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July 17

City of London, Aldermen and the Lord Chancellor

On the website for the City of London government it has this paragraph explaning how Aldermen must be approved by the Lord Chancellor:

All Aldermen are a Justice of the Peace (JP). If not already a JP when an aldermanic post is available for election, candidates have 20 days to register their interest as a candidate. If they do so, a further period of 100 days is undertaken whereby the Lord Chancellor vets whether the candidate is suitable to become a JP and, as a result, stand in the forthcoming election.

However, there is no other explanation on the site of who the Lord Chancellor of the City of London is. Does it mean that the Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom must approve the potential aldermen for the City of London? --CGPGrey (talk) 00:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. 77.101.85.213 (talk) 01:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary, our article on the Lord Mayor of London suggests that he's also the Lord Chancellor of the city, stating that he's Lord Chancellor of the City University and suggesting that Lord Chancellor of the City is the same office as Mayor. It would be very unusual for a national official to have veto power over the seating of local officials. 71.212.249.178 (talk) 02:33, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary, the article says that the Lord Mayor is Chancellor (education) of the university, a ceremonial position, and I can see no mention of a position of lord chancellor of the City. And "very unusual" is what the City of London constitution is all about. Sussexonian (talk) 06:35, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

According to this job advert for an alderman, the appointment seems to be made by approval of 'the Lord Chancellors Advisory Committee on London'. This would appear to be the same format as is used in appointing magistrates; see Magistrates of England and Wales#Local advisory committees - Cucumber Mike (talk) 06:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The article the OP wants is Lord Chancellor.

The OP was unsure if the reference to the "Lord Chancellor" was a reference to an officer of the City - it is not, it is a reference to the officer of state.

The first anon reply got it right.

The second anon reply confused the Lord Chancellor with Chancellor (education), and then somehow equated the Chancellor of the City University London with the "Lord Chancellor of the City of London".

To the second anon's query of "very unusual" - it is not at all. The "veto" comes not from a direct provision, but because Aldermen are required to be JPs and the Lord Chancellor happens to have the power to appoint JPs. A large company might require its managers to have university degrees, that does not mean universities have a veto over appointments to the management of that company.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, but in what sense are you using the word "veto"? 75.166.200.250 (talk) 20:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

An informal sense, as in by refusing a person's application to be a JP the Lord Chancellor could, in effect, thereby exclude that person from being an Alderman. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:38, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Atamu Tekena

There are two busts on Easter Islands of Atamu Tekena and Policarpo Toro, shown here. My questions are when and by whom were they made by. And I know who Atamu Tekena, but who is Policarpo Toro?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Does our Policarpo Toro article say ? StuRat (talk) 00:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Forgot the second question. How about when and by whom were they made?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Anybody?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 19:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Moroccan Wall

After reading Moroccan Wall, I'm quite confused: why was it built? A not-exactly-massive earthen wall in the middle of a desert should be rather easy to get over, and the presence of massive minefields (which themselves should be a very good separation barrier, the only purpose for the wall mentioned in the article) would seem to me to make it absurdly difficult to get to the wall in the first place. Does Morocco think that the Polisario have tanks or other equipment that can get through mines but can't get over walls and ditches? Because the Reference Desk is not a forum or place for disputes, please be careful in your responses. I'm only trying to understand the Moroccan government's opinions and don't want a discussion of why they're right, wrong, or both; the only issues of right and wrong I'd be interested in hearing about is whether Morocco thinks that the wall is doing what it was designed to do. Nyttend (talk) 03:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It may be more of a line in the sand than a fortification, meant to decide when to investigate nomadic caravans: when they cross it. 71.212.249.178 (talk) 03:35, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It does reasonably well in its intended purpose -- to mark an unpoliced zone from a policed zone, and make it somewhat difficult (but by no means impossible) to cross between the two. This function is rather different from Operation Desert Storm sand berms, though there may be a physical resemblance... AnonMoos (talk) 04:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

And it would protect their soldiers from attack, since their position can't be known behind the wall, so they can't be accurately targeted with small arms fire (which the berm may block anyway) or artillery. Blocking the enemy's line-of-sight is fairly important in war. (Presumably they have viewing ports in the wall so they can observe enemy movements.) StuRat (talk) 04:08, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

After reading the article, I think 71.212 and AnonMoos are closer to the function, given what the wall is. It isn't a defensive structure so much as a border marking. It isn't a masonry structure with "viewing ports" so much as it is a long pile of sand (it is even called a "berm" repeatedly in the article), with regular observation posts (little fortified garrisons) and occasional actual "walls", presumably where they would be useful. But mostly, its just a big pile of sand (and the ditch from where said pile was dug), and as such seems to signify a defacto border between the areas that Morrocco has direct control, and those that it concedes that it does not (though it claims sovereignty over the whole area. The wall doesn't even appear to be a static structure, as it seems to have been moved frequently as the Morroccan authorities have established control over more and more territory. --Jayron32 05:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I would also point out the OP mentioned 'mines'. Anti-personnel landmine usage tends to be controversial and putting them on some arbitary border (which isn't even the border you claim as your territorial border) when that border is unmarked and the area frequented by nomads likely even more so. So if they did mine any part of it (I can't be bothered checking and the OP's statement isn't clear), they'd still need some sort of border marking. Nil Einne (talk) 16:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Well as is turns out I did read the article and it confirms it's mined, in fact supposedly the longest continous minefields in the world. And unsurprisingly, the article attests the wall is controversial. In other words, the wall seems hardly surprising even ignoring the other advantages, it may be controversial but surely much less controversial then some random unmarked minefield. Even from a military standpoint, actually giving people an idea of where they're not supposed to go generally works better with such things then letting them find out for themselves the hard way. (Not to mention it tends to be beneficial to your own side too, particularly if you may have to clear the minefield in the future which evidentally was done in the past as they expanded the area covered by the wall since people can screw up and maps can get lost or read wrong.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Why Didn't Israel Complain More About Pakistan Building Nukes in the 1980s?

I mean, I know that Pakistan has never fought a war with Israel, but it still does not recognize Israel's existence even today. Israel panicked a lot when Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria were building nukes, but when Pakistan was building them Israel just stayed quiet. Futurist110 (talk) 07:00, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Didn't Pakistan manage to keep it secret ? StuRat (talk) 07:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Pakistan was not being governed by a fundamentalist Islamist theocracy when they developed nuclear weapons, so that's probably a large difference between the two cases. Also, if I remember correctly, Pakistan's nukes weren't common knowledge until the early 1990s. I could be wrong about that. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 07:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes and No. They didn't tell anyone that they were building nukes, but Western intelligence agencies suspected Pakistan of building nukes for at least several years before it actually got them. This was (and with Iran, still is) the same situation as it was with Iraq (pre-1991), Iran, and Libya. Pakistan probably got nukes in 1987, but if you do a Google News Archive search you'd find some articles on Pakistan building nukes that were written in the 1970s and early 1980s. Futurist110 (talk) 07:09, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, while Iran is governed by Muslim fundies, Iraq, Syria, and Libya were not, and Israel still panicked a lot about their nuclear programs.

Also:

http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,904099-2,00.html http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920461,00.html http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,957761,00.html Futurist110 (talk) 07:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Pakistan is more concerned with India and China (and their nuclear programs) than with Israel. The others were (either explicitly, or were perceived as) a more direct threat to Israel. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

To OP. Israel did fought a war with pakistan. For why Israel did not complain Pak getting nukes is because there is a theory that US itself helped Pakistan in developing its nukes when they both were part of Central Treaty Organization.--nids(♂) 08:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

To say thought Israel "fought a war with pakistan [sic]" is a massive exaggeration. There were a few Pakistani pilots attached to the Egyptian Air Force, but that's about it. Direct hostilities between those two countries have never taken place. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 09:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

---

I'm sure that Israel did complain to the U.S. a little bit behind the scenes; however, Israel has to prioritize its efforts to the things which are most directly threatening to Israel, and where Israel has a chance of making an impact. Pakistan is located outside of the direct middle-east arena. Also, during most of the 1980s, the U.S. and Pakistan were strongly aligned, and A.Q. Khan's activities were not fully known... AnonMoos (talk) 10:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Pakistan and Israel are very far apart. Pakistan and WMD#Delivery systems states that Pakistan has ballistic missiles with a range of 2500 km, with a source update this month, so the range might have been shorter in the 1970s and 80s. So, the threat from Egypt, Syria or Iran would've been far more immediate. Also, as AnonMoos says: since both were allies of the US, it's possible that the Americans held them both in the ear and told them to play nice, even if they didn't really want to. V85 (talk) 11:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Just on the "did they know" issue: it was pretty well known that Pakistan had, as one US official put it, a "big problem with nukes". The US looked the other way, because they needed Pakistani support for their covert role in the Soviet-Afghan War, but it was pretty common knowledge. It was widely discussed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, for example, and the Pakistanis did very obvious and weird things like try to get John Aristotle Phillips to sell them his home-made bomb design. They were widely considered to be a de-facto nuclear state by the late 1980s.

Anyway, as for Israel, I suspect that they were just not as worried about Pakistan. It's far away, and it's obvious that it's nukes were meant to counterbalance India, not Israel. Israel–Pakistan relations are complicated but not necessarily directly antagonistic. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses. For the record, though, Iran's nuclear program before 2003 was primarily meant to counterbalance Iraq, not Israel, and vice-versa for Iraq's nuclear program (before 1991). However, Israel still complained a lot about the Iraqi and Iranian nuclear programs in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, and even implemented the Osirak raid against Iraq in 1981. Futurist110 (talk) 18:45, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and one more thing--the fact that Pakistan did not recognize Israel even by now shows that it has at least some antagonism towards Israel. Of course, you're right that Pakistan worries much more about India than about Israel, considering India's proximity to it. Futurist110 (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It is one thing to have private antagonisms, it is another to have public. I suspect the government of Pakistan does not have deep antagonisms with Israel, though its leaders would be foolish not to join in the anti-Israeli chorus for populist reasons. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure that plenty of Pakistani leaders (including the long-standing unreconstructed Taliban supporters and al-Qaeda sympathizers in the ISI) have some feelings of personal antagonism towards Israel, but when they make concrete decisions, they're generally much more pre-occupied with local matters. Pakistan already has plenty of issues and problems on its plate without seeking out long-distance quarrels with Israel... AnonMoos (talk) 04:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Many people have listed explanations above, including what type of government it was, secrecy, etc... The threat of an Iranian nuke is obviously much greater than far-away Pakistan, which would have a tougher time of firing it at Israel and is much more involved in its own foreign policy affairs with India. Still, you are right to think that it should make Israeli officials nervous - and in fact, it does today. For example, see this news item in 2004 about the foreign minister (currently the vice president) worrying about Pakistan's nukes falling into the wrong hands while in India (this fear is also shared by much of the international community). I have heard rumors that Israel did in fact plan for a raid on Pakistan's nuclear facilities, much like the 1981 raid on Osirak in Iraq, but it was either thwarted or India feared retaliation from Pakistan and didn't sign off on it. I don't believe it too much, and don't recommend you should either, as I'm not familiar with the sources and seems like fantasy. I personally don't believe they had the necessary capability to fly that far in the 1980's and attack Pakistani nuclear reactors - their 1981 raid on Osirak required creative thinking and they cut it down to the last minute in regards to fuel. But who knows, maybe they sounded alarms in the international community? It's tough to say. But make no doubt about it, the Israeli government is full aware of the threat and probably monitors it - but right now, the Iranian threat is much more important, and it's unlikely Israel would ever get invovled in Pakistan to begin with. Plus the Pakistanis are too embroiled in their own affairs with India to be concerned with attacking another country far away. Hope this helps! --Activism1234 05:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, you may want to ask why Israel didn't worry about Iran building nukes when their program first started, which was decades ago? It may surprise you, but Israel and Iran actually had very good ties with each other before the 1979 Islamic Revolution - and hopefully they'll be restored one day. --Activism1234 05:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

When the Iranian Shah had a nuclear program, I'm not sure if it was a purely peaceful program or if it had elements of nuclear weapons development. However, even if the Shah tried building nuclear weapons, he didn't get very far. Also, Iran under the Shah recognized Israel's existence, unlike Pakistan. And yes, I fully agree with you that I hope that Israeli-Iran ties will eventually be restored to their former good status. Futurist110 (talk) 05:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

European cities undamaged in World War II

In those parts of Europe where fighting took place in World War II, what were the largest cities to escape all structural damage by bombing or artillery? A list categorized by country would be very much appreciated. —Psychonaut (talk) 07:16, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Paris might be one of them. It might have had some damage, though, but nothing major, like, say Warsaw. Futurist110 (talk) 07:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

You're going to need to explain "parts". Does that mean nations ? I believe many British cities were out of range of German bombers. StuRat (talk) 07:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe that the only British cities that didn't experience heavy bombing were Inverness in Scotland and St Davids in Wales. Both are rather small, Inverness had only 59,000[1] inhabitants in 1940 and St Davids has about 1,800 even today (it boasts a post office, a grocer's shop and an enormous church). Belfast and Glasgow got quite a pounding - see Clydebank Blitz and Belfast Blitz, although they fared a lot better than German cities later on. A number of provincial British cities were targeted only because of their architectural heritage in the Baedeker Blitz of 1942. Alansplodge (talk)

No, I don't mean nations. I mean areas which were actually attacked or invaded with resistance. I mean to exclude cities out of bombing range, and also those in distant parts of countries which were surrendered en masse merely because fighting hundreds of kilometres away caused the whole country to capitulate. —Psychonaut (talk) 07:38, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Cities that were quickly occupied by the Germans, say Amsterdam and then which weren't really in the way of the Allied invasion, were more or less undamaged structurally.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

In terms of "percentage of buildings damaged", of major cities Copenhagen and Oslo probably got off lightest - Norway and Denmark surrendered before the Germans reached the respective capitals, weren't bombed by the allies, and remained in Nazi hands until the surrender so weren't damaged in the allied offensive. (As StuRat says, plenty of major cities in the Allied nations were totally untouched as they were out of bomber range.) Of the major Axis cities themselves, Vienna got off lightest - it was out of bomber range for much of the war, saw no ground combat, and had very little strategic significance. Mogism (talk) 09:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

At least Copenhagen saw some Allied bombing during Operation Carthage, but of course you are correct that relatively speaking that is but a drop in the ocean compared to cities that suffered from deliberate bombing campaigns. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Vienna? No ground combat? Don't think so. St Stephen's certainly lost much of its roof... -- Vmenkov (talk) 17:09, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• The Open city article has a few more examples, although many open cities only opened after they had already been battered by air forces or artillery. --M@rēino 22:00, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Which Countries with Nuclear Weapons Programs Came the Closest to Building Nukes Without Actually Building Them?

I think Argentina, Libya, Iraq (in 1991), and Iran (as of July 2012) are some of the correct answers to this question. Futurist110 (talk) 07:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

South Korea apparently had a program at one time. See South Korean nuclear research programs. Given the nukes on their border, I couldn't blame them if they started it back up again. StuRat (talk) 08:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The concept your looking for is called Nuclear latency, i.e. having the capability to produce nuclear weapons, but without having done so. Given that "we" know how to make a nuclear weapon, I suppose making a nuclear weapon isn't so much anymore about researching and finding out how to do it, but having the know how and technology to simply make it. I recall that when I was in the 8th or 9th grade, one of our school textbooks said that Norway had the capability to make a nuclear weapon, if need be, but hadn't done so yet. And we all felt very patriotic after reading that.

There are other countries as well that have the know-how to build nuclear bombs, but haven't done so for political reasons (pacifist attitudes, adherence to the NPT etc.), and these countries might not have had nuclear weapons programmes, they might simply have some nuclear physicists employed at some of their universities. A map of nuclear proliferation is available from the PBS website: Yellow countries are "abstaining countries", i.e. they are industrialised countries and therefore (assumed to be) capable of producing a nuclear weapon, but haven't done so.

As for specifically which countries have had nuclear weapons programmes, you could have a look at this map. Basically: red countries have nukes, the rest don't. However, when I look at the different country profiles, it is difficult to ascertain anything about whether they've actually had programmes (or if it was just something that was discussed but never implemented), and it doesn't say anything about how advanced they were.

• The profile page for Norway states that 'The Norwegian Defense Research Establishment considered' starting a weapons programme, but that 'there is little indication that Norway actually pursued' one.
• Spain and Argentina are listed as 'No Evidence of a Nuclear Weapons Program', but they are still coloured as 'Programs that ended after 1970'.
• 'Sweden had a nuclear weapons program which essentially ended by the time it signed the NPT.' How close were they to making a bomb? Absolutely no information about that...

The BBC has a similar overview, but again doesn't present much information on how much progress was made, for those countries that had programmes in the past, but don't anymore. (The exception is South Africa that did manage to build them.) V85 (talk) 09:12, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The South African nukes never achieved "deployable weapons" status. The six "warheads" they had were not ready for installation in bomb casings by the time the programme was stopped. Roger (talk) 12:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Could that be the answer to the OP then? South Africa got the closest, i.e. they had warheads, but they couldn't be deployed. V85 (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

One other thing needed to build a nuclear weapon is access to the raw materials, or perhaps a breeder reactor where they can be created from other elements. StuRat (talk) 09:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Taiwan's program would have likely succeeded without US intervention — they had a research reactor, uranium, and were developing hot cells (reprocessing). Basically anyone who gets reactor and hot cell technology can make a nuke if they want to, and nobody gets in the way. South Korea's program was very advanced as well. Sweden also got quite far, as I understand it, ditto Yugoslavia. When trying to assess success, look primarily towards fissile material production. The rest is pretty straightforward. Do they have a reactor and reprocessing? That's pretty close. Enriching uranium in quantity is a lot harder than that, though there have been states in the late 20th century who managed to do that "on the cheap" as well. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:03, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Burma.
Sleigh (talk) 23:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

What's your source for Burma? Also, not all "nuclear latent" states had nuclear programs in the first place (or not when they were "nuclear latent"). Futurist110 (talk) 00:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Myanmar lacks a big enough reactor, lacks reprocessing, and lacks enrichment technology. That puts it far behind many of the others listed. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• Focussing too strictly on technical artefacts may be missing the point. You need more than just pieces of uranium to get a useable nuclear weapon. You also need funding, a fairly broad industrial base, governance that helps the project more than hindering it, a practical delivery method, and so on. Many inputs could be imported, depending on how well a country gets on with potential suppliers. If a country like Australia / Japan / Canada changed policy and decided to develop nuclear weapons, they could do it fairly swiftly: They have plenty of cash; competent government & military; lots of clever graduates in a flexible labour market (and the same goes for businesses); and easy access to foreign suppliers of anything which can't be made at home. On the other hand, for a badly-run pariah country like Burma (or, until recently, Libya), they may well have started a nuclear weapons project but they'll never finish it as long as they're starved of resources. North Korea took far longer to develop a usable nuclear weapon than the USA did, even though much of the latter's basic research was already readily available to the former. Nuclear sharing allowed several countries to have nuclear weapons without actually building them domestically. bobrayner (talk) 15:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

In regards to nuclear sharing, those nukes might be stationed in specific countries, but they are still the property of the country that built them. As for South Africa, they still built six nukes, even if they didn't have a proper delivery system for them yet, so technically speaking they were still a nuclear-weapons state. Also, I was under the impression that Libya was actually pretty close to building nukes when it gave up its nuclear program in 2003. Am I wrong? Futurist110 (talk) 04:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Is earlier episodes of The Flintstones in public domin?

Is erlier episodes of The Flintstones in public domin?--王小朋友 (talk) 11:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

No, though the precise date at which they would enter (if ever) varies depending on exactly how the work is classified. For example, if considered as work for hire and without other mitigating factors, episodes would begin entering the public domain in 2055. — Lomn 13:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

My theory is that the OP is asking because the early, pre-1964 episodes would have had to have had their copyrights actively renewed to still be in copyright.[2] But it's very hard to research renewals with much assurance — you usually hire a lawyer for this sort of thing unless it is very obvious. I don't know how serialized television show episodes are handled, for example, or whether the fact that sound recordings are handled differently matters. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Google Books may have the list. [3] Does it mean that it is renewed? --王小朋友 (talk) 14:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Cartoons fall under US Trademark law, which means that they do not enter the public domain as long as they remain an active trademark. The earliest case I can think of that recognizes this is Fisher v. Star 231 NY 414 (1921).[4] Gx872op (talk) 15:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

That's not strictly true -- the Fleischer Superman cartoons are widely recognized as being in the public domain now... AnonMoos (talk) 17:22, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree, I don't think that's right at all. Trademark and copyright law are quite different in any case. The Superman cartoons are a good example of this — the character of Superman is still covered by trademark law, but that doesn't mean copyright law still extends over the original cartoons. It just changes what you can do with them. The issue of trademarks and copyrights when applied to cartoons is complicated, as this legal paper discusses. Again, I wouldn't try to make sense of this sort of thing without consulting an actual lawyer. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:13, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Several Bugs Bunny cartoons are widely considered to be in the public domain, even though the character isn't, because nobody renewed copyright on them. Lots of companies have used non-renewed cartoons such as Falling Hare in VHS and DVD releases, apparently without royalty, so it would seem that their copyright lawyers have judged it safe to consider them PD. Nyttend (talk) 16:37, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Spoon bending

Why do paranormal artists (?) strongly prefer to bend spoons, instead of forks, for example. Ochson (talk) 12:03, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

No sharp points. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:59, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Because a spoon is spoon bent out of shape, while a fork takes a forking long time. --Viennese Waltz 13:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Total guess: because you can apply pressure to a broader area in a spoon. If the mark sees your flesh bulging out around the tines of a fork, he might start to get curious about why the chi does that to it. ;) Wnt (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

But the way Uri Geller did it was by gently rubbing the handle of the spoon near the top. A fork would not have been any different. --Viennese Waltz 13:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

No, the visible part of Geller's performance was to rub the handle gently. Many writers have argued that this was not "the way Uri Geller did it" (see references in the article). --ColinFine (talk) 15:45, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I know that but I wasn't going to put "the way Uri Geller seemed to do it" because that would have been boring. --Viennese Waltz 16:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I concur it's probably because there are no sharp points. This makes you less prone to injury when carrying them on your person before, following, and between performances. Spoons are also probably more visible and recognizable at a distance than forks or knives, which is important for stage and street performances. —Psychonaut (talk) 14:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Forks are indeed used, it's just that spoons were the more famous of the original act. Google will actually auto-complete "Uri Geller fork bending" for you. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:04, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

...in the ancient days when sorcerous men first began to exert their divers eldritch powers upon the vast repertoire of cutlery, they were yet unable to conquer the glorious utensil that is... the spork! Then they looked at their spoons and said, eh, hell with it - this works fine, dunnit? ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 20:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

"French" Algeria colonised by non-French

Our article on the History of Algeria states that:

The borders of modern Algeria were created by the French, whose colonization began in 1830....French colonists (many of whom were not in fact of French origin but Italian, Maltese, and Spanish)...

Really? Why? How? More specifically, why did the French authorities go to the trouble and expense of setting up colonies which served neither as treasure troves to pillage (cf British India and Belgian Congo) nor as an escape valve for their excess population (cf much of the rest of the British Empire)? Who were these "Italian, Maltese, and Spanish" colonists - displaced peasants, or unemployed townspeople, or ethnic/linguistic minorities (e.g. Basques), or religious refugees? Why did they want to leave their homelands, and why did France want to accept them? What happened to them? Was the immigration largely of young men, who married local women and blended in after a generation or two? Or did they send home for brides and remain resolutely Italian, Maltese, and Spanish? Or did they use Algeria as a springboard to another country (as Russian Jews did/do with Israel, and Chinese did with Hong Kong)? How long did this immigration go on for? For the first few decades from 1830, Italy had not yet resolved itself as a country. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:34, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

"Many" colonies accepted Europeans from other countries than the motherland, but I suspect that they might have had a preference for the people of their own natinality. At the beginning of the 20th century, a Norwegian lawyer, Vilhelm Aubert, was a judge in Belgian Congo. He wrote several articles about his stay there, that were published as a book shortly after his death: Breve fra Kongo (letters from Congo). In that book, he recommended that all Norwegian graduates to move to Congo, where there were many job openings. Ironically, a century after his death, the tables had turned: in the city where he worked as a judge, judging Congolese, two Norwegians were now put in front of a Congolese judge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by V85 (talk • contribs) 15:25, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

France invaded Algeria because the ailing Bourbon Restoration wanted a military victory to shore up support, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire made North Africa easy pickings; they also wanted to prevent a post-Ottoman failed state becoming a haven for piracy within a short distance of France. The actual pretext was a ludicrous incident in which the Dey hit the French Consul with a fly-whisk during an argument about unpaid debts owed by France to Algeria. After the conquest colonists from Christian countries were invited in to provide the nucleus for a post-Turkish society, and in the hope that Algeria could be established as a cotton plantation to end reliance on unreliable US imports.

