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January 12

global warming, Pope Francis, First Things

Now that the pope has told priests to teach about the danger of global warming, is the magazine First Things changing its stance that global warming is not a big deal?144.35.45.46 (talk) 03:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Have you tried asking them? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

It is an ecumenical publication, not exclusively catholic, so there is no reason why what the pope has preached should dictate their future editorial position. Wymspen (talk) 10:56, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

For reference, I think this [1] is what OP is talking about, regarding Pope Francis' comments on climate change (It's a 'sin'!) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:49, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Catholic believe: did God create EVERYTHING

Do Catholics believe that God caused or created everything? Do they believe that God is totality in the sense of that which only has parts but is itself not a part (the "top-level" container, similar to how the "monad" has not parts and is the smallest part of everything)?

I was reading this--URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm, title: "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Evil", quote: "But the evil of sin (culpæ), though permitted by God, is in no sense due to him (I, Q. xlix, a. 2).; its cause is the abuse of free will by angels and men (I-II, Q. lxxiii, a. 6; II-II, Q. x, a. 2; I-II, Q. ix, a. 3)."--and it seemed contradictory.

Also: Special:Search/"create everything" prefix:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives NoToleranceForIntolerance (talk) 04:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

See unmoved mover, ontological argument, and problem of evil. Much has been written about these ideas. If you have more specific questions after reading some of that, feel free to ask. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 04:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

To put it succinctly, "Don't blame God for the evil that humans choose to do." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:11, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Why not? As the articles linked to above mention there is actually a fairly good reason to given the understanding of god of several religions. N.B. I'm not suggesting a debate here but rather suggesting such simplistic comments are unhelpful on the reference desk when references have already been provided (and simple common sense) explains why it's not so simple. Although probably Free will in theology is a helpful addition given such simplistic comments. Nil Einne (talk) 14:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

"Free will" is exactly the answer. People choose to commit evil deeds (or good deeds) of their own free will. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:13, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't fully explain the problem of evil. For one thing, very bad things, such as natural disasters, harm innocent people, and we can't blame free will for those. Also, God allowing people to commit evil acts also makes Him culpable, as does creating people capable of evil. Also, people raised in a bad environment are far more likely to turn out to be evil, and God can control the environment (for example, famines make people more likely to steal food). StuRat (talk) 15:57, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

(I wikilinked three key words in your response, didn't think you'd mind :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:53, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't mind, but I skipped doing that since it had already been linked above. StuRat (talk) 21:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Natural disasters aren't evil, they're just random events. Although the superstitious have long tried to anthropomorphize the forces of nature. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there was reluctance to install lightning rods on homes, initially, because it was seen as an admission that your family is so evil that God would try to strike them down. StuRat (talk) 17:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Again are you going to bother to read or at least think before you talk crap? We're talking about cases when people believe there is a god here. Often a omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent one who in some cases is said to have even explicitly designed humans and/or the earth and solar system and would therefore would seem to share some responsiblity for the flaws many not arising from free will and which seem to be solveable without negative effects. So just dismissing something as a random event does not work, unlike it would when you don't believe in such an entity. And incidentally, many religious beliefs suggest that not all natural disasters are truly "natural", in fact several religious texts including the bible explicitly suggest otherwise. And I'm not referring to attempts to say this earthquake was caused by the gays or whatever modern crap, but claims made in these religious texts about historic events. Again this isn't the place for debate on such issues (there are obvious various intepretations of these texts and attempts to explain them) but such dismissive answers without relying on any references illustrate why a lot of your comments on the RD are useless. P.S. The article I linked to explicitly mentions Argument from free will and both of these link to Predestination. Nil Einne (talk) 02:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

No it does not with quite a number of religious beliefs. Have you read the articles or are you just going to continue to spread crap out of your arse like always? Nil Einne (talk) 02:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Your personal attacks do nothing to enhance your credibility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:19, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Well I don't particularly care about your opinions of my credibility since you've shown time and again you have zero in a lot of matters. And as expected you have zero answer for "why do you say it does based on the quite a number of religious beliefs and the philosphical implications of such". As for personal attacks, I suggest you read Wikipedia:No personal attacks and find out what constitutes a personal attack. The evidence is already here that you have provided no useful information to discussion and completely ignored the references that were already provided. If necessary, I can easily provide evidence that you do this very often, although a search of the talk page will also so this. So maybe "always" was a bit facetious, but that was not a personal attack, simply a perhaps somewhat uncivil but accurate comment on your behaviour. Nil Einne (talk) 02:28, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Well you put forth the free will link and then got irritated when I agreed with it. So your own credibility is Nil. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:31, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You didn't agree with it because it's not something that you can agree on. Note that the article does not say, "free will is the answer" but rather "some people say free will is relevant and here's what they mean by free will and how it interplays with their understandin of god and the phisophical implications of god's actions". In other words, the article was intended to illustrate why you cannot simply dismiss it as "free will" without considering the interaction of the various religious beliefs and various philosphical arguments that arise thereupon. As I said above, it explicitly links to the relevant articles which explain further why even the concept of "free will" isn't so simple under a number of religious beliefs. The fact you didn't understand this illustrates that 1) You either didn't read or didn't understand the linked article 2) You shouldn't be contributing to complicated discussions on religious beliefs since it's clear your understanding of the complex issues involved and how they all interplay is close to zero.

