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July 26

British Slavery and Racial Equality in Europe

I was wondering why slavery was such a touchy subject for the British. I mean I watched Amistad (film) and noticed how the British portrayed on it were so against it. I know they were abolished it before America. Also I read that blacks in Europe had it better off than in America for a long time, a prince of Hawaii once wrote that a black man could sit on the bus with the Queen of England while in America he was kicked off a train because he was thought to be a slave. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:04, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The important thing here is that there are different types of slavery. For centuries the British used a form of indentured servitude or apprenticeship to accomplish similar means that chattel slavery accomplishes. "Chattel" is akin to cattle, thus a form of personal property, i.e. huamn beings owning other human beings. Chattel Slavery "proper" was never a large practice in Britain and was dogmatized in the Southern United States from the American Colonial Period to the American Civil War. As to your second question about Quality of life of blacks, there are a slew of reasons, ranging from Jim Crow Laws (most important in my opinion) to Multiculturalism (European countries are stereotypically very homogenous) to the psychological effects of Government Assistance from the Freedmans Bureau. Schyler (one language) 01:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

One thing to consider is that the British economy (that is, the economy of the Island of Great Britain, as opposed to that of Her Colonies) is not dependent on large Plantation economy like the colonies in the New World were. Several major crops (primarily rice, and sometime later cotton in the American South; sugar cane and to a lesser extent coffee in the caribbean and S. America) were dependent on having a large, cheap labor force, which is why slavery took hold in those regions, where it did not in Great Britain proper. Race-based, permanent slavery had no economic reason to exist in Great Britain, so it was easy for them to dismiss the practice. In places where it was a major part of the economy, it was harder to do so. That does not mean it wasn't an abhorrant, evil practice that had any moral justification, but it does help to understand why the practice was more tolerated in the colonies than in Europe. Great Britain was hardly "enlightened" with regard to attitudes towards other "races"; it just manifested itself in other ways besides slavery. The UK had its own race riots as late as the 1950s, so one can hardly say they had been living in a "color-blind society"... --Jayron32 02:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The British Crown also incentivized the ownership of slaves in the New World, awarding more land to family heads with more people (including slaves). Lord Baltimore at one point claimed to own over 40 million acres! Schyler (one language) 02:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The OP mentions the portrayal of slavery in a fictional film. Certainly, in the early C19 it was one area in which the British liked to think of themselves as ahead of the Americans; remember it had not been that long since the loss of the colonies. "I was wondering why slavery was such a touchy subject for the British." Have you read Slavery in Britain and Ireland? The Triangular trade brought wealth to cities such as Bristol and Liverpool, but the pressure grew for Abolitionism, aided by the legal decision of Somersett's Case, which eventually led to first the Slave Trade Act 1807 and then the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. (Also, User:Jayron32, we have articles on the Brixton Riots of the 1980s and 1990s, and the Category:Riots in England mentions the 2001 Oldham race riots as the most recent one with "race" in its title.) BrainyBabe (talk) 05:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be some rather uneven comparison of what qualifies as a "race riot", though! The Oldham riots resulted in no deaths and twenty people injured. (Note that such injury statistics for UK police officers can include being stung by a wasp or getting sunburnt.) By contrast, the 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted in 53 deaths and "thousands" injured. Our article Race riot is particularly incomplete in this respect; it lists the two UK events where no-one died, alongside a slew of historical race riots in the USA, each of which saw dozens of deaths. Keith Blakelock is notable for being someone who actually died as a result of a race riot in England (in 1985) - virtually unheard of. It's misleading to think of race riots in the UK as a city-wide orgy of lethal violence, arson and looting, as U.S. race riots seem to be. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

That's true. The British weren't that nice when it came to the Indians and Chinese during the 1800s and 1900s. But the "equal" conditions in Europe for blacks in the time when in America they were being lynched and enslaved is really intersting. To what extant were their so called equality or better treatment (more accurate word).--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The upper classes in the UK would have had servants, not slaves, once society had changed from feudalism. As far as race riots here go, for some reason we tend to go after property rather than people, although there are cases where people have died during riots (Isiah Youngsam in Birmingham is an example). We may not have had the entrenched racism of the American Deep South, but we still have had it over here. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:19, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

This book seems to have good information about the situation in 1949, when mass immigration from the Commonwealth was just beginning. Small Island by Andrea Levy gives a vivid account of the period, very well researched historical fiction. It's a TV film too. That's one of the periods when the UK seemed to have less discrimination than the USA. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:54, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Loyalist (American Revolution)#Slavery and Black Loyalists has a small amount of information relevant to this issue in the late 1700s. Supposedly a community of 10,000+ free blacks in London at that time. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

William Wilberforce, a convert to evangelical Christianity, was the driving force behind the British abolition of the slave trade; he led a mass movement against it, support coming mostly from the prosperous but deeply religious middle-classes who were scandalised by emerging details of the treatment of slaves in transit to the West Indies. It took him 20 years. Alansplodge (talk) 18:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Odd extension on the rear of an 1870s house

Can anyone guess at the function of this small addition to the rear of a preserved house in southern Indiana? You can see the exterior on the right edge of File:Jacob Rickenbaugh House, southern side and rear.jpg and on the left edge of File:Jacob Rickenbaugh House, northern end and rear.jpg — it's the partial-story element with the sloping roof. The house was built in 1874, but its remotely rural location seems to have kept it from keeping up with popular styles; for example, it has Greek Revival elements more common on buildings several decades older. Nyttend (talk) 01:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Storage? Perhaps this was a place to keep cordwood dry for burning in a fireplace or woodburning stove. --Jayron32 01:14, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

First that came to my mind was a Hideaway Hole for escaped slaves using the Underground Railroad. Schyler (one language) 01:37, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Storage of some sort, possibly low-temperature storage (thick walls and no obvious ventilation). It's far too visible to be a hiding place. --Carnildo (talk) 01:43, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It is most definitely usable for storage, and was probably built for that purpose. Yet, visibility is not necessarily bad for hiding. Sometimes something that has an obvious use may deter a would-be-slave-catcher. See these pictures.
The only other point is that the Jacob Rickenbaugh House intersects quite nicely with one of the routes in Southern Indiana on this map. Schyler (one language) 02:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there access to this from inside the house? If there isn't, storage for firewood seem plausible. Certainly no good as a hiding place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

What you can see in this image is all that I could see — I didn't go inside. The house was built in the 1870s, so the Underground Railroad isn't that likely. Nyttend (talk) 04:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the thick walls enabled it to serve as a root cellar, even though it is above-ground? BrainyBabe (talk) 05:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

1874? It looks like an icebox cellar to me. A walk-in fridge of the era. 208.54.5.230 (talk) 06:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Concurred. It's rather heavy-duty construction if it were only for keeping wood dry. On the other hand, stone walls that thick would certainly keep any animals (bears) away. Vranak (talk) 16:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. It seems to be a larder (or a pantry). --Saddhiyama (talk) 20:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

One thought that came to mind was coal storage for a coal-fired furnace. However, if it had been used for that purpose, I'd expect the walls to be blackened by the coal dust, unless it was later cleaned, perhaps by sand-blasting. StuRat (talk) 20:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

There appear to be more courses of stone visible from the outside than from the inside, so there may be a layer of dirt and debris at the bottom. It would be weird to build such a structure to protect something from bears, in the 1870's, as Vranak suggests. It would not be a convenient coal cellar, since there is no outside hatch for delivery, but that seems possible. It would have been very unhandy to have to crawl into it to get a shovel of coal from the distal end. Did that primitive house even have a coal furnace? The same problem applies to its use as a wine cellar or a fruit cellar. As a larder, it should have been easily accessible from the kitchen. It is so far out of the ground that it would not have stayed particularly cool in the summer, like a fruit cellar or springhouse might have been expected to. I note that the ceiling is huge flat stones which span the gap between the walls, rather than archwork as was common in 19th century stone structures, but they then built a roof over it, so they wanted to keep the contents dry. It sticks out like a sore thumb, so there was no goal of concealing anything from visitors. It may have been someone's folly. ("Oh, Herman! I am terrified of tornadoes! Build me a tornado proof room! Oh Herman! I am afraid of snakes! Build me a snakeproof woodshed!) Edison (talk) 03:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Surely it's for storing long things. Otherwise, it'd be a nightmare to get to the things at the end. I'd rule out the larder - you'd always be eating the things you just put in, while the older items rotted, because they're inaccessible. See LIFO and FIFO. The wood idea is attractive, because it could have been stored as longish poles, but it would be annoying having to chop the things once to put away and then again before usage. All in all... nice question. And as a rabbi I knew used to say, "A good question is better than a bad answer". --Dweller (talk) 11:00, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It could be a crypt. Maybe the builder was an Edgar Allen Poe fan, and built it to house the oblong box containing his dear departed young wife, so that he could haul it out and open it in privacy when he wished. Maybe someone in the house was afraid of premature burial and wanted a crypt which communicated with the house to contain his Safety coffin. Maybe the owner wanted to lure his enemy to the far end of it to look for a cask of amontillado, then knock him out while he bricked up the house end of the space. Maybe someone wanted a crypt which was secure against grave robbers. Edison (talk) 14:40, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It looks very much like a venison larder (Google image brings up a fair share of similar oblong looking constructions, not very spacy or bright, but it must have done the trick). While it does seem awfully prosaic compared to romantic stories about underground railroad hideaways and Gothic crypts, it does still seem like the most reasonable explanation. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

For the thing to be practical, the thing contained in it should be capable of being hauled out without having to crawl to the far end to remove coal, fruit jars, firewood, or whatever. Maybe a side of beef or venison could be on a plank so that it could be drawn out by a rope. It works better for one big thing than a lot of little things or a heap of something. A partly underground cellar would have kept meat cooler than this above ground, ambient temperature store. But I admit lots of people in the 19th century were ignorant, deluded and stupid, and might have believed that being surrounded by stones would preserve meat from spoilage. Edison (talk) 04:17, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Mu guess is an ice house or at least an ice extension. Collect big lumps of ice from a lake or river in the winter - pack it away in a thick-walled building - you have ice to hand for several months. Refrigeration was (I think) only in use in large commercial undertakings in the 1870s. Alansplodge (talk) 18:45, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It would not have worked at all well as an ice house. There is a negligible amount of insulation in a stone wall.The south view of the house shows that wall of the crypt exposed to the sun. 19th century ice houses were typically double walled with a foot-thick layer of straw as insulation. sawdust, tanbark and charcoal were also used as insulation. A drain was needed for the melt, which could have been achieved in this installation by a thick layer of gravel below. The ice would have melted quickly in a little stone enclosure without insulation. It would have needed a couple of tight-fitting doors. It would likely have had some shelves to store things which needed refrigeration. Think days, not months, if the outside temperature was warm, for blocks of ice to melt in this uninsulated structure.. If it had a foot of straw on the bottom, then some blocks of ice sawn from the frozen river, then a foot of straw all around and above, there might have been some ice for weeks after it got warm. Of course the homebuilder might have erroneously expected the stone crypt to work well as an ice house. The south view shows a big chimney in the house near it. A place to keep fuel dry and handy is certainly one possibility, but as noted above it would be awkward to crawl to the back to get out the last of the wood, and most fireplaces would not accommodate long logs stuck in it endward. Edison (talk) 19:46, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

My guess is a "cold room", for storage of vegetables over the winter. I think winter squash grows late into the autumn. But to extend the supply of such produce into the deep winter it may be useful to have what is in essence an unheated room in the house. Bus stop (talk) 20:06, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

By the 1870's it was plausible that "the iceman" came around a couple of times a week with big blocks of ice from his large and well insulated icehouse. There might once have been an interior insulating structure in this stone crypt which could hold several cubic feet of ice, and which could have been used to chill and preserve milk from a dairy operation, as well as other foodstuffs needing refrigeration, including a tight fitting door. Did the farm include many cows? A chilled milkhouse was an important 19th century part of a dairy operation. The damp could have caused this wooden and sawdust structure to rot and be removed and discarded. The suggestion of storage during the winter is also a plausible one. We have never been told any dimensions of the structure, which would be very helpful. Is there any information available from archeologists/docents/historians/conservators of the structure as to the purpose of the crypt in question? Edison (talk) 04:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The roof on the exterior pictures does not seem to match that shown on the interior picture. Was the roof designed to be opened? If so, then it may be a store for coal, firewood, or ice. I suppose that there could have been several feet of snow outside, so you may want the coal or firewood to be easily available from inside. Or it could be a root store as previously suggested. 92.29.113.104 (talk) 22:45, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

My missing Family!!

I would like to find my family that are from Plantersville South carolinia.The last name is Lance can you help me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.75.25.198 (talk) 03:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Unless they're famous, they probably won't be here. Suggest you look at ancestry.com. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Plantersville has a population of about 100 people. It is primarily a tree farm area. However, it is growing fast. If your family is "from" Plantersville in the past, there was even fewer people there in the past. There are people there with the last name Lance. In fact, the principal of Plantersville Elementary School is named Arthur Lance. -- kainaw™ 18:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Oceania

I researched a little into Monarchies in Oceania and found out some small island states that existed back in the 1800s and had their own flags. But how did these islands really exist and have their own flags examples like Eastern Island which had no central ruling chief or king even till the modern age but had a flag in 1876. I know having flags is not really a big thing but it must be a sign of attempts to modernize and to save themselves and their independence from European colonization.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 04:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Or, in the case of Hawaii, American colonization :-) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Not really, even smaller than Hawaii. Easter Island, Rurutu, Rimatara. Besides Hawaii was recognized by comtemporary powers in the Pacific while most of these other islands weren't.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

There were Kings of Easter Island for centuries, up until the nineteenth century. Kings of Tahiti as well, to name two examples. I suppose they adopted flags by copying the Europeans. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:33, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Well actually the article on wikipedia is wrong Easter Island had no central government till recent times, being ruled by different clan chiefs and all, and even then it never truly evolved into a hereditary monarchy sort of system. I suppose they copied the westerners on making flags.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 11:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

If Spain truly did conquer England in 1588, then whom did they intend for the throne?

