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February 21

No Winter Olympic boycott 1980-84

If the nations involved really cared, why didn't they boycott those games, or is it that the Winter Games came first in the years involved, or further, that the Winter Games aren't as big? Or was it more the location of the games that was relevant? Aaronite (talk) 02:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

According to the article Olympic boycotts, the rationale for boycotting the Moscow games in 1980 is stated as being in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The next summer games, in 1984, were held in Atlanta in the U.S. The article says that the Soviet countries and their friends were boycotting on the grounds of general U.S. negativity towards them. There is also a good likelihood of "tit for tat" going on, too. (I suspect there are sources for such a conclusion, but without them, this last bit is WP:OR) In each case, the location for the games is the key. Bielle (talk) 02:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

(Just to note, the 1984 Olympics were in Los Angeles. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC))

Yes. The U.S. boycotted the 1980 Moscow games, a direct slap at the Olympic spirit (just one more of Jimmy Carter's brilliant moves while President), and the Soviets in turn boycotted our 1984 games in L.A., thus practically ensuring a pile of gold for the Americans. The winter games will be in Russia next time, and figure skating scoring will be among many interesting topics, but hopefully there won't be a boycott. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I note the replies so far refer to the Summer games. In 1984 the Winter Olympics were in Sarajevo, while the 1980 ones were in Lake Placid, USA. For the 1980 ones I guess the timing was important, while the 1984 games - why would the Russians boycott an Olympics which were being held in a place which at the time was part of the Communist bloc? --TammyMoet (talk) 10:11, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Sarajevo was then in Yugoslavia, which although it was communist, was emphatically not Soviet, though Washington found it hard to see the difference. Moscow on the other hand tended to view it as pro-Western. --ColinFine (talk) 10:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The 1980 Winter Games would have taken place less than a couple of months after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, so presumably the US hadn't developed its stupid boycott policy and the USSR would have had no reason to boycott the games. In 1984, while Yugoslavia was a Communist country it was of an independent sort, certainly not part of the USSR's bloc, and maintained decent relationships with both superpowers so no need for a boycott. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 10:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Carter was probably preoccupied with the Iran situation. And had the CCCP known they were going to lose that hockey game to Team USA, maybe they would have boycotted Lake Placid! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I seem to recall Yugoslavia was definitely behind the Iron Curtain, which meant politically it was closer to the USSR. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:32, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Don't tell that to Stalin! AnonMoos (talk) 13:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yugoslavia may have been behind the Iron Curtain when it descended in 1946, but Yugoslavia never signed the Warsaw Pact - Tito having begun to distance himself from Stalin in 1948. It was certainly a communist country but it had an independent foreign policy. Albania after 1961 was in the same position. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Yugoslavia began the Non-Aligned Movement, the idea of which was to not take sides in the cold war conflict. It was on speaking terms with both the USA and the Soviet union. Anecdotally, Yugoslav passports were a precious boon for counterfeiters because a Yugoslav passport was supposedly the only one that could get you to both the US and the SU without much hassle. TomorrowTime (talk) 16:00, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Tito might have disagreed, as well! Woogee (talk) 20:14, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Available poems of David Diop

David Diop, a Senegalese poet, who is also known for his contribution to the cause of Negritude, left only 17 poems after him (22 according to some sources) as most of his manuscripts were destroyed with him in an air crash in 1960. Does anyone knows which were they? Ganesh Dhamodkar (Talk) 06:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Crossing over from one Indian state to another Indian state

Can a user please give me the answers to the following questions regarding crossing over from one Indian state to another Indian state (e.g. Rajasthan to Uttar Pradesh): 1) Is there a border check point? 2) Does one have to show, for an Indian national some internal Indian identification document, or for a foreigner a passport? 3) Does one have to pay to cross such a border? Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 09:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Transport across states in India does not usually require identification details. 

Passage is free. However, custom duties are to be paid for certain goods if they are transferred across states.

Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 08:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

For a foreigner, make sure you have some sort of ID (a international Driver's licence). Stuff like liquor or rice is sometimes cannot be transported across state lines because of different duty structures. For example you cannot bring liquor into or take rice out of Tamil Nadu.--Sodabottle (talk) 20:31, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 10:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Indian defaultsort 1

How should this be set? V. Krishnaswamy Iyer. Text reads: Venkatarama Iyer Krishnaswamy Iyer - Kittybrewster ☎ 09:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It depends. For south indian names, use with initials - V. Krishnaswamy Iyer. Most of the older south indian names used only initials and not surnames. But a lot of us now have shifted to using surnames, so for ones born after say the 80s surname,firstname can be used.

Percentage of Americans who have been abroad

What percent of Americans have been outside the USA? What percent have been outside the USA, Canada, and Mexico? If I may say so - shoot me down in flames if you must - but my impression from reading things on the Reference desk is that Americans often find it very difficult to imagine how non-North Americans (even if English-speaking) will see the world from a different perspective, and have a different culture and conventions. 78.146.74.227 (talk) 12:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, only 22% have passports (Source), compared with 71% in the UK. Everyone has trouble imagining what living somewhere else is like, on the whole; I couldn't comment whether Americans have more of a problem with this than anyone else. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I wonder what proportion of those had them for military reasons? 89.243.197.22 (talk) 16:49, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I suppose Americans are at a disadvantage because while we here in Europe are bombarded with non-stop saturation coverage of American cultural materials such as films, tv, books, products, there is little going in the other direction. 89.243.197.22 (talk) 15:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

It's worth bearing in mind that North Americans have to go a long way. We Brits can just hop on a train or a ferry and suddenly everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road and pretending not to understand when we ask for directions. And it's cheaper to fly from the UK to France than to Scotland...--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:25, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a generous excuse to make for Americans, but it doesn't hold when you consider that 60–70% of Australians have passports. Maedin\^talk 15:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Stunned that I have to say this to someone living in England, but Scotland is part of the UK!

ALR (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the comment is supposed to show it can be cheaper to travel abroad than within the UK, ie from England to Scotland or v.v.

In 2008, 30.8 million U.S. citizens traveled overseas. I believe this would include double-counting of people who traveled more than once. There are, I believe, about 280-285 million U.S. citizens (as opposed to 300m+ U.S. residents, legal and illegal). Keep in mind that overseas travel is not really realistic for many Americans. I knew a guy who was in his late 20s and had never been outside of Ohio or Pennsylvania. Not because he wasn't interested in the rest of the world (he had a degree in European History) but because he simply didn't have the time or money and was burdened with the responsibilities of home and family. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Does that count include travel to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean? Woogee (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

No, I wasn't counting trips to Canada or Mexico (see the web link). -- Mwalcoff (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Having a passport or not does not reflect the number of American military who served overseas. At least when I was in the military and served overseas, a passport was not required. Woogee (talk) 20:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

To respond to Maedin (and others), I want to say that it is understandable why Australians would be more likely to want to travel overseas than Americans. Australia is a thinly populated country, most of it desert, with just a handful of major cities, all on the coast. The United States has a great deal more regional variety, both in culture and in physical environment. Americans do not need to go to the trouble or expense of leaving the country to experience a very different setting. When I travel from Boston, in the northeastern United States, to California, I have the feeling of being in a foreign country. The feeling of foreignness for me in California is only slightly weaker than my feeling of foreignness in England, for example. And there are many such "foreign" parts of the United States for me. That said, I have a passion for travel and have made it a priority to visit countries very different from the United States. Not everyone has this passion for travel, and, as others have said, many Americans cannot afford to indulge such a passion if they have it. Finally, I want to disagree with the person who posted the question. I think that there are a number of Americans on the RefDesk who appreciate that people from other countries will have different experiences and perspectives. I like to think that I am one of these Americans. I would agree that travel has contributed to my openness. Marco polo (talk) 02:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't argue that specific Americans certainly do travel and have worked to gain an understanding and knowledge of cultures different from their own, but the percentage is extremely low. When travelling in the States, I am continually surprised by the number of people who don't know where the UK is, or what is is, and adults with (as far as I know) all of their mental faculties intact actually ask me, "Do they speak English in England?" Is this level of ignorance typical in any other Western country? Or any civilised country at all? Maedin\^talk 12:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

One thing I've realised that explains a lot is that, at least for Americans who write articles here, they believe that the culture, customs, and conventions in other english-speaking and Western countries are just the same as in the USA (apart from the obvious stuff like having a funny accent and driving on the 'wrong' side of the road). I've noticed some articles that demonstrate this, and now that I'm alerted to it I expect I will see a lot more. 89.242.101.23 (talk) 11:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Burma-Bangladesh border

The people on opposite sides generally look so different from each other. But there only seems to be a river separating them. How did the two sides manage to divide so well rather than mix?

Cdg1 (talk) 13:20, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

People generally would not mix because of differences in languages and religions, no matter how close they live. However there would be a small percentage of people who would intermix. 174.114.236.41 (talk) 01:42, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I would disagree that people on either side of the border look so different. Here is a photo of Bangla boys in Chittagong with a puppy. Here is a photo of Rakhine boys, across the border in Burma, with a chicken. Do the two groups of boys look so different? Is there at least one boy in each photo who would not look out of place in the other photo? Then there are the Marma people, who live in Bangladesh but are closely related to the Rakhine across the border in Burma. Here is a photo of Marma and Bangla people in Bangladesh. Do you feel sure that you can distinguish the Bangla men in this picture from the Marma men? The man with the beard is probably Bangla, but what about the men behind him? Is it so easy to tell who's who? The fact is that people along this border have been mixing for thousands of years. You will find people in Bangladesh who look very much like people in Burma, and vice versa. You will also find people who look like they could belong to either group. Marco polo (talk) 02:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps you might look at a map, and identify the Naga Hills, which are a fairly significant barrier between the two countries. I'm not sure what part is separated by "only a river," but it isn't the major border feature. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The difficulty of crossing the border caused no end of problems at the start of the Burma Campaign in WWII since there were only mountainous jungle tracks connecting Burma to India, as it was then. Alansplodge (talk) 10:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Generally different tribes don't mix. Some people look like they belong in a different group because of war rape in the past. Recessive traits could reappear after many generations later. 174.114.236.41 (talk) 04:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Which Christian theologian said "there are infants a span long in hell?"

Which Christian theologian said "there are infants a span long in hell," and in which of their writings is this statement found? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodgertutt (talk • contribs) 13:44, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

A Google search suggests that John Calvin said "there are babies a span long in hell" but I haven't discovered the source. 58.147.58.28 (talk) 14:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

And this website suggests that it is a false attribution. 58.147.58.28 (talk) 14:56, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Since Calvin believed that the efficacy of the "irresistable grace" of Christ's atonement is limited to only God's "unconditionally elected" ones, does it not follow that he did believe that non-elect infants who die as infants will go to hell, whether or not such a quote by him can be found in literature? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodgertutt (talk • contribs) 15:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to know where his notion of "the elect" came from. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:02, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, it derives from the book of revelations which (under some interpretations) seems to claim that only 144,000 people will actually be 'saved' at the end of days. This lead to all sorts of speculations about who those 144,000 were and what happened to the rest of humanity (keep in mind that 144,000 would have been a fairly large number of people in those times - estimates of the population of Jerusalem at the time of Christ suggest 80,000 permanent residents with influxes of during pilgrimage times to maybe 200,000, and Jerusalem was likely the largest city in the middle east at the time. --Ludwigs2 17:30, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Aha. Seems to me the JW's used to cite that number also, and had to revise their thinking when their total membership exceeded that figure. The risk of trying to read a highly symbolic book literally. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

actually, I think this issue was resolved back in the '90s, with the formulation of the principle of Theological Inflation: 144,000 'year 0010' humans translates to 281,362,439.76 'year 2010' humans (±34,631.8, and adjusting for intervening plague years and other 'bust' markets). Most theoconomists find a certain amount of Theological Inflation acceptable as a spiritual stimulus, so long as it is not accompanied by any significant devaluation of the soul (a point which Marxist Theosophy denounces as paternalistic and unrealistic). just an FYI... --Ludwigs2 18:38, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's some info that was a big help to me on this subject. "A great introductory series to ultimate reconciliation. J. Preston Eby does a thorough job covering many aspects of the topic. Fundamental reading for any person interested in studying universalism from a solid biblical perspective. Highly Recommended!" http://www.godfire.net/eby/saviour_of_the_world.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodgertutt (talk • contribs) 17:53, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if Calvin believed it or not (as it is somewhat of a Catholic belief), but those who believe in Limbo, specifically Limbo of Infants, would hold that *all* people who die as infants prior to baptism would go to hell. -- 174.21.254.47 (talk) 18:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The question left unanswered is "what is a Span (length)?" and the answer is "about 9 inches". If it seems cruel that God would send babies to Hell, keep in mind that Calvin (or somebody) made this stuff up. It's not fair to blame God for the stupid ideas people come up with. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

This was off-topic, and so is my response: it's unfair to blame God for anything, because whatever you blame him for, you'll ultimately find out that somebody made the stuff up. The same applies to thanking him, though. :) --91.148.159.4 (talk) 00:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not off-topic. The fact that some so-called theologian made such a horrific statement doesn't mean that it has anything to do with the way God actually works. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It is off-topic. The OP only asked which theologian had made a certain statement about how God worked, not whether you personally believed it was true that God worked that way, or if you believed that it was just something "made up". If we are going to make statements of faith here and argue about which religion or religious doctrine is "true", this will turn into a religious war theatre and not a reference desk.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If you want to be stuck in a box, that's your choice. I choose not to be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Assuming She even exists, which I sincerely hope is the case if for no other reason than the concept of theoconomists coined by Ludwigs2 above. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

In the first chapters of the The Antislavery Impulse: 1830-1844, Barnes mentions a calvinist preacher who said that the paths of hell are filled with one-year old infants, however, he argues that such extreme position is adopted by a very small minority. 78.108.169.10 (talk) 10:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

1984 (Orwell's book)

The article says that global atomic war occurred before the Party's ascent to power, but it doesn't mention where America's annexation of England fits into that history. When did it occur, before the global nuclear war, before the Party gained power, or after both? --J4\/4 <talk> 14:37, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

According to chapter 3 of Goldstein's Book, it was in the mid to late 1950's that "some hundreds of bombs were dropped on industrial centers, chiefly in European Russia, Europe, and North America". The 1950s seem to have been extremely turbulent in the 1984-verse, with lots of revolutions, wars, struggles between opposing revolutionary factions, etc., but we're not really told the specifics... AnonMoos (talk) 15:12, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Just to nail down the chronology as far as can be done from the book, in the year 1984 Oceania is in its "ninth three-year plan", so it would seem that the regime claims continuity going back to at least 1960, and 1960 also would have been around the time of the end of the "decade of national wars, civil wars, revolutions, and counterrevolutions in all parts of the world" mentioned in Chapter 1 of Goldstein's book... AnonMoos (talk) 04:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It may be of interest that during WWII there were a very large number of American airfields and American personnel in the eastern parts of the UK, and similarly in the Cold War. Even before 1948 when Orwell wrote it, a lot of American films were shown. So it was not a great leap of imaginination to imagine that this process would continue to its conclusion. 89.243.197.22 (talk) 15:27, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

But which happened first, the Party's rise to power or America's annexation of England? --J4\/4 <talk> 15:35, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I was going to give the phrase and find an outlink to it, but whaddayano, we even have an article: Unsinkable aircraft carrier. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, where in 1984 is the composition of Oceania's military mentioned? --J4\/4 <talk> 15:42, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

You will find the answers by reading the book, if you can find them anywhere. It's not very long. 89.243.197.22 (talk) 15:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I looked through the book and couldn't find them. --J4\/4 <talk> 15:51, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Then nobody knows, and even Orwell himself may not have thought about that not even in his imagination. The name of the article, which took me a while to find, is Nineteen Eighty-Four. If you are in a country where it is out of copyright you could try getting an online copy of the text and search through that, but probably you won't find anything else. The last resort would be trying to find any draft copies or writer's notes where it might be mentioned. 89.243.197.22 (talk) 16:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

If memory serves, the book doesn't give a real historical account, just the "official" story. There is no way to know how much, if at all, the official story matches reality. --Tango (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the book was intended to be a satire of sorts. Trying to apply a fine-tooth comb to the continuity of its specific details was probably not the point Orwell was trying to make. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed - the book is more a critique of Britain in 1948 (just transpose the last two figures) than an attempt to predict the future. For example the "Ministry of Truth" represents the Ministry of Information, whose role was to stop people getting information. Central government in the UK had taken on a huge amount of extra powers during WWII and (Orwell suggests) used the Cold War as an excuse to retain them in peace time. Alansplodge (talk) 09:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Goldstein's Book gives info which goes a long way beyond official Oceania propaganda -- but of course, it was written by the Thought Police. And 1984 is quite a bit more than a roman à clef satire of 1948 Britain... AnonMoos (talk) 12:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Since it was written by the Thought Police, I consider it official propaganda, just of a very subtle variety. My point about not knowing how true it is still holds. --Tango (talk) 16:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you write a Prequel, OP, and then you can decide what happened. 89.243.87.3 (talk) 20:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Need some specific help regarding a short story by Haruki Murakami

Hello refdesk. Does anyone have Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes collection of stories at hand? I need some help - in the story The Dancing Dwarf, there is a passing mention of an alcoholic beverage called メカトール酒 (let's say something like "mekator vine" or something similar) I didn't find it in any dictionaries, and as I suspected, Google only gives hits related to Murakami, so I'm assuming it's a made up drink. How was this rendered in the English translation? It's mentioned as the drink the old man in the bar drinks. Any help would be appreciated. TomorrowTime (talk) 14:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Inequalities of "equal" primogeniture

The engagement of the Crown Princess of Sweden made me think about the future of the House of Bernadotte. Daniel will not be Crown Prince of Sweden and I can partially understand that (though wives of heirs apparent share their spouse's title), but how is that justified? Daniel will probably not be king either (though wives of kings are queens and Carl XVI Gustaf's wife is queen). That's why I don't like equal primogeniture - it's not equal. Husbands of queens regnant are not styled as kings because it is presumed that the masculine title of king outranks the feminine title of queen. Is that gender equality? Is this inequality somehow justified in Sweden?

