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January 7

hope this is not a request for legal advice, asking out of curiousity

if someone has a medical condition that makes him involuntarily do something possibly illegal, under a certain set of circumstances, then if another person who is fully aware of the condition deliberately puts him under that set of circumstances, what is the law on this?

for example, if an epileptic is deliberately exposed to lights that cause a seizure and the seizure causes damage to property or injury to the person who purposely exposed him to the lights? Or if someone purposely provokes an autistic classmate into lashing out and the provoker is injured as a result? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.216.76 (talk) 03:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Deliberately and knowingly causing harm to someone else is usually a crime. If you deliberately expose an epileptic to the stimulus you know is going to cause that epileptic to have a seizure, then you're very likely guilty of assualting the epileptic or some similar crime. --Jayron32 03:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Even so, those kinds of laws likely vary state-by-state, so giving one blanket answer here is probably insufficient or misleading. I expect civil law also gets into this area, meaning that if there's no criminal remedy, there might still be a civil remedy, i.e. a lawsuit. Again, state-by-state. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe that pubs have been sued for letting somebody drive home who is obviously drunk, leading to an accident. And your case is even worse, being deliberate. StuRat (talk) 04:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

In America, such laws are often called "the dram shop act" or dram shop laws, and as the article notes, they do indeed vary from state to state. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

At Common Law, this would not be a crime, but the modern trend is to impose liability because the mens rea is present. At common law, acting without volition would negate the actus reus. With the development of the insanity defense, American courts recognized that one could suffer from a mental defect which would substantially impair a defendant’s ability to control his or her actions. This is known as the irresistible impulse test of the insanity defense. Following the attempted assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr., the United States saw substantial reform for the insanity defense. Consequently, only a handful of states still permit one to claim the defense when the insanity affects the voluntariness of one’s actions but has no effect on the appreciation of the wrongfulness. I believe that these handful states would be likely candidates to exculpate the defendant in the hypothetical. Additionally, a few jurisdictions have shifted the focus of the automation defense from the actus reus to the mens rea by classifying it as a form of insanity. These jurisdictions may also grant an acquittal. There are several US jurisdictions which have addressed the specific issue above; they include: Federal (see Government of the Virgin Islands v Smith (1960, CA3 VI) 278 F2d 169)[1], California (see People v Freeman (1943) 61 Cal App 2d 110)[2], Kentucky (see Smith v Commonwealth (1954, Ky) 268 SW2d 937)[3], Oklahoma (see Carter v State (1962, Okla Crim) 376 P2d 351)[4], Kansas (see State v Massey (1987) 242 Kan 252)[5], and Wyoming (see Fulcher v State (1981, Wyo) 633 P2d 142)[6]. The Kansas case does the best job of explaining the issue, I believe; although it is one of those jurisdictions which groups automation with the mens rea rather than the actus reus as the courts did in England hundreds of years ago. I can’t speak for other common law jurisdictions, but if they have not reformed the ancient laws, they would exculpate the defendant in your example as well. The trend is to find the innocent "automoton" guilty for the act instead. Gx872op (talk) 19:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you missed the main point. The question is not about the responsibility of the involuntary actor, but about the person who constructs the situation to happen. As an extreme case, consider A throwing a helpless B over a balcony ("making him involuntarily" falling), hitting and injuring C. Only a perverse system of justice would assign blame to B. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:49, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The example of throwing one off the balcony does not involve "a medical condition that makes him involuntarily do something possibly illegal." That is what the original question is about. The "point" is that the United States does not generally recognize medical conditions that make one do something "involuntarily" as exculpatory. If you have a medical condition that causes you to harm someone, you are generally criminally liable for that in the United States. In those jurisdictions, the court will not convict a person for flashing lights or sticking pins in voodoo dolls; they will convict the one who actually caused the death.Gx872op (talk) 18:34, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

This is a matter that would have to be determined by a judge and lawyers in a particular case. If a lawyer could prove that person A induced a condition in person B specifically to produce outcome Q (e.g. A used a device to stimulate a seizure in B so that B crashed his car at a particular time and place, which allowed A to kill a passenger in B's car), A would most likely be convicted of murder. If intention towards outcome Q can't be proved charges would be lesser, but A would still be responsible for injuries to B and any damages B caused. Most legal systems have a torturous set of precedents establishing different levels of responsibility for collateral damage (usually for random gunshots, thrown objects, out-of-control autos, campfires that get loose, etc); the court would examine the most relevant of those precedents and make a ruling that was as consistent as possible with previous rulings. --Ludwigs2 16:47, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

most answers focus on the person who provoked the condition. how about the legal liability for the person with the medical condition committing the involuntary act (such as the epileptic or autistic in the examples above)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.219.112 (talk) 10:36, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

In addition to the above, in general if someone takes an action they know is reasonably likely to cause harm or death, then they are guilty of negligence at the very least. The "guilty mind" component of the act of negligence comes from the fact that you knew (or a reasonable person should have known) injury was likely to result 65.29.47.55 (talk) 00:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Addendum: In my opinion "legal advice" refers to someone asking "I just did this am I in trouble" or "I'm in this situation, what should I do" I don't think "legal advice" consists of asking a broad hypothetical or asking about the common-law sources and implications of an action (as you do here). If it were we couldn't have any legal articles at all practically. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 00:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Straddle (naked or not)

Ive been trying to understand it but am a little confused. Now when you go for a long straddle and cut the loss to the premium is that naked or covered?(Lihaas (talk) 05:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC));

I don't understand your question at all. Please clarify. StuRat (talk) 06:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a term "straddle (poker)" but it's hard to tell if that's what he's asking about. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

This is arcane terminology relating to stock options. A straddle means either buying identical puts and calls for a certain option, or selling identical puts and calls. I don't really understand this stuff, but I believe that a long straddle is different from either a naked straddle or a covered straddle. (1) In a naked straddle, also known as a short straddle, you sell identical puts and calls. (2) In a covered straddle, you sell identical puts and calls while owning the underlying stock. (3) In a long straddle, you buy identical puts and calls. If you have any sense, though, you'll stay a mile away from any of this stuff, which is all just a bunch of fancy ways of giving all your money to a brokerage in the form of fees. Looie496 (talk) 06:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Right. We have an article on the box spread, an intricate maneuver involving four separate put and call trades. It's also called the "alligator spread" because, though you're guaranteed a modest profit, you get eaten alive by the commissions. PhGustaf (talk) 22:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks heavens for that explanation. The images that have been flashing through my mind about straddling something while naked are now better forgotten! HiLo48 (talk) 07:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Some thing... or some one? I certainly would not mind a long naked straddle from many of the women I know. Blueboar (talk) 22:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. And as for "cut a loss to the premium" ... just don't go there. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

As with the line from Tom Lehrer's "Bright College Days": Soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife / Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life... ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:19, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Gee. I'm a fan of Tom's but not familiar with that song. Excellent line. Must look it up. HiLo48 (talk) 22:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering if the long straddle is generally done naked or covered, but you seem to suggest above that its naked?

Thanks thoughLihaas (talk) 05:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Character from folklore or legend who rides a wheeled grasshopper?

I've seen an old illustration before but cannot seem to find it again, or find proper context. It depicts a tiny man dressed as a ringmaster or coachman riding a grasshopper with wheels. Any information would be much appreciated. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tanisam (talk • contribs) 14:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There used to be a Sunday comic called The Teenie Weenies that depicted tiny humans using all kinds of small objects in clever ways, e.g. using a thimble for a bucket or something like that. I wonder if that's what you're thinking of? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:23, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it was related somehow to folklore or legend. Thanks, though!--Tanisam (talk) 02:01, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I've seen similar illustrations used to describe Queen Mab. ~~MelancholyDanish

No, he was male, wearing a top hat. --Tanisam (talk) 11:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

'The Garden' (Joan Miró)

Hi. I've been trying to find out more about this picture - does anyone know when it was painted, which gallery it's in, or anything like that? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 14:20, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I submitted this question to joanmiro.com, will post any response here. WikiDao ☯ 15:36, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Did a Tineye search and got this. Google translate gave the following:

Joan Miró i Ferrer (Barcelona, April 20, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, December 25, 1983) painter, sculptor, engraver and ceramist Spanish, considered one of the leading representatives of surrealism. In his work reflected his interest in the subconscious, as "childish" and his country. In numerous interviews and writings dating from the 1930s, Miró expressed his desire to abandon conventional methods of painting in his own words "kill, murder or rape" in order to encourage a form of expression that was contemporary.

Please note I do not understand Spanish so the above info could be completely wrong. Royor (talk) 16:25, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The painting is "The Garden", by Joan Miró in 1977 (12 Portuguese) Royor (talk) 16:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

It is one of a series of Homages, called "Art in Boxes" to 20th century artists, by Volker Kühn and not by Miró. Yours made to order for only £970.66 here (page 20 if that isn't a direct link) meltBanana 18:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Well JoanMiro.com have the exact same picture as the OP in their "Joan Miro Paintings" gallery, and I also notice your link from The Berkeley Gallery is actually a Limited Edition Mixed Media Sculpture title "the garden of Joan Miró". Royor (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

JoanMiro.com is wrong. All versions of that image look like Kühn's homage and none of the homages look like exact copies of the artist's works. Also that image is clearly a pastiche of Miró's style (happy caterpillars are not his style) and I can find no substantial reference in any books or professional gallery sites to any such work from Miró, especially not from 1977. meltBanana 14:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I e-mailed The Berkeley Gallery and asked if Volker Kuhn's "the garden of Joan Miro" is an original or derivative work, hope they'll clear this for us. Royor (talk) 16:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I went to the library today and looked through numerous books on Miro. I did not find any reference in any of the books to a 1977 painting titled “the Garden” ,and the OP’s pic does differ significantly in style compare to some of Miro’s paintings in the 70’s (see Carolyn Lanchner, Joan Miro (p430 – 432), New York: Museum of Modern Art; Edition:(MoMA) 1993 ISBN 0870704346). I’m wrong and meltBanana is right, many apologies for the misinformation.

The picture in question is “the garden of Joan Miro” by Volker Kuhn. Royor (talk) 19:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, OK, thanks for that! This means that pt:Joan Miró (and maybe some other ones) will need to be updated, if anyone speaks the language and so can edit the articles and leave a note on their discussion page. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 21:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Worse local authority services that cost more, UK

Is it just an illusion that the council tax has been rising while local authority services have been cut back?

If not, where is the money going? I know that the various council supremos hacve been paying themselves hundred of thousands of pounds in salaries, but that cannot account for all of it. 92.24.183.6 (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Much of the funding for UK local government comes from national government sources (and ultimately, taxes etc: the Revenue Support Grant is a major part of this). This has been cut back, so the situation you describe is inevitable. Actually, the 'council supremos' are in a less easy situation than private-sector bosses when it comes to 'paying themselves' - the latter aren't subject to the same level of scrutiny.

Some useful articles on UK local government:

Local government in England,

Local government in Scotland,

Local government in Wales,

Local government in Northern Ireland,

List of articles about local government in the United Kingdom.

And no doubt the reason the national government is cutting back is that it's deep in debt. This is a feature of borrowing money; initially you have extra cash, but eventually it becomes "time to pay the piper", and then you have far less cash on hand, much less than if you had never borrowed any. This applies to national governments as well as households. StuRat (talk) 18:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Just pointing out that "council supremos" don't pay themselves anything. All the decisions about the pay of council officers are ultimately taken by the councillors who are democratically elected, and are negotiated with them through organisations like this. Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The councillors, in my experience, are uneducated and elderly. 92.15.5.241 (talk) 23:48, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Vote for more educated, younger ones then! (But, actually, I agree that what you say is a very big problem. Older people are usually the only ones with time to spare.) Ghmyrtle (talk) 00:08, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Add to that the fact that the vast majority of local authority spending goes on some very big areas which not many people actually use. See page 94 (no, really) of the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2010 for the total across the UK. To summarise, of the total £137bn current spending by local authorities across the UK in 2009-10, £48.5m was spent on education, and £48.4m was spent on 'social protection' (ie social services for adults and children). That takes up 70p in every pound spent by councils. What's more, the education budget is not actually under the control of councils but is set by central government, and most social services are a statutory responsibility where the council has a legal duty to provide the service.

After that, £16.6bn is spent on policing, which councils do not control directly. It's only then that you get on to the sort of 'local authority services' which everybody uses. The £5.8bn on 'environment protection' is mostly waste collection and disposal, but is only 4% of all council spending. Now when councils have to save money, the big budgets are ringfenced or legally protected; the smaller budgets are not. So the cuts have to be made on these areas. Sam Blacketer (talk) 19:10, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I didn't view the .pdf because I don't have a pdf reader installed, but did you mean £48.5bn and £48.4bn instead of £48.5m and £48.4m? Because otherwise there's still ~100bn you didn't account for 82.44.55.25 (talk) 22:54, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I did. Sam Blacketer (talk) 23:29, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay :) I'm not good at maths so I wasn't sure if there was something extremely obvious I was missing, thanks for clarifying 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:33, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

List of US presidential election results by county

I have been trying to find a source that would show which presidential candidate carried each county in each election in the United States in which there has been a popular vote. This site has the information I am looking for going back to 1836, but it does not include the same information for earlier elections, and for the elections covered, the maps are often too small to read (for instance, while I can easily see who carried Pittsfield County, Massachusetts in each included election, it is impossible to tell who carried very small counties like Richmond County, NY, even if I zoom in). Does anyone know of a site that would have this information? Thanks. Interrogus (talk) 18:06, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

This site seems to have the information in both map and table form, although you need to register to access the data. If you have acess to a good public library, the World Almanac and Book of Facts used to carry that information in table form. --Xuxl (talk) 19:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I may have overlooked something, but it looks like that site only has the counties going back to 1960 (unless seeing counties for earlier elections is something that requires registration?) I'll try the World Almanac and Book of Facts the next time I get the chance to go to a library. Thanks! Interrogus (talk) 19:34, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeas, copunty-by-county information seems to be available if you register (which I haven't done). --Xuxl (talk) 23:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Bearing in mind that going back to certain years most counties either didnt exist or were probably districted differently with less populations et al. ocovering big areas.(Lihaas (talk) 19:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC));

In that case I would want to find the data from the counties of the time and would then just compare the old boundaries to the present boundaries (in the older states many or most of the present counties existed by the time most states had a popular vote, for instance most of the counties in New England.) Some elections are shown county-by-county on Wikipedia with the map adjusted to show the present boundaries, e.g. the 1860 election map shows Stephen Douglas as carrying Nassau County, NY (which didn't exist until nearly four decades later and in 1860 was part of Queens, which Douglas carried). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Interrogus (talk • contribs) 20:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Quote

I read a quote somewhere but I can't remember very much about where. All I remember is that it roughly expressed the sentiment that "Sometimes we fear our equals even more than our superiors, because in a fight we are uncertain of the outcome". It may or may not be in a work of a philosopher. Does anyone recognize it? Guesses are fine as long as it fits the sentiment; I need to use this as a quote but I need a source, not necessarily the same as I remember. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 21:45, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Just a blind guess, but Sun Tzu said a ton of quotable things about fear and fights. 91.85.191.212 (talk) 22:54, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I've spent a long time searching for it without success. But its aggressive stance suggests it could be pre-Christian, such as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The length and style of the writing is similar to the Meditations also. Or it could be a quote from something like Fight Club, or Machiavelli. 92.15.24.121 (talk) 14:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's Machiavelli, at least not the Prince or Discourses on Livy. I do remember a quote, I believe by Montaigne, that the greatest enemy of the best swordsman in France was not the second best swordsman in France, but the worst swordsman in France, because you don't know what he will do. Similar comments have been made by professional poker players, who refuse to play with neophytes because their lack of skill makes intelligent opposition impossible.

