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October 15

Hillary Clinton and the Merrick Garland supreme court nomination

Has Hillary Clinton expressed any plans or views as the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme court? Has she said whether, if she wins the Presidency, she intends to stick with the nomination? Surely some media interviewer would have asked her the question at some stage, given that the issue will inevitably end up in her presidency's lap (barring an unlikely Trump victory, or the almost equally unlikely event of congress actually acting on Obama's nomination of Garland)?

If she's been silent or noncommittal on the issue, have any analysts of note expressed any opinions as to whether she will once again nominate Garland, or will she nominate someone else? And if the answer is the latter, whom do they think are the most likely candidates? 110.140.69.137 (talk) 15:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

The speculation in the press (I heard an NPR discussion to this effect) has been that Obama nominated him because he is somewhat moderate, and in this way he hoped to get a hearing. Hillary, on the other hand, could elect somebody more liberal, with the confidence that Republicans, even if they still have a majority, won't block a nominee for another 4 or perhaps 8 years. Republicans might see this coming if Hillary wins, and quickly approve Garland before Hillary gets in. However, if they don't do this and do refuse to consider any Hillary nominee, we could have a Constitutional crisis, where neither party will consider a nominee from the other party, so that no Supreme Court judges can be replaced until Congress and the President are of the same party. I suppose the Court could continue to function until it drops to 1 justice, but not with 0 (however, it seems to function better with an odd number of Justices, as then there can't be any ties). StuRat (talk) 16:27, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Per Title 28 of the United States Code, a quorum of 6 is required for the US Supreme Court to hear a case. -- ToE 17:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Interesting. I wonder if Congress and the President would strike that down, in the event that they couldn't agree on replacements. Or you could have the bizarre situation where it is struck down by the Supreme court as unconstitutional, if it has the effect of dissolving the Court. StuRat (talk) 17:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Has the constitutionality of the quorum position ever been seriously tested? As a co-equal branch of government, I have had the impression that the Supreme Court took a dim view of the other branches telling them how to conduct their business. Dragons flight (talk) 23:26, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Mike Lee explains why the GOP will block Garland even if Clinton wins ^{WaPo, 13 Oct. 2016}

Clinton has carefully avoided committing to renominate Garland, and it seems likely that she would appoint someone who is younger and has a more progressive track record. Indeed, many activists on the left would go apoplectic if she stuck with the chief judge from the D.C. Circuit. There is a widespread feeling on the left that Obama squandered a big political opportunity by going with someone who he thought could get confirmed in the lame-duck session.

Not mentioned in that article is that the Republicans might be more inclined to approve Garland if the Democrats also win control of the Senate, as now seems somewhat more likely than not. Here is FiveThirtyEight's senate control forecast. -- ToE 20:40, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Does the nomination survive into the new presidency?

The bit of the Constitution where it talks about nominating Supreme Court justices says that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint" them. Is it obvious whether or not a nomination by one president can lead to an appointment by another? I don't think it's obvious. Assume that nothing happens until after the elections; is the new Senate required to vote on Garland's nomination before the new president can consider nominating someone else? If so, could they accept Garland at that time even if the new president would rather cancel the nomination? Is there any sort of case law on this point? (The same wording applies several other offices besides the Supreme Court; perhaps there has been a case regarding those other offices.) --69.159.61.230 (talk) 06:33, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

See What happens to Merrick Garland’s nomination in December?.^{WaPo, 6 Oct. 2016} The nomination will expire when congress adjourns -- likely in December, but necessarily before noon on 3 January. President Obama could then renominate Judge Garland sometime before he leaves office on 20 January, and this nomination would survive into the next presidency, though the next president could withdraw the nomination. -- ToE 13:31, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that covers everything except the question of whether there's case law. --69.159.61.230 (talk) 22:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I suspect U.S. courts would regard the internal procedures of the Senate as a political question not reviewable by the courts. Congress's procedures for conducting its own business aren't laws. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court in Nixon v. United States ruled that the judicial branch has no power to review impeachments. (Note that case didn't involve Richard Nixon, but a completely different person who happened to have the same last name.) You are correct in observing that the Constitution is silent on the exact mechanics of a nomination, which is really why things are in the situation they are in. Technically there ain't no law that says the Senate must hear a Supreme Court nomination, so the Senate Republicans are pushing at the limits of precedent to placate their far-right base that thinks Obama is an evil dictator. This is the kind of thing that leads to constitutional crises. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 12:15, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Archibald Forbes decorations

Archibald Forbes

Can anyone identify the decorations worn by Archibald Forbes, the war correspondent, in this picture of him? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 20:26, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Top row is allegedly Order of St. Stanislas from Russia; the Iron Cross 2nd Class for Non-Combatants; the civil class of the Pour Le Mérite; and the French Legion of Honor. [1] --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

And others have walked this way before: Archibald Forbes: Medal ID Exercise and this article. With some judgement, that might account for 12 or so of them. It would be interesting to complete the matrix on this page ... and I note that the forum age seems to disagree with the cigarette card page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:36, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah thank you, will have a close read of those and see if I can sort them out. DuncanHill (talk) 06:41, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

What is the name of this kind of fallacy?

What is the name of the fallacy type that works like this:
Thing A has characteristic B
PS: More than one stuff stuff can share same word/name, and so some words can have multiple meanings. B is one example of that and the definition used for B was C.
Thing D apply to everything that has characteristic B.
PS:Now, the definition of B on this new case is E.
So D must apply to A.
201.18.142.36 (talk) 21:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Equivocation is the technical term. The example from our article is:

A feather is light.

What is light cannot be dark.

Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.

Tevildo (talk) 21:33, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

(ec)Your question is a bit hard to parse for me. The general scheme $B(a)\wedge \forall X:(B(X)\Rightarrow D(X))\vdash D(a)$ is sound - indeed, the classical example for this syllogism is "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal". Do you want to suggest that the "B" is different in both cases? As in "All stars are giant balls of hydrogen. Patrick Steward is a star. Therefore Patrick Steward is a giant ball of hydrogen"? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:59, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Tevildo , Equivocation is the one. Yes your patrick exemple would be one example of what I was thinking.201.18.142.36 (talk) 22:21, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally, if we miss out the B term and go straight from C to E, we get the quaternio terminorum fallacy - to adapt an example from above:

Hitler was a National Socialist.

Socialists are left-wing.

Hitler was left-wing.

The conclusion may (or may not) be true, but the logic is invalid. Tevildo (talk) 22:38, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

That particular case would also be caused by an underlying etymological fallacy which leads to the equivocation which leads to the quaternio terminorum. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 05:49, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The one I remember was "Nothing is better than everlasting love. A ham sandwich is better than nothing. Therefore, a ham sandwich is better than everlasting love". 50.0.205.96 (talk) 04:50, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Joint dormitories for men and women in army

Not long ago I heard that a certain army, possibly the Belgian Armed Forces, once faced issues of sexual harassment of female soldiers and decided to resolve them by increasing the social interaction between males and females, particularly by creating joint dormitories, and that it worked. I'd like to check this claim and see how specifically it was implemented but I couldn't find any reference in Google. Has anyone here ever heard of it? Thanks, 84.108.121.108 (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Are you sure you're thinking of the Belgian Armed Forces? I don't know if the Belgian Armed Forces have mixed/unisex dormitories but the Norwegian Armed Forces or at least the Norwegian Army seem well known for it including the finding it appeared to reduce sexual assaults & harassment, and also increase unit cohesiveness. [2] [3] [4] [5]. [6] is an English report of the study. See also [7] [8] [9] [10]. BTW the first four links were found with a search for 'armed forces reducing sexual harassment dormitory' after 'Belgian armed forces reducing sexual harassment dormitory' didn't find anything useful under the assumption that the country involved is something easy to misremember & perhaps the most likely thing of the details that you mentioned. In retrospect 'belgian armed forces unisex dormitory' or 'belgian armed forces mixed dormitory' both work. In fact even '"belgian" armed forces unisex dormitory' and '"belgian" armed forces mixed dormitory' find stuff about Norway. Nil Einne (talk) 23:40, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

BTW 'belgian armed forces joint dormitory' and '"belgian" armed forces joint dormitory' don't work, although 'norwegian armed forces joint dormitory' does. If you try searching for 'joint dormitory' or '"joint dormitory"', you'll find it's not a very common term in English for what you're referring to. Also I probably should link to [11] and [12]. Nil Einne (talk) 01:46, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Virgin Mary Parades

• http://specphotos.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Festival-of-the-Virgin-Mary3031.jpg

How do people call the parade platform and statute of Virgin Mary? -- Toytoy (talk) 22:20, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

The "statute" is just a statue. The platform could be called a type of litter, though "litter" normally means it carries a person rather than a statue. An Italian word is it:fercolo, which is specifically a platform for a saint's statue in a procession, but may be carried by people, animal, cart, or motor vehicle. More ornate ones are called it:cereo. jnestorius^(talk) 01:00, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, see Wiktionary:litter, definition number 1: "A platform mounted on two shafts, or a more elaborate construction, designed to be carried by two (or more) people to transport one (in luxury models sometimes more) third person(s) or (occasionally in the elaborate version) a cargo, such as a religious idol." Catholics would be offended by "idol" and may prefer "image" or "icon" although the latter is usually applied to paintings in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Our Aniconism in Christianity article has more details. Alansplodge (talk) 11:49, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia coverage of this type of event is a bit slim, we have Marian devotions#Processions, which only mentions one example in Los Angeles. Alansplodge (talk) 08:59, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

• Christian procession has more; it's any saint, not just Mary. commons:Category:Processions has subcats commons:Category:Processional carriages commons:Category:Processional litters and commons:Category:Processional canopies though all, especially litters, are underpopulated.
• Here's a user on WordReference.com giving terms used in Spain.

jnestorius^(talk) 12:06, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I have added "see also|Procession#Christian processions" to the Marian devotions article. Alansplodge (talk) 14:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm surprised the cult statue article doesn't mention processions with litters, nor have a section on the ancient Near East, where such processions were a standard part of religious life and features of major festivals like the Akitu. (See, for example, this Assyrian relief.) Ushumgal (talk) 12:19, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

October 16

Popish Plot

Line 4: Church in England read: Church of England — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.0.242.152 (talk) 09:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I disagree. The church Henry VIII took over was the (Roman Catholic) Church in England. By doing so he turned it into the (non- RC) Church of England. Before the reformation it was accepted that there was a single church in communion with Rome, and that more local structures were that single church IN a particular country. Wymspen (talk) 10:07, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the article is Popish Plot. I concur with User:Wymspen - perhaps there is scope for an article Pre-Reformation Church in England, but that will have to wait for a rainy day (well, even rainier than today!). PS: I've already found a source: The Pre-Reformation Church in England 1400-1530 by Christopher Harper-Bill (1989). Alansplodge (talk) 11:37, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

North Korea.

