving EC3, Ricochet, Adam Cole, Velveteen Dream, Lars Sullivan and Killian Dain. In the end, Ricochet attempted to retrieve the title but Cole pushed the ladder, causing Ricochet to fall. Cole retrieved the title to win the match.  Next, Ember Moon defended the NXT Women's Championship against Shayna Baszler. Moon went for the "Eclipse", but Baszler countered and applied the "Kirifuda Clutch" on Moon, who passed out. As a result, Baszler won the title by technical submission.  After that, The Undisputed Era (Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly) defended the NXT Tag Team Championship against The Authors of Pain (Akam and Rezar) and Roderick Strong and WWE United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne, with the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Trophy also on the line. Dunne performed the "Bitter End" on O’Reilly, but Strong attacked Dunne, voiding the pinfall at a two count. Strong performed "End of Heartache" on Dunne and placed O'Reilly on top of Dunne, thus The Undisputed Era retained the titles and won the cup. After the match, Strong put on Cole's Undisputed Era armband, turning heel and joining and celebrating with the group.  In the penultimate match, Andrade Cien Almas, accompanied by Zelina Vega, defended the NXT Championship against Aleister Black. Whilst the referee was distracted, Vega performed a hurricanrana off the ring apron into the steel steps on Black; Almas subsequently scored a near-fall. Black performed the "Black Mass" on Almas, but Vega placed Almas’ foot on the bottom rope, voiding the pinfall at a two count. Almas performed a double knee smash on Black, who was seated in the corner, for a near-fall. Almas performed another double knee smash on Black, who was seated against the ring post, and attempted an elevated hammerlock DDT, but Black countered and performed a topé con hilo on the outside. Almas performed a hammerlock DDT on Black for a near-fall. Vega dove off the top rope, though Black ducked, and Almas caught Vega, allowing Black to perform the "Black Mass" on Almas to win the title.

Main event.

In the main event, Johnny Gargano faced Tommaso Ciampa in an unsanctioned match. Ciampa performed a suplex on Gargano off the announce table. Gargano performed a powerbomb on Ciampa off the ring apron onto the exposed concrete. Gargano struck Ciampa with a crutch and performed a slingshot DDT on Ciampa for a near-fall. Gargano applied the "Garga-No-Escape", only for Ciampa to rake Gargano's eyes. Ciampa performed a "Project Ciampa" on Gargano for a near-fall. Gargano performed a "Lawn Dart" into an exposed turnbuckle and two superkicks on Ciampa, who was kneeling, for a near-fall. Ciampa then performed a "Project Ciampa" from the second rope on Gargano for a near-fall. In the end, Ciampa attempted to strike Gargano with his knee brace, however Gargano countered and applied the "Garga-No-Escape", transitioning into an STF using the knee brace. Ciampa submitted, thus Gargano won and was reinstated in NXT.

Reception.

The event received widespread acclaim from fans and critics. Gene Guillot of "The Times-Picayune" described the show as "wrestling at its finest", involving "spectacular wrestling and incredible story telling" with "moment after moment of high impact". Guillot wrote that the "show kicked off with one of the best matches in NXT history and finished with another Match of the Year candidate that told one of the great stories in wrestling history". John Moore of Pro Wrestling Dot Net wrote that "each match delivered at a main event level", describing the main event between Gargano and Ciampa as a "perfect end of their year long tale". Matty Paddock of "The Independent" wrote that the event "delivered in breathtaking style", calling it "a classic night of wrestling that will be hard to match". Dave Meltzer of the "Wrestling Observer Newsletter" gave both the ladder match for the NXT North American Championship and the unsanctioned match five stars, making them the second and third five-star matches NXT had put on in 2018.

NXT TakeOver: New Orleans was a professional wrestling show and WWE Network event in the NXT TakeOver series that took place on April 7, 2018, at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. The event was produced by WWE for its NXT brand and was streamed live on the WWE Network.