As an aside, you might want to pick a better example - I doubt there's ever been any colonial possession in recorded history that's been run less as "a treasure trove to pillage" than British India. Apart from looting during battle, Britain never took anything directly from India (all taxes raised in India were spent in India). The profit/exploitation element came from Britain's use of India as a pool of cheap labour (particularly of cheap soldiers), and of tariff barriers that crippled Indian industry and forced India to buy only British/Empire made goods (and thus give the factories of Britain, Australia and Canada a guaranteed market). 188.28.249.88 (talk) 15:33, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Interesting fact. I know little about this area and era, but searching a bit I found this, where among other things it is claimed that "The drain of wealth from Bengal began in 1757 when the Company's servants began to carry home immense fortunes extorted from Indian rulers, zamindars, merchants and the common people. They sent home nearly £6 million between 1758 and 1765", "Thus, through 'Investments, Bengal's revenue was sent to England. For example, from 1765 to 1770, the Company sent out nearly £4 million worth of goods or about 33 per cent of the net revenue of Bengal. By the end of the eighteenth century, the drain constituted nearly 9 per cent of India national income" and "The actual drain was even more, as large part salaries and other incomes of English officials and the trading fortunes of English merchants also found their way into England" and "Thus, for example, Lord Ellen borough, Chairman of the Select Committee of the House of Lords, and later Governor-General of India, admitted in 1840 that India was "required to transmit annually to this country (Britain), without any return except in the small value of military stores, a sum amounting to between two and three million sterling" etc etc. Of course this is completely unsourced, and probably biased and completely wrong, but out of interest I would like to hear if you know of any scholarly sources that states that India had been an expense or a general humanitarian effort for Great Britain since the colonisation gained ground in the mid 18th century. If your claim is true then the effort done by the British to keep that colony through all those centuries for purely humanistic reasons in a time of European colonisation and imperialism, and all that with no gain at all, seems well ... almost beyond belief. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

My suspicion (and it is only a suspicion) from my recent studies of this era is that the British government made little to no money out of India directly - but that the East India Company made a fortune. The sources you cite seem to refer entirely to the period of the EIC's dominance, and mainly to the activities of the Company itself. I presume the British government made some money out of the EIC in taxes, but this is a period where the EIC had three whole armies in India and Britain only one. What the situation was like after the Mutiny, I couldn't say. AlexTiefling (talk) 07:48, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I see. However it just seems the British government outsourced its colonialism, and that it must still have gotten a lot of the pillage made by the EIC of the treasure trove, if only indirectly through the success of the EIC, and more than just in the form of cheap labour and a secure market. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

See article Pied-Noir... AnonMoos (talk) 17:10, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

However, I can't find in that article any rationale as to using Spanish people rather than French people to populate the colony. My guess would be that any 'white' person who came to the colony would be seen as being more loyal to the French state than resisting locals. Also, even if the colony was inhabited entirely by non-French, any goal of gaining revenue from the colony could still be attained by having non-French people working there: A Spanish person running a business would generate an income that the French administration could tax, just as much as if it were run by a Frenchman. V85 (talk) 17:46, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

• One other thing to consider is that the relationship between a people and a state was not as well correlated in the past as today. That is, the borders of a state change all the time, but the culture of the people living in an area does not change so rapidly. People of the dominant culture (i.e. of the culture of the state) are, rightly or wrongly, share a mutual trust with the state. People of a foreign culture do not. What do you do with a bunch of ferners you don't want around anymore? Ship them off to a colony, that's what! Just taking one example: The city of Nice had been a city of Italian culture until it was annexed by France in 1860. The people there didn't stop drinking Chianti and start sipping Bordeaux the next day. What do you do with a bunch of Italians who don't want to be French? Send them off to Algeria? Problem solved! The exact same thing happened with all colonial powers, who used the colonies as a place, among other things, to remove people who would be a thorn in their side. That's how the Scots-Irish arrived in America, as another example. --Jayron32 18:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Before or after, they drank neither Chianti nor Bordeaux. They had, and have, their own good wines. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Obviously. It was meant to be illustrative of typical "French" and "Italian" wines, as this was a discussion over how Italians would come to be subject to the French state, not a discussion about Niçoise viticulture. The point was to illustrate that the citizens of Nice didn't stop being Italian in culture the day that the French State annexed the city, and to state it in an interesting and entertaining way, not to be scrupulously correct in terms of the local varieties of wine. --Jayron32 22:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Didn't mean to nitpick but to endorse the more nuanced view you presented. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

About the Spanish immigration in Algeria, see the French WP. It relates the immigration from the Minorca Island. It also evokes immigration from Majorca, Valencia and Alicante. (Unfortunatly, this page lacks references). If you can read French, this document (from page 5 to page 18) is well-documented — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

If you can read French, here is a book about Italian immigration in Tunisia and Algeria. — AldoSyrt (talk) 11:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that the OP may be misinterpreting the passage, and the Spanish, Italians, Maltese, etc weren't refugees from those nations staying in France, but people who went directly from their homes in Spain, Italy, or Malta, to North Africa of their own volition (just as e.g. many Germans went to Australia when it was a British colony). This page talks about Spanish migration to North Africa, mainly workers from Galicia, Asturias, and the Canary Islands.

As for why they went, someone already mentioned combatting piracy, but more generally having control over the Mediterranean would be useful, for controlling sea-borne trade, troop movements, fisheries, etc. And related to that was the desire to stop the French/British/Italians getting it. There was also a growing interest in petroleum in the late 19th C, which may have played a part. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Following AldoSyrt's link, I've read a bit on the French Wikipedia about populating the Algerian colony. One statement that they cite seems to indicate that the main idea was simply to move more people there, regardless of who they were, although there was a preference for skilled people, and, apparently, Germans were to be desired, due to their work ethic. Although there apparently was tension between the French and other Europeans (and the Jews), the main fault line was between the indigenous Moslems and the Europeans. The White Europeans don't seem to have 'blended in' with the indigineous population as the OP suggests, but rather that they were integrated into the French population (from which one would assume that they brought their own wives along, rather than finding Algerian wives). In 1889, Europeans whose ancestors had lived in Algeria for two generations were granted French citizenship. This introduction of jus soli meant that the 'non-French' European population diminished, as they were counted as French.

It seems the only people who were 'refugees' were the people who moved to Algeria after Germany annexed Alsace and Lorraine, but I assume they were French to begin with, so they don't really qualify. My guess would be that the reason the Spanish, Maltese and Italian populations were large, was that they came from countries close to Algeria (and there were also Italian and Spanish colonies next door in North-Africa). So long as the French wanted foreign/European labour, if they didn't have good prospects back home, why shouldn't they go? V85 (talk) 20:43, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

OP here. Thanks all for your responses, especially the French ones with references. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Who generally gets the most credit for starting skyscraper booms in many cities today, especially in American cities?

Is it a city government that wants to change the skyline of their city more responsible than the big businesses and corporations from other cities that want to move in and make business or is it the big businesses and corporations from other cities that want to move into the said city that are more responsible for starting skyscraper booms than the city government? I live in Tampa, a city that doesn’t have a lot of skyscrapers. Who would call the shots first in both starting a big skyscraper boom in my city and where the skyscrapers would be build? Willminator (talk) 20:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Obviously there's a lot of interaction, there, but the person putting up the money — largely the developers — are going to be the ones trying to call the shots. A city can certainly block sky scrapers but I think it's a rare case where a city can convince someone to put one up where they don't think it will lead to a big payout (lots of renters, high resale value), assuming the city government itself is not going to be a tenant. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Local government can do things to increase the likely payout, though. That could be direct action with tax breaks and subsidies, or it could be less direct like improving transport infrastructure. --Tango (talk) 21:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

True, that. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Skysrcapers are built due to an expectation of return on investment, depending on expected sale and rental value. The World Trade Center was famously built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey rather than private investors, and long stood largely empty, reaching 90% occupancy only in 1998. μηδείς (talk) 21:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

μηδείς's comment is not very informative. Expectation of ROI is a variable of many projects.

The real explanation: skyscrapers are usually situated in city centers where the price of land is high. Constructing a skyscraper becomes justified if the price of land is so high that it makes economic sense to build upwards as to minimize the cost of the land per the total floor area of a building. Thus the construction of skyscrapers is dictated by economics and results in skyscrapers in a certain part of a large city unless a building code restricts the height of buildings. Skyscrapers are rarely seen in small cities and they are characteristic of large cities, because of the critical importance of high land prices for the construction of skyscrapers. Usually only office, commercial and hotel users can afford the rents in the city center and thus most tenants of skyscrapers are of these classes. Some skyscrapers have been built in areas where the bedrock is near surface, because this makes constructing the foundation cheaper, for example this is the case in Midtown Manhattan and Lower Manhattan, in New York City, United States, but not in-between these two parts of the city. 88.9.110.244 (talk) 22:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Not only is the IP's answer rude, it's wrongheaded. Expected ROI in rent and sale income is by far the most important factor. Real estate is usually valuable (not "expensive") because of the rents or sale price people will pay to use it. Its merely being expensive (shore property) or close to bedrock (the Poconos) hardly makes it suitable for the construction of skyscrapers. The WTC project was an exception because it was a prestige project backed by a government entity able to use eminent domain and not subject to market constraints. In general construction booms are typical of the last stage of a real estate bubble. See United States housing bubble. μηδείς (talk) 01:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any rudeness in the IP's comment. On the top of that, I also believe that he's right. He's clearly given a reason as to why NY, Chicago and similar cities have lots of skyscrapers, but not Tampa. μηδείς is also missing completely the point when he brings the real estate bubble into the equation, which obviously was a boom of both skyscrapers and other smaller buildings. Ochson (talk) 01:40, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

What the IP said is true regarding the relative locations of skyscrapers in NYC, but it has nothing to do with the question asked--the impetus behind building skyscrapers in general--which is either the expected profit of private investors (including miscalculations during bubbles, see Burj Khalifa) or the non-market decisions of quasi-governmental entities. If the IP's answer is literally true, that high land prices get skyscrapers built, not expectations of profit, the OP should encourage the city he lives in to put a huge tax on land (they can use it to import bedrock) and watch the skyscrapers spring up overnight. μηδείς (talk) 02:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• It should be noted that, through zoning and other means, a municipal government can have a big impact on the skyline of a city. Several major world cities have city centers devoid of actual skyscrapers, for various reasons. Paris's skyscrapers are concentrated at La Défense, a district locted some distance from and isolated from the historic center of Paris; it is basically on the ourskirts of the city. I have heard this is because of the unsuitability of the ground under Paris proper for supporting massive structures (supposedly the catacombs make it unstable, but I don't know how much truth there is to that story). Washington, D.C. also has no skyscrapers in its corporate limits; there are strict building codes which define both the height and setbacks for all buildings, to assure that no building is higher than the dome atop the Capitol. As a result, D.C. business district is actually in Arlington County, Virginia, where places like Rosslyn and Crystal City and other neighborhoods do have high concentrations of skyscrapers. And, occasionally you do get random skyscrapers in the middle of nowhere. I used to drive past Oakbrook Terrace Tower in DuPage County, Illinois daily. It was a bit of an oddity, located probably a 15-20 minute drive from any similarly sized buildings in Chicago. It's something a bit weird to see a random skyscraper sitting in the midst of a suburban village. --Jayron32 03:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

A few people here said that skyscraper booms generally happen in big cities, but what about Miami, another city from my home state of Florida? With a population less than 400,000 and with the size being about 40 quare miles, it is a medium size size city, not that much bigger than Tampa and much, much smaller than New York City and Chicago. Yet, it now has one of the biggest skylines in the Western Hemisphere and the 3rd biggest skyline in the U.S. As recent as 10 years ago, Miami's skyline was average for its size. So, who gets the most credit in beginning Miami's skycraper's boom? Is Miami a unique case? Willminator (talk) 03:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Miami proper may have only 400,000 people, but its metropolitan area is somewhere around 5.5 million. It's not a small city by any means. --Xuxl (talk) 10:24, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. What gets defined as a "city" or "city proper" or "metropolitan area" varies so greatly from place to place it is hard to make definitive comparisons, especially with comparing "city proper" (i.e. places that get to elect the mayor and city council, for example) from one place to another. In New England, for example, the basic local government unit is the New England town, a concept unique to the area, and that has effected things like city size in terms of area and population. Boston, for example, has managed to annex some of the towns around it, but it is still very small compared to other cities of its caliber. New York City, by comparison, annexed the shit out of everything around it. Dozens of smaller villages and towns were absorbed into it as it grew, meaning that you can travel a long way within New York. If I drove from, say, the Bronx southeast to Coney Island, that's a distance of 20 miles, and I'd have never left New York proper. If I drove the same distance from Charlestown southeast through Boston, I'd end up along the border between Cohasset and Scituate, and have passed through the towns of Braintree, Quincy, Weymouth, and Hingham, each a distinct municipality. Miami is organized similarly to Boston: It has a small urban core which is Miami proper, but has dozens of other cities, towns, and unincorporated places that make the metro area much larger. In Florida, Jacksonville is much larger in area and population, officially, than Miami. However, that's only when comparing the city proper; Jacksonville is organized more like New York City, having itself annexed essentially all of Duval County. If you took the footprint of Jacksonville Proper and superimposed it over the Miami metro area, you'd have a LOT more people in Miami. The difference is an accident of political Geography; culturally and economically Miami is a much more "major" city than Jacksonville. --Jayron32 14:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I immediately thought of tourism (although the reasons given previously probably are more important): While the metropolitan area is large (5.5 M), there is also a large "transient population". According to Miami#Economy, >38 million people visit Miami every year, and they need to stay somewhere too. (And obviously, they can't all live in beach-front single-resident bungalows.) If we assume each tourist stays in Miami for a week, the calculator (38 M/52 weeks) tells me that Miami has an additional 730,000 inhabitants. Of course, these tourists don't come nicely spaced out, but there are sure to be a peak and an off-peak season, so you'd need rooms to accomodate them all, and high-rises, or sky-scrapers are a space-efficient way of doing that. Especially when tourists often all want to be in the same place. V85 (talk) 18:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Other than the cadre of architects who all got in on the fad, reinforced concrete had the most to do with making it easy. Please see Skyscraper#History. [5] suggests that Frederick Ransome and Henry Louis Le Chatelier might deserve enabler credits, with the usual cast of thousands approaching their contributions, as in any substantive industrial society change. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 03:50, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

So just to make sure I understand the answer, big businesses and corporations, private developers, etc. in general are usually the ones who are more responsible and credited in starting a skyscraper boom in some city with few skyscrapers than the city government itself, right?

But could a city government be considered to be the ones who are the most responsible when they themselves try to set apart many acres of land for sale or for lease for urban development in a city's urban center and then try to convince private developers, businesses amd corporations, etc. from other cities in the U.S or even overseas to come down and invest in their city instead? Is this how cities with a surplus of money that either want to or don't care to spend a lot of it, like Dubai, UAE, do it or is that not the way it is in this case? What about public developers (if there's such a thing)? Willminator (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

You asked who should get the credit. Groups of people like governments, architects, financiers, landowners, consumers creating demand, laborers, etc., share the credit in ways that are impossible to apportion quantitatively without very complex models. Generally those models will assign higher scores to earlier actions, so you can often go back to the enabling scientific discoveries for a first approximation, which works in this case because a structure made of Damascus steel would not be anywhere near as strong or durable as the same structure made of reinforced concrete containing standard steel. The advances in concrete which enabled easy construction of 30 story buildings really are due to Ransome and Le Chatelier. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 20:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Governments do have important contributions. They can set up zoning to encourage or discourage skyscraper building. They can set up tax incentives or establish infrastructure improvements to encourage certain types of development. For example, cities with a strong public transportation system encourage high-density development, while places which have a greater dependence on cars and road network tend to encourage sprawl. If you run a city and want to encourage high density development (skyscrapers) you can invest in subways or trains, make downtown parking rare and expensive, establish toll roads and other disincentives to driving, give tax breaks to developers and tenants to encourage skyscraper building, etc. etc. It should be noted also that the local economy has a lot to do with why a skyscraper farm will grow: a city built on heavy industry is much less likely to support such buildings, than one built on a service economy. You can't smelt steel or build a car in a skyscraper, but you can push paper and program computers in one. --Jayron32 21:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Commercial and residential sectors can demand skyscrapers even in an industrial local economy. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

True, which is why Pittsburgh and Detroit have skyscrapers. But there is more demand for office space in local economies where a higher percentage of the population is employed in jobs that need more office space. Certainly the nature of the local economy has an affect on how many skyscrapers are built in any one place. It isn't a binary condition, "They have a steel mill, so they get no skyscrapers in this city". Instead, it is one of the multitude of factors that determine what a cityscape will look like. I was merely pointing to it as one of those many factors. --Jayron32 04:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

July 18

Chinese musket

An acquaintance of mine is trying to find out if this Chinese musket is authentic. It looks very similar to Ming-period muskets that I've seen. I'm hoping that someone with more expertise can find more information on it. It appears to have the characters 十百八十二香 engraved to it, but I am unsure of the significance. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Recommend asking a antique Chinese firearms dealer, for example here or here. But don't get your hopes up. In a country proud of inventing gunpowder, these might be more numerous than would support an antique market beyond museums, which probably have their pick of top condition specimens. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 03:37, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Tepu10.jpg looks similar. If you go to commons you will find it in a 'category' with other musket categories and images. You may find one closer that may have more info. I didn't look at too many of the images.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Ivan VI of Russia's siblings

Are the four surviving siblings of Ivan VI of Russia: Catherine, Elizabeth, Peter, and Alexei considered Grand Dukes and Duchesses of Russia? Please don't cite wikipedia.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 00:43, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone doesn't understand the purpose of a Reference desk. Buddy431 (talk) 19:14, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you need to ask at another web page. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:32, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Even Wikipedia has policies that you can't cite other wikipedia articles as fact. Don't be a smart aleck.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 01:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC) This is not an article, it's a ref desk. Wikipedia articles get "cited" all the time here. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC) How silly. TENS is clearly after some extra-Wikipedia source that can answer his question. It's probably for another article he's writing or working on, and he's well within his rights to request that the answer come not from an existing WP article but somewhere else. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ [your turn] 04:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC) His basic premise is incorrect. Meanwhile, he's asking us to do his research for him. Go ahead and do that research if you want. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Bugs, if you don't want to help people do research, what are you doing at the RefDesk? This is kind of what we're here for. Matt Deres (talk) 14:23, 18 July 2012 (UTC) I thought we didn't do homework questions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC) And meanwhile, as you guys were yammering at me but not doing anything to help the OP, an IP actually does some of the OP's research for him (below). Imagine that. And now I'm waiting for the OP to yell at the IP for using another wikipedia as a source. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:15, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Sometimes, Bugs, ..... The first response was your suggestion the OP go elsewhere for their answer. Then you denied we do people's research for them, which would be the oddest thing anyone's ever said here. Then you characterised it as a homework question, when the fact is that The Emperor's New Spy often comes here to ask about details of Imperial Russian and other European history. That's certainly not homework; most probably getting article fodder. Then you criticise those who dared to take issue with any of your statements, but on the ridiculous and frankly, hypocritical, basis that we're not helping the OP. Please point to where you helped the OP. You did all in your power to get rid of him, with 3 (count them) completely spurious reasons for why we should not help him. But now we're all in trouble because we didn't help him. Double huh? That was only because we were too busy countering your crazy objections to helping him. Have I missed anything? By the way, nobody's been yelling or yammering, so please don't come up with further spurious charges to defend the indefensible. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ [your turn] 21:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC) He came to the wikipedia help desk and then insulted wikipedia. Spare me your lectures. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC) I had no idea I had to worship this site. When did I insult anything. I am sure that all users here understand the credibility of most wikipedia articles. If the question I like to ask can be answered by searching on wikipedia, I wouldn't even bother to ask on the reference desk.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 03:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Instead of dissing wikipedia, maybe you could help to improve it. Your bad attitude notwithstanding, Wikipedia is widely known and used. I use it myself, a lot, to find out almost anything about anything. I'm well aware that there are risks in making assumptions about the veracity of content. But the articles here generally serve as good outlines for nearly any topic you could think of, as well as being good jumping-off points to further information. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC) And in this case, they don't, which is what TENS is trying to rectify. You know, if you don't know the answer, you don't have to reply. You can just stick to the one where you can supply a Tom Lehrer lyric or whatever else passes for a response. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Bugs, it's been made very clear that The Emperor's New Spy is doing research for a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia's rules do not permit information to be sourced from existing articles. I'm sure you know that. That is why he said "Please don't cite wikipedia". You've somehow taken that as an insult (which makes no sense; why would someone come to an arm of WP for help, and diss the whole project while he's about it?), and it's snowballed (some would say "spiralled out of control") from that basic error on your part. Now that you know, not only that there was no insult, but also that TENS was acting in scrupulous adherence to the rules, you might like to withdraw your accusations against the OP and apologise for your crappy attitude towards him. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ [your turn] 06:37, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Where are you seeing all that in his original question or his snippy followup comment? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Quote: "Even Wikipedia has policies that you can't cite other wikipedia articles as fact". That tells us that he hasn't asked this question out of idle curiosity or boredom, or to make sense of some book he's reading, or whatever. He wants to find some detail to add to a Wikipedia article he's working on. And he can't use an existing article for that purpose, because our rules require reliable sources, and even though our articles are all (ideally) composed from reliable sources, they are not in in themselves reliable sources for other articles. I agree that "Don't be a smart aleck" was unnecessary, but surely that was a reaction to your "Maybe you need to ask at another web page". I can see how his mind would have been working: "What sort of answer is that to give to a reasonable question? What the hell is the Ref Desk there for, if not to provide answers to questions like mine?" But clearly your response was in turn conditioned by the insult you read into "Please don't cite wikipedia". But just as clearly, there was no insult intended and the OP's request was polite and perfectly reasonable. He surely did not need to go into chapter and verse (as I've just done above) to explain to experienced redfdeskers why it was important to have some information provided from outside Wikipedia, so the OP is blameless on that score as well. So, the whole thing proceeded from a knee-jerk reaction that came from a misintepretation on your part, which at its base demonstrated a lack of assumption of good faith towards the OP. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ [your turn] 12:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Also while they were in imprison, were they raised in the Orthodox or Protestant faith? They were allowed servants and priests. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 01:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Emperor's New Spy, re your original question, I think I've found the source you need to find, and can suggest some people to ask.

• The source is referenced in Russian Wikipedia. Великий князь quotes The complete collection of the laws of the Russian Empire, Vol XXIV, 1830, Doc. № 17906; v.6 , St. Petersburg., 1888 for as specifying actual official rules for who gets to be called Grand Duke or Duchess. I can't find this book online in English, but at least it's a title you could take to a library or the Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request is also a good place to ask for help from people who can access newspaper databases – they could look for a contemporary reference.
• Googling Professor Imperial Russia brought up a few experts; you could try emailing them. [6], [7], [8].

(The rule according to Russian Wikipedia is "sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and male-line grandchildren of the Emperor". This would mean a yes for them while Ivan was Tsar (as his brothers and sisters) but a no before he was Tsar (only female-line great-grandchildren) and who knows what after he was deposed, which is why an expert might be the way to go.)

