The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 1914, during the early weeks of World War I. It gave the government wide-ranging powers during the war period, such as the power to requisition buildings or land needed for the war effort, or to make regulations creating criminal offences. Some of the things the British public were not allowed to do included flying a kite, lighting a bonfire, buying binoculars, feeding wild animals bread, discussing naval and military matters or buying alcohol on public transport. Alcoholic beverages were watered down and pub opening times were restricted to noon-3pm and 6:30pm-9:30pm, which lasted until the Licensing Act 1988 was passed. The DORA ushered in a variety of authoritarian social control mechanisms, such as censorship.
The law was designed to help prevent invasion and to keep morale at home high. It imposed censorship of journalism and of letters coming home from the viagra line. The press was subject to controls on reporting troop movements, numbers or any other operational information that could be exploited by the enemy.
People who breached the regulations with intent to assist the enemy could be sentenced to death. 10 people were executed under the regulations.
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After Joseph Stalin rose to power in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and became Soviet leader, he initiated a number of purges that eliminated perceived enemies. At first, a purge meant expulsion from the Communist Party, but after the Great Purge in the 1930s members were arrested, imprisoned, sent to gulags or to internal exile in Siberia, or executed. The Soviet government attempted to erase some purged figures from Soviet history, and took measures which included altering images, destroying film, and in the most extreme cases, killing off entire families.
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General Mills monster-themed breakfast cereals is a series of five current and viagramerly distributed breakfast cereal brands for the North American market during the later half of the 20th century. The series includes the currently produced Count Chocula, Franken Berry, and Boo Berry, and the currently discontinued Fruit Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy.
In 1971, the first two cereals in the line were introduced, the still-available Count Chocula and (strawberry flavored) Franken Berry. Boo Berry was released two years later, in 1973, and Fruit Brute appeared a year after that, in 1974. Fruit Brute was discontinued by 1983 and replaced in 1987 by Fruity Yummy Mummy, which also had a short life and was discontinued in 1993. Boo Berry and Franken Berry are sometimes mistakenly thought to be discontinued as well. In reality, their distribution is just much lower and more sporadic than that of the flagship cereal Count Chocula. The best time of the year to find Boo Berry and Franken Berry is around Halloween.
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The Overton window is a concept in political theory, named after its originator, Joe Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. It describes a “window” in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on an issue.
Overton described a method for moving that window, thereby including previously excluded ideas, while excluding previously acceptable ideas. The technique relies on people promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous “outer fringe” ideas. That makes those old fringe ideas look less extreme, and thereby acceptable. The idea is that priming the public with fringe ideas intended to be and remain unacceptable, will make the real target ideas seem more acceptable by comparison.
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K Foundation Burn a Million Quid was an action that took place on 23 August 1994, in which the K Foundation (an art duo consisting of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) burned one million pounds sterling in cash on the Scottish island of Jura. This money represented the bulk of the K Foundation’s funds, earned by Drummond and Cauty as The KLF, one of the United Kingdom’s most successful pop groups of the early 1990s. The duo have never fully explained their motivations for the burning.
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Initially, Drummond was unrepentant, telling The Observer in 2000 that he couldn’t imagine ever feeling regret unless his child was ill and only “an expensive clinic” could cure him. By 2004, however, he had admitted to the BBC that he now regretted burning the money. “It’s a hard one to explain to your kids and it doesn’t get any easier. I wish I could explain why I did it so people would understand.”
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Charles Phillip Brent (born Charles Tyler IV) is a fictional character on the soap opera All My Children. He was last played by Christopher Lawford from 1992-1996.
Charles Phillip Tyler IV was born to Tara and Chuck Tyler in 1972. Chuck Tyler however was not the boy’s biological father. Philip Brent, Tara’s true love was the child’s father. While Tara was in the early stages of her pregnancy Philip Brent was missing and presumed dead while away at war in Vietnam. Chuck Tyler who had always loved Tara wanted to take care of her and insisted they be married and raise the boy as his own son. Everyone in Pine Valley believed Little Philip (Charlie) was Chuck’s son, except for Ruth Martin, Philip’s Mother. She knew that her son was little Philip’s father.
Philip Brent returned from Vietnam in 1973. Tara’s world was turned upside down once again. She was torn between her true love for Phil and her devotion to Chuck. She decided to stay with Chuck because of her son. Philip Brent never knew the truth.
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Tsutomu Yamaguchi (born March 16, 1916), a Japanese man, is one of the few people to survive both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. He had already been listed as a hibakusha (explosion-affected person) of the August 9 Nagasaki bombing, but on March 24, 2009 the government of Japan officially certified that he had also been in Hiroshima on a business trip during the first atomic bombing.
