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October 9

Do Canadians do anything?

Why is Canada mentioned so rarely in the American media? Canada is the world's 10th wealthiest country, one of America's neighbors, its biggest trading partner, and its biggest supplier of energy. It's the closest thing to an economic and financial powerhouse within several thousand kilometers, yet I very rarely hear any mention of Canada in American news. Why is this the case? --140.180.16.144 (talk) 00:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Because in Canada you don't have shootings like in Columbine, millions being evicted, bombing of third nations and an active pop culture industry. Honestly, to report something there must be something to report. Is there a Canadian Paris Hilton?. Add on the top of that that Americans really don't care much about foreign affairs. Wikiweek (talk) 00:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

"Is there a Canadian <that woman whose name I refuse ever to utter>?" - No other country would dare produce such a creature. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:19, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Celine Dion, Justin Bieber? --140.180.16.144 (talk) 06:03, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course. The Canadian versions of Dion and Bieber are Dion and Bieber themselves. I suspect Jack is talking about that American women who might be a distant in-law of one of the members of Monty Python, but maybe not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:38, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Because the USA pretends that everything revolves around themselves. →Στc. 00:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Now, that comment reveals a nearsighted viewpoint. Or perhaps asigmatism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

On what basis is the OP making the claim that Canada is underrepresented in the American media? Could the answer be "it isn't being underrepresented" or "before we can answer your question, could you at least present some evidence before making outrageous and unproven statements?" Answering a question which is itself completely wrong doesn't make any sense. Before we answer the question, can we at least fact-check the premise? Have you stopped beating your wife? I'm not absolutely saying that the OP is incorrect, but we also cannot assume that they are without evidence... --Jayron32 00:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Mass media has no duty to equally represent news, their business is only to attract viewers which they sell to advertisers. Sooo, what gets coverage in the media is based on what gets viewers, see Missing white woman syndrome for a well known major distortion. Public awareness (talk) 01:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Could you please stop putting words into my mouth? I never claimed Canada was "underrepresented". In fact, I never claimed anything aside from easily-verifiable facts--that Canada is the world's tenth largest economy, that it's a U.S. neighbor, and so on. My question, for those who couldn't be bothered to read it, was "why is Canada mentioned so rarely in the American media?" That's my personal impression, and you're free to disagree with it. In addition, my not-entirely-serious title was "do Canadians do anything?" suggests that one reason is that Canada has minimal impact on the world, aka that it's NOT underrepresented.

Even if I was claiming that Canada is underrepresented--which I wasn't--I feel sorry for you for considering such a statement outrageous. If you're so insulted by a neutral and non-judgmental statement, why are you on Wikipedia in the first place, and how do you deal with edit wars? --140.180.16.144 (talk) 01:03, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Jayron32 meant anything personal by it, and it is very easy to connect "underrepresented" and "mentioned so rarely". Please try to keep your tone calm, even if someone was being a jerk, it's best to keep calm. Public awareness (talk) 01:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Disagree with your premise, and like Jayron I agree you have asked a complex question. Mentioned rarely? A Google News search for just the last 24 hours comes up with stories in the Washington Post, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, and hundreds of other smaller outlets; stories include the Keystone Pipeline, the Canadian dollar vs other world currencies, a falling satellite (German), labor data, a jobs boost (in Canada, not in the US), and other things. Plenty of coverage. Antandrus (talk) 01:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Americans were grateful for Canadian efforts to rescue American diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis.

The last actual news out of Canada was their helping to smuggle a bunch of our hostages out of Iran. The operation is known as Yo, Canada!. But plenty of things happen in the US that are news in Canada, like premier Danny Williams flying to the US for heart surgery [1] while his compatriots wait months and die before being allowed to use either of the two MRI's rationed per province under their free national healthcare system. But what does any of this have to do with the reference desk? μηδείς (talk) 01:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

If you claim an event that happened over 30 years ago (!) was the last actual news out of Canada, that doesn't say much for your interest in references. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

You, know, Jack, it was your claim that I was "in hot water" in the last thread without specifying what it was that I was in hot water for that reminded me of my total lack of respect for you as a racist ni99er joke maker with no sense of irony or self awareness, and, in contrast to myself and others here, very little to say on topics, and all too much to say on personality. Now, if you want to post some news out of Canada that matters to you, feel free. I stand by my assertion that the resscue of the Iranian-held US hostages is the biggest story in the US regarding Canada for the last 35 years if not more. I provided links. What have you provided? But if you intend to continue with these WP:personal attacks I'll simply provide links to your racist nonsense, and maybe file an RfC, but otherwise ignore you. Stick to the topics. No one is impressed by your baseless opinions and personal insults. μηδείς (talk) 03:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Not that it's relevant to this thread or even this desk, but I specified exactly what the hot water was about. Quote from the Miscellaneous desk: "You got into hot water when you made the question only about the USA, though it never had any such territorial limitation. That argument was opposed, and you have not defended it. End of issue." But frankly, there's no point carrying on that conversation here, when you haven't done so there. So much for sticking to the topic.

You call me "a racist ni99er joke maker", and say you have no respect for me, yet accuse me of personal attacks and personal insults. Do you see something wrong here?

I responded to your claim that the Iran hostage thing was the "last" news out of Canada, clearly an absurd proposition. Now you're saying it's "the biggest" story in the past 35 years. That is one huge backtrack. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 03:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Plus it is absurd and not true. Operation Yellow Ribbon was a pretty big deal. 207.81.30.213 (talk) 16:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd be surprised to see that that made the front page anywhere, although there is no downplaying the goodlifullness of the assistance. But the rescue of the hostages was the top story for days. Not until the escape of Bambi Bembenek would Canada reappear so in the headlines. μηδείς (talk) 16:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Because Canada is a peaceful, prosperous, democratic country that's always more or less friendly to the United States. Mexico is known for drug wars, assassinations and millions of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S., so of course it's going to be in the news a lot. Europe has a debt crisis that could wreck the world economy. The Middle East is full of conflict and revolution. But Canada? Do you think it really makes a difference to American viewers who wins the election in Ontario? It's not as if it could lead to a war or communist takeover or something. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:38, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

That is, basically, the correct answer. It is not like Nebraska or North Dakota or Alabama makes the news either. There was the Trial of Mark Steyn and the last time the Toronto Bluejays or the Montreal Canadiens made the playoffs. Or when John Candy or the naturalized US citizen and 9/11 collateral victim Peter Jennings died. But those events occurred in the US, eh? μηδείς (talk) 03:47, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I think Canada is overrepresented in American news, mentioned more often than other similar places than one would expect given the general criteria that results in news coverage, probably because of its proximity, friendship, and similarity of language and culture. What are those criteria? In broad strokes, conflict. We write more about angst than we do about anything else. We will always write more about beheadings taking place than we will about some peaceful thing happening. Canada, as a relatively stable, peaceful, law abiding, war free place gets far more coverage than other similar conflict free places. Murder, death, violence, war, drugs is bigger news than peaceful topics.--108.54.26.7 (talk) 04:49, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Having lived most of my life in Buffalo and Seattle, I've gotten lots of news out of Canada. Currently an issue that comes up often in the Seattle area is controversy over various pipeline proposals for getting Alberta petroleum products to ports in BC—probably near Vancouver, which would increase tanker traffic in the shared waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Also a coal export terminal proposed to be built near Bellingham, WA, is often compared to a similar BC coal terminal at Westshore Terminals, just barely north of the international border. The coal unit trains that haul coal to Westshore go via Portland, OR, and north through Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, and Bellingham. I can't speak for US news in general, but regionally, Canadian news is certainly important for US regions near Canada--especially economic news that would effect transnational regions. Canadian political news doesn't tend to be paid as much attention. But even there, the fall of the Liberal party and various votes of no confidence and other crises have made some newsfall down here ("newsfall"?). Pfly (talk) 05:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Due to the fact that we haven't been at war with Canada since they were a British colony and when The Star-Spangled Banner was written, there's not a whole lot of reason for Canada to be in the news all the time. We think of them as harmless, or mostly harmless. There was a bit of a tiff over them harboring draft dodgers in the 1960s, but that was awhile back. One answer would be one time on Whose Line Is It Anyway? where host Drew Carey said that the points awarded to the performers on the show "mean nothing. They're like spy planes over Canada." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I happen to know from very reliable sources that Canadians with their small beady eyes are planning to invade America and warp the fragile little minds of the children!-- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting responses, everyone. It looks like my original impression that Canada isn't in the news very much is inaccurate, especially for regions near the border.

@Jayron: sorry if my previous post seemed like a personal attack. I was very surprised that anyone would consider a question like "why is Canada rarely in the news?" to be outrageous. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 06:02, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

No offense taken here. I didn't say the question was outrageous; I even allowed that the supposition may have actually been correct.(read my post again, and pay special attention to the words which say "I'm not absolutely saying that the OP is incorrect". What I meant by that was that I was not absolutely saying that you were incorrect). However, what you have not done is presented any studies or data which show that the number of Canadian stories in the newsmedia is less than one should expect given their size and proximity to the U.S. You have made the supposition in your question; it may be a true supposition or it may be a false supposition, but so far we have not yet established it one way or another. We cannot answer why a supposition is true if, in fact, it has not been shown to be true in the first place! That's all I am asking; it is not outrage that I express, just healthy skepticisim in the face of an utter lack of evidence to support the idea. Again, I have not said you were wrong, I have just said that you have not established that you are right. Without establishing that first, the rest of the discussion takes on no meaning; people could just as well be arguing to justify a "fact" which, it may turn out, isn't true to begin with. What would THAT mean? --Jayron32 23:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Was this actually spam? I demand an answer. Dualus (talk) 08:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Study strategies for history

What are some helpful strategies for studying history at a pre-college level? What approach should the student take when studying a topic, e.g. a historic culture or historical period? What would be helpful for the student to pay attention to or keep in mind?

For test taking, are there general categories that history questions can be put into? If the answer is yes, what would be some strategies for dealing with the different types of questions?

Any help will be much appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.148.216 (talk) 00:38, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's memorization of facts, like dates, for which flash cards are good. For the more detailed understanding of the relationships between different historical forces, perhaps doing study questions is best. If the test is all multiple choice, true/false, matching and fill in the blank, then it's likely to be mostly about facts. If it's an essay, then it's more about historic forces (although you should sprinkle a few facts in, too). StuRat (talk) 01:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I knew my world history 1400-1900 and all world cities by age 16 by playing video games like Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun and Europa Universalis II. But thats just a personal thing and it doesn't teach specifics of actual battles, but if you asked me I could draw you a detailed map of Europe during any period during those centuries. Details come easier once you know the big picture I think, I mean, what's the point of knowing all about the Battle of Austerlitz if you don't know the map of Europe and who the great powers were at the time. And of course the main benefit is that it's passive learning that's enjoyable. Public awareness (talk) 01:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The difficulty of pre-college history is that it is really an area dominated by history buffs rather than historians. Hence the emphasis is on memorization and (frankly) trivia, rather than deep historical understanding, period awareness, or historical empathy. (I say this as an historian, one who hated history before college.)

