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October 24

Billy Giles suicide letter

Where can I read Billy Giles's suicide note? --Belchman (talk) 00:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I can find extracts, but not the whole thing, which it seems is quite long. This may interest you. Moonraker (talk) 01:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but I've already read that. Anyone? --Belchman (talk) 20:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately the Peter Taylor book Loyalists only printed extracts from the four page letter. I would assume his parents are in possession of the original letter and showed it to Taylor, who just picked out pertinent bits to put in his book.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

:-( --Belchman (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

What is the Musical Notes time scale??

The microsound article says: "Microsound includes all sounds on the time scale shorter than musical notes, the sound object time scale, and longer than the sample time scale" What is the time scale of musical notes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.162.193 (talk) 02:02, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

That page, Microsound, seems to be describing the time scale of microsound, not "the time scale of musical notes". It says the scale is between 10 milliseconds and 0.1 second (100 ms). So it seems to be saying that "musical notes" are 0.1 second or longer. This is a concept I hadn't heard of. The Sound object page offers a bit more. Looks to me like the microsound page is not very well written and perhaps ought to say something like "...on the time scale shorter than sound objects and longer than samples...", or just "...all sounds between 10 and 100 milliseconds..." The link to Sampling (signal processing) is not very useful, as that page nowhere describes "the sample time scale", whatever that is. Pfly (talk) 07:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

And by the way, the book referenced on the microsound page, Microsound, by Curtis Roads, is on Google Books. It appears not all the pages referenced are previewable. But this page talks a little about the "time scale of musical notes", and defines musical notes to be between ~100 ms and ~8 seconds. Also, page 3-4 provide a basic overview of various "time scales of music". Pfly (talk) 07:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

why would a great reckoning in a little room strike a man dead?

I apologize for posting this twice, but I think maybe the language desk doesn't get much traffic. I paste below the questions and answers from there:71.101.96.129 (talk) 04:46, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

If someone were unaware of the Marlowe reference, what would this mean: "it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room." (Shakespeare, As You Like It, III, 3). Why would that strike a man dead? (I am not referring to the whole line, i.e., the idea of being misunderstood, etc. -- just the idea of a "reckoning in a little room" and why it might be fatal.)71.101.96.129 (talk) 01:41, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

It is widely believed that this is a reference to the murder of Christopher Marlowe, who was stabbed after a meal in an argument over the "reckoning" or bill (or check, if you're American). --Nicknack009 (talk) 07:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

... and I would guess that the scandal was fairly well known to Shakespeare's audience, especially with its suggestion of corruption in high places. Was Shakespeare getting in a dig at Thomas Walsingham, or at Robert Cecil of the Secret Service, just as modern comedians weave in comments on current scandals? Dbfirs 08:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

And to actually answer the original question (which specifically said "If someone were unaware of the Marlowe reference"): not a thing. Without that context it is an image with no import. --ColinFine (talk) 14:23, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Colin. Is there anyone who disagrees with Colin's statement that the phrase is meaningless except in the context of Marlowe? "Reckoning" can also mean "the end" in a religious sense, or "the bad consequences" in a historical or personal sense.71.101.96.129 (talk) 20:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

No, I thought Shakespeare was just playing with the words (aware of the partial double meaning) , but didn't dare state so in case I'd missed something that experts were aware of. Thanks Colin. Dbfirs 21:45, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

END OF PASTE FROM LANGUAGE DESK.71.101.96.129 (talk) 04:48, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

"Reckoning" in Elizabethan/Jacobean English generally meant settling a bill (check, etc). People can be struck dead by an unexpectedly large check/bill/account (this is a common trope in comedy, though I'm not sure how far back it goes). Since the context is about a poet being appreciated ("When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room") the connection to Marlowe seems inevitable.

There might possibly be an allusion to the phrase "day of reckoning" which originally meant the day a bill is due but is sometimes used to refer to a more serious kind of adding up, the last judgement at which all our sins are listed. Google Books returns various 17th century results for this[1], the earliest I can see being Thomas Cooper from 1609, whose use is clearly extended from the bookkeeping sense. I see no evidence of "reckoning" in Shakespeare's day meaning anything other than a literal or metaphorical settling of an account, so it isn't closely connected to someone being struck dead - although the idea of an event, even a death, as settling an account is possible.

There is a lot of commentary on this phrase, however, and I'm sure a proper search of academic journals (which I can't do at the moment) will reveal more. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

General Knowledge - Business related question

Which global brand has historic links with Hannibal and Julius Caesar?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.111.228.20 (talk) 10:07, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Roman Meal Bread? P.S. Which website did you get that quiz question from? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Elephant Brand? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Rubicon? --Dweller (talk) 10:53, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The answer is: Wikipedia... its global in scope and has links to history articles about both Hannibal and Julius Caesar. (do a win a prize?) Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Constutional rights for civialians

What is the constitutional right for an individual to drive a motor vehicle on public roads in the USA — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.245.248.98 (talk) 15:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the Constitution makes any mention of motor vehicles. In any case, courts unanimously agree that there is no such right. Looie496 (talk) 15:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Your question involves three issues: the privilege of operating a motor vehicle, the Freedom of movement under United States law granted by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, and the common law right of access to public roads and waterways. Protection of the right of access and the privilege of operating a motor vehicle is granted by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment, meaning that revocation can't be arbitrary or capricious. In some cases, a person who is denied the right or privilege is entitled to a hearing and review of the decision in a court of competent jurisdiction. A person who is prohibited from using a public road might bring a challenge based on the Due Process Clause, the Privileges and Immunities Clause, and the common law right of access. The right is not absolute and it is not fundamental, so it may be restricted provided that there is a legitimate government interest and the restriction is reasonably related to serving that interest. The so called reasonable basis is a low threshold and almost always will the state win on constitutional grounds. The common law grounds are another matter, and a person does indeed have a fundamental right to accessing public roads from their property, which may include crossing private property to do so in some circumstances. The right does not necessarily mean by car, however. Gx872op (talk) 15:39, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

In other words, there isn't one, but you have some recourse should the privilege be denied. Mingmingla (talk) 16:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

State manuals provided to applicants for a drivers license assert quite emphatically that driving is a privilege, not a right. In fact, that is a possible question on the written test for a driver's license. Gx872op is quite correct to state the common law right of access to a public right of way by foot. μηδείς (talk) 20:22, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

How do US States and the Federal Government legislate regarding horse access to the road. Is horse use of roads generally covered by the same statutes that regulate motor vehicles? Bicycles? Walking? Where on-road light rail and trams exist, are these covered under a road use statute? To what extent do other fonts of law (I understand that US counties and local government areas have some legislative power) regulate the use of non-motor vehicles? … Not asking for legal advice, but the "vibe" about various approaches to this area of law by legislatures (NSW, for example, has omnibus acts covering all these uses, with a body of law covering the roads across the entire state). Fifelfoo (talk) 01:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In the U.S., highway laws are pretty much set by individual states, which license and regulate both vehicles and drivers, so every state has a large body of statutes governing highway use - overall, fairly similar, but the details may vary from state to state. The federal government, as far as my understanding goes, doesn't directly control highway laws - except that if the feds really want to do something (like lowering the speed limit nationwide) they can tell the states, "if you don't change your laws, we won't give you any money for new highways or repair of old ones." Most states will quickly fall into line then. States generally allow cities, towns, and counties to make ordinances regulating traffic within their boundaries (e.g., you can park here, you can't park there, speed limits in business districts or residential neighborhoods, etc.). As to your question about horseback riding on highways, see this site for links to the laws in various states, which differ widely. As a personal observation, though, I can tell you that it's not common to see people riding horses along a public highway nowadays, even in rural districts of Texas, and when they do, they always make sure to stay well off the pavement, so it's not much of an issue. People going any considerable distance other than a short pleasure ride would tend to load the horses on trailers and take them where they wanted to go. Textorus (talk) 06:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about horses on roads, except that there are some regulations in at least some parts of the US. There's also horse-drawn wagons/buggies, which are not uncommon on roads in Amish "Dutch Pennsylvania". I came across a horse-drawn wagon on a relatively significant state highway in Missouri (I think the area had a lot of Mennonites). I don't know what regulations horse-drawn wagons have. The few I have seen all had a big bright red triangle on the back, like in this photo. As for bicycles, there are various regulations and laws, varying from state to state and even between counties and cities within a state. Some places require bicycle licenses, and many are thinking about requiring them (Seattle, for example). As an example of the kind of bicycle laws and regulations one might find in the US, this page lists a bunch of California laws on the topic. Note the provision allowing cities and counties to require licenses if they want. Pfly (talk) 06:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, this is part of the ordinances of the city of Hays, Kansas pertaining to bicycles. The city does require bicycle licenses in order to ride on the city streets legally. The city's ordinances supplement a general statewide set of traffic ordinances, [2], which addresses a number of odd things you didn't mention, like, you can't use a snowmobile on roads except under a few conditions (such as, go figure, the road is impassable by cars due to being covered with deep snow!). And this one, which amuses me for some reason: "No person upon roller skates, or riding in or by means of any coaster, toy vehicle, or similar device, shall go upon any roadway except while crossing a street at a crosswalk and except upon streets set aside as play streets." Pfly (talk) 07:23, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there a fairly standard 4th subject for this font?

I recently visited Framlingham, and spent some time examining the font in St Michael's church there. This is an octagonal font, which the visitor notes on a board provided by the church claim is 14th century. It has fairly standard (as I understand it) Suffolk lions and wildmen around the base, and the eight sides of the basin alternate between symbols of the four Evangelists and angels holding shields. The four shields held by the angels carry symbolic theological symbols, so one has the Scutum Fidei for the Trinity, one has three chalices with hosts to represent the Eucharist, and one has a complicated but clearly standardised combination of the cross/crown of thorns/spear/nails/flails/cup on a stick. The fourth angel holds a nearly blank shield with faintly differentiated areas, and the visitors notes just vaguely say it is defaced: one assumes that it was either defaced by the iconoclasts or not recarved with the others by Victorians for the same reason.

Now, I can guess at a likely subject (presumably it was a Marian image to represent the Incarnation of God, and was defaced for being an image of Mary), I don't actually know. Is there a standard fourth thing that would go with the Trinity, the Crucifixion, and the Eucharist in this context? And is there a standard form of it?

Thanks. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

This page claims that the font is 15th century. You're probably right that the missing shield was a symbol of the Virgin Mary; a Fleur-de-lys or Mystic rose are likely candidates. Alansplodge (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my links, Alan. Could you create the redirect on scutum fidei to the capitalised version? I've been caught by that before. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 16:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Your wish is my command ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 16:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

:-) Thanks. Oo, Fleur-de-lys and mystic rose are interesting ideas I hadn't thought of: I was trying to imagine something that would fit the character of the others, and either of those would fit, especially the fleur-de-lys. Do you happen to know if either can be found in similar contexts in Suffolk around that time? 86.163.1.168 (talk) 16:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm searching at this very moment. So far, I've found this photo of the font at Saint Nicholas, Blakeney in Norfolk: "The octagonal font dates from the 15th century; its carved panels alternate images of the symbols of the Four Evangelists with seated figures of the Doctors of the Church (Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, and Pope Gregory I). The central column carries shields depicting the Instruments of the Passion and the Holy Wounds. The eastern shield is unusual in that a sword is shown with an ear stuck to it. This refers to the story of Saint Peter striking off the ear of Malchus, the High Priest's servant, in the garden of Gethsemane." Alansplodge (talk) 16:50, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The technical name for "combination of the cross/crown of thorns/spear/nails/flails/cup on a stick" is Arma Christi... AnonMoos (talk) 17:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

English church furniture, J. Charles Cox, 1907 says; "About the middle of the 15th cent, the singularly happy and beautifully executed idea of depicting the Seven Sacraments of the Church, on the vessel dedicated to the initial Sacrament, occurred to the designers of the more elaborate English font. It is exceedingly probable that not a few of the fonts thus embellished were destroyed by Puritan violence, to whom such subjects would be eminently distasteful, but there are at present existing in England twenty-nine examples, which are thus distributed..." (follows a list of churches - but sadly not Framlingham)

"The pedestals are usually adorned with eight figures in niches, and the bases further enriched with small representations of the four Evangelists and their symbols. All their bowls are octagonal, and consequently some other subject had to be designed for the eighth panel. In nine cases the Crucifixion forms the subject in the eighth compartment, in seven instances the Baptism of our Lord, and on three fonts the Last Judgment. There is a single example of each of the following subjects: the Communion of the People, the Assumption, the Virgin and Child, the Holy Trinity, Our Lord in Glory, and the Martyrdom of St. Andrew at the church of St. Andrew, Melton. The eighth panel at Farningham, Kent, shows a figure kneeling before a crucifix, which is probably intended for the donor of the font. In the three remaining cases the eighth compartment is either blank or hopelessly defaced." Alansplodge (talk) 17:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is a photo of the Framlingham font with an extract from the church guide book. Alansplodge (talk) 17:41, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm.. very interesting! The History of Framlingham, in the county of Suffolk, begun by Robert Hawes, Gent., with considerable additions and notes by Robert Loder, 1798 says; "...an octagonal font of freestone, adorned with eight blank escutcheons and an old type.". If the shields were blank in 1798, then suffolkchurches.co.uk (linked abve) is right and the carving has been re-cut. However, rather curious that there are only four today. Oops... wrong church - this part of the chapter is describing Saxtead church. Despite describing in detail every monument in Framlingham church, I can't see any mention of the font. Alansplodge (talk) 17:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

---

By the way, I'm not an expert in dating medieval carvings or anything like that, but from the materials I gathered for the article on the "Scutum Fidei" or "Shield of the Trinity" diagram, it appears that its use in church decorations was much more common in the 15th century than in the 14th century. The Shield of the Trinity diagram is found in manuscripts written during the first two thirds of the 13th-century, but then seems to fall out of use for over a century (as far as the available surviving evidence indicates), and the earliest solidly-dated use as a church decoration that I've come across was the 1383 memorial bronze of John of Campden (or John de Campden), warden of St. Cross, Winchester, described in a book by Charles Boutell... P.S. I've added a link to the Flickr photpgraph of the shield on the font to the Shield of the Trinity article. thanks. -- AnonMoos (talk)

Observance of Canada Day on June 30

If July 1 (Canada Day) falls on a Saturday in a given year, what institutions would choose to observe Canada Day on the Friday before, i.e. June 30? 74.101.118.93 (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

The Canada Day page says "If it falls on a Saturday, the following Monday is generally also a day off for those businesses ordinarily closed on Saturdays." Does that answer it? Pfly (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Influence of Saturn on people (in Portuguese)

Há algo de verdadeiro sobre o que ouvi ontem a noite sobre a influência de saturno sobre o homem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.125.35.35 (talk) 17:15, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Translated to english: Is it true what I heard last night about the influence of Saturn on man? I have no answer, as I made the above translation using a combination of intuition and Google Translate. I'll let someone who speaks portuguese translate the answer "No" into portuguese for me. --Jayron32 18:21, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, that all depends on what it was he heard... if he heard that "Saturn does not have an influence on man" then the answer would be "yes". :>) Blueboar (talk) 18:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Really? Cassini-Huygens Voyager 2 Astronomy Astrology --140.180.26.155 (talk) 18:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

on the last one. --Jayron32 19:28, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

It certainly had an influence on Galileo. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:43, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

It certainly attracts everybody. It's not a significant influence (is it even measurable? *numbercrunch* Should be 2E-6N... equivalent to the weight of 0.2 mg on Earth - small, but measurable), but it is an influence. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Is that the gravitational attraction? From the perspective of people on Earth, the only force that Saturn would exert is a tidal Force, which is (approximately) proportional to the inverse cube of distance. Using a minimum Earth-Saturn distance of 1.2E12 m (8 au), and an Earth radius of say 6.4E6 m, and the mass of Saturn as 5.7E26 kg, the maximum tidal acceleration of Saturn on a person on Earth is 2.8E-13 N/kg, or about 2.9E-14 g. For a fat 100 kg person, that's 2.8E-11 N, or 2.9 ng (I hope I got those conversions right). Referencing our handy Orders of magnitude (mass), that's on the order of the mass of a human cell. In comparison, the moon's tidal force is about 1.1E-7 g, and the sun's on the order of 5E-6 g. Buddy431 (talk) 03:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I went for plain gravitational attraction, missing (or, if you are generous, ignoring) the fact that the Earth will be attracted equally. And I used the Sun-Saturn distance as a rough estimate (about right on average), and, importantly, a very muscular 100kg person with strong bones. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Old cups

If someone very rich in the 16th century, in Ireland, were to prepare an alcoholic drink, such as wine, in a particularly expensive and ornate beverege container, what would they use, and what would it be made from, some sort of ornately carved crystal or glass, perhaps, or would such materials not be common for drinking at the time? Also, if the container is not made from typical glass, could it still be called a wine glass?

148.197.80.214 (talk) 20:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Too early for Waterford Crystal, but imported Forest glass might have been available. Gold or silver are other possibilities. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:26, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

A container for drinking that is not from glass, but from some metal, would be termed a goblet or chalice. There are also tankards, but these are typically not filled with wine. Neutrality^talk 00:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Although Falstaff used to drink sack by the quart, which is a very big tankard by anyone's standards. Alansplodge (talk) 14:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I've just found a picture of Falstaff with a large flagon and a smaller beaker - so perhaps he would decant it in a more civilised manner than I had imagined. Alansplodge (talk) 14:33, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Pewter, perhaps?
Sleigh (talk) 10:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Itsmejudith, silver goblets. Drinking from silver goblets causes blue blood.
Sleigh (talk) 10:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Shades of The Court Jester:

The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle
The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!

Great movie if you've never seen it. --Ludwigs2 15:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Following my link above to Beaker (drinkware) is rather unprodutive as it only mentions modern plastic cups. This snippet view on Google books says; "For nearly a thousand years silver beakers graced the tables of princes and prelates, in castles and manor houses." (Small antique silverware by George Bernard Hughes, 1957). Antiques Glossary at antique-marks.com says; "Beaker {drinking vessel - 11thC) Drinking cup without handles or stem, and usually with a foot rim. Early beakers were made in wood, glass and pottery, although by the 11th century there were silver, silver-gilt and gold examples. In the 18th century, glasses generally replaced beakers for table use." Alansplodge (talk) 18:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Scipio Africanus

Would Scipio have worn a tunica when he became a Quaestor at the age of 24? When might he have started wearing a tunica?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:22, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

He always would have worn a tunica, like everyone else - that was just a basic undergarment. You probably mean a toga, and as quaestor he presumably would have worn a toga praetexta, a white toga with purple trim, like the other public officials. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, now I get it.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 11:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Hu Jintao a dictator?

