Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
The University of the Pacific is a private university in Stockton, California, originally affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The university, previously known as "UOP" and now as "Pacific", was originally chartered on July 10, 1851, in Santa Clara under the name "California Wesleyan College." In 1858, the college opened the first medical school on the West Coast. The medical school later became part of Stanford and is now California Pacific Medical Center.
In 1871, the campus was moved to San José, and the college opened its doors to women, becoming the first independent co-educational campus in California. In 1878, the Conservatory of Music was established at Pacific, making it the first of its kind west of the Mississippi River. In 1911, the name was changed to "College of the Pacific" (COP).
In 1925, the campus relocated from the Bay Area to the Central Valley city of Stockton; it became the "University of the Pacific" in 1961.
Pacific was one of the state's first institutions for higher learning, chartered at about the same time as the present Santa Clara University. There are three professional schools: the top-ten ranked Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco, the top-100 ranked McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, and the Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences on the main campus in Stockton.
In May 2007, the university announced an estate gift of $100 million from Robert C. and Jeannette Powell. The gift was unusual in its size for an institution like Pacific that is not primarily research-focused. Only 29 other universities throughout the world had received a larger gift in the prior 40 years.
University of the Pacific is also the home of KPAC Student Radio, 89.7 (FM).
Campus
As of 2006, the Stockton campus had 4,704 students (3,535 undergraduates, 638 professional pharmacy students, and 531 graduate students, mostly in the fields of education and business). Approximately 80% are from California; the rest are from 43 other states and 42 other countries.
The Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco had 510 students, and the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento had 1037 students.
Forty-four percent of undergraduates are from ethnic and racially under-represented American minorities, and another four percent are from other countries. (Thirteen percent did not state ethnicity and are listed as "Unknown.") (Data Set for 2006)
African-American 3%
Asian/Pacific Islander 33%
Hispanic 9%
Multi-ethnic 3%
Native American 1%
White/Caucasian 39%
Unknown 13%
Male: 1988 42%
Female: 2716: 58% Demographics
For an institution its size, the school is unusual in the breadth and mix of undergraduate and professional education it offers. It currently offers more than 100 programs and grants more than 60 undergraduate degrees. Graduate degrees are offered (M.M., M.Ed., M.A., MBA and M.S.), including educational specialist in school psychology (Ed. S.), and doctoral (D.P.T., Ed. D. and Ph.D.) degrees in over 15 departments, in five schools and colleges. In total, Pacific issues the following degrees:
These degrees are offered across nine schools and a graduate office within the University. These include:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, once an adjunct professor, continues to teach at the McGeorge School of Law. The school's programs of study can be found on the school's Academics page.
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
Bachelor of Science (BS)
Bachelor of Music
Master of Arts (MA)
Master of Business Administration (MBA)
Master of Education
Master of Laws (LLM)
Master of Music
Master of Science (MS)
Education Specialist (EdS)
Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS)
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Juris Doctor (JD)
Master of Laws (LLM)
Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD)
Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT)
Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry, San Francisco
Gladys L. Benerd School of Education, Stockton
College of the Pacific: the University's school of science and liberal arts, Stockton
Conservatory of Music] the first conservatory of music on the West Coast, Stockton
Eberhardt School of Business, Stockton
Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Stockton
McGeorge School of Law , Sacramento
School of Engineering and Computer Science, Stockton
School of International Studies: one of six undergraduate schools of international studies in the United States, Stockton
The Office of Research and Graduate Studies, Stockton Athletics
The University is currently headed by President Donald DeRosa, who became the university's 23rd president in 1995. Under his leadership, the university undertook a $200 million fundraising campaign to construct, among other things, a University Center, Biological Sciences Center, multipurpose gymnasium, a library addition, and the Klein Family Field for baseball. In the summer of 2007, the University announced it had vastly exceeded that goal, having raised a total of $330 million, including the gift of $100 million from Robert C. and Jeannette Powell.
Serving under the president are various vice presidents. In 2005, former Stanford Athletic Director Ted Leland announced that he would return to his undergraduate alma mater as Pacific's Vice President of University Advancement.
The president is selected by the University's Board of Regents, consisting of 27 members, including U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Janice Brown, U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Connie M. Callahan. Former members are occasionally named Emeritus Board Members. This list includes San Diego Chargers owner Alex G. Spanos.
The provost, Philip N. Gilbertson, serves as the chief academic officer, overseeing all of the university's schools and divisions. The Council of Deans comprises all academic deans, associate and assistant provosts, the Director of Planning and Research, and the Academic Budget Officer.
Administration
Greek life plays an important role at University of the Pacific, where there are four on-campus social fraternity houses, four on-campus social sorority houses, and five multicultural fraternities that are overseen by the University's Department of Housing and Greek Life.
Fraternities
Sororities
Multicultural organizations
Professional fraternities
Service fraternities
Honors societies
Approximately 20% of Pacific students are involved in Greek life at Pacific.
Theta Chi
Delta Upsilon (Omega Phi Alpha)
Pi Kappa Alpha
Sigma Chi
Alpha Phi
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Gamma
Kappa Alpha Theta
Delta Sigma Theta
Gamma Alpha Omega
Omega Delta Phi
Xi Chi Sigma
Rho Delta Chi
Alpha Chi Sigma—Chemistry
Delta Sigma Pi—Business
Kappa Psi—Pharmacy
Mu Phi Epsilon—Music
Rho Pi Phi—Pharmacy
Phi Alpha Delta
Phi Delta Chi—Pharmacy
Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia—Music
Sigma Alpha Iota—Music
Theta Alpha Phi
Lambda Kappa Sigma—Pharmacy
Alpha Phi Omega
Tau Beta Pi Notable alumni
John Dunning, won 2 NCAA women's volleyball titles and had 7 Final Four appearances as Pacific's head coach from 1985-2000; now head coach at Stanford University
Jon Gruden, former UOP Assistant Football Coach, current Head Coach of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Terry Liskevych, former 3-time Olympic women's volleyball head coach; Pacific's head coach from 1977-84
Ed Sprague, former Major League Baseball all-star; current head baseball coach, 2004-present
Amos Alonzo Stagg, "The Grand Old Man of Football", head football coach at Pacific from 1933-46
Bob Thomason, 5-time Big West Coach of the Year and school's all-time winningest men's basketball coach; Pacific's head coach from 1988-present
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
There was also a philologist named Michael Neander. See also: Neander (disambiguation).