Games and songs from Commonwealth countries

I'm looking for a variety of games, especially singing games, from different Commonwealth countries. Does anyone know of a list, or good resource, for this? Failing that, could you link to or describe a few (in enough detail to play them!) 82.24.248.137 (talk) 21:47, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

You need to nail down "games" a bit. Do you mean games for pre-schoolers, drinking games, or something in-between ? Same for "songs". StuRat (talk) 22:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Oops, didn't think of that. Games for children, like playground games or party games, like Farmer's in his den. 86.163.214.50 (talk) 23:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I remember playing Ring a Ring o' Roses as a small child in the UK. It links to Category:Singing games, although I had thought of all those as just nursery rhymes and not singing games. There were also group skipping games but only girls played those. The game I played a lot as as a child was "tag", where someone is "it" who has to chase and touch anyone else to make them "it" instead. I see there is an article Singing game. There was also another singing game I've remembered, favoured by girls, which involved two children raising their joined raised hands like a church steeple and everyone else going conga-like underneath them. Other ones I remember playing at a party are pass the parcel and musical chairs, the latter in particular of which was a fearful ordeal and not at all fun. 92.15.24.121 (talk) 14:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

That list is almost identical to games played in the US; I wonder if there's much difference. StuRat (talk) 15:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

If you mean the list at Category: Singing Games then that list is not specific to a country. Many of them I've never heard of, so I assume they are American. 92.15.24.121 (talk) 15:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

What about hop-scotch?

although we didnt call "it" in catch-and-cook, the "it" was called the "den" now im quite confused as to why?

otherwise the ring a rin and parcel sound familiar.(Lihaas (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2011 (UTC));

Yes, I'd forgotten that some girls played hop scotch, although I do not think it was popular. 92.15.7.205 (talk) 20:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I can see I haven't asked this question clearly enough. I'm looking for a variety of different games from different Commonwealth countries. Games which are common to many countries are interesting, but not so useful to me as (for example) a specific singing game that Indian children play, or Jamaican children, or Australian children, but that is unlikely to be familiar to most children from the UK. I was assuming that any centralised list or website would include all Commonwealth countries, so wasn't so fussed about excluding the UK, but if people are just suggesting games, it would be more helpful if they weren't common UK games. 86.163.214.50 (talk) 20:19, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Iona and Peter Opie did a lot of research into playground games and rhymes,searching out their books might be useful. Hotclaws (talk) 20:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, their books, which I own, are very UK-centric. I'd like to be able to introduce children the games and singing games fro

other commonwealth countries, as a sort-of 'the same but different' exercise. 86.163.214.50 (talk) 00:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Girls in Australia and New Zealand play a skipping game called "elastics", which *might* be unique to that part of the world. Here is a youtube of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-nyeSgowBo --TrogWoolley (talk) 09:02, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

London cholera, oral-fecal transmission, politics/morality

Hi,

I'm researching the legality-politics of the 1854 Cholera outbreak in London (involving Dr. John Snow and the Broad street water pump)....the relevant Wikipedia page in the section entitled "Political controversy".....says,

"After the cholera epidemic had subsided, government officials replaced the Broad Street Pump Handle. They had responded only to the urgent threat posed to the population, and afterward they rejected Snow's theory. To accept his proposal would be indirectly accepting the oral-fecal method transmission of disease, which was too unpleasant for most of the public" [There is no citation yet]

I was wondering if you could point me to any sources/literature etc. which would help make this connection that a large part of the rejection of such a theory was based on the socio-political judgment of the scientific-thesis. It would be helpful even if this source didn't directly deal with london 1854 (though, of course, some relation would be appreciated).

Please let me know. Thank you very much for this service.

SB — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asapbond (talk • contribs) 23:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Our article Miasma theory of disease is more specific and better referenced. (The miasma theory was the competing theory.) Stephen Inwood's History of London is well referenced, deals with the London cholera outbreak in detail, and would be a good place to start. There is no preview for it on Google Books but it should be in most libraries. Charles Dickens was an important figure in the public debate, and his brother Alfred did a survey on sanitary conditions in West Ham that also influenced thinking. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:35, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I strongly recommend Charles E. Rosenberg's The Cholera Years. It takes place in the United States, but it discusses a lot about why the British and American medical communities recoiled from the idea of cholera being waterborne. It covers three outbreaks in the United States: 1832, 1846, and 1866. The last one is post-Snow, but even then the Snow theory was not widely accepted. It's more than just being "unpleasant" — the alternative models stressed entirely different modes of transmission, and there were strong moral sentiments involved (cholera was seen as spreading from filthy conditions, and thus became part of various social reform platforms, as well as a "blame the victim" approach). Rosenberg directly discusses the difficulties that doctors and public health officials had with the Snow theory, if I recall, and spends a lot of time talking about the socio-political aspects. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Anatomy of the Soul

In reading Moby Dick, I've noticed that Melville speaks with fluidity about the offices and attributes of various parts of the soul, or psyche: reason, will, perceptibility, judgment, etc. And in reading Aquinas, I've noticed that he's forever making subtle distinctions between, say, the appetitive and intellectual faculties. Is there a particular writer, or philosopher, or school of knowledge, on whom these men are drawing? If Aristotle, in which of his works does he dissect the soul like this?

Thanks immensely for your help! ~~ MelancholyDanish

January 8

Missing people who were later found alive

I was reading the list of people who disappeared mysteriously, and it really caught my imagination. However, no person on that list was ever found alive. Could someone give me any famous examples of people who went missing for a long time, and then turned up alive and well? /Marxmax (talk) 00:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably the most famous recent case is Elizabeth Smart who was missing for 9 months and turned up alive and (considering) well. Blueboar (talk) 00:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The John Darwin disappearance case is also a famous recent example. --Saddhiyama (talk) 00:20, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Josef Mengele was missing as far as those who wanted him brought to justice were concerned, but all the time he was was alive and well and living it up in Paraguay and Brazil, until he very mundanely accidentally drowned while surfing. But maybe he's better classified as "in hiding" rather than "missing". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 00:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Teruo Nakamura. Another Japanese holdout soldier, Hiroo Onoda had been declared dead in 1959, and wasn't found until the 1970s. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Dr David Livingstone is possibly the most famous example of someone going missing and being found alive, surely? Sam Blacketer (talk) 00:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Can he really be considered as missing? Everyone knew where he was in general terms (East Africa)... they just didn't know exactly where. It's not like he just wandered off and disappeared one day. Blueboar (talk) 01:03, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

East Africa is a pretty big freaking place. If someone went missing, and I said "They're not missing. We're pretty sure they are in Western Europe", how is that somehow less "missing". -Jayron32 01:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Jaycee Dugard disappeared for 18 years, and was only recently found. Bielle (talk) 01:27, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

John Stonehouse, a British MP (and Soviet spy) who faked his own death, only to be discovered alive and well living in Australia (the cops apparently thought he was Lord Lucan).

Agatha Christie. (OK, so it was only 11 days.) Mitch Ames (talk) 06:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Natascha Kampusch and Jaycee Lee Dugard. Those two were kidnapped by strangers, but kidnappings within a family are far more common, and often remain unsolved until the child becomes an adult. StuRat (talk) 07:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

John Stonehouse faked his death in 1974 but was found alive a month later. We actually have a page Category:People who faked their own death with a few names. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Radovan Karadžić, although, like JackofOz's example, he wasn't exactly missing, but hiding (under a fake name and a big beard). --Kateshortforbob _talk 20:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia - when did it hapen?

Which year did she in fact separate from her spouse? The article about her is very thin. Is there nothing to say about her as a person? Was she never seen in public? --Aciram (talk) 00:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Apparently a lot of high-stakes gambling went on at Oatlands. You can see the caricaturist James Gillray's take on her wedding night at File:Fashionable contrasts james gillray.jpg... AnonMoos (talk) 12:26, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

A footnote by Vicary Gibbs in the Complete Peerage entry for her husband does contain some information about her personality: "Greville speaks of her (Memoirs, ed. Reeve, vol. i, pp. 6 ,35) as 'clever and well-informed; she likes society and dislikes all form and ceremony, but in the midst of the most familiar intercourse she always preserves a certain dignity of manner,' and again 'probably no person in such a situation was ever more really liked.' In Blackwood's Edinburgh Mag. for Feb. 1827 she is called 'a harmless but an eccentric little woman, with an extraordinary fondness for cats and dogs, some indications of the German severity of family etiquette, which gave her household the air of Potsdam, and but a slight share of those attractions which might retain the regards of a husband—young, a soldier, and a prince.' A letter from the Earl of Lauderdale to Earl Bathurst, dat. 9 Aug. 1820, shows her husband in a good light, as sincerely grieved at his wife's death and very anxious that the wishes expressed in her will (Prince Leopold and Lord Lauderdale were her Exors.) should be carried out (Hist. MSS. Com. Bathurst MSS., pp .485-6). She kept many dogs, to which and to monkeys she was greatly devoted (Cf. Greville, op. cit., vol. i, p. 6). As her father-in-law, George III, wisely remarked, 'Affection must rest on something, and where there are no children, animals are the object.'". - Nunh-huh 13:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, very interesting! This should be in the article, perhaps you would like to insert it?--Aciram (talk) 15:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

If you'd like to draft it, I'd be happy to add the appropriate references. I'm all for any mention of monkeys. - Nunh-huh 01:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, does anyone know when she separated from her husband? The article say that they separated but not when. Does anyone know? --Aciram (talk) 15:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect it's sort of nebulous; all I've seen is "shortly after marriage" (1791). Certainly by 1803-6, when her husband was conducting a fairly open affair with Mrs. Clarke. Though he seems to have had bastard children both before and after marriage.... - Nunh-huh 01:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

What is likely to have happened?

The article of Gunnel Gummeson say that many theories was put forward as to what may have happened to her when she disappeared in Afghanistan in 1956. Which theory would actually have been realistic, if we presume that she wasn't just killed? Could she have been sold to a harem? Or could she have been captured by the Soviet Union? --85.226.47.213 (talk) 00:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not our job to speculate. We can report the various theories, but we don't know which (if any) are correct. Blueboar (talk) 18:14, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, of course, but I was wondering if any of the theorys can be considered to be realistic by some one with knowledge of the cultural and political situation at the time. --85.226.47.213 (talk) 18:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Federal Governance of Washington, D.C.

PLEASE ANSWER: FOR IMPORTANT RESEARCH! What House AND/or Senate Committees have direct oversight and/or a direct impact/influence on the Governance of Washington, D.C.? PLEASE RESPOND TO EMAIL ADDRESS PROVIDED AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE. THANK YOU!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1KSolo (talk • contribs) 00:50, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Answer by email? Guess this means we shouldn't answer here. Blueboar (talk) 01:00, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm looking for the closest civilian analogs to Basic Training. Help?

I would like to join the Air Force, but I have several disqualifications from any US military branch: I'm currently on a medication (celexa), I used to have asthma and I need a lung-pulmonary test to take that DQ off the list, I'm not sure whether I've visited a therapist over 180 times since age 12 (from a rule saying something about seeing a therapist for over 6 months, so 180 days/appointment visits), and I have SPD.

I know for sure that a basic training environment for several weeks will shape me into a manlier man who practices great self-discipline and other elevated life-skills that I'd need to make it in adulthood and start a family.

Therefore, what can I look at that resembles Basic Training, but for the civilian sector? (The closer to Manhattan, KS, the better, but I'm open to options.) Thanks in advance!!! --70.179.178.5 (talk) 04:53, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... you can probably look at Outward Bound. It's not the same as basic training, but it'll get you out for 2-3 weeks hiking in the woods and practicing your physical fitness and survival skills. It'll give you a feel for how well you can handle strenuous exercise and isolation (from what I've heard from my friend in the military, you aren't exactly socializing during basic training). They won't make you cut all your hair off, though (I say this just in case you're like me; I have hair down to my shoulders, and for me it'd be traumatic to chop it all off, let alone for something I decided I didn't want to do). It's a long commitment, but maybe something worth looking into. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:31, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

At one point Electronic Data Systems had such a program (although more mental than physical), but they have since been swallowed by HP, so I doubt if they still torture recruits like that. StuRat (talk) 07:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Some team sports are highly competitive and might put you through something like basic training. Also, have you tried all other military forces ? Reserves, in particular, might have somewhat lower entry standards. StuRat (talk) 07:19, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Consider hiring someone from your nearest military base (Ft.Riley?) to do PT with you for a few hours every day. Maybe you can find someone who used to be a drill instructor. Easy money for them, you do all the work. If you don't have a military-style haircut now, go ahead and get one; it will be one less thing to worry about when you get to basic training.--Romantic Mollusk (talk) 16:46, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Join a sports group that does exercise such as jogging, cycling, rowing etc. Or join a gym. Outward Bound, as mentioned above, looks like something that is just what you want. To develop your social skills you could volunteer for doing charity work in your spare time. 92.15.7.205 (talk) 21:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Do they train police in the same manner as military? Googlemeister (talk) 19:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Name for a typical library-use desk light

• https://www.miniatureliving.co.uk/lights-table-lights/1641-library-green-desk-lamp.html

Does it have a name? -- Toytoy (talk) 05:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a banker's lamp. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 05:56, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

A search on Google for "library desk lamp" produces many images of similar lamps. 92.15.24.121 (talk) 12:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's called a "green shade." Greg Bard (talk) 07:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I've always heard it called a "banker's lamp". Dismas|^(talk) 07:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Any studies showing long term benefit / disadvantage of keeping job salary public/secret

I was wondering, what are the reasons for laws in some societies to demand public disclosure of total yearly income stated on one's own tax bill ? (Sweden is my example http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5199974&page=1).

Extra question: Many companies imply that silence is kept about ones own salary figure (towards colleagues and everyone else), what major effects would total transparency have if everybody could easily look up a co-workers salary or prospetive future employees (incl. tax paid on at least a monthly bases, maybe with a few months lag)? Are there example communitites that implements total transparency ?

Thanks 85.81.121.107 (talk) 08:44, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

There seem to be some interesting onward links in this forum discussion that might help you in your research. Karenjc 10:26, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I can think of several results:

1) Morale of highly compensated employees would go up, and that of poorly paid workers would go down. However, even the morale of the highly compensated employees might go down if the others show a visible resentment towards them.

2) Salaries would become more fair, as lower paid employees with skills equivalent or surpassing highly compensated employees would demand more money, either at that job or with a new employer. Note that government and union jobs are often "more fair", in that there is a salary schedule based on test results, seniority, job description, etc., as opposed to each employee's salary being negotiated separately.

3) Average salaries would also go up, unless the pay of overcompensated employees was cut, or those employees fired, to keep the average down.

4) There might be more class-action lawsuits for class discrimination, such as paying women or minorities less.

Note that almost all of these effects are bad for employers, but may be good for at least some employees, in the long run. StuRat (talk) 15:20, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

OP here: Thanks for the link - So from a employer POV salary transparency, I would argue, is basically bad - and for an employee POV it is good.

Those countries Norway, Sweden and Finland have transparency about income written into their laws in some form - and thus employees private and public in by proxy of the law can check a coworkers taxbill and infer said income.

So my first question - Why is there laws in some societies demand public disclosure of total yearly income stated on one's own tax bill - I guess it's because of the voting power of the "people" that got politicians elected, which then introduced these transparency laws by power of majority in their parlament/govermental institutions.

And my inferences is then that because there is a lot more people who do want this transparency =(middle and lower social class most likely to be employed) vs. the amount of people who would like to have income censoring =(upper clas and employers) - The majority got their way.

And then StuRats points start to become the next level reasoning / effect of transparency / secrecy.

But again if somebody know what I kind of numbers / figures that would be able to measure any kind of delta between before and after introduction of salary/income transparency that I should search for in studies of the befoer and after effects I'd be happy.

I'd like to be able to present some facts for my reasoning when discussing the issue with other people.

85.81.121.107 (talk) 17:48, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I grew up in a small government town. 90% of adults were employed on highly public wage or salary levels. The rare exceptions were shopkeepers, doctors and church leaders. It worked fine. When I grew up and left town it took me years to get over the paranoid secrecy I encountered about salaries. Couldn't understand it really. HiLo48 (talk) 19:27, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Bo's brother, Rico

I'm interested in finding out what Bo's brother, Rico, looks like. Is he pure black?24.90.204.234 (talk) 08:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Since you haven't really provided any context as to what in the world you're talking about, I don't know if this link will help you at all. If that first link is not what you're talking about, here is another Bo/Rico pair and it appears that Rico is a black and white dog. If I'm wrong, could you explain to all of us who "Bo" and "Rico" are? Dismas|^(talk) 09:14, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

You're wrong about the second pair. Rico is the brother of Bo (dog), who happens to be the First Dog. The first link only provides a head shot of Rico. Is the rest of him pure black?24.90.204.234 (talk) 13:28, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

White female captives of Native Americans

Last night I watched Dances With Wolves which featured a white woman adopted by the Sioux tribe. Many westerns show white female captives. My question is were there many incidents of white women raised by Indians? There are two famous cases of white female captives such as Cynthia Ann Parker (adopted by the Comanches) and Josephine Meeker. The latter, however, was not adopted by the Utes who had taken her prisoner, and she left them when the army rescued her. Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Eunice Kanenstenhawi Williams -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Mary Jemison. Staecker (talk) 13:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I read an account of white girls taken by Indians during the American colonial era. White people viewed them as heinous kidnappings but the Native Americans just seemed to want to replace members of their tribe killed by the colonists. Growing up I feared such a fate, as worse than death. Times were not as politcally correct as now. The actual accounts show the families reuniting accidentally sometimes many years later. Contrary to all my expectations, the norm was for the "kidnapped" white victim to stay with her adopted Indian family. Often, they were abused less by Native American society than by the European society. Children were not treated the same way as now. Time after time, after no coercion existed, the person chose their "captors." Rape was not as widespread as I imagined. Another factor probably was the stigma the person would encounter trying to rejoin white society. Again, this ran against all my racist expectations.75Janice (talk) 15:07, 8 January 2011 (UTC)75Janice.

In the 1862 "Sioux uprising" or Dakota War in Minnesota, 107 whites and numerous mixed blood captives were taken to the Sioux camps. Men were killed outright and not taken as prisoners, so far more than half the captives were female. They were released after several weeks when the Sioux were defeated by the US Army and militias. Here is an account of Mrs. Wakefield's experience as a captive in that war for 6 weeks. Here is more about Mrs. Wakefield. The captives were basically adopted into the Sioux households. Edison (talk) 20:46, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Because many children taken as captives had been adopted into Native families, their forced return often resulted in emotional scenes, as depicted in this engraving based on a painting by Benjamin West.

