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May 14

Obscurantism

Is there anyone known for praising obscurantism? Like someone who was so anti-everything that they purposely used it because they didn't want anyone to understand, or something to that effect. I personally think obscurantism is really funny and kinda cool haha. Evaunit♥666♥ 00:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The liberal media are sometimes accused of being obscurantist, because

• 1) they tend to claim that all knowledge comes from investigative sources.
• 2) they further argue that only the information élite has the ability to gather sources, and that most contemporary knowledge comes from themselves.

There are various kinds of obscurantism, but they could be divided into two categories :

a) the élitist brand which limits knowledge to very specific categories of human activity, say philosophy, physical science, economics, history, medicine, politics, religion, exploration, etc. b) the populist brand, much more common, that says that all knowledge is an emanation from the people, at that everything which is not democratic, popular, collective, is presumably false.

So, one could argue that obscurantism is much more common than is generally thought. Any person or any collective who claims to be the guardian of truth, freedom, modernity, etc, could theoretically be accused of obscurantism. 69.157.239.231 (talk) 01:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Nietzsche wrote a few paragraphs to the effect of 'not all philosophy should be accessible to the masses' and so on. Vranak (talk) 03:36, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

There have been branches of postmodern theory that have taken pride in their inability to be understood. Donna Haraway, though obviously brilliant at times, is known to be quite dismissive of the idea that clarity is a good idea. There are some (and I think I am not incorrect in counting Haraway among them) that believe that clarity serves certain masters more than others. (I disagree—but that's not really the issue, is it?) If I knew more about French philosophy I'd probably be inclined to throw Derrida and Deleuze into that lot (but not Foucault, who obviously took pains to be quite clear), but perhaps my feeling about them is colored by the fact that I think a good deal of what they say is nonsense wrapped in terminology. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Jacques Lacan wrote in a way that he felt related to the subconscious as much as to the conscious mind. His work is particularly impenetrable when translated due to his use of puns at key points, which only work in French. Roland Barthes' concept of the "writerly text" is also relevant. He celebrated kinds of writing that required effort on the part of the reader, the pay-off being "bliss" rather than just the "pleasure" of normal reading. The postmodernists can justify their obscurantism by citing these two as well as Derrida and Deleuze. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Standby Power wastage

The television when on standby consumes up to 10 watts doing absolutely nothing. So why isn't there a $1 million dollar X-Prize for inventing a standby mode which consumes less than 0.5 watt of power? 202.168.50.40 (talk) 01:12, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Today's TVs probably consume less energy when turned off than "instant on" TVs of the 1960's which kept some voltage on the vacuum tubes and picture tube. The TV would need to store some info in nonvolatile memory to avoid the reprogramming some sets need when they are unplugged. Otherwise you could use a power strip to turn off the entire home entertainment center when it was not in use. If you feel of the little power adaptor or "wall wart" and it is warm, then it is wasting energy. Edison (talk) 03:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Already done... According to the manual, my 6 year old Sony (21" CRT) consumes 60 watts when on, and 0.5 watts when on standby. Leaving it on standby for a whole year would cost about £1. Astronaut (talk) 17:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The butter tray in the fridge at my place uses 36Watts constantly. I've cut the wire to it.Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 23:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Darwin and Eugenics/Social Darwinism

Was Charles Darwin a proponent of either Eugenics or social Darwinism? --Begantruetwo (talk) 01:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

From our article on Social Darwinism: Darwin himself gave serious consideration to Galton's work, but thought the ideas of "hereditary improvement" impractical. Aware of weaknesses in his own family, he was sure that families would naturally refuse such selection and wreck the scheme. He thought that even if compulsory registration was the only way to improve the human race, this illiberal idea would be unacceptable, and it would be better to publicize the "principle of inheritance" and let people decide for themselves.--droptone (talk) 01:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

(cross-posed at Science desk)

For a fairly complete approach, by a respected historian of heredity, you might look up this article: Diane B. Paul, "Darwin, social Darwinism and eugenics", in Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick, eds. the Cambridge Companion to Darwin (Cambridge University Press, 2003), 214–239.

In short: Darwin was on the fence in both cases. He valued his cousin Francis Galton's work primarily because Galton established, as far as Darwin was concerned, that intelligence was as inheritable as stature and skin color. He believed that it was possible, as Galton claimed, that society could be breeding itself into inferiority, but he was not at all sure that society could or should do anything about that. He considered Galton's view of a state that could help regulate breeding as "utopian". Neither he nor Galton believed at all in anything that looked or sounded like even the coercive form of eugenics practiced in the United States, much less under National Socialism.

Darwin's intellectual priority was convincing people that evolution was plausible. He did this by looking for things in animals that he saw in man, as a way of bridging the gap. He was not interested in how human societies should organize themselves, not like Galton and Spencer were.

That being said, he didn't totally disown these ideas either. But eugenics was brand new and not totally formulated; social Darwinism was not yet a coherent set of principles (and certainly not under that name). Did he believe evolution applied to society? Yes, but he and everyone else just called it Darwinism at that point.

But in all things, the most salient aspect of Darwin is his fence-sitting. Read the sections on society in Descent of Man—he goes back and forth, is eugenics sensible, is it moral, does it make sense, over and over again, back and forth. (Origin of Species is written in much the same fashion, he circles around and around.) In the conclusion of that book he gets as close as he ever did to saying that perhaps the state should be keeping track of whether people marry their own cousins (he tried to get his friend Lubbock to pass a law that would mandate an investigation of this—and he himself always felt that his own children's sickly demeanors came from the fact that he had married his own cousin) and that people should give more attention to the heredity of their spouses than they usually did. But it is not very forceful, it is not the cry of what we would today consider a real eugenicist or social Darwinist. He did not denounce the ideas very strongly, but he did not support them very strongly either. They were not major forces on his agenda. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 02:48, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! that was very helpful. --Begantruetwo (talk) 03:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Inquiry

Le Printemps

To Whom It May Concern,

Can you please help me identify this painting (http://www.dollsofindia.com/product/PH37)

What is the title? Who is the artist?

Hoping for your immediate reply.

Yours sincerely, Mr. Kim Richard V. Unidad —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.212.46.3 (talk) 03:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello! That is "Le Printemps" (Spring) by the French painter Pierre Auguste Cot. --Taktser 04:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Might the painting have been the inspiration for the Cledus T. Judd song "Swingin'?" Edison (talk) 13:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Allied Aid to Soviet Russia in WW2

How important was the material aid given by the west to the Soviet war effort? There is some information on the kind of things supplied in your Lend Lease page, but what I really want to know is how exactly this-and that given by the British-affected the relative balance of forces on the battle fronts? Western aid used to be downplayed in subsequent official accounts of the Great Patriotic War, though I believe more information has come out since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Can you help? (Before I forget my deep thanks for some really excellent answers to my previous question, that on Karl Marx). Big Sally (talk) 03:58, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Pretty critical. Essentially, the US provided the vehicles for the entire Soviet logistics tail. The Soviets made their own tanks (and a good thing, too: the T-34 was far superior to any early-war American tank), but the vast majority of the trucks and most train engines were American-built. --Carnildo (talk) 22:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The British and Americans invaded Persia (Iran) and established a supply corridor into the USSR through that country (the Persian Corridor). Polish troops, captured by the Russians in 1939, subsequently formed an army under General Anders, the Anders Army, and came out of southern Russia through Iran, being re-equipped and fighting alongside the British Eighth Army in North Africa and Italy. The British were also supplying the Russians through the infamous arctic convoys, of which the most famous was PQ-17. According to my dear wife, in one convoy the British packed dismantled tanks, turrets in one ship, chassis in another; inevitably, the first ship was sunk. HMS Edinburgh was sunk bringing back Russian gold in payment for the materiel.

Somewhere I've read of an encounter between allied troops and Russians, in which the Russians were boasting about their excellent trucks; the chap pointed out that they were, in fact, American-made, to which the rejoinder came that of course they weren't - they even had a great big white Soviet star painted on the bonnet. You might also be interested in bombing of the Tirpitz, one raid of which took place from a Russian aerodrome. --Major Bonkers (talk) 06:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Name of the many-winged aircraft bicycle

There was a black and white film of a many-winged aircraft, the pilot rode it like a bicycle, but crashed soon after. Family Guy did a parody of this with Peter being the pilot and Stewie saying "You know, I vaguely recall seeing something exactly like this, which leads me to believe that it won't work." The plane then crashes beside the garage. However I forgot the name of this episode. I'm looking for the name of this "aircraft" or the inventor, maybe there is a wiki page for this and also the black and white film footage. Thanks a bunch! --Taktser 04:12, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

See if you can find it here [1]--71.236.23.111 (talk) 21:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! It seems to be this multiplane built in 1923 by W. Frederick Gerhardt called the "Cycloplane". This was parodied in the Family Guy episode "Blind Ambition". Although I still can't find the original video footage. But thanks for the link! --Taktser 00:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Vatican - UFO conspiracy

In 2006, it was reported that a UFO was spotted over Saint-Peter's square. [2]

Now, for the first time, the Vatican has admitted that it used the Jesuits to spy over aliens, with Father Corrado Balducci leading the PR charge. [3] [4]

But get this, the UK government has just released it's own alien archives. [5] Apparently, more and more people believe in UFOs and conspiracies about abductions and landings are becoming very popular.

Within Ufology, what are the most up to date views on the nature of aliens ? Can they be evangelized ? Should we sign an alliance with them, or are they just playing friends with Rome ? 69.157.239.231 (talk) 05:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

We don't even know if these aliens believe in God! Adam Bishop (talk) 07:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The British government files you refer to date back to the period 1978-1987 [6] and as such can hardly be quoted as evidence that "more and more people believe in UFOs". And even if they did, the key point here is the one quoted by the government: "there is nothing to indicate that UFOlogy is anything but claptrap...the idea of an 'inter-governmental conspiracy of silence' is the most astonishing and the most flattering claim of all." End of story. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Can they be evangelized? Wouldn't that be like the savages converting the missionaries? Seems more likely that they'll convert us to Zarquonism or whatever, by force if necessary. -- BenRG (talk) 13:45, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

That's the least of the things they might convert us into. Matt Deres (talk) 20:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

So that explains Father O'Neil. I( never believed he was really Irish. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 15:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

UFO is not synonymous with 'alien spaceship', its simply an anagram for 'unidentified flying object', so yes, no doubt the Vatican and Her Majesty's Government believe that there are objects that fly and are unidentifyable - it would be irrational to see an unidentifyable object and insist open identifying it, as many UFOlogists do. The British Government's keeping of UFO files doesn't mean that they believe in alien visitations, its simply that when unidentified flying objects are found in your sky, its prudent to keep a record. Ninebucks (talk) 20:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Yunaitedo Suteetsu

Why did Alaska and Hawaii become United States? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 06:34, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. See the opening paragraphs of our articles on Alaska and Hawaii.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Those paragraphs don't seem to explain why, which is what was asked. --LarryMac | Talk 13:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

There's some discussion of this at History of Alaska#Statehood and Territory of Hawaii#Statehood. Algebraist 13:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The Restoration in Scotland

Hello again, reference desk. I'm doing some research on the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, particularly as it affected Scotland, but so far have not been able to find the detailed leads I was hoping for in your pages. I'm looking specifically for information on the political climate in the wake of the Restoration. Was there anything, for example, resembling a 'White Reaction' or the trials of the Regicides in England? What were the main areas of conflict in the 1660s and 1670s? Finally, to what degree, if any, did Scottish politics affect the center of political gravity, namely the court of King Charles in London? Some good up-to-date references on these matters would be a great help to me. This, incidentally, is not for class work (I teach) but for a paper I am writing for a history review. I've had great help here in the past with my questions on Scottish history from Clio the Muse and Gwinva, and I was hoping that they might be able, once again, to head me in the right direction. Many thanks. Hamish MacLean (talk) 09:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

You honour me with your confidence, Hamish, but I must confess I have only a passing knowledge of that period of history. Clio, unfortunately for us all, has deserted us for greater things (but what can be greater than Wikipedia? we ask), which is a shame in this case particularly, since she is a bit of an expert in the politics of Charles II. However she, and others of great knowledge, have addressed similar issues before at the desks. The archives contain number of responses to Restoration questions, of which the following appear useful at first glance (but it's probably worth investigating them all; one might have just the lead you're looking for): [7] [8] [9] [10] :WP itself is sadly lacking. The English Restoration article is rather Anglo-centric (just marvel at the wonderful title, for a start!) and Charles II does not explore Scottish issues in any great depth. The Covenanter article looks more promising. Of course, the climate in Scotland was quite different to England, and not as simple at Parliamentarianists vs. Royalists. Various factions wrestled for power, over issues of religious freedom as well as issues or rule. Think of Montrose, who was the first to sign the Covenant, and was instrumental in ensuring its acceptance by Charles I; later, when the Covenanters became more interested in rule than preventing the enforcement of episcopalianism, Montrose led the royalists against the new-style Covenanters; after some years and various political developments, he was captured and executed by Argyll for treason: the same Argyll who later welcomed Charles II. The Scots had not been party to the regicide, and declared Charles II king following the execution of his father. Unfortunately, Argyll and the Covenanters did themselves no favours by their treatment of Charles, welcoming him but demanding his support for their cause, and instilling in him a distaste both for them and Scotland, which rebounded sadly later. On Charles's final restortation, Argyll was executed, Montrose's scattered body parts given a state funeral, and the "Killing Times" began: Charles sending in his heavies and bully boys to weed out the covenanters and shape the country anew.

That's the period you're looking at, but it all gets a bit complicated for me to regurgitate off the top of my head. Check out the key players: John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale and his right hand man John Leslie, 1st Duke of Rothes; Bloody Clavers aka Bonnie Dundee, and, ultimately, James VII who, as Duke of York, imposed his own ambitions on the face of Scotland, and through the Test Act (nope, that links only to English one) Test Act, tried to ensure his succession to the throne as a Catholic, thus throwing Catholicism into the protestant epsicopalian, and presbyterian mix. Also check out the key events: Drunken Parliament (hmm, red link, quick google, try [11] ), Pentland Rising, and probably others but I've run out of inspiration, and now wait for someone else to pick up the baton. (And make any corrections and clarifications required; as I said, my knowledge is not deep, and may have missed the point entirely.) Gwinva (talk) 23:25, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Locke and politics

How did John locke's philosophical views impact on his politics? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.84.12 (talk) 12:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

O Clio! If this one doesn't tempt you to descend... I should explain that John Locke was a close chum of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, the 'Dorsetshire eel' himself, with whom our own Clio the Muse has lived for some years. Locke wrote Shaftesbury's epitaph - "a vigorous and indefatigable champion of civil and ecclesiastical liberty". But I shall say no more, in the hope... Xn4 03:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Inquisition

was the Spanish Inquisition as black as traditionally depicted? T e M Da (talk) 12:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

You may wish to read Inquisition and Spanish Inquisition! --Cameron (t|p|c) 13:17, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm copying below Clio the Muse's answer to Tower Raven's question "How accurate is the traditional view of the Spanish Inquisition?" Xn4 13:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

There has been a lot of interesting work on this subject, Tower Raven, and I would suggest, depending how deeply you want to go, that you have a look at H. Kamen's Inquisition and Society in Spain, one of the defining modern texts.

I suppose it's impossible to shift a myth once it takes on an independent life, and most people's understanding of the Inquisition will forever be mediated by the wonderful gothic excesses of stories like "The Pit and the Pendulum". But did you know that in the early seventeenth century the Inquisition introduced such a demanding standard of proof in accusations of witchcraft that brought burning for this crime to an end in Catholic Spain more than a century before the Protestant north? Yes, there were horrors attached to the Inquisition, particularly in the pursuit of religious uniformity in Spain; but the country did thereby avoid the equal and greater horrors that followed from the religious wars in France and Germany. After the excesses of the initial campaign against the Conversos, the Inquisition was transformed bit by bit into an arbiter of public morals more than anything else, a little like the rule of the Major Generals in Cromwellian England. As Kamen says "For most of its existence the Inquisition was far from being the juggernaut of death." For example, approximately 100 people were executed as suspected Protestants in the brief campaign against Lutheranism between 1559 and 1562. Contrast this with the 127 priests executed in England between 1570 and 1603. Yes, Catholic Spain was intolerant, but not more so than the rest of Europe at the time.