My recommendations, as an historian and a teacher, follow:

1. Visualization helps a lot. Going through lists of vocabulary and dates doesn't work well for most people. (If it does for you, you probably wouldn't have asked.) When I need to learn about something, I try to find out what it looked like, because I find I can remember images a lot better than words. (This is not a new, or original, observation — see Art of memory.) So if I've got to memorize something about a person, I find out what he or she looked like. I can usually remember the visual later, and work backwards to other facts from there.

2. History has a form and a structure on which the facts hang. Focus on the "skeleton" of history first — big movements, big changes, big shifts. Learn the big picture first and primarily. Focus on the major movements. Once you know those, filling in the little details — the exact proclamations, battles, books, what have you — comes a lot easier. If you focus on the details (as the buffs would do it), you will miss the big picture. If you have lost the big picture, you will easily commit stupid gaffes like putting the wrong ideas in the wrong century and things of that nature. If you know the big picture, you can often work backwards to infer the probable details, as well. In any case, once you have a scaffold of a big picture, the little facts — the specific years and dates — are a lot easier to "hang" onto them. It saves you from memorizing what feels like a lot of unconnected things — find the connections first, then work backwards for the details.

3. Writing will teaching you more than reading. Reading is important! But writing is what makes us really learn things. If you spend time reading and understanding something and then re-writing it in your own words, or with your own conclusions, and really put thought into what you write (not just parroting a book), you will really understand it better. It forces you to synthesize rather than memorize. It keeps the information from just going in one ear and out the other. Neurologically it probably involves creating a new little network of memories connected to other parts of the brain, I don't know. But if I write something down, I generally know it for a huge amount of time, and deeply. If I just read it, I can forget it within a week.

I don't know if these will help with you, but they do reflect my own approach to this, and I've done this for a long time now. I'm not any better at memorizing things than the average person — probably worse. I was horrible with flash cards and high school history. People are often very impressed with how many facts and dates I remember now — but that's not because I sat down with the idea of memorizing them, it's because I've worked to set up a framework in my head that holds it all together, and keeps the really important things fresh and interesting to me. Whether this approach will work in a buff-like atmosphere, I don't know. I'd love to believe it would, but I don't know. It's a more worthwhile way to approach the study of history, though, in my opinion. One of the reasons I started editing Wikipedia was because it gave me a chance to write about topics of interest, without the barrier of coming up with something new each time as is required by an academic setting. What I write, I know. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a historian, but unlike Mr.98, I'm not (yet) a teacher. Mr.98's advice is excellent. I'd just like to point out that some high school syllabus (NSW HSC, for example) is focused on real history. Here Mr.98's point 2 is even more important, the story, theory, structure and process of history is the key. As an aside, the UK university system publishes some quite nice 100 page primers aimed at final year high school / first year university students. These combine narrative, major analyses, documents and questions together. If you can get your hand on text books that combine primary and secondary source analysis, with guided theoretical questions, and the narrative you'll have something worth (perhaps even exciting) enough to read. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

(and a good thing I'm choosing to answer this question, and not the one above it ... <looking for right emoticon :)>) I can only add to these excellent answers by saying that I'm not a historian, but as an ex history student, the main thing I regret was not focusing hard enough on primary sources, and the debates surrounding them. Somehow they seem to crystallise a lot of knowledge, and gather it around an intense focal point, especially as one goes back further in history, and source material generally becomes scarcer. Writing is indeed important, and if you are working on an essay, start drafting early (another regret of mine; do as I say, not as I do JJ). Another thing that has helped me to get more value is looking over past essays with a critical eye, as a wiser editor, with some emotional distance from the dubious generalisations I wrote in my youth. And don't be afraid to memorise a few core facts that keep popping up in your reading. And finally, at least read a chapter of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall - you'll thank me later. Generally speaking, eloquent writing is worth something in this field, because it keeps you enthralled for page after page. It's been emotional (talk) 08:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Even at that level, noticing and briefly commenting on any bias in sources, will always be appreciated by examiners. --Dweller (talk) 12:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot, the Military trivia publisher "Osprey" publishes an "Essential Histories" series—I can only speak for the fact that their Korean War one was a decent primer. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Cult leader

How to become a famous and influential cult leader? --Tyour (talk) 05:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Like Joseph Stalin? →Στc. 05:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Or Jim Jones? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:38, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Like Lyndon LaRouche --Tyour (talk) 07:02, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The answer would seem to be to find a cause that you think some people will identify with, and then advertise - which should be easy on the internet. It also helps to have unshakeable confidence that you're in the right. The question might be, how large a cult do you want? If you're in the USA, running for some political office might work, especially if your views stand out from the crowd somehow. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:14, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Although perhaps not exactly the thing you are looking for, I find it close enough. Timothy Leary wrote a small book called How to start your own religion. --Saddhiyama (talk) 07:20, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

If someone is influential, does that disqualify them from being "cult" leaders? For example, Jones and LaRouche were famous, or maybe "infamous" would be the better term, but how influential were they, beyond selling newspapers? And if Leary was significantly influential, does it really count as a "cult"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:35, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Be a very good liar. So good, you'll end up believing yourself.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 11:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Another way to put it is, learn to be a salesman. A salesman has to not only lie, but to believe the lie. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:49, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't really hang together, Bugs. A lie is a statement made by someone who knows it is untrue. If I truly believe Henry VIII was Mexican and I say so, I am not lying, just making a false statement. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

If you truly believe in it you start seeing evidence everywhere. You write a book about it, start a meme, get into debates, and pretty soon you'll have a small rabid following of HenryVIIIisMexican-ites. You'll move them to tears with rousing speeches of suppression of the truth by the anti-HenryVIIIisMexican-ites. You'll acquire a logo, a secret code, grandmothers will give you all their money for the cause. You give some of it back in save-the-Henry-VIII-Mexican-memorabilia charities. You establish a HenryVIIIisMexican-ite cathedral and buy a fleet of limos, a helicopter, a private yacht, and a lear jet with the rest. Politicians will start respecting your voting block, you'll get political clout and get exempted from taxes. You acquire a radio station, then a TV station. You start filming your rousing speeches and more and more people join your cause. And more grandmas give you money. By the time you die hooked to the latest medical equipment in your palatial private mansion attended by the best doctors in your giant bed, you're now a saint.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

See our article, Cult, and also Charismatic authority, which our Cult article invokes religiously. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

You need three things: Charisma, heavies, and lots of money, honey.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:16, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Этика

Чем отличается этика от нравственности и морали? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.186.94.59 (talk) 06:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

According to Google Translate, the section title is "Ethics" and the question is "What distinguishes ethics from morality?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:59, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I guess one might link directly to ru:Этика and ru:Мораль to help answer this homework question . --ColinFine (talk) 10:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

188.186.94.59: Смотрите также ru:Мораль#Мораль и нравственность и ru:Нравственность#Нравственность и мораль. --Theurgist (talk) 12:08, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The first word is Greek and the second is Latin. There is no consensus distinction, and I am not aware of any major thinker who opposes the terms. It does seem that in English morality, the less learned word, is more commonly used in conjunction with religious viewpoints and ethics, the less common word among laymen, is more used in technical philosophy. But this is a matter of usage, not a fundamental distinction in meaning. μηδείς (talk) 17:02, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

For those who can't readily understand the original question in Russian, here is what the person asks as literally as possible: "By what does этика differ from нравственность and мораль?" Three terms are included in the poster's question, not just two. --Theurgist (talk) 17:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The third term translates to Sittlichkeit which is an obscure concept of Hegel's apparently. (I had noticed the third word but assumed it was being used as a synonym for morals. The comparison of two such broad concepts with such an esoteric one seems to imply some unstated context.) I have only read Hegel third hand so cannot comment. μηδείς (talk) 17:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Here is the Stanford Encyclopedia's article on Hegel which tries to explain the concept. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/ μηδείς (talk) 17:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The saying is something along the lines of the ethical man knowing the difference between right and wrong and the moral man doing what is right. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:45, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Gov. Brown

Is there some website where I can see a listing of all the California State Legislature bills that Governor Jerry Brown has vetoed or signed into law (for the batch from the most recent session, that is)? Today (Oct. 9) is the last day for the governor to sign some 600 bills sent to him by the Legislature during that session: Is there some place where I can see a listing of all of these and the action taken upon each? Neutrality^talk 09:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The California State Legislature Information page allows you to search for bills from as far back as 1993. It does not provide a neat listing of all of the bills that Brown has signed or vetoed, but you can see which bills have had status changes each day of the month. Looking at today's Assembly updates, for instance, shows which he has signed and vetoed today. It's easy to see which he has vetoed, because there is a link to the veto message with each. For those that he hasn't vetoed, you will need to view the bill history to see if it has been approved. Unfortunately, the website does not provide links to each day's activities as far as I can find; you will have to manually edit the URL to change the date. There are also different updates for both the Assembly and the Senate, so you would have to look through both. Another option is to use their search function and perform a keyword search on "Vetoed by Governor" and "Approved by the Governor", which are the two lines added into the text of the bills after the Governor takes action. I've tested this method, however, and I've found that the text of the bills are not updated on a daily basis, so the information is not as complete.

The Legislature is beta testing a new site which will hopefully have improved functionality, but as of right now, there doesn't seem to be a place to find a neat, concise list like you would like.

I hope this helps answer your question. Below are citations to the websites mentioned. This question was answered by a library-in-training as part of the monthly Slam the Boards! event. 64.189.89.246 (talk) 21:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

"Official California Legislative Information". Retrieved October 9, 2011.

"Beta Site for California Legislative Information". Retrieved October 9, 2011.

Thank you. It's rather unfortunate that the Legislature (or the Governor's Office) doesn't compile this info in neater form! Neutrality^talk 00:14, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Why would most non-religious people tend to be liberals on non-social issues and why would religious people tend to be conservatives on non-social issues?

