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July 22

Duty to try to make a profit

I thought that in the UK, directors etc of plcs had a legal duty of having making a profit as their overriding goal. So how come News International keeps The Times running at a loss? Wouldnt this be unlawful?

I heard somewhere that Rupert Murdoch only owns 7% of News International. So how come he is in control of it, and can run it as a family business with his children being given top jobs? 92.24.138.86 (talk) 00:03, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The owners of a corporation are its shareholders. The directors of a corporation are employees of those owners. The shareholders in general are going to be interested in profitmaking, but AFAIK there is no legal requirement that the shareholders cannot decide on other goals. In particular, it can be beneficial for a company to have some divisions which, on paper, lose money if the entire company makes more money as a result. If The Times individually runs at a loss (and I don't confirm that it is true what you say, I only take it as a "what if"), it may still provide value to the company by raising the overall prestige of the company, or in other ways. Lets simplify it by an analogy: If I run a company, and look at the books, and see that the Purchasing department is always in the red, it doesn't make sense for me to just divest my company of all Purchasing! The purpose of purchasing is to spend money, not make it. The money it spends hopefull provides me with value in other ways. So think of the Times as a division which may lose cash, but still provide value in other ways. As far as the second part of the question: The CEO of a company needn't be the majority shareholder. He just needs to be someone who is able to command the confidence of enough of the shareholders to keep the job. --Jayron32 00:17, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
News_Corporation#Shareholders indicated the Murdoch family owns more than 40% of shares; and I recall that figure from recent press coverage. They may also have a larger percentage of voting share. Per Jayron, companies may elect to run loss making venture if their board and shareholders and content to do so. Currently t appears that they are. Companies certainly are not constrained to maximise profits - that's a popular myth which doesn't bear a moment's scrutiny: who exactly - apart from the board and shareholders - is in a position to balance current versus future profits: taking a snapshot or viewing a particular period in the life of an asset (or liability) such as the Times is merely to posit an arbitrary timeframe for analysis. The board or shareholders may be working to an entirely timeframe. Shareholders have mechanisms open to them to eject a board with which they are not satisfied. That, rather than mythical legal duty, is the means by which shareholders keep their company doing what they want it to do. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
According to today's The Observer the family own 40% of the shares with voting rights but only 12% of the overall equity shares. Such dual types of shares are increasingly discouraged by stock exchanges - I don't think they are permitted for new quotation launches in London, but they still exist. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The duty referred to is called Fiduciary duty and is indeed a legal duty but as correctly noted above, is not to be interpreted crudely. Sam Blacketer (talk) 08:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed - the best long term interests of the company may well be different to the short term effect on liquidity. Chief Executives are paid their money to perform that kind of balancing act. The original poster may however have been somewhat thinking of the legal proscription on trading while insolvent, which is considered a form of fraud and rather frowned on by law enforcement agencies. Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Directors have a legal duty to avoid bankruptcy (and leaving piles of debt behind) normally, that's connected to making a profit someday, but not always. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.79.148 (talk) 12:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is your source for the statement that directors have a legal duty to avoid bankruptcy? One can easily imagine a business plan where bankruptcy within three years was likely — let's say, roughly a 60% probability — but the other 40% of the time the company's capital would increase tenfold. As long as this business plan was disclosed to the shareholders, surely it would be legal in most jurisdictions for the directors to adopt it. Mathew5000 (talk) 18:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That makes no sense. Bankruptcy is a legal process, not necessarily a financial one. The first step is often bankruptcy protection - which can often lead to higher profits when complete than the company made before going into the bankruptcy process. If it was a "legal duty", the courts would be full of stockholders suing every director of every company that has ever filed for bankruptcy protection. -- kainaw™ 18:58, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, there is a thing called bankruptcy fraud, which mainly consist in faking documents, hiding assets, inventing bills to bleed the company and many more things to cheat creditors and investors. Directors have a fiduciary duty towards these groups of people, which do not make them criminal if they do not generate profits or if the company goes bankrupt. It's about how it happens nor if it happens. Quest09 (talk) 20:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is a "civil magistrate" in Virginia?

In Virginia, what is a "civil magistrate"? How does someone become a civil magistrate? --173.49.11.21 (talk) 08:39, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is Magistrate#United_States any use? 130.88.134.214 (talk) 10:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, Virginia does not have "civil magistrates" and "criminal magistrates" but just "magistrates" (who have both civil and criminal jurisdiction). In what context did you see the phrase "civil magistrate"? In 1974, Virginia replaced the office of justice of the peace with the office of magistrate. Since July 2008, magistrates are appointed by the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia in consultation with the chief judges of the circuit courts having jurisdiction within the region that the magistrate is appointed to serve. Eligibility requirements include a bachelor's degree, US citizenship, Virginia residency, and lack of felony conviction. Source: Magistrate Manual. See also map showing regions linking to lists of the magistrates in each magisterial district and generally Magistrate System. Mathew5000 (talk) 15:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(I am the OP.) Friends of mine got married in a civil wedding when they were living in Virginia. The officiant's title was "civil magistrate". That was some years ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.13.190 (talk) 05:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Was it before 1974? Mathew5000 (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In any event, the term "civil magistrate" for someone empowered to perform a civil marriage ceremony would not seem to be official. According to Virginia's Office of Vital Records, "the court in each city and county has appointed persons who are eligible to perform civil marriage ceremonies." So if you want to become such an individual, I suppose you should contact your local court. If you want to search on Google there are a variety of terms you could use: "marriage commissioner", "wedding officiate", "civil officiant", "civil marriage celebrant", and so forth. Try Googling some of those, or variations, along with the keyword Virginia or the name of your county, for example marriage celebrant fairfax county or marriage officiate virginia. Mathew5000 (talk) 17:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Simple. You take lessons from Miss Manners. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC) [reply]

End of don't ask, don't tell

Does it mean the army can ask recruits again whether they are homosexual? Quest09 (talk) 23:06, 22 July 2011 (UTC) [reply]

irrelevant to answering the OP's question
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Which army? HiLo48 (talk) 23:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't be tiresome. The reference to don't ask, don't tell nails it down perfectly well, and if you've been living under a rock and haven't heard of it, a simple search would clear it up. --Trovatore (talk) 23:12, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that getting more people to accept that this is a GLOBAL encyclopaedia is worth making you tired. Thank you for the link. HiLo48 (talk) 02:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that you have a bug up your butt about Americans. You really need to just drop it. Sometimes you get downright uncivil about it. This was a minor case in itself, but the pattern of behavior is unacceptable. --Trovatore (talk) 03:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that your paranoia and appalling manners are showing. Maybe it's behaviour and attitudes like yours that keeps me on my toes. Why do some people from the most powerful nation on earth have to act like they're under some sort of threat all the time? HiLo48 (talk) 03:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're one to talk about manners!! --Trovatore (talk) 03:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to stop trying to get all editors thinking more globally. Peace for now. HiLo48 (talk) 03:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't buy that that's your real motivation. You don't seem to notice, for example, when UK editors do it, and they're almost equally if not equally guilty. Aussies, I'll concede, somewhat less. Your entirely unprovoked and unacceptable musing that you "suspected" the question about half-black celebrities was "very American" doesn't fit into your claimed paradigm at all. --Trovatore (talk) 03:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's a valid point. The world does extend beyond the US coast, and the question shouldn't need someone to go and do some work themselves to work out what it's on about.
The US military might like to think it's the only game in town, and from experience it generally does, but there are others out there...
ALR (talk) 23:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But seriously, is there any other country whose military has/had a policy generally known as "don't ask, don't tell"? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 00:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've worked with a couple who still have homosexuality regulations, but tend not to actually apply them. Colloquially DADT.
ALR (talk) 08:36, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As Trovatore originally put it: "don't be tiresome." --Mr.98 (talk) 19:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merely pointing out that the assumption that the US is the only country to have the policy is inaccurate. But since nobody else actually matters clearly it's not an issue.
ALR (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
He specifically mentioned a noteworthy US law by name. Are there really non-us armies bound by that law? If so you should probably update that article, because that sounds fascinatingly unusual and I look forward to reading about it. APL (talk) 01:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It means that they can ask, but aren't allowed to take any action on the response.
The more practical issue is that perfectly competent servicemen and women aren't now going to be discharged on the basis of their sexuality being inadvertently exposed.
ALR (talk) 23:38, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So why would they ask in the first place? The end of the policy acknowledges that the sexual orientation of individuals is and always has been irrelevant to their capacity to be members of the military. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:58, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone has really come to grips with the question. Unless ALR actually knows something; his/her response struck me as a guess.
A lot of people seem to have forgotten that DADT was a fairly major step in the direction of tolerance. Clinton had promised to end the ban on homosexuals in the military altogether, but ran into too much opposition on that point and backed down, accepting DADT as a compromise. Had it literally been repealed altogether, presumably that would mean that the military could go back to sending gay servicemen to Leavenworth. Not sure how much of that they actually did, but I am fairly sure it was a criminal offense before DADT.
So what is the new law, actually? I don't really know. It may or may not forbid recruiters to ask that question. --Trovatore (talk) 00:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've read the prior legislation, and the DADT guidance as it applied to an individual under my command at the time.
While I haven't read any of the supporting material for the removal of the caveat I have been involved in discussion about it.
ALR (talk) 08:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks, that helps. You didn't mention any of that in your response (and your user page doesn't mention you being in the military) so it sounded like a guess to me. --Trovatore (talk) 08:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, there is now no need to ask the question. Prior to DADT there was an explicit prohibition with an explicit question, when DADT cam in the prohibition remained in place but there was no explicit statement from the individual. The result was that if information came to light that an individual was breaching the prohibition they were discharged.
My understanding is that the prohibition is now to be removed, so there is no mechanism for discharge therefore no purpose in asking the question.
From a UK perspective, since we altered our legislation 11/ 12 years ago, it means that asking the question itself is now prohibited as it has no value in any recruitment or HR context.
ALR (talk) 08:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would just note that there are medical reasons to ask the question, at times (I have been asked in relation to assessing various STD risk factors), and in the military, there is no doctor-patient confidentiality. (This latter point was one of the reasons DADT was so awful.) --Mr.98 (talk) 01:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One consequence of this new policy is that if the draft is revived, gays will no longer be able to use the fact of their being gay to avoid the draft, as they could during the Vietnam era - in which it was at least jokingly (as in the song Draft Dodger Rag) claimed that straight men might pretend to be gay for that reason. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


July 23

Iran's HDI

Why does Iran have a "high" HDI (according to the most recent data in the article)? --134.10.114.238 (talk) 00:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read "Human Development Index"? It defines the factors that go into determining a country's index. Gabbe (talk) 00:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but doesn't the Iranian regime keep almost all of the country's money to themselves, forcing the people into continual poverty and starvation? --134.10.114.238 (talk) 00:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 April 12#Iran's HDI for this exact conversation. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why do so many people assume that Iran is poor, uncivilised and uncultured? The people there belonged to a highly developed and civilised country long before the home countries of most readers of Wikipedia knew much about civilisation. Dbfirs 17:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Because American knowledge of Iran is limited to "desert country near Afghanistan and Iraq that has militant fundamentalists in charge who are making a nuclear bomb." Actual knowledge of Iranian culture, history, governmental operation, or people is pretty limited. But I must say that appealing to historical civilizations is quite misleading — a lot of empires have risen and fallen over time. Just because a place was historically important doesn't mean it is today. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why did you just turn this into a criticizm of America? The topic is Iran.DOR (HK) (talk) 06:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how a country with a population of 75 million people could be 'unimportant'. But yes, the general point is that Iran is a large, complex 'developing' country with a diverse economic structure, a reasonable-ish standard of living (compared to the world average) and a political system that is a lot more complex than the simplistic propaganda put out by sections of the western media. Its claims to be a democracy are somewhat questionable, to say the least, but it is no worse than a lot of other countries in the area, and considerably better than some (though these tend to be allies of the west, so nobody says much about this...). Regarding the OP's question about 'starvation', our Health care in Iran article tells us that if anything obesity is a greater problem. Evidently they are 'developing' western-style health problems too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't implying Iran was unimportant. Just that the historical importance/prestige/relative development of a nation does not necessarily mean it retains importance/prestige/relative development today. Invoking ancient Persia to discuss modern Iran is as misleading as invoking ancient Greece to discuss modern Greece. A lot has changed between then and now. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:05, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The article on economy of Iran (which is rated a "good article") goes into some detail about this. Iran has very significant oil and gas wealth, but the economy is also somewhat diversified, accounting for a relatively high HDI. Neutralitytalk 22:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic ticket for a non-local

There's a type of situation that's been a bit of a curiosity to me for quite a while. Say a person (in the United States) is taking a road trip for whatever purpose (for example let's say via this route). The person leaves point A and while on the way to point C receives a speeding ticket from the Greensburg, KS police (point B). Assuming that the person will not be back in Greensburg anytime in the near future, how does the person take care of the ticket they received passing through Greensburg, given that it would (I assume, perhaps wrongly?) need be taken care of in the Greensburg Municipal Court? Would it require a trip back to Greensburg for the express purpose of (depending on which the person chose to do) fighting the ticket in court or pleading guilty and paying the fine? Basically, if a non-local is ticketed, do they have to make a trip back to take care of the ticket in the jurisdiction's municipal court, or is there some other way that tickets of non-locals can be taken care of in US municipal courts? Ks0stm (T•C•G) 06:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anything about the particular situation in Greensburg, KS, but as a general rule, you can take care of routine traffic violations by mail — provided you're pleading guilty (or "no contest" or "forfeiting bail" or what have you). If you want to contest it, you probably have to go back to Greensburg. I cynically surmise that this is the reason traffic cops in small towns proverbially look for out-of-towners to ticket. Of course I don't really know whether they actually do that, but it wouldn't surprise me. --Trovatore (talk) 07:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I live in the Bridgeport area of Connecticut (not in Bridgeport itself), and we've been getting calls from the Vermont police about a traffic ticked my mother supposedly got in 1994 (e weren't even in Vermont in 1994, but somehow they think my mother has an unpaid ticket). In these calls, they've said that she can either mail it to them or contest it, in which case she would have to go up to the traffic court in Vermont. Some places are more tenacious about it than others; Vermont is notorious for not letting these things drop. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:33, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(Note:This isn't a direct response to Northern Light's quandary. I just happen to live in VT and know a bit about our courts.) The Vermont courts allow you to pay your fines online with a credit or debit card. I'd imagine that most states have similar online systems nowadays. Dismas|(talk) 01:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I got an out of town ticket once from a state trooper. On the back of the ticket, it provided an address to the courthouse in the county seat for where I got the ticket. You sign the ticket, put in a check and mail it there. Or you check the other box and ask for a time for a hearing to plead your case, but you have to go to that county seat to argue in person. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:07, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

American debt compared with Greek debt

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14258888 Is American debt something to worry about like Greek debt? How did the richest country in the world get itself into debt? 92.28.254.185 (talk) 14:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

