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March 1

Starvation in US during Great Depression?

Did any people actually starve to death in the US during the Great Depression (1929-38)? Are there any reliable numbers on this? Elinde7994 (talk) 00:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

According to this source, there are no verified deaths from starvation in the United States during the Great Depression, but hunger was widespread. In conditions of hunger and malnutrition, hunger often contributes to death without being its ultimate cause. For example, hunger and malnutrition severely weaken the immune system and make a person more susceptible to disease and less able to recover from it. Marco polo (talk) 02:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course people starved to death in the U.S during the great depression. People starved to death every year the U.S. or any other country has existed. 1 per 100,000 died from malnutrition in 2005, for ifor instance. [1]Give me a break. Edison (talk) 02:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Malnutrition is not the same as starvation; the figures you give include deaths from vitamin deficiencies and disorders such as kwashiorkor, which is associated with a diet with enough calories but not enough protein (and common in situations such as old people in homes[2] where the cause is more likely to be neglect or other biological disorder than poverty). --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 18:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Starvation, per the article, is extreme Malnutrition. If it is bad enough you die, it is extreme. People also starve who are too poor to buy food, too proud to ask for charity, too much of a hermit to benefit from the mercy of others, or who are denied food as victims of abuse, infants, elderly, prisoners or other captives who are denied adequate nutrition. Edison (talk) 19:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

partnership or no partnership?

Time and again, I pass a Wells Fargo branch. Sharing the same space would be Starbucks Coffee. I know Starbucks shares a partnership with Barnes & Noble. But what about Wells Fargo? What's going on with that? Anyone know?72.229.135.200 (talk) 07:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Starbucks, which doesn't franchise, will enter into licensing agreements with companies who occupy real estate they covet, like airports or colleges. Their company fact sheet lists at least two dozen companies with whom they have 'alliances', although Wells Fargo is not among them. Wolfgangus (talk) 21:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The sheet also does not list Commonwealth Bank of Australia, with which Starbucks has an arrangement. Those listed are probably the most prominent ones only. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:58, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I found http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/14/business/fi-39045 in a Google search. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Fighting back against hip-hop

How has hip-hop managed to drive punk and heavy metal off Toronto's FM airwaves, posterable vertical surfaces and to a large extent Future Shop shelves, not to mention the YouTube landing pages? What can the latter genres do to reclaim their place, and how long do they have left to do so before white musical culture is reduced to the likes of Green Day and Britney Spears? NeonMerlin 08:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

That is clearly ridiculous, as there is only one mainstream FM station in Toronto that ever plays hip hop. Is this a clumsy attempt at trolling? Adam Bishop (talk) 08:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

But there are none that ever play heavy metal, except insofar as you count Korn and Linkin Park, or punk (I was recently disabused of the notion that Green Day and Sum 41 were punk). Even if you adopt the broadest definitions of those genres, no station plays them anywhere near as regularly as Flow plays hip-hop. NeonMerlin 08:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, the way I prefer to think of it is that only the lowest common denominator is influenced or dependant or radio programming for guidance. From a pure marketing cost-benefit point of view, radio is forced to pander to people without musical guidance. People with better direction will find alternate methods of distribution!NByz (talk) 08:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Radios are forever plagued by playlists. Personally, I wouldn't draw too many conclusions about the state of, uh, white musical culture based on what you hear on the radio, any more than I would draw conclusions about the state of black musical culture based on what you hear on the radio. It's simply not designed to give you a balanced selection of the best and most innovative current music available. Lowest common denominator is exactly right. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You asked a very similar question last month, see here in case you've forgotten. The answer I would give you now is the same as the one I gave you back then. For those in positions of power in the mainstream media, whose choices dictate what we see and hear on the TV and radio, hip-hop is basically seen as cool whereas heavy metal is not. FWIW, I agree with them. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

That isn't exactly how it works in Canada. The CRTC is responsible for spectrum management in Canada and it is fairly particular in its mandates. Stations can't just play everything they want. There was actually trouble getting a license for an urban station in Toronto which some attributed to racism after the refusal of the Milestone Radio application. There was an order-in-council directing the CRTC to license two stations in TO that reflected the city's diversity. CFXJ-FM was licensed because of that. The other was Aboriginal Voices. Here's the CRTC decision on Flow.[3]

How long have they got? Wasn't that a Kids in the Hall sketch? "According to a computer model, three years." --JGGardiner (talk) 11:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Seriously. Between Internet Radio, MP3 Players, Satelite radio etc. etc. there's lots of ways to get free music in any genre you wish. If you don't want to expose your ears to various kinds of music, then don't. No one forces you to listen to radio stations that don't play what you want them to, and you have plenty of options to find music you do. No heavy metal stations in Toronto? Find heavy metal music via other means then. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 20:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The root of your problem is what is concieved of as mainstream music and alternative music. These days hip hop and r&b are mainstream music, running alongside pop music. Metal still sits with indie, punk, post-rock, prog and the like as alternative music that isn't part of what is being pushed by the biggest companies. There's still a big market for alternative stuff, but it's not as big as the market for mainstream, so mainstream gets more airplay, while alternative gets less airplay, or play on smaller stations. Internet radio is a better bet for you. I suggest my favourite Australian station which mixes alternative with indie hip-hop - Triple J. Steewi (talk) 23:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

ART

Is the first edition of a painting print more expensive than the tenth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.173.177.203 (talk) 16:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the painting and the size of print runs. --140.247.11.19 (talk) 16:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

But, on anything valuable, I would generally expect a first edition to go for more money, yes. StuRat (talk) 16:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article "Edition" has some information. It seems not to be as simple as 1-2-3. -Milkbreath (talk) 16:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Poldark

Hello,

Have only seen the fantastic series, not read the books. What happens to George Warleggan? Poldark? Demelza? Dwight and Carolyn?

Many thanks if someone can answer this without typing a novel of their own in length. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgflikchik (talk • contribs) 18:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

is warren buffet jewish

is warren buffet jewish pls —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.144.0 (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

No. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 15:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

how can I invest in a "race"

how can I invest in a race, such as Jews, etc. thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.144.0 (talk) 18:17, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

sorry I need to elaborate: I just mean in financial terms, same as Vice Fund (google it) invests in vices. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.144.0 (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I doubt there is such a way that is already established. If you wanted to do something similar to Vice Fund for a race, I imagine you'd invest in companies who would benefit from consumption patterns of your specific "race". For example, investing in, say, a company that produced high-priced menorahs would be a nice "Jewish" investment—on the whole, one might expect that if Jews, on the whole, were having good financial prosperity, they would be spending some of that income on a higher-priced menorah. Or something like that. Of course in engaging in such an approach you are necessarily making a lot of guesses, some of which are likely to end up being somewhat offensive as they will play on various stereotypes.

It's of note that one of the biggest "Jewish" investment schemes as of late went belly up recently and pulled down a scandalous number of Jewish charities and probably companies with it. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 18:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Kittybrewster ☎ 19:28, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Right, but investing in the companies in the state of Israel is not exactly the same thing as investing in the "Jewish race" in the way he means about the Vice Fund. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

There are State of Israel Bonds, if you want to invest in them, but otherwise your request would not appear to be operationalizable (as a 1950's behaviorist might say...). AnonMoos (talk) 19:40, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

sorry Im being dense, is there a point youre making about behaviorism - though sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (as a 19th century Freud possibly said) --85.181.144.0 (talk) 20:12, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

See my past comment at Talk:Operationalization -- some behaviorist and logical-positivist types basically said that if you can't come up with a procedure for concretely measuring somthing, then it's completely meaningless. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying a bit, but that was the gist... AnonMoos (talk) 21:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

What makes "the Jews" a "race" that can be "invested in"? Do you mean "investment" in the sense of making a profit in return for providing funding? This question is for the Original Poster User:85.181.144.0 and all the previous and prospective respondents here who didn't clarify, or question, this basic premise of the initial proposition. -- Deborahjay (talk) 04:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(clarification continued) What other "race" besides the Jews? Would the "target race" have to have a lot of money and be easy to profit from? By "investing" are you talking about a "get-rich-quick" scheme, so ruling out the effective historical methods of Colonialism, by which your investment requires a lot of hard work to extract wealth out of an impoverished, underdeveloped native population ("race" – like Black Africans) whose property contains valuable resources? I was thinking about maybe the Vatican which is supposed to have a lot of money (though Catholics are a religion, not a race), or Warren Buffet (who has a lot of money though he's not a Jew, according to the reply you got to your earlier query). -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There are Islamic funds, such as the Dow Jones Islamic Fund; these are established because of the difficulty in making conventional investments that comply with a traditional understanding of Islamic law. In addition, there are country funds that are set up to invest in a particular country, and I believe that these include Israel funds. I'm not aware of any other kinds of investment vehicles that target a particular race, ethnicity, or religion. Of course, you can invest in particular securities that are associated with particular ethnicities (menorah makers and Israel bonds already having been mentioned as examples). John M Baker (talk) 20:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Funds can be organised according to any investment principle - e.g. "ethical" or "green" funds. There are probably funds which are organised to support Jewish (or other ethnic group) companies by investing in them. The problem is that these would not be widely marketed. Except for the OP, I can't see very much demand outside, say, Jewish circles for a Jewish fund. Perhaps you can start your own? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC) kulang po >>>???

talk to me and call me 09286523564

is it possible to do great evil just by writing checks, while remaining 100% legal?

Let's say you have a huge amount of money for some reason but you're evil. Can you do anything really evil with all that money, if you'd like to just write checks and have other people do the evil -- IF you want to remain 100% legal? I mean, how evil could it be if there's no law against it, right?

I'm NOT asking for legal advice, and in case you didnt' guess I don't actually have the funds in question... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.144.0 (talk) 21:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are funding a criminal activity, you are an accessory to the crime, or worse! See inchoate crimes, especially solicitation and facilitation. If your definition of "evil" is wider than the criminal, then it's easy. Giving all the money to someone who doesn't deserve it is pretty evil. Donating it to an extremist politician could do a lot of damage while being legal (subject to electoral donation laws in your jurisdiction). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:38, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You could probably buy up loads of companies and liquidate them, resulting in massive job losses. I can't think of any law against that and it would probably be deemed pretty evil by most people. In fact, some private equity firms have done very similar things, and have been called evil, although they did it with the intention of making money and the job losses were just a by-product. You could buy up lots of food and destroy it, causing mass starvation. --Tango (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You should also keep criminal conspiracy laws in mind. - Eron^Talk 21:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

In countries without limits (or with big holes in limits) to how political parties and candidates are funded, you can choose to fund only the worst, most extremist and hate-filled parties and candidates. With your backing they're sure to be elected, and they're sure to screw things up and plunge the country, or the world even, into a pit of despair. Don't you get the feeling that people are doing this already? 87.113.100.227 (talk) 21:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Something is only "illegal" if the laws, and the courts, of a country say it is. So just buy yourself a country (if you're only an evil billionaire then just buy a really small country) - say find a small island republic and give each citizen a million dollars, on the understanding that they evacuate one of the country's smaller islands, and agree to a velvet divorce, where you (and your henchmen) remain on the small island and it becomes a new country. Then you write the laws to suit yourself, and so nothing you do can be illegal (bar pesky international laws). Again, doesn't it seem like this has been done a bunch of times already? 87.113.100.227 (talk) 21:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

But how much evil could you do without falling under the jurisdiction of other countries? --Tango (talk) 22:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

There's jurisdiction and there's condemnation that many moves don't seem to fall under, so it beats me. The answers here are already saying it's being done already, "legally" too. If other countries change their laws (like the Swiss bank traps now being set) you'll need a clever international accounting firm to negotiate this terrain. Legitimate governments take turns to fund arms supplies in third world countries, and corporations like the Nestle scandals dump their unwanted products on third world people, or Big Pharma testing people there, creating heaps of problems, so you may find yourself in a queue or club of some kind. A small number of African countries might take the money and run, leaving you to be President, writing all those checks to continue the evil dictatorships as you like. In Australia a corporation just sacked all the workers to send their jobs off shore and wrote themselves millions of dollars in self-payment checks, so y'know, there's a textbook everywhere you look. Julia Rossi (talk) 22:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

So it's probably a question of "how huge is huge". If you only had a million bucks, that wouldn't stretch very far. But if you had $60 billion, you can buy Switzerland. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

no way could anyone buy Switzerland for $60 billion. For $60 trillion, sure -- maybe even $6 trillion (though I doubt it). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.145.125 (talk) 23:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Its GDP is about $0.5tn, so if we assume that remains constant (in real terms) and make some completely unrealistic assumptions about how the value of a country works, we can use discounted future cash flows to get a present day value. With a discount rate of 2% (a number picked out of thin air, but its in the right order of magnitude), that gives a present day value of $25tn. (Assuming the online calculator I used works.) --Tango (talk) 23:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Quite. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:58, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Well it should only be the present value of the government's sustained ability to Tax, don't you think? Or are we buying all of the country's private assets? Either way, a neat trick is that if you set the growth rate exactly equal to the discount rate, the price is whatever your starting value is (GDP or Tax Revenues)NByz (talk) 00:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

How about getting a job as CEO of a large financial corporation, tell your minions to go only for short term gains, when the bubble bursts "retire" on a fat pension and watch the world's economy collapse. Oops, it's all been done before, so maybe it won't stay legal for much longer. Astronaut (talk) 23:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You could move to Australia where you might get all the time you need: "There is no overnight solution to this, but we think it's a serious issue and we're dealing with it."—Federal Treasurer on executive salary issue[4]

But at least it's being looked at. Is there any country that actually legally limits the salaries of CEOs of private companies? -- JackofOz (talk) 20:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're really dead set on evil-doing, why bother buying out a small country's populace? Just hire some mercenaries, stage a coup, and kill anyone who disagrees with you. It's bound to work eventually. The legality issue can be conveniently solved when you rewrite the laws after the fact. --Fullobeans (talk) 02:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered investing in sin stocks, like alcohol, tobacco, firearms, porn, legal prostitution, gambling, and defense contractors ? [5] StuRat (talk) 04:53, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Buy _ALL_ produced items of the next Apple product, iPhone 2 or what it might be, film yourself destroying them all and put it on youtube... some might not think it's evil... but the Apple fans' delicious tears will surely feed you for years to come. — CHANDLER#10 — 05:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

According to the Simpsons, you can just write out your check to the Springfield Republican Party... -- AnonMoos (talk) 06:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Just make a whole bunch of donations to an organization like Westboro Baptist Church. You can bet they'll put it to some pretty evil use. There's no shortage of Fred Phelps types in the world. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 08:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

how could I go about calculating EVIL return on investment?

This is related to my question above. Let's say someone wants to spend a lot of money on doing evil while remaining 100% legal. Well, I got a lot of suggestions above, but it is really hard to think of a way to quantify what would get that person the most evil for their money. So now I'm wondering how such a person could calculate the returns, in terms of evil, of the activities they are pondering? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.145.125 (talk) 23:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You would probably want to aim for what would probably be called a strong pareto minimum (see Pareto efficiency), where no further harm could be done without providing anyone a benefit. SDY (talk) 23:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a great answer! It would be useful in determining "optimal evilness." To determine Evil ROI, however, the hardest part is finding a unit of measurement for the numerator. Staying on the quantitative side of the "What is evil?" argument, I'd suggest a weighted "index" type figure. You'd need to create a category for all evil acts (assuming acts are discrete and measurable). If you want to have a multiple degrees of an act (intentional murder vs. negligent murder), they'd need their own categories. You could then weight each act on a percentage basis. Then you need to somehow scale the "actual acts committed"/"strong pareto minimum number of acts" ratio. I'd suggest logarithmically, because, you'd assume, the "easiest" acts would be done first, and each successive act would require marginally more effort. This is a very rough way to do it, of course. Multiply the scaled ratio by it's weight, and add it up with all the other "scale*weights" for the "evilness index". Adding some discounting to account for time considerations would make it more of a "return on investment" measure. Otherwise, you could just divide it by dollars invested (for a time period) to get an efficiency measure: Evil/$. This would only be comparable from, say, year to year, or between evil operating groups, but would still be useful as a performance metric for a global evil enterprise.NByz (talk) 00:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I guess evilness is about all causing suffering, so you want to maximise the net suffering you cause. I don't see how you can really quantify suffering. You could just try and cause as many deaths as possible, that makes the maths easy, but it's not a good definition of evilness.. --Tango (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You don't need money to be evil, you can use other peoples money. For instance go into government and get contaminated blood factor distributed on grounds of cost. That'll cause lots of people to die slowly and horribly. There's lots of opportunities. Pass laws entitling people to money but have lots of bureaucrats stopping them getting it. That'll waste lots of lives. Health and safety regulations offer loads of ways to case misery in the interest of safety. Or keep people alive as long as possible despite their wish to die because of their suffering - you don't want to encourage murder. I could go on and on ... use your imagination and you can be a pillar of society and respected by all while you do your great work. Dmcq (talk) 01:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Hire lobbyists to advocate military conscription. —Tamfang (talk) 00:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you could buy all the world's oil companies, and then fire all the employees. The ensuing chaos of all oil pumping stopping at once would do some really nasty things. 65.167.146.130 (talk) 17:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Easy. Final evil less initial evil divide by initial evil. All you need to do is to answer the rather metaphysical question "what is evil" and then quantify it, possibly using a basket of moral indicators. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Create a malecific calculus and do what that tells you. My guess is it's be something like buy water companies and shut down service. Or pollute the water. It is historically very difficult to quantify good and evil but my personal take on it would be that doing evil just to do evil is probably as bad as it gets, regardless of what the evil actually is; most evil acts were likely committed in mistaken attempts to do good. 86.8.176.85 (talk) 12:20, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

March 2

Japanese atrocities in the People's Republic of China

Has anyone ever been judged (Japanese officer or politician, or something like that) for the terrible and unforgivable atrocities they did against China? .... example of atrocities Yoshio Kodaira --201.254.95.71 (talk) 00:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The article Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal is quite short but affirms that people were put on trial for war crimes and links to other articles. This is not to minimise your question. Background is in Nanking massacre and Japanese war crimes with further links. Julia Rossi (talk) 01:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Japanese war criminals were tried after the war in a large number of locations, with the most prominent of the trials held in Tokyo. The Tokyo trials included the most senior of the accused war criminals, under the name of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.

A number of tribunals were convened in China for the trial of war criminals in China - mainly members of the occupying forces. The most prominent of these was the Nanjing trials, as Julia mentioned above.