I have a question. Why has North Korea been deemed such a threat/problem for regional stability in East Asia? --Poing-PoBongino (talk) 13:48, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Please start by reading North Korea–South Korea relations and Japan–North Korea relations. Alansplodge (talk) 14:12, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The two Koreas are still technically at war, as a peace treaty has never been signed, only an armistice that halted the fighting. Beyond that, see Korean conflict. North Korea has one of the world's largest militaries, regularly threatens to restart the fighting and engages in various provocations, is trying to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems for them, and since the end of the Cold War and thus food aid from the Soviet Union and other friendly countries has been unable to adequately feed its population. Many commentators consider North Korea a near-failed state; when Kim Jong-un succeeded to the leadership there was some speculation about a collapse of the government or civil war, as some felt Jong-un would be inexperienced and unable to maintain effective control over the military, but it turns out he may actually be more ruthless than his father in eliminating perceived disloyalty. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 14:17, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens is also interesting. Although it happened decades ago, they still deny most of the kidnappings ever occurred. The axe murder incident is another reason they are considered a rogue nation. But, to take the big picture, their continued threats against South Korea and Japan may ultimately make each nation feel they need nuclear weapons to protect themselves from NK nukes, causing a new round of nuclear proliferation. StuRat (talk) 22:38, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Short answer: because it's Kim-possible to predict what they'll do next or what boundary they'll cross. They're like the Donald Trump of nations. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:02, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Their current god-emperor is the third of a dynasty of sociopathic nutcases. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

October 17

Malcolm Lowry eating Harriet Lane

WHile researching James Johnston Abraham, the author of a book I've just acquired, I ran across the following quotation from the Malcolm Lowry novel Ultramarine "Now I was telling you about this hungry ship. We were carrying a cargo of Crosse and bloody Blackwell's plum puddings and tinned chickens and all sorts out East for the Christmas season. Ruddy murder it was to think of all that food under the hatches and us poor twats forward eating Harriet Lane all the time. What did he mean by "eating Harriet Lane"? DuncanHill (talk) 00:22, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

This post from the Gutted Arcades of the Past blog explains it:

"Harriet Lane" refers to sailors calling canned meat by that name after a famous murder in 1874. Henry Wainwright was a brushmaker who murdered his mistress Harriet Lane in September 1874 and buried her body in a warehouse he owned. When he was declared bankrupt the next year, he disinterred the body in September 1875 and attempted to rebury it with his brother Thomas and another brushmaker, Alfred Stokes. Stokes was suspicious of the contents of the parcels he had been given to carry, and opened one, revealing human body parts, which he immediately reported to police. The crime was given more publicity at the time than those of Jack the Ripper. Henry Wainwright was sentenced to death and hanged on 21 December 1875.

Might be worth mentioning the Harriet Lane-canned meat connection at the Henry Wainwright article. There is a shanty about Harriet Lane at www.shanty.org.uk/pdfbox/andy_mckay/HarrietLane.pdf and an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang here --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 00:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Splendid work, many thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 00:52, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Rebury it where? Bus stop (talk) 03:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

• Royal Navy slang often repurposed the names of famous murder victims to describe unpalatable food - Fanny Adams is the most famous example, but there's also the generic Jane Shore (rhyming slang for "whore"). Smurrayinchester 12:07, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

It occurs to me, based on the initials, that perhaps the language is also suggestive of Hellish Leftovers. Bus stop (talk) 13:24, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Dark magic in kabalah

Can any dark magic be found in kabalah?AndrewAngel1024 (talk) 03:09, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

That would depend entirely on your definitions of dark magic and Kabbalah, as well as which authors you consult. Concerning just the latter two issues, do you mean just Jewish Kabbalah, or are you including Hermetic Qabalah? If you're including Hermetic Qabalah, are you restricting yourself to just its adherents who also identified as members of Abrahamic religions, or are you including Theosophists, Neopagans, Thelemites, and Chaos Magicians?

Someone like Isaac Luria might deny that real Kabbalah has practical magic (and that any practical magic is not truly Kabbalistic). Someone like Samael Aun Weor or Helena Blavatsky might say that true Kabbalah can only lead to some kind of white magic that brings enlightenment and maybe some sort of parapsychological benefits but not any sort of practical rituals. Someone like Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Aleister Crowley, or Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers might say it depends on how you use it or that it's unrelated but still necessary for understanding practical ritual magic. Someone like Malaclypse the Younger might instruct you to find the answer by dancing like a turkey. Someone like Thomas Karlsson, Andrew D. Chumbley, or Michael Howard might say that if you're not using Kabbalah for black magic, you're not doing it right. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I can't provide a source, but as a jew, I've heard that in Jewish kaballah, there is a concept of "practical kaballah" - calling upon the angels to do your will, or using certain holy divine names to make things happen. An actual example, according to the authorities, is Moses killing the Egyptian who was beating the Jewish slave - according to some, he uttered the holy name of god, and the Egyptian dropped dead. However, Jewish teaching is that to actually make use of "practical kaballah" is to play with fire, and those who do such things have bad things happen to them, such as their children going astray from Judaism (or other horrible things perhaps). Generally, assuming you have these skills, it's something you just don't do if you know what's good for you. Also note, that according to Jewish teaching, most people should be extremely cautious about studying kaballah at all - many who do so die at a young age. Notable examples from different eras would be Isaac Luria (The "Arizal" - died aged 38), Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (the "Ramchal" - died aged 39) and, in recent times, Aryeh Kaplan (died aged 48). None, to my knowledge, dabbled in "practical kaballah". They stuck to teaching how to get close to god, and how god runs the world. They never tried to manipulate god or the angels. But nevertheless, all were noted kaballists (and the first two were extremely holy people, according to Jewish teaching), and all died relatively young. So basically, if you want a long life, stay away. To study this stuff is to enter the presence of the king (i.e. god) himself, so to speak, and judgement of those who do so can be harsh. The ONE famous exception in Jewish teaching was Rabbi Akiva - Jewish tradition is that he entered the most sacred realms, and was alone in being allowed to leave unscathed. Others who tried his path in his time either died, went mad, or abandoned Judaism. 110.140.69.137 (talk) 14:00, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Why's Australia much less conservative than America?

Australia: "No American republican would stand a chance in any other developed country except maybe a moderate republican in maybe Australia. Maybe. But I doubt it." - (Ashley John Land)

US: 43% of Americans tell pollsters they'll vote for Trump. He's winning most non-coastal states. [13]. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

See Conservatism in Australia. In Australia, the conservative movement has historically been dominated by liberals (in the European small-government, free-market sense) which meant that there was less room for social conservatism. That's changed a bit recently, as Australian politics has adopted more European/American ideas - the left has shifted to a pro-market Third Way position, which has meant that the liberals had to take a more conservative standpoint to differentiate themselves - and, as it came to rely on fossil fuel and mineral exports, under John Howard the government took a very US-Republican attitude to environmental issues. Smurrayinchester 3:55 pm, Today (UTC+8)

Not sure about your reference to Europe: the Conservative Party (UK) has been pretty small-l liberal in recent years, in terms of concrete policy positions in many ways it's significant further left compared to the Liberal Party in Australia. I'm not sure there is any major Western European country where the conservative party is as far on the spectrum as the US Republican Party. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:29, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I more was talking about the Australian left picking up Clinton/Blair-style social democracy, which then necessitated a corresponding shift from the Liberals. Nevertheless, most European countries have a socially-conservative, anti-liberalism Christian Democrat-type movement which fuses moral conservatism with social democracy (including the British Conservatives pre-Thatcher - see One-nation conservatism - and even when Thatcher came along, she didn't really change the back-to-basics morality). The British Tories remained old-fashioned (and increasingly out of touch) on social issues through the leadership of Hague and IDS, started to modernize under Michael Howard, but only really became liberal on social issues under Cameron post-2005, which is after John Howard lost power in Australia. There's never been an a major analogous movement in Australia - see Christian democracy#Australia - but under John Howard the Liberal/National alliance did start to become Thatcherite (as our article notes, John Howard is the first Australian PM to call himself "conservative" instead of "liberal"). Of course European and American conservatives aren't the same, but that there is a common thread of social conservatism that was less significant in traditional (pre-90s) Australian conservatism. Smurrayinchester 10:31, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