Most of the atheists I’ve heard or come across with who are into American politics said that they were either Democrats or just liberals. Some of the atheists I know used to be Christians & while they were Christians, they were not only social conservatives, but fiscal & national defense conservatives too. I decided to do some research to see what surveys, polls, & studies have to say about this. Sure enough, the surveys, polls, & studies confirm that if you’re either an atheist or just believe in evolution; most likely you would likely be a Democrat &/or a liberal. [2] [3] [4] [5] I noticed as well, based some of the links that follows, that it looks like most in scientific community are definitely not conservatives nor Republicans. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

I can see why many secular people are opened about the following issues that Democrats &/or liberals support or are at least opened to do so & which Christian conservatives &/or Republicans don’t support nor are opened to do so: Abortion, gay marriage, pre-marital sex, man-made global warming, big bang, extraterrestrial life, separation of church & state, etc. What I don’t understand is this: It also seems that those people who have other politically left-leaning views such as: those who support taxing the rich, social security, for more government control over small businesses, giving amnesty to illegal aliens in the U.S, more gun control; & those who are against the death penalty, the Iraq &/or Afghanistan wars, the Tea Party, the phrase “Drill baby drill,” etc. are also more likely to either be atheists or believe in evolution, & those who are against these things are likely not to be. Why does all this seem to be the case? What are the secular or religious connections to views on fiscal, national defense issues, & the death penalty? Also, since there’s a decline in Christian fundamentalism & Christianity in general in the U.S; does that mean that there’s a decline of Republicans & Republican influence in the U.S too? Willminator (talk) 13:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Because Jesus taught us that forgiveness, sharing, acceptance, unconditional kindness and love are all evil sinful things. Oh wait... -- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

(ec)You are starting with a major flawed assumption. Please do not equate religiousness with fundamentalism. Not all religious Christians are fundamentalists, nor are they all conservative in their politics. Indeed, there are many extremely religious Christians who are liberal in their politics precisely because their interpretation of Christ's message guides them to support the liberal viewpoint. Blueboar (talk) 14:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

It's the other way around (to the original assertion) in the UK. Most famously in 1983, the Church of England published a report called Faith in the City which "created a large amount of controversy when it was published, as one of its conclusions was that much of the blame for growing spiritual and economic poverty in British inner cities was due to Thatcherite policies." Alansplodge (talk) 15:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

You have lumped together all the stereotypical Republican Party platform stances, and lumped together all the stereotypical Democratic Party platform stances. You have not provided any references that show that your assertions about religion and these stances are true. Do you have any references? They might point the way to an answer (if your assertions are indeed true and not just assumptions). Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:19, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Even so, religionists in general emphasize living the straight-and-narrow in hopes of a better hereafter; whereas non-religionists don't believe in a hereafter, so they tend to emphasize the here-and-now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

, Bugs. Atheists have children, too, and if our original poster is correct, it's the howling atheists who are more inclined to attempt to take care of the Earth, which is not a here-and-now proposition. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:24, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The belief or non-belief in an afterlife is central to the answer to the question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there some relevant Reference Desk question here? If this is just to be yet another debate based on stereotypes it needs to be closed. μηδείς (talk) 17:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Your suspicion may well be correct. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The question is indeed based on "stereotypes", but the OP is asking for an explanation of those stereotypes, which can be answered completely objectively. Additionally, a stereotype is not necessarily invalid. I've found the OP's impressions to be very accurate for US politics, even if, as Alansplodge said, it doesn't necessarily hold for other countries. Even if the OP's stereotype is invalid, suppressing discussion of its origins and/or validity is hardly the best way to enlighten the OP or other readers of the reference desks.

Finally, I'm also interested in the OP's question, and would appreciate further responses. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 20:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

To equate "religious" with "conservative" is simply inaccurate (not to mention being quite offensive to many religious liberals)... even in the US. Now, if you narrow the question to "why do many Christian fundamentalists hold conservative political views?" we might be able to answer the question. Blueboar (talk) 20:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Whoever is in U.S. politics these days, where invective has replaced debate, is hardly indicative of much, unfortunately. The common thread I do see is that people like people like themselves—and so, extremists attract extremists, based mainly on self-appointed high-ground against an immoral enemy. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 20:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Personally I feel this thread should have been left closed but I would note that whatever misconceptions and inaccuracies the OP has expressed, they never seemed to suggest all religious people in the US hold conservative views etc. Rather they used a lot of WP:weasel words like many, most, most likely, more likely, tend to etc which ultimately suggest they're saying a majority of religious people have conservative views etc. I'm not of course saying that these statements are any more accurate. (And there's still the problem of lumping all the views together.) Nil Einne (talk) 21:02, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I don’t feel like explaining again what I was intending to ask as that will be too energy-draining and time consuming for me. You know what I mean? However, I will say a few things: My intention was not to stereotype anyone. Now, read the whole entire articles (sources): 1, 2, 3, and 4. After that, read the these whole entire articles (sources): 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Now go back and carefully reread my question above and hopefully, you’ll understand at least the idea of what I’m trying to ask. I apologize if my question has ended up being too controversial or confusing. Regards to all of you. Willminator (talk) 23:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a brilliant and well-researched question, tidily expressed and sincerely asked. Please continue to do things like this, and ignore some of the bizarre comments that spring up. In advance of finding the time to look at your references (which I will certainly bookmark at the very least) I can only say that I will take your point on trust, and answer on hypothetical grounds, that is, assuming the facts stated are true. You are asking a very deep "why" question, and it will involve some speculation. Since you have received a reasonable and intelligent reply to the effect that it is quite the reverse in the UK, you can certainly take it that the experience is not universal, and therefore not the result of large-scale political forces tending towards conservatism or liberalism. I suspect it is more about division and the self-interested nature of politics in practice, that is, in most countries there would seem to be two major political parties, aligned with two major divisions, roughly, status quo vs. anti-status quo. When a new issue arises, it can either be shuffled off to the side if it doesn't fit these debates (concerns about tv and video game violence don't seem to follow political divisions) or it can be incorporated somehow. The manner of incorporation depends on circumstances, as far as I can tell, so whether your party likes freedom of speech or not will be unpredictable from a theoretical standpoint. But there is a tendency to the bipartite division, apparently because there just isn't room in people's heads for confusing alignments along multiple axes. The divisions occur because people in debates tend to force them - in Iran, the moment someone talks about freedom, the government simply says that they are just being American, and they want to be like the West, and the people can't talk about it anymore. By using existing divisions, and recasting a debate along those lines, they can force a new and sensible discussion into the pattern caused by existing hatred.

I cannot provide a researched answer at this time, but the very interesting observation about the UK says that we have a way of using examples to show the manner of division in politics and how it occurs (I have given a less valid, but reasonable, example about Iran to advance the discussion also). I hope we can do better than the chaos above. It's been emotional (talk) 00:58, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

For the record, to respond to one point in the above odd response, TV and video game violence does follow partisan lines unfortunately in the US; the Democratic Party is the one that is typically concerned, while the Republican Party doesn't care nearly as much, because of the "less government in all things" mantra. Change the subject to "sex on TV" and "sex in video games" and it flips back the other way. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

In the US, at least, most people who call themselves "Christians" really aren't, in that they don't believe in the teachings of Christ, which include pacifism, caring for the poor, avoiding the accumulation of wealth, etc. What they actually believe is the Old Testament, which is more about killing and/or enslaving your enemies and taking all their stuff. In that context "Christians" being for the rich keeping all their money makes more sense. StuRat (talk) 02:33, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not logical to claim that believing in the Old Testament is contrary to Christianity. Jesus not only believed in the Old Testament, his teachings claimed it as the supreme authority for all religious matters. Of course, his other teachings are not necessarily consistent with (his) Scripture, just like how Christians today don't necessarily behave in accordance to the Bible, and just like how the Bible itself is not internally consistent. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 04:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

If by "not necessarily consistent" you mean the polar opposite, then I agree. StuRat (talk) 01:27, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

140, if you are interested in the original question, I suggest you leave off-topic remarks to themselves. I am trying to answer the question constructively, but I cannot do so on my own. Comet Tuttle has made a valid and interesting point, but I have come across several references that disagree quite strongly, though none of them would be reliable sources. [11] mentions a Republican campaigner against video game violence, [12] refers (at the bottom of the article) to several Republican initiatives (although it also acknowledges the Republican aversion to government intervention at the same time), and this same article talks about a Republican campaigner who is against regulation, but seems to suggest he is fine with sex. In the context of the OP's question, it only means there is a case where something doesn't follow party lines, seemingly (unless Comet Tuttle can give a reference, which I would be keen to read). It is a rare case of an issue that is publicly significant, but not politically fixed.

This story quotes the then-president of the Entertainment Software Association as saying that the 2004 wave of attempts to restrict video game sales and content as being mostly initiated by Democrats; he attributed this to the Democrats having lost the 2004 elections on values, and attacking the relatively non-powerful video game industry was a calculated political move to try to appeal to "values" voters. Certainly Democrat Hillary Clinton and mostly-Democrat Joe Lieberman are the two headliners in this type of crusade that come to mind for me. Of course if this 2004 wave was politically motivated it would presumably decrease over time, and I'm not aware of a long term survey of which political party has tried to lean on video games more over the years. The Video Game Voters Network should be keeping track. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for getting back to me. I'll check out those sources more fully some time, but I have read in the past that it doesn't strictly follow party lines. Not to suggest there aren't party concerns relevant to this issue, as you have pointed out. It's been emotional (talk) 07:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Now, having read the OP's sources (and having checked the archives to make sure they were attached with the original question), I can say they fully back up the assertions made, and that anyone can read where he says in his second paragraph that it seems those who have other politically left-leaning views (etc.) are more likely to be atheists. The list of views is not deeply critical to the question; we know that Republicans/Democrats tend to be aligned on many issues (unless someone wishes to prove to the contrary), and we can see some kind of link between those views and the ideologies of those parties. The question was about atheism in this context. I can only say that in Australia, instead of being one way or the other, it is something the major parties avoid discussing publicly. I even once saw Julie Bishop on Q&A go out of her way to say nothing when the question was put to her. I think it has nothing to do with left and right per se, so someone in the US might want to show what the particular considerations are. It's been emotional (talk) 04:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

StuRat made a comment, which I criticized as inaccurate. I fail to see how my remark was any more off-topic than StuRat's. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 15:19, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I forgot to add previously that whenever there's a discussion about politics or about Obama on Christian radio and TV here in the U.S, almost always there's a politically conservative slant not just on the scientific, social, and cultural issues, whch are more understandable from a religiously conservative point of view, but on economic, national defense, and other issues as well that don't seem to have anything to do with religion. I have heard Christian radio and have watched Christian TV enough to know that's the case. Willminator (talk) 15:00, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad you've followed this up. I think there's some kind of pattern here, and that is, there are plenty of left-wing religious people, who don't wear their faith on their sleeve. Those who do tend to be more conservative, especially when they argue for teaching their religious beliefs as fact (or anything similar). Religion per se is not a left vs. right issue, but opposing the separation of church and state is very much a conservative belief. I don't mean to say this holds universally, only that I think your point is correct, and it has something to do with a tendency among religious people to be more public about their beliefs when they are conservative, and hold to some idea of connecting religion directly with politics. I don't know how this works in practice in America, and as you suggest, there would appear to be fewer left-wing than right-wing Christians, whether they are open about it or not. Perhaps Christianity in America has simply become identified with the right, and therefore lost appeal with the left, having had its image tarnished. I hope I've been at least slightly helpful, but I too was looking for some kind of historical discussion, perhaps relating it to educational standards - I've heard that Christians in the US decided to forgo the task of educating ministers in order to attract more priests, leading to a de-intellectualisation of Christianity. Perhaps this has some bearing on the political situation?? It's been emotional (talk) 02:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Having checked a few sources, I should just admit that any claim about low educational standards of ministers in the US at the moment is definitely false, but what I read (only in a book review at Amazon) concerned the historical development of American Christianity. Feel free to enlighten me, anyone, but I might do some reading then ask it as my own question. Sorry if I misled anyone. It's been emotional (talk) 07:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

---

quibbling over whether this is a valid question stays above this line; potential answer below. thank you for respecting this dividing line.