Hope these leads help or you get a better answer soon.184.147.119.111 (talk) 14:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Here's a review of a book called "The Five Empresses" by Evgenii Anisimov, which promises that the book devotes a chapter to the detention of Anna Leopoldovna and her children. That might be the source you are looking for. 184.147.130.16 (talk) 02:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 03:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The Five Empresses is partially available on Google, but I can't see the beginning of that chapter ("The Secret Prisoner and Her Children"). Certainly it confirms that the servants were all Danish, but the parts I can see don't mention the priest. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Does the Franklin Delano Roosevelt biographical article need a civil rights segment in the Presidency section?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

References desks are not pages to discuss weight and reliable source policy.

---

The current version of the Franklin D. Roosevelt article does not have a civil rights section. I believe one is needed during his Presidency. Civil rights and the New Deal can be discussed, or how President Roosevelt was able to gain the support of African Americans without passing a Civil Rights bill. I believe the subject on the internment of Japanese could be discussed since George H. W. Bush apologized and awarded Internment survivors money. In the current article one would believe that there were no blacks in America nor that lynching was an issue during FDR's lengthy tenure in office. Please feel free to make comments for discussion. Cmguy777 (talk) 02:41, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Please feel free to raise this matter at Talk:Franklin D. Roosevelt. I'm sure some people who frequent the Ref Desk would be interested in partaking in such a discussion, but the article's talk page is where it should be held, not here. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 02:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I have already raised the topic of discussion in the talk page. I am looking for a concensus of opinion from multiple editors and I believe that the reference desk is a good place for discussion. Cmguy777 (talk) 02:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

This may be the place to ask people to come participate in the discussion, but the actual discussion itself should definately take place at the article talk page. Any discussions designed to have a direct impact on article content should ideally occur at the article talk page itself, to keep everything together. --Jayron32 02:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I disagree. I think you should follow normal en:wp procedure. That is: edit the article, have it reverted, edit war until all involved are blocked, and then seek consensus after all the blocks expire.--Canoe1967 (talk) 02:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I have already started a discussion on the talk page, as I mentioned before. Seems I am getting the run around at the reference desk without any attempt to get any answers. Hopefully more editors will discuss at the talk page. Cmguy777 (talk) 02:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for my flippant response. I would just be bold and add it. If it is reverted then follow procedure.--Canoe1967 (talk) 02:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Apology accepted Canoe1967. Thanks. Here is the link to the FDR talk page on Civil Rights: Franklin D. Roosevelt Talk Page Civil Rights Discussion. Cmguy777 (talk) 02:59, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

This is not the right place to ask for input. If the talk page is not sufficient, then the next place to go is the most relevant WikiProject. This article belongs to about two dozen WikiProjects; probably the best place to post a request for input is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Presidents. Looie496 (talk) 03:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Or, since that WikiProject is not very active, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States. Looie496 (talk) 03:06, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Franklin relied on Southern Democrats to vote for him and for Congressmen who would support his programs. Eleanor was, perhaps, more progressive with respect to civil rights. His administration "did what they could" within the political realities of the 1930's and early 1940's, with Hitler's racist genocidal fascism stalking Europe and blatant racism a powerful force in the US, while plutocrats allegedly sought an armed coup in the US. The 1930's and early 1940's were (one wishes) different from modern times. Edison (talk) 03:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Edison, thanks (not) for undermining all the previous editors who said here is not the appropriate place for such a discussion. This question is not seeking some information about the civil rights aspects of FDR's presidency; it's about whether or not the Wikipedia article Franklin D. Roosevelt should include material about the civil rights aspects of FDR's presidency. That is a matter that can only be settled by consensus between the participants on the talk page of that article. Not here. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 04:00, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Confessions to priests and Mandatory Reporting

Here in Australia, like no doubt many other countries, there is a (well-deserved) commotion about sexual abuse by members of the clergy, particularly the catholic church.

A "side question" (IMHO a red herring) has been: Should mandatory reporting obligations extend to what priests hear in the confessional booth?

My questions are:

1. Can anyone point to any cases where a catholic sexual abuse scandal actually involved the confessional booth in any form?

(My understanding is that the overwhelming majority of cases involve the church hierarchy "covering up" for other employees or clergy of the church, not confessing parishioners. I've never heard of the confessional booth coming into play in any of the actual cases which I've read about).

2. Hope this question isn't too speculative: How often, if ever, do priests actually hear confessions of serious criminal activity? (I would think it extremely rare, but I stand to be corrected).

3. Could priests be granted the same leeway as lawyers (regarding what they hear in the confessional booth) without jeopardising the protection of children? 119.225.16.46 (talk) 07:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually, in most jurisdictions, even lawyers aren't allowed to cover up an ongoing crime. StuRat (talk) 07:28, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

True, but they must keep quiet about confessions to past ones. 119.225.16.46 (talk) 07:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

In my understanding, "covering up" means taking some active role in preventing information from coming to light. It doesn't mean just keeping quiet. I am not a lawyer and don't know whether lawyers would be allowed to keep quiet in such a case; I'm just talking about how I use and understand language. --Trovatore (talk) 08:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

For Q.2, how would anyone ever know what they hear, unless it's some beans that have been spilled by a disaffected priest based on his own experiences and what his fellow priests have told him? Even so, that would be only one person's testimony and would not necessarily reflect the generality of what is divulged in confessionals world wide. Also, given that he was sworn to secrecy even from the arms of the law, how could anyone ever trust that what he said was the truth? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 07:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It always amazed me that RC priests in Northern Ireland could hear confessions of sectarian violence and murder and stay silent. I believe that is what kept the Troubles going for all those years. So I'd be interested in information related to this too. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:38, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

We have a (probably somewhat misnamed) article on the priest–penitent privilege that, with differences among them, exists in several countries. Australia is not mentioned by name. --Trovatore (talk) 08:48, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Tammy, are you really saying that you believe that Catholic priests not breaking their oathes to turn in those Catholic contributors to The Troubles who cared enough (and understood what they were doing to be wrong) that they actually Confessed their sins, is "what kept The Troubles going for all these years"? As if only devout Catholics were involved in The Troubles, rather than all sorts of Catholics and Protestants? As if anyone would Confess such crimes to a priest who wouldn't keep their oath? Really now. 86.161.208.94 (talk) 09:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. I could never understand why the Pope could not issue an edict which said "if you commit these crimes you're going straight to hell, regardless of any confession/absolution". What priest could absolve someone of killing people in a car bomb? Surely those who held the information of which people had perpetrated those crimes had a moral obligation to turn those people in? Isn't that why people were allowed to remain at large for years, and are still at large today, because the only people who knew who had committed what crime were forbidden to bring them to justice? (I speak here as someone who lost friends in a pub bombing.) And doesn't that also apply to victims of child abuse by priests? --TammyMoet (talk) 11:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, there's strong doctrinal reasons why no Pope would ever issue an edict exactly as you suggest. Despite Jesus' commission to Peter and the others that they had the power to retain as well as forgive sins, the church has generally maintained the line that anyone can be forgiven and redeemed if they are truly penitent. Confession is one of the main ways in the Roman Catholic church that this grace is imparted sacramentally. However, I have never known why an edict could not go out saying "If anyone confesses to {list of unspeakable crimes}, you must impose as penance the requirement that they give themselves up. If they do not do so, not only should you not grant absolution, you are exempted from the seal of the confessional, and should report the crime to the secular authorities. If, as a priest, you yourself commit or abet any such act, you will be defrocked and barred from holding office. If, as a bishop, you fail to enforce or implement these rules, or conceal, aid, abet, or commit any of these offences, you will additionally be excommunicated." AlexTiefling (talk) 12:20, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

A priest doesn't have any power to absolve you anyway, if you believe in that sort of thing. He can help you figure out how to ultimately be absolved by God, but confession isn't a magic wand that frees you from whatever crime you committed. Certainly people treat it that way...selling indulgences (which were supposed to absolve you of sin) was one of the causes of the Reformation, for example. But nevertheless that is definitely not how confession is supposed to work. In any case the Catholic and Protestant clergies themselves contributed to the Troubles. No one is shocked that they abuse children, but it's unthinkable that they would support sectarian violence? Adam Bishop (talk) 12:40, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course. Where I said "grant absolution" I technically meant "pronounce absolution". The priest will generally say "may Almighty God forgive you..." - expressing hope that the penitent is forgiven, rather than guaranteeing it. My point is that if the confessing person was genuinely penitent, they'd seek to make restitution, which should involve giving themselves up. If they refuse to do so, the priest can have no confidence that they have repented, and should not pronounce absolution.

And I think people are still shocked at both abuse and collusion in terrorism; but we're much less surprised by abuse than we used to be, because it's clearly been so widespread.AlexTiefling (talk) 13:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Alex, in addition to prescribing whatever penance might be appropriate, priests have always been under the obligation to influence penitents to submit to the civil authorities for anything they confess they've done that is a breach of the civil law. That applies from minor traffic infringements they got away with, all the way to murder/rape/child abuse. They can't physically apprehend them and take them to the nearest police station because, if for no other reason, that would be breaking the seal of the confessional. But they can go as far as contacting them - very discreetly, obviously - outside the confessional (assuming they know their identity) and discussing the matter, with a view to the penitent giving themselves up. I have to assume that most priests who commit child abuse never confess it to another priest in the confessional, because if they did, the confessor would be obliged to do all in their power to persuade the first priest to surrender themself to the police. And we all know how often that happens. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 13:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

No, Tammy, that isn't why. There has been a deliberate policy of amnesty for both sides, despite the terrible acts carried out by both sides, because the authorities seem to consider that the best way to achieve peace. Again, demolishing a basic Sacrament of the Catholic Church for the sake of this one conflict would only catch those who a) were Catholic b) were sufficiently devout and repentant to have Confessed these crimes as a sin c) had enough actual evidence to convict them. It would increase sectarian tensions (picking on one side), would effectively destroy a Sacrament (the priest isn't even really supposed to think about or particularly remember what was Confessed, as the point is that the priest is a temporary stand in for Christ), would only be possible once, ever, as people would simply stop Confessing crimes (thus removing an opportunity for them to talk about what they did with someone, and be prompted to rectify the situation), and would catch very few of the actual perpetrators. As to why the Pope doesn't declare "do this and you will definitely go to Hell, no matter what": because neither the Pope nor the Church believes they have that power. You're viewing this as if the Pope and the Catholic Church didn't actually believe their own theology. 86.161.208.94 (talk) 12:40, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

IP, your final two sentences express my point far more effectively than I expressed it myself. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:08, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

"if you commit these crimes you're going straight to hell": I see two serious problems here. The first is simple: from a theological point of view, the pope does not determine the creed. The pope cannot simply send people to hell. Also, I think the Catholic Church abolished most of traditional hell with the Second Vatican Council. Secondly, given the degree of indifference shown by god at the execution of Giordano Bruno, or at the 1099 massacre in Jerusalem (with the perpetrators shouting "Deus vult"), or even in Treblinka ("Gott mit uns") or at the ("In God We Trust") My Lai Massacre, I doubt she would suddenly change her mind and state that "Thou Shalt Not Kill" means "Thou Shalt Not Kill" and does not come with the footnote "Unless killing approved by your social, religious or political group, other restriction may apply, patent pending, not valid in the District of Columbia and K-Mart". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:18, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion brings up an interesting question. Who, according to the Pope & the Church & their theology, definitely went to Hell? Aside from this fellow. Wonder if he said "Nice place to visit, but wouldn't want to live there" then? Aside from the unnamed plutocrat resident told of here, even our article on another leading candidate says "The damnation of Judas is not a universal conclusion, and some have argued that there is no indication that Judas was condemned with eternal punishment".John Z (talk) 01:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

No one definitely goes to hell, since everyone can be redeemed (perhaps after death). Adam Bishop (talk) 05:51, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't asking who stayed there, but who (human) ever went there. Definitely Jesus, probably Judas, and definitely the Rich Man (who looks like a quite permanent resident). Who else?John Z (talk) 10:43, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Well in that case, I should point out that "the Rich Man" is a character in a parable, and not intended to be a real person. If you just want to know who went to Hell (where Hell is given the Catholic definition of "separation from God") then everyone who died before Jesus opened Heaven went to Hell. They didn't all go to the metaphysical pit of fire, but they did go to Hell. Consider Lazarus in the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man: both characters are in Hell, as Heaven hadn't been opened yet, but Lazarus is in Abraham's Bosom also known as the Limbo of the Fathers whereas the Rich Man is in the pit of fire. When Jesus died and "descended into Hell", he is supposed to have "preached to the souls in prison" allowing those in the Limbo of the Fathers (the non-punishment bit of Hell) to be saved and enter Heaven when he opened it.

So, from a Catholic point of view, we can know that all those people went to Hell, but we don't know that anyone was punished and we don't know that anyone was damned. 86.161.208.94 (talk) 16:27, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Q1's parenthetical comment "...the overwhelming majority of cases involve the church hierarchy 'covering up' for other employees or clergy of the church, not confessing parishioners ...". Even priest themselves are required to confess their sins (apparently even the Pope goes to confession), so it may be that the bishop (or another priest) hears about the abuse because the abusing priest tells him in confession. The bishop is then obliged (by the Seal of the Confessional) to keep it secret. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

See my reply to Alex Tiefling above, which is directly relevant to this. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

@TammyMoet above, absolution and the seal of the confessional are separate issues. Even if the priest withholds absolution, he is still obliged not to reveal anything that has been said to him in confession, the obvious issue being that he can't jeopardize people's trust in him, given that, according to his beliefs, saving immortal souls is more important than sending people to prison, even for murder. Of course the priest can make confession to law authorities a condition of absolution--but that is a separate matter. μηδείς (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

If priests are forced to pass on to police all evidence of possible crimes confessed to them, people will stop telling the priests. HiLo48 (talk) 19:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Medeis, can you give us a cite for "Of course the priest can make confession to law authorities a condition of absolution". I've never heard of conditional absolution. Even the ordinary types of penance handed out ("say 10 Hail Marys and 12 Lord's Prayers") is not a condition of absolution, afaik. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:29, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

See I Confess (film) which discusses the Catholic expectation that a Priest would suffer martyrdom rather than violate the sanctity of the confessional. Yeah, as a Protestant, I expect that a Priest would let the person who confessed frame him for a murder, and say nothing, going to the place of execution with the sure and certain hope of salvation. I also expect that of a protestant clergyman who receives confession as a part of his ministry, in religions where confession is a sacrament. If the person confessing says "I did this horrible thing this morning and I am penitent,etc.," the Priest should not be expected to call the cops, though he should urge the person to go to the police. If he says "And I plan to do it again again tonight," then he is not penitent, and I would not have so great an expectation of silence in the anticipation of harm to someone. If he says he will not do it again, then every morning he marches in and says, well, I did it again, but I am penitent, etc, then I'm not sure. Maybe then the Priest/clergyman can discount the person's claim of being penitent and not accept it as a valid confession. [Here] is a thoughtful 1986 article on this problem. Google News says that in Ireland the government claims that protecting children trumps the sanctity of the confessional. I am reminded of a skit on Monty Python or some such wherein someone enters the confessional booth, and shortly thereafter, the Priest leaves his booth, opens the booth of the parishioner, hauls him out, and starts punching him. Edison (talk) 00:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

@JackofOz, First, I don't understand the meaning of your "exactly", above, since HiLo48 is simply repeating more elegantly what I said; the priest must maintain the confidence of his confessants. Second, you seem to be confusing penance with contrition, and or the conditions of absolution. Contrition is the proof that you are sorry for your act, and the priest may require conditions to show the reality of that contrition, such as requiring confession to law authorities of a criminal act. That is separate from penance, which is just plain punishment. I suggest you read the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"Absolution can be given either absolutely or conditionally, i.e., depending on the fulfillment of some condition for its validity. It is also given ad cautelam (for safety's sake) in all rescripts, Bulls, and Apostolic privileges, lest the effects of the concession be impeded by some hidden censure. Lastly, we have absolution ad reincidentiam; this takes effect immediately, but if the penitent, within a certain time, does not do something prescribed, he at once occurs, ipso facto, a censure of the same kind as that from which he had just been absolved."

and especially the article on Absolution, which talk of conditional absolution. μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your "suggestion", and for the information. It was "exactly" what I asked for. My earlier "exactly" was to fully support the concise formulation chosen by the previous editor. There was no reflection on any other editors. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 06:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

(EC) The problem is that everything seems to agree making surrender to authorities a condition of absolution simply isn't allowed by current Catholic interpretation. E.g. our own article, Sacrament of Penance (Catholic Church) as well as [9] http://catholicforum.fisheaters. com/index.php?topic=3429341.25 [10] [11] [12] [13].

One of the sources mention canon law for which 'A confessor is prohibited completely from using knowledge acquired from confession to the detriment of the penitent even when any danger of revelation is excluded' is perhaps revealing. From my reading of the sources, you are mistaken about the conditions imposed being distinct from the confessional seal. Several of the sources noted they seal is regarded as absolute and requiring someone to surrender would effectively be trying to break the seal. (Although one person in this source [14] disagrees.)

Perhaps more importantly, from my reading of the source you linked above (which I came across when researching the answer) as well as [15] [16] [17], I believe you're also misunderstanding the conditional thing. A priest can't impose a future condition on absolute, that's invalid. Rather conditional absolution is granted when the priest isn't sure the confessor actually fulfills the requirements for absolution so tells the pertinent they are only conditionally absolved. From the last source in particular, I believe the priest may suggest the pertinent should wait until something has happened before they believe they are absolved, not because they are imposing a future condition but because since they may not be absolved, they shouldn't sin further for example by receiving the eucharist when they haven't been absolved for a mortal sin. One tricky thing is some sources including I think [18] http://www.fisheaters .com/unction.html and one of the sources I linked above seem to be confusing indirect absolution and conditional absolution. As I understand it, indirect absolution is when the person doesn't actually confess their sins in the sacrement but the priest says they are absolved if they fulfill the conditions required for absolution, conditional absolution is when the sinner does take part in the sacrement but the priest isn't convinced they fulfill the requirements (dispositions?) for absolution.

The priest can also ask the sinner to perform penance and as noted in some of the earlier sources failing to fulfill these requirements would potentially be a sin in itself but as also noted in those sources, the sinner can ask the priest if they think or find they can't fulfill what was asked from them or even I think based on their own judgement substitute their own penances. For the same reasons as earlier, giving a penance of surrending to the authorities would seem to be not allowed.

The only loophole (as it were) is potentially what's mentioned here [19], a person generally can't allow an innocent to continue to suffer for their actions. The example given there is if an innocent party has been charged or perhaps even serving. I guess there may be debates as to whether the original sin is absolved (does commiting this new sin related to the old sin mean you're not genuinely contrite?), but the ongoing sin of allowing the party to suffer obviously can't be. This isn't of course a conditional absolution but non-absolution (b in the CE source you linked). (Of course a priest could similarly not grant an absolution if a person hasn't surrendered but my reading is they can't do this for non-continuing sins because it isn't a perceived requirement and it would have the effect of trying to break the seal. One of the sources mentions something new to deal with sexually abusive, but I don't know what it is.)

Potentially you could stretch this to suggest if a victim is suffering because of your actions in not surrending, then you are sinning. It likely gets tricky if you don't know if anyone is suffering, but obviously e.g. if you're a murderer and in the paper the family said just yesterday they're having trouble moving on because they don't know who killed their whoever, this doesn't apply. (Although you probably don't have to surrender straight away, rather going to the family and telling them what you did and offering to surrend if that's what they want would probably be sufficient.) Similarly if there's a court case, even if you don't intend to testify (and therefore have to lie) it would seem problematic that the victim may be thought of as a liar or for that matter has to go thru the trauma of the case. (Or for that matter if there hasn't been a court case, but someone came out and publicly accused you but a decision was made not to prosecute due to insufficient evidence.) Perhaps this was what was applied here [20] (in that the person confessing was perceiving to be disadvanting others via their cheating), or perhaps the priest there just wasn't that familiar with or didn't care about Canon law.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

BTW, the ronconte wordpress source mentions how one of the issues from the CC's POV for submission to civil authorities is the punisment might be out of proportion to the crime. (Where the person there said 'Under the eternal moral law all three fonts of morality must be good for any act to be moral. If submitting will have grave bad consequences that are not outweighed by good consequences, such as harm to a man’s wife and children, and harm to him if civil authorities in the nation are known to give excessive penalities for whatever the crime was, then submitting would not be moral.') While this may just one theologian's opinion, it doesn't exactly seem surprising. In particular, given the CC's views on the death penalty, it seems doubtful to me JackofOz's claim would be true (they are always encouraged to submit to civil authorities) in a country like Malaysia or Singapore with the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking or manufacturing if the person confesses 20 years after the fact when they are now a family main with young children well known in the community for their efforts fighting drugs, charity work, etc. I wonder whether they would even do it in the US for murder if there's a strong risk of the death penalty. (They may encourage other things like making sure any family or whatever.) Nil Einne (talk) 09:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

occupations per 10000 workers

Assuming a work force of 10,000 individuals in a community: What is the (job title,employment break down) ie.... # of police officers per 10,000 or 1 police officer per (23?) people

      # of doctors per 10,000 or 1 doctor per (600?) people.
      # of store clerks per 10,000 or 1 store clerk per (?) people 
      # of store stockers per 10,000 or 1 stocker per (?) people
    etc. 
total break down numbers should be within 10% of 10,000

thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.232.93 (talk) 14:24, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Which community are you talking about? How can we possibly tell you how many police officers there are without knowing where it is? Or do you want to know how many would be needed, which is something that can't be answered precisely, especially without knowing the sort of place or what law enforcement policies you wish to pursue. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like homework. Ochson (talk) 14:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

A site like http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_phy_per_1000_peo-physicians-per-1-000-people may have some of these statistics. It has a section on physicians per 1000 people for a variety of countries...you can calculate up what that would be per 10,000 pretty easily from there. ny156uk (talk) 18:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking for general averages. I used police and doctors as examples because I know the rough averages for those professions. Military is roughly 350 service personel per 10,000 or 1 per 28 (though in some countries the military and police overlap). For the past several years I've been looking for the employment stats on western industral communities simply because thats what we live in, and thats what would be most avaliable. What I Would like to -eventually- determine is the breakdown on a bronze/ironage citystate that may have existed between the Black Sea and western Himalayas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.232.93 (talk) 14:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

NOTE: per http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_phy_per_1000_peo-physicians-per-1-000-people world wide average is 1.7 doctors per 1000 people (or 1 per 588.235) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.232.93 (talk) 14:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Averages like that aren't much use. Take a look at List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel. There is so much variation there than trying to summarise it as one number isn't useful. It definitely isn't useful for working out what a bronze-age or iron-age settlement would have been like (they would have been 99% farmers, I would expect). --Tango (talk) 18:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Doctor, lawyer, beggar-man, thief. I know the stats have been worked out for a (worldwide) average "village" of 1000. It was quoted in the Denver Post or Rocky Mountain News about 10-15 years ago. I'd be happy to find Word Wide occupation numbers for per 100,000. Farmers for a Bronze Age city-state would be closer to 10%. The devolvement of agriculture allowed us to go from 9 people working to feed 10, to 1 person working to feed 10. It allowed for others to specialize in pottery, tanning, woodwork etc. It’s the etc I want to know about. I find general averages to be very usefull. I find it difficult to extrapolate without them.

Shia Sunni Monarchy

Are Shia Muslim anti-monarch and Sunni Muslims pro-monarch or is it a misconception? Shias in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are against the Monarch and that's why I wanted to know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.105.163 (talk) 14:37, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on this by any means, but I think it has more to do with the ruling family in Saudi Arabia being of a different Muslim sect, rather than any anti-monarchist sentiment in Shia Islam. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:03, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The Shahs of Iran were Shia. See Mohammad Reza Pahlavi which list his religion as Shia. Spot checking a few other random Shahs from List of kings of Persia confirms that the Shahs of Iran were Shia. --Jayron32 16:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

We have List of Shi'a Muslim dynasties. Those in early Islam opposed to a hereditary caliphate were the Kharijites... -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:56, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that Shia Muslims are against Sunni monarchs that discriminate against them and vice versa. Keep in mind that most Sunnis in Syria and abroad support the overthrow of Assad, who is not a monarch but whose dictatorship essentially functions like a monarchy. Assad is a Shiite (to be more specific Alawite, which is a branch of Shiism). Futurist110 (talk) 05:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Were any of the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt undemocratic?