Also, the Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland's future husband won't be prince of Sweden. On the other hand, it wouldn't make sense for her brother's wife not to be princess (assuming her brother marries with the consent). However, if the future Duchess of Värmland is made a princess, the issue of inequality will (or should) definitely arise.

This equal primogeniture thing simply doesn't make the monarchy gender-equal, let alone the fact that monarchy is all about inequality among people. If they keep going towards "equal" monarchies, they'll all end up living in elective monarchies - especially when they start wondering about age discrimination and what makes an older sibling more fit to rule than a younger sibling. Surtsicna (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

And have you got a question for the reference desk, or did you just want to make a speech? --ColinFine (talk) 22:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think what you're missing is that the way royal titles are given out, i.e. who gets to be called a Prince, Princess, Duke etc. is not governed by the Swedish Act of Succession, nor by the "equal primogeniture" of Sweden. All that law and that principle decide is who becomes head of state. The royal, princely and noble titles are still handed out according to old, unequal and male-preference rules. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 22:31, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

The question for the reference desk is (as already written above): is this inequality somehow justified in Sweden? Is it justified in any country? Has any country decided to be "equal" all the way and forget the queen-is-lesser-than-king notion?

Regarding the old, unequal and male-preference rules that govern titles, isn't changing such (perhaps even unwritten) rules far easier than changing a constitution? Surtsicna (talk) 19:58, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

These cases are the same in UK, not just in Sweden. Husband of Queen Elizabeth II is not a king but a prince consort. Husband of the Princess Royal is not a prince either. Both husbands of Princess Anne had declined taking on a title). You cannot talk about equality when talking about monarchy. Monarchy is an institution based on birthright and governed by traditions. It's all about inequality and privileges.

You have to keep in mind that when a queen succeeds the throne in her own right, the country is allowing a change of dynasty, or house. In most cultures the children still follow the surname of their father. It is no exemption when a male would marry into a royal house and produce heirs. This practice had been frowned upon because most royal houses wanted to keep its succession in the male direct line, and most of all maintain sovereign. This was how some of the royal dynasties got absorbed into others either intentionally or by fate.

Imagine in this modern day the Crown Princess of Sweden got engaged with Prince William of the UK (ignoring parliamentary disapprovals), and allowing Prince William to be called King once Queen Victoria ascends the throne. Wouldn't that make William king of Sweden? I'm sure that won't go over too well with the Swedes. --Kvasir (talk) 22:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

See Philip II of Spain for one such case. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 19:09, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yep, his marriage with Mary I of England was entirely political and his reign over England ended with her death. There was no issue from that union. --Kvasir (talk) 22:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

In reply to User:Surtsicna: No, I would not say so. Constitutions can be changed by democratic process, by the will of the people, and in a structured way. Changing the traditions of the royal and/or noble is nigh on impossible despite the desire of everybody else. Since 2003, all official privileges of the Swedish nobility are gone. In essence, the house of nobility operates like any other private club or organisation, and can not really be forced to change its rules regarding titles through any outside process. While royal titles are not the same as noble ones, they are if possible even more difficult to affect, since their rules seem to only exist within the traditions of the royal court. With the monarch having no official political power in Sweden any more, among the few powers retained in that office are the right to control of its own traditions and the internal workings of the court. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 20:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Dante Alighieri translation

Hi. I was wondering if someone might help me find the orinal Italian for the Dante quotation "beauty awakens the soul to act". Many thanks! Flaming Ferrari (talk) 21:08, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

There's no original Italian. That quote appears nowhere in Dante. (You can verify this by noting that whenever the quote is attributed, no one cites the specific Canto and line.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.17.88.122 (talk) 01:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be from Gilbert Imlay's work The Emigrants "Beauty awakes, expands the glowing heart / And prompts the soul to act its noblest part" meltBanana 04:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the author is quoting a poem there, so it might still be by someone else.--Cam (talk) 05:31, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

The ascription to Dante might be based upon a pithy simplification of La Vita Nuova as the sentiment is kind of what the whole work is about but specifically these lines from chapter XX:

"Beauty may appear, in a wise lady, / so pleasant to the eyes, that in the heart, / is born a desire for pleasant things: / which stays so long a time in that place, / that it makes the spirit of Love wake. / And likewise in a lady works a worthy man."

original:

"Bieltate appare in saggia donna pui, /che piace a gli occhi sì, che dentro al core / nasce un disio de la cosa piacente; / e tanto dura talora in costui, / che fa svegliar lo spirito d'Amore. / E simil face in donna omo valente."

meltBanana 15:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Financial Times article this weekend

There was a full-page front-page article in one of the sections of the Financial Times British edition this weekend, the 20/21st February. The title was something like "Show/Get/Find Me The Oscars/Money". Does anyone know what it was, or where I could read it online? I meant to buy it but forgot. I've looked at the ft com site, have not been able to see it. 92.28.224.34 (talk) 22:01, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the article in your mind was "Show them the money!" by Matthew Garrahan. The article title changed on the online version but the link to it is here. Sam Blacketer (talk) 17:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

February 22

Australians' high rate of travel

In a question above about how many Americans have traveled overseas, Maedin makes the comment that 60%-70% of Australians have passports, versus about 25% of Americans. Most Americans don't have passports because they don't have the time or money for overseas travel. Yet, according to official figures, Americans have a higher per-capita GDP than Australians. Despite this, Australians have a much higher rate of overseas travel. In my youth, when I was hitchhiking around Europe, I probably ran into more young Australian travelers than young Americans, even though Europe is further from Australia than the United States, and even though there were at the time about 20 times as many Americans as Australians in the world. I've always wanted to know how so many Australians, especially young Australians, come up with the time and money to do this. Most young Americans struggle to find a job, hold a low-wage job that would not pay for travel, or work hard just to cover their educational and living expenses. Most young Americans' parents cannot afford to pay for their child to travel through Europe. How do young Australians do it? Marco polo (talk) 02:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It may partially be that Americans travel inside their country when they do travel. The US is the 3rd largest country by area, as well as the 3rd largest country by population. It's possible for a US citizen to see all kinds of different cultures and climates without having to get a passport.

If you exclude Alaska, Australia is bigger than the continental US Alansplodge (talk) 09:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, Australia is situated near a lot of places that don't speak English, so I bet that Australian tourists tend to travel far. Paul Stansifer 03:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Plenty of Aussie travellers in Thailand and Indonesia I believe. Alansplodge (talk) 09:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps also the longer normal vacation time leaves Australians more able to travel. But personally I think the reason is more cultural. Americans tend to think that a lot of things worth seeing are in the US and that everywhere outside of it is kind of a dump, or super expensive, or otherwise not an optimal travel choice. I think there's also a "Middle Kingdom" type attitude to all of this, that America has the best of the world within its borders so there's no need to leave it. Australians, and Brits, on the other hand, do not have such opinions about their home countries. And there's kind of a point: if Americans want to go skiing, there are many great places in the US rocky mountains. If Australians or Brits want to, they pretty much have to look abroad, and Canada is a common choice (maybe the US is too, I don't know). There's a bit of a sense of adventure that may be left over from empire days, but I won't try and analyse that too much. Also, I think a much higher proportion of Australians are first or second generation with significant family ties to people in other parts of the world, which is less frequently the case with Americans. What did surprise me about America (well Texas at least) is the very high rate of internal migration. A large portion of the Americans I knew there had moved from another state, usually quite a distant state. Maybe that's more of a university thing, but I think it might be a more general pattern: while Americans shy away from international migration (and travel), people move around internally a great deal, perhaps more than Australians. TastyCakes (talk) 03:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(NNPOV) When Americans do travel overseas, many of them seem to treat the rest of the world like Disneyland: as a spectacle to gawp at rather than other cultures to respect and understand (which is why a lot of the world doesn't like American tourists!). BTW, we do have ski fields in Australia, and if we want more the best in the world are just over the way on the South Island of New Zealand... FiggyBee (talk) 03:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean to slight New Zealand skiing, I was just looking for an explanation for the alarming numbers of Aussie lifties at Banff and Lake Louise ;) TastyCakes (talk) 06:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well for the really keen skiiers, you can get two ski seasons a year by hitting up the northern hemisphere, I suppose... :) FiggyBee (talk) 07:14, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Australian here who just got home from 3 months overseas yesterday. :) Many young Australians have links within a generation or two to another country (if you look at Immigration to Australia#Country of Birth of Australian Residents, you'll see that almost a quarter of Australians were not born here). This means many Australians can work to supplement their income while travelling, either because they have nationality rights or because of working holiday visa treaties. I have several friends who have done exactly that; travelled, spent a few months in one place working, then travelled some more. Australians who were born, or whose parents were born, overseas also probably have more desire to travel than Americans whose great-grandparents grew up just down the road. FiggyBee (talk) 03:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

OR here, but I think that when analyzing Americans' travel habits compared to those of residents of other countries, it's hard to overestimate the importance of Americans' crappily low amount of yearly vacation time. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Part of the reason is that, generally speaking, it's cheaper for us to travel overseas than to tour inside our own country. I know many Australians who've been to any o/s country you care to name, but have never visited other states of Australia or their own capital city Canberra. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:10, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Young Australians also don't have to worry about the cost of education, with the majority paying only a fraction of the actual cost of their tertiary education (the remainder is subsidised by government), and even that being paid via loan scheme with no upfront payments, and repayments being a scaled percentage of post-graduation income. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It's a cultural expectation for Antipodeans to travel extensively when young (WHAAOE, see Overseas experience). Access to money is irrelevant: what is important is access to working holiday visas. This means you can travel a bit, work a bit, travel a bit more. Also significant is a willingness to pick up any job going, doss with mates, and travel on the cheap. Amount of holiday allowance is also irrelevant: OEers give up their day job, and just head out into the big wide world. (Some professionals pick up city-type jobs, of course, and save the money for when they return home.) The British have a gap year which is similar, but tends to take place between school and university. Gwinva (talk) 23:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

In defense of the Americans' passport statistic, Americans are able to travel many places abroad without a passport book including Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, not to mention many exotic places within the United States itself (e.g. Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, New Jersey). I visited Mexico many times before I ever possessed a passport. —D. Monack ^talk 00:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If you didn't have a passport, how would the border guards know if to let you back in to the US or not? 78.147.93.182 (talk) 20:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A state-issued driver's license was sufficient, but most people returning from Mexico on foot were not stopped at all. I never was. I never understood why illegal immigrants hiked through the desert when they simply had to dress like college students and glom onto a crowd of drunk Americans returning from Mexican bars. Of course, being white probably had a lot to do with never being questioned by a border guard. My understanding is that the Canadian border was even more lax with many crossings not manned by guards at all. —D. Monack ^talk 23:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Not anymore. Now you need a passport or similar document to go to Mexico or Canada. Don't know about Bermuda or Bahamas but I'd guess they're in the same boat. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Those changes are relatively recent as the deadline for the passport requirement was frequently pushed back as the State Department was swamped by new passport applications due to the new rules. This suggests a few things: 1. large numbers of Americans were traveling abroad despite not having a passport, 2. the percentage of Americans with passports has increased significantly in recent years, 3. there's probably a good number of Americans who have traveled to Canada or Mexico but still don't have a passport.

This site claims 34% of Americans over 18 have a passport, not 25%. These survey results are from 2005 and the numbers have probably increased since for the reasons I've mentioned.

Another factor that hasn't been considered: the U.S. has a large number of immigrants, legal & illegal. By definition they've all been abroad but many don't own U.S. passports. Illegal immigrants obviously can't get a U.S. passport and legal immigrants are likely to hold a passport from their country of origin plus other documentation that lets them return to the U.S. Some naturalized citizens have never applied for a U.S. passport. In any event, the issue is more complicated than the 34% figure would suggest. —D. Monack ^talk 23:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Law Creating/Eliminating Postal Police

What law created or authorized Postal Police and what could eliminate them?Tarita60680 (talk) 02:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

What country are you referring to, please? And could you expand upon the reason you are interested in eliminating them? I mean, no matter where you live, I could answer "what could eliminate them" by saying, "A new law could be passed eliminating the postal police", but I don't think that's exactly the sort of answer you're looking for. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

At a guess, Anthony Comstock might have had something to do with it. See Comstock laws and United States Postal Inspection Service. Tevildo (talk) 22:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Is the level of inequality greater now than any time in history?

Is the level of inequality greater now than any time in history? How does the level of inequality between the richest and poorest in the world today compare to early industrial, feudal and ancient times? --Gary123 (talk) 04:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think this may be a hard question to answer, because;

a) in pure mathematical terms, there are, and have always been, some people who have literally nothing, thus anyone who has anything is infinitely richer.

b) historically, there was often conflation of personal wealth and state wealth for rulers (the full resources of the kingdom were available to a mediaeval king or Roman governor).

c) measuring wealth over time is difficult, because technology means there's more you can do with your wealth today (is a private jet worth more or less than a mediaeval estate? It's simply not comparable).

I think the best measure of "inequality" is how well a society looks after its poor, and how much it holds its rich to account. In those terms, I think that the modern (social democratic) world is the least unequal today it has ever been. FiggyBee (talk) 04:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

If you're going to be poor, being poor in the U.S.A. is a far sight better than being poor in many other places. We do take care of our poor pretty well nowadays, compared with a hundred years ago when the attitude seemed to be "every man for himself". The safety net is much broader and deeper. And I'm reminded of something Will Rogers said: "We have our poor in America; but they're the richest poor in the world." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? No health care, people sleeping in cars. Being poor in the US is like being in the third world compared to how they are treated in Europe. 78.147.93.182 (talk) 20:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

My (relatively informed) impression is that the general rich/poor difference hasn't changed much proportionally over time (though in absolute terms the poor are much wealthier than they used to be, and the rich are much, much wealthier). This has to do with the fact that wealth is largely a zero-sum game - the wealthiest 5% or 10% in a society are as wealthy as they are because they extract as much wealth as they can from the other members of society without driving them into desperate poverty (which would result in economic collapse or revolution). --Ludwigs2 08:06, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Which leads to the question to what area Ludwigs2 is referring by assuming "the poor" are wealthier than they used to be (timeframe?). Can't be global since as has been at all times, there are, as has been pointed out before, humans who have literally nothing. So where's the wealth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by G-41614 (talk • contribs) 08:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Inequality is more than just rich and poor. Anytime that slavery was a perfectly acceptable institution (i.e. everywhere and anywhere before a few hundred years ago), there would certainly be far more inequality than there is now. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Even in third world countries, the poor have access to better food, farming techniques, medicines, education, shelter and etc than they did 100 years ago. Very few people still exist in pastoral/tribal conditions. please note that even the destitute in western societies are mostly a function of modern advances: a person living a nomadic, homeless, hunter-gatherer existence in (say) 19th century South America or in the American west in the 18th century would not have been considered unusual or problematic. what do you think fur trappers were? It's a sign of our higher expectations that we find such people troubling. --Ludwigs2 17:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

While being poor in the USA is better than being poor in the 3rd world, my understanding is that western Europe treats its poor much better than the USA. --Tango (talk) 16:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It largely depends on who you talk to and how informed they are. For example, if you talk to a person who focuses solely on access to free marijuana as a consideration of "care for the poor" (yes, I'm referring to a person I know), you are going to get a very skewed point of view. -- kainaw™ 16:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

As others have hinted above, there are two main issues that make your question difficult to answer:

1. One needs to define what one means by inequality and what exact metric one uses to measure it. See Amartya Sen's On economic inequality and Inequality reexamined for two very accessible accounts of the issues involved and the solutions proposed.
2. Even if one decides on a metric to measure inequality, it is not easy to obtain reliable statistical data to evaluate this metric. This is especially true when we were interested in worldwide and/or historical estimates.

