The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
Buddism come from India, now big in China, Korea, Japan and South East Asia countrys, but no more in India. Why? Other religions still big in the place they come from, like Muslim in Arab countrys. --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 02:43, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Bethlehem and Nazareth have significant Christian populations, though Bethlehem's in particular, has shrunk over the years, I believe. Blame the Palestinians, not Israel for this, I say. Fighting between rival Christian factions in Israel may also be in issue - see our articles on Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Church of the Nativity, where things got so bad at times that Muslims had to step in to save the situation. (The keys to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have been held by a Muslim family for generations. And it was the Muslim Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who pleaded with the rival Christian factions who control the Church of the Nativity to agree on funding desperately-needed renovations to the historic building). Christianity in Israel is the relevant article. The Romans have long gone, almost all of Israel's Christians today are either Arab (though labelling some, like the Copts and Marionites, as "Arab" is controversial), or immigrants. Note that Israel's northern neighbour, Lebanon, has a significant Christian population, who claim (truly or otherwise) descent from the days of Phonecia. Eliyohub (talk) 13:08, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the answers. So Buddhist groups fight each other, Hindu ideas become closer to Buddhist teachings, then Muslims from other countrys come and harm the Buddhists? Few Christians in Israel cause they share Israel with the Jewish people? --Curious Cat On Her Last Life (talk) 19:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Parmailitaries killing each other during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland
I have specific question. The Troubles involved many participants, but for the purpose of this question, I'm focussing purely on paramilitary groups and their members and associates. Both on the one side, the Ulster Loyalist ones and other other side, the various groups calling themselves Irish Republican Army. Note there were various groups using this title, but all are included for the sake of my question. The British army is explicitly not included.
My question is, how many paramilitary fighters died at the hands of rival or enemy paramilitaries? As I said exclude casualties suffered by or from the British army, or "sectarian" or politically-motivated murders (of political figures in the troubles who were not involved in paramilitary activity), even if carried out by one of these gangs. I'm solely interested in how much these gangs managed to kill of each other. Do we have any data on this question, preferably for each gang vs gang? (e.g, how many members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army were killed by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, and vice versa? And ditto for other groups?) Eliyohub (talk) 16:04, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You might get some information from Timeline of Ulster Volunteer Force actions and List of chronologies of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions (there may be similar articles for other groups). From what I remember, IRA actions tended to be directed towards British soldiers, and to "economic targets", though (from a quick glance) the IRA articles also list some killings of UVF members. Likewise, the UVF attacks seem to have been mostly towards Catholics in general, presumably on the assumption that they might be IRA sympathisers if not actual members. "At the time, the attitude was that if you couldn't get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig [catholic], he's your last resort". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:11, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
[ec] The Troubles#Casualties gives the raw figures - between 1969 and 2001, Loyalist paramilitaries killed 41 Republican paramilitaries, and Republican paramilitaries killed 57 Loyalist paramilitaries. See the article for the difficulties involved in narrowing down the numbers to specific paramilitary groups. Tevildo (talk) 17:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't get those figures. Both loyalist and republican paramilitaries killed significantly more of those of their "own side", than those of "the enemy"? Republican paramilitaries killed 187 of their own, but only 57 loyalists? And loyalist paramilitaries killed 84 of their own, but only 41 Republicans? Can someone point me to an explanation of this, or explain it themselves?
As a comparison, ISIS and Al Qaida spend most of their effort killing other Muslims, Anders Brevik decided to protest the Islamification of Europe by killing white Norwegians, and one of the first acts of mass murder by the Nazis was killing other Nazis. It seems to be pretty common for extremists to spend more effort targeting "traitors" / "sell-outs" / "apostates" / "heretics" on their "own" side than they do on the nominal enemy. Iapetus (talk) 10:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It seems also that loyalist paramilitaries were not particularly effective in hurting the IRA, if all they could nail was 41 of them? Targeting the IRA was the loyalists' stated goal. Our article claims:
Thus while republican paramilitaries caused the greatest number of deaths overall, they caused fewer civilian deaths than loyalist paramilitaries, and had a lower civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio than either of the other two belligerents.
The IRA, had the British army to target. The loyalists' raison d'etre was supposedly destroying the IRA, a very different task. so it isn't really a fair comparison, considering their different aims? The IRA had easily identifiable targets, as in the British army, whilst loyalist paramilitaries did not. Eliyohub (talk) 17:41, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Both groups used violence as much to exert control over their own communities as to pursue any political ends. A lot of the people they killed were informers or suspected informers within their own communities. They tried to control crime in their own communities through punishment beatings and shootings, and there were groups like Direct Action Against Drugs, an IRA front that killed drug dealers within the Catholic community. Rival groups within the same community vied for control of territory - there were various feuds between different loyalist groups that cost lives within the Protestant community - there were power struggles within paramilitary groups, and people like Robert McCartney, killed simply for getting on the wrong side of paramilitaries. Also, a lot of the sectarian killings were claimed to have been against paramilitary targets - loyalists and elements within the security forces thought Pat Finucane was in the IRA, for example, and when the IRA bombed Frizzell's Fish Shop on the Shankill Road in 1993, they said they were targeting an upstairs room where UDA leaders met. Such attacks would be counted objectively as being against civilians, but from the point of view of the people who carried them out, they would have been against paramilitary targets.--Nicknack009 (talk) 18:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a Republican sympathizer, but the fish shop WAS used as a UDA meeting spot. It just so happened that the meeting ended early. Or they switched meeting spots, believing the police had bugged the room. But clearly, most of those killed in the attack were civilians. (There was only one UDA member amongst the dead). Michael Stone (loyalist) would also have seen himself attacking an IRA funeral as hitting people who were logically presumed to be IRA members and sympathizers. However, most of those killed and wounded were not in fact IRA members. POV, the British should not have returned the bodies - end IRA funerals cold. That's what Israel now does to deal with the problem.Eliyohub (talk) 23:28, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Alansplodge: I don't think the Israel-Palestinian conflict has ever had any true parallel actors to Northern Ireland's "loyalist paramilitaries". Acts of violence by non-army Israelis towards Arabs (or fellow Jews whom they view as sympathetic to Arabs, such as Rabin's assassin) are sadly not unheard of, by any means. But the sort of organization and scale NI's loyalist paramilitaries showed is totally lacking, I'd say. The Altalena Affair was pretty much the end point in organized paramilitaries outside the army in Israel, the leader of the Irgun, Menachem Begin went into self-imposed political exile for two decades or so, to avoid a civil war. Modern-day Jewish extremism is mostly associated with Kahanism, but as I said, nothing of the scale of loyalist paramilitaries. The most violent act by a supporter of it was carried out by Baruch Goldstein, but I'd say though his victims were Palestinians, his bitterness was more against the Israeli Government for (in his eyes) surrendering to them. And an act of this scale was absolutely a one-off, and never occurred since.