Cynthia Ann Parker. Corvus cornix_talk 05:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Ahem, she's already in the question, Cc... WikiDao ☯ 05:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

That was the first example mentioned in the question. (I almost missed it and added it too!) —Kevin Myers 06:04, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoops. That's what I get for skimming.  :) Corvus cornix_talk 22:03, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Links you might want to check out are captivity narrative and captives in Native Americans's wars. Also, Google "mourning war", which we don't have an article about yet. Mourning wars were the raids some Native American cultures undertook in response to the loss of loved ones. Captives taken during the raids would be tortured to death (to avenge a lost relative) or adopted (to replace a loved one). Often a child captive would witness the brutal deaths of their families before being adopted, such as in Mary Jemison's experience. I suppose many children adopted under such circumstances probably experienced a type of Stockholm syndrome, though scholars of the subject don't seem to use this term very often. Adult adoptions of whites rarely lasted; with children it often worked. But white societies usually demanded the return of white captives, a point of dispute in many conflicts, such as in Pontiac's War (see image).

Native Americans of the colonial era did not consider "race" to be an essential part of one's identity, and so it made no difference if the captive was Indian or white (most were Indians of other tribes). For example, there was no such thing as a "full blooded" Mohawk; by 1700, a high percentage of Mohawks were descendants of captives, since the Mohawks had lost so much population to European diseases and used adoption to sustain their numbers. I'm not sure if we can ever determine how many white females were raised by Native Americans, but there were probably many. Was Madame Montour, the famous interpreter, a white woman raised by Indians? Maybe. Was Alexander McKee's mother a white woman raised by Indians? Probably. These are just a couple examples that spring to mind. If any scholar has tried to come up with a number, I'm not aware of it. —Kevin Myers 06:04, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The earliest famous example of a white woman captured by Indians was Mary Rowlandson; her account titled The Sovereignty and Goodness of God is considered one of the earliest female-penned works in American history. A very notable case. --Jayron32 19:27, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, the question is about white women raised by Indians, not just captured by them. —Kevin Myers 20:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

In that case, one speculative example may be of the colonists at Roanoke Colony. One speculative proposal for what happened is that the colonists resettled and intermarried with the Croatan, such stories populate the history of the modern Lumbee. --Jayron32 01:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know how much European mtDNA is present in modern Native Americans, especially those of the western tribes such as the Sioux. There may hsve been many captives who were never recorded.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:34, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

A number of Native Americans have been reluctant to participate in such studies; see Genographic Project. —Kevin Myers 02:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

What can you analyze about this essay?

It's about leaving the US to escape the ravages of the country. Would you like to examine each reason and give your thoughts on them? (I can't use a quotebox so I'll have to superscript it.)

1. The US Debt is over $14T now. I know deep in my heart that with this debt, the US can't sustain itself indefinitely, so something has got to give. The country/government will disintegrate sooner or later, and I don't want to be caught up in the fallout.

2. In East Asia, if I can't find other jobs, at least I'll always have an English-tutoring job to fall back on. English tutors are in high demand in that region, and the demand will only get higher.

3. The East Asian countries I consider living in have better environmental practices. (Mandated recycling, et al.)

4. Their mass-transit system is far better than what we have in Manhattan, Kansas.

5. Select East Asian countries have technology that is years ahead of our own. (Watching TV on phones, swiping a phone like a credit card to make a purchase; known as "Osaifu-Keitai" in Japan, et al.)

6. I'm tired of long grudges borne by fellow Americans. Why should anyone still hate me for what I did in Kindergarten? Or any other time so far in the past that I have matured well beyond those tendencies by now? Why keep holding grudges when there is no longer anything to hold a grudge for? I even hear of grudges being carried to the grave. I truly hope that once in East Asia, I'll no longer have to put up with such agonizingly long grudges.

7. A few too many friendships seem to end at the drop of a trucking hat. I hope never to put up with this either once I move to East Asia.

8. Since environmental initiatives enjoy greater attention by select East Asian governments, starting my own environmentally-oriented organization/business/etc. ought to earn me some subsidies and grants.

9. I seem to feel greater sparks when intermingling with East Asian women, especially Korean. I suppose that being 1/2-Korean has something to do with this.

10. The American medical care situation is thoroughly out of control. Not only is getting medical insurance expensive and a convoluted process, the bills for certain procedures are so high, I can get a 1st-class round-trip ticket to an East Asian country, a 5-star hotel stay for a week, a private driver with a luxury rental car, 5-star restaurant meals, other touristy attractions, AND the procedure for LESS than the cost of just the procedure in the US.

11. The cost of living is quite a bit less in most East Asian countries than it is here.

12. Better diet practices in East Asia contribute to the overall better health, lower medical costs, and longer life expectancy than in the US.

13. I felt happier in certain East Asian countries whenever I visited there, than while I've lived in America.

14. There are still a lot of unsaved souls to reach out to in East Asia. I must spread the Gospel to them in order to get them on a path to a better life and afterlife.

15. I can celebrate twice as many holidays! (American and local!)

So, how does it sound to you? --70.179.178.5 (talk) 09:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you should specify exactly which countries you have in mind first - "East Asian countries" is kinda broad. I'm sure you have one or two specific countries in mind - for instance, re: your No 4 - last time I heard, the Mongolian public transit system wasn't all that great and re: No 2, as far as I know, there isn't much demand for English tutors in the Philippines, so I assume Mongolia or the Philippines aren't on your list? Other than that, I'd just like to say something on No 14: Don't, please. Just... don't. TomorrowTime (talk) 10:42, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

2. Are you any good as a teacher? Just speaking the language doesn't mean you'll be a natural at tutoring, even in places where English tutors are in demand (which is not everywhere). If you're serious about moving and tutoring is a real possibility, consider gaining a TEFL/TESOL qualification.

5. Do more advanced gadgets and gimmicks truly equate to a better lifestyle? (It's a matter of opinion; just asking.)

14 You're looking for a new start, with good friendships and no friction from past disagreements. And you're proposing to pitch up in someone else's country, label those who don't share your religious preferences as "unsaved souls", and try to persuade them to drop their beliefs and share yours instead, because you're right and they aren't? Good luck on the no-friction thing. Karenjc 10:45, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

1, 5-7, 9-13, and 15 all seem to be motivated by a desire to seek greater comfort, while 14 expresses a selfless desire to be evangelical. I don't know much about religion, but I thought missionaries were supposed to endure all sorts of hardships (perhaps the more, the better) in their efforts to bring enlightenment to the savages? So far as comfort goes, the article Gemütlichkeit makes me want to move to Germany, which might also be a comfortable destination for evangelists. 81.131.12.113 (talk) 12:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the word you're looking for is evangelistic (i.e. wishing to spread a message) rather than evangelical (i.e. believing in the Bible as supreme authority). Your interpretation of the name of the Evangelical Church in Germany as having to do with evangelism underlines that you have them confused. Marnanel (talk) 15:34, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, yes I do. Thought something there didn't quite add up. 81.131.68.97 (talk) 23:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

What do I think? Hm. I think: 1) The national debt is not necessarily a matter for particular worry, although I suppose the deficit may be. 2) But are you any good at language tutoring? 3) fair enough. 4) Several American cities have passably good mass transit. So does Helsinki. 5) So does Helsinki. 6) America is a big, big place. Move to San Francisco or New York and you'll never see them again. 7) I don't understand your grounds for thinking people in East Asia treat friendships in this way. 8) much the same as 3. 9) your call, not mine, but they may object to being fetishised. 10) Well, yes. 11) True, but this is true of places in the US as well and many, many other places in the world. 12) See 11. 13) People often feel happier on holiday than in ordinary life. Ordinary life catches up to you if you move there. 14) What makes you think there aren't unsaved souls right where you are? 15) You can celebrate them where you are if you want. Marnanel (talk) 15:42, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

It's wrong to call it an essay. Essays do not consist of numbered points, but generally have several paragraphs making up an introduction, body, and conclusion. It is also too informally written for an essay. 92.15.24.121 (talk) 16:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Other then what's been said I would point out 1) You don't seem to have considered what wages you would expect. If your expected wage is a smaller in comparison to the proportion of the cost of living in whatever countries you're considering, that doesn't help (make things better then wherever else) unless you have savings. 2) You don't seem to have considered whether you have any hope of working legally in whatever your target countries are. 3) In terms of number 14, people have already mentioned it being a bad idea but this isn't just an ethical thing. In some countries it may be illegal so you could even find yourself fined or jailed for trying (more likely you'll just be deported).

BTW are you sure all of your numbered points apply to all countries you're considering? It's a bit irrelevant if the cost of living in China is low if you want to move to Korea for the women and higher life expectancy. And there are plenty of other things to consider. E.g. if you're worried about being discriminated against because of unstraightened teeth, be aware protections for discrimination for things like race and religion may be more limited in some of the countries you're considering.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:50, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

You are certainly trying to justify a major life course correction. I think you have some good reasons to move elsewhere. You must keep in mind though what life will give you when you have finalized all decisions. Will you even make new friends? Will you even find a suitable mate? Will you be high on the experiences and then slump into depression? This sort of reminds me of Revolutionary Road (although I only saw the movie), wherein a family decides to pick up and move to where their dreams are taking them, but fear stops them and disaster follows.
The important thing to remember is the difference between the fantasy and reality. Cliché, yes, but the grass is not always greener on the other side. On the other hand do not let the illusion of "I just couldn't" stop you. schyler (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The editor has posted pretty much the same questions at the Humanities desk. Basically, he wants to move, thinking it will be better somewhere else. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Different calendars in use in modern times?

I'm curious of if any alternate calendars are used in modern times? For example Ramadan and the Chinese New Year are celebrated according to the corresponding calendars, but are these calendars in regular use? Or is the gregorian calendar adopted worldwide? My belief is that the gregorian is de facto in use for fiscal years etc., but for day-to-day use, are there any alternatives? 95.80.22.142 (talk) 19:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

According to our article on the Julian calendar "The Julian calendar is still used by the Berber people of North Africa, and on Mount Athos." However, I don't think that represents a significant number of people. APL (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Not the entire calendar per se, but there is this: Orthodox New Year (that also means the Orthodox Christmas is shifted, in fact it was two or three days ago). TomorrowTime (talk) 22:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

How calendar-y a calendar are you looking for? The Chinese, Islamic, Jewish, and Christian calendars (both the western and Orthodox variants) are all in very widespread use, but usually in combination with the Gregorian calendar rather than independently. Marnanel (talk) 22:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, and maybe some others, still use the Julian calendar for church purposes. Or, a version of it that isn't precisely the same as the Julian calendar but close enough not to quibble too much about. Hence, Russian Christmas was held only a couple of days ago, 13 days after when everyone else celebrated it (c Рождеством!).

Orthodox Easter is also usually on a different date than Western Easter, but in that case it's not just a matter of delaying it by 13 days (because then you'd end up with Easter Sunday being held on a Saturday) - the whole basis of calculating the date in the first place is different. Sometimes the 2 celebrations coincidentally coincide (if I can be so redundant). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Old Calendarists... AnonMoos (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

When the Orthodox eventually celebrate Christmas around the time the Volga starts its spring thaw, they might wise up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:34, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The Thai solar calendar is different. Category:Specific calendars lists more. Astronaut (talk) 19:43, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Marilyn Monroe sex tape

A short video was released showing a woman having sex who was said to be Marilyn Monroe. [7] Is it really Marilyn Monroe? Her face does not look like Monroe. I found two references [8][9] Is there any confirming source? --Neptune 123 (talk) 19:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

This might be obvious, but if it was Monroe, it would look like Monroe. Therefore, if it doesn't look like Monroe, then it isn't. 87.91.6.33 (talk) 22:35, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

She looks different in her earlier photos. And she did do nude modelling even while a succesful actress. 92.15.7.205 (talk) 23:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The quality of that video isn't very good but I could easily imagine it looking like a young Norma Jean Baker, before she became Marilyn Monroe. Her hair is different and her eyebrows are not cared for and her makeup is sloppy and she is a little heavier, but the nose is very similar, as are the eyes. Compare with other younger photos of her, not the dolled up blond phase. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! That clarification does help. --Neptune 123 (talk) 06:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Uh, I don't think the Youtube video is related to the ref. It was released in early 2007. The refs are 'breaking news' from 2008 and describe a video sold for US$1.5 million showing a woman performing oral sex on a man who's face is not visible, neither of which appear to be true for the Youtube video... Nil Einne (talk) 14:09, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Almost certainly a fake, probably made from two sources: a mildly tittilating (for the era) film of a women perhaps in her mid-30s, who doesn't even look like Marilyn; and later a short clip of someone, who could be a young Marilyn Monroe, performing some vaguely suggestive movements. I see no reason to think that the first half has anything to do with the second half.

Remember, so called sex tapes of various celebrities can be found all over the internet, along with porn images with celebrities' heads photoshopped onto someone else's body. Astronaut (talk) 19:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone find the originals of the sources? 92.15.3.168 (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe she is Arline Hunter--TrogWoolley (talk) 09:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Tamil Muslim language

This Sri Lankan man says that he speaks Tamil Muslim language and it is different from the real Tamil language. What is it really? Arwi? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.41.201 (talk) 20:22, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Islam in Sri Lanka says "Until the recent past, the Moors employed Arwi as their mother tongue, though this is also extinct as a spoken language. Currently, the Moors in the east of Sri Lanka use Tamil as their primary language which includes many loan words from Arabic." --Soman (talk) 22:38, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Community service

I've received an invitation to the National Honor Society, which requires community service as a part of membership. I have an account at Wikipedia (in my native language); does editing Wikipdia count as community service? Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 21:43, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Nobody but the National Honor Society can say what the National Honor Society believes is really community service. However, let me tell you a story. I'm a member of the GNOME project. A few years ago, one of our contributors got into a car crash, as a result of which he was sentenced to 180 hours of community service. He successfully fulfilled this by working on GNOME[10]. Since GNOME is free software, and Wikipedia is free content, this may be a useful precedent in arguing your case to the Society. Let us know how you get on! Marnanel (talk) 22:28, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Note, however, that it won't be any overarching "National Honor Society" deciding what's acceptable, but rather the individual leaders of your local chapter. You should seek them out, and ask them what would be acceptable community service. I had a friend whose chapter leader in charge of community service was a bit of a Nazi no, not really. Yes, that's hyperbole. No, she didn't murder twelve million civilians. Yes, some people find Nazi references offensive. If you're one of those people, suck it up. Community service was very narrowly defined, making a number of members quite irritated with the whole program. I imagine that other chapters are much more lenient. There's nothing we can do in that regard, other than direct you to talk to the person who is in control of such requirements. Buddy431 (talk) 22:58, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Employees choose own salary and hours

As described here: Maverick (book). I find this difficult to believe. Is it really true? How does the owner get a profit? 92.15.7.205 (talk) 22:59, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

By the workers recognising that the company has to at least break even? And that their very beneficial working conditions and salaries depend on everybody's reasonableness? There probably also is a strong social component - if you are too greedy, your co-workers will shun you. And, of course, I believe that if you look closer, you will find that it's not quite as simple as walking in and demanding a million a month. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be the flip side of restaurants where there are no set prices and customers pay only what they think the meal was worth - like this example. Last I heard, however, Shanakas were on very shaky ground, financially. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:49, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that isn't a very good article. It doesn't seem to have any sources other than the book itself. I wouldn't be surprised if the book doesn't tell the whole story. --Tango (talk) 12:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

If the staff have to state a salary and hours at the interview stage, then the management can pick and choose. The jobs I've had in the past involved negotiating a salary, but not the hours, at interview. There are one or two other examples where people paid whatever they liked to download music, or where people work for free on freeware or Wikipedia. 92.15.24.111 (talk) 16:17, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I think the employees are the ones who make hiring decisions (based on my fuzzy half-recollection of a news story on Semco I saw a few years ago). Though it's fairly likely salary+working conditions are discussed during the process anyway. --superioridad ^(discusión) 22:35, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

In reality, employees "must consider what they think they can make elsewhere; what others with similar skills and responsibilities make in the company; what friends with similar backgrounds make and how much they need to live on." It is not that they can demand a crazy amount of money or just more and more each month. Quest09 (talk) 11:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Even so, if they were able to change their salary and hours as they go, then there would be an overwhelming urge to inflate their salaries and deflate their hours. I think the section of the article you have quoted is saying what should ideally happen rather than what does happen. I'd still like to know more about the actual precise details of the proceedure for determining the salary. 92.15.3.168 (talk) 20:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Jacksonville, Florida city map with borders

Is there a website where they show the borders of Jacksonville, Florida? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.151.20 (talk) 23:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Like this ? [11]. StuRat (talk) 23:39, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

