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August 26

North Vietmaneese tanks in the Vietnam War

A friend of mine was in US Army Intelligence in the Vietnam War. He tells me of an incident where they told their superiors that North Vietnam was amassing tanks, but their superiors didn't believe them until hundreds of tanks came across the border. What event could he be talking about? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Possibly the Battle of Lang Vei -- although the number of NVA tanks involved was certainly not in the hundreds. Looie496 (talk) 04:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That was February 1968 - I don't think he was there that early. I'll ask him. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:45, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The Easter Offensive in 1972 involved a large armoured force (and some surprises for US intelligence, who were divided on the possibility of an attack through the DMZ), though it was after the withdrawal of US ground forces. Shimgray | talk | 17:01, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

That sounds more like it and is probably the right time period. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

In Great-Britain, monument to the dead soldiers after Islandhwana ?

Hello. Is there in Great-Britain any monument which was erected after the battle of Isandhlawana (as the "Maiwand Lion" in Reading) to commemorate the dead soldiers ? Thanks referently beforehand for your answer Arapaima (talk) 07:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a memorial, including the Colour of the South Wales Borderers who fought in the battle, at Brecon Cathedral. More information (as our article on the cathedral is quite poor) here. Brecon also has the South Wales Borderers Museum. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:14, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The preserved Colour is the actual one lost at the battle but found 13 days later in a river.[1] Also apparently there is a memorial book rest at Holy Trinity Church Aldershot.[2] Alansplodge (talk) 15:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Not Isandhlwana specifically, but apparently there is an "Afghan and Zulu Wars" memorial in Woolwich. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to all ! Arapaima (talk) 08:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

John Westlake on enemy subjects

I'm looking for a source for a doctrin, ascribed to John Westlake. I found a quote from Westlake in German translation. Translated back to English it says: Enemy is not only the state, but enemies are also the citizens of the state war-leading against England.

I found literature by Westlake on the subject how to treat "enemy subjects", but I don't got his point. What is Westlake's position (with source/quote)?

Thanks for your support. -- 188.103.123.189 (talk) 11:16, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Any idea? -- 188.103.121.236 (talk) 21:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

??? -- 188.103.105.60 (talk) 20:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

how to uncover spy

how do I uncover spy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.101.168.7 (talk) 12:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Join MI6? This isn't really a suitable question for a reference desk. The methods of counter-intelligence are very varied and what will work best will depend on the circumstances. --Tango (talk) 12:18, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Take his hat off? --Jayron32 12:51, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much anything, apparently. Even watching how they draw their number 7s can give it away. --Dweller (talk) 13:06, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Though false conclusions could be thereby leapt to. Though English, I adopted the continental-style crossed 7 (7) when I was about eight, having lived abroad (the Far East) and seen how this avoided any possible confusion with some styles of writing 1. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.78.50 (talk) 16:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Or check to see how they hold their fingers when ordering beers. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 22:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Unexplained income in somebody working in critical, top-secret areas is a sign that investigation is warranted. Then there are psychological tests that can identify an amoral personality. Having spent time in certain foreign nations is also suspicious, especially if not disclosed and explained. Lie detectors machines are often used, but I'm skeptical about their effectiveness. StuRat (talk) 16:32, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Why do you assume that a spy is necessarily amoral? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Good point. It rather depends on who they are spying on. Betraying your own people is itself considered immoral, but, if the people you work for are themselves evil, like say the Nazis, one could justify spying on moral grounds. StuRat (talk) 19:02, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a difference between amoral and immoral. In any case the basis for making the judgement on evil is itself entirely subjective. That's essentially saying "people who spy on my behalf are ok".

ALR (talk) 19:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't say entirely subjective. You can define an objective criteria to which almost everyone would agree, which would say that killing millions of unarmed civilians, when not necessary to save the lives of even more, is evil. StuRat (talk) 19:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Evil remains subjective, given your reliance on opinions there is no objectivity. However, in the context of the question it's made the point that establishing that someone is amoral isn't a reliable indicator were one attempting to establish who may be engaged in espionage. Indeed one might suggest, as some have, that being amoral is an advantage if one is an agent handler.

ALR (talk) 21:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

When you get right down to it, everything is based on opinion. Even the weight of a cubic centimeter of lead is, since different people all read the results produced by the scale, and give their opinion as to what it says. But, like the case I gave, almost everyone will agree. StuRat (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Another useful example in context. The mass of lead is the mass of lead, the value of that mass is fixed within certain thresholds. Individuals assessing the value of that mass will make slightly different assessments, although take a big enough sample size one could identify a probable mass.

Where one is discussing "behaviours" the opportunity for objectivity is far more limited. If one were to take a sample within pre-WWII Germany the activities of the establishment clearly weren't perceived to be particularly "immoral". In identifying an agent in that environment one would have been looking for behaviour that differed from the accepted norm; objecting to internment of "undesirables", protecting or exfiltrating etc. In contemporary UK with a broadly liberal democracy those who might be considered a threat of espionage might be those espousing particularly authoritarian views. That's probably a bad example given the lunacy of some of our tabloid newspapers though.

Essentially the issue is deviation from the norm, for the population that one is considering. Again using a UK example, the recent furore over undercover police inflitrating certain anarchist groups. The officers in question had to conform to population norms in order to avoid drawing attention to themselves; participation in criminal violence, conspiracy to commit violene against property or the person, drug use, casual sex within the population etc.

ALR (talk) 16:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, "morality with a significant deviation from the norm for that society" is a good way to describe it. However, I disagree that in pre-WW2 Germany most people were in favor of the mass-murder of people they considered "undesirable". The evidence against this is that they started the Holocaust slowly, and in secret, worried that it would create significant opposition. In conquered nations to the East, however, where they weren't concerned about public opinion, they proceeded quickly, and without the same attempts to conceal the genocide.StuRat (talk) 17:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Get all the people to stand in a line. Then shout "Everyone who is not a spy, take one step back!". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:44, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Spotting spies is easy, you look for the guys in brown trench coats wearing wide rimmed hats, and if you're still not sure the broadsheet newspaper with eyeholes cut in it is usually the clincher--Jac16888 ^Talk 18:52, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure that's meant as a joke, but does bring up a good issue. Spies are the opposite of James Bond. Being flashy and drawing attention is the last thing you want in a spy. Most of them look thoroughly forgettable. StuRat (talk) 19:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

There is at the moment a rather unfortunate advertising campaign around Washington, DC, for the International Spy Museum that features all sorts of people in Mission Impossible getup (skin tight leather, fancy electronics all over them, hanging upside down from ceilings, etc.). It's really rather unfortunate given that the goal of the museum is to ostensibly present factual information, and most spies are quite unobtrusive looking by design. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Right, but I see where they are coming from. If they showed actual spies, people would yawn and ignore the exhibit, and never learn a thing. StuRat (talk) 21:43, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It's the guys dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses that you've got to really watch out for. Those guys can get violent if they think that they've been rumbled, so I hear. Heh, this may be an apocryphal tale, but it was something my dad once told me about. Apparently M16 wanted to recruit some special forces (SAS?) guys for some covert mission or other - and they ended up with 15 guys with moustaches turning up on the day, all dressed from head to toe in black and wearing shades - who were then promptly told to go home. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:56, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Historically speaking the most effective way to uncover spies has been by spying yourself — the best way to catch spies is to have your own spies (ergo Spy vs. Spy). So the Soviets were able to uncover gobs of American spies thanks to their own spies, like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. Americans uncovered spies like Klaus Fuchs, Julius Rosenberg, and Ted Hall by means of intercepted cables (VENONA) mixed with good old fashioned police work. Ames himself was caught after the CIA began investigating the assets of people in their own organization — a classic way to find misconduct or corruption in general — and finding the guy who seemed to be living well beyond what his paycheck paid him. (That wouldn't have worked for Fuchs or Hall, mind you, because they were ideological spies, and were not paid for their work.) Once they'd narrowed it down to a suspect, they kept close observation on him until they saw him committing illegal activities. Similar things happened in the case of Hanssen, except in that case, I believe, the FBI actually acquired some of the information on their mole from a for-hire mole in the KGB. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If one is considering HUMINT, given that there are other forms of intelligence gathering, then one either looks for the agents themselves, or the agent handlers. In practice counter-intelligence would look at both.

In the case of an agent one might consider motivation; financial, idealogical, blackmail and then look for behavioural characteristics that indicate risk. What makes people vulnerable and what indicators suggest that vulnerability is being exploited.

If considering the agent handlers then examining their behaviour might lead to agents.

ALR (talk) 21:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

And note that the honey trap doesn't always have to take the form of blackmail. The person being recruited as a spy may genuinely love the person who entices them to spy. One common line is "they would finally allow us to marry/live together if you only do this". StuRat (talk) 21:57, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Christopher Andrew's history of the UK's counter-intelligence agency, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 begins with the problem of bootstrapping a counter-intelligence function, when you don't have much of an idea where to begin. It starts with the run up to the outbreak of World War I, with it becoming clear that the German Navy's intelligence service would be very interested in the movement of the Royal Navy's shipping, and might attempt to sabotage the shipping or ports (they desperately did want to do that, and succeeded in the US). It begin amid some general hysteria (drummed up by a rather bad sub John Buchan-type novelist, who wrote hysterical stories in the popular newspapers alleging Britain was teeming with shifty-eyed hun agents). This led to the police being beset with all kinds of rather fanciful reports about strange lights at nights on rivers, and funny looking blokes hanging around (bizarrely even Charles Rennie Mackintosh was suspected by his Suffolk neighbours, due to his funny accent, arty style of dressing, and the collection of German art books he had). MI-5 had its work cut out responding to all this nonsense; their salvation was that the German intelligence effort was even more inept. They recruited neutral parties who might travel through British ports (looking for rascally types, it seems) most of whom happily rolled them over to the Special Branch. They even wrote to a guy who lived in the port town of Leith, on the basis that he had immigrated from Germany (some 20 or so years previously, and was happily married to a Scotswoman); they politely enquired whether he might like to post them regular letters detailing the movements of Royal Navy ships of the line that he might see from his home. Naturally he too flipped them to the police at the first opportunity. The Germans' daftest mistake was that they used the same postal box in Rotterdam for all these spies. Vernon Kell, the service's chief, prevailed upon the Home Secretary to allow wholesale mail intercepts (overcoming the "gentlemen do not read other gentlemen's correspondence" argument), and they quickly found and turned pretty much every spy the German Naval Service had in Britain (and then proceeded to manufacture lots of fake new ones to keep the Germans busy and happy). MI-5 quickly gained world-leading expertise in mail intercepts and in exploiting the leads this gave them. Intelligence, and counter-intelligence, has naturally come a long way since (it matured remarkably even over the course of WW-I) but the secret seems to be the same - lots of low-level trawling until you get a lucky break, then pull on that thread to unravel as much of the opposition's network as possible. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 22:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

If you're referring to "The Riddle of the Sands", the description would seem to be somewhat inaccurate... AnonMoos (talk) 22:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

No, Andrews talks about William Le Queux. In addition to The Invasion of 1910 (which, as the article says and Andrews confirms, was rewritten by the Daily Mail to reroute the German invasion through towns where that paper sold well), his 1909 Spies of the Kaiser claimed England hosted "a vast army of German spies". It seems that many people, and particularly Le Queux himself, failed to differentiate between such pot-boiler novels and actual facts. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 23:45, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Gutenberg has a copy of Spies of the Kaiser here. The author's introduction, where he writes "What I have written in this present volume in the form of fiction is based upon serious facts within my own personal knowledge... The number of agents of the German Secret Police at this moment working in our midst on behalf of the Intelligence Department in Berlin are believed to be over five thousand", sounds remarkably like Wikipedia:The Truth. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 23:57, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

OK, "The Riddle of the Sands" seems to have been much more influential in high circles at the time, and is certainly better-remembered today, but Le Queux could have had the greater sensationalistic best-seller. What it really sounds like is the Red Scare... AnonMoos (talk) 01:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

They were not the only ones in WWI who believed Britain had been over-run by German spies. Noel Pemberton Billing, an aviation pioneer and MP, made claims that now seem hilariously lurid, but which then got him popular acclaim sufficient to be re-elected:

Billing took the view that homosexuality was infiltrating and tainting English society, and that this was linked to German espionage in the context of World War I. He founded a journal, Imperialist, in which he wrote an article based on information provided by Harold Sherwood Spencer which claimed that the Germans were blackmailing "47,000 highly placed British perverts" to "propagate evils which all decent men thought had perished in Sodom and Lesbia." The names were said to be inscribed in the "Berlin Black Book" of the "Mbret of Albania". The contents of this book revealed that the Germans planned on "exterminating the manhood of Britain" by luring men into homosexual acts. "Even to loiter in the streets was not immune. Meretricious agents of the Kaiser were stationed at such places as Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner. In this black book of sin details were given of the unnatural defloration of children...wives of men in supreme positions were entangled. In Lesbian ecstasy the most sacred secrets of the state were threatened".

Etc., etc. If male homosexual acts are illegal, then a significant minority of the population becomes vulnerable to blackmail. In a country at war, all gay men became potential spies, in the eyes of the paranoid. BrainyBabe (talk) 08:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Billing sounds like one of those "Colonel Blimp" quasi-reactionary types in the tradition of Colonel Sibthorp, who sometimes achieved some success in local politics in Britain despite having overall world-views which were eccentric in the extreme... Significant antagonism towards Germany was actually stirred up more than a decade before the outbreak of WWI, when Germany started building a dreadnought fleet to rival Britain's (see German Naval Laws, High Seas Fleet, Tirpitz Plan, Kaiserliche Marine etc.). For Germany, its navy and overseas colonies were more of a symbolic show-the-flag international prestige type of thing, rather than having any great practical importance, while Britain was a maritime power which was not self-sufficient in food production, and so was basically dependent on shipments of food from overseas to avoid starvation -- and this meant that Britain would do whatever it took to match and exceed Germany in the naval arms race, regardless of the cost, as a life-and-death matter. In the end, the German navy-building efforts played a very significant role in driving Britain into an alliance with France without giving Germany any greatly compensating military advantage when the fighting actually began... AnonMoos (talk) 01:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm putting a tag here (somewhat experimentally) to display BrainBabe's references.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Jesus Christ

Are Jesus Christ and his life chronicled in any contemporaneous Jewish scriptures and/or in any Roman documents written at the time of his life and death in Judea and Jerusalem? Thanks. 94.172.117.205 (talk) 12:14, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Our article Historicity of Jesus goes into a lot of detail on the various sources available about Jesus. I haven't read the article recently, but if memory serves there aren't really any contemporary sources. --Tango (talk) 12:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Something to remember... the fact that no contemporary sources exist today, does not necessarily mean that they never existed. It is certainly possible that there were records which mentioned Jesus which were destroyed during the Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. It is also possible that the Romans had a record... but it was purged by officials once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.... This would be very likely if such records said something that contradicted the biblical account. Of course, such possibilites are pure speculation (and as such, could not go into any Wikipedia article)... but both are, I think, realistic scenarios. Blueboar (talk) 13:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Blueboar -- Christians didn't have much meaningful power within Roman officialdom until after 325, and I find it difficult to imagine that relevant administrative records would have survived the devastation of the First Jewish Revolt and the Second Jewish Revolt, as well as two succeeding centuries (at a time when most government records were concerned with details of taxation, and were of little interest once they were no longer of current relevance for extracting tax revenue). Christians didn't censor Pliny the Younger's letters on Christianity in Anatolia or Julian's Misopogon, so it's hard to imagine why they would have been greatly concerned with (probably non-existent) musty old minor administrative documents... AnonMoos (talk) 22:26, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It is important to realize that 30 AD records exist for a tiny, tiny, vanishingly small portion of people who lived in the Roman Empire. Absence of government records is not any sort of proof of nonexistence. See also Josephus on Jesus, the writings of a first century historian. Edison (talk) 18:11, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

94.172.117.205 -- The short answer is "no", but the existence of Jesus is still about as well established as that of any other individual from ancient times who was not a ruler or high government official, and who is not mentioned in strictly-contemporary inscriptions. Note that it's very clear from the New Testament itself that Jesus had no real impact outside Judea, Galilee and closely-neighbouring areas during his lifetime... AnonMoos (talk) 22:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I am the OP and I really appreciate all the above answers, none of which really surprise me. I am a lapsed and doubting Thomas kind of Catholic in the UK and was visited by some Irish Missionaries who tried to get me to return to the fold. In so doing they gave me a load of leaflets and pamphlets to read which I dutifully did. Although they were brimming with stories of saints and miracles and stories of Jesus' sermons and his miracles and his Crucifixion and ascent into Heaven etc., my own researches revealed what I already suspected which was that everything in the New Testament was written at least 100 years after His death by people who never met him and were relying on tales they had been told. And why would the writers of the gospels have been able to write them anyway. They were poor Fishermen who I guess would not have been able to read or write anyway? None of that means that Jesus did NOT exist of course, but I am genuinely concerned that so much reliance has historically been placed and acted upon throughout the subsequent centuries without any real researchable evidence. But thanks again. Doubting Thomas. 94.172.117.205 (talk) 15:42, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