NXT TakeOver: New Orleans war eine Wrestling-Veranstaltung der WWE, die auf dem WWE Network ausgestrahlt wurde. Sie fand am 7. April 2018 im Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, Vereinigte Staaten im Vorfeld von "WrestleMania 34" statt. Zum zweiten Mal im Jahr 2018 und zum 20. Mal seit 2014 insgesamt wurde damit eine Veranstaltung unter dem Namen "NXT TakeOver" ausgetragen, zum ersten Mal eine davon im US-Bundesstaat Louisiana.


Life.

Laing was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1936. He grew up during World War II and experienced the Battle of Britain as young boy.  He attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and served with the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers as a lieutenant in Ireland and Germany. He soon realized that the military was not what he was looking for and attended Saint Martin's School of Art in London.  At the beginning of the 1960s, while still at Saint Martin's, Laing was introduced to artists in New York City. He met Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Rosenquist and Robert Indiana. After art school he moved there, and with his connections, his art career began to take off.

Career.

Laing's career took him from the avant-garde world of 1960s pop art, through minimalist sculpture, followed by representational sculpture and then back full circle to his pop art roots.  In 1993 the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh staged a retrospective exhibition of his work.  In 2012 Sims Reed Gallery staged an exhibition of his prints and multiples, his most comprehensive show of work to date.  Laing did a series of anti-war paintings, based primarily on photographs from the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. These paintings were the beginning of his return to pop art. They were followed in 2004 by a series of Amy Winehouse paintings, as well as a painting of Victoria Beckham and Kate Moss.  On 19 February 2012 a bronze sculpture by Laing, "Dreamer", was stolen from Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.  In February 2014, Laing's Brigitte Bardot painting from 1963 work sold for £902,500 in an auction at Christie's in London, a record sum for the artist.  Sims Reed Gallery represents the Estate of Gerald Laing.

Works.

Notable works include:

Gerald Ogilvie Laing (11 February 1936 – 23 November 2011) was a British pop artist and sculptor. He lived in the Scottish Highlands.

Gerald Ogilvie Laing (* 11. Februar 1936 in Newcastle upon Tyne; † 23. November 2011 in St Andrews) war ein englischer Maler und Bildhauer. Zu seinen Plastiken zählt Sherlock Holmes in Edinburgh. Er lebte in den Highlands. Er verstarb auf Kinkell Castle an Krebs.


Distribution.

"Schizoglossa novoseelandica novoseelandica" is found on the North Island, New Zealand. Localities include Kakepuku mountain in the Waikato, Wainuiomata in the Wellington Region, Toko near Stratford, Cape Egmont, and Mount Messenger Conservation Area in Taranaki, Bushy Park and Hunterville in the Manawatu-Whanganui Region, Whangarei Heads in Northland, Ohingaiti, the Kaimai Ranges between Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, and the Mount Tongariro/Lake Taupo area.  Subfossil and very large shells (that were believed to belong to this species in 1913) were found in cave near Tahora, Manawatu-Whanganui and in Mangaone Cave near Nuhaka in Hawke's Bay Region.

Shell description.

