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🔗 Larry (Cat)

🔗 London 🔗 Politics 🔗 Cats 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Politics of the United Kingdom 🔗 Project-independent assessment

Larry (born c. January 2007) is a British domestic tabby cat who has served as Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office at 10 Downing Street since 2011. He is cared for by Downing Street staff, and is not the personal property of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Larry has lived at 10 Downing Street during the premierships of six prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer. He is the first cat to be officially given the title of Chief Mouser, according to the Downing Street government website.

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🔗 List of games that Buddha would not play

🔗 Lists 🔗 Buddhism 🔗 Project-independent assessment

The Buddhist games list is a list of games that Gautama Buddha is reputed to have said that he would not play and that his disciples should likewise not play, because he believed them to be a 'cause for negligence'. This list dates from the 6th or 5th century BCE and is the earliest known list of games.

There is some debate about the translation of some of the games mentioned, and the list given here is based on the translation by T. W. Rhys Davids of the Brahmajāla Sutta and is in the same order given in the original. The list is duplicated in a number of other early Buddhist texts, including the Vinaya Pitaka.

  1. Games on boards with 8 or 10 rows. This is thought to refer to ashtapada and dasapada respectively, but later Sinhala commentaries refer to these boards also being used with games involving dice.
  2. The same games played on imaginary boards. Akasam astapadam was an ashtapada variant played with no board, literally "astapadam played in the sky". A correspondent in the American Chess Bulletin identifies this as likely the earliest literary mention of a blindfold chess variant.
  3. Games of marking diagrams on the floor such that the player can only walk on certain places. This is described in the Vinaya Pitaka as "having drawn a circle with various lines on the ground, there they play avoiding the line to be avoided". Rhys Davids suggests that it may refer to parihāra-patham, a form of hop-scotch.
  4. Games where players either remove pieces from a pile or add pieces to it, with the loser being the one who causes the heap to shake (similar to the modern game pick-up sticks).
  5. Games of throwing dice.
  6. "Dipping the hand with the fingers stretched out in lac, or red dye, or flour-water, and striking the wet hand on the ground or on a wall, calling out 'What shall it be?' and showing the form required—elephants, horses, &c."
  7. Ball games.
  8. Blowing through a pat-kulal, a toy pipe made of leaves.
  9. Ploughing with a toy plough.
  10. Playing with toy windmills made from palm leaves.
  11. Playing with toy measures made from palm leaves.
  12. Playing with toy carts.
  13. Playing with toy bows.
  14. Guessing at letters traced with the finger in the air or on a friend's back.
  15. Guessing a friend's thoughts.
  16. Imitating deformities.

Although the modern game of chess had not been invented at the time the list was made, earlier chess-like games such as chaturaji may have existed. H.J.R. Murray refers to Rhys Davids' 1899 translation, noting that the 8×8 board game is most likely ashtapada while the 10×10 game is dasapada. He states that both are race games.

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🔗 $100 Hamburger

🔗 Aviation 🔗 Project-independent assessment

$100 hamburger ("hundred-dollar hamburger") is aviation slang for the excuse a general aviation pilot might use to fly.

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🔗 Mumps (Programming Language)

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Computing/Early computers 🔗 Project-independent assessment

MUMPS ("Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System"), or M, is an imperative, high-level programming language with an integrated transaction processing key–value database. It was originally developed at Massachusetts General Hospital for managing patient medical records and hospital laboratory information systems.

MUMPS technology has since expanded as the predominant database for health information systems and electronic health records in the United States. MUMPS-based information systems, such as Epic Systems', provide health information services for over 78% of patients across the U.S.

A unique feature of the MUMPS technology is its integrated database language, allowing direct, high-speed read-write access to permanent disk storage.

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🔗 Clashes between web and X11 colors in the CSS color scheme

🔗 Color 🔗 Project-independent assessment

In computing, on the X Window System, X11 color names are represented in a simple text file, which maps certain strings to RGB color values. It was traditionally shipped with every X11 installation, hence the name, and is usually located in <X11root>/lib/X11/rgb.txt. The web colors list is descended from it but differs for certain color names.