I am asking this question as objectively as possible without any judgement. The main issue was the internment of 100,000 Japanese citizens during Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Presidency, although Italians and Germans were interned as well. Was Roosevelt ultimately a racist or did he hold racist views against Asians? His New Deal policies initially favored whites over black citizens. Please remember this is a discussion and not meant in anyway to condone or condemn any of FDR's actions while President. What do the sources say? Cmguy777 (talk) 16:32, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

He issued lots of public statements in favor of China, and his administration issued the Overrun Countries series of postage stamps honoring Korea (along with presumably plenty of other statements, although I've never looked for any), so I expect that the sources would credit his actions to the state of warfare against Japan. German and Italian immigrants had long been more thoroughly integrated into American culture than had Japanese immigrants, so the comparison probably isn't valid. Nyttend (talk) 16:46, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Defining someone as a "racist" is an inflamatory thing, as it is a loaded word which is not to be thrown around lightly. Using a term like that doesn't generally lead to a dispassionate discussion of the historical facts in question, instead it causes people to discuss the issue emotionally. One can look at the effects of the policies of Roosevelt on race relations within the United States, one can look at the personal statements or actions of Roosevelt regarding his relationship with people of other races, but to ask, point blank "Was he or wasn't he a racist?" is a completely unanswerable question. I suggest you reformulate your question if you want a serious discussion; leaving it as you have asked it won't be very helpful. --Jayron32 16:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I changed the question to policies rather then FDR. Cmguy777 (talk) 18:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I found a good source: By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans by Greg Robinson (2001). Cmguy777 (talk) 18:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this question an attempt to re-open the closed discussion above? Shouldn't this all be on the Talk page? AlexTiefling (talk) 19:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Insert: This is not the same discussion as above that had to do with placement of the Civil Rights section in the FDR article. Cmguy777 (talk) 22:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Is this about FDR being undemocratic (the title) or being racist (the text)? HiLo48 (talk) 19:43, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Insert: I used "undemocratic" to keep the question neutral. Cmguy777 (talk) 22:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

There are many wartime policies of the FDR administration that were undemocratic. The U.S. Government at the time basically nationalized the entire U.S. industry to make it work towards supporting the war effort. That's undemocratic. The administration suspended many constitutional and individual rights during the war, and the internment program of American citizens was just a part of that. The War Powers Acts of 1941 and 1942 made FDR functionally a dictator, if a benevolent one. It was a decidedly undemocratic way to run the country. Which is not to say that aspects of it were not justified (the mobilization of American industry to make war materiel would likely have not been as efficient without it, for example), but certain other aspects were less than honorable (the aformention internement of American citizens based on accident of ancestry). --Jayron32 20:31, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I thought the question was about the internment of Japanese, Italian and German citizens. No mention of American citizens. Interning the former, when the US was at war with those countries, would hardly be a surprise to anyone. You either intern or expel citizens of nations you're at war with. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Read the article titled Japanese American internment and the last line of the opening paragraph. I won't ruin the surprise for you. It will be a learning experience. --Jayron32 23:01, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, applying that to the precise phrasing of the question & Jack's response here involves a distinction not treated much in that article & paragraph - concerning the Japanese-Americans who were citizens of both Japan and the USA. How many of the US citizens interned were also citizens of Japan? Currently, Japan tends to discourage dual citizenship. Multiple_citizenship#Multiple_citizenship_prohibited.2Fdiscouraged [21]. Back then - ? The line "The manifesto was backed by the Native Sons and Daughters of the Golden West and the California Department of the American Legion, which in January demanded that all Japanese with dual citizenship be placed in concentration camps" indicates that this was a significant group though - maybe the Nisei had dual citizenship (i.e. also Japanese) at the time?John Z (talk) 00:44, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

(ec) I'm fully aware that a goodly chunk of the internees were American citizens. But the OP was not asking about them. He was asking about "the internment of 100,000 Japanese citizens ... although Italians and Germans were interned as well". He's referring to citizens of other countries, in particular, countries with which the USA was at war. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:50, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

He's asked several questions. I answered the one in the title. Imprisoning American citizens without due process was undemocratic. --Jayron32 01:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Was there a need for the Japanese internment? Roosevelt went against advise that there was no need to intern the Japanese. Even J. Edgar Hoover did not believe there was a need to inter the Japanese. According to Robinson, western farmers wanted to confiscate Japanese agriculture property. Cmguy777 (talk) 22:09, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The Naturalization Act of 1790 prohibited non whites from becoming citizens. The Naturalization Act of 1870 allowed African descent to become citizens. How could Asians be citizens of the United States prior to World War II? Cmguy777 (talk) 23:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Not correct. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868) specifically states "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." A person born in the U.S. was a U.S. citizen, regardless of race. This was already established law, as 2 years earlier the Civil Rights Act of 1866 already contained essentially the same text. This was not a specific enumeration of any one race, it was open to all ancestries. A person born in the United States of Japanese parents was an American citizen no different from any other American citizen, and this was constitutionally true since at the latest 1866-1868, and possibly earlier. Every time there was a legal test to this clause, it was generally upheld in as broad a definition as possible (excepting Native Americans who lived on reservations and retained citizenship of their tribes). United States v. Wong Kim Ark is relevent here. Even if we take the late date of United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) as when the matter became settled law, that's still some 40+ years before WWII. --Jayron32 23:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I will just say that defining this policy as "undemocratic" is very confusing to me. "Democratic" has a relatively distinct meaning that has to do with how people are elected and policies are created. FDR was just as "undemocratic" with respect to internment as many previous Presidents and many since. It was arguably a Constitutional violation (though the Supreme Court did not ruled it as such, disturbingly), it was arguably an awful policy, but it does not have any unique distinction as "undemocratic." More "undemocratic" were his actions in, say, creating the atomic bomb, which were done using black budgets, shielded from Congress, and more or less kept entirely out of the checks and balances that are required by the "democratic" requirements of the Constitution. Arguably the President can do this sort of thing under the requirements of executive power in wartime, though, so even then, it's not clear, but I'd argue that's much more "undemocratic." Democracy is not the same thing as equal rights, as centuries of American history have shown. You can have extremely racist and oppressive democracies if sufficient checks to the rule of the majority — or to executive power — are not put in place. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Democracy doesn't mean that people have a vote for their leaders or anything like that. It means that the people in a society have access to political power and the right to give or withhold their consent from the actions of their government. Civil rights are an inherent and inseperable corollary to democracy. In that way, democracy isn't a binary condition, but a continuum based on how much personal freedom and access to the machinery of the state that people have. FDR passed policies which restricted the freedoms of U.S. citizens in a direct way. That is fundementally undemocratic. It didn't make the U.S. 100% undemocratic, but it did make it less democratic at the time. --Jayron32 01:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

That's a nice idea, but that's not the definition of democracy. It doesn't mean "all people" — it means "some subset of the people," even today. What you are describing is better termed liberal democracy, which is the definition of democracy plus a lot of other positive things that the standard definition can easily leave out. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:44, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The OP needs to keep in mind that there was a significant amount of wartime hysteria going on. For one thing, there were Japanese raids going on in the Pacific Northwest (a fact not widely publicized at the time), so the fears were not groundless. Locking up anyone who might conceivably have some connection with the enemy was the "carpet bombing" approach to the problem. There were indeed some Japanese-Americans who were considered subversives, but most of them were good Americans who got screwed, losing property as well as rights, for no legally justifiable reason. Just not killed, as the Germans did with theirs - but "only" confined to the internment camps. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Jayron that Democracy requires equality and clearly the Japanese did not have any equality or protection during WWII in America. If the Japanese were considered American's by birth, what Constitutional authority did Roosevelt have in making his internment prison camps? Cmguy777 (talk) 05:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

See Korematsu v. United States. Basically the Supreme Court ruled that in his role as Commander in Chief, the President can make wide-ranging policies during wartime for the protection of the homeland, including rounding up people based solely on their national heritage. Note that this was not the first time a President had done things of this nature during wartime — Lincoln and Wilson also did similarly wide-spread things in the name of national security. One of the many stains on the idea that the Constitution is adequate to protects individuals in times of strife. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:48, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Lincoln did not round up blacks and put them in prison, he set them free in the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln and Wilson rounded up people because of their political sympathies. The Japanese were interred simply because they were Japanese. Thanks for the input on the Supreme Court case, Mr. 98. Cmguy777 (talk) 20:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The Japanese were interred simply because they were Japanese. - That would make a lot of sense for the Japanese citizens you asked about, but a lot less sense for the Americans of Japanese descent. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 11:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

What Supreme Court ruling stated that children of foriegn nationals born in the U.S. or U.S. territories were U.S citizens? Cmguy777 (talk) 22:38, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

For children born in the U.S. proper, see United States v. Wong Kim Ark. But that was just interpreting what was already stated in the 14th Amendment. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:48, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Orange Suede Sofa. This decision was prior to FDR's internment practice. Apparently FDR did not seem concerned that Japanese American citizens were interned, who are suppose to have a right to trial by jury. Cmguy777 (talk) 18:33, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Citing a US federal law

s:Page:United_States_Statutes_at_Large_Volume_106_Part_1.djvu/357 contains the text of a US federal law, Public Law 102-321, which is elsewhere cited as "106 Stat. 325". Is there some good reason that it's not simply cited as PL 102-321? I don't remember seeing "Number Stat. Number" before; what is it called, and where can I find guidelines for using it? I understand that the first number is the number of the volume in the printed US Code where this public law is found, but I can't understand what "325" signifies. Nyttend (talk) 16:41, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Because the public laws are collected in bound volumes, called "Statutes at Large", which is how most libraries had them. Congress did publish the text of laws, and as I recall they were generally available free, but books are easier to deal with than things that can range from a single page to telephone directory thickness. The number after is the page number, which makes it easier to find where to go. See here.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks; not knowing what to call it, I didn't even know how to search for it. I wondered if 325 were the page number in this case, but I was dissuaded by the 357 in the Wikisource pagename. Moreover, I thought that 325 was assigned to the law itself, which apparently extends over multiple pages. Nyttend (talk) 16:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It's telling you where to find the first page of the law. If I were citing in a legal brief, and it was a long statute, I'd cite the page the provision I want the judge to look at as something like 106 Stat. 325, 331. He can find it from there.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

：It's a general legal convention throughout the common law world that anything that appears in anything multi-volume, be it judgments or articles (though usually not statutes as in many countries statutes are no longer published in continuous volumes the way they are done in the US), are cited as "[Volume #] [Name of work] [First page #]", to indicate the precise page referred to, the citation can be followed by "at [Cited page #]" or simply ", [Cited page #]". In some contexts the date is important, as the volume numbers might get recycled from year to year, but in other contexts the volume number alone is sufficient. In any case, where relevant, the year usually precedes the volume number. Whether square brackets or round brackets are used for the year can also be significant depending on the type of work cited - with judgments, often "(2002)" means a judgment published in 2002, whereas "[2002]" means a case decided in 2002. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Hope I'm not repeating too much, but yes to find the Statute at Large (which is technically the actual law) you'd find Volume 106 of the Statutes at large on page 325. There's also the question of codification and not all laws (in fact most laws passed by congress) aren't integrated into the U.S. Code. Technically the U.S. Code is not the source of federal law either, however there's a statute that makes anything published in the USC presumptively correct. I could be wrong on some details since it's been a long time that I've dealt with that kind of question. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. Also, check out this page for more detail: [22] Shadowjams (talk) 19:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Nationalities of NATO officials

I stumbled across NATO#Structures, and was wondering why so many Deputy Secretaries General of NATO have been Italian - of the 14 so far, 10 have been Italian, and two of the others served under an Italian Secretary General. I see from Secretary General of NATO that that position is traditionally occupied by a European, while the Supreme Allied Commander Europe is traditionally American. I also noticed that of the 27 deputy SACEURs, 19 have been British and 8 German (between 1978 and and 1993 there was one of each for some reason, before 1973 they were all British, and since 1993 a mixture). Does anyone know the reasoning behind any of this? I suppose these four countries have generally been the most important members, excluding France (which has had strained relations with NATO), but how did these particular patterns emerge? 130.88.73.65 (talk) 18:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that the U.S. came to the realization that the exercising of real power has little to do with the name you call something. One of the key aspects of American Imperialism is the idea that you can basically do whatever you want, wherever you want, as long as you don't make any direct claims to the power. Old-style empires worked by actually conquering and incorporating territory into themselves. "You're not Gaul. You're now part of Rome", etc. etc. The U.S. realized, rather shrewdly, that if you let people keep the name of their country the same, you can claim you don't own that country, so people leave you alone, and you still get to own that country. The U.S. exerts no less control over those places than Rome or the British Empire did. The organization of NATO is no less so. It's moot who holds the named positions of leadership; the U.S. says "Jump!" and NATO says "How high?". The political machinations of who gets to put a title on their business cards doesn't mean much to how the system actually works. Perhaps the Italians are particular good at Politics. Maybe its a dumb, random streak. But it doesn't make much of a difference to the real politik. --Jayron32 20:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

It is usual to bring a bunch of flowers to a date. You might end up with what happened to ANZUS if you forget the flowers. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I really think this is a bit of an exaggeration. The NATO article lists a number of serious disagreements between members, over command structures, expansion of the organisation's membership, and military interventions, and there are clearly cases where NATO has failed to adopt the US's preferred position (see the Iraq War). Your explanation would also seem to be contradicted by the fact the US has apparently insisted on having the SACEUR (the top military commander of NATO). I was more interested in why specifically these two deputy positions have consistently been given to Italians, Brits, and Germans in the manner that they have - it quite clearly isn't a coincidence. 130.88.73.65 (talk) 13:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

July 19

Does the BSA currently get to use federal property for anything it does?

Does the Boy Scouts of America, which discriminates on sexual orientation, currently use federal property for any of its jamborees or any other activities for free or after paying for access? 69.243.220.115 (talk) 00:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Surely the Boy Scouts have lots of events held on federal property. The National Parks, for example. Staecker (talk) 01:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Is there any federal civil rights protection for gays as such? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Considering that anyone can visit a national park, regardless of their political or moral views, why would the BSA be any different? Is there a law saying that discriminatory organizations may not use national parks to host their activities? If the BSA were using parks to incite violence or spread hate speech, that would be another matter, but as far as I know it does neither. --140.180.5.169 (talk) 04:22, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

off-topic
The following discussion has been closed by [[User:Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)|Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)]]. Please do not modify it.
It occurs to me that between a history of at least some child abuse cases, along with the huge amount of publicity about the "Pen" State situation, the Scouts probably decided that this was not the best time to be creating a more liberal policy on orientation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC) I don't see the connection. HiLo48 (talk) 08:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC) At Penn state a male coach raped boys, and it was hushed up by the higher-ups. If the coach is a man, and the team members are boys, obviously, he's gay. If you allow homosexuals to volunteer with the boyscouts, you potentially create a situation where 'untold hordes' of gay men are put in charge of young boys, including on overnight trips in national parks, creating the perfect scenario for some one-on-one man/boy love in the forest. Is it realistic to assume that opening the boy scouts up to gays would transform the organisation into a paedophile free-for-all? Probably not. Would it cause massive outrage when Bill O'Reilly reads the monologue part I just wrote for him? Absolutely. V85 (talk) 09:21, 19 July 2012 (UTC) I assume that was an ironic post, V85, but just in case it wasn't: If the coach is a man, and the team members are boys, obviously, he's gay - wrong. All we know about such a man is that he's turned on by boys. We don't know that he's turned on by adult males. This is the difference between pedophilia and homosexuality. The two are as different as chalk and cheese, and I don't know why educated people still conflate them. If you allow homosexuals to volunteer with the boyscouts, you potentially create a situation where 'untold hordes' of gay men are put in charge of young boys ... creating the perfect scenario for some one-on-one man/boy love in the forest - wrong, for the reasons stated above. If you allow homosexuals to volunteer with the boyscouts, you might possibly find them showing interest in other men in the troupe, but there is no reason to suppose they would have any sexual interest in the boys in their charge. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ [your turn] 11:11, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Yes, that was meant to be ironic. ;-) V85 (talk) 15:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC) I can hardly believe I'm reading this thread, because the UK youth organisations sorted this decades ago. The Scouts now take girls and boys, and lots of women are leaders. The Girl Guides are girls only; they accept male adult volunteers in some roles. The Woodcraft Folk has always been mixed. All have very strong child protection policies in place; all adults helping even short term must have a Criminal Records Bureau check. They address their volunteering calls mainly to parents, and to young people who have grown up in their organisation (a good opportunity for those who want go into school teaching). They don't ask adult volunteers about their sexual orientation, except possibly to monitor their equal opportunities policies, i.e. to ensure that they are getting enough LGBT volunteers. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Maybe the UK is not as puritanical as the US is. Therein lies the core problem, don'cha know. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC) The UK might not be as puritanical as the US, but they seem to be very afraid of paedophilia. I read somewhere that even parents picking their children up from school or watching their children's little league games need to present a criminal record to show that they have not previously been convicted of child abuse. V85 (talk) 15:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Better safe than sorry. It's the USA's innate puritanism that works to the advantage of child predators. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The National Scout Jamboree used to be held at Fort A.P. Hill but I don't think it is still. Dismas|^(talk) 03:30, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

In Winkler v. Rumsfeld it was ruled that federal (more specifically, military) support of the BSA was permitted. In the past such support has included use of military land. Whether this will continue in the future hasn't yet been decided, though the possibility remains open. —Psychonaut (talk) 09:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

That case was only decided on a technicality. The actual question of whether federal support of BSA is allowed remains open. --108.227.29.193 (talk) 16:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I must ask again - Is there any federal civil rights legislation that forbids gay discrimination? The Army rules were specifically passed by Congress, which might suggest that there is not any widespread federal law on the matter. And if not, while I might sympathize with the OP's understandable irritation at the Boy Scouts for reaffirming their anti-gay stance, it would probably take a lengthy court battle to do anything about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:02, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The Constitution's Equal Protection Clause has recently been held to apply to sexual orientation in some federal circuits. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 06:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Note that without a constitutional issue at play, the Support Our Scouts Act and Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act would seem to make limiting federal government support problematic. As our Boy Scouts of America membership controversies mentions, there has been a withdrawal of support from other branches of government in the US. BTW, the article is likely of interest to the OP since it describes some of the ways the federal government does support and get involved in the BSA. As the article mentions, it isn't just the sexual orientation thing that's a problem but also their policies towards non religious people. That was what was tested in Winkler v. Rumsfeld which as mentioned above failed due to a lack of standing. As hinted above and mentioned in our articles, future jamborees starting with the 2013 National Scout Jamboree will be held at The Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve partly as a result of the failed lawsuit, however the DoD may still be involved because of the training and recruiting oppurtinities, I don't know whether this level of involvement would be enough for a plantiff who does have standing. Nil Einne (talk) 12:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Fake "reality" shows

The blogosphere contains numerous instances of people asserting that reality TV shows are often fake, with actors pretending to bring in items for purchase or appraisal, with the owner of the store where the item was previously listed for sale coming in to evaluate it. Similar complaints have been made about car towing shows, dating shows, survivor shows, home improvement shows, antique restoration shows, and shows where people purchasie storage lockers suspiciously full of extremely valuable articles. Quiz show scandals describes deceptive TV shows of the 1950's being investigated by the US Congress and grand juries, even without there apparently being laws at the time against coaching or instructing quiz show contestants. Laws were later supposedly passed in the US outlawing fake quiz shows. Does the US or other countries have laws against presenting fake reality shows as other than scripted entertainment, akin to TV wrestling? Edison (talk) 04:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Not an answer, but I think the reason why most people on Antiques Roadshow seem to have bought a Ming Vase for $1.98 at a local garage sale is that they don't air the vast majority of those who wasted their money buying junk. (They do air a tiny portion of those cases, usually when it's a very good fake.) That said, they did have some scandal involving swords, as I recall. And, this distortion of people's perceptions that buying "antiques" is almost a guaranteed investment is rather self-serving, as the people running the show are in that business, and would love millions of suckers showing up to buy junk which they assume in extremely valuable, despite the price. StuRat (talk) 04:26, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Do reality TV shows actually assert they are, in fact, real? Do these shows actually have a disclaimer that says "This work is non-fiction. All events presented are real"? I have never seen such a disclaimer but then again I don't watch a lot of TV.A8875 (talk) 05:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Even where 'everything is real' (i.e. people who aren't paid actors, no script etc.) the 'reality' on a reality show is going to be 'constructed': Producers might purposely select participants whom they can foresee won't get along, for example by choosing people with wastly dissimilar interests and incredibly confrontational personalities. Then, after filming, there is of course the editing process, and adding of narration, which can add a lot more drama then was there to begin with. I haven't heard of any country passing laws against reality shows being advertised as 'real', since they are entertainment. Obviously, where there is a cash prize involved, there might be general rules on prizes and fair competition that apply, but I don't think any outrage over a revelation that Jerry Springer's guest are 'playing a part' rather than actually being their honest true selves would pass, since people watch it for entertainment rather than finding out what's really happening in the world. What would the next step be? Making a law on how much a 'based on a true story'-movies can deviate from the original story? V85 (talk) 09:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

There is quite a bit of discussion about this at Reality television#Criticism. I suppose this is also similar to scripted programming that claims to be "Based on a true story" - this seems to be applied to everything from faithful dramatisations of real events, to fiction with only minor plot elements inspired by reality. 130.88.73.65 (talk) 13:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

There has been some discussion lately as to whether House Hunters and House Hunters International are fake. See this. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 01:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Then again, there was The Joe Schmo Show, which was admittedly a faked reality show, except to one person.    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 09:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I saw an episode where someone repaired an antique phonograph, then played a record on it, and the owner expressed his delight at how nice it sounded. I could see that the needle was clearly not set down on the record, so it was all quite fake. When a show purports to be real people doing business, are we to assume it is fiction, like Sanford and Son? How is this an improvement on fake quiz shows? Ditto for shows where people buy or sell houses for specified prices, but no such transaction took place? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Edison (talk • contribs) 04:01, 21 July 2012‎

Quebec and the American War of Independence

This one's been bugging me for a while. Quebec was a British colony in the 1770s but seemingly wanted nothing to do with all those pesky troublemakers to the south, right? But why, exactly? Was there a broader reason for the Québécoise remaining loyal to the crown, other than the beneficial political measures of the Quebec Act? Apart from the language barrier, would there have been a noticeable difference in the culture and temperament of the people in, say, Upstate New York and southern Quebec? For that matter, what about Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and East Florida? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You may find Letters to the inhabitants of Canada to be an interesting read. In the First Continental Congress, only 12 of the provinces in British North America showed up. The intent was to send invitations to all provinces of British North America to attend the Second Continental Congress, of the additional invitees, only Georgia showed up at the Second Congress. I can't find any information now, but I also believe that there was some effort to extend invitations to the British West Indies as well, perhaps due to Alexander Hamilton's connections there. I don't know how far that ended up. Quebec did offer some support to the Revolution, see 1st Canadian Regiment and 2nd Canadian Regiment. The support in Quebec and other parts of Canada likely dwindled rapidly after the disasterous Quebec campaign of 1775. The problem with Quebec was that it had no colonial legislature, so it had no way to organize to show any sort of support. It may or may not have been there, but without any formal way to organize a real support, it just sorta petered out. The Thirteen Colonies all had well established colonial legislatures, and these provided a focal point for the political organization of the Revolution; it was the legislatures that approved delegates to the Continental Congresses and that provided the needed local support for raising troops and other organizational needs. Without that in Quebec, nothing ever came of the overtures. --Jayron32 05:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