By the way, there was no such thing as the People's Republic of China (founded 1949) at the time of the Japanese atrocities.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

TVO documnetary Saddam Hussein

I remember that on TVO, there was a documentary that talking about Saddam Hussein and his life and family. I remember one part that there was a part where they showing a naked lady taken away from her father because her father betrayed Saddam Hussein? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.53.55 (talk) 04:11, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, and what was your question? Do you want us to help you track down the documentary? -- JackofOz (talk) 06:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The Five Chinese Funeral/Mourning Rites

Can any user please list for me the five Chinese Funeral/Mourning Rites? Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 10:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There is not a single "Chinese culture". Are you referring to the Chanyuan Qinggui funeral rites by chance? If this is a homework question, any answer you find here will likely differ from what is in your textbook. -- kainaw™ 15:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I am referring to Huitian's monumental work Wu-li Tung-kao (Comprehensive Study of the Five Rites) on mourning rites which was written in about the middle of the 18th century. This is not a homework question - I am a pensioner! Simonschaim (talk) 17:11, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this the same Qui Huitian mentioned in Ancestors: 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family? I came up pretty much empty with Google Books but Google Scholar had a bit more: see this pdf – on page 169 there is this snippet: "The Five Rites that Qin dealt with, in accordance with the categories of The Civil Service of Zhou: Major Zongbo, fell into the Rites of auspices, omens, army, guests, and of celebrations." They seem to be classification categories rather than specific individual ceremonies. I can't see a funeral link, though, so ask again if this still doesn't help. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

First of all thank you for the infornation up to now. It is the Qui Huitian mentoned in the book "Ancestors". What I have in mind is the CEREMONIES (and not just classifications) in the same manner as given by T'ung-tsu Ch'u in his book "Law and Society in Traditional China" p.101 and David Buxbaum in his book "Family Law and Customary Law in Asia" p.45, with regards to the "Six Marriage Rites". What are the CEREMONIES for the five funeral/mourning rites? Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 19:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

BTW, his name is Qin Huitian, the book is most likely listed as "Wuli Tongkao" (五禮通考) in your local academic library, and his surname is Qin. Huitian is his given name.

the Wuli Tongkao, "Comprehensive Study of the Five Rites", refers to the five areas of rites in classical Chinese culture: the auspicious rites; the marital rites; the rites of fealty; the martial rites; and the rites of death (my translations).

What I'm calling "rites of death" covers not just funerary/mourning rites, but rather any inauspicious occasion requiring the attendance of the Prince. Major funerary rites are part of this chapter.

The easiest way to find out about the rites described by Qin is probably to read the original, (or to get someone to translate it for you.) This is a modern work and so the language is fairly accessible.

If you are simply looking for a list of funerary rites, these will likely differ from source to source. I've seen schemes which divide the rites into three sections, or five, or six, or seven...--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 11:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Finding map coordinates for international borders, past and present

Ukraine and Slovakia share a border, though I don't know where to find info as to how this might have changed during or after WWII. In particular, there's a locale, Izky (alternative names: Iska, Iski, Isky, Iszka), coordinates 48°39'N/23°23'(or 23°22') E, that's variously cited as being in Slovakia and Ukraine. This map places it in today's Ukraine and reasonably near Slovakia, but what about the historical border? -- Deborahjay (talk) 10:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Zakarpattia Oblast (Subcarpathian Rus) was transferred from Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union in 1945. Your map shows the village as being within this area. Fribbler (talk) 11:11, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

UK Postal Service

Is it possible to go along to the local sorting office and ask them if a letter is there for me? I know that one is in the post, sent to me recently by someone in my area, so it should be in the sorting office. Is it possible to just go along and get it from there, rather than waiting for the postman to bring it to my house?--92.41.246.101 (talk) 13:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that the UK postal service is as automated as the US postal service, you cannot. Humans don't have much to do with the mail service. So, they cannot go in and pull mail out of the automated system. -- kainaw™ 15:16, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so. Once it reaches the local sorting office it will be delivered the same or next day, so there isn't much to be gained by collecting it in person. You can always try, though, the worst that can happen is they say "no". Make sure you take ID and proof of address (a utility bill, say). --Tango (talk) 17:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Note, incidentally, that the correct name is the Royal Mail, not the "UK postal service". Malcolm XIV (talk) 20:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

"UK postal service" is a description, not a name. --Tango (talk) 20:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Being even more pedantic, then there are other commercial UK postal services in addition to the Royal Mail, although I cannot think of any names. 78.146.195.92 (talk) 01:07, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Assassinations

How many internationally recognized heads of state have been assassinated in the past 200 years? I know the US has lost 4 presidents in that manner, but what about other countries? I presume you will need me to define the question better, but am not sure how exactly.65.167.146.130 (talk) 17:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

List of assassinated persons is probably a good place to start counting. - Eron^Talk 17:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

...and by my quick review, it shows 138 people who could arguably be considered heads of state who were assassinated worldwide since 1800. I included Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Kings, plus the odd Emir, Emperor, Tsar, etc. I did not include any former leaders assassinated after their term, but I did count a couple of Presidents-Elect. - Eron^Talk 18:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks 65.167.146.130 (talk) 19:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If someone holding political office is murdered for purely private reasons – say, by a jilted lover – is that an "assassination"? —Tamfang (talk) 00:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Our article states that assassination is the targeted killing of a public figure. I think that it is the fact that the public figure is killed for being a public figure that makes it an assassination. The motives may be ideological or psychological, but they are intimately connected to the public face of the figure. The murder of a king, say, for purely personal reasons could arguably have taken place - for those same personal reasons - even if the king were a completely private individual. So I'd have to say no, that wouldn't be an assassination. - Eron^Talk 01:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

are there any publically evil ("flamboyantly evil") people out there?

There have been a lot of public, powerful people past and present who are villains at least in current western opinion. But none of them go out and SAY that they are evil, that their goals are evil (a la Dr. Evil of Austin Powers, who does make such statements). Are there ANY powerful evil people who are "out of the evil closet" and make no secret of the fact that their goals are sinister and that they are out to do EVIL?? I mean there are thousands or tens of thousands of large-scale philanthropists dedicating their lives and bank accounts to charitable goals, and making no secret of it -- is there (or has there ever been) even ONE evil person doing the opposite (dedicating their lives to doing evil) and frankly letting the world know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.68.157 (talk) 19:51, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

For the most part, people rarely believe they are doing evil even when they are doing it. One could safely argue that the actions of Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin, to pick just three, were evil - but I doubt that any one of them would agree. They had their own justifications and reasons, however twisted or misguided, and they believed that what they did was for some greater good.

I think to find naked, self-declared evil you need to look a little further down the food chain. I would expect that several of these folks probably quite admitted quite cheerfully that they were being evil. - Eron^Talk 19:56, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I know about Hitler through Saddam Hussein, and I also know about serial killers. The former doesn't answer my question because they were not publically evil, and the latter don't fit because they are not "public, powerful people". I am looking for a single public, powerful person (past or present) who publically behaved like Dr. Evil does: avowing, and following through, on admittedly evil intentions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.68.157 (talk) 20:05, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of anyone who fits that description. I can't imagine that any existed, outside of comic books and James Bond movies. - Eron^Talk 20:10, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

A lot depends on your definition of evil. I'd suggest Aleister Crowley as someone who consciously tried to do the opposite of "good". --TammyMoet (talk) 20:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not talking about conscious or not, I'm talking about publically avowed or not. There are memoirs that confess to pangs of conscience after the fact, but I'm really looking for Dr. Evil type public statements from someone powerful WHILE they are doing the evil. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.68.157 (talk) 20:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The problem is, evil doesn't have much depth. Hence cartoons villains are so ridiculous—instead of, say, taking that stolen oil tanker and selling it for cash, they want to beach it on the rocks to kill the seagulls. That's not just evil—it's dumb. Real evil is, as Arendt argued, banal—it is the absence of good, not a force opposed to it. Uday Hussein, for example, seems to have lacked even the semblance of good intentions (one can argue that Saddam, for all his deficits, at least thought he was achieving some sort of Pan-Arabic strength), but did he espouse evil? No. He espoused nothing. He was a creature of greed, excess, and cruelty. He had no ideology from what I can tell. He was certainly not doing what he did as part of an organized plan.

I suspect the only place you'd find an elaborate justification of "evil" per se is in the work of nutcases—serial killers and the like. Most people don't think about themselves in those terms, for fairly obvious psychological reasons. --140.247.253.176 (talk) 20:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried finding stuff on Victor Bout? Well-known to governments and his own trading circles, now relatively public with a documentary showing his moves. He'd fit your the question about returns on evil as well. Julia Rossi (talk) 21:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

did you even read my question? the wikipedia article you just linked says "Viktor Bout has always professed his innocence, saying he is just a businessman. He was interviewed by Peter Landesman for the Süddeutsche Zeitung (24 October 2003).[25] He also appeared on Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy, saying "I have never supplied anything to or had contacts with the Taliban or al-Qaeda."". A far cry from "I do what I do because it is evil, and I like being evil" which is the kind of thing I'm looking for... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.144.125 (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There's no need to be rude. People are trying to help you here. As it appears that the simple answer to your question is "No," we are trying to find some answers that come close to what you want, or that explain why the answer is no. - Eron^Talk 23:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like you may have found a niche. You should try to become the first public figure celebrated for being evil, but not committing any crimes. This would be a very challenging tasks, but you would probably be rewarded with fame, done correctly. NByz (talk) 00:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I think some of these guys may have beaten our OP to the punch on that one. - Eron^Talk 00:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know who said it first but someone once told me that no man ever intentionally does evil. It has stuck with me ever since. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Rush Limbaugh. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

About reading your question – I did, but decided to roll this one in anyway because it's got a theme with the other "evil" threads. If that spoiled your question thread, apologies. So as someone answered above, No. Mostly "evil" doers would like the rest of the world to think they're just innocent everyday businessmen, or sincere every day dictators. Btw, these are good questions – very stimulating. Julia Rossi (talk) 06:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

No, you didn't ruin my question thread - sorry if I barked at you!  :) However in the conclusion of every single respondent above it seems you should write Without exception "evil" doers would like the rest of the world to think they're just innocent everyday businessmen, or sincere every day dictators --85.181.149.76 (talk) 09:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Haha. Well, don't know if Aleister Crowley qualifies or whether he was over acting but as the poster says above, he was flamboyant about it (being the Great Beast, Satan et al). And fictional though he is, I've got a soft spot for Scarface saying thanks to him, everyone could say, there goes the bad guy. Cheers, Julia Rossi (talk) 10:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

@ AQuestforknowledge, Charles Manson might be an exception. Julia Rossi (talk) 11:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It might be interesting to address the issue of why nobody powerful will publicly state that their goals are evil. I suspect that the reason is that they wouldn't be able to stay powerful, if they did. We tend to think that people in power can remain there through violence, intimidation, and wealth, but they really do always need an inner circle of loyal people they can trust. If the inner circle is afraid they will be killed at any time, they are likely to decide they would do better to kill their leader than follow him. It always bothers me when I see a movie featuring an evil criminal kingpin, who kills his own people at random. If he did that, he'd find a knife in his back in short order. StuRat (talk) 16:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

You can dream on, StuRat, but it's historic that wicked rulers get paranoid and start picking off their own people/loyal henchmen and do not die soon enough themselves. Julia Rossi (talk) 20:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if they kill members of their inner circle who really have betrayed them, but leave the rest alone, that could actually help them to maintain power. However, in too many movies they just kill members of their inner circle at random, for fun. This would not inspire loyalty, and anyone who behaved that way wouldn't last long. StuRat (talk) 17:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Well... Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Pol Pot all lasted long enough. The Night of the Long Knives wasn't exactly a big Nazi group hug, though it pales in comparison to the purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Hollywood rarely gets it right, but still, a leader's ability to kill their own people depends entirely on the political and social climate within the leadership. It probably has a lot to do with ideology and government structure; oddly enough, a large, powerful bureaucracy seems to do more to secure the future of a dictator than does wealth, influence, or control over the military. Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brazil spring to mind. --Fullobeans (talk) 17:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking just at the case of Hitler, I don't believe he just randomly killed people in his inner circle. He did kill rivals (like Ernst Röhm) or those who he thought betrayed him (like Erwin Rommel), but not those who he thought were loyal to him. StuRat (talk) 16:23, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Caligula probably gets pretty close. He was certainly flamboyant and he did some genuinely nasty things, often for no good reason124.186.86.247 (talk) 00:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it's worth mentioning that Dr Evil's proclamation that he is evil is part of satire. Realistically though, people have trouble reconciling their actions if they know them to be evil, in other words, evil people would have trouble being evil if they knew that they were being evil. However, their is usually a motive involved such as greed, power, etc and the motive certainly wouldn't be "to be evil". But let us get into some of those exceptions where the motive would really be "to be evil". There are some satanists who commit acts to be evil, but strictly speaking they are making sacrifices or are trying to behave as "uninhibited man" which is part of satanic philosophy. Another exception are certain psychotics and sociopaths -- for example serial killers; they commit their acts knowing that they are "evil" with little motive, although once again you could claim their motive is power, dominance, anger, or revenge (acted out against someone else). Finally, the definition of evil comes into play here strongly: what a person perceives as evil. One could for example believe that killing animals is evil, and yet they could do openly and proudly do so (compare this to someone that believes killing humans is evil and proudly does so). An evil person that is flamboyantly evil I think belongs in satire like Dr Evil. Rfwoolf (talk) 01:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned President Mugabe yet. Or Mafia bosses or personnel. 78.146.195.92 (talk) 01:21, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that the OP is using the word "public" not to mean "serving in public office" but "openly declaring themselves". If I've understood it correctly then the actual question, contained in the last sentence, leaves the field open to Crowley, et.al. In that vein, Blackbeard seemed to be pretty open about his approach to life. He stole money, cargo and ships, and although there is no proof that he personally killed anyone he certainly commanded his men to take actions that resulted in the deaths of innocent people. Our article states "He deliberately cultivated his barbaric reputation..." It seems he matches the criteria of deliberately doing evil and frankly letting the world know. 152.16.16.75 (talk) 01:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Picture of a Nazi person

Does anyone know who this person is? http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/4696/67gr5.jpg --Emyn ned (talk) 20:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

No, but it comes from the Google LIFE photo archive so you could search on there for Nazis. --140.247.253.176 (talk) 20:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Why are you assuming he's a Nazi? Unless there's some clue in the uniform, he could just as easily be a regular non-political conscript. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a regular Wehrmacht officer (i.e. regular German army) and NOT part of the SA or SS or any other Nazi party paramilitary organization. My guess is that this is a Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) of some sort. Compare to this google search: [6] The facepunch.com link claims its a Obersturmbannführer, but that was an SA rank, and the equivalent to a Wehrmacht Oberstleutnant. This page shows another Oberstleutnant, and the uniform matches very closely. Note the 3 bars on the collar insignia, which I believe is the rank indicator, and the stripe at the second button, the Eagle over the breast pocket, etc. etc. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 21:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

The "original" at Google is here, and here is another photograph of the same officer. Google says the photos were taken in 1942 but the man is "unidentified." --Cam (talk) 03:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I always figured that stripey ribbon signified an Iron Cross. Anybody know for sure? I second the opinion that this guy is a boring old Wehrmacht officer; the collar tabs are the giveaway (compare). The dizzying array of WWII-era shoulder boards and waffenfarbe makes it hard to tell what the fellow's particular position was, but odds are he was nobody special, and, as Clarityfiend says, may not have been a Nazi at all. If you believe Wikipedia, the German army was relatively apolitical and even skeptical of Nazism, unlike other branches of the military. What struck me about this photo, incidentally, is the shirt the guy is wearing under his tunic. It looks non-regulation, to say the least, and I can't recall ever seeing a shirt collar sticking out so prominently. --Fullobeans (talk) 08:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The shirt also struck me - clearly not military issue - and I wondered if it didn't mean that the person pictured was playing "dress up" in someone else's uniform. - Nunh-huh 08:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The collar tabs identify him as regular army (Heer, i.e. not navy or air force). The background of the collar tab would identifies which command (which part) of the Heer he would have been in, but I can't tell what color they are (my monitor is lousy too). Armor if dark green, medical if dark blue, black if engineers. The ribbon probably indicates Iron Cross Second Class. The one stud on the shoulder board indicates Feldwebel, i.e. the third lowest NCO rank (3 Stripe NCO := US E-6). As for his field cap,.. the shape of the insignia's patch, its color and the cockade all mean something too. Dunno what though. -- Fullstop (talk) 18:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Rather than the Google LIFE images archives cited above, I'd suggest you contact the archives of Life (magazine) itself, possibly through its LIFE.com official website. Otherwise, are we sure this image isn't a photoshopped fabrication? -- Deborahjay (talk) 06:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Structuralist/intentionalist Holocaust sources

Where can I find, online, extracts from works by structuralist and intentionalist authors which show their opinions on the Holocaust? Thanks, --AdamSommerton (talk) 20:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If there is not sufficient information in the article you have linked, then perhaps clicking on the names shown as supportive of each perspective will give you on-line sources. You might also consider googling each of the names to find materials beyond WP. // BL \\ (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Bookcases in Jewish cemetery

The article on the Austrian town Krems an der Donau contains a photo of some bookcases in a Jewish cemetery there. The photo is not captioned, unfortunately (I think it should be). But the bookcases look a bit odd stuck there in the middle of a cemetery like that. Is this a common sight in Jewish cemeteries? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 23:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I added a caption. It is artwork by Clegg & Guttmann installed in 2004. Here is further information in German. --Cam (talk) 04:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

According to [7], this seems to be an art installation. In November 2000 the gravestone of Rabbi Nehemia bar Jakob, who died 11 December 1380, was found in exterior front of Piaristenkirche in Krems/Stein, restored, and moved to his final resting place in the cemetery of Krems. A contest was held for ideas on how to use the empty space left behind in the Piaristenkirche. The winners were the artists Clegg & Guttmann, who wanted to use the space to continue their 1991 project called “Open Public Library”.

Clegg & Guttmann, however, could not obtain the required permissions, and so did not erect the library in the Piaristenkirche, but rather in the Jewish cemetery of Krems. "The artists created a bookcase in size and shape of a gravestone with glass doors. It holds a carefully chosen collection of books, which is devoted to the Jewish philosophy and history of death. The choice consists of German, English and Hebrew texts." The work is now less a memorial for a missing gravestone and more a memorial for the formerly flourishing Jewish community of Krems. Visitors are invited to increase the library with books related to the subject. -- Nunh-huh 04:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia has an article on the cemetery, with information about the art. Alas, it is in German too difficult this Englishman for. w:de:Jüdischer Friedhof Krems. DuncanHill (talk) 13:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

By contrast, see the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, a work by Rachel Whiteread. It consists of an inside-out library, and, while not in a cemetary, cannot but be linked with the death and absence of Jews in that city. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Dacians, Getae, Venadae, Galatians

Click to enlarge

Danes and Goths in Latin? Is it possible that due to the fluidity of Germania as meaning many different things, that our modern version of who these peoples are, is not exactly black and white? Those peoples are identified as the same by medieval academics. The Goths, like the Getae, lived along the Greek frontier as far as the Ukraine (where the Swedish Rus later lived) before moving into the western part of Rome and generally taking over former Celtic spheres of influence. I assume the Danes and Dacians weren't extricated from one another until modern (18th-19th century times). The Venadae seem like a mix-up with the Finns. If you think I'm crazy to even ask, then explain Galatia to me as if it has no relation to Gaul. The French made Crusader states and all Western Europeans are called Franks because of this. Who says the French were not retracing Galatian steps? I assume you are going to merely state that all of those frontier peoples, barbarians, are simply too obscure to know for sure. I'll accept that answer and drop the question, if it's what you have. 68.231.163.38 (talk) 23:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the connection between France and Gaul is that its the same plot of land, but the French are not really descendents of the Gauls. There were probably some descendents of the Gauls living in just about any part of France at any time, but the French who went on the Crusades were most likely descendents of Romans and Germanic Franks which migrated to the area from other parts of Europe some 500-800 years prior to the Crusades.