If the Spanish Armada had succeeded with its task and conquered England in 1588, what was its plans for England then? Who would be the next English monarch after Elizabeth Tudor? I assume the Spanish intended the English crown for a Catholic, so who was the Spanish candidate? I have not been able to find it. Was whas the plan of Spain in this regard?

And, another question; what had the Spanish intended for Elizabeth herself? Did they truly intended for her to be accused of heresy? Does anyone know about the Spanish intent in these questions? They must have had a plan. Thank you. --85.226.44.158 (talk) 17:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Originally, Phillip supported Mary, Queen of Scots as the legal queen. However, she was executed in 1587. Harry Turtledove, usually good with his research, has the Infanta Isabella on the English throne in Ruled Britannia, with Elisabeth imprisoned in the Tower. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It presents an interesting problem, the article Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) indicates that the Pope gave Philip the authority to install "whomever he chose" as King of England. If he indeed had the gumption to reinstall himself as King of England (a position he previously held jure uxoris as husband of Mary I) or even to install a child of his own as King of England, one could easily imagine this sort of upset to the "balance of power" not going over well with the rest of Europe, particularly France. France always felt "hemmed in" by the Habsburgs, and if the Spanish Armada created a third Habsburg front for France, it is likely to have generated a "War of English Succession" over the move. Mary Queen of Scots would have been acceptable, she herself had been a Queen of France by marriage, and due to the Auld Alliance the French would probably have endorsed such a move; but imagine the world from the French perspective had the Armada not only been successful, but if a Habsburg scion had been placed on the English throne as well. The Armada's main goal was to end the Dutch revolts, and without English material support, it might well have done that. So, the French would have had to contend with the Habsburgs in control of Austria, the Holy Roman Empire, large swaths of Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal (don't forget that Philip II also enacted the Iberian Union when he inherited the throne of Portugal) and now England? Europe was already looking like a lonely island of France surrounded by sea of Habsburgs; a Habsburg England would have completed the isolation of France. It was in France's best interest to play England and Spain off each other; I am sure it didn't mind the idea of an Anglo-Spanish war, but the notion that Spain would install a Habsburg on the English throne didn't work all that well in their interest. --Jayron32 19:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if Mary's son James, who eventually succeeded Elizabeth anyway, would have been acceptable. He was baptised Catholic but raised Protestant and at least nominally sided with Elizabeth, but still, he could have been the next logical choice. I guess that might not have been acceptable to the Pope though. It is entirely possible that Philip would have chosen himself or another Habsburg; if France didn't like it, so what? Also, as for what would have happened to Elizabeth, she had already been excommunicated and declared a heretic by the papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, so definitely she would have been tried as a heretic. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:48, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

In any case it's not clear France was in a position to do much about it: see Day of the Barricades for an account of what was going on in Paris around that time. Looie496 (talk) 00:48, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundel? His father was a cousin of Elizabeth and had been considered as a potential husband to Mary Queen of Scots, but he was executed by Elizabeth for plotting against her. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Not my area of expertise, but is it possible 10-year-old Lady Arbella Stuart would have been the highest-ranking Catholic in the chain of succession? That would have allowed Phillip to install whoever he wanted as regent and de facto ruler. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

From what I've read of Philip's character and the way the Habsburgs tried to control their empire at the time, I don't think he would have looked beyond his mirror. --Dweller (talk) 10:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

• "Harry Turtledove, usually good with his research..." I can't take this assertion seriously, nor any conclusion based on Turtledove's works. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Why not? Of course he writes (mostly) alternate history, but he has a Ph.D. in history from UCLA, and the base history for his alternates seems unusually sound. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Black Swan

After watching that movie, I wonder, what percentage of the time does the same dancer perform both the roles of the White Swan and Black Swan in Swan Lake ? Also, do they ever appear on stage together ? (If so, I assume a stand-in is used for one or the other during those scenes.) StuRat (talk) 19:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Location of post office in Houston

Hi! I found: "Post Office™ Location - CIVIC CENTER 700 SMITH ST HOUSTON, TX 77002" But which building in Houston is it in? I haven't physically visited the area, and I can't tell which building it is in based on internet searches. WhisperToMe (talk) 22:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The courthouse building on the West corner, per Google Maps. 99.17.204.52 (talk) 23:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

So the possibilities are the Bank of America Center and the federal courthouse building.. WhisperToMe (talk) 02:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

You could always call them and ask... Their local phone number is listed on the USPS web site. Dismas|^(talk) 22:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

There are also other USPS locations in downtown Huston within a 10 block radius. Astronaut (talk) 17:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Global Economic Crisis

Probably the majority of the worlds countries now find themselves in debt to people. The debt is reaching unsustainable levels and is for some countries looking to result in sovereign bankruptcy, currency devaluation and general loss of quality of life for the countries citizens. My question is with all this debt, who is the person giving it out and does the money really exist, or is it just numbers on a computer screen. Why can't the powers that be just right off every countries debt and say "we're gonna start from scratch". Also what would happen if every country that was in debt all collectively decided to default on their payments. I mean the creditors can't force them to pay can they, because the debtors outnumber them significantly, I'd imagine. --Thanks, Hadseys 23:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Individuals, corporations, and China hold much of the debt. They certainly can default, and it might be a good thing in the long run, if nobody will loan them money to engage in reckless spending any more. However, it would cause a considerable economic crisis in the short term. StuRat (talk) 01:39, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The extent to which China owns US debt is often implied to be more than it is. They own less than $1 trillion, and just a little more than Japan.[1] 99.17.204.52 (talk) 05:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Hadseys, Do you, or does someone in your family, have a pension fund? What about a unit trust or mutual fund? Odds are, that if you do, you hold some of that debt and would be among the people who would not be paid in the event of a default. This would also apply to most financial institutions, and so they would then have trouble paying out deposits or making loans. In the end, the resulting crisis would be the worst one in recent history. Not good. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:42, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Should Congressio​nal paychecks be stopped if Debt Crisis in Washington​ DC is unresolved​, effective August 1, 2011?

How can the American Public demand that Congressioal Paychecks be stopped until the Debt Crisis in Washinton DC is solved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 001Gberg (talk • contribs) 23:42, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

This is not a discussion forum. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 00:12, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

What the American people can demand is that the rich refund all of the funds they received from the tax cuts, tax breaks and tax loopholes they were granted since the Clinton administration. These guys are worse than priests who have sex with children. DeeperQA (talk) 00:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC) |}

Yes. Edison (talk) 03:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

No? Pascal yuiop (talk) 05:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

To someone unfamiliar with the workings of American government finances, a more genuine, informational question is... Can or will such paychecks be stopped? I'm guessing the answer is no, but would like confirmation please.

I assume that you would want them to keep working after their paychecks get stopped, and that's slavery. So no. Just like any other job, they have to be paid. The level of pay can be changed, but not by an average joe. I suppose there's a committee. Pascal yuiop (talk) 06:04, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

That might be a false assumption. Some in the US (Libertarians, anarchists, taxation opponents, Idaho militias, diehard Confederates) would expect an improvement in life in the US and in the world in general if the US Congress went home and stayed there, with their paychecks and pensions stopped. There would be problems when it came time to swear in the next President and confirm his cabinet, or confirm federal judges. There could be recess appointments until the present Presidential term expired, then I expect the Executive department would wither. Of course the last couple of years under the Articles of Confederation, Congress rarely had a quorum. Those Congress member served mostly from a sense of duty and for the honor of the thing, so volunteer congressmen (or corporate sponsored ones, as is effectively the present case) could serve. State governments could do their thing. Perhaps various programs would expire when their funding bills ran out, or they might be able to continue with the same level of funding. Do funding bills for the FAA, the FBI, the NIH etc only fund a definite period, or do they leave funding indefinitely at the last budgeted level?Edison (talk) 14:26, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Congress itself would have to sign off on a bill which is unlikely as Obama vetoing it since according to him and many others Congress is not working. -- DeeperQA (talk) 06:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Deleting the hat because I'm going to try to answer the question narrowly. How can you demand that Congress do something? Well, you can call your local representative and senators' offices and say so. You won't get him or her on the phone, but their offices often tally up calls for and against proposals from constituents. You can also write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, call a talk-radio show or go to Washington and hang out outside the Capitol with a sign stating your point of view in a few words. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The nice thing about doing those things is they will distract you from the realization that you don't matter. Unless you are a large corporation who can fund the representative's re-election campaign, you'd be more effective complaining to a wall. Or bitching at a bunch of random strangers on teh interwebz. Don't ever be under the illusion that the "voters" have the ability to influence legislation. Protest if you like because it makes you feel better, but don't expect anything to come of it. --Jayron32 23:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's the cynical angle. The reality is members of Congress do (sometimes) consider how their constituents feel about an issue, and if enough of them write or call about it, it may very well influence his or her decision. Certainly there are many times when lawmakers float a policy and retract it after a lot of people get ticked off about it. It's true that you alone probably can't do anything, but if enough people do, it may make a difference. (Especially on an issue like this where there really are no monied interests involved except the members of Congress themselves.) Think about it: Why did Congress vote to deny itself a pay raise in 2009? It can't be because there was some big lobby that really cared about it, because the amount of money involved is less than a millionth of the federal budget. They did it because they thought it would anger voters if they were to take a pay hike when the economy was in shambles. And how do they know it angers voters? Because people complain about it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Especially if those people are employees of a corporation who writes a big check to a re-election campaign. Those people get to influence legislation without even knowing it! --Jayron32 00:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Corporations can't directly fund official campaigns, and big corporate PACs don't give a damn about something as minuscule as $3,000 congressional pay increases. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:46, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I did the math, and a $3,000 pay increase for members of the House of Representatives equals what the government spends in two seconds. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:50, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

(pre EC response to first point) Operative words in your statement are directly and official, which allow loopholes large enough to drive giant armored trucks full of cash through. And because corporations and their PACs don't give a damn about congressional pay, the elected representatives can enact such measures with impugnity (though they have to wait until their next election to begin collecting their self-given payraises). (post EC response to second point). Well, that's kinda moot. I wasn't commenting on just this one legislation, just legislation in general. I was just trying to correct the misconception that members of congress pass legislation (or don't pass it) based on the opinions of voters in general terms. Of course, there are some rather insignificant, minor, and unimportant things that go on in Congress which the "voters" occasionally have some influence with. But I wouldn't count on the big stuff, where most of the money gets spent, or industries get regulated, or anything like that, to be responsive to input by voters. Yeah, they throw the voters a bone once in a while to they can pretend they care. --Jayron32 00:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Have you ever worked in a legislator's office? I think your cynicism is a bit over-the-top. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It is very difficult not to be cynical and to attempt to follow politics in America for any significant length of time or in any real depth. For people that bury their heads in the sand and then poke them out every four years to vote for whichever slate of candidates hold the same opinion of gay marriage as they do; for those people it may be easier to have faith that one's elected representatives act in the rational interest of the nation and of their constituents. For people that pay close attention to what American politicans do as much as possible, it is difficult to see any general trends in that direction. --Jayron32 05:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Well I have worked in a legislative office and around legislators in various capacities and I can tell you that you have a very simplistic notion of how government works, no offense. There certainly is corruption and big-money influence, but to say that legislators never care about what their constituents think or what they think is best for their area is way off. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Well then, I defer to your superior knowledge and personal experience in this matter. It's clear that you have every reason to know more than I do; it would have been nice if you had corrected my errors earlier since it wouldn't have let me look as much like an asshole. I do trust your experience, and if you say that the government is more on the up-and-up than I make it out to be above, I trust you on that. It's heartening that you had a positive experience working with legislators, and I'm glad to here that there are trustworthy people working in the government. It's too bad that those well-meaning legislators can't work through the budget mess. They seem to be spending a lot of time campaigning for the next election, and not enough time working out a workable budget. It's perhaps my frustration with seeing that sort of behavior more than anything that led to my hyperbole above. --Jayron32 06:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Question: as I understand it, assuming no legislative action, Obama is left with two pieces of inconsistent legislation: one, budgeting many expenditures - such as Congressional salaries - and the other forbidding that any more debt be accrued. In the case of genuinely inconsistent law, wouldn't he have the right to decide which items to cut at his own discretion - such as those Congressional salaries? Wnt (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

July 27

A question about religion

Hi there everyone. I just have a quick question. See, I believe that there is a God, and that he created the universe, but he didn't create everything else. I believe He created the universe and the universe in turn created the Sun and the stars and the planets and eventually us. Is there a "taxonomic" term used for this? Any answer would be appreciated. 64.229.153.236 (talk) 02:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Though not exactly the same concept, our article on Deism may help. A Deist seems to believe in a Creator, but not a Meddler... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

See more specifically Theistic evolution, which isn't just refering to biological evolution specifically, but combines the notions of a creator God with the idea that the universe is a changing, evolving place. --Jayron32 02:19, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't the universe contain the sun, the stars, the planets? I don't understand the question. Indeed the sun, the stars, the planets had a point of inception. At Universe I find: "The universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists…" Bus stop (talk) 02:23, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe he created a huge pile of raw material and enough space for it to fit into, gave it a push, and left it all to its own devices. But that raises the question: what was there before the space was created (which to me is an even more interesting question than what there was before the raw material was created). -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

@Bus stop: Sorry, I'll make myself clearer: I was just wondering if there's any specific religion or theory that states that God created the universe, but didn't actually create the stars and the planets personally, as if the universe made its own course using chemical reactions, etc. 64.229.153.236 (talk) 03:05, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, sorry, by "created the universe" I mean he "started" the big bang. Sorry for any confusion. 64.229.153.236 (talk) 03:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

64.229.153.236—when I say I don't understand your question I mean that I cannot accept what I see as a discontinuity of events that I think you are positing. God, having initiated the universe in any way, becomes the initiator of all sub-events, by my reasoning. To my reasoning, once you say that God initiated reality, you are saying that God micromanages reality. I think you may be right that there exist theories of religion that further break down reality into that which is or was managed by God and that which is outside of God's aegis. To my way of thinking, one either accepts a theory of God in which God is and was involved in everything, or one rejects the notion of "God" altogether. Bus stop (talk) 10:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

But in a nondeterministic universe, setting the initial conditions certainly does not constitute micromanagement, and even in a deterministic universe, a nonomniscient creator isn't intentionally controlling the fine details of eventual outcomes. -- 203.82.93.98 (talk) 14:12, 28 July 2011 (UTC) (An atheist who sees where the OP is coming from.)