That said, while recognizing these difficulties, we don't need to simply throw up our hands and say, "it's all subjective"!
To address the first problem above: two commonly used metrics to measure income or wealth inequality are the Gini coefficient and Theil index, which you can read about on our wikipedia page. The second problem has been looked at by (among others) Branko Milanovic, an economist at the World Bank, and Angus Maddison, a British economist, who have several papers/books on estimating historical income and inequality levels across nations (these numbers need to be taken with a huge grain of salt though). For example, Milanovic has a recent paper on Global inequality and global inequality extraction ratio: The story of the last two centuries in which he concludes that the worldwide inequality levels did increase from the nineteenth century to mid-1950's and have essentially stabilized since (see Table 2-3 in the paper).
Again, I emphasize that one needs to treat these results with care and be aware of all the caveats before trying to use them as a soundbite or as a basis for normative judgments (do read Sen's books listed above!). But hopefully these links will provide you with a starting point for further research and thought. Abecedare (talk) 17:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC) PS: Another relevant paper: Inequality among World Citizens: 1820-1992, François Bourguignon; Christian Morrisson, The American Economic Review, Vol. 92, No. 4. (Sep., 2002), pp. 727-744. It essentially reaches the same conclusion as the Milanovic paper cited above. Abecedare (talk) 18:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

For the US, this article indicates that income inequality has been rising since the 1970s (before which it was declining), however all segments of society have been getting wealthier to some degree. I don't have all the numbers to prove it, but I think it is quite easy to find eras where inequalities were far greater than today. It was institutionalized in Europe under a system of aristocratic rule, and the Gilded Age in the US gave rise to some of the richest individuals in history on a relative scale. Vanderbilt, according to the article, was worth 1.15% of US GDP, which would be $141 billion today if we were to make a (somewhat over simplistic) comparison in today's terms. That said, some places, like Russia, have seen a more recent explosion of income inequality, (in Russia's case, largely seen as being due to the sketchy post-soviet privatisation of huge resource assets to insiders at prices that were a small fraction of their worth (see here). TastyCakes (talk) 17:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

One needs to be careful here: the wealth of the richest individual(s) is a red-herring as far as the computing the Gini coefficient is concerned; if that weren't the case, it would not be a very robust statistic. For example, it would not make an iota of a difference in the computed Gini index if instead of Vanderbilt having ~100 billion dollars, say 1000 different persons had 100 million dollars each (this is the case because binned data is use for computing the statistic, so all that matters is what the total wealth of individuals in, say, the top 5% bin, the 90-95% bin etc; for the US each bin contains a few million people). Also note that that the Gini indexes being cited here are for income inequality, which is distinct from wealth inequality. Abecedare (talk) 18:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That's true, and I don't have the numbers to demonstrate the point decisively. But I think the general perception (which I have no reason to disagree with) is that the US economy of the late 1800s and early 1900s was dominated by a few very rich men. Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Ford, Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan and so on, all from the same general time frame. Collectively, I think such men controlled a large amount of the US economy, much larger than any group of similar size today does (but again, I don't have the numbers). If that is the case, I don't think any measure of economic inequality would compute that there is more inequality today than there was at that time. TastyCakes (talk) 18:37, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was not clearer earlier: my objection above was solely directed at the methodology, and not your conclusion about inequality trends in US. In fact, the paper Three Centuries Of Inequality In Britain And America discusses the issue in some detail and supports your conclusion. In brief: wealth/income inequality in the US was at its highest in the 1860-1929 period, with temporary drops during the Civil war and WWI. The inequality declined during the 1929-54 period and then started rising again from mid-1970s; although it didn't get as high as the pre-Great Depression days. Hope that helps clarify the picture. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 19:30, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the OP is thinking of economic inequality, international inequality or social inequality, two examples of great inequality in ancient history jump immediately to mind: China and Egypt. And, in my (professionally informed) opinion, the 20th / 21st century is probably the time of least inequality of anytime in recent history. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Slang Words for A WW2 German Solider

I don't want to be offensive to anyone, but I need slang words of German Soldiers or German people during the WW2 era. I'm writing a story (sorry no autographs) and I just need some ideas. The definitions for the words too, would be appreciated. Thanks.

Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 04:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Slang words used by whom? If you want what other people called the Germans, we have an article on everything: List of terms used for Germans. FiggyBee (talk) 04:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That's a useful article. I didn't know the Germans themselves came up with "Huns". I wonder what's the German equivalent of "D'oh!" Meanwhile, the article assigns "Kraut" as post WWII. Far as I know, it's a lot older than that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

From what I recall from watching German-dubbed episodes of The Simpsons, Homer generally seems to just say "Nein!" for "D'oh!". It's not quite a literal translation but it seems to convey the same kind of sentiment. ~ mazca ^talk 11:43, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Bleah, forgot to mention that, Sorry been detracted by watching the British Academy Film Awards. The slang words to be used by Americans Soldiers, or just Americans. Hee hee. Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 04:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, the word needs to be a bit insulting but not disgusting, because just picture angry Americans calling the German Soldiers whatever the word is, you know? Haha, I do wonder what the German equivalent of "D'oh" is. Even a German word would be quite well to use, because the irony would just be delicious. Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 05:20, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Did you look at the article I linked? "Heinie" seems to be the American equivalent of the British "Jerry". FiggyBee (talk) 05:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I looked at it, so that means that the American's called the Germans that too, "Jerry"? I was using Google Translate and came up with a few things, "Stümper Ballermann." (Amateur Shooter) hee hee. Google helps a lot you know? Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 05:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

In Alan Brooke's "War Diaries". he refers to the Germans as "the Bosch". I suspect this can only have been used by the generation that served in both conflicts. My parent's generation (Dad was 21 in 1939) used "Jerry" - the connection with "jerry pots" was well known to them whatever the Wikipedea article says. Alansplodge (talk) 09:19, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure it's "the Bosch"? A common slang term for Germans in the WW2 are is "Boche", from the French, with somewhat unclear provenance. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

There seems to have been two main spellings: the French "Boche" and the British "Bosch" (perhaps the spelling came from the German engineering firm[1]) . Here's a quote from a US nurse[2] (scroll down past the Red Cross letter) using one version and a British regimental history[3] using the other. Here's one with a third spelling from WWII[4] (no slang dictionaries in those days!). Alansplodge (talk) 11:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think American soldiers of WWII were using Google Translate to come up with insults. Perhaps you should do some OR; watch American war films, read contemporary accounts, etc? FiggyBee (talk) 10:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the most common nicknames used by US troops would be hynee and kraut.--92.251.223.13 (talk) 17:16, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, ha, I know they weren't using Google, but the American's I'm writing about know a just bit of German, so they can make up their own insults too, but I'm just curious on what Americans called them. *sigh* Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 19:21, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I’d put Jerry, Kraut, Fritz, Bo(s)ch(e) and Hans, in that order, as the most common terms for Americans to call Germans during periods when the two countries weren’t exactly best friends. Bosche (etc), to my ear, is a WWI term, whereas the others would have been common in WWII. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you DOR! that's what I needed! Thank you! thank you thank! That's all I needed. hee hee. Thank you to everyone.. Okay, RESOLVED. Thanks! Moptopstyle1 ("I Feel Fine.") (talk) 04:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

US illegal farm worker wages

Can anyone point me to a survey of wages for illegal farm workers in the US? Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Not knowing what you're reason for knowing is, I'm not sure if a little WP:OR will work or not. If I remember correctly what my wife has told me, the local illegals that work on dairy farms around me in VT make something like $8-10/hour. Dismas|^(talk) 05:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It would certainly vary in different markets (localities) due, e.g. to cost of living differences, etc. Perhaps you could take the wages for legal workers and subtract a certain amount, for an estimate. --Dpr (talk) 10:46, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Dismas. I'm actually interested in the constant that Dpr is referring to — one would assume that illegal workers are paid less than legal workers, and I'm interested in how much less. (If at all, in some places.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Be careful of your assumptions. An illegal (say) French language teacher might well be paid the same as anyone, but not have the proper work visa. Illegal household domestic helpers might be illegal just because their employers don't pay Social Security taxes, and illegal farm workers (which I only just realize is your question) might well be paid above the minimum wage simply because they supply a solution to a problem that isn't met by legal workers. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Conjoined Twins and Murder

If Abby of the Abigail and Brittany Hensel twins commits murder, how will the US gov't try and convict if Brittany is innocent? --Reticuli88 (talk) 14:45, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It's unclear how the law handles conjoined twins for the purpose of sentencing; it just hasn't really been resolved yet, and the total number of conjoined twins is quite low. So any judge involved in sentencing would have to probably write up their own opinion on it, and it would probably be an interesting case. See Slate's take on it, as well, with historical examples, and there are other takes too if you google "conjoined twins legal". The Slate article brings up that in many ways it is not too different than imprisoning a pregnant woman, which happens all the time. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:33, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It is highly unlikely that one conjoined twin could plan and commit a murder without the knowledge and assistance of the other, so I doubt such an issue will ever arise.--Ludwigs2 17:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

True, but I don't think the questioner for a minute believed that it is a likely occurance, sounds purely hypothetical to me. :) Aiyda 19:49, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a "bad conjoined twin" could be sentenced to probation under the supervision of the "good conjoined twin," who cold be hired as a parole officer. An electronic ankle bracelet could be used to monitor their movements. Edison (talk) 20:25, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

QI claimed that when one of the Bunkers assaulted a man while drunk, he was spared a prison sentence because his conjoined brother was innocent. Actually, his brother might have been the man he assaulted...I'm not sure. Been a while since I saw that episode. Vimescarrot (talk) 20:54, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Unless they were to kill a federal official, it's more likely they would be tried by their state. In any case, the possibility of one committing premeditated homicide (or any serious crime), without the other having had a clue about it and some degree of complicity, seems highly unlikely. Maybe a moment-of-passion type of crime would be possible, though. Fittingly, such a case would require a judge with the wisdom of Solomon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

• It occurs to me that this entire section could be a little touchy under wikipedia's BLP rules. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
• I don't think premeditated murder by one twin would be so impossible. Just imagine the twin that controls the right half of the body slipping a poison into someone's drink while the other half is flirting with the 3-breasted whore from Erorica-9 (or was that the 9-breasted whore from Erotica-3?). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It was the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I urgently need to brush up on essential culture, it seems.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

USA BOP deficit

Orange ~27% slice is "foreign and international".

What would happen if all the other countries demanded that the USA pay back the money it owes them? Would the USA go bankrupt?

The USA would just say "no". The bonds all have expiry dates and there is no reason for the US to pay them back early. What could happen is that they refuse to buy any more bonds once the current ones expire. That probably wouldn't be enough to bankrupt the US (most of the US public debt is held domestically) but it would push the interest rates up a lot. --Tango (talk) 17:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Tango is correct — the debt is in the form of bills and bonds that are not callable by the bond purchasers. (Puttable bond may be the article for that type of scheme.) By the way, as this graph from our United States public debt article illustrates, about 27% of the US debt is held by "foreign and international" entities. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with Tango that a foreign buyers' strike would not lead to de facto US bankruptcy. As he says, interest rates, not only on the US debt but on all forms of variable-rate debt in the US, would jump dramatically and would have to divert vast amounts of US capital from other investments, such as equities. Stock markets would plunge as a result, and the US budget deficit would balloon from the combined impact of 1) the loss of tax revenue due to the negative impact of higher interest rates on employment, retail sales, and capital gains; and 2) sharply increased debt-service costs. In order to cover that increased deficit, the US government would have to sharply increase its borrowing, further driving up interest rates, resulting in a vicious cycle that could really only result in default, hyperinflation, and/or a dramatic collapse in the value of the US dollar that would sharply reduce the real value of the US debt. The data in the pie graph above are questionable. The total or denominator used for the percentages in this graph includes nonmarketable Treasury debt, most of which is the government's debt to itself, which is reflected as a surplus or savings in another government account. The two amounts equal zero net debt for the government. If you take total foreign holdings of US treasury securities, or $3.6 trillion at the end of December 2009, as the numerator, and put this over total marketable publically held US Treasury securities outstanding at the same date, or $7.8 trillion, according to this source, you find that foreign entities owned 46% of the US government's external debt at the end of 2009. Marco polo (talk) 19:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Is all US federal government debt held as Treasury bonds? 71.70.143.134 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC).

Bankruptcy means your assets are seized to satisfy the demands of those to whom you owe money. Off the top of my head, my guess is that no other country is likely to be in a position to seize much in the way of US assets. However, on a more serious note, failure to honor repayment of federal debts (Treasury Bills and – 71.70.143.134, please note – agency paper, etc) would make it very difficult for various levels of government (federal, state, municipal) to raise new money, and dramatically raise the interest rate for those who do float new loans. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, technically speaking countries can't go bankrupt since there is no court that can declare them so. However, the phrase "bankrupt" is often used to describe a country that defaults on its debt (ie. unilaterally decides not to abide by their obligations). --Tango (talk) 17:48, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously bankruptcy is being used here in the colloquial way. In a technical sense, Bankruptcy is a very limited procedure. Institutions people often think of going "bankrupt" (like banks) cannot. Instead, they go into receivership. Shadowjams (talk) 21:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It is customary to speak of the several bankruptcies of Philip II of Spain, for example; it is difficult (not impossible) to put a sovereign state into receivership, but the consequences of defaulting on its debts are often much the same. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:15, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Rasputin's effect on russia

How did rasputin the mad monk effect russian royal family and what effect did he had ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.69.27 (talk) 18:44, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Please read our article on Grigori Rasputin. — Sebastian 18:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Plato's epistemology: how is knowledge of others possible?

If Plato believes knowledge to be a recollection of a perfect idea encountered in the world of the forms, is knowldge of other people possible?

Help much appriciated!

Thanks,Aiyda 19:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

See Platonic epistemology, Theory of Forms and the Meno (among the other dialogues). The Platonic view is that the Forms are the only possible objects of "true knowledge" (episteme) - our "knowledge" of the material world (including other people) is at best "opinion" or "belief" (pistis). The material world is changeable, so a fact about the material world might be true at one time and false at another, whereas "true knowledge" must imply certainty and permanence - we can't be certain of the truth of any statement based on the material world, as the aspects of the material world that support the statement may change, and our perception of them may be inaccurate; we can never truly _know_ anything based on, or existing in, the material world. The view that our (true) knowledge of the Forms is based on recollection rather than reasoning (or direct perception of the Forms) is more of a metaphysical than an epistemological question. Tevildo (talk) 23:11, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

We hack and cough our way through even when our understanding of others is hampered by emotional paralysis. Vranak (talk) 19:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

This is not a chatroom. If your comment does not help answer the question asked, nor help build the encyclopedia, please strongly consider not making it. Nobody will think less of you if they see fewer comments from you; quite the opposite. 86.176.48.127 (talk) 02:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Learn some manners, sir. And if you are too obtuse to understand how my comment relates to the initial query, the fault is not mine. Vranak (talk) 04:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It is obviously relevant, but in no way answers the question asked, nor does it help the OP to answer it for themselves. Saying "I like Greek people. Understanding things is hard." would be similarly relevant. All you have given is your own opinion, when the OP is clearly and unambiguously asking for Plato's. The only possible benefit of your answer is that you get to air your personal view, as with many of your answers. There are thousands of places on the Internet where you can do that, surrounded by others doing likewise. Doing so as a reply to this question is rude and unhelpful. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Malines Belgium

I have been searching for information about an artist -

I think his name is as follow with variations

carl van legch, or gegch, or gegeh, or legeh, I have a signed watercolor by this artist that says Malines Belgium, of a stone arched bridge in town with medieval buildings in the back ground.

Any suggestions as to who this artist is or where I can look is much apreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.161.86.218 (talk) 20:02, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps Carl Van Gigel, little aside from that. meltBanana 20:55, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but Malines is the Walloon rendering of Mechelen, and a search on Google Images for "Malines bridge Belgium" may produce something. --TammyMoet (talk) 21:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks to me as though MeltBanana nailed the very print, possibly a color lithograph!--Wetman (talk) 06:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

How to refer to Dutch people in 18th century

Hello, dear refdeskers! I came across this wikipedia article, and here it states something about DUTCH being applied rather loosely to cover German. How would an Englishman, a French and/or Spaniard refer to a citizen or soldier of Dutch origins in approximately 1720? To clarify entirely, a citizen or soldier from Amsterdam (but hopefully the term regards his nationality). Thank you greatly in advance. 77.18.5.107 (talk) 22:28, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Dutch, or somtimes Hollander. Rmhermen (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Alright, cheers. 77.18.8.97 (talk) 08:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Here's what Rudyard Kipling thought[5]. Alansplodge (talk) 09:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Obviously Kipling would not have a purely 18th century viewpoint, being born in the mid 19th century. Googlemeister (talk) 16:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that they were popularly/derogatorily known in England as "Cheeseheads". The two countries were great rivals at sea at that point. --Dweller (talk) 16:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Cheesehead

Silly, the Cheeseheads live in Wisconsin. Nyttend (talk) 07:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably as Dutch, but quite possibly as a Low Dutchman or a Netherlander. The OED quotes The Netherlanders, and low Dutchmen bordering upon the Sea from an Elizabethan source, but The Duch nation aboue all other haue had the glorie and fame..for their valour in warre..fortunate battels both by land and sea is from a 1617 dictionary, and Each fierce Logician..dash'd thro' thin and thick/ On German Crouzaz, and Dutch Burgersdyck from Alexander Pope. In New Jersey and New York, they have always been Dutch; in 1720, English-speakers felt no need to distinguish among the Low Germans of Pennsylvania, the Dutch of New Amsterdam, and the Flemings.

French or Spanish are presumably different. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

ken Carey, author of the third milinium

Why is ken Carey omitted from the american spiritual writers list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Socrates111 (talk • contribs) 23:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Not only that, but he lacks his own article. I don't know anything about him, but it may be that he is not sufficiently notable per our WP:AUTHOR notability guidelines for authors. If he is, then be bold and create the article yourself, with references and inline citations. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:07, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

February 23

General of Volunteers

What is the distinction between a General of Volunteers and a general in the regular (U.S.) army? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems one major difference it that it was a temporary rank only applicable during the American Civil War See List of major generals in the United States Regular Army before July 1, 1920#Civil_War --203.63.130.37 (talk) 03:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)(aka 220.101.28.25)

Harry C. Egbert might disagree with you, seeing as he was promoted Brigadier General of U.S. Volunteers in 1898, long after the Civil War. (I was working on his article.) Clarityfiend (talk) 03:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Whoops! (correction above!) 220.101.28.25 (talk) 07:28, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The United States Volunteers was how the federal government raised a large national army in the 19th century. The US usually kept a small regular, professional army during peacetime; in wartime, the states organized Volunteer regiments for national service to supplement the regular army. These Volunteer regiments provided an opportunity for regular army officers like colonels and majors to get a temporary promotion to general. When the war ended, they would go back down to their regular army rank. A professional soldier would prefer to get a promotion to general in the regular army, of course, but you take what you can get. Starting with World War I, the federal government stopped creating Volunteer regiments and instead enlisted newbies right into the national army. —Kevin Myers 17:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. But would say a Major General of Volunteers be considered to outrank a regular brigadier general? Clarityfiend (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

That's where it gets tricky. The short answer is yes. But a major general of volunteers still held a specific rank in the regular army. In the Civil War, for example, Winfield Scott Hancock held the rank of major in the regular army while serving as a major general of volunteers. He was eventually promoted to brigadier general in the regular army. He got paid as a major general and was a major general as far as his subordinates were concerned. But a brigadier general under him might still outrank him (on paper) in the regular army although Hancock was serving in a higher grade. (The terms rank and grade and now conflated through popular misuse; we often mean "grade" when we say "rank".) I'm no expert on the 19th century army, so if I've made any mistakes, someone is sure to point them out.