The Inquisition in Spain also had a unique relationship to the state, answerable to the crown, not to the Pope in Rome. As such it operated a little like a modern secret police force, always alert to the possibility of dissent. Yet, as Charles Petrie points out in his 1963 biography of Phillip II, it was "a very mild affair compared with the NKVD and the Gestapo." We all, I suppose, associate the Inquisition with the most grusome forms of torture. But it employed no unique methods, nothing that was not already in widespread use. Torture, moreover, was only used in a minority of cases, and only for the most serious offences. A doctor was always present on these occasions, and the process was such that no lasting physical damage ensued. Ugly, yes, but a standard better than that set by other practitioners of the art, both then and since. Clio the Muse 02:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

100 people executed over three years from 1559-1562 equals over 33 a year, while 127 executed over 33 years from 1570-1603 is less than 4 a year, so less severe by an entire order of magnitude. StuRat (talk) 03:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

"Black Legend" seems to exist in order to disprove its subject, but the whitewash might be carefully examined. --Wetman (talk) 19:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

As Clio points out, it might not have been as cruel as propagandists of the time and subsequent cultural memory has it, but the crucial difference between it and other countries was the unitary structure of church and state, and its unprecendented instrusiveness. From that point of view the Inquisition was indeed the first harbinger of modern totalitarian nightmares. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What is meant by "toadstool casserole"? (Not as in food)

What is meant by "toadstool casserole"? (Not as in food) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.246.78.50 (talk) 14:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Googling the phrase brings Harry Potter references; is it from those books? -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It also sounds to me rather like something from Harry Potter, but if what you're trying to understand isn't about food, then maybe it's referring to psilocybin mushrooms, that is, ones with psychedelic properties. Oddly enough, many toadstools (a term which isn't clearly distinct from mushrooms) are perfectly edible. I had a headmaster who knew a lot about the matter. I once heard him say "When I find one I'm not quite sure about, I feed it first to the school prefects, and then to my dog, and only after those precautions do I try it on my wife." Xn4 17:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The context of this question seems to be the phrase's use in a previous Ref desk question. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

In the Country of the Blind, Christopher Brookmyre describes criminals on the run disabling their pursuers with a brew made of mushrooms. SaundersW (talk) 18:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I probably have to plead guilty for using that phrase. I hadn't known/remembered it was in the book. The origin is that mushroom casserole is not detrimental to health, if however you happen to have (intentionally or unintentionally) mistaken toadstools for mushrooms the effects can be quite detrimental and not uncommonly lethal. Presumably the person consuming the dish won't have a way of knowing until it's too late. I assume in the original meaning any psychedelic side effects would have been as short lived as the target. I used it above to indicate that one way to impede British troops might be to foul their food-supply. (Also see "scorched earth".)71.236.23.111 (talk) 21:07, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

POWs, international law, internment/repatriation

Suppose is it WW2.

I think I am right in saying this:

• If an Allied Airman lands his aeroplane or bails out in neutral Switzerland, his plane is confiscated by the Swiss authorities, and he is held in an internment camp for the duration of the war. He may be able to escape and contact MI6 to bring him home, but if recaught by the Swiss they put him back in the camp.
• If an Allied Airman lands his plane or bails out in Nazi-occupied Europe, he is taken prisoner of war and taken to a POW camp. Suppose he escapes and makes it to Switzerland. He is then repatriated by the Swiss.

This does not seem to me to be consistent.

What articles of the Geneva Convention cover this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiddly pop (talk • contribs) 14:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't know much about it, but the article Switzerland during the World Wars mentions that "104,000 [foreign soldiers were] held according to the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers outlined in the Hague Conventions." Probably the text you want is Hague V, (Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land) Chapter II, articles 11 and 13:

• Art. 11. A neutral Power which receives on its territory troops belonging to the belligerent armies shall intern them, as far as possible, at a distance from the theatre of war. [12]
• Art. 13. A neutral Power which receives escaped prisoners of war shall leave them at liberty. If it allows them to remain in its territory it may assign them a place of residence. [13]

-- 128.104.112.147 (talk) 22:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The basic idea is that soldiers participating in military activities inside a neutral country endanger that nation's neutrality, and, as such, are arrested by that country. Soldiers who are no longer combatants, like escaped POWs, do not threaten neutrality, so are not arrested. StuRat (talk) 04:03, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

renewable and non-renewable natural resources of Canada

Which natural resources are renewable and which natural resources are non-renewable. Your articles doesn't list which natural resources are renewable and non-renewable. I know hydropower is renewable but the rest I don't know. These natural resources i am talking about are in Canada. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.20 (talk) 14:39, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

If you look at our articles on Renewable resources and Nonrenewable resources, you will find some fairly clear definitions and examples with which you can make sense of the information you have for Canada. Marco polo (talk) 16:12, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Economics: Government Deficit, Output &

Ok, some simple macroeconomics, but I can't figure this question out.

Take a graph with on the vertical axis inflation, and on the horizontal axis output Y. In a simplified model, graph aggregate demand as a straight line with a negative slope. The model is in long term equilibrium with AS as a straight vertical line at Y = Y*.

Question: assume the government runs a budget deficit. What are the long term effects of this, and show your answer in the graph.

This is quite a lot more simplified than what I usually do, but this introductory question of a larger chapter has me pinned down. My answer would be 'nothing, because it's in long term equilibrium'.

User:Krator (t c) 15:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Do they assume the government is going to print money?--71.236.23.111 (talk) 20:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure the y-axis is inflation? I've encountered price on the y-axis in these circumstances. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 22:30, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if the y-axis is price then consider the following:

• What is your assumption regarding short run aggregate supply? It looks like you may assume that the economy is in short run equillibrium as well.
• If there's a budget deficit, then the government essentially puts more money back into the economy (via spending (G)) than it takes out (via taxes). How will this affect aggregate demand?
• What will this do to short run equillibrium (i.e. price and output)?
• Does the new output imply a recession or an expansion? How does that impact the supply of labour?
• How will the new labour supply affect short run aggregate supply?

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 22:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

• That's how far I came as well, but my answer to these questions, particularly the second, would be "nothing". Running a deficit doesn't affect aggregate demand because the economy is in long term equilibrium; all 'extra' money put in there is drawn from the savings. This would increase inflation (yes, it was inflation on y) as opposed to a situation without deficit, but that comparison is not made here, it's simply, given a deficit, does anything change? User:Krator (t c) 12:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

See this: Aggregate demand#Two Concepts of the "Aggregate Demand Curve"#Aggregate Demand-Aggregate Supply model. Not the best article but it should explain things to you.

Government spending is a component of AD. If it increases then so will AD. Running a deficit does affect AD.

In the short term, this will result in a increase in the price level and (real) output which implies that we're now in a temporary expansion. If you assume that the labour market adjusts quickly, then there will be a decrease in short run AS (assuming short run AS responds quickly to changes in the labour market). Draw the graphs and see that the net effect on the long run equillibrium will be increased prices and unchanged real output.

Not sure what you mean by "all extra money put in there".

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Iron Guard

Was the Romanian Iron Guard influenced more by the Italian Fascists or the German Nazis?86.153.161.144 (talk) 16:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

you might want to read Fascism: Comparison and Definition, 1980 by Stanley G. Payne.--Tresckow (talk) 03:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

And see Iron Guard. Strawless (talk) 16:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Gordon Brown as PM

Hello. Gordon Brown was a good second in command but is proving to be a bad prime minister. Is there any reason for this? Does it prove that one leading position in public life does not readily translate into another, or is it simply that circumstances have changed to Brown's disadvantage? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DDBM&T (talk • contribs) 16:25, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't prove anything since it's subjective anecdotal evidence. To find cause and effect, it is best to conduct an experiment with controlled variables. --Mark PEA (talk) 17:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we can even agree that Brown was 'second in command'. If you mean he was a competent Chancellor of the Exchequer, then there's little doubt that he was. Managing a nation's taxes and spending requires many skills, but, as you suggest, those are different from the skills needed in managing a party and a country. I could mention the words of T. E. Lawrence, writing to The Times in July 1920: "...the art of government wants more character than brains". Xn4 22:31, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It is partially to do with Brown taking over at a time that many of New Labour's problems have come back to haunt them, at a time of a downturn in the economic outlook, and at a time when the governemnt (after 10 years of rule) are facing a more resurgent opposition. Add in that he does lack the charisma that you got with Blair, negative sentiment from much of the press, and a charismatic leader of the opposition in David Cameron and you have a recipe that makes an already tired-government look positively dead on their feet at times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk) 07:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Controlled experiments are good for investigating many things, but this example isn't one of them - it would be highly unethical to impose a leader on a nation just to satisfy a researcher's curiosity. To find out if seconds-in-command go on to make good or poor leaders, you would have to assemble a large number of examples and then analyse them as impartially as possible. This would be an observational study. It would be a good idea to restrict your study to examples in the past, so that you would have the advantage of hindsight. The consensus assessment of a leader's quality often takes many years to emerge. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I never said it would be a good/practical idea or ethical, but it is the best known way of finding out these things. Obviously there are limitations, which is why most people just speculate on these kind of things, with extremely limited evidence. --Mark PEA (talk) 22:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The Peter Principle at work, perhaps? Rhinoracer (talk) 14:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Was he a good second-in-command, and is he proving to be a bad Prime Minister? If we accept the question as you have posed it, with its suppositions, the answer is probably due to the mismanagement of the economy; since 2000, for example, he has simply poured money into unreformed public services, primarily the NHS, whilst starving the armed forces (it seems increasingly unlikely that the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers will ever be built, and the Royal Navy currently operates its existing aircraft carriers without any Sea Harrier aircraft). But I suspect that you know the answer to your own question anyway! --Major Bonkers (talk) 07:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Difference between Total Population and Admin. Population

Good afternoon,

I saw two different figures for the population of a council I was interested in and I can`t find out the difference between Total Population and Admin. Population.

Thanks for help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.213.24.88 (talk) 16:38, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

You don't specify, but my guess is that you are asking about English counties. The Local Government Commission for England (1992) and earlier administrative reorganizations split the traditional or ceremonial counties of England into a variety of asymmetrical units. (See Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England and Ceremonial counties of England.) For example, the unitary authority of Medway is now administratively separate from Kent, the county to which it traditionally and until recently belonged. Our articles on English counties that are both ceremonial and administrative counties give the populations both for their ceremonial area (including urban districts or boroughs and unitary authorities that are no longer part of the administrative county) and for the area of the administrative county alone. The "Government" section of the article on each county should specify which parts of the ceremonial (traditional) county are part of the administrative county and which are not. Marco polo (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Since you say you are looking for the population of a "council", you are probably looking for the population of the area administered by the council, or the administrative population. Marco polo (talk) 20:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

If you email National Statistics (www.statistics.gov.uk), they will give you a full answer to your query. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Fronde

Was the French Fronde influenced at all by the rising against Charles the first in England at the time? Arthur James (talk) 17:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

No, not at all. The Fronde is more like a continuation of the nobles' rebellion embodied in the French Wars of Religion, without that Protestant component. The radical Protestant element in the English Civil War was distasteful to the Frondeurs, who sought to control and direct the monarchy, not eliminate it. --Wetman (talk) 18:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

And see Fronde. Strawless (talk) 22:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

List of states that remained independent throughout European colonization

I want to create a new article. Can you help me with the list?

Liberia, Abyssinia, Haiti (out of place?), Qajar, Ottoman, the predecessors of Saudi Arabia, Qing, Japan, Afghanistan (independent enough?)

Can you guys also help me decide the organization for such a list? (What counts and what doesn't)

Lotsofissues 20:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The greatest problem with this suggested article is probably that the meaning of 'independence' is so vague, but 'European colonization' is also pretty vague (the Greeks, the Romans, the Normans, the Russians, and so forth, were all Europeans), and so is is the question of what is a 'state'. Haiti is certainly out of place in any such list, as its predecessor Saint-Domingue was under French colonial control for more than a hundred years. By Ottoman, you no doubt mean the Ottoman Empire, which throughout its history was often at war with various European powers, but during its long decline parts of it (such as Egypt) had an equivocal status. Arabia, for much of the period you may have in mind, wasn't in any sense independent, it was part of the Ottoman Empire. By Qing, I take it you mean China, which also gets you into deep waters. Afghanistan... take a look at European influence in Afghanistan. "What counts and what doesn't?" - That's exactly your problem, and there isn't a definitive answer to it. Xn4 22:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Xn4's misgivings are all quite valid, but if there is to be such a list, Thailand deserves mention as much as some of the other countries. Marco polo (talk) 23:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

So I suppose I'll just dump these wikilinks into an article and watch the wikiprocess refine it over time? That would be cool. Lotsofissues 01:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Many of the states that you listed were themselves colonisers, only they weren't based on the European continent. --Taktser 01:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Most likely lifecycle: long periods of disinterest interspersed with bouts of definition stress and anxiety, before a successful AfD on the grounds of OR. (And would you please fix your signature. I think you well know it is policy that sigs contain a link to the user or talk page of the poster. thanks. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

What is "throughout"? And "independent of whom"? You mention the Qing, but what about the Ming? Were they colonisers because they sent fleets to subjugate Somalia? Were they colonised when they were conquered by the Manchus? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Ethiopia.--droptone (talk) 12:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

If you are going to make a list of countries, please use the names of the countries, not the dynasties that ruled them. For example, Persia rather than Qajar, and China rather than Qing. And, as Tagishsimon suggests, you should find sources to back up the inclusion of each country in the list. Marco polo (talk) 15:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Guys: Don't tell me my question is problematic. I know it is. That's why I asked the question! Instead help me figure out a usable title. I can't imagine this article being tossed for OR. Considering the amount of scholarly material written about European colonization, do you think no one has noted the states that remained independent? Lotsofissues 17:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

As to title, List of non-Western sovereign states during the New Imperialism, i.e. "List of non-Western sovereign states during the New Imperialism (height of European domination)".--Pharos (talk) 17:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. Lotsofissues 22:58, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

"Were they colonisers because they sent fleets to subjugate Somalia?" If there isn't an article I encourage you to write one. I love historical events that show improbable contact between distant peoples. Lotsofissues 23:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Um. Thailand? Can't believe nobody mentioned it. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Some of the countries mentioned (Abyssinia, Saudi Arabia) were sometimes independent in name only ("informal empire"), and with the case of Abyssinia were successfully invaded but were decided by the imperial power (Britain) not to be annexed (but could have been if they had wanted to).--Johnbull (talk) 14:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

How was Abyssinia conquered by the UK? Lotsofissues 17:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

See: Tewodros II of Ethiopia#His reign. If you wanted to do something useful you could add these details back into the Abyssinia article! Also see, possibly, the novel 'Flashman on the March'! --Major Bonkers (talk) 08:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

War finished on time

When was the last time a war was over by the time any surviving government involved had initially predicted? Has it ever happened for the United States? NeonMerlin 22:49, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course this has happened to the United States. To give the first example that comes to mind, the Gulf War ended in total victory after six weeks. Algebraist 00:28, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

(Huh? Six weeks, eh? My, how time flies!) I think the ending of wars may be a little like being "within budget"; everything hinges on how the terms are defined. ៛ Bielle (talk) 03:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The Gulf War article says 2 Aug '90 - 30 Nov '95. That's almost five and a half years. The 2003 invasion of Iraq did last about 6 weeks, but five years later soldiers are still dying there almost every day. Astronaut (talk) 03:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, the article says "Date: August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991 (officially ended November 30, 1995)" (although I suppose it could have been changed since the above was written). So the 1995 date refers to the date when peace was declared or agreed to or something, like dating the end of World War I as 1919 (and later for the US) instead of 1918. And the US attacks against Iraq did not begin until January 17, 1991. So there is reasonable justification for the "six weeks" statement as regards the US, but it depends on what you count. --Anonymous, 03:57 UTC, May 15, 2008.

We still have military members dying in Germany, Italy, Japan... Of course, they mostly die in alcohol-related accidents, but they are still dying. Perhaps the solution is to completely do away with the military, bring all citizens back into the United States, and build a huge glass dome around the country to nobody can get out and die in some other country. -- kainaw™ 03:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There's no insurgency against the US military mission in Germany, Italy, Japan... With the ongoing insurgency in Iraq, you can hardly say the Iraq War is over. I think your glass dome idea is unworkable, but bringing the troops home would be a good start. Anyway, what I was trying to say was I couldn't find evidence to support Algebraist's claim that the Gulf War was over in 6 weeks - over as in the time between war being declared and peace being declared again. But like Anonymous says, it depends on what you count.

The coalition attacked on January 17; the fighting ended on February 28. U.S. troops started heading home on March 10 - it is all in the Gulf War article. Rmhermen (talk) 14:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Back to the OP's question... I strongly suspect that no war has ever gone exactly to plan. For example, WWI wasn't "over by Christmas", I'm sure neither side planned for 2 years of pointless stalemate in the Korean War, and I think everyone was surprised at the speed of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War.

