Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities

Welcome to the humanities section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

January 23

Incest laws in Israel

It seems from the relevant articles on this site and elsewhere that many forms of incest are allowed in Israel. At least the laws there do not prohibit many types of incestuous sex that are outlawed elsewhere. Is this correct? Imagine Reason (talk) 04:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know much about the laws in Israel and a quick search isn't finding anything which I particularly trust. But if it's correct Israel does not have laws prohibiting consensual incestous sex, they're hardly unique in this regard, Laws regarding incest only includes a few countries but from a very quick glance there are at least 76 where there are no specific laws prohibiting consensual incestous sex including Brazil, Finland,(confusing article since modified) France, Japan, Portugal, Russia, and Belgium (mentioned under France). It also mentions it has been unsuccessfully challenged in Germany and there is a proposal to abolish the prohibition on consensual incestous sex in Switzerland. Note that anything beyond siblings and lineal descendants is even less likely to be illegal (e.g. first cousins, aunt/uncle-niece/nephew). Marriages may still be prohibited in some cases even when sex isn't illegal (in some of the earlier examples). Again I don't know much about the marriage laws in Israel but as has been discussed before, marriages are largely left up to the recognised religions so it's likely up to them (and I somewhat doubt that any of them allow siblings and lineal descendants to marry). Of course some countries may potentially have no specific laws regarding consensual incestous sex but all sex outside marriage. Nil Einne (talk) 07:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I searched this a little, and this interesting study came up: doi:10.1016/S0145-2134(02)00505-7 I think in general in Israel most non-abusive marriage and sexual laws are left to each individual religion to decide and enforce. Ariel. (talk) 11:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It's the old Ottoman "millet" system... AnonMoos (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

For the curious the article is here: Millet (Ottoman Empire). Ariel. (talk) 21:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Israel here I come! Egg Centric (talk) 18:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess it wasn't clear from what I wrote. Even though the State does not have laws about this, the various individual communities do, and those laws are enforceable. Ariel. (talk) 22:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

How does that work for people who are not religious? DuncanHill (talk) 02:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see why that would be an issue, since people still belong to a given culture even if they do not believe in the religious principles that govern it, like an English person is still bound by the laws of England and Wales which have their roots in an Anglican worldview, even if that English person is not religious. More of a problem under the millet system, I'd have thought, is if you are a member of a smaller religion which is not recognised by the system. 86.164.58.119 (talk) 10:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The laws of England apply equally to all, we don't have "this is illegal if you belong to this religion but not that". The most that religions can do to enforce their internal "laws" on members is excommunication or the like - they cannot apply civil or criminal sanctions. DuncanHill (talk) 03:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course it was only two and a half years ago that the Church of England blasphemy law could still be applied in the civil courts to prevent members of all religions or none from blaspheming against Church of England beliefs only (see Blasphemous libel)... AnonMoos (talk) 07:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

According to the workings of the Millet system, you belong to your ancestral religious community unless you explicitly convert to become a member of another recognized religious community -- regardless of whether you might be the most flamingly militant atheist in your personal beliefs. AnonMoos (talk) 11:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Not much point unless you're planning on taking your mother or sister with you. Matthewedwards :  Chat  01:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

ancestry.co.uk

When was Ellen Margaret Midgley born in Bradford, W Yorkshire c 1942? Thank you. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:16, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggest you contact the local registry office - [1], they can provide copies of birth certificates [2], for a fee [3]. Exxolon (talk) 13:06, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Kitty, Ancestry returns an Ellen M Midgley birth registered in Q2 (April-May-June) of 1942. Mother's maiden name Smith. England & Wales Birth index, Bradford district, Yorkshire county. Vol 9b page 223. Would this fit? Karenjc 14:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Perfect. Thank you. Kittybrewster ☎ 15:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

IMDB title

What is the meaning of "video" in the bracket after the movie name? Such as this --Questesns (talk) 13:39, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

• The film in question was released Direct-to-video? Exxolon (talk) 13:44, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The IMDb help pages say (V) after a title means "made for video or direct-to-video release"[4]; I think this is out of date and they now use (Video) for this purpose. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The everyday calendar in Islamic countries

In everyday use, do all Islamic countries use the Islamic calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, even for non-religious purposes? 92.24.184.8 (talk) 15:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It's impossible to use the Islamic calendar for agricultural purposes. In the Ottoman empire a form of the Julian calendar was used to schedule agricultural tax collections, while in Safavid Persia a form of the Persian calendar was used. Nowadays, the Gregorian calendar is fairly widely diffused through most Muslim-majority countries... AnonMoos (talk) 16:21, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

For business purposes it's necessary to use the Gregorian calendar, as the rest of the world does. Newspapers always (well, as far as I have ever seen) use both dates, like Al-Ahram (I'm sure Dar al-Hayat does too but I can't access the website at the moment). Adam Bishop (talk) 17:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

In Iran and Afghanistan, the Solar Hejri calendar is used rather exclusively. Moreover, I think that some more secular Arab newspapers, say organs of communist parties, only use Gregorian dates. --Soman (talk) 00:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Why the large growth rates in developing countries?

Are there any theories that account for the large growth rates of some developing countries, higher than those in the West?

I imagine the high growth may be due to things like the implementation of technology copied from the west, the exploitation of natural resources, and the switching of the work-force from agriculture to factory production. But are these the only reasons? Thanks 92.24.184.8 (talk) 16:00, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Access to Western technology is surely a factor, but are developing countries now growing faster than, say, Britain did during the industrial revolution? It's not unusual for development to follow a kind of step pattern with sudden rapid growth following major breakthroughs. I think that is essentially what is happening with the economies of countries like China. --Tango (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The mobilisation of previously unused resources may play a part, and the fact that the West right now is still suffering from the damage of a huge financial crisis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.171.56.13 (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

High growth rates in the developing world are not a recent thing. The current economic situation is not relevant. --Tango (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The Solow growth model explains this quite well (the model, that is, not sure if the WP article is good) though it fails to answer a lot of other interesting questions on economic growth. Basically, we can think of the high growth rate in developing countries as a catch-up effect. Jørgen (talk) 18:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the OP is asking why the population growth rate is so much higher in developing countries? I always thought that was due to improvements in healthcare being in advance of social changes such as education and the emancipation of womem. Astronaut (talk) 20:14, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The increase in population in developing countries is usually because the change to the morality rate has decreased but people still reproduce as if it were high. It takes a generation to correct this, usually, which means you get extremely high growth rates for awhile. National Geographic had a nice article on this recently; unfortunately it appears that the graphs and data they included as sidebars are not part of the online content. In any case, though, I doubt this is what the OP is talking about, given that all of the examples provided are relating to productivity and economy. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:49, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you mean developing countries, or "developing countries" (i.e. those euphemistically so called to indicate that they are not developing)? Michael Hardy (talk) 21:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Not all developing countries have rapid economic growth. Brazil, China and India do, but Sub-Saharan African nations don't, and nor do many Latin American countries. We hear a lot about the nations which are growing quickly, but that shouldn't make us assume all less developed countries do so. Prokhorovka (talk) 23:02, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It all just depends on how you define "developing." One term which is slightly more precise is newly industrialized country, which includes the usual suspects. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:43, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I've heard the term used to refer to places like Zimbabwe, which has been under a dictator who has (intentionally, maybe?) prevented it from developing. In cases like that, it's a euphemism. Michael Hardy (talk) 02:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Access to family planning, sexual education, sexual and reproductive rights, and women's emancipation are important factos. But it is also important to remember that in developing countries, there is often no or little public pensions, and people without children will have problems to have someone to care for them economically once they reach old age. With the construction of a social welfare state, that need decreases. --Soman (talk) 00:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I mean economic growth, thanks. 92.15.26.222 (talk) 12:06, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

To correct a comment above, sub-Saharan African nations actually have an average rate of economic growth comparable to that of Asian nations. The Economist recently published a study showing that, of the 10 fastest-growing economies in countries with more than 1 million people during 2000-2010, 6 were in sub-Saharan Africa. Marco polo (talk) 18:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's say you're living in a very poor country. However, you may still have food. You grow your grains and vegetables. You spend very little on salt and other things that you can't produce yourself, e.g., electricity. You have maybe 1600 kcal per day. And you live quite happily. You may live in a poor country and still have a reasonable life.

Now your country has improved its technologies. They opened a road to your village so you can sell your grains to the dealers. Now you have a little more money. You spend the money to buy very little meat from another village.

Your living condition only improves a little bit. However, since you are now spending money to buy your meat, the GDP of your country experienced a solid boost.

If you are living in a jungle, you may spend ZERO amount of money because you are not buying anything from anyone. You may barter from other people, but since you are not using any money, the GDP is ZERO.

If all of you start using money, there will be GDP and the growth of GDP can be very fast. -- Toytoy (talk) 17:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Korean Racist Slurs

Do the Koreans have derogatory terms for white people, black people and east indians? What are they? 99.245.73.51 (talk) 23:11, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

They call them: snow white, piece of coal, and second-class rice eater. All are pretty offensive in Korea. 77.231.17.82 (talk) 12:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

[Citation needed], especially for this sort of thing. Pais (talk) 12:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Would the slur imply I ate rice which was of a lower class than the speaker's rice, or that I ate ordinary rice in a lower class manner (dropping it from the chopsticks, using a fork, using fingers?) Pretty funny, all around. Edison (talk) 16:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

East Indians as in Indians from the east of the country, i.e. East India? Or the residents of the East Indies? Are there separate racial slurs for Indians from the East and West of the country in the OP's native language? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The first answer can only be a joke. 212.169.188.242 (talk) 22:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

January 24

Firing Squad Regulations - German Army - WW2

I used to read a lot of Sven Hassel, and while his books may have been mostly fiction (and some even rumoured to have not even been written by him), they are full of minute details, many of which are completely unecessary for the plot of the story as a whole - sort of lending a certain amount of credence to the details, as it were. One episode that has always puzzled me was of a firing squad who had executed a prisoner and, contrary to the rules and protocol for firing squads, one of the members had shot the prisoner in the face. The rules stated that prisoners should be shot squarely in the chest. As punishment, the whole squad was then sent to the Eastern Front whereupon they were promptly killed. Is there a basis in fact here? Was it actually against the rules for a firing squad to shoot a prisoner in the face? I found it odd, because prisoners who are still alive afterwards tend to be despatched with a bullet to the head anyway. I seem to remember the unit in question in the story was Wehrmacht and not Schutzstaffel. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Depictions of firing squads I have seen and accounts I have read, from various countries' armies, including WW2 German, have shown the prisoner being shot in the chest (with the heart sometimes marked as a target). A regulation saying "don't shoot them in the face" seems plausible, since a shot to the face might be painful and disfiguring without being fatal. People have had their cheeks and jaws shot away and lived. It is potentially a wasted bullet. Sometimes after the first volley, a doctor finds the prisoner's heart is still beating, and it is necessary to reload and fire a second volley (or to take a pistol and put a bullet through his brain). Here are some accounts of firing squads where the prisoner did not die after the volley of rifle (or musket) fire. Not all armies apparently used the shot to the head to finish off a wounded prisoner. Another reason to ban shooting in the face is to confirm the intended person was executed. It would be easy to shoot off the face of a substitute victim, and report to the authorities that so and so had been executed, if he had sufficient friends and admirers, such as some famous mutineer, hero, or political or religious leader. The shot to the head after the volley is shown as being to the side of the head, more than being a shot to the face from the front. Edison (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

For the record I would like to point out that not only are there "rumours" that he did not write some of his book himself, there has also recently been made a plausible case against Hassels claims of him doing any active war service for the Germans at all. This was recently aired in a Danish documentary "Sven Hazel skandalen", and was based on the work of Danish journalists that was revealed back in 1963 (not the work of Haaest that is mentioned in the article, but a competing team, that is apparently infighting with Haaest over who did the actual discovery of the fraud). In fact the only kind of service Hassel did for the Germans was to serve in HIPO Corps in Copenhagen during the last months of the war. As I understand it many of the minute details in Hassels books have been criticised by actual veterans for their inaccuracy or even for being plain wrong. That is not to say that this particular detail may be incorrect, though. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if this is the case here, but many firing squads (of recent times) take care to avoid revealing who fired the fatal shot. If one guy shoots them in the head (or tries to) then he knows whether he was responsible or not. I forget whether teh German Army went to such lengths.- Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 11:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Purely speculating here... I could understand a rule against shooting someone in the face (as opposed to the head)... the government might want the face to remain recognizable... for identification purposes. Blueboar (talk) 14:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

In Canada, we did it differently. Bullets are expensive, you know... Matt Deres (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for all the answers. I was guessing that it may be for identification purposes. A single bullet could mess up a face quite easily, never mind twelve of them! What I was really looking for was some proof that this regulation actually existed. I am interested not only in the regulation itself, but also in the claims to Sven Hassel's lack of credibility. I would have thought that putting unnecessary yet highly specific details in his stories would harm his credibility considerably if they turned out to be incorrect. As a casual 'fan' of sorts, I have taken it upon myself to check up on individual tiny details in his stories, just to see for myself how real or realistic the stories attributed to him are. Getting back to the regulation itself, I would like to know to whom this regulation applied - which type of prisoner(s), which wing(s) of the armed forces, whether it was strictly adhered to in the later years of the war, and so on. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

One interesting thing in the history of firing squads I cited, and in other results from Google Book search, was how many of the shooters missed the target, perhaps deliberately. Edith Cavell was hit by 1 bullet from her WW1 German firing squad. Many similar cases were reported. One horrible account was of Germans shooting victims who were lying on the ground. A shot to the neck was ordered, but many of the police reservists shot them in the heads, resulting in explosions of brain tissue all over the shooters. In this sense, a chest shot is "cleaner." Mob hitmen do a "double tap: shoot them once in the chest, to bring them down, then once in the head to make sure. An Israli army commander called it "confirming the kill" when he fired 13 bullets into the body of a 13 year old girl after she was brought down while running away. She got two bullets to the head. The recent Tucson shootings demonstrated that even a bullet through the brain may not be fatal.

Religious fiction cliche

Hi, does anyone know of examples of a particular theme in religious fiction that I've come across a couple of times, and which I rather suspect is a cliche? I have seen a few works (one dramatic work and one novel come to mind) where characters discover a work of scripture from the religion, then suddenly convert, and have the whole meaning and purpose of their lives radically altered. Is it particularly common, and can people give me other examples? I'm not referring to books like the Left Behind series, which interpret the world through the lens of the Bible, literally interpreted, but specifically those which deal with the radical conversion theme. Thanks, It's been emotional (talk) 01:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Not to answer your main question, but Left Behind doesn't really interpret the world through the lens of the Bible, literally or otherwise. It's based on largely extra-Biblical traditions regarding the Rapture. Like many such traditions its based on an extreme, non-mainstream, overinterpretation of a select few biblical passages. There's very little agreement on even what the Rapture passages mean in the literature, or what significance they should have regarding eschatology. Really, Left Behind is a fun read, but its about as theologically solid as Raiders of the Lost Ark or Rosemary's Baby; that is it uses Christian traditions as a loose framework for story telling, but it doesn't really represent quality "theology". As far as the "Radical conversion" event, the Bible itself has one famous such event, see Conversion of Paul the Apostle. From other religions, the events surrounding the Bodhi Tree represent a similar radical conversion in the background of Buddhism, while the Cave at Hira represents a similar sort of conversion in Islam. Depending on your perspective and reading of the text, Christ himself could have had a similar "conversion", if you read the stories behind the Baptism of Jesus a certain way. --Jayron32 02:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

A couple of examples that spring to mind: Augustine of Hippo was converted after reading Romans 13:13-14; John Wesley after hearing Martin Luther's preface to the same book read aloud. Of course both had extensive knowledge of the scriptures already, so it's not as though the information was new to them. Marnanel (talk) 12:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I know you're looking for examples in fiction, but whatever cliche exists probably comes from various traditional and historical stories of conversion after reading. Maybe the earliest and most significant in the Bible is Josiah. Staecker (talk) 13:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems related to TV Tropes' "Easy Evangelism", which lists examples. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I cannot speak to Christianity in general, but as a former catholic, within the catholic faith baptism is usually regarded as a necessary and vital part of conversion. as the article on catholic conversion explains, baptism in the faith is considered prerequisite to salvation. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 08:50, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to all. The TV tropes link was good, and along the lines of what I had in mind, although I should ban people from linking to it, for I just spent about 3 hours virtually downloading the entire site :). Much too addictive... Any further examples appreciated, especially if anyone can answer the specific brief of fictional characters discovering a scriptural work and being converted primarily by that, rather than by the brilliant logic of an evangelistic character. In the examples I've seen (one was a purely amateur production, the other a minor-ish work of mostly quality literature) someone reads some holy words and "Poof" they are transformed spiritually, rather than being converted by a superior evangelist or a (presumably) logical argument. The message from those was that the holy books they encountered were so amazingly pure and magical that no one could fail to be moved by them. Not wanting to be too derisive, I didn't focus specifically on that aspect, but I would be curious to know how common it is. Thx again, It's been emotional (talk) 13:28, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Ooohhh. Just had an idea. Not exactly the same exact thing, but consider the story behind 2112 (song), in the section where the protagonaist discovers the guitar, has a sort of "epiphany" which could be described in the your terms for religious conversion. --Jayron32 13:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Step away from that computer. Now. CS Miller (talk) 21:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Now that was really ridiculous ... or ridiculously scary :):) but I think that's why I visit wikipedia It's been emotional (talk) 22:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• See Robinson Crusoe. Nyttend (talk) 00:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Roman numbers

If I'm counting in roman text, I start at (1-I) and so on till I get to (4-V)! "Lets don't forget I'm conting" After I get past (V) All (I) go to to the right Of the (V)? What if (You) I start conting backwards, Do all (I) go to Left of the The (v) till I get (0)? --Stovetop151712 (talk) 09:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

counting forwards: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X

counting backwards: X, IX, VIII, VII, VI, V, IV, III, II, I. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 09:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

IV is 4 and VI is 6 no matter which "direction" you're counting. It's the same as if you were counting with what you commonly use. 4 and 6 don't change what they look like depending on which way you're going. Dismas|^(talk) 09:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

If that was a reply to the OP, Dismas, could you please watch your indentation level in future. It looks like you're talking to me, but that wouldn't make sense since you're simply adding to what I said to the OP. High time I raised the general question of indentation on the talk page (not singling you out here). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:37, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a style guide for indentation for ref desks? One way of looking at it is that Dismas is adding to or elaborating on your answer, instead of talking to you specifically. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:51, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see Help:Using talk pages#Indentation (permanent link here).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I had never seen that guideline. I was replying to the OP and not you Jack. More often than not, I've seen replies indented one more level even when replying to the OP as I was doing. Dismas|^(talk) 01:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Some few editors may have established a style guide that says "No more indenting if you are replying to the same thing as the previous post" but common practice is to indent another step even when you are replying to the original poster. If the indentation is the same, then it is a good idea to add a space. Otherwise the two posts run together and seem to be from the same person. It is really not a big deal, and does not require rebuking the person whose indentation compliance with the MOS is imperfect. Let's all get along. Edison (talk) 02:18, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course if you are counting out loud (up or down), you would not use the roman numeral text at all, but would use the Latin words... Unas, Duo, Tres, Quattor, Quinque, Sex, Septem, Octo, Novem, Decem, etc. Blueboar (talk) 14:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Blueboar, do you have a source for "Unas" and "Quattor"? They disagree with http://www.informalmusic.com/latinsoc/latnum.html.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

4 is Quattuor. "Unas" could be an indefinite feminine accusative plural form, but the normal absolute form of the number 1 used in counting etc. was "unum". AnonMoos (talk) 08:48, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

US presidential line of succession - who becomes Speaker of House?

Hello! A quick question: In the US, if the Speaker of the House becomes president, who fills his shoes as Speaker of the House? Or is there no replacement; the two jobs just coincide? Until, I take it, a new election is held? Thank you for any answers. 88.90.16.147 (talk) 13:31, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

It's impossible for the President to simultaneously be the Speaker. The President has the power of veto over laws, so to preside over one of the chambers where laws are created in the first place would represent the greatest conflict of interests in recorded history. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 13:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

That's a lot of power, but I don't see how it's a "conflict of interest". Note that the vice president, who in most administrations does pretty much what the president tells him to (though this is tradition rather than anything in the Constitution) is president of the Senate.