To answer the OP's question (loosely, because it's very broad), what you are seeing is two different loci of fear that are pretty much endemic in free societies:

1. The fear that other members of society (left uncontrolled) will destroy the social and moral fabric of the community. This is an intrinsically conservative fear, and you can see it in almost every conservative talking point: abortion, birth control, marijuana (creates 'loose' women and dissipated youth); taxes and 'big government' (takes resources away from tight-knit communities to benefit distant and untrustworthy strangers); evolution and other forms of intellectualism (draws youth away from traditional values); death penalty, strong laws, pro-war attitudes (active defense against any threat to the established 'good' society)
2. The fear that other members of society (left uncontrolled) will do vast harm to people outside of their tight-knit communities. This is an intrinsically liberal fear, and you can see it in almost every liberal talking point: civil rights, opposition to warfare, opposition to abuses of power (causes harm to 'outsiders' in unsavory ways); environmentalism (destruction of collective properties like water, air and forest for the benefit of a greedy few); anti-corporatism (poor treatment of workers, poor management of public resources).

In short, conservatives live in a world in which they feel they need to protect themselves and those close to them from the influences of unsavory outsiders, while liberals live in a world in which they feel the need to protect everyone from the the willful abuses of powerful factions. As far as I'm concerned they both have a point, but that may be because I don't have a lot of fear on either account. it takes an extraordinary effort to step past your fears to see the broader perspective. --Ludwigs2 16:12, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

American conservatism (at least since the Regan era) is essentially an uneasy alliance between social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and small government libertarians. Fundamentalist Christians do tend to be social conservatives, and so Fundamentalist TV and Radio broadcasts will reflect that uneasy alliance. However, Fundamentalists TV is primarily about promoting a particular brand of religious dogma... and so they will put a religious spin on everything they talk about. Even fiscal matters. Conservatives who are not Fundamentalists will not do this. Note... the Religious Left will also talk about fiscal issues in religious terms. For the extremely religious, no matter what their political viewpoint, everything is viewed through a religious lens. Blueboar (talk) 16:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

There are multiple responses. A general thesis on capitalist society holds that ideology, or structured political beliefs, governs the accumulation of power. A particularly useful conception here is Gramsci's concepts of hegemony and counter-hegemony. For Gramsci, hegemony is the structure of bourgeois beliefs that cement the structure of society as it is—a key example of this is conservative religion. Counter-hegemonies, on the other hand, mobilise a structured resistance to bourgeois rule, as lead by the proletariat. If we look at organised proletarian institutions that oppose the current social structure, such as some labour parties or revolutionary political parties, trade unions and community organisations, there is a high degree of correlation between opposition to the culture of society and opposition to the economic organisation of society. If we look at disorganised proletarian institutions, like working class culture in areas of long term working class resistance there is often a high degree of religious non-observance, or personally chosen observance in opposition to religious hierarchies, there is often a greater toleration of de facto sexual freedom. So there is a correlation between capitalism and bourgeois culture, and between anti-capitalism and proletarian culture. There's also a significant correlation between authoritarian religion and bourgeois culture, and between militant atheism atheism non-observant religion and personally decided observance and proletarian culture. We can understand that working class atheists would be beguiled by US liberalism, much like workers with conservative religions are beguiled by conservatism—this is precisely the function of hegemony. This is all well and good, but it doesn't explain why US liberalism, which is very much an element of bourgeois hegemony in the US, supports a kind of liberal episcopalian / liberal dissent / liberal atheism. Herbert Marcuse would argue that secular culture in the US provides an equivalent socially cohering function to religion, and that television replaces the church in hegemony. This could be compared to the co-aligned fights, where British Liberals and British Chartists in the 19th century both fought against British Tories for parliamentary reform—that the culture of the "left" of bourgeois politics shared much with the culture of the proletarian movement. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers that have been provided here so far. I also forgot to talk about American conservative websites like Conservapedia that is politically conservative. Yet, it talks about Christianity a lot from religiously conservative point of view. This is another source that goes with my previous previous posts above. Anyway, thanks again for you're answers. I see that progress is now being made here. Willminator (talk) 22:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

US Constitutional Convention

Which Constitution amendments have been proposed by Lawrence Lessig? 208.54.38.162 (talk) 16:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

In the time it took you to type that out, you could have Google "lawrence lessig constitutional amendment" and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button and found this article by Lessig which explains his position. If you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask on here, but do a little Googling yourself, first. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

That links to http://action.change-congress.org/page/s/amendpetition which appears to be dead. Where is the text of the amendment? Which ones at http://convention.idea.informer.com/ are Lessig's? 64.134.157.164 (talk) 19:42, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Found it!

"Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to restrict the power to limit, though not to ban, campaign expenditures of non-citizens of the United States during the last 60 days before an election."[13]

Can someone explain how that would get corporate money out of politics? 64.134.157.164 (talk) 19:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think if it would get it out. Did someone suggest it would? The reason some want it is related to the decision at Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, there is extensive discussion in the article on the concerns relating to the ruling. BTW this appears to be the original full text [14] Nil Einne (talk) 21:19, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

It is aimed at corporations and PACs, which are both non-citizens. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Why 60 days? Why not forever? 208.54.38.211 (talk) 03:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Well perhaps the first amendment ought to still mean something, irregardless of how people are assembled. In any case, this isn't the place to have a forum about stuff. Shadowjams (talk) 05:19, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

L'Hemingway

I was having a discussion with a coworker last night who is also a student of foreign language. I posited that English is a terrible language. She related what her linguistics professor once said about Hemingway. In one Hemingway's shorter works is beautiful and fulfilling, while being a quick read. When translated into French, however, the work is at least twice as thick and very boring. Does this story strike a chord with anyone? Thanks Wikipedians! Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 19:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

That's simply because translations are necessarily worse than the original —technically that doesn't have to be true, but in my experience even great translations fail to convey the original meaning with 100% fidelity. --Belchman (talk) 20:59, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure one could easily find another great work of French literature that becomes unwieldy and unimpressive when translated into English. —Akrabbim^talk 21:25, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

For more pondering than most people would ever want or need on the topic of translation, I recommend Le Ton beau de Marot by Douglas Hofstadter. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 21:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

There's an interesting article [15] that finds that translations (at least English-Portugeuse ones) are indeed longer than the source text, on average. Somewhat less related, here's an interesting article about the formatting issues with translations. We also have a very detailed translation article, though I'm not seeing much discussion about the length of text changing. Buddy431 (talk) 21:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Nothing to do with the quality of the work, but in general French is a wordier language than English. I'm not surprised that translating a work from English to French would make it considerably longer; I would expect (though cannot prove), that a work translated the other way would be considerably shorter. --Jayron32 23:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I think by "twice as thick", the original poster didn't mean the length, but meant that the short stories are difficult to struggle through because of their boring prose. I've read Hemingway in Spanish but not in French so can't express an opinion on the original question. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe not literally twice as thick but it is almost surely longer in the French translation. I've seen many programming courses advise that you leave plenty of extra space in your original English if you're expecting your program to be translated into French or Spanish, and my personal experience seems to confirm this. I don't know if it's entirely because of the nature of the language or because translations tend to be wordier as they struggle to catch the original meaning. --Belchman (talk) 11:17, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

English sentence structure tends to have more "optional" parts than the Romance languages: if you do a word-for-word translation from one of those languages (especially if you're translating instructions), you'll find that you can drop about 20% of the words and get something that feels like "natural" English. --Carnildo (talk) 01:13, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I managed to read the Silmarillion in French translation in the summer between high school and college. (I bough that and Dune in German in Switzerland on my senior trip.) The effect was entirely different, much more aetherial, less earthy. Dwarves are not at all the same when you call them nains. Especially since that sounds like "nah" (meaning the opposite of yeah) in English. I have found many French and Russian novels ruined (by which I mean unreadble past 20 pages) by stilted or affected translation. I was unable to read Hugo's '93 (Quatrevingt-treize) until I got the edition with Ayn Rand's introduction. Not having read the French I can't speak for the fidelity, but that translation was a transparent delight. There was no sense of it being forced or false. Back to the Silmarillion, that book is generally considered difficult in English. I think a native French speaker might actually have found the French less difficult than the English for a native speaker, given that Tolkien's archaicisms just come accross as the normal French conventions in literature like the use of the passé simple. μηδείς (talk) 02:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I think I read about this in Le Ton beau de Marot, but the English translation of La Disparition is in some ways more impressive than the original. Pfly (talk) 03:32, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" is significantly longer (and more difficult to read) in English than in French. Mostly this is because concepts that just make sense to French readers need to be explained to English readers. This is typical of any translation: sophisticated works that use the full power of a given language will run into troubles in different languages where the linguistic powers are different. As I understand it, English is a particularly good technical language (the syntax in English, like German, is primed for constructing fine details in noun phrases), while romance languages like French are better at conveying nuances of emotion. Other languages have their own strengths and weaknesses: Chinese, for instance, is a lousy language for expressing conditionality or time (it has a weak tense system that relies on the context of the discussion), but is one of the more efficient languages in terms of conventional conversation. If you're dealing with art-literature specifically, any language except the original is terrible: art-literature relies on so much more than just the words and grammar of the language that translating it is major problem. --Ludwigs2 03:37, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The primary issue is having someone who (a) has superior command of both languages to understand and communicate all the nuances and (b) has the creative talent to be an author in either language. There are very few who meet that criteria in any pairing of languages. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 04:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

In general I observe that many foreign translations are wordier or just plain longer than the English. However, I think it depends on the work and how the translation has been done. I have a (rather old) translation of Dante's Inferno which has the original Italian on the left and the English translation on the right. The translator has retained (for the most part) the meter of the original and therefore both languages have the same length. I have also read an English translation of Faiza Guene's Kiffe Kiffe Demain in which the translator has translated some of the French verlan (street slang) into similar English street slang terms; the English translation also has slightly fewer pages according to Amazon, though I don't know if that is due to there being fewer words or just the translator introduction. Astronaut (talk) 12:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Funny, I read Being and Nothingness in English, and Huis clos in French, and thought both works by Sartre were in the original. μηδείς (talk) 07:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

October 10

Was Hitler insane?

Was Adolf Hitler really insane? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 01:55, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

This might serve as a starting point for a discussion relevant to the posed question. Bus stop (talk) 02:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

He committed suicide soon after getting married. Sounds perfectly sane to me. :-) StuRat (talk) 02:22, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Please see megalomania. Many national leaders "suffer" from this. 208.54.38.211 (talk) 03:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

If you mean clinical insanity there is no evidence of that. Hitler was (by all accounts) mentally competent and capable of functioning effectively within conventional social contexts. Hitler was, arguably, deluded, in that he held beliefs which would not have held up to empirical scrutiny, but in that regard is not necessarily different than any other person in the world. In fact - though it is a social convention to cast people we dislike as insane - there is no substantive evidence that Hitler was psychologically or emotionally abnormal in any significant way.

