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November 27

Muslims and Homosexuality

Are there known Muslims who have supported, or at least, been more open-minded toward homosexuals?. Or Muslim politicians, actors, footballers, don't know... --190.50.81.193 (talk) 02:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't this question show up recently on one of the ref desks? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the articles

Irshad Manji? Adam Bishop (talk) 04:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See also LGBT topics and Islam, especially the oddly named Homosexuality_in_Islam#LGBT_movements_within_Muslims. It also has a section called "people", which lists a dozen or so: Afdhere Jama, editor of Huriyah; Irshad Manji, Canadian lesbian and human rights activist; El-Farouk Khaki, founder of Salaam, the first queer Muslim group in Canada; Arsham Parsi, Iranian LGBT activist; Maryam Hatoon Molkara, campaigner of transsexual rights in Iran; Faisal Alam, Pakistani American LGBT activist and founder of Al-Fatiha Foundation; Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni; Malik Ayaz; Pav Akhtar; Usman Sani; Waheed Alli, Baron Alli, British gay politician; Yusuf Kabir; Enchant of Hope; Abdellah Taia, writer.

Perhaps there may be useful links within Human rights in Islamic countries. Imaan is the UK equivalent of Al-Fatiha. BrainyBabe (talk) 06:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, from a more traditional historical religious point of view, Mukhannathun has a lot of references to interesting early Hadith (though a "Mukhannath" in early Islam is not precisely equivalent to a gay man in modern western societies). AnonMoos (talk) 09:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi is in favour of Civil Partnerships for gay couples, as stated on Question Time. Sam 16:01, 28 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs)

I would suppose modern, secularized Muslims are generally as open-minded towards homosexuals as are modern, secularized Christians. E.G. (talk) 19:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a reference for that assertion? BrainyBabe (talk) 22:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the burden on proof would be on the counter-claim. Unless there is some reason for Muslims to have different views on homosexuality than Christians, we should assume they don't. --Tango (talk) 22:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The key word is "secularized." People who follow Abrahamaic religions, but are primarily secular in behavior, are often more tolerant of LGBT issues. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Difference between personal per capita income and per capita income

The article States of the United States of America by income has separate lists for "States ranked by personal per capita income" and "States ranked by per capita income". But personal per capita income redirects to per capita income, and that article doesn't mention the term. What's the difference? — Sebastian 05:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Per capita means per person, so "personal per capita" is redundent: there is no difference. However, be careful what you're using it for, as income isn't the same as disposable income or actual private consumption. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

UK law/crime question

I was discussing crime earlier with some friends, and a thought was raised, if a person with no prior record(meaning no fingerprints/dna/etc on the police database) in Britain committed a crime and was caught and they refused to say their name, or anything at all, would the police be able to find out who they are? If they couldn't, would that mean they wouldn't be able to charge them with anything? Thanks--86.189.5.207 (talk) 06:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This scenario has been played out a number of times on The Bill and other cop shows, where they always end up identifying the person. In real life, there are cases where the person has remained unidentified for a long time, possibly forever. As for whether an unidentified person can be charged, I don't know. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:49, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The person would have to also have nothing on them that could link them to an address or other person, either of which would identify them. Given that people are typically arrested at a time not of their choosing, it is rare I would assume for this to occur. It's a fair thought though. Prokhorovka (talk) 13:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you need to establish the identity if you can establish that he or she did the crime. You can serve them in person. And especially in Britain the Queen can probably do you in personally with one of her theoretical reserve powers if needed ;-).--Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:33, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the Queen visited me personally to do it, that would be worth committing a minor crime to meet her! Prokhorovka (talk) 14:09, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

She has servants to do that (called "The Police"). Being in prison in the UK is sometimes referred to as being "a guest of Her Majesty". Oscar Wilde said that if that was how she treated her guests, she had no right to have any. Alansplodge (talk) 14:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can of course be detained 'At Her Majesty's Pleasure' although I don't think that would happen for refusing to identify yourself Nil Einne (talk) 08:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The far more common scenario is where the criminal has a false identity, and they stick with it. This means their other identities (and any crimes committed under them) are not found. While less likely to work with computer fingerprint comparison, DNA, and facial recognition, this still happens surprisingly often (because data isn't shared between agencies, errors were made when taking samples, the old crimes were from before such samples were taken or added to the database, etc.). I disagree with the earlier statement that, since criminals are arrested when they aren't expecting it, they are likely to have identifying documents on them. They just don't carry such documents, and any they do carry refer to a false identity (maybe stolen from somebody else or maybe made up). StuRat (talk) 14:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the police can't identify someone they take a photo of them and send it around various agencies, take it round the local area showing people, give it to the media to distribute, etc. Usually somebody will recognise the person. --Tango (talk) 19:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Like the famous 2005 "Sheppey Piano Man"[1]; although they didn't want to charge him, just find someone to take him off their hands! Alansplodge (talk) 20:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As others have stated they may not need to identify you if they already have sufficient evidence you commited a crime. They may just charge you as John or Jane Doe. But identifying you may be useful e.g. to find out if you have other criminal convictions, are in the UK legally and if you really refuse to identify yourself why you are refusing. As has also been stated they will probably attempt to identify you via other means. Note that they can arrest you if they suspect you've commited a crime (or are about to commit one etc) and you refuse to provide an identity [2]. This outlines what they may do (take photos etc) if you don't identify yourself [3].

Note also that in certain circumstances, e.g. when they believe you've commited anti social behaviour [4] and a bunch of other stuff possibly depending on where you live (I mean beyond England & Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) [5] [6] they have the power to compel you to provide a name and address (meaning if you don't you'll be fined). This primarily refers to police community support officers and in cases that have been designated, my guess is that normal police officers have this right to without it having to be designated but I don't really know. In any case, it highlights the fact that committing a minor offence to see what happens is going to be a bad idea, not only are you likely to be charged with whatever offence, you'll probably get another fine for refusing to identify yourself. (And going to court has a number of bad effects, e.g. you'll likely have to report this whenever you visit another country and need to be interviewed etc and may be even denied entry, even if normally entilted to a visa on arrival.)

There may also be other things they could charge you with, e.g. hindering a police investigation but I'm not really sure about that since you do have a right to silence and in fact in a number of discussions about the "power to require name and address" I've seen it mentioned that the section may be regarded as going against the right to silence (and perhaps right to privacy) but it's considered necessary and proportionate e.g. [7] which suggests to me unless it's specificically outlined in law it won't be an offence.

Also as anyone who's ever watched a British police show will know while you do a have a right to silence, not saying something can have an effect on your defence in England & Wales as juries are allowed to draw inferences [8] [9] (also see the previous wikilink) although they can't convict you solely on your silence and I don't think it would be particularly common that refusing to identify yourself is likely to harm you defence (since AFAIK like here in NZ and a number of other commonwealth countries, it's rare that previous offences may be presented to juries therefore it's not going to be common that refusing to identify yourself can result in any negative inferences). I guess if you really never identified yourself and they never found out then it may count against you, e.g. they may say you're afraid they will find further evidence against you if they know who you are. Finally it's possible that you could be guilty of contempt of court if the court compels you to identify yourself and you don't, but again I don't really know if they could, since it may go against your right to silence. I'm presuming of course there isn't anything specific set out which allows them to do so, I haven't found any besides the power to compel which only results in a fine (well of what I've seen so far, there could be harsher penalties in some cases).

P.S. If we're wrong about them being able to charge you without identifying you, then the situation is likely to be quite different and I doubt holding you for contempt of court would be a problem.

P.P.S. It's possible that this issue has just never really came up in court, because few people try it, and of those that have they've been identified through some other means. As StuRat says, the greater risk is probably people providing a false identity. If you don't identify yourself, police know they need to try and find out who you are and probably eventually succeed. If you say you are StuRat when you are actually JackOfOz then they may just accept you are StuRat.

Nil Einne (talk) 08:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have an interest in this field, what is it called?

It includes things like the cultures of different communities, how communities and cultures develop over time, how people are influenced by their cultures/communities (as part of their identity) and interaction between communities. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.12.234 (talk) 10:45, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anthropology and/or Sociology? AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:48, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Human geography TheFutureAwaits (talk) 12:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Social capital covers part of this. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:56, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As does Psychogeography - the first two answers cover the field more thoroughly, though. Grutness...wha? 23:46, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Psychogeography is not a field, it's a joke.—eric 02:37, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Social anthropology which is a sub-field of anthropology.
Sleigh (talk) 13:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hungarian Forint Certificates?

~15 years ago, I was in Hungary and a friend was exchanging *a lot* of money. If I remember correctly,the banknotes he got were large, cardboard certificates. I don't know which currencies he was exchanging - I would think that he was converting USD to Forint, but I can't find any reference to large FT currency certificates. Perhaps Kroners? This was probably before the "new" forint started circulating (what we used to call the "communist" Forint - don't know) if that helps. Any ideas what those certificates could have been? Tewner (talk) 11:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

psychology question

at exactly 1:00 into this video I don't understand why Aldrin doesn't just put his hand on the bible, which is held out nonthreateningly (with the person's other hand in his pocket) and say "I swear I walked on the moon". That's what I would have done, followed by: "now will you get away from me". Instead, it looks to me like he spent just a split second thinking about it, and decided, no, he wouldn't do that. I don't really understand why not. I mean, I know I wouldn't swear on the bible for things that aren't true, but for things that are? It just seems like, in economic terms, the marginal cost of sticking his hand out and putting it on the bible and saying he swears he walked on the moon is just much smaller than continuing the incident. I don't understand why it went down the way it did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.230.68.102 (talk) 16:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

also, more evidence of the split-second thinking about it is that he got really riled up by being called a coward (punched someone on camera), at the end of the video. For me, it would rile me up much more to be called a coward after I thought about doing something and decided not to, then at a random time. Is this a correct psychological analysis?

Note: all of the above questions are psychological ones. 92.230.68.102 (talk) 16:28, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe what he experienced at that moment was a disconnect between religion and science and it made him pause to think for a moment. And also why should he comply with anyone accosting him? Bus stop (talk) 16:31, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

that's a good, plausible reason for the pause. Any other ones people can suggest? As for your second question: becfause it's easier, faster, etc. There's just a small incremental (marginal) cost in that situation. 92.230.68.102 (talk) 16:41, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why on earth should he? Just to please some nutjob? Is this a troll? --TammyMoet (talk) 16:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The video shows him being harrassed, chased and his path blocked. The only sensible thing to do is get away, which he tried to do in several switches of direction. Your question is backwards, I think. What possible reason could the harrasser have for expecting anyone so approached (from behind, unawares) to react positively to his "request"? Thrusting something at anyone, even if you claim it is a Bible, is a bad idea if what you want is co-operation. Bielle (talk) 16:52, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If he did swear on the Bible, the guy would still wouldn't have believed him. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ha, that's hilarious. Unsurprisingly, Neil Armstrong refused as well. Bart Sibrel#Dealings with Apollo astronauts has more information. Astronaut (talk) 18:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The man has harassed Aldrin in front of his family, called him a liar and a thief, tried to interfere with what he is doing. The pause was probably to take a deep breath and calm down. He has every right to be extremely annoyed - I think Aldrin shows remarkable restraint throughout the whole thing. DJ Clayworth (talk) 01:55, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen the whole movie? It's one hour consisting mainly of this guy harassing elderly gentlemen who happen to be ex-astronauts. And the moment in the video is not the first time he had harassed Aldrin, either. My guess, Aldrin just got really, really, really fed up with Sibrel, and the last thing on his mind was fulfilling some whim of his, no matter how brief a time it would take, and be it connected to the Bible or not. --TomorrowTime (talk) 18:41, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The more important and interesting question, to me, is what makes Bart Sibrel do this? Bus stop (talk) 18:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One of these days, Bart, pow! straight to the moon! --TomorrowTime (talk) 18:55, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not allowed to provide medical diagnoses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

Good punch. Why couldn't that policeman get rid of the nutter instead of letting him go on with his harassment? Dmcq (talk) 23:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's not a policeman, I think it's just the hotel bellboy or doorman or something. He does say: "This is a hotel, you cannot solicit on this property." --TomorrowTime (talk) 11:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised to learn that Buzz Aldrin is actually quite religious - see the last paragraph in Buzz Aldrin#NASA career. Astronaut (talk) 02:06, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Religious people can also get narked by people calling them liars and thieves and cowards and generally harassing them. Is it the bit about being an elder? I suppose there is something there but the presbyterian church never struck me as one to turn the other cheek. Dmcq (talk) 11:14, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some people would find it offensive to their religious beliefs to use the Bible in such a trivial way.There are admonissions in it about how you swear oaths and what you swear them on..hotclaws 00:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith, to which all stripes of Presbyterians have historically held, opposes the use of an oath in a situation such as this. Nyttend (talk) 06:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quakers (members of the Religious Society of Friends) and other denominations that began as radical dissenters often refuse to take any secular oaths, which is why "[solemn] affirmation" is an alternative accepted in the Constitution for things like officers' oaths of allegiance in Article Six, presidential inaugurations (Article Two, section 1) and the declaration required for a search warrant under the Fourth Amendment. The Biblical basis for such opposition to oaths is in Jesus' new commandment in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:33-37:

33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
34 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne:
35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

—— Shakescene (talk) 22:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aldrin (and the other Apollo astronauts) have been harrassed their whole lives by people like Sibrel. Do you really think Sibrel, or any other hoax-believer, would be mollified by a swear on a Bible? They've been accusing these astronauts of lying for decades. Swearing on the Bible won't do anything to help, and Sibrel knew that. This was just confrontation for the sake of making money on Sibrel's part. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

He was probably hoping to add perjury and blasphemy to the list. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Port city moved to another country

which are port cities which moved to another country during course of historyfor various reasons or for that matter list of cities which belonged to different countries at different points of time

a wikipedia entry compiling them may be of help to researchers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.77.148 (talk) 18:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At least in Europe and until WWII, borders were never very stable, so if you pick almost any city comparatively close to a border, chances are it has changed countries in the past. You should also bear in mind that "countries" as we know them now are a relatively recent development. Perhaps the best known port city to change hands is Gdansk, though. There are more, though, like Trieste, for instance --TomorrowTime (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Others that come to mind include Vyborg and Pechenga (both formerly Finnish; Pechenga isn't much of a port, though) and Kaliningrad (formerly German), all taken by the USSR during WW2 and kept afterwards; Nice, ceded to France by Italy in 1860; and Antofagasta, Iquique, and Arica, all taken by Chile in the late 19th century from Bolivia (and Arica was also in Peru before that). Of course, these examples refer to cities or districts that have changed hands between already existing independent countries. Cases where a newly created country contains a port city, or where colonies of one country change hands to belong to another, are (I think) far too numerous to be interesting to list. --Anonymous, 22:27 UTC, November 27, 2009.