I do believe it's true, however, that you are not allowed to be simultaneously president and a member of Congress. I'm not sure where that requirement lives. --Trovatore (talk) 19:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

It might be covered somewhere in Separation of powers under the United States Constitution. But how could it not be a conflict of interests? The House passes a bill and the Speaker/President then just vetoes it before it ever gets to the Senate for consideration: what a dumb system that would be. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Not just sure how that would work. The president can't veto a bill until it's been passed by both houses and presented to him for consideration. The speaker has no veto power at all. In any case I don't see how it's a conflict of interest, which generally refers to a situation where someone has a fiduciary duty to two interested parties whose interests conflict, or who has a personal interest in conflict with those of someone to whom he has a fiduciary responsibility. --Trovatore (talk) 19:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Ah, we have something about it at Ineligibility Clause. Also referenced in The West Wing, when John Goodman's character Glen Allen Walken becomes Acting President after the invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. I'm a little confused about the overlap between the 25th amendment and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. --Trovatore (talk) 19:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The House of Representatives would elect a new Speaker. In practice, the selection would be made by the caucus of the majority party in the House. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The selection of candidate would be made by the majority party leadership but the election is a normal vote of the entire House. It isn't really a problem to not have a Speaker for a few hours. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 15:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• The House rules for the 111th Congress are at the GPO website (and I'm sure they'll post the 112th's rules in a few weeks). Rule 1 authorizes the Speaker to create a list of temporary (pro tempore) speakers who can run parliamentary business when the Speaker is unavailable. If the Speaker ends up being removed from office (such as to become President), then as a formal matter, the first person on the pro tempore list takes over for the purpose of conducting the House's election for the next speaker. As the above answerers note, as a practical matter the majority party's leadership oversees the vote, at least during times (such as the last couple of decades) when the parties are well-disciplined. --M@rēino 16:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• • It should also be noted that, by tradition, the role of the Speaker of the House has been split among several functions, and they are rarely exercised by the same person at the same time. While the speaker is nominally the leader of the majority party, most of the footwork done in that role is handled by the whip. The speaker also nominally serves as the presiding officer of the house, but in practice often delegates the role to someone else. The actual speaker rarely serves as the presiding officer except during very important occasions. Even during important votes, they often delegate to a senior member of their own party; during usual business the role is often handed to freshman congressmen to give them valuable experience in the operation of the House. There's really nothing that the Speaker does which is irreplacable, at least for a few days during the transition of power. When the House isn't in session, the Speaker's only vital, official role is te be alive until the President and Vice President die. Presumably, when the house meets after such an event their first order of business would be to elect a new Speaker, as they do after each election cycle. --Jayron32 17:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

If the Speaker became Acting President during the incapacity of a President while no Vice President was available, the President might regain the capacity to serve (as if recovering from a stroke, heart attack, or injury), In the relevant West Wing episode, the President temporarily stepped down because his daughter had been kidnapped by terrorists, and he was unable to respond to their demands both as a father and as a leader. If a President were taken hostage somewhere,as has happened in fiction a similar situation might obtain. A person in the line of succession has the option of refusing. The possibility of a future political career would help induce someone to accept the Presidency when it might be only for a short time, like a temporarily disabled President or a death near the end of the term leading to a lame duck Presidency after someone else has been elected for the next term. It seems a hardship for a career politician to give up the powerful position of Speaker just to act as President for a short time, but the law seems to require he resign as US Representative, not just as Speaker. There would be a special election to replace him as Representative from his district. A former Speaker and ex-Acting President would likely be a shoo-in to be reelected, making him the most junior member of the House. There is no reason he could nopt be reelected as Speaker. John Quincy Adams was re-elected to the House and served for 17 years after serving as an elected President, and Andrew Johnson was re-elected to the Senate after succeeding to the Presidency when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and after surviving an impeachment, and served briefly before dying. Edison (talk) 02:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The confusing thing about the The West Wing episode is that it involved the procedures from the 25th amendment, which (unless I missed something) does not mention any line of succession past the vice president. The stuff about the speaker of the House all comes from the 1947 act. That the 25th-amendment procedures would extend through the entire line of succession is sort of plausible, I guess, but the amendment itself says nothing about it, and the procedures from the 1947 act are less detailed. --Trovatore (talk) 02:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The confusing thing about The West Wing episode is solely the fact that it is a work of fiction, and people are trying to draw real-world relevence from a work of fiction. The writers are under no requirement to get the legal ramifications of their writing correct, or even close. They have one purpose and one purpose only: to tell a story which is entertaining enough to make you watch some commercials. That is all they are trying to do. There is zero connection between that purpose and what would actually happen in an analogous situation. Confusion arises when people ask too much of their fiction, such as expecting it to be non-fiction. --Jayron32 14:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a category of fiction that attempts to be accurate about this sort of thing, and The West Wing is in that category. --Trovatore (talk) 17:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you imagine that the writers just made up the whole idea of the Speaker becoming President, or of the President signing a letter that he was temporarily stepping down? Read the relevant portions of US law and you will see that there is indeed the line of succession as shown in the TV show. The process corresponds to published scenarios of what would happen absent a serving Vice President. On what basis do you claim there is "zero connection?" What other procedure do your reliable sources state the relevant laws call for? (The office remains vacant and there is no national executive? Some General takes command? Cabinet officers take turns in the Oval Office? The President's wife fills in unofficially as Mrs. Wilson did after Wilson's stroke?) Granted toward the end of Franklin Roosevelt's and Ronald Reagan's presidencies, there were reportedly times when they were not really up the demands of the office, but their families and staffs pretended all was well, just as in the Wilson presidency after his stroke. It would be possible for the handlers to restrict access, perhaps releasing only an occasional written communication or video filmed under carefully controlled circumstances when the invalid was feeling up to reading some text for the camera. Various world leaders have been handled like that: Leonid Brezhnev, Francisco Franco and Mao Zedong. Edison (talk) 16:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Re: Cabinet officers take turns in the Oval Office?... that is actually not that far fetched... I forget when they changed things, but until fairly recently the line of succession did go through the Cabinet Secretaries before it went to the Speaker of the House (the order of succession was determined by precedence, based on the date of creation of the Cabinet office... example: the Sect. of State was senior to the Sect. of the Interior, and thus senior in line to be President). As to fiction... I think the point was that West Wing didn't have to follow reality... While they happened to base their story on reality, they were free to ignore the details if the story required them to do so. So it is not a reliable guide to what the law says. Blueboar (talk) 17:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Not a reliable guide, no. But neither are they free to ignore details. The West Wing is in a category of fiction, similar to hard science fiction, that is expected to get things right, and if they don't then that's just an error. There are classes of details that are allowed to be different in their alternative universe (elections happen on 2 mod 4 years; there are countries that don't exist in our world) but this is not one of them. --Trovatore (talk) 18:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

how many trees needed to make A4 paper?

--59.189.218.40 (talk) 16:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

How much A4 paper? A single sheet? Pais (talk) 16:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Googling your question gives almost 56 million results. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

looking for a ratio. like 1 tree can produce how many sheets or 1 sheet needs how many trees. can use Google but many of the answers there are not reliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.218.40 (talk) 18:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

This site (which looks pretty reliable, and is fourth on my search above) gives about 8,300+ sheets from one tree. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:06, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Well obviously it varies from tree to tree and what kind of paper you are making, but most sources when you google it agree it's about 8500. 19:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)Prokhorovka (talk)

Tea Party Movement/2010 US Mid Term Elections

At the moment I am about to commence research for a thesis on the polarisation of the political scene within the United States of America. My main topic of interest and research will be primarily on the 1994 and 2010 Mid Term elections as case study examples and some chapters explaining the cause and effect of Polarisation. However with recent sources I am struggling to find reliable articles and books. Does anyone know any reliable sources of information on the Tea Party Movement and perhaps a guide analysing the 2010 US Mid Terms Elections? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.96.20.162 (talk) 18:39, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Though most of them are newspaper articles, you could start with the references for this section of this article. Prokhorovka (talk) 18:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Check out Jill Lepore's recent book (The Whites of their Eyes) on the Tea Party movement — she is a great scholar, a great writer, and very perceptive. As for a general framework on the 1994 election, George Lakoff's Moral Politics is something I found quite useful. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:13, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

See also this article by Gordon S. Wood for a critique of Lepore's book. This is Wood in a familiar mode: when a historian (like Lepore) allows political views to shape historical analysis, Wood often points out that the result is bad history. Given the polemical nature of Lepore's book (according to Wood, she exhibits "academic contempt" for "ordinary citizens"), if I were writing a paper about the "polarisation of the political scene within the United States", I'd cite Lepore as an example of that polarisation. —Kevin Myers 14:44, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there an International Day for Physically Disabled / Special Needs people?

If so, what date is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.218.40 (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:WHAAOE, International Day of Persons with Disabilities. In short, December 3rd. Prokhorovka (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

What type of disabilities does this day cover? Only physical disabilities or also special needs conditions such as autism and epilepsy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.189.218.40 (talk) 09:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The UN page is unclear, feel free to e-mail them and ask. Prokhorovka (talk) 10:51, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article has an external link to UN Enable - International Day of Persons with Disabilities - 3 December 2008, whose FAQ page answers the question "What is disability and who are persons with disabilities?" as follows: "The term persons with disabilities is used to apply to all persons with disabilities including those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which, in interaction with various attitudinal and environmental barriers, hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." [sic]

—Wavelength (talk) 16:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Curses, I spent ages reading FAQs on that site, how did I miss that! Prokhorovka (talk) 20:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

January 25

Immunity for diplomats' children

Is there a reason to expect that children of diplomats are protected by diplomatic immunity? I read recently about it in the case of Jens Soering (see: Jens_Soering#The_court_case). Quest09 (talk) 02:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

One reason to expect it is that Article 37, section 1, of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations states: "The members of the family of a diplomatic agent forming part of his household shall, if they are not nationals of the receiving State, enjoy the privileges and immunities specified in articles 29 to 36." [5] ---Sluzzelin talk 02:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

In this case, why wasn't Jens Soering, the son of a German diplomat, judged in Germany? Quest09 (talk) 02:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The key words appear to be "forming part of his household". Soering was about 20 at the time of the murder and was possibly living on his own. In that case, the immunity would not extend to him. Bielle (talk) 02:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It's also important to note here that regarding immunity for diplomats, it is attached only to true diplomats, consular and other adjunct officials are granted a lesser degree of rights at least within the US. An immunity only extending to actions within their official duties. As a result, it would be within rights of a shrewd prosecutor to argue bad acts by family inherently falls outside of their official role. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 08:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not just in the US that consular officials enjoy lesser immunity than diplomats. In the Vienna Convention refered above, consular immunity is limited to the performance of official duties, and does not extend to members of the household. I don't know all the details of the Soering case, but it is to be kept in mind that immunity for dependents only applies in the country of accreditation and is limited to dependents living with the diplomat who has immunity because of his or her diplomatic status. As the young Soering was living in another city and was a college student at the time, it's likely the US would not have considered him a dependent and therefore would not have granted him any diplomatic immunity.--Xuxl (talk) 15:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know why Jens Soring acted in this way after the murder accusation. Had he fled to Germany, he would not be deported, not just because his father is/was a diplomat, but also because Germany do not deport its own citizens. 212.169.185.76 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:59, 26 January 2011 (UTC).

I don't think any country deports its own citizens (although that's essentially what exile is, but that's a very rare punishment these days, at least officially). Do you mean "extradites"? --Tango (talk) 16:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

cancelled coins of denomiation of 25 paise coins by R.B.I.w.e.f.June2011

Sir, It is learned from the News papers that the Governor of R.B.I.has declared that, they are going to cancell the coins of 25 paise,w.e.f.June,2011.As they declared of cancellation,they did not give any alternatives to, those who are in possession of so many coins which are accumulated with the public, since long as 25 paise coins have been ceased in the market long back, though it was not officially declared.With this situation general public suffers a lot .As I enqired in S.B.I./Govt Treasuries regarding the policy of refunding the coins,but I was told that they have not received any letter to that effect It is my kind request to you guide me from where can I get information/or I can ask the authorities for the said matter.There are millions of Indians like me who will lose the money for no fault of theirs,with present conditions of hard living I hope will get reply soon. ////////// Yeolekar,A.D. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arvinddy (talk • contribs) 11:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I assume this refers to the Reserve Bank of India. If the coins will be withdrawn from circulation in June, you have more than five months to return them to the bank, and deposit them, if you have an account, or request larger-denomination notes. Or am I misunderstanding the situation? BrainyBabe (talk) 11:22, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I love the people who address us as "Sir" as if they were writing a letter to the editor. Pais (talk) 11:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It was formatted as a letter. As Indian English explains, some of their formal epistolatory style comes directly from the East India Company. BrainyBabe (talk) 11:50, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The RBI has not yet announced its procedures for the call-in of the coins, according to stories I've read such as [6] & [7]. As others have noted, the best option open to you is to have such coins converted into 50 paise or 1 rupee coins. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

World War Two

I need to know if Rehburg, Germany was a part of the East or West during WW II. Basically, if a plane was shot down over Rehburg, Germany or Bad Rehburg, Germany, would that have been considered enemy territory?

Thank you so much, Hazel — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hjk49 (talk • contribs) 12:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

There was no division into West Germany and East Germany during World War II. All of Germany was (from the Allies' point of view) enemy territory, at least until the Western Allied invasion of Germany. After the war, Rehburg-Loccum, which is in Lower Saxony, was in West Germany. Pais (talk) 12:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(EC)Germany was not divided into east & west until after WW2, and so the question appears to be null. It was in Germany. Assuming the plane was from the allies, it would be enemy territory. If it was an axis plane, then it would be on friendly territory. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

However, according to this map, the area where Rehburg is was under Allied control by 9 April 1945. If an Allied plane was shot down there after that date, it would be on friendly territory. Pais (talk) 13:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

See Partition of Germany for a little more background. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

would it be considered wrong to deceive someone in poker or part of te game?

I would not consider it ethical for someone to "hustle" in any betting game - deceiving people and thereby taking advantage of them. isn't it different in poker though? isn't that what you're there to do? to be deceived? If someone sat down at your table and played for an hour, then on their very last hand showed that the whole hour had been an elobarote ploy, and got up again with all of your money (and that of others), having made an expert play - would that be considered swindling, hustling, and deceitful? Or is that what you are at the poker table to experience, like the entertainment of pro wrestling, and the fake soap opera aspect played as though it were real? (which I don't consider deceitful in the least - it IS the game). Thanks for your perspective, especially from poker players... Would the person who did that (winnig a lot of money in the process) be a "swindler" or a "good poker player"? Thanks. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 15:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a gambler, but I suppose it depends on whether the deception is allowed within the rules of the game. Bluffing in poker is (if my knowledge of poker, which is derived entirely from TV shows, is correct) is allowed, but hiding an ace in your sleeve is not. Someone who wins using the former strategy would then be considered a good poker player, while someone who wins using the latter strategy would be considered a cheat. Wikipedia has an article on Cheating in poker that may interest you. Pais (talk) 15:57, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

no, it's not that. it's misrepresenting your ability...is that a swindle? ("hustling")? 91.183.62.45 (talk) 16:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict) This may verge on asking for opinions rather than facts, but my understanding and experience of playing poker is that deceiving one's opponents as to one's ability and legitimately concealed card holdings is an essential aspect of poker in its advanced forms. Bluffing - by betting heavily on a poor hand so as to intimidate others into folding - is within both the rules and the spirit of the game. Actively misleading opponents by facial expressions as to how good one's hand in is arguably just an extension of maintaining a 'poker face' so as not to give any such information. Deliberately playing poorly before taking a big pot on the last hand is arguably more questionable, but presumably everyone else in the game is playing (and gambling) willingly and has the same opportunity for the same ploy. Hustling, like most confidence tricks, often depends upon the 'victim' being both gullible and greedy, in the sense of being eager to win money from someone the victim thinks is less skilled. Obviously, using any form of cheating (concealed or marked cards, dishonest shuffles, colluding kibbitzers, etc.) crosses the line into swindling. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 16:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

We also have an article on Slow play (poker). I think it's considered to be in the spirit of the game. Sandbagging in pool, however, is not. (Especially when handicapping is part of the score, see Sandbag). ---Sluzzelin talk 16:24, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

aspect I'm interested in

Please elaborate on exactly this sentence. "Deliberately playing poorly before taking a big pot on the last hand is arguably more questionable.". This is the essence of my question. What makes you say that? Do you believe it is questionable, or in fact part of the game? In other words: is the person who wins using this tactic a "questionable player" or a "very good player". Please answer in as much detail as possible. Especially if you're a poker player. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 16:34, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Earlier answers below will have likely superceded this late one, but since you ask - I would consider misleadingly poor play to be impolite behaviour amongst relatives or friends playing for amusement and trivial stakes, but a perfectly fair (though risky) tactic if playing seriously for serious money (as I used to long ago, but not in the last 3 decades): however, in some circumstances others might differ and make their disapproval robustly plain, so I might not use the tactic if, to put it bluntly, I were to judge that it might get me beaten up. Also, I would and have done so when invited to join a game with other players of unknown abilities, but would not have deliberately tried to lure known poorer players into playing with me. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 02:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think what you are describing is a Card shark, which according to our article is an "expert card gambler who takes advantage of less-skilled players, without implication of actual cheating at cards". A Card shark (or sharp), then, may be considered a "hustler" or a "swindler" (especially by those hustled or swindled;) without necessarily also being considered a "cheat". There is nothing within the rules of the game that requires players to accurately reveal their skill level to the other players before, during, or after game-play. WikiDao ☯ 16:32, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm talking about getting the sharks to play very loosely by pretending to be one of their fish. Does sitting down at a table, spilling small chips for an hour, then suddenly cleaning up with great play - if I sit down with 400 in chips and get up an hour later with 5000 through this techique make me a "great player" (for the table), owing to the fact that I won, or a swindler? Poker player responses especially welcome! You can go beyond morals too: is it rude of me? 91.183.62.45 (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) In poker, "bluffing" is usually limited to the use of facial expressions, body language, and betting patterns, but does not extend to other types of deception; it is definately not "anything goes". For example, it is considered against the rules to make statements about or give away any direct information about your hole cards. You cannot state "I have two diamonds. I just need three more for a flush", whether you are lying OR telling the truth. It's also considered bad form to be overly demonstrative, for example folding a hand preflop in Texas Hold'em, and then reacting to the flop cards as though you blew what should have been a good hand; since that gives information to other players about what cards you may have had. I have seen several players cautioned at televised events for doing exactly that. Also, bluffing only happens in the context of the hand; it is considered very bad form in most poker games to intentionally lose hands to make others think you are a worse player than you are; or to collude with other players secretly to, for example, always lose hands to a friend to give him a stronger chip position. There is also the issue of the "string bet", whereby you cannot indicate a likely bet on your part outside of your turn. If you pick up chips before your bet while someone else is making a decision, as though you were going to bet, you cannot then fold your hand after they make a bet. Also, you cannot slowly add chips in phases to the pot to see others reactions; bets must be made cleanly and in one motion. (after EC with above, responding to it) At any game I have played in, it would be considered very bad form to intentionally play badly hand after hand to "suck people in" (i.e. "Sandbagging"), only to later reverse yourself and suddenly start playing well. Players with a reputation for doing that would get disinvited from playing very quickly. --Jayron32 16:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "sharks ... pretending to be one of their fish" is precisely the definition of what a card shark is. You can be a great player without being a "shark". To be a shark, you must be a great player who pretends to not be a great player for the purpose of getting not-so-great players to play with you. (You are not a shark if you are a not-so-great player and happen to just get lucky enough to win big, of course). I am an amateur poker player who has played occasionally with much better players, and though I have never lost heavily to a great player who was pretending to be a not-so-great player, if I did I would not consider it "rude" or "immoral" of the person to have gotten away with that ploy, I would consider it to have been just part of the game (and my fault for having been "fooled"). WikiDao ☯ 16:55, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(But clearly I am speaking informally from an amateur perspective. I defer to what appears to be Jayron's greater expertise in this matter;). WikiDao ☯ 17:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, we're both probably right on this WikiDao. It's all about context and knowing your environment. I have a rotating homegame I have been playing in for over 10 years; the players change over time but most of us have been playing together for years. Its a $20.00 stake, the money is so low to keep bad feelings to a minimum; its basically an excuse to spend 20 bucks for the chance to drink beer and say rude things about women with your friends. In a game like that, attitudes and conventions are very different than in games like casino-run tournaments and cash games, which is ALSO going to be different than the sort of games that go on is sketchy, underground poker clubs. What is laughed off and considered "good form" in the context of a home game can get your knees broken if you are playing in a different sort of crowd. If you know that your friends consider something OK, go with it. If you are in an environment with a bunch of strangers, it pays to play it straight until you can judge the "unwritten rules" and "codes of conduct" allowed. --Jayron32 17:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Faking a lack of skill, or faking a phony tell is a trick that you could really only do once. So a weekly game between freinds wouldn't really be vulnerable to that sort of sandbagging. APL (talk) 17:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I rarely play poker, but I'm surprised no one picked up that the premise of the question involves getting up from the table after a single big-wining hand.