(Raises an interesting question I'd love if you could answer: what was the most violent act done in an attempt to sabotage the Good Friday Agreement, may I ask? Whichever side it came from, did any such act occur?) Eliyohub (talk) 18:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks :) On the Republican side, yes, that would be the worst. What about on the loyalist side? Were there any significant violent attempts to derail the agreement? Eliyohub (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, most of the Loyalist paramilitaries observed ceasefires during and after the talks. The Loyalist Volunteer Force, a hardline splinter group of the Ulster Volunteer Force (which had largely observed a ceasefire since 1994), continued a campaign of murders and other attacks; but on 15 May 1998, the LVF announced an "unequivocal ceasefire" in support of a "no" vote in the referendum. However, they were implicated in a concerted arson attack on 12 Catholic churches on 15 July, before announcing "the war is over" on 8 August. Alansplodge (talk) 18:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Won't be American, as whites only arrived in America not that long ago. Native Americans would have no "national" song, as they were separate tribes, but would a Native American song about their attachment to the land count? If you mean "national" songs as in countries, you'd have to look at nations which have existed as such in some form for many centuries or more than a Millenium, obviously, like England, maybe? Or some other old civilisation, which later became a nation? Sorry I don't know the answer, just giving you some pointers as to where not to bother looking. But perhaps Brandmeister has the right idea. Eliyohub (talk) 22:51, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The article Kimigayo, which is the national anthem of Japan, states that it is among the oldest anthems. Now the question is about patriotic songs in general so I will be interested to see what other editors research comes up with. MarnetteD|Talk22:58, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Kimigayo has the oldest lyrics as a song, but was only adopted as a national anthem in 1922, so it may not be the "oldest anthem" by some definitions. But the OP is not limiting the question to anthems, so Kimigayo it may just be. Eliyohub (talk) 23:18, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The American national anthem wasn't officially so designated until 1931, although by then it was the de facto anthem. The Japanese anthem is kind of an odd one, in that it seems to stop short of actually finishing. But maybe it makes sense within the language. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 01:03, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Wilhelmus is, according to our article, "the oldest known national anthem in the world. The national anthem of Japan, Kimigayo, has the oldest lyrics, dating from the 9th century. However, a melody was only added in the late 19th century, making it a poem rather than an anthem for most of its lifespan". God Save the King is widely credited as the first song to actually be used as a national anthem [1] although it only dates from the mid-18th century in its present form. But we digress... Alansplodge (talk) 13:07, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with very ancient songs is that you can't tell how long people might have been singing them before someone actually wrote them down for the first time. Some of the Psalms probably go back three thousand years, and have a patriotic element to them. Wymspen (talk) 09:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not quite so old but in Ancient Greece: "...at about 1000 BC when the Homeric poems began to be chanted or sung by travelling minstrels called Rhapsodists.The schools of rhapsodists lasted for about 250 years, when choral and patriotic song began to be developed". A Popular History of the Art of Music by W.S. Mathews (pp. 48-49). Alansplodge (talk) 13:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There are two songs whose authorship is traditionally credited to Saint Adalbert of Prague (d. 997), a Czech bishop who became missionary (and martyr) to what is now northern Poland. One of them, Bogurodzica, a prayer to Mary as Mother of God, has been since then quite popular as a patriotic hymn in Poland, serving as a de facto national anthem on some occasions in the past, be it before battles or during coronations. However its language reflects somewhat later medieval Polish (the oldest surviving manuscript containing Bogurodzica dates from 1407), thus casting doubts upon alleged Adalbertine origins. A 14th century dating of the lyrics seems more plausible. The other song, Hospodine, pomiluj ny (God, Have Mercy Upon Us), once fulfilled the same functions in medieval Bohemia (present Czech Republic) around 11th-12th centuries (first attested 1056), but since then dropped out of prominence and its use remains limited to religious services. It retains pretty much archaic language features, close to Old Church Slavonic. The current Czech counterpart to Bogurodzica is the Saint Wenceslas Chorale, attested 1368 as an already "ancient and well known" song, presumably originating in 13th century, more specifically in the turmoil after death of King Přemysl II Ottokar (d. 1278) - the period referred to as The Brandenburgers in Bohemia. While the above mentioned couple of songs are essentially purely religious hymns without country- or ethnic- specific wording, the Saint Wenceslas Chorale, is also a religious hymn, but heavily stuffed with patriotic references to Bohemia, kinship of the whole Czech ethnic to Saint Wenceslas and names of other regional patron saints. Perhaps because of these explicitly patriotic lyrics it has retained quite undiminished appeal through centuries. Its text, a prayer to Duke Saint Wenceslas (d. 935) as an idealized perpetual ruler of Bohemia and heavenly protector of Czech people is quite well known among generally irreligious Czech populace even today (thanks to being included in school curriculum) and (apart from being regularly used in churches) the song functions as an unofficial national anthem on very solemn or very critical occasions that are considered important for the Czech lands and Czech people. In short: In Poland the oldest popularly "living" patriotic song is about 650-700 years old, in the Czech Republic about 750 years. Not so impressive as the Classical Antiquity but an example of the genre anyway. GCZPN3 (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What Wymspen says above about some Psalms being used as a sort of patriotic song is definitely true, and they were sung by the levites as part of the daily temple service in Jerusalem. See Shir shel yom. The one used on Mondays (Psalm 48) is probably sort of patriotic. It was apparently written by the Korahites, so it in fact predates king David, though he was the one who recorded it in his collection of Psalms. Modern Jews still sing songs from psalms, but the old tunes used in the temple have long been lost, even though we know the words perfectly. Eliyohub (talk) 19:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Solomon and the baby
Am I right in thinking that, in the story of Solomon and the baby, we never actually find out which of the two women in the dispute was the mother?
As in, I understand the ending and the wisdom of Solomon etc.
But the dispute was: 'A says B lost her baby and swapped them in the night so that B ended up with the live one. B says A completely made that up.'
The story doesn't seem to disclose which of A and B was the true mother? In other words, did the nighttime switch actually happen or do we never find out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amisom (talk • contribs) 23:00, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Solomon's judgment was that the woman who begged not to kill the child was the real mother. That would be B, as I understand it. But no matter what letter or number you assign to them, the real mother is the one who implored Solomon not to kill the child. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 13:32, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One point that seems to need further elaboration - Baruch Cohen's argument (linked by Eliyohub) for the real mother being B is based on his analysis of their relationship as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and its legal consequences. He cites various medieval and modern sources for this. However, the actual text describes the women as "harlots" (KJV/RSV) or "prostitutes" (NIV/TEV), which seems (to me) incompatible with the respectable situation Cohen posits. Are the English translations all inaccurate? Tevildo (talk) 01:49, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The word used in the Hebrew bible is "זֹנות", which all modern translations of the language turn into "prositute" or something of similar meaning. I wouldn't know if there is any basis to believe this word had a different meaning thousands of years ago. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
An analysis based on nonsense is bound to be nonsense. Cohen's argument is predicated in part on the "fact" that "no normal mother lies on her own child and crushes him in her sleep" which is, of course, ridiculous. (It also seems to put the Talmud cart before the Tanakh horse, but nevermind...) - Nunh-huh02:10, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I saw that JLaw piece but the author seems to have ascribed the labels 1 and 2 to the outbursts at the suggestion of dividing the child without any basis? Amisom (talk) 09:59, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that too. I don't know any Hebrew, but unless there is something in Hebrew grammar that the English translations aren't rendering, the text seems to contain no hint whatsoever which of the two responses at the end is to be ascribed to which of the two women presented in the beginning. (Oh, and I agree with Nunh-huh that the argument about "no normal mother" accidentally killing her child in her sleep is nonsense – accidental "overlying" was an often-cited and commonly supposed cause of infant mortality throughout history.) Fut.Perf.☼10:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It actually can still be a problem. See [3][4] for example. Note that while the risk can be increased by things that people may consider shouldn't be the case with a "normal mother" (like alcohol consumption and smoking) others are realisticly perfectly expected of a normal mother especially if the info isn't known (i.e. historically) or isn't easily available (e.g. poor people in developing countries) [5]. Nil Einne (talk) 12:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
... so may we conclude that, despite Baruch Cohen's argument, Amisom was correct that there is nothing in the story to tell us whether or not the switch actually happened? Dbfirs12:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've always assumed that he doesn't know which was which until he sees and hears the reactions to his proposed action, and when he does know, he doesn't tell us which claim was the lie. Dbfirs14:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Bugs, you're not getting the point. Of course we all assume that for the purposes of the story, Solomon's judgment is correct – the true mother is the one who (in 3.26) rejects the proposal to cut the baby in half. What we don't know, because apparently the story doesn't tell us, is whether the speaker in 3.26 is the same as the initial plaintiff, who (in 3.17–21) was accusing the other of exchanging the dead child for hers, or whether it's the other one (who was claiming she kept her own living child with her all along). Fut.Perf.☼14:52, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Another possible reading is that Solomon is making no judgement whatsoever as to which of the women is the biological mother of the child, but only as to which of them comports herself as, and therefore is, a true mother to the infant. - Nunh-huh17:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This article (by L. H. LaRue of W&L Law, and therefore likely to be a fairly reliable source), analyzes the judgement as a (common-law) trial. LaRue doesn't make a definite statement of the identity of the parties, but he makes the interesting point that Solomon being wrong (that is, the real mother was the one who said "cut up the baby") is more consistent with A being the successful litigant: she's clever enough to both accuse B of the theft and know what to say to convince Solomon. This would imply, assuming Solomon was right, that B was in fact the mother (as Cohen concludes on rather more doubtful grounds). But, for our purposes, I think we can say that it's not possible to determine the issue from the Biblical text alone. Tevildo (talk) 17:40, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very interesting essay, and it's fascinating to consider such duplicity, but the suggestion that Solomon got it wrong is not supported by 1Kings3:26 Dbfirs19:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the link posted by Eliyohub, A awakes with a dead child and B awakes with a live child. So B has possession of the live child, but is willing to give the child to A to spare its life, whereas A is like "whatever". Solomon concludes that B is the real mother, and B retains possession of the child. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 17:34, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've always understood it to be the way I explained it above. I don't know who this Cohen guy is, and I didn't read his commentary, just his quotation of the scripture. I guess you could say that we don't know absolutely because there isn't a "narrator" (i.e. God) saying "this is how it really was." The best information we have is Solomon's judgment. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 19:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Bugs, Solomon does not give a judgement on the question here. He does not declare whether (a) the night-time switch happened, or (b) it was totally invented by a mendacious claimant. I know you say you "always understood" it to be the latter but is there any reason for that that you can point to? Solomon didn't say it was the latter. Amisom (talk) 21:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Let me reframe it thus: Alice said that, during the night, Betty stole her live baby and claimed it as her own. Betty says that Alice's baby died and now she's inventing stories to try to get hold of Betty's live baby. Solomon was about to cut the child in half when Miss Smith called out, "No, let Miss Jones have it!" – but Miss Jones is all in favour of it being cut. Solomon declares that Miss Smith is the real mother. But what is Miss Smith's first name, Alice or Betty? Amisom (talk) 21:33, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this elegant restatement of the problem. But I honestly don't think this is needed at this point. Bugs is evidently hell-bent on not getting the point, and if he hasn't by now, he won't. Everybody else seems to be already on the same page, so let's just leave it at that. Fut.Perf.☼22:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, everyone, I did not particularly screen the link I posted to make sure it meets WP:RS, and am not endorsing Cohen's interpretation. I had until just now not studied the tale personally in the original text (I just looked it up now), and Cohen may well be wrong. The interpretation I have heard from another source: And the other woman said: 'Nay; but the living is my son, and the dead is thy son.' And this said: 'No; but the dead is thy son, and the living is my son.' Thus they spoke before the king.. The woman who began by saying "the living is my son" was the real mother, for that was the point she sought to emphasise (I want my child!). To read the text yourself, see [6] verse 22. So it was still B, as I see it, since she was the one who said this. The liar was A who began with "the dead is thy son" (she had other issues to chew the bone over, rather than a craving for the child). I don't recall the source for this, sorry. Eliyohub (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Following your logic, I still see A as the real mother. There is nothing in the text to distinguish who spoke which words in verse 26. Dbfirs19:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Solomon-like, the best decision. Mothers-in-law to the left, daughters-in-law to the right... the discussion has clearly run its course.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I know. Let's cut User:Baseball Bugs in half. That might just stop him proffering his personal opinions on this matter inter alia, when everyone else has provided what's required here, viz. references. Except maybe he'd become the Headless Chicken of the Ref Desks and continue to run around wildly opinionating, only there'd be two of him then, one speaking out his mouth and the other from ... somewhere else. Nah, best to limit the damage and keep him down to one entity who speaks from ... somewhere else. Happy New Year, BB. You'd make it a happy one for the rest of us if you would vow to play by the rules of the ref desks and provide references for most responses and not just your personal, private opinions on stuff. Thank you. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]21:38, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The OP's other question was, "Did the nighttime switch actually happen or do we never find out?" The answer is that Solomon did not directly address that question. Maybe he didn't consider it important. His sole interest was in identifying the real mother. But logical reasoning would indicate that the switch did not occur. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 22:25, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it was important to characterize the women as "harlots", implying that their word could not be trusted, but their emotions could be trusted. So the answer remains, no, we don't know for sure. It might be more instructive to look at earlier versions of the story and see if it's less ambiguous. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 22:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It would certainly seem to be the case that the use of automatic weapons in crime is rare in the United States. FBI statistics don't mention how many murders are committed by submachine guns specifically, but presumably it would fall under firearms-other [7], which constitute less than 1% of gun homicides. I'd imagine this is related to the incredible difficulty in obtaining such a gun after the National Firearms Act of 1934. But how prevalent was it back then? Murder by Tommy Gun was certainly quite a famous cause of death back in the 20s and 30s, but how did it compare to all firearms deaths of the period? Someguy1221 (talk) 04:46, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically considering the Thompson submachine gun (the "Tommy Gun"), it was invented in 1918: less than two years before the start of nationwide Prohibition in the United States. One could argue that the Tommy guns proliferated during Prohibition (1920-1933) simply because they didn't exist pre-Prohibition. The National Firearms Act, passed in 1934, imposed registration requirements and a (then-)hefty $200 excise tax on all machine guns (and a number of other classes of firearms), which would have made their acquisition and ownership significantly more difficult and costly.
Since then, a number of court rulings and extensive lobbying have significantly watered down the restriction on firearms ownership in the United States. On the police side, similar lobbying has led to the militarization of (some) U.S. police forces, supplying them with battlefield weapons the Untouchables would never have imagined carrying. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:51, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. I believe all of this is based on SMW's having seen some black and white movies. In any case, regardless of taxes, I know that in the 90's in the South Bronx you could either buy an illegal gun for $50 or pay for a hit for $50, whichever you preferred. When a neighbour offered to do a hit for me, I declined, and tipped him (with his .358) and his accomplice (carrying an Uzi) $20 with the instructions not to do so. In any case, I saw the target's boss the next day, but never again the target. μηδείς (talk) 04:00, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Is life so cheap in the Bronx? Here, the going rate for hitmen is $250,000 per murder, apparently. [9]. If you want to put a price on a public figure, you can ask for them to be put on an Assassination market on the Dark web, though these have yet to result in any successful hits. Intriguingly, the Federal Reserve is seen by the contributors as enemy number 1, for their supposed opposition to Bitcoin. Ben Bernanke supposedly had a huge price on his head, but I have no idea if those charged with protecting him were concerned by an "attack of the nerds" in the form of real-life murder, as opposed to cyber-attacks. (The classical terror in the FBI's eyes was Kevin Mitnick, the only cyber-criminal to ever feature on the "FBI's most wanted". Er, wasn't this a slight overreaction to a man who did a lot of intrusion, but very little actual damage to computer systems? Angry nerds crashed fbi.gov with a Denial-of-service attack in retaliation. fbi.gov took a long time to recover, as they waited for a new firewall. Ouch). Eliyohub (talk) 16:00, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you get what you pay for, and these would have been sloppy hits by excons who were more used to jail than the outside. At one point in the 90's there were over 2,000 known murders a year, with half of those in the South Bronx and neighboring Harlem.
My dad worked on an overpass at 96th Street and the FDR Drive where a garbage depot that loaded trucks' cargo onto barges was hidden under an artificial park his firm designed. They used to find a body in the trash every two or three days on average. This led to huge delays, given the truck and/or barge became a crime scene. They fixed the problem by ceasing to notice or report the corpses.
Since this is the reference desk, I thought it would be useful to present some refs to back up Medeis claims, which are coincidentally correct; this confirms that there were 2000-ish murders reported per year in the early 1990s in NYC. By the end of the decade, that had been cut to 1/3rd of it's peak, and the numbers now are about 1/6th as bad as they were. The reasons for the sudden rise, and even faster, fall of the NYC murder rates during the 1990s are hotly debated, early on it was thought that the Broken windows theory of policing was the main result, however later analysis has largely debunked that (because crime rates fell the same way in cities that did NOT subscribe to that method of policing) and instead point to other factors, from economic issues to the controversial effect of legalized abortion on crime rate. Freakonomics authors Levitt and Dubner cover the later theory in some detail, and this article goes over the basic consensus among experts today that 1) it definitely WASN'T the policing techniques put in force during the 1990s, and 2) otherwise, except that it WASN'T that, we're not really sure WHY it fell. Just some background. --Jayron3219:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Steal what? Cash and drugs were the only commodities of interest in that neighborhood. Carjacking was a fungible skill, I suppose. But you are talking about people living on $140/mo and food stamps. That comes out to about 1 nickle-bag of smack a day. Not being a junkie, I am not sure, but I suppose that's not enough to satisfy the monkey. In my "case" the guns were borrowed, I didn't want to know who from. And the target was expendable. It would have been $50 for a ten minute job. μηδείς (talk) 04:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Why didn't they mug someone or rob a store? Not being a criminal I don't know if infrequently robbing Upper East Siders or frequently robbing South Bronxites or selling carjacked cars or being a $50 hitman has the longest average time to being shot or arrested when done by an impulsive junkie but that's their problem. Why not try to sell the Uzi to some drug dealer or redneck and flee the city they stole it from? Why not end their useless existence with the Uzi? This is your brain on drugs. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. I mean, a carjacking or robbing will land somebody a relatively short jail sentence (a guesstimate, five years? Ten at most?). Whereas murder tends to get one a long jail sentence. So doesn't some cost-benefit calculation come into it? Were they so confident they would never be caught, that they were willing to risk a 30 year jail sentence for $50? Or were they so used to jail, the idea of returning there did not bother them at all? Which would be your guess? (The alleged crooked cop I mentioned demanded $250,000 for the risk, and he still ended up charged with murder. He dodged the charges with the murder of the star witness, but investigators cleared him of any involvement in the witnesses' murder. The witness was a career crook, many would have wanted him dead, he long knew he was living on borrowed time after a deadly feud with a rival crime clan, others got to him first). Eliyohub (talk) 17:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, a little more than I would like to say, but this was a special circumstance; this was not a case of a long-planned scheme on my part to get a professional to knock off a business associate. I had a post-tax income of about $500/wk at the point, and had by choice gotten a one-bedroom apartment for $400/mo in a 90% Hispanic and mostly poor (probably 90% on welfare) due to the cost (a similar apartment downtown would have been half the size for three times the rent. I was two train stops from Manhattan, three from the Upper East Side, about 20 minutes from the Village. There was one white Irish family across the street, and myself comprising the entire white population.
