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December 15

Luger pistol

How many rounds can a Luger pistol fire before having to be re-loaded? I need this info for an article. Thanks.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The article you've linked to says 8 rounds in the 'feed system' section of the infobox. Dalliance (talk) 09:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I have a source which says a man was shot nine times in the back with a Luger. How would this have come about if only 8 rounds could be fired without reloading? Possibly, the gunman emptied the pistol into the victim, re-loaded, then fired the ninth round into him.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

8 rounds in the magazine and 1 in the chamber? This source says "it is not safe to carry an extra one 'up the spout' with a Luger" but not that it is not possible. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 10:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Could the Luger pistol have used instead a 32-round drum box magazine for the shooting in question?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

A 32 round magazine for a semi-auto pistol seems a little excessive. I wonder why the firearm designer thought they needed that much ammo all at once? Googlemeister (talk) 14:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't you think such a magazine would have made Scorpio and Callahan's dyscalculia all that more believable if the script had read: I know what you’re thinking: “Did he fire 32 shots, or only 31?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself. But being this is a 9mm Luger, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well do ya, punk?--Aspro (talk) 15:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

When I took a pistol-handling course some years ago, one point emphasized was: at any pause in a firefight, swap magazines so that the most-full one is in your gun. Because, in all the excitement, you will lose count. Of course Callahan had a revolver. —Tamfang (talk) 21:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Once five or six rounds have gone in, Jeanne, I think the firer would probably (usually) have time to stop and reload without the victim escaping. Or perhaps there were two (or more) assailants? --Dweller (talk) 16:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There were likely at least five, maybe eight gunmen. I am referring to the Miami Showband killings.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 16:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Why are the poor dirty? It's not because it's expensive...

I know for a fact that it's not because it's more expensive not to be filthy, since if you have someone with the EXACT same income, let's say a college student whose family isn't sending them any money for whatever reason, nor do they have any valuable possessions, this person will not be dirty like a homeless person who would attend the same institution with the same income. So, what is it? Is it because the "rich poor" kid had a family who instilled not to be filthy into them, whereas the homeless person just doesn't give a shit? Or, is it capability? Or, is it optimism, because the homeless person doesn't have the same prospects for the future as the "richer" poor person with the exact same income and (assume) possessions?

Also, the rich poor take much better care of their stuff, I noticed. If you give a poor poor person an iPhone and a rich poor person an iPhone, even if they have the exact same environment, the exact same income, the exact same possessions, and the exact same routines, the rich poor person's iPhone will look almost new a year later, whereas the poor poor person's will look as if they've been homeless with it for a year. Please explain this difference, thanks.

Note: right now I'm sitting in an absolutely filthy netcafe in a very poor part of Paris. I guarantee you if this same netcafe were in a rich suburb of an American city for whatever reason, it would be sparkling clean even if it had the EXACT same people coming into it, and the EXACT same income and access to labor. Why is this??? Thanks. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 10:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you thought about how difficult it would be for a homeless person to (a) get a bath or shower, (b) buy spare clothes, (c) store them when not needed, and (d) regularly launder them, if they have no money? What would your priority be if you were homeless with no income? Would it be to spend money on food or buying new shirts?

It is a false assumption that a given homeless person would have the same level of income as a given college student. A college student "whose family is sending them no money" obviously has an income in order to maintain themselves while studying. If they didn't have a sufficient income, they would either be dropping out to seek employment, moving back home, or indeed becoming homeless.

And if, by some strange conjunction of circumstances, a person was homeless but had enough income (for example in the form of welfare payments) to satisfy their needs of a higher priority, there is no reason why they would not be "clean". Judging by the clues in your message, you appear to be a reasonably well-travelled American. If your travels ever take you to Japan, you may well discover the "tribe" of (formerly) white collar homeless people who, despite sleeping around subway stations, nevertheless dress neatly in shirt and suit, and polish their leather shoes. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

A college student can technically be receiving no money, and still be clean and fed, provided that someone is paying for room and board. It may be easy for the student to forget about that, but the money's coming from somewhere (and it's probably significantly more money than they'd have to spend to rent an apartment and buy groceries on their own).

Sometimes the social services do exist for the homeless to get showers and new clothes. There are groups in Boston that do this, because it can help people get jobs and get on their feet again. But I remember reading news from back where I lived in Florida about a social service organization that was fighting the zoning board in order to expand its operations with shower facilities. And even in Boston, which is pretty good, as far as these things go, there's still not enough to go around, so the organizations focus on the cases that they can help the most. Paul (Stansifer) 15:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, the concept you are trying to express with 'rich poor' and 'poor poor' is social class. I also think you do not understand the costs involved in keeping things neat, clean and tidy, both in terms of time and resources. A cafe in a rich suburb will spend more on cleaning because they have a higher income (can afford it), and the (rich) customers in the area can afford higher standards, making it necessary to be cleaner if you want to stay in business. This cafe in a richer suburb will charge more for a cup of coffee than a cafe in a poorer area, and/or will be selling more high-markup pastries. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 13:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

See Maslow's hierarchy of needs for a decent explanation. Taking a bath is a higher order need than being fed. Psychologically, people's lower-order needs must be met before they are prepared to deal with higher order needs. --Jayron32 14:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

People with mental disorders, drug addictions etc... are over-represented in homeless groups, and their hygiene priorities might not be following the standard culturally accepted levels. Googlemeister (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

You might be making also a sampling mistake here. You certainly meet enough clean poor people along the day, you just don't notice them, because they don't look like your stereotypical dirty poor. 80.58.205.105 (talk) 15:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The sampling bias goes in both directions. How do you know that unshaven dude in tattered clothes isn't an eccentric dot-com millionaire? I think your direction is a lot more common, though, since most wealthy people have to dress nicely in order to keep getting wealthier. Paul (Stansifer) 15:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I question the assumption at the root of this question. Certainly homeless people tend to be dirty, for the obvious reason that they lack access to baths or showers. However, poor people who are not homeless, in my experience, are no dirtier than anyone else. Moreover, I have certainly met quite affluent people who did not prioritize personal hygiene. Marco polo (talk) 18:05, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I also question the assumption. As best as I can tell, 86.161.208.185 is located in France. I'll just lay out my own "original research" on the subject: (1) In the USA, maybe with an exception for children, cleanliness is universal across classes. I know some guys who do manual labor, and even they are pretty clean. (2) I didn't notice anything different when I was in France, but I wasn't on the lookout. (3) Ironically, in the USA, one of our jokes about the French is that rich French people have foul body odor. --M@rēino 18:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hygiene is not only in the obvious. "Clean" is not clean enough for the space in which surgery takes place for instance. (Unfortunately the word "disinfection" is spelled incorrectly in this JPEG.) Bus stop (talk) 19:09, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand being in a perpetual state of disinfection would most likely not be very healthy. A lot of the microbes on the skin are there for a reason.

Also a combination Marco Polos and IP 86.161.208.185s answers seems to me to be the correct. The OP is comparing apples and oranges in their question. --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Conscientiousness is the key. Caring less about things in general, including hygiene. 2.97.210.25 (talk) 20:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

?? Doesn't that mean caring more? (Or is this some weird retro-function of the weird US phrase "I could care less", which actually means "I could not care less"?) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 05:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I should have preceded the above with "The degree of...". 92.28.247.44 (talk) 15:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Which doesn't make it more true in this case anyway. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"Which doesn't make it more true in this case anyway." What is the basis or evidence for making that remark please? You contradict a lot of solid empirical research without any explaination or stated reason. 92.28.247.44 (talk) 19:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

OP, would you like to post a photo of this filthy Parisian internet cafe so that we can have a look at it? The dirt may be a ploy by the owner to suggest that her/his prices are so low that they cannot afford to clean the place. 92.24.176.82 (talk) 15:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm poor, and yes, I don't always shower--not as bad as before. Partially it's clutter. Part of it is why bother? Part of it is that it's just a bad habit. Which is strange, because once I'm in the shower, I like it. It feels good to be clean. Also, Europeans don't have as much a reputation for cleanliness as Americans (I'm not European). This article (Hygiene) might help.206.130.174.43 (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Light bulb. The minimum wage in France is likely to be much higher than that in the USA, so it costs a lot more to employ someone to clean the place. 92.28.242.98 (talk) 23:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

"A very poor part of Paris" Why do you think its poor? Its likely that the cost of real-estate there is a lot more than almost anywhere in the US would be, even though the houses and flats/apartments are smaller than those in the US as well. The minimum wage would be a lot higher in Paris than in the US, with much longer holidays/vacations, shorter working hours, and free (I think) health care. 92.15.1.13 (talk) 20:25, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

gender socialisation.

what is the role of the family

masculinity and feminity are socially produced.assess the role of the family in these two identities.

masculinity and feminity are social and culturally produced roles.structuralists in general maintain that gender roles are taught while biologists argue that masculinity and feminity come naturally by to an individual.41.190.32.115 (talk) 13:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)kundai chaka Reformated. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 13:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Please do your own homework.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our aim here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Sociology of the family is an obvious place to start. Searching for terms associated with your question can yield results! Warofdreams talk 16:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This is an interesting documentary. Read about it here too. Bus stop (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I would recommend Engels for some interesting reading on this topic (links to fulltext in 'External links' section). --superioridad ^(discusión) 21:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

University by GRE or other standardized test

Is there a reliable list of universities ordered by their undergraduates' results on standardized tests? Quest09 (talk) 15:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

probably not on wikipedia but outside sources like us news collate such data for american universities (and i believe a select few foreign ones, namely canada)(Lihaas (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC));

Well, the problem is that I find several similar lists, mainly of entry requirement/university. That makes it difficult to find this concrete list. Quest09 (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if these statistics are collected in the first place. You don't have to declare an affiliation with a particular institution when registering for the GRE, so it's not clear if such a list can even be reliably constructed. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 15:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I didnt read GRE, though you asked undergrad. but while im not familar with the GRE, the LSAT data is certainly collated. Schools are ranked in 3-4 tiers (been awhile now so i dont remember) with columns indicating a the LSAT range generally accepted (although of couse standardises scored are not the be all and end all of admissions). Did i atleast partly answer your question?Lihaas (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

No, that would be a different scenario. I want to know how the undergraduates of each university perform after completing their studies, not how they were admitted. For me it is clear that more prestigious universities will attract higher grades/scores.Quest09 (talk) 17:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, in that case i dont think they collate that data. Once theyre in, theyre in. With various factors such as grade inflation (and ive talked to lots of people about it, particularly yale graduate students) once yours in it is very hard to get kicked out because it would make the school look bad for a bad decision. You have to almost consciously to something veritably dumb to fail.Lihaas (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

What does grade inflation/being in/being kicked out have to do with that? I am asking for a table with GRE grades and university/college attended (before getting the GRE grade). Quest09 (talk) 16:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Im telling why they dont haev a reason to collate it.Lihaas (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Universities don't have to collect and publish anything. GRE is an independent test, administered by ETS. They could be collecting and publishing such information. However, that could make some universities look bad.Quest09 (talk) 18:14, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

hence the relevance right. Also dont know why the uni. would share that info with the independent GRE administrators anyways.Lihaas (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't you get the point? Universities don't have to share any information. The could ETS could be collecting such information (but apparently it doesn't). And please remove that banner from your user page that says that you can contribute with a professional level of English. Your English is far from that. Quest09 (talk) 19:19, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Several questions about how things worked in a medieval barony

In medieval europe, a baron would obviously rule his own barony, and farmers and peasants would work on his land in trade for his protection and such.

1) Would a baron let his subjects (can I use this word here? or did only kings have subjects?) keep much of what they produced, whether it be food, things of metal, leather, stone, wood etc. in addition to pay them wages? Or would he more likely take everything they produced for himself, gaining more for himself through trade and such, leaving his subjects to fend for themselves with the little wages they got?

2) A baron could not protect his own barony on his own, so he needed men-at-arms. Unless I'm mistaken men-at-arms were almost always professional soldiers but not necessarily of noble origins, so where did they live? Did they live in the walled mansion or near the mansion of the baron himself, or did they simply live anywhere across the barony, much like the other peasants?

3) Let's say this barony was very close to the nearest city, would many of the workers who worked on his land still live on his land or would they be more likely to live in the city?

4) 1000 acres. A patch of land of this size, how useful could it be for a medieval baron? It depends a lot of course on the structure and fertility etc. of the land, but lets say it's a fairly fertile land and thus good for agriculture. Then could 1000 acres be big enough to grow several types of grain, as well as vegetables and to raise livestock? Or would this land simply be TOO small? I figure that livestock also would need a lot of space for grazing, which means meadows and/or pasture. Perhaps space would not necessarily be an issue at all, and perhaps there would also be room for other things, such as mining or a quarry? or perhaps I have to increase the land-size to 2000 acres to make all this work? As i said, I understand that the structure of the land is very important, but I'm wondering if all of this would be possible or likely on 1000 acres in medieval europe, or perhaps 2000 if the former is to small. I know 1000 acres wasn't all that big, but could this lord make great profit and live well on this land?

Although I usually consider myself reasonably intelligent, I'm far from great with numbers and I have been finding it hard to grasp the whole acre and land-size thing when reading about it. But if I have finally gotten it right then 4000,000 (four million) square metres ROUGHLY equals 1000 acres. That means that a land of 2000 x 2000 metres or 2 km x 2 km is 1000 acres, ROUGHLY, not too far away anyway.

Krikkert7 (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The primary unit of the manorial system was the manor. The Lord of the Manor was the primary owner of a manor, but he was likely not a baron. The actual baron likely controlled a territory of hundreds of manors, either directly or via mesne lords granted administration of parts of the baron's realm via subinfeudation. The barons had little contact with, and little control over, the management of individual manors. The system that tied workers to the land was Serfdom. One of the rights of a serf was the right to work a portion of the land for their own sustenance. This may have meant (and I am making this number up, just to get an idea) that one acre in ten that a serf was expected to work was considered his, so he would get the produce of that one acre, and the other nine would be granted to the Lord of the Manor. The Lord of the Manor was not the tenant-in-chief, so he had to pay a large amount of grain up the heirarchy until it reached the baron; the baron himself would use the produce to feed his men-at-arms OR to sell and pay the King for his service (see bastard feudalism). The actual Lord of the Manor may have paid one or two guards to watch over his land, but this came out of his personal cut. Back to serfs: Serfs lived on the land itself; even if they lived close to a city (there weren't more than like 2-3 cities in England at the time. After London and York, most were miniscule) there wasn't much for them to do, nearly all of the work in a city was carefully controlled by guilds, such that people couldn't just show up and find a job. --Jayron32 17:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There were far more than "2-3 cities in England". See the list of cities in the United Kingdom for ones created during this era, or existing since "time immemorial". Of course, they were far smaller than cities today (St David's excepted), but much more important than their population might suggest. List of towns and cities in England by historical population gives an idea of historical populations. York wasn't even the second-largest city in England for much of the Medieval period. Warofdreams talk 16:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

(EC)

1. Would be usually yes for peasants, but not so much for serfs. This could of course vary from barony to barony. Since barons had a lot of leeway in the amount of fees and taxes they could levy, they would recoup varying amounts.

2. I really don't know the answer to that, but I would guess that they would mostly be in the vicinity of the baron himself.

3. Serfs would probably have been forced to live on his land. Peasants had much more in the way of choice on where to live, and could have moved to the city if they wanted.

4. 1000 acres of fertile land would probably have been enough to support a village (two if they were not too big), but probably not an entire barony, even a poor one. Googlemeister (talk) 17:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

[ec] To answer your questions in order:

1. See Serfdom and Feudalism. Jayron is right to distinguish between lesser lords and barons, who were lords who typically (though not always) controlled several lesser lords. A lord's subjects could include both free yeomen and serfs. Yeomen were generally free to buy and sell the products of their labor as they pleased, though they owed an annual tribute or rent to their lord. Serfs, on the other hand, had to deliver a substantial percentage (20% or more) of their produce to their lords and generally also had to perform obligatory labor on the lord's own lands, from which the lord kept all income. Serfs spent most of their time working on the land and generally did not have time to produce goods for sale (during the medieval period). How the proceeds from any craft production were divided could vary from manor to manor, as could the terms of yeomen's and serf's obligations.

2. Barons did not necessarily have men at arms, particularly small landholders. They were themselves supposed to be militarily able, as were their sons and so on. The more powerful barons would have a cohort of knights and might be able to draft peasants for military service in an emergency.

3. City dwellers were typically exempt from obligations to local barons, except for the payment of taxes if the baron controlled the city. Peasants and other farm workers typically lived in villages set apart from cities.

4. One thousand acres is not a great deal of land, and hardly enough to support a powerful baron. This would be enough to support a minor lord rather modestly. You are right that 1000 acres is about 4 square kilometers. A typical estate would include both cropland and forest (for timber, fuel, and other uses), and 1000 acres could support a modest village of peasants and a minor lord's manor.

Marco polo (talk) 17:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest that it is very difficult to make general claims about a period of time that spanned 1000 years over a very varied continent. But as a rule of thumb, 90% of the population had to work as farmers to feed medieval society. Even assuming everybody else ate 10 times better than the average peasant, that would leave nearly half the food amongst the farmers. I have a dim collection that overall taxation for serfs was about 40% (10% for the church, 30% for the feudal hierarchy), but don't remotely recall the specifics of time and place. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey tnx ! All of your answers I found extremely helpful, and your answers all came so quickly too - maybe because the middle ages is so interesting to many of us..? And you not only answer but you explain why and how, as well as giving me some useful links I sure will read. Thanks alot. I'm very grateful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krikkert7 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't caught this the first time, but in question 4, livestock was not a major part of the agricultural economy in England (it was a part of it, but not as significant as, say, grains) until the enclosure movement which all but ended the manorial system as a viable economic system. --Jayron32 20:33, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Manorial subjects had access to Common land for their livestock and often had other rights too. This[1] page which suggests that manorial tax (in England) was in the form of labour to the tune of 3 days a week. Tax to the church was called the Tithe and was indeed 10% of produce. Alansplodge (talk) 21:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to echo Stephan Schulz and remind everyone that over many centuries and in a place as big as Europe, there is no general answer. And one barony did not always work the same way as the neighbouring barony, even in a very small area in one specific time period. And what is a baron, anyway? Adam Bishop (talk) 03:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

This is not exactly what you asked about, but I've been doing a bit of reading on the Swiss villages. The Swiss did have Barons, and other nobles, but evolved into a Federal Structure with some local nobles and a wide variation in local freedoms. They had vogts which translates to count. From the WP page on Vogt, "A Landvogt ruled a Landvogtei, either representing a sovereign canton, or acting on behalf of the Confederacy, or a subset thereof, administering a condominium (Gemeine Herrschaft) shared between several cantons. In the case of condominiums, the cantons took turns in appointing a Landvogt for a period of two years."

In exceptional cases, the population of the Landvogtei was allowed to elect their own Landvogt. This concerned Oberhasli in particular, which was nominally a subject territory of Bern, but enjoyed a special status as a military ally.

For the local administration, almost every village had a Bürgergemeinde that owned common land and some property in the village. The Bürgergemeinde chose who and how often they could use the common land and also may have had local power to fine residents for minor infractions. So, the Bürgergemeinde provided a local government, but only had authority over common property.

At the next level, many villages had a wide variety of local landlords. These were generally local nobles, churches, monasteries and even powerful merchants from the cities. It is not unusual to find that in a village with less than 100 people, the houses, farms and fields were owned by several different landlords. The landlord, just a today, was owed a certain rent at a certain time (I'm not sure how much). The village could sometimes buy itself out from under the landlord. In which case, the village became it's own landlord.

The village would also have a lord or city-state that had the low justice and maybe the high justice right. Low justice dealt with things that would be misdemeanors, and high justice dealt with major or capital crimes. The village could have 2 different courts with 2 different lords and 2 different sets of laws depending on the type of crime. For example, in Aargau, the Swiss drove the Austrians out in a war. But Austrian overlords retained the low justice rights, while Swiss Confederation bailiffs held the high justice right, even though they were often at war. Each court, of course, got to collect the fees that they levied against the convicted.

Each village was also part of a parish, and paid taxes to the parish. Sometimes the parish collected both church taxes and separate tithes. The local parish might also collect taxes, but have a higher church or monastery for which the collected tithes and then sent the tithes up the chain to the higher spiritual authority.

Each of these groups (landlord, court and parish) could all be located in different villages or towns. All of these conflicting lines of authority meant that you could get some really confusing lines of command. For example in the League of the Ten Jurisdictions, there was a town called Maienfeld that was both a ruling member of the new Canton (State) and also a minor village under the rule of the ruling members of the new Canton. It made decisions as a ruler that affected how it was ruled.Tobyc75 (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

What distinguishes two identical objects?

