The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
It's three o clock in the A of M here in sunny California (Bay area), and I just saw a TV ad on Fox News (never mind why the TV is on that channel) for Liz Cheney's re-election. She is a Representative from Wyoming. So why is she running ads in California? It looked like a generic ad, not aimed at out of staters. Is it to drum up donations or what? I didn't notice it asking for donations. Does this have something to do with her rehabiliation with the Democrats due to her activities on the Jan 6 committee? The region here is heavily Democratic, though of course Fox is a GOP channel. Thanks. 67.164.114.199 (talk) 09:58, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Individual voters are less important to candidates than donors are. The potential to raise money is more important than the ability to change the mind of a few local voters, especially when those minds are more resistant to persuasion than ever before. In the past 30 or so years, politics has become tribal, with most voters blindly voting for their party without regard for individual issues, campaigns are mainly about raising fundage. There's a lot more money in San Francisco than in Cheyenne. --Jayron3214:22, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's odd then that this was the first time I've ever seen an ad for an out-of-state politician here. I'd think they'd all do that. The TV sound was thankfully off but this ad didn't seem specifically like a donation pitch either--just "re-elect Liz Cheney". We don't even get ads for presidential candidates during general elections here, since CA is not a swing state. Of course we are slammed with them during primaries. 2601:648:8201:5DD0:0:0:0:34C5 (talk) 17:41, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The straightforward answer is that Fox News is not broadcast TV. If you want to run an ad on a "cable/satellite" channel, either you buy an ad with the channel itself, in which case everyone viewing the channel sees it, or you buy one with cable/satellite TV providers, which will run in a commercial slot where carriers are allowed to "overlay" different ads. You've probably noticed these occasionally when a commercial finishes and then it cuts right into a different commercial already in progress. Since the providers are the ones sending the TV feed to end customers, they can if desired target them to certain customers. Some channels may also have different "feeds", such as West/East Coast, which can allow cruder targeting. Anyone with insider knowledge of the biz would be welcome to share it here. So she's not really running the ad "in California" as such—she's probably running it nationally. --47.147.118.55 (talk) 04:37, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This question may be unanswerable. I don't know that Native Americans had a system of registration of births, marriages and deaths at that time. 92.23.217.220 (talk) 13:19, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
While Benjamin Franklin enjoyed a longer-than-average lifespan - dying in 1790 at 84 years old - octogenarians were far from unheard of in the late eighteenth century. Unfortunately, the 1790 U.S. Census (the first decennial Census) did not record the age of its subjects, so we're denied an easy counterexample there.
Franklin was definitely the oldest among the group we call the Founding Fathers of the United States, by quite a margin, being 70 years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence. The Average age of the signers being 44, and a dozen were younger than 35. However, to say that Franklin was the oldest among a specific, fairly small well documented group is very different than saying he was, among the salmost 4 million Americans at the time of his death, the oldest of them. At 84 years old, he was older than the average life span, but centenarians were well known in the world, even in his day. Indeed, at the upper end, people in his time did not live all that shorter than modern people do; life span improvement has been largely due to two factors: reducing childhood mortality and reducing motherhood risks (many women died in childbirth at the time). Indeed, a person's life expectancy for a male at, say, 25 years old has not moved all that much since the 1700s. Which is to say that I would find it very unlikely that an 84-year old was the oldest American at any point in history. --Jayron3214:07, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's the ghost with the most, in name recognition and reported sightings, for sure. But did you know Gérard de Nerval got his holy comeuppance in mere mortal months (if not weeks)? 26 janvier, 1855 AD. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:09, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be Da'wah? This could make sense if you remove the comma before "due to the doctrine", i.e Despite the Qur'an's teachings on treating disabled people with respect due to the doctrine of Da'wah, some Muslims families report feelings of shame around having a disabled relative and refuse to allow a disabled person to participate in key aspects of Islam. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:55, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly that comma should be there, and due to the doctrine of dawarism/Dawah is enclosed in parenthetical commas. But it's a bit ambiguous, and could be read as The Qur'an teaches treating disabled people with respect. However, due to the doctrine of dawarism/Dawah some Muslims families report feelings of shame around having a disabled relative and refuse to allow a disabled person to participate in key aspects of Islam, in which case Dawah makes no sense. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:03, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In Arabic, "da`wah" means a missionary call, while "duwar" means vertigo or dizziness. I can't find that "dawar" means anything... AnonMoos (talk) 13:08, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The text was introduced in this edit [3]. The same editor made a similar edit to Disability in Saudi Arabia a few weeks later: [4] including the text "this is connected to colonialism and darwinism ideology and not from Islam". I have removed the text in question from these two articles. --Amble (talk) 16:33, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The edit was placed in front of a pre-existing cite tag, but there doesn't seem to be anything like that in the source. --Amble (talk) 21:25, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Transcript of papl bull