First off, it's more probable that the synoptic gospels were written within 50 years after Jesus' death, and John within 70 years, while authentic letters by Paul were of course written within less than 40 years after Jesus' death. And the gospel-writers are not a subset of the 12 Apostles (obviously there's no apostle named "Luke" among the original 12). The synoptics were written because the number of Christians was growing, while the number of direct eyewitnesses was decreasing, so that the previous mainly informal methods of spreading knowledge among Christians (i.e. oral transmission, supplemented by letters from various early Christian leaders in the possession of various different local churches) were presumably no longer adequate to the task of maintaining consistent doctrine across a geographically-dispersed church. The gospel-writers were not historians, and did not set out to write history as such (among the four, only Luke is really historically-minded in the Greek sense), but very few serious scholars (other than John Allegro!) seriously doubt Jesus' historical existence. The New Testament doesn't really provide a historically-documented account of the life of Jesus in the modern sense, but it does provide a fairly fully-rounded depiction of Jesus, in a way that's only available for a relatively few personalities of ancient times... AnonMoos (talk) 22:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible to be a Christian yet consider Jesus as a kind of symbol or metaphor, as something meaningful whether or not he actually existed as an individual? I imagine that for most Christians the answer would be no--he must have lived and died literally, more or less, as documented in the Bible, else the whole thing is meaningless. But, is such a viewpoint required for one to be a Christian? Can one not "put aside" the question of whether he did or did not live and die as the Bible says and find the religion meaningful and sacred nonetheless? I have a hard time understanding why it matters. Value, meaning, and spirituality can be found in all religions, no? Why does it matter whether the specific doctrines and tales are literally true? Sometimes, when I see people who were raised Christian and then came to doubt and reject it, I wonder whether they are overreacting--frustrated about the loss of it being literally true they throw the whole thing away, even the parts that don't require literal belief. The history of Buddhism in China and Japan is fairly well documented, but there are obvious gaps and places where individuals who may not have existed have been raised to legendary status, such as Bodhidharma. Even teachers who clearly existed have frequently been glossed over with myths and legends to the point where they were likely nothing like the way they are made out to be in the scriptures. Like Jesus, Gautama Buddha was probably was a real person, but the tales about him were not written down until long after he died (something like 400 years later!). It's highly unlikely he was anything like the person he is made out to be in the Buddhist scriptures. It's likely that Bodhidharma never existed as an individual. His story is far more legend than historic. In Taoism, the "founder" Laozi probably never existed as a specific person, but this does make the Tao Te Ching any less powerful? Why must the historical facts matter for one to be religious? The point is not whether the scriptures are historically accurate, unless you are a historian. The religious point is what they say about life and death, how to find meaning and peace, and so on. I just don't see why the historical questions about Jesus matter, religiously speaking. Clearly they do for many people though. Pfly (talk) 08:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

This is an important matter for most religions because they deal in Revealed Wisdom. If Jesus Christ was NOT truly the son of God, his teachings become meaningless (and some quite evil, if he KNEW he wasn't). When you compare this to the Tao Te Ching, this is less of a concern. Take another example - Socrates. We do have evidence of his life, existence, and death through independent sources. However, even if we did not, every OUNCE of wisdom is just as valid, because they were thought by SOMEONE. That someone could be another person, or even the writer making it up. This parallels science - the Theory of Relativity could have been authored by anyone, and it would hold as much weight as it does today - not simply 'because Einstein wrote it.' This is not the case in religious doctrine; IT IS TRUE (supposedly) because of WHO SAID IT. Ehryk (talk) 09:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

From a Quaker or Buddhist perspective, where truth is subjective, it wouldn't matter whether the Jesus actually lived, died, and rose from the dead. But that is not a mainstream Christian perspective: it is represented in the Gospels by Pilate, who asks "What is truth?". As Paul says in one of the Epistles citation needed, if Christ didn't really die and rise from the dead, then what basis do we have to believe that we ourselves will rise? "Our faith had been in vain". Or, as Thomas Aquinas put it in Adoro te devote, "Truth himself speaks truly, else there's nothing true." Christianity is a religion, in the mainstream, which preaches an objective truth exists. Unless you grant that the speaker had some special authority, statements like "you will be judged according to how you judge others" are just, like, your opinion. Christianity says they are true, even if you reject them. 86.164.26.163 (talk) 15:54, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

See http://multilingualbible.com/1_corinthians/15-14.htm and the context from verse 9 to verse 19.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Pfly -- I have to second 86.164.26.163 on this one. Much less is known about Buddha than about Jesus from a historical point of view: -- to begin with, Jesus' birth and death dates are known within 5 years or so, while it's extremely difficult to even assign Buddha to a specific century (based on available historical evidence). Also, much less is known about the historical details of India during Buddha's time than is known about the Roman empire during the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. And there are prominent trends in Buddhism (especially Mahayana) which deemphasize the historical Gautama Sakyamuni by having him just be one detail within a whole grand cosmological scheme of multiple saviors from past and future epochs. By contrast, efforts to decouple the cosmic Christ from the historical Jesus (as it's sometimes expressed) have not been influential in Christianity, and are rejected by the traditional "orthodox" Christian mainstream... AnonMoos (talk) 16:54, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Number of Tribes and Reservations in the United States

The article on indian reservations in the United States says there are 'about' 550 tribes and 310 reservations. What are the exact numbers? --CGPGrey (talk) 12:15, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

It depends. Some tribes are federally recognized, which means a lot, others are only state recognized, while others are struggling to be recognized at all. Technically, only the federal government can create Indian Reservations. The Indian reservation page seems to say that there are "550-plus recognized tribes" and "about 310 Indian reservations". Why it is vague I don't know. It seems that it should be something subject to exact numbers. Note that a single tribe may have more than one reservation, and some recognized tribes have no reservation at all. Still, it seems like something we should be able to keep abreast with. Pfly (talk) 12:28, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The situation is probably somewhat complicated by situations where what used to be one tribe has "split" into two, like the Cherokee, where there are Cherokee in Oklahoma (Cherokee Nation and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians) and in North Carolina (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) and in which operate seperately by governance, but historically are the same tribe, so it complicates how you count them. There are probably many tribes like that. As of October, 2010 there were 565 Federally recognized tribes, but there are also many state-recognized tribes which don't have federal recognition. That number may be changing soon; Congress is currently working on passing a bill to recognize the Lumbee. See [3]. --Jayron32 12:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

There are several reservations which are shared between two or more tribes like the Wind River Indian Reservation shared by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho or occupied by semi-unified tribes like Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, home to Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations). How you handle these might affect the number of reservations. Also recently recognized tribes may later acquire land to from a reservation. The Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan only got their 147-acre reservation in 2009. The highest number I see on this map is 303 but the number are in no order and I might have missed something higher. Rmhermen (talk) 13:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The Point of the Compact of Free Association

Is this understanding of the Compact of Free Association correct: the United States gives the governments of those countries money in exchange for being able to run their militaries?

Are there any benefits to the citizens of the Association countries? Is it easier to travel to the States or get US citizenship? --CGPGrey (talk) 13:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

The U.S. doesn't run their military, the U.S. is their military. And as far as benefits regarding residency and citizenship, that is covered pretty well in the article itself you linked. You can think of the Compact of Free Association as part of the continuum between "U.S. Statehood" and "Completely unrelated sovereign nation". In other words, they aren't like Hawaii, but they also aren't like Australia. The status of those countries lies on the "sovereign state" side of the line, but just barely. In many respects, their status is not all that different from Commonwealths like Puerto Rico, except in some small ways that allow them to claim sovereignty where Puerto Rico doesn't. But even Puerto Rico is recognized as more sovereign than other U.S. territories. It's a complicated situation, and doesn't allow easy categorization into convenient binary choices. --Jayron32 13:25, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Am I correct to assume that the US wants to be their military to have strategic outposts in the Pacific? Otherwise why would the US want to give them financial support. Also, the article is mute on the topics of citizenship, taxes, etc. --CGPGrey (talk) 13:33, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Under "Economic provisions" it has numerous statements which indicate the relationship of the residents of those countries with mainland U.S., including "The U.S. treats these nations uniquely by giving them access to many U.S. domestic programs..." (and following) and "Most citizens of the associated states may live and work in the United States, and most U.S. citizens and their spouses may live and work in the associated states.[3] In 1996, the U.S. Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act included removing Medicaid benefits for resident aliens from these states. (Most other resident aliens have a five-year waiting period.)". They are not citizens of the U.S., but they have rights which lie between citizens and non-citizens. The article also has further information under the "2003 renewal" section, which covers some of the changes to these statuses from the original compact. Residents of these states do not pay taxes to the U.S., but do pay taxes to their own national governments; as covered in the individual articles about them. --Jayron32 14:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

One big benefit is that they are safe from invasion by their neighbors, which otherwise might be a threat for such small nations. StuRat (talk) 16:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

High Chief vs Chief

Why were Indian chiefs always refer to as chiefs while Polynesian chiefs were high chiefs? When and why did the difference started?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 18:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Why is Luxembourg led by a Grand Duke, and why were the leaders of the Habsburg family Archdukes, and why was William the Conquerer only a Duke? Why did Ireland have a High King? It probably has to do with a difference in heirarchical structure; i.e. the High Chief would have had subordinate chiefs under him, ruling smaller realms or owing him fealty. Native American tribes had the equivalent of High Chiefs as well, see Sachem.--Jayron32 23:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Chief is an English term, different tribes used different terms. See Category:Titles and offices of Native American leaders. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:53, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Wich date of the race is correct?

There are many links that containing several different dates of the race between Tom Thumb (locomotive) and the horse. Wich date is correct August 18 1830 [4] [5] [6] or September 18 1830 [7] [8] or August 25 1829 [9]? If August 25 1829 is not the date of the race then there is a mistake in Wikipedia here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1829_in_rail_transport. Blast furnace chip worker (talk) 19:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

According to Anthony J. Bianculli's Trains and Technology: Locomotives, 'In August of 1830 the tiny Tom Thumb carried B&O directors thirteen miles along the road in one hour and twelve minutes. The return trip was made in fifty-seven minutes, excluding four minutes for a water stop midway. Tom Thumb's successful run will ever be overshadowed by the loss of a fateful race with a horse, generally, but wrongly, reported to have occurred on the return trip with the directors.' So when was it? 'There is strong evidence that the contest occurred on 18 September 1830'. The phrase 'strong evidence' suggests that the precise date can't be proved beyond all doubt. --Antiquary (talk) 09:24, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer. But that is about unother dates? Why they exist in some links? There they have been took from? Do you know? Blast furnace chip worker (talk) 10:39, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

US airforce, served Germany

Trying to locate a girl born to a young airforceman serving in Germany approx 1966-70. I have fathers full name and possible first name of mother and Christian names of child. Girl may have been born in an air force base hospital in Germany or maybe a regular community hospital. Kittybrewster ☎ 19:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

You might as well list whatever info you have. StuRat (talk) 17:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Germany has very strict privacy laws, so you will not be able to search birth records, for example. There may be organizations or Internet bulletin boards where people seeking their biological parents might post queries. Those kinds of venues might be your best hope, unless you have more information that would allow you to track down the mother or child. Marco polo (talk) 14:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

But if she was born at a US Air Force base, wouldn't US privacy laws apply to those records ? StuRat (talk) 22:31, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

China

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Is China going to take over the world? --75.10.48.39 (talk) 20:55, 26 August 2011 (UTC) It says at the top of this page "The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions or predictions about future events." --Colapeninsula (talk) 21:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC) It might be helpful to note that there were similar predictions about Japan back in the 1970's and 80's. However, they eventually lost their competitive advantage of starvation wages, and so will China. StuRat (talk) 21:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC) The decline of Japan had relatively little to do with it no longer being a lowest-wage-cost producer (something which happened many years before the beginning of the "lost decade")... AnonMoos (talk) 22:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC) See discussion on the talk page. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:37, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Why hasn't China taken over the world? --75.10.48.39 (talk) 23:26, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Why did you expect China to take over the world? HiLo48 (talk) 23:54, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

There are not as many people in China who have experienced the disappointment of wealth. --DeeperQA (talk) 08:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Traditionally, China has had no interest in taking over the world, they saw little point in trying to rule over a bunch of foreign barbarians when they have all China, and sought only to extract a little tribute from those closest to them. 79.66.99.126 (talk) 15:22, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Notice that there is only one true tradition: all traditions are subject to change. What China did or not do during her past doesn't bind the country's current leadership. They may change laws, dismiss treaties, change habits, create new traditions. Future leaders of China (or any country of the world) may want to take over the world. If they are truly able to pull it of is another matter. Flamarande (talk) 15:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Does China have the resources to take over the world? --76.211.88.37 (talk) 17:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Not with its current military. It can't even take over Taiwan for Pete's (Mao's?) sake. (I should qualify that. It might be able to conquer the island, but at an unacceptable cost.) Also, its government is more concerned about staying in power than taking on additional risks. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Like the players of the traditional prisoners' dilemma game, most nations have found that it is always in their interest to cooperate, as long as other nations are not defecting. Our cooperation technology continues to increase, but problems with, for example, finance, have long kept nations from being able to optimize the extent to which they cooperate. All indications is that this is becoming easier.

However, I would like to get to a related question. China has a surplus of men and a deficit of women. Does this destabilize China's politics or make it more likely that they would be aggressive? 76.254.20.205 (talk) 04:59, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

August 27

Saint Mary Lake, Montana

In your article on "Saint Mary Lake Montana" you mention (and show photos of) Little Chief Mountain, but there is no mention of Mount Saint Mary. This mountain shows the face of Mary when viewed from the right angle and should be mentioned in your article. After all, the town of Saint Mary Montana as well as the lake, were named after this face on the butte north of town. I'm told that there is even an interesting legend that goes with it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.104.215 (talk) 02:06, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

If you any relevant material backed up by reliable sources, please feel free to add it to the article yourself. HiLo48 (talk) 02:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

income amount and number of persons

I'm looking for a table of number of persons having the same income within sequential steps from minimum to maximum number of persons and amount of income. I need the data to build a two axis x and y graph. I prefer gross income upon which taxes are calculated. So long as all other parameters are the same for the group the other parameters do not matter. Where can I find such data in a list or table form. --DeeperQA (talk) 04:51, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

See The L-Curve: A Graph of the US Income Distribution.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

You must have read the word "income" and the word "graph" and instantly thought of the comparison between your income and that of Bill Gates. However, my purpose is not to compare incomes. If it was I would note that if Bill Gates diverted all of his income to poor people he could only afford to give $40,000 to one million two hundred fifty thousand. Now please concentrate on helping me find the data I have requested. --DeeperQA (talk) 08:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I've read your question about 20 times now, but I still have no real idea what you're after. Can you explain it some other way? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Blueboar (below) is only incorrect in that the orientation of the data does not matter, ie. either axis may represent people or income. If it helps think of a two column table. --DeeperQA (talk) 14:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I assume we are looking for a chart with gross income amounts on the X axis, and numbers of people on the Y axis. You can also point to tables or lists of income amounts or ranges of amounts in the first column with the number of people in the range in the second column. Very simple. Blueboar (talk) 12:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you after something like the table here, with average incomes per quintile (data from 2005, so something more recent must be available)? Warofdreams talk 14:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The summary tables are probably as close as I am going to get. --DeeperQA (talk) 06:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe what you want can be found through http://www.dmoz.org/Science/Social_Sciences/Economics/Econometrics/.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:36, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

NO, I have all of the math tools. Just need the data. --DeeperQA (talk) 06:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The OP has not specified any particular country or jurisdiction, or any particular time period. It might help if these basic items were spelt out. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 04:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Pinpointing may be somewhat pointless by adding further restriction. Lets say the income of each individual from minimum to maximum in the US for 2010 or 2011 in steps of say $10,890.00 with numbers of people for each step. --DeeperQA (talk) 06:15, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I still don't get it, I'm afraid. If we go by your first sentence, you ideally want this data for all people at all times, from the beginning of recorded history and in all the countries of the world. Do you seriously believe such data exists? To your second sentence, why did you choose a step of $10,890? You must have had a reason for not choosing, say, $10,000. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Last stands etc

Can folk help me identify the places/events represented by the seven images at this page. I think #2 is Modadishu/Black hawk down; #5 is the Alamo; #6 is Iwo Jima. The others I haven't sussed yet. TIA. -- SGBailey (talk) 08:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

1 is Leonidas I. —Kevin Myers 09:07, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I believe #7 is the Little Bighorn Battlefield. —Kevin Myers 09:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

4 is the Rorke's Drift Zulu memorial. —Kevin Myers 09:25, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah 2 is Battle of Mogadishu (1993) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:S64-Crew.gif. ny156uk (talk) 09:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

No 3 is the "Rats of Tobruk" memorial in Mackay, Queensland, commemorating the Siege of Tobruk in 1941. Do we win a prize? Alansplodge (talk) 10:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

So to summarise: 1 Leonidas; 2 Black hawk down, 3 Tobruk, 4 Rorke's drift, 5 Alamo, 6 Iwo Jima, 7 Little Bighorn. Sadly no prize, but I can now progress in solving a puzzle in order to find a geocache. Thanks. -- SGBailey (talk) 15:48, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Syphax

In the article on Syphax it says: However, Scipio's ship managed to make harbor before Hasdrubal's seven triremes could make out to intercept them, and in a neutral harbor... How many men were on Hasdrubal's seven triremes? How many men were on Scipio's ship? --Doug Coldwell ^talk 13:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The present day Greek Navy has its very own trireme; the Olympias built with the assistance of the Trireme Tust. It has 170 oars, so my guess would be in the region of 200 plus or minus 50. Alansplodge (talk) 14:55, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Our article on ancient triremes also says 200. But it's also possible that they were carrying infantry on top of that, ready to fight upon landing. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 19:57, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

acting in the 16th century

during the 16th and 17th centuries in England, amongst other artists, each acting group would be under the patronage of a particular noble or senior government official. However, what I am trying to understand now is why that had to be the case. The impression I have gotten is that at least some of these acting groups made a decent profit, so what other reasons might there have been to require that? Or was it just the way things were done and people could not imagine doing it otherwise

79.66.99.126 (talk) 15:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

A look at our article on the English Renaissance theatre might be helpful. I wasn't aware that every acting group needed a patron, but it is generally true that there was a lot of political hostility toward acting in those years, and protection from somebody powerful would have been very useful. Looie496 (talk) 16:39, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. The reason actors might be unpopular with rulers is their tendency to satirize leaders or otherwise insult them or their beliefs. StuRat (talk) 17:00, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

One reason perhaps, but the English theatre enjoyed remarkable freedom for much of the period (compared to other European countries that is). I think it's rather more likely that:

a) As now, theatre productions needed advance funding before a profit was realised; a rich patron would be their principal investor.

b) Having a powerful patron would be a way of getting things done. Easier to get credit and less likely to be stalled by petty bureaucrats.

c) It was rather like having a celebrity endorsement today. The best form of advertising.