Hidden since this part doesn't really relate to the question Nil Einne (talk) 03:15, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Free will is a standard Christian belief, which is what the OP asked about. The OP didn't ask about other religions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC) What's that got to do with anything? For starters, you mentioned god, not Christian understanding of god. More to the point, the linked articles explicitly explain why "free will" is a complicated thing with many religious beliefs, including many Christians believes, including many Catholic beliefs. It also explains why simply dismissing stuff as "free will", even based on the common Christian or Catholic beliefs of free will and the interplay with issues like predestination, doesn't actually work without considering the various implications thereof. Note a key point here as illustrated by our articles. There isn't even one universal Christian understanding of free will, or even a Catholic one assuming we aren't restricting ourselves to the Roman Catholic Church. So you have to actual explain what you mean by free will before you even start to explain how "free will" counteracts all the arguments about why your god with all the powers etc you proscribe to him shares zero resposibility for all the various things including evil. Nil Einne (talk) 03:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC) My credibility however as far as I'm concerned remains intact. I don't pretend to have a full understanding of all the issues involved, but I do know our articles explain why it isn't so simple as you seem to think, and have provided several links and comments which explain so hence why I linked to them. And I'm aware this is a reference desk anyway so my understanding isn't as important as my ability to provide references. You've provided zero references nor any explaination for why you can simply answer it away as free will, when you are relying on an article someone else provided to you, which explicitly says it isn't so simple and there are complicated issues and deep philsophical arguments for why it is so, given a number of common religious beliefs. Unlike you, I do try to provide references, read references and explainations and try to understand what people are saying. Yes sometimes I make mistakes, e.g. recently on the K-bar question I mistakenly thought our article answered an OP more than it did. And yes sometimes I intentionally misunderstand an OP when it's clear they're saying stuff without considering the audience, e.g. again in the K-bar question relating to the term "foreign" (or in one of the previous OPs question). But it's clear you're not doing the later, and as for the former, well you could be forgiven if it was rare, but as I early said the issue is you often make simplisitic dismissive comments ignoring what has already been said and the articles or references provided which explain why your simple comments don't work. So you agree with yourself. That's reassuring. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC) Zero idea what you mean by that, but of course I do. Nil Einne (talk) 03:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Nil Einne (talk) 03:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• "Catholic" is a much broader term than you might realise. It refers to a set of beliefs, not to one particular authority, and many Protestant churches are still Catholic (but not Roman Catholic). So there is almost no way in which a "catholic" belief can be said to necessarily require creation, other than through Biblical literalism - and that level of literalism isn't widely enforced (in Europe at least) on such topics.

TL;DR: a catholic can believe pretty much what they want about areas overlapping with any sciences. It's up to them personally. Some Catholic churches are more rigid. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Of course, the problem of who/what created God is unsolvable, too. You can either say that God always existed, which is about as satisfying as saying the universe always existed. Or you could make some type of "meta God(s)" to create God, but that just moves the problem back a generation. In Greek mythology, the Olympic gods were created by the Titans, which were created by the primordial deities, sometimes called the Protogonoi, the first gods and goddesses born from primordial Chaos or from Chronos and Ananke (depending on the source), but we still have the problem of where they came from. StuRat (talk) 16:14, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

You may also want to have a look at the alternative Big Bang Theory and Abiogenesis, neither of which refers to the question of evil. Another option may be simulated reality. It does not seem to mention evil, but it is easily possible that evil is just a nasty bug the unknown programmer has inserted into their model. After all, this is just a harmless virtual game. If we call this programmer God we would be back at your original question. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Big Bang Theory says little or nothing about this subject, because it's an article about a television show; Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM is referring to our Big Bang article. Nyttend (talk) 03:38, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Cosmogony also touches on religious aspects. --Jayron32 18:05, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Looking through the articles, Thomas Aquinas believed people are free in their choices, fully cause their own sin, and are solely responsible for it. Eastern Orthodox believe God foresees how a man will freely act and makes dispositions accordingly. There was a comprehensive discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 January 27#God's will and free will, possibly motivated by the fact that 27 January is Holocaust Memorial Day. 79.73.130.206 (talk) 11:07, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Have you read about theodicy? I think it is a very relevant article. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:51, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

What is PayPal?

