Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities

Reference Desk

Science Mathematics Computing/IT Humanities Language Entertainment Miscellaneous Archives
How to ask a question Search first. It's quicker, because you can find the answer in our online encyclopedia instead of waiting for a volunteer to respond. Search Wikipedia using the searchbox. A web search could help too. Common questions about Wikipedia itself, such as how to cite Wikipedia and who owns Wikipedia, are answered in Wikipedia:FAQ.
Sign your question. Type ~~~~ at its end. Be specific. Explain your question in detail if necessary, addressing exactly what you'd like answered. For information that changes from country to country (or from state to state), such as legal, fiscal or institutional matters, please specify the jurisdiction you're interested in. Include both a title and a question. The title (top box) should specify the topic of your question. The complete details should be in the bottom box. Do your own homework. If you need help with a specific part or concept of your homework, feel free to ask, but please don't post entire homework questions and expect us to give you the answers. Be patient. Questions are answered by other users, and a user who can answer may not be reading the page immediately. A complete answer to your question may be developed over a period of up to seven days.	Do not include your e-mail address. Questions aren't normally answered by e-mail. Be aware that the content on Wikipedia is extensively copied to many websites; making your e-mail address public here may make it very public throughout the Internet. Edit your question for more discussion. Click the [edit] link on right side of its header line. Please do not start multiple sections about the same topic. Archived questions If you cannot find your question on the reference desks, please see the Archives. Unanswered questions If you find that your question has been archived before being answered, you may copy your question from the Archives into a new section on the reference desk. Do not request medical or legal advice. Ask a doctor or lawyer instead.
After reading the above, you may ask a new question by clicking here. Your question will be added at the bottom of the page.
How to answer a question Be thorough. Please provide as much of the answer as you are able to. Be concise, not terse. Please write in a clear and easily understood manner. Keep your answer within the scope of the question as stated.	Link to articles which may have further information relevant to the question. Be polite to users, especially ones new to Wikipedia. A little fun is fine, but don't be rude. The reference desk is not a soapbox. Please avoid debating about politics, religion, or other sensitive issues.

July 7

Which bands of rock'n'roll belong these logos?

Thank you with the scholar who will be able to rafraichir me the memory. (I just love the Google translation!!!)

[1] [2]

A track to be followed : the logo with the heart transpierced by a stylized arrow, appears in a scene of the film “Familly Stone” (Spirit of family 2005), on a poster (with the name of the group!!! … haven't time to see… gasp!) in the teenager's room of the applicant of Sarah Jessica Parker… Thank's to the owner of the DVD which will be able to make a saving “pause”.

Sly and the Family Stone ? StuRat 17:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the first one, but I'm pretty sure the second one is Love and Rockets, if my memory from high school is reliable. --Joelmills 01:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The first one is Ratcat, an Australian band popular in the early 1990s. The second one is definitely Love and Rockets. --Canley 12:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you both...you make my day!!! A happy guy from Paris.

Pronounciation of Caedmon

So I was reading the front page today, and came across this featured article: Caedmon. How do you pronounce it? Can someone put a pronounciation, both phonetic and IPA, in the article? Thanks JianLi 04:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Go to http://www.answers.com/topic/c-dmon?method=26&initiator=answertip:more for an audio pronunciation. In Merriam-Webster's phonics, it is \'kad-mən\.--Patchouli 06:45, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Further: The letter that is giving you trouble is ash. Æ, in Anglo-Saxon, represents the unique English vowel heard in "cat, bat, fat, that, hat." It is not the European alpha nor the Greek æ dipthong. English is the only modern language, I'm told, to have that vowel (even though we no longer have a letter for it). Geogre 12:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly not as common as some other vowel sounds, but according to our article on the "æ" sound (Near-open front unrounded vowel), it occurs in Finnish, Norwegian, Persian, German and Vietnamese. Some Slovak dialects also have the sound. -- Mwalcoff 23:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Mwalcoff is surely wrong about the Persian language.

• I speak Persian and can tell you that Æ does not exist in Persian. In English, Æ is a 2-step sound: First you open your mouth wide and then you make it a ə (schwa) before closing it. In Persian, the second step is absent. When I first learned English, the second step eluded me. Next, I thought Æ is like e as in "bet." This was wrong, too. It took me four freaking years to figure this out.

Those who learned English in their pre-teenager years don't notice the 2-step subtlety of Æ. (I learned English in my teenage years.) They just say it right instinctively. --Patchouli 02:30, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to doubt the article, too. The article covers three different ligature vowels, not just the ash. Ash is a very odd sound, and it is very difficult for non-natives to get right. In fact, it's one of the easiest dialect markers for English speakers themselves, and it, along with the "oh" sound, is one of the sounds that native speakers can generally detect a foreign speaker by. (The British æ is closer to α than the American one, and Australian is closer to ε than the American one. Upper midwesterners use more head voice with it than other regions do, etc.) Maybe I'm wrong and it still exists in northern languages, but I don't think so. Geogre 02:44, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Patchouli is partly correct. Some dialects of American English do not have a true "Æ" sound. Sometimes, it is pronounced "eə," especially in eastern and southern dialects. I'd be curious to know with english dialect you learned, Patchouli.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I live in California. When George says, "Ash is a very odd sound, and it is very difficult for non-natives to get right," he is right on the money.--Patchouli 06:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Music Terminology

The musical scale "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do" is also designated the letters "c, d, e, f, g, a, b, c." Why does the alphabet designation start at "c"=do and not "a"=do? Thank you, Ian.

Because the simplest major scale (if you're playing it on a keyboard instrument) is the scale starting at starting at "do" or C, called the "C Major Scale". None of the articles on music notation seem to provide any indication why letter notation starts has "A" where it is; it's a fairly arbitrary choice; there is at least some logic at starting at "do". --Robert Merkel 08:03, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

One thing is which came first, and I don't know that. But various instruments have different 'central' notes, the root notes. I suppose the abc notation came from one with the root note 'a'. By the way, the piano doesn't have such a note because it has equal temperament. So the root note that has the easiest progression for a major scale was picked as the central note, I suppose, but then one might as well ask why that layout of keys was picked.

Also, the tuning fork of a guitar is in 440Hz. This has grown into the central reference note. And that's an 'a'. DirkvdM 09:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Any note can serve as "do" in the Tonic Sol-Fa. See Solfege.--Shantavira 09:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what I thought too. If you are playing a scale of E, or in a key of E, then E is "do". But I may be wrong. DJ Clayworth 15:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

DJ is right. "Do" can stand for any of the notes on the staff. "Re" stands for the next note in "Do"'s scale. "Mi" stands for the next note in "Do"'s scale, and so on... Political Mind 19:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

They're right about solfege having any tonic. As to the reason it all starts with c instead of a... It took a long time to agree on equal temperament, many still disagree. Before that they would play songs mostly in a few common keys and tune a piano to sound good in them with mean tone or a variety of other temperaments. Before that they would just tune an instrument to sound good in one key.

The problem arose with orchestras. You couldn't afford to make several flutes and horns and such for each player so that they'd sound good in every key, or keep retuning or bringing in new harpsichords and pianos for different pieces. So for various matters of convenience here and there the instrumentalists and manufacturers generally fell into making instruments with C or F as the lowest note. This has changed somewhat and now Bb is more common than F.

The point is that this was all being sorted out before the relatively new standard of equal temperament. Back then most songs rarely strayed from the diatonic scale and instruments that bottomed out at C would be keyed to sound really good 'singing' solfege in C. Pianos were keyed to play along with these concert instruments. That's why there's all this inequality with 'semi-tones'. ;-)

When the theories of what to do with these semitones were being hammered out C was most likely (it's logical anyway) already the common concert pitch, the one whose scale has no semitones. Does that make any sense? This is how I understand the whole matter anyway... -LambaJan 05:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Budgetting

My organization has several departments. Each has an annual budget. At the end of every fiscal year, there is a frantic spending spree to spend out the budgets. Then, everyone proposes padded budgets to senior management, who try to cut them to a reasonable level. This process rewards departments who manage to claim they need more than they do, and departments that spend out fully, even if the expenditures are not necessary. Can anyone suggest resources for more sophisticated budget processes to help manage this more rationally so that everyone gets what they need, and not what they bargain for? I know it's not a perfect world, and in our case it is unlikely that a solution that needs senior management to know more about the needs of each department than they do now is likely to work. Thanks!

Ultimately, you're up against tax law, I think, if you're in the US. The end of the fiscal year means spending, because any carry over is shown as surplus and taxable assets for the company. Otherwise, your best bet would be to allow some budget carry over of some percentage, if a justification were appended. Then again, I know bumpkis about business, so take my advice as such. Geogre 17:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you found the true source of the problem when you stated that senior management, which is responsible for granting budgets, has no idea what is going on, and rely on the managers under them for this info. This is a classic conflict of interest, where they are relying on people whose best interest is served by lying and claiming they need to spend more money than they really do. Particularly if across-the-board cuts have been used in the past, they may now feel the need to inflate all future budgets to prepare for this happening again. If senior management is unable or unwilling to actually learn the business so they can apportion funds in the way they are actually needed, then they need to hire an outside consultant firm who will do their job for them. If this is a corporation, perhaps shareholders will ultimately sack the incompetent senior management and hire people who actually know the business. StuRat 17:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a further and more insipid problem in that, said senior management have no inspiration or motivation to effectively downsize or even rightsize their perceived theatre of operations by realistically bidding only for what they can accurately forecast as their spending requirements. As a relatively senior budget manager for a large and highly visible civil service department I came across the problem year in and year out. I would use all the business tools of analysis to predict, forecast, quantify, assess and define funding requirements for year 1, 2, and 3 ahead, and in those years, by applying best principles and practice on just-in-time procurement, and life-cycle costing techniques etc., would usually make significant in-year savings that would be progressively reported to the Finance and other Directors. But at the end of the year, we would be directed to forward buy large stocks of stationery, or pre-fund other supplies and bought-in services, knowing full well that by so doing, we would inherit the same problem next year. Achieving an end-year saving was seen almost as a crime, and was also perceived by senior management as extremely embarrassing to them personally, as they would have to offer money back to Government Ministers who had subjected their bidding round in the first place to close scrutiny.

I think what you are after may be what is known as 'zero-base budgeting'. --81.104.12.11 14:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

US aid to Great Britain during WWII on condition of becoming 49th state

At a dinner party here in Great Britain I was recently told that it has just come to light via the FOIA that U.S. offered Britain aid at the onset of WWII upon the condition that Britain become our 49th state! Everyone at the table nodded in silent agreement that this was so, even as I, an American, said it was ridiculous. I have googled it every way I can think of using the following terms : U.S./United States/America/American aid/support/arms/alliance/ WWII World War II/World War Two Great Britain/Britain/England 49th state FOIA/Freedom of information Act

and I have come up with absolutely nothing in every case. Can you find a reference to this?

I very much doubt a reference exists, because it's almost certainly nonsense. It may, possibly, be an exceptionally garbled version of Churchill's offer of political union with France in 1940 (which never got anywhere, but was on the table for about a week as everything collapsed)... but something like this sounds like fantasy to me. Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like the old "pull one over on the American" routine. I don't think there has ever been serious discussion of any sort of political "reconciliation" between the USA and UK, although if it is a genuine urban legend and not a joke, I can see why it would have currency in the UK. Bhumiya (said/done) 06:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It may seem odd now, but at wartime people come up with funny ideas. What about this: If the UK were to be a US state then the US would effectively be at war with Germany and the Monroe doctrine would not have to be violated (or would it? - maybe not such a good example). Just a thought. This reminds me of a Dutch plan to confiscate a large chunk of Germany after the war, which would have something like tripled the size of the Netherlands. This plan wasn't approved by the other allies, but if the Netherlands had played a bigger role in the defeat of the Germans, who knows? DirkvdM 07:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

False photos

On this site (WARNING: gruesome photographs, not work safe) I viewed photos of executions in the People's Republic of China. his photos are flase for two reasons: in the PRC is and was forbidden executions of juvenile and this method of executions is false. And, in the impossible case of attendibility of this photos, in what year there were executions photographated? What is yoour opinion on my osservation? --Vess 18:39, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• What makes you think those are juveniles? And fellow readers, if you are at all sensitive to grue, do NOT go follow that link; it's pretty terrible. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Holy... Um, adding emphasis to the above comment: URGH. If you dare that link, brace yourself first, probably with a few stiff drinks. As for the question, I'd say it's hard to say whether this is real or not. If they're faked, they certainly did a lot of work to make it look good. Tony Fox (speak) 21:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I have the same remarks regarding the gruesome photos as the above editors. As for the actual question, I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to accept these photos as true depictions of executions in the PROC. Sure there may be "laws" on the "books" forbidding these attrocities, but what makes you think that a despotic, brutal regime such as that of the PROC takes any of these laws seriously? Try reading the Constitution of the People's Republic of China or the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These are beautiful documents, guaranteeing the widest possible of individual liberties imaginable. Yet these documents are a farce. They're not worth the paper their written on. Similarly, should the PROC's politburo decide that certain people should be executed in this manner, any "law" that prohibits the depicted attrocities would be irrelevant. I'm afraid we're all falling victim to the idea of the "Rule of Law" that we all have the pleasure of enjoying in the free world. Unfortunately, the "Rule of Law" is nothing more than a joke in countries like the PROC. Loomis 21:24, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I see no particular reason to believe that these photos are fake. Executions have been photographed before and they will be photographed again, for all kinds of purposes, some of which are morally acceptable and even commendable (such as documenting evidence of murder for journalistic purposes) and some of which are not (such as getting a kick out of the whole thing and snapping a memento). -- Captain Disdain 03:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, these are genuine. I think the photos date from the late 1980's. When I first saw them, the captions said they were being executed for adultery, but it could just as easily be for drug offenses. Bhumiya (said/done) 06:12, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

According to the sign in the picture, she was executed for "Premeditated Murder". --Vsion 08:25, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Sure, gruesome, but no more than your average wartime atrocity, so I don't see why you get so upset. I've never seen an electric chair execution, but the movie depictions I've seen look a lot more horrible than this. And then there's the method of injecting some destructive substances that is said to be a really horrible death. But first some other substance is injected that paralyses the victim, so you don't get to see the agony. Now that is gruesome. At least the people in these photographs probably died instantly. DirkvdM 07:44, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I've added a little gruesome "don't open this in compromising circumstances" tag. (People can still click it if they want, but at least they are warned). --Fastfission 14:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• This seems like the execution of Nick Berg except that those Islamists proclaimed, "Allah is great," in Arabic in the middle of the scene where they cut the poor guy's throat. My opinion is that the probability that they are real is 99%. The resolution of Nick Berg video wasn't perfect but I still believe it.--Patchouli 05:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• This seems perhaps like the execution of those 24 Iraqi civilians, including 11 women and children, by U.S. soldiers, which occurred in Haditha. Hopefully none of the young girls were sexually assaulted by the soldiers before being murdered, as we hear happened in Mahmoudiya. --J.Q.P. 12 July 2006

Seinfeld

In many episodes of Seinfeld a certain man is in the background. He has pale skin and light red hair. In a couple very brief speaking parts, he speaks with a British accent. Who is he? See him, for example, in The Chinese Restaurant.66.213.33.2 18:42, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

His name's Norman Brenner.  SLUMGUM  yap  stalk  18:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

How in the world did you know that?

Because I didn't forget it when I heard it. ;0)  SLUMGUM  yap  stalk  19:33, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

EU human rights in the UK

hi, the UK doesnt have a bill of rights as such but we do have (since the 50's) the European convention on human rights. i was wondering to what extent this is analagous to the bill of rights/supreme court in the US. E.g. if our governent is found to be breaching our human rights, does it then HAVE to change that law? also, does that automatically pull other signatory countries who are guilty of the same thing, into line? thanks 201.32.177.211 18:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

See Human Rights Act 1998 and the links therein. --Mathew5000 19:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I can give a fully informed answer to the first half of your question, as I'm not entirely sure of the constitutional status of the convention. (Though my best guess is that NO, it doesn't enjoy constitutional status among the member nations at all, making my following remarks moot.)

However, if it does indeed enjoy constitutional status among the member nations, then yes, if the UK is found to be in breach of human rights, it would follow that all other member nations would be forced to conform as well.

You made the analogy to the US Bill of Rights, which is a good one. For example, Roe v. Wade was a case involving American Constitutional law that involved a statute of the state of Texas alone. However, once the (anti-abortion) statute was declared invalid, the effect was that similar statutes were constitutionally invalid in all 49 other states. The same can be said of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Though it was concerned only with segregation in the state of Kansas, its result was that ALL similar stautes imposing segregation in every other state were made invalid. Hope this helps. Loomis 21:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Your initial statement is incorrect. The UK does have a bill of rights, the Bill of Rights 1689 was originally an English bill of Rights and became U.K. legislation with the formation of that kingdom. It is still in force.

If the UK was braching the EU convention through its law it would have to change its law (usually after appealing) but this wouldn't affect any other European countries law, it would require a seperate ruling to require any other country to amend its legislation. AllanHainey 12:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Yes the UK has a "Bill of Rights", but the status of this "Bill of Rights" should in no way be confused with the American "Bill of Rights". The former is a mere statute of Parliament, having equal status with all other acts of Parliament, whereas the latter enjoys "constitutional status" in America.

All that is to say that if an act of the Parliament of Westminster breached the UK "Bill of Rights", the result would be a conflict of two "acts", both with equal status (though it may be argued that the Bill of Rights would win out due to its higher "prestige"). Nonetheless, the UK Bill of Rights is nothing but a statute, and as such does not have the authority to invalidate any other act of Parliament.

On the other hand, the American "Bill of Rights" enjoys constitutional status, meaning, that any act of congress that violates it (according to the Supreme Court) is declared null and void.

Finally, if any UK statute were to breach the EU convention, the question would be be more of a political than a legal one. The EU is not (at least not yet) a sovereign authority. It all depends on how far the UK is willing to delegate its sovereign powers to the EU. The UK already has special status in the EU as the only country to not adopt the Euro.

As I've said, the issue is far more political than legal. In practice though, to be brutally honest, the UK could, and very possibly would, if the issue is important enough, simply ignore any ruling that it's in breach of any EU convention. This would surely cause a certain degree of political hovoc in the EU, but is not at all outside the realm of possibilty. Loomis 21:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The original questioner referred to a bill of rights so I gave some info on this. You are right that it doesn't have any special status like the U.S.A. bill of rights as this is incorporated in their constitution. I never said that the 2 were of equal status or weight in law.

It should be noted that Britain is one of the most diligent of the EU countries in implementing & complying with EU legislation. Other countries (France, Italy, Ireland I think are the main ones) routinely ignore EU law & don't implement most of such laws into their national law. Whether some have just ignored national court judgements that national law breaches EU law I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised. AllanHainey 11:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Biography

i have an assignment to write a biography on any famous person. Can you suggest me some of the names of people on whom I could write a biography. and could you please give me some clues to write a biography as an assignment. I would be very thankful to you.

Some prominent figures are people such as Oprah Winfrey, Albert Einstein, one of the various U.S. Presidents, etc. All of these can be found in Wikipedia. Maybe biography can help you. --Proficient 22:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

What astonishes me is that a biography of a famous person was the featured article today: Cædmon -- the first poet we know about in Anglo-Saxon -- and it's a feature quality article, too. Geogre 22:53, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• If the assignment is to "write a biography on any famous person", it is probably a primary education assignment, in which the first Anglo-Saxon poet would neither be the most interesting or most accessible subject. --Fastfission 01:15, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Can I make a a suggestion - pick a person who is famous but may not be so familiar to your classmates. One that comes to mind is Howard Florey, whose work has saved many millions of lives over the years but is not super-famous. Whomever you choose, remember that you should use more sources than just Wikipedia; go to the library and ask the librarian for help finding other sources of information on the person. --Robert Merkel 23:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Charles Darwin is always a good biographical subject, because he had a very interesting life which breaks into many simple pieces. Also, a very good biography will allow you to talk not only about the subject of the biography, but also about the times in which they lived, how they changed the world around them, and how they relate to the world today. --Fastfission 01:14, 8 July 2006 (UTC)*

• What, no women?? Susan B Anthony,Florence Nightingale,Emily Dickenson,Sylvia Plath ,Angelica Kaufman,Aphra Benn,Flo-Jo,Marie Curie,Elizabeth Fry,Emily Pankhurst(next ten thousand names deleted in mercy to you)hotclaws**==(81.133.206.137 08:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC))

• Amelia Earhart?--Patchouli 10:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I'll be nice. Benjamin Franklin just had a 300th birthday, and he has a classically perfect biography. Charles Dickens is another with an exceptionally narrative biography. If American, look to Mark Twain and sort of play down the later years. If British, check out Benjamin Disraeli and Robert Walpole, or Winston Churchill, of course. Robert E. Lee was a favorite when I was in early grades. Geogre 02:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If you ask like this you're bound to get rather obvious answers. In stead, you could try clicking 'random article' at the top left until you hit a famous person. The first one I encountered was Martin Luther. Or you could try someone who should have been more famous, like Francis Bacon From the article: "Bacon was ranked #90 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history". Don't we have a list of famous people? Aaargh, we do! I knew it, we've got a list on just about anything! You have to make a choice there, though. What about some explorer? One of those should go down well with your classmates. DirkvdM 07:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• There's really not many clues to give. Simply collect information and tell the story of their life. What famous people do you find interesting? If you pick one of those, it would make the assignment a lot more fun to do. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

US casulties at desert one Iran hostage resuce

I just finished GUEST OF THE AYATOLLA about the Iran hostage crises 1979-1980, I have not heard from any source if the US military men who were killed the debacal at desert one ever where repatriatied for next of kin's disposal. Any idea what happened to them? Thanks 22:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)(Hobgoblen)

• Here is the fate of the 8 dead men: "...and the dead bodies behind in the flaming wreckage." Go to [The Hostage Rescue Attempt In Iran, April 24-25, 1980] to see if for yourself. Unfortunately, Operation Eagle Claw on Wikipedia doesn't mention this.

I choose to copy and paste a short discussion about Iran Hostage Crisis that can be found on Talk: Ruhollah Khomeini.

hostage crisis

Some Iranians considered this to be a miracle caused by divine intervention this quote from the article should not be in an encyclopedia, at least not in a political one. trueblood 13:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Some Iranians think everything from breathing to defecating is a miracle.Patchouli 05:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

??? trueblood 12:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

As you say SOME. And it's like this everywhere. SOME fools don't represent everyone. Persian Savant 03:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't laugh, please.--Patchouli 10:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

July 8

Mayor

Was there any female mayor who posed naked for the picture because I heard that some female mayor was posing naked for her picture?

Huh? Where?--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I would be amazed to hear that no female mayor anywhere ever posed naked for a picture. Perhaps you could be a little more specific? What picture would this be? For an art class? For a nude painting? For some kind of an official portrait to be sent out with press releases? What?

No, never mind, I got it. Just typing "nude mayor" into Google reveals, with the very first hit (honestly, not that we mind helping, but you could at least pretend that you're making an effort here...), that Canadian Sharon Smith, mayor of Houston, British Columbia was photographed nude by her husband, and apparently some jerk copied the pictures from her computer and put them on the internet. Big whoop. I suppose this is what passes for an exciting -- not to mention terribly sinful and titillating -- event for some people. A NUDE MAYOR! OH, CANADIANS, WHAT WON'T YOU DO? -- Captain Disdain 03:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Nicely put Cap'n. (I wonder what pretext he used. My partner would throw a fit if I even hinted at photographing her nude.)--Shantavira 08:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I do remember hearing about that. I don't think it was too recent, but I do remember. Unfotuneately, all I can do is confirm that it happened, for I don't remember any details. Political Mind 02:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Post-Industrial revolution religions

Have any [notable] religions been formed after the industrial revolution? It seems like many of the world's religions were founded in agrarian and nomadic societies. The recent ones that I know of, like neopagan religions, essentially keep the same basis of earlier pre-industrial religions. I'm wondering if there is a religion that preaches a lifestyle for people in a industrial or post-industrial society.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:09, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was formed in 1830. The Salvation Army was founded in 1865. The Bahá'í Faith was formed in 1866. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Scientology, Raelianism, Westboro Baptist Church.... - Nunh-huh 02:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Some of those (not many) are developments of existing churches. There were many, many sects that developed in response to the industrial revolution (or arguably in response), including the various "primitive" stripes of protestantism. The determining factor for many of these is mass communications, as rapid communication and news and such allowed them to react against Higher Criticism and such and to insist on a purely "what's in the Bible is all we'll have" lifestyle. Others, like the Shakers, the Oneida, etc. are probably reacting to production schemes and the dehumanization of factory work. By resorting to closed communities and common ownership, they were very much reacting against capitalist-owned means of production and remote production plants. One of the most jarring things about the IR was that you didn't work at home or live at work anymore, that you would go to a special place to "work" and then go away from that place and "not work." That was somewhat alien to most segments of the economy, and the herding together and leaving behind caused a lot of disquiet. Geogre 02:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I was looking for was a religion whose stories, parables, and lessons centered around an industrialized world. Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad were essentially nomads, and the metaphors they used all had to do with a primitive societies whose problems remained essentially the same for common people for thousands of years, both before and after these prophets. They related to them on a level of what they lived at.....a simple, essentially technology-less lives.

That isn't really the case anymore. Our lives don't depend on self-sufficiency, and the world is extremely connected, and science has expanded rapidly. I thought there might be a religion structured like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—giving adherants an ethical and moral system to use, but for within a post-industrial world. It seems like a lot of the recent religions everyone here as listed encourage people to reject modern, mainstream lifestyles, for someting exceedingly weird, and/or nostalgic....well, I was just curious to know. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 03:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

That's interesting. I can't think of any such religion off the top of my head. Even Scientology situates its central mythos in the distant past. Falun Gong is a recent creation, but it claims a Buddhist heritage, so it isn't exactly rooted in the post-Industrial period. Actually, I think Communism, in particular the dogmatic Maoist-Leninist varieties, might be examples of true IR religions. Communism came about as a direct result of the IR and the attendant social upheaval. Its ideology (or belief system, if you will) was rooted in contemporary socioeconomic issues, not in a distant past of miracles and revelations. If Communism had continued for a few centuries, the Industrial Revolution would have become its "Bible Days". But that's just speculation. Perhaps the Unification Church is a post-IR-based religion? It is fairly "contemporary", in that its central figures were all born during the 20th Century. Also, Cao Dai may fit the bill. Bhumiya (said/done) 03:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

"If Communism had continued for a few centuries..." If you mean pure communism, where has it started? If you mean state socialism, give it some more time. There seems to be this notion that it has ended, but that was just the USSR and eastern Europe. DirkvdM 08:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I meant the kind of dogmatic Marxism-Leninism espoused by the USSR, PRC, etc, which (as far as I can tell) has been declining for many years. I certainly didn't mean "pure communism", which could mean just about anything. I don't want to speculate on the future of state socialism, which could always experience a resurgence. To answer the original question, I should say that Marxism-Leninism is the closest thing we have to a religion rooted in the Industrial Revolution, even though it doesn't have all the characteristics we look for in a "religion". Bhumiya (said/done) 09:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I never looked at it that way. That's interesting, because a lot of Marx's theory does call for a certain lifesyle.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 13:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You could even say that the communist ideal (that which socialist states strive for) is a form of heaven and that the notion that this could ever be achieved is a belief. It's just very Earth-bound, which sets it apart from 'other' religions. But then you could regard just about any ideology as a religion and that would be a bit silly. For a religion you also need some claims about life after death and creation (that these are overseen by some super-being is not necessarily part of a religion I'd say). DirkvdM 07:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think your definition of religion is a bit narrow, and seems specially tailored for the Abrahamic religions. Communism does have a deeper philosophical basis, namely dialectical materialism. Furthermore, there are many religions with no specific position on life after death. Many forms of Buddhism reject the idea outright, regarding it as a frivolous distraction from reality. Germanic paganism had no concept of continuity after death, hence the focus on glory in this life and the respect afforded to skalds. No, Marxism-Leninism most definitely can be a religion, depending on the level of commitment of the adherent. I think the truth of the matter is that few Communists were willing to commit to it on that level, but that doesn't mean there weren't people for whom Communism was a complete and life-affirming religion, even if they didn't use that term to describe it. If the Communists had evangelized as aggressively as the early Christians or Muslims, we would certainly have come to regard Communism as a religion. Bhumiya (said/done) 14:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Rejecting something is having a position on it. Just like atheism is really a religion because it makes a claim about the existence of a god. But a claim about life after death is indeed not an essential part of religion. A claim about the origin of life (and the universe and everything if you wish :) ) is however an essential part of religion, I'd say.

Atheism is not a religion. It's simply the absence of belief in a deity. There may be religions that incorporate atheism, but atheism itself is simply the rejection of a concept. An atheist doesn't have to make any positive assertions. Now, to be a strong atheist, one must begin making extra assertions, but weak atheism doesn't require anything at all except a lack of belief. Religious people often make the mistake of thinking that atheism is a big ideology, but really it's just a concept and the (widely divergent) implications that people ascribe to that concept. Bhumiya (said/done) 02:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe the early comunists were indeed quite zealous about spreading the word. Which was part of their succes around 1900 and during and after WWII, most notably the communist resistance, which was a force to be dealt with because, more than anyone else, they were fighting the 'devil' himself (while we're on the subject :) ). DirkvdM 19:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Kilmainham Jail (Goal)

I am researching Prisoner holding areas prior to being sent to Long Kesh Prison in Ireland. The period of time is 1970 to 1976. I am understanding that although Kilmainham Jail (Goal) in Dublin was no longer in use that prisoners were held at the Kilmainham Court House next to the goal until transfer. My problem is that I have not been able to verify this and everything I have read only states that court is held there, but not that prisoners were detained there. Could you please help me out with this, possibly citing a web site that can give me more information? Thank you

--70.20.65.229 03:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Are the USA and Canada nation-states?

I was reading our article on nation-states and found no mention of "new" states like the USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, etc. These are countries that have come about fairly recently, often as an offshoot of an older nation-state's colonial empire. Are they considered nation-states in their own right?

