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May 3

What happened to Mauro David?

This is about dates for Italian hyperrealist painter Mauro David whose image features in that article. While voting for pics, found this one [1] - the file has the artist Mauro David 1949-2007 - did something happen to him? I find it confusing because he's been congratulated on his talk page as if still living. Thanks in advance for any help, Manytexts (talk) 00:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to the biographical note on his website, he died on the 6th January 2007. DuncanHill (talk) 10:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, commons:User:Mauro David isn't him, because that user's only edit was on February 25, 2007. I suppose the congratulatory talk-page posts were made by people who didn't notice the death date. Pais (talk) 10:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks people, that solves it for me. Looks like he might have been affected by long-term exposure to paints & solvents too. Cheers, Manytexts (talk) 14:46, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Family tree: Should mother-in-laws & father-in-laws (and their family) of my cousins, uncles and aunts be added?

Good morning (here in South Africa).
I'm busy building a family tree and have already got all my "close" relatives' information neatly written down.
But now: should the genealogical tree also include the mother-in-laws & father-in-laws (and their family) of my cousins, uncles and aunts? Is it irrelevant or necessary?
Thanking you in advance
Suidpunt (talk) 08:46, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the family tree is meant to be handed down to your children and their children for posterity, then I would put the in-laws in. As regards aunts and cousins, I would concentrate first on compiling all the direct ancestors.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's good to focus on direct ancestors primarily. It's also good to enter as much as you know and as much as you can find out, because someone else might need or want that info someday, and once someone is gone, they may take that knowledge with them unless you've written it down. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)You can do whatever you want with it. The more names and information you have, the better. You can, of course, make note of blood relatives vs. in-laws. Also, keep in mind that your own spouse is not your relative. If you have kids, they are related to both of you, and also to any in-laws that are in your direct line or your spouse's direct line. It's usually customary to at least list the spouses of relatives, where known, and how far you take their trees depends on (1) how far you feel like taking it; and (2) how close you are to them personally. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It all depends on you, and how addicted you are to the research! If I hadn't gone through my family tree thoroughly, I wouldn't have found the genetic basis for the rheumatoid arthritis I have (I've traced it in 5 generations). Nor would I have found the relationship to Edward III I have (in common with approx 80% of English people, apparently). Sometimes you find the in-laws and the aunts etc are the same... and that can give you pause for thought! Good luck with it. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought regarding the listing of aunts, uncles, etc. I just recently discovered that one of my paternal uncles was killed by the notorious Pendergast gang in Kansas City, Missouri when the Irish gangs ran the underworld there. I was intrigued to learn this. My suggestion is to add any interesting facts about your relatives, as I'm sure your decendants will be pleased.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I've found out with shaking up my own family tree, you may find some golden apples, some rotten apples, and assorted fruits, nuts and squirrels. That's no small part of the fun. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:43, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for sharing the enthusiasm Jeanne Boleyn, Baseball Bugs and TammyMoet!

The only problem I have left then is to distinguish between what is juicy family goss and what is fact. I don't know about you guys and gals, but I'm not going to summarise my family members' unwritten biography: the main problem is that I would have to rely on a lot of hearsay, and that my own perspective of my family members, like I guess you towards your relatives too, is "tinted"/ subjective.

Family trees are for sharing, right? One of my relatives has been arrested by the police for marijuana; I read about this in an electronic newspaper archive - when I searched family names - it was published 14 years ago. Nobody, except me and the person himself, knows about it. Even as hard cold facts, how do one deal with such information that nobody gets hurt in the process? (Ironically, there's an article about another cousin of mine solving a crime; he was a brilliant detective back then). Shouldn't I rather ask the family members to write their own history (well, if they're alive, obviously)? Suidpunt (talk) 13:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Asterix: when I refered to "family members", I meant "relatives") Suidpunt (talk) 14:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One thing to be very sensitive about in constructing family trees is to protect living persons. That's one of the core axioms at ancestry.com. In general, I have bare-bones info about living persons, and nothing at all about those under a certain age, such as 50. What method are you using for collecting this data? Computer? Paper? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:13, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sensitive information, like what you've described, should be kept confidential, at least while someone is alive. You can still compile basic information within your own notes: birth date and place, marriage date and place, death date and place, children's names and the same info, etc., etc.; and any other information you may know, such as residences and especially photographs, which are very valuable to a tree, as they put faces to names. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:16, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Once they're gone, the confidentiality issue has not totally gone away, because they may have children that don't want the public to know about their parent's arrest record or whatever. So the information has to be handled sensitively still, because you never know how someone is going to use it. In my far-extended family tree, I like to say that I've got politicians, paupers, preachers, and pilferers, among other things. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:19, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My family recently discovered that an old relative had destroyed letters she had inherited from a yet older relative. She felt that these documents reflected badly on the family. On discovering this, we felt that she had destroyed something wasn't really hers to dispose of. Of course she knew the people involved as people: to us they're just names on a chart. So it goes with your relative's marijuana bust, and it's probably sensible and thoughtful to handle such stuff differently about living (or recently deceased) relatives than for the long dead. On discovering that you'd suppressed stuff, because it made you uncomfortable, those to whom you leave your genealogical study might feel you've trodden on their right to know everything and make their own mind up. So if you find stuff that's genuinely embarrassing, you might consider writing an addendum to the family tree, and keeping that to yourself. Keep it with your will (and possibly leave it to a younger relative who cares about this kind of stuff) and when you die that information can be integrated into the family tree, now that it's colour rather than scandal. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent advice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:25, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Finlay for the advice! I’ll keep that in mind; my cousin is really a lovable, sensitive person and already said to some of my relatives that he feels like the black sheep in the family (though nobody knows why, except me – and he doesn’t know that I know) – I only care about his feelings.

@Baseball Bugs. Answering your question, I'm using MyHeritage Family Tree Builder as an electronic database, but the way of collecting data is either face to face (and literally writing it down on paper, especially those cousins of mine who love to give laconic answers [who one has to pulse for info]) or using Facebook-communication. For the elders, it's telephony for sure. Most of the time I'm using a "dual-core" system: what's on the computer, must be on paper, and vica versa. For Newspaper archives, I visit the country's most popular paper's website itself, click on the [archive] button and start searching.

How ironic - I, on the other hand, have problems with those ABOVE 50 - getting in contact with my Dutch relatives from my father's side is rather difficult! For deceased South African relatives, I use www.eggsa.org for searching photos of graves in getting dates of birth and death. I'm not sure what Americans can use. Thankfully, I'm the youngest cousin; most of my cousins is around 53-40 years old and parents already; I'm 21, which means that I'm just a few years older than their children's level. My mother (also the youngest of her generation) is in contact with her "talkative" siblings, whose age vary between 60-80. Contact is extremely vital; do visit funerals, marriages, pick up the phone and, remember the Golden Rule: ASK QUESTIONS. Suidpunt (talk) 15:04, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I do sympathise. In one part of my family, I have someone who was jailed for "issuing" (forging counterfeit coins), another jailed for what appears in the official records as "B------" and which I presume to be buggery, and another who was imprisoned for neglecting his children, who were taken away from him and sent to Canada. None of this, however, happened in the last 110 years. These details are all kept with the relevant people, and for the Canadian link I've written a newspaper piece to try and find descendants of them. However, on my published family tree I don't show any such details. --TammyMoet (talk) 17:35, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need the sympathy more than me, TammyMoet. That's terrible! Well, they got caught. Shame. Poor fellows. But what about those that never has been brought to book? There's but yet another rumour (scandal) that runs in the family; or is it a spider in the trousseau? Back in the Netherlands then, my great-grandfather, from my father's side, raped his own granddaughter, the daughter of his eldest son. I'm not fowling the family nest, it's already rotting for good! The genetic (blood) relevance between me and him is, luckily though, a mere 12.5%! But yet again, is it fact, or Victorian Gothic Fiction? Perhaps, I'll never know...Suidpunt (talk) 19:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, before I get carried away - thank you so much for all your answers submitted. I really enjoyed reading it! So, off I am to find my cousins', aunts' and uncles' long lost in-laws... Happy Researching everyone! Good Night! (South Africa) Suidpunt (talk) 19:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Smallest winning vote in Canadian election

Hey all,

I was wondering, is there a list anywhere of canadian seats, just showing last night's winners and their % of the vote? I know Winnipeg South Centre was won with only 38.8%, was wondering if there were seats that were won with less (presuming 4-way marginals in Quebec would probably be the most likely for this). All I can find so far and on Elections Canada are seat by seat results, and would rather not go through all 308 of those :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.195.197.254 (talk) 11:13, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

39% is actually not that low of a plurality in Canada. In 2008, the Bloc Quebecois won Gatineau district with 29.2% of the vote. I'm sure eventually someone will post a spreadsheet of the results that you can search. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a published list, but I knocked a quick check together from this data - it looks like 31% in Vancouver Center, 31.8% in Ahuntsic, with half-a-dozen more under 35%. In the general case of four-way marginals, I think the record in the UK was <4% between first and fourth places, in Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber - the winner was on 26%! Shimgray | talk | 22:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hedy Fry won Vancouver Centre this time with 31% of the vote. I don't know if that was the smallest plurality. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was the shortest on my list, but I'm not promising my back-of-the-envelope analysis was accurate ;-) Shimgray | talk | 00:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The CBC reports that two Ontario ridings [electoral districts] will have judicially-ordered recounts because the apparent margin of victory was less than a thousandth (0.1%) of the total vote cast: 26 votes in Etobicoke Centre (Greater Toronto Area) and 14 votes in Nipissing—Timiskaming. The story also mentions some other close margins. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:13, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For election statistics by riding, as well as a downloadable text file that you can paste into a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, visit Elections Canada at http://enr.elections.ca/home1.aspx (Il y a aussi une page parallèle en français.) —— Shakescene (talk) 01:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

¶ Yes, there is an easily searchable spreadsheet for this kind of thing, it just wasn't the one I first picked at the the Elections Canada web site above ("latest results"). Instead it's the less promisingly named "Report of Candidates Who Received the Most Number of Votes on Election Night"; you can download it directly by clicking here. Hedy Fry (Liberal-Vancouver Centre, incumbent) is indeed the winning candidate with the lowest percentage of votes (31.04% against 26.04% for Karen Shillington, NDP); the runner-up with the highest percentage of votes is Nettie Wiebe (New Democratic Party), who got 46.91% of the vote in Saskatoon–Rosetown–Biggar, Sask. against 48.70% for Kelly Block (Conservative Party of Canada) [the Liberal won only 2.3% and the Green Party candidate 2.1%]. The winners with the five lowest percentages of the overall vote are

31.036% : Hedy Fry (Liberal Party of Canada), Vancouver Centre, B.C.
31.798% : Maria Mourani (Bloc Québécois), Ahuntsic, Québec,
33.422% : Jinny Sims (NDP), Newton–North Delta, B.C.
33.760% : Philip Toone (NDP), Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Québec, and
33.767% : Ryan Leef (Cons.), Yukon, whose margin over Larry Bagnell, the sitting Liberal MP, was Canada's fifth-closest in number of votes (132) and sixth-closest in percentage (0.82%).

Among other superlatives I gleaned by sorting the spreadsheet are these:

The Crowfoot riding in Alberta has the highest percentage for a winning candidate (Kevin Sorenson, C, 83.94%), the lowest percentage for a second-place candidate (Ellen Parker, NDP, 9.14%) and the largest percentage margin between the first and second candidates (74.79%) [The Green candidate's 3.3% beat out the Liberal's 2.3% for 3rd place; 1.3% went to two others.]
In absolute number of votes, the lowest total vote, the lowest votes for a winning candidate and the lowest for a runner-up were in Nunavut: Leona Aglukkaq (C) won 4,111 votes to 2,360 for Paul Okalik (L) out of at total vote of 8,247. The runner-up with the second-lowest absolute number of votes (3,478) and the second-lowest percentage (9.83%) was Mohammed Ali (NDP), losing to Candice Hoeppner (C, 26,899, 75.99%) in Portage—Lisgar, Manitoba.
Outside Labrador and the Territories, the lowest total vote and the lowest winning vote ~~and the lowest second-place vote~~ were ~~all~~ both in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. (I think P.E.I. is guaranteed a minimum of 4 M.P.'s regardless of population, just as every State has two U.S. Senators.) The total vote was 18,468, including 7,292 for Sean Casey (L) and 6,040 for his closest challenger Donna Profit (C).
The highest total vote was 90,460 in Oak Ridges—Markham, Ontario, won by Paul Calandra (C).
The highest total for a winning candidate, and the highest margin in absolute votes was in Calgary Southeast where Jason Kenney (C) won 48,206 votes against 6,943 for Kirk Oates (NDP), for a margin of 41,713.
The four lowest margins in percentage correspond to the four lowest differences in absolute votes:

_5 (0.011%) in Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, Qué.: François Lapointe (NDP) 17,278 (36.343%) over Bernard Généreux (C) 17,273 (36.333%)
14 (0.033%) in Nipissing—Timiskaming, Ont.: Jay Aspin (C) 15,507 (36.61%) over Anthony Rota (L) 15,493 (36.58%)
25 (0.048%) Etobicoke Centre, Ont.: Ted Opitz (C) 21,660 (41.21%) over Borys Wrzesnewskyj (L, incumbent) 21,635 (41.16%)
45 (0.177%) Winnipeg North, Man.: Kevin Lamoureux (L) 9,097 (35.77%) over Rebecca Blaikie (NDP) 9,052 (35.59%)

Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, B.C., had both the highest absolute number of votes for a runner-up (25,792, or 40.24%, for Troy de Souza, C) and the fifth-smallest percentage margin (0.63% against Randall Garrison of the NDP, who won 26,198 votes or 40.87%). In losing, Mr de Souza won over six times as many ballots as the winning candidate in Nunavut (Leona Aglukkaq, C: 4,111) and over three times as many as the winner of Charlottetown (Sean Casey, L: 7,292); in fact he won over three times as many votes as were cast in all the 820,000 square miles (2,100,000 km²) of Nunavut for all candidates combined (8,247) and still lost his riding. [last point added at 22:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)]

—— Shakescene (talk) 09:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

denim brands

what are the top denim (jeans) brands for men? --Dhoand oirl (talk) 11:28, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Define "top". In terms of sales? Quality? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:47, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See designer jeans for some suggestions.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:56, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of brand reputation. --Dhoand oirl (talk) 12:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's still vague. Reputation for "pricey", or reputation for "utility"? If it's the former, see the designer jeans article noted above. If it's the latter, look at popular name brands like Levi, Wrangler, etc. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Levi's brand of denim jeans has the longest history and is known worldwide. The name has become a genericized trademark so not all levis are necessarily Levi's. An anecdote says that Levi's removed a crotch rivet following complaints from cowboys of discomfort after warming themselves by camp fires. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Carhartt, L.L.Bean, Lands' End…the list is endless, sort of. Bus stop (talk) 13:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking along the lines of what's "hot" and what's not? Manytexts (talk) 22:43, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dior do some sexy jeans. They're dear, bout £185 for the cheapest pair but theyll last u forever. Gucci, balenciaga, versace, paul smith, burberry etc all do very good quality "couture" jeans --Thanks, Hadseys 01:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Medieval fiction - English capital

I'm writing fiction, and right now I'm struggling to make up a fitting name of the capital of my 'version' of England in a medieval world. At least some of its culture and city-names etc are based on medieval England, and the name of the capital should preferably not be anything too similar too the name "London" but it should be a name worthy of a capital.

Of course, making up english fictional city-names aren't that difficult as you can make up a name and mostly combine it with for example these words:

-bury, -borough, -chester, -bridge, -ham, -wich, -mond, -sted, -pool, -castle, -port, -ford, -by, -hampton An example being the real city of Nottingham (Notting-HAM)

But when trying to make a name for a capital it just doesn't sound right, and I have also been trying to make up a name that doesn't have any of the aforementioned words or other similar ones in it, just like 'London', or 'York'. Those two kind of stand out from the typical names of English cities and towns. Of course, there weren't that many cities in the middle ages but many settlements were already there nonetheless, which would eventually grow bigger throughout the ages.

I have already tried "Crownwall", but I figured it was too similar to "Cornwall" (for obvious reasons that doesn't work), and I also thought about "Kingsport" for a while but the capital is not going to be a port city so I can't use that either.

While I'm at it, I'm also looking to find a name which I can combine with -chester.

So if anyone feel a little creative today I'd appreiate your time and effort, truly.

I tried asking something similar here on wiki once before, with luck, so why not try again —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.123.18 (talk) 12:28, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, the Reference Desk is for providing information and sources, not artistic input. ╟─Treasury Tag►pikuach nefesh─╢ 12:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, technically speaking, the seat of government of England wasn't London Proper, but Westminster, so perhaps you could work out a -minster type thing. Kingsminster or something... --Jayron32 12:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For a time, Winchester was the capital of England. Googlemeister (talk) 16:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Such as "Noreastminster"? Or how about "Primeminster" or "Yesminster"? Or, although this doesn't quite fit the OP's premise, a Peabody and Sherman episode where two cities named London were at war with each other because they had the same name. The solution was Peabody convincing one of the two cities to rename itself "Nodnol". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is the history of the country involved? London gets its name from the Roman Londinium, for example. An Anglicanized version of a name given to it by the prior occupants of the country would help it seem to be "older" and more historical than the conventionally-named nearby towns. HominidMachinae (talk) 12:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try again: the Reference Desk is for providing information and sources, not artistic input. ╟─Treasury Tag►stannator─╢ 12:34, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see the problem here with asking such a question, Mr. Wiki-police-officer, and although you insist I should not edit this page anymore I'm doing so nonetheless, a little bit in spite but mostly to thank those who took the time to answer me. So tnnx, Jayron and HominidMachinae And HominidMachinae, you do have a good point, the kingdom will have a history, obviously, and there will be a previous empire, almost like Rome, which once ruled a large area, including my 'version of England.' What you said is a good thing to keep in mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.165.123.18 (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We answer this sort of question all the time, and it's precisely the sort of thing we do much better than a search engine: it is a creative data processing task, in which we should be linking to relevant history and language topics in the encyclopedia. This is not the sort of 'debate' the guidelines warn against, but if you are unable to answer in a referenced manner or without debating, feel free to answer a different question. 86.164.70.27 (talk) 16:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, we're providing information, I don't see the problem. Remember for Britain that the Romans sometimes Latinized a previous Celtic form (and there are two different kinds of Celtic there), and the Latinized forms were later Anglicized and Vikingized (or Vikingized and then Anglicized). So if your version of England also has numerous invaders and inhabitants influencing naming patterns, you could somehow work from there. Who built the city, what language did they speak, and who lived in it after them? Was the city always the capital, under each set of inhabitants, or did it become the capital later, after some invasion? Adam Bishop (talk) 16:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about Thamesham with the link between Thames and settlement ham. --Bill Reid | (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Winster? Cabot Stone? Churchland? Avery Downs? I dunno...Quinn ^{✩ STARRY NIGHT} 19:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's see how that sounds. "It was a dark and stormy night when we rode into Dunno..." Yes, that's a good start to a prizewinning Monomyth, all it needs now is a publisher. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:39, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You express an interest in a name ending in -chester, which I think is a fine choice, since it implies a place fortified under the Romans, which a medieval capital is likely to have been. English names ending in -chester typically begin with an element that began as a Celtic or Latin name that was then Anglicized. Why not use the name of the Thames, which came to the Romans from a Celtic language? It may have even been adopted by the Celts from a pre-Celtic language. Starting from Anglo-Saxon *Tamescæster, you could end up with something like Temchester or Tamchester. Marco polo (talk) 20:07, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to see this worthy question opened up again because I was just getting fascinated - especially with discoveries like Londinium, and all the -ized morphings, added backgrounds like -ham and -chester helping to make more sense. You put the "help" into help desk & I'm encouraged to come here again. Manytexts (talk) 22:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my fictional game world, I call my London equivalent "Kingsborough". To me, it sounds like an English capital city that never was. Feel free to use it. —Kevin Myers 03:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's always Aldburgh, simply 'the old city', by which London was sometimes refered back in the day, when it was already left over from earlier civilizations. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 08:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

People would confuse that with the other place called Aldeburgh. 2.97.208.37 (talk) 13:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You might find Somerton interesting - reputedly the capital of Wessex around 900 AD. Astronaut (talk) 09:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about Stone-something, such as Stonechester, Stonebridge, Stoneburgh. Stone buildings would be a notable feature of a capital, rather than the cheaper and less pernament wooden buildings everywhere else. Long names would tend to have been shortened in everyday use, so Stoneburgh seems more credible. 2.97.208.37 (talk) 13:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Geography question

Which are the important and busy transportation canals north of tropic of cancer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.111.228.58 (talk) 13:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean in that general vicinity, or do you mean all the way to the North Pole, in theory? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:24, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I went to Canal and observed an entry for Lists of canals. That might help get you started. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a guess, but the OP may not mean "canal" in the sense used by a native English speaker. If they mean shipping routes more generally, Category:Shipping routes may be of more use. We don't seem to have an article on maritime trade routes per se, which seems an omission. A map like this may be of interest. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The (man-made) Suez Canal is north of the Tropic of Cancer, as is the (natural) English Channel. Both are heavily used transport passages. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:53, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two other possibilities are the Saint Lawrence Seaway or the Intracoastal Waterway. Neither is a single "canal", but both consist of collections of canals, rivers, lakes, bays, etc. which are major shipping routes in North America. --Jayron32 14:20, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There must be thousands of "important and busy" canals north of the Tropic of Cancer. Without even looking at any of the Lists of canals I can think of the Erie Canal and the Landwehrkanal, and all the canals in Amsterdam and Venice. Pais (talk) 14:32, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Among the busiest natural channels are the Strait of Dover, Øresund, Strait of Gibraltar, Bosporus, Dardanelles, and the Taiwan Strait. The busiest constructed canal is the Kiel Canal. Marco polo (talk) 16:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But channels are not canals? I would argue the Grand Canal (China) is also one of the largest (longest) and busiest canals north of the Tropic of Cancer. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:03, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Kiel Canal article says it is the busiest artificla seaway in the world, with total traffic of 43,000 in 2007. Usage statistics are difficult to find for the Grand Canal but some google searches turn up numbers like "more than 30,000 boats employed year round in transportation along the canal". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let me put a vote in for the Welland canal in Canada, which ship passengers find far more pleasant than going directly over Niagara falls, and also allows them to save money on barrels. StuRat (talk) 05:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech

My question is regarding Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech. According to the Wikisource link below, it includes the sentence: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

My recollection (not from hearing the speech but from hearing about it) is that the speech included a prediction/warning to the effect that (the curtain) shall not (or may not) be lifted in our lifetime.

