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February 2

US Presidential Staff

I don't if this is right but Lincoln had only two men on his staff while he was president. In today's day and age, is it possible for the US president (if he desired so) to dismiss the bulk of his staff on his own accord like the secret services and live a more thrifty/normal life? --170.140.105.14 (talk) 02:25, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that's right about Lincoln only having two men on his staff. Certainly not if you include the White House staff. I don't know about the legality of dismissing most of the staff, but there would be serious objections raised if he tried. For example, leaving himself vulnerable to kidnapping would not only endanger him, but the entire nation, as well. StuRat (talk) 03:36, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Barack Obama has two full time on call movie projectionists on his staff, in case he can't figure out how to play a DVD at 3am.[1] And no, I don't think he could possibly live a normal human life without them. μηδείς (talk) 03:49, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

It is true that prior to the 20th century the U.S. presidents kept a much smaller personal staff. IIRC, many of the earliest Presidents were expected to pay for their entire White House staff out of their own pockets, which gave them a bit of incentive to keep things light, many of them probably kept a private secretary for correspondence and a valet for personal service, and maybe a cook and a scullery maid or something like that. But not much else. By the time of Lincoln, however, the staff had probably grown somewhat. The Federal Government funded permanent body guards for him, what with the Civil War and all. Still, when the first telephone was installed at the White House during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, if you called the White House, he answered it himself (not that many people had telephones at the time anyways, but still). Like all aspects of the U.S. government, the size of the White House staff grew greatly during the 20th century. --Jayron32 04:33, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

So the reference explaining why the White House staff necessarily grew through the 20th century, and the current president needs two full-time on-call movie projectionists is...Rutherford B. Hayes? μηδείς (talk) 06:19, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't answer the "why" question. I answered the "what" question, which is relates to what the history of the presidential staff size has been at various moments in history. The "Why" question is outside the scope of this desk. Making oblique and obtuse political commentary about the current situation by couching ones political opinions in the form of incredulous statements is also beyond the scope of this desk. --Jayron32 06:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Medeis, can you find a source that proves that claim other than the single source that seems to be repeated ad infinitum in Google searches? RNealK (talk) 06:47, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Meaning what by prove? The claim is made in as many reliable sources as you like. I am sure someone would have rebutted the available sources were they false. The White House itself chooses not to give any information about White House staff on its own website. μηδείς (talk) 22:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Every source I can find via Google just reiterates the National Review article, which doesn't provide any evidence. I've asked snopes for some evidence. RNealK (talk) 00:12, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

That claim doesn't seem unreasonable, to me. Historically, Presidents would have needed to view some videos dealing with current events, in order to understand what was going on. A recent example would be the anti-Muslim movie clip which was blamed for protests at US embassies, and, initially, the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi. So, two projectionists (in case one was sick or otherwise unavailable) was not unreasonable. However, videos these days are more likely to be in digital format, and fewer skills are required to watch digital videos than to run a film projector, so, at some point, they should probably let those projectionists go and just assign some general tech guys to display videos for the President and staff. StuRat (talk) 16:39, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Medeis, the article you linked to made no mention of playing DVD's so where did that come from? I would suspect that the projectionists are for the Family Theater. It has been part of the White House since Franklin D. Roosevelt was president (1942) and, given the pictures on that page, it has been used by several presidents since then. While the only one I see listed is Paul Fischer there must have been other projectionists over the years. Also the White House has been, since 1995, required to give Congress a list of staff which can be seen at http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/annual-records/2012 CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 09:21, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if the president watches many films on a reel. Perhaps he mostly watches blue rays instead of DVD's? My opinion is worthless, you'd have to go to the sources. μηδείς (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

[2] suggests Paul Fischer was the projectionist from 1953 to 1986. It doesn't mention if there was only one or if they were employed full time in the role. He's also mentioned in [3] which mentions it was redecorated by Laura Bush. I don't know who paid for that, per the same source during the Reagan years there was an upgrade funded by the movie studios and they also provide movies on request at a moments notice, I'm guessing for no charge. It sounds like no one would have wanted to watch a movie with Clinton so it may have been fortunate used his own theater rather then someone elses. And it seems at least under Paul Fischer the movies were fairly tame, Jimmy Carter was the only one to watch an X-rated movie with Midnight Cowboy although the earlier article suggests it wasn't X when Carter watched it anyway. Nil Einne (talk) 11:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like you're almost suggesting something salacious on the part of Clinton, Nil Einne. Midnight Cowboy was seen by millions of people at the cinema all over the world, and millions more on TV and DVD ever since. It was nominated for 6 Oscars and won 3, including Best Picture and Best Director. It won 6 BAFTAs. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:00, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Long time later but for clarity I'm referring to the fact per the first source, and also the second source to some extent, Clinton liked to talk about the movies for a long time (up to an hour) afterwards. My comment was facetious, since obviously many people wouldn't have minded doing this. And probably Clinton was somewhat attuned to the feelings of his guests and if they seemed like they didn't really want to talk anymore but were reluctant to say anything because he was the president, I expect would have let them go. Still it seems possible some guests were put off by this behaviour. I wasn't referring to anything else he may have done. Popularity of Midnight Cowboy aside, it is or was an X-rated movie, although may or may not have been at the time Jimmy Ccarter watched it. Whether it deserved this rating is of course a moot point. But it's apparently the only one that's been watched on the White House movie theatre. Or at least the only one that anyone revealed. I suspect it is the only one since any President (or other people able to use the theatre) would know there's a strong risk it would eventually leak. Nil Einne (talk) 17:56, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Painting/painter identification

Any idea who painted this, or what (if anything) the painting's name is? I can't load the source page, and I'm not sure if the line in the description page, "Allegoria della vita umana", is the painting's title or simply a description of what it is. It's tiny because it might be NSFW, even though it's clearly a classic-style painting rather than pornography. Nyttend (talk) 04:15, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The file description page File:Cagnacci Allegoria.jpg gives the painter as Guido Cagnacci and the title as Allegoria della vita umana or "Allegory on Human Life". Putting "Allegoria della vita umana" into Google turns up plenty of sources which confirm both of these facts. --Jayron32 04:36, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Interesting pic. The "halo" appears to be a coiled snake, which sends a bit of a mixed message. StuRat (talk) 06:44, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

It appears to be an Ouroboros. Together with the hourglass, the picked flowers and of course the skull, it all seems to reference passing of time and is classical memento mori symbolism. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:31, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the source link. Those who consider the painting NSFW might wish to see a revised version (still without Burqa). --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:21, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Not sure if you're joking about the NSFW bit, but paintings from the historical past cannot possibly be NSFW. --Viennese Waltz 15:35, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it must be a joke to censor the eyes and navel, while leaving the breasts visible. StuRat (talk) 16:30, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh wow; I really wasn't paying attention to the description page; I'm sorry. I was still concerned about the potential for a large image of a topless woman, despite its obviously historical nature. Nyttend (talk) 16:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I think StuRat is right that an Ouroboros as a Halo (religious iconography) is unusual. Bus stop (talk) 02:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Is there any reason to believe a country will leave the Eurozone in the near future?

I still see lots of speculation in newspapers and so on about if the Euro will hold together and whether a 'Grexit' will happen, but I must admit I thought the crisis had died down. Is there any serious chance of a country leaving or even declaring it's intent to leave the Euro in the next months and year or so? 81.159.112.136 (talk) 11:25, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, we can't give predictions (see the header to the page). We've got no insight into what might happen, beyond what you can read in the papers. I suggest reading a range of serious news magazines. But they don't know, either. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:35, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

As a reference desk, the OP was probably expecting to be provided with references or links to the "range of serious news magazines" to which you refer. I'm not sure an admission of personal ignorance is helpful or even relevant. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:56, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

From the ref desk header: "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate". Quite straightforward, really. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:20, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Well then, depending on what languages the OP speaks, I would suggest keeping a close eye on the Financial Times, The Economist, anything by Timothy Garton Ash, Le Monde Diplomatique, Der Spiegel and all the German press, El Pais, La Stampa, and one or two of the main papers in Greece. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

That ban on predictions seems a bit overly broad. We certainly can provide predictions of solar eclipses, for example. It should probably say something to the effect of "rather than making predictions based on our own intuition, we will only repeat predictions listed in reliable sources". StuRat (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe predictions are OK on the science desk but not on the humanities desk? This one is a good example of a request for prediction that is impossible to respond to, unless the question is completely recast. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:11, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. A question phrased as "Do you, o oracle of the reference desk, foresee a Greek exit", is requesting an opinion. The present question has a header which begins "Is there any reason...", and the body of the question ends with a question which begins "Is there any chance..."? Both are perfectly reasonable questions which can be answered with solid references from serious analyticial pieces from, say, the FT or the Economist, as you say. Deliberately interpretating the question to be a request for personal opinion when it is not phrased as anything of the sorts is not helpful.

The caution at the start of the page to which User:Saddhiyama refers is, I think, relevant as much to questioners as it is to responders. If you worked at a reference desk in a library, would your response to the question above be "Oh, I don't know, don't ask me, what a silly question"? Or would it be "Here is what (little) I can find from reputable sources that show what reputable analysts are saying about this possibility"?

Personally I have not come across any recent articles in reputable publications that predict an exit, but others may have. I do not however blame this inability to answer the question on my part on the way the question is phrased. It is perfectly capable of being answered with reputable references. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:12, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

AFAIK (FT, BBC, NYT) no-one is predicting an exit now, no. Though some still advocate it. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 18:54, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, prediction is hard, especially about the future. European authorities still punishing Greece - can they be stopped?: The so-called troika's fiscal plans for Greece are the cause of its economic depression, not the solution is an excellent recent article that essentially asks the OP's question, phrased differently. Alexis Tsipras is universally understood to have a decent chance of becoming Greek PM. It is clear that the chance of him leading Greece out of the Euro is nonzero, if the Troika continues to use Greece as a "guinea pig for barbaric, violent neoliberal policies."John Z (talk) 04:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Would the U.S. support us?, I am concerned.

I'm a 55-year-old Japanese citizen and I am increasingly worried about the Senkaku Islands dispute even more since yesterday the PM said that we will defend the islands "at all costs". I have two sons, 20 and 24 year old, they are not in the military and here is not a draft but I don't know if it would be implemented in case of confrontation. What are the probabilities of confrontation? I love peace. The Japanese people love peace. We love the Chinese as brothers of Asia, yet they burn our flag. Kotjap (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

This is, unfortunately, the sort of thing that the Ref Desk can't really answer. We are not a crystal ball and can't predict the future. However, I can tell you that the US military is shifting its long-term strategic position towards the Pacific, so it certainly seems likely that they're considering things like the outbreak of hostilities over the various territorial disputes in that part of the world. As for China-Japan relations... that's a long and complicated history with a lot of bad feelings and blame on both sides. — Lomn 21:45, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

We cannot predict the future, so we can't offer certainty. However, as an educated American who has closely followed international affairs for several decades, I cannot imagine the United States allowing itself to be pulled into war with China over the Senkakus. Nor, in the end, do I believe that Japan would defend those uninhabited rocks "at all costs". I think the most likely outcome, if outright war seemed in the offing, would be for John Kerry to fly immediately to Tokyo and then to Beijing and to negotiate a compromise that would avoid a military conflict while allowing both sides to save face. Marco polo (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Marco, as we're currently discussing on the Talk page, we should not be offering personal commentary like what you've just given ("I cannot imagine", "I do not believe", "I think" etc). If you can find a published commentary in a reputable source that says more or less what you just said, you can provide a link to it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:48, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

As the article says it is included in the US defence agreement with Japan. If China actually occupied the islands they would be considered enemies of the United States and from past experience it is very hard to change that status - it requires an abject apology or a revolution which changes their government. Dmcq (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The possibility of China and Japan going to war over the islands is so infinitesimally tiny that it's not worth losing sleep over. It's more likely that you'll be struck by lightning more than seven times or that Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan will jointly come up with a theory of everything. The Japanese Prime Minister is just posturing. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

American Airlines Flight 11

I listened to the final minutes of the call by flight attendant Betty Ong to American Airlines Emergency Line and she said that she was sat at jump seat 3R. Can anybody tell me where on this map is jump seat 3R? Thank. Kotjap (talk) 21:32, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Jump seats on airliners are typically at the very front or back of the cabin, in the galley areas or otherwise separated from passenger seats. At a guess, "R" in this case means "rear", and would put 3R at the far right end of the linked image. I guess this in part because I expect a flight attendant would have had an easier time making a call from the rear of the airplane, away from where the hijackers were operating. — Lomn 21:50, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The article Betty Ong has a transcript of the call. In it she says

Betty Ong: I'm, I'm sitting in the back somebody's coming back from business....we can't even get up to business class right now because nobody can breathe.

So Lomn's supposition is correct -- she was in the back. Also, the seating map gives an alphabetized list of people on board and their seat number -- she and two other people are listed as being in 27C. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Manu Sarren

Can it be true that Manu Sareen is not the first Danish minister of different ethnic origins but that it was Isi Foighel? --80.161.143.239 (talk) 21:54, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Probably not, although it depends what you mean by 'different ethnic origins'. Manu Sareen is quite clearly not ethnically Danish. Isi Foighel was born in Chemnitz, Germany, to Jewish parents. However, Germans are very close relations to the Danes, so it's difficult to say that he is of 'different ethnic origins' by virtue of being German. If we say that his ethnicity is 'Jewish', there was a previous Jewish Danish politician in Edvard Brandes. In summary; it may be true that Manu Sareen is the first 'non-white' Danish minister (whatever that means), but he is not the first born outside Denmark. Isi Foighel may have been the first non-Danish Christian minister, but was not the first Danish Jewish politician. Like most European countries and cultures, Denmark is a fascinating melting pot of many different origins, races and religions, and has been for many centuries. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 00:43, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The Price of Victory

It has been said by a historian that during the American Civil War the Federal Government won the war with one arm tied behing it's back. Can this be said of America's participation in World War 2? Please explain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GordonQ.2 (talk • contribs) 22:15, 2 February 2013 (UTC) GordonQ.2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by GordonQ.2 (talk • contribs) 22:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

We don't do homework. The question sounds like homework. Where did it come from? Can you link to some independent source that makes this claim? μηδείς (talk) 22:22, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Which bit do you want explained? Do you understand what the question is asking you to do? What do you think the answer is? ---- _nonsense ferret 23:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, I Googled the whole question and found: Shelby Foote pronounced the Confederate bid for independence doomed from the start. "I think that the North fought that war with one hand behind its back," observed Foote. If the Confederacy ever had come close to winning on the battlefield, "the North simply would have brought that other arm out from behind its back. I don't think the South ever had a chance to win that war."[4] Alansplodge (talk) 00:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

February 3

Nuclear Weapons Stockpiles by Country in 2020

I previously saw a report released by the U.S. govt. in 1999 which projected the nuclear weapons stockpiles for each country in 2020. However, I cannot find this table from this report right now. Can someone please help me out? Also, if anyone knows of some other nuclear weapons stockpiles by country projections for the future, please let me know as well. Thank you very much. Futurist110 (talk) 00:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

In regards to the table that I was looking for, I finally found it here--http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/ Futurist110 (talk) 00:12, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

That prediction about 2020 was made in 1999 so I am not sure how well I would trust it to reflect reality. Rmhermen (talk) 17:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you but this info could still be useful when there are no more recent projections available. Looking back 13-14 years later, these predictions might be pretty accurate when it comes to some countries, though. Futurist110 (talk) 21:11, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Hikikomoris again

I am Japanese and that's why I ask on Japanese culture. According to our own article on hikikomori, there may be over one million hikikomoris in Japan. My question is, what will come about when these young people grow older and lose their parents? Thank. Kotjap (talk) 02:26, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure we have any way of speculating on future events in this way. We simply don't know what will happen in the future, and this reference desk isn't really the proper venue for such discussions. --Jayron32 02:30, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

When we have mentally ill people in the US unable to live on their own, one of several things happens when their caregivers die:

1) They learn to live on their own after all.

2) They live in a group home or some other state-assisted living arrangement.

3) They become homeless.

The general recommendation seems to be to transition them to a group home before the last caregiver dies, to avoid the third possibility. StuRat (talk) 02:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Conservative cities in Arab World

Sidon, Lebanon and Benghazi, Libya claimed they are conservative or more than other any other cities in their respective nations in the Arab World. What other cities in Arab World, claimed they are conservative or more, regardless it is religious conservative or social conservative, in their respective nations?--Donmust90 (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

Not too sure what "conservative" means in this context, or whether it can mean the same thing for widely-separated locales, but much of Beirut has had a reputation of definitely not strictly adhering to traditional/historical Arab-Muslim social constraints... AnonMoos (talk) 03:12, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, we have to toss in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Not too many topless bars there. StuRat (talk) 03:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The rest of Saudi Arabia is not a bastion of liberalism either ! Alexandria in Egypt, is known to be more conservative than Cairo, to give another example. In Morocco, a place like Tetouan is more conservative than the country's big cities which attract large numbers of tourists, but it's nowhere close to Saudi Arabia in terms of conservatism. In Turkey (not an Arab country, but nearby), Konya has a reputation as a very conservative city, especially when compared to highly-Westernized places like Istanbul and Ankara. --Xuxl (talk) 12:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Is the Chinese Empire older than the Persian empire?