Maybe something at Unmoved mover or one of the many pages linked from there would be useful. Pfly (talk) 03:22, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes - there is the belief (allied with Deism, if not exactly the same thing, as I understand it) that a competant God would be quite capable of setting the necessary parameters, pressing 'Start', and then sitting back to se what happened...

"In the beginning was the Bang. And it Was Big..."

The great thing about this belief system is that not only is it unfalsifiable (most religions are), but that it tells you nothing whatsoever about God, other than that He/She/It isn't omniscient (otherwise why bother?), but is curious to learn about things, through scientific experiment. Now there's irony for you, if God turns out to be not only a scientist, but one who doesn't believe in miracles.... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Try this... don't think about how God created the Universe but God's motive for doing so. You can think of space-time and mass-energy as His tools. --DeeperQA (talk) 03:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Motive, curiosity. These already suggest cause-and-effect. Isn't God supposed to be above such things? Pfly (talk) 04:51, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

This is one of the few god concepts that could feasibly exist, but compared to the demonstrably false major world religions, it offers very little emotional comfort. Not only that, but by the very definition of the god you propose, he/she/it is beyond our detection and thus we can neither confirm nor deny its existence. Its the same with all gods, except most can be disregarded due to internal logical inconsistencies. Just don't fall into the trap of thinking that because a god could have created the universe, that that means Yahweh or Allah or aliens or His Majesty the Spaghetti Monster definitely exists. Pascal yuiop (talk) 05:37, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems hard to be curious if you are omniscient. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The theologian Baden Powell, an Anglican priest, saw god as essentially a lawgiver, who set in motion the physical laws of the universe and then confined himself to moral issues, not interfering in the physical world. DuncanHill (talk) 09:10, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Daoism may be of interest. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

That sounds very like the view of creation put forward by the author of the Kuzari. --Dweller (talk) 10:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

A very relatable concept; I too believed this. You may be interested in Naturalistic pantheism. Schyler (one language) 19:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

You might also look at Baruch Spinoza's beliefs. His God is a bit more present than a pure Deist's, but still non-interventionary. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Pfly got there before me. Aristotle philosophized the notion of the “unmoved mover,” which is that which gave the universe its first motion. Call it God, if you wish; he did not. The idea is that there was just one nudge that started the process of what we now call the Big Bang and evolution, and after that the “mover” retired. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Although surrounded by advertizing give this idea a try. --DeeperQA (talk) 22:35, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Economic simulation digital computer model

There use to be an economic simulation model it seems at Leeds University that was online back in the '80s that allowed the user to select various parameters such as percent tax and percent interest in order to model the British economy. Is that simulator still online and if not is there another one somewhere else? --DeeperQA (talk) 03:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about this particular simulation, but we have an article on an earlier attempt to model the British economy here: MONIAC Computer, it worked through hydraulics. Apparently it always tended to leak, and nobody could get it to function properly, so evidently it was entirely accurate... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:40, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

No, I meant specifically. --DeeperQA (talk) 03:46, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

USS Constitution

Why is such an obsolete ship as the USS Constitution still in service? Shouldn't it have been broken up for scrap over a century ago? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 15:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The Answer is in the third paragraph of the article: "Constitution's mission today is to promote understanding of the Navy’s role in war and peace through educational outreach, historic demonstration, and active participation in public events." Most large navies keep one or two historical ships, often sail-powered, for ceremonial and public affairs purposes. The Constitution is now basically a floating museum that promotes the US Navy. There's no thought of ever using it again for military purposes. --Xuxl (talk) 15:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

To simplify Xuxl's response, see the article marketing and come back if you have any questions. --Jayron32 16:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

To further underline Xuxl's point, yesterday I happened to cross Portsmouth Harbour (Why? To get to the other side, of course!) by the Gosport Ferry, and as always could see the masts and rigging of HMS Victory and passed close by HMS Warrior. Note also our article Museum ship. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.97 (talk) 18:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

A number of Coast Guards and Navy keep sailing ships to train their officers on. Probably more as a team building type of excercise. Rmhermen (talk) 20:49, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not just for the sake of marketing and such either. There's a morale component as well. I've toured the Constitution and took a moment to chat with the crew aboard her. Some of them have a genuine interest in history and seeing her sail. Dismas|^(talk) 22:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you break up a wooden ship for scrap? Wouldn't it be breaking it up for firewood? 88.8.79.148 (talk) 00:02, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It would be hard work for most of us, but allegedly the "harpies of the shore," whoever they are, would find it easy to tear down the tattered ensign, and then pluck apart the "eagle of the sea," as some term the wooden ship in question. Plucking apart sounds like harder work than breaking up, even though breaking up is hard to do. Actually, the Secretary of the Navy in 1830 proposed breaking up the future tourist attraction and national symbol. Similarly, in the second half of the 19th century there was consideration of tearing down the obsolete White House, or converting it to government offices, while building a more modern Presidential palace. If something makes it past the point where it is merely old fashioned and inefficient, and becomes a landmark, or national treasure, then the cost of maintaining it ceases to have much meaning. Edison (talk) 04:07, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you break up a wooden ship for scrap? Yes: "The availability of wooden vessels for breaking was therefore at its height during the second half of the nineteenth century and it would have been apparent to the astute businessman that the rapid developments taking place would create an abundant supply of seasoned timber for recycling purposes."

Is there an explanation somewhere of how a ship was actually "broken up?" Did it involve crushing it with machinery, or pulling apart planks and timbers which could be re-used for marine or shore structures, either manually or aided by steam power, or sawing it up into small pieces of firewood. or what? I heard, for instance, that John Wesley bought used ships masts from the British Navy to use as structural columns in a church in London, to hold up a balcony. I expect that there would be many usable timbers and planks, not to mention decorative carved door moldings, and windows from the captains cabin in the stern, as well as railings. Edison (talk) 19:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Why do women like men?

Not a question that I am joking about. To me, females are always neat, clean, composed of thought, smooth skinned, anatomically as well as beautiful facially compared to men.

I just don't understand why women would like men. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.88.243.39 (talk) 16:14, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

The world is a highly diverse place, and you will find a full continuum of every possible personality type among both genders. You cannot reliably make sweeping, inaccurate generalizations and then ask "why". I could say "Why do pigs fly?" If they don't, in fact, fly, there is no point in answering it. Likewise, your question presupposes something which is so totally wrong and inaccurate, the idea that all women can be pigeonholed into a specific personality, and likewise with men, that I see absolutely no need to attempt to answer it directly. --Jayron32 16:17, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

We don't like all men, only nice men. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Nor do we all like men... --TammyMoet (talk) 16:49, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I was defining "like" broadly. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:24, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

In short most women are attracted to a different set of features. In a species that engages in sexual reproduction, it is biologically necessary (with a few exceptions for unusual matting habits) for both genders of a species to be drawn to each other (at least when reproduction is possible). In humans it follows that most males are attracted to characteristics that they perceive as feminine and for most females to be attracted to perceived masculine characteristics. The extent to which these features are culturally or biologically determined is difficult to understand. There are a variety of articles you may want to take a look at to help understand attraction: Physical Attractiveness, Pair bonding and for fun, the Sexy son hypothesis. --Daniel 17:07, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It may be counterintuitive but for some baffling reason some women are attracted to some men. It could be a fluke of nature. I have a hunch women like the fact that men find them attractive, but that's just a tenuously-grounded hypothesis. Bus stop (talk) 19:02, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

But looking at guys, I find it hard to believe that anyone could find males attractive. We're so funny-looking compared to women. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Your perspective doesn't matter, if you are male. Genders are meant to like each other, otherwise, through evolution something would get pretty screwed. Both gender evolved to like each other. 88.8.79.148 (talk) 23:35, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

But looking at cute guys, I find them far more attractive than women. (And I am male). I find it hard to believe that anyone would not find them attractive, Mwalcoff. They are so muscular/sexy/handsome even compared to the best looking women! ---Lgriot (talk) 08:59, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Evolution is a short, but unsatisfying answer. But there you have it: women liking men seems to be a pattern that has been reinforced, because it leads to viable offspring, which maintain the species, etc. The internal mental quality of this 'like' is ineffable to outsiders. From my perspective, there is nothing human-specific about this question. How is it different than 'Why do peahens like peacocks?' See sexual selection and sexual dimorphism for starters. Also, keep in mind that, though we sometimes speak of 'traits of men' and 'traits of women', these are often heavily influence by culture; they are not supported by biological science (except the small set of features that are biological, such as the claim 'males have XY chromosomes' (and even that statement is problematic to some...) ). SemanticMantis (talk) 15:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

There was speculation a few years back that a gene which causes women to be attracted to more masculine men was a cause of homosexual attraction in men who inherit it. μηδείς (talk) 13:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

But what about gay men who are attracted to more feminine men? Pais (talk) 16:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought that the traditional answer is that men give women money, pay to take them out on dates, provide them with a home, support them financially, pay to raise their kids, etc. Men earn, women spend. If any woman would like to go out to work to support me while I stay at home watching daytime tv and painting my nails, please let me know. 92.29.124.70 (talk) 12:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

How to learn more about classical music

I'm a lawyer currently dating a musician (pianist/composer/aspiring film scorer) and would like to learn more about classical music. I'm not really an idiot about it - I played classical piano for ten years growing up (more modern-era than classical-era, but "classical" as in not jazz etc) - but I have never really listened to symphonic music much and have big gaps in my music knowledge. I'd like to learn more but I'm not sure of the best way to go about it. Is there an engaging book on the history of music you would recommend? This one at Amazon looks promising. Even with that though I think it would be really limited in terms of listening. I guess I could go to youtube and pull up representative clips as I read, but that seems like a big hassle. Is there a series of documentaries like Burns' jazz documentary that would give me a good introduction? Interactive resources? Any other ideas? Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Yale University offers the course MUSI 112 Listening to Music by Craig M. Wright as a free course (audio, video, and transcript) here. If you follow this along with the companion book, you should be able to learn a lot. I also enjoyed Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, some of which are out on DVD. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

That online course looks really promising, thanks! Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

In my senior year in high school (before I went to university where I dropped my Music Composition Major) I read Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy. Even without the basis on music, it was one of the best books I've ever read. Very well written and suited for any person, regardless of his or her musical training. I would also suggest looking at the articles contained in Template:History of European art music. You could maybe even memorize the order and the placement of "big names," i.e. Bach: Baroque; Mozart: Classical; Beethoven: Romantic, ad infinitum. Schyler (one language) 19:29, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

There have been several similar queries previously here. I don't know whether reading the threads would be of any help. Deor (talk) 11:26, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

You could just find a stream/station that you like, and whenever a particularly good piece comes on, you could look up the composer's wiki article, or the piece in particular -- it may have one if it's really popular. Vranak (talk) 02:56, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Duas for Ramadhan

Someone told me that during the holy month of Ramadhan, there are three duas for each week like the second week of Ramadhan is seeking forgiveness? Sorry if my question is not understandable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.16.195 (talk) 20:08, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Statistics and discrimination

Suppose that a company chooses mainly people from college X, and that college X has a tendency to attract a certain kind of people (depending on their race, economical background or whatever). At the end, this company would have hired proportionally many graduates of certain social groups, even if not discriminating directly. Could this company be accused of discrimination due to this statistical effect? Quest09 (talk) 21:03, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

They are discriminating directly. How do you know they aren't choosing college X because it only attracts the sort of people it wants to hire? Your description of events sounds like Willful blindness, that is to deliberately arrange events so as to establish Plausible deniability in the event someone calls you to the floor for the results of your actions "See, we're not discriminating against women, we just hire from colleges that are 90% male!" People and companies have a responsibility to ensure that the outcomes of their actions are just and fair; anyone can come up with excuses after the fact as to why their actions didn't produce fair results. Good people have the foresight and responsibility to ensure that fair results are produced always. --Jayron32 21:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Under British law, that would constitute "indirect discrimination", which is illegal. --Tango (talk) 21:59, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

There's certainly nothing illegal in the U.S. about favoring graduates of a certain college in hiring. It's not uncommon for people to get jobs because they went to the alma mater of the guy doing the hiring, like the guy who competed with Homer Simpson for the nuclear plant job in a flashback episode. However, if your office is in downtown Detroit and your staff includes 100 white people and no blacks, it won't look good to the EEOC if someone does accuse you of discrimination. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:04, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

This question reminds me of a big ruckus that was raised a few years back when a newspaper pointed out that the local baseball team was the whitest in the league. It turns out the relative lack of Hispanic players was because the team preferred to sign college players over teenagers, and few Dominican prospects go to U.S. colleges. The ruckus was mainly directed at the newspaper for even bringing it up. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:06, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that it's always discrimination. If a company hires mainly mechanical engineers, it will be hiring mainly men, and it doesn't matter from where it takes the candidates. On a further note, I don't know if a company has to keep a balance among people from certain social groups. That would be mostly a form of positive discrimination. Anyway, AFAIK, unless the company admits the discrimination explicitly (at least in some internal report) in most cases the law maker will let them go away with it. 88.8.79.148 (talk) 23:09, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

There are no government-mandated minority quotas in the private sector, generally, but having an unusual lack of women or blacks or whatever could be used as evidence -- along with other stuff -- by a plaintiff or complainant trying to make a case that your company discriminated against that person. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Except it doesn't always work like that in the real world. For example, chemists and chemical engineers are still overwhelmingly male in the UK, especially as you go higher up the ladder. However, Loreal got in trouble with gender discrimination laws in the EU because their research and development team, made up mostly of chemists and chemical engineers, was overwhelmingly female. In fact, the whole company was overwhelmingly female, from scientists to engineers to testers to managers, etc. They had to put a positive effort in to recruit men, to avoid being fined. So, despite the gender balance of the overall pool of chemists and chemical engineers, the company was attracting and recruiting almost entirely women. And then had to work to recruit men.

