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December 12

Belgian counterparts to Conservative Party UK, UMP, PDL, People's Spain and Social democrat portugal

Which party is the Belgian counterpart to UK's Conservative Party, France's UMP, Italy's PDL, Netherlands' PVV, Spain's People's Party and Potugal's Social Democrat Party? -- 01:43, 12 December 2012‎ User:Donmust90

I believe the last time you went on a bender asking many similar questions in the past along these lines, you were directed to "Politics of XXXX" articles. Try Politics of Belgium, for example. You can find the answers to these sorts of questions by going to similarly titled articles. --Jayron32 01:45, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Donmust90 -- as far as I know, almost all Belgian political parties are either specifically Walloon (French-speaking) or specifically Flemish, so there's unlikely to be one answer. AnonMoos (talk) 13:34, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

European_People's_Party#Full_member_parties has a list of all equivalent parties. Christian Democratic and Flemish (CD&V) and Humanist Democratic Centre (cdH) are part of the league. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:46, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Election symbols of each party of each nation

Is there a website that shows election symbol of each party of each nation? for example Shas of Israel is letters Shin and Samekh, Danish People's Party is O, Awami League of Bangladesh is a boat and etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donmust90 (talk • contribs) 01:51, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how many countries have a formalised system for things like that. Isn't שס the full name of the party, though? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

They're probably only really important when they appear on ballots, as they do in India and a few U.S. states, such as Missouri (see http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections/ballotsymbols.asp ). AnonMoos (talk) 13:27, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no such website that systematically gathers election symbols or election ballots worldwide. Perhaps you'd like to start one? We can't do it on wikipedia due to copyright issues. --Soman (talk) 08:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Benjamin Franklin's signature

Something curious was pointed out to me on OTRS, and I just managed to confuse myself. We are currently using File:Benjamin Franklin Signature.svg to display old Ben's signature in our article on him, and this signature comes from a now-public-domain book written in Swedish [1]. There is no context given to Ben's signature, so I have no idea where it came from. But what makes it interesting is that this signature looks nothing like something we are certain is Ben's, his signature at the bottom of this little document. So I'm left asking two questions: A) Is the signature used in our article actually authentic Ben? And B) If so, where did that signature come from? Thanks. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:36, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Except for the fact that one says "Benj." and the other just uses "B" (a not uncommon phenomenon in older signatures), they both look remarkable similar to me. The "B" is written in exactly the same way in both examples, and so is the "Franklin" part. You can see another authenticated version of the "B Franklin"-type signature here. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we here at this reference desk can be the judge of authenticity... I doubt any of us are professional signature appraisers. In other words... like legal advice, we should refer this to experts. Blueboar (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, because, just like medical and legal advise, amateur information here could cause serious harm to readers if it is incorrect. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding your second question, the article in Nordisk familjebok from whence the image came does not list the sources for its autographs (from what I can tell), but it does say that the best collections of autographs can be found in "Delarues' Isographie des hommes célèbres (4 vol.; 1843) and The autographic mirror (4 vol., 1864–66), published in London." The autograph might be snipped from either of those. Gabbe (talk) 05:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Did the USSR collect taxes?

I recently saw someone claim that the USSR had no system of taxation. Is this true? It sounds ridiculous, but on the other hand the state presumably funded itself to some extent through the revenues of state-owned land and enterprises, exports etc. And there wouldn't have been much in the way of corporate profit to tax. If most people are employed by the state then presumably income tax wouldn't have achieved much either (is there any difference between paying someone $100 and taxing half of it, or just paying them $50 in the first place?). ManyQuestionsFewAnswers (talk) 05:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yea, I believe they were paid on the order of 1/10th what people in the West made at the same job, so essentially it was equivalent to a 90% income tax. StuRat (talk) 05:10, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Can you cite a source for your beliefs, StuRat? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, you can compare the GDP per capita, by year, of the US, here, versus the Soviet Union, here. You will see the the US ran at about 10X the Soviet Union. (Yes, GDP per capita isn't exactly the same as wage rates, but it gives you an idea.) StuRat (talk) 06:06, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

With respect, even these graphs are incomparable, since they use different scales of reference (2005 Dollars and 2011 Dollars respectively). Also I'm not quite sure whether the price measure means that the graphs are adjusted for inflation or they represent purchasing power parity. (Which just shows that I should look at economic texts more often.) Your argument might also ignore the problem that is produced by fixed prices in creating a PPP. Finally own Article on GDP has a small criticism section, which is worth reading. --Abracus (talk) 08:31, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

There wasn't much inflation in the US dollar between 2005 and 2011, but you can adjust for the small amount there was, if you wish. StuRat (talk) 18:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

That is one of the dumbest responses i've ever seen. stu, quit responding to things that you don't actually know about. We all get it, you're educated and logical. But you make all kinds of wrong statements at the ref desk in doing so, and with a frequency that is surprising. Stop it. Stop pontificating about things you don't know about, and while we all do that, more importantly, at least indicate when you're just musing about stuff. This has been going on for years now. You need to reel it in. Shadowjams (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe so. But in the meantime, you need to reel in your personal attacks, especially making them in front of the OP. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:28, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

And just saying a response is "dumb", without explaining your reasons, much less proving them, is also quite a useless comment. StuRat (talk) 09:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

He's right - inflation between 2005 and 2011 is not enough to make any qualitative difference to this discussion. That said, GDP per capita is completely useless for these purposes. It's a measure of productivity. Usually, productivity is quite a useful proxy for wages, but for this purpose it is completely useless. Doing work worth $150 and getting paid $100, of which $40 is taken in tax, and doing work worth $150 and getting paid $60 would appear in exactly the same way in the GDP per capita - they both appear as just $150. --Tango (talk) 12:25, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

This article seems to imply that while there was a personal income tax system in the USSR, it was not particularly meaningful and had little individual effect. The author (a Soviet minister at the end of the USSR) suggests that in general one can regard the USSR as effectively having no tax system, largely because the structure of its economy treated resources in a very different way than a capitalist system. In the late 1980s as part of the various economic reforms, there were some beginnings of a tax structure added, apparently. There were also some miscellaneous Soviet tax laws (see Category:Taxation in the Soviet Union for some of these) but the take-away message for me is that any attempt to make sense of things like taxes or profits or wages in the USSR requires taking the time to understand how their command economy worked, because trying to make sense of concepts understood easiest under capitalism in the context of a long-running socialist state is going to lead to some inevitable confusion and category error. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

ManyQuestionsFewAnswers -- the short answer to your question is "Yes, there were taxes", though due to the way the Soviet system was set up, direct personal income taxes were unimportant for most of the people most of the time. From perusing the book "An Economic History of the USSR" by Alec Nove (ISBN 0-14-021403-8) probably the most important tax which was explicitly called a tax by the Soviet authorities was the "turnover tax", which was kind of a Soviet version of Value Added Tax, but calibrated to siphon money out of sectors which the Soviet authorities did not consider essential to basic industrial development, and to capture large paper profits which some enterprises made because the centrally-set prices of their inputs were out of whack with the centrally-set prices of the products which they produced. However, there were many other methods of extracting money or goods which were not called taxes. Agricultural units had compulsory quotas of grain etc. they were required to hand over to the state, and the prices of the quota deliveries for most food products were often set very low (under Stalin, sometimes absurdly low), though "commercial" crops such as cotton were more favored. (One of the main points of the Kolkhoz system was that a Kolkhoz peasant had "residuary legatee" status, only receiving an income after all other Kolkhoz obligations and expenditures had been met, so that the state did not have to pay the Kolkhoz peasant a guaranteed income, as it did the state farm peasant.) For many years under Stalin, workers were required to set aside a certain part of their income for "voluntary" state bond purchases which were really not voluntary (and sometimes the bonds were not repaid according to the original provisions). Also, on December 14, 1947, Stalin decreed a so-called "currency reform" quite similar to the North Korean manipulation of a few years back -- coins and bills owned by individuals were declared to be worth 1/10th their previous value, personal bank accounts under 3,000 rubles kept their value, while prices and wages remained the same. This was a blatant measure by Stalin to take away the accumulated wartime savings of many peasants, which Stalin didn't feel that they deserved to have (peasants rarely had bank accounts in the Soviet Union at that time). On the other side, housing was almost fully state-subsidized and rents were generally extremely cheap. AnonMoos (talk) 14:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Why did the peasants have wartime savings ? Were they actually paid properly during the war (perhaps to discourage desertion, as was a problem in WW1) ? StuRat (talk) 18:37, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The "free market" prices -- which foodstuffs grown beyond the mandatory requisition quotas could be sold for -- were sky-high. "Those peasants who could sell at these prices became rich. Many held on to their gains, waiting for the day when there would be something to buy with their roubles. In chapter 11, it will be shown how they were prevented from utilizing their gains." -- Nove p.283.

As for Germans, if they had abolished the kolkhozes and divided the land among peasant families, and made a strong appeal to Ukrainian nationalism backed up by some visible concrete actions, then they could have forged a strong alliance with the inhabitants that would have made much of the occupied western parts of the Soviet Union exceedingly resistant to any form of return of communist authority. However, the Nazi leaders' habits of viewing Slavs as untermenschen prevented them from seizing this opportunity, and the basic structures of the kolkhozes were left in place to serve as convenient units for the German extraction of crops from the peasantry. There were individual Ukrainians and Russians who joined the German military, but many others did not view German occupation with such affection that they were willing to stick out their necks or take any risks to prolong it, no matter how much they hated the Bolsheviks or Stalin... AnonMoos (talk) 21:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I see. Those peasants would have been wise to take their payments in some form other than rubles, such as in barter for other goods. StuRat (talk) 17:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

There was almost literally nothing to buy during the war years beyond the most basic necessities -- consumer goods production was cut back, and took a distinct second priority to military production. They couldn't put the money in land... AnonMoos (talk) 15:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Invest in Fabergé eggs. :-) StuRat (talk) 21:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like there was a lot of truth to what Will Rogers said: "In Russia, they ain't got no income tax; but they ain't got no income!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

feline Internet sensation

I'm well-aware of these two feline Internet stars. They're Lil Bub and Tardar Sauce the Grumpy Cat. There's a third one. He's a fierce-looking, fluffy gray cat named Colonel Meow. I'm trying to find out if he has a website. Does he?142.255.103.121 (talk) 08:52, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The best source of information for this stuff is Knowyourmeme, which has a page on Colonel Meow here, including information on his facebook page. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

If anyone is wondering what they all look like, here you go. Dismas|^(talk) 10:14, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I know Colonel Meow has a Facebook page. But does he have his own website other than that?142.255.103.121 (talk) 18:24, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

His Facebook page has the link http://colonelmeow.tumblr.com/ which may be what you're after. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Not really. I was looking for a website which has a store.142.255.103.121 (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Not everyone monetizes these things. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget "Happycat", which we unfortunately don't have a picture of at I Can Has Cheezburger?, although I think that feline would qualify. Shadowjams (talk) 19:58, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, he's the very first submission to that website, using the iconic "I can has cheezburger?" text. Their search engine on the new site is crap, which makes it almost impossible to find. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Alternative lifestyle

The linked article seems to be very biased toward Western attitudes of an alternative lifestyle. Examples include reincarnation and practicing Eastern religions by Westerners. If a person is from the East, then that person would not feel that those lifestyles are "alternative", but rather the norm. I have the impression that alternative lifestyle just means "not widespread or mainstream but nevertheless still relatively acceptable". So, a Christian convert in China would be an example of an alternative lifestyle. Christianity is really a minority religion in China, so it would fit the definition of an alternative lifestyle. So, an example of what counts as an "alternative lifestyle" is highly variable, depending on the situation and location, and may or may not be acceptable, depending on the situation and location. I wonder where you draw a line between a person practicing an alternative lifestyle in a country versus a foreigner who travels to a particular country and practices his native religion, which is not predominant in the new location. For example, a devout Jewish person from Israel immigrates to the United States and practices his native religion instead of converting to Christianity or ceasing religious practice, or an American practicing veganism in his native country. 140.254.227.69 (talk) 15:33, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

In China, even the Communist party seems to believe in reincarnation, since an official reincarnation decree was issued, giving the government control over reincarnations... AnonMoos (talk) 15:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

That article is unsourced and, in my opinion, pretty questionable. In a religiously pluralistic country, such as the United States, and I think China, practicing a minority religion does not really count as an "alternative lifestyle". If a person lives in much the same way as his or her compatriots (in the United States that means attending school or working or looking for work depending on one's age, avoiding illicit drugs, generally obeying the law except maybe sometimes traffic laws, practicing serial monogamy and possibly heterosexuality, and participating to some degree in consumerism), then a relatively small matter like practicing Judaism or some other minority religion doesn't really count as an "alternative lifestyle". In the United States, I don't think belief in reincarnation counts as an alternative lifestyle. Veganism is kind of a borderline case. These days, I don't think it counts as an alternative lifestyle by itself in the United States. Homosexuality used to be the classic example of an "alternative lifestyle" in the United States, but a revolution is underway, and I'm not sure that, by itself, it counts as an alternative lifestyle any more, at least in big US cities outside the South. Marco polo (talk) 16:14, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Since serial monogamy practically means marriage, divorce, and remarriage, that would imply that divorce is the norm, and lifetime monogamous marriage is alternative? 140.254.227.69 (talk) 16:39, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you're talking about -- that article is fairly fully sourced. AnonMoos (talk) 21:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

In my view, the concept of being alternative is itself part of Western culture, and probably does not transfer to any other culture. Obviously, a member of a different culture can live in different manner from their culture, but alternative means more than that, in at least two respects that I can think of: the kind of attitudes and practices likely to be meant by it (as in the article criticised above); and the place that alternative has in our culture. --ColinFine (talk) 16:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm wondering why the concept wouldn't be referred to as an "alternate lifestyle" in the USA. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why, Jack, that's just how it is. As for lifelong monogamy being an "alternative lifestyle", that's not the case. When I said "serial monogamy", I just meant one monogamous relationship at any given time. People who have divorced and those who have never divorced can both be mainstream in the United States. Finally, I have to agree with ColinFine; I think the very idea of an "alternative lifestyle" is probably a Western one. Other cultures may have concepts like "deviant" or "outsider" for people with non-mainstream ways of life. Marco polo (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, only Western culture has stopped persecuting people (in most cases) for having a different but harmless lifestyle. In most other cultures that have refused to modernize, being different means being a second-class citizen at best, and being imprisoned, killed, and/or tortured into submission at worst. --140.180.249.194 (talk) 00:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Methodist monarchs

Have there been any monarchs who practiced Methodism besides the monarchs of Tonga?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Probably Seru Epenisa Cakobau of Fiji, according to the Taukei ni Waluvu article.

Malietoa Talavou Tonumaipe’a of Samoa (and possibly successors?) (if you count the Samoan Malietoas as monarchs. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 16:45, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The King of Barataria? --ColinFine (talk) 16:49, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Electric chair

I saw the execution of Ted Bundy on YouTube and there's a point in which he starts to bleed from the eyes. Why? does the electric chair make you bleed? Keeeith (talk) 15:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Bleeding most commonly occurs from biting the tongue or a nosebleed, both generally caused by improperly fastened straps or hoods. Can't say about eyes, but the body temperature increases to almost the boiling point internally (source) so it would not be very surprising that the small blood vessels in the eye could burst and bleed. — TransporterMan (TALK) 16:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Since when is footage of executions made public? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:24, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm gonna take a guess that what he saw is what came up in a quick YouTube search: videos claiming to have things like the "real" execution of Saddam Hussein, etc., which have zero evidence to back up such claims. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:38, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Isn't that covered by the Freedom of Information Act? OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:39, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Highly unlikely. There's no constitutional right to see snuff films. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

But even if there were, that wouldn't mean they're all automatically uploaded onto youtube. "Freedom of Information" is one of those great misnomers: (a) the government decides what's available, and there are all manner of exceptions and exclusions; and (b) even when they do release stuff, it costs the applicant $$, sometimes a great deal. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Right. From the logical standpoint, I can't imagine what argument could be made to compel the release of such a video, if it did exist. The guy was executed. How would Freedom of Information enter into it? To argue that he wasn't actually executed? I think not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:04, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

To determine whether it violated the Eighth Amendment? I am not familiar with the ins and outs of FOIA but on the face of it this does not seem like an absurd argument.