There is no such line in the speech as given in Wikisource. I'm wondering if the line I recall is one I "invented" or whether it was used in another version of the speech or in some related document.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sinews_of_Peace

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 15:03, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The words "lift" or "lifted" are not found in the text of Churchill's speech here. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Viscount Grey said The lights are going out all over Europe and I doubt we will see them go on again in our lifetime. He was referring to the imminent First World War though, but I wonder if you were remembering this statement? --Bill Reid | (talk) 16:10, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bill, what Grey actually said was: The ~~lights~~ lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:37, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we both got it wrong, according to Wikiquotes, the expression was The lamps are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime. Your version and mine are mentioned as misquotes, but granted yours is closer to the real quote than the one I provided. :0) --Bill Reid | (talk) 08:57, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I must need new glasses. I looked it up in my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations to make sure I had it exactly right (because when one is correcting another, it simply does not do to make an error oneself). And there it is, large as life - The lamps are going out .... But what did I see? The lights are going out .... Sorry about that. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible that you're mixing up Churchill's 1946 Fulton speech with Margaret Thatcher's comment on it in her 1990 Aspen Institute speech? It includes these lines:

For today we are coming to realise that an epoch in history is over, an epoch which began in 1946 when an American President and a former British Prime Minister shared a platform here in the United States at Fulton, Missouri.
They saw with foreboding what Winston Churchill famously called an Iron Curtain coming down across Europe. And they forged the great Western Alliance which bound us together through a common sense of danger to the lives of free peoples.
For more than forty years that Iron Curtain remained in place. Few of us expected to see it lifted in our life-time.

--Antiquary (talk) 17:46, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all. The lights are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime is very familiar. The memory I was wrestling with must have come from it.

I don't know how that quote from long before I was born got into my mind. Wanderer57 (talk) 01:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But see above: it's not "the lights" but "the lamps". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lamps, thank you. More appropriate to the time it originated. Wanderer57 (talk) 21:03, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There could be a British English thing going on here, where they use "lamp" and even "torch" to describe what, in American English, is more likely to be called a "light". StuRat (talk) 05:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For sure. But when it comes to a quote, it's the actual words people say that are meant to be reproduced verbatim, not a modernised version or one made to sound more familiar to a particular audience. That's what paraphrases are for, maybe even indirect quotes - but definitely not direct quotes. This is something a lot of journalists have lost sight of: they will report someone as having said "ABC XYZ", with quote marks and all, when what they actually said was "ABY CXD ZE". -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 06:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The practice of reproducing old sayings verbatim, rather than modernizing them, has led to the preservation of some rather archaic language. This could be good or bad, depending on your perspective. StuRat (talk) 17:32, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think pre-first world war, most homes and streets were still lit by gas lamps and I think that would have been used both sides of the Atlantic (or maybe they did use gas lights in the US at that time). --Bill Reid | (talk) 15:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But were they called "lamps" in the US, then, or called "street lights", as they are now ? Note that the word "lamp" is used in the US, but mainly just for table lamps. And, in the US, the word "light" is pretty much exclusively used for the metaphoric sense, rather than "lamp". StuRat (talk) 04:06, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bucklin voting/Borda count in Oklahoma

I understand that Oklahoma briefly used an electoral system which was basically a hybrid between Bucklin voting and the Borda count. I've read the Oklahoma Supreme Court case which ruled the system unconstitutional, but I'm trying to find details on the adoption of and legislation regarding the system. Can anyone help? Thanks. ╟─Treasury Tag►draftsman─╢ 17:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Legal Rule of Cool?

I was reading arguments about the legality of the killing of Osama bin Laden, and it got me thinking about whether the idea that some action may or may not have been lawful but accomplished some greater good has ever been (successfully) used as a legal defense. I'm not a lawyer but it seems like this might be more likely in a common law court as opposed to a civil law court. Is anyone aware of a case where such a defense won (and survived appeals)? 96.246.68.89 (talk) 19:58, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My law professor from the great state of Oklahoma called this the HDDK defense: "He done deserved killin'" It's rarely attempted as far as I know but not impossible, though I would imagine in this enlightened age it's less possible than in prior eras. HominidMachinae (talk) 20:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Westerns it more often occurs as "He needed killin'", I think. It's more a part of oral lore, popular literature, and/or the Hollywood version of history than an actual legal defense. AnonMoos (talk) 20:26, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should point out that in this case, as pointed out below, it is a case of Jury Nullification. But that is a distinct possibility in a highly justifiable case. HominidMachinae (talk) 20:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The main thing to know is that the words "law" and "legal" get a heck of a workout whenever they're applied to international affairs. At the national level, you (usually) have a government that has a monopoly on violence -- in other words, it's the government that locks up or even kills prisoners, and if a private citizen tried to start his own court or jail, he wouldn't get far. International law lacks that monopoly, which means there's a huge gap between its ideals and its reality. --M @r ē ino 20:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Courts often take public policy considerations into account, although I can't offhand recall any cases when a greater good defense was allowed in a murder case. The general concern is that such a view would set up every man as an executioner, which is not the intent of the law. Jury nullification is also a possibility. John M Baker (talk) 20:31, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A guy who killed an abortion doctor tried that defense. It didn't work. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:06, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jury nullification, not likely. Prosecutor nullification, that's another story... Wnt (talk) 23:40, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

necessity and right of self-defense come to mind130.102.158.15 (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In some countries, notably France, crime passionnel (or crime of passion) was a valid defense during murder cases. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In some countries, such as England, there is wide discretion for prosecuters as to whether they want to bring a charge; in England cases are only brought if they are "in the public interest" and can be dropped if doing so is judged by the authorities to be in the public interest - see Crown Prosecution Service#Decision to prosecute. I'm not going to research it now, but I believe there have been a number of cases involving soldiers shooting civilians dead (often related to Northern Ireland) where a decision not to prosecute was made.--Colapeninsula (talk) 13:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that is usually based on the Coroner's verdict which could be Lawful killing. The case of John Charles de Meneses has been a recent test of this. Alansplodge (talk) 18:45, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ambition

What are some French sayings, idioms, or aphorisms about the positive quality of ambition? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 21:05, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See this search for "ambition" at Wikiquote for French. --M @r ē ino 21:20, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...where the 2nd hit is a translated line from Hamlet by a British author. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And there are collections of French quotations on ambition at Dicocitations and Evene. --Antiquary (talk) 22:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to try the Language Desk. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

May 4

Princess Kate?

the majority of the time, her name is spelled with a "K" - either Kate or Katherine. Did it change to a "C" with her new title? I read your article on her and says she was born Catherine (with a "C"). Why did news media - TV, magazines, internet, etc. spell her name with a "K"? I still see it that way - except for your article. Thanks for clarification. Barbara Batson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.240.187.67 (talk) 00:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC) I removed your email address. You really don't want the sort of spammers that hang round here!--TammyMoet (talk) 07:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The most common and traditional English spelling practice is that the name "Catherine" becomes "Kate" as a nickname... By the way, according to UK royal protocol, someone who marries a prince is not actually entitled to be called "Princess X" (where X is her given name). AnonMoos (talk) 00:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think I remember hearing that as a quibble against the locution Princess Di. I think very few people really care about that detail of protocol. (I'm entirely in favor of not caring about that; what I don't quite get is why they care about royalty at all.) --Trovatore (talk) 00:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, technically she can be "Catherine, Princess" or "Princess William" (believe it or not), but not "Princess Catherine"... AnonMoos (talk) 01:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Catherine or Katherine can both be shortened to Katie, Kate or Katy (in order of popularity) - the C spellings for any of those forms are quite rare in the UK, even though "Catherine" is more common than "Katherine". "Kathy" and "Cathy" are about equally common - the latter seems to be the only widespread short form starting with C. Shimgray | talk | 00:36, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Traditional nicknames are not always straightforward shortenings. You have other such nicknames as "Bill" for William, "Harry" and "Hank" for Henry, "Peggy" for Margaret, "Betty" for Elizabeth, "Sly" for Sylvester, "Stosh" for Stanley, "Jack" for John, etc. etc. The Kate/Catherine things seems pretty close, in comparison. --Jayron32 00:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cate Blanchett is the only one I can think of that retained the "C" from Catherine instead of switching it to "K". Meanwhile, there is a small collection of English names where, for some odd reason, they shorten it to one syllable, and change the first letter: Edward-Ed-Ned/Ted; Margaret-Meg-Peg; Mary-Molly-Polly; Robert-Rob-Bob; William-Will-Bill; and maybe a few others. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you google [meaning of name katherine] you'll find endless references and also many variations, as it's an ancient and very common name throughout Europe. It comes from a Greek name, and supposedly means "pure". Although they don't quite come out and say it, it seems that the original pronunciation is more like "kat-her-in" than the modern "kath-er-in", and that probably accounts for "Kate" as opposed to "Kathe", for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The name is related to catharsis which in Greek is spelt with a θ. Hence, the th should not be separated. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:31, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it isn't. See Katherine (given name)#Origin and meaning. It's from Greek Aikaterinē. The Cath- and Kath- spellings are due to a folk etymology associating the name with katharos 'pure'. Countries in the cultural sphere of Eastern Orthodoxy still use forms unaffected by the folk etymology, like Modern Greek Aikaterini, Romanian Ecaterina, and Russian Yekaterina. Pais (talk) 09:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, thanks. Etymology is a dangerous field... --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's Kate...short for Bob. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Bobbed for short. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:31, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adam Bishop is making a reference to Blackadder for those not familiar with British TV humour.

I imagine the name's popularity in the west goes back to Saint Catherine of Alexandria of the Catherine wheel (firework) fame. There are a number of other St. Catherines but she seems to be the best known at least in the UK. Alansplodge (talk) 12:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Katharine or Catherine traditionally. K with an A, or C with an E. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Danish-Norwegian elections

When was the Christian II of Denmark, Frederick I of Denmark, Frederick II of Denmark, Christian IV of Denmark, Frederick III of Denmark elected Kings of Denmark and Norway? We can guest they succeed upon their father's death, but the two kingdoms were election. Can someone give me the exact dates of their elections? And would Christian II and Frederick I have seperate elections?--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 02:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Danish Biographical Lexicon says the election of Christian II took place July 22 1513 on a common Danish-Norwegian meeting of the lords. Regarding Frederick I, the same source says that a common uprising in Jutland caused his election at Viborg Thing as king, where a preliminary håndfæstning was drawn up March 26 1523, and this was accepted at Roskilde Thing August 3 same year. His coronation took place August 7 1524, but it says that following this the "Norwegian Rigsråd also elected him as king". Christian IV was already chosen as heir by the Herredag in Odense in April 1580. In 1584 he was on a tour in the different provinces to recieve a jubilation (and thus a kind of confirmation) as heir. Frederick III was not favoured by the Rigsraad and it took several months after the death of his father before he finally managed, in "the first days of May 1648" to become elected as king, I presume in Copenhagen in a common Danish-Norwegian meeting, but it doesn't say. --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Girls with guns

What is the point in making a distinct film genre called Girls with guns? I mean what is so special with a girl carrying guns? If it is because in the past girls generally did not carry guns/were considered weak, then why there is no counterpart for boys, say "Boys with dolls" or "Boy babysitter" films? --Eaon flux (talk) 07:53, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How many are there, aside from Brokeback Mountain and Mr. Mom? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because girls with guns are a popular male fantasy and lots of guys think that girls with guns are hot, while you'll have to search a while longer to find women who get hot and bothered by the thought of boys with dolls. Dismas|^(talk) 08:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to search far for women with that fantasy on the internet. I would argue that the moment a girl becomes a soldier, she becomes a woman. The strength of character of the soldiers of local forces, coastal defence, and anti-aircraft in the People's Liberation Armed Forces and People's Army of Vietnam is notable; especially given their logistic and operational problems. So I'd argue there's a dissonance in effect here in the desire for girls with guns. Women with guns would be far too threatening. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lara Croft came to mind as a modern strong woman. I wouldn't say "Women with Guns" is threatening, but definitely more serious. "Girls with Guns" somehow implies a combination of youthfulness, naivete, strength, attractiveness and heroism. Many fictional heroes tend to be young and relatively innocent. As you suggest, "Women with Guns" can be the real-life heroes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I've known a number of Gen-X women who prefer to be called "girls". Why? "Because 'women' are old!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of James Bond movies (i.e. most of them) have girls with guns, although that's obviously not the main focus (most of the time, anyways). That's obviously an attempt at the combination Baseball Bugs describes above. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or even better yet, with a crossbow. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:36, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Commons has commons:Category:Females with weapons... -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian Conservative Party

What is the position of the Canadian Conservative Party on economic issues such as 1. tax reduction, 2. social security, 3. healthcare, 4. public education? --Reference Desker (talk) 11:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conservative Party of Canada has some info. Their website has a link to their policy (and a link to a longer PDF file for more in-depth policy).

Thanks. --Reference Desker (talk) 12:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

non-pornographic cover of a pornographic video

During the 1970s child pornography was legal in Denmark (see Pornography in Denmark, Color Climax Corporation). If the cover of a legally produced video of child pornography was not itself pornographic, and was available under a free license, would it be likely to be legal for the WMF to host this image for use in an article?

I am only asking whether we could host such an image, not whether we should. The latter question would depend on the exact image and it's relevance to the article - I don't even know whether such an image exists (although as some adult pornography videos have non-pornographic covers it is theoretically possible) so the latter question is unanswerable.

This question is inspired by Talk:Child pornography#images where someone asked why we don't have images to illustrate that article. The reason being that nobody has found an image that is both legal and relevant. This question is wondering whether this hypothetical image would be legal as it might be relevant (we can't know the latter without knowing whether such an image exists). Thryduulf (talk) 12:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a question that Wikimedia's lawyers would have to answer. However, I think you are correct in taking the cautious approach here. It is safer to assume that adding the image would be illegal... unless you have competent legal advice that says it legal. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a hard time imagining that a non-pornographic image could be regarded as pornographic (legally or otherwise) just because the contents of the media it was sold on were themselves pornographic. But I am not a lawyer, and child pornography laws are notoriously squirrelly. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this question is so specific that it qualifies as a legal advice question, not a legal information question, so you're going to have to ask a lawyer; presumably, the lawyers of the Wikimedia Foundation. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:31, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There was a huge brouhaha on this and other matters at Commons:Sexual content (which in the end had little result). Because the status quo favors a regime of censorship which is anathema in every other context, there are some very strange wrinkles to it. For example, Commons has a large number of images by Guglielmo Plüschow, a Victorian era photographer, which are apparently museum pieces and discussed as fine art. It turns out that the Victorian era was quite laid-back on sexual matters, so it was not uncommon for little boys to swim in the nude, nor seen as improper for Pluschow to photograph them; and when he was convicted of common procuration and seduction of minors it meant only a few months in jail. So - despite clear assertions in major court cases to the contrary - Wikipedia now finds itself in the position of serving up images that in other contexts would very likely be called child pornography, showing genitals of young boys, taken by a pedophile, because it has clear historical and artistic significance. And given that Larry Sanger's FBI investigation didn't lead to any prosecutions, it would appear that the government either accepts that, or at least, is afraid that a court presented with the case might finally extend the First Amendment's Maginot line all the way to the sea. There was also a dispute mentioned there involving a Virgin Killer album cover. But I've never heard of a an image being illegal simply by association - see Traci Lords, for example. Wnt (talk) 18:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Obama photo

Another question. Uncyclopedia has a photo of Obama which says it was taken during Europe visit. I want to know exactly where and when the photo was taken. --Reference Desker (talk) 12:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's the 2009 G8 summit, in L'Aquila, Italy. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)It made all the news outlets in the US when it happened. See this Google search for "Obama Sarkozy girl". It was at the G8 conference, if I'm not mistaken. Dismas|^(talk) 12:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) [2]. TinEye is great for this kind of question. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 12:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This video shows the context of the entire "event". Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not reinforcing bad behavior

If a child/grown up child starts screaming, crying, demanding something, ... you don't want to reinforce this behavior, however, at some point in the future, you'll give some gift, prize or whatever to this person. How much do you have to wait, so that the persons understands that you are not reinforcing his behavior? Quest09 (talk) 12:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That depends entirely on the maturity of the child. Dismas|^(talk) 13:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't time. It is the context. I can take my screaming son out to the car and make him sit in his carseat until he stops crying. Then, I can buy him a toy for staying right next to me while I shop for groceries just a little while later. From a child's perspective, time really doesn't exist. Everything is right now. So, there is no real confusion. -- kainaw ™ 13:55, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say that "time doesn't exist", but the time gap needed is very short for young children, and steadily gets longer as they age. For a toddler, a few minutes is usually enough. For a teenager, perhaps a few days (also depending on the severity of the infraction). Or, another way to handle it is that the child is forgiven once they apologize and make amends. If your kid breaks another kid's toy in a fit of rage, then he is forgiven once he apologizes and gives the kid his toy as a replacement. Thus, at this point, you can continue to provide "rewards". StuRat (talk) 04:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add that children learn from you. Don't think about this from the child's perspective: If you are giving something to the child as a tool to get the child to behave, the child will learn from your attitude that this is normal behavior (s/he does things that make you give him/her things so that s/he'll do other things). On the other hand, if you are clear about boundaries (giving the child things when you decide it's correct to do so, and not allowing the child's behavior to dictate your actions) the child will learn to interact with you rather than demand things from you. It takes time - learning social interaction skills is an incredibly complex task for a child, and they will do it wrong for a long time - but you need to be consistent about modeling the kind of behavior you want to see in your child, because the child will learn more by watching you than you can possibly imagine. --Ludwigs2 18:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard it called "rewarding bad behavior", which at the child level is equivalent to the adult-level approach called "appeasement". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Background of homophobic violence - studies?

Hi, I have often wondered about anti-gay violence, and the Wikipedia article on the subject isn't much help.

Secularists tend to blame religion - but what percentage of "gay bashers" in western countries are actually religiously motivated?? (I'm talking about those who commit assaults, not merely those holding anti-gay attitudes or engaging in discriminatory conduct). And of these, which religions? How many are motivated by Christianity, for example, compared to, say, Islam? The Wikipedia article mentions anti-gay violence by Christians in Africa, but I've almost never heard of this phenomenon in the western world (other than perhaps fringe ideologies like the Phineas Priesthood). Can someone point me to research on this question?

Distorted ideas of masculinity also seem to feature in the popular perception. What does the research have to say on this matter? I've also read that some men will abuse lesbians whom they perceive as rejecting their sexual advances. Dunno how often they turn violent, though.

Some abusers are clearly motivated by "personal" grievances. "Honour killings" in conservative societies, discovering one's child is gay, having "gay" as a surname (in one case) and being bitter about it, having suffered sexual abuse as a child by an adult of the same sex, mental illness making one believe they are doing "god's work" by killing homosexuals, etc, etc. How many "gay bashers" fall into this category?

Are there any other motives which feature prominently in such violence?