You must remember that the modern concept of nation-state which means a people AND government AND plot of land AND language all rolled into one is really only a concept which has existed for MAYBE 300-400 years at the outside, and really only got nailed down in the 19th and early 20th century. Prior to the Dark ages, most of the major groups of Europe had no definitive homeland; they were semi-nomadic or pastoralist. The broad groups we speak of (Germanic groups, Celtic/Gaulish groups, Slavic groups, "Scythians", etc.) weren't really tied to one area. We have a sense that the Germanic people came from the Denmark-Norway-Sweeden area, and that the Celts maybe came from the Halstatt culture of the Alps, however these people ranged and moved widely across Europe and the Mediteranean world throughout history. For the Celtic peoples, we have such far flung areas as Galatia in Anatolia and Galicia in Iberia. For the Germans we have Vandals in North Africa and Goths as far as northeastern Black Sea area. In fact, if we plot the movements of the Germanic and Celtic peoples over, say, the 1000 year period from 500 BC to 500 AD it would probably be hard to find a plot of land from Portugal to the Caucasus, or from Denmark to Libya, which had NOT served as a homeland, at different times, for BOTH Germanic and Celtic peoples.

There's really no evidence, either, that the 11th century French were particularly aware of this, and their motivation for taking on the Crusades wasn't to reclaim some "Gaulish" homeland in Galatia, it was a combination of religious duty to reclaim the Holy Land from the Saracens, and of personal conquest.

As far as the connection between the Danes and the Dacians/Getae, I am not sure there is any. As far as I know, the Dacians were a native Thracian people who had no known connection to the Germanic Danes, and any similarity in their names is purely coincidental. Their closest relatives are probably the Phrygian peoples of Anatolia, and those Phrygians, despite at some point populating an area that at a different time was populated by the Galatians, have no commonality with them either.--Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a map of 323 BC, and according to accepted chronologies, the Goths didn't move into the general Balkans-Ukraine area until about five centuries later. In 323 BC., the central Europe, northern Balkans, and Ukraine area was probably dominated by Celts, Illyrians, Scythians, and "Thraco-Phrygians" -- and not by either Slavs or Germanics. The Galatians were indeed Celts, who famously broke into Anatolia around 278 B.C. Not sure about "Venedae", but Veneti was an early word sometimes used by Romans to refer to Slavs (but probably not in 323 B.C.). AnonMoos (talk) 00:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Isn't it significant that the Goths and Rus followed the same orientation? It's almost that Germania (includes Finns acc. to Tacitus) and Scythia are the respective Latin and Greek name for the same mishmash, from different positions to judge? Obviously, many of the other peoples, especially those of Anatolia and Gaul, have a much more intimate connection to the Mediterranean world and its "in-crowd", so they are easier to understand. You know, I went to Oktoberfest this past year and they had a mix of Germanic and Slavic folk dances and music, going as far east as those -istan countries of Central Asia, like the Cossacks and Tajiks. I was stunned, but perhaps can't really be this estranged from knowing that the Germanic and Scythic peoples and their descendants have closer ties with each other than each might have separately with the Mediterranean world which they absorbed in the Middle Ages. 68.231.163.38 (talk) 01:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, you are confusing the Rus, which were a Germanic people, with the Russians, who are a Slavic people. The land the Rus settled on became known as Russia, and then when the Slavs later moved in, they became Russians though they had no relation to the prior settlers. And the Finns are definately not Germanic in any way. They are a Uralic peoples who came from the same part of North-Central Asia from whence the Magyars and Samoyed peoples came. Tacitus may have assumed they were Germanic because they were found in his time intermingled in some of the areas where Germanic peoples were, but as I noted above with the Celts and the Germans, there were many unrelated groups of people marching all accross Eurasia for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Certainly there was contact and intermingling between all of these groups, as well as other Central Asian groups which moved into Europe or visa-versa (see Bulgars, Avars, Cimerians, Scythians, Sarmatians). Its not like these cultures remained isolated from each other while trapsing over each others land. There is, of course, some assimilation to happen; else how do the Franks, a Germanic people, end up speaking a Latin-based language or the Bulgars, a Turkic group from central asia, end up speaking a Slavic language. So yes, I would not be surprised to find the sort of cross-cultural connections you describe; however when you get down to the roots of these cultures, they often come from very different places, and cross-cultural exchanges are different from cultural descent. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:32, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I was really trying to get a sense of the similarity in the names and whether these are not really two different peoples, but two different versions of the same peoples. 68.231.163.38 (talk) 05:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Two things: the Slavs were already there when the Rus arrived. The Slavs supposedly asked them to come intervene in some conflict, and they ended up with Rus overlords until the Rus were completely Slavicized a few centuries later. (Or, perhaps, the Rus were Slavs all along, depending on which side of the debate you are on. We have an article about this, naturally, see Rus' (people).) Secondly, the crusaders were called "Franks" because they mostly came from France, but also because they associated themselves with the more heroic age of the actual Franks, especially Charlemagne, who was thought to have had some interest (military or humanitarian) in Jerusalem. The leaders of the crusade were all descended from Charlemagne, of course. Sometimes chroniclers also used ancient geographic and ethnographic terms for contemporary people and places; thus in the First Crusade, "Franks", "Teutons", and "Alemanni" travelled through "Pannonia" and "Illyria" on their way to "Babylon". I don't know if this helps answer the question, but I wanted to clarify some of Jayron's answers. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

March 3

Does anybody know where is Pervez Musharraf?

Since he resigned I didn't hear from him. Does anybody know where **he is? (sorry personal opinion)... Thanks all! I read on his article that he is a speaker now travelling through the Middle East, etc. But does he live in Pakistan? Could he be judged?--Maru-Spanish (talk) 00:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Deleted pejorative label at ** on grounds that BLP applies to the Ref Desk, too. // BL \\ (talk) 07:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Like many former heads of state, he seems to be travelling the world. Speaking in California in January[8], Paris in February[9], but the latter was to see a cardiologist, so maybe he should take things a bit easier. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 18:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Did Sub-saharan Africa had a Civilization?

Becuase all what civilization needs is:

1. Urban society: Living together in communities.

2. Religion: Beliefs that provide answers to “unanswerable” questions.

3. Literacy: The ability to read and write

4. Government: Having a set of rules, leaders or organization to society

5. Specialization: Using unique skills to benefit all.

6. Social classes: Groups of people with common characteristics.

7. Tool-making: The ability to problem-solve.

8. Concept of time: Understanding of patterns like the seasons, sunrise and sunset or tides can be used to your benefit.

9. Leisure: Recognizing the value of the arts and entertainment.

10. Education/criticism: Striving to improve as an individual or as a culture.

Sub-saharan only had religion, urban society, government, specialization, social classes, tool making, leisure and education.

The only thing it did not have was a "highly developed writing system" so does it still count as a civilization?--arab 01:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TerrorSonghai (talk • contribs)

Part of the problem that happens there is that you have a definition of civilisation that leaves out some cultures which can well be called civilisation, such as the Incas, who also didn't have writing (but did have a system of records through quipu. What you need to decide is whether that definition of civilisation (wherever it came from) is valid, or if you think you can call a subsaharan culture not a civilisation (for example, the Hausa kings, Dahomey, the Zulu empire, etc.). Steewi (talk) 02:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Ethiopia counts as sub-Saharan, and it has its own ancient, indigenous, highly developed writing system. It has also historically satisfied all of your other criteria for civilization. Other sub-Saharan African civilizations have had writing systems based on Arabic, which I think qualifies even though it originated elsewhere. From the 14th to the 16th centuries, for example, Timbuktu was a major intellectual center, with such institutions as the Sankore Madrasah. The Sokoto Caliphate was founded by Usman dan Fodio, a scholar who wrote more than 100 books. In East Africa, the Swahili city-states (such as Malindi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Kilwa Kisiwani) were also literate. Other sub-Saharan societies had indigenous writing systems with more limited application, such as Nsibidi. Marco polo (talk) 03:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

"Civilization?" Nazi Germany clearly had 1 through 10, and were hardly civilized. Some sub-saharan groups likely achieved a higher level of civilization at a less industrial and militaristic level of development than some European groups. Edison (talk) 03:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Call me sentimental, but to me the central aspect of civilization is humane treatment through love. The rest is just baubles and bangles. Wrad (talk) 03:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Nazi Germany was undoubtedly a civilization by all other interpretations of the word I have seen. "Civilized" has taken on quite a different meaning; a civilized person is generous, polite, and good-natured, and is not a group of people organized under a leader with a writing system. On the other hand, division of labour, leadership, and relatively advanced arts/science are what most people think of when they hear "civilization". Good human rights is not a requirement.

Ward: your statement is very ironic considering that the first civilizations were based on inequality, in contrast to the earlier egalitarian tribes and clans. By your definition, these tribes would be civilizations while the early city-states would not. --99.237.96.33 (talk) 07:02, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Sub-saharan Africa had numerous "civilizations" which were contemporaneously on par with similar civilizations around the world. Besides the ones already mentioned, don't forget Great Zimbabwe, the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire, Kanem-Bornu, Kingdom of Kush, etc. etc. Sub-saharan Africa wasn't completely populated with savages until the Europeans showed up, you know. See also Ancient African kingdoms for a discussion of more... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm rather skeptical about the writing system requirement. The Inca, for one, lacked a writing system, and they still managed to have quite an empire. bibliomaniac15 04:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

All civilisations go around killing non-/differently-civilised people. I doubt that "civilisation" ever connoted love. It could even be one of the criteria: the subjugation of people outside the civilisation. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd question some of those characteristics of "civilization". Writing is only a few thousand years old, and I'd say many civilizations existed before that. As for religion, that's hardly an identifying characteristic, as religion likely goes back to cave man days. I might add other characteristics, too, like agriculture and architecture. StuRat (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting that no one has referred to the civilization article yet. "A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and cities." and "The word Civilization comes from the Latin word civilis, the genitive form of civis, meaning a "citizen" or "townsman" governed by the law of his city." While I am not an anthropologist, this matches my understanding of civilization - that is to say, the only criteria that truely define a "civilization" are your 1) and 4), with 5), 6), and 7) being effectively a background requirement for living in a "city" (versus a "village"). While Merriam-Webster uses the keeping of written records (almost, but not quite your 3) as the key criteria for civilization, the OED does not, instead using the presence of laws and "citizens" (people living in a city, and thereby possessing rights and privileges) as the defining features. I'm not sure where you got 2), 8), 9) and 10) from, although admittedly any group which would build a city with a specialized workforce would likely be in possession of all four. -- 128.104.112.117 (talk) 20:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd wonder about he town part even. I don't think ancient Ireland for instance had much in the way of towns as opposed to villages and yet it satisfied all the other conditions. Dmcq (talk) 15:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Propensity to consume: Economic standpoint of saving and consumption?

In my Economics class my professor either told me that if save increases then consumption decreases or that is save increases then consumption also increases. I have both written in my notes but I know one of them is wrong. This would be an easy-self explanatory question if I know what save means. Does it mean savings as in having more money on hand or physically saving more money and spending less?-- penubag  (talk) 03:57, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

In a simple model, consumption and investment both consume capital; savings preserve capital for future use. Savings is a potential investment (if the money is saved in a bank it might be lent out) or a potential consumption (if it is put under the mattress for retirement) if it is more likely to be consumed in future.

The marginal propensity to consume is the share of an increase in income that is consumed. If income rises by $100, and $65 is spent on consumption (the remainder being saved or invested), the propensity to consume is 0.65. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

And: 1 - (the marginal propensity to consume) = (the marginal propensity to save) . Which means that each dollar a person gets today either goes to savings or consumption. This makes sense if you think about it in an regular, every day sense. When you receive your paycheck, sometimes you have something to buy with some of the money. Any money that you don't spend, you hold on to, to buy something in the future. Usually in a bank account, but sometimes in other sorts of "investments."

But, of course, savings today is consumption tomorrow.

Any money that you save usually produces interest too. So if you save $1 today in some investment account, you might have $1.05 next year.

Your professor might have been trying to make the point that everything in society that is produced is also consumed (or eventually depreciated away). When you save, you're really just creating more of a special resource called "capital." If the return on that capital (in a perfect market, the "interest rate") is relatively high, savings today might mean more consumption for everybody tomorrow. (see Exogenous growth model, which is more of a second-year thing)

But more likely, the thing you want to remember is that, in any period, income = savings + consumption. If income is held constant, an increase in savings means a decrease in consumption, and vice versa. NByz (talk) 06:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for such a concise answer. I understand it now. -- penubag  (talk) 05:09, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Bear market and Bull market

Why are they called bear and bull? SYSS Mouse (talk) 04:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Market trend#Etymology notes some speculation as to why these terms are used, but it is unreferenced, and thus of dubious reliability. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 04:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

And they didn't have the version of the story I'd heard, that "bear" means people are "bearing" stocks and bonds, that is, trying to sell them, while "bull" was used to contrast with "bear", based on the abbreviation BU for trying to buy stocks and bonds. StuRat (talk) 15:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Electoral tie provisions?

I know that the US government has a scheme for deciding the president & vice president in the event of a tie in the Electoral College. But what if there was a tie at the state level, and the people of the state were evenly split on who to award their electoral college votes to? Does any state have provisions for this event? More generally, can someone tell me of 'any' tie provision for a government election involving more than a hundred thousand voters?

This question is important to me because a rational agent votes according to the chance of his or her vote swaying the election. If states don't have provisions for tied elections, that suggests that no one actually takes the idea of a very close election seriously, and that we only vote for social reasons. --Tigerthink (talk) 05:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't have an answer, but I'm intrigued by your view. we only vote for social reasons. Here in Australia, even if the election was not close at all, we individually vote to avoid being fined.

That may be true for you, PalaceGuard, but not for me, and not, I suspect, for a significant proportion of Australians. Just because it's compulsory doesn't mean that many people wouldn't vote anyway. I certainly would. It's also true that many wouldn't if they didn't have to. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

But more generally, isn't voting in an election a bit of an equilibrium strategy situation? Each voter has very little information about the intentions of every other voter in his or her electorate to vote or not. All you can go by is opinion polling. If you see that your party is going to win, and therefore you don't vote, you run the risk of everyone else thinking the same and your party thereby losing? Conversely, if you see that your party is going to lose, then by voting, you are going for the chance that other people won't turn up. All in all, since you can't see whether other people will turn up to vote or not, you can't really assess with any accuracy how valuable your vote is.

Does this have anything necessarily to do with the likelihood of a "close" election? Assuming that everyone in the community thinks the same (faces the same payoff matrix?), en election would never be close: either many people vote or hardly anyone votes; either everyone votes for the Reds or they vote for the Blues. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

But candidates respond to pre-election polls, and the losing candidates will iteratively revise their platforms to get more votes until everyone converges at the center. "Ideally", by election time the vote will be evenly split but it will no longer matter who wins (obligatory link to Kang and Kodos). In practice I don't know if that convergence ever happens—there often seem to be enormous differences between candidates at election time, not to mention that they often have no intention of following through on their campaign promises. But I think that is how it's supposed to work, and it is the reason elections are so often close.

Tigerthink, regarding your last sentence, I don't know about legal provisions for exact ties, but people certainly take close elections seriously because they happen. The 2000 Florida presidential election is legendary. The 2008 Minnesota Senate election is still ongoing with Al Franken leading by less than 0.01%. -- BenRG (talk) 17:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

As to the "more general" question, if the election for any seat in the Canadian House of Commons is a tie, there's no winner. The government calls a byelection the same as they would if someone had been elected and then died. See section 318 of the Canada Elections Act, which is online under canada.justice.gc.ca (sorry, I can't post a direct link). --Anonymous, 06:22 UTC, March 3, 2009.

"The electoral tie, a fashion must for every man. It's reversible, blue on one side, red on the other, and can be worn as a bow-tie if some weird third party every manages to win. And, no matter which side turns out, you're absolutely guaranteed to be sick of it in 4-8 years." StuRat (talk) 15:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Even if you knew your vote would be the tie-breaker, you'd still be voting for "social reasons" unless you thought that one of the candidates would benefit you personally and directly.

Nothing wrong with that of course. If people didn't instinctively do things for social reasons we wouldn't have a society. APL (talk) 23:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The US Constitution provides that each state legislature be responsible to decide how its electors are selected. For many decades (I'm pretty sure that it's been since the end of the Civil War at latest), each legislature has decided to award its electors based exclusively on the popular vote. However, because of this provision, each state could constitutionally decide what to do in the event of a tie. I haven't a clue what any individual state would do. Nyttend (talk) 05:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In California, for example, ties are decided by lot. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 23:40, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

USSR invades USA, occupies east coast

I seem to remember this as a graphic novel. Google searching not fruitful. Anybody have any ideas? (NOT Red Dawn, pls--I distinctly remember the eastern seaboard clearly "red"-ed out). Thanks!--75.157.250.4 (talk) 05:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming! Not. Do you have any idea when it was published, or when you read it, at least? Also, was it actually a book-format graphic novel (or trade paperback), or was it a regular ol' comic book? --Fullobeans (talk) 08:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

In Judge Dredd (originally published in 2000AD) the sovietesque city "East Meg 1" (a megalopolis encompassing much of western Russia) poisons, nukes, invades, and (for a time) conquers "Mega City 1", another megalopolis which encompasses the eastern seaboard of the US. The prologue to this was the "Block Mania" storyline, and the war itself is the "Apocalypse War" storyline; BM and AW are published as graphic novels in the UK by Titan, and presumably (by someone) in the US. The AW story regularly featured maps of Mega City 1 being turned red by large invading sov-blok arrows. Mimetic Polyalloy (talk) 13:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Unusual library

(Thread moved from the Language Desk. --Anonymous, 06:25 UTC, March 3, 2009.)

There is a library, in Europe, I think, that is housed in the home of its former owner, who is now dead. It is run as a public service IIRC. The books are arranged into four sections, not by the dewey system, but by an obscure schema that the owner came up with that locates books next to other books that the owner thought would be interesting or useful. I have forgotten the name of the library - can anyone help me with it? Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.100.62 (talk) 20:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like the Cotton Library, although that no longer exists. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a pretty impossible question. There are many private libraries that remain in the homes of their previous owners, as libraries, museums, research institutes, etc. And it's not really typical for old/small/private libraries to use an established cataloging system either. --Pykk (talk) 21:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you - the Cotton Library is not the one, although that is interesting. I understand that there are many, let me try to be more specific in details. It was organized into four rooms, with a theme for each room that had some sort of visual (a woodcut carving iirc) that distinguished it. There was some notion about the arrangement of the books being its own form of literary art. Thanks, I know it is a long-shot! I am pretty sure it is in continental europe, too, maybe Austria? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.100.62 (talk) 21:51, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the four rooms, but your description of the associative method of "organization" reminded me of the library of Aby Warburg in his Hamburg house. I believe that his actual collection of books is now in the Warburg Institute in London but that his library has been partially recreated in Hamburg. Deor (talk) 23:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you - that is really interesting, and the right line of thought, but the one I am looking for is one house, and it has a website which explains it that I can't find. I appreciate the suggestions, I know I am being infuriatingly vague! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.115.95.28 (talk) 01:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

There is also the St Deiniol's Residential Library, which is in William Gladstone's old home at Hawarden. Website here. Sam Blacketer (talk) 14:26, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you might mean the Bodmer Library (in Switzerland), but got its features somehow mixed up with those of the Cotton Library as mentioned above. --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 21:34, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Russian novels

Why are there references to "X crossing Y"? Is that something in the Orthodox Church, or is it also Catholic? Also, it's worth noting that X is rarely a priest in those Dostoevsky novels... 203.188.92.71 (talk) 09:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Not sure exactly what you are referring to, but "X crossed Y" can mean that Mr X opposed Mr Y, or disagreed with him, or thwarted him. Nothing to do with religion. If X "crossed himself" that would probably be a religious ritual - see Sign of the Cross.DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Plotting graphs? A quote giving the context would help us help you.--Wetman (talk) 16:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure if I understand your question, but an R.C. priest X (or a parent) may well make the sign of the cross, typically on the forehead of the person Y. The most common example would be the procedure of baptism. I have no idea if this is also customary in the Orthodox church, though. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I never became a member myself, but I was married in a Russian Orthodox Church, my sons were baptised there, and I attended a number of other church services. I can't say I ever saw one person crossing another, except at baptism. I might have seen the priest cross the forehead of a body at a funeral (the coffins are open, and we all get to kiss the body), but I couldn't swear to it. I never saw it happen in my earlier long transit through the RC church either, except at baptism, confirmation and Ash Wednesday, where in every case the priest (or bishop, in the case of confirmation) would cross the adherent's forehead (with ash on Ash Wednesday). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:26, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Constance Garnett's translation of The Brothers Karamazov on Project Gutenberg, there's a lot of people making the sign of the cross over other people, for example:

The elder raised his hand and would have made the sign of the cross over Ivan from where he stood. But the latter rose from his seat, went up to him, received his blessing, and kissing his hand went back to his place in silence. (I.II.VI)

"[...] I'm so fond of him. Alyosha, let me give you my blessing--a father's blessing."

