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November 5

Multilingual legislatures

This is a vague question, but could anybody direct me to any resources that describe how legislatures are run in polities that have more than one (and particularly, more than two) official languages, such as the Swiss Parliament? --140.232.10.160 (talk) 01:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

There are two possibilities. You either choose one language that everyone has to speak (I believe some African countries do that - they have local languages that have official recognition but use the language of their former colonial power (English or French, usually) for government business) or you have real time translation in the legislature (which Switzerland does [although it doesn't translate to and from Romansh, apparently], as does the European Parliament). --Tango (talk) 01:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The mother of them all: United Nations Interpretation Service. --Nricardo (talk) 02:18, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

In Canada, members of Parliament can speak either English or French depending on their whim, and there are translators working whenever Parliament is in session. I don't know how many of them are actually bilingual, but most probably speak only English and some might speak only French. If you watch a session on TV you can see them hurry to put in their earpieces when someone starts to speak French. If you're actually in the building watching them, there are headphones so you can listen to the translators too (or at least, there were when I was there, but that was almost 20 years ago...) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

In areas of high linguistic diversity, there is a working language for the legislature in which business is done. All people who are in the legislature will use that language. Other languages that have official status can be used when a speaker does not have competency in the working language and an interpreter is used to translate their words for the benefit of the rest. I don't have a particular resource for that. South Africa is another area where this is likely to be a strong issue. Occasionally it is used as a political statement, to use an official language despite competence in the working language, for example Welsh in Wales, or Maori in New Zealand. Steewi (talk) 03:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, in multilingual countries there might be a strong tradition for "passive" competence in several major languages, I think this is the case in Switzerland (ie an educated person is likely to understand all three major languages even if she can only speak one of them) Jørgen (talk) 09:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

In Ireland's Dail (parliament), some mischievous members insist on speaking Gaelic, knowing full well how few of their colleagues master it! Rhinoracer (talk) 12:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The Scottish Parliament has held some debates in Gaelic. --ColinFine (talk) 00:26, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Does the Knesset have translation capability for their Arab members? 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Although Arabic is an official language of Israel, Arab Israelis generally know Hebrew. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:25, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Hong Kong uses English and two Chinese dialects (Cantonese and Putonghua). DOR (HK) (talk) 03:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

They use headphones. Channel 0 is untranslated, 1 is Cantonese, 2 is English. (Yes I watch Legco on tv.) F (talk) 09:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

You have my deepest sympathies ! DOR (HK) (talk) 07:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In Luxembourg, French and Luxembourgish are used in parliament, with French the official language for parliamentary documents, laws, and court proceedings; parliamentary proceedings are also published in German because it's more widely understood than French. (Multilingualism in Luxembourg) has a little info; see also [1].) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lesleyhood (talk • contribs) 16:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In New Zealand, all MPs speak English fluently, but some speak Maori as a matter of principle, and some do it to filibuster (because it is consecutively translated), eg on the bill setting up the Auckland Council. F (talk) 09:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

From my understanding, pretty well all federal MP's in Canada are bilingual--at least the important ones. Those who need translating get it. I believe one can ask a question in either English or French, and the other can answer in the other language, though I suppose it's polite to answer in the asker's language. I'm not sure how in goes in the legislatures of Quebec, New Brunswich, or the 2 territories--other than Yukon. These might help: House of Commons of Canada#Procedure, Official bilingualism in Canada, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Akwesasne.Civic Cat (talk) 18:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Orlando Navy Exchange

In 1999, NTC Orlando was closed, but the Navy Exchange remains open today. Is the exchange now subject to state inspections (such as FDACS Food Safety inspections), or is it still governed by the DoD? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 02:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Unable to afford shoes

Hi,

Can you tell me how many people in the world are unable to buy shoes because they cannot afford them? (an aproximation will be fine)

Many thanks !  :)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.9.203.169 (talk) 02:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think many people cannot acquire footwear. Used footwear is probably plentiful, and relatively available, relatively inexpensively. But I am just guessing. Bus stop (talk) 02:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Some people who are not able to afford to buy shoes may make them,like the Chinese slippers made of scraps of cloth and glue and sandals made from old tires.If your question is about who is going barefoot you may need to phrase it differently...hotclaws 12:16, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

"like the Chinese slippers made of scraps of cloth and glue and sandals made from old tires" - you just described my last two dollar-store purchases! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.181.150.186 (talk) 12:59, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I find that my footwear made of old tires gets great mileage. : ) Bus stop (talk) 15:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Hotclaws is right that people who cannot afford mass-produced shoes can and do make their own footwear. This is very common in Africa. Also, in the poorer parts of the world, there are sandalmakers and maybe bootmakers using inexpensive or recycled materials who make footwear that is cheaper than the Chinese manufactures that we tend to wear in the more developed countries. The percentage of the world's people who absolutely could not afford footwear if they needed it is probably quite small. (Of course, in poor countries with warm climates, people may choose to devote their scarce resources to things other than footwear, because going barefoot is a reasonable option.) Marco polo (talk) 14:37, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

One example: Flip-flops (though I know they aren't always considered proper shoes) seem readily available even in very poor areas. Flip Flotsam is a documentary about the fate of some of the 20 million pairs made every year in Mombasa, Kenya. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 14:50, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

A Google search for images of tire sandals turns up an interesting array of images. Bus stop (talk) 16:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

There are countries where people cannot afford animal dung to burn as fuel or to use as fertilizer, so there are people in the world who cannot afford even tire-tread shoes. ("Let's see: should I spend 10 cents for a piece of tire tread, or for enough rice to give the children a small supper and prolong their malnourished lives?") Edison (talk) 16:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

School comic book

In the fall of 1978, as I was in second grade, my teacher handed out this educational comic book on how to stay healthy. The comic book's main character was superhero-like. He was called "Health Man". I can't seem to find that comic book on the Web anywhere. Anyone else out there remember what I'm talking about?24.90.204.234 (talk) 03:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I think comics like this have been routinely produced by city and county governments in the US for decades. Most likely the comic you remember was locally produced. I suppose it's possible that if you call up the county or city government you might find a record or an old copy of Health Man, though of course it might be difficult to persuade a file clerk that there's a pressing need for a file search. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:44, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Inaccuracy of Sub-Saharan African Population

The population of black african countries are all estimates. How accurate are the african censuses? There are always wars, deaths and migration of people moving around Sub-Saharan Africa. How can they conduct population surveys in Sub-Saharan Africa? Is Sub-Saharan African population really less than expected? 174.114.236.41 (talk) 03:05, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

When demographic statistics are spotty, as they are in much of Africa, demographers take the most reliable data available for each of the main determinants of population (births, deaths, immigration, emigration) and extrapolate or interpolate. Where data are lacking, they may use proxy data, such as imbalances between exits and entries at border checkpoints, as a basis for extrapolation or interpolation. See this source for a discussion of some of the issues. Certainly, the estimates are not precise, but when more reliable data become available, earlier estimates are seldom gapingly wrong. The reason is that demographers working on a given country are aware of major issues affecting the population, such as war and disease, and make an effort to get data that will allow them to estimate the effects of those phenomena. Marco polo (talk) 14:49, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I have been hearing that black african countries lie about their censuses and overestimate their populations. If they claim they have more people in their countries, UN would provide more foods and medical supplies. If they claim their populatin is small, UN won't provide enough foods. This forces african countries to give false information about population. 174.114.236.41 (talk) 04:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Does Yoda have the FOXP2 gene?

Any body have any idea about it?--Gilisa (talk) 14:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

(ec) When Yoda died, his body became a force ghost, thus not being available for autopsy or DNA sampling, I would imagine. Given that Yoda was not human, it seems unlikely he would have a human gene. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The biology of extraterrestrials is an interesting topic which gets a fair amount of discussion. It's usually pointed out that there isn't a convincing reason that creatures which evolved on another planet would have the same genetic structure as us - they may not even use DNA as genetic material. For that matter, they might not even use the same basic amino acids and other biological molecules (e.g. eating an alien's food would probably give you a bellyache at best, and could possibly kill you) - the frequently discussed possibility is that aliens might use a different chirality of amino acids and carbohydrates, but it's possible that they may use completely different systems entirely. Having aliens interbreed with humans (e.g. Mr. Spock) is a very speculative concept - and usually has to be explained by some other alien "seeding" planets with the same genetic material. In the case of the Star Wars universe, I'm no expert, but I don't think anything has been said about the different types of aliens interbreeding. For that matter, since it was "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away", I doubt we could even say if Leia and Han Solo were genetically similar to modern humans. That said, in the usual contexts of discussion, FOXP2 is implicated in language development, and as Yoda can speak, he would likely have a gene which functions in a similar capacity. His Object Subject Verb word order wouldn't by itself be an indication that he has impaired language function, as that construction, while rare, is used in various Brazilian languages, American Sign Language, and even Yiddish in some instances. Mistakenly applying constructs and patterns from your native language to a second language is a common problem, especially for people who learn the other language later in life. -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 17:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Plus, considering that Yoda is either a puppet, or a computer graphic, means that he likely doesn't have that gene. He doesn't really have any genes. His creator and portrayor do have genes, but as far as I know they have normal language skills. --Jayron32 18:58, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point. If you stuck a needle deep enough into Yoda, you'd eventually come up with some blood that was very similar to Frank Oz's blood. APL (talk) 19:03, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

"These are not the genes you are looking for."

Hilarious absurdity aside, I'll also point out that everyone has the FOXP2 gene - it's a mutation that Yoda could, in theory, have. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:21, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

... if you grant that Yoda has a human genome. APL (talk) 22:12, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

To what extent language is hard-coded and to what extent it is learnt is a question that has been debated quite a lot. Obviously the details are learnt, that much is obvious from the wide variety of languages in different societies. Some aspects might be hard-coded, which could mean mutations could result in people speaking strangely, but SOV word order does happen and native speakers of those languages have no difficulty learning other languages and vice versa, so it seems unlikely that it could be explained by a simple mutation. --Tango (talk) 02:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think even the more stringent advocates of a "learned" approach to language would argue that there isn't a lot of specific neural hardware made for language. (Things like Broca's area, Wernicke's area, point to that most directly.) I think basically everybody agrees that a large amount is hard-coded (there is an innate human ability to learn language, there are parts of the brain that specialize in language), a large amount is learnt, and the question is where specifically that boundary lies. It doesn't strike me as implausible that a single mutation that significantly affected connectivity or functionality in the language organs in the brain, even if one believes that much of language is learnt, though, yeah, whether SOV is affected by such a thing would seem to have strong implications for the hard-codedness of grammar in particular. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Question about Jeffrey Dahmer's conviction

He wasn't sentenced to death because Wisconsin does not have the death sentence. But he killed his first victim in Ohio, and Ohio does. Why wasn't he sentenced to death there, but he received a life sentence? --190.50.82.98 (talk) 22:18, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

The Jeffrey Dahmer article (Trial section) mentions that he was extradited to Ohio, and entered a guilty plea. Usually the prosecution and defense arrange a plea deal, in which any defense lawyer worth his salt would ensure takes the death penalty off the table (otherwise, what benefit is it to the client to accept the plea deal?). As he had already been sentenced to 957 years in prison (i.e. he's never was going to be able to get out of prison), I assume Ohio really didn't have a good reason to push for execution, especially as they would have to pay for (1) the lengthy capital murder trial (2) appeals (3) imprisoning him for the duration (4) the actual execution. Even if Wisconsin strangely decided to let him out, Ohio would be able to imprison him on the guilty verdict. That, and they wouldn't risk him being declared not guilty on a technicality. -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 23:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

That's pretty good speculation, though it would be good to find a source for what actually happened and add it to the article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's also of note that Ohio did not execute anybody between 1963 and 1999, according to this page. Why that is, I don't know (other than the legal difficulties discussed on that page, but they seem to have been resolved by the end of the 1980s), but it doesn't seem like they were very enthusiastic about capital punishment during that period. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

When Dahmer committed his murder, Ohio had no enforceable death-penalty law. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out Ohio's death-penalty law in 1978, and the new one didn't go into effect until 1981. In 1991, Governor Richard Celeste commuted all of the death sentences that had been imposed to that point, which is why there were no executions in the state until 1999. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:37, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In what year will he complete his sentence, and how old will he be? When could he get out with good behavior? What are the chances he will serve more years than William Heirens (who has served 63 years, so far, of a life sentence)? Edison (talk) 05:01, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Oops, never mind, I see that Dahmer only served three years. A mere drop in the bucket. Edison (talk) 05:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

But he still never got out - at least, not alive. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Unless he has a rich uncle who can donate millions of dollars to a US President, who will then pardon Dahmer just before leaving office, as Bill Clinton did. StuRat (talk) 15:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(ec) That's unfair—and fairly trolling. No president has ever pardoned anyone on par with a serial killer, and plenty of other presidents plenty of presidents of both parties have partied campaign contributors. Clinton's pardoning of Marc Rich is certainly controversial, but pardoning someone indicted for tax evasion is not comparable to pardoning a convicted and confessed serial killer. (I call it "trolling" because it is really just a hostile Clinton non-sequitur.) --Mr.98 (talk) 16:13, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Way too late for any but a posthumous pardon. Edison (talk) 16:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect; Bill Clinton did not pardon a serial killer — as far as is publicly known, anyway. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

That just means that the price tag is higher to pardon serial killers. If we draw a curve on a graph showing the increasing cost of the pardon against the increasing severity of the crime, we can likely extrapolate to find the exact price of a pardon for a serial killer. StuRat (talk) 04:38, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

As I'm sure you know, that doesn't actually make any sense. If you just want to espouse your political views please do it somewhere else. Rckrone (talk) 06:51, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It's meant as a joke. Still, there's some truth to it. Perhaps a serial killer won't be pardoned anytime soon, but I'd bet that a future President would be willing to pardon someone guilty of more serious crimes, as long as they are paid more, in turn. There is a huge hole in the Presidential pardon system that allows this. Perhaps Congress should have the right to veto such pardons, as it would be much more difficult to buy off all the members of Congress (not because they are more honest, just because there's so many of them that billions of dollars would be required to do so, which few criminals could afford). StuRat (talk) 13:57, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

There would be obvious political consequences for such a thing, as there were when Clinton pardoned Rich. (People got mad, and that does have a long term political effect, even if the given President is leaving office—especially if his wife is running for office later!) Anyway, "ha ha", great "joke", other than basically being trolling. Are you done, yet? --Mr.98 (talk) 18:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

November 6

Picture of Thomas Pynchon

Go to this article and scroll down to the picture next to #2. Is that Thomas Pynchon, and if so, what's the source of that photo? zafiroblue05 | Talk 06:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It is quite hard to compare pictures accross a person's life, and Pynchon is a noted recluse; not of the level of J. D. Salinger, but he's not exactly a "public" person by any means. He did several famous cameos in The Simpsons; and while it was his voice being used, his character in the show was shown with a bag over his head, playing on his famous avoidance of the media, somewhat ironically as he lends his voice to the most famous animated series, like, ever.