Anyone who's worked in industry knows that there are companies that certain groups can feel comfortable applying to and working for, and others where you are just never going to feel comfortable and will have to fight for every inch. Some people are happy being trailblazers: most people want to work somewhere that they can feel welcome and safe. And people pursue education based on the sort of jobs they think people like them can get and enjoy. Some companies reach out to teenagers by showing them possible careers in science and engineering.

And, on a smaller scale, in my year, at my university, in my engineering discipline, there was a good proportion of women. This was not the case at other universities, or in the years above us, or in the other engineering disciplines. Our department had done something in its promotions, and in its open days, to make us feel this was a good choice for us, so we picked that university. There were lots of little factors, but I think it helped that they included female students in the teams of students that showed us around, even though they were a low percent of the total student body, and we saw female teaching and research staff, even though (again) they were a low percent of the total. They were visible, so we could see they were there and mattered. There were lots of other little things that they did that made it feel a safe and exciting option, all of which really showed that they were getting something deeper right. So, we voted with our feet and clustered there.

So, actually, if your company is only or overwhelmingly diaproportionately recruiting men, or white people, or the able bodied, you probably are doing something wrong without knowing it. As a result, you're only recruiting the people who want to work somewhere that gives off such a hostile message to other groups. Some places have legislation against that: others just let such groups wither away. 86.164.73.187 (talk) 23:07, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

time

I am not much more then old school education, thus not real smart, Who decided to start the anno dominon calendar? Also before that time, what year was it really. I,m sure the people ten years before did not know about B.C. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.74.206.14 (talk) 21:28, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Our article on Anno domini says it was all started in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus. Hope this helps. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:54, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

And before that, and for quite a long time after that, since the Anno Domini system didn't catch on for a few hundred years, there were other ways of measuring time. In the Roman Empire they often used Ab urbe condita, from the foundation of the city of Rome (assumed to be 753 BC), or dated the year by the names of that year's consuls. An early Christian system was anno mundi, from the creation of the world (I think that was 5509 BC, at least according to the measurement used by the Byzantine Empire). People also often used a more recent date like the beginning of the rule of a pope or a king (in which case the date would be given as "in the fifth year of X's papacy", for example). Adam Bishop (talk) 06:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

We English folks like to give the credit to the Venerable Bede; "Although Bede did not invent this (AD) method, his adoption of it, and his promulgation of it in De Temporum Ratione, his work on chronology, is the main reason why it is now so widely used". Alansplodge (talk) 18:04, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

His adoption of it and his promulgation of it? That's two reasons. Shouldn't that 'is' be an 'are'? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Ethics with Mac and Virtualbox computing

To do some high school bioinformatics research project, we plan to make an iPhone app relative to our research. We need a Mac to create apps for the iPhone; if we just use Flash, we are limited in what we can program. However, being the computer specialist he is, he says he can obtain the Mac OS online, which Apple purposely released. We would put it into the VirtualBox, which would run the program on our computer in one window, and we could practically use a Mac on a Windows 7 computer. Would the scientific community frown on this? What are your thoughts on the ethics? Thanks for your input! --DSbanker (talk) 22:03, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It's almost certainly illegal, and the scientific community almost certainly wouldn't give a hoot. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

If he's acquiring Mac OS online, he's almost certainly pirating it. (Unless he's "obtaining" it by ordering a copy from Amazon.com, or something).

The legality of using MacOS on a computer that is not Mac-branded is disputed. It is against Apple's terms of service, but there's a good deal of debate as to how much legal weight that carries. It probably depends on which nation you live in, and I don't think it's ever been tested in court, anyway. (See : Hackintosh )

But I agree with Stephan that the scientific community won't care too much. Especially if you're using a paid copy of the OS and not one you just nabbed from The Pirate Bay or something. APL (talk) 22:27, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Apple disclosed it publicly here. --DSbanker (talk) 22:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed your link. Hope you don't mind. Dismas|^(talk) 22:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!--DSbanker (talk) 22:37, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

No they didn't. They used Open source componants when making the operating system. And they're forced to release their version of the source for those packages. (And they've done so, at the link you provided.)

But there's not enough there to make a working MacOS computer. You need the entire package for that. You need to buy that.

This seems to be a common misconception. I'm not sure why. APL (talk) 23:42, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

You might also have a problem with Flash on an iPhone. See iPhone#Internet connectivity (ref). Astronaut (talk) 17:22, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe you're mistaken for most of 'And they're forced to release their version of the source for those packages.' Some of it is GPL which they are indeed forced to release. Some of it may be other licences which they are forced to release. However most of it is Apple Public Source License only, which was clearly not something many developers were using and while some licences may require release but allow it to be released as APSL only I don't think there are any common ones. Note that while they did use BSD code, they are/were not required to release the source code since it is not a copyleft licence. And although their stated reason for APSL is to give back to the community, I doubt BSD (or other permissive licence) advocates found what they released under APSL particularly useful since it's partially copyleft and BSD advocates generally dislike copyleft more then Microsoft does (who afterall now have such a licence themselves), although perhaps they find it marginally better then what Microsoft have done, who have also used some BSD code but not generally released much source code back under any open licence. That may be partially why OpenDarwin was so unsuccessful it died a lonely death and PureDarwin is I don't think having much more success. I believe Apple did release some code under a BSD licence at one stage. Nil Einne (talk) 02:55, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

July 28

Morphological taxonomy of jokes

When you search online for a "joke database", what you find are relatively brief, haphazard lists of entries, in no particular order, organized (if you're lucky) according to broad thematic categories like "Irish" or "mother-in-law" which are usually irrelevant and inessential to the underlying humor. Folklorists have long organized stories into systematic taxonomies, according to shared features, motifs, etc. As a result, when you wish to look up a fairy tale, there's a straightforward way to do it. Why has the same sort of rigor never been applied to cataloguing jokes? LANTZY^TALK 01:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Because it's impossible? As our Joke article implies, there is only one joke: that the universe always turns out to be different from what we expect it to be. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Jokes are shorter in length. Their meaning is somewhat cryptic. You are pointing out above that "Irish" or "mother-in-law" as an organizing principle are "usually irrelevant and inessential to the underlying humor." Perhaps this disagreement as to their essential meaning frustrates "cataloguing" jokes. Bus stop (talk) 01:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

There are people who study jokes in the same way that folklorists study tales; I'm not sure they've put their categorizations online, though. Google books turns up The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes which goes into some detail in providing a rigorous framework for talking about joke structure. There are lots of other things that come up when you Google Books search for "joke taxonomy" which implies there is a rather rich literature on jokes. It just might not be online. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:59, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Here is a breakdown of jokes by broad type (pun, practical joke, ethnic jokes, etc.) This page breaks down jokes into 7 types (page down about 2/3rds through the blog post) and also quotes a Scott Adams treatment of the subject as well. Here is an actual scholarly article breaking down jokes taxonomically as Lantzy requested. Here is an essay classifying jokes by their structure. I typed "Types of jokes" into Google and got bored after the second page. I'm sure anyone else could do that too.... --Jayron32 02:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be that you need multiple dimensions to classifying jokes. For example, a pun or slapstick could both be clean or both be blue. You might also want to grade them on difficulty to understand. Then there's the subject matter, like bosses, for example. StuRat (talk) 02:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that one could sort jokes in any way that suits one's fancy, as long as there is an underlying logic—an organizing principle. Bus stop (talk) 02:21, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

But that is the point: there is no ″organizing principle″ to jokes, other than that they fit into the category 'joke', as opposed to the category 'not-joke'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Did you even think to read some of the references supplied above before commenting, or is this itself an attempt at a joke? --Jayron32 02:36, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I did. None of them give any real indication of how you distinguish a 'joke' from a 'non-joke' as far as I can see, so they can be of little use for sub-categorisation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me that distinguishing jokes from non-jokes isn't the issue here: as far as I can see, the issue is distinguishing some jokes from other jokes by identifying characteristics found throughout the first group but not at all in the second. Nyttend (talk) 03:01, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Why would you have a "non-joke" in a taxonomy of jokes? APL (talk) 03:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Just as a joke someone might throw in one non-joke in a taxonomy of jokes. Bus stop (talk) 03:34, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but unless there is some means of separating 'jokes' from 'non-jokes', a taxonomy makes no sense. To quote from our taxonomy article: "Mathematically, a hierarchical taxonomy is a tree structure of classifications for a given set of objects. It is also named Containment hierarchy. At the top of this structure is a single classification, the root node, that applies to all objects". Until one can define the root ('Joke'), one cannot make further distinctions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:43, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Wrong. We subdivide "information" many ways, but information scientists have never come up with a conclusive definition of "information" or a bright line to separate what is "information" from what is not "information". Nyttend (talk) 03:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

...As anyone who has ever had a debate with Bus stop will understand. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:32, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

My apologies to Andy for my impeccable logic on those rare occasions we've disagreed… Bus stop (talk) 10:58, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but perhaps one could be both joke and not-joke at the same time. Like "AndyTheGrump is a joke" insofar as AndyTheGrump is worthy of ridicule. However, since jokes are by definition a form of humor, and AndyTheGrump has no sense of humor, AndyTheGrump is also a not-joke. Thus, simultaneously a joke and not-joke at the same time... --Jayron32 04:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

We have a several articles on the classification and categorisation of humour - see Category:Humor research. A classic work is Freud's The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious. There is even an International Society for Humor Studies. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Another interesting article is In-joke as well as Category:In-jokes. Bus stop (talk) 14:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

The book you need is Rationale of the Dirty Joke by Gershon Legman (and, with luck, the second book titled, No Laughing Matter, which is currently out of print (iirc). I do not doubt that it is the most thorough and scholarly (and heavy!) attempt at cataloguing jokes. Rather than developing an entirely new schema, Legman mostly makes use of the existing folkloric schemes to do the cataloguing. The one drawback to the volume(s) is that Legman was a capital "F" Freudian, so a lot of his analysis consists of strained attempts to link jokes to "penis envy", "the Oedipal complex" and other stuff you think about when you think of a stereotypical Freudian psychologist. I believe he mostly uses the Aarne system. Matt Deres (talk) 14:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Fine. I'll accept that is possible to compile a taxonomy of jokes. In fact, it is probably possible to compile many different taxonomies of jokes. Which then leads to the obvious question. How does one determine that one such taxonomy is any better than any other? How does one ascertain that any particular taxonomy isn't arbitrary? A taxonomy may be useful for the purposes of understanding the thought processes of the compiler, but I can see no way to determine if it has any particular relation to the subject matter. Still, taxoniomies can be fun, even if they are useless (and being fun is itself 'useful', presumably): I think we should leave the last word to Jorge Luis Borges, who revealed the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge's Taxonomy, a list which divides animals into:

• Those that belong to the emperor
• Embalmed ones
• Those that are trained
• Suckling pigs
• Mermaids (or Sirens)
• Fabulous ones
• Stray dogs
• Those that are included in this classification
• Those that tremble as if they were mad
• Innumerable ones
• Those drawn with a very fine Brush
• Et cetera
• Those that have just broken the flower vase
• Those that, at a distance, resemble flies

AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

All taxonomies are abitrary. They are not always useful. Like you: arbitrarily not useful in answering the question for the OP. However, merely because you choose to reference an unuseful taxonomy doesn't mean that all taxonomies aren't useful. Like you again: Just because you as a single example of someone answering this question doesn't provide a useful answer doesn't mean that, by extension, no person could answer the OP's question. Likewise, providing examples of bad taxonomies doesn't in itself deny the possibility of constructing a useful taxonomy. --Jayron32 14:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Nobody is claiming that the taxonomy of jokes would be a "natural" category, e.g. one that presents itself as being made by nature itself. (Species, for example, might be a natural category, but that's debatable.) That doesn't mean having a taxonomy can't be useful. The first Linnean taxonomy for plants was totally self-consciously arbitrary, but it served the purpose of letting people in different places figure out a good way to tell each other, "hey, we have the same plant over here, but we call it XYZ rather than ZYX." Which aside from being really cool is also the first step in making any kind of systematic study. Saying "it can't be categorized at all" is just false, false, false. You can categorize anything. Whether the categorization is useful is generally the most important question. I see no reason to assume you can't make a useful categorization of jokes. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The most natural categorization of jokes would involve two basic categories: funny and not funny. The former then could be divided into subcategories such as: mildly funny, quite funny, very funny, hilarious... — Kpalion^(talk) 05:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem with that is that it's highly subjective (different people like different types of jokes). On the other hand, whether the joke is about some subject (say blondes, for example) is more objective. StuRat (talk) 05:34, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Citing the Federal Reporter

I'd like to cite a ruling by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana from the Federal Reporter, a publication of which I'd never heard until looking around at http://ftp.resource.org, the source for the document. Since the text is also available from Lexis-Nexis, I tried getting a citation from there, but it would only export in a format that my computer can't accept. However, it did tell me that the opinion went from page 1112 to page 1117. Do I guess rightly that it would be <999 F.2d 1112-1117>? Nyttend (talk) 03:15, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Full citation including title (which can be omitted if given in text), and assuming no subsequent history (e.g., affirmed or reversed on appeal), would be United States v. Gerber, 999 F.2d 1112 (7th Cir. 1993). John M Baker (talk) 03:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

And if you want to cite a certain page number (for a quote or a proposition of law), you'd say United States v. Gerber, 999 F.2d 1112, __ (7th Cir. 1993). [Filling in the blank with the page number.] Though the pagination of that version of the document is strange - don't know what was going on there. There is no subsequent history, so don't worry about that. (The Supreme Court denied certiorari, but it's far enough out that you are not required to put it in the citation.) And by the way, the "publication" of the Federal Reporter mainly exists in a virtual sense these days - basically all legal research is done online so it functions more as a database identifier than anything else. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:51, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

ICJ Statute again (article 54)

Sorry for asking for helps about ICJ Statute again. Article 54 of the Statute prescribes:

"1. When, subject to the control of the Court, the agents, counsel, and advocates have completed their presentation of the case, the President shall declare the hearing closed.