Alyosha rose, but Fyodor Pavlovitch had already changed his mind.

"No, no," he said. "I'll just make the sign of the cross over you, for now. [...]" (I.III.VI)

"You--can see spirits?" the monk inquired.

"I tell you I can see, I can see through them. When I was coming out from the Superior's I saw one hiding from me behind the door, and a big one, a yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail, and the tip of his tail was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I made the sign of the cross over him three times. [...]" (II.IV.I)

There are other examples. So I suspect saying "X crossed Y" is another way of phrasing this. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 15:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

stanford or havard??

which one is the best university for engineering education(m tech/phd)??

SAMEE —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sameerdubey.sbp (talk • contribs) 10:23, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

if youd like to become a billionaire handsdown stanford. Millionaire, handsdown Harvard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.149.76 (talk) 11:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, neither school has much of a reputation for engineering. If I was to choose the best Engineering school, I would go with Cal Tech instead of Stanford and MIT instead of Harvard, and at that point, your decision will probably be based on non-accademic criteria (location, campus life, suburban vs. urban setting, etc. etc.) --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

whether you prefer it to be sunny all year 'round or under a foot of snow for 3/4th of it... --140.247.243.40 (talk) 14:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Boston's (well Cambridge, axully, but close enough) is actually not that snowy. It's near the ocean, so does not receieve nearly the accumulation of inland New England. New England as a whole, on average, receieve far less snow than other parts of the country, say Upstate New York or the Midwest. While winter does tend to be rather long (probably late october through mid march) it's not all that terrible. Unless you are used to Southern California weather, then it will probably seem like the arctic to you. I have lived in both the Boston area and the Chicago area, and Chicago has FAR worse winters. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It's pretty snowy when compared to Pasadena. Or really anywhere else in California, for that matter. The choice here isn't between Boston and Chicago, it's Boston and California. There is quite a contrast. I speak as a native Californian since transplanted East. That Chicago is colder does not affect how cold Boston is. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

In the interest of accuracy, we should probably say "whether you prefer it to be sunny all year round or under a foot of snow for days at a time which quickly compacts to ice because the college kids don't shovel and shortly thereafter melts and refreezes into black ice which then gets snowed on again and then rained on so it turns to a heavy grey slush, which then freezes once more and then melts suddenly during a warm snap which dries out the ground and brings clear, sunny days which make you happy to be alive for about five minutes before a cold front blows in from Canada and brings sub-zero wind chills for two weeks, followed by a week of freezing rain, followed by another snowstorm, after which beautiful spring weather makes the crocuses bloom and a sudden April cold snap quickly kills them, until finally temperatures stabilize for a week or two before giving way to three or four months of sticky heat and thunderstorms, after which a beautiful autumn comes and goes and the process repeats itself, plus or minus six nor'easters." --Fullobeans (talk) 23:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

"...or how nasty every other season is except autumn," is what I should have added. "Pasadena — basically better weather all the time than Boston ever gets, except maybe August and September, which are pretty swell." (Don't get me wrong—I think Boston as a city has way more going on for it than Pasadena as a city, and is a lot of fun to live in. Whoo, basically good and reliable public transportation! But the weather...... just miserable. All the time. Except the fall.) --98.217.14.211 (talk) 03:06, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Let me defend my home city here for a minute. The choice between Pasadena and Boston is a choice between bland suburb and vibrant city. As for the weather, it is a choice between weather (Boston) or not (Pasadena). If you don't like weather and don't mind a bland suburb, go for Pasadena. However, if you don't mind weather and want a more stimulating environment, come to Boston. Certainly, not all of our weather is enjoyable. I don't like it when snow is followed by cold rain that creates deep slush. However, I like most of it. At the moment we are having crisp, cold, sunny days. The sun is all the brighter for the snow on the ground. Soon we will have spring, with fragrant blossoms everywhere, which is a delight after all of those months of cold, though the winter weather has its pleasures. After spring, we get a good hot summer, with some really sultry days, perfect for the beach or a shady spot on one of Boston's Harbor Islands, to enjoy the cool sea breeze. And then the glorious fall. It's all good if you know how to enjoy it. Marco polo (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

But... but... if we generate enough bad PR, we could all be living in $700 one-bedrooms on the red line! And now you've gone and undone all my hard work. --Fullobeans (talk) 02:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Group Decision Making Method

I have a group of 10-15 people that need to make a group decision out of as many options (each person can out forward one option). We have discussed it, but it is hard to come to agreement because each participant tends to pull to its own side, which is understandable because they would want their option to be accepted. As it is now, it is obvious that most vocal side will win, through pressure it exerts on everybody else. I am looking for democratic decision making process here everyone's option will be considered and only most popular option will win, not the option that has best "campaign". I figured I could call a vote but I am unsure how to go about it. Should there be several rounds with elimination of least popular option? Basically, I am looking for established group decision making method, if such thing exists. Does it?

After first decision is made, there will be another one or several more, where previous options might be present, depending on if participant chooses to resubmit it. I know of DKP systems in MMORPGs, I guess I am looking for something like that. Fair way to make most people happy or at least understand that decision was made on sound unbiased foundations.

Am I making any sense?--Melmann^(talk) 10:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

In this situation, I would call for a "secret ballot" vote with the caveat that no one could vote for their own proposal. You could also do a "Top 5" vote, and assign points to each proposal (5 for a first place vote, 4 for a second, etc.). Those votes or a combination of the two may help weed out the "self-vote" problem. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 13:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The obvious problem with the secret ballot is that there's no way to actually tell if people vote for themselves, if the vote is really secret. So, I'd go with the idea of having people get two or more secret votes (which can't be identical). Make sure each person writes all their choices on the same piece of paper so you can verify that none of them voted twice for the same idea. You may also want run-off votes, where it comes down to the top two vote-getting ideas. By eliminating many of people's own, inferior ideas, each will then be forced to choose from the between the best ideas. I'd also have everyone submit their initial ideas anonymously, in writing, so that the popularity and public speaking abilities of the authors don't influence the decision. StuRat (talk) 15:35, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps instant-runoff voting would be a good technique. Or take a look at the many types of voting in the single-winner voting system--Eriastrum (talk) 19:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Source of quote?

"Know your heart, it is your North Star." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.98.141 (talk) 13:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It is the central metaphor of Martha Beck, Finding Your North Star, 2005. See "Finding Your Own North Star". That one's own instincts are the most trustworthy guide is a basic assumption of Romanticism. --Wetman (talk) 15:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Also an important part of Aristotle's philosophy. 148.197.114.165 (talk) 20:19, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Strategy game

I played an interesting and thought-provoking strategy game on a work-related training course recently and I wonder if anyone recognizes it and can tell me who devised it. Basically, each individual represents a corporate department, with the group as a whole standing for the whole company. Each individual is asked to decide which of two strategies, A or B, to pursue, and to write A or B on a piece of paper which no-one else is allowed to see. The strategies themselves are not part of the game; the point is that there are financial consequences, both for the individual departments and the company as a whole, based on how many departments go for strategy A and how many for strategy B. For example (I may not have got the figures right, but the principle is clear): if every department chooses A, then every department gains $3000 but the company as a whole loses $1000. If fewer departments choose A than choose B, then each department that chose A gains $5000, each department that chose B loses $1000, and the company as a whole loses $10,000. If every department chooses B, then each department gains $1000 and the company as a whole gains $10,000. (I hope this is making sense.)

The game goes through several rounds, with the scores for the whole company being totted up at the end of each round. At the end of some rounds, the company has a meeting in which it can decide collectively which strategy/ies to pursue. What we found was that individual self-interest trumped the good of the company. At one of the 'meetings', we collectively decided that we should all go for B in order to maximise the gain for the company, but in the end one or two people still went for A, thereby gaining for themselves but making the company as a whole lose out. I'm not saying it's necessarily representative of what could or would happen in the real world, but it was still fun to play. Has anyone else come across this game? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:20, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like a variation on the prisoner dilemma. --Tango (talk) 14:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

As with most corporate-based strategy games, a part of the problem is scale. Whereas $3,000 may be a lot of money to an individual in the game, any company large enough to be able to afford such group actvities is not likely to be much affected by a $10,000 cost. In a game setting, I'd go for the maximum personal gain, too, even having previously said that I would vote for the better corporate atrategy. I hate everything that playing such games says about a company. // BL \\ (talk) 16:12, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Additional reading for the OP are articles such as Game theory and Nash equilibrium, a nobel-prize winning concept. The whole idea of modeling complex human behavior as games like this became something of a hot idea in economics in the 1980's and 1990's and still holds some important ideas across the social sciences. See also brinksmanship for Game theory's application to international relations. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

(Assuming you've remembered and explained this correctly.)

All A : $3000 each. (-$1000)

50/50 : $2000 (avg) (-$10,000)

All B : $1000 each (+$10,000)

It's pretty clear that a split is never good, and if your company has more than five departments, than the All-A strategy is the clear winner both overall, and individually.

The only dilemma is for companies with five or fewer departments.

In any case, I'd choose A every time until word came down from the top not to. My department can't do its job without proper funding. It's not like we'd spend that money on pizza parties and beer. APL (talk) 14:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a little unclear what it means for the departments and the company to be making money. Surely if 5 departments each make $3k, then the company makes $15k, it can't lose money if none of its constituent parts has lost money. I think there is some part of this game that I'm not understanding... --Tango (talk) 17:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The Harvard Negotiation Project was using a version of this in 1983, and I was under the impression it was devised by Roger Fisher or (more likely) one of his staffers. However, I don't recall if they specifically claimed that it was an internally devised game. John M Baker (talk) 00:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Valentine's Day as a rest-day

looks like our article does not show whether Valentine's Day is non-working somewhere. is there any country where february 14 is officially a rest day? 85.132.54.5 (talk) 14:25, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

February 14#Holidays and observances tells me that it's "Communist Martyrs Day" in Iraq, but I don't know whether it's a public holiday. No other countries are mentioned as having a day off on 14 February. This suggests there's no country that has Valentine's Day - as such - declared as a public holiday. And I'm not the slightest bit surprised. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not a holiday in Iraq this year[10]. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 18:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It was a public holiday in Lebanon this year, but they were marking the anniversary of the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri; I'm not sure if it's a holiday every year[11][12]. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 19:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Even if it were, it has nothing to do with Valentine's Day. But I wonder why they'd let the whole country have a day off to mark someone's murder (says he, remembering Good Friday). -- JackofOz (talk) 20:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Paleolithic

Where can I find a website that interprets this quote: "It is certain that Paleolithic man never wanted to decorate the cave walls: in the darkness of the cave, with the glow of the lamps, he celebrated a rite of evocation"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.22 (talk) 14:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The article on cave paintings has a section on theories and interpretations and lists Henri Breuil, David Lewis-Williams and R. Dale Guithrie (no WP entry) as anthropologists / archeologists who have engaged in interpreting the paintings. You may check Google, or a local library / bookshop for relevant publications by these scientists. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Athens

How the main ideas or principles of Athenian democracy are reflected in Athenian political institutions and prcatice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.22 (talk) 15:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

This sounds so like a homework essay that few Wikipedians will feel at liberty to provide answers.--Wetman (talk) 15:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

The article on Athenian democracy is quite extensive and may provide you with some tools for analysis, synthesis and further research. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 15:59, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I did but it didn't say anything about Athenian political institutions and practice. Please, help me.unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.22 (talk) 17:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.54.65 (talk)

For that you might consult our articles on the History of Athens and Classical Athens. LANTZY^TALK 00:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

why financial charts plotted on logarithmic scale

Removed to mathematics desk. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Answered here. --Tango (talk) 18:20, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Notable people with illiterate parents

I think it was Napoleon or Mao or someone who said that the way to raise a good army was to start with the soldiers' mothers' mothers. That applies to education as much as to nutrition. The mother of Stalin, for example, was a serf, but surprisingly (or so our article on Ketevan Geladze says) had had access to schooling, and could read and write Georgian (though not Russian); I contend that he would not have come top in his class at school without the explicit example or osmotic effect of having a literate home life. Can we come up with a list of the world's achievers (scientists, politicians, academics, writers, etc.) who were raised by illiterate parents? I need to clarify this: I exclude anti-intellectuals such as Pol Pot, and those who have achieved prominence as the leaders of oppressed and illiterate groups (e.g. Rigoberta Menchu, Malcom X). Let us limit our enquiries to the last hundred years or so, from the time when mandatory education began to be established (geographically variable, I realise). An interesting related question is second language learners, but let's leave that out for now. If either parent could and did read and write in any language (not just laboriously scrawl a signature, but read newspapers, hold down or at least aspire to a desk job, etc.), then that counts as a good example for the child. Who suceeded despite having no such example? BrainyBabe (talk) 17:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, thinking back on my ed psych classes in Grad School, I do remember that we were always taught that the greatest correlative factor for how well a child would do in school was their mother's education level. Regardless of the father's schooling, children whose mother had, say a PhD tended on average to do better than those whose moms had a bacthelor's degree who did better than those whose moms only graduated high school. This does not answer your direct question, but it does confirm the sentiment at the start of the article. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:46, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Frederick Douglass is one of my favorite literacy stories ever, but I guess he's excluded. Wrad (talk) 18:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Fidel Castro was the son of illiterate parents, but he learned to read at a Jesuit boarding school. Mao Zedong's father was illiterate, but I don't know about his mother. Kirk Douglas is the son of illiterate Russian Jews from Belarus. Abraham Lincoln's parents were illiterate, as were those of his successor Andrew Johnson. Paul Lawrence Dunbar was the son of ex-slaves, who were not surprisingly illiterate. The ultimate example is probably Shakespeare. Not only were his parents illiterate, so were his wife and children. This fact has sometimes been used by anti-Stratfordians to cast doubt on the authorship of his plays. LANTZY^TALK 19:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not surprising that his wife was illiterate, being as she was of that generally illiterate time. But it is EXTREMELY surprising that any of his children were illiterate, if he was the writer he's claimed to be. As Charlton Ogburn writes in The Mystery of William Shakespeare: "If his failure to have had even one daughter taught to read and write strikes the professors of English as in any way odd they do not confess it". Without getting into a side debate about the authorship of Shakespeare, there's plenty of evidence that the Shakespeare from Stratford was illiterate himself. The Shakespeare who wrote the plays and sonnets - now, that's a different kettle of fish entirely. He was obviously far from illiterate - and even that's a hell of an understatement - but it's not generally agreed exactly who his parents were, because it's not generally agreed exactly who he himself was. That's all I'll say. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of straying into speculative territory, I'm not particularly surprised that Shakespeare's children were illiterate. For one thing, he wasn't exactly a family man. He spent most of his time in London, far from his family in Stratford, so it's unlikely that he took an active interest in his children's upbringing. For another thing, he was first and foremost an actor and certainly didn't consider himself a writer in the current sense of the term. His work existed on stage, not on pieces of paper. Another thing to keep in mind is that he completely abandoned his literary pursuits after retiring. LANTZY^TALK 04:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Ben Carson is a leading surgeon in the field of separating conjoined twins. His mother only revealed to him that she was illiterate after she had "supervised" his many years of primary schoolwork with a very firm hand. --Sean 20:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Shakespeare and his family don't count by the criteria I laid out, as they lived long before quasi-universal literacy. Douglass is a former slave famous as a former slave, a liberator of his people. Mao and Castro I didn't realise had illiterate parents, but it is not overwhelmingly surprising given their characters and times. Lincoln and Johnson surprised me. I'd not heard of the others -- Dunbar is a very good example; Carson too, although I can't see any proof (just a passing assertion) of his parents' illiteracy; and Douglas I'm not so sure about. The article says his parents were illiterate Russian Jews, but as "people of the Book" wouldn't the men at least have been literate in Hebrew, and thus his childhood would have had books in the house and examples of people learning by reading? So we've come up with a handful so far, for which I thank you, but any more would be very welcome. BrainyBabe (talk) 13:59, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

'People of the Book' carries no implication of general literacy. It merely comments on the fact that Abrahamic religions are based on written texts, in contrast to the pagan traditions they supplanted. But direct experience of the text has never been a prerequisite of belief. If it were, there would be a hell of a lot more infidels running around. It is true that Jewish men have always enjoyed a higher rate of literacy than their Christian countrymen, but never to the point of unanimity. Nor would a knowledge of Hebrew imply literacy: one may be illiterate in two languages. In the Russian Empire, the literacy rate was abysmally low for both Jew and gentile, and Kirk Douglas' father was a ragman, not a rabbi. LANTZY^TALK 16:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(OT) Lantzy is correct about "People of the Book" not carrying an implication of literacy. But "Book" here connotes revealed texts, not necessarily written ones. In the archaic sense, "writing" meant "making words immutable", as contrasted with "spoken", which of course changes with each telling. Hence also the Rabbinic distinction between "Oral Torah" and "Written Torah", or the Ulemaic distinction between religions with a "real" prophet and those without. -- Fullstop (talk) 17:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The Mughals extended the status even to their Hindu subjects, at least intermittently. My goodness, how far from the topic we've wandered! LANTZY^TALK 19:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Using a PhD abroad

If someone has a PhD and travels abroad (for a conference or something similar), how can he use his title? Shouldn't he have his title formally recognized before he can use it?--217.12.16.53 (talk) 19:43, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Within the EU, all member states are required to recognise the qualifications of all other member states. Elsewhere, it will vary. Some countries won't have any restrictions on who can call themselves "Dr." (the UK doesn't, for example). Others will restrict it, but accept PhDs from other countries automatically (well, I expect such countries exist, I don't have an example). Others will require registration (Germany did before the EU rules were introduced, and I think still does for non-EU PhDs). --Tango (talk) 20:04, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

A PhD is not like a legal title. It merely states that some university has granted you a doctorate. How much weight anyone (at a conference, say) wants to give to that title is entirely up to them. In practice, they care far more about the institution itself than the country. A U.S. conference, for instance, would be more interested in hosting someone with a PhD from Oxford than one from a U.S institution called "Big Al's House o' Doctorates."