Most extant confirmed pictures of Pynchon are from his youth, like from High School yearbooks or his US Navy portrait. See this Google Image search. Since most of the confirmed pics of him are probably over 50 years old, its hard to say if that pic you cite is definately him. He didn't have a beard in his youth, for example, and while his youthful pictures seem to show a distinctive gap in his teeth when he smiles, any more recent dental work may obscure this in a modern picture. The picture you found actually seems to more closely resemble Gary Snyder, a friend of Pynchon, see this image and article, page down till you see the image caption. It looks a lot like the image you found. Indeed, searching google, I can't find anything more modern than 50 years ago. --Jayron32 06:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, looking closer, that picture you found is almost certainly Gary Snyder. See this Google image search for Gary Snyder. I would be 99% certain the pic in that article next to Pynchon's name is Snyder and not Pynchon. --Jayron32 06:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, the person who wrote the article you cite obviously doesn't know what he is talking about, since he states that the Pynchon novel V. was the source for the V miniseries and subsequent sequels, which it obviously wasn't. --Jayron32 07:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the page also says that Lolita is a Russian novel and that Kafka (whose works were largely unknown until after his death, whereas the Nobel Prize is given only to living authors) should have won one. Clearly not a person to be trusted. Deor (talk) 14:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It also makes no mention of Henry James being an American, seems to think Joseph Conrad was Ukrainian, spells Kerouac Karouac, and puts an apostrophe in Finnegans Wake. In short, it's not to be trusted. 209.251.196.62 (talk) 15:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It also makes the uncorroborated and highly suspicious claim that Salman Rushdie didn't earn the Nobel Prize due to the controversy he stirred with the publication of The Satanic Verses. Actually, I always thought he earned more literary prizes due to the book. Quest09 (talk) 16:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the link provided in the OP is a perfect example of why one should never take anything on the Internet at face value. And that one should always verify such information using one or more other sources (like for example this great ref desk right here). --Saddhiyama (talk) 16:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Name that magazine article

I'm trying to remember the name of a certain article quite possibly from Esquire magazine. It's a critique of the sensationalist "Pedophile-hunt" TV shows such as "To Catch a predator". The most prominent feature was a picture of a like sting in a snowy woods with wolves standing in for the production crew. Can anybody name the article or at least the magazine? Thanks. Spade9 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC).

cult religion

problems posed by cult religion inthe society —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.204.168.3 (talk) 10:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a homework assignment, which we do not do for you. Check out Cult and Cult (religious practice) to start. Falconus^{p t c} 12:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, be more specific. Your question (?) is put very broadly, and it's hard to figure out exactly what it is you want to know. TomorrowTime (talk) 12:25, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a subject for a seminar work. Too broad to be answered I guess....But you can start with the Falun Gong and continue to scientology.--Gilisa (talk) 12:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The problems are going to depend greatly on the specific cult and the specific society. You have not provided either of those pieces of information to us, so we will be unable to be much help I am afraid. Googlemeister (talk) 14:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

For example the definition of cult can also be a political thing, for example in the case of Falun Gong, according to the United States State Department, in China, whether or not a group is classified as a cult depends on the Chinese authorities and is "based on no discernible criteria other than the Government’s desire to maintain control." [2] --HappyInGeneral (talk) 14:41, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Cult suicide (Jim Jones, Order of the Solar Temple); cult murder (Charles Manson's followers); cult biological and chemical terrorist attacks (Aum Shinrikyo, Rajneesh movement), prostitution (Flirty fishing), odd financial dealings (International Society for Krishna Consciousness. From the opposite side, moral panic. Rmhermen (talk) 15:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

insufficient problem posed question context answer difficult Dmcq (talk) 20:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

On the plus side, cults do tend to increase the sales of athletic shoes and Kool-Aid. :-) StuRat (talk) 21:28, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

US military deployment policy

Due to the latest massacre at Fort Hood, we're forced to look again at the US policy of deploying people to fight against those of their same religion and/or ethnicity. Has the military ever had, or at least considered, a policy of transferring/deploying such people into other regions, such as Japan or South Korea, where there will be no question of mixed loyalties ? An exception might be made for linguists, as a shortage of those who speak the native language but are not of that culture is likely to exist. Perhaps they could work from the US via teleconferencing or, if necessary to be deployed in the field, they could be unarmed (basically like Iraqi or Afghan nationals who work as translators).

So, I would like any info or links on such a policy discussion. Thanks. StuRat (talk) 14:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I know they certainly had such a policy in WW2, where those of Japanese ancestry were only permitted to fight against the Nazis and the Italians (see 442nd Infantry Regiment (United States)). Now it would probably be labeled as racism or something. Googlemeister (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the Fort Hood incident, I think a combat stress psycologist would be exactly the kind of specialty that would be required to deploy, just like a linguist. Rmhermen (talk) 14:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure they need combat stress psychologists, but there's no reason to think they can't find a combat stress psychologist who isn't of the same religion and/or ethnicity as the people we are fighting, thus creating the problem of divided loyalties. StuRat (talk) 20:37, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The U.S. military has not allowed soldiers to choose which wars or which enemies they would fight. Edison (talk) 16:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that they should have the choice, the military should refuse to assign them to locations where divided loyalties are likely to become an issue. StuRat (talk) 20:41, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, why should it make any difference. Assuming the U.S. military has done sufficient background checks, why would it matter about the religion or ethnicity of its soldiers. The U.S. has no native ethnicity (unless you count Native Americans, but they really haven't ever been ethnically "american" either, just that they were native to the land that later BECAME the U.S.); all Americans are essentially imigrants. German-Americans most certainly fought against Germany in WWII; seeing as they are the largest single ethnicity in America it would have been impractical to ban them from fighting on that front. The whole "banning the Japanese Americans from fighting on the Japanese front" was part of the same Xenophobic racism that caused the creation of Japanese American internment camps. The fact remains that there was never an effort to create a German-American internment camp because Germans don't look any different than other white people, Japanese do. It is nothing besides a coincidence that the nutjob who shot all those people at Fort Hood was a muslim or of muslim decent. General John Abizaid, former commander of CENTCOM was of arabic decent; I have no idea what his actual religion was, but no one doubted HIS ability to lead in Iraq and Afghanistan. --Jayron32 17:13, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I found that John Abizaid's father and grandparents were Lebanese Christian and he has appeared on a Christian talk show as a Middle East expert, but I didn't find any definitive on his religion. Rmhermen (talk) 18:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your point generally, but there were camps for German Americans, though on a much smaller scale to the Japanese ones. --Sean 17:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I do not believe the claim that German American citizens were rounded up and interned like the Japanese American citizens, since I know a great many many German American citizens who lived through WW2 in the US without any problem. Certainly German citizens were properly interned. German American citizens were routinely drafted and fought against the German army in Europe. The article cited is poorly referenced. One ref is to a website of a group which claims such internments took place, and another is to a defunct inoperative reference. Edison (talk) 20:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

"It is nothing besides a coincidence that the nutjob who shot all those people at Fort Hood was a muslim or of muslim decent"—not necessarily true. Much is yet to be learned about this incident, but one aspect that has come out in the reports is that he sympathized strongly with the idea that Muslims were being persecuted by the United States in its War on Terror, and that he himself felt he was being harassed because of his religious beliefs. That does not support the idea that Muslims in general are untrustworthy, but it does indicate that his religions/ethnic affiliations may have played a part in all of this other than "coincidence." --Mr.98 (talk) 18:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

His personal experiences because of his religion may be being used by himself to justify his own actions, but to state that because this muslim went nuts and killed all those people that somehow all muslims must be suspect and under more strict scrutiny in the armed forces is pretty much bullshit. Any after-the-fact justification offered by this asshole for killing all of those people should not itself be taken as an indictment against people of the same religion as him. Using the facts of a person's life to "justify" an horrific act doesn't mean that people with similar experience are more likelyt to commit a similar act. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is still a fallacy here. --Jayron32 19:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"It is nothing besides a coincidence that the nutjob who shot all those people at Fort Hood was a muslim or of muslim decent" — you do not know this and should not be asserting this. "To state that because this muslim went nuts and killed all those people that somehow all muslims must be suspect and under more strict scrutiny in the armed forces" — only you have proposed this. Why such hyperbole? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

IT was the OP that stated that "Due to the latest massacre at Fort Hood, we're forced to look again at the US policy of deploying people to fight against those of their same religion and/or ethnicity." In other words, because a muslim committed the massacre at Fort Hood, the U.S. cannot trust muslims to fight for them in muslim lands. If the OP didn't mean that, he shouldn't have said that. --Jayron32 01:11, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say that. I don't believe you will even find the word "Muslim" anywhere in my initial post. As I already stated, if we were fighting in Tibet, then I'd be worried about soldiers of Tibetan descent and/or the Buddhist religion, due to the same conflicting loyalties. StuRat (talk) 04:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think we agree on the main points. I do think one could make an evidence-based argument that being a member of a certain religion raises one's risk factor in regards to being treasonous (in the same way that being a compulsive gambler makes one a better target for potential espionage recruitment), but one case does not a trend make. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no doubt that 99% of soldiers remain loyal to the military despite being of the same religion or ethnicity as the people we are fighting, but that doesn't mean we need to accept the increased risk posed by the other 1%. I believe 5 British soldiers were just killed in Afghanistan by a member of the Afghan military they had taken in as a liason: [3]. Also, I recall that during the second Gulf War there was a similar incident where a Muslim solider tossed a grenade into a tent and killed some soldiers in Kuwait. So, it certainly looks like a trend to me, not a single isolated incident. StuRat (talk) 20:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The question is not whether multiple muslims in the U.S. military have committed acts of atrocity. After all, multiple christians have done so as well. The question is whether or not the proprotion of atrocities committed by muslims is out of proportion to their overall representation in the military. A collection of anecdotes about muslim soldiers going nuts and killing their comrades is not a statistical study. For all we know, muslims may commit LESS such acts of horrific violence in the U.S. military than their non-muslim counterparts, we just don't know absent any sort of actual controlled study or analysis of actual data. Regardless of the claim, multiple isolated incidents does not a trend make. I could just as easily cherry pick a series of atrocities committed by men in the military who are shorter than 5 foot 6 inches tall, and make some equally outrageous claim about how short people show a trend towards violence. Cherry picking anecdotes is a bad way to support a hypothesis. --Jayron32 21:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

...not to mention the fact that they may, through better intercultural understanding, keep more people from being killed. If 5% of your Shai-Hulud worshippers go nuts and kill an average of 20 friendlies, but the other 95% manage to keep the local Fremen quite, you will still come out ahead. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

You seem to think I'm saying that Muslims are more likely to go nuts, per se. No, I'm saying that Muslims deployed to fight other Muslims (or about to be deployed, as in the Fort Hood incident) are more likely to switch sides than Christians. Similarly, if we were for some reason about to attack Tibet, I'd want to avoid sending any Buddhist soldiers there. Now for the statistics part: I can't recall any recent incidents of a Christian of European descent in the US military "going nuts" and killing a dozen people. I'm sure there are far more of them in the US military (probably at least 10 times as many), so I'd expect far more incidents, if it was just as likely to occur in either group. StuRat (talk) 21:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not assuming that. I'm not even assuming that they are more likely to "switch sides" if they are deployed to Iraq or elsewhere. I'm say that even if you grant such an assumption (for the sake of the argument) you may still come out ahead if you keep them in the force if you do a deeper analysis. I also think generalizing from a set of one is pointless, or each of Lynddie England and Charles Graner would imply that you cannot send any troops without massively violating human rights. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Apparently you didn't notice my indentation. I was responding to Jayron, not to you. StuRat (talk) 21:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I did, but I assumed you just missed a colon. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Now, as to your point, there are certain jobs, such as a linguist, or more broadly, a "cultural emissary", where having a background in the culture is desirable. However, for the majority of jobs where there is no advantage to be of the same culture as the enemy, why risk it ? In this case, why does one need to be a Muslim to be a good combat stress psychologist ? StuRat (talk) 21:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Everyone you send abroad is a "cultural emissary", and you want all those people to be aware of local culture because that might be the difference between the locals becoming friends, neutrals, or enemies. We very much do not want to make this a conflict between "the west" and "the Muslims", but rather keep it a conflict between a free, tolerant and enlightened society and a group of backward fanatics (ok, we may need to work on that enlightened aspect on our side....). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:53, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea for all of our soldiers to have cultural contacts with the natives. Most soldiers, working in support positions, should be kept on base. This would include a "combat stress psychologist". Only those who need to have contact with the natives should, and they should be well trained in how not to offend them. If you have people who are going to get all bent out of shape if they ever see the bottom of your shoes, then we need to limit contact to only those who know this and all the other little traps out there. And, considering the risk of soldiers being captured and later beheaded on the internet, they better stay on base for their own safety, anyway. StuRat (talk) 04:23, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Back to the original question, does the US military not have certain jobs that require background checks? And do those background checks not sometimes include whether they hold other citizenships, or have in the past? For example, might they stop a naturalized Chinese-American from working on certain military technologies the Chinese government might well be out to acquire through espionage? Sure this is under a different name, but it seems the same logic used regarding the Japanese-Americans in World War II, keep them away from things where divided loyalties could do a lot of damage. TastyCakes (talk) 20:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no answer, but wanted to point out your example isn't a good one because your naturalized Chinese-American used to, ostensibly, be loyal to the government of China, whereas the WW2 Japanese-American case relied on racial ancestry to determine one's loyalty. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

How about an American born Chinese-American that holds Chinese citizenship as well, or maintains close ties with China? I'm sure it would be done on a case by case basis rather than the blanket decisions of World War II, but doesn't such "discrimination" sound possible? TastyCakes (talk) 21:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Note that the US military doesn't seem to worry about discrimination in other areas, like prohibiting women from serving in combat roles and discharging any "outed" homosexuals. In this context, discrimination for the goal of avoiding massacres seems acceptable. StuRat (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I was trying to use the word in its most literal sense, not with the baggage it has acquired. As in having "discriminating taste". I don't think I object to this kind of discrimination in sensitive jobs either. TastyCakes (talk) 20:34, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there are background checks for many military jobs. Yes, nationality and religion probably matter, as would your political ideologies and other personal factors. Yes, they'd be suspicious of Chinese-Americans applying to work on military technologies. (Cf. the Wen Ho Lee bruhaha). Whether these policies have accomplished much is hard to say—for things like espionage, a great deal of spies in recent years have just been motivated by money, not ideological or national loyalties. Extreme profiling has a negative effect as well (see e.g. Tsien Hsue-shen). --Mr.98 (talk) 21:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's of note that the day after the Fort Hood tragedy, another shooting spree has occurred, this time apparently by a fellow who ostensibly looks quite Caucasian. Do we feel the same way that we do about this Muslim fellow? There is a similar dearth of facts in both cases, but the directions our minds jump do tell us something about our prejudices. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What incident is this ? Do you have a link ? Is it another shooting in the US military where a dozen people were killed and dozens more were wounded ? StuRat (talk) 21:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's on CNN—Orlando, FL, etc. Does it matter if it is in the military, per se? Does the efficacy of the attack matter? (He shot about half a dozen people.) The point is—there are nuts with guns out there in the world. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it does matter if it's in the military, since this Q is about the problem of sending people to their ancestral homeland to fight against their own people. How does some random shooting outside of the military relate to this Q ? I don't think it makes sense to just say "all shootings are random, so there's no way they can be avoided". There are many ways to help, such as avoiding triggers, like soldiers with divided loyalties, or high school students who are ruthlessly bullied with no action taken against the bullies, or postal worker/veterans with post traumatic stress disorder being put under an abusive boss. Many of these shootings could be avoided with a little common sense. StuRat (talk) 23:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not saying, "all shootings are random," I'm saying, isn't it interesting that we are jumping to conclusions about the motivations of this particular shooting rather rapidly. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:42, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

He seems to have posted on the internet, praising the bravery and self-sacrifice of suicide bombers, so it looks like the initial assessment is correct. StuRat (talk) 14:01, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Follow-up: I would very much like to be able to get some statistics on "soldiers who betray other soldiers" in the US military. Could I get a list of recent incidents and then maybe break it down by the religion and ethnicity of the perps ? StuRat (talk) 04:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

This WSJ article touches on the subject with recent attacks but is not comprehensive; it does say such killings were "far more common" in the Vietnam War, but cites no sources and names no numbers. (I think you may want to adjust for the claim that many soldiers killed their officers in Vietnam, as I think the motivations differ from what you're trying to get at.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that listed three incidents since 9-11:

1) The current Fort Hood incident, the murder of 12 soldiers, committed by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

2) The murder of 5 soldiers, 6 months ago in Baghdad, by Sgt. John M. Russell.