A related question is whether citizens of the USA/Canada/Australia can be said to have an ethnicity. I started thinking about this after reading an argument on the Scottish people talk page. Some editors, particularly those living in Scotland, consider it incorrect to treat American/Canadian/Australian citizens of Scottish descent as "Scottish people" like themselves. One editor satirized the idea as "magic Scottish blood". I am somewhat inclined to agree with this position. However, this leads to a situation where some people (i.e. those living in undisputed old-world nation-states) have distinct ethnic identities, whereas other people (i.e. those living in former colonies like the USA, Canada, and Australia) cannot be reliably placed into any ethnic group. Ignoring for a moment the fact that this is a frivolous matter, it seems to me that one should either divide Americans/Canadians/Australians according to familial origin (e.g. Scottish-American, Irish-Canadian, Italian-Australian...), or one should say that "American", "Canadian", and "Australian", among others, are ethnicities in their own right. Likewise, "Mexican people" and "Argentine people" ought to have the same status as "German people" and "Portuguese people". Yet this is never the case. No one ever speaks of "U.S. Americans" as an ethnic group like "Germans". Does anyone know why? Is it merely because the latter group is older? Bhumiya (said/done) 05:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

By the definition in the article nation-state, Canada is not a nation-state (for the same reason Switzerland and Belgium aren't). It's arguable whether the USA is or is not a nation-state under that definition. As for ethnicity, you would not say that there is one "Canadian" ethnicity or "American/USA" ethnicity, at least not yet, because those countries have received such a large amount of immigration from different parts of the world over the last two or three centuries. Granted the term ethnic group does not always have a firm precise meaning, and can have different meanings depending on the context, but in a global context you would not refer to "Canadians" as an ethnic group. --Mathew5000 07:31, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Who says American isn't an ethnicity? See here: [3] --Nelson Ricardo 09:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point, but in that case, I don't think "American" is an internationally-accepted ethnic group, but an informal census designation selected by people who aren't otherwise aware of their ancestry. Consider that the great majority of Americans are not "American" according to the census. I believe most respondents who self-identify as "American" are known to be of distant English or Scotch-Irish ancestry. It isn't a widely accepted ethnic category like "Russians" or "Germans". I imagine there are some people in Australia or Canada or New Zealand who similarly describe their ancestry as "Australian", "Canadian", or "New Zealander", but most citizens of these countries feel the need to be more specific, tracing their families back to established old-world countries. Bhumiya (said/done) 11:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

To tackle the subject line of this, I'd suggest that the U.S. is a nation-state, while Canada is a state but not a nation. Per the OED definition we cite, are the citizens or subjects...united also by factors which define a nation? In the U.S., yes: the American creed, the flag (literally and figuratively), constitutionalism, Christianity (particularly Protestantism), individualism, capitalism, the English language etc. What's missing is ethnicity, which is obviously a widely cited "factor which define(s) a nation", but the other "glue" is strong and obvious enough. And as is frequently pointed out, the lack of an ethnic base has the positive of allowing non-whites to assimilate to the creed and reinforce the sense of nationhood. Some have argued that present Hispanic immigration may weaken these factors to the point of a bifurcated state that won't be definable as a single nation. Perhaps alarmist, perhaps not.

Canadians, however, are not "united also by factors which define a nation". Most obviously, the state has within it a de facto ethnic nation (Quebec) that defines itself contra the rest of the country. There is no linguistic unity, no religious unity (insofar as Canada is Christian, it's waning), and Canadians do not unite around the jingoism and symbolism (for better, many will tell you) that you see to varying degrees in the rest of the Anglosphere. Finally, there's no unity of self-definition. An urban Canadian may suggest the country is defined by immigration and multiculturalism (search multiculturalism in Google and the first hit is a Can gov website)—but really that's a definition of Toronto. Drive an hour north of the city and multiculturalism is distrusted. Canada is one of the world's best ideas, but in the long view it may in fact be doomed as a state because there is no nation at it's heart.

Now someone can come along and tell me I'm a terrible patriot... Marskell 11:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand Canada, but the country seems fairly "normal" to me. With the obvious exception of Quebec, it seems about as culturally cohesive as the U.S. Admittedly, they interpret immigration and diversity differently, but I don't think there's any practical difference in the way people relate to one another. But I agree that Canada seems less like a nation. Even if you removed Quebec from the equation, it would seem more like a "giant hotel room" (damn it, I wish I could locate that quote). Perhaps it has something to do with its system of government. Incidentally (and this came as a surprise to me), Canada's nonreligion rate is only a percentage point higher than that of the U.S. Both countries are between 14% and 16%. Bhumiya (said/done) 00:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I have seen the term "settler state" used to refer to states in the Americas and Oceania set up and dominated by the descendants of post-1500 settlers, but the term has a strongly leftist tinge to it, and it may be a while (if ever) before it becomes a neutral term for this kind of state.--Cam 17:05, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

"Settler state" is actually exactly how Huntington (linked above) defines the U.S. He makes a pretty decent argument in Who are we? that "immigrant nation" is a misnomer and that instead America must be understood as an Anglo-Protestant settler nation. This is decidely "rightest" in his hands--not "settler state" as a smear to show that the nation has oppressed others, but as an admittance of what actually constitutes the national identity. Marskell 22:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

That's interesting. I've never heard that term before. Of course, it would be a stretch to call the modern U.S. an "Anglo-Protestant" nation, although some commentators (I'm looking at you, Pat Buchanan) insist upon it. Catholicism is now the largest single religion in the country. The proportion of "Anglos" is continually dropping. Every census, the proportion of non-Christian religions (and non-religion) grows by multiple percentage points. Perhaps it would be accurate to say that the U.S. retains the self-image of an Anglo-Protestant nation, while it is actually rapidly losing this identity. Bhumiya (said/done) 00:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The counter-argument would be that "Anglo-Protestant" is a settler effect that is not bound to a given demographic group. The initial foundation (which was driven by, literally, English Protestants) created a ripple that has increased in strength and accomodates those who are not necessarily English or Protestant. Thus Irish, Germans, and Italians "became" Anglo-Protestant and so even did (some) Jews and African-Americans. Condi Rice, for instance, is eminently Anglo-Protestant. The question then is to what extent this will be repeated with Hispanics. Marskell 07:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I've heard the US refered to as a "state-nation," that is, a country where the nation is based on the state rather than the other way around. While Japan is the state of the Japanese, Americans are people who live in the USA. -- Mwalcoff 01:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Japan is a particularly strong example of a nation-state. In a way, a country like Scotland falls somewhere in between, in that people regularly immigrate to Scotland and become Scottish, regardless of their place of origin. You can be born in Nigeria and theoretically become as Scottish as Rabbie Burns. It would be controversial to say "black people can't become Scottish". You couldn't make that statement and not sound like a racist. This is even truer for large, immigration-heavy places like Canada, the UK, and the USA. No one (well, almost no one) would say "You must be white to be Canadian". But this level of naturalization rarely happens in Japan, except for rare cases like Arudou Debito and Marutei Tsurunen. These guys must constantly assert their Japaneseness (Japanicity?}, not only to other Japanese, but to non-Japanese and non-Asians as well. Even Koreans and Chinese have a tough time becoming Japanese. It is not particularly controversial for us to say "That white guy can't become Japanese". Indeed, it seems almost like common sense. It's very peculiar. I still think it has something to do with the age of the country. Bhumiya (said/done) 06:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

You didn't notice Alex playing for the Japanese national team in the World Cup, then? -- Arwel (talk) 19:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Pantheism

Pantheists believe that everything, especially nature, is god.But I don't understand.What is it about nature that pantheists believe actually makes it god?I've read the article on it, but it doesn't give me a satifying answer.

• That's about as easy to explain as why Christians believe in Holy Trinity. The key word is believe, and I'm not sure anyone could give a explanation you find satisfactory, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• They believe that there is a God, but this God is made up by everything. In other words, they have faith that there is a god, but then they conclude logically that this god is either within all things or made up of all things -- either that this god's spirit is inside all things or that all things together share a single essence of godhead. Geogre 13:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• read the answers to this question and its variants that you have now posted - at an approximate count - between eight and a dozen times on this and the other reference desks. If you still don't understand after all that, I'm afraid that trying to answer again will be of little use. Grutness...wha? 01:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Panentheism

How is panentheism different from Abrahamic theism?Do panentheists believe that God created the Universe, or that God and the Universe came into existence at the same time?

As far as I can tell, panentheism is simply the belief that the universe is a part of a deity—that there exists a deity containing and transcending the observable universe. Abrahamic theism is panentheistic, in that its conception of God is all-encompassing. However, not all panentheists are Abrahamic theists. Think of Abrahamic theism as one species of panentheism. Anyone care to correct me? Bhumiya (said/done) 09:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

A relatively minor religion Ayyavazhi is pantheistic, AFIK. -- Sundar 12:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

But take care not to confuse pantheism with panentheism. Bhumiya (said/done) 00:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand.I thought panentheism was different from theism, excluding deism and pantheism.So are you saying that the three main types of theism in the world are deism,pantheism, and panentheism?

That's what I'd say. I don't see how panentheism could exist outside of theism. It requires theism—a special type of theism. Pantheism is more ambiguous, and some forms of pantheism aren't theism at all. However, most are. Deism is simply a type of theism based on personal reason. There is such a thing as panendeism, which is simply a form of panentheism based on personal reasoning and logic. It goes sort of like this:

Theism

Pantheism

Panentheism

Deism

Pandeism

Panendeism

That's how I see it. Bhumiya (said/done) 06:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thomas Jefferson

8 July 2006

Wikipedia

Aloha from the desert of North Sin City, NV <Phenix City was also sin city,too, and a dangerous one. --Patchouli 12:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)>

As has been the case with far too many of my contemporaries we seemed to adhere to what we thought was a reliable source for information. Namely that which is contained in a reference book(s) called an Encyclopedia. Over the last 6 Decades I have viewed the Britannica as that reference book that was the one to own. It all started with the way their books were both represented and above all their presentation. Top shelf bindings with "gold" trim and of course of excellant workmanship.

Since over these many years on my journey's I have sought the facts on a first hand basis if at all possible, and more often reading what that individual or individuals may have said or done. Since I have been most fortunate over the last 25 years to have had the pleasure of actually hearing that which is attributed to the speaker on a first hand basis. Since I often have taken the dictionary that has sat by my side over the years and occassionally actually looked up words as they were spoken, a word that I was not really familar with since it is not in my personal use. There have been far too many times when what I have heard as they say "from the horses mouth" have been interpreted for the public a few days later. My late mother who ewas born in Eastern Europe and imigrated to the then United States of America after the revolution learned the English language in addition to speaking three other languages. What we call and accept in the now States of America "spin" she would interpret quite simply as "lying" only with a capital "L"

I heard about Wilkipedia from some source which includes both sides of the aisle. I was trying to look up some speach or letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote regarding his viewpoint of a Democracy. The Encyclopedia Britannica that I have loaded on my work station provided a plethora of reference work regarding Jefferson but did not come close to what I was able to obtain from this visit to "Wikipedia" Unfortunately I have not at the moment been able to track down that which Jefferson has left to History. Unfortunately part of the existing difficulties which are created by Man and we now face are already recorded as historical facts, which represent the real story, at times referred to as the "truth". A country divided has historically been more easily controlled and subsequently conquered. Any individual that can commit to any ideology on a daily basis whereby adverse facts are illuminated and constitute no change in their support could indicate a number of things. I consider only three at this point of time, one is that an individual arrives at a conclusion after due dilligence and is open to change. Another is so involved or respectful of some individual that actually makes him believe that the other side of the aisle is from Mars. And that third story exists universally they are simply followers that do not ewant to disturb the water. In other countries its the fact that a small minority are well armed and blood thirsty.

I would greatly appreciate any help anyone in your world that could guide me to where I might find Jeffersons commentory on Democracy. I believe what he expressed might be of a great surprise. This Country has a motto that is on most of our coinage with the exception of the nickle that some enterprising member of Congress had removed in the 80s. E' Pluribus Unum we certainly have maintained the "Pluribus" but sadly we have lost the "Unum" which has joined our United at this time being AWOL. The "truth" however has moved up to be "MIA" "United we stand divided we fall" One can come to any conclusion they want but no one can change the "FACTS" Red, White and Blue is both the United States of America's colors and the colors of those that care more about all American's.

As I have mentioned before new and creative words have been uttered over the public media. Some of these words do not exactly meet with their definiktions. "Rendition" and "Extreme Rendition" the terminology used by our Secretary of State has caused me to seek another definitive work on definitions of English words other than my old trusted Websters. As she uses the terms to explain the treatment of those that be "terrorists" I for dsome reason cannot find any definition of either of these words associated with the word "terror" or any other word that uses it as its root? Since I am a RWB American I only make observations and ask for other opinions based on the facts contained in my observation. I leave you with this last observation as I feel I may have over stayed my visit.

On 7 January 2006 a Friday at approximately 1300 hrs. the Pentagon released a report that was headlined. 80% of all Marines KIA could have been avoided had they had the proper equipment. On 10 Dembember 2003 General Carlos Sanchez made an urgent request for more Armor, Flak Vests, Ceramic Inserts and ammunition. His reward was to be promoted into obscurity!

Semper Fi

F. Ross Spivack--172.190.168.115 11:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC) lost again in a desert but this one has safer fireworks.

"The impossble is most often the untried" FRS

"Some men see things as they are and ask not Why? I dream things as they could be and ask Why NOT?"

• Searching for a question in the verbal haystack, I gather our ever faithful correspondent is looking for "what Jefferson wrote about democracy". Unfortunately Jefferson wrote a lot, including a lot about democracy, some of it hypocritical cant, and some of it highly susceptible to demagogic misuse. Do you have some specific quote or theme in mind? alteripse 11:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• It's further complicated by the fact that Jefferson the revolutionary and Jefferson the president and Jefferson the embittered former president don't all agree with each other. Therefore, cherry picking quotes from Jefferson has become a political parlor game, as you can find him saying that you're right, no matter what you believe, if you look carefully. Geogre 13:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

You should definitely look at the Thomas Jefferson page on Wikiquote, a sister project to Wikipedia. There are tons of quotations by Jefferson. I've linked to it here. --Bmk 16:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

More useful perhaps might be S:Author:Thomas Jefferson, the wikisource page. We've got a wide range of Jefferson's letters there. AllanHainey 12:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

double nuclear blast survivor : an urban legend?

Belgian magazine Humo once published an interview with a Japanese man who was sent off to Hiroshima for business, and suffered minor injuries because of the blast. However, he quickly returned home to go on working...in Nagasaki. The second time he did get seriously wounded and he claimed he doesn't remember much of the next fourteen days.

Does anyone know more? I have been looking quite hard but I can't find a name? Is it a hoax?

I've never heard this before... it sounds a little too clever to be true, IMO, but I don't have any other reason to dismiss it off hand. --Fastfission 15:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Our article on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings mentioned several such double casualties at one point, but that info appears to have been removed. If you think about it, the Hiroshima victims would have been evacuated to other cities, so it's not all that surprising a few would have been sent to Nagasaki. StuRat 22:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Humo is generally a reliable magazine. While suspicious sounding, I think this could easily be true. Did you check if Snopes listed any urban legends on this? - Mgm|^(talk) 22:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I read it too, on a WWII encyclopedia I have no longer.--Panairjdde 11:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

There's a documentary film called niju-hibaku (二重被爆, lit: doubly explosion-affected), about poeple who ware exposed to both nuclear blasts. Here is a link to the official site[4] (in Japanese) and an article about the film: Film depicts 8 people exposed to both A-bomb blasts. --Kusunose 13:14, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

While gross, it could be relevant : he claimed that when he got a bit fixed up again, he was informed that in the days after the second blast, chickens picked the maggots of his flesh, thus explaining his undying gratitude and his refusal to eat anymore chicken. Evilbu 13:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Maggots can be helpful, though, by removing the dead tissue before it breeds infection which spreads to live tissue. StuRat 15:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I've heard of this story before, but it was an American POW who survived twice (after being transferred), not a Jap. Battle Ape 05:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The Next Video Medium

I've been thinking about transferring my scores of VHS tapes to DVD, but then I thought: How soon will DVD become obsolete? Should I wait for the successor to DVD? And what is that new medium? Will it happen within 5 years? Can you direct me to some articles? 66.213.33.2 15:19, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The two major competing replacements for DVD are Blu-ray and HD DVD. They are higher quality than DVD though you are unlikely to see much of a difference unless you have a large screen high def TV. In my opinion, neither format is likely to last very long as the move to broadband internet access will allow more purchase through downloads. It is likely in 15-20 years that most media will be downloaded to a hard drive or streamed rather than exist on a piece of plastic cluttering up your house. Nowimnthing 15:41, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

As to tranfering your VHS I suppose you need to weigh the pros and cons. The jump from VHS to DVD is a quality improvement (a larger one than the jump from DVD to Hi Def DVD.) DVDs are likely to be around for quite a while (they have a large market saturation and all present plans for Hi Def players are to be backwards compatible with DVDs.) DVDs sometimes offer extra content like directors commentary and outtakes. DVDs are more durable over the long run than tape (provided you handle them correctly.) DVDs are digital and as such could possibly be transfered to a hard drive (pending legal copyright issues.) On the other hand the transfer of a large collection can be very expensive. Nowimnthing 15:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

"The jump from VHS to DVD is a quality improvement" Not quite. You can't magically improve the quality of VHS by transferring it to a DVD. The information the VHS didn't record would still be missing. - Mgm|^(talk) 22:44, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

DVD has been successful enough that backward compatibility will stick around for a long time, especially as it uses, essentially CD drives in computers. I.e. it won't be physically demanding to make a player work with it and another format, so long as motors, speeds, and sizes are about the same. They probably will be. However, one thing to remember is that you won't see any improvement over the original because the data limiter is the most lossy storage format. I.e. the imagery is on VHS, and it won't gain any new pixels in the conversion process than the VHS tape head communicates. The best solution, and the one that I've done in a professional capacity, is simply to convert to a good digital format and store the movies on a server. Then, whatever the physical player specifications, you can re-encode to it later. I.e. store the films on hard disks in an avi or other format. Geogre 18:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

The above is good advice, so this is just adding to it.

Video takes a HUGE amount of data space. So when it's stored on any digital medium (hard drive, DVD, Blu-ray etc) it is usually compressed. The degree of compression is a balance between how much space you want to reduce it to, and what quality you'll get. So we need to discuss size and compression.

Compression is usually quite good, so much so that you can often find movies compressed to 300-400 MBytes per hour of movie (0.3 - 0.4 GB/hour), and they're still very watchable. A "reasonable" degree of compression would see your average film being compressed to 1 - 1.5 GB, or about 0.5 - 0.7 GB/hr). A typical DVD is 4.3 Gbytes, and a typical hard drive can be 200 - 500 GB these days. Although usually you don't lose much detail with compression, if you try to compress too much, you do start losing some detail, so it's a bit of a trade-off.

To compress a movie you need one of three things: either (1) a video encoder card that has compression built in (either in hardware or as a driver), or (2) some other means to transfer the video onto your hard drive, then you'd use a suitable program to compress it yourself, or (3) A standalone DVD recorder that can record off your VHS. Any of those three will work well.

Digitizing your movies is actually pretty simple, and can be explained easily. The main thing though is, to choose a way of doing it thats best for you. The issues that will help give you good pointers on advice are these:

• The balance between quality and file size that you want. How many hours of movie are we talking about? How fussy/quality conscious are you about the finished digital results?
• The saved quality needed. What will you be watching it on in future? Will you be expecting "the latest and best" or is "good enough to enjoy" fine?
• The frequency of access and usage. Do you expect to be watching them constantly, or will most of them sit in storage and you pick one a day or one now and then to watch?
• The technology level you're using. How high-tech is your home? Up to date gadgetry, networking and stuff, or pretty simple and not all newest and latest? What kind of computer (processor, memory, hard disk space)?
• Current capabilities. Do you have any means to get VHS saved on your computer in any form, or do you need a card to allow you to do that? If so, do you want one that can record off TV too?
• Computer or stand-alone. Do you want to do this on computer, or would you prefer a stand alone player (like a video player) instead?
• Cost. How does cost fit into it? There's 2 possible elements -- a card for your computer (if needed) and hard drive or other media.

Try answering those, which will help to advise you on issues such as "most suitable medium", "best kind of compression", and "cost" etc... and I'll come back to you when you do. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 21:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Ahh... I just assumed the question was about a movie collection rather than personal videos. If personal videos, then yes the above advice is great. You need to look into the process and expense of the transfer process see afterdawn. But since the original recording limits the quality, you lose very little and gain quite a bit by converting to DVD or storing on a hard drive. You may be able to fit a somewhat less compressed home video on hi-def DVD but that won't matter nearly as much as the quality of the original VHS. Nowimnthing 21:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

House Selling under Scottish (Scots) Law

Could someone please advise whether, under Scots Law, a houseowner intent on selling the house, is legally obliged to advise potential buyers of any ongoing or previous neighbour-related tensions, disputes, or other such hostilities, whether or not the potential buyer asks that specific question?

And is the seller's agent/solicitor also legally obliged to answer such a buyer's question if such disputes are known to him/her even if any such problems have not been disclosed by the seller, but have been made known by other means?

What would be the buyer's redress(es) if such problems did exist but were not disclosed to him before the sale was concluded?

Many thanks in anticipation for any useful responses .

This has now also been asked at the Miscellaneous desk. I suggest that any answers are placed there to maintain a single discussion. Road Wizard 23:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Road. Sometimes it is difficult to know which is the best reference site from which to attract the best and quickest answer. But thanks for your intervention anyway.

ronald "winky" wright

Does anyone know if Junior Middleweight Champion and Middleweight contender Winky Wright is Multiracial or Biracial(i.e., mixed race)? This site lists him as American (corect to a degree) but I'd like to know about where his ancestors come from. Thanks in advance!

Luis Peña

Platinum Weird

I heard that the song "Will you be around" made in 1974 is really a fake and some guy admitted that it was not real. What't the real story on this??? Please email me back at (email address redacted to prevent spam) Thanks Ryan

• Fake in what sense? If it was made in 1974, it exists. How can a song not be real? - Mgm|^(talk) 21:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

July 9

Most religiously diverse country

What are the most religiously diverse countries in the world today? For example, which has the most religions, the smallest religious plurality, the widest variety, etc? Bhumiya (said/done) 00:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to say the United States. --mboverload@ 00:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to say nyc (falls under the sub-category of United States, but really..)--152.163.100.72 01:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, Lebanon has fairly similar numbers of its three main religions - something which I doubt can be claimed by many nations - and certainly not the US. Grutness...wha? 01:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

How about one of those African countries with colonial borders that mix in a hodge-podge of different ethnic groups? Or India? -- Mwalcoff 01:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Same problem here as with a previous question on which continent has the largest ethnic diversity (the answer to which was Africa) - does one single person of a certain religion count or does it have to be a substantial portion of the population? In that case the US don't count because christianity is predominant. The point for Lebanon sounds like a strong one in this light. But the articles suggest that the main religions are Islam and Christianity (just two). If you look a the major religions, then Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are the big ones and all these are found in India, but Hinduism is very predominant. Of course looking at absolute numbers wouldn't be fair. But looking at China, there is also a large diversity, including secular people if you count them as a religion too (as the list seems to do).

Don't we have a list for this? DirkvdM 08:08, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

What about Iran? "90% belong to the Shi'a branch of Islam, the official state religion, and about 9% belong to the Sunni branch (many of them are Kurds). The remainder are non-Muslim religious minorities, mainly Bahá'ís, Mandeans, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians." currently, according to our article, and when members of the Iranian diaspora talk about it in the papers, they suggest that 90% was quite a bit smaller before the Ayatollahs. Skittle 20:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the answer, but http://www.adherents.com is a fairly good resource for questions of this nature; you may have to trail through it awhile, though. Try looking at countries with large populations, as they will probably have the highest diversity. Australia (although it has a smaller population) is also fairly multicultural. BenC7 01:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Non-metric systems around the world

If the U.S. managed to retain non-metric systems of measurement, why have no other countries done the same (apart from Myanmar, that is)? Surely the U.S. is not the most isolationist country in history. What circumstances led countries like Japan, China, Russia, and the Arab countries to adopt SI? Did any countries put up a fight? Bhumiya (said/done) 01:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• Because many of the "non metric" systems are useless, which is why university science courses all go [SI]--152.163.100.72 01:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Britain still measures distances in miles, and produce in shops is dual labelled in metric and imperial measures. The conversion was meant to be complete some time ago, but conservative political forces managed to hold it back in a very interesting mixed use arrangement. So there has, yes, been some resistance to its use in other places than merely the US. Mnemeson 01:28, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd say there are two main reasons. The first is that Continental European countries adopted metric to rectify a hodge-podge of competing measurement systems. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, for example, decided early in the 19th century it needed a consistent system of measurements for all its constituent parts, so it adopted metric. The adoption of metric also allowed for consistency among all the little states of Europe. The USA, as a gigantic country, did not have this issue; the only people using a non-Anglo-Saxon measuring system were long voyages away. Secondly, I think Americans are more resistant to the imposition of changes on society by a bureaucratic elite. The idea of legally compelling people to use metric -- an important part of metrication in other countries -- would never fly in the US. -- Mwalcoff 01:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, here in America we have large numbers of people with minimal amounts of higher education who equate science in all it's forms with some type of satanism, and so completely miss the point of having a standardized unit of measure.--152.163.100.72 02:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The story of the successes and failures of the metric system is a very interesting and complicated history. Our page on the metric system explains some of it, and also indicates in a nice prominant map which countries currently do not use the metric system (U.S.A., Myanmar, Libya). If you are interested in the history, two books which are excellent which discuss different aspects of it are Ken Alder's The Measure of All Things (about the crazy hijinks involved in trying to measure out what will be the basis of the definition of the meter) and Peter Galison's Einstein's Clocks and Poincaré's Maps (a major theme of the book is the difficulty of getting standard time synchronizations, which initially is part of the same push as the metric system standardizations). --Fastfission 03:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that's Liberia, not Libya... AnonMoos 08:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

One reason is standardisation. Using different units of measurement once crashed an international Mars lander (two bits of program were talking to each other, except the one meant metres and the other feet or something, resulting in a way too fast descent). So it makes sense to all use the same units. Next question is who should adapt. Two arguments here.

Firstly, the SI system is much simpler

1. There is just one basic unit per quantity.
2. Other units can be formed in a way that is the same for all units (milli, kilo, and such).
3. All these prefixes are base 10, which is also the base for our decimal numbering system (decimal means base 10).

Three very good reasons I'd say. The imperial system is a hotchpotch of units which don't seem to be related at all. Why have inches, thumbs, feet and miles (and different miles too, to complicate matters even further) if you just want to express one quantity, length? ome opponents in the UK use the argument that the imperial units are better for brain development because they are so complicated. :) And the imperial system can't even make up it's mind about which base to use. Sometimes it seems to be 6 or 12 base (1 foot is 12 inch), but not quite always and the ratio between some is just absurd (1 mile is 5280 feet - what kind of number is that?).

The other argument is that almost everyone except the US uses the SI system. Hell, even China has adopted it and the UK is trying, albeit a bit half-heartedly. New Zealand did it much better. They totally switched from one day to the next. A bit of a slap in the face, but because it is such a logical set of rules it made more sense. An SI unit is not just another unit. It's part of a whole. So the US should do the same. If they don't, the next time we send up a Mars lander, we might do it without the US to avoid the risk of another crash. :) DirkvdM 08:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Off-topic I know but it was the Mars Climate Orbiter, not a lander and the mix-up was between the English units (pound-seconds) and the metric unit (newton-seconds). Not as simple as feet and meters. Many engineering units in the U.S. are still customary units while almost all scientific work uses metric. Rmhermen 18:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to convince me. I realize it's completely illogical for Americans to resist the metric system. Hopefully it will change soon. I was only wondering why this kind of resistance didn't succeed outside of the U.S. (with the exception of Myanmar, of course). Bhumiya (said/done) 12:58, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Because it's the Land of the Free (tm), and you can't force them to do anything. Back with you, European metric commies! -- Миборовский 08:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

In some matters the USA simply disagree with the entire world, and will not bow to any sense of logic. A president and his party which tries to change things alltoo quickly will lose popular support and vital votes. The easier way is simply be all patriotic about it and defend the All-American way ("like it has been done since the days of our forerathers") ad absurdum. Flamarande 11:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I was just wondering why the same sort of patriotic stubbornness didn't prevent SI from taking hold in some other country, especially one like China or Japan. Bhumiya (said/done) 12:58, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The argument has been made that the metric system just isn't as convenient for measuring certain kinds of things. Crypticfirefly 04:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

"Surely the U.S. is not the most isolationist country in history" Well maybe not the most, but its up there. Philc _T^E_C^I 15:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Bhutan is isolationist. The U.S. just has a massive excess of power. They sometimes look the same from the outside. Bhumiya (said/done) 16:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I know the intention of the question was not to launch a debate on the merits of the metric system, but I do want to point out that it's not as if the lack of the metric system causes many problems in the daily lives of Americans. I know how far a mile is, how much a pound weighs and what a gallon looks like. The fact that there are 16 ounces in a pound rather than 10 does not cause me any difficulties. In some cases, especially with temperature, American measurements are more "user-friendly" than metric ones. The advantage of the metric system is that it is used around the world. If you are selling products internationally, the metric system is very important. But there's no reason to try to force it on a car-wash attendant in Peoria, Ill. -- Mwalcoff 15:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

As for myself, I still can't even get used to the imperial system as it's too "new" to me. I'm told that I'm six-foot tall. But what's that in cubits? Loomis 22:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Also bad for the American football players, the offense team has to run an extra yard or so to get first down. --Vsion 01:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean Vsion. Even in the CFL, yards are used, not metres. The adoption of a country of the metric system doesn't necessarily mean that all other forms of measurement are "forbidden". The opposite is true as well. For example, whenever I travel to the US I often see soda bottled in "2 litre" bottles. Loomis 23:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I have a published scientific paper on the use of metric and non-metric measures of length (Dignan, J.R.E., and O'Shea, R.P. (1995). Human use of metric measures of length. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 24, 21-25). It appears that metrics and non-metrics both have their uses and are often used concurrently in places where metrics have been introduced, even in those cases where official schooling is entirely in metrics. in the case of distance (and presumably other measures), it is easier to grasp the size of items that are measured in numbers of between about 5 and 15 - we can visualise the difference between eight feet and ten feet far more easily than we can the difference between 240 and 300 centimetres or 2.4 and 3 metres. As such, many people (here in New Zealand, at least) tend to use centimentres for small sizes, feet for medium sizes, and metres and kilometres for large sizes. This also explains why - although the country is officially entirely metricated, brith weights are still most often referred to in pounds, not kilogrammes - the weights will be around the magnitude of 7-11 pounds (3-5 kg), so the difference is easier to comprehend in imperial measures. height is also easier - measuring in feet can be far easier to understand than measuring in centimetres or metres for people. Grutness...wha? 07:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Bhumiya, my argument was that it is so logical to adopt the SI units that one should ask the question the other way around - why would a country not adopt it? And why are some countries half-hearted about it (like the UK)? DirkvdM 08:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I though what I said just explained that. Who completely change over when half of what you've used before fills a gap in the new system? Also resistance to change is a very strong motivation. Grutness...wha? 01:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Dirk, this is discussed in Metrication in the United States and its talk page. Basically, Americans do just fine with non-metric in their daily lives and see no reason to abandon the traditional system for everyday uses. If you've measured yourself in pounds and feet your entire life, you're not likely to switch to kilograms and centimeters just because people on the other side of the ocean do so. -- Mwalcoff 13:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

This isn't really related, but while the prefix-stem format of the metric system is logical and straightforward, it also makes for longer names that aren't easily adapted to other forms. "Meterstick" could be used instead of "yardstick", I suppose, but something "centimetering" along or reaching a "kilometerpost" sounds too awkward. Now I agree that the metric system is superior and I fully expect that in time, the whole world will use it. I wonder if these terms will survive, based off units of measurement in an archaic system long forgotten. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, but we use anachronistic language like that all the time. When is the last time you watched a film that was actually "film"? You may well still "dial" a phone number, too. And - except in mediaeval recreationist events - no-one has gone "at full tilt" for centuries. So talking about inching and mileage is likely to stay in the language for a long time to come, even when said "mileage" is measured in kilometres. Grutness...wha? 01:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The Cartesian Subject?