Michael Neander (originally Neumann, April 3, 1529 – October 23, 1581) was a German teacher, mathematician, medical academic, and astronomer.
He was born in Joachimsthal, Bohemia, and was educated at the University of Wittenberg, receiving his B.A. in 1549 and M.A. in 1550.
From 1551 until 1561 he taught mathematics and astronomy in Jena, Germany. He became a professor in 1558 when the school where he taught became a university. From 1560 until his death he was a professor of medicine at the University of Jena.
He died in Jena, Germany. Neander crater on the Moon is named for him.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Laurent Brochard (born on March 26, 1968 in Le Mans, France) is a professional road racing cyclist from France. In 1997 he won a stage of the Tour de France and became World Road Racing Champion in San Sebastian, Spain.
Brochard was a competitive runner and only started cycling competitively at age 19. He started his career with team Castorama and eventually became part of the Festina team. His role within Festina was often called that of the super-domestique, supporting the better-known stars within the team such as Richard Virenque but able to ride competitively for himself when given the chance to. He was implicated in the Festina scandal in the 1998 Tour de France.
After serving his suspension, Brochard joined Ag2r Prévoyance as a team leader and has had successes in many races such as Critérium International and Etoile de Béssèges. More recently, he moved to team Bouygues Télécom.
Brochard is known for his longevity, and for his hairdo. In the past he rode Cyfac frames exclusively, since his brother works for the company. He is a big fan of French comic character Marsupilami, often seen wearing Marsupilami logo and clothing at the races.
The 16 March 2007, he declared at the free paper Sport he will vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen at the présidentials elections.
Monday, March 24, 2008
A crucible is a cup-shaped piece of laboratory equipment used to contain chemical compounds when heating them to very high temperatures. The receptacle is usually made of porcelain or an inert metal.
Use in chemical analysis
Ash is the completely unburnable inorganic salts in a sample. A crucible can be similarly used to determine the percentage of ash contained in an otherwise burnable sample of material such as coal, wood, or oil. A crucible and its lid are pre-weighed at constant mass as described above. The sample is added to the completely dry crucible and lid and together they are weighed to determine the mass of the sample by difference. The crucible, lid, and sample are then fired to constant mass to completely burn up the sample, leaving behind only the completely unburnable ash. After cooling in dryness, the crucible, lid, and remaining ash are weighed to find the mass of the ash from the sample by difference. The fraction of ash (by mass) in the sample is determined by the dividing the mass of the ash by the mass of the sample before burning, which is done by subtracting the weight of the crucible and lid from the figure of the container, lid, and sample.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
"Meteor crater" redirects here. For the crater of that name, see Meteor Crater.
An impact crater is an approximately circular depression in the surface of a planet, moon or other solid body in the Solar System, formed by the hyper-velocity impact of a smaller body with the surface. Impact craters typically have raised rims, and they range from small, simple, bowl-shaped depressions to large, complex, multi-ringed, impact basins. Meteor Crater is perhaps the best-known example of a small impact crater on the Earth.
Impact craters provide the dominant landform on many Solar System objects including the Moon, Mercury, Callisto, Ganymede and most small moons and asteroids. On other planets and moons that experience more-active surface geological processes, such as Earth, Venus, Mars, Europa, Io and Titan, visible impact craters are less common as they become eroded, buried and transformed by tectonics over time. Where such processes have destroyed most of the original crater topography, the term impact structure is more commonly used. In early literature, before the significance of impact cratering was widely recognised, the terms astrobleme and crypto-volcanic were used to describe impact-related features on Earth.
In the early Solar System, rates of impact cratering were very much higher than today. The large multi-ringed impact basins, with diameters of 100's km or more, retained for example on Mercury and the Moon, record a period of intense early bombardment in the inner Solar System that ended about 3.8 billion years ago. Since that time, the rate of crater production on Earth has been considerably lower, but it is appreciable none the less; Earth experiences an impact large enough to produce a 20-km diameter crater about once every million years on average. Although the Earth's active surface processes quickly destroy the impact record, about 170 terrestrial impact craters have been identified. These range in diameter from a few tens of metres up to about 300 km, and they range in age from about two thousand to about two billion years.
History
Impact cratering involves collisions between solid objects at high speeds; typically the velocity of impact is higher than the velocity of sound in those objects. Such hyper-velocity impacts produce physical effects, including melting and vaporization, that are quite different from those that occur in familiar sub-sonic collisions. On Earth, ignoring the effects of travel through the atmosphere, the lowest velocity at which impact on the surface can occur is the gravitational escape velocity of about 11 km/s. The fastest impacts occur at more than 70 km/s which represents the sum of the escape velocity from Earth, the escape velocity from the Sun at the Earth's orbit, and the motion of the Earth around the Sun. The median impact velocity on Earth is in the region 20 to 25 km/s.
Impacts at these high speeds produce shockwaves in solid materials, and both the impactor and the material impacted, are rapidly compressed to high density. Following this initial compression, the high-density, over-compressed region rapidly depressurizes, exploding violently, to set in train the sequence of events that produces the impact crater. Impact-crater formation is therefore more closely analogous to cratering by high explosives than by mechanical displacement. Indeed, the energy density of the material in most impacts is many times higher than that in the highest high explosives. Since impacts are caused by explosions, they are nearly always circular – only very low-angle impacts cause significantly elliptical craters.
It is convenient to divide the impact process conceptually into three distinct stages: (1) initial contact and compression, (2) excavation, (3) modification and collapse. In practice, there is overlap between the three processes with, for example, the excavation of the crater continuing in some regions while modification and collapse is already underway in others.
Contact and compression
Contact, compression, decompression, and the passage of the shockwave all occur within a few tenths of a second for a large impact. The subsequent excavation of the crater occurs more slowly, and during this stage the flow of material is largely sub-sonic. During excavation, the crater grows as the accelerated target moves away from the impact point. The motion is initially downwards and outwards, and with time this evolves to becomes outwards and upwards. The flow initially produces an approximately hemispherical cavity. The cavity continues to grow, eventually producing a paraboloid (bowl-shaped) crater in which the centre has been pushed down, a significant volume of material has been ejected, and a topographically elevated crater rim has been pushed up. When this cavity has reached its maximum size, it is called the transient cavity.