3) The killing of 2 soldiers in Kuwait, with a grenade, in 2003, by Sgt. Hasan Akbar.

If anyone knows of any other incidents, I'd like to know. Also, do we have info on what portion of the US military is Muslim ? Somehow I doubt if 2/3 of the US military is Muslim, to match the perps above, or if 14/19th is, to match the number murdered, but I'd like to know the actual numbers. StuRat (talk) 20:08, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

CNN was saying it was 3500. I'm not sure if they meant total with reserves (almost 3 million troops) or active (1.4 million), but either way it's a tiny fraction. I don't believe that includes translators and interpreters and stuff, who I think are classed as civilians on contracts. TastyCakes (talk) 20:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

This story says the Pentagon says 3500 but that some Muslims in the military claim there could be as many as 20,000. TastyCakes (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, so we're approximately in the range of 0.1% - 1%. In that case, having two-thirds of the incidents coming from a group that small would seem to indicate that there is a problem, and it's not simply a coincidence. StuRat (talk) 23:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

A social scientist would say you can't tell anything from a sample size of three. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 06:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In a case like this we obviously don't want to wait until we have a sample size of 1100. If my math is correct, if you randomly choose 3 people from a population which is only 1% Muslim, the chances of two of them being Muslim would be 3*(0.01)³ or 3 in a million. In other words, it's not just random. While I agree that you can't determine the specific risk that a Muslim deployed to fight against Muslims will turn on his own men, from this, it's enough of an indication that there may be a problem that further study and actions should be taken. StuRat (talk) 13:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Your math is not correct. It's 3*(0.01)²(0.99) (or 3*(0.01)² for the chance of at least 2). Notice that you overstated the unlikelihood by a factor of 100. But bad math aside, this exercise is pretty absurd. Your "statistics" are the anecdotal reports in one newspaper article. As Mwalcoff said, three is not an appropriate sample to start drawing conclusions from. You may have heard it said before that two does not make a trend. Rckrone (talk) 18:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I used 3 instead of 2 as the exponent, which now gives me a 3 in 10,000 chance of this occurring at random. Still extremely unlikely. As I said before, it would be nice from a mathematical perspective to have a sample size of 1100 massacres to work with, but as a practical matter it would be absurd to wait for that. In the real world life-and-death decisions must be made with only partial information. One might as well have argued "well, Pearl Harbor was only attacked once by the Japanese, so let's wait until they do it a few hundred more times so we can gather valid statistics that we can then use to determine if our defenses are working or not". As for the accuracy of the newspaper article, it is a well-respected paper that I'm confident attempted to do the best research possible to find all pertinent cases. It's possible they may have missed some, and I've asked for info from any other sources to double-check them. However, until I find any info that conflicts with the newspaper article, I'm going to use their data as the best available. StuRat (talk) 19:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what statistics has to do with Pearl Harbor. What I'm saying is that it's not a useful tool here either. I'm not saying that there's not information to be gleaned from these events, but that information is not going to come from applying statistics. As for the WSJ article, it never claims to be an exhaustive list just three examples. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the WSJ, I'm saying there's something wrong with construing the article as something it isn't. Rckrone (talk) 20:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems unlikely to me that any recent massacres in the US military would have escaped the notice of the WSJ, and it also seems unlikely that they would have chosen to omit any from the story. StuRat (talk) 20:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I will say this again: I'm not accusing the WSJ of bad reporting. The article never says they are presenting a comprehensive list. In fact quite the opposite they present two specific prominent examples that serve as illustrations for how to categorize these incidents. The article does say that the death toll from incidents like this is believed to be "fewer than a dozen" and the cases they mention add up to 7 victims, so obviously there aren't more than a handful of other cases, but the potential max of 7 is quite far from 3. There's also the possibility of cases where soldiers attempted to kill someone. Rckrone (talk) 20:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not trying to say that it's impossible that religion played some role in some of the cases where soldiers have snapped. In fact there seems to be evidence that it did in both cases mentioned here. But the way you're trying to draw conclusions using statistics is not really meaningful. Rckrone (talk) 19:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that the following is a valid problem for a statistician: "Given the assumption that an event has a 1% probability, but the measured results show that this event occurred in 2 out of 3 trials, what is the probability that this assumption was correct ?". I will cross-post to the Mathematics desk to confirm this. StuRat (talk) 20:03, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Hmm , I can only wonder who will fight for the USA when the fight is against a "Christian country"? Only atheists, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists? That would make for a relatively small army indeed. Flamarande (talk) 14:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In such a case it wouldn't be practical to keep all Christians out of the combat area, but you could still keep those of the same ethnicity away. In the case of the war against Serbia, for example, we could have kept the Serbs home. StuRat (talk) 17:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict, reply to StuRat) This is not a place for debate, but your argument demonstrates a fallacy for which there must be a term that I don't know. It is possible after any event or series of events to find something seemingly unusual about it and use it to claim it can't be random. Bill Bryson talks about how creationists do this in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything. Creationists will say that the chances of the human genome developing randomly out of evolution is one in a zillion, so it must be intelligent design. But the key is they're doing this in hindsight. The chances of an NFL game ending with a score of 21-13 is 0.25%, based on the compilation of historical scores at www.pro-football-reference.com. So the chances of three games in a row ending with that score is, if my math is right, one in 64 million. But if that happens and you look back on it, can you conclude that it's some kind of miraculous occurrence? Of course not. Now if you predict ahead of time that three games will end in that score and it happens, that would be impressive. But in hindsight, no. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 15:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe that's a type of cherry picking. In the football games, for example, they just choose three games that happen to have the same score, and considered that to be the sample size, rather than including all the games in the sample size. In the creationist case, they just consider the Earth to be the sample size (of one), rather than all the planets in the universe. If I had, for example, looked at every army in the world and only found this pattern in the military of Poland, then set my sample size to just the size of the Polish army, then this would indeed be a case of cherry picking. However, I didn't do that. If you wish, we could broaden the sample to include each military from majority non-Muslim nations which employ Muslims to fight against other Muslims, and I suspect the results would be similar. StuRat (talk) 17:27, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not talking about cherry picking. I'm talking about if you open the paper tomorrow and find all three games involving a given NFL division's teams ended in the same score, you can't call it a miracle, because you wouldn't be asking "what are the chance of that?" if it hadn't already happened. The license plate example comes from famous physicist Richard Feynman. Here's how Bryson quotes it:

• "'You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight,' he would say. `I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!' His point, of course, was that it is easy to make any banal situation seem extraordinary if you treat it as fateful."

Now had Feynman predicted he would see license plate ARW 357 and then saw it, that would be significant. But to look back on any occurrence after the fact and treat it as significant because it was unlikely to happen randomly is the fallacy I'm talking about. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 17:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, in the football example there's two different things going on, just considering the odds of those three games having the same score (not considering all the other scores that didn't have that score), and also looking for the particular score of 21-13 rather than looking at any score that's repeated 3 times. I still call that "cherry picking", because, just like only picking the ripe cherries, we've only picked the scores that seem like they show a pattern, and ignored all the rest. If we go back to my original Q, what is "all the other data that I'm ignoring" which would tend to disprove my assertion that sending people in to fight against members of their own ethnicity and religion is risky ? StuRat (talk) 19:42, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you're the one making the positive assertion. It isn't anyone elses position to disprove an unproven assertion. Its still just a hypothesis without sound data to back it up, and its an unproven hypothesis. You can't just make a hypothesis like "sending people in to fight against members of their own ethnicity and religion is risky" and then claim that it remains true until someone provides data to disprove it. If its true, then data will support it. It doesn't work the other way. One could make any random statement and say "its true unless you prove it false!" That isn't how it works!!! If it is true that it is riskier to send someone to fight against his historical ancestors, then where is the data which backs that up? And, remember, multiple anecdotes is not data... --Jayron32 20:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

are not data. --Tango (talk) 20:36, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

"Anecdotes" would refer to random bits of data someone thinks they remember, not facts, like the incidents listed. It may not be enough data for your liking, but, as I've said many times now, waiting until we have enough massacres so we have a "statistically reliable sample" isn't an option, so we must do the best we can with the data we have. StuRat (talk) 22:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how reliable the anecdote is, it is still an anecdote. To draw conclusions you need to know how many soldiers have fought against their own ethnic group, how many have fought against other ethnic groups, how many incidents that have been in the former group and how many incidents there have been in the latter group. We don't have those 4 pieces of information. --Tango (talk) 22:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

What exactly would qualify as "data" and not "anecdotes", under your definition ? StuRat (talk) 23:52, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Something systematically collected from a representative sample and analyzed according to predetermined criteria would be a start. Otherwise, see Bible code. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Sampling" implies that you're only looking at a portion of the murders, which is sure to introduce sampling error. Why not look at every case in the given time-frame, as I propose ? StuRat (talk) 23:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Please note the "representative". Of course your sample can be the whole population. But how do you get at "every case"? They may not all be published, or at least not be equally prominently published. That's exactly what causes (many) sampling errors. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem of making a sample representative is completely eliminated if you use the entire population. Now, I'm sure that the US military keeps records of everyone convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, so the problem just becomes one of access. A Freedom of Information Act request could certainly be made, and I see no justification for a denial. So, I'm asking if some news organization has done this and now has the data we need to do a correct analysis. StuRat (talk) 14:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Follow-up: I'd like a list of all convictions (and also charges) of murder under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, where the victims were fellow soldiers, after 9-11-2001. I've tried to Google it, but had no luck. In addition to the three massacres listed previously, I've found the following murders, so far:

4) Calvin Hill accused of murdering Ashley Turner to cover up theft from her: [4].

5) Jonathan Law accused of murdering a fellow marine: [5].

6) Kyle Dayton accused of the murder of Carl J. Ware, Jr: [6].

7) Jonathan Campos accused of the murder of August Provost: [7].

8) Richard Smith and Mathew Kvapil accused of the murder of Christina E. Smith: [8]. Article also mentions the (murders ?) of Megan Touma and Holley Wimunc.

9) Cesar A. Laurean is accused of the murder of Maria Lauterbach.

9) Various murders of women: [9].

10) 11 murders at Fort Carson: [10].

11) George Smith accused of the murder of Kerryn O'Neill: [11].

12) Murder of Ciara Durkin: [12].

These all seem to be single murders or murder/suicides, but what I'm really looking for is multiple homicides. StuRat (talk) 23:52, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

....and, no offense, but there is your cherry-picking. If the data does not support your conclusion, change the criteria until they do. Next, look at religiously motivated crimes... ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Not really. Any investigator could likely tell you that the motives for massacres are typically far different than those for your average single murder. And even if you include all those single murder cases which I just listed, it still doesn't bring the numbers of US military murders by Muslims anywhere near to being in line with the Muslim population percentage in the US military. StuRat (talk) 23:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That WSJ article I pointed to, btw, was the very flimsiest record you could have chosen for sample data. Reporters are lazy. You're correct that comprehensive data would be needed to try to draw any conclusions. Comet Tuttle (talk) 07:19, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Not the flimsiest, that would be using a scandal rag as a source. Now, I'm still asking how to obtain the comprehensive data. Can't anybody help with this ? StuRat (talk) 16:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

November 7

What were the basic personality types listed by Charles Fourier?

What were the basic personality types listed by Charles Fourier? I read that in designing his utopian communes, Fourier listed several types necessary on each phalanx/ What were they? --Gary123 (talk) 06:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a go, since no one else has, but I'm afraid this is only a partial attempt. At the bottom of our Charles Fourier article, are a bunch of links to his writing and writings about him online. For example, these ones are in English: [13], [14], [15]. He seemed to love classifications and categorizations, and had several systems - one categorized people by what they desire (usefulness, beauty, justice, truth and the divine), one categorized people into four groups (friendship, love, family and ambition) according to what their predominant emotions are, one predicted the progress of civilization over thousands of years in parallel to what he saw as the intellectual progress of invididuals over one lifespan, from interest in fantasy to interest in intellectuality to interest in passion and perfection, to decay. I'm afraid I couldn't unpack anything particularly Utopia-related but maybe since you know what you are looking for you'll be able to pick it out from this stuff? The google books link is the overview. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 15:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Business law: What does (KG) mean in bankruptcy filings?

What does the abbreviation "KG" mean in filings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court? It seems to show up a lot where a company declares bankruptcy along with its subsidiaries. They each get assigned a case number, but the case is usually jointly administered and when referred to in aggregate, is usually something like "123456 (KG)". I've been looking through different resources, but can only guess at what the KG means. Googling for {kg bankruptcy "case no"} shows plenty of examples.[16] Squidfryerchef (talk) 06:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It stands for "Kevin Gross".

At least, I think so. Here's how I worked it out.

First, I noticed that when I did the Google search you suggested, most of the cases were from the US Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware. That could be because a lot of companies in the US incorporate in Delaware, but it could be because this abbreviation means something specific to that court. So I went to that court's web site (deb.uscourts.gov) to see if I could find an explanation of it.