Astronaut (talk) 04:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

About the last sentence, no. When war seemed imminent, the CIA gave Johnson an estimate of one week for complete Israeli victory, and were proud of its accuracy after the war.John Z (talk) 01:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if FDR or Harry Truman ever made any statements as to how long the war with Japan would last, but I know most people not involved in the A-bomb program thought it would go far beyond August 1945. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 08:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not actually true to my knowledge—most people were anticipating the war's end quite near to when it actually did end. The question was not whether it would drag on, but what terms on which it would end, and what the final strokes would be. Even before the bomb there was quite a panic domestically about the economic effects the impending peace was going to bring, when suddenly all of those GIs returned. And from another point of view, there was an intense worry on the part of the Manhattan Project participants that they would not be able to finish the bombs in time for actual use during the war. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Before the US knew that the atomic bomb would be usable against Japan, the estimates for when Japan would finally be defeated extended up to the 1950's. If you look at all the aircraft carrier orders that were cancelled by the US in 1945 and subsequent years, you can tell the US was planning on gearing up it's military for a massive and long campaign against Japan. StuRat (talk) 03:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

May 15

Madonna Video With Hot Sweaty Modernist Industrial Men As Cogs / Gears In Factory Setting...

I know this won't take long to find out, but I cannot for the life of me remember the song/video. I was talking about Diego Rivera's Detroit Murals and Chaplin's "Modern Times" today / the body and the factory, and couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the Madonna video that plays with those themes! Thanks in advance. Saudade7 03:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Express Yourself. --Definitely anonymous, 04:00 UTC, May 15.

Thank you so much anonymous person with Madonna information!!Saudade7 04:06, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Medieval painting identifications

women warriors

Charlemagne & Pope Adrian

Anyone know the source or artists for either of these paintings/illustrations? Currently illustrating Horses in the Middle Ages, and I would like to identify artists in the caption. Thanks. Gwinva (talk) 05:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

For the women: A woman with a sword from a medieval manuscript[14]; and for the other,

Pope Adrian Asks for Charlemagne's Help or Plea for Assistance here[15] with the notes, When Charlemagne's brother Carloman died in 771, his widow took her sons to Lombardy. The King of the Lombards attempted to get Pope Adrian I to anoint Carloman's sons as kings of the Franks. Resisting this pressure, Adrian turned to Charlemagne for help. Here he is depicted asking for aid from the king at a meeting near Rome.

Charlemagne did indeed help the pope, invading Lombardy, besieging the capital city of Pavia, and eventually defeating the Lombard king and claiming that title for himself. Julia Rossi (talk) 07:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't help identify the original source (indeed, the first one is from a copy of our own history of women in the military). The Charlemagne one looks like it is from the Grandes Chroniques de France, but I must admit, that's my answer for everything... Adam Bishop (talk) 08:14, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Charlemagne & Pope Adrian is hosted at Wikipedia Commons where the final note reads "Source: Archivo Iconografico, S.A./CORBIS-BETTMANN". After Googling "Corbis-Bettman" I still can't tell if that is an artist's name, the name of a company that owns image collections, or both. 152.16.59.190 (talk) 08:21, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Nah, that's an image archive, not an artist. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually two credits there: Archivo Iconografico, S.A. and Corbis-Bettmann. I think Archivo Iconografico are the agents for the Bettmann Archive (part of Corbis) in some other country - Spain? Carcharoth (talk) 13:58, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• Neither seems indispensible as an illustration, there are good ones in the Commons Categories: Grandes Chroniques de France and Froissart. Both are certainly manuscript illuminations, 15th century Flemish or French, not really from the top of the tree, so very possibly have either no attributed artist, or various names for anons that art historians like to make up. Johnbod (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, and the suggested Commons categories: searching there is always a bit hit and miss, so there were some I hadn't come across elsewhere. Gwinva (talk) 04:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Racists in relationships with people of colour

Are there any documented cases of prominent white racists/supremacists being exposed as having had sexual relationships with people of colour? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

This is an interesting question! The only case I can think of off the top of head is the case of Essie Mae Washington-Williams. Washington-Williams was the illegitimate child of former US Senator Strom Thurmond and a black domestic employee in his household. This all came out after Sen. Thurmond died and was a big story for a week. See the articles linked for more details. BTW, this seems to be the first time I've been the first user to answer a Reference Desk question! - Thanks, Hoshie 09:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Also from watching Roots certainly it suggests that the then slave-owners would often use the female slaves. No idea how true roots is, but it was an extremely interesting piece of tv —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe Thomas Jefferson had children with one of his slaves (not that that makes him a racist). Plus there's also Clayton Bigsby. - Akamad (talk) 11:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Comparing the skin tone of the average west African to that of the average African American suggests that it was very common. --Sean 13:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, yes, it is well known that there has long been intermixture between whites and Blacks in the United States (and, as a general rule, there is always a lot of intermixture between any races that live in close proximity). To me that doesn't really get at the question, and I'm not sure I'd call the rape of slaves (when even in cases of presumed "consent" cannot, in that sort of power structure, be considered wholly voluntary) just a "sexual relationship." It is also well known that white slaveowners often purposefully impregnated female slaves in order to make more property. Let us not pretend this was a wonderful crossing of prejudice, even in the case of national heros. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess that comes down to whether you include ongoing non-consensual sexual interaction in the range of things that "sexual relationship" covers. I personally do, as I think it would be misleading to say that Jefferson did not have a sexual relationship with Sally Hemmings, or that this Fritzl fellow didn't have a sexual relationship with his daughter. --Sean 18:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The BNP candidate for the most recent London Mayrol elections was discovered as having sex with a woman from Poland or some such. As the BNP is in favour of paying them to go home it has been seen as hypocrital and just futher proof of how twisted the BNP are. Quidom (talk) 22:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There was an account I've lost of an Australian pastoralist having sex with an aboriginal servant and the servant's consequent child who turned out to be related to an Aboriginal author but can't find his name and there's no detail in her brief article, Sally Morgan. I think it was a double-barrelled surname. Julia Rossi (talk) 03:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

annales history

what on earth is it about? so confused.

It is a saying isn't it? I.e. "the annales of history" - as in historic records about history, rather than anything in particular it is just a reference to what history will say (perhaps in the future) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

We often hear "That will go down in the annals of history", or words to the same effect, and it's a cliché used for underlining the significance of some event. You're asking about the origin of the expression, which is that annals were an early form of history (the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a good example), in which the important events of each year were listed, the events the chroniclers thought posterity should know about. Xn4 11:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Or perhaps they are referencing the Annales School of history. They use social scientific methods when looking at history, favoring such variables over the usual argument-by-example style of other historians. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I always thought this was "the anus of history", which, in hindsight, ... But I may be wrong. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Or the anneals of history? which it seems to be in many countries at the moment. Don't be confused by this play with words, 194.221, it's just chit chat to get us thinking, : ) Julia Rossi (talk) 02:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The British economy since 1997

Listening to the Today show on Radio 4 today, Gordon Brown said that over the last 10 years we have decreased debt from 44% of GDP to 38%. Considering that the economy has grown enormously over those 10 years, is that an actual reduction in debt or an increase? Or am I misunderstanding the economics at work? Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 10:48, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Given that it is a % of GDP then as the economy grows so will our GDP, so the % which it takes up will fluctuate as both the amount of debt, and its size in relation to the size of the economy will. At least that's my understanding. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

In absolute terms (to answer your question) there's been a whopping increase. To be fair to Brown, though, the debt to GDP ratio is a standard measure of national debt: for instance, it's used in fixing the national debt criterion for the admission of a new country to the Euro and also in our very own list of countries by public debt - a list unsurprisingly headed by Zimbabwe, with an estimated debt to GDP ratio in 2007 of 190 per cent. A fall in the UK figure would be happier than an increase in it, which one suspects most British governments have achieved, but I see there's a mismatch between the figure attributed to Brown (38 per cent) and the figure in our own list (43 per cent, barely a reduction).

Compare this picture, though, with Norway, where over the same period the income from North Sea Oil has been used to pay off a large slice of the national debt. Xn4 11:29, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh OK. So basically for a government the prioity isn't neccessarily reducing the debt, but keeping the debt in line with growth/fall in GDP? Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 17:08, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that's rather too generous. Most of the time, at least in the free world, a government's first priority is keeping enough people happy to win the next general election. If spending is more than revenue, which it usually is, then the national debt goes up. People notice the national debt an awful lot less than they notice the level of taxation, but all debt has a real cost. Xn4 21:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

To compare, if you have a $100,000 mortgage and a $10,000 income you are in trouble. If, ten years later, you have a $100,000 mortgage and a $1,000,000 income you are a lot better off, even though you didn't pay off your debt. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A weird thought : "Vegetarians kill plants".

Very recently we were having a "debate" as to why vegetarianism should be promoted. One of the participants suddenly said that even vegetarians kill plants to eat. Well is that a worthy comment ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.53.10.86 (talk) 13:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, it would depend on whether plants feel pain or not. I would say it was unlikely that they do, but who knows? As Douglas Adams (I think it was) once said, some people might go around saying "some of my best friends are pebbles". Where do you draw the line? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Some people do draw the line at killing or harming living organisms. See, for example, the articles on fruitarianism and ahimsa. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a worthy comment if you consider killing plants to be morally or ethically equivalent to killing animals, but I don't think people really feel that to be true on the whole. In my opinion it would depend on both the animal and the plant to make that particular comment; I don't think there are too many people who would think that killing krill is the moral equivalent to killing a dog or a pig (much less a human), whereas I think killing an old-growth redwood tree, an organism many hundreds of years old, might be seen as considerably worse than killing many small prey animals.

In any case, it's pretty clear that plants don't suffer when you eat them. They have no nervous systems. Most of the ones we eat have actually evolved to be eaten, by something, as a way of spreading their seeds to the next generation. This cannot be said of any animal I can think of (with the exception of parasites). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

A small number of vegetarians will not eat any vegetable which requires the killing of a plant. Picking an apple doesn't kill the apple tree; neither does picking an ear of corn or a pea pod. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 14:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I know. But in any case, such an argument isn't an argument against vegetarianism, which is sort of what the poster is implying (if killing plants is required for vegetarianism, then you might as well eat meat... which doesn't at all follow). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Do people really think it matters whether or not the thing being eaten felt pain? This would seem to allow eating animals if you knew that they were killed quickly and painlessly, and I don't know any vegetarians who do that. I suspect for most people it's not an ethical or moral concern, but rather a simple visceral "ick" factor. Killing a pig is ickier than killing a plant because pigs are sort of like us. They squeal and bleed. The simple fact is, for a lot of organisms, living means you have to kill other things to eat them. There are exceptions, of course, but for a great many life forms, there is no getting around it. And even if you're eating some fruit without killing the plant it came from, you still (sometimes) killed the fruit and prevented it from growing into a new plant. Even if you could choose foods that involve the least killing possible, your body is still killing other organisms inside it all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's not icky because we can't see it, but intellectually we should understand that it's still going on. If you're alive, you have blood on your hands. That's life. Friday (talk) 15:12, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the argument for vegetarianism is that they will have no blood on their hands, but less. (Along with other arguments in favor of it relating to use of resources, etc.) And technically plants don't have blood to get on one's hands. ;-) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Breatharianism.--Goon Noot (talk) 18:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Plants not having a nervous system only proves that they don't feel pain the way we do. But if there is a threat that a plant can do something about then it makes sense for the plant to feel some sort of pain, or whatever you want to call it, a negative sensation that needs to be dealt with. Now a plant can't do anything about being cut down by animals, but it can do something about, say, polluted ground, namely grow the roots in the direction where the pollution is smallest. Actually, this is the only example I can think of, but it sounds valid nevertheless. The only other example I can think of is that plants probably like sunbathing. :) In other words, they seek out the sunny spots. Btw, this is similar to the real problem with eating meat. It's not the killing that is a problem, it's the way the animals are kept when they are alive. With plants, however, it seems rather difficult to establish what gives them 'pain'. Maybe too much fertiliser gives them growing pains? :)

Btw, this makes me think of another question: Do the pro-life followers eat? Amrad (talk) 08:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all of you for your insightful comments - Nikhil. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.53.10.86 (talk) 13:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You could also take a look at Atwood's The Edible Woman for a fictional view on, among other things, the pain of vegetables about to be consumed. ៛ Bielle (talk) 14:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Not every vegetarian is one for the purpose of saving animals. Those who choose to be vegetarian because of a belief that it imposes a smaller carbon footprint, or for health reasons, would presumably be less inclined to ponder the death of the plants involved. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 06:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

"I am a vegetarian not because I love animals, but rather because I hate plants." - A. Whitney Brown. Matt Deres (talk) 13:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Banking services as a component of GDP

Since banks provide a service, it seems that loans and savings should increase the GDP. Is there a straightforward way to calculate the component of GDP due to banking services? For a loan, for example, it would be something like the difference between the PDV of the loan and its cost. --MagneticFlux (talk) 13:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Country or government without debt

Is there and has there been a country/government without debt. Is there any benefit from having a national debt other than having more money to spend at the time it is incurred. (I assume "tax break" does not apply :-) --Lisa4edit (talk) 14:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Plenty of countries have, at times, ran a surplus and had no debt. The benefit is obviously that their debt is not adding interest, and that they can loan-out to other nations with their surplus/build up wealth for major national spending etc. Well managed-debt is perfectly normal practice and is beneficial because it can provide instant-income, long-term management of resources and can help smooth out peaks and troughs of economic growth/performanc.e I think Norway & Sweden have both ran surplusses and had no debt in the past. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought Monaco would be a good guess, and even found at least one link saying it had none, but the CIA Factobook entry says they do have. I'm guessing the CIA is more reliable than EpicTrip.com. NB for the IP above, having a budget surplus in any given year does not necessarily translate to having no debt; it really depends on how the terms are defined. --LarryMac | Talk 14:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Debt enables a country's central bank to conduct open market operations to manage the money supply. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 15:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Debt also allows the costs of major infrastructure to be spread out over multiple years, and, in theory , to be paid for from the economic growth that the infrastructure enables. Marco polo (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It also provides a long-term low-risk investment for investors with long-term liabilities and with low risk appetites (such as life insurers and pension funds). - Zain Ebrahim (talk) 15:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It must be noted that all these things - finance major infrastructure, bonds or open market operations - can achieved without incurring in debt. A budget surplus doesn't block the government of acting. I personally believe that debt is normally only the result of bad goverment. GoingOnTracks (talk) 18:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I kinda disagree with that. Consider, for example, issuing bonds (thus incurring debt) that cost (say) a million dollars in interest, but allow infrastructure development that generate a million and a half dollars in societal value. It would be bad government not to take advantage of the leverage being a government provides. But we're in opinion mode now. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 18:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I meant all these things can be done without a negative balance. If you issue bonds your are issuing a debt instrument, it does mean that you are indebted, but the governement doesn't need a negative balance for that. It depends in how you define being in debt. GoingOnTracks (talk) 18:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

GoingOnTracks, realistically, what sort of investment would you propose the government hold so that its assets would outweigh its debt? (Hint: don't say equity in private business or precious metals.) Also, what would you propose the Federal Reserve buy and sell to adjust the money supply? ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 21:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

What sort of investment? Oil fields?