(Also, it may be more pertinent might be to ask why America is so much more conservative (or at least, why American conservatives are further right) than other European and Commonwealth countries, which America's political system is otherwise quite similar to. As Conservatism in the United States says, US politics actually followed a similar trajectory to Australia, but social conservatives did a better job of taking control of the formerly classical-liberal party. Maybe it helped that the US has a stricter separation of powers than Australia, and between 1980 and 2000, the two main branches of government were almost always opposed (Democratic House of Representatives until 1994, then a Republican House but Republican Presidents until 1992, then a Dem President), which created the governmental deadlocks that allowed culture war to thrive. In Australia, the PM always controls the House, so political polarization matters less.) Smurrayinchester 10:35, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

[Banned user's contribution deleted]

A conservative paper supporting Brexit suggests the Tories have moved further to the right? How does that compute? Does the fact that the Lib Dems were the strongest Remain supporters suggest they are now further left than Labour? By all accounts there were more Brexit supporters amongst Tory voters than amongst Labour voters, and given that a majority of the country ended up voting for Leave, it should not have been surprising that the Telegraph endorsed "Leave". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:27, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

For about the 25,926th time, a majority of the country did not vote for Leave. 37% of the electorate voted for Leave, 35% voted for Remain, and 28% did not vote at all. Those figures should be engraved on every Brit's heart. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:47, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

An optional voting system gives you the option to abstain, and those who abstain, like the insane except voluntarily, don't count as part of the body politic for the purpose of counting this vote. 52% of the body politic voted for Leave. This is the same in every British election or referendum, it seems to me that your beef should be with the optional voting system rather than anything to do with this particular referendum, so I'm not sure why 35% is any more worthy of engraving on body parts than 48%. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:52, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

My boeuf was the fact that you claimed that "a majority of the country ended up voting for Leave", which is untrue - unless you regard people who didn't vote, children, etc., as not "of the country". Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:53, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

One must also factor in that the "Bible Belt" phenomenon is uniquely American. No other country has a significant population of gun-toting bible bashers. The types of hot button political issues for this sector of American society such as gun rights, opposition to abortion, creationism, etc. barely feature in the political agendas of any other western democracies. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:08, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

This is a good point, although it's interesting that until the 70s, this community wasn't all that influential in the political mainstream (they were just another brick in the New Deal Coalition). But when the Democrats went desegregation, the Republicans swept in with the Southern strategy to pick up the alienated white working-class Southerners, and Moral Majority picked up from there. Smurrayinchester 11:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

My sense is that it wasn't until the US started to experience its now-regular mass shootings that the gun lobby became so powerful. After people began to argue for much more stringent gun control in order to limit the possibility of more shootings, the gun lobby argued that defence of life and limb in the face of the shootings was exactly why ever more guns were needed. While ever one side sees the ready availability of guns as the cause of the problem and the other side sees it as the solution, there will be no resolution. After the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, Australians by-and-large willingly agreed to surrender their guns for destruction. Twenty years on, there has been no repeat of such an event here. Otoh, Category:Mass shootings in the United States by year tells a radically different story. Just 2016 alone in the USA has had more mass shootings than Australia has had in its entire history. Whether this difference in approach/outcome can be characterised by different levels of conservatism in our respective countries is an open question, but it must play some role. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I wonder what role geography plays. Those on the coasts (primarily the US East and West coasts, not as much the Gulf coast) had constant exposure to new immigrants, and their ideas, so the more recent liberal ideas may have made more inroads there than far from the coasts, as in Iowa, which kept to the old ways. Comparing with Australia, isn't it true that the Outback has a low population, and thus little influence on the politics of the nation ? The US interior, on the other hand, has a larger population, and even more political power than their numbers would indicate, because every state gets 2 Senators, regardless of population. And Australia, being an island, has coasts on all sides. StuRat (talk) 14:08, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Are you saying that all US immigrants come from the sea via the coasts and none of the come from the Canadian or Mexican land borders? Wasn't this question partially relating to Trump? Nil Einne (talk) 14:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

All, no. Most, yes. And the more liberal immigrants tend to come from Europe, not so much from South of the US (Hispanics tend to vote Democratic not because they are liberal, but because Republicans like Trump make them feel most unwelcome in that party). Canada does tend to be more liberal than the US, but the immigration from Canada is fairly small, and it might tend to favor conservatives, as liberal Canadians should be happy to stay put. StuRat (talk) 20:40, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

About Hispanics not being liberal. I didn't see evidence of conservative values in the people I went to school with (mostly Hispanic). In church sure, one likely wouldn't go to Catholic Mass every Sunday if one was liberal right? Is there a regional difference in this? There's probably also a generational difference. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:48, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

You're missing my point. You've implied that Australian being all coastal somehow makes immigration easier or more likely which flies in the face of many immigrants come from the land borders, especially in recent times, in the US. (In modern times many immigrants who aren't coming by land don't come by sea, they come by plane.) Further, you've muddied your point even more by now bringing up politics. How many European immigrants are going to be coming by boat to the West Coast of the US? Speaking of Australia although coastal a lot of it is actually not very close to any land where immigrants are likely to come from. While I'm not an expert on the sea currents and ocean voyages, I'm pretty sure I'd be easier for immigrants to make it to the northern part of Western Australia or the Northern Territory or Northern Queesland or in some cases even Perth, then it would be to make it to Melbourne or in some cases even Sydney. However the later 2 are where they tend to go. Of course the White Australia policy was only completely dismantled by 1973, by which time it's likely most were arriving by plane rather than sea. In a place like Australia with limited transport over land, travelling to Melbourne or Sydney by boat is generally easier than over land, but still talking about "Australia being all coastal" but the US isn't "all coastal" but instead has land borders is clearly excessively simplistics. The differences between population distributions could be a factor but there are many reasons for this and putting it down to Australia being all coastal is again too simplistic. Nil Einne (talk) 00:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

File:Asiatic Barred Zone.png

The Asiatic Barred Zone of 1917-1952

The US had a similar policy from the early 1920s to 1965. A series of laws were passed with names like the Emergency Quota Act. They set low annual immigrant quotas which were very low for non-white countries. A correlation with settling in or near port cities and Mexico continued even after the disappearance of oceanliners. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:42, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

There are conservative values that go along with being Catholic, like opposition to Roe v. Wade. StuRat (talk) 00:39, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Even my mother's very devout 70 year old Polish Catholic friend didn't say did you vote, she said did you vote for Kerry like it was a no brainer. She was the kind of person who thought morals had gone so bad that Revelation might happen within decades and hopes God will make the world like the old days before electricity. She told us if she had Bill Gates' wealth she'd use nearly all of it to build a cathedral 2 or 3 times as tall as the Twin Towers (so 1/2 to one mile tall and long basically) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:10, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

As for your first point, sure and that re-enforces the view that making a big deal over the coastline is confusing. As for the second point, yes there are reasons why this can occur but it's complicated, e.g. Dallas isn't a coastal city [14]. (This is even clearer if you look at other countries. E.g. London isn't coastal.) Nil Einne (talk) 08:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC) P.S. In retrospect Lyon or even Paris is probably a better example than London. I'm sure you can come up with even more inland examples though. Of course the geography, nature of transportation in Europe, freedom of movement, etc means as we've seen a lot in recent times that immigration over the land borders was and remains a decent prospect for France or much of continential Europe. Nil Einne (talk) 15:38, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

I was in a bit of a rush when writing the above so I should clarify I was of course primarily thinking about immigrants from Asia, although I expect immigrants from Europe are likely to find the listed places easier to get to too if going by sea. Immigrants from North America may not find Sydney too bad although I expect North Queensland is still better. NZ is one of the few places from which immigrants by sea may find the coasts of Melbourne or Sydney a good target, but even if the entirety of NZ's population migrates to Australia it would only increase the Australian population by 20%. A big amount for sure, but this does indicate there are ultimate limits to migration from NZ. Also I should mention that despite the increaing migration from Asia and the weird view of those opposed to migration, the UK and NZ are still the biggest source for the resident population born overseas (Immigration to Australia#Country of birth of Australian residents). Nil Einne (talk) 08:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The part of the coastalness that matters is presumably whether passenger ships let you get off there and whether they're one of the bigger cities in the industrialized portion of the continent after passenger ships get replaced by airplanes. People often want to go big for some reason. Los Angeles is a popular destination even though San Diego's in the way and close enough to walk in one day (before they built fences everywhere). Many Puerto Ricans weren't content to fly to the closer Miami but settled in the largest city in America instead. I've heard of someone South American immigrating by flying to Miami then sitting on a bus for over 2,000 kilometers just to get New York (though the bus was pointless as the extra food equaled the fare saved). Dallas is the biggest US city without a port by metro population (#7). It's the biggest city by metro pop in Texas which has a border with Mexico so if there's a lot of immigrants there that's not a surprise. Immigrants will be less and less correlated to port metro areas and border zones as time goes by. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:14, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Immigration patterns suffer from a social form of the founder effect. There isn't always a logical reason for a particular group to settle, in a concentrated way, in one area excepting that there were a few pioneers from that particular group that settled there. Some settlement patterns make total sense (Latin Americans in New Mexico and California and Texas, French Canadians in New England) because of proximity effects. However, if you have to cross an ocean to get somewhere, there isn't any inherent rational reason why one city or area of a country is better than another excepting "they have jobs" and/or "there are people nearby who are like me", which is the biggest such factor. Consider places like Dearborn, Michigan (Middle Eastern), Lowell, Massachusetts (Cambodian), Morrisville, North Carolina (South Asian). There's nothing particular about, say, Lowell that would indicate it to be a likely locale for the Cambodian diaspora; and yet outside of Cambodia, there are more Cambodians in Lowell than any city in America except Long Beach, CA, which is a much larger city in a much larger coastal port town. Why Lowell? Because some refugees showed up in the 1970s, probably rather randomly, and then more followed. That's about it. It isn't a port town, it isn't on the West Coast, it isn't otherwise a major city for immigrants in general. --Jayron32 19:04, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

(StuRat beat me to it) The states on the Mexican border are indeed turning Democratic. California hasn't gone Republican in a presidential election since the Cold War, New Mexico hasn't gone Republican since 2004, Arizona could go Democratic for the first time in a while this year and Texas probably has too many conservatives for newcomners to dilute them quickly enough for the Democrat to win by 2016. 27.5 million people live in Texas and only 18% of white Texans voted Obama last time. They'll be a swing state by an Olympiad or three.