In the end, a PhD is just a title that one institution has decided to give you. In that respect, it's no different than being given the title "Master Mason" from your local Freemason guild. — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 20:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Please note that Oxford does not award PhDs; it awards DPhils. Malcolm XIV (talk) 23:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not the case in all countries. Some countries do restrict the title "Dr." to only those with PhDs (or other doctorates and perhaps non-doctorate medical qualifications) from recognised institutions. --Tango (talk) 20:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... I believe you, but it would be great if there were something about that in the PhD article! Care to add it? ;). Anyway, that aside, at the very least in the U.S. and the U.K. the title "PhD" has no legal meaning, as far as I am aware (although not having one could prevent you from being an expert witness in some cases, I'll bet). So a person could call themselves a "PhD" in those two countries if they wanted, although generally people will only respect that if it comes from an accredited university. — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 20:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Having a degree (or not) is only one factor when the court considers the question of a person's expertise. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

It should be in Doctor (title), although I can't see it mentioned there. A brief mention in PhD wouldn't hurt. --Tango (talk) 22:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the field that you are appearing as an expert witness for, you may need to be "certified" by a group within your field. For example, in the US you need to be a Professional Engineer (PE) to give expert testimony on engineering matters. A PE requires that you pass a test and have several years work experience and is controlled by an agency independent of your university. So while a PhD PE would be more "expert" then say a BS PE, it's the outside agency that certifies that you've at a specific level regardless of whether you went to Oxford or Big Al's House o' Doctorates.Tobyc75 (talk) 02:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't Germany limit the "Doctor" title to those who received a Ph.D. from a German university, or was that past practice? Edison (talk) 05:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I don't mean it as legal advice, however, you should take care if you are planning to use your Dr. title in Germany. See here. "Under a little-known Nazi-era law, only people who earn PhDs or medical degrees in Germany are allowed to use "Dr." as a courtesy title. (...) Violators can face a year behind bars."--Mr.K. (talk) 11:40, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Now it's those who received it from an EU university, by EU law. Others can apply to have their PhD recognised if they want (I'm not sure how easy that is). --Tango (talk) 13:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Buy stocks in a person, or a person's output

Seeing the odd question above, 'how can I invest in a "race"', I have an odd question of my own: Would it be possible (legal) to invest in a person, or a person's output? Has this been done?

Buy this I mean, say, I give a person a million dollars to buy 10% of his output for the rest of his life. (I assume I couldn't legally by 10% of the person himself -- that would probably count as slavery). This would be similar to a loan, except that I own 10% of his output whatever it is -- whether it pays back 10 times or not at all.

Would that be possible? — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 19:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

If that person was self-employed (possibly working for someone else as a contractor) and had their own company, you could buy shares in that. You could always just write up a contract between the two of you (well, get a solicitor to, this kind of thing needs to be done just right), you can have contracts for pretty much anything - as long as there isn't anything explicitly illegal and there is consideration (which there is in your case), it's all good. --Tango (talk) 20:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Even if you had a contract, I don't think it would be legally enforceable - the 'seller' could walk away - but that would probably make them liable for the money you gave them in the first place. So no, I don't think youcould do that, except if they have a particular career in mind - like acting - and so you could say '10% of the money you make from acting' and that might be enforceable. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 20:28, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

What a topical question - made me think straightaway of this, which I was reading just over a week ago. Karenjc 20:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

In less money-focussed contexts, it's certainly possible to invest in a person. Sports coaches invest their time and effort in training someone they believe has the talent to be a champion. There might be some emolument involved, but many coaches go way beyond what the money pays for. Music teachers do the same for their special students, sometimes giving them years of free tuition. They wouldn't do it for Mrs Smith's little girl Patty, whom Mrs Smith says is very bright and will one day play at Carnegie Hall - just because Mrs Smith says so. Patty would have to display special talent of a rare kind that needs proper training and lots of it, in many cases far more than Mrs Smith can afford. The payoff for the coach or the teacher is not money, but the joy of seeing a rare talent nurtured and brought to fruition, and the carrying on of their own teachings by someone who knows what they're talking about. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Why wouldn't it be enforceable? A contract is a contract, I can't see anything that would invalidate it so you could sue for breech of contract. --Tango (talk) 21:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Such an investment would simply be called a 'loan', with repayments being priced as percentage of earnings. In our law at least, contractual breaches attract expectation damages, so in principle, you can claim for what you expected to receive under the contract, not just the money you put in.

In certain cases, equity may intervene to prevent enforcement of the contract, but that would depend on how unfair the contract is taking ino account all the circumstances, including the relative bargaining positions of the parties at the time. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:27, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

• Bowie Bonds. DuncanHill (talk) 21:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
• Also Justin Wilson. And this link doesn't work for me but it might have some other examples in it. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
• See also Scott Gibson. I believe that this is common among beginning and lower-level professional golfers—investors (sometimes friends and relatives) put up money to cover the expenses (travel, etc.) of participating in a professional tour and receive dividends dependent on the player's earnings. Deor (talk) 15:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The examples above are all limited - I think it would be the 'rest of your life clause' you'd struggle with. In the UK a precedent would be needed really (it's not set down in law already, as far as I'm aware) but there hasn't been one. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 18:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Why would the 'rest of your life' clause be a problem? Properly drafted, it is clearly far from being void for uncertainty.

People enter into contracts that run for the duration of their natural lives (or something similar) all the time. Think life insurance contracts, or annuities, or those schemes where the buyer pays a certain amount per period to the seller until the death of the seller, in exchange for the property upon death. Obviously you can't have liquidated damages over such an indeterminate period. If they wish to terminate, then damages will be assessed by the court. So long as the contract was not obtained with duress, undue influence, oppression, or some other kind of unconscionable conduct, I don't see any problems with it.

PPP - Principle, precedent, policy. Precedent only comes into play if principles are muddy. In this situation, contract law principles are fairly clear and the outcome of such a dispute being brought before a court would be fairly predictable. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 21:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Can't speak to the legality, but another possibility for "has it been done" is Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Resident Patient — fiction, of course, but another example of someone who has thought of doing this. Nyttend (talk) 05:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

And there's the Rothko Case, which rested on a gallery claiming to have "invested in" the painter's entire lifetime output in return for a monthly pittance when he was young and poor. Karenjc 22:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Happens all the time with actor's or author's agents. They pay you 10% or so of the earnings or work you find for them. Plus you could set up a company, have the victim as the sole employee of the company, and take 10% of the companies earnings, paying the rest to the employee. 78.146.195.92 (talk) 01:16, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Montana House of Representatives

In the article on the Montana House of Representatives it says "In the event that the parties have a tie in number of members, the speaker and other officers are elected from the party who holds the governor's seat."

What is the basis of this? Is there or a constitutional provision giving the governor a casting vote in the House? Or is it just a custom? Sam 23:13, 3 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs)

Like many constitutions, the Montana State Constitution does not address political parties, so it must be a house rule of some kind. --Sean 00:11, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Pre-Socratic Philosophers

How these early philosophers began to elaborate a naturalistic model of the universe by using the concepts of one vs. many and being vs. becoming? This is not a homework question and if the Wikipedia doesn't have any article on the question, please, refer to me to any website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.54.65 (talk) 23:54, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Check out the origins of ontology. LANTZY^TALK 03:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

March 4

Imprisonment of people judged in The Hague, Netherlands

People judged by the ICC, for example, where do they go, are they in solitary confinement? --190.49.115.132 (talk) 01:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

People who are undergoing trial at the International Criminal Court are held at the ICC detention center. People convicted at the court ar transferred elsewhere to serve their sentences. - Eron^Talk 02:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I've done a bit more checking and it looks like other tribunals at The Hague, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, use the same detention facility. Still no luck on figuring out where those convicted go to serve out their sentences. To date, there have been no convictions from the ICC, but there have been several from the ICTFY. - Eron^Talk 06:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

After more digging, it looks like there is no one place where persons convicted at the various tribunals in The Hague are sent to serve their sentences. Those convicted by the ICTFY have been sent to various prisons around Europe, including prisons in France, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. - Eron^Talk 19:59, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Metafiction - Paul de Man

Does anyone have a citation for the following passage on the ‘Metafiction’ article page?

“According to Paul de Man all fiction is metafictional, since all works of literature are concerned with language and literature itself.[citation needed]”. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RichyPrior (talk • contribs) 03:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I encountered an Ommundsen, paraphrased by Virginia Lowe in her essay "Little Fur Coats of Their Own: Clothed Animals as Metafictional Markers and Children as Their Audience" in Writing the Australian Child, edited by Clare Bradford, UWA Press, 1996: "all works of fiction are metafictional, in that they all, in one way or another, draw attention to their constructedness." She credits Wenche Ommundsen, Metafictions?: Reflexivity in Contemporary Texts, Melbourne University Press, 1993. I was unable to get into Ommundsen's book to get a direct quote. Googling on "'de man' metafictional" produced an unreferenced line from Literawiki that is suspiciously similar to the line in Wikipedia: "However, some chritics [sic], such as Paul de Man, argue that all literature is in fact metafictional, since all literaterary [sic] works are concerned with language and literature itself." The other 1,709 hits I leave for others to winnow (many repeats and great variety leading nowhere in the first few pages). --Milkbreath (talk) 12:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Kennedy Quote

Can someone please give me the full version of robert kennedys quote about small ripples adding up to to create a large splash or somthing? It is in refrence to small acts creating large change. I checked wikiquote and Braniy quote and both dident have this quote.

Google + "kennedy ripple" = [13] --98.217.14.211 (talk) 03:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Kishoreganj District

According to Nilphamari District (and this map), this (nortwestern) district includes an upazila called Kishoreganj, but the Kishoreganj article redirects to the (northeastern) Kishoreganj District. Are there two different places called "Kishoregang" ? Should the Nilphamari District article rather send to (northwestern) Kishoreganj Upazila ? Perhaps we also need a disambiguation page? I didn't make changes myself because it's often difficult to find reliable sources and maps, and there are also transcription problems. Apokrif (talk) 10:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Other sources, such as Google maps, confirm that there are two places in Bangladesh called Kishoreganj, though the northeastern one is often spelled Kishorganj. While we have articles on the northwestern upazila, the northeastern district, and the northeastern upazila called Kishoreganj Sadar, we are lacking articles on the main towns of those two upazilas, each also called Kishoreganj or Kishorganj. It looks as if we should have a disambiguation page. Marco polo (talk) 01:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I've created one. Marco polo (talk) 02:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

New Jewish Publication Society of America Version

Hi. Does anyone know of a free online source with this Biblical translation? The only one I can find is the slightly antiquated 1917 version. Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►contribs─╢ 11:27, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the new version is still under copyright... AnonMoos (talk) 23:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What percentage of porn stars are on drugs?

How common is it for porn actors and actresses to be on illegal drugs, tobacco and alcohol? I heard it was really common. Any statistics or reports, anecdotes?--I Want To Do This (talk) 13:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

90% was an estimate I heard, but I don't know really.--I Want To Do This (talk) 14:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You probably need to be a bit more specific. Seriously, what percentage of the general population are 'on alcohol'? 80%? 90%? DJ Clayworth (talk) 14:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Some time ago, a friend of mine was in a college class in which love was defined as a drug, because it was [if I remember her words rightly] a phenomenon that produced a change in brain hormones and in actions. If we include that, it's going to change the percentage. Nyttend (talk) 05:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, that would be pretty unhelpful to the OP. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 12:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

White Male Masculinity

Hello :) I have a movie on how black females see themselves as, I have a movie on how black males see themselves and I have a movie on how white females view themselves. I'm having a terrible time trying to find a movie on how white males see themselves. I want to show it to my Sociology class, but I can't find anything. It doesn't have to be a full length movie... 10-15 minutes max probably but I'm running out of ideas. Any suggestions?

Thanks a million in advance! --Zach (talk) 15:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd be curious to know the names of the movies you are using for the three points of view you have listed. // BL \\ (talk) 15:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Diner (film) is a very touching and funny exploration of the lives of a group of young white males in 50s America. By the way, I'm a bit shocked that a teacher of any kind, even a sociology teacher, doesn't know how to use the apostrophe. Oops, it just occurred to me that "my sociology class" could mean you're a student rather than a teacher. You should still know how to use the apostrophe, though. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 15:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe he's a foreigner. Don't suppose that anyone here is American.--Mr.K. (talk) 15:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, America isn't the only country that speaks English... for a start, there's this little place called "England" - you may notice a similarity between the names, that's not a coincidence. --Tango (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Mee-ow. LANTZY^TALK 17:45, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the best way to find a film that addresses how white males see themselves is when their masculine identity is threatened. And nothing threatens white male masculinity like the idea of guys getting it on. The first film that comes to mind is actually a scene from Gods and Monsters where Ian McKellan, playing a depressed James Whale, grabs Brendan Fraser's crotch just so Fraser will beat him to death. It almost works. However, this leads me to the overall concept of masculinity and gender roles in film, and a documentary was made about it in 1995 called The Celluloid Closet that addresses how Hollywood has portrayed gender and sexuality in the history of film. Check out Celluloid Closet. It's actually really good. --Moni3 (talk) 15:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if you are looking for a film in which the whiteness is identified explicitly as part of the men's identity, and therefore something they have to construct, or a film set somewhere where everyone is white and so that aspect is taken for granted. If the latter, and you don't mind a feature film, what about The Full Monty, set in industrial England? A bunch of men, mostly working class and one sort of middle class, are laid off or otherwise without work. Their identity as providers to their womenfolk and children is threatened. They adopt a novel solution, stripping for money, and some find it challenges their conception of themselves. ("Real men don't do this!" -- "Oh yes they do!" is one of the unspoken subtexts.) Very funny, to boot. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:01, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

99% of films are about how white men see themselves. But I suppose that isn't helpful. So I suggest Fight Club. LANTZY^TALK 16:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I would dispute your first assertion very strongly. It may be PC to claim that Hollywood – which is presumably what you're talking about, omitting every other film industry in the world – is negligent in not making enough positive representations of women and ethnic minorities, but the merest of thoughts would tell you that is not the case. There are films about how women and minorities see themselves literally all over the place. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 07:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

See our article on hyperbole. LANTZY^TALK 15:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Just beware of believing that whatever answers we give you will necessarily represent how all white males see themselves. Some exult in their individuality, as do some women and some non-white people. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

For questions of white male culture rather than the individual, this is a nice read. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Sure, it doesn't represent all white masculinity, but Fight Club is considered representative of a good proportion, and more representative than most movies. If you're picking a single movie, that's a good one. Steewi (talk) 23:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I always thought Swingers (1996 film) was probably the best "White guy" movie ever made. Fight Club was a little too much "beat the shit outta people for no good reason" for me; sure that's probably some guys psyche, but I always thought the themes of Swingers was more universal in its representation of the inner lives of men. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Good answer. I'm not sure Fight Club has anything to do with real (i.e. most normal) people when compared to something like Swingers. —Kevin Myers 06:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry it took so long to respond, my home internet was down last night and had to wait until I got in this morning to check back. First up, excuse the apostrophe usage, my error. I was writing quite fast to post this and after a quick edit, I forgot to take out the apostrophes. Also, I agree, don't always assume English is someone's native language.

The name of the movie I have about how black females see themselves is called "A Girl Like Me," you can find it on Youtube. The other two I have were sent to me and don't have titles to them. I will check out Swingers and see if it's what I'm looking for. Thanks everyone! --Zach (talk) 12:20, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

OR here, but at least men under 25 down to 14 or 15 actually do relate to Lantzy's Fight Club film. Does that suggest another issue, a generational gap within the white male thing? Julia Rossi (talk) 07:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What is the difference between the United States and Canada?

Please excuse my extreme naivete, but I really don't know why the U.S. and Canada have such different "clout" in the world - militarily, politically and culturally. In my view they are approximately equal sized countries with a high level of economic development and equal opportunities for personal growth. Why is it then that the U.S. is "the" world power but Canada is rarely in the news. The U.S. election was such an important world event but not many know who the Canadian Prime Minister is. I hope you get the drift of what I am asking here... The U.S. military strength is well known, everybody watches U.S. TV shows and U.S. movies; U.S. has the world's most advanced space program, the U.S. is the prime target of the terrorists (Ok that's not a good thing, but still), the U.S. dominates the world's most significant geopolitical alliances, the U.S. patent office is the most crucial for filing patents, the list goes on. I used to think that the prominence of America in comparision to other developed nations is due to its size. But Canada is larger; what did Canada do differently due to which it pales in comparision with America. Please understand this is the view of a distant Indian national who just follows the news, so please correct me if I am mistaken in any of my assumptions. Thanks. --ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 16:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

This is a big broad question.. you might look at History of the United States and History of Canada to start with. Friday (talk) 16:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

o.O --ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 16:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Canada is physically larger, but the United States has about ten times the population. And that's just for starters. The fact that Canada is so close to the United States, and so closely coordinated with the United States on the international stage, leads it to vanish into the shadow of its neighbor. However objectively powerful Canada may be, it is always shouting over the roar of the United States. This leads to the paradox that countries poorer and less powerful than Canada attract far more attention. But just because Canada is quiet doesn't mean it isn't influential. Canada's relationship with the United States gives it a special, subversive kind of influence that no other country enjoys. But why not study the issue for yourself? We have a big-ass article on Canada – United States relations. LANTZY^TALK 17:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

If you'll give me some latitude in answering this Q, I'd say it's because most of Canada is too far north to support a large population. If Canada had a comparable population, it would have comparable clout. Perhaps global warming will change this, though, as Canada stands to be a big winner, with most of their major cities inland and thus protected from rising oceans, warmer climates opening up vast areas for agriculture, and the opening of the Northwest Passage to shipping. For a similar example, look at Alaska versus California. Alaska is bigger, but has much less of a population and economy because of the climate there. StuRat (talk) 17:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(EC)I think two of the larger differences are the population (306M versus 34M) and GDP (14T versus 1.4T). The US has had enough financial clout to pursue hegemonic policies. The same option has not been open to Canada. Physical area - roughly equal - is not a good indicator for the issues your question concerned with. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(EC x2)Actually, the populations are quite different. Canada has 1/10th the population of the U.S. and less people living there than there are in just California (33 million in Canada and 36 million in the Cali.) By economy, Canada has a per capita GDP (PPP) of 38,000 USDollars, while the US has a per capita GDP (PPP) of 47,000 US Dollars. By GDP (PPP), the U.S. has the largest economy in the world, at just under 14 trillion US Dollars. Canada has the 13th largest economy, at 1.2 trillion US Dollars, just behind Spain. Just on those factors, it is easy to see why the US gets more of the worlds attention than Canada does. And though, as you note, Canada is larger in area, it is only JUST larger in area (by about a 1-2% difference). By population, I would say that Canada actually has an economy and an influence GREATER than its place. Consider that it is a member of the G7, and as I noted, the 13th largest economy, despite having 36th largest population. It certainly has much more worldwide clout than does, say, Vietnam, the 13th largest country by population. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 17:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And the US - by far the largest economy in the world - control's the world's primary reserve currency and has a military budget larger than the next sixteen countries combined, with bases in dozens of foreign countries. Many consider it the hegemonic power of our time. NByz (talk) 17:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Population and wealth are definitely the main factors, but it's also worth noting that the US gained independence from Great Britain in 1783 following a violent revolution, which was in turn followed by a series of wars (the Barbary Wars, the Quasi-War, and the War of 1812) to confirm that independence, and a bloody civil war to establish national unity. Canada, meanwhile, attained independence from Britain gradually and peacefully, becoming fully independent only in 1982. It's not as though the history of Canada is all wine and roses, but the United States' violent beginnings, violent westward expansion, isolationism, and history of aggressively defending its interests have given rise to a particular cultural mythos that Canadians simply do not identify with. The US has only really been a world power since World War II, but it was self-important long before that, and this is reflected in the nation's culture and foreign policy. --Fullobeans (talk) 18:23, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, one of the reasons Canada became unified was to present a common front against American expansionist ambitions. There were many Americans for whom Manifest Destiny extended north as well as west. LANTZY^TALK 18:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) First: agreed with the "only ...[a] world power since WWII". The policy of isolationism and a weak navy composed of coastal-defense ships and monitors (the U.S. had Civil War monitors still in servce at the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898...) assured that the U.S. didn't rise before then; they couldn't compete with anyone abroad without a navy!