Consider two identical, uniform spheres placed on a table in separate, identical holders. If I were to remove the spheres and switch their positions, so that holder "A" now contains sphere "B" and vice-versa, can it be said that the spheres have "moved" and that the sphere in holder "A" is a different sphere? Does it make any difference whether the replacement of the spheres occurs in the presence of an observer? --68.40.57.1 (talk) 18:08, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

An ill-posed question, flawed in so far as the notion that two balls could be made so as to be identical or indistinguishable is unlikely (if enough measuring equipment is thrown at the problem). Can it be said? Certainly, if we're told that it has happened and we believe the teller. Not with any reliability if we lack the instruments to detect the differences between the two spheres. If in the presence of an observer (if we may interrogate her and get honest replies), the difference is that we can say with certainty that the move happened or did not, even were we to lack the instruments. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, for elementary particles, this identity holds, at least in our current models. It does not make sense to speak of "this" and "that" electron, or even hydrogen atom (assuming both are ¹H). They are truly indistinguishable. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

68.40.57.1 -- This question actually is very significant in quantum theory, where there's a difference between "bosons" and "fermions"; see article Identical particles. However, it's hard to see how this could meaningfully apply at the macro level with the degree of exactness that would be needed... AnonMoos (talk) 18:28, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The actual problem posed involves large objects comprising billions of atomic components. And it is stated that the two objects are identical. Bus stop (talk) 18:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

And there's doubt as to whether that's at all realistically possible... AnonMoos (talk) 18:52, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This is completely a question of perception. Ignoring the quantum problems of identifying identical bosons and stuff like that, there is the question of what it means to be "identical". Literally, for any macroscopic object, there cannot be two objects which are identical down to their atomic structure. There is always some means, given an arbitrarily precise ability to examine the details of two objects, to be able to distinguish between them. This is merely a question of, psychologically, how close do two objects need to be for a person to reasonably judge them to be identical, that is without special equipment, what sorts of differences are likely to go unnoticed or ignored by a typical person when judging "identicalness". --Jayron32 18:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Why can there not be two such objects? Granted, it's very improbable. But I don't see why it's impossible. Note that even a probability of exactly zero doesn't necessarily make an event impossible. --Trovatore (talk) 19:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Because you can't copy the original without changing it (the act of measuring changes the state of the measured item). The No-cloning theorem deals with states that contain superpositions, and the Uncertainty principle prevents complete measurements. Ariel. (talk) 20:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Who said anything about copying? Jayron's claim was not that there was no reliable way to manufacture the objects; it was that they couldn't exist, which is another matter altogether. --Trovatore (talk) 21:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

If no known process can create them, then they cannot exist. Ipso facto. --Jayron32 23:01, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

That's complete nonsense. --Trovatore (talk) 23:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

No it isn't, but a switch has happened somewhere from the idea of accurately copying one object onto the other, and nature happening to make two perfectly identical objects without any copying process. 81.131.2.192 (talk) 23:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Trovatore: Where would you get identical objects from? You claim they exist, but provide no means by which they can exist. --Jayron32 23:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Trovatore here: Just because humankind does not have the capacity to create a certain object, in no way means said object cannot exist. There are all manner of things that science has not yet explained and cannot replicate, but they sure as hell exist, which is why scientists scratch their heads about them in the first place. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 01:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

That;s not the point. I am not asking for methods of human creation. I am asking for mechanisms of any sort. A state of being which cannot happen, cannot happen. It is not more complicated than that. If there is no means to have, in existence, two identical macroscopic objects, then there is no means to have them in existence. To say "They cannot exist, but they can exist" is a nonsensical tautology. I've never said that two identical objects could not be manufactured by humans. I have always maintained that the problem is that two identical objects cannot exist. --Jayron32 01:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You haven't said yet why you think they can't exist. Ariel introduced the idea that an exact copying process could be impossible, and Trovatore said "who said anything about copying?", and six posts later here we still are. Who said anything about copying? 213.122.43.105 (talk) 01:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

They cannot exist because there is no means by which to have two objects, each made of many gajillion atoms, exist in such a way that every single atom and subatomic particle within it is in the same set of conditions, and to maintain identical conditions for a non-trivial amount of time. Even if we could cause two such objects to wink into existance by, like, praying really hard for them, if they exist in different points in space, like say one in my right hand and another in my left, then they are exposed to different sets of conditions which will, pretty much instantly, make them unique from each other. There's no means to have identical objects which exist for any amount of measurable time. --Jayron32 01:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

What if, just by chance, they come together in an identical way, and then, just by chance, their histories proceed identically? --Trovatore (talk) 01:37, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Jayron, you really need to be more precise with your statements. If no known process can create them, then they cannot exist. Ipso facto: if you didn't actually mean anything remotely like that - and it's now clear you didn't - then better not to have said that in the first place. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why anybody here is making pointless remarks about whether or not two identical spheres could actually be manufactured. That's entirely irrelevant to the question, which is namely: if two objects are indistinguishable except in one parameter (position, above), and that parameter is then exchanged between the two, have the objects been transformed? And does it matter if the exchange is continuous (observed, in the original example) or discrete? --68.40.57.1 (talk) 19:10, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

If someone asked a question about the comparative biological properties of unicorns and mermaids, would skepticism about the premises of the question also be "pointless"...? AnonMoos (talk) 19:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

To me, this is not a question of physics (although it has a manifestation in physics) so much as it is a question of philosophy. And with such questions, it is frequently necessary to look beyond the immediately observable. See e.g. Theory of Forms. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 23:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

To the OP's second statement. Actually, someone already answered the question, but let me relink it. Describing what happens to your spheres depends on whether they are fermions or bosons, see Identical_particles#Fermions_and_bosons. Fermions obey the pauli exclusion principle while bosons do not. --Jayron32 19:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There is also that the two spheres are not identical in not being in the same place at the same time, and in general have different histories in spacetime. Depending on your purposes, this might not matter, in which case both configurations of the system look identical to me. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:36, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

One definition of "identical" is that two objects are identical if they share all of the same properties. In your example, you are talking about two objects that do not share ALL the same properties (i.e. location in space, relationship to the table, relationship to the holders, etcetera.) The observer is irrelevant in this view. Greg Bard (talk) 21:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I understand why they're doing that, it's because the question is difficult and they want it to go away. :) 81.131.2.192 (talk) 23:32, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This is similar to the Ship of Theseus problem, and the issue of whether objects are qualificationally identical (two iPod Touch 16GB units for instance) and numerically identical (actually the same physical item). ╟─TreasuryTag►Tellers' wands─╢ 23:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This reminded me of an amusing comic which I think touches on the different ways in which people will fail to see eye to eye on this problem. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

This is an issue that comes up in a book I'm currently working on. The argument I make in the book is that for macroscopic objects, an identity is basically a label that people attach to a portion of the world. Our ability to attach these labels in a consistent way depends on certain types of continuity that hold up pretty well for many objects that we deal with, such as people and animals. When continuity breaks down, though, our ability to assign identities breaks down along with it. Looie496 (talk) 01:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this has gone a bit far afield from the OP's question, though not in an uneducational way. But identical spheres can certainly exist in the realm of mathematics, so maybe keep the discussion there rather than in the physical world. The OP stated that he was going to take these objects and switch them. So the OP knows that they've been switched, hence there will always be at least one "observer" to this hypothetical switching. And if there are other eyewitnesses, or better yet, video recordings, then it could be demonstrated that they've been switched. However, if the two objects were truly identical, as mathematical spheres with identical radii and no form of labeling would be, then there would be no obvious way, beyond witness and video testimony, to "prove" that they had been switched. One of Steven Wright's jokes is coming to mind. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has extensive articles on [the problem of identity] - whether two things are the same or not. Links to related entries can be found at the very end of the article. From a quick perusal, it is clear that philosophers have no clear answer to the question (do they ever?). Whether the two spheres are identical depends on which identity predicate you are using. However, there are many identity predicates that do distinguish them, and in particular they can be distinguished by their different histories. 84.239.160.59 (talk) 07:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not entirely related, but there is a theory going around in Physics recently that at the end of the universe, when everything has run down, all matter broken apart and all enegy reduced to a widely spread background, there will be no way to measure either size or time, nothing to consider either relative too any more, and so the infinately large universe an infinite time into the future will simultaneously be infinitely small and will have existed both forever and only an instant. 85.210.119.178 (talk) 11:46, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

This reminds me of the bundle theory and the identity of indiscernibles in philosophy, whereby an object consists of a set of properties, which raises a question about what happens when two objects have the same properties as each other. This is also connected to Aristotle's Categories, which can be said to list the ten possible types of properties which an object can have. In this case, their relative positions may provide a distinction, as they contain different position properties (possibly Aristotle's place, time and state categories). However, the philosopher Max Black offered a different version of your thought experiment which I always enjoyed. He proposes a universe in which the only two objects are two identical iron spheres exactly one mile apart. In such a universe even their properties of location would be identical, as each sphere would have exactly the same relationship to the other. Thus if bundle theory held, the two spheres would be the same sphere, as they would have the same bundle of properties. An alternative theory to the bundle theory of identity is substance theory, but as David Hume argued, substance theory proposes the existence of a property which cannot be perceived, and thus seems to fall afoul of Occam's razor. (Mind you, I have never seen Occam's razor as a knock-down argument, so much as a reason for feeling uncomfortable). - Bilby (talk) 18:09, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't quite work to put them on a table, but the original thought experiment came from Max Black, in his article "The Identity of Indiscernibles", and which I believe you can read about at Identity_of_indiscernibles#Critique. The thought experiment is meant to reply to Leibniz law, which states that if two objects have all the same properties, then they are identical. Black suggested that we consider a universe that contains only two objects -- perfectly round iron spheres, one mile across, and 3 miles apart at their center. It seems that they have all properties in common (one mile across, iron, three miles from only other object, etc). Further, though you wish to claim that there is some spacial difference, such that one is 'over there' and one is 'over here', such a reply assumes the existence of a third thing, namely an observer.

Setting aside the difficulty in manufacturing two spheres like this, or where we find a universe void of anything else, it as least seems metaphysically possible (no contradictions). Therefore, the original question is, are there any properties that these spheres have that are not in common? And if not, does that undermine Leibniz law? (There's also a citation of Ian Hacking's reply on that article. Llamabr (talk) 22:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Angels

Once, James Madison said:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither internal nor external checks or controls on government would be necessary.

What did he mean by that statement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.63.234 (talk) 22:24, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

You need more of the quote to start making sense of it. It goes on:

In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

I think the meaning then becomes evident ... internal and external checks are unnecessary since the angels govern (and presumably are omniscient and hence hard to fool and impossible to evade). --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I think he's more refering to angels, as agents of God, are incapable of wrongdoing. Thus, according to Madison, if man were incapable of wrongdoing, government would be unnecessary. If angels governed, we could trust them to govern perfectly. However, since men, who are known to commit wrongdoing, are both the governed and the governing, both need to be watched. Its an elaborate statement on Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? --Jayron32 23:00, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Angels incapable of wrongdoing? What about Lucifer? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

According to Judaism there is no such being. Angels have no free will, and can only do what God says. There is Satan, but he is more like a prosecutor - he's not evil, he's just doing the job God assigned him. Ariel. (talk) 23:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore, the Lucifer story is extrabiblical for Christians too. --Jayron32 23:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

According to Judaism there is no such being— I am missing the relevance of this comment, since I am reasonably sure that Madison was not Jewish. Marnanel (talk) 02:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The Bible mentions disobedient angels. (http://www.multilingualbible.com/genesis/6-4.htm; http://www.multilingualbible.com/jude/1-6.htm)

—Wavelength (talk) 23:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

All maybe true. But the literal truth of disobedient angels is irrelevent to the discussion. When one says "He's an angel", what does one mean about the subject's behavior? --Jayron32 23:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how you can reject Newtonian physics so completely on the science desk (so as to say that the question about the possibility is meaningless, when we have articles on the subject) and then entertain hypotheticals about beings for which there is no evidence beyond mythology here to such an extent that you are willing to generalize over the details of the mythology in question. I'm not complaining, because your answers on both desks are tremendously helpful. But from my point of view you can prove anything with a contradiction, so anything is consistent once a contradiction is accepted. However, I would just like to point out that the government theorists who tried to found their principles on fewer contradictions may have been substantially more consistent. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 02:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Its a completely different sort of question. One is asking about Madison's quote and its context. Given that Madison has left a COPIOUS record regarding his opinions and attitudes vis-a-vis the formation of the U.S. state (see Federalist Papers for one), one needn't run through an exhaustive theological discussion over the nature of angels in various religions to understand what Madison meant. What Madison meant is that people are imperfect beings, and so are their governments, which is why there is needed a series of checks and balances upon the government. Whether or not Angels are perfect, or whether Lucifer was an angel, is completely irrelevent to understanding Madison's quote above. The Newtonian universe question on the science desk is like asking "What if the sun really revolves around the Earth". Making that assumption requires us to ignore a whole shitload of observations we know to be verifiable. It's as good as saying "It's all magic". Completely different sorts of questions --Jayron32 03:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Here is one viewpoint which is relevant to the question.

Who Really Rules the World? - Jehovah's Witnesses Official Web Site

—Wavelength (talk) 00:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

What? That's hardly relevant. You and schyler need to stop sticking this junk on the reference desk. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It seemed sort of relevant, especially given the direction things took above it: the argument seems to be that this world is ruled by a disgruntled Angel = the Devil (along with a host of like-minded angels/devils), and gives Biblical references to support that notion. Madison, it appears, was therefore sloppy in his choice of words – we are ruled by "angels", but they're of the kind that require checks-and-balances! ;) BTW, I thought that JW material was much better written and coherent than what I have previously been handed on the street, which is good, it was interesting, but I agree it shouldn't be handed out here unless it is at least as relevant as it was in this case.) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Whether Madison literally believed in the existence of angels and/or whether angels literally exist, is not really the point. He was metaphorically saying that if people were perfect beings, government would not be needed. They aren't, so it is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Can I point out that Madison's arguments don't actually prove that people have to be perfect beings to do without government? They prove (if you accept his premisses) that if men were angels they could do without, but don't actually demonstrate that being angels is necessary, merely that it might make it easier... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:04, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't read it that way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Madison proves (if you accept his arguments) that (a) angels can do without government, and (b) if men have government, they need checks and balances. He doesn't actually prove that men need government, he merely takes it as self-evident. Or if he doesn't, where does he show this? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary." Since men are not angels, government is necessary. Seems pretty clear to me. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

With respect, you need to review our article on denying the antecedent. Compare "If I were a dog, I would like aniseed. Since I am not a dog, I don't like aniseed." In fact, I do like aniseed, but that's all right, because the argument is a fallacy. Marnanel (talk) 02:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The preceding sentences are no less relevant to understanding:

It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels ....

Madison takes it as given that the state is necessary; else he (and the intended reader) wouldn't bother debating how to design it. That necessity is the minor premise of the syllogism, not the conclusion. The conclusion is "men, even governors, are not angels" (and a constitution must take that into account). Madison probably knew what's wrong with denying the antecedent even if Bugs doesn't.

The rhetorical question can also be read as saying that the state is a product, rather than a remedy, of men's sinful nature. Anyone who wants to debate that possibility with me is welcome to post a comment on my blog; it would be inappropriate here. —Tamfang (talk) 06:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Where is there evidence that perfect beings do not need to be governed?

—Wavelength (talk) 16:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You have to take Madison's statement in the context of the hot political theory of his day, that of the social contract, especially as envisioned by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Madison, and his collegues, saw the role of government in shaping the sort of society which was living under it. Witness his contemporary Thomas Jefferson's view of man's perfect state being the agrarian society, and his desire to establish a state to foster it. The two-sided recognition that a) the source of America's problems was the poor governance of Britain and thus b) The source of America's glory would be good governance was a driving factor in establishing the right government during the founding years of the Republic. His statement is meant to be allegorical or aphoristic. Again, it's not whether or not real perfect beings could exist, or whether they really would not need to be governed. The statement would have been understood under the context of the time to mean exactly that. Whether such statements hold up to modern thinking, or scrupulous logic, or anything else is still irrelevent. His audience would have been familiar with social contact thinking, would have understood and accepted the arguement on the role of government as a valid arguement in that millieu, and it was effective for that reason. You cannot subject the statement to such a level of overanalysis and expect it to be understood the way it should be understood. This isn't about arguing with Madison; that's not really what the OPs question was about. This is about explaining what Madison meant, not testing the veracity of his statements, merely explaining them. --Jayron32 19:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the line of thought is like this: If people were perfect, we wouldn't need taxation. Everyone would contribute enough in charity to pay for schools, healthcare, and the like. We wouldn't need a military or police because people would never engage in war or criminal activity. We wouldn't need laws, because everyone would always do the right thing without needing a fear of punishment to do so. We wouldn't need courts, because everyone would respect each other's person and property. And so on. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think we have established that if by "angels" Madison meant the good kind, they would govern us well without requiring any restriction by us on their actions in doing so. But since we are not angels-of-the-good-kind and must govern ourselves, it's a good idea for We, the People to have some accountability of ourselves to ourselves built into the framework of our self-government. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The slipperiest part is the "do the right thing" statement. You would first have to get universal agreement on what "the right thing" is in a given circumstance. The catch is that there is no such universal agreement. That's why laws are needed, to define what the consensus of the citizenry presumably is for "the right thing". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

That's mistaken, but off-topic. —Tamfang (talk) 00:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not mistaken, and it is on-topic. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Bugs is saying something like that you have to have a band if you're going to have a dance, and if so I agree. What is required, or not, for angels to dance remains a mystery, but that's okay, because it is not relevant to the question of how to set up a framework for self-governance that works. What we need as a self-governing society is a government that plays the music that we like to dance to best. That way we can all have as much of a good time as possible without stepping on each other's feet and stumbling into each other all the time. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 01:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Bugs: The topic is what did Madison mean by that?, which has a reasonable chance of being resolved here, not is coercive government necessary?, which won't be as I will now proceed to prove. But to the narrow point: Disagreement on "the right thing" is a better reason for trying multiple solutions in parallel than for compelling everyone to follow the same one.

WikiDao: More feet are stepped on in the name of choosing the music than in all other human activities combined. —Tamfang (talk) 01:41, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Define "coercive". Or do you mean simply "compelled to obey the law"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Define "law". Or do you mean simply "that which the biggest bully will compel you to obey"? —Tamfang (talk) 01:52, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

We may assume that we would all like as much Liberty for ourselves as is consistent with not unduly restricting the Liberty of others (I think someone said that; can't find the source right now.) We want of government that it implement that as well as possible, and given that we're all human we'd better write some checks-and-balances into the framework of that government. Everyone must dance, or else must leave (unless you are the entire South, in which case you must dance). Alternatively, if you don't like the music, you can arrange a private room in which to rest. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 02:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

December 16

When did Germaine de Staël begin?

When did salonist Germaine de Staël open her salon? I have not found the exact year. Was it 1786, as she married that year? --85.226.41.42 (talk) 00:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no bright line between a formal salon and having people over for discussion on a semi-regular basis. At that time in France it wouldn't be unheard of for an unmarried literary woman to entertain acquaintances, but if the criteria is advertising to strangers, your suspicion is probably well-founded. Being married to an ambassador is a difficult job with heavy social responsibilities, many of which can be taken care of more easily by scheduling periodic parties in the living room. It was no later than 1791 when she moved back to Paris from Switzerland per the chronology in the external links, as I'm sure you saw. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 03:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Obama + the GOP

How can the GOP be certain the bill they passed will continue to advance through the system in the same form they passed it -- can't Obama do a line item veto? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 04:11, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The President is not allowed to do a line item veto. It's all or nothing. And if the House passes similar legislation, a conference committee will be formed to get the bill into a shape that both houses can agree upon. If the House votes it down, it's done. And if the House + Senate pass a bill Obama doesn't like... then it's all or nothing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Congress had passed the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 under, and of course with the approval of, Bill Clinton in 1996). That allowed the president to line item veto certain limited text within bills, mostly pork barrel type things (I don't remember all of the qualifications, but one was any part of a bill that "benefited fewer than 100 people"; our article doesn't have them, so I'll have to do some digging). But it got shot down by the Supreme Court in 1998, because they said that giving the president that sort of power would require a constitutional amendment. That's why you get some of this crazy shit with bills being used to pass entirely unrelated items. My favorite example is still that one senator from Nebraska who refused to approve of the healthcare bill until his state got special treatment under it. But back to the question; as of right now, the president can't, and it would take a constitutional amendment to give that power. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The reason, presumably, has to do with separation of powers. Some (or perhaps many) of the individual states allow some form of line-item veto by their Governors. At the federal level, it would theoretically give the President too much legislative power. I expect the founding fathers did not anticipate these mammoth bills or they might have addressed it. But there's always the Amendment option - which sounds like a good idea until your own state's "pork barrel" funding gets cut. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm from Connecticut, so it's not like we get much help; instead, we get a guy who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and evades his taxes while watching the economy get run into the ground. You should have seen the ad campaigns for the Senate seat in Connecticut this year; it was really quite amusing to see a guy who lied about his military service and a woman who pays pituitary freaks to dress in spandex duke it out. I do have to give credit to the Alaskans; they know how to get their people in position. I daresay that if such an amdendment got to the states by either means, Alaska would not be passing it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

This is somewhat related to the failure to get anything done on a term-limits amendment. The Presidential limit was passed by Republicans in the wake of the FDR 4-termer... and which they discussed repealing once their buddy Ronnie got into office. The problem with term limits is that everyone would be quite happy to have other states have term limits, but "you better not mess with my representatives!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The Line item veto is one of those core constitutional questions that came up in a mildly political context, and the opinion that struck it down (Clinton v. City of New York) is a textbook Constitutional law case. Without revealing my personal opinion on the issue, I find some of the opinions in the case surprising coming from their particular sources. That said, there are powerful arguments on both sides... this is a fundamental structural constitutional issue about how laws are passed... little else is so fundamental to how a government operates. As for the OP's broader question... it's just politics. Getting indignant about this sort of thing is 99% of the time either posturing or extreme naivete. I'm not sure which is worse. Shadowjams (talk) 11:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Is the Maid of the Mist exclusive?