How come Hu Jintao is count as dictator? I thought China is doing just fine but one of my textbook, China is consider not free country. I thought China have nice transportation systems. Two websites i fouind Hu Jintao is belong to 5th world dictator rank. I never hear Hu commit killing to Chinese peoples. Hu does not cause any genocides at all. I thought dictator is mostly on killing people a little bit on everything. Sexual harassments, gender racism, genocide-China I don't think it have any of those. Does dictator and genocide match. Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame is black/brownbelt on genocide-I wonder why they are not world's worst dictator-they suppose to be list there.--69.226.40.225 (talk) 23:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Dictator is a generic term for a head of state who is neither democratically elected nor a hereditary monarch. Since the People's Republic of China is not, in any way shape or form, a democracy, dictator is a reasonable term for its leader. Not every dictator need be a bad dictator. See Benevolent dictatorship. --Jayron32 00:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I would think that "dictator" mainly refers to someone who has personal despotic power, so I'm not sure that Hu strongly qualifies... AnonMoos (talk) 00:38, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree (with Jayron). A dictator has "sole and absolute power", according to Dictator, which jibes with my understanding of the word. Hu Jintao is no Mao. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:44, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Just because the leader of a one party state requires others to pull the trigger for him doesn't make him not a dictator. The answer depends on the definition. But by most liberal definitions, yes, a dictator. I agree entirely with Jayron's comments. μηδείς (talk) 00:51, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

(EC) I agree that a dictator doesn't need to be bad. However I think many would suggest Hu Jintao is not a dictator even if certain political figures in the US suggest otherwise [3]. Others could probably explain this better then me but the Politburo of the Communist Party of China and others in China simply have too much power and influence for it to be accurate description. I'm of course using a definition of dictator close to what our article uses rather then the one Jayron32 gave which seems an odd definition (under which a ceremonial head of state could be a dictator if they weren't a heriditary monarch or elected). Note neither dictator nor Hu Jintao suggest he is a dictator. Nil Einne (talk) 01:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

---

Not really. A dictator has sole and absolute power; it is a personal characteristic. Post-Deng Xiaoping China cannot really be described as an autocracy, but as an authoritarian regime with a collective leadership. While Hu is certainly a powerful individual, in China power is concentrated within the Politburo (24 members) and its smaller Politburo Standing Committee (5-9 members).

See our article on paramount leader: "Following the death of Deng...the term has seldom been used, since power is held more-or-less collectively by the members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China with the General Secretary acting as a first among equals figure and different factions [e.g., the Shanghai clique] jockeying for influence. Policy decisions are thought to be made via majority vote of Standing Committee members following internal discussions." See also Generations of Chinese leadership. Neutrality^talk 00:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

"First among equals", as in Princeps?

I would say something like "chief oligarch". Marco polo (talk) 01:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't help noticing that the original poster's reluctance to call Hu a dictator, based on the PRC having a "nice transportation system", has a strong echo of he made the trains run on time. --Trovatore (talk) 01:11, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree - and just as (or so I hear) Mussolini's train-running abilities are exaggerated, the impression that the PRC has a "nice transportation system" is simplistic. Domestic flights are often two or three hours behind schedule as a matter of course. The non-flashy non-bullet trains are dirty and crowded, and yet many people prefer them to the new bullet trains because at least they don't break down or crash as often, or as badly when they do. The big cities are in permanent gridlock, while more rural areas don't have proper roads (sometimes due more to corruption than lack of investment). Compared to most western liberal democracies, China is a long way away from having a "nice transportation system".

Back to the original, it would be quite ridiculous to call Hu a dictator. The country is ruled at the top by a collective leadership composed of the Politburo, and neither Hu or any other member of the group can impose their own wills or even their policies with ease except at the margins by influencing certain policy decisions. Probably the only area in which Hu has more influence than his peers is in theoretical party ideology, and even such influences are subtle and much delayed by the time they filter down to practical policies. For the most part, the groaning weight of the party and state machinery runs itself by inertia, and not even Hu can but nudge it a little, and only with a great deal of effort. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

"Authoritarian" and "Totalitarian" are dodgy cold war theoretical constructs, produced by the American social science system, to justify then state ideology. They're also not meaningfully predictive of social behaviour. Dictator is a similar term, this often is used to exclude analysis of the actual social relations of power. In the case of mid twentieth century Germany, it is often used to avoid discussing corporate, junker, military and popular responsibility. In the case of the Soviet Union the idea of "dictatorship" is used to avoid detailed analysis of the relations between union, firm, party, management and state. China's networks of power, graft, promotion and policy formation have always been more complex than a flow of policy determinations from a centre being implemented without failure or dissent at a periphery. Populism, and the discovery of policies in grass roots practice, has just as significant a role in modern states without a loyal opposition, as it does in modern states with loyal oppositions. Neutrality's specific points above about Hu's personal power answers the specific question. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

on your entire first sentence. George Orwell wrote Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for socialism, as I understand it, and Orwell was not an American, and it's quite patronizing and incorrect to claim Orwell was a slave to the American social science system. (And the Cold War didn't start until rather after 1936.) Actually, I call on everything you wrote, Fifelfoo; it's glib and false to claim the only reason the word "dictator" is ever used is to try to pin it all on one bad guy and avoid a broader view. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Functionalism versus intentionalism. Orwell's fairly free use is tied to his Lion and Unicorn period work and Orwell has characterised his work in other ways, see his Penguin edition of letters. GADDIS, J. L. (1993), The Tragedy of Cold War History. Diplomatic History, 17: 1–16 is critical of the historiography of the Cold War on precisely this point, citing Jeane J. Kirkpatrick. Dictatorships and Double Standards,” Commentary 68 (November 1979): 34–45. as typical of the theoretical construction's use in "diplomatic history" or Soviet Union bashing. Kirkpatrick's theory resulted in explicitly wrong predictions because of its desire to construct the "authoritarian" as "our friends" and the "totalitarian" as the implacable other. The link between the authoritarian / totalitarian thesis and a peculiar self-justifying US state ideology is transparent in the analytical material of the 1950s and 1960s as any cursory reading of Congress of Cultural Freedom front organisation publications during the 1950s will demonstrate. These opinions which are strangely absent from the British theorisation of enemies and allies in their opposition to the soviet system. I don't think this is explicable in terms of the British giving asylum to a better kind of right-wing emigre. As far as sociology, David Paul Haney The Americanization of social science: intellectuals and public responsibility in the postwar United States Temple University Press, 2008 goes over the link in detail between the CCF sponsoring these theories and Seymour Martin Lipset at page 100. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, the best description of Hu Jintao would be "first among equals in an authoritarian, single-party political system." Yes, I know China has many political parties, but they have no power at all. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

October 25

Are contracts copyrightable?

I've read a theory that the text of a contract is in fact not copyrightable in the US because the text is functional rather than being merely an original work of expression. If another party wanted to create a contract that was intended to bind the parties in exactly the same way, the exact same text would have to be used, and, this theory goes, that's fine. Is there any law or court precedent in the US supporting this theory? Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

A contract is an intention to be legally bound and as such is a public record. I could imagine that a fill-in-the -blank document could be copyrightable, but how in the world would it be specific enough to cover the desired stipulations? Any real contract binds real individuals, and representing oneself fraudulently is fraud. Seek legal advice if this regards some actual matter before law. μηδείς (talk) 03:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Generally, no. (But I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice). There is the "blank form doctrine" (or "blank form rule"). In Baker v. Selden, 101 U.S. 99 (1879), the Supreme Court held that "Blank account-books are not the subject of copyright" - this is because of the idea–expression divide - the expression of an idea is copyrightable, but the theory itself is not (but see )

See 37 C.F.R. 202.1 (here):

Material not subject to copyright. The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained... (c) Blank forms, such as time cards, graph paper, account books, diaries, bank checks, scorecards, address books, report forms, order forms and the like, which are designed for recording information and do not in themselves convey information."

For a relatively recent application of this rule, see Advanz Behavorial Management Resources, Inc., 21 F.Supp.2d 1179 (C.D. Ca. 1998) involved a copyright infringement action involving blank forms used for home health care management ("Medical Social Service Follow-up," "Daily Visit Route Sheet," etc.). The headings and abbreviations in forms were apparent and there was no accompanying text that imparted information to the reader. The Court held that the "blank form rule" denied copyright to such a form, which required the user to supply information rather than itself supplying information.

Here's a memo from the University of Arizona's general counsel's office about the subject. Neutrality^talk 03:49, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Blank forms are not contracts; the reasoning is fallacious. They are entirely different sorts of documents and entirely different copyright questions. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Fill-in-the-blank forms certainly can be contracts. See standard form contract. Neutrality^talk 19:22, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The form becomes a contract when it's filled in and signed, until then it's just a form.Sjö (talk) 05:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Some contracts may very well be copyrightable. The Contract everyone here agrees to when posting (see CCAS) is copyrightable and protected. The statutory exclusion you're reading is addressing that constitutional gray area about non-creative things like tables of contents, and lists of random numbers. The more recent case on that is Feist v. Rural. Feist is the much more modern statement on Baker btw. As for the OPs more specific question about functional text... that's actually a very interesting legal question. As a general rule the text of a long, specific contract, might be copyrightable, however the intent of the contract, or the idea behind it, is certainly not. And if there's no other way, or easier way, to express that idea, then it can't be either. This is the stuff of law school exams and there's a lot of nuance in it. You should appreciate that nuance to really ever answer this question. I'd give you some law review cites (i know they exist) but i don't have access to them right now. If this is something you're really into leave me a message and I'll try to dig some up for you.

But no, contracts are not public record, not by any stretch of the imagination. While some of these may become public record in court cases, there are often contractual terms, even settlement terms that are either protected by court order or held secret. The agreement you made at the gas station last week to buy gas was certainly just as much a contract as anything else, and yet you wouldn't dare think that "public record" would you? Shadowjams (talk) 08:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I meant in court cases, that is why they are written down in the first place, to be verifiable to the relevant parties and in court if necessary. That doesn't mean a judge won't seal such matters in cases of trade secrets and so forth. μηδείς (talk) 11:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why the fact that they are meant to be legally binding would make them uncopyrightable. It would put limits on the degree to which one could try to use copyright to control them, but that's what fair use is for. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a pretty thoughtful essay on the very question at hand from the New York Law Journal. The basic conclusion of the author is that there isn't any reason to think that contracts are not copyrightable. There have been lawsuits over this for significantly novel types of contract styles. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Contracts have copyright protection in some cases. We regularly copy other lawyer's works.[4]. Most of us use standard form books which are designed to be copied by the attorneys using them. Most contracts are not registered with the copyright office nor do they contain a copyright notice. While they still enjoy a copyright provided that it is an original work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium, the remedies available are more limited without both registration and notice, i.e. ©. The biggest issue is demonstrating that your contract is original, not that it has more functionality than creativity. The utility of a contract is not the same as the utility of a ledger or phonebook. Fair use is the worst defense to use in this context. It is an affirmative defense, which means that it assumes the ownership of a valid copyright. Fair use claims, "Yes the copyright is valid, but the use is fair." The whole issue of originality, utility and first authorship would be mute with a fair use defense. Contracts that become public record through a court filing still retain a copyright, but fair use would probably allow them to be posted elsewhere depending on the context. For instance, a contract where the position of a comma costs a company millions of dollars might find itself online somewhere based on the public interest as part of a news story.[5] If someone copied that same contract and used it for commercial purposes, the fair use defense would be weak because of the weak 1st Amendment arguments for the use and the transformative use does not weigh in favor. The case taught in most American law schools concerning fair use, mostly because the opinion is masterfully clear on the subject, is Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group.[6] Like all fair use cases, the court passes over the ownership of a valid copyright fairly quickly. Whether a contract will enjoy copyright protection in a particular context will be very fact specific and open to the interpretation of the judge if it gets that far. Gx872op (talk) 15:49, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I only invoked fair use in the context of someone saying, "you can't reprint the contract I signed to show to others involved in this legal dispute, because it's copyrighted." This seems to be the concern of people who want to claim that they couldn't be copyrighted because they are legally binding. There's no doubt that such a use would be fair use though; in any case, being copyrighted can't exclude something from discovery. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to Mr.98 and Gx872op and Shadowjams; I have some very interesting reading now, particularly this PDF which was linked to by Gx872op's first link. Thank you! Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

where is our copiale cipher article?

I was surprised that after the New York Times wrote an article all about "to crack one of the most stubborn of codes: the Copiale Cipher, a hand-lettered 105-page manuscript that appears to date from the late 18th century", there is no Copiale Cipher article on Wikipedia. Where is it? 82.234.207.120 (talk) 12:00, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Trying not be facetious, but it's because no-one has written such an article yet. Wikipedia has an enormous coverage but there are still many notable subjects that are still waiting for someone with the interest/enthusiasm to produce an article on them. Perhaps you would like to make a start? Mikenorton (talk) 12:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Also... is it possible that it has another name? For example: Do we know who created the cipher?... if there is a bio article on that person it could be mentioned there, but not by the name "Copiale cipher" (not saying it is... just that it could be). Blueboar (talk) 12:39, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is a description of the cipher. Mikenorton (talk) 12:45, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

While there are currently 3.7 million Wikipedia articles, there may well be or have been even more than 3.7 million people, events, and things which have existed which are notable per Wikipedia guidelines. Thus the encyclopedia's coverage of things is constantly growing. Edison (talk) 14:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

See Copiale cipher, a stub I created, which all are welcome to expand and improve. Edison (talk) 15:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The writing "copiales 3" appears at the very end of the text. Is copiales some German term for for "copy everything?" Trying to figure out why the scribe might have written it at the end of a manuscript about Freemason-like rituals, I Googled it along with "St. Andrews," mentioned in the text as important in the history of the Masonic lodges, and found "Copiale prioratus Sanctiandree;: The letter-book of James Haldenstone, prior of St. Andrews (1418-1443)". So if it is a Latin word, what does it mean? Google translate provides no translation of copiale or copiales from Latin to English, but does translate it from Spanish as "copy them." Edison (talk) 17:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

According to the Wiktionary, "copia" (1st decl., thus pl = copiae) means abundance (see etymology of copious). Maybe somebody with a somewhat less rusty knowledge of Latin can hint on the suffix "copia-les" ? --188.22.103.39 (talk) 19:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It's "copiale", plural "copialia", and it means a register, or as above, a "letter book". I don't know the ultimate etymology, but maybe the OED would have it, or a big medieval Latin dictionary (Niermeyer, maybe; Du Cange doesn't have it). I'm not even sure it's from "copia", but I suppose that's likely. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Lucky you're all making sense and speaking nicely, otherwise I'd be accusing you of coprolalia.  :) -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 01:46, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

We are left no closer to analyzing why a copyist, book owner, or book user would write "copiales 3" at the end of a nicely copied and expensively bound manuscript. I could see it being "copy 3" out of an edition of "x." Was "Copiales" ever a name, as of a scribe? Would "copia les 3" make any sense as in instructing a Spanish-speaking scribe to make 3 copies? Edison (talk) 04:29, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't answer the question, but Niermeyer's Medieval Latin Lexicon has an entry for "copiarium" meaning "register", and I could see how that could become "copiale" in another form of Latin, or in French (although "copiale" doesn't seem to be a French word either). Adam Bishop (talk) 10:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Copiales is a plural form of Copiale, meaning a collection of copies. The manuscript itself (not in the German or English texts) has on bottom of page 68 "Copiales 3? Rth|" (all scratched out) and on the last page "Copiales 3. Rth|". The dot after the 3 is used after numbers in that time (today omitted) and Rth| is the usual abbreviation for Reichsthaler. I would guess that the scribe who copied it received 3 Reichsthaler for copying through page 68 and another 3 Reichsthaler for the rest. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:35, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

To confirm this, a journal that appeared in Leipzig in the year 1764 (very close to the manuscript) records a fee of 1 g| (1 Groschen = 1/24 Reichsthaler) per sheet (2 pages) for official "Copiales" by a scribe. 24 sheets would cost 1 Reichsthaler and 72 sheets 3 Reichsthaler. With the complicated text here, the scribe could easily charge 1/24 Reichsthaler per page. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Does reading things which are written in the manuscript count as WP:OR, or can this information be added to the article, per WP:BLUE?  Card Zero  (talk) 16:17, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Was Albert Einstein a pantheist?

Einstein's religious views are very similar to pantheism, but in the article Albert Einstein's religious views he is quoted (here) saying "I don't think I can call myself a pantheist". What was the difference between his views and pantheism? Did he ever answer this question himself? Or perhaps he was a pantheist after all?