Is the Chinese Empire older than the Persian empire? Venustar84 (talk) 03:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Have you read our articles on the history of China and the history of Persia? The answer will depend on what you define as the starting point of each empire. For example, the Medean Empire predates "Imperial China" by about 400 years, but is itself predated by over a millennium of Chinese dynasties. — Lomn 03:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

(ec) There were several Persian Empires and Chinese Empires. The Achaemenid Persian Empire dates to about 550 BCE, while the Qin Dynasty in China dates to 221 BCE. So, if you compare those, the Persian is the older. StuRat (talk) 03:39, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes if you go by earliest foundation dates (Cyrus the great in 550 B.C. vs. the traditional dates of the Yellow emperor, or Xia/Shang/Zhou dynasties). Possibly not, if Cyrus the great is set alongside the date of the first Chinese ruler who is historically known to have ruled a consolidated empire spread over a wide area, which was in 221 B.C. AnonMoos (talk) 03:42, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

red state to the east

[5]

The caption is very small in this photo. Does it say "State of Bengal" for the state to the right? Curb Chain (talk) 09:29, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

On high magnification it's West Bengal. Rojomoke (talk) 10:39, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

"he is infact better than remo"

who is remo? Curb Chain (talk) 09:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Likely Remo Fernandes. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:15, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Superdelegate

How could I become a superdelegate for the Democratic National Convention without being an elected official? Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 11:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Have the sitting Vice President somehow resign, get the President to appoint you (with the consent of the House and Senate), then wait until your term ends. Ta-dah you're now a superdelegate without ever having been elected to any office. User:SamUK 14:46, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It is not necessary to be an elected official, you just need your state party to appoint you to one of the few superdelegate positions. But if you need to ask, you probably don't have the influence and the kind of friends to get it done. Rmhermen (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

how to get spies out of your life

So, this is a purely hypothetical question! I'm just asking out of curiosity. The question is, let's say that these bored and overpaid psychopaths, who really have nothing constructive to do with their time (usually since high school, where they made the mistake of going down IT-related fields instead of the proper study of mankind: the humanities). So, one of them, out of boredom, is in your life for whatever reason with a totally bogus story. Like, they're this hockey star - and they can't even skate.

So, this is just the premise. The question is, how do you get these people OUT of your life, to leave you alone? I don't care about their affiliation or whether they are are just liars or delusional, etc. The question is just: how do you get them out of your life?

This is just a hypothetical question, and there is no information on any motivations, etc. I just think that people who aren't genuine, and bored enough to concoct all sorts of stories and do something for different reasons from what they state, might be someone you want out of your life. So, in this hypothetical situation, how would you achieve it? --Quikcq (talk) 14:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we have an article on that subject. Perhaps someone else knows of an article that deal with this. Personally I'd just google for something like 'getting rid of jerks' or ask a friend. This is not the right sort of place for advice like that and we're not supposed to give personal opinions. Besides which I get the feeling you would think a large proportion of the editors here were creeps if you knew them. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 14:45, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I've always fancied finding myself a nice wilderness location and building a log cabin and living out my life as a hermit ---- _nonsense ferret 15:06, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Um. I do hope you're no good at maths ;-) Dmcq (talk) 16:30, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

well 2 and 2 make 4 or at least that's what THEY want us to think :) ---- _nonsense ferret 14:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

People are "in" your life because you choose to associate with them even despite their lack of skating prowess. If that's not the case, then what you have here is stalking; our article should mention laws against it in different countries, and related counter-measures. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi. You are not really answering my question, it's certainly not about "jerks", and I know a lot of people like Wikipedia editors and don't consider them "spies". My question is different. It's about someone with stupid affiliations who has built up a shallow lie and "professionally" think it's their job to just hang out under their cover and do, whatever, I don't even know what. So, while we might not have an article on it, I am sure we can come up with references for how to get these people to leave a situation. For example: should you confront them? should you allude to the fact that you know all this about them and would appreciate if they just took their cover elsewhere? should you guilt-trip them into being more normal human beings? Etc etc etc. Basically, although the situation is hypothetical, I am sure there is real-world advice on how to get people with stupid covers that don't convince anyone who's paying attention, to stop playing you for a fool. If nothing else, they are incompetent at their supposed cover and are a hindrance for that reason alone. I don't have any ideological objection, I just think these people are a waste of time. How do you get them out of your life? Quikcq (talk) 16:01, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Your question is not specific enough for anyone to answer, and is impossible to answer as a generalized hypothetical. Are you saying that you are a hockey coach, and someone has approached you pretending to be a star hockey player, but you suspect the person doesn't know how to play hockey, and want to determine her qualifications before adding her to your hockey team? If so, I would suggest having her play in a practice match, or asking her to perform some key hockey skills in front of you. If it turns out that she does not in fact know how to play hockey, you will have to decide whether to accept her and train her, or reject her, and you'll have to decide whether the fact that she lied about her skills is important to your choice. If you are asking a different question, it won't be possible for anyone to answer the question until after you have asked it. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 16:13, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

We don't give personal advice, but you might find assertiveness a useful approach. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:20, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't more specific. The point is they already failed it. For example, you have a movie set and the star's hairdresser pretends to be this flamboyant gay kind of dumb guy, who supposedly is illiterate (can only sound words out slowly). but none of that is true, they have advanced degrees and read and write well and quickly, and are either writing tabloid articles about the star, or working for the star's competition (agent), or there to make sure the film doesn't get made so that another studio can buy the rights, etc etc. It doesn't really matter what they're there actually to do - and I won't speculate. The hypothetical is that they completely bomb their 'cover story'. (Again, for example they put on this act about being illiterate, but you catch them leafing through an issue of the journal Daedalus and penning some intelligent questions to a contributing professor.) That's kind of a silly example, granted, but the point is that you want them to just go away. You don't need someone who pretends to be this illiterate pushover who is really very sophisticated and has whatever hidden motives. The question is, if we assume that the above is true, then what is the ACTUAL way to achieve your objective of getting this guy to fucking beat it. Quikcq (talk) 16:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

What the assertiveness approach implies is that you start by making it clear what you need to happen. Next time the person contacts you, say "Please do not contact me again". That might be sufficient. If someone keeps contacting you when you have made it very clear that you don't want that contact, that's stalking and you might need to go to the police. But, honestly, there are so many variables in real life that there's not much else we can say. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Judith, you've misunderstood me. The person doesn't "contact" me or bother me or stalk me. Also this is a hypothetical. Hypothetically, the person is just a coworker, or a consultant, or a delivery guy, or a hairdresser, or an assistant, or whatever, completely "normal". They're not bothering me, and if they were what they were claiming I would have no problem. The hypothetical is that they are *not* what they're claiming, are incompetent at their covers, and generally lower the status of the world by not contributing anything but intelligence work (or god only knows what) to it. I mean, imagine there's a hairdresser, but he never actually does hairdressing, he just hangs around on set pretending to be illiterate. Meanwhile he's reading and writing complex articles on the sly, and are just totally putting on a deep cover for God only knows what reason. The point is, I want them to stop, just stop. Go away and do that somewhere else. How, specifically, should I do this? Quikcq (talk) 17:07, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the top of the page note that it says "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate." Please respect that and go somewhere else more suitable. I pointed out a google query you could use or you can ask your friends. Dmcq (talk) 17:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Respectfully, there must be references for this. I'm asking for some. Here is an example of a query that does not work:

http://www.google.com/search?q=espionage+tradecraft+getting+an+agent+to+take+their+cover+story+elsewhere

So, I'm not really good enough with Google. I would like references to actual literature and what does work. A Google query that you suggest that has results that are relevant would also work. I appreciate any information the reference desk might be able to reference. Quikcq (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Speaking purely personally, I have little clue what you are talking about. A hairdresser claiming to be illiterate and writing articles???? There can be no simple answer because each case would be different. If someone claims to be something they are not, you can just ignore it, or you can embarrass them by exposing their lies to others. If they are harrassing you with their "spying", or are telling tales on you in some way you can either make that plain to others or contact relevant authorities if there is slander, libel or stalking. Paul B (talk) 20:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Right. I was super-specific: my whole question is about professional spies, i.e. from the world of espionage. None of us here would have any direct experience, hence the request for references. Quikcq (talk) 21:09, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you should write to Dear Abby, or maybe to the advice columnist in Reader's Digest, as they deal with this kind of question from time to time. Namely, the question, "This guy's bugging me. How do I get him to stop?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Bugs, like others here you do not notice that 'the guy' does not exist, as the question is hypothetical, and even in the hypothetical question he isn't bothering me! It's just a question about espionage agents. It's only hypothetical - I have no experience with this. Quikcq (talk) 21:54, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

So your question is: I suspect someone is a spy, what should I do? Is that right? If so, the most obvious course is to ignore it, because you could so easily be mistaken. Other options are to confront the spy or to report them to the authorities. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:02, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Not really, in two respects. It's not a suspicion, it's really quite obvious, and secondly I know what I would like - I want them to beat it. I don't want them to think there is any other way to resolve the situation - just leave (us) normal people alone. Quikcq (talk) 23:00, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

When spies in someone's life aren't hypothetical, situations like this are possible. "It wasn't just that someone lied to me, it was that there was a whole team of secret people digging away at my life - and personally for me it is very important to know how deeply they were intruding into my private space," she says. "These shadowy figures were presumably making decisions about my dinner dates and whether or not I was going to spend the night with my boyfriend, reading emails, listening to phone calls - deeply personal stuff." This seems somewhat dissimilar to the hypothetical scenario presented in the OP's question, though, because the "cover story" was sufficiently well presented that the spy was able to maintain his cover for seven years. Anyway, in this case legal action was subsequently taken by some of the people involved; and the problem of the spy was dealt with by the spy himself offering to give evidence in court in favour of the people that he was previously paid to spy on.[6] Hope this helps. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 09:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In the situation that you described, where the "hairdresser" might be a spy, a journalist or on a mission to damage the company, I suppose any larger company has someone in charge of security. If they are made aware of the situation they might be able to have the person fired. Sjö (talk) 14:37, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Would this solution also have to consider that the "spy" might get upset and irrational toward the person who doesn't want them around? Because that seems to be an underlying aspect of your issue: that you are worried that the person will react unfavorably to your wishes.165.212.189.187 (talk) 20:44, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

"his false identity did not stand up to scrutiny" seems closer to how the OP describes their experience of the alleged spy. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Number of planes on 9/11

Reference note 1 in Betty Ong says that National Public Radio said on September 10, 2004:

"Betty Ong, a Chinese-American flight attendant for American Airlines, may have saved untold numbers of lives by telling emergency personnel on the ground what was happening aboard flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001. Her call led to air traffic controllers landing every plane flying over U.S. airspace. ..."

This was said three years after 9/11/01, so enough time had passed for a lot of information to have been collected in retrospect. My question is: How is it that she may have saved untold numbers of lives? Three of the planes crashed into their targets. The other one was crashed when passengers revolted because they heard about the other hijacked planes being crashed into their targets.

So: is this NPR report implying that there may have been other planes that had hijackers on board but which landed before the hijackers could act? Do we know anything about this? Duoduoduo (talk) 14:56, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Just the four planes were hijacked on 9/11. My guess is that the NPR reporter is sensationalizing the story a bit, or perhaps just used poor wording. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:35, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I know just four were hijacked. I asked if any incipient hijackings were thwarted by the plane landing before they acted, and whether we know anything about this. Duoduoduo (talk) 20:08, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

(ec) They may have been implying that, but we don't have any indication that was true. Also, the passengers who revolted did so because they knew the plan was to crash the plane in any event, and Betty's info may have contributed to their knowledge, if any of them were in contact with authorities by cell phone, who had in turn gotten their info from Betty. Thus, the people at the target of that plane (the White House ?) may have been saved. StuRat (talk) 16:39, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

No, Betty's info didn't contribute to their knowledge. The passengers knew from talking with their loved ones that some planes had already been crashed into buildings. Just knowing that other planes had been hijacked wouldn't have given them any info they didn't already know, since they knew they had been hijacked. Duoduoduo (talk) 20:08, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I want to know why the fact that she's a Chinese-American is at all relevant to anything. Had she been Bertha Smith of pure anglo stock, would she have been described as anything other than "a flight attendant"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:45, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

How is it relevant that it's American Airlines, rather than Alaska Airlines? Or for that matter, that it happened on Flight 11, rather than Flight 10? The job of a news network is to disseminate information. As long as that information is true, you have no valid complaints against it, regardless of whether you personally find the information interesting. --140.180.247.198 (talk) 19:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

According to the section "Legacy" in the article about her, it's the Chinese-American community in San Francisco that focused on the fact that she was Chinese-American. Others may have picked up on that because her last name is sufficiently uncommon in America that people might wonder if she was an American or not. Duoduoduo (talk) 20:09, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Her last name is not a common Chinese one, either. I'm a native Chinese speaker, and I certainly wouldn't have guessed she was Chinese from her name. --140.180.247.198 (talk) 00:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm part Chinese although don't speak Chinese but grew up in Malaysia and I would have guessed she might be Chinese from her surname. I knew a few people with that surname and it is a common enough surname in Malaysia I doubt many people there wouldn't recognise it. Are you sure this is not the same among the Chinese American community in San Francisco?

Edit: See also Ong (surname) which say it is the fifth most common surname in Singapore among the Chinese. It also give some statistics for the US, these may seem fairly obscure given the numbers but remember these include the large number of non Chinese surnames. The article confirms two things I expected but didn't mention since I wasn't sure enough to mention, number 1 is that it is a Hokkien romanisation so is more likely to be recognised by those coming from communities where Hokkien is more common. And this also implies if by native speaker you mean you grew up in China and only came to the US recently you may be even less familiar as I expect your experience with such romanisations is limited. Number two when combined with Ong, it only seems to be most common among Chinese with a little bit among the Laotian community, so if you recognise it as anything you're likely to recognise it as Chinese or at least East/SE Asian. There is only one person whose surname did not come from that direction listed. (Although Ong's Hat, New Jersey suggests it was common in one subcommunity Pine Barrens (New Jersey) settlers.)

Edit 2: An interesting point, if you search for 'walter j ong surname origin' or something similar you'll find someone saying his surname was not Asian [7] and the person saying this doesn't seem to come from South East Asia, although it was after September 11 which may have had an influence. (For those interested, there's more on the origins of his surname here [8].) One thing that remains unclear to me is how common Hokkien is in the US and in particular San Francisco. Hokkien dialect suggests there is usage in the US, but doesn't mention where, Hoklo people doesn't mention the US at all. Chinatown, San Francisco confirms Cantonese predominates there but doesn't mention anything about Hokkien which may suggest it has no influence but not necessarily. Of course dialects aside, it also depends on how common people who took on such romanisations are. I originally mentioned Taiwanese as well as China but decided to remove it because of course Hokkien is common in Taiwan. However there are very few Taiwanese listed in the page, and my impression is the romanisation is not so common among Taiwanese anymore due to government policy (e.g. suppression of Pe̍h-ōe-jī) and other reasons like the fact many won't have a preferred romanisation unlike in say Singapore, Malaysia and probably the Philippines. I grew up in KL which is an area Cantonese predominates, but of course given the percentage of Hoklo people in Malaysia there's still enough influence that it's something you're very likely to encounter in personal life (i.e. not just the media).