Is the Maid of the Mist exclusive, or can any boat tour that area? Ariel. (talk) 07:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the answer is that the company or companies that run those tours have licensing agreements, but I'll look into that. Of course, there are practical considerations: How would you get the boat there in the first place? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Presumably the same way the existing boats were gotten there. After some googling I found that the Maid of the Mist VII was brought in in 14 sections and assembled on-site. I don't know if different procedures were used for the older boats. --Anonymous, 14:10 UTC, December 16, 2010.

Yes, that's how they got there. The issue is, where would you assemble the new ones and where would you "park" them? If they don't have a license to operate, they might well be confiscated. And considering the danger of navigating near the falls, along with the need for international cooperation, the justification for restrictive licensing is fairly obvious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I googled [maid of the mist licence], and this interesting article came up.[2] It seems that there is indeed an exclusive license, and also there is controversy about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Japan - The Emperor's Birthday

1) What do people do on this day? 2) What do kids do? 3) What clothing do people wear? 4) What kind of food does people eat? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.126.19.174 (talk) 11:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Start with The Emperor's Birthday and see where it takes you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:02, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Almost all people do nothing special. Oda Mari (talk) 14:17, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yep. As far as I remember, it's a day like any other, except for the (relatively) few who decide to visit the Imperial palace - it's one of the two days in the year when it's (still in a limited capacity) open to the general public. There they can crowd, hear the Emperor address them, and if they are lucky maybe even get a blurry snapshot of him waving. But that's really it, for the general public at large it's just a day like any other. To me personally it's the day the Embassy here in Slovenia throws a reception to which I am for some reason every year invited, and I can hobnob with the elites of the country for an evening :) TomorrowTime (talk) 16:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

What countries keep the exact number of their executions a state secret and why?

I know I have asked this before, but the results were inconclusive, so months later, I ask it again: What countries keep the exact number of their executions a state secret and why? As in "yes we execute, but we can't tell you how many we execute per year"? A good example would be China, who executes up to around 1000 to 4000 people a year, but the actual number is a state secret. In a search I did a long time ago, all I found were China, Iran and Mongolia. Apparently, Belarus, the last European country to still have capital punishment, has not released a number of executions for some time, but I have been wondering for a long time now: How many countries (and which ones) keep the exact number of their executions a secret and (if applicable), why?. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Much as has been answered before, the question is inherently unanswerable. "Not correctly reporting the number of executions" (which we cannot determine with any reasonable degree of fidelity) is effectively equivalent to "We're just not going to report anything". The answer lies somewhere between 0 and the number of countries in the world, as even those which have foresworn capital punishment could be conducting it in secret. That's the nature of a secret, after all. — Lomn 14:09, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

No my question was of all the countries that are known to conduct executions keep the number of executions a secret. i'm not talking about secret executions... Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:19, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You twice asked "[what|how many] countries keep the exact number of their executions a state secret?" Asking which countries acknowledge keeping an execution count secret is a different question. In principle, this one is answerable, though I'm not sure it holds in practice. For instance, your Belarus example: our article notes that the government has not released official documentation since 2006. Is that a formal acknowledgment that they're keeping it a secret, or is it an implicit claim of zero executions? A quick survey of our article on the use of capital punishment by nation suggests that the People's Republic of China is the only nation that specifically claims its execution statistics to be a state secret. — Lomn 14:50, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok so most probably only China keeps the exact number of executions a secret. The question would now be: why? Is it for national security, or to prevent organizations like Amnesty International from criticizing them? I'm sure there could be other countries who also keep the exact number of their executions a secret, mainly communist ones like North Korea and Vietnam. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:49, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Looking again at the article Lomn showed me, apparently the only other country that keeps the exact number of their executions a secret is Mongolia, and even then, they carry them out in secret, so it seems China may be the only country in the world that admits executing people but doesn't disclose the exact number. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, Mongolia has publicly established a moratorium on the death penalty. — Lomn 19:54, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

what he means is "Yes, we perform executions. As to the number and which cases, the official position is: it's a secret"

The guy means, which countries perform executions (we know it, they admit it, and maybe even we know at least 1 of the cases specifically). As to which people, when, and how many in total, that is an official, admitted state secret, i.e. "there's a number, it's more than 1 this year, but we won't tell you how many or which ones".... 82.234.207.120 (talk) 14:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, their admission only implies that there were more than none. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not impossible to add up the number of executions in China each year, it's just bloody difficult for the Western press (and the state-controlled press in China has no inclination to - both because capital punishment is not nearly as controversial in China as it is in the West, and also because the government does not want anyone to go around publishing these numbers). Nowadays executions have to be endorsed by the Supreme People's Court, and all of the Supreme People's Court's decisions are published - just not in the same convenient and accessible format that judgments in, say, the UK, Canada or Australia is. I have no doubt that a major domestic paper, if they could and also wanted to, would be able to find it. It's probably easier to ask for a number from an official rather than employ enough knowledgeable and sufficiently connected people to count up the numbers. It also gets you no results. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:53, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Another perspective - China realises that executing people is not a good look on the international stage, so tries to lower its visibility by not talking about numbers. What this says about countries that DO execute people and DO want it highlighted on the international stage I shall leave others to discuss. HiLo48 (talk) 11:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

That was some nice information, but you strayed a little too far from my original question of what other countries aside from China keep the exact number of their executions a secret. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:22, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Legal question

Wouldn't Assange be more secure in Sweden than in the UK? Sweden is by all means a democracy, with a working legal system, and, although the UK is also one, it is still a junior partner of the US in many cases, and thus, perhaps more prone to cooperation. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 16:41, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The UK dont have a reason as yet to punish, so he cant even be put up for trial to be prosecuted over anything. God knows why he doesnt stay celibate when doing such dangerous work, or at the very least stick to wikipeda  ;) instead of Giving the police state room for hocus-pocus.(Lihaas (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC));

Either one probably has a good chance to extradite to the US, so I'm not sure it matters too much. They are both democracies and have "working" legal systems; that isn't really the issue here. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:47, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

At the moment, Assange is much more likely to be charged with a crime in Sweden than he is in the U.S., and it's not even clear whether he can be charged with a crime in the U.S. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Just today in the New York Times, there was an article saying that the U.S. was looking into whether they could charge him on conspiracy counts, that he actively solicited and helped Bradley Manning steal the secrets from the government [3]. If this could be proved, it would help a long way in finding him guilty of something in the U.S. If he was only republishing classified documents that he did not solicit or help obtain, the government could pretty much only go after him with the Espionage Act of 1917, a pretty shaky law, legally. Buddy431 (talk) 01:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

theyve talked about treason but numerous external commentators (incl. aus officials), have said thats absurd. he cant have committed treachery to america when he has no loyalty to it in the first place.Lihaas (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Espionage (spying) can be done by anyone. No need to be loyal to anybody. --Lgriot (talk) 08:59, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Please note that espionage ≠ treason. Googlemeister (talk) 14:56, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It could be that Sweden's judicial system is based on civil, not common law. Apparently, only this year did they end conscription (Swedish Armed Forces). Seems to me that Swedish neutrality has taken a little beating.206.130.174.43 (talk) 20:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

things to do with the right roommate to increase my quality of living?

Here are two things I could do with a cool roommate to increase my quality of living:
- Subscribe to a daily like the New York Times, splitting the cost
- Cook each other breakfast while the other showers (on alternative days).
What is an exhaustive list of such things you could do with a roommate? (Note: I live in a major, major urban center, and both myself and the roommate/housemate would be working full-time). Finally, what do you reckon my chances are of finding the right/cool roommate? 88.182.221.18 (talk) 17:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You could shower together. That's cool and saves energy.80.58.205.34 (talk) 17:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Dude, that is NOT cool! NOT COOL!! I am looking for real answers, actual things real well-adjusted people would do for each other as roommates, expressly getting together partly to be able to do just this. For example, I think I would not be someone's roommate who wanted, before they have even met me, to find someone to give back rubs to each other with... whether they're a guy or girl, and I'm a guy or girl, looking for that from a roommate (that you're still looking for) is just too much!! I am looking for real answers, please. Thank you. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 17:31, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it is cool. Choose a person of the gender(s) that you like. And it can get better. Just see here: [4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.34 (talk) 17:37, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

All right, I'll add an extra condition below, just to rule out shenanigans like this... 88.182.221.18 (talk) 17:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You are blurring the line between being roommates and being friends. Then, blurring the line between being friends who live together and being married (as in having joint responsibility for one another). So, all you are asking is, "What are the benefits of getting married?" It won't be hard to search for many lists that do not limit themselves to the legal benefits. -- kainaw™ 17:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Really, think about an ad for a roommate from someone who ALSO wanted to find someone to split the price of a daily with, and to cook breakfast jointly with, and the difference between an ad looking for a romantic partner or spouse... You don't put up an ad for a "friend"... It just doesn't make sense. Surely you can see that difference. You know, people know the negatives inside and out: you have to do the dishes sometimes (and sometimes the other person). You have to take the trash out sometimes (ditto). You have to clean up the common areas sometimes. etc etc etc. Surely, we are totally missing something if we internalize these chores and negative tasks, without so much as allowing the possibility of increasing the quality of living by the same means. Honestly, do you think that sharing taking down the trash makes you just like a married couple? Seriously, if you don't know what I'm asking about, can't imagine it, or, just can't think about it in social terms, you had better leave this question to someone else... Thanks fro your contribution all the same. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 17:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

No thanks needed. I like to help. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 17:45, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The new condition is, it has to be just as applicable to a roommate of a gender you're not attracted to. (e.g. you're a straight guy, another straight guy, etc.) I think both of my examples are perfect, and I would like more. Thanks. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 17:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, you could film him/her on the shower and upload it to some youtube-like site. THAT would be insanely cool. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 17:43, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the reference desk is a place where volunteers help to answer factual questions. The question you're asking is more of a brainstorming exercise. I suggest that you find a real person who might be interested in becoming your roommate, and conduct your brainstorming with him or her, to find things to do together that will make you both happier. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 17:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

No, based on the comment you're immediately replying to, it appears the problem is that the reference desk is where everyone lives in their parents basement and films their cousins in the shower when they come over for the holidays! Ugh. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 17:52, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

wait a minute, i just realized i'm totally being seriously trolled by 80. You win, 80! Well played, my man, well played. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 17:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

As always: don't feed the trolls! Quest09 (talk) 17:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't care. I've been on the other side many a time in my erroneous youth, and that man had me livid. 88.182.221.18 (talk) 18:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Based on personal experiences with roommates, the following is my advice:

• Roommates are not friends, and are not spouses. Do not have the same expectations of them as you do other relationships. It is a business arrangement, and keep that it mind. That doesn't mean you cannot be cordial, even friendly with a roommate, but don't expect the same sort of relationship you would with a friend. Think of him more along the lines of a coworker. Be freindly when you are around them, maybe even have a beer once in a while, but also don't have any expectation for a relationship outside of the confines of the partnership.
• Establish clear boundaries regarding issues such as bills (have a plan in place; either split each bill 50/50, or alternate months, or something), personal space, maintenance of common items, cleaning, guest policy, etc. Be very straightforward with each other, and make and agree on clear expectations on how to handle these things before they become problems.

That's probably my best advice. --Jayron32 18:12, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I would say—stay out of each other's way as much as possible. That means physically. But that also means linguistically. Don't ask questions. Don't explore their feelings. Don't inquire of their opinions. Don't share your innermost thoughts with them. Don't even share your outermost thoughts with them. If something doesn't have to be said—don't say it. Silence is golden. Put every physical item back where it belongs. If your roommate doesn't put everything back where it belongs—don't complain about it. Forbearance is an ideal in such a situation. Bear in mind that the situation is beneficial to you—it would be more expensive to live alone. Keep in mind your more distant goals. Be mindful that the present living arrangement is temporarily worthwhile as a furtherance of your goals, and try not to get bogged down in the petty details of whether he leaves your box of favorite breakfast cereal in the bathroom or not. Bus stop (talk) 19:06, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Do strangers really have to share rooms in the US of A to make ends meet? Or is this an Americanism for sharing a flat or apartment? 92.28.247.44 (talk) 19:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"Roommate" does mean "flatmate" in the US. (In Canada, I'm not so sure, because of Scott Pilgrim...) Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:57, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the comments above. The chances that you will find someone who happens to want to share a newspaper subscription and/or breakfasts is pretty remote. When I had roommates, I found that it worked best to keep things as separate as possible, right up to separate shelves in the fridge, and a rule that each person cleans his or her dishes as soon as their meal is finished. However, some people are open to sharing meals and food shopping and such. If that sort of thing interests you, you might include a line in your roommate ad like "Looking to share meals, shopping, and household amenities." Of course, then you will have to agree on what foods the two of you are going to buy, cook, and eat, you will have to coordinate your schedules, and you will have to agree on which household amenities you want to share. People are so different in their tastes that you may not find a person with tastes compatible to yours. Your roommate's schedule may also be very different. Even if he or she wanted to cook breakfast while you shower, he or she may need to be out the door by 7:00 to get to work, when you don't have to leave until 9:00. He or she may want oatmeal (porridge) while you want eggs and bacon. Or vice versa. And so on, and so on. So it might be best to just accept that you will share little more than the space. (To user 92.28..., roommate in American English is synonymous with housemate. Is it flatmate in UK English? It is not entirely unheard of to share a room, but usually people have their own bedroom and share the rest of the apartment.) Marco polo (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Flatmate if a flat, housemate if a house. (And roommate if literally sharing a room.) --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:41, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

From the way you phrase the question, you are looking for mutually beneficial and pleasant ways to interact with potential roommates. You may have luck researching housing cooperatives. Many such organizations will post rules/chore schemes that you may find useful.SemanticMantis (talk) 19:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

From my Google search for roommate quality living, I found http://offcampus.osu.edu/roommatesearch_safety_tips.asp.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Questions about prohibitions in Sikhism

I was reading the article on prohibitions in Sikhism and I was somewhat confused... I'm not sure if I should be asking this on the talk page, but that seemed more given over to debate on what exactly Sikhism prohibited and I'm more interested in the justificiations. At any rate, two questions are: 1) One of the prohibitions is basically no priestly class, and the article suggests that there is very little formal hierarchy at all. But later on it talks about a certain Sikh being "excommunicated" by "high clergy" -- is there some sort of hierarchy or synod that pronounces on theological questions? Wouldn't that sort be a priestly class? 2) Sikhs are forbidden from eating meat that is ritualistically slaughtered. Easy enough (unless you're in a kosher deli :P). But the article on Jhatka meat states that (at least some) Sikhs only eat meat from animals killed in a specific way -- isn't that ritualistically slaughtered meat too? I understand no prayers/benedictions/anointments/whatever are involved, but if you only kill livestock in one specific way that seems like a ritual to me. I'm not trying to be a smartass, it just seems like sort of a contradiction to me. Thanks for your time. 96.246.68.89 (talk) 19:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

You are simply taking "ritual" in one sentence that clearly indicates a religious practice, and then using the word "ritual" in another area where it would mean a repetitious action. Then, you claim the first definition to be the definition of the second term. It is a poor argument of semantics that, when you remove the word "ritual" makes no sense. Sikhs are prohibited from eating meat slaughtered in religious practices. Sikhs can only eat meat slaughtered in a specific manner. There is no contradiction. -- kainaw™ 20:28, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

These might help. Animal sacrifice in Sikhism (cursory look says only certain sects practce it)and Category:Sikh groups and sects.206.130.174.43 (talk) 20:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Icelandic sagas at the time of Christopher Columbus

Would educated people in Spain and Portugal have had access to copies, at the time of Christopher Columbus, of the Icelandic sagas? And hence been aware of the existance of Greenland and perhaps even Vinland. 92.28.247.44 (talk) 20:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Can't say anything about the sagas, but the Catholic Church's reach included Greenland; see, for example, Gardar, Greenland. So somebody in Rome knew about Greenland, but this (as I am sure you know) does not mean it was known in Iberia. But it could have been. The sagas, someone else will come by to discuss, I'm sure. (You might also be interested in the Vinland map.) Jørgen (talk) 20:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I would strongly doubt that the sagas themselves were translated into Latin etc. at that time, but it's plausible that certain third-hand nuggets ultimately from the sagas could have been circulating along with information about Greenland, legends of St. Brendan's voyages, etc. AnonMoos (talk) 20:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, Columbus's connection to Iberia was mainly as a source of funding. He was a Genoese merchant by trade and birth. He would have been more likely to have been inspired by the story had it come to him in Genoa rather than Iberia. --Jayron32 21:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The translation of the Icelandic Sagas into Latin and other languages did not begin in earnest until the 17th and 18th centuries, when Old Norse was "rediscovered" via Iceland and began to be studied by Scandinavian scholars. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The knowledge of lands to the west may have been passed indirectly, rather than directly - for example, through Icelandic mariners' contacts with Ireland, Scotland or Norway, and through them in turn to other countries on the European mainland. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The other thing is this sort of inquiry is all over the historiography of Columbus. But its mainly driven by the desire to show that Columbus really was "searching" for something more than a convenenient trade route to Asia. The real deal is that Columbus likely wasn't searching for anything more than a different route to Asia. Genoa had LONG had control over trade with the Far east, largely through its bases in the Crimea: Kaffa was a major port through which a large portion of "silk road" trade entered Europe. The city was taken over by the Ottomans in 1475. Likewise, Constantinople, Genoa's main route to its Black Sea trading empire, fell to the Ottomans in 1453. So Genoa had been cut off from all of its major trade routes. It needed an alternate way to get to Asia. Hence, Columbus. There's no need to invent a motivation for Columbus to look for a reason to sail the Atlantic; the hopes of a dying trade republic probably were enough. --Jayron32 21:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

What would happen if the United States Congress all died?

What would happen if the entire United States Congress all died at the same time? (For example, as the result of an asteroid strike, or terrorist attack on the Capitol building, while both Senate and House are in session.) 97.125.81.59 (talk) 21:07, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The United States Congress is not involved in the day-to-day operation of the U.S. state. It is a legislative body, and it only passes laws. It is the executive branch that is involved in the day-to-day administration of the State. See seperation of powers. What that means is that there isn't anything that Congress does that requires a decision right now. It would be a major problem, don't get me wrong, but not of the "create instant anarchy because all government would shut down" sort of problem. Being that it would be a sui generis crisis, it would require a sui generis solution; the Constitution is silent on the matter. I would suspect that a nationwide special election would have to be called to replace all of the members; alternately in the short term the various state governments could appoint replacements until such election occured. --Jayron32 21:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) The first thing we'd do is have a huge celebration. After that, every state has their own processes for installing a representative or a senator, and I'd think they'd go through that. Some have special elections for that purpose, while others (such as Delaware) have the governor select someone to serve for the duration of the term. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Article One, Clause 4 of the US Constitution provides for the case of "vacancies in Representation":

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

If all such vacancies occurred at the same time, if that is what you are asking about, the US government would still function. Celebration? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:42, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

CELEBRATION!!! Clarityfiend (talk) 05:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Like this? That should not be permitted. :| WikiDao ☯ (talk) 05:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The other point is that if there was an asteroid strike, there would perhaps be more serious issues facing the USA than the finer points of the constitution... ╟─TreasuryTag►stannator─╢ 21:44, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not a trivial question, however, if it had been a terrorist strike. It's not unreasonable to come up with scenarios where both chambers of congress are relatively full, and a massive, well-coordinated terrorist attack were to strike the Capitol building and kill or incapacitate nearly all of them. It wouldn't have been impossible to imagine two planes hitting the Capitol rather that the World Trade Center; indeed there is some speculation that the plane that went down in Pennsylvania was going to do just that. I'm sure the government has contingencies for such a situation. Quite sure actually. --Jayron32 21:49, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Although there are procedures in place to ensure that no ordinary terrorist attack could annihilate the entire Congress... But pointn taken, I guess. ╟─TreasuryTag►co-prince─╢ 21:51, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Surely, in such an scenario there would be some type of martial law until the normal government working can be restored MBelgrano (talk) 21:53, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The U.S. has no provisions for martial law. Also, because of seperation of powers, the role of members of congress is highly limited with regards to the day-to-day operation of the U.S. apparatus of State. Which is not to say that their loss would not be massively disruptive, if for no other reason than the likely collateral damage, but the actual day-to-day operation of the U.S. apparatus of the state is run through the executive departments, the bulk of whose personel is not concentrated in any one place. --Jayron32 21:59, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

A nuke would be bad. [5] WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Or not-so-bad, depending on the nuke [6] (But with just 10-kt, that's still a big chunk of the Federal US gov't if you enter "Washington, DC" at that link). WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Martial law would not be needed (assuming people didn't riot in panic). Aside from the annual budget, there's very little time-sensitive legislation that would cause problems. And the legislature has gone over the deadline on the budget before, without the country grinding to a halt, so even that's not such a big deal. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The pre-9/11 Tom Clancy novel Debt of Honor deals with this, when an embittered airline pilot crashes his 747 into the Congress building during the swearing-in of his hero, Jack Ryan, as the new Vice President; almost all of all 3 branches of government are killed, including most of Congress. Naturally, because Jack Ryan is the incorruptible hero, Ryan saves the country in the sequel, Executive Orders. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I read that some years after 9/11, and just reading the first sentences gave me chills down my spine. It was eerie reading that and knowing it was written before 9/11 happened. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:13, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Even better, Stephen King wrote of a man flying an airliner into a skyscraper in The Running Man in 1982.. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

See Continuity of government. After 9/11, this question was looked at with a bit more urgency, but they never got around to doing anything about it. One of the problems is that the Constitution requires members of the House to be elected -- no emergency appointments as you can have in the Senate. That means that if most of the House were to be taken out somehow, we'd have to wait for new special elections for Congress to do anything. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

On the subject of COG, what if terrorists destroyed the backup facilities as well? --75.28.52.27 (talk) 01:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, they'd be pretty good terrorists then, since those backup facilities are usually secret. The secret bunker at The Greenbrier remained secret for some 30 years. --Jayron32 02:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, how would anyone go about finding one of those? Marnanel (talk) 15:15, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

This year in my country, Australia, and my state, Victoria, we've had elections which were very close, and in both cases it took quite some time (weeks in one case) to work out who was going to be in charge. Some in the media and politics tried to whip up a frenzy about this, but the overall impact was, well, nothing. Things ran totally normally. Did we miss our politicians? Well, no. They were all being nicer than normal to each other out of their concerns about the possible need to make future alliances with people they normally condemned ideologically. It was a wonderful time. HiLo48 (talk) 21:53, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, the Belgians have been doing without a government (though not without a state) since June of this year, and nothing seems to have broken particularly. Marnanel (talk) 15:15, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Why is the OED online so expensive?