Second question: The Federal Reserve can change the money supply with a open market operations, making changes in the reserve ratio, and making changes in the discount rate. Of the three policies the open market is the most common, but not the only one. GoingOnTracks (talk) 23:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The first answer which springs to my mind is Liechtenstein, which has the inverse of a national debt. Its government has to decide (in the words of P. G. Wodehouse) "whether to put the money in the bank or keep it in barrels and roll in it". Xn4 18:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Who was it who said "A public debt is a public blessing"? Thomas Jefferson? You might have a look at our article on John Maynard Keynes, whose advocacy of government 'pump-priming' a stalled economy would argue in favor of a national debt as an important stimulus. Rhinoracer (talk) 14:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Lots of things to read about. ... and maybe Liechtenstein would be a nice place to retire to. ;-)Lisa4edit (talk) 06:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

On a slightly larger scale than Lichtenstein the government of Alberta recently became debt-free. And the answer to the obvious question is, yes, oil. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Prime Minister's Questions - No. 5

I listen to the Guardian podcast of PMQs every week. I know that "Number One, Mr Speaker" is the formula for asking Brown to list his engagements. Occasionally, tho, I've heard someone ask "Number Five", and Brown has answered as if it been a previously submitted question. Does anyone know what exactly "Number Five" means, and any other such codes in PMQs. Thanks, William Quill (talk) 18:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, anyone who wants to ask a question has to submit it some time in advance, and anyone who does ask a question gets a supplementary question after the PM has answered. Some MPs want to be able to ask a question about events or developments that took place after the closing date for submitting questions, or want to surprise the PM by asking him a question he hasn't prepared an answer to, so they submit a "dummy" question about the PM's engagements, and then ask their real question as their supplementary question after the PM has referred them to the reply he gave some moments ago. The numbers are just the running order of questions, I think. --Nicknack009 (talk) 21:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. William Quill (talk) 20:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Gambling debts

Why is Charles Barkley in trouble if gambling debts are unenforceable? Clarityfiend (talk) 18:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Under the laws of Nevada, such actions are evidently possible. There was a similar claim against Marshall Sylver. Xn4 19:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Those are debts to a legally operating casino. Why would they be unenforcable? Rmhermen (talk) 19:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, each of the United States has its own laws on the regulation (or prohibition) of gambling, and in many US states gambling debts aren't enforceable. Indeed, unlawful gambling is a Federal crime, when operated as a business. This whole area of gambling debt is a minefield. For some interesting cases, see Flamingo Resort, Inc. v. United States and Zarin v. Commissioner. Xn4 20:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The articles on those two cases suggest they are about the tax status of debts and say nothing about the legality of gambling debts themselves. Some states may say gambling debts are unenforceable, but those laws wouldn't apply to debts accrued in Nevada or New Jersey in legal casinos. It would defy plausibility if a major corporation like Wynn Resorts would extend $400,000 in credit to an individual without the legal right to recover the debt in court. --D. Monack | talk 21:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Book on geometry in Islamic art

I recently saw a show that detailed the (re)construction of a minbar. The show was in place to document the event because it had been part of the Prince's Charities, which any UK'er should know relatively well. Now then, the architect behind the minbar cited a book written by an Englishman. In fact, this book was where he was supposed to have discovered many of the secrets to the original construction. What I wish to know is what the book was, and who the author was. Would anyone happen to know? Thank you greatly for your time and help. Scaller (talk) 20:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

May 16

Greek Theatre

Hi. I'm looking for some information about Greek Theatre or to be more to the point information about the drama festival and their religious nature. If you could point me towards a website with some useful information or even provide the infomation yourself that would be very helpful. Any other information about Greek Theatre will also be greatfuly accepted

Many thanks POKEMON RULES (talk) 00:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Ancient or modern? If ancient, then Theatre of ancient Greece is the best place to start (well...on Wikipedia anyway). Adam Bishop (talk) 00:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Did Carl Stephenson (Leiningen vs the Ants) actually exist?

Did Carl Stephenson (author), the author of Leiningen Versus the Ants actually exist? Our article has no references, only birth and death dates. These are actually different from imdb, which gives in [16] the dates 1886--1954, not 1893--1954. He is called a German here, but was the short story actually written in German? It seems it has only appeared in English, originally in the December 1938 Esquire (magazine), which seems a bit odd for a short story written by a supposed lifelong German during the Nazi era. And surely "Karl" would be the more likely German spelling for his name. But we don't actually have any reference as to him being German, so that could be pure fabrication.

The other suspicious element is that we only have the word of his agent that he would not publish anything else during his lifetime. I remember reading something like that in my school years, in our literature textbook, at the time I thought since he had not published anything else this meant he was still alive! Not so if the 1954 death date holds. I was a fairly observant child and so I suppose that date was not known to the authors of the textbook, suggesting it may be pure fabrication as well.

I find it so weird that this story is so widely read and the only thing known about the author is this strange statement by his agent. All of this makes me strongly suspect that Carl Stephenson was not a real person, but actually just a one-off pen-name. Is there any actual evidence to the contrary? We could perhaps support this by doing some detective work to figure out who the real author may be. The best way to go about that would be to find the original Esquire issue and compare this work to other authors who published there about that time, and particularly authors appearing in that very issue. (Apparently Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Butterfly and the Tank" first appeared in that issue. Wouldn't it be strange if Carl Stephenson was actually Ernest Hemingway?) If the story was not too out of character for its real author, the use of a pen-name may be just a decision to increase the apparent number of contributing authors, and some statistical word count may give hints to actual authorship.

Let me organize these thoughts in the following list of questions:

1. Did Carl Stephenson (author) actually exist?
2. Where did the birth/death dates come from?
3. Why is he called a German?
4. Do we know anything else about him? Any other stories attributed to him?
5. If "Carl Stephenson" is just a pen-name, who might he be?

Thanks, -- Kevin Saff (68.146.220.249 (talk) 01:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC))

P.S. Aha, note too that Stephenson's death is listed as 1954, the same year as the release of the film The Naked Jungle based on his story. That seems like an all too convenient excuse for Stephenson to be unavailable for interviews at the time. Or am I just reading way too much into all this? KS (68.146.220.249 (talk) 01:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC))

de.wiki seems more convinced that he existed. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

he even wrote a sequel to the story: Sendboten der Hölle. Leiningens Kampf mit der Wildnis--Tresckow (talk) 02:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Intriguing. I recall listening to the broadcast on LP in the mid-1970s. I'm starting to feel old. --— Gadget850 (Ed)talk 02:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, that's no fun, you guys shot down all my conspiracy theories :) But I think there are still some questions left, like who translated the story? And if I interpret the German page correctly, it seems he did publish some other stuff during his lifetime (although still surprisingly little) despite the agent's statements. KS (68.146.220.249 (talk) 08:21, 16 May 2008 (UTC))

It's possible imdb has a different Carl Stephenson in mind. My library has a few books by Carl Stephenson (1886-1954), but they're all on English medieval history. Algebraist 09:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Image Copyright question

On the internet there's lots of pictures people send around like image macros, lolcats, and the joke motivational posters. Now in theory everything is supposed to by copyrighted. But if the image isn't watermarked, signed by the artist, noted as coming from a website and also the source is unknown, and I make a website full of those things can I still be sued if someone claims to be the original artist? Of course sometimes these images do take bits from copyrighted sources and then mixed them with content the creator of the image makes, but even if that's not the case then? William Ortiz (talk) 03:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You could be, but it is most unlikely that you would be. The normal procedure would be that you'd be invited to take down the offending image, and that would be an end to the matter. I think - but we do not give legal advice - that the copyright owner would have to prove an economic loss to make a financial claim on you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:10, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong on two important points: 1. they don't have to have suffered a real economic loss to have a case, and 2. take-down notices are served to ISPs, not to individual users. The safe-harbor clause of the DMCA is meant for sites that allow users to post data, so, for example, Wikipedia is not immediately sued if one of its users posts something infringing. Does that mean that you as an individual could be sued? I'm not sure, but it looks that way to me. And of course here we are only talking about the USA. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you in the USA, or any country which is a party to the Bern convention? If so, then be warned that images do NOT need to contain watermarks, signatures, notes, whatever, to be copyrighted. You should assume any image you find on the internet is copyrighted unless being told explicitly otherwise by the creator. Could you be sued? It's possible that your ISP could be served a takedown notice and shut down your site. It's also possible that you as an individual could be sued. Would you win or lose the case? That depends on a whole lot of particularities relating to whether or not your use of it constitutes the legal definition of "fair use", which is incredibly legally murky. Is it likely to happen? Well, judge for yourself. The internet is full of copyright infringements. Which ones end up getting taken down? The ones that 1. cost people money, and 2. step on the toes of extremely touchy clients (Scientologists, the Muppets, etc.). Does that mean the others are legally safe? No. Does it mean it should keep you up at night? It's your butt. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 04:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I do live in the USA. One thing though that makes me wonder is let's say someone takes a funny picture and then puts funny text, sends the picture out of a bit and now it's on 2000 websites so it's hard to actually prove who originally took the picture. Of course my site wouldn't be user-editable so I couldn't hide behind DMCA. William Ortiz (talk) 05:47, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It's hard for you to prove who took the picture. It wouldn't be hard for the author of the picture to prove it (in court)—they probably have the original negative. --140.247.10.1 (talk) 13:41, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Times have changed. What's a negative? --Anon, 21:56 UTC, May 16, 2008.

It is always better to hotlink to picture on original site to avoid this problem.Good idea to keep a copy of picture in case the site hotlinked to ceases to exist in the future,then at your own risk if you wish to do so place on your own site as owner probably would not pursue the matter.If I find people are using pictures from my site via my logs (yes site owners can see where your hotlinks go..)I email them to acknowledge source, hotlink or remove picture. It is a good idea to embed your site url in all pictures which gives the added free advertisement for your site when viewed. --Anon 20 may 2008

Need to know who painted this

Alright, well, I'm doing a little project on art history about cubism and related styles, and this painting is my example: http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/4126/dsc02166ix4.jpg Here's the dilemma: I can't for the life of me figure out who painted this. Does anyone recognize it? Locke-talk|contribs 03:18, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

No, but it looks remarkably Russian. Also, you are not faced with a dilemma on this. :) 213.161.190.228 (talk) 07:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Is that the work of Francis Bacon - the brushwork looks like something he might have done? Astronaut (talk) 14:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I would place my honour that it isn't Bacon. If it isn't kitsch, it's cubist in style and era, likely to be dated around 1908-1920. The focus on portraiture is one we recognize from Picasso in particular, and quite a few of his works in cubism are not far from this - but the style isn't quite his. One might feel compelled to testify to the impressionistic trend of the brush, but I can't think of any skilled impressionist that wouldn't have included light in a much wider scale. It's evident that the picture can't date before 1900. Anything later than 1950 and we'll end up calling it kitsch. Scaller (talk) 16:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Personally I don't recognise it as by any great 20th. century artist or artistic movement; it's a portrait rather than a self-portrait (a self-portrait shows the sitter in a slightly twisted pose because he has to face both a mirror and an easel). You might try User:Tyrenius, but I think that you are going to find that it's nothing particularly important. --Major Bonkers (talk) 07:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I have a question about the assignment. Were you given this painting and told to write about cubism and its associated styles using it as an example, or did you find this painting online and are hoping that it will help illustrate the project on that topic with it? It's neither cubist nor kitsch. I would bet it's more recent—last few decades, or even years (but wouldn't be surprised if it was from earlier in the 20th century). It's also not hung on a gallery or museum wall. The photo was taken at a slight angle and there some printed writing in the upper right, leading me to believe it's a snapshot of a painting leaning against a wall (perhaps at a gallery hanging, or in a coffee shop). It could be a "notable" artist or an MFA student, but it doesn't seem to be from one of the big "names" that we all know. I could be wrong, though. In answer to your question, there are a lot of famous and more applicable paintings out there for an art history project on cubism than this one. If you were given this painting by your instructor then you are probably not supposed to try and figure it out (i.e. write a "formal analysis" or something similar on an almost impossible to track-down work). In that case, use your skills of looking to discuss how it compares and differs from landmarks of cubism by Picasso, Braque, et. al. It'm more different than similar, in my view. --Stomme (talk) 08:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

similarites and differences berween ethics morality and law

what are similarities between the three 'law ethics and morality'--213.55.92.82 (talk) 05:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

See Ethics#Morals for some discussion between ethics and morals. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

And in regards to Law, as an Anarchist, I'd argue that it has no similarity whatsoever with either of the two concepts. Ninebucks (talk) 16:58, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The English Reformation-the Bollocks of Henry VIII

I would hope that at least some of you, those with some degree of knowledge and education, will be familiar with the following lines attributed to Brendan Behan;

"Trust not the alien minister

Nor his creed without reason or faith.

The foundation stone of his temple

Is the bollocks of Henry VIII."

Now my question is this: is this an altogether apt description of the English Reformation? I sincerely hope that this will not be rudely removed by some censorious individual, as it was before.Tim O'Neil (talk) 07:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes yes, most apt. And perfectly sufficient. No further discussion of the English Reformation is required, Brendan Behan having said it all so completely. --Wetman (talk) 08:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Those lines certainly sound like Behan, who once famously described himself as "a drinker with a writing problem". As invective, it's written from an Irish Roman Catholic point of view, the 'alien minister' meaning the Anglican priest. It's not far off being the religious controversy of the school playground. If there's the appearance of a startling grain of truth in it, it isn't one which tells us anything new or startling. Many things conspired to bring down the old religion in England, and if its only problem had been the need of Henry VIII to put away a wife, then no doubt it would have survived him and the tables would have been turned in the time of his successors. Xn4 12:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not Behan. An Irish priest wrote that poem several hundred years ago. Behan quotes it in his book Borstal Boy (or perhaps Confessions of an Irish Rebel).

• • • I learned it in the 1940s very slightly different words. Never heard of Behan back then. My grandmother attributed it to Emmet.

Hindu Gods

Moved from Help Desk

Dear Wikipedia, I am a very great reader of your esteemed articles. In one of your articles regarding "THE HINDU GOD Narasimha (MAN-LION) AVATAR OF LORD Vishnu", you have written that after killing "THE DEMON KING Hiranyakashipu", Lord Narasimha is so full of rage that no one dare go near him and try to calm him till "Prahalad" takes the courage to do so. Whereas,in your article regarding another "HINDU GOD Shiva", you have written that when the above event took place (ie:-NARASIMHA GETTING TERRIBLE WITH RAGE) the other HINDU GODS pleaded with LORD SHIVA to calm LORD NARASIMHA, LORD SHIVA took the avatar of A HALF-BEAST, HALF-BIRD HALF-HUMAN creature named Sharaba and fought with NARASIMHA anf ultimately calmed him. You can refer the above event under the topic of Lord Sarabhesvara which itself comes under the topic of SHIVA. Kindly let me know as to which of the above Two Events is correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.177.241.87 (talk) 20:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not trying to send you on a wild-goose chase around Wikipedia but you might get lucky on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hinduism/Mythology. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 21:17, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

US army vs the world

Considering that the US spends more money on its army than the rest of the world put together, could they conquer the world if they wished? Of course, they'd be hugely outnumbered, so that makes that unlikely unless they get a lot of local support. But then, I've wondered the same about Nazi Germany, and they managed to conquer quite a bit, albeit at a huge loss of German lives. But, in reverse, if the rest of the world ganged up on the US, could they defeat the country? I suppose having half the world's arsenal won't help the US much here, unless they are prepared to use it on their own territory - they could only be used for a counter-attack, hoping that will stop the invading forces. Any thoughts? Amrad (talk) 10:40, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

If there were a serious war between the US and the rest of the world, most of humanity would die in a nuclear holocaust. Hard to call it a win for anyone. As for the US conquering the world in a conventional war, the amount of trouble they (with allies) are having holding down two countries suggests it might be tricky. Algebraist 09:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, first of all, a lot of the military budgets are not correct (or are not accurate), so we can't say for sure if the US spends more than everyone else combined. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the US spends 75% of the world's budget though. They'd still be outnumbered horribly (don't know the exact figures, but I'd say around 40 or 50 to 1?), albeit with slightly older technology (slightly being a key word; note that Cold War Era technology can still be deadly). Then again, as Algebraist says, we'd probably just end up with nuclear war. · AndonicO ^Engage. 09:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Although it can sometimes be doubted, the US is a rational and self-serving great power. In the words of Pascal, "Caesar was too old, it seems to me, to go off conquering the world. Such larks were all right for Augustus and Alexander, who were young and impetuous, but Caesar should have been more grown up." Xn4 09:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Considering that even handling Iraq is proving pretty difficult for the U.S. military, no, they couldn't. Mobilizing armies is very expensive business, and while the United States certainly has a great technological advantage over many countries, that hardware doesn't come cheap. Germany gained a lot of ground, sure, but not only did they have mandatory military service, their army was also a lot cheaper to run simply because your average German soldier's training and equipment was far, far less expensive than that of a modern soldier. Of course, there were other differences as well. For example, according to the Military of the United States article, "As of May 2007, about 1,426,705 people are on active duty in the military with an additional 1,458,400 people in the seven reserve components." Contrast that with the figure given in the Wehrmacht article: "The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935 until 1945 is believed to approach 18.2 million." Of course, that's over a ten-year period and not really a comparable figure as such, but it explains why they could march all over Europe and elsewhere -- they had the manpower to do that. But, as is pertinent to this discussion, not the manpower to really hold the territory they'd taken.

The problem with conquering the world is inevitably that you also need to keep the world afterwards, and in order to do that, you need to occupy the territory you've taken. That takes tremendous manpower and resources, and considering that the people who actually live in those areas tend to be understandably hostile, it's also dangerous and difficult work -- again, as we can see in Iraq now and as we could see in the German military efforts back in WW2. (Not that I'm equating the Nazi Germany with the United States here, I should stress, I'm just saying that they both faced a similar problem, albeit on a wholly different scale. Of course, the Nazis also had military forces external to the territory they'd taken to contend with, which didn't help things any.)