I'm reading some philosophical literature right now, and I am not quite sure what is meant by the term "Cartesian Subject." Obviously it has to do with Descartes, but I can't quite put it into context. Can anyone enlighten me? - R_Lee_E (talk, contribs) 01:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

They might mean Cartesian coordinate systems, which are the XY coords in 2D or the XYZ coords in 3D, but somehow I doubt it. StuRat 01:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Not if it is philosophical literature. --Fastfission 02:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Usually when one refers to "the subject" in continental philosophy you are talking about the construction of "the human" as defined by a particular philosophy of man or the mind (at least, that's my general feeling for it, as much as someone can generalize about this). The Cartesian subject in this definition would be "the human subject as defined by Decartes' philosophy of man" or something along those lines, which in this case would likely be the standard figure of Cartesian dualism: the immaterial mind, the material body, and so forth. I have to admit that my own understanding of Descartes is pretty primative, philosophically speaking (I know the big picture view of much of what he has written, but I do not know the details), so I can't say much more than that, but hopefully that will be of some use. --Fastfission 03:03, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Marcus Garvey

Did he really support white racist groups like the KKK, apparently because they advocating segregation and/or deportation of blacks to Africa, both things which the Wikipedia article on him claim he supported?

I don't know anything additional about Garvey not contained in the article, but I do know that in the early 1920's the KKK was at the height of its power and political influence, and in fact almost mainstream. AnonMoos 07:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Some Black Nationalists have gone so far as to work with the KKK. The most famous example in living memory is Imamu Imiri Baraka (formerly known as the poet Leroy Jones...fabulous poet early in his career), who was the contested poet laureate of New Jersey. He was convicted of transporting explosives in a plan with the Klan for causing some carnage. Obviously, these people do not "support" the Klan. Instead, they and the Klan alike believe that Blacks should have a separate nation to live in. It's a very fringe view, and I don't know that Garvey ever went that way, but, nevertheless, some people have done it. Geogre 20:28, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Diet of Plains Indians

Did they eat only buffalo? 71.199.245.249 04:36, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought they also ate maize corn. --Kjoonlee 05:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The nomadic ones I mean, did they eat corn? 71.199.245.249 07:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Fish, acorns, birds, deer, etc. People are omnivores, and nomads eat what they can find. They would eat buffalo as their main kill, but they would also get other foods as available. They had to get nutrients from other sources if they didn't want malnutrition. Geogre 12:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course, if you're willing to eat the whole buffalo, you can come closer to covering your nutritional needs. Remember that the Sami traditionally subsisted almost entirely on reindeer. If you just eat the lean meat, you'll die. But if you eat the internal organs, the bone marrow, the brains, etc, you'll get much more out of it. Bhumiya (said/done) 13:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Excellent point. I should have paused a bit longer, as Innuit cultures generally live on fish and meat but consume the whole animals. I was just thinking of specials I've seen when avoiding commercial television that showed such things as acorn paste (very labor intensive) and other vegetable foods that the nomadic plains Indians ate. Essentially, the plains have plentiful food supplies in all but winter, so those peoples wouldn't have turned away from other foods -- especially foods that can't run away or trample you, like veggies. Geogre 01:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

domestic corn?

what was the first way to train wild corn to grow in domestic soil? and when was this?--205.188.117.12 07:24, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

There wasn't really "wild corn" as such, just teosinte (according to one common view -- see Maize#Origin of maize). AnonMoos 07:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Is the Bible really just about the origin of the Jews?

I asked this at the Genesis talk page, but got no reply, so I'll ask here.

As a kid I wondered what happened after Cain and Abel. Where did the next generation come from? Incest? Unlikely. Then I read Genesis and found out that Cain left and met another people. Hold on! Where did they come from then? The conclusion I drew from that is that the bible is about the origin of the Jews, not mankind in general. Or rather the Semites, since the story is also in the qur'an. But then what about the creation of heaven and earth and all that? That sounds more like an 'overall' creation story. I can't be the first person to wonder about this, so what explanations have theologists come up with for this? DirkvdM 09:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends upon the invidual theologists. As there are diffrent versions of Christianity, Islam, etc so there are diffrent explenations. Did you believe they gathered and agreed on something? Then we would have only one church wouldn't we?

The Old Testament is not to be taken in a too literal sense, sometimes it has a figurate meaning. Some miracles cannot be disproven or proven by science so they are issue of faith; either you believe in them or not. That's the view defended by moderate theologists (majority - like the catholic church); This view accepts the discoveries of science: evolution theory, carbon dating.

The Old Testament is to be taken in a literal sense always; this is the view of the hardline preachers (minority - and mainly in the US). This view cannot agree with science and they have three answers for this: A)Science has to be wrong. B)God works in a misterious fashion and has placed the wrong data everywhere to confuse us. C)Scienstist are interpreting the available data in a wrong fashion and alternative views are the true science (e.g. Intelligent design).

My own personal view in this subject is that the first groupt are realists who believe but aren't blind. They acknowledge that some things in the bible cannot be taken in a literal sense.

The second group are simply trying to twist science into confirming their religious views. They are trying to disguise their faith as science.

Now what matters is not what your priest preaches; what really maters is what the single (you) believer accepts as the truth. If you are unsure then be simply honest and say: "I am unsure about some things in the bible." Don't let a priest or a scientist decide for you. Read, study, and most important of all: really hear the other side. Then you are able to decide. You may even switch sides after a while. Flamarande 10:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The beginning of Genesis, for whatever reason, and with the exception of Eve, only seems to make reference to the males, and in most cases, the first born males. Note that all the "begats" all make reference to each figure having one son. Obviously they had daughters as well. I believe you'll find your answer in List of names for the Biblical nameless. In short, Cain married an unnamed and unmentioned daughter of Adam and Eve. So yes, it was incest, but no, at least according to the Bible, there were no "other people" around at the time. Loomis 11:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Lomis, but these passages of the Old Testament are quite unclear. Look at [5]. The text doesn't identify that mysterious woman as a daughter of Eve at all, and suppossedly there were "giants on the earth" and the "sons of god (angels?) who came in unto the daughters of men" look at: [6]. Flamarande 16:00, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The Nephilim. There's also some relevant history at Pre-Adamite. Ziggurat 03:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

On the more general question, the origin, flourishing, and establishment of the Jews is the general subject of the Old Testament, but this does not mean that Genesis is about a sole creation rather than a universal one. Generally, theologians do not consider the creation story to be only the creation of Jewish people, but, indeed, the creation of the universe. At the same time, it has been read as 100% true and not at all literal for hundreds of years. Literalism is something quite modern. (How can it be true and figurative? Well, the parable of the prodigal son is 100% true, and yet it is not necessarily a description of a particular man with two sons, etc.) Geogre 12:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me make clear that I'm not talking about a religious explanation but about the question what whoever wrote the bible had in mind when he did so. What story was he trying to tell?

Geogre, I don't know who the prodigal son is, so that example doesn't work for me. But I cannot but take things as they are and common sense cannot be something recent. People must have wondered about this throughout the ages. Maybe this is one of the reasons it took so long for the bible to be translated into something the people could read (not Latin) because the clergy didn't want them to find out the illogicalities. But even they must have come up with something because I can't believe they were all hypocrits. Many who knew the bible must have truly believed. So what did they make of this?

Flamarande, I wasn't talking about science but about common sense. The story of just two ancestors leads to a problem and there may be different ways to get around them (none of which can ever work I suppose), but what I meant is what the origin of the old testament might be and what theologists (not believers) say about this. I don't suppose not many non-religious people will become theologists (which means it's hardly a science by the way), but some critical minds must have come up with something. And what I came up with is that it's really about the origin of the Jews, not mankind as a whole. I can't be the only one.

When Kain left he went East where he got a child (from whom is indeed unclear), who built a city. We now have a new first generation (Adam and Eve are out of the picture here) and a son founds a city. Inhabited by whom? Translations can go awry, but a normal household mistaken for a city is a bit unlikely. There's just one family. Unless you add in some other people. But then the question arises again where they came from. And anyway, the incest version is just too unlikely. Again, that goes against common sense. Brother and sister can't get any decent offspring (well in the Ozarks maybe, but then look at the results :) ). Angels inseminating women is one way out if you're religious, but that still doesn't solve the story of Kain. Unless there are female angels (are there?). DirkvdM 18:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

There was a man who had two sons. One son was dutiful and staid at home, working on the farm. The other asked for his inheritance early, got it, and went off to the city. There he spent his time with loose women and wine, spending every penny. After two years, he returned to the farm. When he did, his father ordered the best sheep slaughtered and a feast prepared for his lost son. That's the story of the prodigal son. Jesus told the story to illustrate God's attitude toward repentant sinners. Now, no one would, as in The Life of Brian, continually interrupt the story, demanding to know the farmer's name, what city the boy went to, how much the wine cost, etc. I.e. the story is true, but it is not literal. Given the fact that Jesus taught with such stories almost exclusively, some theologians came to the idea that Old Testament stories might likewise be true and not literal. They never rejected the literal truth, that I know of, but they began to understand some of the stories (Noah's Ark being the most famous one, as Augustine wrote about how impossible it was and yet how true it was) as possibly not as much literal as figurative. With Genesis, thinkers through the renaissance and early "Enlightenment" were seeing it as less and less a literal account of exact creation and more and more an account of the order of creation and the origins of the universe. After Wallace and Darwin, though, some churches reacted violently by more or less inventing literalism. The account, however, starts with void and ends with mankind, so I don't think it was meant to be only the origin of a single people. Geogre 20:23, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems that Dirk's question is not about the veracity of the bible, but rather whether, as fiction or non-fiction, the plotline makes any sense at all. Fair enough.

First off then, I don't see why the offspring of an incestuous relationship would not be "viable" in the simplest sense of the term. While such individuals tend to suffer from a great deal of health problems, both mental and physical, nobody ever argued that humanity is not made up of a few billion inbred nut-jobs! If anything, humanity being ultimately the result of incest would seem to answer quite a few more questions than it brings up! lol.

In any case, whatever can be said of the life and times of Adam and Eve, according to Genesis it's made clear that ALL of humanity was wiped out by the flood, with the exception of Noah, his wife, his three sons, and his three sons' wives and children. The names of his three sons were Ham, Shem and Japheth.

Genesis goes on to describe that many generations later, Abraham was born, the descendant of Shem, making him a "Shemite" (hence the etymology of the term "Semite"). Genesis then focuses on the decendants of the Shemite Abraham, while the "Hammites" and the "Japhethites" have apparently gone their separate ways. Therefore, according to Genesis, the story of creation is not simply of the origin of the Jews, or even the "Shemites" but rather, the last common ancestor of ALL of humanity, Noah. This is further reflected by the belief in Judaism that most non-Jews (with the exception of the Arabs, who tend to trace their roots back to Abraham as well, and as such are therefore "Semites") are generally regarded as "Noachites", as Noah is believed to be the last common ancestor of mankind. Well at least that's how the "story" goes. Loomis 20:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

To put it in a more modern, less theological, more wikipedia friendly way: the flood marked a reboot in the continuity of the story and the history of mankind was reimagined from then on. MeltBanana 23:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

MeltBanana, I don't see how your rephrasing is "less theological or "more wikipedia friendly" than mine. In fact I see quite the opposite.

I presented the "story" or "narrative" of Genesis without taking any position on whether it was true or not. Even if it was fiction, good fiction requires coherence (unless you're a big David Lynch fan, in which case fiction requires no coherence at all!)

How often have you left a movie theatre after seeing a fictional movie and saying to your friend "[this or that particular aspect] made no sense at all! The movie was just too unrealistic or incoherent for me to enjoy it". Same goes for my analysis of the "Genesis narrative".

My analysis was not theological in the slightest sense. It was merely an NPOV analysis of a "story", which some consider to be true, while others don't. Dealing with subjects in an NPOV fashion is, indeed the most "wikipedia friendly" way to analyse them.

On the other hand, your comment on the "reimagination" of the history of mankind couldn't be more POV. While I treated the Genesis narrative in a "take-it-or-leave-it" fashion, you took it upon yourself to gratuitously ridicule it as nothing more than a figment of the imagination.

Just when we thought we had finally developed beyond the primitive, bigoted evil of religious intolerance, it seems that religious intolerance has reinvented itself, only this time, rather than ridicule and harass the adherents of one religion with a chauvinistic preference for another, now ALL adherents of any religion are ridiculed and harrased by the so-called "enlightened modernists". Plus ça change...". Loomis 09:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Re the original question: try http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/cains_wife.asp. It gives a fairly comprehensive answer. BenC7 01:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question, it seems. It just poses it. several times. Then again, it is so badly written I couldn't be bothered to read it all (I did read the conclusion, though, and that doesn't give a real answer). And Jesus is hardly an answer because he came much later. I'm talking about the old testament. And other than that it says that Cain's wife 'must be one of Adam’s descendants.' So that's the incest-version. DirkvdM 08:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

If you couldn't be bothered reading to find an answer, why bother asking the question? Here is an excerpt from the article:

...Also, in Genesis 2:20, we are told that when Adam looked at the animals, he could not find a mate—there was no one of his kind.

All this makes it obvious that there was only one woman, Adam’s wife, at the beginning. There were never any other women around who were not Eve’s descendants.

...This also means that Cain’s wife was a descendant of Adam. She could not have come from another ‘race’ of people and must be one of Adam’s descendants.

Some claim that the passage in Genesis 4:16–17 means that Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife. Thus, they can conclude there must have been another race of people on the Earth, who were not descendants of Adam, who produced Cain’s wife.

‘And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch: and he built a city, and he called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.’

From what has been stated previously, it is clear that all humans, Cain’s wife included, are descendants of Adam. However, this passage does not say that Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife. Cain was married before he went to the land of Nod. He didn’t find a wife there, but ‘knew’ (had sexual relations with) his wife.

Others have argued that because Cain built a ‘city’ in the land of Nod, there must have been a lot of people there. However, the Hebrew word translated as ‘city’ need not mean what we might imagine from the connotations of ‘city’ today. The word meant a ‘walled town’ or a protected encampment. Even a hundred people would be plenty for such a ‘city.’ Nevertheless, there could have been many descendants of Adam on the Earth by the time of Abel’s death.

I'm not sure what else you want... BenC7 09:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The real truth is right in the bible. Adam lived to be over eight hundred years as did most of his immediate family. Yes it was "incest", because God Himself commanded them to be fruitful and multiply. Hence, God caused them to be "fruitful and multiply". And God blessed them to "fill the earth." When God blesses something it is "good". Therefore, the population explosion that took place in Adam's day was great and good because it was God who commanded it.

As far as scientists and the Bible agreeing or disagreeing, actually, if one really studies the Word, they do not contradict each other as much as most people think. Other than Darwinism, which was really only an observation from one man on a small island that got overblown into a "theory" that even today has no scientific basis and cannot be substantiated, most scientific findings, such as the earth being millions of years old is not really refuted in the Bible. In Gensis, the time period between Chapter 1 verse 1 and chapter 1 verse two could very well have been millions of years. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This clearly means that God created the universe, and then created earth. When God creates something He does not do it half way. He originally created the earth beautiful and perfect, not flooded and without form. But look what has happened to the earth in verse 2. Notice now what condition it is in. "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water." What happened between verses 1 and 2? God originally made the heavens and the earth perfect. Now suddenly in verse 2 the earth has no form and is flooded. There are several verses in the Old and New Testament that reveal that there actually was a "pre-Adamite" race that Lucifer caused to rebel against God, and the result was that God flooded the earth for the first time and destroyed every living creature. And verse two picks up after that first flood where God's Spirit "moved upon the face of the water." Genesis chapter 1 verses 3 thru 31 describes God's recreation of the earth in six days. And that is the beginning of our modern day count of time, roughly six thousand years ago. After God recreated the earth He made Adam and Eve and put them in the garden of Eden which was in the eastern part of Eden. Eden was a lot larger than just a garden, the garden was only part of Eden. So God put Adam and Eve there and one of His commands was to be "fruitful, multiply, and ..." now watch this next command, God told them to "REplenish" the earth. Most people don't stop to realize that if God told them to "REplenish the earth" then it had to have been "plenished" before. Thus, clearly, Adam and Eve were the first modern day people of our time period, but certainly not the first people who ever walked the face of the earth. There very well were people who lived before Adam and Eve, who lived in cities, and who the Bible says in the Psalms, were brought low by Lucifer and rebelled against God, and were destroyed by a flood so great that no creature survived, and even the "cities" were destroyed so that there was nothing left. How many years ago did that happen? Science tells us the earth had people on the earth a lot farther back than six thousand years ago. And this goes hand in hand with Genesis and other Bible verses outside Genesis, that these were the people who lived before modern man(Adamites) and suffered destruction from the first flood. The next great flood was in Noah's day, and after God swore He would never destroy the earth again by flood. Two was enough. So the Bible is mainly a story of modern man and how he was created, fell, and then redeemed back to His creator. It is a love story, the greatest one of all time. "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him(Jesus), should not perish, but have everlasting life." To have eternal life, the Bible says all one has to do is believe in Jesus, "even to those who believe on His name." Wow! How wonderfully easy and simple it is to receive eternal life. It is not based in any way shape or form on our own performance and religious zeal. It is simply based on whether we believe on Jesus' name. Religion wants to take you thru all kinds of calesthenics and rituals. But that does not please God. The Bible says, "faith pleases God" ...and again, "and Abraham believed and God accounted it to him as righteousness." Abraham was righteous because He believed God. And God will see you righteous if you believe on His sons name. The name above all names. Jesus Christ. And this story, though written over the first 4100 years of modern man's existence, is still being played out today, as we are now living in the "last days" as is written in many books of the Bible, particularly Revelation. You can read the Bible as if you were reading our headlines in today's newspapers. God's Word is true. And HE loves us so much He wants all of us to live with Him for ever and ever. So He provided the "Way" we all can do it. And it does not cost us a thing. How can anyone be angry about that?

That is certainly an admirable effort (perhaps try paragraphs next time?). Although a Christian myself, I cannot agree with the certainty with which you make some of your claims:

1. Evolution is not something that has been blown out of proportion and has no scientific basis. I don't believe in evolution myself, even after a reasonable amount of study into it at uni and privately (trawling through Talk.Origins and other places), but to say that it has no scientific basis is going a little far.

2. The timeline you describe is Gap theory. It is questionable. See [7].

3. The concept that God made the heavens and the earth, then destroyed it, then recreated it, has problems for similar reasons. Try picturing it this way: God made the heavens and the earth, much like a potter grabs (in this case, "creates") a lump of clay. It is formless. The potter then works on the pot to bring it into shape.

4. The statements you make about "REplenishing" the earth are being overly semantic (picky about the meaning of words). Other words for the Hebrew "male' mala'" are equally appropriate, such as fill, furnish, have wholly, etc.

5. The interpretation of some of the Psalms and Isaiah relating to Lucifer are matters of interpretation; it is not clear whether "Lucifer" is actually Satan (read the context in Isaiah 14, where it appears to be talking about Babylon's king), and there is certainly no mention of any people before Adam.

I would recommend that you read a little more widely. The Talk.Origins archive and the Answers in Genesis website are good starting points. BenC7 07:07, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

So the answer to my specific question is the incest-version and maybe it is true that a healthy race can spring from that.

But I didn't mean to ask about whether the story in the bible is true. I should have made my mindset clearer. I'm not religious. So, in my perception, someone (or more likely various people) wrote the bible (more specifically Genesis). My question is 'What did they intend to write?' The creation-text is extremely short, which makes it astonishing that so few people know it, considering there are over a billion christians. But I suppose that's mostly in name, most will not actually read the bible. But that's a different story. DirkvdM 08:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

More or less. The danger of incest today (from a genetic POV, as I understand it) is that it results in the accumulation of genetic faults, which makes genetic disease and defects more likely. Assuming that genetic faults started when Adam sinned, there would not be many genetic mutations, and so little danger of genetic disease or deformity. BenC7 11:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not an answer to my question and I don't get the last bit, but it bring up something new. If Eve was created out of Adam, they'd have the same genetic material (somehow God must have changed the sex, but that's not too weird). So they're like idenitcal twins. even worse than brother and sister. DirkvdM 07:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Which question? You've asked several by now. "What did they intend to write?" Isn't it obvious? It is the book of Genesis (beginnings). It's about the beginning of everything.

What if it were simply about the beginning of the recognition of everything. Assuming God created humanity to know and worship Him, as many religions believe (with one wording or another). Then perhaps this is the story of the beginning of humanity recognizing God and thereby, in a sense, becoming human. The terminology may be a little harsh, but is not unreasonable considering that many tribes in the world are very ethnocentric and often call themselves some veriation of 'humans' or 'the people' in their native language. So with this viewpoint, Adam would not be physically the first human, but the first spiritually; in a sense, the first Prophet. With this viewpoint the metaphor of the rib is very beautiful. In that sense it could very easily be about the beginning of the Jewish people, but in a broader sense, also to the people of the other 'Abrahamic' religions that also believe ing God that arose out of this tradition. This is the viewpoint I ascribe to. -LambaJan 19:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Julius Caesar

In Colleen McCullough's book "Caesar", she writes how Caesar ordered both hands of 4,000 prisoners of war chopped off to teach Gaul a lesson. Is that true or fiction?

Thank you. David Diamond <email removed to prevent spamming>

Well, yes and no. At the end of the Gallic Wars the Carnutes were stubornly resisting against the Romans. After the siege the city of Uxellodonum, Caesar choose to make a example out of the Gallic garrison and chopped their hands of. Im am not sure of the number 4000, but advise you to read Julius Caesar's Gallic war if you really want to be sure. Flamarande 15:21, 9 July 2006 (UTC) Try this: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0001;query=chapter%3D%23392;layout=;loc=8.43

Even then, I wouldn't necessarily trust what Caesar writes about his own efforts. He was a terrific spin-doctor for himself. --Dweller 19:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Certainly, so does everybody else during the entire history of mankind. Everybody lies in some personal issues, is only a mater of degree. Defending Caesar, I must point out that he was probably exagerating the numbers of his slain enemies to impress his readers, his fellow Roman citizens. Ave (hail) Caesar :) Flamarande 21:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

longest lasting governments

I was looking for a list of the longest lasting governments. I thought I heard on the radio that the US has the longest current government of 217 years from 1789 (Washington's first election) to today. Is this right?

Also, how does this compare other governments like the Roman Empire, English monarchy, etc.

Thanks for your help.

Bob <email removed to prevent spamming>

If you're willing to treat the US government as constant (one major internal war, innumerable changes of power, but same system of government and no fundamental hiatus), then the UK has (probably) had a constant government since either c.1660, 1689 or 1707. France and Germany are substantially shorter, ditto Spain and Italy... can't offhand think of a longer major European power currently around. Shimgray | talk | 13:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It all depends on how you define "government". If you allow it to include "king", then the oldest continuous government might be Denmark or Thailand or Japan. The U.S. certainly has the oldest codified constitution still in use. You might be interested in this discussion thread, which contains many interesting and varied perspectives on the issue. Bhumiya (said/done) 13:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

As for comparisons to historical governments, the Roman Empire lasted for over five hundred years, no matter how you slice it -- but considering that the circumstances of the empire and its actual government were pretty much in flux, I dunno how constant you could call it. The British monarchy, on the other hand, had a much longer run. It's not entirely clear where you should start counting, but for the sake of argument, let's start with William, Duke of Normandy who took up the reins of power. Depending on how you're looking at it, you could argue that it's still going strong, but in practice, since the adoption of the Westminster System, the British monarchy has had less and less actual power to govern. Even so, you could say that the monarchy has a good 800 years or so of actual rulership under its belt. (Obviously, it could be argued that what with rulers, politics, legislation, religions and whatnot changing wildly over the years, it can't be said that the British monarchy as a system survived that long, but let's not go there right now...) But of course, this is all Mickey Mouse crap suitable for children and very pregnant women; if you want staying power for grown-ups, go east, young man: China had a whole bunch of emperors over the years, ranging from the beginning of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 -- that's a good couple of thousand years of emperors. Oh, and the Egyptians also had some pretty good runs in there. Not that United States hasn't had been around for a while, but it's gonna take it a while to beat any of the records set by the old timers... -- Captain Disdain 14:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, what you mean is probably regime, not government. What in the US is called 'administration' is in English English 'government' (as in 'the Blair government'). But the terminology is a bit vague (I once tried to figure this out, but didn't quite manage).

Anyway, this depends on what you call 'one regime'. When does a regime change? What are the criteria? Does it take a revolution? The French had their last one earlier than the US, so that is longer lasting. And the UK may still be officially a monarchy, but do jokes count too? :) The Roman empire switched back and forth between emperors and senate, so the regime didn't last 500 years (although I don't know the details). Which also brings up the question whether you mean a 'seated government'. I believe the Egyptian pharaos were in power for rather a long time. Maybe things weren't in flux as much in antiquity as they are now. Everything else goes faster now, so why not politics?

But then there's China. Whenever I think about how things are and have been in the world I always come to a grinding halt when it comes to China and then everything else goes out the window. China is an incredibly constant factor in the history of the world. They just don't give a shit about the rest of the world and the beauty is they can afford to because the country is so bloody huge. A favourite story of mine is how they built this fleet of huge ships that dwarf modern day supertankers, long before the Portuguese ventured onto the oceans, sailed around a bit (to Africa, among other places), decided the rest of the world wasn't interresting enough, burned the ships and continued on their own path. And then there was this Chinese emperor who had a whole bunch of rockets attached to his throne, took off and was never seen or heard of again. Who was the first space traveller? Of course, a Chinese emperor. :) DirkvdM 18:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Have you considered the Manx Tynwald, often considered to be the world's longest running government structure? We have an appropriate article. --russ 23:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, so now the Chinese were the first to explore the globe, and an ancient Chinese emperor was the first man in space. Jeez. Loomis 23:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Nobody said the Chinese were the first to explore the globe. Jeez. -- Миборовский 03:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I did, sort of. DirkvdM 07:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

And the emperor was never seen or heard of again, so whether he made it to space .... Twas a joke. Jeez. DirkvdM 07:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of Jeez. The popes ruled since Roman times, didn't they? In how far that counts as a government - when did the Vatican come about? DirkvdM 07:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The Vatican city state originated in 1929. --Halcatalyst 02:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's just the latest in a long series of "governmental arrangements" involving the RC Church. The Vatican itself was the "head office" of the church for many centuries before 1929, and the papacy exercised power over various kings and emperors. JackofOz 23:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Altitude of Franco's head

How tall was Francisco Franco? I seem to recall hearing that he was of below-average height, but I can't find any mention of it in his article. Bhumiya (said/done) 14:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Look at the references provided by the article. He seems to be quite short compared to Eisenhower in [http://www.fuenterrebollo.com/Gobiernos/general-franco.html]. Flamarande 15:28, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but how tall was Eisenhower? Bhumiya (said/done) 15:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

1.79m. Ha, I answered my own question. Bhumiya (said/done) 15:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, found something at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0290542/bio. Flamarande 15:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I thought he was about 5'4". Bhumiya (said/done) 15:52, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

How tall a US president was? We've got a List of United States Presidents by height order. Wikipedia has it all, especially when it comes to lists, even totally absurd ones! :) DirkvdM 18:47, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it was created in the run-up to the 2004 election by restless political trivia junkies. Had Kerry won, he would have been the tallest president, and a lot was made of how he towered over Bush at the debates (and he was taller too!). If Dennis Hastert ran for president, I'm sure someone would create a List of United States Presidents by weight order. In the fall of 2008, be on the watch for List of United States Presidents by number of penises. Bhumiya (said/done) 23:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

What's your definition of absurd, Dirk? Isn't it a good thing that such lists exist so that questions such as this one can be quickly answered? JackofOz 02:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't really have a definition of absurd. Indeed it turns out that trivia-lists can serve a purpose, even if it is as indirect as here. We can't predict this sort of thing, so this is a wonderful excuse for trivia-lovers. DirkvdM 07:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

One man's trivia is another man's treasure. All knowledge is precious. JackofOz 23:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoken like a wise man. :) DirkvdM 07:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Aaahhhhh, recognition at last. My life is now complete. JackofOz 23:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

But then I read today's desk calendar wisdom: "We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge" (John Nasibitt). JackofOz 01:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I read such about Franco as well, I think heard he was about 5'4, or perhaps shorter.

indonesia old laws

what are the indonesian old laws? The laqws that the government uses during the last centuries

Indonesia is really a remnant of colonial days. Whatever the Dutch gathered under their rule in that region is now Indonesia. Over the last centuries there was first the VOC, a trading company that had trading posts in the region that gradually expanded. Then, around 1800, it became an official Dutch colony. And a few years after WWII it became an independent country (effecively a colony of Java, but I won't go into that). You might be referring to the adat, the traditional laws of the various parts of Indonesia. I believe that under the VOC and even when it became a colony that was left pretty much in place, although there will of course have been some Dutch laws superimposed on it. And even now, in 'rural' regions (such as inland Borneo) adat is still largely in place, in lieu of 'official law' because it's not worth it to have a law enforcer in every vilage. But even when there is one, there is often a 'kepala adat', a traditional headman who rules (ie settles disputes) together with the 'official' head placed there by the national government. DirkvdM 19:03, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Joke

Dromie E: "I buy a thousand pound a year: I buy a rope." Apparently this is really funny if you share a certain background with the teller of the joke. Could somebody explain?--Shantavira 18:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

(I am not a scholar of Shakespeare). Since Dromio of Ephesus is a slave who is repeatedly beat in that play (Comedy of Errors), my first instinct was that the "thousand pound" referred to how often he was beaten (especially given that the rope he is being sent to purchase will be used to beat Antipholus of Ephesus's wife), but OED doesn't attest "pound" as in "to beat with fists" until ~1700 (much later than the play was written--although there is one early reference from 1596, which is roughly the right time, but not used in quite the same way), whereas "pound" as a unit of currency is attested much earlier than Shakespeare (and, indeed, pounds stirling were introduced as currency right around the time of Shakespeare's birth), so my guess is that "pound" here refers to money, probably. I suppose it could be a play on words though, since there is one use of "to pound" attested early enough. I guess my answer is: I don't know why it's funny. Maybe it isn't funny. :) 128.197.81.223 21:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't seem very funny to me, either, but the punishment for some debtors was the pound hemp into rope. Thus, you would "buy" a thousand pounds' of debt, would basically suffer enough for an entire rope to have been fashioned. Bit of a guess, but it is possible. (Women would get the punishment of beating hemp, later, in Bridewell Prison, but men were included in their number.) Geogre 17:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Southampton walls

What year were the walls around southampton built? if anyone could answer that would be great and very useful, thanks :)

According to the article Southampton, the walls were constructed after a French attack in 1338. --Canley 22:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Francisco Franco

I recall reading somewhere that Spain's leader during WWII was of Jewish origin. Is that true? If so, did his friend Hitler know, and ignore, that fact? 66.213.33.2 19:49, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

This is the first time I've ever heard such a story, but then some people really insist on believing that Hitler (or Rommel, or von Ribbentrop, or Churchill, or de Gaulle, or whoever, really) was a Jew. I have no reason to believe that Francisco Franco was Jewish. Calling Hitler and Franco friends is simply wrong, since I believe that the two only met once, and even then Hitler wouldn't give in to Franco's demands of food, equipment, territory and whatnot. Spain was kinda friendly towards the Axis for a couple of years during the war, but they went back to being neutral in 1943. (In fact, Jews used Spain as an effective escape route from the Nazi persecution.) -- Captain Disdain 22:22, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

This page mentions that Paul Preston's 1993 biography of Franco (Franco: A Biography) refers to this: "There has been much idle speculation that his family was Jewish, on the basis of his appearance and because both Franco and Bahamonde are common Jewish surnames in Spain." Captain Disdain is right, do not mistake military alliances for friendship. In any case, Franco was a Catholic, another religion the Nazis had no great love for. Or for that matter, the Japanese, who were also allied with Germany (see German-Japanese relations. -Canley 01:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Franco was not Jewish. However, the Franco family did descend from Jews who converted in the 1400's conversadores. So while, like many spainards, he may have had Jewish anscestors it was so far removed and intermixed with non jewish anscestors, he could not be called Jewish.