January 9

Walmart statistics

I'm looking for a website that shows how many Chinese goods Wal-Mart consumes on a yearly bases and how it effects the U.S. economy (either good or bad). I would also like to find out how much Chinese goods Wal-Mart consumes compared to other international companies. Thank you. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Walmart doesn't consume any Chinese goods (except for a small amount for overhead). Walmart resells Chinese goods, and if they didn't someone else would. It's the people buying the goods that consume them. So it's kind of pointless to look at walmart in isolation here. As for the economy, Chinese goods (in general, not just WalMart) have two effects: It lets people buy things that they otherwise couldn't. This raises the standard of living for the entire US. It also means there is a smaller market for US manufacturing which makes it harder to find jobs - but simultaneously with that, the existence of cheap goods means that US job hunters don't need as much money from a job as they otherwise would. It's up to you to decide what is good and bad here. Ariel. (talk) 01:51, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Like, for example, whether the ongoing demolition of the middle class is a good thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:22, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The consensus view of economists is that free trade is a good thing as everyone is better off in the long run, unlike protectionism or beggar thy neighbour. Study the article comparative advantage to see why. 92.15.24.111 (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Basically dumbing-down our own economy and building up the economy of places that couldn't care less about us. Hence the spread of WalMarts, since that's all anyone will be able to afford as time goes on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Methinks you have not read the comparative advantage article. 92.15.24.111 (talk) 16:44, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

But what if one nation (China) can build everything cheaper than another, due to lack of safety and environmental regulations, slave labor, currency manipulation, etc. ? Or, when they do want something from the other nation, what if they just steal it, via copyright infringement ? Will trade balance out under these conditions ? StuRat (talk) 04:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If china damages the US economy too much people in the US don't have money to buy from them. So the trade always reaches a balance. Some people don't like where the balance ends up though. But China's economy is heavily dependent on the US, and there is a limit to how far they can tip the balance. Ariel. (talk) 04:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if that limit is when the US trade deficit means they can't pay their debts and default, causing a worldwide depression, not many people would be happy with that result. StuRat (talk) 05:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand. The trade is always at the limit. There is no upper limit that can be reached, the trade always operates at the maximum for the current moment. Take a look at the dramatic effect of the current US recession. Ariel. (talk) 06:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that illustrates what I was talking about nicely. The US came close to going into another Great Depression, and this only had the effect of cutting the trade deficit in half. To actually end the trade deficit would likely have required exactly that, which most people would find to be an unacceptable solution. StuRat (talk) 22:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Right, Bugs, so by putting pressure on people to be better educated and thus have more skilled jobs (since the unskilled jobs are in China) how, exactly, is that dumbing down? Many people who are layed off from factory jobs end up at community colleges or other places getting training for jobs that DO exist. Exactly how is this dumbing down? --Jayron32 01:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the idea is that the high-tech manufacturing jobs will all be replaced by people working at McDonalds, and, of course, stocking shelves at Walmart. StuRat (talk) 04:06, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

To answer what you said abouve STU "But what if one nation (China) can build everything cheaper than another". Check out the article on comparative advantage and you will see that the ability to produce something cheaply on its own does not determine whos its producer will likely be. Also an understanding of division of labour and departmentalization (what Adams Smith called specialisation show that such a situation is improbable. To put comparative advantage simply, the import of cheap chinese goods frees up American labour to produce more complex (and in time valuable) goods.58.106.30.147 (talk) 06:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

...which would only happen if the Chinese were then willing to buy those goods, in return, to balance the trade deficit. So far they have shown no willingness to do so. There are various ways to close their markets to foreigners (except for token quantities), and they employ many of them. The theory starts with the assumption of total free trade, and that's not the real situation here. The Chinese will just copy the complex goods made in the US, instead.

Another balancing force which will eventually happen, is that the Chinese standard of living will rise to the point where they no longer are willing to work as slave labor. This is essentially what happened with cheap Japanese goods in the 1960s and 70s. However, the Chinese population is so much larger, that the US will likely go bankrupt long before this happens. StuRat (talk) 22:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

One of the main problems with trade data is that it counts as an import the entire value of the product, regardless of how much was made where. The Wall St Journal has an op-ed that says the Made-in-China value of an iPhone is US$6.50, and that the rest of the value should not be attributed to bilateral trade. Makes sense. Moreover, since 54% of China's exports are made by foreign-invested companies, there is going to be a big problem separating what is "made by China" from what is "made in China." Further, any consideration of what Wal-Mart (et al) sells is going to have to consider the impact on consumer purchasing power. One estimate puts it at something around US$400 per US family. And, no one shops at Wal-Mart (et al) because they don't like the selection at Saks Fifth Avenue. They shop their for the low prices. Why abuse thrifty shoppers?DOR (HK) (talk) 09:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

While I agree with free trade in principle, one problem with free markets is externalisation of costs. If some people get to use a shared resource (like the oceans or the atmosphere) without paying for it, while others don't, the market gets distorted. One way to overcome this is, of course, to lift environmental regulation and similar restrictions. But that way lies the tragedy of the commons. The alternative is to level the playing field by artificially compensating for the externalised costs. This alternative is, of course, prone to political misuse, but its still better than thrashing the planet in a competition to have the lowest nominal production costs. And a third alternative is to accept the imbalance, and to live with the fact that others may gain quality of life faster than we do, hoping that as the economic differences level off, so will the acceptance of environmental degradation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

desert rats

sir i have a great friend . his name is des ( dixie ) warner . des turned 92 on the 19 th november 2010. a remarkable old man . i play golf with him every wednesday at crown mines golf course in johannesburg . des was a desert rat in the 2 nd world war .he was in th 7 th armoured division . i need to know the following ;

i have got an actual letter of an invertation to all the rats in that division to attend a reunion in 1985 . having gone through all the names i saw the name harry openheimer i have not seen des yet to ask him about my question . is this harry oppenheimer the kimberly diamond ( de beers ) chairman . was harry o a desert rat . did he fight in the world war , with des warner . what can you come up with here .

gary gailey —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.135.159.2 (talk) 05:49, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Our article on Harry Oppenheimer mentions De Beers but doesn't say anything about the War years. It also has this external link (click here), though, which may have more information. Sorry, I should have checked first: that appears to be a dead link. WikiDao ☯ 06:26, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

According to Time magazine Harry Oppenheimer of De Beers was in the Desert Rats. --Antiquary (talk) 13:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

From this page: "The 4th SA Armd Car Regt was awarded the famous Desert Rat Emblem for it’s role in the the 4th Recce battalion “Desert Rats”. Of interest, Lt Harry Oppenheimer, later Chairman of the Anglo American Corporation served as an officer in this unit until July 1942 when he was posted back to South Africa." Alansplodge (talk) 17:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The Royal Park in the UK and The Crown

Are the Royal Parks in the UK still (technically) owned by the Royal Family/The Crown or are they public property? --CGPGrey (talk) 12:43, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe they are owned by the Crown Estate. That's a little different to being owned by the monarch themselves. The monarch is more of a trustee than an owner. --Tango (talk) 12:53, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. They are part of the crown estate, which itself is part of The Crown. Thank you. This now leads me to my next question... --CGPGrey (talk) 14:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

It's worth noting that when something is 'public property' in the UK, that normally means it is formally owned by the Crown, and the Crown Estate is the institution set up to administer the land owned by the Crown. So in effect the original question is a "distinction without a difference". Some land which people think of as public property is owned by local authorities of various kinds. However the Royal Parks are not managed by the Crown Estate, but by the Royal Parks Agency (which has a crown on its logo, incidentally). Sam Blacketer (talk) 18:05, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Though when it comes down to it, there isn't much land that isn't. Marnanel (talk) 22:08, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Properties of The Crown that use a crown in their logo?

The Royal Parks has a crown in its logo. Are there any other Crown properties that also use crown? --CGPGrey (talk) 14:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Ascot Racecourse does too. the wub "?!" 15:03, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Regent Street may not have a crown in the logo, but the name clearly implies who the landlord was. The logo is a simple R, which also may stand for rex or regina. Those of a sarcastic mind will appreciate the motto "...where time is always well spent". --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

"Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand." - Baruch Spinoza

What is the original text that this quote comes from? I'd like to see it in context. Thanks 92.15.24.111 (talk) 15:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Allowing for the different possible ways of translating Spinoza's Latin I think your quotation is probably from the first chapter of his unfinished Tractatus Politicus, or Political Treatise. In A. H. Gosset's translation it goes "I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions". You can find the full context here. --Antiquary (talk) 17:16, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, the quote appears to be a gross distortion of the true text. 92.15.24.111 (talk) 18:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Pathology of confusing "you" with "me"

some developmental disorders cause people to have difficulty telling the difference between "you" and "me", what do you call this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.219.112 (talk) 16:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I've taken the liberty of adding a heading to your question, so as to separate it from the one above. Hope you get an answer. --Antiquary (talk) 17:09, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Traditionally, people affected by Broca's aphasia are said to have general difficulty with "function words" and grammatical particles... AnonMoos (talk)

Theory of mind contains some useful information on this question. Karenjc 18:25, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

This is called pronoun reversal and it is most commonly associated with autism. Looie496 (talk) 18:32, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

And it can be extraordinarily difficult to break out of; I remember when I went through it (I'm PDD-NOS). I was 3-4, and it took a tremendous amount of speech therapy to fix. It's very strange; I knew the difference between individual people (he/she was never a problem), but when I was speaking about I/you it was like asking a red-green colorblind person what the color of grass is; I just couldn't tell the difference. And what really confounded my parents is that I could tell the difference when reading (I started reading before I turned 2), but I couldn't carry it over to conversation. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Ulster Volunteer Force

Would anyone happen to know under which UVF brigade the town of Omagh in County Tyrone would have come under in the 1970s? I would guess that the Mid-Ulster brigade led (after July 1975) by Robin Jackson controlled it, but I have never seen anything which specified Omagh and the surrounding area as having come under Jackson's jurisdiction. Thank you. I need the info for an article I'm currently working on.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC).

I've done some research but have been unable to come up with anything firm. There are some mentions of a Tyrone group (not specifically referred to as a brigade) existing in the late 1960s and early 1970s; whether this came under the jurisdiction of the Mid Ulster brigade, and when it ceased to exist as a distinct group, I can't tell. Warofdreams talk 16:39, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

So far Iv'e come up with zero. I recall hearing of a UVF group which operated in the Tyrone/Fermanagh area in the 1970s. I read about them in an old Belfast Newsletter in regards to a spate of killings and attacks in the Omagh area in the mid-1970s. If I still lived in Dublin I'd go into the National Library and check out the old Belfast Newsletters. I am wondering if the local commander was one of the Somerville brothers. The Mid-Ulster brigade did operate in Tyrone, but they don't seem to have done much around Omagh.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Travelling with children

I've recently watched season 6 of Weeds (TV series) and on two occasions I noticed the Botwins were asked for additional documentation in order to be allowed to take the baby (Stevie) out of the United States: When trying to flee to Canada, the border guard asked for the baby's birth certificate; and at Detroit, now in posession of (fake) Icelandic passports, they were asked if they had the mother's permission (Nancy having being delayed - caught by Esteban - getting to the airport). It got me wondering, is it normal for TSA (or border guards) to request such additional documentation when travelling with children? Why were birth certificates/letters of authorization not requested for the teenage boys? What happens if you are a single parent or divorced? Astronaut (talk) 21:05, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Have you checked out the website of the CBSA? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 21:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

(OR again, sorry:) Yes, it is. I travelled with a twelve-year-old (my daughter, a US citizen) from the US to the UK last year, and I had to get a letter of authorisation from her mother in order to get her a passport in the first place. I carried it with me in case some border guard asked further questions. I think they're worried about non-custodial parents kidnapping their child. Marnanel (talk) 22:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not know the television programme which triggered the question. If the first border guard is the one letting the characters into Canada, this is would be the CBSA referred to above, the Canada Border Services Agency. I am given to understand that the Canadian authorities take the issue of International child abduction (usually the kidnapping of a child by one of its parents, in the aftermath of a messy custody battle) very seriously indeed. If, however, this border guard is the one permitting individuals to leave the United States -- and I was not aware that there is such a need -- then perhaps the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act would be relevant. Discussion on forums such as this one backs up my assertion that the Canadian authorities are stricter on this matter than some visiting Americans are prepared for. NiagaraThisWeek explains how the CBSA highlighted National Missing Children's Day here. See also the CBSA page on "Our Missing Children", and the Our Missing Children site itself. This New York Times article "Stroller, Diapers, Paperwork" and its comments provide more examples of the precautions to be taken before taking children across international borders. BrainyBabe (talk) 12:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

industrial cleaning'

what are the uncommon but effective tips for industrial cleaning41.217.65.10 (talk) 21:22, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Whatever your teacher or textbook in whatever class assigned this homework assignment said they are? --Jayron32 01:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Industrial cleaning of what ? Floors ? Dishes ? Trucks ? StuRat (talk) 03:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Mexican chocolate in UK

Are "Abuelita" or "Ibarra" chocolate tablets available in the UK? If not, is there some other Mexican-style hot chocolate product available there? LANTZY^TALK 21:38, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I see Ibarra is available at http://www.mexgrocer.co.uk Dmcq (talk) 21:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but I should have been more specific: Is it available in shops? If I had a sudden urge for Mexican chocolate, could I run to the local whatever and have a prayer of finding it? LANTZY^TALK 22:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall ever seeing it, or anything similar. What is 'Mexican-style hot chocolate' like anyway? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The tablets have a gritty texture like pumice, and are laced with various spices, most prominently cinnamon, but also aniseed, chilies, and vanilla. You dump boiling water on the chunks and stir it until the tablets have dissolved. That's your basic Mexican hot chocolate. It's spicier than gringo hot chocolate, more highly caffeinated, and less cloying. It can probably be made from scratch, but I've never attempted it. I've always just bought the little hexagonal yellow boxes. It's very common in the US, to the point that you sometimes find monolingual Anglo packaging. LANTZY^TALK

Sounds interesting. I'd think from the existence of the website that you might be unlikely to find it in many places - they wouldn't be selling things online that were easily obtainable elsewhere. You might find a shop or two in London that would stock it - there are all sorts of wonderful specialist food shops, if you know where to look. Here's another online source of Mexican goods, though I don't know if they have your Hot Chocolate: [12] AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:00, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Typing "homemade mexican hot chocolate" into Google turned up many recipes, including this one and this one and this one. I can't see any ingredients you cannot get in Britain and keep on hand in case you have a major urge. --Jayron32 01:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yum. I may try that. Just right for a cold winters day (though presumably the Mexicans think otherwise - or does the Mexican desert get cold at night?). AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Far as I know, it does. And if the specified candy is unavailable, just take a Hershey or Nestle bar and coat it with Tabasco Sauce, and you should get the same effect, ¿sí? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I doubt it Bugs. Tabasco has vinegar and salt in it, which probably would not go well with chocolate like chilies themselves. Googlemeister (talk) 17:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Back to the original question - no, I've never seen any. I'm sure there must be some Mexicans in London, but they keep a low profile. You'll also be lucky to find a Mexican restaurant away from the West End. Alansplodge (talk) 18:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't astonish me, but I thought it conceivable that this product might have made it to Britain even without the assistance of Mexican propagators. Other Mexican things have. FYI, Googlemeister: while Bugs' specific suggestion of mixing milk chocolate and Tabasco is not likely to yield anything halfway palatable, it is nevertheless true that a bit of salt greatly enhances the flavor of chocolate. Especially when paired with a little bit of lime juice. LANTZY^TALK 00:23, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Rote memorizing in US vs UK pedagogy

In the US, it's fairly common for schoolchildren to learn the names of all the presidents, and perhaps nothing else about them, and then go through life with a dim memory of Millards and Rutherfords and no notion of the order in which they came or what was their significance. It's even more common to memorize the fifty states and their capital cities. Both of these procedures are often facilitated by mnemonic songs. I must have learned three "president songs" by the time I finished elementary school, of course not including Jonathan Coulton's "The Presidents", which is far and away the best. My question is this: Is there any such practice in British pedagogy? Are children ever required to memorize the names of prime ministers and subnational entities, perhaps ceremonial counties? Or is British education less listomaniacal? What about in Canada, Australia, etc? What about anywhere else, for that matter? LANTZY^TALK 21:57, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Time was, children had to learn the names and accession dates of all the kings since the Conqueror, but not for a long time. Growing up in the UK, I certainly never had to learn any sort of dataset in this way except the times tables (at which I was terrible, and this kept me in the bottom maths group for around a year). Marnanel (talk) 22:01, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

To put it another way: if I relied on only school for my knowledge, the only British geography I would know would be the borders of the four countries and basic terminology, and some local stuff; the only Kings and Queens I would know would be the ones associated with 1066, the Civil War, and the Tudors. Oh, and Victoria. And even these things were not rote learnt. Times tables were rote learnt, some language learning was rote, and that's it (except for some drilling of key phrases before GCSEs!). 86.163.214.50 (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Is it true the Times once had a headline reading, "Fog in Channel - Continent Cut Off"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It is, but I don't see how that is relevant here. Did you mean to create a new section? I learnt more European geography at school than British geography, almost entirely in history and language lessons. 86.163.214.50 (talk) 16:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

My mum had to learn the Divorced, beheaded, died; Divorced beheaded survived reminder in school in the 60s but I think that's about it. Nanonic (talk) 22:37, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

The fact that people remember the mnemonic Willy, Willy, Harry, Stee tends to indicate that people did have to learn Monarchs by rote. Prime Ministers don't seem to have been regarded as important enough to learn. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:42, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

A useful source for many of those educational rhymes is Simon Brett's Faber Book of Useful Verse, if you have access to a copy. --Antiquary (talk) 22:54, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

As others above had said, the only things I had to learn by rote was the times table, nothing else. I was taught nothing about kings or prime ministers, and certainly no lists. 92.24.185.51 (talk) 23:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

In Canada you would have a difficult time finding anyone who could name all the Prime Ministers. I certainly never learned a catchy mnemonic for them. (I might be able to name them all, but then, I am a giant nerd.) I think people generally know the provinces and territories, but there are only 13 of them (capitals are a different story). The only Canadian-ish thing I can remember learning by a mnemonic is the Great Lakes. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:22, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I have to say that by the time I went to school in the U.S., such rote memorization was no longer popular, at least not in "progressive" communities. I mean, we still had spelling, multiplication tables and vocabulary words, but memorizing all of the presidents would have seemed silly. And now that I think about it, we did have game-show-like contests in fifth grade in which we were challenged to name the capital of a given state as quickly as we could, but we were never required to read out all 50 at a time. I do remember that a teacher at another school, as part of the "Ohio history" curriculum that all Ohio students undergo in fourth grade, had her pupils memorize all 88 Ohio counties. Just in case, you know, they ever have to recite all 88 Ohio counties for some reason. And my fourth-grade teacher, convinced I was "too smart" to do whatever the rest of the class was doing, took me aside and tried to get me to memorize the Gettysburg Address. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:04, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I was at primary school in the late 1960's. The only things we learnt off by heart and rote repetition were our multiplication tables and there was nothing like that in secondary school. We went up to 12 x 12 and it was only much later that I realised it was probably because that was pre-decimalisation of the currency and 12 pennies were in a shilling. We never had to learn dates of monarchs or prime ministers, although we were expected to know about them in context for history. Edited to add: just rememebered - I did Latin so we did do some recitation/rote learning for that, but not for French which I also took. Important dates/monarchs/prime ministers were studied but we learnt about them in context, not by rote learning.