Of course, as far as I'm aware, neither FOIA nor any other law requires that such a video have been made in the first place. My guess is that no such video was ever made. --Trovatore (talk) 03:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Presumably, that's part of the job of the witnesses - to verify that it was done, and done properly. I'd be surprised if they recorded it, but it's possible. If you think about it, crime scene photos generally aren't available to the public either. And I remain unconvinced that the OP has actually seen what he claims to have seen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:26, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Digression. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:50, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
How exactly are you so sure that crime-scene photos cannot be obtained through FOIA? It appears to be a very complex area of the law. Are you an expert on this area? --Trovatore (talk) 04:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC) No, I'm applying logic and reason. I very much doubt you can use the FOIA to see something "just because you want to see it." I expect you'd have to demonstrate a "need to know". But I'd still like for the OP to address his claim of having seen such a video. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC) How do logic and reason lead you to the conclusion that "crime scene photos generally aren't available to the public"? --Trovatore (talk) 04:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC) How often do you see crime scene photos made available to the public? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC) Non sequitur. The question in context is whether they can be obtained through the use of FOIA. --Trovatore (talk) 04:25, 13 December 2012 (UTC) Why would the FOIA allow the release of confidential documents without a demonstrated "need to know"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC) Because it's intended to promote government transparency. Now, whether it requires that this sort of thing be released, I don't know, but if it does, the reason why it does is obvious. --Trovatore (talk) 04:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC) What's the public's "need to know" regarding seeing dead, mangled bodies? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:38, 13 December 2012 (UTC) FOIA is not about need to know. FOIA is about transparency. --Trovatore (talk) 04:49, 13 December 2012 (UTC) How does making gory photos available to the public have anything to do with "transparency" of the government? And what about the privacy rights of the relatives? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC) The idea behind FOIA is that, by default, the government doesn't get to have any secrets. It has to justify keeping secrets rather than the other way around. --Trovatore (talk) 06:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC) No, the idea behind the FOIA is that the government gets to pretend, via smoke and mirrors and classic redirection, that it doesn't keep secrets, by allowing people to get access to information that the government didn't really want to keep secret anyways. FOIA is to exposing secrets what the TSA is to airport security: it's a dog-and-pony show to placate the masses, but it doesn't actually do anything practical regarding the transparency of the government. --Jayron32 06:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC) Very possible. Let me amend to "what's supposed to be the idea behind FOIA...". --Trovatore (talk) 06:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC) No, I think the people who wrote that law (being the gubmint itself) supposed it to be a dog-and-pony show from the first. What you as a citizen wish it were has little bearing on its actual raison d'être. --Jayron32 06:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC) Crime scene photos are not "secrets". They are viewed by the judge, the attorneys and the jury. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC) Any information the government has, and won't share with you, is ipso facto a secret. --Trovatore (talk) 06:38, 13 December 2012 (UTC) I note in the freedom of information article that the government can withhold information if there is legal grounds to do so. In the case of snuff films and photos, they could easily argue that the victims' families' right to privacy is more important than some random citizen wanting to leer at such photos. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:54, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(outdent) Did any of you guys bother looking up the footage on Youtube yourselves? It's not the real execution. It's a dramatization. --Viennese Waltz 10:36, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The OP did not provide a link to it, but it's being a fake makes total sense. The question then becomes, was it based specifically on Bundy and the reports of witnesses? Or was it just generic with Bundy used as an example? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You should file an FOI request for the original and compare. :-) Matt Deres (talk) 17:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Why would it be recorded? Video recordings of executions are not made in the US. The one exception is that a judge had the execution of Robert Alton Harris recorded in the early 90s to determine whether the gas chamber constituted cruel and unusual punishment, but the tape ended up being destroyed before ever being viewed. Against the current (talk) 17:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Addendum: Take a look at Allen Lee Davis; this man's nose bled during his electrocution and this basically led to the end of the electric chair as Florida's means of capital punishment. Against the current (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You might say the state went "against the current". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Anybody bother to check the relevant law? The Federal Freedom of Information Act only applies to federal agencies, and so that's not relevant here. Florida has a FOI law Freedom of information legislation (Florida), but I don't know what it looked like in 1989 when he was executed, however the current law is at: Fla. Stat. § 119.01 et. seq. if someone's interested. Shadowjams (talk) 20:13, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Hillerman Navajo plot sequence

I wish to re-read Tony Hillerman's Navajo police mystery novels in plot sequence order, that is, I wish to have a list of those novels in which Hillerman's central characters, Leaphorn and Chee, are youngest in the first book on the list, and oldest in the last book on the list. EliotKalman (talk) 16:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I've not seen such a list, but I have seen a recommendation that this is a series in which reading them in publication order is to be preferred because of the way in which Hillerman developed the characters as he went along. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:56, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and the OP has read them previously, and now wants to read them again the order he asks about. What value does your response provide the OP? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:31, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I have read all of those books, and I believe that publication order corresponds to chronological order, although to the best of my recollection he never mentions specific years in the books. The main caveat is that he wrote three Leaphorn books before his first Chee book -- but Leaphorn is already quite old when he first appears together with Chee, so I don't think that really matters. Note that our article onTony Hillerman gives a complete list of the Leaphorn/Chee novels. Looie496 (talk) 22:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

There's a mistake on Marshall McLuhan's page

His most famous book is, obviously, The Medium is the Message, and NOT The Medium is the Massage, as written on Wikipedia's page ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.202.228.161 (talk) 16:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's The medium is the message article explains why you're mistaken. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps this entire exchange proves McLuhan's point? :) Wrad (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Kanee-Kabareea

I know sources that said the passage from page 43 about Kanee-Kabareea is by Captain James King, but how does anybody know which of the four authors wrote which part of A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean: Volume 2?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Also who was the author of page 164, the passage with "Kainee-Kabareea, and the wife of the Orono"?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 17:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

If you scroll up to the title page you will see the fine print that says Vol. I and II were written by James Cook and Vol. III by James King. Since your page 164 is in Vol. III, the author is King. The others are not authors, but captained various ships in the expedition. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

December 13

Christians having sex out of wedlock

Is it a bigger sin,when a priest is having sex out of wedlock than when a normal Christian is doing it? OsmanRF34 (talk) 02:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to clarify your question. Priests take a vow of celibacy, and are not permitted to marry. The concept of them doing anything "out of wedlock" has no meaning. If we can put that to one side, there's still the vow of celibacy they'd be breaking. Not to mention possible other sins, e.g. if the partner is married (adultery), and/or an adult male (homosexual acts), or a minor (pedophilia). As for "bigger sin", I'm only aware of the distinction between mortal sins and venial sins. Is that what you mean? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Catholic priests take a vote of celibacy. But vote of celibacy is not a vote of chastity. So a priest would not necessarily breaking any vow. And not all Christians are Catholic. The point is that both the priest and the other Christian would be having sex when they are not supposed to. OsmanRF34 (talk) 02:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

They take three vows: poverty, chastity and obedience. Chastity encompasses completely abstaining from sexual activity = celibacy. Whether the other person is a Christian or not is irrelevant.-- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually I think "celibacy" in this context means "not being married". "Chastity" means "no sexual activity outside of marriage". There's a logical conclusion when you put them together, but I don't think they vow that conclusion as a separate and independent entity. --Trovatore (talk) 02:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just to nitpick, many Christian churches do not have a vow of celibacy for their priests, and in those that do, the rules can be complicated (for example, some Eastern Catholic churches allow priests, but not bishops, to marry, while the Roman Catholic church sometimes relaxes its rules when it wants to encourage priests to convert from other denominations). I'm sure you can also find churches that don't consider sex outside wedlock to be a sin. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 14:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It depends entirely on which Christian denomination you are speaking of when you're trying to decide "which is the bigger sin". For example, many Protestant and Evangelical denomination do not "rank order" sins by severity. According to those traditions, all sin of any sort prevents a person from being in the presence of God, so all sins are equal. --Jayron32 02:17, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No rank order for many Christians? So, lying would be equally bad as murdering? Or even worse, if the murder repents but the lier don't? OsmanRF34 (talk) 02:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Yup. The murderer who later accepts Christ and becomes faithful will be in heaven; the non-murder who never becomes a Christian goes to hell, even if he's only done a few mildly bad things like an occasional white lie or something like that. There's only one heaven, and only those who are faithful believers in Jesus get in. "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them" John 3:36. That is, acts don't get you into or out of heaven, faith does. In many Protestant traditions, this is one of the Five solae, namely Sola fide, or "by faith alone", which means that people can't earn their way into heaven through their actions; God grants passage to heaven through faith alone. Probably relevant is Matthew 20 which makes it clear that God does not play favorites among the faithful. The murderer who accepts Christ on his deathbed gets into heaven and the unrepentant non-murderer does not ever. --Jayron32 02:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

My church minister used to define sin as "separation from God". Using that definition, everything else falls into place. The Christian view is that you're either with God or not. It's worth pointing out that "lying" is not quite the issue - it's "harming someone else". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That's the perspective I was talking about. Not all Christians hold to it (i.e. Catholics, who are a LOT of Christians), but a large number do. --Jayron32 03:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I was raised Protestant, but I get your meaning. Jesus was asked what the "greatest commandment" is, and instead of falling into their semantic trap, He said the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. By implication, the greatest sin is to reject God, and the second is to harm your neighbor (for example, He said that calling someone a fool was equivalent to murder, in the eyes of God). That's my take, anyway. Am I right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a theologian, so I can't answer that. I'd say I agree with your interpretation, but that's an answer to a different question. --Jayron32 03:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nor am I, but I think it speaks to the OP's question. He's asking which is the greater sin, and I claim the answer is that they both represent "separation from God" in some way, so it's not possible to assign one as being "worse" than the other. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:19, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nor am I, but I'm aware of what I was taught in the religion in which I was raised, and it is VASTLY different from the black-white heaven-hell thing that Jayron said above. It's far more nuanced than that version (which, curiously, you presented after you already said it depends on which denomination you're talking about). In the version I was taught, Hell is for those who die in the state of mortal sin, hence its name. There's Purgatory for those who die in the state of venial sin; those who go there do eventually get to Heaven. I'm not saying this is the way it necessarily is; I'm agreeing that it all depends on which denomination you follow, and that there is no one correct answer to these types of questions. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 06:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I expect you're aware that Purgatory is a non-Biblical concept, an invention of the Roman Catholic Church. But, yes, that's the theory. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

But then, so is heaven (at least the concurrent heaven Granny is looking down from). The original Christian position is bodily resurrection at the end of times (which are any day now, really, tomorrow, or maybe next Friday). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:11, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you're at least partially approaching this from a Roman Catholic POV in which case, I feel it's worth pointing there does seem to be some consideration that certain sins are worse than others beyond the seperation between mortal and venial sins. For example as our article mentions, a few, but far from all mortal sins result in automatic excommunication. Perhaps more significantly, the penance a confessor may recommend (as I think I mentioned before with references such as this one [2], there's no requirement for a penantant to carry out the precise penances that are recommended) will depend somewhat on the severity of the sin. E.g. see [3] [4] [5] ([6] has some random forums discussions) which appear to be written from a Catholic POV I think by Catholics including some stuff from canon law. While I don't know if most Roman Catholic theologians and clergy will be entirely happy with talking about 'worse' or 'greater' sins, it's difficult to claim these represent anything other then a Roman Catholic belief that certain sins are probably worse than others. (The bit on automatic excommunication may in some cases be seen for other reasons, e.g. in the case of clergy it may be needed to preserve order to prevent the faithful being mislead but it would seem severity of the sin comes in to it, in fact our article implies as much.) Note however this doesn't mean there's some sort of simply way to rank sins, in particular if you're talking about different people I think even many of those Catholics who would be willing to say certain sins are worse than others would be reluctant to compare sins commited by different people and say which one is worse. The concept of tariff penances is long dead. Nil Einne (talk) 15:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I should also mention none of the above is meant to suggest commiting any certain mortal since without repentance is likely to lead to less of a final punishment, simply that there is some recognition certain since are graver then others. (Although as our article on Mortal sin mentions nowadays the Catholic church often likes to emphasise how only god can judge.) This article from some random chuch I came across [7] appears to share a somewhat similar view. In fact even with most other Christian denominations, I'm not convinced there isn't some implicit recognition that certain since are worse than others, perhaps because of their effects on other people, even if the final implications may be the same. For example (something I thought of partially because of [8] and other things), in the Roman Catholic church and any other denominations with similar views on masturbation and mainstream adult pornography, I find it difficult to believe in this age, if multiple different professional counsellors (including perhaps ones with the same religion) recommend a paedophile masturbate and view adult pornography to help them in their treatment, many would suggest they shouldn't do it because they'll still be commiting (mortal/) sins. There may be some debate whether these will truly be sins in such a case, but probably not much disagreement that if it is likely these actions will reduce the chance you're going to harm a child, they may be a necessary evil even if they are sins (although I expect most would suggest great care should be taken to avoid them more then necessary or get stuck in a pattern of sinning). Now that I mention this, I also remember the other example mentioned in our Catholic Church and AIDS or here [9] of how the pope suggested using a condom may be better then not using one in certain cases. Nil Einne (talk) 16:18, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nil Einne, the two long paragraphs are already perilously close to, or for many people way past the point of, TLDR. When you add insult to injury by typing the word "sins" as "since" (3 times), it makes the text very hard to parse. You always demand a lot of your readers. This is the season of being kind to people. How about it?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

• MY understanding of the Catholic position (no pun intended) is that [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper it is easier to seek forgiveness than permission. μηδείς (talk) 23:12, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Poetry collection - Pork and Beans

Hello all. A few years back, a professor lent me a collection of poetry he thought I'd like. I'm pretty sure it was an American poet, and I'm assuming he was writing in the 60s or 70s. I remember the title was something Pork and Beans...any ideas on what this might be? I've tried googling with no results. 129.3.151.74 (talk) 04:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I find a poem titled "A letter to the denouncers" by Edwin Rolfe which mentions pork and beans. There is a book of Rolfe's poems, including the abovementioned, which was published in 1993 by U. of Illinois press. The poem also appeared in the Fall 1993 issue of TriQuarterly. A brief excerpt of the poem: "Dear sir: the summum bonum is Solvency, which sufficiently defined most simply means Spuds in sufficient quantities, an untapped phone, and daily pork and beans...." --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 14:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What is the difference between Repentance and Remorse?

What is the difference between Repentance and Remorse? Does Repentance always have a religious part to it? Venustar84 (talk) 04:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Repentance is etymologically re-thinking — it's becoming convinced that you shouldn't have done what you did. Remorse is suffering over what you did. You might repent without having much remorse ("I shouldn't have done that, OK, now I won't anymore. What's for dinner?"). Or you might feel remorse without repenting ("I sure feel bad about that, but I can't really see what else I could have done, and in the same circumstances I'd do it again."). That's my understanding anyway; someone else might have a different one. --Trovatore (talk) 05:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Remorse is feeling bad for what you did. Repentance is making it right again. That is, to repent is more than merely to feel bad for the wrong things you did; it means to change your life so you don't do them again. --Jayron32 05:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Can anybody provide a few representative excerpts on literary realism?

For some reason, googling "literary realism excerpts" returns very few relevant results as they all discuss literary realism in an abstract manner without any pertinent quotes that shows the "feel" and "atmosphere" of literary realism. I am trying to distinguish realism from "journalistic literature" of modern republican China (1911-1949). In particular I am trying to argue that Western realist literature doesn't aim to promote social change through transplantation/immersion of the reader so much as Chinese journalistic fiction/literature from 1920-1940 does. Can anybody provide a few immersive quotes (maybe a paragraph long) of a Western realist work? 137.54.1.116 (talk) 07:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Realism is very broad concept in literature, basically in contrast to traditions such as Romanticism, the idea being that where Romanticism presented an idealized version of the world in literature, Realism attempts to present the world as it actually is. The best thing I can point to is to contrast contemporaries in English literature: looking at say, the Victorian period, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot and Charles Dickens were realists: they provided unfiltered views of life, often of the underclasses. Realism was begun in contrast to the Romanticists of the previous generation: William Wordsworth and Mary Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were Romantics. If you want passages exemplifying realist literature, you could do no worse than Hardy or Gustave Flaubert or Stephen Crane. It should be noted, however, that many realist writers in the Western tradition were also social critics. They were realists as writers because they were interested in bringing about social change. But, if you want some good realist passages from the Western tradition, dig up some Hardy. He's as good as anyone else. --Jayron32 07:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I am aware of realism v. romanticism i art. I have some basic grasp of the idea. However, in particular I am trying to distinguish Western realism with the works of Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Xiao Hong and Ding Ling, as well as the New Yorker's "Youngthing", "journalistic fiction" about a kid in Somalia who is part of Al-Shabab. I'm trying to write a 20-page paper drawing upon modern Chinese literature so I am using Western literature (which influenced modern Chinese literature in a profound way) as a foil. 137.54.1.116 (talk) 08:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

In Don Quixote, you get a nice contrast between the romanticism of his fantasy world and the realism he would be forced to face, otherwise. StuRat (talk) 08:21, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe to frame the question in a way that doesn't require knowledge of modern Chinese literature (though it would be nice if there was someone here who did), how much are realist works and "journalistic fiction" works alike? Journalistic fiction is a subclass but representative subclass of a type of work I am seeking to define, but I want to separate it from realist literature. My criteria for "journalistic literature" is the following:

• Rejects polemic: "facts should speak for themselves" (the conflict between aesthetic and polemic was a huge issue for left-wing writers in China in the 1920s and 1930s who dominated the literary scene at the time)
• Promote social change not through the broadcast of ideals, but through awareness, transplantation and immersion to promote involvement
• Has a transformative aesthetic beyond a mere description of the facts, by seeking to immerse -- a sort of "lyrical realism" if you will
• The work could be interpreted as a "representative case study" of a certain issue, even though the individuals portrayed are fictional
• Is an alternative to actual news when seeking to gain understanding of a complex topic, just like the New Yorker's "Youngthing" informs the reader a lot about the complex dynamic of recruitment for Al-Shabab in Somalia
• Rejects simplistic explanations or solutions, it always tries to modify the reader's model of the world towards greater complexity

How is Western realist literature different from these criteria? 137.54.1.116 (talk) 08:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is Western realist literature defined as just depicting something realistically (much like the realist painters) or even pessimistically? In that case it would be very distinct from what I am trying to define as Chinese journalistic fiction/literature. 137.54.1.116 (talk) 08:26, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(ec) So are you looking for excerpts from the C19 European writers that show them at their most journalistic or excerpts that show them in a different light? Among the most striking journalistic passages, the ones that Lu Xun et al might have noticed, are: the initial description of Coketown in Hard Times, the description of Manchester in Mary Barton, the description of the heath in Return of the Native, the descriptions of mining in Germinal, the account of the election in Felix Holt the Radical. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:32, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

For a counter-example to your thesis, The Grapes of Wrath was a western realist novel which did seek to promote social change. Here's a quote promoting social change (it's from the movie, but likely was in the book, as well): "Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too." StuRat (talk) 08:39, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is that the narrator speaking? It's not really the sort of subtle "induce involvement, and thereby change, by immersion/transplantation" that I was thinking about... 137.54.1.116 (talk) 09:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No, that's Tom Joad. This is one of the more direct passages in the book, others are more subtle. Another example of this type of thing is Huckleberry Finn, which has an anti-slavery theme: 'When I waked up just at daybreak he was sitting there with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I didn't take notice nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. He was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I was asleep, and saying, "Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! it's mighty hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'!" He was a mighty good nigger, Jim was.' StuRat (talk) 09:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The works of Émile Zola in general (and those of the cycle of Les Rougon-Macquart in particular) could be a gold mine for you in the exploration of this topic (though not necessarily supportive of your assumption). The naturalist movement to which Zola belonged (and indeed spearheaded) certainly sought to understand the human social condition (including unhealthy and self-destructive traits) through the exploration of environmental and hereditary factors using strict realism. Here's a selection of his works, via Project Gutenberg; unfortunately, I don't see an English translation there for Germinal, which is chalk-full of the type of excerpts you're looking for, but it surely must be available as a free resource in some archive or another. Snow (talk) 09:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

OT quibble, but as we're discussing literature and I'm an ex-copy editor . . . the idiom is "chock-full" (as in Chock full o'Nuts), not "chalk-full". I suppose the latter qualifies as an eggcorn. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I wonder where "chock-full" came from, since chocks are the doorstop-like thingies used to stop wheels from rolling. Is a vehicle with a chock on every wheel said to be chock-full ? StuRat (talk) 18:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's one theory:[10] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:39, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A variation on "cheek-full" ? That definition sounds a bit squirrelly, perhaps even nuts. StuRat (talk) 17:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Today on a plane I started reading Dawn French's new novel Oh Dear Silvia, and right there in her opening paragraph is the sentence She's always making sure you know she's chock-full o'life. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:51, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Domestic Partnership in Maine

I thought I would update this article, but - after searching around through Wikipedia and Google and even the Maine statute book (which has not been updated since Maine Question 1, 2012 passed it seems), and even websites like EqualityMaine, I can't find a single reference to what happens to domestic partnerships now that same-sex marriage in Maine is a reality. Any Bay Staters or others have a clue? In some other states, when SSM became law, DPs were no longer offered, or were automatically converted into marriages. Textorus (talk) 10:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

While I can't say for sure, I would note unless I'm missing something (bearing in mind IANAL), there's nothing in the legislation which established domestic partnerships which said domestic partnerships were only valid as long as marriage didn't exist for same sex couples [11]. Nor does anything in the Maine domestic partnership registry information at the Maince CDC suggest the right only exists as long as marriages for same sex couples don't exist [12]. As per our article and [13], it sounds like same sex marriage in Maine was established via a ballot with the question "Do you want to allow the State of Maine to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples?" (the date given in the second source appears to be wrong or no longer correct [14]). The actual legislation which was being voted on [15] appears to be [16] and also does not mention anything about domestic partnerships. (I have to say it was amazingly hard to find the legislation. I did screw up as there is an external link in our article, and actually searching for the title easily finds the actual legislation. But I still would have expected more links and discussion of the actual legislation rather then simply the ballot question.)