You can pay thirty dollars per month, or you can pay three hundred for the year, saving yourself a fin per month. Even so, that's about three times what you'd pay for a Netflix subscription, and quite a bit more than the average private citizen is willing to pay for the pleasure of looking up words. Consequently, they sell a handful of subscriptions to large institutions. Now, I'm no businessman, but wouldn't they sell a lot more subscriptions if they established an alternative price structure for individual, non-institutional subscribers? And wouldn't the increased volume of subscriptions compensate for the fact that each subscriber is paying less? (How do you suppose they determined the price in the first place?) LANTZY^TALK 22:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the key here is that you're no businessman. No, they wouldn't make money, which is why they don't do it. As to why, the reason is that the largest institutions have a fairly inelastic demand, whereas the OED could never compete with Mirriam Webster for the folks who have elastic demand, ie are price-sensitive. In other words: they would hardly pick up anyone, but lose all their institutions monopoly rents. 82.234.207.120 (talk) 23:08, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The OED used to be a print publication that was the size of a large encyclopedia. It was the kind of thing that few people would want in their house, compared to a Webster's. It was a product with a relatively small market, but with the kind of customers (mostly libraries) that would pay a lot of money for it. Even today, few people are going to pay for an online dictionary when they can use dictionary.com for free. So the OED is forced to live with a small market of potential customers, but customers who are willing to pay very high sums for the product. It's possible that they could reduce the price of the product by 90 percent but only increase their customer base fivefold, leaving them with a lot less revenue. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:22, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why it must be an either/or. Couldn't they charge one fee for institutional accounts and another, smaller fee for private subscribers? Why would adding a new class of customer cause them to lose their existing customers? I'm sure there are a lot of people who, like me, have a casual, hobbyist's interest in the sort of in-depth lexicography that only the OED provides, but who would rather not have to trudge to the library in order to satisfy that curiosity. As it is, I'm mooching off the library's account and contributing not one cent to the OED's coffers. Inconvenient for me, profitless for them. If not an alternative method of subscription, why not an advertisement-spattered "free version" on the Internet? Maybe these are all silly ideas, but the status quo just seems so capricious and weird... LANTZY^TALK 23:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I've always gotten that service for free, most recently by physically going in to my local library and getting an ID number that I can use to access the OED through their website (from physically anywhere thereafter). I think most places just require a valid ID and a couple of pieces of "official" mail addressed to you at your current address. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 23:33, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

That would suit me just fine. Do you mean that your local library simply confides their ID and password to you? So that you are, in effect, logging in as if you were the library? Or do you mean that you go to the website of the library and somehow tap into the OED through that? LANTZY^TALK 23:56, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

UK public libraries tend to buy subscriptions such that their members can log-in to the OED using their library membership number. If you're in the UK, you should be able to get access. If not ... --Tagishsimon (talk)

I'm in the U.S. My local library certainly has some sort of subscription, because the OED is accessible on their computers. But I don't know whether I can sign in remotely using a library card. I guess I'll have to interrogate one of the librarians. Thanks for the suggestions. LANTZY^TALK 01:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Ha! I can sign in remotely with my library card! I hereby retract all my cantankerous cnawvshawling about the status quo. LANTZY^TALK 01:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

As it happens, here in Toronto I just had a similar experience. As far as I know, this feature was added with no publicity when they revamped their web site sometime in the last year or so. Used to be, you went into the branch and from their in-branch startup screen you followed a "List of databases" link instead of the "catalogue" link. This still works. But now from their web site's main screen you can use the regular catalog search on "oxford english dictionary", and the results page includes a link to access the OED Online (using your library card number and PIN). Similarly I can now access ProQuested back issues of two Toronto newspapers via the library from home in the same way, which was the other thing in the "List of databases" page that I used to use from time to time.

I discovered this change by simply noting that it would have suited the philosophy they said was behind the web site revamp, and guessing that it might be worth trying; as I said, I saw no publicity about it. --Anonymous, 14:41 UTC, December 17, 2010.

Glad to hear it, it's a very useful resource. It's well worth asking your library if they have similar arrangements for any other online services - OUP, publishers of the OED, have a wide range of reference works available online. Credo Reference may also be available - you can see a list of what my local library service offers here. If your local library doesn't offer these, write to them and to the council (or whatever local authority is responsible) suggesting they consider improving the range offered. DuncanHill (talk) 11:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Brighton must be a bit of a snobbish area then. They don't mention Wikipedia, nor the Sun and Daily Mail ;-)--Aspro (talk) 13:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

UK access is near universal. From OED: "Nearly all public libraries in England, Scotland, and Wales — and all in Northern Ireland—subscribe to the Oxford English Dictionary online. ... Most libraries also offer ‘remote access’. This means that, if you are a member of your local library, you can access the OED online free anywhere you have internet access." http://www.oed.com/public/access/public-library-access-from-home See list of all UK public library subscribers here: http://www.oup.com/uk/academic/online/library/available/

I have remote access with my US city's public library card: no central database of US or any non-UK library subscribers -- first link says to the rest of the world, "Speak to your librarian to find out whether your library subscribes." (But when I clicked on that link, thanks to the miracles of browser cookies, I was immediately taken to login page, asking for last name and library card number, for direct access to OED via my library) -- Paulscrawl (talk) 17:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Amount present in banks

About how much does the money present in all the world's banks vary (i.e., major or mass withdrawals or depoisits)? What about a nation's? Is the amount fairly constant? If so, about how much is present? 23:32, 16 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.70.160 (talk)

You may be interested in our article on money supply, which discusses the various forms that "money" can take. The US has a concept of a "reserve requirement" at a bank level (technically, at an FDIC-insured bank level, but that's close enough for jazz) which is the ratio of deposits to reserves. At a national level, the money supply will vary depending on the policies of relevant governmental bodies (in the US, the Federal Reserve Board) and the movements of the national and international economy (stock markets and so forth). The money supply of the world is generally growing in absolute terms (see this US chart, but note that other countries in the money supply article are roughly equivalent), but I don't know what relative growth (i.e. against inflation) would look like. — Lomn 23:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

First Amendment violation?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/16/district.of.columbia.protest.arrests/index.html

Don't the police's actions in that event violate the First Amendment's protections of freedom of speech and peaceful assembly? --75.28.52.27 (talk) 23:55, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

"The reference desk will not answer (and will usually remove) questions that... seek guidance on legal matters". AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I am not one of the accused protesters, nor am I in any way affiliated with any of the accused. I'm asking this purely out of curiosity. --75.28.52.27 (talk) 00:02, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The justice system will decide that question, assuming it even gets that far. There are any number of possible grounds for the arrests, not the least of which is that the "peaceful" part might have been debatable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:15, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Often times in situations like this, a great number of people will be arrested, and then most released without charges soon after. It has the effect of breaking up the protest, without the government having to have a real solid legal standing. At the 2008 Republican National Convention, about 800 people were arrested during the convention, with charges successfully brought against a couple dozen of them [7]. On the final day of the protest, about 300 people were arrested, with all of them subsequently released without charges [8]. Granted, that's at the extreme end of things, and there are a couple lawsuits pending against the police. But as a tactic for breaking up protests, arresting lots of people and letting most of them go is a fairly common, and effective tactic. Buddy431 (talk) 01:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I expect the arrests are intended to keep things under control. They might be a bit quick on the trigger, so to speak, but looking at the riots of the 1960s, it's understandable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The riots of the 1960s were not in any way connected to protests. It is a silly connection to make. The war and Civil Rights protests were organized, peaceful, and pre-announced affairs. The race riots were spontaneous reactions to incidents of blatant injustice in the poorest and most marginalized communities in the United States, and did most of the damage to their own communities. The only thing even slightly comparable is the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which went from being a "protest" to being a "riot" when the police started arbitrarily beating people. Do not confuse the source of violence in the latter, and do not confuse the race riots with protest activity. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:46, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

From news articles, it appears that the protesters were blocking the sidewalk and were ordered to free it up. Governments are allowed to make "time, place or manner" restrictions on demonstrations so long as they are reasonable an apply equally to everyone. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

This brochure from the ACLU outlines some of the limitations on the right to protest in the United States. Permits are required for blocking streets; amplified noise requires a permit. In theory permit-granting is politically neutral. In practice, it's sometimes unclear. This is not a new thing at all, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:46, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Aren't large scale arrests of people who are clearly not guilty of any crime, in order to break up a demonstration, a case of false arrest ? And, as such, aren't the arresting officers themselves guilty of a crime ? (I'm not commenting on this specific case, just the general principle.) StuRat (talk) 05:56, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

If one were falsely arrested and wanted to pursue it, you can sue the police department in question. I doubt they would hold individual officers, but it could lead to restitution. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Depends on your definition of "not guilty of a crime". In many jurisdictions, the threshold at which the police can arrest someone is if they have a reasonable suspicion that a person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime. You do not have to be by any means guilty to be arrested.

Furthermore, in many jurisdictions, there are a bunch of offences which (whether or not they were created for the purpose) are used almost solely for temporarily removing people from locations which the police, rightly or wrongly, fear may develop into violent situations that involve "real" crimes.

A common one is "loitering with intent" - the offence is usually something like a person is staying (loitering) in one place with the intent to commit a crime. A police officer who has a reasonable suspicion that someone is doing this could then arrest that person - and if it turns out they were not intending to commit a crime, they would usually be released.

Other examples include what are known in Australia (and possibly elsewhere) as the "trifecta" - offensive language, resisting arrest and assault (without battery -in practice, any menacing behaviour or threats).

Offences akin to, derived from, or relating to riot can also be used to arrest people in a crowd, and especially if the crowd turns aggressive. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:29, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

If anyone wants to actually see the law that applies to this situation, look at Section 5-331.07 of the District of Columbia Code. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

December 17

Terrorist attack on Washington

What would happen if there was a terrorist attack on Washington (maybe an atomic bomb) which killed everyone in the federal government? --75.28.52.27 (talk) 00:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that there are many people "in the federal government" who aren't physically located in Washington. In the context of U.S. civics, "government" is a pretty vague term, usually used to refer to the state in general. You should probably clarify whose annihilation is being postulated. Do you mean only elected officials, or everyone employed by the federal state apparatus? You'd need one hell of a bomb to wipe out every last mailman and park ranger. LANTZY^TALK 00:15, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

My thought exactly. If the question were narrower, i.e. if everyone in the Presidential line of succession were killed, that would be a bit of a dilemma, although there may be laws covering that possibility also. But realistic fears of that very scenario presumably fed the need for Cheney to be at a remote undisclosed location frequently. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:18, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, come to think of it, it's simpler than that. Let's suppose that something happened to every representative and senator, every federal judge, and the president and his entire cabinet. Assuming no one else was affected, the individual states' governors could make appointments to fill all those house and senate positions. Now you've got a Congress. The next step would be to determine the Speaker of the House and the President Pro-Tempore of the Senate, who are like the third and fourth in line for the presidency, as I recall. Now you've got a President, who could immediately appoint a Vice-President, a cabinet, and then fill the judiciary with appointments. This might take a little time, but in the interim, martial law would presumably kick in. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:24, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Please check on the accuracy of the statement that Governors could immediately appoint new Senators and Representatives. You are wrong. Don't many states require special elections, which might involve primary elections, taking many months? How soon could a quorum be present, in the Senate and House? A new Speaker of the House or President Pro Tem of the Senate could become President, whichever got determined first by one of the bodies of Congress. Edison (talk) 05:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Martial law? Why? Most of the lower-level government (ie. the part responsible for day-to-day operations) is still intact, and can carry on through sheer inertia. --Carnildo (talk) 03:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

When a rep dies, there is a special election for their replacement. Until that election, their seat is vacant. When a senator dies, the governor makes a temporary replacement until a special election fills the seat for the remainder of the term. Until that special election, the seat is only vacant until the governor has appointed a temp. Googlemeister (talk) 14:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

For further details, see the section just a little ways up the page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:31, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Worth noting that it would certainly be less disruptive than if the same sort of erasure happened to a dictatorship, or a dictatorship clad in democratic costume, as many African governments tend to do. Highly-concentrated power creates a much more intense void than diffuse power does, and the American government is really rather diffuse. The Masked Booby (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

An excellent observation. When a dictatorial cult figure dies, you have major chaos. In the U.S., you have a small amount of chaos, but also a built-in set of processes to take care of things. The Presidency is not a kingship, it's merely a job. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:46, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

As Theodore Roosevelt put it - "The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants". Exxolon (talk) 01:58, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course practically speaking it is hard to imagine the US not actually enacting some kind of emergency (dictatorial) police powers in such an event. --Mr.98 (talk) 03:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Contrariwise, it's hard to imagine anything being "enacted" if no legislature existed. Anyway, we aren't supposed to be imagining or speculating on things here. We're supposed to be providing references. As Schuyler did below. --Anonymous, 17:15, December 17, 2010.

Here's a reference to Tommy Franks saying he didn't think our Constitutional system would survive such an attack. --Sean 17:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Continuity of Operations Plan may be of interest. schyler (talk) 02:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Also, "United States presidential line of succession" and "Designated survivor". Gabbe (talk) 08:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the US a federation? I'm sure that each state specific governors should be capable to deal locally with the crisis until they follow whatever procedure is arranged to appoint a new national government. And in the meantime, the confederated provinces may elect some specific province to manage the international relations in the name of all of them. MBelgrano (talk) 12:34, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly. No member of the federation would have any standing to represent the whole Federation. Individual states have no foreign relations, that is all handled on the federal level. That's why there is the "designated survivor" provision; there is never a time when all members of the Line of Succession are in the same place at the same time. There is always somebody who is a legal Successor to the Presidency who is somewhere secure, just so that, in the event of anything like this happening, there is still a clear, legally designated President who has the power to make decisions and represent the country internationally. Any of the smaller tasks the federal government handles are done in a diffuse manner; the working parts of many Cabinet departments are often not even in Washington DC. --Jayron32 15:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Denver Federal CenterDenver Federal Center is located in Lakewood, Colorado and is the home to about 6,200 employees for many Federal government of the United States agencies. The Denver Federal Center encompasses an area of about 670 acres (2.7 km2) and has 90 buildings comprising over 4,000,000 square feet (400,000 m2) of office, warehouse, lab and special use space. There are 26 different Federal agencies on-site, making it the largest concentration of Federal agencies outside of Washington, D.C..206.130.174.43 (talk) 20:37, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think Washington is safe from a devastating terrorist attack, as even the terrorists must realize that eliminating all the politicians and starting over would only improve things. :-) StuRat (talk) 23:50, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Date for Japanese painting

Are there any distinguishing features on this Japanese painting which point to when it was made? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 03:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a Nishiki-e woodblock print. And here's [9] another print by the same artist(with a similar stabby theme), which is dated 1886. 81.131.20.102 (talk) 05:08, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

What is the artist's name? The one I looked up Akira Higashi and he turned out to be a modern Ski jumper. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:17, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It's by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. 81.131.20.102 (talk) 05:20, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I just know noticed you added the name in your original post. I should probably learn how to read. Thank you for the input. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:22, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not a painting, but a wood block printing. According to this page, it's one of 42 prints in a series called 新撰東錦絵/shinsen higashi nisikie and created in 1885 and 1886. Oda Mari (talk) 05:28, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) I should probably break my compulsive habit of sneaking in more information through edits. Anyway, I think the name of the series is "New Selection of Eastern Brocade Pictures", ("Brocade pictures" being the same as "Nishiki-e") because that's what I googled (新撰東錦絵) to find the other print. 81.131.20.102 (talk) 05:34, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

MY CAPTION:

"Well, isn't this perfect, you never paid any attention to me, before, and now I can't even hold your interest while you stab me to death". StuRat (talk) 05:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

That is a hoot, StuRat! This is a fascinating image. The guy holding the knife has stereotypically Caucasian features. I wonder if it reflects Japanese feelings during the 1880s toward the treacherous and threatening Western barbarians. Marco polo (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The reason I asked about the woodblock print is because it reminded me of this. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The man's name is 大仁坊/Daijinbō and the woman's name is 梅ヶ枝/Umegaeda. It's a scene of an old story which is widley known through a kabuki play called 昔語黄鳥墳（むかしがたりうぐいすづか）/Mukashi gatari uguisuzuka. It's a fairy tale type romance. Daijinbo is a lover of Umegaeda's step mother and he killed Umegaeda because she refused him and she knew him and her step mother were lovers. But Umegaeda was revived, instead her pet nightingale died. Here is the G-translated story. See "Ancient tomb...". The play was created from an old story of Uguisuzuka in Kita-ku, Osaka. Oda Mari (talk) 05:32, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

How can I share my Christmas wish with the whole world?

Greetings, I have a Christmas wish that I want to share with the whole world. The details are on a blog and I do not want to be a "spammer" ... how can I share this wish effectively with the whole world? (link removed by — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite) Setyourhope (talk) 19:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Put it on a banner. Tow that banner behind an airplane. Crash that airplane in some prominent place. —Tamfang (talk) 21:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Some would contend that the above method is worse then being a spammer. Googlemeister (talk) 21:36, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a nice wish. Separate it from your mystical beliefs and culture, and just live it yourself in everything you do. Remember that many in the world do not share your religion, and will accept your message better if it's not packaged that way. Language provides a similar problem. HiLo48 (talk) 21:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, by posting here you seem to be halfway to your goal. Unfortunately it still makes you a spammer, but I don't think you can avoid that if you want to "share with the whole world". --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Spam is defined as unsolicited commercial messages. I don't see how the wish is commercial. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 12:25, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Because you have a definition different from many/most other people? Spam (electronic) uses a different definition which doesn't restrict spam to commercial spam and in fact includes a section Spam (electronic)#Noncommercial forms and mentions Serdar Argic. (If you don't believe many people don't follow your definition, try spamming your own wish to a bunch of message boards and see how long you last or how effective your argument that it isn't spam because it isn't commercial is.) Nil Einne (talk) 17:09, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

How will you enforce your wish? Even, for example, just in "corporate culture" (see eg. Executive compensation)? It won't work. If you could think up a good way to implement Peace on Earth, and could package it in a catchy way, you could post it on the internet as you have your present wish in its present form, from where it might go viral on those merits without further effort on your part. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:21, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Get an artist to include your message on an atttractive design on a postcard and give the postcards away for free, or some other free gift (eg flower seeds). Be like the Naked Cowboy with the message bodypainted on your skin, and encourage other people to do the same in other countries. Here's a slogan for you: "Naked for peace". Hire sky-writers to write the message in the sky. Pay a farmer to 'write' the message in a large field. Do some amusing and/or spicey 'viral' video with your message that people like. Do something so extraordinary (but harmless) that it gets on tv news. Fly aropund the world in a blimp with that message on the sides. Depends how much money you are able to spend. I think you've got to think about how your wish could be implemented. Just wishing wont achieve what you want. 92.15.1.13 (talk) 19:44, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

One of the best ways to get the whole message over would be to re-write it as a song or even a hymn, and perform it yourself or get others to perform it. 92.15.13.152 (talk) 11:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

December 18

Angels (cont.)