Note: I'm not moralizing, just asking for facts - so please don't flame me. 203.45.95.236 (talk) 14:41, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As for other motives, it is often claimed that a fair portion of anti-gay violence is perpetrated by men who are gay themselves but highly closeted. On the one hand, they resent men who are comfortable with being openly gay (since the bashers themselves are not comfortable with it); on the other hand, they want to deflect suspicion from themselves as much as possible by being so clearly anti-gay that (they hope) no one would ever dream of thinking they might be gay themselves. (I'm getting mixed up with my pronouns here, I hope you can follow me.) I don't have any sources or refs for any of this, sorry, but it's another angle to look at when researching the motivations of anti-gay violence. Pais (talk) 14:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I always felt it odd that straight men would hate gay men; by being gay, aren't they increasing the pool of available women? --Golbez (talk) 15:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's more to it than that. Straight men know what filthy things they themselves think about women, and it terrifies them that other men might be thinking the same things about them. —Angr (talk) 21:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Western societies, I don't think religion is often the primary motivation. Instead, personal insecurities are, I think, usually the primary motivation for violence, as ~~Golbez~~ Pais suggests. However, I think that homophobic religious teachings do allow some queerbashers to have the feeling that their actions are righteous and somehow sanctioned by God or their church. Here are some references to research on motivations: [3] [4] [5]. Here is a bibliography. A relevant Wikipedia article is Karen Franklin. Marco polo (talk) 15:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I was the one who mentioned personal insecurities. And I guess I'm displaying mine now by writing this... Pais (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected. Sorry, Pais. I missed the signature between those two posts. Marco polo (talk) 17:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC) [reply]

I doubt the OPs claim that "Secularists tend to blame religion" holds water, especially, but not exclusively, since a lot of secularists are theists (you might benefit from reading secularism). --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:55, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A classic example would be mistreatment in Soviet prisons, where religion would at least not obviously be a factor - see thief in law. As we see with American kosher laws against horse, dog, and cat meat, it is possible for people to develop apparently religious taboos in the absence of religion, or even when their religion expressly contradicts it. Wnt (talk) 18:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

^{[citation needed]} on Wnt's last sentence above. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:26, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It probably has as much to do with "machismo" or male "pack" behavior as anything. In that approach, anyone who is seen as "unmanly" or "different" (i.e. the broader definition of "queer") is not to be trusted. The ever-politically-incorrect George Carlin once said that in his day, "faggot" meant simply an "unmanly" man. Or as he put it, "A fag was someone who wouldn't go downtown and help beat up queers." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the 18th century, an "effeminate" man was one who dressed up to attract women. In Roman times, an effeminate man was one who loved his wife! --NellieBly (talk) 19:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

^{[citation needed]} Adam Bishop (talk) 21:14, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Go read the historians on Pompey the Great. Pompey was accused of effeminacy during his lifetime specifically because of his love for Julia, Caesar's daughter; the belittling ridicule he experienced from the popular party embittered him and may have contributed to his break with Caesar after Julia's death. As for the 17th and 18th centuries, I would suggest some further reading about Beauclerk, Rochester, Swift, or even Pepys (he's early but still). Sober dress may be associated with masculinity these days, but before early Victorian times it was associated with poverty, disinterest in society (including women), and lazy slobbiness. This is old hat among historical costumers, though, and nothing to be shocked over or demand extra confirmation. I'm sorry, but that's like putting a {{cn}} tag on the assertion that men wore wigs. --NellieBly (talk) 00:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Following up on the "pack" thing is that there is a lot of "conformism" in what might be called "straight male culture", and if someone doesn't conform they're considered "odd", to say the least. Gays may wishfully think that straight men are secretly closeted. I think it has more to do with non-conformity. Specifically, "Why are you acting like a girl?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While some gay men do sometimes engage in wishful thinking that certain straight men are merely closeted, that wishful thinking is virtually never applied to the ones who are beating us up. —Angr (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those who would beat up gays are probably violence-prone in general. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly, but do they go seeking out people from other minority groups who are minding their own business, with the specific aim of beating them up? Racist violence often happens too, but is there any evidence the people who do that are the same people who commit homophobic violence? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They might or they might not. It depends on who they feel like targeting. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Go to about 4 minutes into this clip,[6] which in a way speaks to one of the theories. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:36, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Motives for assaulting a gay man: "I'm a straight guy. He came on to me, and I was so surprised/disgusted/etc that I lost control and attacked him." (Do we have an article on this defence?) Another motive is even more gruesome and banal: showing off, as in the so-called Clockwork Orange queerbashing in Trafalgar Square, in the middle of London. Guardian story here:

David Pollard cannot help thinking about the ease with which abuse can turn to violence.

"When it's extreme, there's an assumption that the people behind it wanted it to be extreme on that occasion," he says. "But I think the distinction that's being made is perhaps incorrect. These things are often only less violent than they could be because the people involved don't have something sharp on them. It's the recklessness of it."

BrainyBabe (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One of the more extreme cases happened in connection with the Jenny Jones talk show. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BrainyBabe -- that's the so-called "gay panic defense"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

History Of Harold E Monser

I have a Bible of 1910 Author Harold E Monser. It is Cross Reference Variorum Edition. American Standard Version. I am trying to find out the History of the Author and my Bible. This is not a school project. Thank you for your time. 71.59.154.147 (talk) 15:53, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoever Harold E. Monser was, he isn't the author of the Bible you have. Where do you see his name in the book? You can find out more about this translation in our article American Standard Version. Pais (talk) 15:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He was the editor-in-chief of the Cross-Reference Bible. You can find a little about him here. --Antiquary (talk) 17:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some more concise info here. His dates were 1868 - 1918. He gets a brief mention in Wikipedia at Logos International Study Bible. Alansplodge (talk) 17:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the ASV is not generally remembered as one of the better or more useful efforts in Bible translation... AnonMoos (talk) 18:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did the original authors tell you that?DOR (HK) (talk) 07:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)]][reply]

You can look at the comments I added to Talk:American Standard Version#Criticisms back in 2008. In short, there were certain technical problems, which were not compensated for by any very notable gain in lucidity or literary quality over the KJV... AnonMoos (talk) 08:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

4th Avenue?

The source for Armenian communist newspaper Proletar gives its address as "407 Fourth Avenue, New York City". Would that be in Brooklyn or Manhattan? --Soman (talk) 18:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know, but I can tell you that Union_Square_(New_York_City) was a hot-bed of left-wing activities during the much of the 20th century, with left-wing bookshops etc. on the surrounding streets... AnonMoos (talk) 18:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Never been to New York but Google Maps says it's in Brooklyn. Alansplodge (talk) 20:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. Brooklyn addresses always specify the city as "Brooklyn", not "New York City". Having grown up in the area, I can say that an address giving the city as "New York" almost always refers to Manhattan. If you look at our article, Park Avenue (Manhattan), you will see that the northern end of the former Fourth Avenue in Manhattan was renamed "Park Avenue South" in 1959. I'm guessing that your source dates from before 1960. Marco polo (talk) 20:27, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion probably because "New York" means "Manhattan" and "New York City" means the Five Boroughs. But I would think that the "default value" for an address that ambiguously says "New York City" would be "New York". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No confusion necessary... looking at the source actually gives the address as "407 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y." (not the broader, and more potentially confusing "New York City"). In 1925 (when the source was published) an address of "New York, N.Y." always referred to Manhattan (and usually still does.) Blueboar (talk) 23:56, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it was actually "New York, N.Y." then it's definitely Manhattan, and hence the joke about calling the city "New York, New York" for those who didn't get it the first time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"The city so nice they named it twice"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that 407 Fourth Avenue/Park Ave. South, on the northeast corner of 28th Street, was the site of the once-famous Belmore Cafeteria, a popular grubby eatery seen in the movie Taxi Driver. The building was demolished in the early 1980s and now an apartment building stands there.--Cam (talk) 01:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Would the no 407 be in the same place as in 1925 or would they have shifted over the years? --Soman (talk) 02:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The street numbers apparently did not change with the street-name change. But I have no idea if the Belmore Cafeteria building was there in 1924, or if it was built after that.--Cam (talk) 02:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I googled the cafeteria name, and one of the first items that came up was this,[7] the obit of its long-time owner. It says he bought it in 1929, so presumably it was built at least a few years before then. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:53, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

May 5

Excuse me sir!

I just read The Dead by James Joyce for the first time, and I know I've seen the joke Gabriel tells:

"Round and round he went," said Gabriel, "and the old gentleman, who was a very pompous old gentleman, was highly indignant. 'Go on, sir! What do you mean, sir? Johnny! Johnny! Most extraordinary conduct! Can't understand the horse!"

before. I mean not exactly that quote, but the same thing: a bemused gentleman riding a misbehaving horse and calling it "sir" like "Excuse me sir! What is the meaning of this behavior?" Do any of the excellent people of RD/H recognize the reference? This is really bothering me. 71.176.141.209 (talk) 00:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A quick Google only turned up a modern Irish race horse called Call Me Sir.

From memory, it was a common affectation in the 18th and early 19th centuries to call everyone (male) "sir" regardless of relationship or social rank. Take the case of Lord Uxbridge's leg at the Battle of Waterloo.

Uxbridge (on being hit by a cannonball): "By God, sir, I've lost my leg!"

Wellington: "By God, sir, so you have!"

Also Samuel Johnson to James Boswell his friend and confidant "Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

[http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/m/madness-of-king-george-script.html This script] from The Madness of King George has the King speaking to his servant: "Fetch me another shirt, a softer one! Wake up sir! Attend, sir, attend!"

I suspect that Joyce's old gentleman would have addressed his relatives, friends and maybe even servants as "sir" so why not his horse as well? Sorry, no reference though. Alansplodge (talk) 17:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He would certainly have addressed his dog that way if it misbehaved. Reference: OED's sense 8a of sir, "Used with scornful, contemptuous, indignant, or defiant force", and 1782 citation there, "Sir! in a surly tone, [signifies] a box on the ear at your service!—to a dog it means a good beating." --Antiquary (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Democratic party propaganda PR strategy of the 60s or 70s

Searching for the name of this. It's something like Sven-Pickvens, named after its authors. I believe one of its main cornerstones was appropriating the term "liberal" to avoid association with the Soviet Union socialists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.202.44.252 (talk) 01:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure exactly what you're trying to say, but the word "socialist" already had very negative connotations in U.S. politics by the late 1910s / early 1920s (see Palmer Raid etc.). -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The term "socialist" was used then the way "communist" was used in the cold war era - and the way "liberal" is used now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of "Sven-Pickvens", though of course there's always Slim Pickens. ;-) Perhaps you're thinking of slightly different leftist labels, or a different time period. As AnonMoos says, the initial flight from the term "socialist" came long before the 1960s. In 1951, journalist Felix Morley described his take on the process:

Those who urge the progressive intervention of government in business were once accurately and dispassionately known as 'Socialists.' But most American Socialists now describe themselves as 'liberals,' although that designation for a believer in State planning is directly opposite to the historic meaning of the word. There is no doubt that this type of semantic duplicity, or double-talk, has been politically influential.

There have been several times when the American left has shed one label in favor of another. As Morley described, the left appropriated the word "liberalism" around the 1920s, giving it a nearly (but not exactly) opposite meaning (the original meaning is now called classical liberalism). In the '60s, "liberal" began to lose its appeal for some liberals. In 1976, Democratic presidential hopeful Morris Udall stopped describing himself as a "liberal" and returned to "progressive", saying "when a word takes on connotations you don't like, it's time to change the label". I would guess that you're remembering something from this era, when perhaps older liberals, uncomfortable with the rise of the New Left (for whom "socialist" was not a dirty word), sought refuge in a return to the word "progressive". —Kevin Myers 04:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's only simple people who demand simplistic labels for complex concepts. HiLo48 (talk) 08:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And it's hard to find any "simpler" person than a politician. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

¶ I think what the original poster might have been thinking of is reflected in these two postings in the American right-wing blogosphere:

Duped! Relentless Marxist Deception by Alan Caruba (The Progressive Conservative, USA, vol. XIII, issue 63, March 5, 2011)
American Socialist Group Leaks Names of House Members in Their Ranks, RedState.com, posted by pratsha45, Saturday, August 14th, 2010, at 5:30 p.m. EDT

Let me make the following comments about those pieces, since I've long been a democratic socialist (in fact a founding member of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, a predecessor of Democratic Socialists of America): (1) it's never been a secret about this branch of socialism working within the Democratic Party, as there were long and public wrangles over this very question (see Socialist Party of America and Socialist Party USA); (2) there hasn't been that much secret, either, about Congressional members of, or sympathizers with, DSA; their names and pictures often featured (together with other names) on recruiting brochures; and (3) most seriously, the feeble attempts to link democratic socialism with Kremlin or Beijing or Havana style communism are just wrong; our rejection of dictatorial methods is what distinguishes us from Communists, both when that's popular and when it's not; in fact I just wrote a very critical piece for a liberal blog last Saturday about why I couldn't positively celebrate the Fall of Saigon 36 years ago (30 April 1975). ¶ This isn't a forum, so I don't want to be more argumentative or advocatorial than I need be to answer the original question about sources which have their own political implications. After removing what I consider to be inaccuracies or irrelevancies, I think a valid point does remain; it's just a rather mundane one. Socialists see the achievement of liberal objectives as necessary to even begin discussing how and whether to progress further towards liberalism, so it doesn't make sense to alienate non-socialists with socialist rhetoric if you're trying to achieve something much more limited (for example, union bargaining rights). Universal health care is a socialist objective, but it's one that's been shared by conservatives from Otto von Bismarck and Theodore Roosevelt to the newly-re-elected Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. (For a very rough analogy, there are many who want to turn [or return] America into a Christian nation, but they can still be principled workers on other moral issues without either proclaiming or hiding their ultimate ideal. Working for universal health care doesn't automatically mean that a liberal is also a socialist, any more than opposing abortion means that a conservative is some kind of theocrat.) —— Shakescene (talk) 10:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "Socialists see the achievement of liberal objectives as necessary to even begin discussing how and whether to progress further" -- Unfortunately historically that has not been true; there was a school of thought which can be labelled "the worse the better" or "Kautskyism" or "Impossibilism" which rejected all reforms under the rotten capitalist system because it would postpone the day of proletarian revolution. This was very prominent in continental Europe during the late 19th-century and early 20th century... AnonMoos (talk) 10:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Found my answer in one of last night's dreams, oddly enough. It was socialist campaign amidst the Democratic Party, at least I got that right. Raskolkhan (talk) 13:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC) Cloward–Piven strategy[reply]

That seems to be a strange Glenn Beck conspiracy obsession; there's no evidence that this article had any significant influence in real-world politics, and it seems to have remained rather obscure until Glenn Beck somewhat arbitrarily chose to retroactively make it his focus, long after its original publication... AnonMoos (talk) 14:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hitler

Hi all. Did Hitler ever write down any tips on how to give a stirring speech (I mean, besides blaming Jews/minorities)? I know what he did to the Jews was terrible and I in no way condone it, but still Hitler was a genius, at least when it came to giving speeches. THanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 02:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think he ever wrote a Public Speaking for Dummkopfs book, but his technique has been studied. I saw some PBS special about Hitler, a number of years ago, and they had some footage besides what you normally see. First of all, it's obvious he had absolutely no fear of public speaking, which certainly helps. They said he would come out on stage and just stand there silent for a minute or two, surveying the crowd, no doubt making eye contact with many of them. Then he would start talking - softly, measured. Over the next hour or whatever, he would pick up the pace, bringing the mesmerized crowd along with him, until it would climax with what you usually see in film footage, of him shouting and the crowd shouting back with him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reader's Digest i the 1930's , if I recall correctly, had an article with pictures of him practicing dramatic facial expressions in front of a mirror. He clearly knew the photos were being shot, so he thus consented to "giving tips" on how to deliver a dramatic speech. Edison (talk) 04:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Something like these photos: [8]. Edison (talk) 19:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He tapped into anger, initially at Germany's failing economy and humiliating defeat during WW1, then found somebody to blame it on. I'm not sure how this could be replicated for a more positive end, like fighting global warming. Stirring up hatred is easy, but not particularly productive, unless your goal is to massacre people. StuRat (talk) 04:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I remember hearing, but this could be apocryphal, that he had "insiders" dispersed into the crowd with instructions to incite fervor. I don't know if it is true or not, but it sounds plausible and the effect it would have had is undisputed. People in groups tend to base their reactions on social proof, just like if you have a few people laugh in a cinema it can set off a "chain reaction".. Sprinkle a few people around a crowd who start yelling and saluting and all that and people around are much more likely to get into the spirit of things. The social proof phenomenon no doubt also played a part in why so many seemingly normal people did terrible things. Vespine (talk) 06:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm among many who've never been able to read more than a chapter or two of Mein Kampf at a time; it's too loose, disorganized and detached from reality. But in discussing his early political career, Hitler does give out various hints and tips about political organizing and rhetoric, as well as his views of public opinion and crowd behaviour. Some of his theories about swaying popular sentiment can be seen in reverse from what he says about how the German people were craftily misled by the Jews, the Marxists, the plutocrats and other villains. He was never much of a writer; most of his sayings were transcribed by intimates like Rudolf Hess and then reduced to writing. Profitable as Mein Kampf eventually proved to be, Hitler never wanted another book published under his name because he was afraid it would limit his future freedom of action. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So Mein Kampf was kind of like "Quotes from Chairman Adolf"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:54, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More like "The Rambling Thoughts of Adolf Who Has Been Locked-Up in a Small Room By Himself For Far Too Long", but "Mein Kampf" has a better ring to it (my father bought a copy in 1941 in aid of the British Red Cross). Alansplodge (talk) 18:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think much of Mein Kampf was written while Hitler was locked up in not-so-small room in a fortress but probably (though opinions differ) not for long enough. He was briefly imprisoned for his role in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich against the democratic Weimar Republic, and was visited by various friends, some of whom like Hess, transcribed his rambling, non-NPOV, unreliably-sourced, unduly-weighted thoughts.—— Shakescene (talk) 18:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't choose my words very carefully did I? I meant "too long to be coherent" rather than "too long for the good of civilization". I'd forgotten about the input by his chums; thanks for putting me straight. Alansplodge (talk) 16:57, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how much "input" Hitler's friends and admirers gave him (at least directly) when he was discussing his past or broad, general topics of history, philosophy and policy. I have the impression that his conversations would tend to be a bit one-sided and unidirectional, although most of the transcription was probably done by others. (I don't know how much editing he might have done once his words had been reduced to writing.) —— Shakescene (talk) 07:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is the killing of Osama Bin Laden legal?

Enough. The simple fact is that the USA says it's legal, the rest of the world has yet to weigh in. The rest of this thread is personal argumentation, and the OP making some rather biased claims re: US education level. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:03, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

A few days ago Osama Bin Laden was apparently killed. However, the details of the killing are apparently that the US ordered troops to go to his hiding and gun him down. Is this legal? I thought in today's modern world we treat a criminal by:

(a) Taking him to court (b) Deciding his punishment (c) Serving the appropriate punishment

I mean shouldn't have Bin Laden be taken to court first and shouldn't he have been given the opportunity to defend himself with a lawyer and then the punishment decided etc.? Don't say that he shouldn't be given this opportunity because he killed thousands of people; in today's world we don't go gunning town muderers, we take them to court first. Killing someone who say murdered this other guy is illegal unless he has been given the death penalty in court. The same is true for Bin Laden.

Even more so Bin Laden was not even in the US. Why do the US have rights to take Bin laden to their country? As he is in Pakistan, Pakistan law applies and Pakistan government only can give the punishment. I don't see anyone challenging the US because they would be afraid but still it's a question worth asking. I don't understand how international law applies but if someone challenges the US saying that the murdered Bin Laden without taking him to court first, what penalties to the US face? Can the US goverment be fined and/or proscuted?

Finally, why is there so much propoganda about "joy of Bin Laden's death"? In today's world, we don't laugh when someone dies even if he is a murdered who has been given the death penalty. Can someone be sued for being happy about Bin Laden's death? I mean can the court case be based on a case of defamation by expressing happiness about someone's death. Can someone associated to Bin Laden file a court case? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 03:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He was not a conventional criminal, he was an enemy combatant, and it's a war, so he bore the consequences. He could have surrendered, but didn't, so he was taken out. In theory, the UN could impose some kind of sanctions on the US. Not bloody likely. It's Pakistan that's going to pay for this, for harboring him. Maybe you missed them dancing in the streets in some Arabic communities when 9/11/01 happened. And, no, you can't sue someone for being happy over this. There's no jurisdiction. There are a lot of things going on in "today's world" that shouldn't go on, but they do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1) Is it legal ? Probably not. The Pakistani government could bring charges, but not having custody or even knowing the names of the soldiers involved would make that difficult to pursue. If they found the names out and requested extradition from the US for trial, it would be denied. The International Criminal Court could charge the US under international law, but the US would just ignore it. In the US they could try the soldiers, but this would soon lead up the chain of command to the decision maker, Obama. He could be impeached by Congress, and would, if he just ordered random murders of people around the world, but no politician would bring charges for killing bin Laden. Also, I think some Congressmen where notified in advance, and approved. Then there's the huge negative PR anyone would incur who tried to defend bin Laden in court.

2) As for why to not try bin Laden in court:

2a) He was in Pakistan, who seemed to be helping him hide. So, they would not be interested in arresting and trying him.

2b) If he was captured, then, like the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes, he would soon be released to terrorists who took hostages and threatened to kill them if he was tried. As Israel learned, the only two viable options are to let famous terrorists go or kill them immediately.