BTW it's perhaps helpful to consider that per our article, the legislation and information on the Maine CDC, domestic partnerships are open to both same sex and opposite sex couples in Maine, and in fact per our article 24% or 17/70 of them as of 2006 were probably opposite sex couples. So I can't see any particular reason why or information to suggest the recent ballot initiative will have any direct effect on the ability to form domestic partnerships or the status of current domestic partnerships. However per the legislation and the Maine CDC [17], domestic partnerships are automatically terminate by marriage of either party so any same sex couples in a domestic partnership will lose their partnership if any one of them marries. This could be to each other, which wasn't possible before the new legislation takes effect. (As an interesting point, with a normal one sided termination you are required to inform the other spouse of the termination and it takes 60 days to take effect. But from what I can tell, there is no specific requirement for notification of the other partner when marriage causes termination and I'm pretty sure it takes effect from the moment the marriage is formalised.) Of course the Maine legislature could enact a law which will have an effect but per your comments, it doesn't sound like they have.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't sound like they have, which seems a great oversight if true. But other states have made specific provisions: for example, Connecticut turned all civil unions into marriages; Washington state will still allow DPs but only for people over 62. I just wonder if Maine officials have any plans along those lines. Textorus (talk) 13:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Well there's no specific reason to remove the right if people still want it. In NZ, while civil unions were mostly intended to provide a form of legal recognition for couples in a same sex relationship, this wasn't the only intention, the legislation was specificlly crafted to include opposite sex couples who for whatever reason, perhaps the traditional implications of marriage, and this was an occasional talking point. I don't think this was just some attempt to placate people on either side, it was well known that the prime minister at the time wasn't entirely happy when she got married (the general quotation as mentioned is she cried at her wedding, and not the happy sort although our article says she said it was because of a headache) and according to [18], she specifically said she preferred a civil union to a marriage (although I don't think she ever took advantage of the possibility to convert her marriage to a civil union). And in fact she also acknowledged it was discriminatory to exclude same sex couples from marriage (see Same-sex marriage in New Zealand). At the current time, civil unions don't provide entirely equal rights, as couples in a civil union can't adopt as a couple (although in one instance an opposite sex couple in a long term defacto relationship were allowed to adopt as a couple [19] [20] [21]) but there are attempts both to extend marriage rights to same sex couples and to extend adoption rights to couples in a civil union but in neither case is it suggested to remove the ability to form civil unions. A small number of opposite sex couples have take advantage of the ability to form civil unions, I believe I've given statistics on the RD before.

Similarly in South Africa, civil partnerships were originally going to be for same sex couples only (without the ability to marry) but when it was decided this wouldn't comply with an early court ruling, the right for both was extend to both same sex and opposite couples and there is no difference other then name, see Same-sex marriage in South Africa.

In other words, it's easy to see places wanting to allow both, whether with differences in rights or simply difference in name (and probably formalisation procedure). It may be the domestic partnership right in Maine is so limited it's unlikely to be of particular interest now. And of course issue in the US given the federal nature and fairly high degree of seperation between state and federal legislation, there's no guarantee any rights you have will be recognised by other states and you have limited ability to effect how the federal government treats such partnerships so such partnerships are more problematic (people may have the same problem overseas coming from countries like New Zealand but it's generally less of an issue since travelling or moving overseas is generally seen as a bigger deal). But in itself, I don't see any reason why legalising same sex marriage should automatically imply removing a right both same sex and opposite couples used to enjoy.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I hear you, but - it's a great oversight to leave the question unanswered, isn't it? Both for the benefit of people who are already in Maine DP's and wonder what the hell happens to us now - as well as for folks who might be thinking about hooking up and are wondering what all their options are now. Seems a failure of good PR and governmental accountability that somebody in authority up there hasn't written even one sentence that I can find saying, "Here's what the deal is, people." Or even simply "We're going to talk about that in the next session of the Legislature." Ya know? Textorus (talk) 15:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

If the new law does not specifically do away with CUs, then they are still available to those who want them. I can see very few reasons to take those instead of marriage, but it's an option. I doubt it was an oversight as much as politicians not wanting to close the door on folks who wished to remain in CUs instead of switching to a marriage certificate. It'd be a good question for a town hall meeting, or to submit to a local news station as a possible story. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

mixing letters shapes in same person's writing

are there many people who would write the same letter in a different way upon several occurences in the same handwritten note? I don't mean crossing a t or leaving it off, sometimes writing a capital version inside a word and other times using the lowercase version - I mean, really, like there are a few ways to write a lowercase a, and I would think that people are pretty well set in their ways as to which one they write.

do some people really have several incompatible techniques and kind of sometimes use some sometimes different ones? --91.120.48.242 (talk) 11:20, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I write the letter x differently depending on whether it is appearing in a word or an equation, does that count? If so, it's very common. In any joined up writing, there will be a tendancy to slightly alter letters depending on what other letters they are joined to - some people will do that more than others. And then some people are just inconsistent. --Tango (talk) 12:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The last example "And then some people are just inconsistent" is what this question is really about :) So, in the middle of a word, starting and ending at the same points and joined with the same letters, do some people sometimes write one style of, e.g. q or z and then a completely different style? made with different strokes in different orders, etc? Thanks. 91.120.48.242 (talk) 12:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Tango - in my case, I sometimes write the letter s as s, and in other cases more as a simple downwards loop. Not inconsistency, so much as depending on what letters (if any) it connects with. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:18, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

One quirk of my own writing I have noticed is that I have the same middle initial as starts my last name, and I write them both differently. I write them consistently differently, so my middle initial is the same every time, and my last name is the same every time, but they are each different. I suspect it is because I am anticipating writing the rest of my last name, which influences how I write that letter as opposed to when I use my middle initial alone. --Jayron32 13:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I have two ways of writing a lower case 'd' - with a straight ascender, or making the whole letter a single elegant curve. I tend to use the latter at the end of a word, but the choice depends on my mood, how quickly I'm writing, what I'm writing on, and pure whim, so it can easily happen that I use both in the same word. --ColinFine (talk) 14:03, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

OP here, Colin's example is the kind that I'm looking for, especially along with the description. Are there more like this? (as specific as Colin was about it, if possible). Thanks. --91.120.48.242 (talk) 15:56, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I randomly vary between writing capital A, capital G, capital J, and lower case z in either cursive or printing style. Duoduoduo (talk) 14:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

On this general topic, several alphabets in history have formally included different forms of the same letter depending where in the word they occurred. Two familiar examples are the forms of 'sigma' in Classical Greek and 's' in 18th Century English. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 84.21.143.150 (talk) 14:30, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Handwriting exemplar implies that for court identification of a handwriting sample as belonging to a particular individual, it is not enough to obtain a sample of each letter but of letter combinations as well. You might also find the article Regional handwriting variation of interest. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 14:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Nok civilization

Hello,

was the Nok civilization a state?

They were able to create terracotta sculptures which reached length of over 1 meter, as well they constructed simple stone buildings and were able to use simple iron and stone tools. Aspecting the sculptures, they point to a kind of jewellery.

Greetings HeliosX (talk) 12:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by a state? --ColinFine (talk) 14:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming he means a Sovereign state, which is a good article to read. It is worth noting that not every (relatively) homogeneous culture or civilization is organized into a single state. For example, the Ancient Greek civilization was only briefly (under Alexander) part of a single sovereign state, and yet it was a cohesive civilization; it just wasn't under a single sovereign state. Lots of recognized civilizations didn't operate as a single state: Phoenicia was never a single state, neither was the La Tène culture. The article Nok culture does not give any indication that it represented a single state; nor does it give any indication that it was organized on the state level. Many cultures did not have states, like the aforementioned La Tène culture, or the Germanic peoples during much of the period of the Roman Empire; such cultures had tribal organization rather than state organization. It doesn't look like much was known about the geopolitical organization of the Nok, but there doesn't appear to be any indication that it was organized as a state or as states per se. --Jayron32 14:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a very good explanation! Scholars like these and these add that because the Nok sculptures are so valued artistically, most digging has been for sale to collectors, rather than genuine archaeology to discover what can be found about the culture. What little has been done along these lines has found large settlements with stone structures, plus evidence of farming and iron-working, but so far no more details that can be spun into a picture of social or political organization. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 15:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

A sovereign state is a kind of state, but not the only kind. Our article State sets out the minimum conditions for a state: a central government with effective control of a territory. Some people would add, a monopoly on the use of violence, but that would exclude feudal states, which most historians do see as states. I think that the original question is really a question whether the Nok culture had a central government: that is, a group of specialists, such as a monarch and his advisors and henchmen, who exercised central political control over a territory. As Jayron correctly points out, not every culture includes state structures, and a number of historic civilizations consisted of multiple small states. In fact, we just don't know whether the Nok culture had one state, more than one state, or no states. Many fairly sophisticated historical West African cultures did not have state structures. For example, the traditional political structure of the Igbo people involved democratic village organizations, but also overlapping political structures that spanned villages, such as tribes and secret societies such as Ekpe. It is possible that the Nok culture had complex structures such as these or some kind of state structure(s), but there isn't enough archaeological evidence to know. Marco polo (talk) 16:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

But wouldn't stone walls point to military danger --> military --> government?

A question unrelated to this, how many tablets or papyri containing the Punic language have been discovered and how many have :::::been understood?

Greetings HeliosX (talk) 19:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The walls described in the source I linked above are building walls, not city walls. There are many reasons to build in stone unrelated to war – for example, mice can’t get into a stone granary.

Re Punic, according to The Phoenician Databank, “according to generally accepted estimates, the corpus of Phoenician-Punic inscriptions comprises about 10,000 inscriptions from all the countries of the Mediterranean region.” It also says “as yet there is not even a simple, complete and reliable list.” Part of the issue is not just the wide geographical range of the findings, but the fact that they cover a thousand years and the language changed a lot in that time to almost be a different language, “Neo-Punic” (see both Punic language and Phoenician language). The introduction to and chapter one of this paper explains some of the issues involved. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 23:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Sovereign state follow up question

I started reading the article sovereign state linked in the replies here above, and something didn't make sense: "The existence or disappearance of a state is a question of fact.[4]". I don't undertsand what that means. A "question of fact" is a specific concept for historians? Does it have a formal definition? Or did the author(s) of that article meant simply "it is a question for you to decide whether it is a fact or not" ? It is probably a language question but since we are talking about this here, I thought I'd ask here. Many thanks. --Lgriot (talk) 08:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It is awkwardly worded, but skimming the source for that statement (which is not a light read) seems to be implying the following: that defining a "Sovereign state" is not a simply binary proposition, it isn't like defining, say, a dog: there's either a dog in my living room or there isn't. He's either alive or dead. Sovereign states have a lot of "edge cases" and it gets hard to work out sometimes whether a particular entity represents a sovereign state. The most basic definition of a sovereign state is probably as follows:

• A defined territory
• A defined population
• A government
• True independence from other states (which does not mean that it doesn't have voluntary relationships with other states, but that it has the true power to voluntarily initiate and terminate all such relationships)

Figuring out what makes one state a distinct state both temporally and spatially is tricky. That is, figuring out whether some polity is a distinct sovereign state can be difficult both in terms of defining differences from historical antecedents (Is the Russian Federation a distinct state from the USSR or does it represent a historical continuation thereof? If it is a continuation, does that make Lithuania or Tajikistan a co-equal continuation of the USSR? If it is a distinct state, does its birth as a new state parallel that of Lithuania and Tajikistan? If so, how so? If not, how not? etc.) and in terms of defining a state "on the ground", i.e. the numerous "unrecognized" states like Palestine and Abkhazia and Taiwan which seem to meet all the requirements of a sovereign state, except that for political reasons many other states don't formally accept them as such (for example, many countries in the world deal with Taiwan as though it were a sovereign state in its own right, but won't name them as such, because of what such a formal recognition would mean to relationships with the powerful PRC). Even look at a state like Syria. The U.S. and other states have started to indicate that they are going to recognize the leadership of the rebellion there as the "legitimate government" of Syria. What does that mean for what Syria is in terms of the definition of a sovereign state? Once you've established a facile definition of sovereignty as above, you're suddenly faced with a thousand different edge cases which seem to violate the basic definition. That is, at least, what I think the above sentence is trying to say. --Jayron32 14:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I thought I had missed out on a major historian concept. --Lgriot (talk) 09:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

US National Historic Register and address restrictions

I've noticed that some of the National Historic Register locations are listed as "address restricted". A quick search didn't shed any light on what this was. What leads to a historical location being "restricted" in this sense, and what is the purpose of listing it on the register if its location cannot be known? Against the current (talk) 16:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

On the instructions for registering places, it says "To protect fragile properties, particularly those subject to looting and vandalism, the National Park Service will withhold information about the location and character of the property from the general public. The Federal Register will indicate "Address Restricted" and give the nearest city or town as the property's location..." 184.147.123.169 (talk) 17:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

And apparently some of the people who live in houses listed on the NRHP are able to have their addresses not listed (for reasons of privacy, I assume). See, for instance, this recent thread at the Help Desk. (Our article does, however, give the exact latitude and longitude of his house, so that anyone who wants to know where it is can see its location via one of the online mapping services; so I'm unclear how removing the street address is supposed to discourage unwelcome visitors.) Deor (talk) 20:22, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

From a bureaucratic point of view, there are two reasons for addresses to be restricted: because the owner wants it, or because the SHPO wants it. Most AR sites are archaeological, being restricted for the reasons that 184.147.123.169 notes, but occasionally people are happy to have their properties set for AR even though they're no more sensitive than other historic buildings. Very rarely there are sillinesses, such as the Second and Market Streets Historic District in Louisville, Kentucky: guess where it's located! While the National Park Service won't provide locations for AR sites to the general public, AR properties are still protected from federally-funded activities, so NPS will provide locations to you if you're officially charged with looking for historic sites in the path of a federally-funded project. For example, they provided the location of an owner-restricted pair of bridges to people who were preparing a report for the construction of Interstate 69 in southern Indiana. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any city who is called Arrocha in Brazil?

Is there any city who's called Arrocha in Brazil109.253.198.234 (talk) 17:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Our article arrocha is about a dance style from Brazil, but we do not seem to have any mention of a city of that name; so probably no. --ColinFine (talk) 18:28, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd say no. Wikipedia covers many cities, some are even smaller than 1,000 inhabitants. And there is no mention of it here. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:09, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Malls' security in the U.S.

Yet another mass shooting has taken place in our country, now in Oregon, 22 year old Jacob Tyler Roberts shoots and kills two before killing himself. My question is, what can malls do to prevent such events and why is it that common in malls? Thank you. Keeeith (talk) 17:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's exactly common, but a case of Mean world syndrome. Mass shootings can only occur in places where a lot of people congregate (otherwise it becomes a string of isolated shooting), and malls are generally filled between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Mall security cannot prevent maniacs from getting a hold of guns through straw purchases, nor can they enforce waiting periods to enable evaluations of potential gun buyers. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Malls are a place where there are lots of people. I don't think focussing on malls will reduce the level of shootings; it's not like the malls are the cause of the shootings, or particularly responsible for the level of damage caused. You might want to look at restricting access to firearms, or building a society of mutual care and support where fewer people feel motivated to slaughter their fellow-citizens. AlexTiefling (talk) 18:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Is it legal to bring a gun into a mall in the States, because in the Bluewater shopping centre in the UK it isn't even legal to wear a hooded top. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

The laws vary by state. Of particular importance seems to be whether the gun is concealed or in plain sight. However, I'd expect that the mall can choose to eject anyone packing a gun, if they are aware of it. StuRat (talk) 18:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

That won't kill the problem. A shooter like this won't to be stopped by a simple prohibition of "no guns allowed in this mall." Either you enforce TSA level security rules or anyone willing to run on a shooting rampage is going to do it. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Then they just go to some place where there is no such security: like a school or a bowling alley or a church or a bank or a brothel.