I am continuing from my last question.

By angels, what angels did James Madison mean? By angels, he meant only good angels that continue to serve God, not bad or evil angels like Satan or his demons, right?

So angels don't need to be governed. But angels are being governed. They are being governed by God. God governs angels. Angels have to obey God. But what about that?

So no internal or external checks or controls are necessary on God's government and rule because God is perfect and incapable of wrongdoing. God can govern and rule as an absolute monarch and dictator because of that. The universe doesn't need to be a democracy because of that. Democracy is not necessary for the universe because of that. Is that right? Is that what James Madison meant by that statement? Is that what he believed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.174.63.234 (talk) 07:38, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you over-analyze every metaphor you meet? —Tamfang (talk) 07:45, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

He could also have said "if men were helpful elves", or "if men had pure hearts", without meaning that he actually believed in elves, or actually believed that pumps made of muscle can control our morality. Whatever he meant by the statement, the subject was government, not angels or God, and he didn't mean to indicate any belief about angels or God. 81.131.15.161 (talk) 09:52, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Beings with infallible ethics, which don't exist on the Science Desk but we are allowed to contemplate here. Please don't ask how many can dance on the head of a pin. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 12:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Madison's concern is political, not theological. He isn't trying to make a point about Angels, he's trying to make a point about governments. If you wan't to understand what he meant, read The Federalist Papers, not the Bible. --Jayron32 14:41, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes, when people are arguing over whether the Book of Jonah describes historical events, someone will point out that Jesus referred to the story (just as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth[10]) and go on to assume that Jesus believed it to have been true. This is clearly bad reasoning, because when a person refers to a story, it does not imply that the person believes it to be true. Compare The Great Divorce, where Lewis refers to the story of Alice: And she couldn't make herself smaller?— like Alice, you know. It doesn't mean that Lewis thinks Alice is a historical record. Similarly, you can't reason from Madison's mention of angels to a conclusion that a) Madison believed in angels; b) Madison did not believe in angels; c) Madison believed in angels which are like the ones anyone else believed in; d) Madison believed in angels which are like any angels which really exist. Marnanel (talk) 15:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be what he was saying: we, as self-governors, are imperfect, so we had better give some thought about how best to self-govern our self-government, which we would not need to do if God had given us a host of perfect angels to implement His Divine government of us on Earth. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 15:34, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

do kurds descend from the aryans?

do they? explain how thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.160.183.70 (talk) 19:15, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It's all in self-identification: for a critique of this and other widespread fantasies, see ethnogenesis.--Wetman (talk) 19:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Nobody descends from 'the aryans'. The idea that there is or was an ethnic or racial group of this name is entirely discredited. The term, as it was used in the West, was originally a linguistic rather than 'racial' term in any case. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:49, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

So it's known that Proto-Indo-Iranian was never the language of an ethnic group? Amazing what archaeology can do nowadays. —Tamfang (talk) 19:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Of course it was (probably). That does not mean that we can reliably deduce that there is any genetic relationship between that group and any later group who speak or spoke an Indo-Iranian language, which was what the question was about. --ColinFine (talk) 11:59, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

See History of the Kurdish people for a rather comprehensive take on this, including genetic studies. Like all population studies, it is hard to say whether it makes sense to say one group descended from another group in a linear fashion, and there is considerable fuzziness. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I dunno about a linear fashion, but if you look back far enough everyone (today) is descended from everyone (then), so a trivial answer is yes. —Tamfang (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not true that everyone is descended from everyone. The Inuit are not descended from the French. Different population groups broke off from the "big tree" at different points. You can say that all humans are descended from the same group of Homo Sapiens, because we share common descent, but that doesn't mean that different groups are all descended from one another. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:56, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

MRCA... AnonMoos (talk) 22:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't have any relevance here. We're talking about sub-groups being descended (biologically, culturally, linguistically, whatever) from other sub-groups. Nobody is doubting they're all human. I am not descended from a Pygmy; they are not descended from me. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

148.160.183.70 -- What's known for absolutely certain is that Kurdish is an Indo-European language. Your question is phrased using somewhat old-fashioned terminology, and drags in a lot of additional issues which may not be easy to answer.... AnonMoos (talk) 21:47, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Median PPP income for people in the US and UK

People in America are believed to have on average a higher income than people in the UK, on the other hand the poor in the US seem to be much poorer than the poor in the UK. To what extent is the per capita average income due to the top 10% or 20% of high earners in the US having a far higher income than the top 10% or 20% in the UK? How does the income of the bottom 90% or 80% compare, at a PPP exchange rate? What are the respective median incomes per person for the US and UK? I'm wondering if the incomes of Bill Gates and other high earners distorts the figures. Thanks 92.15.1.13 (talk) 20:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

You might find our article on median income of interest. Very high earners distort the mean significantly in both countries. We really need a distribution graph (say by percentiles) to make a good comparison. (Perhaps we could make a better comparison using this and this)

Some of the "poor" in the UK actually have a higher income from combined benefits than those on the lowest-paid working equivalent, but those on basic benefit here without any "extras" struggle to maintain an acceptable lifestyle (I know, I've tried it!) Our article on Multidimensional Poverty Index does not mention either the USA or the UK, presumably because no-one is actually poor by any absolute standard in either country.

From this article, in the United Kingdom the richest 10% earn 13.8 times the income of the poorest 10%. In the USA, the richest tenth earn 15.9 times as much as the poorest tenth. For the richest and poorest 20%, the corresponding ratios are 7.2 times and 8.4 times. The Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) is 34 for the UK and 45 for the USA. Dbfirs 21:13, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

"An acceptable lifestyle" - what would that be - running a car, having satellite tv, summer holiday in the Med? The idea is you go to work to pay for all that. 92.15.2.0 (talk) 12:57, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I did go to work to pay for all of that. When I was not well enough to work, I lived well below the official "poverty line" for a time (but not actually claiming benefits, just living on savings at around benefit level), and no, I couldn't afford any of those without seriously depleting my hard-earned savings! This did make me wonder how those on basic benefits manage to afford luxuries. Dbfirs 17:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Very high values (outliers) distort the mean, but they don't distort the median. That's why the median is the most appropriate average to use when looking at income distribution. Itsmejudith (talk) 01:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps that's why the first word of the OPs question is "median". 92.15.2.0 (talk) 12:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, and in that context we needed to address the OP's question about whether the incomes of Bill Gates et al. might distort the median. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The Gini coefficient mentioned by Dbfirs might be the most useful for that. It is "a measure of the inequality of a distribution, a value of 0 expressing total equality and a value of 1 maximal inequality." (graph on right). It is a better reflection of the effect of outliers on the distribution than median (or mean). WikiDao ☯ (talk) 12:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ask?

Now that don't ask, don't tell is (finally) over, US service-members are allowed to tell. Is the military allowed to ask? If so, how are they allowed to use that information? Staecker (talk) 23:05, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, depending on the person, but they probably won't. I don't actually get the point of the policy in the first place? What's wrong with homosexuals serving their country? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 23:24, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

I served in the military and see no problem with it at all. I wouldn't care if someone was Little Richard or Rosie O'Donald as long as they did their job. I think a lot of the younger soldiers are more open-minded. Most of the opposition will probably come from the old farts who have been in the service since Jesus was in diapers. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 23:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Probably correct. [11] From the surveys, there's also variance between what branch of the US military and role. Marines have the strongest opposition as do combat arm communities (in both marines and the army) [12] [13] [14]. Several sources have stated that marines are good at following orders so now that the policy is going to be repealed they will honour their orders to work alongside gay and bisexual service people. Nil Einne (talk) 11:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

For the young-uns in the crowd, it used to be that the military would ask, and you'd get kicked out if you said yes. The policy was initiated in 1993 under Bill Clinton, as compromise to allow gay people to serve in the military at all: See Don't_ask,_don't_tell#Origin. While the policy now is viewed as a hindrance to gays serving in the military, it was initially created as a policy to allow homosexuals a greater ability to serve: you wouldn't have people investigating your sexuality. Buddy431 (talk) 23:54, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

But mess-mates would still ask about each other's home lives, as a natural part of getting to know each other. Those with same-sex partners back home would have to either lie about some fictitious other-sex person, or deny they had any relationship at all. Because if they revealed the truth to anyone at all, they risked being discharged. Either way, it was shockingly discriminatory, as there was never any "don't ask, don't tell" policy applying to heterosexuals. And if you think, "that's because there was no need - straight is the norm, gay is the exception", then welcome to the 21st century, where equality is supposed to be the rule. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 01:27, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

For the reasoning used to ban gays from the armed forces under the old policy, see the "Findings" section of the old law: [15]. Remember, a lot has changed in 17 years in society's attitudes toward homosexuals. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:42, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat OT but has anyone heard of any case where when someone in the US military under the old policy was asked about whether they had a partner/girlfriend and said something like 'I'm not telling and you should not ask, pursue or harass me about it again' Nil Einne (talk) 11:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Note that DADT isn't actually really over yet. The law to repeal it has been passed and either signed or will be signed by Obama soon but there is still a process as outlined under the repeal bill before the policy is completely abandoned [16]. It's been suggested that all investigations should be suspended (I'm not sure if this is going to be implemented) but either way I think organisations and people are recommending those affected by the law wait before dropping their guard [17] or start telling (as per the survey linked above or simple common sense, I don't think many service people in the US military are planning a big coming out party, they're just more likely to do what JackofOz suggested, answer honestly when people they trust ask and similar things like carry photos of their partners or family.) Nil Einne (talk) 11:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

OK all, but I'm asking about the "ask" part of the law. All these answers are about the "tell", or just general discussion about DADT. People's opinions about this issue are a dime a dozen in the US... Staecker (talk) 13:05, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

No, not yet. DADT is still in effect and will be after Obama signs the repeal bill, which gives the DoD as much time as it takes to come up with new regulations which must then be approved by the President, Secretary of Defense, and Chair of the Joint Chiefs. The DADT law is repealed 60 days after that. There is nothing to prevent the new regulations from prohibiting asking, telling, or both (perhaps with less substantial penalties than the current law) or even requiring asking and/or telling for that matter. I predict the regulations will be drafted by a resentful 40 year old colonel chosen because although he doesn't have any experience with the subject, he's staffing a three star general's office who had staff who made personnel regulations in the past 10 years. Then I predict the proposed regulations will be approved without substantial amendments by a board of three major-rank military psychiatrists who will make jokes about them in a 45 minute meeting but not propose any changes other than a few grammar corrections. They will seem as arbitrary as any new military regulations, and will be revised at least twice in the next three years. Then everyone will essentially forget about the whole thing. You heard it here first. That will be 0.833 cents, please (a dozenth of a dime.) Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 10:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

We don't have a definitive answer yet. Part of the bill requires the military to devise an outline for implementing the removal of DADT policies, and to if necessary make revisions to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Once that's done, we'll see how things work out. The spirit of the bill, though, is that LGBT soldiers will be treated just like any other soldier, in any branch. Which means there may be formal questions of sexual orientation for spousal benefits (ie. insurance, visitation rights, housing, etc.) asked of every soldier in the near future. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:19, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Travel scanners

I am looking to buy a travel scanner, specifically the hand-wand type that you run over top of a document as opposed to feeding it through. I prefer one that has a memory stick and can scan in several different formats (Jpeg, pdf, etc.) if possible and has a high resolution. I have looked at several brands online, but I am unsure of what constitutes a good scanner. What are some of the best brands available? I need some recommendations. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 23:08, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

This question might be better suited for the Computing Desk. My quick survey of recommendations sites and prices suggests that the DigiTalk HandyScan PS410 (about US$80-90 at major web retailers) has a few more features (which you probably don't need) and sells for a little less than the older VuPoint Magic Wand PDS-ST410-VP model (about US$90-100). However, the product design is so similar I wouldn't rule out the possibility that these are actually identical systems, perhaps with merely a software upgrade. For PDF I'd recommend letting the bundled OCR software try to provide one, as people generally expect copyable text in PDFs. Otherwise you might need a utility to combine .jpg files into .pdf pages, which you should be able to find for free. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 02:50, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The problem with wand scanners is that they tend to be very inaccurate. There have been big leaps in the last 10 years, but the fundamental problem is that it's almost impossible to swipe the wand down (or across) the page while holding it evenly. Even a slight tilt or skewing while you're scanning can make the text or image come out slanted, which makes OCR extremely difficult. Some of those scanners offer little plates or trays you can use to help guide them but, at that point, you might as well take a small scanner with you instead. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I setttled on the Vupoint based on a rather extensive review I read on it the other day. The images I have scanned so far have been perfect. But the main reason I bought it is to scan text from reference books for school and personal projects. I don't intend on converting anything with an OCR program. I'll just print the scans out or just read the material on my computer.

I'm happy to say that I have scanned 20 items and the AA batteries powering it are still going strong. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 21:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

December 19

Historical Latin names for French cities

What were some of the historical Latin names for what are now French cities? The only ones that I know are Lutetia (Paris) and Massilia (Marseille). --75.28.52.27 (talk) 00:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

We have a selection under List of Latin place names in France. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:40, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

"As a large portion of the latter were only created during the Middle Ages, often based on scholarly etiology, this is not to be confused with a list of the actual names modern regions and settlements bore during the classical era." --75.28.52.27 (talk) 00:49, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that sentence mainly refers to other countries listed there (such as Finland, for example). So, how about Category:Roman towns and cities in France?. Or do we need to list them all here? ---Sluzzelin talk 01:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

You can also look at the cities' respective WP articles and see whether they have Latin interwiki links. —Tamfang (talk) 02:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The Latin names of about fifty Gallic cities are listed here. They appear to be the genuine classical names, not later antiquarian coinings. EDIT: There's also an attempt at a complete list of Roman place-names at www.roman-empire.net. They definitely rule out modern Latinizations. FURTHER EDIT: And Latin Wikipedia have a list at Index Urbium Franciae. --Antiquary (talk) 12:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Medieval Latin names are also "genuine", since Latin was still a normal everyday (if perhaps not quite natively spoken) language then. I hope you don't discount medieval names entirely. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

No indeed, I'm more of a medievalist than a classicist and certainly shouldn't have suggested that medieval Latin names are somehow not real. --Antiquary (talk) 22:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

What happens if the U.S. President and Vice President both die and none of the line of succession were born in the United States?

This case presents an anomaly because to become president one must have been born in the United States. 97.125.18.157 (talk) 02:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no stipulation for this because the chances of it happening are ridiculously remote. I'm sure no president would appoint 15 immigrants to his cabinet. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:47, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Actually, anything past the death of the President is ambiguous. The legality of the Line of Succession has not been tested beyond the Vice President, and even THAT caused a bit of a Constitutional Crisis the first time it was invoked, see John_Tyler#.22His_Accidency.22. The hypothetical case you present is so unusual as to likely be impossible. I am not sure there has ever been more than one or two people in the line of succession who were inelligible to be President. There is no way to answer your hypothetical because no one has ever considered the possibility of needing to answer it. --Jayron32 02:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

As a matter of trivia, and not to dispute Jayron's main point, there are at least two people currently alive whose office was fourth in line but who themselves were ineligible to be president: Henry Kissinger (born in Germany) and Madeline Albright (born in Czechoslovakia). --- OtherDave (talk) 03:29, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

At least it might lead Americans to question why they ever had such a law. Does anyone really know why? HiLo48 (talk) 03:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The answer is The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Have I piqued your interest? --Jayron32 03:57, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The founders of the US wanted the President to be someone born in America, to avoid a situation Britain once had with a German on the throne who spoke only limited English , George I of Great Britain. Edison (talk) 04:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

In the early days of America, many natural-born Americans didn't speak a huge amount of English. One of our presidents, Martin Van Buren, was a natural-born American but spoke English as a second language; his native language was Dutch. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

(ec) One theory I've heard is that the revolutionaries were worried that monarchists might someday come to power, and invite some European royal to be president, and that would be the beginning of a monarchist restoration. --Trovatore (talk) 03:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a little more complex than that. In Europe, the place where having an elective head-of-state went disasterously was Poland, where for many years the elected Kings of Poland were basically puppets of foreign states who used Poland as a dumping ground for lesser sons; or as a place to hold proxy wars over competing candidates for the throne. Kings of Poland were rarely Polish after the election of Henry of Valois to be King, and foreign powers frequently used influence in the Sejm to put one candidate or another onto the Throne. The framers of the U.S. Constitution were well aware of these problems. The framers didn't want foreign powers to buy influence in the electoral college and thus end up getting their candidates elected presidency, turning the U.S. into a puppet of whatever foreign state had the power to do so. The requirement that the U.S. president be "Natural Born" of the United States (the ONLY place in U.S. law where such a requirement or stipulation is in force) makes certain that, baring some Manchurian Candidate sort of weirdness, the President would ALWAYS be unambiguously American. (this of course ignores the fact that, we're not even sure what "natural born" even means; especially around the edges). --Jayron32 04:07, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. As a non-American, I've often wondered at the contrast of this policy with "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, etc" But I guess the immigrants could be aspirational for their kids. HiLo48 (talk) 04:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

In my view, this provision, whatever justification it might have had at the time, is by now a blot on the Constitution, and ought to be removed. However the bar to removal is very high — you need a 2/3 majority in both Houses, and then a 3/4 majority of the several states. I think it's a given that for the foreseeable future there will always be at least 13 states against the change.

I don't say "unfortunately" the bar to removal is high, because I think it's a good thing that the Constitution is hard to amend. I would like to see the end of the ban on naturalized citizens becoming president, but it's not a big enough deal that I'd be willing to see the Constitution easily amended. --Trovatore (talk) 00:28, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

By the by, before anyone starts calling my analysis OR, the reference is Federalist No. 19, see this for text. "If more direct examples were wanting, Poland, as a government over local sovereigns, might not improperly be taken notice of. Nor could any proof more striking be given of the calamities flowing from such institutions. Equally unfit for self-government and self-defense, it has long been at the mercy of its powerful neighbors; who have lately had the mercy to disburden it of one third of its people and territories." That is but one example; negative references to Poland are littered throughout the Papers (#14, #39) and universally used as a "bad example" of a Republic done "wrong". --Jayron32 04:24, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

You don't have to be born in America to be US president, you have to be native-born American. The problem with Henry Kissinger (born in Germany) and Madeline Albright (born in Czechoslovakia) is not where they were born, but that they naturalized American. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.1.122.74 (talk) 14:07, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

This is something that has never been tested in court, because a situation has never arisen where a person born out of the USA has been elected president. It's what Jayron was alluding referring to with "not even sure what "natural born" even means; especially around the edges". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 16:10, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I suppose Jayron meant that "natural born" can be "born in American soil" or "born from American parents abroad". The doubt lies here. Kissinger and Albright are by both definitions non-native born.212.169.190.189 (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. General opinion seems to be towards the "born from American parents" interpretation - or at least "born of parents at least one of whom is an American citizen" (which means the child could be born abroad, without damaging their chance of becoming president). The "natural born" requirement isn't generally thought to be as restrictive as meaning the person must be born on US soil. That would exclude John McEnroe, for example; but he's OK - phew! - because although born in West Germany, his parents were American citizens, hence so is he. I mean, the very idea that my long-held dreams for a President McEnroe might be dashed constitutionally - you cannot be serious!  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:50, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. See here for the actual Constitutional wording on the requirements to serve as US President. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:59, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

McCain was not elected President, but I'll bet if he had been, there'd have been attempts to have him declared ineligible. Just as there's that racist campaign to get rid of Obama on the spurious grounds that he was "born in Kenya". It's been proven beyond doubt that he was born in Hawaii, but even if he had been born in Kenya, he was still an American citizen at birth through one of his parents, so he's OK anyway. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:08, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

See John_McCain_presidential_campaign,_2008#Eligibility. Corvus cornix_talk 21:51, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

They would go down the list until they got to someone who both was not dead (or otherwise incapable of executing the office) and was not Constitutionally ineligible to serve as US President. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Stock Market Database

I am looking for a detailed stock market database of a select few stocks (say S&P500) over a period greater than six months. I had found one that provided daily information for a period of a year for S&P500, but I would like something with a few more data points for each day. Does anyone know of such a thing (hopefully for free)? 24.125.65.172 (talk) 06:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

One you could use is: http://finance.yahoo.com/ Hope that helps! Gabbe (talk) 07:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Yahoo Finance has open/high/low/close on a daily basis, e.g. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=^GSPC+Historical+Prices There is a "Download to Spreadsheet" link at the bottom of the page. I'm guessing you're not going to find a free historical quotes service with hourly data. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 07:45, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

These databases exist, but you probably won't find tick-by-tick prices for free online. If you are a college student, your library might have a Bloomberg Terminal, where you might be able to access such data. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:00, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

when the deserters came home from Canada

I was drafted, and everywhere I went are talked to about letting bygones be bygones for the deserters, it seem common knowledge that some where subsidize up to $10,000 to relocate. I never saw andthing on the common myths of Vietnam about. I still think it happend — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eastexas (talk • contribs) 07:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Not entirely sure what your question is, but ca. 1977 Gerald Ford amnestied some Vietnam draft evaders, and then a little later Jimmy Carter pardoned all of them... AnonMoos (talk) 08:57, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of anybody paying draft dodgers to return to the U.S. Why would they? Clarityfiend (talk) 14:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I thought the OP was saying the opposite - that people were paid to move out of the US. The only thing reasonably close to this (and I know completely nothing about it, it's something I heard sometime, somewhere and could be completely wrong) is that people get subsidies to move to Alaska. TomorrowTime (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of subsidies to move to Alaska. What might have given you that impression is that in many years, Alaska's vast oil revenues have allowed it to pay residents a dividend, or a kind of negative tax. I've been following news and politics in the United States since the time of Presidents Ford and Carter, and while I remember the amnesties, I am certain no bonus offered to draft resisters who returned to the United States. Such a thing would have caused (and I think would still cause) a political outrage. Marco polo (talk) 17:08, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

So, you've never seen anything discussing this phenomenon, yet you believe it happened? Why? o.O — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

HOW FAR AND HOW FAST CAN A HORSE TRAVEL?