Sorry. --Ludwigs2 03:20, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Since when are clinical sociopaths incompetent? Why do you believe a mass murderer was "capable of functioning effectively"? 69.171.160.57 (talk) 17:58, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Sociopathy as a clinical diagnosis is very difficult to establish. It's an easy word to toss around colloquially, of course - anyone who behaves in ways we despise must necessarily be a sociopath - but that's not particularly meaningful. One does not have to be a sociopath to commit mass murder (and in fact, most mass murders are rage killings, which are unrelated to sociopathy). --Ludwigs2 16:25, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps sociopathy, mass murder and genocide would be helpful here. In many cases, it is easy to establish. What is colloquial to you may be common knowledge to most people. Dualus (talk) 17:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The quality of Hypocrisy is a survival technique used by many. The failure to use it or the objection of its use may be considered insane, especially by those who rely upon hypocrisy for survival. According to all accounts it appears that Hitler was not a hypocrite (possibly with rare exception) since he reiterated in private what he said in public and vice versa. --DeeperQA (talk) 04:23, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Germans I know tend to describe Hitler as "crazy" and that he brought "disaster" upon Germany. That's a way of scapegoating Hitler. If he was crazy, then he had a large equally-crazy following. He was not insane, he was merely evil. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:54, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know, being responsible for the deaths of so many people without it seeming to bother him would suggest sociopathic behavior, but I am not a psychiatrist. Googlemeister (talk) 13:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The combination of ideology and distance has let many a world leader sleep peacefully despite oceans of blood on their hands. Ideology justifies the most horrific of crimes. Distance allows one to disassociate with the realities of such bloodshed. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:08, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Has there been a study looking into whether people with sociopathic tendencies might self select for ideological world leaders? Googlemeister (talk) 15:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

This kind of questions are a consequence of reading history though the outdated Great Man theory. The Holocaust and the military expantionism of Germany are the result of several social, political and economic causes, not just the will of a single man. Hitler, as any other leader in the world, does not act "on his own", but as the head of a number of factions that rquired the emergence of a leader like him.

Have in mind that I'm not defending Hitler, I'm defending the correct understanding of history. This perspective applies to any national leader or historical event. To think that WWII and the Holocaust took place because Hitler was crazy (which also means that if he wasn't then none of it would have happened), is just a gross oversimplification of a highly complex scenario. Cambalachero (talk) 16:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Even the most decidedly "big factors" historian recognizes that individuals do matter, though, when they get into positions of great influence because of said big factors. A world without Hitler probably would have played out very differently than a world with him. It doesn't mean Hitler the individual was everything — he couldn't have gotten into the place he was without those "big factors" — but to underestimate the importance of powerful individuals is just as silly as thinking that history is composed of nothing but powerful individuals. Most practicing historians try to take a fairly balanced approach to these sorts of things. Sometimes individuals matter; sometimes they don't. I think Hitler is among the few who truly mattered. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:48, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hitler's physician Theodor Morell thought Hitler had syphilis, a disease that in its late stages can cause mental problems. However, proof seems to be lacking, and some people have questioned Morell's competence. Cardamon (talk) 21:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Read this article by Michael Ignatieff recently, which is relevant:

Killing all Jews is not crazy: It is a plan that will make you master of all you survey.... There is method in apparent madness. The world is not divided between a sane world of deliberative politics and an insane world of apocalyptic violence. It is all politics, all the way down. To call a terrorist attack “senseless” is merely to admit that you have not understood its purpose.

--130.216.69.121 (talk) 21:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Questions revealing attributes of Adolph Hitler

Is there a comprehensive list of attribute questions, such as Was Hitler insane? with single word or short phrase answers? --DeeperQA (talk) 05:44, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine there could be. What do you count as comprehensive? Here's a start:

Was Hitler right-handed? Yes.

Did Hitler have a silly moustache? Yes.

Did Hitler like Wagner? Yes.

Did Hitler like dogs? Yes.

Did Hitler like Jews? No.

Did Hitler like mustard gas? No.

Did Hitler like World War I? No.

The humor in such a list draws from its silliness as a concept. You can type "Was Hitler" or "Did Hitler" into Google and see what other people have often asked when it "auto-suggests" based on popular searches (Was Hitler Jewish? Was Hitler gay? Was Hitler a vegetarian? Did Hitler have one testicle?), but that's about it. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

A "comprehensive list" is more likely to result in attributes that along with the silly stuff includes one or more attributes which can be compared to others. For instance: Was Jesus a Hypocrite? No. How about Hitler? uh.. guess not. His private statements, beliefs and feelings, as far as we know, where not different than those which he made public. --DeeperQA (talk) 19:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

What are you saying? That Hitler Has Only Got One Ball? Or are we talking about Hitler's possible monorchism. ^Avic_ennasis @ 17:32, 12 Tishrei 5772 / 17:32, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hitler supposedly was a vegetarian, which some have used to ridicule vegetarianism. However, he was a vegetarian because it was easier on his system. So he at least made one good choice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:57, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Reference, please (for the claim that he was vegetarian because it was easier on his system)? And discrediting vegetarianism based on Hitler is like saying that toilets are evil because Hitler used one. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 15:16, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:WHAAOE See Adolf Hitler's vegetarianism. ^Avic_ennasis @ 17:36, 12 Tishrei 5772 / 17:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

We generally write things in sentences on Wikipedia. So if Hitler does not include evidence of delusions about his leadership skill and eugenics, sociopathy, and criminal murder, then please add them. They are not difficult to find in reliable secondary sources. 69.171.160.57 (talk) 15:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

If we don't already have one (there wasn't the last time I checked), an article on Hitler's mental health and/or psychology would make for fascinating reading. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:12, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before that article gets made. We seem to have endless curiousity about Mr. Hitler; from his political and religious views, his directives, to his sexuality and celebration of his 50th birthday - not to mention his possible monorchism or his personal standard. We follow him all the way to his death and the concerns of his Last will and testament. We even look for people based on their connection to Hitler; of course there is Adolf Hitler's father and Adolf Hitler's mother, but we also are concerned about Adolf Hitler's driver and even Adolf Hitler's dog. ^Avic_ennasis @ 17:55, 12 Tishrei 5772 / 17:55, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Were he living nowadays, he would probably have frequent appearances on the cover of People. "This year's 50 most fascinating despots." And stuff like, "Grünen Riesen - The official canned vegetables of the Nazi Party." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:48, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

You might read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich written by the German, William L. Shirer. According to that book Hitler required daily injection of Amphetamine.μηδείς (talk) 07:42, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Shirer was American surely, like so many natives of Chicago? DuncanHill (talk) 20:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. The fact that Shirer is a Sioux Indian name should have given away his American ethnic background. μηδείς (talk) 21:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

You called him a German. He wasn't. He was born in (that is to say, a native of) Chicago. He was brought up in America and was an American citizen all his life. By what stretch of the imagination did you get from those facts to calling him a German? DuncanHill (talk) 21:09, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I did read it. Great book, and unwieldy (over a thousand pages). Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 14:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Shirer's work was certainly a tome in its day; it is now dated and it does have some errors in it; I would highly recommend Kershaw, Ian (2008), Hitler: A Biography, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0-393-06757-2 or the original two part work of the above bio.: Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris, ISBN 0393046710 and Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis, ISBN 0393322521. The nice thing about the original two volume work of Kershaw's is the fact the books have detailed footnote sections for the chapters which is missing in the later one volume work. Kershaw gives the most current detailed bio on Hitler and is objectively written. Kierzek (talk) 15:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Picasso/La Pasionaria

Did Picasso ever do any pictures of Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria)? --superioridad ^(discusión) 03:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I've seen many paintings by Picasso, but a painting by him of la Pasionaria doesn't ring any bells with me. Also, I've googled for a while and didn't find a picture of her by Picasso. The odds are he didn't, but I haven't found anything that clearly proves he did not. --Belchman (talk) 22:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Regarding putting Native Americans into a fictional work?

So I would like to write a fiction book about a boy who accidentally tampers with an ancient Native American burial ground, causing him to summon a spirit who casts him a spell to remain 10 years old for the next 90 years.

Someone suggested that "you would tick off the Native Americans like you have never seen!"

So how about if I put down the name of a tribe that never existed ("Yuthoda" tribe) or a tribe that no longer exists (Yahi tribe)? I understand that the Comanche tribe could get ticked at involving them in a fictional work, but will I be safe if I involve a tribe that no longer is, or has never been, around?

Also, if any author is to involve a real-world Indian tribe in any fiction book, how can they go about it so as not to grab their ire? --70.179.174.63 (talk) 04:04, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Try researching actual Native American beliefs, and representing them accurately and not doing the Scooby Doo version? This would go a long way. Heiro 04:08, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

This is probably a good idea regardless. Even if you do go the route of making up a fictional "extinct tribe", it would probably still be a good idea to make it as close as possible to a local tribe. For believability reasons if nothing else.

I'm not sure if it completely addresses 70.179's concerns though. I doubt many actual tribes went around cursing people to stay ten years old for ninety years.

You might just have to live with the fact that if you mention an ethnicity, you're going to piss some people off. Besides, you should be so lucky! Controversy never fails to sell books. APL (talk) 04:25, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

If you're going to make up a tribe why not make up a whole people/civilization, or borrow one, say Atlantians, or the "Welsh Indians" of Madoc. Pfly (talk) 04:54, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It'd be a bit of a stretch to have an Atlantian burial ground in North America. In fact, it'd be surprising to have an Atlantian burial ground above sea level! APL (talk) 14:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion the issue here is triteness more than anything. Obviously if you mention a real existing tribe, you will come across as at best ignorant and at worst a bigot. The real problem is that the "Indian Burial Ground" is about as tired a trope as you can get. Take a look at this. When this trope is used today it is almost always used in a tongue in cheek manner. It seems that this curse is just a device to allow the rest of the story to happen, so it could easily be changed without changing the rest of the story much. If I were you I'd come up with another way for the person to be stuck at 10 years old, something readers haven't seen hundreds of times. --Daniel 15:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

How about radiation? I think that has been used slightly less than burial ground curses. -- kainaw™ 16:15, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe mischievous aliens, that hasn't been done much either. Heiro 16:28, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

You could take a leaf out of Groundhog Day's book, conclude that there's no emotionally satisfying explanation you can use, so turn it into magical realism by not giving an explanation. Notice also that Big doesn't dwell on what actually happened and how. I think people overestimate how much set-up they need for these things, when you often get a better result by throwing the first chapter away. If you use an Indian Burial Ground, or Radiation, or Aliens, or Magical Elves, or whatever, you will generally write something viewed as pulp/B-movie stuff. You want to write a story about a boy stuck at 10 for 90 years, and you don't actually care how it happens, but any explanation will stick your story in an arbitrary genre. So don't explain it, or leave it vague.