America doesn't have the same problems with respect to debt as Greece does. Plenty of people, institutions and governments want to lend money to the US. Everyone is very wary of lending money to Greece, because there are doubts over whether it will actually be able to afford to pay its debts. The US economy is doing reasonably well, compared to the Greek one, and the US debt as a percentage of GDP is much lower, so there aren't similar doubts regarding the US. (There are, however, fears that the US may default for political, rather than economic, reasons because of the whole debt ceiling thing.) As for how the US got into debt - it happened in exactly the same way that anyone gets into debt. It spent more than its revenue. --Tango (talk) 15:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
While the immediate threat of US default is political, I believe the long-term threat of US default is likely, regardless of politics. That is, raising taxes and cutting benefits to levels which would seem to prevent the debt from rising further would so hobble the US and world economy that tax revenues would still not keep pace with the debt. In other words, the US debt has passed the point of no return, even though the actual default may yet be decades away, as long as others remain willing to loan the US government money. After all, how long did Bernie Madoff manage to keep his Ponzi scheme afloat ? StuRat (talk) 20:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is this a long-term result of low inflation? Higher inflation would I presume melt the debt away. 92.28.245.233 (talk) 20:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, because those lending money to the US gov would then just insist on higher interest rates. StuRat (talk) 21:00, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They cannot insist on a higher rate, they are stuck with their contract. 92.24.180.158 (talk) 23:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
StuRat probably means higher interest rates for new contracts. Flamarande (talk) 07:17, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and also investors that predict higher inflation in the future may insist on shorter terms and/or higher returns than the current inflation rate would indicate, especially if government officials start talking about using inflation to wipe out the debt. StuRat (talk) 04:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They cannot "insist", they either take the best deal available or walk away. 2.101.4.222 (talk) 08:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And if enough people walk away, then bonds would not get sold and the US would improve the terms. Googlemeister (talk) 14:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, it's basic supply and demand. StuRat (talk) 01:48, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt the US could default for more than a week or two. The government is too big to fail in a way that any given corporation is not. In the 1950s the US paid down the much larger debt from World War II (as a proportion of GDP) without ever running a surplus because the economy was growing so fast. It wasn't because of inflation, it was because trickle down supply side economics was rightly consigned to the dustbin of that era and the top bracket tax rate reached 88%. Greek corporations do not have this privilege because Greek corporations can threaten to leave (capital flight) more credibly than US corporations on balance. If there was a multilateral tax haven treaty in effect, then capital flight would not be a problem. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 23:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
From what I understand, I don't think the Constitution allows the US to default on its debts (I guess we would have to if revenues were less than the debt payments, but that has not happened yet). The problem is that the Constitutional provisions mean that debt payments must be given priority over other expenditures (paying for the military, entitlements, roads, salary checks to Congressmen, etc). The US actually has more than enough revenue to meet its current debt payments (so no default... the creditors will get paid), but making those payments will not leave enough to cover all of the other things the government wants to do. (the remaining revenue can cover some of it... but not all of it). The hard question is... what will be cut from the budget? (I doubt it will be Congress's salaries) Blueboar (talk) 23:54, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unless it can be turned over into paying deposit account receipts instead of debt. Why shouldn't anyone keeping their money on deposit with a government instead of in the economy have to pay for the privilege? The market seems to agree. Once again, the US proves that even if you screw up, if you're clearly capable of doing the right thing, even the investors looking for the lowest risks will let it slide. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 00:07, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our article List of sovereign states by public debt gives comparative information. Most economists believe the difficulties created by debt are best measured by the ratio of debt to GDP. For Greece the ratio given in the table is 144%; for the US it is only 59%. The country with the worst debt problem by this measure is Japan, with a ratio of a whopping 226%. Note that these are unofficial estimates by the CIA and Eurostat; the IMF gives somewhat different values. Looie496 (talk) 00:55, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In that article, I assume that the 50% higher USA estimate by the IMF includes the debts of each individual state in the USA. For the UK figure, are local council debts included? Dbfirs 07:02, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

John Hancock's ships

Do lists, engravings, paintings, letters, or any other documents survive which identify the ships that John Hancock used to create and maintain his wealth?75.82.160.175 (talk) 16:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly. This book (1898) has some extensive business correspondence of Hancock's including ship references. We even have an article on one of Hancock's ships, which was involved in a 1768 incident: The sloop Liberty. Another ship of the Hancocks was the Lydia (see here), perhaps named after Hancock's aunt Lydia (Henchman) Hancock. The Lydia was engaged in transporting "a valuable load of Spanish wine" (see here) when it was involved in the same 1968 incident as the Liberty.
What other goods did John Hancock, his uncle Thomas Hancock, and other relatives carry? Pretty much everything: Thousands of pounds of tea; food; tools; clothing; rum (see here); whale oil and baleen (or whalebone) (see here); and on one occasion "a handsome new carriage for himself and expensive table linen, fraudulently listed as canvas" (here). Neutralitytalk 21:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Take the "fraudulently listed as canvas" charge with a grain of salt: that was a claim made by Tory writer John Mein in an attempt to weaken the Patriot nonimportation movement.
I've never seen a list of Hancock's ships. He bought and sold quite a few of them. He bought a vessel that he christened the Last Attempt in 1768. He had a brig at the time of the Boston Tea Party called the Hayley, presumably named after British politician George Hayley, with whom Hancock did business. Hancock's famous sloop Liberty was named in honor of Hayley's brother-in-law, John Wilkes, the "friend of liberty". The Liberty was of course confiscated by the British, and then burned by colonists in 1769. The brigantine Lydia was wrecked in 1772. Hancock shipped relatively little tea, but he did have a vessel in the 1770s called Undutied Tea. Another was called Whalebone. Both were sold in 1776, bringing Hancock's shipping career to a close. After that, real estate transactions and collecting old debts were his primary sources of income. —Kevin Myers 14:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Poking around Google Books reveals more ship names. Hancock owned a brigatine named Harrison in 1766, when the Stamp Act was repealed. He had a brig named Paoli, after Pascal Paoli. —Kevin Myers 14:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In case you're still there, the first ship owned by Thomas and John seems to have been the Boston Packet, built by special order in 1763 and described as a "prime going Ship" of 160 tons. ([1]) The ship was joined by a second, the Lydia, the following year. Fowler, John Hancock's biographer, seems to say that these were the only two ships wholly owned by Hancock in 1767 (the pivotal year when the Townshend Acts were passed), and that he only owned shares in other vessels at that time. If my dates are correct, Hancock's shipping career lasted just 13 years (1763 to 1776). Thomas Hancock apparently built the fortune not on shipping, but on trading. Nine ships owned or partially owned by John Hancock include, in roughly chronological order, Boston Packet, Lydia, Harrison, Liberty, Paoli, Hayley, Last Attempt, Undutied Tea, and Whalebone. —Kevin Myers 14:30, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Renting floor trading privileges and exchange memberships

The Steve Fossett article says this is how he made his fortune. But the sources cited for this do not actually mention it. How exactly did renting exchange memberships or floor trading priviliges work? 92.28.245.233 (talk) 19:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Stock exchange#ownership touches on this. Securities exchanges' members are allowed to charge a commission for the transactions of their clients. Often there are a limited number of "seats" which the members may buy, sell, or lease. If a member holds at least one seat, they can generally make trades without commissions. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 23:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Morphine-A Soldiers Disease

I have been trying to find information on the uses of morphine in the civil war and the ill effects it had on the soldiers at the time. Is there documentation that the uses of morphine created thousands of addicts? I am looking specically for information supporting the theory of "A soldiers Disease"Hpersons (talk) 20:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not unique to soldiers or morphine, as all opiates used as pain-killers can be addictive, although to varying degrees. Heroin was specifically intended to avoid the addictive effects of morphine, but had the same problem. StuRat (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This Straight Dope article might be useful. It suggests that morphine was very widely prescribed during the war, and addiction to opiates was widespread in the US in the late 19th century, but the two facts were not directly linked: for example, the majority of opium addicts were women. --Colapeninsula (talk) 00:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of soldiers used hard drugs during the Vietnam war but only a small fraction continued used them after coming home. People don't seem to automatically become addicts if it is used to treat a real problem and then the environment changes and it isn't needed. Dmcq (talk) 20:12, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I suspect that genetic factors cause some people to become addicted, while others do not. It would be nice if we could determine if those factors are present in each patient, before choosing to use a particular opiate. For those patients at the highest risk for addiction, other options, such as comas imposed by medication for the most severe cases, might be considered. StuRat (talk) 04:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your problem is that you're looking for morphine, which I don't think was widely available in the Civil War - rather opium was the anaesthetic of choice, as it had been since Paracelsus reintroduced it to Europe. (note that the hypodermic needle was invented (in modern form) in 1857) Wnt (talk) 15:38, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Authors and LLCs

Since it's so easy and inexpensive, in most states in the US, to form an LLC, I was wondering how often authors of books (particularly authors of tell-alls or unauthorized biographies) form an LLC (with a single owner or not) to act legally as the author of their book. The author would transfer all rights to the LLC, or would even write the book whilst in the role of the manager and a member of the LLC, such that the LLC is the author of the book, legally. Whenever the LLC receives revenue, the author performs a draw and gets the money right away. If the author is sued for something like libel or possibly even something like copyright infringement, then the LLC (the legal author) is who's liable, so if there were a large court judgment, the author would fold the LLC and future lawsuits would only be able to challenge the empty husk of the defunct LLC. The author's historical revenue could not be taken from him.

Assuming there were no fraud involved such that there could be a piercing of the corporate veil, the only disadvantage I can think of is that I think a natural human author has much lengthier copyright benefits. Do any authors do this? Who? (I do expect a full explanation to be longer than a normal Reference Desk answer, so any pointers to articles are welcome.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Court cases are decided by jurists and juries, who may or may not act as if the corporate veil is open for any corporation comprised of one person. Books are often commissioned in advance from publishers. While what you suggest may seem fair to you, as someone trying to answer your questions, it seems a lot to me like you are trying to solicit legal advice. I am sorry this answer is not as comprehensive as you might like, but if you want an authoritative answer you will have to ask an attorney. Also, would the LLC and the individual both pay income tax? 99.2.148.119 (talk) 23:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are jumping to conclusions when you write that I think it's fair, and that I'm looking for legal advice. I just want to know whether this rather obvious strategy is a strategy that any authors currently use, and why or why not. To answer your last question, in the US, an LLC normally elects "S" taxation, which means that the LLC is not directly taxed by the IRS; rather, its revenues "fall through" to the individual tax returns of the partners, proportional to their capital interest in the LLC. (Both LLCs and (most) corporations in the US can elect "S" taxation, as above, or "C" taxation, in which the company's income is taxed, and owners pay ordinary income tax when they receive dividends or other payouts.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can't give statistics, but as a voracious reader and lifelong book collector, and former bookseller and later publisher's editor, I glance at the publishing details on the Title page verso of every book I buy and/or read, and as OR can say that a book's being copyrighted to a LLC rather than the author's name has not been uncommon over the last half century - I'd guess at about 1 author in 30. It's more usual when an author has become particularly prolific and successful, presumably because making the author the employee of the LLC, which may also have other employees such as secretaries and researchers, has more tax advantages when the revenue from the writing is greater, though I'm unfamiliar with the details: one example is Isaac Asimov, whose later works are "© Nightfall Inc".
Sometimes, of course, writers are merely commissioned by the owner of an intellectual property to produce for a fee 'work for hire' that remains the copyright of the owner, who may be another author (see Ellery Queen) or the publisher, the estate of a dead author (see for example V. C. Andrews), or a corporation (frequent with novelisations of media properties such as Star Trek). Such works may appear under the real writer's name, the late author's name, or a House name (aka Collective name) depending on the circumstances. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.33 (talk) 00:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great answer — thanks! The Asimov copyright may be a fruitful place for me to research next. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it would be of further help, I can (but not before Monday) check and confirm some other writers I half-remember as having done the same thing; I'm fairly sure that Robert Silverberg, John Brunner and "Ed McBain" do/did so, for example. I'd also suggest that a dedicated writers' forum such as Absolute Write would be likely to repay exploration and querying. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.193 (talk) 10:24, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean that 29 authors out of 30 keep the copyright over their work and only in 1 case in 30 the copyright holder is an LLC? I got the impression that, in almost all cases, the author has to cede the copyrights to the publisher. 88.8.79.148 (talk) 23:02, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, the author does not usually cede their copyright to the publisher. While IANAL, my clear understanding over some years of employment in (and many more of interest in) the 'Book Trade' is that ordinarily (i.e. my vague estimation of 29/30 cases) the copyright remains with the author as an individual, as demonstrated by the author's name (or pseudonym) following the "©" on the verso - a legal declaration. That copyright holder then grants the publisher the right to publish and market the book in specified territories (which may be "worldwide") and within various other parameters specified in their agreed contract: in some cases (my notional 1 in 30) the author themself forms an LLC of which they are the main (and possibly only) "employee" - the publisher then pays the advance and royalties to that LLC which in turn pays the author, this being advantageous for tax reasons in certain times, places and circustances.
Retention of copyright by the writer may however not apply if the writer has been commissioned by someone else to produce the work. To take the Star Trek example I introduced above, Paramount own the copyright to the general franchise, and retain copyright in the books (etc) they pay writers to produce within it (and which in this case appear under the writers' own names rather than a 'house name').
All this reflects relatively modern practice. I believe however that in the 19th century and earlier, it was quite common for an author to sell his copyright in a work to the publisher outright for a one-off fee. Further pertinent information might be found in the Copyright article.{The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.154 (talk) 12:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could it be that your experience in the 'Book Trade' is mainly related to fictional books? I did some lil' OR (in my own book shelf, I know, not very significant), but in the case of non-fictional books the copyright holder was normally the publishing house, whereas, in the case of modern fiction, the author was the copyright holder. 88.8.79.148 (talk) 19:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As it happens, no: as an Academic & General bookseller I dealt with both, and as an editor I handled mainly school science textbooks. I admit I was unconsciously thinking more of fiction, but in my experience non-fiction textbooks were still more often copyrighted to the author(s) rather than the publisher, though the latter also occurred. I should perhaps specify that my period of professional involvement was in the UK and ended some 20 years ago. I suspect practices vary somewhat according to the subjects involved, from country to country, and over time. Even if I was prepared to perform a similar survey of the 12,000 or so books on my shelves (about 85/15 fiction/fact), it would likely only reflect my idiosyncratic selection. Publishing is so wide a field (I have comparatively little knowledge of practices in the large genre of modern romance for example) that I suspect we'd need real statistics from professional bodies to get reliable numerical answers. Perhaps the Publishers Association might be able to supply relevant information. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.97 (talk) 10:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oddly enough, the exact opposite standard works in the field of songwriting; songwriters rarely own the copyright on their songs personally, most often the copyright is held by a Music publisher; sometimes this is done in cases where there is a songwriting partnership, or when a band writes songs collaboratively (for example, Northern Songs was the official holder of the copyright on Lennon-McCartney songs). However, even in cases where there is a single songwriter, the copyrights are usually held by a company; and sometimes you will see where collaborators will still maintain seperate publishing companies for songs written jointly. For example, I'm looking at the liner notes to Mighty Like a Rose, and tracks written by Elvis Costello (usually credited under a variation on his birthname of Declan MacManus) solely are copyrighted to his publishing company "Plangent Visions Music Inc.", while those he wrote with Paul McCartney are copyrighted jointly to "Plangent Visions Music Inc./MPL Communications Ltd." The same arrangement exists on his previous album Spike. Presumably, Costello could still personally own the copyright on his songs (like most authors do), and yet he doesn't, rather like most songwriters he assigns the copyright to his publishing company. --Jayron32 05:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but my understanding is that a "publishing company" in the music business is rather different than in book publishing. I would compare the former to the sort of author's own LLC that has been under discussion, and the latter to a record's label. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.97 (talk) 10:57, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Faith

Is it possible to define faith without reference to doubt? 99.2.148.119 (talk) 22:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well... most of the definitions here don't reference doubt. So... yes, it is possible. Blueboar (talk) 23:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In Christian doctrine the concept "faith" is never separable from the concept "doubt" because the desireable attribute "faith" is expressly defined as a grace that is superior to a simple resolution of doubt by physical evidence. John 20:29 expounds this as follows: Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.. This carries an implicit criticism of Thomas for having doubted by comparing him to those whose faith is unwavering. The name of "doubting Thomas" is omitted from many manuscripts and translations. Here I quoted the KJV. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:02, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And yet, because faith is a grace, no personal credit should be attributed to him who has faith and no criticism should be made of him who does not, because neither of them has any control over it. According to the dogma, faith is given by God, not created by humans. So it's not Thomas's fault that he doubted, and the ones who did believe are not the snowy-haired boys of the scriptures. But people have always been looked down upon for "losing or abandoning their faith", as if it was somehow their personal responsibility. And they've been rewarded by God for having faith (like one of the thieves crucified alongside Jesus, who got immediate entry into Heaven), when faith itself was a gift from God in the first place. This has always confused and troubled the child-like brain that I was always exhorted to retain. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not a Christian, but I believe the canonical answer is that personal credit has nothing to do with the matter: people are granted salvation not because they have earned it, but because Jesus earned it for them via his sacrifice. Looie496 (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Right, so all humans born after the crucifixion are automatically saved, and Hell has had no new visitors for 2,000 years and will never have any. But that's not exactly the message the church has ever given out. Quite the opposite. One has to earn the right to get to Heaven by remaining in a state of grace by being virtuous and not committing sin. Death could come at any time, and if you're not in a state of grace when that happens, bad luck, you're off to the fires of Hell or at least a very long stay in Purgatory. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like Catholic soteriology. I thought you were Orthodox, Jack? --Trovatore (talk) 20:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Was this really meant to be about Christianity? HiLo48 (talk) 20:41, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
True, it has drifted off-topic and we should call a halt. Tks, HiLo.
But no, I'm not Orthodox, Trovatore. I was raised as a Catholic, then decided organised religion of any description was not for me. I was married in a Russian Orthodox church but I was not required to convert. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC) [reply]
If you're interested in where I think you got confused, from a Catholic perspective, I'm pretty sure you've confused grace and faith. If I capitalise the special cases it might help: if you say faith is a grace, you are using a different meaning of the word 'grace' to the usual one in this case, and hence confusing yourself. For God's grace, I will write 'Grace': this means the Grace from God that is made available to us through the Sacraments, and which allows us to find favour with him. It can also come in other ways (God is not bound by the Sacraments), but we know that the ordinary way to receive Grace is through the Sacraments left to us.
Faith, then, follows from Grace, but not automatically. This is where free will starts to play a role: Grace allows us to choose faith, but we can still reject it because we have free will. And our faith must involve doing right things, according to Jesus's teachings, or it is dead faith: and, doing right things can lead us to a deeper faith. And it should lead us to the Sacraments, where we can receive more Grace which makes our faith stronger, which leads us to do more right things, but we can still reject it. For example, Adam and Eve in the garden were supposed to be without sin and full of Grace, but they still rejected God's instructions and sinned. This is an example of the difference between Grace and faith, and they were punished for their actions.
So, there you have it. I'm not meaning to follow you around, spouting Catholic dogma! It just looked like you were genuinely missing something because of a bit of word confusion, which seemed silly to leave. 86.164.65.192 (talk) 23:12, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Check out the first [proper]volume of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah. You can find it online starting from here --Dweller (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