Nature of god

Hello, I have read all the standard articles on monotheism, god, Christianity, &c., but I am still confused. Is the Abrahamic (specifically Christian) view of god monotheistic? Obviously the assertion is that god is one entity but comprised of three distinct parts. Is this strictly monotheism or multitheistic (sorry i do not know the word for 'many gods' and dictionary.com doesn't seem to help), within defined parameters? Should 'god' be capitalised in the general sense (I'm a stickler for grammatical correctness)?--russ 23:04, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, since all three parts of the Trinity are believed to be one god, and not separate, then it is monotheism. More than one god would be polytheism. 71.31.149.140 23:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The word you are looking for is polytheism. Have you read our article on the Trinity? Whether it's monotheistic or pantheistic depends on your point of view, according that article some Muslims and Jews believe the Trinity is essentially pantheistic but you may start a fistfight if you stand up in a Catholic church and loudly state "The Trinity is pantheism" ;) --Robert Merkel 23:59, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Mainstream Christianity - Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox - is monotheistic. They all share the doctrine of the Trinity, which is undeniably a difficult idea that has thus inspired a great deal of speculation both theological and mystical. There are a few Christian sects that don't hold that doctrine, though. To choose a couple of well known examples: Unitarianism holds that God is not triune; hence its name. Mormonism has a variety of distinctive beliefs about God/gods which differ in subtle and not so subtle ways from mainline Christianity; you should read that section of the article.

For spelling purposes, a general rule is that "God" is used to refer to Judeo-Christian-Islamic deity while "god" is used to refer to other supreme beings and the concept generally. --George 01:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

To answer the other parts of your question, Judaism and Islam are monotheistic, too. The doctrine of the trinity arose from what Christians see as two clear teachings of the Christian Bible. On the one side, the Bible is crystal clear that there is only one God and the opinion of most Christians, New Testament calls Jesus God and speaks of the Holy Spirit in terms reserved for God. Perhaps the acid test you could do is walk up to a few Christians and ask, "how many gods are there?" I'm betting most will respond immediately with "one." --CTSWyneken^(talk) 22:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

This all helps clear up thing a lot. Yes, i have read the standard article on the Trinity. Does this mean that if someone prays to God they are praying to one entity or three? I guess a lot of how you interpret the Trinity comes down to a matter of faith. --russ 23:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a concept that transcends logic. You are praying to only one God, because there is only one. However the doctrine is that there are three persons in God, each of whom is distinct and each of whom is truly and wholly God. But there is only one God. That's why it's called the Mystery of the Trinity. Human minds can never work it out, you either simply accept it, or not. JackofOz 23:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

July 10

Renoir's Gabrielle Jean and Little Girl

I have a 24.5 by 26.5 inch print of this art signed by Renoir in the upper right hand corner Were limited editions of the original made and will you provide information relative to time, number, and current value? I understand the original was at the Norton Simon museum until 1980 and now is in a private collection. I have owned my print for twenty years after purchasing it from a woman who's grandparents had it hanging in their house of the farm for many years. We have enjoyed it so much and would appreciate your help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.188.167.31 (talk • contribs) 00:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC).

Cross-over Gospel music

Can anyone list cross over gospel music between black and white churches in the 40's? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.176.196.238 (talk • contribs) 02:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC).

philosophy ? : "regional inquiry - formal logic"

Please help me to understand the usage of the terminology: "regional inquiry" as used in the context of an article written in the UK (Ireland) on the subject of philosophy with children. The publication is: Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 39, No. 4, 2005 Title of the article is: "Thomas Reid and philosopy with children" writer is Fiachra Long of Ireland.

I am required to write a content summary paper for my masters degree in education, only I cannot understand the usage in the following sentence found in the article:

"Philosophy today identifies more with regional inquiries than with the broader reality of human life".

I will appreciate your help to understand what the author means by this.

Thank you,

H.W. Friedman

It means that many philosophers today do not occupy themselves with so-called real-world problems, but limit themselves to smaller areas of specialisation (e.g. formal logic). David Sneek 06:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Where can I demographics for the Schutzstaffel?

I'm looking for the demographics of Schutzstaffel memebership. As in, what was the percentage or religious affiliations, age groups, gender, nationality, etc. Thanks in advance.--Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 05:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

When Germany surrendered 1/2 the SS were non-Germans. -- Миборовский 17:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

South Korea Backing North Korean Tyranny

Ashton Carter, on Meet the Press, said, "We’re capable of military action, and it’s important that that be an ingredient of coercive diplomacy. But the real levers on Kim Jong il are the Chinese and the South Koreans. It is they who essentially support the regime economically and politically. So it makes sense to have them at the table," [underlining is mine].

Why do South Korean support the North Korean regime? I thought South Koreans opposed communism and tyranny. Aren't the two governments enemies?--Patchouli 09:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh brother, this is a issue of international politics and nothing is as clear and easy as it sounds. That statement has to be taken with great caution.

South Korea is probably trying to placate the North Korean regime with donations of food, etc and have absolutely no interest in beginning a war with that regime. The majority of the ppl there want a peaceful reunification, and some of them (small but vocal minority) blame the US for the curent situation being of the opinion that without the US there would allready been a peaceful reunification (which is bit ludicrous, but somewhat supported by the "anti-US imperialism crowd").

The USA don't want to start a war, because they are allready involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. They want to mantain the moral highground and the status-quo. Ashton Carter can talk all he wants (notice that to say something does not automatically mean that you really believe in it), but the US military is spread way too thin. He is trying to make some political points and is simplifying the whole issue for dubious reasons.

China isn't interested in a war in it's own backyard for that conflict would hurt them also, but they don't want that the US spread their influence in Asia even further.

Japan doesn't want to a war because they will be involved in it. They will not gain nothing besides corpses. They support the US aslong as the US policy is to contain NK and not to engage it in a fullscale war.

North Korea doesn't want to start a war that it isn't able to win, but they don't want to appear as weak or piteful. They (mainly the regime) might also be a bit scared that the US is planning to deal with them in near future (the famous "axis of evil speech" certainly hasn't helped maters). Therefore they threaten everybody (mainly the US) with these rockets, and make a great display of strength. North Korea wants to deal directly with the US (it's probably a bit of vanity mixed with politics - if negotiations fail they can easily blame the US "imperialistic ambitions") but the US wisely wants to involve everybody (especially China) so that in case "the *hit really hits the fan" (a fullscale war) all countries in the region fight against North Korea at the side of the US (or at the very least don't oppose it).

Everybody, except the NK regime, is interested in maintaing the stats-quo and the peace and are patiently waiting that either some moderate member of the ruling family rises to power, or that the NK military (or anyone) makes a coup-de-etat (a bit like Cuba - everybody is just waiting that Fidel Castro bites the dust). The current NK regime is interrested that the tensions run a bit high so that no NK general get's any funny ideas, like making a coup. The ppl of NK meanwhile can starve and die (these donations are not really solving the problem you know? Mostly prolonging the agony), for who really cares besides the ppl of SK?

Well, perhaps the ppl of the other countries involved really care, but what what are the politicians supposed to do? Invade NK to feed the ppl? Way too dangerous, and the consequences are unpredictable and quite bloody, and they will lose popular support and votes for any losses (as clearly shown in Somalia and Iraq).

As long as the NK rockets don't hit anyone they are simply a show of force, nothing more and nothing less.

Notice that this is my personal interpretation - it is mainly a educated guess. Fell free to disagree. Flamarande 15:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "North Korea wants to deal directly with the US ...if negotiations fail they can easily blame the US," is extremely insightful. I thought Kim Jong il and the elite wanted a guarantee against their overthrow, but Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns said that security was given to them in September of 2005. You must be right about this.

"The current NK regime is interrested that the tensions run a bit high so that no NK general get's any funny ideas," is very plausible.

Pyongyang doesn't look rural and I doubt that people are starving. Doesn't North Korea have a national healthcare and good welfare system to take care of its people? After all, why did their people want communism? But I can't be sure about anything because of lack of transparency.--04:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You can find factual answers to these questions in the CIA factbook on North Korea. ...IMHO (Talk) 08:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Also see the article Sunshine policy which describes the South Korean position on North Korea. --Canley 15:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Musical Difficulty

Of the "common" musical instruments in Western Music (what would normally be found in modern bands or orchestras), which could be considered the most difficult? Thanks in advance. --Burbster 09:54, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

violinists seem to have the most competition. 82.131.188.248 14:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC).

Do you mean difficult to master? My first thought was the piano. --Richardrj 14:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll just say the most difficult to learn and/or master. --Burbster 18:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The violin is pretty tough. It takes a long time to learn to produce a decent sound (unlike on a piano, wher you just need to hit a key). And even when you're good, it is difficult to play a straight note, which is why solo violinists use so much vibrato, to disguise the fact that they didn't hit the right spot (a violin has no frets on the finger board, like a guitar does). Also, the way you hold a violin is rather unnatural, causing a lot of rsi with violinists (you can get this with just about any instrument, but I believe the violin is one of the worst). Having said that, when it comes to top notch play, the piano has many keys and some composers like to use as many of them as possible. Studying such a piece will take long time. And then you have to get feeling into it. Also, unlike the violin, the piano is very often used as a solo instrument, meaning you get more attention from the listener and have to put more effort in not making any mistakes nad putting feeling into your play. If you're a mediocre violin player you can blend into the orchestral crowd so there should be better chances of making a living out of it. I guess. Some factual data on this last bit would be interresting. Not sure if that is what you were askming about, though. DirkvdM 07:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's impossible to get a 'straight' answer to a question like this, in the same way that it's difficult to say which foreign language is easiest to learn: it all depends. Different instruments have different difficulties, and which is easier/harder for you depends on your particular aptitudes, as well as your willingness and motivation for learning said instrument. The quality of the teaching also makes a difference.

A violin (or other similar stringed instrument) is difficult to play for the reasons Dirk mentioned - just getting a clean note is harder than it looks, and once you've worked that out, you need to hit the note correctly (not sharp or flat), which is a matter of millimeter finger placement. While a keyboard instrument like a piano doesn't have the problem of getting a clean or correct note (you hit the key and the note is played), it's difficult because you have to multitask like there's no tomorrow - not only do you have to play chords (so you have to be able to read music much, much faster than for another instrument), but your two hands could be doing two different things, which is like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time, only a lot harder. A wind instrument (like a clarinet) is difficult because the modulation comes from your mouth, and mastering the combination of lip movement and breathing (unusual movements) to get a good note while simultaneously thinking of moving your fingers to hit the right note is tricky. The trombone combines the difficulty of a wind instrument and a stringed instrument, as you have no guide other than your ear to tell you if the note you're playing is correct or not. Percussion is tricky because, again, different parts of your body are multitasking like nuts (try beating quavers with your left and triplets with your right hand), and your sense of rhythm needs to be dead-on, especially as there is often no music for percussion and you need to 'improvise' as you go along.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea :) — QuantumEleven 09:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the oboe. I'm a musician, and among my friends it's considered the most difficult to play well.--Anchoress 09:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The top 5 hardest instruments in an orchestra would be (in no particular order) oboe, violin french horn, piano and harp. In a band, the top 5 hardest would be (in no particular order) oboe, bassoon, french horn, trumpet and bar sax. Mind, trumpet is only difficult because that is usually the focal point in a piece of music. They often have the rangiest parts in a song. Political Mind 20:24, October 7, 2024 (UTC).

Dirk, your comment about violinistic vibrato didn't quite hit the spot (pun.). It's not just solo violinists who do this; orchestral violinists also vibrate away merrily. The reason has much less to do with disguising a misplaced finger, and much more with adding richness and warmth to the tone. JackofOz 23:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure? I believe you're right that the orchestral violinists vibrate too (so to say :) ), but shouldn't the 'warmth' of the tone, it's richness in overtones (if that's what you mean), simply come from their multitude? Each one slightly off should have the same respect. A solo violinist, though, has to vibrate to disguise his fingers being slightly off. Although there is also the sort of 'weeping effect'(for lack of a better term) in his case (is this what you meant by 'warmth'?). DirkvdM 07:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit hard to answer, since I've never learned violin (I'm merely a half-competent pianist). But I've watched many hundreds of orchestral performances and I've never seen them not using vibrato. If multitude alone provided warmth of tone, there would be need for vibrato. I'm sure that competent professional violinists (solo and orchestral) rarely misplace their fingers, so disguising anything doesn't come into it. If that were the case, a sharp ear would hear the wrong note being altered to the right one. Your last question is more or less what I'm talking about. Listen to the difference between a Jascha Heifetz or an Itzhak Perlman playing a Bach solo partita, compared to a learner. Even a learner who had the notes spot on, but didn't use as much vibrato, would make a shriller, thinner, less pleasing sound. JackofOz 04:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Last time I was in an orchestra most of us agreed it was the french horn, then the oboe, then everything else. -LambaJan 03:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Depends a great deal on what your skills already are - eg. someone who has good co-ordination could probably play drums better than most people. The right hand on the violin is very difficult too, but I found it easier than clarinet.--martianlostinspace 17:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Radio Play

Who owns the copywrite on Orson Wells Radio play War of the worlds— Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.144.5.12 (talk • contribs)

the united states public, which is however, is prevented from exercising its right 1) by corporations buying term extentions. 2) by corporations burning original media so that the public will be unable to exercise its copyright. (The latter happening especially in the case of the Disney corporation). 82.131.188.248 14:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC).

This broadcast occurred in 1938 (not before 1923) so it is still eligible for copyright - if the renewals were filled on time. Rmhermen 19:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we still haven't answered this person's question, which was "who owns the copyright" on the 1938 radio play based on the 1898 H.G. Wells novel. (Obviously the novel itself is public domain.) I believe the adaptation was actually written by Howard Koch, who also wrote the screenplay for Casablanca. (He died in 1995, btw.) The article on The War of the Worlds (radio) will tell you that it was a creation of the Mercury Theatre. Whoever owns it, given the existances of published recordings over the years the copyright probably was renewed. But we still haven't helped this person because we don't know who their successors in interest were. Crypticfirefly 04:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Sealab 2021 DVD

Does anyone know if there are region 4 Sealab 2021 DVDS?

I believe so: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001MZ7K0/002-3146975-0703200?v=glance&n=130 --Proficient 02:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy, Nietzsche's quotation on vanity:

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that "vanity is the fear of appearing original: it is thus a lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality.". May somebody, please, explain the meaning of that statement? I simply cannot understand a word, it's like the definition does not have anything to do with the word to me. Thanks.

• Sometimes lousy translators can distort the essence of words, for instance, by choosing lust where the person actually meant parental or friendly love. However, I doubt that dabblers would touch Nietzsche's works. This is not found in Wikiquote on Nietzsche. Where did you find it?--Patchouli 11:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

consider vanity as meaning the behavior, rather than the characteristic of being vain: "Looking in the mirror is the fear of appearing original: therefore it is a lack of pride, however it does not mean a lack of originality." Consider this: "Running a spell-checker is the fear of appearing original: therefore it is a lack of pride; however it does not mean a lack of originality" (though I suppose the spell checker, like the mirror, can remove some of this. By looking in the mirror, I guess we could think of dressing with respect to a mirror? Putting what feels right on, then vainly censoring the originality.) I agree it's stretching it. If you'd give us the source, I'm sure it would go a long way. 82.131.188.248 14:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC).

I think that's on the right track, but consider vanity not as self-love, but as wishing to appear fashionable, wishing always to be beautiful. I.e. it is seeking to conform to a social standard of beauty at all times. The difference between the beautiful and the vain is that the latter is hounded by a fear of not being attractive. Therefore, the person consumed with physical vanity is always afraid of being an individual, always afraid of looking like him or herself. Geogre 14:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I found it in the article vanity. Hmm... I think it begins to make sense, thanks... I'll keep reading.

The source is Morgenröthe, book IV: 365, by the way. David Sneek 19:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC) ("Die Eitelkeit ist die Furcht, original zu erscheinen, also ein Mangel an Stolz, aber nicht nothwendig ein Mangel an Originalität.")

I think Geogre has got it right. Maybe this formulation will be more clear: To be vain means to be uncomfortable with one's self, however strange looking you might be. You lack pride when you can't accept yourself as you actually are, when you are longing to be something else, says Nietzsche. But that doesn't mean you still aren't strange looking. (Obvious one ought not interpret this to be purely about aesthetic appearance.)--Fastfission 04:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Xinhua News Agency

How do you pronounce Xinhua? Does the x sound like \s\, \z\, or \zh\?

If you want to add a voice clip, then please do so.--Patchouli 13:11, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

For an American, it always sounds a bit like "Shin-wah," but, of course, that's relying on newsreaders. Geogre 14:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I would pronounce the x like a z, as I do when I say the word xylophone. —EdGl 00:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It's written using the Hanyu pinyin system, and our page on that system describes x as "like sh, but take the sound and pass it backwards along the tongue until it is clear of the tongue tip", which sounds about right to me. The closest English sound is definitely "sh", though (at least in standard pronunciation). "Shin-hwa" or "sheen-hwa" would be my best transcription of the whole sound, although naturally, that won't get it exactly. -- Vardion 04:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not right. The IPA for the X in Xinhua would be the Velar fricative (see Pinyin), but it has no equivalent in English (not really). It's sort of like sh, but not really, your tongue goes in a different position. --ColourBurst 04:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Now I remember that the x in Deng Xiaoping (who put down the revolt at Tiananmen Square) sounds like \sh\.--Patchouli 04:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Eritrean book

I want to know the Author of a book writteen in Tigrigna language(which is widely spoken in Eritrea , East Africa), in the 60'th or 70'th, entitled < WAY ANE DEQEY> (c).?

Google does not even give one hit. ("WAY ANE DEQEY") Who is it by? --Proficient 02:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Schengen implementation date applicable for Malta

Dear Sir/Madam

I thought of asking you for some information about a DATE - the implementation date of the Schengen agreement (month and year) by Malta. Kindly send references to documents which state this date.

I have heard conflicting dates so I prefer to refer this question to you in person.

Thanks

Best regards

• Schengen Agreement should help. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 18:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

purpose for building Stonehenge

We were wondering if the purpose for building Stonehenge might be to develop navigation (and agricultural) tables while religious reasons might be used only as a ruse to get free labor? ...IMHO (Talk) 19:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

If you want a simple naked-eye sun-position observatory in order to keep track of the tropical year, then you really don't need huge stone megaliths dragged in from distant quarries at great effort. All you need are some simple reference markings of horizon alignments and/or shadow alignments, and wooden poles would do the job just as well as multi-ton boulders. Furthermore Stonehenege was erected long before the introduction of writing into that area of the world, and the idea of "navigational tables" is rather preposterous. Observing the sun could be correlated with the agricultural calendar, but such correlations would not likely have been expressed as a "table" in the sense in which you have in mind. AnonMoos 21:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

What you may need huge stone megaliths dragged from distant quarries to accomplish is a permanent reference not easily destroyed by opposing tribes. Any culture capable of Stonehenge and its exact alignments would need some form of record keeping whether it is called writing or not. ...IMHO (Talk) 22:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

There theoretically might have been tally-marks galore (on notched sticks or knotted cords or whatever), but it's indisputable that there was no linguistic writing system whatever. AnonMoos 12:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it is pretty indisputable that massive stones is not the best way to do simple astronomy if that is all you are trying to do with it. However if you are also making it a religious ceremony (and why not? is not simple astronomy an understanding of the sun, that life-giver in the sky, that which predicts the changes in the seasons and can mean the difference between life and death in an agricultural economy? is prediction not just a hop-and-a-skip from divination?), then it makes a bit more sense. I think it is probably highly likely that the same culture that made stonehenge had other ways of keeping track of what season it was, however probably none so permanent to be found by us today. And I don't know why you would assume writing is necessary to do astronomy; you know where things align because you know the sky, and you know the sky because there is nothing else to look at in the evening. --Fastfission 04:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes but you might get tired of telling the next generation about the exact same thing over and over again if you did not have a permanent reference or you might want a permanent reference so that distant future generations could tell if there had been any change (which BTW has allowed us to date Stonehenge more accurately). I'm looking for ulterior not superficial motive. After all look at how youngsters worship the features and beauty of vehicles yet their ulterior motive for having one is to get from point A to point B. ...IMHO (Talk) 08:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone have any insights into gulls' opinions of humans?

I'm asking this here, instead of the science desk in an attempt to avoid "gulls don't have opinions - they're just hard-wired organic automatons"-type answers.

Anyway, I watch the gulls and the gulls watch me. I often wonder what the gulls think of me and the other members of my species as we go about our daily lives. Instinct must the gulls that humans are potential predators and something to be fearful of - yet experience tells the gulls that humans will provide them with free food and free nesting space, seemingly as a selfless act. It must be confusing for them. Unlike other urban birds such as pigeons, urban gulls still retain their fear of man. A gull will never allow a human to directly approach it, yet will happily feed alongside man. My experience of a small group of local gulls has led me to conclude that these particular gulls understand the concept of 'house' (they will come to my back door and tap on my windows to attract my attention) and the 'bipedal creature that dwells within the house' (they will come close to me to feed but are still fearful in the presence of other humans).

So, does anyone have any theories as to the 'mindset' of an urban gull and it's view on people? --Kurt Shaped Box 19:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Gulls, like most other animals have neural network type brain but also have some hardwired behaviors. My experience is that they are opportunists and as for training they are not much different than any othe animal when it comes to free food. Even people can be trained to do certain things for food that is free. A word of advice though... Gulls do not like to wear diapers no matter how much food you give them for free so feeding them in your back yard might be okay but please not at the beach. ...IMHO (Talk) 20:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

They probably understand us as a wonderful source of free food. Battle Ape 05:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Still, don't you think that the gulls see a contradiction in a large, unpredictable predator (one known to eat birds and eggs and with strange, unknown and probably very frightning-to-them technology) deliberately choosing to provide them with food? --Kurt Shaped Box 22:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's how religions start! Give them a few million years and they'll be building temples and praying to us. ;) --84.68.58.166 22:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

So they recognise you personally? That's interresting. Does it matter what clothes you wear? I've wondered how dogs feel about their boss looking different every day. Now dogs use smell more than sight, but for a bird of prey that would be the other way around.

It is not uncommon for animals of different species to cooperate in some way. It is unusual that humans expect nothing in return for the food, but that probably doesn't worry the gulls. DirkvdM 07:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The one thing that I enjoyed about Finding Nemo was its version of what gulls would say, if they spoke: "Mine! Mine! Mine? Mine! Mine!" Geogre 11:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It's funny because it's true! Everything that a gull sees belongs to him/her. Woe betide another gull that has the audacity to believe the same. --Kurt Shaped Box 22:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yup, whatever I'm wearing at the time, they know it's me. When I open my back door, the gulls will back off so that they'd be just out of range if I were to attempt a full-length dive-and-grab with arms outstretched - but they'll happily feed when I'm present. If any of my friends disturb them, or an unexpected person opens the door when they're on the back step, they're gone in a flash. Considering that gulls seem to be capable of easily recognising individual members of their own species (IIRC, through subtle facial/beak differences) and their own offspring (through the unique patterning of each chick's plumage), it doesn't seem like much of a leap for them to differentiate between individual humans (after all, we show much more variation as a species than gulls do). They have much better eyesight than humans too. --Kurt Shaped Box 20:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Reasonably I would have thought it was the same as a human's opinions of each other, or indeed of gulls: the opinion would be made on first impressions and would not be fixed for the entire species. Gulls appear to us to be nice, nasty, greedy, territorial, &c. Although we assume they work mainly on instinct, it is not logical to assume they view things in any other way. Have you tried to make friends with one by offering it tasty treats? --russ 23:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Gulls probably just think we're odd-shaped magpies and react accordingly. Grutness...wha? 04:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Religious Beliefs of Socrates

In many of the accounts of the teachings and words of Socrates, in his speeches regarding religion, the vocabulary seems to vary between speaking of "the gods" (apparently referring to the mythological pagan gods of ancient Greece) as well as a singular "God".

I'm aware that there exists practically no first hand accounts of what Socrates indeed said, but rather his teachings are presented and elaborated upon by many of his students, most importantly Plato.

Of course, having died in 399BC, it would be chronologically impossible for him to have been influenced by Christianity, and, though Judaism existed as a monotheistic religion at the time, it would be EXTREMELY doubtful that he was at all interested in that religion.

Yet the fact remains that Socrates often seems to have spoken of one "God" on more than several occasions. What did he mean by this? Loomis 21:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I do believe when he speaks of the singular God, it meant Zeus. Political Mind 22:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It is mostly a result of the translation. To my knowledge, there is no doubt that Socrates was a polytheist. - R_Lee_E (talk, contribs) 22:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that Socrates ascribed to the pagan Greek "religion" of the times. He was surely an independant thinker, and one of the most intelligent men of his time. In fact his beliefs (in general) were regarded as "corrupt", which led to his final death sentence.

Socrates introduced many philosophies concerning spirituality and religion that are useful to this day. I therefore find myslelf with at least some doubt that his religious beliefs were identical to the relatively backward pagan Greek beliefs of the time.

As well, I've done a good deal of studying of the ancient Greek religion and all the gods it involved. Through it all, I've never heard of the chief Greek god Zeus being referred to in the singular and simply as "God". Rather, whenever Zeus is mentioned, he is mentioned by name. I'm therefore still unsure of what Socrates meant when he refered to the singular "God".

I don't fully discount the concept that Socrates may have been something of a self-styled "monotheist", in at least a partial sense. Perhaps Socrates had entertained thoughts of monotheism independent of any organized monotheistic religion? Is that at least a possibility?

Then again, I could be completely wrong and any reference to a singular "God" was merely the result of an error in translation, and perhaps even an intentional fabrication to persuade early Christian Greeks that one of their greatest philosophers had indeed contemplated monotheism. Loomis 23:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Socrates was a really smart guy, so he must have known that all the "gods" revered by the Greeks were not the real deal, and that there is a "God" beyond the realm of human-created myth and legends. Akhenaten and others had the same realisation. Whatever names they may have used, they were all talking about the same unique entity. JackofOz 23:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Generally folks ascribe the "God" to Plato, who did believe in a single creator. See demiurge. Plato, in Timaeus, has Socrates arguing that there simply must be, logically, a perfect point of zero movement and full completion (essence, perfection). This divine -- the God -- would never create anything, however, because creation requires a need, and this perfect point could not need anything and yet be perfect. Therefore, a demi-urge, a thing between the perfect and the uppermost area of the empyrean, did the creating. It is nearly perfect, but it desires. Most people treat this monotheism as Plato's, but, then again, few people really speak of knowing Socrates's thought because Plato is so much of an intrusion. So the short answer is, yes, you're reading properly: Socrates in Plato is a monotheist, and you're also correct that this single deity is totally unlike the Abrahamic God. Geogre 01:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Samus Aran

why is she named "Samus Aran"? I heard the "Aran" part was code for "aryan" with the blonde hair and all but I doubt it....anybody know the real origin?

As Samus was originally a brunette/green haired in the original Metroid (the blonde hair was a retcon), I doubt that would be the case. As to "why", there's no reason, at least none that creator Gunpei Yokoi gave, and unfortunately he's passed on. --ColourBurst 04:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

In the original game she had green hair (check it out), so I doubt that can be it. My bet is that it has some sort of connotation in Japanese that it doesn't when rendered in English, but I have really no idea. --Fastfission 04:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

My admittedly small Japanese dictionary gives "cold weather" for "samusa" and nothing for "aran" or similar. Google combined with my mediocre Japanese doesn't give much help either. It still may be something obscure in Japanese, or it could just be made up. --George 05:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Whatever the case may be, it is still a cool name. --Proficient 02:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

July 11

Eugene V. Debs

Was Debs an atheist? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.199.245.249 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC).

• I am not sure, but every socialist is not atheist. See Hugo Chavez.--Patchouli 05:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

What you say means that there are no atheist socialists. You probably mean "not every socialist is an atheist". This is a very common mistake in the use of English. DirkvdM 07:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No it could just means that there is at least 1 socialist that isn't an atheist. AllanHainey 12:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

actually, you've fallen into the same trap as the person writing it. it can't. --81.111.23.140 21:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• $\exists {S}$→not A. There exists a socialist who is agnostic/deistic/religious.