Thanks, Oh, well (talk) 18:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It's very close. I think panentheism is probably a better description of what Einstein believed, though. The distinction, as I understand it, is that the pantheist says the universe is God. The panentheist believes there is a universe, and there is God, and they are muddled up inseparably. So in the latter there are two entities — the universe and God — but in the former there is only one (universe/God). Theological hair-splitting. If you called Einstein a pantheist, you'd be pretty close to the mark. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I am personally concerned when people attempt to describe my spiritual views with single word labels. Einstein was a far more complex person than me, so I'd suggest giving up on simplistic labels for him. HiLo48 (talk) 19:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Both "pantheist" and "panenthiest" are extraordinarily vague anyway. They tell you more about what he didn't believe (personal God, etc.) than what he did believe. They are akin, in Einstein's case, to a vague certainty that there's some order behind the universe, but that's it. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty confident that he wasn't a panentheist. As you said, the difference between the two is that pantheism states that God and nature are one, and that therefore supernatural phenomenons can't exist, whilst panentheism regards nature as part of God, allowing God to perform miracles. Einstein repeatedly rejected the supernatural, and I can't think of any other reason why he would refer to God as more than the universe, but if you know a reason please comment. As for the simplification in labeling him as a pantheist, I agree that his views were much deeper than of most pantheists. However, calling the Pope a Christian is also a simplification, but he still belongs to the category of Christian people, and Einstein's beliefs do seem to match pantheism. Anyway, I want to know what made him say the quote above (maybe because he indeed thought it's too simplistic, and didn't want his beliefs summarized that much). Oh, well (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I think belief in miracles is entirely separate from both of those ideas. Einstein obviously didn't believe in miracles or interventionism. I don't think panentheism is at all interventionist, for what it's worth. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:59, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Expensive degrees vs. cheap PhDs

How does is come that going through a university degree program can be very expensive, but the working force that can offer a degree (=PhDs) are normally horribly paid? Shouldn't degrees be cheaper or PhDs well-paid? Quest09 (talk) 20:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In the United States, public school teachers are horribly underpaid. However, university professors are paid a reasonable amount. An anecdote: My private sector computer work nets me around $60k/year. Teaching at a university (without tenure) nets me around $70k/year. If I were to teach at public school like my two neighbors, I'd be making around $30k/year. -- kainaw™ 20:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Probably you are not teaching something related to humanities. Even in the US, they seem to be meagerly rewarded, unless you are tenured... Quest09 (talk) 21:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

A beginning tenure-track job in the humanities pays less than half of that, generally. At really high end places (e.g. Ivies) they pay $50K or so. Adjuncting (non-tenure track) varies hugely. At the highest end (e.g. Ivies) it can pay around $35K. At the lowest (most exploitive) end, it's more like $2K per class. I will note though that many humanities degrees are not expensive except in terms of opportunity costs. My PhD cost me basically nothing except six years of my life — all the rest was either paid for by scholarships, fellowships, research jobs, or teaching jobs. But I went to a relatively rich university where lots of job opportunities (i.e. teaching) were always available. People I know who went to poor universities (even highly acclaimed ones, like the UCs) usually had to go into some degree of debt to complete the PhD. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

• Australia has a homogenous payment structure for academics of all disciplines nationwide (with regional variations depending on union strength post 1990). These are generally in-line with equivalent "ranked" public K-12 teachers. In neither case does the cost of the degree to the individual or the state have a serious influence on the earning potential. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

School teachers really do seem to be underpaid in the US. In the UK, the main scale for teachers has a maximum of £32,558 [www.tda.gov.uk/get-into-teaching/salary/teaching-salary-scales.aspx]. A university lecturer is paid on a "spine" [7], with spine point 44 a ceiling many people reach, £45,155. So there is a definite "rate of return" to a PhD, but also the possibility of getting to the same point in a school teaching career (either by becoming a head teacher - principal - or by being an advanced skills teacher). Itsmejudith (talk) 22:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The economics of higher education in the US are kind of complicated. Here's a go:

• The main reason the humanities are paid so little is because there's virtually no threat of abandonment. That is, an engineer needs to be paid something close to the industry rate, because otherwise they will simply jump to industry jobs. (They might accept a lot less than actual industry jobs because of the promise of doing their own work, or something like that. But it's got to be comparable.) There is no such threat in the humanities. An English PhD or a History PhD or (god forbid) a Philosophy PhD is not going to be able to make any kind of comparable leap. There is simply no sector out there that is seeking them, no place that they are uniquely qualified for other than the university. I can speak from experience (both mine and my friends') that when trying to jump into the non-university world, a PhD is more often than not a stone around one's neck. Potential employers tend to view on as simultaneously (and paradoxically) over- and under-qualified. Overqualified because you have a fancy degree that makes it clear to all around you that you've got a lot of firepower, perhaps more than their job (or co-workers) need. Underqualified because you have essentially no job experience to go with your level of education. So you've got the education that says, "management," but your experience says "entry-level." That's an uncomfortable paradox for a potential employer and it makes you look like a pretty problematic potential employee. The humanities of course exacerbate this when they use impenetrable jargon (everybody sounding like a poorly-translated French professor), pursue what appear to outsiders to be frivolous topics ("'Shoulda put a ring on it':The Semiotics of Beyonce's Single Ladies"), and generally act like asses in the presence of non-university people (it is an often vocalized mantra in the university system that anyone who is not in the university system is some kind of dilettante or fraud).
• Compounding this is that there are significantly more PhDs produced each year than university jobs, making it a complete buyer's market. This is especially insidious because the universities are the ones who also get to control the number of PhDs there are per year — they are both the producer and the consumer of PhDs. Why do they glut the market? Not necessarily because they love making the world miserable (though one wonders), but because having lots of graduate students (the embryo stage of the PhD) means that you are able to do more undergraduate teaching with fewer professors. Undergraduates pay the bills, in the end. So you get grad programs with huge numbers of entrants, fund them on a pittance, and then force them to do all of the heavy work of teaching (the grading, the sections, the one-on-one interactions) while the small number of tenured professors do whatever pleases them. This might not be awful if they were preparing those grad students for the reality that awaits them once they finish, but they foster the idea — purposefully or inadvertently — that everything will "work out" and the "cream rises to the top" and other such nonsense. This is despite the fact that since 1970 — when things started going decisively sour in the PhD-to-job ratio — there have been endless pleas by various members of the academy to start training grad students to do more than just work in the university. Instead of doing this, the direction of scholarship has been towards increasing specialization, increased insularity, increased retrenchment: the response of a crowded field (and perhaps an inferiority complex with regards to the sciences).

So there's the basics of it. Nobody can really threaten to leave, and they're dispensable anyway. It's an awful racket if you ask me. When you're 22 or so it seems like a good way to avoid jumping into a cubicle, but when you're in your 30s on the other side of it, it starts to look a lot more dismal, and the "learning for its own sake" suddenly looks like a very poor personal economic strategy. I say this as someone who has managed to make his humanities PhD pay the bills, but I've seen a lot of people flame out, too. If you'd like to read more depressing discussions of the current state of the university system, the most depressing place of them all is The Chronicle of Higher Education, which includes, even amongst its "positive" columns, recommendations that new assistant professors refrain from having children, cut their own hair, and steal furniture out of the trash of universities with rich students in order to make ends meet. I'm not even exaggerating. (I'll show you the life of the mind!) --Mr.98 (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

While the above is true; it doesn't fully or adequately explain the poor salary rates of Engineering PhDs. (let me get out my table of skill relativities from 1940 for comparison... yes I've seen this argument before a wages tribunal... it worked out about as well as expected). Academics face a number of simultaneous problems in using industrial muscle to force management's hand. One is the deliberately cultivated glut in labour market supply. One could speculate that the triumphalist claim in Australia is correct, where in the 1950s employers declared that the high school skills shortage was solved as declining wage rates indicated, onto the graduate skills shortage; and extend this forward in time. But I don't think the glut is sufficient. Other glutted skill groups manage fine. There's the diversity of cultural identifications and skill differentiations within the shop, and this causes problems as Taylor and Ford demonstrated. There's a worker mentality that they're not workers, but even as white collar workers in the 1940s, 50s and 60s were being proletarianised, their consciousness changed to reflect their material being—I've seen some examples of this in contemporary academia, but it isn't nearly as successful as Nursing unionism. However, the largest problem is the turn-around time on the production process. The seven year academic production cycle is still a serious element of the humanities. The fantasy of the 3 year book project is quite often just that. The sabbatical cycle, and the throughput of Undergraduates to PhD graduates in a straight through movement (3+1+3 in Australia) is indicative. Even in areas where turn around times are faster, and greater capitalisation is evident, the sunk costs of labour or "General Intellect" if you want to get all Virno, mean that the production process as a whole is very slow. Obviously individual papers fall due periodically, and withholding this labour is not effective. Withholding labour in student graduation (the classic "marks ban") is a fraught process.

I also suspect that a PhD catering to non-University employers will fail to cater adequately to University employers. Of course, I've never seen a boss reduce the quality of the product to increase throughput... Fifelfoo (talk) 00:38, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh god, I just realised that I implicitly accepted that academic workers shouldn't marry, have children, buy furniture or get haircuts for money. Then again that's good advice, "What keeps a man alive?...". Fifelfoo (talk) 00:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

My understanding — and I don't have the statistics in front of me at the moment — is that an Engineering bachelor's degree is among the most lucrative one can acquire; a master's adds to lifetime income significantly, but an Engineering PhD does not. I suspect there is some other dynamic here regarding the labor market. What I would be interested in knowing is where the engineers with PhDs end up. If they are primarily in academia, then that's the source of the wage decrease right there, because even if engineers are going to be at an academic pay grade, even if they get paid a lot more than historians. If they do not — or cannot — jump into better private industry jobs with a PhD (which I suspect in the case), then the additional degree adds little in that department, either. This strikes me as a separate dynamic from the glut, and a totally separate situation from the humanities. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Back in the 1980s, starting salaries for chemical engineering topped the bachelors degrees. Dualus (talk) 06:19, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Are Northern Ireland's murals going to be replaced?

According to this murals in Northern Ireland are about to be replaced. Is that confirmed? I can't believe they will destroy Northern Ireland's most distinctive feature. --Belchman (talk) 21:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the murals of Northern Ireland are a notable tourist attraction and part of its cultural history. They give tours throughout the city where some of the worst violence and sectarian killings occured, so it's stupid and hypocritical to replace the murals in a vain attempt to sanitise the recent past. Belfast has already lost a lot of its old Victorian buildings through urban renewal, if they paint over the murals, there will be nothing left for tourists to photograph!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks like I'll have to hurry if I want to see Northern Ireland in its true beauty in my lifetime. --Belchman (talk) 09:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, those of us who have to live there are less happy having to put up with murals glorifying gangsters and thugs. In any case, most of the murals have always been regularly redesigned and repainted. Since the ceasefires, many of them have gone in a less paramilitary direction. There's one on the (loyalist) Woodstock Road celebrating great footballers from Belfast. The side of the (nationalist) Short Strand bus depot is a virtual bulletin board, repainted every time there's an election coming up with murals supporting the Sinn Féin candidate of the day. --Nicknack009 (talk) 20:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

They don't have to replace the murals with white painting. They can just replace them with other murals, which do not condone violence. Quest09 (talk) 12:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Identifying my philosophy

I am unable to sort out this one philosophy I hold. I know it, but I can't put into words or explain it to others. One part of it is if you consider a spectrum of options given to a certain question, my response might be orthogonal to the choices given to me. It isn't necessarily middle of the road. Some examples:

• The March 2011 SAT essay question asked whether reality television was helpful or harmful. I said that it was neither and depends on the situation.
• Gordon Gekko's "Greed...is good.". To an extent, my response would say it is neither good nor bad.

Can someone please help put this view into words. --Melab±1 ☎

Pragmatism? Quest09 (talk) 21:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Relativism? --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:39, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I suspect it might be partially relativistic, but I do hold absolutes, like killing someone is a violation of their rights. --Melab±1 ☎ 22:14, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Wimpyness? Looie496 (talk) 21:48, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Why? --Melab±1 ☎ 22:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You're concerned about nuances. Could be called pedantry, though I think there's a fine distinction. 213.122.36.164 (talk) 22:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Comes off as kind of negative, to me. --Melab±1 ☎ 00:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, this is not a philosophy. Just differentiating among situations is just plain common sense. There is no way of answering at a SAT essay if reality TV is good or bad and the examiners don't expect that you state one or the other opinion. They want to know how you defend an idea. Quest09 (talk) 22:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I approach things orthogonally and hold the belief that the issue at hand has other options, if that makes sense. --Melab±1 ☎ 00:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Skepticism?  Card Zero  (talk) 06:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I think I can describe your philosophy only as "different from theirs". Whenever people try to get you to describe a class of things as good or bad, it depends on you accepting their belief that the class is significant, i.e. a conclusion of their philosophy. Now with more information one might try to describe your philosophy, but that is all that I think can be done with the information provided. Wnt (talk) 17:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

This may be of help. I hold the idea that Ayn Rand believed egoism was a virtue, whereas altruism is immoral. Supposedly altruism always leads to death. I agree with the idea that an individual hold's no obligations to others and vice versa (primarily because of pondering unrequited love and scenes in movies where someone does something that ends in someone not loving them anymore). She would probably agree with me their, however, I also dislike her idea the egoism is necessarily a virtue and extend my statement to one has no obligations to themselves or others. This is probably where she would go berserk. --Melab±1 ☎ 22:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, is this compatible with "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"? Wnt (talk) 23:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the article, and it talks about some True Will over the ego. Doesn't make much sense. My English teacher commented "Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." after I had tried to explain my philosophy to him. --Melab±1 ☎ 23:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't sound like a "philosophy" at all, rather a sensible reaction to badly constructed multiple choice questions. I hate it when I have to answer questions like that--when the answer should be "it depends", or "none of the above", etc, but those aren't answers you can pick. Wanting to pick "it depends" but not being given the option isn't a philosophy. It's just a badly worded multiple-choice question. (just to note, I was responding to the original question, not the ones asked later in this thread) Pfly (talk) 23:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Reading the later bit, about Ayn Rand, egoism, altruism, etc--I'm not sure I quite understand. Which beliefs are hers, which are yours? What does "obligation" mean exactly, also the terms egoism, altruism, virtue, and immoral. These words can have many shades of meaning. Pfly (talk) 00:01, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It is the way I view these things that is a philosophy. --Melab±1 ☎ 00:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That's fine, but it is hard to say what other philosophies yours is like without knowing what those terms mean to you. Given the mention of Ayn Rand, I assume egoism means Rational egoism, altruism Altruism (ethics), and obligation Moral responsibility or Moral obligation. What exactly virtue means is less clear, other than "good". I know very little about Ayn Rand, but in general I'm reminded of Nietzsche. I haven't read very much of his work, but Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a rather amazing book that delves into these kind of concepts--morality, obligation, good and evil (virtue and vice you could say), self and others, in ways that might be similar to what you're talking about. The book gets into many other things too, like "God is dead" and Übermensch, which may or may not resonate with your philosophy about morality. It is also written in a highly metaphorical poetic style, unlike most philosophy books. I have only browsed Beyond Good and Evil. It also explores issues of morality, virtue/vice (good/evil), moral responsibility, and so on. Personally, I don't think anyone has an absolute duty to do or not do anything whatsoever, for others or themselves. Things like virtue, vice, moral, immoral, obligation, even self and other, are meaningless except within some context or framework, I think. But then, contexts and frameworks arise whenever we perceive and understand reality in any particular way. There are many ways of perceiving and understanding, so notions like morality and responsibility arise meaningfully in a variety of ways, none of which is absolutely true and right. On the far side of nihilism I find boundless altruism, at least until regular life as a zombie kicks in again. But that's just me. (hmm, it might sound like I'm describing perspectivism, but while it's a fairly close match, I don't agree with the idea that "there can be no knowledge of a thing in itself.") Pfly (talk) 04:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Casuistry? Not a philosophy but an approach to thinking by considering each case as it comes up, ie a form of reasoning. (In the article) utilitarians & pragmatists use the form. It's also described in this section[8] as "applied ethics" or moralist reasoning. I like it because it avoids emotionalism, attitudes of the times, and social brainwashing in considering certain questions of behaviour, ethics etc. It would be nice to see a tickbox named "Other" in tests. Does "orthogonal" mean you like to see statistics of a thing? Manytexts (talk) 07:03, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That sounds accurate, but I believe some absolutes need to held in order to be applied. --Melab±1 ☎ 23:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Your assumptions about the definitions are correct, Pfly. --Melab±1 ☎ 20:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Absolutes are usually determined by consensus within the pertaining culture, I wouldn't assume they don't exist as a bottom line, but I didn't get that was the thrust of your original question. Are you testing us? because I get that you pretty well do know what your philosophy might be. Manytexts (talk) 01:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I am in now way testing you. I understand my philosophy, but I thought I didn't have the words to explain it and I am trying to figure which philosophy it is closest to. --Melab±1 ☎ 01:42, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I get you. Thanks for your patience. Have you checked out phenomenalism? Manytexts (talk) 07:22, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Phenomenalism comes off as a bit like solipsism which I do ascribe to. Phenomenalism doesn't seem to fit. --Melab±1 ☎ 16:15, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Utilitarian? Dualus (talk) 06:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking that but I place individual rights before any kind of utilitarian action (like kill 1 to save 1000). --Melab±1 ☎ 01:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Why are Republican murals of better quality than Loyalist ones?