The drug trade was a huge part of the economy. I could not walk from my door to the subway without being offered "dead presidents" and other brands of heroin (until the locals got used to me). I got robbed, and the identity of the robber was known, and that I had been robbed was almost immediately known to the whole neighborhood, given the "watchers" who sit looking out behind the window shades to notify the high-level dealers of police or gang activity.
For my safety (i.e., "street cred), something had to be done, and I took care of it. But my neighbor, who was a recently released ex-con, also found out from the grapevine. As we were on good terms (his wife and I were close friends), he sensed an opportunity. He showed up after I had resolved the issue, but with a companion I did not know, whom he told me was from Manhattan. They were brandishing weapons, and offered to "do me the favor" for $50.
Had I said yes, it would have been a very easy score for them. My robber was already persona non grata, and it would have looked like typical gang warfare and be ignored by the cops who were all on the take in that precinct. The risk to my "friends" would have been negligent. But I am not the murdering type, and did not doubt that at least my neighbor's companion would snitch if caught. I tipped the gentlemen for their time, as my neighbor said he had borrowed the guns (he'd be killed if he sold them) and paid for the taxi, and said I knew where my neighbor was if I wanted his help in the future.
WOW, what a crazy place to live! I think you meant the risk to them would have been "negligible", not "negligent". If the robber was ALREADY persona non grata with the gangs who controlled the neighbourhood, do you have any idea if he's still alive? I would think they don't need the robbery of you as an excuse to kill him, in that sort of situation? Wouldn't he be likely to end up dead at some point regardless? Eliyohub (talk) 22:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As for the thief, I was smart enough not to go around asking questions to which I didn't need the answer. Referring to the "South Bronx Ghetto" is condescending, and a great oversimplification. And Yankee Stadium is not considered a typical part of the South Bronx, nor is it a particularly bad neighborhood. I was living two blocks from where La Lupe resided (140th Street & St. Ann Avenue) when the famed singer died in 1992.
The two problems of the South Bronx were almost universal police corruption due to the drug trade, and police brutality as in the case of Anthony Baez. The area has been fancied up a bit since I last lived there, and the cities murder rate is less than that of Chicago, about 1/5th of its record heights. But at the time the NYT described it as the largest open-air heroin market in the Western Hemisphere. μηδείς (talk) 01:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Right, my almost zero knowledge guess is Yankee Stadium's one of the best parts of the South Bronx but I was surprised how ungentrified it looked only a few years ago. Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights looks like the UES in comparison (and that was another neighborhood that was supposed to be one of the drug capitals of the city in the early 90s). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:45, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A Megalosaurus stalks Crystal Palace Park in London.I was to Columbia Presbyterian once, and it simply seemed very old (wartime) and dirty, like most areas of NYC that aren't regularly sandblasted. You'll see that your reffed stats above match mine pretty much exactly, this was no coincidence. My OR is based on direct experience and having read the Times, Post, and Sun (now defunct except for nysun.com) regularly. I walked from St Ann Ave in the Bronx to Saint Mark's (130 "streets" down and 5 avenues over) on three occasions around 1994. If you've seen The Wiz, the subway station scene with the carnivorous trash cans is the 168th Street station of the D-Train. I was freaked out the first time I went there for real, since I grew up in 98% white NJ suburbs, and didn't realize how much of that movie was NYC-informed.
One has to realize that crime in NYC is almost all drug-turf or -debt related. The attention of the police or press is bad for business. One could not buy pot at 3pm where I lived, because the kids were on their way home from school. I let a heroin user who was my weed dealer shoot up in my apartment once. He's dead and I am not. I think the real lesson is that one cannot form such opinions without direct experience, no matter what "RS" one has read or what movie one has seen. For example, some of the action of the movie Shaft (2000 film) was set across the street from where I lived, and it looked as genuine to me as Munchkin Land. I walked out laughing and angry at the price of the ticket about 15 minutes into the film. I wouldn't go around talking about Welsh coal-miners in blackskin based on The Sixth Finger. One must really experience the real thing. μηδείς (talk) 04:53, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Cultural structure of social media communities
I asked this before, and was engaged in discussion with another editor when the section was archived. Lemme know if I shouldn't bring it back like this.
Are there any sociological studies about the cultural structure of social media communities?
Dan Howell made a video about the Five Pillars of Tumblr, (Aesthetics, Fandom, Social justice, Memes, and Porn) and it made me wonder if there's any validity to that idea.
I know that it's just one guy's opinion, but I was wondering if there were any formal studies of the cultural structure of social media communities, in general, not just regarding the five pillars.
By cultural structure I mainly mean subcultures and ingroups, such as the ones Dan mentioned, but I wouldn't so narrow my search.
Yes there are. Here's an example: [10]. This popped up using your keywords in Google scholar; if it's not exactly what you need you can play with the keywords or keep scrolling through the results. Another way is to email the lead author on this example or a related article (academics almost always have a public email address) and ask for help. Best luck. 184.147.120.32 (talk) 11:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Tevildo: Thanks, but I still don't quite get what "of the type" actually refers to, since, to me, the "type" already seems to be defined by the information "1995 Ford Mondeo". Hope you see my problem... Best--Hubon (talk) 14:27, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure really, but a) there were several models of Ford Mondeo, b) "Mondeo man" was only a stereotype for a particular kind of voter, so lots of those who might have attracted that label actually drove different types of cars, or may have owned a Mondeo but aspired to something different. Alansplodge (talk) 14:49, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hubon: I see your point - the sentence could be reworded as "1995 Ford Mondeo: the type of car 'Mondeo man' may have aspired to", if that would be clearer. The point is that "Mondeo Man" didn't specifically aspire to own a green 1.8 diesel Mondeo Verona (which would be implied by "1995 Ford Mondeo that 'Mondeo man' may have aspired to"), just that general type of car. Tevildo (talk) 15:44, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, now I see! Yes, of course, you're right. Thanks for explaining to a non-native speaker...! Best regards and Happy New Year--Hubon (talk) 16:14, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have been looking into cartography articles, and i have stumbled on the matter of how accurate the first map made by greek people were.
500 BC
Ok so i have been looking into Hecataeus of Miletus's map, as (one of) the first world maps ever.
It is interesting to see how he could clearly delineate the italic peninsula. and the Mediterranean Sea to the East. Greeks had such insight !
AD 1154
But then i've stumbled over another map made during the middle ages, by an arab geographer working for the Sicilians. The Tabula Rogeriana
They say it was a map which remained hailed as a brilliant work for a long time by that time.
While it is obviously a good looking map, you can see however the awful depiction of the italian peninsula and the waters surrounding it! and i'm not even talking about France, the UK and the black sea!
It is incredible how the middle ages were such backward compared to ancient romans and greeks !
But then again, giving a more thorough look at Hecataeus life and article, i don't exactly pinpoint the actual way we modern people got a hold on his very map.
And some reconstructions seem to give different versions of Hecataeus one and only map!
So i think maybe the maps of Hecataeus and others were not completely retrieved but only some of the toponyms and they might have reconstructed it with current knowledge of scales and they didnt mentioned it in the page.
So just simply, is Hecataeus's map is genuine or fake?
And if it is fake, then what exactly do we know about Hecataeus's map? (how he viewed size of the seas, their shapes and the shapes of the land, etc) and why do we say we could retrieve Hecataeus map?
Hecataeus' map no longer exists, the picture in the article is a reconstruction - basically it's just a guess at the general land area he would have known about and included, but depicted in a more-or-less modern way so we know what we're looking at. In ancient maps that do survive, Italy is depicted more horizontally, like in the medieval Sicilian map (for example the Tabula Peutingeriana, although that was probably not intended to be strictly geographically accurate). Adam Bishop (talk) 22:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Also note that any ancient map would tend to depict the area the author was familiar with more accurately, and probably larger, than more distant lands. So, an Arab mapmaker would tend to portray Arab controlled lands most accurately. StuRat (talk) 19:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Neither the map nor most of Hecataeus' work survive to this day, but books referencing his work, by authors who had read it themselves, do survive. Thus we know where Hecataeus claimed to have visited, and generally what he claims to have mapped. The various reconstructions are thus attempts to guess at what Hecataeus could have known, given his travels, and the sources that would have been available to him. Most of ancient literature is known through such means, to the extent that it is known at all. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
January 3
troops volunteered when they enlisted for Vietnam
Someone told me that 2/3rds of the troops volunteered when they enlisted for Vietnam, while it was only about a third for World War 2. Is this true? ECS LIVA Z (talk) 03:48, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds about right for WWII. According to the WWII museum, 38.8% were volunteers, 61.2% drafted.[11] And for Vietnam, this source says 25% were draftees. Thing with the Vietnam draft is that the way it was structured, it was highly advantageous for men to volunteer once they'd found out they were likely to be drafted. `--jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 06:18, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
JPgordon is right. Many volunteered in anticipation of being drafted. By volunteering, one maintained a certain level of control (or at least a feeling of being in control) by being able to choose which branch of the military and list their choice(s) of M.O.S. (they, of course wouldn't always get their requested job, but the goal was presumably to avoid the Army/Infantry). This PhD thesis addresses this, particularly starting at the end of page 40.--William ThweattTalkContribs07:57, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I presume the question and answers all relate to USA only. If the original questioner reads this and is reflecting on other countries too, please do say so. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned!13:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
25% were conscripts: they did not enlist. Of the enlistees, many did in fact volunteer to serve in Vietnam, but many of us who volunteered to avoid the draft explicitly did so to avoid going to Vietnam, as William said above. The tradeoff: draftee serves two years, volunteer serves 3 years. Volunteer has a very good chance of not getting shipped to Vietnam. However, there were lots of guys who genuinely wanted to serve in combat, which meant serving in Vietnam, and they volunteered to do so. -Arch dude (talk) 21:46, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Cultural upheaval
Hank Green recently said We are in a time of cultural upheaval.