3) As for whether it's morally right, I tend to view it this way: For people who follow international law, they are entitled to it's protections. For people who don't (like terrorists), they aren't. Now, there is the issue of how you determine if somebody is really a terrorist or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could believe that some of the people at Camp X-Ray fall into the latter category, but not bin Laden. There's a huge volume of evidence implicating him, including his own videotapes where he bragged about it. StuRat (talk) 04:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The U.S. government is claiming that it is legal [9]. Other people aren't too sure. Ultimately, in international politics, what's legal is what you can get away with. Nobody's going to haul Obama to International Criminal Court in The Hague, so it's all good, from a practical perspective. Buddy431 (talk) 04:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The blackmail that StuRat speaks of is par for the course for these characters. There were news stories the other day (don't ask me which ones) that said there was a standing threat of, apparently, a nuclear holocaust in Europe if OBL were caught or killed. The US called that bluff (assuming it was a bluff) and went ahead with it. Regarding 1972, the terrorists initially got away, but the Israeli intelligence agency figured out who they were and took them out over time, one by one. They got into a spot of trouble when they killed the wrong guy at some point. These things happen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The US government states that a country is allowed to attack and kill the leader of the force which is at war with it. Bin Laden did not "take to court" thousands of civilians his minions killed on 9/11/2001, so clearly he should not have expected that nicety to be extended to himself. A quote from author Katherine Arthur, regarding the execution of Julius Rosenberg: "He buttered his bread, now let him lie on it." Edison (talk) 04:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The US is slowly learning the sad lesson that to defeat the terrorists you have to sink to their level. They're never going to change their murderous ways, so the only solution is to kill them all. (I'm aware of the irony in that statement.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you missed them dancing in the streets in some Arabic communities when 9/11/01 happened. Sorry nothing personal but that's a terrible sentiment that I've heard a few times now to defend this behavior.. Since when is "they did it" become a valid excuse for base behavior? Maybe you missed them flying planes into buildings? Vespine (talk) 06:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In this case, Niccolò Machiavelli was right: the end justifies the means. Bin Laden wanted war and violence and he got it it. Morality is irrelevant here. I'm surprised people are even discussing it. Bin Laden brought about the deaths of thousands of people, left destruction and fear in his wake, the cost of his attack against our western society (which he had decided was "decadent" and therefore should be destroyed) cannot even be calculated. So why are people quibbling about morality and legal issues? It was obvious the US government would one day send him for his tea.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How do we draw the line? Was the Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko also legal, as he broke Russian Law? If Sarah Palin became president (god forbid) would it be legal for her to have Jullian Assange assassinated? Would Arab states be in the right to assassinate Israeli politicians who ignore UN resolutions? -- Q Chris (talk) 07:43, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not only did Bin Laden fail to draw the line, I don't believe, in his fantaticism, he even knew there existed such a line.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, but I don't think you can advocate acting in a lawless way towards those who act lawlessly. -- Q Chris (talk) 08:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A nation has the right to protect itself from the OBL's of the world, and it has to do what it sees as the best course of action to do so. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:23, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So what is your criteria for deciding who is an "OBL of this world"? There are claims that Jullian Assange's leaks could cause deaths, so would it be right to hit him? Would it be right for India to hit people in Pakestan that they thought were responsible for the Mumbai attacks? Or for the Afghans to hit Americans responsible for things like the mistaken attack on a wedding party? -- Q Chris (talk) 12:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In most jurisdictions with a death penalty, it would only be applied to intentional premeditated murder. Thus, accidents and unintended consequences wouldn't be included. The one case you cited which might qualify is India assassinating the Mumbai terrorists. I wouldn't have any objection to that, although India would have to consider the risk of igniting another war with Pakistan by doing so. If you want a case where an American is the target, perhaps those soldiers who raped an Iraqi girl and then killed her and her family would have qualified, had they not been arrested and tried by the US. If that case had been covered up instead, I'd be all for extra-judicial executions. StuRat (talk) 01:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bin Laden brought about the deaths of thousands of people - so did any number of other leaders, from Kennedy (Bay of Pigs? Vietnam?) to Bush-II (the conservative (by method, not politics) Iraq Body Count project reports over 10000 civilian dead). Now we may quibble about wether these actions are justified, and the "collateral damage" unavoidable, but the friends and families of innocent victims will find it hard to agree. Are there any circumstances in which you would consider a goon squad sent by some other state coming to the US, unannounced, to kill some person, acceptable? Pakistan is nominally an ally of the US, i.e. its not enemy territory. We can discuss the morality of the act, and the wisdom. But the fact that it is illegal is not seriously debatable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The comparison of a terror attack which killed over three thousand civilians at one stroke with the other incidents is asinine. Edison (talk) 19:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bin laden was an international menace that the US Government decided had to be eliminated. That's the bottom line.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you weigh the different possible ways the living OBL and the dead OBL could have been handled, it appears so far that the US took the optimal approach. The fact of so many Muslims dancing in the streets and cheering tells you a lot about his true standing in the world. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:06, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's no more reason to be surprised that lots of Muslims are opposed to bin Laden (who claimed to fight for their religion), than that lots of British people are opposed to the racist British National Party (who claim to fight, metaphorically speaking, for our country), or that lots of white American people are opposed to the KKK. An immoral cause is an immoral cause, and trivial details of what religion or nationality or race one is born into, don't always make much difference to that. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's a very apt comparison. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to what Sturat has claimed above, there's no chance of anything happening in the International Criminal Court since the US has actively resisted any attempts to have them covered in its jurisdiction (and there's no chance they will allow themselves to be referred by the UN Security Council where they of course have veto power). If you are going to talk about international law, can you actually familiarise yourself with the basics first???? Nil Einne (talk) 05:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And deny you the obvious enjoyment you get from insulting others ? :-) StuRat (talk) 21:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC) [reply]

It doesn't look like anybody has linked to Legal debate over the killing of Osama bin Laden yet. 81.98.38.48 (talk) 09:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And a lot of people have chosen to debate the morality rather than the legality of killing bin Laden. HiLo48 (talk) 09:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all for your answers. However, I don't understand some of them. You say that Bin Laden was responsible for killing thousands of people and so that makes his killing moral. But murderers in US society get the chance to go to court. The government doesn't gun someone down because he killed his son. They take him to court. Moreover, Bin Laden was unarmed so that makes the killing even more illegal.

Also what's wrong if someone supports Bin Laden in court? Is it actually illegal to openly support Bin Laden? (Not that I do but if someone says "hey Bin Laden was a great man" can he be prosecuted?) But if someone just says in court diplomatically that Bin Laden should not have been killed what's wrong?

Finally, is there any evidence that Bin Laden has actually committed these killings? He may have bragged about them but that doesn't mean he did them. Could there be a case against the US because they killed him for no reason? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 10:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The case that he organized and directed the 9/11 attacks is clear, except to conspiracy buffs.Edison (talk) 19:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I don't think it's that clear. The fact he personally supported it and people under an 'organisation' he nominally lead carried out the attack may be. This doesn't me he personally organised and directed it. There is strong evidence contrary to what some may like to believe, al-Qaeda is not some sort of centralised organisation where the topdog calls the shots but instead a collective of people with similar goals providing some degree of mutual support and going by the same name. Nil Einne (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also if Obama decided tomorrow to reinstate the draft for whatever reason, couldn't he be accused of killing millions (not just thousands) of people? I mean any president who has authorized the draft in the past should be responsible for any deaths of conscripts. But they're never prosecuted. So why is Bin Laden considered to be so hostile that he needs to be gunned down without a Fair trial? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 10:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reinstituting the draft is not a terror attack that killed 3000 civilians. It is in fact withont modern rules of warfare. Edison (talk) 19:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First, let's make one thing clear: a person and a country have the right to defend themselves. This guy's organization committed an act of war against us. By knocking that guy off, which was also an act of war, we assure that he will never kill another person. I recall Bill Buckley once saying, "There is no such thing as a 'moral war', but there is such a thing as a 'defensible war'." Killing OBL was not necessarily "moral", but it was defensible. It was the optimal way to handle the guy. Put him on trial for war crimes (not for murder as such), and you'll have every nutcase in the world involved. Kill him but bury him on land and those nutcases will swarm around the burial place. Better to dispose of him like the garbage he was, as with Isoroku Yamamoto in World War II, and deal with whatever consquences may arise. And, no, you can't be prosecuted for making looney statements. There can be social consequences, though. FYI, the President cannot reactivate the draft by decree. It has to be an act of Congress. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Isoroku Yamamoto, Bugs? Our article that you linked on that particular Harvard alumnus and anti-war activist, says that his ashes were buried in Tama, Tokyo and Nagaoka, Niigata, after a full state funeral. Presumably the ashes are still there, for anyone that cares to visit and pay their respects, as I'm sure some do. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Anti-war activist" who was the leader of the Pearl Harbor attack. Some "anti-war" activist he was. Whether cremated or buried at sea, they be gawn. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, he was such a prominent anti-war activist that the death threats against him for his opposition to the war (and to the alliance with Italy and Germany) grew so numerous that in 1939 he had to be moved out of the country because it was seriously expected he would be assassinated before the end of the year.

Yamamoto was no more responsible for the decision to wage a pre-emptive war in 1941, than Paul Tibbets was responsible for the decision to atom bomb cities in order to end that war. Responsibility lies rather more with Hideki Tōjō, for whom even his dentures were marked "Remember Pearl Harbor". He, too, is commemorated at a shrine where his ashes are located, but he met his death in a rather different manner to Yamamoto. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, gee, who should I believe... You? Or the wikipedia article on Yamamoto? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Either would be fine, since we say the same thing. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This argument is flawed on the basis that the killing of Bin laden was not the only viable option for homeland defense. He could have been captured. Amnesty international appears to have inquired the US government as to why the killing was absolutely necessary and why Bin Laden was not captured instead. He was apparently unarmed. So I still don't see the legality of the killing. Moreover no human being is garbage. Bin Laden may have been an extremely dangerous criminal but that doesn't make him garbage. The word garbage in any case is extremely subjective.

Wasn't Saddam Hussain put on trial? It doesn't matter if the whole world is involved. The Nuremberg trials existed even though the criminals involved were 100 times more dangerous than Bin Laden is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 12:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Saddam was put on trial by Iraqis for crimes against Iraqis. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

He wasn't either "unarmed". He was surrounded by folks firing guns at our folks. Had they immediately surrendered, maybe he would have been spared, then given a fair trial, and hanged the way Saddam was. That might have been more fun. But this was the optimal solution. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a little correction - the UK ITN News has just said that more details have come out, and it turns out he only had one guy with him. Only one guy was protecting him. They were massively outnumbered, to all intents and purposes. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let me guess - the conspiracists are going to claim that nobody there had any weapons to defend with. Guess what: Neither did the 3,000 civilians he killed in the World Trade Center. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are a handful of questions being asked here. 1) Was the killing of bin Laden legal? 2) Was the killing of bin Laden moral/justified? 3) Why didn't they capture him instead?

As for 1, because bin Laden declared war on the US, and the US is currently at war with the organization that he created, the incident is subject to the rules of war rather than criminal justice, and so there is no serious legal problem with the kill. (It's similar to Operation Vengeance, as Bugs suggested.) As for 2, the general opinion appears to be that the killing was justified, but this is a matter of opinion rather than law. Each person must decide this question for themselves. As for 3, that's really the most serious question. A captured bin Laden would have created thorny legal and policy challenges for the Obama administration. Did they want him dead and not alive, just to simplify matters? Or did capture prove to be too difficult or dangerous in the heat of the moment? We can expect to hear much more about this in the days ahead. —Kevin Myers 14:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You asked at the outset, was the killing of ObL legal. I believe it was. 9-11 was a direct attack on New York and Washington and therefore an act of aggression aginst the United States. The US Congress responded by passing legislation within 3 days of 9-11 allowing military force against terrorists.(Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 107–40 (text) (PDF), 115 Stat. 224, enacted September 18, 2001). This sited the US's need to act in self-defence (the UN Charter specifically allows a nation or nations to act in self-defence). The legislation said: . . .the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. As ObL was the mastermind or at the very least heavily implicated in the attacks, he was always going to be hunted down. Up until now, there is no problem with the legality--does the use of the term approriate force mean the killing of an unarmed terrorist? That determination of appropriate force lies with the special forces on the ground. They are trained to act as if the terrorist could be wearing an explosive belt and act accordingly. So, yes I believe ObL was lawfully killed. Btw, the BBC World tv channel covering the story locally in Pakistan today said that the Pakistani newspapers have all used the term killed--not murdered, assassinated or martyred. --Bill Reid | (talk) 14:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whether the killing of OBL was legal or not is a matter of no relevance. It's happened, it can't be undone, and no one is ever going to be punished for it even if it was/were illegal by U.S., Pakistani, or international law. Debating its legality is as useful as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Pais (talk) 14:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a New Yorker who lost two good friends in the Twin Towers on 9/11, my response to those who question whether killing the SOB was legal or not is: "Who the fuck cares?" Blueboar (talk) 15:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to stoop down to your low level but I'm asking a valid question here. If you don't care, don't answer. It's like if I ask what's the capital of France and you say: I don't live in France so who the **** cares? Oh and everyone dies sooner or later: deal with it. Your friends were in the wrong place at the wrong time: TOUGH LUCK. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 06:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Who the hell is SOB? Quest09 (talk) 16:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

wikt:SOB. Pais (talk) 17:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No kidding. And a flip-side question could be asked: Was Pakistan's harboring of this international fugitive legal? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:07, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, Blueboar, I see you are an upholder of WP's five pillars of wisdom. Wikipedia has a neutral point of view--yes that response was very neutral. Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner--once again a very civil response. Congratulations. --Bill Reid | (talk) 15:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Articles are supposed to be neutral point of view. Editors themselves need not be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If we want to interpret Wikipedia policy strictly, then no-one should post in this thread, as it is obviously a question more suited to an internet forum than this refdesk. To post is to feed trolls. Yet many of us have opinions we want to share. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The OP's detailed premise is flawed and naive, but the basic question is valid and needs to be explored and discussed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would of course be helpful if people would actually stick to the question which appears to have primarily been about the legality yet most of this discussion seems to bring morality in to it. If you can't make an argument without bringing morality in to it, that makes it sound like you don't actually have a valid argument for the legality... Nil Einne (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's been answered. The US Congress authorized it, so it's legal. If anyone dares to try and claim a violation of international law, the US can counter with Pakistan's having harbored an international fugitive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it moral to question the death of bin Laden more than the death of unarmed Iraqi children? Quest09 (talk) 16:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or 3,000 unarmed Americans in the WTC? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Someone removed this comment and I have every right to reinsert it: You love America too much. Most of the 3000 unarmed Americans in the WTC were illiterate anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 00:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I had nothing to do with the original removal, but I'm pretty sure I can tell why it was done. Right now, I think I would support leaving your comment up there. It makes you look silly, which would seem to be appropriate. HiLo48 (talk) 02:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really care what other people think of me. We shouldn't allow illiterates to have an impact on this world. Simple as that. Don't know why people care so much about illiterates dying. At least Osama Bin Laden is educated. No I don't support the killing of illiterates. They have the right to live. All I'm saying is that 80% of Americans are functional illiterates. It's a fact. It's not my opinion. So most of the guys in the WTC were illiterates as well. End of story. America's illiterates dishonor the country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 07:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe 80% of Americans are functional illiterates. Consider also that at the WTC, mostly corporate workers were killed. Were these also functional illiterates? You seem to be a mathematical illiterate. Quest09 (talk) 15:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At the WTC, hey were not 3,000, just 2752. And they were not all Americans. Quest09 (talk) 12:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does your total include the passengers in the airplanes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you are talking about all the victims, it's 2,996 deaths, including hijackers, excluding health related issues. WTC it's 2,756 (I said 2,752, but was wrong) and certainly not all Americans. Quest09 (talk) 16:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can add 1 to that count. In effect, OBL's death was caused by the 9/11 attacks. Just delayed a tad. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the question has been answered by Mr. Reid: The U.S. Congress authorized the President to do whatever was necessary. So, yes, it was legal. And hence it was not murder, whether SOBL was physically armed or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Legal according to US law, yes, but possibly not international law, which is the concern of the rest of the world. We don't give a hoot about Congress. The OP's IP locates to Australia, so I believe this questioner is asking about the legality of the operation according to international law, and not US law. There are multiple concerns which need addressing, and one of them is the fact it was a covert operation over allied territory but without informing the local authorities (lest they alert the occupants of the target compound). Just this tiny little aspect needs to be looked into. Then there are the allegations by several of the women in the compound that bin Laden was indeed captured alive, but then executed - as an unarmed man, even though there were two weapons in the room. These allegations would need to be looked into. We all know your strong opinions about OBL and what he did to the WTC - but opinions just don't cut it. In law, it's not an eye for an eye - it's a bit more complicated. Actually, the simple fact that respected international experts are discussing this and disagreeing with each other shows that it not so straightforward. There are multiple aspects which need to be looked into first, before there is no shadow of a doubt of its legality (or lack thereof, should the case be). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It may be relevant (or it may not be relevant) to compare the capture (by Mossad) and the subsequent trial (by an Israeli tribunal) of Adolf Eichmann in the context. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Iranian Embassy Siege#Aftermath is also worth reading on how a coroner's inquest adjudged the legality of a previous execution-style killing - with government premeditation, or at least apparent approval - of unarmed Arab terrorists by the special forces of one of the Western Allies. In this case the Arabs in question were attempting to surrender at the time, but had recently murdered an employee of everyone's favourite Axis of Evil regime the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Fowzi Nejad was the one who narrowly avoided being killed due to an excess of television cameras, and instead got life imprisonment and then a government-funded new identity in south London (apparently having not changed his opinion about the Islamic Republic of Iran in the intervening 28 years that he spent in prison.) "They then took the two terrorists, pushed them against the wall and shot them" seems pretty clear about what happened. Apart from the similarities from a legal perspective, there's also every reason to think bin Laden would have been aware of this incident and its role in shaping how the West likes to deal with terrorists when they catch them. So he knew the score, at least.