Alansplodge (talk) 10:15, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Company X offers to buy company Y - company Y's shares go up?

Hello.

Often, when it becomes known that Company X wants to buy Company Y, the latter's shares rise significantly in price. Why is that so? Is it because investors think they'll be able to sell their shares to Company X at a higher price than the market price? Or is it for some other different reasons? Thanks! Leptictidium (mt) 15:31, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not certain, but AFAIK it's largely a matter of supply and demand. If company X wants to buy and truly control company Y it has to own 51% of the shares. So it will buy all available shares in the market. We have a major buyer who is buying a lot of shares; i.e.: the demand of the shares is going up and the supply is going down. Other shareholders will consider selling them but obviously only for a very good price. The articles takeover describe some issues. Flamarande (talk) 16:25, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes a purchase is made of another company with the intent of combining the two to make a stronger combined company (for example, one company makes glasses and the other makes contact lenses). This could help both companies improve their market positions and reduce cost via combined advertising, sales and management staff, so should theoretically bring up both stock prices.

And note that this is common when the target company is distressed in some way. Presumably the company which plans to buy them also plans to fix this situation. If the target is well managed but low on cash due to market problems, they might just provide the injection of cash which is needed. If, on the other hand, the target company is seriously mismanaged, then a new management team may be put in place.

There's also the case where the target company is beyond saving, and the purchaser is only interested in breaking it up and selling off it's assets. However, in this case, the stock price may be so depressed that even this would make the stock worth more than it's current value. StuRat (talk) 16:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The underlying reason is that once company A owns 51% of company B, it can hand-pick the management of company B and therefore has total control over how company B is operated. This has a couple of consequences. First, the current management of company B is usually hostile to such a deal, because at best they will have new bosses and at worst they will be fired -- it takes generous money to the shareholders to overcome that hostility. Second, anybody who continues to hold minority shares after the deal is in danger. Most publicly traded companies try to operate in a way that maximizes their stock value, but when company B is majority-owned by company A, it may be operated in a way that benefits company A but harms itself. The rules say that shareholders have to be offered a way of avoiding that danger without being forced to accept a stock price that they might see as too low. Looie496 (talk) 16:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

This is a hostile takeover. That's only one type. StuRat (talk) 17:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The actual reason is that outside investors believe they will be able to make a few percentage points of profit in a matter of weeks because they expect Company X to offer a slightly higher price for the shares than the current price. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:39, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

You may also find the article on merger arbitrage highly relevant; although I don't understand why that redirects to risk arbitrage - in fact the risk arbitrage article seems to be more or less entirely about merger arbitrage, but merger arbitrage is merely one form of risk arbitrage. But whatever And it hasn't explicitly been stated above but a majority of shareholders (to the first approximation) have to agree to the takeover - and they will only rationally do so if the amount offered for their shares is higher than the current market price. So the offer price has to be over the prevailiing market price. Then said merger arbitrage will take the current price near to, but not over the offer price (assuming no other offers are expected). Egg Centric 17:44, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Ordinarily, buyers have to pay much more than the market price when seeking to take over another company. Think about it this way: The assessed value of your house may be $250,000. But if someone were to drive up to your door and ask to buy your house right away, the person would probably have to offer a lot more than $250,000. After all, you like your house, you've lived in it for a long time and you weren't planning on moving. Similarly, the people who run Company Y aren't likely to want to give up control of their company for market price. Also, the market price of a stock is based on what it costs to get one owner to sell his or her shares. While one person may be willing to part with his or her shares for $50 each, it will take a lot more to convince the owners of a majority of the shares to sell them. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:57, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Artist search

I recently purchased two paintings on board dated 1896 and signed "yeldarb a". Searching for this artist proved fruitless and then I realized that the signature was written backwards. It reads, of course, A Bradley. The scenes are of Scottish lochs and when I reframed them this was confirmed on one. Behind the mounts were old newspapers of the same year so I don't doubt there authenticity. Now, does any one know who A Bradley was ????

Keith. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.98.54.147 (talk) 16:10, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Only possible A. Bradley I could find was Arthur Granville Bradley (son of George Granville Bradley), he authored a book on Scotland in 1912 with illustrations, but the paintings themselves were by a certain A.L. Collins. Nevertheless, check out the book (it's public domain): A.G. Bradley (1912). The Gateway of Scotland : or East Lothian, Lammermoor and the Merse (PDF). Ballantyne, Hanson, & Co..

In case the 'A' might mean some other thing than a first name, another British artist from the same period is Basil Bradley, he usually did pastoral scenes (see examples: [10], [11], [12], [13]). It would probably help if you took a picture (in fact I encourage you to donate a picture of them, they're public domain anyway).-- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:45, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Geography/GK question

Bikini Island and Bikini Atoll location - Micronesia

Which place is located between two large landforms where currently no one is allowed within two miles. It is once part of a massive empire. Would appreciate any help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.83.211.172 (talk) 19:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Is this another one of those stupid online quiz things? Looie496 (talk) 19:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

If we tell you, will you share the prize with us? --TammyMoet (talk) 19:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

My guess would be Bikini Island within Bikini Atoll, because it is approximately two miles long and noone is allowed to live there yet because of radioactive contamination. The two large landforms would be the continents of Central America and Asia. It once belonged to the Empire of Japan. You can send my share of the prize money to P.O. Box ________ in the state of ___________ in the USA. --Doug Coldwell ^talk 20:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Posted is a map location of Bikini Atoll.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 14:59, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The key is "no one is allowed within two miles". There are countless places "between two large landforms" (whatever that is supposed to mean) which were "once part of a massive empire" (the word "massive" left vague--we talking Mongol Empire or more like the Holy Roman Empire?). But how many places are there where no one (whatsoever, if one takes this literally) is allowed within exactly two miles? Of course, these quizzes usually play with words and should not be taken so literally. In that case the answer could be any of hundreds of possibilities. Pfly (talk) 07:55, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Give me an example of a specific place "where currently no one is allowed within two miles" and "between two large landforms" and "It is once part of a massive empire" - all parameters at the same time. That should be easy since you are indicating "hundreds of possibilities."--Doug Coldwell ^talk 14:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Since nobody can come up with a better answer, does that mean I win the prize money?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 18:48, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The Korean demilitarized zone. About two miles wide; formerly part of both the Chinese and Japanese Empires, and situated between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:02, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

What about the part: Soldiers from both sides may patrol inside the DMZ, and Tae Sung Dong and Kijong-dong were the only villages allowed by the armistice committee to remain within the boundaries of the DMZ. Sounds like to me a lot of people are allowed within the 2 mile zone.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 21:01, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Not even close to the factual liberties the website takes. How anyone at all gets them, I have no idea. It'll probably turn out to be one of the thousands of minefields or something. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:03, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Rather than Bikini - which is pushing "between two landforms" a bit - at least one of the Aleutian islands is a former nuclear test site (and thus inaccessible) and some others may be restricted nature reserves. And, of course, all are formerly part of the Russian Empire... Shimgray | talk | 23:48, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

A little Googling turned up another version of the question at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110826064327AAiX5SZ. The post is only three days old and has too many similarities to be a coincidence but some of the description is different, mainly replacing the empire part with "This landform used to produce a wide variety of products, but has since been abandoned." PrimeHunter (talk) 02:12, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• There's Hashima Island (Battleship Island) of Japan which was off-limits (not anymore though), once part of the Japanese Empire, and situated between Japan and China.

• There's Poveglia in Italy. Off-limits and abandoned. Once part of the Roman Empire. Situated between Venice and Lido.

• There's also some islands of the Tuscan Archipelago. Some islands are uninhabited and are off-limits nature reserves. Once a part of the Roman Empire. It's between mainland Italy and Corsica (France).

• Diego Garcia and the Chagos archipelago, right smack in the middle of the Indian Sea, is a military base (thus inhabited) but off-limits to the general population. Once part of the British Empire.

And yeah, there are probably hundreds of possibilities. Islands, parks, mountains, closed to the public due to conservation, cultural reasons, nuclear test sites, or former military bases. Almost every place was once part of a massive empire or another. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 08:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Jewish views on working on the Sabbath

Hello everyone. I have read your article Sabbath but I had a few question about it (specifically among American Jews), since parts seem to conflict with what I have observed in real life I have two close friends who are Jewish, one orthodox and the other I forget, but my orthodox friend considers it OK to airsoft and paintball on Saturdays, and the other is willing to do non-synagogue-affiliated volunteering on Saturdays as well as give instrumental and vocal performances, even though neither is needed as part of membership of the groups that run them. As I understand it thus far, doing almost any kind of work and many sorts of play are prohibited unless absolutely necessary on the Sabbath. This is supposedly strictly observed in the Orthodox community and more laxly so in the Reform communities. My question is, are these typical views? Any guesses on the sect of my other friend (I could just ask her but this isn't the first time I've forgotten, I'm a Nazi, I know ;) I would especially appreciate the personal views of a Jewish respondant, if that's not too much to ask. Thanks profusely. 201.73.204.178 (talk) 19:29, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The 'official' view of most Orthodox movements (eg. the United Synagogue) is that Jews shouldn't work or play sports or anything like that on Shabbat. However, many people who are members of Orthodox synagogues don't necessarily endorse this view: there is a phrase "parking round the corner" to describe families that will drive to their Saturday morning service, against the rules, but park round the corner so that the rabbi doesn't see.
The official view of more progressive movements (eg. Liberal Judaism) is that such activity is perfectly fine, as Shabbat should be a day of recreation and enjoyment.
I hope that makes the situation slightly clearer to you at any rate! ╟─TreasuryTag►contemnor─╢ 19:33, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Tut tut tut. Considering the number of fires ignited and quenched by the spark plugs on even the shortest trip that really is a no no ;-) Shabbat says more about these injunctions. Sorry see you've read that and I'm not a Jew. Dmcq (talk) 20:44, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Car engines don't have spark plugs! Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 23:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

... ... but the battery certainly has to work hard to move the Leaf! Dbfirs 07:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Good point. I guess it could even be left switched on before the Shabbat. And how much work is it doing if it gains energy back when stopping? I can see them selling quite well for this! Dmcq (talk) 09:12, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Nah, that excuse wouldn't cut it. One isn't allowed to ride a bike on Shabbat in case it broke (because then one would have to carry it) and I guess the same would apply to a car engine left on overnight. ╟─TreasuryTag►Woolsack─╢ 09:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Judaism has more shades of grey than a black and white TV does. People who call themselves "Orthodox" range from people others call "ultra-Orthodox" to people who ultra-Orthodox people would consider pretty irreligious. It can be a descriptor of behaviour, but it can also be a descriptor of synagogue movement allegiance. Many members of Orthodox synagogues are not particularly scrupulous about their observance. In short, your friends may be describing themselves as orthodox, but that's just their POV. I'd probably call them "traditional", because in my POV the activities you describe (eg paintballing, using musical instruments) are totally forbidden on Shabbat and put the person who considers them OK outside of the norm. Note I also distinguish between someone who lapses (I do something and it's wrong) and someone who legitimises behaviour (I do it, but there's nothing wrong with it). The latter is a good sign of not being Orthodox. --Dweller (talk) 12:16, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Scipio Africanus and the mutiny at Sucro, 206 BC

Apparently Scipio got seriously ill near Sucro in 206 BC. There were even rumors of his death which caused much havic. What were the reasons of the mutiny? Is there a list of grievances? Who were the instigators that organized the mutiny? How was the mutiny eventually quenched?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 20:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Probably the most complete source of information would be this paper, which I cannot access though. Apparently most of the information comes from Polybius -- here is a freely accessible link to his account. It looks like the primary grievance was not having been paid their wages. Looie496 (talk) 22:10, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

The Paper in Historia linked suggests that Polybios version was biased, since he had personal connections and sympathy towards Scipio, however that is also the only source we have, all later sources being based on his account. Polybios claims the soldier were debauched and needed money, preferably in the form of plunder. However, Chrissanthos shows that he has no understanding of the conditions of the ordinary soldier at the time and one must look further for an interpretation, for example it was not because of debauchery that the men needed pay. They simply hadn't been paid their wages for years, and supplies was also lacking. On p. 174 Chrissanthos states: "On careful investigation, three causes emerge. The first was complaints over money, both pay and plunder [....] Upon inverstigation it becomes apparent that Scipio, and his father and uncle before him, had not paid them [...] The second major cause was the length of service. Many of the man at Sucro had arrived with Scipio's uncle Gnaeus back in 218, or with his father Publius in 217 [...] The third and maybe most important reason was the lack of supplies at Sucro. It will be demonstrated that the shortages at Sucro first drove the men to steal from the countryside at night and then to mutiny. Scipio's prompt provision of supplies during and after the crisis proves that he realized that fulfilling these needs of the men were vital to his command and the termination of the mutiny." Regarding who and exactly how the mutiny played out you will need to read Polybios in the link Looie496 provided above. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:09, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Looie496 and Saddhiyama. Much help!--Doug Coldwell ^talk 16:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Intro to Sufism

What book should I read as an intro to Sufism? I want something that might be used as a textbook in a university class on the subject, something with thorough citations, not a New Age coffee table book. :) Thanks! --63.131.6.24 (talk) 22:58, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Some of the sources listed in the Sufism article on Wikipedia may do the job. Alternatively, here's a course module listing from SOAS, University of London on "Sufism: Texts and History" which has a recommended reading list. They also have a lower level Introduction to Sufism course. Another good course book listing is linked from this University of Cambridge Continuing Education course page (the PDF link titled "preparatory material" has a list of books about Sufism in the modern world). —Tom Morris (talk) 10:00, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I have had the following recommended to me: Douglas-Klotz, Neil. The Sufi Book of Life: 99 Pathways of the Heart for the Modern Dervish. Penguin (Non-Classics), 2005. Chittick, William C. Sufism: A Short Introduction. Oxford, England: Oneworld, 2000. Baldick, Julian. Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism. Washington Square, NY: New York University Press, 1989. Valiuddin, Mir. The Quranic Sufism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1977. Kalibadhi, Abu Bakr al-. The Doctrine of the Sufis. Translated by A.J. Arberry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. My source recommends the first two to start with. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Death of Gaddafi?