The depth of the transient cavity is typically a quarter to a third of its diameter. Ejecta thrown out of the crater does not include material excavated from the full depth of the transient cavity - typically the depth of maximum excavation is only about a third of the total depth. As a result, about one third of the volume of the transient crater is formed by the ejection of material, and the remaining two thirds is formed by the displacement of material downwards, outwards and upwards, to form the elevated rim. For impacts into highly porous materials, a significant crater volume may also be formed by the permanent compaction of the pore space. Such compaction craters may be important on many asteroids, comets and small moons.
In large impacts, as well as material displaced and ejected to form the crater, significant volumes of target material may be melted and vaporized together with the original impactor. Some of this impact melt rock may be ejected, but most of it remains within the transient crater, initially forming a layer of impact melt coating the interior of the transient cavity. In contrast, the hot dense vaporized material expands rapidly out of the growing cavity, carrying some solid and molten material within it as it does so. As this hot vapor cloud expands, it rises and cools much like the archetypal mushroom cloud generated by large nuclear explosions. In large impacts, the expanding vapor cloud may rise to many times the scale height of the atmosphere, effectively expanding into free space.
Most material ejected from the crater is deposited within a few crater radii, but a small fraction may travel large distances at high velocity, and in large impacts it may exceed escape velocity and leave the impacted planet or moon entirely. The majority of the fastest material is ejected from close to the centre of impact, and the slowest material is ejected close to the rim at low velocities to form an overturned coherent flap of ejecta immediately outside the rim. As ejecta escapes from the growing crater, it forms an expanding curtain in the shape of an inverted cone; the trajectory of individual particles within the curtain is thought to be largely ballistic.
Small volumes of un-melted and relatively un-shocked material may be spalled at very high relative velocities from the surface of the target and from the rear of the impactor. Spalling provides a potential mechanism whereby material may be ejected into inter-planetary space largely undamaged, and whereby small volumes of the impactor may be preserved undamaged even in large impacts. Small volumes of high-speed material may also be generated early in the impact by jetting. This occurs when two surfaces converge rapidly and obliquely at a small angle, and high-temperature highly shocked material is expelled from the convergence zone with velocities that may be several times larger than the impact velocity.
Excavation
In most circumstances, the transient cavity is not stable: it collapses under gravity. In small craters, less than about 4-km diameter on Earth, there is some limited collapse of the crater rim coupled with debris sliding down the crater walls and drainage of impact melts into the deeper cavity. The resultant structure is called a simple crater, and it remains bowl-shaped and superficially similar to the transient crater. In simple craters, the original excavation cavity is overlain by a lens of collapse breccia, ejecta and melt rock, and a portion of the central crater floor may sometimes be flat.
Above a certain threshold size, which varies with planetary gravity, the collapse and modification of the transient cavity is much more extensive, and the resulting structure is called a complex crater. The collapse of the transient cavity is driven by gravity, and involves both the uplift of the central region and the inward collapse of the rim. The central uplift is not the result of elastic rebound which is a process in which a material with elastic strength attempts to return to its original geometry; rather the collapse is a process in which a material with little or no strength attempts to return to a state of gravitational equilibrium.
Complex craters have uplifted centers, and they have typically broad flat shallow crater floors, and terraced walls. At the largest sizes, one or more exterior or interior rings may appear, and the structure may be labeled an impact basin rather than an impact crater. Complex-crater morphology on rocky planets appears to follow a regular sequence with increasing size: small complex craters with a central topographic peak are called central peak craters, for example Tycho; intermediate sized craters, in which the central peak is replaced by a ring of peaks, are called peak-ring craters, for example Schrodinger; and the largest craters contain multiple concentric topographic rings, and are called multi-ringed basins, for example Orientale. On icy as opposed to rocky bodies, other morphological forms appear which may have central pits rather than central peaks, and at the largest sizes may contain very many concentric rings – Valhalla on Callisto is the type example of the latter.
Modification and collapse
Some volcanic features can resemble impact craters, and brecciated rocks are associated with other geological formations besides impact craters. Non-explosive volcanic craters can usually be distinguished from impact craters by their irregular shape and the association of volcanic flows and other volcanic materials. An exception is that impact craters on Venus often have associated flows of melted material.
The distinctive mark of an impact crater is the presence of rock that has undergone shock-metamorphic effects, such as shatter cones, melted rocks, and crystal deformations. The problem is that these materials tend to be deeply buried, at least for simple craters. They tend to be revealed in the uplifted center of a complex crater, however.
Impacts produce distinctive "shock-metamorphic" effects that allow impact sites to be distinctively identified. Such shock-metamorphic effects can include:
Craters can also be created from underground nuclear explosions. One of the most crater-pocked sites on the planet is the Nevada Test Site, where a number of craters were purposely made during its years as a center for nuclear testing (see, for example, Operation Plowshare).
A layer of shattered or "brecciated" rock under the floor of the crater. This layer is called a "breccia lens".
Shatter cones, which are chevron-shaped impressions in rocks. Such cones are formed most easily in fine-grained rocks.
High-temperature rock types, including laminated and welded blocks of sand, spherulites and tektites, or glassy spatters of molten rock. The impact origin of tektites has been questioned by some researchers; they have observed some volcanic features in tektites not found in impactites. Tektites are also drier (contain less water) than typical impactites. While rocks melted by the impact resemble volcanic rocks, they incorporate unmelted fragments of bedrock, form unusually large and unbroken fields, and have a much more mixed chemical composition than volcanic materials spewed up from within the Earth. They also may have relatively large amounts of trace elements that are associated with meteorites, such as nickel, platinum, iridium, and cobalt. Note: it is reported in the scientific literature that some "shock" features, such as small shatter cones, which are often reported as being associated only with impact events, have been found in terrestrial volcanic ejecta.