Conversely, if the rest of the world attempted to conquer the United States, they would have a far easier time of it simply because they would have considerable advantage not only in manpower but in the fact that they would be pouring that manpower into a relatively small area instead of stretching themselves thin, and obviously, working with allies has many advantages, such as shared intelligence, resources, logistics, etc. I'm sure the United States would put up a pretty memorable fight, but really, against every armed forces on the planet, they'd simply be completely outnumbered. Bear in mind that many countries have mandatory military service, so the combined pool of trained soldiers would be considerably greater than that in the United States. Also, simple population differences come into play here; the Chinese People's Liberation Army alone, for example, has a pool of 281,240,272 fit males and almost as many females available for military service, more than the population of the entire United States. The comparable figure in the United States is 54,609,050. (Which is not to say that all these people could be armed and mobilized, naturally -- but it illustrates the scale we're talking about, because this is just one country.) If the United States was attacking, it would be spread far too thin to take on the entire world; if it was defending, it'd get swarmed.

Of course, all this depends on your definition of "conquer". If you're not at all concerned about keeping the infrastructure of the territory you're invading intact or sparing civilian lives, or not interested about the negative consequences, things can change very quickly -- as long as you had the technology at your disposal, you could just bomb everyone into the stone age. Or use nuclear weapons and just wipe everyone out. Of course, there's a little thing called mutual assured destruction to think about if you go that way. For a great part, the defensive strategies of the modern superpowers are based on exactly that.

And yes, of course, this response overlooks a kazillion other factors -- but suffice to say that no, the United States couldn't conquer the world, but the rest of the world could gang up and conquer it, as long as we're talking about conventional weapons. This is not to say that the United States couldn't do serious damage on the attack or that the process of taking it wouldn't be extremely costly to the attackers, but in the end, I don't think there'd every be any real doubt of the outcome. And, of course, if nuclear weapons entered the game (as they inevitably would), that's when everyone loses. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

On the conventional war rest-of-world conquering the US front, I agree that we (RoW) would win if we could get our armies there, but I'm not sure we could do that. Naval warfare (unlike occupying hostile territory) is an area where all that high-tech high-cost stuff is actually useful, and I'm not sure we could ship our troops across thousands of miles of ocean against the US navy and air force. The US, for example, has more aircraft carriers than everyone else put together, and they're massively larger. Algebraist 11:00, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree. In a world assult the best bet would be to get as much equipment as possible through to our Canadian and South American allies. Of course things would be a lot easier for us if some of the US residents sympathised with us. Our media departments would be talking about re-unification of Texas with Mexico, and our African allies would be talking about liberating African Americans from their oppressors. At the same time we would have insiders talking to Southern far right groups about reversing the injustices of the civil war and re-introducing segregation. I don't need to mention what an asses the Vatican, Mecca, and Jerusalem would be to us if it really was all of us against the USA. Of course, once the war was over we would have a big problem of bitterness over unrealistic promises we couldn't keep, but the WW2 Alliance of Russia and the West shows that this does happen. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:45, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

If I was the US commander defending against an anticipated RoW attack the very first thing I would do would be pre-emptive conquests of Canada and Mexico so that I'm defending just a narrow frontier and a lot of coastline. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The answer is easy...Not a chance. There is no way that the US could take over the entire world at all. The technological advancement of an army is nothing compared to the tactics/organisational structure. Whilst not on the same tack I would point you to a very interesting chapter of Malcolm Gladwell's book 'Blink' which discusses a military game they played where a guy managed, with minimal resources, to outwit the huge army much to the embarrassment of the armed-forces/people organising the game. Also the US will rely heavily on international-trade to produce/develop its weaponary, with that closed-off then things change. Add in that the rest of the world does have huge amounts of technological advancement too and you've got yourself a ridiculously tough war. It would be nigh on impossible for them to succeed in any meaningful way (save for the whole nuclear-holocaust root). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, you hint on something that would make more sense. Economic warfare. RoW (which need only be the EU, Japan and China) could start relatively inconspicuously with withdrawing money from the US (the huge debts that the US economy is now based on). Next, they could 'do a Cuba' on the US, stopping all trade. If the first measure didn't bring the US economy to its knees, that would. And certain essential types of technology would have to be re-invented by the US, such as steppers, the machines that make chips. There are only a few companies that make these, with the US playing no major role. So the US would get so far behind in such a crucial technology, while RoW keeps on progressing as usual. Within a decade (or two) RoW would be sotechnologically ahead that that is bound to give a major military edge. Still, the nuclear arsenal would remain a problem, unless information technology could disable those (wouldn't surprise me). But at that point, there would be little reason to invade the US - their role on the world scene would have ended. Sorry, I seem to have asked the wrong question. :) Amrad (talk) 14:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, if RoW blockaded the US for 20 years, I'm sure they'd have plenty of time to develop new technology as well. · AndonicO ^Engage. 18:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The US is big, but not that big. The more people and territory, the better an economy can develop. A large part of our wealth is due to globalisation. RoW would continue to have that advantage, but not the US. The USSR did much better than, say, Cuba, because it's so big that it had all the necessities to 'stay alive'. But it was at a continuous disadvantage to the rest of the world (apart from having started off with a huge disadvantage), and the resulting difference in wealth was getting ever bigger. The US would face the same problem, but bigger, having the same amount of people on a area less than half te size. I don't know what raw materials they would have to do without, though. Don't we have some article where one could look that up? I can't find anything in (or through) Economy of the United States. Amrad (talk) 08:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The US is large enough to have raw materials of all kinds within their borders, if I recall my resource geography correctly. But the raw materials would be much more expensive to extract. DanielDemaret (talk) 01:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

A lot depends on how the hostilities start. Does the ROW suddenly one day decide to sneak attack the U.S. without warning? The Americans might be toast with several large armies establishing footholds in N. America. If the U.S. strikes first, Canada, Mexico, & the Caribbean (ex. maybe Cuba) could be overwhelmed quickly, thus expanding available natural resources and making an invasion much more difficult. Most countries' militaries are defensive without the capability to project force very far. The U.S. is basically out of reach of all but a few countries. The U.S. naval dominance would make any blockade tough to enforce. Being that the U.S. is over one-fifth of the world economy, a blockade would do serious economic damage to other countries as well.

While the U.S. may be bogged down in Iraq, that's largely because of the attempt at nation building. The American army isn't good at putting down insurgencies, but against other modern armies it is excellent. Any attempt to conquer U.S. territory would be doomed while I believe the U.S. could conquer a good deal of territory and definitely decimate many other armies. Actually ruling other countries would be tough, but neutralizing military threats would be much less so. --D. Monack | talk 21:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Philanthropy

I am looking for answers to these questions and sources:

How many people in the US have a documented will? (percentage?)

How many who have a will leave something to charity?

When a person dies in the US, the average "equity" they leave is $ ______ ?

Sources for this information?

146.79.254.10 (talk) 18:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

These aren't really questions, but requests that someone do your research. The "answers" will reflect the parameters of the search: without doing the work, the figures won't be meaningful to you. --Wetman (talk) 23:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)?????

John Paulson and Henry Paulson

Are John Paulson (hedge fund investor) and Henry Paulson (Secretary of the Treasury) related? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.132.179.83 (talk) 19:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

No - see this. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 20:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Landlocked island nations

Has there ever been a landlocked island nation? The closest I could find was the Kingdom of Powys, which only met the sea at the Dyfi estuary, and some of the lordships and kingdoms in Medieval Ireland, but which date back to before borders were properly established and the idea of being landlocked became meaningful. Laïka 20:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I suppose it would have to be waterlocked and then landlocked. And I guess it depends on that water being a lake, not a sea, otherwise any island nation could be contrived to qualify. For example, Madagascar is surrounded by water, and beyond the water is land, albeit land that forms part of different continents, and Madagascar is in the Indian Ocean, so it wouldn't qualify. You're talking about an island nation in a lake such as Lake Victoria, or a landlocked sea. The Caspian Sea wouldn't qualify because it has 130 rivers flowing into it and presumably there's ultimately river access to the sea. You're looking for a landlocked sea, or lake, that is connected to no navigable waterways, or no waterways that lead to the sea. I know of no such country currently or in recent historical times, but there may have been in the dim past. But the further back you go, the concept of "nation" becomes more and more fuzzy, so it's not as simple a question as it might appear. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

There was the Kingdom of Kandy, which ruled a part of the island of Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon). During much of its history, European powers controlled the entire coastline of the island, leaving Kandy landlocked. Marco polo (talk) 01:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I wonder if Kandy qualifies. It was situated on an island, but it itself was not an island, so maybe it depends on one's definition of "island nation". -- JackofOz (talk) 01:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Saint Martin is a future contender if the Saint Martinese (population 33,000) ever outnumber and surround the Sint Maartenese (pop 30,000) - or vice versa Mhicaoidh (talk) 01:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I just noticed that the population figures in our three articles don't square up. I'll be back after more research, in the meantime I wish I knew how to do that nifty scoring a line through your errorful edit trick. Mhicaoidh (talk) 01:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC) (Answered question on scoring out on Mhicaoidh's talk page. ៛ Bielle (talk) 04:03, 17 May 2008 (UTC))

For those as fascinated as I am by the wildly fluctuating population figures of St Martin, see that articles talk page Mhicaoidh (talk) 03:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Island Superlatives may be of interest to you as well Mhicaoidh (talk) 04:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What are Energy Trusts?

There is an investment catagory called Energy Trusts. Each Trust can be purchased on the stock exchange in the form of shares. I own one entitled Tel Offshore Trust and from what little I understand of how it operates, it purchases the rights to sell oil and gas from producing properties (Gulf oil rigs, etc.). That's about all I know!!

How are these Trusts structured? What exactly are they doing? Why are their yields so high? I will await enlightenment. Thanks.--Plizik (talk) 21:04, 16 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plizik (talk • contribs) 20:53, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

See Royalty trust. Here's another explanation and here's one's website. The yields are higher than those of ordinary oil companies because nearly all the profits are passed to unitholders as distributions while the companies would usually keep some profits for growth. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 21:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

There are two main flavors of energy trusts (most of this is covered in the royalty trust article, as Zain points out) -- the U.S. and the Canadian. The "Canroys", the Canadian trusts, can be run more like businesses than the ones in the U.S., but there are certain tax disadvantages to them, and they're going to change structure completely in a couple years. The U.S. trusts, unlike the Canadian, cannot add assets once they are formed. The two highest-volume US trusts, last time I looked, were Permian Basin Royalty Trust and BP Prudhoe Bay Royalty Trust (hm, looks like I wrote those). Both U.S. and Canroys tend to pay distributions in the 10-15% annual range. Note that those are "distributions", not "dividends" -- since it's a depleting resource, some of that is return on capital, not a "dividend" per se. Real Estate Investment Trusts are another similar entity. Antandrus (talk) 23:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

A trust is a legal mechanism where one person (the trustee) legally holds the property, but must hold it for the benefit of another (the beneficiary). When you buy units in the trust, you are the beneficiary. So when the property generates income (e.g. royalty), the trustee has to give that income to you, subject to some deductions for expenses or fees which they would have told you about before you bought it.

The value of the trust comes from the value of the property that the trustee holds, which comes from the income generated by the property. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

newspaper Canada natural resources

Is there any newspaper that deals with Canadian natural resources issues? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.129.226 (talk) 23:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Alternatives Journal is published by the Environmental Studies Association of Canada. Checkerspot is a Canadian magazine which focusses on climate change matters, with all the religiosity one would expect. I've never seen a copy of North American Wind Power, but from its title I imagine that it deals with wind power in Canada (and, conceivably, Mexico) as well as the US. And I believe I've seen issues of The Green Guide (US) and The Ecologist (UK) which have taken an interest in Canadian environmental issues. Xn4 19:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Proof

Following from the copyright image question above, with digital imagery, how does a person prove ultimately that they have or shot the original? Besides big business image libraries with their provenance logs, that is. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a good question. In some cases, it's pretty obvious -- if you have a shot from your own living room, for example, it's a safe assumption that people are going to believe that you indeed took the picture. Likewise, if you have taken a picture of a person you know, presumably that person can testify, if need be, that you took a picture of them. Still, in many instances, this doesn't apply. There are other situations: if you can prove that you were at a site when a picture was taken, that'll help. ("I went to New York with my friends last summer, and that's when I took this one. Just ask them.") In practice, perhaps the best proof is that particularly with digital cameras, most people don't go somewhere and take just one picture. They take several, so the image in question is one in a series, and recognizably so. Chances are that the person who stole the image only has that single image, not a bunch of them. And, of course, if the image is posted to an online service like Flickr, that's a pretty solid record right there -- if you're the one with the account password, that's pretty much an open and shut case. Provided, of course, that it's the picture's first public appearance. Still, in the end, it can turn into a situation where it's your word against someone else's -- but I don't think it's that hard to create a solid history for the shots you take. Even if you just kept a log of when and where you've been shooting in a notebook, that would already help a lot -- it's not like that couldn't be forged, of course, but that kind of thing is used as evidence in courts all the time. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

This type of question comes up all the time at the deletion discussions at WikiCommons. There was a discussion last week about a photo of Sarah Jessica Parker in New York. Although there is no undisputable evidence that the original uploader is also the photographer, the uploader also had several photos of other celebrities at the same location as well as photos of herself with celebrities. See commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Sarah Jessica Parker 2.jpg. Thuresson (talk) 11:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

If you downsized or cropped the image before uploading it then possession of the original would be pretty convincing evidence. I don't want fear of unauthorized use to drive people to deliberately mangle their images, but a lot of images are improved by cropping anyway, and you can frame with cropping in mind (especially with high-megapixel cameras). Programs like JPEGcrop can crop JPEG images without introducing compression artifacts.

The Exif data could also serve as proof in some cases. If A and B both claim authorship, and B's copy of the image contains the serial number of a camera belonging to A, that would be pretty convincing. But there's nothing to stop B from stripping/forging the Exif data and then claiming that the data in A's copy is forged. -- BenRG (talk) 12:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Additionally there are things like witnesses. If I shot a picture of a model and was taking it to court, it would be trivial to figure out which model it was (if I was the one who contracted with the modeling agency in the first place, for example) even if I hadn't kept good records at the time, and to get them to submit an affidavit, if it was an issue. There could also be circumstantial evidence—I could prove I had gone to Yosemite on this-and-that a day, you could probably figure out that weather conditions in Yosemite matched what I shot, etc. Even though this is imprecise, in the case of person X saying they shot the photo and person Y claiming they shot the photo, in many cases it would be easy to eliminate one person from the possible ownership of the photo, which would probably be enough for a jury. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help -- it looks like context, third party and exit data is the go unless you're a good records keeper, Julia Rossi (talk) 00:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Stocks

What is a good company too buy cheap stock in? I would prefer an American company, and would really be glad if people know of any in Michigan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 23:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Stock investing is tricky and risky. What you risk is that the price of a stock, cheap or not, could fall sharply. There are millions of experienced investors trying to pick winning stocks, with the consequence that those that are likely to go up are not cheap. There are few bargains, and professionals who know how to find them can earn millions from rich investors. It is better not to try to outsmart experienced and professional investors, because you are likely to lose. A wiser choice for a new investor would be an index fund, a type of mutual fund that rises and falls with a stock market index (that is, with the market as a whole or with a representative sample of the market). Few professional investors manage to do better than a stock market index, so this is a good bet for the nonprofessional. Unlike other kinds of mutual funds, there are no fund managers taking a big cut of your investment to pay for their multimillion-dollar salaries and bonuses. You can still lose money with an index fund, because the stock market as a whole can fall. But usually some stocks rise when others fall, so investing in the market as a whole is much less risky than investing in an individual stock, because nothing counterbalances that stock when it falls. Here is an article on index funds. It mentions a few that you might consider. Many of them have a low minimum investment of $1,000 or less. Marco polo (talk) 01:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

If we were to get a lot of these questions, it would behoove us to add "financial advice" to "medical and legal advice" in the "what we don't do here" list. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

May 17

What if they hadn't refused a title?

So Peter Phillips is in the news because he's getting married, and as it says in his article, he was "the first legitimate grandchild of a monarch to be born a commoner, having not even a courtesy style, for more than 500 years." That was the way his parents, Princess Anne and Mark Phillips, wanted it; and likewise their daughter Zara Phillips carries no title.