Please let us not pretend to solve the problem here on these pages. This is a reference desk. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Then the question should probably be closed, since the OP explicitly ask how to solve the problem. I also have some doubts that mass shootings are more often on malls. Obviously they happen, as pointed above, where people congregate, but that could be a school, university, subway, whatever. OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

In response to Itsmejudith, malls in the United States are all or virtually all private property, so the owners can ban guns if they like, though as others have said, enforcing such a ban is tricky. In regions where lots of (generally law-abiding) people carry guns and are vigilant of their right to do so (I'm thinking places like Arizona and Texas), malls might be reluctant to ban guns for fear of losing business. Marco polo (talk) 21:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I would be curious about whether countries with nationalized health care that includes free mental health treatment have lower occurrences of random massacres of this kind. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 22:39, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's likely, but the co-existence of strong (or at least stronger) gun control in those countries is such a large confounding factor for such a small sample size, it would be very hard to show causation. AlexTiefling (talk) 01:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the info about private malls. In response to the question about free mental health care, there is a difficulty in using the cross-country data on massacres, because they don't happen often in any country. The figure of deaths from spree killing is very high in Norway now, but generally Norway is a safe country with a low crime rate. It would be easier to compare the availability of mental health care to the suicide rate. Even then, in the UK mental health care is free, but there are long waiting lists for expensive treatments like counselling and CBT. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Is this a scam site? Where is the scam, how does it make money?

what's up with this - http://horaton.com/. I got two pieces of spam delivered to my inbox from this address (I don't know why Google would deliver them instead of marking them spam), but there is nothing on that site that makes money. Why would they do this? They would lose any bets on this. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 21:32, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Why would they do this? See crackpot and eschatology. Plenty of people make end-of-the-world claims, mostly based on religion. All of them have been wrong, and so long as they continue to be based on superstition or religion instead of evidence, all of them will continue to be wrong. --140.180.249.194 (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm unclear. I meant, why does this site have enough resouces to spam me, well enough to get into my inbox past gmail's filter? This is a serious commitment - where is this money coming from? The site has no affiliation or any reason to send anything like that out. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 21:57, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It cost a few cents to send out millions of these spam emails, so it's basically costing them nothing. They only need one guy out of a million to fall for this in order to make money. Google might be good but they're not omnipotent; in this case Google failed to properly identify the piece of spam.Dncsky (talk) 22:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

But they're not selling anything, apart from a kooky idea. No money changes hands. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:42, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Bored people with excess cash do lots of strange things with their money. It only takes one kooky millionaire to keep this website spamming away. --Jayron32 23:13, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't take a millionaire at all. Precisely because the spam isn't selling anything, and therefore isn't similar to conventional spam, Google's spam filters have a hard time detecting it. If I wanted to, I could write a spamming bot and get it running for precisely 0 dollars. It won't be very capable or be able to send out millions of emails, but a large fraction of the emails will get through because they're not similar to other spam. --140.180.249.194 (talk) 23:53, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Jayron, supposing I had plenty of spare cash (yeah, right) and a penchant for falling for kooky ideas (a little less outlandish), and I wanted to financially support the owners of that website. I see precisely zero contact information there. How would I go about contacting them to offer them money? And then, why wouldn't they assume I was a Nigerian and refuse to give me their bank details or anything else? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:48, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

You could try contacting them either via their domain registry details or via whoever is hosting the server. As for your other point, handing over your banking details to a scammer is not necessarily a great idea, but also shouldn't be that dangerous in most countries provided you only hand over the details needed to send you money. (What scammers generally want is for you to provide them money, not for your banking details which are likely to be pretty useless to them. If they do ask for your banking details, it's generally either to convince you they are serious or to later use to black mail you, or both.) However it wouldn't surprise me if these people have no interest in taking your money, it's possible they may think you're part of some evil government conspiracy or whatever. Unlike Dncsky, I don't think Jayron32 was suggesting they're getting money from some random person they didn't know. Rather that such websites could easily be set up and supported by someone who was interested in such things. Nil Einne (talk) 11:46, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In fact a check with the domain registry suggests they didn't even try to hide. Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

You're baffling me with science, Nil Einne. What are "domain registry details", and what do they tell us, and how would one go about finding theirs out?

The money situation is the reverse of what you're saying (unless I've misunderstood you). I'm hypothetically trying to give them money, not extract money from them. Put yourself in their shoes. Someone they've never heard of finds out how to contact them despite a lack of any obvious contact details, and says they want to send them some money. What's their reaction gonna be? Total trust, or deep suspicion? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 12:02, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood me. What I'm saying is whether or not they trust you, there's actually no real genuine harm for them listening to you or even providing suffucient information such that you can pay them money, if they know what they're doing. When there is no physical contact (and therefore risk of violence), the only likely harm is in wasted time unless you fear the person you're responding to has some sort of extraordinary powers. In other words, if they were actually seeking donations or financial support, there's minimal risk to them actually responding to people who claim to be offering money who they suspect are genuine. The issue of you being a scammer is largely a red herring. (In general, it's easy to spot an attempted advance fee fraud kind of scam anyway. In fact some have even suggested they intentionally write in a way that makes it obvious they are scammers to weed out anyone but the most gullible.) Of course this may not be the case here, since there's no suggestion the people behind the website are interested in getting money.

As for my other point, I was vague partially because I will not provide links or information about the case here for BLP and privacy reasons. But it's easy to do a WHOIS of most domain names. In most cases some sort of contact details are required to be stored and shown including a real name, phone number and email address. In some cases, people take advantage of masking services where they register a domain name under the name of a company who keeps such details private but even in those cases theoretically the contact details should still be valid and attempts at contact should make it to the relevent parties (perhaps after filtering). My own research shows one person behind the domain name apparently made no attempt to hide their identity anyway. Our article suggests some web whois providers but a simple search for whois should provide plenty more.

Another avenue is to work out who is running the server the website is hosted on. They must have some info on who's paying (or asked if it's free) them to host the content and could likely forward on attempts at contact if they believe it would be of interest or relevence.

The end result of both of these is you should be able to contact a person who has some involvement in the website if you have a relevant query. This may not include donating money, if anyone is interested in financial support they will probably provide a method of contact themselves. If you rich, you could always pay someone to help you if you have no idea of any of this.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll get on it straight away. I'm just itching to give away a few spare million to a worthy cause.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

December 14

Defining slavery

In the US states where slavery was legal, were there laws which defined who could or could not be a slave? Were there laws which prevented white people or Native Americans from being enslaved? 216.93.234.239 (talk) 00:24, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In short, No. See also Indentured servant. Moonraker (talk) 00:35, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

See also Slave codes. In short, some states did choose to define who is a slave, but only well after the practice began. Furthermore, the laws tended to dictate who may be considered a slave, rather than who could not be. I wonder if at the time, the slave codes were interpreted such that the exception proves the rule; i.e. that by saying negroes can be slaves, it is implied that whites cannot be slaves. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

But indentured servants were volunteers, not kidnapped and taken to a different place. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 02:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

For one thing, lots of slaves in the USA (the majority? Not sure) weren't kidnapped or taken to a different place: they were born into slavery. For another thing, the process of getting into slavery doesn't affect whether you're a slave or not. Nyttend (talk) 02:47, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, except that indentured servitude was of fixed, predetermined term. It doesn't make sense to equate a period of agreed upon labor, fixed in terms, which expires when a debt has been repaid, to indefinite servitude determined by accident of birth or by outright kidnapping. The two concepts do no overlap significantly. --Jayron32 03:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Right, indentured servitude was not a particularly desirable state but it's clearly different from chattel slavery. Chattel slavery of whites did exist, though, albeit not on anything like the scale as it did among blacks. Not sure where best to point the questioner. --Trovatore (talk) 03:08, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

This also depends on how "white" was defined. On Monticello, Sally Hemings was a quadroon noted for "looking mighty white", and her children where octoroons, with Jefferson's redish hair and pale complexion. Most of them passed for white after Jefferson's death, and one of Hemings' grandsons eventually became a Colonel in the Union army. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:07, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, no, it doesn't really. I mean, the numbers depend on that, of course. But my understanding is that there were chattel slaves whose entire recent ancestry was European. --Trovatore (talk) 20:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

216.93.234.23 -- In the 1850's, many anti-slavery advocates claimed that the aggressive Slave Power was planning slavery of whites as its ultimate expansionistic goal (following the Kansas-Nebraska act, the Dred Scott decision, etc.), and pointed to cases of people who had a very small proportion of black ancestry being enslaved or threatened with slavery. Others didn't believe that there was such an intentional conspiracy, but did believe that slavery of whites was the logical culmination of many of the arguments offered by pro-slavery defenders. No prominent Southern leader came out publicly in favor of white slavery, but Senator Hammond's infamous "mudsill" speech was interpreted by many northerners as amounting to pretty much the same thing, and author George Fitzhugh was a strong proponent of white slavery. AnonMoos (talk) 11:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In the US slave states, a slave could be a white person in appearance. This is not to say that a plantation owner could just seize some passing white person and declare him or her to be his slave, legally.Someone selling a white person as a slave, or capturing a white person and claiming he was a runaway slave, would likely need some paperwork, real or forged, with a description of the runaway (red hair, fair skin, scar on right cheek, about 180 pounds and 5 feet ten in height, trained as a blacksmith). A slave who was described as an "octaroon," meaning the African ancestry was limited to one great grandparent, could typically pass as "white," with no indication of African ancestry detectable in the skin color, features, or hair texture. "Quadroons." the term applied to those with one African grandparent, might "pass" by attributing their appearance to Spanish or Native American ancestry. There were many, many such slaves who could "pass." Nineteenth century American writers acknowledged that if slavery continued for many generations more, the only determinant of slave status would be "previous condition of enslavement of the parents." If it had continued to the 21st century, genetics could have been used to help identify the slaves through their particular genetic sequences which originated relatively recently in Africa. Edison (talk) 17:31, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Moshavim reform conservative orthodox

Which moshavs are reform jew settlements, which are conservative jew settlements and which are orthodox settlements? -- 01:14, 14 December 2012‎ Donmust90

I think that you've been told several times that Reform and Conservative Judaism as these are understood in the United States have had very little institutional presence in Israel until quite recently. AnonMoos (talk) 10:49, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A search on Google for _"Conservative movement" moshav_ refers only to Shorashim as being affiliated with the U.S. Conservative movement. If you require definitive answers, go to the website of each movement (which you can find here in the English-language Wikpedia) and send your inquiry to them, or to the librarians of Jewish universities in Israel or the U.S. -- Deborahjay (talk) 15:39, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Bloating or concussion?

A few days ago, I caught a mouse in a sticky trap, so like the previous three mice that I caught, I took it outside and dropped a concrete block on it to kill it quickly; since I live in the woods, I just left it in hopes that something would come along and eat it. Two days later, I noticed that the block had landed only on the head, which was flattened by the impact (except for the eyes, which were protruding somewhat), but the rest of the body was substantially larger than it had been. I live at 39°N, so everything was covered with frost. Given winter weather, is bloat possible, or is it more likely that the sudden blow from the concrete somehow forced blood and other parts into the rest of the body, making it swell? Reading the page that I linked in the previous sentence, I'm questioning whether bloat can happen in the winter, since so much of the process depends on gasses and fluids that behave differently in temperatures below 0°C. I've since disposed of it (put mouse and trap together into a zip-lock bag and threw them away in a public trash can), so I can only answer questions based on my memory. Nyttend (talk) 01:48, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Oops, what was I thinking...this isn't the Science Desk. I'll copy my question there; if you have an answer, please respond over there. Nyttend (talk) 02:03, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

If nobody has yet responded, I'd feel free to delete a Q I posted to the wrong Desk, and repost it on the correct Desk. StuRat (talk) 17:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Luxury homes in slums ?

There are plenty of former middle class homes which are now located in slums, but are there any former luxury homes now located in slums ? StuRat (talk) 03:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

All over the place. In my experience, see the Dayton Street Historic District in Cincinnati's West End or some of the houses on the northern end of the adjacent Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and if you go up the hill a couple of miles, the Mount Auburn Historic District is rather slummy (example), including the area right around the William Howard Taft National Historic Site. Elsewhere, the Wilbur Wynant House was just recently destroyed; it was a Frank Lloyd Wright design in the middle of Gary, Indiana. What remains of Millionaire's Row in Cleveland is slummy, although it's getting marginally better under the influence of the Cleveland Clinic. You'll occasionally see drug deals on the porches of once-luxury houses on the east side of New Castle, Pennsylvania. Nyttend (talk) 06:14, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

London's Notting Hill was built for the wealthy, then became a notorious slum and has now been fully gentrified again. Various other neighbourhoods in London have gone through the same process. They were usually upper middle class areas developed in Victorian times, not for the aristocracy. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that Notting Hill (and Notting Hill Gate) has been through this cycle more than once over several centuries. I think that's also true of some districts of New York City and even San Francisco. —— Shakescene (talk) 09:46, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. How do luxury areas get to be slums ? Presumably the people who lived there had the resources to prevent it, such as hiring enough police to keep drugs and prostitution out of the area. StuRat (talk) 19:30, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The poshos were already gone, moved out to new outer suburbs and dormitory towns that grew up around new rail links. That's the case for some London areas anyway. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:40, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Rich people moved to the suburbs: they sold their large houses, which became Houses in Multiple Occupancy for poorer people, mainly recent immigrants and students, and these landlords allowed the houses to fall into disrepair in order to maxmise profit. --TammyMoet (talk) 21:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Tammy, that explains it. If they remained single-family homes, presumably the poor wouldn't have been able to afford to move in, and thus the homes would have remained, at the least, middle-class homes. StuRat (talk) 21:13, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A Rudyard Kipling short story about a policeman during the Weimar Republic : title ?

Hello Learned Ones ! I'm looking for the title of that short story, set in the '20 Germany, about a former Reischwehr officer, then policeman chief of the Weimar republic, who tries to enforce law in the social turmoil of those years & (I think) , is killed ...Thanks beforehand for your help. T;y. Arapaima (talk) 08:02, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

You already asked this question before recently. AnonMoos (talk) 10:35, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I did have a quite thorough search through the bowels of Google for it, but failed miserably. That's not to say that it doesn't exist, just that I can't find it. Alansplodge (talk) 10:49, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I did find two Kipling short stories featuring Germans; Reingelder And The German Flag vich hass ze vorst German accent you haff ever read (unless you were a fan of The Victor (comic) in the 1960s), also "Swept And Garnished" from January 1915, which is the story of an elderly German housewife who is visited by the ghosts of some Belgian children that had been done-in by the beastly Hun. Fascinating stuff. The search continues. Alansplodge (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Postwar Kipling short story implies Debits and Credits or Limits and Renewals, his only two postwar prose collections. The story doesn't ring a bell for me as being in either of those, but it might help narrow it down... Andrew Gray (talk) 00:04, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Debits and Credits by Rudyard Kipling and Limits and Renewals, by Rudyard Kipling. Not there as far as I can see. Alansplodge (talk) 03:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

So the Ref Desk old war-horses pricked up their ears ! Thanks a lot Alan & Andrew ! BTW , in "Mary Postgate" (1915) a hun fallen from his taube while raiding Albion mutters "Laty, laty...Cassée, che me rends. Le médecin ! Toctor !" and the lady watches his agony, revolver in hand...Who said Kipling was old-fashioned ? Thanks again, happy new year, best wishes & thanks also to all those who answer me all year long ! Arapaima (talk) 07:35, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Property and Responsibility Question

I think Jayron mentioned something about this in another question of mine. Have there ever been any cases where a gun dealer was successfully prosecuted, held responsible, and/or forced to pay compensation to the family of a shooting victim after someone else who legally bought his/her gun shot this victim? Also, were there ever any cases, of, say, someone getting prosecuted for something similar, such as legally selling or giving a car to someone and then having this other individual run someone else over in a car accident? Thank you. Futurist110 (talk) 09:31, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In another area, there's Dramshop liability... AnonMoos (talk) 10:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In those cases, the drunk people were unable to think rationally (due to being drunk) and the alcohol that they sold did not directly kill anyone. Futurist110 (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry no reference, but I do remember a parent getting sued (not prosecuted) for lending a car to a son who was a licensed driver aged 18+ (who ended up killing someone in an accident), on the grounds that they should have known that he was an irresponsible driver. Can't remember how it came out. In this regard, I've sometimes wondered whether adult children with an elderly parent who is obviously a danger on the roads could be sued after an accident for not having reporting the parent to the driver license authorities. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

What's the difference between getting sued and prosecuted? Futurist110 (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A prosecution is an action in criminal law, usually taken by the state, and it may result in conviction and punishment. Suing means taking a action in civil law against another party, and may result in damages or other forms of restitution. --ColinFine (talk) 23:20, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A French couple were convicted after they "let" (tried hard to dissuade) their visitors drive home drunk. They were told they should have reported them. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:59, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

To answer the more general question, here is a series of references and case studies dealing with the legal responsibility of bars and pubs regarding selling alcohol to someone and then being held responsible for their actions following. It applies primarily to Canada, but this google search turns up plenty of other legal cases from around the world, a lot from the U.S. (which I presume the OP is from based on prior comments). --Jayron32 17:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Back to the OP's original gun question, there is a recent civil case that alleges a website facilitated an illegal purchase of a firearm, and the post (which is from a sight written largely by law professors) discusses some of the background law on firearms purchases in the U.S. here. I quickly found at least one example of what you're talking about, although it's just a basic newsblurb, no real in depth discussion [22]. I suspect those prosecutions do happen, usually for straw purchases where they can prove the dealer should have known the transaction was a straw purchase.