July 24

Fully licensed restaurant in the UK

Lately, my wife and I have gotten into watching Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares show on Netflix. A detail of one episode caught my eye. The sign above the restaurant of the week included the words "Fully Licensed". What does this mean to have an eatery that is fully licensed? Is there such a thing as partially licensed? Dismas|(talk) 01:18, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alcohol licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence answers that nicely for you--Jac16888 Talk 01:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. This is licensed as in 'licensed to serve alcohol': they can sell you wines, spirits etc with a meal - but you can't buy alcohol to consume off the premises. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:25, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see. So it doesn't have to do with the food at all, just the alcohol. Interesting. Here in the States it would be strange to see a restaurant use this as a selling point. Thanks!! Dismas|(talk) 01:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't so much a selling point as a requirement. I'm no lawyer (blah, blah, etc), but I think that a notice regarding the license has to be displayed. I'd certainly expect a restaurant to be licensed, but not the local McDonalds etc - so it is probably in the interests of the proprietor to make indicate this anyway if there might be any doubt. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Fully licensed" is also distinguished from "BYO licence" - bring your own - whereby patrons are welcome to bring their own alcohol, which will be opened and served to them by the staff, and there may be (an exorbitant) corkage charge, but they generally cannot purchase alcohol there because the restaurant is not licensed to sell it. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:33, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps my use of the term "selling point" was a bit off. The sign in the episode was for a nice sit-down restaurant and the words were painted on their sign. I understand the "displayed prominently" bit of the law, after all bars over here in the States have to have their liquor license displayed prominently as well. It's just that the sign had three pieces of info on it. The name, "fully licensed", and the telephone number. That seems a bit over the top for the prominent display provision.
I'm not trying to turn this into a discussion but the only places that I've seen where you have to BYO here in the States were at places that had relatively restrictive blue laws in the city/county. Of the examples that I can think of, all of them were strip clubs. The local laws said that you couldn't sell alcohol if there were strippers performing there. Dismas|(talk) 02:41, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well if you're looking to have wine with your meal, it helps to know that you can buy it on the premises or that you have to bring it with you! So putting it in big letters I would consider to be a plus point. --TammyMoet (talk) 07:47, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Different cultures, different customs, different laws. Vive la différence. HiLo48 (talk) 08:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's possibly worth pointing out, that in the UK, something like 99% or more of "nice sit-down restaurants" will sell you alcohol, and will object to you bringing your own (or at least, inflict a "corkage charge"). McDonalds and similar establishments, along with generic pizza or fried chicken places and so on, don't serve alcohol and also don't generally expect you to bring any. I've only been to two "proper" restaurants (the sort that have table-cloths) that didn't have alcohol available for sale, and both had that arrangement because of their adherence to Islamic principles. (Though I think the smaller of the two also had an eye on the cost savings.) Of those two, one encouraged you to bring your own, and one, allegedly, did not want any alcohol on the premises. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
McDonalds, generic pizza, and fried chicken places are the same here. I think this topic has been run to the ground though. I feel it's something that would be expected for a nice sit-down place and therefore not worth mentioning in such a prominent way. As HiLo said, vive la différence. Dismas|(talk) 08:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This topic is done to death, but I thought I'd just mention that it's a similar situation in Australia. I think most restaurants here are BYO and always have a prominent sign, many are "beer and wine only", and the restaurants that sell booze will also say fully licensed. Vespine (talk) 05:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Legal majority for women - when where they no longer minors?

When did women in Britain attain legal majority? I have difficulty in finding the answer for this question, and the expression I get is often contradictory. Normally in European countries, women where minors up untill about second half of the 19th-century.

Unmarried women where under the guardianship of the closest male relative no matter how old they where, and married women under the guardianship of their husbands. They where, for example, not allowed to handle their own money, and could not take out their own money from the bank withouth the signature of their guardian. Only widows where their own guardians. My question pertains about the unmarried women. In Sweden, for example, unmarried women attained legal majority in 1858, but I have found no such year for Great Britain.

I have heard that Great Britain (and the Unites states) was different then all the other Western countries, and that unmarried women where in fact of legal majority by old English law already in the 18th century. But, despite of this, many films and novels, such as for example Affinity (novel), states that unmarried women where not allowed to handle their money and take out their own money from the bank withouth the signature of a male guardian. This is confusing and contradictory.

If unmarried women where not allowed to handle their own money, then the term legal majority could not have had the same meaning in Britain as it had in other countries. When, in that case, was the law regarding legal majority changed to give women the same rights as men?

I heard some one mention that it was in 1873, and that the reform was completed in 1893, but it don't remember where I heard that. Does any one have any knowledge of this? I have not found this anywere in wikipedia, though perhaps it should be mentioned here, as it is an important question. It seems strange that such an important thing is so hard to find an answer to. I would be most gratefull for any information of this! Thank you. --Aciram (talk) 15:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Married Women's Property Act 1882 and femme covert. I don't know if those articles will answer your question, but at least they're a place to begin. Dickens' novels describe several women (e.g. Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield) bound by moribund marriages and separated or reappearing husbands. —— Shakescene (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think a time frame is needed here... the legal rights and status of women have changed over the years... So what era are we talking about? Anglo-Saxon Times? Middle Ages? Tudor Age? Victorian Era? Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The question, I would say, pertians to the unmarried women of the early modern age, say 1500-1900. --Aciram (talk) 14:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for raising this question, Aciram. It interests me, in and of itself, and it annoys me that I don't have a definitive answer to give you. I can give you some background within the English legal system for the period between Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and the winning of the vote on equal terms to men in 1928. (See Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. Note that even England and Scotland have different laws, let alone the United States, although at that time Canada took most of its laws from England; see the "Persons" case, also of 1928. You may need separate answers for each jurisdiction. The answer you find depends on where you look.)
Legal majority is concerned with more than just property, but it is worth remembering that the vast majority of women had no wealth to worry about. (The same was true of a large majority of men.) If you are considering women's rights to be accepted as witnesses in a trial, to sit as jurors, to be elected to a public office (which happened earlier in some municipalities than gaining the right to vote in general elections), to marry without their father or (male) guardian's consent, to initiate divorce, to keep their children after a divorce, to decide where to live and what to study, and so on, the question becomes much broader, as each of these rights may have been won discretely -- I don't know.
Looking at money alone: a woman could inherit and she could earn, but if she married, this money went to her husband. For class reasons, by and large if one inherited one did not earn, and vice versa. Girls who grew up as heiresses were aware that they were targets for fortune hunters, and their fathers or other guardians made financial arrangements accordingly. We have pre-nuptial agreements and so did the Victorians, although they were called "marriage settlements" and were making provision against death rather than divorce. Victorian literature is rich with examples; I commend Wilkie Collins, who wrote about the effects of the marriage, divorce and property laws in several of his novels, e.g. The Woman in White (1859). In real life, we have the examples of Caroline Fitzgerald, one of the richest heiresses of Ireland at a time when that country was ruled from London; her story is set out in Janet Todd's Rebel Daughters: Ireland in conflict 1798 (2003). (CF was the mother of Margaret King, and thus finds an anonymous place in MW's Vindication.) Another woman held up in her day as the wealthiest in the land was Angela Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906), who took the decision not to marry (knowing that if she did so, she would cede personal and financial power to her husband), and spent her life, with a female best friend (companion? lover?), as an innovative philanthropist, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation of her day. I hope this provides a beginning to an answer. By the way, a few times you confuse the word "were" with "where"; I've used both in my answer so you can see that one is a verb (I was, you were) and one points to location. BrainyBabe (talk) 05:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just a linguistic point, not really related to the substance of the question: Has it ever been the case that women were described as minors? I have never heard of this. I understand what you're getting at as far as being able to dispose of their own property and make contracts and so on, but calling this "minor status" seems to be a bit of an extrapolation. Unless that's the way the term was really used, in which case I'd be interested to know that. --Trovatore (talk) 05:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The article pointed to above, Coverture, doesn't use the word "minor". It says:
Under traditional English common law an adult unmarried woman was considered to have the legal status of feme sole, while a married woman had the status of feme covert. These are English spellings of medieval Anglo-Norman phrases (the modern standard French spellings would be femme seule "single woman" and femme couverte, literally "covered woman"). A feme sole had the right to own property and make contracts in her own name.
BrainyBabe (talk) 13:48, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I simply used the word "minor" just as a way to describe my question, because unmarried women, in all countries it seems except Britain, was placed under a male guardian untill they were granted legal majority. If unmarried adult women were not allowed to take out their own money from the bank withouth the signature of a male guardian, then could they be considered to be adults in a legal sence? In that case, it does not seem that legal majority for a woman had the same meaning as legal majority for a man. In Sweden, unmarried women were granted legal majority in 1858, and that ment that they were given the same rights as adult males (with exception of the right to vote). I see that many of you above mention the rights of married women, which is interesting, but my question is mainly about unmarried women. It seems Britain is an unusally complicated case. In the other countries I have read about, there is usually a specific year in the period of 1860-1900, were unmarried women was granted legal majority, which gave them the same legal rights as men with the exception of the right to vote. Thank you for the replys so far. It seems to be a very complicated question. In France, were the term covert etc seem to have its origin, women does not seem to have been granted legal majority untill 1904. I wonder why England was such an exception from the rest of Europa in this regard. --Aciram (talk) 16:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The concept of "majority" encompasses a variety of legal domains. If you are only concerned with the right of women to own their own money and property, this happened in 1870 in the UK. Of course, women were only allowed to own property if they inherited it (until 1882), so it's debatable if this counts as "majority" status either. Kaldari (talk) 19:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, thank you, but this still seem to regard married women rather than unmarried women? It does mention that unmarried women were allowed to own property, but so are children; it does not say that unmarried women were allowed to take out their money from the bank withouth the signature of a male guardian. --Aciram (talk) 20:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New York City under British occupation during the American Revolution

I am looking for accounts of life in New York City while British forces occupied it, from early in the American Revolution, in November 1776, until Evacuation Day November 25, 1783, when the British left and George Washington rode in, quite a while after the end of fighting in the war. My preference is for period accounts, by American or British writers, such as books, diaries, or newspaper articles, or reminiscences written years later, but I am also interested in historical fiction. Have there been comprehensive books about the period, in which historians have incorporated and evaluated all the primary (and self-serving) sources? I have recently read some of the Alexander Kent novels about British Navy officer Bolitho, some of which are set during this period. Novels set in the period would also be of interest. After the war, I expect that people remaining in the US who had resided in New York 1776-1783 claimed to have always supported the revolutionary cause, and to have spied on the British and sabotaged their every effort, like Frenchmen who were in Paris during the Nazi occupation. During the war, many of the same individuals were doubtlessly declaring their undying loyalty to the King. Outside the city, in nearby US held zones or in the "no-man's land" of Westchester County were raiders or bandits called "Cowboys" and "Skinners" who preyed on farmers in the neutral territory, or on civilians in "enemy" territory, and robbed them of cattle and other goods. Cattle from neutral areas got sold to the British in New York City. Did each share with the local military authorities, and did they hold high level summits like modern gangsters? [2] says that "The two parties often operated in concert, the Cowboys bringing contraband from New York to exchange for the property plundered by the Skinners." While researching Revolutionary War era original documents at the Westchester County archives, I found evidence that the "patriots" who captured Major Andre were likely Skinnres, outlaws or highwaymen. They were later highly honored as heroes of the American Revolution, and given pensions, but originally they said they had agreed to share all the loot they got, and they hid until a horseman rode along, and pounced on him like common highwaymen. Who did law enforcement and investigation of crimes? How did the criminal courts function? What types of corruption existed? Has anyone written mystery novels set in this interesting setting? It would be a fascinating setting for detective novels. I have read the relevant Wikipedia articles. Edison (talk) 21:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a specific question. I'm guessing HMS Jersey (British prison ship)#American Revolutionary War might give you some keyword leads if you haven't already read that one. [3] has a few NYC mentions, and I suspect years '77-'82 do too. Some books are at [4] and [5]. This seems like a job for a university library. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 01:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you have access to a university library, take a look at American diaries : an annotated bibliography of published American diaries and journals for potential leads. —Kevin Myers 09:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to both for the suggestions. It looks like there is fair coverage of the period in histories of the city, lumped in with the entire period of British control, from the late 1600's to 1783. My hope is to find something comprehensive, will all historical accounts, and in life in the "no-man's land" where farms and villages were raided of everything portable by both British and American irregulars. I've found from those sources that the city did have a civilian police force and police courts, with no jurisdiction over the military. Edison (talk) 17:43, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

science and religion

I have read the book " autobiography of yogi " by paramhansa yogananda which contains his own experiences which can not be explained by science.It contains bi-location of a yogi ,a women which eat nothing for many years ,the charater of mahavatar babagi,a person rama raised from the dead , Resurrection of his guru yukteswar etc . is it mean that there may be some truth in religious stories although religions have many false ideas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.187.4.118 (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The most likely explanation is simply that the events described in the book aren't true. Either he's mistaken or lying. It is possible that they really happened and that science is completely wrong, but it's not likely. --Tango (talk) 22:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not using these books as proof, no. Since they are autobiographies, the authors can claim whatever they want and claim it as things they experienced. The problem is that there is no proof that any of these events actually happened other than on the author's word. Like wikipedia, you can't take it all on faith (unless you want to, at which point it is religion, but that doesn't make it true). You need well-documented, reliable third-party sources to back it up. Now, some of the events of the book could be based on true stories, but have been exaggerated for exactly the reason to make them seem like miracles. For example, eating very little can look like not eating at all if you do it right. And people can be raised from a state that appears very much like death. Mingmingla (talk) 22:43, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
David Hume had a good rule of thumb: "When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion." --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Emperor's New Clothes is a helpful allegory applicable to many cases in both religion and science. Schyler (one language) 23:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Names of the Utoya victims

Where can I find a list of the names of those killed? (This is NOT for any article.) Bielle (talk) 23:32, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given that Norway is a modern liberal state with decent privacy laws, I'd expect nowhere. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least as of the BBC news at midnight, the names have not been released. The police seem to think there are likely to be bodies remaining undiscovered on the island and maybe in the damaged buildings. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 23:39, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One could hope that you are right, Steven, but there will likely be memorials that will list the names. (I went to check, but Norway is not listed in the article you link.) Does anyone have Norwegian sources? Names of some of the survivors are given, I note, but perhaps they are all of major age. Bielle (talk) 23:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why would someone want to keep the names private? 88.8.79.148 (talk) 23:52, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
E.g. to protect the families from unwanted attention. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, in general is understandable. But in this case, you'll get the the attention divided by many families. And it can be that they want what you call unwanted attention, that could be a healing process for the families. 88.8.79.148 (talk) 00:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well if one family wished to make their loss public and give the name, I don't think they are legally prevented from doing so. Googlemeister (talk) 15:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CBC News (Canada) said this morning that the names of the victims had "not yet been released". Thanks. Bielle (talk) 16:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The only person I've seen named is Trond Berntsen, who was an off-duty police officer and the half-brother of Crown Princess Mette-Marit (he was the son of the princess' mother's second husband).[6] -- Arwel Parry (talk) 17:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Bielle, I don't know how much you can pick up from Norwegian newspapers but the list of victims will almost certainly appear at www.vg.no and www.aftenposten.no immediately the police announce them. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What's the sentence for killing >90 in Norway?