I grew up in Ontario, basically in the 80s, and there really wasn't a whole lot of rote stuff done. Certainly not the PMs; I only learned about them at all in grade 7-8 and it was only the ones on the currency - and not even all of them! Back in my day, we still did the multiplication table by rote/repetition, but that's the only thing that comes to mind as having been done that way. The provinces/capitals were somewhat like that, but there were only 12 at the time; it's not like that was the kind of thing that would consume a lot of time, like memorizing dozens of presidents. Matt Deres (talk) 21:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I grew up in Ontario too, and I'm in grade 9 right now. In elementary school we had to memorize the provinces and territories, along with their capital cities. Of course, we also had to know the multiplication table. Those are the only two "lists" I can remember learning about. We only cover anything related to the prime ministers in grades 7, 8, and 10, but only in the context of important historical events; I don't even think all of the prime ministers are mentioned, and certainly there's no need to know any significant number of them. --140.180.26.37 (talk) 19:06, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Old Venezuelan bolívar

I recently found an old 2,000 bolívar banknote (1995 series) and am wondering if its possible to exchange it for one of the new bolívar fuerte notes and how one could go about that? Being American, traveling to Venezuela is out of the question (just praticality, not because any political reasons). The note itself is kinda ragged and has marks from a ballpoint pen and, as such, I have no desire to keep it (odd for a numismatist/notaphilist), but thought it'd be neat if it could be exchanged. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 23:30, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

How old ? If old enough, it may have some collector value beyond the face value. Try a coin shop or two and see if they want it. StuRat (talk) 03:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The note looks like this, which was apparentely first issued in 1994. Taking it to a coin shop is a good idea, but I'd be suprised if they wanted it as it is in really poor condition. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 04:04, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Being in bad shape isn't necessarily a show-stopper, but being less than 16 years old probably is. I doubt if they collect currency that recent, unless there's something rather special about it. You could also try a bank, as they can convert some of the more popular currencies. The bank won't care if it's in good shape, as long as they can identify it. If it's no longer in circulation, though, they may not take it. StuRat (talk) 05:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It says in Currency of Venezuela that old notes will cease to be legal tender on January 1, 2009. No ref for that though. If you want to try to exchange it, mail it to the Central Bank of Venezuela with a note asking for it to be exchanged, and a return envelope with postage. However considering that your note has a face value of less than 50 US cents you probably should not bother. Ariel. (talk) 09:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I am goind to send it back to the Central Bank of Venezuela. A news article from August 2010 seems to indicate that both were still being used at the time [13]. Its low face value is why I'm not concerned with converting it to USD. I figure spending a few dollars to get a crisp, new bolivar fuerte note will be worth it, especially if its coming straight from Venezuela. Now, I have to see about going to the post office and getting an IRC. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 23:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Why aren't vows of consecrated life considered one of the 7 Catholic sacraments?

Why aren't vows of consecrated life considered one of the 7 Catholic sacraments? --Gary123 (talk) 23:50, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

They aren't? --Jayron32 01:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

They aren't. Those in Vows of consecrated life (think nuns, monks, etc.) and those in Holy Orders (priests) all take vows, but they're different things. Why are the latter and not the former considered sacraments? Probably historical accident/contingent history. Nominally, the Church teaches that the sacraments were instituted by Christ, so you'd have to find something in the Bible that you could distort into Christ instituting vows of consecrated life before it would have been a possibility. - Nunh-huh 02:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Evangelical counsels. Gosh, that was easy. Marnanel (talk) 04:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, as said, you would need something in the Bible where God himself either took such vows as an example, or received such vows from someone with approval, secondly (and this is a little chicken and egg) a Sacrament is supposed to leave a permanent mark on your soul. Taking vows of consecrated life is treated seriously, but it is also generally considered 'reversable' in a way that sacraments are not. 86.163.214.50 (talk) 11:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

January 10

Purpose of the British monarchy

Why does Britain keep the monarchy? It costs millions a year in tax money and its very limited governmental role could be replaced by a President elected by Parliament. --75.28.54.224 (talk) 02:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You might find Republicanism in the United Kingdom#Arguments in favour of constitutional monarchy of interest. Deor (talk) 02:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Or, to approach things from the other side, our article on the monarchy of the United Kingdom. We note that "recent polls show that a large majority of the British public support the continuation of the monarchy" (references therein). Note also that, while the British monarch is head of state, he or she is not the head of government, a role traditionally encompassed by the office termed "President". Also, consider the tax burden of supporting the office of President. — Lomn 03:04, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Some advantages of the monarchy:

Pardons: The removes the conflict of interest inherent in the Presidential system, where a President can preferentially pardon members of his own party, like Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. The monarch isn't a member of a political party.

Ceremony: The president and others in the executive branch in the US must attend state funerals, hand out medals, etc., whereas the monarch can do that and leave the prime minister free to run the nation, in the UK. StuRat (talk) 03:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If a Monarch is such a good idea, why don't Republics have them? - as a distant relative of Elizabeth II *, I'll volunteer.

(* everyone is a distant relative of Elizabeth II. I'm also a distant relative of Paul the Octopus). AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:10, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but do you know your exact genealogical connection to her? I know my relationship to her (4th from the bottom), except for one link. It is indeed a very distant connection, and will never get me invited to a garden party. Her loss. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 07:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it could be noted that the cost of some £110m a year spent on the monarchy (at least according to the estimates of this anti-monarchical website) makes up a very, very small percentage (~.02%) of the overall United Kingdom budget, and a really insignificant amount of the UK GDP. I'm not justifying it — I hardly have an opinion of it, though I do see it as a bit anachronistic to be doling out money to a few families on the basis that they are descended from people who used to have real power — but if that's all it takes for, say, a significant uptick in patriotism or what not, the cost is not so high for a nation like the modern UK. The tourism generated by having quaint queens and kings probably makes up for it handily.--Mr.98 (talk) 03:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If presidents are such a good idea, why don't monarchies have them? Anyway, we tried not having a monarch before, and it didn't work. DuncanHill (talk) 03:13, 10 January 2011 (UTC)That time we didn't have an elected president either. If we'd done that it might have worked.Itsmejudith (talk) 08:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

How about not having either? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

We've tried that already. See the Hoover administration, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:39, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, more relevantly, see the Articles of Confederation, which lacked a monarchy and did not establish an executive, a judiciary, or a system of national taxes to fund the government. It is not widely acclaimed as a success. — Lomn 12:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The existence of the Monarchy also attracts tourists to London, which is said to pay for the cost, given that each tourist leaves qquite a bit of money to hotels and restaurants. --Lgriot (talk) 13:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Guillotine City attracts twice as many tourists as London. (Or very nearly: 27 million vs 15 million.) Palaces can be open to the public 24-7 when their would-be inhabitants have been conveniently relocated to Monaco and St. Moritz. When I was a tourist in London, I recall spending most of my time finding the places where Monty Python sketches had been filmed. If it hadn't been for the money, I wouldn't have given any thought to the queen at all. LANTZY^TALK 01:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Millions a year is a tiny amount compared to a more bizarrely wasteful institution like, say, the National Health Service. I tend to think of the queen as residing in a little red box marked "Break glass in case of Cromwell". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.11.15 (talk) 13:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Taking a bite at the bicameral apple

Added sub-heading. StuRat (talk) 05:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

A similar question: What's the purpose of two separate elected houses (Senate and House of Representatives in the US as opposed to the House of Commons and House of Lords in the UK) if the are voted in by the same electorate? Shouldn't one of the two houses to suffice? I realize that they are meant to review and balance each other, but again: same electorate, so what difference does it make? Aaronite (talk) 03:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If the House of Lords was elected, that question might make sense in the UK context. As for the US, I think it has more to do with conflicting concepts of rights of States to Govern, and of People to Govern at the time of the creation of the constitution, though I may well be wrong. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see some figures on the benefits of the British Monarchy deriving from influx of tourism dollars. Regarding the US House and Senate, the short answer is that the House represents the people, somewhat proportionate to population, while the Senate represents the states on an equal basis, 2 Senators per state regardless of size of state. If that compromise had not been reached, there would have been no USA, or at least not as we know it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

These days, tourism dollars aren't worth that much, Bugs ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:38, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

How does the annual expenditure on the Royals compare with the added income from tourism? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

How would you measure it? Actually, I'm not sure that a Republic exhibiting the heads of former Royals on poles lining Tower Bridge wouldn't attract more tourists (hypothetically speaking of course). AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:46, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You might be onto something there. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

When Jesse Ventura was governor of Minnesota, he proposed merging the state's two legislative chambers into one, as Nebraska did in the '30s. The idea didn't gain that much support, as a lot of people said it's good for legislation to have to pass two legislative hurdles before becoming law. In the old days, it was common for state senates to be extremely malapportioned, with rural districts often having far fewer people than urban ones. This may have led to very different characters in the upper and lower houses. Court cases in the '60s made that illegal. However, there are still often differences between upper and lower chambers because Senate elections may be staggered, with not all senators up for re-election each cycle. Even in Maryland, where both lower-house delegates and senators serve four-year terms and are elected at the same time, you sometimes get differences between the chambers. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the US House is supposed to represent the current will of the people, so they are elected every 2 years, to get in a fresh batch (of lying leeches). The US Senate, on the other hand, is the more deliberative body, being only elected every 6 years, so contains politicians with more experience (in taking bribes, sex scandals, earmarks, etc.). The hope is that, by combining this experience with the will of the people, we arrive at a legislature with abilities that neither, alone, would have (like blaming the other chamber for deadlock and bad laws). StuRat (talk) 05:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

One-third of the US Senate gets re-elected every two years, and states don't normally have both Senators up for election at the same time. Until about a hundred years ago, Senators were elected by the state legislatures rather than the people at large, and more truly did represent the states. Direct election has blurred that distinction a bit. But basically you're onto it - the Senate is supposed to be the more experienced and deliberative body, as kind of a check against the presumably more aggressive and frequently-changing House. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple of examples come to mind. One is the impeachment against Clinton, which was pushed through by the Republican-controlled House, and the Senate, while also Republican majority, said, "Not so fast, folks", and the President was acquitted. Treaties and appointments are strictly the Senate's work, as each state gets an equal voice in those discussions. However, tax bills have to originate in the House, because if "the people" don't want the tax, then it stops there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The original reason for two chambers House and Senate was called the Great Compromise. As a condition for ratifying the Constitution, the small states demanded it. Incidentally, states are not rational beings like humans, and as such are not deserving of representation or any other rights for that matter. Rights inhere in individuals, not corporate groups. Certainly small states are not deserving of equal representation as large states in any way -- there are no people there. The whole thing was a bad idea. I say abolish the Senate. Greg Bard (talk) 06:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it was a good idea - otherwise, the big states would get their way all the time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:02, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Not to deny the value of the extra checks and balances in a bicameral system, but why would it be bad for the big states to also have roughly proportional representation in the second house? One man, one vote and all that. What privileges the people in smaller states to have proportionally more influence than people in bigger states? The German Bundesrat is organised like that, and the split there is rarely small states vs. large states and much more often along the lines of political parties and coalitions. Yes, I'm well aware that the Great Compromise may have been a historical necessity back in the time. That does not mean its the best possible solution in principle or for all eternity. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It's still necessary for states to have an equal voice. If the change you propose were to magically occur overnight, the red states would immediately secede, and there would be no more USA. You might think that's a good idea, but it wouldn't do us Americans much good. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:43, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Didn't they try that in 1861? Seriously, why would that be a red vs. blue issue? Vermont, Rhode Island and Hawaii are "blue", Texas is "red", and Florida flip-flops. Moreover, the recent few presidential elections have been fairly close, so with proportional representation, red states would probably be slightly better off than now. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:16, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Note also that (originally) the two houses weren't elected by the same electorate; senators were elected by their state legislatures for most of the US' existence. — Lomn 12:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I say abolish government. Or rather, abolish the conditions where it appears to be necessary... AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The conditions where it appears to be necessary, are where people are involved. Abolish the human race, and you won't need government. Besides, we tried anarchy once. It was called Articles of Confederation. Didn't work too well. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

---

Please, OP, tell me exactly how the monarchy costs us millions a year in tax money. I think I might be waiting a while for your answer. (Clue: the Queen is not paid out of tax money.) Marnanel (talk) 05:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused about where the money from the Civil List comes from? My understanding is that the Civil List funds come from Parliament... which gets them from... where? Presumably taxes? I'm honestly asking because I don't know. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:46, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

On little thing is the security of the Monarch and her family. It does cost quite a lot and is definitely coming from the taxpayers. But presumably the security of the President in the US costs just as much or much more. I guess the difference is that personal security in Britain has to be paid for the Prime Minister also. --Lgriot (talk) 13:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Is the Queen more expensive to provide security for than say, the Washington Monument? Every state maintains important national symbols for reason of pride and culture. That one of Britain's national symbols walks around and wears funny hats doesn't make it all that different, in some regards, than those built of marble. --Jayron32 16:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

A bit off the topic track, no? The reason for two is (let's take House of Representatives and the Senate) that:

• House of Representatives = proportional representation to the population (remember the census)?, i.e., representation equal to the people
  • There's districting done by the majority party which inevitably favors them at the state/commonwealth level, that's another issue.
• Senate = proportional representation to the sovereign states and commonwealths which make up the U.S., i.e., representation equal to the states, independent of their population
  • There's all the usual bru ha ha over Puerto Rico, the other possessions, etc, that's another issue

Didn't think there was any controversy here. As for state legislatures, having read through the New York state constitution on the apportionment of senate and assembly members, it's more of a hodgepodge, but again, there are provisions for at least one chamber to have limits (no more than/no less than) regarding representation of state counties to insure democracy doesn't become a tyranny of the majority as the Republicans seem to think it should be when they are in power (euphemism = "mandate", "will of the people"), but rail against it when they are in the minority ("sorry we couldn't have obstructed more"), oops, that's another issue as well. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 17:37, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The controversy that arises is twofold. First, the distribution in the Senate means that a state like Vermont (625,000 people) has as much representation as a state like California (37,250,000 people). That means that each person in Vermont's vote counts 60 times MORE than a person's vote in California in terms of senatorial representation, each person in Vermont has 60 times the access to his/her senator than a person in California does, etc. Secondly, because of the way that the President is elected, and the Electoral College is composed, Vermonters also have a greater say, per capita, than Californians in Presidential elections. Ideally, in a democratic society, the accident of one's residency should not make one more powerful, politically speaking, than anyone else in that society. And definately not SIXTY TIMES more powerful. The contrary arguement; that the State of Vermont needs representation equivalent to the State of California, is nonsensical in that the interests of the State of Vermont cannot be somehow distinct from the interests of the People of Vermont. The reason for the nature of Senatorial elections is that in the 18th century each State thought of itself as more sovereign than they do today. Each state was much more like an independent country in the 1780's, and therefore each wanted to assure its own "interests" would be protected. The nature of Senatorial elections was a product of the "horse trading" that went on to create the Constitution. The reason for the Senate's existance has evaporated (U.S. states have a much different relationship with each other and with the Federal government than they did 230 years ago), but it is still composed the same way. It should also be noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, under the Equal Protection Clause required that the 49 various state senates MUST have equal proportional representation; in other words that it is illegal for state senates to be organized and elected the same way that the national Senate is. See Reynolds v. Sims and One_man,_one_vote#Warren_Court_decisions. --Jayron32 19:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The UK venerates the monarch as a national symbol The monarchy is also useful in generating tourism revenue. In the US, the flag is venerated, as is the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell and other patriotic symbols. Why did the US spend millions rebuilding the Statue of Liberty? Why are the Declaration of Independence and Constitution enshrined in a high tech (for the 1940's) archive setting? Edison (talk) 04:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

In no way do the overwhelming majority of people in the UK "venerate" the monarchy. They tolerate it as less bad than most alternatives, they moan about its cost and the family's eccentricities, they sometimes have a good laugh about it, but "venerate".... you must be joking! Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Are there any studies comparing the cost of having a Monarchy to revenues gained from having a Monarchy (such as tourism)?

