Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Stephen Hawking

2007-06-26T10:56:47Z

MadMin: removed reference to You-tube fake

[[Image:Bvfgdtre.jpg|right|thumb]]
'''Stephen Hawking''' is a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[physicist]] and [[author]]. He was born on January 8, 1942.

Despite suffering from [[Motor Neurone Disease]] for most of his adult life he has written books popularizing [[science]]. His most famous books are ''[[A Brief History of Time]]'' and ''[[Black Holes and Baby Universes]]''.

Hawking is credited with the development, although not the origin, of the [[Big Bang]] Theory of the [[creation]] of the [[universe]]. Since 1979 he has been the [[Lucasian Professor of Mathematics]] at [[Cambridge University]], a post once held by [[Isaac Newton]] and [[Paul Dirac]].<ref>[http://www.hawking.org.uk Stephen W. Hawking's webpages]</ref>

Stephen Hawking combines his research with family life and acts to popularize science. He has appeared on [[The Simpsons]] and [[Star Trek|Star Trek: The Next Generation]] [[TV]] shows and contributed vocals through his speech synthesizer to the [[Pink Floyd]] album [[The Division Bell]] on the track [[Keep Talking]].

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Physicists|Hawking, Stephen]]

Talk:Donna Hanover

2007-06-25T22:44:23Z

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Talk:Fast track

2007-06-25T22:44:01Z

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Talk:Norman Rockwell

2007-06-25T22:43:38Z

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Talk:Voice of America

2007-06-25T22:43:18Z

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Talk:Word search puzzle

2007-06-25T22:42:15Z

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Talk:Engram

2007-06-25T22:30:00Z

MadMin: Undo revision 209096 by Special:Contributions/HalifaxWhore (User talk:HalifaxWhore)

'''What are ''your'' crimes?'''

Talk:Bob Patterson

2007-06-25T22:28:01Z

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Talk:Resurrection of Jesus Christ

2007-06-25T22:27:08Z

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Exclusive contract

2007-06-25T22:24:42Z

MadMin: Undo revision 209046 by Special:Contributions/FloridaDemocrat (User talk:FloridaDemocrat)

An exclusive contract is one that grants rights to one person or group and prohibits granting similar rights to others. An example is a hospital that only allows one group of anesthesiologists to work at the hospital and denies access to the hospital by all other anesthesiologists.<ref>http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/papers/wp14-97.pdf</ref>

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a claim that exclusive contracts by physicians were automatically ("per se") illegal under antitrust laws. ''Jefferson Parish Hospital Dist. No. 2 v. Hyde'', 466 U.S. 2 (1984). In that case now-Judge Frank Easterbook successfully argued that a showing of a negative impact on the market is required before declaring an exclusive contract to be per se illegal. In that case 70 percent of the local patients entered different hospitals, making it doubtful that Jefferson Parish Hospital hurt the overall local market by having an exclusive contract with anesthesiologists.

One decision did hold that an exclusive contract with a group of anesthesiologists violated the antitrust laws. In ''Oltz v. St. Peter's Community Hosp.'', 861 F.2d 1440 (9th Cir. 1988), the Ninth Circuit upheld a judgment against the hospital for allowing a group of anesthesiologists to coerce it into abandoning a contract with a nurse anesthetist, who charged lower fees, and enter into an exclusive contract with the group.

'''Sources:''' <references/>

Erwin Rommel

2007-06-25T22:23:50Z

MadMin: Undo revision 209044 by Special:Contributions/FloridaDemocrat (User talk:FloridaDemocrat)

[[Image:Rommel.jpg|thumb|300px|Erwin Rommel]]

'''Erwin Rommel''' was Hitler's most trusted field marshal{{fact}} during [[World War II]]. He was noticed by [[Adolf Hitler]] in 1937. He was then appointed command of HQ of [[Czechoslovakia]] and then later in [[Poland]]. After this he was given command of the 7th [[Panzer]] division, because of his wonderful work at HQ. His army moved faster and farther than any other army in the history of the world, fitting the description of [[Blitzkrieg]]. After his great leadership in [[France]] he was appointed command of the newly formed Deutsches [[Afrika Korps]] successfully drove the [[British 8th Army]] out of [[Libya]]. He later went on to [[El Alamein]], [[Egypt]], were he was defeated. He is also known as the ''Desert Fox''. He was forced to commit suicide after being discovered of plotting against Hitler and being charged of high treason.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rommel, Erwin}}
[[Category:Military Commanders]]
[[Category:World War II]]

Morse Code

2007-06-25T22:23:02Z

MadMin: Undo revision 209036 by Special:Contributions/FloridaDemocrat (User talk:FloridaDemocrat)

[[Image:Intcode.png|right|thumb|Morse code chart, 1922.|300px]]
'''Morse Code''' was invented by [[Samuel Morse]] in the 1840s. It looks like a bunch of dashes and dots, but in fact it is a [[language]] with its own way of expressing [[word]]s and [[punctuation]].

The most famous Morse Code sequence is "SOS" (---...---). Officially adopted as a distress call in 1908, it replaced the older "CQD". While commonly believed to stand for "Save Our Souls" or "Save Our Ship", it does not; the sequence was chosen for its ease of use and recognizability.[http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/060199tip6.htm]

See also: [[Braille]], [[CB radio]]

[[Category:information technology]]

Elbridge Gerry

2007-06-25T22:22:33Z

MadMin: Undo revision 209031 by Special:Contributions/FloridaDemocrat (User talk:FloridaDemocrat)

{| border="1" align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="250" style="margin-left:5px"
|align="center" colspan="2"|[[Image:Elbridge gerry.jpg|150px]]
|-
!colspan="2" align="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: green no-repeat scroll top left;"|Elbridge Gerry;
Fifth Vice President of the United States
|-
|Born
|1744
|-
|Died
|1814
|-
|Term
|1813-1814
|-
|}

'''Elbridge Gerry''' was [[Vice President of the United States]] under [[Thomas Jefferson]] and [[James Madison]] from 1813 to 1814. He previously served as Governor of [[Massachusetts]]. The phrase "[[gerrymander]]" was coined because a new district (in Massachusetts) had been shaped like a [[salamander]]. <ref> [[Fandex]], Workman Publishing, 2002. </ref>

==References==
<references/>

{{DEFAULTSORT: Gerry, Elbridge}}
[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States]]

Booby

2007-06-19T22:19:37Z

MadMin: added pictures

The '''booby''' is a large seabird, similar to the [[gannet]] - the main difference being that boobies rest on land, and gannets at sea. They are about the size of a [[goose]]. They catch fish by diving into the sea to catch them. Boobies nest in colonies on remote islands where their chicks are safe from predators.

There are four species found in American waters:
[[Image:Blue-footed booby.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Blue-footed booby]]
*[[Blue-footed Booby]] - breeds on islands off California and [[Mexico]], but can stray to the [[Salton Sea]], [[Arizona]] and [[Texas]].
*[[Red-footed Booby]] - a rare visitor to the [[Dry Tortugas]] and [[California]]. This, at 28 inches, is the smallest species.
*[[Brown Booby]] - also a rare visitor to both coasts of the mainland United States, but it nests in the [[Baja California]] region.
[[Image:Masked boobies.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Masked boobies]]
*[[Masked Booby]] - breeds on the Dry Tortugas but often strays to southern coasts. This is the largest of the Boobies at 32 inches in length.

==Source==
*''National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America'' (National Geographic 2002)

[[Category:birds]]

Cargo cult

2007-06-15T23:47:20Z

MadMin: formatting

A '''cargo cult''' is any of a group of unorthodox religious movements appearing in tribal societies in the wake of Western impact. Cargo cults sometimes maintain that manufactured western goods labeled "cargo" have been created by divine spirits and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that white people have unfairly gained control of these objects. It is not unusual for cargo pants to be stolen from tourists wearing such cargo who visit islands with cargo cults. Cargo cults thus focus on overcoming what they perceive as undue 'white' influences by conducting rituals similar to the white behavior they have observed, presuming that the ancestors will at last recognize their own and send them cargo. Thus a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will at some future time give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members. In other instances such as on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, cult members worship Americans who brought the cargo.{{fact}}

[[Category:Religion]]

Syria

2007-06-15T23:44:03Z

MadMin: copyedit & ref

[[Image:S001.png|right|thumb]]
'''Syria''' is a Middle Eastern country. It is bordered by [[Israel]], [[Lebanon]], [[Jordan]], [[Iraq]], and [[Turkey]].

The capital is [[Damascus]]. Other important cities include [[Aleppo]] and [[Hama]]. Most settlement is near the [[Mediterranean]] coast, with the interior consisting largely of [[steppe]].

Syria is currently a [[Ba'athist]] [[dictatorship]]. The government was accused by many of playing a role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister [[Rafik Hariri]] in 2005. Syria is also responsible for allowing foreign terrorist fighters to enter Iraq through their border and attack our troops.

It is also a destination for victims of [[human trafficking]].<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sy.html CIA World Fact Book]</ref>

Damascus is an important city for Christians, as it is the city to which the Apostle [[Paul]] was travelling upon his conversion. However, it has been mostly Muslim for centuries, and was a part of the [[Ottoman Empire]]. When the Ottoman Empire dissolved after [[World War I]], [[France]] forcibly took over Syria, then left in 1946, granting it its independence.

[[Category:Asian Countries]]
[[Category:Middle Eastern Countries]]

John F. Kennedy

2007-06-15T23:34:47Z

MadMin: spelling

[[Image:John_kennedy.jpg|right|thumb|John F. Kennedy]]

'''John Fitzgerald Kennedy''' '''(May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963)''' was the 35th [[American]] and youngest president. He died in 1963 when he was assassinated by [[Lee Harvey Oswald]].

Kennedy won the 1960 Presidential election against [[Richard Nixon]] by a thin margin. An important part of the campaign turned out to be the role of television. When Kennedy and Nixon held their presidential debate, those who listened on radio thought that Nixon won, but those who saw it on television thought Kennedy had won. Kennedy, young, tanned, and wearing discrete makeup for the camera, had a better television presence.

Kennedy was responsible for the [[Bay of Pigs]] fiasco, ineptly encouraging the invasion but then pulling back support and even allowing advance notice of the invasion to leak to [[Fidel Castro]]. When a year later the [[Soviet Union]] was building a ballistic missile site in [[Cuba]] that could house nuclear missiles, Kennedy handled the ensuing [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] with the help of hawks in his administration whose conduct, such as putting bombers on alert status, posed a credible threat to Soviets and helped cause them to back down.

Kennedy authorized the de-segregation of Federal housing and proposed the civil rights bill, passed after his assassination. He created the [[Peace Corps]] and also pledged to put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s, a pledge that was later fulfilled after his death.

Kennedy cut taxes and appointed [[Byron White]] to the [[U.S. Supreme Court]], who consistently ruled with [[conservatives]] on social issues such as [[abortion]] and [[homosexuality]].

Kennedy was a notorious womanizer, which the media failed to report on until well after his death.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, John F.}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]

Pfizer

2007-06-15T23:31:29Z

MadMin: grammar

'''Pfizer''' is a multinational drugs corporation, which develops and manufactures pharmaceuticals.

Ethiopia

2007-06-15T23:28:37Z

MadMin: references

[[Image:Et-map.gif|right|thumb]]

'''Ethiopia''' is an [[African]] [[country]] bordering [[Sudan]], [[Eritrea]], [[Kenya]] and [[Somalia]]. With the exception of the Italian occupation of 1936-1941, Ethiopia is the only African country to never have been colonised by a European imperialist power.<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/et.html CIA World Fact Book]</ref>. A bloody border dispute with [[Eritrea]] following that country's secession in 1991 has claimed many lives, and the country has experienced a number of [[famine]]s in the past century. Perhaps most notable of thse are the 1974 famine that led to the Marxist ouster of Emperor [[Haile Selassie]] and the 1984-1985 famine that inspired [[Bob Geldof]] to begin the Band Aid/Live Aid project.