Second: It may be of interest to people here that right after WWII, the U.S. and Canada were one and two when it came to the title of "wealthiest nation in the world"...and Canada also was somewhere in the top five in size of their navy and size of their air force. I can't remember where I read that, but... food for thought. :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 18:41, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Could it be that you read it right here at the ref desk, Ed? Deor (talk) 19:33, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

LOL now that you mention it, I have part of that on my user page...wow. Epic fail. —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 01:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Gosh golly, I'm famous! And here I was assuming I only crack myself up. --Fullobeans (talk) 03:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Canada is the little country (in population and military might) to the north of the U.S. which is beloved in the U.S. for having Mounties such as Sergeant Preston, for saying "oot" instead of "out," for having the Francophone Quebecois, for having various provinces which few in the U.S. could locate on a map, for warming up the Arctic air a bit before it comes southward, for being part of the Commonwealth, for having an extremely long undefended border with a superpower, and for having soundly defeated the U.S. in its early ambitions to dominate the hemisphere, in the early 19th century, when Canada and the U.K. crammed the words "54' 40" or fight" down the throats of the U.S of A. and its notion of Manifest Destiny, later revived in the mid 20th century by Germany with respect to Austria and Czechoslovakia. In many fictional works such as the "future history" series by Robert Heinlein, or It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (1935), Canada was a refuge for rebels from authoritarian dictatorships in the U.S. The U.S. maintained military plans for invading Canada in a hypothetical war against the U.K. into the 1930's as "War Plan Crimson or "War Plan Red"." Canada likewise had until 1929 a bold plan to invade the U.S and seize several northern state capitols to buy time for relief expeditions from the Commonwealth in the vent of war with the U.S. 00:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I really doubt that Canada is "beloved in the U.S." for defeating them. How many Americans think they won the War of 1812? All of them? Adam Bishop (talk) 11:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I speak for my own reaction to reading about the U.S. bombastically running off to defeat the Indians, the French, the Mexicans, the British, and the Canadians because in the 18th and 19th centuries "God wanted the U.S. flag to wave from sea to shining sea" and from farthest south anything desirable existed to farthest north anything desirable existed, except for the failure of the jingoistic "54'40" or fight sloganeering against Canada. And yes, the U.S. did woin the war of 1812. The Battle of New Orleans was the icing on the cake. Except for the little vandalistic matter of the burning of some gonernment buildings in Washington D.C by a British force. Edison (talk) 13:32, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. --Fullobeans (talk) 11:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all for your answers. I wasn't aware of the vast difference in population and GDP. Cheers! --ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 10:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Other pairings of superficially similar countries with vastly different impacts on the world could include Australia and New Zealand, England and Wales, and indeed India and Sri Lanka. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Australia co-opts successful New Zealand actors and performers as Australians. A specially cringeworthy example is the "Australian" opera baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes being promoted here at the moment. If it weren't for that middle name, they'd get away with it. B***s, Julia Rossi (talk) 08:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

He is based in Australia, which makes him an Australian resident. But I agree, that no more makes him an "Australian singer" than Don Lane was an "Australian entertainer" (except in the sense of “an entertainer who worked mainly in Australia”; and my apologies if Lane did take out Australian citizenship, but to my knowledge he never did - although our article calls him an Australian). Russell Crowe, on the other hand, chose to become an Australian citizen, so I've never quite understood the Kiwis' grumbles about our claims to him. Nobody ever denies he was born and grew up in New Zealand, but when making a quick reference to him, it's not always appropriate to say "the New Zealand-born and -raised but now Australian citizen, the actor Russell Crowe". It’s not inaccurate to refer to him simply as “the Australian actor Russell Crowe”. Now consider John Farnham, born in England. He was famous from the late 60s, and nobody ever disputed the tag “Australian rock singer”. But he only actually became an Australian citizen shortly before he was named Australian of the Year in 1988, and only then in order to qualify. I never heard the British complain that they weren’t given enough credit for him. -- JackofOz (talk) 17:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

First woman in the Swedish academy

Who was the frist woman in the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts? I do not know, and it would be interesting to know. This would be sometime in the 18th century. --85.226.44.201 (talk) 16:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Still looking but so far, there's Wendela Gustafva Sparre in 1797 Ulrika Pasch in 1773. Here's an incomplete listing. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

There is Ulla Adlerfelt and Charlotta Cedercreutz, and they seemed to have ben before Pasch, but there is nothing about which years they were elected.--85.226.44.201 (talk) 10:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Bannister Fletcher's History of Architecture

I should apparently buy a copy of this book, but it seems there are many different versions and I'm not sure which to get. Would it matter much if I were to get an older version of the book? 148.197.114.165 (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

It's reasonable to suppose that older editions will lack additions made in later additions. These may, judging by its contents, include architects & projects. And so the question is, do you particularly mind a contemporary shaped gap in your education? --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:26, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

And the 20th edition - the current version - is being pimped as a thorough reorganisation - "The timid modernizing, the anxious realignments of the past fifty years are over". And the editor, Dan Cruickshank, is an estimable sort of a chap. I'm sold on it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The earlier versions also seem to be a lot cheaper, so would it be viable to buy one of them, and another book on more recent events, and does anyone know of such a book? 148.197.114.165 (talk) 22:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Fletcher's tome is certainly not the only source of info on newer architects & works; and I'm kinda hoping you have access to an academic library which would have the 20th edition, so could work out what was missing from an older edition. I think there's a risk that the mindset of the 70s or 80s or whichever decade you end up in might not be quite the same as the contemporary analysis, but there's a strong "best driving out the good" argument to be made, which is that any edition is so very much better than no edition ... and you'll not be relying solely on one book to understand the history of architecture. How far wrong can you go in settling for the older book if this is the case? Whilst you;re about it, btw, I've heard that the very best way of fixing all this information into your head is to write detailed NPOV wikipedia articles, which would be excellent! --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I have a 19th century ? version, which is a wonderful period piece, with robust dismissals of baroque architecture & loads of beautifully clear drawings that I don't imagine have survived into modern editions. But it would not be an ideal introduction if you are new to the subject. It sounds as if intermediate editions between this & the 20th may have the worst of both worlds. Johnbod (talk) 18:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

St. Patricks Day trivia

How many men of Irish Ancestry signed the declaration of independence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Midaberg (talk • contribs) 21:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

There were seven: Thomas McKean, Benjamin Rush, and James Smith (all of Ulster Presbyterian origin), Thomas Lynch, Jr. (whose ancestors were expelled from Ireland following the Irish wars), Charles Carroll (the only Catholic signer), George Taylor and Matthew Thornton (who were both born in Ireland). Interestingly, there were eight of Welsh extraction: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Lewis Morris, William Floyd, Francis Lewis, George Walton, Button Gwinnett, and Joseph Hewes; a Dutch-American, Abraham Clark; and even a Finn, John Morton. The rest were of purely English or Scottish stock. In other words, all the colors of the rainbow, from ecru to eggshell. LANTZY^TALK 00:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

As a footnote, we should mention the great, Irish-born Charles Thomson, who, though not a "Signer", did sign the broadside declarations issued by the Continental Congress in his capacity as secretary. It's also interesting to note that colonial prejudice against Scots (and presumably Ulster Scots) was not insignificant. Given the number of signers of Scots ancestry, it's no surprise that Congress deleted Jefferson's complaint about "Scotch & foreign mercenaries" from the text. —Kevin Myers 02:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Irish Flag/ New York City

What building is the Irish flag flown on in New York City during St. Patricks Day? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Midaberg (talk • contribs) 21:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Probably thousands of buildings. There are many many many Irish and Irish-descent people in New York, and many of them will fly the Irish flag on St. Patricks day. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:35, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It's a crossword puzzle question, is there an official bldg? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Midaberg (talk • contribs) 12:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It could be the Empire State, which changes the color of its lights to reflect different holidays. Or the U.N., which I imagine flies it every day. Irish embassy? Bennigan's? Tomdobb (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Traditionally, the flag at right was displayed as often as the Irish green-white-orange tricolor... AnonMoos (talk) 02:02, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh Hell

Of all religions of the world, past and present, which threatens the worst fate for non-believers? --79.79.253.232 (talk) 23:12, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

A lot of religions make no distinction between believers and non-believers. Buddhism, for examples, reserves only a special fate for those who are enlightened. Only a very small subset of people would become enlightened. Everyone else, believers or not, go through reincarnation. Likewise, in Taoism, everyone gets judged in the underworld after death, except those who've achieved immortality. And you achieve immortality by meditation, taking funny drugs, and breathing excercises. For the great masses who get judged, whether you get eternal damnation or just a shadowy existence in the underworld depends on your deeds in life, not how much you believe in one thing or another.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

(econ):For the afterlife, as in hell fire and brimstone, then possibly fundamentalist or puritan Christianity is a contender. The article has Bible and Q'uran references. For the past along these lines, Dante's Inferno or first canticle of his Divine Comedy describes the fate of hell-bent people (who also didn't impress Dante). Writer's revenge comes into it then, but is that a religion yet? Islam has some pretty snappy solutions for some present life transgressions. ;) Julia Rossi (talk) 23:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Almost by definition, it doesn't get worse than Hell's inner circle. Edison (talk) 00:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it's not quite true that all forms of Buddhism do not threaten unbelievers with a bad fate. Nichiren said the type of Buddhism he taught was the "true and correct form of Buddhism," and "attributed the occurrence of the famines, disease, and natural disasters (especially drought, typhoons, and earthquakes) of his day to the sovereign's and the people's adherence to all other forms of Buddhism." Though these consequences may not be quite so dire as spending eternity suffering in hell, they're still pretty severe (at least as far as life on earth is concerned). -- noosphere 02:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone on the Science Reference Desk once invented a religion [14] with "horrible" consequences for those who don't follow its tenants. Since it apparently doesn't have any followers, it condemns all of humanity to an unspeakable fate. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

March 5

Lookin for American Merchants Syndicate of Chicago around the time of 1917 AD

Found grandfathers old stock and wonder about the history of this company. Scripopoly.com does not show any of these shares and am interested in knowing if this became the Chicago Board of Trade or the like.

TNX,

[email redacted]

Do not understand your instructions an inquiries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.38.79.153 (talk) 00:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You need to consult the CCH Capital Changes Reporter to see if this company is listed. You should be able to find it in a good financial library. John M Baker (talk) 17:19, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Akrasia in ethics

Hi!

I'm studying akrasia right now, and understand the problems it raises in philosophy of action (e.g. the difficulty in explaining one's doing B if one thinks A is preferable to it), but need to know more about it in strict relation to ethics. That is, is there a philosophical problem with, say 'I know it's wrong, but I'll do it anyway'? The Wiki page doesn't give much advice here. Thanks 129.67.127.65 (talk) 00:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure there's a philosophical problem with it. I'm also not sure what you're asking. I mean, is it an ethical failure to say, for example, "I know it's wrong of me to eat the last piece of cake 'cause 129.67.127.65 didn't get any yet, and I know he'll get mad at me afterwards if he finds out, but I really want it"? Sure it is. People violate their ethics all the time, and often rationalize it before, during and afterwards. (In this instance, it might go like this: "he won't know I took it, he won't get that mad, extra calories aren't good for him so I'm really doing him a favor, it's just a piece of cake, it wouldn't be as good tomorrow anyway.") -- Captain Disdain (talk) 07:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Quotation from Plato?

In various books about Risk Management (eg Effective Opportunity Management for Projects by David Hillson) I have seen the following quotation attributed to Plato: 'The problem with the future is that more things might happen than will happen'. Can anyone give me chapter and verse for this? Maid Marion (talk) 09:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry no idea, but that's a strange thing to say. My feeling is that the future becomes more and more certain whereas the past becomes less and less so. There's an enormous number of things that might have happened for all we know compared to what has happened and it gets worse all the time. Dmcq (talk) 15:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Although I agree with the statement, I'm afraid it's almost certainly misquoted, because if you put it into Google, you will find that the above book comes out at nunber 10 with no other meaningful hits, which you'd expect if it were a real quotation. I've looked through normal quotation sites to no avail. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 17:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Quantitative easing

Moved from Miscellaneous desk

What is the opposite of quantitative easing? What are its consequences? Kittybrewster ☎ 08:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

But presumably it is decreasing the money supply by the action of a central bank selling assets; the effect would be deflationary. --Tagishsimon (talk) 08:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be called "quantitative tightening" or "monetary tightening". Remember, a reduction in the rate of easing might also be referred to as "tightening". The central bank could sell assets in the market or require larger reserves (or more conservative capital requirements) from private banks to achieve this. The effect would be to increase interest rates, appreciate the currency, reduce consumer spending and reduce the rate of inflation. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The opposite of "quantitative easing" would be to describe it in plain English terms rather than in a deliberately obscure jargon. The common language term is "printing money", which is readily understood to mean incresaing the money supply. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What's your point? The term "tightening" is widely used in media and not obscure. Also, there are other measures of money supply and easing usually refers to increasing one of those (as explained in the article you linked). Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

did the jews think their God directed them to commit genocide, and then proceed to do so?

I heard that according to Jewish history at one point their God directed them to commit genocide, which they then proceeded to do. Is this true? --85.181.151.106 (talk) 13:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

p.s. specifically the Amalekites or Midianites... Thanks!

See, Amalekites, particularly this passage from Exodus:

"14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” 15 And Moses built an altar and called the name of it, The Lord is my banner, 16 saying, “A hand upon the throne of the Lord! The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation." (Exodus 17)

and Midianites, specifically this sentence: "For this reason, according to the Torah, Moses was ordered by God to punish the Midianites."

See? that wasn't so hard. Tomdobb (talk) 13:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't bite. They did say thanks. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Some more Biblical genocide quotes:

Deuteronomy 7:2, "And when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them."

Joshua 10:40, "So Joshua smote the whole land; he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."

Leviticus 26:7-9, "You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. For I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you. You shall eat the old harvest, and clear out the old because of the new."

Exodus 34:11-14, "Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.)"

1 Samuel 15:2-3, "Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

Psalm 21:10 "Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men."

Psalm 136:10, "To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy endureth for ever." (Here God committed the genocide directly.)

• • How is this different from, say, Spartacus, who led a slave revolt? Nobody every complains about him. Wrad (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Psalm 137:9, "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." (I believe this was talking about taking revenge against the Babylonians.)

• • This one is a bit misleading. The psalm doesn't make it clear how the author feels about the destruction, it just states how the people who destroy Babylon will feel. Incidentally, those people were the Persians, not the Jews. Wrad (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's a site which lists more: [15]. StuRat (talk) 15:38, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You will I hope note that many of these quotes are not about Israel killing people but about God killing people. DJ Clayworth (talk) 17:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

do you mean some of these quotes are from non-Jewish sources? (external observations of what God does, not Jewish understanding thereof). --92.230.67.1 (talk) 18:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Clearly the passages are God telling the armies of Israel to kill, not God saying he would kill, or he would send an angel or a plague to kill. Deuteronomy 7:2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them. Deuteronomy - 020:017 - But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee. Numbers 31:7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. Numbers 31:9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. Numbers 31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. Numbers 31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. This genocidal conquest was cited by later perpetrators, such as the Europeans against the natives of the Americas "An introduction to the Hebrew Bible, Gravett, page 216. Edison (talk) 20:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks -- could you answer the question below as well? At what point did the ability to cite this part of the Bible cease forever, in Jewish thinking. Thanks.

what guarantee do we have it won't repeat?

How do we know practicing, religious jews worldwide won't one day suddenly believe their god wants a modern-day people genocided? Or, for that matter, that just this hasn't recently happened? 85.181.151.106 (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

How do we know that members of any religion won't one day suddenly believe their god wants a modern genocide? or for that matter, how do we know an atheist won't initiate a genocide for some other reason? Answer: We don't. In all likelihood, someone will commit genocide, as it happens disturbingly often. Tomdobb (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd just point out that many Christians also believe in "old Testament 'justice'", so this issue isn't unique to Jews. However, Israel really isn't in a position where it could commit a large-scale genocide and survive as a nation, even if it wanted to, as it would then lose support from the US. StuRat (talk) 16:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but I was really looking for an answer on religious grounds. I believe that people of Jewish faith follow not only the bible but also something else that is commentary. So does that commentary tell them not to genocide anymore, ie that their God would not want them to in the future? I think that is a reasonable thing for their commentary to say (however they justify it) and am looking for the citation. Please don't remove this question as a troll since I ask it in good faith. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.151.106 (talk) 16:34, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Your question has a rather unpleasant air to it, since it assumes that a faith needs to have a previous exhortation (however ridiculous or unpleasant) nullified by some higher authority, otherwise there remains a risk that the faith will continue to follow that exhortation. This is an entirely unwarranted assumption. And for some reason, you are focusing on Judaism. I wonder why? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 17:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I am currently interested in Israels actions as possibly explained by Jewish religous understanding, thats why. Specifically, I think they may believe they have received instructions to genocide Palestinians, hence not open to a Palestinian state. However, I may be wrong and this is not a troll. You asked why I was interested.--92.230.67.1 (talk) 18:18, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

sorry, the above line includes a logical addition that may not be obvious to you. When I say I am interested in whether they might believe they have received instructions to genocide a modern people I really mean perhaps they might believe that God wants a people to die out. To you the two sentences might not be as equivalent as to me. Again this is just a hypothesis I am interested in exploring, not a troll, so if you know of any religious grounds (as in the Torah or the other work that is the interpretation of the Torah) I am interested in hearing it. Thanks, and I know this is a difficult topic to keep cool under. I am just interested in facts not in starting an argument, this is why I only just post my question and not my understanding or what I am investigating. Thanks for your patience and understanding.--92.230.67.1 (talk) 18:22, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