I'm looking for a transcription (or better yet, an English translation) of the papal bull that anulled the original 1215 Magna Carta, Bulla Innocentii Papae III pro rege Johanne, contra barones (Aug. 24, 1215). THe document is available at the British Library's online collection:
Commentary on whether the bull was, or is now, considered an "Ex Cathedra" statement would also be helpful, but I'm primarily interested in the text. For what it's worth, might be a good article or maybe something to add to the Magna Carta article.2601:601:9D00:10:18CD:66B3:B49E:136A (talk) 18:18, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There’s nothing in the text to mark something as ex cathedra as it does not mark any definition of doctrine with respect to faith or morals. In any event, the concept of papal infallibility would not have been one widely recognized, if at all, at the time of Innocent’s bull in 1215 as the thirteenth century is the earliest time frame that most scholars accept the concept as being promulgated with the fourteenth century being a more likely timeframe for the idea to spread (and as you may know, papal infallibility was not formally declared until the first Vatican Council in the nineteenth century). D A Hosek (talk) 21:38, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
August 15
Who really originated 2 quotes
Hi all, long time reader here and very appreciative of all the hard work you guys do. So I seem to remember (maybe Hegel) some German or Prussian philosopher originating "Politics is downstream from Culture" a century or more before Brietbart and now Bannon are credited with it, or was it a slightly different saying? Also "It is not the crime but the coverup" was a hot quote during Watergate but was it originally said centuries before, if not who originated it? Thanks for any and all opinions in advance!2600:1702:690:F7A0:28C1:7D56:5FB2:9C14 (talk) 04:13, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Brainy Quote has several rather contemporaneous sources for the "Politics is downstream from Culture" quote. Ben Domenech being the only one that exactly matches the quote. It doesn't sound particularly Hegelian, for what it is worth. It sounds very much in the 21st century far-right philosophy, though given Ben Domenech's penchant for plagiarism, he may have cribbed it from somewhere. The importance of culture to the far right is readily evident; they like to imagine themselves as part of a culture war, and the importance of winning that war towards influencing politics is their central strategy. I would not be surprised if the recent origins of the quote are actually fairly accurate. In terms of quote origin websites, I can't find any that track the origin of the aphorism "It's not the crime, it's the coverup", but it is ubiquitous, however I don't personally recall any uses older than Watergate. --Jayron3214:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've had trouble with having stuff on an OUP sub-site like Oxford Reference be inaccessible through the OUP portal directly, but that doesn't seem to be the problem here. I searched for a while, and I think the only way out is to wait for OUP to fix the link, or better yet email them to report the broken link. SamuelRiv (talk) 06:52, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I received an email from OUP dated 18 August that they are redoing their access control system which "affects how you log in and manage your subscriptions and alerts. Now you can conveniently login in with your e-mail address instead of having to remember multiple usernames and passwords" and goes on from there. Perhaps you got caught up in this. Response email is online at oup dot com. Mathglot (talk) 05:39, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Was Levi Strauss (jeans manufacturer) related to Claude Lévi-Strauss (anthropologist/philosopher)?
I realize that Levi is a personal (first) name in the former case and a surname component in the latter case, but it still seems like there might be a bare possibility that they had a known relationship. Did they? --Rpresser13:57, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can find, there is no evidence to say that they are related. With the very slight caveat that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, I can't find any close familial relationship between them. The surname "Lévi-Strauss" came from his father, painter Raymond Lévi-Strauss, who was born in France; Claude was born in Belgium. Levi Strauss was born in Germany, and moved to the U.S some 40 years before Raymond was born. Given how common the name "Strauss" is, it seems no more likely for them to be related than two people named Smith. --Jayron3214:16, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Notably, during the Napoleonic Empire, many Jews which didn't have last names were automatically assigned the last name Straus(s). It is not particularly Hebraic, Strauss is Germanic, but many Ashkenazi Jews in German speaking areas adopted German names at various times. Levi is a Hebraic name, being one of the sons of Jacob and founder of the priestly Tribe of Levi. --Jayron3212:46, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. Löb is an alternate spelling of Loeb or Leib, which is cognate with the English word "Lion" and name Leon. Levi is an entirely different name, of different etymology, though the similar sounding nature of the two names may have influence him to make the change. --Jayron3214:05, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
'Contemporary Biographies' by William Thomas Pike
On Wikisource I have created a partial list of a series of works of British and Irish biography, edited by William Thomas Pike. Their titles use one of two patterns:
Birmingham at the Opening of the Twentieth Century
East Anglia in the Twentieth Century
and some (at least) are subtitled "Contemporary Biographies. Pike's New Century Series." or simply "Contemporary Biographies".
Does anyone have a complete list? Or a biography of Pike?
