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.
Could someone with access to a copy of McConnell, Cambell R.; Brue, Stanley L. (2008). Economics (Seventeenth Edition). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. ISBN 978-0-07-329392-9 please verify what is written on Commission (remuneration)? Page numbers are missing. Phearson (talk) 02:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't access the book online, but I looked at what it is used to reference, and it doesn't seem to back anything controversial. If you found multiple sources which contradicted what is backed by the book, than you could remove the reference to the book without even knowing if the book did say "X" or not. Public awareness (talk) 09:57, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Illustrating the legend of the Cave of Salmanica / Devil take the hindmost
Hi. I have a desire to illustrate the tale of Devil take the hindmost / the Cave of Salmanica. I've tried searching google images for woodprints from the 15th / 16th century with these text strings, and I'm not getting anywhere. The closest image shows a very static view of Satan negotiating with a scholar. These don't have the dynamism or pressure of the concept of "get out before the end of the semester if you want to survive" that the phrase in English has. Does anyone have search tips for early Western printing wood blocks? (I believe I have seen an appropriate block, about 20 years ago, so I've forgotten where). Fifelfoo (talk) 03:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Pimps and seducers being chased back and forth by demons with whips in the first malebolge of the eighth circle of hell, illustrated by Gustave Doré from Canto 18 of Dante's Inferno.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 09:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is that a story? Or did you mean just the idiom? I have no idea what the 'Cave of Salmanica' is, did you mean 'Salamanca'? It's probably too obscure to expect any woodblocks of it printed, especially in the 15th/16th century. You might try searching for other woodcuts of demons and devils instead. Plenty of them from the middle ages. Hexen Meysterey from 1545 has a picture of a demon abducting a witch for example. There's also Gustave Doré's very evocative woodcuts of Dante's Inferno.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 09:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is a legal decision a verifiable source?
I would like to add controversial content to wikipedia article in regards to background information on a company. In this regards are the following sources considered "verifiable"?
1. Breach Notices - several Breach Notices have been issued to a company by a government authority in regards to specific breaches of federal laws. The Notices have been sent to relevant parties and is also available to the general public. However it has not been published online and must be specifically requested by a member of the public if they wish to view it.
2. a request for a legal opinion (in regards to the above) - prepared by the government authority for their legal department. As above it is not published online but is available to the general public on request.
The best place on Wikipedia to get advice on whether a source is acceptable is Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Wikipedia:Help desk is another good place for asking questions about writing or editing Wikipedia, and you should ask there if you need more advice (this reference desk is for factual questions about the world in general, not questions about Wikipedia)).
Wikipedia:Attribution and Wikipedia:Verifiability are the relevant policies. The requirement is not that a source is easily available, but that it is available for everyone who wants to check it, a requirement which your sources seem to meet.
Note that when you're using primary sources such as legal documents you should be careful to restrict yourself to facts that are obvious from the text. The Wikipedia:No original research rule means you cannot interpret documents, or try and figure out what the writers meant, or fill in gaps; you can only repeat what they explicitly say. See Wikipedia:Attribution#Primary_and_secondary_sources for more information.
I agree that WP:RSN is a better place to discuss this, but just as a general principle, if the information has not been covered by reliable media sources, it probably does not belong in our article. Looie496 (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thank you for your advice. I will repost the query in the appropriate section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.225.115.132 (talk) 00:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Have currencies based on commodity money suffered extreme inflation?
I'm thinking of a situation where, for example, a country uses gold coins as its currency. Then an enormous gold deposit is discovered, which makes gold 100 times easier to mine. Everyone knows that once a mine gets built, the currency will lose value, so they rush to convert their cash into hard assets. Has anything like this ever happened? --99.237.252.228 (talk) 06:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Humm, well there was the Price revolution where the large amounts of stolen gold and silver from the new world flooded Europe. I know that during the Klondike Gold Rush prices were locally very high, but I guess it depends on the cause for the high prices if thats localized inflation or not. If high prices were wholely because of lack of supply, than it wasn't inflation, if it was because all retailers were gouging maybe that would be inflation. Again something half related to what you're talking about may be an incident in time where one nation which was a major producer of a crop and one year it was entirely hit by disease or drought. The afflicted nation would may have their curreny drop a bit, while others who produce that crop may rise. If your only interested in the last part of "rush to convert their cash into hard assets." than I think the rich often do that in recessions or economy collapses. Public awareness (talk) 09:46, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wider understanding of how money actually works is a relatively new thing (and understanding is still not universal, considering the relatively wide acceptance of very strange ideas about one particular shiny metal). Most of the gold and silver from the new world were mined rather than stolen. There was no such flight to other assets when a mountain of silver was mined at Potosi - though such discoveries did help fuel inflation, and a generation of war on mainland Europe. bobrayner (talk) 10:04, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One thing that Price revolution doesn't mention, is that our article Ottoman Empire says "the huge influx of Spanish silver from the New World caused a sharp devaluation of the Ottoman currency and rampant inflation. This had serious negative consequences at all levels of Ottoman society." Interesting that it had such a profound inflationary effect on an empire mostly in south-east Europe and the Middle East, when the silver (and gold) was actually arriving in western European countries like Spain, Portugal and England. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 11:19, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Money is supremely fungible, and is designed to be easy to transport in an era when a lot of trade goods were actually quite difficult to transport in large volumes - and the Ottoman empire faced the Mediterranean (and the Adriatic, Black Sea, Danube, &c) so the effects of surplus silver (and/or a dip in the real value of silver) wouldn't take long to percolate through the empire. However, I'm not sure that Ottoman inflation was entirely due to new world silver; they were quite capable of creating their own inflation. Ottoman silver coinage was debased both before and after the discovery of Potosi; and when somebody opens the taps on a massive new supply of silver, you wouldn't expect widespread debasement of silver coinage to be the first government response! bobrayner (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In James Blish's "Cities in Flight" future history, there are several incidents when monetary standards based on scarce commodities collapse due to technological advances, if I remember correctly... AnonMoos (talk) 15:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Philip_II_of_Spain#Economy hints on it a bit, but a major cause of repeated collapses of the Spanish economy in the late 16th century was the inflation caused by the massive influx of gold and silver into Spain from the New World. --Jayron32 15:34, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
transexual
can a person be both transexual and gay at the same time? 220.239.49.223 (talk) 13:02, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
ObPersonal only, but of the several transsexual people I've been acquainted with or known about, some have been attracted to members of their original biological sex, some to their adopted sex, and some to both. Which attractions would be definable as gay I'm not sure about. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.78.1 (talk) 13:48, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The terms "gynephilia" and "androphilia" were created partially in order to short-circuit such semi-philosophical conundrums. See the various graphs discussed on Talk:Androphilia and gynephilia... AnonMoos (talk) 14:28, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On the documentary series Sex Change Hospital, quite a few of the male-to-female transsexuals remain in relationships with their female partners. In fiction, the character of Jason on Hollyoaks is a female-to-male transsexual (though he has not yet had an operation) in love with a boy. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 20:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a book you can get that lists every single MP in the House of Commons, along with a brief biography. I have one of these for the 2001 Parliament (this book: [1]) but they don't seem to have produced one for any of the subsequent intakes. Is there an equivelent? Many thanks, Jeremy Wordsworth (talk) 13:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Dods Parliamentary Companion is the standard reference, although it's insanely expensive for private individuals at 295 GBP[2]. You might find it in a library.
The Guardian has information on every constituency and MP on its website, taken from various sources, but it doesn't really match the old book and doesn't include proper biographies.[3]
The other important book on the 2010 election is Cowley and Kavanagh's authoritative book The British General Election of 2010[4] but it principally covers the election rather than parliament, and probably doesn't have all the information you want.--Colapeninsula (talk) 13:49, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are several biographical guides to MPs but this is a commercial field, and they tend to be expensive. Dod's Parliamentary Companion, previously mentioned, is the market leader and has been published since 1832; they do a 'special' which appears just after each general election but this too is quite expensive. The only 'popular' guide that is always published after each election (since 1929) is 'The Times Guide to the House of Commons'. The Kavanagh and Cowley book mentioned above is interested in electoral matters and does not contain biographies.
If you just want to browse then there are online sources. Parliament's own website contracts to Dods for their top line data: List of MPs. The BBC's 'Democracy Live' has biographies of MPs and others. If all else fails and you're desperate, have a look at TheyWorkForYou which suffers from the handicap of being compiled by people who know little about politics. Sam Blacketer (talk) 15:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Who's Who has a self-written biography for almost all living past and present British members of parliament. The Who Was Who series has the final versions of entries for those who have died going back to the late 19th century. Anyone with a public library membership in the UK can access the up-to-date text of both here. Moonraker (talk) 03:53, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Size of UK EEZ and Scottish waters
I've been trying to find the answer to what seems like a very simple question:
I can find a piece in The Herald saying that the answer is 127,000 square miles, a figure repeated in the proceedings of the Scottish Parliamenthere (end of col. 17).
So far, so good, but according to Exclusive Economic Zone#United Kingdom, the UK's "home" EEZ is 298,718 square miles. Subtracting 127 from 299 leaves 182,000 square miles of UK EEZ which are not Scottish waters. Looking at the map in the EEZ article, this seems very unlikely. And The Daily Telegraph, here, stated that the Royal Navy's Fishery Protection Squadron patrolled the "80,000 square miles" of English, Welsh and Northern Irish waters, but not Scottish ones. Even in the strange world of journalism, adding 80 to 127 should produce 207,000 rather than 299,000.