There's no point writing an explanation if it doesn't contribute to the story you want to tell. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 21:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

There are plenty of places in Kentucky and Tenesssee which have indian mounds which cannot be strictly identified with modern indian tribes. See the map at http://starling.rinet.ru/maps/maps16.php?lan=en which shows an empty white spot for that area, see also http://www.freelang.net/families/maps/early-indian-languages.jpg and do a google map search to find "indian mound kentucky" and "indian mound tennessee" as places where modernly unknown tribes could have existed. Let me know if you want more help on the issue.μηδείς (talk)

Not just Kentucky and Tennessee — see the Ratcliffe Mound and Roberts Mound in Ohio, both of which (due to the lack of excavation and their unusual locations) haven't been identified as belonging to any specific mound building culture. Nyttend (talk) 04:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be not only due to a lack of excavation but also due to the fact that the natives simply died off sometime afte Columbus and before that bastard Andrew Jackson. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be relevant comparative evidence. My guess, based on thier advance culture, is that they were Muskogean Mississippians. But no proof.μηδείς (talk) 04:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

(aside on this point) It's also the case that many of these mounds were built long long before Columbus and their builders and purpose were largely forgotten by the time historical documentation arrived. In many cases the people who had built the mounds had long been displaced by other peoples. Pfly (talk) 05:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

As I understand, many Indian mounds were not for burial purposes. We do have List of burial mounds in the United States. Still, I agree with others above that unless the cause of the spell in the story is important to the story, it is probably better to leave the specifics vague. Pfly (talk) 05:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The point regarding the "burial mounds" is not whether they were actually burial mounds, but that they exist at all and are not incontrovertibly linked with known cultures. That seems helpful to the OP to me. μηδείς (talk) 05:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

True enough. And I suppose "spirits" may be summoned up from any old which where... Pfly (talk) 06:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Barthélémy Lauvergne

Who was Barthélémy Lauvergne and when was he in Hawaii?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

No article on him as of yet, but see this image file [16]. Heiro 05:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

At last, a question of yours I can answer! Barthélémy Lauvergne was a painter, printmaker and lithographer, born in Toulon in 1805 (the precise date is disputed). He embarked for Australia in 1826 on the French exploration ship Astrolabe, serving as secretary to its captain Jules Dumont d'Urville. He visited various points on the Australian coast on that ship and on HMS Favourite, then in 1836 sailed for Hawaii on the corvette La Bonite, captained by Auguste-Nicolas Vaillant. Returning to France he lived in Paris and then Toulon, dying in Toulon in either 1871 or 1875. My sources ([17] [18] [19]) give more details. --Antiquary (talk) 18:28, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Republican baby boom in Northern Ireland?

Why don't the Catholics/Republicans start a massive natural reproduction campaign in Northern Ireland to achieve a Catholic majority and win an eventual reunification referendum? Catholics are currently 40% of the population and about half of those support a united Ireland, so that could be achieved in just a few generations. This strategy was successfully used by Albanians in Kosovo and is currently increasing the percentage of Haredim in Israel dramatically. --Belchman (talk) 11:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, that is sort happening by itself anyway. I think there is a silent understanding in UK politics that this is the longterm development, and that the status of N. Ireland will be renegotiated at some point. --Soman (talk) 11:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Why? Because it's rather expensive and a life-changing event to have a child. And unless you can get a large number of other people to do it simultaneously, it would be a colossal waste of time and effort. I suspect that most Catholics in Northern Ireland are not sufficiently bothered about independence to take such a drastic step, and as you correctly recognise not all Catholics support unification (I wonder, with Ireland's recent financial strife, if it is becoming less popular). By comparison, killing most of the Protestants would also be a way to achieve demographic goals, but few people are currently attempting this either. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:09, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

And what would stop Protestants from carrying out their own baby boom to counterbalance that of the Republicans? It's not as if Protestants/loyalists/Unionists lack reproductive organs - On the contrary!--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:13, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Knowing them, I'm afraid that's exactly what they would do :-) --Belchman (talk) 12:51, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

There is another caveat: people emigrate too. And if the Catholic population in NI is economically weaker, they will emigrate more. Quest09 (talk) 14:51, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Soman is probably right: "Statisticians predict both communities will achieve close to parity in size... Some foresee an eventual Catholic majority (albeit slight). However, as of 2005 most statisticians predict that Protestants will continue to slightly outnumber Catholics in Northern Ireland as a whole for some time to come." This is from our Demography and politics of Northern Ireland article. This blog (which may not be unbiased), presents a mass of statistics and concludes "In simplistic terms, there are more Catholic mothers each year, and each of them will have more children than their Protestant sisters. In the long-term this will ensure that the Catholic proportion of births continues to increase, and the Protestant proportion to decline." Make of that what you will. This lengthy thesis supports the parity scenario. Alansplodge (talk) 17:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

There isn't much difference between the communities in their views on birth control and having children so your 'plan' wouldn't work on that basis. The main difference during the troubles was that the unionists tended to emigrate more because of their British identity. There's some indication that difference may be much reduced now but the main thing that would stabilize the situation long term would be for them all to take on a Northern Ireland identity rather than Irish and British. If that doesn't happen then yes it is entirely possible that at some stage there would be an abrupt departure of a large part of the unionist population like there was in the south which I consider was a big loss to Ireland never mind the loss of their heritage for the people involved. Dmcq (talk) 22:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It is unlikely to happen. See Demographic-economic paradox, aka the "Paradox of prosperity" (or one of them). On the balance, people who are more prosperous have less children, and this tends to hold across religion, politics, and anything else. Small, isolated populations are sometimes able to increase fertility for a generation or two, and there are isolated examples of individual families having large numbers of children within prosperous societies (see Jim Bob Duggar), but such occurances don't really have a great effect on the overall fertility of large populations. In a modern society, the socio-economic pressures to have small families will overcome politics. You'd have to convince all of the several hundred thousand N. Irish catholics that having large families for several generations is the way to go; and hope that in all that time politics and economics and society doesn't change dramatically to make the effort moot. Most of those people are just busy living their own lives, and probably aren't that interested in having lots of children just to further the political goals of some faction or another. Some will, but probably not enough to have enough of an effect to matter. --Jayron32 12:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this the key to understanding the differences in demographic growth. The differences in birth rates of Catholics and Protestants in N. Ireland lie in economic disparities. But do you think socio-economic cleavages between Protestants and Catholics will disappear in the near future? --Soman (talk) 07:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Reading this thread makes me want to go and watch Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Whether people go to university in Britain makes more difference now. The economic differences are small and never were very large, it was more that unionist workers considered themselves middle class. Dmcq (talk) 13:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If non-class stratification (race, gender, ethnicity, religiousity) works in NI the way it works in most other European culture capitalist societies, then I'd suggest that even where unionist and republican workers shared other similar characteristics (length of training, industry, blue/white collar), that the myriad of ways in which one job can suck, and another cannot, probably means that whomever wasn't the same as the local ruling class got shit jobs, shit pay, and a brutal work discipline. These "factory floor" issues are just as economic as any other. And within the working class in general, such small levels of pay and quality of life disparity (when compared to the income, of for example, senior management or an owner) can amplify or cause real divisions. Taylor's payment system, and Ford's payment by "skill" system rely upon the massive cleavages in class solidarity that small pay and condition differences can make. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Incidence of rape among homosexuals

Has there ever been any studies into the rates/percentages of rape occurring amongst homosexuals living in homosexual communities? Specifically gays raping gays versus lesbians raping lesbians. Keep in mind this should not include prison rape which is usually perpetrated by heterosexuals. 198.151.130.133 (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

If someone has sex with men, for me, he's at least bisexual, even if he do not identify as such. Quest09 (talk) 15:23, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

See Bisexuality, Homosexuality, Prison rape in the United States, Prison sexuality, Sexual orientation identity, Situational sexual behavior, Situational offender and Sexual orientation and then perhaps explain the relevence of your personal beliefs to the OP? Nil Einne (talk) 16:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Argh, read that all? No, I was not answering the question, but just putting a note on it. I don't want to get that deep into it. And yes, I know that there are Men who have sex with men and do not define as homosexual. But for me it's a logical impossibility. What you do is what you are, not what you believe you are. There are no heterosexual men raping men. In the same line, what would you say of a child rapist who is not a pederast? Quest09 (talk) 16:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The question is whether "homosexual" defines the action or the identity. If you can be a homosexual who doesn't have sex with men (which I suspect you can acknowledge exists quite frequently), then "homosexual" doesn't define the activity but the identity. You can similarly imagine a male who has sex with women regularly but who is not really "heterosexual". Similarly you can imagine people who have sex with nobody yet still fall into one of those two categories. Some descriptors are purely about the action (like pederast, or murderer, or snowboarder), some are about an identity. It is a subtle but important difference. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, someone can identify as homosexual and do not have homosexual sex. However, this person is being coherent, he is just admitting that he has homosexual desires. Homosexual rapist should also be coherent and admit they are "not really "heterosexual"." Wikiweek (talk) 20:16, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I suppose the question is, are you trying to force people into boxes that you've decided exist ahead of time, or are you trying to figure out where they fit in practice? Because human sexual practices do not break into neat categories of "homosexual," "heterosexual," and "bisexual." It's much more woolly territory. The articles discuss this in some depth. It's not a matter of political correctness so much as "actually trying to understand the spectrum of human sexuality." --Mr.98 (talk) 20:19, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems a point Wikiweek is probably missing is that some male who rape other males in prison and similar situations may have no real desire to rape or have sex with another man. They may much rather have sex (consensual or not) with a woman. But if none is available for a very long time, raping a man may be acceptable to them as a way for them to satisfy their urges. (Note this is a very simplistic analysis on purpose, rape may also be about things like power.) Similarly some men have sex with men for payment, whether in porn or as a sex worker despite having little or no sexual attraction to men. Nil Einne (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

BTW I think you chose the wrong term Q09. There are many child rapists who wouldn't be considered pederasts by the common usage of that term (e.g. someone who rapes a girl and it's also questionable of someone who rapes a 5 year old boy is a pederast as well). I think you meant paedophile Nil Einne (talk) 19:31, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

You are right on this. Both terms are different. Most people tend to confuse both terms, and use them alternatively.Wikiweek (talk) 20:12, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Nothing wide-ranging, but see:

• Sexual Coercion among Gay Men, Bisexual Men and Takatāpui Tāne in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Fenaughty et al., 2006)
• Sexual Coercion in Gay/Lesbian Relationships: Descriptives and Gender Differences (Waldner-Haugrud & Gratch, 1997) (paywall)
• Battering Victimization Among a Probability-Based Sample of Men Who Have Sex With Men (Greenwood et al., 2002)

Note that in some of those, the perpetrators actually identify as heterosexual, particularly in cases of group rape. It's also a particularly difficult subject to delimit and study, as unlike heterosexual rapes, victims of same-sex rapes outside the context of intimate relationships can not often identify the orientation of the perpetrator with much confidence. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:17, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Let me point out that rape is primarily an act of violence, not an expression of sexual attraction. Consequently, the object of a rapist's violence is not an obvious indication of his preferred sexual partner. For example, a man primarily interested in sex with other men may be capable of raping a woman as an act of violence. Likewise, a heterosexual man may be capable of raping another man as a way of violating him. Marco polo (talk) 23:33, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Which is what I just said. The OP asked for instances where orientation is clearcut. And I just pointed out that it's particularly difficult to know that in same-sex rapes (where quite a large number are done out of homophobia - simply a way to degrade a [perceived] homosexual victim).-- Obsidi♠n Soul 23:47, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that all rape is more of an expression of violence than sexual attraction. Would that hold true for date rape? How about rape among animals? 67.6.175.132 (talk) 00:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet has an article today on a woman convicted of raping another woman, http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article13763208.ab --Soman (talk) 13:42, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Time actually spent in combat