33 "Contemporary Biographies" published between 1888 and 1912 as Pike's New Century Series. Reprinted by a Peter Bell in the 1980's.[7] as A Dictionary of Edwardian Biography
Thank you, all. I've updated the two Wikisource lists, accordingly. Does anyone in the United States have access to the Hathi Trust files, and if so, please could you upload them to Commons? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits20:30, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wigs would be preferred (as mentioned) because it's a quick way to put on a perfect hairstyle that won't get mussed in the meantime. I can't imagine most of them were wigs because natural hair wigs, especially finely styled, would likely have been more expensive then than they are now. From what I've seen advertised, it seems like a bob is one of the easier dos for a hairstylist to learn (or maybe it's one of the intro "advanced" dos? Either way there's seemingly lots of demand for barber school models specifically for single-length bobs), so it might have been cheaper and easier to maintain than some hairstyles (that has zero bearing on why a do would be popular, but maybe somewhat on why middle-income women would keep it for longer, go out partying in it, and forego wigs, say), but I have zero idea, and it would be nice if a stylist/barber or hair/fashion history buff could stop by in here.
I do know there are definitely socio-economic-political phenomena in women's history (of all classes except the poorest of the poor), especially in relation to men, that go along with the degree of rigor, time, and expense required to keep up with fashion of the time. SamuelRiv (talk) 21:58, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But what was the reason thier hairs were like that in that part of the 20th century, exactly? And did all females had those hairstyles, worldwide, including in Ireland, Britain and the US? 86.140.120.168 (talk) 20:48, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Due to a reaction of the aftermath of World War I which took many lives and women taking the place of men in many workplaces, including factories and fields.
The article seems to attribute it more to shock fashion icons made international by film, complementary fashion like the cloche hat, and relative ease of maintenance. I'd personally add the importance of the hairstyle in the evolving ideal silhouette, and the notion of the silhouette being raised in importance through the growing dominance of photography and film, and rise in fashion (this is part of the origin story of the skinniness ideal). I am also generally extremely skeptical of hypotheses that social movements in the abstract significantly drive pop culture -- I think you're more likely to find pop culture driving the behavior of social movements. (Examples: bra burning was a protest against fashion based on an abstract social theory, but the number of women actively shunning bras in daily wear never exceeded a handful. With an oddly analogous ideology, the codpiece-inlaid virility pants of the 1970s to free men's masculinity never went beyond a few trivia pages in history. And my decades-long campaign against neckties has so far seen few adopters, though I feel like next year's the year!) SamuelRiv (talk) 21:22, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the reaction argument makes sense, moreover the automobile was getting unavoidable, ubiquituous hardtops adding volume constraints and much narrower doors contrasting with the conditions from the horse-drawn-cab era, and the cloche hat is obviously an all-weather design adequate even if the return back home required hiring a convertible (compare with fisherman). Askedonty (talk) 14:09, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And did they all have those hairstyles in real life and in film/tv? Did they have to have those hairs? And some of them did wear wigs? And did most women and men disapprove of those styles? I disapprove. 86.140.120.168 (talk) 20:28, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
86.140.120.168 -- The 1920s were a reaction against the rigidities of the Victorian and Edwardian eras in a number of ways (to some degree due to the effects of the social discontinuities caused by WW1), but the "bob" haircut was a fairly minor manifestation of this, and I'm not sure what you can learn by focusing on the haircut alone, in isolation from all the other cultural trends of the decade. And I really don't know what your apparent obsession with wigs is about... AnonMoos (talk) 22:09, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also, 86.140.120.168, there were no broadcast TV services in the 1920s. Your apparent assumption that there were suggests that you haven't yet developed a good grasp of historical developments. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.121.96 (talk) 16:23, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's a little bit of a rude presumption. Broadcast radio and the onset of cheap film has the same basic idea and created a saturated media landscape that is in some ways comparable to the TV era (though it's probably better just to say "mass media" or "mass AV media"). Also AnonMoos, saying "the 1920s were a reaction" against "rigidities" so matter-of-factly without a good review source is kind of useless. To what rigidities were people of what classes where reacting to? Why did these Victorian-cum-Edwardian "rigidities" only see their downfall in the 1920s, when there were other notable free-wheeling risque eras interspersed (the Gay Nineties?) It's basically taking two continents and nearly a century of social history into MS Paint and hitting the "flood-fill" button. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:17, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