According to Donald W. Meinig in the Shaping of America, volume 1, the French of Quebec were sympathetic to the American Revolution but more interested in rejoining the French Empire than in joining the new United States. To that end they hoped that France would send troops to Quebec and liberate them. They did not want to become part of the United States but rather wanted to be rejoined to France. To that end they were tentatively supportive of the rebellion. But when French assistance failed to materialize Quebec failed to support the rebellion. Pfly (talk) 07:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Also according to Meinig, Newfoundland's population was far too small and far too closely linked to Britain to desire rebellion. East Florida had been only recently conquered from Spain and was populated with very loyal British subjects with little or no local democratic traditions--even if they wanted to rebel, which they didn't, they didn't have the political means to do so. Nova Scotia, on the other hand, came fairly close to open rebellion. See History of Nova Scotia#American Revolution. Since Halifax was the nearest major port to Britain it was imperative for the British to hold onto it as a base of operations. The American rebels made some attempt to win Nova Scotia over, and Nova Scotians made some effort to rebelling, but against the full force of the British Empire it was a lost effort. Pfly (talk) 07:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

And again according to Meinig, the West Indies in general were sympathetic to the rebellion but were unable to counter the might of the British Navy, and thus were able at best to offer a kind of passive resistance. Pfly (talk) 07:28, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to the aforementioned Quebec Act, Quebec was probably a bit better off under British rule. They got a pretty good deal from the British that wouldn't have been upheld if they had joined the Revolution, nor if they joined the US (established Catholic church, French-language rights, and especially exclusive rights to settle in the Ohio Valley and what is now Ontario). The Quebec Act was one of the Intolerable Acts, after all. As it turned out, it wasn't such a good deal after all...during and after the Revolution British Loyalists often fled to Canada, and among other things Quebec was split into Upper Canada (modern Ontario) and Lower Canada (modern Quebec). Quebec was mostly still loyal up to the War of 1812 (when, again, the Americans failed to conquer either Upper or Lower Canada), but after that, English power and influence increased so much in Quebec that they did rebel, in 1837. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

John Hopkins, who taught me international law in the seventies, used to cite Wolfe's campaign in Quebec as "the only successful modern instance of acquiring territory by conquest", and ascribed this success to the fact that the British government thereafter offered to ship any Quebecois who wanted back to France, free of charge. He said 80,000 took up the offer, and those that remained stayed loyal when the southern colonies revolted. --ColinFine (talk) 08:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The population of New France was around 60,000 at the time of conquest, so it's hard to see how 80,000 people could have been shipped back to France (only a few Acadians were, and that was not of their own free will). What the British did was leave the French people of New France largely alone, let them freely practice their religion and keep their traditions and legal system, while settling in areas (Upper Canada, the Eastern Townships) where French colonists were not present in significant numbers (it helped that there was still plenty of good virgin farm land available, except for Acadia, again, where the British decided to practice mass deportation to take over the land). As a result, there was little immediate friction between conquerer and conquered, and it took until 1837, as mentioned above, for things to boil over. --Xuxl (talk) 09:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Interesting stuff all around. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

U.S. Copyright Laws

Does anyone here think that the U.S. govt. will extend the copyright of works published in 1923 and beyond which are due to expire in 2018 and beyond? After all, the U.S. govt. has extended copyright before on numerous occasions, and Disney and a lot of other entertainment companies will probably lobby extremely aggressively to extend the copyright of works published in 1923 and beyond. Futurist110 (talk) 05:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, based on Marxist understandings of primitive accumulation and the role of the state in maintaining the dominant property form. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we can persuade Jimbo to shut down the site in protest. I might even agree.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

It'll make the MOS simpler. In relation to changing the dominant property form, out-producing the existing mode of production is usually a superior way forward (if you can avoid the existing dominant class merely expropriating the means of production). At the moment at least the working class seems "ungovernable" in relation to its refusal to treat intellectual "property" as property. OMMV: once we were ungovernable in relation to British elections. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:04, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

It's very possible. There's a lot of money on the line, and the extend-copyright-indefinitely lobby is a hell of a lot bigger than the keep-copyright-temporary lobby. But we lack a crystal ball. Only Congress can do this, though, so if you feel strongly about it, write your Congressperson. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's a bigger lobby: it's a more concentrated lobby. —Tamfang (talk) 01:16, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm kind of hopeful -- at the time the last extension passed in 1998, there wasn't much of an anti-extension political force -- there were EFF and some law professors working against it, but nothing with much muscle -- while there were of course strong economic vested interests in favor of extension. However, since that time, the RIAA has become one of the most hated groups in America, there have been anti-SOPA protests, etc. and many more people understand that rigid and unbalanced copyright laws can personally affect them. I don't think it will be a walkover the next time, as it almost was in 1998... AnonMoos (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Considering that my Congressman is a Republican (Republicans are more pro-corporations) and possibly a birther, despite the fact that he represents an affluent and educated area, I don't have too much faith in him or in writing to him. Also, I seriously doubt that many Congressmen directly read all the letters that get sent to them. Futurist110 (talk) 19:37, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Unless one is a billionaire, a well-connected lobbyist (presumably working for a billionaire), or another politician, one does not expect one's congressperson to read one's letters. That isn't how the grassroots game is played. Your letter will be opened and skimmed by a low-level staffer in your congresscritter's office. Your name will go into a database, and your views on whatever issues you address will be noted on your record. (For commonly-raised issues, there will likely be a form with checkboxes.) A form letter response will be generated using boilerplate text that may or may not directly respond to the points you make, but will probably be related to the topic at hand. (In the unlikely instance that your letter raises issues your congressman's office has never seen before, a somewhat higher-level aide may be called upon to draft new boilerplate for use in future letters.) Every so often, another aide will dump a report from the database, and say, "Hey, we're getting a lot more letters than we used to on Issue X. Maybe we need to think about this."

Your individual letter, by itself, will have no influence whatsoever. Large numbers of letters, in the aggregate, will draw attention. Original, mailed, paper letters written clearly, concisely, and politely, carry appreciably more weight than campaign form letters, which in turn carry more weight than emails. (They know that it takes a greater level of concern and motivation on the part of voter to drive them out of their chair and down to the mailbox. A dozen paper letters probably outweigh a thousand emails in the only calculus that matters: the number of votes represented by each message sent.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Why Did the U.S.S.R. Lose the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939?

Also, could this war have turned out differently had it lasted longer? Futurist110 (talk) 05:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

As Winter War#Soviet military plan states, Stalin's purge of the Red Army officer corps meant less experienced officers were in charge, and they were overseen by political commissars. So deviation from prearranged plans was essentially unthinkable, allowing the Finns to exploit the Soviet inflexibility. As for the outcome, it could only have gotten worse for Finland. They were already at the breaking point, and Sweden wouldn't allow reinforcements from the Western powers to transit its territory. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Something else I'd heard about Soviet military strategy at that time was that they refused to ever retreat, even executing those who did. This was a disastrous military strategy, since it allowed their enemies to concentrate their attack, break through, outflank, encircle, and then destroy Soviet forces. The effect on morale was equally catastrophic. StuRat (talk) 07:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You're talking about Stalin's Order_No._227 which didn't exist yet in 1939.A8875 (talk) 07:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. StuRat (talk) 07:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Could the USSR have captured all of Finland if it stayed in the war for another several months, though? Futurist110 (talk) 05:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I have never heard this counterfactual explored. In part because the Soviet Union did not wish to do so. In part because the Soviet Union did not wish to do so at the price expected. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not really accurate to say that the Soviets "lost" the war (except perhaps in a moral sense). While the conduct and result of the war did not meet their initial expectations, the Soviets were able to dictate surrender terms and a significant amount of Finnish territory was ceded. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 18:28, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, the Soviets did lose an enormous amount of prestige and suffer an embarrassing number of casualties, many times more than the Finns. The weak showing of the Red Army supported Hitler's belief that invading the Soviet Union was a good idea. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

has anyone ever ridden a dog?

has anyone ever ridden a dog? (I mean like a horse). I'm thinking some breeds of dog must be large enough that maybe a very small child could have ridden one, and they're also domesticated and quite easily trained to do things that are about that simple. It obviously wouldn't have to be for a long distance, I'm just wondering if it's been done. 84.3.160.86 (talk) 08:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course. Just do a Google image search for "riding a dog" or similar search terms. But I guess it's always casual and infrequent. There are probably few cases where a dog was ridden on a regular basis. --::Slomox:: >< 09:03, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Riding the dog like a small horse is FROWNED UPON IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT! Adam Bishop (talk) 09:58, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Dogs large enough to ride upon are called horses. μηδείς (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's correct, but a cow too small to ride on is a dogie.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The Dog article makes a brief mention of children riding on dogs underneath the "Work" subsection. In my own personal experience, I had briefly rode on the back of an adult black lab as a young child, much to my parents' displeasure. LlamaDude78 (talk) 19:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The problem of riding a dog is not just the sizes of the dog and of the rider, but the backbone of the animal. Horses' backbone cannot be bent down, contrary to backbones of dogs, which are more like humans' backbone. That's also the reason we don't ride zebras. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Persominus (talk • contribs) 12:44, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Currency of Newfoundland

The article Newfoundland dollar asserts (without citation), “The Newfoundland dollar was replaced by the Canadian dollar at par when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949.” Presumably all circulating Newfoundland bills and coins would have been withdrawn through the banks. My question is, for how long after 1949 did Newfoundland bills and coins remain legal tender in Newfoundland? And, since they were being replaced at par with the Canadian dollar, were Newfoundland bills and coins ever legal tender in the rest of Canada? I am curious because I recently found a 1944 Newfoundland one cent coin mixed in with change I received in Vancouver, and I'm mystified as to how it has circulated all this time without anyone noticing. Kuzak999999 (talk) 09:17, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

My guess would be that because the Canadian penny and the Newfoundland penny are the same size (diameter) and somewhat similar colour, nobody ever bothered looking really hard at them, and they continued circulating. However, one would think that eventually these coins would pass through a bank, and be picked up as being different from the rest of the pennies. In London, I occasionally came across 2 cent € coins circulating as British 1 pennies. V85 (talk) 10:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I looked through the agreement between Canada and Newfoundland some time ago for information on demonitisation of stamps and coins, and could find nothing. I believe without particular evidence that Canadian coins probably already circulated in Newfoundland before 1949, due to the identical specifications for some denominations and the relatively low Newfoundland mintages you can see in Krause's or Charlton's. Something was probably done via order in council or as part of legislation implementing the admission of Newfoundland to Confederation. The Canadian Numismatic Association might be a useful source. I'm thinking that as banks would want the flexibility to move coins outside Newfoundland, where the former local currency might not be accepted, banks would have tellers put aside the Newfie coins and they'd be sent in to the Bank of Canada for redemption. Obviously there would be no trouble sorting out the Newfoundland half dime or 20 cent piece.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This is an interesting column on that subject. It appears pre-1949, things were a bit freestyle in Newfoundland.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I was able to reference the sentence the OP mentioned to the Encylopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador, but that source doesn't answer the question of how long after 1949 the coins were legal tender. The Encylopedia is online at the wonderful Memorial University Digital Archives. Someone who's good with search terms might get those archives to cough up the answer; I'm out of time.184.147.130.16 (talk) 11:16, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

S Walter Stewart

Is S Walter Stewart the same as Walter Stewart and what does the S stand for?99.254.212.239 (talk) 13:53, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Not sure who you're talking about. Just fed Google with "Walter Stewart" and got....

Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland

Walter Stewart (journalist)

Walter Stewart, 3rd High Steward of Scotland

Walter Stewart, Earl of Atholl

Walter Stewart's Market

Walt Stewart Studio

Walter Stewart Profile - University of Cincinnati Official Athletics Site

...etc. No S Walter Stewarts

Can you clarify please? HiLo48 (talk) 17:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

S. Walter Stewart is the name of a public library in Toronto -- it is named after a man who was the head of the library board starting in 1946. Walter Stewart is also the name of a well-known Toronto journalist, but his full name is Walter Donald Stewart and he is clearly a different person. Looie496 (talk) 17:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Nicknames and "short" names

Is a nickname for Calvin, Charles? Could a surname of FORD be short for the surname of Crawford? --Doug Coldwell ^talk 19:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

1) Not as far as I've ever known. 2) Sure, why not? Though again, I've never heard it used that way. Do you have any context for any of this? Was there some passage that you were reading where these things would make the passage make more sense? Dismas|^(talk) 20:03, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I've never heard of Charles being a nickname for Calvin and vice versa. I suppose that someone with the last name of Crawford could theoretically be called "Ford" by his friends, though I've never heard of this actually happening in real life. From my personal life experiences, nicknames are primarily for first names, not for last names. I hope that I understood your question correctly. Futurist110 (talk) 20:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Surnames are sometimes shortened into nicknames, at least in the world of sports. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:00, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not into sports at all, so I wouldn't know about naming customs in sports that much. Futurist110 (talk) 02:05, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I do believe you BOTH understood my question and have answered it to my satisfaction. It was a long shot, but now that you gave me these answers I also do NOT believe Charles being a nickname for Calvin and vice versa. I didn't know if FORD would be common to be short for Crawford, but now I believe it is NOT. Thanks, I do believe you cleared it up.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 20:39, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

What brought the question on? —Tamfang (talk) 01:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Neither of these would be a natural phonological or semantic development. See nickname. μηδείς (talk) 23:05, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Vigen dynasty

Is the term "Vigen dynasty" or "Viken dynasty" ever applied to Olaf I of Norway and his family? Or of a Viken/Vigen branch of the Fairhair dynasty? It seems that the only basis of the term would be that his father was the King of Viken and modern scholars don't support the concept of a Fairhair dynasty after Harald II of Norway.--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 20:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Neither term brings up any results at all in Google Scholar or in JSTOR, so it doesn't seem academics use the term at all.184.147.121.192 (talk) 23:53, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

evaluation of the currency

how the currency of a country is evaluated in the world market? what are the standreds the currencies are compared to, if they are compared to any? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.208.9 (talk) 21:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Free market trades in currency futures apply some pressure, primarily from the need by companies to hedge export/import trades, and then central banks try to stabilize that while producing just the right amount of liquidity to balance unemployment against inflation, and then the governments sell bonds. Then the currency speculators treat that mess as a big casino, and the tourists and import markets kind of keep the rest of them all in line. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

For currencies that are allowed to float, the rate is set by the same principles of supply and demand as for any other price. The supply and demand of a currency is determined by its international trade (exports create a demand for the currency, imports create a supply). In addition, there are speculators trying to make money out of currency movements. Another key factor that affects current movements is interest rates (see carry trade). --Tango (talk) 00:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

In short, why does Israel not want Palestine to be a state?

Topic says it all. ScienceApe (talk) 22:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Who says they don't? Meanwhile, why do Palestine and its allies want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

This is not a forum for discussion. The OP asked a question that I believe to be meant serious. Why are you answering it with a obviously provocative one? --Michael Fleischhacker (talk) 22:19, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The OP's question is loaded and provocative. Spare me your double-standard lectures. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It wasn't intended to be loaded and provocative. I'm an outside observer so my question was genuine, but may be misconstrued by someone who is emotionally invested in the matter, which is understandable. All I know is that the UN recognized Palestine as a state (or something) and Israel was not happy about that. ScienceApe (talk) 23:23, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Because then they would have to abide by stricter laws against occupation. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

They don't object in principle, but they believe that their security would be greatly compromised by a sovereign Palestinian state which they haven't any right to police. If the Israelis could be made to feel secure that there would be no further threats of attacks from the Occupied Territories, they'd stop occupying them. Which is not to say that Israel's hands are completely clean in the conflict either, there's plenty of blame to go around. But as far as the justification for the occupation, that's the Israeli position: it is about security, and as long as they don't trust that they won't be attacked from the Palestinian lands, they won't stop policing them. --Jayron32 22:34, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

The question is misleading. Israel has no problem with the Palestinians creating a state, as long as this comes from direct negotiations between both sides. For this reason, we have the 1993 Oslo Accords, the 2000 Camp David Accords, and the 2008 Olmert offer. The generous 2000 Camp David Accords and 2008 Olmert offer were rejected by the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu caused a shift in Likud policy when he said Palestinians can create a state and Israel woudl reocgnize it, as long as it came through direct negotiations. In regards to the UN bid, he said Israel would be the 1st country to recognize the state of Palestine as long as it's not declared unilaterally, but rather through both sides.

A Palestinian state without direct negotiations is dangerous, and is not in the wishes of much of the international community, particularly the West. Consider the fact that the Palestinians currently have two governments, each hates each other furiously. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza. The latter won elections in 2006 (including the West Bank), but the P.A. didn't let them take over, and Hamas launched a bloody coup in 2007 and threw the P.A. out of Gaza and off of buildings and rooftops. Hamas has also launched approximately 13,000 rockets at Israel, and has engaged in lethal terrorist attacks. Gaza is also home to many other such organizations, including Islamic Jihad and the PFLP. [all this info can be found in the internal linked articles]

The dangers of unilateralism are immense. The situation in Gaza would probably not be like that had it not been for Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, in which settlers in Gaza and their homes were removed, in the hopes of making peace. This gave rise to Hamas, unfortunately.

Setting unilateral borders stifles peace, rather than promote it. While many doubt that peace will even come in our generations, most of those will say that if it does come (in any generation), it must be through direct negotiations and not unilateral moves and stunts in the U.N.

In the past, Israel gave up the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, not in a unilateral move but rather through direct negotiations and the promies of creating peace between Egypt and Israel (on a side note, it was more of a cold peace, but until today, a bit over 30 years, Egypt has not attacked Israel, and Egypt used to be Israel's biggest rival). Israel is willing to concede land for peace, but not without assurances that Israelis will be safe and that peace will be created (which is made tougher with the fact Hamas was elected in 2006, currently controls Gaza, and mass-murderer Marwan Barghouti was predicted as the winner for leadership in polls [assuming elections were held, which have not been held for years by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas]]. This can only come through direct negotiations.

I hope this clarifies it.

--Activism1234 22:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC) *

I fully agree with what Activism1234 said (especially in regards to the difference in a unilaterally declared state versus a negotiated peace), and I want to add that it was primarily the Palestinians whose actions have been holding back efforts to reach a negotiated peace over the last 20 years, rather than the Israeli actions:

-Before the 1996 Israeli elections, the Palestinians launch a wave of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. Arafat fails to stop those attacks, and in response Israelis throw the pro-peace Shimon Peres out of office. -In 2000 and 2001, Israel makes a lot of compromises (dividing Jerusalem, etc.) which previous Israeli leaders (such as Rabin) said that Israel should never make, even for a final peace treaty. The Palestinians refuse to make a counter-offer in 2000, and also refuse to give up their demands for a right of return to Israel proper and for sole Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount, which is an extremely holy site to Jews as well. Also, as a "reward" for Israel making huge concessions, Palestinians launch the Second Intifada. -In 2006, Palestinians elect the terrorist organization Hamas, which further reduces the hope of peace in the region. -In 2009, once Benjamin Netanyahu becomes Israeli Prime Minister again and announces his support for a Palestinian state, Palestinians refuse to negotiate with him until they get an absolute, no-exceptions settlement freeze. Netanyahu implements a settlement freeze for 10 months (albeit not an absolute one), and the Palestinians still refuse to enter direct negotiations with Israel until the settlement freeze almost expired. The 2009-2010 Israeli settlement freeze was the longest in Israeli history, and it's even more surprising that a conservative/rightist-majority Knesset was able to implement it for that long. Once the settlement freeze expired, the Palestinians immediately stopped negotiating with Israel again, without much negotiations being able to occur in the first place. As a result of the Palestinians' intransigence, direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been deadlocked almost continuously over the last 3.5 years now.

In regards to the 2008 Olmert offer, the Palestinians rejected it, but Abbas (unlike Arafat) actually was willing to negotiate further in good faith. It's just that Olmert ran out of time to negotiate a final peace treaty due to him being forced to resign due to the corruption allegations against him.

In regards to Barghouti, I saw those polls showing that he'd win a Fatah/Palestinian leadership race right now. However, as long as he's in prison (and I don't see Netanyahu ever letting him out of prison), I seriously doubt that Israel would allow Barghouti to run in the next Fatah/Palestinian elections.

I hope that my response helped in responding to your question. Futurist110 (talk) 23:41, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Both these responses are in serious need of references. Please add them if you can. Mingmingla (talk) 01:34, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I added internal links and a few references. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have.--Activism1234 05:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

July 20

United States regulations on non-English content?

Hi there, I have a question regarding the regulatory situation in the United States (well, any country really, but I'm talking specifically about the US). I bought this package of noodles at a Japanese-American grocery store that advertises its health benefits on the package. In English it says it's "all natural" and "vegan," which is pretty generalized and I don't believe either of those terms are regulated by the FDA. But in Japanese it says "organic" (オーガニック, that is). I am almost positive the product did not receive FDA organic certification, or else they would have labelled it as organic in English.

So my question is, do federal regulations of content (such as truth in advertising, FTC radio broadcast regulations, etc.) apply only to English content? My intuition is that these regulations technically apply to content in all languages (since we have no official national language), but that in cases like these there is little outcry because the number of people who can speak Japanese in the United States is so small. Have there been any similar cases in the past, such as lawsuits for profanities uttered on Chinese or Spanish radio? Thanks in advance for your help. CaseyPenk (talk) 03:05, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I would be surprised if basic false advertising regulations only applied to English. Regulations about specific words, such as "organic", could easily be language specific, though. The word "organic" doesn't have a very precise definition in every day usage, so it's only because of the specific FDA regulations that they can't use the word (it is made up of carbon chains, which is the definition in organic chemistry, for instance). If those regulations don't say anything about other languages, then using words that would generally be translated to "organic" isn't really the same as saying "organic". --Tango (talk) 03:34, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Is there a precise Japanese term for either "all natural" or "vegan"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about native terms, but "all natural" and "vegan" could be transliterated into Japanese quite easily. So if the product maker wanted to use one of those terms, they could certainly have done so. CaseyPenk (talk) 06:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The thing about this particular word is that it is a transliterated loanword. The English is organic while the Japanese is オーガニック (pronounced but not written as ooganikku). So there is absolutely no doubt as to which English word オーガニック refers - if you know how to read オーガニック, that is. I suppose the issue at hand is the fact that Japanese (including the word オーガニック on this package) uses a non-Latin script, so most courts or regulatory agencies would require outside experts to "decipher" the text. As an example, any educated attorney/judge would find the French "organique" one in the same as "organic." But when confronted with something they are unable to read they might hesitate. That leaves an opening for products like these to be sold until an agency catches on and intervenes. Does anyone have other thoughts on the matter? CaseyPenk (talk) 06:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the French for "organic" (food) is biologique, often abbreviated bio. The regulation of this term would apply across the EU, no idea about North America sorry. Itsmejudith (talk) 06:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It appears likely you will not receive a definite answer for your question on RefDesk. Most likely you will have to search for an internet forum where people are insanely familiar with government regulations in the food industry, and ask there. Or somehow find a lawyer who specializes in the issue. Or in fact find the text of the regulation itself (by all means share it with us if you do). My guess is that it's a small company and that most people who speak Japanese are not good enough in English to raise a fuss about the issue, so, even if they're treading a fine legal line, the financial upside is greater than the legal downside. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 13:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

This may be the regulation. I find this statement in it: "If a foreign language is used anywhere on the label, all required label statements must appear both in English and in the foreign language."184.147.121.192 (talk) 15:21, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

So I guess that answers the question: your noodles are illegally packaged. Maybe they could claim a poor English translation? Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 19:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Your noodles are illegally packaged - what a cool phrase. I must remember to use it to counter the next absurd argument I come across.  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Remember the Noodle Incident! —Tamfang (talk) 01:31, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

A budding religious schism among Pastafarians?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 07:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

But, is a producer required to write that a product is al vegan, all natural or organic? Surely, it would be possible to produce completely organic apples, and not label them as such? (Obvisouly, there'd be little point in doing that, as, when you produce organic foods, you want to reach a certain market segment that wants organic food.) I have heard that this is a problem with fair-trade label goods: The Western market for fair-trade products is smaller than what is actually produced. Using cocoa as an example: after a certain quota of fair-trade produced cocoa has been purchased at the fair-trade price, the rest will be purchased at the non-fair-trade price, simply because chocolatiers know that there aren't enough customers willing to purchase all the fair-trade chocolate they could otherwise produce. V85 (talk) 17:09, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Same sex couple's rights in the U.S.