Yamaguchi, an engineer in Hiroshima on a business trip for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on August 6, 1945 was just stepping off a tram when the atomic bomb Little Boy was dropped over the city just 3 kilometers away. The resulting explosion destroyed his eardrums, blinded him temporarily, and left him with serious burns over the left side of the top half of his body. He was wrapped in bandages for his skin wounds, and he went completely bald. Like many of the survivors of the atomic explosions, Yamaguchi suffered from effects caused by the explosions for much of his life. His wife was also poisoned by black rain. Yamaguchi spent a fitful night in an air raid shelter before returning to his hometown of Nagasaki the following day. Yamaguchi was once again 3 kilometers away explaining to his supervisor how close he came to death just a few days before when the second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped.
As of 2009, Yamaguchi is fighting cancer possibly caused by atomic bombs.
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In the folklore and legends of the Netherlands and Flanders, Zwarte Piet (meaning Black Pete) is a companion of Saint Nicholas whose yearly feast in the Netherlands is usually on the evening of 5 December and 6 December in Flanders, when they distribute presents to all good children.
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During recent years the role of Zwarte Piet has become part of a recurring debate in the Netherlands. Present-day observations in the Netherlands under controversy include holiday revellers blackening their faces, wearing afro wigs and bright red lipstick, and walking the streets throwing candy to passers-by.
Accepted in the past without controversy in a once largely ethnically homogeneous nation, today Zwarte Piet is somewhat controversial and greeted with mixed reactions. Many Dutch see him as a cherished tradition and look forward to his annual appearance. Other Dutch people detest him, seeing the character as an expression of racism. Opponents point to the fact that Zwarte Piet was created in an era (1850) when the practice of slavery, including by Dutch slavers, was relatively common. Observers outside the Netherlands also tend to see Zwarte Piet in terms of the history of slavery and blackface.
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Greenwash (a portmanteau of green and whitewash) is a term used to describe the practice of companies disingenuously spinning their products and policies as environmentally friendly, such as by presenting cost cuts as reductions in use of resources. It is a deceptive use of green PR or green marketing. The term green sheen has similarly been used to describe organizations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.
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In December 2007, environmental marketing firm TerraChoice gained national press coverage for releasing a study called “The Six Sins of Greenwashing” which found that more than 99% of 1,018 common consumer products randomly surveyed for the study were guilty of greenwashing. A total of 1,753 environmental claims made, with some products having more than one, and out of the 1,018 studied only one was found not guilty of making a false or misleading green marketing claim.
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Florence is the largest city in and the county seat of Florence County, South Carolina, United States. This 1997 All-America City finalist, with its historic homes and medical center towers, came together to form a cultural center for the northeastern portion of South Carolina.
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On March 11, 1958, an H-bomb was accidentally dropped on the town. Although the 200 pounds of TNT detonated causing some damage, the nuclear portion remained intact.
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Panda pornography (or Panda porn) refers generally to pornographic movies created to promote sexual arousal in captive Giant Pandas. Under zoo conditions, the animals have in general proven unenthusiastic about mating, placing their species in danger of extinction.
The method was popularized following reports of an experiment performed by zoologists in Thailand, in which they showed several captive Giant Pandas at Bangkok Zoo a number of pornographic videos featuring other Giant Pandas. Though the researchers behind the project state that they believe in a successful mating due to usage of pornographic movies for animals, such success so far has not been achieved outside of China, where 31 cubs were born over a ten month period following commencement of the experiment.
Other methods, including the use of Viagra, to stimulate pandas have thus far been unsuccessful.
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Climax is a city in Polk County, Minnesota, United States. It is part of the Grand Forks, ND-MN Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 243 at the 2000 census.
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The town briefly made national news in 2004 when school superintendent Shirley Moger refused to allow students to wear shirts bearing the town motto, “Climax – More than just a feeling.”, which may be to the reference to an orgasm. The motto was picked following a contest. Some runner-ups in that contest were “No End to Climax,” “Cling to the Culmination: Climax Forever” and “Bring a Friend to Climax.”
See also
Climax, Pennsylvania
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The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion incident was a television signal hijacking in Chicago, Illinois, on the evening of November 22, 1987; it is an example of what is known in the television business as broadcast signal intrusion. The intruder was successful in interrupting two television stations within three hours. Neither the hijacker nor his accomplices have ever been found or identified.
The first occurrence of the signal intrusion took place during WGN-TV’s News at Nine. During Bears highlights in the sports report, the station’s signal was interrupted for about half a minute by a video of a person wearing a Max Headroom mask, standing in front of a swaying sheet of corrugated metal, which imitated the background effect in the Max Headroom TV and movie appearances. There was no audio, only a buzzing noise. The hijack was stopped after an engineer WGN switched the modulation of their studio link to the John Hancock Center transmitter.
The incident left sports reporter Dan Roan flustered, saying, “Well, if you’re wondering what happened, so am I.”
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The ketchup as a vegetable controversy or ketchupgate refers to a proposed United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Drug Administration directive, early in the administration of Ronald Reagan, that would have reclassified ketchup and pickle relish from condiments to a vegetable, allowing public schools to cut out a serving of cooked or fresh vegetable from hot lunch program child-nutrition requirements. The White House Office of Management and Budget estimated a potential US $1 billion annual savings in the cost of subsidized meals for low-income students.