It's clear that you won't get executed, but does Norway has an upper limit for maximum time in prison, like many European countries? 88.8.79.148 (talk) 23:37, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to the table here, Norway has no life imprisonment, and the maximum sentence is 21 years in prison. I don't know they handle multiple offenses and concurrent service, though, but I would not be surprised if 21 years is the actual maximum, regardless of legal wrangling. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have read otherwise, in a discussion among Norwegians and others, in which the circumstances do apparently allow for consecutive sentence terms, but I can cite no authority confirming this. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 01:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We have an article on Life imprisonment in Norway.
Speculation: From the sparse information on the motives of the suspect one can conclude that the defense may claim insanity of the perpetrator (or the Norwegian equivalent). It seems that he has immersed himself in a paranoid world of a crusade against the forces of cultural Marxism who destroy the fabric of a Christian Europe. The little I know of his voluminous manifesto implies that he sees himself as a combatant against these conspiratorial forces whilst being perfectly aware that nobody else will.
The prosecution may even support this plea if it were the only possibility to detain the suspect for a period exceeding 21 years. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 02:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(moved from below) Returning to the original question, there is an apparently authoritative article here which suggests that, in theory (but regarded as unlikely in practice), the sentence could be extended beyond the 21-year maximum, for periods of up to five years at a time, if the inmate is deemed to be a high risk of repeating serious offences. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't nearly as unusual as it sounds. Canada has a similar restriction, where the maximum sentence is 25-years-to-life. For all practical purposes, this is a life sentence, but it creates a situation where even Clifford Olson and Willie Pickton can apply for parole every couple of years and in theory get out if they were good. They way it sounds, the law in Norway would work in a similar way to keep him locked up. Mingmingla (talk) 17:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's incorrect; you are confused about Canadian law. There is no sentence of "25-years-to-life" in Canada. There are many offences in the Criminal Code for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment. Two examples are robbery and aggravated sexual assault; there are many more. Somebody given a sentence of life imprisonment would be eligible for parole after a period of time, but even if parole is granted, it would still be a life sentence: the person would be "on parole" for the rest of his or her life (unless a pardon is issued). Mathew5000 (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Justification for mandatory short sentences ?

I find the 21 year limit difficult to comprehend. By what logic do Norwegians believe that any crime, no matter how heinous, should be fully forgiven in 21 years, and the perpetrator released and left to his own devices ? I certainly understand objections to capital punishment, but the thought process here baffles me. StuRat (talk) 04:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Irrelevant Forum discussion WP:NOT#FORUM
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


Not to say I disagree with you (and saying that is also not to say that I agree with you), but just to play the devil's advocate here for a second, one could imagine a Norwegian similarly claiming "By what logic do the residents of the (insert country name here) see any crime as heinous enough that one would want to remove a person from society forever (either by death or life imprisonment without posibility of release)." Expressing incredulity doesn't imply anything more than you come from a different culture with differing standards of punishment and retribution. People tend to have a form of confirmation bias which holds that their own culture's standards are somehow the "normal" for the world, and other cultures whose standards lie outside of their own are somehow "wrong". Thus, a culture that imprisons a serial killer for 21 years maximum is considered dangerously light on punishment, while one which issues the death sentence for simple theft would be cruel and inhumane, but only when viewed from a culture whose standards lie between those extremes. People who live in those cultures probably (on the balance) see their standards as, well, standard. I could see the arguement for relatively light prison sentences as being justified if prison isn't seen as punishment, but rather as rehabilitation. If a culture does not value retributional punishment in any form then life imprisonment makes no sense to them. This is not to say that the Norweigian system is right, or that it is wrong, but merely that it is different, and without objective evidence as to its effectiveness, we really shouldn't express incredulity solely on the basis of its being different than what our culture values. --Jayron32 04:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You fail to address the "...and left to his own devices" though. A prisoner locked up for the rest of his natural life cannot go back out at age 53 and do it all over again, and again at age 75. Nothing to do with retribution or rehabilitation but simply deterence. Rmhermen (talk) 05:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there are many reasons to imprison a mass-murderer longer. Here are a few:

1) As noted above, they might kill others, if given the opportunity.

2) Presumably there is a risk that they will be harmed by the families of the victims, once released.

3) There's the Old Testament "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". Or, more broadly, doesn't a punishment equivalent (although not necessarily identical) to the crime seem appropriate to most cultures throughout history (noting that, at times, punishments were vastly disproportionate to the crime, as well) ?

4) The risk of long sentences presumably might discourage at least some future mass murderers.

So, I'm looking for arguments like these, but that reach the conclusion that letting mass-murderers go is the best way to handle the situation. There is Jesus' advice to "turn the other cheek", but that seems to be aimed at individuals dealing with minor insults, not to nations dealing with mass murderers. Then there's the liberal concept that once a person is reformed, healed of their mental disorder, or perhaps attains salvation, that they should be completely forgiven. However, why would an assumption be made that this will always occur within 21 years, or, indeed, at all ? StuRat (talk) 05:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, what I am saying is that there is no reason to be anything except perfectly equivocal on which system is better, in absense of actual evidence one way or the other. That is, you can't claim "life imprisonment is better than the lighter sentence". Of course, you can't claim the reverse either, but that was the point of my comments. You can't just say "My way is better because its my way", which is so far all you are saying. You've proposed lots of hypotheticals, which I suppose could be ways to grant some objective way to measure "better", but the hypotheticals you propose don't necessarily encompass all the ways that one could measure "better". You've presumed that someone wouldn't be rehabilitated in 21 years, but have provided no evidence that they wouldn't be. Again, that's not to say that evidence might not exist to prove your assertions correct. You just can't assume them correct without at least some evidence one way or the other. --Jayron32 06:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Pope John Paul II forgave his attempted assassin, but that has nothing to do with whether he should be kept behind bars. Life imprisonment is not so much "punishment" as it is "permanent removal from society", for the protection of society. Which is also what capital punishment does too, except that it's truly permanent, with no legal loopholes (except for the one around the murderer's neck). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The question becomes whether "permanent removal from society" is justifiable. Certainly, one could issue the exact same "protection" for things like petty shoplifting; i.e. steal a pack of gum, get life imprisonment without the possibility of release. After all, the incarcerated shoplifter can no longer steal gum from stores anymore! To merely describe the definition of "life imprisonment" doesn't in itself provide justification for its practice. People in prison cannot, by definition, commit crimes on society outside of prison. To state that fact is meaningless in solving our dilemma here, which is "what level of incarceration is appropriate." So far, no one has proposed any evidence one way or the other, other than making supposedly self-evident assertions that life imprisonment for mass murderers is somehow "better" in some non-defined way than a shorter sentence of defined length. I've also not claimed that the shorter sentence is better. I have just claimed that no one has presented any evidence either way. We don't even have a defined metric by which to measure "betterness" in this case. Again, for those advocating that Norway's system is somehow inadequate, I am not arguing that you are definitively wrong, I am just arguing that you can't claim yourself right without presenting some evidence (like data would be nice) to support the stance. --Jayron32 06:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My comments weren't directed at you, but I wasn't sure where to put the proper indentions. The question comes down to whether society has the right to permanently protect itself against murderous predators like the guy in Norway. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"But mercy is above this sceptred sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself, And earthly power doth then show likest God's, When mercy seasons justice." DuncanHill (talk) 08:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, and that's why we use lethal injection now, instead of drawing and quartering. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bugs, that was poor even by your standards. It may that nothing would give you greater pleasure than torturing someone to death, but please allow for the possibility that such feelings are not shared by the rest of mankind. DuncanHill (talk) 09:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least my comment makes logical sense, as opposed to the quotated gibberish in your previous comment. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bugs, your comment above sounds like a non sequitur to me. What do you mean? What does using lethal injection have to do with mercy? It's not as if execution by lethal injection is less barbaric than execution by drawing and quartering. Such a double standard certainly doesn't apply to the so-called "murderous predator", does it? (Using dehumanizing terminology makes it so much easier to treat perpetrators of crimes as monsters rather than people.) After all, the guy in Norway shot his victims quickly, and most of them died immediately. Does that mean he should get off more lightly than if he had tortured them to death slowly? Pais (talk) 09:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lethal injection is a much more humane execution method than drawing and quartering. As to showing mercy to the killer in general, perhaps the killer can figure out a way to undo the grief he caused. Then he could ask for mercy. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bugs, the thing about mercy is that it is given - it isn't deserved or earnt or whatnot. It is given, and as pointed out in a more famous section of the "quotated gibberish" above "It is twice blessed; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes". Dehumanising the person you want to kill is probably exactly what the culprit in the current case did - and it certainly appears that he believed the killings were necessary for the good of society. Do you really want to stoop to his level? DuncanHill (talk) 09:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) But you brought up lethal injection in response to a reference to mercy, not a reference to humaneness. Pais (talk) 09:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently you're unaware of the term "mercy killing". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, is that the latest euphemism for the death penalty? Pais (talk) 09:39, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of folks think the death penalty is much less of a punishment than life imprisonment would be. They miss the point that it's not about punishment, it's about permanent removal. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And permanently removing people is so much easier and cheaper than rehabilitating them. Then why bother putting people in prison for 10 or 20 years first before executing them? Why not just take them out behind the courthouse after sentencing and dispatch them quickly with a bullet to the back of the head? Pais (talk) 09:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Because it gives them the opportunity to exhaust all legal remedies. Taking them out back and stringing them up is indeed how it used to be done. Now the convict is given a much better shake. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How long have you entertained these desires to kill? DuncanHill (talk) 09:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're funny. How long have you entertained these desires to return murderers to the streets? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You really don't get it do you? Are we to strive to be better humans - more merciful, less hate-filled, and do we try to fashion society to support that, or are we to obsess over vengeance and live life according to our basest instincts and fears? Do we try to build the New Jerusalem here on earth or just sit back and let the cycle of hatred continue? DuncanHill (talk) 10:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is you who don't get it. We are not robots. We choose our actions. I'd like to hear your theory on how someone like this character in Norway could be "rehabilitated", i.e. to somehow magically change his views that (1) Islam and multiculturalism are evil; and (2) his own countrymen must be killed for tolerating and supporting those things. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but the fact that you haven't changed an opinion in the last 20 years does not mean that nobody does. We don't have a completely reliable method for changing personal views, but then we also don't have a completely reliable method of getting people into orbit and back again. Errors can kill people in either case, but we still do both. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since this is a Reference Desk, not an Opinion Desk, let's take a look at some facts. Incarceration rates - US: 743 per 100,000 population; Norway: 71 per 100,000. Intentional homicide rates - US: 5.0 per 100,000: Norway 0.60 per 100,000. The evidence is that long prison sentences and the death penalty do not reduce the rate of serious crime. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
76 / 4.9 million or 1.55 per 100,000 in Norway were killed in the 2011 Norway attacks, suggesting that Norway's 2011 intentional homicide rate will likely be in excess of 2.0 per 100,000. -- 203.82.81.103 (talk) 04:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Long sentences and capital punishment are not about serving the needs of the criminal, they are about protecting society from that criminal. The criminal chooses to commit his crimes. He thus also chooses his sentence in the process. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bugs, so you'd rather have long sentences and a high crime rate than shorter sentences and a low crime rate? DuncanHill (talk) 09:25, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bugs - my point is that the statistical evidence shows that long prison sentences and the death penalty do not act reduce the rate of serious crime, and so clearly do not act as a deterrent. If your "rational choice" model of criminal behaviour was correct then serious crime rates in the US would be lower than those in Norway, not 8 times higher. If you know of facts that suggest the contrary, rather than just opinions, then please show them. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bugs, if that were the case, equivalent crimes would serve equivalent sentences in different societies. Since that clearly is not the case, the society plays a major part in the decision. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Another non sequitur. The point is that long sentences and capital punishment do not protect society from criminals. You're also creating a false dichotomy: it's not as if "criminals" and "society" are mutually exclusive groups. Criminals are a part of the society, and if society wants to protect itself from crime, it should work harder on preventing the causes of crime in the first place rather than waiting for the crimes to be committed and then either locking people up and throwing away the key or simply executing them. Pais (talk) 09:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It has long been argued that these things are not a deterrent to crime. That's not what it's about. It's about protecting society from these characters. I recall a prison warden talking once about the value of criminals aging. They are much less likely to be violent when they turn 60 or 70 than when they are in their youth. Your argument seems to be that society does not have the right to protect itself against these folks. That's what I call "liberalism gone mad". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You say "it's about protecting society from these characters", but the fact is it doesn't protect society at all. Your argument is proved wrong by the facts, and yet you stick to it. That's what I call "conservatism gone mad". (Well no, not gone mad, it's conservatism as usual.) Pais (talk) 09:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're wrong. John Gacy freely chose to kill 33 victims. Once he was incarcerated, his murders stopped. And once he was executed, there was no possibility he would kill again. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And yet society was not one iota safer for it. Pais (talk) 09:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How do you figure? Society became temporarily safe from Gacy once he was behind bars, and permanently safe from Gacy once he was snuffed. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Safe from Gacy ≠ safe. It's not like he was the only killer out there. Pais (talk) 10:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So executing Gacy made no one safer. Pais (talk) 10:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure it did. It took a murderer out of the populace. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And made a murderer out of whoever executed him. Lose one, gain one. Pais (talk) 10:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong. Murder is the unlawful taking of life. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So the guards at the concentration camps weren't murderers, since Nazi Germany had no law against killing Jews? Pais (talk) 13:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bugs, which do you prefer - 5 murders per 100,000 people or 0.6 per 100,000? DuncanHill (talk) 09:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Neither. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unless, of course, the murder victims are themselves murderers, in which case you prefer 100,000 per 100,000. Pais (talk) 10:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Meaning what?? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's the difference between us, I prefer there to be fewer murders. That's what I call "Liberalism". DuncanHill (talk) 09:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Stats don't commit murder, individuals do. And stats mean nothing to the actual victims. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You honestly don't think that a high murder rate is worse than a low one? You honestly don't mind seeing more victims? More families torn apart? You disgust me. DuncanHill (talk) 10:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's worse statistically. But a rate doesn't matter to a victim. With those status, you've offered a fool's choice. I would prefer a rate of ZERO. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course he doesn't. The more murders, the more executions he gets to exult in. Pais (talk) 10:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You have no clue. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is disintegrating now. Bugs, you have been flailing without a valid or consistent argument for a while now. Everybody else, please assume good faith at least on a general level. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My argument is consistent, you just don't agree with it. Meanwhile, I'd like to know how the mercy-ites would rehabilitate a guy who thinks of himself as a modern day John Brown or something. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Bugs' argument is consistent. "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" is a consistent argument. Pais (talk) 10:23, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My argument is that society has the right to protect itself. Sorry you don't agree. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course society has the right to protect itself, but when its method of protection is both morally repugnant and demonstrably ineffective, it should try something else. Pais (talk) 10:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Norway shooter claims he has not actually committed any crime. Maybe you agree with him? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
He's just like you Bugs - he thinks it's legitimate to kill in order to protect his view of what society should be. And like you, he's wrong. DuncanHill (talk) 11:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bugs these views are unpleasant in the extreme! What would have happened if the UK had capital punishment in the case of Barry George? Your argument may well be 'consistent', but so are the arguments of a load of froth-mouthed psychopaths! I am so happy we have never met because if we did I might accidentally stick a rusty nail in your foot. Jeremy Wordsworth (talk) 11:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your personal attacks are a joke, and you have no clue what my actual opinion about the death penalty is. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Pot! This is the Kettle! I have noticed we share the same colour! I think your statements above give a pretty good indication of what your opinion of the death penalty is. You have no clue. Jeremy Wordsworth (talk) 09:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're wrong. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So in conclusion, if you want to go on a crime spree and want to get off light, go to Norway and do it. Googlemeister (talk) 13:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bingo! ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How so? The facts presented in the unhatted section of this question clearly states that there are a good possibility that the murderer will indeed end up in jail for the rest of his life. So unless you mean "if you want to go on a crime spree and not get executed for it, go to <insert majority of countries in the world here> and do it. But as has been stated below "of course, one should never allow actual facts to get in the way of a good argument". --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Back to the topic, please

Some comments:

1) The comparison of murder rates between the US and Norway would only be valid if the two nations were identical in every way except for prison terms. There are other major differences, though, like the availability of handguns, which make the conclusion that "long prison rates don't prevent crime" invalid.

2) About recidivism: Do you really need statistics ? That's like asking for proof that a melted down handgun kills fewer people than one on the street. As long as their is any recidivism, then imprisonment MUST eliminate that, with some possible exceptions:

2a) Some crimes may still be committed from jail, like telephone fraud.

2b) Other crimes may be committed in jail, against other prisoners or guards. However, I'd expect that this is universally preferred over crimes committed at large (except by the prison victims).