Excellent analysis Jayron :"The contrary arguement; that the State of Vermont needs representation equivalent to the State of California, is nonsensical in that the interests of the State of Vermont cannot be somehow distinct from the interests of the People of Vermont." This is my point exactly. Vermont doesn't deserve any extra representation --there are no people there. A state is just another special interest group.Greg Bard (talk) 14:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

hindu pork

Where does it say regarding hindus eating pork? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.154.203 (talk) 03:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, it says nothing about Hindus eating pork in our article on the Religious restrictions on the consumption of pork. Perhaps you are thinking of one of the other religions that is mentioned in that article...? WikiDao ☯ 03:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Practicing Hindus tend to be vegetarian, although the working class is apt to consume some meats such as chicken and fish. Beef they wouldn't do. I don't know that there's any proscription against pork as such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the confusion lies in the fact that a significant proportion of Indians are Muslim, but some older accounts (British Colonial, mainly) tended to use Hindu as an ethnic designation, regardless of religion. It's pretty much the same reason why (even today) the wide variety of faiths and cults in the Indian sub-continent are all treated as a single religion. --Ludwigs2 03:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Could be. Certainly practicing Jews and Muslims who try to obey their respective dietary laws don't consume pork and other meats from "unclean" animals. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

We do have an article on Hindu dietary laws, which does mention pork:

The great majority of Hindus avoid beef. Most also avoid the meat of water buffalo and yak as being too cow-like as well as pork, crabs, reptiles, amphibians, snails, insects and worms. Animals that have died of natural causes are considered highly polluting. Eating them makes a person untouchable.

The highest castes (Brahmins and sometimes also Kshatriya) may also avoid chicken. Goat or mutton is often the only acceptable meat but many are completely vegetarian. Eggs may be completely unacceptable or acceptable only if unfertilized. Some avoid onions and garlic.

(...which really probably ought to cite a source or two). WikiDao ☯ 04:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The way my Indian colleagues have explained it, the higher castes are able to be vegetarians because they don't do much physical labor. The lower castes need animal protein in order to do their jobs. Hence, being a vegetarian is a sign that you're in a higher caste and/or that you do white-collar work. That was the theory. In practice, some are strict vegetarians, while others (while in the US, at least) are omnivores. And you can usually tell at a glance which ones are vegetarians: They're the skinny ones. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:59, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If only it were that simple. Why is being vegetarian seen as being 'higher caste'? If you have the time, read Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas. This won't give the answer, but it might help you understand the question. AndyTheGrump (talk)

Because they don't have to eat meat. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:06, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That isn't actually an answer. What is the significance of not eating meat? There are lots of things that people don't have to do, but not doing them isn't necessarily of any great social consequence.

P.S. I'm (a) vegetarian (or an ovo-lacto-vegetarian to be specific), and (b) overweight. WP:OR, but rather disproving your earlier point. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The significance is that the higher classes don't have to eat meat because they don't do any work that would require the protein etc. you'd get from meat. Manual labour, presumably. Vimescarrot (talk) 07:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That is the same non-answer that Bugs gave earlier. What is 'higher class/caste' about not eating meat? Why shouldn't they show their elite status by not driving around in flash cars, or not wearing expensive clothes? In a society where meat would be a rare luxury, why do the elite forgo it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point. In theory, all Hindus would like to be vegetarian. But those who do manual labor have to eat meat because they need more animal protein. Being vegetarian is a sign that you don't have to do manual labor for a living. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The opposite is true, for two reasons: (1) Meat provides a quick, spurious burst of energy which deserts the body as quickly as it arrives, whereas a cereal-based diet is more useful for sustained manual labor. This is why runners eat pasta rather than steak or cotton candy. (2) Manual laborers, traditionally, are also are the least likely to be able to afford meat, because meat is inherently more expensive than vegetable food. Beans, grains, tubers, etc. are the most efficient and inexpensive means of converting labor into calories. With the exception of seafood, meat was for people who hunted, i.e. kings and princes. The industrial production of meat is a modern luxury made possible by industrialized agriculture. LANTZY^TALK 02:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Acording to our India article, only 13.4% of Indian citizens are Moslem, as opposed to 80.5% Hindu, 2.3% Christian, 1.9% Sikh etc. I suspect that the combination of Hindu vegetarianism (as an ideal) and the Moslem dietary laws (which presumably have the same middle-eastern roots as those for Judaism) have meant that keeping pigs has never made economic sense, regardless of issues of faith. It is worth noting that the Judeo/Islamic rejection of pork is based on the perception of it being 'unclean' whereas the Hindu rejection of the eating of Beef is based on the Cow being seen as sacred. There usually is a logic of sorts to these things, but you need to understand the broader cultural context to see it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

"according to"... "I suspect"... "presumably"... Perish the thought that anyone answering questions here might actually know something about the broader cultural context, eh? 87.112.177.117 (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, ideally (in my view) almost all RD responses would be preceded by "According to {relevant WP article or relevant RS}...". But WP:SYNTH and WP:OR and just plain idle speculation are freely and frequently practiced here at the RD, and consensus seems to be that that's just fine. But any further discussion of your concerns on this point should properly take place on the talk page, should you feel strongly enough about it to pursue it there. WikiDao ☯ 01:50, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

To return to more or less the original question, a Hindu friend of mine from India (a non-vegetarian, non-skinny Brahmin) told me that although nothing in Hinduism prohibits eating pork, centuries of living side by side with Muslims has led to the situation that Indian Hindus simply don't eat pork, and likewise Indian Muslims simply don't eat beef, because doing so is prohibited in Hinduism. So de facto, both groups avoid both meats. I wonder whether the same is true of Indian Christians too. Pais (talk) 15:55, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Mosques in Jacksonville, Florida and other southern cities

Is there any mosques in Jacksonville, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, New Orleans, Louisiana, Houston, Texas, Miami, Florida, Orlando, Florida, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Dallas, Texas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.154.203 (talk) 03:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:29, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There are at least 6 and possibly 9 according to Google Maps (I'm not sure where Jacksonville ends, exactly). Adam Bishop (talk) 03:40, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a website directory which lists the mosques in these cities? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.154.203 (talk) 03:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Just google [jacksonville florida mosque]. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There's the Yellow Pages and its online equivalent [14]. ​​​​​​​​Niagara ​​^{Don't give up the ship} 03:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there any schools? Are they teach grammar and punctuation? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Google indicates there are some Muslim private schools, just as there are Catholic private schools, etc. Such schools presumably would still have to meet state standards for curricula. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Heh. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article that may be helpful. Bielle (talk) 03:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I just found four mosques within 2.6 miles of me by typing in my address and "mosque" at yelp.com. Two of them even had reviews. This might be a good approach for the OP. PhGustaf (talk) 06:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

A review of a mosque? So, how many stars, out of 4? Or was it a bomb? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Why would that be surprising? If I move into an area and want to find a good Catholic church, I'll ask around in various churches and look for comments online: I've found that sort of thing very helpful, as it tells me where to find churches with a certain sort of ethos, a certain demographic (I'd rather more young people), and a certain style of worship. Obviously, it's not enough by itself, but very useful. I see no reason why Muslims wouldn't do the same with mosques. And if that small comment was meant to be a crass 'Muslims = terrorists lol', grow up. 86.163.214.50 (talk) 00:16, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

"Crass" is Bugs's middle name. Both mosques got four stars out of five. But each had only a single (and the same) reviewer. PhGustaf (talk) 00:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Mosques in Buffalo, New York

Is there any mosques in Buffalo, New York? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.154.203 (talk) 03:48, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Just go to google and specific the city name along with "mosque", and you should be able to get an answer for any city that interests you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

LACKAWANNA ISLAMIC MOSQUE 154 Wilkesbarre St, Lackawanna, NY 14218, 6.2MI from Buffalo, (716) 825-9490

ISLAMIC CULTURAL CENTER OF NIAGARA 1801 Pierce Ave, Niagara Falls, NY 14301, 15.8MI from Buffalo, (716) 285-8733

JAFFARYA CENTER (716) 200-4326

All from Yellow USA. And no doubt other websites have other listings too. BrainyBabe (talk) 12:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a way to find the others ?

Upon watching the movie Beyond the Sea for the second time the other night, I recalled seeing that Bobby Darin grew up believing his real mother was his sister, then I recalled the same thing happened to Jack Nicholson. This got me curious as to whether there are others who grew up in the same way - thinking that the one who really was their mother was their sister, due to the stigma in past days connected to teenage pregnancy and babies born out of wedlock. I make it clear I believe people should wait til they are married before having children, but we know a lot do not, and the innocent children of these should not have to suffer due to that, as they did in those days. So is there a kind of list of well known people who were misled as to whom their mother really was ? The Russian Christopher Lilly 04:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Lina Medina's son comes to mind; she was 5 when she had her son. He grew up thinking Lina was his sister until he was 13; not sure what his reaction was when he found out the truth. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Ted Bundy. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, Eric Clapton. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Not mother, but Eddie Vedder grew up believing that his stepdad was his real father. See Alive (Pearl Jam song). --Jayron32 12:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There are three books with "illegitimacy" in the title, cited as references to our article Legitimacy (law). They might provide more examples. My impression is that both situations were very common: that a girl would become pregnant, and her family not throw her out, but raise the baby as the youngest of the siblings; and also that a woman with a child would marry, and the new husband take on full responsibility for that child, including giving it his name. Smoothing over the rumples of life was seen to be the best way. Sometimes it took generations for the truth to come to light, if it ever did. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:06, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If you're into unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, Trig Palin. Staecker (talk) 13:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

TV Tropes has a nice long list of fictional examples, plus a few real ones, most of which have been covered already. the wub "?!" 14:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

See also: "I'm My Own Grandpa" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Merle Oberon is another case. Her parentage is amazingly confused, and it looks like she knew her mother as her sister. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 18:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank You all for those examples - it is interesting how the world goes in ways like this, where things are not always as straightforward as they seem. I knew Ted Bundy was adopted ( as was David Berkowitz ), but fancy that. I have also heard some strange stuff about the Palin family, but indeed, a lot of some conspiracies can be as much politically motivated as anything else. The scary thing is, this could happen to any of us, and who could ever know ? I know I truly believe and have no reason to doubt that my mother is my mother and my late father was who he always claimed to be, but then the others like Jack and Bobby and such would have honestly believe the same thing. Another concern with this kind of thing is the overall idea of people getting together for say one night stands, out of which comes a child, who grows up to unknowingly meet and perhaps fall in love with their own sibling, and this shows the concerns about free love and what can result. But again, I guess this is, rightly or wrongly, how the world is, and what makes it interesting - although certainly not knowing who is really who then finding out some thing you believed to have been wrong all along must be very stressful and earth shaking - I find it hard enough to realise I have misinterpreted common expressions that mean soemthing totally different to what I thought they did for years, but this sort of thing - and for these well known people at that. Also, I recall that Liv Tyler believed her step father was really her father and had no idea til she was a teenager that her dad was really Steve Tyler. How many more are out there we do not know about - whether they know themselves and are keeping it private, or even if they themselves have no idea. The Russian Christopher Lilly 03:42, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Liberal education

I appears to me that the purpose of liberal education is not to learn things for which there is a pre-identified need, but to learn things that one might be able to use creatively at some later date. Thus one undertakes to study things that have long been found to play a role in the intellectual life of the community, before one finds out why they are considered important.

How does this fit, or fail to fit, into conventional ways of thinking about what liberale education is? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:58, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to tackle your question, but for the sake of clarity I would offer that a liberal arts education is really about learning how to learn. Vranak (talk) 14:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Note that some other fields might also fit this description, like theoretical physics and advanced mathematics. StuRat (talk) 05:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If you think that 'the purpose of education is to learn things for which there is a pre-identified need' then you clearly haven't had enough. 'Things that one might be able to use creatively at some later date' is perhaps getting there, but I'd say there are actually two more significant objectives to a proper education, 'liberal' or otherwise: firstly, to demonstrate how little you know, and secondly, what to do about it. The purpose of education is to teach you how to learn. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

"AndyTheGrump", you may want to work on your reading comprehension. You missed the word not. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There are conflicting forces where education is concerned: The needs of business vs. the needs of the individuals. However, I'm also reminded of what Professor Kingsfield said in The Paper Chase: "You teach yourselves the law. I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush, and if you survive, you'll leave thinking like a lawyer." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If I ever find myself thinking like a lawyer, I'll have to reconsider my position on the merits of education. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Presumably he meant thinking in an organized way. And keep in mind that was for Contract Law 101, and the kids were intending to pursue law careers, so thinking like a lawyer would likely be a requirement at some point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There are some rather practical fields for which they do teach specific skills, and not so much deep theory. An auto mechanic, for example, probably gets far more info on how to adjust an engine than on the underlying thermodynamic principles. StuRat (talk) 06:02, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, a person properly trained in certain basic priciples can probably teach themselves how to fix a car. While people can usually be trained to perform certain procedures, and nothing else, someone properly educated can always learn those procedures on their own. --Jayron32 12:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That depends on the individual. There are many people who could never figure out how to adjust an engine based on thermodynamics theory, but who can do it perfectly well if somebody shows them the concrete steps. And, I would argue, those who could figure it out on their own would be better suited to be an engineer than an auto mechanic. StuRat (talk) 22:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

John Dewey wrote persuasively that vocational education was a necessary component of liberal education. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:56, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, absolutely. Dewey's position seems to be that learning to do certain basic tasks which are applicable to job performance is a major part of one's education. I'm not sure Dewey himself had much respect for the "classical liberal" education; he was much more focused on problem based learning, for example. --Jayron32 13:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You might want to start with our article on Liberal education, which overlaps somewhat with Liberal arts. What's it all for? The debate goes back centuries, at least to Joseph Priestley's essay "Essay on a Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life". The American Academy for Liberal Education and the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education might have some views on this too. Between all of these articles, you have dozens of references to peruse. There's a ten-minute BBC Radio 4 "Point of View" by Alain de Botton on the use of the humanities here. And ultimately you'll have to make up your own mind!— Preceding unsigned comment added by BrainyBabe (talk • contribs) 13:20, 10 January 2011

John Locke wrote the very influential Some Thoughts Concerning Education in 1693. It could be retitled "How To Be A Gentleman". "Liberal education" is I suppose the opposite of a vocational education. 92.15.21.144 (talk) 14:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed definitions (to which I am not committed, but I propose to discuss them):

Vocational education: Learning things for which there is a pre-identified use.

Liberal education: Learning things traditionally considered by educated people to be important in intellectual life, often before one knows whether one will use it. If 50 years later one serendipitously finds some creative use for some of it, then it has succeeded in its purpose.

Michael Hardy (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

These definitions sum up quite well the current usage. But advocates of vocational education don't see it quite so neatly. Dewey's writings are still worth reading if you are interested in education. See for example Richard Pring's recent book about him. You may intend to learn something very practical and directed towards a narrow goal, but in the learning process you inevitably end up acquiring broader skills and knowledge, that may, like things learnt in liberal education, come in useful at some later stage. You can't stop people using their knowledge and skill creatively. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I think your use of the word 'use' is misleading. really, the difference is between education that tries to instruct people in the details of a particular career or occupation, and education that tries to broaden people's intellectual understanding of the world. One of the critiques of both vocational and professional training is that they produce highly knowledgable people who are largely ignorant of material outside their specialties. In a liberal society, this is damaging - people need to have basic information about the broad range of issues that might come up in civil discourse, otherwise they are likely to have crudely formed, narrow-minded viewpoints in public debate. You can still see this issue play out, in fact, in some religious contexts: much of the evolution v. creationism debate, in fact, focused on Christian groups that did not want their children to receive liberal educations which might call their religious beliefs into question. --Ludwigs2 18:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that with liberal education, one does not have in mind a particular use for the understanding that one will acquire. But nonetheless, there is a sense in which the ultimate utility of that kind of education is its justification, as when you say people need to have information about issues that might come up. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:32, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

First Dog fan mail

Does Bo (dog) receive fan mail from children across the USA, like Socks (cat) and Buddy (dog) did? Did Spot Fetcher, Barney (dog), India (cat) and Miss Beazley (dog) receive fan mail and/or write a book?24.90.204.234 (talk) 08:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If so, it has probably come in handy for paper-training. You might want to start with the White House blog on the subject,[15] and see if there is any followup. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:22, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

What'll it take to enter the Korean Air Force?

Since I'm on medication (celexa), have to disprove asthma with a lung pulmonary test, and somehow get a doctor to take me off of meds for one full year, I don't stand much hope of joining the US Air Force before their age deadline.