What is the best term to label what PayPal and its direct competitors (Skrill, Neteller...) are? Phrases like "online payments service" or "e-commerce business" are too broad, other terms like digital wallet and online wallet mean something different. Neither of the three mentioned brand articles offers an answer. --KnightMove (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia's category structure, Payment service provider seems to be the term d'art. See https://www.2 checkout.com/ecommerce-glossary/payment-service-provider/ (space added to avoid blacklist) and [2] and [3]. --Jayron32 17:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that's again something different. A payment service provider collects online payment methods (like PayPal and others) and offers them, collectively, as a service to merchants. --KnightMove (talk) 07:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd said Paypal is a centralized e-payment and money transfer service. --Hofhof (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for the use of those terms? --Jayron32 18:02, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Electronic money for the 'centralized' bit, Paypal itself for the 'money transfer' bit — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hofhof (talk • contribs) 18:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The way PayPal describes itself might be useful (or not).[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

January 13

Official Declaration 1

In a printed edition of the Standard Works of the LDS Church, of what does Official Declaration 1 consist? The declaration's page on lds.org includes excerpts from President Woodruff's addresses on the subject, as well as the text of future President Snow's resolution accepting the declaration, and both of these are absent from our article on the Declaration. On one hand, it seems bizarre to say that we should exclude part of the Church's own scripture page from what we consider to be its scriptures, but on the other hand it seems bizarre to attribute part of the text to newspaper clippings (and to abridge them, at that) if the entire text is canonical. I'm unsure whether to believe that our article's lacking or to believe that the Church's website staff included a bunch of additional (non-canonical) resources for background information. Nyttend (talk) 01:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article you linked to (via a redirect) contains the full text. What more did you need? --Jayron32 02:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Clarification from someone with access to a printed edition of the Standard Works. I already said that I read both pages that I linked; my point is that the two pages appear to provide different texts. Nyttend (talk) 03:27, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Millennials

I know millennials are poor now, but when all's said and done, will they be the wealthiest generation so far? Benjamin (talk) 04:03, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

What is the basis for your premise? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't have the answer to the question itself, but to answer Bugs, it's well known that the chance of young households (defined in the following source as having a head of household under 40) being in debt has increased substantially over time [5]. The amount of debt, just among those who are in debt, has also been rising. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:15, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Other sources show that the situation has been improving along with the economy, with the exception that student debt is still rising [6]. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:18, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Can you find a source that answers the OP's question for a prophecy on their future? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:45, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Side note, although median family income has been steady in the US for decades, it has been habitually falling for young families [7]. Now, to your question, or the OPs, there are sources that try: [8], but of course it's highly speculative, and also complicated. Each generation generally inherits the wealth of the previous, so I guess every generation is eventually a winner, as long as the world doesn't blow up? Someguy1221 (talk) 06:23, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Is the OP assuming English-speaking Westerners here? Hack (talk) 07:58, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

The OP is from California, so presumably. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:04, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I guess I am assuming the western or developed world, as it seems obvious that the developing economies are rapidly becoming wealthier.

I am aware that millennials are less wealthy when they are young, but I'm wondering if it's true that each generation is, generally speaking, wealthier than the last, and if that would hold true for the millennials, ie, lifetime wealth overall. I realize it's somewhat speculative, but it's reasonable to assume that the economy continues to grow, and there are also some objective measurements, like education. Benjamin (talk) 15:24, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Sources on this are neatly divided: This article calls them the "least wealthy" generation. This one claims the wealthiest of all time. This one also says wealthiest, This one says they are worse off than prior generations. As with any economic idea, whatever political position you wish to take, there's an economist willing to provide data to prove it, even if two different positions are diametrically opposed. --Jayron32 15:53, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for those sources! By the way, do you have any sources for economists justifying any opposing position? User:Jayron32 Benjamin (talk) 08:07, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The economics of slave ownership vs cheap "free man" labour

Semi-protection again :( if you have something to say on this and can't, please do post it on the talk page.

Imagine the Southern united states, circa 1940. You're a white plantation owner, and need workers for your plantation.

Now, of course, you can buy slaves. But slaves do not come cheap. From what I once read, the average cost of a slave back then was the equivilant of around $44,000 adjusted for inflation. (Is this figure correct?) And of course, slaves need care (even if you abuse them horribly, you do NOT want your slave to die - cold, hard interests here), and your slave could die or escape, in which case, your whole investment is a write-off.

The other option is to hire "free man" labour. I assume most free blacks in the south did not have many economic opportunities open to them. Presumably, you could encourage them to work for you as freemen for very low wages. Of course, they would be free to quit at any time, so you may not get away with whipping and beating them. But as long as you treated them half-decently, you could presumably effectively get them to work every bit as productively a a slave. As in, ten hours a day or more. Similar conditions to those many modern day workers face in countries like China. Not slavery, strictly, but "merely" exploitation of those without better options.

The obvious advantage for the plantation owner of the latter approach is the lack of the need to sink massive capital into obtaining a workforce. A worker dies or quits, they can easily be replaced. And of course, escapes are not a concern at all - your workers are not prisoners, if they really don't like it, they'll quit, and you'll find a replacement, no major loss. But of course, they're unlikely to quit unless they see a better opportunity, which may be unlikely.

So how would the two have compared economically, back in that era? Why sink major capital into obtaining a slave workforce? Was free-man labour particularly expensive, or in short supply?

