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1948: The Eilabun Massacre
This account of a dozen-strong summary execution at the Upper Galilee village of Eilabun by the Israeli Defense Forces during the Arab-Israeli War hails from The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited by Israel's best-known "New Historian", Benny Morris:
Christian villages, traditionally friendly or not unfriendly towards the Yishuv, were generally left in peace. An exception was 'Eilabun, a mainly Maronite community, which fell to Golani's 12th Battalion on 30 October after a battle on its outskirts with the ALA [Arab Liberation Army], in which the Israelis suffered six injured and four armoured cars knocked out. The villagers hung out white flags and the Israelis were welcomed by four priests. The inhabitants huddled inside the churches while the priests surrendered the village. But the troops were angered by the battle just concluded and by reports of a procession in the village, a month before, in which a large number of inhabitants had participated, in which the heads of two IDF soldiers who had gone missing after the attack on 12 September on a nearby hilltop — 'Outpost 213' — were carried through the streets, or by the actual discovery in a house of one of the rotting heads. What happened next is described in a letter from the village elders to [Israeli Minister of Police Bechor-Shalom] Shitrit: The villagers were ordered to assemble in the square. While assembling, one villager was killed and another wounded by IDF fire.
Then the commander selected 12 young men and sent them to another place, then he ordered that the assembled inhabitants be led to [the neighbouring village of] Maghar and the priest asked him to leave the women and babies and to take only the men, but he refused, and led the assembled inhabitants — some 800 in number — to Maghar preceded by military vehicles … He himself stayed on with another two soldiers until they killed the 12 young men in the streets of the village and then they joined the army going to Maghar … He led them to Farradiya. When they reached Kafr'Inan they were joined by an armoured car that fired upon them … killing one of the old men, Sam'an ash Shoufani, 60 years old, and injuring three women … At Farradiya [the soldiers] robbed the inhabitants of I£500 and the women of their jewelry, and took 42 youngsters and sent them to a detention camp, and the rest the next day were led to Meirun, and afterwards to the Lebanese border. During this whole time they were given food only once. Imagine then how the babies screamed and the cries of the pregnant and weaning mothers.
Subsequently, troops looted 'Eilabun.
Not all the villagers were taken on the trek to Lebanon. The four priests were allowed to stay. Hundreds fled to nearby gullies, caves and villages, and during the following days and weeks infiltrated back. The affair exercised the various Israeli bureaucracies for months, partly because the 'Eilabun case was taken up and pleaded persistently by Israeli and Lebanese Christian clergymen. The villagers asked to be allowed back and receive Israeli citizenship. They denied responsibility for severing the soldiers' heads, blaming one Fawzi al Mansur of Jenin, a sergeant in Qawuqji's army [i.e., the ALA].
The affair sparked a guilty conscience and sympathy within the Israeli establishment. Shitrit ruled that former inhabitants still living within Israeli-held territory must be allowed back to the village. But Major Sulz, Military Governor of the Nazareth District, responded that the army would not allow them back. He asserted, ambiguously, that 'Eilabun had been 'evacuated either voluntarily or with a measure of compulsion'. A fortnight later, he elaborated, mendaciously: 'The village was captured after a fierce fight and its inhabitants had fled.' The Foreign Ministry opined that even if an 'injustice' had been committed, 'injustices of war cannot be put right during the war itself'.
However, Shitrit, supported by Mapam's leaders and egged on by the village notables and priests, persisted. Cisling suggested that the matter be discussed in Cabinet. Shitrit requested that the villagers be granted citizenship (relieving them of the fear of deportation as illegal infiltrees), that the 'Eilabun detainees be released and that the villagers be supplied with provisions. Within weeks, Shitrit was supported by General Carmel, who wrote that 'in light of the arguments [about their mistreatment]' and of the fact that the area was not earmarked for Jewish settlement, the inhabitants should be left in place 'and accepted as citizens'. Within weeks, the inhabitants received citizenship and provisions, and the detainees were released. At the same time, Shitrit, as Minister of Police, persuaded Yadin, to initiate an investigation of the massacre. During the summer of 1949, the 'Eilabun exiles in Lebanon who wished to return were allowed to do so, as part of an agreement between Palmon, head of the Arab Section of the Political Department of the Foreign Ministry, and Archbishop Hakim, concerning the return of several thousand Galilee Christians in exchange for that cleric's future goodwill towards the Jewish State. Hundreds returned to 'Eilabun.
The abortive attack on 'Outpost 213', bizarrely enough, triggered a second atrocity four days after the first massacre. On 2 November,vtwo squads of the 103rd Battalion were sent on a search operation to Khirbet Wa'ra as Sauda, a village inhabited by the 'Arab al Mawasi beduins, three kilometres east of the outpost. While one squad kept guard over the villagers, the other — led by Lt. Haim Hayun, veteran of the September assault — climbed up to the outpost, where it discovered 'the bones of the soldiers lost in the previous action'. The bodies were 'headless'. The troops then torched the village (and presumably expelled the inhabitants), taking with them to their HQ in Maghar 19 adult males. There, the prisoners were sorted out and 14 were determined to have 'taken part in enemy activity against our army'. They were taken away and 'liquidated' (huslu). The remaining five were transferred to a POW camp.
'Eilabun and 'Arab al Mawasi were only two of the atrocities committed by the IDF during Hiram, which saw the biggest concentration of atrocities of the 1948 war. Some served to precipitate and enhance flight; some, as in 'Eilabun, were part and parcel of an expulsion operation; but in other places, the population remained in situ and expulsion did not follow atrocities.
Details about most the atrocities remain sketchy; most of the relevant IDF and Israel Justice Ministry documentation — including the reports of various committees of inquiry — remain classified. But there is some accessible, civilian documentation — and a few military documents have escaped the censorial sieve. It emerges that the main massacres occurred in Saliha, Safsaf, Jish and the (Lebanese) village of Hule, between 30 October and 2 November. In the first three villages, Seventh Brigade troops were responsible. At Saliha it appears that troops blew up a house, possibly the village mosque, killing 60–94 persons who had been crowded into it. In Safsaf, troops shot and then dumped into a well 50–70 villagers and POWs. In Jish, the troops apparently murdered about 10 Moroccan POWs (who had served with the Syrian Army) and a number of civilians, including, apparently, four Maronite Christians, and a woman and her baby. In Hule, just west of the Galilee Panhandle, a company commander and a sergeant of the Carmeli Brigade's 22nd Battalion shot some three dozen captured Lebanese soldiers and peasants and then demolished a house on top of them, killing all. Civilians appear to have been murdered in Sa'saas well.
1799: Sarah Clark, a melancholy instance of human depravity - 2018
1952: Wallace Ford, horrible in-law - 2017
1857: James Copeland, repentant gangster - 2016
1863: William Griffith, for the Marais des Cygnes massacre - 2015
1651: Terence Albert O'Brien, Bishop of Emly - 2014
1480: Cicco Simonetta - 2013
1885: George Miller, Inkster axster - 2012
1632: Henri II de Montmorency - 2011
2008: Greg Wright, still fighting for exoneration - 2010
1796: Lesurques, wrongly, and Couriol, rightly, for robbing the Lyons Mail - 2009
2007: Not Earl Wesley Berry ... for the time being - 2008
1943: 98 American civilian contractors on Wake Island
1945: Dachau Massacre
1969: The peasants of Thanh Phong (allegedly)
1945: Sudeten Germans, known but to God
1944: The Wola Massacre begins, during the Warsaw Uprising
1947: Rawagede Massacre
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Borderline "Executions",Execution,History,Innocent Bystanders,Israel,Mass Executions,No Formal Charge,Occupation and Colonialism,Palestine,Shot,Summary Executions,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1940s, 1948, arab-israeli war, october 30
1948: Shafiq Ades
Add comment September 23rd, 2019 Headsman
Iraq's June 1948 elections hard in the wake of the humiliating defeat of Iraq's expeditionary by the infant state of Israel ushered in a ferociously anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish government.
A frightening persecution unfolded that summer.
In mid-July, both houses of the Iraqi parliament ratified a bill amending Law No. 51 of the 1938 Criminal Code. Under the 1938 law, communist or anarchist activity was defined as a criminal offence for which the punishment ranged from seven years' imprisonment, to death. The new amendment included Zionist activity in the category of criminal activity. It stipulated that the sworn testimony of two Moslem witnesses would suffice to incriminate any Jew, whatever his standing. Under the amended law, numerous Jews, and particularly the prosperous, were arrested. The detention of rich Jews in particular and others as well, was now an everyday occurrence, initiated by government officials, judges and the police, with the aim of extorting money from them.
On 10 August 1948, the Iraqi government announced that all Jews who had left the country for Palestine since 1939 and had not returned, would henceforth be considered criminals who had defected to the enemy and would be tried in absentia by a military tribunal … the government issued a stringent edict dismissing all Jewish employees of government offices on the grounds that official secrecy must be protected … Young Jews who had completed their university studies encountered difficulties in finding employment. Jewish physicians were no longer accepted into government service nor were they granted licences for private practice. Various restrictions were imposed on entry of Jewish students into high schools and universities. (The Jewish Exodus from Iraq, 1948-1951, by Moshe Gat)
Driven by such incentives, no small portion of Iraq's Jewry began to contemplate flight abroad — an inclination that an Israel hungry for settlers keenly supported. And the piece de resistance in those terrible months was the September 23 hanging of the businessman Shafiq Ades.
Wealthy and well-connected, Ades could have done for the poster child of Jewish assimilation in Iraq — a fact that made him exceptionally well-suited to become the unwilling star of a show trial. (Ades realized it too late, spurning advice to flee the country in the mistaken belief that he had too much pull for the fate that befell him.)
Ades had his fortune by virtue of an arrangement to act as the Ford Motor Company agent in Iraq, but his prosecution was based on a different business deal he'd done for remaindered British army equipment after World War II. Some of this stuff he had sold onward to Italy; he'd be charged with having used the pretense of export to clandestinely supply it to the Israeli Zionists who had in turn deployed it against Ades's own countrymen in the late war.
Since it was a military court that delivered this verdict it would have been unthinkably dangerous for Iraq's regent, 'Abd al-Ilah, to exercise his theoretical prerogative of mercy.
And so Shafiq Ades hanged in front of his own Basra mansion on September 23, 1948, before a jubilant mob, the body gibbeted for hours thereafter.
Despite the atmosphere of genera persecution, Ades appears to be the only Iraq Jew actually executed during this dangerous moment; directly post-Ades, the official heat on this community was dialed back noticeably, albeit not entirely. The on-brand site IraqJews.org provides us a comment of the judge asserting a perspective of what one might call utilitarian philanthropy in his unjust sentence upon Ades: "I have ruled for the death sentence, since I was aware that the Iraqi people were seeking a sacrifice. If Ades were not hanged, pogroms would have taken place against the Jews, and who knows how many people would have been killed. By hanging Ades, I have saved the Jews from a massacre"
1730: Cathrine M'Canna, mother's daughter - 2018
1831: Slaves of Sussex County, for Nat Turner's rebellion - 2017
1675: Katharina Paldauff, the Flower Witch - 2016
1923: Jesus Saleta and Pascal Aguirre, Terrassa anarchists - 2015
1603: Marco Tulio Catizone, the false Dom Sebastian - 2014
1884: Two Pennsylvania murderers - 2013
782: 4,500 Saxons by order of Charlemagne - 2012
1921: Jake Martin and Putnam Ponsell - 2011
1947: Nikola Petkov, "a dog's death" - 2010
1864: Six of Mosby's Rangers - 2009
1994: Johannes van Damme, heroin smuggler - 2008
1952: Yosef Basri and Shalom Salah, Jewish bombers?
1915: Leo Frank lynched
1678: William Staley, "the prologue to the bloody tragedy"
1944: A Dutch Kapo named Raphaelson
1741: John Hughson, Sarah Hughson and Peggy Kerry, "so abandoned to confederate with Slaves"
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Businessmen,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Hanged,History,Iraq,Jews,Public Executions,Treason,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 'abd al-ilah, 1940s, 1948, basra, september 23, shafiq ades
1948: Ruth Closius-Neudeck
Add comment July 29th, 2019 Headsman
A notoriously brutal guard at the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp named Ruth Closius-Neudeck was hanged on this date in 1948.
With impeccable timing she exited a life of proletarian obscurity by applying for a gig as a camp warden in July 1944, right when the Third Reich's prospects for surviving the war went terminal.
That left her scant few months to stack up fodder for the eventual war crimes tribunals but Neudeck had a knack for making hay in the twilight.
Almost immediately earning promotion to barracks overseer, she earned a reputation as one of the cruelest guards at the camp that once cultivated Irma Grese. (They didn't overlap.) One prisoner would later describe seeing her "cut the throat of an inmate with the sharp edge of her shovel."
She was subsequently detailed to the nearby Uckermark satellite camp, smaller and more lethal — as it was converted for the Third Reich's final weeks into a killing center for inmates whose bodies had been broken at slave labor in Ravensbrück or elsewhere. She acknowledged sending 3,000 women to the gas chambers as Uckermark Aufseherin.
She was one of five camp guards charged in the Uckermark trial (also known as the Third Ravensbrück trial) in 1948, and the only one of those five executed.
1566: Agnes Waterhouse, the first witchcraft execution in England - 2018
1598: Lucas, waterboarded Guale - 2017
1741: Not Sarah Hughson, "stubborn deportment" - 2016
1629: Louis Bertran, martyr in Japan - 2015
1938: Janis Berzins, Soviet military intelligence chief - 2014
1879: Kate Webster, of the Barnes Mystery - 2013
1969: Joseph Blösche, Der SS-Mann - 2012
1947: Three Jewish terrorists and two British hostages - 2011
1936: Aboune Petros, Ethiopian bishop - 2010
1600: The Pappenheimer Family - 2009
1747: Alexander Blackwell, who left them smiling - 2008
1946: Eleven from the Stutthof concentration camp
1945: The Belsen war criminals