Most of the states bordering Canada are liberal but many would still be liberal without Canadians and most are coastal anyway (many immigrants got off the boat on the western tip of the Great Lakes). Canadian immigration is not a big factor. Only 2% of foreign born residents are Canadian and only 1% of Americans claim Canadian descent or birth. The interior states bordering Canada are cold like the other side, have pretty Rockies like the other side, are less rich than Alberta, have oil like Alberta, have prairies and farms like Saskatchewan, have rural life like the other side, have rivers and lakes like Manitoba, play similar sports .. there's not much the interior border states have that Canada doesn't besides.. Republican-strength conservatives. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:33, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

The Canadian emigres include the good, the bad and the ugly. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:55, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Another element is the migration of British industrial workers to Australia, who brought their values with them. "Trade unionism began to take root in this country [Australia] in the 1850’s following the abolition of convict transportation. Tradesmen and mechanics coming from Britain established craft unions in the building and engineering trades.... From 1860 to 1890 the young unions displayed great militancy and won many concessions from the employers. Seamen, waterside workers and other sections formed unions. Up to 1890 conditions favoured the unions; capitalism was expanding and it was cheaper for employers to grant concessions rather than face lengthy stoppages". This quote is admittedly from the Marxist Internet Archive but seems to hit the nail on the head. Mass British working-class migration continued into the 1970s, see Ten Pound Poms. Alansplodge (talk) 14:19, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Menzies Dickson

I am trying to corroborate Menzies Dickson obituary which said he served in the navy during the American Civil War but after searching the list of enlistment of men from Massachusetts who served in the Union Navy I can't find his name. He also lived in Cincinnati but I don't think he was there until after the war. Can someone help to find more sources speaking about this individual? Also a possible obituary for him in Massachusetts or New England newspapers?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:16, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Google says he was an acting Master's mate [15]. Nanonic (talk) 2:47 pm, Today (UTC+8)

October 18

Why there is no article about Antisemitism or racism in Iran?

I wonder why there is no separate article about Antisemitism in Iran. Antisemitism in Iran is actually a redirect to Antisemitism#Iran. And Racism in Iran is again a redirect to Racism_in_Asia#Iran. Is there something wrong here? 46.225.10.109 (talk) 05:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

These are not long enough for separate articles, so it's more appropriate to include them in something of more suitable length. IBE (talk) 08:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Name of the weapon

What is this weapon held by two figures flanking the woman? Looks like some sort of club, rather than bladed. A vajra? --Brandmeister^talk 08:01, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The story - Tilottama - just says clubs. Wymspen (talk) 08:22, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

J. A. B. van Buitenen uses "horrible clubs" in his translation of the Mahabharata. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

If anyone finds a specific name for it might be worth adding to this list Club (weapon)#Types. MarnetteD|Talk 15:27, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

One that's missing on that list is the gada, but most depictions of gadas show a weapon with a more bulbous head compared to the shaft we see in Brandmeister's example, even in the example of this sculpture (see Kaumodaki). Then again, maybe the gada doesn't belong on that list as it's also considered a mace, and it does feature in our article on mace along with the shishpar. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:34, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Seems to be similar to a Japanese Kanabō, but no luck finding an Indian equivalent. Alansplodge (talk) 13:17, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

But I have just found in this forum an Indian octagonal-section iron mace called a sonta. Alansplodge (talk) 13:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Parable or story referring to a red harness on a white horse, or something similar?

I'm trying to think of a saying or parable or quote I read years ago, to the effect of "(something) is as unfitting to (someone) as ..." and the closest I can remember it is, something like "...like a red bridle on a white horse" or something like that.

I think it could be a well known quote. Any hints? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 09:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

There is "Poverty befits Israel like a red trapping a white horse" in this translation of the Hagigah (and other translations do use "bridle")---Sluzzelin talk 10:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Climate in the Upper Midwest (USA), agriculture, arable lands, opportunities etc. around year 1900

I'm doing a school assignment, writing about this here fictional Norwegian immigrating to USA. For obvious reasons, it is only natural that I place the story in Minnesota or surrounding states (Wisconsin, the Dakotas or Iowa), as that is mainly where Norwegian immigrants settled.

There was a lot of poverty in Norway back in the late 1800s / early 1900s, and agriculture was always hard in such a Northern climate, with lots of mountainous regions, not to mention the lack of agricultural technology that we have today. With Norway being a winter-nation, the search for arable lands was one of the main things that lured Norwegians across the Atlantic.

So I wonder about Minnesota and nearby states around year 1900. It seems to me that the climate in Minnesota ain't that different from Norwegian climate, with proper winters and all, which begs the question; how was agriculture in the Upper Midwest back then?? Were the lands truly arable? What work-opportunities did people have to sustain themselves? I reckon the worst of the Gold Rush was over by then, right. I'm not asking for answers for free, because I will need to find sources to confirm my findings anyhow.

I'm looking for articles that might be helpful to me. If you have information/knowledge to add beyond that, then that's a bonus, and might be helpful

Krikkert7 (talk) 11:58, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Norwegian diaspora has scant detail, but Swedish emigration to the United States has lots of relevant links to what they got up to in the New World, and a lot of that would roughly apply to Norwegians as well. History_of_Minnesota#Early_European_settlement_and_development has some info. Here [16] is what looks like a very nice and detailed description of Euro-American farms in MN in that time period. This [17] looks to be a great resource on Norwegian immigration in that time/place too. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:07, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

(ec) While some parts of Minnesota are similar to Norway (e.g. the Mesabi Range), there is also lots of land suitable for farming in the state, and it was opened up to settlement just as Scandinavians began to emigrate in large numbers. Here's an interesting study on the history of agriculture in the state [18]. You may also want to look at Vilhelm Moberg's classic novel The Emigrants, which explains the lure of the Midwest for poor Swedish farmers in the mid-19th century: it was a veritable land of milk of honey compared to what they were leaving behind. Look also at Swedish emigration to the United States (remembering that Norway was apart of Sweden at the time). --Xuxl (talk) 15:13, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Actually, Norway was a part of Sweden. Today it is apart of Sweden. Isn't the English Language fun! --Jayron32 15:28, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Norway was in a union with Sweden, but was a separate country. Moberg would still be useful. --Hegvald (talk) 14:43, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

And if reading Moberg's books is too hard, you could watch the two movies. Deor (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks guys. That gives me lots to work with. Krikkert7 (talk) 18:53, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Number of people killed at auschwitz

Accord to the article on Auschwitz, the number of people that died at Auschwitz was 1.1 million people. I thought the death toll was 4 million.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Do you have a source or reference for that 4 million figure? Wikipedia's article is cited to these works for the 1.1 million number:

• Rees, Laurence (2005). Auschwitz: A New History. New York: Public Affairs. ISBN 1-58648-303-X.
• Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00239-9.

If you have a source for the 4 million number, perhaps we could understand what the difference is. --Jayron32 16:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

It was in Final Solution:Attempt to exterminate Jews in Europe.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:37, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

And was it specifically about Auschwitz, which was only one of many killing centres? --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

No, it was about the holocaust in general.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:43, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

I can't remember the page number from the top of my head.162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I think it was page 500162.246.17.125 (talk) 16:45, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

This book? Maybe you just misremembered the number... --Jayron32 17:00, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes that's the book.162.246.17.125 (talk) 17:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

According to The review on this page here, "Reitlinger describes the extermination of Jews in great detail, arriving at a probable range of 4.2 to 5.7 million murdered Jews (p. 501)" That's total across the entirety of Europe, not merely just at Auschwitz. Your confusion seems to be total genocide vs. those killed at just one complex. Also please note that Reitlinger's book is 55 years old; his numbers are in range of the current accepted scholarship, but a bit lower, which gives about 6 million Jewish people killed among 11 million total deaths in The Holocaust. --Jayron32 18:17, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

There's no confusion. The plaque at Auschwitz said 4 million until 1992; the number was inflated to suggest that non-Jewish Poles were the primary victims. [19] --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 20:48, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

An identical question was posted on 27 June 2016, possibly by the same person. The answer then (as now) was: "On May 12th, 1945, a few months after the liberation of Auschwitz, a Soviet State Commission reported that not less than four million people were murdered there. This number was displayed at the Auschwitz State Museum until 1991, when it was lowered to 1.1 million. The total death toll for Jews in the Holocaust, however, stayed at about six million". [20] Alansplodge (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Our article on the author of the book, Gerald Reitlinger, covers this perfectly:

During the 1950s he wrote two books about the Holocaust: The SS: Alibi of a Nation and The Final Solution, both of which achieved large sales. In the latter book, he alleged that Soviet claims of the Auschwitz death toll being 4 million were "ridiculous", and he suggested an alternative figure of 800,000 to 900,000 dead; about 4.2 to 4.5 million was his estimate for the total number of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust.[3] Subsequent scholarship has generally increased Reitlinger's conservative figures for death tolls, though his book was still described in 1979 as being "widely regarded as a definitive account".[4]

Happy to help. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 15:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Unease due to lack of mountains

The above question about Scandinavians immigrating to farms in the USA reminded me of a claim I've read about numerous times: people in this group had high incidence of mental illness, which was supposed to be related to seeing expansive land in all directions, i.e. a relatively distant and unbroken horizon, compared to the mountainous views of their homeland. I thought they called it something like "missing mountain sickness", but I've been unable to find much of anything about it today.