Indeed so - Colón, Dili, Tel Aviv, Karachi, Chittagong, Singapore, Riga... not to mention all those cities which used to be city states - Venice, Hamburg, and the like. Another that's been missed between two existing cities is Walvis Bay - and, of course, there's both Hong Kong and Macau. Grutness...wha? 23:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So lemme get this right: by saying "indeed so" you are agreeing that it's not interesting to list them, and then you're doing it? --Anon, 00:52 UTC, Nov. 28.

'm saying indeed so to the idea that there are a lot of them, and them listing half a dozen or so easy examples followed by ellipsis to indicate that the list is a long one. I'm then getting onto more relevant material with one that changed hands between already-existing countries. Grutness...wha? 23:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And many formerly-dependent but now-independent countries with long coastlines, for starters: South Africa, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Norway, Iceland, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh (Dhaka), Chile, Mexico, Peru, Kenya (Mombasa), Ireland (Dublin, Cork), the United States of America, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Finland, the Baltic States, .... —— Shakescene (talk) 02:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dalian, aka Dairen aka Port Arthur has changed hands many times; see First Sino-Japanese War and Treaty of Shimonoseki, Russo-Japanese War and Treaty of Portsmouth... --Jayron32 04:29, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the most-noted loss of an English port was that of Calais in 1558, after England's unsuccessful involvement in Continental wars as a result of the Spanish King Philip II's marriage to Queen Mary I Tudor (one of a number of such unfortunate continental entanglements brought by royal marriages and inheritances, e.g. William and Mary's.) Mary I (1553-1558) said that when she died, "Calais" would be engraved on her heart. This loss of England's last Continental port was later balanced by the winning of another seaport, Gibraltar, in the Treaty of Utrecht (1714) after a more successful war on the Continent. ¶ Portugal's overseas empire consisted of a string of seaports around the world which later changed hands (often to the Dutch), including Cape Town, Macau, Goa, Damao, Colombo, Malacca and Dili (Portuguese Timor, now East Timor). France kept a few Indian enclaves (after losing Indiad and and Canada to Britain in the Seven Years War of 1756-63), such as Pondicherry and Chandigarh. Both the Portuguese and French enclaves were later absorbed into the Republic of India.—— Shakescene (talk) 05:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's Berwick-upon-Tweed, at one time responsible for a quarter of all Scotland's customs revenues, which changed hands between Scotland and England at least 13 times between 1147 and 1482. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 10:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Every port city in Finland, since Finland was part of Sweden until 1809, then ceded to Russia and then independent from 1917 onwards. Most port cities along the southern and western shores of Sweden and on Gotland, becuase those areas used to belong to Denmark and Norway until the 17th Century. Every port city on the eastern and southern side of the Baltic, because Estonia, Latvia, Livonia and Poland has been parts of other realms for long times and Germany used to be many states (Prussia, Mecklenburg, Holstein, the free cities of Hamburg and Lübeck). Every port city on the Mediterranean, becuase the realms have changed there many times since before Christ. Probably every port city on the shores of Africa, since most of them were founded before the present countries gained independence during the second half of the last century. We can go on... a list of ports which have never changed hands would be much shorter. E.G. (talk) 19:14, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Women liberation reform of Peter the great

When Peter the Great modernized Russia, it must have meant great changes for women. Russian noblewomen, I believe, were confined to their homes quite like muslim women and forced to vear veils. Peter forced the noblemen to take their wives to court, dance with them and sit at the table with them openly. Exactly when did these reformes occur?--85.226.46.84 (talk) 18:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reforms of Peter I of Russia gives a date, 1702.--Wetman (talk) 00:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Can you or some one else tell me: when was the first ball held at court, and the first banquet with both genders? Was it the same year, 1702? --85.226.46.84 (talk) 16:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Magnesia

In this article it gives a breakdown of military groups under Background. Is there a good online reference of this, like from Plutarch or the like? Would like to get further on the two phalanxes and the 16,000 "semi-professional" military settlers giving as total apparently around 25,000 to 26,000 men. Is there further reference on the 1,200 steppe-nomad horse-archers? Also reference for Antiochus also arrayed scythed chariots? And an online reference (Livy perhaps) where Antiochus also had 6,000 heavy cataphract cavalry. Is there an online reference of Antiochus III the Great being called "Basileus Megas"? Thanks. 64.138.237.101 (talk) 20:03, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Livy XXXVII.39-40.—eric 01:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Appian 11.31-32.—eric 02:05, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't find any online references for 'Basileus Megas', but apparently Ma, John. (1999). Antiochus III and the cities of Western Asia Minor. pp. 272-6. OCLC 41137527. concludes he was 'Great' after 205 and 'Great King' after 200.—eric 02:29, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks eric, appreciate your great answers. --64.138.237.101 (talk) 12:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

November 28

The First Indo-European Tribe in Europe

The Sami people and Basque people are the indigenous people of Europe, but they are not Indo-Europeans. What the first Indo-European tribe to arrive in Europe and made settlement? 174.114.236.41 (talk) 03:39, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be hard to say, but the article Indo-European languages indicates that the oldest attested group of Indo-European languages is the Anatolian languages of which the Hittites were speakers, as early as the 16th century BC. The Hittites never ruled Europe proper, but did control most of Asia Minor and so were close, and likely had a large influence over much of southeastern Europe. As far as truly, honest-to-goodness state societies in Europe which were unambiguously Indo-European in nature, then Mycenaean Greece or the Minoan civilization may be another call. The Myceneans were unambiguously Indo-European, but the Minoans spoke an apparently unrelated language. --Jayron32 04:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It all depends on the question of the "PIE homeland". For the last 20 years or so, the biologist Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and archaeologist Colin Renfrew have advocated an Anatolian center from which the Indo-European languages dispersed, and this hypothesis has received a lot of press coverage. However, actual linguists tend to favor a center from which the Indo-European languages dispersed located in southern Russia and eastern Ukraine (east of the Dnieper). In this case, Indo-European would have been geographically European as far back as we can trace back its origins, since the PIE homeland would have been west of the Ural mountains and north of the Caucasus mountains... AnonMoos (talk) 18:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tartars of the Rhyn-Sands steppe (Nikolai Leskov)

In a central episode of Nikolai Leskov's 1873 novella The Enchanted Wanderer, the Russian protagonist spends ten years with Tartars living on a distant steppe "somewhere near the Caspian Sea" in an area he calls the "Rhyn-Sands." The author attributes to them various characteristics (e.g. non-Christian, polygynist, avid horsemen) and certain behaviors and practices (e.g. they remain in their tents during periods of hot weather). Who might these people be and where is their homeland? -- Deborahjay (talk) 11:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some preliminary information: This refers to the Рынь-пески (Ryn Sands), now in Kazakhstan and known as Naryn Qum in the Kazakh language. They are at about 48.5 degrees N, 49.5 degrees E. --Cam (talk) 16:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On looking further, I see that we have an article about it: Ryn Desert. --Cam (talk) 16:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...wherein is stated, inter alia: "Temperatures can reach extreme highs of 45°C to 48°C during summer..." ! -- Deborahjay (talk) 16:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why do so many names of British branded medicinal products begin with the prefix "ben-"?

E.g. benadryl, benylin.--Damriteido (talk) 16:17, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to this page Greek and Latin roots in English, ben is a latin root that means good.

benadryl = goodadryl

Pollinosisss (talk) 17:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The famous tower clockwork, then, must mean Big Good [or maybe Big Well - see below]. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

:)Since it's taken from the name of Sir Benjamin Hall (IIRC), it actually could be translated from Hebrew as "Son of Big"! :) Grutness...wha? 23:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, the "ben" would have to come first... AnonMoos (talk) 05:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Benjamin" is an anglicisation of a Hebrew term that translates to "son of my right hand". Nyttend (talk) 06:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the Semitic "construct state" or "idafa" noun-compound construction, the possessor has to come second and the possessed first. So "Big Ben" could not mean "son of Big"... AnonMoos (talk) 06:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All right - "Big son" then. Sigh - doesn't anyone notice smileys any more? I'll add another one just in case. Grutness...wha? 22:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the Latin language, the root is most often "bon-", while "bene" is a special adverb form. AnonMoos (talk) 17:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's often used to mean "well", as in nota bene (note well), and maybe "well" is what the manufacturers are trying to convey ("well" vs. "sick"). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:52, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Latin, bene means "well" in the adverbial sense, as in "Well done!", but it doesn't really mean "healthy" (except indirectly when it was used in certain phrases equivalent to "It is well with me" etc., though it's still an adverb in such phrases, not an adjective)... AnonMoos (talk) 05:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not personally aware of any british branded medicinal products that begin with the prefix "ben-"; benadryl, benylin, benecol and bengay are all brands owned by an american company. Others listed at the CDC beginning with ben- include Benemid (which I've never heard of in the UK) and Bentyl/Bentylol (which is only sold under those names in the USA). Nanonic (talk) 18:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bengay, formerly spelled "Ben-Gay", a topical muscle rub and analgesic sold over U.S. counters, derives its name from its developer, Dr. Jules Bengué; it's an anglicisation, or Madison-Avenification similar to Chef Boy-Ar-Dee for Ettore Boiardi. Pfizer Corporation produced Bengay until selling the brand to Johnson and Johnson; I don't know if either of those firms produced any of the presciption drugs beginning with "ben". As for British products, H. G. Wells wrote a novel about patent medicine called Tono-Bungay. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Name for type of joke

There may be no answer, but I'm looking for a name for a certain type of joke - the one where you reference two subjects, A and B, and then you say "One is [list of characteristics associated at first glance with B, but also humorously applicable to A], and the other is B." I've found this joke to be extremely common, and yet I know of no simple name by which I can refer to it. Maybe a "one is and the other is" joke? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is misdirection. That particular joke is used almost nightly by Craig Ferguson. -- kainaw ™ 23:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An example could be this one, from Doonesbury a few years ago, which as I recall they said was merely one they had "heard", not originated: "What's the difference between the Hindenburg and Rush Limbaugh? One is a flaming Nazi gasbag. The other is a dirigible." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A less actionable one might be, "What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?" "One's a slimy scum-sucking bottom-feeding scavenger, and the other is a fish." I don't think there are enough of these jokes that they constitute a genre, but somebody could easily prove me wrong. PhGustaf (talk) 02:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If there enough of them to spread out over 32 or 64 pages, a book could be published. It merely lacks the title. (JoAnne Worley published a "Chicken Joke Book" in the late 60s, and that was spread pretty thin also. So it can be done.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the general category for these kinds of jokes would be riddles. Then they could be separated by type. Whatever those types might be. Like this antique: "What's the difference between an underweight person and a dental procedure? One is too thin, the other is tooth out." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's this type, which came in the early 80s when the team in question was rather weak in the field: "What do the Chicago Cubs have in common with Michael Jackson? They wear one glove for no apparent reason." Or this one: "What do the Bears and the Cubs have in common? They both win once a week." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:21, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These jokes don't have to be riddles. I pointed out above that Craig Ferguson uses them nearly every night. He never begins with "What is the difference between..." He just states that they are different as in: "Being a late night talk show host is a lot different than being a school teacher. One hates his job, acting like a cheeky monkey as he panders to an audience that would rather be doing anything other than listen to his lame excuse for entertainment... and the other is a late night talk show host." Also, I realized that when I stated it was comic misdirection, this is the simplest form of comic misdirection. The complex form requires the comic callback also. For example, Emo Philips did a very complex one at a show I saw a long time ago. The show began with a few one-liners and the question, "Have you ever had a really weird dream?" The rest of the show was jokes about a very weird dream that involved driving in the sewer and finding a door with a mysterious light coming from behind it. He met his mother who had a huge bowl of sauerkraut. The surprise caused him to pass out right on the spot. As the audience waits for the next part of this weird dream, he states softly, "...and that was when I had this really weird dream." -- kainaw ™ 04:01, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comedian Stewart Lee has said that in the comedy industry this type of joke is called a pull back and reveal[10]. "Pull back and reveal" has literal application in TV comedy when the camera pulls back to reveal what's actually going on, but can also be used metaphorically. Here are some more uses: [11] ht tp://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Be-Funny---Part-11---Use-the-Pull-Back-And-Reveal-Technique&id=3177289 (link blocked by WP, why I don't know) [12].