Is it true that Gaddafi was killed by an angry mob of rebels sometime during the fall of Tripoli? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 23:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Not according to any news service I've seen or heard. HiLo48 (talk) 23:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Or any Google search, or his Wikipedia article. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 23:21, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Then that would mean that my classmate was lying. And Wikipedia is not a source. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 23:26, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

So you admit you did no searching of your own before you asked your question here. We ask you to search first, particularly for easily-found information, as this would most certainly have been if it were true. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 04:00, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't apply to the RD, particularly not when the article is referenced. Nil Einne (talk) 18:09, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I think I recall some online sources briefly reporting it, before quickly realizing that they didn't have any clue what was really going on. The Wikipedia page did briefly mention his death on 21 August, before quickly being removed again [14], [15]. Buddy431 (talk) 02:24, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Remember, it was also reported by the rebels that Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam was captured, and then he proceeded to show up at a government-held hotel the next day. I think that a lot of people, even those present in Tripoli, really have no clue what's happening, but our 24 hour news cycle demands that we get constant status updates, no matter how accurate they really are. Buddy431 (talk) 02:28, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

One of Gaddafi's sons, Khamis, has been killed 9 times already. Count Iblis (talk) 16:29, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

August 28

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

Why were Frankincense and Myrrh considered valuable? Aren't they just a bunch of smelly tree sap (that anyone could easily get if they felt like it for some reason)? --76.211.88.37 (talk) 00:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, anybody who lived in certain parts of Yemen or Somalia could just go out into the desert and get some. Looie496 (talk) 00:51, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Being a natural product doesn't make something not valuable. Saffron is very expensive. --Jayron32 02:27, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Our articles on Frankincense and Myrrh suggest that both have medicinal properties, for what it is worth. And why is Gold valuable: all you have to do is find a source, then dig it out of the ground... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

76.211.88.37 -- In Hellenistic and Roman times, "aromatic resins" such as Frankincense and Myrrh had extremely important ceremonial, ritual, and medical uses in the Mediterranean civilizations, and there was a regular trade in such substances from "Arabia Felix" (Yemen and southern Arabia) to the Mediterranean. There was an interesting article about the "Rise and Fall of Arabia Felix" (due to the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity reducing demand, among other factors) published in Scientific American in 1969... AnonMoos (talk) 03:25, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that, unlike then, gold is now pretty hard to mine, since we've exhausted all the easy-to-access supplies. Spices, on the other hand, are now much easier to produce, thanks to modern mass production and shipping methods. The result is that the price of spices has gone down, relative to gold, to a dramatic degree. StuRat (talk) 03:42, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

A bit cheaper now; this ecclesiastical supplier quotes GBP10.13 (USD16.50) retail for 400 grams - almost a pound (weight). Although the harvesting and sorting seems to have remained unchanged, I suspect that the transport costs and risks are lower than in the 1st century AD. Cities like Petra made immense profits by taxing the overland incense trade[16]; the only alternative to stumping up bags of cash everytime a caravan went through a town, was a hazardous sea voyage. Alansplodge (talk)

It's odd to use the phrasing "considered valuable." Things are valuable if people are willing to pay for them. There's nothing "considered" about it. They were either valuable or not. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe odd phrasing, but I read the question as asking why people were willing to pay for them. Alansplodge (talk) 22:45, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I would expect that the finest perfumes cost more then gold even today. Googlemeister (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Without correcting for the effect of taxes, Chanel No. 5 - to pick an arbitrary but fairly prominent example - costs about £6 per ml, or $10, from a UK high street retailer. If we assume it's about as dense as water, that makes it ~$10,000 per kilo, compared to a current gold market price of ~$60,000 per kilo. It seems quite plausible that the most expensive end of the market is over six times more than this! Shimgray | talk | 15:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

And if you subtract the weight of the water and alcohol, the value of the active perfume ingredients is probably already more than gold. Similarly, many meds are likely more expensive than gold, especially if you only consider the active ingredients. StuRat (talk) 22:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

On his second coming, I suppose he be given printer ink cartridges, parking permits and full healthcare cover.--Aspro (talk) 15:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Gaddafi and Rice

Did Gaddafi dated Condoleeza Rice? --DinoXYZ (talk) 01:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

No. --Jayron32 02:02, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Apparently he had a fan photo album which the State Department has called "creepy"[17] and given their diplomatic relations, I suppose he probably got a handshake out of giving up his nuclear program, but I doubt he got to first base. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 06:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

This is a really interesting result of Gaddafi's ideology though. He thinks that black Africans are the superior race and will eventually rule the world. This is one reason why he was interested in a pan-African union recently, and he liked to use black Africans as mercenaries (which is not working out so well for any black people in Libya right now, mercenary or not). And of course, he was in love with the most powerful black woman he had ever met. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:50, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

If he had ever met Oprah, history might have been changed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Gaddafi's whereabouts

Where is Gaddafi? --DinoXYZ (talk) 01:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

No one is sure. I believe the last positive confirmation of his whereabouts was about a week ago; per 2011_Battle_of_Tripoli#Status_of_Gaddafi_family. --Jayron32 02:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I guess someone knows, but they're telling neither the media nor the rebels. HiLo48 (talk) 02:07, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Some news sources have been batting around the possibility that he was granted asylum in Algeria [18]. It's likely that he'll turn up in the next few weeks, either captured or killed in Libya, or gloating from some allied nation. Buddy431 (talk) 02:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I wonder why anyone thinks we would have information about Gaddafi that is not known to the military authorities, or to the world at large via the media. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 03:56, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the questioner is an intelligence agent trying to win the reward. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 04:56, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I just heard a noise under my house, maybe he's hiding out in my crawl space. StuRat (talk) 04:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure it's not a rat, Stu? HiLo48 (talk) 04:46, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

One of the tunnels from his palaces leads to a under-water dock; he escaped in a submarine to Ireland, where he met up with Lord Lucan and is currently riding around the Cork and Kerry Mountains on Shergar. -- CS Miller (talk) 23:24, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Crawl space is right, Stu but in this case it is located in one of the million or so tenement buildings which American Islamic spies have found and converted to secret apartments and living space. Check you basements for undocumented crawl space construction and living space. --96.252.229.48 (talk) 00:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

EARTH. Googlemeister (talk) 14:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually he's working as a lifeguard at a popular seaside resort in Sicily. I know this because he swam out in the open sea to rescue me as I was about to be swept away by a powerful current.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

How appropriate, since he was just swept away by a powerful current in history. StuRat (talk) 07:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Looking for relatives in Germany

This has been moved from the help desk with a link to here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

My wife left Kindelbruck in 1953 and emigrated to Canada in 1959. She still has 2 sisters living in Kindelbruk. Charlotte Hafermalz and Margaret Lausze. We have attempted a few times to sent letters and birthday/Christmas card, but there is no response to any of our correspondence. Can you clarify for us if they are still alive? Are they still living in Kindelbruck and if so could you supply us with proper addresses Since my wife is totally blind I am writing this letter,

On behalf of my wife Gertrude I as her husband am writing this letter

(Redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.219.110 (talk) 00:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I have moved your post to here, which is a better forum to receive an answer. I do not speak German but I have performed a search. The two links below this post are the best I can do. They are telephone book listings. I searched the exact names you provided in Kindelbrück. I found nothing for either entry but I did find some listings for people with the same last names. It's very possible these people are completely unrelated but it's also possible they are relatives. I have no idea. Meanwhile, maybe some other people will be able to provide a more targeted answer.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

• German "White Pages" listings for Hafermalz.
• German "White Pages" listings for Lausze.

Kindelbrück in Thüringia is a township of some 1 750 inhabitants, so it seems likely that the people listed above are relatives of you wife. There is an email contact for the administration of the district, poststelle@vg-kindelbrueck.de. You or your wife may consider to write to the officials in person. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

PS: If you need help (I am a native German speaker), please leave a message on my talk page. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:55, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Also try the same telephone book listing as above with the names Margaret and Charlotte. Both search turn out results (Müller Margarete, Böttcher Charlotte and Grube Charlotte). Maybe they changed their names in the mean time. Quest09 (talk) 11:35, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Zecco can't give a history of stocks' asking prices. Anyplace that will?

See, when I try to buy CYBL for .0001 each, it says .0001 at the moment but the asking is .0002. I'd rather wait until it's .0001, where it CAN'T go any lower, so that every time the price goes up, I would only gain; I would never lose (anything but the commission.)

I tried asking Zecco's customer service for where I could find a graph/chart of historical asking prices for Cyberlux Corporation. They didn't have such a feature. Therefore, I must ask: What other financial reporting services (preferably free) will have a graph/chart of the historical asking prices of any given stock? Also, is it possible for any stock's asking price to reach .0001? (I've never seen asking prices fall below .0002...)

(N.B. As a college student, I need to start small, so I ought to invest in the tiniest stocks first. I'll be investing $300 in CYBL in the next few days, hopefully at $0.0001 per share so that I'll have 3,000,000 shares. If it isn't possible, I guess I'll have to invest 1,500,000 shares at .0002 each.) --70.179.163.168 (talk) 09:49, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I can't answer your question directly, but befor handing over any investment money it would be wise to get some investment advice, perhaps from an economics educator or other apropriate person.190.56.112.245 (talk) 22:52, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

There's no way to buy any stock so that there is no possibility of loss. Stock can become totally worthless, so you can always lose 100% of what you invested. (Imagine a company that goes bankrupt and closes - their investors aren't going to be able to sell their stock, so it will have a $0 value.) I'd recommend reading a beginner's guide to investing and personal finance, because "invest[ing] in the tiniest stocks first" is a pretty bad strategy, even if you don't have much money. I'd recommend I Will Teach You to Be Rich, which at times is overly-basic and annoyingly-written, but is an excellent personal finance book targeted at the 20-35 crowd. Probably a more sensible investment strategy would be to buy equity-heavy index funds (because you are young and can tolerate risk). If you start an account at Vanguard, you can trade their index funds commission-free. (Same with Schwab, but their index funds have higher expenses.) Anyways, that's my two cents. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:37, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, if a company goes bankrupt, the shares are usually canceled with no reimbursement for common shareholders. I'm not familiar with Cyberlux but any company trading at 1/100th of a cent must be considered at high risk of bankruptcy by the market. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The reason why you don't see ask prices reach 0.0001 is because those who are selling want to make a profit off of their trades, and selling at 0.0001 would very likely not make a profit. You can read about market makers to learn more about who "they" are in this case. Good luck, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Is there any reason why it can't be .00016 or .00022 and it just gets rounded? In any case, this seems like a great way to lose $$$ as for stocks like these you can not guarantee a buyer. Googlemeister (talk) 15:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

That's what the market maker concept is all about. Each over-the-counter security (such as CYBL) has a designated market maker that is responsible for providing market liquidity for that security. They will always buy the stock. Have you ever wondered why you can just immediately sell stock in seconds without your broker having to go find a willing buyer? It's because there's a market maker who will always buy it. The concept of ask price vs. bid price is usually the result of market makers wanting to make a profit off of the stocks they are compelled to buy. As for rounding prices: I believe, but cannot verify, that it is the convention of the Pink Sheets (where CYBL is traded) that stocks are priced to the ten-thousandth. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand about the market maker concept, but I don't see how it can apply in a situation with an essentially worthless stock. How are they going to implement a bid/ask spread if the stock is already denominated at the lowest non-zero value? Googlemeister (talk) 13:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

August 29

maximum revenue scheme

What percent(s) of income and what percent of assets would produce the greatest possible revenue without being unfair to the poor or to the rich based on the poverty line as still being fair? --DeeperQA (talk) 00:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

If you find out, let us all know, because there's thousands of highly-trained economists who can't seem to be able to work it out. --Jayron32 01:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

"Fairness" is a subjective concept, so there is no absolute answer to your question. --Tango (talk) 02:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

You haven't stated an economic unit of analysis (firm? nation? world-system?). Many economic analyses avoid the concepts of "rich" and "poor", some simply substitute economic agents, others discuss class relations. Similarly assets, income and revenue are all constructed terms, with varying meanings or analogues in different analytical systems. A Marxist response would be along the lines of: economics cannot be fair, and any distribution of firm or societal social product between divisions I (production of productive apparatus) and II (production of things for consumption) will result in worse proportionate returns to workers, and eventually a radical reconfiguration of social production under the control of workers. You might need to supply your assumptions and explore your terms. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:12, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

In addressing your economic unit concern I quickly realized that the government need only set deduction and penalty constraints for such things as hardship or luxury existence for all economic units to determine percent and then use linear programming to find combinations which would fit revenue to expenditure. Thanks. --DeeperQA (talk) 05:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

In addition to the set of constraints, you also need a mathematical model. For example, you need to estimate what revenue will be for a given tax system. That is not easy to do. For small changes to an existing system, you can come up with a reasonably good guess (that's what governments do whenever they come up with a budget). If you want a completely new system, however, then you are going to have difficulties. --Tango (talk) 12:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The constraints pretty much make the model. Total revenue is total expenses but this is one situation as I understand it where deficit spending is said to be justified in that you do not need to know ahead of time what revenue will be. Required revenue is then used as the goal of process which determine the amount of taxes from each resource that do not violate any constraints. You end up with revenue matching expenditures and all of the constraints being met. --DeeperQA (talk) 04:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Income equality reaches a point of diminishing returns when it affects productivity. The most progressive tax in the world may have been Sweden before the imposition of the European Union's value added tax (VAT) but they were doing very well before then. So, there is only one way to find out. 99.36.74.131 (talk) 00:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Mid-Pacific Magazine

I don't think I'm going to get much of an answer but does anybody know where I can find an online copy of the The Mid-Pacific magazine, Volume 37 from 1929. There is a google book version but it's only a snippet view.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

You could try placing a request at the resource request page. Someone may have access to hard copies in an academic library or something and, if you ask nicely, they may scan some or all of the magazine for you. --Viennese Waltz 07:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The Phantom Coach by Amelia Edwards

Is the writer of the short story The Phantom Coach this Amelia Edwards? --DinoXYZ (talk) 01:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is. The story originally appeared in the Christmas number of Charles Dickens's magazine All the Year Round in 1864. Its first book publication (under the alternative title "The North Mail") was in Edwards's Miss Carew (1865). Deor (talk) 02:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Gath. (city).... Goliath

The last sentence in the following caption is incorrect.

"According to the Bible, the king of the city was Achish, in the times of Saul, David, and Solomon. It is not certain whether this refers to two or more kings of this name or not."

The list of kings, as per Biblical timeline references, is the historical account of the three consecutive reigning kings of Israel: first through third. As referenced in Samuel and I Kings.

Therefore, Shouldn't the sentence read something along those lines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.202.208.148 (talk) 07:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The second sentence is badly written but this is not really the correct place to discuss it, which would be Talk:Gath (city). Since you've raised it here, however, we can probably discuss it a bit. I think the confusion arises from the word "this", it's not clear what the "this" refers to. You seem to be reading it as referring to the kings of Israel, whereas I think it's intended to refer to the kings of Gath. Achish says that there were two Philistine rulers of Gath by that name, and the sentence is basically saying that we don't know which of the two the Bible is referring to. It could probably be rewritten to make this clearer, if my interpretation is correct. --Viennese Waltz 07:29, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

First of all, if your sentence is based "according to The Bible" you should removed Saul because he was not the legitimate king in Biblical chronology. Also, Since The Bible does not mention more than one Achish then we know that when it mentions him it is the same king, regardless of secular history saying there was more than one, that which I am not at all disputing. Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 15:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Schyler -- Saul's reign didn't end well, and he wasn't part of the "Davidic line" (as other rulers of the unified monarchy and the Kingdom of Judah were, or were claimed to be) but he started out being anointed by Samuel (after Samuel's elaborate disclaimer in I Samuel 8, a somewhat notorious passage which seems to receive very little attention on Wikipedia). And the problem with the single Achish hypothesis is that the guy would have had to reign as king for quite a long time... AnonMoos (talk) 17:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Libyan Regionalism

Do present day Libyans primarily identify themselves as Libyans or as nationals of their historic province (Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan)? Also, even if they see themselves primarily as Libyans, do they still greatly identify with their historical region? Have their been any recent calls for autonomy for each of the historic provinces? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.189.55.52 (talk) 08:22, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The rebels and protesters have been flying the old Flag of Libya, which suggests they seem themselves as primarily Libyan. Some have even been carrying pictures of King Idris of Libya. Although Idris was from Cyrenaica, as the principal campaigner for independence in colonial days, he seems to be a hero for Libyans from all parts of the country. Prior to the recent rebel advances, there was talk in Western Europe of partitioning Libya between east and west[19][20] but this doesn't seem to have had any support from either side in Libya. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I read some rebel-viewpoint websites and they make a point of Libyan national unity (e.g. here). It has been noted that Gaddafi was against the tribal structure, although it would seem this was pragmatic and the ground didn't always match the Libya-first rhetoric of the regime. The rebels, of course, have a battle on their hands maintaining any sort of unity and thus it is their clear interest to fight for the single Libya-first message on all fronts. I would say that King Idris was a complicated matter, it's just that the green flag, along with green square and other green things was the entire conception and execution of Gaddafi, and they needed something else that also meant "Libya". Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The current heir to the throne is Mohammed El Senussi who's gone on record to say he wants the people of Libya to decide what government they want and he will return as a Constitutional Monarch if they ask - he seems a decent sort. Quintessential British Gentleman (talk) 02:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Intentionally blank pages at the beginning and end of a book