Contrapositively, $\exists {A}$→not S. There exists an atheist who isn't socialist.--Patchouli 02:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't say 'there exists', but 'every'. So "for every socialist it is true that he is not an atheist" (don't know how to produce the symbol). So S → not A. DirkvdM 07:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

$LOL$--152.163.100.72 14:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ehm, I know about the math tags. Just not the code for 'for every'. I tried variations of <math>\for every</math>, but none worked. DirkvdM 07:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

christianity exclusive?

I've heard a lot of people tell me the famous Jesus-quote which goes somethign like "no one can get to the Lord except through me". Why do people think this makes christianity intolerant and exclusive? It doesn't seem so to me because it doesn't proclaim Jesus as the only method to get to God, just that he is necessary.

THanks, Kyle.

As with many religious statements, ambiguity leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Without knowing the context of that particular line (I find context very important in interpretting things Jesus says), I would personally say that both interpretations seemed semantically valid (that is, just because on the word combinations), though I am not qualified to say which of them are more theologically valid (based on what Jesus was all about, considering him as a coherent thinker). I'd caution though that I doubt it is this particular line which people think makes Christianity intolerant and exclusive, and one should also probably draw a line between "things Christ said" and "modern Christianity", which in my mind diverge pretty heavily. --Fastfission 04:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The quote you are looking for is from John 14:6. Crypticfirefly 04:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't proclaim Jesus as the only method to get to God, just that he is necessary. These statements appear to be contradicting each other. Could you please clarify what you mean? BenC7 09:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It's the difference between saying "the only way to get to God is believing in Jesus" and "Jesus helps you get to God no matter what". In the first interpretation Jesus is exclusive, in the second he is not; in the first, he is setting up a condition to pass, in the second, he is just telling you how things work out. --Fastfission 14:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I see. I don't think the second version is an accurate interpretation of "No-one comes to the Father but by me". Jesus was saying that others - Buddha, Muhammad etc (to use recent examples; I know they weren't alive at the time) - won't help you get to God. He is also saying that you can't get to the Father on your own; you must come through Jesus. BenC7 01:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

yes, that is what I was asking. Whether or not other faiths are thought to have some supporting truth in them or not. -Kyle

No. Otherwise Jesus would not have said it; he would have been happy for people to come through whoever. He also said "Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are they that find it". If all roads led to God, this statement would not be true. BenC7 11:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

No. No.

I think the meaning is a bit less obvious. Who was Jesus? He was a man. The statement that "I and the Father are One," isn't necessarily exclusive IF one takes the view that the divine isn't transcendent rather...it's something to which everyone is knowingly (or unknowingly) entitled. Thus the statement under discussion (..."but by me") could actually mean "through self-knowledge or self-actualization." - PeeWee

Not in a million years. Please don't attempt to try to understand what Jesus was saying without reading the rest of the New Testament, or the Gospels at least. Following Christ is not about self-knowledge or self-actualization, it is about God. Jesus was also fully God and fully human, not just a man; He identified himself with titles that only belong to God - i.e., "I AM" and "I am the First and the Last". BenC7 01:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not interested in getting into any religious dispute with Christians. Jesus said what he said, and that sits perfectly fine with me. However, with all due respect to Ben, I don't understand your satement: "It doesn't proclaim Jesus as the only method to get to God, just that he is necessary". I'm confused. I don't see any logical difference between the two propositions. I'm at a loss as to the logical difference between "X is the "only" way to get to Y", and "X is "necessary" to get to Y". The two seem to me to be logically identical.

Actually, the more I think about it, if the statement were made in reverse, it actually may make logical sense: "X may be "necessary" to get to Y, but is not the "only" requirement to get to Y." In other words, "Believing in Jesus may be necessary to get to God, but other requirements must also be met, such as, for example, being a good person, making believing in Jesus a neccessary requirement, but not the only requirement". Still, the passage doesn't seem to read that way and I feel I'm making an undue rationalization. It would be great if someone would clarify this for me. Loomis 22:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The statement that Muhammad can't lead people to God is rediculous and incredibly historically inaccurate. Muhammad came to a race of idol worshippers and because of Him all of these people who didn't believe in God believe in both God and Jesus now. Not only that, but before they were lacking in virtue and refinement and respect for others, but after Muhammad came they built cities and created technologies that were previously unimagined in their innovation and virtue. While the Christians were forcing conversions on Jews and Muslims, the Muslims were allowing the Jews and Christians to live in their regions without being persecuted. The history of the Iberian peninsula shows this clearly.

I think the statement was about the time. It was about how following the current philosophers or previous teachers of His day would not guide people to God, but only He would. I think it has been taken out of context by many Christians to, with a simple phrase, disregard entirely a Teacher who has undoubtedly led and entire population to God. -LambaJan 19:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Can a footballer pick up the football with his feet?

Can someone playing Association football pick up the football and carry it around with his feet as in hopping around with the ball? If it's allowed, has anyone done this in play? Laws_of_the_Game only forbids carrying with the hands. --Kaasje 02:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think so, but doing so without losing control of the ball, and maintaining a decent pace, is a lot harder than it sounds. --ColourBurst 04:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, sure, it's allowed by the rules, but it's also a really pointless move. It's not at all difficult for someone to just boot the ball free, and if you're hopping around like that, you're not exactly in a good position for any defensive maneuvering. I guess you could do that if you really wanted your teammates to hate you or something. Really, coming up with scenarios like this isn't too hard -- hell it's also legal to lie face down on the field, you your feet to somehow maneuver the ball on the top of your butt and try and score a goal simply by flexing your mighty buttocks, but that's not gonna do you any good either... -- Captain Disdain 06:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I remember a controversial incident in a major match about 20-30 years ago - I think it was a European club game, but I can't recollect any other details (anyone else?). A side had a free kick just outside the penalty area. One player stood slightly in front of the ball and, holding the ball between his feet, flipped it up behind him. His team-mate, standing just behind him, volleyed it into the net. There was a big hoo-ha as to whether this was a valid goal or not, and in the end it was disallowed, because of the rule that states that the taker of a free kick may not touch the ball a second time until it has been touched by another player. The referee came to the conclusion that the player who flipped the ball up must have touched it twice in order to flip it. --Richardrj 07:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

A similar "flick" move occured in an Aston Villa FC match about 12 years ago. I seem to remember Andy Townsend was the "flicker" or the "kicker". I believe the FA outlawed this move post game

During the 2002 FIFA World Cup there was a Mexican player reknowned for avoiding tackles with bunny hops similar to the ones in the original question- I can't remember his name though--Downunda 22:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That was Cuauhtémoc Blanco. The "bunny hop" move is mentioned in his article.  SLUMGUM  yap  stalk   22:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Watch it here. David Sneek 11:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm gonna have to eat my words when it comes to the move's usefulness, obviously. =) (Although a single instance of it, as seen in the video, is not the same thing as jamming the ball between your legs and hopping around for an extended period of time.) -- Captain Disdain 05:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting concept. --Proficient 02:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Name of poem?

I suppose I should put a spoiler warning here. I thought this was an amusing poem when I first (and last) read it in a schoolbook about 45 years ago. It made fun of the type of woman who would keep trying out different religions, never happy with any. The last line was something like "God knows which God she'll worship next".

I kinda sorta remember it was written in the 1920s or 30s.

Google, Yahoo and, yes, even Wikipedia were no help at all.

Does anyone remember the name and/or author, and, if past copyright, where I could find it on the 'net.

Thanks Bunthorne 04:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It couldn't possibly be The Day after Sunday by Phyllis McGinley? (The last lines are: Benevolent, stormy, patient, or out of sorts. / God knows which God is the God God recognizes.) Crypticfirefly 05:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Good try, thanks, but that's not it.

It may have had some outragous rhymes a la Ogden Nash. One of the lines named several of the gods ending with "Zeus or Zoroaster". Bunthorne 05:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You could try asking the Poetry Library in London. Their website has a service where you can post half-remembered poems like yours. Chances are someone there will know it. --Richardrj 07:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Very longshot that it's a variant of The Vicar of Bray, but you might enjoy it anyway. Tyrenius 07:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Give us some more clues. So 1961. Do you remember anything else about the book or other poets/poems in it, or the subjects thereof? Tyrenius 07:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Richardrj, I'll give them a try after we give the Wikipedians a bit more time. Thanks.

Tyrenius, thanks for that link. I'm not sure if it's a variation of that, but I did enjoy the poem. When I first read it, I assumed that it was written by W. S. Gilbert. It sure sounded like his work.

The only thing I can think of about the book was that it was a textbook in New York state in either elementary school or Junior High. And it's more like (gasp!) 50 years ago. And I suppose it should be called "light verse" rather than a poem. Bunthorne 17:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Depression

Any time I feel pretty or skinny I get depressed and I can't figure out why. If I'm around my Mom, this definitely happens. I'm 17 so I was thinking it could just be my hormones going crazy but I can't figure out why.

Sounds like hormones to me, as to why it'd be triggered by your mum I'd suggest that there is a whole lot going on psychologically as well as hormonally at that age & it will be related to your past experiences, sub-conscious, emotions, etc. One thought, is your mum of a different shape to you physically or more/less attractive/thin/fat? As you mention feeling pretty and skinny and the presence of your mum as causes of 'depression' it is possible that they are related. AllanHainey 12:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Also society puts impossible pressures on women to be perfect.Don't be fooled by it,be true to yourself,you'll be happier in the long run.Wherever in the world you are,there is help there,not to get thinner/prettyier but to be more content and confident in yourself.Good luck!hotclaws**==(81.134.99.206 08:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC))

• If you're going to use the wikipedia reference desk to try and diagnose a possible mental illness, at least use the science reference desk o: 152.163.100.72 14:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If you feel pretty or skinny, enjoy it. Be happy that you aren't ugly and fat, to be extremely blunt. :P --Proficient 02:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

new legal client

I have been badly hurt in a freak accident, I fell into a unmarked utlity slit trench and broke arms and shoulder in several places. The trench extended from a commercial store building site to the edge of a street where there should have been but was not a sidewalk. I am too badly hurt to see a lawyer yet but I have just started shoping for one on the internet. I recall hearing once that you should never hire a lawyer who is not willing to provide his clients with his tax payer ID number on demand but I can not remember why that is so. Anybody out there have any helpfull ideas for me? Thanks12:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)(Hobgoblin)

• Isn't the taxpayer # same as the Social Security #? Also, shouldn't you instead want to be interested in the state bar #?

Moreover, I have heard car accident cases should be easy to handle. You need not a patent attorney.--Patchouli 16:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

where is this place?

Though relatively small in size, it's one of the most important, and one of the most used, and one of the most attractive ports on the entire continent.

Once great armies marched to the sea here - then boarding boats - they sailed east to conquer and pillage far away lands.

Where is this place?

Which is "the" continent in this context? — Haeleth Talk 13:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't know continent.

Sounds like it's going to be one of the Greek ports used by Alexander or one of the ports used by the Crusaders. That doesn't narrow it down very much, but going east to conquer suggests Alexander or Crusades. Geogre 13:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you suggest a port, Geogre?

• Didn't the British go to Myanmar (Burma) after conquering India?--Patchouli 14:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd have though that the use of the word east doesn't really give any help, after all the British, French & Dutch did do a bit of conquoring in the East. AllanHainey 15:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The question is really too vague, but if it's ports for sailing east to Crusade that you're after, it's difficult. For the mama of all Crusades, the First Crusade most of the soldiers went by foot. Some did embark from Italian ports, notably Bari and Genoa from memory. However, I think a better fit is with the Fourth Crusade, which set sail from Venice in 1202 and (spot the POV here) was a horrendous cock-up. Venice fits for "attractive"ness (most ports are pig ugly), it's "small" and "important". No idea if it's one of the "most used" though... mind you, if you count all the water bus traffic, it pretty much has to be the most used port in Europe --Dweller 18:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Venice would be my guess. 4th fits in a lot of ways, too. It is a tremendously bad thing, that Crusade, but it covers a lot of the really retched "conquest and pillage." The question has the armies doing "pillage," and the sacking that those Crusaders did would fit. Alexander did some pillage, but he was more Hellenizing, so I think Venice or Florence is it. Geogre 18:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Crusaders occasionally left from Marseilles, although I don't know how relatively small or attractive that is in comparison to Venice. Aigues-Mortes was built specifically to launch crusades but judging from the name it's probably not very attractive. At first I was thinking Durres but that can't be right. And if it's not for a crusade, maybe it's Aulis. Adam Bishop 02:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

4th Crusade is pretty unique in terms of the army departing as one from a single point, rather than converging via a proliferation of routes. Who knows how history would have developed had Byzantium been supported (which was the original purpose of the Crusades) rather than so drastically undermined. --Dweller 11:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

most expensive?

What is the most expensive violin in the world? Please give date, model, and maker, preferably with a link. thanx

It'll be a Stradivarius. In fact, it'll be this one. --Richardrj 13:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It's the Hammer, which was made in 1707. It's described further in Stradivarius#Named Strads and their Namesakes. --Idont Havaname (Talk) 20:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Business or pleasure or should I mind my own beeswax (didn't want to use the word 'business' again...)

Why do airport staff ask if my visit is for business or pleasure? What's it to them? What do they do with my answer - do they treat me any differently either way? Is it the way that I answer rather than the answer itself? --Username132 (talk), UK or Netherlands 13:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I expect that they don't really mean it, they're just passing the time. If there must be a meaning, it may be that they want to see if you have a reason for going into the country (someone with no story may be an illegal immigrant or worse). —Daniel (‽) 13:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Also to see if your story matches up with your documentation - another way of checking that your reasons for visiting are legitimate. Natgoo 13:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Might it have something to do with the fact that tourist visas and business visas can work a bit differently? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 13:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think JPG is right again. If you're there as a tourist, you get a different amount of time in the country, and you are often travelling on a tourist visa. If you are there for business, you are expected to stay less time, and you have a different classification. Geogre 13:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what I meant with my comment above - if you tell them you're there on business, but only have a tourist visa, you're likely to be dodgy. Natgoo 17:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

If this is immigration officials, rule #1 is be very polite, they can send you home again. If they ask this question, their might be a system of keeping count, because many countries would like this information for planning. Notinasnaid 14:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

If your passport shows your occupation as "international terrorist/freedom fighter" and you answer that you're travelling on "business" they may call security. AllanHainey 15:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Believe me, customs and immigration officials never make conversation to incoming passengers "just to pass the time", even if it sounds like it. As others have said above, many countries have restrictions for non-nationals working in that country, and require particular visas even for seemingly minor matters like journalism or business meetings. "Casually" asking if you're visiting for business or pleasure is a way of double checking your documentation is correct for the purpose of your visit. --Canley 02:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm reminded of the Benny Hill sketch where Benny played an obviously gay character coming through Customs. He was extremely camp and had an outlandish hairdo. When he presented his passport, the official looked at his photo, looked up at Benny, looked back at the photo, and muttered "Hmm, been touched up". To which Benny replied, "Oooh, lots of times, darling". JackofOz 04:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If you're lying about your intentions the question might make you nervous. Even the slightest 'tick' might give you away to someonewho knows about body language. Are customs officials trained for this? That would make sense. DirkvdM 07:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Certainly it is not advantageous to like about the question. --Proficient 02:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Develop of Biblical canon

While this is a content dispute, the matter is regarding historical facts and thought that someone here could either put in a word regarding the conflict, or explain the history better. Please look at this diff:

The Roman Catholic Church officially recognized [8] the four gospels at the 3rd Synod of Carthage in 397[9], where Pope Siricius approved a canon of the books of the Bible that were included in the production of the Latin Vulgate[10], an early 5th century translation of the Bible made by St. Jerome on the orders of Pope Damasus I[11] in 382.

My understanding is that part of this information is factually inaccurate (and the supplied sources do not back up the statements either). First of all, the RCC didn't even exist in the 4th century. Second of all, the synods were not ecumenical, and it is wrong to say a church "offically recognized" canon based on those regional councils. I just want to know how factually acurate the above paragraph is, and what is right and what is wrong, and perhaps some sources to back it up. Talk:Gospel#RCC and canon is where the debate has been, but feel free to respond here as well.--Andrew c 14:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The Synod of Carthage was recognized by the Christian Church, east and west, so far as I know. Therefore, it wasn't "ecumenical": it was all of the then-single Christian Church. Geogre 18:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

There is this that claims canon in the eastern parts of the Church was not settled for another 2 centuries. We have a number of sources (listed on the gospel talk page) all claiming the synods were regional councils, and did not have authority throughout Christendom. We have Metzger listing a significant number of synods and canon lists before and after the Synods of Carthage that recognize different canons than these synods. So do you have a source stating the scope of the Synod of Carthage (specifically regarding the authority of its decisions throughout the Christian world)? Maybe I am reading my sources wrong, or maybe there are a number of different views on this topic, but I've yet to find verifiable validity in your (or Simonapro's) claims. Sources, sources, sources! Thanks for your reply.--Andrew c 20:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I doubt the need for that paragraph in the article. I think it would only be worth noting if the RCC rejected the Gospels, which it hasn't. There is no mention of whether Orthodox or Protestant churches formally accepted the Gospels; so I don't think it is necessary to specifically state that the RCC has done so. BenC7 01:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Kingdom of Bhutan

Why does Bhutan not have any diplomatic exchanges with the United States? Is the relationship sour between the two nations?--Patchouli 16:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

According to the CIA Factbook "informal contact is maintained between the Bhutanese and US Embassy in New Delhi (India)". I suspect that Bhutan is too small and unimportant to qualify for a full diplomatic presence, especially as building a terrorist-proof embassy in Bhutan would cost millions, perhaps billions, and the whole GDP of Bhutan is less than 3 billion US dollars. Therefore, it's just not worth it on a cost-benefit basis. StuRat 19:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Bhutan is largely represented by India in foreign affairs [12]. I've read that's why US relations with the kingdom are informal. Regarding what StuRat said, there are a bunch of little countries in which the US has no embassy, but the US is still considered to have diplomatic relations with them. In those cases, an ambassador in one embassy will also be credentialed to a country without an American embassy. -- Mwalcoff 12:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes there are several levels of diplomatic relations. Full embassies is the top level, consulates only is a lower level, and Bhutan is about the lowest level. StuRat 21:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The simple answer to the question is that India has historically and traditionally had suzerainty over Bhutan. This has carried on into the modern day. —Lowellian (reply) 07:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sir Ector's wife

Did Sir Ector's wife have a name? If you answer, please add the original source for that name, if known.--Hun2de Correct me! 16:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of, in any of the source texts (including the more recent adaptations of the story). She was good enough to 'nourish Arthur with her own pap' but not worthy of a name. Natgoo 17:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Pub Kitchen Working Age

Does anyone know how old you have to be to work in a pub kitchen in the UK? And can people please provide links to their sources? Many thanks, --86.139.216.231 17:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Not a lawyer, but I would imagine that unless you are actually serving alcohol there are no restrictions other than the usual ones on child labour. DJ Clayworth 17:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I was told today at a pub you have to be 18, which sounded balmy to me; can anyone corroborate this? --86.139.216.231 18:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case right now it has changed from about 10 years ago. I think that any legislation governing this is likely to be local by-laws rather than any national laws (except those of child labour, working hours, etc). AllanHainey 07:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Or perhaps the pub simply has a policy of its own regarding its employees. Or did they specifically state that it was the law or a regulation (in the "gee, we'd love to, but we can't" vein)? -- Captain Disdain 05:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Help Identify Latin American Author

I read a short novel about 30 years ago by an author from Latin America. The plot of the novel was about a man washed up on the shore of an island (escaped criminal?)where he sighted a villa. He bagan to observe the villa and its inhabitants and at some point relaized that they were film projections or holographs, memorized their repeated conversations, movements etc. and began to "interact" with them. Any ideas as to the author?

I don't know it, but it sounds an awful lot like the sort of thing Jorge Luis Borges would have come up with. Grutness...wha? 04:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Bioy Casares and The Invention of Morel --Ghirla ^-трёп- 22:48, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

1776

any informatoon anywhere on 1776 the musical? was made to a movie also

As so often happens in encyclopedias, the info can be found in our article on 1776 (musical) (which is also linked to from our article 1776) -- Ferkelparade π 17:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Eritrea

At some point in the 70's or 80's, the U.N. attempted to deliver a massive food relief supply to Eritrea and the effort failed. I would appreciate any details about that incident, the date, the name of the group that created the food block and subsequent scandal, and the reason for preventing the relief to the starving Eritreans. Thank you. Marion

Did you read the article on Eritrea ? It doesn't go into much detail, but seems to indicate that Eritrea's war for independence from Ethiopia was the problem. Perhaps you can find more info at one of the links. StuRat 18:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

ali

what is isomerric in musi c

See Isometre. --Canley 06:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Sheet music

I'm looking to buy some sheet music. The peice in particular is "Music For A Large Ensemble" by Steve Reich. There are some online stores that provide some of his other compositions, but not this one in particular. I was wondering if any of you musicians out there new if there was some kind of resource / organisation that sells sheet music of this kind, especially stuff that's hard to get hold of.

Or has it not been scored? :(

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005NSQT/102-9784041-8739324?v=glance&n=5174 --martianlostinspace 20:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You linked me to a CD! %)

try sharmusic or lucks

sorry lol... was closest answer you've got so far, but.--martianlostinspace 17:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

If you don't have a problem with it ethically, I'd suggest going to the music library at your local university or college and photocopying it. That's how I got a few arias from unknown operas whose sheet music was unavailable.--Anchoress 03:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

New Jersey Bankruptcy Bench Bar Conference

Hello, I was searching for information on the New Jersey Bankruptcy Bench Bar Conference online and was not able to find anything. Ideally, I would like to have a website that discusses this conference in detail, but if such is non-existent, I would appreciate any information on the history of the conference, when it takes place, who can participate, how to register, who visits this conference, etc. All responses will be appreciated. Thank you. ~Jenny~

Questions

Is there today in the world a country where torture is legal? And in the People's Republic of China is there capital punishment for opinion crimes? And for simple theft (after penal code of 1997)? --Vess 21:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

For the second, try Capital punishment in China. Rmhermen 21:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Plenty of countries have de facto legalization of torture, just not de jure. The US Department of Justice actually redefined torture so that the stuff they did wouldn't be illegal. Emmett5 21:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It depends on your definition of torture. If you defined imprisonment as torture then almost all the countries in the world. Ohanian 00:38, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The US? As in Guantanamo Bay. But I suppose that's what Emmett was referring to. Although they also redefined their borders (or something) to make this possible. DirkvdM 08:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ohanian's point is a crucial one. It depends on your definition of torture. It's been repeated over and over in the media that the US practices "torture" at Gitmo. Yet no particulars are ever mentioned. Without any further elaboration as to what practices they're referring to exactly, I'd have to reserve judgment as to whether the US is indeed "torturing" prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

Is electrocution torture? Of course it is. Are Mengele-esque practices such as placing a prisoner in a vat of water, and either increasing or decreasing its temperature until the prisoner provides the sought-for information, or otherwise boils to death or dies of hypothermia torture? Obviously.

On the other hand, is sleep deprivation torture? It's pretty damn close, but I'm not sure. Is 24/7 solitary confinement torture? In a sense, yes, but definitely not the kind of thing we think of when we think of torture. If, as Ohanian suggested, you consider mere imprisonment to be torture, especially imprisonment without the benefit of legal council for an indefinite period of time, then the US is certainly practicing torture at Gitmo by that fact alone, nevermind whether other forms of torture are also being used.

Is being subjected to certain forms of music torture? Well, it was for Manuel Noriega at least. Holed up in a church, American military forces finally broke his will and forced him to surrender to their custody by repeatedly playing Jethro Tull's Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young To Die! on loudspeakers. Apparently, the excruciating agony of having to listen to that music (apologies to Jethro Tull fans) was too much "torture" for Noriega to handle. (If it were me, just play the same Celine Dion CD a few times and I'll confess to anything just to make it stop.)

I hope nobody sees the above paragraphs to be innapropriately flippant. Quite the contrary. Torture is an extremely serious issue, likewise, the accusation of torture is just as serious. I'm just trying to point out that the term torture can have a variety definitions ranging from absurd hyperbole (e.g. one saying: "that film was absolute torture to sit through") to very real torture (e.g. having electrodes attached to your genitals, and the power shut on).

At Gitmo, all we seem to have are vague claims of torture. (And, I must add, the vague claims of radical Muslims, for whom the knowledge of the mere existence of infidels is torture). Therefore, some actual detail as to what this "torture" indeed consists of would be extremely helpful before rushing to judgment. I'm not dismissing the possibilty that REAL torture is indeed being practiced at Guantanamo Bay. It's just that so far I have yet to come across any details as to what exactly is going on there. Loomis 15:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Sleep deprivation certainly is a form of torture. Enough of it can drive someone insane. Which is more torturous, to mutilate someone's body or their mind?

The fact that international organisations like the Red Cross have a hard time getting into Guantanamo Bay is a dead give-away. What makes you assume those who compain about torture (if ever they get the chance) are radical muslims? You might have a look at The road to Guantanamo.

As a Jethro Tull fan, I grudgingly accept your apologies. :) DirkvdM 07:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and then there's the option of letting others do it for you. That is a (rather twisted) form of legalisation - you don't do it yourself. You just hand people over to others who you know will torture them. DirkvdM 08:02, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Current Event

Who put the bomb in Bombay? Ohanian 22:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you trying to be funny? It isn't. See 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings. --Canley 01:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You don't get to declare something unfunny. You get to say "I don't find that funny" --mboverload@ 07:21, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was funny...I was going to say it was the same guy who put the dip in the dip-de-dip-de-dip. Adam Bishop 01:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• Read the article and keep an eye on your newspaper. Last time I checked, no one claimed responsibility and the local police didn't know who did it yet. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Who put the bay in Bombay? Who put the dam in Amsterdam? Who put the rich in Maastricht? And who put the shit in Shitay? (That's a place in China, it seems.) DirkvdM 08:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

looking for a number one country songon a specific date

Are the number one song lists listed by week beginning or week ending? EX: If I am looking for July 26 1973, and the dates listed are July 20 and July 27, which one would be the one I need?

I am attempting to make a special cd of number one songs the day of a friends b-day and want to make sure it is accurate.

Thank you so much!!!

Assuming you mean in the US, I suggest going to a library and looking up Billboard magazine for the date in question. StuRat 03:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is they don't tabulate the results daily, only weekly. I'd say that July 27 is the closest, since it will be a summary of the previous 7 days' data.--Anchoress 03:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Edited to add: Although it could be looked at the exact opposite way; technically, whatever was the top country song on July 20 would still be on the 26th, kind of like how an outgoing public official is still in office even after an election, until the official changeover. So I guess it depends on how you want to look at it. If you travelled back thru time to that exact date and asked 100 people what the top country song was, anyone who knew the answer would say whatever had been true on the 20th of July; it's only after the data from that week is calculated that the new info becomes official.--Anchoress 03:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say on the 20th. The 27th records officially establish it. They 20th establishes what the top song was up until the 27th, including the 26th. But the above answerer is seemingly correct as well. --Proficient 02:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity project for learning German?

Does that exist... I'm very intereted in that :) Thanks.

Try adding your name at Wikibooks:Wikiversity:School of Foreign Language Learning, or reading wikibooks:German or wikibooks:BLL German. Ziggurat 01:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

help w/Revels (images, audio clips...) A special plea to BOSTONIANS.

I've just cleaned up a messy disambig page, and turned it into a stub about Langstaff's Revels. There is urgent need for additioanl information, history, cities in which a Revels group is running, and so on. And, importantly, perhaps an audio clip? And some images from performances? Such an article is just the sort of thing WP can do well, while the paper folk can't. See the talk page for suggestions. Please help. Thanks. ww 23:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not the best place to ask for help with articles. These should be directed to Wikipedia:Pages needing attention, Wikipedia:Requests for expansion or Wikipedia:Cleanup as appropriate.--Shantavira 07:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wilco. first time I've asked for this sort of help. ww 19:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

July 12

Great Depression and Britain

How did the great depression affect Great Britian?

It's somewhat depressing that you didn't read the rules and check out our article Great Depression before asking your homework question. JackofOz 00:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Another link which may prove useful is Jarrow March. Grutness...wha? 04:08, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Or even Great Depression in the United Kingdom. Although I think some fact-checking for this particular article is needed, it talks of "income tax was raised from 22.5 pence to 25 pence in the pound" - at a time when the UK had pre-decimal coinage this doesn't make sense. Jooler 10:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been corrected to d... Shimgray | talk | 10:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Still not happy about that. 22.5d translates as 1s 10d ha'penny. 25d = 2s 1d. A decent reference is required, not some anonymous word document that could have been generated from the article or some other unknown source. Jooler 15:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite see what the problem is - can someone enlighten me? Pence have been around since antiquity, they're not just a decimal-era unit. It makes sense, in a tax context, to talk in pence and not convert to shillings and pence. This makes for a much easier direct comparison (22.5 vs. 25). There were many commercial contexts where prices were always quoted in pence only, such as primary produce (135 pence per bale, or whatever). JackofOz 04:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd guess somebody has converted the actual rates at the time into decimal currency, and that the rates were actually 4/6 raised to 5/- -- Arwel (talk) 21:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I can see clearly now. JackofOz 21:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay... what's the year? Hrm. Pear's Cyclopedia, forty-fourth edition (ie 1934) gives income tax as being 4s. 6d. in the pound standard rate, but 2s. 3d. in the pound on the first £175 of taxable income, and then the usual arcane structure of allowances. I'll see if I can find a better figure. Shimgray | talk | 10:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The New Budget Proposals (copy of a White Paper pub. in the Times, 11 Sep 1931): "It is proposed to increase the standard rate of income tax from 4s 6d. to 5s. in the £ for the year 1931-32". This was confirmed in the Finance (No. 2) Bill a week later, which was rattled through Parliament and got its final reading on October 3rd. So it looks like it was a conversion error... I've updated the article. Shimgray | talk | 10:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree a better reference is desirable. In the time I allowed for it, I was hopeful of finding a historical table of tax data, but the Word document was the best I could find. There was no reference at all before, but one was needed to check whether old or new pence was meant. Some material I found suggested authors didn't know the difference. Notinasnaid 09:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

George Washington's conversion

I have an article by a certain Ben Emerson which states categorically that the First President of the United States, George Washington, was in fact baptised a Catholic before he died on the night of December 13, 1799. The article states as follows:

"On December 13, 1799, Washington (aged 67 years) was exposed to a storm of sleet and developed a cold. He rested in bed at his home in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

On the morning of the 14th at 3.00, he had a severe attack of membranous croup. At daybreak, Mrs. Washington sent for the only physician, Dr. Craik. Two other physicians also came, but all three together could not save him. Washington died between 10.00 and 11.00 that night.