In the 1990s Lee and his former partner Richard Herring did a series of routines deconstructing bad jokes. They identified a class of jokes they called "and that was just the teachers" and the closely-related "and then I got off the bus". An example similar to theirs is "My school was full of lazy good-for-nothings who spent all day smoking and looking at girl's breasts. And that was just the teachers ... ahhhhh!" You'll hear both "and that was just the teachers" and "and then I got off the bus" used by comedians familiar with Lee and Herring's work to refer to this kind of joke (e.g. this by Boothby Graffoe). --193.172.19.20 (talk) 16:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

November 29

Does Islam forbid football?

A group of teenagers (and some kids), ages 10 to 15, were sentenced to receive 38 lashes each of them for playing football. According to the court, they were wasting time playing football because it's an un-Islamic thing. [13] - --190.50.81.196 (talk) 01:32, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well if it does, there are a large amount of teams from Islamic nations in the AFC and CAF that are being naughty. Incidentally, Al-Shabaab (Somalia) are a bunch of complete lunatics. Nanonic (talk) 01:43, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a key difference between a group of people, wishing to exert absolute power over a group of people, and using fear to cow them and religion as an excuse to exert their power, and genuine religious belief. Islam itself has no such proscriptions. There are likely, however, people who are willing to use Islam as a means by which to force weaker people to their will. --Jayron32 02:16, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sports have sometimes been used as a target for repressionists in the west as well. In the Somlia example, I wonder about the quality of play. Note that the quote was "a waste of time, and un-Islamic". The first part of that could easily be argued, for example, in regard to the three NFL teams that are 1-9 at the moment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And going back to the original question, it's worth remembering that Islam is almost as diverse as Christianity. I wouldn't be surprised to find some group that forbids football in Islam.Sjö (talk) 16:13, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, there have been western countries that also forbade the playing of sports from time to time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As has been said football is very popular in the islamic world, but it also runs into difficulties as it is either seen as a waste of time when you could be worshiping or studying, or occasionally seen as a focus of dissent. Here is a fatwa setting out an islamic flavor to football rules [14], here are some earlier people getting puritanical about football [15] and here is scotland banning it Football Act 1424. meltBanana 18:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject that Sjö mentions — in college I wrote a short paper for a physical education course (yes, having to write a paper for a phys-ed class was rather annoying on principle!) on various Christian philosophies of physical education, and during my research I discovered that many members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church oppose competitive sports because they believe that sports can lead to aggression and unchristian pride. Nyttend (talk) 06:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently we need an article on Religion and football. :)Sjö (talk) 07:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And conversely, many attribute the late 19th century vogue for Muscular Christianity to be the reason why so many English association football clubs were created by churches or churchmen as described in Thank God for Football. Nanonic (talk) 12:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

exact date in 1980

What was the exact date in which L.C. Bates died in 1980? What did he die of?24.90.204.234 (talk) 04:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Read for yourself. See the Wikipedia article L. C. Bates, and this reference linked from the Wikipedia article, which states his date and cause of death. --Jayron32 04:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. By the way, does the Daisy Bates Elementary School have any school colors?24.90.204.234 (talk) 09:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Diana Spencer

I do apologise for this, since I am certain I have asked this question before, it is just that I cannot find where it is in the archives. My understanding is that Diana Spencer, on her father's side, was a descendant of King Charles II of England through four illegitimate sons:

Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton, son by Barbara Villiers, 1st Duchess of Cleveland Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond and Lennox, son by Louise de Kérouaille Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, son by Nell Gwyn James Crofts-Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, leader of a famous rebellion, son by Lucy Walter She was also a descendant of King James II of England through an illegitimate daughter, Henrietta FitzJames, by his mistress Arabella Churchill. On her mother's side, Diana was Irish and Scottish, as well as a descendant of American heiress Frances Work, her mother's grandmother and namesake, from whom the considerable Roche fortune was derived.

The Spencers had been close to the British Royal Family for centuries, rising in royal favour during the 1600s. Diana's maternal grandmother, Ruth, Lady Fermoy, was a long-time friend and a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Her father had served as an equerry to King George VI and to Queen Elizabeth II.

So she was also a distant relative of Sir Winston Churchill. But my question is, since these ancestors are illegitimate, how can her sons William and Henry be legitimate heirs to the throne ? It is unfortunate that a particular person is punished themselves for something their parents or ancestors didn't do, then did do, that is, didn't marry, but then did the deed, but there it is, especially as some are claiming Elizabeth the Second is not the genuine Queen due to the alleged illegitimacy of her ancestor Edward IV, and that over 550 years ago. What is the Law regarding this, since I am sure that anyone due to marry an heir to the throne, with a view to creating further heirs to the throne, would have been thoroughly checked out to make sure the issue was going to be entitled. The Russian.C.B.Lilly User:Christopher1968 05:59, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was explained before, didn't you read the explanation? Anyway, the Tudors hardly had any respect for Richard III's self-serving legal manipulations... AnonMoos (talk)

Didn't I just say I cannot find the original place I asked the question, so I cannot read the explanation. However, I would be happy to, to read it in its original place I asked the question, if someone would please inform me where it is. Thank You.

In addition, I have another question. What was the name of the lady who, from what I understand, died of a heart attack upon hearing that Martin Luther King had been assassinated ? Thank You. The Russian202.36.179.66 (talk) 07:33, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then why didn't you ask somebody for help in finding the earlier replies in the archives, instead of going through the whole long rigamarole again? AnonMoos (talk) 07:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What's the difference ? Don't worry about it, why get snotty ? Might have been quicker for you to have told me the answer, since it appears from your first tirade that you knew the question I was referring to, but never mind, I found it in the archives for Nov 16, and thank you to those who answered it then. I apologise for any trouble that might have been caused, and having now read the explanation, I now understand it. Strange they only need one legitimate line, but if it makes them happy, that's fine. Long may they reign.

With reference to my question on who the lady was who died, I understand she may have been a receptionist at Mr. Bailey's Lorraine Motel, but again I cannot recall her name. Shame that one bullet should cause so much death, not only to Dr. King, but this innocent woman, and sparking off the many riots Dr. King would have not wanted to occur. 202.36.179.66 (talk) 07:57, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your previous question about Diana and the answer are here[16] (third question down). I assume your question refers to this [17] speculation. Elizabeth II is the genuine Sovereign because she has lawfully acceded and has had a lawful Coronation. As far as I know, there is no way of challenging that; especially on an unprovable hypothesis about an event half a millennium ago. Alansplodge (talk) 12:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just one thing: a coronation does not make a British monarch the monarch. It's only performed on people who have already been acknowledged as the monarch, and usually at least some months after the event (because it takes a long time to organise). Elizabeth became queen on the instant of her father's death. So her coronation is worth mentioning in the present context only to demonstrate that she was fully accepted and acknowledged as the monarch, but not if you intend it to mean that the ceremony conferred the monarchy upon her, which it didn't. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is no proscription against a monarch having illegitimate lines somewhere in their past. All that is required is one legitimate line, and under most circumstances this legitimate line will be as short as parent-to-child. Elizabeth II is legitimate because she was born legitimately of her father, George VI, and you can trace such legitimate lines back at least as far as Henry Tudor, who seized the throne by conquest, and made his son and successor Henry VIII a legitimate heir by marrying Elizabeth of York. Through Elizabeth of York, you can trace a fully legitimate line back through Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York back to Edward III and thus all the way back to William the Conquerer. There is thus a legitimate line of legitimate children that can be traced from Elizabeth I all the way back to William the Conquerer. In the other direction, Elizabeth's son Charles, Prince of Wales is her legitimate son by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Charles's two sons, Prince William of Wales and Prince Henry of Wales were his legitimate sons by Lady Diana Spencer. The fact that you can trace illegitimate lines in Princes William's and Harry's past is irrelevent; there is a legitimate line that can be traced all the way back to William the Conquerer. Regardless, they are the legitimate children of the legitimate son of the current monarch, and so would be perfectly legitimate heirs to said throne. --Jayron32 20:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the question "What is the Law regarding this", the relevant law requires descent from Sophia of Hanover, not from William the Bastard. Thus, any questions of the legitimacy of Edward IV, who lived 200 years before Sophia, are moot. FiggyBee (talk) 02:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, its a good thing that Elizabeth II is also a legitimate decendant of Sophia of Hanover (who herself was a legitimate decendant of William I, via James I and VI and thus via the same line as Elizabeth II), and thus her legitimate children and grandchildren are also legitimate heirs (barring a sudden conversion to Catholicism or marriage to a Catholic). --Jayron32 04:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) First to answer your question of why it's better to ask for help then to re-write the whole question, firstly it saves you time. More importantly, while you did mention first up that you couldn't find the question, it's possible someone could miss this meaning they would read the whole question only to discover/remember it had already been answered, wasting their time as well. Remember RD answerers are volunteers. Note that you should not expect someone to rewrite earlier answers. People may offer to find earlier questions & answers but clearly re-writing an early answer is just a waste of time.

In terms of your comment that it's surprising that you only need one legitimate line suggests you still don't really understand how this works. The legitimate eldest son or the legitimate eldest daughter if their are no legitimate sons of the current monarch is the heir to the throne, and the legitimate eldest son or legitimate eldest daughter if there are no sons of the heir is his/her heir. Who the spouse (mother/father) is, doesn't matter provided they are married. There are a few additional legal requirements, e.g. no Catholics but they don't relate to the spouse's heritage. And technically there was some question of suitability of the spouse hence why Edward VIII of the United Kingdom abdicated but this does concerns the public acceptance and primarily because Wallis Simpson was a divorcée rather then any legal requirement.

In the past it would generally be expected for the spouse to be of the nobility but that was purely a social expectation and if it later turned out they weren't or if questions were raised of the legitimacy later well that would be something 'polite' people wouldn't talk about and no one would question the legitimate heredity of any children solely because of questions over the spouse's heredity. But all this has largely disappeared now anyway. (Note that even if someone does marry a Catholic their children are still in the line of succession if they are brought up as Anglicans.)

These expectations generally lead to fairly inbred populations so in reality you'd probably usually find some legitimate line of succession but it could easily be a long one (HRH The Duke of Edinburgh is currently perhaps 493, he would have been something else at the time of his marriage and birth of his children but anyway clearly rather high up) which would require many deaths before it became of any relevance (so why would it matter?) and in any case if there was a 'suitable' spouse but he/she wasn't in the line of succession it wasn't of any relevance.

Unless we're talking about a brother & sister and the only two children of a monarch marrying (and they can't marry!) then there's always going to be someone higher up in the line of succession then one of the spouses who isn't one of the spouses (and of course in such a case once the child was born they'd be higher up then their mother). Remember if William marries Princess Maria of Yugoslavia but then dies without children she would just become (presuming no other changes) 98th in the line of succession and still largely irrelevant, the next heir would be Henry. (And Kate Middleton is not in the line of succession AFAIK.)

To use a related example, while inheritance laws vary somewhat in many countries the issue (probably children and the children of any dead children) will be entilted to some inheritance (often the spouse too but let's not complicate things) if the death is intestate. In such cases legitimacy used to matter in a number of countries and does still matter in some e.g. Malaysia [18] [19] and Singapore [20]. However who the spouse (mother/father) is rarely did or does. E.g. if a rich person dies without a will, the children of any dead children may be entitled to a share of the inheritance, no matter that the spouse (or mother/father i.e. son or daughter in law) did not contribute to the building of the fortune and wouldn't have been entilted to it if not for their marriage (and in fact may not be entilted to if even after the marriage). In this case, we aren't talking about a single heir, but you can see the same thing.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It might be worth mentioning that William I of England was himelf illegitimate, so implying that probably all heirs to the English/British throne have illegitimacy in at least one generation of their ancestry. Of course William didn't succeed by inheritance to the English throne, but took it by right of conquest (based on a rather dubious claim of descent). --rossb (talk) 07:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Anglo-Saxon kings didn't necessarily inherit the throne - they had to be appointed by the Witan, who would sometimes choose the ablest of the royals rather than the next in line. Harold Godwinson was selected in this way. After Harold's death, the Witan appointed the 15 year-old Edgar the Ætheling who had been previously passed-over in favour of Harold. Not long afterwards the Witan forced Edgar to submit to William, on whom they conferred the crown, making it a lawful succession. Alansplodge (talk) 10:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Moreover, consider the matter of descent from Sophia: all descendents of Catholics are disqualified from the throne, but the fact that everyone in line for the throne had Catholic ancestors before the Protestant Reformation is irrelevant at least in part because of the descent from Sophia. Nyttend (talk) 06:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, the Act of Settlement 1701 secured the succession to Sophia's Protestant heirs, while barring Roman Catholics and their spouses from the Throne. That doesn't mean, I think, that the Protestant descendants of Roman Catholics were barred, although their claims might come after those of the Protestant descendants of Sophia's Protestant heirs. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What? As I mentioned above and discussed elsewhere in the RD and in our article, Roman Catholics and people married to them are barred from the throne but their descedants are not provided they are raised Anglican (or I presume more like not raised as Catholics). They are simply treated as dead when it comes to succession. I don't know if it was always like this or it changed at some stage but it's how it is now. Nil Einne (talk) 06:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I would like to apologise to whom ever it was I snapped at. I only did so, because I sensed this person was snapping at me first. I thank all of you for your time and effort in answering these. Be aware, that as a keen student of History - especially that of England, for over twenty five years, I was aware of a good number of things concerning the right of succesion to the Throne - just not the fact that one needed only ONE legitimate line. I had not really thought about that in all that time. It may seem unfair, since strictly speaking James Stuart ( or Stewart) and his son Bonnie Prince Charlie, did have a closer claim to the throne by blood than Elizabeth Stuart's daughther Sophia, and her son George, but could it be the Catholics were also excluded based upon their previous treasonous attmepts, namely the Gunpowder Plot, and before that, the Armada ? I do not count Titus Oates' claims, since I think he was a liar. The parallel for today is mistrust, whether justified or unfounded of Moslems and or Arabs, as there was for Catholics back then. Some may wish to repeal that, but I think it should be left well enough alone. Like it or not, the British Throne nowadsys is a Church of England affair. Of course, this is not to say that Protestants have been entirely blameless in the crimes they have committed supposedly in God's name. C.B.Lilly 05:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