In that incident, international law didn't come into play; in the case of Operation Flavius, which didn't involve Arabs but did involve a credible threat to civilian life, the European Court of Human Rights decided that the Irish terrorists who were shot dead instead of being apprehended, again by the SAS, had suffered a breach of their human rights, but that damages should not be awarded because they were engaged in an act of terrorism. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If any of us here were to find ourselves on a plane heading towards a skyscraper the last thing on our minds would be the legality of killing Bin Laden. The fact of the matter is that #1. The US finally caught up with him. #2. He's been rubbed out. #3. He's past tense. #4. He no longer exists.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So let's all be vigilantes? That's nonsense. Imagine a burglar caught using this defence ("Sure, I stole the money. But I've spent it all, and the event in the past. It's over. No-one benefits if we discuss the legality of the issue. Let's all go home.") The problem with the extralegal proceedings are already beginning to show. India and Pakistan, now both nuclear powers, have been in in a very tense situation since their founding, with hot wars between them flaming up occasionally, and with a lot of activity that one side or the other labels "terrorism". Would it be ok for India to send military teams into Pakistan, taking out people India claims are terrorists? And vice versa? Including high state officials? Assume this escalates to a nuclear war, with 150 million dead and a billion refugees. I hope this is a remote possibility, but the example demonstrates that we cannot always go by short-term convenience. The rule of law is not always convenient. It's not even always just (although good legal systems will try to minimize the difference). We still support a rule of law because, even with its shortcomings, it is a lot better overal that the alternative. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The burglar in your scenario actually equates to OBL and his supporters. And just as citizens have the right to defend themselves against home-invaders, nations have the right to defend themselves against the OBL's of the world. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If playing with this analogy, it's worth being aware that legal systems in the rest of the world tend to have markedly dissimilar views to the USA on what is an acceptable method of defending oneself against a "home invader", as Tony Martin found out to his cost. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The response of calmer folks to those who just want revenge, no matter what, is to say that the terrorists have won. Revenge seekers have thrown away the values they argue that the terrorists were attacking. HiLo48 (talk) 08:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Legal according to US law, yes, but possibly not international law, which is the concern of the rest of the world. We don't give a hoot about Congress. This is the most sensible thing that's yet been said. This reminds me of those who want Julian Assange tried for treason. U.S. law ends at the U.S. border. 123.243.54.85 (talk) 08:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A responsible government is a like a responsible parent in that its first and foremost duty is to protect the lives and interests of its citizens. Other issues like legalities and morality (this latter shouldn't even be an issue IMO) take a back seat. If someone threatened your child would you think about breaking the law or protecting your offspring? The US has been placed in the position of they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. I must needs summon Machiavelli to give an encore. --Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you serious? You are saying that one man, one man, whose name is OSAMA BIN LADEN, can treaten the most powerful nation in the world so significantly that killing him is absolutely essential for survival? No. AL-QAEDA threatens the US. Not Osama Bin laden. The US has done absolutely nothing. Al-Qaeda will still be in existence. Killing Osama Bin Laden has few consequences. That's why the only reasonable thing to do is to put him on trial and treat him like any other criminal. Killing him is weird. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.2.4.186 (talk) 11:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Even if it is unrealistic to expect a parent to put matters of law or morality ahead of protecting their child, the parent still must expect to face the legal consequences if they do the break the law to protect their child. If you kill an unarmed man who's threatening your child, you may be acting reasonably, but you're still going to jail. —Angr (talk) 10:49, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily. It's called "justifiable homicide". And it's unlikely any jury would convict. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the man is unarmed (as I specified) it is unlikely a defense of "justifiable homicide" (a contradiction in terms if I've ever heard one) would hold water. —Angr (talk) 11:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, you have a gun, and someone is threatening your loved one, and you do nothing??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't do anything violent, and I certainly wouldn't have a gun in the first place. But nonviolent resistance is not "doing nothing". There's a video on YouTube (I don't have time to look for the link) of a man on the Berlin S-Bahn harassing and threatening a young woman sitting alone. Another man comes up behind him and panteses him. The aggressor flees in embarrassment, and no violence is done to anyone. There's always a nonviolent option. —Angr (talk) 13:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good in theory. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:12, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the Geneva Convention, it is illegal to kill unarmed enemy soldiers. OBL wasn't even an enemy soldier, by international law. He was head of a terrorist organization, making him a criminal. Since when have unarmed criminals been shot on sight (at point blank range with high-calibre weapons doing so much damage that releasing a photo would be 'gruesome')? Two weapons were found in the room where he was. He'd had plenty of time to pick them up from the time the attack began, to when he was finally discovered. He had chosen not to. Incidentally, the BBC has an interesting article here about whether catching him and trying him would have been the best thing to do. As it turns out, he couldn't even have been tried in the International Criminal Court for the 9/11 attacks, as it was only founded in 2002 and that is when its jurisdiction begins. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it legal to harbor war criminals? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You'll have to take that up with Pakistan, BB - this has nothing to do with the legality of killing OBL - but is being investigated in any case. By your random answers, I fully understand that you do not understand how the legal system works. There are laws in place to deal with specific situations. We are discussing whether it is legal or not to kill an unarmed man without a fair trial for a crime he supposedly committed, here. We are not discussing the death penalty, which evidently you are confusing this with. Giving him a fair trial, and then, if warranted, the death penalty, is perfectly legal, but is not being discussed here. Please try to understand that before posting in this thread again, BB. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How were the SEALs supposed to know he was unarmed? How were they to know he didn't have a bomb tied to him, as per the usual terrorist trademark? When you're in a situation like that, you don't play games. Maybe unless the guy throws his hands high overhead and says "I surrender", you have to assume he's armed. I say maybe unless, because pretending to surrender could also be a ruse. P.S. Don't be trying to dictate to me or anyone else what they can post here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:12, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This was mentioned on the BBC news article about his killing - the fact that one of the women 'made a move' on one of the SEALs and was shot dead, as he had to presume she was armed in such a situation (our article says she was a possible human shield, though). At the time, it was a possibility that OBL was wearing a concealed belt (which he would have to have put on very quickly and then dressed over it - unless terrorists have a habit of wearing them permanently), but until his exact movements immediately before his shooting are fully explained, we can never know whether the SEAL had a legit reason to suspect this. I do believe these guys are well trained and probably spot a remote control (or lack of) pretty quickly, especially at point blank range. This is compounded by the fact that a second woman, OBL's fifth wife, apparently charged at the SEALs when they entered the room OBL was in, and was shot in the leg, before the SEAL turned on OBL - apparently disregarding the woman. If he had thought she was a suicide bomber, he would have killed her. The whole thing is further compounded by conflicting statements by numerous US officials, some of whom said it was a kill mission, and others said it was a kill-or-capture mission. If it was a kill-or-capture mission, then the above must be considered. If it was a kill mission, the the legality of that is in question, as it would be clear from the outset that they had no intention of bringing him to justice, but rather of killing him - and what happened within the compound or what the SEAL thought becomes irrelevant. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The U.S. Congress had authorized the President to kill or capture OBL from the beginning. Were there any "international legal" complaints about that at any point? (I'm asking because I don't know the answer.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I am not clear on this either, and cannot find anything about it. I can only say I seem to remember that it didn't seem to be an issue. It has become an issue now, though. 'Kill or capture' is the main thing here, though. Kill or capture means killing him if capturing is not an option. I have no sources here, but I do believe this is perfectly legal. Refer to my post above this where I mention the legal questions surrounding a kill mission. And sorry for what appeared as a personal attack earlier. It was not meant as such. You know me as a regular editor here, and you know I don't make personal attacks. In fact, I was trying to help you understand something. I apologize again for appearing brusque. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. I am nowhere near faultless myself. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many people here are starting with the assumption that OBL was indeed executed. Some claim it was wrong, others that it was the best thing that happened this year. Independent of that, it's necessary to assume that OBL wouldn't let them catch him alive. A similar case happened in Spain as the police tried to arrest the Leganés' Islamic terror cell (see: [10]. The mastermind simply blew himself up, killing several other people with him. If the Navy SEAL thought that OBL was a danger to him, due to the same obvious reasons, shooting at him is perfectly legal. Also consider that it makes no sense to invade a compound if you just want to kill someone inside. For a simple killing, Tomahawks would be much better appropriate and they were already shot at much less important targets. Quest09 (talk) 12:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Firing missiles at a target straddling three villages (and therefore risking lots of collateral) in allied territory without your ally knowing, and the target being less than a mile from a major military complex is not an option. Also, when Al-Zarqawi was taken out, two 5,000lb bombs hit the house he was in and he was still alive when US forces arrived shortly afterwards. In order to make sure the target is dead and to make sure he doesn't flee (or get help fleeing by the security/intelligence forces of the ally you evidently don't trust), you need to send soldiers in. It would be best to do from the start, rather than bombing the place and killing civilians in the process first. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ISome people here are talking as if this is the first time a known terrorist (or criminal if terrorist is too politically-incorrect) had been taken out by soldiers. Has anyone ever heard of the British security forces Shoot to Kill policy in Northern Ireland? Read the article on Peter Cleary. British Military Intelligence has been alleged in the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings in which 33 civilians died, none of whom had posed a threat to global security. Then there were the four serving Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers who murdered three unarmed band members of the Miami Showband in 1975.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:08, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We're talking about US actions here. Whether the Brits had such policies is irrelevant. As I said above, the UN Charter specifically says that any nation who is attacked has the right to respond accordingly so no-one can deny that the US acted within the context of international law. The US Congress acted to allow the President to determine what that response should be. Those responses as Commander-in-Chief are delegated to the front line combatants. As for the statements that legalities shouldn't even be considered is nuts. Vigilante killings is not what the US wanted levelled at it. The US had the legal right to retaliate and it did ending in ObL's death. --Bill Reid | (talk) 13:26, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The most relevant question if killing him helped to resolve something or only made things even worse. Same applies to any other political action, like war in Iraq, etc. The most general answer: war and killings are usually a failure of good politics that tend to avoid extreme measure. Of course, there are failures, and therefore there are wars and extrajudicial killings. Hodja Nasreddin (talk) 16:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A somewhat fitting quote: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" - Salvor Hardin as reported by Isaac Asimov. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, and that's why terrorism will ultimately fail - because it offers nothing except violence. OBL signed his own death warrant on 9/11/01, and it just took awhile for that warrant to be fulfilled. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would say Abbotabad was the last refuge of the violent. And speaking of incompetence...

What say the editors on this page... was Pakistan just incompetent, or were they culpable in allowing ObL to find refuge in a suburb of their capital? Blueboar (talk) 19:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, anything said on this matter would be speculation, unfortunately. Well will find out in time. Also, see Abbottabad. I would hardly consider a group of villages 31 miles away from Islamabad to be a suburb of Islamabad. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And current discussion about the legality of the killing of ObL isn't speculation? (how many of us have actually studied International Law?). As for Abbottabad being a suburb of Islamabad.... perhaps I am letting my New York orientation show... the villages and towns that are 31 miles from NYC are all solidly within the suburbs of NYC (hell, there are towns that are over 60 miles from the NYC that are considered suburbs)... but I can see how that might be different for other cities. In any case, 31 miles isn't all that far away. I have a hard time believing that no one in Pakistan's Intelligence Service knew he was there. Blueboar (talk) 20:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion I've seen on the news pages suggests that there is a disconnect between the official stance of the higher-ups in the Pakistani government and the actual behavior of the lower-level figures in the government, at least some of whom were very willing to give OBL safe harbor. Assuming (possibly unwarranted) good faith on the part of the higher-ups, the lower-level players might have taken measures to keep the Pakistani leaders in the dark about it. I could imagine that ultimately something has to "give". In the extreme case, this could lead to violent revolution in Pakistan (what, again?) and when I hear that the survivors of the raid are being "interrogated", I wonder if that means they're just under house arrest and the "interrogation" consists of "What would you like for lunch today?" or whether they really are grilling those folks for info. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...or grilling them lunch. :-) StuRat (talk) 01:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me the US might have an escape clause. If they get taken to some international kangaroo court, they could hop away from it by saying, "Hey, we lied. We didn't kill Osama. He was actually working for us. We rescued him from his Pakistani captors, and now he's in the Witness Protection Program!" If nothing else, a statement like that might drive the conspiracy theorists crazy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

VERY likely wasnt as there was no specific sanction but as to where there will be any followup action HIGHLY doubt that. its an extrajudicial killing.l Lihaas (talk) 22:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was an act of war... a war that OBL declared on us. And he paid for it. That's show biz. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

Safia Farkash

According to this, Safia Farkash's personal fortune is approximately $30 billion. What is the source of her wealth? She was only a nurse, so how she earned this money? And if it came from her association with Muamar Gaddafi, then why it is called personal fortune, not family fortune? --Reference Desker (talk) 07:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The implication of the short linked article is that, due to her marriage, Gaddafi's wife has accumulated $30 billion in her own name (presumably through gifts from her husband, corruption, and gains on investments). The total family fortune would be more. As to the accuracy of the article, I couldn't say. John M Baker (talk) 21:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did the citizens destroy any tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989?

I've heard from some web forums that some citizens "burned" some tanks, with the aid of some militia which had been taught anti-tank tactics. Is it true?--Inspector (talk) 12:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This account describes how a tank commander was flushed out of the hatch of his vehicle with the aid of a burning blanket. Otherwise, I haven't been able to find anything and don't remember any mention of it at the time. Alansplodge (talk) 16:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

News coverage showed one armored personnel carrier which for some reason went driving around the occupied square alone. It was hit with Molotov cocktails and set on fire. The crew were killed when they exited. This film was apparently used to excite the troops to vengeful violence against the students when the troops entered the square en masse. It looked like a clever expenditure of one crew who must have gotten on some commander's wrong side, since the troops had been pretty nonviolent towards the occupiers previously. Edison (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When I went to study in China a few years after the incident, a British friend of mine went searching the bookshops for any literature about the incident. All we could find was one book with photographs of the aftermath - and even though there were plenty of naked or semi-naked charred/mutilated bodies purported to be dead soldiers - I do not remember seeing a single destroyed tank. There were jeeps and lots of civilian vehicles, however. I really think that if a tank had been destroyed it would have been shown - even if only to show the brutality of the students (which, incidentally, was what this book was about). Having said that, I don't remember seeing the APC that Edison mentions above. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you watched all the news coverage which was broadcast at the time of the incident? A Google News archive search for "Tiananmen Square" APC burned turned up "San Jose Mercury News : BEIJING DIARY THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS $2.95 - San Jose Mercury News - NewsBank - Jun 11, 1989 "An APC entered the square a few minutes ago and it's now burning on the northeast corner ... and dreading ever since the students moved into Tiananmen Square on May 13 ... of Democracy The light came from the APC which burned for hours ..." Changing the search term to "Tiananmen Square" APC burn also turned up this BBC account which said "At the top of the square just in front of the Forbidden City, an APC got separated from its column, and in its panic to get out of the crowd area, ran over several demonstrators. This, in turn, caused the crowd to grow violent. They disabled the APC, tore its crew from the vehicle, killed them, and torched the vehicle. All this was done in plain view of several PLA platoons about 150 metres away at the edge of the square. Standing beside the burning APC, I looked down the avenue and in the orange glow of the lights of the square I could see the PLA lock and load their AK-47s. " TV coverage appeared to show the Molotovs hitting the APC before it halted and the crew jumped out, despite what the BBC stated, and its entry into the square looked like an intentional provocation. It is hard for a group of students to "disable" a charging APC. Another eyewitness account says the crowd ripped a soldier limb from limb when he leaped from the burning APC, agreeing that the burning preceded the exiting. Edison (talk) 19:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I wasn't denying it happened. I said I don't remember seeing it - in the same way I don't remember seeing a destroyed tank - meaning, a tank may or may not have been destroyed too. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:26, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To casual commentators, a vehicle with some armor and a gun is a "tank." I only found info on the one burned APC, which the government then could have used to incite the previously passive soldiers to revenge, (think of "Remember the Alamo"), or to instill fear like the WW1 Germans had of partisans in Belgium (supposedly inspiring the Rape of Belgium atrocities by the Germans). Seeing an APC burned and the crew killed doubtless helped to inspire bloodlust among the soldiers, just before they were ordered to brutally clear the square. Edison (talk) 14:23, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Almost a saint, but stumbled on the last hurdle?

I was reading about Mother Theresa, and how Christopher Hitchens was called in during her beatification to act a bit like a "devil's advocate", arguing that she was not worthy of sainthood. I am not very knowlegeable in this topic, but it seems to me that if a person has come to this stage in the process, the road to sainthood is pretty straight. Are there any famous (preferably after 1900) examples of people who have "stumbled on the last hurdle", ie that something actually came up during the later stages of being declared a saint that made the church decide against sainthood? /Marxmax (talk) 13:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not answering your question directly, but there always used to be a position in the Vatican called "devil's advocate", whose job it was solely to dig the dirt on candidates for the sainthood. The last pope got rid of the post, I believe. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How very conveeenient. Pais (talk) 14:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, see List of blesseds. From my (non-catholic) understanding, it isn't really a slight to be "only" blessed and not be made a saint. Yes, someone like Mother Theresa most people expect to be made a saint, but what about someone like Joseph Gérard, who did good missionary work, but wasn't exactly well known and widely revered like Mother Theresa was. Buddy431 (talk) 15:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Obligatory theological pedantry: you offer a good link, and a good basic explanation, but I must just point out that people are not 'made' saints by the Catholic Church: the idea is that they are already saints, as are many others, but these particular individuals have enough 'proof' for the Church to declare them saints, which it tends to do only (as you say) when they are being widely held up as good examples and revered. The idea is that the declared saints are 1) good examples to follow and use as inspiration and 2) 'guaranteed' to be in Heaven, and hence ideally placed to pray on our behalf, so you can ask them to pray for you. The Church doesn't claim to be 'making' anyone a saint, nor that only those canonised are saints. 86.164.70.27 (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right. For the theology behind it, you're better off asking a Catholic who knows his religious teaching (I am neither a Catholic, nor am I particularly knowledgeable in the teachings of my own religion). As a practical matter, though, people who are likely to be ~~made~~ recognized as saints are those who have a lot of Catholics who like them and are able to push for their Canonization. Buddy431 (talk) 17:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was raised in a relatively recently-established Protestant denomination, and we don't do saints. I've always thought of sainthood as the "Roman Catholic Hall of Fame". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:44, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Other denominations have saints, too. The Anglicans and the Orthodox Churches certainly do. Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family are now saints, for example. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that some of the older non-Catholic churches recognize sainthood. In my denomination, we would say, "The Apostle Paul", rather than "St. Paul", except when referring to the American city or the British cathedral. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's accurate to say Protestants don't believe in saints (I know, not exactly what Bugs said). For the most part Protestants don't believe in praying to saints. No dulia or hyperdulia, I think those are the words, and no need for saintly intercession with God, because you can just talk directly to God. But the word saint appears in the Bible, so sola scriptura Protestants would certainly accept them in the sense of whatever is meant there (seems to be just "good Christian" more or less). --Trovatore (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I would agree with that, the thing most Protestant groups do not believe in is that people get to decide who is a saint. Googlemeister (talk) 20:05, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The idea of praying to saints is essentially an echo of polytheism, and obviously we don't do that. I'd be curious to know where the word "saint" appears in the Bible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The word is used extensively in both old and new testaments, especially in Psalms, Proverbs, Daniel, and in most of St Paul's letters where a saint is any Christian. Dbfirs 22:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that "saint" comes from Latin sanctus, I wonder what Hebrew and Greek terms they decided to translate as "sanctus". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a bible scholar, but I think the Greek word was άγιος. Wiktionary has the definition "One who is sanctified or made holy; a person who is separated unto God’s service" for the English "saint". I don't know whether this would be the exact meaning to the NT Greeks, but Paul probably meant something along the lines of Christian perfection. Dbfirs 23:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is that really true, Googlemeister? I've heard the once Saved, always Saved crowd loudly criticising the Catholic Church for its uncertainty on this matter, and saying that they themselves were saints (of which they were certain). I assumed this 'all true believers are saints, and certain of Heaven' thing was fairly mainstream, and it is at least as 'deciding who is a saint' as the process the Catholic Church uses to recognise a few of the saints.

Oh, also Trovatore, I'm not sure, but it sounds like you've been told the strange claim that Catholics pray to saints because they cannot pray to God? Catholics pray to God all the time, like a lot, they just ask the saints to pray for them too. Even the Litany of the Saints, the most saint-heavy praying typically found in a Catholic church service, has prayers directly to God in it. It's an 'as well', not instead. 86.166.40.199 (talk) 09:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Trovatore didn't say that. He said Protestants don't believe in praying to saints because you can just pray directly to God. That doesn't imply Catholics don't or can't pray directly to God. As for Anglicans, they have a lot of people on their calendar of saints, but they have no process of canonization. Pais (talk) 09:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is why I wasn't sure if that was what he was implying, and he wouldn't be the first I'd heard say it. But since both Catholics and Protestants pray directly to God, I don't see how because we can pray directly to God is an explanation, as such, for Protestants not asking saints to pray for them? It feels like that's a justification, rather than an explanation. 86.166.40.199 (talk) 10:06, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear: there are, of course, explanations for why certain groups do not believe in asking saints to pray for them, such as: believing that it is too close to apotheosis, or that the teaching inevitably becomes corrupt and lay people end up praying to the saints, which would be proper apotheosis; believing that the statues are idolatrous, or that lay people inevitably start worshipping the statues and it becomes completely idolatrous; a belief in the final judgement with no particular judgement, hence no humans are in Heaven yet; a belief that those in Heaven have no way of hearing requests for prayers; a belief that the complicated theology involved once you look in more detail at the 'body of the Church' and Grace, etc, gets too legalistic; a belief that it is wrong to request prayers from others, because the benefit of prayer comes from praying, not being prayed for. I don't know which of these Trovatore's church holds, but 'there's no need, because we can pray directly to God' is like the explanations people give for why their culture does something different to another culture, or for why class differences work the way they do: it doesn't really explain, and it seems to be founded on a misunderstanding. 86.166.40.199 (talk) 10:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I remember from growing up in one of the more extreme Protestant sects, their explanation of "why don't we have saints" is to quote from Romans 3:10 "there is none righteous, no, not one". As Jesus died for all humans, that puts us all on the same level and so praying to someone who was once human makes no sense: especially when God hears each and every prayer. Why speak to the monkey when you can have the organ grinder? --TammyMoet (talk) 12:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Catholic approach seems to be kind of a heaven-bound extension of the organizational hierarchy they set up in the earthly church. Each saint kind of has a "specialty". The flaw in that idea is that it implies God is "too busy" to deal with everything Himself. The more modern view is that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, and that the concept of God being "too busy" is obsolete. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The idea isn't that God is too busy, so you ask a specialist saint instead, though I can see why it seems that way to many non-Roman Catholics. All you're doing (at least, all you're supposed to be doing) is asking the saint to pray with you and for you, the same way you might ask a living friend to pray for you. Most Protestants have no problem with asking a living friend to pray for them when they're going through a difficult time; Roman Catholics simply extend this to saints who may have had the same difficulties when they lived on earth. That is the official RCC line, I think (or close to it); but there is a risk that rank-and-file RCs, maybe especially less educated ones, won't grasp or remember the nuances of the difference between latria and dulia, and so may wind up actually asking the saint to help them directly, rather than merely ask the saint to pray for them. —Angr (talk) 15:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Catholics that I know say what I said earlier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I have seen a Protestant ask a DEAD friend to pray for them... Googlemeister (talk) 15:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As regards Anglicans, the 22nd Article of Religion says "THE Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the word of God."[11]. Since the mid-19th century, those Anglicans who follow the Oxford Movement in rediscovering their Catholic heritage, have taken this and several other Articles with a large pinch of salt. As the Articles themselves say; "IT is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike..."' (No 34). Alansplodge (talk) 16:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lutherans, Anglo-Catholics... Well no, but the point is that that isn't because they 'can just pray directly to God', because the same exact reasoning applies to asking a living friend to pray for you: you could just say the prayer yourself. Most Protestants don't ask dead saints to pray for them for major theological reasons, not because they might as well pray directly themselves. The usual Protestant view of asking saints to pray for you is not that it is less effective, or not good use of your time, but that it is actively wrong, or completely ineffective. To pretend that this difference in behaviour is simply because "you can pray directly to God, so what's the point" is to trivialise fairly major theological differences, and thus trivialise the faith not only of that majority of Christians worldwide who ask saints to pray for them, but also that minority who do not. It also leads to certain Protestant youths making fools of themselves when they try to convert Catholics, as what they think is an absolute stumper leads to laughter... 86.166.40.199 (talk) 13:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Searching for a hymn

I'm trying to remember a hymn, which is probably originally in Latin given that it is sung to a fairly standard Gregorian-chant-style tune, with the usual loose time values. The problem is, I only knew it in English and the only bit I can remember goes "If thou takest thy lo-ove away/nothing good in man will stay/all our(?) (something) flee-ee-ee-ee away." I've tried searching for these phrases, and parts of these phrases, but nothing relevant turns up.