"Schizoglossa novoseelandica" was originally described under the name "Daudebardia novoseelandica" by the German malacologist Ludwig Karl Georg Pfeiffer in 1862. He described the species based only the shell, which the German geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter had brought back from New Zealand. The specific name "novoseelandica" is combination of the Latin word "novus" which means "new" and part of the German word "Neuseeland" which means New Zealand. The shell of the type specimen is stored in the Imperial Natural History Museum in Vienna.  Pfeiffers's original text (the type description) is very short: first is shell characteristics in Latin and then incorrect statement in German that it is the largest "Daudebardia". A mistake happened because he was not able to examine different anatomical characteristics. It reads as follows:  The shell is rudimentary, auriform, thin, opaque, oval, increasing irregularly. The protoconch is first smooth, then spirally grooved. The sculpture of the adult volution is somewhat irregularly and rather distantly spirally grooved, the grooves crossed by coarse irregular and arcuate growth wrinkles. The shell is colorless, glossy chestnut shaded to greenish yellow at the margin. The spire is tinged with reddish brown. The color of the ventral side of the shell is nacreous, gleaming white and purple. The columellar lip is white. The periostracum is thin and polished. The color of periostracum is greenish-olive. The spire is quite flat. The protoconch is of 11⁄2 rapidly increasing whorls. The protoconch is flatly convex, one-seventh of the total length, regular, well defined. The shell has two whorls. The adult half whorl is the most rapidly increasing, fingernail-shaped, descending at the suture. The suture is deep. The peristome is thin and sharp, the upper lip very little curved. The outer lip is regularly rounded. The basal lip is nearly straight. The columella is very short, subvertical. Inner lip is thickly callous, terminating below in 1 or several minute tubercles, and spreading broadly above over the parietal wall. The inside of the aperture is strongly callous in the centre and towards the columella, where there is a well-impressed muscular scar of the columellar muscle. A second elongated muscle-scar is situated on the inner side of the basal lip.  The width of the shell of the type specimen is 10 mm, the height of the shell is 2.5 mm, the diameter is 7 mm. The width of the shell in a very large specimen is 32.5 mm, the height of the shell is 6 mm, the diameter is 19.5 mm.

Anatomy.

The length of specimen contracted in alcohol is 20 mm, the height and breadth are 9 mm. Behind the shell, which is situated upon the hinder half of the body, the tail projects slightly. The end of the tail is flat, has no caudal mucous pit, and is bluntly pointed. The margin of the foot is produced into a slight flange. A pair of grooves running along the median line from the mantle to the muzzle define a row of small tubercles. Right and left, between this median line and the foot-edge, 2 indistinct grooves can be traced from the mantle to the lips. Posterior to these, the surface is divided into tubercles by small irregular grooves meandering outwards and downwards. The mantle has an even margin, with 2 small lappets on the under-side; the right proceeds forward from a little behind the respiratory pore (pneumostome), extends to almost one-third of the length of the mantle-margin, and forms a narrow fold; the left is minute, simply a rudiment, and in some specimens it is difficult to detect. The sole of the foot is without a defined median area. Two small labial tentacles are present. The color is reddish-brown, splashed with black, and darkest above. The mantle and sole are ashy-yellow.  The radula is 12 mm long and 3 mm in width. It has 61 rows of denticles (tiny teeth). There is sometimes a rudimentary tooth in the centre of some rows. The number of lateral teeth varying from 24 to 28. Charles Hedley described radula formula with 26 teeth: 24 + 0 + 24 × 61 while Robert C. Murdoch described radula formula with usual 26 teeth: 26 + 0 + 26 × 61. The innermost four teeth are small and slender, then they increase rapidly in size. The 25th tooth is rather smaller than the 24th, and the 26th is minute and occasionally absent.  The digestive system contains enormous buccal mass in size and muscular development. The pharynx (the largest part of buccal mass) is so large, occupying almost the whole length of the visceral cavity. The esophagus enters to the buccal cavity dorsally in the anterior fourth. The stomach forms a simple elongated sac.  The reproductive system is remarkable for extreme reduction of male organs and the absence of receptaculum seminis (spermatheca). The male organ (penis) is a short tube, and exhibits little difference from the vas deferens, except that it is slightly wider; the latter is a short tube not sharply marked off from the verge. The albumen gland is large.

Ecology.

Habitat.

"Schizoglossa novoseelandica" usually lives in rainforest under logs, but it can hunt its prey a few metres above the ground in the trees.

Feeding habits.

"Schizoglossa novoseelandica" is carnivorous and predatory, preferring snails "Otoconcha dimidiata" from the subfamily Otoconchinae, family Charopidae and also feeding on earthworms and on its own species (cannibalism).

Life cycle.

The egg is white, hard-shelled, oval and coarsely granular. The size of the eggs of "Schizoglossa novoseelandica" ranges from 4 × 3 mm to 4.5 × 3.75 mm. Eggs are laid in August, and they are found principally under a good thickness of decaying fern-leaves, in little heaps of from 6 to as many as 14.