How would you account for 2 lines in any case? Would you add them up and look for the lowest? E.g. This person (a) is number 1 on the father's side and number 200 on the mother's side? This person (b) is number 3 on the mother's side and number 130 on the father's side? So person b had greater rights to succession then person a? I presume these calculations would be at the time of succession so you couldn't even prepare the heir or be that sure of who it was in many cases until it happened since it would be changing. And you'd need to look at a lot of people so do you realise how complicated it would get? Nil Einne (talk) 06:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Germany Double Summer Time in the Second World War

Did Germany adopt Double Summer time during the Second World War, thus moving from UTC+2 to UTC+3. If so, what were the dates? Mjroots (talk) 09:32, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since the Germans often imposed their time on the countries they occupied (no more 20-minute difference for Belgium), an interesting derivative question would be whether they also imposed double or triple Summer Time. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:45, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unsurprisingly, it's not straightforward, but according to Doane's "Time Changes in the World" Germany observed Double Summer Time from 24/5/45 to 9/23/45. In Berlin and Soviet-occupied areas some cities adopted Moscow time (i.e. German Double Summer Time) but other cities did not. There are all sorts of complications. For example, when Soviet troops marched into Leipzig, they adopted Double Summer Time but for the railway only. In the smaller cities of Saxonia, all the people adopted the time of the railroad clock, which showed German Double Summer Time. In the East Zone, Double Summer Time was also adopted in 1947 from May 11 but only until 29 June....--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a summary of historic summer-time changes in Germany at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt website. It agrees with Shantavira, i.e. double summer time was only used in Soviet-controlled areas after surrender, in 1945 and 1947. --Cam (talk) 17:02, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link! I'm not sure if that was only in the Soviet zone; it seems to me that the CEMT in 1947 held for all zones. But be that as it may; the list makes it clear that there was no CEMT during WW2, which seems to answer both the original question and Shakescene's conjecture. — Sebastian 18:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What name was J R R Tolkien known by?

John? Jack? J R R? It's not in the article, nor on its discussion page. Anyone know for sure? Peter Greenwell (talk) 10:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page [21] says "his family only called him Ronald, and later his friends called him "John Ronald"." Pollinosisss (talk) 11:13, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

C.S. Lewis (known as "Jack"), a friend of Tolkien's, had a nickname for him. My memory says it's "Tollers"...my copy of volume 1 of Lewis's letters (when he was just befriending Tolkien) only refers to him as "Tolkien", but I'm finding quotations from books on The Inklings that use "Tollers" as a nickname. I think its use probably only extended to other members of that social group, but it's hard to say. User:Jwrosenzweig editing as 71.227.159.200 (talk) 02:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

the above is actually totally wrong; he went by Jerry. 92.229.13.231 (talk) 20:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am fairly confident in asserting that 92.229's contribution is a troll and should not be believed. --ColinFine (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is clearly a falsehood, as ColinFine notes. Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien agrees with the site that Pollinosisss cites: it was generally "Ronald". Nyttend (talk) 06:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Map of International humanitarian aid given, by country

Has anyone ever created a map or chart of humanitarian aid provided, listed by country? Measured in currency (US dollars), or percentage of GDP, or both.

Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.157.255.118 (talk) 19:35, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Provided by or provided to countries? Government aid or NGO aid or total? --Jayron32 20:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Prokhorovka (talk) 22:48, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, the dating of the Dom Helder Camara quote at worldmapper.org is faulty. The quote certainly predates 2004. --Soman (talk) 12:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Song

There is a song with the lyrics "I don't like sleeping alone" (this line sung by a female) in the chorus. In the chorus, a male singer sings also. The song sounds kind of indian. The chorus is electronic, but the verses have rap (I think).

The song might have been a hit (single) recently (possibly in the last 3 years). What is the artist and song name?174.3.102.6 (talk) 23:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try the Entertainment desk, the people over there are great with this kind of question. --Tango (talk) 23:48, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try this google search. —Akrabbim^talk 23:50, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Christadelphian and Advent Christian Churches in Sydney

Are there any Christadelphian churches in Sydney? If so, then what are they? Are there any Advent Christian churches in Sydney that are not Seventh-day Adventist? If so, then what are they?

Bowei Huang (talk) 23:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a website [22] which gives # Sydney Ecclesia, Shaftesbury Road, Burwood, New South Wales

Sydney Companion Ecclesia, Woodbury Road, Glenbrook, New South Wales

You may not have found these before because their word for "church" is "ecclesia", which is the Greek word for "church". --TammyMoet (talk) 13:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't been able to find any Adventist churches that aren't Seventh-day Adventists anywhere. Hope that answers your question. By the way, Google is your friend and will get you quicker answers than you can get here! --TammyMoet (talk) 13:18, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

November 30

Research on Social Interaction / Craving

Hi! I was wondering if someone could point me to the correct terms / things to research on this concept.

I feel that people have a craving for just "being" around people (whether or not there is any social interaction). Like someone who is self-employed who likes working in a coffee shop to be around people. I feel that being around people makes a person feel less lonely, if that makes sense.

Is there a concept in sociology to describe this phenomenon? Could anyone point me to what I can further research? Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Legolas52 (talk • contribs) 01:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Extraversion and introversion may be of interest. Extroverts tend to enjoy being around people. Pollinosisss (talk) 02:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In sociology the closest concept is socialisation, but specifically for what you described, the psychological concept of Extrovert personality is more suitable-as Pollinosisss suggested.--Gilisa (talk) 10:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Roll/Role Credits

In TV and movie intro credits, most of the actors will have their name only (eg. Adam Alpha), but sometimes they get credited with a: AND Bob Bravo, or WITH Charles Charlie, or STARRING Daniel Delta. Is there a rule/informal convention that governs who gets a credit prefix and what they get? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.151.135.122 (talk) 06:29, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Questions similar to this one have been asked before. Basically, it boils down to A) the convention that the show uses and B) what the actors agree to in their contracts. The contract will often spell out how and in what order they should be billed. Dismas|^(talk) 06:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Billing is definitely something that actors (or their agents) negotiate over. I don't have a citeable source, but I'd seen it stated than an "and" credit is seen as better than a regular one. This provides a way to resolve things when there are two actors who each think they deserve first billing -- one gets it and the other gets "and". An interesting example is The Longest Day, where the cast credits begin by saying that they will be in alphabetical order, but end with "and John Wayne" (and no, he wasn't alphabetically last). My impression is that "and" credits are more likely to be used if the part is relatively small, but important.

(Another solution to billing conflicts, by the way, is "diagonal equal billing", where one name is to the lower left and another is to the upper right. One case where this was used was The Towering Inferno, a movie made by merging two existing projects into one; the two male leads demanded exactly equal treatment. The opening credits for Key Largo, with three names on the first credit screen, may be interpreted as having two of them placed in similar fashion.)

--Anonymous, 08:18 UTC, November 30, 2009.

Interesting question -- for a long time, I've wondered why Hill Harper gets a "with HH" on CSI:NY. Never really thought of him as some kind of master actor? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And somewhat related, you may or may not have noticed that in the opening credits, the director is nearly always listed last. Whether that's due to convention or due to union rules, I'm not sure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A similar question, why do these "and" credits often also include the character's name? What's so special about that character? Adam Bishop (talk) 14:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's because they sometimes use an older actor who'd be known to older viewers but not to younger ones, who might constitute the majority of the audience. Maybe some of these younger ones have vaguely heard the actor's name before, but don't know anything about their career or even what their face looks like. So, when the character appears, it enables them to say (or go, if you prefer) "Oh, so that's Charlton Heston. I always wondered what God looked like". :) -- JackofOz (talk) 20:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For more, potentially unreliable, information, we have some mostly unreferenced articles on motion picture credits, billing (filmmaking), opening credits, and closing credits. Why those are four different articles is unclear—must be those union rules that everyone talks about. My favorite credit oddity is that in the WGA screenwriting credit system, an "and" and an "&" have different meanings. —Kevin Myers 22:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, that convention makes sense to me (and there is a need to differentiate between screenwriting teams and rewritings). Dirty Harry is a good example of a movie which has both & and and; Harry Fink & Rita Fink and Dean Riesner. FiggyBee (talk) 01:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are dozens if not hundreds of examples. Fortunately, according to the WGA screenwriting credit system article, there's "a maximum of three teams of three" that can get screen credit. Otherwise, the writing credits would sometimes last longer than the movie, which actually might be a good thing, since movies with a boatload of writers are usually awful. Can anyone think of examples where the "maximum of three teams of three" has happened exactly, i.e. nine writers in three groups of three, such as "Written by Huey & Dewey & Louie and Tom & Dick & Harry and Harold & Maude & Barack"? —Kevin Myers 01:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeh, like with The Wizard of Oz. Whatever became of that movie? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The 1939 Wizard of Oz is a classic example of a movie "made by committee" (collectively by the old Hollywood studio system, without any real "auteur" or one single strong deciding voice) which turned out reasonably well... AnonMoos (talk) 06:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I used Dirty Harry as an example because it was on here last night FiggyBee (talk) 05:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sense of Time and Space when driving

I'm from Vancouver BC, Canada, and I think nothing of a 2 hour drive to go to other towns and such (Seattle, for example.) Even Portland Oregon at 6 hours away doesn't seem to much of a stretch, and Calgary or Edmonton at 12 hours isn't totally out of the question (though very unusual to drive). Ottawa, the national capital, is at least a couple of days non-stop, while Newfoundland is closer to Ireland than it is to me.

Nevertheless, given that Canada is so huge, these distances are pretty standard fare. What constitutes "too far" in Europe? Would 2 hours seem ridiculous? I mean, Canada is practically as big as Europe. I realize the question is subjective, but any thoughts?Aaronite (talk) 06:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't answer for Europe, but in Australia we also have long distances between places, and so many of us (myself included) think nothing of a two or three hour drive. --121.127.200.51 (talk) 08:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In Malaysia a drive from Kuala Lumpur to Penang or Singapore (4-5 hours) or even Alor Setar (5-6 hours) or Kota Bharu (7+ partially due to the lack of good roads [23]) or for that matter even Penang to Singapore or Johor Baru (8 hours+) and similar things wouldn't be uncommon particularly given the Balik kampung that many Chinese and Malay Malaysians do every year (no wikilink sadly although discussed in Chinese New Year & Hari Raya Aidilfitri to some extent or see [24]). The rise of budget airlines like Air Asia has probably reduced the popularity of driving particularly since those who can't afford the price of air travel may not even own a car so will be taking a bus instead (or perhaps train but I think buses are much more popular because they're usually faster and not more expensive) but there's still a large number that do it as traffic jams at toll plazas will atest. Incidentally, I can say from personal experience many people drove for longer times in the past, before the North-South Expressway, Malaysia was completed Nil Einne (talk) 09:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously it varies from person to person, but speaking as a UK resident, I get reluctant from 4 hours and up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prokhorovka (talk • contribs) 10:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm from the UK - a 2-hour drive is nothing. That time might get you 1/3 way up the length of England if the traffic/roads are clear! In terms of a drive it's not considered 'too far' by anybody I know. Sure it's not my 'standard' driving time - I live in the north and the most I tend to do is trips of about an hour - that way I can get to Manchester, Newcastle, Whitby, The Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors etc. etc. so apart from visiting family/holidays there's really no 'need' for me to drive more than about an hour, but i'd certainly not consider >2 hour journeys to be 'ridiculous'. 10:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The UK is a crowded little island and even a short journey can turn into a major undertaking. My 15 mile commute (going out of London against the traffic) took an hour this morning; the worst ever for the same journey was 3 hours. Alansplodge (talk) 10:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Where I live in south-east England, we have six or eight towns and two cities within one hour's travel by car or train, and they cover all day-to-day needs. I might be doing a longer 2-3 hour drive to see friends or family about once a month. A 4 hour-plus car journey is an occassional event for me - say once or twice a year. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As somebody said ^{[citation needed]}: in the UK, 200 miles is far; in the USA, 200 years is old. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:42, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many cities in New Jersey are 2 hours from Philadelphia, and most would think such a drive way out of the ordinary to make on a constant basis for no real reason, but a guy driving from NJ to the Five Towns on Long Island for a date with a really rich girl will see no problem with the journey, even if it takes more than 2 hours. Perhaps its because most of the travel time is consumed by traffic and not distance. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I live near Toronto, which is a much more densely populated part of Canada than where Aaronite lives, and 2 hours is pretty far for me. But then, everything you could need is in Toronto, which is 15 minutes away at best (in the worst traffic it has taken me 2 hours to drive 30 km, but that is pretty rare). My parents are 2 hours away, and that is far enough that visiting is a special occasion. Even driving an hour or less to the north is a special occasion, that's "up north" to "cottage country". Similarly to the US border, which is only an hour or less to the south. Ottawa is 4 or 5 hours and that might as well be another planet. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also near Toronto, and used to live near London (UK). I drive much further on average here than in England, because things are that much further apart. I drove 30 minutes last week to a nice restaurant for my wife's birthday. An hour to get to a good walking trail for the afternoon. Two hours to ski for a day. Those are not ridiculous things in England, but I do them much more frequently here. As Gandalf says, if I drove for half an hour in England I'd pass dozens of spectacular restaurants, so why would you do that? DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As someone who moved from California to Massachusetts, I would just want to note that distance and time are not the same thing in such places. I am used to long drives that really get you over long distances—things are far apart but the roads are pretty clear in central California. In densely-populated regions, like the Northeast, it is not the case at all—you can spend an hour just trying to get twenty miles away depending on the route. Driving in the large, open spaces is a very different thing that driving on packed highways or through big cities, in my experience. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just waiting at a red light can take a long time. But there's a fix for that. Try to do something. Like reading a map or fiddling with some papers. The light will go green almost immediately. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