Microscopic pressure deformations of minerals. These include fracture patterns in crystals of quartz and feldspar, and formation of high-pressure materials such as diamond, derived from graphite and other carbon compounds, or stishovite and coesite, varieties of shocked quartz. Identifying impact craters
In 1978, Chuck Wood and Leif Andersson of the Lunar & Planetary Lab devised a system of categorization of lunar impact craters. They used a sampling of craters that were relatively unmodified by subsequent impacts, then grouped the results into five broad categories. These successfully accounted for about 99% of all lunar impact craters.
The LPC Crater Types were as follows:
Beyond a couple of hundred kilometers diameter, the central peak of the TYC class disappear and they are classed as basins.
ALC — small, cup-shaped craters with a diameter of about 10 km or less, and no central floor. The archetype for this category is 'Albategnius C'.
BIO — similar to an ALC, but with small, flat floors. Typical diameter is about 15 km. The lunar crater archetype is Biot.
SOS — the interior floor is wide and flat, with no central peak. The inner walls are not terraced. The diameter is normally in the range of 15-25 km. The archetype is Sosigenes crater.
TRI — these complex craters are large enough so that their inner walls have slumped to the floor. They can range in size from 15-50 km in diameter. The archetype crater is Triesnecker.
TYC — these are larger than 50 km, with terraced inner walls and relatively flat floors. They frequently have large central peak formations. Tycho crater is the archetype for this class. Lunar crater categorization
List of impact craters on Earth
List of craters on Mercury
List of craters on the Moon
List of craters on Mars
List of features on Phobos and Deimos
List of geological features on Jupiter's smaller moons
List of craters on Europa
List of craters on Ganymede
List of craters on Callisto
List of geological features on Saturn's smaller moons
List of geological features on Mimas
List of geological features on Enceladus
List of geological features on Tethys
List of geological features on Dione
List of geological features on Rhea
List of geological features on Iapetus
List of craters on Puck
List of geological features on Miranda
List of geological features on Ariel
List of craters on Umbriel
List of geological features on Titania
List of geological features on Oberon
List of craters on Triton Lists of craters
Main article List of impact craters on Earth
See the Earth Impact Database, a website concerned with over 170 identified impact craters on the Earth.
Aorounga Crater (Chad)
Barringer Crater, aka Meteor Crater (Arizona, US)
Bosumtwi crater (Ghana)
Chesapeake Bay impact crater (Virginia, US)
Chicxulub, Extinction Event Crater (Mexico)
Clearwater Lakes (Quebec, Canada)
Connolly Basin crater (Western Australia)
Deep Bay crater (Saskatchewan, Canada)
Gosses Bluff crater (Australia)
Haughton impact crater (Nunavut, Canada)
Kaali crater (Estonia)
Kara-Kul crater (Tajikistan)
Kebira crater (Libya/Egypt)
Lonar crater (India)
Mahuika crater (New Zealand)
Manicouagan Reservoir (Quebec, Canada)
Manson crater (Iowa, US)
Mistastin crater (Labrador, Canada)
Morokweng crater (South Africa)
Nördlinger Ries (Germany)
Panther Mountain (New York, US)
Popigai crater, (Siberia)
Rio Cuarto craters (Argentina)
Rochechouart crater (France)
Roter Kamm crater (Namibia)
Shoemaker crater (Western Australia)
Shunak crater (Kazakhstan)
The Siljan Ring (Sweden)
Silverpit crater (North Sea off the United Kingdom)
Sudbury Basin (Ontario, Canada)
Vredefort crater (South Africa)
Weaubleau-Osceola impact structure (Missouri, US)
Wilkes Land crater (Antarctica)
Wolfe Creek crater (Western Australia)
Woodleigh crater (Western Australia)
Yarrabubba crater (Western Australia) Notable impact craters on Earth
Caloris Basin (Mercury)
Hellas Basin (Mars)
Mare Orientale (Moon)
Petrarch crater (Mercury)
Skinakas Basin (Mercury)
South Pole-Aitken basin (Moon)
Herschel crater (Mimas) Largest named craters in the Solar System
Charles A. Wood and Leif Andersson, New Morphometric Data for Fresh Lunar Craters, 1978, Proceedings 9th Lunar and Planet. Sci. Conf.
Bond, J. W., "The development of central peaks in lunar craters", Moon and the Planets, vol. 25, Dec. 1981.
Melosh, H.J., 1989, Impact cratering: A geologic process: New York, Oxford University Press, 245 p.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
The rigsdaler was the name of several currencies used in Denmark until 1873. The similarly named Reichsthaler, riksdaler and rijksdaalder were used in Germany and Austria-Hungary, Sweden and the Netherlands, respectively.
Coins
In 1713, the government introduced notes for 1, 2 and 3 mark, 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 rigsdaler. The Copenhagen Assignation, Exchange and Loans Bank issued notes between 1737 and 1804 for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 100 rigsdaler courant. Between 1791 and 1797, the Danish-Norwegian Specie Bank issued notes for 4, 8, 20, 40 and 80 rigsdaler specie. The treasury issued notes for 2 and 20 rigsdaler courant in 1808, followed by 8, 12 and 24 skilling notes in 1809-1810.
In 1813, the Rigsbank introduced notes in denminations of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100 rigsbankdaler. These were followed, in 1819, by notes of the National Bank in the same denominations. After the change in name of the currency, the National Bank issued notes for 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 rigsbankdaler.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Union Institute & University is a distributed learning institute. Begun as a consortium of universities in 1964 called The Union for Research and Experimentation in Higher Education, it later became an independent degree-granting institution calling itself The University Without Walls (1971), and then The Union Institute (1989). After acquiring Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont from Norwich University in 2001, it was renamed Union Institute & University.
Union Institute & University is an accredited, private, international university founded in 1964. It received accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission in 1985. Union has administrative headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, and currently enrolls approximately 2,200 learners from all 50 states and more than 20 countries worldwide.
In October 2001, the university acquired the academic programs and historic campus of Vermont College in Montpelier and Brattleboro to complement its distance learning programs and academic centers in Cincinnati, Miami, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. The purchase of Vermont College added several master's degree programs and an Adult Degree Program to Union Institute & University's existing undergraduate and doctoral programs, providing a progression of degree opportunities, along with certificates in advanced graduate study. U.S. News and World Report lists Union Institute as a fourth-tier National University.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Biological inheritance is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through inheritance, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause a species to evolve.
The study of biological inheritance is called genetics, which includes epigenetics.