In the first place, what do you mean by "a people" and "they"? Things don't come about through the actions of some unspecified mass of people, you know. There are millions of individuals, each with their own views. Then there is the government, of course, who are the ones with political authority. Most importantly, the very idea that any mass group of people "might believe that God wants a people to die out" is, as I have said, a completely ludicrous and unfounded suspicion, utterly unworthy of serious consideration. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 20:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Your question deserves comment from an actual rabbi or torah scholar who is more representative of jewish views. As you may be aware for example, biblical translations vary from religion to religion, even within the same religion there's controversy over Hebrew-to-English translations (for example it's hard to decide if Jonah was swallowed by a big fish or if it was a whale). There are in fact many examples where the Jewish elders and sages throughout history have given different rulings and interpretations on parts of the Torah and Jewish law (in some cases over how a commandment is to be applied, e.g. not mixing milk with meat). It is also worth adding that although mainstream Judaism is non-extremist, there are small sects within Judaism, mainly within Israel itself, that could be considered extremist such as believing in the execution of homosexuals or being zionist extremists that take it even further and believe in the destruction of the Palestinian peoples. The Jews I interact with regularly are not in any way involved in this line of extremist thought - while almost all seem to be pro-zionist, they do not seem to believe in the ahnialation of the Palestinian peoples, in fact many wanted peace in Gaza and were alarmed at the bloodsheed recently there. Frankly speaking, when it comes to extremists I'm more prone to think of the Muslim religion (which has numerous extremist groups). Rfwoolf (talk) 17:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Put yourself in Israel's shoes. They just escaped a brutal slavery by the skin of their teeth. They have no country. They have to find one or die. This wasn't a case of a powerful, established country beating up on a minority, this was a wandering minority fighting for its own survival. That isn't the usual idea of genocide. Wrad (talk) 18:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I dont know what youre really arguing but genocide is a cowardly act so it follows that weak countries would carry it out... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.67.1 (talk) 19:29, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm saying this was about survival, not hatred or killing for sport. Most people are willing to defend a person's right to fight and kill for their own survival. I can't think of a case of genocide in history where the offending people didn't have a country of their own and were truly fighting for their survival. Wrad (talk) 19:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The holocaust is an obvious example to the contrary. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The holocaust is the ultimate proof. It was the world's most powerful military nation trouncing minority. That was definitely not a case of Germany either a) not having a country, or b) fighting for their survival. My statement stands. Wrad (talk) 19:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I bet Germans thought they were fighting for their survival faced with the "Jewish Problem". Can anyone confirm whether this victim mentality was really part of Germans' thinking? this very early NAZI article (which rejects extermination) says "cleansing actions that adroitly respond to Judah's declaration of war". So it seems they thought Jews had declared war on them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.67.1 (talk) 20:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but no matter how you twist it you still won't be able to show that the Germans didn't have a country. Wrad (talk) 00:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

This query seems based on a set of peculiar and misinformed beliefs by the OP. Practicing-religiously observant Jews are a minority in Israel as in all countries, fundamentalists (literal believers of the Bible) even fewer. They do not run the government or its policies, though the laws of halachah are accomodated in quite a few aspects of daily life, e.g. marriage and burial, some Jewish holidays as national holidays, kosher food in the IDF, public transportation limited and El Al planes don't take off and land on the Sabbath (though those of foreign airlines do) at Israel's main international airport, etc. Foreign policy is not set by either the Old Testament or the Talmud (the rabbinic commentary relating to religious practice). Why is Judaism seen as particularly obedient to the word of God, compared with other major religions (Christianity and Islam, if I'm not mistaken)? These far-fetched fears of Jews being spurred to commit genocide by something in the Jewish religion can be laid aside, or is there something here that doesn't convince you? How about looking at what other peoples might be moved by their gods or demagogues to commit genocide? And hey, let's think: what guarantees do the Jews have that the genocides against them won't repeat? -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

as for your last question, education. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.67.1 (talk) 21:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me? So the Jews can't be educated in the same way, is that what you're saying? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 22:06, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

your last question was "what guarantees do the Jews have that the genocides against them won't repeat" and my answer is "education". ie the school system. I can spell it out further if you're still not seeing the connection between education and a reduction in genociding of jews (not by jews).--92.230.67.1 (talk) 23:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's because I'm Chinese -- but I really don't understand why people get so much more worked up when a question touches and concerns the Jews compared to most other ethnicities. Sure, the OP is probably a little misguided/confused, but is there really the need to assume bad faith/bite/wear one's religion on one's sleeve (the last comment refering to some of the unconstructive comments further above)? The question can be answered rationally from a purely theological perspective, whatever the subjective motivations of the OP, and not involve modern politics. Deborahjay's answer about how few religious fundamentalists there are in Israel (and, I might add, by percentage fewer than those participating in this thread) is probably the most helpful.

One comment I might add is that, from a non-US, non-Israeli perspective, both the US and Israel are much, much less secular than most other countries. When reading judgments by the Israeli Supreme Court, I am often struck by how often religious texts are invoked - not as a part of the legal reasoning, of course, but obviously these religious texts have a much stronger cultural role than, say, the Bible in contemporary (non-US) Anglophone cultures.

Given this, I am not particularly surprised that the OP would feel that Jews are more likely to be influenced in their political decisions by a holy book; no doubt there would be many out there who believe the same about muslim nations, even though in most of those nations, too, fundamentalists are only a small minority. In such situations, it is really not the role of the reference desk to attack people because of their (perhaps misguided) beliefs. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

More likely than whom? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 23:28, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

More secular nations; other states - that, at least, is the assumption that seems to underlie the OP's question. I am not qualified to assess whether that is true. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Ummm....I'm surprised that no one's brought this up (either that or I missed it). Isn't the question "what guarantee do we have it won't repeat?" based on the assumption that a genocide had occurred? How much historical evidence is there that these Biblical stories are actually true? You can't repeat something if it never happened in the first place. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the Amalekites article does say they were exterminated... but I don't know how useful it is to draw parallels between the modern concept of a genocide with something that happened many millenia ago. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 05:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

And where are the citations for other peoples at that time (and since) behaving in that way towards the Jews and others? The ancient history of the Jews, as recorded in the Old Testament, is being singled out with cherry-picked biblical quotes as "evidence:" but are no questions asked about whether those other peoples can be trusted not to rise up and slay their neighbors, let alone plan and execute a mass extermination? That is the definition of genocide, unless people misuse that word when referring to any killings of one people by another. What about the fact that in the intervening millenia, the Jews have been the victims of History's instance of genocide of unprecedented scope and proportions, and not done the same to anyone since those biblical times -- but others have, to them and others? -- Deborahjay (talk) 06:27, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If you are interested in Israel's policy-making we must have dozens and dozens of articles on that. I don't think that most religious Jews in Israel believe that the Amalekites precedent requires that they commit genocide against Palestinians and even if some do, they aren't decisive. If you are bothered by Israel's policies and are curious about them, we do have plenty of articles. I'd suggest you start with Israeli–Palestinian conflict and work your way out from there. --JGGardiner (talk) 10:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

karl marx's influences on america

what are the Marxist ideas that have directly influenced The american society and government today? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lego872 (talk • contribs) 14:14, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. Thank you. See further our articles on Marxism, American Government and Western Marxism. Livewireo (talk) 15:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

There have been American Communists (and I assume non-Communist followers of Marx), and Communism was the biggest US foreign policy concern, so I'd say pretty much all of them influenced the country. Can't say as to anything being more "direct" than anything else. Nyttend (talk) 19:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You could look up Werner Sombart's classic explanation of why Marx's ideas haven't had as much influence as some expected. AnonMoos (talk) 01:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

pronunciation

Moved to language desk

Ershad's reaction to Benazir's death

What was Ershad's reaction to the death of Benazir Bhutto? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.53.46 (talk) 16:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

This Ershad? I've not found a quote yet, but you could dig further using a news search. For example, Google News advanced search allows you to search by date so you could check for any comments he made to the press in the days/months after her assassination (Dec 27, 2007). The official Bangladesh government reaction is at International reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 20:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Economics: Self-Fulfilling crisis (e.g. Global recession, Food shortages, etc)

What is the name of the phenomenon where, for example, in a food shortage, consumers rush to the shops and stock up on all the food, thereby purpetuating or even causing the food crisis?
Similarly, in a global economic meltdown, people stop spending and start saving, thereby shrinking the economy and purpetuating the global economic meltdown?
Also, can you think of any more examples? Rfwoolf (talk) 16:59, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, it just seems to be called a Self-fulfilling prophecy, or at least a google search turns up a couple of academic papers which call it that. Another example would be a respected economist predicting a fall in the value of a particular commodity or the shares of a company, or predictions of a bank collapsing causing customers to close their accounts. 81.98.38.48 (talk) 18:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Nice examples. I'd be interested to see if anyone else that knows economics might be able to identify any economic definitions for this. Rfwoolf (talk) 18:12, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Bank run has some good information on this topic. Livewireo (talk) 18:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Panic buying calls it a self-fulfilling prophecy. --Tango (talk) 19:21, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It was introduced to us as "self-fulfilling expectations" in economics/finance class. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm struggling to think of examples (involving participants who are free to act on their beliefs) where this doesn't work. In the stock market, if everyone believed that a certain share was undervalued, they'd buy it and drive its price up with the result that the share was, in a sense, undervalued. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 22:40, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, I think that's why technical analysis tends to work in the short term (or, at least, looks like it does) - everyone uses the same systems so they all buy at the same time so the price does, indeed, go up. Of course, it goes straight back down again when they sell their shares to realise the profits, so you need to be among the first to buy and the first to sell in order to make any money. --Tango (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

LDS temples

Having run across Draper Utah Temple just now, I was curious: why are there so many temples in such a small area of northern Utah? Of course there are far more Latter-day Saints there than anywhere else, and the older temples were built when there wasn't the best transportation; but I don't understand the reason for needing another one in today's world — why couldn't locals go up to Salt Lake City or Jordan River? Nyttend (talk) 19:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

They are all too crowded. More people want to go than there is room available. Wrad (talk) 19:50, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

As a non-LDS, I'm really not that familiar even with what types of events are held at a temple, although I remember that marriages and baptisms are done there; can't they (forgive the words; I don't know how otherwise to say it!) just stay open longer hours? Or is there something in D&C that says that they can only be conducted at certain times, etc.? I read D&C some time ago, but I don't remember encountering anything of this sort. Nyttend (talk) 20:03, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I just read Temple (LDS Church), so now I understand what is conducted there, but I'm still confused otherwise. Nyttend (talk) 20:09, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

They actually do extend the hours, but they can only do so much before the seams start bursting. Wrad (talk) 00:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Extending the hours beyond a certain point won't help much. Most people would rather go either in the morning or in the early evening. If they had sessions at 3am, you wouldn't have very many attend, so really extending the hours wouldn't help much. Also, since just about everyone who works in a Temple is a volunteer, it's hard to find too many people who'll work an overnight shift.Tobyc75 (talk) 00:53, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I didn't realise that the workers were volunteers; I had in mind doing things like baptisms for the dead with third-shift workers. [Again, please pardon my wording; I don't mean to be disrespectful] No more confusion now; thanks for the answers! Nyttend (talk) 05:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

meaning of passage

what does this mean: "No one who understands the situation will be able to deny that the cause of these defensive measures lies primarily in the Jewish people itself. Even with the greatest degree of impartiality, one will conclude that one is dealing with a group of people that is on average highly unpleasant. That may not stop one from looking at the question clearly." This is from this link. It's from very early Nazi germany, when they're deciding what to do about the "Jewish Question". My question is what in the world did this guy have in mind when writing the part I put in bold?? To put my cards on the table, I am Jewish and surely do not share any of the opinions that the writer has. 92.230.67.1 (talk) 20:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

He is implying that no matter how one looks at the Jewish people as a whole, they are "highly unpleasant." Livewireo (talk) 20:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, ("on average"). But my question is, what is "highly unpleasant" about them? I'm guessing he doesn't mean that they're smart and hotter than non-jews, which is my opinion of them. (Though maybe it's because I'm Jewish :) ). What could he mean? 92.230.67.1 (talk) 21:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Trying to find a logical basis for the beliefs of bigots is a futile exercise. Asking it of those who don't share the view is embarrasing, and of those who do, unpleasantly revealing. People have believed, and far too many still do believe, all sorts of nonsense through the years, from the inherent superiority of the "white race" to the inherent superiority of the male of any race. Please do not come to the Ref Desk looking for "justification" of deliberate ignorance. There is none. See Nazi propaganda for some of the ostensible rationales. // BL \\ (talk) 21:55, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The author is probably referring to the various stereotypes and prejudices that underlay antisemitism. See racism in general. If you are looking for specific antisemitic rants, Google might be a good place to start (or not). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:10, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The author is using a logical fallacy we have an article on: proof by assertion. Proving that a huge and diverse group of people is, on the whole, unpleasant is completely impossible, especially given that "unpleasant" is a completely subjective term. But if one writes with confidence that something is true, unwitting readers will accept the statement as fact, or at least consider it plausible. The majority of people subconsciously assume that anyone who seems well-spoken, well-written, or logical must know what they're talking about, and they don't feel compelled to ask for references for every allegation (and no, I don't have a reference for that allegation). So when someone says that "even an uneducated preschooler could not deny that the information on Wikipedia is biased," we say, "Geez, how freakin' biased must that website be?" Or, to use an actual example, consider the fact that the vast majority of people college-age and older believe that Wikipedia is unreliable and useless as a source, despite the fact that, used properly, it can be invaluable as a starting point for research. There has been many a thorough examination of Wikipedia's merits in the past decade, but a great many of the site's detractors simply heard the words "Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and it is therefore unreliable," and took this as fact. Every instance of vandalism or inaccuracy those people encountered on Wikipedia was then taken as further proof of that fact (see: confirmation bias). As rhetorical devices, allegations like this work best when they're presented in passing, as the basis for a more fully developed argument. A popular formula is: "We all know that a and b are true, so let's start talking about c, and how a + b + c = the end of the world as we know it." If you spend some time with the more blustery tv and radio personalities (Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage are among the best), you'll find that they sometimes speak in these types of statements exclusively, for minutes at a time. It can be fun to watch a skilled talker develop a compelling argument without providing any substance; a politician with a good speechwriter can be like a handbook on rhetoric. It's less fun to reflect on how genocides have so often been instigated by clever language and willful ignorance. --Fullobeans (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The author doesn't specifically state what is "unpleasant" about Jews. As PalaceGuard008 and Bielle have already said, he's probably referring to the various stereotypes and prejudices found in antisemitism and Nazi propaganda. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

US colonies during the interregnum

I am looking for information on how English colonies in North America changed during the Commonwealth period (1640-1660)Dpeifer (talk) 21:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that English Revolution in the Colonies is the most relevant article. --JGGardiner (talk) 00:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You might also start with Colonial history of the United States and then click on the links to the histories of each individual colony. Unless you're interested in general British policies toward colonization, I think you'll find it necessary to research the colonies independently of one another, since they were all still very much in their infancy during this period and were fairly autonomous of one another. --Fullobeans (talk) 10:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I found the article fascinating. One thing is not clear to me from readng the article. What were the reasons most of the colonies supported Charles II? Were there economic concerns? 75Janice (talk) 15:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)75Janice

It is not clear that most of the colonies did. Only 6 are mentioned in the English Revolution in the Colonies article (out of 18 or 20 New World colonies at the time) as declaring for Charles although that list is likely incomplete. The colonies were based on royal charters (or commercial ones still proceeding from the king), the great and good got their land grants based on the charters and controlled the local legislatures. Except for the Puritans, mainly in Massachusetts, colonists in general didn't have much reason to support Cromwell. For instance, Massachusetts and Connecticut provided safe haven for two of the regicides even after the Restoration. (See Edward_Whalley#Withdrawal_to_the_colonies) Rmhermen (talk) 18:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

March 6

Plato

This is not homework question. What is the major ethical problem that Plato attempted to solve and what is his solution? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.119.130 (talk) 00:16, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed this question does present an ethical problem... --84.221.69.16 (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

A tongue-in-cheek answer would be:

• • • The problem? How do we make ourselves as a society and as individuals reach the highest good we possibly can?
    • Plato's answer: By putting a philosopher like me in charge of everything. Wrad (talk) 00:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

For the details, read The Republic. Algebraist 00:56, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

For the summary, read The Republic (Plato). --Fullobeans (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Plato's problem was of course a major question in ethics that stumped every ancient Greek philosopher until Plato published his famous 255-page solution that filled the entire issue of the Athenian Journal of Philosophy for Fall, 396 BC <wink>. 76.195.10.34 (talk) 02:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

His major ethical problem was "How can I call these books 'Dialogs' when one guy does all the talking?" His answer was to insert phrases like "Apparantly so, Socrates" and "Tell me more, Socrates" every twenty pages or so. :-) B00P (talk) 06:18, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Have to wonder about Plato's own ethics, maybe they are the same as lawyers where the best argument wins, making him like the Sophists he attacked. He essentially, beat them at their own game by having the better argument and pulling-power, and as above using Socrates' name as authority. Now whether it was his game or he was doing parody, is still up for argument. See Sophists. Julia Rossi (talk) 09:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Attack against Sri Lankan cricket team

Please, after reading the article I don't understand some points. If the security was presidential-style, why did it happen?. And another question, why does Pakistan fight terrorists with the ordinary police and not with the Army? Police officers only have an AK-47 (I guess). With respect I say that Musharraf was totally right, if it was the Elite Force of Pakistani Police... then, poor people those who are protected by them. --190.49.110.4 (talk) 01:29, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The people being protected all survived, didn't they? So it seems the protection was successful (although at a high price). Terrorists are usually fought by police - police handle domestic security, the army handles foreign security. --Tango (talk) 01:45, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

While the Sri Lankans were (reportedly) offered "presidential style" security, it is apparent they were not given it. The article indeed discusses the security criticisms, where a number of individuals state that the number and quality of the escort was inadequate. (Although to temper the criticism, one might say that the escort did their job: the cricketers and officials survived the attack with moinor injuries; 6 policemen gave their lives.) While many countries use army units in planned encounters with terrorists, most escorts of civilians are provided by the police. Generally, the police used for such escorts are highly trained and well armed. Gwinva (talk) 01:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly... for example Mexico fights drug dealers with the Army in the North. --190.49.110.4 (talk) 01:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The obvious answers are that some significant part of the Pakistani military is out of the control of the government, and is supportive of certain groups called terrorists. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:57, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Didn't some police play dead? Whatever the reasons, real fear, commonsense or collusion, it brought a human quality to the situation, for me anyway. Julia Rossi (talk) 09:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Meaning of John Donne's Holy Sonnet #8

Could anyone please explain John Donne's 8th Holy Sonnet? Reproduced here (public domain):

If faithful souls be alike glorified
As angels, then my father's soul doth see,
And adds this even to full felicity,
That valiantly I hell's wide mouth o'erstride.
But if our minds to these souls be descried
By circumstances, and by signs that be
Apparent in us not immediately,
How shall my mind's white truth by them be tried?
They see idolatrous lovers weep and mourn,
And stile blasphemous conjurers to call
On Jesu's name, and pharisaical
Dissemblers feign devotion. Then turn,
O pensive soul, to God, for He knows best
Thy grief, for He put it into my breast.