This is a well-executed Loyalist mural. I took this photo in Ballymacarett, East Belfast in 2001. I believe the mural is still there

That's a general tendency that I've noticed. Compare both here for example. Republican murals shown there are much more elaborated and colorful, and the portraits generally resemble more the people they portray. --Belchman (talk) 21:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

There are many elements to art appreciation and art critique. Particularly in terms of political art the standards vary. The famous George Lukacs once presented an apologia for socialist realism on the basis that actually existing socialism had existed for far less time than capitalism and so socialist realism would necessary be inferior to grand realism—his apology is more than a little hollow. From the examples you posted I noticed that republican murals displayed more advanced graphical design techniques: however, this could simply indicate the commodification of republicanism and the alienation of republican elites from their constituency. (Consider how "slick" US politics graphic design is, and simultaneously, how alienated the US working class is from the US political process). In contrast the primitivism of the loyalist works could indicate a local and popular meaning. If we examine some of the political claims in the works, many of the loyalist works on the site you showed had a very local (brigade specific) context. The republican works made claims to more general, society wide concerns. To be honest, I find the execution of both works (from this level of "detail") to be very similar: the medium is sparsely populated with content, and the subjects are generally displayed for who they are rather than the graphic content of the work. (The number of works, and the community dedication to the form, are certainly greater than in my neighbourhood where block-end murals are highly stylised and influenced by the New York Graffiti style). Fifelfoo (talk) 23:00, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like the Spanish civil war as recounted by Tom Lehrer: "Though [Franco] may have won all the battles, We had all the good songs!" I would guess that Republicans/Nationalists have diverse resources of Celtic historical art and world-wide left-wing propaganda posters to draw on, while Unionists might tend to stick more to tried and true Orange Order / British Empire iconography... AnonMoos (talk) 23:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I uploaded a photo of a Loyalist mural I took in Ballymacarett, East Belfast quite close to the Harland and Wolff shipyard. It is well-executed and depicts Captain James Craig and Major Frederick Crawford of the original UVF and Squeaky Seymour and Joe Long, who were volunteers in the contemporary UVF. Needless to say, the area was staunchly UVF when I visited it ten years ago.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I've often thought that while republican murals often resemble political cartoons, loyalist ones look more like naive folk art. Probably has something to do with republicans being politically better organised than loyalists, with correspondingly more thought being put into style and message and perception. --Nicknack009 (talk) 20:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

One can also compare the superior quality of republican ballads to those of the loyalists. Here is an example of a typical loyalist ballad: The Men of the UDA. It just does not compare to the The Broad Black Brimmer!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

"Underdog rebel" is an inherently more artistically interesting position than "defender of the established order". I think this is fairly independent of the actual merits of the respective cases. I have never listened to the Horst Wessel Lied, but I'll take a flyer and speculate that it's quite stirring. --Trovatore (talk) 07:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The Sash My Father Wore is probably the most famous of all loyalist songs but even that doesn't invoke the warrior spirit like the Irish rebel songs. On the other hand, the lambeg drum makes more of an impact than the bodhran!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 11:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Kyrie

How is Kyrie pronounced? --75.33.218.167 (talk) 21:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

[9] as in Kyrie--Aspro (talk) 22:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Except that as Kyrie#pronunciation notes, a trisyllabic pronunciation is far more common, though it doesn't elucidate what that pronunciation is. Wherever I've sung it, it's always been trisyllabic /ˈkɪ⋅ri⋅ɛ/, except when singing the Byrd 4-part mass, when it was mostly /ˈkɪ⋅ri/ as on the howjsay site. --ColinFine (talk) 22:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Ecclesiastical sing-song Greek via Latin is is a little different from Koine Greek or classical pronunciations (Attic etc.). The OP did not give any context as to why the query arises so we're all guessing.--Aspro (talk) 23:49, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

In English, kee-ree-ay. In Greek the first vowel was like a French u or a German u umlaut. μηδείς (talk) 00:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Ancient vowel sounds are notoriously elusive. The sound of the "υ" changed in Greek and probably went through the stage of sounding like the German "ü". (Isn't this a question for the language desk?) Moonraker (talk) 00:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

In singing, the "kee" may be more of a "kih" and "ay" should have no diphthong, per several US choral conductors with MAs or PhDs in choral conducting. Edison (talk) 03:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no controversy over this. See Ancient_greek#Vowels. The letter y was used in Latin only to express this sound which was called "Greek i" and still is so called in French and Spanish. The IPA symbol /y/ is used to represent the Close front rounded vowel for this very reason. μηδείς (talk) 03:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

But as Moonraker said, the sound of Greek vowels (and diphthongs) changed throughout the centuries. Since "kyrie" is typically associated with the Christian hymn, it wouldn't be pronounced with the "classical" vowels. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Kir, with a short-i vowel sound, to rhyme with fear and mere, is the only way I've ever heard it pronounced in this neck of the woods, in or out of church: as witness this once well known song. Textorus (talk) 07:10, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, I wish Wikipedia had been around when I was trying to learning Classical Greek, as it is possible that it wouldn't be all-Greek-to-me now. -or maybe it would. Still, its not as impossible as American English. Have you noticed how clever they are – even their little kids can speak it, just like those South Park characters .--Aspro (talk) 20:33, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Palestinian right of return

Has there been any research on how many Palestinian refugees would actually return to Israel if given the chance to do so? Would it be enough, as Israel claims, to destabilize the country? --140.180.26.155 (talk) 21:47, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

A lot of the research is by town planners and not so much about destabilisation but about how to fit more people into what is really quite a small country. In particular, the availability of water for agriculture, horticulture and domestic use. It's certain that not every Arab person with a historic link to the area would actually return; the proportion who would must depend on precisely what was being offered. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

How many would return depends on the circumstances of their current location. My guess is that most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon would opt to return, given that Lebanese society rejects and largely despises them. Of those in Jordan (where they're far more "settled" and integrated into society) a far smaller proportion would likely opt to return. As an aside, some Palestinians have fought for (and, in some cases, won) residency in Israel under "skilled migrant" "student" and "family reunion" categories. (They are, however, exceptions). I'm sure some gay Palestinians from the west bank have (paradoxically) sought "refugee" status in Israel, though I'm not sure how the immigration ministry and courts have viewed such applications. 58.111.224.157 (talk) 07:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

140.180.26.155 -- I don't think that anyone knows or can know at this point what the number would be. However, one thing is clear -- the louder and the more insistently the Arabs talk about how the right of return must be absolutely unrestricted and without any limitations whatsoever, the more a significant portion of the Jewish Israeli public becomes correspondingly convinced that the whole thing is really not about humanitarian concerns at all, but rather about malicious plans to try to destroy Israel the long way around... AnonMoos (talk) 00:25, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Can I ask a question? Does a Jewish person born and raised in say, the US or Europe, have more right to live in Israel than a Palestinian refugee who wants to return to what he or she believes is their rightful homeland? It also amuses me that there is concern that the Palestinian refugee only wants to return out of malicious intent to destroy Israel. jewish people from around the globe who are now domiciled in Israel may not have had any family connections to Israel anywhere in their past. This could be construed as propping up Israel as a Jewish state and any Palestinians coming back to Israel may not go down very well as it would begin to eat into the Jewish majority, depending on the number of Palestinains who choose to return to Israel. Would having a Palestinian majority destroy the Israeli state? I don't think so. Would it diminish a Jewish state? Perhaps. Carson101 (talk) 13:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

When or if the Palestinians get leaders who will put an end to the suicide bombings, the problem will fix itself. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it. Israel's Arab citizens are outbreeding their Jewish citizens and will have a majority in a couple decades without any Palestinian returns. If only it was that simple. Dualus (talk) 03:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Integrating West-Bank and CisjordaniaGaza into the respective Arab country

Would it be possible? The former would be part of Jordan and the latter of Egypt. Is that a tragedy? Quest09 (talk) 22:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you mean "Gaza", since the "West Bank" and "Cisjordania" are synonyms. In any case, Jordan annexed it from 1949-1967, but only a few other countries formally recognized the legality of this measure (some sources say only the U.K. and Pakistan), and Jordan decided to relinquish all claims in the late 1980s... AnonMoos (talk) 23:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Right and thanks for the answer. I am amazed that this is not discussed as a route to peace. Quest09 (talk) 23:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

The Jordanians did much more than any other Arab country during the 1949-1967 period to integrate "their" Palestinians into the fabric of Jordanian society, but it didn't insulate Jordan from the political currents sweeping though the Arab world, and it wasn't enough to bring about Arab-Israeli peace. In early June 1967, the Israelis were telling Hussein of Jordan through all channels that they wouldn't attack Jordan if Jordan didn't start hostilities, but Hussein felt that he had to initiate hostilities against Israel or be publicly considered a vile traitor to the cause of pan-Arab nationalism by the so-called "Arab street" -- even though Hussein was very well aware that initiating hostilities against Israel would be far likelier to have overall negative results for Jordan than positive ones.

So Jordanians might say that they've already done more than their fair share , while Palestinians might say that they didn't go through decades of struggle to be ruled over by somebody else... AnonMoos (talk) 00:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

P.S. We have a Wikipedia article on Three-state solution, but historically that's mostly been advocated by right-wing Israelis (though this may be changing after the Hamas takeover of Gaza...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The West Bank was occupied by and treated like an integral part of Jordan from 1948 until Israel won the Six Day War in 1967. Jordan continued to claim it until 1988, when it renounced all claims to the territory (in favor of the PLO). By that time, the idea of a separate Palestinian nationality had gained sway. The whole argument of the Palestinians is that they are a separate nationality from the other Arabs, so they need their own state. As far as Jordan goes, the last thing the non-Palestinian rulers of that country need is 3 million more Palestinians. As for the Gaza Strip (occupied by Egypt from 1948-67), Egypt apparently didn't want it back when Israel withdrew from the Sinai in the 70s, and Egypt would have no interest in that hotbed of violence and radicalism now. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Egypt's and Jordan's positions 1948-1967 were very different. The Jordanian monarchy annexed the West Bank. Egypt on the other hand always maintained that Gaza would be part of a liberated Palestine and that the occupation was temporary. Mail to Gaza was sent to 'Gaza, Palestine' between 1948 and 1967. --Soman (talk) 05:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Closest political party (US) to ideology

I took the Political Compass political ideology quiz, and my result was [10]. Given that I know nothing about where US political parties are on this scale other than Democrat and Republican are in the top right quadrant, what are a few (notable and preferably non-local) political parties in the US that most closely match the political ideology position I got? I would also be interested in where the Socialist Party of Kansas would be placed on this chart given that I have a friend who affiliates with that political party (FWIW, his political compass was [11]). Thanks in advance, Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 23:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Probably the anarchist or left wing of the Libertarian Party (United States), see Mary Ruwart, and Noam Chomsky, or the Democratic party (United States) (although they are practically the Communist party in terms of nationalization of wealth and the Insane Clown Posse in terms of policy and civility nowadays) or maybe the Green Party (United States). μηδείς (talk) 23:35, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Chomsky is not associated with the LP, and is in fact sharply critical of it, somewhat to the disappointment of some LP members who see him as a potential ally. --Trovatore (talk) 02:31, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

That's correct, I did not mean to imply it. He calls himself a libertarian lower case. μηδείς (talk) 03:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The "Political Compass" must be taken with a grain of salt. Anyway, you don't appear to be too radical of a leftist, and while the Democrats would be considered a center-right party by international standards, it is a "big tent" and includes "bottom-left quadrant" folks like Dennis Kucinich and Sherrod Brown. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

When in opposition to the Republicans (whom I assume the OP would not align with) the Democrats are usually position themselves as the party of tolerance against Republican anti-gay, anti-immigrant policies, which he might see favorably. But for the last several years the Democrats have driven the size and intrsuiveness of the state through the roof. That doesn't sound left libertarian to me. μηδείς (talk) 01:58, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Surprisingly enough, I am registered to vote as a Republican due to the fact that I feel I can have more of an impact all in all voting in Republican primaries in Kansas versus Democrat primaries. And to be honest, I can actually tolerate Republicans like Jerry Moran just fine, it's when they start getting the likes of Jim Inhofe or even somewhat Sam Brownback that my tolerance wanes. However, you are correct that the "tolerance" stances of the Democrats tend to appeal to me. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 02:04, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, you'll really 'love' Tom Tancredo, J. D. Hayworth and Rick Santorum then. Your strategy of registering to vote in the primaries is impeccable. μηδείς (talk) 02:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It should be noted that Medeis characterization of the Democratic Party in the U.S. does not actually match their positions or actions in any real sense, but it does closely match the characterization of the Democratic Party by their primary political rivals, the Republican Party. That is, such a charactization is what Republicans, who are trying to get elected want people to believe about the Democratic Party, and does not actually match how the Democractic Party actually behaves. --Jayron32 03:44, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Free and universal education, a highly progressive income tax, death taxes, a central government bank, government control of the roads and the media, nationalization of capital and employment? Those are the planks of the Communist Manifesto. I didn't make them up, nor did I force the Democrats to adopt them in the main or the GOP to adopt them in part. The implicaation that I make the comparison for partisan reasons is false. Read the original Marx. μηδείς (talk) 04:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The awesome thing about your response is that, it its very rediculousness, it obviates the need to present any actual response to it. That is, the comparison of either major American political party (or, as you have done above, oddly, both of them!) to the ideals of Communism/Marxism is so absolutely and totally rediculous, no one has to actually respond to it. It stands up as one of the most patently silly theses I have heard that I don't see the need to refute any of it. It wonderfully refutes itself by being so rediculous. --Jayron32 04:25, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

ROFL. Red-iculous. Brilliant pun, Jayron, love it. Textorus (talk) 20:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm seriously interested in the attempt to portray the CPUSA as communist, or the Communist Manifesto, written due 1848—prior to the majority of Marx's serious work on capitalism—as communist. The Manifesto doesn't discuss the abolition of value or the centrality of working class self-emancipation. Critique of the Gotha programme is more representative of a mature programmatic assessment in Marx. Then, of course, there's the problem in assuming the attempts to influence statist parties by a 19th century political economist from a petits-bourgeois background is a sufficient representative of "communism." The very American Preamble to the IWW constitution is a far better representation of communism, having been written by workers who intended to use industrial weapons to immediately reduce the boss class to a historical memory. The incidental fact that none of these positions (with perhaps the exception of the nationalist and pro-"class peace" CPUSA) has any relation to the Democratic Party's politics is incidental.

To answer the original poster, supposing the political compass adequately represents your views, you may be interested in "social democracy" (not to be confused with "democratic socialism"), "progressive" or "labourite" policies—you can either be permanently isolated on the "left" of the Democrats, or investigate third parties. You may find some agreement regarding socio-cultural freedoms with the libertarians, but at the moment the most influential style of soft-left centrism (your position in the chart) tends to be associated with the pro-capitalist greens parties. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:29, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's an obviously dumb/jingoistic comparison, one that conveniently ignores all of the myriad of ways that the comparison doesn't work. It's not a comparison which is even remotely useful for the OP, and it was clearly meant to just spark a debate on here, like many of said user's posts. The invocation of the ICP makes its frivolity even more apparent. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:03, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Decline to State and/or independent. What is their mascot? Dualus (talk) 06:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

October 26

Is this a genuine North Korean philosophy textbook?

I found this textbook on Archive.org which claims to be a North Korean textbook criticizing the "bourgeois" philosophies of Freud, Darwin, James and Sartre. http://www.archive.org/details/GuidingLightOfDestiny

It is also hosted at the U of Oregon Asia library http://e-asia.uoregon.edu/taxonomy/term/589

However doing an extensive google and worldcat search I haven't found any evidence that such a work was ever published in North Korea by the Foreign Languages Publishing House. Can anyone familiar with the topic, determine whether this book is genuine or fraudulent?

--Gary123 (talk) 01:52, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It looks authentic. Do note that North Korean publisher wouldn't coordinate with ISBN or list books in int'l library system. --Soman (talk) 05:50, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The publishing house is real; the LoC records has over 500 items published in English by them (though only a handful in recent years). A number of the other works posted by this user match up with recorded books issued by the same publishing house under the same titles, which seems to support the likelihood of it being authentic - it certainly looks plausible, in terms of production style. Shimgray | talk | 12:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I read a few pages of it, seems too weird to be fake. The first sections contain a bizarre mix of hardline Marxism and strange versions of Greek myths with the characters and locations all mixed up. --Daniel 15:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Tahitians in Hawaiian

Does anybody know of any distint demographical population of Tahitians living in Hawaii today and how many? Distinct from a general term such as Pacific Islanders or Others.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I do remember reading somewhere about modern day Tahitians in Hawaii, but the article on Hawaii says nothing and I am not well-versed in the subject. μηδείς (talk) 00:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

friends and similarities

It's understood Yu-Na Kim and Mao Asada are good friends despite being rivals. But I was wondering if Mai Asada is also good friends with Yu-Na Kim. Anyone know?24.90.204.234 (talk) 05:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

What sub-penny stocks are the most promising and why?

Some penny stocks out there that are currently trading at $0.0099 or lower that also DTC eligible are promising to invest into. Which ones would you suppose are, and why so? How likely is a failure-event to happen with the stocks you mention? Thanks, --70.179.174.63 (talk) 09:50, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

As with a number of your questions, this one starts with a questionable premise. Why do you believe any of them are 'promising to invest into'? As you were told list time (Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 August 28#Zecco can't give a history of stocks' asking prices. Anyplace that will?), one of the reasons why they are trading so low is because the market thinks a failure-event is fairly likely and investing in them is definitely not a sound strategy. As our article says, the big 'advantage' to 'investors' for penny stocks is they are easy to manipulate. In any case, no one is likely to provide advice on specific stocks on the RD, as they shouldn't and as we've told you countless times, there is no get rick quick scheme we can provide you. Nil Einne (talk) 10:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure who added the first fact tag but since I provided a direct link to the last time the OP asked, it was fairly silly. As for the second fact tag, I'm not going to dig thru the countless times the OP has asked about ways to make money quickly. Edit: See it was the OP [12]. I've attempted to help you here and below and several other times because despite the fact you often seem to ignore our advice because I've believed you genuinely want help. If you are to continue to deny, as you did with that Indian braces/orthodontist question, you are the same person as the one who asked a very similar question before using an IP belonging to the same ISP and geolocating to the same area (admitedly seemingly the wrong area here but both IPs do that) which in this specific case disappeared from wikipedia not long before your IP above appeared, and who tends to often ask related questions revealing similar information, I have no choice but to conclude you don't genuinely want help. Nil Einne (talk) 05:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

We are neither licensed nor qualified to give financial advice. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:57, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

For the record, the original poster may have been prompted to research this question because of the disheartening surge of penny stock web advertisements that I have noticed on major websites over the last couple of months, promising that there's a guy who has made a fortune so you may be able to, too. To the original poster: Penny stocks lose almost all investors all of their money; they are businesses who are likely to fail, and on top of that, penny stocks are pretty easily manipulated, as seen in the film Boiler Room. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Why is Fox News so popular?