Although differing treatments of Rockall could account for a substantial difference - up to 60,000 square miles according to this paper (see p. 83 & map on p. 85) - that still appears to fall short of the apparent discrepancy. So, something is fishy here. At least one of these numbers has to be wrong. Does anyone know which, and why? Angus McLellan(Talk) 16:09, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This study has a copy of what appears to be a map of the 1999 boundaries, with grid lines. Judging by this map they're half a degree of latitude by a degree of longitude; it may be possible to make a calculation of defined area from that. (My very rough estimate was ~~230,000 sq. mi., but there's some pretty big error margins on that!) Shimgray | talk | 16:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
German newspapers
What were the major newspapers in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 16:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Der Angriff, the Nazi party's newspaper, was important for a few years but expired in 1945. Moonraker (talk) 03:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
apostrophe placing
Does the possessive of a name ending in x have an s after the '? Since the name would be pronounced as though ending in s, surely it would then be treated the same as for example James' or Charles'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.122.186 (talk) 18:21, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whether to place 's after James or Charles is a question of style. Most modern style guides recommend placing 's after names that end in s, except for Biblical, Greek, and Roman names such as Jesus. So, the most common way of writing the possessive for James would be James's. In fact, the second s is pronounced in most varieties of English. The same is true for names ending in x. Marco polo (talk) 18:53, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My rule of thumb is: If you personally say the 's, then write it; if not, don't. So, James's brothers were not members of Jesus' disciples. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 20:53, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, but being consistent within one sentence might also be desirable. You might also be writing for a publication that has a style guide. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:16, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think I am being totally consistent with the rule I outlined. I never say what sounds like Jesuses, but I do say what sounds like Jameses, and so the spelling will vary even within a single sentence. The look of these things is not the main issue here, as was well-demonstrated in an edit I made last night. The existing text had "Jacques' father", yet a moment's thought tells you that the s in Jacques is silent, but the possessive version does have the s sound, and it should therefore be written in as Jacques's, regardless of how it may look. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 02:31, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you can make a "rule" like that based on how you personally pronounce it, especially if you end up doing two different things to the same type of word in the same sentence,. That just looks silly, IMO. It's a matter of style. --Viennese Waltz 08:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is not just a matter of style. There's St James's Palace and Court of St. James's. It would be wrong to spell these with just James', under any circumstances. I called my approach "my rule of thumb" ("a principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation"), not a ruleper se. It may look silly, but I'm damned if I'm going to write Jesus's when I don't pronounce the final s, or James' when I do pronounce an s that isn't there - just for the sake of so-called stylistic consistency. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 10:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. What you need to do is to change your odd pronounciation pattern. Nil Einne (talk) 17:41, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To what, exactly? (Not that I have any intention of changing anything, but hypothetically.) -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 20:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Either say Jesus's mother and James's mother or say Jesus' mother and James' mother. It seems clear the reason why your writing style doesn't make sense is because while it may be a logical system following on from your pronounciation, your pronouciation system itself doesn't make sense. (Of course that's true for a lot of English, but let's not go there....) No reason why the s should be pronounced for James but not Jesus. Nil Einne (talk) 11:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many names ending in x (French ones, mostly, such as Devereaux) end in a vowel sound, so an apostrophe and s would normally be used in any style. I think that the others (such as Fox) would also take 's even in styles that mandate James' . Deor (talk) 23:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. But maybe beaux is pronounced like beaus. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 10:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Possessives deals with this question and approves three options, of which number 3 is the sensible one supported by Jack of Oz. It also says "Apply just one of these three practices consistently within an article." On Devereaux, the traditional English pronunciation of that is "Deverooks". Moonraker (talk) 04:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But I do pronounce the possessive of "Jesus" as "Jesuses". And as for "Devverooks" for Devereaux, I am astonished. It is one of our family names and is pronounced always "DevverOH". Bielle (talk) 04:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That tradition referred to by Moonraker has not translated beyond England's sceptered isle. Ed Devereaux of Skippy fame was Devve-roh, never Devve-rooks. Other Devereauxs known to me are pronounced likewise. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 20:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As long as Euro countries are not allowed to print Euros in a whim, why does it matter whether other Euro nations have debt or not? 88.9.108.128 (talk) 19:51, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Umm, because they need to borrow and are charged increasingly large amounts of interest on such debt. Or simply cannot raise the funds they perceive they need. --Tagishsimon(talk) 20:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But they don't borrow together, AFAIK. Each Euro country has its own bonds, with a different interest rate. 88.9.108.128 (talk) 20:42, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not understanding the point you're trying to make. They have to borrow money. Borrowing money costs money - iirc, for some euro countries, about 8-10% of government revenue is spent in interest payments. How is this a "why does it matter" situation? (And yes, they borrow on their own account; again, how is that relevant to the "why does it matter" question? --Tagishsimon(talk) 20:45, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I mean: why does Germany care if Greece has debt? Why is it a disadvantage for Germany? Germany get its bonds sold at a lower interest, independently of Greece. That's not about why Germany cares about its own debt or Greece caring about its own debt. Why does having a common currency ties the Euro countries together? 88.9.108.128 (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Partly because they were denominated in Euros, German banks and Germany itself are significantly exposed to Greek government. Thus, confidence in German banks - and hence the German economy as a whole - is dependent on the outcome of the Greek economy crisis. There is also lending to Greek banks, which isn't included in the figures there. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 20:54, 7 September 2011 (UTC) [Revised.][reply]
Indeed, I think it's the amount of exposure European banks have to Greek, Irish, Spanish and Portuguese debt. There's a very real domino theory, that if one goes, so go them all. And then the larger countries are in a lot of trouble, because they're holding worthless debt. Big problem. --Tagishsimon(talk) 20:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Does the above imply that if Greece had another currency, but the same debt amount in euros towards the Germans, it still would be a pain in the ass? Then why are some in Germany crying let's save the euro? And isn't the German strategy, lending right now even more money to the über-indebted Greece, obviously deemed to fail? (excluding hypothetical situations, like Greece starting to grow at an accelerated pace). Quest09 (talk) 23:26, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly suggest that you read our European sovereign debt crisis article, which I think will answer a lot of your questions -- and if not, it will at least give us a starting point to work from. Looie496 (talk) 00:27, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are several issues: One is the exposure of banks in the creditor countries (especially Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, and France) to the debt of the debtor countries. Because this debt was issued in euros, these banks assumed it was safer and therefore have a greater exposure to it than to the debt of a non-euro country such as Russia. If one debtor country defaults, then the other debtor countries will face a loss of confidence in the markets, leading to interest rates on their debt rising to the point where they can no longer service it, leading to a chain of defaults which would threaten the entire European financial system. This is probably the bigger issue. Another issue is that, even if Greece were to default without a contagion of default, the Greek financial system would be annihilated. Nearly all Greek banks would fail, the government would be unable to meet its obligations, credit would be unavailable, the country would not be able to fund vital imports, and the economy would in effect collapse. Without outside assistance, the consequences could be quite severe, including a failure of the food provision system and possible famine. In such a situation, the best option for Greece could be to declare a bank holiday and forcibly convert all deposits and debts to a national currency, which would be devalued against the euro. If there were contagion, quite apart from the plight of the banks in the creditor countries, other debtor countries could be forced off the euro as well, leading to a shrinkage or breakup of the euro block. A third issue is that, if the euro zone members fail to come up with a long-term solution to the implicit unlimited guarantee that creditor countries have extended to debtor countries without any fiscal control over debtor countries, the future viability of the euro is very much in question. There is no other major currency that involves a currency union without a fiscal union, and many economists have argued that a fiscal union is the only way to really "save" the euro. Marco polo (talk) 00:47, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
An old question, but here are some additional answers. Whether other Euro countries have big debts, caused by big spending, or not affect each other. Much of the answer depends on the actions of the ECB. If the ECB acts to bailout, to buy shaky debtor country's bonds, then these country's debts are obviously safer & more payable, at a lower interest. This supports spending & aggregate demand in the debtor country, throughout the Eurozone, and indeed the world. And it makes the banks of the creditor countries like France or Germany more solvent & stable. So at times like these, where deflation, depression, instability & unemployment are the threat, ECB support is essentially a win for everyone. A stay of execution & provision of the capacity for non-austerity for debtors like Greece, continued export driven prosperity for Germany. But because of we are currently in a "dark age of macro-economics" (Krugman), irrational, incomprehensible & innumerate theories rule the economies of major parts of the world, and constructive ECB support is conditioned on nearly universally destructive austerity. At other times, the Eurozone may be faced with a prospect of inflation because if each national economy were assured of unconditional ECB support, then the incentive is for each to spend as much as possible, to run as big deficits as possible, to effectively "print Euros in a whim". As if each US state had the right to print US dollars. The only thing standing in the way of this is the frequently violated, not very workable Stability and Growth Pact. Having a common currency prevents Greek currency from devaluing to make its exports cheaper & imports dearer. It causes Greece to become increasingly indebted in a foreign currency, the Euro, but also less able to earn this currency. And since it cannot print this currency, it makes the Greek government less able to sustain full employment, and causes the titanic production, real wealth losses of mass unemployment. ECB intervention has the effect of making the currency "less foreign", but can have the bad/ unjust effects noted above at other times. But at present, IMHO, the Eurozone (& Britain, & USA soon enough) are insanely, fanatically, innumerately biased toward austerity & purposeless self-inflicted pain, to the benefit only of the banking elite. A Eurozone wide per capita distribution of Euros, or Job Guarantee could make the Euro more workable and just, but these are unlikely in the near term.John Z (talk) 08:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Effect of unconstitutional law
Suppose in the United States, that a law is found to be unconstitutional. What happens to anyone who has already been convicted of the offence in question (Not necessarily the people who brought the case). If they are in prison would they be released, and would this happen automatically or after an appeal? Would the offence be removed from a criminal record, and again, would this be automatic? Would people punished under a law later found to be unconstitutional be eligible for any kind of compensation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.84.125.245 (talk) 20:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The law doesn't have an automatic trigger that ejects all the convicts from prison. What happens is that in every case, the convict's attorney files a motion with the original judge, or with that court's appellate court, to throw out the conviction. The judge with whom the motion is filed will then throw out the conviction, and the prisoner will be released. No, no compensation for the imprisoned, as, at the time they were convicted and imprisoned, this was all done according to the law at the time. Sorry I can't find a citation in the 5 minutes I've had to type this; I had thought Lawrence v. Texas would possibly yield an example, but that Texas sodomy law was an outlier already, so nobody seems to have been sitting in the clink because of it when it was ruled unconstitutional. 207.239.83.130 (talk) 02:44, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically you file a habeas corpus appeal, I believe. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In a few cases that I took interest in a while back, I noted that when laws are declared unconstitutional, the declaration is not retroactive by default. It must be explicitly declared retroactive - in which case the lawyers who work on it are stating that those convicted solely on that law should be allowed to have the conviction overturned. So, no, it wouldn't be an automatic release of all the prisoners. Really, there is rarely (if ever) a case in which lawyers do something that doesn't create more work (and more money) for other lawyers. So, the lawyers get paid to make the law. Then, they get paid to convict people with the law. Then, they get paid to overturn the law. Then, they get paid to overturn the previous convictions. -- kainaw™ 02:58, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but it's the democratically elected government (presumably) who hire them to write then overturn the law in the first place...
In any case, about compensation, in many countries there's what's called an ex gratia payment if someone suffers some injustice due to machinations of government. Is there a practice in the US of giving people such a payment due to the law incarcerating them being overturned? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some rulings are declared retroactive, some are declared not retroactive. I don't think you can sue for false arrest or false imprisonment if the arrest and incarceration were actually thought to have been constitutional before the ruling. Generally speaking you have very little room for damages if the procedure used against you was legal at the time; such is my understanding. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:29, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
People have won lawsuits against governments for malicious prosecution. However, I'm not aware of anyone in America actually getting compensated because they were convicted of breaking a law later overturned. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled a few years back that sodomy laws are unconstitutional. But I've never heard of anyone trying to get money from the government because they were convicted for that former crime. Any state government that would have prosecuted someone for sodomy before the Supreme Court case would have been completely within its rights to do so. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:49, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our Surpeme Court decided the issue as to whether one could sue for an arrest under a statute later found unconstitutional in Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967).[5] Officers are not required to predict the constitutionality of the statues they rely upon when acting with good faith; however, they can still be sued for other reasons, just not by virtue of a statue being declared unconstitutional. Gx872op (talk) 14:47, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Though that looks like an important case, its issue was whether one could sue the arresting officers and judge under a statute later found unconstitutional. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Look up a 1st year torts class outline or bar exam study guide to see how Section 1983 torts claims work with sovereign and prosecutorial immunity. See the text of 11th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The arresting officers are exactly who you sue. The burden is very high for judges and prosecutors as they generally enjoy prosecutorial immunity when acting in their official capacities. Exceptions are when they are creating a policy of civil rights discrimination, or when they are acting with intentional malice or deliberate indifference. Gx872op (talk) 19:34, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is an enormous body of U.S. law dealing with retroactivity issues when a statute is declared unconstitutional after it has taken effect (and the even greater complexity when a law that for awhile was thought unconstitutional is then declared constititutional again, which has also happened). In fact, there is an entire book on the subject (The Effect of an Unconstitutional Statute by Oliver Peter Field) although it dates from 1935 and therefore is obviously no longer current. For a long period of time, the U.S. Supreme Court took the position that it would sometimes declare a statute unconstitutional with prospective-only effect, but the Court decided about 20 years ago in the Lampf decision that this was generally not a proper practice.
When a criminal statute is declared unconstitutional, what generally happens is that each case needs to be reviewed to determine the impact of the ruling on that specific case. If the defendant was charged and convicted only for violating Statute A, and Statute A is invalidated, the conviction will normally need to be vacated; but it may or may not be possible, depending on double jeopardy considerations, to prosecute the defendant for violating Statute B which remains in effect. But other times, the defendant is convicted of violating A, B, and C: if A is invalidated, the defendant still is convicted of violating B and C, but the sentence may need to be decreased. This is what is going on now with respect to many convictions under the "honest services" statute that was recently declared unconstitutionally vague; of many prominent defendants with convictions under this statute, the most prominent is probably Conrad Black. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:09, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good place to look for converting to Judaism from a (desit/atheist)ish viewpoint
Can any one recommend somewhere, or some people, or something liek that, ideally in south east england, where someone who isn't me could investigate converting to judaism from a perspective that may even be atheist? Would be best if there's loads of stories, info, etc EggCentric 21:08, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean an atheist converting to Judaism? Since there are atheist Jews, maybe that's an (awkward) possibility. Or are you jusn an atheist who is curious about convertion to Judaism? Quest09 (talk) 23:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify Quest09's point, there is cultural Judaism and religious Judaism; see the article with one of the oddest titles on Wikipedia: Who is a Jew?. 207.239.83.130 (talk) 02:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you (or your friend) want to convert to the Jewish religion, then a liberal synagogue - either UK Reform or the more liberal Liberal Judaism - would be a good place to start (they tend to be more welcoming to converts than the more conservative branches). There are several synagogues in SE England, so you could find the one nearest. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alternatively, if the person is determined to convert and wishes to be regarded by all Jews as Jewish, (sadly not something that can be said of Reform or Liberal conversion,(or even Masorti in the UK) they'll need to convert Orthodox. In the south east of England, the first port of call would probably be London Beth Din, although there are other Orthodox courts in London. I have some personal experience in this matter and would be happy to discuss this by email - click the link on my userpage. Our article Conversion to Judaism is a useful resource, too. --Dweller (talk) 11:49, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Sir the question ihave is about the pound. I was told that the pound sterling was static on the stock exchange from 1945 to 1976 is this true.Or was it ever static at any time.Would it not be to our advantage if the pound stayed at one set price say average it over the last 5years to get a figure say £1-70. Then we would know where we were up to and work around this figure.I hope you can answer my question and i hope you dont think it to be a silly question thanking you from L Swindells — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.196.249.195 (talk) 23:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, it isn't true. (You aren't using quite the right words, but it wouldn't be true even if you were.) Our article Pound sterling#Bretton Woods and the sections that follow it describe the history of the pound over that time period. Looie496 (talk) 00:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The pound sterling has never been traded on the stock exchange. However, it was part of a system of fixed exchange rates from 1945 to 1971, the Bretton Woods system. During this period, the pound sterling was pegged to the U.S. dollar (and other major currencies) at a fixed exchange rate, though the peg was reset twice, in 1949 and 1967. In both cases, the pound was devalued. That is, it became worth less relative to the dollar. Since 1971, the pound has had a floating exchange rate. Marco polo (talk) 00:28, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The 1967 devaluation prompted the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson to assure the British public that the "pound in your pocket" wouldn't be affected; a phrase that gave the press much ammunition later. Alansplodge (talk) 11:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
September 8
French presidents Quebec independence
Which French president actually recognized Quebec fight for independence because so far I know that Francois Mitterand didn't when Rene Levesque, Premier of Quebec came to France in 1979? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.21.204 (talk) 01:33, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
tracking consumer price index and determining cost of living adjustment
I know that retailers can be required by Federal law to submit price changes for products they sell. I know some product prices increase often by small increments while other prices may go for longer intervals of time. I know that some products experience size decrease to keep prices the same.