That was an illegal purchase, whereas I'm talking about legal ones. What do you mean by "straw purchase"? Futurist110 (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

There's actually an article on that, Straw purchase. Basically someone buys a gun for someone who legally couldn't buy it themselves.Tobyc75 (talk) 00:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as prosecutions for homicide or something similar, I didn't find any examples offhand, but it wouldn't be unheard of. There have been lots of civil cases based on various theories of liability, and in some cases I would imagine some prosecutors might go after sellers if they had reason to know that a purchaser might use the weapon in an illegal way. But this is hardly unique to weapons. There's a long established line of jurisprudence about the liability of a seller of an otherwise legal transaction, to a criminal. That would be the line of cases you'd want to start with. Shadowjams (talk) 19:26, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily talking about the buyer being a criminal at the time of the purchase, only later on. The buyer might have had a clean record at the time of the purchase. Also, there is always a risk that someone who you'd legally sell a gun to would later use it to commit a shooting. The risk might be very small in many cases, but the risk would always still be there and gun dealers would generally always be aware that such a risk exists. Futurist110 (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The Dram Shop act and such stuff as that are carryovers from the Prohibition era. To prosecute someone for legally selling a gun to someone who then used it for something illegal, there would have to be a law paralleling the dram shop act. I very much doubt such a law exists, as the NRA would be all over it as a constitutional violation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

How exactly would it be a constitutional violation? Futurist110 (talk) 08:00, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

It would be an infringement of the second amendment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:59, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

How? I'm not a legal scholar, but the second amendment doesn't talk about responsibility for shootings anywhere. Futurist110 (talk) 20:04, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Precisely the point. A gun dealer being held accountable for someone doing something illegal later would compel all gun dealers to stop selling guns, because they would have no way to predict who's going to do something illegal or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe a couple gun owners would man up, accept the risk, and continue selling guns and if a shooting occurs they would man up, take responsibility, and pay financial support to the family/relatives of the shooting victim(s). Futurist110 (talk) 00:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

We're straying into speculation again. Without actually seeing such a law, it's impossible to say. However, a criminal prosecution of someone who made a legal sale, where the purchaser went on to commit a crime, would be... unique. Then again, novel interpretations of Constitutional law aren't unheard of. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

This isn't really that novel of an interpretation. The gun dealer was aware that there was a risk of a shooting whenever he/she legally sold guns, and therefore when a shooting occurs one can make an argument that the gun owner now has a responsibility and obligation to pay financial support to the family/relatives of the shooting victim(s). There's already a legal precedent for holding people responsible for the willing decisions of others in forcing unwilling men to pay child support (since it was purely the woman's decisions whether or not to create a new person). Therefore, a law holding gun dealers responsible for the shootings of their customers would simply build on this legal precedent. Futurist110 (talk) 00:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

So a guy buys a car and runs someone over. Then they come after the car dealer because he should have known that the buyer was unstable and liable to run someone over. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:43, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Not necessarily that the car dealer should have known that the buyer was unstable--only that the car dealer knew that there was a risk/possibility that the buyer was unstable or will become unstable in the future and run someone over. The buyer would also get held responsible and possibly prosecuted/sued if he'd still be alive after the event (the buyer could commit suicide right after the event, especially in the event of a gun shooting). Futurist110 (talk) 04:32, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

...(since it was purely the woman's decisions whether or not to create a new person)

I... have no words. This is far from reality, but it's wayyy off topic, so I'll just leave it at that. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, what I said was accurate if one accepts the pro-choice view that personhood begins at birth/viability/sentience/another point in the pregnancy, rather than at fertilization. Since abortion is legal (at least here in the U.S.), the decision whether or not to continue the pregnancy, create a new person, and give birth is solely the woman's. Futurist110 (talk) 05:38, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You say that as if it's universally accepted that the creation of a new person occurs some time after fertilisation. Here isn't the place to the debate that matter, but there is a different viewpoint. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:41, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm aware that pro-lifers (and maybe a small number of pro-choicers) think otherwise, but so far the law generally agrees with the mainstream pro-choice point of view. Of course, if a woman gets killed along with her prenatal offspring/fetus, then the killer could get charged with double-homicide, but even that is a relatively new law and this is pretty much the only instance where fetuses (and maybe embryos) are considered persons right now, at least in the United States. For the record, I'm not taking a solid position on the personhood issue one way or the other, especially not here. Futurist110 (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

North Korean rocket launches

There's something I don't understand about the West's reaction to North Korea's successful rocket launch. Yes I know that North Korea is better off using the $1.3 billion (1.7 trillion won) in feeding their starving populace than launching a weather satellite, but why is the West always so suspicious of North Korea's activities? I know North Korea has military tendencies and could launch a war if it wanted to, but if they say it's for peaceful purposes, why doesn't anyone believe them? The United States is a world superpower, with perhaps the best army in the world, and yet it has peaceful, civilian space flights all the time. On the other hand, Israel has been launching rockets since 1988; the program is quite secretive, but no one seems to blink. So why are countries suspicious of North Korea's rocket launches? Do Western countries even have evidence or intelligence reports that NoKor's space program is a cover-up for developing ballistic missiles? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:50, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

If you were Japan, you might be concerned about North Korea constantly testing rockets over your territory without permission... AnonMoos (talk) 11:26, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem with Space rockets is that once you have them, you can use them to shoot intercontinental missiles. If you can reach space, you could use the rocket to reach the other side of the planet. It is OK for Israel and Europe to have such rockets, because they both have a close alliances with the US, and so we know they are not going to fire these on each other. It isn't OK for some rogue state that has a recent record of bombing an island controlled by its neighbour. Russia also has had such rockets for a very long time, and that was a very serious worry during the cold war. Less now because both sides understand that using them would mean mutual annihilation. But North Korea may not quite understand this, they are very "unpredictable" --Lgriot (talk) 11:41, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It's worth noting that both Project Mercury and Project Gemini American space programmes were launched using modified ICBM rockets, Atlas and Titan respectively. Alansplodge (talk) 12:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It's not very enlightening to say that the West treats its allies better than its enemies. Welcome to the world. As for Israel, they've had the bomb — and the means to use it — for over 40 years, and haven't blown anyone up yet, so that's something in their favor. Back when they were still in the "not quite there yet" phase of things, though, the U.S. did in fact try to discourage them from developing nuclear weapons. (It is a misconception that the U.S. likes a nuclear-armed Israel; if they had their way, nobody would nuclear-armed except the U.S., even allies. It was France who helped Israel get the bomb, not the U.S. After a nuclear-armed Israel became an unavoidable thing, the U.S. accepted it, but only then.)

The problem with North Korea is that nobody really trusts North Korea — not even their "allies" — and for pretty good reasons. They're a tottering Stalinist state known for mass enslavement and belligerence. The United States has been trying to get them dial down their nuclear ambitions on the idea that the North Koreans are not really responsible enough to deal with the bomb sanely. Now, one might doubt that assessment — indeed, appearing crazy enough to nuke may just be a tactic for getting what they want — but there's also an element of truth to the fact that the North Korean ideology is a spooky one. As for the space/missile connection, it's dual-use technology — they parade these things around (even fakes) on mobile rocket launchers. You don't use mobile rocket launchers for satellites, you don't put purely peaceful missiles into military parades. All of the research into these missiles is being done by the military over there. It's not rocket science (ha) to see that this is meant to be interpreted as a military program. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:49, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

"just be a tactic" worked for the paranoid owners of a secondhand store in the town where I grew up; they had a sign on the window saying the metal grille behind the glass was electrified, and nobody dared rob the place just in case it turned out to be true. Maybe televising huge parades showing off sinister looking missiles, the occasional large subterranean explosion, and trying to launch something into space, works for North Korea. You wouldn't actually want to invade them, just in case it all turned out to be true. Astronaut (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

How paradoxical it may sound, even Stalinism can be seen as somewhat benign in comparison to the Juche ideology of North Korea. This ideology, which basically has constructed a divinity cult around the (highly disfunctional) Kim Il-sung family, seems to function on its own quite unpredictable premises, and is quite uncomparable to any other known totalitarian regime in modern history. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, Pol Pot was a serious nut-job, too, and killed millions, but fortunately never had nukes. StuRat (talk) 19:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

One possibility is that North Korea could be preparing to invade South Korea. They are still technically in a state of war, and the US troops stationed in SK are insufficient to stop them. At one point, the threat of a massive US response (bombing NK) was a credible enough deterrent to dissuade them. However, once they have the capability to nuke the US West Coast, then a US counter-strike is no longer a credible deterrent. I think the only way for SK to remain safe will be for them to develop their own nukes.

Japan could also be at risk, although an NK invasion there could likely be stopped by US forces. However, an NK nuke or two might get through. StuRat (talk) 19:24, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about, StuRat? The US has more than enough firepower, both nuclear and conventional, to completely overwhelm North Korea. Considering the US response to 9/11, I'm very sure that nuking the US West Coast would be suicidal for NK. --140.180.249.194 (talk) 01:23, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

If NK invaded SK, and the only way for the US to stop it was to nuke it, knowing full well that NK would then nuke the US West Coast, do you really think the US would ? Of course not. Thus, NK could invade SK with impunity. StuRat (talk) 01:37, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, that is partly why we still have soldiers in South Korea to this day. It ensures that NK can't invade SK without invoking a US response. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:27, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, pre-emptively nuking the US West Coast would be suicidal... but, judging by their government's behavior, they might just be crazy enough to do it. That's the core of the problem. Starving the majority your population to support military advancement, while enshrining the leader as a god, doesn't exactly bring the word "stable" to mind. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

"launching a weather satellite"? 216.93.234.239 (talk) 00:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

You would probably believe that if the US claimed it for one of its launches? How about France? Turkey? India? China? The problem is that we don't actually know what NK launched, and many are making judgements based on what they think of NK. That's fine, but don't pretend it's factual. HiLo48 (talk) 01:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, it's a weather satellite. And it's predicting nuclear winter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the 5000 nuclear nukes of US could make a best prediction of nuclear winter, don't you think? CubanEkoMember (talk) 16:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Nuclear nukes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Brought to you by the Bureau of Redundancy Department. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Who is Arrocha familly?

In this site there is an escutcheon of Arrocha. what is it this name? and what it significance? Is it name of family from the Middle Ages? I would like to know more information about. Thank you 95.35.215.110 (talk) 14:05, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

There definitely are a number of people with the surnames Arrocha [23] [24] and Arocha [25]. Ancestry.com says of Arocha: “Spanish (and Portuguese): possibly from the Basque occupational name Arotxa, Arotza, from arotz (arotx) ‘smith’, ‘carpenter’ + the article suffix -a, or alternatively a topographic from a rocha ‘the rock’ (with the Portuguese or Galician article). This name is chiefly associated with the Canary Islands.” 184.147.123.169 (talk) 17:19, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

By the way, coats of arms are rarely associated with surnames in the sense that anyone bearing the surname automatically has a traditionally legitimate right to display the coat of arms... AnonMoos (talk) 15:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, but I don't know who did this escutcheon, and from which is the time of this escutcheon, and who is carrying this escutcheon? 109.253.13.232 (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Ethnic group

What is the ethnic group of people in this video? Thank you very much--Morning Sunshine (talk) 16:29, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The indigenous people of Easter Island (Spanish: Isla de Pascua) are the Rapa Nui people who are Polynesians. There is a significant European and mixed-race population on the island though, see Easter Island#Demography. Alansplodge (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Ivor T. Holth

Any information on Ivor T. Holth - Norway - Jewelry Designer71.232.155.152 (talk) 17:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Apparently his name appears also, and more often, spelled Ivar, and you can also search him without the middle initial. Google being how it is, most of the top hits are commercial catalogues hawking silver jewelry and crafts. Bits of info: based in Oslo, mid-century... perhaps there's a Norwegian guild of silversmiths that would have more information. -- Deborahjay (talk) 18:53, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Wikipedia has no article in English, Bokmål or Nynorsk, nor does it match various other spellings "Ivar" and "Holt". A google search reveals several thousand mentions, most trying to sell something. The most promising I found (at least saying a little about him) is this site. A more thorough search than I have time for, could reveal more. Astronaut (talk) 19:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In google books an address comes up in a listing: WESTERN EUROPE Major Wholesalers, p. 208. It says (as far as I can guess - very small print): "Ivar. T. Holth AS, Grønsøveien 51, Oslo Oslo 0601 Norway, Phone 2 219 15 00". Says the company was founded 1943, has more than 100 employees, and makes jewellery, silver, home furnishings. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 19:17, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A search at Brønnøysund Register Centre shows that the company "Ivar T Holth AS" was dissolved in 2007 [26], after a merger with Panorama AS [27], which is the largest wholesale supplier of jewelry to Norwegian jewelry shops. The address in the Google books search above should be "Grenseveien 51", which currently houses Oslo Scientology Church, and is owned by the Holth family [28]. I have not been able to locate any information about the person Ivar T Holth. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

16 billion people killed in the Deluge?

Out of a bit of perverted curiosity, I just visited the website of the Westboro Baptist Church and found it about as cogently logical and convincing as I would have expected. There's one thing on the site that makes me wonder, though - they have a "Numbers" section in the lower left of the main page, with such gems as "X - people whom God has cast into hell since you loaded this page" etc. The thing that made me wonder is the entry "16,000,000,000 - people that God killed in the flood". Now, I'm well aware that the WBC has a rather...unique interpretation of the Bible in general, and their website is certainly not the place I'd visit for any kind of scholarly insight into, well, anything, but I'm wondering where exactly that number comes from. Is there actually any kind of widespread belief among young earth creationists (or any other group) that the world's population at the time of the great flood was more than double its current population? Is that belief based in any way on a reading of the Bible, no matter how creative or unique? Or is that number just made up out of thin air? -- Ferkelparade π 23:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, to be able to tell me how many people their god has cast into hell since I loaded the page, they must have a direct line to him, and he must have told them about the flood numbers. I'm amused by the way they capitalise god, but not America. HiLo48 (talk) 23:13, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The 16 billion figure seems unique to the Westboro Baptist "Church," though they probably arrived at that figure through similar "reasoning" as these believably-human (though still extreme IMO) literalists. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:29, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

A back-of-an-envelope calculation suggests that if you take the Masoretic text's figure for time from the creation to the flood, and assume a generation-period of 25 years (as marketers often do, rather than 33 for genealogists), an average family size of about 3.5 children would yield a population of 16 billion. The site's still bollocks, though. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:37, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Is that assuming that nobody dies before they have children ? StuRat (talk) 23:42, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry - should have clarified. The figure of 3.5 is for children surviving to reproduce themselves. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In case anyone doesn't recognize it, this is the infamous "God hates fags" church, if a hate group like that can be called a church. StuRat (talk) 23:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The only reference I found find was [29] which says: "I've given some consideration to the origin of this number which no other Christian or Jewish authority comes close to as an estimate of deaths in the mythical great flood. 16 billion is a number that came straight out of Fred Phelp's anus - along with the rest of his theology." Fred Phelps is the head of the Westboro Baptist Church. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

We're skating the edge of WP:BLP and WP:ATTACK here, folks. μηδείς (talk) 02:10, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I thought that's what the Westboro Baptist Church did. I'm sorry, but we do identify hate groups. The discussion has involved a quest for and use of sources. The adjectives used for the WBC and its leader may seem extreme, but so are they. HiLo48 (talk) 02:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

My personal opinion is they should be jailed (in the general population) for what they do at funerals. That doesn't mean I can't approve of applying our standards in how we talk about them at the Wikipedia Reference Desk. In any case, "we" do not "identify hate groups". We write neutral articles in an encyclopedic tone based on reliable sources. μηδείς (talk) 02:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

One interpretation of BLP would not even permit you to express your opinion that they should be jailed. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:56, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to be one step more meta, Jack. Identifying something as my personal opinion in the context of expressing how I support policy regardless of it is not necessarily problematic if done in good faith and reasonably. Simply quoting unnotable people's opinion about John Doe's anus outside a policy discussion is problematic in this context. Unless perhaps the OP was asking for all quotes available regarding Joh Doe's anus. But that would still border on violating WP:ATTACK. This can be discussed further at talk if anybody wants to. μηδείς (talk) 21:14, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

As I say, that would be one interpretation. Nothing to do with insufficient metaness on my part. (But my paternal grandmother's first name was Meta - does that help? :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

For 16 billion people to be killed by the deluge they must have been alive. Since more than 15 billion people died before the deluge, they could not have been killed by the deluge. I suspect Westboro Baptist Church got 16 billion mixed up with 16 million people killed by the deluge.
Sleigh (talk) 10:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Sound like the one about a dam being opened. "I am very happy to celebrate the opening of this great dam which will hold 400 million gallons of water" says the speaker, "400 thousand million" whispers the chief engineer, "Aw what's a thousand in so many million" says the speaker. Dmcq (talk) 13:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Or the one about Warsaw Airlines, when a plane crashed into a cemetery, and local news reported that so far they had found over a thousand bodies. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Reminds me of the screencap from a TV news program, where the subtitle claimed that the Space Shuttle (emphasis mine) "exceeded the speed of light" as it re-entered the atmosphere. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Accidentally confusing million with billion would be a possible explanation if the numbers were written in words, but they're not. The web page explicitly says "16,000,000,000". It does not say 16 billion. Accidentally adding three zeroes would seem unlikely. HiLo48 (talk) 16:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

That organisation has a history of saying things that are not supported by anything rational or credible. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:22, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Ya think? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:41, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

December 15

Difference between two types of companies

What's the difference between companies who do not have any source of income besides donations, and companies that do have income besides donations (i.e. YMCA memberships), but which do not use that money to pay its employees or owners? Buggie111 (talk) 02:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

There is no formal designation. A non-profit does not have owners, but those who are in control can be paid as staff, but that is rarely done.[30] There are some exceptions - the president of the NRA has almost a million dollar salary (and does not contribute to the NRA).[31] Apteva (talk) 03:24, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