When I didn't find one, I decided to look at some other case numbers to see if (KG) was one of a series of these codes. I downloaded about 90 cases from the Opinions section of the web site and programmatically picked out the case numbers. About 50 had one of those tags, but there were seven different tags -- (BLS), (CSS), (JKF), (KG), (KJC), (MFW), and (PJW) -- occurring on anywhere from 1 to 16 of the cases I'd looked at. The fact that some of the tags had two letters and others had three suggested that they were people's initials.

I then googled for all of the above tags together on the deb.uscourts.gov site, hoping to find a table of the names. There wasn't one, but I did get a few hits, presumably opinions that cited a number of other cases by number. I looked at the first hit to see what the name of the judge on that case was -- and it was "THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER S. SONTCHI".

So that was (CSS) explained, and by googling on "the honorable" at that site, I was easily able to find several other names matching the tags: Judith K. Fitzgerald, Kevin J. Carey, Mary F. Walrath, Peter J. Walsh -- and Kevin Gross.

Howzat?

--Anonymous, 10:15 UTC, November 7, 2009.

More info on KG here [17]. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. The case I was originally studying was presided over by that judge. Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Billionaire lifestyle

Hello, can you give me a list/names of billionaires/multimillionaires who live lavish jet-setting free-spending lifestyle like Mikhail Prokhorov of Russia or Vijay Mallya of India? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aold1000 (talk • contribs) 09:24, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Richard Branson? Guy Laliberte? Adam Bishop (talk) 15:12, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen our Billionaire article? Dismas|^(talk) 04:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Lewis Carroll quote

From Through the Looking-Glass:

• "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
• "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
• "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master – that's all."

I want to be 100% certain that my understanding of the third line is "correct"/reasonable: To me, it means "The question is, who has the authority of deciding the meaning of words".

1. Is this the "standard interpretation"?
2. Is there something more subtle in this line that I'm not catching?

Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I always assumed (and this seems to be backed up by The Annotated Alice, which is the standard interpretation if anything is) that for Humpty Dumpty, the question is whether the speaker is master, or whether the words themselves are. That is, whether words have inherent meaning which the speaker must take into account, or whether the speaker can assign meanings as he pleases. Algebraist 13:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have understood it in the manner of being who has the authority (which speaker) of assigning meaning, and heard it repeated (in academic contexts) in that fashion. But I'm no specialist. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:41, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Both interpretations work excellently in the (academic) context where I intend to use it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 14:05, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It seems clear to me as a reader that Algebraist's reading is correct. "Which" means which one of a set of alternatives, and the alternatives mentioned in the previous line of dialogue are "you" and "words". Also, note that the previous verb was "make". In an era when servants were common, it was masters who "made" people do things, so if John makes James do something, it settles the question of which of them is the master. And besides, it's very Lewis Carrollish to imagine the words being the master. --Anonymous, expanded 18:57 UTC, November 7, 2009.

Thanks! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:01, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

In this YouTube clip, the text is actually changed, to "The question is, which is to be the master, you or the word, that's all.", avoiding any ambiguity, and supporting the interpretation of Algebraist and Anoymous (and Martin Gardner, apparently) --NorwegianBlue ^talk 17:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Guardianship of Floris V (1258-1266)

Something is amiss. In the article Floris V, Count of Holland it says his father William II of Holland was killed in 1256 when he was two years old. William II was married to Elizabeth of Brunswick-Luneburg (Floris mother), who died 27 May 1266. In the Discussion section of Floris V article someone also noticed it was previously linked to the wrong battle. Now it looks like it was not really a battle, but just a "squable" over the guardianship of Floris while he was becoming of age. This link shows this for 1263. Could the "Regency War" really be just a "squable" of the Hollandic noblemen? It looks like there were 3 guardians until Floris became of age when twelve. Would it be a correct statement to say that his uncle Floris 'de Voogd' (Willian's brother) acted as his first regent; then Adelaide of Holland was his second guardian from 1258 to 1263; then Otto II of Gelre (his cousin) as his third guardian (1263-1266). Apparently there was much "squabling" between Adelaide and Otto for some eight years (1258 to 1266) and the Hollandic noblemen. Apparently there was no "squabling" between Floris 'de Voogd' and Otto II of Gelre or the Hollandic noblemen between 1254 and 1258; the first four years of Floris' life - or was there? So, why was Floris' mother not the regent since she lived until 1266? Did the Hollandic noblemen have more power than William's wife? Would it not be more correct to reword the Floris V article something like ....First his uncle, then his aunt, fought over custody of Holland. Then in 1263, Otto II of Guelders served as his guardian until he was twelve years old and considered capable of administering Holland himself...? --Christie the puppy lover (talk) 14:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, by all means; and why not bolster the statement with a reference to your dependable source. Notes concerning specific Wikipedia articles are generally posted at thje relevant talkpages, in this case Talk:Floris V, Count of Holland.--Wetman (talk) 21:46, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Did as you suggested. --Christie the puppy lover (talk) 22:11, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Richard Ramirez's execution date?

Is it possible to know when will he be executed? Why so many years in prison? Since 1988... and John Allen Muhammad will be put down this Tuesday for a 2002 crime. --FromSouthAmerica (talk) 20:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Ramirez is on death row in California which is famously slow about the death penalty. They currently have almost 700 people on death row but have averaged less than 1 execution a year for the past twenty years. Rmhermen (talk) 02:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

How often do they overturn death sentences? They could have lots of people on death row without being slow to execute people if they just often sentence people to death and then change their minds. --Tango (talk) 04:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

California apparently averages 25 years on death row before execution, twice the national average wait.[18] 75.41.110.200 (talk) 23:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

November 8

Reasons for moonshine being illegal? (in the U.S.)

Prohibition ended a loooooooooooooooong time ago, and while there are still dry counties, these are few and far between. From what I understand, producing moonshine both for personal use and commercial use is illegal just about everywhere. I can understand how the latter would require taxation and FDA regulation, but if I can make my own beer & wine, why can't I distill my own grain alcohol? 216.93.191.242 (talk) 03:55, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not illegal to distill grain alcohol, it's just illegal to do it outside a licensed distillery. You can open a licensed distillery yourself if you have some money and are willing to jump through enough hoops. One hoops involves giving the key to the distillery, so they can pop in any time they like and make sure all your alcohol is accounted for and taxed. It's all about taxes, and has been since the Whiskey Rebellion. You're allowed to make beer and wine at home only in quantities toolow for you to sell profitably or them to think worth taxing. PhGustaf (talk) 04:10, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh. If you want to distill legally, move to New Zealand. Hobby distillation is legal there. PhGustaf (talk) 04:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Unless done perfectly, distillation of alcohol can include fractions which could cause blindness and paralysis: [19],[20],[21], [22], [23]. Lead in the condensor can also be a problem. Is that a contraindication?Edison (talk) 04:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

(ec) In addition to the tax issues, it can be dangerous to distil your own alcohol. If you do it wrong you can end up concentrating the really serious poisons rather than the ethanol. It is also easy to contaminate it by using dirty equipment (car radiators that still have traces of antifreeze, for example). See Moonshine#Safety. --Tango (talk) 04:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Here are 3 reasons I know of, the first two of which have already been listed:

1) Taxes: Even if for your own personal consumption, the government still thinks this means they lose tax revenue because you won't be buying as much taxable liquor.

2) Safety - poison: Drinking moonshine can be dangerous to your health, as noted previously.

3) Safety - explosion hazard: Mixing alcohol and an open flame has the potential to cause a fire and/or explosion. StuRat (talk) 13:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

A man making poteen was let off with a caution in Ireland I believe because it was well made without any contaminants. So it obviously takes some work to do it properly. Dmcq (talk) 18:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Taxes are the motivation, remember: personal health and safety of citizens are justifications after the fact.--Wetman (talk) 21:52, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd never heard "poteen" and thought you meant "poutine", and thought, "it's not that bad"!  :) --Sean 14:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Baron and Count of Thurn and Taxi

When were was the first member of the Thurn and Taxi family created Baron and later count? Was Leonhard I von Taxis (1544–1612) the first baron of Thurn and Taxi or Lamoral von Taxis (1612–1624). Also was Lamoral von Taxis (1612–1624) or Leonhard II von Taxis (1624–1628) the first count of Thurn and Taxi? Is there any dates of these creations?--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 06:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Nobility of the Holy Empire with ratification of arms 31 May 1512 for two sets of four brothers who were cousins

confirmation of Nobility of the Holy Empire and ratification of arms (Jean-Baptiste) 5 Jan 1534

Grand Postmaster General to the German Empire 16 June 1595

Lord and Baron of the Holy Empire (Leonard I de Taxis) 16 Jan 1608

Hereditary Grand Postmaster General of the Empire in the Netherlands, Lorraine and Burgundy 27 July 1615

Count of the Holy Empire 8 June 1624

Permission to bear the name and arms of the Counts von Thurn und Valsassina 24 Sept 1650

Prince de la Tour et Tassis 19 Feb 1681

Prince of the Holy Empire extended to all descendants 4 Oct 1695

Hereditary Grand Postmaster General of the Holy Empire 2 July 1744

Vote in the Council of Princes of the Holy Empire 30 May 1754 by virtue of the dignity of Hereditary Grand Postmaster General 30 May 1754.

The place to look for confirmation of who was specified would be the Almanach de Gotha (pretty much available online in pdfs served by the Biblioteche Nationale de France via Gallica, but it's a bit tedious. - Nunh-huh 09:10, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Einstein's last theorem

One of the most famous citations of Einstein is something like "There are only two infinite things: Universe and stupidity, and I'm not sure about the first". Yesterday, when I was lying on my bed this statement strike me-my God, how come that no one saw this before-Einstein last theorem was that stupidity is a space with infinite number of dimensions or an infinite dimension by itself. I was thrilled; it's not every day that you have such important scientific discovery at hand. But then I start wonder, like Ferma, Einstein didn't leave behind the mathematical prove for us-or that he did? I burrowed Einstein writings, I found that many things could be infinite in theory, for example, mass could be infinite when traveling at the speed of light, but for that infinite energy is needed, and we know that there is finite amount of energy in our universe-so both can't be really infinite. And then it cross my mind again, stupidity is not energy, nor it has a mass, and it's infinite-so it isn't a practical, but what could it be? Maybe the contradiction between the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics could be solved when applying stupidity as another dimension? It make no sense at all, and this only strength my mind that I'm on the right way, because Einstein arguments make no sense at all at the beginning-and then it turned to be that he was right. I spent the all night in a search for a solution, but in vein. My head became full of ideas, as like the spirit of Einstein himself reflected itself through me. Then I become tired and fall to sleep, while sleeping I had a vision: Einstein himself was speaking to me, as like he was trying to pass a massage to the entire universe through me, but I couldn't understand it as he was speaking German. So, could anyone prove that stupidity is infinite?( you may use mathmatical induction for that)--Gilisa (talk) 09:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Non-stupid: 1+1=2.

Stupid: 1+1=π or 1+1=a giraffe.

Even just sticking to real numbers that aren't 2 (or 10 if you want to go binary), you can come up with an infinite number of stupid examples. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:52, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

That's classic.--Gilisa (talk) 18:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Even though there are an infinite number of stupid examples, we can start with the definition of stupidity as a property of a person, action or belief that indicates low intelligence. Let's say (you may disagree with this) that actions are done by people and beliefs are held by people so niether can exist without people. So modify the definition to: property of a person that indicates low intelligence. There are a finite amount of people who each have a finite time to hold beliefs and perform actions and a finite observable universe that those actions could affect. So the limitations on people imposes limitations on the extent of stupidity. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:36, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I know this doesn't directly contribute, but Einstein was not correct in everything he did, scientifically or otherwise. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Likewise, everything he said was not always to be taken to be a statement of scientific truth. See sarcasm and platitude, and depending on your opinion, wit. --Jayron32 20:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree. He had a lively sense of humour (such as his explanation of relativity in terms of how more quickly the time goes when sitting next to a pretty girl than next to a less attractive woman). His humour was never intended to be subjected to rigorous scientific analysis. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:30, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Klimt

Please, do you know the name of this Klimt's painting? http://www.ikea.com/at/de/catalog/products/50149720 Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Atacamadesert12 (talk • contribs) 12:36, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Water Snakes II ([24]) --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 12:52, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

What was my salary in the year 19XX worth now, in the UK?

I used to do a moderately well-paid but very boring job. I'd like to find out what the equivalent salary would be now for the money I earnt then. One way to do this would be to adjust the money from 19XX for inflation to get the 2009 equivalent. Another way would be to get some idea of what percentile my salary was at in 19XX, and then find out what the salary at the same percentile would be now. As people's incomes have been slowly rising by more than inflation, as the population's standard of living has slowly risen over the years, then the answer from this method will probably be different. Can anyone tell me where I could get the information for either methods please? 78.147.8.170 (talk) 14:02, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

This [25] site has a calculator to convert your income from year X (minimum 1930) to a theoretical current level. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Different jobs have had pay rise at different rates so if you want to know what you could earn doing that job now you would be better off looking for vacancies and seeing what salaries are on offer. --Tango (talk) 18:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Tango is correct. Certain jobs have seen salaries rise beyond average (and vice versa) because of (dropping of) government encouragement, scarcity, changes in technology, changes in relative pricing etc.

Risking looking stupid, I'll give an example with two ill-educated guesses:

I can't imagine that a plumber with, say, five years experience in 1960 could enjoy anything like the quality of life he could expect today.

Conversely, and perhaps equally stupidly, I also suspect that in 1960, a primary school teacher with 5 years experience would have had a relatively better income compared with society at large, than today. --Dweller (talk) 13:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Which Saint Rose?