The description of a mode of biological inheritance consists of three main categories:
-Monogenetic (also called "simple") - one Locus
-Oligogenetic - few Loci
-Polygenetic - many Loci
-Autosomal - Loci are not situated on a sex chromosome
-Gonosomal - Loci are situated on a sex chromosome
- -X-Chromosomal - Loci are situated on the X chromosome (the more common case)
-Y-Chromosomal - Loci are situated on the Y chromosome
-Mitochondrial - Loci are situated on the mitochondrial DNA
-Dominant
-Intermediate (also called "codominant")
-Recessive
These three categories are part of every exact description of a mode of inheritance in the above order. Additionally, more specifications may be added as follows:
-Penetrance
- -Complete
-Incomplete (percentual number)
-Expressivity
- -Invariable
-Variable
-Heritability (in polygenetic and sometimes also in oligogenetic modes of inheritance)
-Maternal or paternal imprinting phenomena (also see epigenetics)
-Sex-linked inheritance (Gonosomal Loci)
-Sex-limited phenotype expression (e.g. Cryptorchism)
-Inheritance through the maternal line (in case of Mitochondrial DNA loci)
-Inheritance through the paternal line (in case of Y-chromosomal loci)
-Epistasis with other Loci (e.g. overdominance)
-Gene coupling with other Loci (also see crossing over)
-Homozygotous lethal factors
-Semi-lethal factors
Determination and description of a mode of inheritance is primarily achieved through statistical analysis of pedigree data. In case the involved loci are known, methods of molecular genetics can also be employed.
1. Number of involved Loci
2. Involved Chromosomes
3. Correlation genotype-phenotype
Coincidental and environmental interactions
Gender interactions
Locus-Locus-Interactions
- -Invariable
- -Complete
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Emil Zátopek (IPA: [ˈɛmɪl ˈzaːtopɛk] (help·info)) (September 19, 1922 - November 22, 2000) was a Czech athlete probably best known for his amazing feat of winning three gold medals in athletics at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He won gold in the 5 km and 10 km runs, but his final medal came when he decided at the last minute to compete in the first marathon of his life.
Zátopek was the first athlete to break the 29-minute barrier in the 10 km run (in 1954). Three years earlier, in 1951, he had broken the hour for running 20 km. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest runners of the 20th century and was also known for his brutal training methods.
Biography
Emil Zátopek was born in Kopřivnice, Czechoslovakia on September 19, 1922, as the sixth child of a modest family. When Zatopek was 16, he began working in a shoe factory in Zlín. Zatopek says that "One day, the factory sports coach, who was very strict, pointed at four boys, including me, and ordered us to run in a race. I protested that I was weak and not fit to run, but the coach sent me for a physical examination, and the doctor said that I was perfectly well. So I had to run, and when I got started, I felt I wanted to win. But I only came in second. That was the way it started." Zatopek finished second out of the field of 100. After that point, he began to take a serious interest in running.
A mere four years later, in 1944, Emil broke the Czech records for 2,000, 3,000, and 5,000 meters. He was selected for the Czech national team for the 1946 European Championships. He finished fifth in the 5K, breaking his own Czech record of 14:50.2, running 14:25.8.
Early years
Zátopek first entered the international athletics field at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, winning the 10 km (his second race at that distance) and finishing second behind Gaston Reiff from Belgium in the 5 km.
The following year Zátopek broke the 10 km world record twice, and went on to better his own record three times over the next four seasons. He also set records in the 5 km (1954), 20 km (twice in 1951), one-hour run (twice in 1951), 25 km (1952 and 1955), and 30 km (1952).
He won the 5 km and 10 km at the 1950 European Championships and the 10 km at the next European Championships. Two weeks before the 1956 Summer Olympics, Zátopek had a hernia operation, but nevertheless finished sixth in the Olympic marathon. Zátopek retired from athletics after the next season.
At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki Zatopek won gold in the 5 km and 10 km runs, but his final medal came when he decided at the last minute to compete in the marathon for the first time in his life and won. He also broke the existing Olympic record in each of the three events. His victory in the 5 km came after a ferocious last lap in 57.5 seconds, during which he went from fourth place to first while Christopher Chataway, now second after being overtaken by Zátopek, tripped on the curb and fell.
Zátopek's running style was distinctive and very much at odds with what was considered to be an efficient style at the time. His head would often roll, face contorted with effort, while his torso swung from side to side. He often wheezed and panted audibly while running, which earned him the nickname of "the Czech Locomotive." When asked about his tortured facial expressions, Zátopek is said to have replied that "It isn't gymnastics or ice-skating, you know." In addition he would train in any weather, including snow, and would often do so while wearing heavy work boots as opposed to special running shoes. He was always willing to give advice to other runners. One example he often gave was to always be relaxed and to help ensure that while running, gently touch the tip of your thumb with the tip of your index or middle finger. Just making that slight contact would ensure that arms and shoulders remained relaxed.
Family life
"If you want to win something, run the 100 meters. If you want to experience another life, run a marathon."
"I was not talented enough to run and smile at the same time."
"It's at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys."
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Claude Frédéric Bastiat (June 30, 1801 – December 24, 1850) was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly. He is buried at San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome .
Biography
Bastiat can be said to be of the "Harmonic" school of libertarians, who consider utilitarian and natural law arguments as two complementary aspects of a same world. Bastiat did not take part in the anarchist-minarchist debate (arguably, he died too early for that); he seems to have considered the State as something inevitable as far as immediate practical matter — something that ought to be taken into account as long as it existed
One of Bastiat's most important contributions to the field of economics was his admonition to the effect that good economic decisions can only be made by taking into account the "full picture." That is, economic truths should be arrived at by observing not only the immediate consequences — that is, benefits or liabilities — of an economic decision, but also by examining the long-term consequences. Additionally, one must examine the decision's effect not only on a single group of people (say candlemakers) or a single industry (say candles), but on all people and all industries in the society as a whole. As Bastiat famously put it, an economist must take into account both "What is Seen and What is Not Seen." Bastiat's "rule" was later expounded and developed by Henry Hazlitt in his work Economics in One Lesson, in which Hazlitt borrowed Bastiat's trenchant "Broken Window Fallacy" and went on to demonstrate how it applies to a wide variety of economic falsehoods.