Questions of rank were very sensitive matters among army officers and caused endless amounts of controversy. It dates back to colonial times, of course. When George Washington was a Virginia provincial colonel (essentially the "volunteers" of the day), he threatened to resign rather than take commands from a captain with a royal commission (the "regulars" of the day).

P.S. None of this has anything to do with militia, which was a different type of service. —Kevin Myers 03:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I hereby promote you to third lieutenant of Wikipedia volunteers, with all the generous pay and privileges that lofty rank entails. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I really needed the pay increase. It's hard to live on my Wikpedia paycheck. Now if I can only get a brevet promotion to captain so I can order around the other lieutenants.... —Kevin Myers 22:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

History of RAF Molesworth

I as at RAF Molesworth from Sept 1955 through June 1957.During that time we had B29s flying from there. At sometime in 1956 or early 1957 the last B29 in England left Molesworth and Princess Margaret was there as hostess for the retirement ceremony of the last B29. Does anybody have any information about this as I keep coming up against the brick wall on this item. Thank you very much. ^^^^ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.18.124.113 (talk) 05:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

These B29s would have belonged to the 582nd Air Resupply and Communications Wing. Perhaps a USAF historian or archivist would be able to help you find more information or records. FiggyBee (talk) 05:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Where is English Poetry Now ?

What is the position of Englsih poetry in contemporary times ? What does the reader who reads poetry expects to read ? If we see poetry in New Yorker etc we see it is not something that would appeal to the taste of Shelley, Byron or Tennyson would they be living today ? Why it is that no one writes like they did, or even like Eliot did write ? Is it so that even if today someone could write like Shelley did, no one would read it - the people having grown up too much for the kind of taste they had a hundred years ago ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 14:49, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I am afraid that your questions may require a speculative answer, which is not the purpose of the RD.--ProteanEd (talk) 16:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Re the reader: You might be interested in the following public poetry programs: Poems on the Underground, Poetry in Motion, Poetry on the Way. Their selections, and the feedback, seem to indicate that the modern reader enjoys an eclectic range of styles from a range of time periods.

Re the writer: Our article Poetry suggests that, as with many arts, poetry styles and forms have followed certain trends in different times and places. See Fashion, Fads and trends and Memetics for a little bit about this social phenomenon. It's not a matter of growing up but of changing popularity. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 16:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Probably the tradition of written "literary" poetry is more of a tiny niche market and definite minority taste among English-language readers than was the case in many past historical periods (it's notorious that poetry journals are perpetual money-losers), but to compensate there has been the rise of poetry slams etc. AnonMoos (talk) 00:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the lyrics in popular music are being overlooked as poetry. Sure, the delivery isn't the same, but I think people look at the meaning in the words the same way. Aaronite (talk) 04:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What would happen if Byron or Shelley would come back today ? Would they be as popular as they were then ? Or what would net effect be if someone could write as good as they did ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 04:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As when this question is asked about Mozart, they'd be writing pop songs. Possibly indie rock. 86.177.121.239 (talk) 12:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Energy Suppression Conspiracy

In this article, what part of the economic system would break down and how they theorize it would? -

"Variations on the energy suppression conspiracy state that free energy cannot be allowed in a capitalist system because the economic system would break down if it were introduced." --Reticuli88 (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

And why do they state only capitalist systems? Wouldn't other systems be affected too? --Reticuli88 (talk) 15:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

They are apparently working from the notion that in a socialist or communist system, the government provides energy for free to the public. So, they already have free energy. However, it isn't the same as truly free energy. Truly free energy will allow any person to use as much energy as he or she likes with no charge. In a rationed system where the government provides free energy to the people, a user may only use the amount of energy rationed and no more (unless the user find a corrupt politician to provide more energy). So, truly free energy would collapse any economic system - either where the system exists by the funding of the users or it is rationed and funded by the government. This is really a very similar stance used for any "We need to socialize...." argument. -- kainaw™ 15:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

But why would the economic system collaspe? --Reticuli88 (talk) 15:30, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The writer apparently believes that current capitalist economies are based entirely on energy. Remove energy and there is nothing to base the economies on anymore. You can decide how much you agree with the predicate for the writer's argument. Consider the United States economic history and see if disruption of a major part of the economy in the past has brought about complete collapse. Some examples to consider: loss of steel industry, loss of textile industry, unionizing labor, and loss of slavery in slave-based economies. -- kainaw™ 15:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

A system (any system) would not collapse in the presence of free energy. In fact, the opposite would occur: productivity would skyrocket. For an example, look at software (much of which is free). Linux, Flash, WinZip, and Wikipedia have not caused a collapse in any industry. In fact, each has contributed to the growth of both software and non-software industries. Wikiant (talk) 15:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

While I don't think that inventors of perpetual motion machines are being knocked off, I think you could fairly say that big oil and big coal are using their political and financial muscle to keep things business as usual for as long as possible, so in that sense they are suppressing "certain renewable technologies (such as solar cells and biofuels) and other efficient technologies (as electric vehicles)". New technologies don't cause breakdowns of the overall economy - quite the opposite in fact - but they can threaten the business models of existing companies. FiggyBee (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Free energy would not cause the complete collapse of the world economy, but it would cause a massive upheaval. A large number of businesses would suddenly become much smaller. There would still be scarce resources on which to base the economy, though. The most obvious one is man-hours. There are plenty of things which need a person to spend time on them, however much energy you have available. --Tango (talk) 17:54, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

If the government is providing something, it is not "free", it's coming from tax dollars. The more goods and services the government provides, the higher your taxes are. I wish I knew where anyone gets this idea that something coming from the government is "free". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

In this thread, "free" is being used in the context of the Free energy suppression article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I understand that. And it's a delusion. Everything has a cost. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, If I were going to try to explain it to someone else, I would say that if Free Energy was available, it would/can cause the oil and coal industries to collaspe, put millions out of a job because of this and the demand for human labor would be de-valued and decrease. However, as with the free software, it can cause massive productivity in other areas of the economy(?) thus evening itself out eventually? Please correct my mistakes. --Reticuli88 (talk) 20:13, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Petroleum is an incredibly useful product, even beyond its use as a fuel. In fact, given the things that can be done with it (making plastics especially, as well as lubricants and tar) it's really pretty shameful that we burn most of it.

Well, that is why refineries take out the tar and lubricants from the raw oil. Those things don't burn so well anyways. Googlemeister (talk) 14:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

And even with free energy, it may not be of a type easily used to fly a plane, for example. This free energy machine would likely be used to make electricity to distribute over the grid. This would certainly deal a huge blow to coal, but oil isn't used much to generate electricity. It's mostly used as a fuel where it's not convenient to carry around a massive battery or nuclear reactor or steam engine or whatever. Buddy431 (talk) 04:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Go back through this entire thread and substitute "air" for "energy." The results are quite different. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting thought experiment, indeed! It's like holding banknotes under an ultraviolet light; you can see differences in the arguments that are not so easy to see normally. One argument even invites this replacement with the word "everything":

It's a delusion that air is free. Everything has a cost.

This is true; anyone who has heard about air pollution knows the cost. But it's quite a different thing, that's an external cost, which does not figure in the GDP, and not something industry lobbyists want to talk about. — Sebastian 07:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Dress code of wearing a veil

Can it - in some Muslim countries - be compared to the Western dress code of wearing a short skirt vs. long skirt? The article linked above do not provide detailed information. I know that in some countries, women are required to wear one. But what about more liberal Muslim countries like Jordan or Morocco? --Non Zero-sum Ed (talk) 18:39, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't have time to read through this, but we have an article on veils in Muslim culture: Niqāb. I would also like to remind you that there are far more liberal Muslim countries as well, like Bosnia and Albania where they practice an almost secular Islam. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Article List of types of sartorial hijab has problems, but provides a kind of overview. However, I'm not really sure what "Western dress code" you're referring to... AnonMoos (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in Hijab by country. From that article:

The hijab has different legal and cultural statuses in various countries. <...> Tunisia since 1981, and Turkey since 1997, are the only Muslim countries which have banned the hijab. In other Muslim states such as Morocco, there has been some restriction or discrimination against women who wear the hijab. The hijab in these cases is seen as a sign of political Islam or fundamentalism against secular government.

Islamic dress, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam in western Europe. In several countries this adherence to hijab has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban.<...> The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.

In that there are, in some countries, legal restrictions and requirements regarding hijab, it is unlike the length of skirts. However, I'm not quite sure what you mean by comparing the latter to a dress code. Skirts are not mandated by law anywhere I can think of, so are you thinking of school uniforms or a corporate explicit or implicit dress codes? With regard to fashion or individual choice, yes of course there are connections between what an individual wears and what she wishes to express. In Iran, for example, women are required to cover their hair, but some push back their chador. You mention two other countries, and the article above gives brief information:

Jordan: There are no laws requiring the wearing of headscarves nor any banning such from any public institution. The use of the headscarf increased during the 1980s, however the use of the headscarf among the Jordanian population stands at 60%. Veils covering the face are rare. The chador is worn by members of the older generations but its popularity is declining. It is widely believed that the hijab is increasingly becoming more of a fashion statement in Jordan than a religious one with Jordanian women wearing colorful, stylish head scarves along with western style clothing.

Morocco: The headscarf is not encouraged by governmental institutions, and generally frowned upon by urban middle and higher classes but it is not forbidden by law. The headscarf is becoming gradually more frequent in the north, but as it is not traditional, to wear one is considered rather a religious or political decision. In 2005, a schoolbook for basic religious education was heavily criticized for picturing female children with headscarfs.

NB the niqāb referred to above is a veil that covers the face; worldwide, only a small minority of Muslim women do this. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Midrash available in translation, online

Particularly interested in Midrash Rabba and Midrash Samuel... anyone know if they're available? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►constablewick─╢ 19:05, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Highly doubt it -- it may even be difficult to get such translations in print. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 01:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I've found some CD-Roms of it for sale (produced by the same people who created this and do this), but they're for hundreds of dollars... :( ╟─TreasuryTag►voice vote─╢ 06:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

School Project.

My godson is doing a project about currency at school.

He needs to know what the old Spanish Ducat is worth in todays English Pounds.

Please could you help. ?

Thanking you in anticipation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrs J C Depp II (talk • contribs) 19:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

See Ducat. A ducat contained 0.1107 oz (troy) of gold, which today (Feb 23 2010) is worth £79.15. According to our article, a ducat was equivalent to 9/4 in 1913, which (depending on which measure of inflation you use) would equate to approx £38 today. Tevildo (talk) 19:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

...which would mean that the currency is/was worth less than the material it was made of? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 15:41, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but only because the (relative) price of gold has increased a great deal over the past 97 years. According to [6] this site, 1 oz of gold was worth £3/17/10 in 1913, making the intrinsic value of a ducat only 5/3½ back then. Tevildo (talk) 20:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Arabic surnames

is there a website where it shows the Arabic names that identifies his/her nationality or religion for example a) Arabic surnames-pure Lebanese? b) Arabic surnames-pure Egyptian? c) Arabic surnames-pure Saudi Arabian? d) Arabic surnames-pure Emirati? e) Arabic surnames-pure Kuwaiti? f) Arabic surnames-pure Qatari? g) Arabic surnames-pure Omani? h) Arabic surnames-pure Yemeni? i) Arabic surnames-pure Syrian? j) Arabic surnames-pure Iraqi? k) Arabic surnames-pure Jordanian? l) Arabic surnames-pure Palestinian? m) Arabic surnames-pure Libyan? n) Arabic surnames-pure Moroccan? o) Arabic surnames-pure Algerian? p) Arabic surnames-pure Tunisian? q) Arabic surnames-pure Sudanese? r) Arabic surnames-pure Mauritanian? s) Arabic surnames-pure Bahraini? t) Arabic surnames-pure Comorian? u) Arabic surnames-pure Sunni Muslim? v) Arabic surnames-pure Shi'a Muslim? x) Arabic surnames-pure Christian? y) Arabic surnames-pure Druze? z) Arabic surnames-pure alawites? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.53.96 (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Some things to be aware of are that traditionally, and I'm no expert on this, what Europeans call surnames didn't really exist in exactly the same form in the Arabic-speaking world and many parts of the Islamic world; some surnames are shared across multiple countries; and there same underlying proper noun could be pronounced differently (hence transcribed into the Roman alphabet differently) even if written identically in the Arabic alphabet.--Dpr (talk) 23:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The "purity" you seem to be looking for probably simply doesn't exist in the majority of cases. There are a lot of non-Egyptians named مصري etc. (though there may be few Muslims named صليبي). -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:10, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

possibly offensive question -- don't read if easily offended: Does slavery make business sense?

forgetting the ethical/legal aspect of it, insofar as it is possible for a company to get away with actual slavery and not be fined/not have the public find out and punish them, does it actually make sense, from a strictly business/financial/economic/monetary/fiscal perspective, to practice slavery? Or, on the contrary, did slave-owners in the past thereby show business ignorance, since it didn't actually make business sense for them to do that? (Obviously there is a third alternative: that it made business sense then, but not anymore. I'm open to this possibility as well).

Thank you for an economic wisdom you have. I apologize for anyone who might be offended by this question; obviously it is morally repugnant. I am asking purely from a business perspective. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.153.231.223 (talk) 20:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Going to Google Scholar and looking for slavery profitability yields many books on the subject. Most are unfortunately behind paywalls. It appears that the question was hotly debated in the US before the Civil War (and, apparently, ever since). Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:34, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Sure, of course it used to make loads of business sense for people with more avarice than compassion. Vranak (talk) 20:38, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Slavery still exists. Where it does exist, it is profitable (or it wouldn't exist). Even child slavery is profitable. If you toss out ethics and legality, you can make just about anything profitable. -- kainaw™ 20:41, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, I should point out that, should you begin operating a slave system, the potential penaltes are way more severe than "being fined/have the public find out" – ╟─TreasuryTag►draftsman─╢ 20:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It has been argued that slavery in Dixie would not have been profitable if the owners had to pay the full costs of enforcement; it was subsidized by taxes (I'm not aware of any tax on slaves to support enforcement) and by drafting poor whites into slave patrols (as militia duty). —Tamfang (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

It is not a priori obvious that slavery is more profitable than all other labor situations. For example, if you have to feed, clothe, and provide medical care to your slaves, that can be rather expensive. If buying slaves itself is expensive (as it was in the U.S. South once the trade had ended), then the individual slave becomes a target of high investment. Depending on the work, educating an individual slave to perform the required tasks is also resource intensive. Now take into account that once you have invested your resources into a slave, you can't actually just make arbitrary demands of them, and injuring or killing them is equivalent to attacking your farm machinery. Kenneth Stampp's The Peculiar Institution (1956) devotes a lot of time to this particular issue. Even if you do the bare minimum, and treat your slaves quite poorly (which Stampp argues was done, mind you), it is still a considerable economic investment, and would require a high output to be profitable. (That is, it is not "just profit" simply because you aren't paying wages.)

Contrast this sort of high-investment slavery with, say, low-investment Taylorism, where you have a large, unskilled labor force that you don't have to care for at all, and who require little to no training. (Or compare it to, say, the kinds of systems that exist with illegal farm labor—where you are not even paying into government programs, have labor that is basically expendable, and can pay well under the minimum wage.) There is a long debate about whether the economics of slavery in the South would have dictated its collapse within a few decades no matter what had happened in the Civil War, because it only really worked for the particular industry of cotton, and would not have been adaptable to mass-production or factory work. In many ways, a better way to think about this is, "under what economic conditions is slavery profitable?", which is a somewhat different question. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:45, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

the other issue to be considered is relative profitability. Even if a particular system of slavery is profitable, it is likely more profitable (for everyone) to educate the slaves and release them into the workforce as free agents. part of the rationale behind chattel slavery was that the slaves in question were mentally/morally incapable of establishing themselves as free/equal participants in society. Without that assertion, any rational business owner would recognize that it's more cost effective to hire willing participants in an enterprise than to force unwilling participants. --Ludwigs2 22:08, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would think slavery is less profitable than animal husbandry. (i know the comparison is offensive but that's the closest. Domestication of animals for work, like the oxen and horse can be likened to slavery. For one, you cannot consume the slave as food (assuming we still consider cannabalism as immoral), and it's harder to breed human slaves (assuming they have the conscience to resist or sabotage breeding efforts). As you can see the main difference is that humans have conscience and will probably resist and cause all kinds of problems. --Kvasir (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Additionally humans have very long development cycles. It takes a lot more time, energy, and other resources to turn a baby into a working human. A cow, by contrast, is pretty much grown by the age of three. Humans are maybe the most difficult animal you could imagine trying to treat in this way, both for their long and difficult development periods and their general intelligence. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It takes a lot more time, energy, and other resources to turn a baby into a working human - wow, Pablo Picasso had completely the opposite viewpoint: It takes a long time to become young. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem with slavery is that you aren't paying your workers enough to buy the stuff you are making. In the long run all businesses benefit from a wealthy population who demand more and more goods as their real income rises203.214.82.99 (talk) 11:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Then why do businessmen fight minimum-wage laws? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's rubbish. How can a firm survive by selling mostly to its own employees? It has to buy supplies too. Put another way, if you pay your labor less, you pay your stockholders more; the total amount that the population can spend is the same. —Tamfang (talk) 22:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Looking only at the economies of a morally repugnant system: The slaves on an antebellum farm or plantation were often more valuable than the owner's house and all its furnishings, and likely more valuable than the entire property. A 19th century book on slavery economy (I do not have it handy) went through long analyses of the economies of slavery and compared the cost and productivity of slaves to that of hired hands doing the same work, and compare it to indentured servants. One problem with a hired hand or an indentured servant(after his term of service was up) is that he would likely try to go into competition, driving down profits. Much of slavery (as on cane plantations "down the river") was a wanton using up of the health and life of the slave, but in other situations the owners took the long view and sought to keep them productive and healthy. Incentive payment was common, wherein the slave got some money to keep, and had the possibility (in theory)of buying his own and his family's freedom eventually (more likely if he was a highly skilled worker rather than simply a laborer). This was a common but confusing practice, since slaves had no right to own any property, not even the money they were given. I expect that if an owner seized the money he had given the slave, he would be likely to get his house set on fire or his throat cut, if the slave was around to do it. The owner would be giving up some money (and a reduced period of forced labor, if freedom were eventually purchased) in exchange for higher productivity [7]. The OP noted that slave owners were subsidized by the public expense of enforcing the slavery (patrols, etc) and states that they did not pay property tax on the slaves. The part about not paying a tax on the slaves is plain wrong, since there were taxes when they were sold, licensing fees for skilled slaves, and ad valorem or poll taxes on slaves [8]. Now consider the free workers in California described in The Grapes of Wrath, which was largely based on problems actually seen in the 1930's. The owners of farms in California advertised and brought in more workers than were needed, so that they could drive down wages to less than a living wage, with no worries about having enough pickers if the picker or his children starved. Law enforcement was there for crowd control and to beat up strikers or organizers, apparently at public expense. Edison (talk) 15:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There is strong circumstantial evidence that slavery is not profitable in the modern world. Not only is slavery illegal throughout the world, but it also is almost completely nonexistent, with two exceptions. First, sex slavery continues to exist. There apparently are special considerations here that do not apply to slavery more generally. Second, in a few countries, primarily in Africa, de facto traditional slavery persists. These, however, are countries that have relatively minimal participation in the modern economy. If slavery were profitable, one would expect it to be found more widely, even in the face of legal prohibitions.