1962: Adolf Eichmann
1948: The condemned from the Doctors' Trial
1943: Eight from the Krasnodar Trials
1945: Three German war criminals
1942: Klava Nazarova, Hero of the Soviet Union
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Germany,Hanged,History,War Crimes,Women
Tags: 1940s, 1948, july 29, naziism, nazis, ravensbruck, ruth closius-neudeck
1948: Johannes Rasmussen, Danish Resistance betrayer
Anti-Nazi Danish Resistance turncoat Johannes Rasmussen was shot at Viborg on this date in 1948.
Arrested by the Gestapo in December 1943, Rasmussen (Danish link) broke under torture and informed on his former comrades, but he also extended his collaboration far beyond (more Danish) mere capitulation and became their henchman and collaborator. Rasmussen befriended his captors and working as an interpreter and interrogator until someone from the Resistance shot him in February 1945 and left him bedridden.
Arrested on the day after the German occupation ended, he unsurprisingly got no mercy from the countrymen he had betrayed.
1943: Thirteen Red Orchestra members - 2018
1920: Rickey Harrison, Hudson Duster - 2017
1619: Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, laandsadvocaat - 2016
1803: Peter Stout - 2015
1559: The remains of David Joris, Anabaptist fugitive - 2014
1945: Bruno Dorfer and Rainer Beck, Wehrmacht deserters - 2013
1828: Carbonari in Ravenna - 2012
2005: Shanmugam Murugesu, for the chronic - 2011
2005: Michael Ross, the Roadside Strangler - 2010
1880: Edwin Hoyt, in Bridgeport - 2009
1881: Not Billy the Kid - 2008
1942: Bishop Gorazd of Prague
1941: Karel Treybal, Grand Master
1943: Jerzy Iwanow (Georgios Ivanof)
1942: Boris Vilde, linguist
1942: Not Hersh Smolar, saved by Genesis
1944: A day in mass executions in Axis Europe
1944: Missak Manouchian and 21 French Resistance members, l'Affiche Rouge
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Denmark,Execution,Germany,History,Occupation and Colonialism,Shot,Treason
Tags: 1940s, 1948, johannes rasmussen, may 13, viborg, world war ii
1948: Thomas Henry McGonigle, murder without a body
1 comment February 20th, 2018 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
The Latin legal term corpus delicti literally translates to "the body of the crime," and many people are under the impression that it means the actual corpse of a murdered person and that no one may be convicted of murder without the victim's body.
This is erroneous. Although it is true that no person can be convicted of murder without the corpus delicti, the term doesn't mean the murdered person's body but rather the body of evidence that proves a crime has been committed. Every criminal case must have the corpus delicti and, in most murder cases, that includes the victim's body … but it doesn't have to.
In the United States, murder-without-a-body prosecutions are not unheard of and happen with increasing frequency due to the advancement of forensic technologies like DNA analysis. Tad DiBiase, a former federal prosecutor, even wrote a book about them, titled No-Body Homicide Cases: A Practical Guide to Investigating, Prosecuting, and Winning Cases When the Victim Is Missing, which includes an appendix of over 400 cases.
On this day in 1948, Thomas Henry McGonigle was executed in California's gas chamber in what was one of the earliest, perhaps THE earliest no-body homicide prosecution in the state. His victim was a fourteen-year-old high school sophomore named Thora Afton Chamberlain, and her body was never found and is believed to have been washed out to sea.
The prosecution would later call the case "one of the best organized and most intense investigations in the annals of the crime of kidnapping and murder."
McGonigle, a married construction laborer with an arrest record for a variety of crimes including assault with intent to commit rape, was waiting in his car outside Campbell High School when classes ended for the day on November 2, 1945. Thora's classmates saw her talking to him, and he offered her a job: he needed someone to babysit his sister's children. It would only be for half an hour, he said.
For whatever reason, Thora trusted the stranger. Perhaps it was because he was dressed respectably in a Navy uniform with medals, including a Purple Heart. She didn't know they weren't his, that he'd never been in any branch of the military. He'd stolen the clothes and medals six weeks earlier.
Thora Chamberlain was never seen again after she got into the strange man's car. McGonigle was an immediate suspect because of his record, and several witnesses identified him from a photo lineup, but in the immediate aftermath of Thora's disappearance he skipped town.
Murderer and victim.
McGonigle told his wife he was taking a bus to Los Angeles, but in fact he hitchhiked to Illinois where his father lived. The FBI kept on his trail as he drifted across the country, registering in hotels under alias names. Finally he took an overdose of sleeping pills while on a bus bound for San Francisco, and was semiconscious on arrival. The Feds were waiting for him, but instead of jail they had to take him to the hospital for treatment. He was arrested upon discharge.
In custody, McGonigle gave a series of statements admitting culpability but providing wildly differing details as to what happened. He'd stabbed Thora. He'd shot her. He'd strangled her. She'd jumped from his car and was fatally injured. Her death was an accident. He hadn't killed her at all; she was alive and well and working as a prostitute.
Although the entire truth about what happened is only known to Thora and her killer, the shooting story has the most evidence to support it.
McGonigle said he had shot Thora in his car and the bullet passed through her and got stuck in his car door. He said he'd removed the bullet and buried it under a certain tree in his yard, and also ripped out the vehicle's bloodstained padding and upholstery and buried it near the construction site where he worked. There was a bullet hole in the door of McGonigle's car, police recovered the bullet from under the tree where he said it would be, and ballistics later proved it had been fired from a .32 caliber revolver he owned. The police also found the ripped car upholstery at the indicated spot, and it was stained with human blood.
McGonigle lead the authorities to a coastal cliff in San Mateo County known as the Devil's Slide. He said he'd thrown Thora's body off the cliff, 350 feet down into the ocean. An extensive search revealed important, chilling evidence that may well have been the clincher: on the day of her abduction, Thora was dressed in her school colors of red and blue, including one pair of red socks and one pair of blue socks, one on top of the other. Searchers found both pairs wedged in separate crevices on the cliff face, and Thora's parents identified them.
At the trial, prosecutor John McCarthy told the jury how it might have happened, painting a word picture of McGonigle killing Thora in a rape or attempted rape, then lifting her from his car by her armpits and dragging her along the ground to the edge of the Devil's Slide. In the process her loafers come off and her socks are pulled down her feet. As she falls, they come off entirely and get stuck in the crevices of the cliff.
"In finding the socks," McCarthy concluded, "the crime was solved."
Given McGonigle's string of confessions — which continued even at his trial — and the eyewitnesses who identified him, and the physical evidence that backed it all up, it's no wonder the jury only deliberated half an hour. He was convicted on March 1, 1946.
While his conviction was under appeal he retracted his previous statements and denied everything. It was a frame-up, he said, all of it: he'd never confessed to anything and the FBI had planted all the evidence and the witnesses had lied. The police, meanwhile, stated he'd also confessed (over and over again…) to the murder of an unnamed "Negro waitress" from San Francisco and the only reason they weren't going to charge him was because he was already under sentence of death.
The day he was executed, McGonigle wrote down a statement in longhand and left it with the warden:
I, Thomas Henry McGonigle, in this last testimony to the people declares [sic] that I did not shoot Thora Chamberlain and did not throw her body over a cliff and I have never made any such confession that I shot Thora Chamberlain in Santa Cruz County.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff Wallace P. "Bud" Hendrick didn't agree. He witnessed the execution and later told reporters, "He threw his head back and gasped three times. Every time he gasped with that look of pain and death about him, I smiled. He was the most despicable … that ever walked the face of the earth. I only wish it could have taken longer."
(Robert E. Cornish, a mad scientist and former child prodigy who made various Frankensteinian attempts to raise dead animals, wanted to try reviving a death row inmate after an execution. McGonigle volunteered himself for the experiment, but permission was denied.)
As for Thora, her body is presumed to have washed out to sea. She remains listed in missing persons databases, however, in the unlikely event that it turns up.
1942: The Laha Massacre - 2019
1592: Thomas Pormort, prey of Richard Topcliffe - 2017
1810: Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean patriot - 2016
1942: Max Hertz, chronicled by Oskar Rosenfeld - 2015
1961: About fifteen anti-Lumumbists, in Stanleyville - 2014
1645: Conor Macguire, Lord Baron of Enniskillen - 2013
1677: Five witches at the Gallowgreen of Paisley - 2012
1570: Hegumen Kornily of the Pskov-Pechery Monastery - 2011
1388: Nicholas Brembre, Mayor of London - 2010
1258: Al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid Caliph - 2009
1939: Georgy Nikolayevich Kosenko (aka Kislov), NKVD spy - 2008
1939: Charles McLachlan
1962: Henry Adolph Busch, Psycho
1952: Lloyd Edison Sampsell, the Yacht Bandit
1954: Henry Frank Decaillet
1959: Harvey Glatman, signature killer
1997: Michael Carl George
1945: Charles Ford Silliman, suicide pact?
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,California,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Gassed,Guest Writers,Murder,Other Voices,Rape,USA
Tags: 1940s, 1948, february 20, law, san quentin prison, thomas mcgonigle, thora chamberlain
1948: Meir Tobiansky, by summary judgment
On this date in 1948, an alleged spy was extrajudicially executed by the Israeli Defense Forces.
This execution occurred during a short truce punctuating Israel's War of Independence, but prior to the ceasefire the nascent IDF had become suspicious at Jordan's gift for accurately targeting critical infrastructure in Jerusalem.
Suspicions came to settle on Meir Tobianski a Lithuania-born former British officer who had become a captain in the Jewish militia Haganah: as an employee of the Jerusalem Electric Corporation, he would have made a great informant for enemy artillerymen.
On June 30, 1948, Tobianski was kidnapped and driven to a depopulated Arab village (present-day Harel, Israel), where four intelligence officers demanded to know if Tobianski had given any information to his British colleagues at the utility (he had), and then declared him condemned as a spy. (Efficiently, they had already prepared the firing squad ahead of time.)
The chief of these four, Isser Be'eri, was later charged with manslaughter for the affair, receiving a symbolic one-day sentence. His subordinates, who were never charged, had long careers in Israeli intelligence; one of them, Binyamin Gibli would go on to help cook up a subsequent espionage debacle, the Lavon Affair.
Tobianski has been officially rehabilitated by Israel. Despite the irregularity of the proceeding against him, he's sometimes described as the first of only two executions in Israeli history, alongside the much more procedurally defensible hanging of Adolf Eichmann.
1685: Archibald Campbell - 2019
1797: Richard Parker, for the Nore mutiny - 2018
1893: A day in the death penalty around the U.S. - 2017
1921: Richard and Abraham Pearson, the Coolacrease killings - 2015
1794: Rosalie Lubomirska, mother of Balzac's antagonist - 2014
1278: Pierre de La Brosse, "out of spite and envy" - 2013
1680: A Madrid auto de fe - 2012
1934: Night of the Long Knives - 2011
1704: John Quelch, pirate - 2010
1962: Georges Kageorgis, assassin - 2009
1882: Charles Guiteau, James Garfield's colorful assassin - 2008
1945: Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe and Violette Szabo
1942: Sasha Filippov, during the Battle of Stalingrad
1942: Jakub Lemberg and family
1944: Jakob Edelstein and family
1916: Gabrielle Petit, Belgian spy
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Espionage,Execution,History,Israel,Jews,Occupation and Colonialism,Posthumous Exonerations,Shot,Spies,Summary Executions,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1940s, 1948, arab-israeli war, binyamin gibli, isser be'eri, june 30, lavon affair, meir tobianski
1948: Arthur George Osborne, as per Harry Allen's journal
2 comments December 30th, 2015 Headsman
On this date in 1948, Arthur George Osborne hanged at Armley Gaol in Leeds for murdering 70-year-old Ernest Westwood in the course of a robbery.
Osborne's execution date was also his 28th birthday.
Mustachioed assistant executioner Harry Allen kept a handwritten journal of the executions he officiated in his 23-year career — a journal recently sold at auction. From it we have notes on each prisoner's height (5 feet, 6.5 inches in Osborne's case), weight (188138 pounds) and the consequent length of the rope's drop (8 feet).
Very good job? but not expected to be so. Was hung on his 28th birthday at HMP Leeds by S. Wade got highly complimented on the speed of the job.
Harry Allen was eventually promoted to a chief executioner, in which guise he became Britain's Last Executioner: he carried out one of the two simultaneous last hangings in England, as well as the last in Scotland and the last in Northern Ireland.
1949: Leander Jacobs and Hector Chavis - 2019
A Day in the Death Penalty Around the Martyrology - 2018
1066: Joseph ibn Naghrela - 2017
1873: Elizabeth Woolcock, the only woman hanged in South Australia - 2016
1757: Father Andreas Faulhaber, seal of the confessional martyr - 2014
1663: Tempel Anneke, witch - 2013
2010: Zeng Jinchun, corrupt anti-corruption official - 2012
2006: Lu Dongming and Lu Kuan, Internet bombers - 2011
1818: Robert Johnston, under horrific circumstances - 2010
1957: Václav Mrázek, Czech serial killer - 2009
1896: Dr. Jose Rizal, father of the independent Philippines - 2008
2006: Saddam Hussein - 2007
Six Current Heads of State At Risk of Execution - 2007
1915: George Joseph Smith, Brides in the Bath murderer
1928: Frederick Browne and Pat Kennedy, hanged by a microscope
1963: Russell Pascoe and Dennis Whitty, Britain's second-last hanging date
1920: Frank Campione, "are they really going to hang me?"
1915: Louis Bundy, "I would like to have shown the world what I could do"
1690: John Bennet, the original Golden Farmer
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,England,Execution,Hanged,Murder,Theft
Tags: 1940s, 1948, arthur osborne, birthdays, december 30, famous executioners, harry allen, leeds, stephen wade
1948: Sam Shockley and Miran Thompson, for the Battle of Alcatraz
1 comment December 3rd, 2015 Headsman
On this date in 1948, Sam Shockley and Miran Edgar Thompson were gassed at San Quentin Prison for the failed prison break that led to the Battle of Alcatraz.
One of the bloodiest events to mar the history of that storied penal island, the "battle" began as an attempt by prisoners to break out of C and D Blocks and seize an an imminent afternoon prison ferry.
And like many prison breaks, preparations at once diligent, desperate, and ingenious were foiled by mischance … leaving only a hopeless, deadly shootout.