What I need to know is whether the Consumer Price Index for food accounts for these changes in size versus price and whether dividing product price by calories for each macro-nutrient group would be more accurate than dividing product price by product volume or weight to calculate a reliable Consumer Price Index? --DeeperQA (talk) 04:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Given the tenuous relationship of CPI consumption bundles with actual lived experience over time (Consider the A, B, C, Revised C, and CPI series in Australia, all of which were politically manipulated), the idea of interrogating a price series to that depth is unlikely to achieve results. Price series usually have much more fundamental, high order, problems with their constructions. (I do, by the way, love statisticians—the Australian instance, where series were junked by governments because, despite not reflecting increased social needs, they still demonstrated declining returns to labour—this is indicative of the fidelity of statisticians to their task). Fifelfoo (talk) 05:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the United States, the CPI does account for changes in unit volume, but not for changes in nutritional content for a given unit volume. Moreover, the controversial use of hedonic regression involves the assumption that when two items within a category of items have different price movements, consumers will buy more of the item that has had the lower price increase. So, for example, if nutritious breakfast cereal rises more quickly in price than breakfast cereal with lower nutritional value, then the Bureau of Labor Statistics will in effect discount the effect of the price increase for the more nutritious item by assuming increased demand for the less nutritious item. Marco polo (talk) 13:48, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If the ratio of price and nutrition is used as the value index then changes to either price or nutrition will show up as change in value. Assuming we know how many calories a person needs per day and how many of those calories must come from each macro-nutrient group then by using a ratio of price to nutrition we can quite easily determine how many dollars a person needs in order to have a balanced and complete diet per day. Yes or no? --DeeperQA (talk) 18:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No people are not feeder cattle and demand a choice and variation in their food (at least in the US). Giving everyone a sack of potatoes, a vitamin pill and a soy shake and basing the value index on only those items is going to give you an inaccurate picture of what is actually happening to food prices as a whole. Googlemeister (talk) 19:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Cost per basic unit of volume or weight is already printed on shelf labels in most major grocery stores so a consumer can decide which item to purchase based on cost, but unfortunately not on nutrition.
With a label showing cost per unit of nutrition a consumer could know which products have the lower cost without the empty calories.
Currently the food stamp program does prevent the purchase at the point of sale of some items like fancy canned vegetables that retail for 150% of the price of regular canned vegetables.
The food stamp program does not require the recipient to purchase a complete and balanced diet and on top of that provides an allowance generous enough for recipients to have personal preferences, even if doing so results in a diet that is full of empty calories and not completely nutritious.
However, for people with income below or near the poverty line essential nutrition can be denied in the absence of a nutrition value index that would otherwise guarantee no less than a sack of potatoes, soy shake and vitamin pill. --DeeperQA (talk) 23:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Writing a book-advice for teenagers
I am writing a book, or rather editing one I have already done rather badly, and as part of the story, one of the characters, a teenager, goes to a friend of hers for advice. You see, she is having trouble at school, unable to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes, unable to motivate herself into getting work done, that sort of thing, and her friend has been through similar before, and proposes to help if she can. the result is a stack of printed pages, some of typed notes, others copied from the internet or wherever. Trouble is, I have little idea what advice she should be given. what I have so far is: take up a sport or other hobby, get some exercise every day, have breakfast every morning, some vague reference to mental exercises and relaxation, and perhaps something about timetables.
So, I am wondering if anyone here can offer more suggestions, or fill in some details of those I already have.
Many children can just be bored with school. I liked the movie Kes (film) quiet a bit. The child in that movie wasn't too interesting in school, but he really did take an interest in a bird he found, and he really put in work to learn how to take care for it. You could set up any number of situations where a child stumbles upon something they really like. They could be forced to work at a bakery, which they initially dislike, but soon find they love it and start experimenting and learning more baking tricks outside of work, and go on to become a great baker. Same could be done for a child who comes around Trapeze, the child loves trapezing, and trains hard and become a wonder. The underlying message of course for these two stories is find something you are interested in and you will natuarally be motivated to try hard. You can add a hurdle or setback they must overcome to fortify the idea that if you try hard you can do anything and just for better story telling. Underlying messages work just as well as the more direct and obvious way you are going about it. Public awareness (talk) 03:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Put yourself in her shoes. i.e. go find enough advice to [theoretically] fill a stack of papers. Try googling for forums geared for teenagers or support groups, etc. If I'm guessing correctly, you don't need an actual stack of advice (that would make a very long very boring story), all you need are examples of advice. Pick the best ones, and pretend that these were the ones the girl chose from everything her friend gave her. Or pick a few and pretend like she is reading from the top of the list then trail it off.
If you're not planning to follow up on her activities afterwards, you don't even have to specify them. Just say that her friend gave her a ton of advice from various sources, and that's that. And shouldn't you have thought of this already when making the plot outline? If it's central to the story, you really should have.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 04:34, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't seem very constructive, Obsidian Soul. The OP has already admitted that their initial draft is "written . . . badly", and even experienced professional authors not infrequently hit problems with plot and background details, and also not infrequently find a story developing in ways and directions, that they have not previously anticipated. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.202 (talk) 09:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No no, that wasn't a criticism of the OP's writing abilities at all. If it sounded like that, I apologize. It's simply that, if the advice is important to the storyline, very different considerations apply, including your own ability to make it believable.
For example, if the advice given is incidental (i.e. the advice does not affect the progression of the story), then the details of the advice given is irrelevant. You can say that her friend advised her to collect stamps. She tries to collect stamps, but the story progresses and it merely becomes a background detail (even perhaps, a humorous recurring motif), and she actually succeeds in motivating herself her own way.
If, however, the advice given is not mere background detail but pivotal to the plot (i.e. the girl suddenly becomes motivated because of the advice), then it must be thought out carefully. If the advice was to collect stamps, then the entire story would now hinge on stamp-collecting. It's exceedingly more difficult to make that believable or satisfying for the readers if you hadn't thought of how to pull it off in the first place. In those cases, I suggest you take from your own personal experiences of overcoming something like it. Something you're intimately familiar with (a hobby or writing itself), to make it less like an artificial spur-of-the-moment stopgap that it is.
Also, it seems I misread the OP, LOL. 'The result is a stack of printed pages' refers to the OP's own research rather than the character's. I was wondering why on earth would the friend give a stack of printed pages as advice when she's been through it already, heh. Hence the previous advice on implying depth or quantity without actually showing depth or quantity.
Anyway, my suggestion still applies. Pick something you are familiar with, something that helped you in a similar situation.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 10:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and just because I'm not too far out of my teens yet and know how teen brains work: if this is supposed to be a humorous story with a romantic twist and set in senior high school, why not let her friend imply that her crush (who happens to be the school jock and brains) is going to a certain school after graduating that requires good grades. Have the protagonist slave away to get good grades in the hope of attracting said crush's attention or ending up at the same school. She discovers soon enough that her crush is a jealous conceited twit who views her efforts at first with benign condescension then later on with undisguised hostility as attempts to replace him as the bestest person in the school. By then, she has already discovered that she loves chemistry/biology/physics/mathematics/etc., so she's hurt but not too badly hurt. She thanks her friend for indirectly motivating her to discover her life's passion (who then admits that she knew what would happen anyway in a Yoda-like way). She and her crush don't end up together, but the girl graduates with honors, grows up emotionally, and goes on to be a famous chemist/biologist/physicist/mathematician/etc. How's that? :P-- Obsidi♠nSoul 11:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Muslim prayer in space
How can Muslims in space pray toward Mecca? Also, how can they pray five times a day when a day is so short? --207.160.233.153 (talk) 20:04, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You assume that nobody thought about it and already held a large conference and came up with a solution as described here? -- kainaw™ 20:07, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The key quote probably being "God does not take a person to task for that which is beyond his/her ability to work with." --Tagishsimon(talk) 20:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also see Qibla toward the bottom of the article. One ayatollah said all the astronaut has to do is to face Earth. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Muslim flags with Arabic characters
Why do the flags/banners of Muslim organizations or governments usually consist of a single background color with a superimposed Arabic text? --Belchman (talk) 20:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Islamic law bans many things, such as depicting live creatures on a flag. Plants are allowed, but many are uneasy to include a "live" plant. So, they often use a phrase of some sort. -- kainaw™ 20:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The only flag I can think of that fits your desciption is the flag of Saudi Arabia (unless someone else knows better). The text is the Shahada - the Islamic declaration of faith: "There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God." Interestingly, this makes the Saudi flag unique, as every other flag has a reverse side that is a mirror-image of the front. However, because having such a sacred text shown backwards would be inappropriate, each Saudi flag is actually two flags sewn back-to-back, so that it can be read normally from either side[6]. A number of Arab countries have tricolour flags of black, white and red; these are the colours of the Pan-Arab movement; "Red symbolizes the struggle and sacrifice for freedom; white signifies peace; and black stands for the dark colonial past."Green is the traditional colour which represents Islam. Egypt and Syria both have heraldic eagles as emblems, so the law about depicting creatures doesn't seem to be universally observed; perhaps someone with a better understanding of the subject would like to comment. Alansplodge (talk) 22:28, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly, this makes the Saudi flag unique, as every other flag has a reverse side that is a mirror-image of the front': I can't work out what you mean, Alan. All flags have a reverse side that is exactly the same as the mirror-image of the front; that's just a basic physical property of thin fabric. Relatively few flags are mirror images of themselves, i.e. where the front and back are totally interchangeable. The ones with horizontal symmetry have this property (Libya, Hungary, Bulgaria, Israel, Canada, Armenia, Austria ....). Most flags, including Saudi Arabia, are not reversible. There's nothing unique about Saudi Arabia's flag in this respect. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 23:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe what Alan is referring to is the fact that the Saudi flag *doesn't* "have a reverse side that is the same as the mirror-image of the front". That is, if you had a US flag hung in a north-facing window, while for people outside the window the stars would be in the upper left corner (east side of the flag), it would be in the upper right corner for people on the inside of the window (still east side). In contrast, if a Saudi flag was hung in the window, those on the outside would be able to read the text from right to left (west to east), while those on the inside would *also* be able to read it right to left (which would be east to west for them). As you indicate, you can't get this property with a simple thin fabric, which requires the "sewing two flags back-to-back" that Alan mentioned. -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 00:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But I was wrong about its uniqueness; the new Iraqi flag has "God is Great" written on it and is doubled-up in the same way as the Saudi flag. Paraguay has different circular emblems on the obverse and reverse and some US states are similar[7]. Note to self; don't believe everything that you read in the Observer's Book of Flags! Alansplodge (talk) 00:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You were more wrong than you thought. The Flag of Brazil has the exact same front/back properties as the flag of Saudia Arabia for the same reasons: the celestial sphere and the writing would be wrong if the standard convention of the opposite sides being mirror images were adhered to. So Brazil's flag works exactly like Saudia Arabia's flag. --Jayron32 03:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[unindent] Back to the original question — most national/organisational flags don't picture living animals of any species. Look at Flags of Africa: of the eighty-three flags pictured, only nine (by my count) have living creatures, and many of those are Bantustans or colonies of European countries; only Egypt (a Muslim state!) and Zambia are fully independent states with living animals on their flags. Humans are even rarer on flags; right now, the only one that I can think of is the Flag of Washington, a US state. Do you mean "why don't Muslim countries or organisations have flags like European tricolours"? Nyttend (talk) 03:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Except, many Muslim countries do have tricolors, or varients thereof. Consider Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Sudan all of which have varients on the horizontal tricolor, but with Pan-arabic colors. Afganistan has a vertical tricolor. Indonesia's flag is basically Poland's flag in reverse. Lots of Muslim countries have flags which resemble European flags, but with different color schemes. --Jayron32 03:58, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why do countries use tricolour flags? People in the U.S. enjoy having a recognizable flag - same true doubtless of Australia, Canada, the U.K. etc. Those tricolor flags seem like you'd often have to look them up in Wikipedia to figure out whose is whose. Wnt (talk) 06:13, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly direct and indirect Dutch (horizontal) and French revolutionary (vertical) influences. AnonMoos (talk) 11:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
War flag of France in WWII.