Nil Einne (talk) 04:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

To answer the OP's question, if there had been any other planes which were discovered to have been about to be hijacked before they were all downed, I believe this would have been major news, too, and we would have already known about it by now. The official report is that there were four planes, with a total of 19 (+1) hijackers (including one or more who managed to get on the plane without passports, apparently, because they were left in a car in the car park of the airport (and later turned up alive in the Middle East), and one whose passport was discovered in the rubble of the WTC, despite the high temperatures which vaporised everything else burnable on the plane and brought the buildings down). If more potential hijackings that day had been discovered, it would have made world news. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Very true, it would have been major news. I've read the early chapters of the 9/11 Commission Report, which detail the events of 9/11 and the aftermath, and I can't recall the slightest mention either of another plane, nor of Betty Ong saving lives. I'm also not sure what her call had to do with the landing of planes. The nationwide groundstop did not occur until 9:25, and the order to land all planes at the nearest airport came at 9:42, after all but the last plane (United 93) had crashed. IBE (talk) 17:02, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

blue eye preference

I'm so keen on blue eyes that I refuse to consider brown-eyed men as potential partners because I don't want to have brown-eyed children. Is this unusual/insane? 92.13.78.125 (talk) 16:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Blue eyes is a recessive characteristic, unless you also have blue eyes there is no guarantee any children will have blue eyes. Yes it is unusual and insane but then again anything to do with sex is insane so I wouldn't be too worried about it. Dmcq (talk) 17:05, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I have blue eyes, and I understand the pattern of inheritance. 92.13.78.125 (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It is apparently common for heterosexual males with blue eyes to seek blue-eyed women. See this article and these search results. It is not entirely comparable, though, unless it is possible for you not to be certain that your child is your biological child. Surtsicna (talk) 17:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Seems to me more of a wind-up than a genuine request for information - the reference desk is here principally for research questions rather than lifestyle opinions ---- _nonsense ferret 18:33, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

There is such a thing as sexual selection and its potent enough to cause animals to develop non-adaptive traits such as bright colors and cumbersome appendages. μηδείς (talk) 18:40, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

It isn't a wind-up. I'm wondering if it's common enough that I could tell brown-eyed men the truth about why I'm not interested in them, or if it would be considered truly offensive. Do most people not care about eye colour? 92.13.78.125 (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

So if Ashton Kutcher, George Clooney, Will Smith, Orlando Bloom, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Denzel Washington or David Beckham were to try to hit on you, you'd just brush them off? Yes, I'm sure many people would consider you certifiable. And yes, it would reflect badly on you if you told them why. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:12, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. But if I want my children to have a certain characteristic (that's blue eyes) in the same way that others might want their children to be tall, athletic, or smart, then all those men you've listed, though otherwise "fit", aren't biologically compatible with me. How is that necessarily more contemptible than "you're too short" or "you're too dumb" or "you haven't achieved enough in life"? 92.13.78.125 (talk) 19:28, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if most people do or don't care very much about it. I don't think there is anything bad about preferring blue to brown eyes. Brown is generally considered a rather dull colour, and, yes, blue is brighter and more exciting. But if you are really going to choose or reject people on such grounds, bear in mind you could be your losing your soul mate over something superficial. Surely your own happiness with the right person should come first. Paul B (talk) 19:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Well as our article mentions there are some medical implications of having lighter colour eyes including blue (however also possibly some for dark brown eyes). Historically there was also claims of a difference in reaction times, but this doesn't seem to be well supported [9] [10]. However I do agree with you it's the OP choice. Some people will be offended, but so will people with the other things, which if anything are likely to be more offensive. I don't know if I entirely agree that you shouldn't mention them either. If anything I suspect many would prefer it particularly for something like this. In fact it's probably better to mention them if they're less common and genetic, as the most likely conclusion would be 'it's not something I should worry about' compared to a common preference or just letting the person involved thinking perhaps they did something wrong. They may think lesser of the OP but if the OP wants to have such preferences they should be willing to accept people may think less then them because of those preferences. Nil Einne (talk) 06:53, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

It's just as demeaning to explicitly state those other objections. Think them if you want, but don't offend people by telling them. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:57, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The word "love" hasn't raised its ugly head yet. Isn't that mainly why people marry each other? And isn't love about our feelings for the other for who they are, despite their obvious flaws and failings and inadequacies and unticked boxes? Sure it's good to dream about the perfect mate and the perfect children, but if you and he make your selection of each other based solely on your pre-determined criteria but still regard it as a love match, then yes, that would be insane. Not that I'm qualified to diagnose mental illness, but it sounds pretty loopy to me. All I know is that if you were my friend and we were having coffee and you told me about this fantastic guy you've met and wanted to marry, and I asked you about him, and you told me your main reason was that he has blue eyes, I'd tell you to get over it. Sure, have some "fun" with him, but as for a lifetime commitment (for that is what marriage is) based solely on the fact that he has blue eyes ... well, think twice (plus). -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:54, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

You've made it rather backwards, in that you imply every blue-eyed male is a potential mate solely on their eye colour. I'm not THAT bad. Of course all of the necessary ingredients for love would be in place before I consider them as a mate. All I'm saying is that I filter potential mates through the same lens as almost every other female, but I add "blue eyes" as a prerequisite. I'm not sure how this is necessarily less demeaning than not giving a chance to someone smaller than me (which is a very typical female requirement). Of course if I actually did fall in love with someone with brown eyes it probably wouldn't matter. But for as long as I'm in the artificial world of dating, it counts for something. 92.13.78.125 (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Airports

everyone knows that it is illegal to take weapons, knives and other potentially dangerous sharp objects in an airport. but it is only illegal, after reached through the scanner and on the plane, or it must be good to have this kind of thing with the airport, or outside the airport if you not go on the plane? --80.161.143.239 (talk) 19:57, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Which country? I have taken two knives (on two separate occasions) so long as I explained why they were in my luggage. One (in Greece) was in my pocket at the time (I'd forgotten about it), and they insisted that I put it in my cargo baggage. The other (in Germany) was a very small Swiss-Army knife like thing, which I had in my backpack. I explained it was a bottle-opener. Meanwhile, the Korean lady on the next desk had her implement confiscated, which was a sort of fishing-rod, with lots of attachments, but she couldn't explain what it was, so she had to leave it. Different airports in different countries have different rules, and many depend on the staff's mood at the time. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:25, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

USA. --80.161.143.239 (talk) 20:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

If you're legally allowed to carry it out in public, you can legally carry it to an airport. It's only once you get to the security checkpoint that you will have trouble. For example, I normally have a Swiss Army knife with me. When I go to pick someone up at the airport, I can bring it in with no problem. If I try to get on a plane with it, it has to be in my checked baggage or they'll tell me to throw it away when I go through security. This actually happened with a folding fork, spoon, knife thing that I kept in my bag but had forgotten to take out when going to the airport. Dismas|^(talk) 21:23, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey, did you hear about the attempted hijacking in Warsaw? The guy couldn't bring a knife aboard, so he threatened the stewardess with a spoon. As you might imagine, the incident did not end well for the would-be hijacker. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Consensus of the effects and impacts of the Affordable Care Act after full implementation

I still haven't formed an opinion on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) yet and won't do so until after its full implementation because I haven't read the bill, Republicans have been saying one thing about it and Democrats another thing, Republicans would say look this what it says in the bill and Democrats would say no this is what it actually says in the bill and vise versa, and the Affordable Care Act hasn’t been fully implemented yet. So for me, this is like a “let’s wait and see” game. So, I got 2 questions about this “let’s wait and see” game.

After the Affordable Care Act becomes fully implemented on January 1, 2014, how many days, weeks, or months would it take before there is enough consensus on both sides of the aisle about whether Republicans or Democrats have been right all along about its effects and impacts on things like the economy, healthcare costs, Medicare and Medicate, etc?

Let’s say that a general consensus arises that the Affordable Care Act is unsuccessful, which would make the Republicans look vindicated since they are the ones who have been opposed to it. Would the Affordable Care Act be repealed as easily as any other law if enough support arises for that to happen or would it be a law that would be very difficult if not impossible to repeal based on whatever the nature and structure of the law is even if enough support arises in Washington for repeal? Willminator (talk) 21:21, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

There are two problems with answering your query. The first is that you don't actually specify the "effects" you're interested in. As with any complex piece of legislation, there are nearly unlimited possible effects. For example, the ACA could have long-term impacts on the size of the federal budget, the cost of health insurance, the quality of healthcare, the treatment of rare illnesses, overall infant mortality, and the average taxpayers changed share of the tax burden, just to list a few out of many. Each of those effects will have hugely different time horizons before one can determine what the legislation will do. The second is that what one defines as "success" or "failure" is very much in the eye of the beholder in most cases. Would lowering healthcare costs, but a decrease in healthcare quality, be considered a success or a failure? What if costs lowered by 20% and quality only decreased by 5%? What about 100% and 10%? And so on. There aren't objective goal posts here. Even if costs went down by a huge amount and quality of care went up, there will be some who (for whatever reasons) will be happy to find fault in it. (I'm not just blaming Republicans here, mind you. Everyone's a critic, these days, and there is always a lot to critique.)

This isn't to say that people on the whole can't judge something to be a success or a failure. It's that the question of whether people judge something a success or a failure is a complicated social metric, not something that can be pinned to a date and a time after the effect, because it isn't actually something that directly corresponds with any kind of obvious objective metric. Sometimes the notion that a policy is a failure happens all at once — e.g. the way the Tet Offensive was interpreted as meaning that the Vietnam War was destined to fail — and sometimes it is a gradual thing. Sometimes it is keyed to some obvious number, sometimes it is not. To make the analogy clear, we are still debating, decades later, whether the New Deal was a success or a failure. Even measuring its effects on the Great Depression is a non-trivial question, and then putting a value judgment on that measurement always verges into subjective assessment. And the debates that the policy wonks and economists have over it probably have almost nothing to do with what the general public thinks about it, which is what matters for the polls and ballot boxes.

So — it's a good question. It's just that there isn't any sort of obvious answer, at least not ahead of time. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm quite sure that Democrats will find it to be a success and Republicans will find it to be a failure, because they will put emphasis on different criteria, just as they did during the pre-passage debate. Democrats will still like it because it makes insurance accessible to people who could not previously get it. Republicans will still hate it because they will still see it as governmental intrusion. Look at Medicare (US government-provided health insurance for old people) -- it's been around for close to 50 years and Democrats still love it and a lot of Republicans want to privatize it. It will be the same with the ACA assuming it is still around in 50 years. Duoduoduo (talk) 15:11, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Who is the FTSE 100 holdout against the Big 4 Auditors?

Is is a fact occasionally reported by the British press that 99 of the 100 companies making up the FTSE 100 are audited by just 4 companies (PWC, Deloitte, E&Y, KPMG). The way this has been reported leads me to believe that it is the same one company which is the exception, so I started wondering: Who is it? I'd also be interested in why they've chosen to use someone else, though I recognise that may be less easily available information. Many thanks! 81.159.112.136 (talk) 21:25, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, found it after some better Googling. It is Randgold Resources, a South African mining company. They are audited by BDO, and have been for some time - they just only entered the FTSE 100 recently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.112.136 (talk) 21:29, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing the answer when you found it - that's a great bit of trivia! --Tango (talk) 01:51, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

February 4

Holocaust

Hi I have a few questions regarding the Holocaust and want to thank you in advance for offering your perspectives.

• Immediately after the outbreak of the war, wouldn't the Jewish people of Poland have had an idea that they were now in an extremely precarious position? I mean, surely they must have read newspapers about how the Jewish people in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland were being persecuted both via the law and through physical violence. I suppose what I don't understand is why more Jews didn't make prior arrangements to try to conceal themselves, i.e. by changing their names, removing mezuzahs from their doors or by just going on the run or altering their appearance so that they appeared less obviously Jewish. It seems that the vast majority of Jewish Poles didn't really do much to avoid falling into the trap.

• Have any economists ever tried to calculate the total value of all of the assets expropriated from the Jews; for example, property, artwork, furniture, silver, clothes etc. Also, when the Germans paid restitution to the state of Israel, was it a fixed price for each victim.

Thanks very much for for taking the time to answer my questions. The first question is of particular interest to me because to me it just beggars belief. --Andrew 00:11, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

There was nowhere they could go. Soviet Russia was occupying Eastern Poland by Sept. 17th, 1939. Czechoslovakia to the south was already in German hands. A mass exodus would have been impossible. Plus, the local Poles knew who they were. Poland was also deeply anti-semitic before and after the war. See History of the Jews in Poland and [[11]]. Going on the run would not be an option, as most had families with young children to look after. What is 'obviously Jewish' in terms of appearance? Many were blonde and blue-eyed Ashkenazis. Sure, they could change their clothes, but the local people knew them intimately. Moving to a new part of Poland where people did not know you would have been very difficult, as accommodation and work would have been difficult to find in the middle of an invasion. And changing your names would probably have been treated with suspicion by the local authorities in the middle of a war. People had ID papers. To change the name, they would have to go to the authorities to apply for a change of name in order to get new ID papers. Simply doing that would reveal you to the authorities as being Jewish, so that would be pointless. There was not much they could do, except hope the war would end soon, with their families intact. The only Jews who could get out, were ones who left before the war, except for a few with connections. As for the second question, I cannot find any information on that. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Poland treated the Jews harsher than the Nazis especially with rare pogroms. The Nazis didn't start the Final Solution until 1942 although there were many pogroms before then.
Sleigh (talk) 01:29, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Many of them lived in separate towns (shtetls), had little cash, spoke a different language, went to a different religious building to worship (and register life events), socialized with a different group. None of which is conducive to escape or hiding, even if they knew enough about what was happening elsewhere and predicted correctly that their land would be the next target. Rmhermen (talk) 02:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Just to add a little bit that's maybe already obvious, but many Jews did escape occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. But getting travel documents was difficult. The full extent of the Nazi's plans with occupation was perhaps unknown to the wider public. I think it's a really good OP question. My hunch is that most people didn't recognize the full extent to which the Nazi's were willing to go, and that the burden of leaving one's home, both legally and practically, was a large impediment. Shadowjams (talk) 04:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Very true. I visited Dachau in 2011, and we were shown a film about what was going on there during the war. After it was liberated, the local townspeople were invited in to see what had been going on there. There were women crying and fainting at the sight of piles of unburied bodies who had been beaten to death for various 'reasons', most notably in the showers. They hadn't known what was going on. Some certainly did know something - after all, they could see the passing transport trains carrying Jewish prisoners trying to get to the little tiny windows in these cattle trucks to get some air as they were so overpacked, but not the actual extent of it all. As I said above, some Jews did manage to escape being sent to the camps, by either having connections, or the money to bribe an official who would turn a blind eye. The journey out, however, was hazardous. Do you try your luck by staying and facing something you do not know much about, or do you take your family on a hazardous journey? That was the decision facing them. Of course, there were people like Oskar Schindler, Rudolf Kastner, and Chiune Sugihara, who helped to get thousands of Jews into safety. But that was never always guaranteed. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:07, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In regards to this, I also want to add that some Jews escaped death during World War II by having certain abilities and/or talents which intrigued the concentration camp officials. I think that Jan Fischer's father (knew statistics), Simon Wiesenthal, and Alice Herz-Sommer (knew how to play music) would be examples of what I'm talking about. Also, in regards to Rudolf Kastner, his role is controversial due to him (and others) refusing to release the Vrba-Wetzler report sooner, which could have allowed many Jews to know what was coming to them and thus to escape in time. Futurist110 (talk) 07:23, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In regards to the first question, as KageTora said, it was very difficult for Jews in Western Poland to move somewhere else. As for the Jews in Eastern Poland, I heard that reliable info was hard to access in the Soviet Union, and in addition a lot of the Jews there thought that Nazi anti-Semitism was exaggerated and/or that the worst Nazi human rights abuses and anti-Semitism would soon be over. A lot of Jews in Eastern Poland (including many of my family members) thought and said that "we saw the Germans during WWI. They didn't do anything bad to us back then. Thus, we shouldn't panic too much about the Germans right now" or something along those lines. Also, as KageTora said, a lot of the Jews in Eastern Poland lived in small towns and/or in rural areas, and many of them had no family or relatives in the interior of the USSR who could help them move. Futurist110 (talk) 07:17, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Whether Stalin and the Soviet Union were actively anti-Semitic in the pre-war years is still being debated, however, the fact that "some 29 thousand Jews, or 1% of the total ethnic Jewish Soviet population, were arrested in 1937-1938" would not have made it seem a safe haven for Polish Jews, even before the Soviets invaded their country. See Stalin and antisemitism. Alansplodge (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Keep in mind that if a Jew realizes the severity of Nazi anti-Semitism, even the USSR (with all of its problems) would seem to be a better choice for him/her than Nazi Germany. My great-grandparents and three great-uncles of mine in Eastern Poland fortunately figured out what was going to happen to them if they remained where they were and thus fled to the interior of the USSR in 1941. Futurist110 (talk) 22:53, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I've heard much in my family about relatives and family friends who lived in Eastern Galicia (then Eastern Poland, now Western Ukraine) that were faced with the same choice, and all reported that there was great confusion then (in the short "window" when it was possible to choose) about whether the Nazis or the Soviets were the lesser of the two evils. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) (formerly R——bo) 23:44, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Jews could get out of Poland after the conquest if they had enough friends in high places. Noted Lubavich rabbi/Rebbe Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn got assistance from both the US State Department and Admiral Canaris, head of the German Abwehr, and travelled from Warsaw to Berlin to the US after the conquest of Poland. Per the article, "He (Schneersohn) gave the full support of his organizations to assist as many Jews as possible to flee the invading armies" while still in Poland, but it does not say how far they managed to flee. Edison (talk) 16:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Technology arms race in low-latency trading