The revolt, which is narrated blow by blow here, began on May 2, 1946 in C Block, when two prisoners overpowered a guard. One of them, Bernard Coy — destined to die in the following days' siege — had spent his last weeks on this earth fasting for this very moment: now, he disrobed and, with the help of a contraband bar-spreading gadget, squeezed his emaciated frame through some bars to gain access to a gallery connecting to D Block. The prisoners had the patrol patterns of the guards in the vicinity down to a "T"; the man walking this gallery was in his turn surprised and disarmed by Bernard Coy, who proceeded to lower the guard's keys and a number of weapons to his accomplices.
Now armed, Coy was able to force his way into D Block where he released more prisoners from locked cells, including accomplices — and the eventual subjects of this day's post — Shockley and Thompson.
So far, things couldn't have gone much better. Only one obstacle remained: a locked door to access the yard that would take them to the Alcatraz launch and a rendezvous with their unsuspecting ride to freedom. And this, of course, is where it all went wrong.
Despite capturing a number of guards during the course of their progress, the aspiring escapees realized that they didn't have the key for the cell house door. The escape siren went up while they were still stuck.
Having taken the trouble to come this far, the inmates did not abandon the enterprise but devolved it into futile violence, firing out of their locked-up redoubt for no better reason than that they had the guns. Patrol boats began to arrive; word soon got around the city — the gunfire was audible to Golden Gate Bridge motorists — and ordinary San Franciscans congregated near the shore to watch while "thousands of rounds of ammunition and tracer bullets split the night sky as thousands watched from hilltops and piers on both sides of the bay." (From the San Francisco Chronicle's coverage; after an initial fusillade, prison officials waited until dark fell on the evening of May 2 to resume the attack.)
Press get as close as they can to the riots.
For Thompson, at least, this was familiar territory: he'd wound up in Alcatraz because, while being transported to jail on a federal kidnapping charge, he had slain an Amarillo, Texas officer making an unsuccessful bid for freedom.
Marines recently hardened in the Pacific theater helped orchestrate the plan of attack: after re-taking the cell blocks — which were found, contrary to worst fears — in relative calm, the trapped escapees were driven by grenades into a corridor where troopers could fire at them. By the morning of May 4, the lifeless bodies of Coy and two others were stretched out in that hall.
From left: Clarence Carnes, Sam Shockley, and Miran Thompson.
Shockley, Thompson, and a 19-year-old Choctaw named Clarence Carnes survived to face capital charges for the two guards killed in the fray. Carnes, already serving a life sentence for murder, enjoyed the mercy of an additional life sentence in this case, owing to his youth, and to testimony that he had disobeyed the orders of his confederates to execute captured guards.* Shockley and Thompson were not so fortunate.
This affair is dramatized in the 1987 TV movie Six Against the Rock.
* Carnes's burial on Choctaw land after he died in Massachusetts of AIDS in 1988 was financed by crime lord Whitey Bulger, who served time in Alcatraz from 1959 and grew close to Carnes.
1917: Private Joseph Bateman, shot at dawn - 2019
2009: Bobby Wayne Woods - 2018
Feast Day of St. Cassian of Tangier - 2017
1678: Edward Colman, Popish Plot victim - 2016
1556: Beatrice, a servant - 2014
Themed Set: Filicide - 2014
1864: Bill Sketoe, hole haunt - 2013
An unspecified Monday: Fagin - 2012
1920: Tom Johnson and Jim McDonald, criminal assailants - 2011
1849: Anna Koch of Appenzell - 2010
1876: The samurai leaders of the Hagi and Akizuki rebellions - 2009
1990: Pastor Hossein Soodmand, apostate - 2008
1952: Rudolf Slansky and 10 "conspirators" - 2007
1967: Aaron Mitchell, Ronald Reagan's first and only execution
1955: Barbara Graham, of "I Want to Live" fame
1952: Hard Luck Billy Cook
1957: Burton Abbott, reprieved too late
1906: Adolph Weber, nervy
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,California,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Gassed,History,Murder,U.S. Federal,USA
Tags: 1940s, 1948, alcatraz prison, battle of alcatraz, bernard coy, clarence carnes, december 3, miran thompson, prison break, sam shockley, san francisco, san quentin prison
1948: Tessie Hutchinson, Lottery winner
June 27 — of 1948, implicitly — was the setting for Shirley Jackson's classic short story "The Lottery".
Before we dive into the grim stuff, here's a hilariously campy pulp cover (mis)interpretation.
Less an "execution" than a human sacrifice — the village old feller's folksy "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon," evokes a primal flash of blood trickling off the maize-god's altar — the titular event is an annual tradition for a tiny American town. Though unnamed, the town and some of its denizens were patterned on North Bennington, Vermont, where Jackson was living as the wife of a professor at Bennington College.
The setting was entirely contemporary to the story's publication, right down to the day: it hit print in the June 26, 1948 edition of The New Yorker magazine. And what took Jackson two hours to write has continued to disturb and perplex generations of readers.
In "The Lottery" (available online here (pdf)), friendly townsfolk gather "in the square, between the post office and the bank" to enact a curious civic ritual dating to a time and purpose they no longer even remember.
We see each household's father draw a slip of paper from a battered old box and although we do not understand the reason we grasp from the dark atmosphere afoot in the crowd that something ominous is unfolding.
After the last slip is drawn,
there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers. holding his slip of paper in the air, said, "All right, fellows." For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saving. "Who is it?," "Who's got it?," "Is it the Dunbars?," "Is it the Watsons?" Then the voices began to say, "It's Hutchinson. It's Bill," "Bill Hutchinson's got it."
"Go tell your father," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.
People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly. Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"
"Be a good sport, Tessie." Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same chance."
"Shut up, Tessie," Bill Hutchinson said.
Tessie has good cause to fear. A second drawing now ensues among the five members of the Hutchinson family — Tessie and Bill, plus their three children.
And as soon as Tessie reveals the slip of paper with the black spot, her friends and even her family ("someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles") immediately turn on her and stone her to death.
"I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives," Jackson explained.
1777: William Dodd, mind wonderfully concentrated - 2009
Unspecified year: Snowball's animal fifth column
1297: Marion (Murron) Braidfute, bride of The Wallace
1979: Bill Stewart, ABC News reporter
1460: The residents of Amlas, impaled by Vlad Dracula
1655: Massacre of Waldensians
1934: John and Betty Stam, China missionaries
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Arts and Literature,Borderline "Executions",Chosen by Lot,Fictional,Gruesome Methods,Innocent Bystanders,No Formal Charge,Public Executions,Stoned,Summary Executions,USA,Vermont,Women
Tags: 1940s, 1948, june 27, literature, north bennington, shirley jackson, short stories, superstition, tessie hutchinson, the lottery
1948: Hans Karl Möser, for rocketry
Add comment November 26th, 2014 Headsman
In 1943, punishing Allied bombing had chased Germany's brilliant rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his team away from the Baltic port of Peenemünde where their pioneering work on the V-2 rocket had taken such a heavy toll on London.
Casting about the Third Reich for a suitable spot to base the missile team, the rocketeers settled on the Kohnstein, a hill in Thuringia already hollowed out by gypsum mines. This tunnel network was readily adapted into a subterranean munitions factory called Mittelwerk — difficult for the Allies to find, and once they found it, difficult to bomb.
A U.S. Army soldier poses with a half-assembled V-2, one of about 250 such rockets found in the Mittelwerk labyrinth when the facility was captured.
With the facilities and the big brains in place, only one thing was missing: millions of man-hours of labor.
Nazi Germany had that in plentiful supply.
Beginning in late 1943, concentration camp inmates at Buchenwald began to be funneled out to a new facility, Mittelbau-Dora. Initially just a Buchenwald sub-camp, Dora grew over the course of 1944 into an immense facility holding 50,000 prisoners — a handful of German undesirables, but mostly captured foreign nationals: French, Dutch, Polish, Czech, and Russian. Short of food, sleep, and clothing for the 1944-1945 German winter, they were systematically worked to death in the Mittelwerk shafts to build a better bomb.
Our day's principal, Hans Möser/Moeser (English Wikipedia entry | German) was an SS-Obersturmführer who made a living throughout the war years pulling guard detail in a number of concentration camps.
On May 1, 1944, Möser was transferred from Auschwitz to Mittelbau-Dora. It was the last job he would ever hold, but were Möser on the market today his C.V. would laud his team-player orientation and project management skills on a high-priority initiative. No doubt he was just the sort of reliable agent who understands how things are done that the world's mad bombers need at their back.
"Ninety percent of the prisoners lived and worked in the tunnel of the mine," testified one German who worked at Dora as a secretary and doctor's aide.
As a result of the uninterrupted work in the mines and the absence of any installation for forced draft and ventilation, there prevailed a stuffy cold atmosphere, which made breathing difficult. The prisoners also slept in the subterranean tunnel in big chambers hewed out of the rocks, in five beds on top of each other. Already in 1944 3,500 prisoners used to sleep in such a room. In the tunnel of the mine there was no ater, the prisoners got absolutely insufficient quantities of tea for drinking purposes. But for weeks they were not able to wash themselves. As a result of the heavy work in the mines and of the bad food numerous prisoners died from exhaustion during their work.
According to that same testimony, the camp received a frightful order on Good Friday, which fell on March 30 in 1945: drive every last prisoner into those tunnels and bring down the caves around them. "No prisoner should be allowed to fall into Allied hands alive."
The speedy arrival of the American 3rd Armored Division and 104th Infantry Division just days later prevented that order from taking effect.
The facilities themselves, too, were to be destroyed as part of Hitler's scorched-earth "Nero Decree" intended to deny the benefit of German industry and infrastructure to the arriving conquerors. But Hitler's War Production Minister Albert Speer was intentionally ignoring that order, a decision that might well have helped him avoid hanging at the Nuremberg trials.
Mittelwerk was a valuable capture indeed for the Allies. The Americans who first occupied it, and then the Russians who took it over a few months later, ransacked it for parts and technical specifications. The V-2 was the first man-made object to reach space, blasting at the speed of sound to the edge of orbit before plummeting back with its payload into the heart of London or wherever. It's the ancestor of the long-range, intercontinental ballistic missiles that would come later, as well as the space programs of the countries who could build such missiles.
And of course, it wasn't just the parts.
Wernher von Braun himself was the top prize of all — the young genius (he was just 33 when World War II ended) with the weapons of the future in his skull. As Germany collapsed in 1945, von Braun and his team of engineers had resolved to surrender themselves to the Americans rather than the Russians, but they too were subject to an order given the SS to execute the scientists if their capture appeared imminent. The Fuhrerbunker knew as well as the Allies how valuable this asset was.
In the event, von Braun managed to give himself up to a surprised American private. He disappeared into American custody, the crown jewel of "Operation Paperclip" that grabbed some 1,500 scientists from Germany and helpfully whitewashed their past misdeeds — misdeeds like Nazi party affiliation, and participating in slave labor camps.
Firing guided rockets into space was one thing. Unfortunately for our man Möser, his own skill set of bullying subordinates was not in short supply for either of the Cold War antagonists.
Möser was the one defendant (among 15) condemned to death at the resulting trial of Dora camp personnel. Rocket scientists, naturally, were not present for the occasion; Wernher von Braun and his team were hard at work at this time at Fort Bliss, Texas adapting the V-2 to the American Hermes program.
But at Dora, it had been Möser's job to oversee camp discipline and labor strength for the slaves doing the grunt work manufacturing von Braun's brainchild. Testimony convinced the court that the SS man had done this far too brutally, and perhaps with sadistic pleasure.
Several witnesses testified Möser frequently beat prisoners and participated in executions, often shooting at the men who were hanged for camp infractions — while they were hanging, or after they were taken off the gallows. (And of the latter, some already dead and some still alive.) "The accused told the twelfth witness that it was a pleasure to give the mercy shots, like shooting a deer."
Möser for his part countered that he took no joy himself in the beatings and killings that he had to conduct as part of his job — and that the camp commandant had early on reprimanded him for leniency, threatening that "in view of the importance of the V-weapons operation, this could be interpreted as sabotage because it reduced the work efficiency." How's that for a hostile work environment?
(There's a large .pdf of the entire trial summary here. Möser's section begins on page 36 of the pdf (page 68 per the numbering in the scanned book pages).)
His presence on this here site betrays the outcome. On this date in 1948, Hans Möser was hanged at Landsberg Prison along with several other (unrelated) convicted war criminals.
1954: Jonas Žemaitis, Lithuanian Forest Brother - 2019
1766: John Clark and James Felton - 2018
1736: James Matthews and Elizabeth Greenley - 2017
1936: Vladimir Mutnykh, Bolshoi director - 2016
2009: Hu Minghua and Su Binde, child abductors - 2015
1933: Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes lynched in St. James Park - 2013
1678: William Staley, "the prologue to the bloody tragedy" - 2012
1937: Peljidiin Genden, former Mongolia Prime Minister - 2011
Daily Double: Stalinism east to west - 2011
1940: Jilava Massacre - 2010
1600: Hansel Pappenheimer, following his family - 2009
1849: Sheikh Bouzian, defending Zaatcha - 2008
1919: Felipe Angeles - 2007
1946: The Nuremberg Trial War Criminals
1948: Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann aide
1945: The children of Bullenhuser Damm
1969: Joseph Blösche, Der SS-Mann
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,Germany,Hanged,History,Soldiers,War Crimes
Tags: 1940s, 1948, buchenwald, dora, hans moeser, labor, landsberg prison, mittelerk, november 26, rocketry, v-2, wernher von braun, world war ii