'Plain' flags are usually civil flags, historically used by the general populace and flown in buildings not occupied by the country's armed forces. They are supposed to be the 'base template' or whatever on which crests or other more distinctive marks can be superimposed, so they're quite plain. However, many of the other countries with those plain civil flags, do have flags with crests and all that on their war flags and state flags. -- Obsidi♠nSoul 11:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually quite a number of people seem to think the New Zealand flag is the Australian flag. Even the Australian Monarchist League seemed to think that once [8]. Some people (probably less since NZ is less known in the world and the NZ flag is also less likely to be used) think the Australian flag is the New Zealand flag. Nil Einne (talk) 17:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good reason for either or both of us to change our flags. Plus the fact that 25% of both flags is the flag of a foreigh country. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 20:22, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Has anybody used horseshoe ring for a long period of time and benefited from it? Does it really have any positive effect on one's life? Thanks--180.234.17.97 (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure many used it, and started appreciated positive effects after a while. However, that does not imply causation. Quest09 (talk) 21:39, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As with horeshoes over doorways, it depends on which way you wear it. If you don't benefit, you must be wearing it the wrong way. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 00:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is the luck draining out?One style of lifering is horseshoe shaped and is sometimes called a horseshoe ring (though not being ring-shaped, it is more properly called a horseshoe shaped lifebuoy). They have certainly had positive effects on both buoyancy and life expectancy of many users. -- 110.49.241.147 (talk) 01:26, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. Now google [horseshoe ring] and you'll find lots of examples of what I was talking about. One of them shows Elvis wearing one, and he did pretty well for himself, up to a point (specifically, a point in 1977). ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 01:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Er... no. It's superstition.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 02:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's probably because they're still attached to the owner? -- Obsidi♠nSoul 10:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hang on guys. Just because it's all superstition doesn't mean it can't improve your life. Feeling positive things can be a huge advantage. If you feel like you're defending the horseshoe ring the whole time, you're likely to seek confirmation bias: in other words, you'll come up with all the good stuff that happens to you. You'll dismiss bad things as trivial. As such, it'll improve your outlook. Could have a significant benefit - I'm sure the reverse could happen in a small number of people, but I certainly think overall it might help people see the world differently. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 10:23, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Still, should we really be peddling superstitions on the Wikipedia Reference Desk? *facepalm* My witch doctor tells me this is bad juju!-- Obsidi♠nSoul 10:51, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm aware of the Curate's egg and On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog, which gives a broad period of time in which cartoons like this are popular and socially relevant enough, and communication/propagation is efficient enough, that a cartoon can become sufficiently well-recognised that a reference to it is pretty much proverbial, sort of a modern variant on Aesop's fables. Do you know of any other examples of cartoons like this that became proverbs or idioms? 86.163.0.200 (talk) 23:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Low's 1940 cartoon, "VERY WELL, ALONE!" caught the spirit of Britain's worst and finest episode and is widely reproduced around the web today. Now sometimes used as a rallying call by British Euro-sceptics[9] and even US isolationists[10]. Oddly, our WP article on the man doesn't mention it. Alansplodge (talk) 01:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The (approximate) U.S. analogue being, of course, a Rube Goldberg device. Deor (talk) 11:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
tvtropes covers tropes from all media except newspaper comics and single frame comics. It has comic books and webcomics which includes newspaper comics that moved to webcomics. Sleigh (talk) 02:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that brings back old memories. I can't imagine why I created that article back in 2006, since I'd never heard of him before then, and I've never visited the article since then. Weird. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 09:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]
But Bairnsfather is well known in the UK. Generations of British policemen have been unkindly compared to Old Bill, the grumpy veteren of "better 'ole" fame. I also recall reading that in the 1920s, the German army published a textbook detailing the lessons learned from the Great War. The chapter on morale concluded that the British sense of humour had been important in allowing troops to endure appalling conditions. This was illustrated by a Bairnsfather cartoon of Old Bill and a recruit sitting in a ruined house near the front. The recruit is looking at the large holes in the walls and says "What made them 'oles Bill?" Reply; "Mice!"[11] The German writers felt it necessary to add "It wasn't mice, it was shells." Alansplodge (talk) 09:57, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"I've never kippled" is pretty well known (see the penultimate paragraph here)—though one might quibble whether it qualifies as a "cartoon"—as is the one mentioned in the sixth paragraph here. Deor (talk) 11:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the xkcd strips get a lot of recognition in geeky circles. --LarryMac | Talk 12:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikiquote have a Category:Cartoonists which will lead you to a lot more of the best-remembered cartoons. --Antiquary (talk) 18:10, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much all of Bill Mauldin's "Willie and Joe" cartoons are iconic for the US World War II generation. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 18:11, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
September 9
Effect of repealed law
The "Effect of unconstitutional law" thread above makes me curious — what if the same thing happens, except that the law is overturned by the legislature? For example, I violate a US state criminal statute, plead guilty to the offense in open court, and while I'm serving time in prison, the state legislature repeals entirely the law that I violated, meaning that someone who does the same thing is not violating any law. Would I be released when the law takes effect? Would the offense be removed from my criminal record? Or would I have to get around to hiring a lawyer to file a writ of habeus corpus, as if the law had simply been declared unconstitutional? Nyttend (talk) 03:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not a lawyer, but I can't imagine that repealing a criminal law would mean anything immediately to someone already convicted. If you're up for parole, or the governor is considering a pardon, the repeal might come into play. But you still committed a crime and were convicted for it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 04:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the US, it's unconstitutional to ENACT a retroactive criminal law, but it might be OK to REPEAL one retroactively. That would mean it is considered to never have been in force, so anyone convicted under it should be freed immediately. I don't know if it's ever actually done that way, though. StuRat (talk) 04:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The statute will only do what it says it will do. Technically, it is not a statute that is keeping someone in prison, but the judgment of a court and the prison itself. The legislature would have to give specific legal effect to the judgment of that court either by naming the judgment specifically or naming all judgments under the repealed statute. Criminal statutes have what is known as a proscriptive effect, due in part because of the rule against ex post facto laws. Repealing a criminal statute would immediately make prosecution under that statute impossible. All pending trials not already at a judgment could be dismissed because courts could not legally find someone guilty of a statute that no longer exists. Existing judgments would require a separate action either in post conviction relief, habeas corpus, an action with the parole board etc. Just exactly what would have to happen is dependent on what the repealing statute actually said and how the court interpreted the act, so it will vary. It will really depend on the law. For public policy reasons, it may be of value to prosecute someone who knowingly violated a statute because all criminal intent should be punished whatever the law may be. The person who places sugar in another's drink believing it to be arsenic will still be prosecuted for attempted murder although murder was impossible. It is a matter of public policy to punish those who intend to do things that violate the law and bring those intentions to fruition. It may also be a matter of public policy to vindicate those prosecuted under a law. It may even be a matter of public policy to compensate those who were prosecuted under that law. That is up to the legislature.
To have a conviction erased from your criminal record would require either a pardon from the governor or an order of expungement from the court inter alia. Whether a motion to expunge a criminal record is successful is going to depend on the circumstances of the case. A court order to expunge a criminal record destroys court records, local law enforcement records, photographs, finger printing cards, FBI records (the FBI keeps a record of state prosecutions), and computer databases concerning the incident. The agencies that handle these won't do this on their own unless they are told to do it, either by an executive order from the governor implementing the law or from a court order. Gx872op (talk) 14:26, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A repealed law was presumably legal when someone was convicted under it, so I would think the conviction would stand unless the executive decide to pardon some or all of the convicts. An obvious example would be the Volstead Act. It was eventually repealed, along with the 18th Amendment that spawned it, but that didn't mean convicted bootleggers automatically got a get-out-of-jail-free card. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 17:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please cite some sources. I remember learning in school that modern western justice systems don't work that way. If you're serving time for breaking some law that got repealed then you're set free because it isn't a crime any more. If you're serving a twenty year sentence but the maximum penalty for breaking the particular law is reduced to ten, your sentence is automatically reduced to ten (minus the time you already served). In these cases the system works for the accused. Flamarande (talk) 23:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This one item[12] indicates that there was no automatic release of convicts under the Volstead Act, but instead it was necessary to seek pardons. Think of it this way: Let's say you got a ticket for driving 45 in a 30 zone. Later they increase the limit in that zone to 45. You won't get your money back. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 03:47, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
how many pyjamas do people normally rotate?
if someone wears a pyjama top and bottom every night, then how many would a person like that normally own and how would they rotate it in the laundry? (one example would be "own two pairs, wash one every week with the laundry" another would be "own five pairs, wear a different one each week for five weeks, then do them all together in a wash" etc) i'm just a teenaged boy living alone for the first time, and living in a colder climate for the first time. any advice is appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.234.207.120 (talk) 20:07, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I cringe at referring you to a Yahoo Answers thread, but here it is. I don't know of any scholarly studies on the frequency of pajama rotation. I think the baseline advice for "when to rotate at minimum" must be "when it smells if you're by yourself, and every day if you're not". Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I personally have one pair of pajamas, but usually sleep in my underwear, as I don't like wearing clothes when I'm asleep, so they never get worn and never get washed. My ex-wife used to have one pair of pajamas, too. She'd wear them for a week, then wash them. Pajamas tend to be of very light material, so if you wash them one day, they are more than likely going to be dry again by the time you go to bed that evening. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It also depends on how much you sweat at night. If the pajamas are damp (or worse) in the morning, you need clean the next night. I would always have at least three pair: one to wear, one in the laundry and one in the drawer. No matter what happens, from illness to unexpected guests, you are covered. I don't think the "smell test" is very useful as few of us are aware of our own smell. If you shower at night, you will need fewer changes than if you shower in the morning. I'd not wear a pair for more than 4 nights, and usually only two or three. Bielle (talk) 04:05, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It also depends on how frequently you do your laundry. And what colour they are. And where you live. And how you plan to dry them (specifically, can you wash in morning and have them dry by bedtime; warmer pajamas will dry more slowly). Most people will do laundry at least once a week, and will try to wash as many dirty clothes as possible (possibly keeping colours/whites separate, though with modern detergents this is arguably less necessary) rather than saving them up till you've got a full set. One person can easily produce a full load of washing in a week, or sooner (particularly if you count towels and bedding, though they may get washed separately). Most people don't plan "I'll get 5 pairs and then wash them every month", they wear the ones that they have which don't have too many holes, and if for some reason they've not done laundry lately, they'll wear the ones with holes (or the scratchy ones, or the ones that are too tight). I'd agree with Bielle about frequency; a week is probably too long, but in hot weather you may change almost daily. Note that in summer you may want lighter pajamas than in winter, but that will depend where you live. So, averaging out, 3 pairs, wash weekly? --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why is the UDA labelled as the rivals of the UVF in UDA's article? Is there any difference in their ideologies? If not, why not just fuse into one, stronger entity? Are they just rivals for the control of the loyalist paramilitary scene or is there another reason? --Belchman (talk) 23:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The rivalry was basically over turf and the control of activities in specific areas. Both groups espoused a loyalist ideology meaning that neither group wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and unite with the Republic of Ireland. Both organisations sought to maintain a British identity and neither wanted power-sharing with Catholics nor interfernce from Dublin in the running of Northern Ireland. The UDA was formed in 1971 as the umbrella organisation of various Belfast vigilante groups which had sprung up in the wake of The Troubles in Protestant areas; they had feared attacks from nationalists. It was a large organisation divided into many brigades, each with its own brigadier, and which managed to remain legal until 1992. This was because it used the cover name Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) to claim its violent attacks. Aside from paramilitary activities the UDA was always involved in community work as Sarah Nelson described at length in her 1984 book Ulster's Uncertain Defenders. The UVF, on the other hand, had been formed in 1966 based on the earlier Ulster Volunteers that had come into being in 1912. The major difference between the running of the UDA and UVF was that the latter's leader Gusty Spence was in prison and the organisation was led by a Brigade Staff on Belfast's Shankill Road. It was a proscribed group (apart from April 1974- October 1975) and more centralised than the UDA; however, The UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade had a great deal of autonomy and it was this unit that carried out some of the worst atrocities of the Troubles (Dublin and Monaghan bombings, Miami Showband killings, etc). The UDA were more active in Belfast and its immediate environs; whereas the UVF carried out many of it's operations in the Mid-Ulster area and beyond, including the Irish Republic. The UVF in the past had always shown itself more open to entering into dialogue with republicans than the UDA, who accused them of harbouring socialist sentiments. Although it must be pointed out that deceased UDA South Belfast brigadier John McMichael had written several documents exploring the possibility of an independent Ulster within a British framework, but where Catholics and Protestants could live and work together. The UDA and UVF did join forces during the Ulster Workers' Council strike in 1974 when the unionists and loyalists brought down the Northern Ireland power-sharing executive. You might be interested in reading this article: Ulster Resistance.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:58, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I didn't have the chance to watch Obama's speech yesterday. Did the Supreme Court justices attend the joint session of Congress, similar to what they do during a State of the Union? If not, was it because their attendance would have violated their neutrality? Ragettho (talk) 03:54, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The State of the Union address is an official event mandated by the Constitution. The speech yesterday was just the prez going up on the Hill to talk to the folks there. I don't see why the SC would have attended; I don't know for a fact though. Looie496 (talk) 04:09, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Supreme Court doesn't drop everything to go attend joint sessions of Congress. They are supposed to be apart and uninvolved in legislation, so nonattendance seems appropriate. Traditionally, the Supreme Court has been attending the State of the Union addresses, though this blog post says even Roberts is not sure why. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To keep within the monetary union guidelines, the government of Greece (like many other governments in the Eurozone) had misreported the country's official economic statistics. In the beginning of 2010, it was discovered that Greece had paid Goldman Sachs and other banks hundreds of millions of dollars in fees since 2001 for arranging transactions that hid the actual level of borrowing.