If you asking how they are different legally, or how they are named, that may depend on the jurisdiction. In particular, Apteva's statement that "A non-profit does not have owners" is arguably not true in the UK. See Company limited by guarantee. --ColinFine (talk) 11:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

A company limited by guarantee has members, rather than owners. It will be written into the governing documents that they have no entitlement to a share of profits. They get a vote at the AGM, but that's about it - I'm not sure that can be considered to have any value, so it can't really be considered a possession. --Tango (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Most non-profits have several income streams - diversifying your income makes it more reliable. In addition to membership fees, they might hold jumble sales, sell goods or services connected with their charitable purpose (the Red Cross makes money from first aid courses, for example). Few charities only have donations for income. --Tango (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Non profit is generally used as a term for tax status, although states may have specific designations for not-for profit. However they're still corporations. For example, United Way Worldwide is incorporated in New York as a "domestic not-for-profit corporation." Shadowjams (talk) 22:00, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Royal Union of the Pacific Nations

Is this video for real? --KAVEBEAR (talk) 09:13, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The Kingdom of Atooi is a micronation type of thing being asserted by some Native Hawaiians. It is not, in fact, "a UN recognized Polynesian Sovereign Nation" as they claim; amusingly enough they managed to register as an NGO[32] but that's as far as their recognition goes. The Kingdom of Atooi is not officially recognized by any sovereign states and their authority is rejected by US courts[33][34]. Dncsky (talk) 09:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I am more surprised by the charade of monarchs and royals they assembled from all of Oceania.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 09:52, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

What's a UGO? I couldn't find anything on that page that explained, and it's not linked at Ugo. Nyttend (talk) 13:24, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Oops, it's supposed to be NGO. Sorry about the confusion, my apologies.Dncsky (talk) 13:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, okay; no problem. I just guessed it to be something like "Unrecognised Governmental Organisation", although that begged the question of how something could get registered as being unrecognised. Nyttend (talk) 13:41, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

See Hawaiian sovereignty movement#The Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi. Duoduoduo (talk) 23:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

How did they get all those Polynesian royals to come to a micronation? Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Aid money must be spent on Made in USA goods

US gives military aid to Israel with the attached stipulation that at least 75% of the aid must be spent on US made military equiment[35][36][37]. My question is, is the 75% part actually true? If so, which law contained this stipulation? I realize this is a controversial topic but please don't soapbox; I'm just looking for a single link to the relevant statute.Dncsky (talk) 09:22, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The US policy of tied aid to foreign countries is fairly well known [38] and when it comes to developmental and other such assistance to developing countries at least, fairly controversial (as atested in both sources). However I don't really get what you mean 'law' or 'statute', aid is mostly a matter of international treaties and agreements. Unless there is something in US law which either forbids or requires such stipulations then the 'law' and 'statutes' are irrelevant, anyone who accepts such aid will be bound by whatever agreement or treaty they signed as part of accepting the aid and if they refuse to abide by such agreements they may find future aid cut off or other consequences. Nil Einne (talk) 09:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I had the mistaken impression that it was a house bill that doled out "X amount of money for X nation" and I was trying to track down said bill. It honestly never occurred to me that it could've been a treaty; must've been a brainfart. I'm just trying to track down the exact text that said the "75%" thing. Are these treaties and/or agreements public?Dncsky (talk) 09:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not saying there is no statutory requirement, I'm simply saying there is no reason why there has to be. As per below, this isn't really what we're talking about since we're referring to military aid but [39] gives an an example of how up to recently, the United States Agency for International Development would only spend money on US manufacturers even though a statutory requirement was removed in 1993. Nil Einne (talk) 09:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, my misunderstanding then. I'm just trying to win an internet argument here and I'm looking for an authoritative source to quote the "75%" number from. Lots have articles contain that figure but I'm looking for the actual law or treaty.Dncsky (talk) 10:01, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

BTW our article Israel–United States military relations suggests Israel is actually unique here, normal US military aid which appears to be what we're talking about must entirely be spent with US manufacturers. Nil Einne (talk) 09:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, normally it's 100%, but for Israel it's 75%, which gives me more hope of tracking down that number.Dncsky (talk) 09:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I think I may have found (one version of) it:

...That of the funds appropriated under this heading, not less than $406,000,000 shall be made available for grants only for Jordan and not less than $1,000,000,000 shall be available for grants only for Israel: Provided further, That the funds appropriated by this paragraph for Israel shall be disbursed within 30 days of the enactment of this Act: Provided further, That to the extent that the Government of Israel requests that funds be used for such purposes, grants made available for Israel by this paragraph shall, as agreed to by the United States and Israel, be available for advanced weapons systems, of which not less than $263,000,000 shall be available for the procurement in Israel of defense articles and defense services, including research and development:[40]...

1-$263,000,000/$1,000,000,000 roughly equals to 75%. Some other law, which I'm still looking for, stipulates that all US aid money must be spent on US-made goods. The "shall be available for the procurement in Israel of defense articles and defense services" rider basically allows 26.3% of the fund to be spent on Israeli-made equipment. I don't read legalese so good so someone please tell me if this interpretation is in the right ballpark or not. Dncsky (talk) 10:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any picture of Adam Lanza?

Unlike other shootings, police has not yet released a picture of the gunman. I think that the picture of the young man in sunglasses is his older brother Ryan. Keeeith (talk) 12:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, check google images. There was an earlier confusion between him and his brother, but his real picture is out there. OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:50, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Luther

Luther presented a theology that everyone interprets the text as he chooses. How did he responded to those who claimed that he had not read right the Scripture? And where can I read more about it? --84.110.173.27 (talk) 17:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Your question assumes there is some authority (like the Pope) whose interpretation is better. Luther rejected that idea. Some people will get the scriptures right, and others will get it wrong, whether they are popes or not. StuRat (talk) 17:56, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See False premise and Loaded question. You've started your question with a statement which is not itself valid. Luther's theology does not state that everyone interprets the text of the Bible as he chooses. Theology of Martin Luther is probably something you should familiarize yourself with before you ask questions based on incorrect assumptions. The principle you seem to be misunderstanding is sola scriptura, which only states that the Word of God (being the Bible) is supreme, and that the Bible does not require any external texts or authority to be understood correctly. That doesn't mean that anyone can interpret the Bible any way they wish, that's a facile and incorrect understanding of sola scriptura. There are correct and incorrect ways to understand what is in the Bible; but sola scriptura states that you don't need to use external texts or authority to elucidate the correct understanding; the Bible contains within itself enough to be understood correctly. --Jayron32 18:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

That philosophy seems questionable to me. The Bible directly contradicts itself in many places, so different people will take different parts of it as gospel, and ignore the rest. There is no one universal way to read it, whether you're a pope or not. StuRat (talk) 18:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's the point: The Pope doesn't have a special position in understanding the Bible. The issue is not whether or not the Bible can be perfectly understood (it can't, every human is fallible, and so will make errors in their understanding), but whether the Bible can be sufficiently understood. Sola scriptura only says that no other writing or doctrine can correct the Bible; that the Bible itself is 100% correct and complete. It doesn't say that I can read the Bible and thus be 100% correct in understanding it, but that isn't the fault of the Bible. --Jayron32 18:12, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't think Luther was quite as liberal as you seem to claim. He believed that certain authorities were not following the scripture. His response was "Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.". Perhaps someone else can recommend some reading for you. Dbfirs 18:06, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Can anybody remember the shooting in Canada where the gunman had a mohawk haircut?

Thank you if you know, I am looking for it. Keeeith (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Dawson College shooting? ---Sluzzelin talk 18:33, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

That's it!, thank you!. Keeeith (talk) 18:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this info Keeith. I didn't know about this shooting perpetrated by a gunman with a mohawk haircut. I didn't even know that shootings also take place outside the US, or that gunmen sometimes have mohawk haircuts.

Many of the worst shootings were outside the US, like the Port Arthur massacre (Australia). StuRat (talk) 20:01, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

List of rampage killers is useful for these sorts of comparisons. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

That's amazing Sluzzelin, you are as good as google (keywords: shooting canada gunman mohawk haircut). OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:24, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Who controls the grounds of the U.S. Capitol Building?

The following appears in the article about the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting:

[Obama] ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and other US federal government facilities worldwide in respect for the victims.[41] Speaker of the House John Boehner ordered flags be flown at half-staff at the United States Capitol as well.[42]

I've looked through the articles on United States Capitol and Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and can't find any indication of the answer: why and how, under what constitutional authority, does the Speaker hold this sort of sovereignty over the Capitol Building, while the President controls all other federal facilities? Kane5187 (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Isn't that a simple case of separation of powers? OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure that's the principle behind it, but I'm curious to see if there's anything (and there may not be) about when it was administratively or judicially determined that the physical property of the Capitol is in the Speaker's domain (keeping in mind that the Capitol building includes the Senate, too, of which the Speaker is not a member). Not much addressed here... Kane5187 (talk) 19:32, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Likewise, there's nothing about Chief Justice Roberts making a half-mast declaration for the Supreme Court building - would he, or the President make that call? Kane5187 (talk) 19:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

See below: the Supreme Court lies on the Capitol Complex, so in theory the decision would have been the same one that Boehner made. The Supreme Court for many years met in the Capitol building itself, before its own building was constructed elsewhere on the grounds. --Jayron32 20:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The United States Capitol Complex is under the jurisdiction of the Architect of the Capitol, which is itself under the jurisdiction of the Congress. So only Congress has the power to formally declare things like lowering the staffs of the flags on the Capitol Complex. That raises the question of why Boehner has precedence over his Senatorial equivalent. The best answer I can find is that his Senatorial equivalent is Joe Biden, who is Vice President of the United States and thus, by that role, also President of the Senate. The VP is a member of the Executive Branch, and NOT himself a legislator. Second-in-command at the Senate is the President pro tempore of the United States Senate (Daniel Inouye) who ranks behind the Speaker in both the United States presidential line of succession and the United States order of precedence, neither of which I suppose has any official sway here, except to note that there seems to be some sense that the highest ranking representative (the Speaker) outranks the highest ranking Senator (the President pro tempore) in several places, and so may get to be the one who gets to make the decisions on matters like this. --Jayron32 20:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Excellent answer - thank you! Kane5187 (talk) 20:31, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The United States Flag Code article indicates that half-staff orders are the prerogative of the President. But I can't find that in the United States Flag Code itself. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 07:15, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

amphigory

What means A? From its context it is term of poetic or literary discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert Pearlman(1933) (talk • contribs) 21:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense verse: [43]. StuRat (talk) 21:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Volcán de Agua name

Regarding Volcán de Agua, as to the origin of the name, I didn't see anything in the article as to how the volcano got associated with water, but I did read in the Guatemala book of the National Geographic Countries of the World series for children "The Maya-the country's native people-called one of the volcanoes in their empire Guhatezmalha, or 'Mountain That Vomits Water.'" How could a volcano have gotten a reputation for vomiting water? According to the linked article, it is a stratovolcano, which spews magma, which is easily discernible from water. 67.163.109.173 (talk) 22:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

From the article: "As the lahar produced a destructive flood of water, this prompted the modern name "Volcán de Agua" meaning "Volcano of Water", in contrast to the nearby "Volcán de Fuego" or "Volcano of Fire". " OsmanRF34 (talk) 22:23, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, kind of like when trying to find something at the supermarket, I can make things be right in front of me by making myself a fool by asking. If I hadn't made myself a fool, it wouldn't have been right there :) 67.163.109.173 (talk) 22:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

See lahar and a picture of the result in one case File:Armero aftermath Marso.jpg. Mikenorton (talk) 22:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Royal numbering

I've noticed an interesting discrepancy in royal numbering. Some rulers, like Paul I of Russia, are called "the first" when they are the only one of their name to rule; others, like John of England, are not. I understand that it is the wish of some to be called "the first" (e.g. John Paul I), but I am unsure as to whether Paul or other "first" monarchs demanded it, as well. dci | TALK 22:41, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth was just plain Elizabeth until Elizabeth II came along. King John of England was the first, last and only King John of England. The key question, assuming there was never actually a Paul II of Russia, was when did they start calling him Paul I? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

It comes down to tradition and prerogative. It is worth noting that British Monarchs currently base their numbering from the Norman Conquest and use the English, not Scottish, line for their numbering, so you get some quirks like Edward VIII of the United Kingdom actually being the tenth king Edward (Edward the Martyr and Edward the Confessor are not counted). You also have weirdness like the current King of Sweden, who is officially Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, nominally the 16th Charles/Carl of Sweden, but really only the ninth King of that name; the first Charles was retroactively numbered Charles VII. Some countries number lone monarchs as "The first", like Russia and Albania (Zog I prefered the numeral despite being the only one). Others do not. --Jayron32 23:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I've seen "Paul I" frequently. He's not the only one; I own a (very poor condition) coin inscribed "Umberto I, Re d'Italia", and of course nobody knew for sure that there was going to be an Umberto II. Nyttend (talk) 00:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

This matter is discussed at Monarchical ordinal#"The first".

Re the United Kingdom: It is no longer the case that "British Monarchs ... use the English, not Scottish, line for their numbering", Jayron. From Monarchical ordinal#Ordinals and the Acts of Union 1707:

• In order to avoid controversy, it was suggested by Winston Churchill that, in the future, the higher of the two numerals from the English and Scottish sequences would always be used. So, theoretically, any future British King Edward would be given the number IX, even though there have only been two (or three) previous Edwards in Scotland, but any future King Robert would be given the number IV, even though he would be the first Robert to reign in England.

This policy was adopted before QEII acceded to the throne in 1952, and the choice of "Elizabeth II" was in accordance with the policy. The Scottish people who objected to her title, and considered she should be regarded as "Elizabeth I" in Scotland, were acting in ignorance of the policy change. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks for the clarification Jack! --Jayron32 00:42, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Now that that's out of the way, indulge me while I amuse myself. What the UK does about the titles of its monarchs is its business alone. Its decisions don't apply as of right to any of the other Commonwealth realms. If an overseas realm wants to emulate British practice in some respect, that is its prerogative. My understanding of the Statute of Westminster is that the 16 nations must all have the same monarch and the same rules of succession at any given moment, but there's nothing to say they can't give the monarch different titles. They do anyway. See List of titles and honours of Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen's formal title in New Zealand is:

• "Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith",

but in Papua New Guinea is:

• "Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Papua New Guinea and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth".

Quite different already. I don't think there's any reason, technically, why they couldn't take these differences further, and have her known as Gertrude IX in one country, Sandra XIII in another, Felicity III in another, and Bronwyn IV in yet another. They probably wouldn't do this in practice, though. (lol) But this admitted absurdity just shows up what little freedom the Queen actually has. We common people take for granted that we have the right to change our names whenever we like, but the Queen has no such power. Her choice of name is subject to the approval of the government. When her father died, had she advised she wished to be known as Mary III in honour of her grandmother (Mary being the third of her given names), her Prime Minister could have said "No, Ma'am, with respect, I'd prefer you to be known as Elizabeth II", and she would have had to comply. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about the Queen "having no such power". See the article "Mountbatten-Windsor" and this link regarding her family name. Gabbe (talk) 10:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Those are all about her and her family's surname, whereas I'm talking about her regnal name. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Canada and Germany automobile safety testing agreement

From BMW_M3: "In 1994 agreements existed between Canada and several countries in Europe which allowed any car authorized in one participating country to legally be sold in any of the others.". Is this actually true? It's tagged as citation needed and there's no associated references. Then again such an agreement does make sense, seeing as how most developed countries have essentially the same set of crash testing rules and there's no point in duplicating the same tests. Dncsky (talk) 23:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure that German cars need to pass a battery of crash tests to be sold in the US. Some time ago that proved to be quite embarrassing for some German manufacturers, since even their luxury models couldn't pass them. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:39, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll go ahead and strike out that erroneous assumption of mine. BTW, do you remember the model of the luxury vehicle that you're talking about?Dncsky (talk) 23:43, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Connecticut shooting

I understand that Adam Lanza killed his mother at their residence and he then drove the car to Sandy Hook, but the article fails to explain why Ryan Lanza was there too. Why was he there? did he drive with his brother? is he an accomplice? what was he doing there? Keeeith (talk) 23:17, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

From a perfunctory reading of the case, Adam Lanza had some form of ID of his brother on him when he died, therefore the confusion. If you want a more reliable version, you'll have to wait until the dust settles down. There are just too many people talking about it and just based on a handful of facts, some of them very dubious. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:31, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Maybe Ryan Lanza wasn't "there", at the school, but was easy to find. HiLo48 (talk) 23:37, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

From what I've seen in the media, Ryan Lanza seems to have been at work in Hoboken, NJ at the time of the shooting. AnonMoos (talk) 01:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Keeith, why aren't you raising this question at the appropriate talk page: Talk:Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Because that is not the appropriate talk page. That is for discussion of improvements to the article, and this is a question on facts requiring reference, hence it is in the proper place. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 03:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

However it's the sort of question that should be answered in the article. And in fact it was, right in the WP:LEDE [44] with references. In such a case, suggesting a living person was an accomplice with absolutely no evidence and when our article (and hundreds of other news sources) already explain any old confusion, is an incredibly bad idea whether her on the RD or elsewhere, and not what the RD is for at all. Nil Einne (talk) 07:09, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The answer is that Ryan was not there. He was at work, in New York City. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

More guns?