About four hours before Washington's death, Father Leonard Neale, a Jesuit priest was called to Mount Vernon from St. Mary's Mission across the Piscataway River. Washington had been an Episcopalian, but was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church that night. After Washingtons's death, a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary and one of St. John were found among the effects on an enventory of articles at his home.

George Washington had an interest in Roman Catholicism for many years. His servant Juba stated that the General made the Sign of the Cross before meals. He may have learned this practice from his Catholic lieutenants, John Fitzgerald or Stephen Moylan. At Valley Forge, Washington had forbidden during "Pope's Day", the burning in effigy of the Roman Pontiff. As President, Washington slipped into a Catholic Church several times to attend Sunday Mass."

End of article. I was unable to verify the source.

Presumably you're referring to this? You didn't ask a question, but given the source I'd be quite skeptical about its claims without any other backup (the usual published biographies are pretty good there). Ziggurat 00:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I found this, which is a page from the "[i]nventory of articles" mentioned above. You can see the St. John and Virgin Mary items there. Whether this proves Washington was Catholic is debatable. --Cam 02:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Come on, everybody knows that Washington was actually the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. (Joking aside, the Catholic conversion story is fictional.) --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 09:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Celts

"The ancient Celts are thus best depicted as a loose and highly diverse collection of indigenous tribal societies bound together by trade, a common druidic religion, and similar political institutions — but each having its own local language and traditions"

Does this mean they were likely of the same ethnic group?.-Rainsey 04:33, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

According to which definition of ethnicity? --Dweller 11:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The ultimate definition of "ancient Celt" is "speaker of a language from the Celtic linguistic sub-group of Indo-European". AnonMoos 18:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

the number 11

In the wake of yesterday´s terrorist attack in Mumbai (the media is indicating that it is most probably an attack by Islamic fundamentalist groups), it seems strange that the 11th is being constantly chosen in recent times as the date for major terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda & similar groups (of the 4 major "homeland" attacks since Sept. 2001, 3 have now been on the 11th - Madrid, NY/Washington and Mumbai) - is there any reason for this that we know of? I have checked on wikipage "eleven" but there is no direct info. about this in this context. Thanks for any info. ==Joel==

Well, if you choose a day and it works for you, you might as well stick with it. However, there are far too many terrorist attacks all the time to actually say they waited until the 11th. They said

"Hey, we'll be ready in that week, fuck it, lets do it on the 11th"

*People yelling in Farsi*

"Alright!" --mboverload@ 07:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• is the Islamic calendar the same as the western one?I think not therefore the question seems a bit foolish.hotclaws**==(81.134.99.206 08:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC))

• Farsi speaking mullahs in Iran channel the oil money to Arabic-speaking Hezbollah youths in Lebanon and Hamas youths in Palestine who love to blow themselves to pieces. It's a way of life for them. They don't value life. They accomplish nothing and are willing to relinquish it with ease.

• Iran and Afghanistan have a solar Islamic calendar. Arabic countries have a lunar one.--71.105.21.228 16:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

movie filming location

--207.200.116.137 07:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)M--207.200.116.137 07:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)--207.200.116.137 07:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)In the 1955 movie, "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing," there was a scene involving a sampan ride across "the bay" to a floating restaurant or on an island (?). William Holden's character was taking out Jennifer Jones' character on a first date to celebrate the Chinese Moon Festival. Was this filmed in Hong Kong and if so, where exactly? Thank you.

The scene was filmed in Hong Kong, although it's hard to say exactly where as it was over 50 years ago. There are a couple of floating restaurants around Hong Kong and I believe the sampans usually leave from Aberdeen Harbour. The largest and arguably most famous is the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, but as that started operating in 1976, it obviously wasn't the one in the film. The characters later take a larger boat to Macao. --Canley 09:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the version of the film that starred Pinocchio, called "Love is a Many-Splintered Thing". :-) StuRat 21:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Ethical living

There's a lot of talk about ethical living these days, but to me it seems pretty dubious. Take vegetarianism, for instance. I know there are other arguments for not eating meat, but let's take the one that runs that it's wrong to eat meat because animals suffer in factory farms and suchlike. To me, that is not a valid argument. If I opt out of meat-eating for that reason, the animals will continue to suffer. The only difference is, I can now hold my head up and say "well, the animals are still suffering, but at least I'm not contributing to it." And that is essentially an act of self-satisfaction. The same goes for something like taking public transport rather than driving the car. When I lived in London, people were constantly being urged to do this, because cars contribute more to global warming, congestion, and so on. But choosing to take public transport is not an act of altruism, it's one of selfishness.

Nor do I buy the argument that runs "if more people were to give up meat, or at least to make a fuss about the conditions in factory farms, there will be a groundswell of opinion that will lead to worthwhile change. I'm just doing my bit, that's all." That argument is delusional. The fact is, unless factory farms are done away with at a single stroke, nothing will ever change. And the same goes for all of the horrors and injustices in the world. --Richardrj 08:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Voting is delusional as well, which is a problem =D. All "altruistic" acts are done for self gratification or for fear or some of the billion versions of hell they subscribe to. In the end, giving money to charity feels good. If it feels good, people do it. --mboverload@ 08:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Richardrj, do I understand your only reservation being with the fact that you don't see a causal link between your choice and the amount of torture in existence now or in the future? ie, your conclusion would be different if torture were "made-to-order" and the conditions are like "you walk into a McDonald's at 3 AM that has no customers, but because there are no customers, nothing's being tortured. But they're ready to start torturing, just for you, finishing a minute after you've placed your order"? Is the ONLY problem you have with the causality, and in the sentence I just described, you wouldn't place an order? OR, is your problem with the fact that even if you refrain from causing something, other people still will, so that the only condition under which you would keep from doing something wrong is if you're the only one who would end up doing that this year (or, perhaps, ever in the future)? 82.131.186.168 11:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

82, my head's spinning a little from reading your question :) But I think I mean the latter, although I don't agree that eating meat, for example, is of itself wrong. I'm still laughing at your poem from the other day, though, especially the last line. --Richardrj 12:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You have an interesting line of argument, which seems to rely on saying "some people think the sky is blue, but that's delusional". You don't say, for example, why you consider taking public transport to be selfish. As for vegetarianism, if meat farming is wasteful of resources (for which there is good evidence) then fewer meat eaters means less meat farming and less waste of resources. DJ Clayworth 16:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

i think you do need to expand on "public tranport= selfish" line. i mean, if everyone took public tranport then the gap between rich and poor would be less visible, there would be less road death and public tranport would improve due to higher income, leading to a virtuos cycle. increased car use has the opposite effect (and thats before factoring in global warming). if you dont want to live an ethical lifestyle then thats fine but i think, certialy on the public tranport question, youre trying to justify your apathy but its not necessary - we all different, be happy with the fact that you dont give a shit! 201.32.187.74 18:22, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Richardjr, if you'd like to read some pretty thought-provoking arguments about the ethics and economics of vegetarianism, check out some of the stuff that Peter Singer has written. I don't agree with all of his arguments (and I am not a vegetarian), but he makes a pretty strong case about the ethics of it. His writings are very accessible, as well. Ethically speaking, though, just because your individual actions do not have any obvious immediate effect on the big picture does not get you as an individual off the hook, and economics is full of examples where markets rose and fell based on consumer behavior and changing opinions about the ethics of things. --Fastfission 20:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Just because some action happens to work for you, does not make it selfishness. Would you refuse to enter into a relationship with someone you really loved, just because you would enjoy their company as much as they enjoyed yours? Of course not. Do you refuse to accept payment for services you render, just because it increases your bank balance? Of course not. Is either of these things selfish? Of course not. Selfishness, to me, is about doing things that benefit you, with no regard to how other parties might be affected. Where there is mutual benefit, or the satisfaction of a just contract, the concept of selfishness does not arise. It's all about win-win, which is the complete antithesis of selfishness. JackofOz 04:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I would disagree with your statement "If I opt out of meat-eating for that reason, the animals will continue to suffer." If only you do this and no-one else, then there will be one less meat-eating person in your town/city/country. This is a reduction in the demand for meat (however slight), which, based on how our economy works, will eventually reduce the supply of meat (since the producers do not wish prices to fall too far, or too much produced meat going unsold. See supply and demand.) Admittedly, the difference one person makes is small, but even a handful of people going vegetarian can make a dent in the meat consumption of a town or city. So you are not being selfish, you are actively contributing to the cause you're trying to promote in your own individual way.

As for your point about public transport, you don't really explain why you consider it to be selfishness, but think about this: even one person (you) taking public transport to, say, get to work every day instead of driving reduces the global CO₂ emissions of your city/country by a quentifiable amount - whatever your car would have produced on the journey to work. Additionally, you will have reduced the number of vehicles on the road during the hour of your journey by one. That's a measurable positive impact on society, and will probably bring a benefit to you as well, depending on the traffic conditions where you live, and how much petrol costs vs the cost of a bus or tube ticket. — QuantumEleven 06:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The answers to the questions you asked depend on deeper ontological and epistemological questions about causality that dictate your ethical philosophy. The main problem is that, in at least some of the cases you mentioned, the results are all or nothing. Either a chicken is raised and killed, or it's not. Either CO2 levels rise enough to raise the temperature that extra half a degree that leads to a horrible catastrophe or kills off a plant or animal species, or they don't. Either a traffic jam happens or no one cares than one more car was on the road. And in almost all of these cases, the effect would have happened even if your action had not. According to most views of causality that are commonly believed, this means that your actions did not cause that event. The aggregate of all the other actions of all of the other people that did the same thing you did, did so. However, you could look at causality probabilistically, in that your taking the bus decreases the chance of CO2 levels rising to catastrophic minutely, and I think that this view is much more useful than the standard ideas in making good choices in many areas of your life. So, if you feel that you should care about chickens being killed, then you should(intuitively), think about how much your not eating chicken for your next meal decreases the chance that a chicken will be killed, and you can be justified in having an appropriate level of satisfaction acording to how much of a difference you made. It is true that people often delude themselves about how much of a difference they are making. Voting or taking the bus will have very little impact on anything. It is mostly the people that are not you that decide what is going to happen in the world around you. There are more of them than there are of you. Crazywolf 09:16, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Sturmabteilung

The Sturmabteilung was an atheist organization? And the Sturmabteilung's man were often atheists? --Vess 09:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Those are statements with question marks. What's your question? --Dweller 11:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we can take it the poster is unfamiliar with the way in which English questions are usually formed, and their questions are clear enough. JackofOz 04:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Unless I see any evidence of this, I wouldn't think so. That issue wasn't really a focus of Nazism, which preferred to work within the existing religious framework, while minimizing its actual political power. Atheism would probably have been tolerated, provided that it coincided with rabid anti-semitism and anti-communism. Then again, the Nazis would probably have required a belief in Divine Providence of some kind. Without such a belief, neither Hitler nor Germany could have any supernatural significance. Bhumiya (said/done) 07:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Ichpuchtli Goddess Table.

Ok the thing is I was reading the Linux page. I noticed how they had a table well I tried to build my own like that but I found I coulfdn't, I also found that I could not put in a picture.

The table is the problem I got lost what to put question marks behind ones uncertain of.

name = Xochiquetzal-Ichpuchtli screenshot = (couldn't do that no upload buton) Religon = Aztec Origen = Central & South America Culure = Aztec? Nature = Kind? Job = Fertiliy/Lust

little help please.

sorry if there are any typos it is just I have broken my arm and am typing with one hand.

Damn, man. Wikipedia isn't that important -- go see a doctor!

I suggest you copy the whole table, then change one thing at a time, and use the preview button, until you have it just right, then save it. I often use this method on things I'm unsure of. StuRat 21:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Former appointed Church of Ireland Bishops of Cork and Waterford

Please forgive me if my first attempt went through. This is my first use of this wonderful service. I have not been able to find a list of appointed Bishops of the Church of Ireland. I am doing family research before a trip to Ireland. My great grandfather,Christopher Burkitt Harley, was (I am told) appointed Bishop of either Cork or Waterford around 1900 but died before being installed. Any help in getting a list of former Bishops will be appreciated. Thank you in advance for any help you have.

Generally, we do have tables at the individual bishoprics. I think, if we have Bishop of Cork and Bishop of Waterford, we're going to have a processional table. If those articles don't exist, there are ways to get the information. Geogre 19:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Our article on the Church of Ireland lists the current bishops but not past ones. The Church itself might have the information you're looking for. You are probably already familiar with their policy on genealogical research. --Halcatalyst 00:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a list of the Bishops of Cork of the Church of Ireland. --Cam 02:33, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Crockford's Clerical Directory will probably have a list, or a contemporary British almanack, both of which may be in a large reference library (though finding the latter might be a matter of luck). Nothing in the OxDNB. I'll see if I can turn anything up without having to go into town. Shimgray | talk | 10:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I can confirm he wasn't elected to Cork in 1912, or in 1894; these seem to have gone without a hitch according to contemporary reports in the Times. Shimgray | talk | 10:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Waterford is more confusing - there's a Suffragan Bishop of that title in the CoI, and a Bishop of that title in the RC church. Can't find any ref to him as either from 1885 to 1915. Shimgray | talk | 10:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Demise of Soviet Union

Is Mikhail Gorbachev more responsible for the dissolution of the Soviet Union or Boris Yeltsin?--Patchouli 13:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I should think the republics and satellites are most responsible. However, Gorbachev ultimately made the decision to not apply force to keeping these nations in the Soviet sphere. Now, you could take the naive western view and say that they were always yearning to kick out the Russians or the view that it was a loud minority that did and that the economies were bad enough that the minorities succeeded. Either way, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany had the greatest effect, as their independence encouraged the various republics to try it, too. Geogre 19:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

David Remnick says (in his wonderful Lenin's Tomb) that the changes really required both of them. Without a middle-of-the-road, compromising-but-still-a-socialist politician like Gorbachev, Yeltsin would never had had the political safety to make his more radical swings, and egg Gorbachev into more and more reforms. Without someone like Yeltsin putting heavy pressure on reform, there are many times when Gorbachev could have let the more right-wing elements of the Poliburo undo the reforms. Now, as the whether who is more responsible for the dissolution itself—I don't think it is a matter of either of them, by themselves, being responsible. If I were to try and oversimplify it: Gorbachev + Yeltsin led to reforms which led to instability which led to pressures which led to a coup which led to Yeltsin becoming politically more powerful than Gorbachev and secession which led to the end of the USSR. --Fastfission 20:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• What specifically were those reforms implemented by the two men? I doubt that there was any reform in terms of creating a just legal system. Do you think Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been justly convicted with the 9-year prison term? Wouldn't he be just fined if Khodorkovsky lived in the United States and charged with the same things?--Patchouli 06:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Consider the Soviet justice system under Stalin. Would Khodorkovsky have gotten a fair trial then? Would he even have gotten a trial at all? It's a considerable reform when the Powers That Be need a kangaroo trial to get someone out of the way, rather than merely vanishing him. --Serie 18:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but Gorbachev and Yeltsin came to power over 30 years after Stalin's death whereupon the vanishings had been reduced dramatically. At that time, while the American judicial system was way superior to the Soviet's, it still had some flaws that can be seen in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Tsien Hsue-shen cases. Additionally, the Russian legal system was lagging behind its American counterpart even when Nicholas II was in control.

I am really interested in knowing how the U.S. deals with someone charged with the same things as Khodorkovsky. Does tax evasion ever result in a 9-year prison term?--Patchouli 20:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

de in Jaap de Hoop Scheffer

Is de a sign of aristocratic ancestry or gentry background in the Netherlands? I know that it means the. Does Queen Beatrix ever knight anyone ?--Patchouli 13:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. But what I do know is that in Flemish (which is Dutch with a certain accent in Belgium, on paper they look the same) it is actually more fancy to have a de in your name than a De, it is case sensitive.

Evilbu 16:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The native Dutch form of the old European "locative honorific" is actually van. "De" could be the Dutch definite article, rather than the French locative honorific (I don't know which is true in this case). AnonMoos 18:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

In Dutch names "de" is very common and it does not indicate aristocratic ancestry. Neither does "van", which may have been a "locative honorific" at some point, but also appears in many normal names. David Sneek 19:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

We have articles (although without much detail): de#Dutch and van (Dutch). Rmhermen 22:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• Is there legally recognized knighthood in the Netherlands?--Patchouli 17:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Vanity/Autobiography pages

I've read the Wiki policies on 'vanity' pages, and had a question that didn't seem to be addressed: what's WP's policy on a person or company's Press Agent creating and modifying a page for their client? While it rings of vanity on the "don't create pages about yourself" level, it also could qualify as being created by a third party. What should be done if a page is discovered that's blatently created (eg even mentioned as such in the talk page) by the press agent? SpikeJones 14:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Why assume that it doesn't happen all the time? Do you think that the guys in Congress don't have people editing their pages (some have admitted to paying editors)? It doesn't matter who writes a page. Others will see it. If it is a glowing review of a person or business, someone will come along and edit it. If it is about something that isn't notable, the article will be nominated for deletion. All in all, Wikipedia has a large enough population to be self-regulating. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, such an article could be removed for being a commercial advertisement for the individual. A ten page article full of praise for a model who never did anything more than an underwear ad in a Sears catalog might be a good example. StuRat 20:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm - I'd need to see the ad first :) --Richardrj 07:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

cannot find article back which neatly explained names of Asian capitals

I once found an article about an Asian city, which claimed the name of the city meant something like capital in a certain language, and then it started summing up other asian cities which had similar names, it actually showed a trend.

I liked that explanation, and I would really know more. The article itself would help a great deal actually.

Thanks.

Evilbu 14:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It was probably Beijing. Look at the first paragraph under the Names section. --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes that is probably it. Are there any other cities with names of former names like that, that are not included in that paragraph? Isn't a similarity like this worth a separate article (for instance there is an article concerning flags similar to the Turkish flag).

Uhm, if Hanoi means eastern capital, then what was the former, you can't go much more to the west in Vietnam can you? Evilbu 16:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Since Hanoi is in the north, you can go a bit further west. However, the name "Eastern Capital" assumes there is a "Western Capital" of another country nearby, not a capital of the same country. I don't know ancient Vietnamese history. In China, there were multiple capitals and they were named based on their location to the previous one. Perhaps a similar thing happened in Vietnam. Or, maybe they wanted to be like the "Eastern Capital" in China - they just didn't stick "New" in front of everything like New York, New Hampshire, and New England. --Kainaw ^(talk) 00:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

There was also a "Western Capital" at Tay Do (modern Thanh Hóa, I think, or at least in Thanh Hóa Province). I believe modern Hanoi first became known as the "Eastern" when the capital was moved to Tay Do in 1397 [13] [14]. Still, the naming's a bit odd — if you look at a map, it's really more a matter of north and south than east and west. -- Vardion 05:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

strahov stadium

hi i was just wondering, how does one on here put a picture on? i'd like to go on google and paste it on the document to the strahov stadium. i just figured for the world's largest stadium wikipedia needs a pic.

This type of question is better suited for the Help Desk, however, bear in mind that you can not upload just any picture, you must have one that is not subject to copyright and is properly licensed. --LarryMac 18:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Controversies - New Kadampa Tradition

Hello;

I'm a member of the New Kadampa Tradition and have always lamented the wad of criticism at the bottom of the Wikipedia article here, even though, I do understand the right to express it. However, while browsing through other parts I came apart the article on the Opus Dei. I was wondering what would the process consist of to separate the information on the NKT and the objections to it into 2 separate articles, like the Opus Dei has done?

Thanks!

Geoff <email removed to prevent spamming>

--Glbonn

The Opus Dei article was not split up into several separate articles by Opus Dei itself (well, at least I hope it wasn't) but by wikipedia editors, because it was getting too long. The neutrality of the article is disputed, by the way. The article on the New Kadampa Tradition, on the other hand, is not excessively long, so it can present the different viewpoints on the same page. This is considered the best way to do things on wikipedia. If you think the article gives certain criticisms undue weight or is POV, you can discuss that on its talk page, here. David Sneek 18:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Great Gatsby Question

In The Great Gatsby, is the Jewish character Meyer's last name Wolfsheim or Wolfshiem? I had always thought the former, and most sources (including Wikipedia) agree, but

• there is an article in which the "Wolfshiem" is used exclusively, except in a quote where "Wolfsheim" is used; in that case there is a [sic] to denote that "Wolfsheim" is incorrect.
• An extext has it as Wolfshiem.

JianLi 17:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The googlefight was won by Wolfsheim, which is also what our article calls him. David Sneek 18:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...but that is my dilemma: Wolfsheim is more popular. However, what would seem an unimpeachable source (the etext) contradicts this, as does an article that actually considers both spellings. Does anybody have a hard copy of the text that they can check? The first mention of the name would be halfway through chapter 4 JianLi 18:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll check it in two hours when I'm back in my house. Hopefully someone can find it before then. Isopropyl 18:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the other online versions I can find ([15], [16]) also give Wolfshiem. Perhaps a google fight was not the right way to solve this, because people may misrember the name as the more natural sounding Wolfsheim (-heim being a common suffix in German names). David Sneek 19:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

This brings to mind the conflict between (the more popular) "e. e. cummings" and (the less ridiculous, more correct, and Wikipedia-sanctioned) "E. E. Cummings."JianLi 19:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a hard copy of the text, and it gives Wolfsheim. However it is actually a Spanish translation ("El Gran Gatsby") so there could have been an error in transcription.JianLi 23:04, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks like there are a lot of texts at Google Book Search, both of the novel itself and of works about it, which have "Meyer Wolfshiem." --Cam 02:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I've solved it: it seems merely that back then, much got changed in books between editions, and Fitzgerald was especially careless and tended to correct earlier mistakes in later editions. Somewhere along the way, Wolfsheim in one edition was changed to Wolfshiem in another [17]. Whether the author's original draft or his final one is definitive is the subject of an interesting article [18]. JianLi 04:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

SORIN CERIN BIOGRAPHY

I am curious about Sorin Cerin, the author of ,"The Cerin Theory of Universal Genesis "who is in the book"The Origin of God".What and how is that theory? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.104.189.107 (talk • contribs) .

• This site, referenced from our stub on Sorin Cerin, mightr help you out. --Halcatalyst 00:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

single mph increases gas mpg ?

What highway speed should I maintain to get best gas mileage on SUV and full size large block pickup with tailgate up. In N.E. Tx. area year round interstate driveing. Is it 60 mph or something else.20:15, 12 July 2006 (UTC) thanks

This probably belongs at the science reference desk, but you probably want to be going as fast as possible with the lowest reading on the tachometer. That's my guess. Isopropyl 20:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

For many vehicles, a torque vs. RPM and/or horsepower vs. RPM chart is provided, typically in the sales brochure. You want to aim for the RPM (or a little below) that provides the peak horsepower in normal driving and peak torque during heavy towing. Whatever speed that gives you, that's the optimal performance speed. While the RPMs tends to be higher in small engine cars, the speed tends to be higher in vehicles with more cylinders and gears, but 60 MPH might be typical. StuRat 20:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Recently on the science RD, the calculation of MPG was discussed. As demands for increasing MPG in SUV's was made, the speed at which highway MPG was calculated was reduced to an strainge number around 45mpg (I think it is actually 47mph or 43mph - but the exact number doesn't matter). If the best MPG was around 60mph, why would auto makers have the speed reduced below 55mph to increase the rated MPG? I figure that air drag at high speeds causes the top gear to have bad MPG. So, the speed is calculated using a lower gear (or the lowest speed in the high gear). --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I suspect the reason for setting it that low is because they calculate that as the average driving speed, figuring in local roads, as well. Therefore, it would give a more accurate average MPG for the typical driver. StuRat 01:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

No, we get two MPG numbers - one for city, one for highway (high speed). The highway test simulates a top speed of 60 mph and an average of 48 mph.[19]. Rmhermen 05:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps they mean "highway" in the old sense, which just seemed to mean "road", versus the new sense, which means limited access expressway, particularly the Eisenhower Interstate System. The only other explanation I can think of is that they are including traffic jams in their average speed calcs. StuRat 14:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I found a fuller description:

1. "The city test is approximately 11 miles long and is a stop and go trip with an average speed of about 20 miles per hour (mph). The trip lasts 31 minutes and has 23 stops. About 18 percent of the time is spent idling (as in waiting for traffic lights). A short freeway driving segment is included in the test. The engine is initially started after being parked overnight. The highway is a 10 mile trip with an average speed of 48 mph. The vehicle is started "hot" and there is very little idling and no stops."[20]

Of course, this is done by the automaker (the EPA only confirms about 10% of tests) on a single car from each type offered for sale. And it is done on a dynamometer, not a road. Rmhermen 18:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

That is great, but it doesn't answer my question: Why would the automakers push to reduce the highway speed in the test down to 48mph if, as the SUV and truck owners claim, the best gas mileage is well above 60mph? The automakers could even get rid of wind resistance by doing this on a treadmill. It seems to me that the best gas mileage is around 48mph, not above 60. But, that is based on the MPG test, not on scientifically testing the change in MPG with each possible speed. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Heidegger

Was Martin Heidegger an advocate of postmodernism? or a 'postmodern philosopher'? or a relativist?. --200.37.94.53 21:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• See Martin Heidegger for a very full account. He was none of those, but is said to have influenced postmodern writers. --Halcatalyst 00:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

None of them. As is well known, Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table. Since you're under the table, you clearly have an absolute reference, so he certainly can't be a relativist. And I believe postmodern philosophy paid slightly too well for an adherent to be considered a 'beggar', boozy or no. --ByeByeBaby 01:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Your comment appears to be funny, and I'd love to understand it... :( but my not being a native english speaker isn't helping me... ( why can he think me under the table?:S...whaaat?)--Cosmic girl 23:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

ok, I get it now... lol...but still, I think they should've mocked their philosphies and not their drinking habbits :|... like... for example... 'socrates was as anoying as cosmic girl when asking questions' or...'nietzsche was all about the will to power but he was sick and weak...' lol..that was mean :(. (I love Nietzsche!) or...wittgenstein was all about 'logic' yet he wanted to be a priest and he used to hit children... and Descartes was...i dunno...but he was something, therefore he was. or...'kant was really small and bald and ugly and yet thought he was an end in himself' LOL. :| or... i dunno! help me, i'm not creative enough.--Cosmic girl 00:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Heidegger has been characterized by some as a "reactionary modernist," which is not entirely disconnected from what they call "postmodernism" but it is definitely not what people think of when they say "postmodernism". There are some overlaps in viewpoints but as a worldview they are usually pretty different. (I say "usually" because I don't think there is a very stable definition of what "postmodernism" is supposed to mean.) --Fastfission 18:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

but... what was Heideggers absolute? cause he seems to say 'dasein is the only source of truth' and 'we' are dasein...so... what the heck?:S I mean he seems to be saying ' there is truth as long as dasein discloses it and expresses it' or whatever...--Cosmic girl 23:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

July 13

Possible violation of HIPAA or attorney-client privilege

My attorney from last year presented a Power of Attorney to my mother. The name on the POA had another client's name on it and my attorney subsequently crossed out his name and inked in my mother's name.

I can make out the name of the other client quite clearly.

Is this a breach of confidentiality or perhaps a HIPAA violation or is it an Attorney-Client Privilege violation?

Thank you.

Hi, please note the top of the page: "If requesting medical, dental, or legal advice, please consider asking a doctor, dentist, or lawyer instead." Some Wikipedians may be happy to give their opinions, but if you want a proper answer ask someone who is qualified to give you a correct answer. Ziggurat 00:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

HIPAA covers privacy of medical records. A power of attorney is not a medical record. As far as attorney-client privilege, all he has inadvertently told you is the name of a person who had a power of attorney drawn up (you don't know if it was every signed). When it comes down to it, if he is so poor that he can't print a blank power of attorney, why are you (or your mother) using him as an attorney? --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Any attorney so lazy and sloppy to do that isn't worth much. StuRat 01:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Irish Involvement in World War 2

I am wondering if the Irish particularly the Irish Catholics had any involvement in World War 2. Im thinking they would have been on the Axis using the logic the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Thanks!!!

A significant number of Irish, some Irish Catholics too, fought for the United Kingdom as they lived in Northern Ireland. AllanHainey 07:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

That's obviously not the Irish he's asking about. The question makes a lot of sense. Officially, Finland was on the Axis side because they were at war with the Soviet Union. Not quite the same, but related. DirkvdM 08:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

See Participants_in_World_War_II#Ireland. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 08:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Finland was a sort-of-neutral supported by the Allies until mid-1941 - the UK and France were in the process of preparing to send troops there when the Winter War ended.

As for the Irish, the number of citizens of the Republic who came to the UK to sign up was so great that the UK never was forced to resort to a politically-unpopular program of conscription in Ulster. c.40,000 Irish citizens joined the British armed forces, which for context was about the same number as the strength of the Republic's army.