New Zealand's a bit like the US in terms of distance and age -I used to like in a house in the UK which had one wall dating back to the 15th century. That was old. Here, any 19th century house is old. As for distances, a Kiwi will think nothing of going 150km to a "nearby" town - in Britain, a nearby town would be 15 km or less away. Longer drives, as pointed out above, aren't uncommon, but with a lot of things nearer at hand, why bother a lot of the time? Grutness...wha? 23:50, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some years ago I stayed with friends on Jersey (the original, not New Jersey). They took us to their favourite restaurant, to which they did not go often, because it was right at the other end of the Island - 10 miles away. I created a theory whereby the furthest distance you can possibly go is necessarily 'long', and other distances are 'short' and 'medium' in comparison. --ColinFine (talk) 00:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My original research agrees well with ColinFine. When I was a child, my family and I spent a summer in Dervock, a small community in northeastern Northern Ireland. We found that people in the church we attended thought a trip to Belfast — approximately 80 km, or slightly more than an hour's drive according to Google Maps — to be a long journey, and going to the other side of Northern Ireland they imagined to be a ridiculously long trip; and when we told them that we planned to drive from southwestern Scotland to Shropshire while holidaying on Great Britain, they thought we were crazy. As an American, I found this quite surprising, seeing that all of Northern Ireland is approximately the size of Connecticut, and drives around my native Ohio are very frequently longer than any of these drives — just today I rode for six hours without thinking it to be at all uncomfortably long. Nyttend (talk) 06:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might also depend on your expectations. I can find a 20-minute drive to be tedious. Yet I've also sometimes driven 750 miles in a single day. And I've known folks that have driven, by themselves or with others, from one coast of the USA to the other, some 2,700 miles. Not in one day, obviously. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I used to live in a city in the UK with a population of about 250000, and I had little reason to travel away from it. I would sometimes travel to smaller towns ten miles away for tourism, and only rarely went to the capital which was about an hour away by train. As someone pointed out, in the UK there would be no point in driving two hours as you can find what you want within 10 or 20 minutes. Since the rail network is I expect more dense, then its more comfortable to go by train rather than drive. Now I live in a smaller town, and I do travel to the nearest city more frequently. 78.147.2.230 (talk) 12:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Swiss judges/neutrality

List of judges of the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland All the judges have a political party listed after their names. Do they belong to those parties? Does this impact on their neutrality/independence? F (talk) 10:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article says it's the "party nominating that judge". Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland doesn't give much information, but the French version seems to say that the Federal Assembly tries to balance the various linguistic and cultural communities in the country, so presumably having a mix of political backgrounds is part of this. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just having the appearance of bias is enough to disqualify a judge in English systems, does this not matter in the Swiss system?F (talk) 03:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can't find information on Swiss law here on Wikipedia at the moment; but in the system used in France and many other countries, a judge in a trial courtroom should not be neutral, so I'd not be surprised if higher-up judges aren't required to be neutral either. Nyttend (talk) 06:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the US, supreme court nominations are fairly contested, and Judges are often classified as "nominated by a Democratic/Republican" president. The Swiss are simply more open about it... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Epic battles in 16th and 17th centuries

which epic battle in 16th/17th century resulted in about 100,000 were killed or wounded —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.99.207 (talk) 14:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of epic battles then (Battle of Mohacs? Battle of Lepanto? Battle of Vienna?) but I don't know if any were that big. There is a big list at List of battles 1401–1800. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for good fiction/non-fiction about female messiahs

I am looking to purchase a book (hopefully bestseller) in which the protagonist is a female messiah/chosen one/etc. Any suggestions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.4.8.12 (talk) 16:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A quick Google search for female messiah novel produces Ann the Word : The Story of Ann Lee, Female Messiah, Mother of the Shakers by Richard Francis, non-fiction. Daughter of God by Lewis Perdue, fiction. The Last Day by Glenn Kleier, fiction. There may be more. 89.242.99.245 (talk) 20:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I may be in the minority, but I thoroughly enjoyed "The last day" by Glenn Kleier (fiction, a modern-day political/religious thriller). Grutness...wha? 23:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler is precisely that, as is the Xenogenesis trilogy, also by Octavia Butler. Steewi (talk) 01:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try Valis by Philip K. Dick...Rhinoracer (talk) 10:02, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Importance of good grades after some years

How important are good grades after you have been working some years? I have the impression that whether the goods not the bad grades that I got have any influence... ProteanEd (talk) 16:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Working where, and for how long? Good grades at what level of education? (Without any further info, I'd have to guess that your grades in school are completely unimportant.) Adam Bishop (talk) 16:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's an impossible question to answer, as it infinitely varies according to what you're after in life. Some employers don't care a jot for any kinds of grades. Some are obsessed. FWIW, when I recruit, I pay little attention to them, but in a former job, my boss was an educational snob and pushed hard to get me to appoint candidates with the best educational background. --Dweller (talk) 16:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Like everything in life, it depends, but here's the general view: in most professions, your actual grades decline in importance as you spend more time in the workforce. Grades are used as a rough proxy for various attributes (intelligence, personality traits, social class, etc) and the utility of that rough proxy matters less and less when there is more immediate information. This isn't true for all professions though, as I've been told that your class rank matters for longer in law than it does for other professional domains. Things like independent projects and actual experience seem to be more valued in computer science/IT-related fields.--droptone (talk) 17:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience in the Library field, good grades are totally irrelevant. Once you complete your Master's or Diploma in Library Science, it doesn't matter how well you did, so long as you have that piece of paper. I don't know too many employers who ask for a transcript. What really matters is quality of interview and/or CV. I suspect in many other fields this is true. Aaronite (talk) 18:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am the OP. I meant after your bachelor, and not trying to get into a graduate program yet. If you have been working some years, apparently only what you did as an employee seems to be evaluated. Would that mean that good grades are useless after a while? (perhaps excluding fields like law or PhD candidates.).ProteanEd (talk) 18:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The only entry on your resume that really matters is the last one, chronologically. If you have never held a job before, then your grades are very important. If you are going for a second job, your prospective employer is going to care most about how and what you did in your prior job, not what grade you got in French class back in 1995. --Jayron32 20:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is WP:OR but what the heck... I recently got a promotion. When they were vetting me for this, the hiring managers asked if I had taken various classes in college. I've been out of college for about 12 years, so I had to refer to my transcript to even remember the classes. The managers didn't ask about grades at all. They only wanted to know what things were covered. I have the degree, so they assume I passed (which I did) but that was that. Dismas|^(talk) 21:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would say "not very" - but they can matter if you want to do something new, using skills which are related to those grades, and you more recent work and/or voluntary experience doesn't show that you have acquired them. That's particularly true in education - for example, at the university where I work, you will not be permitted to do an MA if you do not have at least a 2.1 in a degree, unless you have lots of relevant work experience. But you may get made an offer if you have a 2.1 but it is not in a directly relevant subject. Some companies require employees to have achieved an exam grade showing basic competence in English and maths. It usually doesn't matter to them if you failed such an exam, or received a poor grade, provided you have now got that qualification. Warofdreams talk 22:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your university seems rather severe - I've known several people who have done master's degrees when only having a diploma and not a degree. Another way around may be for example to take something like the GMAT which may override your other grades. I think you can re-take it any number of times. And another way around in the UK at least, would probably be to take an Open University degree or postgraduate course for which I imagine the entry conditions are probably lower, if they have any at all. There may be equivalent institutions in your country. Or you could go to evening classes/night school and get other qualifications, or even repeat the ones you have. I've noticed that entry to educational courses seems more based on self-selection now than it was in the past, without your past being asked about or having to be proved. I think what employers and educational institutions want is someone who shows evidence of being hard-working and dedicated. For jobs being too well qualified may be a disadvantage as they will think you may soon leave for another better job, and a lot of people would hate to have a subordinate better qualified than themselves. 89.242.99.245 (talk) 23:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article on and term for "reading to" (e.g. children)

The Dutch Wikipedia has an article on (actually "voorlezer"), meaning reading to someone (e.g. children). Is there a corresponding article in the English language Wikipedia? (Reading mentions it briefly, but there is probably more to say about this.

Secondly, is there an English term for this other than "reading to"? You could say "to recite" in some situations, but not when to children.

Thank you in advance. 83.81.42.44 (talk) 18:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is bedtime story (a rather short article). You can say "telling a story to" rather than "reading to" (telling a story includes telling stories from your head as well as from a book). --Tango (talk) 18:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ambassadorial appointments

In the US, are you required to accept an ambassadorial appointment if offered one? If not, how do you keep ambassadors in some of the less fun countries, like Nigeria, Sudan or Mongolia? Googlemeister (talk) 21:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fun isn't exactly the only reason someone takes a job. There's prestige (any ambasadorial appointment is likely to give you better future job propects than none), there's money, there's a sense of duty, there's personal fulfillment. After all, we can't all have Ron Jeremy's job... --Jayron32 21:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As Jayron says, Ambassadorial jobs are highly prestigious and allow the holder to hobnob with the upper crust of whatever country he or she is being posted to. Countries that are difficult to live in often are extremely interesting in job terms (Nigeria would likely fit into that category for many persons). And there's no accounting for taste. You may think Mongolia sounds like the boringest place on the planet, but for someone else interested in - take you pick - nomads, deserts, mining, post-communist economic and social transition, it can be fascinating. --Xuxl (talk) 21:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention fantastic fly-fishing!DOR (HK) (talk) 06:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And to answer your original question, of course you can decline an appointment as Ambassador. There may be cases where the Head of State/Government or the Foreign Minister will twist your arm to accept, but it is not in the sending State's interest to post as an Ambassador someone who doesn't want to be in the receiving country. There are also often monetary incentives for serving in patricularly difficult locations. --Xuxl (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, being in a country with a very low cost of living but earning a first world salary gives you massive purchasing power. A friend of my dad had a job as a national head of operations (or something like that) for a big multinational. There is one for every country the company does business (which is most of the world), so it isn't really a top job, but because he was in Vietnam he was able to have a mansion with a cook, housekeeper and driver. He would never have had any of those things if he did the same job in a first world country. --Tango (talk) 21:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And for those monetary incentives, see hardship post (something that even Moscow used to be). Nanonic (talk) 02:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you really didn't want to go, and if for some reason you didn't decline the appointment or the President and the Senate went ahead and nominated/confirmed you despite your decline, you could always resign before you got on the plane. Nyttend (talk) 06:10, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While not exactly the same, I did have the privilege of turning down a deputy ambassador-rank job. Huge ego trip! DOR (HK) (talk) 06:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asian Indians and US Born Pacific Asians

Is Asian Indians count as white sometimes because they sometimes have dark brown skin tones, as well as Mexicans usually have brown skin tones. Do US Bron Asian counts as whites? Because [25] article 2006 census counts Asian indians and US Bron Asians as other race.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Who's "counting"? ...My error, it's the US Census doing the counting.--Wetman (talk) 22:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The census forms ask the respondent to categorize him- or herself, and recently they've been accepting "Other" (for people who feel the categories don't fit them). There's no "official" categorizing procedure. In the not-so-distant past this was primarily an issue only in segregated areas: could subcontinent Indians ride in the Whites Only car, e.g. -- and results might vary, depending on whom you asked. Mercifully that's mostly a thing of the past. Elphion (talk) 00:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders used to be classified with Asians under "Asian/Pacific Islander", but are now a separate category. Asian includes all Asians, certainly including East, Southeast and South Asians, but also, I think, Southwest Asians, as well as Arabs and Israelis who don't consider themselves African, White or Other. It's not a classification by 19th-century racial groups (such as Aryan, Caucasoid, Semitic or Mongoloid), unless the respondents themselves choose to go by such classifications (e.g. an Iranian-American or a light-skinned Brahmin considering himself an Aryan or Indo-European and therefore White). As said above, it is a matter of self-classification, which makes sorting out Hispanics, e.g. in The Bronx, very tricky (many Hispanic-Americans consider themselves a separate racial group, but others count themselves among Whites or Blacks).—— Shakescene (talk) 05:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Confusion on the definition of "other race", especially Hispanic/Latino-related confusion, is (if I remember rightly) the primary reason that "other race" won't be an option in the 2010 census. Nyttend (talk) 06:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resident Population of the U.S., 2000

Race	Population
aaTotal Asian	10,243,000
Asian Indian	1,679,000
Chinese	2,433,000
Filipino	1,850,000
Japanese	797,000
Korean	1,077,000
Vietnamese	1,123,000
wOther Asian†	1,295,000
yNative Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander	399,000
zNative Hawaiian	141,000
zGuamanian or Chamorro	58,000
zSamoan	91,000
zzOther Pacific Islander†	109,000
† [Either another subcategory or more than one within the same category] Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2003, Table No. 23