De Tocqueville's discussion of slavery in Democracy in America suggests that slave states were at an economic disadvantage to free states. He contrasted the prosperity of Ohio with the relatively less prosperous state of Kentucky, just across the Ohio River. He implied that slaveowners supported slavery not for its economic benefits, but because they preferred a slave-owning society. John M Baker (talk) 17:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

"O come, let's sing Ohio's praise...". Nyttend (talk) 03:26, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A fell 5% with respect to C, B fell 4% with respect to C, does it mean that B gained with respect to A?

today's wall street journal mentioned that the euro fell 5% with respect to the US dollar, then it mentioned that the pound sterling fell 4% with respect to the US dollar, then it mentioned that the pound, however, rose modestly with respect to the euro. My question is: doesn't this third thing follow?

I'm not quite seeing the relationships clearly, though, so maybe it could be that the euro falls 5% with respect to the dollar, the pound falls 4% with respect to the dollar, but that the pound also falls with respect to the euro. is this possible somehow? It's hard for me to actually picture the equations, since I don't know what "value" really means. can someone explain which alternative is correct in a way I can understand? thank you. 84.153.231.223 (talk) 21:24, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think that if B falls less than A in percentage terms with respect to C, then B inevitably rises with respect to A. Probably the news report reported the latter change, even though it follows from the previous set of changes, just to spare readers the need to do mental algebra. Marco polo (talk) 21:40, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

... and just to put numbers to the logic, imagine one starts with $100 worth each of € and £. After the falls, the euros are worth $95 and the pounds are worth $96, so the pounds are worth 96/95 times as many euros as before. This is a rise of just over 1% (actually about 1.052631579%) (FWIW). If, for some technical reason, this balance is not quite achieved across the various markets, then someone like George Sorros will make a lot of money! Dbfirs 22:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

can you give me an example of how for technical reasons the balance could not be achieved? ie an hypothetical (albeit arbitrage inducing) situation where it would work in the other way? (the pound also falling with respect to the euro?) Or, do you just mean the caveat you adding starting with "if, for some technical reason..." as a way of saying that you haven't thought it out in full rigor either, but it couldn't happen anyway? Thanks. 84.153.231.223 (talk) 22:18, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no example. It's mathematically impossible. The illusion of it occurring might result if the valuations were "fixed" at different points during the same day, so that someone could report, "Today the pound rose against the dollar by 2%, the euro rose against the dollar by 1%, and the euro rose against the pound by 3%." That is, the reporter might fix the values at 6 AM, 12 noon, and 6 PM local time, with this semantic result. But the values float constantly, so they are never truly "fixed." At any given moment, relative to a specific past moment, there's no example for wht you describe because it's impossible. 63.17.89.64 (talk) 01:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As you say, it can't happen with floating currencies. It can happen with fixed currencies. Dbfirs was making a reference to Black Wednesday, when the British government attempted to keep the pound fixed at an unrealistic value creating what was essentially an arbitrage. Soros used that arbitrage to make an enormous amount of money at the British government's expense. (I am, of course, massively simplifying the situation, but you get the idea.) --Tango (talk) 01:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't get back to give my own answer, and thanks to Tango for explaining. No, I didn't intend to imply that, with modern communication, a significant imbalance between currencies could exist for more than a few micro-seconds. In earlier (slower) times, I think there were people who made lots of money by watching discrepancies between currency conversions on different exchanges. These days it could only happen in a financial crisis with a breakdown of communications. Dbfirs 11:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Instinctively, we tend to think of exchange rates as being two sides of a traditional scale—two dishes on either side, and if one is heavier, the other rises. Now, think of the same model, but with three (or thirty) different dishes. When several are influenced at the same time, the results may be irregular. Hence, the dollar may rise against the euro, fall against the yen and remain stable vis-à-vis the renminbi.

Yes, that happens regularly, but for floating currencies with a free market, this implies a specific movement of the euro against the yen (and the yuan/renminbi), otherwise someone will make a fortune just by circular trading. Dbfirs 08:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

February 24

british royal family

Are there any women in the british royal family (current or past) that are hot?

Princess Grace, AKA Grace Kelly? Oh wait, no, that's an imposter. So: no. 84.153.231.223 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC).

Princess Grace was not part of the British royal family but of the Monagasque family. --Kvasir (talk) 05:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Diana, Princess of Wales was generally considered to be physically attractive. --Tango (talk) 01:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As for the present, considering Forbes: The Hottest Young Royals of 2009 ranks Zara Phillips[9] third and Princess Beatrice of York[10] fifth, I'd have to say no. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

That list isn't based on attractiveness, according to their explanation. Woogee (talk) 21:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This is a question that calls for a subjective opinion, so 1) there is no correct or incorrect answer (that is, someone else might find either of those two young women, or some other female royal, attractive) and 2) the question isn't really suitable for the Reference Desk. Marco polo (talk) 02:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

British Royal Family has a photograph; you can judge for yourself. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth II probably gets quite warm every so often, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't sweat. --Dweller (talk) 16:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Right now its unlikely, given that it is the middle of winter here. 148.197.114.158 (talk) 18:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

But they wouldn't sweat anyway. Haven't you heard - animals sweat, men perspire, ladies glow. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The Countess of Wessex is rather attractive: [11] And Eugenie of York: [12] But they don't hold a candle to Princess Marie of Denmark: [13] Woogee (talk) 19:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you are really judging the slickness of the photo rather than what they actually look like. I used to collect different photos of the same person taken under different conditions and lighting: in one they would look glamourous, in others frumpy and wrinkly. 78.151.155.128 (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Princess Marie is British (as per OP's question). But if we're going to look at the Danes, Marie can't compare with Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark. Better pictures at her official page. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

QE II was considered attractive during her early reign. (The OP did asked current and past) [14] --Kvasir (talk) 22:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed; "I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die" said Robert Menzies. Whether this was genuine admiration or just sycophancy has been the subject of debate ever since. Also the Lady Diana "legs" photo caused a sensation at the time[15]. Alansplodge (talk) 13:31, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

By "sensation" you mean it was in the press a lot. Nobody did any polls on what the public thought or cared, if they did at all. Its wrong to confuse what the press and media say with the true opinion of the public. 78.151.155.128 (talk) 01:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

signed white house passes

I have White House memorabelia (documents) including signed passes by Eleanor Roosevelt. I would like to know how I would find out who I can contact to find out the value of these items and if any museum would be interested. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matts1gran (talk • contribs) 02:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes you can get an idea of value by looking for similar items on ebay. --Tango (talk) 02:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

For goods and services for which supply is equal to amount demanded, where do the signals for equilibrium come from?

Price of market balance:

P - price

Q - quantity of good

S - supply

D - demand

P0 - price of market balance

A - surplus of demand - when P<P0

B - surplus of supply - when P>P0

E.g. subscription services, digital downloads; things which don't have a surplus or shortage. Prosody (talk) 02:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at the illustration from economic equilibrium (right): The supply curve S may (in the extreme case of a digital download) be independent of the quantity Q (which means it will coincide with the blue curve for P0). But the demand curve remains dependent of Q, so they will intersect somewhere. The difference is that that intersection will only determine the traded quantity Q0, since the price P0 has been determined by the supplier. You may ask: How does the supplier determine the price? There are many factors including the supplier's assessment of the market and overall strategy. A supplier may even decide to give the product away for free, if that has strategic advantages. — Sebastian 05:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The normal supply and demand diagram is probably misleading here. For a good that can be produced with very little cost per unit (marginal cost) supply is going to be very flat, but almost certainly not zero. Marginal costs still exist in these circumstances and marginal cost is the defining factor of supply. Are businesses really able to supply an infinite amount of digital downloads or a subscription service at no cost? Of course not. Even though there is not some natural limit to this resource, natural limits are not the reason the supply and demand model works. See marginal cost, diminishing returns and supply and demand. Remember that supply and demand are NOT figures, they are relationships between price and quantity. That is, at a given price how much of this item is demanded or how much of this item are firms willing to provide]]203.214.82.99 (talk) 11:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You are right that the validity of this diagram doesn't go to infinity, but that is beside the point. The original question was specifically about the case where businesses are able to supply the demand. So there's no need to worry about marginal cost and diminishing returns. — Sebastian 15:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the question assumes something that is impossible. However, even if it were possible for a firm to provide a truly infinite quantity of product at constant and finite marginal cost (and assuming no consumer satiation), that doesn't mean that there won't be a surplus or shortage. For example, suppose a firm could provide an infinite number of digital downloads at a constant per unit cost of $0.01. Assuming a competitive environment, market forces would push the price to $0.01 per download. If the price were higher than $0.01, consumer demand would be less than infinite and so a surplus would result. If the price were lower than $0.01, the firm would have incentive to produce zero units and a shortage would result. One has to shoe-horn an answer to the question because the question assumes a lot of things that can't be true. Wikiant (talk) 15:58, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Why do people keep reading untrue assumptions into this question? This question has nothing to do with "infinity", and it certainly does not "assume a lot of things that can't be true". It's just about the case where higher demand does not increase the cost for the supplier. That case exists, and you don't have to make any untrue assumptions. Just look at any webstore: There is a range of demand (up to the webstore's bandwidth) that will make no difference in cost to the supplier. That's what the question is about. — Sebastian 17:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

When you said the, "supply curve will coincide with the blue line P0" you implied that the quantity supplied can be infinite. In fact, when you pick a slope (any slope) for a demand or supply curve, you introduce assumptions (sometimes a lot of them). For example, by drawing the blue line to be horizontal, you have (by definition) assumed that the marginal cost is constant *at all levels of output*. This is simply impossible. It may be approximately true over a limited range of inputs, but your question suggests that what you want to know is what happens when the assumption is absolutely true. Wikiant (talk) 18:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be confusing me with the OP; this was not my question. And please stop putting wrong assumptions and implications into other people's words. Two curves can very well coincide in a range without being identical beyond that range. I already made it abundantly clear that this question applies within a range, and that it is not relevant to worry about infinity. I'm tired of reading the same irrelevant complication over and over again, and I will not waste my time replying to your posts anymore, unless you have something constructive to contribute. — Sebastian 18:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be a bit of confusion here about what demand and supply actually are. Supply is a relationship between price and quantity, that is at a given price, how much will the market be willing to supply. The supplier of any good must pay some price to supply it. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. In regular situations the more of something you supply, the more it costs so you have an upward sloping supply curve (see law of diminishing returns. But it is conceivable that some good might have a fixed per unit cost to produce. Digital download sites pay for bandwidth and labor and the inevitable helpdesk inquiries that come with any service. If you could really do something with ZERO marginal costs then it would be supplied endlessly to almost the entire world's population for a price very close to zero. I suppose that is the answer to the OPs question. But the point is there is no good in the real world that exhibits that characteristic.203.217.33.23 (talk) 12:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation

who is the owner of Wikimedia Foundation? is it possible to purchase this organization? will wales sell it if he is offered a large sum of money, say $20 million or more? --Groped (talk) 03:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation is a charity, it doesn't have an owner. --Tango (talk) 03:34, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Nobody wins if there are more than 3 candidates

by any chance, do you know of the law that states that in case there are more than two candidates standing in elections; The candidate who wins is the first choice of a minority. I always knew that by Arrow's Law. But now i am searching, i cannot find it. Even there are no entries in google. I'll appreciate if you can just drop a blank message on my talkpage just to remind me that an answer has been posted. —  Hamza  ^{[ talk ]} 04:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There is no such law; it's not correct. It's entirely possible to have an election where one candidate is seen by a large fraction of the voters as the obvious choice, and anyone running against them is just a fringe candidate who will never attract many votes. Here's one real-life example where there were 26 candidates and the winner got 79.96% of all the votes. --Anonymous, 05:18 UTC, February 24, 2010.

I don't understand the question. There can be more than two candidates in the first run, but the second run is only for the top two candidates. Or did you mean in case there was a draw for second and third spot in the first run? And what "minority" is the one that decides, according to you? An ethnic minority? Some other kind of minority? TomorrowTime (talk) 09:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It depends on the electoral system. While many of the world's elections are done with a two-round system, others are decided by first past the post (where the person who gets the most votes in a single ballot wins), or preferential voting as we have here in Australia, where a single ballot elects the person that a majority would prefer, but not necessarily a person who is the majority's first choice. FiggyBee (talk) 10:47, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

In the USA, it varies from state to state. Some states require a run-off if no candidate gets a majority. In Minnesota that is not the case, which is how less-than-50-percent elected Jesse Ventura and Al Franken to Governor and Senator respectively. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not an actual law of course, it's a maxim (making it more like Murphy's Law than the Bill of Rights. As soon as there are three candidates in an election it is likely that none will be the first choice of 50% of the electorate, and that "most people would have preferred someone else rather than the person eventually elected". Essentially that makes it a statement about how elections are always compromises. Incidentally only having two candidates doesn't mean the victor is the first choice of most - in the US Presidential elections for example lots of people's 'first choice' may have been eliminated in the primaries. DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

When was the last Presidential election in which there were only two candidates, DJ? In the 2008 election there were 24, although some of them were only on the ballot in one state. FiggyBee (talk) 15:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

In the U.S., it seems to have been United States presidential election, 1868 ("Others" took 46 votes across the country - probably write-in candidates?) Warofdreams talk 13:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but the top two got 98.6% of the popular vote, so we can essentially ignore the also-rans. --Tango (talk) 16:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Voting is often a "lesser of two evils", which can give an alternative candidate a chance to determine the outcome by drawing votes away - as with Clinton (both times) and the help he got from Perot. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Clinton got help from Perot? Our article on Perot says he took support from Bush and Clinton roughly equally (in 1992, it doesn't say much about 1996). --Tango (talk) 01:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

boiler explosion memorial fund

Has there been a memorial fund to help the victims of the SS Norway boiler explosion?24.90.204.234 (talk) 05:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes. If you search through 2003 news archives, you will see that the fund was claimed to be mismanaged and recipient amounts disputed. -- kainaw™ 06:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I found it. But there's a problem. I have to purchase the whole article. How can I read it without purchase?24.90.204.234 (talk) 06:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

See if your local library will get it for you. Library loans are free.