"2. The Court shall withdraw to consider the judgment.

"3. The deliberations of the Court shall take place in private and remain secret. "

I don't understand that what shall be withdrawn by the Court or from what the Court shall withdraw? In procedural law, "withdrawal" is an act of removing certain pleading, such as motion, plaint, request etc., from consideration. Or does Article 54, paragraph 2, mean that the Court shall withdraw itself from everything in order to further make a judgment? Thank you so much. --Aristitleism (talk) 12:46, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Surely it just means that the Court (i.e. the relevant officials) move from a public space (the courtroom in which the case is publicly conducted) to a private one where their discussions cannot be overheard by anyone else? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.2 (talk) 12:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, one of the meanings for the verb "withdraw" given in a dictionary is to "retreat or retire", in this case to a private place of deliberation. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 12:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

And the ladies of the household used to withdraw to the (with)drawing room after dinner, leaving the gentlemen to port and cigars at the table. Bielle (talk) 21:02, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Withdraw is not a legal term. It means to change rooms.
Sleigh (talk) 12:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

special needs/developmental delays

which conditions cause excessive, difficult to control drooling and release of mucus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.156.10.10 (talk) 14:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Whichever ones your doctor tells you do. --Jayron32 14:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Reference Desk cannot provide medical advice. However, if you are just looking for general information, we have a articles on drooling and hypersalivation. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:41, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

"release of mucus" from where? --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Calomel is a poisonous mercury compound which 19th century medical doctors loved to dose their patients with as a quack treatment for anything from cancer or heart disease to infections to broken limbs. They would dose the patient in increasing amounts until they saw excessive, difficult to control drooling. It also caused teeth to fall out, besides general poisoning. This is not medical advice, just a link to one historical cause of excessive drooling. Edison (talk) 18:47, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

any condition that increases parasympathetic nervous system activity will result in increased salivary and mucous production. So the use of certain cholinergic drugs would have the effects you describe. - Nunh-huh 19:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't this debt crisis "solution" cause massive inflation?

Over at CNN in this article, the guy says one theoretical (though admittedly extremely unlikely) thing the president could do, seeing as there are laws limiting the amount of new paper money that can be created, is get the treasury to make a couple $1 trillion platinum coins, deposit them in the federal reserve, and write checks on them. Wouldn't that cause an inflation mess just like making the paper money? 20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:29, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It is a joke. There is no such thing as a law limiting money made from a thin cellulose substance but allowing unregulated production of money made from a metallic substance. Regardless, adding money to a system decreases the value of money in the system. It doesn't how or why you add money to the system. -- kainaw™ 17:21, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Not such a joke, if a Constitutional law professor is to be believed: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/28/balkin.obama.options/Edison (talk) 03:26, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The "little known statute" is here in section k. Note that section k is bound by the previous sections - especially section a which states what denominations are allowed. Taking statutes out of context is a common law joke. -- kainaw™ 20:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

My favorite "law joke" made by taking statute out of context is the one that notes how the Constitution of the United States repeatedly says "Congress shall pass no law". Apparently, the current congress agrees. Blueboar (talk) 22:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Issuing a few trillion dollar platinum coins, or giving the Federal Reserve an "exploding option" or just announcing the debt ceiling law is unconstitutional are all on the table as tricks if Congress continues to be irresponsible. Having told Obama to spend money, now they refuse borrow to pay the bills. The 14th Amendment requires the government not to default on debt payments. Edison (talk) 19:32, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Creation of physical coins/bills would surely be pointless, since nowadays most money is only represented by electronic records - about 90% currently in the USA according to that linked article. Arbitrarily increasing the numbers in those records is a recognised economic tactic, described as Quantitative easing (and in part is intended to cause slightly higher inflation, which can be a good thing), but to my limited, non Usaian understanding doing this would be irrelevant to the current problem, which is the need to increase the US Government's arbitrary ceiling on its public debt. I leave it to more knowledgable responders to address the point properly. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.2 (talk) 17:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)-

Are you aware that Usaian is derogative? Is that your intention?Quest09 (talk) 21:17, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Wut? Assuming you mean 'derogatory', who considers it so, on what basis, where, and since when? It's a pretty handy short adjective for specifying something from the USA, rather than all Americans, when there is likely to be confusion. It is also sometimes used as a noun to describe people from the USA, in similar circumstances, although here it was simply an adjective clarifying that the writer was not speaking from the perspective of or from the USA. Words certainly can turn out to have unexpected derogatory meanings, but I struggle to see how this one could. 86.164.73.187 (talk) 22:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Quest09, I was not intending to be derogative, was not aware that anyone would consider the term derogative, and question whether that is true. I have seen it used both self-referentially by US citizens and by non-USA citizens on other sites where no offense was evidently intended or taken, and not infrequently refer to myself as an Ukian or Brit on these Desks and elsewhere. I have always interpreted all such usages as being informally friendly and useful alternatives to the more formal, longer and sometimes ambiguous alternatives. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.43 (talk) 00:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I live in USA and have never heard the slightest suggestion that "USAian" is "derogative". (Or even derogatory.) I know many USA nationals who use that term or other close variants regularly without any hint of hidden meaning. In fact, it's usually used in an attempt to be "Politically Correct" because, strictly speaking, "American" could include anybody living on either American continent. (This is especially true if you're speaking of non-humans. "American Plants", for example, need not grow in USA.)

Is this some right-wing anti-PC thing? Do you have a reference? APL (talk) 09:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I got it wrong, my fault, sorry. Indeed, I had a ref, but, as I know now, not a reliable one. See anyway USAian and USian for two cases of Internet research gone wrong.Quest09 (talk) 12:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I don't find it derogatory per se, but it does suggest a chip on the shoulder of the speaker. The only common meaning of American in English, in most contexts, is of or pertaining to the United States. In certain contexts, of or pertaining to the Americas is also available, but this meaning is clearly less common. Speakers who decline to use the word in the commonly understood way give the impression that they object to the language as it stands, and it seems likely that they do so because of some sort of animus towards the United States or its citizens. I'm sure that impression is not always correct, but in my experience it's a reasonably reliable inference in most cases. --Trovatore (talk) 00:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That's surely paranoia. A language pedant may be concerned about the common way residents of the USA use the language, but may like every other aspect (or at least many other aspects) of American life. To read inferred criticism of language usage as "some sort of animus towards the United States or its citizens" is hardly sensible. It always intrigues me that so many people from the country with the most power act so defensively. HiLo48 (talk) 02:14, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That is certainly possible, for an abstract hypothesized language pedant. It is not my experience that they are the most common people to talk like that. --Trovatore (talk) 02:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, In fairness, I've only seen it in typed, online writing, so it's popularity may have less to do with being a pedant, and more to do with saving a couple of characters. I like the pedant explanation better though. Especially when the term is not being used to describe humans. APL (talk) 04:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

If we did have massive inflation, then all the debt would shrink to nothing, problem solved. 92.29.124.70 (talk) 12:59, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

O. J. Simpson case

I still don't get how the case end up that way. Was he actually a murderer? If he is then why the jury found no guilty. If he is not then who actually killed the 2 victims?Trongphu (talk) 18:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems useful to answer here in generalities: US law (and that of many other nations) operates on the basis of the presumption of innocence; the legal burden of proof rests on the prosecution and not the defendant. From there, the legal system (at least in the US) has only two real possibilities: conviction, where the court finds the defendant guilty, and acquittal, where the court does not find the defendant guilty. Note particularly that acquittal is not a statement that the court has positively found the defendant innocent: he is presumed such, not proven such. Note also that the court verdict need not reflect reality; it merely represents the finding that the legal system will use. So, back to specifics: Simpson was acquitted; therefore, in the eyes of the legal system, he is not a murderer. As there has been no conviction for those murders, the legal system does not know who the killer is. Personal beliefs and speculation vary widely. — Lomn 19:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

The legal system does not know who the killer is beyond a reasonable doubt, but apparently does by a preponderance of the evidence, given that OJ lost the civil case. --Trovatore (talk) 21:28, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Right — it's worth remembering that there were two cases, but they had different standards of guilt based on the fact that one was a criminal case and one was a civil case. From a non-criminal court perspective, there is really no doubt that O.J. did it, something which the civil case verdict reaffirmed. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

O. J. Simpson murder case might be of interest. Albacore (talk) 20:45, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

As i read the the whole case. The prosecutor has proven a lot of points that Simpson did it. How can he even be innocent?174.20.71.229 (talk) 00:27, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

He does not have to be innocent in order to be acquitted. The jurors themselves may have believed it was likely he was the murderer, but decided that there was reasonable doubt based on the information it received during the trial. O.J. even wrote a book, long after the trial, titled If I Did It which discusses how he would have committed the crime, without actually admitting to doing it. --Daniel 00:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Also bear in mind the trial lasted over 8 months. Whatever you read, I somewhat doubt you really read the whole case as represented in the 8 month trial. (The jury only spent 4 hours delibirating suggesting they were already fairly convinced the case hadn't been proven beyond resonable doubt, either that or they just wanted it to end.) Another thing if you read anything which wasn't part of the original case, whether because it was excluded, not available at the time or simply considered irrelevent, you also clearly aren't considering the whole case but stuff beyond the case which the jury did not (or should not) have considered. Nil Einne (talk) 02:32, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

There was plenty of evidence, if they took it at face value. They obviously thought the behavior of law enforcement was so suspicious, the chain of custody of physical evidence so sloppy (if not fraudulent), the testimony of some important law enforcement officers so hard to believe, that they didn't take it at face value, and as I recall I didn't think they were totally out of line on that point.

I remember one member of the public, interviewed later, saying "the police framed a guilty man". --Trovatore (talk) 02:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

On that point, one more thing to bear in mind is reading probably doesn't have the same effect as seeing a police officer say one thing and then being presented with evidence suggesting he lied/committed perjury. More so if you're already aware of some details of the case. In other words, even if you did read the complete jury transcript for the 8+ month trial, it probably wouldn't have the same effect as having been on the jury during the trial Nil Einne (talk) 03:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The verdict was a result of poor instruction upon and application of the principle of reasonable doubt, as well as of Ito's allowing an implied positive defense (drug dealers did it) without requiring entering evidence in support of that supposition. Given the full context of the evidence it was unreasonable to conclude anything but that Simpson was guilty of first degree murder. The fact that one could, with a fertile faculty for fantasy, imagine how each bit of evidence could have been faked is not reasonable doubt--it is imaginary doubt. The problem is epistemological, and widespread in the modern judicial system. μηδείς (talk) 13:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Juries (in the US at least) don't need a reason to acquit. A judge can overturn a conviction on the grounds that the standard of proof wasn't met, but can't overturn an acquittal on the grounds that it was met. It could easily be that all the jurors agreed that OJ's guilt had been proven, which meant they had to choose between (a) jailing a proven murderer (and tacitly approving the actions of the LAPD) or (b) reprimanding the LAPD (and letting a proven murderer loose). They might have decided that (b) was the more socially responsible choice. -- BenRG (talk) 20:51, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Which would be an example of jury nullification. (not commenting on whether this was the case, just providing a link for the original poster.)Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

That's not nullification as I ordinarily understand it, which has to do with a jury refusing to convict because they don't agree with the law, or sometimes because they sympathize with the defendant's actions in the particular circumstances even if they don't want to overturn the law in general. It's related, though. --Trovatore (talk) 02:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like the US need a Not proven verdict, like the Scots. Mitch Ames (talk) 07:03, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Why? That's what our not guilty verdict is, really, so it seems redundant. What you could argue for is to allow juries to make a finding of factually innocent, in exceptional cases where it is clear that the defendant really did not do it. Extending the speculation a little further, such a verdict could then forclose the possibility of a civil suit on the same facts. But I don't think it would really work, because the rules of evidence are different in criminal cases, so a criminal jury could be misled into thinking there's nothing there when really some evidence had to be excluded. --Trovatore (talk) 10:04, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Sulla

According to our article on Lucius Cornelius Sulla, he had a daughter I believed named Cornelia Fausta. Did she die young? Who might have sent Sulla a consolatory letter upon her death?--Christie the puppy lover (talk) 19:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

She married the politician Titus Annius Milo, so she must have reached at least the teenage years (the average age for a Roman girl getting married was apparently 13 or 14). --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

In the article it is even stated that she married Milo in 54 BC, and Sulla died in 78 BC, which means she must have lived to at least 24 years of age, and was most likely some years older since she was daughter of the third wife of Sulla, and he had four wives in all. So no, she did not die young and she died decades after Sulla. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:59, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Anybody or nobody may have sent him a consolatory letter. Do we even know if the Romans had such a custom? Their ideas about death were quite different from ours - see Roman funerals and burial. They might have written an epitaph? Anyway, my reading of it is that if anyone would have done, it would likely have been a member of the family. --Dweller (talk) 10:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It was a major literary genre in Roman times, see Consolatio Literary Genre. Seneca particularly excelled in it. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The OP asked about people sending letters, not making eulogies. I didn't know that this had developed into letter-sending... and if it did, is there any evidence it developed as early in Roman history as Sulla's time? --Dweller (talk) 11:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

From the article "...its origins date back to the fifth century BC" and it "...is a broad literary genre encompassing various forms of consolatory speeches, essays, poems, and personal letters". It is not a clearly definable genre though, since the public sphere and publication is not easy to delineate in Roman times, so personal letters and literary genre tend to overlap. But perhaps one can compare them in some ways with the modern condolence card (not the content, which of course is quite simple compared to the ancient examples, many of which reads like philosophical essays, but rather in the intent of the medium), which is both a personal message but can also be meant for a wider audience. For example it is quite clear that many personal letters, like the those of Cicero, Pliny the Younger, Horatius and Seneca was also meant for a wider audience, but that doesn't mean that they didn't also function as personal letters in their own right. As you can see from many of the examples mentioned in the article, there are also numerous examples of persons outside of the close family sending consolation letters to friends or relatives of friends (Seneca, Pliny, Ovid, Plutarch etc.). --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:17, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Buckingham palace

What do the 450 staff at Buckpal actually do? 92.24.133.177 (talk) 19:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

This site should help you. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

So they are all looking after the Royal Family? 92.24.133.177 (talk) 19:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

No. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:18, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

According to the site above, there are 1,200 staff members (450 funded by UK taxpayers, who apparently have to vent their anger at the WK RD.)88.8.79.148 (talk) 20:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Some of my compatriots would be happier if visiting heads of state were taken to McDonalds for a Happy Meal. Alansplodge (talk) 21:24, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Are they all UK based? They seemed to be so forthright in their views that I always got the impression they weren't (I meant enough republicans here, none prepared to burn the palace down, so to speak). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:28, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, McDonalds, a hallowed British culinary institution. I'm sure Mrs Beeton would have recommended it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 21:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Take them down to the local takeaways for some Fish and chips? Nil Einne (talk) 02:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, what do the 1200 or 750 staff actually do? Seems rather a lot to look after one family, albeit extended. 92.29.113.104 (talk) 09:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Rather than persisting with asking random people here the same question, why not look at the site that gives you the answers? For example, "The Master of the Household’s Department... is responsible for all hospitality, catering and housekeeping arrangements for official and private entertaining at all the Royal residences. Whether it is a lunch for two or a banquet for 800, the Master of the Household’s Department organises everything, from the guest lists and seating plans to the preparation and service of the meal on the day...." Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:59, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

That only accounts for 250 staff. What about the other 950, 500, or 200 people? 92.29.113.104 (talk) 10:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Largest component is security and facilities management. The estate is quite large and given the age needs a fair amount of quite manual work to keep it going. Other than that there is the usual element of running a business; finance, HR, commercial, ICT, admin.

