NATO

Coordinates: 50°52′34″N 4°25′19″E / 50.87611°N 4.42194°E / 50.87611; 4.42194

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord; OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, where the Supreme Allied Commander also resides. Belgium is one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 percent of the global total. Members' defense spending is supposed to amount to 2 percent of GDP.

Jimmy Dore

James Patrick "Jimmy" Dore (born July 26, 1965) is an American stand-up comedian. Dore started performing in 1989.

Life and career

Dore was born into and raised in a Catholic family of 12 on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois. He is the star of several Comedy Central specials, host of The Jimmy Dore Show, and a writer–performer for the Off-Broadway hit The Marijuana -Logues. His hour-long Comedy Central Special Citizen Jimmy was chosen Best Of 2008 by iTunes, and was named one of the Top 5 Comedy DVDs of 2008 by Punchline Magazine. Jimmy Dore's latest comedy special Sentenced to Live was released on October 6, 2015.

Dore currently lives in Pasadena, California, and hosts his own monthly show Left, Right & Ridiculous at the UCB theater in Hollywood. Much of his recent material is focused on the absurdity of the corporate news media, social criticism, and modern politics. In June 2009 he began producing The Jimmy Dore Show, a one-hour comedic look at the news, which originates at KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, airs nationally on the Pacifica Network and on the web via The Young Turk's Network. He also hosts the podcast Comedy And Everything Else with his wife Stefane Zamorano and formerly with Todd Glass, who departed from the show in late 2009.

Martyn Thomas

Dr Martyn Thomas CBE FREngFIET FRSA (born 1948) is a British independent consultant and software engineer.

Overview

Martyn Thomas founded the software engineering company Praxis in 1983, based in Bath, southern England. He has a special interest in safety-critical systems and other high integrity applications. He has acted as an expert witness involving complex software engineering issues.

Thomas was born in Salisbury, southern England. He studied biochemistry at University College London, graduating in 1969, when he started working in the field of computing. Between 1969 and 1983, he was employed at universities in London and the Netherlands, at STC working on telecommunications software, and at the South West Universities Regional Computer Centre in Bath.

In 1983, Thomas founded Praxis with David Bean, where he encouraged the use of formal methods within the company for software development. In 1986, Praxis became the first independent systems house to achieve BS 5750 (later ISO 9001) certification for all its activities. Praxis became internationally recognised as a leader in the use of rigorous software engineering, including formal methods, and grew to around 200 staff.

Red Rooster

Red Rooster is an Australian fast food restaurant chain that serves roast chicken. Their product range includes whole roasts, half roasts, wraps, burgers, salads and desserts.

Since opening its doors in 1972 Red Rooster has grown to be one of the largest Australian operated fast food franchised chains, employing over 7500 staff at more than 360 stores.

History

The Kailis family opened the first Red Rooster store in the Perth suburb of Kelmscott, Western Australia in 1972. Myer Emporium (later part of Coles Myer) purchased the business in July 1981. In 1986 Coles Myer bought the Big Rooster chain to expand into the eastern states (except non-Steggles' Queensland stores, which were purchased in 1992), and renamed the stores "Red Rooster". In May 2002, Red Rooster was purchased by Western Australian company Australian Fast Foods Pty Limited, which owned the competing Chicken Treat fast food chain.

In April 2007, Red Rooster and Chicken Treat were sold for A$180 million to a consortium formed by the management and the venture capital arm of Westpac known as Quadrant Capital.

Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American lawyer, journalist and author. He was a columnist for Guardian US from August 2012 to October 2013. He was a columnist for the Salon website from 2007 to 2012, and an occasional contributor to The Guardian. Greenwald worked as a constitutional and civil rights litigator. At Salon he contributed as a columnist and blogger, focusing on political and legal topics. He has also contributed to other newspapers and political news magazines, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times,The American Conservative,The National Interest and In These Times. In February 2014 he became, along with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, one of the founding editors of The Intercept.

Greenwald was named by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013. Four of the five books he has written have been on The New York Times Best Sellers list. Greenwald is a frequent speaker on college campuses, including Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, UCLA School of Law, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Maryland. He frequently appears on various radio and television programs.