St. Rose Catholic Church in western Ohio (specifically, Marion Township, Mercer County) was established in 1839 among primarily German settlers. Any idea which of the three Saints Rose is most likely (or least unlikely) to be the patron? I can't find anything on the already-linked parish website, and this document — the only other one that I can find that deals with the history of the parish — doesn't discuss the question either. Nyttend (talk) 14:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Rose of Lima is your most likely Rose for an American church. Of the 3 listed, Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne is impossible: she was canonized after the church was named. The site you point to seems to indicate that the name arose from the flowers found on the site: they presumably picked a St. Rose afterwards. (I'm guessing they chose St. Rose of Lima because they're American, which would be even more likely if they're of the Dominican Order. But there are other Stse. Rose. The only way to be sure would be to write them. - Nunh-huh 15:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I emailed a related church yesterday — St. Augustine Catholic Church, a short distance to the east, to ask if their patron is the Doctor or the first Archbishop of Canterbury — so I was planning to email them, but thought it best to wait until Monday. FYI, the church has always been related to the Society of the Precious Blood. One other thing that I should have mentioned: it seems also to have been called "St Rosa" at one time, as I've seen that name used to refer to the crossroads community in which it is located, and "St Rosa" is the name over the entrance to the cemetery. Would this shed any light on the subject? I observe that we have no article on St. Rosa, and I'm assuming "Rosa" is a variant of "Rose". Nyttend (talk) 00:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Since St. Rose of Lima was Peruvian, her Spanish name would have been Santa Rosa de Lima, so I think that supports her as the likely namesake. - Nunh-huh 07:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Before posting this thread, I'd not observed that St Rose Philippine Duchesne hadn't yet been canonised. I assumed that "Rosa" would be sensible for the Peruvian saint, but the Italian name for the Italian saint is "Rosa", so I wasn't sure. Your reminder that St Rose of Lima is the patron saint of the Americas is enough for me: I'm only trying to put the church in the right subcategory of Commons:Category:Churches by patron saint, so original research isn't a problem. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 16:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Iambic pentameter

In Shakespearean England, did everyone speak in iambic pentameter? --75.39.192.162 (talk) 18:22, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you think? --Tango (talk) 18:41, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

All of Shakespeare's plays were written in iambic pentameter, which would seem to indicate that it was the main style of speech at the time. --75.39.192.162 (talk) 18:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You might find it helpful to compare with an old sitcom: watch how everyone talks in a strange 'stagey' way, pausing after every line to allow the audience to react. People no more talked like this in normal life than they talked in iambic pentameter: it's merely a convention of that specific type of drama, used to give a specific effect and match expectations.

This reminds me of something I read about American stage-acting of the 19th - early 20th century, something about the 'stagey' style of acting and talking which was utterly different from naturalistic acting or British stage-acting, or later film-acting. Anyone have links? 86.142.224.71 (talk) 19:17, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article on the iambic pentameter states in the first sentence: "Iambic pentameter is one of many meters used in poetry and drama." It remains to be researched if life in Elizabethan England was sufficiently poetic and dramatic for everyone to satisfy such conditions. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

In Molière's 17th-century comedy, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Monsieur Jourdain is astonished and delighted to find that he's been speaking prose all along. Natural English speech often falls into iambic patterns.--Wetman (talk) 21:46, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a bit of WP:OR, but if you read and most importantly watch a lot of Shakespeare, you may eventually notice something: While the main characters tend to stick to the pentameter, characters of lower stature (porters, guards, etc.) regularly deviate and speak in a normal parlance. I would be akin to the perceived differences in British accents today, such as Cockney or the Queen's. The majority of Shakespeare's patrons were the poor villagers, and they would have likely noticed the distinction between how they and the upper-class characters spoke. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:47, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

If poetry were ere the spoken norm
The iambic pentameter the rule,
Then those of us who lacked a sense of form
Would find the strain of speaking far too cruel.
And scholars then would rule the world with dread:
You'd need one every time you bought some bread.

DJ Clayworth (talk) 02:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You can find a number of speeches by Queen Elizabeth I online. In contrast to the speeches of Shakespearean leaders, none of the real-world speeches by Elizabeth are in iambic pentameter; all are in prose[26][27][28].--Lesleyhood (talk) 16:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

death sentence and president approval

Does the American president have to approve any death sentence in USA or that he must approve only soldiers death penalties?--Gilisa (talk) 18:45, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

There are three different cases:

1) State death penalties (this is the common type): The President has no authority over the use of these. In this case the governor of the state in question has the right to grant pardons, but is not involved in the original sentencing.

2) Federal death penalties (outside the military, extremely rare): The President does have the authority to grant pardons, commute sentences, etc., but only after the original sentencing.

3) US military death penalties (extremely rare): In this case the President is in the chain of command above the military courts, and could theoretically influence the original sentencing. However, they are typically very "hands off" at this point, in order to not be accused of inappropriate influence over the court. After sentencing, the President again has the right to pardon sentences, commute them, etc. StuRat (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Abraham Lincoln, from 1861-1865 issued numerous pardons, including for civil convictions for treasonand military convictions for desertion. Edison (talk) 21:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean civilian convictions for treason? "Civil" in this contest means the opposite of "criminal" rather than the opposite of "military". --Tango (talk) 21:39, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The reference says Lincoln issued "civil warrants" to pardon those convicted in "civil courts." Edison (talk) 19:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The meaning of "civil" in this context is "civilian." These were federal courts dealing with charges related to the war - the sort of thing that would be included in StuRat's second type.B00P (talk) 07:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• I don't know about soldiers, but for ordinary citizens, the prison system may carry out a death sentence without seeking the President's involvement at all. The President has the power to grant clemency, which converts the death sentence into a lesser sentence. In theory, a President could issue a Blanket clemency order converting all death sentences to life-imprisonment sentences, but as far as I know, no President has ever come close to doing anything like that. As our Blanket clemency article says, though, Governor George Ryan of Illinois issued a blanket clemency to all death row inmates in 2003, and I recall at the time that other governors considered following suit. --M@rēino 20:24, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
  • See also Capital punishment by the United States federal government - the last execution of a U.S. soldier occurred in 1961, so it isn't much of an issue. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 22:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
    • It might be an issue in a couple of years when that guy from Fort Hood gets the needle or the chair or whatever is used these days. Googlemeister (talk) 14:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Christian Democratic Parties

I have two questions to ask you:

1. Are Christian democratic parties left-wing or right-wing?

2. Is the Christian Democratic Party in Australia left-wing or right-wing?

3. Is Christian democracy left-wing or right-wing?

Bowei Huang (talk) 22:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Usually Christian Democratic parties are conservative, i.e. right, although exceptions might exist. The party in Australia is right-wing (see Christian Democratic Party (Australia)). For more information, you can consult Christian democracy. Regards SoWhy 22:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget that "left wing" and "right wing" are stereotypic labels that may or may not be useful under in this context. DJ Clayworth (talk) 02:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Please explain in what ways they may not be useful in this context. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The opening paragraphs of our article on Left-right politics may shed some light. Also the last paregraph of the section Contemporary usage in the United States specifically mentions Christian conservatives in general identifying with the right-wing. Vespine (talk) 04:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Many Christian Democrats would claim, at least in some circumstances, to be centrist, progressive or non-secular liberal rather than conservative: you really have to look at the specific political universe in which they operate. The predecessor to the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union in Germany was in fact called the Zentrumspartei or Centre Party aligned between the Nationalists on their Right and the Social Democrats and Communists on their left. In the Low Countries (Benelux), where party alignments have changed in the last decade or two, the historical position of Christian Democratic parties was to the left of the Liberal parties on economics, taxes and social welfare, but to their right on issues such as secularism/clericalism and moral regulation. In the post-war Fourth French Republic, a similar position was taken by the Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP), a Catholic party which grew out of the Resistance and collaborated with the Socialists and the Radicals. There's no space here to expound at length on Social Catholicism, Rerum Novarum or Quadragesimo Anno, but (like Monsignor John A. Ryan in the United States) many Catholics sought a non-Marxist response to the atomising effects of capitalism, industrialism, urbanism and modernisation that would restore the solidarity and mutual support of rural societies. However, what had been the historical positions of the parties over much of the 20th century has changed in recent decades. Often the Christian Democrats grew at the expense of more-right-wing parties (as in Germany and Italy) and by default occupied the right-hand slot in their nations' politics. In a basically secular country like Australia without an established Church, the Christian Democrats are usually right-wing groups focused on moral/religious issues such as abortion, homosexuality and pornography. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:59, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

There are a few examples of Christian Democratic parties siding with the left in Latin America (such as in Uruguay). However, contemporary Christian Democracy is generally identified as right, centre-right or centrist. --Soman (talk) 22:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Antigone

In the original Greek, did Antigone rhyme or have a standard meter? --75.15.163.184 (talk) 23:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Greek tragedies were written in various meters for different scenes and characters (the chorus had a different meter than the main character, for example). I don't think they rhymed, just because rhyme is not usually a feature of ancient meters, which depend more on the aesthetics of syllable lengths. Antigone was the same, it didn't have one standard meter. It's like Shakespeare that way, minus the rhyming. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This page in an introduction to the play discusses matters metrical. --Sean 14:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

November 9

Begrüßungsgeld

In 1988 West Germany, what can you buy with your 100 DM "welcome money"? F (talk) 00:00, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Taking the data from this source and this source and doing the math, I find that DM 100 in 1988 would be worth about €71 in 2008. There has been very little inflation since 2008, so that number is about right for today. That would be enough money to stay in the cheapest accommodation, such as a youth hostel, for 2 nights and maybe to buy about 2 days worth of cheap food. That might be enough to get by before one could expect to qualify for assistance from the West German state, although they may well have had facilities free of charge for refugees. Alternatively, that amount could buy a train ticket (maybe not on an express train) to most parts of Germany. When the Berlin wall was opened, I think that many of the East Berliners who flooded across used their welcome money to buy small luxuries or consumer goods that they couldn't get in the east. Marco polo (talk) 01:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It would, for example, have bought you 20 pounds of coffee, 4-5 meals in non-fancy restaurants, one meal in a fancy restaurant, 100 l of milk or 10 kg of chocolate, 12 cinema tickets, or 15 paperback books. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

what is the relationship between truth and reality?

what is the relationship between truth and reality, if any. 92.230.65.3 (talk) 07:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

To quote Aristotle (from memory): "To say of that which is that it is not, or of that which is not that it is, is untrue, whereas to say of that which is that it is, or of that which is not that it is not, is true." Reality would be "that which is", and truth would be the property of being an accurate statement about reality. Aristotle is not being flip, rather he is drawing a picture of the blindingly obvious to draw our attention to the fact that it really is blindingly obvious. That is, he's trying to say that "truth" and "untruth" and their relationship to reality are irreducible and you can't really explain them to someone who does not understand, or pretends not to (Socratic irony has its limits). But that's just one view. If you don't like it, other philosophers have others.--Rallette (talk) 11:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

To most people, "truth" is an absolute. That is, "truth" = "reality". There are a minority, however, that think of "truth" as relative, or, in other words, it's whatever you think it is, regardless of reality. A prime example of that type of thinking is in the book Nineteen Eighty Four, where it is argued that if everyone thinks that 2+2=5, then it does. StuRat (talk) 17:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Truth is how reality is perceived. For example, think of the story of the blind men and the elephant. They were asked to describe the elephant based on what they perceived by touching it. Four of them said an elephant is like a tree trunk: one said it was like a snake: one said it was like a whip with hair at the end. Of course, it isn't like that - but that was their perception, and to them that was the truth. It's the basis behind qualitative analysis in social sciences: asking people how they perceive a service, rather than relying on quantitative analysis which only tells you numbers. For example, consider a charity which provides a service funded by an external agency such as the NHS. It can provide a really good service which meets all the targets regarding bums on seats/footfall, but if service users give negative feedback, then funders are likely to withdraw the funding. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Romantic friendship

Could I get some info that has to do with the same topic as romantic friendship, but heterosexual focused? Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 07:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Is Platonic love useful to you? --Tango (talk) 07:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Closer, but I guess I'm looking for more information on the modern definition stated in the first sentence as applied to heterosexual romantic friendships, and on the heterosexual romantic friendships themselves. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 08:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's discussed at length in Theodore Zeldin's An Intimate History of Humanity. Book has references you could look up, too. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Irrelevant, inappropriate comments

No, girls who aren't into you sexually are not going to cuddle with you, you might as well forget it. 92.230.65.3 (talk) 08:25, 9 November 2009 (UTC) Not true. I had a friend who wasn't lesbian but she cuddled and even kissed me sometimes because she knew I liked her, but it was always clear that this was just for me and wasn't going to go any further —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.85 (talk) 12:36, 9 November 2009 (UTC) This is one of the funnier, and somewhat insulting, responses I have ever seen at the reference desk. If you must know, I am doing research for AP Psychology. Ks0stm (T•C•G) 08:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Could you be a bit more specific please, what section of that article is closest to what you want? By the way many people fool themselves a friendship is just that but they turn into affairs. Dmcq (talk) 14:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's somewhat difficult to phrase...basically, like said above, "Platonic love, in its modern popular sense...non-sexual affectionate relationship" or "romantic friendship...very close but non-sexual relationship between friends". I can find a plethora of information on purely romantic relationships or non-romantic friendships, but I can never seem to find any information on what falls in between, which is what I am looking for. Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 15:49, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Friends with benefits? Casual relationship? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Those two are usually explicitly not romantic. They are just sexual. --Tango (talk) 19:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, they rarely last long without any romantic feelings whatsoever, and often something in between develops. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Am I perhaps looking for a relationship style that doesn't exsist (or at least hasn't been widely studied) when I think "A) Romantic feelings, B) No sexual desire, and C) very close friendship" all rolled into one? Ks0stm ^(T•C•G) 20:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, when you put it that way, that just sounds like marriage ten years in! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

World War II British submarine sonar operators

I'm researching British WWII submarine sonar operators. I've found a lot of useful information on the web, but I've been unable to find answers to the following two questions:

What wages would a sonar operator have earned? Where would he fit into the command hierarchy?

Please could somebody point me in the right direction? Yes, I admit this is homework, but I've spend a lot of time looking for answers to these two questions, and have drawn a blank.

Thanks in advance.--168.168.43.250 (talk) 11:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The best links I can find are this from a British operator, and this from a US one. In both cases the operators are enlisted men, not officers, and seem to be only a couple of ranks up the ladder from the bottom. Knowing that should let you find out what the wages were - I doubt they were paid more than others of their rank. Even in WWII everyone on a ship had a specific job, usually a pretty technical one. It may help with your search to know that during WWII the British usually referred to Sonar as ASDIC.

Have a look at this [29]; the relevant RN rank (near the bottom of the page) might be Submarine Detector Instructor, Higher Submarine Detector and Submarine Detector. Then look here [30]: (click bottom right of the image to enlarge). "Rate per diem"...

"Submarine Detector Instructor: 1s 9d

Higher Submarine Detector: 0s 9d or 1s 0d

Submarine Detector: 0s 6d

Anti-Submarine Officer's Writer (ie clerk): 0s 3d"

I'm fairly sure that this is in addition to their usual daily rates of pay, which you can find here [31] - Ordinary Seaman, Leading Seaman etc etc. Hope this helps. Alansplodge (talk) 17:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's me again - it looks from your question as though you mean an ASDIC operator in a submarine rather than on a surface warship. Therefore Page 33 (my second link above) says...