Surely that's not considered friendly? APL (talk) 17:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It's also not the kind of thing you can do in a home game where play usually goes on until a certain time or all the beer's gone. This question seems to be geared to gambling with strangers to me. And there's little point in sharking unless there's substantial money on the table. In that context I do believe that sandbagging your opponents might lead to a disagreement. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 18:15, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

This question really can only be answered with opinion, so I will relate an anecdote. In undergraduate college I used to run fairly large weekly tournaments with a buy in structure that set aside a bonus that got added back into the pot at the end of every month in a bonus tourney (people who missed tournaments had to pay extra to get into the bonus tourney to encourage people to come every week). At what was probably the biggest tournament I ran we had something like 42 people and a pot of about $3k. This guy shows up (the friend of a friend of a regular) acting kinda drunk (and drinks through the whole tourney) and making a bunch of very beginner mistakes (including asking for the ranking of hands a couple of times), but he wins the key hands and ends up taking the whole thing down and walking away with about $2k. Some people got pissed, but it was impossible to tell if he was deliberately down playing his ability or if he just got very lucky (who knows maybe a combination of the two?). We never saw him again. Personally I don't have a problem with it (and I was playing in the tourney too), but I know others did. It also could be a bit of a dangerous move, I know some people at the tournament where pretty angry and fortunately they weren't violent, but I could see the situation ending badly if it were only slightly different (This event actually led me to scale down the size of the tournaments while raising the stakes). Context is the key here. In a low stakes friendly game this kind of deception is going to be inappropriate and is unlikely to get you invited back. In private games like the one I described it is also going to frowned on by some of the players and could conceivably get the swindler beat up and his money taken by disgruntled players. In a casino context it might be frowned on by some of the players, but the casino certainly wouldn't care and you aren't likely to get robbed a casino. This sort of deception is certainly within the rules of the game, but it is likely to upset people, on the other hand poker players tend to get upset at just about anything that causes them to lose. --Daniel 19:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the anecdote. I never ask about rankings. Would that anecdote have worked differently if he had started by saying "Look, I'm not dumb, okay? I know exactly what I'm doing. Are we all clear on this"? Then I would argue, he was just the best poker player there - and that's why he is the one who walked away with the cash. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

If he had done as you said and made it clear to everyone that he was an expert player and then proceeded to play like a drunk beginner, it would certainly lessened the acrimony at the end. However it would also certainly weaken the effectiveness of his ploy, possibly to the point uselessness. The point of this type of play is to cause players to let the guard down and open themselves up to big losses. If players believe that another player is skilled they aren't going to let their guard down even if this player is playing like a fish. Here is another related anecdote (sort of the opposite situation): I once ate lunch with a moderately famous photographer and the conversation turned to poker, he proceeded to tell me what a great player he was and that he always took all the money from everyone he played with. I saw this a sign that he was in fact a fish. Besides the fact that taking everyone's money every time is basically impossible, a really good player would not want to advertise their skill to such an extent. Not advertising your ability is different than deliberately playing like a chump and is certainly acceptable in all situations. --Daniel 20:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

OP here

Oh. Guys, I need way more etiquette than this. I really thought - due to bluffing - that it was kind of "anything goes". You're basically telling me that bluffing is okay, but bluffing about bluffing is not okay. In other words, you're saying that it's okay to pretend to have a strong hand while having a weak one. But it's NOT okay to only be PRETENDING to have been pretending to have a strong hand, expressly so that you will be called out on it, everyone can see that you're a bluffer, and next time also pretend to be bluffing, but this time 5x bigger, and this time without actually bluffing at all - you do have the nuts. THat's what it comes down to what you guys are telling me: bluffing is okay; bluffing about bluffing is not okay. Really, guys? Really? You want me to be more predictable, so you can get my money? And you will call me rude or immoral if I'm not predictable enough for you (when I bluff, I have to really want to be trying to bluff: I can't just be wanting you to see me "try to bluff"). Let's make a compromise, since that's obviously wrong. How would you feel about if when I sat down at the table, I outright told you "I'm not a beginner, don't mistake me one. If you see me acting like a beginner, it's just because I have greater mathematical insight than you. Got it?" And get everyone to consent to the fact that I"m not actually a beginner. Then I can proceed to pretend to bluff, have them get on to the fact that I'm a (pretend) bluffer, and then have them try to call my pretend bluffs, which are real. Obviously this is just good math, and good poker. With the disclaimer I just provided, would you feel that what I was doing with my specially deep mathematical knowledge was okay? (And, for reference: that's exactly what I did the last time I sat down to play poker - began with that disclaimer.) 91.183.62.45 (talk) 17:47, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that the crux of the disagreement wasn't bluffing about bluffing but rather the means available to you to bluff. Most poker players I know frown on exaggerated displays of emotion and talking about your cards could give other people at the table an unfair edge (IE if you say you had the jack of spades and that's a card I need for a straight flush, I know now that I cannot possibly get the hand I was hoping for, other players, not knowing I needed that card, are at a disadvantage because I knew what was in your hand). Given that those are the norms, it would be, in my opinion, highly questionable to act as if you are unaware of the rules of poker (unwritten or written) to give other players the impression that you are not a poker player. Honestly, though, they might well assume you're an online poker player, good at the game, unaware of the norms of table play. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 18:25, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

OP: there are three levels here:

• Playing (assumedly well). perfectly acceptable, and generally generating respect
• Hustling (pretending to play poorly while actually being able to play well). Hustling is basically acceptable in any gambling game, but hustlers are generally considered small-change chumps, and no one much likes them.
• Cheating: artificially influencing the game to get a better chance of winning. not nice, can get you shot.

really good gamblers don't try to fake out people about how good they are. they are usually pretty arrogant about it. The arrogance is part of getting big pots: people will put down serious money to challenge a good gambler. If a good gambler wanted to hustle someone they could (and there would be nothing ethically wrong with doing so), but why would they? You can't hustle other good gamblers (part of being a good gambler is not being gullible enough to fall for that stuff), and hustling average gamblers is not going to net you much money (if you shoot fish in a barrel you end up with small fish and a barrel full of holes, yah?). Don't think about this as there being rules against it; it's just not practical for good gamblers to hustle. --Ludwigs2 18:17, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay - I've decided to "show more of my cards". In the secton below, I detailed my strategy in more detail. My original suggestion that I "pretended to be a fish" was a simplification, but I realize it's not enough to the answer I'm really looking for. Please read my actual strategy, Ludwig2s, below, and I very much welcome your perspective. Especially not so much the strategy, but the strategy after having made the appropriate disclaimer. viz: "I'm about to play in a way that's hard to read, but it's not because I'm a fish, but because I have a very excellent strategy. Same goes for paying attention to anythign but the cards - please don't think that the cards aren't important to me or that I'm not interested in winning." I literally want to reduce the amount of information available about me to other players. And yes, that often resembles a fish, who can't even read his own cards. Normally, the only person who would make the kind of mistake that gets you to the showdown with an 8 high is a fish. However, my strategy of going to the showdown SOMETIMES despite having 0 personal information about my hole cards (didn't really look) in order to reduce the signal to noise ratio for that particular hand to 0, is the single OTHER case anyone would ever go to showdown all-in with off-suit 5 and 8... So, my play WILL resemble that of a fish, from time to time. Is that okay, as long as I give the appropriate disclaimer? I'm just a better poker player, due to my math tools. Can I use this fact in the way I suggest, while remaining honest, upright, and having good character (much more important to me than being able to utilize my greater understanding of mathematics, statitics, probability, signals theory, and psychology). Thank you. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 18:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The Essence of my Strategy

My strategy doesn't really come from "faking a lack of skill". Instead it comes from this: there is no 'way' that I play a particular hand. It depends on whether I'm playing tight or loose at the moment, which is random. Why is it random? Because if there WERE a way I played a particular hand in a particular situation, others could hone in on that and I could lose. This way, there are two ways I can play any particular hand: tight or loose. They have no way of knowing which mode I'm in - only I know. So, by not having ONE algorithm for how to play a hand in a given situation, I become a stronger player than them: I can't be read. Since, there's nothing to read - my actions are not determined by my cards, but by my cards and a random number which they don't know. This is a very powerful way of playing - but it also means that sometimes I will have to say no to hands with good pot odds, just because I'm in a very cautious/risk-averse mode just then. There is one more thing. I like to pay attention to something other than the poker cards (without slowing the game), so that my behavior is not influenced by a single source of entropy -- the cards -- but two: a conversation/whatever's going on on the TV behind me/etc etc. It's not that I want to seem "distracted" -- it's that I want to decrease the signal to noise ratio, by having my attention split between the signal (the cards I'm seeing) and the noise (the cadence of a conversation, or another game, or anything else). Would you consider it ethical/okay of me to use both of the above strategies? 1) alternating weak and strong plays, so that I am totally unpredictable, since I literally do not follow any algorithm that determines my play. and 2) splitting my attention so that my immediate reaction (when I'm not the player whose turn it is) is not determined by a single source of signal, but a source of signal and a greater source of noise (such as a conversation with a hot woman to my right)... Again, the underlying mathematical reason for both of these things is not to appear to be a bad player, or to appear to be distracted. It's to be a BETTER player. To play meta-bluffs and meta-poker. If I start the game by telling people that's I'm neither weak nor distracted, but in fact just a very good player, does my strategy become okay? Or do you guys insist that I both become more predictable (playing the same situations in the same way - not sometimes "wrong" -- with negative pot odds -- and sometimes "right" -- with positive pot odds) and much easier to read, by focusing my attention on the consequences of the game no matter what? To royally fuck with the other players' signal-to-noise ratio, when I'm in my most aggressive mode, I will bet and raise, and even go all-in, while having only PRETENDED to look at my hole cards. Since I myself do not know the value of my hand, the opponents' signal to noise ratio is reduced to literally 0. However, they have no way of knowing, in the same situation, whether I am currently playing so hyper-aggressively, or in fact am playing extremely tightly at the moment. Do you think it would be wrong of me to go all the way to an all-in showdown without having looked at my hole cards? (Having only pretended to?) Please give me detailed etiquette and moral guidance on all of the above points. Thank you. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 18:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Changing your betting strategy is a major part of playing poker, this isn't deceptive. If your strategy is to "bet so that I am hard to read" that is kinda, sorta, exactly what good poker players do every day. --Jayron32 18:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The basic reason I resemble a fish

The essential reason I will always resemble a fish is that it would seem only a fish would play randomly -- it seems at any skill level above total beginner, your play would in no way resemble random play. But that is bad poker. Because if it is anything less than random, then it can be read. So, the perfect play is, on some level, indistinguishable from being a total beginner's play who is just playing literally randomly. I never ask myself "what would a fish do" and just do that. Instead, I just play using the above algorithm, while being aware of what it LOOKS LIKE I'm doing. What impression my play -- which is not determined by me, but a random source as well -- makes it look like I'm doing. So, is there any way for me to apply the above algorithm (which is correct, and mathematically works) without accidentally stepping on toes and being accused of sandbagging? Would it be sufficient to start the egame with a declaration that everything I do is calculated, and I am not a beginner or a fish? It still seems to me like I should be able to continue doing what I'm diong -- which comes from having a degree in math and deep understanding in poker -- while giving people fair warning that I'm not a fish.... Also, on the same token, what if in the beginning I will tell people that I will not keep playing the game if I win a really, really big pot - since I would just lose it again (which is true). If in the beginning I tell people that I'm not a fish, and I tell people that if I win really big I will leave before I blow it all (which is true -- I would blow it all: from hitting my hyper-aggressive mode, and going all in with the whole winnings without having looked at my hole cards), then does it make it okay and acceptable and ethical and a decent thing to do to apply all of the above mathematical tools I have developed, resulting in play that seems close to random (which means it is perfect poker play, perfectly unreadable) despite my assurances that I wasn't a fish, and which results in my winning a big pot, and, just as I gave fair warning of in the beginning, not continuing the pattern, but leaving with it? How would you feel about this if I told you all this at the onset? Thanks... 91.183.62.45 (talk) 18:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

P.s. I would also say that if I pay attention to other things than the cards, it doesn't mean that I don't care about the cards. They shouldn't think that it's all the same to me, on the contrary, I do care about winning... If I told that at the onset, then would it be okay to then distract myself with other sources of input than the cards, so that I become less readable? Thanks... 91.183.62.45 (talk) 18:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Basically guys, the common thing in this whole thread is: I've developed great poker tools through mathematics (entropy) and signals theory, and would like to apply them without misleading anyone: ethically, correctly, and with character. Can I do it? 91.183.62.45 (talk) 18:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

End point to me is that betting systems, other than perfect strategy, and card counting in blackjack, are usually losing propositions. Intentionally playing worse than your best will almost always guarantee a worse outcome than consistent play at your highest level, unless you are hustling. You might win some pots going all-in on a weak hand and forcing players questioning the value of their hand to abandon it. But you're only liable to take small pots that way as people strongly invested in the hand feel that they have a good chance of a strong hand and might well call your bluff, this is more likely if they think you are playing wild. Going all-in without even LOOKING at your cards is suicidal, yes your opponents know nothing about your hand because they can't read you at all, but there is so much other information on the table that their guess as to your hand is only part of it. What if you go all-in on, a terrible hand that has a minuscule probability even with the best possible cards convert into a good hand? What if they have two aces in their hand? In addition, if I saw someone playing that aggressively, I'd walk away from the game. It's not pleasant to play with a rampaging bull. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I didn't read all that stuff about you being a fish, but the answer you're looking for is "yes". Employing your own strategy is entirely part of the given rules of virtually any game; bluffing and employing meta-strategies goes to the very heart of advanced poker. Let's say you do it: play dumb and then clean up in the end. What's the guy gonna say? "Hey, that's not fair, I thought I could take advantage of your lack of skill with impunity!" Just remember, and I can't stress this enough: lots of very smart people have lost their shirts around a poker table. Just as you are free to lose the first few hands in an effort to bluff them into thinking you're unskilled, they're just as free to stand up after taking half your money and walk away. Matt Deres (talk) 18:43, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

you make a good point, an old gambler's adage is "it's impossible to cheat an honest man." Most con games rely on the mark's greed. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 18:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

OP, are you really trying to say that your carefully-considered and "mathematically superior" strategy for playing poker is to make your bets without reference to, or even knowledge of, the cards you have?

And what you would like to ask us about that here at the Wikipedia Humanities Reference desk is: do we think that you can do that and still be a good person?

Did I get the wrong impression somehow, after reading everything you have written above, or is that really what you are asking, and if so is it because you are deliberately trolling, perhaps? No offense; it's just I'm finding it sort of difficult to understand otherwise. WikiDao ☯ 21:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I have a poker-playing, computer-programming, surrealist friend who comes out with shit like this, so I'm going to assume good faith. He doesn't even always lose all his money every time we play, either. One of the nice things about poker is that being sufficiently bizarre and sphinx-like will get you quite a long way, whatever cards you have. 81.131.14.206 (talk) 03:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that if you deployed this betting strategy against me I would have no trouble at all with your betting strategy and would offer to buy you a drink if only you return next week with more cash.

You see, your strategy would work if the goal in poker was "Don't ever betray your cards, even a little, for any reason". But that isn't the goal in poker. The goal is to win As many hands as possible. Keeping your cards secret is only a means to that ends. Remember, at the start of any given hand, the odds are against you having the winning hand. If you don't take deliberate action to improve your odds, then statistically breaking even is the best you can hope for.

Imagine a simple dice game. Each player secretly throws a die and highest throw wins. You don't even look at your die and place a bet every throw. Your opponent only places a bet if his own throw is above three. You haven't betrayed any knowledge of your die, but he has greatly improved his odds.

On the other hand, this : "Also, on the same token, what if in the beginning I will tell people that I will not keep playing the game if I win a really, really big pot" would be unacceptable in most friendly games. APL (talk) 23:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

what if I got up and cashed out most of it? (this is a casino), to return and keep laying with less? 91.183.62.45 (talk) 10:20, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, This very simple strategy is not new. It occurs to everyone who wins a big hand. It's called a "Hit and Run". It's considered rude because it's against the spirit of the game. Winning at poker over many hands requires a good amount of skill. Winning a single hand and then leaving requires only luck.

Casinos will have rules to discourage [Hit-And-Run] poker playing, but it won't be strictly illegal. (They can't force you to keep playing.) You might not get to try this trick more than once, and you will not make any friends. APL (talk) 15:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

You may find online poker more to your liking. In poker, as in most things, people are more tolerant of jerks online. APL (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

• After sleeping on this and thinking about the problem through the night, I have finally come to the main problem with your strategy, and it comes down to one of the most popular misconceptions about poker: your strategy places on overemphasis on one type of knowledge; that of "reading other players" and does not give enough emphasis on the other, that of "reading your cards". Poker is really mostly about reading the cards correctly, and there's only a small amount of importance in reading other people. Popular poker movies make it seem like the only way to really win at Poker is to have a sort of telepathic ability to read people's hands; in reality such ability only plays a small amount of good poker players strategy. Lets put some numbers behind it; lets just throw a wild guess and say that 10% of poker playing comes from reading people, and the other 90% comes from knowing what to do with the cards you are dealt. People who completely ignore the psychological aspect of poker will do far better than people who completely ignore the card strategy in poker. While the psychological aspect will generally seperate the really great players from the merely good players, it doesn't hold that psychology will overcome a really shitty playing strategy all by itself, which is essentially what the OP's proposal is all about; the idea that he can screw with good players minds enough to make them confused enough to forget how to play poker well. It just doesn't work that way. Read a book like Super/System. While there is parts of the book that covers reading people, the parts of that book that have endured are the betting strategies and not the psychological aspects of it. The No-Limit Texas Hold'em strategy outlined in Super/System (known as "Tight-Aggressive") has so dominated the game of poker at the professional level that it is akin to the Fosbury Flop in High Jump, or the T formation in American Football; it revolutionized the game so much that everyone does it as a given because it works so well against just about any other system. The Super/System Tight-Aggressive betting strategy is basically about playing the odds with the cards you have, and maximizing the value of your cards by only playing winners, and maximizing the value of potential winners with big bets. Various people have made variations on the Tight-Aggresive strategy, but like the T-Formation basically destroyed the single wing, and still forms the core strategy of all American football to this day, Super/System's betting strategies have done the same for poker. There are very successful professional players, like Daniel Negreanu who's success does not come from his ability to prevent others from reading him; instead it comes from his encyclopedic knowledge of other players and of the odds regarding his hand in relation to others. He knows exactly how other players play their cards, and uses that knowledge to his advantage in deciding how to play his own. But he doesn't put any credence in the "cold-read" and his strategy ignores that aspect of the game, with great success I might note. The idea that one could devise a betting strategy to "fool" other players in making a bad "cold read" on you, an unknown player, when the really good players don't even play that way, is pretty lousy strategy. The best advice is play your cards as best as possible; if someone is an obvious read, use that information to your advantage, but don't worry too much about trying to deceive others by the way you describe. It just doesn't work. --Jayron32 15:56, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's worth mentioning that Poker bots can often play decently against human players by reading the cards only. Especially players who don't realize they're playing against bots. APL (talk) 16:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

One further issue: unless you're using a tool (dice, a computer, etc) to generate your randomness, you're not being random. The human mind is very bad at being random, and if you try to be random what will most likely happen is that you will start following a pattern that you don't recognize, but which others will pick up on - that will make you a worse poker player, not a better one. --Ludwigs2 16:40, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

This (the 10% and 90% part) isn't really true, because around a poker table with a lot of weak players, being able to sense weakness gives a great advantage, and so the psychological player will take risks which, on average, allow him to the steam-roller the statistical player, who will behave conservatively and usually die a slow and boring death. (The psychological player won't fare well in a head-to-head against the automaton player, though, unless he can switch strategies.) Lots depends, of course, on whether we're talking about professional poker where all the other players are known personalities, backroom poker where the others are strangers or play infrequently, or online poker where you can't guess what people are like at all and they might all be robots. 81.131.49.248 (talk) 20:12, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

My 2p's worth: poker is a game. A real game, not something that's metaphorically a game. Provided you play within the rules, you can do whatever you like. Bluff etc is a well known part of the game. Beginners learn by losing to more experienced players. 92.15.23.216 (talk) 21:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Arnulf

Who is the most likely Arnulf noted on an English parish church notice-board as a rector of St James' Church, Stretham, Cambridgeshire on or before 1222?