Why?
Whether or not a member of the Eurozone, Greece and many other liars have already been members of the European Union. What are the political benefits of entering the monetary union?
If you're a member state of the EU. You are eligible to enjoy some pork barrel politics. They distribute aerospace contracts around the EU so every country has a piece of it. They build Airbus parts everywhere around Europe (many contracts go to the U.S. and Asian manufacturers as well but they are less likely be pork barrel). It is not unlike the U.S. where each Congress member brings a piece of defense contract home so people in some poor states get nice jobs building space rocket parts. This is quite natural for any country to distribute their money and jobs among its states, provinces or members. I don't think it's a bad idea if corruption is still under control.
Then what are the political benefits for joining the Eurozone? Certainly Robert Mundell can give us a great lecture on economical reasons. But these questions are answered by politicians. And they even hired Goldman Sachs to tell lies to join the Eurozone. So why? -- Toytoy (talk) 04:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking strictly non-economically, there was a degree of global prestige that came with joining. Since there were economic requirements that had to be met, in addition to matching the ERM, a joining country could project an image of stability and financial soundness. But of course even this results in economic benefit as investment would ideally increase. From a practical everyday perspective, being able to spend the same money almost anywhere in Europe is mighty handy, which in turn promotes cross-border economic activity... oh wait, there's the economics again... Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
" Greece and many other liars have already been members ": I don't know what you mean by "other liars." AFAIK, only Greece was accused of lying. Although other countries (like Germany) were possibly looking away when Greece was cooking the books, I wouldn't call that lying. Quest09 (talk) 11:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the "many other governments in the Eurozone" statement because it's just wrong since only Greece did it. --Belchman (talk) 14:17, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see that you removed anything. The question still says that many European governments lied to join the euro. Is that what you mean? Quest09 (talk) 01:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I have removed that from the article, not from the question, you idiot... --Belchman (talk) 14:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. I think the creation of Eurozone was taken very politically by the top dogs. Germany certainly would like more countries to join. The U.K. did not join the Eurozone. It's a pity. If other major European countries such as France or Italy did not join, the Eurozone would look like a "Grand Deutsch Mark Playground". Even though Greece is not a major European power, their adoption of Euro would still make everything look better. After all, it's always difficult to ask a sovereign state to give up any of its power. If I were a king of whatever kingdom, I certainly would like to have my own laws and coins. If I give up my right to issue my own country's currency, these top dogs would be happy. -- Toytoy (talk) 13:57, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Camille Flammarion's book on numerology, the Pythagorean
Hello! Camille Flammarion book search, where he studied the numerology of the Pythagoreans. More precisely this need confirmation of this fact (allegedly because of his books): 27 from the Pythagoreans meant a symbol of the world soul — Preceding unsigned comment added by Странник27 (talk • contribs) 05:30, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is not clear what question you are asking - your post is actually a series of statements, though you seem to be saying that some fact stated somewhere (in a Wikipedia article?) needs confirmation. Please rewrite your post with a clear question, and if it concerns the content of a Wikipedia article, indicate which one. This will make it easier for us to help. {The poster formerly known as 87,81.230.195} 90.197.66.202 (talk) 12:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
From what I've seen from time, the Pythagoreans devoted most of their mystical speculations to the numbers 1 to 10, but 27 is 33, if that means anything... AnonMoos (talk) 15:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here is my understanding of the question: the OP wants to know whether anybody can point to a passage in a book by Camille Flammarion that states that 27, to the Pythagoreans, symbolized the "world soul". Looie496 (talk) 16:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...the last becomes 27 times the original number, and in the school of Pythagoras this 27 had a mystic signification, and was considered as the perfect number. The reason for considering 27 a perfect number was curious. It is the sum of the first linear, square, and cubic numbers added to unity. First there is 1, which represents the point, then 2 and 3, the first linear numbers, even and uneven, then 4 and 9, the first square or surface numbers, even and uneven, and the last 8 and 27, the first solid or cubic numbers, even and uneven, and 27 is the sum of all the former. Whence, taking the number 27 as the symbol of the universe, and the numbers which compose it as the elements, it appeared right that the soul of the universe should be composed of the same elements.
This book is in electronic form (Astronomical myths: based on Flammarion's "History of the heavens")? Yes, I am looking for an authoritative source that says the number 27 stands for the Pythagoreans the world soul. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Странник27 (talk • contribs) 17:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, click on the book title in my answer above. Looie496 (talk) 17:25, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
According to this book, though, it was actually Plato, in his dialogue Timaeus, who put forward the idea of 27 representing the world soul. Looie496 (talk) 17:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The first book will not open.
Interesting. Are you in Russia? I wonder if Google Books is disabled in Russia for some reason. Looie496 (talk) 18:46, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The OPs response is unclear to me. It could simply be access to the book itself is not allowed/disabled in Russia for copyright reasons, I believe the availability of some books does vary from country to country. Nil Einne (talk) 20:28, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And there is mention of the number 27 in numerology?
Hi, why wasn't Fr. Mychal Judge called Fallon Judge? [13] (This is not the place to debate about alleged inside jobs and aliens in Area 51.) --Usquam (talk) 13:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything on the site you linked to from the talk page that mentions "Fallon Michael". I'm not saying he didn't use that name, just that the link you gave does not appear to support the claim. --ColinFine (talk) 15:28, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[14] -> Mychal's Story -> Chronology -> Aug. 12, 1954 Is received into the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscan) at St. Bonaventure Monastery, Paterson, NJ, taking the name "Fallon Michael," a combination of his parents' names. --Dandelo (talk) 17:52, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Judge took the religious name of ‘Fallon Michael’ when he took his first novice vows in 1955. According to Daly (p.30)*, he wanted just ‘Michael’ in honor of his late father, but there were already three Michaels in the province, and rules prohibited a fourth. However, later that same year, he requested and received permission to switch to ‘Michael Fallon’. He was known as Father ‘Michael F. Judge’ until 1986 when he changed the spelling to “Mychal” (p.81)*. *(Michael Daly: The Book of Mychal). I think this is all too much detail for the Wiki page, beyond the simple notation/addition I’ve made. BroJohnFCR (talk) 19:47, 10 September, 2011 (UTC)
Daly's Book of Mychal is more reliable than Ford's Authentic American Hero on some details, because Daly had more access to records than Ford. In this case, Daly published Judge's actual 1955 letter to his superior requesting the name switch from 'Fallon Michael' to 'Michael Fallon' (Daly: p.31). BroJohnFCR (talk) 00:04, 11 September, 2011 (UTC)
Free movement in the EU
Was ever any discussion about the theoretically possibility that Germans could emigrate en mass to Alsace-Loraine, North Schleswig, Pomerania, Prusia Silesia and other EU regions that were German in the past? Quest09 (talk) 13:42, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess you mean immigrate. And since some of those regions already have a majority of ethnic German population —such as Alsace-Loraine—, I don't think that possibility is of special concern to other European countries. --Belchman (talk) 14:20, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Emigrate seems fine as used in the original question. DuncanHill (talk) 14:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is this a reference to previous migrations of Germans, en masse, e.g. the Volga Germans? Any citizen of the EU can move anywhere within the Union; that's the point of free migration of labour. BrainyBabe (talk) 21:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Poles were certainly worried about the prospect of the descendants of Germans expelled in 1945 resettling parts of western Poland, especially about the fact that Germans would also be able to buy farmland there. But they went ahead anyway with EU membership, presumably believing that the other advantages outweighed this sensitive issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.239.129.211 (talk) 23:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the fact that many Poles moved west in pursuit of higher wages and better jobs, there were strong economic disincentives for Germans to move east. Lorraine is also economically depressed, due to the decline in heavy industry. Germany is more prosperous, with lower unemployment, than most of its neighbours. With Germany's strict bans on fascist or extreme nationalist organisations, there are no organisations agitating to reclaim the traditional German lands. I can't find figures, but a lot of Germans have emigrated to different parts of Europe, mostly to more attractive parts than Silesia. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:49, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
California property tax delinquent date
Historically, why was "December 10th" chosen as the delinquent date for paying 1st installment taxes?
It's not just California! Search for "December 10" "property tax" and you'll see that, though the first hits are California, it's also places like Boone County MO, Colquitt County GA, Doña Anna County NM...Interesting question. What's magic about Dec. 10? --jpgordon::==( o ) 15:28, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
African allies and enemies of Muammar Gaddhafi
Which African leaders were allies of Muammar Gaddhafi and which African leaders were rivals of Muammar Gaddhafi? Also, which African leaders were allies to each other and which African leaders were rivals to each others? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.42.116 (talk) 15:38, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The second question is impossibly broad, but I'll attempt to narrow the first one by asking when? Gaddhafi, like many rulers, had more support at the beginning or in the middle of his time in office than at the end. Notice that the Arab League and African Union did not exactly jump to help him when he was faced with revolt a few months ago. Any African country whose government appears open to hosting him in exile might be considered sympathetic: Mali, for instance. (By "African leaders", I take it you mean heads of state or heads of government of other sovereign nations -- not Nelson Mandela or the mayor of Tripoli.) BrainyBabe (talk) 21:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Elizabeth May
What I don't understand is that how come Elizabeth May did not participate in the debate of Election 2011 in Canada but she did in the previous debate despite she didn't gain a seat? Why is this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.42.116 (talk) 15:51, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The interlinked articles, 2011 Canadian leaders debates#2011 debates, Elizabeth May#Excluded from leaders' debates & Canadian federal election, 2011#Leaders' debates discuss her exclusion in 2011. None of these mention the reason (other then noting those hosting the debates decided to exclude her because her party didn't have representation but I think that was fairly obvious), the last article links to [15] which does explain the reason. Evidentally you are mistaken, her party did have a seat before the 2008 election and this is confirmed by a check of Canadian federal election, 2008. The fact that she personally gained a seat in this election and no one from her party got a seat in the last election is somewhat moot since no one could know that for sure until the elections. (In case it isn't obvious, the fact that she personally didn't have a seat is also largely moot since she was representing her party which did, not her self.) P.S. Looking more closely I found from Green Party of Canada perhaps there is some confusion because the MP in 2008 only joined not long before the election and never actually sat in parliament as a Green MP. However as he had I presume joined the Green Party before the participants in leaders debate were decided it's resonable that his membership of the Green Party was considered by the organisers. Of course ultimately only those involved in making the decision can know the full rationale for their decision. Nil Einne (talk) 18:16, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nazi Germany vs Germany
Why is it that the English Wikipedia usually refers to Germany during the Nazi period as "Nazi Germany" instead of just "Germany"? The name of the country during the period obviously wasn't Nazi Germany but Germany and the German Wikipedia calls the country Germany too. Is it because of political correctness or is there another reason? --Belchman (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine its to clarify that it was the period when Germany was controlled by the Nazi party, in the same way you have names like Victorian and Elizabethan England--Jac16888Talk 16:55, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And it was a rather profound, important, and relatively brief period in the history of the country, and rather distinct from the periods just before and just after. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:07, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's got nothing to do with PC, IMO. Nazi Germany is quite an accurate description (although nobody's suggesting it was the official name of the country). PC would be if we felt the need to give it some euphemistic name to mask the fact that it was run by Nazis. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 20:15, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I recall, the last time I saw this discussed the conclusion was that it should remain as is because some Germans might get offended. That's PC. Absolute nonsense IMNSHO.