Is there any evidence to support the view that more guns, including concealed weapons, will help prevent incidents like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting? Astronaut (talk) 23:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

More/less guns, shooting video-games, access to affordable mental health, violent films: these are all topics for discussion that arise again and again after any spree shooting, but are not to be discussed here on the RD. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

It's not an inappropriate query, the asker's just curious as to the existence of sources regarding that view. He's not pressing any inflammatory dialogue. dci | TALK 23:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

You are right that the question could have an appropriate answer, but such questions tend to lead to a big discussion here. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:59, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I get your point. Perhaps this would be best addressed at the particular user's talk page, in case anyone knows the answer; that way unhelpful or partisan remarks can be avoided here. dci | TALK 00:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

That, or everyone could just agree to abide by the reference desk guidelines. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you DCI2026. I deliberately asked for evidence in support of the view, not a discussion. I expect links to sources such as news reports and scholarly papers and so on, not a free-flowing debate on the pros and cons of gun control - something that is adaquately covered by articles such as Gun politics in the United States but does not answer my qustion. Astronaut (talk) 00:16, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• I suppose John Lott might be of some interest to you; I am not well-versed in these matters, but his work seems to support a more-guns viewpoint. dci | TALK 00:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I found this paper; Multiple Victim Public Shootings] written by John Lott in 1996 and revised in 2000, in which he presents the evidence to support his case. I'm having less luck with the counter-argument. Alansplodge (talk) 02:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Here we go; White Paper: The Case for Gun Policy Reforms (October 2012) from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Alansplodge (talk) 02:25, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Two of the most cited examples of CCW holders stopping mass shootings are Pearl High School shooting and Appalachian School of Law shooting. In both examples there were indeed legal gun owners on the scene. Some people claim that those legal gun owners stopped the bloodshed and thus CCW is good defense against mass shootings. However the truth is that in both cases the rouge shooter was subdued physically and the CCW wasn't even fired. AFAIK no mass shooter was ever incapacitated by a CCW holder. Though arguably all the civilians returning fire at Charles Whitman could've had a suppression effect on him. Dncsky (talk) 00:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

To get a balanced view, you should also look for evidence that more guns lead to additional incidents. Thus, it's possible that more guns may increase the number, but decrease the severity, of such incidents. StuRat (talk) 01:54, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

How so? About the severity. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:00, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I believe the theory is that if innocent people at a shooting have concealed weapons, they can kill the shooter before he kills too many people. It works in some western movies and cop shows, maybe. Of course, if any of those people with the right to carry concealed weapons have a brain snap at any time, there's just another shooting. HiLo48 (talk) 02:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

There's also the possibility that the police just arriving on the scene will confuse the armed vigilantes with the shooter. Multiple groups of armed vigilantes could also misidentify each other as the shooter. Dncsky (talk) 02:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be a mark of a sick society that people feel the need to carry weapons just in case they happen to be close to where the next shooting spree occurs, and they might be able to help out? Whatever their positive intention may be, aren't they accepting that these events have become commonplace, to the point where they cannot trust their law enforcement authorities anymore and feel the need to take the law into their own hands? What has gone so terribly wrong? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:50, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, the idea of the people solving their own problems, versus waiting for "authorities", is a very old one. Police departments only go back a couple centuries. Before that, it was up to the citizens of a community to either arrest or kill anyone who committed a crime. And concepts like a citizen's arrest still exist in many places, as does the concept of a "well regulated citizen militia" to defend against internal and external threats. StuRat (talk) 04:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Harking back to what obtained a couple of centuries ago will get you into very serious hot water. How about a leg amputation without any anaesthetic, Stu?

What I mean is that, if you see someone on a shooting spree in some public place, the default thought has never been "Oh, I'll just pull out the loaded gun that I always carry around with me for use in exactly this type of situation, and shoot the fucker". Are you saying that's the way it should be? "People solving their own problems", indeed. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 05:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

If you're asking my opinion, then, while I expect that having everyone pack a gun would limit deaths in (rare) situations like this, it would also dramatically increase shooting deaths overall. If I was convinced that more guns would reduce deaths, then I would be all in favor of those citizens in good mental health, without a criminal record, packing guns, yes. The police can't be everywhere at once. StuRat (talk) 05:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like double-speak to me. From your first sentence, I get that you believe people should not generally be carrying guns around, because the increased deaths would far outweigh any lives saved. But then you talk about what you would be in favour of if you had a different opinion to what you just said - except, you don't have that opinion, so why talk about it? Or, am I missing something? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 07:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm saying I object to your attitude that "somebody else should solve our problems for us" (in this case, the police), although I don't support the idea of arming everyone. To give a different example, whenever I see an incorrect label at the grocery store, I rip it right off the shelf, and/or cross out the incorrect info, and write in the correct info. If I waited in line to complain to somebody, I expect they would ignore me entirely. StuRat (talk) 07:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Then you're objecting to something I never said or wrote or thought, and I object to your use of quote marks in your depiction of my alleged attitude. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, my apologies if I misread your comments. StuRat (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Having provided a couple of "links to sources such as... scholarly papers", I have taken the liberty of putting a "resolved" tag at the end of the thread. I think it's wise to curtail the discussion here, unless there are other germane external sources that editors would like to add. Alansplodge (talk) 02:42, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Thank you Alan. The sources are just what I was looking for. The question is indeed resolved. Astronaut (talk) 10:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

December 16

Are there any professional political scientists who adhere to this so called "Perestroika Movement"?

This movement was born just in the year 2000, but it does not seem to have much popularity in the field it represents. So I suppose there are some notable academic figures that believes and supports it. And if it is no longer well received today what are the other political science movements that carry the same beliefs and arguments of the Perestroika Movement? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Atienza (talk • contribs) 03:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I love the lede to Perestroika Movement (political science), which says, in an inaccessible way, that the movement is about making politics more accessible. StuRat (talk) 03:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah... What's a "non-specialist academic"? Someone who lectures postgraduates on General Studies? Tevildo (talk) 18:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they need to use simple terms. Or should they eschew polysyllabic locutions ? :-) StuRat (talk) 19:38, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Ever since mathematical techniques started finding their way into political science, there's been tension between the math-oriented types and the non-math types. I think there are still plenty of both types and always will be, which in my view is a good thing. I don't think the Perestroika Movement that began in 2000 was at all a new thing, but rather a flare-up of the tension that dates back to the 1970s. Incidentally, economics went through a similar process when math entered it in earnest in roughly the 1950s and until maybe the 1980s; by now, and long since, the math types are in the vast majority in economics. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Roswell UFO incident

"However, numerous high-profile UFO researchers discount the possibility that the incident had anything to do with aliens." Is it mean that many high profile UFO researchers believe that the incident had nothing to do with aliens? Or it means they do believe in the incident being involved with aliens. I think the sentence itself is hard to understand.174.20.99.196 (talk) 06:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't seem vague to me. It means they don't believe any aliens are involved. StuRat (talk) 06:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you're having difficulty with the word discount. See meaning 4 of [45]. --ColinFine (talk) 11:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

UFO doesn't necessarily mean "alien." Though that's the popular view, UFO watchers run the gamut from those who believe all UFO sighting to be aliens; those who think they're extra-dimensional beings; those who believe they are spirits (in the supernatural sense); those who think it's all government super-secret projects; to those who think they're lizard-men from inside the Earth, which is hollow. And any mix in-between. Given that there's no solid evidence behind most sightings, you'll find any number of hypotheses about their nature. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Antikythera mechanism

This thing was built in 1st century BCE and it wasn't until the 14th century ACE, something like this was being built again. I mean this is simply shocking to me. In 1,500 years, we haven't advanced in bit in this specific kind of device. I mean after 1,500 years, we, humans, still were incapable of producing a better device. The ancient Greeks with absolutely genius, considering all the philosophies thinking and scientific advancements they have accomplished. I wonder why after the ancient Greek collapsed then why there were no more Greek genius? Why human advancement has grew little to nothing (nothing major) since like the 1st century until the renaissance?174.20.99.196 (talk) 07:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The Greeks had a genius for mathematics and philosophy, but they were rather sporadic and erratic in translating this into practical inventions that would benefit people. Heron of Alexandria seems to have been the pre-eminent Greek engineer in non-construction, non-military fields, but the majority of his inventions seem to have been temple tricks, for impressing devout but naïve worshippers at temples. The term banausos, literally "craftsman", was used as an insult among many educated ancient Greeks... AnonMoos (talk) 10:01, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Beyond pointing you at History of technology, I'm not sure there is much we can do to answer you. The Reference desk is not a place for canvassing opinions. --ColinFine (talk) 11:50, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not looking for an opinion. I wonder if there is a valid scientific reason why humans stop advance much in such a long period of time like over 1500 years. Something that would make sense like mutation that makes human genetic less smart for 1,000 years until we got smarter again or the Greeks were simply just superior smarter by some unknown factors. I'm looking for something valid explanation that is agreed among scientists.174.20.10.159 (talk) 19:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I would also recommend taking a look at Idea of Progress. It is by no means self-evident that "progress", particularly the development of more advanced technologies, is necessarily a good thing. If you have food on the table, does it matter that the fields are ploughed by oxen rather than tractors? If you have books to read, does it matter if they're printed or hand-written? True, technological advance means that _more_ people have these things, but if the powerful have all they need, where's the incentive to go any further? Tevildo (talk) 21:01, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It's true that the powerful have all they need or want but how about the poor and middle class? I can make the same argument for the ancient Greeks. What made the ancient Greek a lot of advancement than the rest of the world until much later on? What is their incentive? If they had incentives to progress then why people stopped having incentive to progress for like 1,500 years after the ancient Greek collapsed?174.20.10.159 (talk) 23:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

FYI, there is no "ACE" era. You want BC and AD, "before Christ" and "anno Domini", or BCE and CE, "before the common era" and "common era". Nyttend (talk) 17:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

See Dark Ages (historiography). --Dweller (talk) 17:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Your premise is not correct. Technological advancements continued in the Roman Empire after the 1st century. See, for example, Water wheel. It is true that technological advance came to a near standstill in Europe between about the 5th century and the 12th century, because European society experienced a civilizational collapse and a dramatic loss of social complexity. Specialized technologies depend on a detailed division of labor that exists only in complex societies. However, technological innovation continued in other civilizations. The Islamic civilization made advances in mathematics and chemistry that were fundamental to subsequent European technological advances, and Arabs made important advancements in the development of the astrolabe. No doubt the premodern civilization with the richest technological development, though, was China. Chinese technology achieved a number of advances beginning in ancient times and continuing through a period contemporary with the European middle ages, without which European Renaissance and early modern technological advances would not have been possible. These include technologies such as the compass, paper, gunpowder, and printing, among many others. Chinese technological development continued right through the period when technological development came to a halt in Europe and provided a foundation for later European developments. It's also not true that Europe saw no technological advance between antiquity and the Renaissance. See Medieval technology. Marco polo (talk) 23:41, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I never say Europe saw no technological advance between antiquity and the Renaissance. Indeed they have advanced but little compare to what the Romans or the Greeks have done. According to what I have learned, the Roman or the Greek have built a much more magnificent palace, city and so on... Compare to those of Europe before the Renaissance. After all, those Europeans were all descendants of barbarian Germanic tribe (no offend intend, I do admit that later on the Europeans will have the greatest technologies that enable them to conquer the whole world at one point). I feel like human kind actually has been in a leap backward for over 1,000 years. 2 objects with the same technology but were made 1,500 years apart tells us a great deal about it. You're also right about that advancement continue on through other civilization but I feel like there is a big disconnection between the those technology, they were very independent. If those technologies were more connected such as the Chinese were exposed to Greek and Roman and Islamic technology and so on... Then I think we could have been on the Moon much sooner than 1969. Lol I actually was talking off topic of what I was originally asked. I guess the technology halt in Europe was caused by the barbarian Germanic tribes that successfully conquer the Roman.174.20.10.159 (talk) 01:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

One of the problems we have about the classical era is that very, very, little of it's writing has survived. Imagine the commentary upon and predecessors to Archimedes's and Pythagorus's writings and works which must have existed and were lost. Claudius wrote a grammar of the Etruscan language. Can you imagine if that had survived?

The issue with the Classics mentioned above is the denigration of "shop work" and the prevalence of slave labor. Why invest money on R&D when there was no concept of patent and no return on investment and a glut of manual labor? (PS, anyone who isn't absolutely enthralled by the existence of the antikythera device is entirely ignorant of human history and its significance.) μηδείς (talk) 23:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, but the OP's point is that it _wasn't_ significant. Whoever made it didn't go on to develop a clock or an adding machine or a bicycle or anything _useful_, and astrologers got on perfectly well without mechanical assistance for the next 2000 years. Tevildo (talk) 02:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Medeis has spoken! So may it be written, so may it be done! -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:19, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

See also Library of Alexandria. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The attitude a culture has towards science is critical. In parts of Ancient Greece (like Athens) and Rome, being a scientist was something to be admired. Less so in medieval Europe, where smart people were more likely to be steered towards The Church. Unfortunately, in the US today, science is also under threat from those who don't want to believe in global warming, evolution, etc. Thus, a large portion of the US is developing a contempt for science and scientists. I'm sure China will once again take over as we slide back into the dark ages. StuRat (talk) 01:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Some scholars believe that the reason why "whoever made it didn't go on to develop a clock or an adding machine or a bicycle or anything useful" is because they were unfortunately killed by a Roman soldier, but the "or anything useful" is totally mistaken. --Dweller (talk) 12:45, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know enough about this to say, but my feeling is that the Dark Ages business is terribly exaggerated. Just because some Gauls had some guys with bows looking over their shoulders at a Roman fort on the hill doesn't mean that they were spending their time chatting about the natural philosophy of Pliny or the medical ideas of Dioscorides. Just like in the present day, the scientists ended up being drawn to where the funding was, namely, the Islamic Caliphates, which controlled many of Rome's foremost intellectual provinces in Egypt, Turkey, and Greece anyway. Wnt (talk) 16:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

This makes sense to me! It wouldn't make any sense if all the sudden, all the intelligent people just disappeared for like over 1,000 years!184.97.227.164 (talk) 01:54, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Mass shooters killing themselves

With the Columbine High School shootings, Virginia Tech shootings, the Colorado theater shootings, and now the Connecticut school shootings, a question that had been bothering me for such a long time popped up again: exactly why do almost all shooting perpetrators (at least in the United States) commit suicide at the end of their shooting spree? I asked a similar question to this a few months back (in the wake of a shooting at the Empire State Building), but that was about if shooters plan their suicide from the start, not the reasons why they do so. And in mass shootings outside the United States, are perpetrators killing themselves common? I asked this since the perpetrator of the mass shooting in Norway a few years back didn't commit suicide, and IIRC he's now in prison. And have ever been studies or investigations as to the reasons why mass shooters commit suicide? For example, during the investigation into the Columbine High School massacre, did the investigators investigate why the perpetrators killed themselves? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 08:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

To avoid punishment is the first thing that comes up to my mind, but who knows, as an American I must say that our society is in a moral uproar and I don't understand why. Keeeith (talk) 12:54, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

"They want to appear to be superhuman and controlling and powerful, to go out in a hail of bullets... The whole thing is a suicide even though you are killing people in the process. Suicidal people often internalise their anger, but with murder/suicides, the anger is turned outwards as well as inwards." forensic psychologist Dr Keith Ashcroft quoted in this news report; The Psychology Behind Mass Killing Sprees. Alansplodge (talk) 13:58, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You may also be interested in THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MASS KILLERS by Dr Raj Persaud. Alansplodge (talk) 14:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Finally (from me), a news report; The Depressive and the Psychopath: At last we know why the Columbine killers did it. Alansplodge (talk) 14:07, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

By killing themselves they frustrate the entire society, which wants to know why, and there will be no satisfactory answer. My guess is that if the perp could articulate it, he would say, "Why? Because I can." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Unless the shooter is in Norway, he can expect to spend a long time in prison or to be executed. Suicide seems to be a much better alternative. Obviously, a perpetrator could also decide whether to kill nor to commit suicide, but they don't seem to be the most rational thinkers. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:24, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

My take on it is that basically the psychos know it'll never be as good again and don't fear death, and the saddos are just expressing their rage and frustration before killing themselves anyway. It is the psychos who stay alive like the one in Norway that are strange,but he seems to be a bit delusional as well and thinks he can write his own Mein Kampf and is destined to lead the Norwegian people. Dmcq (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes it is a frustrated suicide by cop (they expected someone would come kill them but didn't so they do it themselves), sometimes they plan to suicide and the Norway shooting didn't plan suicide because he apparently doesn't think he did anything wrong. Many different reason in different incidents. Rmhermen (talk) 18:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

A person without empathy has problems understanding what 'wrong' means except insofar as it affects them badly. Dmcq (talk) 21:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Since nobody linked it: Murder–suicide. Staecker (talk) 18:47, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't seem inconsistent to me. Suppose someone decides that there is no place for him in society - that all the good resources of the earth are taken by the wealthy, popular, those somehow connected to them, and he doesn't have a decent way to live, and he doesn't want to endure whatever indignities are heaped upon him. Well, if things have reached the point where he feels he doesn't have a right to live, why should anyone else? How can a person choose to commit violence against himself and not commit violence against those who he feels have driven him to that point? What mystifies me is not that some suicides take on this form, but rather that some do not. Wnt (talk) 07:21, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The motivations for suicide are many and various; take for example the perception that it is oneself, and not the world, that is out of step - that one is somehow useless or unworthy. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The shooting in Norway was different from the general wave of school shootings, since the former was politically motivated and thus in effect constituted terror. It was more akin to something like the 2008 Mumbai attacks, where the perpetrators didn't commit suicide but was killed by the police, with the exception of one who has apprehended. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Anders Breivik may be delusional, but he played his role with an evil brilliance, sadly. For him, being captured alive was what one expert termed "the media exploitation phase", where he got to preach his warped ideology to the world, and forcefully profess his sanity. Slobodan Milosevic may have not planned to spend his final days in a courtroom, but he used a similar tactic, forcefully arguing his moral innocence against charges of mass murder. 58.111.175.170 (talk) 18:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

In a way, it's the ultimate troll: perform a horrible act of violence then, by killing themselves, remove the ability for society to learn why. For someone who may feel powerless, this is one hell of way to take control of an entire society for a while. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

was the mach 3 turbo razor changed?