text:
South and North Korean negotiators to meet at DMZ for first time since 2015
Jung Jeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images
**This image is for use this this specific article only** North and South Korean negotiators will sit down together Tuesday for the first time since December 2015, after North Korea picked up a hotline between the two technically-still-at-war nations last wee
After more than a year of mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula, we might finally be seeing something different.
Negotiators from both Koreas arrived at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) early Tuesday to sit down for the first time since December 2015, after a hotline between the two technically-still-at-war nations reconnected last week.
The meeting will take place at Peace House in the Joint Security Area, also known as Panmunjom or "truce village," the only part of the 250 kilometer (160 mile), heavily-fortified demilitarized zone where North and South Korean soldiers stand face-to-face.
The Peace House is the location of a dramatic defection by a North Korean soldier last month, who ran across the DMZ to South Korea while under heavy gunfire from his former colleagues.
Negotiators will discuss North Korean participation in the upcoming Winter Olympics, to begin in Pyeongchang, South Korea early next month, as well as "inter-Korean relationships," according to Seoul.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be able to monitor the talks in real time, and intervene if necessary. Both leaders will have a hotline at their disposal, direct to the Peace House.
However, the Unification Ministry says only Moon will be able to watch as events unfold.
"While President Moon can monitor CCTVs and discussions in real time, the North Korean side can only listen in it as the live CCTV feed is not provided to the North Korean side," a spokeswoman said.
North and South Korean negotiators have met multiple times in the past, without any permanent decrease in tensions or hostilities, and analysts advised caution on Tuesday's talks.
"I think prudence dictates that we be very cautious about these talks," said Evans Revere, a former US diplomat in South Korea. "We've been down this road before ... in almost every instance, ultimately we've been disappointed."
Sudden breakthrough
Last year was dominated by growing concern over North Korean missile and nuclear testing, and the angry, saber-rattling rhetoric both were inspiring in Washington.
However, 2018 started off with a rare glimmer of optimism on the Korean Peninsula.
Two employees of South Korea's Unification Ministry -- the sprawling government office which oversees all things North Korea -- had been calling an inter-governmental hotline at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day since February 2016, when the North Koreans cut off communications.
After almost two years, someone finally picked up, and within days, the two sides had agreed to meet in person.
US President Donald Trump has attempted to claim credit for the breakthrough, saying it would not have happened "if I wasn't firm, strong and willing to commit out total 'might' against the North."
But Trump added "talks are a good thing," and said "America supports (South Korean) President Moon 100%."
As a gesture of good will, South Korea and the US have agreed not to hold joint military drills during the Olympics, which are scheduled for February 9 to 25. The drills have long infuriated North Korea and been a sticking point with Pyongyang.
Trump's Secretary of Defense James Mattis "reaffirmed the US commitment to defend (South Korea) using the full spectrum of US capabilities" during a call with his South Korean counterpart Song Young-moo Friday.
The defense ministers also discussed the importance of strong international support for diplomatic actions to resolve the North Korean threat, according to a Pentagon spokeswoman.
"It is very much in the US interest that the talks be expanded to include tensions reductions mechanisms and nuclear and missile test freezes, but the Trump team seems hesitant to seize the opportunity," said Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists for nuclear and defense policy, adding that "these talks have begun more despite Trump than because of him."
Seeking concessions
Revere, the former US diplomat, predicted Pyongyang may try to extract concessions from Seoul in exchange for North Korea's participation in -- and non-disruption of -- the Winter Olympics.
"Some sort of assistance package, some sort of sanctions relief," he said.
"Another thing that the North Koreans may be looking at is something more permanent in the area of a reduction of military exercises that South Korea engages in with the US."
Revere said from experience the first round of negotiations "is very tough."
"They lay out a position and they make it very clear they're not going to back away from it, even if perhaps later they do," he added.
Sue Terry, former CIA analyst and senior fellow for Korea at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said President Moon Jae-in "will have to give some kind of concession to North Korea, for North Korea to send a delegation to the Olympics."
This, she added, may involve the reopening of the Kaesong industrial complex, a joint economic venture between the two Koreas that was closed by Moon's conservative predecessor Park Geun-hye in 2016.
"President Moon might have to cancel, or indefinitely postpone, US-South Korean joint military exercises," she said.
Cautious optimism
Chad O'Carroll, managing director of a research and consultancy firm called the Korea Risk Group, said the talks were starting off on a positive note, with little of the usual disagreement about whether to hold them on the North or South side of the Joint Security Area.
"It definitely seems like something is in the air and we'll see what that leads to," he said. "For the North Koreans, the motivation to take part in these talks is undoubtedly due to the pressure that is building up on the country."
Sanctions on Pyongyang are at their highest level in history, with both US and United Nations restrictions taking their toll on the country's economy, raising major concerns for a population that has suffered through multiple famines in the recent past.
"Policy planners in North Korea are going to really start to struggle in the medium to long term in terms of being able to plan effectively and grow the economy with the amount of economic and diplomatic isolation there is right now," O'Carroll said. "There is one small potential relief valve for Pyongyang, which is South Korea."
Under previous South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Seoul advanced the "Sunshine Policy" of greater economic and diplomatic engagement with North Korea, including aid and other relief.
President Moon was a key adviser to Roh, and during the election campaign last year, consistently supported improving ties with Pyongyang, though he has taken a harder line since coming to power.
While some analysts predicted North Korea may attempt to gain tough concessions from South Korea for a peaceful Olympics, O'Carroll said it may be an ideal time for a reinvigorated Sunshine Policy to bear fruit.
"It's a gamble. It may not work. But it's better than nothing. And North Korea doesn't really have any other options right now in terms of reducing (sanctions) pressure," he said.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
You are at:Home»Entertainment»HBO's Game of Thrones Explained…with Beer
HBO's Game of Thrones Explained…with Beer
By Patrick AE on	 June 22, 2011 Entertainment
About two months ago, I saw a preview for a new television show. At first I thought it was a sequel, or prequel, to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, thanks to Sean Bean being in two of the three movies(one of those movies portraying him as a corpse. Don't say I spoiled it. If you haven't seen those movies by now, you never will). I don't know if this should be attributed to the success of the movies or Sean Bean's acting abilities, but after watching almost the whole 1st season of what the preview was really about, Game of Thrones, I'm leaning towards the acting. Unless he just happens to pick projects with amazing story-lines, but that takes talent, too.
Game of Thrones is the medieval, sword-fighting, wench-banging, politically mesmerizing story of the seven kingdoms of Westeros, their leaders, and how they interact in a dark age. The story is believable, save for the body-snatching White Walkers that bring the possibility of a zombie apocalypse further back in time then it has ever been before. There's a lot of blood, a lot of sex, and a whole lot of twisting story-lines.
To review it for a new viewer would seem almost impossible because of how many spoilers you may come into contact with, so I decided to focus on some of the main characters. In order to keep the actual stories of these characters a mystery, I elected to use a comparison set-up.
What we will be comparing characters to? Simple: beer. Beer has such a wide range of classes and tastes to play against the range of classes and tastes of the players in Game of Thrones, and beer is easier to to make safe for work than, say, sexual positions, and everyone is drinking and sword-fighting. I don't know anything about medieval swordplay, and my housemate gives me enough grief about watching a "dirty show", so I'll stick with beer.
Character: Eddard "Ned" Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North.
Played By: Sean Bean
Beer: Newcastle Ale
Ned Stark and Newcastle Ale share a lot more than the first letters of their first name. They both have an endearing, but strict, code of values. They are both unassuming on the outside, but inside is a just and honorable temperament that has, for now, gotten them both through many a war. The idea that Newcastle is best drank when it is cold out is not lost on this fan-boy of the North, either.
Character: Jon Snow, bastard son of Ned Stark, recent recruit of The Night's Watch.
Played By: Kit Harington
Beer: Bass Ale
Just as Jon Snow is the bastard son of Ned Stark, so does Bass Ale seem like the bastard son of Newcastle Ale. Both bastards seem to have hints of the strength and honor of their fathers, however do not fully grasp what makes their lords that much better. Perhaps it is a vintage thing, and one day Bass Ale will bloom before its hearty father. Then again, Jon Snow joined the virgin-league of The Night's Watch, and Bass joined the ranks of breweries bought up by Molson Coors, so it is anybody's guess how far these two breeds will be able to go.
Character: King Robert Baratheon, drunken womanizer
Played By: Mark Addy
Beer: Arrogant Bastard Ale
Don't let the exterior of these two obnoxious entities fool you. Under the outer shell of this plump lush that likes to have his brother-and-law listen as he has sex with a line of prostitutes is a man that wants to do the right thing. So it goes with Arrogant Bastard Ale. The bitter beginning makes way for a warm, enduring after-taste along the lines of the most classic Belgian brews.
Character: Catelyn Stark
Played By: Michelle Fairley
Beer: Sierra Nevada
Strong-willed; loyal; seemingly for the older generation, but perky enough for the lower middle-aged; MILFs. These are some of the characteristics that Ned Stark's wife and Sierra Nevada Pale share. I don't know if Sierra Nevada has traveled quite as much as Lady Stark, but I do know that they both have a knack for being smooth enough to be wherever they need to be as a support system when what you really want isn't on tap.
Character: Daenerys Targaryen
Played By: Emilia Clarke
Beer: Delirium Tremens
At first glance, both this beer and woman may seem submissive. Our first glimpse of the sensual blonde Daenerys is of her getting naked while her brother inspects his gift to Khal Drogo in one of the ugliest innuendos of incest I remember seeing. The first impression of Delirium Tremens is the same way: the white frosted bottle, the baby blue label with pink trim, the pink elephant. However, both this woman and beer are the perfect blend of strong will and tastiness that makes you love and respect them at the same time. Although it is unlikely that the Tremens bottle looks as good with its label off.
Character: Khal Drogo
Played By: Jason Momoa
Beer: Skullsplitter Ale
Not many in Westeros can understand the Dothraki people, but they fear them nonetheless. Naturally, their Khal would be the most feared of all, as he is the strongest of the tribe. Skullsplitter Ale is no different. It is just strong, unabashed beer with a high alcohol content and a taste that would overtake any other beer. Luckily, it also tastes good, but only for the selective few.
Character: Tyrion Lannister
Played By: Peter Dinklage
Beer: Red Stripe
Yes, short jokes are the easiest to do for Tyrion Lannister and Red Stripe, but there is more to it than that. In both of these stunted statures is definitive loyalty and honor that is scrambled within their knowledge of the world. Tyrion understands his predicaments, and doesn't hold things against his enemies by association. This can also be said of Red Stripe, as people pass this by for something better, but always come back because of how steady a beer it is.
Character: Ser Jaime Lannister
Played By: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Beer: Coors Light
Some may say that this is a ridiculous comparison. "Ser Jaime is kind of bad-ass, and Coors Light is a girlie beer!" This is true, but think of it this way: Coors Light used to have those hot female twins in all their commercials, and you can still meet up with Coors Light Girls at bars during promotions. Unfortunately, things just got weird for both Coors and Ser Jaime, and their honor was cast away, leaving them heartless and disorientated. You begin to feel bad for the beer and the man by the end of it, but at the same time can't forgive either of them.
Character: Renly Baratheon/Lora Tyrell
Played By: Gethin Anthony/Finn Jones
Beer: Mike's Hard Combo Pack
Yeah, we went there. Unfortunately, Zima was discontinued.
Character: Varys
Played By: Conleth Hill
Beer: O'Doul's
You can't really tell why Varys is around. This pudgy eunuch doesn't seem to engage in anything, and when you think he will "for the betterment of the realm", he does not. This just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Much like O'Doul's. The idea is there, but the taste, and alcohol, is not, much like Varys' balls.
Character: Petyr Balish
Played By: Aidan Gillen
Beer: Amstel Light
Both Petyr and Amstel Light are chameleons in their own right. Petyr plays for as many teams as possible in order to impair them all, and lead his one-man team to victory. While Amstel Light doesn't seem to have any ominous goals, it is a balanced beer that seems to creep in everywhere, whether it be a middle-tier beer at a local bar or the low tier at a Belgian bar.
So where does that leave Games of Thrones itself? Simple: home-brewed beers. These take a long-ass time in comparison to just going to the store and picking up a six-pack. You need patience, attention to detail, and a dedication to getting the best product possible. So it goes with the Game of Throne series, which just ended its first season, and will return for a second season…in a year.
Haven't had enough? Check out even more Game of Thrones characters explained…with more beer.
Patrick AE
Patrick is the man behind the man behind the site behind the man.... When he isn't writing for The Inept Owl, saving penguins from Hulk Hogan, and other activities that could be either truths or lies, he's editing everything else.
Beta Boy on June 22, 2011 9:47 am
I don't believe the Delirium Tremens/Daenerys comparison. I need a hard, face-to-face comparison, please. >=)
AmyT on June 22, 2011 10:58 am
Would Joffrey be Four Loco?
Rick Bernardo on June 22, 2011 11:02 am
Good call, Amy! I may need to do a part 2 with the amount of characters I left out.
AmyT on June 22, 2011 2:22 pm
Awesome! Please do.
magushnik on June 27, 2011 11:01 am
i request the addition of the crippled boy
brandonlaner on June 27, 2011 11:32 am
What is the Obama administration doing to prepare for possible King Geoffry military advances?
Rick Bernardo on June 28, 2011 6:49 am
That's what the White Walkers are: Black Ops personnel.
Alcanis Ivennil on August 28, 2011 6:23 am
Holy fuck man, add some REAL beers. Like Czechish, German, Danish and Irish! What the HELL are these?
Degermyr on June 4, 2012 11:42 am
Well good list and comparing! Lord Balish could also be any Mikkeler beer since they are brewed at different breweries.
Addon;
King Joffrey – Leffe Blond