[[Coffee]] originated in Ethiopia.

=References=

<references/>
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx - An interactive map of the world

[[Category:African Countries]]

Cheshire

2007-06-15T23:15:42Z

MadMin: geography

Cheshire is a county of north-west England; its county town is the cathedral city of [[Chester]]. Traditionally, Cheshire's northern boundary was the River [[Mersey]], which separated it from Lancashire; in the local government reorganisation of 1974 an area of Cheshire around [[Stockport]] was ceded to the new Metropolitan County of [[Greater Manchester]] and much of the [[Wirral]] peninsula became part of the new Metropolitan County of [[Merseyside]]; Cheshire gained the former Lancashire towns of [[Warrington]] and [[Widnes]] north of the river. Its other boundaries were largely unchanged. Cheshire is bounded to the west by [[Flintshire]] and the new district of [[Wrexham]] in north-east [[Wales]], to the south by [[Shropshire]], and to the east by [[Staffordshire]] and [[Derbyshire]].

Much of Cheshire is low-lying and flat - the 'Cheshire Plain', though in the east the land rises in the Pennine foothills. The county is largely agricultural, though significant industries have since Roman times exploited the salt beds underlying the county. The 'Cheshire Wiches', the towns of [[Northwich]], [[Nantwich]] and [[Middlewich]], grew prosperous on salt; and the industry also gave rise to the chemicals industry on the Mersey. [[Macclesfield]], in the east of the county, specialised in silk manufacture, and Crewe in railway engineering. North Cheshire has some of the most expensive residential property in the United Kingdom, and the area around [[Alderley Edge]] is nicknamed the 'footballer belt', as many highly-paid football stars live in the vicinity.

The population of Cheshire (2005 estimate) is 993,200.

[[Category:England]]

Liverpool

2007-06-15T22:48:56Z

MadMin: Restored some overexuberant deletions

A minor port city in the North West of England until it was awarded a [[City Charter]] by King John in 1208. However, it was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that Liverpool developed into a major global city. This prominence was based largely on trade, including [[tobacco]], [[sugar]] and a major involvement in the [[slave trade]]. Although the slave trade was abolished in 1806, Liverpool continued to flourish as an industrial trade and financial industries center. Liverpool has the largest number of listed buildings outside of [[London]], more notable Georgian buildings than [[Bath]] and more public sculpture outside the City of [[Westminster]]. The Liverpool waterfront is a [[UNESCO]] world heritage site.

Liverpool is noted for its two cathedrals, one [[Anglican]] and one [[Roman Catholic]]. The former, a traditional design from the early 1900s is built from local sandstone. The Catholic cathedral built in a modern style during the 1970s is affectionately known as Paddy's Wigwam or the Mersey Funnel - a pun on the pioneering Mersey Tunnel constructed under the river between Liverpool and Birkenhead.

Liverpool is the European Capital Of Culture for 2008.

The city currently has a population of approximately 450,000, known as Liverpudlians (and nicknamed 'Scousers' after a local dish), with the wider [[Merseyside]] region having a population of 1.5 million. The city itself is divided up into villages such as Aigburth, West Derby, [[Aintree]] and [[Knotty Ash]]. The popular culture and of Liverpool has been portrayed by the author and dramatist Carla Lane in a number of highly-regarded television dramas including "The Liver Birds" and "Bread". Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale are also noted playwrights from Liverpool. Bleasdale effectively portrayed the misery and deprivation of 1980s Liverpool in dramas such as ''The Black Stuff'', while Russell, probably the most well-known of current Liverpool writers has enjoyed huge success with offerings such as ''Educating Rita'', ''Blood Brothers'' and ''Shirley Valentine''.

British [[Prime Minister]] [[Harold Wilson]] later Lord Wilson of Rievaulx was [[Member of Parliament]] for the Liverpool constituency of Huyton from 1945 until 1979.

Famous natives of Liverpool:
* Arthur Askey (comedian and actor)
* Cilla Black (singer, TV presenter)
* Stan Boardman (comedian)
* Cherie Blair (prominent lawyer)
* Tony Booth (actor and father-in-law of [[Tony Blair]])
* Billy Butler (comedian)
* Jamie Carragher (footballer)
* Melanie Chisholm - Mel C (former ''Spice Girl'')
* Edwina Currie (politician and author)
* [[Knotty Ash|Ken Dodd]] (poet, comedian and singer)
* Kenny Everett (disc jockey and comedian)
* Robbie Fowler (footballer)
* Steven Gerrard (footballer)
* Derek Hatton (politician)
* Terry McDermott (footballer)
* George Melly (jazz singer and author)
* Derek Nimmo (comic actor)
* Steven Norris (politician)
* John Peel (disc jockey and radio personality)
* Ted Ray (comedian)
* Anne Robinson (TV presenter and journalist)
* Norman Rossington (comedian and actor)
* [[George Stubbs]] (artist)
* Jimmy Tarbuck (comedian)
* Ricky Tomlinson (trade unionist, actor, comedian and banjo player)

==Culture==
* [[Merseybeat]]
* [[The Beatles]]
* [[Tate Liverpool]]
* [[Echo and the Bunnymen]]
* The [[Liverpool Poets]]
* [[Siegfried Sassoon]]

==Sports==
* [[Everton FC]] Soccer
* [[Liverpool FC]] Soccer
* [[Liverpool St Helens]] RUFC
* [[St Helens RLFC]]
* [[Tranmere Rovers]] Soccer

[[Category:UK Towns and Cities]]

Texas Instruments

2007-06-15T22:31:20Z

MadMin: Added references section

'''Texas Instruments''' (TI) is a semiconductor manufacturing company based in [[Dallas]], [[Texas]] that is best known for the commercialisation of the transistor.

The company was founded in 1941 as the electronics manufacturing division of the [[seismic exploration]] company [[Geophysical Service Incorporated]] (GSI). Benefiting from government contracts for submarine detection during [[World War II]], the electronic equipment division outgrew its parent and peformed a reverse take-over of GSI in 1951, whereupon it adopted the name of Texas Instruments and GSI became its subsidiary.

TI was the first company to commercialise the transistor which had been developed at [[Bell Laboratories]]. In 1954 TI designed the first transistor radio and in 1958 filed a patent for the first [[integrated circuit]].

TI invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, the single-chip microcomputer in 1971, and in 1973 obtained the first patent on a single-chip microprocessor. As a pioneering company TI frequently had to develop products that made use of its electronics. Unfortunately, competitors often fared better in marketing consumer products and in the 1990s TI largely withdrew from the consumer electronics market with the notable exception of its hand-held calculator business.

Until GSI was sold to [[Halliburton]] in 1988, TI continued to manufacture geophysical equipment. TI's main focus is on semiconductor manufacturing<ref>It ranks third in the world behind Intel and Samsung</ref> and is a major player in making chips for Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Digital Light Processors (micro-mirrors on a chip for projectors and televisions).

==Notes & References==

<references/>

Texas Instruments

2007-06-15T22:30:28Z

MadMin: more spelling

Texas Instruments

2007-06-15T22:30:03Z

MadMin: spelling

Texas Instruments

2007-06-15T22:29:21Z

MadMin: Rewrote and eliminated former nonsense

'''Texas Instruments''' (TI) is a semiconductor manufacturing company based in [[Dallas]], [[Texas]] that is best known for the commercialisation of the transistor.

The company was founded in 1941 as the electronics manufacturing division of the [[seismic exploration]] company [[Geophysical Service Incorporated]] (GSI). Benefiting from government contracts for submarine detection during [[World War II]], the electronic equipment division outgrew its parent and peformed a reverse take-over of GSI in 1951, whereupon it adopted the name of Texas Instruments and GSI became its subsidiary.

TI was the first company to commercialise the transistor which had been developed at [[Bell Laboratories]]. In 1954 TI designed the first transistor radio and in 1958 filed a patent for the first [[integrated circuit]].

TI invented the hand-held calculator in 1967, the single-chip microcomputer in 1971, and in 1973 obtained the first patent on a single-chip microprocessor. As a pioneering company TI frequently had to develop products thst made use of its electronics. Unfortunately, competitors often fared better in marketing consumer products and in the 1990s TI largely withdrew from the consumer electronics market with the notable exception of its hand-held calculator business.

Until GSI was sold to [[Halliburton]] in 1988, TI continued to manufacture geophysical equipment. TI's main focus is on semiconductor manufacturing<ref>It ranks third in the world behind Intel and Samsung</ref> and is a major player in making chips for Digital Signal Processing (DSP) and Digital Light Processors (micro-mirrors on a chip for projectors and televisisons).

Divorce

2007-06-03T19:54:32Z

MadMin: Spelling

'''Divorce''' is the ''[[legal]]'' dissolution of a marriage [[contract]]. Marriage sometimes has a legal and a religious component. Divorce ends the legal contract. Some religions require the married partners to have a ''religious'' divorce if the individuals wish to continue their religious practice. For instance, practising [[Jews]] must get both a legal divorce, to satisfy secular authorities, and a ''get'', or religious divorce, to satisfy religious practice.

== Biblical View ==

Many believe that the Bible indicates that divorce is a [[sin]] in the eyes of God, and can lead to drastic consequences for those involved. Indeed, God says "''I hate divorce.''" (Malachi 2:16 NIV version)

Many Christians believe that God's views on divorce are most clearly articulated in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9:

''"32: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery"'' (Matthew 5: 32) and, ''"9: And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery"'' (Matthew 19: 9)

It should be noted that the corresponding passages in Mark and Luke lack the reference to fornication:

''Mark 10:11-12 (KJV): And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.''

''Luke 16:18 (KJV): Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from [her] husband committeth adultery.''

Does two beat one or is Matthew, as an eyewitness, inserting information that the others had lost? There is no one answer.

Some believe that divorce therefore equates to adultery, and incurs the consequences of such.

The further consequences of adultery are played out more radically in
Deuteronomy 23:2, when it is stated:

''"2: A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD."'' (Deuteronomy 23:2)

As this is an Old Testament decree (unlike the previously-mentioned Matthew), it may no longer apply Post-Christ when the emphasis of salvation shifts from countries and family lines to individuals.

Many religions adopt the more liberal view towards divorce that advocates its free practice. Most [[Protestant]] denominations have no prohibition on divorce. [[Catholics]] do not admit divorce. [[Catholic Church|The Catholic Church]] has a process of [[annulment]] based on the non-fulfilment of any of the religious marriage requirements, such as individual freedom or previous unmarried state, among others. Technically, it is not a divorce but a declaration of non-valid marriage. In the 2004 Presidential election season many devout Catholics were scandalized by Senator [[John Kerry]], now married to his second wife, taking [[Communion|Holy Communion]] without having obtained an annulment.

== Divorce in Christian Denominations ==
The attitude to divorce varies between Christian churches. Although no major church fully prohibits divorce, some make obtaining one more difficult than others.

The Roman Catholic Church prohibits divorce in principle, but in practice will make an exception in every case - often declaring a marriage anulled rather than divorced, a legal distinction.

Most [[Protestant]] churches permit divorce, but encourage marriage counselling services or pastoral discussion first to save a marriage, saving divorce as a last resort. Often, the local pastor has exclusive authority over the marital business of his church, with only minimal policymaking from above.