From experience of a job I did with a client a couple of years ago that had some dealings with the household, they're woefully inefficient so there is some scope for rationalisation. Not as much as one might hope given the facilities management element.

Also worth noting that the facilities and security encompass the various other properties as well.

ALR (talk) 10:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

How do the staffing levels compare with up-market hotels? Which chains of hotels have similar numbers of staff? 92.29.113.104 (talk) 10:39, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

oldest website

What is the oldest website on the Internet? Neptunekh2 (talk) 20:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

See here (http://info.cern.ch/) "The first web page address was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html, which centred on information regarding the WWW project." ny156uk (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Flashback

Hi. What are some classic books (novels, not plays) or short stories that handle flashbacks very well OR in an unexpected and remarkable way? I know this is an opinion-like uestion that you don't like having, but I just need some ideas to get myself going. :appreciation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.111.11.75 (talk) 20:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Here's a start at flashback. Bielle (talk) 20:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

TV Tropes has its characteristic cornucopia of examples at its main Flashback article. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Might I recommend The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner. Also Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Both are written in a sort of "stream of consciousness" style and make use of flashbacks as part of that style. --Jayron32 06:36, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks uses an unusual chronological ordering to bring the story to it's climax. Astronaut (talk) 11:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Many novels by Kurt_Vonnegut tell the story of one person in different time frames. They are definitely more in the science fiction realm, however. Amy Tan has also written several books that switch character and historical points of view: for example, in one chapter a woman will interact with her mother, and then in the next chapter we will see her mother's childhood from her own point of view.12.186.80.1 (talk) 15:00, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

13th century Scotland

I was wondering what the months were called during the high middle ages in Scotland, around 1226. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by McHell8 (talk • contribs) 20:46, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

The Julian calendar was used throughout Europe in the middle ages. It had the same months as the current Gregorian calender but new year was at the end of March and there were no leap years. Some notes here about the pronunciation of months in the Scots language. Whether the spellings that they use are authentic, or relate to the Early Scots used in the 13th century, I'm not sure. Alansplodge (talk) 21:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

There certainly are leap years in the Julian Calendar: slightly more (3/400 years) than in the Gregorian calendar, in fact. --ColinFine (talk) 21:45, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

You're quite right; I was just reading my own link and realised that I'd got it wrong. Also new year was at the Annunciation on 25 March - Scotland moved new year to 1 January in 1600. Alansplodge (talk) 21:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Me again; Medieval Scottish Calendar and Holidays might also help. Alansplodge (talk) 21:53, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

July 29

Flag of Hawaii

Only referring to the version with an union jack. Is there a seven stripe flag of Hawaii? There is a nine and eight stripe version but I've never seen a seven stripe version and historical sources seems to say there was a seven, eight, and a nine stripe version.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:16, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

What sources? I can only find reference, either on or off Wikipedia, to a nine and an eight striped version. --Jayron32 05:36, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Lord Byron in 1825 and Jarves (James Jackson Jarves?) in 1816.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Byron died in 1824; I doubt he spent much time in Hawaii after that, and probably didn't have much to say about the flag from his grave. James Jackson Jarves edited a newspaper in Hawaii, but he was born in 1818, so again, I don't think the little sperms living in his father's testes had a lot to say on the flag of Hawaii... Check again. --Jayron32 05:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The flag is made up of seven stripes, red, white, blue, red, white, blue, and red, signifying seven islands, and in the corner an English Jack. - Golovnin, October 1818: Press Pub Co. (1922), Paradise of the Pacific, vol. 35, retrieved 2011-07-29 ^Avic_ennasis @ 05:52, 27 Tamuz 5771 / 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Byron as in George Byron, 7th Baron Byron not the poet. This lists more observation by explorers all, with exception of one, before 1845 when the eight stripe version was adopted by Kamehameha III.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:54, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, based on those sources; especially with the one that Avicennasis has as well, you should be able to fix the article to indicate that a seven-stripe variety was in effect. --Jayron32 05:57, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

To be fair, KAVEBEAR, you did just refactored your original comment about Byron above. You had originally written "Lord Byron", and when I checked the dates for Lord Byron, you can see why it led to my confusion. Now that you've altered your original comment that I responded to, it makes me look like an idiot... not that I don't do enough of that on my own. I just don't need any extra help from you to do that. --Jayron32 06:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh sorry but this Byron is also called Lord Byron (which is really confusing) at least in his book and many Hawaiian history books.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:20, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured that out by now. And now you've changed it back to "Lord Byron", which makes my imediately preceeding comment nonsensical. Ah, but whatever. We all know what the source of the confusion was; there have been 13 Lord Byrons (I know, I checked Baron Byron), and unfortunately one of them was a LOT more famous than the rest. But anyhoo, back to the problem at hand; you've got decent sources now to make additions to the Flag of Hawaii article regarding the 7-stripe flag. --Jayron32 06:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah in the middle of it but stuff still confuses me.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It's sooooooo confusing. All the explorers' observation don't agree with each other. Some mention red and white and blue, others mention white and red and blue, others mention red and white with no blue, and one even mentions dark and light, and etc. Also the nine-striped version really confuses me since according to the wiki article and nowhere else the ninth stripe is suppose to represent Nihoa, the uninhabited island beyond Niihau. But the problem is Nihoa wasn't known to Hawaiians for generations due to its abandonment centuries ago and wasn't discovered and added back to the kingdom until 1822, eight years after Louis Choris, the first man to make an observation of the Hawaiian flag, wrote about the nine stripe flag in 1816. :Also no explorers left any mentions on where the union jack sat on the seven-striped version and probably even the nine stripe version, how many stripes down it goes. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible that the Hawai'ians just didn't understand or agree with the idea that a flag should be exactly 100% the same every time? I mean, to Europeans, with all those tricolors, little details must seem very important, but if the only flags you've seen were the U.S. and the British... Wnt (talk) 20:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Credulity of Westboro Baptist Church members

How come members of WBC believe so strongly in all that stuff, when the rest of the world dosn't? They think everyone else is wrong: why havn't they therefore considered that they might be wrong also? 92.29.113.104 (talk) 10:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

One might ask this about members of any group whose views diverge significantly from the consensus view of reality. It's clearly a human trait that groups of many sizes form their own view of reality. Some are happy with their difference, some try to force it onto others one way or another. It's not limited to the WBC at all. It's not limited to religious groups at all. Arguably the consensus view of reality is just such an approach that has been very successful for both logically valid and invalid reasons (there are lots of things that lots of people "know" to be true that are almost surely false). --Mr.98 (talk) 11:47, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Westboro Baptists don't really believe any of that stuff. It's an elaborate hoax; whether they do it to piss people off for fun, bring attention to themselves for some reason, or to discredit other Baptists/Christians, I don't know, but they are the real-life equivalent of Internet trolls. They're like, say, PETA (or certain vocal elements of it), or Morrissey or Glenn Beck. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:52, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

No, they really are bigotted against homosexuals. If you don't believe that people can be bigotted, then you probably haven't been paying much attention... --Jayron32 12:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

And PETA indeed do believe in what they say. No matter how funny it sounds, even when they say meat is murder and dairy is rape. That's all seriously meant. Quest09 (talk) 13:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

There are a lot of people who believe that homosexuality is evil and more than a few who believe that God is punishing America for its sexual immorality. See Hurricane Katrina as divine retribution for instance. The difference is the incredibly offensive ways Fred Phelps and his family promote their views, such as picketing military funerals with signs that say "God Hates America." My question is where do they get all their money to travel around the country, let along eat and stuff. I know Phelps was a lawyer but even lawyers aren't loaded enough to quit their jobs and do that kind of thing forever. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 21:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Did you read Westboro_Baptist_Church#Funding? --Jayron32 23:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

If evil could be explained, it would be rational. If it were rational, it wouldn't be evil. μηδείς (talk) 04:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I would dispute this; I'd say that the point of banality of evil is that evil is rational - otherwise, who would bother with it? My recollection was that Westboro tended to provoke people into taking a swing at them, and could then sue them. In general, every sort of evil has some reason behind it - robbers, gangsters, polluters, imperialists, politicians who arrange to harass the homeless to drive them to some other community, even the tough guys who beat on their wives in an effort to show the world it's dangerous to cross them. You may not respect the reason but it's there. By contrast, irrationality can drive people to do things that are crazy, but whether they're truly evil is at least questionable. Wnt (talk) 16:00, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Famous only after death

Which people died unknown, but became famous after death? And with no inkling that they would be posthumously famous? 92.29.113.104 (talk) 11:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia has articles about the posthumous fame of Vincent van Gogh and the posthumous fame of El Greco. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 11:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Samuel Pepys? --Dweller (talk) 12:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Numerous posthumously-decorated soldiers? See --Dweller (talk) 12:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Numerous victims of murder? See Category:Murder victims --Dweller (talk) 12:13, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Robert Johnson. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:25, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Anne Frank. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It may be worthwhile differentiating between those who became famous because of the nature of their deaths, and those - like van Gogh and Johnson - who became posthumously famous for what they achieved during their lifetime. Pepys was quite famous in his own lifetime - MP, President of the Royal Society, etc. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Bradley Nowell, John Kennedy Toole. --Jayron32 12:55, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Todd Beamer. μηδείς (talk) 13:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Gregor Mendel. Emily Dickinson. Also Johann Sebastian Bach, although not exactly unknown, was certainly not famous during his lifetime. Looie496 (talk) 16:37, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Edgar Allen Poe. Schyler (one language) 18:18, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Not really. See Edgar_Allen_Poe#Publishing_career. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 18:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Herman Melville was well-known and popular early in his writing career, but largely forgotten by the time he died, then rediscovered in the 1920s. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 18:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Franz Kafka. [[Malcolm X]] was little-known outside of New York until after his death. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 21:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure that was true of Malcolm X - he had certainly spoken and created some controversy in London and Paris during his lifetime. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Karl Marx was "a relatively unknown figure in his own lifetime". Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Lucy didn't become famous for some considerable time after her demise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, but was she a "person"? Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Mostly. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:54, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Who was that American author(s) whose mum got his manuscript published after he died? 92.29.113.104 (talk) 22:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

That was John Kennedy Toole's book A Confederacy of Dunces. I cited him above. --Jayron32 23:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Jim Croce? Although he did have an #1 hit two months before his death. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That makes him well-known in my eyes. A better example from the same time might be Nick Drake, but I'm not sure quite how "famous" he now is. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:33, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The Unknown Soldier. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

What was the text of all the articles in the last News of the World issue?

The one whose title says "THANK YOU AND GOODBYE" - I'd like to find the whole text of all the articles in that last issue.

Being from the United States, I can't order the physical copy, so I hope that a copy of the text floats around somewhere online. Thanks. --70.179.165.67 (talk) 15:15, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Um... you can order the physical copy from the US... it's just harder and perhaps more expensive. Have you tried contacting one of the major public libraries (such as the New York Public Library or the British Library)? Blueboar (talk) 15:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Being from Kansas, I'd be nowhere near the major libraries you mention. Can't there be a copy of the whole text (plus pictures maybe) anywhere online? Simple as that. --70.179.165.67 (talk) 19:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The News of the World website, previously paywalled, was made free when the paper's demise was announced and had an epaper link. The website has now been removed but the epaper might still be found somewhere. Sam Blacketer (talk) 16:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

You almost certainly want to find an epaper copy, not just the text in eg HTML, because the final copy was even more picture heavy and dependent on layout than usual. 86.164.73.187 (talk) 17:06, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

And the best of luck to you in finding that. I couldn't. I tried Googling headlines and such from this Youtube vid of the final magazine, but all the sites I found were reposts of just that story, or a quick summary of it. One headline ("Red Hot Chilly Peddlers") did lead me to the article here, from which I then tried Googling some specific passages, hoping that the article text might lead me to better results than mere headlines. It didn't. ^Avic_ennasis @ 11:47, 28 Tamuz 5771 / 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Alternatively, it seems you can pick it up cheaply on eBay. ^Avic_ennasis @ 11:53, 28 Tamuz 5771 / 30 July 2011 (UTC)

A cabbage leaf?