2c) Others may "take up the cause" and commit crimes on behalf of the imprisoned person. I could see this in the case of bin Laden, for example, had he been imprisoned (or perhaps hostages taken and killed if he wasn't released). For some types of crimes, like dealing illegal drugs, the removal of one dealer may create an opportunity for another to fill the vacuum. However, none of this seems to apply to your average murderer.

For items 2a and 2b, those seem like arguments for improving the prison system (such as adding the disclaimer "The following is from a prison inmate" before each call or letter, in the case of 2a, or isolating prisoners more, in the case of 2b). 2c is an argument for the death penalty, in the case of the bin Ladens, and addressing society's underlying problems, or perhaps legalizing drugs, in the case of drug dealers. StuRat (talk) 13:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2c is hardly an argument for the death penalty, since others may "take up the cause" and commit crimes on behalf of an executed person as well. Perhaps even more so since an executed person will be seen as more of a martyr - and more in need of avenging - than a merely imprisoned person. Pais (talk) 13:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stu, can I just ask you never to change my indents or otherwise refactor any comment of mine in any way ever again. Especially do not refactor hats to end a discussion on a point with which you happen to agree, as you did earlier in this thread. It is frankly rather dishonest of you. DuncanHill (talk) 13:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't lie. You actually moved where the hat started. I then removed it altogether with an appropriate edit summary (something you seem incapable of). DuncanHill (talk) 13:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not lying, I neither added nor removed the hats. My question was in the hat, so I took it out, along with some helpful responses, but left the bickering between you and Bugs in there. That belongs on your talk pages, not here. Also, while I didn't, you need to learn to use {{outdent}}, since your prolonged fight with Bugs has run clear off the edge of the screen. StuRat (talk) 13:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I never said you added or removed them, I said you refactored it by moving it, which you did. DuncanHill (talk) 13:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I moved stuff out of the hats, not in, so if your complaint is that your stuff was inside, your complaint is not with me. Also, please don't put complaints like this on the Ref Desk, it all belongs on talk pages, not here. StuRat (talk) 13:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You moved what suited you out of the hat. So yes, my complaint is with you. As I made clear in my edit summary at the time, hat all or none. DuncanHill (talk) 13:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, what I'm looking for here are links to articles (or the text itself) where Norwegians (or others) argued for shorter prison terms for serious crimes, preferable translated into English. There's just some POV I don't understand here, and I want to, even if I disagree with it. (I also read Mein Kampf, not because I agree, but because I wanted to understand the thought process behind it.) StuRat (talk) 13:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On (1), see List of countries by gun ownership. No other country in the world comes even close to the US gun ownership figure of 88.8 guns per 100 residents. However, Norway has a similar tradition of private gun ownership for hunting and recreation purposes, and is 11th in the table, with 31.3 guns per 100 residents. And yet if we look at List of countries by firearm-related death rate, we see the US rate is 7.07 firearm-related homicides per 100,000 population per year, whereas the rate for Norway is only 0.3 per 100,000 per year. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)For #1: that would also mean that the need for differing standards regarding prison rates would also, by necessity, be different. Norway, (hypothetically, just for the sake of arguement) may have more resources availible for intensive rehabilitation of criminals, so it is able to lower its recidivism rate solely because it can better rehabilitate those criminals. That is, insofar as cultural, social, and other differences may be responsible for the difference in crime rates, the same exact reasoning could also fully justify distinctions in sentencing standards. That is, the Norway sentencing standard works fine in Norway, but it would never work in the U.S. and visa-versa. Furthermore, we have no idea how they deal with issues of non compos mentis, for example it may allow for involuntary commitment to a secure mental facility for life, which would allow for reasonable exceptions to their 21-year maximum sentence. About #2: Yes we do need data. Like I said above, stating that lifetime imprisonment eliminates recidivisim (with your caveats about internal prison crime, etc.) doesn't in itself justify its own existance. You've merely stated a corrolary of what the concept "life imprisonment" means, without justifying its existence. We can imprison someone for life for stealing gum from the corner store; such a person wouldn't ever steal gum again. Such a fact does not itself justify the need to imprison them for life. Regarding 2c specifically, there is no distinction here; since one may take up the cause from the dead as well; there is little distinction between taking up the cause for an imprisoned comrade vs. taking up the cause for a martyr. --Jayron32 13:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I really should have divided 2C into 2Ci, the terrorist case, and 2Cii, the drug dealer case. For 2Ci, after the results of the imprisonment of some of the PLO terrorists from the 1972 Munich attacks, Israel decided that targeted assassinations were the better option. The US seemed to reach the same conclusion regarding bin Laden. Yes, murders may be committed to commemorate a dead martyr, but most dead martyrs fade quickly, unlike an imprisoned martyr, which can continue to attract new generations of followers for decades. StuRat (talk) 14:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Murder to avenge murder. DuncanHill (talk) 14:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't want your indents changed, you need to do a better job yourself. You neither placed your comment after my relevant comment, nor indented it to show it was a response to mine. As written, it appears to be a response to Jayron.StuRat (talk) 14:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You changed your indents, apparently at the same time as I was posting. This is how it was indented when I posted. DuncanHill (talk) 14:18, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but please change your indent now, and, since you didn't place your response after my relevant post, I will move my subsequent posts. StuRat (talk) 14:25, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not changing them as no dount you'll come along and change yours again (as usual, with no explanation) just confusing things even more than you have already done. I don't know what weird kick you get from fucking things up. DuncanHill (talk) 14:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Geez, will you assume good faith, please ? I made a mistake by not indenting my response to Jayron enough, and then immediately fixed it. Had your response to me been placed after my relevant comment, which was properly indented, it never would have been an issue. Also, can't you at least make your text small, when it has nothing to do with the topic ? StuRat (talk) 14:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC) [reply]
As for the death penalty or life imprisonment for stealing gum, there was a time when such extremes were the norm, but those do seem to violate the Judeo-Christian norm of "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth". StuRat (talk) 14:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now, Jayron, I'm still trying to decipher your argument. Is it that, if the recidivism rate is low enough, that the risk to society is better than continuing to punish the criminal ? StuRat (talk) 14:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • First of all, understand that I am not endorsing one system as better than the other. What I am arguing for is some standard more consistent than the argument from emotion; that is before we can properly say "The Norweigian system is inadequate" and "The U.S. system is better", we need to first define a) what is meant by "better" and b) allow for a metric to measure "better".
  • To provide a counter the arguement made by Bugs in the collapsed section (which I think was inappropriately collapsed), his standard seems to be "no murder is acceptable". I agree with that, but to then define a policy which reduces the murder rate to literally zero murders is a literal impossibility. One may only prevent all murders always by imprisoning all persons in solitary confinement from birth until death. To allow two people to interact socially is to allow for the non-zero possibility that one may murder the other. Once you realize that you cannot prevent all murders, you need to define a system which is based on other standards. You need to decide how much you are willing to sacrifice your own very humanity to ensure your own security. Bugs's standard of "no murder ever" isn't reasonable. Is he willing to personally, himself, spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement just to ensure that no one else may commit murder? I would suppose not, since I think he does occasionally interact with other people face-to-face.
  • Our goal should still be to prevent murder, but that needs to be counterbalanced with not imprisoning someone who would not have committed murder had they not been in prison. After all, lets say that I have a non-zero chance that I will murder someone. If I am walking free, and it can be determined that some other individual has a smaller chance of committing murder than I do, it would be unjust to imprison that person. That is, if you stand less of a chance killing someone than I do, by what right do I have to keep you in prison while I walk around free?
  • If we allow that the right to imprison someone is based solely on preventing future crimes (which I have seen several times as an arguement) and I simultaneously demand justice in the sense that we should not imprison people who are not going to commit a crime (for any given minimum standard of "are not going to") then we need to allow for the possibility that merely committing a crime in the past does not automatically mean that I am guaranteed beyond any doubt to commit a crime in the future. That is, people seem to be arguing that "once someone has killed, they have a higher chance of killing again", and they are arguing that without presenting any evidence that such a fact is inevitable.
  • If we allow for all of the above, then there is at least the possibility that murderers in Norway who are released after 21 years in prison kill less people than the general population at large. If the only justification for keeping someone in prison is to prevent murder, then how can one justify keeping people in prison who are actually shown to be less likely to commit murder than other people who are not imprisoned. I am not arguing that this fact is true, I am merely arguing that if it were shown to be true, then Norway's system could be then said to be working. I am perfectly open to the possibility that such evidence may present itself to show the exact opposite (that Norway's system isn't working) but I am not open to the idea of declaring Norway's system somehow inadequate based solely on the "We don't do the same thing here" standard, which is so far all that has been presented by those which are attacking it as such.
  • Of course, all of that still doesn't mean that the Norway system is universally better. We also need to allow that:
  • a) One may reasonably define other justifications for keeping someone in prison, which have nothing to do with justice, OR have nothing to do with keeping society safe. For example, one merely needs to redifine that which is just, and the Norway system can be invalid under those standards even if it released murderers kill less people.
  • b) One may also reasonably argue that even if the Norway system works in Norway, that it may work in no other place on Earth. That is, insofar as societies are different, they must respond to crime in different ways.
  • All of my above arguements can be summed up simply. Before one can say "The Norway system is unreasonable" one must first a) define what reasonable looks like b) define a way to measure it. and c) show evidence that it does not meet that definition. So far, with the exception of some statistics above regarding murder rates (which may or may not be valid for proving anything yet) no one has yet presented any actual objective arguement one way or the other. --Jayron32 14:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
While I appreciate the idea of backing up to decide what the goals of imprisonment are, there is such a thing as backing up too far. The fact that mass murderers are more likely to commit murders than the general population is so blatantly obvious that commissioning a study would be seen as a waste of money (although figuring out exactly how much more likely they are to commit murders might be justified). We could even back up further and ask if murder is a bad thing, or if we really even exist, but this also isn't very helpful to the question at hand. Rather than us discussing our goals, perhaps the better question is how the population of Norway defines them, in such a way that those goals are best achieved by releasing prisoners after 21 years. StuRat (talk) 15:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(pre-EC response before you added the bit at the end)It may be blatantly obvious that, absent of any intervention, a mass murderer presents a real threat to society that must be stopped. It is not necessarily blatantly obvious that the mass murderer is irredeemable however, in the sense that some hypothetically proper intervention could rehabilitate the person who commits many murders. You earlier cited "Judeo-Christian" ethics, which I should note does not include anywhere in it the notion of "eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth". It is absolutely not in the "Christian" part (any reading of Christian scriptures cannot possibly come to that conclusion) and one can also not reasonably say that even Jewish scriptures and traditions (even pre-modern ones) demand such a standard either (Jewish standards during ancient times do mandate a highly legalistic tradition of atoning for one's wrongs via a highly proscribed system of temple sacrifices, for example; however I don't think that modern Jewish thought even goes this far.) Judeo-Christian ethics holds that the individual is, hypothetically, always redeemable, and never mandates that proper justice includes meting out punishment identical to the crime. (post-EC response just to StuRats addition of the last sentence) YES YES YES! That is pretty much exactly what I have been arguing all along!!! Jeez, thanks for finally understanding! --Jayron32 15:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
StuRat can read of Eye for an eye (see article) in the Old Testament. However StuRat is wrong to quote it as a Christian norm because that is denied here:

You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:38–39, NRSV)

Jayron32 is right about this. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am aware that "an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth" is not in accordance with the teachings of Christ. However, a larger percentage of those who call themselves Christians believe in such Old Testament justice, nonetheless, at least in the US. Is this not the case in Norway ?

As for reform, yes, always a possibility, but the question is not if it ever happens, but if a mass murderer can ever be guaranteed not to commit more murders, at least to the same level of confidence as the average citizen who hasn't been convicted of murder. That is, can they ever be released without putting the public at additional risk ? I'm pretty confidant that the answer here is no, they will always be more of a risk than non-convicts. If so, what benefit do Norwegians think the release may offer, that equals or exceeds the risk ? StuRat (talk) 22:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm bit puzzled by the argument here about Norwegian system. If you look at the article Life_imprisonment_in_Norway than you can see that Norway does allow for imprisoning people for life, if they are considered a danger to society. The maximum sentence served as punishment is 21 years, but after that the prisoner is judged whether he is a danger to society and can get his sentence prolonged by 5 years. Meaning that dangerous people can be kept of the street in Norway.94.208.67.65 (talk) 15:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks, that's useful, and I didn't get that from News reports here in the US. StuRat (talk) 15:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See, there's the other possibility that we're all just arguing the wrong arguement to begin with. Since Norway doesn't automatically release mass murderers after 21 years, then it kinda makes this entire thread silly. of course, one should never allow actual facts to get in the way of a good argument. :) --Jayron32 15:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is Norway's felony re-offence rate, and how does that compare to the re-offence rate in the US? Googlemeister (talk) 15:51, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This states that for Norway 20% of convicted criminals are back in jail within 2 years, while the figure is around 60% in the US (2005-6 numbers). However there is apparently also a disclaimer about differences in definition and measurement, so they should probably not be taken at face value. --Saddhiyama (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It actually says between 50% and 60% for the US and UK. And, how many end up "in jail" isn't the same as how many re-offend. They could end up in jail for doing something non-criminal, but which is a violation of parole, such as failing to show up at the parole officer's office for mandatory check-ins. Also, one nation may tend to let ex-cons go without jail time for minor offenses, while the other does not. StuRat (talk) 21:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

July 25

Capital punishment in Venezuela

Did Hugo Chavez reintroduce capital punishment when he took over? --134.10.113.106 (talk) 01:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on the subject is only a year or so old, So I'd think that it would have noted this if it had happened. Was there any particular reason why you asked? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How would Chavez keep power if he couldn't execute dissenters? --134.10.113.198 (talk) 03:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've no idea. How did George W. Bush do it? Please use the reference desk for its intended purpose, not as a soapbox. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You don't have to kill people legally to get rid of them. 88.8.79.148 (talk) 11:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a completely different topic than the one you asked. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't asked anything. 88.8.79.148 (talk) 19:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a nice summary of human rights concerns in Venezuela compiled by Amnesty International. It does not look like Chavez has murdered anyone or had them executed. It is alleged that various governmental bodies have arrested, threatened, and occasionally beaten up dissenters. As far as official repression goes, that's pretty good for Latin America, historically speaking. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

schist disk

I was watching a film entitled "The The Pyramid Code" It mentions the "schist disk" discovered by British Egyptologist Walter Bryan Emery at Saqqara, Egypt in 1936. I have searched to find out more factual information, but only weird websites have some information. I want to know the facts about it and more details of it's history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.162.128.211 (talk) 03:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia articles on Saqqara do not mention the artifact, neither does the article on Walter Bryan Emery. However, the Walter Bryan Emery article does contain a bibliography of his writings; if you have access to a good library, you may be able to find these books and be able to see if he wrote about it himself. I tried a search for "schist disk", but really schist is a rather common stone, so I don't know if the term "schist disk" was a formal name for the artifact or just a description of it. Good luck! --Jayron32 03:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They are called the Hemaka discs; Emery found three of them. Brief description here, photo here (they are each about 10 cm in diameter).--Cam (talk) 04:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why was Anders Breivik exempted from conscription in the Norwegian military

I heard about this guy in the news and came to Wikipedia to read the article on him, and saw reference #21 there, but I don't read Norwegian. Thanks. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 12:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, other sites (e.g. the BBC) are saying he did normal military service, and I'm not convinced by the translation used - I suspect it means he was released form military service, not exempted. We need a Norwegian speaker. DuncanHill (talk) 12:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Translation of article[7] by Oddvin Aune et. al. from NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) 23rd July 2011
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.


32-åringen skal tilhøre høyreekstremt miljø

32-year old allegedly belongs to extreme right-wing movement

(Translation of article[8] by Oddvin Aune et. al. from NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) 23rd July 2011)


32 år gamle Anders Behring Breivik, som er siktet både for eksplosjonen i Oslo og skytedramaet på Utøya, skal tilhøre et høyreekstremt miljø og har hatt verv i FpU.

Anders Behring Breivik, 32, who is charged with both the explosion in Oslo and the shooting spree at Utøya allegedly belongs to an extreme right-wing group and has held office in FpU (Progress Party of Norway).

Dødstallene etter skytemassakren på Utøya har steget voldsomt, sier politiet i natt. Minst 84 mennesker er nå bekreftet drept. I tillegg er sju personer drept i Oslo.

Tonight the police announced that the death toll after the shooting spree at Utøya has risen drastically. At least 84 people are confirmed killed. Additionally 7 people were killed in Oslo.