(Could you get some sort of "slave insurance" policy, in case your slave escaped or died? It would be a real risk, your financial investment in the slave is significant). Eliyohub (talk) 06:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you mean 1840, not 1940 :) The key here is that slavery wasn't just an economic system — slavery was a sociocultural expression of white supremacy. To *pay* a black person, even at lower wages than a white person, would be to admit on some level that the black person was remotely equal to the white person, and that was societally unacceptable, because then you have to answer the awkward question of why it was OK to enslave black people to begin with. The slavery system was based on an a priori conclusion that black people were subhuman and unworthy of freedom, and even many churches taught that they were put on Earth by God to serve white people. Once you start breaking down that wall of division, the entire system becomes open to question, and begins to fall apart — much as the Communist bloc collapsed into itself after the Iron Curtain came down in the late 1980s. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:08, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

It has been hotly debated for about 200 years whether it made economic sense to keep slaves, and the truth is not likely to be simple. It's certainly true that plantation owners turned a profit in general, and often quite a handsome one. However, it has also been argued, as North suggests above, that slavery was not about profits. In fact, in the long run there is decent evidence that slavery actually depressed economic development in regions where it was commonplace, though often it had positive effects on distant economies by driving supply and demand in other industries. This article gives a brief rundown of the arguments relating to the profitability of slavery, and links to a number of analyses that have been published over the years. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

For a couple of examples of NorthBySouthBaranof's argument, see Peculiar institution and Cornerstone Speech. The Cornerstone Speech - given by the Confederate VP on the eve of the Civil War - now reads like something a hack writer might put in the mouth of an overwritten villain, yet the politicians of the southern states really did believe that slavery was their moral duty - that they were correcting an error made by the US Founding Fathers and returning the natural order that they believed was ordained by both the Bible and by science. It's a hard concept to get your head around now, how someone could be proud of slavery. Smurrayinchester 11:15, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

NorthBySouthBaranof's comments are not entirely supported (as is often the case on the RefDesk when we fail to cite sources). Obviously racism was an enormous part of the equation, but statements that black people couldn't be paid at all are flatly incorrect: not every black person was enslaved (see Free negro) and of course there were black people who owned slaves (see William Ellison). I think we do a disservice to those who endured that horror when we rely on simplistic generalizations instead of facts. Matt Deres (talk) 14:24, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

• Regarding "slave insurance", as well as the notes above that "it had positive effects on distant economies by driving supply and demand in other industries", there was just an article out very recently (the past month or so) that discusses BOTH of those issues, and shows how many industries in the North, especially the financial services sector (insurance and banking) probably benefited more economically from southern slavery than did the actual southern slave owners. This recent article from the New York Times was also discussed in a recent NPR story I listened to a while back. Wikipedia even has an article on Slave insurance in the United States. --Jayron32 11:44, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

And after slavery was abolished, the south got around it through the Convict lease system. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:19, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Even more directly through sharecropping and wage slavery and other ways where slaves were basically kept in the same conditions though on paper they were "free". --Jayron32 13:21, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

American hero of liberty and slaveholder Thomas Jefferson found out that slavery was profitable once you figure in that the offspring of slave women became part of the capital base. In 1820 he wrote: "I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. What she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption." [9] Cynics might find it more than a coincidence that his interest in abolition became a lot less pronounced after this finding... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:28, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Your statement on what cynics might think is unsupported, and fails to reflect that Jefferson was bankrupt, and six years from death. The fact that someone makes a factual statement about a policy ("Encouraging abortion among single black women will lower the costs of welfare.") does not mean that he supports the policy. μηδείς (talk) 19:25, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

January 14

Ancient Greek cremation

Is there any reason why the Ancient Greeks started cremating their dreads dead instead of burying them like their Mycenaean predecessors that are hypothesized or known in the archaeological records? What form of burials did the Minoans of Crete practice and are their any archaeological finds of Minoan burials? Also did the Hellenistic Greeks who settled in Egypt and the native Egyptians have any incidences of idealogical conflict in each cultures alternate forms of burial practices. I'm aware Ancient Greek funeral and burial practices exist. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:25, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

If only we could cremate our dreads. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:09, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Your first question can only be speculated upon. Cremation most probably spread to Greece from the East. It started in around 1000 BCE, peaking in the Archaic era, then declining through to the Classical era when burial and cremation were employed equally. A possibility is that it was first introduced during war, to enable a body to be easily returned to the family for interment. The Iliad features several heroic cremations, which may increased their popularity. More likely there were religious motivations (e.g. worship of Dionysus, whose mother, Semele, became immortal after incineration by Zeus; possibly an etiological myth) and links to purification rituals (the word comes from "fire"). Religious beliefs were not consistent throughout Greece and changed over time, which may help explain the fluctuations between burial and cremation, and geographical anomalies.

Minoan practices can easily be googled. Try here for starters: Minoan_religion#Burial_and_mortuary_practice.