I was flicking through a fascinating book (at a friend's house) which is a genuine Edwardian baby care book (reprinted). It's fascinating because it mostly gives fairly decent advice, often with explanations of the scientific justification, which take account of the practical difficulties at the time. So in the chapter on clothing, it gives lots of advice on how to dress a child to manage their temperature while still making it easy for them to run around and climb and play, and taking account of costs and washing. It emphasises the need to protect a child's head when out in the sun, and suggests a pith helmet to protect while still letting air circulate around the head. And then, bafflingly, it adds a simple sentence to the effect that a cabbage leaf in the crown in a sensible homely precaution!

What? What was a cabbage leaf in your hat supposed to achieve? This is a book which carefully explains the basic practical chemistry of how casein reacts in the stomach, and various ways to treat various animal milks to make them more nutritious to babies who cannot be breastfed. There must be an actual reason for the cabbage leaf, but it was apparently so obvious that no further explanation was given. 86.164.73.187 (talk) 17:20, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

The early 20th century was a transitional time for the sciences, especially medicine, where the beginings of sound scientific practice of medicine and related fields lies interspersed with the sort of "folk wisdom" and blatantly wrong stuff like this still bleeds into stuff. Good intentions gave us the taste map for example, and that's as close to bullshit as it gets. I am not surprised when something completely off the wall like that ekes into books. Heck, it probably even happens today. --Jayron32 17:40, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Cabbage Leaves are still in use today in the 21st Centery.Cabbage Leaves for Treatment and Prevention of Breast Engorgement . An' don't ridicule -or nurse will pick you up by the ankles and smack your bottom!--Aspro (talk) 18:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, so is it supposed to be cooling the head? I could sort of see that, actually. 86.164.73.187 (talk) 19:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Aspro's cabbage leaf link relates to applying the cabbage leaf to a breastfeeding woman's breast to ease the pain of engorgement with milk. Apparently it works. (And the effect is the same whether the cabbage leaf is chilled or room temperature.) So maybe cabbage leaves have interesting effects apart from temperature. One scientist suggested that the mechanism re: engorgement pain may be that "sulfur in amino acid methionine acts as an antibiotic and anti-irritant, which in turn draws an extra flow of blood to the area." I'm not sure how this would be useful for an infant's head... Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Er... no. That highly questionable suggestion was made by a "Sister Merle Lees who has been researching this topic." [2]. There is no suggestion that she is a scientist. --ColinFine (talk) 10:35, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Oops, my bad... I thought it was taken from one of the decent-looking studies the page cited. Anyways, even if the mechanism is unexplained, it's possible that cabbage leaves applied to skin have interesting effects. Calliopejen1 (talk) 11:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Apparently this was a cooling technique. It was recommended by newspapers during heat waves [3] and said to have been used by Babe Ruth and other ball players of the day. Casquette mentions it. My guess is that this was a perfectly reasonable method of cooling: given a cabbage, a cheap vegetable, you can pry off any number of leaves, each of which comes wet, clean, and with a large surface area to evaporate from; once it loses its cooling virtue it still is food. Eminently practical. We should always be skeptical, but ancient tech often worked, and wherever cooling was concerned, they tended to be a lot more efficient and intelligent than the modern age of noisy gas-guzzling machines. Wnt (talk) 15:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Contribution-lands

In Evelyn's diary, he visits the Netherlands, then in a state of war involving England, Spain, France and Holland. In the course of his tour, he comes across what he calls Contribution-lands. What were these? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.196.174 (talk) 19:44, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

This book (see note 66, glossing a roughly contemporaneous quote) says North Flanders and North Brabant. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It took me a while to work out exactly who you meant: John Evelyn's Diary. 92.29.124.70 (talk) 19:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Looking for a specific Conrad Gessner quote

Right now I'm building the article about the Bernese Mountain Dog up from scratch (in sandbox) and am already running into problems. In several of my books, the earliest written in 1989, there's a statement that, in 1523, Conrad Gessner said the following:

"Some of the big and strong dogs are especially trained to stay around the houses and stables in the fields. They must protect the cattle from danger. Some guard the cattle, some the fields and some the houses. Other dogs are trained to protect people. They must contend after murderers and other mean people. They must be fierce and big and strong, as they must fight against warriors in their armor."

This is also listed on the BMDCA's site here. The issue there, of course, is that Conrad Gessner would have been seven years old in 1523. I can't find anything remotely close to this text in the English translation of Historiae animalium either -- if it does exist, it'd be a nice addition, but I'm not convinced at all. Google results for portions of this quote turn up only the BMDCA website. Any ideas as to where I can look for such a statement? This wouldn't be the first time dog writers got it wrong, to be sure. Anna ^talk 20:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I can't find anything confirming this quote - sounds like it could be apocryphal... Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:26, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably is -- thanks. Anna ^talk 00:58, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually the passage at the top of this page, from the Thierbuch, a German translation, seems to run along those lines (my German is too meager to say for certain).--Cam (talk) 03:28, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, it's very appreciated. If no advanced German speaker comes across this and is generous enough to confirm I'll try to seek one out myself. Cheers, Anna ^talk 04:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

You truly need a bigger image with bigger letters. I tried to read the whole text but I was unable to find the quote mentioned above. I was unable to find anything about warriors in their armour, but several sentences escape me. The text mainly speaks about the characteristics and appearance of big dogs - they should be white so that they become a part of the herd and so that the owner may recognize them during the night - and that these dogs protect [their master's] home from robbers and other kinds of human scum. The text seems to begin with:

"Etliche grosse and starke Hunde werden besonderlich dazu erzogen das Sie den Haus/die Stell/auserhalb des Haus/das vieh so sich weidet vor gefahr und schaden werhüten werden gementlich genenet Schaffhund:...

A word-for-word translation: "Several big and strong dogs are specially trained so that they the house/the ??? (probably Stall - animal stable)/outside the house/the livestock who is grazing from danger and damage prevent are commonly called Sheep dogs [an ancestor of the German Shepherd Dog?]:..."

I would translate it into: "Several big and strong dogs are specially trained so that they protect the[ir master's] home, the stable, and the livestock who is grazing [in the field] from danger and damage. They are commonly called Sheep dogs:..."

The "outside the house" might refer to the barn OR to the livestock, I'm not certain. As I said, you truly need a bigger and sharper picture. Flamarande (talk) 12:31, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Baseball, Duff Cooley question

I'm expanding the article Duff Cooley, with a draft in sandbox. Slight problem; this book states that Duffy was traded to the Pirates for Heinie Reitz and Tully Sparks, but baseball-reference states he was purchased by the Pirates. So, what should I write here? Albacore (talk) 20:28, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Here are various ways I deal with this when I'm editing:

• Go with only one source if that source seems significantly more detailed/reliable.
• Present both views if the sources seem comparable.
• Just leave it out if explaining both views would be tedious and the fact is not that important.

In this case, I'd probably go with the book and drop a footnote to the website. I think the book looks more reliable (though I know that ordinarily baseball-reference is good... so you may disagree), and it's also more specific (if he was in fact just bought, why would they invent two specific players he was traded for? I always think the less detailed one is more likely to be a sloppy mistake). I'd keep a footnote to baseball-reference though because ordinarily they're accurate. Alternately, I'd just present both views. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually now that I see that baseball-reference gives a specific dollar amount, maybe you should just give both in the article text. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Baseball reference is usually good in absense of other sources. I would basically use it as generally reliable if there is no other source, but would trust any other more reliable source when there is a conflict. In this case, I would go with the book reference in the main text. Perhaps a footnote noting the discrepency would be good. I ran into a similar situation when working on the Plymouth Colony article, where a normally reliable source contained what appeared to be an inaccurate or contradictory statement. If you go to Plymouth Colony, and look down at footnote 119, you can see how I handled it. I think a similar approach may work here. --Jayron32 23:11, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Retrosheet, which is often a source for the other sources, has a complete transaction history for the player in question.[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:10, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

July 30

Former Location of Conservatoire de Paris

After reading the historical sections of both the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP) site and the Wikipedia page on the same subject matter, I'm still uncertain of where the music conservatory was located between 1911 and 1990. Was it housed in a former Jesuit College (Rue de Madrid)? If so, is that building (or set of buildings) still standing and what is the exact address? I appreciate any assistance that can be offered.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnsmdp.fr%2F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatoire_de_Paris 98.242.77.225 (talk) 03:30, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

In the French WP about the Rue de Madrid, it is said that the conservatory was located from 1911 to 1990 at the number 16 of this street. But in the page about the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Paris, it is said that the Paris Conservatory was settled at number 14 of the rue de Madrid. I checked with Google Street, the correct address is 14; a shop called Le temps industriel is located at the number 16. — AldoSyrt (talk) 09:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Politic worms

Hello, can you please tell me the meaning of the word politic in shakespeare's expression "a certain convocation of politic worms" ? 41.141.77.160 (talk) 10:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

This book glosses the word as "shrewd" or "scheming". Calliopejen1 (talk) 11:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it means people who manipulate others to get what they want. StuRat (talk) 05:23, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

This brings up a point. I saw once a claim that the word policy in the phrase honesty is the best policy does not mean "framework for behavior" as it would today, but something more like "diplomatic manipulation". In other words, the phrase is not a pious platitude, but more of an ironic paradox, something like "the most effective way to lie is to do it without saying anything untrue" or something along those lines. Maybe this should be a question at the language desk, but as long as we're here, can anyone give evidence to support or refute this idea? --Trovatore (talk) 06:07, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

gold versus bonds

Doesn't the US government have gold it can sell instead of bonds? --DeeperQA (talk) 12:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That's not quite how it works. Start with United States Bullion Depository. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Do they have to add hot water to the bullion to turn it back into gold ? :-) StuRat (talk) 05:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you're thinking of bouillon. I wasn't aware of the spelling difference, either, until quite recently. --Trovatore (talk) 06:08, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

...and I suppose you are one of those who would say the price of gold and inflation are not related. --DeeperQA (talk) 13:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Do you have an actual question or are you trying to foment an argument? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Even though selling more bonds (increasing the debt limit) is the traditional way of raising cash to cover expenditures, that even though not traditional, selling grandmother's heirlooms to pay off debt if when the credit card gets maxed out will provide the necessary cash for expenditures to be paid. --DeeperQA (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

According to gold reserve, the US official reserves are about 8,000 tonnes and the price per tonne is about $50m (and that would drop if the US started selling off its reserves, due to simple supply and demand). That means the total reserves are worth about $0.4tn, but couldn't be sold for even that much. The US deficit is currently over $1tn a year and the total debt is over $14tn. As you can see, selling the gold reserves would hardly make a dent in the debt. It could buy the government a few months longer to get the debt ceiling raised, but at the cost of seriously damaging confidence in the ability of the US to pay its bills. --Tango (talk) 16:23, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The screwy part is that the U.S. supposedly doesn't want to "look bad" by selling gold, and the Russians apparently were even buying it. I suppose if our countries understood the whole "buy low sell high" thing, they wouldn't be in debt up the eyebrows... Wnt (talk) 23:04, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Makes one wonder what was really behind the fall of Ancient Rome. --DeeperQA (talk) 02:38, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Lenin and Stalin

Is there any evidence or clue that Lenin tried to get Stalin killed ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.137.28 (talk) 13:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

You can start by reading about Lenin and Stalin. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

C'mon ! I know Wiki has articles on both chaps, I wanted if someone has something special... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.137.28 (talk) 15:15, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

If any of us had 'something special' it would no doubt be on Google. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

...and probably for sale. --DeeperQA (talk) 02:41, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The EDL leader's lament

In the wake of the Breivik shootings, an anti-Islamic group he praised called the English Defence League has been getting lots of publicity.^[5] Its leader presented some of his grievances in a news article, which I think concern the town of Luton. How much of this stuff is actually true? (Feel free to respond under any individual point below:)

• Millions of Muslims obey "Saudi Arabian-funded “command-and-control” mosques".

• "We are eating halal meat. I’m Catholic, I don’t want to eat meat blessed by another God, but I am eating it on a daily basis without even being told about it." (Is halal anything more than a description of fairly common meat preparation practices? If you don't know meat is halal is it treated in any way differently than non-halal meat?)

• "My kids are having to visit mosques as part of the national curriculum in school."

• "If you want to go swimming on a Tuesday you can’t because it is the Muslim swimming day. It is just renamed women-only days" (???)

• "Icknield High School, last St. George's Day, completely banned the emblem of St. George. If anyone brought in a pin badge they were suspended." (Why?)

• "Muslims who ... protested against the Iraq war “recruiting for, and promoting jihad” ... without police hindrance. However, his counter-protest was met with ... police on horseback with coshes out.”

• In response to charges ranging from "racially aggravated abuse to criminal damage of property", as he put it the court "put a restraint order on me so that I can only have £250 a week" [leading to loss of his business]. (Can this be done to someone in Britain before a trial?)

Please note that I'm not asking this to endorse his opinions; but these claims are interesting because radical groups generally seem good at identifying problems even if they offer the wrong solutions. Wnt (talk) 14:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Actually, what political groups often do is to distort and invent facts to support their viewpoints. And the farther out they are, the farther out the distortions and inventions are. You can start with the false claim that the Islamic God is not the Christian God. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:18, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It is perfectly possible to answer the question as stated. I'm not quite sure what the last bit means. ("I can only have"?) The last-but-one is one of these things which is spin. EDL marches (in Luton and elsewhere) have been met with a heavy police presence, and I'm sure some would have had horseback police. Their marches have a history of violence both by them and against them (by UAF, for example). This is not unusual for any rally of this sort and almost every time how 'fair' the presence was is looked at in the press, usually because one or both of UAF/EDL complains. Most of the Iraq war marches were police mandated, whether they were by Muslims or not. It would be impossible to police every street corner, maybe some weren't. In general, though, police fairness is always questioned, but never found guilty (other aspects of procedure are). On the Saint George's day thing, it's a case of pulling the one example that suits your cause. If you're a Muslim extremist, you pick the girl who was made to take her burka off; in EDL's case, it maybe happened, it's just the hasty generalisation that's false. I can't find any press of it, so maybe not. (You'd think maybe the Daily Mail or their website had something.) It would seem cause for a large backlash and it does not appear that it even happened. On the halal meat thing, it's prepared differently to usual. There was some press some time ago about fast food restuaruants in Muslim-dominated areas not bothering to offer two separate versions of everything, and giving everyone halal. This took people months to notice, as I recall the coverage was late in the day, and mentioned a handful of places (halal's more expensive, so you can see why). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The "I can only have" presumably refers to a withdrawal limit on a frozen account, which as I understand is fairly usual - what seems less common to me is that this would be done pretrial to an individual not accused of a drug or other lucrative offense. Wnt (talk) 15:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

There are background articles about islamophobia in Luton here and here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:59, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I find this fascinating for some reason, so let's get started.