text:
Buddhist, Hindu make history in new Congress
(RNS) Congress will become a shade more religiously diverse this January, after Tuesday's election of the first Hindu representative and first Buddhist senator. By Daniel Burke.
RNS photo courtesy Vijay Pallod
(RNS) Congress will become a shade more religiously diverse this January, after Tuesday's (Nov. 6) election of the first Hindu representative and first Buddhist senator.
Namita Pallod welcomes Tulsi Gabbard to her father's Houston home for a fundraiser on October 28, 2012.
Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, will become the first Hindu-American congresswoman, after defeating her Republican rival on Tuesday.
Ami Bera, a California doctor who was raised Hindu but now identifies as a Unitarian Universalist, according to the Hindu American Foundation, narrowly leads the race for California's 7th congressional district.
The 31-year-old Gabbard was born in American Samoa to a Catholic father and a Hindu mother, and moved to Hawaii when she was 2. The Iraq War veteran said she follows the Vaishnava branch of Hinduism, which venerates the deity Lord Vishnu and his incarnations.
Democrat Tulsi Gabbard is poised to win an out-of-nowhere bid over Republican opponent Kawika Crowley. Gabbard was leading Crowley 70 percent to 18 percent, according to an Oct. 12 poll by the Honolulu Civil Beat.
Gabbard will take the congressional seat of another Democrat, Mazie Hirono, who will be the nation's first Buddhist senator when the new Congress convenes in January.
Hirono, who is also the first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate, was one of three Buddhists in the House of Representatives. The other two, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga. and Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, both won re-election on Tuesday.
Hirono was raised in the Jodo Shinso school of Pure Land Buddhism, one of the most popular traditions in East Asia. She has said that she "believes in the precepts of Buddhism" but does not practice the religion daily.
The Hindu American Foundation hailed Gabbard's historic election on Wednesday, calling it a "testament to the greatest ideals of American pluralism."
"That Gabbard won while proudly espousing her Hinduism and voicing a willingness to be a strong voice for Hindu Americans brings over 2 million Americans into the political landscape for the first time," said Aseem Shukla, co-founder and Board member of HAF.
Gabbard has said she hopes her faith will help strengthen ties between the U.S. and India, Hinduism's spiritual homeland. "How can we have a close relationship if decision-makers in Washington know very little, if anything, about the religious beliefs, values, and practices of India's 800 million Hindus?" she said.
Despite Tuesday's results, Congress is likely to remain overwhelmingly Christian. More than 85 percent of the 112th Congress, which ends in January, are Catholic or Protestant, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Just two members are Muslim. Democrat Syed Taj, a Michigan doctor who was bidding to become the third Muslim member, lost on Tuesday.
Congress also lost its single self-proclaimed atheist when Rep. Pete Stark lost his House seat on Tuesday. It may soon have another, however, as Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who drew support from the National Atheist Party, clings to a slight lead.
KRE/LEM END BURKE
BeliefsPolitics
Whose 'Torah values'?
We should hire Deborah Lipstadt to combat antisemitism, not punish her for doing so
How American couples' 'inter-Hindu' marriages are changing the faith
Since Jan. 6 attacks, spiritual leaders unify to combat Christian nationalism
We could use a little more Hinduism in our approach to climate change