Whenever I hear about Fox News, it is always cited as being "unfair and unbalanced" with a right wing bias in its reporting. (This is, of course, partially due to the fact that I live in Norway where the media is more liberal than its US counterpart, and secondly due to the news sources I choose.) However, the article on Fox News states that Americans find it to factual in its reporting. Even 43% of democrats find its reporting to be accurate. So, my question is: Given that Fox News is frequently criticised for being right wing and biased, why is it still viewed so favourably by Americans, Democrats included? V85 (talk) 11:19, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It might be important to distinguish its "news" programs (which seemed to be fair-and-balanced the last time I looked) vs. its "commentary" programs (which are typically right-leaning). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's probably also important to distinguish between "Accurate" and "balanced". You can create a very strong bias simply by picking and choosing which stories to run. APL (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Some people like it because it justifies their own views. Other people watch it because it goes against their views and they are addicted to the adrenaline rush they get when they get angry with some talking head on the television. -- kainaw™ 14:19, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Because the other cable news channels (CNN and MSNBC) are boring. Hot Stop talk-contribs 14:31, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Those who watch it because it goes against there own views and they get an adrenaline rush don't seem to think it through. If they stopped watching what they thought was right wing rubbish then the channel would lose viewers and therefore money through advertising. If there were a sizable amount of people who thought this way perhaps there would be less of Murdochs views on television. I personally would not watch a channel that constantly pushed their own views so much that other views did not get a look in. Carson101 (talk) 14:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak for others, but ... I watch Fox news precisely because it is biased towards the conservative viewpoint. It is a counter weight to those media outlets that are biased towards the liberal viewpoint. By watching multiple news channels, representing multiple political viewpoints, I get a more complete picture of all sides of political/social issues. Which better allows me to form an informed political opinion of my own. Blueboar (talk) 14:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. I've yet to encounter any mainstream media outlet is the US that is biased towards a "liberal" (i.e. left) viewpoint. From this side of the pond, the core of the US political spectrum stretches from right-of-center to "you gotta be kidding me" cave men. I'd call Noam Chomsky an inconvenient centrist over here ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:24, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's a matter of perspective. In general, the political center in Europe skews more to towards the left than the center in the States. ie, positions that are considered "liberal" in the US may not be seen as "liberal" in Europe. Thus, while the majority of American networks (MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS etc.) may not seem "liberal" to a European, they are seen as being biased towards the liberal from an American viewpoint. However... Fox is really the only news outlet that presents the American conservative viewpoint. That means it is the only network you can go to if you want to understand that viewpoint. Hence its popularity. Blueboar (talk) 15:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I am American, and I find that all of the US networks have a rightwing bias, in that none of them seriously question a political economic system skewed toward power for large corporations and wealthy individuals. Hardly any US network ever presents a truly socialist perspective, except occasionally to deride it. The farthest voices to the left that are taken seriously would be considered right of center in any other country. Marco polo (talk) 16:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I endorse Marco polo's statements above. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't overestimate how popular TV news is generally, except for the half-hour evening news programs (and even those are not watched all that much). During the day, most people are not watching TV, and if they are they're mostly watching entertainment. During the evening, more people watch TV, but again overwhelmingly it's entertainment programs. The half-hour nightly news is most people's limit, if they even watch that. Media pundits and political professionals have Fox and CNN and MSNBC etc. on all the time, and material that these networks feature seeps into the more general discourse to some extent, but the actual viewership is quite small. Herostratus (talk) 16:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It depends truly on your view of "left". In the U.S., any policy in which the government is going to take over and handle an issue is commonly seen as "left". Any policy in which the private sector is going to take over and handle an issue is commonly seen as "right". Support for government health care is left. Support for commercial health care is right. Support for increasing government regulations on power companies is left. Support for deregulating power companies is right. It is much more a big vs. small government topic - which is radically different than the view of left and right outside of the United States. Perhaps there should be a wholly different pair of words to define it. -- kainaw™ 16:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Economically, yes. However, the right tends to be pro-government-control on social issues. In your parlance: support for government control of who gets to be married = right, while support for private decisions over who marries who = left. And any of a number of other issues. --Jayron32 16:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Two other key issues are the military and government support for certain kinds of business. The right in the U.S. tends to support expensive military interventions overseas even though they increase the share of GDP going to government. The right tends to support tax breaks and subsidies for certain kinds of business, particularly oil companies. The left tends to oppose such interventions and the spending they entail. Put another way, the right tends to support a larger role for the U.S. government supporting certain kinds of corporations, in people's bedrooms, in other people's countries, in fact in any area other than intervening in the economy to protect the environment or to help the less advantaged. The left tends to support a smaller role for the U.S. government in people's bedrooms, supporting big business, and in other people's countries, but a larger role in such areas as protecting the environment and helping the disadvantaged. Marco polo (talk) 18:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Responding to your original question, I don't think that Fox News is viewed favorably by most Americans. It has a substantial group of partisans, mostly Republican. A minority (43%) of Democrats apparently feels that its reporting is accurate. This may mean no more than that they think its statements of facts are indeed factual. It does not necessarily mean that 43% of Democrats think that Fox News is balanced in its selection of the facts it reports. I think most Americans recognize that Fox has an agenda. Many, probably most, Americans avoid it for that reason. Marco polo (talk) 18:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you kiddin me? Glenn, Icecold Coulter, The Newt, Michelle Maglalang Malkin, Shannety, Scientology Susteren, Billy Reilly, what more do you want?! Facts? It's not Comedy Central! DS Belgium (talk) 20:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Rather more prosaically, a US friend of mine claims that Fox has considerably fewer, and considerably shorter, ad breaks than CNN and its other competitors. That would suggest that CNN is expected to pay its own way, but FN is subsidised by the rest of the Fox family. I know that Fox' UK cousin Sky News is heavily subsidised, the continuation of which was a factor in the (finally abortive) discussions regarding NI fully acquiring Sky. Personally I can't help but observe that, at least for Sky News, they seem to have a news anchor (and sports anchor) hiring policy that's largely based on looks rather than journalistic quality. Put together that would suggest that humans have a low attention span and like pictures of pretty girls. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:38, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't get all of that. I was busy looking at pictures of pretty girls... Oooh, what's that... --Jayron32 23:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Is this discussion starting to remind people of a discussion about Univision which incidentally evidentally RM once considered buying Nil Einne (talk) 13:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I read a study once that argued that Fox News doesn't turn people into Republicans; rather, it attracts people who already are Republicans. The Fox News viewership is overwhelmingly Republican, or at least far more Republican than Democratic. Fox viewers watch it because they agree with it. I don't think Fox News is viewed favorably by a majority. In 2010, Sacred Heard University did a survey in which Fox News ranked highest when people were asked which TV news source they trusted the most. It also ranked highest when they asked people which TV news source they trusted the least. Clearly, Fox News is very polarizing, and people either love it or hate it. Incidentally, another poll found most moderates and the vast majority of liberals distrusted Fox News. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

You don't watch Fox News. You monitor it.Greg Bard (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Aren't you required to make air quotes with your fingers whenever you say the second word of that channel's name? --Jayron32 01:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Xenophobic populism is surprisingly effective in the U.S. because the majority of socially conservative Christians believe there is a supernatural conspiracy by Satan to control and sway the minds of the powerful. Ordinary libertarian-leaning citizens similarly believe in a conspiracy by the powerful to restrict their rights (by, for example, concentrating wealth and restricting the liberty of the middle and lower classes.) Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and the FNC staff are adept at playing to all these fears in ways that benefit the ruling elite who buy their advertising time and thus pay their bills. For more information, please see fair.org. Dualus (talk) 23:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

OMG: how many biases against Americans are in Dualus' post? Quest09 (talk) 00:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

"Why do I hate America?"? I'm an American. What do you think is biased? Dualus (talk) 02:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Please see also Noam Chomsky. Dualus (talk) 06:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

As job rejection is a guaranteed constant, are there ANY other "ways in?"

The economy may be shared by everyone, but I have a set of disorders (AS/SPD) and haven't worked since July 2009 (which was a temp job), so that make me harder to employ. A critical friend says that I wouldn't win any cases in which I suspect an employer detecting a disability, as a reason to reject me. (At least the university's attorney is free.)

My therapist promises that internships would increase the chances of future employment, but with a 2.3 GPA, how hard is it to land an internship in the first place?

With an 85 on the ASVAB, I could put that on my resume, but medication alone disqualifies me from any branch of the military.

Institutionalization is potentially free, but only if my Healthconnect (a subsidiary of Medicaid) makes it so. With my case, would they cover it? (Doubtful, IMHO.)

From Sallie Mae alone, the monthlies would be $557.15 at the current level of what I owe them. My rent is $350 before utilities. My SSI is $674/month. What sum does that make? A pretty horrid outlook!

I have some rough drafts of future planned novels, but how much does it cost to apply to publish them? What is the rejection rate? Even if my books ARE published (which is a long shot at this juncture), what are the royalty rates? (1% of the book price per book, or 1% of the net-only profits? That's a guess though.)

SRS promises to make "incentives" to employers to hire me once I graduate. Therefore, they can influence them; make it easier for them to hire me, but can't force them. (That gives some hope, but I still feel shaky over this.)

Failing all that, my only safety net is to defer loans by continuing college in some form (by at least 6 credit-hours per semester.) This may take on more loans, but would this beat not leaving enough for rent, compounding interest and/or surcharges for late payments and default fees? (Seems to in the present.)

There are allegations that Sallie Mae could still track me down if I flee the country (though AFAIK, garnishments can only happen to bank accounts in the same nation as the garnishers.) This is to say nothing of the compounding that would continue. (If I left school with $90k in debt, and left the nation for 25 years without payment, excluding late and other default fees, the total owed would be over a half-million dollars. {$616,362.77, assuming an average of 8% interest.}) I would only flee with the objective that I pay them back under my own terms, therefore not being squeezed tighter than I'm comfortable with.

There needs to be another "way in" to having a steady income in order to keep me above water with the student loans. Are there possibly jobs that do not require interviews anywhere that may take me in? (Where would you suggest?) Other than that, what would those other ways be? Thank you, --70.179.174.63 (talk) 11:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Since you forsee problems getting a job in the future and haven't yet graduated may I suggest trying hard for internships (even the best students often face a few rejections and ultimately you don't know if you can get one until you try), including when you have to go for a interview, and concentrating on improving you improving your GPA may be two of your most important tasks? About the internship, there must be help for this at your university but at a guess as with seeking a job it may help if you concentrate on your strengths. E.g. if you are resonably comfortable speaking or writing Hindi or Mandarin, are there any internships where this may be of use? Of course I don't mean you should ignore personal development in other areas, it sounds like you are already getting help learning to best cope with your disability but from what you've said you may also want to learn how to write a decent resume and to improve your interview skills (i.e. job seeking skills) and perhaps personal confidence (it sounds like you're convinced you're never going to get a job which may not help) and people skills (as has been said before if people keep holding 'grudges' consider whether it is entirely their fault). The good news is you can probably get help with these at university for close to free.

Other stuff like worrying about changing your IP (and whatever caused you to need to change it), earning money off eBay, trading in penny stocks, frankly any get-rich quick schemes, and also trying to convince people of the wonders of washlets likely should take a back-burner as they don't sound particularly important if you feel you're struggling at university or in life in general.

There's nothing wrong with thinking rationally about your future but you probably should abandon the idea of running away. Not because of whether or not someone can come after you for your student loan, but because if you're a recent graduate without much money and without a brillant record and can't get a job in the US, there's little reason to think you have any chance of legally working in (not counting working holidays and stuff like that) or migrating to another country unless you can get or already have citizenship by birth or descent.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not a very good source of decent money, but at a site like Elance at least you can bid on jobs using proof of your degree, some proficiency tests they administer, and whatever you say to potential buyers. I have no idea if this actually works, though. Wnt (talk) 17:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

In my limited experience with elance, it seems like the majority of the jobs go to contractors from countries where the pay rates are much lower, at rates about 1/10th what an American contractor would expect. I assume many of them are probably competent, but some of them are clearly scams. (Some of them bid on every single contract, even ones that are technically impossible to complete.)

Not to discourage anyone from trying. Some people claim to have had better luck than me. APL (talk) 19:39, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

One thing to try is Coffee and Power, Philip Rosedale's new venture. I think it hasn't quite taken off yet, but at least keep watch on it, because it may get fairly big. For all that, the real thing that will get you a job is connections. In Australia (I think everywhere) there is a saying, "it's not what you know, it's who you know", and trust me, unless you are in a boomtime, this is not at all facetious. If you can manage it, start anything freelance, for any fee, to get your name out there, and find out what you are good at - I took up part-time tutoring, and it nearly led to a teaching career (but that's another story). I have a minor disability, and I had trouble finding a way in, so I can appreciate at least a little how hard it is. Generally, at least in Australia, government jobs are more secure and less fickle when it comes to people with disabilitites, but I don't know anything about the US government as an employer. Good luck. It's been emotional (talk) 19:54, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

A company made news this year (example article) by saying it specifically wants to hire software testers who have Asperger's. Here's another article about the same startup, and that led me to the jobs4autism website, which seems to point to many resources. But I have to strongly recommend that you use your university's career counselors on this one. It is their job to specifically help you. They will be able to help you a thousand times more significantly than your Internet searches and questions here on the Reference Desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Comet Tuttle, but let me say this. You might want to focus on developing a skill or skills that will enable you to make money without working for an employer. I have known some people make decent bucks (enough to live modestly on) just taking care of people's lawns and gardens, or cleaning their windows and rain gutters. If you are handy with tools, there's always a need for general home repairs/cleanup, possibly starting in your own neighborhood (put flyers on people's doors with your phone number/email address). Or if you have some artistic talent, that might be another path to self-sufficiency if you can find a niche market for your creativity (I have heard of people who make a living painting murals or stencils in people's homes, or by catering/cake baking). And of course some people have found ways to make money just by running some kind of internet site or business, though from what I've seen, programs like Google AdSense don't really work well. On the other hand, some people have come up with improbable ideas and prospered with them: see this amusing website, which has gotten the author not one but two book deals so far. Whatever you do, I really wouldn't advise racking up a mountain of student loan debt: it just keeps getting bigger and bigger with interest and late charges piled on, you can't get rid of it through bankruptcy, and it could well hang over you for all the rest of your life, making life that much harder for you - if you do find a steady job, they can and will garnish your wages, taking a sizeable chunk out of every paycheck. Nor can you run away from it: it costs more money than you think to emigrate to another country, a lot more than just the airfare, and in any case, any country that's nice to live in is going to screen you first to ensure that you don't end up on the welfare rolls there. So do some brainstorming with friends, counselors, and family, and think seriously about finding a line of work that you can do independently, would be my best and strongest advice. Good luck to you. Textorus (talk) 12:14, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

What community colleges offer the cheapest online courses per credit-hour?

At least for a Kansas resident?

Even though it's to protect myself financially, I could still gain practical skills from these online courses.

I would intend to work while in college, and the easiest way to juggle the two would be with online-only classes. Possibly driving commercial vehicles long distances would be all the more reason to anyway. Thank you, --70.179.174.63 (talk) 11:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The answer is almost certainly "Kansas community colleges" because otherwise you would have to pay out-of-state tuition at some other state's college, and that is usually waaay more than in-state tuition. Private online colleges have hefty tuition fees also. If I were you, I'd start with my nearest community college and talk with an admissions counselor about fees and coursework. But a caution: online courses require a great deal of motivation and self-discipline, and some people find them more challenging than regular ones for that reason. Textorus (talk) 19:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Given that the community colleges of Kansas vary in their pricing, in this case, which of them would offer the lowest prices for their online courses? --98.190.13.3 (talk) 06:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Some schools will waive out of state tuition for online students Georgia Perimeter College seems to be one example of a state community college with a large online campus, with tuition that is the same for in state and out of state students. They list it at 99$ for credit hour, or usually 300$ per class. See http://www.gpc.edu/online/content/how-much-will-it-cost. Llamabr (talk) 03:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Hopefully there will be no ancillary fees (like "privilege" fees and the like. I'll know where to find some low-priced E-textbooks therefore not worry about the overall costs so much after all.) I'll look into this one. However, if anyone knows of any other college that'll be even cheaper for me, please do post. --98.190.13.3 (talk) 06:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

A culture where only the corrupt rise to power (2nd try)

I'm trying to remember a term which consists of a surname (I think it starts with a "W", not quite sure though) and is followed by "law", "rule" or "principle" or something similar. It's a theory or an observation rather about the social dynamics in certain modern organizational or societal sectors whereby a climate of corruption and lawlessness has become so prominent that in order for anyone to rise to power in this climate they must themselves be willing to take part in the corruption. I know we have an article specifically discussing it, but I'm unable to recall its name or otherwise locate it.

In my previous attempt to find this term here on this page I got the following suggestions: "iron laws" and kleptocracy.

I'm reposting now, hoping someone this time around will know the key term. __meco (talk) 13:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Wasta? Flamarande (talk) 15:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (he of the "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" remark) has a number of quotes at the bottom of his article that suggest he would have agreed with your premise, but left no body of work or any named law or rule that I could find. Bielle (talk) 15:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

This wouldn't be a name for a prevailing social milieu that is corrupt but baksheesh is one name for bribe. I stumbled upon this nice collection of quotes some of which are on-topic. I'll keep thinking. I like the question. Bus stop (talk) 15:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Still nobody has come up with the term. I suppose the guy who defined this state was either a sociologist or an economist. __meco (talk) 17:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Stab in the dark, on the "Sociologist" and "W" thing, but Max Weber spent a lot of his thought thinking about the legitimacy of the state with regard to how it behaves. Maybe a lead? --Jayron32 17:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the individual is a contemporary figure. Also, I don't want to emphasize too strongly the name starting with 'w'. It could be another letter. __meco (talk) 19:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

We have Category:Political corruption in the United States and Category:Political corruption. Also William M. Tweed, Tammany Hall, and the article Political corruption. Bus stop (talk) 01:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

There is the word "kakistocracy", meaning government by the worst.--Rallette (talk) 05:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

And as to Acton's famous principle, Frank Herbert once refined it a bit: it's not so much that power corrupts, it's that power attracts the corruptible. But I don't know that anyone's ever called this "Herbert's Law" or anything like that.--Rallette (talk) 05:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not "Herbert's Law" and it's not "kakistocracy". The term was used by a guest on the "Keiser Report" several months ago. That's where I learned it the first time before forgetting the name of it. __meco (talk) 07:49, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I know Immanuel Wallerstein wrote a lot about corruption and modern politics, but I don't know that there was ever a 'law' named after him. I've never heard of that particular 'law' - closest I can think of is the Peter Principle - and it's the kind of thing I ought to be aware of if it exists. but… --Ludwigs2 17:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Aithihyamala

Aithihyamala (ഐതിഹ്യമാല) is a book of mythology or folklore of Kerala written in Malayalam by Kottarathil Sankunni. In that book there is a chapter (16. Kaaladiyil Bhattathiri) in which sooryakaladi Bhattathiri is cursed (ശപിച്ചു) by a yakshi and a gandharva. But both said if he would go to thiruvaloor temple he won't die. My question is: Even though he went to the temple, his curse was not removed and he died; why? Anybody who read the book, please answer. --nijil (talk) 16:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Please see ഐതിഹ്യമാല/കാലടിയിൽ ഭട്ടതിരി source text. Dualus (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Hiram Clarke Civic Club

How do I check if the Hiram Clarke Civic Club has a geographic boundary? I cannot find a website or an e-mail. The group is registered as the "Hiram Clarke Civic Club, Inc." in the state of Texas Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 18:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean a "Geographic boundary"? Do you mean if they own land? If they do, a local Recorder of deeds will have them on record. You should be able to find (with some work) if they own land and what plots of land they own; the register of deeds or similar office should have public Plats which show who owns what land. --Jayron32 18:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Not so much that it owns the land, but it has a service area.