What is the name of the intentionally blank pages found at the beginning and end of books? I remember reading that they were popularized by toy books and that these pages had some technical name..but I can't remember what that technical name was.Smallman12q (talk) 14:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about toy books, but other kinds of books often have two blank fly leaves, one at each end of a book. (Leaves are portions of a sheet of paper protruding from the binding of a book, consisting of two pages each, one on each side of the leaf.) Fly leaves are often made of a thicker, sturdier kind of paper than the paper used for the printed pages of a book. Fly leaves may form part of a book's binding. As for other blank pages in a book, in my experience they nearly always occur at the end of a book. Most modern commercial bookbinding methods involve the use of entire signatures. Signatures are very large sheets of paper printed on both sides, then folded and cut so that they form the leaves and pages of a section of a book. Signatures typically form a block of 32 pages, though 16-page signatures are sometimes used. If a publisher does not have enough material to fill the last signature in the book (and doesn't want to cut material to consolidate the book and eliminate that last signature), it is often more economical to bind the entire last signature, including blank pages, than to trim it to eliminate those blank pages. I don't know of a name for the blank pages other than "blank pages" or "blanks". Marco polo (talk) 15:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

They were not popularised by toy books. The existence of fly leaves can be traced at least as far back as the medieval codices, since, as Marco polo mentions, they were an integral part of the bookbinding technique. --Saddhiyama (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I also forgot what they were called, but in most book that I have, they don't have these blank pages and the ones that do only have a blank page at the front. According to a Google search I just did they are probably just called flyleafs or simply "Intentionally blank pages." No special name I guess. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

There was some sort of fancy name...maybe I'll remember it one day=P.Smallman12q (talk) 22:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

You mean the front or back "free endpaper", sometimes abbreviated as "f.f.e.p." or "b.f.e.p." in book antiquarian catalogues? --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

That might be it (though I think it had a more technical name...). I found a relevant article on picturebooks for it so it's probably it:Sipe, Lawrence R.; McGuire, Caroline E. (2006). "Picturebook Endpapers: Resources for Literary and Aesthetic Interpretation". Children's Literature in Education. 37 (4): 291–304. doi:10.1007/s10583-006-9007-3. ISSN 0045-6713.. Thanks again.Smallman12q (talk) 15:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Hotel Room Rquirements Indiana

Is a Telephone required to be in a Hotel room in Indiana — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.64.191.50 (talk) 17:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

No, you can have a telephone in your house, in your office, and I've seen people in Indiana carrying them around as well. I don't know why you would want to keep them all in hotel rooms?!? </joke> --Jayron32 18:47, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I would say almost definitely not. I don't have any references, but a search for "Hotel telephone law" comes up with nothing for any state. Until recently telephones where not ubiquitous in hotel rooms and I don't see any reason for such a law. --Daniel 18:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

While I agree it is unlikely to be required by law, it probably is required by various hotel rating systems. For example, a basic phone is required for even one diamond under the AAA's rating system ([21] - page 24). --Tango (talk) 19:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

That's right. They may have been required for emergency services in the '50s-60s before smoke detectors became common. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 20:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

They might still be required in some places, for medical emergencies, to report crimes, etc. (I suppose there will come a point where everyone can be assumed to carry cell phones, but I don't think we're quite there, yet.) StuRat (talk) 20:40, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

While it's possible, I would be surprised if a hotel needed to have a phone in every room in the 1950s-60s when I'm guessing a fair number of people didn't even have them in their homes (perhaps a phone on every floor or something seems more likely). This claims [22] hotels are required to be able to identify to emergency services in the US (911) the room a guest is calling from and both that and [23] suggests hotels consider them important both for safety reasons and for internal communications (but they cost a lot). They also mention concern over coverage and the ability to identify precisely where the guest are calling from are concerns with relying on mobile phone for emergency purposes. [24] suggests in the US water recreational facilities must have an emergency phone and also that hotels may be found liable for problems guests face due to the lack of communication devices (both which is different from saying it's a legal requirement to have one in every room) Nil Einne (talk) 13:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Debating tactic?

I'm looking for a debate team tactic that involves demanding that the opposing team prove from first principles the ideas of logic before their proposal can be considered on its merits. What is this called? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.8.218.204 (talk) 19:16, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Pedantry. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 19:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - that's not what I was looking for though - when it was first used it was not against the rules - it was tremendously controversial though. It basically attacks the argument philosophically by questioning the nature of truth, and leads to very technical debates that are not about the topic. It is largely outlawed in most leagues - it has a name, but I can't remember it.... Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

When I was in high school, pedantry wasn't against the rules, but it would never get anywhere with the judges. The most effective response was to call the pedantry "absurdly pedantic" and move on to evidence, conclusions, and the fact that the pedant is unlikely to have supporting evidence since they resorted to pedantry. Synonyms per thesaurus.com include dogmatism, pedagogery, and pretension. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 20:16, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I personally would call it the Tortoise strategy, after What the Tortoise Said to Achilles, an essay by Lewis Carroll illustrating it (available at Wikisource). Looie496 (talk) 20:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe something like diversionary meticulousness.Phalcor (talk) 20:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - but these are not it - it's considered by some to be a legitimate debate tactic - attacking the assumed philosophical underpinnings that the team is asking us to take for granted and without question, and it has a name... It is not considered pedantic by its advocates, but rather rigorous - if the opposing team is not willing to justify the assumptions behind their position then they do not deserve to have their argument considered on its merits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 20:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks guys - I found it - it was Kritik - http://webpages.charter.net/johnprager/IPD/Chapter14.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 21:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I hope that's not illegal, because questioning premises is a legitimate and appropriate choice when the premises are questionable. For example if the opposition asserts that your evidence or conclusions are flawed because you are a bad person for whatever reason, then it's proper to question the implicit assumption that the value of an idea is dependent on its proponent. In fact, the value of an idea is independent of its proponent, so it's legitimate to oppose that kind of ad hominem with what seems to be called "kritic" in the charter.net link. 99.36.74.131 (talk) 00:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what those links are saying. It isn't about questioning general presuppositions, it is a very strange and specific case of trying to bring in critical philosophy to policy debates. Which seems quite odd to me, though I'm a complete outsider to the debate world. "Critical philosophy" is a specific thing, not just "philosophy that is criticizing"; it seems like the issue in question is bringing Derrida into a discussion about international relations, or using Wittgenstein to talk about evolution vs. creationism. I can see why debate team people find it tedious. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:37, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The fallacy you are describing is sometimes called Kicking the problem upstairs. There is no WP article on that topic, but it is in the requested articles list under logic. Greg Bard (talk) 02:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually I found Wikipedia has an extensive article on it, including which leagues it is allowed in. Thanks!

May I suggest How to Argue and Win Every Time by Gerry Spence? Joefromrandb (talk) 03:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Fairer sex?

Hi, I'm a male and got into a debate with a friend about what in terms of facial features makes a woman supposedly more beautiful than men. Up until yesterday, I just thought that it was equal and that since I'm attracted to women, it would be reciprocal for the female population to view the male face as more pleasing to look at than the female face.

I was reading this website, http://dumbscientist.com/archives/ar...the-fairer-sex , and thought it made some interesting points, especially since the we live in a man dominated world and that attractive women are used in advertisements that straight women watch to, it would be understood that there is more of a universal beauty among females than their is males.

So my question is, in terms of face and face only, if you compared the most handsome man in the world vs the most beautiful women, who would be considered more beautiful?

Or is it equal or subjective? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.62.167.82 (talk) 19:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Subjective, and variable over individuals from moment to moment and day to day. However, [25] has a good analysis of the weak findings of component studies such as [26] and [27]. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 20:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Subjective. Totally. The thing is, we don't just live in a male-dominated world, we live in a straight male-dominated world. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

To the extent that there is milage in this psychologists use average ratings of attractiveness to guage these kinds of things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 20:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

It's subjective. I describe women's faces as 'beautiful' more often than men's, but only because the predominantly heterosexual male meaning of the term specifically implies traditionally female qualities. Notice how even the debate uses the term 'fair' which has both the implications of being unblemished (virginal), pretty, and fragile; qualities most straight men look for in their ideal woman and thus never usually applies to a man.

Nonetheless, when it comes to which is more pleasing for me (as a gay male, and I expect the same thing for females) to look at, I'd pick the handsome man any day, heh. "Beautiful" or "handsome" have gender-specific meanings that don't exactly make them synonymous to "attractive" for both sexes.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

In the 19th century, when "fair" was used in a specific meaning to refer to human beauty it usually meant light-haired or pale-skinned, as opposed to "dark" (as in the old clichéd description "tall, dark, and handsome") -- "dark" in this sense did not necessarily imply racially non-white... AnonMoos (talk) 21:16, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Also note that back then most women worked inside the home and men outside, so men would be expected to have darker tans. StuRat (talk) 22:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Hence unblemished and fragile. :P Note most common usage of the word in the sense of 'attractive': "fair maiden" and "fair youth", feminine and androgynously feminine. When a man is described as fair (e.g. "fair warrior") it usually has nothing to do with whether he is pleasant to look at or not, but only on whether his hair is blond.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 21:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Is that why a cute blond policeman is called "a fair cop"?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Only if you cop a feel. :-) StuRat (talk) 22:23, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Fair and square. :P -- Obsidi♠n Soul 22:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There are other meanings of "fair", though, and if I heard someone described as a "fair warrior", I'd probably take that to mean he isn't very good at being a warrior. Not an excellent warrior, nor a good one, but only fair. Pais (talk) 06:02, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

“ Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite. ” — Francis Bacon

Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 20:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The ultimate question is obviously subjective... but don't kid yourself... beauty has a strong evolutionary and biological basis. Beauty generally correlates well with health, and so if you're planning on mating with or eating something, that tends to be important. It's not surprising too that, somewhat superficial cultural differences aside, pull people from any corner of the globe and they'll consistently tell you who's more "beautiful" when comparing.

That said, women's beauty tends to be more purely physical while male attributes of attractiveness aren't captured in a picture as well. These are of course all coarse generalizations, but there's an evolutionary basis for it. Undoubtedly culture can warp this, and there are extremes that can catch on (think of various extreme body mutilation), but the majority of attraction to individuals seems to be innate. Shadowjams (talk) 07:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Socrates: true or false quote

"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world." Socrates, from Plutarch, Of Banishment. 

Are the quote and source cited above true or not? Plutarch doesn't seem to have a work called 'Of Banishment.' And his work Parallel Lives doesn't include Socrates in it. 88.9.108.128 (talk) 21:38, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

One of the essays in Plutarch's Moralia is De exilio. You can see a translation of the relevant passage (where Socrates' statement is recorded in indirect, rather than direct, discourse) here. Deor (talk) 21:47, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

That was fast. Thanx. 88.9.108.128 (talk) 21:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to add, the corresponding Greek is in the penultimate line of the text here. Deor (talk) 21:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

August 30

Inflation: people on debt vs. people debt-free

If a central bank decides to increase the inflation (increasing the money supply), would that mean that people on debt are getting their debt partially paid by people who have savings? Quest09 (talk) 00:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Increasing the money supply does not always cause inflation. The obvious example is when it alleviates the deflationary spirals of recessions. It depends on where the increased money is spent, and in particular the extent to which it results in economic growth and/or additional savings among other outcomes. Please see [28] for more information. 99.36.74.131 (talk) 00:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

But yes, to the extent to which inflation happens, people who owe money get to pay it back with currency that is worth less than the money they borrowed was. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.120.243.32 (talk) 04:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Back to the question at hand: Yes, all else being equal, inflation makes it easier to repay debt (money borrowed yesterday had more value, and will be repaid back tomorrow with money of less value); and reduces the earnings from interest on savings in real terms. The interest rate may actually go up, but once inflation is subtracted -- i.e., "real" or "inflation-adjusted" terms -- the purchasing power of the savings account declines, or rises more slowly. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Public doman paintings of plum blossom trees

My friend is thinking about releasing her own line of alcohol based on plum wine. I'm trying to find examples of public domain images of old Chinese or Japanese paintings of Plum blossom trees that could be used in the logo. The wiki article on the tree has a section with three such paintings that are old enough to be in the public domain. Does anyone know where I can find more paintings of this type? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I found [29] with an image search on [plum blossom parchment] but you might try 'calligraphy' or 'dynasty' in place of parchment. 99.36.74.131 (talk) 01:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Numerous paintings in Wikimedia Commons, examples below. Just search for 'Plum painting'.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 10:11, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

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Is China the only country in the world which keeps the exact number of their executions a state secret?

I asked this question twice a long time ago. The second time I asked it, it was mentioned by Lomn that according to a quick survey of this article, the People's Republic of China is the only country in the world to keep the exact number of their executions a state secret but since then, I have been wondering if there were any other countries which have this practice. The ones that were in my mind were Iran, Vietnam, Myanmar and North Korea and other communist countries or dictatorships. Are there other countries which keep the exact number of their executions a secret, or is it really only China? And please do not talk about secret executions, they don't count. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If an execution is a secret, how can it NOT be a secret execution? This tautology is confusing to me... --Jayron32 02:54, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Yep, so they gotta count. For all you know, the US could execute thousands of people secretly, and then it would be a state that keeps the exact number secret. You can't really know if it's a state secret, because if they do keep the number a secret, none of us will know, because it's a secret. ^^ It wouldn't be one of those fake secrets like Israel's nukes or that big tower in Central Tel Aviv that you're not supposed to talk about. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 03:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

No, you got it all wrong. I already mentioned that I am not talking about secret executions. I was just simply asking if there were any other countries, aside from China, are known to conduct executions, but keep the exact number of the executions a state secret, as in "we execute people, but we won't tell you how many." Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 03:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The answer would be "some indeteriminate number between 1 and n, where n is the number of countries in the world". Any country could be executing people that we don't know about, and then by definition, they wouldn't be telling us correctly how many people they are executing. --Jayron32 03:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

You know about each execution, so you can count them, thus the number cannot be a secret. The ones you don't know about, you cannot count.Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 03:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

That's also another angle; if China publicly acknowledges every single execution they commit, then the number of executions is also public knowledge, and not a secret. If the have executions they do not admit to, those are by definition secret executions, and they are likely not unique in that regard... --Jayron32 03:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

This was actually pointed out last time the question came up Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2010 December 16#What countries keep the exact number of their executions a state secret and why?. I think it adds an interesting perspective, particularly since what China's stance actually is remains somewhat unclear to me. Sure it's widely claimed in RS that the number if a state secret. But where and how did this come from? Does China say the number of a state secret every time it's asked? Did one random representative say it once and most representatives just refuse to comment? How high are the people who say it's a state secret anyway? For a country like China where transperency and openess isn't seen as important then in a lot of the democratic (particularly Western) world, it's probably the common for low level officials to say things are a state secret when inquisitive Western journalists let alone human rights groups ask about stuff the officials know are more controversial there (and to some extent, the default is to keep things secret anyway so it may be a secret if no one has authorised the complation and release of such figures). Nil Einne (talk) 16:05, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

So to answer the topic, No, China is most likely not the only one. Can't give you a definite answer, but it is safe to assume that China is not the only one and that many nations probably keep their real numbers of executions a secret. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | Say Shalom! 03:53, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It's been alleged that as the rebel forces approached Tripoli, Gaddafi executed a lot of prisoners. Nobody seems to know how many. Does that count as a secret? HiLo48 (talk) 08:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If they were secret executions, then no. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:11, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like the question is about nations which admit that they are conducting secret executions. Like Naruto said, "we execute people, but we won't tell you how many." I don't know if China is the only one. Staecker (talk) 12:12, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

God, what pedants some of you are! The OP wants to know if there are countries where the official number of executions is considered a state secret. That's not the same thing at all as what you are going around and around about up there. It's not a question of whether countries lie about their total executions; it's which ones have actual policies of secrecy regarding that number. And Jayron's comment that the answer is between 1 and the total number of countries in the world is the most useless "answer" I've seen in a long time. If you don't know, don't answer! --Mr.98 (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

This article, reliability unknown, states that it the total number of executions in Vietnam is also a state secret. This one adds Belarus and Mongolia to the list. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

In the earlier discussion it was suggested Belarus has not published a list since 2006 but it's not clear that it's considered a state secret (although as I noted above, I don't think we really know what China's stance is). Nil Einne (talk) 16:05, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Anglican saints

How does a person come to be recognized as a saint in Anglican churches? Thomas Becket lived back in the days when the Church of England was still in full communion with the church of Rome, and is considered a saint by both the Catholic and Anglican churches, but what about people who died in the last four-and-a-half centuries or so? Michael Hardy (talk) 03:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Does the article Saints in Anglicanism help? --Jayron32 03:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