Shep Assocaites offers the highest quality Customising from small to Major projects.
At present we have just completed an 8058 console with upgrades which has gone to a Private studio in New Zealand.
We also have an 8068 console at the factory which is being overhauled and will have the Shep Equalisers. This console will be for Sale once completed. It is at present a 32/16/32 console with Necam 96.
Top line Japan studio EGGS have recently installed two consoles which were extensively customised by Shep Assocaites. Visit their web site for more information.
We can supply most parts for Classic Neve Consoles. Switches, Pots, PCB's etc.
We undertake technical support and can carry put servicing and alignment of modules or complete consoles. Before buying a console from a dealer / broker, we can carry out a full test on the condition and performance of the console and supply you with a complete written report.
Don't take unnecessary risks when buying a used Neve console.


text:
Milton station or Milton railway station may refer to:

In England:
Milton railway station (Staffordshire) in Milton, Staffordshire, England
Milton Range Halt railway station in Gravesend, Kent, England
Milton Regis Halt in Milton Regis
Milton Road Halt railway station in Gravesend, Kent, England
Milton Halt railway station in Milton, Oxfordshire, England
New Milton railway station in New Milton, Hampshire, England
Weston Milton railway station in Milton and Locking Castle, Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, England
Brampton railway station (Cumbria) near the village of Milton and previously known as Milton Station.

In Scotland:
Milton of Crathes railway station in Milton of Crathes, Scotland

In Canada:
Milton GO Station in Milton, Ontario, Canada

In the United States:
Milton station (MBTA) in Milton, Massachusetts, United States
Milton Railroad Station (New York) in Milton, New York, United States

In Australia:
Milton railway station, Brisbane in Brisbane, Australia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


MONTESANO, WASHINGTON – An arrest was made on Tuesday in connection to the connection to a hit-and-run of death of Jimmy Smith-Kramer, 20, and injured Harvey Anderson, 19, that happened early Saturday morning in a campground in Washington state. Kramer was a tribal citizen of the Quinault Tribe, based in Taholah, Washington.
The Gray Harbors County Sheriff's department announced they arrested a 31-year-old man from Hoquiam, Washington, according to K5 TV. The name of the arrested man has not yet been released by authrorities, pending a court appearance. He is being held on a second-degree homicide charge.
Police had been looking of a white pick-up truck that ran over Smith-Kramer and Anderson while the two were at a campground over the Memorial Day weekend.
I'm glad an arrest has been made. What a sad tragedy for this young man and his family.
Thankful that the man has been caught. Now let justice be done. I hope the woman passenger, family, friends, of the victims and the witnesses get professional help to help deal with this tragic hate crime. Prayers for the injured man. Blessings.
Our heartfelt condolences to the family of this Brave young man! From the Colombe family on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.


text:
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <ogg/ogg.h>
#include "ivorbiscodec.h"
#include "codec_internal.h"
#include "registry.h"
#include "codebook.h"
#include "misc.h"
#include "os.h"
#include "block.h"

typedef struct {
  vorbis_info_residue0 *info;
  int         map;

  int         parts;
  int         stages;
  codebook   *fullbooks;
  codebook   *phrasebook;
  codebook ***partbooks;

  int         partvals;
  int       **decodemap;

} vorbis_look_residue0;

void res0_free_info(vorbis_info_residue *i){
  vorbis_info_residue0 *info=(vorbis_info_residue0 *)i;
  if(info){
    memset(info,0,sizeof(*info));
    _ogg_free(info);
  }
}

void res0_free_look(vorbis_look_residue *i){
  int j;
  if(i){

    vorbis_look_residue0 *look=(vorbis_look_residue0 *)i;

    for(j=0;j<look->parts;j++)
      if(look->partbooks[j])_ogg_free(look->partbooks[j]);
    _ogg_free(look->partbooks);
    for(j=0;j<look->partvals;j++)
      _ogg_free(look->decodemap[j]);
    _ogg_free(look->decodemap);

    memset(look,0,sizeof(*look));
    _ogg_free(look);
  }
}

static int ilog(unsigned int v){
  int ret=0;
  while(v){
    ret++;
    v>>=1;
  }
  return(ret);
}

static int icount(unsigned int v){
  int ret=0;
  while(v){
    ret+=v&1;
    v>>=1;
  }
  return(ret);
}