An American homeowner's association has a geographic boundary of houses that it provides services to

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You hadn't mentioned what kind of organization it was. If it is an HOA, then yes, it will have a defined service area. Do you have a phone number for the organization? You could contact them. --Jayron32 20:58, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll check Google Books. I hoped that such a thing would appear in print... WhisperToMe (talk) 01:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

http://www.houstontx.gov/cao/civicclubs.pdf gives the phone number (713) 729-3631 WhisperToMe (talk) 01:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I tried calling the number, but I didn't get a response. It's okay as http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2003_3668949 tells me what the boundaries are.

Jayron, thank you for your help!

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:27, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Actions against collaborators after WW2 in Western Europe

Are there any articles on that topic in enwiki, or any other language? All I find is nl:Repressie (België) about Flanders. Nothing on Wallonia, where more people received the death penalty. No article on the Netherlands.. DS Belgium (talk) 19:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

For France, we have an article on the "Épuration légale". The French Wikipedia has a bunch of articles about this. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

There is an omnibus article located at Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II which may lead you to more articles and/or references on any topics you are looking for. --Jayron32 20:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Legal purge in Norway after World War II __meco (talk) 20:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Where, indeed, Vidkun Quisling was executed. Related to Belgium, we have Victor Matthys and José Streel, both executed. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Good links, thanks, but I might have given the wrong impression talking about death sentences, I was mainly thinking about the "mob rule" so to speak, the extra-judicial actions. The dutch article about Flanders mentions it, people put in cages in the Antwerp zoo, women with their heads shaven, rape, etc. But it could well be that other countries haven't documented these as much, in Belgium it remained a hot topic because Flemish collaboration was in part related to the language problems. But thanks for your troubles everyone. DS Belgium (talk) 21:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Pursuit of Nazi collaborators talks about it, country by country. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

October 27

Secession from the union

Excuse me for asking a question that has no doubt been extensively chewed over. If a state wishes to succeed from the United States, petitions congress for permission, AND congress is amenable to granting this wish(!) what exactly is needed? Can an act of congress alone authorize a succession? Or is there a need for a constitutional amendment to allow permitting successions? (No, such a thing is NOT "impossible", the civil war notwithstanding). 58.111.224.157 (talk) 07:37, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

You mean secession, not succession. Quest09 (talk) 08:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It's complicated. See Texas v. White.

Basically the supreme court ruled (Based on the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation) that secession is not legally possible "except through revolution or through consent of the States.". But as far as I know the procedure for that "consent" isn't really specified anywhere, but clearly it would take more than just the consent of the congress. Perhaps it would take a form similar to the procedure for admitting new states? APL (talk) 08:20, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It's still secession, not succession. Huge difference. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. But I liked it better my way. APL (talk) 09:01, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I have already said that. I don't understand how people do not secede to understand the difference. Quest09 (talk) 09:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That's why I said "still". Language change is a real phenomenon, but the meaning of the word "succession" did not change between 8:09 and 8:20 today. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:16, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Secession is fine, but succussion from the Union can't be beaten. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Nothing succudes like succuss. But wait, why are we all talking like Kiwis all of a sudden?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 11:17, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

APL, the procedure for admitting new states is by Act of Congress, as specified in the Constitution. Which means, as with any other piece of legislation, both houses have to agree on a bill, and the President then signs it into law. But the Constitution says nothing about letting a state go out of the Union, so there's no specified mechanism for that; no doubt the lawyers (to say nothing of the politicians and the journalists) would have a field day if there were ever a serious drive to get Congress to pass such a bill. And even if it got enacted, the matter would surely end up in the lap of the Supreme Court, and they might say that's a no-go. But it's never been done by Congress or the courts, only briefly by force of arms, so who knows? PS - Some people are still prepared to argue that there was no legal basis for America's successful, if treasonous, secession from the British Empire. Textorus (talk) 15:11, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Under those criteria, there's no end to the infinite regression back to the first proper state, and indeed back to the first organized tribe of humans. At some point, reality must be considered when compared against purely intellectual exercises such as this. --Jayron32 15:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Right, since the legal basis for the English colonists' earlier expropriation of Native American lands, often at musket-point, is even more questionable. Marco polo (talk) 19:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

When I saw that article, I was very surprised to hear that anyone argued that it was legal. Americans at the time were subject to British law and I think it is pretty obvious that fighting the British authorities is against British law. A new state being created in a way that was within the law of the predecessor state has never been a requirement for recognising a new country, and nor should it be. That doesn't make it legal, though. --Tango (talk) 21:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The European colonists mostly justified the taking of Native American land using one or another aspect of international law (as it had evolved in Europe anyway), at least after the earliest foothold planting stages. Of course it was never hard to find casus belli, fight and win a war, then claim territory by right of conquest. Nice and legal, right? Pfly (talk) 21:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Textorus. Oh, you're right. I think I was thinking of the procedure for ratifying constitutional amendments, not new states. APL (talk) 22:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, admitting new states is much easier than amending the Constitution. Procedurally, that is. Textorus (talk) 07:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution could certainly do it, if the State legislature consented to be "deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Dualus (talk) 23:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Witikind

I would like to know some things on Witikind. I have tried your site many times but all I have found is Widukind. Please help meLynae8475 (talk) 13:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

"Witikind" and "Widukind" are different ways of spelling the same name (along with various other ways, like "Wittekind". Which one are you looking for? Widukind, the enemy of Charlemagne? Adam Bishop (talk) 13:35, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Mexican secession

As the US integrated parts of Mexican territory, what happened to the population living there? Did they have to go to Mexican? Did they become American citizens? Did the US try to move as much population as possible into the new territories? Quest09 (talk) 16:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

See Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which explains in several places what happened to the Mexicans living in the territories. It appears they were granted American citizenship, and were nominally guaranteed property rights, but their property rights were later compromised. The number of actual "Mexican nationals" quoted by the article so affected is listed at about 3000 people, which seems quite low; it likely doesn't include Native Americans living in the area. Most of the territory was lightly populated; I think the only sizable settlement in the area was San Francisco whose population was under 1000 at annexation and whose population was very multinational, even then. --Jayron32 17:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear, another near-miss on spelling. What you mean is the Mexican Cession. You're talking about a relatively sparse population dotted across a vast territory, which was already a mix of races, ethnicities, and nationalities, so the answers to your questions are not easily summed up in a few words. But I'll start the ball rolling by saying, No they did not have to go to what was left of Mexico, Yes they became American citizens when the territory was transferred, and there was no particular rush by the U.S. Government to "move as much population as possible into the new territories," not in the way you seem to be thinking. Americans - if you mean by that non-Hispanic whites - had already been trickling into Mexican territories for decades. Indeed, Spain, and later Mexico, deliberately encouraged such Americans to come colonize Texas long before the Mexican War. See Mexican Texas. Textorus (talk) 17:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

There were certainly more than 3,000 people of Mexican origin in the Mexican Cession when it passed to the United States. Most of these were in what is now New Mexico, where their descendants to this day make up nearly half of that state's population. In 1850, when the first census was taken in New Mexico Territory, its population was 61,547 per the U.S. Census, a large majority of which was Mexican in origin. This area included the present-day states of both Arizona and New Mexico. In the present-day area of New Mexico alone, according to a source cited in History of New Mexico, the Spanish population in 1842 had been almost 50,000. California was not as heavily populated under Mexican rule, and, as others have said, part of its population was already of Anglo origin before 1848. Still, according to this source, the Spanish or Mexican population of California in the 1840s was almost 12,000. So, there were certainly at least 60,000 Mexican nationals in the Mexican Cession when it passed to the United States. I will edit our article accordingly. Marco polo (talk) 18:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Our article Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gives a scholarly source for a figure of 80,000 Mexicans. Also, as far as their citizenship, Article VIII of the treaty says that Mexicans in the ceded territory have a year to move back to Mexico, or if they remain, "shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States." Textorus (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

So the article was internally inconsistent before my edit. Note, however, that the figure of 80,000 includes Texas, which is not normally considered part of the Mexican Cession. Marco polo (talk) 19:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It's an interesting question. The Mexican Texas article quotes a scholarly source for 30,000 Americans and only 7,800 Mexicans in the province of Texas in 1834. The Republic of Texas article infobox gives an unsourced figure of 70,000 total population for the Republic, no year specified. I don't have the inclination to dig further, but the Handbook of Texas might have more figures if anyone's itching to do the math. Textorus (talk) 19:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not so hard to get from 7,800 Mexicans in Texas in 1834 to maybe 15,000 Mexicans in 1850 (80,000 in Texas and the Mexican Cession minus about 65,000 in the Mexican Cession proper) given birth rates at that time. Marco polo (talk) 19:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Textorus (talk) 20:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

@Textorus, there was a bit of a rush to move people into the territories owing to the desire of both the North and the South to pile as many people sympathetic to their side of the "slavery question" to encourage said territory to become a Free or Slave state when statehood would come about. It was a HUGELY contentious issue, and there was several years of jockeying during the 1840s-1850s on how to deal with it. See Wilmot Proviso and Compromise of 1850 for some background. --Jayron32 20:05, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yup, the slavery question was indeed hugely contentious - to put it mildly. In Bleeding Kansas, lots of pro-slavery settlers from Missouri flocked to establish "squatter sovereignty," all in hopes of preserving the free/slave balance in the U.S. Senate. So you're quite right that in some places there may have been a move on by individuals and groups to settle new territories - but it was tied in with the never-ending slavery issue, which was self-limiting: I know that in Texas, for example, the cotton-producing lands where slavery was economically practical ended just east of San Antonio. Further west, it's too arid for those kinds of crops, so no rush of Southerners, at least, to populate the empty, wide-open Southwest just for the hell of it. And the OP's question implied that the federal government might have tried to stimulate settlement of the Mexican Cession as a deliberate policy, but I've never heard of any such policy. I think instead that the feds had their hands full trying to avert the looming sectional rift in the country, and assumed that the natural westward movement of the population would take care of populating the Southwest in due time. Them's my thoughts on it, anyway, without digging any further into sources. Textorus (talk) 20:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The history of New Mexico's incorporation into the US is a bit unusual. It was made New Mexico Territory in 1850, at which time the population was over 60,000, with former-Mexican-now-US citizens being the vast majority. There was a spectrum of peoples between Mexicans of Spanish heritage and Native Americans, with unusual and often mixed heritage groups like the Puebloan peoples and the Comancheros. I'm not quite sure how the US decided which people would automatically become US citizens and which would not (Native Americans were not fully granted citizenship until 1924). In any case, the territorial population required for statehood was 60,000, I think. New Mexico's efforts to gain statehood were rejected by Congress for over 60 years, until 1912. I think this is the longest period between territory and state status for any state. In comparison, Nevada Territory was formed in 1861 and statehood was granted in 1864. The population in 1864 was less than 40,000, but Congress let that pass. So why did it take so long for New Mexico to gain statehood? The slavery issue was part of it, sure, but not after the 1860s. Basically, it wasn't until the 20th century that "Anglo" American citizens outnumbered "Hispanic" citizens in New Mexico Territory. It is a telling example of how the Mexicans incorporated into the US after the Mexican War were, despite being given citizenship, not really considered truly "American". Pfly (talk) 21:43, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I should say the history is more complex than I just put it. And New Mexico's Anglo population didn't match the Hispanic population until the 1930s. Also, statehood wasn't blocked by Congress so much as by political conflict between Anglos and Hispanos within New Mexico. The first attempt to become a state was not until 1890, and when put to a vote in New Mexico was soundly rejected by both Anglos and Hispanos. The history is complicated, but I think it is safe to say the long gap between territorial and state status was mostly due to the large Hispanic population and Anglo distrust of them (and vice versa), and the commonly held opinion that the Hispanics were "un-American" in various ways. Anyway, I'm not sure our Wikipedia pages say much about this. I got this info mostly from Meinig, Donald W. (1971). Southwest: Three Peoples in Geographical Change, 1600-1970. Oxford University Press. Pfly (talk) 22:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's New Mexico wasn't all that strategically important, excepting as a place to put a railroad through. The important bit of the Mexican Cession was always California; it was what the U.S. wanted; even before the discovery of Gold and Silver in the Cession lands on either side of the Sierra Nevadas. California had farmland, and more importantly, some really good cites for ports (San Francisco especially). While the discovery of Gold certainly sweetened the pot in terms of attractiveness, California was always the goal of the U.S. New Mexico was sort of the bit of wasteland that they had to take as part of the package. It may be unfair to the New Mexicans, but that's really how it was treated historically. --Jayron32 00:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Donald W. Meinig has written some well-known books on the politics/economics of different groups within New Mexico / Texas during the history of the United States... AnonMoos (talk) 02:25, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

In one of his Shaping of America books there's an interesting section on the debate within the US, during the peace treaty process at the end of the Mexican War, about how large the Mexican Cession shoule be. There were many proposals, some of which would have taken way more territory. It's true that New Mexico was not high on the list of US demands (the port of San Diego was way more important), but the Mexicans of New Mexico were not all that keen about remaining part of Mexico. As a remote territory of low population density (relative to the Valley of Mexico), they felt alienated from the central government to the to the point of nearly declaring independence. At the same time they did not want to be absorbed into the US. But New Mexico was too small to hope for a future existence separate from both Mexico and the US. Anyway, yes, California was the real prize for the US, but the history of New Mexico in all this is interesting and complicated. Pfly (talk) 11:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. As a Texan, I've never paid much attention to New Mexico history. I would have thought that the long delay of statehood was due to low population; but how interesting to hear that both Anglos and Hispanics opposed it in 1890. I wonder if there were economic reasons at work also. Textorus (talk) 11:48, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There were economic differences between New Mexico's Anglo and Hispanic peoples of the time, but it seems the main impasse was each side fearing domination by the other. Here's a passage from that Meinig book I cited above, context being the late 19th century: "In general. the Anglos of the southern counties [of NM] opposed statehood out of fear of domination by the Hispanos of the north, whereas the latter were fearful that merger into the federal body would only accentuate their minority position within the nation and bring about even heavier pressures upon their institutions." And on the 1890 statehood bid: "[soundly defeated by both]: by the Hispanos of the north, led by the local Catholic church which saw its parochial school system threatened, and by the Democrats of the south [the northern Hispanos were largely Republican] who did not wish to be an Anglo minority under the domination of Santa Fe. The national Congress...was reluctant to admit New Mexico simply because its dominant Spanish-speaking Roman Catholic population seemed 'un-American'." Another bit apparently not described on Wikipedia: There was an attempt to separate the southern part of New Mexico Territory, which had an Anglo majority, as the Territory of Sierra, which would perhaps merge with part of Arizona Territory. I thought we might have a page about this aborted Sierra Territory, but it seems we don't. Pfly (talk) 16:25, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Very interesting indeed, thanks for the quotes. There's always been something for people to quarrel over, hasn't there? Textorus (talk) 03:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Mystic Fiction Writers

If you know some notable English-speaking authors in the mystic fiction genre, I'll be thankful to have your suggestions. --Omidinist (talk) 16:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "mystic fiction"? Do you mean Magic realism? --Jayron32 16:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

A little Googling reveals that "mystic fiction" is an obscure term that was invented in early 2010, and apparently means a type of romance novel that is set in a fantasy world. Looie496 (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Mysticism, theosophy, in fiction is what I mean. It may include magic realism. --Omidinist (talk) 17:49, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd think of some of Robert Anton Wilson's writing as mystic fiction, as it apparently borrows heavily from Freemasonry. Wnt (talk) 17:53, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, that's a relief. Arthur Machen?  Card Zero  (talk) 22:48, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

No idea whether they fit your personal definition, but George MacDonald and Charles Williams are well-known earlier authors whose works sometimes contained prominent mystical themes... AnonMoos (talk) 01:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, two who are obscure now, but somewhat well-known in their day, are Marie Corelli and Dion Fortune... AnonMoos (talk) 02:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Identify a movie?