SamuelRiv -- Just compare a typical mid-1890s dress with cumbersome "Leg of Mutton" sleeves, fitted tightly to the corseted torso above the waist, and with long (at least ankle-length) thick heavy full skirts below the waist, to a typical mid-1920s dress which often didn't have sleeves at all, which was loosely fitting and not heavily-skirted, and with a hemline tending upwards toward the knees, and you'll know that a major discontinuity has occurred. It's hard to see the "drop-waist" or no-waist dress prevalent during most of the 1920s as anything but a reaction to the corseted narrow-waisted hourglass silhouette which prevailed druring most of the 19th century and the early 20th century. There was a similar reaction in the 1920s to rigid narrow Victorian/Edwardian morality (the 1920s was when the concept of the single-couple "date" arose, and a young unmarried woman was no longer automatically "ruined" if it was known that she had had sex) -- see Bright Young Things etc. -- and the fashion changes fit in with this. It's very hard to say for sure why such major social changes take place or don't take place at any one specific time, but it's been speculated by various people that the aftereffects of WW1 had something to do with it (as I said)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:21, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why you're comparing bohemian and night-life culture of the 1920s to general notions of Victorian/Edwardian morality (assuming this is definable) or some standard fashion elements of sleeves and corsets that would be common at all levels. Your better comparison with the kind of 1920s cultures your looking at is, for example, what you'd find at the early Moulin Rouge (and the Belle Époque in Europe is probably decent to compare on social and cultural levels to the 20s and 50s in the U.S.). People dressed and acted risque in the urban night life then as in previous decades. If you're looking at loose sleeves and tight corsets, you probably should use a more thorough dataset of the years and cities. I think there's clearly a widespread urban pop-cultural revival revival in the 1890s, 1920s, and 1950s, and in similar spacing earlier in the 19th century, but it's fuzzy as it's separated by continent and precise decade. I don't know how you'd effectively say that the 1920s was more of a "major discontinuity" than any of the other periods overall when looking at culture alone, and it's a difficult question to set up because the data and precision gets worse further back, and you really have to be fair about where and when specifically you want to look. SamuelRiv (talk) 01:44, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the idea that only "bohemian night-life" women wore sleeveless loose-fitting drop-waist dresses with high hemlines in the 1920s is simply 100% factually false. Look at the classic "Half an inch shorter" postcard. Are those "bohemian night-life" women?? (The dresses have sleeves, since they're for going outdoors during the daytime, but in other circumstances women of a similar social status might wear sleeveless dresses.) There's a major discontinuity in the 1920s, since for many decades before WW1, women wore very long dresses which were tightly-fitted above the waist, but that started to change during the war, with a rapid acceleration of the change in the 1920s. Just look at the Friedrich Seidenstuecker photo of a woman jumping over a puddle ([8][9]) to see the radical discontinuity with the Victorian era (a Victorian woman might feel the vapors coming on and need to be revived with smelling salts if she saw the 1925 or 1930(?) woman jumping over a puddle). AnonMoos (talk) 02:28, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Did you read the articles? Some people wore wigs, some didn't. In film and TV, some actors and actresses have to wear wigs, some don't. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:21, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
August 16
political comedy
I'm trying to understand this latest ruckus about former Australian PM Scott Morrison apparently secretly appointing himself to five AU cabinet posts while he was serving PM. It's not even clear that he doesn't *still* hold those posts after losing re-election as PM to Anthony Albanese.
Here in the US of A, I can look at https://home.treasury.gov/about/general-information/officials which as of a few minutes ago claimed that the Secretary of the Treasury was Janet Yellen. Could that possibly be fake news? Like could Donald Trump have appointed himself Secretary of the Treasury and still be serving in that office, even though the Treasury web site says Yellen? https://www.finance.gov.au/about-us/ministers says Katy Gallagher is the AU Minister of Finance, the AU equivalent of SecTreas. I don't know whose name it gave during the Morrison administration, but if it said Morrison, wouldn't anyone have noticed? Did the nominal MinFi at the time have any idea what was going on, or did he or she show up to work every day in a real-life version of the Truman Show?
It shouldn't be a laughing matter but I can't help finding this hysterically funny. I'm reminded of the secret video shot in the Reagan White House during the Iran-Contra scandal, showing that Reagan was the real mastermind while only feigning ignorance. Or maybe Mycroft Holmes, who supposedly ran the British government all by himself during that time. I bow to Morrison's polymathic brilliance if he was really doing all that stuff.
How the hell could MOrrison put himself in charge of five cabinet ministries without anyone noticing? Is that like Trump making himself secretary of 5 different departments with Biden only figuring it out now? If Trump was TreasSec wouldn't his signature be on all of our dollar bills? Someone would surely notice. I'm wondering what is different about Australia. 2601:648:8201:5DD0:0:0:0:34C5 (talk) 04:07, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your questions are very valid. At this point there are no answers, and the whole bizarre episode is exercising the minds of various learned persons and experienced political commentators, not to mention the public. Among other questions to be answered are these:
Why did Morrison admit only this morning (16 Aug) to being appointed to only 3 extra ministries, when later in the day it was shown the correct number was 5?
How does one forget that they were the (co-)Treasurer of Australia, even if in name only?
Why was the whole exercise necessary to begin with? Morrison said it was so that if, say, the Minister for Health caught Covid or for some other reason was unable to do his job, there would be a minister already sworn in who could instantly take over. The truth is that, in such circumstances, a new minister could be appointed very quickly indeed, and having a stand-by minister was completely unnecessary.