There doesn't seem to be much evidence of ideological conflict between Greeks and Egyptians. Herodotus offers a dispassionate account of Egyptian mummification. (The Christians, however, took umbrage with the process and it was banned by Theodosius.) Greek communities in Alexandria were inconsistent in their funerary practices, some followed traditional Greek custom, others adapted to local norms. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 09:41, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Hinduism deities names

what are the 108 names of Hinduism deities?--2001:B07:6463:31EE:1089:3E00:FCCF:529C (talk) 14:55, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Category:Hindu deities and the article Hindu deities will help you in your research. Rojomoke (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

See also Names of God, Divya Desam, and Shiva Sahasranama. 184.147.116.166 (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

108 (number) may also be of interest. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 20:03, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Divya Desam#List of Deities in Divyadesams gives names associated with 108 Tamil temples dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. Blooteuth (talk) 22:40, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Hawaii County Act 1903

I am trying to find secondary source summarizing the history Hawaii County Act 1903 (https://archive.org/details/countyactactses00hawgoog) which seemed to have been declared unconstitutional in 1904 by the Hawaii Supreme Court. The current day counties weren't created until 1905. I am looking for secondary sources, not law books, or newspapers please, something writing about the subject with some level of hindsight.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

I can't see much of it, but County Government in Hawaii, published in 1935, looks like a great source. Warofdreams talk 03:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I found a copy, however, I was wondering if a few more can be found to back the information up. It doesn't speak about the elections which were held in the latter months (c. October-December 1903) of the year before and the newspaper sources are too scattered for me to pinpoint when county elections were held in 1903. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

January 15

First purpose-built/dedicated courthouse

What are the earliest known purpose-built or dedicated courthouses? Neutrality^talk 00:19, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

List of oldest buildings contains some very old structures built for public use, though whether they had court-like functions as well as other public assembly functions is hard to say. Look at 5,500-year-old Sechin Bajo in Peru, or 4,600-year-old Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan. The earliest purpose-built-for-justice-functions buildings I've found so far are the original basilicas in the Roman Forum, the Basilica Aemilia and Basilica Fulvia, built in 179 BC. Bet you get a better answer soon. 184.147.116.166 (talk) 01:20, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The three ancient Athenian courthouses in the Agora date from c. 420-380 BC, and this source mentions no other function they may have had, which is as close as an archaeologist is likely to get to saying they were purpose-built. Our article on Law court (ancient Athens) suggests that many trials may have been held in other places, sometimes out of doors. --Antiquary (talk) 10:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Tanks, instead of men, in the front-line of Normandy landings?

Why did not the allied military planners deployed tanks in the first line of Normandy landings? Men were sent in the front line by landing boats, who were shot dead immediately by German machine-gunners just as the front door of the boats were lowered (as can be seen in this video, 10:15). But instead of sending men in the front-line, if tanks were sent first, human casualties could have been vastly reduced. The tanks could have destroyed the first line of German defense; after that, troops could be sent under the protective cover of the tanks. Also, these obstacles, which were meant for unarmored landing crafts, could have been easily overcome by the tanks. --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 02:16, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Tanks are very heavy, making it difficult to land them without a port. I believe they did have some special tanks designed to be able to float for the landing, but they didn't perform well, and many sank. To carry normal tanks you would need much larger landing ships, with much deeper drafts, and that means they couldn't come as close to the shore, so the tanks would be submerged when they launched. The Germans did have a heavy tank designed to run along the bottom of the water, using a schnorkel to get air for the engines and crew. Something like that might have worked. StuRat (talk) 02:26, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Why didn't they bomb the sh*t out of them before they landed? For once that might work. Or did they and the machine gun nests were that tough? Why is it only the Germans with the supervillain superguns? Those would've come in handy. Can go through a meter of concrete. Was saturation bombing with napalm to the point of conflagration not invented yet or too cruel? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:42, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