Also remember that the U.S. census relies solely on self-identification in its racial/national origin statistics. They don't show up at your door and say "Yup, you're white" and at your neighbor's door and say "Yup, you're not white". What they do is send a form to your house, and you fill in the little circle next to the group that you think you belong to. That's about it. --Jayron32 20:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do people even have to fill out that form when they get marry. On normal forms lapplication like DMV I see that form and I just color in what I belong. Do we have to do this when we get marry? I thought people just get marry in the church.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 21:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the United States most (maybe all) states require you to file for a Marriage licence with the state. I would imagine that because of the ugly history of Anti-miscegenation laws, many states have eliminated racial questions from the applications for these licences. However, every U.S. state handles such licences in a wildly different manner, so there are no general statements which can be made as to what each state requires in order to file for marriage. It's going to be very different from state to state. Of course, you could just get married without any licence at all, but most (all?) states and the Federal gov't offer priviliged status to married couples vs. single people, and in order to claim these benefits, you need to have a state-licenced marriage. You do get married in a church (or anywhere else you like), but a week or so before the wedding, you go down to some sort of civic office (town hall, city hall, county government complex) and file for a licence. I got married in Fairfax County, Virginia, and about a week before my wife and I were married (in a Southern Baptist church), we filled out an application for a licence. We filled out most of it in the County Government offices, it was then notarized, and we took the application with us to the wedding itself, where it was signed by the officiant (minister) and some witnesses. We then mailed in the application and received the actual licence a month or so later. We needed the official licence so my wife could change her name, etc. etc. --Jayron32 21:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure about in other states, but in Ohio, it's illegal for a minister to perform a wedding for a couple who don't have a marriage license; shortly after he moved to Ohio from another state, my pastor was scheduled to marry a couple from his congregation but had to ask another minister to officiate, because he wasn't yet permitted. Nyttend (talk) 22:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Marcus Baebius Tamphilus (tribune of the plebs 103 BC)

What relation is Marcus Baebius Tamphilus (tribune of the plebs 103 BC) to Marcus Baebius Tamphilus (consul 181 BC)? There does not seem to be an article on the first.--64.138.237.101 (talk) 23:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at Baebius#Late Republic, it states: "both praenomen and cognomen uncertain". Baebius a colleague of Saturninus is from the De viris illustribus of Aurelius Victor 73. Colleague would mean tribune in 103. It is presumed that this is the same Baebius as was torn to pieces B.C. 87 (Lucan II.119), see: Sulla's first civil war#Aftermath. If this is true, then Appian gives the praenomen 'Marcus' Appian B.C. I.72. 'Tamphilus' is then further speculation as that would be most likely for a tribune 'Marcus Baebius' around that time. If you're headed to the library there is a discussion in Rawson, Elizabeth. (1987). Sallust on the Eighties? The Classical Quarterly, 37, p. 166. doi:10.1017/S0009838800031748.—eric 18:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

December 1

World's oldest religions

What is the oldest religion we currently know of (not counting Neolithic religions and those that have had to be reconstructed), and what is the oldest religion still practiced today?99.251.239.89 (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on how you define 'oldest' and 'religion.' Some would say Buddhism is a religion, but as it lacks a god, others would contend it is merely a spiritual philosophy. Of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism would predate the other two, which are splinters of Judaism. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 04:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Hinduism says that because it is rooted in the Historical Vedic religion, it is the oldest. Also see Urreligion for other information on the claims that Zoroastrianism and Judaism has (if you count it starting with Abraham, as opposed to Moses). —Akrabbim^talk 04:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on very much on what degree of substantial continuity you would require in order to call something the "same" religion through time, and also on the vagaries of surviving historical records (which give us detailed knowledge of religious practices in ancient times only in very limited areas of the world). Hinduism and Judaism are good candidates, yet there's evidence of definite differences between what could be called the first attested major historical stage of Hinduism (practiced by animal-herders roaming the Punjab) vs. the second attested major historical stage of Hinduism (practiced by settled agriculturalists along the valley of the Ganges) -- while Judaism as we know it today also emerged from ancient Israelite religion after a series of reforms under Josiah, Ezra, the post-Temple-destruction rabbis etc. AnonMoos (talk) 06:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asserting that modern-day Judaism is a different religion than what existed prior to Ezra is like saying dentistry is a new profession after the advent of implants. It may be advertised as such, in a sort of sensationalistic fashion, but I would hardly consider it a new entity. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say that there was any one critical break-point; I said that there was a series of successive reforms/transformations. For example, before the development of Rabbinic Judaism after the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., the temple at Jerusalem was the one center of Jewish worship, and the leading priestly families (or "Sadducees") were the official religious leadership of Judaism. After 70 A.D., Judaism had to accomodate itself to the overwhelming fact of the loss of the Temple, and the whole prior higher leadership was now completely discredited or irrelevant. Also, according to the text of the Bible itself, before the reforms of king Josiah of Judah ca. 640-610 B.C. a large number of Israelites were polytheists in their worship. There certainly had been loud prophetic voices demanding reforms, and these did receive some degree of support under certain monarchs (such as Hezekiah), but many Israelites were still polytheistic in practice much of the time during that period (or most Israelites most of the time in the northern kingdom of Israel before its fall in 721 B.C.). AnonMoos (talk) 14:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of inaccuracies or simplifications in there, but I assume that's for space. For most of Jewish history there were polytheistic Jews, but they were not practising Judaism. It's like you're arguing that because some modern day Catholics use birth control, Catholicism has changed its stance on condoms. On Jerusalem, we know there were places of worship other than Jerusalem in convenient places - it's just that sacrifices (as opposed to prayer) were supposed to be offered only in Jerusalem. Even that was subverted by a political desire by the Northern kingdom to break Jerusalem's stranglehold. Etc Etc Etc. Yes, modern Judaism is somewhat different, but to try to argue it's a different religion is an incredible stretch. --Dweller (talk) 14:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I never said that it was a different religion; I just said that it's gone through a series of successive reforms, which meant (for example) that the post-Talmud Judaism of the 6th-century A.D. and later had very many altered characteristics with respect to the pre-Hezekiah Israelite religion of the 8th-century B.C. and earlier (which were separated by ca. 1,500 years). And I think you underestimate the overwhelming importance of the Jerusalem temple before 70 A.D. Jews could certainly pray anywhere, but the temple was at least as important to the Jews of the time as the pilgrimage to Mecca is to Muslims now. If (after the reforms of Josiah) you denied the pre-eminence and exclusivity of the Jerusalem temple, you could be a Samaritan, or a far-flung benighted half-heathen like the ethnic Jews of the Elephantine papyri, but you were considered to have cut yourself off from the mainstream Jewish community... AnonMoos (talk) 15:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, then we agree. To this day, Jews are focussed on the pre-eminence of Jerusalem. --Dweller (talk) 15:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. For some ancient Israelites who vigorously contested the prophets' and reformers' definition of Israelite religion, consult verse Jeremiah 44:17. AnonMoos (talk) 15:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why religions originating from the Neolithic period should be excluded, but Shamanism dates back to the Paleolithic Era. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shamanism is a general classification or style of spirituality / religious practices, rather than a specific set of doctrines or persisting affiliation. Shamanism is on a level with other general terms (such as "monotheism" etc.), but not really comparable with specific religious traditions (such as "Judaism" etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 14:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Zoroastrianism is one of the old ones - the article is vague about how old. 78.147.2.230 (talk) 11:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So little is known about important periods in the history of Zoroastrianism that some of the main developments of Zoroastrianism over time before the Arab conquests remain very obscure. For example, part of the impulse of Zoroastrianism at some periods was quasi-monotheistic, yet during the Arsacid (Parthian) dynasty and part of the Achaemenid and Sassanid dyanasties (all of which adopted Zoroastrianism — or at least reverence of Ahura Mazda — as an official state religion) there were government-supported temples to Anahita as a goddess etc... AnonMoos (talk) 14:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This question has definitely been asked before, but I can't seem to make the archive search engine work (it finds no hits for the word "religion", which is bizarre). --Dweller (talk) 11:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I want to defend the suggestion of a form of shamanism or animism as the oldest religion. Certainly, shamanism or animism as categories are no more religions than monotheism. However, there are examples of animism whose roots probably go back further than Judaism or Hinduism. The roots of those two religions go back no more than 5,000 years. We all agree that Judaism and Hinduism have undergone substantial evolution from their earliest known forms. So, the evolution of animistic traditions over time should not disqualify them as very old religions. Archeological evidence suggests that some peoples with animistic traditions have had a continuous record of cultural continuity in a region for more than 5,000 years. Examples include the Puebloan peoples or the Igbo people, among many others. Their indigenous religious traditions are probably older than those of Judaism or Hinduism. Marco polo (talk) 16:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indian International Students

How many Indian international students go and study abroad in Canada each year? Sonic99 (talk) 04:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

According to this article, there were 47,639 Indian foreign students in Canada at the end of 2007. Here's a full table listing the number of Canadian student visas issued by country, 1999 to 2008. India averages 2,500 per year, but the trend is growing (2008 was over 3,000). --Xuxl (talk) 14:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

classical music song

There is a classical music song (may be an opera aria, not sure; may have been written by Beethoven, not sure). I remember the tune pretty well can can try to type in some representation if necessary. The only words I remember are "violetti graziosi" (maybe misspelled) which recur many times and may be enough to identify the piece, but googling fails. Any thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.117.145.149 (talk) 06:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your question appears to contain insufficient information to get an answer. I suggest that you pick the tune out on the piano and give us the notes. (If those two words are Italian, I can tell you that it is not an operatic aria by Beethovan.) B00P (talk) 07:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's Le Violette by Alessandro Scarlatti. The words you needed to google were "violette graziose". Here are the lyrics, and here's a half-way decent recording, by Carlo Bergonzi. Enjoy. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was a favorite encore of Tito Schipa.--Wetman (talk) 11:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I wanted to find a good recording by Schipa, because his rendition is the best I know of. But the utubular Schipa recordings are execrable. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I will try to listen to the youtube versions soon (can't do it from here). I'm a bit surprised about Schipa since I thought of the piece as a soprano composition. 67.117.145.149 (talk) 22:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That may be because you've only ever heard it sung by a woman, but both types of humans can sing it. I'm sure Luciano Pavarotti did a recording, as did Victoria de los Angeles and Teresa Berganza, among various others of each sex. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the 'Muslim Demographics' video, a popular youtube video, where does he get this piece of information?

"No culture has EVER reversed a 1.9 children per woman fertility rate". What is the source of this information, and what examples of cultures have declined in such a way historically?--4crassandchmp (talk) 12:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would ask if any historical culture is actually known to have had such a low figure before the present era: if not, then the statement would be trivially true but irrelevant, since it would only describe ongoing situations whose future cannot be firmly predicted. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly suspect this is a no true Scotsman situation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are birth control restrictions in China for long decades already. However, 1.9 average is low fertility rate in any case (meaning that the new generations size is smaller as the average is lower than 2).P.S. about 70% of Iranian population is under 30 years old, meaning that a culture can reverse a sharp shrink in the population size. However, Iranian economy is not a real modern one and the implications of such fertility rat are different then it would have in modern economies--Gilisa (talk) 16:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure how this is a no true Scotsman situation — while I see the factual problems that other commentators here have noted, I don't see anything subjective in the claim. Nyttend (talk) 22:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The US total fertility rate rose from 2.0 in the late 30s, to 3.7 in the late 1950s (source: Total fertility rate). I'm not exactly sure what the quote means, but if the US rate can nearly double from 2.0 in 20 years it seems unlikely that 1.9 is necessarily a staging point on the road to extinction. See also Demographic-economic paradox and Birth control#History. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.19.20 (talk) 17:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That type of statistics pretty much didn't exist before the 19th century, so I'm not sure on what basis he's generalizing to all centuries of human history preceding the 19th... AnonMoos (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[[26]] says Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau have all had fewer than 1.9 live births per woman since 1990. Moreover, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, the Cook Islands and Niue each had smaller absolute numbers of people in 2007 than in 1990.DOR (HK) (talk) 06:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just a point of information, the replacement fertility rate is actually 2.1 in a developed society (by which I don't mean Western, I just mean lowish child mortality and other death rates) to account for the small number of children who won't survive until childbearing age. Prokhorovka (talk) 16:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that France has seen an increase in birthrates, claiming generous maternity laws and child tax benefits are to thank. This may have pushed it across 1.9, but it seems like a pretty arbitrary number. Why not 1.8 or 2? A better number would be the self sustaining number, which I think is 2.1 or so for most developed countries. TastyCakes (talk) 17:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reproduction rates in the EU countries

How common is it for adults in these countries (espcially in Frence, UK and Germany) to choose not to having babies?--Gilisa (talk) 16:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The UK Office of National Statistics says:

Childlessness has been on the increase in recent years. One in five women born in 1963 remained childless, compared with one in eight women born around 1933. [27]