To clarify the article in relation to the question: there have been no saints created since the break with Rome in 1534. However, all the Anglican churches accept the saints that were canonized beforehand and also "martyrs and heroes" of the Christian church since then. Each Province of the Anglican Communion has its own calender of days when these people are specially remembered. The calender for the Church of England can be seen here. It does include some who have who have been canonized by Rome in recent years, such as John Fisher and Joan of Arc; although they're not actually regarded as saints, but as Christians who set an example for the rest of us. Alansplodge (talk) 12:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

On reflection, I should qualify that last remark. On the Anglo-catholic wing of the Anglican Communion, there are many who would hold all Roman Catholic canonizations to be valid, while not wishing to commemorate the leading figures of the protestant movement like John Calvin and Thomas Cranmer. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the evangelical camp don't attach a great deal of importance to the idea of sainthood (Biblical ones excepted) and wouldn't endorse those who worked against the reformation like Thomas More or Francis Xavier. Those of us who occupy the centre ground, in true Anglican tradition, attempt to find the good points in everybody. Alansplodge (talk) 16:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The Church of England was not "in full communion with" the church of Rome in Becket's day, OP. They were one and the same thing, inseparable from each other. The Church of England had its first independent existence in 1534, under Henry VIII, 364 years after Becket's death. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It did turn out to be separable in the end ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 23:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, the article titled Saints in Anglicanism has a section on "modern" Anglican saints that says "The following have been identified as heroes of the Christian Church in the Anglican Communion:" and there follows a long list. So the question is WHO "identified" them as "heroes of the Christian Church"? The Archbishop of Canterbury? Popular convention? Some meeting of bishops? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

"The addition of a new name should normally result from a wide-spread desire expressed in the region concerned over a reasonable period of time." In the case of the Church of England, I expect any new name would be approved by the General Synod, which is an annual "parliament" made up of representatives of the bishops, clergy and laity. I'll try to find a reference for you. Alansplodge (talk) 12:56, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

America and George III's insanity

What were Americans' reaction to George III's later reign and insanity especially those that had fought for the revolutionary war? --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 06:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that ordinary Americans had reliable news about George III around the War of 1812 period, because he would have been vilified in the press from the Revolutionary War through to his death. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 07:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Newspapers had very small circulations during the lifetime of George III, and most Americans were small farmers not much concerned about foreign affairs, so I doubt that most of them would have cared much about the insanity of George III, if they were even aware of it. To the extent that Americans were aware of his illness, I would expect a degree of Schadenfreude. However, to confirm this, one would have to do research. Unfortunately, none of the newspapers from that era have archives offering free access. Marco polo (talk) 13:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Not so sure that is accurate marco... the US in the Federalist era had a very high literacy rate, and a huge number of newspapers (far more than we have today). Blueboar (talk) 18:57, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't doubt that most adults were literate nor that there were a large number of newspapers. However, most newspapers before the advent of the penny press in the 1830s, most newspapers had very small circulations. The reason was that issues typically cost in the neighborhood of 6 cents each at a time when a typical worker earned less than a dollar a day. If a typical worker today earns $150 a day (my very rough guess), a comparable price today would be $9. As a result, newspapers in the early 19th century had a small, elite, urban audience. Also, given the great expense and time required for travel and the relative unimportance of international trade, few ordinary Americans would have cared much about events in Europe, even if they had easy access to information about those events. (Frankly, I don't think most ordinary Americans today care much about events in Europe.) The only real exception would have been during the War of 1812, due to the British threat to friends and loved ones in the US armed forces. That's when King George's status might have entered the popular discourse as a way of disparaging the enemy. Marco polo (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure that there were many backwoods farmers who didn't care, but the United States had very broadly-diffused literacy by the standards of ca. 1800, and each individual newspaper issue was likely to have many readers, and many people had an interest in major European news, which could have a significant impact on U.S. commercial/mercantile prosperity. During a period when national politics was virulently polarized between allegedly "pro-British" Federalists and allegedly "pro-French" Democratic-Republicans, and foreign policy had a major impact on domestic politics (see XYZ Affair, Alien and Sedition Acts etc.) and the U.S. fought three naval wars (Quasi-War, War of 1812, and Tripoli), interest in foreign news was greater than you would seem to allow for... AnonMoos (talk)

Indeed, even the "backwoods farmers" were interested in foreign news that impacted them. Foreign trade was not unimportant, as claimed above, but was in fact vital to American farmers. Farmers followed news of things like Pinckney's Treaty and the Jay Treaty with great interest because the issues directly affected them. The early American republic was a relatively weak country surrounded by lands claimed by European powers; Americans of that era did not have the luxury of ignoring Europe the way that later generations would. Whether they learned about or cared about George III's medical problems, I don't know. —Kevin Myers 02:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I searched the archives of Google News for anything from 1776 through 1820 related to King George and illness, madness, insanity, indisposition, or retirement, and only found that in the news of his death in 1820, a US paper reprinted from the London Gazette mention of his "retirement" due to "indisposition" in 1811. It is likely that the indexing is far from complete. I recall that years ago in the pre-internet days college libraries had microfilms of major US papers of the colonial period and early 19th century, so it is a bit perplexing not to find some discussion of the king's faults. Would papers have used some other title for him? The incompleteness of the Google indexing is shown by my finding only 3 mentions of "George Washington" in that same period. Edison (talk) 20:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

price increases

Is there a web site where you can enter the bar code and date and add the price you paid to the database and then see a price map like the one at gasbuddy.com for gasoline? --DeeperQA (talk) 06:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it since you can get the same item which would presumably have the same barcode at different stores for very different prices, even in the same town. Plus the database would be massive since there are tens of thousands of products with a barcode compared to just 3 or 4 kinds of vehicle fuel. Googlemeister (talk) 13:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Google (no offense or pundit) seems to have such a database of its own being able to look up prices of (most) any item you scan at other stores. However, it is accurate price increase that I am interested in tracking. Adding the date of the price allows this to be done and the database could not possibly be larger than this one. --DeeperQA (talk) 16:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Where can I find information on bride-bedding relevent to 16th century Scotland?

I am looking specifically for the formalities concerning the bedding of a royalItalic text bride. They vary from country to country and from anything to the display of blood-stained sheets from a window to prove virginity to the populace to the privacy granted to British royal brides today. Any information, or pointers to specific reference articles or books, would be very much appreciated. Thank you. reshistReshist (talk) 07:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I was going to suggest contacting the historian Alison Weir, but her website says she is too busy to respond to such queries. However, she does work with a number of other women historians, whose contact details are also listed on this page under The History Girls. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Your best bet might be to pick out individuals with decent biographies from that period and work through them to find a reference to the ceremony, if any - it's more likely than a generic work discussing it. So who have we got?

• James IV of Scotland married Margaret Tudor in 1504
• James V of Scotland married Madeleine of Valois in 1537 (in France) and then Mary of Guise (by proxy, & in France?)
• Mary, Queen of Scots married Francis II of France in 1558 (in France); then Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley in 1565; then James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell in 1567 (a Protestant ceremony)
• James VI of Scotland married Anne of Denmark in 1589 (in Norway).

The best bet to research there would be James IV's wedding in 1504; James V's marriages were both likely to be done in whatever the French tradition was, ditto Mary's first, and Mary's second marriages were quite odd things and might not have been representative.

To my surprise, this seems to be it - defining "royal" as the direct legitimate children of monarchs, there don't seem to have been any others who survived to adulthood and were married during the century. (James V had at least one illegitimate daughter, Jean Stewart, who married the Earl of Argyll, but I doubt she was formally treated as royalty...) Going further back, neither of James III's brothers married, prior to that, James II of Scotland had several children; if you can find a description of the wedding of Mary Stewart, Countess of Arran it may be what you're looking for. Shimgray | talk | 19:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Personalized self help books

The Wikipedia article says they are personalized self helf books. Do anyone knao a publisher who is publishing those books, or a single book titel? I will be thankful for any kind of information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BoBo 2000 (talk • contribs) 09:02, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you mean. Maybe something like this:

You, JOE SMITH, who live on 123 MAIN STREET,
with your pet CAT named FLUFFY, can overcome
your addiction to ALCOHOL and resume your 
hobby of STAMP COLLECTING, if you do the
following...

StuRat (talk) 09:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Yea that is exactly what I'm thinking about. Do you know any book like this. I'm only looking for self help books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BoBo 2000 (talk • contribs) 10:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The claim in our article is unsourced. I suspect it's true since it's likely someone has done it but it doesn't seem to be common. It seems easier to find personalised romance novels [30] [31] (in case you're wondering the first I found in an ad while searching for personalised self help books) and hyponosis tapes [32] [33]. I do find discussion of personalised self help programs for addicts which I guess includes personalised reading material [34] [35] [36] [37] but probably not in the form of books. Nil Einne (talk) 12:51, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

There used to be a range of yellow jacketed book titles " Teach yourself (whatever)...." 85.211.230.86 (talk) 15:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd think they could customize and deliver such books far more cheaply online, so that might be the place to look, or do you require a physical book ? StuRat (talk) 18:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

effeminacy

I've noticed that a lot of married men are effeminate but not homosexual but that many who are effeminate and single are labelled homosexual while they might be effeminate are not homo sexual. So which is it being effeminate or being unmarried or the combination of both that makes people label someone as being homosexual when they are really not? --96.252.216.15 (talk) 16:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Both. Despite the fact that some married men do, in fact, come out as gay later on, having a serious relationship with a member of the opposite sex (as marriage implies) makes it a lot less likely they are homosexual, since this is not something most gay men would do. There are plenty of people who are effeminate but not gay, it's just that since you're more unlikely to know if someone is homosexual than if they are married, the conclusion is more easily drawn in the first case. (i.e. One has little evidence to the contrary, thus the conclusion is more easily drawn, even if wrong.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

How are we defining effeminacy in men? Bus stop (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I am as described in the effeminacy article; it has a section relevant to this article. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Can women also be effeminate?  Card Zero  (talk) 17:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand the lesbian community refers to butch women (who look more masculine) and femme women (who look more feminine), so I guess they can. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and most are, with a few being masculine. Note, however, that being masculine doesn't necessarily mean they are homosexual, and being feminine doesn't necessarily mean they are straight (for example, Portia de Rossi is both feminine and gay, a so-called lipstick lesbian). The reverse also applies to men. StuRat (talk) 18:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The article might need updating. ("Effeminacy describes traits in a human male ... Effusive emotional expressions among other males ... ") You seem to have switched topics to femininity, though, Stu.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It could use some scientific input, like how the relative levels of various hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen, change physical features to be either more masculine or feminine. It could also be extended to non-human animals, such as the freemartin. StuRat (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that an effeminate, straight man is sometimes called a metrosexual. StuRat (talk) 18:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Prejudice, basically

ALR (talk) 19:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Think of them as collateral damage of stereotyping and homophobia. Most of the kids I know who were bullied in school for being 'gay', weren't. A lot of them are now married with kids. I, on the other hand, who is gay (though not out then), wasn't teased because I wasn't effeminate and they concluded I couldn't possibly be gay. LOL Go figure.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 19:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Reminds me of this comic about gay stereotypes. Pais (talk) 21:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

roflz!-- Obsidi♠n Soul 21:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Funny. :) Jack Benny, who was straight as can be, was sometimes teased because of his supposedly "effeminate" mannerisms. On Carson once, he pooh-poohed the notion by looking around at the men in the studio crew and saying, "Have I ever 'bothered' any of you fellows?" In contrast, there's Rock Hudson, who seemed totally straight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

"Seemed totally straight" - that sort of says there's the notion that if you act in certain ways, you're assumed to be straight; and therefore if you act differently, you're assumed to be gay. Such assumptions are very often very wide of the mark. Unfortunately, this paradigm also has a foothold in the male gay community. Many men who seek other male sexual partners specify they're only interested in "straight-acting" males. What a laugh. Just exactly how do straight males act? If what they mean is "not effeminate" or "not camp", and it is, I just wish they'd say so. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

John Barrowman was allegedly turned down for the role of 'Will' in Will and Grace because he "wasn't gay enough". Quite how you can get more gay than actually being gay I don't know. They hired a straight actor instead, who apparently acted more gay. People are idiots: I don't know how much more we can say there is to this. 86.163.211.187 (talk) 13:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The Washington Naval Conference

• Paris Peace Conference, 1919
• Washington Naval Conference
• Woodrow Wilson (D, March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1921)
• Warren G. Harding (R, March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923)

Woodrow Wilson was too sick to do anything from Sept. 25, 1919 to the end of his second term. He probably would not agree with Harding if he was in good shape.

Did Woodrow Wilson ever said anything about the Washington Naval Conference? Did he know it?

Did any country attending the conference used Wilson's idealist ideas to against the U.S. in the conference?

Generally, the first thing you want from your adversary is to get away from his place. If he choose to fight you in a bar, you try to go outside. If he sues you here, you ask your lawyer to move the case to another courtroom. You don't want your enemy to choose your battlefield.

Did any country propose that instead of letting the U.S. held the party in their own capital city, they'd rather brought the U.S. to the League of Nations whether or not the U.S. was a member of it? -- Toytoy (talk) 17:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of the conference was not to establish world peace, it was to prevent a re-run of the British-German naval arms race of the decade of the 1900s, but this time in the Pacific. It was largely successful for a decade or so. AnonMoos (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Huge numbers of warships, including submarines, which were built in WW1, even near the end of the war, were scrapped as a result of the conference. Not all the surviving ships were obsolete and useless even by WW2. As for the League of Nations, the US did not join it because of strong opposition from US politicians, so it is doubtful the US would have participated in any disarmament conference under LON sponsorship. If all the other countries wanted to scrap their subs, destroyers, cruisers and battleships while the US kept theirs, it would have been fine with the US, but the proposal would have been doubtful of acceptance by anyone else. Edison (talk) 20:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hindi ज्ञ jñ

I used to know this, but now that I've forgotten I can't find it anywhere. How do you pronounce ज्ञ jñ in Hindustani? (specifically). — kwami (talk) 21:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

A pronunciation guide gives:

ज्ञ Coupled sound of ‘j’ and ‘n’= ‘jn’

Cuddlyable3 (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that site is incorrect. Besides not being what I remember, they say that क्ष is a Coupled sound of ‘k’, ‘s’, ‘h’, which is absolute hogwash. Jñ is an unstable sequence that developed into different things in different Indic languages. In Gujarati, for example, I think it's gñ. — kwami (talk) 03:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

May get more specific answers on Language Desk... AnonMoos (talk) 13:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Duh, okay. :-| — kwami (talk) 18:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

(I meant the 'duh' for me)

August 31

Quick onset of irreligiosity in Quebec

In Montreal, several years ago, my family visited a major cathedral. I can't recall which one it was, but I remember climbing a lot of steps to get to it. Our guide, a layman but obviously a fanatic, claimed that Quebec had experienced the most sudden onset of "secularisation" in the history of the hemisphere. He claimed that during the fifties, Quebec was "99% devout Catholic", but that the great majority had effectively abandoned the church by the early seventies. He stressed that the transformation was much more abrupt than in France, and that Quebec is today much less religious than France. I was inclined to doubt his commentary, but I've since seen a lot of evidence that France is more reactionary and clerical than Quebec. For instance, gay rights are far less advanced in France. So maybe the tour guide wasn't as deluded as I assumed. But why would this be the case? How did rustic provincials become more secular than metropolitan sophisticates? LANTZY^TALK 00:08, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Secularization of France dates to at least the French Revolution, many Quebecois missed this as many had settled in North America prior to the Revolution. I have a book which is buried in a box in my crawlspace whose name and author I forget, but which was part of a French History class I took in college which laid out the causes and long-term historical effects of the secularization of (metropolitan) French society due to the French Revolution... --Jayron32 01:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The "secularizaiton" of Quebec was part of the Quiet Revolution, although the Wikipedia article seems to focus on the political side of it rather than the social side. I'm not an expert on the subject, but it seems that in the 1960s, French Quebec went from a largely insular, conservative, Church-dominated, rural society content to leave business in the hands of the Montreal Anglos to a secular, leftist, nationalist society that sought economic power for itself. I'm not quite sure how this happened. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:54, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The real story seems to be how Quebec was held back, relative to Canada, the US, and Europe, until then. The Church seemed to maintain it's position of authority up until 1960, which resulted in the same corruption, economic stagnation, and low level of education that occurred in Europe back when the Church ruled supreme. Rapid reform then occurred, and it's not surprising that many people resented the Church and left it. StuRat (talk) 04:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

By the way, what you visited was probably Saint Joseph's Oratory, not a cathedral. Deor (talk) 11:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I only wish to point out that there isn't a clear relationship between the most popular religion of a given country and gay marriage. Gay marriage is legal in some countries which supposedly are more religious than others (e.g.: Spain, Portugal VS France, Germany). Gay marriage is even forbidden in several countries whose official propaganda decries the evils of religion (e.g.: China). So your (and you guide's) reasoning that France is more religious (and/or reactionary and clerical) than Canada and that that shows itself in the issue of gay marriage is mistaken. Flamarande (talk) 12:16, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