== Secular view ==
Divorce is the dissolution of a contract and laws vary from state to state. Under the common unilateral divorce laws (also known as no-fault divorce), either party can demand and get a divorce at any time and for any reason.<ref>Divorce courts do consider all sorts of allegations of fault when children are involved.</ref>

== Divorce Rate ==
The United States has a divorce rate of 3.6 per 1,000 as of 2005<ref>http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_20.pdf</ref>. This results in a 41% failure rate for first marriages.<ref>http://www.divorcerate.org/</ref>

== Covenant Marriage ==
In order to help solve the social problems created by inordinately high divorce rates, some states have begun passing laws enabling [[covenant marriage|covenant marriages]]. A covenant marriage in some cases is harder to obtain than a default lawful marriage license and also is more difficult to break (the common exceptions being violence, abandonment or adultery). <ref>http://marriage.about.com/cs/covenantmarriage/a/covenant.htm</ref>

= References =
<references/>
[[category:religion]][[category:culture]]

Islam

2007-06-03T15:48:26Z

MadMin: /* Islam and Paganism */ spelling (more)

'''Islam''' is a [[monotheism|monotheistic]] [[religion]] based on the teachings of [[Muhammad]], a 7th century [[Arab]] [[politics|political]] and religious figure. The word "Islam" means "submission." The followers of Islam are called Muslims, or Moslems. Muslims follow the teaching of Muhammad, whom they believe to be [[God]]'s last and greatest [[prophet]]. The faith teaches that the Angel Gabriel appeared to him.

Muslims believe that God (Allah, in [[Arabic]]) revealed the [[Qur'an]] to Muhammad, and despite his illiteracy, caused him to transcribe it <ref>Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created- Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,- He Who taught (the use of) the pen,- Taught man that which he knew not.(Surah 96:1-5)</ref>. The [[Qur'an]] is considered to be the pure and [[holy]] word of Allah. Like [[Christianity]], and [[Judaism]], Islam originated in the [[Middle East]]. Islam claims to trace its roots back to [[Abraham]]. Muslims do not believe that Muhammad was the founder of Islam, rather that he restored the original faith of Abraham and the prophets, which had been corrupted and/or misinterpreted over time. Based upon this belief, the Bible, Old and New Testament, is believed to have become corrupted as well.

Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with over 1.4 billion followers, the number of Muslims is rapidly growing, mainly due to high birth rates in Muslim countries. Both Christian and Muslim sources agree that conversions to Christianity outnumber those to Islam.<ref>[http://www.bible.ca/global-religion-statistics-world-christian-encyclopedia.htm World Christian Encyclopedia]</ref>
<ref>[http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/AlJazeerahAfrica.php Translation of AL-Jazeerah interview between Maher Abdallah and Shiekh Ahmed Katani]</ref>

[[Image:Mecca.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[Mecca]], the Islamic holy city.]]

===Five Pillars of Islam===

*'''Shahadah (Profession of Faith)''' -The Shahadah is the Muslim profession of faith. 'ašhadu 'al-lā ilāha illā-llāhu wa 'ašhadu 'anna muħammadan rasūlu-llāh, a loose English translation reads "''There is none worthy of worship except the Allah, and [[Muhammad]] is the messenger of Allah''" This testament can be seen as the foundation of all of the other tenets of Islam.

*'''Salat (Ritual Prayer)''' -All Muslims are required to Pray to Allah five times each day while facing [[Mecca]].

*'''Zakat (Charity)''' Able Muslims must donate to the poor based on the wealth one has accumulated. In current usage it is interpreted as 2.5% of the value of most valuables and savings held for a full [[lunar year]].

*'''Sawm (Fasting)''' All able-bodied Muslims (children, the elderly, and the ill are exempt) must fast during daylight hours during the daylight hours of the entire month of [[Ramadan]]. According to Muslims, this purifies the body and soul. Some Muslim sects allow military, police and emergency services personnel to receive an exemption from fasting from an imam, on the grounds that their work supports the community or national good.

*'''Hajj (Pilgrimage)''' All able-bodied Muslims must make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lives.

[[Image:Quran.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Pages from the Qur'an, the holy book of the Islamic religion.]]

==Islam and Christianity==

While Muslims do not believe Jesus to be the Son of God or in the resurrection, they consider him to be one of God's most important prophets. However, the Qur'an warns against worshiping Jesus, for fear of [[idolatry]].<ref>[http://www.ccg.org/_domain/ccg.org/Islam/Islam.htm Christian Churches of God Articles on Islam], March 10, 2007</ref>

The Qur'an states that Christians will be punished, though the nature of the punishment is not specified:

"Surely, disbelievers are those who said:
"Allah is the third of the three (in a Trinity)." But there is no god but One, Allah.
And if they cease not from what they say, verily, a painful torment will befall the disbelievers among them.

Will they not repent to Allah and ask His Forgiveness? For Allah is OftForgiving, Most Merciful.

The Messiah , son of Mary, was no more than a Messenger; many were the Messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a Siddiqah (i.e. she believed in the words of God and His Books ).
They both used to eat food (as any other human eat).
Look how We make the signs clear to them, yet look how they are deluded away (from the truth)."

Qur'an 5:73-75

However, Islam does recognize Christians and Jews as "people of the book" since both refer to one God only, and recognize Abraham (Ibrahim in [[Arabic]]) as a founding prophet.

==Islam and Paganism==

Although Muslims profess belief in a single, almighty [[Allah|God]], some Western scholars believe that some Muslim beliefs, like some of the [[church]] and indeed early Judaism, can be traced back to distinctly polytheistic antecedents{{fact}}. Some, for example, have attempted to link Allah to a moon deity, though this is unsupported by an etymological study of the word "Allah" and the fact that Allah is cited by the Qur'an <ref>The Qur'an, Sura 37 [http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Quran-Allamah-Nooruddin/dp/0963206702]</ref> as the God of Abraham (the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). <ref>Abramahov, "Islamic Theology". Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1988. [http://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Theology-Binyamin-Abrahamov/dp/0748611029/sr=8-4/qid=1172042917/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4/105-1837174-2630046?ie=UTF8&s=books]</ref> Others have pointed to the pagan roots of various Muslim prohibitions, such as the ban on pork (also practiced in Judaism) originating in the 3rd-century AD Damascene [[cult]] of the pig-god Jamal. <ref>Ibid.</ref> . As well as various recently-recovered scrolls that hint at early Muslim human sacrifice, which was also a part of early Judaism (eg: Story of Abraham being ordered to sacrifice his son by God. The story can be found in both the Bible and Qur'an). However such claims remain unverified. <ref>Esposito, "The Oxford History of Islam", p. 523. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999. [http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-History-Islam-John-Esposito/dp/0195107993/sr=8-1/qid=1172042853/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-1837174-2630046?ie=UTF8&s=books]</ref>

==Sharia==

[[Sharia]] is the body of Islamic law. The term means "way" or "path"; it is the legal framework within which public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Muslim principles of jurisprudence. It is not actually part of the canonical Qur'an; that is to say, it is not believed to be the direct word of Allah by Muslims, but rather the interpretation of it.

Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues. Some Islamic scholars accept Sharia as the body of precedent and legal theory established before the 19th century, while other scholars view Sharia as a changing body, and include Islamic legal theory from the contemporary period.{{fact}}

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://muslim-canada.org/islam_christianity.html Islam and Christianity] - excellent article comparing and contrasting the two
[[Category:Islam]]
[[Category:Religion]]

Islam

2007-06-03T15:45:55Z

MadMin: /* Islam and Paganism */ spelling

'''Islam''' is a [[monotheism|monotheistic]] [[religion]] based on the teachings of [[Muhammad]], a 7th century [[Arab]] [[politics|political]] and religious figure. The word "Islam" means "submission." The followers of Islam are called Muslims, or Moslems. Muslims follow the teaching of Muhammad, whom they believe to be [[God]]'s last and greatest [[prophet]]. The faith teaches that the Angel Gabriel appeared to him.

Muslims believe that God (Allah, in [[Arabic]]) revealed the [[Qur'an]] to Muhammad, and despite his illiteracy, caused him to transcribe it <ref>Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created- Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,- He Who taught (the use of) the pen,- Taught man that which he knew not.(Surah 96:1-5)</ref>. The [[Qur'an]] is considered to be the pure and [[holy]] word of Allah. Like [[Christianity]], and [[Judaism]], Islam originated in the [[Middle East]]. Islam claims to trace its roots back to [[Abraham]]. Muslims do not believe that Muhammad was the founder of Islam, rather that he restored the original faith of Abraham and the prophets, which had been corrupted and/or misinterpreted over time. Based upon this belief, the Bible, Old and New Testament, is believed to have become corrupted as well.

Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with over 1.4 billion followers, the number of Muslims is rapidly growing, mainly due to high birth rates in Muslim countries. Both Christian and Muslim sources agree that conversions to Christianity outnumber those to Islam.<ref>[http://www.bible.ca/global-religion-statistics-world-christian-encyclopedia.htm World Christian Encyclopedia]</ref>
<ref>[http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/AlJazeerahAfrica.php Translation of AL-Jazeerah interview between Maher Abdallah and Shiekh Ahmed Katani]</ref>

[[Image:Mecca.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[Mecca]], the Islamic holy city.]]

===Five Pillars of Islam===

*'''Shahadah (Profession of Faith)''' -The Shahadah is the Muslim profession of faith. 'ašhadu 'al-lā ilāha illā-llāhu wa 'ašhadu 'anna muħammadan rasūlu-llāh, a loose English translation reads "''There is none worthy of worship except the Allah, and [[Muhammad]] is the messenger of Allah''" This testament can be seen as the foundation of all of the other tenets of Islam.

*'''Salat (Ritual Prayer)''' -All Muslims are required to Pray to Allah five times each day while facing [[Mecca]].

*'''Zakat (Charity)''' Able Muslims must donate to the poor based on the wealth one has accumulated. In current usage it is interpreted as 2.5% of the value of most valuables and savings held for a full [[lunar year]].

*'''Sawm (Fasting)''' All able-bodied Muslims (children, the elderly, and the ill are exempt) must fast during daylight hours during the daylight hours of the entire month of [[Ramadan]]. According to Muslims, this purifies the body and soul. Some Muslim sects allow military, police and emergency services personnel to receive an exemption from fasting from an imam, on the grounds that their work supports the community or national good.

*'''Hajj (Pilgrimage)''' All able-bodied Muslims must make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lives.

[[Image:Quran.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Pages from the Qur'an, the holy book of the Islamic religion.]]

==Islam and Christianity==

While Muslims do not believe Jesus to be the Son of God or in the resurrection, they consider him to be one of God's most important prophets. However, the Qur'an warns against worshiping Jesus, for fear of [[idolatry]].<ref>[http://www.ccg.org/_domain/ccg.org/Islam/Islam.htm Christian Churches of God Articles on Islam], March 10, 2007</ref>

The Qur'an states that Christians will be punished, though the nature of the punishment is not specified:

"Surely, disbelievers are those who said:
"Allah is the third of the three (in a Trinity)." But there is no god but One, Allah.
And if they cease not from what they say, verily, a painful torment will befall the disbelievers among them.

Will they not repent to Allah and ask His Forgiveness? For Allah is OftForgiving, Most Merciful.

The Messiah , son of Mary, was no more than a Messenger; many were the Messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a Siddiqah (i.e. she believed in the words of God and His Books ).
They both used to eat food (as any other human eat).
Look how We make the signs clear to them, yet look how they are deluded away (from the truth)."

Qur'an 5:73-75

However, Islam does recognize Christians and Jews as "people of the book" since both refer to one God only, and recognize Abraham (Ibrahim in [[Arabic]]) as a founding prophet.