I've read about expensive/drastic measures companies take to reduce the communication delay between their trading computers and the stock exchange's. I wonder what would happen if stock exchange rules are changed so that very low communication latency is no longer an advantage. Imagine that the transaction processing rules are changed by law so that any trading computer with a communication latency below say 100ms to the stock exchange is not significantly advantaged compared with any other trading computer whose communication latency is also below 100ms. Would that be effective in stopping the technology arms race? Would that create other problems, besides unhappy traders who previously had an advantage from low latency? Would that drive companies to stock exchanges in other jurisdictions where they can continue to play the low-latency game? --173.49.17.199 (talk) 04:42, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

There's a specific building where the fiber optic trunks come in around 40something's street... and all you say above is true. But what rule/system would the exchanges put in place that would fix it? Shadowjams (talk) 05:07, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Something like scheme that Lgriot outlined below (batching of orders and randomizing priorities within each batch, but probably using batching intervals shorter than 5 min.) The idea is, as Lgriot pointed out, not to execute orders to in a strict first-come-first-served basis. --173.49.17.199 (talk) 12:50, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Btw, 100 ms... laugh... you should be thinking more like 10 ms. Most fps work at < 30 ms. Shadowjams (talk) 05:09, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

100ms is just an example figure. The idea is to make the latency "requirement" very easy to meet, for all players, particularly those who can't afford to do what the big players do and those located on other continents. --173.49.17.199 (talk) 12:50, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually it's now down to microseconds, not milliseconds. This is achieved by ("co-")locating the trading computers in the same physical building as the "stock exchange". (It also means the trading engines have to avoid use of virtual memory.) Considerable efforts are made to ensure that no individual trader has an unfair advantage (e.g. some exchanges talk about individual cable lengths within the building all being the same length for different co-located traders, as even a slightly longer piece of optic fiber theoretically might put someone at a disadvantage of some microseconds). Putting in a 100ms delay wouldn't achieve much, since that would still be too fast for any human decisions to come into play. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

All correct, Demiurge, I also have seen this (in my own professional environment). There are groups now in the US that are trying to shave off 50 nano second "reaction time" in their trading systems. To kill the arms race, you would have to stop giving execution priority to the first-arrived-order, so, maybe an auction every 5 minutes, where each order has a random priority? However, this is like F1 car racing, which helps to fund research in car reliability, security, and efficiency, the fact that there is a demand somewhere means that there is research and development in that area, and we may all benefit with faster network technology in the not-so-farway future. --Lgriot (talk) 10:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can see, there is not much regulatory enthusiasm for bringing an end to the latency arms race. There is considerable regulatory enthusiasm, by contrast, for making problems like these less likely; large numbers of trades being executed at the wrong prices, exchanges being unexpectedly unavailable, or a company losing half a billion dollars in one hour due to that company running a rogue algorithm. (The Flash Crash attracted a great deal of attention too.)

I can imagine that deliberately running transactions in a random order, rather than based on the time of their arrival, would probably meet a lot of resistance, too. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 13:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

See also High Frequency Trading: Time is Money, about microwave being used instead of optical fiber in some places, due to being (the piece says) milliseconds faster. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:29, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

What would happen if stock price information is released only after an artificial delay?

What would happen if stock price information is withheld from everybody, including parties to transactions, until a predetermined amount of time has elapsed? How would that affect algorithmic trading, particularly high-frequency trading? What can we expect to happen if the delay is, say, 2 seconds? One minute? Five minutes? Would it make a significant difference if price information is updated only at predetermined points in time, say every N seconds, as opposed to continuously being released after an N-second delay? --173.49.17.199 (talk) 05:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

At the moment it wouldn't work, because you choose the price that you set on your order based on the price that is available at the exchange. You wouldn't blindely send a buy order for IBM at $195 if the current price is $203, right? That would be stupid, no one would take your order, so you would never end up owning any shares. And then when the price is released, minutes later, you know it is 203, so you send another order at $203, but by the time you have sent it, the price has gone up to 205, so you still end up not getting any shares at all. Trading blind (I mean without knowing what is the best price on the market) is bound to end up in very very frustrated investors. Can you clarify what you are thinking about? --Lgriot (talk) 11:12, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't really do much trading, but as far as I understand it, you order "best price" and put a limit on it. So if a share is trading at US$203, you order 10 of it for whatever price you can get, but not above (say) US$ 210. The broker then used to go to the trading floor and call for 10 shares - if he gets an offer below US$210, he would buy them, if not, you end up empty. Nowadays it's all computers, but the principle is the same. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Only non-advanced traders would trade at best price (or specific strategies). Others, who try to achieve a really good price for themselves, would set a limit on their order. This also means they do not allow anyone to know what they would really be ready to pay (this is a poke game, you can't give away your ultimate price). Best price trading is like saying you don't really care how well you are doing, + you always pay the spread --Lgriot (talk) 09:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Art/Chinese Brush Painting

How is alum used in mixing watercolor paint and preparing paper or silk for painting on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.133.19 (talk) 14:47, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

You may find this source very helpful. 140.254.226.238 (talk) 15:46, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Mizrahi and Sephardi Jew denser city

Tiberias is the only city that has dense Mizrahi and Sephardi Jew population. Is there any other cities in Israel that has dense population of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.228.33 (talk) 19:05, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Where did you get your statistics from? Futurist110 (talk) 08:41, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Note - as has been mentioned on this Ref Desk in the recent past - that the noun "Jew" used as an [attributive] adjective is offensive; the correct word in English to modify population is Jewish. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics website in English offers a "Social Survey Table Generator" that creates reports by sorting two topics and two variables you select from menus. Among the demographic categories are "country of origin" and "year of immigration." Note that this is fairly useless to distinguish Sephardic Jews as their origins go back 500 years to the expulsion from Spain to countries where their descendants may not have remained for five centuries. It's likely that among Jews emigrating from Balkan countries to Israel are a higher proportion of Sepharadim than Ashkenazim or Mizrachim; speakers of Ladino would be the best indicator ("language" is a sort option). However, none of this will help when looking at third-generation native-born Israelis (of whom there are many), as "country of origin" only goes back one generation. "Ethnicity" is not a sort variable; did you think it would be? However, if you find other valid sources of comprehensive data about the demographics of Israel, it would enrich Wikipedia if you would add this to a suitable mainspace page. -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:12, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the OP is referring to the article Tiberias, in the section Modern Israel, it mentions that the Jewish who came to the city where mostly from Arab world. --Donmust90 (talk) 15:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

Lenten season

Can an unbaptized individual observe Lent? 140.254.121.34 (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

They can on their own, certainly. Do you mean to ask if the Catholic Church or some other organization includes them in Lenten activities ? StuRat (talk) 21:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes. 140.254.121.34 (talk) 21:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Anybody can observe anything they wish. No one is going to stop you from following any specific set of actions relating to a religious observance like Lent. For example, if observing the various "Lenten fasts" interests you, feel free. It isn't like there's a Catholic Police Force that's going to storm your house and force you to eat meat on Friday. --Jayron32 21:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Beware if the Pontifical Swiss Guard buys black helicopters. StuRat (talk) 21:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

rumour has it, the Pope himself has a helicopter pilot's licence ;) ---- _nonsense ferret 22:13, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

So, does the Catholic Church or some other organization includes such people in Lenten activities? 140.254.121.34 (talk) 22:03, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

which activities? anyone is allowed to fast, observe sacrifices, attend church, and pray just as much as they want. What is not permitted of a non-bapitised person would be to receive the sacraments of the eucharist or reconciliation which are generally part of the Lenten activities for members of the Catholic Church ---- _nonsense ferret 22:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

What we have is in article Catechumen... AnonMoos (talk) 22:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In many areas there are charity fund-raising events of the "eat soup for lunch and donate money" type, that anyone is welcome to participate in. Searching Catholic websites should show some of them. Anglicans/Episcopalians, Methodists, and I'm sure many others organise them. Or just give up smoking or chocolate, tidy the house, keep your temper... It's a good season to question what you really do and don't need in your life. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:32, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

If the question is about taking part in an Ash Wednesday service, marking the first day of Lent, then an unBaptised person is indeed free to receive the ash cross on their forehead during such a service in a Catholic church. Such a person should take care not to go up for Communion later in the service, since that would be viewed as spiritually dangerous (and disrespectful) from a Catholic point of view. But anyone is free to be ashed. 86.163.209.18 (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Some of us feel free to be half-ashed. Deor (talk) 23:59, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I am not Catholic, but in the churches I've been in, you couldn't take communion unless you were a member of that specific congregation. So this restriction is not just a Catholic thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

We Anglicans are a little more laid back (at least in England) and are happy for anyone who takes Holy Communion at their own church to join in. A visiting Italian student had been with us several months before he realised that we weren't Roman Catholics. But if you hadn't been Baptized it wouldn't be appropriate. Alansplodge (talk) 01:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Bugs, that sounds downright un-Catholic. A Roman Catholic has a right to take Communion in any Roman Catholic church in the world. They don't ask for a membership card at the door. Nricardo (talk) 02:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard of any Catholic church being as exclusionary as Baseball Bugs describes. There are no questions asked. If you front up for Communion, you get it, and if it's the case that you shouldn't have been there, that's a matter between you and your god. The only case I've ever heard of anyone being refused Communion is the Rainbow Sash Movement. I'm sure there's canon law about refusal of communion, but it seems to be very rarely invoked. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

There was the somewhat notable example where the late Cardinal Basil Hume was reported to have written to the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, then an anglican (reportedly), to ask him not to present himself for communion in any Catholic Church in the United Kingdom as had become his habit when attending mass with his family. I understand he later converted ---- _nonsense ferret 04:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC) See for example ---- _nonsense ferret 04:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

By congregation does Bugs mean denomination or local parish church? No Catholic priest is going to ask you to drop your pants and present your tattoo. But bishops do write letters admonishing priests not to administer the sacraments to notorious apostates like remarried divorcees and politicians who advocate abortion. μηδείς (talk) 04:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Huh? The way you put it, you make it sound like the Catholic church is engaged in politics and private affairs. Sneazy (talk) 05:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

See closed Communion, which should obviate the need for further discussion of Communion in this thread. 86.163.209.18 (talk) 07:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

May I add an external link (as I had already gone to the trouble of looking it up); "Members of churches with whom we are not yet fully united are therefore not ordinarily invited to participate in Holy Communion." United States Conference of Catholic Bishops - Committee on Divine Worship. Alansplodge (talk) 13:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Well-stated. There are no communion police. It's just on the honor system. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

In addition to the article closed communion, we also have open communion, which says "Most Protestant Christian churches practice open communion.", and which also says "Closed communion may refer to either a particular denomination or an individual congregation serving Communion only to its own members." Duoduoduo (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Is the metal in a U.S. penny worth more than $0.01?

Isn't metal pretty valuable? But then again if the metal in a penny were worth, say, 2 or 3 cents, everyone would be taking huge quantities of pennies to the scrap metal company to double or triple their money.. so it must not be the case, right?--67.85.176.244 (talk) 22:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

There have been several times in the past when the metal in U.S. coins was worth more than their face value. Not sure if it's true of the penny right now, but it's illegal in the U.S. to melt down current U.S. coins. It's certainly true that the government's expenses in salaries and materials to mint and distribute pennies is more than 1¢ (and has been more than 1¢ for a number of years). AnonMoos (talk) 22:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

This site will be of interest to you. It is true that it is illegal to do so. The Mint is presently exploring alternative materials, but the last report just asked for more time to look at the issue.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

AnonMoos, your second sentence is not true. Please cite references here on the Reference Desk; it reduces errors in answers like yours. It's only illegal, as of 2006, to melt down pennies and nickels, not "current U.S. coins". During the silver boom of the late 1970s (here's a story about the Hunt Brothers trying to corner the silver market) it was common to melt down U.S. half-dollars, quarters, and dimes minted in 1964 and before; this was not illegal. Tarcil (talk) 17:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Still do, actually. Given high silver prices, many coins are worth more as metal.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

There is talk about doing away with the penny because of the cost, but the next higher coin is the nickle, and it costs considerably more to make a nickle than it does to make five pennies. 22:45, 4 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by RNealK (talk • contribs)

By the way, Canada is starting to phase out pennies now... AnonMoos (talk) 23:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

If some were to ignore the laws about defacing currency would it not, then, be very profitable to melt down pennies and nickels in an underground/illegal setting? I'm surprised no one is doing this--Are there reports of people doing this? Or are the labor/equipment costs too high. It doesn't seem like you would need much except some metalworking equipment and hot fire and someone to sell the metal to who, presumably, wouldnt know where it came from. --67.85.176.244 (talk) 23:42, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

You'd need to do it on a massive scale to make it profitable. But you can't just go to a bank with a million dollars and ask for 100 million pennies. Also, if it wasn't already illegal, they would soon make it so, when they figured out what you were doing. StuRat (talk) 23:54, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Before the US Mint banned the practice in 2006, there were several companies that considered melting down coins for their metal value (hence the ban). 173.52.95.244 (talk) 00:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Does this mean those machines that squash a penny and imprint some logo on it are now illegal ? StuRat (talk) 16:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I wondered this too, as I've seen such a machine in the UK - I think to damage currency is illegal here, and I suppose that the criminal is the one who puts the coin in the machine rather than the one who makes or provides the machine - I guess. ---- _nonsense ferret 16:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

As per WHAAOE, this article should answer your questions.Dncsky (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

From that article, it appears that you have to get permission from the Mint. Apparently they don't consider this old custom to be much of a big deal. You're paying a buck or so for something that comes out that used to be a one-cent piece but can't be used that way anymore. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:31, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

My father was warned to stop defacing the coin of the realm a long time ago after he'd used about ten thousand for another purpose where they were cheaper and better than the alternative. Dmcq (talk) 11:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

What other purpose ? StuRat (talk) 16:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

See [12] and make a guess. Dmcq (talk) 17:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Drilling holes in them to use them on necklaces ? StuRat (talk) 04:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

They already had holes, and as washers in a construction project. They had to be sorted as the composition varied over the years and you have to get the right metal for a job, but they were better made and much much cheaper than the imported alternative. Dmcq (talk) 07:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I see. StuRat (talk) 17:09, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

• It may not be common in the US, but it's a major problem in eastern India; see, for example, this report. The problem is sufficiently bad that small change in Kolkata can be exchanged for notes at about 10% over par.