How far and how fast can a horse travel? (while carrying a human)

I have been trying to find out about this by searching on the net, also here on wikipedia, using searchwords such as 'horse', 'travel' and even 'transport' and followed relevant links as I have come across them, and I have also tried to look into the history of horse and travel since travelling is more relevant to earlier history. But I have met with little success so far.

What i need to know is how far a horse can travel over relatively short time, such as over 1 day... AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY how far a horse can travel each day/in total over several weeks, riding everyday.

Horse-travel was very important in medieval europe, and I know europeans who went on the crusades or pilgrimages to the holy land spent a very long time, travelling, just to mention an example of long journeys on horse. Poor those who undertook this journey without horse :O

If someone knows of somewhere i can find some info on this, I would appreciate if you'd be willing to link me to the site(s) so I can do some self-educating. Or if someone personally possesses some knowledge on the subject, please enlighten me :D

thnx

Krikkert7 (talk) 15:46, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

This link suggests up to sixty miles plus, but twenty to thirty more realistic - http://www.wwwestra.com/horses/history_travel.htm. Exxolon (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing you need this for a story? In that case, one bit of info that might be important is, what kind of lands is the traveler riding through? I imagine a horse rider can move much faster through lands that are predominantly flatland steppes than through lands that are hilly or forested. There are also many different types of horses, some fast and quick to deplete in energy (those would do well for the how far in a day challenge), others not so fast but able to go on day after day (more preferable for long travel). And one last thing - you seem to think that horses were practically ubiquitous in Medieval Europe, but that's far from the truth, and I think most travel (no matter how long) was in fact actually done on foot. The vast majority of people who weren't nobility could not afford horses and when these people went somewhere, it was on foot. Likewise, most armies were largely infantry - this goes for the Crusades as well, since you mention them. (BTW, it's easier to add new sections by using the "new section" button on the top of the page - you seem to be editing the whole page or the last message to do it.) TomorrowTime (talk) 16:14, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Tomorrow Time is quite right that horseback travel was a luxury. No horse can travel 60 miles a day for more than one day at a time, and I think few horses could manage 60 miles in a day while carrying any kind of a burden. Typically when nobles traveled on horseback, they were accompanied by attendants or footsoldiers traveling on foot. There would not be much point in their traveling ahead, because if a horse is carrying a rider day after day, it will not be able to travel much farther each day than a person walking on foot, that is, 20-30 miles (usually closer to 20 on terrain that is not flat and easy, perhaps only 12 miles in steep, mountainous terrain). Marco polo (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

A quarter horse with rider, when pushed to the limit, can travel 200 miles in a 24 hour period, but it might not be in very good shape after that. On a decent road or well trodden paths with abundant water and grass in summer, 50 miles per day is a reasonable sustained pace on horseback for even an unconditioned pleasure breed. That only amounts to a fast walk for 12 hours per day. If you know the terrain and it's flat, well maintained, with water, grass, and good weather during the spring or fall, and no lengthy steep inclines, 80 miles per day is a possibility for at least several days on a healthy pack horse, but you had better know how to ride a trot, because otherwise your butt and the horse's back will be sore. For the crusades you need to figure the foot soldiers, so I agree don't expect more than 20 miles per day. On unfamiliar terrain, finding fresh water is usually the most difficult problem, and might send you several miles out of your way at a time. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 10:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This question came up on the Miscellaneous desk a couple of months ago, and got a pretty extensive response; see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 September 29#Travel by horse. A search of the archive will also lead to several earlier discussions of the question. Looie496 (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm perfectly aware that it was not just anyone that owned a horse. That was usually a luxury of the higher social classes. I'm not sure why you think I believe otherwise, but I appreciate your answers :) I will have a look at the links you have given me and see what I can get out of them. :) I did once hear from somewhere that 20-30 miles is about right and now several of you say that too, so having failed on my own to find a reliable source my idea was exactly this, to get a general idea from listening to several people's opinion on the matter. So your answers are very helpful.

Krikkert7 (talk) 18:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

See Poul Anderson's On Thud and Blunder, which discusses, among other things, the air speed velocity durability and speed of equestrian travel. Corvus cornix_talk 21:57, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

What would a medieval peasant do during winter and off-season?

In high medieval europe, peasants would harvest his crops in... I don't know, september, or maybe even October ? depending on the climate of the region of course.

But then, what would they be doing during winter? Surely they would not sit and do nothing... they might have had livestock and such that meant they would still have their hands full, but I have always thought of them as simple farmers, unsure what they would be doing outside of season.

But maybe I'm wrong to think them only farmers...

Krikkert7 (talk) 16:10, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, this guy wrote a grammar book called "Articae horulae succisivae" meaning (if I'm not mistaken) "The Long Winter Hours", intending people to spend the winters to learn to read and write. Other than that, people just spent winter working on non-season-related crafts and products. TomorrowTime (talk) 16:23, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

There is always work to be done on a farm. There is a lot to farming beyond simply planting, tending and harvesting crops. Equipment and structures like fences, sheds and what not need repairs which might go untended to during the busy harvest season. It is also pretty cold in most of Europe during the winter and keeping warm is a big job for a subsistence farmer, I imagine a lot of time would be spent collecting wood, peat or coal for fires. In general though I would imagine that the overall activity level would decrease a bit depending on the location. Modern society is pretty focused on constant activity (or at least the simulation of activity through media), but I don't think this is always the case. I once saw a documentary about the Kombai hunter gather people. When they didn't have anything to do like building houses or getting food, they just sat around and did nothing, much to the consternation of the Westerners who came to live with them. I wouldn't be shocked if a medieval peasant spent a fair amount of time winter time just sitting around trying to stay warm. --Leivick (talk) 16:29, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Daniel. I have read that tribal peoples in far eastern Siberia (east of Manchuria) spent almost half of their working hours in a typical year cutting and otherwise preparing wood to burn through the winter. Of course, the climate of most of Europe is warmer than that of far eastern Siberia, but still, especially north of the Alps and Pyrenees, heating is a serious necessity, and throughout the continent fuel is needed for cooking year-round. Therefore, a major winter activity was felling trees (by hand, of course), sawing trunks and limbs, and splitting cut wood with axes. Cut wood would also have to be hauled from the forest to the village. Along coasts and rivers, fishing could be an important winter activity. Women would have been busy with their usual household chores, so much more time consuming in an age without appliances or fossil fuels. In the time that they saved from not having to do their outdoor growing-season work, women would have knit and perhaps woven cloth and sewn clothing. In some parts of Europe during the high Middle Ages, such as Flanders and parts of Italy, cloth production was a major source of income. Women also spent time on food-processing crafts, such as brewing, or salting or smoking meat from slaughtered animals. Marco polo (talk) 16:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Just a minor comment - unless you fell dead trees, wood first needs to be dried before it can be used as firewood. You can't just cut down a tree and burn the wood the next day. TomorrowTime (talk) 17:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I've done that many times on bonfires. Green wood certainly burns, but does not give out as much heat as dried wood. 92.15.13.152 (talk) 11:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm aware of that but left that detail out. Wood was actually cut for use the following winter. The wood being burned had been cut the previous winter. Marco polo (talk) 23:05, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes during non-harvest seasons they were away on military campaigns. The majority of people in a medieval army weren't professional soldiers, and when they felt like they had been away from home long enough, or campaigning had carried over into planting or harvesting seasons, they sometimes just quit and went back to their farms. (The people I am thinking of may not be literal "peasants", though, probably more like free landholders who had to oversee their farms and their own peasants.) But, as always, the question depends on where and when. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Weren't there very few winter campaigns in medieval warfare?--Wetman (talk) 13:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that's more of a summer thing, before the harvest. But it happened sometimes. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Tell each other a folktale or even folktales, weave cloth, do crafts, drink beer, make babies. They probably made all their own clothes, furniture etc unlike nowadays so were kept busy. 92.15.26.152 (talk) 21:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Additionally, as days are short in winter and candles may have not been particularly cheap for an average peasant family, many peasants probably just went to bed early. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Rushlights were used in Britain. It must have been really difficult to stay warm, even in bed, since the only fabrics available were expensive wool or linen. The winter nights of northern europe are far longer than those of the US I think. 92.15.13.152 (talk) 11:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I remember reading a translated diary written by a literate well-to-do German peasant - cannot remember his name. The must be other mediaeval literature that could tell you of their lifestyle - Chaucer or Grimm's Fairy Tales perhaps. Medieval People by Eileen Power is freely downloadable here http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13144 but the literature concerning that time underepresents the common peasant. 92.15.13.152 (talk) 11:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

King Lear

Hey guys, I'm reading King Lear and I had a question. When Regan and Goneril forbid their subordinates to help Lear after he storms out into the templates when they do not permit him to keep his 100 knights, Gloster helps him anyway. But why did they punish Gloster by plucking out his eyes? That seems a bit extreme. Perhaps I interpreted it wrong, but it seems to me that Regan and Goneril do not hate their father, but are exasperated by his senile excesses, and wanted to teach him a lesson through "tough love". I would think a lesser punishment would be more suitable; am I misinterpreting anything. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 16:36, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you have figured out the answer yourself. The real question is why you don't want to accept it. Looie496 (talk) 17:48, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget that the blinding of Gloster is not done so much to punish him for his concern for Lear, but for treason. Edmund steals the incriminating letter from France from his father's closet and gives it to Cornwall - Cornwall, already angry with Gloster for supporting Lear and intent on reprisals ("I will have my revenge ere I depart this house"), falls into a rage, sends to alert Albany of the French invasion and brands Gloster a traitor. Regan and Goneril's charming suggestions of hanging and blinding are made in response to this outburst. Karenjc 20:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

King Lear revisited

OK, me again. I think I misunderstood the characters of Goneril and Regan, probably due to cultural differences between Shakespeare's time and ours (and due to me reading the play rather than watching it; I'll see it later this month). I was on their side until the end when they competed for Edmund's love and plotted to kill people, because their arguments that Lear is old and senile and should not hold too much power lest he use it rashly seemed perfectly correct in the beginning considering his actions. I also thought they were correct in saying he did not need 100 knights and servants always following him around. During the storm Lear chooses to go, he is not forced out, because he is not allowed his 100 knights. My question is, how would this have been perceived in Shakespeare's time, and what aspects of the play might I not be getting? Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 19:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried reading the Wikipedia article on King Lear? It is pretty comprehensive and has some of the more common interpretations and analyses. --Jayron32 19:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Expensive holidays for UK delinquents

In the past years there were several news stories about young criminals being taken on expensive holidays (="vacations" in US english) at taxpayers expense in far flung exotic locations with luxury accommodation.

Is there any evidence that these holidays have actually turned the young criminals into responsible members of society or not? Thanks 92.29.120.249 (talk) 19:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a link to one of these stories? It is hard to answer without some sort of reference point to go by. --Jayron32 19:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I have never seen such stories. I have seen stories of taking inner city children who had never had a holiday, and who also were at risk of dropping out of education, on holidays to farms, and that these had a very positive effect. Also of young offenders institutes that used to take their children on holidays to farms, again to give them some contact with that natural world and achievable chores with visible effects, but they had to cancel them because idiot journalists spun them as 'luxury holidays for criminals', and idiot readers moaned that children weren't being punished enough for their deprived childhoods. 86.163.0.221 (talk) 21:16, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I've seen stories of kids dying of cancer taken on expensive holidays. Given that the kids die soon after, is that a waste of money? HiLo48 (talk) 23:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The Make a Wish foundation would certainly say it's not (a waste). The Masked Booby (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Nor would I. HiLo48 (talk) 01:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The juvenile justice system where I live sends delinquent city and suburban kids to a farm maintained by the county for that purpose. It's very effective at cutting recidivism, according to the stats they keep on it. It has cows, pigs, chickens, rabbits, sheep, several kinds of crops, horses, ploughs, and all sorts of special safety harvesting equipment. Oh, and a giant marijuana plantation on neighboring public land the authorities found a few years ago. lol. It was very popular with the delinquents, and a popular return destination for reformed weekend "volunteers" too, until they found the pot plantation. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 10:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

These exotic foriegn holidays tended to be reported by the tabloid press in sensational terms, so its difficult to think up the appropriate words to find them again, and they did take place in the 70s, 80s or 90s. The deliquent would be taken on holiday with a social worker or two going with them. They were not merely to farms but to exotic foriegn locations far away. 92.15.13.152 (talk) 11:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Increasing retirement age in the UK but keeping the rent subsidy for council tenants

Why can the government do the former, but apparantly has to do the latter? If its something to do with contract law, then doesnt the government have an implied (or for civil servants perhaps even an actual) contract with people currently in their 30s, 40s, 50s etc that they will retire (if they want) at the previously established set ages? Not a request for legal advice as I'm not planning on suing Her Majesty's Government.

Second question - how much money would abolishing council tenant rent subsidies save compared with increasing retirement ages? Thanks. 92.29.120.249 (talk) 19:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean "How much money could you save if you created a massive homeless population, which you would then have do deal with the increased crime this would cause?" At some level, the justification for rent subsidies is that it pays for itself in terms of costing less in other parts of society. It's all interconnected, and there's no guarantee that, on the balance, abolishing all rent subsidies would actually save society as a whole any money. --Jayron32 19:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The only effect of ending the rent subsidy would be for those who can afford it paying the market rent. Those who cannot afford it would have it paid for them by benefits as currently. 92.15.26.152 (talk) 21:12, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

To the extent it's relevant, the "minimum retirement age" doesn't actually mean the time you can retire from, but rather the time from which you can start drawing your state pension (and in many cases private pensions). I can't find a source that says the UK government can't end rent subsidies, just a lot of discussion about whether it should. If you can find some, perhaps they will suggest why this might be the case. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 19:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe its not being done because it is thought it would lose votes. 92.15.26.152 (talk) 21:12, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

What I want to know is what can possibly be in it for the Liberal Democrats to keep up this coalition which is being so much crueler to their ideals than Labour was. The logical solution is to institute a banker's tax and more steeply progressive taxes on the very rich, but that's not viable for the Tories. So why aren't the Lib Dems pulling out and handing it all back to Labour? I don't understand that dynamic at all. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 11:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

When the rent subsidy was discussed here in the past I was shocked to learn that it was 50%, which is a hell of a lot of money to take from the taxpayer's pocket. 92.15.13.152 (talk) 12:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Outdoor furnace laws

How would one go about finding out what the laws are as to whether and outdoor furnace is legal in his municipality? Please note I am not looking for the legal advice itself, rather a way that I can find out. Magog the Ogre (talk) 19:36, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Presumably this is covered by the same office in your local municipality where you get building permits to do stuff like add a carport to the side of your house or build a shed. Whatever this body or office is called (zoning board maybe?) would be the place to contact. --Jayron32 19:38, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

If you call City Hall, or perhaps just show up at City Hall, they should at least be able to tell you who to contact in your local area if they can't answer the question right there. APL (talk) 01:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above. In the past, I've had questions about who to contact about various things in my town. Usually a call to the town/city hall will get you answers fairly quickly. You might be forwarded to one department or another a couple times before you land in the right office but it shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes. It may be the zoning board, or it may be some sort of fire official. It just depends on how things are set up in your town. Dismas|^(talk) 01:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Degrees of friendship

Is there a commonly used scale for classifying friendships into different degrees of "closeness"? If so, what are the different degrees of friendship and their associated criteria? Thanks. --173.49.12.76 (talk) 22:38, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Does the article Social network give you a start to research your question? --Jayron32 02:02, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This is so subjective that there is not any recognized scale, but you might these days see kids with a singular "best friend," or multiple "best friends forever" (BFFs), then multiple best friends, good friends, friends and then acquaintances, for example; but again these terms don't have particular agreed-upon meanings other than decided by those using the terms. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 11:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The Ladder theory Royor (talk) 11:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Christian Nihilism

Is there now or has there ever been a school of thought known as Christian Nihilism? If so, what are its basic tenets, and who have been some of its most notable adherents? If not, what are the most likely reasons why not?--99.251.211.17 (talk) 23:31, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I did a google search and found a number of uses of the phrase, but most of them seem to be derogatory, used by some Christians to criticize people they think are not good Christians. I am not finding anyone using that term to describe themselves, as yet. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 23:34, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, Google seems to find plenty of links... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:35, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Google gives some links...for example at American thinker it states:

Christian Nihilism is the Christian principle of non-judgment erased of all laws of God. It harms through injustice and terror. And even worse, it is used to enhance political power or to achieve the nihilist goal of destruction of our entire political system. Like a hostage held by the Symbionese Liberation Army, Christian Nihilism dictates that our culture be raped, beaten, stigmatized, intimidated, robbed, terrorized, marginalized, and silenced so that something better can be created.

While humanism would sit well with Christianity, as it was created by devout christians in the form of Christian humanism, nihilism is an extension of the the notion that God is dead which counters the main notion of Christianity in that Jesus (or some representation of him) lives on somewhere. There is sufficient material to create an article on Christian nihilism if anyone wants (or maybe I will).Smallman12q (talk) 23:52, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, of course there's Kierkegaard, who is even mentioned in the Nihilism article. Looie496 (talk) 01:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but not as an adherent. He was arguing against it. Kierkegaard is often considered a sort of existentialist, in the sense that he sustained a sort of radical freedom, not so much freedom from oppression as freedom of the will, I think. And sometimes existentialism and nihilism merge a little along the borderline. But Kierkegaard himself was not anywhere near the border. --Trovatore (talk) 06:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Many people might say that the Nietzsche-influenced Nazis were nominally Christian but acted as the predominant nihilists of their time. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 11:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You may want to look into some of the radical theologians of the 1960s, such as Thomas J. J. Altizer, Gabriel Vahanian and William Hamilton. I don't think they ever used the term "Christian Nihilism" but their thought comes pretty close to the idea. Altizer is probably the most famous of the group. There's a pretty good interview with him on the "Point of Inquiry" website. You can download it from this page. His basic idea was that, from Nietzsche, "God is dead" but unlike Nietzsche he means this literally (as in, God died, as Jesus, on the cross and is no longer with us). Quoting from the New Gospel of Christian Atheism he writes "We must recognize that the proclamation of the death of God is a Christian confession of faith, and of a uniquely Christian faith in the ultimacy of the Crucifixion. For to know the God who has truly and actually died is to know the God who died in Jesus Christ, and ultimate and absolute death that the Christian knows as the one source of redemption, a redemption that is finally apocalypse itself." I hope this helps. ThemFromSpace 11:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If you really want to understand it, it'd be best to read up on Nietzsche's thoughts on religion. See:Murphy, Tim (2001-10). Nietzsche, metaphor, religion. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791450871. Retrieved 20 December 2010. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help). Hope this helps.Smallman12q (talk) 13:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

December 20

9/11 attacks

People seemed to have been utterly shocked that 9/11 happened; the US started two wars at least partially due to the attacks. Plane hijackings happened all the time, and terrorist attacks happened all the time, so why was it so shocking and unbelievable that a terrorist would one day hijack a plane and crash it into a building? Also, the death toll numbered only several thousand, which pales in comparison to the number of people who die every single day. (Even if we exclude natural causes, Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, the Sichuan earthquake, or even the Afghanistan & Iraq wars caused just as many, or many more, victims.)