simple question. was the mach 3 turbo razor changed by Gilette (for example, after fusion or fusion proglide came out, so as not to be as good anymore so people will upgrade). I bought new cartridges and think they're much worse than they used to be (also a different color, grey like the fusion head which does not match my black mach3 handle). It could just be me though, so I'd like to know whether it was materially changed. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 15:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It might be you bought a non-genuine cartridge, which turned out to be much worse. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, let's assume I didn't as I bought it at a very respectable chain (Douglas). 178.48.114.143 (talk) 16:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It's possible. However, they certainly wouldn't announce such a strategy publicly. So, only an independent lab could analyze them to determine what, if anything, is now worse about them. I doubt if that will happen anytime soon. So, my suggestion is that you go with another brand. I use disposable razors, so I don't make any investment in any given company beyond that package, and can change brands without losing any money. StuRat (talk) 17:38, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm asking about actual reality not a hypothetical. I assume enthusiasts would have blogged about it or something (after all, it's not a "post experience good") but could you find references like that? I couldn't. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

In general, there seems to be a short-coming in any transaction which requires a proprietary device to be "resupplied". If only that company is allowed to provide them, it seems like the rates, quality, and duration of the resupply should be stated up-front. Otherwise, they can raise the rates dramatically, lower the quality, or simply stop supplying anything at all for the device. For a more expensive purchase, consider PC operating systems, like Windows. At some point Microsoft will stop supporting that O/S, but they don't state what that period is up-front. That this isn't required is a defect in contract law, in my opinion. The contract basically comes down to "I will pay you X, and in return you will provide me Y, for as long as you care to." Even mobile home rentals work that way, where they rent you the land under the mobile home they sold you, for whatever rates and period they choose. There the theory is that you can move the home elsewhere, but the cost is prohibitive and the new landlord will just raise the land rental rates again. StuRat (talk) 18:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Stu, I'm asking about whether this has happened recently with this particular product. Your philosophical observation remains highly valued. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 18:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I still wouldn't discount the possibility of a counterfeit. If it were from ebay, I'd even take it for granted. But even in Douglas, which is a franchise, that's possible. Who knows what the owner of a concrete store does to increase its profit. Make pictures of the product and package and ask Gillette what they think about and what problems you'd have with it. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Nativity scene components

I spotted this scene while walking around in Richmond, Indiana two days ago. To my surprise, this was all there was: the fence at the bottom of the photo surrounded an area of bare grass, and nowhere around could I see any statues or 2D images. Is it appropriate to call this a nativity scene, or is there some other term that's better? Note that there's some problem with the image; it sometimes loads and sometimes doesn't. Nyttend (talk) 17:07, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I suspect it's not finished yet. They may also only display the "good stuff" at certain times and dates, to minimize the risk of theft and/or vandalism. The only other names I know for a nativity are a "crèche" or "manger scene", but those terms include everything, as well. StuRat (talk) 17:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Couldn't it just be a joke? --Dweller (talk) 17:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Looks like one to me. Alansplodge (talk) 23:06, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

My favourite "No room at the inn" joke: A small boy is furious that he has been denied the male lead of Saint Joseph in his school Nativity play, and is given the walk-on part of the Innkeeper instead. On the day of the performance, Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem. "Is there any room at the inn?" they ask. "Of course there is!" says the Innkeeper with a big grin, "Come right inside and make yourselves at home." Alansplodge (talk) 14:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

December 17

Bengali surnames Muslim only

Is there a website that shows the surnames of Bengali language that are commonly used by Muslims in India and Bangladesh? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donmust90 (talk • contribs) 00:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

This article may have what you want. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

History of the Freedom of Religion

A teaser for a TV show on PBS said, with the US Constitution, "For the first time in history, freedom of religion became an inalienable right". Is this true ? Sounds fishy to me. Surely some other nation must have had the freedom of religion first. StuRat (talk) 02:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, definitely - see Religion in ancient Rome for starters, and we have a (rather dreadful) article on Religious tolerance which lists many other such states. I think the "first time in history" bit is the "inalienable" (nonsense on stilts), which is equally inaccurate - the First Amendment is as overturnable as the Eighteenth was. Tevildo (talk) 02:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It is true that during the middle ages and the renaissance in Europe, there was an overwhelming consensus of opinion that having adherents of only one religion/denomination among its inhabitants or citizens made a state or nation strong, while having significant religious minorities was a weakening factor. Some who didn't have strong religious opinions themselves, nevertheless supported measures against religious minorities because they believed the "one religion = strong nation; more than one religion = weak nation" theory. This idea wasn't significantly undermined until the 18th century. AnonMoos (talk) 15:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

On that note, I found the argument striking that John Bunyan had with his judge when he was arrested for preaching without a licence (link). He basically argued for religious freedom for all, including Catholics, Muslims and atheists, and posited that "the State has no right whatever to interfere in the religious life of its citizens". The judge of course found the very notion absurd. Granted of course that Bunyan had a motive for his position, after all he was the one standing trial. - Lindert (talk) 15:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Freedom of religion says "Cyrus the Great established the Achaemenid Empire ca. 550 BC, and initiated a general policy of permitting religious freedom throughout the empire, documenting this on the Cyrus Cylinder", and apparently India has a very long history of religious tolerance. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 19:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Positive skull mutation caused the Renaissance and European dominance

Some time ago I read a theory that the Renaissance and the following centuries of European dominance in science, technology, industry, culture, politics etc. was caused by a positive mutation of the skull of Europeans, which resulted in a growth of the frontal lobes of the brain. Can somebody provide me with some details?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like total BS. How about the dominance of the Roman Empire, long before then ? Also, humans don't evolve significantly over a generation or two, it takes tens of thousands of years. StuRat (talk) 07:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

StuRat, have you ever heard the word "politeness"?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's impolite to give an honest answer. I didn't insult you, after all. Perhaps you object to my language, but I did at least abbreviate it to avoid the obscenity. StuRat (talk) 18:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Lüboslóv, but I think StuRat is right. The morphological differences between Europeans and other humans are too slight, and too ancient, for this theory to make sense. I don't know where you would look to find this theory expounded; but I don't think it would be in any reliable source. AlexTiefling (talk) 09:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

See scientific racism . Itsmejudith (talk) 09:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

These are linked directly or indirectly but the most relevant articles to the OPs specific query are probably Race and intelligence#Brain size, Neuroscience and intelligence, Anthropometry#Race and brain size. Our articles in this area have had continous problems but I don't think they are too bad at the current time. I would note that even most who hold to some connection between race, intelligence and brain size don't generally AFAIK suggest it's something that began during the Renaissance. Nil Einne (talk) 15:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It would be an extremely difficult thing to search for if someone didn't already know some details (who theorized it, where, when etc.). And that's because many historians speak of the "evolution" of the renaissance, and many biologists have mentioned a "renaissance" in evolution. And so Google or other search engines will simply throw up hoards of false positives. Do you remember anything more specific about the theory? Someguy1221 (talk) 09:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Sturat! Welcome to the "short shrift to nonsense" club. alteripse (talk) 12:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

• This is bullshit, which is a very rare thing to be able to say in biology based only on theory. But it can still be informative to say why. You'd need to have a mutation that would spread from 1 person to 100 million people in perhaps 1000 years, which is to say, a 10-fold increase in prevalence every 125 years, so a 58% increase (10^0.2) every 25 years. Without anybody noticing that Pod People were coming into their countries, their communities and their wives. (Actually that's the cheat - I'm saying someone has made an observation after all, come to think of it) Evolution just doesn't work that fast unless you're doing it in a cage. Now, you might postulate something like that if you suppose that it were some kind of virus engineered by our alien overlords to make us capable of building a decent sweatshop... even so, it still ignores history. History tells us of the Pantheon, of the Colossus of Rhodes, of the man-made land (chinampas) and grand architecture of Tenochtitlan, of the Chinese traditional medicine and ancient Roman medicine which was quite sophisticated and had much in common of our own --- the bottom line is, our ancestors had the same cleverness and the same feelings as we do. We do better only because they have built up technology, resources, domesticated animals, and political philosophies for us to use. Wnt (talk) 15:48, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

• I should also add, of course, that as described (skull mutation) the idea is also disproved based simply on observations. Claims about skulls have been a cornerstone of scientific racism (and overlapping History of the race and intelligence controversy for later claims) since its inception, but it's all a lot of absurd correlation claims. Remember, the biggest difference of all in skull size is between men and women, and in recent years it's the men who have been on the losing side of university examinations. And Caucasian skulls haven't suddenly changed from what they used to be. Of course, the hypothesis could be adapted to something that doesn't show on a skeleton, which is why I went for the theoretical argument. Wnt (talk) 16:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Why most of the men who survived the Titanic sinking were crew members?

While most of the men who died were passengers? My source is Encyclopedia Titanica. Keeeith (talk) 10:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Mmm. I'm not sure the statement is entirely correct. Whilst there was certainly a higher number of male crew members saved than male passengers (192 vs 146), there were more male crew on board than travelling as passengers (885 vs 805). The percentages of lives saved for each category are 22% for the crew and 19% for the passengers (numbers taken from our Titanic article). These figures would seem to be 'the same' in statistical terms - that is to say that around 80% of the men onboard died, regardless of their status as crew or passenger. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 11:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, each lifeboat had a crew member in charge. This must have increased the number of the crew that survived. Alansplodge (talk) 11:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

There was tremendous variability in how the lifeboats were loaded, based mainly on the prejudices and caprice of the crewman in charge of loading that particular boat. In some, particularly the early boats, male passengers were excluded from the boats (on the basis of the adage, 'Women and children first'), even if that meant the boats left half-empty while male passengers who were present were left behind. (There was also some sentiment among the male passengers that to board a lifeboat was dishonorable). And boats leaving with women and children only were given male crew members to help them row. - Nunh-huh 12:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Who are some philosophers who prefer to write essays than or not books?

I know that some philosophers like writing essays more useful than writing a book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Atienza (talk • contribs) 12:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Start with Michel de Montaigne, who invented the modern essay form. AlexTiefling (talk) 12:34, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Many books are simply collections of essays. They are written initially for inclusion in academic journals and only later, when the author has enough essays saved up, are they published together in book form. --Viennese Waltz 12:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

bihari camps in Bangladesh

Which places of Bangladesh have bihari camps? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donmust90 (talk • contribs) 16:25, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

We have an article Stranded Pakistanis... -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Prevention of murder-suicide

This isn't related to the recent atrocity in Connecticut - it's been on my mind for a while.

How can domestic murder-suicides be prevented? By definition, murder–suicide is immune to punishment of the perpetrator as a deterrent, since he does not expect to survive the act.

To give a practical example: A man whose partner left him calls a crisis hotline. He admits strong fantasies and practical preparations for planning a murder–suicide of his ex or their kids. He sounds very serious, so the counsellor calls the police.

My question: How can / should / will the police react?

If the man has a gun (even a legal one), the police can probably legally seize it. They can apply to the courts for a Restraining order. However, both of these steps would appear to offer limited protection for the potential victim. Plenty of women have been murdered with restraining orders in their handbags. (As I said above, fear of post-crime arrest is no deterrent to the suicidal). They can help a potential victim improve her home security, or move to a battered women's' shelter. (The last of these would be a somewhat drastic step). So, my question is, can someone tell me what police practice would be? Would they go so far as to arrest and charge the man for "making threats to kill" (i.e. to the counsellor)? This would seem counter-intuitive - people will stop seeking help, if talking frankly to a counsellor involves a risk of arrest. Is there anyone here able to enlighten me on what the practical approach(es) from the police would likely be?

Also, can anyone point me to research which addresses the challenge of dealing with those at risk of committing a murder-suicide (but who have, as of yet, not followed through)? 58.111.175.170 (talk) 18:40, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

A practical solution for those with a credible threat against their lives would be something akin to a witness relocation program, where their name is changed, they move to a distant city, and break all contacts with those in their former lives. This is rather drastic, though, and expensive, so could only be done in the most blatant cases. StuRat (talk) 19:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

To prevent mass shootings, gun control would do the trick. It's possible to attack people with other weapons, such as knives, but not nearly as deadly: Chenpeng_Village_Primary_School_stabbing. StuRat (talk) 19:12, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Improve the way of access to mental health care. And that doesn't mean just making it affordable. It’s ironic that people who are irrational are expected under the law to get help on their own. There needs to be something in the law that compels a troubled person to be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. In the 1950s, we were institutionalizing people who weren’t mentally ill. You could institutionalize someone who was just unruly. We’ve gone from one extreme to the other. We need now a legal change to treat people more thoroughly, even if they don't agree to.

Remember, however, that even then you won't prevent all the cases.

BTW, deterrence also doesn't work very well for common murders, since criminals mostly believe they are way to smart to be caught. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

* Re police reaction, this is just one jurisdiction, obviously, but in the San Francisco Department of Public Health Manual you can read a police department procedure (page 37ff) on dealing with a person who expresses homicidal ideation to a therapist, who then reports it to the police. Essentially, the police have to go interview the suspect and make sure the potential victim is notified, then pass the case on to a police psychiatric unit. They might be able to remove firearms, since in this jurisdiction people who have expressed a homidical threat to a therapist aren’t allowed to possess firearms for six months. Reading further in the document, other options include committing the person for 72 hours as an immediate risk.

* Re your last question about research on dealing with those at risk: Patterns of intimate partner homicide suicide in later life: Strategies for prevention. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 20:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

This can be argued all sorts of ways. One can retort that if most people were armed, any murder suicide sprees would be pretty short. As for involuntary psychiatric commitment, nobody knew enough about the kid to do it, so why pretend? The real thing to note is that the father was "tax director and vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial Services in the New York City area" [46] paying the mother $289,000 in alimony every year to 2023.[47] The father of James Holmes was Robert Holmes, a senior scientist at FICO.[48] Some people have been spamming "conspiracy" and "refutation" stuff about these people all over the web, but it misses the point: We cannot touch these people. Saying we'll disarm them, put them in psychiatric holding and so forth, is like the mice conspiring to bell the cat. They come from among the Gods themselves (to be sure, fallen from the high station); all we can do is make laws to lock each others' hands behind our backs so we're easier to knock down and shoot in the back of the head. Wnt (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The ethnicity of the modren Turks and the Byzantines

Hi, I would look to know what is the origin of the Byzantine? From which land they have come to Turkey?
and which peoples are related to them?
About the modern Turkies, have they come from Centeral Asia?
And if so, what had happend to the Byzantines?
Exx8 (talk) 21:32, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It's complicated.

Firstly, there's a tendency for indigenous populations not to be completely displaced by even quite aggressive invaders. (Industrial-era colonialists have worked quite hard to change that, tragically.) So in each case, the partial answer is going to be 'the people there now are the descendants of the people who were there before'.

Secondly, everyone is 'originally' from Africa, so when we say a population was 'originally' somewhere else, we just mean they'd been there a long time.

Thirdly, in terms of the population movements that there were, which drove the cultural changes which characterise them:

1) The Byzantines were not really an ethnicity as such; they were Greeks who called themselves Romans. As such, they were largely the descendants of the Ancient Greeks, the Ancient Romans, the Phoenicians, and pagan tribes such as the Pechenegs who were assimilated into Byzantine culture. They were probably also the descendants of the Hittites, who had lived in Anatolia much earlier.

2) The Turks who invaded Turkey were the Osmanli Turks, who'd been gradually working their way westward. They were originally from roughly modern Turkmenistan; see Turkic people for more details.

3) Some Byzantine subjects were assimilated by the Turkish and Arab cultures which supplanted them; others remained as a number of distinct ethnic groups, sometimes collectively called Levantines. Still others decamped to the West. And some just continued roughly as before, but with new overlords. This has changed quite a lot recently: BBC article covers the effect of the current war in Syria; William Dalrymple's book From the Holy Mountain covers a wider range of situations around the eastern Mediterranean, from Greece, through Turkey and the Levant to Egypt.

AlexTiefling (talk) 21:50, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Exx8 -- The "Greeks" or Greek-language speakers of Byzantine Anatolia had an origin that was partly old Greek (e.g. the Ionians of the eastern coast) and partly an amalgam of peoples affected by cultural Hellenization after Alexander the Great. As for where they went, many who were disaffected from centralized Byzantine orthodoxy in the first place (i.e. were monophysites or Arians or neo-Manicheans) stayed in place and were assimilated to the newcomers. The common "Sufi bait-and-switch" tactics were used -- i.e. often the first waves of Islamic missionaries preached a positive message, and only demanded the adoption of a few simple practices and the renunciation of a few symbolic sins, while the whole panoply of strict legalisms governing all areas of life only crept in later. Those who were highly attached to Byzantine rule and/or Greek culture presumably tried to migrate to areas where the Turks hadn't yet reached. AnonMoos (talk) 22:06, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The Greeks had been living in the north western part of Anatolia (now Asian Turkey) since the 20th century BC. This area eventually fell under the Roman Empire and they established Constantinople as their eastern capital in 330 AD. However as most of the inhabitants were Greeks, they quickly adopted the Greek language. When the Roman Empire in western Europe failed in the 5th century, the eastern part carried on as the Byzantine Empire. The Turks arrived in the 11th century AD, and slowly conquered Anatolia, establishing the Sultanate of Rum. Constantinople was captured in 1453. A substantial number of Byzantines kept their identity as Anatolian Greeks and remained in Turkey until the 20th century. During World War I, they were subjected to deportations, forced marches and massacres, known as the Greek Genocide; the number of victims is thought to run into hundreds of thousands. In 1923 an estimated 1,500,000 of them moved out of Turkey and into modern Greece, as part of the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey following the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). Alansplodge (talk) 22:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Question: How many percentage of the people identified as Turks are actually Islamized Greeks or Byzantine subjects who converted early on?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 23:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I've read Genetic history of the Turkish people and I still don't know. Time for bed. Alansplodge (talk) 01:53, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Birth in Vatican/Antarctica

Were there any birth ever registered in the Vatican City or in Antarctica? — Preceding unsigned comment added by KobiNew (talk • contribs) 21:36, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

A dozen or more in Antarctica proper. Emilio Palma was the first, in 1978. Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen, born 1913 in South Georgia, also has a claim. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

And First Child Born in Vatican City on June 17, 1929, just four months after the country became independent. The baby was the son of one of the Pope's servants and was named Pius (presumably after the then-reigning Pope. 184.147.123.169 (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)