To more directly answer the original question, Wikipedia uses Nazi Germany because that is, according to the preponderance of reliable sources, the common name used in English for that time and place. Why the reliable sources use that term is another question entirely (one that I think is satisfactorily answered by Jac and Mr.98). Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:24, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the most common name is Third Reich. Quest09 (talk) 00:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For the same reason it was not called Semitic Germany? --DeeperQA (talk) 21:02, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
??? --Mr.98 (talk) 21:14, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean anti-semitic Germany?Quest09 (talk) 00:25, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: the German Wikipedia doesn't call 'Nazi Germany' simply Germany, as presupposed by the OP, it calls it 'Deutsches Reich 1933 bis 1945.' Regarding the PC question, I'd say that is not possible to know if it's just not to disgust the Germans, however, Germans, for obvious reasons, don't want to be associated to the Third Reich. Quest09 (talk) 00:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
German history divides into clear periods, so it's useful to use a descriptive term like Imperial/Wilhelmine (1871ish-1918), Weimar (1918-1933), etc. So what to call the period 1933-45? With the confusion between the three Reichs, it seems natural to use something Hitler-related, and "nazi" is the common name for his NSDAP party in the west. Hitlerian/Hitlerish Germany would presumably be the alternative, but is longer and more awkward to say.
Which ethnic groups support Parti Quebecois?
Which ethnic groups support ADQ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.228.180 (talk) 19:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Where can I find a listing of jobs short of people? For instance in some places nurses are scare due to low wages or truck drivers are scarce due to high cost of diesel. Architects may be in short supply due to high cost of training, etc. --DeeperQA (talk) 20:33, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As with a number of your questions, I think you're going to narrow down your range to get meaningful answers. I doubt anyone has compiled 'a listing of jobs short of people' for the whole world. I know Australia and New Zealand and I believe also the UK and Canada and probably a few other countries have lists of skills shortages or something of that sort for immigrations purposes (people who are able to fill those jobs which usually means trained and with several years of experience generally have a greater chance of qualifying for residency and/or companies don't need to make any attempts to hire someone locally before they look overseas). E.g. [16][17][18]. Government bodies (in NZ it's the Department of Labour) compile such info and probably also release it to career advisors at secondary and tertiary institutions and perhaps on their own in different forms but the immigration lists are probably one of the simpler ways to get a basic list (in fact [19] mentions it). Nil Einne (talk) 21:34, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking of a less dynamic listing more suitable for statistical analysis. However, a bulletin board type listing which would consolidate word of mouth information might kill two birds with one stone. Around here we have drywall people showing up for no other reason than they have word a store is being remodeled. --DeeperQA (talk) 21:56, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I presume historic info is available, but you'll likely need to ask for it and perhaps analyse a bunch of documents yourself to gather the info. Theoretically bulletin boards could be useful for a few things, I doubt it's useful for many areas though and it's doubtful it'll stretch back much more then 5-10 years (at least not if you want resonably complete info) so will be fairly useless for statistical analysis. Governments themselves of course do their own analysis, e.g. [20][21]Nil Einne (talk) 23:47, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but what seems to be the problem now is that while political leaders are calling for new job creation there may be plenty of jobs which are going unfilled because employment bureaus are State agencies instead of national agencies for historical reasons. Today the average time for an employee to stay in the same location is only eight years and travel to a new job or location usually means travel to a new State. With a Federal employment agency in addition to States employment agencies many fewer new jobs may be needed if jobs and people are matched up similar to the way couples are matched up by computer. --DeeperQA (talk) 03:52, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think your analysis is close to correct. It assumes that employment agencies run by the states are a major way that people get jobs in the US, whereas I think it is much more common for people to read the classified ads, trade papers, websites of companies of interest, websites about a general trade field that take job ads, and simple networking. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have nearly no idea about situation in the US hence why I said you need to be more specific. Nil Einne (talk) 03:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here is the BLS page that probably has data you're looking for — see the methodology links for their operating assumptions about labor supply and frictional unemployment. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
September 11
Question about communism?
So if communism is supposed to be a society where everyone is equal, then why are communist governments so totalitarian and undemocratic? Why do they have poor human rights records, massive censorship and lack of freedom of speech and (some) have cults of personality? Wasn't communism supposed to be a Utopian society where there are no rich or poor and everyone is equal? Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew 00:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's the classical case where everyone is equal, but some are more equal than the others. Quest09 (talk) 00:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, my question, is why are communist countries so totalitarian and undemocratic? Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew 00:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's the classical case where absolute power corrupts absolutely. Quest09 (talk) 00:20, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Conversely, why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer in capitalist countries? It's the classical case of "man... dominating man to his injury." Schyler(exquirere bonum ipsum) 00:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the question of the OP. Quest09 (talk) 01:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to read Communism first, and then Utopia, and then try to think how neither is unobtainable without a huge change in human nature, and then work out why certain totalitarian governements have used the desire for both as an advert to get them into power. However, not all Communist countries do badly, in terms of what you say. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The rich get richer but fortunately so do do the poor in capitalist countries. Any 18th century king would probably love to trade places with someone "poor" in the US or EU now. He would love to fly, he would love to get medicine that do work, he would love to be able to communicate with someone on the other side of the globe within seconds. Communism focuses on moving wealth from the rich to the poor so we can all be equal which is a sad and childish way of looking at how people behave or think. A communist country needs to constantly force people to behave in a way that's not natural to human kind. People like having money. People don't care about things they don't own themselves. That's the basic problem with communism, and that's what leads people to poverty.Joepnl (talk) 03:38, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Or as Frank Zappa once said, "Communism doesn't work, because people like to own stuff." ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 04:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reading the article on Marxism-Leninism (which has been more or less the dominant strain of "Communism" with regards to actual governments, as opposed to people who write pamphlets and stand on street corners) might give you a clearer indication than the Communism article, just because the latter is full of a lot of totally philosophical or unsuccessful strains of the ideology. Just take it for what it says about itself (even just the first paragraph), without worrying about even what happens when it gets corrupted, or a paranoid guy ends up at the top of the hierarchy for some reason, or even a guy who isn't paranoid but sometimes makes mistakes. Note that it is not strictly Communism — it is about creating the conditions for a communistic society. Communism is that wonderful utopia at the end of the tunnel, the one that never quite shows up. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:41, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The utopia idea probably refers to something more akin to the Federation in Star Trek or to a society where everyone is wealthy and poverty has been abolished. If electricity were too cheap to meter (expected to be the result of fusion power) then that might be the start to achieving the utopia but then you will still have to deal with people who base their sense of worth on money instead of their freedom for the need of it to have and acceptable standard of living. Cuba by the way has climate which all enjoy but then also secret police who can assure that you are never heard from again. I would not call Cuba a utopia but only a nation that has reduced the gap between rich and poor to the point where wealthy American business men can come to find young poverty stricken girls and boys for sex - the situation in Bangkok now. --DeeperQA (talk) 04:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The statements you make Naruto may be largely based on your education/indoctrination. Children of capitalists may be taught they have the ability to rise to be the head of state or very rich, while Communism is evil and everyone suffers as you can't be uber-rich and they use censorship to control the populace. Children of communists may be taught that their society is fair and all man are created equal and are equal in life and this is great for ethical reasons, while capitalism is evil and a large portion of the society suffers from wage slavery, lack of education (post-secondary), health care, homelessness, and so on and the governments use a form of censorship to control the populace.
I also hope the op knows that there has never been a true communist state, and of those who claim(ed) to be partly communist, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, USSR, PRC, are all VERY different in their governments. Also these nations didn't just switch over to leftist and were accepted by the world, most of these nations had to fight very long and expensive wars as the USA attacked them, and the US has launched economic warfare against them all (who's totalitarian now?). Public awareness (talk) 08:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OP if you really want to know, here are two very readable works of fiction that will enlighten you. Animal Farm by George Orwell for how it went wrong, and News from Nowhere by William Morris for what if it goes right. Or any textbook on 20th century world history. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:13, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Stalinism, as its article states, is dismissed by the Trotskyites as a corrupt means to power while using Marxist rhetoric; but even Trotskyism holds that the communist revolution has to be worldwide, or all the capitalist countries will attack (with armies or economics) the Communist countries out of fear that communism will spread. Communist state is our article about the so-called Communist countries of the 1900s, by the way. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is that there is very little in common between working class self-emancipation through communist politics aimed at all society governing all society, and highly centralised militarised party organisations made up of middle class intellectuals bent on seizing control of the bourgeois state. This analysis goes back to Trotsky's critiques of V.I. Lenin's thoughts on the party go back in 1905, and even earlier criticisms of the role of middle class intellectuals in socialism in general. The long answer is long. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:59, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Historically most communist countries were formed after long periods of crisis and war, e.g. the USSR, China, Afghanistan, East Germany. Such circumstances tend to breed authoritarian regimes of either left or right - note that democracy is recent and tenuous in most parts of the world. If you have a society sufficiently unstable to produce a communist revolution, it's unlikely to be in a good condition after the revolution.
Arguably there were "nicer" communist/socialist-leaning countries, but like Allende's Chile they were unable to resist destabilisation by right-wing forces, or like present-day Venezuela were forced to take increasingly totalitarian measures when faced with attempted coups and external influence. Moderate/reformist communists in Eastern Europe following WW2 were crushed by Stalin and successive Soviet leaderships. Power tends to corrupt, and to hold on to it in an unstable part of the world, you don't get far by being a nice guy. Nobody questions why fascism led to war and tyranny, but it too was often formed with more-or-less good intentions of ending crisis, instability, and weak government. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:16, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Libyan flag?
So in almost all the articles that I have gone to which have an icon of the flag of Libya, the flag shown is the flag of the National Transitional Council or the old flag of Libya. But I thought that there were two governments that claimed to be the de jure government of Libya, although the NTC is pretty much the de facto government, as Gadhafi (or Gaddafi, or Qaddafi, however you spell him) is on the run and almost all of his stongholds have been defeated. Is that the reason? Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew 00:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) Yes, as you say, it is the recognized government presently. Therefore that is the flag used in our articles. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:48, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why isn't the date of Jesus' crucifixion or birth known?
So if he really did cause a commotion in the temple and the authorities were after him, then why isn't the exact date of his crucifixion recorded? Was it simply not important enough to be recorded, or if it was indeed recorded, then these records have been lost, or is it related to the fact that Jesus never really became well-known and important until long after his death? And another related question, why isn't the birth date of Jesus known either? Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew 02:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What makes you think the Romans kept records of any of the many thousands of people they executed or killed (such as in the gladiator arenas with lions attacking tied-up Jews, etc.) on an annual basis? He will (if he existed) have just been considered yet another criminal element by the Romans. Keeping records of all those they executed would have cost far too much, and would have been irrelevent. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:26, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would guess that they did keep records, but just on papyrus, not carved into stone. Such records were unlikely to last very long. StuRat (talk) 02:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly, but such records would likely have consisted more of the actual number of people for the day's crucifiction (after all, it was not an unusual form of execution), or some such, rather than people's names and what they'd done. The reason for the records would be more likely be to record the pay due to the executioners (all of the people involved in putting the people up on the cross), rather than to record the people who were actually being executed. Papyrus was expensive. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:49, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even the birthdates of people famous in their own lifetimes, and even some from recent history, are not necessarily known with certainty. And the death date of Jesus is implied by the timing of Passover, but it's not certain if it was the first or second night of Passover, hence the year can't be determined with absolute certainty. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 02:30, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) - There is the question of the census he (and his family) was supposed to have attended in Jerusalem when he was 12 (leading to him astounding the priests at the temple). Records of this census have been lost. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:35, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course another possible explanation for those dates not being recorded is that maybe Jesus never existed. (Believers need take no offence. After all, you believe.) HiLo48 (talk) 04:17, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Aye, and another possible assumption is that he may have been some invisible alien, but neither this, nor yours, are assumptions that our OP is bringing here to this table. The OP is asking from the point of view of if Jesus existed, though not explicitly saying his/her own beliefs. Seriously, to be asking a question like this, our OP must have already ruled out the assumption that Jesus never existed and is asking the question to get answers from an archaeological point of view, not a theistic/philosophical point of view. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I actually tried quite hard hard to work out the "assumptions that our OP is bringing here to this table", but couldn't be certain. They weren't obvious to me. Maybe our OP is being quite objective about the matter. HiLo48 (talk) 05:23, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's plenty of evidence that Jesus existed. The supernatural aspects are the debate. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 05:24, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Seems reasonable to me that if you needed to eradicate a person claiming to be God it might also be a great idea to eliminate any record. --DeeperQA (talk) 05:40, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There were quite a few "false messiahs" running around, and most of them were dispatched and hands-washed of them. In the case of Jesus, they guessed wrong, but, hey, why blame the entire program just because of a single slip? ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 05:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, ladies and gents, let's get back to the OP's question of archaeological evidence? Can we? Really? Go on, be a good doggie. Or do we just faff around on the unending debate on Jesus' and God's existence? Come on, guys, this is an archaeological question. Focus! Oh...my buddha.... --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 05:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The calendar used back then by the Romans was not accurate; today scholars believe Jesus was born in February or September 4 BC. The 25 December date was invented by the early Christian church to coincide with the pagan winter festival.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What do those scholars use to calculate those two possible dates? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The appearance of Halley's Comet. The comet did not appear in the year 0.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So, why is this not revealed to us by our teachers? I went to a catholic school, and the overwhelming majority of us did not care about Jesus. The overwhelming majority have also grown up to be skeptical of Jesus' existence (as we went to a school where education and educational achievement was expected of us, despite being a catholic school run by priests). The RC church must know certainly that they are losing their flock (in Europe), so why not give us this 'proof'? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 06:15, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A perfectly detailed and unforgiving explanation of the exact relationship between Harry Potter and Hermione was never given by J.K.Rowling, but there are still people who want to know. Just as the OP wants to know the exact date of Jesus' birth, whether the original author(s) intended their readers to know or not. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:04, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think Wavelength means to say that the answer to the question posed by the OP, "why isn't it known?" is "because it was not important enough to keep track of". 68.54.4.162 (talk) 02:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See Star of Bethlehem for some attempts to work out his date of birth from the astronomical evidence.