• A search through the Domesday Book reveals two Arnulf's

• Arnulf d'Ardres
• Arnulf de Hesdin

• Wikipedia disambiguation reveals 12: Arnulfs on Wikipedia
• Google reveals a few: Arnulf's on Google
• There are no Arnulf's mentioned in Meadows P., 2010 Ely: Bishops and Diocese, 1109-2009. Boydell Press. ISBN 1843835401

--Senra (Talk) 16:50, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Just some guy, most likely. Important enough to be rector of a church, but that's not such a big deal. Arnulf is a pretty popular medieval name. If he's anyone, you might be able to find some more info in the relevant Victoria County History, or Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae. I think they are all online at British-History.ac.uk (I'll look further when I get a chance later today). Adam Bishop (talk) 18:38, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, nothing in the Fasti (which doesn't seem to go down to this level of clergy), or in the VCH (which talks about Stretham here). Where did you see this note about Arnulf in 1222? Adam Bishop (talk) 21:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

is it true that japanese, when recycling, sort their trash into 10+ categories?

if so, exactly how many? --59.189.218.40 (talk) 19:15, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It varies from place to place, and exact numbers of categories are hard to come by, but in 2005 Yokohama did update it's rules to require 10 types of sorting not 5. Prokhorovka (talk) 20:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

And, again from 2005, one town had 44 categories. Nanonic (talk) 20:04, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

10 really isn't all that many; I'd hazard that most people in developed countries have the opportunity, if not the obligation, to sort into at least that many categories. Looking at my own situation in the UK (the UK having been one of the poorer performers in recycling among Western European countries):

• plastic, metal, and glass containers go in one box, but are separated by the scaffy when he picks stuff up (that is, right there in the street, rather than later). If the council provided three containers for this I'd happily separate them myself. If I take the glass to the recycling centre (or the drop off point at various shops) I'm supposed to sort the cullet into three (clear,brown,green). So, for containers alone, that's five.
• at home all paper goes togther, but at the office we split clean white paper (shreddings) from others (brown paper, coloured paper, newsprint). So that's another two.
• then there's basic landfill. I live in a flat so we don't get green/food collection, but our neighbours with gardens do get a green collection (for composting) so that's two more for them.
• I live near the edge of town; if I was another half mile or so out, the local pig farmer would collect food waste for pigswill.
• I return plastic bags and depleted batteries to the supermarket, and old cloth to a bin outside the supermarket. Unwanted and expired medicine goes back to the pharmacist.
• Beyond that there's all the different categories of stuff that the local civic recycling centre wants me to separate anything I take there: in addition to most of the categories above, there's wood, rubble (stone/bricks/plaster etc.), scrap metal, electrical goods, paint, and motor oil.

So that's 15+ categories (but households sort into only three or four categories for curbside collection). In practice most stuff goes into one of the basic categories and the whole process isn't burdensome at all. 44 categories does seem like more of a challenge, however. -- 87.112.107.231 (talk) 00:59, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I lived in Japan for 2 years and agree that it varies from city to city. In my area, the local government distributed an information card to each household that explained what went where via pictures -- very handy. We had somewhere around 10 categories, but nearly all of your daily waste falls into "burnable" (food, paper, etc) or glass. How often do you throw out electrical appliances, umbrellas, etc? In practical use, it wasn't a hassle at all, and I wish more places took the trouble. The Masked Booby (talk) 01:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Classifying into 10 categories is certainly common in many places. Here in Spain you have normal, paper, glass, packages+plastic, batteries, cooking oil, clothes, and electronic garbage containers. (That makes 8). 88.24.238.251 (talk) 11:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In Greenwich, U.K. we have three bins - Mixed dry recycling (Metal, glass, plastic, card and paper), Compostable waste (all food waste and gardening waste) and residual waste. Clothes, drink cartons, batteries, electrical goods, furniture, paint etc. have to be taken to either recycling points at supermarkets or at the local council waste centre, but we don't generate too much of those, so an occasional trip is fine. Mikenorton (talk) 11:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

bbc iplayer

Does anyone know how to tell how long programs are available on bbc's iplayer site for? I have tried noting down the dates and times they give for each program, but it seems half of them are wrong, sometimes by two or three days.

148.197.121.205 (talk) 20:59, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It varies. They're all supposed to be available for at least a week (except perhaps films) but some things are on for longer. They'll often keep a few episodes of serial things, as a series catchup, for longer. But I can't see a pattern to what is kept longer and what isn't. 87.112.107.231 (talk) 00:22, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Definition of partial lot legal description

When I asked the cemetery sexton where exactly was Lot E-41 ("E" is a section within the cemetery), his answer was:
It is approximately 13 rods E. of North corner of north line of cemetery.
What does that description say EXACTLY using feet as the measurment?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 21:25, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

According to our Rod (unit) article, one rod is equal to 16.5 feet. So 13 rods would be 214.5 feet.

I don't know how the cemetery is laid out, do you have a map? One possibility is that it is a perfectly square cemetery with borders running N, E, W, and S, in which case the sexton would presumably have meant to say the North-West corner of the cemetery, and that the lot lies on the North boundary line exactly 214.5 feet East from that corner. There are other possibilities, though, so without further information I'm afraid I cannot respond more EXACTLY. WikiDao ☯ 22:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is the cemetery plot map.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22738816@N07/5339246227/in/set-72157619909680727/

Lets assume North-West corner of the cemetery as you say, THEN would that mean 214.5 feet East to the Northwest corner of Lot 41?

There are 5 grave spaces in each Lot and each space is 4 feet. Then from the North line to the South line I assume 20 feet with no setbacks. What would a typical length be for the lay of the body of West line to East line? The headstones are on the far West end.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Is low inflation the highest goal of economists?

Would an economist running a country stick with a low inflation target even though it pushed the economy into another recession or even depression? Thanks 92.28.244.122 (talk) 23:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Just today MSN ran an article about the need for inflation, to increase the "cost of money" (IE the interest rate) and encourage saving over borrowing. Deflation is far more a threat to an economy than Inflation, because it makes consumers clam up and stop spending. Why buy anything major today when it's going to be cheaper tomorrow? In addition, normal inflation is a key part of borrowing, eith money becoming worth less over time it helps offset interest on long-term loans like house mortgages and governmental debt. So, in short, SOME inflation could be argued to be a good thing, just not too much, and deflation is even worse than inflation. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 23:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know where 65.29 got this thing that deflation is worse than inflation. Deflation is never too extreme,but it can last for a decade. Japan had 10 years of slight deflation. Here in Germany we got minor periods of time with deflation (but not with high inflation, which was rather moderate), but the country if growing now heavily, so no main harm. In the 20's - 30's inflation has wrecked the german economy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.169.185.76 (talk) 00:56, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm passing along what I heard/read. And in many ways Japan's slight deflation has lead to serious economic problems. Inflation to a *modest* level is good for an economy, for the reasons I outlined above. Hyperinflation is something else entirely, and usually is not purely economic in nature. Hyperinflation usually also comes with serious societal upheaval and leads to serious long-term problems and short-term utter collapse. Deflation, however, causes contraction of the economy, amplifies debt and encourages consumers not to spend. 65.29.47.55 (talk) 01:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

You might also be interested in the phenomenon of stagflation. Some fear* that the UK economy may currently be in danger of this. *(OK, weasel words, but such was a suggestion on a BBC Radio 4 current affairs programme a few hours ago.) 87.81.230.195 (talk) 02:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Some left-leaning economists (I seem to remember Robert Reich being among them) have not been pleased by the way that the Fed in the U.S. has sometimes interpreted a low unemployment rate as a sign that the economy is on the verge of overheating, so that it's time to raise interest rates. However, the Fed is not supposed to place low inflation as a priority above sliding into recession... AnonMoos (talk) 06:12, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's a complex question. One source of complexity is that if a government has its own currency, it always has the option of paying its bills, to its own citizens at least, by printing money. This naturally produces inflation. Thus inflation in some cases functions as a sort of tax, reducing the value of the money that is in circulation and giving that value to the central government. It is actually the easiest tax for a government to collect, because they don't have to force anybody to give them money -- they just print it. Thus it happens sometimes that weak governments, even those run by economists, turn to inflation in order to stave off fiscal collapse. Looie496 (talk) 04:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

One of the problems with overemphasis on inflation is that it often misses other factors which may be a greater reflection on the health of an economy. Inflation generally only deals with the price of goods, but ignores other factors like wages and purchasing power and things like that. The value of currency means next to nothing in isolation. For example, if inflation is 5%, but over the same time period wages went up 10%, that represents an increase in real wages, and as a result, we can say that the economy is healthier, since people can now buy more today than a year ago, even though everything costs more. Some economists will often skip past inflation (because that deals in currency, which in the world of fiat currency, is a very ephemeral concept) and look at things like labor equivalency in real goods; for example the time needed to work to be able to purchase a common item, like a loaf of bread. If in country A, it takes the average worker 10 minutes to earn a "loaf of bread", and in country B, it takes the same worker 1 hour to earn the same amount, we can say that worker A is better off than worker B, and Country A has a stronger economy than Country B; even though we have no idea what the relative strength of their currencies is. Which is not to say that inflation is not important. A small, single-digit annual percent inflation isn't much to worry about. The real problem with inflation is hyperinflation, which results in unpredictability for the average citizen. If you just got paid $1000, you want to know what that $1000 is going to buy. In a market experiencing hyperinflation, you don't know hour to hour what your money will be worth, and that uncertaintly leads to all sorts of problems. Brazil in the mid 1990's came up with a novel solution to inflation problems; it basically created confidence in its currency system by creating a "virtual currency", which by law did not change its value. See Plano Real for how it worked. But the early 1990's Brazilian currency situation was a mess, due to unpredictable inflation, often with prices doubling over a matter of hours. Under normal circumstances, small amounts of inflation have effects on the economy (such as driving large institutions to alter their credit/savings ratios and things like that), but in general it doesn't affect normal behavior of the average consumer all that much. A 3% inflation rate doesn't make you more likely to buy a car or a gallon of milk than, say, a 5% inflation rate would. But if inflation was fluctuating between 30% and 50%, it would have a very different effect on your purchasing habits. --Jayron32 06:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Subjectively, to me as an average bloke, higher inflation made me feel prosperous and optimistic about the future as I would get better off as I grew older because the real value of my mortgage would fall and my equity increase. With very low rates of inflation I have none of that - the future looks grim, so I hang on tightly to my money, do not spend, do not invest. 92.15.28.68 (talk) 12:09, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

You cannot "do not spend, do not invest" your money. You always have to do one of both, saving is also investing.Quest09 (talk) 12:54, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Not if a) you save the money in coffee cans buried in your back yard and b) you save the money in a financial instrument whose interest or Return on Investment is less than inflation. In both of those cases, you lose value, which is sorta the exact opposite of the purpose of investment. --Jayron32 13:36, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, 'saving' the money in a financial instrument, of any sort, is already investing. If it pays less than inflation, it's a bad investment, but still an investment. You are right about a), but no normal person would do that. Quest09 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC).

I wonder what the current Bank Of England governor, Mervyn King, is required to do. Has he a mandate to pursue low inflation at all costs, or have the politicians cut him some slack? 92.15.28.68 (talk) 12:04, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

You can find relevant correspondance on the Treasury website. Although control of inflation is supposed to be his primary mandate, when he writes to explain that inflation is over target, the response tends to be along the lines that everything is fine, and no doubt it will sort itself out in time. Warofdreams talk 14:33, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Politicians want to be re-elected, so they tend to tolerate mild inflation when the alternative is a wrenching depression. Marco polo (talk) 14:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

On the original question, it is useful to think about who is willing and able to pay for the services of economists. A few are employed solely by academic institutions, but most receive some or all of their income from corporate and financial entities controlled by very wealthy people. This circumstance has led to economic discourse being dominated by economists working in the service of the wealthy. It is also illuminating to consider who benefits and who loses from various policies. A scenario in which pay is rising at the same rate or faster than prices, short of disruptive hyperinflation, benefits those who rely on wage or salary income (as opposed to investment income) and whose financial debts exceed their assets (such as homeowners whose savings are lower in value than their mortgage). A scenario in which pay is falling or rising more slowly than prices benefits those who rely more on investment income than on wages and those whose financial assets exceed their financial debts. Low inflation, particularly in wages, and particularly when accompanied by inflation in financial assets, such as is now underway, benefits those with financial assets because it allows them to claim a greater share of an economy's production of real goods and services. (Real assets, such as houses and factories, tend to rise in price with inflation, whereas financial assets often do not.) So, a policy prioritizing the prevention of inflation, and particularly wage inflation, is a policy of favoring those with net financial assets against wage earners with net financial debts (such as mortgages). The pervasiveness of this kind of policy and the near-consensus among economists that such a policy is desirable, demonstrates the balance of social power and the force of cultural hegemony. Marco polo (talk) 14:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Mervyn King, as Governor of the Bank of England, is a member of the Monetary Policy Committee. The government sets an inflation target (currently 2%) and the MPC is responsible for directing monetary policy in order to meet this target. Their main tool for doing this is to set the Bank of England Base Rate. The MPC takes decisions on monetary policy by majority voting. The MPC is intended to act independently of the government - the theory being that responsible management of monetary policy requires a long term view and should not be left in the hands politicians whose primary concern is the result of the next election or by-election. Gandalf61 (talk) 14:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems dumb that the only goal they have been given is virtually zero inflation, at the expense of anything else. The 2% rule must have been a rebound from the high inflation (due to oil shocks) of the 70s, and is not appropriate to current conditions. Is it a coincidence that social mobility was higher in the 70s than it is now? 92.28.250.90 (talk) 23:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to go back to the inflation / deflation question, and say that deflation is much worse. Asset values fall (real estate); sales transactions fall (postponed purchases); and once the monetary authorities have slashed interest rates to zero, there's nowhere to go. Inflation, on the other hand, quickly responds to higher interest rates, and if you doubt that, then the interest rates aren't high enough. Sure, you get a recession, but then rates can be cut. With deflation, you get the recession (or worse) with no monetary mechanism to address it. So, with half as many tools (fiscal, yes; monetary, no) to fight deflation, the least damaging option is inflation. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

DOR - You can pump more money into the system (Quantitative easing to try kick start the economy and this would result in inflation - so you have that tool in your bag - a tool that's being used in a number of countries at the moment (the UK being one of them). ny156uk (talk) 22:13, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

January 26

Bangladeshi visits by Mahatma Gandhi

Which districts or places did Mahatma Gandhi visit when he went to Bangladesh? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.35.66 (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It wouldn't have been called Bangladesh during his lifetime... AnonMoos (talk) 03:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that he made extensive tours in East Bengal, including a four-month walking tour of 49 villages in 1947. He also lived for six weeks in a small Muslim village in 1946. I expect there were earlier visits as well. Looie496 (talk) 04:04, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Puccini v. Andrew Lloyd Webber -- copyright term?

It's mentioned in both La fanciulla del West and The Music of the Night that the Giacomo Puccini estate sued Andrew Lloyd Webber on a claim that the song from The Phantom of the Opera too closely resembled a melody from the Puccini opera (the case was settled out of court). However, I wonder what the length of the copyright term would have been that would have allowed the Puccini estate to sue Lloyd Webber. La fanciulla del West premiered in 1910, Puccini died in 1924, and The Phantom of the Opera premiered in 1986 -- wouldn't the Puccini opera have been in the public domain by the time Phantom premiered? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It would depend on the country, but in the UK copyright expires 70 years after the death of the artist, so it wouldn't have been free until 1994. Prokhorovka (talk) 07:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

But it was only extended from 50 years by the Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995, so it should have become free in 1974. Warofdreams talk 10:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Investigating further, I'm suspicious of this claim, which doesn't appear in any contemporary news report on Google. This news story from 1998 about Ray Repp's rejected claim that Lloyd Webber had plagiarised his work doesn't mention any claim from the Puccini estate, as I would have expected. The earliest mention of the story which I can find is from 2002, when it is already mentioned as if well in the past. In the absence of any further evidence, I think this is one for Snopes. Warofdreams talk 11:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Who are these people?

Reading the The Onion: who are the people in the photographs? http://www.theonion.com/articles/congress-honors-911-first-capitalizers,18856/?utm_source=morenews --Icemannequin (talk) 11:12, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The one in the center is Dick Cheney. Dismas|^(talk) 11:25, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

On the right is Pat Robertson. Staecker (talk) 12:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know who the one on the left is, but he's the only one whose face was originally in the picture rather than being photoshopped in later. Pais (talk) 14:58, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the one on the left is supposed to represent the street vendors who set up shop right across the street from the crash site to sell souvenirs. (As a practical matter, the Onion probably either hired a model or used one of their staff members.) --M@rēino 15:05, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Precedents on this game

I'm wondering if the game "E-card", as seen on the manga Kaiji, has any precedents ?
The game goes like this: 2 players, each player has 5 cards, 4 of the 5 cards of each player is a "Citizen" which when played against another Citizen results in a draw, one of the players has a "King", which wins against the Citizens, and the other player has a "Slave", which looses to everything except the King. The players take turns playing the cards until either player looses his "special" card.

At first the game seems to be biased toward the King side with 4/5 chance of winning by playing the King in the first round, but knowing that, the slave side could play the Slave in the first round and win, at which case the King side could just play a Citizen and let the slave side loose, the slave in turn, can play a Citizen and the round will draw, the it goes to round 2, now with 4 cards each, the King side have 3/4 chance of winning.

I think there are 2 aspects of the game to be considered, probabilistic and psychological, but the latter is more interesting to me.

What I want to know is if there is any literature for this kind of problem ? Or the author was the first to create such a game ?