The question: What is this phenomenon called? Note I am not at present interested in the veracity of the claim, only in verification that the claim was made, and possibly getting some names for it. Thanks! SemanticMantis (talk) 19:36, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Is it not just an instance of home-sickness? It's not so much the absence of mountains acting like kryptonite, as it is distress at the absence of the once-familiar and an inability to reconcile themselves to their current environment - two things that would seem to be hallmarks of that condition?

Agoraphobia is used for a number of different phobias, sometimes cited as "fear of crowds" but also for "fear of wide-open spaces". --Jayron32 19:49, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Mmm, that's interesting. I dimly recall something I listened to on Radio 4 a while back, about iirc Erving Goffman doing post-doc research on a hebredian island, and working out that the population was anxious because there was no tree cover, which meant that they were all observable by others from long distances away ... it was commonplace for the inhabitants to carry pocket telescopes so that they could periodically check whether anyone was approaching their crofts. Our article suggests that would be found in Communication Conduct in an Island Community (1953) - Erving Goffman#Early works --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:57, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, but no, I recall a phrase specific for this instance, not a general term applied to a case. This blog [21] calls it "horizon sickness", but apparently nobody else does, or it's too swamped with motion sickness, much like mountain sickness is swamped with altitude sickness. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:19, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I apparently only had to ask and wait a bit before it hit me: "prairie madness" is the term I'd read about before, and yes, it is related to home sickness and agorophobia. Other accounts focus on the mountain/flat distinction more than our article. Perhaps User:Krikkert7 will find that of interest as well. Still interested in other terms for this if anyone happens to find one. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:27, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Joan of Arc was not French. Lenin was not Russian.

QI#Culture has this line: "Joan of Arc was not French. Lenin was not Russian." I'm confused. The Joan of Arc article says she was born in the "French part of the duchy of Bar", which makes her French. The Lenin article says he was born in the Russian Empire, to two parents who were both born in the Russian Empire as well.

What am I missing here? Pizza Margherita (talk) 20:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Ethnicity vs. nationality, in Lenin's case; some argue he had no Russian blood in him at all. The duchy of Bar was in Lorraine, which didn't join France until 1776. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 20:43, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Duchy of Bar says that "From 1480, it was united to the imperial Duchy of Lorraine.", and Joan of Arc was born in 1412, so what you said about Lorraine doesn't really apply here. Pizza Margherita (talk) 22:13, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Yeah. Why not be pissy with people trying to answer your question. That always helps. JPGs point was clear - that Lorraine was not part of France at the time of her birth. Lorraine joined France, afaik, after a) it was united with Bar and b) Bar integrated itself with France. If you have sufficient time to mine for quotes in the Bar article you have time to mine Lorraine for " In 962, when Otto the Great restored the Empire (restauratio imperii), Lorraine became the autonomous Duchy of Lorraine within the Holy Roman Empire until 1766, after which it became annexed under succession law to France, via derivative aristocratic house alliances" ... which amounts to nothing more than JPG expailined. The Reference Desks are not a punch-bag. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:19, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Restauratio Imperii - great name for a burger joint. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Did you not understand what I wrote or what? Joan of Arc was born in 1412 in Bar. She was not born in Lorraine. In 1412, Bar and Lorraine were completely different places. If I'm asking about Joan of Arc, who was born in Bar, how does all this stuff about Lorraine help?

I can only explain this to you; I can't understand it for you unfortunately. Pizza Margherita (talk) 02:49, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Ah, Hence Do-Re-Mi; I see: my mistake ;). Yes. Is a Fief of France France? Yes & no, probably. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:32, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Duchy of Bar said part of the duchy became a fief of France, the other part remained Imperial and was joined to Lorraine in 1480. Not that it matters for the ultimate question - Joan of Arc's birthplace was in the part of the Duchy that was a French fief. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:41, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

QI is very entertaining, but often perpetuates myths and legends or is just plain wrong. In Joan of Arc's case, they are purposely obfuscating things, and things are already confusing enough when Joan was born in 1412. She was born in the territory of modern France, certainly. But what was "France" in the 15th century? Territory personally controlled by the King of France? What about Burgundy? Champagne? Brittany? Were they "France"? They were also technically independent, like Bar. But an independent territory could be linguistically and culturally French. The ruler of the territory could be a vassal of France, paying money or giving military service to the king of France. Bar is strange because it seems to be a vassal of both France and the Empire, but it's definitely culturally French...more or less. (Tagishsimon says above, "Is a Fief of France France? Yes & no, probably", and that is exactly the point.) With hindsight we can distinguish a clear line of French kings, and maybe there was a definite king of France in 1412, but this was the middle of the Hundred Years' War, and a few years later everything fell apart. When Paris was ruled by the English, was there even a "France" at all? The kings of England were culturally French too, so if Bar is French, is England also French? The problem is, the question of whether something is French or not just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the 15th century. There were no passports, there were no border checkpoints, the modern concept of a nation-state didn't even exist. No one is worried about jus soli and jus sanguinis. Pretty much all we can do is ask what people considered themselves to be. Did Joan think she was French? Did other people think she was French? Clearly, yes. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:04, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

The two examples are actually opposites of each other. While Joan of Arc was, undoubtedly, ethnically French, there is some uncertainty about whether she was a French citizen (though in saying that we are applying a modern concept of citizenship which did not apply in the messy, feudal society of the Middle Ages). Lenin was certainly a citizen of the Russian Empire, but his father was of Chuvash and Kalmyk descent, and his mother is described as "Russian-Jewish." That might mean that he was, at least in part, of Russian ethnic descent - if Russian-Jewish means of mixed ethnicity, and not simply Jewish but living in Russia. Wymspen (talk) 13:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but that would ALSO imply that one can inherit an ethnicity (a purely cultural concept) in a genetic manner. That makes no sense. "Russian blood" is meaningless. Either he considered himself, and was considered by those he interacted with, as Russian (in which case he was so) or he wasn't. We can't deny his ethnicity based on a post-hoc genetic analysis because ethnicity is not genetic. --Jayron32 18:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

That's mostly but not entirely correct according to most orthodox views of ethnicity. The more widely accepted views of how to assess ethnicity encompasses three elements: (1) biological inheritance; (2) self-identification; and (3) identification by other members of the ethnic group. The biological inheritance element refers to inheritance from someone else who fits the criteria, so to a degree the definition is circular and ultimately resolves down mostly to a social one (as you might expect). Nevertheless, if someone has no "Russian blood", in the sense that they have no biological relationship with anyone who is accepted as ethnically Russian, a claim that they are ethnically Russian would, I think, be fairly controversial. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Biology holds only insofar as the culture itself identifies biology as a necessary component. But it is not necessary in all cultural contexts. There are many cases of people with little to no genetic relationship to a culture still being fully accepted as that culture. --Jayron32 12:33, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I think you are confusing culture and ethnicity. I don't disagree that ethnicity is fundamentally a social characteristic, and like all social characteristics it is capable of supporting different perspectives. But the concept as it is understood in most contexts, is a kind of social identity that carries a biological element. This is true in mainstream Western cultural discourse, and it's also true in the East. I can't think of any culture I have come across, where a person who has absolutely no biological connection to an ethnic group would be widely regarded as a member of that ethnic group. Even in the US, which probably has some of the most open cultural conceptions of legal and cultural nationality, a claim to membership of an ethnic group by someone with no biological connection is controversial. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:58, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

In that one case, we're talking race and not ethnicity, which are different ways to parse culture. Also, that's because the way race as a social construct is defined carries a biological component. Which is exactly 100% what I said: the culture in question picks which biological factors it considers important, and identifies cultural relationships based on that biological construct. But the reverse isn't true. Staying, for example, with the examples given above. Which gene(s) in Joan of Arc's genome defined her as "French" and does everyone with those genes become automatically French? --Jayron32 15:50, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Lenin was born in Ulyanovsk, in those days called Simbirsk (Симби́рск), which is quite firmly in Russia. His parents were from Astrakhan which is also in Russia. Our article Chuvash people says that at least some of them are native to Russia. It seems a bit silly to try to argue that Lenin isn't Russian. Alansplodge (talk) 19:51, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Looking for US election tv ads

A few days ago Politico said that US Democrats were running political ads attacking down-ticket Republican candidates in marginal districts - ads which tried to associate the Republican with that party's unpopular Presidential candidate, Mr. Trump. Is there anywhere online (YouTube or the like) where I (in the UK) could view such ads? I'm specifically interested in these kind of "Senator XYZ is big chums with Donald Trump and is therefor probably horrid" type ones (and not interested in a general "Senator XYZ is wrong about everything and is horrid" ads that don't try to leverage Trump). 87.114.14.104 (talk) 23:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

You are terribly mistaken if you think Trump is unpopular. Either that, or you are push-polling, otherwise known as begging the question. I suggest you google a site called youtube. μηδείς (talk) 03:53, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

[22] [23] [24] [25] Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 04:08, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

The LA Times poll has come under some serious scrutiny as to its methodology. To their credit, they are extremely transparent as to what their methodology is. But there was an article about how they "weigh" the different members of their polling panel - apparently, there's ONE black participant aged 19-21 who's a Trump fan, and he gets a HUGE weighing, as if he was a true representative of his entire age-ethnic group (all black 19-21 year olds). In other words, they under-sample many groups, and attempt to balance this out with no limits on weights given to individual participants. They are interesting in using the same 3,000 people for the entire polling season, rather than selecting new random participants each time, as most other polls do. I'd say the poll is academically interesting, but its value as a genuine indicator of Trump's popularity is significantly dubious. Then again, they have at times been proven right in previous elections, so I'm not totally writing them off, just saying that they're somewhat odd, and certainly don't follow the norm in their polling methodology. An interesting experiment in political science, I would say. We'll only know how it stacks up to reality come polling day. 110.140.69.137 (talk) 14:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