Hello, I have two questions for academic work. A. Does a partner of U.S. citizen in a same sex relationship, either by marriage or by regular relationship can get green card and later citizenship? B. Are the parents of a child born on U.S. soil, during the process of surrogacy, and therefore is eligible for U.S. citizenship, can get Green Card and later Citizenship? Please refer heterosexual couples and same sex couples. Thanks a lot!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.197.68.114 (talk) 05:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

See Permanent residence (United States). It lists the eligibility requirements (and is explicit about same sex and opposite sex spouses). As far as I'm aware, having a child that is a US citizen doesn't entitle the parents to anything (that would be far too open to abuse), regardless of whether the couple is same sex or opposite sex and regardless of whether a surrogate is used. --Tango (talk) 05:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Here's an article that might be useful in answering your question A. From the opening page of the paper published in the William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law:

Despite such advances, U.S. immigration law does not recognize gay partnerships between United States citizens and foreign nationals. If a United States citizen and a foreign national of the opposite sex get married, that foreign national immediately becomes eligible to apply for a green card, or legal permanent resident status. Same sex partners, however, "are viewed as 'strangers' before the law no matter how many years they have dedicated to building a home and life together."' Congress has repeatedly indicated that family unification is one of the most important goals of United States immigration law, and approximately 75 percent of green cards are issued on family unity grounds. But none of these goes to gay partners of United States citizens, leaving the relationships of these individuals, and the foreign nationals themselves, unrecognized by United States law

Bielle (talk) 05:39, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The federal government won't be able to recognize gay unions or marriages until the Defense of Marriage Act is repealed or ruled unconstitutional... AnonMoos (talk) 06:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Until section 3 of DOMA is repealed or ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. 24.38.31.81 (talk) 16:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Why Did George W. Bush Invade Iraq Before the U.N. Inspectors There Finished Their Work?

Was it because he wanted to remove Saddam for personal reasons (revenge against Saddam's assassination attempt on Bush's father in 1993) and was afraid that if the U.N. inspectors successfully finish their work and announce that Iraq no longer has any WMDs, then he wouldn't be able to invade Iraq anymore? Or was there another reason? Futurist110 (talk) 07:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

He didn't. The Coalition (in which the US was a prominent member) attacked Iraq. For discussion of the possible reasons, see Iraq War. The specific reasons that actuated George W. Bush, Tony Blair or anybody else can be known only insofar as they made them public (and are believed). Anything else is speculation and does not belong on this reference desk (though references to speculations in reliable published sources might). --ColinFine (talk) 09:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Part of the reason was military: they couldn't invade in summer because it would be too hot, so they had to either invade in winter/early spring, or wait 6 months till the following autumn. They wouldn't want to have soldiers waiting around for 6 months, when they thought they could get in and out quickly. Also, postponing the invasion till the winter of 2003-2004 would bring it close to an election year, which could have negative political implications, as well as the risk of public opinion souring, the desire to avoid a stalemate, and a reluctance to back down and show weakness. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:07, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

They also had faulty intelligence stating that whatever weapons of mass destruction might be available, were very well hidden (mainly being mobile), and therefore impossible to find without an invasion. 188.76.169.66 (talk) 12:10, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Bingo. It's worth pointing out that Iraq did have quite a bit of nerve gas, which qualifies as a WMD under the operative international law used to invade, but it was not mobilized and there is considerable evidence that it had been misplaced, possibly intentionally by military commanders less than loyal to Saddam. It was only discovered after a weapons depot was demolished in a way which strongly indicated the US invaders had no idea it was there, either. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:16, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Didn't Saddam allow the UN inspectors to visit any location in Iraq if they wanted to whenever they wanted to? If so, it would have been rather tedious and hard to consistently keep hiding all those WMDs that he allegedly had. Also, wasn't the main worry that Bush presented in regards to pre-invasion Iraq the belief that Iraq was very close to successfully building nuclear weapons? If so, then it would have been rather hard for Iraq to make progress on its alleged nuclear program if UN inspectors are constantly in all your alleged nuclear sites and if satellites/intelligence can always discover new alleged nuclear sites and demand that the UN inspectors be allowed to immediately view them. Futurist110 (talk) 19:12, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes and yes, which is probably the reason for the political disagreement such as shown below after a million deaths and trillions of dollars spent on the questionable endeavor. Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei have spoken and written extensively on the topic. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 07:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Hussein was in material violation of the armistice ending the Gulf War within a month of the agreement when he started firing on coalition forces. That alone was sufficient cause for the resumption of hostilities--no further justification was needed so far as the laws of war. The fact that neither neither Bush père nor Monica's squeeze prosecuted the war nor Bush fils until seeking a UN resolution was a matter of domestic US politics, not of international law. μηδείς (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Our article on the Legality of the Iraq War indicates considerable disagreement with that opinion. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 00:47, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Hah! I think your use of both the words "our" and "article" are dubious, and I have never seen a better violation of WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV. I note you also fail to note whose those opinions are. μηδείς (talk) 19:56, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Don't see anything glaring, material violations, though there is some fat to cut. IMHO the clear majority of legal opinion, like the International Commission of Jurists', was that such arguments for the war's legality were not good ones, that the war was not legal. The OP's question is difficult, because as Martin van Creveld said, this was a war for no reason at all, as many said then, it was like attacking Mexico after Pearl Harbor. His suspicion about the timing was voiced by many and IMHO accurate; you can't fool all the people all the time.John Z (talk) 20:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The phrase "Cymru am byth"

"Cymru am byth", meaning "Wales forever", is a widely used motto or slogan in Wales. It was inscribed on the Washington Monument (as "Cymry am byth", "Welsh people forever") in the 1850s - here - and became the motto of the Welsh Guards in 1915. My question is, what are the origins of the phrase? I have found no sources prior to the Washington Monument inscription, and no reliable citations for its use prior to then. For example, was it a mediaeval Welsh battle cry, or was it devised as a slogan by nationalists in the 18th or 19th centuries? Any help welcome - this is under active discussion at Talk:Wales. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:16, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Searching the "Gathering the Jewels" digital archive for the phrase "Cymru am byth" brings up some pre-WW1 artifacts/mementos inscribed with the motto, though they don't seem as early as the monument.184.147.121.192 (talk) 16:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

And a search of the National Archives only finds one postcard; undated except within the range 1903-1917. NOt sure which of these links will work: try this and/or this.184.147.121.192 (talk) 16:30, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Finally, tried finding the phrase in books. Got you back to 1834.

* 1915 - Angela Brazil described "Cymru am byth" carved on a decorative shield in "For the Sake of the School."

c. 1904-1914 - Lt. Paul Jones (b. 1896) wrote the phrase in his schoolbooks as a child.

1834 - A footnote in Scenes in Ireland by George Newenham Wright, (page 96) says "the ancient Britons... still exclaim 'Cymru am Byth,' i.e. Bob amser, Cambria for ever."184.147.121.192 (talk) 16:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, but that last link doesn't work for me - it seems to go to a different book with no access to the text. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:10, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Here174.88.8.149 (talk) 13:07, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Young Earth creationism and Gnosticism

Wouldn't a trickster deity who would plant all the obvious clues about the supposed 13+ billion year old Universe in her Young Earth creationism be the Demiurge of Gnosticism by definition? While I would never support a law banning the worship of an evil god, I would certainty point out the error to anybody I found doing so. Hcobb (talk) 09:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

No. --Dweller (talk) 09:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

To be civil, you ought to say why not. (I guess there could be a deist Demiurge, who merely created the big bang and didn't fake any evidence of the age of the universe, and yet was still considered malevolent, just because the material world is so awful or whatever it is Gnosticism says. In classical times there'd be no scientific research about the age of the world, anyway, so the planting of clues to fool scientists couldn't feature in the original definition of the Demiurge.)  Card Zero  (talk) 10:30, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't much like the tone of the question, which seems to be looking for an argument or to poke fun, rather than to elicit information. But the answer is simply "no" by dint of the fact that there are people who hold young earth views who are no by definition worshippers of that deity. I'd also add that there are other inherent flaws in the question, such as the loaded and insulting statement that young earth creationists believe in a "trickster" deity, as well as the contention, which seems to me to be insulting to Gnostics, that their deity, which our article specifically describes as "benevolent" is "evil". So, "no" will do. --Dweller (talk) 12:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I can see a believer not liking the tone, but that's the believer's problem. It's an illogical position, ignoring obvious evidence, with the reason being that their god is testing their faith, i.e. trying to trick them. HiLo48 (talk) 12:25, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Right. But that in no way equates the YEC's beliefs about their version of God with those of Gnostics about the Demiurge/Sammael/etc. Gnosticism is a complex thing, and you can't just say "these people have a rather weird belief about God, therefore they're Gnostics". AlexTiefling (talk) 12:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe that people's religious beliefs should be ridiculed at the ref desks, no matter how illogical the mocker may find them. "That's the believer's problem" is not the attitude we encourage here. --Dweller (talk) 12:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

This is a place for rational thought. If that makes some religious beliefs look ridiculous, that's just too bad. Run off to Conservapedia for the fairytales and niceness you seek. HiLo48 (talk) 13:00, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Ad hominem is a logical fallacy and has been recognized as such since before gnosticism existed. Gx872op (talk) 16:23, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Your assumption about my personal beliefs is ridiculous. Users insulting people on the basis of their religion on these pages will find themselves tangling with admins. --Dweller (talk) 13:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Insulting people is never a good idea. On the other hand, if people chose to be offended by a rational discussion conflicting with their beliefs, that's too bad. "You stupid creationist" is not ok, but "the theory of evolution is incontrovertible as geometry to any enlightened community of minds" is fully acceptable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

That's in the Platonism section. Further down in the Gnosticism section, the Demiurge is described as malevolent. Regarding the one word "no" reply: I know it expresses suspicion and hostility toward an OP who is possibly trolling, and I can't expect everybody to be Pollyannaish all the time, but in my ideal world we would be. Just saying "no" seems like a waste of an opportunity to provide an explanation; it seems so, well, negative. Compare with blocking (improv), often a reflexive, uncreative action that prevents fun.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

There is both an error of logic and an error of assumption here. First, you infer that because the "trickster deity" and the "demiurge" share the property of malevolent misinformation, they would therefore be the same. But even if they share one attribute, they can differ in many more. As an example, both Loki and Satan are malevolent tricksters, but neither is identical with the gnostic demiurge. Secondly, you assume that that the demiurge is an evil trickster deity, when that is definitely not central to Gnosticism, nor even typical. The gnostic demiurge is a bumbling deity who is unable to create a world of Platonic ideals, not somebody who intentionally deceives. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:48, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

People who believe in Young Earth Creationism don't think the clues are obvious. They generally think that scientists are forcing their own interpretation on the data and willfully ignoring evidence that disagrees with them. Looie496 (talk) 15:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, from the point of view of the Gnostics. Not because he supposedly planted fossils and whatnot to trick humans, but because of more obvious reasons like why a benevolent deity would deny knowledge from Adam and Eve, why the devil exists, why evil and hell themselves exist. Gnosticism already considers the Abrahamic "god" as the Demiurge, a knowable being who created the material world but itself is no more but an imperfect illusion/reflection of the true unknowable Good God. It's an answer to the problem of evil. And yes, the Demiurge is usually not seen as intentionally evil as reflected by one of his names, "the blind god". Quite understandably, this view is held dimly by most Christians, including the YEC. So from their point of view, in contrast, no.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 17:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Later Gnostics held Lucifer in high regard. In mediaeval times the Cathars were seen as a heretical threat to European Christianity, and the paranoia was one of the causes of witch hunts. The concept of the Devil as an important, influential character, which emerged around the same time, corresponds to the dualism of Gnosticism; we rejected their heresy so firmly that we accidentally incorporated their idea into our religion, only with the roles inverted. (I got this from Robert W. Thurston's Witch, Wicce, Mother Goose).  Card Zero  (talk) 20:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Thailand's king and Lèse majesté

Apparently, a few years ago, Thailand's king stated that he was rather unhappy with the lèse majesté laws and said that he would allow criticism of his reign. If this is the case, then why is lèse majesté still a major issue in Thailand? Why are people still being arrested because of it? I would have expected that the lèse majesté laws would be repealed or amended per the king's wishes. Do they love the king so much that they would not adhere to his wishes? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I think our Lèse majesté#Thailand and particularly Lèse majesté in Thailand explain this well enough. The later for example notes

Calls to reform the lese majeste laws have themselves resulted in charges with lèse majesté.[19] Political scientist Giles Ungpakorn noted that "the lèse majesté laws are not really designed to protect the institution of the monarchy. In the past the laws have been used to protect governments, to protect military coups. This whole [royal] image is created to bolster a conservative elite well beyond the walls of the palace."

Note that while not all the cases may necessarily have much to do with the government, the nature of the law means thay you'll probably get cases which don't really matter to you.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I think Nil Einne's comment is right: Other people see the law as rather useful for their own purposes. You could have a look at this programme by Al Jazeera or this somewhat humorous opinion piece by Bangkok Post's Voranai Vanijaka. This last one is based on the last weeks' debate over PPT's attempt to amend the Constitution. As for the politicians not heeding the King's call, I guess it is due to no politician being the one who changed the law, since that would indicate that they are opposed to the King and the monarchy. V85 (talk) 17:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, I would also ask you to look at the dates: The King's statement dates from 2005, while the coup occured 2006. And according to Lèse majesté in Thailand, the number of lèse-majesté cases soared after the coup. V85 (talk) 07:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Norway

Before 1972, when the city of Bergen was in its own separate county, what was the administrative centre of Hordaland? Has Oslo always been the administrative centre of Akershus? Thanx! --151.41.170.71 (talk) 13:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

For the second question, I believe so, but Oslo used to be known as Christiania. Akershus is named after Akershus Castle which was the primary residence of the Norweigian Kings. Since the county was named after the castle, which was built in Oslo. As a county, it wasn't founded until the 16th centurt, the city and castle are both much older than that. For the first question, I suspect that Bergan was also the administrative seat for Hordaland, which is not an impossibility even if it was independent of it. Oslo is currently its own county, but it also serves as the seat of Akershus county. --Jayron32 19:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Re the first question: This page (1972-01-01 entry under "Change history") supports Jayron's suspicion that Bergen was the capital of both its own county and Hordaland prior to 1972. Deor (talk)

According to the website 'The Librarian answers' (Biblioteksvar), yes, Hordaland had its administration in Bergen. The two counties also shared their fylkesmann, while Lars Sponheim today is fylkesmann i Hordland, his predecessors, prior to 1972 were fylkesmann i Bergen og Hordland. Similarly, Valgerd Svartstad Haugland is fylkesmannen i Oslo og Akershus.

As for Oslo being the administrative centre of Akershus, I have the impression that 'always' was the case. It was only in 1842, that Christiania became a separate amt from Akershus amt, but both were still part of the larger administrative unit Akershus stiftamt. And the way it is formulated, it's always that Christiania amt was separated from Akershus, i.e. Akershus remained as it was, while Christiania was created new. V85 (talk) 19:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Ladinia/Ladiner/etc.

What is the English word for de:Ladiner a.k.a. it:Ladinia. I would like to create a stub in English language Wikipedia. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 13:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The subject is covered in Ladin language#Geographic distribution. I seem to recall either this or a closely related language/cultural area was the subject of a redirect/deletion mess. Rmhermen (talk) 14:21, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Alfalfa Club's membership

Is the membership open to both Democrats and Republicans? Is any one of both sides overrepresented? Persominus (talk) 13:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The article mentions both Democrats and Republicans as members. Rmhermen (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

how do I keep my dog from p!$$ing in front of my door when I leave for 5 minutes after taking him for a walk?

My dog, who is 7 months old, insists on p!$$ing in front of the door (from the inside) within 7 minutes of my leaving the house even to just grab something from the corner store; this is immediately after a long walk in which he urinated all he needed to.

this happens pretty much every time i leave the house; i think it has separation anxiety or some shift but what i would like is reference to concrete steps i can take. I already tell it it's been bad whilst shewing it the problem. 14:29, 20 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.3.160.86 (talk)

The time-honoured method (now frowned upon by modern dog behaviorists) is, upon your return IF WITHIN MINUTES, is to forcibly put your dog's nose right on the urine, and say "Bad Dog!" ONCE ONLY in a very harsh voice, then carry him to where you want him to pee. Virtually all dogs will get the message. You also need to teach the dog "Stay" or "Back". When you are leaving on a short errand only, look your dog in the eye and say "Back" or "Stay". For the more stupid breeds you may have to do several trips in one day for the concept to penetrate. After a while the dog will realise that the word, whichever you choose, does indeed mean that you will be back shortly, and he won't fret. Once it works, over a period of time, you can use the words for longer and longer journeys. Don't use "Bye", "See you", and similar human words - they don't seem to work with dogs. My dog when young howled when I was absent, but using "Back" initially stopped him from howling with short trips, (while still howling on longer trips) and then I was able to extend the time to a whole day. Dogs are more deed oriented than sound oriented. It is much easier to teach them sign language than vocal commands. You may find it better to do something (bang twice on the door, say), before going on short errands, so that he learns that 2 knocks when you are going out the front door means you WILL be back within minutes. Some people have the habit of closing the curtains or lowering their blinds when going out. Dogs quickly learn what closing the curtains means. When you return, and he hasn't peed on the door, then at the door, give him a good pat and say "Good Dog" in a warm loving voice. He may not link it together, but it can't hurt. Don't ever loose sight of the fact that dogs have a body clock and sense of time far superior to ours, and very good memories for places and events, but they are totally hopeless of remembering how far back in time an event occurred. They remember lots of things but its all jumbled up. Wickwack124.178.56.252 (talk) 16:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

What are the "modern" methods that are not frowned on? 84.3.160.86 (talk) 17:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The evolution in ideas for training & rasing a dog parallel the evolution in ideas for training and rasing children. When I was a child (1950's), when children did something wrong, they got punished - at home, spanked, at school, caned. Back then, dogs got punished when they did something bad - eg hit with rolled-up newspaper, just pushed sideways. So long as the punishment is not cruel on unjust, it works - but not in all situations. Modern ideas in raising children are that reward & praise for doing something good is a better approach. That works too, but not in all situations. Same with dogs - modern methods emphasise reward for good behavior. You get better results, especially with dogs, if you treat them with respect. Don't ask them to perform tricks for visitors - the more intelligent dogs especially soon figure out there is no purpose and become disobedient. Some owners see their dog as some sort of live teddy and keep cuddling, petting & stroking them. This just makes the dog think you're just there to cuddle, pet & stroke, and you get no respect. By all means return any affection the dog gives you, but don't ruin it. Assuming you have an intelligent dog, part of the modern method is to teach it a fundamental vocabulary - Come, Sit, Stay/Back, GoodDog, BadDog, Hess (Yes), No, and DropIt. Once your older puppy understands those fundametal words, which cover a myriad of situations, you and he will enjoy communicating, the sky's the limit, and you may be able to add more words. Wickwack124.182.175.150 (talk) 04:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Try and get rid of the smell, and it won't trigger a response. You can get stuff from a vet, or you can make a solution of bio washing powder which will remove the residue. --TammyMoet (talk) 16:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Tammy, I didn't even think about this - you're quite good for mentioning it. I'm quite certain I've just witnessed this with the dog going on the balcony, smelling a mop I used earlier and proceeding to pee in the living room front of me.--84.3.160.86 (talk) 17:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

For an inventive solution, you could put a moisture sensor on the floor there, hooked up to an air horn, and scare the piss out of him the next time he does it. I believe they make such a device for bedwetting children, although it doesn't use an air horn. StuRat (talk) 21:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Is he neutered ? That may be a bit young yet, but older unneutered dogs will scent mark.

If nothing gets him to stop peeing, you can also restrict him to a place where pee won't be a problem. An unfinished basement might work, as long as there's nothing in storage you don't mind being peed on. Hopefully any pee can just be rinsed down the drain. And, weather permitting, you could leave him outside in a dog run (a fenced-in area). StuRat (talk) 21:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

FYI, puppies can get neutered as early as 6 months. Dismas|^(talk) 01:56, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Polynesian adoption

I know that the Hawaiian term for the custom of adopting children and giving away their children is called Hānai but what is the custom called in other parts of Polynesia. I know Tahiti practices this but I am not sure about the other islands or even if it actually is a custom practiced by all people of Oceania.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 19:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The references to Cultural_variations_in_adoption#Polynesia confirm the practice in the Solomon Islands, French Polynesia including Tahiti and New Zealand as well (and give you the names/terms), and refer to it as a characteristic of Polynesian culture. If you google with the term fosterage (not a good article – it's limited to the UK and I know fosterage is practiced in West Africa too as well as Oceania) instead of/as well as adoption, you'll find many more academic studies. This paper in particular says it's a phenomenon across Oceania, not just in Polynesian cultures.184.147.121.192 (talk) 22:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Divorce after abandomnent?

My question is about France in the 1730s. If a wife left her husband, ran away from home and disappeared, could he then get a divorce and remarry? I know the Catholic church did not allow for a divorces, only separation and annulment, but was she perhaps declared dead after having been gone for several years? After all, no one would know whether she was alive or dead. Thank you. --Aciram (talk) 20:13, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I seem to remember that missing persons were presumed dead after seven years in that era, even if they were known to have run away. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:21, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Were you reading about the transit of Venus? Guillaume Le Gentil left France in 1760 to observe it from the Pacific, but missed it and decided to wait out there for the next one, eight years away. He eventually returned to France after an 11 year absence and found he had been declared legally dead and his wife had remarried. 184.147.121.192 (talk) 23:39, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! It is certain that it was seven years? Can you give me a link or something to were this is mentioned? Thanks. --Aciram (talk) 14:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, the article on Le Gentil (click on his name above) cites a book by Bill Bryson that you can request at the library. Looking online turned up two English biographies [23] [24] but unfortunately neither mentions the wife's remarriage. Le Gentil's own book is available online too (in French) but searching it for the word "wife" didn't bring up anything either. It's known that he was gone for 11 years but I don't see a source for at what point he was declared legally dead.