Hello. Can you help me identify a movie? I saw it at the IFC theatre in lower Manhattan maybe 3 christmases ago. I believe it was set outside of Prague, and had at its center a police man who was assigned to collect evidence of small time drug dealing by a few students. He didn't really want to do the job, and complained that probably the drug laws would change anyway soon. It ended with the police chief giving him an argument from a dictionary where he looked up "police" and "duty" and things like that. Do you know the title? 134.74.82.71 (talk) 17:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like Police, Adjective. See the New York Times review. Deor (talk) 18:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Hm, Romanian. That's it, thanks so much. 198.105.46.54 (talk) 22:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Advantage of being a woman artist

From a list of reasons:

"Working without the pressure of success" "Having the opportunity to choose between a career and motherhood"

And what does this reason mean:

"Getting your picture in the art magazines wearing a gorilla suit."? Quest09 (talk) 20:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Mmm, I think we'd have to see the picture to explain that one fully. Where did you find this list, in The Onion?Textorus (talk) 20:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

There was no picture. Just a list of reasons. It's not from a known source, I got this from a girlfriend's private newsletter. Quest09 (talk) 21:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Solved. It's from the Guerrilla Girls, as I just discovered. They are known for wearing gorilla masks. Quest09 (talk) 21:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I tried to read some of their writings once, but they just went on and on. It was a guerilla megillah. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Population of Texas and Mexico during the Texas Revolution

What was the population of Texas and what was the population of Mexico during the Texas Revolution? --Belchman (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The population of Texas in 1835 was only about 35,000 (source); the population of Mexico at the same time was somewhere between 6 and 8 million (source). LANTZY^TALK 22:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I suspected that it was tiny at the time, but this begs the question: how did Texas manage to defeat Mexico with such a tiny population? --Belchman (talk) 22:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Read about the Battle of San Jacinto and it should give some insights. It didn't hurt that Santa Anna was captured in the aftermath. Holding the guy who was both the general of the army and the nation's president gave them a significant bargaining chip. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. That clears things up a bit. --Belchman (talk) 22:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

As said in Texas Revolution: it was 2,000 Texans against 6,500 Mexicans. The whole population is irrelevant, since not all were fighting. It's hardly unbelievable that such war cannot be won, if your side has the better weapons. Quest09 (talk) 23:42, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, much greater differences in force strength have been overcome before, see Battle of Crécy. --Jayron32 00:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Another example is the Battle of Agincourt, where the superior weaponry and placement of the English forces under Henry V resulted in their victory and the near decimation of the numerically-stronger French troops.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Key signatures

For pieces that don't change key, why aren't they always written in the easiest key for that instrument (e.g. C major/A minor for piano)? Even with pieces that change key, why isn't the piece transposed so that the largest section in in CM/am? --99.23.200.230 (talk) 23:46, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

In modern tunings (see equal temperament) all keys are harmonically equivalent; this didn't always used to be so in older tunings. Furthermore, you can write any piece of music in any key at all. It is completely arbitrary. However, you want to write the music in the key that uses the least number of accidentals, to make it easier to read and play. It does no good to write the music in C Major if every third note needs a sharp or a flat after it! --Jayron32 00:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

You wouldn't just change the key signature and add accidentals. What I meant was that if it was in, say, B major, you could raise every note by a semitone and it would still have the same number of accidentals as the original, just with an easier key signature to play. --99.23.200.230 (talk) 00:49, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Each key sounds different, and if every song was played in the same key it would get dull. I wondered this when I was directing my church choir until we played an entire Mass in one key and we were all bored by the end. Since the piano can play every key, and so could the singers (to a certain extent), things would have to be written in different keys to get that variety. After all, when the key is changed (up or down) the singers have to use a different vocal range and that affects the overall sound, even without the key change. Mingmingla (talk) 01:10, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

For a lot of popular music since at least the mid-20th century the guitar has been the most important instrument--more than the piano at least. The keys of C and A minor are less easy to play on guitar than keys like D, A, and G. For genres with brass instrument dominance, like much jazz, flat keys like Bb, Eb, and Ab tend to be easier. I would argue that music is indeed frequently written in the "easiest key for that instrument", or at least one of the easier keys for whatever instrument is dominant. Also, I find the key of C less easy to play on piano than keys with one or two sharps or flats. The black piano keys provide a kind of reference point for my fingers. When everything is all white keys I find my fingers get offset a note or two more easily. When sight reading, or at least when looking at the sheet music is more important than looking at my fingers, the black keys are especially useful for providing a "feel" for where my hands are on the keyboard, without having to look away from the sheet music, if that makes sense. That said, I've recently been toying around with the music of Salome--I have a piano reduction of the orchestral score. The work has an overarching "conflict" between the keys of C and C#, with Jochanaan's key being C and Salome's key being C#. When Salome is in control of the music the key sometimes modulates into even sharper keys, like G#. The score is full of double sharps. Trying to play--mostly sight read--that kind of thing on piano is extremely annoying! But there's sense and logic as to why Strauss composed the work this way, and there is a great moment near the end when Salome tries to "become one" with Jochanaan, resulting in a delightfully dissonant clashing of the keys of C and C#. Pfly (talk) 11:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

October 28

other than exogamy and endogamy

what is the term to refer a marriage between a man and a woman who have different nationality but same ethnic background like for example two Bengali couple-an Indian man and a Bangladeshi woman? What is the term to refer a marriage between a man and a woman who have religious background like a Muslim man and a Christian woman? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.148.22 (talk) 01:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

For the second, "inter-faith marriage"... AnonMoos (talk) 01:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Articles: Interfaith marriage, Transnational marriage. I don't know that there's a specific term for transnational marriages that match ethnicity, although it is surely a common situation in immigrant communities, especially with arranged marriages (and the less happy forced marriages). 86.163.1.168 (talk) 12:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that 'nationalism' is a relatively recent development in human history - even up to the 17th or 18th century people thought in terms of culture and race rather than in terms of nation. a Bengali/Bangladeshi marriage would not ever be considered a problem, so long as they were the same race and religion, so there's no special word for it. --Ludwigs2 13:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Celts??

Areas raided but not settled by Vikings are in green

Could someone be as kind as to answer whether the information in this article (from Null Hypothesis: Journal Of Unlikely Science) is veridical at all?

http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science//item/top_ten_british_innovations_celts

ThanksAtonalPhysicist (talk) 02:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The information seems to roughly jibe with what is written in the Wikipedia article Celts (modern), which has its own references you could follow. --Jayron32 02:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

From the Roman Empire to the Vikings navigating Northwest Europe at the time, the Celts survived because they figured out how to pay tribute to raiders but assimilate or fight off settlers. Dualus (talk) 03:26, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples:

  core Hallstatt territory, by the 6th century BC

  maximal Celtic expansion, by 275 BC

  Lusitanian area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain

  the "six Celtic nations" which retained significant numbers of Celtic speakers into the Early Modern period

  areas where Celtic languages remain widely spoken today

The website is being pointy to the point of pointlessness. The phenomenon itself, that of a related group of Indo-European peoples speaking pre- or Proto-Celtic languages originating in the Hallstatt culture and La Tene culture and colonizing much of western Eurasia is a real phenomenon undoubted by any serious linguist or archaeologist. The fact that scholars adopted the Greek word Keltoi (referring to the Gauls) to cover all these peoples from Spain to Denmark to Anatolia has nothing to do with delegitimizing the underlying facts. μηδείς (talk) 03:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure, however, why the unrelated Viking map to the right is reproduced at the top, see the second relevant map.

See also Gaul, Wales, Galatia, Galicia (Spain) and Galicia (Eastern Europe). μηδείς (talk) 03:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

This is off-topic, but to my surprise I just discovered that Diodorus Siculus describes ancient Celts as blond. I wonder why, then, I've always pictured Celtic people as dark and swarthy? Apparently I was misinformed. Textorus (talk) 09:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

In Wikisource the text is translated red-haired, not blond, so it is a question for language experts. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

People tend to identify characteristics as "typical" of foreigners when they're just slightly more prevalent among foreigners than among their own people. A large majority of Irish people, for example, have dark brown hair, and red hair is quite rare - but it's less rare than it is in many other countries, so people from those countries notice red hair more often among Irish people, and think of the "typical" Irish person as having red hair. Similarly, the mediterranean cultures of the classical world would have had fewer fair-haired people than they would see in northern Europe, so they thought of northern Europeans - Germans as well as Celts - as being "typically" fair. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

So far as I'm aware, the term "Celtic" refers to a language group - not necessarily a genetic group. There's no reason why a group of people can't be descended genetically from people living in one area, but acquiring a language thousands (or tens of thousands) years later from people living in quite a different area, is there? So, some people speaking Celtic languages could have been "dark and swarthy" and others blond and blue-eyed. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

For various reasons, there can be a lot of commonality between a language group and a "genetic" one, people who live in the same area and don't associate with other groups will tend to develop an isolated gene pool and will also develop their own language. But it does not have to be so; the Franks were a Germanic people, but their decendants speak a Latin-derived language (French). Also, in both cases (geneticly and culturally/linguisticly) it is very rare that a group remains cohesive and isolated for very long; groups of people which come into frequent contact with other groups of people will eventually have sex with them. Cultures also change and morph over time. --Jayron32 13:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

It is true the idea of Celtic peoples is a modern phenomenon, in that medieval Europeans did not recognize links between, say, the Irish and the dimly known Gauls who preceded the Roman conquest. However, as Medeis correctly states, ancient Romans and Greeks did notice a commonality among the continental peoples variously known as Galli/Galatai or Celti/Keltoi. Still, it was really modern linguists who made a connection between the ancient continental Celts and the speakers of Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland.

As for the attribution of hair color to "the Celts" by ancient authors, we have to suppose that they were overgeneralizing, as Nicknack suggests. Also, the prevailing thinking these days is that, historically, languages have been spread mainly by small, migrant elites rather than by mass movements of people. Therefore, a greater prevalence of blond or red hair in some Celtic speaking regions is likely to reflect characteristics of the pre-Celtic population rather than traits brought by the elite (warrior or perhaps merchant) groups who brought Celtic languages to regions where they were subsequently adopted by the local population. Marco polo (talk) 16:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

It worked the other way too. A lot of Celtic-speaking Britons had to learn Anglo-Saxon and their offspring eventually called themselves English. The old idea that the Angles, Jutes and Saxons entirely displaced the Britons in England is now discredited. An article on the subject is here Alansplodge (talk) 17:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I would opine that the majority of English people have mtDNA that is British (as in Britons), rather than Anglo-Saxon considering the invaders would have been mainly men.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Our Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain article quotes Stephen Oppenheimer; "no more than 10% of paternal lines may be designated as coming from an "Anglo-Saxon" migration event and that in the same English regions 69% of male lines are still of aboriginal origin" (aboriginal meaning descended from post ice-age Paleolithic settlers). This is an ongoing debate apparently. Alansplodge (talk) 22:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Che and Fidel relatives

G'day, I've read a fair bit about Che and Fidel Castro, and that they are living in, or have lived in Cuba. Does anyone know where their relatives live, and whether they agreed with Che and Castro's communist idealogies? --Sp33dyphil © • © 07:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Raúl Castro, Fidel's brother, is probably his best known relative. His sister Juanita Castro initially supported the revolution, but later defected to the USA. Fidel's daughter Alina Fernández is also a critic of the regime. We have articles on various of the cousins and nephews and nieces and similar. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 07:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Che's daughter Celia is a veterinarian at the Havana aquarium: [13] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 10:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

By the way, Castro's father was originally from Spain, and he has or had some relatives in Spain... AnonMoos (talk) 06:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Likewise, Che was Argentine, and he came from a largish family (four younger siblings). I wouldn't be surprised if he had nephews/neices and cousins and their decendents all over Argentina. Che also had some Irish background, his paternal grandmother was from Ireland and his father used the surname Lynch. He made an impromptu visit to Ireland once, even. See Guerrillero_Heroico#Meeting_Che_in_Ireland. --Jayron32 13:22, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Americans and Halloween

When did the idea of Halloween change in the United States, from a night when you dress up in a horror-themed costume to a night which is basically a big fancy dress party, where most costumes have got nothing to do ghosts or horror at all? 87.114.141.182 (talk) 07:42, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The article Halloween costume may give some clues. As a personal observation, I think before 1970 or so, Halloween dress-up was mainly for kiddies, not grown-ups. Then us baby boomers found it was too much fun to give it up when we got to be adults: it tied in nicely with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. And it came to be a really big deal among the party boy types in the post-Stonewall gay community. See Halloween as a gay holiday. Textorus (talk) 09:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Saturnalia, Carnivale, Mummer's Day, Mummers Parade, Mardi Gras. It's not like the world began in 1970. μηδείς (talk) 11:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't think it did, Medeis, but now I'm very grateful to have confirmation of the fact. The OP was asking specifically about Halloween costumes in recent times in the United States, and my answer was tailored to that. Textorus (talk) 11:18, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

As someone who remembers the 1970s and even some things from before 1970, I can confirm that, when I was a kid in the 1970s, no adults that I knew put on costumes for Halloween. In fact, no one over the age of about 12 wore costumes. I think that adult gay men did wear costumes (mainly drag) on Halloween during the 1970s, but I don't think that adults dressing up for Halloween started to be anything mainstream in the United States until the 1980s. Marco polo (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

In the US, there were adult costume parties at Halloween from before WW1 and on, in addition to the kiddie parties: 1915, 1928 1930. 1934, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1941, 1947, 1956, 1958,1960, 1970 (top economic officials). They continue; I just got tired of linking them. There seemed to be fewer parties at adult organizations (country clubs, American Legion) in the 60's and thereafter compared to the kid parties, but lots of adult costume parties at bars. The adult costume market was projected at a billion dollars for 2010, with "Jersey Girls" a popular subject. Celebrities may be more popular than monsters. The costumes were not always monster themed back in the teens and 20's. "Bo-Peep," cavaliers, and other characters from fiction and history were always popular. Edison (talk) 22:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Great research, Edison, thanks for these very interesting links. Textorus (talk) 02:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thing is, I didn't ask about adults vs children. I asked when the popular conception of Halloween in the USA changed from dressing up in horror costumes to dressing up in any old costumes. 81.174.199.204 (talk) 23:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

As Edison's research shows, there has never been as strict a "dress code" as you imagine. My own first costume at about age 3 was a clown suit my mom sewed for me. Then in first grade, I was a pirate. Then about 3rd grade, a ghost costume made out of an old sheet with a hole to put my masked head through. Other kids often dressed up as ghosts, witches, or skeletons, but there were other variations like Cinderella, or Superman, etc. But people didn't use the word "horror" costumes - the adjective would have been "spooky" or "ghosts and goblins" - most of the time the emphasis was on cute rather than scary. The modern fascination with horror and evil per se is a disturbing development that I think came from grisly horror movies that have gotten worse and worse in the last several decades, but that's a personal opinion. Textorus (talk) 02:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Occupy Wikipedia

Wikipedia editors Occupy protesters attempting to reach consensus.

After reading this report direct from the revolution, I am struck by how very, very familiar it all sounds: government by of a random group of unrelated volunteers all with different motives and objectives for being there, decisions made by a consensus of whoever happens to show up when the decision is being made, excruciatingly long discussions about what consensus even means in the first place, followed by the failure of consensus decisions to be taken seriously, especially by congenitally disruptive individuals who use name-calling and twisted logic to insult anyone who disagrees with their behavior, failure on the part of the minority to respect the needs and wishes of the majority, the few laboring to clean up after the many, and always the threat that the whole thing will collapse into anarchy and disappear like morning dew. What is the greek word for this type of government? And did the Occupiers consciously steal it from Wikipedia, ya think? Textorus (talk) 10:56, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The Greeks called that anarchy, and it has always been thus. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Many of the problems you describe tend to settle down when anarchist decision making is faced with practical problems of production or distribution. Additionally, most people have prior experience at producing and distributing; generally, people have far less experience of governance (as opposed to being governed). Fifelfoo (talk) 12:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Obviously not a Greek term, but Consensus decision-making is one name for it, and that article seems quite good. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:11, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

As the name for the process, okay, but I'm looking for a word that means government-based-on-this-process. Textorus (talk) 02:39, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Athenian democracy? --140.180.14.123 (talk) 18:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Now that sounds classy. But somehow I can't picture the Occupiers going on to build an empire as the Athenians did with their government. Textorus (talk) 02:39, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors get together to give something to the world, while the Occupy folks want the world to give something to them. This fundamental difference probably influences the effectiveness of the decision making. 71.72.156.36 (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Nay, Wikipedia editors also want the world to give them things - pictures, documents to cite, sometimes even donations. And OWS protesters want to take certain things, like taxes on the rich (horrors!) so that that everyone can have them. Both are in the business of processing materials for public consumption. Wnt (talk) 20:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Someone should start the 99 Percent Declaration article. Maybe I will. Dualus (talk) 22:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

technically, this is 'democracy', in Aristotle's sense of the term - essentially rule-by-rabble. In modern terms, however, what you're probably looking for is something like 'hegemonic corporatism', where individual groups or factions vie in fairly Machiavellian ways to exert marginal influence over the structures of governance. Unfortunately corporatism of this sort is very difficult to define, because it is marked by a complete anti-idealism: rules, structures, ideals, and etc. have no value in themselves, but rather exist solely to be manipulated towards the interests of the group (despite the fact that rules, structures, ideals, and etc. must be presented as valuable-in-themselves, otherwise they lose their power as manipulable entities). Politics at its worst… --Ludwigs2 23:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

"Hegemonic corporatism," oo, that's got a catchy ring to it. But now before we run with that, define "rabble," please. Textorus (talk) 02:39, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

What, you don't own a dictionary? wikt:rabble. Keep in mind that in Aristotle's time and place, there was a huge education gap between the rich and the poor. The upper class in Greece was largely literate craftsmen and traders with a tradition of philosophy and analytic thought, while the lower classes consisted largely of illiterate manual laborers. 'Democracy' for Aristotle had overtones of 'rule by the ignorant and unlettered', and was far less desirable in his mind than oligarchy (because 'rule by the wealthy' was tantamount to 'rule by the wise'). Or more precisely, Aristotle felt that participation in governance required a 'wordly' perspective, but that the mass of humans were self-centered, venal, emotionally reactive, narrow-minded, argumentative, and generally far more interested in getting for them and theirs than doing what's best for the society. In our modern era, of course, we have largely bridged this gap, so that even the wealthy and educated are self-centered, venal, and emotionally reactive. The wonders of progress… --Ludwigs2 13:46, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant exposition, Ludgwigs - the wonders of progress, indeed. So in this brave new world of ours, where anyone rich or poor can grow up to be a tool, what shall we call it: toolocracy, the real workers' paradise?  :) Textorus (talk) 15:59, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

conference paper?

Hello,

I'm a college student (undergrad), and I've heard about an upcoming conference being held at my university. What exactly does it mean to say that a visiting professor is presenting a "paper", especially since he's probably giving a lecture on the exact same thing the paper is talking about? Do all of the papers get collected into a book that is issued on the same day as the conference? Can I just get a copy of the conference proceedings from someone (maybe the library?) and read those instead of attending the actual conference? 128.135.100.102 (talk) 11:07, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

In case you didn't get this sense from my previous post, I enjoy learning about the ideas being presented by professors, but I often find professors to be horrible lecturers. Some of them don't know how to make their work sound exciting, and others talk about their work in very esoteric ways. (i.e. suitable for grad students only) 128.135.100.102 (talk) 11:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Presenting a paper means that the professor will be talking about some research. The paper may be collected as part of the conference proceedings, and generally is, although the availability of the proceedings can vary from conference to conference. (It is normally made available to attendees, though). Sometimes the paper will later be extended and published in a journal.