/* vorbis_info is for range checking */
vorbis_info_residue *res0_unpack(vorbis_info *vi,oggpack_buffer *opb){
  int j,acc=0;
  vorbis_info_residue0 *info=(vorbis_info_residue0 *)_ogg_calloc(1,sizeof(*info));
  codec_setup_info     *ci=(codec_setup_info *)vi->codec_setup;

  info->begin=oggpack_read(opb,24);
  info->end=oggpack_read(opb,24);
  info->grouping=oggpack_read(opb,24)+1;
  info->partitions=oggpack_read(opb,6)+1;
  info->groupbook=oggpack_read(opb,8);

  /* check for premature EOP */
  if(info->groupbook<0)goto errout;

  for(j=0;j<info->partitions;j++){
    int cascade=oggpack_read(opb,3);
    int cflag=oggpack_read(opb,1);
    if(cflag<0) goto errout;
    if(cflag){
      int c=oggpack_read(opb,5);
      if(c<0) goto errout;
      cascade|=(c<<3);
    }
    info->secondstages[j]=cascade;

    acc+=icount(cascade);
  }
  for(j=0;j<acc;j++){
    int book=oggpack_read(opb,8);
    if(book<0) goto errout;
    info->booklist[j]=book;
  }

  if(info->groupbook>=ci->books)goto errout;
  for(j=0;j<acc;j++){
    if(info->booklist[j]>=ci->books)goto errout;
    if(ci->book_param[info->booklist[j]]->maptype==0)goto errout;
  }

  /* verify the phrasebook is not specifying an impossible or
     inconsistent partitioning scheme. */
  /* modify the phrasebook ranging check from r16327; an early beta
     encoder had a bug where it used an oversized phrasebook by
     accident.  These files should continue to be playable, but don't
     allow an exploit */
  {
    int entries = ci->book_param[info->groupbook]->entries;
    int dim = ci->book_param[info->groupbook]->dim;
    int partvals = 1;
    if (dim<1) goto errout;
    while(dim>0){
      partvals *= info->partitions;
      if(partvals > entries) goto errout;
      dim--;
    }
    info->partvals = partvals;
  }

  return(info);
 errout:
  res0_free_info(info);
  return(NULL);
}

vorbis_look_residue *res0_look(vorbis_dsp_state *vd,vorbis_info_mode *vm,
			  vorbis_info_residue *vr){
  vorbis_info_residue0 *info=(vorbis_info_residue0 *)vr;
  vorbis_look_residue0 *look=(vorbis_look_residue0 *)_ogg_calloc(1,sizeof(*look));
  codec_setup_info     *ci=(codec_setup_info *)vd->vi->codec_setup;

  int j,k,acc=0;
  int dim;
  int maxstage=0;
  look->info=info;
  look->map=vm->mapping;

  look->parts=info->partitions;
  look->fullbooks=ci->fullbooks;
  look->phrasebook=ci->fullbooks+info->groupbook;
  dim=look->phrasebook->dim;

  look->partbooks=(codebook ***)_ogg_calloc(look->parts,sizeof(*look->partbooks));

  for(j=0;j<look->parts;j++){
    int stages=ilog(info->secondstages[j]);
    if(stages){
      if(stages>maxstage)maxstage=stages;
      look->partbooks[j]=(codebook **)_ogg_calloc(stages,sizeof(*look->partbooks[j]));
      for(k=0;k<stages;k++)
	if(info->secondstages[j]&(1<<k)){
	  look->partbooks[j][k]=ci->fullbooks+info->booklist[acc++];
#ifdef TRAIN_RES
	  look->training_data[k][j]=calloc(look->partbooks[j][k]->entries,
					   sizeof(***look->training_data));
#endif
	}
    }
  }

  look->partvals=look->parts;
  for(j=1;j<dim;j++)look->partvals*=look->parts;
  look->stages=maxstage;
  look->decodemap=(int **)_ogg_malloc(look->partvals*sizeof(*look->decodemap));
  for(j=0;j<look->partvals;j++){
    long val=j;
    long mult=look->partvals/look->parts;
    look->decodemap[j]=(int *)_ogg_malloc(dim*sizeof(*look->decodemap[j]));
    for(k=0;k<dim;k++){
      long deco=val/mult;
      val-=deco*mult;
      mult/=look->parts;
      look->decodemap[j][k]=deco;
    }
  }

  return(look);
}

/* a truncated packet here just means 'stop working'; it's not an error */
static int _01inverse(vorbis_block *vb,vorbis_look_residue *vl,
		      ogg_int32_t **in,int ch,
		      long (*decodepart)(codebook *, ogg_int32_t *,
					 oggpack_buffer *,int,int)){

  long i,j,k,l,s;
  vorbis_look_residue0 *look=(vorbis_look_residue0 *)vl;
  vorbis_info_residue0 *info=look->info;

  /* move all this setup out later */
  int samples_per_partition=info->grouping;
  int partitions_per_word=look->phrasebook->dim;
  int max=vb->pcmend>>1;
  int end=(info->end<max?info->end:max);
  int n=end-info->begin;

  if(n>0){
    int partvals=n/samples_per_partition;
    int partwords=(partvals+partitions_per_word-1)/partitions_per_word;
    int ***partword=(int ***)alloca(ch*sizeof(*partword));

    for(j=0;j<ch;j++)
      partword[j]=(int **)_vorbis_block_alloc(vb,partwords*sizeof(*partword[j]));

    for(s=0;s<look->stages;s++){

      /* each loop decodes on partition codeword containing
	 partitions_pre_word partitions */
      for(i=0,l=0;i<partvals;l++){
	if(s==0){
	  /* fetch the partition word for each channel */
	  for(j=0;j<ch;j++){
	    int temp=vorbis_book_decode(look->phrasebook,&vb->opb);
	    if(temp==-1 || temp>=info->partvals)goto eopbreak;
	    partword[j][l]=look->decodemap[temp];
	    if(partword[j][l]==NULL)goto errout;
	  }
	}

	/* now we decode residual values for the partitions */
	for(k=0;k<partitions_per_word && i<partvals;k++,i++)
	  for(j=0;j<ch;j++){
	    long offset=info->begin+i*samples_per_partition;
	    if(info->secondstages[partword[j][l][k]]&(1<<s)){
	      codebook *stagebook=look->partbooks[partword[j][l][k]][s];
	      if(stagebook){
		if(decodepart(stagebook,in[j]+offset,&vb->opb,
			      samples_per_partition,-8)==-1)goto eopbreak;
	      }
	    }
	  }
      }
    }
  }
 errout:
 eopbreak:
  return(0);
}

int res0_inverse(vorbis_block *vb,vorbis_look_residue *vl,
		 ogg_int32_t **in,int *nonzero,int ch){
  int i,used=0;
  for(i=0;i<ch;i++)
    if(nonzero[i])
      in[used++]=in[i];
  if(used)
    return(_01inverse(vb,vl,in,used,vorbis_book_decodevs_add));
  else
    return(0);
}

int res1_inverse(vorbis_block *vb,vorbis_look_residue *vl,
		 ogg_int32_t **in,int *nonzero,int ch){
  int i,used=0;
  for(i=0;i<ch;i++)
    if(nonzero[i])
      in[used++]=in[i];
  if(used)
    return(_01inverse(vb,vl,in,used,vorbis_book_decodev_add));
  else
    return(0);
}

/* duplicate code here as speed is somewhat more important */
int res2_inverse(vorbis_block *vb,vorbis_look_residue *vl,
		 ogg_int32_t **in,int *nonzero,int ch){
  long i,k,l,s;
  vorbis_look_residue0 *look=(vorbis_look_residue0 *)vl;
  vorbis_info_residue0 *info=look->info;

  /* move all this setup out later */
  int samples_per_partition=info->grouping;
  int partitions_per_word=look->phrasebook->dim;
  int max=(vb->pcmend*ch)>>1;
  int end=(info->end<max?info->end:max);
  int n=end-info->begin;

  if(n>0){

    int partvals=n/samples_per_partition;
    int partwords=(partvals+partitions_per_word-1)/partitions_per_word;
    int **partword=(int **)_vorbis_block_alloc(vb,partwords*sizeof(*partword));
    int beginoff=info->begin/ch;

    for(i=0;i<ch;i++)if(nonzero[i])break;
    if(i==ch)return(0); /* no nonzero vectors */

    samples_per_partition/=ch;

    for(s=0;s<look->stages;s++){
      for(i=0,l=0;i<partvals;l++){

	if(s==0){
	  /* fetch the partition word */
	  int temp=vorbis_book_decode(look->phrasebook,&vb->opb);
	  if(temp==-1 || temp>=info->partvals)goto eopbreak;
	  partword[l]=look->decodemap[temp];
	  if(partword[l]==NULL)goto errout;
	}

	/* now we decode residual values for the partitions */
	for(k=0;k<partitions_per_word && i<partvals;k++,i++)
	  if(info->secondstages[partword[l][k]]&(1<<s)){
	    codebook *stagebook=look->partbooks[partword[l][k]][s];

	    if(stagebook){
	      if(vorbis_book_decodevv_add(stagebook,in,
					  i*samples_per_partition+beginoff,ch,
					  &vb->opb,
					  samples_per_partition,-8)==-1)
		goto eopbreak;
	    }
	  }
      }
    }
  }
 errout:
 eopbreak:
  return(0);
}

vorbis_func_residue residue0_exportbundle={
  &res0_unpack,
  &res0_look,
  &res0_free_info,
  &res0_free_look,
  &res0_inverse
};

vorbis_func_residue residue1_exportbundle={
  &res0_unpack,
  &res0_look,
  &res0_free_info,
  &res0_free_look,
  &res1_inverse
};

vorbis_func_residue residue2_exportbundle={
  &res0_unpack,
  &res0_look,
  &res0_free_info,
  &res0_free_look,
  &res2_inverse
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