Future president quote

Which U.S precident Said in his child hood that " I will become a great Precident of U.S? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Senpri 7 (talk • contribs) 07:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• You might be thinking of a letter John F Kennedy wrote to a then-high-schooler named Bill Clinton, in which he passed out advice for aspiring future Presidents and ended with the words "No one can guarantee that if you follow this or any other advice you will become a great President. [...] But if you work towards your goal, practice discipline and unremitting effort [...] then, if some chance keeps you from the Presidency, you will still know that you are prepared to serve your nation well as a citizen." I can't find any other references to the words "will become a great president" being said in connection with the childhood of a future president. - DustFormsWords (talk) 07:39, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... you may have misread the article, Dust, or at least be misrepresenting it. President Kennedy wrote a magazine article in which he gave advice to "youngsters like Clinton"; he didn't write a letter directly to the teenage Bill. FiggyBee (talk) 11:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia statistics

Is there any way or any tool to know wikipedia statistics? I want to know the following:

1. Total number of stubs in wikipedia and the percentage of stubs out of all articles
2. Total number of post-start class articles (i.e. c-class, b-class and above) and their percentage
3. Average number of articles created per day
4. Per this, there are 11,743,717 registered users and 160,976 active users (they performs 1 edit in past 30 days). I want to know, among them, how many highly active editors are there (say they have more than 500 edits per month)?
5. Is there any way/any study to know the latest breakdown of wikipedia contents, i.e. % of social science articles, % of medicine related articles, % of video game related articles, % of history articles, % of US related articles, % of Brazil related articles etc
6. Is there any study on the demographics of wikipedia editors? --Qoklp (talk) 11:53, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, those have all been studied. You might get better answers at Wikipedia talk:Statistics and WP:VP. 99.191.75.124 (talk) 13:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ellis Island passenger records

Hi guys. I'm doing a bit of family research and was wondering if someone could decypher a record on an Ellis Island ship manifest. The document is here. The passenger is #27 (Minnie Duhig), which is second from the bottom. I can't really make out what column 18 says. It's something about joining her sister (Miss K Duhig), but a couple of addresses are scribbled in – one below (and struck out) and one to the left – I'd very much like to know what they are. Thanks in advance. matt (talk) 13:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The unstruck one looks like "783 Ely Ave Astoria" to me, and the struck one could say "135 W77th St" (which is in central Manhattan), but I wouldn't put money on it. FiggyBee (talk) 13:36, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

(after ec) Now here's a thing. I can see the part of FiggyBee's answer that says "135 W77th St" in the Edit window, but not on the actual WP page. Curious. (fixed - how weird...) Anyway I agree with that part of the address but haven't a clue what follows - maybe a native New Yorker can have a go? --TammyMoet (talk) 13:50, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think, comparing it to what that hand has written elsewhere on the page, it's "135 W77th St New York". Compare entry 22. FiggyBee (talk) 13:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC) and as for not seeing my reply, I often come back and rewrite stuff, so it was probably just a caching issue. FiggyBee (talk) 14:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

BTW, off-topic, I love that form! "Whether a Polygamist", "Whether an Anarchist"... I guess the "I am not a terrorist" box they make you check on the I-94 card is no new thing. :) FiggyBee (talk) 14:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, not that off-topic! The person on the manifest is (was) my great-great aunt, who was packed off to the US around the time of the Easter Rising in 1916. I don't know whether she was involved in any way, but it has been suggested that the family wanted her a long way away for her own safety! matt (talk) 14:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks all for your help on this. Turns out I stayed in a hotel 300 metres from 135 W77th St in 2005, which is a bit creepy – I definitely walked past the building. As for 783 Ely Ave – forgive me if I'm wrong, but this seems to suggest that Ely Ave is another name for 23rd St. I don't know much anything about building numbering systems in the US, but Google Earth's numbering is pretty erratic. matt (talk) 14:45, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It is pretty common for U.S. cities to change the name of a street to honor some individual, and later when they want to honor someone else, to change it again. Edison (talk) 14:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a subway station called 23rd St - Ely Ave. Our article confusingly says it's "at the intersection of 23rd Street, Ely Avenue, and 44th Drive in Queens", but everything else I can find seems to indicate that 23rd St and Ely Ave are synonymous. Forgotten NY] has some more information and photographic evidence. --LarryMac | Talk 16:13, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Straying even farther off-topic: I was reminded by "Whether an Anarchist" of the absolutely marvelous short story "Ellis Island" by Mark Helprin, in which being identified as an anarchist at EI figures. Read it, everyone! And God bless the bee! Deor (talk) 21:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This is an interesting document and website. Unfortunately, the "Manifest Enlarger" still isn't enlarging it enough for me to decipher columns 19 and 22. Column 19 seems to begin with "Ever in prison or almhouse ..." and ends with "... or supported by charity. If so, which?". And what does it mean when lines are crossed out? — Sebastian 15:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

From what I can make out (with my head cocked sideways), column 19 says "Ever been in prison or almshouse, or institution for care and treatment of ???, or supported by charity: If so, which?". Column 22 is more difficult: "Whether coming by ??? of any offer, ???tation, promise(?), or agreement, express or ??, to labor in the United States". matt (talk) 16:04, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Googling what I could make out of column 22 ("Whether coming by reason of any offer") I got to [16]: "Ever in prison or almhouse or institution for care and treatment of the insane or supported by charity? If so, which?", and "Whether coming by reason of any offer, solicitation, promise, or agreement, expressed or implied, to labor in the United States". FiggyBee (talk) 16:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Cheat! :) matt (talk) 16:06, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! And what do the crossed out lines mean? — Sebastian 16:30, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Right, I'm stumped by the building numbering system. The manifest almost certainly says 783 Ely Ave, Astoria. House numbering#United States and Canada states that "...in Queens, New York City, a so-called "Philadelphia Plan" uses a dash to separate the cross street number from the rest of the house number, as in 34-55 107th Street...". Does anyone know how 783 would fit into this? I've been whooshing around in Google Earth/Street View, but am not really sure where to start! matt (talk) 19:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Just guessing, but maybe the street numbering system changed when they changed the street names in 1916 (as noted in the Forgotten NY link above). Using Google Maps, I could only find a 783 23rd Avenue. --LarryMac | Talk 20:08, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The manifest reads "Astoria, L.I." (the L.I. standing for Long Island, NY). Astoria was a part of the independent municipality of Long Island City, NY until 1899 when it was incorporated into New York City. It seems likely that this is when Manhattan's numbered street grid was applied to Astoria. This site suggests Ely Avenue did indeed become 23rd Avenue. —D. Monack ^talk 00:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Manhattan's numbered street grid is only used in Manhattan and partially in the Bronx; the Astoria grid is entirely separate. I would expect the "Philadelphia Plan" numbers to only occur where numbered cross streets exist, so if named streets were converted to numbered ones, the building numbers might have been changed at the same time; but I don't know anything specific about that. --Anonymous, 04:08 UTC, February 25, 2010.

Bully = gang with one person in it?

Would it be true to say that a bully shows the same mind set and behaviour as a street gang member, perhaps a street gang leader, except there is only one person in their gang (at least to start with)? Regarding gangs, I'm thinking about the milder kind of street youth gang that you could get in the UK, without the recognition signals or membership signs of the classic gang as seen in American movies. Thanks. 89.242.101.23 (talk) 13:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Doubtful. Peer pressure and/or identification with a peer group are/is presumably defining characteristics of gang members. A solo bully may share some of the sociopathic behaviour of a sociopathic gang member, but would not appear to be seeking identification with a peer group. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

So if you seperate off the fact that the bully is not in a gang then you're saying yes, they share the same sociopathic behaviour. 78.151.158.68 (talk) 22:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

The defining characteristic of a gang is that it's a gang. Individual gang members may or may not be sociopathic. Once you strip out the gang part, it is not a gang, by definition. it is meaningless to say that a bully is like a gang that's not a gang. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think first and foremost, a bully is very lonely. They would rather have a sadistic relationship with their mark than no relationship at all. Vranak (talk) 04:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Heh, that reminds me of Stephen Fry's alleged anti-bullying technique as a teenager; he would say "Oh, don't hit me, I'll only get an erection". FiggyBee (talk) 04:34, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The bullies at my school used to go around in gangs - safety in numbers I suppose. In my experience, it was usually the one being bullied who was alone. Isn't "gang" the collective noun for a number of bullies? Alansplodge (talk) 13:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah but all the bullies are such louts that they can find no comfort in each other's company. They go after the sensitive guys because they have actual feelings, which the bullies envy. Vranak (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this. Bullies are like a seed of a gang. They characteristicly like to humiliate a victim in front of others - this is building a gang, where the victim is "them" and the others are "us". So I think there is a lot of truth in it. 78.146.70.111 (talk) 14:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Bullying is a social dominance issue: bullies are only comfortable when there's an enforced social hierarchy (everyone is 'in their place') because (like everyone) they get their sense of security by having an orderly, known environment, and the only way they know how to achieve that is by pushing people on obedience. Bullies (unless they are really close to the psychopathic edge) almost always have cliques, even if these aren't full fledged gangs - two or three people with the same dominance issues, with a strict internal order - but bullies do well in gangs, because gangs are very rigid about issues like hierarchy, loyalty, chain of command, obedience, and etc, and reward people emotionally for complying. Bullies often do well in the military as well, not because of the violence, but because the military is thoroughly hierarchical; bullies in the military often become the solidest of citizens. bullies don't do well in school environments, however. schools try to construct a social hierarchy based on achievement rather than on obedience, and that doesn't translate in to the 'social dominance' model. from a SD viewpoint, 'achievement' looks like 'insubordination' and suggests competition for status or position. in other words, a bully might pummel a geek because he thinks the geek is trying to 'look smart' and push himself up in the social order (and consequently needs to be beaten back down a bit), and will have a hard time understanding why the school system objects to his efforts to maintain established order and instead supports weak, smart-ass types. --Ludwigs2 15:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting paragraph, matches my observations of bullies. Did you learn this from a textbook please, I'd be interested to read it? 78.147.93.182 (talk) 20:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

not directly - it's tangentially related to my academic discipline, so I've read around the issue a lot. The social dominance stuff isn't difficult to find - start with the (dated, but still interesting) work on the "Authoritarian Personality" and work your way forward through more recent work in social psychology. you can also find it in some of the sociological work on the "Cycle of Violence" or other research on victims who replicate the behavior of abusers - scholars who handle that sensitively usually point to expected environmental norms rather than mere learned behavior. --Ludwigs2 22:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Economics of Treasury Consumers Bill of Rights

What would the aggregate economic effect be if this Treasury Consumers Bill of Rights were enacted? 99.191.75.124 (talk) 13:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

None. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:43, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What makes you say that? 99.191.75.124 (talk) 16:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

He says that because it would take months of review by skilled economists to answer the question, and anybody here who has the skill to tackle this problem will surely have no interest in doing an economic review of an extremely vague idea that has a 0% chance of being considered by any legislative body. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Not to mention raising straw men and failing to knock even those worthies aside. What next, a line-item veto on "waste, fraud and corruption" ? DOR (HK) (talk) 05:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's intended as legislation. It is a collection of political statements set out and worded vaguely like the US bill of rights but without any real thought for their potential legal effect.--203.217.33.23 (talk) 12:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

What powers does an Associate of ILEX hold?

If someone has passed their level 3 diploma in law (or under the new terms is an Associate of Ilex) what duties can they carry out in the work place? I can find out lots of information about a level 6 or "graduate" job but nothing about level 3. Can they see Clients? Can they fee earn? Any help would be appreciated very much!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.54.254.158 (talk) 16:52, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Presumably the ILEX you refer to isn't Holly. It might be the Institute of Legal Executives, but I'm guessing it's probably the International Legal Exchange Program. Unfortunately we don't seem to have an article about that. --ColinFine (talk) 19:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm certain it's Institute of Legal Executives, because of the reference to the Level 3 Diploma. Some information in Legal executive. It doesn't look like an associate can do a great deal in their own right. But under supervision they can do a lot of the routine work that every solicitor's office has. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

How do I run for THE GOV in The 2010 Gubernatorial California Elections?

Something like www.thegov.ca.gov. Lets talk about starting a Website for Californian Voters--if you vote, you get a login and you can interact with the Governor of California online. (Non-Cali-voters can just view site.) Lets say I ran for office and had A CSPAN-like internet channel showing a livefeed with chat window on the side. w/Video Conferencing. Where the Voters decide what THE GOV does. Is it too late to get on the primaries? --i am the kwisatz haderach (talk) 21:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Jerry Brown hasn't officially filed yet, so you still have time. The filing deadline is March 17, if you'r running as a party candidate, August 6 if you're running as an independent, so good luck. Woogee (talk) 21:27, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This PDF file lists all the requirements and what you have to do to run. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

You will have no means of knowing if a person voted or not. You also will not know who the person voted for. If that is a requirement for your plan, you have to go on faith that people are being honest when asked if they voted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kainaw (talk • contribs)

I assume the OP means "if you are eligible to vote you get a login". DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Why don't 1099-B forms just tell you what your capital gain/loss is? (U.S. tax question)

In the U.S., if you sell stock, your broker provides you with a 1099-B form showing your net proceeds (gross minus broker commission) from the sale. This information is also furnished to the IRS. However, you are not taxed on the amount that is reported on the 1099-B. Rather, you are taxed on any capital gain you may have received.

So why can't the 1099-B just tell you the amount of any capital gain or loss? The brokerage has all the information needed to calculate this. They know when you bought the stock and what you paid for it at the time, and they know when you sold it and what you sold it for.

Other income that is reported directly to the IRS on forms like W-2, 1099-DIV, etc., contain the correct amount that you have to pay taxes on. But the 1099-B is different. The IRS doesn't need to know your net proceeds on the stock sale. They just need to know whether the sale resulted in any capital gains or losses.

Thanks, The Hero of This Nation (talk) 23:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

or just ur cost basis

It seems like a good idea to me, too. Sometimes the broker doesn't know — like if you purchase stock at broker A, or you obtain the actual stock certificates, and hand them to broker B to handle — but in those cases they could just write "unknown" on the cost basis line or on the capital gain or ordinary income line. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The brokerage wouldn't know how much you paid for the securities if bought them from another brokerage and transferred them to the new account. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Which tax bracket are you in? Might make a difference as to whether the income is taxable or not . . . DOR (HK) (talk) 05:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Am not a tax accountant here, but consider this scenario. This year, you bought 100 shares of XYZ at $10 a share in January, and 100 shares of XYZ at $20 a share in April. You sell 100 shares at $30 a share in October. Now, you can pay capital gains on either $10 or $20 a share (or anywhere in between) this year depending on what the price the shares you bought was. Did you sell the ones that you bought for $10 (profit $20/per), or the ones you bought at $20 (profit $10/per). How is the stock guy supposed to know which specific shares you sold, especially if it is all done electronically? Googlemeister (talk) 14:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The question raised by the OP has also been considered by others. The Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 will require brokers when reporting the sale of securities to the IRS to include the customer's adjusted basis in the sold securities and to classify any gain or loss as longterm or short-term, and the IRS has proposed regulations to address that requirement. John M Baker (talk) 16:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

February 25

Crosscountry Skiing Cross

Is there nordic cross and skate skiing cross?174.3.99.176 (talk) 00:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you talking about cross-country skiing (a form of Nordic skiing) and tour skating? Gabbe (talk) 08:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the question is referring to "cross" as in snowboard cross and ski cross; these events are apparently inspired by motocross, which in turn is inspired by cross-country motorcycle racing, hence the "cross". As I never heard of the two winter events until a few days ago, I certainly have no comment on whether there are any others. --Anonymous, 08:50 UTC, February 25, 2010.

Do you mean Nordic classic style cross-country skiing, and Nordic freestyle cross-country skiing? The 4 x 10km relay (held yesterday in the Winter Olympics) had the first two legs skied in classic style [[17]], and the last two legs were in freestyle, otherwise known as Skate skiing [[18]]. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:41, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, ski cross and snowboard cross are events. Are there such events that use cross country skiing? And Xcountry is divided into nordic (or classic), which is where you use tracks, and free (this method is the same method used to get across flat land when on downhill skis)

So yes, my question is are there events for these 2 possibilities?174.3.99.176 (talk) 15:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm a little confused, but maybe if you look at ski-orienteering [[19]], Backcountry skiing [[20]]

or maybe the Loppet races [[21]] you will find what you're looking for. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

No, they don't exist as "Nordic Cross". However, there are "pursuit" races where at least part of the race involves racers trying to be first across the finish line. Most cross-country races (either classic or free/skate-style) are staggered start, and individually timed (like a time trial in cycling). It isn't always apparent to the crowd who the leader is, although late starters finishing before early starters are obviously doing well. In the pursuit, there is either a mass-start, and the first to cross the finish line is the winner. Or the race may be divided into two parts (eg. 15 km classic then 15 km free) with the first half run as a time trial. The winner of the first half is the first to start the second half, with other racers starting at times equal to the they are behind the leader. (At the current olympics, all pursuits, relays and sprints are run as a "mass-start, first-to-finish wins" race). Still, the nordic skiing pusuits are not run as snowboard or ski cross, where there is an initial qualifying round to determine the qualifiers and groupings for the play-offs, followed by small races of four competitors, with the top two in each advancing. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 17:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Just read your answer Flyguy which you posted while I was researching mine. Actually there are races which are formatted in the same way as the boarder/skier cross events: 2.5km sprints. We don't appear to have an article on this format! In the Winter Olympics, the men's event was won by Nikita Kriukov (RUS), and the women's by Marit Bjoergen (NOR). It can be either classic or freestyle: the Olympic one was in classic style. I wonder if this is what the OP is after? --TammyMoet (talk) 17:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm guess the OP means skate cross? Downhill skating does exist but it's not yet an Olympic sport. I'd imagine it could be developed into skate cross. --Kvasir (talk) 17:25, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the OP is referring to skate-skiing, also called free technique. Nordic skiing = cross-country skiing, which is raced both with classic and freestyle techniques. The OP is using "Nordic" to mean classic. -- Flyguy649 ^talk 17:33, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I just added detail to my response. We don't have a lot of detail on the format of the races. TammyMoet is correct. The Men's and women's sprints (and the team sprints) are run with qualifying and playoffs -- the closest to "Nordic Cross", but without the jumps.-- Flyguy649 ^talk 17:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

self-determination vs territorial claims

If the people living on the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar want their respective territories to remain territories of the United Kingdom, then what ethical right does Argentina and Spain have to continue to claim the territories? I know international relations and territorial claims are rarely based on morals or ethics, but how (and why) does, say, Argentina claim moral high ground over the Falklands row? Maybe they have been wronged historically, but pushing a claim that is opposed by the inhabitants of a territory seems grossly hypocritical for countries that claim to be democratic. --02:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The Reference Desk isn't a forum or a place to post opinion questions. Nyttend (talk) 03:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the question should be phrased as: What have the Argentinians said in response to the British argument that the Falklands should remain British because that's what the inhabitants want? (Same with Spain and Gibraltar.) Responses should be limited to examples or summaries of what the Argentinian and Spanish arguments are, not whether they are right or wrong. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The residents of the Falklands and Gibraltar are not a native population; they are, for the most part, immigrants or decendants of immigrants who have moved into the territory since the British occupation began, and have more of an allegiance to Britain than to the place they live (more so in the case of the Falklands than Gibraltar). Thus, we may feel that they have less right to self-determination than do, say, the population of Timor-Leste. An analogy; you have much stronger legal and moral rights to the house you live in if you've owned it and been paying the rates and taxes for 30 years, rather than if you're a squatter who moved in last week. FiggyBee (talk) 03:44, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

There was no native population in the Falklands in historical times. The current residents are the only ones to consider. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 04:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Is the Argentinian government or economy about to collapse again? That seems to be the usual trigger for their interest in the Falklands. DuncanHill (talk) 03:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
• By that argument, the US should revert to the native American Indians. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 04:10, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If you mean my argument, Stephan, then you've misunderstood me; I'm not saying that any given territory should be controlled by (descendants of) its native population. I'm saying that in case of a disputed territory, self-determination carries more weight if the population predates the dispute. FiggyBee (talk) 04:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is the Argentinian response to the question about the Falklands, taken from the website of the Ministry of Foreign Relations (my translation, with some dictionary help):

"The principle of self-determination is not applicable to the Question of the Malvinas Islands.