Anders Behring Breivik er fra Oslo, og er bosatt på Skøyen. Boligen hans har blitt gjennomsøkt av politi med skuddsikre vester i fredag kveld.

Anders Behring Breivik is from Oslo and lives at Skøyen. Police wearing bulletproof vests searched his house this Friday evening.

Politiet opplyste lørdag morgen at 32-åringen siktes både for angrepet på regjeringsbygget og skytedramaet på Utøya.

The police announced on Saturday morning that the 32-year old is charged with both the attack on the goverment building and the shooting spree on Utøya.

Dette anses som en terrorhandling, og er den mest alvorlige straffeparagrafen politiet har til rådighet, sier visepolitimester Roger Andresen.

This is regarded as an act of terrorism, and is the most serious legal clause available to the police, stated Vice Police ChiefRoger Andresen.

Han skal ha vært iført politiklær og være sett på begge åstedene. Mannen er fraktet til Oslo, og skal avhøres formelt av politiet i løpet av lørdagen.

He allegedly wore a police uniform and was seen at both crime scenes. The man was taken to Oslo and will be formally questioned by the police during Saturday.

Har bakgrunn i FpU

Has background in Progress Party

Behring Breivik meldte seg inn i Frp i 1999 og betalte sin siste kontingent for året 2004.

Behring Breivik joined the Progress Party in 1999 and last paid his due for 2004.

Han var medlem av lokallaget på St. Hanshaugen i Oslo i perioden 2001-2003 og en kort periode i lokallaget på Frogner i Oslo i 2003. I 2006 ble han fjernet fra registrene, skriver Aftenposten.

In 2001-2003 he was a member of the local group at St. Hanshaugen in Oslo and for a short time in 2003 of the group at Frogner in Oslo, according to Aftenposten (newspaper).

Han var dessuten engasjert i Fremskrittspartiets Ungdom (FpU) fra 1997 til 2007. Han meldte seg aktivt ut i 2007.

He was also active in Progress Party Youth (FpU) from 1997 to 2007. He resigned in 2007.

I FpU hadde Anders Behring Breivik to verv, det første som formann i Oslo Vest fra januar 2002 til oktober 2002, det andre som styremedlem samme sted fra oktober 2002 til november 2004.

The two positions he held in FpU were firstly as leader in West Oslo from January 2002 to October 2002 and secondly as committee member at the same place from October 2002 to November 2004.

I et innlegg på Document.no skriver Anders Behring Breivik selv at han «i flere år» har arbeidet for Frp.

In Anders Behring Breivik's own words at Document.no he worked "for several years" for the Progress Party.

Jeg ble i dag tidlig gjort kjent med at han har vært medlem hos oss. Det er aldeles forferdelig å vite, sier Siv Jensen til Aftenposten.no.

I heard early this morning that he had been a member with us. That is utterly awful to know, said Siv Jensen (leader of the Progress Party) to Aftenposten.no.

Høyreekstremt miljø

Extreme right-wing movement

Etter det NRK får opplyst, har ikke den pågrepne noen yrkesmilitær bakgrunn. Han ble fritatt fra verneplikt, og dermed har han ikke spesialutdanning eller utenlandsoppdrag for Forsvaret.

NRK has no indication that the arrested person has any professional military background. He was not conscripted and so has had no special training or foreign service for the Defence.

Den pågrepne skal tilhøre et høyreekstremt miljø på Østlandet og skal ha registrert to våpen på navnet sitt: Ett automatvåpen og en Glock-pistol. Utover dette er han ukjent for politiet

Allegedly the arrested one belongs to an extreme right-wing movement in the East region of the country and has two guns registered to his name. An automatic and a Glock pistol. Other than this he is unknown to the police.

Behring Breivik står som medlem i Oslo pistolklubb, og han skal også være medlem av en frimurerloge.

Behring Breivik is listed as a member of Oslo Pistol Club and is also said to be a member of a masonic lodge.

Anders Behring Breivik skal i en periode ha bodd på Rena, og står registert med å ha drevet et firmaet som bedrev dyrking av «grønnsaker, meloner, rot- og knollvekster» - en bransje hvor man også kan få tilgang til store mengder kunstgjødsel. Dette kan brukes i sprengstoff.

Anders Behring Breivik is said to have lived at Rena for a while and is registered as operating a firm that grew "vegetables, melons, root- and bulb crops" - an industry that also gives one access to large amounts of artificial fertilizer. This can be used in explosive.

Tungt bevæpnet politi tok seg i natt inn i huset på gården. 10-15 politifolk gikk gjennom gården for å sikre spor etter den antatte gjerningsmannen.

Heavily armed police tonight entered the house at the farm.10-15 Police combed the farm to secure traces of the assumed perpetrator,

Da vi kom hit natt til lørdag, virket gården øde, forteller NRK's reporter Kurt Sivertsen.

The farm seemed deserted when we came here Saturday night, relates NRK's reporter Kurt Sivertsen.

Bare et enkelt lys var på inne i bolighuset. Senere kom tungt bevæpnet politi, og vi fikk beskjed om å fjerne oss, forteller han.

Only a plain lamp shone in the house. Heavily armed police arrived later and we were told to go away, he reports.

Aktiv i nettfora

Active in Internet forums

Mannen har én twitter-melding fra 17. juli som sier «One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests», et sitat av den britiske filosofen og sosialliberalisten John Stuart Mill. Den pågrepene har allerede fått en hatside på Facebook.

His single twitter post from 17th July is "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests" which is a quotation from the British philospher and social liberal John Stuart Mill. The arrested one has already gained a hate page on Facebook.

Han skal også ha markert seg som enn flittig debattant på flere islamkritiske nettsteder, blant dem Document.no, der han i flere innlegg ga uttrykk for nasjonalistiske holdninger og framsto som kritisk til et flerkulturelt samfunn.

He allegedly also distinguished himself as a regular debater on several anti islam websites, among them Document.no, where he expressed nastionalist views in several posts and was seen to be sceptical of a multicultural society.

Document.no valgte lørdag å publisere alle Breiviks innlegg på nettstedet. Der framgår det at Breivik ikke har skrevet noen innlegg siden 29. oktober 2010, men at han i en periode var svært aktiv.

On Saturday Document.no chose to publish all of Breivik's posts to the website. It shows that Breivik made no post since 29th October 2010 but was very active for a while.

I innleggene han skal ha skrevet kommer han blant annet med grove karakteristikker av tidligere statsminister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Among the posts he wrote he gives crude characterisations of former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Han har også vært aktiv i en debatt på Minerva, hvor han kommenterer et innlegg fra Høyre-nestleder Torbjørn Røe Isaksen.

He was also active in a debate in Minerva (Norwegian periodical) in which he commented on a post by Vice-leader of the Right party Torbjørn Røe Isaksen.

Nasjonalistisk i debatter

Nationalist in debates

VG Nett skriver at 32-åringen fremmer svært konservative meninger, som han også kaller nasjonalistiske, i nettdebatter. Her viser han motstand mot at kulturelle forskjeller kan leve sammen i et samfunn.

VG Nett write that the 32-year old advocates very conservative views, which he calls nationalist, in Internet debates. In these he expresses denial that cultural differences can exist together in a society.

Til sammen er minst 87 mennesker drept etter angrepene mot Regjeringskvartalet i Oslo og på AUF-leiren på Utøya utenfor Oslo.

Altogether at least 87 people killed after the attacks on the government quarter in Oslo and on the Labour Youth camp at Utøya outside Oslo.

Politiet har funnet en bil som inneholder eksplosiver på Utøya. Bilen tilhører trolig den antatte gjerningsmannen.

The police have found a car containing explosives at Utøya. The car probably belongs to the assumed perpetrator.

Translated by Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The translated article says Breivik was excused conscription and not why. That could have been for many reasons because Norway allows for conscientous objection (fritaking for militærtjeneste av overbevisningsgrunner) and there are civil duties that are acceptable as a replacement for military service. The relevance of the information is that Breivik is not known to have received military training or experience. His ownership of a Glock pistol is consistent with his membership in a pistol shooting club but I wonder what reasoning lay behind issuing Breivik a license for an automatic weapon (automatvåpen) which is not usual in Norway. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Terms of Loan Guarantees

Hi, this is a purely theoretical question, with no practical implications for me ATM.

When writing up loan guarantees (private ones, not government or corporate), how do they write the terms to ensure that the guarantor can only be called upon when the debtor can't pay, and not merely because the debtor won't pay? Is there usually some clause stating that the guarantor only becomes liable if and when the primary debtor declares bankruptcy and all his seizable assets have been liquidated by the trustee? Otherwise, what would stop debtors simply deciding not to pay, knowing that the creditor won't bother chasing them (given that the loan is anyways guaranteed)? If I were to be a guarantor, I'd want to ensure that the creditor did the heavy lifting in chasing the debtor, not me. (I'd accept liability if the debtor had been stripped of all his assets, and truly didn't have the money). How would I achieve that? And will those demanding loan guarantees (e.g. banks and other financial institutions) accept such a "limited" loan guarantee as sufficient to extend credit?

(Note: No one is asking me or anyone I know for a loan guarantee. It's just that this question has bugged me for quite some time). Eliyohub (talk) 13:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is that very often loan guarantees don't ensure that the guarantor is only called upon when the debtor can't pay. Private guarantees are required as a condition of a loan, and the loan company has an interest in protecting its money. They word the guarantees so that the guarantor is responsible in the event of non payment for any reason. The guarantor and debtor can take it or leave it. I have previously acted as guarantor for my daughter and made sure that she understands that if she misses a payment they will come to me. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you at least expect her to pledge whatever assets she has as security for the loan, leaving you a reduced (unsecured) amount to "cover" with your guarantee? That will at least reduce the moral hazard of your daughter being tempted to default. If you guarantee the whole loan, I think you're being foolish. Eliyohub (talk) 14:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Becoming the guarantor of an institutional loan requires more faith than it does financial good sense. That's one reason you don't do it for strangers or even for people who do not share your moral values with respect to promises made. One would assume there is some such compatibility between parent and child. I would say that if you cannot afford to lose the money, don't become a guarantor.Bielle (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That was my feeling. I could have afforded to lose it (with some hardship like missing a holiday and delaying car renewal), but if my daughter had defaulted through just not paying I would be more upset that my daughter would do that than for the financial loss. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The other key thing if that you know your daughter and, presumably, you trust her not to default. My mum is guarantor on my rent. That's not because my landlord has reason to think that I'm a credit risk, but rather because he doesn't have reason to think that I'm not. I don't have enough credit history for anyone to draw conclusions from. However, my mum has much more to go on than my landlord, so was able to reach the conclusion that I'm not likely to default. (And, as you say, she's my mum so she would be willing to take the hit if I needed her to.) --Tango (talk) 19:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If the debtor can pay but doesn't, then the creditor and the guarantor can possibly both sue the debtor. The loan agreement can possibly specify that the creditor would have to try to sue the debtor before charging the guarantor. Ask an attorney in the actual jurisdiction to be sure. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 17:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(from the OP). What I alluded to earlier was an arrangement whereby the liability of the guarantor is secondary to the security (real-estate or otherwise) pledged by the debtor as a lien. If the debtor defaults, the creditor must first seize the security, and the guarantor is only liable for amounts outstanding (i.e. any difference between the value of the security, and the amount outstanding on the debt). Would a bank accept such a guarantee as sufficient? It would seem to pose no additional risk to the bank (though it would impose some "bother" on them). Anyone know? Eliyohub (talk) 14:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With respect to the original question - how do they write the terms to ensure that the guarantor can only be called upon when the debtor can't pay, and not merely because the debtor won't pay? - the answer is that they never do this. Lenders will not accept or see value in a guarantee that requires them to show that the debtor can't, rather than merely won't, pay. The guarantor generally can proceed against the debtor for any amounts paid under the guaranty, although if the guarantor really is worried that the debtor might deliberately stiff him, then he shouldn't extend the guaranty anyway. I suppose it might be possible for a lender to agree to a limited guarantee that requires the lender to proceed against collateral first, but that would be an unusual and customized arrangement. John M Baker (talk) 18:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did the seclusion of women in ancient Greece also include royal women?

Usually, people associate "Ancient, Classical Greece" with the Republic of Athens, but my question is about the ancient Greec kingdoms (excluding Sparta, which I know was a unique case). I know about at least two ancient Greek Kingdoms: Macedonia and Epirus. I have heard about the seclusion of upper class women in ancient Greece. They were not allowed to mix with men outside of the family, and the social life was gender segregated. My question is; did these rules also pertain to royal women in Macedonia and Epirus? My impression is that women were more free in the Greek kingdoms than in the Greek republics, at least the royal women. Was the queens secluded, or did they have official ceremonies to attend to? Were they present at official occasions? Thank you.--Aciram (talk) 14:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea specifically to answer your question directly, but there is some question about how "purely Greek" even Ancient Macedonia was. Without getting into the whole modern conflict over the use of the term Macedonian, Ancient Macedonians had a strong cultural influence from cultures outside of Greece proper (like Thracians) as would be expected of any polity on the borders between cultures. In the case of the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia (and possibly also Epirus), one cannot discount the possibility that standards there are inapplicable to other Greek states simply because such standards may have been influenced by non-Greek culture. That is, the Macedonian Standard may not be anything resembling the idealized "Greek Standard", given non-Greek influences on the Macedonian culture. --Jayron32 15:53, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In monarchy, such customs are defined at the whim of the monarch, so this probably varied a lot on a case-by-case basis. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 17:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It seems very wrong to see the phrase "the Republic of Athens" in text. The classical Athenians never described their specific system of government that way; outside of the relatively brief periods of oligarchical rule, it was a direct participation democracy. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse me, but that has no significance in my question. have you any information about the question? --Aciram (talk) 11:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's information about just three words of your question. Others may be able to help with the rest. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recording and photographing a meeting

I anticipate having a meeting with an aggresive bully which I would like to record for evidence. Where can I find out if openly recording and photographing them is legal in the UK, even if they do not agree to being recorded and photographed? 2.97.216.222 (talk) 20:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can find out via appropriate professional legal counsel. My understanding is that in the UK system this would be a solicitor (as opposed to a barrister), but I'm open to correction. Perhaps call some offices and ask if they have experience with surveillance law? Note that our article on photography and the law includes a statement that aggressive photography of an individual can constitute harassment. — Lomn 21:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another avenue, at least in the States, would be to go to the local "spy shop" (which caters to private investigators and generally suspicious people, selling hidden cameras, audio recording systems, and the like). The staff there could certainly provide advice on what's legal, and they might even be correct. More relevantly, though, I'd expect that they'd know which local lawyers are well-versed in these matters. — Lomn 21:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The US (not UK) Supreme Court has decided in 1971 that recording conversations using concealed radio transmitters worn by informants does not violate US law. Such a transmitter has these advantages over a concealed recorder:
  • a remote third person can make the recording and serve as a witness that it was not tampered with, and
  • the remote person can if the situation becomes ugly instigate an intervention.
Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Have you tried asking your local Citizens Advice Bureau or police force? Of course, another issue to consider is whether the recording will actually be useful as evidence (for example, if you plan to use it in a court case). 81.98.38.48 (talk) 22:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here's an FAQ on recording phone or e-mail communications in the UK, which isn't exactly what you asked, but is similar. In the United States, (not sure about the UK), wiretapping laws have sometimes been used even when the conversation is in person, in public (i.e. Christopher Drew was charged with violating wiretapping laws in Illinois, an All-party consent state, when he recorded a video of police arresting him in a public place). In the U.S., there are generally state laws that allow recording in secret when there is no "reasonable expectation of privacy" (or similar language). Illinois is, I believe, the only state without such protections. Again though, not applicable to the UK, so take Lomm's advice, and ask the appropriate legal professional. Buddy432 (talk) 02:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maintaining a record of the meeting is permitted, although both parties may wish to keep their own records. The other party may reasonably request a copy of any notes taken or written up following the meeting. Asking permission need not be explicit, it can be a reference to "noting down some points". In practice taking notes are encouraged as should the situation go to an industrial tribunal contemporaneous evidence is useful.
Video and audio recordings of the meeting fall under the same legislation. The demand the consent of all parties. There may be points in the company handbook about one or both of those, as the company premises are private property the use of imagery collection devices may be banned.
The applicable legislation would be employment law and the Data Protection Act. As already suggested CAB is probably your best bet with respect to guidance in advance, although a solicitor with particular expertise in employment law.
ALR (talk) 09:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As an alternative, how about inviting someone else to the meeting to act as a note-taker and witness (and could maybe intervene if it turns nasty)? Astronaut (talk) 13:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's an acceptable option however the same provisions apply if the other party wishes to keep their own notes.
ALR (talk) 15:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Safe Money