October 19

French response to Hawaiian overthrow and annexation

Can someone help me find out what was France's stance and response to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the subsequent annexation by the US in 1898? France had conflicts with Hawaii in the 1840s and were one of the three powers along with the US and Great Britian to recognize the Kingdom. I've seen plenty of sources about Japan and Britian's stance during this period but never heard much about France's response during this period. I know they recognized the Provisional Government and the Republic and annexation but hopefully there is more. The diplomatic representatives of France on the ground were Marie Gabriel Georges Bosseront d'Anglade, Henry Leon Verleye, Jean Antoine Vizzavona, and Louis Vossion.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

This book, in the public domain and free to peruse, looks somewhat useful. Towards the end it says something about the British and French ambassadors delaying their recognition of Hawaii as a possession of the U.S. for a time, then finally recognizing it. It is from 1899, so it is fairly contemporary to the events. I didn't look harder, but it may prove a useful source in general for your continued research on Hawaiian history (which has always impressed me, FWIW). Keep up the good work! --Jayron32 01:17, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Some more: this page discusses some of the history of The French in Hawaii, maybe of use? --Jayron32 01:26, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Found what may be a great lead for this question: This book here is not fully previewable, so I can't search the whole thing, but the index is among the previewable pages. Under "France" in the index it has a lot of good leads, but most interestingly it says "France seeks to prevent annexation of Hawaii to U.S." on pages 418-419. --Jayron32 01:36, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I will look into these sources. But the last suggestion (viewable here) relates to the mid-1800s when there was another annexation scare that never materialized.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:57, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I've also posted at fr:Wikipédia:Oracle/semaine 42 2016#French response to Hawaiian overthrow and annexation (Renversement du Royaume d'Hawaï) hoping that something can be found in French sources. KAVEBEAR (talk) 06:14, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

First US State Dinner

It is stated on list of U.S. State Dinners that Kalakaua was the first state dinner. Yet this source claimed that the 1865 visit by Queen Emma of Hawaii was the first state dinner for a visiting royal. Andrew Johnson was the president. The definition of a state dinner requires the guest to be an incumbent head of state which Emma was not and the list article states that other "formal dinners for important people of other nations, such as a prince or princess, are called official dinners, the difference being that the federal government does not pay for them". My questions are did the US government paid for the dinner with Queen Emma and what other formal dinner did presidents have with royals or head of states incumbent/deposed before 1874?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:50, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

End of money in the future

Has anyone ever predicted the end of money in the future?Uncle dan is home (talk) 05:32, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Star Trek. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:44, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

In the news, Tim Cook has recently suggested killing cash. Killing cash would ordinarily mean all transactions are recorded and tracable - a despot's dream; no private transactions. But ApplePay supposedly addresses this by making transactions untracable. (Your credit card pays Apple, Apple pays the person you want to pay, Apple retains no records connecting the two parties). - Nunh-huh 06:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Don't believe it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:20, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Even if they resisted any temptation to snoop it seems so easy to hack things these days. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:36, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, well, that's the point. If you keep records, they can be hacked. If you don't keep records, there's nothing to hack. - Nunh-huh 20:00, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Absence of a need for money can be a feature of a Post-scarcity economy, which as that article shows has been discussed in Economics and Futurology, and has formed part of the background of various Science Fictional (and Fantasy) works. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.88 (talk) 09:21, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

If hard cash disappears, look for a return to the barter system. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:20, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Not a prediction as such, but The Culture in Iain M. Banks science fiction novels is a post-scarcity society without money, private property or economics. As a result, life in The Culture is pretty dull and the novels have to achieve dramatic tension by positing scenarios where The Culture comes into conflict with various less advanced civilisations. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:45, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

The Culture, population 30 trillion; where living on planets is considered weird and space station/starship is the urban/suburban divide of the day. i.e. the General Systems Vessel Size Isn't Everything, 50 miles of parks and hulls and shit seemingly exposed to vacuum and flying in formation but really rigidly held together by forcefields (which contain the air). Or the GSV Empiricist, hundreds of kilometers long, population over 13 billion. Controlled by 7 hyperintelligent sentient computers which are mostly in hyperspace with a little I/O thingy in realspace (cause 1: they wouldn't fit and 2: the speed of light). Antimatter engines are too primitive for anything but hobby craft (like our sailboats I guess), real engines are piece(s) of metamaterial that push against the boundary of our universe in another dimension and you can get a full sex-change and become a mother-father gentleman. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:58, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Multi-sided conflicts

Has there ever been a war involving as many sides as the Syrian Civil War (which has so many sides it breaks the infobox)? I'm struggling to think of any examples - some colonial wars such as the Dutch–Portuguese War involved colonial powers at war with each other as well as with the native people, but otherwise wars seem to bed down into two sides even if those sides don't have much in common beyond their enemies. Even in WWII, although Germany and Japan or Britain and the USSR had almost no policy objectives in common, they still allied together into two sides. Smurrayinchester 09:01, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

In WW2, Finland was arguably a third side, since it was specifically at war only with the invading Soviet Union (in two separate campaigns, in order to preserve the independence won from Russia during WW1), but had no quarrel with any of the other Allied Powers. Finland was careful to describe itself as a "co-belligerent" rather than an "ally" of Germany during the second campaign (and towards the end of WW2 overall entered a third campaign against Germany). During the second campaign, Britain formally declared war on Finland, but except for one unsuccessful bombing raid, the non-Soviet Allies avoided any direct military actions against Finnish forces. See Military history of Finland during World War II for the details. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.88 (talk) 09:49, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

How many sides are you considering the Syrian Civil War to have? (where WWII is 2) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 09:30, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Our own article, linked by the OP, indirectly suggests six, though one could argue that the Kurdish fighters constitute a seventh rather than being part of the Syrian Democratic forces. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.88 (talk) 09:52, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

At least Assad + Russia, Opposition, Western Coalition, ISIS, Al-Nusra, Kurds, and Turkey - not counting the fact that it's also arguably part of the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict and Iran–Israel proxy conflict. That seems to be the minimal set of alliances (as 90.197... says, it's not really clear on any given day whether or not Rojava and FSA are cooperating). Smurrayinchester 11:11, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, during the early Crusades you had the various crusader states, the various muslim states, and the Byzantine empire. Arguably also some of the Italian city states and the Kingdom of Sicily. So complex and shifting coalitions seem to be a tradition in this area. The Warring States period in China had 7 major and 3 minor states, and probably hundreds of independent brigand groups. The Italian Wars had most Italian city states in changing coalitions, and most of the major European powers meddling. The Thirty Years' War had only two official "sides", but all of Europe joined one or the other (or both) sides over time. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:30, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

See also Coalition Wars or Napoleonic Wars, rather a headache to remember all participants. There were several such multi-sided wars in the past. Later there were also proxy wars, such as Vietnam War. Brandmeister^talk 11:32, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

This search actually turned up some good leads on historical multi-sided wars. Maybe I'm misreading it, but it seems that a good number of multi-sided wars are civil wars, which makes sense as many such civil wars occur in the context of a total breakdown of a central organizing authority, and thus multiple (rather than just 2) competing factions, each with their own goals and ambitions, end up fighting each other multilaterally (ironically, the United States Civil War was an atypical civil war in that way, as each of the two sides established themselves into two essentially state-organized factions with clearly delineated territory; it was a much more traditional war in that manner). Take, for example, these famous civil wars:

• The Russian Revolution: You had the following sides all fighting one another: You had absolutist-Tsarists looking to maintain, or later re-establish, monarchy. You had traditional liberals of the Russian Provisional Government (the Lvov and Karensky governments) looking to establish a traditional liberal democracy/constitutional Monarchy. You had various socialist factions which fought with each other as much as the other groups, such as the Trudoviks, Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. You had external groups that came in to fight, such as the North Russia Intervention. Historians traditional divide the groups into the "Reds" and the "Whites", but even that becomes problematic since neither group really had any cohesion; it's the same sort of problem as in the Syrian Civil War trying to classify the fighters as "Assad-Government" forces vs. "Opposition", where the opposition is not a cohesive group.
• The French Revolution likewise had numerous, multiple sides to the conflict. While broadly the conflict gets divided into the Revolutionaries and the Royalists, within each of those factions are numerous groups which also fought each other. I'm pretty sure the Reign of Terror killed as many those ostensibly on the Revolutionary side as it did true Royalists, with the Jacobins fighting the Girondins fighting the Montagnards fighting the Dantonists, etc.