"The specificity of the Question of the Malvinas Islands is based on the fact that the United Kingdom occupied the islands by force in 1833, expelled their original population and did not allow them to return, violating Argentinian territorial integrity. The application of the principle of self-determination is then ruled out, as its exercise on the part of the inhabitants of the islands would cause the infringement of the national unity and territorial integrity of Argentina. In that respect, one may refer to Resolution 1514 (XV), "Declaration on the Achievement of Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples," which establishes in its sixth paragraph that "All intention leading to the total or partial rupture of national unity and territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations."

"In the Question of the Malvinas Islands the General Assembly of the UN recognized this doctrine -- of the application of the principle of territorial integrity by making reference to the interests and not to the desires of the people of the islands -- in its resolution 2065 (XX) of 1965, ratified later by other resolutions in (several resolutions listed here). All declare the existence of a dispute of sovereignty and reaffirm the invitation made in resolution 2065 (XX) to the parties (Argentina and the UK) to continue without delay the negotiations recommended by the Special Committee charted with examining the situation with respect to the application of the Declaration on the Independence of Colonial Countries and Peoples, with the aim of coming to a peaceful solution to the problem, having duly taken account of the dispositions and objectives of the Charter of the UN and of Resolution 1514 (XV), and also the interests of the population of the Malvinas Islands." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

A more nuanced history than the Argentine claims is shown in our article Re-establishment of British rule on the Falkland Islands. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And here is a Spanish primer on Gibraltar (in Spanish): [22]. The section on self-determination reads almost identical to the Argentinian argument about the Falklands, referencing the same UN resolutions mentioning territorial integrity and that only the "interests," not the "desires," of the population of a "colony" need be considered. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The first answer was the best one: The Reference Desk isn't a forum or a place to post opinion questions. Thanks, Nytend. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sanctions against the UK over Falklands conflict

Now, Argentina has gone to the UN over the Falklands issue. The UN has asked the UK to negotiate a lot of times, and the British never did it. Why can't the UN impose sanctions against the UK? --190.178.155.223 (talk) 03:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sanctions for what? DuncanHill (talk) 03:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

For disobeying the UN. :S. Lybia, Iran, have been sanctioned for disobeying. --SouthAmerican (talk) 03:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the history of the UN asking the UK to negotiate on this matter, but I do know that the UK is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and therefore has veto power on basically any important action that the UN could attempt to take against the UK. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

What's to negotiate about anyway? "Oh, you invaded a few years ago, we kicked you out, yes of course we'll talk to you about giving you what you tried to steal"? DuncanHill (talk) 03:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Some people think that's quite reasonable, but others disagree. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

This is really a flame bait question, and I hate to feed the troll. But I will give my answer to the question: outside of South America, few countries in the UN feel the Argentine sovereignty claims are stronger than the British ones. Further, it is Argentina that acted as the aggressor (under a military junta) in recent history, probably to its own detriment (the UK was "open to sovereignty talks" before that time, I doubt they will be again in the foreseeable future). Please see Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute, and History of the Falkland Islands. TastyCakes (talk) 07:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Also the alleged British invasion/occupation/ethnic cleansing of the Falklands (Argentina's justification for claiming the land) occurred in the 1830s. If Britain was found not to have the right to land they've held since 1833 (and claimed in the 17th century), then by the same logic large parts of Australia, the USA, Canada, New Zealand, etc, would have to be returned to their native populations; the same would also apply in many other parts of the world (parts of Russia, China, disputed border lands like Lorraine or Silesia, land Israel seized in 1947, etc), and you would have to ask how far back it goes - should Argentina be returned to its aboriginal population? This is why the UN tends to focus on contemporary acts of aggression rather than trying to correct actions in the distant past. --Normansmithy (talk) 11:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The whole notion of taking land by force and war, should be looked at for international law. Also the "Belgrano issue" needs looking at. Who has the right to the minerals? There is no doubt that Argintine waters come out to an extent from their coast, but where does it stop?

MacOfJesus (talk) 12:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Mineral exploitation is protected in the states EEZ, 200 miles from the baseline unless that intrudes on someone else EEZ in which case the boundary is at the median point.

Nothing to look at on the Belgrano issue, it was a conflict.

And the issue of using military force for territorial gain is covered in international law, members of the UN should use diplomatic means where they are available. The penalties for not doing that do depend very much on the relationships within the UNSC though.

ALR (talk) 12:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

By "notion of taking land by force and war", are you referring to Argentina or the UK? I also don't see what needs looking into regarding the Belgrano - seems fairly open and shut to me. TastyCakes (talk) 15:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, this is quite a complex issue, but I can try. Oil exploration inside one states Exclusive Economic Zone is permitted, so the issue appears to be where the boundaries of the respective EEZs are in this instance. Argentina claims the Falklands within their borders, so extending their baseline to include the islands, and pushing their EEZ out beyond them.

The Islands themselves are 300 miles from the Argentine mainland baseline so outside the EEZ that would be derived from that. The Islands at the moment are a British Sovereign territory so in the British view the EEZs of Argentina and FI abut one another about halfway between the islands and the mainland. That's essentially the position currently recognised by the UN although through a bit of a fudge that brings in a conservation zone, that allows Argentina to claim a significant amount of the South Atlantic, but not the areas around the islands themselves.

Sanctions are managed by the UN Security Council, a body that has little interest in the enforcement of maritime borders unless there is a military activity around breaching the agreements; an offensive action by Argentina for example, or a pre-emptive action by the UK. Neither are likely, the Argentine Armed Forces aren't militarily capable of unilateral action and a pre-emptive action would be counter-productive since there is no justification for it in international law.

There is a broader issue of self determination around sovereignty, and whether some historical lineage traced back over nearly two hundred years should trump the opinions of the current population.

The whole permits issue is potentially the trigger, all vessels have a right of innocent passage through Territorial waters, so Argentina can't legally enforce a requirement to apply for permits to transit, although they can impose a departure permit requirement on vessels in their port entry points.

ALR (talk) 12:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all sincerely for giving your well learned comments on this issue.

Someone asked re The Belgrano issue; which side am I on? This is precisely the very issue I am concerned with. Why see me on any side? For I'm not in any side. The needless loss of life in the Belgrano and a "sitting-duck" syndrome was in my mind. It is the conflict issues that are of concern. And then the loss of life!

Once again, thank you to all who came in to talk on these issues.

MacOfJesus (talk) 17:29, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that if Argentina wants to claim their right to the Falkland islands because of early 19th century claims, shouldn't they be willing to give the land they currently occupy back to the Diaguita, Guaraní and Tehuelches? But then, I guess consistancy is too much to ask for. Woogee (talk) 21:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The real answer is based in the fact that whoever owns the Falkland Islands has a claim on mineral rights not only in the ajacent seas but on Antartica, and quite a large stretch of Antartica. It is basicaly back to wealth.

MacOfJesus (talk) 22:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

technical answer

Nations always claim sovereignty over the territory and peoples in their domain. what this means is that once a nation has secured physical control over, and laid claim to, a region - by whatever method - that region and all the peoples are thereafter subject to the laws and principles of the controlling nation. any subsequent attempt to violate that nation's sovereign rule (by another nation or a revolutionary force) is an act of war. There are exceptions: the UN can (and does) sometimes violate national sovereignty in the interests of human right; sometimes states will choose not to consider violations of their sovereignty as war (e.g. when rebels are treated as criminals or when a nation calls its violation of another state's sovereignty a 'police action', and makes no move to actually claim the territory it has occupied) Once a nation controls a territory, everyone and everything there 'belongs' to that nation, and and that cannot change except through warfare or treaty.

self-determination is almost never used to request that states give up sovereignty over people or territory. In general, self-determination means that a regional or native population is given political control over their particular region or people under the auspices of the sovereign state. So, for example, American Indians in the US have certain regions set aside under their own sovereign control: certain US laws do not apply there, and federal authorities are restricted in how they can act on reservation land. However, these lands are still sovereign territory of the United States - no other nation could (for instance) annex a Sioux reservation without it being seen as an act of war against the US. Keep in mind that on the international scene, nations are the only players; 'peoples' may enter into discussion when there are human rights concerns, but peoples (as a rule) do not have a say in what nations do. --Ludwigs2 16:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. What I was looking at is the possibility of resolving land issues without conflict. Perhaps stronger rules of the UN that demand dialogue. But the whole notion of enforcing law is in fact the issue. John Paul Sartre saw a morality based on absence of law; acting freely in your situation.

Thank you for a very well put reply.

MacOfJesus (talk) 22:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Statistics of first names by ethnicity

The U.S. Census Bureau has compiled this ranked list of surnames based on how common they are. The list contains also information about the percentage of individuals with a given surname that belongs to various (broad) ethnic groups. Are there similar published statistics on first names? --173.49.9.55 (talk) 03:05, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Except for Hispanic, all the categories are racial rather than ethnic. See Race and ethnicity in the United States Census. Nyttend (talk) 03:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

_{I don't know the answer to the question, but who would have guessed 5.5% of Cohens in the U.S. are black? (And that two of them play for the Detroit Lions?) -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)}

The categories may officially be termed racial, but I think ethnic may be a better word. I assume that the categorization in the compiled data is based on respondent self-identification. For individuals of mixed ancestry who might identify themselves as belonging to more than one group, I think self-identification may be more based on cultural identification than physical characteristics. --173.49.9.55 (talk) 04:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

But race and ethnicity were separate questions in the census with the meaning described in our article. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Interesting question

Germany and Netherlands (particularly Netherlands) are more liberal on cultural issues than the US or UK. But both the countries are ruled by right wing parties. Christian Democratic Union for Germany and Netherlands cabinet Balkenende-4 for Netherlands which include Christian Democratic Appeal and ChristianUnion. While both US and UK are ruled by left wing parties, they are more conservative on cultural issues. What is the reason behind this? --Qoklp (talk) 04:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"Left wing" and "right wing" are relative terms. In fact, they differ not only by point of reference, the axes even have different directions in different countries. When I first went to the US (probably in 1996) I was very surprised about employer benefits granted to "domestic partners" - in fact, it took me a while to even understand what that was about. Admittedly, this was at an east cost university - still, in that aspect they were more "liberal" than any major employer in Germany. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 04:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Left and right wing are incredibly vague terms (as are "liberal" and "conservative"). It's important to remember that the political landscape varies greatly between countries; things which are significant issues in one place can be completely off the radar in others. For example, you may say the Netherlands is culturally liberal, but - in common with a lot of Western Europe - they seem to be having issues with the hijab. FiggyBee (talk) 05:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Generally, there are far more differences between countries than within them, politically. A U.S. Republican and a German Christian Democrat may agree philosophically on broad topics such as the importance of religion in society and the danger of excessive regulation. But practically, a German or Dutch Christian Democratic government will hold positions far to the left of the supposedly left-of-center Obama administration on topics such as gun control and the welfare state. Cultural issues, as Stephan and FiggyBee have pointed out, tend to be rather hard to compare between countries. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Gun control is an interesting topic which I didn't touch on, since it doesn't fall into a left-right or liberal-conservative dichotomy; liberals (and libertarians particularly) may think restrictions on firearms are a breach of civil liberties, and "tough on crime" conservatives might want to clean the streets of weapons. It is, however, a good example of how political issues can be different from country to country. In the USA, the only mainstream positions on gun control are "no gun control" and "a little bit of ineffective gun control". In Australia, there's been an almost total ban on private ownership of firearms (and certainly handguns) since 1996, and it's now a complete political non-issue. FiggyBee (talk) 06:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Figgy, you call libertarians a subset of the liberals. I'm not sure where you are posting from, but in the US, they are considered ultra-conservative. This is an example of the virtual reversal of the meaning of the terms "liberal" and "conservative". This is an extremely simplistic generalization, but, in the US, conservatives are more concerned about individual liberties (hence the inclusion of libertarians) and liberals are concerned with social equality and egalitarianism. You simply cannot compare the political spectrums across these cultural differences (as Stephen Schultz said, the axes are often pointing in completely different directions). —Akrabbim^talk 13:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure many so-called "Liberals" would argue they're for individual liberties too - I certainly would! Libertarians may not be Liberals in the American tradition, but nor are they Conservative (they don't want to "conserve" anything). The true opposite of "Conservative" is "Radical", not "Liberal". Incidentally, the name of the main Conservative party in Australia causes much confusion for many foreigners. :) FiggyBee (talk) 14:51, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

To the extent that Left and Right have any coherent meaning, I think the Left is for equality (in some sense; they may disagree vigorously over what's the most important kind of equality) and the Right is for stability. The soft libertarians have largely been in an uneasy coalition with the conservatives against the soft socialists, but calling libertarians 'conservative' strips that word of substance. (Which is fair; 'liberal' once meant 'free-trader' and now it often means someone who wants to regulate everything to death.) To me 'ultra-conservative' connotes pro-war, anti-sex, and perhaps krypto-KKK, none of which describes anyone I'd call libertarian. —Tamfang (talk) 22:27, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"While both US and UK are ruled by left wing parties". They might be left of centre within their own countries, but I understand that its common knowledge that politics in the US is far to the right of that in the UK. 78.146.70.111 (talk) 14:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a link to the Political Compass is in order: [23] FiggyBee (talk) 14:57, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The confusions and difficulties discussed above may be a symptom of the inadequacy of using a one-dimensional (or single-axis) parameter to analyse political thought (attitudes, philosophies, etc). The 'Spectra' section of our Politics article currently only discusses two one-dimensional approaches; Left-Right and Authoritarian-Libertarian; Left-Right politics discusses the hoary historical origins, and some doubts about the modern applicability, of that approach.

"Spectra" itself implies one-dimensionality, but our article Political spectrum discusses some systems of analysis involving two dimensions, none of which seem to have gained widespread acceptance (perhaps they would be too nuanced for the purposes of the mud-slinging that passes for political "debate" nowadays). I see no reason why three dimensional analyses (a couple of which the article mentions) might not prove even more useful - perhaps the comparatively recent ubiquity of computers able to display such arrays might enable them to be explored more readily. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 15:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

people will naturally (always have, always will) reduce politics to a single dimension - it's just an abstraction of 'us vs. them' that tries to make it look less subjective - however, the ends of the spectrum (the 'us' and 'them' points) shift historically. the left/right dichotomy is a bit dated now: it had its roots in a populist/royalist dichotomy that later shifted to socialist/nationalist dichotomy, but the current us/them split has wandered into different territory - something like moralist/liberal or religious/secular or traditional/progressive. left/right no longer really makes sense as an us/them distinguisher, though there is a protracted effort on both sides to warp the terms to capture the new distinctions. --Ludwigs2 15:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

American liberals and conservatives both favor a lot of regulations, just different lists of regulations. Libertarians claim to want to reduce regulations on both businesses and people to a minimum. Libertarian could be characterized as socially liberal and fiscally conservative. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

eh... speaking in political science terms, the US is a degenerate case. The non-trivial players in US politics are all pro-big-business, pro-military (to the extent that that differs from being pro-big-business), pro-authoritarian, and anti-populist. The only reason the nation hasn't collapsed into a more pure form of oligarchy is that the system was designed to make it easy for any number of greedy selfish bastards to get ahead by banging the populist drum, so populist ideology is carefully husbanded as a political resource for the well-to-do. There is no political spectrum in the US. There is a politically oligarchic mono-party that spreads republican and democratic wings over a largely anarcho-individualist populace. Hobbes Leviathan, with powdered sugar and a liberal-cream filling. --Ludwigs2 16:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, Bugs, I just think your last sentence there is wildly off the mark. The claim they are "socially liberal" is easily defeated because any libertarian opposes "liberal"-identified US social programs like Affirmative Action, Social Security, and gun control. As for "fiscally conservative", I think it'd be more accurate to say that libertarians want to chop the size of government down to 25% of its current size, which goes way beyond the term "conservative". Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:54, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Socially liberal in the sense that "you can do whatever you like as long as you don't harm someone else". For example, abolition of all anti-drug laws. That's where the conservatives who like to call themselves "libertarians" get off the bus. Libertarians I've known also call themselves "classical liberals" as opposed to modern liberals. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:24, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

May I try to answer taking the quetion at face-value. It is a well known psycological phenomenon that opposites attract, in this situation. In England we have Labour and New Labour. When we eventually have to make policy and decisions, without influnces, we tend to be more attracted to opposite! The believer begins to doubt, and the non-believer wonders if he/she may be Godless.