Parasites.

A parasitic nematode "Angiostoma schizoglossae" Morand & Barker, 1995 was described from "Schizoglossa novoseelandica" in 1995.

References.

This article incorporates public domain text from references

Schizoglossa novoseelandica is a predatory species of air-breathing land slug or semi-slug, a terrestrial gastropod mollusc in the family Rhytididae. It is the type species of the genus "Schizoglossa" and is found only in New Zealand. The survival of this species is not threatened; it is not listed in the 2009 "IUCN Red List" nor is it in the 2005 "New Zealand Threat Classification System lists".

Schizoglossa novoseelandica ist der Name einer räuberisch lebenden Schnecke aus der Familie Rhytididae in der Unterordnung der Landlungenschnecken (Stylommatophora), die in Neuseeland verbreitet ist.


History.

In the Middle Ages, this street was still a country path already taken during the prehistoric times, bordered by agricultural land, including vineyards. The nuns of the desert bought the western part in 1296 and decided to change the route in a street several centuries later. It was urbanized in the 16th century. Then, from the 16th century, it became a major axis of entry and exit from the Presqu'île by the North since the Porte Saint-Sébastien or La Croix-Rousse. Thus, the street was originally called Grand'Côte Saint-Sébastien and Grand'Côte de La Croix-Rousse. The upper part of the street was named Pierres-Plantées named after the planted stones installed in this area to reduce the dangerousness of the street, thus providing an insurmountable physical constraint. In 1628, a small statue of Saint-Roch and a plaque in Latin, installed to indicate where the plague epidemic stopped, were added and finally removed after the French Revolution.  While the rest of the plateau and slopes of La Croix-Rousse were mainly composed of religious congregations, the Grand'Côte already hosted many canuts. In 1788, there were 705 looms. Their number increased with advancing urbanization of the slopes. The Grand'Côte became the crossing place of the workers who came down to Lyon, to the Capuchins, the district of merchants or Condition des soies). It was particularly taken by the demonstrators during the Revolt of Canuts on 21 November 1831 and 14 February 1834. In 1835, a cooperative store was established here long before the Rochdale movement in England and a plaque is now in the street stating: "Here was founded in 1835 by Michel Derrion and Joseph Reynier the French first cooperative of consumers." Today, the street continues to provide a typical example of a canuts street, although the upper part was restored.  The road surface was changed in 1855 to provide a sanitary sewer. From 1854 to 1930, the rue des Pierres Plantées was incorporated to the montée de la Grande Côte. In 1895, the young Marius Berliet developed his first car, called the "Pantoufle" in the homestead of La Croix-Rousse; trials were held in the montée de la Grande Côte, but the car ended up in the window of a butcher. In the last decades of the 20th century, a policy of urban renewal destroyed the upper part of the street and the adjacent islands (e.g., in 1975, all the houses at the top of the street were demolished), creating a visible hole in the quarter.  Some sections are currently exclusively pedestrian. The upper part was transformed: staircases, gardens and an esplanade offering a view over the city. The part between the rue des Tables Claudiennes and the rue Burdeau is the only one to have kept its original width.

Architecture.

The more interesting architecture of the street, composed of beautiful doorways and arches, can be found in the southern part of the street. At the north of the rue Imbert Colomès, there are canut-styled buildings of the 19th century and four buildings of the 1970s. Then, before the rue des Tables Claudiennes, there are a 20th-century school and two old houses. Before the rue Burdeau, there are two-floor houses, and before the rue Leynaud, a six-floor public housing replacing houses before 1988, and a covered parking; beyond, the street is more narrow and lined with a large variety of old houses. To the east, there are old two to four-floor houses, the oldest of them built in the early 16th century.  At No. 2, there was a Roman sculpture. At No. 89-90, there was a statue of a Madonna and Child, but the child disappeared in 1902 and the Virgin five years later. At No. 100, the mullioned windows were created in the 13th century. Sidewalks were added in 1859.  The houses are classified as world heritage site.  The Grand'Côte gave its name to the "Littré de la Grand'Côte", a dictionary about the Lyon speaking written by Nizier of Puitspelu (aka Clair Tisseur).