Regarding the possible analogy to U.S. politics, this is not possible, as cabinet posts (as well as federal judges, many lower-level executive department positions, etc.) are required to be confirmed by the Senate before they can begin to do their jobs. You can't "secretly" have a cabinet post in the U.S. because there are public hearings and votes and the like to confirm those posts. Also, in the U.S., the cabinet secretaries are determined by law, and not up to the whim of the President. He does get to appoint his own personal staff, so things like Chief of Staff and Press Secretary do not go through confirmation processes, but all executive department heads, and their departments, are all established by law and their roles well defined. --Jayron3210:38, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In the UK, the monarch approves ministerial appointments, but in Australia, its her representative, the Governor-General of Australia. One would have expected him to advise that this wasn't a terribly good idea, but apparently he nodded it through. Here is the BBC's take, yesterday:
For a leader of any country, let alone a democracy, to take over several portfolios without the public's knowledge or the knowledge of his own colleagues, raises serious questions. If confirmed, this also means that the then-prime minister was potentially aiming to centralise power so that the decision-making would ultimately come down to him. [10]
This is true. However, as explained, the Senate basically never goes into recess, just to avoid those issues. Interim appoints also occur as well. --Jayron3214:24, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks all. For those harping on Senate confirmation, yeah, the corresponding check and balance in AU is that the Governor General signs off on appointments, and in this case I guess it failed. (OTOH I don't remember any provision in the US Constitution that says Senate confirmations can't be done in closed session). So ok, I can see how the appointments themselves went through in AU, but I'm still baffled that they could remain secret after the fact. And I guess the important question in practice is whether Morrison did anything with the portfolios while he had them (that, too, might also have gone unnoticed). For example, here in the US, the IRS just got a bunch of extra money as part of the "Inflation Reduction" Act, and the teevee is blaring that this will mean a lot more tax audits on the middle class. But SecTreas Yellen has supposedly ordered the IRS commissioner to not let that happen.[11] (She can do that since the IRS is part of the Treasury Dept.) Could Morrison have also made interventions in the relevant AU agencies that were kept more behind the scenes? Yellen's IRS thing was done with a lot of PR, but usually I guess anything like that is bureaucratic paper shuffling that doesn't get much attention. 2601:648:8201:5DD0:0:0:0:34C5 (talk) 17:42, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
On the secrecy issue. These appointments were not like the typical swearing-in ceremonies conducted by the Governor-General at Government House, with families, parliamentary colleagues and the media in attendance. Rather, they were done by some sort of administrative instrument, a document signed by the G-G on the advice of the PM. That bit of it is legally ok, I think, because someone who's already been sworn in as a minister can be given additional powers without having to be resworn. And then, as the G-G's office has said, the publicity of said instruments is a matter for the government. But here's the catch: all legislative and administrative instruments such as these must be recorded on the Federal Register of Legislation; further, anything touching on the official duties of each portfolio/minister must be recorded in the Administrative Arrangements Order. Professor Anne Twomey, a constitutional expert, says she has searched both things assiduously for anything to do with Morrison's additional portfolios and found - nothing! Some have questioned, because these appointments have never been revoked, whether Morrison is still holding them; I also question whether they were ever valid to begin with. This is a strange new world that nobody has any experience of. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]22:38, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
During the duumvirate of Gough Whitlam and Lance Barnard, Barnard held a world record number of 14 portfolios. Of course, it wasn't a secret and there were exceptional circumstances. --TrogWoolley (talk) 22:49, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the big thing here is that it was all kept secret. Given that Scott Morrison is a man from the advertising industry, and is not normally known to be shy about publicly promoting himself, the secrecy is extraordinary. I find it truly puzzling. HiLo48 (talk) 02:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Except: This all came to light solely because of a biography of Morrison published on the weekend. He had collaborated with the authors over quite a long time, in the course of which he told them about his additional ministries. Had this book not been written, we'd still know nothing about it. So, he didn't trust the ministers he himself had appointed, he didn't trust the Cabinet, he didn't trust the Australian people - but he trusted a couple of journalists in order to produce a self-serving book. That speaks for itself. But is he truly so naive as to think nobody would notice or particularly care about these details? Either he has a profound lack of understanding of how our democratic system actually works, or .... (you fill in the blanks). -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]22:45, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
His god told him to do it? If that comment puzzles non-Australians, Morrison is an overt evangelical Christian, who claimed after he became Prime Minister that it was God's doing. He religious position is an extreme one in a country where most of us are apatheists. HiLo48 (talk) 22:50, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you can construct an independently-approved survey in which more Australians voluntarily identify as specifically "apatheists" than Jedis (yeah that's right I added an "s", come at me nerds!), I will turn an article of your choice to FA. SamuelRiv (talk) 02:42, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I admit pure original research there, but well based on seven decades of observation. I am also happy to point out the flaws in any survey that disagrees with my observations. If you know any Australians, ask them how important religion is in their lives, and when they last went to church. HiLo48 (talk) 03:39, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I knew a CoE vicar who was openly atheist (and was so pre-internet), so while her subjects seem to accept the Queen's divine right they have quite a bit of a loophole. And while I'm sure plenty of Australians given a poll of common, normal-sounding words for lack of religion would opt to identify with them, those who might consider an idiosyncratic internet sub-category seem more like the type who'd spend 10 minutes deciding between FSM, Pelor, and the Dude. I cast 2d6 votes for Garl Glittergold! SamuelRiv (talk) 06:19, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No religion - the first option on Q23 of the 2021 census - seems like "common, normal-sounding words for lack of religion" to me. Note, of course, that apatheism is an attitude, not a religion (or lack thereof). Mitch Ames (talk) 07:30, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Is all of this somehow related to the question about the Australian government? (BTW, Adam wasn't appointed until March 2022, so obviously wouldn't appear in a report at 31 Dec 2021. [12] Sorry to spoil your conspiracy theory) Alansplodge (talk) 13:40, 20 August 2022 (UTC) [Text relating to deleted post] Alansplodge (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a redlink to the "See also" section of the Big Ben article. ... which I've deleted because MOS:NOTSEEALSO says "The "See also" section should not include red links". (But feel free to put it back after someone creates an article.) Mitch Ames (talk) 12:29, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The LAX building was designed in 1959 by Pereira & Luckman, while Kolkata was by Vector Designs made public in 2015. I doubt an architect getting such huge contracts in the 50s is alive/working today (though I can't confirm it). Revival is common in art, though I doubt a mass Space-Age-Pop-Art revival movement is incoming. "Why is everyone wearing those [sci-fi-style] rings?" "Because nobody wears them anymore -- rings are stupid!" [15] -- my apologies. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:44, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nation Creditworthiness?