Color names are not standardized by Xlib or the X11 protocol. The list does not show continuity either in selected color values or in color names, and some color triplets have multiple names. Despite this, graphic designers and others got used to them, making it practically impossible to introduce a different list. In earlier releases of X11 (prior to the introduction of Xcms), server implementors were encouraged to modify the RGB values in the reference color database to account for gamma correction.

As of X.Org Release 7.4 rgb.txt is no longer included in the roll up release, and the list is built directly into the server. The optional module xorg/app/rgb contains the stand-alone rgb.txt file.

The list first shipped with X10 release 3 (X10R3) on 7 June 1986, having been checked into RCS by Jim Gettys in 1985. The same list was in X11R1 on 18 September 1987. Approximately the full list as is available today shipped with X11R4 on 29 January 1989, with substantial additions by Paul Ravelling (who added colors based on Sinclair Paints samples), John C. Thomas (who added colors based on a set of 72 Crayola crayons he had on hand) and Jim Fulton (who reconciled contributions to produce the X11R4 list). The project was running DEC VT240 terminals at the time, so would have worked to that device.

In some applications multipart names are written with spaces, in others joined together, often in camel case. They are usually matched insensitive of case and the X Server source code contains spaced aliases for most entries; this article uses spaces and uppercase initials except where variants with spaces are not specified in the actual code.

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🔗 Celtuce

🔗 China 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Plants 🔗 Taiwan 🔗 Project-independent assessment

Celtuce () (Lactuca sativa var. augustana, angustata, or asparagina), also called stem lettuce, celery lettuce, asparagus lettuce, or Chinese lettuce, is a cultivar of lettuce grown primarily for its thick stem or its leaves, which are known as A-choy. It is used as a vegetable. In China, the family is informally called woju (traditional Chinese: 萵苣; simplified Chinese: 莴苣; pinyin: wōjù), which is also the name of a cultivar. It is especially popular in both China and Taiwan, where the stem is interchangeably called wosun (traditional Chinese: 萵筍; simplified Chinese: 莴笋; pinyin: wōsǔn) or qingsun(青筍; 青笋; qīngsǔn).

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🔗 The Cult of Personality and Its Consequences

🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Russia 🔗 Socialism 🔗 Russia/history of Russia 🔗 Project-independent assessment

"On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" (Russian: «О культе личности и его последствиях», romanized: “O kul'te lichnosti i yego posledstviyakh”) was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 February 1956. Popularly known as the Secret Speech (Russian: секретный доклад Хрущёва, romanized: sekretnïy doklad Khrushcheva), this is something of a misnomer, as copies of the speech were read out at thousands of meetings of Communist Party and Komsomol organisations across the country. Khrushchev's speech was sharply critical of the rule of the deceased General Secretary and Premier Joseph Stalin, particularly with respect to the purges which had especially marked the last years of the 1930s. Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership cult of personality despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism.

The speech was shocking in its day. There are reports that some of those present suffered heart attacks and that the speech even inspired suicides, due to the shock of all of Khrushchev's criticisms and condemnations of the government and the figure of Stalin. The ensuing confusion among many Soviet citizens, raised on panegyrics and permanent praise of the "genius" of Stalin, was especially apparent in Georgia, Stalin's homeland, where days of protests and rioting ended with a Soviet army crackdown on 9 March 1956. The speech was leaked to the West by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, which received it from the Polish-Jewish journalist Wiktor Grajewski. It politically devastated organised communists in the West; the Communist Party USA alone lost more than 30,000 members within weeks of its publication.

The speech helped give rise to the period of liberalisation known as the Khrushchev Thaw, and the process of de-Stalinization. It was cited as a major cause of the Sino-Soviet split by China (under Chairman Mao Zedong) and Albania (under First Secretary Enver Hoxha), who condemned Khrushchev as a revisionist. In response, they formed the anti-revisionist movement, criticizing the post-Stalin leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for allegedly deviating from the path of Lenin and Stalin. In North Korea, factions of the Workers' Party of Korea attempted to remove Chairman Kim Il Sung, criticizing him for not "correcting" his leadership methods, developing a personality cult, distorting the "Leninist principle of collective leadership" and "distortions of socialist legality" (i.e. using arbitrary arrest and executions) and using other Khrushchev-era criticisms of Stalinism against Kim Il Sung's leadership.