This is reported here as affecting small-denomination rupee coins - one-rupee coins are in steel. India nominally has smaller coins, but these have more or less ceased to exist. The 25 paise was withdrawn in 2011 (as too small-denomination to be worth anything) when a law was passed explicitly targeting coin-melting. There is still a 50 paise coin but I believe this is pretty rare, and presumably suffers even worse from the melting problem - it's 80% the weight of a one-rupee coin, also in steel. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:02, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Relationships being redefined in France

Meaning parents, fathers, husbands, wives, etc. Where can i find details? Kittybrewster ☎ 23:19, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

You need to give us more. In what way do you think they are being redifined, and where did you hear this ? StuRat (talk) 23:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The French parliament recently voted to allow gay marriage - the OP is undoubtedly referring to that. There is a BBC News article on it here. We, of course, have our own article on the subject as well: Same-sex marriage in France. --Tango (talk) 01:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I think I was watching a politician on NewsNight when she made the statement. Kittybrewster ☎ 11:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't get it. Why does allowing same sex marriages redefine relationships? And does this only apply in France? They have same sex marriage in Canada and I haven't noticed any change in peoples relationships. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not unique to France of course, but according to my dictionary, 'husband' means "a married man considered in relation to his wife", and 'marriage' is defined as "the formal union of a man and a woman, typically as recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife". These definitions must of course change if homosexual marriages are legalized. Likewise, one's 'parents' traditionally includes both a father and a mother, and this too is changed with allowing gay adoption (a necessary result of redefining marriage). - Lindert (talk) 14:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, the point being that France is redefining or has redefined the words. Do that and the problems vanish. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

So it's nothing really to do with redefining relationships but just the way the meaning of words change over time. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 00:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

February 5

Question for authors

The wikipedia page on "Lysistrata" states that the 1912 anonymous translation is "rumored to be" by Oscar Wilde. There is a link to a wikisource page that gives the same information. Can I contact the author of these pages (I believe the author of the wikisource page is "WillowW") to ask where this "rumor" comes from? The subject is of great interest to me because I am preparing a new version of the play, based on that translation. I'm not acquainted with how Wikipedia works, and don't know how to proceed with this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.83.46.29 (talk) 03:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Go to User:WillowW, click on Talk at the top of her user page, and leave a message there. You should make sure you have your email notification activated in your own preferences page. μηδείς (talk) 04:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily. They can discuss the matter on one or other (or both) of their talk pages, which does not require contact by email. --Viennese Waltz 08:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The IP does not have a preferences page and thus can't set an email. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:31, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Wilde died in 1900, so I wonder how he managed to translate something in 1912. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The diary of Samuel Pepys was first published 122 years after he died. The full, uncensored version was not finally published until 280 years after his death. A mere 12 years is a trifle. --Dweller (talk) 11:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

That's not really what the OP said, but perhaps he meant it was only published in 1912 but was translated some years earlier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Bed and Breakfasts being sued

Have there been any cases in England and Wales which rested on whether Bed and Breakfast owners were allowed to refuse to allow unmarried couples to stay in a room with a double bed, or even to share a room? I'm looking only for references to cases that actually went to court. Thank you. 86.163.209.18 (talk) 08:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I only have references for unmarried gay couples: [13] [14]. Are you looking for straight couple cases? --Lgriot (talk) 11:28, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I was really looking for cases with straight couples, or cases with gay couples where their unmarried status was given as the issue rather than their being a gay couple (but that seems unlikely). 86.163.209.18 (talk) 17:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

It's still a question of discrimination no matter which way you cut it, so the legal principles that applies is the same. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 20:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

That's irrelevant to my request for references, thanks. 86.163.209.18 (talk) 22:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

What have you found in Google so far? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Have you tried searching in [BAILII], which is a free resource accessible to the public? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I searched "bed and breakfast" "double bed" into a case citator, the following cases may be of interest to you (in decreasing order of relevance):

Black v Wilkinson County Court (Slough), 18 October 2012

Hall v Bull Court of Appeal (Civil Division), 10 February 2012

Greens, Petitioner Court of Session (Outer House), 12 May 2011

Sharif v Camden LBC Court of Appeal (Civil Division), 20 April 2011

Black v Wilkinson seems to be the most recent and relevant case, it may be helpful if you read the judgment and follow up any references there to older cases. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much, that's very helpful. 86.163.209.18 (talk) 21:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

has there ever been a lego in space?

simple question. has there ever been a lego in space? --91.120.48.242 (talk) 08:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I think this youtube video of one going aloft by weather balloon is the highest our intrepid little minifigure friends have ascended yet. Dmcq (talk) 10:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, in 2011, legos/Lego orbited the Earth.-- Cam (talk) 11:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that. I see also there that three minifigures are currently on their way to Jupiter on a mission to boldly go where no minifigure has gone before. Dmcq (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Market cap of Japanese companies

I am interested in figuring out the market cap of Japanese companies, but I, who live in the US and use web sites and services that think in dollars and presumably also think in American share availability, don't trust the data that my various devices are claiming. Let's take Nintendo. The ADR code is NTDOY. As I type this, NTDOY is $11.73 per share, which, Google says, figures to a market cap of $13.4 billion. My iPhone stocks app agrees with the $11.73 price, but claims this yields a market cap of $1.5 billion.

1. Is the $13.4 billion figure correct? 2. Is the discrepancy because only a small percentage of Nintendo's shares are deposited somewhere to back ADRs, and that the $1.5 billion figure is this amount? (And, thus, we can do some division and deduce that about 11.2% of Nintendo stock is held in the form of ADRs?) I figure the market cap number shown on the Stocks app included on every iPhone is not just wrong because of a bug. Tarcil (talk) 17:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the stocks app uses Yahoo!, for whom $1.5 billion is the "intraday" ("shares outstanding") market cap. I'm hoping that means more to you than me :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 18:16, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Bloomberg says it's $13.3 Billion[15]. WSJ says it's $13.32 Billion[16]. CNN says it's $12.1 Billion[17]. Macroaxis says it's $13.18 Billion[18]. Marketwatch says it's $13.32 Billion[19].

Since it's OTC the numbers are all over the place. But it appears Google is closer to the truth; closer than the iPhone app in any case. Dncsky (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Royal illegitimacy

Many monarchs in history have been considered or rumored to be illegitimate children of their mother and a lover. How many, if any, such cases have been proven in modern time by DNA test?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 17:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any instances. To do even a minimal test, assuming the monarch is male, you would need to know the Y chromosome of the monarch and at least one of the two possible fathers. That's not easy information to come by. Looie496 (talk) 20:04, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

If Prince Harry of Wales ever gets to be next in line (which would mean Prince William and all his progeny would have to die first), the Palace might feel it necessary to DNA test Harry and James Hewitt. Those rumours of paternity have been pretty much debunked because the timeline is all wrong - but that's all based on testimony, not scientific fact. I can still imagine the authorities wanting to be super-careful given the technology is there, and it would mean the difference between Harry succeeding Charles as King Henry IX, or Charles's brother Prince Andrew becoming King Andrew I. It's never been tested in the lab because there's little likelihood this scenario will ever materialise. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:23, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

On the other hand, all it would take is for one of those accidents-that-happen-to-other-unsuspecting-people-every-day-of-the-week-but-will-never-happen-to-me to happen to Will and Kate and their unborn child, and bingo, Harry's in line to succeed Charles. And then the Royal Rumour Mill will be found spinning at a speed approaching that of the Large Hadron Collider. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:33, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll eat my own head if Prince Harry has to have a DNA test before he can accede to the throne. There is no possibility that anybody in authority will give any credence to newspaper stories. Alansplodge (talk) 18:13, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Mmm, yum - "Baked Head of Alansplodge". I hope there's enough to go around.  :) I thought the newspaper publishers are the people in authority. Or is that just a rumour I read in the press? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The sight of Rupert Murdoch eating humble pie in front of a Parliamentary Select Committee and a judicial enquiry has gladdened the heart of every Briton. How are the mighty fallen. Alansplodge (talk) 17:49, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Another Yanqui bites the dust.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I didn't know that the U.S. had annexed Melbourne prior to 1931... --Jayron32 19:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Are you denying the following: "On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized [United States] citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations. This resulted in Murdoch losing his Australian citizenship"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Amongst the many ridiculous historical inaccuracies in the film Braveheart, the implication that King Edward III was the illegitimate son of William Wallace is about the most astonishingly appalling. Our article on the film explains the two unarguable reasons why this is nonsensical invention in the section Braveheart#Portrayal_of_Isabella_of_France. Beware the "history" portrayed in Mel Gibson "historical" films. --Dweller (talk) 10:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm no defender of Mel Gibson, but be careful of assuming that a film is intended to be a historical film just because it's set in historical times and involves characters known to history. Braveheart was intended to be an adventure film first and foremost; it just happened to have a historical setting. It worked very well on its own terms if the box office receipts were anything to go by. And if it's spurred anyone to go and do some research and find out what actually happened back then (as far as any history is an account of "what actually happened"), so much the better. I agree, though, that if anyone accepted it as total historical fact and lived the rest of their lives accordingly, that would be a shame. They're probably the same people who believe Salieri poisoned Mozart because of what they saw in Amadeus. And they're the people who get all their knowledge of the world from movies and TV trash because books are "boring", so they're beyond redemption anyway. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, but at least Amadeus wasn't muddying the waters of a major constitutional reform debate. Alansplodge (talk) 17:39, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, that can hardly be said of Braveheart either, unless you want to argue that movies designed for pure escapist enjoyment play some sort of serious role in educating people about their history and their government. That has never yet been in the minds of the film makers. Sure, some of them have "historical consultants" or "military consultants" buried deep in the credits that nobody but me ever watches, but they obviously give scant regard to their experts' advice because the critics make an art form of finding all the compulsory historical inaccuracies. The makers disregard "what actually happened" when some alternative and usually completely untrue story is found to be more appealing in cinematic terms. The rule of the box office is what they obey, always, and that means they set themselves apart from documentary films and are never judged by the same standards. There is never any need to post "citation required" tags on movies (as opposed to Wikipedia articles about those movies). These historical epics are not taken seriously by historians or anyone else who has any real idea - and if "people with no real idea" amounts to more than a tiny proportion of the population, our governments have some explaining to do about our fantastic and "world-leading" education systems the praises of which they trumpet at every possible opportunity. But these movies can still be great fun.

I have yet to see Lincoln but I fully intend to. Even before Day-Lewis makes history by winning his third Best Actor Oscar, no doubt there will be or has been all manner of commentary about the historical gravitas of the film, and many people will be sucked into believing they were virtually there when those events actually happened, and they really happened exactly the way the film depicts them. Sight unseen, I can assure them that that is not the case. But I still intend to get my money's worth by hugely enjoying the movie. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Moses pictures as "white" skinned...

Hello. Is there anyway I can contribute information based on research and logical deduction that some of the biblical figures represented (images) are incorrect? This is NOT to start any debates although it's probable that it will, but rather to start acknowledging that the ancient people of Israel, most particularly the Hebrews are a dark skinned people. Moses was most probably a black man. If you really dig into the history and Scripture, (which is where the story originates anyway) you will find this to be true. To represent these people any other way is to deceive the public and add to the lies that are already out there. I like and respect Wikipedia and have found it to be very helpful and useful on many occasions. If it is truly about providing information based on factual research and logical deduction by intelligent individuals then I expect that you will take this a request very seriously and at least consider the magnitude of the issue at hand. It DOES matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theracingmind (talk • contribs) 21:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Well there are many articles that explore this or related issues. See Race of Jesus, Hamitic and Race of Ancient Egyptians. The images we use are from the history of art. Where images from the time are available (as for Egyptian pharaohs) we use them. This is not the case for Israelites. In such cases works by artists are used to show how these figures have been depicted. They are of course "inaccurate" (Moses didn't wear Roman-style togas, as he often does in Renaissance art), but that's not their purpose. Mind you, the image currently used at the top of the Moses article is seriously cheesy. Paul B (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Gotta love the drive-bys. I seriously doubt that Moses was "black" in the modern sense of tropical-African. Probably dark-skinned Mediterranean. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:17, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

If the material you want to add is based directly on reliable sources, and is not your own research, argumentation or conclusion then you may add it to the article with proper citations; but as it is evidently not a mainstream theory, it should not be given undue weight, but merely mentioned as an idea that has been published. --ColinFine (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Wikipedia is not based on our 'factual research and logical deduction by intelligent individuals'. It is based on giving due weight to whatever is in sources written by the people who do that sort of thing. In fact 'logical deduction' by editors here is frowned upon, it is in the same category as WP:Original research which though it is a very good thing elsewhere is a thing to be assiduously avoided in Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 01:20, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

• It bears noting that for the vast majority of history, European artistic tradition always depicted historical figures as looking exactly like the culture of the artist: right down to the dress and hair styles. This is probably because people didn't have much of a frame of reference; people were painting pictures based solely on stories, both written and oral. For example, look at This bas relief of the Nine Worthies. They're all dressed like 13th century crusaders because... it was sculpted in the 13 century. I highly doubt that Alexander the Great or King David looked or dressed anything like this. This was not because of a systematic attempt to deliberately deceive people, the artists weren't conspiring to erase the real culture of the people so depicted; they just had no frame of reference, no way to know what these historical persons look like, so they made them look like everyone around them because they didn't know what people from other cultures or past history looked like. So, if you want to know why, for centuries, Moses in European art is generally depicted as a having European features, the answer isn't because of a systematic attempt to mask his true identity. It's just that no one even conceived that he would necessarily look any different than themselves. --Jayron32 03:26, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The idea of Moses being black is unlikely, given the Bible's recounting of the reaction of his siblings to his dark-skinned wife, for which Aaron and Miriam were punished. --Dweller (talk) 10:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

What makes you think their objection was based on Zippora's skin color, rather than simply her ethnicity? I mean, it's certainly not unthinkable that two black tribes would have an aversion to one another. I don't think Moses was black, but I don't think that particular incident is incompatible with the idea. - Lindert (talk) 11:14, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Depictions of Jesus

Chinese Jesus

Ethiopian Jesus

::Ah... I've just refreshed my memory of Rashi's explanation, and it's nothing to do with ethnicity, nor even Zippora herself, but Aaron and Miriam were discussing Moses suspending his marriage. Striking my comment with apologies. --Dweller (talk) 11:25, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Very common to see depictions of Jesus as black or Asiatic (which is ironic since we happily classify the Middle East to be part of Asia yet we rarely think of people from there as Asians). See also Black Madonna. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I guess it depends what you mean by "Asian". Russians, Iranians, Indians and Japanese are all "Asian". That's part of the problem with the use of words like this as if racial/anthropological, colour and geographical concepts match up. After all, there's no reason to believe that black madonnas and baby J are intended to represent "race". They are just that colour for various reasons - darkening pigments, ingrained soot, the material they are made from. Colur and race are not the same thing any more than continents and race are. Otherwise, this is evidence that Churchill was black. Paul B (talk) 20:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

That's why I said "Asiatic". See right. (if anyone can get these images to sit side by side, feel free; Thanks to Senra) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm struggling to think of specific examples at present, but there have been quite a few reggae songs written by Rastafarians on the subject of various Biblical figures actually being black men. Jacob - black. Moses - black. Solomon - black. Samson - black. King David - black. Jesus - black. John the Baptist - black. And so on... I don't suppose that this is any more wrong than the portrayals of them as Caucasian guys. Not that I'm an expert on their religious beliefs (I just like the music!), but I believe that they can find things in the Bible to justify this... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 00:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

So they say, but they have to torture the evidence to do so. Favourite passages are the Song of Songs [20] and the description of the son of man in the Book of Revelation [21]. Paul B (talk) 09:40, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The t'ings dat yo' li'ble, To read in de Bible, It ain't necessarily so. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 12:44, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

See also "The Real Face Of Jesus" for a forensic facial reconstruction of a face from some 1st century Jewish skulls, which Richard Neave, a British forensic artist, says gives a representation of "an adult man who lived in the same place and at the same time as Jesus". Apparently, skin colour was deduced from contemporary paintings. Alansplodge (talk) 18:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

What's Al Qaeda and Islamists' stance on Japanese citizens?

Hello, I am Japanese and I would like to know if I would run any risk in Afghanistan or Libya, or Northern Mali conflict (2012–present). Thank. Are we targeted by them or not? Thank you. Kotjap (talk) 21:17, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

There's some good information here. It appears that there were some Japanese nationals targeted in the In Aménas hostage crisis; there were more Japanese there than any other nationality. --Jayron32 21:28, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Wow, thank you. I didn't know that they threatened to hit the "heart of Tokyo" if we sent troops to Iraq. Thank you again. Kotjap (talk) 21:38, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

When I was living in Japan, I remember that there was a public debate over whether to send the JSDF to Iraq to help with reconstruction. There had to be a clear guarantee that they would be protected and not involved in combat - combat is against the constitution. British and Dutch troops had talks with local tribal leaders, and agreed to protect the Japanese troops from harm. I remember seeing big blue cargo planes flying in circles around Komaki Airport practicing landings in hostile territory. While British and Dutch troops were still in a combat role, no Japanese were involved while they were there. There was another incident where three Japanese nationals entered Iraq in order to be taken hostage, so they could try to highlight to the world how bad the situation was. They were, of course, taken hostage, and videos of them posted on the internet. There was a public outcry because the Japanese government actually paid the ransom for them to be returned. This, for most people, was a waste of taxpayers' money, because they went there intentionally to get captured. When thy returned, they were ordered never to go back to Iraq, because if they did, the government would not help them a second time. Despite this, they went back, and were never seen again. The Japanese are not targeted specifically. Al Qaeda and other Islamists have no gripe with Japan. It's the Western World and the USA specifically that they have a problem with. Still, I wouldn't recommend Iraq as a holiday destination. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Clockwork Orange plot and Ian Paisley

The Clockwork Orange (plot) article is messy, to be sure. Is "a right-wing smear campaign against British politicians" means the plot was right-wing, not that it was a smear campaign against right-wing politicians. Indeed, of the five that we mention, there are three Labour, one Conservative, and... Ian Paisley? My knowledge of British politics is limited, but from what I know, he seems like a British Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. How on earth do you attack a man like that from the right? Furthermore, if the plot was "an attempt to show that the victims were communists, or Irish Republican sympathisers," how do you credibly make such claims about Paisley, a unionist, and why would British secret service want to make them? I'd almost think this was hoaxy vandalism, but his name has been mentioned there since the article was created. He's not mentioned in the only wikilinked reference on the article, either. So how does this all work? Is this a BLP violation? --BDD (talk) 21:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I know very little about British politics, but I wouldn't trust a single word of that article without some better sourcing. The article is a complete and total mess, and if someone unfamiliar with it can't follow every word with a decent source, then there's nothing there you can trust. If this was a real thing, you're going to have to find information outside of Wikipedia. --Jayron32 21:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps "... I would not trust ...", Jayron? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

So amended. --Jayron32 21:38, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

It's an interesting one - I agree it is wise to be sceptical of the exact facts mentioned in this article - there does at least seem to be a fair bit of coverage about rumours of a secret services plot against Harold Wilson and other colleagues - see for example [22] [23] [24] - I think it might be that this is covered in another of the articles here, but I shall endeavour to dig around for more sources. ---- _nonsense ferret 22:06, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The idea of an intelligence-services plot against Wilson is well-documented - by which I mean the rumours are well-written about, though its existence or otherwise is likely to remain a mystery for another half-decade at least! This sounds like it may be a vague echo of that. I can strongly recommend Francis Wheen's Strange Days Indeed as a good (and fun) survey on the weird political turmoil of the early seventies, but I'm on a train just now and can't check it. See Harold Wilson conspiracy theories for some suggestions of varying levels of craziness...