Thank you very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkleg (talk • contribs) 01:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

My reading is that it's a poem of atonement, saying (lines 1-4) that the narrator is basically faithful and has done valiant stuff in the world, and if that's enough to get him glorified as an angel (i.e. if it gets him admitted into heaven after his death), then his father's soul will be happy. I don't know whether "father" means God, or literally the narrator's earthly biological dad (who may be deceased, perhaps recently, which would make this a poem of grief). If, on the other hand, those angelic souls can see the various forms of human sin present in people even when it's not readily apparent, he asks how he will be judged (lines 5-8). The narrator lists various forms of hypocrisy present in fallible humans (9-12) and decides to turn to God for understanding (12-13), and expects to get the understanding since that same God is the one who created human fallibility in the first place (13-14). I had to look up "wikt:descried", which I interpret in this context as meaning "perceived". 76.195.10.34 (talk) 02:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I've never read this one before, and there's nothing about it on Google Books. But my reading goes: The narrator is a faithful, religious guy who sees himself as living in a sinful world, and he's worried about whether he'll be judged on the basis of his own merits or the merits of the world in which he lives. So, translated: "If all faithfully religious people go to heaven when they die, then my dad's up there smiling, because he sees how I rise above this cesspool of humanity and he knows I'll get into heaven. But what if nobody's watching me, and when I die, I become just another soul fresh from a corrupt world? What if nobody sees my perfect life and clean conscience, just my twitchy eye and habit of looking at my shoes when I talk? There I'll be, standing at the pearly gates with a crowd of slutty hippies, foulmouthed Wiccans, and Hollywood press agents who converted on their death beds. *headdesk* Well, ol' soul of mine, better take it up with God, because he's the one that had you born into this mess in the first place." --Fullobeans (talk) 09:07, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That's beautiful. Have it printed on your heavenly t-shirt Fullofbeans, er, Donne, and you"ll be shown in on the strength of such heart-felt prose. Just don't mention my name, because it's probably mud in that precinct ;) Julia Rossi (talk) 09:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Private music lessons vs. university course

What is considered superior education, private instrument lessons with an instructor or a university performance course? Voyaging^(talk) 02:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If both are taught by great teachers, it depends entirely on your skill level and what you hope to accomplish. You probably won't benefit from a college course if you're lousy at your instrument. You'd be much better off with a private instructor who can gauge your progress, help you with your weak points, and introduce new knowledge as you're ready for it. If you're already proficient at your instrument, though, it could be immensely beneficial for you to buckle down and learn all of the technical aspects of performance, all at once. To get the same knowledge from private instruction, you'd have to do some research (and probably pay more money) to find a teacher who actually knows what they're talking about, and then you'd have to design a course of study to make sure you covered everything. Additionally, if you're talking about a university program that includes multiple classes with multiple instructors, well, there are obvious benefits to learning from multiple people. Every teacher's got their quirks and hangups, so it's good to get a second, third, fourth, and seventeenth opinion. If you spend a long time with one private instructor exclusively, you're putting a lot of faith in their ability to give you a well-rounded education.

It's also important to know what you're going to do with your education. If you'd potentially like to teach or apply for music industry jobs, then "I have a degree in performance from _____" sounds a lot better than "I play the guitar." If you just want to make music on your own or play in a band, then all that matters is that you sound good. If you want to make a living as a studio musician or concert cellist, you should probably be enrolling in a performance program and taking private lessons, because you'll need the knowledge and versatility guaranteed by your college credentials, as well as the fine-tuned sound and skill set attained through good private instruction. And if you're on the fence, take into consideration your own musical interests and learning style. I've known a slightly terrifying number of talented musicians who dropped out of Berklee because they knew what they wanted to play and how they wanted to play it, and they didn't see the merit of working their butts of to get better at doing things musically that didn't interest them. Of those who did graduate, most of them were in love with their instrument (heh heh), its versatility, and its possibilities, and their drive was to master it as fully as possible.

As for what's "considered superior," there are musicians who will laugh at you for going to school for music, there are musicians who will bow at your feet, and there are musicians who will say, "You mean some people don't go to school for music?" Depends largely on what genre of music you're playing. Most instrumentalists, though, will have had private lessons at some point in their lives, because it's a surefire way to take up music and make some progress even if you're an angry antisocial death metal drummer. But most people will care exponentially less about where you got your skills than they will about how skilled you are. So "superior," in this case, is "whatever type of education inspires you, pushes you, and challenges you to continue becoming better than you are." --Fullobeans (talk) 10:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

trying to find this book.

I am trying to find a particular book I don't know the title or author. The subject of the book is about a man who had a grocery cart in the streets of London and built it up to the largest Department Store in England. It goes from around 1900 to 1990. It tells his and his families story. It is a work of fiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sandra2009 (talk • contribs) 02:47, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As the Crow Flies? Oda Mari (talk) 04:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Top Ten Classical Music pieces

What are the top ten classical music pieces (is pieces the right noun? I know I can't call them songs) that every educated person should know? With my extremely limited knowledge of this, my favorite is Beethoven's 9th symphony and some pieces that I can't identify from Mozart. Your answers will help me jumpstart my new collection of classical music. --Emyn ned (talk) 14:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

What are the ten best pop songs? Or the ten best foods? There is no answer, it's subjective. But if you are just looking for well-know pieces to try out, here's a few suggestions. I'm not saying that they are better than anything else, but they give you an idea of what's out there.

• Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
• Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor
• Tchaikovsky 1812 overture
• Vivaldi The Four Seasons
• Stravinsky The Firebird
• Mendelssohn Violin Concerto
• Any opera by Wagner
• Faure Requiem Mass

DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Classic FM's annual "Hall of Fame" poll (next one due in a couple of weeks time, at Easter) currently has (brackets = 2007 positions):

1. (1) Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
2. (3) Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2
3. (10) Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
4. (5) Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 'Emperor'
5. (8) Beethoven:Symphony No. 6 'Pastoral'
6. (4) Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
7. (2) Elgar: Cello Concerto
8. (7) Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1
9. (6) Elgar: Enigma Variations
10. (9) Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 'Choral'

Enjoy! - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 17:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

You might be interested in this list or this (rather avant-garde) list, which contain mostly more modern classical music (where "modern" means 1900 on) rather than the (generally rather older, but still very fine) works listed above. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 19:39, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're mostly looking to increase your knowledge of classical music and find some stuff you like, I'd say sign up for a Pandora account and create a station that plays music like Beethoven's 9th. As for a classical "top ten," I suspect it would be a bit overloaded with Mozart and Beethoven. If you're not sure how much Beethoven you know, sit through Immortal Beloved; it's two hours of thinking, "Oh, right, he wrote that one, too." Some other household names that haven't been mentioned are: Chopin, Rossini, Lizst, Handel, Haydn, and Schumann. And 20th century classical has its own all-star cast. --Fullobeans (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Can you sign a "gag order" promising not to write bad reviews?

Apparently some doctors have started asking patients to sign gag order-like agreements that prevent them from writing negative reviews about them on websites.

Leaving aside the morality of this and whether or not a doctor can actually make you sign one, if you did sign one, wouldn't you be signing away your first amendment rights? Would the contract be legal?

I know gag orders made by a court probably have different standards, but this isn't from a court, this is just a contract between two individuals.

Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 14:58, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The article you linked quotes one 'attorney Jim Speta, a Northwestern University Internet law specialist' as questioning the enforcability of these waivers. Algebraist 15:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The First Amendment does not apply to private actors, only the government. Free speech only exists in the public sphere. Private individuals and/or actors can contract not to have what we regard as free speech. An example is nondisclosure agreements in lawsuit settlments. Nevertheless, I can't fathom how any court in the U.S. would enforce such a contract because it is unconsciousable. A patient seek medical treatment are not in equal bargaining positions. So I see a brake on the practice from general contract law and ethical rules governing physicians. Such agreements are adhesion contracts, typically. Take it or leave it without any negotiation. Courts may enforce such contracts but the contract is scrutizined much more closely. Personally, it infuriates me b/c patients may refrain from reviews believing in the validity of the contract. There may be circumstances where such a waiver is valid but they will be few and far between. How many consumers, though, are expertise in contract law. It has a chilling effect.75Janice (talk) 15:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC) 75Janice

If such contracts are valid then you could well get into the situation where all doctors use them, giving patients no choice but to sign one in order to get treatment. That suggests to me that they probably aren't valid - once everyone was using them, they almost certainly wouldn't be, so I can't see why they would be valid now. There are already defamation laws that protect doctors, as well as anyone else, from false criticisms, that should be enough. --Tango (talk) 15:36, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Although not directly about medical issues, NDAs are pretty standard in the IT industry. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

An NDA, however, protects trade secrets. I don't think that if I signed an NDA with company X, it could forbid me from posting on a public forum "Company X is downright rude and unprofessional." It seems to be a whole different sphere. — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 17:33, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Such an agreement may founder due to the legal idea of consideration; that is, the patient has given up something of value (their opportunity to speak) - for a contract to be lawful, they have to have received something of some value in exchange (not necessarily "fair" value). If, for example a physician formerly offered a given procedure for $500 without the "no talk" clause, and now offers the same procedure for $500 but with the "no talk" clause, then the physician has sought to deprive the patient of something of value without making a consideration in return. So a court may find the contract, or that part of it, to be invalid. A similar (although admittedly more watertight) example is a "no compete" agreement, wherein a departing employee agrees not to work for his former employers competitors for a given period. Such an agreement deprives the employee of the capacity to fully earn their living (they can't pick any job they want; they may find it difficult to find any job that they're qualified for which isn't covered by the no-compete); for this reason no-compete agreements often specify a terminating benefit to compensate for this loss. If they don't, the employee has given up something of value, but hasn't received a consideration in exchange, and so the contract is likely to be held to be invalid. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:30, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Surely the doctor is giving consideration in that, in return for the signing of the waiver, he agrees to treat the patient? Algebraist 17:35, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If, before the waiver, he charged $500 for the procedure, then that $500 is the cost of the procedure alone. If he now charges $500 for the procedure and the waiver, he's getting the waiver for free, and so there's no consideration. If, however, he were to give a $50 discount for the waiver, then there is a consideration, and his case for enforcing the waiver is much stronger. Of course he may choose to structure his billing such that this difference is obscured (and he's under no obligation to offer the waiver-free service, at least to patients beginning a new course of treatment); whether a court agrees that a consideration has been made in such circumstances is uncertain. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

See Contract of adhesion, which Wikipedi has chosen to call by the milder term Standard form contract. It is a "take it or leave it" contract entered into by parties with unequal bargaining power. "If the good which is being sold using a contract of adhesion is one which is essential or very important for the purchaser to buy (such as a rental property or a needed medical item) then the purchaser might have no choice but to accept the terms. This problem may be mitigated if there are many suppliers of the good who can potentially offer different terms." The consumer might have to sign away some valuable right to the other side. The side with the standard form contract may be in solidarity with all of his peers, so that the consumer cannot get the needed services from others. One response is for the legislature or congress to pass legislation outlawing such contracts of adhesion as being against societal interests or "public policy." In the case of a doctor refusing to treat you unless you sign an agreement never to criticize his work, courts or legislatures might see it as "unconscionable" or contrary to the interests of society to be informed about doctors whose services are seen as lacking. Time will tell. This certainly does not constitute legal advice. Edison (talk) 18:40, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

This is all looking like legal advice to me. I think that 63.138.152.238 should be reminded that it would be inadvisable, to put it gently, to take action or fail to take action based on the opinions of strangers on an open forum such as this one. // BL \\ (talk) 18:43, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Of course, the uncertain legalities aside, there are plenty of avenues for consumer advocates (and the very ratings sites targetting by these measures), can do about this. It seems the doctors' strategy in the first place is to use the waivers as a means of getting the review sites to takedown the offending reviews. But as the review sites aren't parties to the waivers, they're not subject to them. So they may feel legally strong enough to decline the doctors' takedowns, which means the doctor has to go to court to get the review removed (which brings all that legal uncertainty, above, into play). Bar an unlikely gag order, the first doctor who does that will find himself on CNN, which won't be comfortable. Secondly the review site can post a list of doctors with this kind of clause in their contract, and (on the review page for a given physician) say "this physician imposes a gag on their patients"); and lastly they can do what Google does when it gets a takedown (e.g. from the Church of Scientology) - it doesn't just remove the item, but it replaces it with a "this item removed due to a legal notice by XYZ". Frankly a lot of negative online reviews (such as those at Amazon) can be put down to churlishness; if the review is missing but the implication that it was negative remains, that's probably worse than the actual negative review ("he's a mean doctor with cold hands") would have been. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 23:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I do not know the answer because I am not the judge, appellate judges, jury, legislalture or executive. One additional concern became clear to me reading these posts. The doctor-patient relationship is pretty sancrosanct at law. Privilege exists. Courts state that privacy rights, particularly bodily autonomy, are constitutional concerns. This tradition makes this scenario difference from trademarks and commercial contracts. The Uniform Commercial Code uses the word "unconscionable" as the cases used the same term. They are not standard form contracts when they oveturned. Something more is present. Terms that shock the human conscience and unequal baragaining positions are present. Standard form contracts are enforced everyday. Commercial and trademark cases may present unconscionability and money may be involved. When doctors ask patients to sign such forms, patients are being asked to give up autonomy regarding their bodies. The legal and political battles will be interesting. Until there is a resolution, the legal factors can be discussed but no one can know the answer in a particular case.75Janice (talk) 00:06, 7 March 2009 (UTC) 75Janice

Where did all the Open University programming go?

During the 1970s and 1980s, one could watch quite a lot of Open University course material broadcasts on BBC1 and BBC2 (generally stuffed into early morning or late night slots). I enjoyed watching a wide range of material; even though much of it went above my head, or depended on prior or ancillary materials that I didn't have, I still got a lot of interesting value from it. It was proper undergrad material presented with full academic rigour - culture and belief in the 16th century, introduction to oceanography, non-Euclidean geometry with kipper ties and cardboard diagrams. But that stuff is all gone now, with much of the late/early slots being filled with material for high schools. What's left of OU broadcasts on BBC-TV (and listed on http://open2.net) is regular factual programming co-produced with the BBC: popular, lightweight, non-academic stuff that (I guess) has some relationship to OU courses but that is accessible and unchallenging to pretty much any BBC2/BBC4 viewer. So my question is twofold: firstly, where do OU students get proper academic OU programs now (on DVD? over the internet?); secondly, can a non-student such as myself access this programming without enrolling for, or auditing, an OU course? Thanks. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, yes, I'm aware that a lot of universities put their lectures on Youtube and the like; the OU material I'm talking about wasn't just videos of a lecturer talking in front of a whiteboard, but rather proper (well, if rather cheaply, made) documentaries about academic subjects. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 17:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If you want lots and lots of lectures for absolutely nothing, many US universities put out video lectures and study material of entire courses for free (for instance, MIT has something called OpenCourseWare, but they are hardly the only ones). This material can also be found on iTunes U (it's a section in the iTunes store) and on the website Academic Earth, which collects these. It doesn't cost a dime, you don't even have to register for anything. Belisarius (talk) 20:14, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a partial answer to your question here, half way down the page. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 20:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Sic transit gloria kippertie. Thanks for finding that. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 22:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

As a student of the OU I can confirm that I get my course material in book/dvd/audio-cd form, but there is also a lot of content avaialble through the online 'studenthome' site (you need a login to get to the course materials). I'm not sure about archived stuff, but certainly current ou course material is heavily delivered through dvd based on the literally boxes full of dvds i've received over my OU studies. ny156uk (talk) 20:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Nachlassen durch technik ;( And I guess that your login doesn't let you see all the material for every course, either, but you're stuck in a little ghetto of the course you've paid for? Anyway, thanks for your informative answer. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 22:12, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Any particular reason why Flag of Tenerife was modelled on the Flag of Scotland?

They're shockingly similar. Other than that, Tenerife is a reasonably good holiday destination... god damn I'd like to go there again... I mean seriously that sort of climate is just perfect.

Which leads me on to ask... why did people ever decide to inhabit Northern Europe in the first place, anyway? The weather sucks really, really hard and the days are too short most of the year, except in summer when they're too long.--Night of Islands (talk) 21:54, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Flags: the Flag of Tenerife and the Flag of Scotland both show the Saltire cross of Saint Andrew; Andy is the patron saint of Scotland, and this page explains his connections to Tenerife. 87.115.143.223 (talk) 22:03, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Andy is also patron saint of Russia (and a bunch of other places); his flag is still the insignia of the Russian Navy. -- 87.115.143.223 (talk) 22:05, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Why does Robert Mugabe appear to have blue eyes?

I've noticed in several photographs that he does appear to have this trait... not seen in Africans unless of mixed European ancestry.

Also, why does he have a moustache like Hitler?

Thanks,

--Get 'Em Out By Friday (talk) 23:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

See look here: [16]

Also, there is this thread, but it's on... THAT website.--Get 'Em Out By Friday (talk) 23:55, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm colour deficient, but to me they don't seem to be that blue. In any case I'm keen to know what colour they are Rfwoolf (talk) 23:59, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

They don't seem to be at all blue to me, and I am not colour deficient. If you take a look at this [17] photo of Desmond Tutu, for example, you will see the same, or similar, colour. I believe it to be a lighter brown that merely comes with aging. As for the moustache, Hitler's went further out to the side; Mugabe's is limited to the nose-to-lip channel. // BL \\ (talk) 00:22, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't help but say that this reminds me of Sycorax#Ethnicity. Wrad (talk) 00:24, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

According to The Independent [18], he grew the moustache to annoy a warder when he was in gaol. That doesn't explain why he kept it when he was released, though. Warofdreams talk 02:05, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

March 7

Shouldnt UK government order credit card companies to lower their interest rates?

Currently in the UK, the interest rates on credit cards are something like 30 or 40 times the bank base rate. Why isnt the goverment ordering these interest rates to be lowered, so that people with cc debts are able to pay them off more easily and to spend more? And, rather than doing this "quantitative easing" by a circuitus method, wouldnt it be a lot more effective to spend the same amount of money by sending every adult in the UK a cheque for about £2000 and asking us to go and spend it? 78.146.195.92 (talk) 01:36, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Credit card interest rates are high because they are quite high risk loans - lots of people fail to pay off their credit card debts and the banks lose money, to compensate for this they have to charge lots of interest. If the government set a limit on credit card rates the credit card companies would just not give credit cards to people that they couldn't justify giving such a low rate too, so it would actually decrease the availability of credit, not increase it. The problem with just giving people money is that they may well not spend it - people's jobs are in danger, they're struggling to pay mortgages, they're scared that they much be in serious financial difficulty very soon, so the sensible thing for an individual receiving £2000 to do at the moment is to save it (or use it to pay off debts). Spending it would be great for the economy, but generally a bad idea for the individual. This is a major problem with recessions - the worse it gets, the greater the incentive for individuals to save, not spend, which causes it to get even worse. A carefully targeted government stimulus (perhaps funded by quantitative easing) is supposed to get people spending by putting money into just the right parts of the economy where it will move around lots rather than just sitting in a bank account. I don't know if it will work, but that's the theory. --Tango (talk) 01:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

What other countries have networks of public footpaths and bridleways apart from the UK?

In Britain there is a dense network of paths through the fields and woods of the countryside where you have a legal entitlement to be able to walk or ride. I imagine that nearly all of them are are hundreds of years old. I enjoy walking through them. In the USA, by contrast, I understand that there are none apart from perhaps long distance paths and the large national parks; which puts me off ever wanting to live in the US. Are there any other countries that have similar networks of public footpaths as the UK does? 78.146.195.92 (talk) 01:52, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

In Norway, Sweden and, according to the article below, also Scotland, Iceland and Finland, you can walk and camp almost everywhere you want as long as it is not someone's garden or cropland, regardless of who actually owns the land. See Allemannsretten. Jørgen (talk) 03:01, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Globalisation

Movements such as the left-libertarian, right-populist and religious-fundamentalist groups, which have been facilitated by globalisation, have been argued to have in common which of the following?

a) They are concered with maintaining traditional values and lifestyles b) They are respones to new risks generated by the new global society c) A repertoire of protest and publicity for their causes d) a and b e) b and cUQ68 (talk) 02:44, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Which test is this from? // BL \\ (talk) 02:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

history of brasil 1955 to 2008

reference book written in english  ?