I am half-Korean, so the process to become a permanent resident/naturalized dual citizen ought to be more expedient than a normal foreigner's, and I can learn Korean to fluency if I put enough commitment into it.

Now, what are the Korean Air Force's age & health requirements? I would also like to know about their college benefits (GI Bills, etc.) because I hope to still get a package to study in college free of charge even if I'm in another country's air force. Thanks. --70.179.178.5 (talk) 11:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Was it North or South you are planning to join? I assume the smaller but better-equipped one, and would guess that they approximately follow US practice, but perhaps an expert can confirm this? Dbfirs 12:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm a Korean-American half-race. Whaddya think? --70.179.178.5 (talk) 13:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You still need to choose which ideology and part of Korea you prefer. The answers will be very different. Dbfirs 17:52, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The South, of course. --70.179.178.5 (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I did assume that, but assumptions can sometimes be wrong. Dbfirs 11:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

You should email them with your questions. Can you visit Korea to attend an open day or recruiting day? Itsmejudith (talk) 13:57, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If you really believe Korea would be a nicer place to live than the USA, there's no anchor holding you back here. However, you might want to look into how their culture treats foreigners and "half-breeds". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If the US Air force rejected you for a fair reason, I believe you could accept that as "the army is not the best place for you." Have you already thought about that? It might sound discouraging at the first glance, but it can also be the beginning of a new path. Quest09 (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I have served in the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division. From what I understand, the Korean military is very tough. If you have so many medical problems, I highly doubt you will be certified fit for Korean service. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 19:15, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, because it's really that hard to stand by a line and stare at someone. This is what thousands of people there have to do with their lives every day; you'd think they'd have something better to do. And yes, I'm well aware of the ongoing issues, before anyone tries to lecture me. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:05, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

OP was asking about the Korean Air Force though, so less standing still and more ... flying.Itsmejudith (talk) 14:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Grudges?

I am nearly at the end of my rope for having to put up with long grudges and peers ending friendships at the drop of a trucking hat. I have heard that some Americans even hold grudges for 40 years for something as trivial as yelling at a barking dog that happened to be the grudgeholder's pet, and sometimes, grudges are carried all the way to the grave.

Therefore, what country/ies have the least incidences of long grudges and ending friendships at the drop of a hat? How come? What else will I love about that country? What might I not love about it? --70.179.178.5 (talk) 13:06, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Find the country with the shortest life expectancy, and that should cover it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:42, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I have never encountered any research into this issue, but if I were to offer an opinion, I would say that Canadians are broadly inclined towards reconciliation rather than recrimination. Jail sentences in Canada tend to be lower here (from what I have read), which could indicate a disposition towards forgiveness. For instance, Vince Li, the Greyhound Bus cannibal and decapitator, was found not guilty for reasons of mental health. And the public accepted that, despite his extraordinarily heinous crime. Vranak (talk) 13:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I wonder who his next meal will be? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I will hasten to add that he has been remanded to a mental health facility. Vranak (talk) 14:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That's a good thing. I was afraid he was going to go on the "Lecter Circuit". Regarding grudges, I would think that's more of an individual than a cultural thing, although sometimes it has do with who you've had wars against. England and France still don't particularly trust each other, thanks to long memories about wars against each other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I might suggest a small thing. In my experience, when people are constantly losing friends "at the drop of a ... hat", it is less a quality of their national character, and more a question of how they are interacting with said friends. If the causes of your difficulty are due to something you are doing (without realizing it or meaning to, to be sure, or perhaps in just the way you choose the company you keep), changing countries will probably not affect that very positively. I might suggest finding a way to make sure you have ruled out that possibility before packing your bags. I might recommend talking to someone independent who is trained in such things — a counselor or something like that — to give you a diagnosis of whether the problem is you, them, both, or, perhaps, the country. I very much doubt it is the latter. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:07, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Mr.98-Not cool-you don't know the requester's experiences or life history. They didn't come here for headshrinkery. It is a valid question-some groups and regions are more hot-blooded and/or hold grudges longer. You should be ashamed.--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 14:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

No, 98 raises a good and tough-love kind of question. Because if the OP is in fact at least part of the problem, moving somewhere else is only going to make things worse for him - because in addition to being possibly difficult to get along with, he would have the extra baggage of being a "foreigner". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I made an extra effort to make it clear that I didn't know their history and wasn't responding to them personally. But it is in my experience, again, that people who constantly have trouble with friends, work, love, whatever, are usually, in some way, responsible for it. I'm not blaming said people — I think they're often unaware of what they're doing that sours everything, and probably not doing it intentionally. But I would seriously pursue the "perhaps it's me" option before deciding to move to a different country on the vain hope that everyone there will be more friendly. It strikes me as terribly unlikely that some sort of national character involving holding long grudges is behind the phenomena the poster is describing. If it were just that, it seems to me that nobody would have any friends in said country, which seems unlikely. I don't suggest any of this as a way to accuse or blame or offend the original poster, about whom I know nothing. But if someone says, "nobody in this country wants to be friends with me," experience leads me to suspect that the me rather than the country is the thing to examine closely, there. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Kintetsubuffalo, a word of advice. Telling others what they should feel, such as "You should be ashamed", is the uncoolest thing imagineable. Please confine your remarks to the content of editors' posts, and leave aisde the personal remarks. Thank you. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 18:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Vendetta and feud describe longterm grudges. This is the Reference Desk, not a bulletin board.--Wetman (talk) 14:16, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You must be new here. Vranak (talk) 14:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Here's his first recorded edit:[16] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:29, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

In case some of you haven't noticed, this is the same IP that has given some more info as to what his preferences, likes and dislikes country-wise might be in a previous question: here. TomorrowTime (talk) 14:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Good catch. If he's worried about grudges, I expect that Korea, China, Japan, India, and any kind of Islamic Republic would be off the list. All things considered, Canada might indeed be a good option. They have plenty of Asian women, as I recall. And the fare is much lower to get there. And as left-leaning as they are, there would be plenty of souls to save, Kansas-style. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can only speak for Japan - living there I didn't get the impression that people would hold eternal grudges, but on the other hand, it's difficult to form real friendships, because as a Caucasian, I was the eternal ridiculously-easy-to-spot foreigner. I did have dear friends there, but after a while having to go through the "I shall be careful around you since you are obviously a bumbling gaijin" thing every single time you meet someone or buy something from a store or ask for information at an info point gets tiresome. But that's just my personal observation. TomorrowTime (talk) 15:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the OP has neglected to consider how immigrants are treated. He might discover that the USA overall is a lot more broad-minded than he thinks it is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, that may all depend. If I can be allowed some more OR, as I said, I did have very close friends in Japan, even if the society as a whole is in an almost omnipresent state of soft nationalism (i.e., you wont get shouted at on the street to get out of the country, you filthy foreigner, but you do get treated differently for being a foreigner). Making the first contact is the biggest obstacle. I did some extensive hitchhiking with an American friend, who happened to be of Taiwanese origin and looked vaguely Japanese - people would stop for us readily, because they assumed he was Japanese, and there would be no problem communicating - the ironic bit being that between the two of us, it was he who had only a basic grasp of Japanese, whereas I could speak the language pretty fluently. Despite this, I could never hope to get any rides if I hitchhiked alone - most people would take one look at my face, think to themselves: "Uhoh, my English is so bad, giving this guy a ride would be awkward" and drive on. My point being the OP might fit in alright and find it easier to break through, depending on what he looks like. TomorrowTime (talk) 15:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, "holding a grudge" is not a national characteristic, but a human one. Even Canadians can hold grudges (mention the words "Phoenix Coyotes" to someone from Winnipeg and you will see what I mean). Blueboar (talk) 15:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Not to mention the "friendly rivalry" between Quebec and the rest of Canada. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:20, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

You mean, of course this friendly rivalry? --Jayron32 16:06, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Oui, that would be the one. I think the OP is probably in a "grass is greener on the other side" mindset, for whatever reason. He may feel at home and welcomed when he goes to places like Korea, but he has to keep in mind he's going there as a tourist. Generally, countries love tourists: They come, they spend money, they leave. When a tourist wants to move there, that's a whole different story. The OP has to be prepared for a "what are you doing here?" mentality, probably almost anywhere in the world. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:11, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

We can also hold grudges against Americans, for, well, anything really. We beat you in the War of 1812 and we will bring this up at every opportunity. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:22, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, you try. And we deny. Status quo ante bellum. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If "we" includes the British, see Battle of New Orleans. However, the USA burned Toronto, and then the British burned D.C., and all was square. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

And if not for the War of 1812, we wouldn't have a national anthem. :( ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Adam, you can try! The way our grade-school history books are written, most people over here think that the British instigated and then badly lost the war of 1812! APL (talk) 17:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

We like to think the war was originally a tie, and we won it in overtime. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually I don't agree with APL — I think the central lessons taught to schoolchildren in America about the War of 1812 are that the British Navy was continuously impressing American sailors into service for the British Navy, which ended up starting the war, and the Brits burned most of Washington, DC to the ground, and then the war ended for some reason. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:02, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

When I was in school, they told us all that but they failed to tell us that the burning of D.C. was in retaliation for the burning of Toronto. Must have slipped their minds. They also didn't come right and say it, but the war was poorly received in the ratings, perhaps because they couldn't come up with a catchy title. "War of 1812" just doesn't grab you. Plus it went all the way to 1815. Very poor marketing there. Kind of like when they finally released "Window 95" in 1997 or whenever it was. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

August 24, 1995? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Well we don't really learn anything about 1812 either; the way we kind of learn it, the Americans crossed the border assuming that the Canadians would rise up against the tyrannical British, but it didn't work out like that, so the Americans started attacking. There were some battles in the Niagara Peninsula, which we won, perhaps with the help of Laura Secord who may or may not have had a cow. Toronto was burned but it was only a little fort at the time, and then some Canadian militia burned down Washington. We won because the Americans failed in their original goal of liberating the Canadian colonies from British repression, or whatever it is they thought they were doing. (Well, I did learn more, actual facts about it, but not until university, and who takes Canadian history in university? Hardly anyone! So most people know what they learned in elementary school and maybe high school.) Adam Bishop (talk) 22:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

This is getting way off-topic, but the deal with the War of 1812 was this -- officially, the American objective in the War of 1812 was not to conquer Canada, just like officially the Iraq War was not about oil. James Madison's war message does not mention Canada. Officially, the U.S. declared war on Britain to stop them from interfering with American shipping and helping hostile Indian tribes through trade and armaments. Unofficially, a lot of people were chomping at the bit for war because they thought it would lead to the conquest of Canada (meaning today's Ontario and Quebec). The U.S. achieved its stated goals in the war (largely because the exile of Napoleon eliminated the need for messing with American shipping). The failure to capture Canada was undoubtedly a disappointment to many Americans, but that doesn't equal losing the war. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:50, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Baroque music

How can I write Baroque-style music? (what keys, intervals, rhythms, instruments, etc.) --J4\/4 <talk> 15:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Baroque connects to Baroque music, which seems to have a number of technical terms that might help answer your questions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:15, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

And note in particular that the fugue is therein called "a defining baroque form". Deor (talk) 19:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

In terms of keys, anything's fair game but be very sparing in your use of any key that has more than 4 sharps or flats. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I recall reading in a mathematical-puzzle book, perhaps one of those by Gardener, about a game of centuries ago that would generate baroque-style music easily. Have not been able to find any more details. 92.24.181.78 (talk) 15:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

When I think baroque, I think minuet as its archetypical form. Those are easy, formulaic in rhythm, time, and measure, and not especially variant in melodic style. As for the key, just stick with something easy for a harpsichord, like C major or G major, use any intervals you like, and use early concerto instruments, especially harpsichord, flutes, violin family, harp, and/or simple woodwinds (i.e. an oboe), horns, and percussion. Don't tie or slur notes in the main melody too much, because a harpsichord can't. Don't be afraid to use more rests than you ordinarily would for contemporary music. 71.198.176.22 (talk) 06:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Mississippian Language

Do we know what language the Mississippian culture spoke? The article is a little unclear on whether what we term Mississippian culture was a group of relatively homogeneous chiefdoms or if it was more a constellation of related cultures that started farming corn around the same time. 24.106.180.134 (talk) 20:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I realized my question is a little imprecise. I understand from the article that we have no written language from the Mississippians. But based on cultural practices/historical migration do we have any ideas on 1) whether or not the culture spoke one language (meaning, their dialects were mutually intelligible supposing everyone spoke slowly), 2) the family their language(s) belong to, or 3) descendents of their language(s)? 24.106.180.134 (talk) 20:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

The Mississippian culture region, broadly defined, covered a large part of eastern North America. Both the linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that many or most of the languages spoken in that area at the time of European contact (1500-1700) had been spoken in or near their historical regions for centuries. Therefore, it is almost certain that within the Mississippian culture region, broadly defined, many different, unrelated languages were spoken. So the region contained, as you say, a constellation of related cultures. Marco polo (talk) 21:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

However, just as there is a (speculative) language like the Proto-Indo-European language, presumably the (as-to-yet unproven and undiscovered mother language) for all members of the Indo-European languages, there would likely be some sort of proto-Mississipian language which, at some point in the past, gave birth to the later languages. Whether or not ALL of the people groups who were part of the Mississipian culture spoke a descedant of this tongue is a different issue entirely. This map can be overlayed with this map to draw some broad conclusions. --Jayron32 21:23, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Material culture directly reflects cultural practices, but linguistic ties leave little trace, save in writing and placenames.--Wetman (talk) 22:05, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Traits of ancient, unwritten and no-longer-spoken languages can be reconstructed (to a point) using the tools of the field of Comparative linguistics. --Jayron32 23:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but they don't necessarily give any information at all about where said no-longer-spoken languages were spoken. --ColinFine (talk) 22:20, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

In Eric Flint's time travel novel "Time Spike," some Cherokee from 1830 who encountered ancient Mississippians thought their speech sounded like Choctaw. Edison (talk) 04:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the same maps as Jayron before he posted them and decided not to speculate, but now I will do so. I also did a little research on the peoples who occupied the area of Cahokia at the time of European contact, the Algonquian-speaking people of the Illinois Confederation. Linguistic and archaeological evidence suggests that the Illinois people originated further east, in the Ohio-Michigan area, and that there was a westward displacement of peoples in the Mississippi valley in late precontact times. This is speculative, but I think that the evidence suggests that the people of Cahokia and the Middle Mississippian culture spoke one or more Siouan languages, one of which might have been an ancestor of the Omaha-Ponca language. Marco polo (talk) 16:12, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's really hard to know whether the Mississippian culture was linguistically unified or not. Mississippian culture#Related modern nations gives an unsourced list of modern nations claimed to be descended from the Mississippian culture; most of the tribes listed there speak either Muskogean languages or Siouan languages. It seems plausible to speculate (but impossible to prove) that the speakers of Proto-Muskogean were part of the Mississippian culture (especially the part labeled "South Appalachian Mississippian" on the map, though that doesn't mean there weren't also speakers of other language families included in the culture too. Pais (talk) 16:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the southern Mississippian groups probably spoke Muskogean languages, perhaps among others. My point was that the archetypal Middle Mississippian culture of the central Mississippi valley, centered on Cahokia, was likely to have been carried by Siouan-speaking peoples whose descendants now live farther west. Pages 24–26 of this source support my hypothesis. Marco polo (talk) 01:34, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Pricing of world oil

If California is opened up for oil drilling and oil is extracted for $4 a barrel, does the oil stay inside the US and be sold cheaper than international oil? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.64.129.221 (talk) 20:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It is WAY more complicated than that. The price of oil is set by a number of factors; the company or organization responsible for extracting the oil has the ultimate say on how much the oil sells for; also the cartel OPEC sets prices for all of its member countries. I can't think of a single oil company which is so patriotic that it would choose to reduce its own profits merely to sell oil cheaper to the U.S. In fact, that's kinda "robbing Peter to pay Paul", since that would mean that said company would also pay less in taxes, which ends up hurting the U.S. Ultimately, the price for crude oil is set on the open market, and it is set at "whatever the market will bear"; or exactly like just about every other commodity. The article Price of petroleum covers this is some detail. --Jayron32 21:16, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. As to what would happen with the actual oil, I suppose that, being drilled in Cal and there being a large local demand, it might well be used in Cal to avoid the shipping costs. But, this requires having a sufficient refinery capacity to convert that grade of oil into usable products. I'm not sure if Cal does. If not, that might require shipping to a remote refinery. There are lots of refineries on the Gulf Coast of the US, but getting the oil there cheaply could be problematic. A pipeline would be ideal, if one with excess capacity exists between Cal and there. Trucking it or sending it by train wouldn't be efficient at all. Sending it by ship would require a transit of the Panama Canal. It may well be cheaper to ship it a refinery abroad than to do that, considering that labor and regulation costs are likely lower there, too.