Ring a bell for anyone? 86.164.70.27 (talk) 15:00, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wait, I've cross-referenced with someone else and I only got that half right. "If thou takest thy lo-ove away/nothing good in man will stay/all our goodness tu-u-urns to ill." and it probably starts Holy Spirit, lord of light. Possibly the Pentecost Sequence, veni sancte spiritus. 86.164.70.27 (talk) 15:24, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking further, it is indeed a translation of Veni Sancte Spiritus (to which veni sancte spiritus should surely be a redirect), which is indeed the Pentecost Sequence. The problem was that I was remembering it even more wrong than I thought! (grace, not love) 86.164.70.27 (talk) 16:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if you found what you were looking for but I found the text and music here. Alansplodge (talk) 17:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Me again. The music is by Robert Loretz, a modern New Zealand composer. You may be used to a more traditional melody. Alansplodge (talk) 17:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't come more traditional than Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, from this page. Alansplodge (talk) 17:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see that score on this computer, but I'll check it out later. Thanks :) That sounds likely. 86.166.40.199 (talk) 09:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone mind me correcting the spelling of "Pentecost"? (It used to say "Pentacost" in 2 places.) Kenatipo ^speak! 14:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fort Knox

Since US currency is now fiat money, why does the US not sell its extensive gold reserves? Granted, as our article United States Bullion Depository states, the holdings in Fort Knox are worth a mere US$200 billion, but if it were sold cunningly, it would take a bite out of the US deficit; and it seems to me that it's just sitting there currently, serving absolutely no purpose except as a useful plot device for writers. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just as individuals keep savings for a rainy day, so do governments. Gold tends to hold its value whatever the economic conditions (it's known as a "safe haven"), which makes it a good choice for a reserve. --Tango (talk) 22:49, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When the US defaults on the national debt, the dollar will lose it's value (and perhaps most other world currencies will, too). Then precious metals and gems will be the only liquid assets remaining. Enough gold could also be used to back a "new dollar" (by offering to exchange it for gold at a fixed rate, as most currencies originally did, including the US dollar). StuRat (talk) 01:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You've also realize that any sale of the "holy gold reserves" is no easy undertaking. In most countries it requires a special act of parliament. Few politicians (anywhere) have the balls to propose such a measure. Their political opponents will almost certainly twist such a proposal as "treason" and "betrayal" and the ignorant masses are so easy to manipulate. The politician who sold the "sacrosanct gold reserves" would certainly lose the next election (and that's something NO politician ever wants). It's way better to run a massive deficit and sell public debt (i.e.: borrow money from the international market with interest). Hereby I'm not speaking only of the US; believe it or not Portugal (who was just rescued from bankruptcy by IMF and the UE) has large gold reserves (~ 382.5 t). Read the article gold reserve; you will notice that several national governments with huge amounts of debt possess large amounts of gold. Flamarande (talk) 03:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of points: (1) In response to StuRat, the US can never be forced into default on its national debt, because the debt is denominated in dollars, and the US has the power to print as many dollars as it needs whenever it wants. It can of course deliberately decide to default, for example by voting not to raise the debt ceiling, but that is very unlikely to happen. From a rational point of view it is always better to print money than to default. (2) The immediate effect of the US starting to sell its gold reserves would be to cause the price of gold to crash. The gains wouldn't be nearly as large as predicted, and there would be a large destabilizing effect on the international economy. Looie496 (talk) 04:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)_[reply]

1) Printing enough dollars to pay off the national debt would cause the dollar to collapse just as quickly as defaulting would. And I expect the US national debt to continue to grow to the point where the US is no longer willing, and then no longer able, to make even the interest payments. When smaller nations get into such trouble, they may be bailed out by the IMF, but the US debt is too large for that.

2) That's only true if it's all sold at once. If it was sold off at, say, 1% per year, then it wouldn't have much effect on the price of gold. StuRat (talk) 04:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would also take 100 years to get all your $$$. Googlemeister (talk) 13:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat assumes that the United States will default on its debt, but some constitutional scholars argue that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids default, according, for example, to this article. I agree that the United States is effectively insolvent, but I think that the much more likely outcome is that dollars will be printed (or uploaded onto servers) sufficient to pay off the debt. I agree that this would cause the dollar to collapse. In that case, the gold will come in handy, perhaps as backing for a new currency, perhaps also to pay for essential imports during a transition period. Marco polo (talk) 14:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that I can say confidently is that no major nation will ever again have a currency backed by gold: there simply isn't enough gold in the world. The current US baseline money supply is about two trillion dollars, which at current gold prices equates to about a third of the gold that exists in the world -- and over half of that gold is believed to be in the form of jewelry. The shortage of gold was the main reason nations went off the gold standard in the first place, and the problem is far worse now than it was in the 1920s. Looie496 (talk) 17:03, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1) In addition to gold, money can be backed by silver or other precious (or non-precious) metals or gems. I suppose it could also be backed by any fixed asset, such as barrels of oil.

2) After the global economic collapse, there may be far less money to back.

3) After the global economic collapse, people will lose all faith in unbacked currencies, so they will no longer be an option. This has happened in many nations in the past, but not yet globally. StuRat (talk) 20:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So far what I'm seeing is "there's no concrete reason, other than the general idea that it might come in handy some day." Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:36, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I believe that you're right. Notice that it costs money to protect your gold. Remember always that the government is composed by people and that people sometimes behave irrational and that politicians are mainly in one thing: to win the next election. Flamarande (talk) 19:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's not inconceivable to have a currency backed by gold. First, who's to say that current gold prices need apply in the future, or that the future dollar (or US GDP, or gross world product) must have the same price in gold that it does now? If the U.S. has 4600 metric tons (or about 147 million troy ounces) of gold, and it wants to maintain a money supply of $2 trillion, then it is a simple matter to set the gold price for a new gold-backed dollar (let's abbreviate it USG) at USG$13,605.44 per ounce, and the U.S. money supply would be fully backed by its gold. If the dollar's value has collapsed as the result of a monetary crisis, then there is no reason why this shouldn't work. Viewed from the perspective of today's prices, it might be terribly deflationary, but presumably such a move would entail some conversion ratio from pre-gold dollars to gold-backed dollars such that any debts surviving the monetary collapse would not be onerous.

What happened in the early 20th century was that the gold supply could not grow as fast as the world economy. One way to view that circumstance is to see a gold shortage. Another way to view it is to see a need for continual price deflation. Such deflation did in fact occur in the late 19th century, but the growth of the labor movement created political pressure to resist deflation, which was one of the factors that ultimately forced most countries off the gold standard in the 1930s. Many have questioned whether the world economy can continue to grow in the face of resource shortages, in which case price deflation might not be an issue. The real issue in that scenario would be the declining real value of the global median wage, but that would be an issue with or without a gold standard. Marco polo (talk) 17:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are also issues with one country having a gold standard and others not. If you are trying to use a gold peg to prevent your currency devaluing, you'll have to sell lots of gold to do so (to maintain a lower than market price for gold, you have to be willing to sell at that price to anyone that wants to buy). Sooner or later, you would run out. --Tango (talk) 17:56, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily. In that scenario, the central bank merely needs to raise interest rates on dollar (i.e. gold) deposits to the point where the country has a net gold balance or surplus. This will have the effect of deflating prices in a gold-backed currency to make the country's exports more competitive. If the United States were the only country on the gold standard and the public understood how it worked and the advantage of periodic wage and price deflation, the United States would attract gold because it would be the only place where interest could be earned on gold deposits. The steady loss of gold would be an incentive to other countries to adopt a similar gold standard. It would be in all countries' interests to cooperate on setting fair pegs to avoid a competitive deflationary spiral. Countries that didn't play fair could be subject to trade embargoes. Marco polo (talk) 18:57, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

LOL. The United States of America will not return to a gold standard because every year it runs a massive amount of External debt (and this is nothing new, it has done so for several decades). If it somehow returned to the gold standard countries with large amounts of US dollars would return large amounts of their dollar reserves and exchange them for gold. This was one of the basic problems of the gold standard and one of the main reasons why the US left it in the 1970's. Read the article Nixon Shock.

No, AFAIK there is no magic solution for the current mess. IMHO this time (when the US government becomes unable to pay/afford the increasing rates) it's going to hurt. Why do you think that many countries are changing their currency reserves into currency baskets? It's because they are realizing that to have all your monetary reserves (eggs) as a single currency like the US dollar (basket) is dangerous. The only question is if the US dollar will lose its value slowly or quickly. Flamarande (talk) 19:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC) PS: Several of you believe that the price of gold is somehow going to collapse if a central bank announced that it was going to sell its gold reserves. However that would largely depend how much and how fast it sold its gold. If you sell large quantities of gold in a very short amount of time the price would take a serious beating. However if you sell small quantities over a larger amount of time the price will remain relatively stable.[reply]

[slight unindent] Agreed that there is no magic solution. I'm not even necessarily advocating the gold standard as a solution, though I think we are going to need some alternative to faith-based currencies once that faith is broken. I never suggested that the United States would "return" the gold standard with the current imbalances or the current currency in place. I know all about the collapse of the gold standard in the 1930s and the Bretton-Woods standard in the 1960s and 70s. I indicated clearly in preceding posts that a dollar collapse would precede the adoption of a gold standard or some other reality-based standard, as opposed to the current faith-based standard. In such a scenario, as I indicated previously, the United States would have printed (or uploaded to servers) dollars sufficient to pay off its obligations in old, faith-based dollars before adopting a new, reality-based currency. It is kind of absurd to think that the United States is going to agree to pay off its debt in dollars with a steady value with the stagnating or shrinking economy that would result from fiscal contraction (despite supply-side theory). If Greece cannot pay off its debt even within the straitjacket of the euro, it is silly to think that the United States would voluntarily attempt such a thing when it can just print its debts away. Obviously, after the United States has a monetary crisis, it would no longer be able to build up external debt and will be forced to live within its means. That is what will be painful for the United States, though it will also be painful for countries like China whose reserves will lose their value and who will lose an important export market. Marco polo (talk) 20:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with your plan is that you seem to believe that the other countries (like China) are going to passively look how an enormous amounts of US dollars are printed and that they are going to accept to be paid by these dollars just before the US government declares that it has paid its debts and that now it's going to issue a completly new currency (I might be mistaken with my summary). No, the other countries are watching the US economy (and the printing machines) carefully enough. Remember that just a couple of months ago the US government announced that it was going to print more money and that China and the UE reacted quickly upon this news. The other countries are not blind, they are watching carefully what one of the biggest debtors of the world is doing. The stakes are too high to take this upon faith. Flamarande (talk) 21:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But what could those other nations ultimately do, other than complain ? If, by that point, the US no longer is able to pay the interest, then no amount of complaining will fix that. Just like in personal bankruptcy cases, it's irrelevant whether the creditors want to accept reduced payment, there's just no other option. StuRat (talk) 21:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You've to realize that it takes lots of time to print enough money to pay of the enormous debt (unless its done secretly - fat chance of that). The other countries will find out and will complain (loudly). If the US government persist they will sell their US dollar reserves asap, just before the US tries to pay of its debts (they would probably exchange their reserve dollars for other currencies - the value of the US dollar would plummet in the international market). Then the US is flooded by a money deluge, its currency becomes less valuable than toilet paper and the US economy (and the world economy) will simply collapse.

Another thing you're neglecting is the important detail that your plan not only hurts the other countries (like China). It mainly hurts the average US citizen whose economies in his local bank are in US dollars and who is paid in US dollars. Your plan clearly makes his economies worthless and his vague will become insufficient to pay food. He will not forgive that in a 100 years. As a matter of fact your plan reminds me of what happened to Germany after WWI. As I said: IMHO there is no magic solution for this problem. There is no cunning plan clever enough to pay of the public debt, ignore the external debt and save the US economy; all at the same time. Flamarande (talk) 21:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC) PS: Don't ask me for magic solutions. I like to think that I'm a realist and a cynic, not a wonder-maker.[reply]

When we talk about "printing money" we don't mean actually producing notes and coins. It's all done electronically, so it doesn't take any time at all. --Tango (talk) 23:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's NOT all done electronically (where did you get that idea?). While a large portion of wealth is registered in computers there still is huge amounts of paper money and coins. The national prints still print tremendous amounts of banknotes every hour. Don't ask me about the exact ratio, but AFAIK a bank is obliged by law to keep a certain amount of paper money in their main vaults. Flamarande (talk) 01:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course some money is printed, but those bank notes are just being printed to replace existing worn out notes (with a few extras printed to allow for economic growth and inflation). When we talk about a government printing money in order to pay its debts, we don't mean it literally. It would be done electronically. The US national debt is around $10 trillion. The total amount of US dollar notes and coins in circulation is about $1 trillion. Transactions on the scale of a significant proportion of the national debt could never be done in physical currency. --Tango (talk) 13:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tango: you are right on this. This bank reserve requirements that Flamarande alludes to are a completely different thing, completely unrelated to the central bank issuing money, which is more than 90% electronic. Paper money is there for convenience only, the real money is moving in the form of bit and bytes. 212.169.191.38 (talk) 11:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't expect it to be painless or "magic". I fully expect a global economic collapse to occur. The question is, though, how the world and US will recover after. A much smaller supply of "new dollars" backed by gold, silver, or whatever, might be a way forward. StuRat (talk) 23:23, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In other words: The US has "a cunning plan" which will somehow solve all its problems: United States public debt, huge trade deficit and tremendous external debt. The cunning USA will somehow cheat the other countries because these are obviously blind and stupid. The other countries will end up with huge piles of worthless toilet paper with the faces of dead American presidents printed upon it, while the US gets a new currency as a free bailout. Never mind that the main victim of this "cunning plan" is the average American taxpayer and voter. He will certainly understand that his live savings have become suddenly worthless. He won't be mad as hell because the money that he saved for the education of his kids simply vanished and that the money he gets paid at the end of the month is just enough to pay a couple of chewing gums. He will understand that there was no other way to save the US economy because hey he ended as healthy and wealthy as ever. Riiiiight.

Sorry to be blunt, but you are seriously underestimating the intelligence of the other countries. They have economists too, and as smart as American ones (except for Venezuela, Bolivia and a couple of others who are determined to become bankrupt to follow the great Cuban example :( ). IMHO they're already acting to prevent a global currency meltdown. Whereas in the past most countries kept the majority of the foreign currency reserves in the from of US dollars these days they are reducing the their piles of US dollars and are busy buying other currencies, thereby investing in currency baskets. Have you ever wondered why they are doing this? Haven't you ever wondered why the dollar's foreign exchange rate has been in a steady fall for the past couple of years? Now, fell free to call me crazy, but IMHO this is happening precisely because the other countries (and the economists, the wealthy, the speculators...) already know that US currency has huge problems. Certainly, I also believe that the current situation of the US public finances is unsustainable on the long run, and that something is bound to crack sooner or later but the US will not take the world economy down with it. I know that I wrote that world economy will simply collapse. But let's get real: this isn't the 1980's. These days the world has other large economies (China, EU and Japan even India, Brazil, Russia, etc) which will hold the tide. It will cost them a lot and the world economy will certainly take a beating but it will survive. They have learnt some painful lessons with the American subprime crisis. Try to give them some credit: they are not blind and they are not stupid. Flamarande (talk) 01:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have ignored everything I said and decided that I must have meant something completely different. The US won't do this because they think it's an EASY way out, it will be the ONLY way out, when it's no longer possible to make interest payments on the debt. It will cause the US economy to collapse. As for the effect on the rest of the world, that depends on how soon it happens. Certainly if it happened today, the world economy is highly dependent on the US economy and would also suffer a collapse. This includes India and China, which depend on sales to the US. China also holds a huge chunk of US debt. Selling it off is problematic, too, as they would have difficulty finding buyers and it would also bring the crisis forward, if the US could no longer "borrow from Peter to pay Paul". StuRat (talk) 17:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't ignored anything (but let's be honest: everyone interprets the data individually - everyone is free to reach different conclusions). You seem to defend that the only way out for the US is a return to the gold standard. Forget it: there is not enough gold for such a step. IMHO the US government has three main options: 1st) raise taxes, spend less, sell more and pay of its debts. That might mean to sell valuable stuff like a major part of the gold reserves. The president (and party) who takes these steps loses the next election. 2nd) declare bankruptcy and renegotiate the repayments like Greece. 3rd) (the easiest one) is to do nothing, keep borrowing money and wait until the interest rates become unsustainable. The last option ends up a major financial and economic collapse. Flamarande (talk) 18:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now you seem to have ignored my earlier 1-2-3 post, where I mentioned specific ways in which a backed currency could be restored. Also note that I don't expect this only to be an issue in the US. After the global economic collapse, people will lose faith in many currencies. StuRat (talk) 18:13, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your claims are not backed by data. When I look at the chart comparing the dollar to the euro:

[12], I don't see any "the dollar's foreign exchange rate has been in a steady fall for the past couple of years". The same is the case with the pound. 212.169.191.38 (talk) 11:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's because you focused yourself solely upon the problematic Euro and your site only shows the last 5 years at best. There are other major Reserve currencies out there and for a history of the Euro/dollar exchange you should rather use this site and then select the option all (to show the history of the last 11 years). The US dollar started on the 4th of January 1999 valuing 0.8482 Euro and 11 years later it's worth 0.6896 Euro. The US dollar seems to be losing ground since 2000, and remember there are other major currencies too. Try the Swiss Franc for example [13]. Flamarande (talk) 14:00, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't focused on the "problematic Euro". I said Euro and Pound. And you clearly stated "past couple of years." Now you decide to change that to 11 years, so it still makes - a little bit - sense. A "steady fall" is certainly only a product of some fertile imagination. Furthermore, all your comments seem to be based on the wishful thinking that the US will fail. What about admitting that the US deprecated its currency on purpose? And that that is causing others some problems, but at the same time helping the US pay its debt? 212.169.191.38 (talk) 14:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but you clearly focused yourself upon the Euro. You only provided a single chart (which compared the dollar to the Euro), so please forgive my assumption (you only mentioned the Pound). If you return to the ECB site and use all provided options (1 month, 3 months 6 months, etc) you will see that this not "a product of some fertile imagination": the dollar is falling in all time periods (past couple of years). This isn't a case of "my wishful thinking that the US will fail". This is a case of "We believe that a simple cunning plan may solve all the financial problems of the US. The US may simply return to a gold standard or simply print enough money to pay all its debts in one swift stroke. In the end the US economy will survive largely unharmed while the other countries will hold large piles of worthless US notes." My reply is: "No, worldwide economics and currency exchange rates simply don't work that way. There is no easy way to cheat and somehow beat the system. All countries are watching each other carefully (and especially the USA) and will react quickly enough. There is no easy way out of this mess." Flamarande (talk) 18:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You invented something out of your own imagination and then replied to it. I never said anything about a "cunning plan". StuRat (talk) 18:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am having the same problems with Flamarande as StuRat above. It's difficult to assume good faith in such a situation. I just ask me what kind of belief/bias/error in reasoning is that, we must have a list here in WK somewhere. Anyway, I didn't "focused on the Euro". I linked to a a Euro chart for the last 2 years. I clearly mentioned the Pound. Definitely, if you choose a random period to compare the Dollar with the Euro or Pound you'll see that it goes up and down. Even if the Dollar has temporarily a weaker value, that doesn't mean it is "steadily falling." It is related with the interest rate and that is to make US goods cheaper and more sale-able as exports. 212.169.186.192 (talk) 20:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

May 6

Need book title

Someone wrote a fiction several years back about some Chinese escaping (from whom I don't remember) to America during the 9th or 10th century. Then some western colonists showed up and found the Chinese. I can't remember the name. It is definitely not 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A sequence like that occurred in The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. Marco polo (talk) 14:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Men marriying rich and older women

Give some examples of young men marrying very rich and much older women. --HoulGhostjj (talk) 08:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Larry Fortensky and Elizabeth Taylor? Though he was 39 when they got married, so he wasn't really a young man, and I don't know if the 20-year age difference makes her much older. Pais (talk) 09:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aaron Johnson (actor) (20) is engaged to Sam Taylor-Wood (44). She's got a bit of a nest-egg. Arguably, the 20+ year difference matters more at his age. Joan Collins wed Percy Gibson (a theatre director) in 2001 when he was 36 and she was 68.[14] --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 15:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, Johnson and Gibson are outside the

{\frac {A}{2}}+7

"creepiness range" (where A = age of the older partner), but Fortensky was within it. —Angr (talk) 15:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that formula was

{\frac {A}{2}}+7

where A= age of the husband and the formula was the ideal marriage. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I heard it as the youngest possible age of the younger partner in order for the older partner to avoid the appearance of cradle-robbing. Your way, there would only be one or two years when the marriage was ideal; after that, the wife would be "too old". —Angr (talk) 15:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett was 29 when he married his boss, the richest and "most remarkable woman in the kingdom", Angela Burdett-Coutts, who was 67. (For the previous 52 years, she had shared her life with Hannah Brown.) BrainyBabe (talk) 22:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have a chart File:Half-age-plus-seven-relationship-rule.svg, but it's been banned from article Age disparity in sexual relationships... AnonMoos (talk) 16:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is useful. The rule is for a 60yo hetero man --> 37yo hetero woman. For a 37yo hetero woman --> a 60yo hetero man. Anything outside that is too young//too old. Homosexual couples do what they like; no rules apply.Kittybrewster ☎ 02:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The basic mathematical rule shown in the chart does not treat male vs. female differently... AnonMoos (talk) 03:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That half age plus seven chart doesn't ring true to me. Being twenty (roughly), I cannot imagine dating somebody who is 17 or 25. Just my 2¢ worth. Falconus^{p t c} 22:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's supposed to be a maximum/minimum limit. Anyway, I was under the impression that there are plenty of high-school senior girls who are more interested in college boys than in high-school boys... AnonMoos (talk) 23:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And for people under 14, the younger partner has to be older than the older partner! —Angr (talk) 23:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That can be interpreted as saying people shouldn't start dating until they are 14. --Tango (talk) 23:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The more natural interpretation is that people under 14 shouldn't be in relationships at all... AnonMoos (talk) 23:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