French law before Napoleon recodified it was very nonstandard and regional. The only compilation made before 1730 would have been Jean Domat's in 1689 – it's online [25] but you'll have to page through it yourself. I suspect your best bet is going to be to find an expert in French legal history to ask. Also, it's possible the remarriage bit was Church law entirely. I really don't know enough to guide you well there. Hope this gets you started, though. Best of luck. 174.88.8.149 (talk) 19:29, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Infantry Squares in the ACW

Did American infantry on either side in the American Civil War use squares as a defence against cavalry? I am an avid wargamer, but have never seen any rules for them in tabletop games for the ACW, nor have I seen the option in computer games. If they indeed did not use squares, why would this be? Could it be because they had no opportunity to oversee battles in Europe and therefore more modern tactics (even though squares were in fact used in the 18th Century)? Or is there another reason? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Infantry_square#Use_outside_of_Europe says the square really only played a part in one Civil War battle. Reasons are given in that article for its decline in general (no longer useful to concentrate soldiers once more powerful guns came along, and decline in use of cavalry) but not specifically re the Civil War. Does this answer or do you need more detail?184.147.121.192 (talk) 20:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

This forum gives almost 20 seperate examples of squares being formed in American Civil War battles, so maybe not as rare as is generally thought. Unreferenced, but shouldn't be too difficult to confirm. I also found a photo of a Union Regiment formed in square against Cavalry in training. Alansplodge (talk) 23:05, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. So, essentially it did happen, just not so much as in earlier European Wars. I know that cavalry was being used less on both sides of the Atlantic in this period, but they were still a major contribution to battle. Also, I suppose the advent of the Gattling gun made tight formations essentially illogical. OK, cheers to both. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 07:44, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

See our article Cavalry charge - actually cavalry charges continued well into the 20th century; the last by British forces was in 1942! The ACW was something of an exception in this respect, the linked forum above suggests that it was because many battlefields were heavily wooded or strewn with large rocks making them unsuitable for large cavalry manoeuvres. I recall reading an Civil War report by a British journalist who was surprised that American cavalry would tend to stand off and shoot with pistols and carbines rather than charge. He put this down to poor discipline (most ACW cavalry were volunteers or conscripts rather than professionals), but a lack of understanding of local conditions by the journalist is equally possible. I'll see if I can find the source. Alansplodge (talk) 18:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Take a look at Hardee's Tactics, the US manual used by both sides in the US Civil War. The soldiers were drilled in forming a square to defend against cavalry attack. How often they used it after the 90 days or so of instructional camp is another question. It was taught in the US Military Academy before the Civil War. Edison (talk) 21:04, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Caucasian Americans

Is there any solid prove or historical consensus that other people besides Native American arrived in North America and South America during the Ice Age? It seems modern media like the History Channel and other documentaries are supporting theories that Windover bog bodies were Caucasians, the Clovis people were Caucasians and the Solutrean hypothesis. Is there any credibility in these theories? Why are so few people in support that the Native American were here first?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 21:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I saw a program on the History Channel that offered evidence that there were other possible groups that arrived in North America before Columbus (not during Ice Age though). --Activism1234 21:43, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It's well established that Vikings arrived hundreds of years before Columbus, but that's not what this question is about. StuRat (talk) 22:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The Native Americans in the high latitudes are genetically dissimilar to those in low latitudes, but the times of migration don't seem to be particularly fixed in the scholarly literature. Try PubMed for the most recent reviews. Last time I looked there wasn't a clear consensus. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:24, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The History Channel are not in the business of presenting balanced analyses of serious research; anything which appears to overturn accepted wisdom may be put up to draw in audiences. There's a big difference between "not the same as the main body of east Asian settlers who became Native Americans" and "Caucasian". I'd be very surprised if there were Caucasians in the Americas prior to the Viking arrivals around 1000 CE. I'm aware of the controversy around cases like Kennewick Man. However, the most recent reporting I saw simply seemed to suggest that settlement from Asia had taken place in several waves, of which the earliest was significantly earlier than previously thought. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

If anyone of any complexion arrived during the ice age, that would, by simple definition, make them native Americans. HiLo48 (talk) 23:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Er, excuse me: what part of my comment was that a response to? AlexTiefling (talk) 19:59, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Pretty strong evidence for precolumbian European contact in Greenland and Vinland (possibly Newfoundland) by the Norse (including possible skrælingjar genes among Icelanders). Precolumbian contact with Austronesian sailors in South America is also a possibility, as evidenced by the precolumbian introduction of biota originally native to the Americas to Asia (and vice versa in the case of the chicken), though they may have also floated in driftwood for all we know.

Early arguments for precolumbian European migrations via the Atlantic on the other hand, were mostly based on craniometric characteristics of Paleoamerican human remains, which is not really that reliable in terms of determining geographic origin. The Kennewick Man and Spirit Cave Man had skull characteristics that "looked European", although it also looked Polynesian and Ainu. That's about it. Personally I'm more inclined to agree with the latter, as the Ainu, Ryukyuans, and related (mostly extinct) peoples were inhabitants of the Bering area and looked European (though they are genetically completely unrelated).

File:Migration map4.png

mtDNA-based chart of possible large human migrations.

I think claims that the Windover mummies may have been European is based on the discovery of the fifth mtDNA lineage, haplogroup X, in one DNA sample of the mummies (though it might also have been a result of contamination). Haplogroup X occurs predominantly among Europeans but not among Asians. However, the European X mtDNA is only distantly related to Native American X mtDNA, and a trail of "intermediate" X mtDNA can be traced through European migrations eastward to the ancestors of the modern Altai peoples of Siberia. From there it probably crossed Beringia to reach North America along with the other mtDNA lineages of Native Americans (A, B, C, and D). See map at left. It did not originate from Europeans crossing the Atlantic ocean. This study and this study might help explain it further and details further discovery of haplogroup X among other Native American populations (thus it was not unique to the Windover mummies after all).

The connection between the Solutrean culture and the Clovis culture, which though indeed are remarkably similar, is similarly not supported by genetic or paleogeographic data. Besides there is a roughly 2000-year gap between the two.

The only other "evidence" of precolumbian contact through the Atlantic aside from the Norse really, are conjectural pseudoarcheology or outright hoaxes. Like mysterious carvings, myths like the bearded Quetzalcoatl or the lost tribes of the Mormons. It's probably featured simply because it is admittedly quite interesting and controversial. Kinda like those documentaries about UFO's or Atlantis which pop up every now and then.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind of course that the History Channel isn't much of a history channel anymore. I don't know what it is, but it's not very historical. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:43, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Landbrigdge versus Water

How does the Beringian landbrigde theory and the theory that Paleoindians followed the shorelines?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 21:26, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

That is not a complete sentence. How do those things do what? Co-exist, maybe? Square with each other? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah. They are compatible with each other. If you follow the shoreline then you cross land bridges. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that the general idea is that the ancestral Native Americans crossed the land bridge and hung out in Alaska for a few thousand years before the shoreline route to the south opened up. Looie496 (talk) 00:13, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Isn't there sites and findings that show that they reached South America by a date that was earlier or too close to the time when a ice-free corridor would have allowed to walk south. --The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 00:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, there were more than two very distinct groups of migrants, as shown by the different colors on the map in the previous section. Secondly, there isn't a lot of firm agreement about those dates. I would give the genetic anthropologists another half decade to settle it out a little firmer. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 03:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

burial delay

Recently in the news there is a story about a guy who was charged with "burial delay" for failing to report his dead wife. If such a thing is against the law, how exactly do places like the Royal College of Surgeons of England Hunterian Museum get away with having rooms full of human bodies and bits of corpses on show for people to look at? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.3.12.130 (talk) 21:33, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Those are treated in some way to prevent decomposition and spreading of disease. StuRat (talk) 21:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

That's not any sort of an answer to the question, which is about the law, not about decomposition. I believe that anatomical museums have to receive a legal dispensation in order to display their exhibits, which have generally been left to them specifically. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

The UK Ministry of Justice seems to grant these licenses. It's touched upon in this document.184.147.121.192 (talk) 02:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Some info at [[26]] MilborneOne (talk) 13:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The technical name of the offense is "preventing the lawful and decent burial of a body" (Wikipedia article here)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:09, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Duty to rescue

Why doesn't the US have duty to rescue laws like virtually every other developed country? Why do they insist on encouraging people to ignore others in danger? --146.7.96.200 (talk) 21:56, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, our article Duty to rescue states "In the common law of most anglosphere countries, there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another. Generally, a person cannot be held liable for doing nothing while another person is in peril." Admittedly "anglosphere" is not necessarily synonymous with "developed", but are you sure the US is as isolated in this respect as you seem to think? - Karenjc 22:10, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe, in the US, they are called Good Samaritan laws. StuRat (talk) 22:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It's by no means clear that 'they' encourage anyone to do anything of the sort. There's no law that says I have to eat chocolate, but that doesn't encourage me not to. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a difference between the force of law and moral expectation. But if this is a matter of how Americans are judged by foreigners, perhaps the editor should read the article Why are Yanks such evil bastards?. μηδείς (talk) 22:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that there's no such legal requirement in England. Alansplodge (talk) 22:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Take care: there might be no general statutory requirement, that doesn't mean you can ignore anyone dying near you. 88.9.110.244 (talk) 00:25, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think you probably can - see this case. But don't take that as legal advice. Alansplodge (talk) 02:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the 2nd part of the OP's question is fallacious, unless he can show us an information campaign where US citizens are actively discouraged from helping others. To merely fail to encourage someone to do something is not equivalent to discouraging them. In some circumstances a person can be held to account for being aware of someone's evil plans and doing nothing to discourage them, which can be taken as tacit approval. But it's not possible to conclude that a nation discourages people from helping others, much less "insists on discouraging" them, merely because there is no law requiring them to do so. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:08, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

In my part of Ontario (Canada), even volunteer fire fighters are not required to go to the assistance of someone if there is a reasonable likelihood that their own life will be endangered as a result. I think that may even be true (looking for a cite) of paid emergency personnel.(Obviously such professionals are trained to take levels of risk not appropriate for most of the rest of us, but even they have limits.) Bielle (talk)

In the US there is no GENERAL duty to rescue. That means: if you don't know anything about CPR, you also are not protected if you perform it wrongly (since you were not forced to do it). You also don't have to risk your life to save anyone (but this point is like everywhere else). There are specific circumstances under which a person has a duty to rescue: you caused the injuries, you are an employer, you are a supervisor or caretaker of a child, you are into an economical relationship with the injured (a client). And doctors and nurses can also be accused of negligence by inaction. Furthermore, a last point: certain serious crimes also have to reported. So, take care when not doing anything. 88.9.110.244 (talk) 00:25, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Now for some reasons why not to have duty to rescue laws:

1) Might clog the courts with rather trivial cases.

2) Assuming an exception for when helping would endanger the person giving assistance, that makes it rather difficult to determine what constitutes danger. After all, any time you help a crime victim there is some possibility the criminal will return.

3) Then there's the general conservative/libertarian concept that we should have minimal government interference in our lives. StuRat (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

July 21

How long can you live in an embassy?

I obviously ask in relation to Julian Assange. I know that during the cold war someone spent 15 years in a US embassy in Easter Europe, but that were other times. And if Assange gets asylum in Ecuador, would he be able to travel there? Unless diplomatic cars and planes are also protected, I don't see how he would manage to escape. 88.9.110.244 (talk) 00:48, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

They could grant him diplomatic credentials. However, as a practical matter, the nation in which the embassy is located will often grant safe conduct to the people in question, just to resolve the situation, once it becomes apparent that the person is willing to remain at the embassy as long as it takes. I believe some North Koreans in China who sought refuge in the South Korean embassy a few years ago were eventually granted safe passage to South Korea. If you think about it, what other options does the nation in which the embassy is located have ? Do they post round-the-clock guards outside the embassy, and search everyone and everything going out of the embassy, for decades ? That would cost millions and create a diplomatic incident between the two nations. StuRat (talk) 01:24, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

For anyone unfamiliar with the issue, see Julian_Assange#Request_for_political_asylum. StuRat (talk) 01:29, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

They can't grant him diplomatic credentials without the consent of the UK as I understand it, unless they appoint him to a position at the United Nations. Egg Centric 01:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

People in such circumstances are almost always successfully smuggled with the use of cars with tinted windows or, if necessary, disguises such as wigs and misdirection. Ecuador shares their London embassy building with the Columbian embassy and several other occupants, and the building has a vast number of exits and a secured underground parking garage so the police at the front are just a pointless formality to try to make Sweden (and the US) slightly happier. From there, a pleasure craft docked on the Thames can easily reach a chartered diplomatic flight laying over at any one of dozens of European coastal airports, or even an oil tanker bound for Ecuador. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 01:51, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not just taking him out of the building. You'll have to take it out of the country, which happens to be an island. 88.9.110.244 (talk) 01:54, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The Port of London Authority does not require notification upon departures. http://www.boatingonthethames.co.uk/ 75.166.200.250 (talk) 02:14, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Being an island doesn't make it more difficult to be smuggled out of the country. The difficult part is finding a country willing to accept and protect him, since apparently even his native Australia is not secure enough (from his point of view). OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:27, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

If Ecuador is willing to accept him into its embassy, surely it would be willing to grant him asylum in the country itself? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 23:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Nope, Ecuador, like many other countries, has an obligation to process any asylum application. However, I suppose that cases without any imaginable merit just get processed faster. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The case from the 1950s that you had in mind was Cardinal Mindszenty... AnonMoos (talk) 16:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Archived talkpage discussion

When a bot has archived a talkpage discussion that is still useful and germane, what is the procedure to "un-archive" it and return it to the current talkpage? I'm not sure that at this point I can revert the archiving, but would not want to in any case, because the bot archived several older discussions together, and only the one should be restored. Thanks for any suggestions. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:47, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You might try taking this to the Village Pump. I'm not sure this is really the right place for it. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - sorry. You're right. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Somewhere in WP:TALK it says (or used to say) to copy (not move) the archived section out of the archives for further discussion. That is so permalinks still work. You almost always want to edit it down to remove extraneous parts when you do that. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 03:13, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia and Shiite Repression

Why does the Saudi govt. discriminate against Saudi Shiites and essentially relegate them to second-class citizens (from what I've heard)? It seems rather stupid to alienate 20% or so of your population (as well as neighboring Shiite-led countries), especially considering that Shiites are also Muslims. Futurist110 (talk) 08:13, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not unique to Saudi Arabia; in the Muslim world, repression of minorities (and often even non-ruling majorities) is rather widespread. It seems to be the result of non-democratic governments all composed of a single sect and/or ethnic group, as in the Alawites in Syria. StuRat (talk) 08:26, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It's also not unique to the Muslim world, though it has become less common in the Westernised world over the last century or so. The reasons for it are complex and variable, but at root it happens when a government knows or expects that it will be popular among the majority group to discriminate against minorities. See ingroups and outgroups. And why should the fact that both groups are Islamic make any difference? Think about the members of two Christian sects in Northern Ireland--ColinFine (talk) 09:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It's really quite predictable when you consider that Wahhabism was founded for the specific purpose of purging Islam from alleged excrescences and "corruptions" which did not exist in Muhammad's time. Wahhabism was anti-Shi`ite from the beginning, and in the early 19th century tried to destroy Shi`ite holy places in cities of southern Iraq (see Wahhabi#Criticism by other Muslims etc.). There's also the sensitive issue that the oil in Saudi Arabia is in or near the areas traditionally inhabited by Shi`i... AnonMoos (talk) 10:09, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

For historical comparison, also consider Catholics ("also Christians") in England from Elisabeth Ist to the 19th century, Huguenots ("also Christian") in France from the reformation to the French revolution, or, for a quite recent non-religious example, African-Americans ("also Americans") in the US. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:25, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Those examples are so generalized as to not be very specifically comparable with Saudi persecution of Shi`ites. Elizabeth always treated Catholicism as a matter of political allegiance (and the Catholic hierarchy gave her plenty of reason to with Regnans in Excelsis and Cardinal Allen issuing forth a torrent of bloodthirsty threats and abuse and cheering on the Spanish Armada) -- not as a matter of religious heresy. If the more iconoclastic factions of Puritans had permanently triumphed in the English Civil War, then that would have been more comparable... AnonMoos (talk) 14:06, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not unique to Saudi Arabia. Consider Jordan, where a Bedouin minority rules over the Palestinian majority and refuses them basic rights. This needs to be stopped everywhere it occurs. --Activism1234 01:27, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Some would say that the Palestinians in Jordan have it better than almost anywhere else where the Palestinians form a significant segment of the population -- can you name any other country where 100% of them get automatic host country citizenship? Certainly it's far and away better than the treatment in Lebanon! -- AnonMoos (talk) 02:37, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

No doubt they have it better than in Lebanon, or Syria (where Assad has been shelling them), or even Egypt, or Kuwait where they were kicked out. I mentioned Jordan because unlike these other countries, the population is divided primarily into two categories - a minority Bedouin elite who rules, and a majority Palestinian population who do not get many rights. Also, Jordan began revoking many Palestinians' citizenship in recent months. --Activism1234 02:40, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

If you want another example, look at Syria, where the Alawite minority ruled over the rest of the population and denied them basic rights. Look where it wound up. --Activism1234 02:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The memory of Black September means that Palestinians are not allowed to attain political predominance (and the Jordanian political system is not claimed to be 100% democratic in any case), but otherwise I'm not too sure what special repression or tyranny Palestinians are subject to which native Transjordanians or "East Bankers" do not also suffer in a roughly similar degree. I'm sure there are a number of subtle "red lines" or "glass ceilings" in the Jordanian system, but I don't think that it's remotely close to being the clearest example of inter-group oppression in the Middle East. AnonMoos (talk) 02:52, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

There are many examples of oppression in the Middle East. Don't view my example as me claiming this was the only one or the worst one. There's also oppression of the Copts in Egypt, although not on the scale of the Palestinians in Jordan, since they're allowed to vote and are granted political rights, but often suffer from harrasment and abuse. If you're interested in learning more about opression of Palestinians in Jordan, this article is very useful. Feel free to ask any questions. --Activism1234 02:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

And that article informs us that "The Palestinian majority in Jordan is highly educated, Westernized, and passionately engaged in business and modernization" and that there have only been a "handful" of Palestinian prime ministers of Jordan! I'm sure that there have been and will be some heavy-handed political manipulations within a consultative political system which is not fully democratic (and is not really claimed to be fully democratic). However, that's not the same thing as Palestinians groaning under a horrendously-repressive tyranny. As I said, I'm sure the Palestinians in Lebanon would be overjoyed to swap the problems of the Palestinians in Jordan for their own problems... AnonMoos (talk)

Palestinians are mistreated across the Arab world. I mentioned Jordan because Palestinians are the majority population, while the Bedouin minority rule over them, and deny them many rights and have begun revoking their citizenship. That was all. I think you're looking too deep into my comment... --Activism1234 14:32, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Are spree shootings as common in other countries as they are in America?

I use the word "common" in a relative sense. ScienceApe (talk) 12:29, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the difficulty will be in the use of the word 'spree'. The US authorities describe Spree killing as ""killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders", but I'm not sure how widely this is used in the rest of the world. You might like to start at this page, which gives various comparative graphs on all sorts of national statistics, including murders with firearms and gun killings per head of population. Unfortunately there's nothing on multiple killings. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems we have both a list of rampage killers and a list of spree killers which can be arranged by country.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:50, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Spree killer has a table, in which United States features more than any other country. Not sure how comprehensive it is. — Kieff | Talk 12:51, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

By population, Finland (with a population of 5.4m) may have the most per capita, considerably more than the US (if you go by that table, which isn't comprehensive). Finland has a lot of guns and a high suicide rate, amongst other factors. --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:51, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

These are shocking, politics-stopping, world-attention-getting events. It doesn't matter how big or small the country is, and it almost doesn't matter what the numbers of dead and injured are - it's the events themselves that we remember (who outside those directly affected could tell you how many people were injured or died at Columbine, or Beslan, or Kent State Uni, or Port Arthur?). One shooting in the USA, or India or China for that matter, is no less momentous than one in Finland, Monaco or Nauru. If you're getting a handle on the prevalence of such events by country, you count the number of events in each country and leave their populations out of it. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:24, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Depends how you want to arrange the question. But if you're asking about 1 person massacres outside of war, the 2011 Norway attacks are towards the top of the list, followed by Woo Bum-kon shooting in South Korea. Michigan is next with the 1927 bombing by Andrew Kehoe of a school. You'll have to look at the list and decide for yourself, but at a glance it doesn't appear that rampage killings are concentrated in the U.S., despite what popular perception may be. Shadowjams (talk) 19:22, 21 July 2012 (UTC)*

However the Norway example was a unique event for that country; in the US they seem to happen with depressing regularity. But as Colapeninsula points out above, the US has about 50 times the population of Norway or Finland making comparison difficult. Alansplodge (talk) 19:53, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The UK had several famous spree killing incidents from the 1980's until they basically outlawed private ownership of handguns and made it harder to own long guns. Edison (talk) 20:56, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, please. There are far more violent attacks on ex-Beatles per capita in Britain than in the US. μηδείς (talk) 23:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

What? Are you trying to be funny. Or offensive? Or just here to display your ignorance? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Trying to be funny. One violent attack in a bigger country, one in a smaller country. —Tamfang (talk) 06:39, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Edison summarises it well here, at least as far as comparisons with the USA and similar countries with different gun laws are concerned. In the UK, the Hungerford massacre in 1987 will always be remembered, and led to strict legal limits on sale of semi-automatic rifles and some shotguns. The gunman killed 16 people with semi-automatic rifles and other weapons. There was subsequently the Dunblane school massacre in 1996, where a gunman killed 17 people using handguns. The UK duly banned handguns as well.

There was later a UK school attack with a machete [27], which either proves that gun bans are ineffective because people will move to other weapons, or proves that gun bans are very effective because they saved many children's lives by forcing the killer to resort to a less effective weapon. No-one died - adults were able to grapple with, delay, and inconvenience the machete-wielding nutter. Had he been able to buy a firearm at his local supermarket, presumably that would not have been the case, and the nutter would have killed dozens of children.

In the UK there was also Raoul Moat, who killed only one person because the only weapon he could obtain easily was a shotgun. If this man (or his friends) had access to semi-automatic handguns, or semi-automatic rifles with bullets designed to pierce body armour, then he may have killed many more than just one person.

One thing that does strike me is that the major UK examples tend to be about ten years apart (1987 Hungerford, 1996 Dunblane, this century none?), and are followed by crackdowns on whatever type of firearm is involved. The major USA examples seem to come at the rate of at least one per year, perhaps more than one per year. So yes, subjectively, Finland and the USA have a problem with spree shootings. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Did you hear about the Cumbria shootings of 2010? 12 killed (plus the shooter) and 11 injured, in England, Selective amnesia? Why should they not be considered here? If police in the US had to drive to the police station and get their guns out of the safe (with only a select few authorized to use weapons) like in England, spree shooters here might have an easier time of it,Edison (talk) 02:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Now, now, Edison! Using facts and reason is hardly fair. μηδείς (talk) 03:52, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

That still makes about 1 case/decade in the UK. Demiurge expressed his doubt about his information. And nobody is saying the police should not carry firearms in a country where civilians do carry them. Note: I suppose commenting Medeis' trolling is not necessary. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Can we please not have this degrade into yet another gun control debate and stick strictly to the original question (which asks nothing about why)? Shadowjams (talk) 20:57, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

William Bowen, 1920's-1930's children's author

I'm trying to start an article on 1922 Newbery Honor winning children's author William Bowen, who wrote The Old Tobacco Shop. I've looked online for days and found info on five books I'm petty sure are his, (The Old Tobacco Shop, The Enchanted Forest, Solario, Merrimeg, and Philip the Faun), but nothing about him, except that his middle name might be Alvin. Can someone find anything about his personal life -- even a birth date or place would help. (There's a lawyer in CA around that time named William Alvin Bowen, but I've found nothing to say they are the same person.) Thanks so much. Tlqk56 (talk) 16:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Project Guttenberg website says he was born in 1877 and died in 1937. MilborneOne (talk) 17:36, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Fixed title, as presumably he didn't do much writing in the 1030's. StuRat (talk) 17:40, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Original research but this agrees with the entry William Alvin Bowen 1877-1937 on http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7920940 MilborneOne (talk) 17:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

If he was the William Alvin Bowen who was drafted in Los Angles in WWI then he was born in Baltimore on 15 May 1877, although these details refer to the Bowen who later became a lawyer. Bit of a jump to link the lawyer and the author but Guttenberg does give then the same year of Birth. MilborneOne (talk) 17:49, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

This link suggests that the lawyer was an author but no mention of childrens books. http://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/author/bowen-william-alvin/ MilborneOne (talk) 17:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about the rambling, we will get there in the end William Alvin Bowen, lawyer and writer of fairy tales for children, died at his home here today at the age of 60. Associated with the law firm of Flint McKay for twenty-five years, Mr. Bowen achieved major recognition most recently for his work as special master in hearing the claims in the Richfield reorganization suit. from http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F5091FF9395A157A93CBA81782D85F438385F9 MilborneOne (talk) 17:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

His LOC entry lists an additional book: Gossip from the sixteenth century, Part I, published by the Zamorano Club in 1938 (posthumously). Their publication list confirms the author and lawyer were the same person. Google books also turned up a 12-page booklet or pamphlet entitled: On the Extermination of Bookworms, published by the Zamorano club in 1935 (not listed on their website). Zoonoses (talk) 21:58, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Wow, great work putting all these pieces together! I really appreciate it. My computer gets cranky and won't always open files, (like the NYT obit, so thanks for reproducing it for me); I wouldn't have found any of this stuff. Can I ask where you found the Army record? Did it give dates or any other details? Thanks so much, I really appreciate this. You people are my "Hail Mary" when things look bleak, and you always come through. Tlqk56 (talk) 00:39, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

loch Ness of Africa

Is this true that there is a Loch Ness monster-like in Africa particularly in D Zaire? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.228.225 (talk) 16:58, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

No. The Loch Ness monster doesn't exist, so there cannot be anything like it in Africa. On the other hand, see Mokele-mbembe, Lukwata and Nyaminyami for African mythical creatures which might be said to resemble Nessie. (Personally, I think Nessie more usually resembles an otter, a floating log, a wind-generated ripple, the wake of a boat, or a scam for extracting money from tourists) AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:06, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

That doesn’t sound like very scientific reasoning to me. Argument from ignorance#Distinguishing absence of evidence from evidence of absence.--Aspro (talk) 17:45, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

'Argument from ignorance' is a (supposed) logical fallacy. The scientific method is based on experiment and observation, not on dubious linguistic gymnastics. I suggest you read Argument from ignorance#Distinguishing absence of evidence from evidence of absence a little more carefully. The supposed monster has been carefully and repeatedly searched for. It has not been found. In science, under the appropriate conditions, absence of evidence can reasonably be taken as evidence of absence. Indeed, it must be - because otherwise science is a waste of time. And so is writing online encyclopaedias - unless we follow every assertion of a fact with "(but then, it might not be, who knows for sure?)" or similar. Our article on Wildebeeste tells us that they "inhabit the plains and open woodlands of Africa" - should I add that they might also live on Wimbledon Common, on the basis that, although they've never been seen there, they might be very good at hiding? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Gosh Andy, that's a lot of clever verbiage -wish I could write like that! When I get the time, I'll try and sort though it all -for a suitable reply ( if you had been around in the 1930s, you could have saved Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer all that time she wasted looking for the mythical Coelacanth off the African coast – which of courses - couldn't possible exist in our present era)... :¬).--Aspro (talk) 19:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Unless our article is wildly wrong, not only was Courtenay-Latimer not looking for Coelacanths (mythical or otherwise) when she acquired one, but she didn't know what it was until it was identified by someone else. This is all rather beside the point though. I stand by my argument that since there is no verifiable evidence to support the existence of the Loch Ness monster, it would be illogical to assert that similar creatures can be found elsewhere. On the other hand, if one treats Nessie as the mythical beast that all the evidence points to, it is easy enough to find such myths throughout much of the world - hence the links I provided for Africa. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:31, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

You are right to stand by your point (have no augment about that). Yet, during the search for Cœlacanthus she had only anecdotal reports to go on... Much like the eye witness reports of Nessie. You say: “Unless our article is wildly wrong” Yes, if you read her own accounts, then the WP article is trying to separate itself from Cryptozoology – something that some WP editors think is pseudo-science and not something that serious scientist get involved in. Of course, once the the real existence of the platypus, snow leopard etc., was ascertained, the pseudo- sceptics said “Ah, but we really knew it all along”. One difference, I will grant you, is that she spoke to people, that had not only seen the Coelacanth but had eat it. Multiple “third encounters” of this type provide stronger evidence. However, science concentrates on the provable ---kept in check by Karl_Popper#Falsifiability.