My question is, what if they hadn't wanted it that way? Are there particular titles, or courtesy styles or whatever, that based on the practice of the previous 500 years would typically have been granted to Mark, Peter, and/or Zara, or an additional hereditary title that would typically have been granted to Anne? Or was it a random thing depending on how fond each monarch was of their particular children and grandchildren? --Anonymous, 03:08 UTC, May 17, 2008.

• No there are no precedents, although, in the distant past, titles have been created for the illegitimate children of Monarchs. In theory the Queen can create any person she likes to any title. In the past Ladies in Waiting, and friends have even been elevated to fairly meaningless courtesy titles ("the style and dignity of a daugter of an Earl") for instance. There are plenty of Dukedom's not in use at the moment - Cumberland, Clarence, Monmouth etc. And a new one could always have been created Duke of Dorset, or Shropshire for instance. Howver, under British Law titles only very rarely can be passed through the female line. Peter Philip's father (Mark Phillips) declined a peerage on his marriage ([Princess Margaret]]'s husband Anthony Armstrong-Jones accepted and was elevated to become Earl of Snowdon, hence Princess Margaret's children have titles. However, as peter Phillip's father is still alive, Peter would only hold a courtesy title so would still be a commoner, even if his father had accepted. In previous centuries this problem never occurred as British Princesses seldom (if ever) marries outside of foreign Royalty. One of Queen Victoria's daughters married into the titled aristocracy, as did one of Edward VII's and a daughter of George V. I think Princess Margaret was the first child of a monarch to marry outside the aristocracy - so it is a comparatively recent happening to have the sovereign's grandchildren without titles at all. Giano (talk) 07:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You may also be interested in an account of the arrival in the British Isles of the titles 'prince' and 'princess' for the children and some grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the sovereign, and in the later limitations on that custom. See our article British prince. Xn4 18:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

the first legitimate grandchild of a monarch to be born a commoner, having not even a courtesy style, for more than 500 years - who was the last one? Corvus cornix_talk 00:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Cecily of York, one of the daughters of Edward IV of England, made an obscure third marriage at some time between May 1502 and January 1504 to a country squire called Thomas or John Kyme, Kymbe, Keme or Kene, and two of their children, called Richard and Margaret (or perhaps Margery) are mentioned in a herald's visitation of Hampshire, without any dates of birth being given. There may have been other children, but records are lacking. On another analysis, Charles Edward Stuart, the son of James Francis Edward Stuart and grandson of King James II, never held any title recognized in Great Britain or Ireland. Xn4 04:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Xn4. Corvus cornix_talk 20:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

This sentence - However, under British Law titles only very rarely can be passed through the female line - is a bit misleading. Titles are granted by the College of Arms under letters patent, which will govern how a title passes; there's no legal impediment to passing titles through a female line (other than royalty per the Royal Marriages Act 1772), but the matter depends on what the letters patent say. The procedure is different between English and Welsh, on the one hand, and Scottish practice: see, Lord Lyon King of Arms.) Nowadays, there are so few hereditary peerages granted that the matter is effectively immaterial; but, should you be granted an hereditary peerage, you should consider taking (and paying for) legal advice to allow your peerage to pass through the female line rather than becoming extinct for lack of male heirs. Unfortunately, most people seem simply to rely on what the heralds put under their noses; thus, Willie Whitelaw's daughters were deprived of their father's peerage for no other reason that the man had not taken an interest in the drafting of his own letters patent. --Major Bonkers (talk) 07:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

On most of that, you're right, but I believe you're wrong on the last point. Heath didn't have the courage to give any hereditary peerages. Thatcher was trying to move back towards them by stages, and at that stage she was giving them only if they would soon die out, as with Viscount Tonypandy. It was the opposite of a slippery slope, and she fell off before she got to the end of it. Strawless (talk) 13:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Side question

Side question: should that say "of a British monarch"? The cited news article is from the BBC and could have been assuming a British context. --Anonymous, 03:08 UTC, May 17, 2008.

Yes! :)) SaundersW (talk) 09:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

help

what is a adjudicatory hearing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.7.78.118 (talk) 03:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

A trial process in which a court determines whether or not the allegations contained in a petition are supported by evidence. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 15:19, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It can also refer to a tribunal (many of those aren't courts), to a disciplinary panel of a professional body, and so on. Xn4 18:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

And see hearing (law). Strawless (talk) 21:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Debate wiki

I once discovered a wiki that was about debate and philosophy, and it had people supply various arguments linked, then those arguments were refuted on the next page, and so on. I bookmarked it a while back but lost it, anyone have any ideas? I appreciate any help. Chris M. (talk) 03:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Could it be philosophy wiki? Seems pretty close to what you described. Or it could be philowiki. Try googling. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 15:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it was philowiki, thank you! :) Chris M. (talk) 04:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

York v. Lancaster

I've been reading your pages on the Wars of the Roses and was wondering why the Yorkists performed so much better than the Lancastrians, at least until the very end? Lancaster seemed to lose battle after battle, though they had the authority of the crown, which usually gives an advantage. I know that Henry Six was nuts but his side could still claim the right to call on the obedience of loyal subjects against rebels.Willow MacGregor (talk) 07:27, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• It wasn't a matter of established authority vs. rebels; it was a matter of conflicting claims to the throne. The subjects would be loyal first to their lords -- whoever your lord says to fight, you fight. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 20:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

At the end came Richard III. Strawless (talk) 14:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Classical and Anti hero traits

I'm looking into this myself, but I could use help! I need some background information, published scholarly, on two types of heroes: the classical/epic/tragic hero, and the anti-hero. I will use such sites as research for an English paper I'm writing.Tuesday42 (talk) 21:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Then I guess you've see the yummy articles Hero and Anti-hero with multiple links and refs? Julia Rossi (talk) 02:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Those links are less than yummy. I'd prefer.edu stüff, please. Tuesday42 (talk) 03:41, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Pity. Have you tried google? The refdesks are relatively immune to homework until you've got matter to discuss. Still I'm sure someone will come along for you yet -- with a subscription maybe? good luck. Julia Rossi (talk) 05:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Tolstoy and Shakespeare

I was somewhat surprised to see that this topic is not covered in our article on Leo Tolstoy. Question for our literati: why did Tolstoy hate Shakespeare? There is nothing understated in his vituperation; he goes at him with every weapon he has. Look for example at his 1906 essay "Shakespeare and the Drama", which includes bits like this (borrowed from Harold Bloom, The Western Canon): "...having freed themselves from this hypnotic state, men will understand that the trivial and immoral works of Shakespeare and his imitators, aiming merely at the recreation and amusement of the spectators, cannot possibly represent the teaching of life..." Tolstoy reserves his fiercest invective for King Lear. This has bothered me for a long time, having been a life-long fan of both writers. "...Cannot possibly represent the teaching of life..." Really? I know what Bloom says (not Christian enough, and it's partly envy) but I'd be curious to hear some other opinions. Antandrus (talk) 22:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't tell you why Tolstoy hated Shakespeare, but he had even greater disdain for the works of his countryman Anton Chekhov. He put it very squarely and bluntly - You know I can't stand Shakespeare's plays, but yours are even worse. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

So much for political correctness, diplomacy and no-dissing rules, eh. Where does one find Tolstoy: the Gripes, Jacko'Oz? I want to go on relishing his imperious rudeness, Julia Rossi (talk) 02:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It pops up on various lists – [17], etc. This says it’s from Karlinsky and Heim, p. 375, which is probably this. Happy reading, Julia. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!! Julia Rossi (talk) 03:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Is it really surprising? Shakespeare was usually writing for the Elizabethan equivalent of a TV audience. I'm surprised more people don't think he's crap! Adam Bishop (talk) 04:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Everone is entitled to their opinions, but great writers usually consider Shakespeare (whoever he was) at the pinnacle of the profession. The Russians particularly admired him. Boris Pasternak translated Hamlet and there various Russian translations of the sonnets. So Tolstoy seems to be in the minority here. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed: it's hard to find very famous writers who disliked Shakespeare across the board. I can think of plenty who disliked individual plays -- e.g. T.S. Eliot thinking Hamlet an "artistic failure" since Shakespeare failed to find his "objective correlative"; various 17th- and 18th-century writers who loathed King Lear for its pessimism, and even tacked on a happy ending (Nahum Tate, for example). I think Voltaire may have been another with Tolstoy. Antandrus (talk) 04:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

GBS wasn't too impressed with the Bard either - [18]. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It's very simple.

Tolstoy WAS a 'King Lear', and he couldn't stand Shakespeare's clear-eyed indictment of his folly. Rhinoracer (talk) 12:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

May 18

What happened to the buildings?

The top two photos in Potemkin Stairs show a modern view and a c. 1900 view of the stairs: while only trees are visible in the modern picture, the older one shows buildings. What happened to the buildings? I suppose the trees could be hiding them, but it doesn't look like it. Nyttend (talk) 03:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it to me...if you click on the images to enlarge them, you can see the tops of the buildings behind the trees. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the buildings are still there. I've been there and seen them. The building on the left now houses a hotel called Dezha Vyu, named after the title of a Polish-Soviet film (Deja vu by Juliusz Machulski) set in Odessa. — Kpalion^(talk) 21:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Credit and supply elasticity

For credit, what will be the main determinant of supply? Flowing on, will supply be inelastic or elastic?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.49.32.126 (talk) 03:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

If you're referring to the overall macroeconomic supply of credit then I would argue as follows. Subject to reserve ratios, capital requirements and other regulations, banks will lend out as much as they can. So if you're happy with the real money supply being inelastic then (given a constant money supply and no change in regulation) the supply of credit should be inelastic also (banks can't lend money they don't have). In that case, the determinants of credit supply would be money supply and regulation (e.g. a decrease in the reserve ratio implies an increase in credit supply). Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Integration of foreigners

Is it easier to a foreigner to integrate in a city with a high percentage of foreigners (like London or New York) or in a city with a low percentage of foreigners? GoingOnTracks (talk) 03:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It's probably difficult to answer this general question, as there are a lot of individual variables (foreigner's language skills, cultural and ethnic proximity, income, social situation, self-sufficiency, ...) and locational variables (how integrated is the exisiting population of foreigners, specifically and in general, how adept is the local culture at integrating foreigners).

High percentage of foreigners can indicate an existing network which might facilitate integration. It can also be indicative of pre-existing prejudice, strife, and seperation of cultures. In certain cities you will find organized communities of foreigners who can lead functional lives without the need to "mingle" with the "mainstream" culture or learn its language. Small population of foreigners can put more pressure on the individual to integrate (which could be seen as facilitating), but also a different, more ignorant kind of prejudice of course. I don't think there's an absolute answer to your question, and you probably need to look at specific examples one by one. ---Sluzzelin talk 08:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

If we stick to integration in Western cities, it might be interesting to compare a list of cities by percentage of foreign population and compare them with a list of factors such as economic and educational perspective, language fluency etc among immigrants, and adaptation of immigrant culture as well as the sprouting of xenophobic political parties among the mainstream dominant culture. And so forth. ---Sluzzelin talk 08:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The general answer to your general question is: nobody knows. If you are a member of a tiny minority like Roma in Italy you probably will be discriminated. On the other hand a huge minority like the Irish in London don't suffer any discrimination at all (besides some jokes). Not even the Nazis had a general rule to treat all foreigners alike. 217.168.4.241 (talk) 13:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Note even within a city, it's going to vary from place to place, and from person to person (beyond ethnicity I mean). For example, in the US an Arab university academic is probably going to find it a lot easier to fit in then say an Arab truck driver (sorry it was the best example I could think of). A boistirous in your face American female living in a conservative country is probably going to have a lot more trouble fitting in then a quiet American couple Nil Einne (talk) 12:33, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I remember an LA Times article profiling children of a couple living in South LA compared to Kentucky. The Kentucky family was better able to learn English and prospered. mirror article Lotsofissues 21:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Is it true that masturbation was illegal in the Nazi Germany??

Hi, I am a 15 year old male teen and I have read very much about the Third Reich. One of those things was about the illegality of the masturbation because it's "against the reproduction". So, my question is What was the punishment to people practised masturbation and the important question... How did they persecute this people (masturbation is totally personal and private life) when surely most of them, most of us and most of people around the world practise it?... Thanks a lot and greetings from Argentina to all. 201.254.92.175 (talk) 04:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't find any legally codified general Verbot of masturbation during the Third Reich. The National Political Institutes of Education ("Napola") certainly prohibited masturbation as part of their cadet program, but this educational stance wasn't and perhaps isn't unique to Nazi Germany. The "Jungmannen" (cadets) were intended to be disciplined toward a "pure" concept of sexuality, derived from "the pure and clean sexual life of pagan forefathers". This program also probihited homosexuality, obscene conversations and jokes, and prescribed nude bathing and "worship" of the other gender.

I found a quote from a speech held for the Jugendweihe at the "Napola" boarding school in Plön in 1943 (my translation): "Who assaults his own body (sorry I don't know how to translate "sich an etwas vergreifen" ) abuses powers meant for procreation and will become a limp, weak-willed fellow" ("Wer sich an seinem eigenen Körper vergreift, mißbraucht Kräfte, die zur Fortpflanzung bestimmt sind, wird ein schlapper, willensschwacher Kerl."). [19] In "Napola" schools this was enforced by strict supervision and collective punishment leading to constant peer pressure and social control. I don't know whether this answers your question, but Nazi education programs may be where it's coming from. ---Sluzzelin talk 06:13, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

and prescribed nude bathing and "worship" of the other gender. Amusing typo... :) Proscribed would be more likely. Steewi (talk) 06:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh heh, sadly the distance of "rtyui" between "e" and "o" points to sloppy English rather than a typo, but thank you for assuming good vocabulary and making me smile. ;-) ---Sluzzelin talk 08:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, AGF, CIVIL and all that. I couldn't just leave it there, though. It was too good an opportunity. Steewi (talk) 01:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I know this is a serious subject but I keep getting visions of Gestapo officers banging on a door & shouting kommen mit deinen Händen und Ihre Hosen unten (come out with your hands up and your trousers down)... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.107.169 (talk) 19:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Getting fires lit

I was wondering about how people got fire in the past, (Most importantly in the middle-ages)

Today we have lighters and matches, making it easy. And before they used sticks and maybe even flint-stones.

1) but I'm interested in knowing what certain methods belonged to what timelines, When they started using flints, and when they started using sticks and even other methods not mentioned here, then i hope to learn of it. I realize of course that techinques and methods probably varied from region to region a little.

2) And when/how early did matches come into the picture? Were they invented only a 100 years ago, 200 years, or earlier?

3) Most important to me is learning of the methods used in Middle age - Europe and especially how they handled making camp-fires and such in minus degrees, in really really cold environments, and maybe even when snow and ice covered the ground, making it hard to find stones or dry sticks.

This is a question not easy to find answers to, i don't really know where to start other than trying to see what knowledge of this you fellow Wikipedians may possess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.188.157 (talk) 08:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

You might be amused to know that modern matches are actually relative high tech, dating from the 19th century. They seem simple, but they require a certain level of knowledge of chemistry in order to work safely and reliably. --66.180.186.198 (talk) 10:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Check the tinderbox article, and particularly the external link to Oxford University. 134.96.105.72 (talk) 11:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that medieval folk who had to make fire from scratch, when separated from their fellows, usually used a tinderbox or another sort of flint-and-steel method. Dwellers in towns and villages, and even not-too-isolated farmsteads, might just pop over to a neighbor's (or to the local blacksmith's or baker's) to borrow some glowing coals with which to kindle a fire. Deor (talk) 11:44, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

We have an article on making fire with some history. With practice, flint and firesteel are not difficult to use. ----— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article on the tinder box is sparse and uninformative. [20] has a historical account of firemaking.In prehistoric times flint and pyrites might be used, and flint and steel from the Iron age onward [21]. Some nonindustrialized societies used a bow drill to spin a stich and achieve sufficient heat to ignite wood shavings. This is far harder to achieve than with flint and steel. Information on the use of the tinderbox in the 18th century is found at [22]. The tinder was fabric which had been previously scorched to carbonize it.[23] The spark from flint and steel would ignite a very small fire due to the heated bit of steel burning as it flew through the air onto the tinder, the glow of which could ignite a wood splint, after which the tinder would be extinguished with a metal weight for further use. It took skill and about a half hour to start a fire. In the early 19th century a rotating metal wheel (like on a Zippo lighter) was used to create the sparks with superior results, and the wood splint might have been dipped in sulfer (sort of a primitive nonstriking match) for better results. The sulfer tipped matches were the results of household manufacture and were sold by "matchgirls. [24] A book from 1881 [25]notes that back in 1834 an editor had predicted [26] that despite the advent of lucifers, the tinder box would likely continue to be common in the household, but that in fact, by 1884, it was only seen in museums. A book from 1889 describes such a tinderbox [27] and says that the wear patterns on the flint are like those on ancient prehistoric flints in the collection. Here is a description of a tinderbox from a museum collection in 1899 [28].(signing it albeit a bit late) Edison (talk) 03:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

That you, Edison? can any of this go in the article?Julia Rossi (talk) 12:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It all can, correctly attributed (ref desk submissions are submitted under GFDL as is everything else). I've lifted it into tinderbox and edited it a little. Neıl 龱 14:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

British medals

Tom Bardsley did some good stuff. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/7406351.stm

The copper he saved says he should get a medal.