In this way, the Syrian Civil War is quite typical for a civil war within a society where political control breaks down. --Jayron32 20:15, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

There were in fact 4 major factions in November 1860. Two of them just didn't disagree enough with the other northern or southern faction to go to war with them in April 1861. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:39, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

There were 4 political parties. That's quite different from a 4 sided war. Once it came to war, it was basically a traditional 2-state war, where each side had a functional government and a defined territory. Not the sort of multi-sided clusterfuck of what is usually meant by "civil war". --Jayron32 22:44, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks! It's interesting that neither of those articles list all the sides in the infobox (although the Russian Revolution one does mention conflict between Bolsheviks and other socialists in the intro). Perhaps a hundred or two hundred years from now, the Syrian Civil War infobox will look like that, and it will have "Assad and Russia" on one side, "FSA, Rojava, ISIS and NATO" on the other. Smurrayinchester 07:27, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

  We do have an article titled Russian Civil War which covers the complexities. --Jayron32 12:29, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

When the Mongols invaded China, China was already split into several separate states, all of whom repeatedly though that fighting each other while also fighting the Mongols was a reasonable strategy. (Spoiler: it wasn't). Based on the main belligerents listed in the article, it doesn't meet the 6 or 7 sides of the Syrian Civil War - but if there were any minor factions that took advantage of the chaos, I expect it could top it. The Mongol invasion of Europe, and earlier, the various barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire would probably be worth looking into. Iapetus (talk) 16:08, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure that considering all involved parties as individual "sides" is quite valid, though they may each, of course, seek their own ends. In Syria, for example, there are a multitude of parties, but they more or less fall into two basic camps - those fighting for the Syrian government and those trying to overthrow it. Of course, once that issue is resolved on way or another, then these various factions will quite likely come into conflict over other issues, and very likely find that their alliances may shift. In any case, I imagine most large conflicts end up being multi-sided, in that they will inevitably involve many parties, all with their own goals. For example, the conflict in England in 1066 had at least three distinct sides: the English under Harold Godwinson, the Normans under William, and the Norse under Harald Hardrada. Both the Harald Hardrada and William fought against Harold, but they were not allies - each wanted the throne for himself. There are plenty of good examples from the ancient Near East too, such as the struggle between Assyria, Elam, and Babylon over the control of Babylonia in the time of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon (early 7th C BC). Ushumgal (talk) 12:42, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Except it isn't that simple in Syria because the groups on the opposition side are fighting each other as well. For example, both the Syrian Interim Government and ISIL are fighting against the Assad regime, they are also fighting against each other. They're not even begrudging allies. --Jayron32 13:39, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The Great Northern Railway and The Northern Pacific Railway.

Am I right to understand that The Great Northern Railway (US) was completed in 1893, reaching Seattle, going all the way from Minnesota? It's a bit confusing with all the different companies and railroads being built and often merged with each other at some point or another.

I also wonder why The Northern Pacific Railway was being built at roughly the same time as the Great Northern Railway, when they both seemed to run from Upper Midwest to Seattle. Why build two railways going the same path?

Third, I wonder in what year they successfully established railway connection from Minnesota/Upper Midwest to Chicago?

84.211.184.66 (talk) 12:57, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

You can find detailed answers to these questions Here and Here. Centpacrr (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Rules of engagement for ship security crews in repelling boarding attempts by pirates

In international maritime law, a pirate is absolute scum - Hostis humani generis - an enemy of all humanity! Even ships and nations NOT under attack may attack the pirates.

My question is, what licence does or doesn't this give security crews aboard ships, when faced by a pirate boarding attempt? What are the rules of engagement? If a pirate with a rifle slung over his back hooks a ladder to the side of the ship and begins climbing, may the security guard shoot to kill, leaving the corpse of this "enemy of all humanity" to topple back onto the pirate's ship, or into the ocean? In simpler terms, once the security crew have identified a clear attempt to carry out a hostile boarding of their ship, are there any restraints on using deadly force as a first resort to drive off the boarders? Ditto if the pirates have managed to board, and the non-security crew have barricaded themselves in the control room / bridge (the so-called "citadel tactic"). May the security crew kill the armed and hostile intruders who are trying to seize the ship and take its' crew captive, so as to regain full control of their own ship? Are there any restrictions under international law (including international maritime law) on using deadly force in this situation?

(Most ships operate under a Flag of Convenience such as Liberia or Panama, and I can't see either of these countries restricting the activities of security crews, so I don't think the ship's flag-nation's jurisdiction is a practical factor here - though laws which govern a country's citizens abroad, i.e. the security guards' country of citizenship, including when ocean-bound - extraterritorial jurisdiction - might be. But I'm not sure all countries would have such laws. In fact, I suspect most don't). 110.140.69.137 (talk) 15:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I pasted your question into the Google searchbar and found Rules of Engagement and Legal Frameworks for Multinational Counter-Piracy Operations which says:

'The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is the primary law applicable to piracy... Under UNCLOS, force can be used to combat and apprehend pirates in accordance with minimum international law requirements of necessity and proportionality. For example, Article 8 of the 2005 Protocol to the 1988 Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation declares, “[a]ny use of force pursuant to this article shall not exceed the minimum degree of force which is necessary and reasonable in the circumstances”'. Alansplodge (talk) 16:09, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

(OP here) Proportionate force? OK? But MINIMUM force??? That sounds like a requirement to be extremely nice to people who are extremely NOT nice! They're trying to take your crew and ship hostage, for heaven's sake, and all you're allowed to respond with is minimum force??? What's the logic???

Also, as a seperate question, who's job is it to practically enforce the rules? With Navies, there is dicipline, rules, and a chain of command. But what about a ship's private security crew? Remember, they are all alone on a ship which pirates are trying to seize with armed force, and they likely have NO backup - they are alone. Experience is, fighters in such a position will do WHATEVER IT TAKES - even extreme force - to repel the enemy. Look at how private military contractors have behaved in Iraq, if you want an example. Being all alone with no backup, if they come under attack, they go ALL OUT, and just shoot, shoot, shoot their way out of the situation with the limited weapons and personnel at their disposal - damn the civilian casualties, GET ME OUT OF HERE. That's the reality. If a private security contractor on a ship pirates were attempting to seize did the same, assuming he in fact violated the rules of UNCLOS (dubious, as I've explained, given his situation), whose job is it to charge him and put him on trial? Forget the ship's flag state, they likely don't give a damn. Is there ANY risk of the guard being charged, and if yes, by whom? 110.140.69.137 (talk) 14:21, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

It's no different to the usual legal requirement of 'reasonable force'; and although the word 'minimum' sounds restrictive, actually it's saying you can do anything deemed reasonable. Reasonable force just means equality of response- but that basicly means you can use the same weapons against the pirates as they are using against you. And since pirates today favour the AK-47 rather than the flint lock pistol ;) you can see where that leads you? _Muffled ^Pocketed 14:52, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

So are M16s kosher if they're only using AK47s? They have a longer range and accuracy than AK47s I believe and if kept in a good case until needed probably wouldn't have the M16s ruggedness disadvantage unless you're unlucky enough to be attacked by pirates in a sandstorm. It's not a big advantage so maybe that's allowed right? What if they have a cannon but didn't touch it yet? Can you use a cannon against them? What if they shot a cannon off target on purpose hoping you'd surrender without having to damage your ship or get in a firefight, can you take the tarp off your cannon and shoot to kill? What if you're not sure they missed on purpose, can you shoot to kill now? What if you had a .50 caliber machine gun and the pirates only have AKs? Or a 20 millimeter automatic cannon. What do they do if the ship has to go within 12 nautical miles of a country that bans automatic guns? What happens if you're attacked in the territorial waters of a country but their coast guard sucks? (and you don't trust their ability to save you). What really happens is you machine gun the pirates to possibly save your life but legally are you just supposed to let them capture you? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:01, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

No; what really happens is that you either misunderstand or misread. Fair exchange for me wasting twenty-four seconds reading and re-reading that post in bemusement I guess. Cheers, _Muffled ^Pocketed 20:10, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

No one has answered my second question: who is responsible for enforcing the rules against private security crews? Imagine the pirates try to board a ship, and the security crew drive them off with live gunfire. The pirates, realizing the presence of armed security on board, beat a hasty retreat (that's what they usually do in such a situation - they know they're no match for the ex-commandos who guard the ships). The security crew are not satisfied. They know the pirates will strike again, and the next victim ship will likely not have armed security (most ships don't). Wanting to prevent this, they board the pirate ship and slaughter the pirates to the last man. Who prosecutes?

Please don't let this distract from my question, but Sagittarian Milky Way, I don't think there are sandstorms at sea - even off the coast of sandy Somalia. But an AK47 might stand up better than an M16 to the rigours of ocean saltwater spray - or it might not, I'm no firearms expert. 110.140.69.137 (talk) 08:16, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The answer will depend on the particular case. See here for some discussion. [26] [27] [28] The answer often is, no one actually does anything no matter who could. Note that the vast majority of countries do have restrictions on murder, even if those laws are not necessarily well enforced. Nil Einne (talk) 08:47, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

October 20

Fred W. Phelps (1929-2014)

Hi. Phelp´s name was diminutive or Frederick or diminutive of Alfred? Thanks 79.145.27.117 (talk) 19:16, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I cannot find any official record of his birth certificate or census records (which are not normally available to the public), but looking at the Wikipedia article Fred Phelps, and also checking on the original sources cited in that article, it appears his birth name was "Fred Waldron Phelps", that is Fred is his full first name, it is not diminutive of anything else. --Jayron32 19:38, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Census records (available via a pay site that I use) show 1940 as Fred W Phelps Jr. age 10; father Fred W Phelps Sr. age 46; and head of household / aunt Irene Jackson. 1930 has Fred W Phelps father and head of household, age 36; Catherine Phelps wife age 23; and Fred W Phelps age 5 / 12. No "Sr." or "Jr." in the 1930 report. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:54, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Just a general note, which it would have been nice to mention regarding a more appealing figure: Phelps was born in Mississippi. In the American South, many people have first names that might appear to be diminutives or nicknames, but actually are their genuine legal birth names. Bob Jones, Sr. was really Bob, not Robert. This does not actually hold of Jimmy Carter (he was born James, but appeared as Jimmy on most (all?) ballots), but if it had, it would not have been a surprise. --Trovatore (talk) 19:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Oops -- looks like I was wrong about Bob Jones. I'll see if I can think of another example. --Trovatore (talk) 19:06, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

It's not just the south. I've got several Freds in my family tree, all of them northerners. Some were Fredericks, others were just plain Fred. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:28, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales is the example par excellence. 86.128.234.239 (talk) 21:21, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

In 1930 the recently deceased Fred W Phelps was obviously five months old, and the age is given as "5/12". I've never seen that formation before - is it a standard shorthand in the (presumably) federal census department? 86.128.234.239 (talk) 21:27, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, federal. I've looked at quite a few old censuses, and the n/12 designation is typically used in the "age at last birthday" column instead of saying "0". The 1930 census sheet is dated April 14. His actual birthdate, according to Wikipedia, was November 13, 1929, which is 5 months and 1 day before the census sheet was filled out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Charles the First

Who chopped Charles the first head off during the 1649?- 72.159.154.170

This question was originally posted on a talk page of a red linked article. It was moved here by User:Feinoha. Feinoha ^Talk 20:44, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Quote: 'The executioner was masked and disguised, and there is debate over his identity. The commissioners approached Richard Brandon, the common hangman of London, but he refused, at least at first, despite being offered £200. It is possible he relented and undertook the commission after being threatened with death, but there are others who have been named as potential candidates, including George Joyce, William Hulet and Hugh Peters.[282] The clean strike, confirmed by an examination of the king's body at Windsor in 1813,[283][h] suggests that the execution was carried out by an experienced headsman.[285]' from Charles I of England. _Muffled ^Pocketed 20:56, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

October 21

Why didn't America "island hop" through Alaska and Russia instead?