I'm posting this here because I think the game type suits this ref desk, but I'm not sure, please move if you see it fits 189.120.226.199 (talk) 12:06, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Assuming random play, there's a one in five chance of the king and slave being played in the same round. If that doesn't happen, the king wins. Warofdreams talk 12:42, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

No. There is a 1 in 25 chance of both being played in the first hand. If neither was played in the first hand, there is a 1 in 16 chance in the second. (assuming random play). Quest09 (talk) 12:46, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

... but if you sum the conditional probabilities over all 5 rounds you still get 1/5:

${\frac {1}{25}}+{\frac {16}{25}}{\frac {1}{16}}+{\frac {9}{25}}{\frac {1}{9}}+{\frac {4}{25}}{\frac {1}{4}}+{\frac {1}{25}}{\frac {1}{1}}={\frac {1}{5}}$

Gandalf61 (talk) 14:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Side questions: can someone explain to a math noob, why did Gandalf multiplied by here these numbers

${\frac {1}{25}}+{\frac {16}{25}}{\frac {1}{16}}+...$. Why isn't it: ${\frac {1}{25}}+{\frac {1}{16}}+...$ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.24.238.251 (talk) 11:30, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Because there is only a 16/25 chance that the game will proceed to the second round.—Emil J. 13:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Yep, that covers the probabilistic side I guess, but as I said, I'm more interested in the psychological sense when there are people playing, people will hardly play randomly, specially if there is a wager, they want to win. 189.120.226.199 (talk) 12:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

If either player follows a strategy that makes them more likely to play their special card in one round than in another then the other player can exploit this strategy to improve their chances of winning. Therefore the best strategy for both players is to play their special card in a random round. The Slave player then wins if both play their special card in the same round, which has probability 1/5, and the King player wins if they play their special cards in different rounds, which has probability 4/5 (which is what Warofdreams said). Gandalf61 (talk) 14:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, since the question was about precedents, it might be worth mentioning that the game is really just a modified version of rock-paper-scissors. Looie496 (talk) 17:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Austrian Empire vs Kingdom of Hungary

Is this a good edit? The issue is that Austria-Hungary (according to that article) didn't exist til 1867, when it was formed as "a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe." But if those two entities (Austrian Empire and Kingdom of Hungary) had existences of their own, I'd expect Budapest to be most sensibly described as being in the Kingdom of Hungary, even if the Kingdom of Hungary was itself part of the Austrian Empire. Any advice would be helpful--thanks. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 13:28, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Such issues should be discussed on the article talk page. You can ask for outside opinions at WP:3O or WP:RFC. I am sure that reasonable arguements can be made for any of four or five possible ways to write that text, and since reasonable people may disagree on reasonable issues, there should be an attempt at consensus-building on that article's talk page. --Jayron32 13:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's a geography question, in part to assess a large pattern[8] of such edits. See the ANI thread about Hobartimus. I wanted to get a reality check about my reaction to the geography. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 14:13, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure what the correct geo-historical designation would be... but my solution to the editorial issue would be to simply leave out the name of the nation state... just say the person being discussed was born in Budapest, and leave it at that. Blueboar (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

That sounds awful. Don't mention what country the person was born in? That's basic information, we can't leave it out. 67.122.209.190 (talk) 14:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Blueboar. Everyone knows where Budapest is, and if they don't, they can click the link to find out where it is now. Unlike U.S. city and state names, world city names are not inseparably married to the name of the country they're in. Second choice: write "Budapest, Hungary", which was an accurate descriptor of Budapest's location in 1840 as well as today. Pais (talk) 14:54, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

How to describe the location of Budapest in 1840 is somewhat akin to the question of how to describe the location of Dublin in the same year. Both were the capitals of ancient countries that had continuing existences (and that are independent today), and both were subsumed in larger empires in 1840. If it is acceptable to label Dublin in 1840 as "Dublin, Ireland", and not "Dublin, United Kingdom", then it would be acceptable to label Budapest in 1840 as "Budapest, Hungary", even though it was part of the Austrian Empire at that time. I think the existing label in the linked article, "Budapest, Hungary, Austrian Empire" does the best job of clarifying the situation in 1840. Marco polo (talk) 19:40, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with Pais that "everyone knows where Budapest is." If you were to ask 100 people in Times Square where Budapest is, I'm guessing maybe 15 would know. But I do agree that "Budapest, Hungary" is probably the best wording. Even before the Ausgleich, Hungary was still there; it was just subordinate to Vienna at that time. Saying "Austrian Empire" would give people unfamiliar with Central European history the idea that he was born in today's Austria, and most people aren't familiar with "Austria-Hungary." -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Did anyone else miss the giant, glaring error in this whole dispute. I give you all a hint, it isn't the country name that is the only issue here. Check the dates here and see if you can see the problem with claiming this person was born in Budapest anywhere in 1840. --Jayron32 15:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Great observation, I've made the correction: [9] (Iaaasi (talk) 15:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC))

Guns in the Bible

Does the Bible give any clues or allusions about having and using guns? Thanks 92.15.10.209 (talk) 14:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

No. As our article History of the firearm explains, gunpowder wasn't invented until the 9th century AD, and firearms not until the 12th century AD. So guns hadn't been invented yet at the time even the latest parts of the Bible were written (end of the 1st century AD). Pais (talk) 14:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The Bible does discuss various acts of violence that can, today, be committed using guns... but the discussion is centered on the act, and not the tool (which, as Pais correctly notes, did not exist in biblical times). Blueboar (talk) 14:56, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I do know that guns had not been invented when the Bible was written. I did not think that needed to be said. But as some religious people say that the Bible is all you need to know, I'm wondering what they would say it had to say about guns. 92.15.10.209 (talk) 15:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I imagine they would study what the Bible teaches about violence in general and apply that to guns. Pais (talk) 15:22, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Some of the Apocrypha isn't in the canon. --Dweller (talk) 15:20, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

So they DID have canons... Arakunem^Talk 18:00, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The Big Man Upstairs doesn't mind Babylonians carrying guns, but he'll smash any Egyptian guns. --Dweller (talk) 15:25, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Even people who claim that don't really live their lives that way. For example, the Bible does not contain instructions on how to operate an automobile, and many of such people have still worked out where the key goes in order to start the car. In practical terms, even the most ardent Christian fundementalists recognize that there are some aspects of life that are not directly covered by the Bible. They may use text in the bible to influence every decision they make, but that doesn't mean that the Bible necessarily deals with all aspects of life in detail. For example, the Bible covers issues such as warfare and murder; certainly such parts of the Bible could be used to influence someone on deciding how to use a gun in a Biblical manner. But those passages could also be used on how to deal with swords or axes or rocks or you bare hands in exactly the same manner; that is the adice you receive from the Bible is not specific to guns, even though you may use it to influence your attitude towards guns. --Jayron32 15:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

If you have a good handgun, don't lose it --Dweller (talk) 15:26, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Jedaiah was probably da man --Dweller (talk) 15:28, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword (which should really redirect to live by the sword, die by the sword), for example? Or Sell your cloak and buy a sword? Or perhaps, The Bible and violence will help? In which context, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! (It feels like there should be an article disussing that, but apparently not) 86.164.58.119 (talk) 15:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I googled around hoping to find puns about gardeners "living by the sward", but all I found was pages written by poor spellers. Pais (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Uriah was an early victim of weak gun laws --Dweller (talk) 15:37, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Hittite! That's a point. Deuteronomy Chapter 20 give the justification for the first recorded incidents of ethic cleansing which included Hittites.--Aspro (talk) 17:20, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Me and my machinegun go hand in hand, we're gonna lead you to the Promised Land--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:41, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

And don't mention "Blessed are the Peacemakers" Alansplodge (talk) 23:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The nearest equivalent would be a sling, and of course we all know the story of what David did with his, right? Looie496 (talk) 17:28, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The Bible has a lot to say about various things that are now done with guns: warfare, hunting animals, murder of strangers, rape and sexual coercion, violence towards family members, suicide. Not all of the Biblical advice is what you might expect. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

And not every story told in the Bible is intended as advice and provided with a positive role model. Pais (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, a lot of the Bible is either a) overtly meant to be an example of how NOT to behave or b) meant to be understood alegorically. --Jayron32 21:04, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that not all, or even most, of the Bible is advice. I was referring, clumsily, to those examples that might be counter-intuitive. "Don't kill a guest": pretty standard, worldwide. "If you rape a virgin, be sure to marry her afterwards": I'm sure there appeared to be good reasons, in that time and place. BrainyBabe (talk)

This is incidental, but one of my favorite aspects about Milton's Paradise Lost is that when the angels fight the demons and whatnot, they use 17th century weapons. Satan brings "hideous" cannons; the angels light the wicks of theirs with a touch of their glowing fingers, things like that. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It's fairly standard for artists to place their subjects anachronisticly, even moreso in the past than today. Take a look at This picture of Herod the Great as a medieval European knight! Its no coincidence the picture was painted in the 1470's; this was exactly how warrior-kings dressed and fought in the 1470's. Prior to modern archeology and historical practices, people simply didn't know how ancient people dressed and fought. --Jayron32 21:41, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's so much "didn't know how ancient people dressed and fought"; I think it's more "never considered that ancient people might have dressed and fought differently". Today most people, at least in the West, can distinguish the present from history; but for many people all of history - and prehistory - is the same place. --ColinFine (talk) 23:03, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I have been thinking recently that one way to win over the people in Afgahnistan would be to flood the country with cheap subsidised western clothing, and other western goodies, so that they identify more with the west and see the past as a different place to the present rather than as described above. 92.28.250.90 (talk) 00:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Now Showing ... ---Sluzzelin talk 01:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

And what makes you think either that the Afghans place so little value on their own cultures and coutures that they would readily abandon them for those of foreign interlopers, or that their current standard of available raiments is worse than "cheap subsidised western clothing"? 87.81.230.195 (talk) 05:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Because almost every other country in the world has given up wearing their traditional clothing styles for everyday wear, and now wears western-style clothing (sometimes in both senses of the word) and watches Hollywood movies, etc etc. For example the people shown on the news in the recent demonstrations in Tunisia were wearing the same clothing as people in London wear, not traditional Arabic clothing. 92.24.187.66 (talk) 11:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's putting the cart before the horse. People aren't motivated or caused to be friendly to western ideals merely because they wear western style clothes; that's 180 degrees wrong. People who have been exposed to (and are friendly to) western ideals will dress in western style clothing... You cannot effect a culture change by simply bombing them with teeshirts and blue jeans. You have to actually have the culture change first, before people start wearing the teeshirts and blue jeans! --Jayron32 13:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You've forgotten that Osama Bin Laden wore trendy flared trousers in the 70s, before he went wrong. 92.15.12.148 (talk) 18:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

That's your opinion. If jeans etc were made available at a price less than what they wear now, then particularly the young (men) would start wearing them. If they watch DVDs of Hollywood movies and other cultural products, they they are going to be influenced by them, including aspiring to the comparative wealth and freedom depicted in them. If they had access to the internet, then other cultural ideas and perspectives are going to diffuse into the country rather than just what they learn at the Madrassas. If they had more tractors maybe they'd be more inclined to grow other crops than opium. 92.15.12.148 (talk) 18:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Then they can get fat and decadent and lazy and arrogant, just like us! That would be awesome. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, the cheapest jeans and T-shirts come from China. 81.131.22.166 (talk) 22:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that the other cultures must be losing their clothing styles because they're more pluralistic and open-minded than Western cultures. I mean, when was the last time that you went clothes shopping and saw those Arab-style robes for sale on the rack? Or any other regional clothing style? And there are still Western businesses that impose very narrow-minded, traditional clothing taboos on their employees and so forth. In France they even moved to ban headscarves in schools. Personally I tend to suspect that some of the other regional clothing styles may well be better, but I haven't had the opportunity to compare. Wnt (talk) 19:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Women often wear "ethnic" clothes, at least here in Europe. I've seen women wearing traditional Chinese silk dresses for example. I think clothes similar to arabic robes were high-fahion in the 70s, although the headress was not worn probably because it was incompatible with hair-dos and it restricts vision. Lots of women wear saris in Britain, they are a very common sight. Its men who are very restricted in what they can wear. 92.28.244.55 (talk) 20:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

There's the Hanfu movement in China, but I don't know that they're particularly anti-western... AnonMoos (talk) 23:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Permanent states of emergency

Reading the article 2011 Egyptian protests, it occurred to me that it would be interesting for Wikipedia to have a global map of how many countries are under a permanent state of emergency under some sort of enabling act. The state of emergency gives some specific instances, but it is too incomplete, and perhaps too close to "original research", to make the basis of a standard .svg map. Is there a chance anyone has taken a stab at this in print? Wnt (talk) 18:33, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The US has had a Terror alert color code of Yellow (Elevated: significant risk) or higher for nine years next month, and the alert level has never for a minute dropped to Blue (Guarded: General risk) or Green (Low: low risk). It was ramped up for secret reasons and in 2004 when elections were impending. So it seems fair to say the US has had a permanent state of emergency since March 12, 2002. Edison (talk) 16:47, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The coded terror levels aren't really an enabling act, nor do they clearly say it's a state of emergency - I was thinking more of the "states of emergency" beginning in 1950 and continuing under the National Emergencies Act (has there ever been a break?) Wnt (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I would like to find out the approximate size of the outdoor sporting industry in the US? How much $$$...

I would like to know how much $ is involved in online sales as well as the total for all of the market? How many sportsmen? I would like to figure this out for each outdoor sport. Hunting, Fishing, Skiing/snowboarding, camping, hiking, climbing... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.203.204.66 (talk) 22:03, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

World-wide? Just the US? Just Colorado? 22:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Csmiller (talk • contribs)

The OP has now added "in the US" to the title. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:50, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you asking about online transactions about outdoor sports? See [10] for some indication of the difficulties of calculating just one part of the "industry". 75.41.110.200 (talk) 22:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's one measure: the US imported $84.6 billion worth of athletic and sporting goods (excluding clothes and shoes) in 2009; 2010 data will be out in about three weeks. Now, that doesn't take into account domestic production (mostly high-end stuff) or exports, but it does give some indication. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

January 27

The oldest piece of music

I was wondering; what is the oledest piece of music, and by that I mean notes you can actually play, that are still preserved today? Are there left any notes from antiquity? Thanks--Aciram (talk) 00:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Some candidates are the Delphic Hymns, the Seikilos epitaph (oldest complete), or a "cuneiform tablet from Nippur dated to about 2000 BCE". See also History of classical music traditions and Ancient music (from where I quoted the Nippur tablet). ---Sluzzelin talk 00:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see the videographic evidence found here. schyler (talk) 14:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Seclusion of upperclasswomen in Imperial China

I have never really found out exactly what I want to know about the question above. I have come to understand, that women where oppressed by Confucian ideals in pre-republican China. But I was wondering about their restricitions in a social sence, when it came contact with the oposite sex. Where women allowed to socialize and meet with men outside of the family? I realise, of course, that women of the working classes had to work and was thus naturally less restricted, so my question is directed toward women of the upper classes. From novels taking place in the early modern age, I have the impression that Upper class Chinese women where not allowed to mix with men at all unless they where family members, and that social life were gender separated. At court, even the empresses talked to men from behind a screen. Was it so in reality? Where Chinese upper class women allowed to mix with men outside of family, or did they live in seclusion? Did the royal women and lady in waitings at court mix with men, or did they live a more secluded life as well? Did the empresses and lady in waiting participate in any officiall ceremonies which allowed them to show themselwes and mix with men? Thank you.--Aciram (talk) 00:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not have a ditrect answer to your questions, but the practice of Foot binding suggests that upper-class women did not walk around much, and were seen more as objects or ornaments than nowadays. 92.24.187.66 (talk) 11:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that in traditional society formally and ritualistically upper class women were not allowed to mix with men from outside the family. On social occasions, there would be separate rooms for the women and the men. There were regional variations, and on some special occasions (certain festivals) it was acceptable for women and men to participate in celebrations on the street.

However, in practice, it seems the boundaries were not so clear. Novels like Jin Ping Mei certainly suggest that a lot of hanky-panky went on beneath the veneer of strict separation. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

"Pre-Republican China" covers thousands and thousands of years. One should really be more specific. This painting indicates that mixing did occur at least in the period of this work (said to be a 12th century copy of a 10th century original). TresÁrboles (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You could read the Four Great Classical Novels and other literature for clues. The "fifth novel" Jin Ping Mei was considered pornographic but "it also deals with larger sociological issues—such as the role of women in ancient Chinese society", according to its article. 92.28.244.55 (talk) 20:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Noblewomen criminals in the old age

In the 18th-century and 19th-century, one has the impression that mostly people from the working classes where put in prison. This impression as strongest when it comes to women. I'm just wondering; how usual was it for women from the upper classes to be put in prison for crimes such as theft, murder and similar crimes? --85.226.41.143 (talk) 00:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

First of all, upper class and noble (aristocratic) are not synonymous. Secondly, what country are you referring to? Thirdly, there are punishments that don't involve prison: murder often led quickly to capital punishment. Fourthly, the rich have much less need to steal, in the petty sense (a loaf of bread, a pocket handkerchief). They are more likely to embezzle on a grand scale, and women have had less access to the careers that allowed that. Fifthly, I'm not sure what you mean by "similar crimes", as murder and theft are quite different. BrainyBabe (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

what a hot response. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 03:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, Countess Elizabeth Báthory was put under house arrest rather than undergo a trial that might reflect badly on the Hungarian nobility; her servants and alleged accomplices were not so well treated. Jeanne of Valois-Saint-Rémy, being of much less exalted descent, went to prison for the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There was Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for murder. She admitted her guilt but received a pardon from King James I of England, and was thus spared execution. In the 16th century, gentlewoman Alice Arden was burnt at the stake for having participated in the murder of her husband.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You may, also, be interested in Mary Blandy --Frumpo (talk) 12:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, the examples are interesting. Elizabeth Báthory is a good example that noblewomen was treated differently. I know of noblewomen/non-noblewomen being imprisoned and executed for political crimes, so I was reffering to theft, murder and other non-political crimes. It seems very rare that upperclass-women, noble or not, was but in prison and punished by a non-roal court for non-political crimes. How usual was it in the Victorian age for a "lady" to be put in prison?--85.226.41.143 (talk) 17:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be unwise to draw general conclusions about legal practices across Europe over a period of two or more centuries from a few cherry-picked cases. A much more defined and comprehensive dataset would be required. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 18:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In England, until well into the 19th Century, prison was only for debtors and those awaiting trial or transportation or execution. There were 222 offences that carried the death penalty in 1815; including "malice in a child aged 7–14 years" and "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime". See Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, Bloody Code, Penal transportation and Prison "For most of history, imprisoning has not been a punishment in itself, but rather a way to confine criminals until corporal or capital punishment was administered." Alansplodge (talk) 22:51, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Current account + Capital and Financial account = 0

Why do the current account and the capital and financial account sum to zero when the currency is floated? 220.253.245.51 (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The relationship is automatic. A current account deficit results in an outflow of the country's currency. The resulting surplus must return to the deficit country in the form of credit or it will no longer be able to finance its imports and the current account will automatically move toward balance. The obverse holds for a surplus country: It must lend its surplus or its export markets will no longer be able to finance their imports, and the surplus will disappear. Marco polo (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Want to mess with protectionists' heads? Ask them about the massive US capital account surplus and what they propose to do about it.DOR (HK) (talk) 08:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Double-entry bookkeeping. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Patron gods and patron saints

Did the idea of patron saints evolve from the idea of patron gods when Christianity replaced polytheism? Some gods were patrons of a particular city, e.g. Athens or Aphrodisias. Maybe the most important ones were gods of some particular virtue or phenomenon (beauty, war, wisdom, the ocean, etc.). Michael Hardy (talk) 02:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably in some particular cases (for example, I seem to remember that a church to St. Cosmas and Damian was directly built on top of and/or converted from a shrine to the Dioscuroi in Thessaloniki. However, I doubt whether it could be carried too far as a set of abstract correspondences... AnonMoos (talk) 03:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

A Protestant could argue that the Roman Catholic approach, of praying to Mother Mary or to Saints rather than directly to God, is an echo of polytheism and is really not all that different, practically speaking, from Hinduism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The article veneration is of particular importance regarding how Catholics and some protestant sects view the acts of veneration and worship as distinct, while other protestant sects do not, and helps explain some of the differences between how the Catholics and the Protestants deal with the "cult of saints". --Jayron32 04:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: I didn't have in mind that particular patron gods were replaced by particular patron saints, but rather that the idea of patron saints evolved from the idea of patron gods. Is there any specific evidence of that beyond the circumstantial evidence in the chronology, conjoined with a certain similarity of ideas? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The Catholic Encyclopedia suggested that from the beginning of Christianity, churches were typically built at sites associated with saints and martyrs, and people started going to particular churches to pray to particular saints and relics, which led to the veneration of saints. The association of saints with locations came before other forms of patronage. Later, patron saints came to be associated with religious orders, professional guilds and other societies, which is how we get patrons like Saint Luke, the patron of medieval painters' guilds and hence of painting generally. For such societies, saints provided a focus for devotion and a badge or image (like having a motto or emblem).

Apart from the Catholic Encyclopedia's account, Christianity has always been wary of the dangers of venerating saints, but even though the Pope doesn't want people worshipping them, Catholic authorities find it useful encourage devotion to a variety of saints. For devotees this may fulfil a polytheistic impulse (most of the world's religions aside from the Abrahamic religions are polytheistic) but it has useful functions for the Catholic church: providing role models; encouraging devotion, pilgrimage, and donations; etc. So the influence of polytheism may play a part but it's not a case of direct transfer from pagan gods to saints. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:30, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It also reinforces the "hierarchy" construct of the Roman Catholic Church. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting to consider that there are Saints in Hinduism, too – if saints were just gods by another name, what use would a polytheistic religion have for them...? (Though I know the issue is more complex than that, and to the question did the notion of saints evolve from the notion of gods, I'd have to say "probably at least somewhat").

Judaism does not traditionally have much in the way of the veneration of saints, so the whole idea and practice of venerating them must have come from somewhere (cf. Origins of Christianity#Roots in paganism).