I'm sorry if I seem uninformed; although I was born before 9/11, it's one of my earliest childhood memories, so I wouldn't know if people at the time somehow thought a plane couldn't be hijacked and crashed into a building. The few thousand people who died seem insignificant compared to the technological advances, natural disasters, environmental issues, etc. that happened during that time, all of which affected nearly the entire world. --99.237.234.245 (talk) 03:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

"One of your earliest childhood memories"? You write remarkably for, at most, a fifteen-year-old. --Trovatore (talk) 06:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm 13, but thanks for the compliment. I'm not the best writer in my grade, or even in my class; maybe you only notice the 15-year-olds who have awful writing skills because they stand out, whereas those who can write well blend in? --99.237.234.245 (talk) 09:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

See failure of imagination. Basically, while it was certainly possible for terrorists to fly planes into skyscrapers, quite simply, few had thought of it ahead of time, as it had never happened before. Also keep in mind that the U.S. had had very little experience with Islamist terrorism before 9/11. The biggest such attack before 9/11 was the first World Trade Center attack, which killed six people. On 9/11, a lot of people thought This doesn't happen here, just as they did after the JFK assassination in 1963. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed your link. --Anon, 04:48 UTC, December 20/10.

There are two ways to answer this question. One is to look at the actual differences between 9/11 and other hijackings or terrorist attacks. The other is a more impressionist account which will maybe give you more of an idea of what things were like back then at the actual time.

What was gob-stopping about the attacks were their orchestration. The first plane was what we might call the "normal attack." Like Oklahoma City. Like the Madrid bombings (for an American). They were something you heard about after the fact. "Hmm, that's awful." Then, as you were watching, came the second plane. It was clear that it was no minor operation. It was clear that it was no accident. It was Hollywood, but real. It involved plumes of flame coming out of gigantic buildings. It was looking and seeing little things falling out of the windows — people. It was a panic: what would come next? More planes? Then, the Pentagon. One after another after another. In real time. While you were watching. Not something you read about after the fact. A massively coordinated attack. Not just one guy driving up a truck and setting it off. Not just a few radicals hijacking a plane and then forcing it to fly to Cuba. A group of people clearly conducting suicide attacks with airplanes with stunning results. Major landmarks engulfed in flame and smoke. Unknown numbers dead. (We didn't know the death toll on the day itself. It was not uncommon to assume it was in the tens of thousands — the number who were in the Towers on an average morning.)

I was on the other coast. The bomb squad was deployed to my university, pre-emptively. People walked around in a daze. We went to classes and couldn't think of anything to say. What would come next? There was total uncertainty. Total vulnerability. Who was attacking? Why? Would other cities be targeted? I had recurrent dreams for weeks about mushroom clouds rising above San Francisco. Everybody was nervous. There were cops everywhere and guardsmen with guns and Hummers on all the bridges. And yet, everyone was incredibly polite, patient, and empathetic to other people you saw. We were all in this together; we were all hunkering down.

None of that excuses or explains the wars, certainly not from a rational level. It only begins to approximate what might be a formal discussion of how people deal with assimilating threats. Automobiles kill thousands a day, we shrug and accept it as a fact of modern life. But when thousands die at once, for political reasons, with everyone watching, it becomes something else. Something much scarier. We don't feel in control. The wars were, in a very basic sense, an attempt to re-assert and to re-gain control. I wouldn't argue they necessarily did that or were rational means towards that end. Indeed, we've learned that control is a difficult thing to get, and many have argued that the wars resulted in as much of a loss of control and security as they may have gained. That's a separate question from the psychological effect. The reason one feels the way one feels in such situations is not a rational one. It is not something you can reason your way out of very easily.

I didn't know anyone who died; I was thousands of miles away from New York, D.C., or Pennsylvania. But even over there you could feel that something really tremendous had gone on. It was still a major event in my life, and the lives of all of my friends. You woke up one day and suddenly felt completely out of control. I'm not happy with the military response to it, and wasn't happy with it even at the time, but that's a separate issue. --Mr.98 (talk) 04:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that account was extremely interesting. My own experience is as different as it could possibly be. I saw the attacks on TV, but I didn't know that it WAS an attack; I thought it was just an accident. I also didn't see people jumping from buildings, didn't sense any nervousness around me, and didn't see any increased security. I don't remember hearing about the Afghan war, and didn't know the Iraq war was related to this until 5-6 years after 9/11. All of this was mostly because I was 4 at the time, and partly because I was in Toronto, which is in some ways farther from NY than the American west.

I'm curious: to all the Americans here who remember 9/11, did you suspect that it was the beginning of a military attack? I'm guessing you didn't know who the attackers were at the time; who did you hope/fear they were? How many more planes did you think were coming--1? 5? 100? Did you ever feel your own life was in danger? --99.237.234.245 (talk) 04:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm Canadian, from Toronto, but I was in my 40s at the time, so I remember it very well. In fact I'd say it was the worst day of my life. As soon as we knew that multiple planes had been crashed, it was obvious that this was some sort of terrorist attack. Islamic terrorists were the best known at the time and therefore the most likely suspects, but they had never achieved something that big. No terrorist attack ever had. If it was Islamists, then there was no particular reason to expect a military followup; they didn't have the capability to mount it. What was entirely possible was that there would be more terror attacks. A few days after the attack I happened to experience a local power outage and I immediately wondered if it was a terrorist attack (although I correctly guessed that it wasn't). If they'd attack the US, why not Canada? And Toronto is Canada's equivalent of New York...

As to the number of planes involved, remember that air travel in the US was shut down within hours of the attack. It did not seem likely that there were a lot more. That afternoon a co-worked said there were 8 planes involved -- 4 had been crashed and 4 were reported hijacked. I immediately wondered if they had counted the same ones twice and I was right about that.

--Anonymous, 05:02 UTC, December 20/10.

I was 11 at the time, and it was my 2nd day of school. I'm from Connecticut, and I went to school in New Canaan, which is basically across Long Island Sound from New York. We heard about it, and we all immediately realized that some entity was attacking us; I didn't get the impression of a military attack, but some people I spoke to (including a couple of my teachers) did. And as a side note, we took I-95 back that day because the Merritt Parkway was jammed. I-95 is right down by the coast in spots, and we could see the smoke from across Long Island Sound; that's when I knew this was a terrorist attack, because the Twin Towers weren't militarily significant but were a landmark whose destruction would burn itself into people's minds. To me, it was obviously psychological, and no government would order an attack that blatant on the US (if anyone remembers, our standing in the world was significantly better) and seriously expect to get away with it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 07:40, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I was 24 at the time. When I heard of the first plane, it was still just a rumor and I figured a small private plane may have struck the tower. Such things have happened before. I was in college at the time, and just went into a class on film, so we were watching a movie for 2 hours. When I finally got out, the worst of the attack was already over. I was seeing replays of the second strike, and they were just finding the film from the firefighters who happened to catch the first strike while filming a training video. By that point, it was pretty clear this was a terrorist attack, not a military operation. There was some concern that other powers might take advantage of the disruption to attack, but that seemed unlikely with our entire military force on highest alert.

I took the rest of the day off from my classes to watch the news unfold. There was a lot of confusion when it came to the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. And a bit of a panic over a couple planes that weren't properly answering their radio, or which had mistakenly turned on their "hijack" automated signal. I saw the WTC7 building collapse live on TV.

The sad thing is, when I found out it was real, my first reaction was to think, "It finally happened." See, Stephen King had written a story back in 1982 called The Running Man. At the climax of the story, the protagonist flies a plane into the skyscraper that houses the company that's trying to kill him. Ever since I had read that story, I wondered when someone would actually try it. But the sheer scale of the attacks was staggering. I expected that some day someone might fly one plane into a building. But four was just astounding. I don't think I'd ever heard of multiple planes even being hijacked simultaneously like that. No one was prepared for what happened, because the normal hijackings we'd seen all involved the hijackers forcing the plane to land, or trying to fly it out of the country. This... this was just unprecedented.

For several days, I was still worried about regular bombings or other terrorist attacks. With the airlines grounded, a repeat attack wasn't possible, but a car bomb or suicide bomber was still a possibility. Luckily, nothing else happened. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

As to why the attacks were not anticipated: well, in principle they were. It had been reported that Islamic terrorists had planned to crash a plane into the Eiffel Tower, and (as mentioned in another thread above) Tom Clancy had written a novel featuring an airliner crashed deliberately into the Congress building. But people anticipate all sorts of unlikely scenarios without expecting them to happen. It was peacetime, a time to relax after the Cold War; it was the strongest country in the world; the attack was intricately planned (coordinated simultaneous hijackings) in a way that previous terror attacks had generally not been; and it involved a weapon never actually used before. There was plenty of reason to be surprised. --Anonymous, 05:08 UTC, December 20/10.

I'm an American living in Italy. As I numbly watched on my television screen the planes crashing into the Towers, I realised that hundreds of people, like myself, had just ceased to exist as they were instantly consumed in balls of fire that appeared mesmerisingly diabolical to my unbelieving eyes. My mind also registered that it was the dawning of a new, bleak, and frightening era. Mankind, on 11 September 2001, had passed the point of no return.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps not all of mankind, but at least Americans. It was certainly a wake-up call for a lot of them. HiLo48 (talk) 07:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

11 September was not an attack against America, it was an attack against everybody. The USA just happened to be targeted that day. We are all potential targets. The new millenium began the instant the first plane entered the North Tower heralding the violence and bloodshed which has been spreading like an ugly red stain all over the globe since.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's not that bad. Vastly more people were killed in World War I, for example. This seems like the dawn of a new era or whatever because we're living in it, but in the grand scheme of history it's not that big of a deal, at least in terms of bloodshed. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect a lot of folks elsewhere who have experienced repeated war on their own soil before didn't see it as quite that extreme. If you are referring to what some would describe as the American administration's military overreaction to the attacks, that's yet another slant. HiLo48 (talk) 08:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

In most terrorist attacks before that, the terrorists tried hard to save their own lives, except maybe one person at a time in Israel that was clearly confused or absolutely desperate. This was the first time that a large number of people agreed to end their own lives in order to achieve a terrorist act. It is a small aspect of the psychological impact, but it changed the game for anti-terrorist measures, because it meant that they can acheive much more, being close to or inside the device they use. It also calls for pre-emptive action, because you can't punish them after the events. --85.119.27.27 (talk) 08:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The use of planes full of people to crash into buildings full of people forever changed the dynamics of international terrorism. There's no safety anywhere. Terrorists can attack a train, crash an airliner into one's workplace or neighbourhood, blow up discoteques and hotels. An innocent shopping trip downtown can end up with a person's body parts being shovelled from the main street.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow Jeanne, your description is extremely vivid. It certainly doesn't feel like a new era to me, perhaps because I have no memory of the "old era", but wasn't the Cold War much more terrifying? I don't find it worrying that terrorists might bomb the subway I'm taking--I'm much more likely to die crossing the street anyways--but I would be terrified if a superpower could destroy civilization at a moment's notice. How about events like the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Rwandan genocide, or the genocidal war fought in Europe in the 1990's? --99.237.234.245 (talk) 09:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

People who lived through the Kennedy Assassination and the Vietnam War say that they weren't too shocked by 9/11, because they had a thicker skin. (That's what my parents told me.) I, however, was only 21 on 9/11. So, I was incredibly shocked and outraged by those events. I began to see the world in a very hostile light. The behavior of some countries (like Germany) leading up the war in Iraq only re-inforced my view of the world as full of enemies of the United States.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 10:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I do think there was a different reaction from people more used to terrorism than Americans are (or were) - I'm British, and pIRA terrorism was a regular feature of the news as I grew up. Actually watching the events live on TV was horrible, an editor above described the realisation that the tiny specks falling from the towers were people - that was the moment it changed from watching some surreal nightmare into something much more real and much more disturbing. A few days later, as I recall, I had a long chat in the pub with a Spanish chap about the American reaction that we had seen or heard. I think we both felt - as people who had grown up with the reality of pIRA and ETA attacks in our own countries that some Americans seemed to have been living in a kind of dream, insulated from the realities of terrorism. That's not intended as any kind of criticism (though I could go off on a long one about NORAID and American funding of pIRA terrorism), just that for people who have grown up with the constant knowledge that we are potential targets, it was hard for us to understand the feelings and reactions of people who have lived safe from such threats for such a long time and then been struck by such a massive attack. DuncanHill (talk) 10:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, German was the first nation to offer condolences and aid to the US after the attacks. It was only when we went to war with Afghanistan (and later Iraq) that they took a more critical stance. They certainly don't deserve to be called "enemies." — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

9/11 was shocking to me for the following reasons:

1. They blew a huge hole in the Pentagon, killing a general and 124 others. Our military headquarters apparently didn't have anti-aircraft defenses??
2. The savagery of the events was deeply disturbing. People were burning to death on TV and then committed suicide by jumping out of the buildings. Flight attendants had their throats slit with box cutters on the flights. To top it all off, these were all innocent people. They didn't do anything to the terrorists.
3. The passengers on board one of the flights fought back upon hearing it was a suicide mission. It was deeply moving to me when I heard of their bravery.
4. Palestinians rejoiced in the streets upon hearing about the attacks. It shocked me because I realized that they were incredibly evil people who hated us for no valid reason whatsoever.
5. They almost destroyed our Capitol building. That is the most important building, symbolically, in Washington D.C.

The reason it didn't shock you was because you were too young to understand how unusual these events were. If you were older, you would have been shocked. There were large-scale terrorist attacks when I was young (like the Oklahoma City bombing), but I didn't care, and I don't think about that attack today often.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 10:02, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm still shocked when I see my fellow Americans unable to understand why the Palestinians celebrated. There is no question that the US support for Israel makes us seem at least as evil to them. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 11:36, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a fascinating discussion. Not for the obvious responses of those who were alive at the time, and who understood the significance of the event at the time... but for the question. I'm old enough for 9/11 to have been a distinct event that I understood the significance of as soon as it was clear it wasn't an accident... or understand the wider implications... but young enough to have never seen Kennedy's assassination, or even remember the Challenger disaster.

If you weren't alive on that day, or weren't old enough to appreciate it's significance... please don't denigrate the very real and very accurate reactions of the people that were either there, or watching. It was an incredible tragedy and a world event. I received a call from a friend telling me to turn on the TV... and at the point the second tower was hit it was painfully clear to me, and everybody else I talked to at the time, that it wasn't an accident. The second tower was the very clear indication that this was something different. Shadowjams (talk) 10:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm British, and only discovered what was happening when I came back home with my kids at 3pm local time (10am New York time) and they turned on the TV. My older daughter, now 19, vividly recalls the moment, and me saying: "This is important, and will be one of those things you will always remember when you're older". Aside from horror at what was happening to all those poor people, some reactions here were more complex. Rightly or wrongly, along with the undoubted outrage and sympathy there was also curiosity as to whether, for example, American attitudes to issues like the Provisional IRA and the Northern Ireland Peace Process would alter now that the US had seen its own innocent citizens terrorized and murdered on a large scale by fanatics with a political agenda. There was also unease about how intelligent and effective the US response would be now they had been awakened with a vengeance, and I have to say that concern has been borne out, to a degree - for example, the ongoing throwaway characterisation of opponents as "incredibly evil people who hate us for no valid reason whatsoever". I suspect any country that experienced dreadful events like 9/11 would see it in black and white as "the point of no return" and "an attack against everybody", but in truth I think non-Americans see it more as a natural progression on what had gone before. The world gets smaller, information travels further and faster, and dangerous, angry people have more opportunities to do greater and greater damage in the name of whatever Big Truth obsesses them. Suicide bombing was nothing new in 2001; the September 11 perpetrators just thought bigger than any previous ones had done, and got lucky that their unfortunate victims did not see them coming. The globe was already stained bright red by violence and bloodshed before 2001, and in plenty of countries the inhabitants had understood for years that a trip to the shopping mall might possibly end in a body bag courtesy of someone seeking to right a perceived wrong by butchering his neighbours. It's just that such events were not plastered all over Western media, and did not fundamentally affect the way we live our lives in our own countries as 9/11 and its aftermath have done. Perhaps that's the most crucial difference. Karenjc 11:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I was in my second last year of high school in Australia and remember seeing it on the morning news. At first I thought the images related to a new movie. When the full story unfolded, I think I agree with Karenjc's view - that while the event was shocking, and it would have been unimaginable had it happened in Australia, it did not strike me as particularly surprising to have occurred in the US. It seemed like the culmination of a natural progression resulting from American foreign policy (in a loose sense - not just deciding who to side with or which countries to invade, but the sort of general international attitude). Given the increasing scale of attacks on either side - including the embassy bombings just a couple of years earlier, it seemed like a reasonably natural development. Plus, I had some memory of attacks of comparable magnitude in the US, like the Oklahoma bombings. Although this was bigger, it was not so much bigger as to be truly unimaginable. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Time to reread Eric Hoffer's The True Believer. Bus stop (talk) 12:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You do write really well for a 13-year-old, 99.237.234.245. As to your question "why was it so shocking and unbelievable that a terrorist would one day hijack a plane and crash it into a building?", what do you think the reaction to something happening on the same scale now would be? How do you think you personally would react to something like that if it happened now? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 12:17, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I remember reading in the 1980s reading about disaster exercises that were conducted in London; the scenario was that an 747 had crashed into Kings Cross Station - London's biggest transport hub. But it doesn't matter how well you prepare for things, you can't protect yourself against every conceivable threat. Alansplodge (talk) 12:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't shocked that something like that could be done, but was shocked to see it happening anyway. I had been living in New York City and only just moved to Seattle a few months before 9/11. I had lots of friends in the city, some living or working quite close to the towers. I had been to the top of them more times than I can count, and had seen them basically every day for years. I first heard about the attack while driving home after dropping my wife off at the airport for a flight. As it turned out, she boarded the plane but it never took off. And no one I knew in New York was killed--although some people I know knew people who were. And some of my NYC friends spent the day staring out their apartment windows, watching the smoke and then the collapsing towers. Others were caught in the dust clouds and chaos. So... no, it's not like I once believed something like that could not be done, rather it was shock over seeing a place I knew so well destroyed like that, coupled with concern for friends who could have been affected. These days, the image that comes to mind most often is, strangely, the atrium with the palm trees in it near the base of the towers. I had been in there so many times and seen music recitals there, and randomly wandered into orchid shows and all kinds of odd things. It was a beautiful place that meant a lot to me--so seeing photos of it in ruins was powerful. Later I visited the city and ground zero. The atrium had been repaired, but there used to be a pedestrian walkway bridge from it to the towers, and the place that used to be the entrance to the walkway was just a large window with a view toward the utter destruction of ground zero--a giant hole where once there had been giant towers. Anyway, I definitely understand why the towers were targeted. What other pair of buildings could be destroyed like that and cause as much shock to as many people? Also, in response to some other comments in this thread--it did not surprise me that "something like that could happen in the US". Nor was it hard to understand why some people would do such a thing. I did worry that day that my government's reaction would be overblown knee-jerk vengeance. And as it turned out my government's reaction was even more blindly vengeful than I feared. The best thing for me was that just a week afterward my wife and I took a long-planned week long road trip through the wilds of British Columbia, camping in the forests far from any news source. Thanks to that, we managed to *stop* thinking about 9/11 within a couple weeks. Pfly (talk) 13:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I marvel that many Europeans here presume that my American citizenship has blinded me from the threat of terrorism which has plagued the earth for many decades now. I lived for many years in Ireland during the bloody and tense conflict known as the Troubles. I experienced many bomb scares in Dublin's city centre; in fact, I worked in Talbot Street, site of a UVF car bomb which killed and maimed many people-mostly women-only a few years previously. Had the same group decided to do a repeat performance when I worked there, I could have been killed and my American passport and accent would have done nothing to protect me. I have often visited Northern Ireland, including the harrowing bomb site in Lower Market Street in Omagh where a lovely teenaged lad was killed (among 30 other innocent shoppers) in 1998. I happened to be at the Tower of London on 5 September 1975 when there was a bomb warning. It turned out to have been a hoax; however, the one miles away outside the Hilton was not. I was lucky not to have been blasted apart by an IRA bomb at the age of 17, with the British papers showing my photo and commenting on the irony of how my paternal grandparents had been Irish. In early 1982, my Dublin boyfriend and I took a long walk from Dundalk to Newry on the main A1 road, which had been detoured due to a bomb scare. We had tarried a while at the picturesque Ravensdale Woods, not far from the spot where Captain Robert Nairac had been tortured and killed. Anthony and I were lucky not to have been abducted by roving members of the Glenanne gang, who operated in that area. Luck. It's the only shield one has against the shrapnel, flames, and powerful blast waves of the terrorists' bombs. Yes, I am American. One who has never been blinded to the reality of the violent world we live in. Not since the Sunday morning of 24 November 1963 when I watched Jack Ruby step forward to fire a pistol into the stomach of Lee Harvey Oswald. The 11 September attacks was not the advent of terrorism, it just brought more people into the line of fire.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I want to suggest again that a "failure of imagination" is a rational way to talk about an emotional blindside. We can all say, "Oh, sure, terrorists might set of a nuclear bomb someday in the future." But we never think that day will be today, and we never really can guess how we'll feel about it. Even more mundane things catch one off guard. I had a cat which I really only half-way liked. One day he was hit by a car. I had of course imagined previously what it would be like to experience the loss of this cat. I never would have, or could have, imagined the shock, trauma, and grief that came on the day it actually occurred. It was really horrible and for weeks it completely laid me low. It was a hollowness and a depression, it was a perfect description of the traumatic event, I had nightmares about it for months, and so on. I'm not a terribly sentimental person, but it really hit me. I bring this up as an analogy between anticipation and reality. Emotional things are disconnected from logical things in ways we often can't anticipate, even if we try to. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I know what you mean. When Nodar Kumaritashvili died during a practice run hours before the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, I was crushed, much more so than I was on 9-11. I'm 30 now, 21 back then, but the whole immediacy and local nature of each tragedy made each feel different. I live in Vancouver, and the anticipation for 8 years of us getting the games, after much debate and protest, finally making it work. Boom, guy dies. It was crushing.