what's the rationale behind keeping GDP and other measurements as a sole indicator to identify creditworthiness for countries to avail external loan? Is there any justice to applying this principle on developing or least developed nations seeking funds because obviously their GDP's and other socio-economic indicators would be below global average? On what basis do world banks or other foreign financiers fund them on? Grotesquetruth (talk) 14:18, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The common term is sovereign credit rating. It takes a number of factors into account, not simply GDP, in order to determine the risk to investors of lending to that particular country. Factors include the country's level of indebtedness, credit history (e.g. has there ever been a default or other failures to reimburse previous loans) and political risk. See here for example: [16]Xuxl (talk) 14:49, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
in that case, will anyone take the risk of financing a least developed nation knowing full well that the sovereign credit ratings seem to not be in favour of the financing investor? Grotesquetruth (talk) 15:47, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's why interest rates are based in part on credit ratings, to offset risk. If you couldn't do that, nobody would ever buy riskier bonds. So nations who struggle paying debt can't leverage as much, but at least they can leverage some. Also, a credit rating isn't law -- it's just a guideline that investors and lenders use - that's why multiple agencies give different credit ratings. Also some governments simply deserve to have their credit ratings lowered, like when Sri Lanka or Greece decide to reject the IMF's assistance in a debt crisis and choose to default instead. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:58, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to question the notion – or the source that gave it to you – that GDP … or anything else ... is the “sole indicator to identify creditworthiness for countries to avail external loan[s].” First, no lender is going to rely solely on one criterion; second, “GDP” is pretty vague. Do you mean the level, the growth rate, the likely trend over the period of the loan, or some other usage? Finally, “justice” is not a term many lenders would use in determining whether or not a client is likely to pay back the loan. More useful would be knowing the track record for the country (does it tend to pay its loans in full and on time?), the current and projected economic and political stability of the borrower, and the reason for borrowing (investment in foreign currency generating activities would be more attractive than spending on consumption to ensure the ruling party wins the next election). As for the later question, there are indeed lenders willing to take a risk on sub-par borrowers, for the right fee (interest rate). That would, of course, be “in favour of the financing investor,” as are ALL loans both public and private. DOR (HK) (talk) 20:00, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
August 19
Concept of Rationality in Modern Decision Theory and the "Austrian School"?
It would appear the Mises Institute considers the concept more relevant to behavioral economics, which (from that article's perspective) is closer to psychology as a field. I don't see any philosophizing about the finer points of "rationality" being relevant to any major area of decision-making theory, since it's all about being measurable and quantifiable, both in theory and experiment (which is all anathema to Austrians). I found a discussion of how the modern Austrian School actually deals with basic economics problems in Klein 2008, so that's probably where you want to start. The Austrian School is obviously important in the history of economics in becoming a science, but apart from just some people saying they take inspiration from the philosophy or whatever I can't see what relevance it has had for the past half century considering it fundamentally disagrees the notion that economics can even be scientific. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:31, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes? Also rational choice theory is too nebulously defined to predict observed human behavior at small scales in general (and what Hayek proposes is essentially to not try to predict anything at all, so I don't know how that can be comparative). That's why there's all sorts of experiments and theoretical models for how humans calculate long-term and short-term risk and value (see for example expected utility hypothesis), given limited (or biased) information or not, and given limited time (or other psychometrics impediments -- I don't know the whole range of methodology) or not. That's just in the descriptive models by the way. There are other psychoeconomics questions like, if a person sets an objective end-term goal, how do they create an algorithm of incremental investments to get there? (And of course that relates to how the human mind might "naturally" try to create optimal algorithms in general, and whether learning certain bits of math or bias reduction techniques can improve either the algorithms or reveal if they work better or worse with cleaner data). None of these questions "care" about what grand theory of how philosophically an economist in their opening ECON 101 lecture wants to define "rational choice" (all that matters for that class is whatever gets the gist across that people will seek out best outcomes and minimize costs, and you can expand on that much later).