On the other hand, for example, Hagiography says: "In Western Europe hagiography was one of the more important vehicles for the study of inspirational history during the Middle Ages" – a motivating factor or purpose in the veneration of saints which was perhaps not usually as important in (though of course to varying degrees still a part of) the practice of worshiping gods. WikiDao ☯ 00:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Judaism does have some veneration of the patriarchs and matriarchs, complete with pilgrimage sites for their tombs. Not quite the same, but similar. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough – I thought I'd get called on that one – but, still: Origins of Christianity#Roots in paganism WikiDao ☯ 17:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Little Ice Age and rise in infant mortality

I have edited many articles on medieval women, both royal and noble, and I have discovered that more children died in the later medieval period than in the previous centuries. The rise in infant mortality appears to coincide with the Little Ice Age that began c.1450. Is this just OR on my part or has there been any scientific research carried out on this subject? Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:26, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• It's probably too hard to parse out exact causes when there are several to choose from. The so-called "little ice age" probably led to decreased farm productivity, and thus decreased nutrition for mothers, which would lead to an increase in infant mortality. But there were also waves of disease which ran through Europe during most of the middle ages. The peak of the Black Death was a full century before your date, but waves of plagues of various kinds were common throughout the middle ages, perhaps some such plague coincided with that time period as well. --Jayron32 13:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
• I think this is very hard to conclude from anecdotal evidence. Maybe sources just became better due to increased literacy? Or maybe children died so often in earlier periods that nobody bothered reporting it ("in the year of the Lord 1345, it rained" ;-). Unless you have a carefully designed study with some safeguards, I'd be very careful about stating the effect, let alone the connection. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of the direct physical effects of the Little Ice Age, namely the colder weather and dampness which would have been deadly for newborns in chilly stone castle keeps. I have noticed that more royal children did die after 1450. Look at how many of Philippa of Hainault's children survived compared to Elizabeth of York's or Henry VIII's. This high infant mortality plagued the European royal dynasties for centuries.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are not really a good place to collect data about this. They could be wrong, but even if they're not, we're still only looking at royalty, a very small part of the population. What about all the other millions of people who were also having children? (The lack of medical records for this period doesn't help...to get info about infant mortality you have to go digging through graveyards, and even that will only tell you about the people who were buried in that graveyard.) Also, when does the Little Ice Age really begin and end? The article has a range of almost 400 years for possible start dates (and it probably wasn't around 1450). There could be other reasons for a high death rate for royalty; maybe the royals were starting to inbreed more frequently. Maybe the mortality rate stayed the same (or decreased), but there was no increase in food supply or medical care, so it appears larger because there were far more people in general. There could be dozens of other reasons. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

A Google Books search for "infant mortality" "little ice age" turns up Infant and child mortality in the past By Alain Bideau, Bertrand Desjardins, Héctor Pérez Brignoli. One of the included pieces briefly suggests that a possible reason for decline in infant mortality was that cooler summers meant fewer of the infectious diseases that were prevalent in summer. All the books say that there is not enough good data. So if you were able to make a systematic count of recorded infant mortality in the upper classes over a period of time, you might end up with a useful database for scholars to draw on. There would be much still to argue about, not least, was there recording bias (as suggested above, but there seem to be ways to allow for it), was wetnursing a factor, how far is it possible to generalise from elite groups to the majority population. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

(e/c)Brief and Precarious Lives: Infant Mortality in Contrasting Sites from Medieval and Post-Medieval England (AD 850–1859) notes a study which found that infant mortality fluctuated with the price of wheat during the previous year, ie. the mother's nutrition during pregnancy (and presumably breastfeeding also) had an effect as Jayron says. The paper also says that in the late-medieval period, infant mortality was higher in urban areas where older infants tended to die of various diseases, rather than infants dying at birth due to congenital problems, premature birth etc. I don't know much about the period, but could it be possible that the urban population was increasing, thus increasing the risk of disease? It also says that infant mortality records were not common before the mid-15th century.

There's also Some New Evidence of Crises and Trends of Mortality in Late Medieval England which is more about mortality in the general population. It seems to hem-and-haw a bit over the figures, but makes a point that recessions in the fifteenth century, beginning in the 1440s, may have caused women to marry later, and thus give birth older. They also led to a decrease in living standards and increased the population in cities as people looked for work. I haven't found any studies linking a rise in infant mortality with the Little Ice Age, but there are plenty on the mortality crises of the 14th and 15th centuries and several which point to poor nutrition, economic recession, waves of disease and an increase in urban population linked to mortality or infant mortality, all of which happened during that period. --Kateshortforbob _talk 15:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I recall having read in Nancy Mitford's bio on Louis XIV that the reason so many royal and noble offspring died in 17th century France was because the doctors literally killed them with their blood-letting etc. I also recall reading that in contrast, the infant mortality levels of the French colonists in New France [Quebec] was much lower in comparison.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

At a slight tangent, but, encouraged by the date above of 1859 (the latest I've ever seen for "post-medieval"), this is too good an opportunity not to jump in and mention a book I've been perusing: the 1823 Advice to young mothers on the physical education of children by Margaret King Moore, one of the Irish aristocratic family briefly but life-changingly educated by Mary Wollstonecraft. The "physical education" is not of the "how to bring your baby up to be a golf pro" sort, but rather, how to bathe a newborn, how to breastfeed and wean a baby, how to discipline a toddler, etc. From the habits she preaches against (e.g. do not allow the physician to bleed the baby), you can get a good idea of what was current in infant management, and this may give a ray of insight into changing fashions and thier impact on mortality and morbidity. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Relevant events may include the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and eruption of Kuwae. Also, have you tried Google Scholar? ~AH1^(TCU) 18:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The Stone Diaries

Houses in Vinegar Hill

Where is The Stone Diaries set? Our article doesn't specify, I can't find the answer online, and I don't have access to the book itself. I'm writing about the Vinegar Hill Historic District in Bloomington, Indiana; according to an account in an architectural survey of the neighborhood, "The area was memorialized in Carol Shields' novel, The Stone Diaries", but I'm not sure whether to understand this as saying that the area is the setting of the book or that it's simply mentioned. Nyttend (talk) 16:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

According to this account of the novel, Daisy (whose life is described in the book) was born in Tyndall, Manitoba, moved to Winnipeg when she was looked after by a neighbour and then on to Bloomington, Indiana, where she lived with her father, before eventually ending up in Florida. So it is the setting for part of the novel (not that I've ever read it). Mikenorton (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The place is significant in the book. I have a copy of it at home. Are you looking for something specific? Bielle (talk) 17:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Nothing specific: I thought that the architectural survey meant that the neighborhood was at least part of the book's setting, and I wanted to know whether I'd properly understood my source or not. The Novelguide source speaks directly to what I'm talking about — the historic district is composed of the stone mansions on First Street (see photo) that are mentioned by that webpage. Nyttend (talk) 18:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Resignation from the House of Commons (UK)

I know about the archaic tradition whereby members of the British lower house can resign.

However I have a question about its specifics. The BBC states:

"Under current rules, members wishing to step down must apply for an office of profit under the crown. "

Once they've applied, they are disqualified from the House of Commons; ergo the seat is vacant and a by-election can be called.

However, don't all the cabinet positions qualify as "offices of profit under the crown"? The salary of cabinet members is higher than those of ordinary members. I realise that newly-appointed ministers formerly had to seek re-election in a by-election, I think around 40-50 years ago, but if this practice was still changed, why the is it still different for the two offices used for resignations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs) 19:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Some more insight comes from the following quote from an article on the indian situation, which resembles the UK system: "In England, there is no general theory that a disqualification arises from holding an office of profit under the Crown. There disqualifications are specific and disqualification arises only when a person holds a disqualifying office so declared under a parliamentary legislation ." Together with the rest of the article, I come away with the understanding that there are some profitable crown offices that do not involve disqualification and some that do. This law dictionary has a long section on Parliament, from which "All the persons thus enumerated are utterly incapable of sitting in the House of Commons whilst they continue in their respective situations. But by 15 Geo. 2. c. 22. § 3. the treasurer or comptroller of the navy, the secretaries of the treasury, the secretary to the chancellor of the exchequer, secretaries of the admiralty, under-secretary to any of the secretaries of state, deputy-paymaster of the army, and persons having an office or employment for life, or during good behaviour, are expressly excepted from the prohibition, and are therefore eligible.". I guess the more modern offices of state fall under similar provisions. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

See:Appointment to the office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham --Aspro (talk) 20:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) ::This - and the fact sheets attached to it - seem to indicate that the rule applies to any paid office under the crown; but further implies that the traditional two are the only such offices. It may be, of course, that that source, though authoritative, has simplified the matter for public consumption. --ColinFine (talk) 20:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Just means: under the employment of the King/Queen, thus causing a potential a COI where loyalties may be divided. --Aspro (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

See Resignation from the British House of Commons. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It is an interesting issue, because at first one could consider the Prime Minister and the Cabinet as parliamentary officers, and not officers of the Monarch directly, and that would get around the problem, excepting that there are MPs that also hold one of the Great Offices of State (as one example, Sir George Young, 6th Baronet is an MP and also Lord Privy Seal, and historically it would be pretty hard to argue that these offices derived from the Parliament before they derived from the Monarch. I think its one of those oddities, in the annals of history there were likely other offices which disqualified one from Parliament, but those likely were useful offices. The Chiltern Hundreds is specifically used because it comes with no benefits nor any job description associated with it. --Jayron32 21:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You all seem to be trying to identify some kind of logic in the British Constitution. This is quite fruitless. Just accept that the only way to resign from the House of Commons is to apply for a job that doesn't really exist and hasn't for some hundreds of years. That's how it works and long may it continue. Alansplodge (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Since the UK has no written constitution, and no parliament can restrain a future parliament from doing something, can't Parliament just repeal the 17th-century law that requires members to go through a legal fiction to resign? Or do they keep it for tradition's sake? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Good Lord, man, this is revolutionary stuff you're talking about! I'm still not happy with women (gasp!) being permitted to vote and be elected to the Commons. Thin end of the wedge and all that, old chap. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 00:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

To take a serious stab at the question, let me flip it around for you: Why is there a need to change the current law? Seriously, from a pragmatic or a practical point of view, what is the need to change how it works. Presumably, if a member is to resign from the House of Commons, it would be required for them to submit some official letter of resignation, have the letter notarized and witnessed, the receipt of said letter would have to be recorded and so on and so forth. It's all the same actions, just a few words change, from "Being granted the Bailiwick of the Chiltern Hundreds" to "Resigned". The effort needed to make a cosmetic change to the name of a process which only gets used every few years at MOST, isn't worth the legislative time that could be spent passing actual laws which, you know, actually are important to running the country. --Jayron32 01:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

And would it make our country a slightly duller and sadder place. We like it as it is thank you. Alansplodge (talk) 01:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

For once I can buy that. I still think y'all need to get rid of the monarchy. But this little piece of trivia is beautiful as it is; why spoil it by making it make sense? --Trovatore (talk) 02:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It's always fun when people from one country tell another country what it needs to do, when their own country has serious issues of its own to be getting on with (as every country has). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 03:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Contrary to rumor, I am not in control of the United States. --Trovatore (talk) 05:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess what Mwalcoff's getting at is, why is it necessary to resort to the indirect method of procuring an appointment that renders an MP ineligible to continue to be an MP, rather than a direct resignation. MPs who leave do so for whatever their reasons are, but I would hazard a guess that it's virtually never because they actually wish to become ineligible to remain; as far as they're concerned, it has absolutely nothing to do with their eligibility, and everything to do with their private reasons for leaving. It's really a question of the principle involved; the number of words required to be put on paper to achieve the outcome under either scenario is neither here nor there. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little curious now — the Resignation from the British House of Commons article says that the offices are "only nominally paid". How much is that? In the States the traditional nominal salary is one dollar a year. In the UK is it one pound a year? When multiple MPs resign on the same day, do they get a pro-rated amount for the time they were in office, or do they each get the whole pound? --Trovatore (talk) 08:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a very informative House of Commons factsheet here but it doesn't mention the actual payment. Nominal damages awarded by courts and Peppercorn rents were usually one shilling (£0.05). Alansplodge (talk) 09:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

One shilling! For being steward of three whole hundreds! I won't do it. I want at least a guinea, not a penny less. --Trovatore (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

History of randomly selected jurors?

I read that South Carolina (in 1638?) was the first modern example of a court jury chosen by random selection. Unfortunately I have lost the reference and need to check if this is true. The important part of the statement is 'randomly-selected'. There are earlier juries but they weren't randomly selected. Also, I wonder if that should read "South Carolina was the first in North America to...."? I MIGHT have read that in the recently published book (not easy to hand): "The Political Potential of Sortition: A study of the random selection of citizens for public office" by Oliver Dowlen / 300 pp., £30 / $58, 978-1845401375 (cloth), August 2008

(I have perused "Jury Trial" on Wikipedia, didn't find anything.)

MedianMale (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There were no European settlements in South Carolina in 1638. Rmhermen (talk) 23:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the Carolinas did not separe into "North" and "South" until the early 1700s.(?) Michael Hardy (talk) 23:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There were no European settlements in the Carolinas between 1590 and about 1650 in the Albemarle Sound region of North Carolina and 1670 at Charleston in South Carolina. Rmhermen (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

lapel ribbons with accompanying letter

I watched Pres. Barack Obama's State of the Union address the other night. What I noticed was members of Congress were wearing black-and-white lapel ribbons, to remember the victims of the 2011 Tucson shooting. I saw on a Washington, D.C., newspaper website [11] a nice picture of one of the ribbons. In the text to the right of the picture was a letter asking members of Congress and the Senate to wear the ribbons in honor of Gabrielle Giffords. Where can I get a copy of the picture and the letter? Anyone know?24.193.90.61 (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Why can't I remember my pre-life?

If various religious denominations say that the prelife is the same as the afterlife, why can't I remember it? --70.179.181.251 (talk) 23:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Becuse the various religious denominations have many fantastic beliefs which are not true. 92.24.186.58 (talk) 22:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Childhood amnesia, aka infant amnesia. I imagine it would extend backwards. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Your premise that religions say it's the same is not correct, the religions that believe in reincarnation also say that the previous memories are wiped prior to birth. However, some of them do have a belief that with work those memories can be recovered, others hold that they can't be. I think the Abrahamic ones hold that it can't be, and the eastern religions that it can be (but I'm not totally sure). Ariel. (talk) 00:44, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You don't "remember" it because there was no "you" there to "member" it the first time. Sorry to be clever, but seriously, there is no afterlife at all, and our experience of not remembering our prelife is consistent with that. They are exactly the same. So in that sense those religions are absolutely correct the afterlife is exactly the same as the prelife. It's a little like asking why we don't remember the future.Greg Bard (talk) 00:56, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

As he plants his feet on the soapbox and commences to rant. Edison (talk) 16:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You can argue whether or not an afterlife exists, but to assert absolutely that there is no afterlife is extremely arrogant. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

No it is not arrogant at all. Arrogance is when a person presumes that they due some privilege that they are not. It seems to me that belief in a afterlife is supremely arrogant, quite frankly. Logic, reason, a world history's worth of evidence, one's own experience and common sense do not support the belief in the existence of the afterlife AT ALL. This is a reference desk for humanities, and I feel responsible to give honest, forthright responses whether they are comfortable or not.Greg Bard (talk) 02:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thinking you're smarter than the billions of believers around the world is nothing but arrogance. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

OMG ("goodness," that is) Bugs, you have jumped off the deep end now. Say listen, I have made no claim to any special level of intelligence. You are making an ad hominem on me, and an argumentum,ad populum about the world's many believers. I can "assert absolutely" that there is no teapot orbiting Mars without any arrogance, and I can rightly make the same claim about the afterlife without any arrogance either.Greg Bard (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

But don't billions of them think the other billions have it wrong anyway? HiLo48 (talk) 06:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

As do atheists. Atheism is also a type of religion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly Bugs, I am a little different than many other atheists, in that I agree that for some atheism is a religion, and those atheists have a right to all the privileges that religious organizations have (tax-free etc.). However, I must also caution you that atheism is not an attack on believers any more than bald is a hair color, and an empty glass is not an attack on beverages. That whole line of thought is not productive, and in fact, quite silly.Greg Bard (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheists just believe in one less god than most of those billions. HiLo48 (talk) 06:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The gods atheists believe in is humanity, despite all evidence to the contrary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, close. Humanism is distinct from atheism, although many atheists are humanists and vice versa.Greg Bard (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's plenty of people who claim to remember past or "pre" lives. But as far as I know none have stood up to any kind of critical scrutiny. Vespine (talk) 01:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

...and the overwhelming likelihood is that they never will.Greg Bard (talk) 02:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

"overwhelming likelihood" - that's a statement that most could live with. What you said before, though, was an absolute - "there is no afterlife at all". Better to allow even the most remote of possibilities than to absolutely deny them. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I wrote that during a particularly fair minded moment. The reality is that none of these type of claims will ever stand up to critical thinking. My apologies.Greg Bard (talk) 02:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, yes, from a rigorously rational or even scientific perspective, there's just no such thing as a "past life experience" for all intents and purposes. Nobody is going to remember where they left the keys 500 years ago to that safe with all those Spanish pieces-of-eight in it (dammit).

But, this is the Humanities desk. This sort of thing has other purposes and uses than those that pertain to a purely "rationalistic" modality. Now, I don't get too much out of this particular religiophilosophical notion myself (although metempsychosis, broadly interpreted and considered in terms of Evolutionary psychology, for example, can be sort of interesting if there's not much else going on, I suppose...). But, others do get something out of this sort of thing – and I say more power to them! Ideas like this are powerful enough to change lives in reality. That is: there is a reality in which what is important are qualities such as emotional fulfillment, spiritual development, personal satisfaction, and so forth. That reality is not always entirely rational (and in fact when it is insisted that "spiritual reality" must have the same sort of validity that "rational reality" has, that can cause all kinds of trouble (on the personal level, and to entire groups and societies, too)). Nevertheless, when understood and treated the right way, this reality has its own very powerful uses and purposes, and it would be just as ill-considered and occasionally as disastrous to dismiss it altogether for not being rational as it would be to insist that it must be as real in the same way as things in the domain of Science are "real".

It is the world of the Humanities, and it is important enough to have its own Reference desk. Here, we ought to take it for what it is and respect it for what it's worth. WikiDao ☯ 02:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This being the Humanities desk, though, it ought to be acknowledged that the concept of Reincarnation has a rich history across many cultures/religions/philosophies. Our article covers a variety of ways that "past lives" can be understood; do you (OP) have a preference for any particular "religious denomination" or school of thought about why you are having difficulty remembering your life prior to this one? WikiDao ☯ 01:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Most Asian religions believe in reincarnation as did Christians until Constantine ruined the party. Actually, a good hypnotist should be able to help the OP recall his previous incarnations. A friend of mine went to one.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

"as did Christians until Constantine ruined the party." Source, please? Rmhermen (talk) 15:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll have to get out my old books on reincarnation. As soon as I find the passage which blames Constantine I'll add it here.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The Scientology process of auditing claims to let you remember incidents from your past lives. It supposedly is rather expensive, with various nasty side effects, so I don't recommend it ;-). More info: Have You Lived Before This Life by L. Ron Hubbard. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 08:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Since it hasn't been mentioned directly yet, see also past life regression for more information. ---Sluzzelin talk 09:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

In religions that propose reincarnation (hinduism and buddhism, primarily) memories and individual personality are considered superficial accretions over the "true" self. The "true" self is reincarnated according to its particular karma, but wiped clean of all the superficial coverings. In more philosophical forms of these faiths, in fact, the '"true" self is equated with a universal self (brahman or buddha nature), and so every incarnation is the reincarnation of the universal self.

For a crass, inaccurate, but maybe serviceable analogy, think of it as reinstalling the system on your computer: a reinstall creates the same the operating system (reincarnates it, as it were), but all your personal files are gone as though they never existed. --Ludwigs2 14:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

True enough on some levels. Though the Buddha is supposed to have attained detailed memory of all his past lives (including as eg. insects, and as gods) before letting it all go: in Buddhism, it is more accurate to say that the true Self is no "self", and the aim of Buddhism is to realize that all sense of "self" is illusion and thereby to be eternally released from the karmic cycle of death-and-rebirth. (And the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism veers toward that same notion at times, though, yes, there is more an emphasis perhaps on finding the "true self" in "oneness" with the "infinite spirit" as you were describing, Ludwigs).