The Republic acted as a "benevolent neutral"; it fulfilled the strict criteria of neutrality while making its broad interests clear and tacitly supporting one side over the other - it sent fire crews to Belfast during bombing raids, turned a blind eye to Allied ships and aircraft passing through, had a habit of accidentally losing track of interned Allied soldiers... you get the idea. Essentially the same as Spain did, for the other side. Shimgray | talk | 09:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to note one other detail - the IRA was heavily cracked down on by the Republic's government, and was essentially dormant until the late 1940s - a few shootings in Ulster, but nothing remarkable by their standards. (Contemporary UK sources often express a rather touching gratitude at this, apparently under the impression that the IRA had voluntarily taken a few years off, which probably says something about news reporting in wartime) Shimgray | talk | 09:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

One significant person of Irish dissent (sic) was William Joyce. MeltBanana 13:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The old "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic would have been, and indeed was a hard logic to go by in WWII. Originally, before the outbreak of "full scale war", the UK and the USSR were definitely "enemies", not just politically, but actually on the battlefield, in Finland in particular, where British troops were sent to the front lines to fight Soviet troops in an effort to save Finland from Soviet occupation. However, once Hitler broke his non-aggression pact with the Soviets, Stalin seemed to have finally come to the realization that Hitler was even madder than he was, and that an alliance with the UK, his former bitter enemy, was inevitable. Loomis 22:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe any Allied troops actually ever entered Finland - they were being prepared for action but didn't leave before the ceasefire was signed. But otherwise, yes... Shimgray | talk | 16:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

capitalisation in medieval texts

Hi - a question for historians - Medieval texts seem to be sprinkled with capital letters almost at random - it doesn't seem to be just nouns, but also some verbs that the writer seems to feel require an especial emphasis - was there a grammatical rule at play, or did they just do what they feel like? Thanks Adambrowne666 11:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much, they capitalized important words in later texts. Scribe copied manuscripts in the medieval period were careful with capitals, as they took up valuable vellum. In the early printing era, authors would generally capitalize nouns, but they would also use majiscule as a sort of emphasis, but there was no rule except that sentences had to begin with a capital letter. There was a ruling saying when you must use one, but not that you couldn't also use one. Geogre 12:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

thanks for the very prompt and helpful answer Adambrowne666 13:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I read 18th and 17th century texts quite a bit, and, once past the weirdness of it, the unusual capitalization starts to seem like a very good idea. It's nice to have a level of emphasis below italics, as, perhaps, the overuse of quotation marks for emphasis these days shows. Geogre 13:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I STILL use caps for emphasis, but always on the entire word or phrase. Quotation marks are used to show the term is questionable, such as the Bush "plan" in Iraq. StuRat 14:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Some medieval scripts don't have minuscule letters, some look like a mix of both, some are entirely minuscule...so if you see a "capital letter" it must just be the way that letter was written at the time, and it happens to be the same shape as a current capital letter. They also had either no punctuation at all or punctuation that was very different to ours, so capitalizing something could be a form of punctuation (where a new sentence or paragraph begins, or where a quote begins, etc). Then as Geogre says, it is different again in the printing press era. Adam Bishop 15:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

thanks ye, Goode Stuffe Adambrowne666 07:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Ye is a fun example of the printing press messing things up, by the way. Know what word they were trying to print? Eth-e. You know how that's pronounced? "The." Prior to the printing press, we had letters for thorn and eth, representing the non-aspirated and aspirated /th/ sound. ("Thin" and "then" are pronounced exactly the same way, except that one uses a non-aspirated th and the other an aspirated th, thorn and eth, respectively.) So, when you see "Ye olde printing press," that would have been read by contemporaries as "the old printing press." :-) Geogre 14:04, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Is this really Geogre? You're quite correct in the broad picture, but you've got most of the details slightly off -- the <y> of ye represents thorn not eth (the late thorn becoming visually very similar to a y), you mean voiced not aspirated, there was never any consistent distinction made between thorn and eth in English writing, and the thorn survived a number of decades into the age of printing while the eth had become obsolete long before.

Forgive the nitpicking: Y doe but correct thee of Respect nat Malyce/as I wolde eke a Nodde of Homer's self. — Haeleth Talk 14:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

ancient place?

Though the authenticity of the claim was doubted by some for many a year, it has now been proven that on this land a colony was first established approximately ten-centuries-back-in-time.

Searching (it is believed) for much needed supplies, the colonists that first came to this place were from a distant land.

Hmmm, fascinating. And just what is this place you're talking about, and what is your question? JackofOz 13:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know; the question is where is this place?

Well the Norse colonization of the Americas happened about ten-centuries-back-in-time, with the colonization of Iceland happening a century or two before. MeltBanana 13:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The scavenger hunter is definitely thinking of Vinland, but she or he is also wrong. The Vinlandsagas are pretty clear that the settlers weren't looking for supplies. However, as MeltBanana says, the settlement of Iceland happened a bit earlier, and they were looking for supplies (deforestation being a major issue). The Vinlanders, according to the Vinlandsagas, were just looking for things to get and sell back home. When they hit Vinland, they gathered lumber (the "supplies" of the question) and honey and pelts. Geogre 13:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Vinland is in North America, so it was probably already inhabited. I was thinking about Greenland, which was colonised by Icelandic people around the year 1000. But the article says it was inhabited by eskimo's until the year 200. So, strictly speaking, it is still not correct. Then again, those eskimo's, being eskimo's, may have stuck to the northern part of Greenland. The Icelanders colonised the south. And since it's such a huge island (actually the largest island in the world) one might consider these separate lands. It's cheating a bit, but the best answer so far, so I suppose I deserve a pat on the back anyway. :) DirkvdM 18:46, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Are we all assuming that "on this land" refers to "on the North American continent"? That's not exactly the only place in the world. The question was rather non-specific, which is why I asked for more information. JackofOz 21:28, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I assume the second unindented non-signed bit is also by the questioneer. So the question would then be "Where is this place?". DirkvdM 07:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Vinland is/was in North America, on the island of Newfoundland in particular, which was indeed already populated. In fact the original European settlers were forced to abandon their settlements after one too many raids by the sparse indigenous population. Yet the questioner said nothing about this land being uninhabited, so I suppose the comment that it was already inhabited and therefore disqualified doesn't seem to be of any relevance, rather a knee-jerk PC reaction. The question clearly speaks of the "first colonists", which, unless you want to go back 10,000 years in time, would be the Vinlanders. Though indigenous Americans indeed inhabited some of the land, I've never heard them referred to as "colonists", Asian or otherwise.

It therefore seems to me that the questioner's cryptic question is indeed a reference to Vinland. I think I'll give myself a pat on the back for the best answer so far. Not only did I not cheat, but I refrained from referring to the Inuit people of Greenland as "Eskimos", an exonym that they would find highly insulting. :)) Loomis 11:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

As there is much mutual backslapping going on (which I though was mainly to make babies burp) I would like to retract my initial suggestion. In order to make the ref desk less americo-centric I would like to offer the Magyars colonization of Hungary and the settlement of the Takrur in West Africa. MeltBanana 15:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

More good examples, Banana. TWO pats on the back for you! (Although I had no idea that the Magyars' colonization of Hungary was ever doubted by anyone). I'm sure we can all come up with at least a dozen more. If only the original questioner would be a bit more specific...Loomis 22:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Loomis, Of course 'first colony' implies there were no people there because they would then have been earlier colonisers. (For clarification, the term 'colonisation' also refers to the spread of mankind over the globe.) As for 'Eskimo' being an insult, in English the Dutch are called 'Dutch' in stead of 'Nederlanders'. Should I now feel insulted? DirkvdM 08:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, Dirk, is there anything particularly pejorative or ignorant about the term "Dutch"? If so, please tell us so we'll correct ourselves. Calling the Inuit "Eskimos" is rather pejorative, as, meaning "raw meat eaters" in the Cree language, it was the term the Cree used to demean the Inuit as being particularly primitive and savage. Does the word "Dutch" meaning anything insulting in any other language? Loomis 11:24, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Strong central government? what the hell is it really good for anyway?

just trying to police you with PC bullshit, what's the point, haven;'t you ever heard "teach a man to fish... etc"? What's wrong with taking a little personal responsibilty?--Crbbydemds 14:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Most simply, because my personal responsibility is your unwarrented intrusion. The problem of managing issues which are momentus to a society yet trivial today to an individual member of it is as ancient as we have records. The Code of Hammurabi (brutal and short though it was) is an example, as is much of the conflict between the ideals of Athens and those of Sparta (though transmogrified into local terms in many cases) for a long period in ancient Greece. These people were not more stupid or thoughtless than we, they just confronted a slightly different shaped group of problems in a pre-industrial age, some of which we no longer worry about much. See Thucydides for a partial account. The Crawley translation has a passage which should raise the hackles of most anyone aspiring to something other than a dictatorship of the powerful. It begins, And words were forced to change their meaning..., at 3.82 in the discussion of how the Revolution began at Corcyra. Or consider the purpose for which Machiavelli wrote The Prince; it was not merely a manual for mendaccious duplicity. Or, if you like fiction, consider that Animal Farm is not solely concerned with making some aspects of communism evident, it was also concerned with the problems of running a farm. Which the pigs got rather wrong. But what would be the proper way to run a farm? Any answer to this actual question from the real world recognizes that personal responsiblity (by horses, cows, or whatever) is insufficient as an answer to many questions, even finessing as it does the question of what standard by which to evaluate one's exercise of personal responsibility.

Unlike many modern observers, Thucydides at least recognized that neither side had a monopoly of virtue in not perverting the public discourse. See the discussion at Talk:Digital rights management regarding what phrase DRM should abbreviate. Or see the articles on Goebbels, his propaganda machine, and the most recent 2-vol biography of Hitler (Kershaw, I think). Kershaw's answer for what it was in that man which allowed him to mesmerize an entire country into first, diplomatic bullying of most all of its neighbors, and then into war and genocide (of <pick your class of inferior types to be exterminated>, Hitler chose them all). Kershaw claims that it was his ability to control the terms of discussion, his rhetoric, his oratory. Plus some luck, and a certain amount of shrewdness. If so, the Socratic and Platonic objection to the sophists, was prescient, for it would appear that a concern for truth is important, if only as something of an antibody, to such as Goebbels, the pigs, and Hitler. Or the many think_for_us_all wannabes on (loud) offer today. ww 18:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Jogging or biking in Central Park or on Brooklyn Bridge (NY) : not an African-American thing?

Hello,

please don't ban me for racism! This is just something I noticed.

When I visited New York City, I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge (at sunset on a Monday evening) and through Central Park (at about half past 11 AM on Wednesday).

On the Brooklyn Bridge I saw a lot of people jogging or biking (with the required gear) from one side to the other (I don 't really understand why actually, the cars are beneath you and you smell their fumes), possibly with a headset on their heads.... But all those people were caucasian. I did see a lot of African Americans crossing the bridge though, but they didn't run or bike, they were just walking , possibly back to Brooklyn from work.

In Central Park I saw again lots of people biking, running, skating, sitting in the grass reading a book or listening to music, but again, they were almost all caucasian. I did see some African American ladies (not always that young anymore) taking a kid out for a walk in the park... but the kid was usually caucasian (so possibly not her child, although I understand this is not 100% certain, and that also makes me wonder were that lady's own child is in the mean time if she has one). I did see caucasian ladies taking kids out for a walk in the park, but they were walking in a group (they probably make arrangements do this together) and while the kids play, they talk. Unlike the African American ladies they didn't seem to being it that much against their wishes.

I noticed something similar here: from nearby Madison Square Garden I walked through Broadway, and most people I saw there were African Americans, however (near the Flatiron) when I ended up in Madison Square Park, practically all the people relaxing there were again caucasian.

So what is going on here? It's like there's some sort of voluntary segregation going on. I never saw a sign (of course!) saying "whites only!', but it's like the people in one ethnic group simply don't wanna do certain things.

Evilbu 14:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• because Manhattan is filled with tourists? and tourists tend to swarm all over very specific locations, but never seem to go past certian points, almost like fault lines of gentrification, beyond which no tourist dares pass--152.163.100.72 14:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, it still can't explain everything, tourists usually stay for a very short time. You would have to go rent a bike for instance. And jogging would exhaust an already tired tourist. And he probably wouldn't waste time just lying in the grass in Central Park, he would walk through it. Evilbu 14:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

• You seem to be suggesting that you personally stayed for at least 3 days, so it seems like a reasonable enough time frame--152.163.100.72 15:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I live in Charleston, SC and the same thing happens here. On our bike trails and over our new bridge, the people jogging and biking are primarily white, but not just white - upper-middle-class and rich whites. You don't see poor whites doing that. They are busy trying to make ends meet. Since most of the blacks are poor, they are in the same situation. So, it isn't necessarily a racial thing. It may be an economic one. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Surely it's simply a cultural thing. People from different cultures and subcultures do different things and have different values, by definition, just as with people of different racial or religious groups.--Shantavira 16:39, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we're looking at insufficient inductive reasoning. I lived in NYC for two years, and I saw plenty of African-Americans in both locations. You walk the bridge if you live near the water in Brooklyn. You ride the train if you live farther away. The prices of apartments in Jumbo and other locations is very high. Class and race are far less equivalent in NYC than other American cities, but they're still nearly aligned enough that the numbers would skew. The Park is another place where the properties beside it on the east side are very expensive. On the west side and at the northern end, you see plenty of diversity, as there is greater diversity in economics there. As for people travelling out of their way to go to the park to jog or the bridge to walk...that's a tourist thing. Geogre 17:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Saying it's a cultural thing is begging the question. Why then is there a cultural difference between blacks and whites? The US had centuries of slavery and apartheid was only abolished in the sixties. This history creates a chasm that isn't overcome in half a century. And as long as the 'races' (which aren't really races, but that's a different issue) don't mix the difference will remain visible and the segregation will probably remain intact for centuries. And this hold true pretty much anywhere in the world. It's like the kids at school teasing the kid with the red hair beause he's different. We learn to overcome that, but when it comes to skin colour it's different it seems. In the Netherlands there's something similar going on with people from Moroccan descent. They tend to group together, little mixing. Even some 'ghetto's'. And there is talk of so-called 'black schools'. Once a school has this name, white parents don't send their kids there, which makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wonder if this will ever end without racial mixing. Hoping for that feels a bit like the communist dream - nice, but it will never happen. DirkvdM 19:01, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Geogre, wrong elephant. The neighborhood is DUMBO. --Nelson Ricardo 01:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Dang! I should have remembered that it was named for the cute elephant, not the tortured real one. Geogre 12:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It probably has to do with economics like Kainaw said. Poor people tend to be too busy working to have the money or time to bike around. On the other hand, races have mixed a lot in South America and there's still a racial problem. Racial mixing doesn't eliminate skin tone differences like a lot of people think it does. --ColourBurst 02:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was a flaw in my reasoning. There has been a lot of mixing in the US too, but segregation is pretty fierce there. the only contry I can think of where the 'races' have mixed to a large extent and where there appears to be spontaneous intermixing, with people not being aware of the other person's skin colour is Cuba. But even there the blacker you are the harder it is said to get a higher position. (And Jamaicans are supposedly considered lazy, but that's not specifically a skin colour thing.)

Ehm, sufficient 'racial mixing' would create sort of an average skin colour, wouldn't it? I'm not sure what you mean there. DirkvdM 08:03, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Even with a lot of mixing there is always some variation. It is amazing how little difference it takes for one group to decide that another group is somehow lesser. You can see it in Mexico where a there is a gradual variation of skin tone. As you get toward the darker side of the spectrum you may experience more racism. From my Mexican relatives I have heard them say of a new baby "He is very dark" (indicating a slight derogatory) or "she is sooo light!" in a happy way. Nowimnthing 13:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Is that Mexicans in Mexico or in the US?

I deliberately brought up Cuba, because there, the mixing is so well developed that there it is almost impossible to draw a line between 'races'. An interresting thing is that I saw one girl who was almost completely white, and my first reaction was that there was something wrong there. Then it slowly dawned on me that I expected such a white girl not to mix with the 'ordinary' darker skinned people. That was one of my revelations in Cuba. Apparently, through my travels, I've grown so used to this link between skin colour and position that it looks 'wrong' to me when that link isn't there. DirkvdM 08:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I heard that skin colour didn't matter as much in Cuba. Here it matters because of social conditioning. Unlearning that process is not easy (and very easy to avoid), but necessary. --ColourBurst 17:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Kundalini variants in a tantric perspective

In normal Tantric techniques, the Kundalini is raised through the central Nidis, throught the seven major Chakras. In a Tantric perspective, what would be the effect of channeling the Kundalini through minor nidis, to mino Chakras? For example, channeling it through the nidi in the arm to the hand Chakra? This is purely hypothetical. Any opinions will be much apriciated --AmateurThinker 16:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Misrepresentation

I am wondering if one can be held libel for what one preceives as misrespresenation in an classified type advertisement. Say, for example, I post an ad on craigslist. A potential buyer travels to see my object for sale, but feels that it is not in the condition that I stated in my ad. Can I be held responsible for that? Is that illegal? Assuming the potential customer does not buy it, just looks.

Thanks!!!

• I doubt that the staff at the Federal Trade Commission would time waste pursuing a person for false advertisement on Craigslist. I believe they pursue false advertisement by a business which would affect more consumers. However, I defer to a more expert opinion.--Patchouli 17:53, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
• Whether it is false advertising or not, it is not libel, which is essentially publishing derogatory and wrong accusations about someone. DJ Clayworth 17:55, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

What if the ad was for a person and he advertised that person using derogatory and wrong statements? --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

That pesky ol' Thirteenth Amendment might rear its ugly head. In any event, I think he meant liable rather than libel... Joe 16:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I could see a small claims court suit over this. If a person agreed to travel to the seller to look at the Mercedes he has advertised, but it turns out to be a Yugo, I could imagine the court awarding travel costs to the disenchanted buyer. StuRat 20:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

In Stu's scenario he's probably right. However in the questioner's scenario, there's just a basic degree of leeway given to advertisers. We've all heard ads stating that, for example, a certain restaurant is "the best in town" or that a certain automobile company produces "the finest piece of automotive machinery ever built". This type of hyperbole and exaggeration is almost always tolerated, and if you should state, for example that your car is in "mint" condition when it in fact has some rust, you may be faced with an angry customer, but it's very hard to see it as actually "illegal". Just as caveat emptor is an active legal notion protecting the vendor after having sold an object that the purchaser realizes is not quite what he had bargained for, I'm strongly inclined to believe that the law would take the same approach to this situation (though I can't think of a latin legal term for it!) Loomis 11:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Torture on 24

Has Jack Bauer ever tortured anyone who honestly didn't know anything? If so, would that make him a bad person? —Keenan Pepper 04:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to your first question, but to your second question: Jack is a fictional character. You can hardly judge whether he us a good or bad person by whether his actions work out in a fictional world. That is not decided by his moral character, but rather by how the writer wants to portray him. A better test is whether someone who acted the way he did would end up torturing someone who was innocent in real life. Judging by how self assured he seems in the wikipedia article, I would say that he certainly would. So, if you think that torturing someone who is innocent because you are wrong and arrogant makes you a bad person, then yes, Jack Bauer would be a bad person if he was real. --Crazywolf 06:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, anyone who tortures other people is a bad person. No good person has ever tortured anyone. In fact, even just saying a good person is torturing you, can only refer to your being a stalker. (e.g. you are referring to the fact that you have no contact with the "good person", they are a celebrity who doesn't answer your psychotic mail, and by "torture" you mean your obsession with them is torturing you.). Hope this helps. 82.131.188.227 09:25, 14 July 2006 (UTC).

What about the "good" people who say you can't drink, you can't smoke, you can't listen to rock, you can't dance, you can't kiss, you can't have sex... Like that is not torture? --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

You wouldn't torture someone you knew for sure was a terrorist in order to save millions of lives? —Keenan Pepper 18:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

If I was completely certin that the person in front of me was a terrorist, and that by torturing them I could save millions of lives, I'd be pretty sure I was delusional. Since when are law enforcement personell privy to that certain of information about who is and isn't a terrorist? And terrorists have never, and probably never will kill millions of people. A couple thousand if they're lucky. --Crazywolf 20:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Way to avoid the question! —Keenan Pepper 22:19, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It's hardly avoiding a question to point out that it is based on a faulty premise and therefore has no application to reality. An interesting question, that actually relates to the real world, would be "would you torture someone you strongly suspected was a terrorist, if you had a good reason to believe that doing so would get you information that might possibly save thousands of lives", and that is rather harder to answer. Note that you also would have no way of knowing whether the torture victim was telling you the truth or not, which would be rather a problem in this specific situation where you presumably have a very short time limit to find the bomb or whatever. — Haeleth Talk 14:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

If they're also carving you up limb by limb with a sharp knife to get you to talk (or confess -- if you had chosen slightly different "vices", we'd be talking about the inquisition) then obviously no, they're not good people. 82.131.190.191 15:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC).

Pantheism

I have two questions to ask you about pantheism:

1.I've heard that there is a type of pantheism which says that God is the only thing that actually exists and that everything else, including ourselves and our own personal identity, is an illusion.But what type of pantheism is this?Classical or naturalistic pantheism?

Neither. There is such a belief, Monism, but it's not a form of pantheism. Grutness...wha? 09:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

2.I've heard that there's a connection between pantheism and belief in magical,supernatural, paranormal, and occult phenomena (excluding God).By that, it means those things are much more related to pantheism than to other types of theism.I've heard that many pantheists such as Shintoists,many ancient pagans, and believers of New Age religions believe in supernatural and/or magical phenomena such as spirits.I've also heard that most "witches",sorcerers,fortune-tellers, and psychics (or at least people who claim to be them) and many very superstitious people are pantheists.Is that true?If so, then why?If you said that pantheists don't really believe in the supernatural or that physical laws can be violated, then how do you explain this?

Didn't the movie Memento have something about repeated experience accessing a deep part of the brain? Maybe we should check to see if Joe Pantaleone is alright. Geogre 12:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Shintoists are animists, not pantheists.

I thought animism was a type of pantheism.If not, then what's the difference between animism and pantheism?60.241.116.24 01:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Pantheism is the belief that all of nature forms a unified divine whole. Animism is the belief that individual items within nature are each endowed with their own supernatural spirits or divinities. Grutness...wha? 02:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

But is animism similar to pantheism in that it says the universe began without the cause of a divine creator, or is it more similar to theism in that it says the universe was created by God or supernatural spirits?

Military Channels all over the world

Dear all! I'm busy with a project in monitoring web-sites of military TV channels all over the world. I've already found four channels in the USA (including Discovery), but I'm supposed to research TV channels in other countries too. The thing is that I can't find any more. I would be truly grateful to you, if you could give me any information of the worlds military channels or related ones. Thank you! Julia --81.195.190.194 12:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean TV channels about the military or actually run by he military? I doubt there would be too many as most of the world doesn't have 500 channels and the parts that do get a lot of their channels from the U.S. and England. Nowimnthing 13:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

If you mean TV channels for the military, then there's BFBS. -- 20:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The Discovery military channel is neither by the military nor for it. Please define your terms. User:Zoe|^(talk) 21:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What is the meaning of the tamil word 'Thamban'?

What is the meaning of the tamil word 'Thamban'?

I'm sure it translates to "Ask this in the Language forum" :)

Vodafone song

Does anyone know the song that is in the new Vodafone advert in the UK with the people floating about and what not. It sounds like an older band but I'm not sure! Thank you muchly.

Another Girl, Another Planet.  Slumgum T. C.   22:44, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

guardian angels

What is the origin and significance of guardian angels being on the left shoulder versus the right shoulder?

Left is sinister in Latin. You need help there. Geogre 18:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Dike nameday

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you with not typical matter. I have a friend whos name is Dike. We know that it is greek name. But we do not know when she has her nameday... She was looking for it in many places and did not find anything. I was also looking for the date of her nameday but also without result.

We were looking mainly in the Internet on various pages with nameday dates.. But the name "Dike" was always missing...

Could you help us with this? Do you know some page/callendar where we could find it? If you have such callendar with nameday of my friend Dike, I and she would be very grateful for sending/selling it, if possible.

Small description:

Dike, the Greek goddess of moral justice, one of the three second generation Horae

Dike (Greek for justice) was the goddess of moral justice. She ruled over human justice; her mother (Themis) ruled over divine justice. Dike was born a mortal and Zeus placed her on earth to keep mankind just. He quickly learned this was impossible and placed her next to him on Olympus.

Kind Regards

Mirek Okopniuk

<personal information removed to prevent spam>

• Wilson's Blogmanac is pretty comprehensive.-hotclaws**==(81.134.77.56 09:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC))

The nameday for a given name is traditionally the feast day of the Christian saint of that name on the calendar of saints. Since Dike is a Greek goddess, and not a saint, she does not have such a feast day. There is a convention for such cases to use All Saints Day as the nameday. --Lambiam^Talk 09:46, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Persians

Are the Parthians the same at the Persians in 40 BC and are they the same in 600 AD?

Follow the links. Rmhermen 19:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

just to be clear, Rmhermen linkified the two words Parthians and Persians, by way of answer. Searching for the word "persian" on the Parthian page I find: Consequently Parthian history is largely derived from foreign histories, controlled by the evidence of coins and inscriptions; even their own name for themselves is debatable due to a lack of domestic records. Several Greek authors, of whom we have fragments, including Apollodorus of Artemita and Isidore of Charax, wrote under Parthian rule. Their power was based on a combination of the guerilla warfare of a mounted nomadic tribe, with organisational skills sufficient to build and administer a vast empire - even though it never matched in power the Persian empires that preceded and followed it. This is kind of confusing, there's no clear timeline on the page or anything. And, as for whether they're "the same" in 40 BC and in 600 AD as the Persians, I can't seem to find it. (Didn't read either article carefully though). If someone wants to, what's the answer? 82.131.186.80 21:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC). (I'm not the original poster).

The Parthians, according to our article, were originally part of the Parni people, a nomadic group — not Persians, although probably related. However, the Parthian empire was a mixture of different peoples, including the Persians — the founders of Parthia (the Arsacid Dynasty) may not have been Persian, but Persians would have been a major component of their empire. It's possible that before long, they had mixed with the Persians enough that they might be considered the same — a small group of people who conquer a large country often seem to end up merging into the culture that they conquered (Mongols in China, Normans in England, etc). The extent to which that happened in this case might not be known — there seem to be mixed signals. Our article on the Parthian language says that it, not the Persian language, remained the official language for the empire's duration, but our article on Parthia says that courtiers spoke Persian (I don't know if it means they primarily spoke Persian, or just spoke it in addition to Parthian). I'm not sure we actually have enough information to tell what happened, let alone put any specific dates on when it happened. -- Vardion 08:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

A question about Judaism and Christianity.

I have read the articles about Judaism, Jews, Christianity, Anti-Semitism and other related articles. But I have this doubt lingering on in my mind that : Is judaism derived from christianity? I mean, Jews also have bible, so do christians. And other wise also, they have "ten commandment" or torah, and i think christians also have something in religion like it. So if someone could clarify my doubts. I may be wrong in presenting some of above facts, so correct me. Bye.

You've got it backwards: Christianity is derived from Judaism; the latter predates the former by many many centuries. To simplify, of course, there is a belief in Judaism, based on the Old Testament that one day a Messiah will come who will restore Judaism to its proper place (and perhaps bring about the end of the world). Christians believe that Jesus was that Messiah. Jesus himself was Jewish, and the earliest Christians were Jewish. In fact, one of the earliest conflicts in Christianity was between those who believed that only Jews could be Christians and those who believed that anyone could be. The book of Acts is in part about that very conflict, and there is much discussion of it in the New Testament. --George 18:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

And how did Judaism originate? No where in any article has it been mentioned.

The exact origins of Judaism are unknown, but it appears to have formed from multiple influences. StuRat 21:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I will respectfully suggest another view: Christianity did NOT evolve from Judaism. Both Judaism and Christianity evolved from the same religious tradition in the middle centuries of the first millennium. Modern Judaism is not a lot closer to the Judaism of 50 AD (temple, priests, animal sacrifice) than Christianity is. They were considered two branches of the same religion in the second century. Modern characteristics and institutions gradually developed but modern Christianity is just as "legitimate" a descendant of the ancient religion of the Torah as modern Judaism. Maybe even bigger than the obvious have-we-or-havent-we-had-the-messiah difference, Christianity cut itself loose from the ethnic association and became one of the first "universal" religions claiming to be independent of culture and ethnicity while the tradition that remained "the religion of the Jews' became modern Judaism and is still bound to a culture and an ethnicity. alteripse 21:30, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks George, for the excellent summary.

As for how Judaism "originated", it's somewhat of a difficult question, depending on what you mean by "originate". The "starting point", if you will, was, (according to scripture) around 2000 years before Christ (BC) when God made a promise, or "covenant" with Abraham, that his descendants would have a special relationship with God. Only about 800 years later was the Torah and with it the Ten Commandments handed down to Moses, a descendant of Abraham, at Mount Sinai. It was only then that Jews were actually instructed by God about how to live their lives, etc. So I guess you can say in simple terms that the "beginning of the beginning" of Judaism was with Abraham around 2000 BC, and the "end of the beginning" was with Moses around 1200 BC. Of course this analysis should not be taken as undisputed. Among those who don't believe that the Bible was a true story, many doubt that Abraham or Moses even existed, no less had contact with God, rather they believe that the Bible was a story written by humans (in this case Jews) to describe their origins. On the other hand, looked at a certain way by certain present day Jewish believers, Judaism has still not fully formed, rather by its very nature, it continues to form every day up until and beyond this very day. Loomis 21:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Loomis, you have just described the founding legend of Christianity as well. You cannot distinguish the two by simply tracing one back to the OT since they both base their lineage on the same documents and legends. alteripse 23:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Why so defensive, Alterprise? The question was of the origins of Judaism. Period. I think I gave a pretty accurate NPOV description of that.

Of course Christians believe Christianity to be the true faith, the faith that God had in mind when speaking to Abraham, just as Muslims believe that Abraham's relationship with God was mainly to establish Islam as the true faith.

As for the Jews that exist today, this is their interpretation of the origins of Judaism. Do you disagree that this was an accurate description of the origins of Judaism? Loomis 00:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Muslims believe that Judaisim and Christianity were true faiths. Judaism until Christianity came, and Christianity until Islam came. -LambaJan 20:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Death penalty

Both sides have good arguments. Here is an argument from the pro-death penalty side which seems hard to counter: Fred murdered three people and is now serving three consecutive life sentences, with no possibility of parole. Fred murders a guard. How should Fred be punished? He can't be beaten or starved, because that would be cruel, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. What kind of additional punishment can be inflicted on Fred, to achieve some measure of justice for the family of the dead prison guard and for society in general? From Fred's point of view, what is the downside for killing a guard or another prisoner? What if the prison authorities cut his food ration in half? What if he were placed in solitary for twenty years - would that be cruel? How about water only from now on - no juice, milk or coffee? 66.213.33.2 19:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

There are plenty of ways to punish him, the most likely one being to put him in solitary confinement for a long period of time. And since there is absolute certainty that he will be punished, the punishment doesn't have to be as severe as it would need to be if he weren't in prison. If the fact that he is going to be locked in solitary confinement for a year or two doesn't deter him, then probably nothing will. Increasing the severity of the punishment doesn't increase the deterent effect nearly as much as increasing the certainty of punishment. So if absolute certainty of a moderately severe punishment isn't enough deterent, he probably lacks the capability to properly consider the long-term-consequences in these situations. Thus, threat of death wouldn't be a useful tool for managing his behavior. It would just be a way to get revenge. Other measures should be taken to ensure the safety of the guards. If all else fails, then locking him in solitary confinement semi-permanently as a safety precaution would be an option. --Crazywolf 20:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the prisons should assume all prisoners want to murder everyone they meet and take appropriate precautions. Personally, I think all prisoners should be in solitary all the time, to limit their ability to commit crimes and form links with other criminals which they use once released. StuRat 20:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

• Well, that was the approach, though the rationale was different, for the invention of the penitentiary. Was originally thought an improvement to physical punishment. Drives a lot of them insane. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Also note that the death penalty is no deterrent for someone who has already committed a murder that will get him the death penalty once caught. If killing more people makes it less likely he will get caught (say witnesses), it's definitely in his interest to do so. Also, while waiting in jail for his appeals to run out, he might as well kill a guard, they might even delay the execution until the investigation or new trial is complete. StuRat 20:23, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

If you can't be cruel make the buildings cruel: Panopticon. MeltBanana 21:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Putting all prisoners in solitary confinement would prevent the reformation of the prisoners and create a much higher recidvism rate when they were released. Prisons, at least in the US, aren't supposed to be warehouses, but places where criminals are turned into good citizens. Emmett5 23:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

They can have a computer terminal to get education lessons, and a Bible. They don't learn anything valuable from other prisoners, just how to be better criminals. StuRat 00:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Prisons in the United States, and prisons in European nations since the late 18th century, have been dedicated to the premise that they are not there to punish. Prior to the 18th century, prison was never a punishment: it was where one was stored until punishment could be enacted. In the 18th century itself, prison terms were lengthening and medieval and renaissance punishments were being put aside. Therefore, the idea was to come up with a place where persons could do penance -- a penitentiary -- and where people could be reformed -- a reformatory. However, there has never been an official change of overall philosophy to prison as punishment, and yet the general public (and criminal public) thinks that prison is suffering, is punishment, is "justice." Be aware that the prisons were not designed for that. I think they shouldn't be designed for that, either, but the most important thing is that you should not be concerned with trying to inflict pain to match pain inflicted, for doing something like that is, in the first instance, impossible and is, in the second instance, to reiterate cruelty and predation. So the answer to the argument is, "You're asking the wrong question: we're not trying to punish at all." Geogre 03:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Citation? Ok. For the old rationale and practice of prisons, see Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish, and for the development of the penitential and reforming impulse behind the design of the contemporary prison system, see the awful, turgid, nearly-useless, Frederick Bogel's The Idea of the Penitentiary. For better but more partial views, there are several scholars who have written about the reform movements associated with the early Methodism movement and the Bluestocking society. As for citing that the philosophy has never officially changed, I'm afraid that I can't cite a negative, but I would be interested to see any citation to where we did change our centuries of philosophy on this matter. Geogre 12:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is ever absolutely certain and people make mistakes. That also goes for courts of justice. If you kill someone and find out the reason was wrong, how do you compensate for your mistake? That is an overriding argument against the death penalty that no pro-arguments can sufficiently counter. DirkvdM 08:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly how did the questioner come to the conclusion that beating or starving the prisoner would be cruel (and disallowed by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution) but the death penalty isn't. If you're going to punish someone that's the most cruel punishment you can give, unless they actually want to be dead. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be ignorant of what pain is. Please turn around so I can hit in you the back with a baseball bat. There are MANY things worse than death. Death is easy. --mboverload@ 00:29, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Biblical quote : Ask and you shall receive."