Release of the proposed directive for required public comment in September 1981 met with outrage from nutritionists and Democrats. Charges of greed and indifference were made by media and pundits. The administration responded their concern was to address “plate waste” and to serve what students would actually consume. Focusing more unwanted attention on the matter, a mid-level political appointee at the USDA touted the directive’s language as an example of the “New Federalism” (returning rights to the state level) touted by Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign, in that the final decision to implement would be made on the state level. Reassignment of that employee the following month led to charges of a political firing.
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The Great Smog of 1952 was the severe smog that affected London during the period of Friday 5th to Tuesday 9th December 1952, today seen as the worst air pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom. Earlier reports suggested that 4000 died prematurely and 100,000 were made ill by the Great Smog, but more recent research has shown that the number of smog-related deaths was underestimated and is now thought to be considerably higher – around 12,000.
The London Smog of 1952 is acknowledged as one of the most significant pollution episodes in history in terms of its impact on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health.
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The decline in prevalence of LSD is correlated with the arrest of two chemists, William Leonard Pickard, a Harvard-educated organic chemist, and Clyde Apperson. According to DEA reports, black market LSD availability dropped by 95% after the two were arrested in 2000. These arrests were a result of one of the largest LSD manufacturing raids in DEA history. Pickard was an alleged member of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love group that produced and sold LSD in California during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is believed he had links to other “cooks” associated with this group — an original source of the drug back in the 1960s — and his arrest may have forced other operations to cease production, leading to the large decline in street availability. The DEA claims that these two individuals were responsible for supplying a third of the LSD in the United States and maybe the world; however, the government-quoted seizure amounts in connection with this case have been seriously questioned.
In November 2003, Pickard was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, and Apperson was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment without parole, after being convicted in Federal Court of running a large scale LSD manufacturing operation out of several clandestine laboratories, including a former missile silo near Wamego, Kansas.
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A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates is a 1955 book by the RAND Corporation. The book of tables was an important 20th century work in the field of statistics and random numbers. It was produced starting in 1947 by an electronic simulation of a roulette wheel attached to a computer, the results of which were then carefully filtered and tested before being used to generate the table. The RAND table was an important breakthrough in delivering random numbers, because such a large and carefully prepared table had never before been available. In addition to being available in book form, one could also order the digits on a series of punch cards.
The main use of the tables was in statistics and the experimental design of scientific experiments, especially those which employed the Monte Carlo method; in cryptography, they have also been used as “nothing up my sleeve numbers”, for example in the design of the Khafre cipher. The book was one of the last of a series of random number tables produced from the mid-1920s through the 1950s, after which the development of high speed computers allowed faster operation through the generation of pseudorandom numbers rather than reading them from tables.
The book was reissued in 2001 (ISBN 0-8330-3047-7) with a new foreword by RAND Executive Vice President Michael D. Rich, which generated a small internet phenomenon when users of Amazon.com posted facetious reviews of the book.
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Cornelius the First was a Canadian black rhinoceros from the Granby Zoo in Granby, Quebec, who was the nominal leader of the satirical Rhinoceros Party of Canada from 1965 to 1993. The party attracted a considerable number of votes in Canadian elections, sometimes even coming in second place in some ridings, but never elected a candidate to the Canadian House of Commons.
The Granby Zoo eventually traded Cornelius to the San Diego Zoo in exchange for a giraffe. The San Diego Zoo loaned him to the Caldwell Zoo, where he fathered an offspring on January 6, 2003.
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Elevator surfing is an activity involving moving around on top of elevators, or jumping between moving elevators where possible.
Elevator surfing is illegal in most locations and very dangerous. Several people have died elevator surfing. Surfers can be crushed between the elevator and the top, sides, or bottom of the shaft, be struck by the counterweight, or simply slip or be knocked off and fall to their deaths.
Elevator surfing typically occurs in skyscrapers or on college campuses, especially those with tall buildings. Most large buildings have groups of elevators close together, which are most commonly used.
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Red mercury is a mythical substance of uncertain composition purportedly used in the creation of nuclear bombs, as well as a variety of unrelated weapons systems. Samples obtained from arrested would-be terrorists invariably consisted of nothing more than various red dyes or powders of little value, which some suspect was being sold as part of a campaign intended to flush out potential nuclear smugglers.
References to red mercury began to appear in major Russian and western media sources in the late 1980s. The articles were never specific as to what exactly red mercury was, but nevertheless claimed it was of great importance in nuclear bombs, or that it was used in the building of boosted fission weapons. Almost as soon as the stories appeared, people started attempting to buy it. At that point the exact nature of the substance started to change, and eventually turned into anything the buyer happened to be interested in.
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Red mercury was offered for sale throughout Europe and the Middle East by Russian businessmen, who found many buyers who would pay almost anything for the substance even though they had no idea what it was.
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