Millions of UK citizens are indeed followers of the Islamic faith, and attend mosques. I have no idea whose control those mosques are under, but if some of them are instructing their worshippers to do things that break UK law, then it's easy enough for the UK authorities to infiltrate such mosques and then take action against them. (Some controversial Muslim preachers in the UK have indeed had legal action taken against them.) Is it true that some rich Saudi Arabians are donating vast amounts of their petro-dollars to provide mosques and community centres and daycare and such in the UK, all for free? Gosh, I hope so.

Halal meat is relatively unremarkable for anyone whose religion does not forbid its consumption - the main difference is a requirement for the killing to be done with a sharp knife to the jugular, and usually death by electrocution is not permitted (but stunning with electrocution is permitted). I believe some slaughterhouses are jointly run so that both halal and kosher meat can be produced there, actually by the same staff. In fact, our article on the process, states that Islamic law permits the slaughtering to be carried out by a Jew or Christian, and the meat still qualifies as halal. It's entirely possible that some halal meat was served to people that weren't informed it was halal, just as it's possible kosher meat has been. (When I go to an Indian restaurant run by muslims, I assume I am eating halal food, but they very rarely specifically tell me so, and I don't care.) Catholicism does not forbid the consumption of halal meat (as far as I know).

I believe the National Curriculum requires pupils to be taught about the major world religions, of which Islam would be one, and Christianity another. It seems extremely unlikely that the National Curriculum requires pupils to be taken to visit a mosque specifically. Some schools might take pupils to visit a mosque (or a church, or a buddhist temple) as part of teaching about religion. One assumes parents would have the right to opt their children out of such a visit.

I can well believe that some municipal swimming pools in the UK have women-only days; a bit sexist, but it happens. What the person is presumably trying to imply is that the women-only day is a cover story for a day when muslims can swim and others are excluded. This seems wildly implausible, but is easy to claim because people will believe it easily. All it would take would be for the Daily Mail to send along a female reporter, and then they could plaster the scandal all over their pages. This hasn't happened. Why? Because it's nonsense.

Many UK schools have uniforms, and sometimes strict rules about what adornments pupils can wear with them. I imagine it's possible that a school (or even an individual teacher) forbade the wearing of St. George badges (just as they might forbid the wearing of Islamic badges or Hezbollah badges), but for pupils to be suspended for it seems implausible. Schools suspend or expel for serious misbehaviour, or where it's unavoidable. If a pupil comes to school wearing jeans and t-shirt in defiance of a uniform policy, and doesn't have a change of clothes, then sending them home is the only option. But if a pupil comes to school wearing a forbidden badge, then they can merely be told to remove it. If they refuse to remove it, then that's a different matter - they're being suspended for refusing to follow the uniform policy, not for wearing the badge. Most UK schools, however, wouldn't care about a reasonably unobtrusive badge. It's worth pointing out that St George's Day was pretty much ignored for the whole of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the recent trend towards observing it is rather manufactured. Most people in England probably couldn't even tell you what date it is, and you see 1000x more flags of St George during the World Cup, than on St George's Day itself. So I think the idea of swarms of patriotic schoolchildren being suspended for celebrating it, is a fairy story.

Right-wing marches produce left-wing counter-demonstrations, and any sensible police officer merely wants to keep the two apart, because when they meet, they usually fight. The majority of UK police officers are white Anglo-Saxon Christians, so a pro-minority bias seems unlikely. Reality does have a liberal bias though, and if individual police officers or commanders feel that the cause of the disorder is the right-wing people being there in the first place, that might affect how they react. For a historical example of British police "taking sides" in a similar sort of confrontation, see Battle of Cable Street.

Restraining orders can be arranged for all sorts of things in the UK, just like in the USA. No idea about the details of the case. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:29, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

It's clear that there's a lot of Christian discussion regarding whether halal meat counts as "meat offered to idols".^[6] It appears that the Catholic view in particular is laid-back on this, because Christianity in general (under Paul) made huge strides toward eating anything available.^[7] However, various fundamentalist groups put a lot more emphasis on Old Testament views (though in this case the change was even later than that). In general, if halal meat requires some actual religious action, and doesn't just describe a means of preparation (which seems to be what I'm getting here and from the article) it is easy enough to see why a devoted believer would not want such a ritual said on his behalf, when he rejects the religion. Wnt (talk) 20:49, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

According to the article Islam in England, some 1.5 million Muslims lived in England and Wales in 2001. It is possible that some more millions (as per the posting above) are adherents of Islam. A reference to support such a statement ("Millions of UK citizens are indeed followers of the Islamic faith...") would be useful. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:22, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Or you could go with "a seven figure number of Muslims" or "between one and two million Muslims", or "more than a million Muslims". Whichever causes you least stress. In the meantime, a Wikipedia article stating that 1.5 million Muslims lived in England and Wales in 2001, doesn't really say much with certainty about how many Muslims live in the entirety of the UK, in total, in 2011. So yeah, references would be great, especially if they include estimates for those who might not be registered in official statistics. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

"If you want to go swimming on a Tuesday you can’t because it is the Muslim swimming day. It is just renamed women-only days" (???)

This one is not exactly fantasy, more spin. My local swimming pool in a middling-sized market town in the south of England used to offer occasional 'women only' swim sessions, simply because there were some women who felt uncomfortable or unsafe wearing revealing clothes and swimming in the presence of men, and women made up a good proportion of the customers, and it was felt reasonable. This would only be a session or two a week, since I don't know any swimming pools open most of the year that have 'whole day' sessions. More recently, this was discontinued because the number of women only swimming in those sessions dropped: women felt safer and more comfortable swimming with men than previously, so there was no need. Interestingly, they also used to offer nude swimming sessions, which seemed to vanish about the same time as the women-only ones.

I have certainly heard of Muslim women being unable to go swimming because it would involve being immodestly dressed around men. Combining this, it would be completely reasonable for a local authority or swimming pool owner in an area with a high Muslim population to offer women-only swims, either because they were asked to or because they were smart. So, these women-only sessions would be offered because of the Muslim population, and might even mostly be full of Muslim women (because other women might not seek out a women-only session), but they wouldn't be 'disguised' Muslim-only sessions: they would genuinely be women-only. 82.24.248.137 (talk) 20:13, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That would have been my guess (especially if the Muslim women all only come on the women-only day) but it's nice to see it confirmed. If so, this is a highly useful example of a logical fallacy: public resources are made available for everyone; group X tends to use the public resource in a manner that is segregated by location or time; therefore public resources are being specially earmarked for group X. Wnt (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

And I think the questioner meant the EDL not EDF leader. Sussexonian (talk) 21:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Er, yes - header corrected. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

value of gold

Can anyone verify that the total value of all the gold ever refined in the world throughout history at today's price of $1,625 per ounce would come to only $11.07 trillion dollars. --DeeperQA (talk) 14:24, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

This website, which seems respectable, says 166,600 tonnes have been mined in world history. I won't work it out, though, as I'm unsure of the units (is the gold price in troy ounces?). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 14:36, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

1 tonne = 1000 kg = 1000 * 32.1507466 troy ounces. So 166,600 tonnes = 8.6726639 × 10¹² dollars. Which is more than I would have thought... Wnt (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

That's $8.7 trillion. Even less than the OP's estimate. --Tango (talk) 16:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I would just point out that a trillion is a very, very, very large number — saying something is "only" $11 trillion is kind of like saying that the Earth is "only" 4.5 billion years old. Yes, we become accustomed to bandying about large numbers, but they're still pretty large from a human point of view (if you distributed $11 trillion dollars equally amongst the Earth's current population, every human being would get $1800 or so, which is more than the annual income of 80% of the world population.[8] Total worldwide wealth is something like $192 trillion.[9] So having gold being worth 5% of all total wealth is still kind of impressive, given how many other forms of resources and value there are. More interesting I suppose would be to know how much mineral wealth is in the world, and what percentage of that is gold. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:42, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Bishop of Arezzo

How many Bishops were there in Arezzo before Guido Tarlati?

Here's a list. Looks like 21 by my count. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:52, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:14, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

North America without First Nations

I read somewhere that the reason most colonies in North America survived was because of the Natives. What are some instances that could have caused the hardship in North American colonies (and possibly lead to their demise) without Native Americans? (For example, without Natives, Jacques Cartier's crew of men would have died of scurvy.) Any help would be appreciated. 64.229.153.236 (talk) 23:03, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to grow maize, which kept them alive after they almost all starved to death. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 23:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Squanto did a LOT more for the Pilgrims than just show them how to grow maize. He and Samoset brokered a treaty with Massasoit, who was the most powerful sachem in the region; without Massasoits protection it is possible that they would have been massacred by hostile tribes. It was well past colonial times, but Sacagawea was a vital member of the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 19th century. --Jayron32 02:24, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The question was whether the colonists could survive without the Native Americans. If there were no Native Americans, there would be no "hostile tribes" in the first place. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 05:07, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

While some colonies might not have survived, in the long run Europeans would have figured out which foods grow well in the Americas and made a go of it. Perhaps more supplies would have been needed to have been brought there, initially, though, to allow for the time it would take to adapt to the New World.

Another thought, though, is that without any previous humans in the Americas to wipe them out, saber-toothed tigers might still have been running around, chasing Pilgrims about. :-) StuRat (talk) 05:13, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

July 31

What is the Roman Catholic Church's position on Christian Existentialism, Phenomenology and Kierkegaard?

What is the Roman Catholic Church's position on Christian Existentialism, Phenomenology and Kierkegaard? Have any of those doctrines been condemned? Is it considered compatible with orthodoxy? Have there been any influences of those schools on orthodox theology? Are there any Catholic thinkers in good standing who have been influenced by those schools or publically praised any of them? --Gary123 (talk) 01:17, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

invention of rhyme

who invented rhyme, in poetry?  when did it appear?  where?  Ancient Greek poetry didn't rhyme, did it? 78.131.30.76 (talk) 01:48, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Rhyme#History tells us about the earliest surviving example of rhyme. But it's a good guess that they didn't invent it. APL (talk) 02:10, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :It doesn't rhyme in English, but it may very well rhyme in Greek. Rhyme#History dates the oldest rhyme to 10th century BC in China. It also notes that ancient Greeks did rhyme in at least some of their poetry. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that one person, or even one culture, would have "invented" and then introduced to the whole world. Rhyme seems like one of those things that would have developed hundreds of times in many cultures... --Jayron32 02:15, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

gold coins

How much would the 200 gold coins Caesar paid each solder after winning the war against the Gauls be worth today? --DeeperQA (talk) 02:51, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

According to Aureus, the standard gold coin at the time was roughly 8 grams, give or take. According to [10] gold is selling at $52 or so per gram. So each coin was worth $416 dollars, 200 of which would be worth $83,200; a tidy sum. Of course, judging on pure cost alone doesn't take into account purchasing power. Some sources cite a dinarius (at 25 to the aureus) to be roughly 1 day's wage for the average laborer. So an aureus was then worth 25 days wage, 200 of which would be 5000 days wage for an average laborer, or 6 years of income, which would make it somewhat more valuable in terms of wage equivalence than the gold content. --Jayron32 03:05, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Jans Janzoon Von Haarlem

I'm not very good at computers but have a lot more information to contribute to my pirate ancestor, Jans alias Murat Reis, and one of his sons, Anthony von Salee, from whom I am descended. Some are citations from old history books and court records. How do I do this? <contact information removed> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.169.233.183 (talk) 03:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I certainly hope you read this again, as is noted in the instructions at the top of the page, no one will contact you and your contact information has been removed. Help:Contents/Getting started is basically the instruction manual for Wikipedia, and Wikipedia:Your first article is a decent walkthrough for creating an article. If you have good old book sources, it sounds like this could be the start of a really cool article. Good luck, and if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. You can ask again here, or you can drop a note on my user talk page (User talk:Jayron32) if you need help. --Jayron32 03:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec) A good principle behind Wikipedia is to be bold! The edits you make should always be taken in good faith, so no need to worry; if they are not perfect (which they won't be), someone else will revise them.
The two articles about the pirates named Murat Reis seem to be fairly complete, though. Wikipedia would welcome any further helpful and well-sourced information. You can click the button at the top of the page that says "edit." Like I said, don't be too worried about making mistakes. Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 03:25, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, it looks like your ancester was Jan Janszoon, so if you have additional information or sources you can add them to that article. If you are concerned about how to add them correctly, you can use the talk page at Talk:Jan Janszoon and leave the information there for someone else to help incorporate into the article. --Jayron32 03:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Could the US Government turn to corporate sponsorship to pay down the debt?

As seen in Simpsons episode Make Room for Lisa, a cellular company named OmniTouch sponsors the Smithsonian in order to cut operating costs as a result of the government running out of money. The year that episode was made, I was in middle school so I thought that the idea of companies sponsoring the government was funny and ridiculous.

Now that I'm in college and get a disability income, I find it a nifty initiative considering that my current way of life could be in jeopardy if the US debt impasse doesn't solve very soon.

Therefore, wouldn't the government make this kind of sponsorship a "Plan B" for when their impasse doesn't solve? Some may resent the following, but I wouldn't mind seeing extra advertisements on federal buildings, vehicles, even landmarks (like a tall ad for a Samsung air purifier on one side of the Washington Monument) if it means that we'll keep being paid, and that no part of our livelihoods will fall like dominoes. --70.179.165.67 (talk) 06:19, 31 July 2011 (UTC)