Views
Bastiat was the author of many works on economics and political economy, generally characterized by their clear organization, forceful argumentation, and acerbic wit. Among his better known works is Economic Sophisms, which contains many strongly-worded attacks on statist policies. Bastiat wrote it while living in England to advise the shapers of the French Republic on pitfalls to avoid.
Contained within Economic Sophisms is the famous satirical parable known as the "Candlemakers' petition" (pdf) which presents itself as a demand from the candlemakers' guild to the French government, asking the government to block out the Sun to prevent its unfair competition with their products. Much like Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal or Benjamin Franklin's anti-slavery works, Bastiat's argument cleverly highlights basic flaws in protectionism by demonstrating its absurdity through logical extremes.
Bastiat's most famous work, however, is undoubtedly The Law, originally published as a pamphlet in 1850. It defines, through development, a just system of laws and then demonstrates how such law facilitates a free society.
Works
A famous section of Economic Sophisms concerns the way that tariffs are inherently counterproductive. Bastiat posits a theoretical railway between Spain and France that is built in order to reduce the costs of trade between the two countries. This is achieved, of course, by making goods move to and from the two nations faster and more easily. Bastiat demonstrates that this situation benefits both countries' consumers because it reduces the cost of shipping goods, and therefore reduces the price at market for those goods.
However, each country's producers begin to rail at their governments because the other country's producers can now provide certain goods to the domestic market at reduced price. Domestic producers of these goods are afraid of being out-competed by the newly viable industry from the other country. So, these domestic producers demand that tariffs be enacted to artificially raise the cost of the foreign goods back to their pre-railroad levels, so that they can continue to compete.
Bastiat raises two significant points here:
To further demonstrate his points, Bastiat suggests that, rather than enacting tariffs, the government should simply destroy the railroad anywhere that foreign goods can outcompete local goods. Since this would be just about everywhere, he goes on to suggest that that government should simply build a broken or "negative" railroad right from the start, and not waste time with tariffs and rail building. This is an example of Bastiat's consummate skill with the reductio ad absurdum rhetorical technique. Indeed, we can take Bastiat's argument even farther and see that, by examining everything from the perspective of the producer, society would be "best" if we were regressed to a cave-man state where supply of goods was at maximum scarcity. Then people would have to work as hard as possible for as little as possible and never have to fear outside competition.
In short, the thrust of Bastiat's negative railroad hinges on two major points:
An important corollary to these conclusions is that the power that consumers wield with any governing body, while theoretically tremendous, is extremely diffuse. Producers, on the other hand, while not as powerful on the whole as the sum total of consumers, have the ability to consolidate their power in ways that make it much more attractive for governing bodies to service their needs. Thus, while consumers could theoretically shut down an entire industry (or government) by refusing to buy/sell/do something, the likelihood of the great mass of people organizing in this way for any reason whatever is so infinitesimal as to be practically impossible. Producers, on the other hand, are able to threaten or cajole the government with shutting down a single industry, with reductions in political and financial contributions to the government agents who make certain decisions, &c. It is for this reason that governments are much more likely to pander to the desires of producers than to consumers, and it is for this reason, Bastiat concludes, that governments are inherently adversarial to the interests of the people as a whole. Indeed, they are even adversarial, in some way, to the interests of the producers themselves, as the producers of one good or service are still consumers of all the other goods and services.
Even if the producers in a society are benefitted by these tariffs (which, Bastiat claims, they are not), the consumers in that society are clearly hurt by the tariffs, as they are now unable to secure the goods they want at the low price they should be able to secure them at.
The tariffs completely negate any gains made by the railroad and therefore make it essentially pointless.
All economic decisions should be made with the consumer in mind. (This is central to Bastiat's ideas)
Tariffs serve no purpose but to negate the gains provided to society by technology, labor, ingenuity, determination and progress. Bastiat's Negative Railroad
"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?" — from The Law
"Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." — from The Law
"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." — from Government
"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime." — from The Law
"If socialists mean that under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the state should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions, we will, of course, agree. This is done now; we desire that it be done better. There is however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it." — from Journal des Economistes
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain." — from The Law
"[The socialists declare] that the state owes subsistence, well-being, and education to all its citizens; that it should be generous, charitable, involved in everything, devoted to everybody; ...that it should intervene directly to relieve all suffering, satisfy and anticipate all wants, furnish capital to all enterprises, enlightenment to all minds, balm for all wounds, asylums for all the unfortunate, and even aid to the point of shedding French blood, for all oppressed people on the face of the earth. Who would not like to see all these benefits flow forth upon the world from the law, as from an inexhaustible source? ...But is it possible? ...Whence does [the state] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitical and voracious intermediary? ..Finally...we shall see the entire people transformed into petitioners. Landed property, agriculture, industry, commerce, shipping, industrial companies, all will bestir themselves to claim favors from the state. The public treasury will be literally pillaged. Everyone will have good reasons to prove that legal fraternity should be interpreted in this sense: "Let me have the benefits, and let others pay the costs." Everyone's effort will be directed toward snatching a scrap of fraternal privilege from the legislature. The suffering classes, although having the greatest claim, will not always have the greatest success." — from Journal des Economistes
"Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just; in vain would it would try to force them to be self-sacrificing." — from Journal des Economistes
"When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating." — from The Law
"It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever the question under discussion — whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government — at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty." — from The Law
"Try to imagine a regulation of labor imposed by force that is not a violation of liberty; a transfer of wealth imposed by force that is not a violation of property. If you cannot reconcile these contradictions, then you must conclude that the law cannot organize labor and industry without organizing injustice." — from The Law Trivia
Frédéric Bastiat's debate with Proudhon
His parable of the broken window
Physiocrats
Liberalism
Contributions to liberal theory
Hippolyte Castille
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune Notes
The following titles were originally published by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington-on-Hudson, NY, and are made available online by The Library of Economics and Liberty.
1869 (1849). Capital and Interest. Translator unknown.
1996 (1845). Economic Sophisms, trans. and ed. by Arthur Goddard, with introduction by Henry Hazlitt.
1995 (1848). Selected Essays on Political Economy, trans. by Seymour Cain; George B. de Huszar, ed., with introduction by Friedrich Hayek.