That article refers to Livingstone's maiden speech, in 1987, which is here; he doesn't refer to "Clockwork Orange" by name, so that's a red flag in terms of OR, but it's probably no surprise it ties into Peter Wright and Spycatcher!

As to attacking Paisley "from the right"... the fact that the group was right wing doesn't mean they were automatically in his favour; he was a turbulent and problematic influence, and it may well have been that they sought to try and neutralise him by spreading whatever allegations might happen to stick. (I agree that suggesting he was in the pay of Moscow via a Dublin forwarding address probably wouldn't have worked, but you never know - stranger things have been tried.) Andrew Gray (talk) 17:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Dominic Sandbrook's Seasons in the Sun could be a source, though it covers the plot very briefly, it mentions Wilson, Benn, Heath and Paisley as targets, and expresses strong confidence in the broad outline of Wallace's claims. Warofdreams talk 15:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I wish I could refer to that. My (American) library is short on potential sources. We only have one biography of Paisley (God Save Ulster), and it has no mentions of Clockwork Orange and only a few passing mentions of Wilson. --BDD (talk) 19:36, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Does Sandbrook name it as "Clockwork Orange", OOI? Wheen doesn't; he talks about the various purported plots against Wilson, but without specific details on this one. I'm wondering if this particular detail is the problematic part and we should merge it somewhere. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Ontario terrorism plot

My question is, if the Ontario terrorism plot succeeded, would have all allies been hit? Kotjap (talk) 21:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "all allies" here. Looie496 (talk) 21:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

All allies in the War in Afghanistan. Kotjap (talk) 21:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Whether it had succeeded or not would have had no effect whatsoever on the Coalition in Afghanistan. Ontario is in Canada, as I am sure you are aware. A successful terrorist attack in one of the home countries of Coalition Forces in Afghanistan would not make them immediately decide to pull out and return home. Canada is not even a major player in the game, anyway. Only the US and the UK can really be considered so. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be so sure. The 2004 Madrid train bombings seem to have resulted in Spain withdrawing it's troops from Iraq: [25]. StuRat (talk) 17:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

That may be so, but the 7 July 2005 London bombings did not make the UK pull out from Iraq or Afghanistan. The UK and Canada are a bit more stable politically. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:40, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The Canadian contribution has been smaller than the UK which in turn has been smaller than the US. However, the Canadian effort (up to 2,500 at any one time) came without strings attached like some other nations, and they have paid a heavy price; 158 fatalities to date. Alansplodge (talk) 17:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Something of a tangent, but it's worth noting that the subsequent Spanish pullout was more a result of how the previous Spanish government tried to portray the bombings, than a result of the bombings themselves. One might presume that, if the Ontario terrorism plot had succeeded, the Canadian government wouldn't have been silly enough to try to blame it on, say, Quebec separatists without good reason. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

What is postmodernism

There's no definition and the conception is fuzzy. I've tried to understand and in doing so I've learned that it touches so many things—academia, culture, philosophy, personal attitudes towards life, science, literature, art, sociology—and speaks in terms of "narratives". When hearing it get derided by commentators it is associated with Marxism or socialism, sometimes even feminism. All discussion about whatever it is is just a hodge podge of philosophy, pseudo-intellectualism, culture, politics, and layers upon layers meaningless words to me. Is this what philosophy and the humanities are like right now? What is postmodernism, what does it entail, and what does it have to do with egalitarian ideologies? Whenever I decide to take a philosophy/humanities course in college I will be sure to press my professors for answers. — Melab±1 ☎ 21:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

As one professor once said to me, if it sounds a bit fuzzy then it probably is. I assume you've tried Postmodernism and specifically Postmodernism in political science but that's where I'd start. ---- _nonsense ferret 21:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC) Oh, and Postmodern philosophy ---- _nonsense ferret 21:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

That article only made my confusion worse because it sounds like [what might be] a postmodernist. — Melab±1 ☎ 22:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

OMG, this is exactly the question I planned to ask over two weeks ago, but I decided to do some research first. I've gotten obsessed with this research. After spending a hundred hours reading dozens of articles and the entirety of Higher Superstition, I'm still almost as confused as you are. Here's my best attempt at an answer. It's heavily biased, mostly because I think postmodernism is bullshit, but also because postmodernism's critics tend to write much more clearly than its proponents:

Postmodernism is a collection of loosely related ideas. It claims that there is no objective truth, and that everything which claims to be objective--including history, science, and mathematics--are only social constructions. It tends to support moral and factual relativism. Therefore, if a stone-age African or native American thinks the world is flat and sits on turtles, that's just as valid as the scientific truth, because the latter was made up by white male Europeans for the purposes of oppression and domination.

Gross & Levitt, and authors of Higher Superstition, describe postmodernism as follows: "It is too variegated and shifty to allow easy categorization, and too willfully intent on avoiding definitional precision. There is even a risk of misleading in calling it a body of ideas, for postmodernism is more a matter of attitude and emotional tonality than of rigorous axiomatics [...] If we accept the notion that there is a generalized intellectual 'project' of the Enlightenment, one that is intent upon building a sound body of knowledge about the world the human race confronts, then postmodernism defines itself, in large measure, as the antithetical doctrine: that such a project is inherently futile, self-deceptive, and worst of all, oppressive [...] There is no knowledge, then; there are merely stories, 'narratives,' devised to satisfy the human need to make some sense of the world. In so doing, they track in unacknowledged ways the interests, prejudices, and conceits of their devisers."

If Gross & Levitt are to be trusted (and keep in mind they're even more biased than I am), there is indeed a connection between postmodernism and left-wing ideologies such as socialism, feminism, Afrocentrism, and environmentalism. Specifically, many university humanities departments have embraced radical leftist ideology since the 1960s. Due to these departments' insularity and humanists' general scientific illiteracy, it has become faddish to attack science with ridiculous arguments while knowing nothing about the science they're attacking (see science studies and science wars). Because the left wing challenges existing authority and societal norms, and postmodernism views all sources of authority with extreme skepticism, postmodernism has become a natural ally of these radical leftists. Ironically, this is not true outside the university, nor has anything resembling postmodernism always been associated with the academic left. Leftists among the general public tend to value reason and objectivity very highly, especially in fields like science, and scientists themselves are overwhelmingly liberal. Historically, the left wing, following the Enlightenment tradition, has generally used reason to oppose outdated tradition by proclaiming "the truth will set you free".

Here is another critical summary of postmodernism, by another scientist: [26]. I have honestly and earnestly tried to find good summaries of postmodernism from its proponents. Unfortunately, everything I've found so far either makes ridiculous claims, or is so hard to read that I can't understand it. The best I've found is from Wikipedia, but as you said, even that is hard to understand. If anyone can recommend a good "introduction" article from a proponent of postmodernism, please post it here; I want to read it, and I'm sure the OP does, too. --140.180.247.198 (talk) 00:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

A biased response is not what I want. — Melab±1 ☎ 01:35, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

My response is not biased because of my preconceptions. It's biased because I was in the same position as you 2 weeks ago, and through research, have formed a opinion on postmodernism that happens to be negative. It may be possible to find a truly unbiased explanation, but it's more likely that the author actually has an opinion but has not disclosed it. Certainly they would have no reason to be honest about their biases if your response will just be "a biased response is not what I want". --140.180.247.198 (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

What is it? one of the most irredeemably useless articles on Wikipedia, that's what. I gave up on it years ago. Paul B (talk) 01:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

On postmodernism or its article? — Melab±1 ☎ 01:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The article. But the other thing too. Paul B (talk) 08:43, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Postmodernism has somewhat different implications and meanings for different disciplinary fields. Generally speaking it is a rejection of the idea of objective, natural truths and an embrace of culture as the ultimate means of human experience of the world. That's the basics of it. The elaborations get more complicated. The difficulties in making sense of it come from the fact that it also often rejects clarity in exposition — it sees straightforward speech as masquerading falsely as objectivity.

It has a lot going for it and is much more sophisticated in its discussion of truth than the proto-positivists (e.g. Gross and Levitt) are with regards to its understanding of epistemology, ontology, nature, artifice, culture, and so on. Its frustrations come from the fact that it is also faddish. In American English departments it manifested as a particular pernicious form of Francophilia and so (amusingly?) you have people whose native language is English writing as if their prose had been translated poorly from French. (The French connection comes from characters like Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze, who are sort of the high priests of a certain strain of continental philosophy.) There is something undeniably cargo cultish about this tendency.

Nowadays I don't think too many scholars self-describe as postmodern — it is seen as a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s. The science wars are long over and I think people have gotten more conservative about epistemology. There are new fads. (Digital humanities, which is becoming even more nebulously unclear than postmodernism, for example.) It had its silliness and it had its excesses, though Gross and Levitt are quite silly themselves to attribute so much power to it. (The reactionary approach has its excesses as well.) If only English departments had such power!

The whole "trick" of postmodernism is somewhat summed up by the first year philosophy student who relentlessly says, with a sneer of indifference, "well, how do you know that, really?" It never stops, becoming a great, self-referential, self-consuming philosophical ouroboros.

Personally I think that the postmodernists are right to ask hard questions about how we think we know what we know, to question any system that claims to have eliminated subjectivity and culture from the epistemological equation, and even (though I loathe Derrida) to ask the ways in which language constrains our thought or reflects existing constraints. I think Foucault is relatively straightforward in most of his later work; I think Derrida is fairly useless. I think they have been idiotic for abandoning clarity in the process, however, and it is quite evident that quite a lot of it is simply obfuscation meant to mask mediocre thinking. But I also think the reactionaries are pretty silly themselves. I'm not sure everyone in the academy of my generation feels this way — definitely not — but I don't think my sentiments are that unusual. --Mr.98 (talk) 04:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Postmodernism is far from the first movement to question the objectivity of knowledge, and far from the first to embrace philosophical skepticism. See academic skepticism, which started in 266 BC when Pyrrhonism became dominant. The difference between these ancient philosophers and postmodernists is that the former were far clearer in their writing, didn't make elementary factual errors (like some postmodernists do with respect to science), and were willing to extend their skepticism to their own philosophical claims. I also don't believe that postmodernists have made any insights about truth which analytical philosophers haven't made long ago. Every freshman philosophy student who didn't skip every lecture knows about idealism and materialism/realism, deduction and the problem of induction, empiricism and positivism. Every science student worth his salt is only too familiar with confirmation bias, conflict of interest, the realities of funding, the inevitability of subjective judgments, cherry-picking, exaggeration, scientific racism, and the various blind valleys that scientists have gone down since the Scientific Revolution. As for Gross & Levitt, their alarmism is definitely unjustified in hindsight, but it may not have been in 1994. If you know for sure that they're proto-positivists, you know more than I do, because they never explain much about their own philosophical position. Their book was dedicated to pointing out the folly of postmodernism in its treatment of science, not to publicizing their own philosophical views.

I agree completely that much of the postmodern verbiage is for the purpose of concealing mediocre thought. "How we think we know what we know" is, as I've said, a central question of philosophy that has been asked since philosophy came into being. "Question[ing] any system that claims to have eliminated subjectivity and culture" is being done by scientists, historians, (non-crackpot) anthropologists, linguists, computer scientists, and every other legitimate academic with regard to their own work literally every single day. (The only system that postmodernism does not seem to question is their own.) "Ask[ing] the ways in which language constrains our thought or reflects existing constraints" is a central question in linguistics--see, for example, linguistic determinism. Grandiose verbiage definitely helps in concealing the fact that you're addressing decades-old or millenia-old debates, and have nothing substantial to add to what's already been said. --140.180.247.198 (talk) 05:13, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I did not, and would not, claim that postmodernism was the first approach to this kind of skepticism. Its approach to answering that kind of skepticism, though, did take things in a different direction than the approaches of, say, Berkeley and Descartes and that whole lot. In many ways one can see it as an explicit repudiation of Cartesian rationality as an "out" for epistemological problems. But that's just one of many ways you can trace the history of these ideas. And you are wrong that postmodernists do not question their own systems — if anything they are boringly obsessed with reflexivity to a completely paralyzing degree.

In my experience most of the critics of postmodernism who think it is really dangerous, especially those from the sciences, are unreconstructed positivists of one sort or another. I would not consider yourself an expert on postmodernism for having just read Gross and Leavitt. (I have read considerably more than that, and I don't consider myself any expert on it.) They are terribly one-sided, and fairly limited in what they look at. Science studies is actually quite interesting, and far less wooly, than the worst excesses of it would have you believe when cherry picked along. (I don't hate Gross and Leavitt, and I do think a lot of the "pomo" stuff is junk, but the answer is not the more or less unreconstructed scientism that they, Sokal, Dawkins, etcetera, would have you put in its place, much less the philosophically indefensible stuff of Popper, who is usually held up as some kind of "safe" philosophy for scientists.) Like many critics they also confuse what is a methodology and what is an ontological statement — being agnostic about truth, for example, leads to interesting investigations into the history of knowledge, but it does not mean that one does not actually believe that certain explanations for how the world works are not better than others. If you are interested in seeing these questions from a much more balanced viewpoint — without sacrificing any clarity! — give Ian Hacking's The Social Construction of What? a read. It's very interesting.

As for whether it was justified in 1994, well, it hardly matters to debate this at this point. The whole thing was a tempest in a teapot. The greatest enemies of science turned out to be politicians, lobbyists, and lawyers, as anyone with a reasonably clear view of the world would expect, not humanities professors, who nobody ever listened much to anyway. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:53, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

• To bring it back to simplicity; there is no universal set of "postmodern" ideals that work across all disciplines. The only cohesive answer is that postmodern FOO is the period that comes after modern FOO. For much of the late 19th and early 20th century, the term "modern" came to be fixed to apply to what was then the contemporary period. The problem came in middle 20th century when people began to break from what had been established in the consciousness as "modern", and the only sensible term then became "postmodern". So "postmodern" really only means "stuff that has developed during the latter decades of the 20th century through today" without any unifying theme. In 20-30 years, there will need to be a new term when the zeitgeist changes again. It's something like the term "classical". Classical is meaningless without context: classical music is completely unrelated to classical Mesoamerican civilization which is unrelated to classical mythology. In the same way, "postmodern" is meaningless without context: postmodern philosophy and postmodern music and postmodern art all define themselves in relation to (and in contrast to) the earlier defined "modern" traditions in each of those contexts. That's why people have such a hard time defining the unifying themes of "postmodernism". There isn't any. --Jayron32 05:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

There weren't good explanations for modernism either. That is why we are having problems explaining postmodernism. Postmodernism is simply a worse explanation for what transpires over time periods than modernism was. Bus stop (talk) 06:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Some good posts above - rare for such a long thread. I would add to Jayron's summary that the standards of postmodernism seem to be pretty low, so postmodern BAR is whatever is lower than any other BAR. Also one thread from the OP that seems to have been missed is the concept of "narrative". One summary of postmodernism in the social sciences that I have read (properly, I am talking about history and political theory, but maybe stretching a bit further) is "an incredulity towards metanarratives". The classic example of a metanarrative is Marxism, with its theory of history as the struggle of class against class. Postmodernism is a kind of reaction against this grand theory of class divisions as impersonal forces shaping history, and the attendant crystal-ball scrying, seeing in every political drama the downfall of capitalism. IBE (talk) 08:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the simplest explanation of postmodernism is that it's a rejection of the notion of progress, that new ideas necessarily supersede old ideas. In art, under modernism, once post-impressionism established itself, then anyone still doing impressionism was outdated and needed to move on. Under postmodernism, all art styles and movements are fair game, none of them has any value over any other, and you can use any of them, mashed up with any others, if you think the effect is interesting. So you get an artist like John Kindness recreating classical paintings as cereal boxes and painting ancient Greek vase scenes on car parts. It's all perfectly fine as an approach to art. Try to apply it to something that matters beyond the realm of pure ideas and it's not much use. --Nicknack009 (talk) 08:59, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Postmodernism isn't likely to contribute to the choice of art an artist chooses to make. I don't think most artists choose a method of working that they think will fulfill the propositions of standing theories such as those pertaining to postmodern art. I think theories of art (modernism, postmodernism) sometimes try to supply explanations for the succession of art movements that have already transpired. Bus stop (talk) 14:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, you would know more than me, but I'm not sure that's completely correct. All the time I read an artist's blurb beside a painting or photograph describing exactly what they thought they were accomplishing ... and exactly why the art acquisition committee at my beloved university paid $50,000 for it (I may be exaggerating). Steven Pinker gives some example in The Blank Slate of an art critic dissing someone's work because of a lack of an overarching theoretical vision, or something like that. Sadly, I don't have the book handy, but someone else might chip in. IBE (talk) 15:52, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Mythical animals in national symbols

The question on the Science desk about double-headed eagles got me wondering. I said that the Double-headed eagle that still appears in the coats of arms or flags of various countries might have had a real basis, because countries tend not to have mythical animals in their symbology.