Back to the question, though, perhaps the OP would be interested in our article on Reincarnation research...? WikiDao ☯ 16:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem of false memory syndrome from recovered memory therapy is significant; psychiatric practice in this regard seems to have differed little from Scientology and other such boondoggles. If people can be induced to remember things from this life that didn't happen, the same could happen for other lives. This is not to say that all memories of former incarnations are false, but only that the principal methods credited by Westerns sources for recovering them are known to be unreliable. Personally I would also think that even if a person correctly and truthfully recalls details from several former lives, it does not prove a unique and sequential relationship with those lives - after all, clairvoyance, remote sensing, out of body experiences, prophecy, and certain inaccurate notions of precognition all describe the ability of people to perceive things from an incorporeal or third-person perspective, and we can't rule out the paranormal when we're considering a paranormal hypothesis. We would need hundreds of well-verified reincarnated memories to even begin trying to rule out that people don't recall memories from two different past lives who were contemporaries of one another, and there's just not such a large body of evidence - just anecdotes, sometimes intriguing, but always controversial. I should say, from a theoretical point of view, that the universal atman suggests that all lives are past lives and future lives of one another in a universal consciousness, while the individual soul questions whether the acts of an individual human life are worth preserving from one revision of the universe to the next. Wnt (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Even supposing you could remember what went on in the womb prior to birth, then there is no guarantee of any memory of a previous life, even if one did exist. The reason is that the soul from your previous life would have to enter your developing embryo, and there is no mechanism to explain the transition. Although pseudoscientific, some people claim to recall both a previous life as well as their afterlife, and some institutes appear to have claimed that testing in the 1970's surrounding memories of an afterlife point to natural disasters in 1998 followed by more natural disasters in 2100 but a technologically-advanced world by 2300. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You have to be careful with assertions like that. the problem is that history differs in the details but is strongly patterned in general behavior. For instance, the sinking of the USS Maine is a perfect parallel to the destruction of the twin towers: both were the destruction of a major US symbol; both were attributed to terrorists; both were the trigger point on major wars; both had conspiracy theories about having been done intentionally by the government. same can be said for Pearl Harbor, the bombing of the Reichstag, and I imagine numerous other events throughout history. History is remarkably predictable (in hindsight, anyway). So, if I have a memory under hypnosis of a big explosion that killed many people and tossed the world into war, which of these events am I remembering? or am I simply confabulating a story based on an unconscious recognition of the pattern and some kind of cueing that puts it into a perspective? --Ludwigs2 19:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well it looks like Rmhermen redirected "Pre-life" to "Pre-existence" which is a whole other story. And a lot more what it sounds like the OP is actually asking about, too. I'm not sure how we got going on Past lives, but that's all very different it seems from Pre-life, which is (as the OP says) supposed to be a lot like the Afterlife. But, again, there are a variety of ways of believing in it; not sure which the OP prefers, but I don't see from the article any one answer as to why one might not "remember" one's "existence" before one had a human life (according, of course, to those various systems of belief). WikiDao ☯ 02:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

January 28

French noblewoman

I read a while ago about a French noblewoman (possibly a Queen or princess, I don't remember) who had bad eyesight. Which one was this? THanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 03:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Marie Antoinette, although her article apparently doesn't say anything about it...hmm, we'll have to dig further. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This online biography says; "The Conciergerie prison was the antechamber to death. In this dank prison, she lost much weight and her eyesight began to fail, but she did not have long to live.". Alansplodge (talk) 12:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC) This forum asserts that she "always had delicate eyes and was shortsighted, lost sight in one eye during her stay in the damp cell in the Conciergerie". It gives Edmond de Goncourt's biography "Histoire de Marie-Antoinette" as the source, which you can download here, free but in French. Bon chance, mon ami! Alansplodge (talk) 12:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

1963 Philippine Scouting tragedy

I was just reading 11th World Scout Jamboree. It mentions the loss of the whole Philippine contingent in an aeroplane crash. Do we have an article about this (there isn't one in the relevant aviation category), or failing that can anyone link me to any online articles about it? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 03:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

After having performed an extensive "site:en.wikipedia.org" search, I'm pretty certain there is no article (but I could be wrong, of course). There's a bit more under Boy Scouts of the Philippines. Off-wiki, I found "Remembering the 'Boy-Scout' Filipino Tragedy of July 28, 1963". ---Sluzzelin talk 04:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, have started to find a few more, there's a picture of the Quezon City memorial on this page, and another article here. I couldn't find anything on the Filipino wikipedia. Anyone know Filipino and want to ask at their RefDesks? I'd start writing an article but might get a bit emotional so if anyone else feels like starting it that'd be OK with me. DuncanHill (talk) 04:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, there's no article on the Tagalog Wikipedia either, largely because there's not a lot of readily-available literature on the incident. If you intend to write an article on it, your best bet would be looking through the newspaper archives of the National Library of the Philippines. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 06:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

There's quite a lot of results on Google; not sure it's much use for an article. Alansplodge (talk) 09:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I vaguely remember having read something about the events in the 1963 Jamboree newspapers. Unfortunately, these are in my association's archives now, so I can't cite them. --jergen (talk) 10:45, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Started an article at United Arab Airlines Flight 869 (1963) MilborneOne (talk) 19:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you everyone, I appreciate this so much. DuncanHill (talk) 17:48, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

"The Crown" and God

Is it right to say that The Crown derives its power from God -- that God grants the royal family the right to rule through the crown? --CGPGrey (talk) 12:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, not everyone believes in the Divine right of kings nowadays. In most monarchies, the right to rule is granted by secular law. Pais (talk) 12:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess what I'd like to know is it still technically true that God delegates power to the crown. --CGPGrey (talk) 12:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Was it ever technically true? Wasn't it always a matter of faith, which backed up (or was backed up by) what the secular law said? Pais (talk) 12:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Good point that's it a matter of faith. Is it written anywhere in British Common law or the legal structure of the crown that it's power is derived from God? --CGPGrey (talk) 13:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The UK has lots of unwritten laws. It is called a "constitutional monarchy," but I have never been able to find the "Constitution" of the UK, comparable to the one in the US. The Divine Right of Kings has certainly been asserted by the government in power at times in history, as in the early 17th century, though largely nullified by the Cromwell regime in the late 17th century. In earlier centuries it was used to justify why a few should be powerful, live in palaces and eat elegant food from golden plates, while many should live in hovels and be half starved while they work the land as serfs. Edison (talk) 16:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

See Constitution of the United Kingdom. From the intro: Unlike many nations, the UK has no core constitutional document. It is therefore often said that the country has an unwritten, uncodified, or de facto constitution. However, the word "unwritten" is something of a misnomer as much of the British constitution is embodied in the written form, within statutes, court judgments, and treaties. The constitution has other unwritten sources, including parliamentary constitutional conventions and royal prerogatives. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

British coins still say "D.G. REG." (by the grace of God, Queen) but as Pais says, since the Act of Settlement, it's by the grace of Parliament and by extension, the people of the UK. Alansplodge (talk) 12:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Act of Settlement is a disambiguation page - which one are you referring to? -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 02:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The Archbishop of Canterbury delegates spiritual authority to her at the coronation by crowning her, so she has the authority of the Church of England, but he's not God. However, the coronation is largely a formality as she is already Queen before coronation, and her position is guaranteed by the various laws governing succession to the throne: see succession to the British throne.

Regarding the question, it's debatable if monarch actually has any power: in the UK's constitutional monarchy most of the important decisions are made by parliament (the Queen's presence in e.g. the legal system is purely conventional). You could ask questions about the source of legitimacy as Queen, and questions about the source of her popular support - the latter is probably due more to her personality than to being anointed with holy oil. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The OP probably wants to read the articles absolute monarchy, of which there are very few today (Saudi Arabia and the Vatican City spring to mind), and Constitutional monarchy, of which nearly all modern monarchies fit to one degree or another. Other than the Vatican, and maybe Lichtenstein, all European monarchies are highly democratic constitutional monarchies where the monarch holds little to no real power. --Jayron32 15:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

From our List of absolute monarchies, it looks like today there is only the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Swaziland, and the Vatican City State (which is an "elected" absolute monarchy). But, as already recommended, our Divine right of kings article is probably what the OP would like to read on this question. WikiDao ☯ 15:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The so-called "divine right of kings" is a terrible perversion of Christian doctrine. Compare: "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ."^[12] If Jesus is a king of kings, then consider "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God"^[13] I think that Leo Tolstoy and Christian anarchists in general have had a better understanding of the principle of divine authority. Wnt (talk) 16:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The divine right of kings is a terrible perversion of Christian doctrine? That just might be a somewhat new interpretation. Romans 13:1 Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God. The articles Render unto Caesar... and Christianity and politics seem to be interesting. Flamarande (talk) 18:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

"There is no authority except from God" has been interpreted in more than one way, and the one suggesting that every brute who picks up a weapon to bully his fellows has divine authority seems most unlikely. Rendering Caesar's coins to Caesar does not mean absolute subservience - it just means that they're his coins, so give them back. (In light of the tradition that man was made in God's image, it is also a powerful analogy) Obviously the first Christian martyrs did not believe that the Romans had a divine right to make them offer sacrifices and deny their beliefs. Wnt (talk) 18:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

That's sort-of one opinion on the matter, but that line of thinking has a lot of attractiveness for many Christians. You can see it in the popularity of Prosperity theology, which is really just a modern take on the same theology behind the Divine Right of Kings. As a Christian, I generally agree with you that my personal reading of the Bible leads me to the same conclusions you have. As a human, I don't find it useful to make perjorative statements about others who have arrived at different conclusions. --Jayron32 17:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

In the Coronation service, some effort has been made to compare the kings of England (or later the UK) with the ancient kings of Israel who had more obvious divine credentials. The verse "Zadoc the priest and Nathan the prophet annointed Solomon king" (from 1 Kings 1:45) has been used since the time of St Dunstan who is thought to have been the original author the service last used in 1953. Whether you believe this is Biblical authority or not is (nowadays at least) a matter of religious freedom. Alansplodge (talk) 19:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I've wondered idly from time to time whether Basilikon Doron contained any reference to 1 Samuel chapter 8... -- AnonMoos (talk) 19:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I took the liberty of adding a link for those who don't know it off by heart. Alansplodge (talk) 20:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The Queen has a different official title for each of her 16 realms. In 15 of those cases, the words "by the Grace of God" is part of her title. The odd man out is Papua New Guinea. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Four Loko

• Four (energy drink)

Starting weeks prior to the FDA ruling, many fans and others seeking financial gain purchased large quantities of the drink. This buying rush quickly created a black market for the drink, with many sellers charging nearly FIVE TIMES the drink's retail price.

I have never had any caffeinated alcoholic beverage. But how do these caffeinated alcoholic energy drinks differ from traditional liqueur coffee drinks? If these drinks are banned or discouraged, why couldn't their drinkers make liqueur coffee by themselves? Why couldn't they mix ordinary Red Bull with, say, vodka or gin? (I know Red Bull + alcohol kills.) -- Toytoy (talk) 16:46, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

They can. That doesn't mean they should. People can drink bleach, too, if they wanted too, but that doesn't mean it should be marketed as a beverage. I think that's the idea behind banning it. As for coffee liqueurs, they likely have relatively small amounts of caffeine as compared to Four Loko. And we do mix rum with Coke, too. Coke has caffeine. Aaronite (talk) 17:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

See caffeinated alcohol drinks ban. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:21, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

What is the point of this ban? If both coffee and alcohol are allowed, everyone can mix them up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.58.205.34 (talk) 18:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It's too bad the article doesn't have context. There are two basic views on this. One is that this is typical "omg the kids are drinking" hysteria. There's probably some truth to that — we have this kind of moral panic every few years. But the other view is that the accessibility of these particular drinks, their high caffeine content, and their "non-alcoholic" taste (which apparently is sickly sweet) had led to a lot more instances of alcohol poisoning, blackouts, and other very unpleasant effects than is usually the case with beer or traditional cocktails. The question about whether people could do something similar is not really germane — what we are concerned about is what people do, not what they could do. I'm of the opinion that if the epidemiological data says, "these sorts of drinks really do lead people to harm themselves in ways they aren't really meaning to," then perhaps we ought to consider them to be a problem and a health risk. (If people start using a hair dryer in a way that kills them, even though if it was used 100% according to instructions it would be mostly safe, I would still consider the hair dryer dangerous. What matters is actual use patterns, not idealized or hypothetical use patterns.) In this particular case, I'm not sure the data is there — it might just be hype. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The theory [14] is that "people have no idea how inebriated they really are". Presumably this lack of awareness of how inebriated they're going to get is motivating people to pay huge prices for it on the black market? I'm not clear on that point. 81.131.10.161 (talk) 20:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It makes more sense if you don't assume that the purchasers are going to drink it themselves, but will instead give it to other people whom will not realize how inebriated they are going to get. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

What Do Turks newspaper say about Germany?

Since some months, in the German press, we can read every now and then insulting analysis about Muslims and their supposed low IQ. (This was caused by Thilo Sarrazin, see Thilo_Sarrazin#Controversy. That's like the discussion arisen by The_bell_curve, with Muslims (principally Turks) instead of Blacks, and more explicitly hateful.) Can someone summarize what the Turk press is saying about it, if they are saying something at all? Quest09 (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Not sure about Turkish media reports specifically, but here is a recent article of relevance. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is a relevant article from the English-language version of a Turkish newspaper. Here is the search that I did to find it. Marco polo (talk) 19:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Denmark in Iraq/Afghanistan

I'm trying to determine Denmark's role if any in the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I know they were participating at some point, and I thought I read somewhere that they flew sorties in one of the invasions, but I'm not sure their exact participation in the preliminary months of each war. Any help would be great, with sources even better. Grsz 11 17:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

War in Afghanistan (2001–present) lists a total commitment of 750 troops for Denmark. Not to diminish the commitment those 750 troops have made and the risk that they (and their country) have put their lives under, but as a portion of the total allied fighting force, it just may be that they have made a large enough impact to be noticed by many English-language sources. If you can read Danish, you may be able to find more at the Danish Wikipedia... --Jayron32 18:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Also take a look at Operation Enduring Freedom, Coalition casualties in Afghanistan#Danish, Operation Achilles, Coalition combat operations in Afghanistan in 2006#NATO expands in southern Afghanistan, Operation Hammer (Afghanistan), Danish International Logistical Center, Multinational Division Central-South, Dancon/Irak, Royal Danish Air Force, Operation Red Dagger and Royal Danish Army. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

See also Armadillo (film). P. S. Burton (talk) 15:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Sell off the royals

The UK government is intending to sell off the UKs publicly owned forests to raise £100 million.

a) If all the various royal palaces were sold off (under similar terms), how much would they fetch?

b) For each of the royals who gets a state handout, how many times is that state handout more than the average UK income?

c) What is the total amount of all the state handouts and subsidies, and costs of the free rent and helicopter rides etc, given to the royals per year?

d) Does any other democracy give a greater amount to royalty? Thanks 92.24.186.58 (talk) 19:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry about doing the sums - it's not going to happen - they're Conservatives for goodness sake! But for the sake of a good argument, the Civil List which is the Government's direct "handout" to the Royals is £7.9m. You can set that against £200m earned by the Crown Estates which goes into the public purse every year. The £7.9m doesn't include police or military security but does include transport I believe. By comparison, the EU President, a certain Herman van Rompuy costs the taxpayer £22m per year according to this. So were not getting a bad deal. And if we didn't have a Queen, we'd have to employ a failed politician as a president at a rather similar cost. He'd still need a couple of palaces for entertaining foriegners etc - well Germany does anyway. Fancy Tony Blair or Michael Portillo instead? Alansplodge (talk) 20:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I found a Telegraph article [15] "Buckingham Palace valued at close to £1 billion", which also puts Windsor Castle at £180 million. Finances of the British Royal Family says the queen is on nearly £8 million. Civil list makes the observation that the crown estate "generates revenue of around £190 million for HM Treasury every year", if you consider that relevant. Income in the United Kingdom if Splodge hasn't got there first gives a (rather outdated) mean income of £22,800 per year, although the point of comparing this to royal income escapes me, since the average private income isn't a state handout. Monarchy of Norway#Finances says they're on £6.3 million (according to google's currency conversion), but they were given £54.14 million about 12 years ago to do their gaffs up, which if spread out over every year since then would bring the total to £10.8 million. Not sure if our royals have had any similar one-off payments in recent years. 81.131.10.161 (talk) 20:17, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The Crown Estates are public property so its wrong to say "You can set that against...." or "generates revenue". If they are in fact owned privately by Mrs. Saxe-Coburg-Gotha & Co, then we are being ruled by a polite elderly lawful version of Sadam Hussein. The £7.9m figure mean that this lady is being given 346 times more than the average salary. She's nearly getting a years income every day. If the Crown Estates produce a profit of £200M a year, then they must be worth a lot and should to be sold off.

There are many palaces, not just Buck Pal. Does anyone have the figures for more of them?

As well at the handout to SCG&Co, many relatives are given luxurious state handouts as well. Does anyone have a list of who gets it, and the amounts?

If Buck Pal can get a £1 billion and Windsor Castle £180 million, then why isnt the government selling those off instead of the forests? Commercial companies would know how to use them to their best advantage and boost Britain's tourist trade, and it would stop the needless drain of many millions from the public purse every year.

As an aside, the Prime Minister is equivalent to a president. They don't have two of them in the US, they seem to do OK.

Perhaps selling off all the royal fat would pay off the deficit and everyone can then get back to normality. 92.24.186.58 (talk) 22:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be even better, economically, to sell off the palaces as well as the forests? If we are to consider more than just the economic dimension, that would unleash all kinds of arguments for keeping both, but mercifully so far we haven't begun on the emotional, constitutional, international, ecological, or whatever other angles. Sticking to matters of money, then, everything should be sold off, starting with those things that are the biggest drain on the treasury - I would strongly recommend the NHS, had David Cameron not ruled it out - and leaving those things which actually make money to last. By the way, the budget deficit (£149 billion) is not a one-off payment, but the amount we fall short per year. The national debt is the related one-off payment, and it's insanely huge (and difficult to calculate). The government says it's £952 billion [16]. Trying to factor in liabilities that the government doesn't count might possibly bring the total to £8 trillion. This sum can't be paid in mere palaces. 81.131.22.166 (talk) 00:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

By the way 92, the US does need a PM and President, they call their PM the Speaker of the House. I can think of few countries if any which don't seperate at least somewhat the head of government and head of state roles. By the way, in response to the suggestions of Alansplodge above, how about President Mandelson? Prokhorovka (talk) 09:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Heaven forfend! But if that's what the people want, that's what they'll get - not likely really. Alansplodge (talk) 09:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not really a royalist, in fact I said many years ago that I'd become a republican the day Camilla became Queen, but the thought of President Mandelson, President Blair, or even President Portillo, makes me shout "Long live the Queen!" Dbfirs 10:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The Speaker of the House is head of the House of Representatives, but he's not like a PM. The President is both the Head of Government and the Head of State in the U.S. The Speaker is not the Head of Government. 85.178.81.77 (talk) 10:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

This is often said, but I'm not sure these categories really apply to the US system. The Constitution makes no mention of a "Head of Government" or "Head of State". Arguably Newt Gingrich tried to act as prime minister. It didn't work, but there was really nothing in the Constitution to stop him. --Trovatore (talk) 11:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

In the Wikipedia article linked to above, it says: "The BBC estimated the annual cost to the British Public of keeping the Royal Family to be £41.5M though this figure does not include the cost of security provided by the Police and the Army. The cost of the British Monarchy is five times more the cost of the Spanish Royal Household." On the £41.5M figure alone (paid each and every year) the royals consume one thousand eight hundred and twenty times the average slary per year. That's five salaries a day, including weekends. Isnt that being just a tad greedy? That does not include the cost of security, nor the massive fortune that the Queen has on the quiet given to her son, which he only pays 25% tax on.