@ Jeanne Boleyn: Halley's Comet is usually discounted as being close to a decade too early, but it is one of the possiblities. -- Jack of Oz[your turn] 06:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Narutolovehinata5 -- Jesus really did not make much of a stir beyond Judea and Galilee and closely-neighboring areas during his lifetime. From the Roman point of view, he was a strictly-local troublemaker who presented more problems to the subordinate Jewish local authorities (Sadducees etc.) than he did to the Romans themselves. Therefore there was no reason why high-ranking Roman imperial officials would have paid much attention to him (except Pilate for a few days), and any "records" would have almost certainly been very local and ephemeral. Jesus' birth date is known with a fair degree of confidence to within seven years and his death date within three years, which is not at all unusual or greatly worrying for figures of ancient times -- the dates of Buddha and Zoroaster aren't even known to within a century! AnonMoos (talk) 08:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
abuse of 911
I have several neighbors who are tired of Jehovah Witnesses and salesmen pounding at their door. In some cases they have posted notes saying they can only be reached by email or phone. However, there have been several cases of cell phone calls for help that triangulate to these properties. When the police arrive and get no response at the door they then take the liberty to break into the home.
Is this 1) the results of the Patriot Act, 2) preventable abuse of 911 call system, 3) an open door for the State to ignore: a) due process, b) invasion of privacy, c) the need for search warrants that protect citizens from abuse by the State, and 4) is there a way a genuine emergency can (must) be distinguished from a hoax before the police break in? --DeeperQA (talk) 05:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The 911 operator would typically try to discern what's really going on. If it sounds genuine, the police could well bust the door down on the grounds of a crime in progress, a legal justification that existed long before 9/11/01. And if it was a hoax call, I wouldn't be surprised if the caller would get a good-sized bill in the mail. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 05:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What? No other means of preventing a government hoax perpetrated to intimidate (or worse) a member of the opposing party? --DeeperQA (talk) 09:05, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure what the question is. Can the question be restated in a simplified form? Bus stop (talk) 10:22, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What real and absolute safeguards prevent a 911 call from being used by the authorities to sidestep things like probable cause? --DeeperQA (talk) 16:06, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even the original question doesn't make sense. Who is it that's calling 911? I assumed it was the folks being visited by the JW's, but I'm not altogether sure. In any case, the followup suggests that the OP is merely trying to foment a debate. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 13:58, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A debate with whom and about what? --DeeperQA (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my interpretation if your rambling question: You suspect that someone (a neighbor?) is calling 911 to report some sort of crime or accident or what have you in another neighbor's house, or calling for help with their phone near the property, or something like that. The other neighbors are not home or do not answer the door, so the police break in.
To answer your specific questions, this has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. It's not clear it's actually abuse. If police have reason to believe a crime is in progress, or people are otherwise in danger (e.g. a gas leak), they can break in. This is not an abuse of due process, invasion of privacy, or the need for search warrants; it's an emergency-based principle that has been held up by judges again and again. What matters is if the police have probable cause to enter the establishment. This has a rather precise legal definition and there are things that do or do not stand up as probable cause.
The emphasis when it comes to answering 911 calls is to assume good faith, because if it is not a hoax, and they treat it like a hoax, that opens up the door for huge legal liabilities, bad P.R., and so on.
Abusing 911 is itself a crime. It is probably not too hard to figure out if someone is abusing 911 regularly, calling it on the same house again and again. So I suspect the police are not just doing this for kicks. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay Mr, 98 you are close to understanding the question. Consider the context as one in which the police look for ways around probable cause and may themselves fabricate a 911 call so they can enter without probable cause. Another example of such behavior is reading someone their Miranda Rights and then asking the person if they understand their rights and if the person answers either yes or no then the police are able to say the person was read their rights and voluntarily forfeited them by not remaining silent or if the person remains silent then charging them with resisting arrest without violence. This happens more often than you think in cases where a person may offend police ego or other sensibilities. The police are rewarded by the DA for convictions and for upholding the letter rather than the spirit of the law. --DeeperQA (talk) 16:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Eh? Just because someone didn't remain silent on one thing doesn't mean they've somehow 'waived' their Miranda rights on anything other then that specific issue. They can say yes and then remain silent on everything else. If they don't that either indicates they didn't understand their Miranda rights so shouldn't have said yes or they didn't wish to remain silent. Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In this particular case, however, the occupant was suspected of being a closet Muslim or atheist and so someone decided the only way to find out was to get a look inside the person's house. What better way to perpetrate this cause than to dial 911 on a cell phone while on or close to the property and report an emergency so at least the police could get a look inside, one of which might be a local JW. --DeeperQA (talk) 16:21, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How would a meddling neighbor find out if a closet Muslim or atheist lived in a residence if they called the police? The police would immediately determine that there was no emergency present. The police would not stick around trying to find out what the occupant's religious leanings were, and even if the police did see evidence of some religious affinity, it is not certain that the police would reveal this to the meddling neighbor. Bus stop (talk) 16:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the OP thinks Jehovah's Witnesses police officers reveal everything to other members of their religion? If they do, I suggest they withdraw their comments ASAP as that's an extremely offensive claim. Nil Einne (talk) 16:48, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Eh? Wikibooks:US Criminal Law/Searches without a warrant#The emergency exception suggests an anonymous call by itself usually isn't sufficient evidence for an emergency without corroborating information so at the very least said meddling neighbour is probably going to have to identify themselves, and risk being prosecuted if police decide they were just making it up. It also says, in case this wasn't obvious, they can only seize items in plain view. From reading it, said closeted individual may be at risk of having their property legally searched to determine if their is an emergency if when the police come said individuals tells the police to 'fuck off you stupid jw pigs' rather then explaining their is no emergency and politely answering any question. But if your meddling neighbour really wants the police to see whats in the house, a better bet is to break in to it himself and call the police that way they can see what in it when they come to arrest said neighbour [22][23][24]. Of course since despite all the problems in the US, it isn't illegal to be a Muslim or atheist, the police can't actually arrest the person who's house it is, even if he or she had big signs declaring they were a Muslim or atheist in their house, so only the neighbour would be going to jail. Nil Einne (talk) 16:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bottom line to the question is what kind of ways can 911 call system be abused to escape the upholding of civil rights but which are in general not listed anywhere by a judicious review of cases. --DeeperQA (talk) 17:00, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, that was not your original question; and the above question can be restated as "Please list the ways to abuse the 911 call system that have not yet been exploited", which is outside the scope of this reference desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:31, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a real-life anecdote: I once lived in a shared house where I became quite suspicious that the people on the top floor were running a meth lab. (They were continuously running a fan in the window, even in the coldest winter; there were all sorts of awful chemical smells; they were active up there at all hours; they didn't appear to actually live in the unit, just visit it; I once saw a huge amount of Sudafed in the seat of their car.) I talked to a lawyer I know about this (a defense lawyer, if you are curious — and not talking to me "as a lawyer," to be sure), and he said that if I really wanted someone to make sure it wasn't a meth lab, that I ought to call 911 and report a possible gas leak, whenever the neighbors weren't there. The firefighters would arrive, work the door open, and if there was a meth lab, call the police. Now this is a pretty round-about way to get something investigated, and calling 911 under false pretenses is a crime, so I decided not to do this. (I instead made contact with law enforcement in a more traditional fashion, and they performed a bunch of stakeouts, and eventually the people in question left the building anyway, so I don't really know what happened in the end. The law, incidentally, had been watching these guys already for other reasons.)
If I were to have done the 911 route, it wouldn't have been law enforcement or the fire department that were doing the wrong thing — it would have been me doing it. Morally I probably would have been in the right, but legally, no way. It might have been an abridgment of civil rights, for sure — but it would have been an abridgment by me, not the state. That's a significant difference. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay again Mr. 98. I agree and I would not make such a call because I try to subscribe to the Golden Rule. But where I live dirty tricks between the Republicans and Democrats takes up about 99.99% of their time. A fake 911 call would be nothing by the standard that governs their behavior. To make matters worse one party may populate the courts from County Civil to the State Supreme Court so that whatever they do they know they can get away with it if caught. It's not like the game of chess where you cannot get away with breaking the rules but far more sophisticated where getting away with breaking the rules is part of the game. --DeeperQA (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The OP describes suspicion of a fairly believable and very annoying exploit: pay cash for a prepaid mobile phone, store or trade it with a faraway friend to reduce the odds of archived video surveillance from the market, walk into your mark's front yard and dial 911, providing such suggestive stimuli as your imagination devises. Then turn it off, leave, watch hilarity ensue. Repeat as desired. Obnoxious indeed, but certainly not 100% foolproof especially if the mark invests in a videocamera of his own. I can't seriously picture passing the reform you'd need to prevent this from being possible - namely, a reform under which if you saw someone being raped in a mall bathroom, 911 would tell you you had to call the mall owner and get him to make the 911 call. It is clear that calls to police do come out of premises owned by others. It might be that the reform of some legal provisions regarding "good faith searches" could rule out certain types of evidence gotten pursuant to such a prank call, but that doesn't undo the disruption and intimidation. Wnt (talk) 20:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Still it seems like for the most part that while there needs to be freedom to contact the 911 operator and get emergency response without any hindrance whatsoever and tolerance for genuine errors and mistakes that calling 911 so the police will surprise your wife and her boyfriend in bed at the motel will be rewarded with the caller spending some time in jail, forfeiting a big chunk of cash and lousing all chance of the incident being used against his wife in court. --DeeperQA (talk) 23:29, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's a crime everywhere in the US to make a false 911 call, punishable with fine and/or jail, so you get that part of your wish for free. As for the evidence being inadmissible in court, I think that's a bad idea because that itself would be gameable. (Imagine the crack dealer who thinks he's about to be caught, making a fake 911 call, and getting all the cocaine in his house excluded from evidence.) By the way, I found this publication on the US DOJ website that notes another 911 abuse: Diversionary calls, where a drug dealer calls 911 from a remote location to get the cops away from his criminal activity. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:43, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And adultery isn't illegal in the US so the only chance of the wife getting in trouble with the police would be if she were sleeping with someone underage or something else illegal. Of course her infidetally could come in to play in any divorce if the husband is able to get evidence but the husband faking a 911 call isn't going to help his case and if he's waiting to take pictures when the police break in, he's kind of given himself away. And he would be an idiot to do something like that when he could probably just pay the clerk at the motel to open the door. In case it isn't obvious to the OP, the legality of the police entry is largely a moot point since it isn't a criminal case and the police aren't the ones providing the evidence. Nil Einne (talk) 02:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually what truly surprises me is that no one has developed a virus that dials 9-1-1 and provides a convincing soundtrack of screaming and shots fired, whether using a DSP modem or nowadays as an actual cell phone virus. It would seem like such a virus would first cause tremendous mayhem and then essentially neutralize the 911 system for at least several days. Wnt (talk) 20:14, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See here. The date given on the file page would seem to indicate Tamaeva IV, but the presence of a regent in the photograph suggests that it's probably Heimataura Tamaeva V, who seems in fact to have been the last queen. Deor (talk) 11:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What language does the Rimataran speak? Tahitian? Because I was wondering why there seem to be a variation Temaeva and Tamaeva.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 18:34, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Autism/philosophy/psychedelia
Do you think, in a way, the autistic individual lives the perfect 'psychedelic' life? Upon thought we do realize that a psychedelic experience is very much internal, and very much constant... as such, considering that they're the most inwardly people, do you think autistic people get the 'full' experience? 62.255.129.19 (talk) 10:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It says at the top of this page: "The reference desk does not answer requests for opinions or predictions about future events. Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead." --ColinFine (talk) 14:01, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've really no idea what you are referring to as a "psychedelic" life, but if you are curious about how autistic people perceive the world, one of the most vivid descriptions from the point of view of one high functioning autistic can be found in the works of Temple Grandin, who is extremely good at communicating her subjective states to neurotypical people. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:16, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some psychedelic drugs have been dubbed by researchers as psychotomimetic or even "schizophrenomimetic"[25], and schizophrenia has been argued to exist as an opposite extreme from autism controlled by some of the same genes. So in theory (my back of the envelope theory that is, not mainstream medicine...) administering a light dose of psychedelics should reduce autistic tendencies. I would be very curious to see what happens if this is actually tried on autistic children, especially those having trouble communicating otherwise, but beyond doubt such an experiment would be viewed by many as monstrously unethical. In any case the odds that so many rank generalizations really add up into a causative chain rather than disintegrating in a web of unrelated effects is probably pretty small. Wnt (talk) 19:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Praise for competitors
Which commercial entities (persons or organizations) have publicly praised their competitors?