However, to state categorically that something does not exist; is an ideology based on faith - an individual or collective belief. These beliefs have no place in science. --Aspro (talk) 20:33, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

As soon as someone uses the phrase "pseudo-sceptics", I pass their details on to the local snake-oil salesmen: they are most appreciative of links to potential customers. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:37, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

That's like saying: there is no such thing as an American elephant, therefore nothing similar can exist in Africa. —Tamfang (talk) 06:41, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

A priori, it would make a lot more sense to find an archaic reptile in a warm African lake than in the bitterly cold waters of a Scottish loch. Looie496 (talk) 19:38, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Particularly one that has repeatedly been covered in hundreds of metres of ice at frequent intervals since the time that this Crypto-whatever's relatives would have been around. Or is it a relative of Godzilla, and hibernates underground for millennia, until woken by atom-bomb tests, or possibly in this case a clash between Celtic and Rangers supporters, which quite likely sound much the same to an somnolent archaic subterranean reptilian? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:37, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Ahh.. resorting to literature gymnastics to cloud what our wonderful (yet, only human) scientists can't settle? The fact that they have to change their "facts" so often after finding more evidence is contrary to their own idea that without the evidence, it doesn't exist. The lowly germ, and heck, even the gorilla was thought to be a myth before finally succumbing to what many people had been trying to say. Face it, "science", though still what I use daily for my job and many everyday activities, is only a process that flawed creatures use to find information, not to establish god-like unshakeable fact. It's a tool. Unfortunately it is often used as a religion of the academic snobs, and they have edited it so that if THEY haven't found the evidence, it doesn't exist. That's what always causes that problem... selfish animalistic pride. If there is no evidence proving some thing's existence, that lack of evidence does not prove it doesn't exist! That's as bad as any belief either way! It's high hypocrisy on the part of science. The proof is in the eventual discovery of things they said did not exist. They were wrong, period. Nobody knew the thing existed, but nobody knew it didn't. Both sides made claims, one side because they saw something, the other side because they didn't see it. It's clear the side claiming non-existence should have only claimed they "don't know". That doesn't tend to set well with the nature of those education snobs. They have to have an "answer"... even if it's from not having evidence, which proves nothing! If they want answers no matter what, I suggest they stick to mathematics. Humans love to avoid saying they "don't know", and that starts most of the trouble.Movierealist (talk) 21:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

USA 1895 visa stamp

Transfered from french Oracle by Dhatier :
Je cherche une photo du modèle de tampon qui servait aux visas d'entrée aux Etats-Unis, aux alentours de 1895. Je suis artiste peintre et travaille actuellement sur l'émigration européenne en partance pour les Etats-Unis. Merci d'avance.

I'm trying to find a photo of the stamp used for the immigration visa in the USA around 1895. I am a painter working presently on european immigration to the USA. Thank you. (unsigned) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhatier (talk • contribs) 17:23, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It looks like immigration visas weren't issued as rubber stamps in that era, but on separate sheets of paper, e.g. [28] (but that one is for a passport application, but it references a naturalization form which I suspect was similar based on http://www.archives.gov/research/naturalization/naturalization.html ) Here's a citizenship application from 1892 signed by a District Court Judge, from [29]. Here is a Certificate of Residence issued in 1894 to a Chinese laborer in San Francisco, with a raised "Internal Revenue Collector" seal over a photograph, which was very high tech at the time, and probably unheard of on the Atlantic coast where immigration abuses were somewhat less prevalent. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 06:01, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Book of Revelation

In the "Events of Revelation" you don't have chapter 22 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.108.180.77 (talk) 20:59, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Please raise this matter at Talk:Events of Revelation. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:01, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't look to me like there are any events in chapter 22; it's more or less a coda to the book. Looie496 (talk) 01:37, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

why does this sound so horrific

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpwRPlvTuyw — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.3.160.86 (talk) 21:23, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

just so it's not mean, i thought the same woman was really good in this duet - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynSVbO_vZr4 - (right at the beginning) which was really well-done and a lot better than most two people singing together I thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.3.160.86 (talk) 21:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

"Horrific" is a value judgement, and one that I'm not sure I'd agree with. I would agree, though, that she is clearly a classically-trained singer who's singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" as if it were a German lied from 1843. That's highly inappropriate, which is why it sounds weird, or whatever adjective you prefer. It's as inappropriate as Sting (musician) singing madrigals by John Dowland ([30]) and using the same voice production methods he uses for rock songs written almost 400 years later; or any one of zillions of tin-pot nonentities who wouldn't know the first thing about opera, or don't have the slightest interest in the genre, deciding it's appropriate to scream their way through "Nessun dorma" to win some singing contest or at least get their mandatory standing ovation.

Back to the female singer: The voice she uses in the duet would have been far more suited to the first song, so it's not as if she can't do it. Why she could possibly think her approach might work artistically, you'd have to ask her. I guess if you've spent virtually all your life singing in a certain way, and hearing songs being sung in that certain way, you're conditioned to thinking that that way is "right" for any song at all. Clearly, it's not, and these people (on both sides of the divide) need someone to give them that feedback ... but preferably before they embark on these ill-considered atrocities. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:51, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Incidentally, do you know anyone who really does excel in both sides of the aisle? (and not by committing to one, but 'being two') that you like listening to in both? I can't think of any opera singers (for example) who also have a famous rock persona that doesn't sound like opera...or vice versa. (Rock is just one example, what I'm getting at is that most performers really only end up with one major voice, don't they?) 84.3.160.86 (talk) 23:28, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Freddie Mercury sounded pretty good whenever he did opera. Admittedly it wasn't very often. -- role^player 00:29, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It's pretty bad. I think it's the tremolo that makes it so. This is a technique developed before electronic amplification so a singer could hold a note loud and long so the entire audience could hear it. In my opinion, this practice should have died out with thick make-up and exaggerated gestures which were also used at the time, since, with close-ups, we can see normal gestures and expressions now, and, with microphones, we can hear a normal voice, too. StuRat (talk) 23:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

An interesting perspective, though I think if you heard any of the famous opera arias sung well (search youtube) 50 years ago, you wouldn't want to hear them sung "normally". 84.3.160.86 (talk) 00:00, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Well I, and most other people on the planet, don't like opera, precisely because they still use outdated techniques like that. (I love good singing, but not opera style.) And even those who love opera must admit that not every song should be sung in an opera style. StuRat (talk) 01:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

That was pretty much the point I made above, and I don't think you'd find any serious argument against your position. What you call "tremolo" is more often called vibrato in vocal contexts, and for more detail about that, see Vibrato#In opera. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 02:03, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I tried to find the right term, and looked at both our articles, but found them confusing. I thought they said tremolo is a variation in volume, while vibrato is a variation in pitch, but it was hard to tell. StuRat (talk) 05:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The OP does us a disservice by not giving a timepoint for what he/she is complaining about in this v-e-r-y long video. The first segment lady had a fine voice and was pretty much on pitch, with too much vibrato. Give a point in the time line and I will listen to it. Edison (talk) 01:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think they want us to focus on the very first song she sings, which was "Somewehere Over the Rainbow" sung in a classical style. Even so, 8 minutes is not a "v-e-r-y long video". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 02:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but it seems very long, when listening to singing like that. :-) StuRat (talk) 05:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

OP here - right, first song. I thought it would go without saying that you wouldn't listen to very much of it. thanks for the responses. 84.3.160.86 (talk) 07:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Logical fallacy

Is there a logical fallacy that says that "A lot of people say X is true. Therefore X must be true."? Dismas|^(talk) 22:53, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Argumentum ad populum --Colapeninsula (talk) 22:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Named logical fallacies are not magic. Such an argument would be fallacious, whether or not it had a name. And you can call it an 'appeal to popularity', or 'appeal to the people' if you like. Latin names aren't magic either. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:59, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

True. Insistence on Latin terminology is often an argumentum verbosium. Ankh.Morpork 00:22, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, but Latin is magical; see hocus pocus and abracadabra. μηδείς (talk) 23:38, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Abracadabra - "the word is thought to have its origin in the Aramaic language..." Ankh.Morpork 00:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

AH GOTCHA!!! YEE HAW!!!! (and it comes to us through....?) (BTW, no one thinks Jesus celebrated the Last Supper in Latin either.) μηδείς (talk) 03:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Point taken about the name but that is what I was looking for, a name. Thanks for the info! Dismas|^(talk) 02:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

July 22

Happy Dan the Whistling Dog

In which issue of Cosmopolitan did Ward Greene's story "Happy Dan, the Whistling Dog" (used as source material for Disney's Lady and the Tramp) appear? Has it ever been reprinted elsewhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.78.58.9 (talk) 01:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I did a quick google. It seems Ward Greene wrote the short story for a 1943 Cosmopolitan issue that Disney read. Another site says he wrote a book on it in 1939. Another title is Happy Dan the Cynical Dog. I only googled a few pages though. One said that Disney bought the rights because the story was so close.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Why did men suddenly stop wearing hats?

In quite recent history (my grandfather did) all men wore hats and stopped doing so in what seems a very short timespan of like 10 years or even less. That must have felt like a revolution similar to suddenly everyone having a mobile phone, but I cannot recall something like "the great hat-burning event where men from all standings publicly denounced this troublesome and demeaning tradition". They just stopped wearing hats. Who or what triggered this? Joepnl (talk) 03:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

As a guess, I'd say it was mostly the largely care-free attitude of the baby boomer generation toward fashion and style. Hats don't perform a real function the way, say, shoes do, so a lot of people probably just didn't see the need for them. I'd say that your estimate of it happening within the span of a decade or so is quite correct, most likely somewhere between the period 1960-70 is when the tide really started to turn against hats. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:19, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It might correspond to the time period when bluejeans became de rigueur. It could be that hats don't go well with jeans. Bus stop (talk) 03:30, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Huh, "carefree" had little to do with it. There was never a more uptight and self-conscious generation than the babyboomers who stopped wearing hats because they saw doing so as a sign of maturity--i.e., the actions of their fathers' generation. This was restricted mostly to whites in the US. Blacks, being much less uptight than whites, never stopped wearing hats, and still do. See pimpin'. Hence it has become cool again for whites. See Gavin Degraw. μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

There is no mention of hats in Pimpin', a questionable redirect to Pimp. Discussions of the current popularity of hats, e.g. [31] or [32], don't say much about a racial difference. I'm partial to User:Canoe1967's explanation below involving the compact cars of the 1960s which made hats a real hassle. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 05:21, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It should be pointed out that there are a lot of different types of hats. Bus stop (talk) 04:00, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Women stopped wearing, er tablecloth thingies, on their head about 20/30 years before that. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 04:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it happened because cars got to low for them around 1960. Checker cabs still has cars that fit a full top hat, I think.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you have cause and effect mixed up there. After huge hats went out of fashion, cars didn't need as much headroom. StuRat (talk) 05:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I would love to see data on the prevalence of hats and sports cars year by year. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 07:41, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Except for protection from the weather, hats always seemed rather useless, to me. A tie is another useless men's fashion accessory, but, unlike hats, you don't need to find a place to hang them every place you go and worry about them blowing away and giving you "hat hair". Of course, even ties have gone out of fashion, too, except in rather formal offices or on special occasions. StuRat (talk) 05:42, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Many people who were around while the change was happening were confused as to why it was happening, so I'm not sure that we'll solve it retroactively at a distance of almost 50 years. However, getting rid of men's hats eliminated the whole somewhat complicated issue of "hat etiquette" (when men were supposed to remove their hats, or tip their hats to passing ladies, etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 06:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

---

John Kennedy has been blamed. —Tamfang (talk) 06:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Though snopes says he is no more responsible for the hat's decline than Clark Gable is for "killing the men's undershirt industry". (See "Hat Trick"). ---Sluzzelin talk 07:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

At the end of Du côté de chez Swann Proust suddenly fast-forwards from the Belle Époque to post WW1. None of the men are wearing hats, and the women have small, neat hats without baskets of flowers on top. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Here in the US, I'm fairly certain hats were pretty much ubiquitous up until approximately the mid-1950s. Hell, during the Great Depression even our homeless bums found the time to put on a hat! :) Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 08:40, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

A number of them are wearing caps... AnonMoos (talk) 12:17, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad we're talking about hats specifically, because there certainly has been no dying off of men's head wear. Virtually all men in the 18-30 age group wear caps that seem almost never to come off their heads. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 09:02, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I've heard that the fact that Kennedy did not wear a hat, basically put paid to the industry.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think Jack of Oz has a good point: Hats seem to have been replaced by other headgear, such as the fitted cap/baseball cap or the tuque/beanie. However, unlike the hat, these are not seen to be formal wear, and, as such, they can't be used for 'all occassions' like a hat can.

Another reason could be that one fashion is replaced by another. If your hair is combed very flat, you can easily put a hat on top of it, but if you have a big, fluffy hairdo that's kept in place with pomade (popular in the 50s and 60s according to the article), I assume that a hat could easily ruin it (in addition to the pomade making a mess out of the inside of your hat).

My personal conspiracy theory is that global warming is to blame: as global temperatures increase, it is simply too hot to wear a hat. :-P V85 (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

This BBC article; What makes a man wear a hat? puts forward the theory that it was long hair in the 1960s that killed it off. I suspect that it was already declining before that. My father, who came of age in the 1930s, never wore a hat unless he had to. The new casual open-collared look of the 1930s didn't need a hat in the way that their fathers needed them. An example; in this group of Welsh teenagers in 1933, only their teacher had the urge to wear a hat. Youthful rebellion perhaps. Alansplodge (talk) 18:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Hitler's policies in regards to Hungary, Romania, France, and Bulgaria

I have a question--why did Hitler occupy Hungary in 1944 when their leader attempted to make peace with the Allies but did not occupy Romania, which also had a "Jewish problem" in Hitler's view and whose leader also attempted to make peace with the Allies in the late stages of the war? Romania had a lot of oil, and thus seemed to be more strategically more important for Nazi Germany to occupy than Hungary. Also, considering Hitler's mentality and views, why did Hitler not pursue the Final Solution much more aggressively in France and Bulgaria, where the overwhelming majority of the Jews survived World War II? Futurist110 (talk) 06:35, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It's very difficult to second-guess dictators. But at the risk of oversimplifying, Hungary was nearer to Germany and smaller, while Romania was about twice the size and distance. See Hungary during World War II and Romania during World War II. France was not going particularly well for Hitler by 1944, and antisemitism wasn't as popular there. (German military administration in occupied France during World War II). The Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II was fierce and completely outnumbered the Nazis in Bulgaria, where antisemitism was even less popular than in France. Dobri Bozhilov was a subservient Nazi puppet in all respects, except that he flatly refused to deport Jews to extermination camps. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 07:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Even Hitler knew he had to pick his battles, and trying to massacre every Jew in Europe at the same time would turn too many against him. Depending on the time frame, for example, he might have been trying to keep the US out of the war. (In the end, of course, he still managed to turn too many against him.) As to why he chose which country for genocide and not others, that has many causes, like local politics, presence of Western media, etc. Of course, Hitler planned to win the war, and with total control of Europe, could then commit genocide at his will. So, in his mind, he was only deciding on the timing of killing off each population of Jews, not making a decision to spare some. StuRat (talk) 07:27, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

For France we have a bit of info in The Holocaust in France and Timeline of deportations of French Jews to death camps. But Hitler wasn't really interested in getting rid of all the Jews everywhere, just the ones in Germany (and the areas of Eastern Europe that he thought should be German). If somehow he had been successful, I'm sure he would have paid closer attention to France. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:25, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Let's set aside the unsupported statement that "Hitler wasn't really interested in getting rid of all the Jews everywhere, just...[etc.]" and look at how many Jews were eradicated by mass slaughter in the abovementioned countries (based on a table prepared by Prof. Yehuda Bauer, in raw numbers and a percentage of each country's Jewish population on the eve of WWII):

• Hungary: 569,000 (69%)
• Romania: 287,000 (47%)
• France: 350,000 (22%)
• Thrace, Macedonia, and Eastern Serbia - occupied by Bulgaria: 11,300 in 1943, transported to the Treblinka extermination camp by Bulgaria's agreement with Theodor Dannecker. The 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were subsequently not deported.

That's about all I have time to provide at present. Otherwise, I'd say that the failure of the Nazi regime to eliminate more Jews was primarily due to limits on its expenses and resource allocation in having to fighting a war at the same time. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:36, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that Hungary and Romania had more Jews than that at the start of WWII. Lucy Dawidowicz's figures state that there were 600,000 Jews in Romania and 650,000 Jews in Hungary at the start of WWII. I think your figures for Romania are for the Jews killed during WWII, not for total pre-war Jewish population. I want to point out that the overwhelming majority of Holocaust deaths in Romania occurred in Northern Transylvania (which Hungary controlled between 1940 and 1945) and in Moldova, which was captured by the U.S.S.R. in 1940 and then recaptured by the Romanians and Germans in 1941. In "rump Romania" (essentially Romania within its 1914 borders), the overwhelming majority of the Jews survived World War II, though they did suffer large amounts of discrimination during the war. Also, in regards to France and Bulgaria, most (in the case of France) or all (in the case of Bulgaria) of the Jews that were killed were not French/Bulgarian citizens. Futurist110 (talk) 21:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

When it came to oil, Hitler had other plans: He wanted Azerbaijan, but the Germans never got that far, due to the Battle of Stalindgrad. V85 (talk) 15:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but if the Nazis can't capture Azerbaijan, wouldn't it have been more of an incentive for them to hold on to Romania at all costs? Futurist110 (talk) 21:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

As for the statement that "Hitler wasn't interested in killing all Jews everywhere", it's true that Hitler wasn't particularly interested in killing Jews in the U.K., the U.S., Canada, and Australia (not because he had sympathy for those Jews, but because they were out of his reach). However, Hitler was (or appeared to be) extremely eager in killing as much Jews as he could in areas under his control. Hitler still exterminated most Jews in areas which he did not want to permanently annex to Germany in the unlikely event of a Nazi WWII victory, such as Hungary, Greece, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Northern Italy. France does seem to be an exception to this rule, and it's pretty surprising considering that based on my knowledge, there were a lot of Nazi troops in France and thus they could have killed a lot more Jews even without a lot of cooperation from the French locals and Vichy French officials. Futurist110 (talk) 21:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a bit discomforting to hear people say "Germany didn't kill that many Jews in France" or "as much." Even killing one person is enough. But I highly recommend that everyone take a look at the article on the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup.

The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (French: Rafle du Vélodrome d'Hiver, commonly called the Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv: "Vel' d'Hiv Police Roundup / Raid"), was a Nazi decreed raid and mass arrest in Paris by the French police on 16 and 17 July 1942, code named Opération Vent printanier ("Operation Spring Breeze"). The name for the event is derived from the nickname of the Vélodrome d'Hiver ("Winter Velodrome"), a bicycle velodrome and stadium where many of the victims were temporarily confined. The roundup was one of several aimed at reducing the Jewish population in occupied France. According to records of the Préfecture de Police, 13,152 victims were arrested[1] and held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver and the Drancy internment camp nearby, then shipped by railway transports to Auschwitz for extermination. French President Jacques Chirac apologized in 1995 for the complicit role that French policemen and civil servants served in the raid.

Also, I believe that there were maps and globes found in Hitler's rooms with a big "X" on countries such as USA, basically the entire world he wanted to conquer, Pacific, Atlantic, etc. He just didn't get to USA in time, but if he would've, he certainly would've attempted to exterminate the Jewish population there.

Also, keep in mind, that when Hitler got into France and set up the Vichy government, he was dealing with a lot of conflicts at that time, he was fighting a war on multiple fronts and also faced resistance in France from French resistance members, as opposed to Poland which he conquered immediately and was able to exterminate most of the Jewish population. Interestingly, the Jews who had the best luck were those in North Africa. Even though Italy controlled them and was an Axis power under Mussolini, Mussolini did not hate Jews as much as Hitler and did not have a systematic process of extermination. --Activism1234 21:36, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

pasta history mystery

While reading wikipedia about pasta, I noticed the history included the origins as likely to be a 5th centruy Arab invention of making the food for long distance travel. Makes sense, but later the article mentions ancient Romans cooking pasta by boiling or frying. Ancient Romans had an empire well before Christ and into the 300's AD, all before the 5th century, so how did the Arabs "invent" pasta? I figure it still probably came from there, because it's a logical reason to invent it, but as usual something was written about human history and left there slightly tangled and, well, not really answered. Sorry to be blunt but I don't like to "sort of" know the history with ends that loose... I realize it's impossible to get it perfect, but I don't think the article should be attempted when it seems we are far from knowing the origin. At least write it as a mystery. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Movierealist (talk • contribs) 21:16, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you're misreading the narrative of the pasta article. The Romans are cooking fresh pasta. The Arabs adapted it to make dry pasta, for travel. It doesn't claim anyone "invented" it, really, it just talks about the "first record of," which isn't the same thing at all. I don't know if any of that history is actually true, but you're mixing everything up terribly, which is why you are confused by it. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

And note that something as simple as pasta is likely to have been independently invented in multiple places and times. StuRat (talk) 22:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

China had millet noodles around 2000 BCE per Noodle#History. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:06, 22 July 2012 (UTC)