That's true, but I did write "gay rights", not "same-sex marriage". France is way behind Quebec with respect to gay rights in general. France even seems to lag behind most other western European states in this regard. It's strange that so many right-leaning Americans conceive of France as the platonic ideal of permissive liberality, when in reality its political establishment (even on the left) is often quite committed to sexual traditionalism, the conventional family unit, etc. Forget Quebec. Maybe the question I ought to be asking is, "Why is France itself not more socially/sexually progressive?" LANTZY^TALK 18:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Lantzy, I don't know what you mean by referring to your guide as a fanatic. An enthusiastic secularist? A committed Catholic? It is true that Quebec society changed greatly over a very short period of time (the Quiet Revolution, as referred to above) and enormously over a relatively short period (say, WWII to the 1976 election of the nationalist Parti Quebecois). Women didn't get the vote in provincial elections until 1940, for example (Timeline of women's suffrage). The province had been known for its high birth rate, long after other areas had entered what Quebec historian Claude Bélanger calls a "modern demographic regime". Here is the concluding paragraph of his essay entitled "Birth Rate":

I suppose I used the word "fanatic" in its original sense of religious mania (L. fānum, temple). I should have qualified it. Don't get the wrong idea. He was a perfectly nice guy, more Ned Flanders than Rick Santorum, but he was creepily adamant about the literal reality of miracles and the efficacy of faith healing. I vividly remember him pointing to a huge collection of wooden crutches as "all the proof you need" that pilgrims to this place (Saint Joseph's Oratory, as Dior says) had been cured of their lameness. Crutches were mounted on the wall like snowshoes. Later he climbed a stone staircase on his knees. We were an ostensibly Catholic tour group, so I guess he was letting his hair down. If we'd been Japanese or Episcopalian, he would have probably confined himself to the architecture. LANTZY^TALK 18:15, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The very sharp decline in the birth rate witnessed in Quebec in the 1960’s, throughout the Quiet Revolution, was thus a fast catching up to the behaviour that others had achieved more progressively previously. As traditional behaviour was abandoned throughout the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, the demographic comportment of Quebecers altered in a very rapid way. Between 1959 and 1971, Quebec moved from the position of having the highest birth rate in Canada to that of the lowest. This transformation was to have all kinds of effects on the status of women in Quebec, on the family, on education and the economic status of the population, on employment, on how Quebecers viewed their collective security given their diminishing proportion in Canada. It thus affected the language issue within Quebec and the rise of separatism. (© 1999 Claude Bélanger, Marianopolis College)

(My emphasis.) Obviously, this is linked (chicken and egg) to the decline in the power of the Catholic Church, which used to run the education and health systems, among other things. It is true that other social and political changes have occurred more abruptly in Quebec than in other parts of the superficially similar developed world. A Canadian political economist told me that, for instance, electoral swings in Quebec presaged those in the rest of the country, in a "canary in a coal mine" way. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

concept of double punishment for one and same cause of action

I love my India (Redacted), Advocate. As per Indian traditions, death sentence is beyond law limitations, but even then we have introduced death sentence in law of today. But when an accused is in jail for twenty years waiting final hanging, he has completed life imprisonment and hanging of such an accused means he is condemned to double punishment for one and the same cause of action and therefore, such people should be given freedom. (Redacted) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.251.55 (talk) 03:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a question? I'm afraid we can't give legal advice.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

This isn't really a question for legal advice, in my opinion. It's not "this is my situation what should I do?" it's "I've noticed an inconsistency in law and I wonder how it came to be." The sentence is not to be hanged alone, and the imprisonment for 20 years is not a fixed term for legal purposes. In reality the sentence is something akin to the old British wording "to be taken from this court to the prison at [insert prison name] there to be held until he is conveyed to the place of execution where he is to be hung by the neck until dead." The sentence provides for the inmate being held in prison prior to their execution. HominidMachinae (talk) 04:26, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, how does 20 years constitute a "life sentence"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Not sure about India Bugs, but in England, the judge decides the "minimum term" before a prisoner is eligible for parole; in the case of a single murder, this is usually 15 years. Alansplodge (talk) 12:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Also, if the guy is hanged, then his life is over, so in effect you have a life sentence for any amount of incarceration before the execution. Googlemeister (talk) 13:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Certainly. The thing is, the OP stated that 20 years equates to a "life sentence". I don't see how or why. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

He means that if you murder someone and are sentanced to imprisonment for life, you can expect to be paroled after a minimum 14 years (if you play your cards right). Effectively that's the end of your life sentence, unless you breach the conditions of your parole. If however, a murderer serves 20 years (perhaps more than another man's life sentence) and then get hung, it seems to the OP that he is being punished twice. Is there a legal principle behind this? I don't know. Alansplodge (talk) 18:12, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

As I said above the legal principle involved is basically that you're not sentenced just to be hanged, you're sentenced to be confined and then hanged. Also, the period of incarceration is usually the result of mandatory automatic appeals and delays in the legal process, in that regard they're in the best interest of the convicted to suffer the period of incarceration because it allows them the chance to appeal. If they took you right from the court to execution there's no do-overs. HominidMachinae (talk) 21:10, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

That seems (to me anyway) to answer the question. Alansplodge (talk) 23:30, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the OP makes a point: there is an injustice to being executed after 20 years incarceration. Allow me pose this question—would there be an injustice if a person was executed after 100 years incarceration? We would probably say yes. If so—what type of distinction are we making between the two amounts of incarceration? Bus stop (talk) 23:48, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The appeals allow for time to look for legal glitches (or even innocence). In the old days, they used to take them out after like a week and string them up. I wonder if the OP would prefer that approach. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:15, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Surely the person who is immediately executed is getting a harsher punishment than the person who gets to live for 20 years first, regardless of the fact that those 20 years are spent in prison. 188.117.30.209 (talk) 16:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Not in all cases. There are probably cases of suicides committed in prison that are a consequence of the incarceration itself. Bus stop (talk) 17:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I fail to see how suicide could be considered a punishment. Googlemeister (talk) 18:09, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

United States Veto and Iraqi Economic Sanctions

Did the United States ever actually veto a plan to remove the economic sanctions against Iraq or did it just threaten to, so no such plan was ever introduced? --CGPGrey (talk) 10:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

You mean in the US or the UN (such as UN Security Council)?Smallman12q (talk) 17:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

A Level results: ranking students

Ideally, I'd like some sort of graph or something where one could put in the grades and it would output how many people beat that/did worse – for example, if I entered AAA, then it might be 95% or something. (I don't know what the answers might be, hence the question!) I suppose this would be done via UCAS points (as a way of saying if CC or AF was better, for example), so that would be fine as well. Any recent year would be fine. Thanks, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:23, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

How's this: [38]? Unless I've misunderstood "tariff" means point score. 2.25.97.119 (talk) 11:26, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks! Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you need planning permission to park a caravan on UK green belt land?

I was just reading the news about the Dale Farm travellers site evictions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14715777 wherein it says "The travellers own the site at Dale Farm, but half of its pitches - 51 - do not have planning permission and have been deemed illegal." I know that all construction, including the construction of fences, can be banned on green belt land, but surely you're allowed to place a temporary structure, like a caravan? How about a tent, or a car? The article does say "pitches", though, so maybe that refers to some un-nomadic permanent structures like fences? I've read green belt and Dale Farm, but I still don't get it, except for where the latter article says vaguely that the travellers have "developed" the green belt part of the site.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:12, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they've built a lot of permanent structures like walls and stuff. Some of them may even have built houses. --Viennese Waltz 12:23, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I just found http://www.advocacynet.org/resource/1300 which seems to say the council is aiming to remove "hard standing and fencing". I wonder whether most of the 50 or so travellers have caravans, in which they will leave when evicted and return after the surfaces and fences are broken up?  Card Zero  (talk) 12:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

In certain areas at least, you need permission to keep your caravan on your own drive. (Might be conservation areas, I'm not sure.) The clear intention was at Dale Farm that this was always going to be permanent. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Good lord. I guess there must be a legal definition of "caravan" somewhere, then. How petty.  Card Zero  (talk) 12:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Here. I don't think it's petty &ndash it's when the caravan is being used as a house, and houses require permission for all sorts of reasons. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the problem is that the Dale Farm travellers are ignoring planning laws which clearly apply to them. That may sound petty. It is petty. But settled people have to abide by planning laws – and have action taken against them when they don't – so there's not much of an argument for turning a blind eye when travellers do it. --Viennese Waltz 12:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

This photo shows the extent of the settlement that's supposed to be an agricultural field. Britain is a crowded little island; we need legal controls on who can build what and where, and everybody needs to play by the rules. "The fundamental aim of green belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open, and consequently the most important attribute of green belts is their openness." Some FAQs about Dale Farm here - from Basildon Council's point-of-view anyway. Alansplodge (talk) 17:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

A "caravan" sounds like a procession of people on camels through the desert, but I guess it refers to what our side of the pond calls a trailer. In my US town there is no way I would be allowed to park a trailer, even a small travel trailer, in the street or in my yard, for very long. (I ran across an odd factoid: "Lee" is a common traveller name, and Robert E. Lee named his horse used during the American Civil War -- wait for it -- "Traveller". Hmmm.) Edison (talk) 04:23, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Sucro, Spain

Where exactly is Sucro, Spain and why don't we have an article on this town?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 12:30, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

[39] on the Spanish Wikipedia is a redirect to the Júcar river. My Spanish is non-existent but from the introductory paragraph it sounds like Sucre was the Roman name for this river. Not a town, then. --Viennese Waltz 12:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

There was a place known in pre-Roman times as Sucro, mentioned by a couple of Latin writers. This place may be the present-day Alzira. Marco polo (talk) 15:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm reading information on Scipio Africanus for around 206 BC just after the capture of New Carthage. Which place above sounds more logical where he may have left a garrison of troops? Perhaps Alzira is on the Júcar river, therefore making them one and the same at the Mediterranean Sea??--Doug Coldwell ^talk 17:32, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

As our article on Alzira states, the town is located on the banks of the Júcar. It is not far (~20 km/12 miles/less than a day's march) from the coast, about 200 km (120 mi) north of Cartagena, and at what might be a strategic location commanding both a section of the coastal plain and a major route through the coastal mountains to the interior. Marco polo (talk) 18:42, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

This book says that it was on the coast at the mouth of the Jucar (then the Sucro). (Or at least I'm 95% sure - it's in somewhat old-fashioned Spanish--from 1839--so maybe someone else should confirm.) So based on that description I'd guess near present-day Cullera. The book says the town existed at the time of Tiberius but no longer existed at the time of Vespasian. Another (1837) book says authorities don't know which modern town precisely it corresponds to, raising Cullera and Sueca as possibilities. This 1833 book says it's Cullera. This 1807 book devotes an entire chapter to where exactly Sucro is located - from my skimming it looks like it's an open question. But basically near Cullera. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, there is some controversy over the location of Sucro. According to this book, it was located at present-day Alzira (Alcira). This old book makes the same claim. It isn't clear that all scholars agree on the location of the pre-Roman town. Marco polo (talk) 19:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

That all would make sense since Barcelona, just north of these cities on the same coast, sources say is a city that could have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the 3rd century BC (200s BC - the same time period I am reading on for Scipio Africanus). This stronghold of "Sucro" would then act as a buffer between "New Barca" (Barcelona) and New Carthage, which in 206 BC the Romans controlled because of Scipio.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 19:34, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Using Google Translate in Chapter 3 of the 1807 book it says:
(1) 'Charter of Cullera = May 16, 1892. = Mr. Director of the corespondent of Yalencia "Yesterday was kind enough = D. Piles Ibars Andres, historian of the town, moving my hands to an index of documents accumulated to date refer to Cullera, this is why I begged the man who made public his gratitude to the illustrious history of Don Juan Bautista Swedish Gra. But this should not be precluded, in the respect we deserve study, application and talent, set out the way we feel about not so great a height to reach the above efforts, sufficient to carry conviction. As proposed by Mr. Piles, that is, Cullera is the successor to Sucre, even to those less versed in matters of this nature, despite the profusion of arguments and gives plenty of quotes and quotations more or less stringent legal and accommodative that accumulates in the cited work, attributing his adoptive population succession of ancient Roman villa.

It appears to me that Cullera is the successor to Sucre; and in any case Sueca, Sucre, Cullera and Alzira are all very close to each other.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 20:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

celebration of Eid ul-Fitr 2011

Which countries celebrated Eid on August 30 and which on August 31 (today) ? --Kenatipo ^speak! 17:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a rather comprehensive listing at the bottom of this page. First, a lot of people consider Eid ul-Fitr to be a three-day holiday, which would mean it does not end tonight regardless of when it started. Second, more countries began celebrating yesterday (although, yes, I understand Indonesia and South Asia's choice of today means more Muslims celebrated the holiday today). tariqabjotu 18:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Tariq; that's useful information. --Kenatipo ^speak! 21:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Addresses of Aérospatiale and BAC

What were the street/physical addresses of the head offices of Aérospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation? I want to know where their head offices were located. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:13, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

They were at 37 boulevard de Montmorency, Paris and 100 Pall Mall, London respectively.--Cam (talk) 01:05, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I am sourcing and adding the info! WhisperToMe (talk) 02:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

September 1

The Libyan dinar

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14734420

The U.K. just shipped £950m's worth of Libyan dinar to Libya (I don't expect to see Col. Gaddafi's mugshot on it).

Who printed Libya's banknotes before? Did Libya hire a U.K. printer to print their money during Col. Gaddafi's regime?

I won't be surprised if Col. Gaddafi had his money printed in a foreign country. Many countries' banknotes and bonds are printed in the U.K. It's a big business. I also won't be surprised if the U.S. and its allies already have the capability to "print" many other countries' money. -- Toytoy (talk) 01:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The story you cited says, itself in the first sentence, "The cash, printed in the UK, is the first tranche of £950m that will be handed to Libya's Central Bank." Presumably, the body or company responsible for printing the cash in the U.K. was not allowed to print and/or ship the currency to Libya because of the embargo. --Jayron32 01:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Is "tranche" really a commonly used word, outside Wikipedia? It sounds like a hillbilly talking about an excavation: ("Ah dug a big tranche out back.") What are more common synonyms? Edison (talk) 04:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Hey, it was the BBC's word, not mine. It just means "a portion", usually in the context of a series or sequence of portions which are intended to be doled out on a schedule. See wikt:tranche. --Jayron32 04:21, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

yes, at least in the professional world

ALR (talk) 08:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The banknotes were printed by De La Rue in Hampshire (ref). DLR is the world's leading non-government printer of banknotes (and I believe postage stamps). The technical wherewithall to securely manufacture banknotes (to a sufficient standard) and to do the necessary secure handling of materials is beyond the banking systems of many smaller or poorer countries (any idiot can print banknotes, but then again any idiot can print banknotes that any idiot can print). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 07:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The same UK firm printed Libya's banknotes under the old regime - as the article notes, this is actually a shipment that was held in February when the uprising began. (The article doesn't go into detail, but I remember a couple of news stories from the time - the shipment was due to be flown out a day or two before the embargo came into force, but some enterprising civil servants managed to find enough paperwork to delay it for long enough...)

As Finlay notes, a substantial amount of banknote printing is outsourced to overseas commercial firms, and not merely by "small" countries - De La Rue, the firm in the original article, was involved in a major dispute over the last year with the Reserve Bank of India over banknote production. In terms of how widespread commercial vs. nationally-controlled banknote production is, Euro banknotes#Printing works has an interesting table showing the various firms producing euro notes, of which six are private-sector, including one (DLR again) who aren't even in the Eurozone. Shimgray | talk | 10:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

How would Libya or any of the other countries keep the printing company from producing a couple extra runs of notes on the side for themselves? Googlemeister (talk) 13:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

All in all I think it's obvious if you run a successful security printing company, it's in your interest to ensure you are really what you claim (and the only reason why anyone would use you is because they believe you are). If we take countries without the problems of recognition Libya currently has, this could easily lead to a massive lawsuit or legal settlement for breach of contract and other similar reasons which could (depending on the contract) be originated in the country the firm is located (most of them being located in countries with generally respected law systems) and where the judgement can likely be enforced by the court. And of course if the law suit or settlement isn't enough to bankrupt them, the loss of all their custom would be. There's also likely a risk of criminal charges. Nil Einne (talk) 15:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

In addition to this, there's also likely to be heavy audit mechanisms in place, both internally (the company making sure its employees aren't on the take) and externally (someone checking serial numbers, etc etc.) It's unlikely that the contracts are as simple as "we'd like fifty crates of notes by next January, here's the printing plates, see you then"; there'll be some form of provision for oversight of the manufacture and shipping process, though I suspect exactly what that is is confidential. Shimgray | talk | 16:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

What is a "lay theologian"?