17/20 and 20/25 pairings don't seem that strange to me. They are extremes, but that's what the formula is saying. --Tango (talk)

UK styles

Sir Peter Singer has retired as a judge. 1. Please can you provide me with a reference for this statement. 2. Is he no longer Mr Justice Singer? Kittybrewster ☎ 08:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Appointments Lucy Morgan Theis, QC, has been appointed a Justice of the High Court with effect from November 15, 2010, on the retirement of Mr Justice Singer on November 8, assigned to the Family Division." Legal News, The Times, 21 October 2010, p67. Sorry, not sure about the latter. --Kateshortforbob _talk 09:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Well done. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the technical answer to the latter part, but in the UK usage of titles after a person has departed the job is rare, so I assume people will call him just Mr Singer. Prokhorovka (talk) 14:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, Sir Peter it is. Thanks. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Peter Singer would cease being 'Mr Justice Singer' upon retirement. Meph^talk 14:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't he have been "Mr Justice Sir Peter Singer" when he was a judge, after he was knighted? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's generally correct - unless in the UK for some reason "Mr Justice" trumps "Sir" the way "Lord" would? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. it isn't. He is Sir Peter socially, Mr Justice Singer in court and confusingly referred to in court as My Lord. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scottish National Party policy regarding independence

It appears that in yesterday's elections in Scotland, votes still being counted, the SNP has either got or nearly got a majority in the Scottish parliament. If Scotland becomes independant, will it keep the Queen and/or her descendants as their monarch, or would it become a republic? I cannot see this mentioned anywhere in the SNP article. Thanks 92.28.243.102 (talk) 13:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Scottish independence#Republicanism. They've left that question open - some people want an independent Scotland to be a republic; others want it to be a separate monarchy like Canada and Australia. —Angr (talk) 13:56, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Republicanism in the United Kingdom indicates that the official policy is that Scotland would be a constitutional monarchy, unless the public decided otherwise. Meph^talk 14:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't suppose there's any chance it would become a Jacobite monarchy under King Francis? —Angr (talk) 14:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted that the SNP winning a majority in a single election does not necessarily mean that Scottish Independence is coming any time soon. There have been times when the Parti Québécois has had such a majority in the National Assembly of Quebec, between 1976-1985 and again from 1994-2003, the Péquistes were the majority party in the National Assembly, and controled the Premiership. And yet, despite this, Quebec is still not independent. --Jayron32 14:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An IPSOS-Mori poll around six months ago found that around 22% of Scots favoured independence, so it's improbable that the SNP would attempt a referendum any time soon. Meph^talk 15:04, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) As an addenedum, the times when the PQ has controled the Quebec National Assembly, the Prime Minister of Canada has himself been Québécois, Pierre Trudeau in the 1970 & 80's, and Jean Chrétien in the 1990's. Indeed, since World War II, the Prime Ministership has been in the hands of a Quebecois politician more than any other province, throwing in Paul Martin, Brian Mulroney, and Louis St. Laurent into the mix, and that's about 38 out of the past 63 years. In the UK, Scots have also had positions of national leadership, including most recently Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. --Jayron32 15:18, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And David Cameron. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call Cameron Scot, unless you believe Obama is Kenyan. Quest09 (talk) 17:14, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would ... and I don't. Kittybrewster ☎ 18:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The example you give below in another answer, makes me royal if you think that makes Cameron a Scot! --TammyMoet (talk) 11:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You could be royal. No that doesn't make Cameron a Scot. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What about David McAllister? —Angr (talk) 17:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cut-backs during a time of austerity

I know some people object to questioning one's betters but is the use of a friend's jet to fly to the US by Prince Charles, instead of hiring one, the only Royal cut-back there has been to share our pain during this time of austerity? Have their been any others at all? Thanks. 92.28.243.102 (talk) 13:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, pay for those on the Civil List is currently frozen and the household will undertake spending cuts of 14% in 2013–14: BBC. Meph^talk 14:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why are they are not being cut-back to the same extent as other government departments? 92.28.243.102 (talk) 14:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the recent wedding was less ostentatious than it might otherwise have been. Goodness knows what that would have looked like! As for the follow-on question, this site claims the average spending cut would be 19%. Now for something to be an average, that means some departments will be cut more than 19%, while others will be cut less. So the 14% cut is on the low side of that average. I also feel compelled to point out that Prince Charles takes nothing from the Civil List, and so doesn't fall under the government spending arena (his income comes from his various dukedoms, especially the Duchy of Cornwall). --TammyMoet (talk) 15:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested in this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10391693 ny156uk (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wish taxpayers would be given clear information about Royal income and wealth that includes income from publically owned property. Since the Royals have never been entrepreneurs then all of the money and capital must ultimately have come from the taxpayer or by forceable seizure. The existing information is muddled and obfusticated. 92.15.21.162 (talk) 09:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Prince Charles is indeed an entrepreneur, both in the classical sense of the word, and in the social sense of the word. Of course he takes no money from the latter. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm gathering that the OP is speaking of the UK when saying "during this time of austerity". When was there last a time when the OP (or anyone) would have spoken of "this time of prosperity"? My impression is that we've have times of austerity far more often than the alternative in common parlance over the past 40 years, yet most people are clearly far better off than that long ago. HiLo48 (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Best covert/special forces?

What is the most effective special/covert forces organization in the world? I know the US CIA is in the top 10 for sure, but is it the best? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 21:54, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Sshhh. It's a secret.) Seriously, if they are really covert, how would we ever know? HiLo48 (talk) 22:01, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While we can't really ever know, the ones who the scraps of information we do get seem to indicate are the most active (and perhaps therefore powerful) are probably the CIA and the Mossad, with the FSB being less internationally active but also significant. However being more active also leads to more debacles, such as Lillehammer and the Bay of Pigs. So perhaps the most effective organisations are ones that we never notice, because they know their limits? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prokhorovka (talk • contribs) 22:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Such as the SAS? We hardly ever hear about them, but they are continuously active, as this country is at war. Having said that, they are continually active even when we are not at war, but we still don't hear much about them. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unindent - it's almost impossible to answer this sort of question as all of the organisations/forces involved have different remits, training, equipment, modus operandi, ethos etc - It's like asking which is the best Main Battle Tank in the world - all of the current generation are broadly comparable in spec with some shading towards more armour, some slightly faster, some having slightly better ammunition etc - it's such a subjective subject we can't realistically determine who's the "best" to answer your question. Exxolon (talk) 22:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CIA, Mossad, FSB, and ISI all have pretty fearsome reputations. The Stasi were quite effective in their day and much better in terms of international spying than most people know. One hears very little about the Ministry of State Security, but that's probably how they like it... --Mr.98 (talk) 00:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you've neglected to mention the Illuminati whose covert action council has infiltrated the upper echelons of most of the above mentioned organizations. --Ludwigs2 01:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Then there are the grey men of Zurich ("oops"-looks over her shoulder)--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And where do we Wikipedians fit into the scheme of things?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:19, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I remember reading about a competetive exercise held by NATO for teams of special forces (in the 1980s?). The Regular SAS don't get involved in that sort of thing but sent along their colleagues from 21 Special Air Service Regiment (Artists) (Reserve) who all have full time civilian jobs and train in their spare time. They won. Alansplodge (talk) 23:13, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

May 7

U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years

All I can find are casualties or a 2009 estimate. Thanks. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 01:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You may find something in this report: "Troop Levels in the Afghan and Iraq Wars, FY2001-FY2012". Alansplodge (talk) 22:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most children

Give examples of men and women in non-Islamic modern industrial capitalist societies (from 20th century onwards) who gave birth to most children. I found a reference which says Desmond Hatchett, an American man, has fathered 21 children. Is it record? And give examples of famous persons (in non-Islamic modern industrial capitalist societies) who have most children. --HoulGhostjj (talk) 01:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a man, it's possible for a man to impregnate a woman nearly every day of his life. So, if a man lifes to 100 years, and hit puberty at 14, that's 86*365.25 = 31,411 children as an upper limit (assuming no multiple births). Realisticly, not every ejaculation leads to pregnancy, even under ideal conditions, so the actual maximum number may be something less than 1000 in a lifetime as a hypothetical maximum; then there's the social problem of finding enough fertile women to willingly be impregnated by you... However, 21 by 11 women isn't anywhere near what I would consider "out of bounds" in terms of the upper limit. Jim Bob Duggar has 19 children by ONE woman, and shows no signs of letting up any time soon. Just random digging turns up Tom Green, who had 35 children by five women, and I would have serious doubts that he was anywhere near a "record". On the female side, a woman's reproductive life is limited by the fact that she can only realisticly produce a child every 11 months at a maximum clip, and will hit menopause eventually; meaning that assuming she has a child as often as possible from, say, 14-50, that's 36 years*12 months/11 months per pregnancy = 39 children (again, assuming no multiples). The aforementioned Mrs. Duggar's 19 is probably not a record. Jayron32 02:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I entered Most children in the search box and was redirected to List of people with the most children. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thank for the link. --HoulGhostjj (talk) 03:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On a closer look, the article does not meet my criteria, i.e. examples from non-Islamic modern industrial capitalist societies from 20th century onwards. Please name some modern famous persons who have nearly 10 or more children. --HoulGhostjj (talk) 03:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Preferably from western countries. --HoulGhostjj (talk) 03:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"As a man, it's possible for a man to impregnate a woman nearly every day of his life. So, if a man lifes to 100 years, and hit puberty at 14, that's 86*365.25 = 31,411 children as an upper limit (assuming no multiple births)." - that's your upper limit? wow, you're assuming a long recovery time. 188.156.59.141 (talk) 05:00, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have raised this issue in Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Ismail_Ibn_Sharif, please discuss the science there. This thread is for examples. --HoulGhostjj (talk) 05:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Johann Sebastian Bach had 21 children, and he was nowhere near special in this regard. Pfly (talk) 06:22, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that the Guinness World Records site doesn't give the information you are looking for, whereas in their published editions it does. If you have access to a Guinness Book of Records you will find the information therein. If you don't, I will have later today and can provide some information for you. Meanwhile a Google search on "most children by one woman" will bring you some modern examples. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As for a famous man who has fathered lots of children, try Anthony Quinn with 12. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bach (see above - you seem to have missed it) had almost double that number, and from only 2 wives, while Quinn's 12 were from 4 women (3 wives plus one other). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 08:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So what? I have answered the OP's question, where he asked for examples from the modern world, whereas the example you quoted was 350 years old. I could have mentioned my ancestress Elizabeth Woodville, or Countess Fyodorovsky with her 69 reputed children if he'd have asked for examples going back that far. The question wasn't about couples with most children, but either men or women. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:22, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Patrick Duff of Craigston. Born Craigston, Scotland 1655. Died 3 August 1731. Father of 36 children, he is said to have been complimented by King Geroge II on the addition he had made to His Majesty's subjects in Scotland. Married first 1687 Anne Innes (died 1700), dau of John Innes. They had 13 children. Ancestor of David Cameron. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC) Kitty did you mean to post this here or above? --TammyMoet (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC) Here is fine. Kittybrewster ☎ 12:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another answer for the OP here. While researching my own family history, I have two recent examples: my paternal grandfather was one of 16 children, and my mother was one of 11 children. In the days before the wide availability of birth control, such cases were the norm. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find people who are members of a Christian sect who belong to large families today, given the RC prohibition on mechanical methods of birth control, and some others such as "quiverfuls" who think that when God told them to go forth and multiply he really meant it! Of course, they aren't notable so the OP wouldn't be interested. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly answering the question, but to give you an idea of what is possible/has been done see descent from Genghis Khan. 124.171.217.32 (talk) 13:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

law: Recanting

If someone makes a statement resulting in criminal charges and then recants it, there are all sorts of legal ramifications and I'm sure we have an article on it somewhere but our article recantation doesn't seem to lead to it. (I'm trying to improve a link.) Can someone show me the correct link? RJFJR (talk) 02:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure that recantation is the right word here. Recantation usually refers to the abandonment of a long-held belief, such as a religious faith. I presume you're talking about situations where a person is charged with a criminal offence on the evidence of someone else, who later admits they were lying or at least mistaken. They would withdraw their statement, but there may be a more formal legal term for that. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have always heard recant for the case of a witness changing his/her story. Could be that that's a US-specific term, though I've never had any reason to suspect that prior to now. --Trovatore (talk) 02:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jack (for a change!): I have heard the word repudiation used in this circumstance but I don't think it's a legal term. --TammyMoet (talk) 07:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Repudiation" is for a contract - i.e. a party to the contract saying "I'm not going to perform this contract anymore".

From an Australian law perspective, I think the issue RJFJR describes is just a general one of evidence. In New South Wales evidence law, this issue is called "prior inconsistent statement" (i.e. the evidence given by the witness is inconsistent with one or more statement they have given in the past), and there are rules and practice about how to deal with such. A statement where a party states something to their disadvantage in the context of the case is called an "admission", and there are special rules applicable to those.

From somewhat hazy memory, the way barristers are supposed to highlight the inconsistency between a witness's statement in court against one or more prior inconsistent statement is to take them to that (those) statement(s), and then ask them which version is the correct one. When the witness says "that was wrong and what I say now is correct", this inconsistency may then be useful to show that the witness is unreliable, mistaken or not credible; or to show that the other side's case is based on mistaken or erroneous evidence. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is retraction the term you are looking for? Astronaut (talk) 08:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Retraction seems to refer to journalism and writing rather than law. RJFJR (talk) 13:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Baptism

I am not a religious believer but have paid some attention to some articles on Roman Catholic theology. Some aspects of the Roman Catholic view of baptism seem easy to understand, including the sacramental character and the conditions of validity of a baptism. But I have read that Catholics hold that if a person is baptized in the Eastern Orthodox Church, then he or she is a member of that church, and similarly a person baptized in the Catholic Church is a Catholic. Various online sources, including Wikipedia's article about baptism, do not seem to explain this doctrine. Where is there an account of this? Should a Wikipedia article be created for this topic? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where have you read that? It doesn't sound like the Catholic view of baptism, because Catholicism believes in "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins", and hence anyone intentionally baptised with the trinitarian formula, with the intention to Baptise them, is baptised. There aren't different types of 'being Baptised': eithe you are or you aren't. It is the case, however, that "(i)n the Eastern rites the Christian initiation of infants also begins with Baptism followed immediately by Confirmation and the Eucharist, while in the Roman rite it is followed by years of catechesis before being completed later by Confirmation and the Eucharist, the summit of their Christian initiation", that is that infant baptism in the Roman Rite is followed by years of learning about the faith, followed by the Eucharist and Confirmation when the child is old enough to understand, whereas the Eastern Rite gives all three straight after each other, as the Roman Rite does with adults. Perhaps you are remembering that? It would mean a child baptised in the Eastern Rite has also started receiving Communion and has been confirmed, whereas a child baptised in the Western Rite has only been baptised. The Catholic Church also teaches that "Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."323 With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."" and I have heard that many in the hierarchy consider Orthodox christians to be enough in communion that it's fine for them to receive the Eucharist without first becoming Catholics (without taking classes in what Catholics believe and deciding to be a Catholic). The Orthodox Churches do not generally consider the reverse to be true :) 86.166.40.199 (talk) 09:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rereading your question: it's true that we'd usually talk about a child baptised in the Catholic Church as a Catholic, and there is the saying 'once a Catholic, always a Catholic', and we'd tend to talk about a child baptised in an Orthodox Church as an Orthodox, but this isn't a comment on the nature of baptism: if someone was baptised in an Orthodox Church and then decided to become a Catholic, they would become a Catholic without any extra baptising :) 86.166.40.199 (talk) 10:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On a web page that possibly no longer exists, a Catholic priest answered a question from a parent of an infant. One of the parents was Greek Orthodox; the other Roman Catholic. The question was whether they could have the baby baptized twice—once in each church. The priest replied, saying among other things that that is forbidden. He also said that if the baby is baptized in a Catholic church then the baby is Catholic, and if in an Orthodox church, then he is Orthodox. That last part is the subject of my question. Was that comment actually a part of Catholic dogma? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No it is not, because Catholicism considers there to be one baptism, which most of the churches who call themselves Christian carry out. (Some do not baptise with the trinitarian formula, being non-trinitarian, and some do not have the intention to do what the Catholic Church does in baptising: the Orthodox Church is far from being in either box) However, it may be a practical truth, particularly if (as is usual) the Orthodox baptism also involved receiving the Eucharist and being Confirmed with oil of chrism. That sort of pushes you towards one route for the child's religious education and participation or the other. 86.166.40.199 (talk) 00:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Identify the logical fallacy

"No -ism is bad/wrong. All -isms are valid." Identify the logical fallacy in this statement. --Hould Hoster (talk) 06:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our policy here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Astronaut (talk) 08:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I think you have mistaken. It is not homework question. This question interests me for a quite a long time, finally I asked here. Please answer if you know, thank you. --Hould Hoster (talk) 08:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just curious: is it something in the school or college curricula in some English-speaking countries, that we are getting so many requests to identify logical fallacies here? — Kpalion^(talk) 10:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Faulty generalization perhaps?

And Hould, it is easy to see why Astronaut thought this was a homework question: presenting a question as a command ("Identify ... ") is typical of exams and homework. If you had said "What is the logical fallacy ... ", or "Can anyone tell me what is the logical fallacy ... ", Astronaut would probably not have thought this. --ColinFine (talk)

If we regard this as an enthymeme with an unstated premise along the lines of "No bad/wrong theory is valid", it's an example of an Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise. Of course, the major premise may be false (there may in fact be "-isms" that _are_ bad or wrong, and I'm sure we can all think of potential candidates), but that doesn't affect the _logic_ of the argument. Tevildo (talk) 23:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why do American supermarkets still count out pennies?

This is not exactly a deep question, but it's one of those nagging conundrums I can't figure out.

Pennies are the cheapest "coin" in the U.S., 1/100 of a dollar, 1/5 of a nickel, though as zinc is not what I would call a coinage metal, I think one could fairly dispute whether pennies are coins at all. If a cashier makes $10 an hour, and there are 3600 seconds in an hour; and if it takes nearly 3 seconds to obtain or dispense one or two pennies, count them, toss them into or take them out of a separate change drawer (counting the time to obtain and move rolls of change, charges for counting, etc.) - then it seems like a market makes no profit on pennies at all. Now yes, it is possible that a competent clerk gets ahead by a fraction of a second for each one, until, that is a customer fumbles around in his coat looking for one or two to complete his purchase, or drops one on the floor and bends over hunting for the coin, blocking traffic. I would think the store could simply choose to round down all purchases to the nearest nickel, and it would cost them next to nothing when the cost of cashier time is considered - and of course, it would create a tiny discount for the customer.