==Islam and Paganism==

Although Muslims profess belief in a single, almighty [[Allah|God]], some Western scholars believe that some Muslim beliefs, like some of the [[church]] and indeed early Judaism, can be traced back to distinctly polytheistic antecedents{{fact}}. Some, for example, have attempted to link Allah to a moon deity, though this is unsupported by an etymological study of the word "Allah" and the fact that Allah is cited by the Quran <ref>The Qur'an, Sura 37 [http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Quran-Allamah-Nooruddin/dp/0963206702]</ref> as the God of Abraham (the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). <ref>Abramahov, "Islamic Theology". Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1988. [http://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Theology-Binyamin-Abrahamov/dp/0748611029/sr=8-4/qid=1172042917/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4/105-1837174-2630046?ie=UTF8&s=books]</ref> Others have pointed to the pagan roots of various Muslim prohibitions, such as the ban on pork (also practiced in Judaism) originating in the 3rd-century AD Damascene [[cult]] of the pig-god Jamal. <ref>Ibid.</ref> . As well as various recently-recovered scrolls that hint at early Muslim human sacrifice, which was also a part of early Judaism (eg: Story of Abraham being ordered to sacrifice his son by God. The story can be found in both the Bible and Qur'an). However such claims remain unverified. <ref>Esposito, "The Oxford History of Islam", p. 523. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999. [http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-History-Islam-John-Esposito/dp/0195107993/sr=8-1/qid=1172042853/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-1837174-2630046?ie=UTF8&s=books]</ref>

==Sharia==

[[Sharia]] is the body of Islamic law. The term means "way" or "path"; it is the legal framework within which public and some private aspects of life are regulated for those living in a legal system based on Muslim principles of jurisprudence. It is not actually part of the canonical Qur'an; that is to say, it is not believed to be the direct word of Allah by Muslims, but rather the interpretation of it.

Sharia deals with many aspects of day-to-day life, including politics, economics, banking, business law, contract law, sexuality, and social issues. Some Islamic scholars accept Sharia as the body of precedent and legal theory established before the 19th century, while other scholars view Sharia as a changing body, and include Islamic legal theory from the contemporary period.{{fact}}

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://muslim-canada.org/islam_christianity.html Islam and Christianity] - excellent article comparing and contrasting the two
[[Category:Islam]]
[[Category:Religion]]

Starfish

2007-06-03T13:55:58Z

MadMin: fixed bad tag

Starfish are not [[fish]] and should really be called sea stars. They are Echinoderms, meaning ‘spiny skinned animals’ of the class ''Asteroidea'', in which there are around 1500 species.<ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref> [[Fossil]] starfish resembling today’s have been found dating back 450 million years. Some species of starfish always have five rays, but some always have more – sunflower stars can have over 20 - and some species are variable.

They are related to [[sea slugs]] and [[sea cucumbers]], <ref> http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may98/892688355.Zo.r.html </ref> but unlike those creatures asteroids aren’t edible by humans. In fact, they aren’t edible to many creatures – their spiny skin and awkward shape makes them distasteful to most. They also have tiny structures like pincers, called ''pedicellariae'', that are probably used for defence as well as capturing small particles of food. They are found all over the world, and at all depths of the sea, though they tend to favor rocky shallows. <ref>http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0311542/starfish.htm#Info</ref>

==Eating==

Starfish eat almost anything that cannot easily escape, but mainly [[bivalves]]. They eat these by using their tube feet as suction cups to prise a small gap in the bivalve’s shell, and then everting their own stomach through their mouth opening and extending it into the shell, using their digestive juices to liquefy the creature inside and then sucking it in. Starfish help the intertidal [[ecosystem]] stay in balance by eating mussels, which would otherwise push other organisms out. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html </ref> The crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), which feeds on [[coral]], is decimating [[coral reefs]] off the [[Philippines]] and [[Australia]].

==Nervous system==

A starfish doesn’t have a front end; any side of a starfish is as likely to be the front as any other side. They also don’t have [[ears]] or image-forming [[eyes]], though they do have [[eyespots]] on the end of each arm containing a red pigment that changes chemically in the presence of light and are thought to influence the starfish's behaviour. <ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1169/is_2002_Feb-March/ai_89436290</ref>

Starfish don’t have a central [[brain]]. A radial [[nerve]] runs down each ray, and connects with the other radial nerves through ganglia that form a ring in the centre of the starfish. Because the starfish’s mouth is in the centre of the underneath of its body, this is called the circumoral nerve ring. It does not control the rays though, merely facilitates communication between them. Any radial nerve can take control of the body of the starfish by signalling the others to co-ordinate movement in the direction of the ray it runs down. However, as well as locating food and mates, starfish can learn to associate different textures of seabed or levels of light with food, and as well as distinguishing between odours can learn to ignore those not associated with food even if they smell like food.<ref> http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm </ref>

==Chemoreception==

Like a lot of other marine creatures, a starfish’s primary sense is [[chemoreception]]. Leading rays tend to raise their tips and wave their tube feet around. They use their tube feet to sense the concentration of chemicals, comparing the intensity of the information between rays and moving accordingly to reach the source of the odour, so it would be true to say that they have multiple noses in their feet. Because starfish are too primitive to have consciousness, their sleeping and waking cycles can only be determined by different firing rates of nerves in response to changes in light intensity. They feed in response to odours from [[prey]]. <ref> http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm </ref>

==Locomotion==

Hundreds of tube [[feet]] cover the underside of a starfish, and have multiple uses. As well as chemoreception, and respiration, the starfish uses them for walking, for gripping prey, and for attaching to rocks. Each tube foot has a bulb at the top called the [[ampulla]]. When the ampulla contracts, it squeezes water down the tube foot, which extends. When it relaxes, it sucks water back up, which retracts the tube. Each tube foot lifts up and swings forward, plants itself on the ground and pushes back, rather like a leg. The tube feet and the ampullae are connected by the starfish’s hydraulic water [[vascular system]], which takes in water through a body called a madreporite, which filters out particles, and circulates it throughout the starfish’s body. The tip of each foot can form a suction cup, which the starfish can use to grip enough to walk up vertical surfaces. The tube feet move in waves, and enable starfish to move at speeds of between 30 and 120 centimeters a minute, depending on [[species]]. <ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref>

==Respiration==

Starfish breathe through their feet. The starfish’s tube feet are made of very thin tissue, so gases can move through them easily. Their tube feet and ''papulae'' (the tiny pimples all over the body surface) transport [[oxygen]] from seawater to the tissues and pass [[carbon dioxide]] from the tissues to the seawater. The papulae have tiny [[cilia]] (hair-like structures) on the outside and the inside, which waft seawater over the tissues. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html </ref>

==Reproduction==

Most starfish species have two sexes, but you can’t tell that from the outside – you have to catch them spawning. They have ten [[gonad]]s, two in each arm, that look like a bunch of grapes. When they are full of [[sperm]] or [[eggs]], they almost fill the arms. Each gonad has a duct at the base of the arm, usually opening on the [[oral]] side. In a few species the eggs are fertilized and develop within the female (especially in colder water) but they are mainly fertilized externally. The male releases his sperm into the water if he detects the eggs of a female in the water, and the female releases her eggs if she detects sperm.

Starfish gather in groups when they are ready to [[spawn]], to increase their chances of [[fertilization]]. They probably use environmental signals such as day length to know the right time of year. Females can release up to 2.5 million eggs at a time. The [[larvae]] swim freely, propelled through the water by the cilia covering them. Eventually they grow arms and a sucker, sink to the bottom and stick to a rock, after which they metamorphose into adult starfish. Larvae, unlike adults, are [[bilateral]].<ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref>

==Regeneration==

Most starfish can regenerate a lost arm, but most of the central disc has to remain for this to happen. Single arms will usually die, unless they are from a species called ''Linckia'', which can regenerate a new individual from one arm, because they keep so much of the vital organs in each arm. This species is sometimes called the comet star because you can see an animal with one large arm, a tiny body and four tiny arms, looking like a [[comet]]. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html </ref>

==Digestion==

Starfish eat almost anything that cannot easily escape, but mainly [[bivalves]]. They eat these by using their tube feet as suction cups to prise a small gap in the bivalve’s shell, and then everting their own stomach through their mouth opening and extending it into the shell, using their digestive juices to liquefy the creature inside and then wafting the liquefied juices into its mouth with its tube feet. This enables a starfish to hunt much larger prey than it could actually fit into its mouth. Starfish help the intertidal [[ecosystem]] stay in balance by eating mussels, which would otherwise push other organisms out. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html </ref> The crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), which feeds on [[coral]], is decimating [[coral reefs]] off the [[Philippines]] and [[Australia]].

Starfish have a [[mouth]] in the middle of their underside (the ‘oral’ side) and an [[anus]] on their upper surface (the ‘aboral’ side). The mouth connects to the first of two stomachs – the cardiac stomach – which connects to the pyloric stomach. This connects to the anus and also to a pyloric [[cecum]], which extends into each ray. The cardiac stomach and the pyloric ceca produce digestive juices. Digested material is absorbed into the body through the pyloric ceca.<ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref>

==Use in scientific research==

In 1882 Russian zoologist [[Ilya Metchnikov]] discovered the concept of [[immunity]] – how human beings survive in a world filled with dangerous microorganisms - when he poked a starfish with a thorn and watched the defensive inflammatory actions of its body as it used cells to engulf and destroy foreign [[pathogen]]s. He won a [[Nobel Prize]] for this work in 1908.<ref> http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/020305.html</ref>

==Starfish in popular culture==

Madeleine L’Engle used starfish regeneration as an image of the ethics of studying the abuse of the natural world, on a fictional island called Gaea, in her 1965 novel The Arm of the Starfish. <ref> The Arm of the Starfish, L’Engle </ref>

Starfish have been used as a metaphor by countless good causes who picked up a story from Loren Eiseley’s book ''The Star Thrower'', in which thousands of starfish are washed ashore and a child starts throwing them back in the water so they don’t die. Her mother tells her it will make no difference, and the child looks at the starfish it is holding and says, ‘It will make a difference to this one.’ <ref> http://www.domini.com/about-domini/The-Starfi/ </ref>

A passive sexual partner is sometimes described as a starfish because they ‘just lie there.’ Similarly, the phrase ‘chocolate starfish’ is slang for the anus. <ref> http://www.fact-index.com/s/se/sexual_slang.html</ref>

The best friend of beloved children’s TV cartoon character SpongeBob Squarepants, with whom he often holds hands, is a pink starfish named Patrick. The duo have become popular among gay men, and as such have been attacked by the prominent Christian evangelical organization Focus on the Family as part of a conspiracy trying to impose a pro-homosexual agenda on children. <ref>http://www.nospank.net/eisner.htm</ref>

A recent book called ''The Starfish and the Spider'' uses starfish as a metaphor for decentralized organizations. Traditional organizations are like spiders – cut off the head and they die. Especially since the arrival of the internet, the power of starfish organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous, P2P groups, eBay or Al Quaeda – individual groups linked loosely by a common ideology and ease of communication – has boomed. It’s not a totally new concept, and has much in line with earlier movements such as that for [[women’s rights]] or the [[abolition of slavery]], but some large companies like Toyota are seizing on these principles.<ref> http://www.starfishandspider.com/index.php?title=About_the_Book</ref>

[[Project Starfish]] was a series of experiments carried out by the US in 1962, which were condemned by the Queen’s Astronomer, Sir Martin Ryle. The US detonated several nuclear explosions in the ionosphere that seriously disturbed the lower [[Van Allen Belt]], and thus disturbed the earth’s magnetic field and released ionizing radiation into the atmosphere. The USSR soon followed suit, and the electron fluxes in the lower Van Allen belt have yet to return to their normal state. They could take several hundred years to recover. <ref> Encyclopaedia Britannica </ref>

Sigmund Freud loved his trip to Blackpool, and wrote in chapter 7 of ''The Interpretation of Dreams'' about a dream based on a memory of his visit, when while he was paddling on the beach a little girl asked if he had found a starfish and if it was still alive. Freud replied ‘Yes, he is alive’ and was then embarrassed at his linguistic mistake and repeated the sentence correctly.<ref> ''The Interpretation of Dreams'', Sigmund Freud </ref>

==References==

<references/>

[[Category:Echinoderms]]

Starfish

2007-06-03T13:55:10Z

MadMin: fixed bad tag

Starfish are not [[fish]] and should really be called sea stars. They are Echinoderms, meaning ‘spiny skinned animals’ of the class ''Asteroidea'', in which there are around 1500 species.<ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref> [[Fossil]] starfish resembling today’s have been found dating back 450 million years. Some species of starfish always have five rays, but some always have more – sunflower stars can have over 20 - and some species are variable.

They are related to [[sea slugs]] and [[sea cucumbers]], <ref> http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may98/892688355.Zo.r.html </ref> but unlike those creatures asteroids aren’t edible by humans. In fact, they aren’t edible to many creatures – their spiny skin and awkward shape makes them distasteful to most. They also have tiny structures like pincers, called ''pedicellariae'', that are probably used for defence as well as capturing small particles of food. They are found all over the world, and at all depths of the sea, though they tend to favor rocky shallows. <ref>http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0311542/starfish.htm#Info</ref>

==Eating==

Starfish eat almost anything that cannot easily escape, but mainly [[bivalves]]. They eat these by using their tube feet as suction cups to prise a small gap in the bivalve’s shell, and then everting their own stomach through their mouth opening and extending it into the shell, using their digestive juices to liquefy the creature inside and then sucking it in. Starfish help the intertidal [[ecosystem]] stay in balance by eating mussels, which would otherwise push other organisms out. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html </ref> The crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), which feeds on [[coral]], is decimating [[coral reefs]] off the [[Philippines]] and [[Australia]].

==Nervous system==

A starfish doesn’t have a front end; any side of a starfish is as likely to be the front as any other side. They also don’t have [[ears]] or image-forming [[eyes]], though they do have [[eyespots]] on the end of each arm containing a red pigment that changes chemically in the presence of light and are thought to influence the starfish's behaviour. <ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1169/is_2002_Feb-March/ai_89436290</ref>

Starfish don’t have a central [[brain]]. A radial [[nerve]] runs down each ray, and connects with the other radial nerves through ganglia that form a ring in the centre of the starfish. Because the starfish’s mouth is in the centre of the underneath of its body, this is called the circumoral nerve ring. It does not control the rays though, merely facilitates communication between them. Any radial nerve can take control of the body of the starfish by signalling the others to co-ordinate movement in the direction of the ray it runs down. However, as well as locating food and mates, starfish can learn to associate different textures of seabed or levels of light with food, and as well as distinguishing between odours can learn to ignore those not associated with food even if they smell like food.<ref> http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm </ref>

==Chemoreception==

Like a lot of other marine creatures, a starfish’s primary sense is [[chemoreception]]. Leading rays tend to raise their tips and wave their tube feet around. They use their tube feet to sense the concentration of chemicals, comparing the intensity of the information between rays and moving accordingly to reach the source of the odour, so it would be true to say that they have multiple noses in their feet. Because starfish are too primitive to have consciousness, their sleeping and waking cycles can only be determined by different firing rates of nerves in response to changes in light intensity. They feed in response to odours from [[prey]]. <ref> http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm </ref>

==Locomotion==

Hundreds of tube [[feet]] cover the underside of a starfish, and have multiple uses. As well as chemoreception, and respiration, the starfish uses them for walking, for gripping prey, and for attaching to rocks. Each tube foot has a bulb at the top called the [[ampulla]]. When the ampulla contracts, it squeezes water down the tube foot, which extends. When it relaxes, it sucks water back up, which retracts the tube. Each tube foot lifts up and swings forward, plants itself on the ground and pushes back, rather like a leg. The tube feet and the ampullae are connected by the starfish’s hydraulic water [[vascular system]], which takes in water through a body called a madreporite, which filters out particles, and circulates it throughout the starfish’s body. The tip of each foot can form a suction cup, which the starfish can use to grip enough to walk up vertical surfaces. The tube feet move in waves, and enable starfish to move at speeds of between 30 and 120 centimeters a minute, depending on [[species]]. <ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref>

==Respiration==

Starfish breathe through their feet. The starfish’s tube feet are made of very thin tissue, so gases can move through them easily. Their tube feet and ''papulae'' (the tiny pimples all over the body surface) transport [[oxygen]] from seawater to the tissues and pass [[carbon dioxide]] from the tissues to the seawater. The papulae have tiny [[cilia]] (hair-like structures) on the outside and the inside, which waft seawater over the tissues. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html </ref>

==Reproduction==

Most starfish species have two sexes, but you can’t tell that from the outside – you have to catch them spawning. They have ten [[gonad]]s, two in each arm, that look like a bunch of grapes. When they are full of [[sperm]] or [[eggs]], they almost fill the arms. Each gonad has a duct at the base of the arm, usually opening on the [[oral]] side. In a few species the eggs are fertilized and develop within the female (especially in colder water) but they are mainly fertilized externally. The male releases his sperm into the water if he detects the eggs of a female in the water, and the female releases her eggs if she detects sperm.

Starfish gather in groups when they are ready to [[spawn]], to increase their chances of [[fertilization]]. They probably use environmental signals such as day length to know the right time of year. Females can release up to 2.5 million eggs at a time. The [[larvae]] swim freely, propelled through the water by the cilia covering them. Eventually they grow arms and a sucker, sink to the bottom and stick to a rock, after which they metamorphose into adult starfish. Larvae, unlike adults, are [[bilateral]].<ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref>

==Regeneration==

Most starfish can regenerate a lost arm, but most of the central disc has to remain for this to happen. Single arms will usually die, unless they are from a species called ''Linckia'', which can regenerate a new individual from one arm, because they keep so much of the vital organs in each arm. This species is sometimes called the comet star because you can see an animal with one large arm, a tiny body and four tiny arms, looking like a [[comet]]. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html </ref>

==Digestion==

Starfish eat almost anything that cannot easily escape, but mainly [[bivalves]]. They eat these by using their tube feet as suction cups to prise a small gap in the bivalve’s shell, and then everting their own stomach through their mouth opening and extending it into the shell, using their digestive juices to liquefy the creature inside and then wafting the liquefied juices into its mouth with its tube feet. This enables a starfish to hunt much larger prey than it could actually fit into its mouth. Starfish help the intertidal [[ecosystem]] stay in balance by eating mussels, which would otherwise push other organisms out. <ref> http://oceanlink.island.net/ask/echino.html <ref> The crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), which feeds on [[coral]], is decimating [[coral reefs]] off the [[Philippines]] and [[Australia]].

Starfish have a [[mouth]] in the middle of their underside (the ‘oral’ side) and an [[anus]] on their upper surface (the ‘aboral’ side). The mouth connects to the first of two stomachs – the cardiac stomach – which connects to the pyloric stomach. This connects to the anus and also to a pyloric [[cecum]], which extends into each ray. The cardiac stomach and the pyloric ceca produce digestive juices. Digested material is absorbed into the body through the pyloric ceca.<ref>http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/science.htm</ref>

==Use in scientific research==

In 1882 Russian zoologist [[Ilya Metchnikov]] discovered the concept of [[immunity]] – how human beings survive in a world filled with dangerous microorganisms - when he poked a starfish with a thorn and watched the defensive inflammatory actions of its body as it used cells to engulf and destroy foreign [[pathogen]]s. He won a [[Nobel Prize]] for this work in 1908.<ref> http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/020305.html</ref>

==Starfish in popular culture==

Madeleine L’Engle used starfish regeneration as an image of the ethics of studying the abuse of the natural world, on a fictional island called Gaea, in her 1965 novel The Arm of the Starfish. <ref> The Arm of the Starfish, L’Engle </ref>

Starfish have been used as a metaphor by countless good causes who picked up a story from Loren Eiseley’s book ''The Star Thrower'', in which thousands of starfish are washed ashore and a child starts throwing them back in the water so they don’t die. Her mother tells her it will make no difference, and the child looks at the starfish it is holding and says, ‘It will make a difference to this one.’ <ref> http://www.domini.com/about-domini/The-Starfi/ </ref>

A passive sexual partner is sometimes described as a starfish because they ‘just lie there.’ Similarly, the phrase ‘chocolate starfish’ is slang for the anus. <ref> http://www.fact-index.com/s/se/sexual_slang.html</ref>

The best friend of beloved children’s TV cartoon character SpongeBob Squarepants, with whom he often holds hands, is a pink starfish named Patrick. The duo have become popular among gay men, and as such have been attacked by the prominent Christian evangelical organization Focus on the Family as part of a conspiracy trying to impose a pro-homosexual agenda on children. <ref>http://www.nospank.net/eisner.htm</ref>

A recent book called ''The Starfish and the Spider'' uses starfish as a metaphor for decentralized organizations. Traditional organizations are like spiders – cut off the head and they die. Especially since the arrival of the internet, the power of starfish organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous, P2P groups, eBay or Al Quaeda – individual groups linked loosely by a common ideology and ease of communication – has boomed. It’s not a totally new concept, and has much in line with earlier movements such as that for [[women’s rights]] or the [[abolition of slavery]], but some large companies like Toyota are seizing on these principles.<ref> http://www.starfishandspider.com/index.php?title=About_the_Book</ref>

[[Project Starfish]] was a series of experiments carried out by the US in 1962, which were condemned by the Queen’s Astronomer, Sir Martin Ryle. The US detonated several nuclear explosions in the ionosphere that seriously disturbed the lower [[Van Allen Belt]], and thus disturbed the earth’s magnetic field and released ionizing radiation into the atmosphere. The USSR soon followed suit, and the electron fluxes in the lower Van Allen belt have yet to return to their normal state. They could take several hundred years to recover. <ref> Encyclopaedia Britannica </ref>

Sigmund Freud loved his trip to Blackpool, and wrote in chapter 7 of ''The Interpretation of Dreams'' about a dream based on a memory of his visit, when while he was paddling on the beach a little girl asked if he had found a starfish and if it was still alive. Freud replied ‘Yes, he is alive’ and was then embarrassed at his linguistic mistake and repeated the sentence correctly.<ref> ''The Interpretation of Dreams'', Sigmund Freud </ref>

==References==

<references/>

[[Category:Echinoderms]]

Albert Schweitzer

2007-06-03T13:44:28Z

MadMin: Defaultsort

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a German physician inspired to be a Christian missionary to west central Africa. He build a hospital in the jungle village of Lambarene, Gabon.

Schweitzer was the son of a Lutheran pastor. He first became an accomplished organ pianist, and earned earned doctorates in philosophy and theology. Before becoming a physician, he was pastor of St. Nicholai's Church, principal of St. Thomas College, and professor at University of Strasbourg. He only became a physician upon reading a call for medical assistance in missions.

Albert Schweitzer won the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] (1952) for his efforts, and built a leper colony with the award money.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schweitzer, Albert}}
[[category:Missionaries|Schweitzer, Albert]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Aristide Briand

2007-06-03T13:43:31Z

MadMin: Defaultsort

{{stub}}Aristide Briand (born in 1862 in Nantes) was a French statesman who served several times as Prime Minister of France and won a Nobel Peace Prize. He co-authored and signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Briand, Aristide}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Friedrich A. Hayek

2007-06-03T13:42:35Z

MadMin: formatting

[[Image:Hayek.jpg|right|frame]]
'''Friedrich August Von Hayek''' (1899-1992) was a [[Nobel Prize]] winning economist and one of the most prominent member of the [[Austrian School of Economics]], a [[libertarian]] movement. Hayek emphasized our limited knowledge of the markets (and other subjects), and thus our need for the price mechanism to communicate essential information about supply and demand. No centralized planner or government can manage the economy. A freemarket is the most efficient known allocator of resources.

Hayek has been compared to the philospher [[David Hume]] with respect to his insistence that we should be "sensible of our ignorance."

{{DEFAULTSORT: Hayek, Friedrich A.}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Economics]]
[[category:Authors]]
[[category:Economists]]

Ludwig von Mises

2007-06-03T13:41:32Z

MadMin: sp

[[Image:Ur8756.jpg|right|thumb]]
'''Ludwig von Mises''' (1881-1973) was an [[Austria]]n-born economist who emigrated to the [[United States]] to escape [[Nazi]] persecution. He was an advocate of free market and ''laissez-faire'' policies, and was an outspoken critic of socialism and is considered the founder the "neo-Austrian School" of economics. Mises also felt that government should not take positions on morality either.

Mises built on the [[Austrian school of economics]] founded by Carl Menger, as expressed in his book ''Principles of Economics''. Mises supported the Austrian emphasis on individual action and the benefits of a free-market economy.

Mises' classic work was "The Theory of Money and Credit" (1912), in which he integrated [[macroeconomics]] into [[microeconomics]] by integrating the theory of money into the general theory of marginal utility. Other Austrian economists rejected his work, forcing Mises to start a neo-Austrian school of economics.

Mises felt that society does not benefit from an increase in the money supply, that increased money and bank credit causes inflation and business cycles. Mises supported a 100 percent gold standard.

A student of Mises, [[F.A. Hayek]], won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974 for elaborating on Mises' business cycle theory.

==Books by Ludwig von Mises==
* ''The Theory of Money and Credit''
* ''Nation, State, and Economy''
* ''Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis''
* ''Critique of Interventionism''
* ''Liberalism''
* ''Epistemological Problems of Economics''
* ''Omnipotent Government: The Rise of Total State and Total War''
* ''[http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/bureaucracy.asp Bureaucracy]''
* ''Human Action: A Treatise on Economics''
* ''Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution''
* ''The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality''
* ''The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science''

===E-Books===
* [http://www.fee.org/library/books/thefree.asp ''The Free Market and Its Enemies: Pseudo-Science, Socialism, and Inflation''] Lecture Series, Volume 1, with an introduction by Richard Ebeling.
* [http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Author.php?recordID=0184 Nine Books by Mises], made available online by the [http://www.libertyfund.org/index.htm Liberty Fund].
* [http://www.mises.org/humanaction.asp ''Human Action: A treatise on economics''] 1949 (4th edition, 1996). San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes. ISBN 0-930073-18-5. Made available online by The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/humanaction/pdf/HumanActionScholars.pdf ''Human Action: The Scholars Edition''] Auburn, Alabama: Mises Institute, 1999. Re-issue of the classic 1949 Edition with new introduction and expanded index.
* [http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/critique/contents.asp ''A Critique of Interventionism''], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/anticap.asp ''The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality''], Libertarian Press 1990.
* [http://www.mises.org/efandi.asp ''Economic Freedom and Interventionism''], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/etexts/ecopol.asp ''Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow''] Second Edition, with a New Introduction by [[Bettina Bien Greaves]], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/hsofase.asp ''The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics''], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/liberal.asp ''Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition''], Online edition Copyright The Mises Institute, 2000.
* [http://www.mises.org/books/Theory_Money_Credit/Contents.aspx ''The Theory of Money and Credit'']. 1912 integration of microeconomics and macroeconomics. ISBN 0-913966-71-1. Online edition Copyright The Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/books/socialism/contents.aspx ''Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis''] Von Mises' critique of Socialism
* [http://www.mises.org/th.asp ''Theory and History'']. 1957 treatise on social and economic evolution, with a preface by Murray N. Rothbard. Online edition Copyright The Mises Institute, 2000.

==External Links==
[http://mises.org/ Ludwig Von Misses Institute]

{{DEFAULTSORT: von Mises, Ludwig}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Economics]]
[[Category:Economists]]

Eugene Wigner

2007-06-03T13:40:30Z

MadMin: Defaultsort

'''Eugene Wigner''' (1902-1995) was an Hungarian-born theoretical physicist who immigrated to the United States. He worked on the Manhattan Project in Chicago (University of Chicago) during World War II. Wigner won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles."

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wigner, Eugene}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physics]]
[[category:physicists]]

Ludwig von Mises

2007-06-03T13:27:54Z

MadMin: Spelling

[[Image:Ur8756.jpg|right|thumb]]
'''Ludwig von Mises''' (1881-1973) was an [[Austria]]n-born economist who emigrated to the [[United States]] to escape [[Nazi]] persecution. He was an advocate of free market and ''laissez-faire'' policies, and was an outspoken critic of socialism and is considered the founder the "neo-Austrian School" of economics. Mises also felt that government should not take positions on morality either.

Mises built on the [[Austrian school of economics]] founded by Carl Menger, as expressed in his book ''Principles of Economics''. Mises supported the Austrian emphasis on individual action and the benefits of a free-market economy.

Mises' classic work was "The Theory of Money and Credit" (1912), in which he integrated [[macroeconomics]] into [[microeconomics]] by integrating the theory of money into the general theory of marginal utility. Other Austrian economists rejected his work, forcing Mises to start a neo-Austrian school of economics.

Mises felt that society does not benefit from an increase in the money supply, that increased money and bank credit causes inflation and business cycles. Mises supported a 100 percent gold standard.

A student of Mises, [[F.A. Hayek]], won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974 for elaborating on Mises' business cycle theory.

==Books by Ludwig von Mises==
* ''The Theory of Money and Credit''
* ''Nation, State, and Economy''
* ''Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis''
* ''Critique of Interventionism''
* ''Liberalism''
* ''Epistemological Problems of Economics''
* ''Omnipotent Government: The Rise of Total State and Total War''
* ''[http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/bureaucracy.asp Bureaucracy]''
* ''Human Action: A Treatise on Economics''
* ''Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution''
* ''The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality''
* ''The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science''

===E-Books===
* [http://www.fee.org/library/books/thefree.asp ''The Free Market and Its Enemies: Pseudo-Science, Socialism, and Inflation''] Lecture Series, Volume 1, with an introduction by Richard Ebeling.
* [http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Author.php?recordID=0184 Nine Books by Mises], made available online by the [http://www.libertyfund.org/index.htm Liberty Fund].
* [http://www.mises.org/humanaction.asp ''Human Action: A treatise on economics''] 1949 (4th edition, 1996). San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes. ISBN 0-930073-18-5. Made available online by The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/humanaction/pdf/HumanActionScholars.pdf ''Human Action: The Scholars Edition''] Auburn, Alabama: Mises Institute, 1999. Re-issue of the classic 1949 Edition with new introduction and expanded index.
* [http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/critique/contents.asp ''A Critique of Interventionism''], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/etexts/mises/anticap.asp ''The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality''], Libertarian Press 1990.
* [http://www.mises.org/efandi.asp ''Economic Freedom and Interventionism''], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/etexts/ecopol.asp ''Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow''] Second Edition, with a New Introduction by [[Bettina Bien Greaves]], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/hsofase.asp ''The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics''], The Ludwig von Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/liberal.asp ''Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition''], Online edition Copyright The Mises Institute, 2000.
* [http://www.mises.org/books/Theory_Money_Credit/Contents.aspx ''The Theory of Money and Credit'']. 1912 integration of microeconomics and macroeconomics. ISBN 0-913966-71-1. Online edition Copyright The Mises Institute.
* [http://www.mises.org/books/socialism/contents.aspx ''Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis''] Von Mises' critique of Socialism
* [http://www.mises.org/th.asp ''Theory and History'']. 1957 treatise on social and economic evolution, with a preface by Murray N. Rothbard. Online edition Copyright The Mises Institute, 2000.

==External Links==
[http://mises.org/ Ludwig Von Misses Institute]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Von Mises, Ludwig}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Economics]]
[[Category:Economists]]

Lech Wałęsa

2007-06-03T13:21:52Z

MadMin: Added categories

'''Lech Wałęsa''' (born 1943) was a leader in [[Solidarity]], an anti-Communist group in [[Poland]], then a Soviet satellite nation, in the 1980s. In 1980, he led a strike at the Gdansk shipyard, which led to strikes throughout Poland for workers' rights. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize for his actions. [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1983/walesa-bio.html] In 1990, he was elected president of Poland, and served until 1995.

[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

George C. Marshall

2007-06-03T13:20:22Z

MadMin: Added categories

'''George Catlett Marshall''' (Uniontown, PA. 31 Dec 1880 - 16 Oct 1959), American hero (World War II), Militar and Diplomat. He was a member of the Freemasonry and American Red Cross President, 1949-50.

America's foremost soldier during World War II, served as chief of staff from 1939 to 1945, building and directing the largest army in history. As diplomat, he acted as Secretary of State from 1947 to 1949, formulating the «[[Marshall Plan]]», an unprecedented program of economic and military aid to foreign nations.
<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1953/marshall-bio.html The Nobel Peace Prize 1953]</ref>

He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1902.

== Honors ==

*Time Man of the Year 1943
*Time Man of the Year 1947
*Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster
*Silver Star
*Croix de Guerre
*French Legion of Honor
*Nobel Peace Prize Dec 1953

== External links ==

*[http://www.nndb.com/people/704/000053545/ George C. Marshall] NNDB.
*[http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_marshall.html George C. Marshall ]
*[http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/57.htm THE MARSHALL PLAN (1947)] U. S. Department of State.

== References ==

<references/>

[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]
[[Category:Military]]

Yasir Arafat

2007-06-03T13:19:44Z

MadMin: Added categories

[[Image:Arafat.jpg|right|frame]]
'''Yasser Arafat''', Arabic: yāsir ^arafāt, ([[Cairo]], [[Egypt]] 1929 - [[Paris]], [[France]] 2004), born "Mohammed Al-Husseini al-Qudwa Abdel-Rahman Abdel-Raouf Arafat", was Chairman of the [[Palestine]] Liberation Organization and President of the [[Palestinian National Authority]].

Arafat was in Cairo but during his youth he spent his time in Jerusalem and Kuwait.

After fighting armed Arab forces in 1948 during the Arab-Israeli war Arafat entered into the Faud University and got his degree of engineering in 1956. Arafat also served in the Egyptian army during the [[Suez crisis|Suez campaign]] in 1956. In 1958 he and some friends founded Al-Fatah, an underground network of secret cells. Arafat also served as chairman of the Palestine Student Federation. In 1964 Arafat became a full-time revolutionary, organising Al-Fatah raids into [[Israel]]. He traveled from country to country to promote the Palestinian cause. At the 1960's he was an organizer of terrorist attacks into [[Israel]]. During the 80s, Arafat received assistance from [[Iraq]] and [[Saudi Arabia]]. In 1989, Arafat was elected president of State of Palestine by the Central Council of the [[Palestine National Council]].

 
<blockquote style="background: #F9F9F9; border: 1px solid #AAAAAA; padding: .3em;">

"... the intifada (shaking) protest movement strengthened Arafat by directing world attention to the difficult plight of the Palestinians. In 1988 came a change of policy. In a speech at a special United Nations session held in Geneva, Switzerland, Arafat declared that the "Palestinian Liberation Organization" renounced terrorism and supported "the right of all parties concerned in the Middle East conflict to live in peace and security, including the state of Palestine, Israel and other neighbours". <ref> [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1994/arafat-bio.html Yasser Arafat, The Nobel Peace Prize 1994]</ref>
</blockquote>

Arafat received in 1994 the Nobel Peace Prize together with [[Shimon Peres]] and [[Yitzhak Rabin]], because of the Oslo Accords of 1993.<ref> [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1994/ The Nobel Peace Prize 1994]</ref>

''In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. But if the enemy incline toward peace, do thou also incline toward peace, and trust in God.'' Arafat Nobel Prize Speech <ref> [http://www.myisraelsource.com/content/arafatnobel Nobel Prize Speech] My Israel source </ref>

From December 2001 to April 2002 he was under house arrest in [[Ramallah]]. This gave Arafat the status of a living martyr for the Palestinian cause. In 2004, Arafat died at the Frech Percy Military Hospital in Clamart, near Paris. The cause of his illness is still unknown.

<center>
''“I come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”''

United Nations General Assembly, 1974.
</center>

==See also==

* [[Terrorism]]
* [[Che Guevara]]
* [[Menachem Begin]]

== External links ==

* [http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Yassir_Arafat_1929-2004.asp Yassir Arafat:1929-2004] 'HonestReporting'
* [http://lexicorient.com/e.o/arafat.htm Yassir Arafat] Encyclopaedia of the Orient.

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]
[[category:politics]]
[[Category:Terrorists]]

Aung San Suu Kyi

2007-06-03T13:19:01Z

MadMin: Added categories

Aung San Suu Kyi, born on 19 June 1945 in Rangoon, to the [[Burma|Burmese]] national hero, Aung San, is a pro-democracy activist committed to non-violence, and is the leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma, and a famous [[prisoner of conscience]]. A [[Buddhism|Buddhist]], Suu Kyi won the Sakharov and Rafto Prizes for Freedom of Thought in 1990. In 1991, she also became a [[Nobel Peace Prize|Nobelist]], for her peaceful fight against a [[dictatorship]].

Largely influenced by the example of [[Mahatma Gandhi]], Suu Kyi entered politics to work on behalf of increased Burmese democracy, helping to set up the National League for Democracy on 27 September 1988, and for this was placed under [[house arrest]] on 20 July 1989. The Burmese authorities offered to let her go as an [[exile]], but she refused. Various international figures, from [[George W Bush]] to [[Ban Ki-moon]], have called upon the Burmese leader, Than Shwe, to release her, but as yet, these requests have not been aquiesced to.

==References==
[http://www.dassk.com/index.php Suu Kyi's website]

[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]
[[Category:Political people]]

Charles Dawes

2007-06-03T13:18:02Z

MadMin: Added categories

[[Image:Charles dawes.jpg|right|thumb]]

'''Charles Dawes''' '''(1865 - 1951)''' was [[Vice President of the United States]] from 1925 to 1929. He was Comptroller under [[William McKinley|President McKinley]] and won the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] in 1925 for stabilizing the [[German mark]]. <ref>"... he joined with European representatives to work out the Dawes Plan (1924) for solving the problem of collecting German reparations and fixing the amount." [http://ap.grolier.com/article?assetid=0120710-00 Encyclopedia Americana] </ref>

He complained about not being able to do much as Vice President. "I can do only two things," he said to Senator Barkley. "One is to sit up here and listen to you birds [senators] talk, without the privilege of being able to answer you back. The other is to look at the newspapers every morning to see how the president's health is." <ref> [[Fandex]], Workman Publishing, 2002. </ref>

== References ==
<references/>

[[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States|Dawes, Charles]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Dalai Lama

2007-06-03T13:16:55Z

MadMin: Added categories

The '''Dalai Lama''' is regarded by [[Tibet]]an [[Buddhists]] as one of a succession of [[incarnations]] of the [[Bodhisattva]] of compassion, Chenrezig ("the Seeing-Eye" Lord), who long has been considered to be the patron [[deity]] of [[Tibet]]. Custom dictates that only the [[Panchen Lama]] can recognize the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama, and vice versa.

The current Dalai Lama, [[Tenzin Gyatso]] is the 14th [[incarnation]] of Chenrezig, and is both the head of state of Tibet and the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. His Holiness has lived in [[exile]] in [[Dharamsala]], [[India]] since 1959 due to the [[China|Chinese]] invasion of Tibet. Dharamsala is the current location of the [[Tibetan Government in Exile]].

In 1989 he was awarded the [[Nobel Prize|Nobel Peace Prize]] for his non-violent struggle for the [[liberation]] of Tibet. He has consistently advocated policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression. He also became the first [[Nobel Laureate]] to be recognized for his concern for global environmental problems.<ref>http://www.dalailama.com/page.105.htm</ref>

In May of 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized six year old [[Gedhun Choekyi Nyima]] as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. Days later, the boy and his family were taken into custody by the Chinese government. In November, the government nominated their own puppet Panchen Lama. Despite appeals, the Chinese government has not allowed any outside contact with the kidnapped boy or his family.<ref>http://www.panchenlama.info/</ref>

==External links==
*[http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200105/07_newsroom_dalai/bios.shtml Thirteen Previous Dalai Lamas]
*[http://www.dalailama.com/ Official web page of the 14th Dalai Lama]

==References==
<references/>

[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]
[[Category:Buddhism]]

Henry Kissinger

2007-06-03T13:16:00Z

MadMin: Added categories

[[Image:Kissinger Henry.jpg|frame|right]]
'''Henry Kissinger''' (born 1923) was an American diplomat who exercised enormous influence over the Administrations of Presidents [[Richard Nixon]] and [[Gerald Ford]], and influenced a key decision by President [[Jimmy Carter]].

Kissinger was a Machiavellian figure, skilled at manipulating people around him and currying favor in the media. At one point he admitted allowing secret wiretapping of his own aides' conversations.<ref>http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,907332,00.html?promoid=googlep</ref> When he testified before Congress, he would benefit from extraordinary exclusion of the press so that the American public would not hear his thick German accent. Kissinger's real first name was "Heinz", reflecting his birth in Germany.

Kissinger was loathed by some liberals who viewed him as a war criminal<ref>http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0611-03.htm</ref> and criticized by hardliners for [[detente]]. Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for pulling the United States out of Vietnam, which allowed North Vietnam to take over South Vietnam.

In 1979, Kissinger and [[David Rockefeller]] reportedly exerted influence over the Carter Administration to admit the [[Shah of Iran]] into the United States.<ref>http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2003_01-03/dauherty_shah/dauherty_shah.html</ref> Carter's decision prompted angry Shiite Muslims in Iran to capture the American embassy there and hold dozens of Americans hostage for nearly a year. The national crisis contributed to the defeat of President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election.

The aura of Kissinger's influence was due partly to a cultivated image of high intelligence, including a PhD degree from Harvard University.

== References ==

<references/>
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]
[[Category:political people]]
{{DEFAULTSORT: Kissinger, Henry}}

Nelson Mandela

2007-06-03T13:15:07Z

MadMin: Added categories

[[Image:Mandela2.jpg|right|thumb]]
It seems that great people only grow out of such awful conditions. Certainly, there are many people we can look to admire for such daring accomplishments, such as [[Martin Luther King Jr]]. or an American founding father such as [[Benjamin Franklin]]. Of course, for the purposes of our paper, our great leader isn’t an [[American]] at all; our focus will be Nelson R. Mandela. Indeed, in the face of adversity, this man has become synonymous with racial equality, while at the same time taking on many lesser known endeavors. We will journey into the biography of the man himself, by examining his early education and political formation, his time in prison, and his work accomplished afterwards.

== Early Life and Political Socialization ==

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born July 18, 1918 in the Transkei. Almost immediately, we see Mandela plunged into political life, as his father was the ‘right hand man’ to the Acting Paramount Chief of Thembuland (ANC archive). Although the reasons as to his political socialization are evident and obvious, one ought to consider the ramifications of his environment; for instance, it can be argued that the class system in South Africa erupted his ideals: “Ideologies and ideologists arise in class-divided societies…” (Ball and Dagger) If this is true, then it is vital to speak of Mandela and apartheid as two sides to the same coin.

Mandela’s primary education began in a local mission school, and his secondary education was completed in a Wesleyan institute in Healdtown. Around this time, he began to see many of the cases in the Chief’s courts, many involving apartheid issues, and this primed him to want to become a lawyer instead of taking his father’s place in Thembuland politics (ANC archive).

Mandela’s earliest political experience came while enrolled at the University College of Fort Hare, where he was working to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. While at the college, he was elected to a student political organization known as the Student’s Representative Council. Soon after, Mandela was expelled for participating in a protest on campus (ANC archive). Because of this, Mandela attended Johannesburg where he finally obtained his BA. Soon after, he joined the [[African National Congress]] in 1942, during the height of [[World War II]].
Nelson Mandela’s personal fixation with freedom propped him to work with many other members of the African National Congress to form a group under the leadership of a colleague, Anton Lembede (ANC archive). The group’s main focus was to change the African National Congress into a mass movement, including all people from the highest urban buildings to the lowest rural countryside. Indeed, one can certainly see where the man’s priorities with freedom had come from.

Mandela was instrumental in many political endeavors, many of which anti-apartheid movements such as the Programme of Action, a policy based initiative which was founded on the non-violent weapons of “boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-co-operation” (ANC archive). This eventually became the namesake of the African National Congress.

And yet, some of our greatest leaders and role models have to resort to evil in order to do good. Mandela, being no exception to this, was the leader of an armed resistance group known as Umkhonto we Sizwe, formed in 1962. Mandela explains his reasoning:

“At the beginning of June 1961, after long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as long violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force.” –Nelson Mandela (ANC archive)

It was this notion, along with strong governmental apartheid sentiment that would eventually land Nelson R. Mandela behind bars.

== Mandela in Prison ==

In contrast to his peaceful methods, Nelson Mandela, like many political activists, eventually found himself imprisoned. He was sent to the notorious Robben Island Prison where he would eventually serve twenty seven years (Battersby). He was one of the many victims of the Treason Trial. After the trial, the African National Congress was banned, and the already convicted Mandela was sentenced to prison.

Mandela was in prison for twenty seven years, during which he endured a radical transformation. Mandela, by self-admittance, had a temper problem prior to being incarcerated. During prison, however, he had to learn to control his anger. “One was angry,” says Mandela, “at what was happening [in apartheid in South Africa]- the humiliation, the loss of our human dignity. We tended to react in accordance with anger and our emotion rather than sitting down and thinking about things properly” (Battersby).

Nelson Mandela claimed it was the solitude in the prison cell that allowed one to think to oneself, allowing the nerves to become calm. In addition, many of Mandela’s prison mates were well-educated, well-traveled individuals. “When they told you of their experiences,” Mandela says, “you felt humbled” (Battersby). Mandela, while in prison, was also instrumental in the transformation of Robben Island from a ‘criminal’ prison to a ‘student’ prison.
Mandela had chances to prove his political worth while in prison, as well. During the seventies, Mandela was offered remission of his sentence if he recognized the apartheid racially segregated region of Transkei. He refused. Later, during the eighties, Mandela was given a second opportunity at remission, only this time he was asked to renounce the violence that some of his groups partook in. He, again, refused (ANC archive).

Indeed, during his prison time, Mandela proved to be a prime example of a strong believer in principle, while at the same time erupting as a shining light to others suffering alongside him.

==Mandela is Released==

Mandela, stepping out of his prison cell, faced a newly changed South Africa through the eyes of a newly changed man. Shortly after being released, Mandela and his colleagues agreed on the suspension of the armed struggle (Umkhonto we Sizwe). He was officially released from prison in 1990, and was eventually elected President of the African National Congress in 1991 (ANC archive). Later, in 1994, he was democratically elected President of the State of [[South Africa]].

Before retiring from public life in June of 1999, he had received over fifty honorary degrees at prestigious universities all over the world, and was chancellor of the University of the North (ANC archive).
Elsewhere in the world, Mandela has made several attempts to make peace, even with nations outside his personal safety realm. For instance, in October of 1999, Mandela met with leaders from Iran, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Gaza, and the United States. Although Mandela found these numerous meetings to be pleasant, he did mention that the [[Israeli]] prime minister, [[Ehud Barak]], rejected Mandela’s intervention into the conflict (Battersby).
Mandela went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in a respect, as a representative of those who stand for peace and combat racism. Mandela, in the wake of this, regards his winning of the Peace Prize as a tribute to the people of Norway who stood against apartheid for so many years while so many more remained silent (ANC archive).
Certainly, Nelson Mandela’s political career after prison is one which many could be both envious of, while at the same time stand in awe at such greatness.

==Closing Thoughts==

Nelson R. Mandela, in the wake of political turmoil, was one man who was both willing and able to stand up and fight back. Indeed, we can see how the man developed his legacy through his activist years, his years in prison, and his much more elaborate life afterwards.