It seems like they took the hard way in. Why didn't we just make an agreement with the Soviets to let us use its territory to skip the entire Pacific Theater? Is there alternate history of this? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:39, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

.#1 "Why didn't" questions are not possible to provide references for. Counterfactual history you just made up to ask this question doesn't exist in references, so we can't provide you with references. #2 Alaska and Kamchatka and the related islands are really inhospitable. See Aleutian Islands Campaign which explains why the U.S. didn't even bother to retake the Aleutians that Japan had actually captured for a year and a half or so. #3: Control of the Pacific Ocean was the key because of the importance of Command of the sea. Playing around in the inhospitable, low-value, almost impossible to militarize, mountainous and glacier-filled Arctic did fuck-all to defeat the Japanese navy which could strike at will from it's main bases in the central Pacific, which is why the U.S. needed those islands in the Central Pacific. There's nowhere to harbor a navy in the Aleutians, but the little atolls around the Central Pacific made for nice naval bases, which is why Japan used them as such. You really can't base a Navy out of freaking Attu like you could out of Midway Island or Guadalcanal. #4 Japan and Russia weren't at war. Like at all. Like Russia wasn't particularly interested in helping the U.S. defeat Japan because Russia wasn't at war with Japan, didn't have any military in the area, and had no impetus to help the U.S. in any way in the Pacific Theater, mostly because they had their own problems in the West. As noted at Surrender of Japan, Russia declared war on Japan on August 9, 1945. Which you'll notice is three days AFTER Hiroshima, and a mere 6 days before Japan surrendered. They weren't at all involved in the war, and only joined up to make a land grab during the putative 6-day Soviet–Japanese War (1945). They basically didn't want to lose out on the spoils of WWII in the Pacific theater. So, that's why. It boils down to a) Alaska? Really? b) Japan's Navy wasn't there because it wasn't all that useful, and the U.S. needed to defeat the Japanese Navy c) Russia wasn't even in the war in the Pacific, so why would Russia help out the U.S.? --Jayron32 03:02, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Um, your point #1 is overstated: it is possible to provide references for some "why didn't" questions. Typically those are ones where that option was seriously considered and rejected, and there is a historical record of the discussion. I doubt that that's relevant in this particular case, though, for all the other reasons you state. --69.159.61.230 (talk) 08:18, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

This raises the question in my mind as to why Japan bothered to waste precious troops to garrison the militarily useless Aleutians? (It seems to remind me of Hitler's refusal to abandon the channel islands, even though the troops garrisoning them were rather desperately needed elsewhere after D-day). What was Japan's logic? 110.140.69.137 (talk) 08:25, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Japan took the Aleutians as a possible base of attack for the North American mainland; at the time Japan already had commanding control of the sea, and was expanding northward. The U.S. didn't immediately try to retake them because they were low-value assets and they needed to establish control of the main shipping lanes in the South Pacific instead. Japan took them in 1942 from a position of strength in the Pacific. Holding them required a token force, it was a low-risk move for Japan. --Jayron32 15:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that any sort of withdrawal was in the Japanese mindset. It might also have helped the Japanese in Manchuria if they had withdrawn to a defensible position in 1945, but instead they clung to their outlying territories and were easily overrun by the Soviets.

US Army in WW2: War Department, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare (pp. 99-100) says that the factors downgrading the importance of the Aleutian front were lack of Japanese aggression and the poor weather; "The overcast that covered the islands most of the time made air and naval operations dangerous and often impossible" (air superiority and naval gunfire support were the cornerstone of US amphibious operations). It continues that there was contingency planning for a US offensive in the Aleutians in the event of the Soviets entering the war, but as noted above, this didn't happen until August 1945. Alansplodge (talk) 08:52, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

User:Jayron32 is a bit unfair to the Soviets. Their neutral stance in the Far East enabled them to transfer "over 18 divisions, 1,700 tanks, and over 1,500 aircraft from Siberia and the Far East" in time to turn ther tide in the Battle of Moscow. As the Soviets were doing most of the fighting in Europe, even after D-Day, it would have been counter-productive for all the Allies to shift forces from Europe to the Far East. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria was at the urging of the Western Allies and was agreed at "the Yalta Conference in February 1945, [that] the Soviet Union entered World War II's Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The invasion began on 9 August 1945, exactly three months after the German surrender on May 8" and was "a significant factor in the Japanese government's decision to surrender unconditionally, as it made apparent the USSR would no longer be willing to act as a third party in negotiating an end to hostilities on conditional terms". Alansplodge (talk) 10:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Equally as likely as the "exactly 90 days later" was probably a coincidence, where as the "The U.S. just deployed a super weapon on the Japanese mainland and Japan is against the ropes" had a bigger impact on the Soviet decision to invade Manchuria. The Soviets had not shown a particularly strong propensity towards honoring agreements with either side, either before, during, or after the war, and were far more interested in acting in what was in the best interest of the Soviets. It is highly unlikely they would have been particularly keen on committing massive ground forces to an Asian campaign if Japan were at full strength. --Jayron32 11:15, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the Kwantung Army was affected in any way by the Hiroshima attack, although admittedly it had been "systematically stripped of [its] best units and equipment" for deployment to other fronts. I take your point about Soviet self-interest, an issue that became apparent to the Western Allies as the Soviet preparations were underway, but the fact remains that they were doing our bidding. Alansplodge (talk) 13:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough, but in 1945, not in 1942-1943 which is the time frame the OP is asking about. He's asking why we went south instead of north across the Pacific. It's an understandable question; it's shorter (the great circle path from the U.S. west coast to Japan crosses Alaska after all) and if you look at a map it appears the route has more land-based options for bases. The main crux of my point was that it was inhospitable in Alaska and Kamchatka, and that the Soviets weren't actually at war with Japan at that point; they were in no position to be at War with Japan either. --Jayron32 15:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I concur with your summation! Harmony is restored. Alansplodge (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The actual American-led campaign in the South West Pacific theatre of World War II, that the OP calls "taking the hard way in" was motivated by the need to give a direct response to the causus belli Attack on Pearl Harbor on 7/12-1941, the rearguard action in the Philippines Campaign (1941–42) and to pre-empt the imminent threat to British interests posed by Axis naval activity in Australian waters. The attempt early in the Pacific War at multilateral coordination in the short-lived American-British-Dutch-Australian Command convinced American strategists of the need for campaign initiatives by the US Army (under MacArthur) and Navy (under Nimitz). The Logistics of the war over long distances at sea became a contest for air supremacy that focused on denial to enemy use of island air bases and attacks on each side's Aircraft carriers, most decisively in the Battle of Midway. The alternate campaign suggested by the OP would have been too slow because it would have involved uncertain negotiation with a 3rd party who was recently allied to Hitler (see Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) and it would have occupied troops in holding territories of no strategic value to Tokyo. AllBestFaith (talk) 14:48, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Another aspect worth discussing: the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands was planned for the southern coasts of Kyushu and Honshu. As the article says, these are really the only two good places on the islands for large-scale amphibious landings, and the Japanese knew this. This is why the Allies captured Okinawa first, to use it as a staging ground. So if you were going to try to invade from mainland Asia, you would either have to attempt unfavorable landings on the north and west and then slog your way towards Japan's population centers, which are mostly on the Pacific side of the islands, or sail your whole invasion force around the Japanese islands, with the Japanese military knowing where you're headed and going all-out to stop you. The Mongols famously tried the first and it didn't go too well for them. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 01:24, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Great Stink

I have a question about this illustration about the Great Stink in 1800's London. In the 'Monster Soup', what are the actual 'monsters'? Are they supposed to depict microorganisms, real creatures or just fictional creatures? --Poing-PoBongino (talk) 16:07, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

They are speculative Microorganisms drawn in 1828 and probably inspired partly by images in "Micrographia" 1665 and the animalcules seen by Leeuwenhoek (between 1674 and 1682) but also, I fancy, influenced by the imagery of Hieronymus Bosch, see his "The Garden of Earthly Delights". The satyrical magazine Punch published a similarly speculative microscopic slide cartoon. AllBestFaith (talk) 16:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The website of the The Library at Wellcome Collection says in explanation of this work: "Looking at a drop of water though a microscope was a popular entertainment provided by travelling showmen who carried the microscopes around in cases on their backs". Alansplodge (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)