But, remember that none of this really matters, as we have a global petroleum market, so prices go up and down just about the same everywhere, no matter whether one batch of oil stays on Cal or not. An exception would be if, during a severe crisis, nations started hoarding oil, meaning they passed laws making it illegal to export oil. In such a scenario, those which produce less oil than they need would be in big trouble. If we think this is a possibility, then timing of the wells is critical. You want the wells to be already drilled, but not exhausted, when the crisis hits. Alternatively, we can drill wells now, and cap them, saving them for future emergencies. (Making a producing well from a capped one still takes some time, but not nearly as much as drilling does, and the US does have a "strategic reserve" of gasoline it could use to fill the gap.) Since private companies won't see much short-term profit from this behavior, laws requiring, and paying for, capped wells, would be needed to ensure emergency preparedness. StuRat (talk) 22:13, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

In theory, large new supplies would tend to lower the price per barrel of oil worldwide. In reality, if a whole bunch of new, non-OPEC oil found its way on the market then OPEC would lower its production accordingly, so as to drive the price back up again. The whole "dependence on foreign oil" thing regarding U.S. oil reserves is completely political rhetoric. Its better to think of all of the oil in the world ending up in a giant pool, and then countries withdraw from it. The only practical result of increasing oil productions from U.S. sources is in increasing the profits of companies which are involved in exploring, extracting, and transporting that oil, but will have almost no effect on reducing costs for U.S. gasoline consumers, and likely very little effect on "petrodollars" going overseas. The market is just too globalized. The only practical means to reduce "dependence on foreign oil" is not to increase U.S. production, but reduce U.S. demand. Good luck with that. --Jayron32 23:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Generally, I think Jayron's position is pretty solid and realistic; but I will point out that there are numerous points of view from various schools of economics. This issue is pretty complicated. The website The Oil Drum hosts many different well-researched articles and opinion pieces from various industry experts (though many articles are arguably a bit alarmist with regard to the perspectives on peak oil, they are almost always very well researched). The OP might want to read a few articles over there. Here are some very interesting perspectives on American domestic production and demand: A quick review of some current numbers on domestic crude oil stocks and the like (from 2007, with many production and price charts for crude and refined product); How Realistic is EIA's US Domestic Oil Supply and Demand Forecast? (from 2008, a commentary from a president of Chevron regarding whether we will reduce net imports in the next two decades); and while we're at it, here is This Week In Petroleum from the United States Energy Information Agency - a complete rundown of the current situation with respect to domestic production, consumption, and pricing for crude and refined product. The hard numbers are right there - imports are way down (for seasonal reasons, mostly). Regional crude stocks are pretty stationary - almost all regions are operating at capacity, with the exception of the Gulf Coast, which is about the only region that has enough capacity to fluctuate refining throughput as demand changes. So new crude extracted in California would almost certainly have to be sent elsewhere for refining (really meaning a net reduction in imported crude to California). That would mean that a higher percentage of energy brought in to the state would be in the form of refined product; which is less economical. As Jayron pointed out, I think it's safe to say that most petro-economists believe that the best way to reduce price is to reduce demand, not to increase supply. Nimur (talk) 00:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

In particular since increased supply (and hence increased consumption) has negative side effects and is unsustainable in the long run. Peak oil may be subject to a lot of debate, but is, at the very least, based on the sound assumption that recoverable supplies are finite. And the longer we increase production, the harder we hit the wall when production declines for lack of resources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above but would add two comments to the questioner: 1) There is no way that an offshore well in California could produce oil at a cost of $4 per barrel. Offshore production costs are always higher than that, and probably closer to a minimum of $40. 2) Even if that well could produce oil at a cost of $40, no oil company would sell it at that price if the global price for oil is higher than $40. The reason is that doing so would cut profits. Companies do not choose to take the maximum possible profit, the market practically forces them to take the maximum possible profit. If they don't, investors will sell the company's stock and buy the stock of companies that maximize their profits. The fall in the company's stock market valuation would make the company's debt larger relative to its valuation and would make it hard for the company to attract the credit that it would need to expand, causing the company to shrink as its oil wells deplete. Incidentally, managers would probably have to take a cut in pay in this context. Finally, a company whose stock valuation falls below the value of its hard assets, as would happen in this case, would attract buyout offers from companies that maximize profits. The remaining shareholders of a company with depressed stock prices would find such offers (almost always at a premium to the listed stock price because the purchaser expects to increase profits) very attractive, and the company would be acquired by a firm that maximizes profits. Because a company's managers have every reason to avoid this scenario, they will maximize profits. Taking this in a different direction, let's say that the United States passes a law saying that U.S.-based companies have to sell oil domestically at a fixed or reduced price. All that this would do would be to disadvantage U.S.-based companies on the global market. It would also be a huge disincentive to developing new facilities in the United States, with the result that the domestic supply of oil would surely drop. Marco polo (talk) 15:58, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

• Just to provide some more support to Marco Polo -- the cost of electricity alone at pre-existing on-land oil wells in California is $2-3/barrel.[17] Add in construction, labor, machinery, maintenance, environmental protection, pipelines, etc., and there's probably only a couple million barrels that are viable at today's oil prices. There is untapped oil on the California coast, but it's expensive to get to. --M@rēino 16:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Percentage of American households without guns?

What percentage of American households have no guns at all? Thanks 92.15.3.168 (talk) 21:35, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Gun politics in the United States has a cited number of 25% of adults owning a gun; no idea how that breaks down by household rather than by person. --Jayron32 21:44, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

That's just individuals, though, correct? It doesn't take into account how many of those individuals own multiple weapons? Corvus cornix_talk 21:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Neither does the OP's question. All the OP wants to know is, essentially, how many of American households have any guns in them at all (they asked it the other way around, but its the same question). According to our article, the closest I could find was that 25% of adults were gun owners. A gun owner doesn't become less or more of a gun owner if they own more or less weapons. Your statement, Corvus, makes absolutely no sense. --Jayron32 22:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit Conflict; It's true, multiple guns per owner isn't the issue, multiple gun owners per household is the issue. There are roughly 115 million households in America, and roughly 230 million adults. A quarter of those would be almost exactly half of households with a gun, but many gun owners would live together, so in reality it is difficult to know except that we can be fairly confident it is below 50%. 91.85.169.69 (talk) 22:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

According to this Pew survey data, the fraction of households saying they possessed a firearm at home was 33% in 2009 -- down from 45% in 1993. So the fraction not having guns would be 67%. Looie496 (talk) 22:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

MSNBC this evening said there are 90% as many guns as people in the US. I expect that most of the civilian guns in the world are in the US. They said that 30,000 Americans are killed by guns each year (suicides, homicides, and accidents). This is like the 9/11 attack times ten every year, or the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki every 8 years. . Edison (talk) 03:44, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Or one years worth of deaths caused by driving every 1.5 years. Or one years worth of deaths caused by obesity every 6 years. Googlemeister (talk) 14:30, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

So Americans are more likely to die by being shot than in a car accident? Wow! 92.24.190.219 (talk) 20:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No, you misunderstood. If Edison is correct, they are 1.5 times more likely to die in an accident caused by driving (a category that includes vehicles uother than cars, by the way). --Anonymous, 01:16 UTC, January 12, 2010.

The article List of countries by gun ownership confirms that number; that is there are 90 guns for every 100 people in the U.S. That doesn't mean that 90% of the people own guns or anything. --Jayron32 03:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that the 90% statistic should not be understood to mean that 90% of households have a gun. Gun households would be a far lower percentage, since collectors, hunters, hobbyists and the deranged have may have numerous guns. Also, many of the guns may be antiques or not in condition for firing. Edison (talk) 05:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be interesting to see a graph of % gun ownership against per-capita gun-homicides as given in List of countries by firearm-related death rate - the gun-homicide per-capita rate in the US is about 100 times that of England, where guns are heavily controlled, according to those figures. 92.24.181.78 (talk) 13:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

this source says 38% of households have at least one firearm in the house (2004), this study reports a 35% household rate for households including members under 18 (2000). One would expect the rate to be a bit higher for overall households. I'd expect that these numbers vary dramatically depending on the state. In many areas I'd expect the percentage to exceed 60%. You might also be interested in similar literature that's attempted to find correlations between gun ownership and crime. For example, differences in burglary patterns depending on gun ownership.

As an aside, there's been an editor on this page from the same domain as this IP that's had some very strong opinions about gun ownership in the past... let's try to keep this as neutral as possible, eh? We don't need another soap box thread. Shadowjams (talk) 09:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The domain of the OP has millions of users who share ISP addresses, and that's rather an unnecessary slur too. 92.24.181.78 (talk) 12:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you the OP talking in third person? Your definition of a slur is quite interesting. The previous discussion is here and it involved an IP making an actual slur ("In my country, only the nutters have guns or have any interest in having one. 92.15.22.77 (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2011 (UTC)"... "Anyone interested in having a gun ought to be thereby regarded as being unfit to have one, a Catch 22. 92.28.242.164 (talk) 14:02, 5 January 2011 (UTC)"). I also actually answered your (?) question, with cites. You're welcome. Shadowjams (talk) 21:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear, more mud throwing - is this necessary? Neither of the above are slurs, as I'm sure you know; unless you regard criticising guns as heretical or that other opinions are not allowed. "Your definition of a slur" - nobodies made any definition; another straw man arguement I think. Please do not side-track into personalities. Keep to the topic. Digging up extracts from other questions just to attack people is not good. 92.24.190.219 (talk) 01:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is harm in expressing our personal opinions here... as long as we remember to respect those who disagree with our opinions. (Who was it who said, "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"?) Blueboar (talk) 13:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Lofty quotes not needed. This isn't an internet forum though. Just trying to remind people of the RD's purpose. Shadowjams (talk) 21:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Not Voltaire. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Legal ownership figures for the UK are in this BBC report. Since there are about 25 million households in the UK (which includes Northern Ireland) that equates to just under 1 gun per 1,000 households. There were 39 fatal injuries in the UK from crimes involving firearms in 2008-2009; the lowest level recorded in 20 years. That doesn't include suicides and accidents. There's no point in trying to compare the fatality per owning household rates in the USA and UK because the cultures are so different. You could compare them across European countries. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:32, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Regardless of how different the cultures may or may not be, if you havnt got a gun then you cannot shoot anyone. How do you calculate 1 in 1000 please? I make it 1 in 180 households (compared with US 1 in 3), which is more or less consistent with the 100-fold decrease in the per-capita gun-homicide rate of England compared with the US. 92.24.190.219 (talk) 20:26, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I did it on a spreadsheet, but must have added a zero to the number of households. 200,000 people licensed to own guns in England, Wales and Scotland, assume they all do have one or more guns, assume one owner per household. 25,000,000 households in UK. So I was a whole order of magnitude out, sorry. About 1 in 100 households. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

While about 33% of U.S. households have one or more guns, the corresponding figure for Canada is 22% of households, per our Gun politics in Canada. So, proportionally, the United States has a 50% higher rate of households with guns. The U.S. homicide rate is 5.4 per 100,000. The corresponding figure for Canada is 1.9 per 100,000, a rate only slightly higher than that of the UK, per our Crime in the United States. If household gun ownership were the only factor explaining the difference in homicide rates, then we would expect Canada to have a rate roughly two thirds of the U.S. rate, or about 3.6 per 100,000. However, Canada's homicide rate is only one third that of the United States. Clearly, gun ownership rates do not completely explain high homicide rates in the United States. Other cultural factors must be at play. Marco polo (talk) 19:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not true to say that the per capita homicide rate is only slightly higher in Canada than the UK - in fact its about 50% higher, according to List of countries by intentional homicide rate. (And note the decrease in the UK homicide rate with the introduction of tougher gun laws). 'Cultural factors' are only minor when explaining the different killing rates: its having a gun that is by far the very most powerful influence. 92.24.190.219 (talk) 20:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

That is only true if you assume a linear relationship without offset. Note that this is an argument on the principle - I'm fairly certain there are other effects at work. But the fact that X and Y are not always at the same proportion does not mean that Y does not wholly depend on X. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

When comparing US and Canada the rates of ownership in urban and in rural households would be interesting to see. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Comparing our article List of countries by intentional homicide rate with the data on this site, a number of interesting comparisons can be made that tend to disprove the idea of a direct correlation between gun ownership and homicide rates. For example, Norway, Saudi Arabia, and (believe it or not) Lebanon all apparently have significantly lower homicide rates than the United Kingdom despite having rates of private gun ownership comparable with Canada. On the other hand, El Salvador has the world's highest homicide rate despite having a rate of gun ownership much lower than Canada. Now, I happen to believe that gun laws in the United States (where I live) are much too lax and that it is too easy for guns to end up in criminal hands here. However, I also think that there are other cultural factors that create a tendency to try to solve problems through violence and that limiting gun ownership does nothing to address those factors and would probably have a disappointingly small impact on the U.S. homicide rate. Marco polo (talk) 01:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

CNN report on politics vs sports

I remember that CNN did a report about a team would win a championship comparing to a politician winning an election like for example when cincinnati reds won a world series they said that a politician from ohio won an election or something like that. I wanted to read that report. Do they have it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.154.166 (talk) 23:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's an item from snopes.com on the Washington Redskins/presidential election phenomenon, which has worked for every election since 1936 except 2004: [18]. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:37, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

In fact, WP:WHAAOE - we have an article on the Redskins Rule. Nimur (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

January 11

Study

I read about a study (not the study itself) (one of Wikipedia's articles might reference it briefly, otherwise somewhere else on the web) that suggested female students considered physically attractive received higher grades (from its abstract I don't think it is this one, the only one Google has found for me). I'm pretty sure it was only female students, and it did not also study race or other things (although I might be wrong). Can someone help me track it down? Thsnk. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 02:33, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of research: here's an abstract of another [19] (short write-up here[20]). If that's not it, try Googling a bit more, because I got a lot of references, or use Google Scholar or another academic database. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Try to find the literature reviews because if I remember correctly, individual studies have been highly divergent on this topic. 71.198.176.22 (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Joane Martin's dimensions (perspective) of the organizational culture

Dears,

Thanks for you concern;

I would like to know what is Martin's view of the organizational culture and what he means with his 3 perspectives (integration, differentiation, and fragmentation).

Thanks again,

Best Regards, Fady Nader —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.233.175.228 (talk) 04:03, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Homework? We don't do peoples' homework for them, especially if they don't give an indication of what the question is about. There isn't an article on Joane Martin in Wikipedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest finding this book at your local/school library. Dismas|^(talk) 04:37, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Bibliography required

Provide a list of modern English fiction (novels) men and weman writers (preferably of those who are still alive)including lists of their works. Where, if possible, can I download their works (books) free-of-charge?94.178.149.209 (talk) 20:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I added the header. Why would you be able to download their works free of charge? If the writers are still alive, their work is almost certainly still in copyright. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:10, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Google Books has some books freely available, but if it's in copyright and the author wants to make money from it, I doubt there will be an easy source for you to freely download it. 91.85.135.156 (talk) 21:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

This is unfortunately far too vague. All modern English (language or nationality) fiction novels by men and women? You're talking about tens if not hundreds of thousands of possible books, depending on what you mean by "modern." If you are only interested in works that can be acquired online legally for free, that would indeed shorten the list quite considerably (e.g. see Category:Creative Commons-licensed novels). --Mr.98 (talk) 23:28, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I would start with Cory Doctorow and the Baen Free Library. Ariel. (talk) 04:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Old coin

I have a coin with stamped inscription as follows: maximilianus 1493 pot max I Inv caes, in the center is a mans image. The backside is identical to the front, only in reverse, caused be what appears to have been hammer stamping. A spot of silver is in the backside.72.86.23.48 (talk) 00:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Must be a coin (or a replica of a coin) of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor ("Maximilianus potentissimus maximus et invictissimuus caesar" is presumably what the inscription means). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:36, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

poorest city in USA

Is Buffalo, New York the only city that is the poorest in the nation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.107.34 (talk) 02:57, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The Buffalo and Antelope roam the List of the poorest places in the United States, but neither is at home at the top of its respective range. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Charity Organizations that might assist with funeral expenses.

Hello: I am not soliciting, but asking one basic question. Can anyone who may be reading this, offer any suggestions or solutions regarding a debt with an undertaker? I am in the Northeastern part of Pennsylvania. I have visited many sites; none of which could help. Thank you, HJP —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.86.43.133 (talk) 04:27, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Have you asked the undertaker? Presumably, he'd like to get paid by somebody, he may have some recommendations of such charities. You can't be the first person ever who had trouble paying his bills, he may have dealt with others in your situation and may be able to recommend a charity to you. --Jayron32 06:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

United Way? 71.198.176.22 (talk) 06:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Einstein's last will and testament?

Where might I find a copy of Albert Einstein's last will and testament? Michael Hardy (talk) 05:01, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Sumerian King's Palaces

Hello, my question is regarding the Sumerian King's palaces. I am asking for a summary of what a palace consisted of, including the rooms and where certain rooms are. If you are able to, I would like a mapped out picture of the palace. As you can see, I am doing a project on this subject and I am having a lot of difficulty finding resources to rely on. I have found several books and a few websites but I need more information. Thank you for the help in advance.Kit kat4314 (talk) 05:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The kings of Sumer lived so long ago, it may be hard to identify specific buildings as a kingly residence, or know for certain their layout. The article Uruk, a major Sumerian city, does have some nice archeological maps, however, so you can get a general sense of how buildings were layed out. --Jayron32 06:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)