2014 was a year of changes for the retail industry as several things happened at an extremely unpredictable speed. Notably the sales went on from physical (brick and mortar stores) to the online medium. There were innumerable companies getting their tech switch on and preparing their online presence and there were some high-profile changeovers of CEO's from prominent brands such as Target and American Apparel's. To keep it simple 2014 for the retail industry was a year of introduction of few massive changes that will be flipping the sector for more advancement, most of these trends are ought to be carried forward in 2015.
However, the following trends according to experts are more likely to happen in 2015 and must be taken note of for a well-prepared year in retail business that will result in ample profits.
The finishing of last year saw a big leap in the mobile shopping world; the Cyber Monday 2014 was a bright example as 22% of the total online sales directed to the mobile phone medium. This was a huge 27% more as compared to 2013 according to IBM Digital Analytics. However, companies need to get their basics right in order to reap the profits. Most of the participants don't bother to have a stress free "mobile friendly" website; which is thoroughly irritating for the customers.
Some part-takers who have observed the business feel that having a mobile friendly website is a necessity today whereas it was a competitive advantage a year ago. Having features like virtual trial rooms will not help if the core website isn't user friendly. Many business owners have just jumped into the mobile version without taking into consideration many of its basics. Therefore, there is a serious requirement to get the basics proper in 2015 which would help improve the sales through mobile medium.
The shrinking up of numbers and sizes was frequent news in the retail industry although 2014. Brand wise Target and Walmart have already passed press statements about opening up micro-stores (small size stores) at several locations. Walmart specifically indicated that it would throw open 200-220 "small-format stores" although 2015. Similarly; Target has also announced plans of opening Target Express stores at 5 locations along a City Target.
According to retail gurus small-size stores are here to stay as it cuts down on the cost factor is much easier to operate. Moreover, it is a success as it suits the growing needs of nuclear families, their constantly changing convenience and it is most profitable as many brands are facing an end to their lease periods for their stores.
Alike 2014, this year too will be a race between the best. The saying "May the BEST one win" will continue to be true even in 2015. However, there are a few seriously under-performing brands those will need some financial backing, yet they have the real estate path that would assist in bringing in funds.
Experts predict that most of the "not so well" performing brands are already planning to close down many of their under-performing stores. Cutting down on the number of stores has often helped in getting the brands on track again, such brands also are planning to turn these locations into real-estate destinations using which they would pump in some vital funding.
They also estimate a steep growth for the well performing brands as multiple mediums of sales (especially sales through mobile) will help expanding profits.
This is one thing which is about to change compared to 2014. This year the lower-income shoppers will be more active than they were last year, this is more because the reducing burdens on them. Notably the oil and gas price all over the globe is trimming down and this is ought to affect the retail sales in a positive manner. Economists from around the world are predicting a higher contribution from the lower-income groups which is a happy news for the retail store owners as increase in lower-income group customers will result in a higher profit making balance sheet.
2015 may seem to be a bright year for retail industry but as there are two sides in everything, there are certain things that won't happen and it will only be wise to accept them rather than forcing the issue. Apple Pay will NOT break the dominance of the traditional payment mediums like credit and debit cards. This is primary due to the number of complications involved in the medium (remember everyone in this world don't own an Apple iPhone 6 Plus).
Alibaba may have created records in the share markets, but it yet has to strive a lot to enter and dominate the American online circuit. According to founder Jack Ma, this was the dangerous period for Alibaba. Maybe in future, but 2015 isn't the year where Alibaba is going to change the American online landscape.
Online grocery category continues to remain the least penetrated segment as it has least participants and yet to receive performers who are interested in taking up the challenges involved in the business. Delivering fresh and frozen foods to clients is still a big challenge and this will probably not be taken by anyone because of which 2015 won't be a breakthrough year for the niche.


text:
You're not living your best life if you don't see "Girls Trip" this weekend
By Blaire bercy
Here's a fact. Girls Trip is going to take the comedy box office and run for the next few weeks. There's a reason why there's a lot of buzz around the movie. It will, for starters, stand the test of time, and will be included in the list of great comedies that make you laugh so hard you're crying.
There are MANY jaw dropping moments that happen during this BFF trip (just wait until you get to the grapefruit), but unlike funny flicks like Bachelorette or The Hangover (or really any movie in which a group of friends go do crazy shit), these characters feel more real and less satirical. This film has the right balance of heart and raunch. These ladies are your friends who have been with you through thick and thin. The friends who know your secrets, your ATM pin — and when you need help, sometimes before you do.
From the moment the movie starts, you become a member of the Flossy Posse. The self-dubbed "Flossy Posse" consists of the characters played by Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Regina Hall, and the absolutely hilarious Tiffany Haddish! Without giving too much away, each woman in the Posse needs this trip. They need a break from their lives, some time to recharge and find themselves.
The ladies decide to take a trip back to the last place they all had a blast and let loose: Essence Fest in New Orleans. From the moment they touch the ground in New Orleans, the melanin is poppin', the drinks are flowing, and the laughter is endless. You can tell the cast actually had a blast filming in NOLA. I sat down with the ladies of the Posse, as well as Larenz Tate (who plays the insanely charming and sweet Julian), and Malcolm D. Lee and Will Packer, producer and director, to talk about their favorite moments in the movie and pranks pulled on set.
[tempo-video id="5516635297001″ account="4607804089001″]
Tiffany was a crowd — and crew — favorite, but Queen definitely had a great time playing Sasha!
Girls Trip is a movie is for my self-care ladies who want to give their mind a break from reality and really laugh in a cool theatre for a couple of hours. It's for women who might not have enough time (or money, tbh) to take a trip with their friends. It's for my ladies who love to laugh and are looking for a reason to reconnect with friends. Most importantly it's for my carefree women who want to be sure that the coins they will be spending on a movie are worth it — for this movie, they are!
By the end of Girls Trip, you will feel like you've made four new friends and have a BUNCH of lines to recite with your girls over brunch or text to your Flossy Posse.
And before I left NOLA I had to ask about that prayer, if you've seen the trailer you know the one, and Tiffany offered to lead me and Regina in one:
Hopefully this means we're starting our own Sagittarius Flossy Posse for Girls Trip 2…because there has to be a sequel.
WE READY!
Beyoncé Announces Upcoming World Tour
The Beyhive rejoices as The Queen readies to hit the road.
Ashton Kutcher Opens Up About Split From Demi Moore
The actor explains why he was so angry about Moore's memoir.
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Talk about a nightmare!
9 Trending SKIMS Dupes to Squeeze Into
From bras to bodysuits, we've got you (UN)covered.
Emily Ratajkwoski Shares the Reason She Kept Her Wedding Ring
The model says divorce doesn't have to be "a sad thing."
Britney Spears Calls Out Alyssa Milano
"This definitely feels like a form of bullying," the pop star wrote.
Now's Your Chance to Name a Cockroach After an Ex
The "Cry Me a Cockroach" fundraiser is on.
10 Last-Minute Valentine's Day Gifts Starting at $20
These are so much better than chocolate.
© 2022 Galvanized Media. All Rights Reserved.
HelloGiggles.com is part of the Dotdash Meredith Beauty & Style Group


text:
Blankenhof ist eine Gemeinde im Landkreis Mecklenburgische Seenplatte in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Deutschland). Die Gemeinde wird vom Amt Neverin mit Sitz in gleichnamiger Gemeinde verwaltet.

Geografie

Die Gemeinde Blankenhof ist der westliche Nachbarort der Kreisstadt Neubrandenburg. Das Gemeindegebiet reicht von der Niederung des Aalbaches bis auf die höhergelegene Grundmoräne, die sich westlich des Tollensetales hinzieht, dabei erreicht der Blocksberg 85 Meter über NN.

Umgeben wird Blankenhof von den Nachbargemeinden Breesen im Norden, Woggersin im Nordosten, Neubrandenburg im Osten, Wulkenzin und Penzlin im Süden, Kuckssee im Südwesten sowie Mölln im Westen.

Ortsteile
Zu Blankenhof gehören die Ortsteile Chemnitz und Gevezin.

Geschichte
Blankenhof ist eine Aufsiedlung von 1805.

Chemnitz tauchte erstmals 1305 in Urkunden auf.
Der Name Chemnitz leitet sich von kamjeń für Stein ab, was sich vermutlich von der an Steinen (Findlinge) reichen Umgebung herleitet.
Die Gotische Feldsteinkirche wurde 1305 gebaut; der hölzerner Turmaufsatz stammt aus dem 18. Jahrhundert. Das Gutshaus aus der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts besaß bis 1945 die Familie von Klinggräff.

Gevezin wurde erstmals 1311 genannt. Die Feldsteinkirche stammt aus der späten Gotik. Das Gutshaus wurde 1912 gebaut.

Politik

Wappen, Flagge, Dienstsiegel
Die Gemeinde verfügt über kein amtlich genehmigtes Hoheitszeichen, weder Wappen noch Flagge. Als Dienstsiegel wird das kleine Landessiegel mit dem Wappenbild des Landesteils Mecklenburg geführt. Es zeigt einen hersehenden Stierkopf mit abgerissenem Halsfell und Krone und der Umschrift "GEMEINDE BLANKENHOF * LANDKREIS MECKLENBURGISCHE SEENPLATTE".

Sehenswürdigkeiten

 Grooter Stein, ein etwa 42 Kubikmeter großer und 70 Tonnen schwerer Findling.
 Linde in Blankenhof

Verkehrsanbindung
Chemnitz liegt an der B 104. Sie führt – wie auch die Bahnlinie, an der der Bahnhof Blankenhof liegt – von Neubrandenburg nach Güstrow. Eine Verbindungsstraße führt in die nahe Kleinstadt Penzlin.

Von Chemnitz aus führt eine Busverbindung in die Stadt Neubrandenburg und in Richtung Stavenhagen – Malchin.

Persönlichkeiten

Chemnitz
 Charlotte von Hobe (1792–1852), geboren in Chemnitz, Schriftstellerin und Stiftsdame

Gevezin
 Albrecht Joachim von Krakevitz (1674–1732), geboren in Gevezin, lutherischer Theologe, 1721–1732 Generalsuperintendent von Schwedisch-Pommern

Weblinks

Einzelnachweise

Ort im Landkreis Mecklenburgische Seenplatte


Convective rains in the Intertropical Convergence Zone produce lenses of freshened water on the ocean surface. Due to significant density differences between the freshened and saltier seawater, strong pressure gradients develop, resulting in lateral spreading of freshwater lenses in the form of gravity currents. Gravity currents inherently involve three-dimensional dynamics. As a type of organized structure, gravity currents may also interact with, and be shaped by, the ambient oceanic and atmospheric environment. Among the important environmental factors are background stratification and wind stress. Under certain conditions, a resonant interaction between a propagating freshwater lens and internal waves in the underlying halocline (the barrier layer) may develop, while interaction with the wind stress may produce an asymmetry in the freshwater lens and associated mixing. These two types of interactions working in concert may explain the series of sharp frontal interfaces observed in association with freshwater lenses during the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Response Experiment (TOGA COARE). We conducted a series of numerical simulations using computational fluid dynamics tools. These numerical experiments were designed to elucidate the relationship between vertical and horizontal fluxes of salinity under various environmental conditions and the potential impact of these fluxes on the barrier layer and Aquarius and Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite image formations.
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Animation of the evolution of the freshwater plume interacting with wind stress.
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