1995 (1850). The Law, trans. by Seymour Cain, with introduction by George B. de Huszar.
1998 (1850). The Law, trans. by Dean Russell, with introduction by Walter E. Williams and foreword by Sheldon Richman.
1996 (1850). Economic Harmonies, trans. by W. Hayden Boyers; George B. de Huszar, ed., with introduction by Dean Russell.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
In economics, adaptive expectations means that people form their expectations about what will happen in the future based on what has happened in the past. For example, if inflation has been higher than expected in the past, people would revise expectations for the future.
One simple version of adaptive expectations is stated in the following equation, where p is the next year's rate of inflation that is currently expected; is this year's rate of inflation that was expected last year; and p is this year's actual rate of inflation:
With λ is between 0 and 1, this says that current expectations of future inflation reflect past expectations and an "error-adjustment" term, in which current expectations are raised (or lowered) according to the gap between actual inflation and previous expectations. This error-adjustment is also called "partial adjustment."
The theory of adaptive expectations can be applied to all previous periods so that current inflationary expectations equal:
where pj equals actual inflation j years in the past. Thus, current expected inflation reflects a weighted average of all past inflation, where the weights get smaller and smaller as we move further in the past.
Once a forecasting error is made by agents, due to a stochastic shock, they will be unable to correctly forecast the price level again even if the price level experiences no further shocks since they only ever incorporate part of their errors. The backward nature of expectation formulation and the resultant systematic errors made by agents was unsatisfactory to economists such as John Muth, who was pivotal in the development of an alternative theory of how expectations are formed. This is the theory of rational expectations. This has largely replaced adaptive expectations in macroeconomic theory since its assumption of rationality is more consistent with wider economic theory, although not necessarily consistent with economic reality.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. Please help improve the introduction to meet Wikipedia's layout standards. You can discuss the issue on the talk page.
Mobile News services are growing in popularity along with an explosion in the usage of SMS messages worldwide and a number of organizations are exporing these services.
Setting up SMS news services cost significantly less compared to setting up larger news organizations.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Conference committee is a committee of the legislature appointed by both chambers to resolve disagreements on a particular bill. The conference committee is usually composed of the senior Members of the standing committees of each House that originally considered the legislation.
See:
United States Congress Conference committee
Joint committee.
Permanent committee, to represent the chamber in the time between sessions.
Special committees, to research a comparatively limited subject.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Juan Domingo Perón (October 8, 1895 – July 1, 1974) was an Argentine general and politician, elected three times as President of Argentina and serving from 1946 to 1955 and from 1973 to 1974.
Perón and his second wife Eva were immensely popular among a portion of the Argentine people and still considered iconic figures by followers of the Peronist Party. Perón followers lauded his efforts to eliminate poverty and to dignify labor, while his detractors considered him a demagogue and a dictator. He started the political movement known as Peronism, still popular in Argentina to this day, which professes to be a third way between capitalism and socialism.
Military government of 1943-1946
Perón leveraged his popular support into victory in the February 24, 1946 presidential elections.
Once in office, Perón pursued social policies aimed at empowering the working class. He greatly expanded the number of unionized workers, and helped establish the powerful General Confederation of Labour (CGT), created in 1930. He called this the "third position", between capitalism and communism. Perón also pushed hard to industrialize the country; in 1947 he announced the first five-year plan to boost newly nationalized industries. Peronism became a central influence in Argentine political parties, and Perón continued to exert a strong influence after the 1955 military uprising which forced him into exile.
Among the upper class Argentines, the improvement of the laborers' situation was a source of resentment; negative feelings abounded towards the new industrial workers from rural areas, who had formerly been treated as servants. It was common for better-off Argentines to refer to these workers using racist slurs like "black heads" (cabecitas negras, the name of a like bird), "fats" ("grasas"), "un-shirted" ("descamisados", conveying the idea that they "took off their jackets and/or shirts"), and the radical deputy Ernesto Sammartino said that the people who vote for Perón were a "zoological flood" ("aluvión zoológico").
In 1951, Perón announced that the Huemul Project would produce nuclear fusion before any other country. In charge of the project was a swindling Austrian of German origin, Ronald Richter, who had been recommended by Kurt Tank who was expecting to power his aircraft with Richter's invention. Perón announced that the energy produced by Richter would be delivered in milk-bottle sized containers. Success of the project was announced in 1951, but no proof was shown. On 1952 Perón appointed a scientific team to investigate Richter's activities. The reports by José Antonio Balseiro, and Mario Báncora revealed that the project was a fraud. After that, the assets of the Huemul Project were transferred to the Centro Atómico Bariloche (CAB) of the Argentine National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) and to the physics institute of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo which was later named Instituto Balseiro (IB).
Election as president and first term (1946-1952)
Further information: Ratlines (history)
After World War II, Argentina became a leading haven for Nazi war criminals, with the explicit protection of Juan Perón. Historian Uki Goñi showed in his 1998 book that along with Nazis and French and Belgian collaborationists, including Pierre Daye, Peron organized a meeting in the Casa Rosada during which a network was created, which benefitted from support by the Immigration Service and diplomatic civil servants. The Swiss Chief of Police Heinrich Rothmund [1] and the Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganović also helped organize the ratline Uki Goñi places particular emphasis on the part played by the government of Juan Perón in organizing the ratlines, as well as documenting the aid of Swiss and Vatican authorities in their flight. The Argentine consulate in Barcelona handed out false passports to fleeing Nazi war criminals and collaborationists.
Protection of Nazi war criminals
Perón won re-election in 1951. During his second term Perón's administration faced serious economic problems. Perón called employers and unions to a Productivity Congress with the aim of regulating social conflict through social dialogue, but the congress failed and a deal was not possible.
At the same time Perón signed a contract with an American oil company, Standard Oil of California, on May 1955, opening an economic policy of development with the help of foreign industrial investments. The radical party leader, Arturo Frondizi, considered it to be an anti-patriotic decision, but three years later he himself signed several contracts with foreign oil companies.