If you're interested in studying economics, I recommend you study it, from the ground up, with at least some classwork or research (depending on where your career is now). Just don't get married to any particular ideology. I remember going to an economics colloquium and seeing a poor undergrad get laughed at by the room when he asked during an exchange with the speaker, "But won't people seek optimal outcomes?" and the speaker replied, "Sure, congrats on your 'A' in ECON 101." I'm in a different field, but I felt really bad for the student as I have been there! (Hey academia: don't bite the newbies!) SamuelRiv (talk) 22:56, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Law and Economics
what is economics without law and the vice-versa? and what could be gathered from the effective application of law and economics in the governance of an economy? is there a better expression or term for this synergic concept of law and economics as a whole? Grotesquetruth (talk) 19:23, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Law and economics refers to a specific legal philosophy that says that the goal of legal systems should be to promote economic efficiency. Richard Posner (a US federal appellate judge) is a noted author in this field. Economics is basically the study of resource allocation and contention, so of course it can be studied outside the context of laws or even human societies. You can use economics principles to understand the behaviour of ant colonies, for example. I agree that real-world law without an economic context doesn't make much sense. The philosophies of legal realism or the more politically oriented Critical Legal Studies make this explicit. 2601:648:8201:5DD0:0:0:0:34C5 (talk) 19:33, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That is too broad a question to answer; one could write several books about various aspects of this interaction, which may be quite different in different countries. --Lambiam16:17, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How did those Iranian carpet weavers manage to reconstruct shredded English-language documents during Iran hostage crisis, assuming they weren't so fluent in English, if didn't speak it at all? Were some Iranian-English interpreters involved? Our article seemingly doesn't explain that odd fact. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 20:15, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Partly it would be just seeing if what's on both sides matched up, like a jigsaw puzzle. That would require knowing the shapes of Latin-alphabet letters, but not command of the English language. AnonMoos (talk) 22:06, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And the level of shredding was pretty basic. The shredder used by Embassy staff turned the documents fed into the machine into long narrow strips, which could be pieced back together with some patience. More advanced shredders available today would turn similar documents into something akin to a fine powder, absolutely impossible to reconstitute. There's a similar story about the man who broke the Japanese radio code for the U.S. military during World War II not speaking any Japanese. He just figured out when re-constituted bits of audio sounded like natural sounds and no longer like static, after which he turned the results over to the translators. Xuxl (talk) 15:15, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I recently read [17] about how India and the UK "colluded" to prevent emigration of lower caste and lower "class" people from India. While that is long after the Soviet Union's restrictions, as the article mentions the practice predated India's independence. There some discussion e.g. on [18]. While these generally weren't strict emigration restrictions in that the affected people weren't completely prevented from leave British India, I'd argue they were effectively some mix of emigration and immigration restrictions since effectively people were denied documents which would allow them to be accepted in a number of places. I'd note also that if documents are required by many countries but obtaining these documents require payment which will be difficult for a subset of the population, or only available from some far off place which you might not need to travel to to emigrate, or required documents e.g. birth certificates which a subset of the population may not have, these also effectively act to restrict emigration from those affected. Again while these people may not be legally prevented from leaving, their ability to leave has been restricted by their government preventing them from obtain documents which will allow them to be accepted. Nil Einne (talk) 00:11, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What percentage of the Italian males who were born in 1899 died in World War I?
According to my own rough calculations, it should be less than 5%. Italy had slightly over 1 million births in 1900, so the figure should almost certainly be the same for 1899: [[19]]. Since around half of all births are male, this should mean slightly over half a million male births in Italy in 1899. Meanwhile, the data here suggests that slightly less than 18,000 Italian men born in 1899 died in World War I:
If we're talking slightly over half a million Italian male births in 1899, well, 1% of this would be slightly over 5,000. So, around 3-3.5% of all Italian males born in 1899 (again, slightly less than 18,000 of them) would have perished in World War I. If we want to limit our calculations to those Italian-born males who lived to adulthood, then just a rough estimate, but maybe 2/3 (67%) of all Italian males born in 1899 lived to adulthood, in which case you'd do 3%/67% (0.03/0.67) or 3.5%/67% (0.035/0.67) and get around 5%, or 0.05. So, I would presume that around 5% of all Italian males born in 1899 and who lived to adulthood perished in World War I.