MacOfJesus (talk) 23:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Lionel Arbuthnot

How do I find somebody with access to The Times online archive? I am trying to check this fellow's military career and whether he was in fact a general. Kittybrewster ☎ 16:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried looking at the London Gazette website? [24] This is the magazine of note for the British Establishment, which means that all military honours are printed in it. Anyone who has a Forces medal is in it. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:02, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Except Lionel whose MBE of 3 Jun 1919 is not listed. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Here is a mention of him resigning his commission and retaining the use of Major: [25] --TammyMoet (talk) 20:39, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

An earlier resignation of commission: [26]--TammyMoet (talk) 20:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

And here is an appointment to ADC: [27] --TammyMoet (talk) 20:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

He worked for the Burial Corps: [28] --TammyMoet (talk) 20:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Was made temp. Captain:[ http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/30894/supplements/10730] --TammyMoet (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Shared Resources indicates that User:Mirv has such access and is willing to use it for Wikipedia purposes. Algebraist 17:08, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You may well have found these references already, but this[29] site says: "Lionel Gough Arbuthnot, MBE. Born Kensington 24 September 1867. Died Surrey 16 May 1942. Educated Harrow 1882-86. Captain, Lancashire Fusiliers; Order White Eagle Serbia 5th class". This[30] site agrees. Looking on Google Books, "Burke's landed gentry of Great Britain"[31] page 25, also agrees; "Capt. late Lancashire Fus." Alansplodge (talk) 18:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I am wonderng how to reconcile those sources with [32]. Kittybrewster ☎ 19:30, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe contacting the Regimental Museum for the first listed regiment? --TammyMoet (talk) 20:52, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... A bit suspicious as a Brigadier-General would be a staff officer, not part of a regiment. I tried Googling "Brigadier-General Arbuthnot" but only got this[33] from India in 1879. Alansplodge (talk) 21:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Sir Charles George Arbuthnot. Kittybrewster ☎ 22:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It's me again... There was a Major-General Arbuthnot in WWII, in command of the 78th Division, Italy 1944[34]. Can't be the same one as he'd have already died of old age! Alansplodge (talk) 21:35, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Keith Arbuthnott, 15th Viscount of Arbuthnott. Kittybrewster ☎ 22:46, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Political polling in the UK

I'm looking for a single poll carried out in the UK in perhaps the last year on pseudo-political issues, so I can compare them to my own. For example, the death penalty, Afghanistan, expenses, that sort of thing. Most polls tend to deal with general voting intention and perhaps one or two choice reason issues, but not these long-running issues. Anything you can throw up would be appreciated. Thanks! - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:06, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I can probably piece it together from YouGov, but if you do find anything, I'll be pleased to see it. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Try UK Polling Report - for instance, this category discusses polls on the environment. Warofdreams talk 17:38, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm a regular reader, but I didn't realise they archived it like that. Thanks. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 19:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

a great and effective lie to get someone to stop smoking?

Hi, If I know someone who I can probably pull one over on, and the one way in which I would like to do so is by getting her or him to stop smoking, then can you tell me what a truly great and effective lie would be (it seems the truth is just not enough), that would, psychologically, really work? I know marketers are very effective, and they're not even allowed to lie directly, so with the addition that even direct, bald-faced lying is allowed, I'm sure there should be something super, duper effective. If any adept marketers or liars (you don't have to tell me which category you come from!) are here, please let me know the best, most effective lie you can come up with that will meet my request. Thank you. 84.153.228.193 (talk) 20:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't tell you a lie, but I can tell you something marketers use, and that is to find out your friend's greatest fear and link continuing smoking to that fear coming true. For example, if a woman's greatest fear is getting wrinkles, you can point to research telling her that women who smoke are at greater risk of getting wrinkles at an earlier age (I'm sure there's some somewhere...).--TammyMoet (talk) 20:32, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Smoking gives you wrinkles, bad teeth, bad breath, bad skin, makes you stink, costs a fortune and kills you. Actually, those are all true :) Or you could show them [:File:Cancerous lung.jpg] (I'm not cruel enough to post it here)--Jac16888^Talk 20:56, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

In the opposite direction, pro-smoking arguments use anecdotes to fight data. (ie: If I can show you one person who doesn't have all that and smokes, it means that all of your data is wrong.) So, I'm sure there is anecdotal evidence for anti-smoking arguments. If I show you one cigarette made at some point that had, say, rat poison in it, then any data you have showing that cigarettes don't contain rat poison is wrong. -- kainaw™ 21:01, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

'The next cigarette could be the one that gives you cancer'. Not forgetting heart disease, strokes, etc etc. 78.147.93.182 (talk) 21:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

This essentially Christian approach to truth was already recommended by Clement of Alexandria.--Wetman (talk) 21:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Nononono, the above doesn't work at all, I've already said all that (including about wrinkles). I need a much, much more insidious and defamatory lie to cigarettes, and something that's effective and credible, and WORKS on SMOKERS. None of the above stuff works on smokers, or they wouldn't be smokers anymore. I need a real, effective lie. By the way I am not saying this is a new approach to truth or anything, lots of people practice it daily (though I assume the people who hang out at reference desks, not so much). I just need a real effective lie, post haste! 84.153.228.193 (talk) 21:48, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Smoking is an addiction. if you want someone to stop you need to get them to stop lying to themselves; lying to them isn't going to do a damned bit of good. sorry. --Ludwigs2 22:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

It's obvious that nicotine has its upsides, or why would people have such a hard time quitting? I say let the people smoke as they see fit. If they die, there's the old adage by Stalin: no man, no problem. Vranak (talk) 23:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

They have a hard time quitting because they are addicted. The upside to nicotine is that it alleviates the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. --Tango (talk) 00:36, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Tell them smoking is responsible for 100% of puppy and kitten deaths in the world. It's exactly what you're looking for - a complete lie that, if believed, would make someone not smoke. If you don't like it, fine, but asking on a reference desk for a falsehood is silly. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:28, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia does have some quite legitimate lists of things that are not true, such as List of common misconceptions and List of misquotations; and articles about books on lies that are commonly taught, such as Lies My Teacher Told Me. So, it's not unreasonable that we could cite a lie-based strategem that has been used to influence people to quit smoking. I don't know of any, though. All I would contribute, as a now confirmed ex-smoker, is "The Truth About Smokers":

• Anyone who smokes is a filthy, disgusting pervert who eats babies for breakfast, is personally responsible for all the crime in our cities, and with whom any right-thinking, normal, civic-minded person would want nothing whatsoever to do.

They say ex-smokers are the worst; well, they might be, but that doesn't alter "The Truth About Smokers".  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

If the smoker is male, tell him that smoking will make his protests fall off. Deor (talk) 00:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

My approach has always been to sit down with the person, and in an objective and friendly manner, help them calculate how much money they spend per year on tobacco products. Once that's established, help them multiply that by their approximate life expectancy as a smoker to get the "bill yet to be paid." Then, you offer them a simple proposition: Quit smoking now, pay me half of the bill yet to be paid, and I'll murder you at the same anticipated age of death. You get all the benefits of smoking (early death), all the benefits of non-smoking (health), and you save 50%! 218.25.32.210 (talk) 01:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Cost of proposed UK Identity Cards

How many billions will it cost to implement them? What proportion of the necessary budget cuts would this be? Why has the media gone quiet on them recently? 78.147.93.182 (talk) 21:36, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

According to National identity card (United Kingdom), the LSE estimate the cost as £12bn to £18bn. What counts as a "necessary" budget cut is really up to one's personal political views - according to the Telegraph [35] the total deficit is predicted to reach £178bn - so, identity cards represent (at best) rather less than 10% of the total, but still a significant amount. Why the media are quiet about them at the moment is because they have other, more entertaining stories about politicians to amuse their readers with. Tevildo (talk) 23:49, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, ID cards aren't on the news agenda right now. The news agenda is shaped chiefly by two factors: events, and how "opinion leaders" try to shape it (events obviously being the prime mover). There hasn't been much in the way of real, news-worthy, events in this space - the home office has a few trial voluntary schemes, introduced with little fanfare and to little response. Things might change if some ID-card related event occurred (some outrage that could arguably have been stopped by ID cards, or some data-handling scandal that could arguably show how ID cards are a danger to civil liberties). Failing that it's down to the news agenda the various parties try to push. Conservative and Lib-dems are against, Labour nominally for, but clearly all three have decided the general election will be fought on the economy (and the usual "the other guys are obviously stupid and secretly evil" line). Nominally ID cards are still Labour policy, but clearly the costs and the increased public unease mean that mentioning them doesn't seem like a vote-winner; equally Cameron wasn't chuffed about David Davis' abortive "big scary government is coming to get you" campaign, and Conservative opposition to the cards is mostly based on a value-for-money objection. Lastly the SNP is (as always) aching for a nice constitutional bone to fight an obliging Westminster government over, and the imposition of such a scheme would be just the ticket (and if Labour does as badly in the forthcoming general election in Scotland as it did in the last election for the Scottish Parliament, it'll certainly lose). Given the costs, it'd be no surprise that (whoever wins the election) ID cards get kicked into the long grass. But whether someone drags them back out, in five or ten years, is down to events. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Felling trees in Conservation Areas, UK

I read that cutting down any tree in a Conservation Area is illegal, not just the ones with Tree Preservation Orders. What are the specific Acts of Paliament that specify this please? Are there any exceptions to this please? Thanks. 78.147.93.182 (talk) 22:03, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The Act that governs Conservation Areas, the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, does not mention trees even once, as far as I can tell. For this reason it seems unlikely that cutting down a tree in a CA is automatically illegal. However, felling enough to change the character of the area clearly would be. --ColinFine (talk) 22:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Check with your local council. TPOs can apply not just to individual trees but to groups of trees, and may restrict lopping as well as felling. You are also required to inform the council in advance if planning to fell a tree over a certain diameter, so the council can consider applying a TPO to it. As I recall, Conservation Area Orders may include stipulations about tree management. DuncanHill (talk) 22:59, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The Town and Country Planning Act 1990, Part 8, Chapter 1, Section 211.

"(1) Subject to the provisions of this section and section 212, any person who, in relation to a tree to which this section applies, does any act which might by virtue of section 198(3)(a) be prohibited by a tree preservation order shall be guilty of an offence.

(2) Subject to section 212, this section applies to any tree in a conservation area in respect of which no tree preservation order is for the time being in force."

[36]. Of course, if you're concerned with a specific tree, you should seek appropriate legal advice - we're not allowed to give it at the Ref Desk. Tevildo (talk) 23:13, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Violating my above caveat (a little) - the main act that's prohibited by a tree preservation order is cutting the tree down without permission (emphasis added). How to go about getting that permission is definitely a matter for a lawyer, but there isn't an absolute prohibition on cutting designated trees down. Tevildo (talk) 23:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed - if you can demonstrate that a tree is diseased or dangerous (for example, prone to dropping limbs, or obstructing a highway), a council is likely to approve lopping or felling. They may make a requirement for a replacement tree to be planted. Again, speak to your local council for initial information about specific trees or stands of trees, and to a lawyer if you want legal advice (as opposed to legal information). Your local Citizens' Advice Bureau may also be able to help. DuncanHill (talk) 00:43, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

We're straying somewhat off topic here - I'm interested in trees without a TPO but in a Conservation Area. 78.151.155.128 (talk) 00:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It depends. Where I live you can;t just cut down trees in the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the curb. You have to apply for a permit, post a notice on the tree for a few weeks to give the neighbors a chance to complain, and plant a new tree to replace the old one. Different places will have different rules. PhGustaf (talk) 02:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

PhDs in Christian theology

I heard on the radio this morning that in the past people would write university thesis's on theological topics that pre-assumed the existance of God and the correctness of contemporary religious doctrine and beliefs. Do people still get awarded Phds for that sort of thing ("The Number Of Angels Who Can Dance On The Head Of A Pin")? Or how long ago did that stop? 78.147.93.182 (talk) 22:17, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

There are theology departments at universities, so there must be theology PhDs. I think often they are interpreting religious texts and doctrine, so they are assuming it is true. There is nothing wrong with making assumptions, as long as you make it clear what you are assuming. --Tango (talk) 23:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

You can get a PhD in mathematics by writing a dissertation that assumes that the Axiom of Choice is true. For that matter, take a look at the consequences of the Riemann hypothesis. Someday, someone might prove the Reimann hypothesis to be false, and all of that work would have been for nothing! Paul Stansifer 00:04, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

These notions go right back to Saint Thomas Aquinas. The notion of how many Angles on a pin refer to the fact that angels do not have bodies. Please see the five "proofs" of God's existence and the five declarations of the Nature of God. His Theology /his philosophy is still with us to this day and reflecting in modern Epistemological thought and movements. He lived a long time ago but his profound thought and reasoning is the basis of so many Schools of thought today. A PhD on Saint Aquinas would be very valuable.

MacOfJesus (talk) 23:24, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

The sort of reasoning given as an example this morning was, as far as I remember: God is perfect. Therefore God never changes His mind. So he only decides once if your soul is damned or saved. So you are either one of the Elect or you are not, and that cannot be changed. So if you are one of the Elect, then why should you bother to lead a good life. But people have the sin of thinking they are one of the Elect when they are not....and so on and so on, wheel within wheel. So do people still write PhDs with that kind of reasoning? 78.151.155.128 (talk) 00:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

DD (Doctor of Divinity).
Sleigh (talk) 00:51, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

To respond to your statments/question would require a "preformed notion of context" -- in that someone will have had to already take a position in terms of which perspective they ascribe to in order to then answer you along their respective path. There's therefore no real sense in debating this in order to achieve any sort of resolution -- each belief system will have its own belief. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:55, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, people still write that kind of stuff. --Tango (talk) 01:27, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

February 26

How many layers of government in the UK?

From the parish council up to the European Parliament and beyond, how many layers of government are there in the UK? I'm not sure if we have Regional Assemblies in the UK - if there are any you never here anything about them, thankfully. And what is the total number of politicians including councillors? Thanks 78.151.155.128 (talk) 00:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

It varies. Some places have parish councils, some don't. Some have separate town and country councils, some have a combined "unitary authority". Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have local parliaments/assemblies, England doesn't. It's all very complicated! If there is a specific place you are interested in, we should be able to produce a list for you. --Tango (talk) 01:25, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

We do have Regional Assemblies in England - soon to be replaced by a new and equally obscure set of bodies. DuncanHill (talk) 01:49, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Which places have the greatest number of layers? 78.151.155.128 (talk) 01:37, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The places with the greatest number of layers in the UK would be certain areas of England. In some rural and suburban areas, you could have a parish council. Above the parish, you could have a district; above the non-metropolitan districts, a non-metropolitan county; and above that, the soon-to-be-replaced regional assemblies. Of course, above those assemblies, you have the UK government in Westminster. Another equally deep set of four sub-Westminster layers exists in some parts of England's metropolitan counties other than Greater London if you count the unelected joint boards of the metropolitan counties as a layer of government. In that case, you have parish councils in some parts of metropolitan counties other than London, above them the metropolitan boroughs, above them joint boards such as the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, above them the soon-to-be-replaced regional assemblies, and above them Westminster. I don't think that there are more than three layers of government below Westminster in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. Marco polo (talk) 02:17, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Socially awkward/inept mentor

In mentoring relationships, if one person is socially awkward/inept/shy, then it's usually the mentee that's like that. But there may be rare cases where it's the opposite. Do you think such a relationship would work, and will the mentee benefit from such a mentorship? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.120.162 (talk) 01:32, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Depends what they're being mentored on (I know, I know, unhelpful answer) Library Seraph (talk) 02:11, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

True, though. If they are simply being mentored on how to do some technical thing then the social skills of the mentor don't necessarily matter. They need some teaching skills, which are closely related, but you can be a good teacher while being generally awkward socially. --Tango (talk) 02:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

The Holocaust & Compensation

Say you were a Jewish person in Nazi Germany and all of your assets, your business, your property, your wealth etc had been seized. You're now in Auschwitz and have been deemed fit for work and somehow you survive until liberation. Did the postwar German government do anything to help such individuals rebuild their former lives or just to help them start afresh? --Thanks, Hadseys 02:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that there was not one postwar German government for awhile, and even then it was a West and East Germany government, and even then it was some time before West Germany was really independent (1949) and financially solvent enough (e.g. had built itself up from the rubble). If you go to Holocaust reparations it redirects you to an article about the West German government's negotiations with Israel to pay reparations for the Holocaust that began in the early 1950s. I imagine that what was done with Holocaust survivors before then varied with whatever occupation zone they ended up in. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Disputes over ownership of art works that went to litigation?

I am looking for some leads to controversies over who was the rightful owner of a piece of art (painting, sculpture, etc.), but particularly am interested in those cases where the parties ended up in litigation in the United States to resolve their dispute. Particularly "famous" cases or cases that provide references to other notable instances of this would be most appreciated. I am less interested in cases that depend solely on the interpretation of a will (is the brother or sister entitled to the work?) or cases that somehow hinge on determining who the creator of the work was. Instead, I'm interested in cases where we know who created the work, we know who currently has it, and probably even how they obtained it, but another party believes they are the rightful owner and seeks to have it returned to them. 67.102.65.245 (talk) 03:08, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Lawsuits over paintings owned by Holocaust victims are quite numerous:[37] Georges Jorisch suing Leonard Lauder over a Gustav Klimt,[38], Claude Cassirer seeking his grandmother's Camille Pissarro from Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza,[39] Claudia Seger-Thomschitz vs. the Boston Museum of Fine Art,[40], the heirs of Jacob and Rosa Oppenheimer against the state of California.[41] Clarityfiend (talk) 03:19, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Japanese police procedures

Hi, can anybody explain me these things of the Japanese police? On June 8, 2008 Kato Tomohiro killed a lot of people in Akihabara and I don't understand these things of that day. This sequence, here the cop is threatening him with a stick?, and here he is arrested, just with the help of that stick?. And last question, why aren't the handcuffs shown?. Thanks all! --Maru-Spanish (talk) 04:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)