On the other hand, the US had a bad rep foreign rep, even then, with bombing the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory. Was an attack a complete surprise to me? No. Was that particular method and location? Yes. But to me it most certainly did not feel like an "attack on all of us" or a war against the West. It was an attack on the US. Later attacks in London were against American allies, not the UK in particular, since Blair was a major Bush supporter. Aaronite (talk) 18:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Coupled with the personal loss of your cat, knowing that it was gone forver from your life was also the harsh concept of the sudden brutality and indiscrimnate manner of death. A chain of events leading to the cat's decision to cross the road at the fateful moment a car was traveling along-and in a flash the cat ceased to exist when seconds before it had been sentient. Same with the victims of a terrorist bomb. An impulse to walk down a certain street, pass the wrong car the moment the timer goes off, and all the hopes, dreams, thoughts, feelings, memories they ever had are forver blasted out of their minds. To be replaced by nothingness.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:25, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget that there was a briefing document which not only named Bin Laden specifically as a potential threat, but even suggested ways in which he might attack the United States. It wasn't failure of imagination, it was just lack of preparedness. Corvus cornix_talk 20:52, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It might be difficult for a young person who has lived most of his life in the post-9/11 world to understand how different the mindset was before the attacks. I remember visiting the Capitol when in high school. You walked through a metal detector, put on a name tag that read, "VISITOR," and then you were free to explore (with members' areas off-limits, of course). I was walking around the corridors trying to find the rotunda when a security guard approached. He said, "You want to see the rotunda? Follow me." He led me through a side door, said, "Here you go," and left. The rotunda was completely empty -- it had already closed. For 15 minutes, I was all alone under the dome with all the statues and paintings. Finally, another guard stopped in and said, "Um, you know this is closed, right?" after which I apologized and left. Could you imagine them letting a nameless civilian walk around the rotunda by himself today? They might shoot him on sight. The last time I visited Washington, the Capitol looked like a fortified military compound, blocked off by concrete barriers. It was very sad to see. Back in the pre-9/11 era, Americans simply didn't think about terrorism that much. Sure, there had been the first WTC attack, and the embassy and USS Cole bombings, and some media had reported about this Saudi billionaire named bin Laden who wanted to attack America. But terrorism was something that happened in other countries. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:50, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

One more pair of thoughts from me. A lot of the "lack of imagination" discussion seems to be talking about policymakers rather than "the people." There are some people in our government (and elsewhere) who spend all day long thinking about obscure and potentially unlikely military threats to the country. They consider lots of possible enemies and make a job out of being worried about things that could happen far in the future. Some of these people certainly did think that extremist attacks on US soil would continue; some of them even thought that airline security might be a weak point. None of that matters when discussing the popular effects of such things. The grand majority of the people at any given time are not worried about such things. There is a huge difference in talking about whether the government analyst was unprepared for such an event and whether the "man on the street" was. They are apples and oranges.

The other thought. 9/11 was different from Oklahoma City (at least my experience of it) because 9/11 felt like the beginning of lots of attacks. It felt like the work of an organization, not a lone nut. It felt like a Pearl Harbor before a war. It didn't feel like the end product of a series of events, but the beginning of more events. That is, I think, what a lot of people mean when they say they felt like they were "at war". Oklahoma City was a tragedy, but it didn't feel like a beginning. Now, as it turns out, the "war" was rather understated. Whether this is because of US intervention in the Middle East or not is something future historians will no doubt argue over. (Another way to put it is that American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan channeled a lot of violence into those regions, to the benefit of the mainland US, which got by with almost no serious terrorist violence afterwards.) But in terms of understanding the mindset of the times, I don't think it was uncommon for people to wonder if this wasn't going to become the "new normal," the "way we live now." It didn't, thank goodness, though in trying to guarantee that we ended up creating far more violence for far more people, in the long run, but that's no new story... --Mr.98 (talk) 00:23, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

How many prisoners are atheist?

Ricky Gervais claims here that ... "75 percent of Americans are God-­‐fearing Christians; 75 percent of prisoners are God-­‐fearing Christians. 10 percent of Americans are atheists; 0.2 percent of prisoners are atheists." How close is he to the correct numbers? Llamabr (talk) 17:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

According to Religion in the United States, he's pretty close. 76% of Americans are Christian as of 2008 (see chart at bottom). There are conflicting numbers in various places in the article on Athiests, I see numbers anywhere from 1.6% to up to 15%. I don't see info on prison population there, however. --Jayron32 17:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

And how do you know that they fear God? Is being Christian enough for that? 80.58.205.52 (talk) 17:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Good question -- I don't know quite what it means to fear god, or how to measure it. But I'm more interested in the population of prisoners, mainly in the USA, who are atheist. Do prisons collect this information? Or is there a survey? I know comics are not generally required to cite their sources, but I'm mainly interested in evidence for that last number. Llamabr (talk) 17:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Fear of God is a special form of belief in God.

There is also the Demographics of atheism article, which generally suggests that socioeconomic factors and especially levels of education and intellectuality affect belief in God.

The point seems to be that "fearing God" is not an effective crime deterrent. But it's more just that the more professional, educated, and intellectual you are, the less likely you are to be God-fearing and the less likely you are to be a convicted criminal. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:42, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Remember that "fear of God" is not about being scared. It's an old use of the word fear, a deep reverence that goes beyond mere respect. --Trovatore (talk) 19:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, though in common usage it might easily be taken more "literally", too, by some of those who practice it. Our Fear of the Lord article also discusses this variety of religious experience. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

In the UK, according to a Home Office report, about 60% of prisoners identify as Christian, and 30% as having no religion. Of that 30%, 1% (i.e. 0.3% of the population) claimed to be either atheist or agnostic. About the US, I have no clue. Marnanel (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

When you are fed this information that atheists are much less likely to be sent to prison than Christians are, it appears that you are supposed to come away thinking "Gosh, atheists are much more likely to be moral people than Christians are". Perhaps atheists are more likely to be moral people than Christians are, for all I know. But there are a number of rather large holes in such an argument, starting with the obvious point that morality and legality are orthogonal, and moving on to the slightly more subtle point that atheists are likely, at present, to be middle to upper class and white, and the working class and racial minorities are over-represented in the prison population. Marnanel (talk) 17:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Atheists don't usually (let's forget the angry Youtube teenage atheist population for the purpose of my point for a second, shall we) identify themselves with the grouping - they don't go around saying things like "us atheists are this or that", whereas Christians tend to do just that. So I think the intended message is really the other way around. It's not "atheist are more moral people than Christians" it's "Christians aren't nearly as moral as they proclaim themselves to be". It's just a rebuke, arguably flawed, as you say, to the daily bombardment of atheists with the misconception that there can be no morality without religion. TomorrowTime (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure that thinking of atheists and their educational background as epiphenomenal really undermines the argument. It changes its scope certainly: "well educated and middle class people are both likely to be atheist and law-abiding". But that seems to just support the original argument, or at least helps to undermine the issue of whether being christian is valuable because it makes the world a safer place, etc. Though my original question was really just about statistics. Thanks. Llamabr (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Here apparently are the stats he is quoting. meltBanana 18:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Another possible interpretation of the statistics is that being sent to prison makes you more likely to become "God-fearing". I know it would put the fear of God in me! Dbfirs 19:09, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

We even have an article on There are no atheists in foxholes for a similar claim. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

There are, of course, atheists in foxholes. But I have seen evidence that some religious groups recruit heavily in prisons. Nation of Islam, for example, and Scientology, if I recall. All of which means that careful attention would have to be made in conversion rates. We've had similar discussions on here before; see here for some parsing of the statistics.

I think it is clear that most people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics have higher levels of education, and generally higher socioeconomic status. That alone would account for most discrepancies in incarceration. It's also certainly obvious from said statistics that being religious does not keep one from committing crimes or even being a horrible person. That also seems fairly intuitively obvious as well, and is the reason we have an elaborate system of civil justice to try and keep people in line well above and beyond any religious sentiments. Anyone who has spent any time around real human beings knows that they have all sorts of clever ways to justify behavior that is strictly against the tenets of their religion. That doesn't make atheists inherently virtuous or the religious inherently wicked. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

This, combined with the gang mentality in prisons, means that few people can avoid religion in prison. Joining a racial or social group is necessary in prisons for protection against rivals, and joining a group that is heavily influenced by a religion (Christianity, Islam, etc.) would be difficult to avoid. Plus, the trauma some people feel at being put into prison makes it more likely to cling onto a belief that says you can be forgiven for your deeds. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

And if I ever went to prison, I'd find the religion that gave you the most breaks (good food, time off etc) and stick that one down on the form. Nanonic (talk) 22:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be the Church of the New Song (what? no article‽) Marnanel (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

How do you scape nihilism?

Does anything have meaning? What is the matter of hitting someone in the head with a hammer, he is only a water + carbon? Is hedonism the only way out of hedonism? 80.58.205.52 (talk) 17:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You have morality and ethics. --Jayron32 17:12, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, I understand the rules, but why should I follow them?80.58.205.52 (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Because humanity depends on it. If people didn't follow some rules, then we ourselves suffer. If you expect others not to hit you in the head with a hammer, then it seems reasonable to establish that as some sort of general rule. --Jayron32 17:22, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

• But here you are, starting with an axiom that not anyone share: "humanity has to survive". Not every one in the planet shares this view. The Voluntary human extinction movement, for example, wouldn't agree with you. But there are also less radical cases, when it comes down to decide what to do with your life: is drinking beer and watching TV more virtuous than reading or painting or acquiring culture? Quest09 (talk) 17:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If you break the rules, you get red-carded out of the game. Or are penalized in some other way.

BTW, a person is more than just a bag of chemicals. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

So, I a only have to follow rules if I believe I'll get caught. And about the bag of chemicals. Are we more than that just because you say that? But even if you are right, an ant is also more than a bag of chemicals too. Should I worry about treating one? Quest09 (talk) 17:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

A dead body is just a bag of chemicals, and I mean that in a directly observable way and not "metaphysically" or anything. Living people are not. Consider your own subjective experience. What is it like? Is your subjective experience right now in any way like "just a bag of chemicals"? Without knowing for sure, I expect that, like mine, it isn't (even if it is obviously and strongly tied to a biochemical substrate).

There are other reasons to follow rules, the best way is to understand why they are there and what they are for and choose to follow them on that basis.

A living ant is more than a bag of chemicals, too; it would be a shame to have to kill one for no reason. ;) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

My personal belief is that "should" statements are really commands disguised as statements of fact. When somebody says, "You should follow the rules", this is really just a polite way of saying, "Follow the rules". So I will say it: Follow the rules. Looie496 (talk) 17:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you have the illusion that you are more than a bag of chemicals. That makes you feel better about yourself. Actually, you - and me - are bags of chemicals with electric processes going on. Quest09 (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that cool, though? How does that happen, you know?

Getting interested in finding answers to questions is one practical way to "scape nihilism". There are a lot of other problems like this that might also be interesting to consider. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 18:48, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

People tend to feel better about being compelled to do something if they feel they had a choice in the first place. "It would be better if you chose to follow the rules" sounds better than "If you don't follow the rules, we lock you in a small room with a rapist." They actually both mean the same thing, but for some reason people feel better being told the first thing. --Jayron32 17:46, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You are right about that. Indirect request are more effective. However, that doesn't say how you should choose what to request. Specially, when you leave the obvious behind: do not kill, do not rape, how do you fall into an abyss of emptiness? Quest09 (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, having worried long and hard about this question for a couple of decades, I think it does come down to a kind of hedonism. I think morality is emergent from some kind of basic urge, which is probably something like curiosity. This makes the whole thing pointless, but fortunately since the basic urge is universal, we don't care. I also entertain the possibility that the urge in question may be cultural, and that members of extremely different cultures such as, say, Aztecs, may have functioned on some different basic motivation. (Some societies just don't seem to seek knowledge with any great urgency.) Also note that the urge itself, whatever it is exactly, the thing which fundamentally drives us to action, is not one of the world's most important ideas; the quality of being fundamental shouldn't be confused with the quality of being meaningful or useful. Oh, and the meaning of life article is always quite reassuring, in a woolly sort of way. 213.122.7.36 (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Assume nothing has any meaning. There's no ultimate right or wrong. Nothing has inherent value. From that place sure, there's no reason why you shouldn't do anything, but there's no reason why you should either. From that place, why would one take any action whatsoever? So, try it. See the pointlessness of every possible action you could take. Don't do anything at all. Don't daydream, don't eat, don't think about anything. Why should you do such pointless things? See how long you can keep up that level of not-doing. How long before you find yourself doing something anyway, like thinking about something, or feeling bored, or wondering what that sound was, or wanting a drink of water. Ten seconds? Why do you do things? Do you chose to do the things you do, or do they just happen and you act as if you chose? Who are you anyway? Nihilism is a way of thinking about reality, not a way of being. Thinking about reality is already taking action. Nihilism says "you" are meaningless, yet you cannot help but do things. Why? That's the question that led me from nihilism to meaning-within-pointlessness anyway. Sorry I can't be clearer. Pfly (talk) 21:00, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Nihilism is the belief that nothing you do matters. There are no morals because morals have no meaning. The way out of this is when you actually experience a situation where your decisions have an impact on someone else's life. Maybe it won't matter to "the big picture," but being able to help a person get medical treatment that saves their life can change your outlook. Or having someone else do the same for you. There may not be an objective morality, or an objective "meaning" to life, but humans are social creatures, and our interactions with society matter in that way.

To put it another way, if nihilism were correct, anarchy would be the proper mode of civilized behavior. However, it turns out that this isn't the best way for a species to survive, or even for an individual to prosper. Individuals tend to find purpose through the interaction with others, especially when forming a social support structure. It turns out, once you look just beyond your own life, nihilism itself has no meaning. But interacting with others in a constructive manner can create meaning for your life. It may not "matter in" the long run, but it can matter to you & those around you. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Have a look at Existentialism. For further reading, see: Nishitani, Keiji (1990). The self-overcoming of nihilism. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791404386. Retrieved 20 December 2010..Smallman12q (talk) 23:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I feel I should point out that "anarchy" as a political term does not necessarily imply disorganisation or chaos. Quite the reverse in some cases. Marnanel (talk) 23:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Slave

I noticed in many older works of literature (such as Shakespeare) you will see the use of 'slave' as an insult, implying that the person is low and powerless. But this begs the question, whose slave? 24.92.70.160 (talk) 18:43, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If you are noting that a slave is relatively "low and powerless" in position relative to that slave's owner, that is a correct understanding of the relationship. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:01, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ginger Conspiracy (talk) is a slave to improving the encyclopedia 19:03, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be a slave belonging to a particular person, or to a person at all. In the belonging-to-someone category, as WikiDao suggests, you're about as powerless as you can be, since you are owned by another person and subject to their will. Slaves have been mistreated throughout history. I don't have to know an individual slave, or the individual owner of a tobacco farm or cotton plantation, to see a slave as at the mercy of his surroundings.

Slavery existed in Shakespeare's time, and for centuries afterward. Even if it had not, it had existed in the past, and made vivid metaphors:

• You are all recreants and dastards,and delight to live in slavery to the nobility... (Henry VI)
• Of being taken by the insolent foe and sold to slavery, of my redemption thence... (Othello)
• The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service; there resides, to make me slave to it... (The Tempest)

In the first example, "slavery to the nobility" isn't a fact so much as a description of a certain kind of behavior. In the third example, Ferdinand is expressing his willingness to give up his own desires for another's.

As Robert Burns wrote:

Is there, for honest poverty,

[anyone] that hangs his head, and a' that?

The coward slave, we pass him by

We dare be poor, for a' that...

One interpretation: if you are ashamed of yourself because you're poor, then you're treating yourself as someone of no worth and no will of your own--as a slave. --- OtherDave (talk) 20:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Christmas Day for Jewish families

What do Jewish families (in Europe, North America, Austalasia etc) tend to do at home on Christmas Day? I'm curious. Is it just like any other day, or do the kids still get Christmas presents, or do they eat better, have a Christmas tree, anything like that? I'm aetheist. Thanks 92.15.27.229 (talk) 18:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Nittel Nacht contains some slightly relevant material. In 2010 Christmas Day falls on the Jewish Sabbath. This could have bearing on the activities. Bus stop (talk) 19:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It probably varies greatly from family to family. Some may celebrate Christmas as a sort of "civic" version, much as they would celebrate "Thanksgiving" or "Fourth of July" in America. Others may do nothing special (after all, what do Christians do on Yom Kippur?). There's a regular cultural meme out there about Jewish people going to Chinese Restaurants on Christmas day (being that neither Jewish nor non-Christian chinese people tend to celebrate it). The meme predates the Internet by a long way; googleing "jews chinese food christmas" turns up lots of hits: [18]. --Jayron32 19:05, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

See especially "Kung Pao Kosher Comedy"[19]. PhGustaf (talk) 22:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

About the same thing that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, Scientologists and Raelians do on Festivus. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 19:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Where where you on Christmas Day? Bus stop (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I have a number of close Jewish friends, and I've never heard of Nittel Nacht before. I don't think it is observed much in the United States. Jayron32's answer is the most accurate, to my knowledge. In the United States, some Jews celebrate a secularized Christmas with a tree, some ignore the holiday altogether and treat it as a meaningless secular holiday. Maybe they will sleep late, get together with friends, or pursue a hobby. And I have known Jewish friends to order Chinese food on Christmas. Marco polo (talk) 21:34, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I doubt that Nittel Nacht is observed anywhere in 2010. My guess is that this article, referenced in our Nittel Nacht article, is incorrect when it says, "While there are still some Orthodox groups that observe Nittel Nacht, these are not widespread customs among modern Jews." Bus stop (talk) 22:08, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Given that many secular locations in the United States close on the holiday (due to having majority of their employees being Christian), some Jewish families just stay at home and enjoy a day together. Some movie theaters do remain open, as Christmas is a big money-maker for them, so that's an option. And, as Marco polo pointed out, Chinese restaurants tend to be open since many of them are not Christians. Also, going to a public park is an option, if the weather is agreeable. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:59, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I find this a fairly interesting and informative article concerning the supposed connection between Chinese food and Jews. Bus stop (talk) 22:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The joke, as noted above, is that Jews "celebrate" Christmas by eating at Chinese restaurants and going to movie theaters, since those establishments are often open on Christmas. Some Jews volunteer at hospitals and places on 12/25. Others offer to take the place of co-workers scheduled to work a holiday shift. Of course many Jews have friends or relatives by marriage who have Christmas parties they might attend. And there's always a mid-major college football bowl game or meaningless NFL game to watch on TV, if you're not into the non-stop White Christmas marathon or fixed shot of a fireplace. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:55, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Eternal Hell, yet Resurrection of the dead too

Various christian schisms

According to Christian doctrine, bad people roast in hell for eternity, yet everyone will be resurrected too. How are these two contradictory things resolved? Thanks 92.29.124.17 (talk) 22:45, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Easily. There is no such thing as the Christian doctrine - different sects have different doctrines. In early Christianity, resurrection was understood to be bodily resurrection, and would happen before judgement day, so that all can be judged. I don't think the idea that people go to heaven or hell directly after death is in any of the better thought-out Christian strains - it seems to be mostly just folklore. Hell in particular is not very well-attested in the bible, anyways, at least in the original texts. It's often an artefact of translation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:04, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The idea of judgement (sometimes just interim judgement) that immediately follows death (rather than some conscious or unconscious waiting period until the final Day of Judgement) is "particular judgment". Indeed, it's not clear which modern denominations believe this, but I'm not sure that it's regarded as downright false either. 87.115.159.188 (talk) 01:29, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Out of interest, what makes you think that the resurrection of the body is incompatible with eternity in hell? Do you also think it's incompatible with eternity in heaven? Marnanel (talk) 23:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

If you ask me (the indent suggests otherwise), I don't. But it is incompatible with the current "granny is in heaven" belief, while granny's body is indeed in a casket 6 feet under. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Which Christian doctrine? Smallman12q (talk) 23:24, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I was asking 92.29, who seems to think they're incompatible; I didn't get the idea that you (Stephan) thought they were. (As Smallman12q may be pointing out above, it's rather difficult to understand what people mean by "Christian doctrine" when a belief may be held, sometimes unthinkingly, by a large proportion of those who profess and call themselves Christians, but not be supportable from any church's official teaching, or the Bible, or any of the creeds.) I'm not terribly sure what light the graph is supposed to shed on the question. Marnanel (talk) 23:38, 20 December 2010 (UTC)