== Notes ==

Ball, Terence, and Richard Dagger. Ideals and Ideologies. Fifth ed. Pearson Education,
2004.

Battersby, John. "Mandela." Christian Science Monitor (2000)
"Birth of Freedom." Ed. Jon E. Lewis. New York: Gramercy Books.

Denenberg, Barry. No Easy Walk to Freedom. Ca-Print Harcourt Heinamann.

"Profile of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela." African National Congress Archive

[[Category:Heads of state]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Amnesty International

2007-06-03T13:14:31Z

MadMin: Added categories

As stated by their homepage: "Amnesty International (AI) is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights." Founded in the UK in 1961, Amnesty works to highlight discrepancies between actual human rights practices and the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights|internationally accepted standards]], and lobbies for compliance where these have not been followed. It works to garner public support, most notably in the form of [[letter writing campaigns]], in the belief that this can exert pressure on those who perpetrate abuses.

It was the winner of the 1977 [[Nobel Prize|Nobel Peace Prize]].

==Amnesty's goals==

At the 27th International Council meeting, 2005, it was decided that:

"''Amnesty International’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. In pursuit of this vision, Amnesty International’s mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.''"

This manifests itself as Amnesty's goals:

#Abolish [[capital punishment]]
#Put an end to [[extrajudicial executions]] and "disappearances"
#Put an end to torture and ill-treatment
#Put an end to unlawful killings in armed conflict
#Ensure conditions in prisons meet international standards of human rights
#Ensure rapid and fair trials for all [[prisoner of conscience|prisoners of conscience]]
#Ensure free education to all children worldwide
#Put an end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers
#Promote economic, social and cultural rights for marginalised communities
#Protect human rights defenders
#Protect the rights of [[refugees]], [[migrants]] and [[asylum seekers]]

One topic of particular controversy is the organisation's stance on [[abortion]], as both pro- and anti-abortion members belong to Amnesty. At present, a neutral position is taken - that the work of Amnesty International in other areas is to important to be spoilt by factionalism over this issue.

==References==
[http://www.amnesty.org/ Amnesty International's homepage]
[[category:politics]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Albert Schweitzer

2007-06-03T13:13:55Z

MadMin: Added categories

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was a German physician inspired to be a Christian missionary to west central Africa. He build a hospital in the jungle village of Lambarene, Gabon.

Schweitzer was the son of a Lutheran pastor. He first became an accomplished organ pianist, and earned earned doctorates in philosophy and theology. Before becoming a physician, he was pastor of St. Nicholai's Church, principal of St. Thomas College, and professor at University of Strasbourg. He only became a physician upon reading a call for medical assistance in missions.

Albert Schweitzer won the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] (1952) for his efforts, and built a leper colony with the award money.

[[category:Missionaries|Schweitzer, Albert]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Aristide Briand

2007-06-03T13:13:03Z

MadMin: Added categories

Jimmy Carter

2007-06-03T13:12:06Z

MadMin: Added categories

{| border="1" align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="250" style="margin-left:5px"
|align="center" colspan="2"|[[Image:Carter.jpg|210px]]
|-
!colspan="2" align="center" style="color: black; height: 30px; background: red no-repeat scroll top left;"|Jimmy Carter;
Thirty-ninth President of the United States
|-
|Born
|October 1, 1924
|-
|Term
|1977-1981
|-
|}

'''James Earl Carter, Jr.''' was the 39th [[President of the United States of America]] following [[Gerald Ford]] and preceding [[Ronald Reagan]]. He was a [[Democrat]] who served from 1977-1981, after being the Governor of [[Georgia]].

His difficulty in overcoming the challenges that were presented to the nation during his time in office helped lead to the election of [[Ronald Reagan]] in 1980. He has been unusually active as an ex-president, serving as an election monitor in many emerging democracies, and as a self-proclaimed "peace advocate", was recognized with the [[Nobel Prize|Nobel Peace Prize]].

==Presidency==

Carter's presidency was marked by a period of American hegemony being challenged abroad and economic recession and [[stagflation]] striking at home. Carter's presidency was marked by retrenchment, after the disappointing agony that had been the [[Vietnam War]], and economic [[stagflation]] churning at home.

In the midst of the 1980 campaign, a pro-U.S. monarchy was toppled by the 1979 [[Iran|Iranian]] Revolution and dozens of [[Iran Hostage Crisis|American hostages were taken]] inside the American embassy by Islamic fundamentalist revolutionaries after Carter gave sanctuary to exiled dictator Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. With the international outrage at the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] invasion of [[Afghanistan]] later the same year, Carter was rendered impotent, as America saw its influence declining abroad.

Despite Carter's own Democratic Party controlling both Houses of Congress, and the White House he failed to reform the tax system, and to reduce the size of the government bureaucracy, as promised during the 1976 campaign, or to pass the Martin Luther King holiday.

He has also been criticized for not doing enough to promote his proclaimed human rights foreign policy stance in his administration, such as continuing to support the [[Indonesia]]n government even while it was implicated in the commission of acts of genocide in the occupation of East Timor.

Carter's response to Soviet aggression against Afghanistan was to single out American farmers who suffered terribly when he terminated the Russian Wheat Deal, a keystone Nixon [[Detente]] initiative to establish trade with USSR and lessen [[Cold War]] tensions.

He was defeated in the 1980 presidential election by Ronald Reagan by nearly ten percentage points. [[Republican Party|Republicans]] also gained control of the Senate for the first time in twenty-five years. The electoral college vote was a landslide, with 489 votes (representing 44 states) for Reagan and 49 for Carter (representing 6 states and the District of Columbia).

Carter personally opposed [[abortion]] but only recently, more than a quarter of a century after his presidency, expressed his opposition in public.

===Stagflation===

A major issue President Carter failed to deal with was [[inflation]], caused especially by continued high levels of government spending and the rising price of imported oil, which was the major source of energy for many industries. The Misery Index, Carter's own invention of economic well-being, rose 50% in four years.

Government spending caused interest rates to rise to unprecedented levels (above 12 percent per year). Inflation and interest rates reached their highest levels since [[World War II]]. The rapid change in interest rates led to disintermediation of bank deposits, which sowed the seeds of the [[Savings and Loan crisis]]. Investments in fixed income were becoming less valuable. Holders of both bonds, and pensions being paid to retired people had their life savings wiped out. The stagnant growth of the economy (causing unemployment), in combination with a high rate of inflation, has often been called [[stagflation]], an unprecedented situation in American economics.

[[Bert Lance]], Carter's appointee to head the [[Office of Management and Budget]] which manages the U.S. federal budget, was forced to resign when his past bank overdrafts and "check kiting" schemes in Georgia were exposed.

==Post-presidency==
[[Image:Palestine peace not apartheid.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Cover of Jimmy Carter's book, ''Peace Not Apartheid'', which accuses [[Israel]] of practicing racism.]]
Carter has been active in foreign affairs since his presidency. His continued work mediating international disputes, organizing election observations, and working with organizations on disease and hunger were cited when he was awarded the 2002 [[Nobel Prize|Nobel Peace Prize]]. In his Nobel lecture, Carter declared his support for "international law":

<blockquote>
Our President, [[Woodrow Wilson]], was honored here for promoting the [[League of Nations]], whose two basic concepts were profoundly important: "collective security" and "self-determination." Now they are embedded in international law. Violations of these premises during the last half-century have been tragic failures, as was vividly demonstrated when the Soviet Union attempted to conquer Afghanistan and when Iraq invaded Kuwait. <ref>[http://jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/nobel.phtml Text of Carter's Nobel Lecture] Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, 2002.</ref>
</blockquote>

In a October 2000 survey of 132 prominent professors of history, law, and political science, President Carter was grouped in the "Below Average" group, ranked 30th, with a mean score of 2.47 out of 5.00.<ref>Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (New York, Wall Street Journal Book, 2004)</ref>

In 2001 as President Clinton exited office and handed out many dubious and questionable pardons, some to [[terrorist]]s and others which appeared bought and paid for, Carter blasted President Clinton's actions and refered to them as "disgraceful". + In Jimmy Carter's latest book, ''Palestine Peace Not Apartheid'', he wrote:

In Jimmy Carter's latest book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid", he appeared to endorse Arab terrorism against Israel as a tactic to achieve political ends, he wrote:
<blockquote>
It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.
</blockquote>
The sentiment was widely criticized. He apologized for the wording of that sentence, but not for his larger message.<ref>Washington Post, January 24, 2007 [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/23/AR2007012301668.html?nav=rss_artsandliving/books]</ref>

*His 2006 book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," has attracted charges of plagiarism. It caused Professor Kenneth Stein to resign from the Carter Center because of its depiction of Israel through three decades of diplomatic and military dealings with the Palestinians. Mr. Stein had served as an aide to Mr. Carter during most of those years. He considers the book deceitful and malicious. As the book's title adumbrates, Jimmy compares Israel with the white supremacist regime of old South Africa. Fourteen members of the Carter Center's advisory board have resigned over the book. In March, Jimmy explained these resignations to an audience at George Washington University by saying, "They all happen to be Jewish Americans." [http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20070524-083911-8313r.htm]

== UFO Sighting ==
[[Image:Carter Sighting Report 2.gif|thumb|right|President Carter's report the planet may have been visited by space aliens.]]
Carter claims to have witnessed an unidentified flying object in 1969; he remains the only U.S. President to have formally reported a [[UFO]]. In 1975 Carter told a ''[[Washington Post]]'' reporter, " A light appeared and disappeared in the sky . . . I think the light was beckoning me to run in the California primary." <ref>[http://www.presidentialufo.com/jimmy.htm Jimmy Carter UFO] </ref> He filed a report with the International UFO Bureau in [[Oklahoma City]] after a request from that organization. <ref>[http://www.presidentialufo.com/carter_ufo_report.htm President Jimmy Carter's Actual UFO Sighting Report]</ref> During his presidential campaign, Carter promised to release the truth about any alleged UFO cover-up.

Through Stanford Research Institute, Mr. Alfred Webre was Principal Investigator for a proposed civilian scientific study of extraterrestrial communication presented to and developed with interested Carter White House staff. This took place during the period from May 1977 until the fall of 1977.

==Voyager Probe==
President Carter placed this official statement on the Voyager space probe <ref>http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=555</ref> for its trip outside the solar system on June 16, 1977: "We cast this message into the cosmos . . . Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some - - perhaps many - - may have inhabited planets and space faring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message: We are trying to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of Galactic Civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe."<ref>http://www.presidentialufo.com/jimmy.htm</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Further reading==
:[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13265 Carter the worst ex-president -- Steven Hayward]
:[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011901541.html Jimmy Carter's Jewish Problem] by Deborah Lipstadt.

==See also==
* [[Carter Doctrine]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Jimmy}}
[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Desmond Tutu

2007-06-03T13:09:26Z

MadMin: cat

Archbishop '''Desmond Tutu''' was born in 1931 and is a [[South Africa]]n cleric and activist who won worldwide fame in the 1980’s as an opponent to [[apartheid]]. He called for boycotts of his own country in response to the racism in [[Africa]].

Tutu was the first black South African to be elected to be the [[Anglican]] Archbishop of Cape Town in South Africa. Tutu was also the primate of the Church of Province of South Africa. In 1984 Tutu was awarded the [[Nobel Peace Prize]]. He also was the recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism. On top of all this he also got the Magubela Prize for liberty in 1986.

Desmond often reminiscences about how he enjoyed it when white British policemen adressed him or his wife as Sir or Madam[http://www.kcl.ac.uk/phpnews/wmview.php?ArtID=533], not what he was used to in South Africa.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tutu, Desmond}}
[[Category:biographies]]
[[Category:Religious people]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Peace]]

Category:Nobel Laureates in Peace

2007-06-03T13:07:57Z

MadMin: Created category

[[Category:Nobel Prize laureates]]