Which denomination of money (Euro, Peso, Yen, etc.) should/could one convert all his or her U.S. Dollars to before it is all worth-less? Realizing the whole world economy is tied in with the U.S. dollar, which would be most stable following a period of hyperinflation of the dollar? Schyler (one language) 22:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For maximum safety, buy some of each. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 01:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Swiss Franc has really taken off in the last few months because it is considered a safe haven. Of course that safety is also something of an illusion of the world economy really tanks. Also, of course, markets will, to a high degree, take the relative safety of investments into account, so if you get out of the dollar now, you will pay quite a premium - and if things turn around, you will not recoup your money in full. It probably is safest to invest into something tangible you yourself can use - e.g. a flat to live in. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The safest form of currency would be guns, bullets and canned food because those items are inherently useful as opposed to pieces of paper or little metal discs. Googlemeister (talk) 12:58, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But they are not inherently more valuable in the future than they are now. Just because they are useful does not mean their value will be constant. If you are making a serious investment choice and not just preparing to be an extra in The Road, then that matters. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Purchasing gold is one option. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 18:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The gold market is likely holding nearly as much value as it can handle. It has been seen as a safe haven during the recent financial crisis since 2008, and its value has grown so fast in that time, many are fearing a "gold bubble" (see [9] for one example). Looking at how fast gold's price has gone up: Almost 3 fold in 5 years. Anything that goes up that fast is quite likely to come down that fast as well, and you don't want to get on that ride at the top of the hill; it will hurt when you come crashing down with it. The last two investment classes which had price profiles resembling golds (that is, such a rapid rise in a short time) were dotcom stocks in the late 1990s and housing in the middle 2000s. I'm not sure either of those panned out for people who bought at the peak of the market. If you want to invest in a commodity whose price is likely to rise relative to the dollar, perhaps oil may be a better purchase. It shows no obvious signs of bottoming out anytime soon. --Jayron32 20:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The OP didn't ask about speculative investments, but about a way of keeping his property safe from hyperinflation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.79.148 (talk) 22:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Materials commodities are often recommended as inflation hedges. Gold has long been considered an inflation hedge. So recommending gold is not the worst idea, except for the fact that there has been a ton of gold speculation recently, which has probably created a bubble. This article is a nice, recent discussion of inflation hedges. Obviously any inflation hedge is speculative — you're being speculative if you're betting that hyperinflation will happen (pretty unlikely — even in a worst case scenario, hyperinflation is pretty rare) and so picking a proper hedge is necessarily speculative as well. There was a nice article in Harper's by Thomas Frank recently on the relationship between gold speculators ("metal heads") and fears about hyperinflation. Unfortunately it is subscriber-only but the gist of it is that people who are currently investing in gold as a hedge not only are probably building up a bubble on par with the dot com one, but that the entire logic of doing so is ridiculous from an economic and historical point of view. The bottom line is that there's really no good reason to believe that US currency is going to become worthless anytime soon, but the scramble for inflation hedges is making any attempt to buy an inflation hedge very risky. Anything that you think has intrinsic value can be an inflation hedge. You could posit that SUVs will not lose value even if the dollar does, and invest in those, for example — except, of course, there's a great possibility that they could lose value relative to currency, which is the speculative part. If your baseline assumption is an entire, catastrophic collapse of the dollar, I'm not sure you can reliably predict what would be an inflation hedge in that situation. But an economist would probably have a better assessment of this. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

privatization of government

Would a political jurisdiction where public government was replaced by private government default to the will of those with the most money and are there any examples of such transitions? --DeeperQA (talk) 23:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of any de jure situation where such an outcome was the intent of a government; that is to allow money in and of itself to be the sole determining factor in political power as a intentional function of government organization. There are governments that have similar outcomes, for example see Oligarchy#Corporate_Oligarchy_.28Corporatocracy.29 or more insidiously see Kleptocracy. An interesting fictional treatment of your exact proposal is the 1975 film Rollerball, which presumes a political future which is pretty much exactly the system you are proposing. --Jayron32 00:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The idea of anarcho-capitalism is similar to this, where all state services are eliminated and instead of a state-funded police service and army you can pay a police service and army to protect you. That article contains some discussion, but it has never been tried. Warlordism, where government breaks down entirely as in present-day Somalia or the Civil War-era Russia, can be close (although there is the obvious problem that just because you have money and can hire mercenaries doesn't necessarily mean you can stop people robbing you). --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In a sense, weren't US coal mining company towns in the 1940s an example for a privitized local govenment? Googlemeister (talk) 18:48, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cutting the USA debt

Who is proposing what? What are the consequences of each proposal? Why don't they settle it by meeting in the middle? - Kittybrewster ☎ 23:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The issues are complicated but they come down to a budget surplus versus a budget deficit and the proper way to move from the current budget deficit to a budget that is surplus. As far as a default is concerned it is a question of either making payments on the debt or on entitlements since tax loopholes and tax breaks have deprive the US government of sufficient revenue to make the payments. --DeeperQA (talk) 23:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Obama admin has offered to meet it in the middle -- he offered a plan to slash a few hundred billion from spending, even from entitlements, so long as pushes for reinstating the Bush era tax cuts are ditched (they are largely what is causing the high deficit in the first place, in terms of lost revenue[10]). The Republicans have refused to settle largely for ideological and political reasons — they want more (despite Obama being willing to compromise to levels that have his own base very angry) and they want Obama to look bad. Anyway the bottom line is that it's a very nasty political situation that has nearly nothing to do with the actual proposals. It's also what makes it rather dangerous — it's a game of chicken at the moment that has very little to do with the actual numbers on the table, but is about scoring political points. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)If we take the simple simple simple version, the issue is that the U.S. spends more money than it takes in with tax revenue. Such a situation cannot occur indefinitely, but there are differing opinions as to what this means, and what to do about it. Solving the debt problem involves some measure of a) increasing revenue or b) decreasing spending. The deadlock involves deciding which proportion of each of a) and b) the government should do. Democrats in the Senate and House, and Republicans in the Senate all support some level of both revenue increase and spending decrease, while House Republicans (which are heavily influenced by the "Tea Party" movement) refuse to allow any revenue increases in solving the problem. Confounding the issue is that the U.S. has a legal "debt ceiling", that is a prior Congress had enacted a law that set a maximum amount the U.S. could borrow. The only way that that ceiling could be broken is if the current Congress would need to either repeal or modify the earlier law to allow the U.S. to borrow more. Everyone except the House Republicans see this as a major problem, because if the U.S. isn't able to borrow then it will have to default on some of its obligations; either it doesn't pay its entitlement obligations (social security, medicare, medicaid, etc.) or it doesn't meet payroll, or it defaults on its debt. There is no other options. The House Republicans actually seem to want this to happen, since it would literally force the U.S. to spend less money, which is a major plank in their platform. --Jayron32 23:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the government spending more than it takes in can continue indefinitely, so long as the economy (and thus, the total amount taken in) continues to grow: essentially, the government is paying off this year's excess spending using next year's income. Hardly ideal, but it works. --Carnildo (talk) 01:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Except that the debt ceiling law prevents it. --Jayron32 01:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yet the debt ceiling has been raised more than 100 times. So really, it can continue as long as Congress keeps raising it. Livewireo (talk) 09:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perpetual growth of an economy is no more possible then a perpetual motion machine. Googlemeister (talk) 12:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a bad analogy — the economy is not a closed system. If it wasn't, we'd still be living like medieval times, where there was no capital. You can actually create new value, new wealth, etc., which is the physical equivalent of extra energy coming into the system. Finding new petroleum reserves, for example, is the equivalent of hooking a battery up to your motion machine. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the economy is a closed system if you are dependent of fossil fuels like the current economy. Oil can't last forever. Wealth is created in 3 ways. Mining, manufacturing and agriculture. Mining involves non-renewable resources and is most obviously non-perpetual. Agriculture is renewable but uses non-renewable inputs (mostly in the form of fossil fuels). If you run out of fossil fuels, you can keep farming, but your output will drop dramatically. Manufacturing also uses a large amount of non-renewable resources in terms of metals, and petroleum products like fuel, oil or plastic. In essence, unless we are to discover a magical free energy source, the economy is jstill a closed system, just one that is large enough that we haven't quite found the boundary yet. Googlemeister (talk) 13:43, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Holy shit, did your economics class get as far as mercantalism and then just quit? I'd go back to your school and have some angry words with your professors if that were the case. What kind of pre-modern society do you live in where the only sources of wealth are based on physical objects? Information, entertainment, finance, etc. these are all large, sizable sectors of our economy and to claim that wealth is somehow a "closed system" and depends solely on raw materials and turning those raw materials into finished goods is such an outdated view on economy that it boggles the mind. Its like thinking that Copernicus is the last astronomer who had anything important to say on the universe, or that Newton said all that needed to be said on the topic of Physics. This is not to deny that dependence on non-renewable resources is a serious concern for the long-term health of the economy, but besides the complete non-sequitur in comparing a short-term political budget battle towards something as unrelated to the current situation as the problem of fossil fuel exhaustion is the problem that you don't seem to have any grasp of modern ideas about wealth and how it is made and managed... --Jayron32 17:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some information can improve the efficiency of wealth creation, but information can not create wealth in a vacuum. Entertainment does not create wealth, it moves wealth from the moviegoer to the film producers. Finance can make it easier to create wealth via loans, but also does nothing to create wealth by itself. Making broad statements like "Perpetual growth" is absurd, (note I am not accusing you of making these statements, mostly it is those talking heads in the media). Everything in terms of wealth boils down to resources, services are not a long term solution. Googlemeister (talk) 18:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I am not advocating perpetual growth in the way that you seem to think perpetual growth means. But it is beyond simplistic to view wealth in terms of "resources" unless you mean resources in such a purely metaphorical sense to include things like "human capital", "education", "knowledge", etc. Wealth is itself created by economic activity; it is not solely a sum of the value of raw materials dug from the ground coupled with the value added to them by human labor. There are lots of human activities which create wealth that have nothing to do with that practice. Yes, there are major problems for the economy when raw materials run out. However, to claim that it is the sole source of wealth is like claiming you can drive your car with wheels only: Sure, you cannot drive your car without wheels, but it is not necessarily the wheels that make the car go. If wheels doesn't work for you, replace it with any vital part of the car. The wheel is unimportant to the analogy here, but what is important is realizing that one cannot extrapolate the idea that a vital part to a system is the same thing as the sole vital part to the system, nor is it irreplacable. If wheels become scares, it drives car manufacturers to necessarily come up with alternate modes of propulsion. If we suddenly had no wheels, we may tank tracks becoming more prevalent, or even better yet exotic hover systems. The impending exhaustion of raw material supplies represents both a challenge and an opportunity. Its not as though one magical day the tap will run dry and the entire human race will shrug and say "well that was fun, lets go back to the cave!" When it becomes economically better to transition out of the petroleum economy, humankind will do that, just as it transitioned into the petroleum economy from earlier economies. --Jayron32 19:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you there, if you take out the non-material stuff from the economy you have a gasoline engine car with a fuel tank full of diesel fuel. At best, it will barely sputter along. Googlemeister (talk) 19:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the issue was just accessing material resources, if history is any indication, there are far more material resources available than is evident at any given time. Petroleum doesn't last forever, but eventually you transition to other energy sources, and after applying enough capital and intelligence at exploiting them, you are able to get them just as cheaply. So the oil will run out, and eventually we transition (some many decades down the line) to purely solar/hydro/wind and/or fusion power, and continue from there on, and so on. And yes, the sun eventually burns out, yadda yadda, but the point is that you can have continual (on average) economic growth for many thousands of years without running into any significant material snags, as we've been doing since the fertile crescent. There is technically a fixed amount of wealth in the universe, indeed, but the human race is not going to hit it anytime soon. Comparing the economy to a perpetual motion machine is as silly as saying that the entire universe is a perpetual motion machine, because the energy eventually will run down. It's technically true but totally irrelevant for the current discussion. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's a bit naive. You should definitely watch this (despite the funky title). At a moderate growth rate of 3.5%, the economy will double every 20 years - or by a factor of ~30 in 100 years. This is not sustainable for long by scientific and technical advance. We are above sustainable carrying capacity for the planet now, at least with our current model of resource usage. Yes, so far we have found enough new resources for current usage so far. But that's the nature of exponential growth: at the beginning its slow, but if you assume e.g. the constant 3.5%, we will use the same amount of resources in the next 20 years than we have used throughout history up till now. If we now have 90% reserves, we will run out in 60 years. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon me for being a little skeptical on these numbers, I agree that resource limitations are a serious problem, but people have been making these predictions for hundreds of years, and they have universally turned out to grossly underestimate the ability of humanity to adapt. They always presuppose "if nothing changes in the way we consume", and then it turns out that human progress isn't static, and changes much faster and more drasticly than their models predict. If Thomas Malthus were even one iota correct, we'd be eating each other by now. --Jayron32 02:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

austerity programs

United States government employees and pensioners have not receive a cost of living increase in over three years while prices for food and other retail items have increased by an average of 30%. This means that the purchase interval for a box of oatmeal, or a gallon of gasoline has had to be extended by 30%. This means hardship and at a certain point inadequate food and gasoline to conduct normal life so such programs are definitely limited by how long they can last. What might be the longest an austerity program could be extended before government employees and pensioners began to riot in absence of other methods of reducing a deficit? --DeeperQA (talk) 23:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a rather specific prediction, and I'm not sure that anyone could make any reasonable evidenced answer as to the date when government employees would openly riot over the lack of COLA adjustments. --Jayron32 23:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What methods might be used to restore COLA to include the increases from the time when it was ended? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DeeperQA (talk • contribs) 00:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Congress would pass a law. --Jayron32 00:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The government could borrow (at the low, low rate of 0% interest these days, I'm not kidding; in fact I think they can charge to keep funds on account) or increase revenue, by, for example, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, which would bring in $5.4 trillion over 10 years. 99.2.148.119 (talk) 00:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"prices for food and other retail items have increased by an average of 30%" -- citation needed. This page certainly shows no such large increase. --Sean 14:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I did not see them list what they are pricing, so we are left to assume they are pricing the same items for each time period. Is there verification that there is not product substitution (chicken for beef for example)? Googlemeister (talk) 15:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Look further (e.g. by clicking on the June data). It's based on fixed food plans, last nailed down in documents published 2006 (for "thrifty") or 2007 (for the other 4 plans). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:19, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
People don't buy less oatmeal when the cost of oatmeal increases. In fact, they buy more. It's luxuries you stop buying (and if those are luxury foods, then you need to replace them with cheap foods, such as oatmeal). While people would get quite upset at not being able to afford as many luxuries, they would need their real-terms income to reduce a lot before they started going hungry. --Tango (talk) 20:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
30%? The government says prices have increased less than 5% since 2008. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, retailers play all sorts of games to hide price increases from price monitoring authorities even if they have real-time access and copies of store inventories with accurate prices available to their computers. ie, citations are meaningless because the data is intentionally deceptive. It is a case where original research is the only way to avoid deception, which reveals techniques like 30% price jumps on individual items to replace more frequent lower percent jumps to fool the monitoring authorities who are looking for high frequency jumps. Furthermore, the wealthy are not effected by a price increase of $1.88 to $2.44 for a bottle of ketchup. They will keep buying at the same interval but those who have been on an austerity program for over three years and who were at subsistence levels to start off with have no choice but to increase the interval between purchases to deal with the problem. Even an idiot can see that at some point the interval will grow so large that an item will not be available when needed, like food and other necessities for the poor while the rich are unaffected. DeeperQA (talk) 23:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Labor Department (which calculates inflation) doesn't just call stores to find out the prices; they have people visit them too. If you think there's a conspiracy to make inflation look tamer than it is, it would have to involve thousands of store managers and small-business owners across the country. Plus, if the government were to fake inflation stats, people would figure it out after a while. Stuff would be seven times as expensive in 20 years as opposed to twice as expensive at current inflation rates. People would be drinking $7 cans of pop and know there's no way inflation was only 3.5 percent a year during that period. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:13, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
yada, yada, yada. Just like taxes there are loopholes in the inflation accounting process that do not reflect true inflation for the very poor and it is this group that believe through experience that inflation calculation which includes items like soda pop. I am talking about the price of bread, meat and potatoes and the basic necessities of life. When it costs three times as much to cook food then even if the price of food stays the same the total will be more. It is a gimmick to include items that do not inflate and that are not necessities with basic foodstuffs which have negative or no or very low inflation like certain consumer electronics and soda pop, --DeeperQA (talk) 03:29, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