Traboules.

There are several traboules in the street:

The Montée de la Grande Côte, or the Montée de la Grande-Côte, is a street of La Croix-Rousse quarter, located in the 1st arrondissement of Lyon, connecting the Terreaux quarter and the Plateau de la Croix Rousse. It is characterized by a high elevation and is more narrow at the bottom. The street belongs to the zone classified as World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Die Montée de la Grande-Côte (auch: Montée de la Grand’Côte) ist ein Straßenzug im 1. Arrondissement von Lyon, der das Viertel Terreaux mit der Hochebene von La Croix-Rousse verbindet.


Draft.

The 1944 NFL Draft was held on April 19, 1944 at Philadelphia's Warwick Hotel. With the first pick, the Boston Yanks selected quarterback Angelo Bertelli from the University of Notre Dame.

Division races.

Each team played ten games over thirteen weeks. The Brooklyn Tigers lost seven of their games by a touchdown or less. On October 29, they had 14–7 lead over Boston at halftime, before losing 17–14 in "Week Seven". The same week, Card-Pitt's 42–20 loss at Washington eliminated it from playoff contention. Card-Pitt had actually taken a 28–23 lead over the Rams in its first game, played September 24 at Pittsburgh, before falling 30–28; its only other lead was a 7–0 in a game at Chicago against the Packers, which it eventually lost 35–20.  The Western Division race was no contest, as the Packers won their first six games and stayed ahead of all challengers. In the Eastern Division, Washington (5–0–1) and Philadelphia (4–0–2) were both unbeaten after nine weeks. The teams met in Washington in "Week Ten" (November 26), and the Eagles won 37–7, putting them at 5–0–2, with the Redskins and Giants a half game back at 5–1–1. The Eagles lost, while the Giants and Redskins won, in "Week Eleven", putting New York and Washington in the lead at 6–1–1. In "Week Twelve", a crowd of 47,457 turned out at New York's Polo Grounds to watch the Giants and Redksins. Washington had a 13–10 lead before falling 16–13. In "Week Thirteen", the Eagles beat the Rams 26–13, giving them a 7–1–2 finish, then waited to see how the 7–1–1 Giants would fare in their rematch at Washington. The Giants beat the Skins 31–0, capturing the division and the right to host the championship.

NFL Championship Game.

Green Bay 14, N.Y. Giants 7, at Polo Grounds, New York City, December 17, 1944

The 1944 NFL season was the 25th regular season of the United States National Football League. The Boston Yanks joined the league as an expansion team. Also, the Brooklyn Dodgers changed their name to Brooklyn Tigers. Meanwhile, both the Cleveland Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles resumed their traditional operations, while the Pittsburgh Steelers merged with the Chicago Cardinals for this one season due to player shortages as a result of World War II. The combined team, known as Card-Pitt, played three home games in Pittsburgh and two in Chicago, and set the 20th century record for lowest punting average by an NFL team with 32.7 yards per punt.

Die NFL Saison 1944 war die 25. reguläre Saison der in den USA stattfindenden National Football League. Die Boston Yanks ergänzten die Liga als neu gegründetem Team. Auch änderten die Brooklyn Dodgers ihren Namen zu Brooklyn Tigers. Ebenfalls kehrten die Cleveland Rams und die Philadelphia Eagles zum normalen Spielbetrieb zurück, während die Pittsburgh Steelers mit den Chicago Cardinals für diese Saison wegen des Spielermangels durch den Zweiten Weltkriegs ein gemeinsames Team bildeten. Das gemeinsame Team, das als Card-Pitt bekannt wurde, spielte drei Spiele in Pittsburgh, zwei in Chicago und erzielte dabei den Negativrekord für die niedrigste Puntingdurchschnitt eines NFL-Teams mit 32,7 Yards pro Punt.