What medal(s) could he get? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.193.138 (talk) 14:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

George Cross or the Queen's Gallantry Medal perhaps (purely speculative, but you asked for possibilities) :). PeterSymonds (talk) 14:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Why am I standing here instead of...there?

I am standing here. Right here. Sometimes it spooks me. It's like- it couldn't have happened any other way. I could say to myself; "I shoulda stood there". But it's too late. I am now here. My fate sealed forever.

If this sounds too overdramatic, think about it. You can't undo anything! Fate has it all planned out for us. Free will, my ass. You can't think a thought you didn't think!. Your mind made you sit (or stand) in front of your computer. Right now. And there's nothing you can do about it.Sam Science (talk) 15:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Determinism and/or predestination and/or fatalism. Strawless (talk) 21:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Consider the possibility that in parallel universes you are standing in different places. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Legal math

Nicholas Mikel fires three shots at a bunch of fellow soldiers, then two more at a single man. He was charged with 42 counts of premeditated attempted murder and another four of attempted murder. How in the world could they have arrived at those figures? Were these magic bullets? Clarityfiend (talk) 17:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

IANAL, and I'm not familiar with the case, but perhaps the 'bunch' contained 42 (or maybe 46) people, all of whom he could reasonably be judged to have been attempting to kill? Algebraist 18:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but what really had me scratching my head was the four attempted murder charges. I could see fourteen guys and three bullets, or 42 targets, leading to 42 charges, but four? And unpremeditated? What, did he suddenly go spontaneous in the middle of his shooting spree? Clarityfiend (talk) 18:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Never mind. I think this clears it up. It appears he shot at four soldiers who chased him after the initial shooting. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Little girl married with an old man

Hi, I am a 16 year old guy interested in Islam since many years ago. I have read the history of a poor little girl (8) in Yemen married with a pervert. She asked for help at a court and I don't know what happened with her... My question is. Is it legal in those country ??... Is a poor little girl forced to marry with a pervert? thanks and greetings !! 190.49.110.10 (talk) 18:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

For Yemen, a Yemeni supreme court lawyer's opinion is in the article you linked:

“no girl or boy can get married before the age of 15." However, this item was amended in 1998 so parents could make a contract of marriage between their children even if they are under the age of 15. But the husband cannot be intimate with her until she is ready or mature,”

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yemen is not a particularly rich country (in fact it is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world), and in those societies it is common for very poor people to offer daughters for marriage in order to receive a mahr (payment by the husband to the woman's family). Most people there do not approve of these sorts of marriages, but the extreme poverty leaves some desperate families with no other options.--Goon Noot (talk) 19:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah. We see. No other options, then, apart from continuing poverty for the family and a childhood free of marital rape for the eight-year-old daughter. How many responsible parents would pass up the chance of some useful hard cash, given a desperately tough choice like that? Xn4 13:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Philosophy of Censorship

What are some good arguements both in favor and against censorship? I mean, most people assume that censorship is wrong, but why is it? What are some good reasons to support either view? The Freedom of Speech article lists reasons against, but nothing for. I've searched around elsewhere, but I can't really find anything in the "statement, premise, conclusion" format commonly used in philisophical discussions. 216.178.50.73 (talk) 18:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Even the greatest proponents of free speech offer limits to it. Take two examples of people who are generally seen as amongst the greatest defenders of free speech: J.S. Mill and Spinoza.

The example that J.S. Mill uses in his on liberty is a person who stands in front of a house of a corn dealer with a group of protesters calling out that corn dealers steal from the poor. I.e. inciting violence is a ground for censorship. Another example that is often discussed in connection with this is shout "fire" at a crowded theater and thereby causing a panicking stampede in which people could get killed. Again if an act of speech directly causes damage to others, it should be banned.

Spinoza, another famous proponent of free speech also limits it to speech which is not seditious, i.e. which does not undermine the sovereignty of the state or incites rebellion.

So even the most liberal philosophers offer grounds for censorship. C mon (talk) 19:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

It should probably be stressed, though, that there's a difference between censoring someone's speech and punishing someone for the consequences of their speech. For example, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater may not be a crime, but doing so will probably get you in trouble if someone gets injured because you did so. That's not really a censorship issue. Similarly, the same could be said of the corn dealer example. In neither case are we really talking about censorship; I believe that in most countries, inciting people to violence or endangering others with irresponsible behavior are crimes all by themselves. Which is not to say that they aren't good examples of how freedom of speech is limited -- they are! -- but that's not the same thing as censorship, which is what the original poster was asking about. Or am I splitting hairs here? Perhaps I am, but it seems to me that there's a pretty big conceptual difference here. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 22:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

How about libel and slander? Wrad (talk) 23:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, that's not censorship. No one is going to prevent you libeling or slandering someone -- they'll just punish you if you do so. Different thing. (On the other hand, I suppose a restraining order could be issued against someone, forbidding them from publishing material or making comments about certain topics in order to make sure they can't engage in libel or slander -- and that would be censorship.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I recall a celebrity who was under court order not to talk to minors or something. Wrad (talk) 00:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Right. That would be a restraining order. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

But even in this case, it's still ultimately a case of no one is actually stoppind you doing it. The restraining order is simply a predetermined decision that it will be illegal for you to say something. It doesn't physically stop you from saying something. It's not as if the restraining order grasps you throat when you start to say whatever your not supposed to say... But even without a restraining order, libel is illegal, the only thing is you go to court to prove it was libel, but the laws were already there making it illegal for you to libel someone. It's usually helpful to prove harm particularly when it comes to damages. But even without proving harm, libel is usually still libel, in some countries even a crimimanl offence. It's not just the consequences of what you said that is the problem, but what you said itself that is the problem. The same as with a restraining order. The same with inciting violence. If I tell people to go an kill or Arabs/Jews/Americans/Chinese/lesbians/whatevers, often this will be illegal, regardless of whether by speech actually affected anyone. P.S. I've used the term 'illegal' losely here, obviously in many countries it's not actually illegal for you to libel someone since if there's no criminal libel, it's simply a civil case but hopefully the meaning is clear. Nil Einne (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It's true that a restraining order doesn't physically stop you from doing it, of course, but that doesn't mean it's not a form of censorship. The purpose of censorship is not to make something completely impossible, but to hinder and discourage people in getting that message out. I discuss this in more (possibly too much!) detail below. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the difference can sometimes be more theoretical then practical. For example, in many cases inciting violence or other speech considered reckless may result in a punishment, even if it does not actually result in violence or anything bad. Similarly in some countries a variety of offenses why e.g. inciting racial hatred, advocating a change in government, etc which many will regard as censorship are illegal in so much as you will be punished after the fact. If the government has sufficient contol over the media, it can be very difficult for someone to actually say something which will be illegal (and they may use a variety of means to stifle people who may say such things but these are often quasi-legal) but beyond the difference in government control, from a purely philosophical standpoint there is no real difference between restrictions on libel, inciting violence, or advocating an overthrow of a government. Based on their local laws, most media will impose censorship on their content, for example most will not print anything libellous or that incites violence. Similarly if it's illegal to advocate a change in government. The key thing of course there is simply no way anyone can physically stop someone from saying something (that sort of mind control is still in it's infacy) all you can do is to monitor and try and work out who is going to say something you don't like and find a way to stop them (which probably all governments do to some degree, some a lot more then others), punish those who do say something illegal sufficiently to try and scare them, and anyone else, from repeating the action; and control the media in such a way that people find it difficult to say whatever they want to say to more then a tiny audience. Fox News could for example show an explicit pornographic sex scene on their news if they wanted to, they would just get into deep shit if they did. I think what Captain Disdain is trying to say is that the decision by Fox News editors, not to show a scene would be the act of censorship (presuming it was made for legal or ethical concerns and not because a pornographic sex scene didn't actually fit into the news). But then so could the deciision by Fox News editors not to show a news clip where someone makes a libellous comment. Nil Einne (talk) 12:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a part of it, sure. But when we talk about censorship, it's true that it's almost impossible to keep someone from saying something -- and yet again, it's not that impossible. I'll come back to that in a second, but first I should say that to a great extent, censorship is a consensual process: you already know that someone in authority doesn't want you to say something or express certain views, so you don't do it. That's not the same thing as being afraid of offending an individual, for example; you already know for a fact (or, at least, very strongly suspect) that if you go ahead and say your piece anyway, you may lose your job, or someone will come along and close down your business, smash your printing press, put a bullet in your kneecap or in your head, or otherwise inconvenience you. As a rule, censorship isn't about saying a specific thing ("Captain Disdain is stupid," for example), but about discussing certain aspects of a thing in public, especially in a critical tone ("only good things may be said about Captain Disdain," for example). The nature of censorship isn't so much that people get in trouble for saying some things, but that they don't want to say some things, even though they'd really like to.

As for the impossibility of actively preventing people from saying things you don't want them to say, the internet has, of course, made that a lot more difficult. This doesn't keep some authorities -- China, I'm looking in your direction -- from doing it anyway, with various degrees of success. That said, though, it's not impossible to employ government agents to look for subversive material in printing houses, newspaper offices and other locations. Just the knowledge of a possibly imminent spot check will scare most people into cooperating, particularly if the punishments are significant and if there's an organized system of snitching out your friends and neighbors. This easily has the effect of creating a government-sponsored culture of censorship, where people constantly watch what they say and do. It doesn't keep someone from saying what they want to say, if they really want to say it, but it makes it less likely for people to stick their necks out and also ensures that other people don't feel comfortable listening to them, because they want to avoid getting in trouble. These are somewhat extreme examples, of course, but I don't think it's that hard to find comparable events from everyday life. Indeed, I think censorship is largely a cultural, or at least an institutional phenomenon, which is often -- even in societies where freedom of speech is prevalent -- located somewhere between unwritten rules and accepted practices, as well as as a degree of authoritarianism. A lot of censorship comes in the form of social pressure. (And not all of it is bad, either -- if someone is about to tell a tasteless concentration camp joke without knowing that there are Holocaust survivors present, to pick an admittedly exaggerated but illustrative example, a bit of censorship is probably a good idea.)

Compared to that, the publishing of a libelous article is a completely different situation -- particularly because what makes it libelous is that it's not true! There's a difference between getting in trouble for telling lies or misrepresenting something and the same thing happening for saying things that the powers that be don't like, for starters. Also, such an event is an individual case, rather than something that goes against established practice or challenges the status quo, for example. Again, conceptually, there's a huge difference.

Finally, one more criterion for identifying censorship, as opposed to just a consequence of your actions (even if the end result -- that is to say, the punishment -- is exactly the same): if there are existing laws against what you're doing and you get in trouble, as decreed by those laws, it may not be censorship (provided, of course, that the laws don't exist for the specific purpose of censorship). If you get in trouble because a third party decides to get involved or there is some other deviation from standard operating practice (the government steps in, the publisher decides to shelve the article because of inappropriate content, an advertiser exerts influence, etc.), then there's a good chance it is censorship. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Cpt. Disdain is correct: there is a difference between banning speech before it occurs and punishing some one afterwards. It might be more difficult to think of philosophers who advocate the latter. C mon (talk) 06:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The 'fire in a crowded theatre' quotation is from a celebrated judgment by Oliver Wendell Holmes (in Schenck v. United States). Probably a good place to start. --Major Bonkers (talk) 06:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

HIDDEN HISTORY: Where is there evidence of black Americans in the Philippines, Guam and/or Wake Island between 1940-1945?

I'm curious. I've read numerous historical accounts of the Japanese invasion and subsequent occupation of the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island. One thing I've found interesting is the absence of references and/or photos of black Americans either stationed in these places prior to the invasion, or what happened to them during captivity. With the vast presence of US Navy ships and installations in these three locations, black men most likely were there, even if only in small numbers. It is known that black men served in the US Navy, and were restricted to being stewards (cooking/serving food). Furthermore, every large ship and most medium-sized ships had stewards. Shore-based Naval units also had stewards, and that presupposes that black men may have been stationed on land in these three locations. In the case of the US Army, black men served as stevedores (quartermaster/supply/dock workers), muleskinners, and in some instances, in segregated infantry or artillery units. With the extended tours of duty, some soldiers, sailors and Marines had their families with them overseas. I've never been able to uncover whether or not black men were allowed to take advantage of this opportunity, but if they were, there may have been some black wives and children there also. The presence of American civilians was very strong; seafarers, contractors, businessmen, adventurers, expatriates, retirees etc. Black people may or may not have been part of that civilian group.

One non-fiction book had a paragraph or two about a black Australian POW held with his unit by the Japanese, and I've seen the picture of an older black man who helped take care of white children where they held at Santo Tomas in the Philippines.

Can anyone out there assit me in uncovering first-hands accounts, eyewitness accounts, pictures, anything that addresses this? Magnet For Knowledge (talk) 19:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

You might consider contacting Ambeth Ocampo, I think he focuses on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.--Lenticel ^(talk) 01:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Lentice; I really appreciate it. I've just opened the link (page?) you provided, and I read everything it had to say, but I don't know how to contact him. Is Ambeth Ocampo on wikipedia? Magnet For Knowledge (talk) 03:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

From the information the article provides about his activities, you may want to try contacting him through one of the following: The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Dept. of History, School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manial University or the University of the Philippines, Diliman. 152.16.59.190 (talk) 04:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

i'm sorry but I can't provide you his contact details. However, I can give you his contacts as National Historical Institute chairman. Note that I don't contact him anymore nor use these numbers so you're on your own here.--Lenticel ^(talk) 05:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

UK Pub laws

What is the minimum age that you need to be to enter a pub? I am 16 years old and live in Brighton, UK, and would like to watch the Champions League Final this Wednesday with a friend. We don't want to consume alcohol or sit at the bar, just watch the game, is this legal? Thankyou —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.78.167.100 (talk) 20:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no law as to what age you need to be to enter a pub (this is why you regularly see kids and babies in pubs) but it is up to the licensee to permit access under the Licensing act. Generally, in my experience, most will allow entry as long as you don't attempt to purchase anything alcoholic but others will insist on you being accompanied by an adult. You may find family pub chains like Wetherspoons will be a safer bet but be aware that there may be bouncers working on Wednesday night who could turn you away. Note also that since 2003 you can be fined 1000 pounds if you're under-18 and do decide to try and purchase beer in pub. 86.21.74.40 (talk) 21:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

See also Licensing laws of the United Kingdom. Strawless (talk) 21:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Why not go into the pub at a quiet time and ask to speak to the landlord?That way you would know first hand what would happen.If you are polite and reasonable, you should find he will at least listen to your request .hotclaws 08:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Operation Marylin

Hello,

In the entry on SIDE (one of Argentina's intelligence services), their is an un-sourced entry titled "Operation Marylin." The information in that entry is quite interesting and I would like to use in in a book I am writing, but I must have a definitive source. Can you help me identify the original source of this submission?

Many thanks

Chris Simmons USA —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.40.75.240 (talk) 21:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

That section was added by User:Sanmarcos. That user hasn't been active lately, but by a staggering coincidence, he was asked the source last year, and replied 'see References, Los sospechosos de siempre: Historia del espionaje en la Argentina, Jorge Boimvaser. It's a book, it is in there somewhere.' Algebraist 22:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

May 19

Female history photographer

Am looking for the name of a female photographer at the time of the San Francisco Earthquake. Fallen white draught horses/drays are among her images... She gave up photography after that due to lack of money. Thanks, Julia Rossi (talk) 01:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about the "lack of money", for she appeared to continue to take photographs, but you may mean Edith Irvine. Her "Dead Horses" photograph can be found here [29]. ៛ Bielle (talk) 03:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's it! A double bonus, thank you so much Bielle! Julia Rossi (talk) 04:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You are most welcome, Julia. ៛ Bielle (talk) 04:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Sunken ship in the Thames

I was just recently told about a ship that was sunk in the Thames river, in or near London I think it was, which is still there today. According to what I was told, it's an American ship, is loaded with munitions, and the mast of the ship is still visible above the surface of the water. Does this ring any bells with anyone? Dismas|^(talk) 01:40, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Upon further thought, it might have been Liverpool that they were referring to. We were talking about both London and Liverpool, so I might have them confused. Dismas|^(talk) 01:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

SS Richard Montgomery. [30].—eric 02:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That's got to be it! Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 02:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the ship, ss richard montgomery —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.74.1.156 (talk) 14:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Muftis

How come in Somalia and Bangladesh they don't have muftis or grand muftis like Lebanon and Iran have ayatollahs and grand ayatollahs? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.119.204 (talk) 02:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Mufti and Sharia. Strawless (talk) 14:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Drugs in the Middle ages.