Possibly a large early chunk of the paleolithic. Though that could just be us hoping for the best out of an era that didn't leave much that could be considered records. Then there's also the debate of whether they have the sort of culture necessary to qualify as not having cultural upheaval. Otherwise, yeah, you can always find doomsayers in any era, and Hegel-influenced historians (not as explicitly common these days) assume that history is just a series of cultural upheavals. See Oswald Spengler for an example. Ian.thomson (talk) 07:07, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Who is Hank Green and do you have a link to where he said it, Benjaminikuta? Do you think that everybody is on the same wavelength as you? Here you refer to a "Dan Howell" and a momentary mention in a longer video that you do not link to. Bus stop (talk) 12:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know, that is the way to pose a question. A question should be posed to facilitate those responding. Some feeble attempt should be made to clarify an area of inquiry. I don't mean to discourage the editor from using the Reference boards. And I am sympathetic to the difficulties of participation here. But there was already mention made of problematic question-posing in this thread. Bus stop (talk) 14:00, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the confusion. This is the video I'm reffering to, but I didn't include it because I know a YouTube video probably isn't a good source, and I'm looking for other sources. Benjamin (talk) 18:38, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The full quote in the vlog is
We are in a time of cultural upheaval. That's probably true of everyone who has ever lived but it seems particularly strong right now.
So I suppose you are asking if the rate of change in culture is on the rise. I also assume you are asking about Western culture.
Wikipedia has interesting articles on Transformation of culture and Accelerating change. There are reasons to believe that culture is evolving faster than it did in the past. It is also possible that we simply attach more significance to cultural changes in our own time because we are witnessing them first hand. Schnitzel8 (talk) 19:15, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is no measurement of culture change therefore any answer is as good as any other answer. You could say culture is evolving rapidly or you could say culture is evolving slowly. There are no increments for measuring cultural change. Bus stop (talk) 02:02, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Taking the long view, yes there has always been change and upheaval, and there is nothing new under the sun. But if you care to delve into prehistory, fully modern humans created an art of astonishing cultural continuity over tens of thousands of years.[12][13][14] The history of history books is still too often of monarchs and generals, and the life of court and capital, where fashions have always changed and churned. The lives of the peasants and artisans of any given period would have changed much less from one generation, or indeed century, to the next: the food they ate and the implements they used are there to be examined, in documents and museums. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:53, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that our perspectives are colored by our generational perspective, but it's also pretty reasonable to suppose that some years, or some decades see more cultural change than others. Benjamin (talk) 04:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The question is unanswerable because there is no measurement of cultural change. How would it be measured? By conjecture? I am aware that this is the "humanities" reference desk but doesn't your question fundamentally require "science" or "math"? In my opinion it would be a mistake to attempt to measure cultural change by reference to external factors. We could very easily wax loquacious about computers or airplanes or nuclear power but what matters is the subjective impact on people of those external factors. How can that subjective impact be measured? If for instance the arrival of the "information age" is taken in stride by humanity, can it be said to have cultural impact? Bus stop (talk) 12:24, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Do you know about MCLR, and how MCLR is different from the base rate?
After reading many articles I gained knowledge about MCLR and the difference between MCLR and Base Rate. I am sharing my views here on MCLR and Base Rate, if I missed some points so please let me know about it,
MCLR means: The Reserve Bank of India has brought another approach of setting loaning rate by business banks under the name Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR). It has adjusted the current base rate framework from April 2016 onwards.
The MCLR ought to be updated month to month by thinking of some as new components including the repo rate and other borrowing rates. Particularly the repo rate and other borrowing rates that were not unequivocally thought to be under the base rate framework.
According to the new rules, banks need to set five benchmark rates for various tenure or time periods ranging from overnight (one day) rates to one year.
Now the point come that How MCLR is different from base rate?
The base rate or the standard lending rate by a bank is calculated on the premise of the following factors:
1. Cost for the funds (interest rate given for deposits),
2. Operating expenses,
3. Minimum rate of return (profit), and
4. Cost for the CRR (for the four percent CRR, the RBI is not giving any interest to the banks)
On the other hand, the MCLR is comprised of the following are the main components.
1. Marginal cost of funds;
I think PlentyOfFish claims to be the world's largest "free" (in reality, "freemium") dating site, but it's not specifically adult-oriented, so it may not be what you're looking for. Though, to be honest, if you take the right approach (don't be a sleaze or a creep, ok?), I think you'd be just as likely to meet a potential sexual partner there than on adultfriendfinder? They do have categories as to what people are looking for, so you can screen out those explicitly seeking a long term relationship.
AdultFriendFinder's behaviour in some regards in controversial, and I'd like to see any data, or even estimates, as to how many of the male users of the site seeking female partners ever successfully meet a female off the site in real life. Any studies or estimates on the matter? Or any stats released by the site which may give some guesses? (The nature of such sites is that they're obviously more attractive to the average man than the average woman, so a significant sex imbalance is probably inevitable. But that does not excuse unethical behaviour to make it look like there are more active female users than there actually are). Eliyohub (talk) 19:29, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note that "The info that the hackers published contained about 31 million accounts apparently belonging to men, and about 5 million apparently belonging to women." There have been questions asked about how many of these "female users" were real (as opposed to fake profiles created by the company) and actively meeting anyone off the site. So your chances would not be that high on such sites. I suggest reading online reviews of any site from people with experience using it before spending any hard-earned money, and beware of shill posts and astroturfers, even on "publicly posted review" sites. But I do not assume that the OP is married or in a relationship, so what happened to Ashley Madison in terms of the leaks may be less of a concern. And besides, he is only asking about free sites, so the sites' financial integrity may not be an issue. But I strongly recommend familiarizing oneself with spotting and avoiding falling victim to Romance scams (in this case, the promise may be sex, not romance, but the danger is the same). NEVER send money via western union or moneygram to anyone you have not met IN REAL LIFE. EVEN if you've spoken on the telephone! Break this rule, YOU WILL BE SCAMMED, GUARANTEED. Eliyohub (talk) 17:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ingersoll was pretty much a blowhard, although he does still have his fans among certain anarchists. His militant atheism gained him publicity, if not infamy in his day. His reputation was damaged by his connection with the Baron of Arizona land-claim fraud. As a modern atheist myself, I find him long-winded, self-important, and not entertaining. In part, that may be the style of the times, but I agree with Gompers. μηδείς (talk) 22:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think one of the many benefits of atheism, modern or otherwise, is relief from the requirement of having to listen to sermons... - Nunh-huh23:10, 3 January 2017 (UTC) :)[reply]
By "sermon" I meant sermon, not a boring speech one could analogize to a sermon. As to funny, it amused me, but apparently not you. - Nunh-huh22:07, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Atheism was a good thing till the SJWs latched onto it. Now it's just a tool in the American Culture war and a vehicle for globalists (for example wrt Palestine.) Dawkins himself has been a victim of this development. Asmrulz (talk) 08:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
yes, but you rarely see outright hong weibing-ery from the Right nowadays. And words have definitions. An SJW is someone specifically informed by Cultural Marxism (which is neither cultural nor Marxism) Asmrulz (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not SJW's per se, but militant anti-theists. I am an atheist. Literally, without god. I don't believe in Santa Claus either, but neither incenses me. Many of the New Atheists and Freedom From Religion Foundation types have their own radical ideology, which they do not realize is itself a religion, given its crusading fervor and desire to convert. The are not without God. They are actively against your religious freedom. It's about as insane as Santaphobia. Camille Paglia is an exaample of an atheist who is not an antitheist. μηδείς (talk) 23:27, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
US constitutional definition of treason - "declaring war on the US"?
Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution contains the definition of treason. To quote, "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or (rest is irrelevant here).
But in my earlier question it was generally agreed that A non-State cannot declare war. Acts such of those of the Symbionese Liberation Army, or less likely, Timothy McVeigh (I don't think he made any statements of the sort the SLA did of a "declaration of war" type?) would be limited to being classified as Seditious conspiracy (putting aside "common" criminal charges for individual acts such as murders, including Federal charges of "Murder of a Federal Official", or terrorism charges). So is "levying war against the U.S." only grounds for a treason charge if done as part of an action by or on behalf of a country at war with the U.S.? Could non-state-aligned "acts of war" or, put another way, "warlike acts" ever qualify under this definition?