—Wavelength (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Both Microsoft and Apple Inc. have said many good things about one another over the past many years. Of course, some are backhanded compliments, but others are serious. In general, Microsoft has praised Apple's fine-tuned product development and advertising strategy. Apple has praised Microsoft's ability to constantly push to support everything, not just hardware produced in-house. -- kainaw™ 17:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine that the most common scenario for this is professional sports teams; it is routine for every team's owners, coaches, and players to praise their counterparts after every game. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't Bill Gates own stock in Apple? That might explain why he would praise them. As for sports teams, they are to some extant also partners. Hot Stoptalk-contribs 21:39, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Microsoft copies ideas of Apple (a form of praise) and even develops software for Mac's: Microsoft Office for Mac 2011
Microsoft worked with Apple frequently in the past. Applesoft BASIC was a port of Microsoft BASIC made for the Apple II computers, and Microsoft Works began as an Apple Macintosh software suite and predated the Microsoft Office line of productivity software. While consumers represent a rivalry of "PC vs. Mac" (and by extension of Windows vs. Mac OS), the two companies don't actually compete directly on much except the operating systems. Apple has long been a consumer electronics company primarily; it doesn't even sell its OS on the open market. Microsoft has mainly been a software company (XBOX not withstanding), and its software has been availible for use on many platforms, from UNIX to Mac OS to its own operating systems. There actually isn't many items you can walk into a store and comparison shop for a "Microsoft" vs. an "Apple" version of; they really don't sell the same stuff at all. --Jayron32 04:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Be it in sports or conventional business, praising your competitors gives them nothing they can rally around to try and defeat you. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 21:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How many tribes did Indibilis and Mandonius directly control during the Mutiny at Sucro in 206 BC?--Doug Coldwelltalk 14:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
When you asked about that mutiny earlier it came out that the only account is by Polybius, and we pointed you to a full version of it. What are you hoping for here? Looie496 (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and I appreciated that as I was able to develop an article from that. However there is no article on Indibilis and Mandonius. Polybius talks of Andobales and Mandonius and the Mutiny at Sucro in Book 11.28 however did not indicate how many tribes they may have controlled. Scipio Africanus indicates he could have easily conquered Andobales' army, but how many tribes did he have control of and how big would the potential army be? I imagine there would be some ancient sources that talk about Andobales and Mandonius (Mandonius and Indibilis), but so far I have not been able to find them.--Doug Coldwelltalk 16:10, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What's the average hourly wage of the guys walking across the beams (not the crane operator) installing more beams? How about the ones installing the windows? 69.243.220.115 (talk) 22:53, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Country of origin of Northern Irish Protestants
Our article on the Plantations of Ireland states that most of them came from the Scottish Lowlands and from England. I would like to know how many of them were Lowlanders and how many English, whether it be 80% Scottish and 20% English or whatever. --Belchman (talk) 23:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's impossible to tell, Scottish people are in so many ways intermingled with Englishmen, that you can't count them apart. That's like Catalans and Andalusians, they are so mixed together that nobody know who came from where. Quest09 (talk) 00:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I meant: Where did the original settlers come from? In the case of Catalonia after the wave of Andalusian migration in the 1960s the population more or less doubled; so one can say that, roughly, half of Catalonia's population is of mostly Andalusian descent. --Belchman (talk) 00:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our article Plantation of Ulster states that in the 1660s, Scots were 20% of Ulster's population, but 60% of its British population. By 1720, however, Scots were an absolute majority in Ulster. If we assume that the native Irish and the English-derived populations of Ulster each grew by 50% during this period (a period of population growth throughout Europe), and if we assume that in 1720, Scots had grown to 55% of Ulster's population through immigration, then an algebraic solution suggests to me the English-derived population would have been just under 10% of Ulster's total in 1720. In terms of the British (or in effect Protestant) population of Ulster, this suggests that it was about 18% of English descent and 82% of Scottish descent as of 1720, when the main period of the Plantation was complete. Marco polo (talk) 01:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Does your algebraic solution contemplate the case that someone could be both (regarding origin) - Scottish and English? That's the same case of Catalonia: if the population increased in the 60s by 100%, mainly of Andalusian descend, the present population of Catalonia is not 50% Andalusian, but something much higher than that. Unless you assume that each group of people interbreed within its borders. Quest09 (talk) 01:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is true that by the late 18th century, generations of intermarriage would have made it difficult to distinguish those of English from those of Scottish descent. However, during the early generations after immigration, these groups would have been distinct, and religious differences (Presbyterian Scots versus Anglican Englishmen) would have tended to maintain some separation. (Families would have discouraged children from marrying members of the other community and attending a different church.) The facts in our article, anyway, suggest that officials gathering numbers were still making a distinction in 1720. Marco polo (talk) 01:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There was also considerable French Huguenot immigration to Ulster as can be borne out by the French names one finds in Northern Ireland such as Molyneaux, Camplisson, and Marchant, etc. It was the Huguenots who had set up the linen mills. There were also Welsh immigrants and let us not forget the huge amount of intermarriage that took place between Catholics and Protestants from the earliest days of the Ulster Plantation. Another thing, many Protestants today are the descendants of Irish Catholics who converted to Protestantism to avoid persecution and to inherit property under the draconian penal laws that were enacted against Irish Catholics following the victory of William III at the Battle of the Boyne. Hence today one finds in Northern Ireland Protestants bearing Catholic surnames such as Kelly, Murphy and O'Neill and Catholic bearing planter surnames such as Adams, Morrison and Crawford. Like all aspects of Northern Ireland, nothing is completely black or white. It's far more complicated.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 06:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nozick and racism?
I am writing a little paper but I have stumbled in a discussion which bothers me:
If justice is defined as a situation where a good has been aquired in a correct manner (as Robert Nozick does), would the transaction still be just (according to nozick) if the society is plagued by inequality based on social norms such as heterosexism, racism etc? In theory, this could mean that the transaction is in some way inherently unjust despite being based on free will. Has Nozick written anything about injustices based upon social norms? could anyone point me in the right direction? /Marxmax (talk) 23:57, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
AFAIK, transactions produce inequalities, which is fine, according to Nozick, if the transaction was a free exchange among informed participants. Further transactions, after inequalities have arisen, should be fair too. Quest09 (talk) 00:13, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
September 12
Irish word óglaigh
What does the word óglaigh in Óglaigh na hÉireann mean? By that I'd like an explanation of the meaning of the word in English rather than an approximate English language translation, because, apparently, the word is rather hard to translate. --Belchman (talk) 00:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is explained in detail here. (Hopefully you'll be able to view the page I am linking to -- Google Book previews often show different sets of pages to different viewers.) Looie496 (talk) 06:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
what do mba's know?
could you guys link to like opencourseware but for mba's? (this is the reference desk after all). I know a lot of programmer-types are self-educated, and that means they've gotten four years or six of higher education just "over the wire" -- a lot of mba programs are one year. so other than the connections, what do these guys (mba's) know? 82.234.207.120 (talk) 00:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
p.s. i do realize that this knowledge might be secret, so that it is not as widely diffused over the internet as programming knowledge is, which has a culture of openness and sharing, etc. if so perhaps the best I could do is buy the same textbooks an mba uses? references to these is equally appreciated... 82.234.207.120 (talk) 00:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As someone else said before: "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library." – Will Hunting. 01:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
All of the people I've known in MBA programs said that 90% of it is connections and a fancy sounding degree that is mandatory for getting hired at a lot of places. The other 10% is musing about business strategy, basic investing and accounting, and taxes. That's just what I've picked up over the grapevine, anyway. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that some MBA programs include mathematically oriented courses on data-based decision making, but operations research is not really something that can be taught in such a short time. Thus, at least some MBA's know that the field of operations research exists and can be useful. 130.188.8.11 (talk) 10:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The decline of Native American? And the discovery of America
I read that the population of America in North and South were declined a lot in around 15 to 16 century when the European came. It mainly because of disease that cause a lot of people died. My question is why native Americans are the only one who are dying because of disease but not the new immigrant people from Europe?Trongphu (talk) 03:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And why America was not found until Christopher Columbus first found it in the end of 15 century? It should have been way earlier Boats were available long time before that. People were like going all over the places to trade long before that.Trongphu (talk) 03:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Vikings were aware of it centuries earlier, but it was pretty far away and at that point there didn't seem much reason to hang around. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 03:13, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great table in that article, thanks. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:41, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) To answer your first question, you should read the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus which provides some great insightes on the pre-Columbian state of the New World. And yes, the population decline of Native Americans was directly due to Eastern Hemisphere diseases that were brought to the West by Europeans. It worked both ways, though. There is some reason to believe that, while the small pox and other such diseases went west across the Atlantic, syphillis made the return voyage. The people in the Americas definately ended up worse off, however. As to the second question, there were undoubtedly people who arrived in the Americas before Columbus. Vinland predates his arrival by almost 500 years. That represents the only positive confirmation of Europeans in the Americas prior to Columbus, but there have been other possible candidated of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact which vary in reliability from the very likely, to the possible, to the not very likely. --Jayron32 03:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yellow fever took a huge toll on Europeans in the New World (it, however, probably originated in Africa), but not enough to prevent Europeans from arriving in large numbers. Acroterion(talk) 03:23, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The first known (or believed) European to sight the New World was Bjarni Herjólfsson. I always figured he didn't get the credit in textbooks, because nobody could pronounce it. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 03:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, Norse exploration of the New World, while it happened, didn't lead to widespread colonization. Within less than a century, the Norse had all but abandoned settlement of the Americas (save Greenland, which barely held on until right around the Columbian discoveries; before being abandoned) while the Columbian explorations led to a massive colonization of the Americas. While Columbus wasn't there first, his was the voyage which had the greater historical impact on later events. --Jayron32 03:32, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It may not be a coincidence that by 1492, gunpowder was in rather wider use in Europe than it had been during the 10th century (especially as it hadn't been brought to Europe yet). ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 03:37, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand the epidemics. These weren't new diseases, these were old diseases brought by the European colonists themselves. Smallpox, influenza, and even measles. Diseases which may still be fatal to Europeans, but usually only minor annoyances as their bodies had long adapted to them.
However, geographically isolated populations do not develop the same resistances to the same diseases. An American visiting Asia may get sick from drinking stream water a native can drink safely, and vice versa. Country border immunization requirements is partly based on this fact, as getting immunized lets your body 'experience' diseases which we may haven't encountered yet, building natural immunity safely.
Native Americans however, were isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years (earliest ancestors of Native Americans came from Asia through the Bering strait at about the same time that humans began learning to build cities: 16,500 to 13,000 years ago) and thus did not regularly come into contact with other humans. The diseases brought by Europeans were new to them. Having no resistance to diseases like measles whatsoever, these new diseases were devastating.
The estimates of the total death toll from epidemics is as high as 90% to 95% of the total population before European contact. Which is why there are far more descendants of colonists in the Americas today than comparable European colonies in Asia and Africa. See Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas and History of smallpox. -- Obsidi♠nSoul 03:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting article. From what it says, it appears that one hypothesis is that the source of most "crowd diseases" (diseases that spread via close human contact like small pox or cholera or the like) is from domesticated animal vectors, and the lack of widespread animal domestication in the Americas (compared to Eurasia) means that there weren't any such diseases availible for transmitting to Europe; while Europe was teaming with them because of the animal domestications. It is a compelling explanation as to why Europe didn't carry back many devastating American diseases; there just may not have been any. --Jayron32 05:05, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Has someone pointed to OP to guns, germs, and steel yet? It is an essential read, even if you disagree with the conclusions. --Lgriot (talk) 08:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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