In what context was this quote and who said it? Thank you. B.Mackey

See Sermon on the Mount --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 22:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Specifically, if you, as a father, would never give your child a stone when he asked for bread, then how much more will God give to His children when they ask? Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock, and the door will be opened. ("A.S.K." -> Ask, Seek, Knock.) Geogre 03:50, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sexual Assault in Prison

At least according to popular culture, sexual assault is an extremely common phenomenon in prisons, at least maximum security prisons, a phenomenon so common that it's almost considered inevitable that if you're actually sentenced to do any time, you're almost guaranteed to be sexually victimized in some way or another.

Therefore my first question is to determine how true this is. Popular culture has a tendency to overdramatize things, and so this phenomenon may indeed be not nearly as common as it's made out to be. However, I can't help to assume the truth of the fact that sexual assault is indeed a rather common occurrence. Having never been in prison, can anyone verify how the veracity of this inhumane phenomenon?

My next question would be this: Why is this such a non-issue in popular media, among goody-goody NGO's etc...? It's not that I have any particular sympathy for the most heinous of criminals, such as cold-blooded murderers, rapists and pedophiles, (in fact, I have to admit small part of me sees this as them getting a taste of their own medicine). But these don't seem to be the only victims. Is it not cruel and unusual punishment in the extreme to sentence a bank robber or even a second degree murderer to several years of forced sodomy? Why doesn't anyone seem to care? In fact, not only is this phenomenon taken for granted, it's actually callously joked about in, for example, some of the more serious of television dramas. For example - [The prosecution in a plea bargain]: "Either agree to pleading guilty with our offer of a suspended sentence, or else get used to being the latest plaything of a 300lb cellmate named "Bubba'".

Of course that was drama, and in real life I doubt any prosecutor would actually say something like that without being severely disciplined by a legal ethics committee. But the attitude is still there. Sexual assault is commonplace in prison and nobody seems to care. We seem to care more about saving the whales, about baby seals being slaughtered, about rodents being bred and killed for their fur, and even about the fact that many ranches mistreat their animals by having them cooped up in tiny pens waiting to be slaughtered (which I agree, are all bad things) yet we don't seem to give a damn about the fact that the sexual assault of human prison inmates is a routine part of being incarcerated. Can anyone explain this to me?

Finally, I have a cultural/historical question on the matter: When I speak of "popular culture" and "sexual assault in prisons", I'm generally referring to contemporary prisons in North America. Is this phenomenon culture, region and time specific? For example, was it commonplace in other places and at other times, such as in Soviet gulags, old English debtors' prisons, in medieval kings' dungeons or present day third world detention centres? How much is the phenomenon of sexual assault in prisons a 20/21st century "western" thing? Loomis 21:22, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Turkish prisons are notorious for that, as well. There was even a veiled reference to it in Lawrence of Arabia (film).

• I opine that in societies that aren't transparent like Islamic ones, you will never hear about sexual assault. At least, open societies report things. However, this is no justification for putting a person convicted of tax fraud next to a rapist or other violent criminal. I think everyone should be kept in a cell, both men and women.--Patchouli 22:02, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Stop Prisoner Rape has quite a bit of information on the subject. They are pretty obviously POV, but they do reference a large number of academic articles on the subject.

That was a nice viewpoint that you posted. I agree with you at a high level. Too little is being done about prison assault. --Proficient 03:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Just for the record, though, Lawrence of Arabia's claim to have been sexually assaulted (and enjoyed it) in the Turkish prison has long been suspected as a fabrication, and recently released letters seem to have confirmed that. JackofOz 03:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Name this tool used in moviemaking

Hi guys. What is the name of that tool used in filmmaking to synchronize video and audio at the start of a sequence? The one with the black and white stripes and information written on it, such as scene number, name of project and date? I know it in portuguese (which is "claquete", I believe, from the "clacking" sound it makes). I tryied several online translators and none got the word. Thanks! Quase 22:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, just found it through the Cinematographer article. It is a Clapperboard. Thanks Quase :-) ! Quase 22:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. Quasi-Quase 08:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Israel

Why do middle eastern countries object to the existance of a Jewish state?

Good question...beats me. Loomis 23:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Israel and History of Israel are probably good places to start. Emmett5 23:41, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I doubt those articles, though informative, are what the questioner is looking for. I'm intimately aware of all the information in those articles, yet, I, like the questioner, am equally perplexed as to why a Jewish state is considered so intolerable by the Arab world. Loomis 23:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The obvious answer is that their only objection is to it being placed in the middle of what were previously primarily Muslim lands. I think they would have the same objection to a Buddhist state there. Their attitude is "it's our land, now give it back !" StuRat 00:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Which of course was the Jews' desire too; it's just that they were booted 2000 years ago rather than 60. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 00:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• • ...having themselves booted out the earlier inhabitants. Which is the problem with any "current occupants vs previous occupants" business. Going back to the original situation is often pointless, if not ridiculous (give Romania back to the Celts!). This is not, BTW, to say that both sides don't have very valid claims to the land. Grutness...wha? 02:46, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

According to the Bible' have themselves booted out the earlier inhabitants. One can't necessarily trust the Bible. There's evidence for a Jewish kingdom in the region around the supposed time of King David. The historical record is shaky, though - Jews could have come from elsewhere before that and booted the inhabitants out, or the Jewish religion could have spontaneously arose in the region, and the inhabitants of the region converted to it. Or, more likely, a mix of the two. zafiroblue05 | Talk 01:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

All this begs the question: "Where do Jews belong"? Loomis 00:43, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

New York City ? :-) StuRat 01:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, not every religous or ethnic group has a homeland. Kurds, for example, don't, and won't, unless northern Iraq becomes an independent Kurdistan. Gypsies (AKA the Roma people) don't have a homeland, either. There are many, many other groups which lack a homeland. Perhaps the rest of the world, and even the Jews themselves, ultimately would have been better off had the Jews remained without a homeland. If we end up with a nuclear war betwen Israel and it's neighbors in a few decades, then it will be pretty clear that this was the case. StuRat 01:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Stu, I wish I could have an intelligent discussion about this topic, but I think I'll give up on that. "Perhaps the...world would be better off...had the Jews remained without a homeland". Without a homeland, the Jews would clearly be exterminated from the face of the earth. But perhaps that would be a "good thing" after all! Think about it! Peace in the middle east after all!

Since reason won't get me anywhere, I'll state very simply: We're Jews, we have a state, we're here to stay, DEAL WITH IT! Loomis 01:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

That's exactly what they are doing. And Israel then deals with that. It's called war. DirkvdM 09:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I see no reason why Jews would have been more likely to be exterminated without a homeland. After all, you managed to survive for thousands of years without one. On the contrary, I feel the state of Israel will eventually bring about the extermination of many Jews, via nuclear war with the Muslims, and, of course, the deaths of millions of Muslims, too. It's just a matter of time before all parties have nuclear weapons, it can be delayed, but not prevented. StuRat 02:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

That is certainly true if people keep on thinking like that, Stu. But we have a choice, don't we? I've never seen nuclear proliferation as inevitable, and I'm not going to. JackofOz 03:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The only way we could stop nuclear proliferation is if everyone agreed to go to war with any country which tried to develop nukes or banned inspections, and we are nowhere near that point. Heck, we can't even agree on weak sanctions, which would almost certainly fail, in any case. Iran is likely to get nukes unless they are militarily defeated, and they seem to be behind the Hezbollah attack on Israel, so a nuclear war with Israel isn't far off, it just will take a few years for Iran to finish their bomb. StuRat 16:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

If you really believe that a nuclear war is only a matter of time away, you may as well go and cut your throat now. It's up to us to stop just insanely taking this as a foregone conclusion, thus adding fuel to the fire, and instead focus attention on ensuring it never happens - anywhere. Thanks to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the USA has a particular responsibility in this regard. JackofOz 03:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

First, a limited nuclear war may well be survivable by the majority of Earth's population. Second, the US has a very limited ability to act as the world's policeman, alone. They can take out any single, non-nuclear power, so long as there is no nuclear power backing them, but can't deal singlehandedly with multiple situations all over the planet at once. Unfortunately, most other countries refuse to do anything unless led by the US, and even then frequently fight the US. I do have respect for Australia, however, for actually doing something about East Timor when the original colonial power, Portugal, did nothing of any use to help. StuRat 11:55, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

'Many Jews' does not constitute extermination, I believe. DirkvdM 09:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

No, but then no group as widely spread out as Jews could ever be exterminated without wiping out the entire human population. Of course, limiting the likelihood of millions of deaths is still a good thing. StuRat 16:54, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Reality check number 1. Loomis you cannot support your assertion that without israel the jews would be exterminated off the face of the earth. There are as many jews in north america alone as in Israel, arent there? You make a weak case with exaggerations and simple falsehoods. alteripse 02:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Before you jump down my throat about this misrepresentation of history, remember that I am about to say what I've been told by Jewish, Syrian and Saudi doctors - these are not my statements. If you are too stupid to understand that, do not read the next paragraph...

I have asked both Muslim middle easterners and Israelis about their views. The Israelis claim that when they returned to Israel, it was barren desert. They built Israel from nothing and now the Muslims, who are too lazy to work on their own countries, want to take theirs. On the other hand, I've had a Syrian and a Saudi both make their view clear. They claim that all the way through to the middle of last century, there was a well-developed Palestine state and that all neighboring countries were in peace. Then, because the Europeaners didn't like Jews, the United States swarmed in with tanks and planes and ran all the Muslims out. They were sent into the desert with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Then, the Jews came in and took their homes, their businesses, their clothes, their country. Ever since, the United States keeps sending money and weapons to Israel in an attempt to keep taking Muslim land one acre at a time.

If you ignore the real history and look at it from their twisted points of view, you can easily see why this is a conflict that can't be ended with a silly roadmap to peace. --Kainaw ^(talk) 01:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Reality check number 2. The US had almost nothing to do with the formation of israel-- certainly no "swarm of tanks and planes". Please stick to facts instead of falsehoods. Thanks. alteripse 02:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

That is the point - the questioner wants to know what the whole problem is. The problem is not based on facts. It is based on falsehoods. Until others realize that, there can be progress. It is a complete waste of time to assume all the people involved in the fight know what really happened and why it happened. --Kainaw ^(talk) 02:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• The mullahs and Sunni clerics make the youths think that if Israel goes, those youths can own the free land that will be left. The youth think silently, "Ooh, then I can own property with ease. I won't then have to work for it for 20-30 years." (I know a lot of people who even in their 60s don't own a property. 20-30 if there is not misfortune for a someone who has an irresponsible family as do the Palestinean youths.) This is one component of the brainwashing. What difference does it make for an Arab between Beirut and Jerusalem? --Patchouli 01:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Suppose you have an old bike. I steal it and fix it up. Is it now my bike? DirkvdM 09:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do the people of any invaded place object to being invaded? You may find Zionism useful, particularly this section. Natgoo 11:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What I would like to see, and this is completely objective so all sides should normally have no problem with this, is

a map of what was supposed to be Palestine (so the British mandate, without the current kingdom of Jordan) , what i mean is in other words : the land the Palestinians claim

- an answer to the question : is the union of the State of Israel with the Palestinian territories exactly (not more or less) the same as the land in my first question - if the answer to the latter question is yes : an area depicting the Jewish and Arab half of the land discussed in the first qustion.

Evilbu 12:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Palestine has a map of the British mandate of Palestine. But then those borders were also determined by a colonial force. I suppose the land the Palestinians claim is the land they lived on before the Israelis came. If such an area can be easily defined. Which is doubtful. DirkvdM 08:01, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, so I've erased the bolds in my statement, as I was in a particularly angry mood when making it. And yes, the Jews would likely not be totally exterminated without Israel, that was admittedly hyperbole on my part. Yet my point remains the same. Without Israel, Jews would have no sanctuary to flee to whenever any "host" country decides that they're no longer welcome. To say that the history of the Jews was constant persecution over the past 2000 years is in fact an oversimplification. I only wish it were as simple as that. In fact, the history of the Jews over this time period is rather one of repeating and predictable cycles.

One country's king would decide to take a sincere liking for Jews, and welcome them into his kingdom with open arms. He would then die, and kids being rebellious as they are, his son would ascend to the throne with a particular hatred towards Jews, deciding that his poor old dad was a fool, and condoning the harrassment and killing of all Jews within his realm. And so they'd find another place with benevolent king and the whole cycle would begin again. It wouldn't always involve kings, but any regime. It happened in Poland, where Jews were invited to live unharrased, and often times these periods would be considered "golden years" among Jewish historians, until the other shoe would drop, when the Polish king would die, and his son would encourage pogroms. Same goes for Russia under the "nice" tsars. Same goes for Spain up until the Spanish inquisition. Jews eventually found that central Europe was a great place to live, as society there had become devoted to enlightened philosophy and the rest. Then came Nazism. America and western Europe seemed to be comfortable places to live, and to this day America has remained extremely tolerant. Yet the situation of Jews in western Europe is becoming to look troubling, particular in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and Jews there have started to realize it's time to leave once again. I know this because, at least from France and Belgium, French speaking Jews are beginning to flee en masse to my home province of Quebec. Others to Israel. When will the other shoe drop in "enlightened" countries like Canada and the US? Hopefully never, but as history has taught us, that's a foolish hope. Besides, North American immigration policies being what they are, only a limited number of immigrants are allowed each year, which is perfectly understandable. So those who cannot escape to North America still always have Israel as a refuge. Same goes for those million or so escaping the increasingly hostile environment in post Soviet Russia. Israel was their only refuge.

Looking back over the past 2000 years, despite all the wars and terrorism Israel has suffered, it's a relative spit-in-the-bucket compared to the murder of Jews in any other 58 year period of history. So THAT'S the longer version of why a Jewish homeland is so desperately necessary. Loomis 11:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

First, democracies aren't subject to sudden flip-flops like totalitarian systems are, so Jews, and other minorities, should be safe in any stable democracy (note that the Weimar Republic was extremely unstable, however). StuRat 11:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Second, there are more than enough safe places in the world for Jews to live. I agree that some places are unsafe, but wouldn't include France. I assume you're talking about attacks from the large Muslim population there. This is not the same as a hostile government bent on extermination, not by a long shot. StuRat 11:46, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Democracies are a new invention and they refused to let Jewish refugees before the WWII began (so much for Democracies niceness and our arrogance). The problem is that "We" today think that anti-semitism is largely dead and is never going to return to real power. Hopefully it is so, but if you were a Jew in 1946 would you be willing to take that chance? Would you risk the life of your future descendands upon the goodwill of "others", the same "others" who had opposed Hitler alltoo late? Israel is the ultimate safe-hafen for the Jews. Problem is that noone even asked the Palestinians about it. Almost everybody agreed that the Jews needed a new country, but at expense of the Palestinians. Noone even compensated them, and the "West" (mainly France initially, then the USA) supported Israel in every way possible. The only real possible solution is to give the Palestinians their own country (with the borders of 1976), sharing Jerusalem, and then help them into reaching a good standard of living. Poor young desperate ppl make good terrorists, the majority of old rich ppl want only to mantain their standarts of living. Give them their own contry, allow them to reach their Holy places, a good home, good food, television, and the pill. Peace will follow. Flamarande 12:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Initiatives of US President

The initiative article doesn't mention this. Even so, I have come to conclude that if the American president wants to make a law, then he can create his proposal, call it an initiative, and send it to Congress for approval. The American Competitiveness Initiative is an example.

Did I get this right?--Patchouli 02:38, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The official name is still a bill (law), whether he chooses to name it an initiative, a proposal, a resolution, a Bushitization, or whatever. :-) StuRat 03:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, he can't introduce it to Congress directly, but must get one Senator and one Rep to introduce it into each chamber. This is pretty simple, though, since around half of the Senators and Reps are in the President's party at any given time. Still, if Bush wanted to introduce a particularly stupid bill right before elections, he might find it difficult to find a sponsor. StuRat 03:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• Here is my understanding.

--Patchouli 04:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• No, that diagram isn't right. The president cannot introduce any "initiative" or proposed law into Congress, as StuRat says. It takes members of Congress to do that. -R. S. Shaw 07:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Right. The President has exactly the same Constitutional power as any other person who is not a member of the House or the Senate in this regard. There is no Constitutional concept of "initiative"; some states have it, but the Progressive movement wasn't successful in that regard on the federal level. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

No one has yet explain George W. Bush's American Competitiveness Initiative. This is a spending program introduced by the executive branch.--Patchouli 19:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The phrase "American Competitiveness Initiative" uses the word "initiative" in a general sense; the word has no specific legal meaning in this usage. It could have been called "American Competitiveness Campaign" or "American Competitiveness Program." The article initiative refers specifically to the procedure whereby citizens can force a referendum on a topic by obtaining a certain number of signatures. -- Mwalcoff 02:47, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

plato's symposium

hi,

where can plato's original manusrcipt of the symposium be found?

thanks

bren

Plato's original manuscript is long lost in the mists of time if by Plato, original, and manuscript you mean what the rest of us mean. alteripse 03:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Spanish Wine Denominations

Can anyone tell me the commonly used English terms for the Spanish Denominations "Joven," "Crianza," and "Reserva"?

I feel safe in assuming that the first is "Young" and that the last is "Reserve," but I have no idea what the common usage term would be for "Crianza"

--Diabolic 06:41, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

"A wine in its third year that has matured for at least one year in oak" is a bit long, yes, but it's the best I can find. Some wine websites simply call it "crianza wine". David Sneek 21:30, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

"Crianza" might be "child" or "kid". In Spanish they use the word "Nino", but it might come from Portuguese "criança" or perhaps it is a word from South-America and not proper Spanish. Flamarande 10:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Dracula's Chermosese

In Chapter 18 of Bram Stoker's Dracula is the following line (boldface emphasis mine):

In old Greece, in old Rome, he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the Chermosese, and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples for him at this day.

My question is, where is the "Chermosese"? As can be seen by the redlink, there's no article (yet) for it in Wikipedia, and a Google search failed to turn up anything other than that same quote from Dracula. Considering that all the other places in the sentence are real, I would expect the "Chermosese" to be real as well. —Lowellian (reply) 07:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Could it be a misspelling of Chersonese? --Rallette 08:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, Chersonese it is: a google search of chersonese + dracula returns several instances of the same passage. Someone more knowledgeable than me might know which Chersonese is intended. --Rallette 09:14, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I should do these searches before posting here instead of as I post. Hm. Anyway, a search for "The Chersonese" brings results that definitely suggest the Malay Peninsula is Stoker's Chersonese.--Rallette 09:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, okay, thanks for the quick and informative answer. I've gone ahead and redirected Chermosese to Chersonese in case someone in the future has the same question. —Lowellian (reply) 19:18, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Age at childbirth

At what age do adults have their first child? Are there any good statistics of this? I've tried searching 'having children' on wiki, as well as the Family and Child articles, but no related info. Anyone's got any statistics? Jack Daw 14:47, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The way you asked the question will skew the age upwards, by eliminating many teen pregnancies from consideration. Also, what age is "adult" ? Is it 18 ? Also, the country, ethnic group, etc., will make a huge difference in the results. StuRat 17:00, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The age also changes over time, and by education level, as these charts show: [21]. StuRat 17:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

(Can't resist) Most people are zero at childbirth. (I apologize, but the heading was too provocative.) Geogre 02:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeees ... I was born at a very young age should be the opening sentence of someone's autobiography. JackofOz 03:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Two Similar Wars

Hi there,

I am attempting to find two unrelated wars or battles in which the details of them are as close as possible to being identical. One ancient war and one modern war would be stellar if anything springs to mind. I would be happy to research the details on each war myself; I am simply hoping for a place to start ie. knowing which wars to research. Thanks so much.

                                                                     Daryl

• World War I and Iran-Iraq War are completely unrelated. They were (1) total wars, (2) trench wars, and (3) resulted in millions of deaths.

I know that there are many dissimilarities and I am poised to be beaten over the head with them. For instance, the first lasted 4 years while the second 8 years. --Patchouli 05:51, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• The seiges of Dien Bien Phu and Khe Sahn in Vietnam spring to mind;About 20 years apart,someone wrote a book about the first (Hell is a very small place ?),you'd think the Americans would have read it and not done the same thing over again.-hotclaws**==(81.134.77.56 08:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC))

What a brilliant question. There are some parallels between the (1097 version of the) Siege of Antioch and the Battle of Alesia, in that in both cases a besieging army was trapped between the city they were attacking and an approaching army. About 1,000 years between the two is quite an interval. There are of course many more differences between the two examples than the similarities! --Dweller 09:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

There are some striking similarities in the various battles over Dunkirk. Geogre 11:26, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

A mistake in article about Mohammad.

Here is a mistake I found in the article about Mohammad :

Ibn Ishaq records that Khadijah bore Muhammad five children: 
two sons named Al Qasem and Abdullah (who is also called Al Tayeb and Al Taher) 

and four daughters.

Well that is six children, not five. So if someone knowledgeable could correct it-Nikhilthemacho

I agree that those statements are inconsistent, but how do we know which part is wrong ? StuRat 20:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. They are Al-Qasim, Zainab, Ruqaiyah, Umm Kulthum, Fatimah and Abdullah. MeltBanana 23:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Origin of Name

the oriigin of the name  TAR HEEL for North Carolinians ?

The article Tar Heel. Geogre 18:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Posession

What does the phrase "posession is 9/10 of the law" mean or refer to?

Thanks!!!

• It means that law is on the side of people that own wealth. It means that it is extremely difficult to legally get money from other people. In other words, a person with wealth has a 90% chance of keeping that wealth.

Only if the possessor has committed a tort, then you might have a chance at recovery for what you have lost on top of perhaps a punitive damage depending on how willfully the tortfeasor behaved.--Patchouli 19:35, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I always took it to mean that the person who holds an object is assumed to be the rightful owner, unless proof to the contrary is presented (which only happens, say 10% of the time). StuRat 20:06, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

StuRat is right, at least according to dictionaries of proverbs and sayings. It means that having control of it is most of what it takes to have it by right. The law is less likely to evict than to award land, for example. See also, "It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission." Geogre 20:33, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

• I don't know what you mean by "the law is less likely to evict." At least in the United States, the law is that if you don't pay your rent, the landlord has to go to the court to evict you and the law doesn't do anything to hinder your eviction — it is pretty quick and stays on the public records. If it were less likely to evict, no one would pay any rent. It is just that the landlord has to do it legally as opposed to showing up with a shotgun and booting you out unilaterally.

• Rental isn't "possession", the landlord possesses the house, so has most of the rights. StuRat 23:46, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The basic point is that in a lawful and civil society it is easier to keep wealth. While where there is no law, physical might and access to a nearest machine gun makes right.

Let me put it more simply, how many people do you personally know have succeeded in obtaining other people's wealth for no legitimate reason? I just can't recall the name of the guy who unsuccessfully sued Bill Gates for money and got embarrassed.--Patchouli 22:03, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What is the copyright status of Zorro?

I find copyright for characters somewhat confusing. The creator generally owns the copyright, unless he sells it or created the character for somebody else (like Marvel). Then there are all the associated works by others using the character.

Zorro was created by a guy who died in 1958, and I think copyright in the U.S. is usually author's life plus 50 years, so Zorro should be public domain in a year and a half. Is this correct?

Sony Pictures apparently claimed it has the "exclusive license to develop and distribute all films and television programs based on “Zorro.”" I haven't found anything about the outcome of that case, though. Mr. Billion 00:05, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

So: Who "owns" Zorro? Is there an official Zorro site? There's this, but I'm not sure how "official" that actually is.

The whole idea is farcical; The Curse of Capistrano was published in 1919, and anything published before 1923 in the U.S. is in the public domain. There are no exceptions to this.--Pharos 00:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Pharos. --Mr. Billion 04:31, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

canadian elections

This is an ambitious project: multiple users would be a good idea.

I'd like to compile a history of newspaper endorsements of canadian political parties during election campaigns. There's currently an article for the 2006 election, but no others. It would be fascinating to see which newspapers endorsed whom, and if possible, when and why. Any takers?

History of Bankers

I am trying to find any names of bankers from 700BC to 400 AD

Probably all Chinese, but that's just a guess. DirkvdM 08:08, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

History of the garter?

Can anyone tell me the history of the American wedding tradition of tossing the garter? The Wikipedia article doesn't seem to help much. The Jade Knight 03:18, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Yvon Neptune

Is Yvon Neptune still alive? Does anybody know? Melty Rox

[22] would seem to indicate that he is.-gadfium 04:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Supreme Court in Australia

Why is the Supreme Court in Queensland designed as it is and what is the significance of the design and court protocols?(eg the position of the judge, the Crown Prosecutor, Defence Counsel, jury, accused and toher parties to the court proceedings) Any help/Appropriate websites would be of great help. Thankyou--203.134.189.38 03:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)James

Abstract Art

What do you call this?: http://www.3dcafe.com/components/com_ponygallery/img_pictures/originals/theclimb.jpg

I've seen art featuring the same idea as this one, but what is the single piece of art that inspired this one? --user:valuefreeperson2

Relativity (M. C. Escher).-gadfium 04:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

YES! Thank you! --user:valuefreeperson2

July 16

Common tree in California

I recently visited California, and noticed a particular tree that was planted in San Diego, Santa Monica, and San Francisco. It was commonly planted along the streets in these cities. It had white-ish bark and green leaves. Anyone know what the specific tree is? --Un sogno modesto 06:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Does Rich People care about getting max benefit for their money for small value items?

Hybrid Benz for 2008 From: Agence France-Presse From correspondents in Berlin

July 16, 2006

THE first hybrid Mercedes car will be launched at the start of 2008, German-US parent company DaimlerChrysler said overnight, in an effort to tap into a growing market as consumers look to cut their fuel bills.

My question is this: Does rich people care about getting value for money even if the amount (for the item) is less than $20 dollars. By rich, I'm refering to the top 10% of the population by income.

Ohanian 06:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

New products are often first sold as novelties. The rich are a good source of money, but they don't care as much about actual advantages as they do about the status it gives them. "Hey, I've got this new thing. A hybrid car! You don't have that yet, do you?" (pittiful look on face). This is a bit exaggerated, but there is often a bit of that in the decision to buy something - the wish to stand out. Especially with a car, the ultimate dick extension status symbol. Though a disadvantage here might be that saving fuel is considered a bit of a left-wing thing, and rich people don't generally want to be associated with that. So my guess is that any commercials at this stage (for the expensive cars) will focus more on the novelty value than the fuel savings. DirkvdM 08:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say it depends on if they are "new rich" or "old rich". People who started out poor and are now rich got that way largely by careful budgetting, and remain that way when they are rich. An exception might be people who got rich "the easy way", by winning lotteries or lawsuits. Those who inherited their wealth tend not to know the value of money and squander it frivolously. George Bush, Sr., for example, had no idea what a loaf of bread costs, since he was too rich to ever worry about such "trivial matters". An interesting example of this is when a 10% luxury tax was added to things like yachts in the US. The politicians had thought the rich could easily afford it and wouldn't care, but sales of those items plummetted after the tax went into effect, showing many rich people are watching their money carefully. StuRat 11:30, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Nasrallah's Investments

Why hasn't the Lebanese government seized Hasan Nasrallah's bank account. If Nasrallah was so loaded those youths wouldn't have money to march back and forth with ammunition attached to their chests and arms. They on Nasrallah's payroll."--Patchouli 08:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page"

Book shown in Napoleon Dynamite

In the film Napoleon Dynamite, there is a book briefly show that has some odd title which I believe is related to cryptozoology. The book is never directly discussed. My vague memory is that it's an entitled "Bigfoot and Me"-- but a google doesn't find enough hits for that to be exactly. What is the title of the book? --Alecmconroy 09:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Calendar system

Which calender celebrates/counts 11,22,33,44... years anniversary? I have heard of this some time ago, but can´t remember the calendars name.

Would be greatful for an answer.

--Tls99lli 10:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Damnatio memoriae- Hatshepsut

Hi. I've been looking for images of evidence of Damnatio Memoriae of Hatshepsut, but can't find any. If anyone could help me out in finding some images of the erasure and destruction of her name, image or monuments: please let me know..

THANKS!

gelo 12:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Aircraft Identification

Could anyone identify this aircraft, ie, Manufcaturer and Model: http://www.studioeleven.info/library/image/waddington_2006/IMG_7452.JPG

Thanks,

--86.137.228.26 12:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)