Generally I like to attend presentations, as in my field, at least, the presentation is a relatively short summary of the research with questions, so it isn't as painful as a full lecture and the questions can be fun. The real question is who the paper is targeted at, and whether or not the topic (which is generally narrowly defined) is of interest. Generally the papers are targeted at other academics, so there may be a lot of assumed knowledge. - Bilby (talk) 11:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The availability of conference proceedings varies hugely by discipline. In the humanities it is usual for no conference proceedings to result, as publishing them is rather expensive and getting a journal to throw its entire issue at a conference is sometimes a hard sell. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There may be a real "paper" behind it, there may not be. There may eventually be proceedings, there may not be. It may eventually appear in print somewhere, it might not. There is no general rule and it varies a lot case to case. You may often be able to just e-mail the professor in question and say, "I'm interested in your talk, but I have a schedule conflict. Could you send me the paper?" and they often will. I agree that most professors are poor speakers, unfortunately. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ::Generally speaking, in the academic world "presenting a paper" = giving a talk at a conference such as the one you are describing. Quite often, the people who give those talks - which of course, they have carefully composed in written form beforehand - will then go on to submit it to a professional journal in their field. Indeed, many such conferences are organized by scholarly or professional societies who also publish a regular journal - thus, by attracting scholars to their conferences, they also are generating material to publish. While it might be that all the "papers" would be printed in a single issue of a scholarly journal, it's very doubtful for logistical and financial reasons that they would be collected in a publication available on the day of the conference. And in most cases, I doubt that the speakers would leave a copy at the library of the university where the conference is being held, which is typically selected merely for being a convenient locale; some conferences are so large that they are held in hotels or other non-academic venues with large meeting rooms. But who knows, there might be exceptions to that general rule. You can find out about the availability of written copies of "papers" by a quick phone call or email to the people who are sponsoring the conference.

And yes, unless you are truly, deeply interested in the subject, you may well find the talks a bit boring and lecture-like. They are given not for entertainment value, but because professor types are obliged to publish or perish, and presenting a paper, no matter how confoundingly esoteric or deadly dull, looks awfully good on a curriculum vitae. Textorus (talk) 11:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that most of them are truthfully quite interested in the topics, but there is a genre of academic tedium. Those of us who endeavor to make our presentations interesting, humorous, or actually interested to people outside of our tiny niche are not generally rewarded. (Steven Pinker, for all that I find troublesome about him, is immensely talented at conveying complex information to an eager public. He's also outwardly loathed by many other Harvardian academics for this reason.) It's also the case that many if not most papers at academic conferences are addressed to people working on little ideas in narrow fields. This is an artifact of publish-or-perish as well, and a tight market. In the humanities, increased specification, increased presence of "in-group" conversations that make no sense to people outside of the sub-sub-field, increased use of jargon, increased requirement for churning out "novel" and "defendable" research, have all lead to a situation in which your average academic humanities conference paper is going to be pretty uninteresting to your average educated person, and your average college undergraduate. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:43, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no guarantee that the paper will have much overlap with the talk, but it is fairly likely. You can ask for an advance copy of the conference proceedings paper, or a (p)reprint if it's a journal article. If it's still being drafted, you can offer to proofread it. You can also ask whether there will be refreshments at the talk. Good luck. Dualus (talk) 23:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

General ethics questions

Four questions:

(A) Let's say for the sake of argument that a few obscure technological advances have resulted in a method to build a medium sized atomic bomb for about $10,000 of easily available parts and about three months labor. Let's say you knew about the details through no fault of your own, but you'd also been told by some feds from the NNSA and FBI to keep a lid on it or you're going to be tossed in jail. Clearly, you probably aren't going to be answering anything close to the question on the reference desk. But lets say people keep asking something like "What's the least expensive way to make a nuclear bomb?" every week or two, and you see that others are slowly getting towards the point where some crucial WP:BEANS are going to be spilled. What do you do?

(B) Let's say someone asks how to commit the perfect murder. How do you respond?

(C) Let's say someone asks how to steal money and not get caught. How to approach that answer?

(D) Let's say that a technical medical journal article describes what appears to be the most powerful date rape drug imaginable, and someone asks about aphrodisiacs. Do you tell them about it?

My own answers are: (A) I'd avoid the direct question and mention the born secret doctrine to try to warn others off; (B) I would have no problem mentoning nitrogen asphyxiation for as long as more inhumane methods are being used to execute people; (C) I might ignore the question, but I might answer it if I thought doing so might make the method less likely to be successful in the long run; (D) Currently I think it would not be ethical to do so, but the inevitability makes me think this might be morally equivalent to question (C) in a way, so I'm not sure. Dualus (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

(A) call the ACLU; this is a personal threat (B) Say "No" when you get asked about organ donation on your driver's license (C) do it for a bank which is Too Big To Fail (D) a date rape drug isn't an aphrodisiac, so it's not relevant. He'd have to ask about date rape drugs. Wnt (talk) 18:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Are there any moral issues involved with (A) besides free speech and civil liberties? Dualus (talk) 18:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I would just point out that in a real-world (A) scenario, you should probably keep your mouth shut. The attempt to censor known dangerous knowledge confirms it. (As the United States found out the only time they tried to invoke "born secret" to get an injunction against publication of nuclear information — see United States v. The Progressive.) You're better off letting the nattering crowd give their (probably not correct) answers, and arguing with each other, and coming to confused and divergent conclusions, than you are trying to get involved and confirm that there is important information there, and end up hinting at what it might be. Anyway, this is a highly unlikely scenario for any individual editor to run across. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:47, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I have moved this from WT:RD on your advice. Dualus (talk) 23:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that if information is available, potential victims and law enforcement agencies would also be able to use it. It has some advantages. Quest09 (talk) 01:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

We've had people asking how to commit the perfect murder before, check the archives to see how we responded. Note that these have been hypothetical cases, if someone suggested they wanted to actually commit a perfect murder we'd probably block or revert them as a troll and/or someone may report them to law enforcement or the foundation (who would decide whether to report them) even if they doubted they were serious. Nil Einne (talk) 02:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

BTW I'll add that if someone keeps coming back asking the same question every 2 weeks they're likely to get ignored or told to stop and then blocked if they don't after a while. We've had that before, e.g. BWH, planet colour/interacial marriage person, lately the Muslim majority et al person. Nil Einne (talk) 06:17, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

So, if I ask: "I am writing a novel, how can a character kill without living traces" that's acceptable and will get answers; but, if I start with "My neighbor is so annoying" don't? Quest09 (talk) 10:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's an interesting challenge: visit the Science ref desk, look only at the table of contents, quick now, identify the question by this OP, just from the title. You've got 10 seconds from when the page loads. If it takes any longer, seek (professional) help. I'm not assuming these edits are in bad faith, but they are so illogical that I think we should be a bit aloof. Am I alone? If so, I'll drop the issue. It's been emotional (talk) 06:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I thought I had more than one question at the Science desk at the moment. Please tell me what you mean by illogical. Dualus (talk) 06:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no rule against posing confused questions on here. People can do their best to answer them or not, but being confused or illogical is perfectly fine. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

October 29

List of Muslim-majority countries excerpt Bosnia

How come you didn't mention Bosnia in the list of Muslim Majority countries article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.153.77 (talk) 01:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk:List of Muslim-majority countries is where you need to raise this question.

Btw, it's already been raised there and the answer seems to be that Bosnia is not a country with a Muslim majority. But any further discussion should be conducted on that page, not here. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:39, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Religion_in_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina has the answer. Only 43%-45% of the population is Muslim. Quest09 (talk) 01:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Who celebrates Thanksgiving in the US?

Do all Americans do it? Since it originally comes from the first settlers, Spanish or English, is it possible that some minorities do not identify with it? Quest09 (talk) 01:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Just about everybody does it. Here in the U.S., we like any excuse for a party. Loads of people who have not a drop of Irish blood in them merrily drink green beer and wear leprechaun hats on St. Patrick's Day. In recent years, Cinco de Mayo has gotten to be a popular excuse for a celebration of some kind all over the country, even among people with no Hispanic background at all. Likewise with Mardi Gras, originally connected with the observance of Ash Wednesday, now very popular among all kinds of non-religious people who have no idea what or when Ash Wednesday is. As to Thanksgiving, there might be some few people somewhere who have no interest in "celebrating" it for some political or religious reason - and the celebration consists of a big family dinner with a turkey at the center, so what's not to like? - but it's not something I'm aware of as being controversial. Most people get a 4-day weekend out of the Thanksgiving holiday every year, and a trip home to see the family or vice versa, so nobody's complaining. Textorus (talk) 02:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanksgiving and Christmas are about the only holidays during the year in America in which virtually EVERYTHING is closed except for a very few stores, and emergency or essential services. I don't know if "celebrating" is quite the right term. It's more of just "getting together". Someone once said that Thanksgiving is the one holiday that doesn't get screwed up by the things that can screw up the other holidays. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

When I lived in Los Angeles, there were quite a few shops open on Christmas Day. My friend would get triple pay for working! In Ireland, however, eveything would be closed as well as the day after (St. Stephen's Day).--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:35, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The bigger the urban area, the more stores might be open on Xmas, but as a general rule (in smaller cities and towns of Texas, at least) only convenience stores and major drugstore chains like CVS are open 24/7 every day of the year, along with gasoline stations on major highways/interstates, and some, but not all, fast food places. Oh, and some urban movie theaters do a big business on Christmas Day too. All of the above generally applies to Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July as well, but big box stores are more likely to be open then than on Xmas, in my experience. Textorus (talk) 06:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Some Native Americans regard versions of stories about the "First Thanksgiving" as being somewhat whitewashed and sanitized, and may overall have mixed feelings about the holiday. Otherwise, Thanksgiving in the U.S. is vaguely associated with ceremonial deism, but is non-sectarian and non-denominational, and you should only have a problem with it if your beliefs forbid you to celebrate the gathering-in of the crops (harvest festival). AnonMoos (talk) 06:19, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

As BB said above, almost everyone gets the day off, most places are closed (or close early), lots of people get a 4 day weekend and travel to be with family, and it's late November thus, in much of the US, chilly or quite cold, and gets dark early. In short, even if you don't "celebrate" it or "identify" with it, you'll be effected by it. I've sometimes passed Thanksgiving without doing much of note, but it was still impossible to not know it was Thanksgiving. And as AnonMoos said, it is basically a harvest festival. It doesn't demand much. If fact it doesn't really demand anything. Sure there are some traditions, like having turkey and watching football, but these are far from required. For several years when I was a teenager in Buffalo my immediate family took to "celebrating" in a funny way. We would drive over the Peace Bridge, into Canada, where it wasn't Thanksgiving, and go to a Chinese restaurant. Turkey and football get can get really boring. And I've always hated cranberry sauce! Pfly (talk) 09:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Pfly refers to Buffalo, New York. Nyttend (talk) 14:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Worst Candidate Result in the US Electoral College?

Which candidate received the largest percent of the popular vote and the least number of votes in the electoral college in American history? --CGPGrey (talk) 11:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

If you mean who required the most popular votes (by %) to win each Electoral College vote, then I wonder if it is Alf Landon, who won 36.5% of the vote but won only 8 of 531 Electoral College votes; or 24.2% of the popular vote for each 1% of the electoral college vote. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

That looks like a good contender. 36.5% of the popular vote with only 1.5% of the electoral vote is a pretty skewed result. Can anyone find worse? --CGPGrey (talk) 12:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The United States presidential election, 1992 resulted in Ross Perot receiving 19% of the popular vote without receiving a single elector. However, since you cannot divide by zero, it is impossible to say how many people voted "per elector" in his case. Gabbe (talk) 13:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) x2 Walter Mondale in 1984 would be a close second. He won 40.6% of the electoral vote for a 13/538 electoral votes. That's 16.4% of the popular vote for each 1% of the electoral vote. Mondale took only 2 electoral college contingents: His home state of Minnesota and Washington DC. Landon also only won 2 states, Maine and Vermont. --Jayron32 13:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

In the 19th century, Stephen A. Douglas in the election of 1860... AnonMoos (talk) 13:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Where to publish ideas regarding unsolved problems in Humanities and Science?

Imagine that I'm a well-read amateur in a particular topic and, after extensive study, come up with a plausible explanation for an unsolved problem in Humanities or Science —or an alternative, more plausible, explanation for something considered to be solved—. Wikipedia, of course, doesn't allow original research in its articles. Where could I publish such things? --Belchman (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Follow these steps:

1. Apply to and get accepted to a graduate program in the area of the topic you wish to publish in.
2. Earn your PhD
3. Get a job as a professor at a university, or a fellow at a well-known "think tank" or other similar body
4. Submit your paper to a well respected peer-reviewed journal.

This is necessary if you want your paper to be taken seriously. The reason for going through all of these steps is that the world is filled with people who have ideas. Lots of ideas, many of them are batshit insane. Which is not to say that yours is. But a gatekeeper which seperates the batshit insane from the reasonably likely not-to-be-batshit-insane is academic qualifications; people who have earned a doctoral degree from a well-respected institution, and have an academic job at a similar institution are generally adjudged to be less likely to be batshit insane (which is not to say that cohort is completely batshit-free... just that it's an indicator there is a better chance you can trust what experts say than amateurs, owing to the value of training and experience). On the other hand, if you don't particularly care if anyone respects what you have to say (or even reads it), you could publish it in a blog. --Jayron32 13:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

One option for technical discoveries is to fill for a patent. Another option is arXiv.org: it is still better than a blog, but the chances of being taken seriously are also quite low. On a side note, I have to say that even if you follow Jayron's steps, you probably won't get much attention, specially outside of your field. Quest09 (talk) 13:32, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Jayron's steps are a little extreme, unless Belchman wants to be a lifelong academic. Maybe it depends on the field, but you don't need a PhD to submit a paper to a journal, or to read a paper at a conference (at least, at conferences I have been to, there are always "independent scholars" who may be essentially hobbyists). Your submission should be read blind anyway, so if you know what you're talking about and have actually proven something, it won't matter if you have a PhD or not. But even without knowing your name or your credentials, if you don't know what you're talking about, it will be pretty obvious. So go ahead and submit to a journal, there's no harm in trying, even academics get rejected sometimes. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

My experience with journals is that in the humanities, anyway, the editor wields so much influence that they would be unlikely to send an article out for peer review if it was from a total outsider. Peer review is ideally (but not always) blind, but the process of deciding who gets peer reviewed is generally not. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The way in which outsiders traditionally gain attention from insiders without becoming an insider themselves is to find a sympathetic insider who will vouch for their work as worth paying attention to. The most famous case of this was Einstein (who would have been ignored without Max Planck's interventions), but there are other more mundane cases as well in the history of science (e.g. Nicholas Christofilos). In the humanities the bar is not necessarily so high — there are plenty of untrained (non-Ph.D.) authors who are recognized as competent or outstanding historians (for example, Richard Rhodes or David McCullough). Depending on what field you are talking about, though, you may or may not need to do things in the "science" fashion to be taken seriously. As with all things, the higher the bar of the claim, the more difficult the case is likely to be — if you're trying to prove that, say, Einstein was wrong, or Shakespeare did not exist, or aliens built the pyramids, or some such, you're going to have a real struggle of it. If you're just trying to show that the African warbler has been sighted in Central Park, it's probably not as hard, if you have evidence to back it up. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no easy answer. It's a bit like saying that you have the ability to coach a professional football team to a championship and asking who will give you a chance to prove it: the answer is, nobody, unless you have some evidence that makes the claim plausible. To get people to pay attention to your ideas, you need some hook that will make them believe your ideas are better than other people's. Usually that means starting small and working upward. Looie496 (talk) 15:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Laws of Aikido

What are the laws of Aikido, and how would this martial art possibly be relevant in a dispute on Wikipedia? Someone recently made a statement, "One of your friends, by whom I was attacked User:Nyttend, is engaged in Aikido and he knows all these laws." I'd never even heard of Aikido until I read this comment, and I can't figure out the answer from reading the article. Nyttend (talk) 14:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

It probably refers to the philosophy of Morihei Ueshiba? I don't know. I did Aikido for years a long time ago and don't remember any codified laws, just lots of very vague things relating to its general approach to things (e.g. protecting yourself and protecting your attacker simultaneously). In context it looks like a fairly rambling and not very coherent statement, but it doesn't seem negative. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:13, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Northern Irish accent

Is there a typical Northern Irish accent? The guy who sings this song has something that sounds to me like a thick Scottish accent. I've heard other Protestants speak like him, but people like Gerry Adams sound very different to me. --Belchman (talk) 14:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I know that there's a bit of variation from place to place to place; when my family were in Dervock for a summer in the 1990s, we were told that the area was well-known for having what outsiders considered an extraordinarily strong and difficult accent. Nyttend (talk) 14:29, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

For people outside of Northern Ireland, there is a general distinctive accent (not quite Irish and not quite Scottish), which I suppose is probably usually the Belfast accent. But certainly people from NI can distinguish many variations, from different cities, different parts of Belfast, different rural accents, and apparently also different Catholic and Protestant accents. Maybe Jeanne Boleyn will be along shortly, I think she lived in Belfast for awhile. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

As for why the Northern Irish accent may have some commonalities with some Scottish accents, Ulster Scots people may have some answers. As far as examples of famous Northern Irish people for whom to compare, Liam Neeson (the actor), Van Morrison (the singer) and Stiff Little Fingers (the band) are all from Northern Ireland. --Jayron32 17:47, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Not a good comparison as Stiff Little Fingers and Van Morrison both come from Belfast; whereas Neeson is from Ballymena which is close by. OP should go over to YouTube and check out clips on loyalist Billy Wright to hear a strong Portadown accent, Martin McGuinness for a Derry accent, Jackie McDonald for a Belfast accent, and the film Omagh for authentic County Tyrone accents (vastly different from Belfast ones). BTW, the guy singing the song in the clip the OP cited has a very strong Belfast accent. Gerry Adams' Belfast accent (although pronounced) does sound less harsh on the ears.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Do Catholics and Protestants have different accents in the same city? --Belchman (talk) 18:11, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Free White Male Adult Property Owners by State in 1790?

My understanding is that only free white male adult property owners could vote in 1790. How many of them were there in each state? --CGPGrey (talk) 17:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Probably not answerable with any exactitude. See the article 1790 United States Census for a breakdown of population by state, or check the original report submitted by Thomas Jefferson. Problem is, it counted all males over 16 as one category (adult = 21+ in those times), and it didn't indicate how many of them were property owners. Textorus (talk) 18:03, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

unicorn

Question: Am I correct in assuming a unicorn may be either male or female?Kukanuk (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, unless you are mistaken a mythical creature for a Eunuch :o) The Last Angry Man (talk) 17:35, 29 October 2011 (UTC)