(My guess is, reality, the Government wouldn't bother with Treason charges if they were in any way doubtful in such cases, when there are clear alternatives for things like this, like the alternative charges I mentioned. But I'm still curious about the theory). Eliyohub (talk) 19:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To levy war means to make war. It doesn't necessarily require a declaration of war. And in theory they could have tried McVeigh for treason, but there was already sufficient grounds for the death penalty. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 20:01, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
citation needed on the theoretical possibly of charging McVeigh for treason. And how courts would define the word "war" in this kind of situation, where war has not been "declared"? Eliyohub (talk) 21:14, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Sounds like law does recognize "war" in this case, although a plea of not guilty would have forced a judicial definition of the term, as it applies to these situations. Eliyohub (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I followed the link and read it. Interesting mixture of analysis and comment, but not really relevant to the specific legal question I'm asking. Does not contain any legal opinion on this point. The prosecutor's use of the term hardly counts as a legal opinion that his act fits the constitutional definition. Eliyohub (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A treason charge is pretty rare in America. You might want to read about actual treason cases in America and get the drift of what circumstances lead to such a charge. As for McVeigh, what would have been the point in an actual treason charge if he were already being charged with a capital crime? He can't be put to death twice. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 23:48, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This article may be more enlightening.[16] The theme is that treason charges are frought with politics, and if the perp can be charged with something that can be factually established, why bother with a treason charge? ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 23:53, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
January 4
Did anyone ever add anachronistic KJV-style verse numbers to pre-verse manuscripts?
The ones at the invention of printing would've only been about a century old at the invention of the modern verse system. Not valuable or old enough a copy to discourage rich clergy from defacing it with chapter and verse numbers, right? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:58, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The source says that is the case only in poetry. In the prose elements of the Hebrew Bible, which is a huge proportion, there is no such division in ancient texts. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned!14:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, I'd dispute even that suggestion. The Song of the sea (our article includes an image) is traditionally laid out in such a manner that breaks with every verse end, but also mid-verse, with no indication of which is which. Similarly for the Song of Moses and some other biblical poems I can think of, offhand. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned!16:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have never heard of such a thing, or seen an example like that - which isn't proof that it never happened. I think it is unlikely - why would someone go through the long and tedious task of adding the numbers to a manuscript when it was so easy to buy a printed version with the numbers already included (especially as they would need the printed version to identify where the numbers should go)? Wymspen (talk) 16:18, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In the US, dates are commonly written M/D/Y. Elsewhere, it is far more common to write them as D/M/Y. So, 4/1/XXXX would be April 1 in the United States, but read as January 4 elsewhere. Therefore, it is possible that the actual date of concern is April 1 or April Fools' Day. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:39, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Pledge of Allegiance
Hello Wikipedia team,
I am researching information to discover historical details regarding the origins of "The Pledge of Allegiance." I looked at your article at Pledge of Allegiance#Balch and Bellamy pledges, and I found a section about a Balch version. I have found no other general article about this topic, other than this Wikipedia article, that even mentions Balch at all in discussing the pledge's history.
That being the case, the above mentioned article contains links to footnoted publications that expand a bit on Balch's version. When writing about this, would I be able to cite without copyright violation your segment on Balch, with links to those footnoted publications?
There's a Balch family wiki, with a page on the guy.[17] I haven't seen the Wikipedia page, so I can't say if one copied from the other. His version of a pledge is different enough that I'm not sure why it's in our Pledge article. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 05:16, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note that while the British declared war on Germany, as the treaty demanded, it was a Phoney War, and major hostilities didn't start until Germany attacked France and Belgium. It would also have been interesting if Germany had invaded Poland first, before doing all of the other alarming things like the Remilitarization of the Rhineland, annexing Czechoslovakia, and the Anschluss with Austria. Had they only invaded Poland (along with the Soviet Union invading it), then it might not have been the "last straw" it was in our history. StuRat (talk) 18:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The German raiding which led to the Battle of the River Plate sounds foolish. Why pick a fight with the British Navy prematurely? Had anyone forgotten that "Britannia rules the waves"? What was Germany's motive in Commerce raiding at that point? And then to be lured into scuttling your own ship? I can't help but say "LOL", though I know that isn't very refdesk-like. Eliyohub (talk) 17:37, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The options for waging war between the UK and Germany were severely limited in 1939 and the British merchant navy was an easy target. Both sides wanted to impede the economy of the other; the Royal Navy immediately put a naval blockade in place which prevented Axis and neutral shipping from reaching Germany, while the Kreigsmarine were able to run amok in the shipping lanes before escorted convoys could be established. While scuttling your own ship would be extremely shameful for a British commander, it seems that it was an honourable option for German officers. Survivors from the Bismark still insist that she was sunk by her own crew and not by the British. In any event, Langsdorff was led to believe that there was no escape from being destroyed in combat, and by scuttling the Graf Spee, undoubtedly saved the lives of most of his crew, although it's difficult to imagine a British officer reaching the same decision. Alansplodge (talk) 19:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure about that. The Germans thought they had done rather well at Jutland (which they call Skagerrak) although the original aim of the operation had not been achieved. The horrendous British losses had nearly all been connected with design flaws in their battlecruisers (or rather they were being used in a role for which they weren't designed). There were no battlecruisers at the River Plate action. The Graf Spee might have been thought to have been able to deal with three much less powerful cruisers, however Admiral Harwood's skillful and daring use of his ships resulted in what was effectively a draw but gave the British the upper hand in the longer run. Alansplodge (talk) 13:54, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Elections and very poor turnout
What would happen in any general election scenario if nobody bothered to vote. Also what would happen if only a tiny minority of people turned out to vote, say less than 5% of the electorate. In each of these scenarios would an election just be re-run until turnout was large enough to give an outcome. If turnout remained low, would the legislature have to enact compulsory voting legislation? --Andrew16:24, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on the voting laws in the jurisdiction where the election takes place. Unless there is a specific law requiring a certain turnout, it would be illegal to ignore or redo the election because of low turnout. The chance that literally nobody bothers to vote is practically zero, except maybe in a village with just a few people. - Lindert (talk) 16:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You don't actually know who the candidates vote for, as the elections are anonymous votes and you only have to disclose your decision if you choose to. For all we know, they voted for the opposite candidate. UN$¢_Łuke_1Ø21Repørts17:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Can you tell me where I mentioned presidential elections in my statement? I said primary elections. And, in some cases, yes, it is for a primary presidential elections. New York State for example has very low turnout for primaries. Sir Joseph(talk)17:09, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note that when turnout get very low, there's again a reason to vote. That is, the reason most people don't vote is that "my vote can't possibly make a difference", and that is no longer true when turnout is extremely low. StuRat (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Homer may have just recorded an oral epic poem from earlier centuries, before they had writing. If so, he may not have had any impact on them. It's also possible he modified them to his taste, but we may never know. StuRat (talk) 02:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Gods clearly pick sides in the story, that I must say! Strange beliefs, to most modern thinking, I'd say. The Greeks' beliefs on these matters did later change, with the emergence of Hellenism. Many Greeks started to think that perhaps the Gods were not all-powerful, and could be hoodwinked and the like. Don't have a source, that's just what I've read in Berel Wein's book. Eliyohub (talk) 17:14, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
January 5
1881 US and UK political cartoons