Category:Lay theologians gives that title to a bunch of subjects of Wikipedia articles. I can think of two possible meanings:

• A theologian who is a "lay person" in the old sense of the word, i.e. not an ordained clergyman, or perhaps neither that nor a monk, nun, etc.; or
• A theologian who is a "lay person" in the more modern sense of the word, i.e. not having professional credentials in that field.

Is there some consensus on this? (For now we have no article titled lay theologian.) Michael Hardy (talk) 02:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

In religious contexts, "lay" usually means not ordained. Thus, "lay clergy" are people who preach or serve other roles traditionally held by ordained ministers, but are not themselves ordained. A person may be considered an expert on theological issues (say, having an advanced degree in the subject) but may not be an ordained minister. That would be my understanding of a "lay theologian". --Jayron32 03:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Must...resist...urge...to...make...priest sex abuse joke. StuRat (talk) 03:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I already laughed at the joke you didn't make. It was funny. --Jayron32 03:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Whereas I took great offense at the blasphemy you didn't commit, and the implied insult to a religion you didn't specify. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.179 (talk) 09:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Glad I was able to resist, then. Priests the world over can breathe a sigh of relief and return to tending to the needs of their rectories. StuRat (talk) 19:11, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Trademark leaders

Mobutu had a trademark which was his leopard skin hat. Is there any other leaders who had trademarks to be easily recognized for? regardless his voice, her hair or face or commitment? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.40.133 (talk) 03:34, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Assuming you mean trademark in a general sense, not a legal one, Hitler's toothbrush moustache, although common at the time, has since become closely linked with him. Abraham Lincoln's stovepipe hat is also almost uniquely associated with him, now. StuRat (talk) 03:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Lenin had his goatee. Franklin Roosevelt had his cigarette holder. Abraham Lincoln had two: the stovepipe hat and the chin curtain beard. Jawaharlal Nehru had his jacket. Bill Clinton had his cigar. well, maybe a bit of a joke on the last one --Jayron32 03:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Abe Lincoln wore a tall stovepipe hat and a beard(did other US Presidents?), sufficient clues to tell the audience what character a child in a school play portrays. How about Neville Chamberlain and his umbrella? It inspired Umbrella Man (JFK assassination) who flourished an umbrella (coincidentally) at the 1963 Kennedy assassination, as well as a cartoon villain in a 1967 Spiderman cartoon, the "Sinister Prime Minister." How about Churchill and his cigar? Douglas MacArthur, leader of a fair number of "warfighters", had a strange looking corncob pipe as his trademark. Montgomery wore an odd beret which was rarely if ever worn by other WW2 British generals. Patton seems to be the only general who wore a signature pair of pearl-handled pistols in WW2. Edison (talk) 04:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

As for beards, with few exceptions, we started with an era where no US President had facial hair, then hit an era where all US Presidents had facial hair, then returned to the no facial hair rule. StuRat (talk) 04:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Edisons parenthetical question: Other U.S. presidents wore beards, but Lincoln was the only one who wore the "beard and no mustache" combination known as the chin curtain. See Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison for some close-cropped beards and Rutherford B. Hayes for an impressively long flowy-type one. Other than Grant, however, Harrison and Hayes were too obscure to merit having a "trademark", and Grant's beard is probably not distinctive enough. --Jayron32 04:11, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

commons:Category:Yasser Arafat. I think you can spot it. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, he supposedly arranged his head scarf to look like Palestine, although in this pic [40] it seems to have annexed the Sinai peninsula. :-) StuRat (talk) 04:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Ooh. Another one: Fidel Castro and his olive drab fatigues, especially with the hat, like here and here. --Jayron32 04:18, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

And while we're on that one, who would Che Guevara have been without the black beret. --Jayron32 04:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Was Che an admirer of Field Marshall Montgomery? Edison (talk) 18:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

No hat ma, but Gandhi usually wore a dhoti. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:34, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Sir Robert Menzies was famous both in Australia and overseas for his eyebrows. He had a head of pure-white hair, under which were his notoriously jet-black bushy eyebrows. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 04:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

See, I think eyebrows, and I think of Leonid Brezhnev. But Menzies had some pretty impressive ones as well. --Jayron32 04:48, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Does Mikhail Gorbachev's prominent forehead birthmark count? Thinking back, 'Russian, commie, bald, has red thing on his head' would be the way that a lot of folks would describe the man... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 06:08, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Leslie Nielsen revealed it as a trademark in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oEA6zK_8u8 (at 2:10). The clip also shows some of the others mentioned here. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:00, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Hamid Karzai is usually photographed with his cap thing and his green cape thing. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 06:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Muammar Ghadafy and his medals.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Amongst British prime ministers; Neville Chamberlain's wing collar, Winston Churchill's bow tie and cigar and Harold Wilson's pipe and Aquascutum coat. Alansplodge (talk) 08:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Chamberlain was more famous for his umbrella, and Wilson's raincoat was Gannex (made by his friend and future, ahem, prison reformer Joe Kagan). Anthony Eden's Homburg hat was so famous it was named after him. How could you forget Margaret Thatcher's handbag? Sam Blacketer (talk) 08:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Also remember James Maxton's long hair, which inspired a memorable heckle when he was indicting the Government for the large numbers of unemployed on Clydeside: "Aye Jimmy, and every second one of them a barber". Sam Blacketer (talk) 17:28, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Charles de Gaulle's military attire, particularly the hat. That is to say he didn't always where them, but you could tell who it was easily if he did. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

If a movie director wanted the audience to identify a character instantly as DeGaulle, he would out the hat on an actor with a long nose. Edison (talk) 18:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Pierre Trudeau always wore a red rose in his lapel. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Mao Zedong's peasant jackets (he carefully promoted his image). Kaiser Wilhelm II, German Emperor had a distinctive mustache, as did Stalin. Ayatollah Khomeini's beard, although recently the large number of other long-bearded Islamists has diminished his brand value. John Major's distinctive upper lip and philtrum, used by every caricaturist. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

And Kaiser Wilhelm II is also known for his pointy helmet: [41]. StuRat (talk) 19:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

How about Franz Joseph of Austria with his bald head and crazy mustache? Googlemeister (talk) 13:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

That style was somewhat common at the time, and it wasn't even best associated with Franz Joseph. See Ambrose Burnside for whom sideburns were actually named for. While he was a rather prominent miltary and political figure (General and Senator), he was never the leader of his nation, however. --Jayron32 16:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Gerry Adams' beard.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Medieval women and personal liberty

In which country or kingdom did medieval women (from the 12th to late 15th centuries) enjoy the most personal liberty? I would imagine it to have been England.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

What kind of women? And what kind of "personal liberty"? I suppose if you are talking about noblewomen, then you would be looking for a country that did not have Salic law, and where women were not normally secluded. For lower class women, you may be looking for a place where they can own, buy, sell, and inherit property, including houses, slaves, etc. For peasant women, we would have to look for a a place where they had freedom of movement, i.e. they can leave the land and move somewhere else, for example if they wanted to marry someone from a different village, or wanted to move to a city. But in that case both men and women were, at least in feudal countries, normally considered property of the landowner, and they could be bought and sold with the rest of the land and couldn't leave. For slaves, well, slaves of course don't have any personal liberty, but some places were more protective of their slaves than others. And what about nuns and abbesses and other religious women? This shows my own bias but I would go with Jerusalem in the twelfth century (at least for Catholic women of the middle and upper classes). You may be right about England, especially in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries after the Plague. But we should also remember that their concept of "personal liberty" was probably very different from yours, so do you mean a modern western standard of liberty (or one of many possible modern western standards of it), or according to some medieval standard? Adam Bishop (talk) 07:34, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

England had the Wife of Bath (whom even the most radical feminist might hesitate to invent, if Chaucer hadn't already done so). However, I'm not sure that women in England were greatly favored over women on the continent with respect to the formal legalities until the latter 19th century, after the Code Napoléon had been imposed on wide areas of the Continent, and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 and various Married Women's Property Acts had been passed in England. Of course, during much of the 18th and 19th centuries, Englishwomen had an advantage over Frenchwomen, in that Englishwomen mixed in society before their marriages, and were able to try to attract potential husbands, and say no to any suitor that they disapproved of, while respectable Frenchwomen were somewhat secluded from adult social occasions before marriage, and were very often presented with an arranged marriage as a fait accompli which they would have a very difficult time saying no to. However, this had to do with social customs, and not laws. (Sorry I can't give specifics on the medieval period.) AnonMoos (talk) 08:20, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I would agree with AnonMoos, that there is not much that suggests that during the medieval period England had a particular advantage in this as compared to most other European countries. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:26, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Social class is also important. In many societies, peasant women enjoyed freedoms not available to upper-class women: peasant women could often work (crafts at home or agricultural labor), dress more freely, socialise in a less rigid fashion, and be involved in the rituals of folk religion. Of course, the upper classes had other freedoms, such as freedom from work and from hunger. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Jeanne Boleyn, do you mean Europe or Christendom only? Don't forget that Islam gave women rights that European or Christian women didn't get until the C19 -- the right to own property, for example. Or what about the Iroquois in North America or the Minangkabau of Indonesia? BrainyBabe (talk) 11:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure that women in Christian Europe had no right to own property? The article Women in the Middle Ages is pretty vague about this matter. Flamarande (talk) 12:34, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I mean anywhere in the world. And women did inherit and own property in medieval Europe. I have created many articles on medieval heiresses. Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington was the richest heiress in late 15th century England having received much property and two titles when her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather died within the space of two and half months during the Wars of the Roses.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:03, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I would think that, before the modern era, you would need to look outside Europe for the place where women were most free. Minangkabau society appears to have offered women more power and autonomy than anywhere with an Abrahamic religion. The same may have been true in some pre-Columbian American societies and in other parts of Southeast Asia. Certainly women had considerable autonomy in the traditional societies of non-Islamic West Africa (i.e. the forested regions of West Africa). Within Europe, I would expect to find the greatest autonomy for women in the areas where patriarchal forms such as feudalism and tribalism were least established, namely regions such as Norway and Switzerland. As an aside, I would note that Wikipedia seems almost systematically to neglect gender relations in its coverage of cultures and national histories. No doubt this is related to the gender bias of most users. Marco polo (talk) 15:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather think that this is because gender relations have not been a major topic of standard and especially of popular history treatments. It now is an active field of study, but much of the results is still only found in specialized academic publications. I can't remember gender relations as significant topics in Runciman or Ostrogorsky or Gibbon or Norwich, to name a few of the more widely read historians. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Women's influence in history was pretty much written out by 19th century historians.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

How many ancient records do we know of women? Most women we know of are the mothers, sisters, wifes and lovers of great men. History is mostly about warriors, rulers and leaders and the female variety was a bit rare in ancient times. It's hardly the fault of 19th century historians (Women's influence in history was never written in in the first place).Flamarande (talk) 19:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

In that time period, Sardinia had the greatest property rights for women, thanks to Eleanor of Arborea. They may also have had some pervasive matriarchal tendencies.[42] 76.254.20.205 (talk) 19:44, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Planned economy

Everyone knows that planned economy is not going to work. At least planned economy was among one of the big failures that killed the Soviet Union.

However, in the world of "free economy", we have more and more supermarkets, fast food chains and discount stores and fewer and fewer ma and pa stores. Many countries have big business groups that may control more than 10% of their GDP (Korea is a good example). There are also big international companies.

Is it possible that if we let the government have all the big companies' business information, at least theoretically, we may create a socialist country from a capitalist one? Great economists like Friedrich Hayek hated communism for all their lives. But can a free economy become a controlled and planned one overnight just because almost all business activities are recorded and we have almost limitless computing power?

I mean there are big companies. They have computerized records for all buying and selling transactions. Many consumers use credit cards. Many people buy and sell over the Internet. Most of us use ATMs for cash. Maybe we have already made the invisible hand visible.

The governments may force all business to hand over their records. A big business, if there's no anti-trust law, may control a whole country by endless M&A. As a result, a person may know almost everything about a country's business. Does it make him/her capable of making doable and very detailed economy plans? -- Toytoy (talk) 13:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

If I understand, you are asking, "Given the computerization of financial records and smaller number of companies controlling large parts of the market, could the government operate a planned economy efficiently?" The answer depends on how you define efficiency. By the standards usually applied in the Western world (supply of commodities) the answer would be no, at least not as efficiently as the market. Without competition, we would probably see a decrease in the supply of goods. However there are other ways of measuring efficiency: happiness, equality and connection with our work and fellow citizens. By those measures a planned economy based on our well developed market economy might actually work very well. It wont be happening anytime soon, especially in the US, but who knows. The issue real comes down to what should be the goal of society, with a free market it is the production and consumption of commodity, with a command economy the goal can be whatever the commander wants it to be. I would recommend reading Karl Marx's thoughts on this as well as some current Marxist thinkers like Slavoj Žižek. --Daniel 15:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the question is more "why can a giant multinational company with a budget much bigger than most states operate as a planned economy, but a state cannot?" --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

People are gathering information around the world. Say browser cookies may locate individual consumers so big business now knows who they are and what they want. Buyers were faceless decades ago. Now there are countless ways to collect their detailed information. It seems to me that some basic assumptions of free economy are no longer true. At least for commodities, we may develop better ways to produce and distribute staple foods so there is much less waste. The worldwide markets for grains (wheat, rice, corn ...) has already been controlled by a few big companies. I guess it's not very far from controlled economy because they control many countries' growth of grains and many more countries' sales. -- Toytoy (talk) 16:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

The answer is that giant multinational corporations have very different goals and spheres of influence than governments, and when, say, governments need to be concerned with matters of education, infrastructure, police, national defense, etc, functions which do not necessarily operate on the same principles as businesses do. Businesses do a pretty shitty job of being governments (Company towns generally all failed in the long run for being mainly tools to keep their workers and their families tied to the company indefinitely as a sort of modern-day serfdom, their inability to allow their workers any form of upward mobility or betterment led to their downfall) and likewise governments don't do all that good of a job running businesses (see Soviet Union). China's recent success is directly tied to the State getting the heck out of the markets and basically allowing the free market to flourish in China. The government has a role to play in business, in that it can act as an arbiter of fairness and prevent business interests from acting in harmful ways, but what it can't really do all that well is actually run the businesses themselves. --Jayron32 16:54, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Another issue may be that corporations tend to promote staff according to merit more than governments, which frequently are replaced on the basis of ideology and issues which have nothing to do with economics. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 19:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the previous posters that the reason government-run businesses earn less money isn't that they lack information on how to do so, it's that they put a lower priority on that, versus things like providing jobs to the public, on the good side, or jobs for incompetent relatives, friends, and financial contributors, on the bad side. StuRat (talk) 19:36, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Currency question

Suppose Norway were to adopt the Mauritian rupee as their currency (obviously, this is a hypothetical question), without any sort of liaison with the Mauritian government, meaning that money exchanged, taxed etc. within Norway would be in Mauritian rupees.

1. Would the Mauritian economy be affected, and if so, how?
2. If negatively, would the Mauritian government have any legal recourse against the Norwegian government?

--Leon (talk) 18:05, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Increased demand for a currency, all else being equal, will deflate it (prices in rupees would go down), but the Mauritians could counter this by printing more without inflation. The problem would be if the Mauritians got used to it and then Norway changed their mind and started to dump rupees, which would cause inflation and potentially difficult issues for the Mauritians. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 19:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

It should greatly help the economy of the smaller nation with the less-stable currency, since it would then inherit the stability of the larger economy. StuRat (talk) 19:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

A danger here is that, if the Mauritian rupee became Norway's currency, since Norway is an oil exporter, the rupee could face increased demand (as a "commodity currency") and upward pressure on global currency markets. As the rupee rose, prices would tend to deflate in Mauritius, but Mauritian exports would suffer by losing price competitiveness. The Mauritian government and central bank could respond in three ways: 1) By lowering interest rates on the rupee, they would decrease its attractiveness. 2) As others have said, Mauritius could issue enough of the currency to meet and exceed demand, thereby forcing the exchange rate down, though calibrating such an operation to stop short of destabilizing inflation could be tricky. 3) They could impose capital controls limiting the circulation of rupees outside of Mauritius and/or the repatriation of rupees and require that all trade with Mauritius be conducted in another currency, such as the euro or US dollar. Incidentally, the imposition of capital controls would be one form of recourse against Norway, since the Mauritian central bank controls the issuance of rupees, and banning the export of rupees would soon cause a currency shortage in Norway, with damage to the Norwegian economy from lack of a means of exchange. Marco polo (talk) 19:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Talon of Gold/Silver/Copper

What is a 'talon,' in the context of "Talon of Gold," and what is the value of such? It seems to be somewhat exact, since references to being paid a quarter or half talon are common. --75.128.244.178 (talk) 20:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)