I distinctly remember reading somewhere a few years ago that conversely to the popular perception, most soldiers in the Second World War actually spent a large proportion of their active duty time waiting in foxholes, and most of the combat was usually limited to exchanging limited fire for short amounts of time, usually a few hours (compared to what video games show let's say). I believe that the said statement compared this to the past situation in Vietnam and the current one in Iraq, arguing that American soldiers in Iraq were more relied upon, and therefore more susceptible to combat fatigue as a result. Any ideas about a possible source? Raskolkhan (talk) 18:18, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

See Trench warfare. It was actually far more prevalent in the WWI and most iconic in the Battle of Verdun. In WW2 it became somewhat obsolete as Nazis circumvented it with Blitzkrieg tactics-- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:42, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Does being on the receiving end of a artillary barrage count as being in combat?
Sleigh (talk) 22:48, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I would think the difference in combat fatigue would also be because earlier wars had fronts, so that when you got leave and left the front, you could relax. In modern wars you aren't safe anywhere, so are in a sense always in combat, whether anyone is firing at you or not. StuRat (talk) 01:21, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Because world war II bombers only dropped bombs on the front lines? Googlemeister (talk) 13:22, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

My statement about foxholes was more about conveying the idea that troops actually spent most their time reading books and talking with their peers, and other related leisure activities, rather than actually fighting. In fact, the link you posted about Trench Warfare demonstrates this (however there seems to be no source): "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_warfare#World_War_I:_Life_in_the_trenches"

Found something: The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the helicopter.

http://www.vhfcn.org/stat.html

The last comparison is a bit misleading. The WWII Pacific Campaign was primarily a naval war, and the average infantryman in the South Pacific probably spent a fair bit of time in transit between islands. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:36, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Paul Hardcastle's song "Nineteen" while drawing data from probably the same sources addresses this issue. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

That and a 1 year tour in Vietnam would probably be a lot more survivable then a 1 year tour in WW2 Pacific, what with the high casualty rate storming beaches tends to incur. Googlemeister (talk) 13:26, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

How would I qoute a letter that I found in an archive?

I recently went to the archives at the Royal Geographic Society in London and found a letter that would be benficial to a wikipedia article. Ciclismo91 (talk) 18:54, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

In general, primary source research of this sort is frowned upon on Wikipedia — it is considered original research, which is forbidden. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:55, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

You could write a book about it, get it published and then persuade someone else to quote it for you ;-) Alansplodge (talk) 19:23, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It depends on what it is and how accessible (i.e. verifiable) it is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:45, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Not completely forbidden - you could still use it as a reference if it relates to the letter, a bit like Jones was in Sometown on 3 August 1892 when he wrote a letter to Smith (and ref the letter) what you cant do is interpret or assume anything from the letter like Jones was not happy and he begged Smith for money is made up and original research. So as bugs says it all depends on what you want to use the letter for. MilborneOne (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

If one were to cite an archival letter — which again I would be very cautious about, and frankly don't recommend (as a trained historian, I am pretty dubious about amateur usage of archival sources) — there is no single accepted Wikipedia citation style for this, and no pre-made templates. I would do it this way, personally, just because it is straightforward, has all of the useful information, and jibes with scholarly convention:

John Smith to John Doe (15 March 1921), National Archives of Wherever (City of Whatever, Country of Wherever), John Smith Collection (MSS 40504), Box 6, Folder 3.

Or something along those lines. What's important is the full information about who wrote it (and to whom), the date, the name of the archives, the location of the archives, the name of the collection (and its identification number, if it has one), the box, the folder. (If the folder has a name rather than a number, use the name. If it had both, use both.) --Mr.98 (talk) 22:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

But don't waste your time: such a citation could, should, and probably would be removed from a Wikipedia article. It's sometimes acceptable to cite primary sources on Wikipedia, but it's never acceptable to cite unpublished primary sources (such as a letter in an archive). Wikipedians too often confuse the roles of writing history and writing an encyclopedia article. If you're thinking of citing an archival letter on Wikipedia, you're confused about what it is we do here.

A better route is to communicate with a blog, website, or historian who might be interested in this letter. You might find that historians have long known about the letter but don't find it significant enough to specifically cite. (Happens all the time.) You might find that historians have already cited this letter. In this case, you can track down a secondary source that cites the letter and cite it instead. (Been there, done that.) You might find that historians consider the letter to be unreliable, inauthentic, or otherwise problematic. (Yes, it happens.) Determining the reliability and importance of archival material is the job of historians, not Wikipedians. —Kevin Myers 01:57, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Other historians have adequately covered the fact that this is original research from primary sources and unacceptable on Wikipedia. I'd even say that the idea that the claimed author wrote it in the claimed place on the claimed date is original research, I certainly wouldn't make this claim based on a single document. To cite archives see Mr.98's example: What the Document is (When it was created), Who holds the collection (And where), What the collection is called (And its code number), Box and Folder numbers. Remember to ask your friendly archivist about how to cite their archives, they'll have examples. Archivists are probably my favourite information professional, and I like information professionals a lot. My suggestion on using the information you believe you've discovered: write it up and get it published in a reliable source! Fifelfoo (talk) 03:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Trouble finding primary sources for the water & steam power thesis

The thesis is: "While water power formed the basis of the first Industrial Revolution, it took steam and railroading to mark the border between the first and the second Industrial Revolution."

The sources I found were considered "secondary sources" and he wants three primary sources.

With "James Watt" as a beacon for the direction to take, which of his works would back up this thesis? Thanks. --129.130.98.221 (talk) 19:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

But secondary sources are more accurate. I guess you should try to find a newspaper clippings database going back that far. Didn't the New York Times recently put all their OCRed back issues online? Goodness knows I've probably typed in at least a foot high stack of their stuff in reCaptcha. 67.6.175.132 (talk) 00:01, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

You're not going to find online newspaper clippings going back to the first industrial revolution, or James Watt... --Mr.98 (talk) 01:09, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

See scholarly histories of science and technology such as The Unbound Prometheus which is exactly on this topic. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:10, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

And then read the footnotes to find appropriate primary sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:18, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

But it would take a lot more than three primary sources to support the point. 300 perhaps. You could refer to Watt's patents or his letters, but they wouldn't show that his work was the boundary between 1st and 2nd industrial revolutions. Watt didn't even know what an industrial revolution was. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:02, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

He may have:Industrial revolution#Name history shows the term was in use in his lifetime. Rmhermen (talk) 13:11, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I actually have no idea how you'd support this point through the accumulation of primary sources, it seems to hang off a number of theoretical elements (motive force as the distinguishing characteristic, the validity of the Unbound Prometheus periodisation, the exclusion of Thompsonian class formation concerns...) primary sources look like they would be illustrative here. Actually didn't water as a motive force affect different industries to steam? So there's no continuum for primary sources in like industries for a motive force analysis. Maybe going to _economic_ histories and checking for their primary sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:58, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I assume that you need the sources for a school or college paper, and not for a Wikipedia article (unlike school, for a Wikipedia article, we prefer secondary sources). My advice (echoing that of Fifelfoo) is to go to the library and find secondary sources on the first and second industrial revolutions... and then look at the bibliography and footnotes to see which primary sources the authors used. Then try to track down those sources and see if they can support your thesis. Blueboar (talk) 13:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The trick about finding useful primary sources for this kind of thesis will be making sure they are very narrow. Because you can't do this entire argument with primary sources — it'd be quite a lot, and take mastery of the material that you don't have. What you could do is try to find examples illustrating different ways of living or thinking during this period. For this specific example (which I admit is not really my period of expertise), you might think about your three primary sources in a chronological way — one before the steam engine and railroad, one in the middle of it, one after the change had happened.

Primary sources need not come out of archives. You can find lots on the web, in the form of books or pamphlets that were published at the time.

One thing that comes to mind is to look at something like The Wealth of Nations, which is very much a "first industrial revolution" sort of document (pin factories and other economies of scale, rather than transportation or power). One could then look for something like, oh, a passage from Marx when he talks about the railroads and the differences it brought, or even a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell (many of which have to do with the industrial revolution—North and South, for example). Just ideas. These would illustrate changes in how contemporaries discussed things. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

October 11

Bells tolling canonical hours

In Naples of the sixteenth century, how many bell tolls signalled each of the 8 canonical hours, and was there an introductory flourish before the number was struck?211.28.63.151 (talk) 04:51, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Lingering (US) financial impact from the Bank Bail out

I've checked out the relevent articles and while I've learned that some banks have paid back their bail out funds, exactly what is the direct financial impact to our country from this. If we made a profit in general, would it be reasonable to talk about the (strictly financial) cost of the bailout as if it was a downside? 148.134.37.3 (talk) 16:06, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The data you do find will likely be a direct result of the political party which is sponsoring the data; those that support the party which sponsored the bailout will produce data to say it was a raging success, and those that support the party which opposed the bailout will produce data to say it was an abject failure. Don't take any greater meaning from this other than you can predict the politics of the person publishing the numbers merely by what the numbers they publish are. --Jayron32 17:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The bailout of the traditional banks is probably a wash for the government. A bigger and continuing liability to the government has been the bailout of nonbanks such as the American International Group, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, which left the government holding a large amount of questionable debt (i.e., debt that may never be repaid) and left the government with an almost exclusive responsibility for mortgage finance and a growing exposure to risky mortgage debt. Marco polo (talk) 19:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Should we even attempt to observe that there were time cost advantages to the private capital bailed out, that can never be recooped from private investors by the commonweal? Fifelfoo (talk) 11:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

What does that mean exactly? If you mean time value of money then we typically call that an interest rate and that's certainly reflected in the bailouts. And as per Marco's point....I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone call the whole endevour of the past 3 years a wash. It's not like the government's participating in the housing market as a naive investor. The U.S. government for at least 60 years had been intimately involved in the mortgage market, in fact if you consider mortgage in its legal sense this predates the railroad based land sales... but digressing the government's very much a player in this market. Shadowjams (talk) 11:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

What does it mean? No lender was willing to lend at any interest rate to failed banks—the government stepping in and acting as a lender of last resort is a transparent example of corporate welfare, of state capitalism, on a massive scale. You observe that this has always been the case with the market in land, which is kind of my point. Asking if private capital has adequately recompensed the commonweal is a ridiculous thing to ask, since the primary function of government in the settler societies has been to alienate common land (unequal treaties, genocide, displacement, side effects of disease, warfare, your pick), and then to gift it to private capital. No interest rate can represent the externality of the invidious displacement of traditional owners, nor could an interest rate in 1850 ever represent the expected benefits of improvement to a private landowner. Seeking to redress a policy decision which lies at the heart of the way settler society capitalism with a market mechanism is trying to avoid the central point: that the government, supposedly acting in the common interest, has a marked propensity to give social property to the rich. One can be in favour of it, or oppose it; but, attempting to avoid the matter by thinking that banks can ever "pay back" what amounts to free money (the difference between the market interest rate of infinity versus any finite interest rate) is ridiculous. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:33, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

human generation length

How long is the average human generation and how much does it differ in various locations around the world, from State to State, race to race, occupation to occupation, income to income, family size to family size? --DeeperQA (talk) 16:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