By selling off this economic fat, we could get a big capital boost and instead of losing £41.5M+ per year could make similar amounts from the tax the purchasers pay on their profits. We are not living in a decomcracy until we can vote for our rulers. 92.15.9.164 (talk) 11:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

It might be worth comparing how many foreign visitors come to the UK to visit the publicly own forests, to the number of foreign visitors come to the UK to see the pomp and finery associated with the royal family. The royal family are a huge tourist draw and we shouldn't underestimate the contribution of tourism to the national coffers. Somehow, I don't think crowds of tourists will gather outside the hotel formerly known as Buckingham Palace to see the belboys ferry yet another guest's bags into reception. Astronaut (talk) 13:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? The queue will stretch from Buck Pal all the way to Heathrow airport. There will be massively more tourists when the assets are managed by people like Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Euro-Disney or Trump. They will know exactly how to pitch it to the foriegn tourists, rather than the too-refined snobbish low-key almost invisible promotion we get at the momemt. Think of the boost to Britain's coffers. 92.28.244.55 (talk) 20:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Do I detect a WP:SOAPBOX here? --TammyMoet (talk) 13:15, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why British people are so desperate to keep stuffing such huge amounts of money into the pockets of people who are no different from you, I, or anyone else. 92.28.244.55 (talk) 20:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

They are not desperate. They just do it by habit. They don't like revolutions over here, so things are changing, but very very slowly, all in good time, etc. It is part of the curlture: slow and moderate change is better, especially if it allows to keep the traditions goings. --Lgriot (talk) 03:01, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Exempting judicial review

The fifth paragraph of this article about a proposed US law states that part of it "shall not be subject to judicial review". How could it possibly be legal to tell the judicial branch that they can not rule on the constituionality of a law, or part of a law, or on any action taken by either of the other two branches of govermnent? Beach drifter (talk) 20:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

My reading of the article is that the secondary legislation that it enables is not subject to judicial review, not that the bill itself has "you can't touch this" written on it. I think it's worth noting that all US courts but one only exist because the legislative branch says they do. Marnanel (talk) 20:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

For "secondary legislation" in the above response, read "administrative action" or "executive action". (But not in the sense of the executive action article, I hope!) --Anonymous, 02:25 UTC, January 29, 2011.

What this says is that the executive branch is supposed to be able to decide on its own what are and are not critical infrastructure points on the internet that can be shut off by fiat. More than likely any attempt to pass that legislation will get axed by the courts - the courts are not about to let the legislative branch exempt anything from judicial review, because they wouldn't want to set a precedent that might end up with greatly lessened power for the judicial branch. --Ludwigs2 18:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

January 29

UK Monarch's religion

If Charles, Prince of Wales converted to Catholicism, could he succeed the throne? If not, what would happen to him?--115.75.129.234 (talk) 03:14, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

No, he could not. If he did convert to Catholicism, he'd be expressly forbidden from assuming the throne, per the Succession to the Crown Act 1707. What would happen is that the closest non-Catholic would become the heir-presumptive to the throne, and that would be his son Prince William of Wales. --Jayron32 04:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Heir Presumptive? I thought that applied only to females first in line who have no eligible brothers. Before her accession, Queen Elizabeth was Heiress Presumptive because, while she had no brothers, there was always the technical possibility her parents could have done the decent thing and given her one, thus supplanting her from her place in the line of succession. But nobody could ever supplant William once his father becomes ineligible, unless he himself becomes or marries a Catholic, so he'd be Heir Apparent in this scenario, I think. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 05:46, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

This topic seems to have piqued my interest, so I'd like to divert the question a little bit: what if hypothetically Prince Charles assumes the throne, then converts to Catholicism? What would happen then? --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 06:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Act of Settlement 1701 says: Excluding those princesses who have married into Catholic royal families abroad, only one member of the Royal Family (i.e., with the style Royal Highness) has converted to Roman Catholicism since the passage of the act: the Duchess of Kent, wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. The Duchess converted to Roman Catholicism on 14 January 1994, however, her husband did not lose his place in the succession, as the Duchess was an Anglican at the time of their marriage. That suggests that the law is only about the line of succession, but once the person at the top becomes the monarch, they're no longer in the line of succession, so maybe they'd be safe. I sort of doubt this interpretation, however. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 06:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to say that if a monarch wished to convert to Catholicism (or anything other than CoE Christianity really) they would be forced to abdicate first. Prokhorovka (talk) 09:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

If any of these scenarios came to pass, the law would be changed. It's been on the cards for years but we've got more important things to worry about. That's how the British Constitutuion works. When something needs changing, it gets changed. Otherwise let sleeping dogs lie. Alansplodge (talk) 09:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

If Charles were to abdicate, probably no-one would mind, just as no-one much would actually care about his religion so long as he wasn't too overt about it. But it's interesting to speculate about what would happen if there was a genuinely very popular monarch, with an unpopular line of succession, who converted, and was told that, constitutionally, they would need to abdicate. Hypothetically, for example, if the present incumbent was so charmed by the Pope that she had an overnight conversion. Unlikely, I know. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Its an interesting curiosity that the Act covers succession to the throne, it is less clear what would happen to a monarch who converted after s/he had been crowned. That said the failure to repeal the Act is institutionalised prejudice --Snowded ^TALK 09:50, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course, much the same thing applies to the precedence given to a male heir over his older sisters. I heard something in the last few years about a move to perhaps actually change that, but I don't think anything came of it -- anyone know what I'm talking about? With either change, a massive complicating factor would be the fact that all 16 Commonwealth realms would have to make the same change or else they might find themselves with different monarchs at some time. --Anonymous, 10:27 UTC, January 29, 2011.

Well, and why shouldn't they? Great Britain and Hanover had the same monarch for a while, and then they didn't anymore. Why couldn't the same be true of, say, Great Britain and Canada? Say, for example, that the UK changes its succession law so that the oldest child inherits, regardless of sex; but Canada keeps the current arrangement. Then say that William & Kate's first child is a daughter and their second child is a son. Then the next monarch after William would be a queen in Britain and a king in Canada. What's wrong with that? 85.178.81.77 (talk) 10:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

• Why shouldn't they indeed. But that's not what the Statute of Westminster says. It says that all 16 realms must have exactly the same monarch at all times and exactly the same succession rules at all times. Changing any of these rules would be extraordinarily difficult, as the least populated realm can veto the other 15. It would take a statesman of world standing to persuade all 16 governments to go the same way at the same time, but such a person would probably not be interested in getting involved in such an issue when matters of much more massive moment motivate magnificent minds mightily. Hmmmm ... -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 11:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
• There is nothing wrong in principle. However, the Statute of Westminster 1931 requires any change to the rules of succession to be voluntarily agreed upon by the parliaments of all Commonwealth realms. This is somewhat unlikely. It's probably also undesirable - on a practical level, more royals mean more cost, and less prestige for any individual king or queen. And on another level, the monarchy is the common symbol of shared heritage. Splitting it up removes one of its key functions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's another interesting scenario: What if the current monarch's oldest son is a transsexual and becomes a woman? Would she then lose her place in line, and be ranked after her younger brothers in the order of succession, despite having previously been heir apparent? 85.178.81.77 (talk) 10:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The true answer for most of these questions is that the Parliament of the United Kingdom would pass some new laws concerning Royal succession. Its honourable members would probably carefully analyse public Opinion polls and then vote according to their conscience. "A transsexual on the British throne" is probably a big stretch in the UK. Flamarande (talk) 11:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The Statute of Westminster applies here as well. Interestingly enough, from a constitutional point of view, just ignoring the gender change works out fine. The monarch has the right to determine their own style and name. So if Prince Henrietta (née Prince Henry) assumes the throne, (s)he can style herself Queen Ludmilla of Transylvania without any problems. I'd bet the British would get used to it in less than 3 years, and in 30 it would have become part of the quaint charm of the kingdom (or should that be queerdom?). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:46, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Transsexuals are not necessarily queer, or was that a pyto?  :) -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 13:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd strongly maintain that a transsexual Prince Henrietta who assumes the British throne as Queen Ludmilla of Transylvania is mightily queer! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Two useful points here: 1) Read about Michael Dillon and Sir Ewan Forbes, 11th Baronet, both in line for baronetcies, both female-to-male transsexuals. In Dillon's case it was given as an expert's opinion that he was still eligible to inherit; in Forbes's case he actually did. The important point here is that females cannot inherit baronetcies. So at one point, a sex change did alter the rules of succession. 2) But in the Gender Recognition Act 2004, we read:

The fact that a person’s gender has become the acquired gender under this Act— (a)does not affect the descent of any peerage or dignity or title of honour...

so this is no longer the case. Since it says "any... dignity or title of honour", I'd assume it also applies to the Crown, but I am not a lawyer. Marnanel (talk) 15:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all for your detailed and somewhat unexpected answers.--115.75.129.234 (talk) 03:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Presidential signature

I watched President Obama's State of the Union address the other night. After the speech, as Obama was leaving the house, I noticed many people were handing their invite/programme(?) to the president for him to sign. Were these just enthusiastic autograph collectors (senators and representatives can be autograph collectors too), or was there another purpose for signing? Do these signed invites/programmes end up on eBay or are they more likely framed? Does anything prevent politicians selling such memorabilia? Astronaut (talk) 13:59, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Parking validation. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 15:35, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I would suspect the motive for asking for autographs is to have a keepsake... but, no, there is nothing to prevent politicians from selling such memorabilia on eBay (or giving it as a "gift" to some supporter, as a thank you a large donation to the politician's re-election campaign fund.) Of course if too many the signed programs came up for sale (or were given away with a quid pro quo), they would not be worth all that much... rarity being an important factor in the Presidential memorabilia market.

And indeed, every other memorabilia market, indeed the relative scarcity of any resource is a crucial component of it's price. Prokhorovka (talk) 19:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd be careful about the second part of you're statement. Marx, Menger, Jevons, Walras and others didn't think it's that simple. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 23:48, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

On a related note... ever notice how the President always uses something like five or six pens to sign his name on legislation? These pens are given away to lawmakers and supporters... and everyone who gets one can say, "This is the pen that the President used to sign the important Parakeet Rights Act of 2011 into law" (wow!). Never mind that there are four or five other people that can say the same thing about the pens that they were given. Blueboar (talk) 16:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

That's like people getting the flags that flew above the American senate (?). In reality they just fly for a second or two, and there are thousands of them. 92.28.244.55 (talk) 20:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Consider it this way. Let's say you have a paper signed by the president. Does someone else in the country has something like it? Surely, hundreds of people. Does someone in your family, work or goup of friends have it? It's very unlikely MBelgrano (talk) 00:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Quacks

What are some famous historical or fictional (medical) doctors who were (or are) well known to be quacks? I exclude medical practices which are now known to be incorrect (such as humourology) but were widely accepted in their time period. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 18:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, quackery (medical fraud) is alive and well today, see Andrew Wakefield for a famous example from the recent news. Historically, I suppose you could consider John Harvey Kellogg as something of a famous quack; though I think his quackery was more well intentioned than Dr. Wakefield's. --Jayron32 19:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Article is Quackery#Notable_historical_persons_accused_of_quackery... AnonMoos (talk) 19:19, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Wilhelm Fliess is considered rather quacky, and would have been pretty quacky in his time. Frankly there are a lot of historical quacks; if you try to do anything "cutting edge," you're bound to be wrong a good deal of the time, in the past anyway. Samuel Hahnemann definitely rates as a quack in my book. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Information collected by banks

I once told my bank that I work at a certain company. Now that information is on my file at the bank. I asked them to remove it because I don't see any reason for it to remain there. I was told that federal law requires them to collect the information. Is this true? Thanks. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You don't say where you are, but in the UK (and quite possibly elsewhere in Europe) banks are obliged to check you really are who you say you are when you later call them. They do this by asking for snippits of personal information that allegedly give the call centre operative the confidence that you are you and not someone looking to empty your bank account. Tyhe name of your employer might be one of these. Astronaut (talk) 22:31, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

It's probably part of anti-money laundering legislation, which includes a requirement to "know your customer". I don't know the details of US law (I'm assuming that's the federation you refer to), but I wouldn't be surprised if it includes such provisions. --Tango (talk) 22:56, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Presumably you do not have your employer pay your salary directly into your bank account? If you do, the bank must know where it's coming from. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 02:12, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue is not so much that they have the information, but whether they use (or don't use) it appropriately, and whether you have the right to see the information yourself and make sure that it is accurate. HiLo48 (talk) 23:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Banks are required to know your "source of income", per the Patriot Act. Unless you work for a drug cartel, or a suspected front for terrorism, you don't need to worry about this. Big Brother may be able to watch, but he really doesn't care. Blueboar (talk) 02:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Double entry bookkeeping and bank statements

How far could you go in generating a double entry bookkeeping set of accounts from bank statemenmts? What extra information would you need? Thanks 92.28.244.55 (talk) 21:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

With double entry bookkeeping, a transaction would generally have two sets of two entries. For example, if you sell something, you initially you credit "income" and "accounts receivable". Then, when you get paid, you credit "bank account" and debit "accounts receivable". The bank statement gives you everything you need to know for the second set of accounts. It doesn't give you enough information for the first set, though (although you may be able to infer it based on your knowledge of the business). The bank statement doesn't say what it is you sold, for example, or when you did it. It just tell you that a particular person has given you a particular amount of money on a particular date. --Tango (talk) 23:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Bank statements forsee the future

One weekend I was looking at my (British) bank-statement online. I could see several enteries for the following monday, in the future. How did that happen? 92.28.244.55 (talk) 22:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I always thought entries processed after 15:30 on Fridays (ie. over the weekend) were credited/debited the next working day, usually Monday. Your account's terms and conditions should spell this out for you. Quite how you can see these items on Saturday afternoon is a mystery that perhaps you should ask your bank about. Astronaut (talk) 22:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue for whom? The OP does not seem to be asking anything related to data protection. --Tango (talk) 23:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry. Posted something in the wrong section. It's gone from here now. Feel free to delete your post and this one if you want. HiLo48 (talk) 02:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

What kind of entries were they? --Tango (talk) 23:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

How much of our knowledge of history is modern

Were educated English people of a few hundred years ago (say of Elizabethan times) aware of the exploits of the Roman Empire, the ancient Greeks and Egyptians? So, is our understanding of history largely from knowledge passed down through the ages or a comparatively modern rediscovery through archeology? Astronaut (talk) 22:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

one would assume so. This bloke wrote a play about Anthony and Cleopatra for example. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:58, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd say both. There are new things being discovered all the time about ancient civilisations, so in that sense we know more than the Elizabethans did. But their education systems (for those who could afford it) were more detailed - they had kids in primary school learning Latin and Greek, and their texts were taken from historians and playwrights from those eras, whose works were rich in detail about historical people and events. So in that sense they knew more than we do. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 23:04, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

They knew almost as much about Rome as about their own country -- nearly every educated person was taught Latin, and the main Latin authors were standard reading. They certainly knew about Greece, especially Alexander and his conquests, but only a small minority could read and write the language. Most of their remaining knowledge of history came from the Bible, which by Elizabethan times had been translated into English. Concerning most other things their knowledge of history was hit and miss -- everybody knew about the Crusades, for example, and also about King Arthur. Looie496 (talk) 23:13, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Astronaut -- A lot of Latin books (and a lesser but still very significant amount of Greek books) were printed up from manuscripts in western Europe for the first time in the late 15th century and the 16th century, and there was a whole movement of rediscovery of Classical civilization. AnonMoos (talk) 23:16, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

While educated persons certainly was well versed in Greek and Roman history through the classical texts, it is quite a different case when it comes to the Egyptians, especially pre-Hellenistic Egypt. They would have known something from writers like Herodotus and Manetho, but until the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the development of egyptology and archaeology, solid information about the ancient Egyptians was scarce. --Saddhiyama (talk) 23:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Most of our knowledge is from reading classics. More classics in Latin and Greek were available to Europe after the fall of Constaninople in 1453. Translations of more classics from Arabic were made available by church translators in Sicily and Iberia. Educated women knew nothing of history as the rich learnt needlepoint and music.
Sleigh (talk) 23:57, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

While the majority of women were indeed educated mostly in domestic skills and crafts, a minority with enquiring minds and/or ambitious or indulgent parents or guardians may have been able to access texts and study either by themselves or with tutors. Elizabeth I, for example, though not in her childhood expected to inherit the throne, was literate in Latin, Italian, French and Greek as well as English. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 02:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Doh! I forgot entirely about Shakespere and the classics. I suppose I was thinking more of my own experience of being taught about the ancient world and then being able to get a feel for it through tourism and TV documentaries - perhaps imagining the Elizabethans being enthrtalled by contemporary travellers' tales of seeing Roman ruins, the Parthenon or the Pyramids. Astronaut (talk) 00:35, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

When the Tombstone Marshal required citizens to give up their guns when in the town, wasnt this unconstitutional and hence illegal in American law? 92.28.244.55 (talk) 23:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Was the right to form a militia being impinged? -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:10, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not understand what you mean. 92.28.244.55 (talk) 23:20, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The second amendment to the constitution gives people the right to own guns to form a militia. As far as I know, no one in Tombstone was trying to form a militia. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 23:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Do I sense another gunfight about to start here? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:29, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

More likely a case of MAD... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A less flippant answer: According to Wikipedia's article on Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, the idea that the second amendment extended to an individual right for any citizen to own any gun at any time is quite recent, dating to the 20th century. The earlier interpretation tended more to think of the gun ownership right described there as a 'collective right' for groups of people. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 23:34, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Another issue to consider is that Barron v. Baltimore originally ruled that the Bill of Rights is not binding on state (and by extension local) governments. So while "Congress' shall make no law ...", state and local governments were free to. Since then, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution has generally be interpreted as meaning that the US Constitution binds state and local governments too. However, the incorporation doctrine didn't really materialize until the 1890s. With respect to the Second Amendment specifically, the Supreme Court decision that formally incorporated it against the states wasn't actually made until 2010 (McDonald v. Chicago). A complication of all this is that Tombstone was not part of a state, but in a Federal territory - but the law was a local one, rather than a congressional mandate. I can't say for certain, but it might be that no one expected the Constitution to apply. -- 174.21.236.191 (talk) 00:53, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that the actual answer is, no one at the time cared whether the law was constitutional or not. I doubt the Earps gave it a though. Blueboar (talk) 02:55, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Doubtless Wyatt and his brothers would have defended to the death the right of the Territory of Arizona to have local companies of the "Arizona Militia" to muster and drill monthly. This had nothing to do with the right of individual thugs or lunatics to carry firearms with the intent to commit murders in the furtherance of felonies, since criminals are not related to a "well regulated militia." Edison (talk) 03:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The text of the second amendment does not, of course, restrict the right to militias. The militia language motivates the right; it does not limit it. But in any case, I agree with Blueboar; the Earps didn't give a crap what was constitutional, or indeed legal. At least that's my image of them. Criminals with badges, who may have been overall better for public safety than the ones without. --Trovatore (talk) 03:50, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thugs entering a town are geberally not part of a "well regulated militia" and thus generally have no protection under the 2nd Amendment against having their guns secured by the local law enforcement. If they could prove they were part of the "Militia" then they would have an argument for retaining their firearms. This is of course "strict construction" and not "revisionism." Edison (talk) 04:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

No, strict construction gives you that the "being necessary to" part is an explanation for the rest of it, not a restriction on it. This is just simple understanding of the English language. --Trovatore (talk) 04:36, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Even in modern law, territories are considered to be self-regulating areas, with their own legal systems and limited oversight by the branches of the federal government. That's why to this day American Indian reservations are free to run casinos, cultivate psychoactive drugs for spiritual and medicinal purposes, and otherwise ignore state and federal restrictions on such matters. The territories of the old west were even a bit worse than that, since they often had no government at all except local government in towns and cities. US Marshalls were restricted by federal rules of behavior, and there were usually territorial governors somewhere, but for the most part local sheriffs were essentially at the top of the effective political power structure. --Ludwigs2 04:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

January 30

Standard of review on appeal in Bangladeshi courts

What is the standard of review in Bangladesh courts in criminal appeal cases? Apokrif (talk) 02:53, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

"The reference desk will not answer (and will usually remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or request medical opinions, or seek guidance on legal matters. Such questions should be directed to an appropriate professional, or brought to an internet site dedicated to medical or legal questions". Sorry, can't really help with this AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Although this question deals with the legal system, I really don't see how this could be construed as a request for legal advice. I think it's a fair question and should be answered if possible. --GreatManTheory (talk) 02:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Clarification on terms - India, 1946

1) What is the difference between state, union, and province in 1945-6 India as specified in the May 16, 1945 Mission to the UK? Or at least where can I figure this answer out myself? I am looking at the briefing itself but there seem to be no definitions on the terms in such a context. I know a union territory in present day India refers to territory governed by the federal government, but for some reason I doubt this to be what the historical document refers to.

2) What is a grouping formula? Is this how the British decided to allocate territory to Pakistan? [Edit: I actually figured this part out]

[Edit: 3) Also any possible solutions to not group the provinces in the first round or to split the Hindu and Muslim areas in the second? For example, where there ever plans to keep all provinces as their own subnational units in a unified India or discussion on developing provinces on ethnic lines?

4) Was there any documentation accessible in the UK explaining the geographical distribution of different ethnic groups in the Raj that the UK representatives at the Mission could have referenced?]128.54.224.231 (talk) 04:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)--128.54.224.231 (talk) 05:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)