During the second term several terrorist acts were committed against civilian targets. On April 15, 1953, a terrorist group detonated two bombs in a public rally at Plaza de Mayo, killing 7 citizens and injuring 95. On June 15, 1955, a failed coup d'état by anti-Peronists used navy aircraft to bomb Peronists at Plaza de Mayo, killing 364 citizens. This barbaric act is considered a prelude to the dirty war in Argentina between 1976 and 1983.
In 1954, the Roman Catholic Church, which supported Perón's government up to that year, confronted Perón because of the enactment of the divorce law, among other reasons. Following the expulsion of two Catholic priests from the country, Peron was excommunicated from the Church by the Pope in 1955. On September 16, 1955, a nationalist Catholic group of both the Army and Navy, led by General Eduardo Lonardi, General Pedro E. Aramburu and Admiral Isaac Rojas, took power in a coup which they named Revolución Libertadora (the "Liberating Revolution"). The military regime accused Peronist leaders of corruption, but no one was prosecuted.
The second term (1952-1955)
After the military coup, Perón went into exile in Paraguay. His escape was facilitated by his friend President Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, who placed a gunboat at his disposal in the Río de la Plata (river). Later he lived in Panama, where he met nightclub bolero singer María Estela Martínez (aka Isabel Perón). Eventually settling in Madrid in Franquist Spain he married her there in 1961. Back in Argentina, Peronism was banned and Peronists were persecuted. In 1963, the Aramburu decree made illegal the simple naming of Juan Perón.
In Argentina, the 1950s and 1960s were marked by frequent coups d'état in addition to low economic growth in the 1950s and some of the highest growth rates in the world in the 1960s (Gerchunoff et al, 309-321). Argentina also faced problems of continued social and labour demands. During those years poverty highly decreased, with rates between 2% and 5% .
Finally, several members of the right-wing Tacuara Nationalist Movement, considered as the first Argentine guerrilla group, turned towards him. Founded in the beginning of the 1960s, the Tacuaras were a fascist, anti-Semitic and anti-conformist group founded on the model of Primo de Rivera's Falange, who at first strongly opposed Peronism. However, they split after the 1959 Cuban Revolution into three main different groups. Opposed to the alliance with Peronism, Catholic priest Meinvielle retained the original ideological, and anti-Peronist, hard-line stance. Dardo Cabo, to the contrary, founded the Movimiento Nueva Argentina (MNA, Movement New Argentina), officially launched on June 9, 1961, in commemoration of General Juan José Valle's Peronist uprising in 1956. The MNA became the ancestor of all modern Catholic nationalist groups in Argentina. Finally, Joe Baxter and José Luis Nell decided to join the Peronism movement, believing in its revolutionary capacities. They created the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario Tacuara (MNRT, Revolutionary Nationalist Tacuara Movement) which, without forsaking nationalism, cut away from the Church, the right-wing and anti-Semitism. Baxter's MNRT became progressively more left-wing and attracted by Marxism. Many of the Montoneros and of the ERP's leaders would come from this party.
Exile (1955-1973)
On March 11, 1973, general elections were held. Perón was banned from running, but a stand-in candidate, Héctor Cámpora,a left-wing Peronist and his personal secretary, was elected and took office on May 25. On June 20, 1973, Perón returned from Spain to end an 18-year exile. A crowd of left-wing Peronists (estimated at 3.5 million) had gathered at the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires to welcome and support him. Perón came accompanied by Cámpora, whose first measure had been to grant amnesty to all political prisoners and to reestablish relations with Cuba, helping Castro break the US embargo. This, and his social policies, had also earned him the opposition of the right-wing Peronists, including the trade-unionist bureaucracy.
From Perón's tribune, camouflaged snipers, including members of the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance (aka Triple A), opened fire on the crowd. The left-wing Peronist Youth and the Montoneros had been trapped. At least 13 people were killed (who have been identified), and 365 injured during this episode, which became known as the Ezeiza massacre.
Cámpora resigned in July 1973, paving the way for new elections, this time with Perón's participation. Argentina had by this time reached a peak of instability, and Perón was viewed by many as the country's only hope for prosperity and salvation.
UCR's leader Ricardo Balbín and Perón considered a Peronist-Radical joint government, but internal opposition in both parties made this impossible. Perón's overwhelming victory (62% of the vote), returned him to the presidency. In October 1973 he began his third term, with Isabel, his wife, as Vice President.
Perón's third term was marked by an escalating conflict between the Peronist left- and right-wing factions. This turmoil was fueled primarily by Perón's growing ties with conservative Radical Party leader Ricardo Balbín, who the opposition led by Raúl Alfonsín considered a right-wing radical. The Montoneros began to become marginalized in the Peronist movement, mocked by Perón himself after the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre. Another guerrilla group, the Guevarist ERP, also opposed itself to the Peronist right-wing, and started engaging itself in armed struggle, trying to create a foco in the province of Tucuman, the smallest province of Argentina located in the Northwest. Meanwhile, José Lopez Rega, personal secretary of Juan Perón and then of Isabel Perón, began targeting left-wing opponents.
Perón died of a heart attack on July 1, 1974 recommending that his wife, Isabel, rely on Balbín for support. At the president's burial Balbín uttered a historic phrase, "This old adversary bids farewell to a friend".
Isabel Perón succeeded her husband to the presidency, but proved thoroughly incapable of managing the country's mounting political and economic problems, the left-wing insurgency and the reaction of the extreme right. Ignoring her late husband's advice, Isabel granted Balbín no role in her new government, instead granting broad powers to López Rega, who started engaging in a "dirty war" against political opponents.
Isabel Perón's term was ended abruptly on March 24, 1976 by a military coup d'état. A military junta, headed by General Jorge Videla took control of the country, starting the self-styled National Reorganization Process. The junta combined a widespread persecution of political dissidents with the use of state terrorism. The final death toll rose to thousands (no less than 9,000, with human rights organizations claiming it was closer to 30,000). Most of this number is accounted for by "the disappeared" (desaparecidos), people kidnapped and executed without trial and without record.
The third term (1973-1974)
Perón was buried in La Chacarita Cemetery in Buenos Aires. In 1987, his tomb was defaced, and the hands (and some personal effects, such as his sword) of his corpse were stolen. Those responsible have never been found, but some say it was the responsibility of Licio Gelli, leader of the P2 Propaganda Due Italian Freemasonic lodge.
Footnotes
History of Argentina
Peronism
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