I'm trying to find political cartoons from 1881 depicting King Kalākaua's world tour from the United Kingdom and United States. Where are good resources for cartoons from this specific year? I know there usually published in magazines. The UK ran a few back in the 1820s when Kamehameha II visited London and Kalakaua also had this interesting cartoon (File:The Royal Tattoo, 1875.jpg) made of him when he visited Washington, DC in 1875.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the Prisoner's dilemma, Why don't countries announce openly to all other nations that they wish to be "C" and forget any past "D"s with old foes? Wouldn't they profit in the longrun and save money and lives, etc? Wouldn't that leave "D"s at a huge disadvantage and out in the cold with no other choice but to be nice? What's with all the "You're the enemy!" stuff? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nations have the same motivations as every person confronted with the prisoner's dilemma. They can always try to get away with non-cooperative behavior. --Llaanngg (talk) 13:03, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Your example appears to be backwards. When prisoners dilemma is applied to countries, it is normally in a cold war example. "C" means "build more nuclear weapons" and "D" means "disarm nuclear weapons." 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:07, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In Britain, demographics are usually grouped by "NRS social grade" (if you've ever heard someone call the middle class "ABC1s", that's what they're talking about). The table in that article shows what percent of the UK population fall into each category (not including the upper class, which is very small) - for instance, 23% are intermediate managerial, administrative or professional (roughly Bridget Jones' level). Smurrayinchester14:32, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The article states: The Presiding Officer of the United States Senate is the majority-party senator. Yet, this is not generally correct since the Democratic Party does not have a majority within the Senate at present. Or am I wrong?--Hubon (talk) 15:16, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hubon, feel free to re-write it to make sense. Be bold in editing, and use the talk page and explain your reasoning behind your edits. Anyone can edit Wikipedia and it's up to all of us to make corrections to articles to make them better. Sir Joseph(talk)16:21, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can see, the original was correct, and the lead did not contradict itself. It says the vice president rarely in modern times presides over the Senate, and the president pro tem is a Senator from the majority party. What's the contradiction? Loraof (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've cleaned the article up. Any of you could have done so without any permission from anyone else. Wikipedia doesn't require any approval to fix problems. --Jayron3221:03, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Loraof: the president pro term is a Senator from the majority party – I disagree: The Republicans have a majority of 52, and Biden is [still] a Democrat! Otherwise, please tell me if I've misunderstood sth. @User:Jayron32: Thanks a lot for cleaning up! PS: Is pro term really a proper expression?--Hubon (talk) 01:46, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The term, which Loraof had written correctly before you changed it, is "pro tem", short for "pro tempore" meaning "for a time". So president pro tem is essentially "temporary president." - Nunh-huh01:59, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Biden is vice president, not a senator. The article says that the vice president rarely presides. However, he can, so it's not correct to say it's always a senator. But when it is a senator, it's one from the majority party. Loraof (talk) 01:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(after EC) Now I see – of course you're absolutely right! I'm sorry for my "slow-wittedness", but I'm not [yet] a specialist in American politics... So, please excuse me, once again, and thank you very much indeed for your explaining and patience. (By the way, of course I didn't mean to distort your edit!)--Hubon (talk) 02:15, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In this article, it doesn't really become clear to me why only a simple majority is needed to decide on a constitutional matter while ending filibusters requires a qualified one. Why is the right to filibuster regarded as a more important constitutional good than others? Moreover, it says: They immediately put the issue to the full Senate – but other [also regular filibuster] decisions are made by "the full Senate", too, aren't they?--Hubon (talk) 16:26, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"Filibuster rules" are not part of the Constitution, they're just "Senate convention". The Senate makes its own rules, which may include filibuster rules. If the Senate wanted to write their procedures that a speaker could be made to shut up with a simple majority vote, I believe they could. But convention is, pretty much every Senate has included "filibuster rules". Have there historically been any exceptions, where the majority party in a newly elected Senate did not agree to include these rules? Eliyohub (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
pretty much every Senate has included "filibuster rules" – What do you mean exactly? I thought the Senate's rules of procedure, including filibuster rules, have stayed more or less the same throughout the centuries...?--Hubon (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See Filibuster in the United States Senate for some background and history of the practice. You'll see there that the rules on filibuster have changed over time, including recently. The relevant Senate Rule is Senate Rule 22. To quote our article:
According to the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), changes to Senate rules could be achieved by a simple majority. Nevertheless, under current Senate rules, a rule change itself could be filibustered if a majority vote from two-thirds from senators who are present and voting is received. The two-thirds required vote was a change made from the original three-fifths vote that was originally required.
In other words, filibuster is not a practice enshrined in the Constitution, but one enshrined in Senate rules and Conventions, which could in theory be changed - but such an attempt at change could itself be filibustered. So it's unlikely to happen unless in the extremely unlikely event of one party gaining a two-thirds majority in the Senate. But even if that happened, there would be no reason to change the rule, as in such a situation, filibuster is impossible anyways. (I suppose an exception here would be if the party in control of the Senate thought that following the next election, they would still have a majority, but not a two-thirds one, so would want to keep full control of the chamber by a simple majority vote). Or the equally unlikely event of a bipartisan agreement to change the rule. (Such agreements have in fact occurred at various times, see our article on the subject that I linked to above) Eliyohub (talk) 17:02, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It should be noted, in this discussion that one has to make a distinction between Big C "Constitution" (the written document written in 1787 and amended several times) and the little "c" constitution which is the principles by which a governing body operates. When a`principle or practice becomes enshrined for a long time, it becomes "constitutional" (little "c") even if it isn't Constitutional (Big "C", that is written in the document itself). The entire British system of government is based on little "c" constitutional principles, and it works fine. In the case, revocation of the filibuster would likely still create a constitutional crisis even though it isn't written into the Constitution, simply because it is so enshrined. --Jayron3217:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If one party did it unilaterally (which could only occur if they somehow obtained a super-majority in the Senate, an unlikely occurrence), you might be correct. The Supreme Court could not intervene, but there would likely be a degree of political turmoil. But as our article notes, changes to the rule have been made several times by bi-partisan agreement, or support of an element of the minority party in the Senate, as have been made agreements not to filibuster in a specific case, and these have not caused any serious turmoil, to my knowledge. Actually engaging in filibustering is more likely to be controversial, at least in some cases where it was done. Eliyohub (talk) 18:18, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The restraining feature that holds the two U.S. political parties at bay with regard to violating most rules and conventions to their own benefit is that, for the most part, in the Senate at least, neither party holds the body in perpetuity, and any weapon one creates to punish the other party can easily be used BY that party once it (inevitably) comes to power. As you can see at Political power in the United States over time, over the past 40 years, neither party has achieved long-term dominance, so there is a general leeriness to change rules which can come back to bite the same party in the ass a short while later. --Jayron3220:45, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nevertheless, under current Senate rules, a rule change itself could be filibustered if a majority vote from two-thirds from senators who are present and voting is received. – I don't get it: You need a two-thirds majority to authorize a filibuster, or what? I thought the two-thirds rule is applied for ending a filibuster! Please, help...!--Hubon (talk) 03:43, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're confused. They're saying, any move to change to the "senate rule" which allows filibustering, could itself be filibustered, unless it was supposed by two thirds of the Senate. Makes sense now? Eliyohub (talk) 08:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Eliyohub, unfortunately not yet... a rule change itself could be filibustered if a majority vote from two-thirds from senators who are present and voting is received – so, doesn't that mean, you need a two-thirds majority to authorize a filibuster against that? If so, how would that go together with the intention of filibuster as a minority right – if the majority gets to decide on the opportunity to make use of it? Sorry for my slow-wittedness... Best--Hubon (talk) 02:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note as both Nuclear option and Filibuster in the United States Senate, it's unlikely you actually need a supermajority to change the rules. You only need a simple majority. It's not possible to filibuster it unless the majority and presiding officer allow it. Actually changing the rules when you have the necessary 67 may be controversial, but is far less likely to be a genuine crisis than using the nuclear option. That's why the later is called the nuclear option. Note that it isn't as simple as bi-partisan agreement, since that agreement can come only because of the threat to use the nuclear option (which has always been with only a simple majority). Nil Einne (talk) 12:13, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nil Einne, I'm sorry but I don't quite get your last statement: why do you think a bi-partisan agreement is "simpler" − in which respect? – than a nuclear option? In fact, I would probably disagree and say it's just the other way around: If the "nuclear threat" forms the basis of such a bi-partisan agreement, then the latter is actually more complex since it needs the additional precondition of this threat (besides the question whether actions based on agreements aren't more intricate than unilateral actions – like the nuclear option – in general, considering that at least two players are involved and not just one...). Best--Hubon (talk) 02:12, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
How did ethical eating become non-religious?
Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians all have their own ethics in regards to eating and animal life. Nowadays, there are vegans, and these vegans mostly use scientific findings to justify their lifestyle. How did ethical eating become non-religious? Do the ancient religions hold the fossilized scientific knowledge of a bygone era, and that there really is no difference between "religious" and "non-religious"? 66.213.29.17 (talk) 16:46, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See History of vegetarianism which says that vegetarianism based on ethical rather than religious grounds was practised in Ancient Greece but "It was not before the European Renaissance that vegetarianism reemerged in Europe as a philosophical concept based on an ethical motivation. Among the first celebrities who supported it were Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655). In the 17th century the paramount theorist of the meatless or Pythagorean diet was the English writer Thomas Tryon (1634–1703). Alansplodge (talk) 17:05, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"and these vegans mostly use scientific findings to justify their lifestyle" [citation needed]. If people are vegan for reasons of animal welfare etc, no problem. But those that use "scientific" reasons to claim humans aren't omnivores etc are closer to religion than science. Fgf10 (talk) 21:15, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
More to the point, I have known a multitude of vegans, and their reasons for being so are just as multitudinous. That is, there is no "mostly" for why a person may choose to be a vegan, and while a non-zero number may do so for reasons justfied as so described (that is, at least one vegan in the world), there is no "most" in this regard, there are far too many reasons, and such generalizations are not even wrong. The Wikipedia article on Veganism discusses many different such reasons people have for being vegan. The quote you give is bullshit not because such justifications aren't scientific, but because it's prima facie bullshit for being based on a false premise. --Jayron3221:24, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The 'scientific' reasons some vegans give why humans, clearly adapted to being an omnivores, are 'natural vegans', are bullshit though. Fgf10 (talk) 22:07, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be making a lot of assumptions. When OP said "use scientific findings" you seem to have immediately jumped to exactly one claim that is in fact not a scientific finding ("Humans aren't descended from omnivores" or "Humans are 'natural vegans'", or however you want to put this claim you think all these vegetarians are making). Moreover, you've apparently assumed there can be no other scientific findings that may support vegetarian's choices. Let me address that:
Land use required for food production is topic fairly amenable to scientific research. Vegetarian diets require far less land per person than meat eating diets, provided access to good arable land. That claim is well-supported scientifically, and a reason some vegetarians choose to be so (e.g. these folks [19]). If there is insufficient access to good arable land (a contrapositive assumption for much of the world), recent research suggests adding small amounts of dairy and meat may in *some* cases offer a *small* advantage over purely vegetarian diets, with respect to land usage. See here [20] and here [21] for scientific studies of land use efficiency and diet. Now, I suppose you can say that it is not a scientific position to want to need less land per person, reduce malnutrition and starvation, that is an ethical choice. However current well-vetted research readily supports the superior land-use efficiency of vegetarian diets, compared to the average EU, AU, or USA omnivorous diet. We also have an entire article on environmental vegetarianism which covers these ideas and more. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:22, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just that mostly-vegetarian-with-some-meat "may be more efficient", it simply is more efficient. Thousands of years of trial and error brought us the four field system (not an article on Wikipedia, just a couple paragraphs right now at crop rotation), with 3/4 of the fields for food and one for livestock. This system stood the test of time for centuries until finally supplanted by chemical alteration of the soil. And of course as your articles note, there are lands that you can raise ruminants on that simply aren't suitable for sustainable growing of crops for direct human consumption. These ideas are neither new nor controversial, so I'm surprised to see anyone framing them as mere possibilities. That aside, I think Jayron's point was quite excellent, but you may have missed quite what it was. The inclusion of "vegans mostly use scientific findings to justify their lifestyle" makes this a loaded question, though sure, we can pretend as if it's true and go from there. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My contention is not that the claim is true, it is that Fgf was leaping to conclusions and making bold statements without reference. Your claim "simply is" is also not supported by any reference at the moment, and is in fact contradicted by the reference I provided, under the assumption of access to arable land. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"When did you stop beating your wife?" We cannot answer questions in any meaningful way built on suppositions which are not themselves established facts. We should NOT pretend as though such facts were true and go anywhere. We should refuse to answer the question unless someone can further verify that the suppositions it is based on are themselves true. --Jayron3203:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You have motivated me to dig. There is quite a rich field of literature asking why vegans go vegan [22][23][24][25]. There seems to be a general consensus that about half or more vegans choose the lifestyle for its perceived health benefits, with most of the remainder making their choice based on animal welfare concerns. "Religion" grabs much of the remainder, with some room left for "other". I suspect that most vegans who chose the lifestyle for its health benefits probably believe that it's based on scientific findings, but are also probably unaware of all the nuances to the vegan/vegetarian/meat-eater health comparisons. Anyway, looking back at the original question, I actually have no idea what kind of science the OP is even talking about, so I guess this is all irrelevant. There is also no historical consensus on how or why the Kashrut was conceived, and scholars have debated since ancient times what the purpose even is. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
January 6
Airport as a gateway
In the article of Miami International Airport, it said that 1) "...is American Airlines' primary Latin American gateway, along with a domestic hub for its regional affiliate American Eagle, and Eastern Air Lines; cargo carriers UPS Airlines and FedEx Express; and charter airline Miami Air." and 2) "...is the largest gateway between the United States and Latin America, and is one of the largest airline hubs in the United States, owing to its proximity to tourist attractions, local economic growth, large local Latin American and European populations, and strategic location to handle connecting traffic between North America, Latin America, and Europe." My question is that is Miami International Airport the only one that has that description or nickname and if not, what other international airports in other cities has been consider as a gateway to other parts of the world? Donmust90 (talk) 00:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)Donmust90Donmust90 (talk) 00:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You have to define "freedom". Does "freedom" mean lower taxes? Smaller government? Weaker government? Fewer regulations? Or, does freedom mean larger government, more intrusive government? Because it works both ways, mate. I can name quite a few large intrusions by governments that have indisputably made their people "freer". --Golbez (talk) 07:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, in none of them. But Norway has considered not to register new petrol (and Diesel) cars from 2025. Note that that is not substantially different from nearly any other country, including the US. The all have certain conditions under which cars are allowed on the road (emission limits, fleet mpg limits, safety standards) - Norway's would just be somewhat stricter than most in this one respect. But I'm pretty sure that none of the cars seen in e.g. Remington Steele would be legal to register as a new car in nearly any first-world country. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:16, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A licorice pipe is a licorice candy shaped like a pipe: https://www.oldestsweetshop.co.uk/liquorice-pipes. In 2013 a group in the European Parliament (a body in the European Union) suggested to ban toys and candy which look like tobacco. The idea was that such things could make children think tobacco is cool. Licorice pipes were not mentioned and the suggestion wasn't specific to the Nordic countries but licorice pipes is an old well-known tobacco-looking candy there and the press jumped on it as an example of EU interfering too much. EU representatives said licorice pipes probably wouldn't even have been covered by a ban because they don't look enough like real tobacco. Nothing was actually banned in the end. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks PrimeHunter and Stephan Schulz. So, neither of the products described by @Benjaminikuta: as being banned in Nordic countries have been banned in Nordic countries, one may become restricted at some point in the future in one Nordic country, and the other wasn't banned in an organisation which does not include all the Nordic countries, but does include many countries that aren't Nordic.
I think you just answered your question - an ideology that would be "more free," by that definition, would be identical but not ban licorice pipes and gas cars. But, if one defines freedom differently, then that would be a flawed answer. --Golbez (talk) 08:22, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As a concrete example of why "more free" is tricky to pin down, look at the South Schleswig Voters' Association - a political party for the Danish minority in Germany which advocates the Nordic model. Compared to the traditional German social market economy, there are some areas where the party wants the state to exercise more control (eg. welfare) and some where it wants the state to exercise less control (eg. labour policy). So, is the German model more free or less free than the Nordic one? You could argue either way - for instance, different people will have very different opinions about whether a country where companies can fire employees easily is "freer" than one where employers are very restricted? Smurrayinchester11:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Human Freedom Index rates countries by a range of factors, and currently has Hong Kong as the most free country in the world (though China is 141st) - followed by Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Finland and Netherlands. The USA is in 23rd place. Wymspen (talk) 10:54, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Human Freedom Index is published by a group of organisations with a strong free-market, libertarian and partially neo-conservative perspective. It's certainly one approach to quantify human liberty, but not the only one. In particular, it places a strong value on economic freedom, but does not seem to measure things like the right to organise collective bargaining or to form trade unions, or social security nets that provide the practical freedom to leave bad jobs. Freedom of expression seems to be measured only for economic entities (the press), not individuals. And so on... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:40, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It really is a tremendous rhetorical success that conservatives have managed to paint freedom as an inverse binary function of the size of government, regardless of private actors. Doesn't matter if that larger government provides functions that help increase your freedom to do things, because, to them, "freedom" is purely a function of "freedom from the state". To them, a smaller government can't possibly result in less freedom, because potential abuse or oppression by private actors is okay, or simply can't happen due to whatever definitions they come up with. Likewise, a larger government can't possibly result in more freedom, because things that help people invariably lower "freedom" for others, and that is never a net gain in their eyes, despite all the situations where it is: civil rights laws, education, health care, food stamps, and the court system, to name just a few things the government does or can do that create a net benefit. And yes, that can include banning certain types of gas for cars, like leaded gasoline. Definitely a net benefit to all of society there, including enhancing their freedom to live without lead poisoning, despite technically, to the conservative mind, being an infringement on "freedom". (and I say this as a former hardcore libertarian/anarchocapitalist) --Golbez (talk) 17:38, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
"It" being what? Not trying to be snarky: I have a genuine interest in political developments and opinions in the USA (which is not in my continent), and the preceeding posts are too extensive for me to figure out the specific "it" you're referencing. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.241 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:36, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Baseball Bugs as I know, like other women she were a shieldmaiden also after she became a mother. For example on the TV show Vikings, her brother in law says she was a famous shieldmaiden, but she and her husband say that she still is. The mother of two is not likely a virgin. ברעזרא (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Our article shieldmaiden doesn't mention that they were virgins, but Wiktionary.org defines a "shieldmaiden" as "a virgin who had chosen to fight as a warrior in battle." Given that "maiden" itself can refer to either a young unmarried girl or woman, or a virgin (again according to wiktionary.org), it's quite possible that "shieldmaiden" is used sometimes one way and sometimes the other. Loraof (talk) 01:16, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