Is my premise accurate? I know of one counter-example: the unicorn on the British coat of arms. But I can't readily think of any other animals on coats of arms or flags or coins or wherever, that are known never to have existed. The British lion certainly exists elsewhere if not in the British Isles themselves.

Are dragons or gryphons or phoenixes (? phoenices) or even yetis ever honoured in official national symbols, as distinct from being at the level of cultural associations? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:31, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The Welsh dragon has been used as in coat-of-arms. CS Miller (talk) 22:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Not sure if this helps, but Coat of arms of Iceland contains a dragon. I'm not a native speaker so I didn't quite understand what you meant by "as distinct from being at the level of cultural associations"; apologies if this doesn't fit that criteria.Dncsky (talk) 22:52, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm thinking there of animals that are not official national symbols but are often thought of as personifying nations: the Russian bear, the British bulldog, the French coq sportif or poodle (or frog), the Australian koala to an extent (when the kangaroo isn't at front of mind, but the roo gets onto our coat of arms along with the emu), probably others. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Then there's the dragon as representative of China. See, for example, The Bear and the Dragon. --BDD (talk) 00:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

According to Charge_(heraldry)#Animals the griffin is used (but doesn't state where). Lisburn has a phoenix in its coat-of-arms [27] ---- 22:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

There's a griffin on the presidential standard of Lithuania, a variant of its coat of arms. And it's got a unicorn too. --BDD (talk) 23:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• Also, the flag of Bhutan has a dragon. --BDD (talk) 23:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Emblem of Uzbekistan has a mystical bird in it. Emblem of Kazakhstan has winged horses in it. This is probably not what you're looking for, but the Coat of arms of Mauritius has a dodo, which is not mystical but extinct.Dncsky (talk) 23:06, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• If you're willing to go sub-national, the flag of Phoenix, Arizona has a phoenix. We call the animal on the Flag of Veneto a lion, but it has wings, so I'd call it a sphinx. As for states with limited recognition, the Flag of Tibet features a Snow Lion. As for extinct states, the flag of Taiwan under Qing Dynasty rule had a dragon as well. --BDD (talk) 23:10, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

That's the Flag of the Qing Dynasty itself you are looking at. Taiwan itself, as a prefecture and then a province, had no flag. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

• See Flags with mythological animals. --PlanetEditor (talk) 02:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Good link. But why did it classify the oryx as mythological? (I've since removed the category.) --BDD (talk) 16:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

• Indonesia has the garuda as one of its most prominent symbols (the national emblem and airline), for example. Thailand uses the Garuda as well. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:26, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The Arms of the City of London have two "dragons argent" as supporters, and a dragon's wing as the crest.[28] As far as I know, we don't have dragons living locally. Somebody would have noticed. Alansplodge (talk) 11:21, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

In the UK at sub-national level there are a number of mythical animals used in heraldry. List of heraldic charges gives examples of natural and mythical beings. One such is the wyvern. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:34, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

• Jack, if you can read Russian, this article might be helpful. Not always people depict only the real world and real things in their art and culture, more often they revision real things in creative and unusual ways, as a result imaginary things appear.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:31, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Most fascinating. Thank you, all. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:23, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The flag of South Australia has the Piping Shrike, a bird which does not exist. --TrogWoolley (talk) 15:43, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Very true. And NSW and TAS have lions, not mythical but hardly the first animal one thinks of in any Aussie context. QLD and VIC have boring old crowns and crosses. WA's the only sensible state, with their Black Swan. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 17:49, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

In addition to the current Garuda emblem mentioned above, the 1873 coat of arms of Siam featured a Rajasimha and a Gajasimha, also from Hindu mythology. --125.25.145.19 (talk) 01:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Diplomatic mission with extraterritoriality

From Diplomatic mission#cite note-6: "For the most part, this is not the case as extraterritoriality is not conferred upon an Embassy or Consulate, but in some situations extraterritoriality may be created by Treaty.".

Where can I find a list of these special cases where full extraterritorial status has been granted by treaty?

Diplomatic missions having full extraterritorial status is a pretty common misconception, but when I correct people on it I want to be absolutely sure it's not one of those corner cases where the embassy does have full extraterritorial status due to treaties.Dncsky (talk) 23:38, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe it is rare, a notable example was the birth of Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia in Suite 212 of Claridge's Hotel - the myth was mentioned on the program QI in the UK some time ago ---- _nonsense ferret 23:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article Extraterritoriality has some examples. There are many not listed there; for example IIRC following its loss of its coastline in the War of the Pacific, Bolivia was granted some extraterritorial rights to Chilean ports such as Antofagasta and Arica; those rights were granted by treaty. --Jayron32 06:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Concessions in China, and the diplomatic and consular missions within them, usually had extraterritoriality granted by treaty, but this is detailed in the extraterritoriality article, with links to some other interesting articles. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:22, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, guys, but extraterritoriality's current examples mentions no embassies. It's all international organizations (plus one military base). The misconception doesn't apply to international organizations so I'm not too interested about them. Dncsky (talk) 15:46, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

My point about foreign concessions was that the diploamtic and consular missions of the foreign powers were located in the concessions which possessed extraterritoriality.

In addition, there is the Beijing Legation Quarter which, as the name suggests, was the location of foreign embassies and which also enjoyed extraterritoriality under unequal treaties until these were relinquished in various treaties in the 20th century. Does that help?

My understanding is that extraterritoriality was a frequent demand made of Asian nations like China or Japan by foreign powers in unequal treaties. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:48, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't being clear. I'm only interested in current examples. Dncsky (talk) 21:18, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

February 6

Historic income tax revenue - United States

I am looking for a reference for income tax revenue from ~1920-30 in the United States. I myself could only find data going back to 1934, [29]. If anyone knows of a good source for this data it would be much appreciated and would be used to improve relevant articles. Furious Style (talk) 00:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

This link might help you -- http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/revenue_chart_1910_2010USp_XXs1li011mcn_11f12f_Federal_Income_Taxes Futurist110 (talk) 05:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I had found that and dismissed it as not good enough, but I now realise I could use that data set along with another and have now determined that a paragraph in Supply-side economics was indeed false. Furious Style (talk) 19:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Flag of the Qing Dynasty

Flag of the Qing Dynasty speak about a Ba gua flag and a Qilin flag. Do illustration of such flags exist?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 07:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

They were never made, only presented as options to the Empress Dowager by the Zongli Yamen in a memorial. I could find no sources to indicate whether illustrations accompanied the memorial, but you may be able to find out by contacting the No. 1 National Archives in Beijing, who should hold the original of the memorial if it still exists. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

A memorial, or a memorandum? (It's worth asking, because it affects how you would search for such a thing in the state archives.) AlexTiefling (talk) 16:55, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

"Memorial" is the usual English translation for the Chinese word "奏章", which in turn is a generic name for all types of reports submitted by bureaucrats to the emperor. In turn, "奏" and "章" separately are two of the many types of reports submitted by bureaucrats. I don't know what particular format or type was used in this instance, but I'm not sure it is necessary to know that when searching the state archives. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. I think that English (at least, bureaucratic UK English) uses 'memorandum' rather than 'memorial' for this; the distinction being that a memorial is a thing that commemorates a person, event or thing - that is, it is a thing remember them by, whereas a memorandum is something which ought to be remembered. (The boring detail is that 'memorandum', like 'agenda', 'referendum', and 'Miranda', is a Latin gerundive, which conveys 'something that ought to be verbed', for a given choice of transitive verb.) But as the bureaucrats in question speak Chinese, I agree that this is not, after all, a relevant distinction. AlexTiefling (talk) 20:57, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

For a famous such example of "memorial", see the Tanaka Memorial... AnonMoos (talk) 04:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't use "memorial" to refer to a ministerial memorandum or a cabinet submission in the Westminster sense either. It seems to be a sort of jargon used only in the East Asian context. The term "memorial to the throne" is also used. I have no idea how the translation originated, given that it doesn't seem to be the most obvious translation of the Chinese term.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:44, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The OED entry on "memorial" is interesting. It suggests similar historical usage in English, to mean and also "In diplomatic use: any of various informal state papers giving an account of a matter under discussion, esp. one presented by an ambassador to the state to which he or she is accredited, or by a government to one of its agents abroad. Obs.", and "A statement of facts forming the basis of or expressed in the form of a petition or remonstrance to a person in authority, a government, etc.", and quotes, for example:

"1832 H. Martineau Demerara ii. 15 They met from time to time to..draw up memorials to Government.

"1900 Congress. Rec. (U.S.) 3 Jan. 638/1 A memorial of the legislature of the State of Colorado, favoring the return to the Republic of Mexico of captured cannon, flags, and banners.

"1697 Acts & Resolves Mass. Bay VII. 556 The Said Committee being also directed to Consider..ye memorialls presented by the ministers..are of Opinion [etc.]."

and also mentions that the word is in current use in Scottish law in a related sense, as "A statement of facts drawn up to be submitted to the Lord Ordinary in the Court of Session preliminary to a hearing. Also: an advocate's brief." --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

At a guess, I would imagine the ba gua flag to be similar to the flag of South Korea, and a Qilin flag to be similar to the flag of the Republic of Formosa. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Mandora, Western Australia

Is there any connection between Mandora Station in Western Australia and the British victory at the Battle of Mandora in 1801? I've just written a stub about the battle. and wondered if there was a link between the two. Alansplodge (talk) 15:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't find any reference to such a connection, Alan. My guess fwiw is that Mandora is a local Aboriginal word, but I've not been able to confirm that either. But here's a record of an Aboriginal woman named Mandora (1910).

Mandora Station has itself contributed indirectly to the name of a suburb of Perth, Madora Bay (no n): First approved as Madora in 1990, and amended to Madora Bay in 2003, this suburb derives its name from “Madora Beach Estate” of 1960. The estate was a development of Perry’s Estate Agency in Mandurah, and the name was derived from two Western Australian place names: Chadora, a mill and railway siding near Dwellingup, and Mandora, a cattle station between Broome and Port Hedland. [30] -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks - it was worth a go, after all, there's a Trafalgar, Victoria and four towns called Waterloo in Australia. Alansplodge (talk) 20:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, yes. I'm only an hour's drive from Trafalgar. My own hamlet of Maffra is said to be at least indirectly named after the Portuguese town and municipality of Mafra, prominent in the Peninsular War. And my Maffra is located within the Shire of Wellington's jurisdiction. The shire's headquarters are in Sale, named after Major General Sir Robert Henry Sale, a British Army officer who commanded the garrison of Jalalabad during the First Afghan War and was killed in action during the First Anglo-Sikh War. We're a traditional lot down here and we have long memories of places we've never heard of. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:55, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't imagine where you inherited that from! Alansplodge (talk) 12:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

According to the City of Mandurah official site, that place got its name from a local name, Mandjoogoordap. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Mandurah is several hundred miles away from Mandora Station, but it is still plausible that Mandora's name is derived from an Aboriginal name. It is also plausible that the place was named after the battle. Marco polo (talk) 21:12, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

What are the most inspiring uses of Wikipedia content?

I am looking for examples of Wikipedia content being reused to create something imaginative and new. I have one so far - Google Maps Wikipedia layer. Any other ideas? Please note that I am looking for remixes/reuses adding something new, so don't tell me about mirrors, forks or for-profit scams - I am aware of those, and they are not wbat I am asking about. I am also aware of GLAM and WiR stuff, but again, they are somewhat off topic here, as they are about Wikipedia working with others and making them contribute to Wikipedia, and not necessarily about others reusing Wikipedia content. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:32, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, it is not certain that it is Wikipedia's content being reused (it could have been some textbook) and the extent of reuse is very limited, but at least [31] (look at [32] - "Equestria Daily", "Episode Followup: It's About Time", 2012-03-11 - for more context) certainly shows an imaginative use in "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" episode "It's About Time" (filling the blackboard with formulas that are real and correspond to the ones in Time dilation#Time dilation at constant acceleration - [33]). If you want examples to show that our work is not wasted, I'd say this could be useful. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:20, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Black history month question: When was the term "Black American" coined acceptable by the United_States_Census?

Black history month question: When was the term "Black American" coined acceptable by the United_States_Census? Venustar84 (talk) 21:47, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

The 1850 questionnaire used the term "black".[34] What you mean by 'coined acceptable" is unclear. μηδείς (talk) 00:38, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Possibly because at one time "black" was considered offensive or at least demeaning, until black Americans took ownership of the term and made it a thing of pride. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:26, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

These things go through cycles (the "euphemism treadmill" vs. "reclaiming"); so the name of the NAACP has "Colored", UNCF has "Negro", while organizations founded since the late 1960's have "Black" or "African-American"... AnonMoos (talk) 04:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, the "Colored", "Black", and "Negro" usage were equally prominent among civil rights leaders at the turn of the 20th century. The NAACP was founded in 1909 by a group that included W. E. B. Du Bois, whose landmark book on race consciousness at the turn of the 20th century (the one which introduced the phrase "color line" into the lexicon) was The Souls of Black Folk. Dubois was also a member of the National Negro Committee, which was the forerunner to the NAACP. So, it doesn't appear that any of the three words, at that particular time, carried more or less stigma. Other times may have favored one term over the other, but there were times when they were clearly interchangable. --Jayron32 05:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The source I quoted has the verbiage from the 1800's through the 1900's. The 1850 and 1890 censi ask about blacks explicitly and the 1980 census is the first to ask about "race". I filled out the long form census for my parents when they got it in both 1980 and 1990 and told the census takers to bugger off both times. According to the press non-informative answers were supposed to earn us visits by a live census taker, but that didn't happen either time. μηδείς (talk) 05:25, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

You found an 1890 census form? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

see the source I found in my first response above. μηδείς (talk) 19:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

A few selections from the census sheets on ancestry.com, which of course it only has through 1940:

1840: Head of household plus counts of Free White Persons and Free Colored Persons.

1850, 1860: Color: White, Black, or Mulatto.

1870, 1880: Color: White, Black, Mulatto, Chinese, or Indian.

1890: Records were lost in a fire.

1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940: Color or race.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:15, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

February 7

NFL and MLB "interstate commerce"

Regarding U.S. antitrust law and professional sports: I was reading the article about the USFL suit against the NFL , and the article about the Federal_Baseball_Club_v._National_League lawsuit against the MLB. Apparently the MLB is not considered to be interstate commerce and thus not subject to antitrust law. Did the court in the NFL case give any reasoning why football is interstate but baseball is not, or was that defense not raised? RudolfRed (talk) 03:09, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The Supreme Court has given professional baseball a specific antitrust exemption, as a result of a 1922 decision which has not been overturned... AnonMoos (talk) 04:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Toolson v. New York Yankees, Federal Baseball Club v. National League, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 04:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the NFL lost its case against the USFL, but the USFL was given a nominal $1 in damages (trebled to $3 by statute), which is the U.S. court system's way of saying "Don't fuck with the NFL". --Jayron32 04:48, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Of note here may be the fact that the NCAA was sued under antitrust law and lost; see NCAA v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Oklahoma. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 14:40, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Most valuable professional sports trophy by raw material content?