--Tango (talk) 17:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tango, the link does not provide information on childless rates today or about what it define as women who remaind childless (is she a 30 years old women? a no longer fertile women?).--Gilisa (talk) 19:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried our article on Demographics of the European Union for a starting point? There are also articles on the individual countries, such as Demographics of France, or Demographics of Germany. Searching for fertility rates will also yield you many newspaper articles on the topic, such as here. The basic answer is rare, but getting more common - all European countries currently have fewer babies being born than the replacement rate, so we are doing our bit to fight global overpopulation... --Saalstin (talk) 17:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fighting overpopulation is one of humanity great challenges. However, the decision not to bring a baby (even one for a couple)is personal and I guess that it's not motivated mostly by one's (or two's :)) feelings towards earth. Also, even if European population decline to 0 world population will still continue to raise because of other countries which share none of the responsibility.--Gilisa (talk) 17:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Environmentalism is one of the many reasons people choose not to have children. In industrial countries (esp. United States, but also Europe), even a single child dramatically increases the amount of CO² in the atmosphere, for example, if you factor it over their entire lifetime. A child in the U.S. consumes many times more resources than a child in, say, Africa. Which is not to say that voluntarily avoiding having children is the key towards environmental sustainability (it isn't, by itself), though having LOTS of children (e.g the quiverfull people) in an industrialized country does certainly have a detrimental environmental effect. The amount of net environmental resources a child consumes DOES matter a lot depending on where it is born. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you google "childfree france", "childfree germany", etc., you get better results than looking at raw fertility rates. What you are interested in is the number of people who are childfree, not the number who just don't happen to have children (which can be for a variety of reasons). --Mr.98 (talk) 17:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great article 98! (however it does not seems to give precents).--Gilisa (talk) 18:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Choosing not to have children, for whatever reason, makes those folks part of a social experimentation in extinction. Namely, their own. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Only if you consider "extinction" to be something that runs in immediate families, which isn't usually the definition of it. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Extinction in the sense that you've removed two more entries in the gene pool of those who want children vs. those who don't. The stuff about not having children due to their "environmental footprint" sounds like something out of The Onion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it isn't. The long-term ecological effects of unrestricted reproduction is something to take seriously, once you are willing to get past the sentimentality people have regarding their own offspring. (And I doubt that wanting kids/not wanting them is genetically transmissible for the most part, so there isn't likely any significant gene pool effect.) --Mr.98 (talk) 23:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Humans have had a large environmental footprint from the very beginning. If you don't want kids and don't have any, that's the end of the line for your genetics. Others who do want kids will continue to produce them, and thus will continue that particular genetic line. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just about individual genetics, even from an evolutionary perspective... and not everyone thinks a blunt evolutionary perspective is the best way to view either personal or global decisions. Anyway, we have gotten well outside the scope of the Ref Desk on this—if you want to debate endlessly, there are better places for that. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There have always been people who have chosen not to have children, for various reasons. What distinguishes some countries in modern Europe currently is the number of people who choose not to have children for reasons which could be considered rather dubious, and yet which are somewhat supported by the surrounding culture -- such as men wanting to stay at home and have their moms continue to cook for them and do all their laundry into their thirties, and women dreading the fact that you can't wear skin-tight jeans when you're pregnant. (These have been alleged to be contributing factors to the decline of the Italian birth rate...) AnonMoos (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure that the latter example is necessarily the driving force here. It sounds like a parody of the childfree people. In my experience, the people who don't want to have kids have usually given a lot more thought to the question than those who do, but I'm saying that as a member of the former group. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's a claim that ^{[citation needed]}. It wouldn't surprise me people have made that claim in fact I seem to remember something like that possibly coming from the Italian government or the Catholic church or some such), but that doesn't mean it has any basis in fact. I would say there's evidence it's the opposite. In the past, people often got married and then had kids because they felt it was what they were supposed to do (due to social, religious etc reasons). There was great social stigma particularly attached to an unmarried woman and to a less but still relevant extent to a couple who decided not to have children (again particularly the female). In a number of traditional societies of course, taking a second wife (or divorce as mentioned in the other discussion below) was not unheard of if you didn't have children (or in some cases male children) with the first (regardless who was at fault which couldn't easily be determined in those days) [28]. This ref partially supports my second assertation at least in Australia although it's not a particularly unbiased source [29]. While this stigma still exists e.g. [30] (but then again also to someone who does have children for different reasons) it's drastically reduced in much of the Western world. Also the greater acceptance of divorce means there's probably fewer people having children to try to save their marriage. Taking all these together, in other words a far bigger factor is probably far fewer people are having children for 'dubious' reasons then the opposite. I'm pretty sure there's a well established correlation between education and reduced fertility which would seem to me to further suggest the point. (Of course I would question whether not having children because you want your mother to do your laundry or so you can wear skin-tight jeans is actually a dubious reason, it sounds to me like these are precisely the kind of people who should not be having kids. Perhaps they could be regarded as a bit 'selfish' but then so are many other kinds of people and its ultimately their choice.) Nil Einne (talk) 05:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Divorce rates in the USA

how much is divorce rate in USA. Is it like 60%? Since at English class the teacher mention divorce rate is going up, and trifolds from 1960. Was divorce rate like interracial marriage that low or is it much higher? I though divorce rate now is less than 40%.--209.129.85.4 (talk) 21:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are actually two (somewhat redundant) articles which cover this, to a point. See Divorce (United States) and Divorce in the United States. The first one has state-by-state marriage rates and divorce rates. You could get a rough estimate of the number of marriages ending in divorce by dividing the marriage rate by the divorce rate. A quick glance at the statistics at Divorce (United States) shows that some states show significantly more than .50 divorces/marriage, while other states show a LOT less than .50 divorces/marriage. Of course, even these statistics end up meaningless when you consider it is only counting the marriages performed in the state, not the marriages of residents of that state. You are more likely to be married out of your home state, but more likely to be divorced where you live. Just look at the marriage stats for Hawaii and Nevada for a comparison. --Jayron32 22:05, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Historic divorce rates are also misleading. The "Divorce law" section of Divorce in the United States goes into detail, but basically, prior to the 1970s, divorce had to be "for cause": adultry, infertility, abuse, and so on. As a result, there were many couples who were still legally married, but living as if they were divorced. --Carnildo (talk) 02:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another reason is what Alan King once said about the old days, that "divorce was a luxury that few could afford." So it's a mistake to conclude that the U.S. is "less moral" now because the divorce rate is higher than it was 50 years ago. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be a mistake to conclude that it is not less moral too based on that information. Googlemeister (talk) 16:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just read in this morning's newspaper, that, as a backlash to Proposition 8, a California activist is circulating a petition to outlaw divorce in California in order to "protect marriage". 99.166.95.142 (talk) 16:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Succession to the British throne: Protestant descendants of Catholics

Let's imagine a delicate situation: If William marries a Roman Catholic, he will lose his place in the line of succession and will be replaced by his brother Henry. However, if William has Protestant children with his Roman Catholic wife, those children will have succession rights. That would mean that, in this situation, Henry would never be able to be Prince of Wales as he would never be heir apparent (his position would be threatened by the birth of a nephew/niece). To complicate the matters even more, what if Charles dies before William has Protestant children? Henry would become Henry IX and then suddenly his older brother has a child who is the rightful heir according to primogeniture. Would Henry cease to be a monarch immediately as Victoria would have ceased to be a monarch had her aunt given birth to her uncle's posthumous child?

Please, don't say that they would make something up like forcing William to give up succession rights for his children. How would this situation be handled under current law? Surtsicna (talk) 23:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the current list of succession has such a case. One of them married a Catholic and converted but his children are brought up in the Anglican church. He was removed from the list but his children are in it. Please notice that I might be wrong in some of details. Flamarande (talk) 23:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC) On personal note I want to point out that religious discrimination in the Western world seems to be slowly declining but changing the rules of royal succession can be only be done by all-too lazy politicians.[reply]

You are right, there is a similar case, but you haven't answered my question. by the way, please don't turn this into a discussion about religious discrimination. Surtsicna (talk) 23:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that "Victoria would have ceased to be a monarch". She was the heir to the throne at the time of the king's death and that is what matters. Rmhermen (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Parliament gets to decide who becomes the English monarch in every situation and at all times. The succession law currently on the books could be amended, repealed, or modified at any time should Parliament feel the need to. If there was an apparent succession crisis of the nature described by the OP, Parliament would merely need to pass a bill stating "So-and-so will be the next King/Queen" and that will suffice. --Jayron32 00:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No they can't. No act of parliament takes effect until it has received royal assent and that can't happen if you don't know who the monarch is. Changing the law would require them to anticipate the problem before the current monarch died, if they didn't do that the problem the OP describes would still be a problem. --Tango (talk) 01:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How would they be caught by surprise on this issue? The only conceivable way that could work out would be if the heir apparent converted to Catholicism and the current monarch died within a very short time of each other. Prince William isn't going to just wake up one day and decide he's a Catholic. If he were to convert to Catholicism, the Parliament would likely have ample time to consider ammending or clarifying the succession law to decide how to handle it. They could repeal the ban on Catholics, specifically exclude his children as well as himself, specifically name Harry as heir, they really could do any of that. As the Monarch is forbidden from ultimately withholding royal assent, the whole issue is only of practical concern in the unlikely event of simultaneous death of the monarch and conversion of the heir apparent. The rest of is nonsense. --Jayron32 03:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The OP explicitly asked what would happen under current law. And the monarch isn't forbidden from withholding royal assent, it is just generally accepted that if they ever did there would be a (very peaceful) revolution and the monarchy would cease to be (or, at least, would cease to have the de jure power of royal assent). Conventions are extremely important in British politics, but they aren't law. Any violation of political conventions are dealt with through political means, not through the courts. --Tango (talk) 14:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First, in this case it's not just the British Parliament (which by the way includes the monarch) which can decide. The Statute of Westminster commits members of the Commonwealth to seeking a joint solution to changes in the Act of Succession; so Parliament would have to orchestrate a joint change throughout the Commonwealth. (That said, I'm not sure how this would play out in an emergency.) Also, Harry would not become Prince of Wales, since the title is reserved for the Heir Apparent, not an Heir Presumptive. Harry would not be the Heir Apparent since any (Protestant) children of William would supplant him in the line of succession. (Oh, you did say that, didn't you; sorry.) Elphion (talk) 02:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As for succession after Harry becomes Henry IX (assuming he takes that name), once Henry is king no new child of William's could dislodge him, and I think the Act is pretty clear that Henry's direct heirs would come before any others. The interesting question is whether William's children would still precede any other future heir of Charles's. (One presumes the answer is "yes", but I don't what the law actually says about that.) The question of a posthumous child might be interesting; England has never had a case where the succession might have depended on a posthumous child (and again, I don't know whether the law addresses this -- the Act of Succession assumes there is an heir to inherit immediately upon the previous monarch's death). But France has: when Louis X died in 1316 they had to wait to see whether his posthumous child was a son (it was) and then wait for the infant John I to die before Louis's brother became Philip V. Elphion (talk) 02:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would point out that they're likely to know this will be a burning issue in addition when William's wife becomes pregnant (presuming he/she's already converted). You can come up with rather implausible cases I guess, e.g. William annouces he's converted to Catholicism, his grandmother dies of a heartattack on hearing the news and then his father dies of a heart attack upon hearing his mother died then his wife goes into premature labour upon hearing her grandmother-in-law and father-in-law died. Nil Einne (talk) 05:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it fortunate we now live by the Rule of Law? Could anyone seriously imagine a Civil War in the United Kingdom, along the same lines as the Barons' Revolt, or any of the other numerous such scraps that Merry Olde Englande's flesh was heir to in less enlightened days? Back then people, whether well meaning or not, were ruled by their passions, such that to them authority was represented by the size of your army - or at least by that of your "Warwick", if you had one. Charles I wrecked it for everyone else by asserting his own rights, which biblically he did have, but in addition by not considering everyone else's, which the Bible also commands. True authority, that is, the recognised right to rule, has to lie in something that is the same and inviolate. Some may say that at least such tricky questions as these were avoided in the old days by simply railroading the parties concerned into doing what you wanted, if you thought you were king ( re Henricus Octis ), or invading and killing your rival claimant and libelling his memory by rewriting history ( Henry VII - his daddy ), or entering Parliament with the sole intention of arresting five or six flies in the ointment - probably the reason to this day why Her Majesty may not enter the House of Commons to this day, over 360 years later. I have said before, that problems can be avoided by anticipating them, and taking proper precautions, not by moving the goalposts mid game. This is interesting, because has not HRH Prince Charles, the future Charles III, if he decides to take that name, gotten away with what was denied his own great uncle? It seems, if the standards change, how will anyone know where they stand ? I guess the difference here is that maybe they have barred any possible issue from this union from claiming the crown. I know that when Edward VIII abdicated, he renounced any claim on the throne for himself and any children he and Wallis might have ( they didn't ). But again, imagine this had occurred in 1436, not 1936, with a teenaged Henry VI, choosing Margaret of Anjou, that " tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide' and Parliament or the Council said no, but not necessarily because she was only six at the time. Of course, back then, Kings of England were not forced to do anything, so if in THIS alternate history he actually had a spine, he may simply have demanded what he wanted, arrested his protectors, and made good use of the chopping block in the Tower. Henry Tudor, Jr., would have. Of course, back then the English looked for any excuse to start a civil war, so we might have had it nearly twenty years earlier. Thankfully, even though it did take about a thousand years, people began to realise that the kingdom could not be ruled by the caprices of its monarchs. Ideally, the monarch should actually be the ruler, with Parliament, not just a rubber stamp, because that is their birthright.The Russian.C.B.Lilly 05:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