"Submarine pay: 0s 9d to 3s 9d

Rangefinding allowance 0s 2d

Hydrophone allowance 0s 3d"

I don't know if ASDIC would be "rangefinding" but I don't see what else you could use underwater. I don't think they would mention ASDIC by name because it was secret. A hydrophone is a listening device - does it need more skill than ASDIC? I'm raising more questions than I'm answering I'm afraid! Alansplodge (talk) 18:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

"Rangefinding" may refer to the parallax rangefinder in the sub's periscope. Knowing the distance and speed of your target was essential for proper aiming of torpedoes. --Carnildo (talk) 01:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Sstock markets

Differences and similarities between Primary markets and Secondary markets 12:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.201.34.165 (talk)

Apples and pears - participants, structure, pricing, settlement and regulation are all different. Only similarity is instruments - a security issued in the primary market may subsequently be traded in the secondary markets. See primary market and secondary market. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:47, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Humans arguing with God

The Old Testament contains occasional examples of human prophets arguing with or at least strongly debating with God (2 examples: Abraham lobbying for the saving of Sodom; Moses arguing with God not to destroy the Israelites after the Golden Calf episode). Are there similar examples in the New Testament and / or the Qur'an, other than, perhaps, repeats of the OT stories? --Dweller (talk) 13:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, all the time. By turning into a human, God was able to talk and directly interact with people on a daily basis MBelgrano (talk) 13:10, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

MBelgrano, I don't think that he meant to that (and is there any example when people argue against Jesus and then after he change his mind?). In Judaism there is a discipline that explain the meaning of these "debates" (which seen ,in a nutshell, as advocacy by Jewish scholars).--Gilisa (talk) 13:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's doen all the time, lots of prayers are like that. Dmcq (talk) 14:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I mean where the text makes it clear there's a dialogue, and man and God are arguing back and forth. Probably without the need for colon indents and wikimarkup. --Dweller (talk) 14:05, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

There isn't anything like that in the NT. —Akrabbim^talk 14:30, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Dweller I know no such stories in the Qur'an and certainly not in the NT. One reason for that there are no such stories in the NT, is that according to the NT Jesus served as one person sacrifice to pardon all humanity so he ccouldn't go against his mission and debate with God about it. Also, NT concept of God is very different than this Judaism have (no trinity in Judaism). More, the attitude of NT about crime and punishment is pretty much different from this of the Hebrew Bible.--Gilisa (talk) 15:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Since I posted, I wondered if Jesus's words on the cross counted, but my hazy memory of the text is that there's no recorded reply from the Father. --Dweller (talk) 15:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In Islam there's the story of how Allah wanted everyone to pray to him 50 times a day, and Mohammed argued with him and bargained him down to "just" 5 times a day. StuRat (talk) 16:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly the kind of thing I'm after. Sounds like Allah is arguing back, too. Source please... online version would be great if possible. --Dweller (talk) 17:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Here's an online source: [32]. StuRat (talk) 19:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It's from a work of fiction, not a holy book, but Fiddler on the Roof has some hilarious examples of Tevye bargaining with God, such as "I understand that we are the chosen people, but, just this once, couldn't you maybe choose somebody else ?" (spoken right before an impending pogrom). StuRat (talk) 16:45, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but God doesn't argue back. --Dweller (talk) 17:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

StuRat, I forgot this one. It somehow have resemblance to the course of the discussion Abraham had with God about the sentence of Sodom people. There, God asked somewhat relatively high number of righteous ones among Sodom people but Abraham pleading decrease it to Ten. There are other fundamental differences between what is written in the bible and the story in the Quran (e.g., in the Hebrew bible all "arguments" had the purpose to call off a disaster, but never a commandment), but it's too long for here.--Gilisa (talk) 17:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Jesus also talked with God, begging to be spared of the crucifixion. God doesn't seem to have answered directly though, and didn't change his mind at all (read Arrest of Jesus). Flamarande (talk) 18:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

He begged not to be crucified? Hmm..pretty much contrary to what I know: According to the NT, didn't he prayed to be able to stand it and was told by the devil that one man can't carry the burden of humanity sins (refering to Jesus intent to be crucified)?--Gilisa (talk) 18:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

In the Garden of Gethsemane: Matthew 26, Verse 42: "He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. ". 99.166.95.142 (talk) 19:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

How this say that he begged for the crucifiction to be cancelled?--Gilisa (talk) 19:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Gilisa, I'm aware that English is not your first language. Maybe you should look the verse up in your mother tongue? It's clearer in verse 39 "(...)My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." It's not the most ferocious arguing, since he's saying "Please, if there's any way around this, don't make me do this. But I'll still do your will if you don't change your mind."

Edit to add: I realise I'm assuming familiarity with the context. You might be better off reading the whole chapter in your first language. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 19:59, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

86.142.224.71, give me a break. English is not my first language but I understand very well what is written in the NT. Thank you for the interpretation you gave, but it was realy unneeded. All he said is that if there is another way -then he would prefer it. But if not, then he's willing to take it. This is very different from the case of Sodom, where Abraham asked God to judge Sodom indulgently -as it may be that Sodom people are not all the same and he asked God to give more weight to the righteous ones and to spare the all city for them (he actually bargained), until he understand that Sodom is totaly corrupted and evil.--Gilisa (talk) 06:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Given the indivisibility of the Trinity alluded to in a later section on this page, "not as I will but as you will" is fairly odd in this context. I guess God was in two minds about the whole business :) As for the original question, Jesus rarely argued purely and simply but many of his parables were in response to questions which could be considered debate arguments. A lot of this was in attempts to trick Jesus into contradicting scripture. Render unto Caesar details one well-known example. In John 12, Judas argues with Jesus about Mary's use of expensive anointing oils. Grutness...wha? 23:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

And that's where you get into the whole humanity of Jesus thing, whereby a lot of mainstream branches of Christianity hold that he was both wholly man and wholly God. It would therefore be the wholly human Jesus who was doing all the doubting and worrying and suffering. I guess for the purposes of this question, that probably means we can't use examples with Jesus. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 01:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It is much simpler if you see the term "son of God" as mutually exclusive with the term "God the son" (which never occurs in the original text). But there is too many centuries of theology mixed in for that to be accepted. —Akrabbim^talk 01:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The end of The Book of Job has similar features, but is more of a monologue style. Steewi (talk) 00:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The book of Job is part of the Hebrew bible and not of the NT. And anyway, Job is not arguing with God -as you wrote, it's much more a monologue.--Gilisa (talk) 06:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

State Visit

Do world leaders ever share a "brainstorming session" or do they always go into a meeting with a set position. Can you provide some examples where a world leader left a meeting with a different position after talking with another? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 16:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully a little of both, but in truth there's probably a lot more of the former. I also bet that there's actually a lot of so-called brainstorming behind the scenes before the leaders actually meet; those meetings are usually more about getting a feel for a process. As an example, though, take the relatively recent situation of and Afghani runoff election. John Kerry traveled there and "unexpectedly" convinced Hamid Karzai to agree to a runoff.[33][34] ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The 2009 imprisonment of American journalists by North Korea is also potentially relevant. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 16:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not a world leader, but I would assume that it's 0% brainstorming, because these guys only get a couple of hours to meet and they probably have a large backlog of issues to negotiate. They have underlings that spend a lot of time brainstorming (hopefully in meetings with the other side as well). Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:01, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The stereotypical situation, as beautifully exemplified in Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, is that the officials write the final communiqué on the plane while going to the conference/summit, before it's even started. How far that differs from real life, I couldn't say, but hopefully quite a lot. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that is about right - someone (perhaps the host) writes the communique based on behind-the-scenes discussions that preceded the meeting and then the meeting takes the form of negotiating over the final wording of that communique. That's for things like the G20 meetings - one-one-one meetings between world leaders are probably more variable depending on the relationship between the countries and leaders. --Tango (talk) 20:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You should not be overly cynical about such meetings. They are in fact occasions where important matters are discussed and decisions are taken. Communiqués are written by bureaucrats with limited decision-making powers. They are prepared and quibbled over in advance because they usually cover very different ground than the actual contents of the meeting. It is very rare for leaders to actually spend time in a summit arguing over the communiqué language, unless it is a legally-binding text.

Leaders will be thoroughly briefed and scripted by their officials before a summit meeting, but in the end they are the decision makers and can ignore the script. In fact, it happens quite often, and officials must scramble to pretend they know that these decisions were coming their way and are perfectly consistent with whatever spin they were giving before the meeting. An interesting case of a meeting that went off script is the 1986 Reykjavik Summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan; it was supposed to be a fairly benign, "get to know each other and repeat well-known positions" type of meeting, but the two leaders got into serious discussions about significant reductions in nuclear arms. While no agreement resulted, the mutual confidence the meeting and the wide-ranging discussion helped build between the two superpowers served to increase mutual confidence and hasten the end of the Cold War. Of course, at the time, many observers were greatly surprised and thought the two leaders were bonkers. --Xuxl (talk) 16:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Evolution

It apparently violates the establishment clause to either ban the teaching of evolution or require the teaching of flaws in evolution. However, would it be legal for a state to, rather than specifically banning evolution, simply remove evolution from the required state curriculum and not include any questions about evolution on their standardized assessments? ----J4\/4 <talk> 18:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

We´re not US lawyers, and therefore we're not qualified to answer this question. I humbly suggest you ask this question to a lawyer and to the Supreme Court of the United States as your question concerns the rights of the states (making this a constitutional matter). That court seems to be qualified enough to answer this particular question.Flamarande (talk) 18:31, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, just because YOU are not a US lawyer, doesn't mean other participants on this reference desk are not. Also, being "qualified" to answer a question is not a prerequisite to answering questions here. My point is the question can be discussed and answered without being "official". Tan | 39 18:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that this would be held to be unconstitutional in the United States, under Edwards v. Aguillard. Your proposal lacks "a clear secular purpose", and I would argue it "undermines the provision of a comprehensive scientific education," which were fundamental requirements in the ruling for such an act to be nonviolative of the Establishment Clause. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Many of what creationists call "Flaws in evolution" are presented to students. They're just not presented in the distorted, blown out of proportion way that you'd get from a anti-evolution tract. They're presented, correctly, as minor details that are still being worked out, points still undergoing debate or research, or as questions that are yet to be answered. It's an important part of good science education to teach that the process is ongoing and that our knowledge is constantly being refined. APL (talk) 19:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

(Duplicate question is at Science ref desk). We had this same question not too long ago, I think. It would almost surely fail the Lemon test, as banning evolution would serve no secular purpose. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

They wouldn't be banning evolution, per se. Each state has the right to create its own standard curricula. If they can choose to omit other topics because they simply believe they aren't important enough to merit time, they should be allowed to do the same with evolution for the same reason. The "secular purpose" would be that the legislators creating the state standards don't feel that evolution is important enough to merit any class time. The Supreme Court has held that banning evolution is unconstitutional; this would merely make it so that evolution isn't required. Teachers would still be allowed to teach evolution, provided they covered everything in the state curriculum first. --75.40.206.243 (talk) 22:58, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant, 'evolution' which is largely considered to be a relevant issue of education of the modern world could be de facto banned through sneaky arguments, sneaky methods, and sneaky rules-lawyering. I'm truly glad that I'm not a lawyer. Flamarande (talk) 23:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

It really wouldn't be banned, though. I think that in districts with large numbers of educated parents, parents would force the local board of education to mandate evolution in addition to the state standards. The main effect of such a move would probably be to further disadvantage students who live in districts with lower levels of education, who would then have trouble gaining admission to good universities. Such a move could well have this effect even on students from that state whose districts did teach evolution through guilt by association. This would rouse the state's elite to demand reinstatement of evolution into the state curriculum. As the case of Kansas demonstrates, attempts to discourage the teaching of evolution tend to lose out to educated parents' desire to safeguard their children's future. Even where it is outnumbered, the economic (and educational) elite tends to win out in our system of pay-to-play, for better or worse. Marco polo (talk) 00:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Only if you agree with 75's argument, which I don't buy. The ostensible purpose he listed would be laughed out of court by any judge, IMO. To some extent the OP is asking us to be a WP:CRYSTALBALL but I think it's reasonable to believe that the OP's strategy (and 75's) would fail when appealed to the federal court level. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What the questioner asks is exactly what the Kansas State Board of Education did when creationists got control over it in 1999. They de-emphasized evolution in the state science curriculum and removed it from standardized tests. The changes were reversed in 2001 after an election. See Creation and evolution in public education. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That change was never declared unconstitutional. It was merely reversed when the atheists took control of Kansas's educational system. --76.194.203.5 (talk) 02:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The "atheists took control of the Kansas's educational system"? How did they manage to do that? Flamarande (talk) 02:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That seems very unlikely. More likely it was taken over by Christians who aren't such fundamentalist extremists that they would be willing to sacrifice their children's education to make a political point. APL (talk) 04:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, last offer: no banning, no purging, no book burning. What about just "conveniently forgetting" the science-based answer to who we are, and why, and at the same time constantly chanting one randomly chosen religion-based answer? Would that work? DOR (HK) (talk) 02:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Unless it was the teachers doing that, it wouldn't make any difference at all, would it? Science teachers aren't likely to voluntary go against mainstream scientific opinion in large numbers. --Tango (talk) 04:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You can't give a religion-based answer. You can either give the science based answer, or, potentially no answer at all. (I buy Marco polo's argument, after thinking about it, that just leaving it off requirements would probably be able to squeak by). But the courts have made it pretty clear that a religious-based answer (whatever religion) is not going to fly. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

god

is god made of cells? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.161.249 (talk) 18:23, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

?DIVISION BY ZERO ERROR

READY. Tan | 39 18:34, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The trinity is indivisible. Or so it is asserted. Which implies to me that there aren't loads of separate cells. Or maybe the adhesion between the cells is very strong. How do you expect anyone to determine an answer? I only know you are composed of cells by assuming you are human and knowing all humans checked so far are composed of cells. Dmcq (talk) 20:25, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

For those who believe, God is not made of matter, but of ineffable spirit (not the stuff you drink). For those who don't believe, he doesn't exist at all. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You erroneously assert that Gods existence depends upon Man's belief. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 04:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah yes, ineffability. I'd been reading about inaccessible and ineffable cardinals but they seem distinctly non-religious :) (sorry an in-joke) Dmcq (talk)

The up-side of arguing he is made of cells is that he did, according to Genesis, make man in his image, so presumably there is some resemblance. But it does seem rather backwards to think of God having mitochondria, rather than being the maker of mitochondria. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but in his spiritual image. That's why it's often truly been said that we are not so much humans who sometimes have spiritual experiences, but spiritual beings who are currently having a human experience. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Yes. God is most definitely made of cells. "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us." (Of course, if you're not Mormon, results may vary.) --M@rēino 01:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the first point of clarification should be, "Which god?" DOR (HK) (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

As M wrote, you will have different answers from different religions. According to Judaism, and I guess that Islam accept it to at the least certain extent, God have no body image, it's not material and we can't imagine it. According to Christianity the answers are different, mostly.--Gilisa (talk) 07:56, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

DC Sniper's Execution

Minutes ago, the US Supreme Court denied request to stay his execution (tomorrow 9pm EST). He has no salvation right? --190.50.123.131 (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The governor can always pardon him or commute his death sentence to life imprisonment. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The article Salvation says under " What must we do to be saved?": "Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"[Acts 2:38] So salvation is still within his grasp. Edison (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

But since he is a Muslim he is probably more interested in what Allah has to say about it. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The original poster probably wasn't speaking about "salvation" from a spiritual perspective--just my reading, at least. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 02:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Salvation lies within" - Inscribed by the warden on a Bible which contained the rock hammer used to escape, in The Shawshank Redemption. StuRat (talk) 04:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this particular prisoner has had the time for that route. Googlemeister (talk) 14:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

TICAD

Since TICAD is a forum like FOCAC the title is the 4th time when is the last TICAD? Did all the leaders go or most of them i didn't see Robert Mugabe and Paul Biya. how long was the program? I wonder if Yasuo Fukuda have meet with any African first ladies?--209.129.85.4 (talk) 21:59, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

(1) Our article Tokyo International Conference on African Development says the conference is held every five years, and also specifies that TICAD III was held in 2003.