So why don't they do this? Wnt (talk) 09:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The cashiers' wages are sunk costs. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 13:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Unless the store is losing customers because the cashiers are too busy, it will make no difference. It is unlikely rounding down to the nearest nickel would save enough time to allow the store to employ fewer cashiers. --Tango (talk) 13:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally to the above, totals are usually just under a whole number of dollars (because of price points like $0.99) so usually cashiers are giving pennies in change rather than taking them in payment. Giving a nickel in change is no quicker than giving a penny, so you would have to round up those totals. Customers wouldn't be happy about that. --Tango (talk) 13:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some stores have a "take a penny, leave a penny" tray near the cash register... this does speed things up when it comes to making exact change (no fumbling around looking for two or three pennies, you just take them from the tray... and return the favor by leaving any pennies you get in change). As for rounding -all those pennies do add up. A few cents may not mean much for the individual customer... but for a busy store rounding down could add up to several hundred dollars in lost profits by the end of the day. If a store wanted to round prices to save cashier time in counting change, it is far more likely that the store would round up rather than down. Blueboar (talk) 13:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Efforts to eliminate the penny have failed; see Penny debate in the United States. The U.S. military eliminated pennies on bases in Europe in 1980. Took the liberty of linking take a penny... ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The US government said in 2008 that it cost 1.7 cents to mint a penny coin. What I can't understand is why the US government doesn't let the dollar bill die of slow attrition and correspondingly up the production of dollar coins. Doing so would be far more cost effective. But I suppose if you can't get rid of the penny, you're not going to get rid of the greenback. --Bill Reid | (talk) 14:14, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Every time they release a new dollar coin, it gets "collected" and taken out of circulation. The treasury would have to eliminate the paper dollar before dollar coins would really get used. Any guesses as to how many state quarters have been stuffed into collector books by kids? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tons of them, I'm sure - encouraged by coin collection books that you can get most anywhere. There are still plenty of state quarters floating around, though. Regarding pennies, this was discussed at great length on a ref desk recently. I suspect the reason they won't abolish the penny is because people (1) wouldn't like their receipts getting rounded up to the next nickel; along with (2) the suspicion that businesses would figure out a way to make everything round up to the next nickel. And businesses probably wouldn't like having it round down to the nickel, due to accumulated lost revenue. So there it sits. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And as you say, the dollar coins disappear, because the dollar bill remains in circulation, and dollar bills are more convenient to use than dollar coins... or coins of any kind, actually. So they're often treated like souvenirs, which takes them out of circulation. Although that may be counterbalanced by the approach of "dumping" (spending) them ASAP, which accelerates their circulation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:42, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In a way, this reminds me of the lame attempts to introduce the metric system on highways in the 1970s. There's no reason to use a new system if the old system stays in place. Metric distances have now disappeared from highway signs... and dollar coins disappear quickly also. I'm surprised no one has brought up the 2-dollar bill, which is also seldom seen. That's another item that tends to be treated like a collectible or spent quickly to get rid of it. Supposedly a 2-dollar bill is considered bad luck because of its association with the standard 2-dollar bets at horse race tracks. That could just be an urban legend. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An aside, Re the $2 bill... back in the early-1980s the US Navy was faced with a wave of Anti-sailor antagonism by the local population of Norfolk, VA (where the Navy has its major east coast base)... so for a few weeks the Navy paid all its sailors in $2 bills. The town was soon flooded with them, and the locals quickly realized how much money the sailors contributed to the local economy... the antagonism quickly faded. Blueboar (talk) 15:19, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. :) I see in the United States two-dollar bill article that the bill is still being produced, though in very small quantities by comparison with ones and other bills. No small part of the problem is that there is often no slot for them in cash register drawers. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guess what? Those countries happy to use such bills have invented a new kind of cash register that DOES have such a drawer. Radical, eh? HiLo48 (talk) 22:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Someone is happy to use US two-dollar bills? Hmmm... maybe the State Dept. should take a hint from the Navy and use big bundles of $2 bills for foreign aid. Blueboar (talk) 02:40, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ha ha. Well, with the slide in value of the $US, we Australians prefer our own currency these days ;-) , and polymer banknotes produced in Australia are used in at least 20 other countries. Oh, and BTW, Australia abandoned one a two cent coins, and replace one and two dollar bills with coins years ago. (But I think we're a fair way off-topic now.) HiLo48 (talk) 03:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To respond to the first round: I've thought about the "sunk costs" argument, except - there's no way for a store to predict how many cashiers it will need. Saving a few minutes a day might do nothing, or it might eliminate a full cashier position - the weighted average of these probabilities should be the same as if the store is literally paying wages by the minute. (Which it may well anyway, as overtime varying from day to day)

The "take a penny, leave a penny" system should work in theory; but in practice the stigma of accepting charity in the U.S. is so extreme that very few people do - then, of course, they see no reason to go out of their way to leave pennies either. I don't think it affects checkout time much.

I wanted to avoid the argument over abolishing the penny in general, since it's only the behavior of individual storeowners that surprises me. As a political issue, people get into tradition, admiration for Lincoln, etc. and may no longer make economically motivated decisions.

The argument that collectors defeat serious circulation of dollar coins seems very strange to me indeed. I've actually heard multiple rumors that sometimes these coins were actually given away during their introduction in certain places - I hope they're just fantasy. Really though, when coins are stored up by (paying) collectors, for the government it should be like a voluntary tax donation. The collected coins do nothing to spur inflation, because they're not part of the normal money supply. My suspicion was that this must be intentional - that the government issues $2 bills and dollar coins in amounts calculated to keep them collectible with a marginally increasing value, and that quantities are limited by what they would estimate would collapse the value of the coins/bills and make people stop holding them.

And the Australians may have the stronger dollar, but we have Encyclopedia Dramatica! Just try to claim you got the better end of the deal. =) Wnt (talk) 04:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

UK referendum results: a record?

In Thursday's UK referendum, which was counted yesterday, 430 out of 440 districts voted 'no'. I assume this must be some sort of record, most unanimous British vote ever or something, but does anyone know specifics? ╟─Treasury Tag►Speaker─╢ 09:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Districts" isn't a very comparable statistic, as the UK has frequently restructured the organisation of local and regional governments. There have been only two referendums which cover the whole of the UK (cf Referendums in the United Kingdom#List of major referendums); the other (the United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum, 1975) voted 67.2% for "yes" (as opposed to AV's 67.9% "no"). Of the others, the Northern Ireland sovereignty referendum, 1973 returned a "yes" of 98.9% (because those you'd expect to vote "no" instead boycotted the vote). Of unboycotted ones Welsh devolution referendum, 1979 returned a "no" of 79.9%. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 10:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There will have been a lot of records set in that referendum, given that it was only the second one ever in the UK. That fact, of course, makes those records quite meaningless. HiLo48 (talk) 22:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

UK High Court Judges

On being appointed a high court judge, a woman is made a DBE, while a man is appointed Knight Bachelor rather than KBE. Why is this? Kittybrewster ☎ 10:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Male HCJs were appointed KB before there were female HCJs. When there were, the women couldn't be appointed KB because there is no female equivalent, so they appoint them DBE but didn't change arrangements for the men. I guess this was easier that creating a Dame Batchelorette order to make things symmetrical. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 10:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are some Baronetesses in their own right, so why not Dame Spinster? :) And that's the real reason: "spinster" has acquired such negative connotations that it's almost never used anymore. Yet, there is no other female equivalent of an unmarried man. What a dumb language: we have words for the most arcane, abstruse and utterly ridiculous things, yet one for the extremely common occurrence of a woman who isn't married is too hard? Of course, this usage has nothing to do with the recipient's marital status. A great-grandfather with 37 progeny can still be a Knight Bachelor. They need to find a suitable female equivalent that doesn't involve the word "spinster". The British are good at coming up with illogical and unpredictable and completely unintuitive exceptions to all manner of things. Why stop now? -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There have been attempts, but not enduring ones. In the 1920s - a point at which British English had a pressing need to find a term for "young woman living alone, unmarried, and likely to remain so for the imminent future" - 'bach' was briefly popular; it apparently fell out of use shortly thereafter. The OED doesn't record this use, but does note that c. 1850-1900 it was a common shortening, especially in the US/Canada/Australia, for "bachelor" when applied to men - it may have been a deliberate resurrection of a recently remembered phrase. Shimgray | talk | 23:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright question

Would anyone happen to know if Ireland has freedom of panorama? I need to know this as there is an image of a monument that needs copyright clarification. Thanks.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a habitual user of the RD you should know that we don't provide legal advise here. Quest09 (talk) 12:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now there's the ultimate in silliness, saying we can't tell people which images they can use in Wikipedia, since that would be legal advice. I suppose then we'd better ban all pics, just in case, and all prose, for the same reason. StuRat (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this counts as legal advice. The figure in Freedom_of_panorama#Europe suggests that Ireland has freedom of panorama sufficient for wikipedia commons. --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:04, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Wrongfilter.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Quest09: and you should know better that we just pretend not to give legal advice here. It all comes down to the way you ask and answer the questions. The same applies to medical advice. Wikiweek (talk) 13:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of copyrights, there is a significant awareness within wikipedia about this issue, so I don't think this qualifies as "legal advice". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For the justification for the use of the image, the relevant Irish Statute is Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000, Section 93 --Bill Reid | (talk) 14:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From Commons: Commons:Freedom_of_panorama#Ireland

§93 of the Irish copyright law permits photographers to take pictures of sculptures, buildings, and works of artistic craftsmanship that are permanently located in a public place or premises open to the public, and to publish such pictures in any way. Irish law is in this respect modeled on UK law, and in the absence of any specific case law to the contrary it is reasonable to assume that the rules will be identical. See the United Kingdom section for more details.

And, they have a template for such images: Commons:Template:FoP-Ireland. Hope that helps. ^Avic_ennasis @ 22:15, 3 Iyar 5771 / 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Freedom of paranoia exists on all islands. Of which there are many. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 23:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question on logical fallacies

What is the meaning of argumentum ad in Argumentum ad populum? argumentum ad - It is definitely Latin, what is its literal English translation? In google translate it is showing Indonesian language. Why? What is the meaning of "ad"? --Hould Hoster (talk) 13:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ad is a preposition which means "to", "toward", or "about". (ref) -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article argumentum ad populum, says the phrase means "appeal to the people". "Argumentum" is "argument" or "appeal"; "ad" is "to" or "towards"; "populum" is the accusative of "populus", "people", or "populace". --ColinFine (talk) 14:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But Latin to English dictionaries say argumentum means "proof, evidence" [15], then why is it translated in English as "appeal to"? --Hould Hoster (talk) 14:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on context. No language can be directly translated, word-for-word, to another language as a "word A in one language ALWAYS means word B in another" for every single word in both languages. Often, depending on context, the same word may mean different things in another language, and visa versa. Depending on how it is used, argumentum can mean argument, appeal, or evidence. --Jayron32 16:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The etymology of "argue" is interesting,[16] and as I suspected, its root connects it with argentum. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, "word A in one language ALWAYS means word B in another" doesn't even work for English-to-English: "If you wait a minute, I'll point you to a minute post with a point for you to use with your miniature post box." -- 174.31.219.218 (talk) 17:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or, "let us cleave together and cleave some bread." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An "argumentum ad populum" is an argument saying that because people many believe something to be true, it must be true. In this case the "ad" is more accurately translated as "about", or "pointing to" (ie an argument made by pointing to people). Blueboar (talk) 17:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the argument used by conspiracy theorists. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just for overview, 'argumentum ad...' would normally be translated as 'an argument that relies on...', where the ellipsis is something generally considered to be a weak or improper grounding for reasoned discussion. Argumentum ad populum this would be 'an argument that relies on popularity', with the understanding that the popularity of an idea has no relation to it's truth-value. --Ludwigs2 18:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why conspiracy theorists often cite polls that show that some "significant" minority questions the official story of something, such as JFK, Apollo, 9/11, Obama, and Osama. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it's not just conspiracy theorists: everybody does this kind of thing. humans are just not particularly good at logic. I mean, with something like the moon landing you'll have one side saying "A lot of people think it's faked" and the other side saying "A lot more people think that's poppycock". same fallacy on each side, and neither argument helps resolve the debate in any meaningful way. --Ludwigs2 19:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A lot of people think it does resolve the debate. :>) Blueboar (talk) 19:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The argument that something must be true because many people believe it certainly isn't always correct, but if you believe things because the vast majority of people believe them, you will be right most of the time. For example, if most people in an area think that eating a particular berry will kill you, then don't eat it. You could research it to make such a determination more scientifically, but, if you don't have the time or inclination for that, then, unless you are starving to death, the risk (of ignoring them) is just too high and the benefit too low to make eating those berries a wise decision. So, such "logic" is useful, even if not always correct. StuRat (talk) 19:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Blue & Stu: Logic isn't about being right; logic is about being valid, because validity is the key to demonstrating that you're right. I know, it's a stupid way to look at the world: Socrates' complaint box is down the hall, third door on the left. --Ludwigs2 00:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This Dilbert strip vaguely relates:[17] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reminded of what Harry Reasoner said in a newscast at the height (or depth) of the Watergate scandal. He said that polls indicated that 35 percent of the American public believed in UFOs while only 20 percent believed in President Nixon (or figures along those lines). He commented, "I'm not sure what that says about us... But it says something." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it says that 5 percent thought that Nixon was a space alien? (it was the 70s after all.) Blueboar (talk) 19:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on what you mean by "believe in". I have always believed that RMN was President of the USA, said and did various things, and resigned. But I never "believed in" him (and particularly not after he told Frost, When the President does it, that means it is not illegal). That sort of terminology is usually reserved for beings you have not perceived using the normal senses, but still accept that they exist and that doing what they allegedly ask of you is a good thing - like God, for example. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

True or myth: Nazi dog with a label 'dog' on it.

The rationale was that it had the label because it was a dog. I don't know if that was a joke or a real story. Quest09 (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where are you seeing this? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In Away_from_Her. Quest09 (talk) 16:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything in that writeup about either Nazis or dogs. Explain further, please. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

"00:07:44,553 --> 00:07:49,026

She told me that each

of the German patrol dogs

63

00:07:49,097 --> 00:07:52,775

wore a sign saying "hund."

64

00:07:52,842 --> 00:07:54,560

"Why?" said the Czechs.

65

00:07:54,570 --> 00:07:59,839

And the Germans replied,

"Because that is a hund."

" It's not in the article. See above. Quest09 (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The words "nazi", "dog" and "hund" do not appear in the article. It sounds like a lame joke of some kind. Like they had to label the dogs as "dog" so they would know that they're dogs. Weird. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The story is not very important for the plot in the film. Quest09 (talk) 17:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does my hypothesis fit at all? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, it is probably a lame joke. But it could be true. Quest09 (talk) 17:16, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the joke relies on the Nazis' excessive organizational and labeling, such as their need to have Jews, Gypsies, communists, homosexuals, and every other minority be labeled with patches on their clothing. The joke would be better, in my opinion, if the dog was labeled in more detail, such as listing the breed of dog. StuRat (talk) 17:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kind of like my old high school, where every room had a number, even the broom closets. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I laughed at the joke during the movie. If you like The Far Side type of humor, you'd probably laugh too. It reminded me of one old Far Side, where a guy labels everything with a paint brush, including "the dog", and says "That should clear up a few things around here!" The cartoon can be found online, but I believe we're not supposed to link to copyright violations. —Kevin Myers 18:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not in articles, but for the purpose of answering questions here, I don't think there's any problem. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sex question

Sorry for the sexually explicit question but any google search about this just turns up porn links. I am looking for the name of the sex act in which he penis is rubbed against the vulva for a long time, including to orgasm; without penetration. It's like tribbing but with a man and a woman instead.

Petting? BTW, have you tried enabling SafeSearch to exclude porn links in the Google search?--151.56.113.184 (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

the technical term is frottage. --Ludwigs2 16:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's right. --151.56.113.184 (talk) 16:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd call it the "he forgot to take off her knickers" technique. It's a common problem on the Isle of Man. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When I was in high school (light years ago), we called it Dry humping. It was typically performed with both partners fully dressed.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Light years is a measure of distance, not of time. Quest09 (talk) 17:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or "mileage". As in, "it's not the years; it's the mileage". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was a measure of time, distance, and state-of-mind in my delightfully bohemian high school.Jim Morrison we'll never forget you--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:20, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That might have been the type of school that Chicago DJ Larry Lujack was thinking of when he would enunciate high school as "hiiigh school". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All riiiiiiiight......--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mixed Number Proportional Representation

Is there a website where they show an example of a mixed number proportional representation ballot? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.106.234 (talk) 19:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia? :) 81.98.38.48 (talk) 22:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That Won't help. I mean an English-speaking website, that actually shows the ballot in English. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.21.69 (talk) 01:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking for a picture of a ballot paper? --Tango (talk) 01:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

National debt

In the US, why is such a fuss made about reducing the national debt? Albacore (talk) 22:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because the interest payments are very expensive and there is a reliance on being able to find lenders when the bonds reach maturity and need to be rolled over. --Tango (talk) 22:51, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

furthermore, over the past couple of weeks the s&p has warned of a possible downgrade f the us' creidt sstatus, which is big deal in a country with the highest credit rating (expect gold to shopoot right up) and the dollar to crash when that happens.Lihaas (talk) 23:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If creditors (those who the U.S. counts on to buy the debt when it is rolled over or increased) were to grow concerned about the size of the debt or doubt the ability or the willingness of the United States to repay it, then interest rates on that debt could rise substantially (in order to attract doubtful creditors). This could strain (or break) the budget of the United States. See Sovereign default. Marco polo (talk) 00:26, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Suez_War#Financial_pressure for an historical parallel. Basically, US national debt is other countries owning dollars. Theoretically these countries could sell off massive amounts of the US dollars they own and plummet the US economy. In effect, the countries that own US dollars have control over US policy. Schyler (one language) 03:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Russian jews

the article on Russian Jews says that they are Ashkenazis BUT it is not cited and seems an OR presumption. but i was under the impression that people from east of the urals are sephardic which would include the large number of people from Kazakh, Uzbek, etc. Which group would they be categorised under? an easier response may be to see if those foreign-born israelis from said countries vote with shas or the other more mainstream generally ashkenazi parties? yisrael beitenau being one. If Greeeks are considered Sephardic ;olke hank azaria then how can russians be ashkenazis?Lihaas (talk) 23:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See our two article on Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews. Essentially, in the middle ages, the Sephardic Jews were centered in the Mediterranean (especially in lands that were at times under Islamic rule, such as Greece, Sicily and southern Spain) while the Ashkenazi Jews were centered to the north in Germany, Poland and Russia. Blueboar (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Russian Jews are generally Ashkenazis. The usually accepted history of the Ashkenazi is that they originated in Western Europe (France, Germany, even northern Italy) and, over the centuries, gradually migrated eastward, especially into the territory of Poland-Lithuania, most of which in the 19th Century became part of the Russian Empire. The Russian Jews of Central Asia would be Ashkenazis who migrated from this region under the Russian Empire or during Soviet times. However, there is also a non-Russian Jewish population in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc.). These non-Russian Jews are not Ashkenazi; they are Mizrahi. Now, the term Sephardic is sometimes used to refer to the Mizrahi, but they are really distinct groups. The true Sephardi are actually Spanish in origin. They fled Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries after the formerly Islamic parts of Spain were conquered by Christian kingdoms. The true Sephardi mostly ended up in countries around the Mediterranean Sea, though some ended up in England, the Netherlands, and elsewhere. Few, if any, ended up in Central Asia. Marco polo (talk) 00:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vladimir Ashkenazy is a Russian (who took out Icelandic citizenship, lives principally in Switzerland, and spends a lot of time in Australia and elsewhere). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 01:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The area of the Khazar Khanate has been part of Russia (mostly) for a long time, and it once had a strong Jewish presence, see Khazar_Empire#Conversion_of_the_royalty_and_aristocracy_to_Judaism and Mountain Jews for some Jews which didn't arrive in Russia via the traditional root of the Ashkenazi. --Jayron32 03:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dalia Rabin-Pelossof

Does Dalia Rabin-Pelossof, the daugheter of rabin sit with the new faction of labour that split from the liberal wing and led by ehud barak or the liberal side that stayed in labour. i ask because her father was obviously of the liberal strain, but offspring dont always share the same ideology?Lihaas (talk) 23:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

May 8

Richardis of Schwerin-Wittenburg or Richardis of Schwerin or Richardis of Lauenburg

Why is Valdemar III of Denmark's wife given three different names? I understand the first two since it just drop the second place name and leave the first. But the second one makes no sense. Was Lauenburg part of the county of Schwerin-Wittenburg or something? --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 02:02, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One possible lead: Both Wittenburg and Lauenburg were, at the time, under the control of the House of Ascania, so perhaps her descent from that family led to the multiple names? --Jayron32 02:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Her descent from the House of Ascania is extremely remote. Her great-great grandfather was Albert I, Duke of Saxony.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 04:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was just pointing out that Wittenburg and Lauenburg have a strong historical connection; indeed the division of the Duchy of Saxony only happened a few decades before the time period in question, which could have lead to the multiple names. --Jayron32 04:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wait I think you are confused. Wittenburg is not the same as Wittenberg. There was never a Saxe-Wittenburg.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 04:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, how silly of me. I naturally assumed it was the Wittenberg that was once split from Saxony at the same time Lauenberg was, not Wittenburg. What a shame, given the similarity of the names. Sorry! --Jayron32 05:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, it appears that Wittenburg (the "u" one, and the one in question) is quite close, geographically, to Lauenberg. --Jayron32 05:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bentley ad - truth or hoax?

I haven't seen anyone respond to the talkpage: Talk:Bentley#Controversial_ad_-_cannot_find_confirmation_of_it_being_truth_or_hoax.

Many blogs talk about it like it's real, but Snopes doesn't have an article over it.

Would someone please answer the question in the talkpage? Thanks. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 05:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 401: / Line 401: @@
 :::::Oh, how silly of me.  I naturally assumed it was the Wittenberg that was once split from Saxony at the same time Lauenberg was, not Wittenburg.  What a shame, given the similarity of the names.  Sorry!  --[[User:Jayron32|<font style="color:#000099">Jayron</font>]]'''''[[User talk:Jayron32|<font style="color:#009900">32</font>]]''''' 05:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 ::::::As an aside, it appears that Wittenburg (the "u" one, and the one in question) is quite close, geographically, to Lauenberg.  --[[User:Jayron32|<font style="color:#000099">Jayron</font>]]'''''[[User talk:Jayron32|<font style="color:#009900">32</font>]]''''' 05:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
+== Bentley ad - truth or hoax? ==
+I haven't seen anyone respond to the talkpage: [[Talk:Bentley#Controversial_ad_-_cannot_find_confirmation_of_it_being_truth_or_hoax.]]
+Many blogs talk about it like it's real, but [[Snopes]] doesn't have an article over it.
+Would someone please answer the question in the talkpage? Thanks. --[[Special:Contributions/70.179.169.115|70.179.169.115]] ([[User talk:70.179.169.115|talk]]) 05:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC)