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November 15

UK Candidate Selection Process

Sorry if this is on Wikipedia, but I can't find it anywhere, or on the parties pages. How does each of the 3 main parties in the UK select it's candidates for MPs?

Many thanks, Prokhorovka (talk) 09:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't link to the site as it's blacklisted (Suite 101) but the 6th result down on Google (UK) search 'selecting candidates for election' gives a reasonable summary. Dalliance (talk) 12:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Many thanks, Prokhorovka (talk) 16:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

• The Conservative Party recently began using open primaries to select most of their candidates. Otherwise, it is usually the members of the local party who vote on which candidate should represent them. ╟─TreasuryTag►sheriff─╢ 16:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

  I believe the Conservative Party have only occassionally used open primaries. Most recently, to select Sarah Wollaston as their candidate for Totnes in this year's General Election, they sent out a postal ballot to all 69,000 constituents who were registered voters; this cost the party £38,000 [1]. Gandalf61 (talk) 17:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

  Hmm, in my constituency (not Totnes!) I was invited to their open primary, and I'm not a party member. ╟─TreasuryTag►hemicycle─╢ 18:04, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I think I'll just call them tomorrow, to see what they say. Prokhorovka (talk) 21:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Alleged offender, accused, indicted accused, defendent, etc

What are the deferences between the following terms in general legal sense:

1. Alleged offender
2. Accused
3. Indicted accused
4. Defendent

Aren't they synonyms of each other?

182.52.101.139 (talk) 09:29, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

1. Alleged offender: The police have arrested/ticketed the person for the crime or identified them as the person who is wanted for the crime but it has not been proven in court that they actually committed the crime. So they are only alleged to have committed the offense.
2. Accused: Essentially the same as an alleged offender.
3. Indicted accused: The accused person has now been indicted.
4. Defendant: They have been arrested/ticketed and are now standing trial in court. See Defendant.

They aren't all synonyms of each other but are related to one another along a certain time-line. Dismas|^(talk) 09:57, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think that in the US, at least, there is a difference between (1) and (2) in popular usage: (1) can be used for a person who the police or a victim say is the offender (no arrest is necessary), whereas (2) I think is usually more formal than (1) and implies it's a little further along in the legal process. Unfortunately I don't have the AP Stylebook at my desk to see what terms the AP uses. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Invasions

As I understand, an invasion is when a country uses military force to seize a territory that is not under his command at the time (regardless on whenever the action was good or evil). But how do we name it when the invaded country prepares a counter-offensive, as part of the same military conflict, defeat the invaders and restore their original control over the territory? Liberation? Reconquest? I don't think "invasion" applies, unless both actions take place during different military conflicts. MBelgrano (talk) 12:57, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The BBC used the phrase "recapture" in reference to the Falkland Islands. Our article on Falklands war uses "re-occupation" for the Argentinian action and "retake" or "recapture" for the British action. It all depends on your point of view. Dbfirs 13:31, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The BBC also used "liberation" here[2] as do the Falkland Islanders themselves[3]. Then there's the Liberation of France[4] and the Liberation of Kuwait[5]. The Argentinians thought that their original invasion was actually a liberation, so what they called it when they were removed again I don't know. Alansplodge (talk) 14:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Reconquista? LANTZY^TALK 14:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Dbfirs, I'm asking for a neutral term that doesn't involve a positive or negative opinion about the action (for keeping a neutral point of view at an article I'm writing). I have checked that "invasion" seems to be such a term, as described at invasion, and wanted to confirm if "liberation" is neutral as well or a biased term, and if it was, which other should be used.

As for "Reconquista", is that a valid word in English?

Off the record, the article I'm writing has no relation at all with Malvinas. MBelgrano (talk) 14:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for jumping to an incorrect conclusion based on your user name and location. I would consider both "invasion" and "liberation" to imply bias in many contexts, and I would suggest that "recapture" and "retake" are more neutral. Dbfirs 01:10, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Reconquista is one of those that has a singular meaning, except in a purely metaphorical sense. The Reconquista is used pretty much exclusively in English to refer to the christian recapture of the Iberian Peninsula during the 15th centure, just as The Holocaust is used for a specific genocide, the Armada is used for a specific fleet, etc. etc. --Jayron32 16:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

For the record, "reconquista" wasn't a serious suggestion, though I could easily imagine The Sun giving the event that nickname (were it not too high-brow for their readership). As for a sober, neutral term, avoiding the connotations of "conquer", "occupy", and "liberate", I'd suggest some sort of circumlocution like "reestablish control", "reassert sovereignty", "restore the status quo ante", etc. LANTZY^TALK 17:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Let's keep the words and phrases short. We don't want the writers of The Sun to run out of fingerpaint before the end of the articles, do we? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

"defeat(ed) the invaders?" HiLo48 (talk) 18:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Reconquest is a perfectly good English word. Marco polo (talk) 20:01, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944 fits the description well enough, and as the article title indicates, it is referred to as an "invasion". For me that settles the point. --Anonymous, 14:45 UTC, November 16, 2010.

Literary characters like Uriah Heep

What are some other literary characters who put forth a Goody Two-Shoes or perhaps smarmy image but later show their true angry self? 20.137.18.50 (talk) 15:16, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The White Witch of Narnia? Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Every one of the "New-teacher-with-the-unknown-past" that appears in each of the Harry Potter books could likely fit this. --Jayron32 16:28, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Tartuffe - Karenjc 17:01, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Antonio Salieri, as depicted fictionally in the film Amadeus. Maybe, the Mouth of Sauron, though his is a bit-part indeed. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Iago? Elmer Gantry? Rumpelstiltskin? John Hathorne? It seems like the description could be applied loosely to almost any malevolent hypocrite. LANTZY^TALK 17:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The characters of Satan/Mephistopheles sometimes get portrayed that way - "A man of wealth and taste" one minute and the next thing you know, they're ready to "Lay your soul to waste". 64.235.97.146 (talk) 18:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

You could argue for the Marquise de Merteuil too, who has carefully cultivated a public image of chastity and wisdom. Karenjc 18:31, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The Mysterious Stranger. Savage piece of writing, that. Antandrus (talk) 23:23, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

How about Regan and Goneril in King Lear? Antandrus (talk) 23:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Sex lives of the mentally disabled

Well, this is an odd question any way you phrase it. (Please don't think I'm asking for legal advice!) People with intellectual disabilities are often described in terms of "mental age", such that a mentally handicapped adult might be said to possess the mind of a child. Obviously this is not to be taken literally, but what exactly is the attitude of the law? Are there jurisdictions in which it is considered a form of statutory rape to have sex with people who are profoundly retarded? No doubt this is a question people would prefer not to address, but it must come up. And it's a non-trivial dilemma. On the one hand, it is quite probable that the mentally handicapped would be taken advantage of. On the other hand, if the person has the appetites in question, is it not cruel to prevent the person from satisfying them? Add to that the complication that there are various degrees of disability. How is this issue dealt with? LANTZY^TALK 18:19, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

We have an article, Sexual abuse of people with developmental disabilities. It seems to start off exclusively discussing "abuse" but then gets into the topic of how it's determined that sexual contact is consensual. Naturally, the law regarding this will vary a lot depending on which country you're discussing. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

In the UK at least, the key concept is "capacity", i.e. whether an individual is capable of giving meaningful consent to something and communicating that consent. If they are deemed to have capacity, then presumption is that they have the same right to sex and relationships as the rest of us - see this BBC report about a campaign by the Family Planning Association on this issue. This paper from 2008 gives a general overview of the practical and ethical issues involved. Our most important protective legislation is the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which says that if someone has a mental disorder that causes them to lack "sufficient understanding of the nature of the act or the reasonably foreseeable consequences", or are unable to communicate a choice, then they lack the capacity to consent and sex with them is an offence. The Act also makes it an offence for a carer to have sex with a person with a learning disability, whether they have capacity or not. We also have the Mental Capacity Act 2005 which looks more widely at capacity and its implications. You may find Nina de Vries interesting, though the article needs work. Karenjc 19:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! LANTZY^TALK 05:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

4th amendment and the TSA

For the benefit of unAmericans, TSA=Transportation Security Administration, and the 4th Amendment is to do with search powers. DuncanHill (talk) 21:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone brought a lawsuit against the TSA with regards the the 4th amendment of the US constitution? What was the result? Googlemeister (talk) 19:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to "unreasonable search and seizure"? I've not heard of such, but I doubt such a claim would get very far. Is there a particular incident or scenario you have in mind? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I guess the typical security screenings (including X-ray searches of hand baggage) at US airports and the occasional confiscation of items of non-dangerous nature. I know that there are a lot of people who go through this treatment and was wondering if anyone has brought forward a legal objection based on the 4th amendment. Googlemeister (talk) 20:21, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

How about references instead of guessing? A quick scan of the ACLU website yields their page on George v. TSA. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:54, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I can not download the pdf file containing the actual legal argument at this time. Did the 4th amendment play significantly in the argument, or was it a minor point? Googlemeister (talk) 21:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes. The first claim on page 18 of the initial complaint is, "The detention, arrest, unnecessary and extended restraint, incarceration, and interrogation of the Plaintiff by the Defendants...constituted an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution." The second complaint is that there was "excessive use of force", also violating the 4th; then the third complaint is a freedom-of-speech violation complaint. Note that this case is about a guy being grilled for hours after having been caught with English-to-Arabic flash cards, and isn't a challenge to the new standard screening procedure itself, à la the "if you touch my junk, I'm going to have you arrested" guy. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:26, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the George v. TSA case has basically just begun, and is somewhat exceptional (it is not just the regular search, but it's a detention of the defendant for having notably innocuous items). --Mr.98 (talk) 21:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Of relevance here is the border search exception to the 4th Amendment — particularly because it is considered a special case scenario applying to international border inspections, and puts full-body X-rays into the "search" category that requires "reasonable suspicion" before they can be conducted (whereas searching of luggage requires no such suspicion). While I'm not opposed to the full body X-rays (I think they probably fall under what most Americans in a post-9/11 age would consider a "reasonable" search, when properly done, which would satisfy at least some of the requirements of Katz v. United States), it's interesting that what was once reserved only for international travel with reasonable suspicion is now routinely used for domestic travel without any specific suspicion. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks all. Googlemeister (talk) 21:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I was going to suggest what 98 already brought up - namely, that the slippery part is "reasonable". The ACLU has brought suit pertaining to a specific guy, but I doubt very much if the courts would overturn the screening process wholesale. If they did, the government might issue an order grounding all flights, and that would not sit well with the public. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

While it may be somewhat arbitrary (phrases like "post 9/11 age" make me cringe) there is a line of cases that address these issues, so it's not as if the issue's never come up. Airport searches and some other types of public transport searches (common carriers have always had slightly different legal obligations... which isn't exactly the same as here, but worth noting for context) have always had more leeway than some other sorts of searches. This is actually a distinct, but related doctrine from border searches (unless it's customs... at which point it's a different question... but we're assuming domestic flights here). Shadowjams (talk) 08:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

How do homeless people die?

?? In developping countries certainly malnutrition is a major factor, but what about in developped countries where they can usually beg or go to soup kitchens for enough food to survive? Theoretically if they can get enough food they can stay alive until they're quite old (assuming they don't die of drug overdose or something), but I find it hard to imagine an homeless person in ripe old age expiring peacefully on a curb as a better-off person might in a hospital or in their home. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.78.167 (talk) 21:55, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Depends. Should they start suffering a compliant where they can not physical move away from their door way, then they might end up in a hospice, (if this is in Europe). In the US they just are just moved to somewhere where they can be left to die somewhere out of sight and out of mind. Their bodies are then cremated as John/Jane Does.--Aspro (talk) 22:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I think you're misinterpreted the question as where do homeless people die, not how. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The homeless tend to have high rates of illness, and are probably slower to go to the hospital than 'ordinary' people. They will also have weaker immune systems due to the poor diet and sleeping habits. Finally, I suspect at winter a fair number simply die of the cold. Prokhorovka (talk) 23:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

This literature survey gives a number of causes of death in various jurisdictions. For example, a survey in Boston found that amongst homeless people (mostly men) from 18-24, homicide was the highest cause of death (in women that also included age 25-44), and from 25-44, AIDS was the leading cause of death. Amongst the more elderly homeless (45-64), heart disease and cancer. Also noted is that hypothermia and tuberculosis, often associated with homelessness, were not terribly significant factors. In that particular study, though, it included only those who had sought medical care through a charity service, so probably was skewed a bit with regards to some aspects. Lack of food is not the primary cause of death for any, but food alone (without security, safety, health care, etc.) doesn't keep you alive too long on the streets — there's a lot more to living than just eating. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:16, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I think where they die is an interesting question, because how they die might not be as different than would be the case with people with homes. My guess is that cause of death would be about the same as with people adequately sheltered, though at a younger age. My guess would be that the place of death for a homeless person would be indoors—in some institution—having been taken there when they were found to be so ill or dysfunctional that they were taken off the streets or out of public places. Although some die on the streets—and they probably do so in greater numbers than do those with homes. And probably people with homes are more likely to die at home than homeless people. Well, I guess that one is obvious. Bus stop (talk) 23:22, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I guess somebody (Mr.98) has some actual facts. I was just pontificating (guessing). Bus stop (talk) 00:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

And of course, there are some transients who die rather violent deaths; some as a result of people beating them because they can, and some of them in fights with other homeless people. Sometimes, they just aren't as harmless as they're portrayed in some places. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:11, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course, if those stats only count people who showed up in hospitals under their own power, you're not going to see many starvation or hypothermia deaths regardless off how common those are in homeless people in general. APL (talk) 08:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It varies by the cities surveyed — some were shelter or hospital based, but some were surveys of all deaths in the county morgue. The meta-reviewers point out, though, that "Deaths occur throughout the year, not only during the colder months of winter. Hypothermia and exposure are surprisingly infrequent causes of death. Premature death is more highly associated with acute and chronic medical conditions than with either mental illness or substance abuse." Which is interesting and somewhat counterintuitive. With that data in hand, I think we can probably say that getting enough calories is not as hard as it once was (which is not too surprising, given how cheap empty calories are in the USA, anyway — you can probably get enough McDonald's to strictly survive for a couple dollars a day, not including food handouts), and freezing to death is less common than you might expect (though no doubt on a cold Boston night, anyone outside must be pretty miserable). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:27, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Marine accident?

This is going to be very vague; I'm sorry. I remember reading an article here on Wikipedia about either a sub-marine or submersible accident. It involved at least four people and I think they were bringing something through an opening in the vessel when the accident happened. I also remember reading about intense pressure changes killing a man instantly. Any help finding which vessel/article this was would help. -- 24.251.101.130 (talk) 22:18, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I wonder whether you are thinking of the Byford Dolphin incident? Karenjc 00:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

That's the one! Thank you very much! -- 24.251.101.130 (talk) 01:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome :) Karenjc 08:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

National Debt

Apparently UK owes £4.8 tn ie £77,000 per person. What are the equivalent figures for Ireland? Kittybrewster ☎ 23:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The program that figure was taken from used a very unofficial method to gain that figure. As such the equivalent is likely very hard to determine without access to a lot of Irish documents, time and expertise. Prokhorovka (talk) 23:13, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

It seems like every person and nation owes money to one or more somebodies. Has anyone tried to figure out, if everyone on earth could magically pay off their debts, who (if anyone) would end up with a net gain from where they were? (A positive number, that is, not just a return from the negative to 0.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:03, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

China and a bunch of other Asian countries? See also United States public debt, or this slide show [6] & [7] [8] [9] which gives figures for the US public debt only (not net, it includes the UK for example) Nil Einne (talk) 07:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Do we know ehere the figures come from? Kittybrewster ☎ 07:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

List of countries by external debt shows $9.088T for the UK, which works out currently to £5.66T , not £4.8T. List of sovereign states by external assets could help answering Bugs question, but it may have problems according to its talk page. For Ireland, the external debt list gives $2.287T , $515,671 per capita, Economy of the Republic of Ireland says €430,000 , somewhat higher.John Z (talk) 08:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

That list shows Monaco, Luxembourg, Switzerland, UK (insurance), Belgium (EU), at the top. Maybe this is debt management under some designed control? Plus Ireland. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

For the US, Bugs's question really has no answer. The only entity that can create money is the Federal Reserve, and they put money into circulation by lending it. Currently they are lending some money at a zero interest rate, but most of the existing money was lent at a positive rate. That means that if all of the money in circulation went back to the Fed, they would still be owed money. But this is really pretty meaningless, because the effective money supply is actually well over ten times the amount of currency in circulation, as our money supply article explains. Looie496 (talk) 17:16, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Debt is not a bad thing when used for investment. I speculate that the whole wealth of the west largely arose from borrowing to invest. I read that wealthy people actuially have the most debt. 92.28.250.11 (talk) 10:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Catholic Eucharist for unbaptized ones

Can unbaptized Catholics receive the Eucharist during the Mass? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.77.156.31 (talk) 23:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Read Eucharist in the Catholic Church and it may provide your answer. Look also for articles on baptism and confirmation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Open_communion#Position_of_the_Roman_Catholic_Church may also be helpful. Karenjc 00:22, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I know for a fact that an Anglican such as myself was able to receive the Eucharist as well as confess due to my parish priest having obtained a dispensation from the bishop of the diocese. I believe Tony Blair was able to do the same prior to his formal conversion. How can someone be considered Catholic unless they are baptised as one? Its the sacrament of baptism which makes a baby (or an adult) Catholic.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:30, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Going on vague memory, I don't think that's true. (My impression is that) the Catholic Church places minimal restrictions on what constitutes a valid baptism — must use water, must be done in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I think that's it. The celebrant doesn't have to be a priest or even a believer. Oh, it might be a sin for him, because the Church wants priests to do it, but they don't take it out on the person being baptized.

If you have been baptized in another Christian tradition and convert to Catholicism, you will not be re-baptized, because the Catholic Church considers baptism to be something that happens only once. In case it's not clear whether you were validly baptized, they may give you a conditional baptism. But otherwise, you go through confirmation, but not baptism. --Trovatore (talk) 00:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, let's unpick this and add some references.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church [10]:

V. Who can Baptize?

1256 The ordinary ministers of Baptism are the bishop and priest and, in the Latin Church, also the deacon.57 In case of necessity, any person, even someone not baptized, can baptize, if he has the required intention. the intention required is to will to do what the Church does when she baptizes, and to apply the Trinitarian baptismal formula. the Church finds the reason for this possibility in the universal saving will of God and the necessity of Baptism for salvation.

And from the Code of Canon Law [11] [12]:

Can. 850 Baptism is administered according to the order prescribed in the approved liturgical books, except in case of urgent necessity when only those things required for the validity of the sacrament must be observed.

Can. 861 §1. The ordinary minister of baptism is a bishop, a presbyter, or a deacon, without prejudice to the prescript of ⇒ can. 530, n. 1.

§2. When an ordinary minister is absent or impeded, a catechist or another person designated for this function by the local ordinary, or in a case of necessity any person with the right intention, confers baptism licitly. Pastors of souls, especially the pastor of a parish, are to be concerned that the Christian faithful are taught the correct way to baptize.

Can. 862 Except in a case of necessity, no one is permitted to confer baptism in the territory of another without the required permission, not even upon his own subjects.

So the Church considers it desirable for baptism to be carried out in a certain way, in a certain place, by a certain person, but considers any baptism that involves water, the trinitarian formula, and the intention to baptise the person as the Church would to be valid. From the Catechism, "1271 Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church", so baptisms of other Christians are also considered valid. It could be considered a sin if someone baptised someone else who wasn't in their 'territory' without good reason to think it was necessary, but Catholics are expected to know how to baptise others in case of emergency! For example, "Can. 865 §2. An adult in danger of death can be baptized if, having some knowledge of the principal truths of the faith, the person has manifested in any way at all the intention to receive baptism and promises to observe the commandments of the Christian religion."

As to conditional baptism:

Can. 869 §1. If there is a doubt whether a person has been baptized or whether baptism was conferred validly and the doubt remains after a serious investigation, baptism is to be conferred conditionally.

§2. Those baptized in a non-Catholic ecclesial community must not be baptized conditionally unless, after an examination of the matter and the form of the words used in the conferral of baptism and a consideration of the intention of the baptized adult and the minister of the baptism, a serious reason exists to doubt the validity of the baptism.

§3. If in the cases mentioned in §§1 and 2 the conferral or validity of the baptism remains doubtful, baptism is not to be conferred until after the doctrine of the sacrament of baptism is explained to the person to be baptized, if an adult, and the reasons of the doubtful validity of the baptism are explained to the person or, in the case of an infant, to the parents.

But, baptism is only considered part of the initiation into the Church. Dig this description of the theory.

In terms of receiving Communion, canon law states[13]:

Can. 912 Any baptized person not prohibited by law can and must be admitted to holy communion.

Can. 913 §1. The administration of the Most Holy Eucharist to children requires that they have sufficient knowledge and careful preparation so that they understand the mystery of Christ according to their capacity and are able to receive the body of Christ with faith and devotion.

It goes on to describe who is forbidden from receiving communion, which is basically those unable to receive it reverentially, and those who are conscious of grave sin and haven't gone through reconciliation. However, the Catechism says [14]:

1400 Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, "have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders."236 It is for this reason that Eucharistic intercommunion with these communities is not possible for the Catholic Church. However these ecclesial communities, "when they commemorate the Lord's death and resurrection in the Holy Supper . . . profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and await his coming in glory."237

1401 When, in the Ordinary's judgment, a grave necessity arises, Catholic ministers may give the sacraments of Eucharist, Penance, and Anointing of the Sick to other Christians not in full communion with the Catholic Church, who ask for them of their own will, provided they give evidence of holding the Catholic faith regarding these sacraments and possess the required dispositions.

So, Jeanne, for you to receive the Eucharist as a known Anglican, you should have had to demonstrate that you held the Catholic view of the sacrament, including a belief in transubstantiation. And it should have involved a grave necessity.

As to confession, in brief "Can. 991 Every member of the Christian faithful is free to confess sins to a legitimately approved confessor of his or her choice, even to one of another rite." [15] No matter which of the many names this sacrament goes under, your priest could hear your confession without a dispensation. Priests hear confessions of guilty non-Catholics all the time. 86.163.213.68 (talk) 19:29, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

To give a clear answer here: an unbaptised person who considers themselves Catholic could receive the Eucharist, in that people are supposed to police themselves and they are unlikely to be stopped, especially if they receive it in a parish where nobody knows they weren't baptised. However, they shouldn't because it is considered a sacrament by Catholics, something very holy, and is supposed to be received by people who have been baptised, confessed, and understand the religious importance of the sacrament. An adult who had not previously been baptised, and wanted to become a full Catholic and receive Communion (the Eucharist) could go through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, which (after enough sessions of catechesis to ensure they understand the significance of what they're doing) would involve being baptised, confirmed and receiving the Eucharist for the first time, all in a single service. 86.164.144.120 (talk) 11:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

A little OR, but I've done that (didn't even burst into flames), and I'm not Catholic. It was very awkward, though, despite the fact that no one knew I wasn't baptised.  ?EVAUNIT^{神になった人間} 14:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

antisemitic?

I just watched a film called "The Social Network" about a thieving person with no friends who starts a "friend network" then rips off, in turn, all of his associates, in order to become a billionaire. Is this film antisemitic? It seems to me that it is trying to tell the story of a "thieving jew", giving its protagonist a Jewish name, Jewish featuresetc. Then there are the stereotypes, the connivery, the obsession with money (in this case becoming a millionaire). It all just seems too much for me. Is the whole film just a thinly veiled antisemitic screed? It just seems it goes out of its way to make a "Jewish problem" out of a situation that would otherwise be interesting. There are a lot of psychopaths in business, and most of them don't have Jewish names or features, or stab that many people in the back as him, so it seems to me that this story goes too far... Thanks for any insight you might have on this matter... 91.183.62.45 (talk) 23:43, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

According to the article on The Social Network, it's about Facebook, which appears to have been started by a Jewish guy, so what are ya gonna do, try and make him Irish instead? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, "Facebook" was the name of the network in the movie, I don't have any objection to picking that name, but Irish people don't have a stereotype of being obsessed with money or being conniving. They could have called him some nondescript last name, if they really wanted to portray such a character and not be antisemitic. I doubt their motives. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 00:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

According to the movie article, the founders of Facebook indicated that the dramatization of their lives is only partly factual. It doesn't seem like they saw themselves as being portrayed in an anti-semitic way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Reading further, I don't see any complaints about anti-semitism from Zuckerberg or Moskovitz. And it would be a funny charge anyway, as the film's director, who is Jewish, also wrote the screenplay. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Alvy, you're a total paranoid. Anyway, while Zuckerberg's vague middle class Jewishness is perhaps meant as a foil with the old-money WASP Winklevoss twins, I don't think there's any anti-Semitic overtones to the film. (I say this as someone who is an occasional Jew.) They did not emphasize Jewishness in any way other than showing how "uncool" his Jewish friend was at that party. The film is based roughly on a book which is based very roughly on real life people and situations, so it's not like they could have (or should have!) called him something else. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:58, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The original book's author also has a somewhat Jewish-sounding name, but I don't think the article identifies him as Jewish, as such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:00, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Mezrich comes from a conservative Jewish family — his grandfather was a rabbi. This article is actually quite interesting about the Jewishness of the book and movie. Not anti-Semitic, mind you, but similar to what I said above — that a lot of it is about the social differences of middle class Jews hanging around old money WASPs at these kinds of universities. (I don't personally know how obvious it is anymore. Jews are fairly assimilated, especially at places like Harvard. Maybe at the very top of the social hierarchy, like the "study clubs" discussed in the movie, it matters, but even then, I wonder. There are plenty of other more interesting "inside/outsider" groups at these institutions in my opinion. Class differences are certainly there, as are "legacy" admits, which historically favor the non-Jewish.)

I would actually read the movie as being somewhat triumphalist about the Jewish aspect. The Jewish kid is the excluded one, intended to be somewhat used by the WASPs to cement their fortunes, and instead he turns it around and outwits everyone. The American historian David Hollinger has written about what I believe he calls the booster-bigot dichotomy in relation to Jewishness — it flips around quite quickly, as positive exceptionalism can be used as fuel (or misread as) negative exceptionalism. This might be what the OP is sensing. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I've often thought that a good deal of anti-semitism is based on envy, i.e. the willingness of Jews to look after their own (since almost no one else will), to organize, to persist and to excel - something Americans, at least, claim to be all in favor of. It's just that Jews have often displayed a better "Protestant work ethic" than even us Protestants supposedly do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:36, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

That's not exactly right. The Protestant work ethic is about quiet, repetitive toil. They get ahead by keeping their head down, being proud, working hard, and saving and scrimping. The Jewish work ethic (if there is such a thing) is about cleverness and ingenuity, about trading, about assimilating yourself into key positions, about occasional use of clannishness to get ahead. They're not quite the same thing at all. In the 17th century, the Protestants in the Netherlands (which are the sort of Protestants that Weber was talking about primarily — Calvinists) were toiling in their fields; the Jews were making and losing fortunes trading and speculating in Amsterdam. Not quite the same thing. And Zuckerberg would more properly fit into the latter category than the former. Yuri Slezkine, a noted historian, has argued in a fairly recent book (The Jewish Century) that we're all becoming "more Jewish" in our mode of living — the 20th century is one that leans towards the kinds of work previously reserved for Jews, and so on. It's an interesting and quite controversial argument. I find it troublesome, but my wife (who is classic Protestant ethic WASP, whereas I am such a muddle of things that I have no obvious ethnic identity, though Jewishness is part of that muddle) finds it compelling! (I suppose one could probably argue that I draw the distinction here so firmly because I live it on a daily basis. I am no toiler...) --Mr.98 (talk) 14:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

You're making a good argument for why the traditional WASP "work ethic" now seems to be overrated. Hard work as such is no longer so highly valued. What's valued most highly in America is salesmanship. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:00, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, Jews in the past were heavily restricted by discrimintory laws about how they could earn a living. Lending money, ie banking, was one of the few things they could do, and which was in short supply as Christians were not suppossed to do it. The emphasis on book-learning also aided them getting into the professions in more recent years. Brain- rather than manual-work is more prestigeous in our society, even though plumbers and their chums charge extortionate rates. 92.15.28.182 (talk) 17:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

See chutzpah. 92.28.252.5 (talk) 18:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:DNFTT. Corvus cornix_talk 00:27, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It was so obvious that I find it difficult to believe others did not see through the OP intentions... 93.172.111.201 (talk) 13:58, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

if you're arrested by the sergeant-at-arms for avoiding call of the house, does it go on your criminal record?

I never see serious criminal charges or consequences levelled at Congressmen for avoiding roll call. John Riemann Soong (talk) 23:48, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of that procedure is to help establish a quorum. Is it actually considered a crime? The article doesn't suggest that that's the case. It merely authorizes the sergeant-at-arms to go round up legislators in case the legislative body is short of a quorum. However, I expect anyone frequently absent would find that it becomes a campaign issue next time around. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm just starting to read it, but I expect the official U.S. government page on the subject might provide some answers:[16] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:00, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The article uses the term "arrest" in quotes, and I see no hint that there is any kind of criminal charge connected with it. Presumably the legislative bodies have rules that they could use to deal with frequently-absent members. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not a criminal infraction; the arrest is non-criminal. Neutrality^talk 21:30, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

In the U.S. Congress, as noted above, a motion to "direct the Sergeant at arms to arrest absent Senators" (for example) is a pro forma motion to bring senators to the floor. The first attempt is a quorum call; the second is a motion to direct the Sergeant at Arms to request the attendance of absent Senators, the third, in extremis, is a motion to call for arrests. Actual arrests are rarely made. I do recall one late-night session during the 1980s when the Republicans were boycotting the proceedings and the Capitol Police bodily carried Senator Packwood into the Chamber to establish a quorum. Packwood presumably went along, but Senator Dole, then the minority leader, dissuaded further attempts along these lines by stating that there were other senators who would have resisted being brought into the chamber by any means necessarily including the use of a weapon.

During a 1990s dispute over redistricting in Texas, the Republican-controlled state legislature needed to compel Democrats to attend the session, and the Democrats didn't want to. The Republicans authorized the state police to arrest the absent legislators anywhere in the state and bring them to the capitol, whereup a dozen or so Texas legislators actually fled to Oklahoma for several weeks to prevent this from happening.

All of this is considered an internal affair to be handled within the legislative body; there are no criminal consequences. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

November 16

Czechoslovakian party organization

Hello, dear Wikipedians.

I have two question pertaining to the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (63-69). First, how could Novotny avoid splitting the office of party first secretary and president, after the (though belated) de-Stalinization??

I am reading on Novotny's wikipedia article that he was First Secretary, and then Dubcek took over as First Secretary in 68. Am I correct in identifying that there was ONE party organization, but two parties (the novelty Slovakian and the 'main' Czech), with each their first secretaries? In that respect, it can be said that Dubcek took over in '63 "as first secretary of the Slovak section" (Rothschild, 2008, p134). Consequently, in '68, Dubcek became party first secretary.

Thank you for any answers! 88.90.16.74 (talk) 00:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it there was one CPCz, but that the Communist Party of Slovakia functioned as an autonomous unit within CPCz. There was thus no 'Czech' branch of the party analogous to the Slovak branch. The Slovak party had its own leadership, but were also represented in the national leadership of CPCz. The first secretary of the Slovak party was subordninate to the first secretary of the Czechoslovak party. --Soman (talk) 00:57, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if this helps much, but in Yugoslavia which could be said to have been in some respect a similar country, there were nominally independent "Leagues of Communists" for each state inside the country (thus you would have a League of Communists of Croatia or Serbia or Macedonia) each with their own leadership (the so-called Central Committees, fully known as CC of the League of Communists Bosnia or Slovenia or whatnot) and all of them governed by the umbrella League of Communists of Yugoslavia - this one having its own Central Committee as well. TomorrowTime (talk) 20:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Likewise, the Communist Party of Spain has a federal structure, with a Communist Party of Andalusia, Communist Party of Galicia, etc.. What differentiates CPCz from the Yugoslav party and PCE is that there was one autonomous party-within-the-party but most of CPCz did not belong to any autonomous party. --Soman (talk) 02:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

An analogous case would be the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which for decades had republican communist party in all SSRs except the Russian SFSR (only in 1990 was such a party formed). So roughly half of the members of CPSU were members of a republican CP and the other half (in Russian SFSR) were members directly of the CPSU. --Soman (talk) 02:28, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Ancient demolition

How were very large buildings demolished in the days before cranes and explosives? Cevlakohn (talk) 11:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Name examples of large buildings before the days of cranes or explosives? The Parthenon, the Pyramids? I think they either fell down and became ruins or were kept in use. Cranes were necessary to build most large buildings. Crowbar (tool) or pick-axes perhaps. 92.28.252.5 (talk) 13:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

What period are you thinking about? Mediaeval castles in Europe were physically attacked by various means, including battering rams at weak points, undermining (to cause their collapse), and fire. This might give you some ideas. Similar means could obviously have been used outside wartime. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Punching a hole through the wall to get access was not the same as demolishing them. Although I vaguely recall that one or two or so of castles might have been demolished for political reasons, to remove a potential power-base. 92.28.252.5 (talk) 17:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Or you could wait for an earthquake or some other disaster to destroy the building (like the Colossus of Rhodes). Adam Bishop (talk) 14:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The Parthenon (mentioned above) was destroyed by explosives in 1687 by forces led by Francesco Morosini:

"How it dismayed His Excellency to destroy the beautiful temple which had existed three thousand years!".

War would probably be the most common reason to deliberately want to destroy a structure in the "ancient" world, and before cranes or explosives became available for this purpose it was certainly more difficult but could still be done with enough time and labor. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 15:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The Trebuchet was highly effective in siege warfare.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Others are talking about enemy destruction, but I think the OP is asking about ordinary demolition. The fact that quite a few ancient buildings (or their ruins) are still around suggests that, in general, "they didn't". Once a building was built, why destroy it? One answer would be, to build something else from its stones - which is why the external cladding from the pyramids was taken off, as well as significant chunks of the Roman collosseum (sp?). It's only relatively recently that humans have been obsessed with total destroying their own buildings and putting new ones up, for no other reason than because they want to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:57, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The Great Wall of China is going the same way [17]. If a building or structure falls into disuse quite often it will be demolished, or as Bugs points out, will be used as building material for new structures. Jack forbes (talk) 19:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Although some impressive specimens still exist, a large majority of ancient buildings simply doesn't exist anymore. And a large part of those buildings was already demolished during ancient times (for example we have no intact example of an insula in the city of Rome itself, although the city most likely consisted mostly of that type of buildings, some going as high as seven stories). The most frequent causes was probably war, fire or collapses ocurring on account of faulty structures. But this often still left enough ruins to require proper demolition. This was done by hand, cheap labour was readily available during most of the period of the Roman Empire. There are also numerous instances of reused building materials turning up in excavations of later buildings. Most of the city of Rome in the medieval and Renaissance times consisted of buildings constructed with Roman era building materials. My examples mainly concern Rome, but much of it is probably applies for other ancient cultures as well. Except for the Mesopotamian cultures, that mostly used mudbrick as construction materials. These dissolved within a relatively short period of time (10-20 years), and the entire structure had to be rebuilt. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:43, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

See Spolia. 92.15.31.75 (talk) 19:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

They were more likely to be re-used for other purposes than demolished. Given the much lower standard of living of those days, buildings were much more expensive to build, so you didnt just knock them down. I recall one very rare example of a church or chapel that was converted into a barn somewhere in England. Even nowadays in England, people are reluctant to demolish old buildings and prefer to convert them. That is due to them being solidly built, stylish, and spacious compared to the cardboard dolls-houses that are built now. 92.29.127.37 (talk) 13:40, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Herod's Temple in Jerusalem supposedly took thousands of men ten years to build, but it was supposedly torn down quickly by the Romans. It seems like it would take some appreciable fraction of the time to pile up the stones of a great temple or castle when you went to unpile them. I suppose that step one would be looting it of any nice furnishings, followed by filling it with rubble, oil etc and burning it, which might cause a lot of stonework to collapse, like the White House walls collapsed when the British forces torched the place in 1814. The conqueror could then using local forced labor to "defortify" a castle by demolishing some gates and towers, so no one could use a fortified place to defy the conquering army in the near future, without literally demolishing it such that not one stone was left standing on another. Some sections of ruined walls of Herod's temple were still standing hundreds of years later. A ruined palace, temple, or castle would be more demoralizing to the locals than the complete absence of it. Simply desecrating a temple by making it a residence or a temple of the conqueror's religion would also be a likely course, like Hadrian's Tomb becoming a papal palace in Rome, or the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople becoming a mosque. Edison (talk) 15:39, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Hadrian's Wall and Fountains Abbey are two examples of many ruined places in Britain, with some interesting links. 92.15.28.182 (talk) 17:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't that common for large structures to be deliberately demolished (as opposed to being abandoned and left to decay or be quarried for stone). It was only worth demolishing something if it was a threat (e.g. an enemy or unauthorised fortification), or it took up a particularly important site. Our article on slighting - partial destruction of enemy fortifications - is weak, but undermining and simple battering were generally effective. For example, at Raglan Castle, apparently undermining was attempted; when this failed, it was attacked with picks [18]. Warofdreams talk 00:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The keep of Rochester Castle was demolished in 1215 by undermining; ie digging a tunnel underneath one corner - filling the tunnel with "40 fat pigs" - setting fire to them and waiting for the pit-props to burn through[19]. Worked a treat. A similar method (using car tyres instead of pigs) was used until recently by steeplejacks to demolish brick chimneys[20]. Alansplodge (talk) 11:34, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

There are numerous major differences between ancient Roman times and medieval Europe, not least the fact that they probably built far more large constructions in the era of Mediterranean Antiquity than in Medieval Europe. But for the sake of argument, the example of a lord deliberately tearing down a lesser lords castle to ensure that a potential enemy is "declawed", is something that you can experience innumerable times in the age of feudalim. --Saddhiyama (talk) 00:17, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

OR, but a friend of mine visiting India reported seeing a multi-story building being demolished from the top down, by a large number of workers with sledgehammers. (Excuse the implication that India is stuck in the ancient world, of course it isn't, but there is cheap labour which presumably is more economical than wrecking machines or explosives.) 213.122.60.193 (talk) 12:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Nation Names

What nation-state has the most syllables in its name? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 11:52, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Presumably you mean in English rather than in the native tongue. Names are often contested, which makes answering this tricky, plus there are official names and common names. For example, "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" is the name often used by neutral parties to refer to the Republic of Macedonia. Then you have things like "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" to refer to the country commonly referred to as the UK or just Britain. I didn't count the syllables in those two examples, sorry. --Viennese Waltz 12:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

In UN membership it is The former Yugoslav..., sorted on The, just after Thailand. Comes to 15 syllables if you say Mass-e-don-ee-a rather than Mass-e-don-ya. UK, in full, is 14. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is 15 syllables when I say it. Does 'Ireland' only have two syllables officially? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

If you go through the common names in our list of sovereign states, "Democratic Republic of the Congo" and "Federated States of Micronesia" both have, on my reckoning, 11 syllables, and "Bosnia and Herzegovina" has 9. ("United States of America" also has 9 syllables, but is listed there simply as "United States".) Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll offer the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, but also note that all of us our conducting our syllable counts in English. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Death penalty

Why does the US still use the death penalty when every other developed country has abolished it? --J4\/4 <talk> 16:19, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Not all US states use it.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

See Capital punishment in the United States, especially the "Controversy" and "History" sections. Paul (Stansifer) 16:38, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not been abolished in every other developed country. Most definitions of "developed country" would include Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, all of which practice capital punishment, while it remains legal in Israel and South Korea, too.

And India. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Most definitions would say India is a developing country. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:51, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorta depends on where you are in India; it greatly varies from place to place. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how relevant that is to most definitions of a "developing country". There are also very rich areas of China, Brazil, or Nigeria. That doesn't make them developed countries. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It's not really possible to paint countries like India with one brush. With someplace like that, there are so many regional variations that it's not feasible to just put a label on the whole country; there are individual parts, some of which are far better off than others, so development is better measured on a regional level. But this is way off-topic. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Don't most of the Islamic republics allow it too? Or is the OP displaying some Euro-superior bias? :) As to why some states in the US use it - ya got me, as it would probably be cheaper just to stick them in a max-security prison for life without parole. But there is a mindset among many US citizens, that if someone has committed a horrible crime, taking the life or lives of others just to be doing it, then that guy has forfeited his own "right to life". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

A simple view is that there should be three elements in deciding the consequences of criminal behaviour - punishment, protecting society from the criminal, and rehabilitation. Capital punishment doesn't leave much room for the third element. I guess those places still allowing capital punishment must regard the first two elements as having overriding importance. HiLo48 (talk) 19:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I've heard it said that the death penalty is not really punishment, it's permanent removal. They've forfeited their right to life. And how are you going to "rehabilitate" the likes of someone like John Wayne Gacy? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:15, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

There's also an old saying about if you're willing to do the crime, you have to be willing to do the time. By implication, someone who takes the life of another willingly, has to be willing to suffer the same fate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, clearly Gacy wasn't a nice person. In Australia, with no death penalty, Martin Bryant was given "35 life sentences + 1,035 years without parole" for his record breaking shooting spree at Port Arthur. I understand that he is kept pretty much in isolation in order to protect him from other prisoners. (Tasmania has a very small population). The cost of his lifetime imprisonment will be very high. HiLo48 (talk) 19:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Gacy was evil. In the old superstitious days, it probably would have been said that he was possessed by Satan. And in some sense, he was. A lot of us who lived in Illinois and hence were closer to the case, especially resented how he abused the legal system for so many years, when there was no question whatsoever that he was guilty. That accounts in part for the unseemly spectacle of a cheering crowd outside Stateville the night he was finally snuffed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I wonder how it would compare with the costs associated with fighting the death penalty. And therein lies the dilemma as regards capital punishment in the USA. It used to be that once the guy was found guilty, it wasn't long before the sentence was carried out. Now it takes like 10 years. In addition to the cost of simply keeping him alive for 10 years, there are also the legal-system costs connected with all the appeals, even if the guy doesn't seriously fight the conviction (Tim McVeigh comes to mind - although he did fight it for awhile). Which is a practical (as opposed to emotional or moral) argument against the death penalty. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

That cost is probably nothing compared to the cost of having about 751 people in prison for every 100,000 in population. See United States incarceration rate. HiLo48 is probably on to something. I think the general liberalism/socialism, and organised religion's lack of importance also plays a big role in several of these countries, at least in Scandinavia where I'm from. I think the Scandinavian judicial systems generally works well without the death penalty. P. S. Burton (talk) 21:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I should have asked about developed democratic countries. Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan aren't democratic, so they wouldn't count. --75.33.217.61 (talk) 23:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

By that strict definition, you're ruling the UK out of the discussion also (albeit from the other side of the list). It's also a misnomer that the USA "uses the death penalty". There may still be some federal crimes which carry out death sentences, but most executions are at the state level. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Japan has free and fair elections. It is primarily parliamentary democracy. The monarchy is just a ceremonial figurehead; it doesn't make policy. See Government of Japan. Taiwan has a complicated system that is mostly democratic. Singapore is complicated. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:30, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting articles on the USA situation include Capital punishment in the United States and Capital punishment by the United States federal government. As a practical matter, it seems that the US federal government seldom carries out the death penalty. Most of the crimes covered are at the state level. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The simple answer to this is that most states still have the death penalty because the politicians haven't decided to repeal it; the politicians haven't repealed it because it wouldn't be politically smart; and it wouldn't be politically smart because a politician who votes to repeal the death penalty might be labeled "soft on crime" or "doesn't care about victims of crime." Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of the U.S. has chipped away at the death penalty over the past 40 years, outlawing it for certain types of people and crimes, but has not yet decided to go all the way and declare all capital punishment cruel and unusual. In 1976, the court, in a 7-2 ruling, said capital punishment was not cruel and unusual, and the court is generally very averse to completely overturning previous rulings in the absence of a change in circumstances or new information that indicates the justices in the previous case might have been wrong about something. Anyway, five of the nine members of the current court are right-wingers and likely to be personally supportive of capital punishment. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

One of those articles stated that a majority of Americans consistently favor the death penalty. And in 1976, the high court was quite a bit more liberal than it is now, so you're right that no court decision is likely forthcoming to overturn the death penalty on constitutional grounds. In theory, Congress could try to do so, but the constitutionality of it would likely be immediately appealed, and likely declared invalid. It would probably require a constitutional amendment, and that is unlikely to happen anytime soon either. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, congress could abolish the death penalty at the federal level with no challenge. The question would be if congress could abolish the death penalty for the states which is a much trickier question. Probably not, though it could do so via power of the purse, much as it did for a national speed limit in the 1970's and 1980's (i.e. any state which has a legalized death penalty receives no federal dollars until they abolish it). That would be a perfectly legal way to handle it. However, to outright abolish it for the states is likely unconstitutional. --Jayron32 01:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, Congress could abolish the federal death penalty. However, they would also run into political trouble, since that would remove it for crimes committed against the USA, such as what McVeigh did. So while they certainly have the power to abolish the federal death penalty, I doubt they would do it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Many Americans still have an unfounded belief that if someone is found guilty of murder, he really did it. DNA tests have shown in a large number of cases that the person was guilty of being a poor minority person with deficient legal representation, and that the DNA left on the victim came from someone else. Police sometimes even get confessions from innocent people. Prisons are underfunded and poorly managed, so they are places where the most evil and vicious inmates have the opportunity to make life hell for the weaker and less evil. It is offensive to many when a Gacy (murderer of 33 young men) or Richard Speck(murderer of 8 student nurses) is seen as having too good of a time in prison. A video came out in 1988 of Speck having sex. Gacy "lived an artist's dream," produced paintings, one of the Seven Dwarves with picks, offensive because he buried his victims in the crawl space of his house. Other such murderers have, while imprisoned, married one of their deranged female "pen pals" and had conjugal visits. There is no perfect solution to what to do with such killers; prison for life keeps them away from the general population, but their perceived "good life" is offensive to society and especially the victims' lived ones. A speedy execution kills some innocent. A supermax prison is more expensive than politicians and taxpayers are willing to support, so the evil become top dogs in understaffed prisons they effectively rule. Edison (talk) 15:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

"Found guilty"? Hah! We don't wait that long! The TV News tells us all we need to know to sit around pontificating on who deserves to die and who can never be rehabilitated. APL (talk) 16:29, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

To elaborate a bit on what Edison said about "DNA tests have shown in a large number of cases that the person was guilty of being a poor minority person..." See innocence project, James Calvin Tillman, Cameron Todd Willingham and The case for innocence from PBS Royor (talk) 07:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It does not say in our article, could you define "large number"? I mean are we talking 20%, or 5% or what? Googlemeister (talk) 13:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Facts on PostConviction DNA Exonerations in the United States, also highly related PBS frontline video, watch "Burden of Innocence" on May 1, 2003 and "Death by Fire" on Oct 19, 2010. Royor (talk) 01:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What's the best country to live in?

--J4\/4 <talk> 17:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's Finland. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:10, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Those rankings are weighted by "economic dynanism" and "political environment" which could be anything the (American?) rankers like. 92.28.252.5 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC).

That is going to depend on what you are looking for. If you like warm weather and beaches, I would not advocate Finland. Googlemeister (talk) 17:43, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

For that matter, it depends on which languages you can speak. APL (talk) 18:07, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

..or Costa Rica, apparently. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It depends on one's income and personal preference as to climate, standard of living, lifestyle. Many people of means choose New York, while others opt for southern Spain.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:22, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course, but the Newsweek study (cited by Comet Tuttle) and the wealth of information on this site are interesting and informative. (When did New York become a "country"?) Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Perish the thought that I would show any bias, but I would say that my own country is generally considered the best country to live in. Nope, no bias from me. Jack forbes (talk) 18:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. "Some consider the weather in Scotland to be slightly dreary", it says. It's Costa Rica for me! Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Jack is onto something: The "best" place to live is the place that "feels like home". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:48, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

...unless you want to get away from home, of course. (Say, from Scotland to somewhere dry and sunny.  ;-) ) Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:30, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

OOps my bad! I was actually thinking about specific places rather than entire countries. Saying the USA is vague, and a lot of celebs do choose the NYC. As for countries Spain is very popular not to mention the jet-set zone comprising the French Riviera and Monaco (for those with a ten-figure bank account).--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 19:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

A large country with a reasonable climate (such as the USA) can allow for almost any lifestyle someone would want. So to some, small-town America would be perfect, and large cities would be horrible; and for some others, the opposite would be true. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

For someone like me who loves medieval history the USA doesn't offer what Europe can. There may be climatic and variety in lifestyle, but America doesn't have the cultural diversity that the Old World continents possess. I am from Los Angeles, by the way.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 19:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I've lived in countries with a warm climate and wonderful though they were it's still Scotland for me. The question put by the OP has no definitive answer in my opinion. Oh, and Ghmyrtle, a wee bit of bracing weather does no-one any harm. In fact, it makes a man of you. ;) Jack forbes (talk) 19:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I well remember the stormy seas between Walls and Foula, and the effect it had on the contents of my stomach... Character-building for sure. But we're going off-topic.... Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:55, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The points made by Jeanne above make it clear, as Jack says, that there is no one right answer. The answer is personal, and is the answer to the question, "What do I want?" That's something only the OP can answer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:00, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

A decent health service that still works even if you're poor for whatever reason would be my first filter. 92.15.16.149 (talk) 20:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Then the best answer is probably "Whatever nation you're already a citizen of." (If that happens to be USA, you might consider Massachusetts, which has made a half-hearted stab at socialized healthcare.) APL (talk) 20:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The general answer is easy: just embrace nationalism, and you will be fine with the country where you live. Or figth to fix what's need to be fixed in the country, but in any case ou woldn't even consider changing it for another one. MBelgrano (talk) 20:09, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

"There's no place like home!" Alansplodge (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

the real answer

the real answer is as follows. Say there is, besides gender male/female, gender2 a/b/c. People are divided evenly among the three. In some countries, a's are revered, b's and c's are shunned. In others, b's revered, a's and c's shunned, and in yet others, c's are revered. What is the best country to live in? On the face of it, all countries are even, because people are in a, b, and c evenly.
However, this is misleading. What you are really interested in is "what is the best country for ME to live in." So, you have to ask yourself: are you an a, b, or c? Real life is much like that except instead of just gender and gender2, there are a few dozen notable traits a person would have when it comes to how good it would be for them to live in a certian country.
Let's assume I'm am American, I have $20,000 in savings, and I have a Ph.D. in molectrical chemistrineering. The "best country" is, in this case, radically different than for someone who is a Brit (and therefore European citizen), has "some undergraduate" study, and no savings, having to rely on what they will make in the local market from day one (i.e. without a period of buffer time). In summary, you are probably asking because you would like to know what it would be like for you to live and work in a certain country. Unfortunately, you have to know yourself, your nationality, education, skills, interests, languages you can speak, and, in fact, your personality. I recommend you visit a few radically different countries for 3-6 months each, living and working in them. After you have done that with 4-5, you can then look at a comparison of all countries by many, many metrics, and have enough information to know what country will be the best one -- for you. Traitor. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 22:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Prince William & Kate Middleton

Resolved

The ITV news has just said that 'the excited young couple will one day be King and Queen'. Will Kate Middleton become Queen? I was under the impression that the UK only has a single monarch and any spouses are generally given lesser titles, such as Prince, etc. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:36, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The wife of a reigning king, such as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, becomes Queen consort. The husband of a reigning queen, such as Philip Mountbatten, is a Prince consort. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

There are two types of British queens, the Queen regnant and the Queen consort. In effect, "King" outranks "Queen", while "Queen" outranks "Prince". Queen Elizabeth is a queen regnant, i.e. a ruling queen. If Kate becomes Mrs. Prince William, she would become a princess (prince outranks princess), and when he ascends the throne, she would become queen consort. (Feel free to correct me if I'm oversimplifying or if I've got it wrong.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, cheers both. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

It's been a little confused by Prince Charles's arrangements re his 2nd and current wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. They've announced that when he becomes king, she will be called the Princess Consort. She will in fact be the Queen Consort but just not called that. Even today, she is the Princess of Wales, but chooses not be called that. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Refresh my memory: Charles and Diana were divorced, right? Let's suppose Diana were still among the living. If so, would that have made any difference as regards the titles Camilla is allowed to have (even if she doesn't use them)? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

While married to Charles, Diana was Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales (because the wife of His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales is automatically that). After their divorce, she became Diana, Princess of Wales (note, not The Princess of Wales, and no HRH). That was simply a courtesy title, mainly because her children were living and they are members of the Royal Family. Had she had no kids, or if they’d predeceased her, there’d have been less of a case to allow her a courtesy title because she would have severed all her connections with the RF. Currently, if Camilla and Charles were so minded, Camilla could quite legitimately use the title Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales (for the same reason as Diana was called that when she was his wife). It has nothing to do with any previous consorts Charles may have had or whether or not they're alive. (Analogy: the current wife of Mr Smith is Mrs Smith, even if his ex-wife continues to use the surname Smith.) But they prefer her to be known as Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:46, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

All that fawning I've just seen on all channels on tv makes me sick. 92.15.16.149 (talk) 20:03, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Uh-oh... No invitation for you! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:35, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

You've followed this story on "all channels" - and then complain about it? Reminds of the old woman complaining of the neighbours having sex, and when the police say they can't see anything, she tells them you've got to crawl up on top of the wardrobe and use this telescope to get the best view. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:50, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Or she produces a home video she made as 'proof' :) --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:03, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

In this country we have remote controls, and when you see something you don't care for on one channel, you flick to another...and another. 92.15.16.149 (talk) 23:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, channel surfing. So, were the British equivalents of ESPN and Animal Planet also carrying the royal news? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:10, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I only get four channels, as I have a life, of sorts. 92.15.16.149 (talk) 23:15, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

And yet you interrupted that "life" to watch something on TV you had no interest in seeing? Corvus cornix_talk 00:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I interupted my life for two minutes while tired in the hope of finding something of interest, before giving up in disgust. Two of the channels, the BBC and ITV, showed the same grovelling interview. 92.28.250.11 (talk) 10:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

If those channels are 1, 2, 3 and 4, then I'm pretty sure that not all of them featured fawning over them at the same time as you flipped through. Also, what does having a life have to do with it? If you don't have a box giving you digital channels, you're not going to have any channels at all when they switch off terrestrial. And BBC 4 means you can watch something interesting on the rare occasions you watch, rather than channel surfing for long enough for both BBC 1 and 2 to apparently feature fawning. Why switch the TV on at all if you 'have a life', have only 4 channels, and haven't got something you want to watch? If you get a freeview box, you can also generally listen to the radio on the TV: useful. 86.163.213.68 (talk) 00:36, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

How come you've only got four channels? I thought standard telly without satellite and cable and whatnot came with five channels these days. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:32, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Strange, I don't have much of a life so I watch a lot of TV instead, and haven't seen anything remotely related to this for the last couple of years. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 09:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Many areas have terrible reception for Channel Five, to the point where it can't be seen at all - I think there is some interference from French stations when you go too far South. 90.195.179.106 (talk) 13:41, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

You'll have no channels at all in 2012 unless you go digital. Alansplodge (talk) 11:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Russian living in Thailand tried by an American court?

While the alleged crimes of Victor Bout are very serious and would deserve extreme measures, why does an American court have the juristiction to try a Russian living in Thailand, and who may never even have set foot in the US? 92.15.16.149 (talk) 20:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The article on Bout doesn't indicate he's going to be tried In absentia, but only that charges have been filed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The basis for the U.S. claim of jurisdiction is the charge that Bout conspired to assist terrorist activities aimed at killing or harming U.S. citizens. Marco polo (talk) 20:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

See personal jurisdiction over international defendants in the United States. Neutrality^talk 21:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

"Any reason we choose" would be a summary of that. 92.15.16.149 (talk) 23:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Your point being ... ? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes "any reason we choose" would be an apt summary of most laws imposed on peoples that cannot vote on them... something that many countries are familiar with. Shadowjams (talk) 08:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Short story by Hemingway(?)

Hi all,

I remember reading a story about a man who kept carrier pigeons. His niece/granddaughter who is living with him is not allowed to go out much. She starts dating a man and the uncle/grandfather objects. Only as her boyfriend makes him a present, a carrier pigeon, does the uncle/grandfather approve. He locks the carrier pigeon away while the other pigeons may roam freely. The story ends with his niece/granddaughter crying.

I tried googling back and forth, but I could not find the name of that story. As I said, I think it's been written by Hemingway, but I am not 100% sure...

Any and all help appreciated :) -- RichiH (talk) 21:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Is it "Flight" by Doris Lessing? I googled American short story carrier pigeon. (Although Lessing isn't American). Itsmejudith (talk) 21:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

As a fan of most or all of Hemingway's short stories, I'll venture that this does not sound like one of them. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:41, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The pigeon: a fantasy in three acts, by John Galsworthy?(Google books) Albacore (talk) 22:23, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Bingo, that's the one. I could have sworn it was by Hemingway. Oh well, at least now I know why I never found it. Thanks :) -- RichiH (talk) 22:45, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Pigeons on the grass alas. Ernest on the roof aloof. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

November 17

Eleonor of Mendoza

Why is the first wife of James, 4th Duke of Braganza called Eleonor of Mendoza when her father is Juan Alonso de Guzman, 3rd Duke of Medina Sidonia? Shouldn't she be called Eleanor de Guzman?--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 03:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The article appears to have some errors. The third Duke of Medina Sidonia was Juan Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán, 3rd Duke of Medina Sidonia. There was Juan Alonso de Guzmán, 1st Duke of Medina Sidonia. According to the Wikipedia article on the 1st Duke, his wife was "Doña Maria de la Cerda y de Sarmiento, daughter of Luis de la Cerda y Mendoza", since his wife was a Mendoza, that would have made his daughter ALSO a Mendoza. Remember that in Spanish naming customs, there are matrinomic names which can be carried through families as well. --Jayron32 03:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

What? So she has took the last name of her maternal grandmother instead of her father's or mother's. Wouldn't she have been Eleanor de Mendoza y Velasco since her own mother was a de Velasco.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 04:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

What you are asking for is the english translation of a commonly used name derived from her full, formal Spanish name. Formal names in Spanish can become very complex, often with long lists of personal names AND surnames. In common usage, a person will choose to be refered to by a smaller subset of their names, usually a single personal name and a single surname. Take a look at someone like Francisco Franco. His full name is Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco y Bahamonde Salgado Pardo de Andrade. He went by his first personal name (Francisco) and his first surname (Franco). This is probably common, but by no means universal, some people may choose to go by some other combination of names. My guess is that Eleonor of Mendoza had some long string of personal names (of which "Eleonor" is but one) and an equally impressive string of surnames (of which "de Mendoza" is but one). --Jayron32 04:55, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Second-Hand Society

I am writing an economics paper and part of the information deals with the lessening of demand due to the affluent poverty of the new masses in the second-hand society. I know a lot of people who are in this place because the only thing that they buy new is a burger and a beer. This is because that is the only good entertainment that works for them. Anyway, due to the financial position and predicament we are in we live for the newest second hand item we need to show up on the curb or in the thrift store. In the world of new demand for products we are out of the picture and cannot help the economy rebound. I see now that the devaluation of the dollar is to bring new demand from emerging markets cause here at the bottom of my world, my economy, my country: second hand is ok. So how are the second-hand societies across the world doing? In your search there are references to particulars like books, fridges, etc., but as a whole who are they and where are they? And how are they doing? My e mail address is ...... anyone is welcome to create dialogue on this subject. I tried to create an account but this is a public computer. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.125.225.55 (talk) 04:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed email to avoid spam. See freecycle for example. 92.28.250.11 (talk) 10:51, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

My wife used to use [freecycle] to donate and get things. It used to be a sort of "mutual exchange" group, she once gave an old cycle and got a garden table. She left because it has become a begging site, with some ridiculous expectations. One person wrote "Wanted: White leather three peace suite as I am short of money having moved into a larger house. Must be good condition, and donor must deliver!", and another said "Wanted: any unwanted iPhones - I need two one for me and one for my boyfriend". -- Q Chris (talk) 11:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, being on a public computer is a reason for creating an account, rather than against it: as long as you remember to log out when you have finished, Wikipedia will be able to distinguish you from other people who use the computer. --ColinFine (talk) 23:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Freeport Doctrine article

In the Freeport Doctrine article, the second sentence mentions Emily Cunningham. This was clearly stuck in there and not edited out. I will let you take it from there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.173.147.182 (talk) 06:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It looks as though it has been fixed. Dismas|^(talk) 10:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Surviving Nazi architecture

Are there any buildings, built by the Nazis, that still survive? 92.28.250.11 (talk) 11:23, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

In central Berlin there is Hermann Goering's Air Ministry, which suffered some damage and was restored.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 11:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, way too many to list them all here. Have a look at our article Nazi architecture and browse the tons of images at commons:category:Nazi architecture and its various subcategories for an overview - not all of the buildings we have photos of still exist, but you can easily spot the ones that still survive by looking for color photographs (as a first indicator, of course - there are some color photographs of buildings that don't exist any more and vice versa, but you get the idea) -- Ferkelparade π 11:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Some of the largest extant nazi building complexes are probably the Berlin Tempelhof Airport and the Nazi party rally grounds at Nuremberg. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

This summer I managed to visit the Haus der Kunst, which was the first major piece of "Nazi architecture" constructed, in order to house Nazi-approved art. It is now exclusively used for what Hitler would have considered "degenerate art", which is an irony that is obviously relished. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Berlin's Olympic Stadium is a very prominent building representative of the period. --Xuxl (talk) 18:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Were most, all, or some of them built by slave labour? 92.15.28.182 (talk) 18:00, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Some possibly were, though I am not familiar with the details. But most of the pre-war buildings were built by workforce from the Reichsarbeitsdienst. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:19, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Albert Speer did use slave labour occasionally (I believe he tried to use that as a defense at Nuremberg - he saved them from being killed), but I don't know if any of those buildings survived the war. I think I recall from Inside the Third Reich that he attempted to use slave labour to build apartment blocks in Berlin. I doubt those would have survived the war. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I see from the Speer article that most of the forced labour was used in munitions camps, and that was actually one of the charges against him. Anyway, I don't know if I remember this correctly or not, maybe I'm just speculating, but Hitler probably didn't want to use forced Jewish labour. He just wanted to get rid of them. And would he want to live or work in a building built by Jews? Wouldn't the building itself be tainted somehow? (Although they also used prisoners of war, Poles, Ukrainians, etc as forced labourers, not just Jews.) Adam Bishop (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It would be a difficult task if any society had to destroy all public works constructed under the prior regime, however antithetical its views. Imagine blowing up all bridges,train stations, bus stops, post offices, schools, railroads, dams, college buildings, government buildings, etc., which had been built during some predecessor evil administration. It basically makes no sense. Rename them, repurpose them, but move on. Edison (talk) 04:07, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

A very interesting example is Prora, the Nazi beach resort. LANTZY^TALK 07:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised the Nazi stuff hasnt been demolished. In responce to Edison's comments, the Nazis must be unique in being the only "predecessor evil administration" in modern times that built stuff. 92.24.187.23 (talk) 11:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's that surprising. I imagine that the last thing that Germans and the occuping forces wanted to deal with at the end of WW2 was knocking down a lot of perfectly usable buildings etc. and then having to find/build replacements. Again, during the Cold War, destroying the infrastructure would not have been a great idea, and certainly major construction work at least in West Berlin would have been impractical at times due to the city's isolation from the rest of West Germany. The autobahn was constructed during the Nazi regime (although planned before it began), and was a major route for people and goods into West Berlin until the blockade; Tempelhof airport, mentioned above, was used to deliver food etc. during the Berlin airlift.

In East Berlin, there was certainly a lot of demolishing and constructing of buildings and other infrastructure over the years, but it was either for practical purposes (like the very distinctive Cold War era blocks of flats), for control (razing the areas along the Berlin wall) or for idealogical purposes of their own (like Karl-Marx-Allee).

I think there may also be an element of remembrance: to destroy everything the Nazis built is trying to erase their acts from the collective memory, and from what I've seen, many German people believe that it should be remembered in order that it not be repeated. --Kateshortforbob _talk 12:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Seriously it is not like the buildings themselves were evil. They were just buildings. Googlemeister (talk) 15:27, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the surviving building most closely linked to Hitler is the "Eagle's Nest" or Kehlsteinhaus in the Bavarian Alps, which is now a restaurant. Alansplodge (talk) 16:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Mass architecture of the Reich did not veer too far from budget modernist architecture that preceded the Great Depression. Walk through the streets of Vienna... you'll see hundreds of ordinary-looking apartment blocks that look like a knock-off of Prora linked above. They carry a proud statement: "Built by the City of Vienna in 192***". You'll also see hundreds of similar blocks with letters "Built by the City of Vienna in 195***". And then you'll see more blocks without any letters. Guess when they were built? Why should they demolish ordinary-looking apartment blocks in an already blitzed city? Oh, and some Nazi architecture (flak towers, submarine pens) turned out physically indestructible. East of Borschov 16:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

IP 92.34 "...the Nazis must be unique in being the only "predecessor evil administration" in modern times that built stuff.". What do you mean by this? It does not make sense to me. as far as I know you would be hard pressed to name any dictatorial regime that didn't erect buildings or monuments in honour of themselves. --Saddhiyama (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Name a modern regime as bad as the Nazis? 92.24.180.245 (talk) 01:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What about Stalinism? Even Khruschev and the other communists tried to get rid of everything he had done as soon as they could, yet Russian constructivist architecture of the era has inspired many of the most modern buildings. 148.197.121.205 (talk) 09:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Geese and moving on

HOW DO GEESE KNOW WHEN TO FLY TO THE SUN? WHO TELLS THEM THE SEASONS? HOW DO WE, HUMANS KNOW WHEN IT IS TIME TO MOVE ON? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubet (talk • contribs) 12:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I added a title to your question. 90.195.179.106 (talk) 13:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

They listen to Neil Young? ("Flyin' mother nature's silver seed / To a new home in the sun";) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a good question, really. We have an article on Bird migration, which does not say anything about anyone telling them when to fly to a warmer climate. What's also interesting is how they know where to go, and how to get there. If you want to clarify the question, that's fine, but as-is I'm guessing the most helpful answer to the OP would be "they just know." Similarly with humans. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Re geese - see Bird migration#Physiology and control. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

question on public domain works

Various countries can have different lengths of time before creative works enter the public domain. Say that something is in the public domain in country A, but will not be in public domain in country B for another 10 years. Is it legal to import copies of the book or whatever from country A to country B without paying royalties if the copies were printed in country A? Would a personal copy you owned that did not have royalties paid be subject to confiscation if you were to relocated to country B? Googlemeister (talk) 16:14, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

This may be better suited to be asked at WP:MCQ instead of here. --Jayron32 16:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The Berne Convention mandates the rule of the shorter term, but not all countries honor this or honor it in exactly the same way. Take a look at those articles and see if they help you make sense of it. International copyright law is a complicated thing. It can vary depending on what Country A and Country B you are talking about.--Mr.98 (talk) 17:10, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The Supreme Court of the United States is going to decide a similar question shortly.[21] The case is Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Omega and it was argued on November 8, 2010. In that case, the petitioner, Costco, sought to import and sell copies of various books it had purchased abroad at a cheaper price. The wikipedia link above is generally for questions about copyrightable subject matter on wikipedia. An exact answer to your question would involve looking to the specific facts and nature of the copyright, the respective treaties including those which go beyond the Berne Convention between the respective states (e.g. Australia upholds the copyright law of the United States within its own borders by special treaty), and what the importer actually does with the subject matter (e.g. displays, copies, sells, or merely possesses). That would be giving a legal opinion on the matter and such an inquiry should be directed to an attorney. Gx872op (talk) 17:42, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I've wondered this myself; e.g. as a child, I had a book that portrayed the Centre Georges Pompidou, and I've wondered if it would be legal to take it to France. I don't see the original question as a request for legal advice (unlike my statement would be if I were asking you for an answer, which I'm not), since it's so general; it's only asking about what's typically done, not about any specific situation. Nyttend (talk) 04:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Medal of Liberty

Under your website is an article on a "medal of liberty' presented by President Regan to several famous recipients. The description of this medal is eerily similar to the medal produced for the Statue of Liberty Club in 2005. See www.statueoflibertyclub.com

Where can I find a picture of the medal presented by the president?98.217.102.194 (talk) 17:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I have added a {{reqphoto}} tag to Talk:Medal of Liberty. Some day, perhaps in the year 2016, a future editor will notice this, and upload a photo under a free license, and include it in the article. A google image search on medal of liberty yields a lot of unrelated photos, which I guess is not surprising, since our article Medal of Liberty says this was a one-time event, only a few were made in 1986, and no more were produced. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Working hours of US president

This http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/nov/09/george-bush-michael-white said that George W Bush read 95 books in a year, although I'm not clear if that was while he was a president. If it was he must have had a lot of free time. How many hours a week does the US president usually work? 92.28.249.235 (talk) 22:26, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the president has anything like defined working hours. Depending on how you look at it, his working hours are 24/7 - he can never take a day off or keep his weekend free for a shopping trip, if anything comes up, he just has to be there (and be awake and reasonably sober). On the other hand, from what I remember reading about various presidents, his regular work time is probably only a couple hours a day spent in staff meetings, the rest of the day he's usually just on standby unless there's something really big going on. He certainly still has tons of memos and reports to read, but there should be enough time to spend a couple hours a day reading (as long as he doesn't mind being constantly interrupted). Plus, a fair bit of the president's time is spent on flights - considering all that, 95 books a year is not that much, if one enjoys reading. -- Ferkelparade π 23:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the effective hours depend a lot on the individual president. I have the impression that Gerald Ford worked like a dog. I base that mainly on how much he aged in two years. He looked younger ten years later than he did the day he left office; I think a second term would have killed him. Reagan, on the other hand, "knew how to delegate". --Trovatore (talk) 23:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

You can get some idea looking at presidential schedules, which are often later published along with annotations for how true they were to reality. (The official White House schedule that is published on the website every day is more a cue for media representatives than an accurate accounting.) I've seen one of Truman's at his presidential library — it's pretty crazy. Basically every 15 minutes or so was booked from 8am through 8pm or something like that. He took a few hours off in the middle of the afternoon for a nap but otherwise didn't have many breaks.

I think for most presidents it is a lot of work. Now some of this is made a little easier when they go on vacation, but their staff goes along with them and they still do a lot of working. It no doubt varies by president, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Everyone who worked with George Bush said that he was an extremely hard-working president; one of the big differences between him and Obama is that Bush was much more willing to step back and allow other people to do the PR for many things. Bush did a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes, whereas Obama likes to be at the forefront of everything. For instance, think about how often we heard about the members of Bush's cabinet versus Obama's; it's a huge difference. Not that one is better or worse, just that they have two very different styles. With Bush's, you just don't see it in front of you, which leads more cynical people to believe that it therefore must not be happening. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It may be that a proportion of those 95 books were read for work-related background research rather than personal pleasure. If I held a similar position I would want to gain some grounding in particular topics, countries or important individuals with which or whom I was dealing: the briefing documentation I would require from my staff would likely include judiciously chosen books on the subjects concerned. A list of titles and authors would be illuminating. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 00:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Bush's thing was reading history books. Certainly some of them might have been relevant to his job, but I don't know if that was the main reason he was reading them. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, here's one of the 95. :) --Soman (talk) 01:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that there are many definitions of "reading". We assume it means "I read every line cover to cover." In my experience, people have all sorts of reading styles. A lot of the books I read might be better said to have been "mined" or "extracted" — I can "extract" the information I'm interested in from a book, and get a general feel of its style, arguments, and veracity, in about an hour or two. That's not the same thing as reading it cover to cover, obviously, but I'd probably count said book as one that I had read. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if the US President (or Queen Elizabeth, the Pope, the UK Prime Minister, or any other head of state/government for that matter) ever have the time or interest to edit Wikipedia. It's not that unbelievable, given the Queen is now twittering away for all her worth, apparently. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Does Her Majesty edit her own bio? If so, will we block her for COI? --Trovatore (talk) 01:04, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, but we do have a picture of her climbing a national monument over a content dispute. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:19, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe meeting heads of state, having formal dinners, and travelling abroad counts as work, although for most of us it wouldnt. Another leader didnt work very hard according to what I've read: Berghof (residence). 92.24.187.23 (talk) 11:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

November 18

Sin Tax on Goods of Inelastic Demand

Hello. If governments tax goods of inelastic demand to raise revenues, how effective are sin taxes on such goods? Quantity demanded will not lower by much for an extraordinary tax hike. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 01:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

That's a big if. A meta-analysis of 1003 estimates from 112 studies finds that sin taxes are an effective public policy measure, because those things considered sinful have relatively elastic demand curves. The lead researcher commented that such taxes were "the most effective deterrents to drinking that researchers have discovered, beating things like law enforcement, media campaigns or school programmes" [22]. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:42, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, by definition, everything a sin tax is applied to is optional, survival and quality-of-life wise. No one's life ends up worse because they stop smoking, so if you tax the shit out of cigarettes, you expect the number of cigarettes sold to drop by a predictable amount, which it does. These sort of optional items are driven almost purely by pricing; if you raise the price demand goes down. That is the definition of elastic demand. Items with inelastic demand are things like gasoline; people need to get to work, so they aren't going to stop driving. They'll just spend less money in other areas of their lives to compensate. However, per the study cited above, and many other like it, if you raise the price of things like cigarettes and booze, people smoke and drink less. --Jayron32 03:06, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your reply, except that gasoline is also a quite substitutable good, at least in the longer run - people can car-pool, use public transport, buy a more fuel-efficient car next time they change cars, choose a job closer to home next time they share jobs, etc, all of which, at the margin, will reduce demand for gasoline if the price increases. Jørgen (talk) 09:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Except that experimentally, it turned out not to be true. If you look at a graph of gasoline prices, there's an interesting phenomenon. Looking before the turn-of-the-millenium events which affected gasoline supply (mainly the Iraq War and Hurrican Katrina), gasoline prices in the U.S. maintained at a steady rate of between $1.00 and $1.50 per gallon for most of the preceding decade. There were some spikes now and then, but the equilibrium price was somewhere around a buck and half per gallon. After the double whammy of Katrina and the outbreak of the Iraq war, there were some serious hits to the supply of crude oil and gasoline, and predictably the price went up; it spiked at times to almost $4.00 per gallon, but it sort of resettled at $2.50-$3.00 a gallon by, say, 2004 or so. It has remained effectively constant since then, despite a "return to normalcy" in terms of supplies, and people aren't driving less despite paying almost double today what they paid 15 years ago for gasoline (comparing gasoline prices to other measures of inflation, it has FAR outstripped price increases in other areas of the economy). That's a classic show of inelastic demand; the price doubles, and demand remains constant. What Katrina did for the gasoline retailers was to give them a chance to experiment with what they expected all along; Americans would bear a much higher price in gasoline; they just needed an excuse to raise the price to try it out. Considering what the U.S. pays for gasoline compared to the rest of the world, it is clear that gasoline was seriously UNDERVALUED in the 1990's (indeed, it probably still is). Now, I will grant you that at some point the demand for gasoline will become elastic. If Americans had to pay $10.00 or $20.00 per gallon, you can bet that they'd find alternatives to it mighty fast. --Jayron32 16:48, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

As a point of comparison, the current forecourt price in (my part of) the UK works out to about $7.30 per (US) gallon. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 01:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Footwear for speedsters

I watched the first episode of No Ordinary Family the other day. The wife has superspeed and seems to run in her everyday shoes. I realize the show is fictional, but I found it ludicrous that normal footwear, especially that intended for a business setting, would stand up to speeds in excess of 600 miles an hour. Tennis shoe tred would wear down only after a few moments. After reading the chapter on the Flash in James Kakalios' book The Physics of Superheroes, I started to wonder what type of material could be resilient and flexible enough to hypothetically create a running shoe (the boot and, more specifically, the tread) suitable for a "speedster". Does such a material exist? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 03:14, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Kevlar would probably hold up pretty well; that's what they use in fireman's suits, among many other uses. But you'd need something underneath it to make it sturdy enough for a running shoe; that I'm not so sure about. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Never mind the shoes - what about the runner's legs and feet? I've picked up a few injuries over the years while running at a stately 8 mph, despite the best technology that Mr Reebok can devise. Alansplodge (talk) 15:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand what you mean. I served in the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division for 3 years, and after running 4 - 5 miles every other day or so for that whole time, your feet and knees tend to get a little jacked up. But since this is a hypothetical question, the physical realities of running at superspeeds don't really apply. I am mainly interested in the shoes one would wear. Let's face it, a person running at that speed can't go bare foot unless they are invulnerable too. I think a few nails in the foot would bring somebody from 600 - 0 very quickly! --Ghostexorcist (talk) 15:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Can't they defy gravity, too - then the shoes will only have to handle air resistance. Air at the speed of sound will rip apart any cloth, but a solid piece of hard plastic will do it. East of Borschov 15:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

As James Kakalios explains in his book, they may have a wicked stride of almost 700 feet when running at 3,600 mph, but gravity will eventually take over. They must push off with their feet to provide forward motion. That plastic tread would wear down quickly. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 16:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Ghostexorcist -- In one of the first few episodes, the "Katie Andrew" character briefly lists several scientific problems with the "Stephanie Powell" character's powers, which seems like a sly wink on the part of the series producers/writers... AnonMoos (talk) 01:30, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Dinamo Zagreb

It is written: NK Dinamo Zagreb was a football club from Zagreb. Tuđman considered its name Dinamo to be too communist. No explanation is given. In my mind, the word "dinamo" has no political associations whatsoever. Why would Tudjman consider it "communist"? LANTZY^TALK 06:50, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Presumably because of the association with the Dynamo Sports Club which was the Soviet sports machine that produced all those Ivan Dragos. In a post-communist world, it would make sense that a club wishing to distance itself from communism would also want to distance itself from that name. --Jayron32 07:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, that makes sense. I was thinking it was something about the word itself, as if it belonged to that group of words which have acquired the heady aroma of Bolshevism: comrade, commissar, cadre, chairman, sickle, etc. (If anything, "dynamo" sounds a bit fascistic, like something Marinetti would call his football club.) LANTZY^TALK 09:41, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

A quick tot-up on the Dynamo (disambiguation) page shows 48 football clubs from the former Soviet Union with "dynamo" in their title. I'm not sure about Loughborough Dynamo F.C. though! Alansplodge (talk) 11:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I doubt that they really meant Soviet machine, especially in combination with comic stock like Drago. There was public reaction against their own past and their own socialist legacy. But in the end it was a personal decision, a point in FT's current politics of the period. East of Borschov 15:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The history page of the official club (Croatian language) only says the name was changed soon after WWII and the club was meant to be a communist surrogate for several former Zagrebian FCs, but this quick history on a Slovene page says the name was inspired by the name of the Moscow sports club (quote: " Zaradi dobrikanja s takratno Sovjetsko zvezo je bil 8. maja 1945 po vzoru na moskovski Dinamo ustanovljen Dinamo Zagreb, ki je v sebi združeval naslednika dveh dotedanjih največjih klubov (Građanski in HAŠK)." - "Due to sycophancy towards the Soviet Union of the time, on May 8th 1945 Dinamo Zagreb was formed, following the example of Dynamo Moscow, and it included the successors of the biggest two former clubs [in Zagreb], Građanski and HAŠK. I don't know how much the second source can be trusted, but it would appear Jayron is right. In addition, Borschov has a good point, too - I can't say about other ex-communist countries, but AFAIK at least in Slovenia and Croatia, there is (most notably on the right side of the political spectrum) a certain touchiness towards anything that might by even the most twisted turns of the mind be in any way or shape connected to the communist past. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:36, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, comrades. I was simply ignorant of the history of Eastern Bloc athletics. I assume that many share that ignorance. Perhaps the Tudjman article should be altered to provide a bit of context. LANTZY^TALK 07:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, well I learned something new as well. Until now I was convinced there must have been some electronics company called Dinamo somewhere, I didn't realize the name came from Moscow. After all, a great part of the mythology of ex-Yugoslavia had been about how the country had been independent from the oppressive Russians, and the names of sports clubs were usually of three varieties - if a club had been historically significant long before '45, the name stuck (case in point, Olimpija), then there were ones that had some evocative peoples'-republic-slogan-like name and then there were ones called for their major industrial sponsors (although quite often, the industries themselves had evocative slogan type names as well:), and since, as you point out, "dynamo" isn't exactly a communist buzzword, I figured it was called so for some factory or other. TomorrowTime (talk) 10:18, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Retail Merchandise Performance Hedging

Do retailer's usually have agreements with suppliers on liability for a product not meeting sales expectations? To illustrate what I'm asking imagine Mattel introduces a new doll and Toys 'R Us stocks them. First off would Toys 'R Us corporate review and decide whether to stock every new product or would there be a standing agreement between such major partners that they will stock all new products but with the option to review and refuse? Then assume the doll barely sells at all. Is Toys 'R Us stuck with the product or would there be some sort of agreement where Mattel would take some percentage of the loss for putting out an undesirable product? (with possibly the upside of gaining a percentage for excellent performance)? I realize with small retailers they would be stuck with whatever stock they got and have to sell at a discount to get rid of the excess units. But I'm wondering if with large retailers they have some sort of agreements that protect them from underperforming merchandise? In simplest terms - do large retailers hedge product performance somehow or do they ONLY diversify by stocking thousands of products? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 11:01, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Antisemitism and Israel

Is it just me, or has there been an increasing tendency to label people who find fault with policies of the Israeli government as antisemitic? Isn't the difference obvious? Or, is it just me? Perhaps my (limited) news feeds are out of whack. Just curious whether my impression is misguided or if there's evidence for such things, on an increasing level? I mean, really, I'm as far from antisemitic as possible, but I am no fan of the government of Israel (relatively speaking, and not relative to many of Israel's neighbors!). Is criticizing Israel becoming more synanomous with antisemitism? Pfly (talk) 12:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

This has indeed become a standard ploy of apologists for the Israeli government. There's some information in our article New antisemitism. Algebraist 12:31, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It is strange that people criticize Israel at every occasion, for the most insignificant reason and deny its right of existence as a consequence of any action of the army. I do see some anti-Jewish bias here, be the criticism be based on true facts or not. (not anti-semitic, since Arabs are also semitics).--Quest09 (talk) 12:49, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Siege of Gaza = "most insignifant reason"? Thanks for proving the point of the OP. However, I'm not sure that there is an increasing tendency, it is the routine discourse of Israeli gov't for decades now. --Soman (talk) 16:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

And your point about Arabs also being Semitic is an example of the etymological fallacy. The word "antisemitism" and its relatives, certainly as used today, relates to Jews and Judaism. --ColinFine (talk) 23:29, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The difference often isn't obvious. It's a problem with the object of criticism is heavily identified with an oppressed or formerly oppressed minority. It's no more obvious than figuring out which of the critics of Obama are doing so because they honestly have intellectual differences with his policies, and which of them are reacting largely because a Black man in power makes them uncomfortable. It may even be the case that some of those making said criticisms don't know what is actually motivating them. The stakes of making that distinction are clear. If the differences are truly policy or intellectual in nature, then they can be engaged, taken seriously, reasoned with, and so on. If they come from gut hatreds, they cannot, and need not be engaged with. In the case of Israel, my own feeling is that a lot depends on where the people are from. In the United States, anti-Semitism is as far as I can tell practically a non-starter unless you are a complete "redneck." (Jews have, except in the craziest and most backwards of circles, fairly effectively become "white," so long as they aren't Orthodox.) In France and the Middle East, it seems to still be a big issue. The Middle East I understand (they feel they are under a war of occupation, and that makes everyone angry), France I do not. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I admire Israel deeply for this ploy. While they are small, they can cry antisemitism if anyone objects to them trampling over anyone else in the area, and when they are big (and, obviously, by that time multicultural) by that time no one can seriously cry "antisemitism" about Israel as a government for two reasons: 1) they are too multicultural, it would be a joke to make that cry. and 2) there isn't really much to object over, just as you don't see much objection of the United States for its domestic policy with native Americans: it's all in the past! So, I just see Israel doing exactly the same thing America did in its early expansion -- America appealed to the Christian God for its righteous mission of expansion, whereas Jews appeal to much the same. It's their homeland, and anyone who would take that from Jews is obviously anti-Jewish. They'll milk that while they can, and then they'll drop the whole matter (once they're big enough) and never mention it again. They're downright brilliant. 84.153.193.81 (talk) 16:53, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say that occupying Gaza is a minor issue. You twisted what I said. But everywhere in the world, the security forces make mistakes and sometimes shoot people by accident. However, if that happens in, say, Belgian, no one goes on claiming to dissolve the Belgian state. They still are recognized as something that can exist further. Most criticism against Israel is, however, in the direction that they should not exits.

I couldn't possibly be twisting what you said, because I didn't read it! I just read the original question, and not any of the responses. 84.153.193.81 (talk) 19:56, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Israel is certainly not doing to the Arabs the same as America did in the past to the Indians. They are certainly not in an open war against Arabs, even if the international press sold this idea to the whole world. Quest09 (talk) 17:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we live in different countries or read different media, but almost all criticism I see of Israel is in the direction that it should exist, but within its 1967 borders (the green line). There are, by the way, many (Flemish) people who want to dissolve the Belgian state, but that's a completely different issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 19:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there are a lot of Flemish people who would dissolve their state, if allowed. What you do not see is a lot of non-Belgians analyzing how unfair Belgian is as a state. The same applies to other European countries and their minorities Germans-Turks, Frenchs-Arabs, East Europeans-Gypsies and much, much more. The problems of Israel get much more attention than any other conflict or tension. Quest09 (talk) 21:46, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Quest09, you said above "It is strange that people criticize Israel at every occasion, for the most insignificant reason and deny its right of existence as a consequence of any action of the army." Who does that? No one in this thread is doing that. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I am not saying that fellow wikipedians are anti-semitic or are bashing Israel. However, every violent action of the police is often stamped as genocide by many media.Quest09 (talk) 17:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

So... According to your analogy, the Palestinians are a minority in Palestine? TomorrowTime (talk) 22:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Jews are a minority in the middle-East, surrounded by Arabs. Quest09 (talk) 17:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I see. But all the other minorities you describe don't have sovereign states of their own with police forces or armies so I still think your analogy is somewhat flawed. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What I think you are describing, OP, is not new. I saw part of a documentary not too long ago, made by an Israeli, in which this general issue was addressed to some extent, specifically with regard to the Anti-Defamation League. I'll see if I can get a ref for that documentary, and try to recall better what exactly was said about this. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly possible to be critical of the government of Israel (as many Israelis are) without being antisemitic. However, many of the people who criticize Israel are indeed antisemitic or exhibit antisemitic tendencies. This is evident when synagogues are attacked during times like the Lebanon War or Gaza conflict, or when, during the Durban Conference that was supposed to be about fighting racism, "anti-Zionist" activists passed out copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This blog post shows that a Canadian anti-Israel activist's master's thesis talks about "Jewish privilege" and "Jewish racism" -- clearly the kind of things that can be described as antisemitic. Personally, I think the argument over whether a given anti-Israel zealot is or is not antisemitic misses the point. Being reflexively against any country, or the people from that country, is a form of bigotry, whether it's antisemitic or not. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Though it's worth noting that the terms of the debate are slanted towards those who would describe others as anti-Semitic as a means of terminating the discussion. I think that's part of what is being responded to. I can say, "I don't think there needs to be a specifically Jewish state, in the same way that I don't think there needs to be a specifically Catholic or Protestant state either." That doesn't mean I want to kick the Jews out; it means I think that religious and ethnic plurality should be enhanced and that the Palestinians should either be considered full members of the state or be given their own state. I can say that I think many of the policies by the Israelis are in fact motivated by a base racism against the Palestinians. Is any of this anti-Semitic? It would be convenient to say, "yes," because that means that nobody would have to take any of my opinions seriously. All of this is quite a far cry from the most extreme (e.g. genocidal or exiling) anti-Israeli sentiments, obviously, but I think are more common to the actual criticisms of Israel that exist in Europe and the USA. If the only non-anti-Semitic opinion is to be in favor of a "Jewish state" then there isn't a whole lot of room for "rational" dissenting opinion, which obviously works in the favor of those who are pro-Israel. It's of course convenient to point out that the most rapid members of any given cause are of course going to be the craziest, but to use it to discount all criticism (which I do think is done on a regular basis) is a huge logical fallacy. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Links? We don't need no stinkin' links!

Just deleting a copyvio and saw this. In particular the second paragraph of the "Intellectual property" section. Is something like that actually enforceable? Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 15:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Short answer: Probably not. Long answer: see Copyright aspects of hyperlinking and framing. The copyright aspects of linking have not been settled by the courts. The idea that you can link to anyone else's pages is largely an unwritten expectation without strong legal support. There are some cases in which arguments against "deep linking" have been successful. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It seemed so odd. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 17:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Lions Clubs

--173.23.34.149 (talk) 16:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)Is there a Lions Club in Ocean City, MD & if so how can I contact them?

I'm going to guess that if you ask google that question, it'll answer you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:56, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Learnt depression

Is there any evidence that feeling depressed as a reaction to particular personal events is something leant rather than innate? Thanks 92.15.5.101 (talk) 17:46, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Who says depression is innate? Quest09 (talk) 18:46, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Bad answer. The querent is the one asking a question, and is asking for evidence. Please provide references. This is a reference desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:03, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I was not answering the question. I was asking a question myself about his suppositions. Who says that you cannot ask a question after someone asks you a question?Quest09 (talk) 21:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I read your tone as challenging the querent, rather than asking him or her to provide a link to explain the question further. Sorry if I am mistaken. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Seligman's theory of learned helplessness is pertinent here.--TammyMoet (talk) 18:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

As is cognitive therapy. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:03, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Stock split and derivatives

Would the derivatives of a stock be adjusted accordingly if the stock is split before the corresponding derivative expires/matures? K61824 (talk) 19:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

lmgtfy[DOT]com/?q=derivatives+stock+split —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.153.193.81 (talk) 20:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Identification of painting

From which painting does this image come from? http://forums.doyoulookgood.com/images/avatars/17482105464c16f55ef3695.gif

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.202.236.203 (talk) 22:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Orphan Girl at the Cemetery by Eugène Delacroix. MilborneOne (talk) 22:59, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Do the US Marines really kick recruits out of basic training at the drop of a hat?

A friend once said that if anyone sheds a tear while in Marines basic training, they can get kicked out of there.

I thought it was hard to get out once in; you don't give the 2 weeks notice to quit the military, you get out once your contract is up, or you get injured, or other major circumstances happen.

Crying (or even shedding a single tear FGS) isn't a "major" circumstance.

Would anyone corroborate on this? --129.130.252.150 (talk) 23:37, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

This article from Army Times says the attrition rate in the US Marines boot camp is 12 to 15 percent, so I'm going to say they don't kick recruits out for shedding a tear. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no crying in baseball the Marines! Clarityfiend (talk) 03:12, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

They really aren't interested in having unwilling and unsuitable service members so several reasons for " administrative separation"[23] (drug use, failure to get a security clearance, body fat standards, "convenience of the government for parenthood") but for those in boot camp there is "Entry Level Separation" for those failing to adapt to military discipline, culture, and work standards[24] 75.41.110.200 (talk) 04:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

This article breaks down the dropout rates further. Overall, dropout rate is about 10% for men and 20% for women. Because they have rather high standards to simply get into boot camp, the dropout rate is much lower than some may expect. -- kainaw™ 15:33, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

November 19

Why a special interest in bacon around January 30, 2009?

[25] shows peaks in searches about bacon for Thanksgiving and Christmas which is entirely reasonable because people who don't usually cook will get out the frying pan (and every other cooking utensil) for those special days, but it also shows a similar peak at the end of January, 2009. I'm mystified. -- ke4roh (talk) 00:19, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I seem to have found the answer to my own question. It was the debut of Bacon Explosion.[26] -- ke4roh (talk) 00:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Getting out of the military via wetting yourself?

Inspired by the question above (and not a request for advice at all - my water is held securely, thank you very much). Is it still the case that in the armed forces of the UK and US, that someone can get themselves discharged with a non-prejudicial service characterization *really* easily and quickly if they start intentionally pissing their beds and/or pissing their pants during the day, whilst claiming that they can't help it and that no, they're not doing it on purpose - at all?

I've heard 'this one guy who...'-type stories of this nature told by ex-servicemen from both sides of the Atlantic over the years. Does it still happen? Or have they started cracking down on that sort of thing now? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 05:06, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

. Do you have any documentation of this practice, or of the "crying and getting kicked out" practice noted above? The "I heard it somewhere from some guy once" is a notoriously bad way to find out true things. --Jayron32 05:23, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh yeah. Sorry - I was trying to clarify if this was actually true (I realize that I may not have made that clear enough in my OP). I had a Google around before asking but I didn't find anything definitive - mostly stuff from people who wet the bed and are worried about enlisting... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 05:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Aren't there easier ways of getting pointlessly discharged? Although I suppose there are people who would rather be thought incontinent than gay... LANTZY^TALK 07:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Before I went through basic training, the Army asked me three pointed questions: Do you do drugs? Are you gay? Do you wet the bed? The last one was a surprise. —Kevin Myers 07:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully you were in the Army before the 90s. Googlemeister (talk) 15:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, back in the '80s, they asked. The directness with which they asked these questions was what made them so memorable. One wrong look or word, it seemed, and they'd make me sit on the Group W bench with the father rapers and mother stabbers. ;-) —Kevin Myers 15:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC) (Private, ret., ARNG)

(after ec)Possibly it is/was the case that being discharged from the service for outing oneself/being caught performing a homosexual act/etc. led to a poorer service characterization (than being kicked out for bed-wetting would) which would adversely affect future employment opportunities? Or it was overtly stated on the discharge paperwork that the person in question was a homosexual? --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 07:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Could people, back at that time, avoid being sent to Vietnam by simply answering 'yes' to the question 'Are you homo' or 'do you do drugs?'. It seems preferable to me, even if it's a lie. Quest09 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC).

See Sexual orientation and the United States military#Late 20th century. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I think James Dean avoided military service by identifying himself as homosexual. LANTZY^TALK 02:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

When did the 1960s really begin?

Many writers and journalists have stated that the mythical '60s actually began on 22 November 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Is this true? As I recall, people in the US did have a 50s mentality until about 1964 when gradually yet irrevocably, huge social, musical and fashion changes began taking place. --Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

In the UK at least, the mythical '60s certainly began earlier than that. I would say that one of the first signs of major social change was the lifting of the ban on Lady Chatterley's Lover in November 1960. The rise of the Beatles was also key; they had their first British no.1 hit in February 1963. Or, as Philip Larkin memorably put it: "Sexual intercourse began in 1963 (which was rather late for me) -- Between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles first LP." --Viennese Waltz 07:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and didn't Mary Quant invent the mini-skirt in 1962? American girls (the trendy ones that is!) didn't start wearing minis until 1964. Another thing, the majority of Americans were conservative throughout the 60s. The counter-culture really only existed on the West and Northeastern coasts of the United States. Mid-America didn't know it was happening!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree that the majority of Americans were conservative throughout the 60s. If that were true, Kennedy would not have been elected in 1960. His election itself was a big indication that change was in the air. He was young, optimistic and light years away from the old guard epitomized by Nixon. --Viennese Waltz 07:45, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but Kennedy won by a very small margin. Many people were hostile to the fact that he was Catholic! And look at how many conservative Americans sent their sons off to Vietnam, and at the same time opposed the anti-war protestors. I recall the phrase "America, love it or leave it" being bandied about at the same time as "make Love not War" or the more bellicose "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today". Of course as I was from west Los Angeles, near Venice, I saw the counter-culture taking place all around me.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict, responding to Viennese Waltz) That's probably pop culture hindsight bias. Kennedy was popular with young people, but he just barely defeated Nixon, who was only 4 years older. Nixon was reelected in 1972 with a far greater percentage of the popular vote than Kennedy got in 1960. Looking backward, after Vietnam and Watergate and JFK's assassination, it's tempting to underestimate Nixon's popularity and overestimate JFK's. The show Mad Men had some fun with this in the first season, with Don Draper describing one of the candidates in 1960 as a "young, handsome war hero", and referring, of course, to Nixon. —Kevin Myers 08:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that "Mid-America didn't know it was happening" — throughout the South, certainly, there was widespread hatred of, or at least contempt for, the hippies. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The Counterculture of the 1960s, by which most people mean when they say "The Sixties" had its origins in the late 1950s with the Beat Generation, which itself had its origins in the San Francisco Renaissance of the 1940s. Other key moments in the life of the 1960s counterculture, at least in the U.S. were the 1960 Harvard Psilocybin Project of Timothy Leary, which did a lot to introduce and legitimize the psychedelic drug culture, and The Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964. --Jayron32 07:59, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

True, the Beat Generation did play a large part in laying the foundations for the cultural explosion that erupted when the Beatles' BOAC plane landed in New York in 1964. We also need to mention the influence of early rock pioneers such as Elvis and Buddy Holly. It must be pointed out that the Beat Generation was a movement in California and New York, not middle America.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The sixties counterculture was a movement largely confined to the coasts. If you look at statistical figures, the coverage of the movement blew its size out of proportion. It was very culturally significant, but never really represented a large proportion of the population, or even a large proportion of the youth population. --Jayron32 16:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey guys, the 60s happened outside the USA too. HiLo48 (talk) 09:16, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes I already made that point in the very first response to the OP. --Viennese Waltz 09:45, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

And with respect to "middle America", I'm not that certain that they arrived there yet... ;-) --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Without meaning to sound Anglo-centric most journalists who document the 60s (as opposed to 1960s) describe it as a phenomenon which occurred on a British-Californian axis. The comments in the video documentary British rock affirm this.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

From my 80s teen perspective, we consumed "English" music without ever differentiating between British and US bands. It's very interesting that nearly all classic "big" rock bands are British - The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Queen, Dire Straits, Status Quo, Pink Floyd. On that level, I can only remember The Beach Boys and The Doors from the other side of the Atlantic (and of course, both are from California). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

There was also the late great Janis Joplin from Texas. And let's not forget The Turtles!!!!!! It ain't me babe, I said no no no it ain't me babe.... And the Monkees! (Now how could anyone forget them and how they helped define the 60s!)--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hey, a quarter of the Monkees was English! -- Arwel Parry (talk) 12:17, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Interesting observation, but the American contribution to rock 'n' roll should not be slighted. (In fact, it originated here.) It's just that more of the contributors tended to be known as individuals rather than bands -- Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly (and even though he was ambivalent about the label let's not forget) Johnny Cash. --Trovatore (talk) 10:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Let me add Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis to the list.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

On the band side, I'll stack Jefferson Airplane, The Eagles, The Mommas and the Poppas, and Creedence Clearwater Revival up against the British-invasion bands any day. --Trovatore (talk) 10:15, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Now this is where you and I must needs part company. None of those bands can compare to the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Animals, The Who, Cream, Blind Faith, Yardbirds, Small Faces, Troggs (whew I'm running out of breath), Gerry and The Pacemakers, etc. etc.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:18, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, come on. I'm a fan of The Beatles and The Who myself, but the Stones? They have nothing to compare to Victim of Love or Don't You Want Somebody to Love. --Trovatore (talk) 10:24, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Gimme Shelter,Satisfaction, The Last Time, Bitch, Sway, Paint It Black, Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Sympathy For the Devil, I Am Waiting, Cool, Calm, Collected, Off My Cloud.........etc etc etc etc. Actually while we are on the subject of the 1960s it might be worth pondering on how the 60s would have progressed had JFK not been shot in Dallas.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:33, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I just don't like 'em much. Lyrics and melodies both too simple and repetitive. Worth listening to every now and then in a mac-and-cheese kind of way. --Trovatore (talk) 10:39, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

On reflection, the Stones did have at least one good song, which was Ruby Tuesday. Shows the potential was there. So why did they keep turning out mindless crap like Satisfaction and She's So Cold? --Trovatore (talk) 21:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Would you call brilliant songs like Let It Loose, Rip This Joint, Faraway Eyes, Shattered, Tell Me, Blue Turns To Grey, Stray Cat Blues, Moonlight Mile, Start Me Up mindless crap?????!!!!!!!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Blind Faith! The Troggs!! Gerry and the Pacemakers!!! Come on - they were certainly regarded as little more than a joke in the UK.... But it is true that, in the early to mid 60s, the only US band to have anything like the same status in the UK as the British bands were The Beach Boys. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:48, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Then there were the balls-out hard rock British bands of the late 60s-early 70s such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple! These were far bigger in the US than Britain, though.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Were they? They were pretty big in the UK as well. Off out now... happy to continue this discussion at another time. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:00, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

No one has mentioned yet, the 6 yr economic cycle coinciding with the end of the post war recover period. The lower social/ economic classes for the first time since the war, found they still had money in their pockets after they had paid for food and rent. This is what drove the visible changes. The references to music etc. are just the tags your brain cells are using as place markers. Similar phases of music styles could be found for any era. This phases are the results and expressions of any era -- not the causes.--Aspro (talk) 10:49, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The 60s officially started in 1962 when the Rutles released their Hold My Hand/Number One single. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 14:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What a love-fest going on here, I love it! I propose that The Sixties began in 1960 and ended in 1969, with a fuzzy boundary of +/- several years at either end depending on too many factors to list. I'd also say the period '67-'69 was roughly the "heart" of the era. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:52, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Without trying to sound like a curmudgeon, I predict that future historians will decide that "The Sixties" never happened, i.e. that it wasn't a particularly distinctive decade, as heretical as that sounds now to Baby Boomers. Less controversial, perhaps, is my belief that the 1860s and the 1760s were the far more important "60s" in American history. Peace! —Kevin Myers 15:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

As a professional historical curmudgeon, I would just like to point out that the popular conception that the important things in the 1960s were fashion and music and counterculture in general is probably misguided and nostalgic. I would rate the deep changes brought about by the Civil Rights Movement in the United States as being far more important than those things. I think the Vietnam War, and the fact that it became incredibly unpopular even amongst the mainstream "squares" by the end of the decade, was far more transformational than Woodstock or a few thousand hippies taking acid. I would also argue that a lot of the things we currently ascribe to the 1960s actually became "big" in the 1970s. I'd heavily recommend Nixonland for those interested in a more rounded, less "peace and love" view of the period. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:00, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Another great account of the sixties is Warhol's book Popism: The Warhol Sixties (Martin Scorsese called the book "A vivid re-creation of a great time to live and a great time to die.") P. S. Burton (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The peace, flowers, and love aspect of the 60s probably ended in 1968, when everything became more politically-charged, violent, and less "All You Need is Love". I call this revolutionary period from 1968 to 1972 the "Easy Rider Era", with the Yuppies having supplanted the hippies.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 21:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Albanians pro-American

Does anyone know why out of all the nations in Europe, Albania is the most pro-American of the lot?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What evidence do you have for that assertion? --Viennese Waltz 10:38, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The warm reception George W. Bush received in Albania while incumbent, as well as Albanians I've met (quite a few).--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:55, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The oversimplified answer: NATO. The Albanians and their brethren in Kosovo would be dead and fertilizing Serb gardens if not for NATO military intervention. Hence all the streets named after Bill Clinton. The Albanians know which side their bread is buttered on. It ain't buttered by Moscow and Belgrade, that's for damn sure. If you owed your very existence to the United States, you'd probably be pro-American too. (Of course, the United States was moved only by altruism...) LANTZY^TALK 10:59, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Come to think of it, it's an interesting exception to the usual "West versus Muslim" configuration. Where the Balkans are concerned, it's less a matter of Christian vs Muslim as it is Russian vs NATO. Religious loyalties surrender to geopolitical considerations. I recall Solzhenitsyn making some comment about NATO being "exactly the same as Nazi Germany." Even an anti-Communist couldn't help but line up against the old enemy of the Soviet Union. LANTZY^TALK 11:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

As of fairly recently, Clinton also has a statue in Kosovo. But yeah, Lantzy is spot on. TomorrowTime (talk) 12:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

So what you're basically saying it's gratitude. Well I live in Italy and they seem to have largely forgotten how the US savied them during WWII judging by the anti-American sentiment I encounter nearly on a daily basis. LOL. One woman told me we had war in our DNA!!!!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Nobody is holding "Tuscany is Serbia" rallies. To this day, Kosovo is existentially dependent on the NATO powers. The pro-American stance of Albanians has nothing to do with gratitude and everything to do with Realpolitik. The Serbians, on the other hand, are quite romantic. They've been feeling gratitude to Russia for hundreds of years, for purely spiritual reasons, even though Russia has (in the best times) offered them little more than moral support. LANTZY^TALK 12:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Hm. Well, bear in mind the Albanians are in danger as we speak, while the US intervention in WWII happened, well, during WWII, 65 years ago. TomorrowTime (talk) 12:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

And as for "war in our DNA", I suppose that's entirely accurate, as long as the "we" refers to homo sapiens! It's pretty rich for an Italian to accuse another nation of congenital belligerence, in light of all their Caesars and Borgias and Mussolinis and what-have-you. LANTZY^TALK 12:48, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that much of pro-Americanism in Albania can be explained by her anti-American propaganda in Enver Hoxha era. Situation is the same in any other country that has and has had the anti-American progaganda. And vice versa, you have anti-American feelings in countries that have American-backed governments. I think it's a rule of thumb, with exceptions though.--Omidinist (talk) 16:04, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure it really works that way. Yugoslavia had its share of anti-American propaganda (the usual "decadent bourgeoisie West" song and fiddle) and yet there is no real love lost between the people of the succeeder countries and the US. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:16, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Kosovo cemented feelings but Albanian gratitude to America goes back to Woodrow Wilson. The European Great Powers had created Albania in the first place after it was divided by the Balkan League, largely to keep it from becoming Serbian, which would give Russia the use of their Mediterranean ports. They later agreed to dismember Albania in the London Pact which they confirmed among themselves at Paris before Wilson vetoed it. So the US is remembered as being responsible for the continued existence of an Albanian state after WWI. Speaking of Italy, it continued the occupation of Albania until it was defeated in the Vlora War but did occupy Sazan Island until after WWII. --JGGardiner (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Capital of the Kingdom of Dalmatia

Was Split or Zara the capital of the Kingdom of Dalmatia? P. S. Burton (talk) 12:23, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

• 
  Zara as capital
• 
  Split as capital

Hm, well, the article in the Croatian wikipedia says Zadar (i.e., Zara, which is the Italian name of the town), and so does this page: http://www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de/kuk_dalmatien.htm (in German) TomorrowTime (talk) 12:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Also, the map you linked with Zadar as capital seems to follow no particular standard for names of cities - on the one hand Zadar is in Italian, then you have Trieste and Ljubljana in German, and Prague is in English. I suggest you harmonize the names in some manner (if the map is your work, of course). TomorrowTime (talk) 12:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I am not the creator of the map. Could you help me with the correct english names of the states and the provinces. Since it is a historical map, the names might be different. P. S. Burton (talk) 16:05, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

At first glance, the names of all of the territories look fine. The list in that map seems to match the list here: Austria-Hungary#Linguistic_distribution. --Jayron32 16:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Hm... I'm no historian, I was just commenting on what I noticed. But if we take into account the names probably most commonly used during A-H times (which, to me would make most sense), then I can't find anything amiss other than Vienna and Prague being in English - these should be Wien and... I don't know about Prague - Praha, probably, if its Czech name was used and Prag if the German one was used. The discrepancies I mention higher up fit in with this as well - Ljubljana was in a province where German was the official level language, as well as Trieste, whereas Zadar was further South and I can see how the Italian name could have been used. It also has the Hungarian name Agram for Zagreb, which is again, what the town was called officially at the time. I'm talking about the file with the name "Austria-Hungary map new" here. I don't have any idea how the more northern towns may have been called and if any are out of sync with their official names of the time. Really, someone more competent than me should weigh in on this, I'm really just dispensing stuff that I sort of know here. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Except this is the English Wikipedia, so maps used here should use the most common name found in English language references, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). I see nothing wrong with a map to be used in an English language article using Vienna and Prague and Zara, as these are the most common English names for those cities. Occasionally, multiple names are used in English for the same city in different time periods (c.f. Pressburg and Bratislava) so we may follow that convention, but as far as I know, Vienna is always called Vienna in English, regardless of which time period you are referring to. --Jayron32 17:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Reasonable enough. But in that case, I'd insist that Zadar is more common in English than Zara, Trieste more than Triest, Ljubljana more than Laibach and Zagreb more than Agram. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:56, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

In this vein, Brünn should be changed to Brno, Troppau to Opava, Lemberg to Lviv, and Czernowitz to Chernivtsi. Marco polo (talk) 21:08, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

For map revisions, see Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Children of Mary the mother of jesus

Jesus had brothers as per mathew 12:46-50.Are they really borned to Mary his mother?If they really His own brothers why not they take care of her after the death of jesus christ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomas Rufus (talk • contribs) 16:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

It depends on which strain of Christianity you adhere to. In some faiths, notably Roman Catholicism, see Catholic views on Mary, that Mary was not only a virgin when Jesus was born, she was a virgin for life, see Perpetual virginity of Mary. Those faiths take the term "brothers" and "sisters" to refer to cousins of Jesus. Many protestant faiths do not follow the Cult of Mary and do not place as much emphasis on her character as a perpetual virgin, so they are willing to take a more literal interpretation of the passeges that mention Jesus's siblings (or more properly half-siblings); that is that Mary and Joseph had children after Jesus, and these later children are the brothers and sisters mentioned. As far as caring for Mary after the death of Jesus, its hard to say. In the first case, Mary was not an old woman when Jesus died; most accounts have her as a teenager, say 14-16 years old, when Jesus was born, and Jesus died in his mid 30's; that would have made Mary in her early fifties; while people died younger in the past they didn't become older faster, a woman in her fifties was perfectly able of caring for herself as she is today. Furthermore, there is no biblical evidence that Joseph had even died yet, the bible sort of ignores Joseph after Jesus becomes an adult, but it never actually "kills him off". As far as the relationship between Mary and her other children, the bible is pretty mum on that. The only sibling of Jesus that gets more than a passing mention is James the Just, who, among other things, has coverage in the Gospels, in Acts of the Apostles, and as the possible author of the Epistle of James. I am not aware of any direct interaction mentioned in the Bible between Mary and James the Just; though, of course, that doesn't mean there wasn't any. The bible does cover a very limited time frame, and is not comprehensive on the lives of its characters; even Jesus's life is only covered in detail for 3 or so years. --Jayron32 17:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

It should also bear mentioning that John the Apostle was specifically charged with the care of Mary; John is not counted among the siblings of Jesus, he's the son of Zebedee and brother of James the Greater (one of three important Jameses, and not the James that was Jesus's brother). John was clearly part of Jesus's inner circle, together with Simon Peter and John's brother James. John was often identified as "the apostle that Jesus loved". Perhaps in granting special care over Mary, Jesus was signifying his special role in the Church, much as Simon Peter was given charge as leader of the church after Jesus's death, John was named to lead Jesus's family. --Jayron32 17:32, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe it's a popular Catholic teaching that Jesus's siblings were Joseph's children from a previous marriage, thus his step-siblings. However it's perhaps also worth considering that Joseph does not appear at all in the earliest gospel, Mark: Jesus is referred to as the son of Mary and is given brothers and sisters, but no father is mentioned. In the later gospels mention of Joseph is retconned in to the scene where Mark calls him the son of Mary, but he only appears as a character in the nativity narratives in Matthew and Luke, and both give him totally different genealogies. I think it's entirely possible he's a late addition to the tradition, and that the early Christians knew very little about Jesus's family. --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The Greek for "brothers" is adelphon while "cousin" is anepsios. These terms are not used loosely in The Bible, such as at Matthew 12:46 (brothers) and Colosians 4:10 (cousin). These scriptures show the terms are not used indiscriminately. Jesus' brothers (adelphon) were "not exercising faith in him" (John 7:5), therefore these brothers were not his spiritual brothers. John 2:12 splits his brothers from his disciples into distinctive groups. This interchange of "brothers" and "cousins" is "credited to Jerome... and fail[s] to cite any support... in later writings he waivers his opinions and even expresses misgivings" (Insight On The Scriptures, v. 1, p. 370). Why, then, did Jesus entrust the care of his mother Mary to John instead of His fleshly brothers? The answer is that John had proven his faith. There is no evidence to suggest that His fleshly brothers were yet disciples. It was only after Jesus' resurrection that His fleshly brothers began to exercise faith in him (Acts 1:14).
As a side note, the virginity of mary is mentioned insofar as being "until she gave birth to a son" (Matthew 1:25). Also, the reference of Jesus as Mary's "firstborn" indicates she had other children (Luke 2:7). schyler (talk) 20:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

That is of course, an interpretation based on a largely protestant theology. Other strains of Christianity have their own, entirely consistant, theology which comes to a different conclusion about passages refering to Jesus's family. --Jayron32 20:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Details of New Testament genealogy and biography are more neutrally considered to be examples of what has been termed "historicized narrative." Adjustments have been made to fit developing dogma, such as the perpetual virginity of Mary, which has taken its cue from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of James.--Wetman (talk) 23:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

There's also the interesting interpretation that the New Testament as we know it was mostly written, and certainly selected, by the Pauline Church (run by St Paul who never met Jesus-the-man, source of all the 'you don't need to be Jewish' stuff), which was relatively hostile to the Jerusalem Church (set up by Jews who feature in the Gospels). This means Jesus's family are inevitably going to be dissed or made less important, especially if you buy that James the Just was Jesus's brother and one of the early leaders of the Jerusalem Church. But I think this view is probably as speculative as most, for all that it explains why the disciples are portrayed as so hilariously slow in the Gospels. 86.163.213.68 (talk) 23:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Are we still capitalists?

Although most people are fascinating by what money can do, isn't it more reasonable to call are social-economical system something like 'informationism'? At the first glance, everything we do depends on information (even earning and managing money). Mr.K. (talk) 17:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Information economy? Even so, it's still fundamentally capitalism. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Captialism means, at its heart, private ownership of the means of production. If the thing produced is "information", if the companies producing that information are privately owned, then its still capitalism. --Jayron32 17:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Jayron) Capital (economics) need not be a physical good. Information can still indeed still be capital, even if it's not a machine in a factory. Buddy431 (talk) 17:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

See also Corporatocracy.--Wetman (talk) 22:41, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I am not quite sure I agree with some definitions of capitalism. Indeed, it could mean private ownership of the means of production, but, currently in some societies any one has access to the means of productions (i.e. PCs and the like). There is not a class of capitalist, who control the means and exploit another class, who only own their working force. There is an increasingly class of people how own the machine (PC or whatever) and can be considered workers (by any meaningful standards). That makes our system different to that system, at the beginning of the industrial revolution that Marx described. What is the point of using the same name for that and for this system? Mr.K. (talk) 00:53, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Baseless accusations Allegations against Julian Assange

Changed "Baseless accusations" to "Allegations" pending source saying the accusations are baseless. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 01:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Sweden is generally liberal, so why are they acting like a puppet of the Pentagon? --75.33.217.61 (talk) 21:16, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, the Swedish judiciary isn't working on direct order of the Swedish gov't. So, 'Sweden' isnn't really doing anything in this case. There is a prosecutor who has issued an arrest warrant for Assange, that's all. --Soman (talk) 21:21, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

And on what authority do you call the accusations "baseless"? Are you on intimate terms with Mr Assange? This is not the place to prosecute a case for either the defence or the prosecution. That's what courts are for. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:03, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Does Sweden have a "presumption of innocence" deal? I suggest the word "Baseless" in the title be changed to "Alleged" in any case for our purposes here. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:16, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, no. that accusations are being made seems real enough, I suppose, though I have not been following along too closely about them. What I mean is change "Baseless accusations" to "Allegations". WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:18, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

When a person who is inconvenient to powerful forces, is suddenly accused of an infamous act, it does tend to raise suspicions. On the other hand, I suppose that persons in such a circumstance do occasionally commit infamous acts. The matter warrants careful public scrutiny, but not prejudgment. --Trovatore (talk) 22:36, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. No one on here likely knows the facts of this sort of thing. The other matter not brought up is that sometimes extra effort is made to discover infamous acts for people who it would be convenient to discredit (e.g. Eliot Spitzer, whose takedown was almost surely politically motivated to some degree, though that doesn't make him any more guilty). --Mr.98 (talk) 22:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Assange got a lot of exposure after his wiki-leaks. Imagine that his hypothetical victims just saw him on TV and decided to press charged once they knew who he was? Definitely possible = not baseless. Mr.K. (talk) 00:58, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

In Sweden, you can give consent, then change your mind retroactively, making it rape. Specifically, if, later, you realize that you wouldn't have given consent if you had known earlier what you knew then, you can then cry "RAPE". That's exactly what happeend to Assange: his women said "If I had known I wasn't the only one in his life I wouldn't have consented!!" Obviously, Sweden is a fucked up place. 92.230.69.215 (talk) 09:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Nil Einne (talk) 15:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Humanities84.153.227.35 (talk) 15:57, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Bess, you is my Woman now

Who composed Bess, you is my Woman now? Περσεύς|Talk to me 21:47, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

We've no article just for that song, but our article Oh! Carol: The Complete Recordings, 1955–66 credits Ira Gershwin/George Gershwin/DeBose Heyward. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:53, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It was written by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, and DuBose Heyward, from opera Porgy and Bess. --Jayron32 21:54, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

On Royal Titles

So today there has been a big noise about whether or not Camilla will ever be the Queen Consort or merely the Princess Consort. It made me think, though apparently 'centuries of tradition' dictate she should be Queen Consort the current Queen's husband is known as Prince Phillip. Does that mean he is a Prince Consort, and if so was there any special reason for that which may not apply in this case (or indeed, apply this time too)?

Many thanks, Prokhorovka (talk) 23:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

This question came up, and was answered, here a few days ago during the discussion on Prince William & Kate Middleton. --ColinFine (talk) 00:45, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Britain doesn't have a tradition of "Kings consort" (indeed, they are very rare, see King consort). Because a husband automatically took control of his wife's posessions, the husband of a queen became King jure uxoris (Latin for "By right of his wife"). Philip II of Spain was King of England under this principle. He was not well liked, which is why he is usually omitted from official lists of English Kings. William III of England was named king directly by parliament, specifically to avoid being merely king jure uxoris. After that, all British Queens regant have had "Prince consort" as husband (Anne, Victoria, Elizabeth II). --Jayron32 01:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Not so. Prince Phillip may be the Queen's consort, but he is not the Prince Consort. That title was last applied to Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert. It was apparently considered for Phillip back in the 1950s but it was decided not to give him that title. Neither was Queen Anne's husband Prince George of Denmark designated "Prince Consort". As far as I can tell, Prince Albert has been the sole holder of the title-- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:39, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all, and sorry for the unnecessary question. Prokhorovka (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

November 20

Mystery Medal

I'm looking for identification and translation of this medal, possibly dating from WWII:

Images

Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

74.137.105.0 (talk) 00:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Hm. I can't say anything, but the golden bit is vaguely kamon-like, but then the factory motive would in this day be most easily associated with Communist China, but could also be an early industrialist Japan motive. Can't say anything about the angel. The wording underneath is, funnily enough, in two styles - the left most character is 章 and written in the regular printed CJKV characters, and the middle and right one are in a stylized "ancient characters" script that I can't read for the life of me - maybe someone else here can do better. Incidentally, I suspect it's highly likely read from the right to the left, and since (at least in Japanese) the character 章 means either chapter in a book or a badge/emblem, I'd say this is the emblem of some society or other. A membership badge or something like it. That's all I can tell for now, maybe someone else can have a go at the seal script - it looks fairly simple and should be readable to someone even vaguely familiar with it. TomorrowTime (talk) 05:50, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Seems to me more like the figure on the Brandenburg Gate or other (neo-)classical victory angel ("Nike") than anything oriental... AnonMoos (talk) 12:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Atheist's Golden Rule

Anyone ever hear of the "Atheist's Golden Rule", which is to "Do in the present what you want to remember in the future as having done in the past." --96.252.208.240 (talk) 01:36, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

We have an article on the Golden Rule, which discusses it from many perspectives, though not specifically from that of atheism that I could see, except perhaps to some extent in the Criticisms and responses to criticisms section. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 01:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I am more interested in a comparison of each rule and their criticisms and note in that respect that the Criticisms and responses to criticisms does not mention the easy (and perverted) application of the Golden Rule by pedophiles who apply it to children as meaning that it is okay to touch the gentiles (spelling error corrected) genitals of children because that is what a pedophile wants children to do to them. --96.252.208.240 (talk) 02:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, all platitudes such as the Golden Rule suffer from analysis; by defintion platitudes work in the general, but tend to break down in the specific. Your personal version of the golden rule you stated above suffers from this as well. One could come up with many situations where your personal rule above could lead a person to do harm rather than good. --Jayron32 02:49, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Although not my rule it does fall into the category of misapplication but if you go further with the Golden Rule than if you misinterpret then misinterpretation will be visited upon (or at least invited to visit) you. --96.252.208.240 (talk) 03:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

96.252.208.240, see gentile - it basically means a person who is not a Jew. Nothing to do with genitals. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

See Freudian Slip. schyler (talk) 05:26, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

...in the world, not of the word... --96.252.208.240 (talk) 15:20, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure why that would have to be an exclusively atheist golden rule. Is there anything specifically atheistic in it? And vice versa, I see no reason an atheist shouldn't follow the original golden rule - in fact, I think a lot of atheists do. TomorrowTime (talk) 10:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Matthew 7:12 for reference. I agree with TomorrowTime. This "Atheist's Golden Rule" sounds like avoiding regret to me, which, if one failed to do so, would require something like Repentance. schyler (talk) 14:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Or at least the negative/prohibitive form. Most atheists that I know make a strong distinction between the two forms, probably because they are tired of people assuming that they have the same desire for treatment as everyone else. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

96.252.208.240's formulation is a bit long-winded, too. You could cut it down to: "Don't do anything you'll regret." Also, I found "The Platinum Rule" interesting: "people should treat others as those others would like to be treated." Also, Google turns up a lot of hits for "Atheist's Golden Rule" but no single one seems formally endorsed by "Atheism" as a whole, for whom anyway I suppose it would be better called a "Golden Heuristic" to distinguish it from some supernatural "commandment". That said, I do not see why it would have to be all that drastically different from other, non-atheist formulations. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:12, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Atheists when asked seem to have little other resort except to say that apart from consideration that they themselves are God that time or gravity runs a close second. This rule seems to support the former, namely time. --96.252.208.240 (talk) 15:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Atheists don't have/believe in a God, and so would not say that they themselves, time, or gravity is God. Have you read our Atheism article? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 15:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem with all wiki articles is that the moment after you download and while you are reading the article it can change. Have you read this article? --96.252.208.240 (talk) 15:55, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

hi

my brother not intrested in studies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 183.82.96.22 (talk) 07:14, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Have you looked into Alternative education for him? --Jayron32 07:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Or a work release program?--Wetman (talk) 14:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

How is that relevant, Wetman? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:19, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Study is interesting if what you are interested in is studied. schyler (talk) 14:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

And your sibling is your brother if your sibling is male. 84.153.227.35 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC).

First English child in The New World

It appears that two people carry the same title. Virginia Dare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Dare) and Peregrine White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_White) both carry the description as the first English child born in The New World. Which one is the "real" first child.Twokamprs (talk) 13:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

We have an article First white child... -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

(e/c)Virginia Dare was born in 1587, and Peregrine White in 1620. White was the first born to the Pilgrim Fathers, but they were not the first English settlers - that was the Roanoke Colony, where Virginia Dare was born. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:12, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

say you have an eye for real estate and renovation... and $10k

So, my wife is a real estate and renovation champ. She can always spot an awesome location and bring out a huge amount from it. The owners are so happy they usually waive rent for a few months. But, we're only in our twenties and don't have much capital, like $10k. I was wondering: where in the world could you buy a house for $10k, that has modern cities and infrastructure so that we could put her skills to use? I mean, due to local buying power, that $10k would be more like $150-$300k in real estate buying power. I'm open for anything, though I'd think places like Brazil, or India would be most likely. Even within these locations, which cities are the best candidates?

Basically, this is a finance/economics question, about modern cities with good healthy growth rates (since real estate prices are usually tied most closely to net income) but where $10k will buy you a shabby house you can renovate and flip. Thanks so much!! 84.153.227.35 (talk) 14:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to stick to a market you know - you might run into unforeseen problems in foreign markets, plus the return is probably going to be low as well. If you are confident in this, you could consider getting a loan and going into this seriously right where you are. (Incidentally, your post reminded me of The Buddha of Suburbia, a novel by Hanif Kureishi, in which the narrators family does this for a living: they buy a run down flat, redesign it, sell it at a profit and use the profit to buy a new one and to live on for the next year or two, while they redesign this next flat). TomorrowTime (talk) 15:12, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

In the U.S. Rust Belt there are certainly plenty. Cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Akron, and others have hundreds of houses available for next to nothing; many are foreclosures. In Cleveland alone, according to Zillow this morning, there are 30 single-family houses on the market for between $1,000 and $5,000. Before grabbing one though you'd be advised to look at the local situation in detail. Some of these are likely to rebound in value if the economy improves. Antandrus (talk) 15:29, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much for you help, guys, but I want to clarify two things. First, and most importantly, our most important criteria is a burgeoning local economy with very good job prospects for everyone and high growth rates in the economy. I said this. Why is this so important? Because house prices depend most strongly on salaries and the health of the economy. So, the places with foreclosures and 20% unemployment are the exact OPPOSITE of the kind of market we're looking for!! Let me say this. I'm not interested in the U.S., where a really healthy vibrant fast-growing city where everyone wants a house, means prices are like $150k-$1 million depending on the market. I want a vibrant, fast-growing market, in a country where the purchasing power is much higher (cost of living much lower), such as the "BRIC" economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Secondly, I do not want to get into any kind of debt. I want to buy a house outright, do our magic on it, as I've personally seen my wife perform half a dozen times, have the value double, and sell it, all within 3-5 months. This is what we're capable of. If I had $100,000, I would buy a house in California, maybe. But we have $10,000 right now, I'd like to buy a house outright in a place with low unemployment, very high growth, and where that kind of money buys you, say, a very nice house downtown, but one that we see good prospects in improving. Thanks for any actual economic insight you have on the world's thousands of cities not in the United States, Western Europe, Japan or the like. I'm talking South America, or Eastern Europe, or Asia, or northern Africa, or whatever. Thanks again. 84.153.227.35 (talk) 15:51, 20 November 2010 (UTC)