(2) That article also links you to the article TICAD-IV_Delegations, which lists the 40 heads of state who attended. (There are 53 countries in Africa so that's 75% attendance for the heads of state.) Neither Cameroon nor Zimbabwe are listed as participants.

(3) The official program (PDF file) was for a three-day conference starting with a reception the evening before, followed by two full nine-hour days and one half day.

(4) I can't answer this. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 00:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

crackdown on fakes

I read in a fashion magazine about this campaign called Fakes Are Never In Fashion. It must've inspired federal officials in New York City to conduct raids. I hope similar things are conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles County, Chicago, Miami, and many other big cities across the United States of America. What are officials all over the world doing about fakes?24.90.204.234 (talk) 23:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Why do you say "must've?" Depending on how they make 'em, fake products (bags, usually) aren't necessarily illegal, but the way they are sold is. There has actually been a fair amount of press about all the good fake purses do. A $300-$800 bag is only available to a limited market, and thus fakes aren't necessarily taking away business from the big companies. Fakes for 20 or 30 bucks a pop allow people to have the appearance of such a bag - think professionals or teenagers - without having to throw down all the cash. Moreover, the fakes increase the visibility of the product, and are essentially free advertising. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 23:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Intellectual property in the People's Republic of China might be of some interest here. China is one of the biggest producers of pirate material, both electronic and material, and it is of import to international politics how the issue is dealt with, because of the influence industry has on the politics of the most developed nations. Steewi (talk) 00:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

edited to fix wikilink Steewi (talk) 00:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, fakes do take away some of the exclusivity of the brands they are copying, and the idea of having something that most people don't have is presumably at least a part of the motivation for spending (as it seems to me) ludicrous amounts of money on these items. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Officials in many countries have for years, periodically raided counterfeiters. Perhaps the Fakes Are Never In Fashion campaign has sorta inspired these people to do what they already do, or inspired their paymasters to publicise some raid or other. The campaign itself appears to be a creation of Harper's Bazaar, spearheaded by their senior vice president & publisher, Valerie Salembrier. Lord knows what the deeper politics of it all are. Harper's Bazaar is owned by Hearst Communications. Harpers and other of their titles, such as Cosmopolitan, receive huge amounts of advertising from vendors of luxury goods; so perhaps it's some form of enlightened self interest. Or perhaps she's just genuinely really concerned. As she says, "Counterfeit goods fund child labor, terrorism and drug cartels" ... much the same schtick as we've heard from the RIAA and MPAA. One would think that drugs fund drug cartels, but who am I to doubt these things? And presumably not-fake stuff never funds child labour, by some miracle of the market. And one can well picture Osama, down the King's Road, trying to flog fake Gucci sunglasses to fund his holy war. Whilst one can have some sympathy for the rights of intellectual property holders, the whole shebang is really much more about shoring up the profits of LVMH than it is any concern about the supposed down-sides. And this takes us back to the bands of public officials, paid for by your taxes, who police the market in the interests of the profit of multinationals. So, bottom line: it is not clear cut to me that it is such a great thing to encourage more use of public funds for this purpose, when civil routes to protection of IP are available. </rant> --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

How about counterfeit pharmaceuticals? Do they qualify as fakes?24.90.204.234 (talk) 01:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

They do, if you like - Counterfeit medications. We also have counterfeit consumer goods, should you wish for any. Clearly some problems arising from some counterfeit drugs are of a different order than for a dodgy handbag. There's no limit to the ingenuity of fakers. --Tagishsimon (talk) 02:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I hope the computer industry is helping out with the crackdown on counterfeit software and equipment.24.90.204.234 (talk) 04:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

While I can imagine what counterfeit computer equipment would look like, I'm having more trouble grasping the concept of counterfeit software... On the one hand, if it is a straight out copy, then it's not counterfeit but piracy, on the other hand, if you talk about software that looks very much like other software, there's always the copyright law notion of "ideas can not be copyrighted" - i.e. Microsoft cannot sue OpenOffice, for instance, since they use the same idea for word processors and such. TomorrowTime (talk) 11:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What's counterfeit is the packaging—the CDs are printed to look like official Microsoft CDs, there's a fake certificate of authenticity, etc. -- BenRG (talk) 12:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Never came across one of those. TomorrowTime (talk) 06:39, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The software people have organisations such as the Federation Against Software Theft, which do what they can. I tend to think they're in the pockets of the larger IT companies, and that they may act against other legitimate IP interests. Once more I do not share your evident enthusiasm for crackdowns. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Some people from Hong Kong will use their fake LV handbag on regular occasions, leaving their real LV for formal events.F (talk) 03:30, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

November 10

Citizenship of the Queen

What is Queen Elizabeth II's citizenship? Obviously British, but she is the Queen of 14 other realms, officially head of state. So, for example, she is the Queen of Canada, a separate crown from that of Great Britain. Does she also hold that citizenship? 70.79.246.134 (talk) 05:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC) (edited to added the login of the asker Aaronite (talk) 03:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC))

Citizenship in the U.K. is related to the idea of being a British subject, quite literally it means "A subject of (subordinate of) the British Crown" and as such, the concept that the Queen would be a subject to herself is a patently silly idea. Furthermore, the concept of "official citizenship" is basically one of bureaucratic paper pushing; the sort of thing that commoners need to worry about, and not what the Monarch worries about. The queen is just the queen. She is both a sovereign (as a person) and sovereign (as a concept). In otherwords, at the theoretical level, the Queen is under the jurisdiction of no one except God; and as such needed worry about things like citizenship. In practical matters, Parliament rules the U.K. (and the various national assemblies likewise rule other Commonwealth realms). However, the "pomp and circumstance" surrounding the Government of the U.K. at least plays along with the idea that the Queen is the ultimate source of all sovereignty in the U.K. (with ideas like Her Majesty's Government, etc.) To sum up, she isn't the citizen of anywhere, because being a citizen would mean she denies her own sovereignty. --Jayron32 05:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Not so fast, there. As you'll see if you follow the link, the concept of "British subject" has been redefined several times and the term is now almost obsolete. Citizens of the UK are just citizens of the UK now, like the way it works in most countries. --Anonymous, 08:41 UTC, November 10, 2009.

I agree with Jayron - whatever the rules on UK Citizenship, they don't apply to the Queen. Alansplodge (talk) 09:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

And it's 15 other realms, btw. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Though I too agree with Jayron, I'd have to say that if you define "The British Crown" as meaning the whole system of monarchy, rather than simply the monarch, then you could argue that there is probably no-one who is more "subject of the British Crown" than HMTQ. Just about her every move is specifically part of the monarchic system. Grutness...wha? 10:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

www.royal.gov.uk describes the Queen as "a national of the United Kingdom" and "a citizen of the European Union". However, her position as Sovereign is obviously somewhat unique - she does not hold a passport, for example, and UK civil or criminal law proceedings cannot be taken against her in person. Interestingly, she is entitled to vote in both UK and European elections, although by tradition the Queen and members of the Royal Family do not exercise this right. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Do any heads of state, or even heads of government, have (or at least use) passports? I would expect they all travel on diplomatic papers. --Tango (talk) 15:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you mean by "diplomatic papers". There is such a thing as a diplomatic passport, but it is still a passport. All other members of the Royal Family apart from the Queen need passports. The US President has a passport [35]. I imagine it is only monarchs who don't need passports. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Heads of states normally travel on diplomatic passports. I'm not sure what the Queen does when she travels outside the Commonwealth. --Xuxl (talk) 16:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"When travelling overseas, The Queen does not require a British passport ... As a British passport is issued in the name of Her Majesty, it is unnecessary for The Queen to possess one. All other members of the Royal Family, including The Duke of Edinburgh and The Prince of Wales, have passports." www.royal.gov.uk Gandalf61 (talk) 16:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing here, but if her son and heir has a passport, it is probable that she also had a passport which has since expired. She wasn't always the queen. Flamarande (talk) 17:03, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Good point, and in fact she was outside the UK when she became Queen. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

However, the rules in 1952 may have been different. Did British subjects need passports to travel within the British Commonwealth then? I don't know. Oh, but she'd also been to the US while a princess. I guess she'd've needed a passport for that anyway. --Anonymous, 19:58 UTC, November 10, 2009.

In 1952, she wasn't in a dominion, but Kenya, then a British colony. Of course, the United States was neither. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Quick, someone try to abuse this loophole in the system by impersonating the Queen in order to travel abroad without a passport! Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Stranger things have happened... Flamarande (talk) 23:12, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Name one. --Tango (talk) 23:15, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

There's a legion of Lizzian look-alikes. However, for her to just turn up at an airport all by herself, carrying her own luggage, with no advance security and other arrangements having been made, and to stand in the queue like everyone else - that would be exceeding strange. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:11, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate the answers. They certainly help a bit, but would she also be considered a Canadian/Australian/Belize citizen)? Aaronite (talk) 03:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The whole point is, as sovereign, she doesn't worry about citizenship of any sort. Such matters are beneath her. It is quite possible that other commonwealth realms have granted her citizenship, or that she qualifies for citizenship under the rules of those nations, so the question could be answered on a techincal level by asking of each individual nation what their stance on her citizenship is. However, its a moot discussion because it has no practical bearing on how the British Monarch operates. --Jayron32 04:08, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Creeds

I've noticed that the Apostle's Creed describes Christ as "crucified, dead and buried", whereas the Nicene Creed merely says "he suffered and was buried". Is there any theogical significance in the Nicene Creed not specifically saying that he died? Has this ever been the matter of controversy or alternative views as to whether he did actually die on the cross? --rossb (talk) 12:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Our article Christology may be a good starting point for your research. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

No, that article doesn't seem to address this issue. --rossb (talk) 14:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That's really interesting. It seems clear in the Latin at least, although the ecumenical English translation widely used since the 70's has "he suffered death and was buried". Does anyone know if the word used in Greek means only 'suffered' or can also mean 'suffered (death)'? 86.142.224.71 (talk) 16:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

From English_versions_of_the_Nicene_Creed_in_current_use#1973_draft_for_an_ecumenical_version: ""He suffered death and was buried" (1975) replaced "he suffered, died, and was buried" (1973): "παθόντα" in Greek and "passus" in Latin are indicative of a suffering demise; but the 1973 draft inserted an extra verb, "died", not present in the original Greek or Latin." This suggests that the Greek and Latin verbs translated as 'suffered' indicate 'suffered (and died in this suffering)'. Obviously there is a lot of discussion about how best to exactly translate the Greek and Latin, but it looks like the Nicene creed doesn't necessarily leave out him dying. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 18:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about the Greek, but "passus" often does imply death; however it often does not, and anything can be suffered that way (hunger, some idiot bothering you, whatever). Of course, in this context it implies the Passion, which is derived from passus, and that certainly includes the death bit. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

In the Greek the word is παθόντα, which I understand is the aorist participle of πάσχω and means "having suffered". Like the Latin, I suspect it may or may not imply death. One wonders why the authors of the Creed didn't spell it out more explicitly. --62.49.68.79 (talk) 22:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I speak no Greek, but I wonder if the verb that is translated "rose again" necessarily implies death. It's an interesting question--I think there's more than enough evidence (NT, writings of church figures of the time, etc.) that the people composing the Creed didn't doubt Jesus' physical death, but the phrasing is odd. I'm suspecting, though, that "rose again" is a phrase that can only really refer to the reanimation of one who was dead. Jwrosenzweig (talk) 01:40, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Checking a couple of online dictionaries, including one that claims to translate Koine, it does not look as if the meaning of πάσχω entails or by itself implies death. It really seems to mean just "suffered". Marco polo (talk) 02:04, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Marco, either you mistyped that last word, or misunderstood my comment. I'm suggesting that the phrase after "he suffered [death] and was buried" -- that is, "on the third day he rose again, in accordance with the Scriptures" -- uses a phrase "rose again" which in English certainly seems to imply he was not merely someone who had suffered, but in fact someone who had died. What Greek word or words are being translated as "rose again"? And what did they mean in 3rd century Greek, as far as we can tell? 67.170.96.241 (talk) 07:42, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Another question about DC Sniper

The US Supreme Court denied request to stay his execution and now I read that Governor Tim Kaine has denied clemency. Is there any other way he could be saved now? --Maru-Spanish (talk) 17:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure. He could escape, or the governor could change his mind. I would say his chances are pretty low for either. Googlemeister (talk) 19:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that if he has a genuine medical emergency they would actually delay his execution until he was medically treated and was "well enough to be executed". I know, irony abounds. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

A team of vigilantes could stage a daring rescue. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, his attorneys could always file another emergency appeal with the US Supreme Court, or with the state appellate court, if, say, the attorneys found new evidence showing that he didn't get a fair trial. The likelihood of this is low at this point, of course, after the years of opportunity to find such new evidence. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Or, or... oh, nevermind. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, at this point, one could reanimate him. I don't know if the technology is availible yet. Plus, there's a good chance he could become a brain-eating zombie if we did... Still, its not much worse than what he was before... --Jayron32 04:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Resurrection Hospital might be useful. Edison (talk) 05:55, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

middle-eastern and white american interracial marriage

our artlce said other and white interracial is a huge gross amount. This makes sense. But which one is mor likely. For middle eastern dad to have white mom or other way around. The 2006 census said 32% of Hispanics go with white-american 18 is white male with hispanic mexican female, and 15% other way around.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 22:34, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Multiracial people make up only 2.4% of the U.S. population. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 02:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. Self-declared multiracial people only make up 2.4% of the US population. Googlemeister (talk) 14:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Wrong partially. I've known like 11 people who is black dad, white mom, two in my math class, 3 unknown people, one in my old middle school, few people in my high school. Of African American interracial I only know black dad with white mom, but I still never hear the other way around. let's see for Asians and white. One OCTA driver is Japanese male and he is marry to a white female, one in my middle school have like a Vietnamese dad, a white mom (last name is Tran), anohter one in High School (last name is Butte) have Chinese dad and a white mom, one in my nieghborhood is a Japanese dad, white mom, one last name of Gizara, and one Lee at old Chinese school have Chinese dad, and American white mom. But largely, I've known like 7 people with white male and asian female. I've known few middle eastern, hispanics males with white female.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 16:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Also Isn't middle eastern consider as a white? i thouhght black people is USA born, black people isn't neccessairly having descents from Africa.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 16:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

November 11

History of neutering

When did it become common and socially acceptable to neuter house pets? Looked at objectively, the idea that one would systematically remove an animals' male or female bits is a rather aggressive approach to population control. I would guess that it was uncommon before the advent of anesthesia and modern surgical techniques, while today it seems to be very common and widely accepted. (My perspective is American, if that makes a difference.) Dragons flight (talk) 01:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Neutering has been common on farms far longer than anesthesia has been available. Geldings, oxen, etc. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 02:25, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, neutering has been around for a while, but I would guess the incentive to neuter beasts of burden was somewhat different from the incentive to neuter pets. I also suspect that society in general may have been less concerned about preemptively controlling stray dogs and cats in the past, so it may not have been pushed as a systematic agenda like it is in many places today. Dragons flight (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Given that historically farms had bullocks, geldings and capons, I'd say neutering animals in generally has been socially acceptable for a long time. However, cats have historically been either pampered and kept separate, or viewed very cheaply such that drowning excess kittens was fairly common. It's generally much easier to neuter a male animal than a female one (given lack of anaesthesia and modern surgical techniques), and it is the owner of female dogs and cats who bears the cost of extra animals, so it's easy to see a situation with little incentive to go through a tricky procedure. I'd imagine the set-up with dogs is slightly different.