Is there any record or literature of drug experiences from the middle ages? Did any great artists or thinkers leave anything behind that detailed the use or stigma of drugs in that time? Who even used drugs back then, was it just some obscure hobby to pick the mushrooms from the cow fields and eat them or was this activity well known? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.250.222 (talk) 03:07, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Aside from alcohol, I don't think there was such a concept as recreational drugs. You could check and see if St. Augustine gave any details about his lifestyle of debauchery before he converted, I'm sure alcohol, at least, was involved. The one group that immediately springs to mind is the Assassins, who may have used drugs like cannabis or hashish, or maybe alcohol, although plain old unaided fanaticism may have been enough for them. In Europe, sometimes eating something poisonous would make you go a little crazy for awhile; but in a case like ergotism it would also make your limbs gangrenous, so that wouldn't be much fun. I can't think of any philosophers or artists who wrote about recreational drug use; I can think of some who wrote about religious hallucinations, like Catherine of Siena, but anyone like that who starved themselves for God like she did was probably just anorexic, not on drugs. Or what about Joan of Arc? Was she just really pious, or on drugs? How could we tell the difference, really? Medieval medicine was pretty good, so medical treatises might be a good place to look for info about hallucinogens and other kinds of drugs. (Hopefully our article will be able to point you somewhere more useful!) Adam Bishop (talk) 06:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The Norse warriors called Berserkers are likely to have used psychoactive drugs according to the article here[31] who were active around at the time of the early Middle Ages and not only. Julia Rossi (talk) 10:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There's an interesting case from the late 14th century of a Parisian "Society of Smokers", satirized by the French composer Solage with his bizarre composition Fumeux fume par fumee. I wrote that article three years ago, before we were putting in inline cites, so I'd have to dig through my sources again, but exactly what they were smoking is a matter of some dispute. The singers go lower and lower and then get irretrievably lost towards the end of the music, and it's abundantly obvious from the music they're stoned on something. Tobacco was unknown in Europe in the 14th century. Hashish is one of the hypotheses on that piece. Antandrus (talk) 14:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

If it doesn't have to be Europe, not the middle ages and no written record, you might want to look at Coca. Some aphrodisiacs supplied by local herbalists are likely to have contained substances that today are considered drugs. Look at Atropa belladonna or Mandrake (plant) for instance. These toxic/poisonous plants contain psychoactive substances. Poppy seed pastries were known and liked in the middle ages, although one would have had to consume quite a lot of those for any drug effect, I guess. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 09:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Our article on opium poppy indicates that people who consume two to four typical poppy seed bagels may test positive for narcotics. As a self-confessed lover of poppy seed strudel I request the presence of a lawyer before continuing with my answer :) --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Indian Muslims

I am new to this thing about Indian Muslims. Is there any Muslim population in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh,West Bengal, Tripura and Tamil Nadu? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.119.204 (talk) 03:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The article Islam in India and more specifically the section on Population statistics will help you with your question. C mon (talk) 06:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Arab world under Iran

At what extent does Iran, which is not Arab, have influence in the politics of Sunni dominated, arab speaking countries ?

• It is said that the Syrian regime is at least close to Iran, is this correct ?

• The Hezbollah affects the politics of numerous countries : Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Transjordania. At what point does the Shia connection come into play ?

• It has been said that many of the Shia activists that have undermined the pro-American Iraq regime were at least sympathetic to Iran. True or false ?

• It is accurate to say that in the Gulf states, some of King Saud's major political opponents have been helped by Anti-American, pro-Iran groups ?

• Would a Pax Iranica scenario be directly opposed to the projects of the pro-Western, European and US governements ?

69.157.239.231 (talk) 03:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be you're concentrating too much on Iran. Iran does have an influence, but there are a lot of people who hate America and hate Iran too. Osama for example. Or Saddam Hussein in his later years. (Who also hated each other.) The Arab world is a lot more complicated then Iran in one end, the US at the other... As for Pax Iranica vs other governments, again it's not so simple. For example, both Iran and the US support democracy when it gets them what they want. But if not, well then not so much... Nil Einne (talk) 12:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The Bodhisattva

Where does the Mahayana teaching about the Bodhisattava come from? Is it the Lotus Sutra? And why then do Theravadins not accept the concept of a bodhisattva? Any help would be great, I'm doing some research into Buddhism :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.23.22.252 (talk) 10:40, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

See Bodhisattva, Theravana and Mahayana use the term differently. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - I have looked at the Bodhisattva article but it doesn't say where the teachings about the Bodhisattva originate from. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.1.226.232 (talk) 14:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Current riots in South Africa

How can South Africans identify who is not from South Africa? Do they have different facial features? And who are the rioters: black, white, everybody? 217.168.3.246 (talk) 13:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

South African nationality law and Identity document#South Africa. Strawless (talk) 14:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Strawless you are useless. The question was about a rioting mob attacking people on the streets. How do they know whom to attack? Do the ask for the ID? 217.168.3.246 (talk) 14:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:Civil and WP:NPA - we try to keep things friendly here. You could have easily linked an online news article for Strawless's information. From reading this morning's and the weekend newspapers, I would say that most people in the townships know who are foreigners and who aren't (people tend to stick to their own kind which would make it easier to tell who is foreign). Although, according to recent reports, general lawlessness has replaced the xenophobia of last week. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 14:57, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

217, your first question wasn't about a mob or an attack, please read it again. One answer is official ID documents. Strawless (talk) 15:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There are a wide variety of languages spoken in Southern Africa. Those spoken in Zimbabwe and other homelands of migrants to South Africa are different from the languages of South Africa. Also, there is a local patois called Tsotsitaal that is common in the black townships around Johannesburg. I would expect that migrants are identifiable by their speech. If they speak languages indigenous to South Africa, such as Tsotsitaal or Xhosa, they likely to speak imperfectly or to have an identifiable accent. Possibly South Africans can also identify migrants by their English accents, their styles of dress, or other cultural markers. It also likely that migrants have congregated in certain urban districts, where they would make easy targets. Marco polo (talk) 21:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I once asked a friend from Belfast, how during The Troubles did they tell if someone was protestant or catholic. He said it was usually because they knew their family background, but failing that their surname and slight differences in accent were usually sufficient. In Johannesburg, I would imagine name and language would be pretty conclusive evidence for the mob to decide who to attack next. Astronaut (talk) 08:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

And how do the good folks in Belfast knew if a foreigner was catholic or protestant? 217.168.1.150 (talk) 12:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of the people of Belfast didn't really care if a foreigner was Catholic or Protestant. This goes to show that the Troubles were not so much a religious conflict as an ethnic one. I am an American, and I visited Belfast during the Troubles. No one ever asked about my religion. Marco polo (talk) 18:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

If this comic strip is anything to go by (yes, it's South African), they can't tell, although one guy's method is shown here. Deor (talk) 13:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

MPs

how can I found out of my MP hads voted for the embrology bill? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.128.192.21 (talk) 19:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You'll find it on theyworkforyou.com/mp/. Xn4 19:10, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

That, of course, assumes that this is the British Parliament we're talking about. 86, if it isn't, you'll have to talk about what country you are referring to. Paragon12321 (talk) 00:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I hazarded a wild guess that 86 was asking about the British House of Commons simply because it's debating an enormously controversial Embryology Bill yesterday and today! Xn4 01:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

speak truth to power

what does the phrase "speak truth to power" mean and where did it originate?Smoore2040 (talk) 20:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The phrase is self-explanatory. It means not to be a "yes man". Googling on "truth to power" yields 1,840,00 hits, the first of which looks OK and attributes the phrase to a Quaker, Milton Mayer, writing for the American Friends Service Committee in 1954. --Milkbreath (talk) 20:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The 1954 pamphlet itself[32] says "Our title, Speak Truth to Power, taken from a charge given to Eighteenth Century Friends" This[33] says it is "an expression of the foundational Quaker belief that the light of understanding resides within each and every person." IIRC Noam Chomsky has criticized the phrase, saying - so what, power won't listen.John Z (talk) 21:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

May 20

Dog Training Equipment

What are the laws/rules/regulations about dog training equipment in Victoria, Australia? including:

• Prong/Pinch collars and Correction collars- who can use them, when can they use them and why can they use them (including institutions such as boarding kennels and day care centres).

• What guidelines/regulations are there for vets or trainers recommending dog training eguipment?

• What does the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 say about dog training equipment?

Thank you.

140.159.2.32 (talk) 03:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, for a start, here is the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986 for your perusal. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

John Doe

According to the John Doe article, it says that the name is used for male corpses or emergency room patients when the identity is not known. It then says, Jane Doe would be used for females, and Baby Doe for babies. It then goes on to say that additional members of the family would be known as 'Judy Doe', etc. How can they tell if they are members of the same family if they have no idea who they are?--ChokinBako (talk) 04:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

They might have done DNA tests. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 05:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Or there could be an undeniable family resemblance, especially in case of twins. Or they could just make an assumption that two unidentified adults and an unidentified child who died in a car crash were two parents and their child. It's not as if they are giving them new and final names, after all, they're just using them to identify them and differentiate between them internally. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Is the USA a "State Sponsor of Terrorism"?

With this news that the US representative in Havana has been providing funds to Cuban "counter revolutionaries", could the USA be considered a State Sponsor of Terrorism, in the same way the the USA appies that label to the likes of Cuba, Iran, Syria, etc? Astronaut (talk) 08:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.--Lenticel ^(talk) 10:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

(ec) This is not news. The US was, for example, conducting a campaign of sabotage against Cuba in '59. In general, "Washington is the center of global state terrorism and has been for years." (Chomsky) See Allegations of state terrorism by the United States. Algebraist 10:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The absolutely HUGE diff is that the Cuban dissidents aren't terrorists who are going to send suicide bombers against the Cuban government, they will maybe use the money for democracy rallies (protests) and such. StuRat (talk) 13:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Remembering Chile, and Nicaragua, and one or two other places, that is scant comfort and probably wishful thinking, Stu. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you never heard of Luis Posada Carriles, StuRat? 194.171.56.13 (talk) 14:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The US has long sponsored reactionary movements in countries it felt were politically unpalatable. Like most insurrectionist movements they have been, at times, violent—including bombings, assassinations, atrocities. To pretend that the US has just been sponsoring rallies with leaflets is, well, naive, given the history of US involvement in, say, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Panama, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, and so on and so on over the past 40-50 years. It's one of the reasons that trying to draw a firm line in the sand between the "terrorists" and the more "legitimate" violent opposition becomes a bit tough. This is not an exclusively anti-US comment—it's more on the nature of violence in the modern world. Very little has been accomplished with leaflets and democracy rallies. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Origin of this quote

Does anyone know who coined the phrase, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." 71.236.23.111 (talk) 11:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I tried to google it http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22One+man%27s+terrorist+is+another+man%27s+freedom+fighter%22&btnG=Google+Search&meta= but there are several names showing up. I think several people have said it many times, like the saying too many cooks spoil the food or something. Bed-Head-HairUser:BedHeadHairGirl12:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort, I had tried that and couldn't find an original source either. I guess I'll have to stick with "old saying". :-( The cooks were the one's with the broth (least ways they used to be).--71.236.23.111 (talk) 13:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

That phrase seems simple enough that many people may have independently said it, like "it's cold outside". StuRat (talk) 13:51, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I see the phrase attributed to Yasser Arafat, this is probably based on a 13 November, 1974 address to the UN:

The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which he fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists, cannot possibly be called terrorists...

In this this thread from the forums at quoteland.com, Fred R. Shapiro, the editor of Yale Book of Quotations states the first edition attributes the phrase to Gerald Seymour in Harry's Game (1975)—mentioned in our article on the author—but that the second edition will include an earlier citation: Winnipeg Free Press, 1 Feb. 1971.—eric 16:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Self-identification

Here's a funny thing. I was thinking just now about the concept of self-identification, so I looked "self-identify" up on Google. The first hit that came up was Category:Deletionist Wikipedians. There is nothing about self-identification on that page, so I can only assume someone has done a Google bomb to make the page come up. But why? I can't see a humorous connection between the concepts of self-identification and deletionism. But then again, I'm an inclusionist :)

As a postscript, I am slightly troubled by the concept of self-identification. You often read about people who "self-identify" as black, gay, etc. The implication seems to be that one is deemed to belong to a particular group only because one considers oneself to be part of that group. One could argue, however, that there are societal norms and conventions which can be used to determine objectively whether one belongs to a group or not. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It need not be a deliberate Google bomb: it's possible it occurred naturally via 'User X self-identifies as a Deletionist' or somesuch. Can't find any evidence of this, though. On your postscript: of course one can argue that we shouldn't always agree with people's self-identifications. That's why the term exists in the first place, so we can (e.g.) say 'X self-identifies as black' without committing ourselves on the question of whether X is black or not. Algebraist 15:29, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

There are different issues and questions that come up in differnt people's lives. Just to give an example: I've never had to agonize over whether to buy a Ferrari or a Hummer. But growing up in a family where I could go to friends' houses to play where my brother wasn't welcome because he looked more like one side of the ancestry whereas I look more like the other, self-identification is something that I have dealt with. People get sorted into drawers. We all do that subconsciously. Rather than constantly running afoul of people's expectations, it's nice to be able to say: "This is the drawer I feel comfortable in. I don't have to try to fit into the one you'd like to objectively put me in." 71.236.23.111 (talk) 20:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

International Wire Transfert exchange rate

For an international wire transfert of xxx euros between a french account to an american account by SWIFT system, who apply the exchage rate? the french bank or the american one? Thank you in advance for your answer--FrancoisD (talk) 21:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Since you mention SWIFT, I assume you are asking about the interbank wholesale foreign exchange markets, and not about retail currency transactions. If there is only one transfer of euros then there is no foreign exchange involved, so no exchange rate is required. To settle a foreign exchange trade where the French bank is, say, selling euros for dollars, there must be two transfers - the French bank will transfer euros to the American bank's agent bank in Europe, and the American bank will transfer dollars to the French bank's agent bank in the US. The exchange rate will have been previously negotiated, agreed and confirmed between the banks - for spot FX trades the settlement payments take place two working days after the trade has been agreed. Gandalf61 (talk) 22:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I was actually talking about retail currency transaction. I mentionned SWIFT because they define the way to do such a transfert (through SWIFT code), but I m not an expert and I may be wrong.--FrancoisD (talk) 23:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

When I last made such a transfer, which was more than a year ago, it was from an account with Sogenal, and the bank was able to tell me the likely exchange rate before I signed a form to confirm the transfer, so the amount in dollars appeared on the form. But I believe the actual exchange occurred at an intermediary bank. It's worth mentioning that there was a flat-rate charge for the transfer at the French end. The destination bank in the US (which claims to provide free banking) used to make no charge for receiving such international transfers, so long as the money arrived in US dollars, but it does now charge $10. Xn4 00:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yukio Mishima's grandfather

The author Yukio Mishima's grandfather was 平岡定太郎, former Governor of Fukushima and Governor-General of Karafuto. But what is the reading of his first name (定太郎)? Our English article and several biographies (of Mishima) give it as Jōtarō, the Japanese article on the man himself as Sadatarō, and some sites, like this info page on his grave (that the Japanese article links to), as Teitarō. All of these are possible readings, of course, but what is the right one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Akmoilan (talk • contribs) 22:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

What is cultural assimilation?

What is cultural assimilation? Does this means that person or group is joining that ethnic group? Jet (talk) 02:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Cultural Assimilation is getting people of another culture to behave like the dominant culture. This has nothing to do with ethnicity. You cannot lose your ethnicity anymore than you can lose your skin color. For example: A Japanese ethnic person in Hawaii can behave like the domination American culture and not able to speak a single word of Japanese language (except pronoun his own japanese name). 202.168.50.40 (talk) 02:43, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Why don't google create GoogleAuctions

Considering the amount of disastisfactions with eBay, why didn't google create GoogleAuctions and have a steady source of income? 202.168.50.40 (talk) 02:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)