They did, or at least they tried to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:52, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The problem was a lack of precision in the bombing. Many of the German fortifications were built into the sides of cliffs, so safe from bombing from above, with only small openings to fire through. Thus, the only way to take them out, pre-invasion, would be to shoot shells directly through those openings, which were too small of a target for ship's guns. During the invasion, they could be taken out at short range, or from behind, but that put the attackers at extreme risk. German infantry on the beach was in foxholes, with camo, so hard to spot, much less hit. Had the invasion been delayed a couple years, and atomic bombs been available, I wonder if they would have been used to clear the beaches. The radiation might cause cancer in many of the landing forces, but they wouldn't have known this at the time, and even if they had, short-term danger may well have trumped the long-term threat. StuRat (talk) 16:20, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I just found that the allied forces did have DD tank and Landing craft tank. --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 03:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Not enough to make "shoot 3 rounds at Nazis and die" obsolete. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:42, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Your questions are all good and military commanders at the time considered them all. As you can read at our articles and their child articles, leading with standard tanks was a no-go. The Nazis had planned for this, and the beaches were covered in tank obstacles - they would have been sitting ducks. In fact, one of the main objectives of the initial wave of infantry was for battlefield engineers to clear the obstacles off the beaches so ordinary tanks could land in numbers. As for "bombing the shit out of them", they tried. This actually worked very well at some of the beaches, which were taken with relative ease. Most of the dramatic problems occurred at Omaha, and to a lesser extent Utah beach. Mainly this was due to bad weather at these locations. The bombers, unaided in 1944 by GPS or other technology, could not spot their targets accurately through overcast skies, and many beachfront fortifications survived the bombings unscathed. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:03, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Couldn't they just skip the landing at Omaha Beach, where by far the highest number of casualties occurred? A real-life case of Murphy's law! Everything that could go wrong, did. Would scrapping that particular site, and reaching it by land from troops landed at the other beaches instead, have jeopardised the success of the operation as a whole? Eliyohub (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, everything did go wrong! For the benefit of people unfamiliar with the battle of Normandy, Omaha was a disaster. After the previously mentioned failure of bombing to actually take out the fortifications, strong seas caused the landing craft to land in a disorganized manner. Many individual infantry units landed both in the wrong place (putting in terrain they did not have a plan for) and in a scattered fashion, separating troops from their commanders. The extreme disorganization prevented the battlefield engineers from clearing the beach in a timely manner, and also put a huge delay on firing coordinates being communicated to warships that were supposed to provide artillery support. Now, as to the question itself, I dunno! If you read about the aftermath at each beach, you get the impression that the landing of men and materiel was occurring at an impressive pace at every beach, and if anything, Omaha did succeed in forcing the Germans to keep their troops spread out. Furthermore, it could be argued that the Allies ultimately needed every inch of beach available to them, since their makeshift harbor was wrecked by high seas just a few days after the landings. I'm pretty sure I've read everything Wikipedia has about Normandy, but I don't recall any examination of whether all five beaches were actually needed, or if this was just an effort to avoid putting all of the eggs in one beach basket. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The question makes certain implicit (and explicit) assumptions about the use, availability, and capability of tanks – not to mention about the German defences – that are not necessarily accurate. Among other factors, the Germans littered the beaches with Czech hedgehogs and other obstacles specifically to restrict the ability of armored vehicles to approach their fortifications. (The hedgehogs also extended into the water, with the intended purpose of stopping or tearing the hull of any deep-drafted, heavily-laden landing craft.) Fortifications and soldiers were armed with an assortment of antitank weapons (from the handheld Panzerfaust up to 88mm guns). The Nazis were evil, but they weren't necessarily stupid.

Moreover, tanks wouldn't survive without close, coordinated support by infantry. They weren't and aren't a magic bullet.

Of course, there were certainly tanks present at Normandy. Landing craft tank (LCT) certainly existed and were used to great effect. (And at certain hazard—26 LCTs were lost in the Normandy invasions.) Modified LCTs were also used as gun platforms for self-propelled guns to provide artillery support. A handful of LCTs with the designation LCT(CB) ("concrete buster") carried 3 Sherman Firefly tanks each, armed with 17-pounder guns and tasked with destruction of fortifications. And there's a whole bunch of specialized vehicles that were designed to overcome some of the challenges of amphibious attack by tracked vehicles, including the aforementioned DD tanks and the even-more-outlandish Hobart's Funnies. (Not to mention some of the weapons that were tested but didn't make the cut, like the Panjandrum.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:58, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks TenOfAllTrades, very good, informative and logical answer. --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 06:46, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The documentary, Journeys to the Bottom of the Sea - D-Day: The Untold Story can be found online; this related BBC article may be of interest:  "BBC NEWS | UK | The tanks that didn't land on D-Day". news.bbc.co.uk. 2002.  2606:A000:4C0C:E200:5841:24B7:531B:71A (talk) 07:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The specialist armoured vehicles of Percy Hobart's 79th Division were offered to the US forces but were turned down by Omar Bradley on the grounds that “accepting the Churchills would require retraining our tank operators and maintenance men and a complicated separate supply chain for spare parts.” See Hobart and His Funnies: Gen. Omar Bradley and the D-Day Controversy. That, combined with the US DD tanks being launched too far out (see BBC link above), which meant that many of them were swamped and sank, led to the US landings having very little armoured support in comparison to the British and Canadian beaches. Alansplodge (talk) 09:38, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Our 741st Tank Battalion (United States) article records the "loss of 27 of the 32 DD tanks before they reached shore". Alansplodge (talk) 16:36, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

We should mention some of the other downsides of standard tanks. In addition to being too heavy to cross water effectively:

1) They are less maneuverable than infantry. They can't climb steep hills, for example.

2) They are more exposed than infantry. They can't hide from frontal fire in a shallow ditch, for example.

3) They have less of a view of the battlefield. A few small "windows" doesn't give a total view of the situation, although in modern tanks I suppose they can put cameras all over them to provide the full view they need, without risking the crew with too many openings.