If you look at the article castration, you'll see that there are specific terms for all manner of commonly castrated (male) domestic animals, since it was common practice. Even in humans, you have eunuchs and castrati, with the last castrato only dying in 1922. However, it is questionable how socially acceptable these last were. 86.142.230.196 (talk) 02:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Eunuchs were used by (and often made for the purposes of) royal courts throughout the Old World for many centuries, and many post-Renaissance composers wrote music specifically for castrati. I'd say that they were socially acceptable. Nyttend (talk) 04:35, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

"I castrate my bulls by slamming two cinder blocks together on their balls."

"Geez ! Doesn't that hurt ?"

"No...only if you get your fingers stuck between the two blocks." StuRat (talk) 16:13, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Gastric pressure needed to vomit

I have been unable to discover the intra-abdominal pressure (mm/Hg) needed to eject the gastric contents from the gastrointestinal tract in human. Please quote authoritative source.72.75.122.122 (talk) 01:44, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you not read the responses the last time you asked this same question. I'm not sure that the data you seek has changed all that much in 3 weeks. --Jayron32 03:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Ha! Brilliant!! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 04:09, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Legality of To Catch a Predator

I have always had problems with this show, but when discussing it with my friends they never agree with me about this. I've had these problems:

1. The show never asked the subjects permission to film them, interview them and broadcast them on national television. He doesn't even admit that is what's going on at the beginning of the interview.

2. They kind of set up the subject by talking to him about sex and stuff on the chat room; the FBI agent had to say yes at some point in the conversation.

3. Chris Hansen always ends the conversation with "you're free to go", or something of the sort. Except they're not free to go, there's a bunch of police officers and stuff waiting right outside for them, and they get arrested immediately. It doesn't seem right that he can tell them they're free to go when he knows full well that they're not.

My friends say these points don't matter because they're child molesters, and so don't deserve any rights, but I thought everyone in America had privacy protection and protection from getting set up and lied to by the cops. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 04:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen that show but going from your description you might be asking about entrapment. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 04:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

As a note, that show really bothers me as well, so you aren't alone. Grsz¹¹ 04:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it a "reality show," staged by actors? If so, that would answer your questions: the entire program is a lie. See our article. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

In order to be entrapment, the show would have to plant the idea of the crime in the perpetrator's mind. In other words, it isn't entrapment to merely "go along" with someone until they commit a crime they already were going to commit, it would have to be the show that propositioned the perpetrator. The show is careful not to do that. Those posing as underage children merely passively wait to be propositioned for sex, and accept the proprosition. --Jayron32 05:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I see your logic for #2. I guess it's okay in that regard. What about points 1 and 3? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 05:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

There is certainly an ethical problem with "to catch a predator". In a sense it's very much like provoking a Pit Bull intently to lead him to bite and then to define it as a dangerous dog and to put it to sleep. It's true that these people are somehow on the border, but it mean nothing about their being dangerous because dangerous pedophile will initiate sexual relationship even outside the internet, many times using force or seductive means, with childrens much under 16 (actually, the DSM definition for pedophiles, if I remember correctly, is attraction for childrens under 12 and without sexual features that usually distinguish male from female)and his urges are typically uncontrollable. Here they produce a very artificial situation: underage teenager is being left alone at home, she is interested in sexual relationship with a much older man and etc. They traped these people with a fantasy they dragged them into. This is not real situation and the way to keep this danger far from childrens is by monitoring chat rooms and not by deliberately hunting and destroying in a wave of the hand the life of people for a fututre crime they yet didn't commite in the scene of the crime they were cast in just for the rating. I think that this phenomenone is much more dangerous than those people themselves.--Gilisa (talk) 06:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no legal implication for #3—telling someone they can go (as far as you are concerned) when you know that a cop is outside to arrest them does not break any laws whatsoever. You can lie all you want to people, casually. There are only a few situations (relating to fraud and perjury) when lying to someone carries legal implications. As for #2, I think they ride a pretty fine line close to entrapment, but don't cross it. As for #1, I am sure their lawyers have hashed over the permissions question fairly carefully, since the entire thing hinges on that. My understanding is that US law is somewhat weak in this respect (privacy, exposure, etc.) and that the copious permissions forms usually used are just overkill to avoid any possibility of lawsuits, not that they are necessary to win lawsuits. You can get more information about privacy law in the US at Privacy laws of the United States—being exposed for committing a crime is probably not a violation of privacy, but if the shows air before someone is convicted, that seems like it would open the network up to False light problems. But again, I ain't no lawyer, and I know they do have fleets of lawyers. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Based on TV, it even seems, in the US, at least, that cops can lie directly to the suspect, and often do. For example, they will say "your buddy has agreed to take a plea bargain and testify against you, but we really want to get him, not you, so this is your last chance to take the plea and testify against him, instead". I've only seen this on TV, and hope that a lawyer can explain that this isn't actually the case. This type of thing certainly seems like it should be illegal to me, as it might cause an innocent person to agree to plead guilty and also calls into question why anyone would believe anything a police officer tells them. StuRat (talk) 16:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting geography question

I am looking for the name of a slice of land (nearly 4,000,000 sq km) contains over 75% of a political entity's population, yet only 25% of its territory.

Apprecaite any help.

I tried to figure out variuos combinations but could not succeed.

Obviusly the total area of the political entity (may be a country or state etc) is close to 16,000,000 sq km. Only China matches this size. It could be one of the cities in China —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.12.38.92 (talk) 04:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

European Russia is what you seek. Roughly 1/4th of Russia's area and 3/4ths of Russia's population. I spent a long time digging through various official Subdivisions of Russia, but none was nearly large enough or populous enough. --Jayron32 05:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

If you ignore the size of the slice, Japan also fits into this - I seem to recall reading that 80% of its population lives on 20% of the land - in the shore belt you can draw from Tokyo across Aichi and Osaka to Kitakyushu. TomorrowTime (talk) 06:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Alaska? --Thomprod (talk) 11:29, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of a US border. Not sure if that total is 25% of the country or not. Googlemeister (talk) 14:26, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The Indian subcontinent has more than 75% of the population of the Commonwealth of Nations population in under 25% of its territory (just over 4M square kilometres). Warofdreams talk 14:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Jayron is right, it's European Russia. China and Canada are each less than 10 million square kilometers. Only Russia comes close to being large enough, and it also matches all the other parts of the Q. StuRat (talk) 15:56, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Another tantalizing geography question

Which is the highway of sorts (may be waterway or seaway or similar one) which is named for a major religious figure (some thing like santa or saint or st) and it has a namesake in one of the African countries ( Kenya, South africa, Angola, Congo, Nigeria , Liberia or Cape Verde) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.12.38.92 (talk) 04:43, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The only african nation named for a major religious figure I can think of is São Tomé and Príncipe named, in part, for St. Thomas. That may give you a start. --Jayron32 05:33, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the OP's asking about a passageway of sorts, not the name of a country. Sort of like if Nile was called "St. Nicholas' pass" or something. TomorrowTime (talk) 06:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

If it's a saint, a likely guess might be a patron saint of travellers or sailors. Saint Christopher is the patron saint of travellers. Maybe it's him? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

And St. Nicholas is the patron saint of boatmen, which is why I used him in the example :) TomorrowTime (talk) 10:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I suspected as much. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 10:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

One more challenging Geography teaser

1.It is Frequently plagued by pirates and 2 somewhat difficult to navigate because of its depth 3 it conveniently connects two of the planet's oceans, 4 and through it a huge percentage of the world's oil is transported on a daily basis

Which fits the above criteria??

I am looking at straits/channles/canals since these water bodies connect Oceans. But I am not able to zero on any since I am not able to verify with resources like wikipedia

I would appreciate any help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.12.38.92 (talk) 11:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Panama Canal. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:58, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The Panama Canal connects 2 of the world's oceans, is difficult to navigate due to depth - not sure if it has piracy problems but then it wouldn't be hugely surprising - it's a place where bilions of dollars worth of cargo goes through every year so would be a prime sport for would-be pirates to try their hand. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It's a big shipping route, including by Saudi Arabia, and plagued by pirates from Somalia. With the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, they connect the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. I have no idea about #2. Rckrone (talk) 13:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think the Suez Canal is probably more likely than the Panama Canal, even though it is deeper (it is still too shallow for many supertankers). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:00, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I personally think that it is the Strait of Malacca in Indonesia. Googlemeister (talk) 14:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's the Strait of Malacca. The nations of Panama and Egypt have very tight control over who enters their respective canals. Indonesia is not capable of doing the same for Malacca, because Malacca is international waters (it also borders Malaysia and Singapore). Go read Piracy in the Strait of Malacca if you want to learn more. --M@rēino 15:07, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

If you illegally copy a CD on a cruise ship, are you guilty of "piracy on the high seas" ? :-) StuRat (talk) 15:48, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

That's a subject that's difficult to navigate because of it's depth. Fribbler (talk) 16:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I was trying to come up with a torrent pun but I couldn't come up with anything clever enough for me to be happy with. —Akrabbim ^talk 16:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Most comprehensive search engine for second-hand books in the UK?

I want to look up and buy some second-hand books in the UK. What is the most comprensive website for doing this? I am aware of Alibris and Abebooks. I seem to remember some website that combines both of these. Does anyone know any more about this please? 78.149.246.109 (talk) 12:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I have found http://used.addall.com/ which I now remember and which appears to be relevant to the UK but I'd be interested to hear of any more. What would be great would be something that combined this with Amazon and eBay etc. 78.149.246.109 (talk) 12:53, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I use BookFinder, which aggregates the listings of a number of sellers and listing services, including Alibris, AbeBooks, Amazon, and eBay—click on "Our booksellers" at the bottom of the page for a full list. (This is not an advertisement, and I have no connection with the site.) You can set your search parameters with "United Kingdom" as the destination and "British Pound" as the currency displayed for prices. Deor (talk) 14:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

When did the changes in pre-trial Small Claims Court procedure in England and Wales come into effect?

I understand that to recover a debt you are now expected to go through an exact pre-trial procedure. Does anyone know when this came into effect please? I am trying to find books that will be relevant to the current proceedures, so ones published before this date will not be relevant. Thanks 78.149.246.109 (talk) 13:31, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know when it came into effect, but can point you to guaranteed up-to-date documentation. The CAB advisernet says "The protocols require each party to provide specific information to the other. The nature and subject of this information varies between the protocols, but in general the claimant is expected to set out a clear summary of the facts and the defendant is expected to state if s/he accepts or denies liability within a set time period. Details of the protocols are contained in the Civil Procedure Rules and may be viewed on the Ministry of Justice website at www.justice.gov.uk.". That website has a PDF of "Practice Direction - Pre-Action Conduct" which I would suggest should be what you need. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Place in Lincolnshire, name of Tid

The Dictionary of National Biography entry for Gerard de Camville has him "measuring the marsh between Spalding and Tid in Lincolnshire". Is there any evidence of such a place as Tid, or has someone simply misread the word tide (however it was spelt at the time). Jan1naD ^{(talk • contrib)} 17:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

You might want to expand your search into alternate spellings, for instance - Tydd railway station used to serve many villages called Tydd- in Lincolnshire. Nanonic (talk) 17:42, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Hitler

Someone in my class claimed that Hitler was a Socialist, and that therefore all Democrats are neo-Nazis. Ignoring the glaring logical errors, I have one question: Was Hitler a Socialist? ----J4\/4 <talk> 17:17, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Nazi comes from National Socialist German Workers' Party, so basically yes. (One could argue over whether Hitler was actually socialist, especially towards the end, but that was his party association.) Dragons flight (talk) 17:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

That's highly misleading. The "national socialist" in the Nazi Party's name comes from the right-wing nationalist ideology of Austrian National Socialism, although the use of this name was initially opposed by Hitler. While there were a few points in the party's first programme, copied from the Austrian group, which have origins in socialism, these were de-emphasised, and they are far outnumbered by nationalism and conservatism. To give an example of the Nazi's attitude to socialism, both communists and social democrats were imprisoned in concentration camps. It's not for nothing that socialism is placed on the left of the political spectrum and fascism on the far right. Warofdreams talk 17:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The early history of the Volkswagen is sometimes mentioned in this context. It was to be a nice affordable, government sponsored car that almost any German worker could afford. That's a pretty socialist thing to do. Of course, they never really delivered any of those cars (except a few photo-ops) before they switched the factory over to making tanks. I don't know if historians interpret this as an honest socialist effort that was ruined by the war, or as a Trojan horse from the very beginning. 72.10.110.109 (talk) 17:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Refusing to testify in death penalty cases

If I witnessed someone commit a capital offense, would it be legal for me to refuse to testify due to the fact that I oppose the death penalty? If not, and I were fined or imprisoned for contempt of court, and I still refused to testify, and my testimony were vital to the prosecution's case, could the person still be convicted on the grounds that I wouldn't refuse to testify if the suspect weren't guilty? (Note: This question is purely hypothetical.)

Also, is contempt of court a felony or misdemeanor? ----J4\/4 <talk> 17:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Refusal to testify could be deemed obstruction of justice, and you might find yourself on trial. Googlemeister (talk) 17:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

The separation of church and state

What are the laws pertaining to the separation of church and state; or more specifically; what are the right of a religious orginization to lobby, petition, or otherwise try to influence state or federal lawmakers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danpoehls (talk • contribs) 17:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)