July 26

British Slavery and Racial Equality in Europe

I was wondering why slavery was such a touchy subject for the British. I mean I watched Amistad (film) and noticed how the British portrayed on it were so against it. I know they were abolished it before America. Also I read that blacks in Europe had it better off than in America for a long time, a prince of Hawaii once wrote that a black man could sit on the bus with the Queen of England while in America he was kicked off a train because he was thought to be a slave. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The important thing here is that there are different types of slavery. For centuries the British used a form of indentured servitude or apprenticeship to accomplish similar means that chattel slavery accomplishes. "Chattel" is akin to cattle, thus a form of personal property, i.e. huamn beings owning other human beings. Chattel Slavery "proper" was never a large practice in Britain and was dogmatized in the Southern United States from the American Colonial Period to the American Civil War. As to your second question about Quality of life of blacks, there are a slew of reasons, ranging from Jim Crow Laws (most important in my opinion) to Multiculturalism (European countries are stereotypically very homogenous) to the psychological effects of Government Assistance from the Freedmans Bureau. Schyler (one language) 01:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One thing to consider is that the British economy (that is, the economy of the Island of Great Britain, as opposed to that of Her Colonies) is not dependent on large Plantation economy like the colonies in the New World were. Several major crops (primarily rice, and sometime later cotton in the American South; sugar cane and to a lesser extent coffee in the caribbean and S. America) were dependent on having a large, cheap labor force, which is why slavery took hold in those regions, where it did not in Great Britain proper. Race-based, permanent slavery had no economic reason to exist in Great Britain, so it was easy for them to dismiss the practice. In places where it was a major part of the economy, it was harder to do so. That does not mean it wasn't an abhorrant, evil practice that had any moral justification, but it does help to understand why the practice was more tolerated in the colonies than in Europe. Great Britain was hardly "enlightened" with regard to attitudes towards other "races"; it just manifested itself in other ways besides slavery. The UK had its own race riots as late as the 1950s, so one can hardly say they had been living in a "color-blind society"... --Jayron32 02:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The British Crown also incentivized the ownership of slaves in the New World, awarding more land to family heads with more people (including slaves). Lord Baltimore at one point claimed to own over 40 million acres! Schyler (one language) 02:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The OP mentions the portrayal of slavery in a fictional film. Certainly, in the early C19 it was one area in which the British liked to think of themselves as ahead of the Americans; remember it had not been that long since the loss of the colonies. "I was wondering why slavery was such a touchy subject for the British." Have you read Slavery in Britain and Ireland? The Triangular trade brought wealth to cities such as Bristol and Liverpool, but the pressure grew for Abolitionism, aided by the legal decision of Somersett's Case, which eventually led to first the Slave Trade Act 1807 and then the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. (Also, User:Jayron32, we have articles on the Brixton Riots of the 1980s and 1990s, and the Category:Riots in England mentions the 2001 Oldham race riots as the most recent one with "race" in its title.) BrainyBabe (talk) 05:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be some rather uneven comparison of what qualifies as a "race riot", though! The Oldham riots resulted in no deaths and twenty people injured. (Note that such injury statistics for UK police officers can include being stung by a wasp or getting sunburnt.) By contrast, the 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted in 53 deaths and "thousands" injured. Our article Race riot is particularly incomplete in this respect; it lists the two UK events where no-one died, alongside a slew of historical race riots in the USA, each of which saw dozens of deaths. Keith Blakelock is notable for being someone who actually died as a result of a race riot in England (in 1985) - virtually unheard of. It's misleading to think of race riots in the UK as a city-wide orgy of lethal violence, arson and looting, as U.S. race riots seem to be. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's true. The British weren't that nice when it came to the Indians and Chinese during the 1800s and 1900s. But the "equal" conditions in Europe for blacks in the time when in America they were being lynched and enslaved is really intersting. To what extant were their so called equality or better treatment (more accurate word).--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The upper classes in the UK would have had servants, not slaves, once society had changed from feudalism. As far as race riots here go, for some reason we tend to go after property rather than people, although there are cases where people have died during riots (Isiah Youngsam in Birmingham is an example). We may not have had the entrenched racism of the American Deep South, but we still have had it over here. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:19, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Odd extension on the rear of an 1870s house

Can anyone guess at the function of this small addition to the rear of a preserved house in southern Indiana? You can see the exterior on the right edge of File:Jacob Rickenbaugh House, southern side and rear.jpg and on the left edge of File:Jacob Rickenbaugh House, northern end and rear.jpg — it's the partial-story element with the sloping roof. The house was built in 1874, but its remotely rural location seems to have kept it from keeping up with popular styles; for example, it has Greek Revival elements more common on buildings several decades older. Nyttend (talk) 01:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Storage? Perhaps this was a place to keep cordwood dry for burning in a fireplace or woodburning stove. --Jayron32 01:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
First that came to my mind was a Hideaway Hole for escaped slaves using the Underground Railroad. Schyler (one language) 01:37, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Storage of some sort, possibly low-temperature storage (thick walls and no obvious ventilation). It's far too visible to be a hiding place. --Carnildo (talk) 01:43, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is most definitely usable for storage, and was probably built for that purpose. Yet, visibility is not necessarily bad for hiding. Sometimes something that has an obvious use may deter a would-be-slave-catcher. See these pictures.
The only other point is that the Jacob Rickenbaugh House intersects quite nicely with one of the routes in Southern Indiana on this map. Schyler (one language) 02:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is there access to this from inside the house? If there isn't, storage for firewood seem plausible. Certainly no good as a hiding place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What you can see in this image is all that I could see — I didn't go inside. The house was built in the 1870s, so the Underground Railroad isn't that likely. Nyttend (talk) 04:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the thick walls enabled it to serve as a root cellar, even though it is above-ground? BrainyBabe (talk) 05:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
1874? It looks like an icebox cellar to me. A walk-in fridge of the era. 208.54.5.230 (talk) 06:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Concurred. It's rather heavy-duty construction if it were only for keeping wood dry. On the other hand, stone walls that thick would certainly keep any animals (bears) away. Vranak (talk) 16:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. It seems to be a larder (or a pantry). --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One thought that came to mind was coal storage for a coal-fired furnace. However, if it had been used for that purpose, I'd expect the walls to be blackened by the coal dust, unless it was later cleaned, perhaps by sand-blasting. StuRat (talk) 20:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There appear to be more courses of stone visible from the outside than from the inside, so there may be a layer of dirt and debris at the bottom. It would be weird to build such a structure to protect something from bears, in the 1870's, as Vranak suggests. It would not be a convenient coal cellar, since there is no outside hatch for delivery, but that seems possible. It would have been very unhandy to have to crawl into it to get a shovel of coal from the distal end. Did that primitive house even have a coal furnace? The same problem applies to its use as a wine cellar or a fruit cellar. As a larder, it should have been easily accessible from the kitchen. It is so far out of the ground that it would not have stayed particularly cool in the summer, like a fruit cellar or springhouse might have been expected to. I note that the ceiling is monolithic, rather than archwork as was common in 19th century stone structures, but they then built a roof over it, so they wanted to keep the contents dry. It sticks out like a sore thumb, so there was no goal of concealing anything from visitors. It may have been someone's folly. ("Oh, Herman! I am terrified of tornadoes! Build me a tornado proof room! Oh Herman! I am afraid of snakes! Build me a snakeproof woodshed!) Edison (talk) 03:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My missing Family!!

I would like to find my family that are from Plantersville South carolinia.The last name is Lance can you help me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.75.25.198 (talk) 03:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unless they're famous, they probably won't be here. Suggest you look at ancestry.com. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Plantersville has a population of about 100 people. It is primarily a tree farm area. However, it is growing fast. If your family is "from" Plantersville in the past, there was even fewer people there in the past. There are people there with the last name Lance. In fact, the principal of Plantersville Elementary School is named Arthur Lance. -- kainaw™ 18:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oceania

I researched a little into Monarchies in Oceania and found out some small island states that existed back in the 1800s and had their own flags. But how did these islands really exist and have their own flags examples like Eastern Island which had no central ruling chief or king even till the modern age but had a flag in 1876. I know having flags is not really a big thing but it must be a sign of attempts to modernize and to save themselves and their independence from European colonization.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or, in the case of Hawaii, American colonization :-) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, even smaller than Hawaii. Easter Island, Rurutu, Rimatara. Besides Hawaii was recognized by comtemporary powers in the Pacific while most of these other islands weren't.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There were Kings of Easter Island for centuries, up until the nineteenth century. Kings of Tahiti as well, to name two examples. I suppose they adopted flags by copying the Europeans. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:33, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If Spain truly did conquer England in 1588, then whom did they intend for the throne?

If the Spanish Armada had succeeded with its task and conquered England in 1588, what was its plans for England then? Who would be the next English monarch after Elizabeth Tudor? I assume the Spanish intended the English crown for a Catholic, so who was the Spanish candidate? I have not been able to find it. Was whas the plan of Spain in this regard?

And, another question; what had the Spanish intended for Elizabeth herself? Did they truly intended for her to be accused of heresy? Does anyone know about the Spanish intent in these questions? They must have had a plan. Thank you. --85.226.44.158 (talk) 17:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Originally, Phillip supported Mary, Queen of Scots as the legal queen. However, she was executed in 1587. Harry Turtledove, usually good with his research, has the Infanta Isabella on the English throne in Ruled Britannia, with Elisabeth imprisoned in the Tower. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It presents an interesting problem, the article Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) indicates that the Pope gave Philip the authority to install "whomever he chose" as King of England. If he indeed had the gumption to reinstall himself as King of England (a position he previously held jure uxoris as husband of Mary I) or even to install a child of his own as King of England, one could easily imagine this sort of upset to the "balance of power" not going over well with the rest of Europe, particularly France. France always felt "hemmed in" by the Habsburgs, and if the Spanish Armada created a third Habsburg front for France, it is likely to have generated a "War of English Succession" over the move. Mary Queen of Scots would have been acceptable, she herself had been a Queen of France by marriage, and due to the Auld Alliance the French would probably have endorsed such a move; but imagine the world from the French perspective had the Armada not only been successful, but if a Habsburg scion had been placed on the English throne as well. The Armada's main goal was to end the Dutch revolts, and without English material support, it might well have done that. So, the French would have had to contend with the Habsburgs in control of Austria, the Holy Roman Empire, large swaths of Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal (don't forget that Philip II also enacted the Iberian Union when he inherited the throne of Portugal) and now England? Europe was already looking like a lonely island of France surrounded by sea of Habsburgs; a Habsburg England would have completed the isolation of France. It was in France's best interest to play England and Spain off each other; I am sure it didn't mind the idea of an Anglo-Spanish war, but the notion that Spain would install a Habsburg on the English throne didn't work all that well in their interest. --Jayron32 19:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if Mary's son James, who eventually succeeded Elizabeth anyway, would have been acceptable. He was baptised Catholic but raised Protestant and at least nominally sided with Elizabeth, but still, he could have been the next logical choice. I guess that might not have been acceptable to the Pope though. It is entirely possible that Philip would have chosen himself or another Habsburg; if France didn't like it, so what? Also, as for what would have happened to Elizabeth, she had already been excommunicated and declared a heretic by the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, so definitely she would have been tried as a heretic. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:48, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In any case it's not clear France was in a position to do much about it: see Day of the Barricades for an account of what was going on in Paris around that time. Looie496 (talk) 00:48, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundel? His father was a cousin of Elizabeth and had been considered as a potential husband to Mary Queen of Scots, but he was executed by Elizabeth for plotting against her. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not my area of expertise, but is it possible 10-year-old Lady Arbella Stuart would have been the highest-ranking Catholic in the chain of succession? That would have allowed Phillip to install whoever he wanted as regent and de facto ruler. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Black Swan

After watching that movie, I wonder, what percentage of the time does the same dancer perform both the roles of the White Swan and Black Swan in Swan Lake ? Also, do they ever appear on stage together ? (If so, I assume a stand-in is used for one or the other during those scenes.) StuRat (talk) 19:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Location of post office in Houston

Hi! I found: "Post Office™ Location - CIVIC CENTER 700 SMITH ST HOUSTON, TX 77002" But which building in Houston is it in? I haven't physically visited the area, and I can't tell which building it is in based on internet searches. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The courthouse building on the West corner, per Google Maps. 99.17.204.52 (talk) 23:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So the possibilities are the Bank of America Center and the federal courthouse building.. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Global Economic Crisis

Probably the majority of the worlds countries now find themselves in debt to people. The debt is reaching unsustainable levels and is for some countries looking to result in sovereign bankruptcy, currency devaluation and general loss of quality of life for the countries citizens. My question is with all this debt, who is the person giving it out and does the money really exist, or is it just numbers on a computer screen. Why can't the powers that be just right off every countries debt and say "we're gonna start from scratch". Also what would happen if every country that was in debt all collectively decided to default on their payments. I mean the creditors can't force them to pay can they, because the debtors outnumber them significantly, I'd imagine. --Thanks, Hadseys 23:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Individuals, corporations, and China hold much of the debt. They certainly can default, and it might be a good thing in the long run, if nobody will loan them money to engage in reckless spending any more. However, it would cause a considerable economic crisis in the short term. StuRat (talk) 01:39, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The extent to which China owns US debt is often implied to be more than it is. They own less than $1 trillion, and just a little more than Japan.[11] 99.17.204.52 (talk) 05:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Should Congressio​nal paychecks be stopped if Debt Crisis in Washington​ DC is unresolved​, effective August 1, 2011?

Not a request for information
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

How can the American Public demand that Congressioal Paychecks be stopped until the Debt Crisis in Washinton DC is solved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 001Gberg (talk • contribs) 23:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a discussion forum. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 00:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What the American people can demand is that the rich refund all of the funds they received from the tax cuts, tax breaks and tax loopholes they were granted since the Clinton administration. These guys are worse than priests who have sex with children. DeeperQA (talk) 00:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Edison (talk) 03:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

July 27

A question about religion

Hi there everyone. I just have a quick question. See, I believe that there is a God, and that he created the universe, but he didn't create everything else. I believe He created the universe and the universe in turn created the Sun and the stars and the planets and eventually us. Is there a "taxonomic" term used for this? Any answer would be appreciated. 64.229.153.236 (talk) 02:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Though not exactly the same concept, our article on Deism may help. A Deist seems to believe in a Creator, but not a Meddler... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See more specifically Theistic evolution, which isn't just refering to biological evolution specifically, but combines the notions of a creator God with the idea that the universe is a changing, evolving place. --Jayron32 02:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't the universe contain the sun, the stars, the planets? I don't understand the question. Indeed the sun, the stars, the planets had a point of inception. At Universe I find: "The universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists…" Bus stop (talk) 02:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe he created a huge pile of raw material and enough space for it to fit into, gave it a push, and left it all to its own devices. But that raises the question: what was there before the space was created (which to me is an even more interesting question than what there was before the raw material was created). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Bus stop: Sorry, I'll make myself clearer: I was just wondering if there's any specific religion or theory that states that God created the universe, but didn't actually create the stars and the planets personally, as if the universe made its own course using chemical reactions, etc. 64.229.153.236 (talk) 03:05, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, sorry, by "created the universe" I mean he "started" the big bang. Sorry for any confusion. 64.229.153.236 (talk) 03:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe something at Unmoved mover or one of the many pages linked from there would be useful. Pfly (talk) 03:22, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - there is the belief (allied with Deism, if not exactly the same thing, as I understand it) that a competant God would be quite capable of setting the necessary parameters, pressing 'Start', and then sitting back to se what happened...
"In the beginning was the Bang. And it Was Big..."
The great thing about this belief system is that not only is it unfalsifiable (most religions are), but that it tells you nothing whatsoever about God, other than that He/She/It isn't omniscient (otherwise why bother?), but is curious to learn about things, through scientific experiment. Now there's irony for you, if God turns out to be not only a scientist, but one who doesn't believe in miracles.... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Try this... don't think about how God created the Universe but God's motive for doing so. You can think of space-time and mass-energy as His tools. --DeeperQA (talk) 03:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Motive, curiosity. These already suggest cause-and-effect. Isn't God supposed to be above such things? Pfly (talk) 04:51, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Economic simulation digital computer model

There use to be an economic simulation model it seems at Leeds University that was online back in the '80s that allowed the user to select various parameters such as percent tax and percent interest in order to model the British economy. Is that simulator still online and if not is there another one somewhere else? --DeeperQA (talk) 03:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about this particular simulation, but we have an article on an earlier attempt to model the British economy here: MONIAC Computer, it worked through hydraulics. Apparently it always tended to leak, and nobody could get it to function properly, so evidently it was entirely accurate... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:40, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, I meant specifically. --DeeperQA (talk) 03:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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