In case there is any doubt, I am thinking of trophies like the World Cup, Stanley Cup, any of the tennis "Major" trophies, etc. By valuable I mean strictly considering their raw materials - not what it would get at auction, not the sentimental value. If you melted down the World Cup trophy, or the Davis Cup, or the Stanley Cup etc. and sold at market rate for component materials ... what professional sports trophy is the most valuable? The Masked Booby (talk) 03:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I dimly remember a diamond-encrusted racket available in tennis for some competition or other in the 80s. That'd have to be a contender. Can anyone fill in the gaps? --Dweller (talk) 10:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

There was one for ECC Antwerp which had a value of $1,000,000. However, in 2008 the Proximus Diamond Games had a diamond/gold racket as a prize valued at 1,500,000 Euros or US$2,035,500. And there is the The Tennis Channel Kwiat Million Dollar Diamond Swinger. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

joseph conrad's short story " Il Conde"

Good Morning, how is the story of ill conde is imperfectly perfect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.68.103.22 (talk) 04:39, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure you are in the correct forum. 1) This sounds like a homework question, and no one here is going to do your homework for you and 2) Even if it isn't, this is a request for opinion, which is also something we don't do here. Sorry. --Jayron32 04:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Edwin Black Birth Date

Does anyone know when Edwin Black (the author who wrote that book about IBM and the Holocaust) was born? Thank you very much. Futurist110 (talk) 06:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The article you link states that he was 12 in 1943. So that would make it sometime around 1931. --Jayron32 07:14, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

His mom was 12 in 1943, not Edwin Black himself. Here's the exact quote from that article -- "His mother Edjya, from Białystok, had only managed to survive the Holocaust when as a 12-year old in August 1943 she was pushed to safety by her mother and other prisoners through the vent of a boxcar en route to the Treblinka extermination camp." Futurist110 (talk) 07:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah. Then he'd be considerably younger than that. --Jayron32 07:24, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Ya think?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

• His VIAF entry has one record suggesting born 1950, though as there's no birthdate listed for the others this may be an anomaly or an error. Andrew Gray (talk) 09:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Fallacy

Hi guys,

What's the name of the fallacy you can quote when people say something like "why are you wasting your time researching squirrels when people are dying of cancer?". The fallacy I'm thinking of goes something like, we can't all work on the most important problems in the world, or trivial problems would become the most important problems.

Cheers,

Aaadddaaammm (talk) 09:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's actually a fallacy per se, sometimes it can be a valid concern as people need to get their priorities right. Also, many trivial problems will never become the most important problems, no matter how neglected they are. - Lindert (talk) 09:51, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Why are you asking this when you could be researching squirrels? Paul B (talk) 09:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

We hear this from politicians all the time. Rather than address the substance of whatever the issue is, they'll cry rhetorically "Why is the government wasting time on this matter when there are so many more important things to be getting on with?" - as if the government of a nation is a linear and sequential thing, with only ever one thing at a time being considered. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:05, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Whether or not the fallacy has a name is irrelevant. Our list of fallacies is mostly unreferenced dog-Latin. The question you should ask is: Is this argument fallacious? If so, you should be able to demonstrate that it is, which is a much better refutation than simply providing the name of an alleged error. AlexTiefling (talk) 10:39, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

All fallacies are non-sequiturs. Many non-sequiturs don't have names, although you can invent one if you like (the most recent one I've come across being coined is reductio ad Hitlerum). All arguments that attempt to go from a set of facts, to conclusions about what ought to be done, must confront the is-ought problem, first articulated by David Hume. They are all, in a sense, non-sequiturs, because they attempt to bridge the gap between what is true and what should be done, and this is more or less impossible. However, in practice, when debating with such people, you are really having a pointless and empty discussion. My solution is to read a book instead, or do some productive work. IBE (talk) 10:56, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

How about reductio ad rodentia? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:54, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Not bad. More prosaically, you could in fact try "reductio ad amplitudinem" - reducing it to a size issue. Point of order: it would be reductio ad rodentiam, or if you are looking for the actual Latin word, I think that would be rodentem. Of course this is a ridiculous nitpick on a non-serious comment, but that is why you study Latin in the first place ;). Actually, it might be fun to try some comment like this on someone - they try a silly argument along the lines of what the OP has been hearing, and you hit back with a meaningless dog Latin phrase - and make it sound convincing. Then act surprised when they don't know what you are talking about. IBE (talk) 14:08, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't see this as being a fallacious argument, it's a valid argument from utilitarianism (whether it is right or not is another question). If you do one thing (say, squirrel research) you cannot do something else (say, rocket science), or cannot do as much of the other thing. If some other thing (rocket science) is more valuable than what you are choosing to do (squirrels) then the case can be made that you are making a bad decision and should instead maximise the time on the more valuable action (rocket science). 46.30.55.66 (talk) 17:28, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That is only true if the choice is between squirrel research and rocket science. In most cases, the choice is actually between squirrel research and no research at all (i.e. flipping burgers), because a biologist is unlikely to have the motivation or skills needed to be a good rocket scientist. --140.180.247.198 (talk) 18:01, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

In that vein, false dilemma could apply to the original question. --BDD (talk) 21:32, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Origin of social conservatism, sex-negativity, and modesty

It has always fascinated me exactly at which point in history or prehistory, modern society's sex-negativity and social conservative attitude originated. Most ancient civilizations such as Roman Empire had a sex-positive culture. My questions are: (all the following questions are related to prehistory and ancient history, not medieval and modern history)

• What factors contributed to the change from a sex-positive culture to sex-negative cultural environment during the ancient or early medieval era?
• Exactly at which point in history did this change occur? Did it happen in ancient era or early medieval era? Does it have something to do with the rise of organized religions?
• When did the concepts of modesty and indecent exposure originate? Since clothing originated long before recorded history and the Neanderthals used clothing, is it possible to know whether the concept of modesty existed among other species in the genus Homo? Did paleolithic hunter-gathering bands have the concept of modesty? --PlanetEditor (talk) 11:24, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

PlanetEditor -- the pre-Hellenistic Greeks wore clothes most of the time, but they had very different ideas of bodily modesty than modern Western societies. Men would think nothing about going naked for specific purposes (athletic competition, swimming etc.) even in public. Women were a little more reticent (outside the Spartan foot-race), but see the Doric chiton for a garment which is constructed with ideas of bodily modesty which were very different from modern ones... AnonMoos (talk) 13:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately I would say the premise is false. This varies wildly even in "modern society". I would also say that the Romans were certainly not sex-positive in the sense that you mean it, at least not all of them and not all the time. (If you don't like modern American neoconservativism, you definitely wouldn't like classical Rome...) Adam Bishop (talk) 12:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Are you saying sex negativity originated before the advent of civilizations, during the paleolithic era? --PlanetEditor (talk) 12:32, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

It's a reasonable bet that it had to do with survival and protection. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:48, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

---

PlanetEditor -- I would be skeptical that many (or any) ancient peoples were indiscriminately "sex-positive" in any modern sense. However, a major turning point was in the early centuries A.D., when many currents of spiritual "seeking" in the Mediterranean area ran in ascetic channels which ended up influencing people far beyond a few wilderness hermits and itinerant holy men. One conspicuous manifestation of this was many forms of Gnosticism (though there were actually currents of both ascetic Gnosticism and "antinomian" Gnosticism, and the Gnostics weren't the only philosophical ascetics of the period). Gnostic influence on the doctrinal theology of Christianity turned out to be extremely slight, but Gnosticism did play an important role in determining the cultural climate of opinion out of which negative early Christian teachings about sexuality emerged (Origen had himself castrated, Jerome exalted perpetual virginity as being far better than marriage, etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 13:31, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

P.S. What Wikipedia has on this seems to be rather scattered in small dribs and drabs, but see Acts of Thomas for one text which strongly advocated for sexless marriage... AnonMoos (talk) 13:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. But I'm still interested in knowing how did the concept of modesty originate. The Sentinelese people, for example, are pre-Neolithic tribes and uncontacted people [35]. They don't have a culture of clothing, but they do cover their genitals. The Bushmen are also paleolithic tribes and they also have a culture of covering only the genitals. This means paleolithic people did develop a cultural taboo of genitals. How and why did it originate? While this taboo is nonexistent among other Hominids, why did humans, better to say certain species among the genus Homo, develop it? Is there any explanation from the perspective of evolutionary biology or neurobiology? --PlanetEditor (talk) 14:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That aspect of the question is purely anthropological, so I wonder why you bothered to mention the Roman empire in the first place... I think it's fairly safe to say that various anthropological cultures differ very widely on what needs to be concealed/covered and what doesn't, and under which circumstances -- but even those in which very little is required to be concealed do uphold the requirements that they have. As for the origins of modesty, since the early decades of the 20th century anthropologists have been rather skeptical of trying to reconstruct historical "origins" for most cultural customs where little or no direct historical evidence is available. Leading 19th-century anthropologists often seemed to be more interested in speculating on the remote origins of things than in understanding how they fit in to the contemporary cultures for which they had direct evidence available, and the 19th-century anthropologists constructed highly-dubious historical hypotheses (such as rigid inflexible unilineal social evolution). Freud may have helped along the discrediting of this particular style of anthropology when he wrote some books (such as Totem and Taboo) which were either ridiculously awful or awfully ridiculous, but had no value whatsoever other than revealing aspects of Freud's own mentality.

The modern approach to anthropological origin problems is to avoid nineteenth-century style speculating, and base everything on empirical observations and reasonably solidly-grounded theories of evolutionary psychology etc. AnonMoos (talk) 17:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Don't forget that many societies celebrate and encourage sex for some groups, highly discourage it for others. No Sex Please, We're British was just a comedy play. To label societies as "sex-negative" or "sex-positive" is simplistic. Michel Foucault said that the Victorians, far from being anti-sex were obsessed with investigating and defining it, and I think he had a point. Perhaps it's hypocrisy that is the human universal. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

One of the classic works of anthropology is the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss on kinship systems and the incest taboo, which is one of the cornerstones of all human cultures. The centrality of sex to social relations is confirmed by the sociobiological work of primatologists. Probably the most important mechanism of social control is the social regulation of sexuality, given, on the one hand, the individual's instinctive drive to seek sex and the great physical pleasure it offers to the individual, and, on the other hand, the centrality of sexual relations to family relationships, which are the closest and most basic human social relations. So it is really simplistic to classify societies as sex-negative and sex-positive. It is only during the past century or so, when capitalism, urbanization, and geographic mobility combined to make relations of kinship less essential to the social order, that there has been anything like a positive cultural attitude toward, say, heterosexual relations outside of marriage. Certain past societies were more tolerant toward homosexual relations outside of (but usually not in place of) marriage, but mainly because those homosexual relations fostered some other value of the culture in question. Even in classical times, sexual norms were highly circumscribed. The supposed sexual abandon of certain Roman emperors and aristocrats is usually reported by writers whose goal was to denigrate those emperors and aristocrats for their immorality. On the other hand, sexual relations between adult men and adolescent boys were considered normal in ancient Greece and Rome not because of modern sexual liberalism but because those relations (really only among members of the elite) were believed to perpetuate the system of patriarchy in those societies. In other societies, homosexuality and other forms of extramarital sex were permitted only with individuals who had a religious or ritual role, such as, for example Two-Spirits or sacred prostitution. Societies with these kinds of institutions were not more "sex positive" than those without; they just drew different kinds of limits around sexuality. Marco polo (talk) 19:54, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Holocaust revisionism

Please note, I'm not disputing the validity of the Holocaust as an historical event, I do believe that many millions of people were murdered.

My question refers more to the way that historians have reported the Holocaust as an event which took place sequentially without any long-term vision for the fate of European Jews. In my opinion, if you analyze Nazi policy the outcome which was the Final Solution seems quite easy to envision. In the years 1933-1938 (perhaps even until 1940) the legislation which the Nazi party passed to discriminate and isolate the Jewish people is commonly thought to encourage their emigration abroad. However, the way I see it, the Nazi policy of expanding their Lebensraum makes this inherently untenable; Germany had 500,000 Jews, encouraging them to emigrate might have been feasible. However, after the Anschluss and the annexation of the Sudetenland and the invasion of Poland, German Jewish populations increased exponentially. My theory is that the legislation passed against the Jewish people, in addition to the decrees designed to humiliate, identify or economically cripple them, were designed not to encourage immigration; I put forth the theory that they were designed to affect German attitudes towards their Jewish neighbours. The more the Nazis made it visible to the German people that the Jews were Untermenschen, anti-German and not worth of living in Germany, the more indifferent Germans would be come and, consequently, the less likely they would be to question why the Jews were disappearing and not being seen again. Does anybody else recognize this as a credible theory or have I missed something. Basically, I think the final solution was known about at the time of coming to power, or very soon after, and that it was litmus tested by the Nazi party to see how long it would take to transform German attitudes to the Jewish people to the extent that their extermination would be passively accepted. Sorry the question was so wordy, and thanks for taking the time to answer it --Andrew 13:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

As I understand it, and I'm happy to be corrected, there's no evidence for a Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews prior to the 1942 Wannsee Conference. But I think we can go further than that in response to your theory. Remember, at the time of the Nuremberg Laws, Germany controlled just a small proportion of Europe and so a very small proportion of European Jewry. Unless you'd like to argue that in 1935, Hitler (who, remember, had only just reached power and was hardly even a runaway electoral success at home) already had a grand scheme for conquering all the way to Moscow (and beyond?), it's hard to support your thoughts. And I don't think that's a likely scenario. It's far more likely that the laws were as they appear to be at face value: popularist and ideological racist measures. --Dweller (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Our Mein Kampf article says "a retrospective review of the text reveals the crystallisation of Hitler's goal to completely exterminate the Jewish presence in Europe." That's from a 1925 publication, published when the Nazi party had virtually no political power. — Lomn 14:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That sentence, which I've just tagged for being uncited, is directly contradicted by the following, cited, sentence, which reads, "While historians diverge on the exact date Hitler decided to exterminate the Jewish people, few place the decision before the mid 1930s". Interestingly, the cited sentence implies that some historians would go as far as saying that Hitler had plans to exterminate the Jews around the time of the Nuremberg Laws, which would mean that there may be room for the OP's opinion, after all. Though it still seems very unlikely. Hitler was very practical and planning to wipe out people who live a long way outside of one's borders is not a practical plan. --Dweller (talk) 15:03, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

To me the OP seems quite reasonable. Of course the Nazis could only expect to exterminate the German Jews in 1933, but this seems to have been a (possibly subconscious) goal from the start: E.g. to Sebastian Haffner it was clear already in 1933 that the Nazis wanted to eventually kill all the Jews, acc. to his "autobiography" ("Geschichte eines Deutschen", written in 1939). The Jews were actually prevented from emigrating with one of the 1933 laws. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:21, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The OP is also supported by Daniel Goldhagen: "The elimination of the Jews was Hitler's aim from the beginning. It already began in 1933 by excluding the Jews from society." („Die Eliminierung der Juden war von Anfang an Hitlers Ziel. Es begann schon 1933 mit dem Ausschluss von Juden aus der Gesellschaft.“ Spiegel-Gespräch: „Mörder dürfen ermordet werden“, in: DER SPIEGEL, Nr. 41/2009, S. 134-140, as stated in [36].) Roentgenium111 (talk) 17:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Does Goldhagen give any evidence for his claim, aside from merely asserting it? Are you sure that by "elimination", he meant genocide and not exclusion from society (which the second sentence seems to imply)?

The OP's theory fails Occam's razor. There is no evidence that Hitler planned to exterminate the Jews before 1942. It is far from clear, even with 70 years of hindsight and complete access to information, that persecuting Jews would decrease instead of increase public sympathy for them. By contrast, the theory that Hitler's policies were initially intended to encourage emigration is simple, obvious, logical, and supported by all contemporary documents and all contemporary policies. --140.180.247.198 (talk) 17:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

We have a whole article on this: Functionalism versus intentionalism. That Hitler wanted to eliminate, in the sense of "get rid of", Jews from Germany is undisputed as far as I know. That's not the same as saying that he had a long-established master-plan of some sort to murder them all. I can't see how that could have been even envisaged in practical terms before 1941. Paul B (talk) 18:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

How to make a new religion?

It seems to me that the recipe for a religion is this: beliefs + rituals + ethics + time + follower(s) = religion. Perhaps, a person may invest in the pursuit of an established belief system that is closest to the person's values taught by his parents/guardians since birth, adopt a series of rituals that fit and make sense with this belief system, collect ethical wisdom that the person deems agreeable, spend some time practicing his new faith, and begin his religious teaching, thereby creating a new generation of disciples that shall hold this school of thought or maybe even expand the school of thought. How does one characterize a religion made from scratch and a religion based on an older religion or a religion with the religious leader being a follower of an older and more established religious tradition while simultaneously teaching a new religious tradition? At this point, would this new religious movement be characterized as a religious denomination of an older religion, or a separate religion in its own right, or will the new school of thought merely be more of an ethical-philosophical belief system within already established religion or can be made compatible with the founder's native faith? 140.254.226.231 (talk) 00:06, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

See L. Ron Hubbard. --Jayron32 00:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

"In a cult, there is one person at the top who knows the whole thing is a scam. In a religion, that person is dead."Dncsky (talk) 00:37, 8 February 2013 (UTC)