Italy's child mortality rate in 1900 was 323.09/1000 live births: I honestly didn't know actuarial data around the world was this good (and maybe I should because I've looked at death rates before): Child mortality rate (under five years old) in Italy from 1865 to 2020. Unfortunately to get the sources for that site you need to subscribe, but I should hope they're not completely reckless and have at least some oversight process. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:12, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So, I was right. About 1/3 of Italian children back then died during their childhood. That said, though, since it's only to age five, it could be a little bit higher if one extends this data up to age 18. Still, probably not a cardinal difference since AFAIK most child mortality happened in infancy back then. So, Yeah, my estimate that around 2/3 of Italian males who were born in 1899 ended up living to adulthood is probably (more-or-less) accurate or at least close to being accurate. 68.4.99.100 (talk) 21:54, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Child mortality (< 5 yrs) in the UK was 228 per thou in 1900 [20], France 219, but for Germany (in 1905) it was 352 [21], so Italy doesn't look too bad by comparison with the latter. Alansplodge (talk) 20:34, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Page 607 in your link appears to roughly match up with my estimate above here: As in, about 5% of the Italian men born in 1899 who lived to adulthood ended up dying in World War I. 68.4.99.100 (talk) 21:54, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Plattenseeaktion??
In a German-language source I came across a mention of a 'Plattenseeaktion', which by context of the book would have been some sort of military or political move by Hungary around Lake Balaton roughly 1920s. Any further info on this incident, any wikipedia article in other language wiki? --Soman (talk) 21:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So we're not talking about WW2's 1945 Operation Spring Awakening. Reading Lake Balaton, I wonder if this has anything to do with Hungary's "first biological research institute being built on its shore in 1927." This being not too far from Austria, in an area where national borders had previously been somewhat fluid, perhaps it (and the general opening up of the area), had implications for germanic thoughts of future expansion. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.121.96 (talk) 22:29, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The closest thing I can find is that Charles I of Austria (article quoted below) was briefly imprisoned on the shore of lake Balaton (at Tihany Abbey) in 1921, before being shipped over the Danube and eventually to Madeira. The article doesn't say, but it would make sense that a military vessel escorted him over the lake and then through the Sió river:
"After the second failed attempt at restoration in Hungary, Charles and his pregnant wife Zita were arrested and quarantined at Tihany Abbey. On 1 November 1921 they were taken to the Hungarian Danube harbour city of Baja, were taken on board the gunboat HMS Glowworm, and there removed to the Black Sea where they were transferred to the light cruiser HMS Cardiff." - Lindert (talk) 22:44, 21 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Could be linked with the biological institute thing. Text in ref (talking about an individual born 1907, German nationalist in Czechoslovakia) "...Spitzenmitgl . der Aktion des Grenzschulheims Boberhaus in Löwenberg / Schlesien ( gegr . 1926 , Erwachsenen- und Fortbildung ) scharfe Stellungnahme gegen die sog . Plattenseeaktion der Ungarn ". See Boberhaus [de]. --Soman (talk) 11:06, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is saying the person in question was a "critic" of the battle (scharfe Stellungnahme means something like "sharp opinion"), which is entirely possible if he lived past 1945. But my German is very rusty. We'd need someone who spoke it natively to translate better than me. --Jayron3214:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If it's not about the battle (a bit a doubtful position in the circumstance IMO) it's about a wider Hungarian influence in the area rather than merely the biological institute specifically and then the sentence is linking his belonging to the Initiative regarding the educational movement in Silesia (see de) with a contemporaneous contradicting influence. --Askedonty (talk) 16:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Could be. AFAIK, the area has always been in Hungary, even when it was part of the Dual Monarchy; being an integral part of the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen/Transleithania, and I'm not sure there were ever German nationalist designs on the area; this is different from Silesia, which had always been a cultural crossroads, and changed hands between countries many times throughout history, and which various German and Austrian states had claimed numerous times. --Jayron3218:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Swabian Turkey and from Danube Swabians: After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following the First World War, the settlement areas of the Danube Swabians were divided into three parts by the Allied Powers. One part remained with Hungary, the second part was allocated to Romania, and the third part fell to the newly established state of Yugoslavia. In this atmosphere of ethnic nationalism, the Danube Swabians had to fight for legal equality as citizens and for the preservation of their cultural traditions. In the 1930s, Nazi Germany promoted National Socialist ideas to the Danube Swabians and claimed the right to protect them as part of its reason for expanding into eastern Europe.. fiveby(zero) 19:08, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Embedded narrative was the term I was looking for (I should have searched harder :P ) but I'm still interested if there's a term for a character within one. 108.6.218.63 (talk) 22:20, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Romanian integration of its new territories after the end of World War I
How easy (or difficult) was it for Romania to integrate its new territories after the end of World War I? Romania's size massively increased as a result of WWI, with it acquiring Bukovina, Transylvania, the eastern Banat, Bessarabia, and a few small territories to the west of Transylvania. Was integrating such a large new population a huge challenge for Romania? Or was it relatively easy since the ethnicity (Romanian) was the same in both Old Romania and New Romania? 68.4.99.100 (talk) 23:00, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