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🔗 War Powers Resolution

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Law 🔗 United States History 🔗 U.S. Congress 🔗 Military history/National militaries 🔗 Vietnam 🔗 Project-independent assessment

The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. ch. 33) is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States congressional joint resolution. It provides that the president can send the U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization", or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces".

The bill was introduced by Clement Zablocki, a Democratic congressman representing Wisconsin's 4th district. The bill had bipartisan support and was co-sponsored by a number of U.S. military veterans. The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without congressional authorization for use of military force (AUMF) or a declaration of war by the United States. The resolution was passed by two-thirds each of the House and Senate, overriding the veto of President Richard Nixon.

It has been alleged that the War Powers Resolution has been violated in the past. However, Congress has disapproved all such incidents, and no allegations have resulted in successful legal actions taken against a president.

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🔗 Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior

🔗 International relations 🔗 France 🔗 Military history 🔗 Terrorism 🔗 New Zealand 🔗 Military history/Intelligence 🔗 International relations/International law 🔗 Military history/Maritime warfare 🔗 Military history/French military history 🔗 Shipwrecks 🔗 International relations/United Nations 🔗 New Zealand/New Zealand politics 🔗 Military history/European military history 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography 🔗 Project-independent assessment 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography/Terrorism 🔗 Auckland

The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was a bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior, at the Port of Auckland in New Zealand on its way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.

France initially denied responsibility, but two French agents were captured by New Zealand Police and charged with arson, conspiracy to commit arson, willful damage, and murder. As the truth came out, the scandal resulted in the resignation of the French Defence Minister Charles Hernu. The two agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to ten years in prison. They spent a little over two years confined to the French island of Hao before being freed by the French government.

Several political figures, including then New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, have referred to the bombing as an act of terrorism or state-sponsored terrorism.

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🔗 Western Oil: the US/UK-Backed Iranian Coup D'état of 1953

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Iran 🔗 Military history/Intelligence 🔗 Military history/Middle Eastern military history 🔗 Project-independent assessment

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (Persian: کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. Led by the Iranian army and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, the coup aimed at strengthening the autocratic rule of the shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after its government refused to concede to western oil demands. It was instigated by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot). This began a period of dissolution for Iranian democracy and society.

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP), to verify that AIOC was paying the contracted royalties to Iran, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. Upon the AIOC's refusal to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize Iran's oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country. After this vote, Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically. Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the British-built Abadan oil refinery, then the world's largest, but Prime Minister Clement Attlee (in power until 1951) opted instead to tighten the economic boycott while using Iranian agents to undermine Mosaddegh's government.: 3  Judging Mosaddegh to be unamenable and fearing the growing influence of the communist Tudeh, UK prime minister Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration decided in early 1953 to overthrow Iran's government. The preceding Truman administration had opposed a coup, fearing the precedent that Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) involvement would set,: 3  and the U.S. government had been considering unilateral action (without UK support) to assist the Mosaddegh government as late as 1952. British intelligence officials' conclusions and the UK government's solicitations to the US were instrumental in initiating and planning the coup.

Following the coup, a government under General Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran (Persian for 'king'), to rule more firmly as monarch. He relied heavily on United States support to hold on to power. According to the CIA's declassified documents and records, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-shah riots on 19 August. Other men paid by the CIA were brought into Tehran in buses and trucks and took over the streets of the city. Between 200 and 300 people were killed because of the conflict. Mosaddegh was arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the Shah's military court. On 21 December 1953, he was sentenced to three years in jail, then placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.: 280  Other Mosaddegh supporters were imprisoned, and several received the death penalty. The coup strengthened the Shah's authority, and he continued to rule Iran for the next 26 years as a pro-Western monarch until he was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

In August 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup by releasing a bulk of previously classified government documents that show it was in charge of both the planning and the execution of the coup. According to American journalist Stephen Kinzer, the operation included false flag attacks, paid protesters, provocations, the bribing of Iranian politicians and high-ranking security and army officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda. The CIA is quoted as acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government". In 2023, the CIA took credit for the coup, contradicting a previous scholarly assessment that the CIA had botched the operation, though other assessments agreed that America and Britain had engineered the coup.

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