According to my 1999 Whitaker's Almanack, Prince Michael of Kent, a grandson of King George V, and the Earl of St Andrews, a son of Prince Michael's brother the Duke of Kent, gave up their position in the line of succession by marrying Roman Catholics. However, their offspring, so long as they remain in communion with the Church of England, retain their places.—— Shakescene (talk) 06:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there a precedent for Parliament just chopping off the head of a monarch who displeases them, and appointing some random politician or general as "Lord Protector?" See also WP:IAR. Edison (talk) 06:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's a precedent, but somehow I doubt it's legal now. This question keeps turning up, though. Is there a viable "threat" that Prince William is going to marry a Catholic? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok (let me strain my brain). Let's just assume that everything happens as Surtsicna proposes and the parliament doesn't change the succession laws (all extremely far-fetched...). We end up with 'King Charles and William married to a Catholic'. Henry will become the next king. William has a protestant child before Charles dies? The child becomes the next King or Queen after the death of Charles. William's wife has a child after the death of king Charles? Tough luck, because Henry is king already and he doesn't lose his kingship. Surtsicna, can you please explain the: "Victoria would have ceased to be a monarch had her aunt given birth to her uncle's posthumous child"? I don't think that would have worked (at the least, it wouldn't be legal). Flamarande (talk) 14:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I recall the stuff about Catholics and succession was abolished a few years ago. 89.242.106.49 (talk) 17:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If so, the Succession to the British throne article has not been update to reflect that fact. (edit: You may be thinking of the Prince of Wales's comments in 1995, talked about under Succession_to_the_British_throne#Changes.)-- 128.104.112.95 (talk) 17:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's still there. There has been talk about abolishing it for years, but it hasn't happened yet. --Tango (talk) 18:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Victoria would have ceased to be a monarch according to our own article, the proclamation of her accession (notice the part: saving the rights of any issue of his late Majesty King William IV which may be born of his late Majesty's consort) and several other sources (eg. The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860). It makes sense because her uncle's child couldn't be disqualified just because he/she wasn't lucky enough to be born before his/her father's death and because the child would have been the senior heir according to primogeniture. According to this precedent/provision, Henry would lose his crown in favour of the heir who is senior according to primogeniture and not disqualified by anything. Jayron, I am sure they would amend the law if this situation happens, but I'd like to know what would happen if they didn't amend the law. Surtsicna (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good old-fashioned civil war? Seriously now, you seem to have stumbled upon a vague issue. Assuming that 'William marries a Catholic woman and King Charles dies', Henry inherits the throne. Sometime later William and his wife have a child which is baptised not as a Catholic but as an Anglican. Victoria's precedent (where the hell did you find that?) indeed suggests that King Henry would lose his throne in favour of that child. However we do know that precedents are one thing but the supreme power of the Parliament is another. Flamarande (talk) 20:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You understand what I said but let's imagine that the parliament is extremely lazy and doesn't want to bother doing anything about the issue or that everything goes like Nil Einne said (William annouces he's converted to Catholicism, his grandmother dies of a heartattack on hearing the news and then his father dies of a heart attack upon hearing his mother died then his wife goes into premature labour upon hearing her grandmother-in-law and father-in-law died); in other words, let's imagine that nothing is changed and that the situation mcan be handled only by the current laws. It is indeed far-fetched, but it's nevertheless possible (just like a fertile octogenarian and the unborn widow example).

Where the hell did I find Victoria's example? Well, as I said: Wikipedia, credible Internet pages and books concerning British constitution. Surtsicna (talk) 20:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As in Utopia,

by our Constitution we are governed by a Despot who,

although in theory absolute--is, in practice, nothing of the

kind--being watched day and night by two Wise Men whose duty

it is, on his very first lapse from political or social

propriety, to denounce him to me, the Public Exploder, and

it then becomes my duty to blow up His Majesty with

dynamite

Which is to say, it's all practicality and custom. I think it seems more and more likely that the old joke is true: the Queen aims to outlast Charles so that he is never king, taking us straight from Elizabeth II to William V (or whatever he goes by). Oddly, this seems more okay, to the extent that I wonder if there is some contingency to pass over Charles if necessary (have him abdicate?). In which case, an emergency conversion to Catholicism could work nicely. 86.166.148.95 (talk) 21:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Legality of using someone else's unsecured network in UK

Are there any precedents on this? What about the practice elsewhere in Europe? Kittybrewster ☎ 23:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We have something at Legality of piggybacking#United Kingdom --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose of swim trunks inner netting

I've notice men's swim trunks have an inner mesh lining with elastic leg openings. What's the purpose of this "mesh underwear" built into swim trunks? Other swim shorts (like Speedos) don't have any mesh lining. I don't think womens' beach wear has any mesh lining either. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 23:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably to preserve what little might be left of your modesty. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In trunks, it has two purposes. Firstly, it provides a measure of support for those who prefer briefs to boxers. Secondly, as Baseball Bugs implies, it holds a man's bits in. Should the trunks rise up, as they are prone to do in water, particularly in waves, there won't be a surprise appearance by man-bits. This isn't necessary in speedos, because the brief and elastic nature of the speedos (in theory, at least) holds the genitals within, and there is less chance of a free peep-show, even if the speedos mean that everyone's seen it all before. Steewi (talk) 02:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And I theorize that it is netting so that sand does not get stuck inside. Googlemeister (talk) 16:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

December 2

Borough vs County constituencies

Does anyone know the party breakdown for borough and county constituencies in the United Kingdom. I think it would be interesting to see how much Labour dominate the more urbanised borough constituencies and the Tories in the county constituencies. Sam 12:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs)

Not sure exactly but Local government in England#Principal authorities may be of use? 194.221.133.226 (talk) 13:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...or a map like this? Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A map like that, but NOT THAT MAP! That's a map for elections to the UK parliament not borough and county council elections!

If you want results for individual constituencies for local government elections, you'll probably have to turn to individual council websites or local papers. United Kingdom local elections, 2009 has a map showing all 27 county councils, and results for borough and other council elections can be found yearly on the BBC[31][32][33] though they don't combine them with areas where there's no election that year. Elections in the United Kingdom has more general info.

Note that counties, which are mostly rural, are divided into boroughs, which are therefore also mostly rural, while urban areas tend to have unitary authorities, except for London boroughs which are subdivisions of the Greater London Authority area. So maybe you really want to compare unitary authorities with counties? --Pleasantman (talk) 14:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No need to SHOUT!! - the original question could be interpreted in several ways. Thank you. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, my apologies, I don't seem to have been very clear. I did mean parliamentary constituencies, which are classified as either 'borough (burgh in Scotland) constituencies' and 'county constituencies'. The former tend to be rural while the latter are in urban areas. [here] I think it would be interesting to see how the Tories dominate the county parliamentary constituencies, and Labour the borough ones. Thanks for your help guys. Sam 16:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs)

Did they or didn't They ?

Last night I was watching a programme in which one of the characters suggested that Jackson Pollock once had some sort of fight or duel with Ernest Hemingway. Based on what I have learned of Pollock in particular, that sounds plausible. Now I cannot remember which programme it was on, nor do the articles here on both men have anything about it. Is it true, seeing they were contemporaries? The Russian.C.B.Lilly 14:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christopher1968 (talk • contribs)

SCi Fi Book involving unaware humans

Someone told me about a sci-fi book which was in a dystopian future and the world was going to end (?) and that the only saviors were humans that were unaware that they had some sort of special powers and that these would be "activated" when the moment was needed. But I forgot the title and the author. Does anyone know? --Reticuli88 (talk) 14:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke comes to mind, although it was a near-future setting so maybe doesn't quality. But the page on the book has a section discussing other books with similar themes so it might be worth a look.--Pleasantman (talk) 14:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kind of sounds like the movie Knowing. Googlemeister (talk) 16:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jack Williamson's "Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods" has some similar plot elements... AnonMoos (talk) 16:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question moved from article space

This was the entire text of the article What is the difference between hoarding and saving prefix:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives, created by new user Asternoide; I suspect it was intended for here:

(What is the) difference between hoarding and saving in barter system (?)

Gonzonoir (talk) 15:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Legal status of illustrations depicting pedophilia in Canada

Just curious, is it legal to possess or to view an illustration depicting pedophilia? The reason I ask is because I've read about a comic called Mai Chan's Daily Life where supposedly a tiny enfant is raped (and then popped into a blender, but that's a different story). I have to wonder how such a thing could even get published. I'm under the impression that in the film industry, it's illegal to show underage sex, even if the actor is of age.

Thanks. 99.250.7.109 (talk) 16:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just took a quick look through the child pornography laws of Canada article. My question is answered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.7.109 (talk) 16:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We don't answer legal questions, but I don't think it's going beyond the bounds of neighbourly advice to tell you that child pornography is illegal. However it's certainly possible to imagine a comic in which child sex is part of the story, but not depicted. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:53, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Legal status of cartoon pornography depicting minors may be of interest to anyone who wants more information on the subject. Pollinosisss (talk) 21:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the article. I realize you don't answer legal questions because there might me some unfortunate implications but I ask purely out of curiosity. If I was in need of legal aid, I would consult a lawyer. 99.250.7.109 (talk) 22:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Soldier who kept a diary during the Napoleonic wars?

What was the name of the British soldier in the Napoleonic wars who kept a diary which has subsequently been published? Thanks. 89.242.106.49 (talk) 16:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

William Green (British Army soldier) or Benjamin Randell Harris? meltBanana 18:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ordering employees to lobby Congress

Please comment on the legality/ethics of a U.S. employer ordering its employees to call their congresspeople and lobby for a specific measure related to the company's business. Does it matter whether the employer is a non-profit? The Hero of This Nation (talk) 16:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We don't offer legal advice, so I can't comment on legality. However I'm pretty sure ordering employees to take political action is highly unethical. Do you really mean "ordering", because "suggesting" or "asking" would be much less ethically dubious. The best place to get advice on legality would probably be your congressperson. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the employer is a lobbying firm, then that would be expected of the employees (although probably only on company time) Googlemeister (talk) 19:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

French poet who taught for a while in a village school in England?

Who was he? I've forgotten. Probably 19th. century. Thanks. 89.242.106.49 (talk) 17:01, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that you are thinking of Paul Verlaine, who taught for a while in the small town of Lymington in Hampshire. His pupil, Lucien Létinois, only really known as the object of Verlaine's affection, taught at Stickney, Lincolnshire. Arthur Rimbaud also taught in England, but in London, rather than at a village school. Warofdreams talk 18:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Canadian law and bankruptcy

I worked for a company for several months that went under and closed up. I'm still waiting on a final paycheque, but have been told that it will be payed from assets in the claim. Anyways, I called the place handling the bankruptcy and was told there "hadn't been a filing yet".

Can anybody translate this into English? Anybody with experience in this sort of situation that could tell me how long I may be waiting for this process? Thanks (Note that I'm not looking for legal advise to this second question, just for people who have waited like I am) - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is an article Bankruptcy in Canada which may help. Generally speaking, bankruptcy is a legal proceeding where a court protects a debtor from their creditors. In the process, the court attempts to pay off the creditors to the greatest extent possible. The "filing" likely refers to the official filing with the court - that is, although the company is "bankrupt" in that it is closed and doesn't have enough money to pay off its debts, it hasn't yet petitioned the court to start the official bankruptcy proceedings. How long it will take to resolve is anyone's guess. My understanding is that bankruptcies can take anywhere from months to years, depending on the complexities. -- 128.104.112.95 (talk) 18:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They might mean that the plan for how to liquidate/reorganise hasn't been filed yet. --Tango (talk) 18:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Language use by world leaders during meetings/summits

I have noticed that some world leaders will always speak the language(s) of their home countries when they have meetings/summits with their counterparts, while other world leaders will speak the language(s) of his/her counterparts' home countries, or some other language which all sides can understand. Are there any rules regarding what languages world leaders must use when speaking with their counterparts? 128.2.247.44 (talk) 20:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There aren't really any rules. Leaders will do whatever they think is most effective. Some leaders may not feel that they can communicate effectively in the language of the country they are visiting, or, for that matter, in any language other than their native language. However, if a leader can communicate effectively in his or her host's language, he or she is likely to use that language, because doing so is likely to ingratiate the officials of the host country. Marco polo (talk) 21:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are differences policies in different countries. Germany, e.g., has foreign languages among the requirements for its diplomatic corps, while France is very eager to promote the use of its own language and advises its diplomatic corps to only resort to other languages as a last resort; at least that's what I heard some 20 years ago. — Sebastian 21:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Depends - on formal occasions diplomatic protocol requires leaders to speak the language of the country they are representing. In less formal circumstances - e.g. bilateral meetings on the sidelines of a summit, press conferences, etc, leaders are free to choose whatever language they feel is appropriate to the occasion and the audience. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 22:20, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trends of black and white couples

Is it just black male and white female is going up, or white male and black female is also going up. From [34] said in 2007 black man/white women is 2.68 times vice versa, that's about 73%, but 2006 table we had is 2.44 times vice versa. Also is white male and asian female continue rising, or we got some rlief from white male and asian female couples. In 2000 record high of 3.08 but 2006 is 3.05. Is white male and asian female going to be past 3.3 times vice versa. By 2010 is white male and asian female going to hit 3.5 or so?--209.129.85.4 (talk) 20:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Asian male and black female couples

I though it is the thoughtest of all to find a asian amle with black female but the google image post afew of asian guys dating a black lady. Which famous peoples follow this pattern?--209.129.85.4 (talk) 20:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hindu chant in Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom?

I was wondering if the guy who got his heart ripped out in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was chanting Aum Namah Shivaya? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 20:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Peace Corp updated

Is a civilian surge of agri-specialists into Afghanistan and the paying off Taliban fighters instead of a military surge a way to transition from Taliban grown poppy seeds to Karzai grown GMO products? 71.100.160.161 (talk) 21:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC) [reply]

Natural-born life

Why is in a sentencing court, atleast on TV (as I haven't experienced it in real life) the judge uses the phrase "natural-born life" when refering to a life sentence? Grsz¹¹ 23:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Literally for the rest of your life. vs. "life" as 20-25 years. 198.161.238.18 (talk) 23:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]