4) In some situations they are slower than infantry, such as turning around, or dealing with obstacles that infantry can just run around. StuRat (talk) 17:32, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

• Look at the difference between the US and UK landing beaches. Particularly the 79th Armoured Division and the failures of the US Duplex Drive Shermans, when they were launched too far off the coast. The UK landings were successful, as they were supported by armour, just as you describe. The US landings were poorly supported by armour, and suffered as a result. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:55, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Partly, one suspects, because of the failure of the armour used in the 1942 Dieppe Raid, when the Canadian tanks had been unable to deploy off the beach and were all immobilised by either by mines or anti-tank guns. There was a considerable effort not to repeat the same mistakes. Alansplodge (talk) 22:06, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

This article says of the Omaha Beach landings: "The 743rd Tank Battalion actually reached the beach largely intact... 40 of the 48 tanks allocated to the western end of Omaha beach arrived safely. On the eastern flank the situation was far worse... only 18 of the 48 tanks allocated to the eastern beaches arrived intact". Alansplodge (talk) 17:58, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

US Supreme Court

Why are there only eight justices depicted on the first photograph of the US Supreme Court?--Hubon (talk) 05:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

"The number of sitting justices fell to eight before an act of 1869 provided for nine justices, one for each of the judicial circuits established in 1866."[10] (photo taken in 1869) --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:C03A:9D20:31EF:82F7 (talk) 05:24, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

(e/c) Because there were only eight justices at that time (1869). See Supreme Court of the United States#Size of the Court, Judiciary Act of 1869, and Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant#Judicial appointments. Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:27, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Like now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Source for Helen Suzman quote

[11] Can anyone help me finding the Hansard reference to this quote which took place in the South African Parliament? Amisom (talk) 19:19, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

South African Hansard can be searched here. You may need some patience to find your quote - "embarrass" brings up 25 hits. 184.147.116.166 (talk) 23:49, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I had a quick go at finding a date for this from other sources, but it's only repeated anecdotally as "once in parliament" or "in a celebrated exchange". None of the sources even say who she was replying to, except that it was "a minister" [12] "a cabinet minister" [13] or "a certain minister" or even "an irritated minister". [14] I'm always a bit suspicious when there are no corroborating details. Alansplodge (talk) 09:11, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

January 16

Global Inequality and the Golden Billion

According to the Page 14 of the UN Human Development Report of 1998 (http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/259/hdr_1998_en_complete_nostats.pdf), the richest 20% of the human population on this planet consumed about 86% of its resources, measured as private consumption expenditure. How has this global inequality changed over the past two decades? and what is its measure today in 2017 in term of natural resources consumption instead of wealth or income? Any sourced statistic figures of resources and commodities will be fine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.164.21.130 (talk) 01:47, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The Latest such report is for 2015 http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/2015_human_development_report.pdf, you can read that. I am dubious of the usefulness of such buzz terms as Golden Billion. μηδείς (talk) 02:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

By coincidence, there is an Oxfam report today suggesting the the 8 wealthiest people in the world (NB - eight people, not 8%) have as much as the poorest 50% (3.8 billion) of the worlds population. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38613488 Wymspen (talk) 09:00, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

That report's kind of meaningless when most people are subsistence farmers without bank accounts. It's like comparing oaks and redwoods. Most oaks are doing just fine. A more narrowed and contextual comparison would make more sense. μηδείς (talk) 18:22, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

To expand on that, their wealth, small as it is, is entirely "off the books", being their possessions, land, and home. You might expect such things to be counted, but in subsistence farming communities there may not even be official records of who owns what, as they don't have any cash to pay taxes, so there would be little point in keeping track of it, and, since those government's are often dirt poor too, they couldn't afford the effort, in any case. StuRat (talk) 18:41, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Rather than random speculation of what would be expected, the methodology Credit Suisse uses to estimate wealth distribution (which is then used by Oxfam to produce the above) is here [15] as a link from [16] which itself is linked from the BBC article. Nil Einne (talk) 04:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Did a general really believe that if the Cold War blocs had 2 survivors & 1 then the side with 2 wins?

That sounds too insane to believe. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:48, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Sounds more like a quote from Dr. Strangelove. StuRat (talk) 20:54, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

This mentality, if that's the word: "I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed. But I do say 10 to 20 million killed, tops - depending on the breaks." -- General Buck Turgidson

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:15, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Renewable Heat Incentive scandal

Under the current law, if a new Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland took office without anything happening to Arlene Foster, would she automatically be back into office as First Minister (so essentially she's just unable to exercise the office until then), or is she totally out of office and she would have to be re-elected by the Assembly? The start of the scandal article makes it sound like she's just suspended until a new deputy comes in, but Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scandal#Resignation_of_Martin_McGuinness_and_collapse_of_Stormont makes it sound like she's completely out of office. 208.95.51.72 (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Per the BBC, "Martin McGuinness's resignation as deputy first minister automatically put Arlene Foster out of her job as first minister, because they hold a joint office. After the positions have been vacant for seven days, the administration is effectively dead and the law says the Northern Ireland secretary must call a new election after a "reasonable" time period." 184.147.116.166 (talk) 23:29, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Declarations of independence prior to July 4 1776

Which colonies declared independence before July 4, 1776? So far the list I have is:

• Delaware, on June 15, 1776
• Massachusetts Bay, on May 1, 1776
• New Hampshire, on June 15, 1776
• Rhode Island, on May 4, 1776

Am I missing any? And what of Massachusetts Bay, which supposedly declared on May 1, yet Rhode Island is often mentioned as the first state to declare independence? Is the Massachusetts Bay declaration not of independence? (text here: [17]) I mean, it seems like it is, but on the other hand it never uses the word 'independence' that I see. --Golbez (talk) 21:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

A couple more are mentioned in United_States_Declaration_of_Independence#The_final_push. 184.147.116.166 (talk) 23:25, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

All the ones I see there are authorizing delegates to vote for independence at the convention, rather than outright declarations themselves. --Golbez (talk) 02:02, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

January 17

Has anybody done anything except stand on the moon? Kneel, sit, lay?

Curious.2.102.186.137 (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Several have driven on the Moon... †dismas†|^(talk) 00:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

To better answer your question, since they took rock samples back from the Moon, I would think that they'd have to kneel at some point to get them. Though I can't find pics of it after a quick Google... †dismas†|^(talk) 00:55, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The rocks and soil samples were picked up with tools. A couple of the astronauts jumped a little, and one famously hit a golf ball. Under no circumstances would the astronauts have sat (other than in the rover), knelt, or lain down on the lunar surface. (I assume you are referring to activity while on the EVA and not in the LM.) Even assuming that their space suits had enough flexibility in the joints to make it possible to do any of those things, unnecessary contact with the roughness of the surface would have risked ripping the suits, which could easily have been fatal. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

"The pressure suits worn by the Apollo astronauts restricted their mobility, particularly their ability to bend over, while on the Moon. For this reason, special tools were designed to allow them to collect rocks and soil for return to Earth."

(edit conflict)Collecting Moon Rocks Lunar Planetray Institute. --Hillbillyholiday ^talk 01:02, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Sleep, eat, drive, golf, fall down, take communion. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:07, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, one astronaut tried moving by hopping, while saying "Hippity-hop," fell down and promptly got back up . Could have been Cernan. A fall at one fifth G is not all that dire if the space suit is not fragile. Edison (talk) 03:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Did anyone ever fall on their back? It seems inadvisable with all the life support equipment in the backpack. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:42, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• Not on purpose, because the moon is quite dirty and the dirt is quite sticky. They had to work pretty hard to avoid getting that stuff all over everything. (Note: this is from memory. I did not look for a source.)-Arch dude (talk) 03:52, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Nobody ever just "lays". It's a transitive verb, requiring an object. You lay an egg, lay the table, lay a blanket on a sleeping child, lay a person down in a bed, etc. It's also used to mean have sexual intercourse with, but you still need an object. You lay someone, you don't just "lay". But you can just "lie". In a bed, on a psychiatrist's couch, on the Moon. And that's no lie. Whether anyone has ever lain on the Moon, I do not know. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The death of Gene Cernan, the last person to have walked on the moon, was announced yesterday. 79.73.135.60 (talk) 08:43, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Can tankers really take off from aircraft carriers?

Can tankers really take off from aircraft carriers[18]? Wouldn't their wing spans be too big? ECS LIVA Z (talk) 03:51, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

• It's possible to design a tanker that can do this, but I think they just used buddy refueling (SeeLockheed S-3 Viking). During WWII, in one instance they launched long range B-25 bombers. See Doolittle Raid. -Arch dude (talk) 04:12, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

B25 was a medium bomber of course (wingspan ~67 ft); heavy bombers had a wingspan of ~100 ft. For comparison a modern tanker (e.g. Stratocaster) , is around 130 ft. Interesting about the B25 taking off from the carrier though- they could take off, but couldn't land back on them. O Fortuna!^{...Imperatrix mundi.} 07:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

C130s (wingspan 40 m/ 130 ft) have landed on carriers in trials. Fgf10 (talk) 07:53, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The largest/heaviest aircraft ever to regularly see carrier service was the Douglas A-3 Skywarrior; MGTOW was 82,000 pounds with a 72-foot wingspan. Several of them were modified to serve in the tanker role during the Vietnam War, before being replaced by a tanker modification of the Grumman A-6 Intruder. The A-3 remained in reconnaissance service until 1991. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The Royal Navy converted aircraft that they were already operating to act as tankers for their smaller carriers, in the 1960s, the Supermarine Scimitar and in the 1970s, Blackburn Buccaneers were used. Alansplodge (talk) 10:53, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Why (at usa presidential election) you need 50%+1 electoral votes to win the election by usual means, but you dont need 50%+1 population votes to be the winner of some state?

Why (at usa presidential election) you need 50%+1 electoral votes to win the election by usual means, but you dont need 50%+1 population votes to be the winner of some state?

Where this double standart came from/originated?177.92.128.26 (talk) 10:55, 17 January 2017 (UTC)