A "generation" is not a unit of measurement. Perhaps you want to know what average age that women have their first birth, which can be seen as a number of years between mothers and children on average. -- kainaw™ 16:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Googling "Mother's age at first birth": here returns promissing results, here is a good breakdown by U.S. State as one link I got from there. Some "generations" are defined by a shared culture, in the U.S. at least there are groups known as the Silent Generation (born roughly 1925-1945), the Baby boomers (born roughly 1946-1964), Generation X (born roughly 1965-1980 or so), Generation Y (born roughly 1981-late 1990s), Generation Z (born late 1990s - today). These definitions are very fuzzy around the edges (i.e. there may not be a significant cultural difference between someone born in 1945 or someone born in 1946, despite being nominally from different defined generations); and these cultural definitions seem to run VERY roughly about 15-18 years. But don't look for these ill-defined, fuzzy groups to be useful to extract a lot of meaning as far as the "average length of a generation"; these are mainly used by historians to define certain historical "eras" and cultures, rather than to define fertility data. --Jayron32 17:12, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Generation length is not a statistic usually collected by demographers. Average age of mothers at birth may be collected, but it doesn't directly measure the duration of generations, since it may not be the same as the average age of fathers at birth. These statistics are generally not collected for all of the variables that you mention. In most historical societies, the average age of fathers has been higher than that of mothers. An average of these two numbers (weighted slightly according to the sex ratio) would yield the average duration of generations. That number has varied historically depending on economic and cultural factors. For example, in societies in which there is a financial hurdle to marriage (e.g., a requirement that a man had to have his own house and be able to support a family before marrying), the average duration of generations tends to be longer. In much of the world today, the duration of generations is longer than it was before the mid-20th century because of parents' desire to assure a high standard of living for their offspring, which may involve saving for a home purchase, saving for a wedding, paying professional dues before achieving an income that would support a family, and so on. Also, as women have gained better access to education, they tend to postpone childbearing until they have completed their education and perhaps embarked on a career. See Demographic transition. Marco polo (talk) 20:05, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

We do actually have an article that is relevant to some of the OP's questions, see Generation#Familial_generation, which states that Some define a familial generation as the average time between a mother's first offspring and her daughter's first offspring. (unsourced), and a little further down in the section:

In developed nations the average familial generation length is in the high 20s and has even reached 30 years in some nations.(Ref: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Social Policy Division SF2.3: Mean age of mothers at first childbirth) As of 2008, the average generation length in the United States was 25 years, up 3.6 years since 1970 (Ref: Mathews TJ, Hamilton BE. Delayed childbearing: More women are having their first child later in life. NCHS data brief, no 21. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009). Germany saw the largest increase in generation length over that time period, from 24 years in 1970 to 30 years in 2008. Conversely, generation length has changed little and remains in the low 20s in less developed nations. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

And "real" generations get all confusing. While the "X", "Y" and "Millenials" are based on year, there is also the generations within families, and they don't all line up very well. For example, my grandparents were born the same decade as my wife's parents, but because her mom was so old when my wife was born, she is in my generation (X), even though she was born to the same generation as my parents (boomers). Mingmingla (talk) 03:15, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The question as posed focusses on generation in the present and recent past, and I think the responses are downplaying the significance or the accuracy of such numbers. (The number do vary, so extreme accuracy is not to be expected.) But I think over the long term—involving tens of thousands of years—generation is an important unit of time, as it would seem to relate to the possibility for evolutionary change in human beings. Bus stop (talk) 03:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

A simple backwards calculation from the usage of most contemporary authors provides an age of 20 years per generation. Most native speakers of English I have encountered (Will Durant) will testify to the same span. I personally have never read an author such as Jeremy Wade who means to indicate more than 25 years at most for a generation. The fuzziness of the concept should be evident, but its ordinal relation to 20 years should be indubitable. μηδείς (talk) 04:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

There's not much magical about a fixed 20-year unit for a generation. "Age of mother at first childbirth" seems like a rather useful nugget of socio-demographic data, but there's nothing particularly magical about the "20-year generation" excepting as a loose historical definition of eras, and even then it isn't restricted to 20-year windows on the dot; but a loose definition of people likely to share common values and history based on when they were born. It's a useful concept, but not extended too far. When attempting to gather hard data on the "length of a generation", the OP seems to be asking on the numerical timeperiod between someone's birth and someone's having children of their own; and how this varies over time, space, and economics. In that case, the relevent data is "mother's age at childbirth" or "parent's age at childbirth" or other similar data. The historical "generation" eras (Boomers, Gen-X, etc.) are useful for entirely different purposes. --Jayron32 04:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, if he wants hard data let him say so. But even by the nominal "data" of so-called generations like "X" we seem to be looking at 20-year periods. For God's sake, do let the man speak up. μηδείς (talk) 04:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

20 to 25 years is a pretty good guesstimate. Many things can affect the specifics. As Jayron notes, the conventional wisdom "generations" are more like short-term "eras". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Iran murder plot 2011 on the Saudi ambassador, why no article?

I read about the Iran murder plot on the Saudi ambassador, why is there no article on this?, there ought be lots of stuff to write about. sourceElectron9 (talk) 20:02, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a very very very current event. Wikipedia is not a news outlet for late-breaking news. Perhaps you want WikiNews. -- kainaw™ 20:04, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

You could write the article yourself. 24.38.31.81 (talk) 20:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

There is some mention here Adel al-Jubeir#2011 Assassination Plan. From the small amount I've seen, I would suggesting splitting it into a seperate article is premature. Nil Einne (talk) 21:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

This will affect the international relations, even in the long term. So at least the "Iran – United States relations" article ought to have a link. The complete vaccum seems weird. Electron9 (talk) 21:51, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually there is already 2 articles Iranian assassination plot and Adel Al-Jubeir assassination plot. The first article has existed since 18:41, 11 October 2011‎ (UTC) i.e. before your first post while the second since 21:29, 11 October 2011‎ (UTC) i.e. before your second post. I'm not sure why you believe there's a vacuum. Nil Einne (talk) 22:55, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

They lack proper linking then, even google failed to find the article.Electron9 (talk) 23:28, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

That's a common problem and part of the reason we often get multiple articles, you can't expect articles to be perfect for something which only happened a few hours ago. The wikipedia search is definitely slow at updating and should not be used for searching something created so recently but from my experience Google updates quite fast (it definitely found both articles when I searched about the time of my second reply, I did not do so earlier as I presumed it had already been done). It doesn't mean there's a vacuum. Nil Einne (talk) 23:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I almost created the article myself and was similarly surprised when it wasn't created when I went to look for it. That said, I also was the first to note on wiki (I think) the two duplicate articles and the OP of the first one merged them soon after. While the wiki process has its issues, it also tends to fix things pretty quickly. As far as the current name/scope of the article, that's extremely hard to get right early on. I think the most important thing for a wiki to do is focus all efforts onto one article, so the debates and disagreements can happen early and often, as opposed to being distributed across a dozen articles or subjects that people can't find til weeks later... and I think in this case that has been expertly accomplished. The name of the article may change, but at least everyone's on the same [literal] page. Shadowjams (talk) 07:06, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Presuming a Google or other internet search doesn't work (and just to be clear, when I say that I mean searching for obvious terms like 'iranian assassination plot' in this case with 'site:en.wikipedia.org' not a general search and hoping it comes up in the first few results), a quick way to look for an article is probably to go to an existing article and see what links here. Most article creators do at least add wikilinks in their articles to other articles. I believe, my tests seems to confirm, this basically gets shown as soon as a wikilink is added. Obviously you need to chose a target article without thousands of wikilinks but that is likely to be wikilinked. In the case here, Adel Al-Jubeir is an obvious choice, and it was added fairly early on [20] although admitedly a while after the article was created (although I'm not sure if Adel Al-Jubeir was identified as one of the purported targets of the plot so early on). It's probably also worth checking out Portal:Current events although this can take a while to be updated as well (in this case it did). Nil Einne (talk) 13:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

There is an essay about undue weight to recent events at Wikipedia:Recentism. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:49, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The article mentioned above is now linked off the en main page: Adel al-Jubeir assassination plot. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:51, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

October 12

Upholstery for royal sittery

This is not at all the kind of cloth I mean

I remember watching a show about very upper-end (frankly, royal) upholstery that was produced generation after generation and meant to be used to repair furniture which was centuries old. Such as chairs at Versailles and Buckingham Castle and so forth. The show may have been on PBS, but I think it was on the Ovation Channel carried by Time Warner Cable in Manhattan. Can anyone both name the type of fabric and, especially, provide a link to the provider or originasl video? μηδείς (talk) 04:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that you mean Buckingham Palace. Alansplodge (talk) 11:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Damask, probably. Here's a provider of damask for upholstery at Buckingham Palace. - Nunh-huh 11:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

LOL, Buckingham castle...yeah...palace. Damask is not the word I am looking for. These were simpler fabrics, although Damasks might be included. There was a simple "English" name like "standard" or some such that was used. The cloth was noted for running to hundreds of pounds for the square yard. It was noted for its quality and the fact that the patterns were retained over the centuries to ensure continuity. For example, one could say "I need the Louis Quinze print" to fix a tear in a three century old chair and the right cloth would be in stock. μηδείς (talk) 12:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Brocade? --TammyMoet (talk) 12:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not looking for a specific type of weaving or fabric like tweed or corduroy per se but rather standard patterns of whatever high-quality type that have been maintained for the specific purpose that they will be available to replace worn material with an exact match over time, in the same way that China patterns enjoy a long vogue, so that one can invest in expensive dinner sets without having to replace the entire set because the pattern is no longer in production if just one plate breaks.μηδείς (talk) 12:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Isn't this amenable to reverse engineering? Particularly as you're talking about a luxury market of veblen goods (in capital) or feudal ostentation ala Louis XIV's strategy of "dazzle by underlings so they don't rise up" (in pre-capitalism). Reverse engineering in the contemporary era would be fine for restoration. For the pre-modern era, you might look into the economics of Versailles, which supported craftsmen on a long term (well, three generation) basis. Prior to Versailles as a system, you'd want to think about the continuity of female or religious domestic production, as in the "oeconomy" of the home-producers. Most feudal households maintained a continuity of economic function that would make even the longest lasting capitalist corporations envious. You'd also want to look at the "lay" orders of religious in the Low Countries. A key site of economic production, leveraging their position in the trade networks of Europe. I know this doesn't go directly to your question about maintaining long production cycles of specific cloths, but it does explain that prior to the factory system, production units were much longer lived being based in households and communities. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:27, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem for any search seems to be that there is no simple distinctive key word. My hope was that someone here had seen the show which was almost certainly produced by or in conjunction with the BBC. I can imagine Ozwald Boateng or Princess Michael of Kent being interviewed. Perhaps regarding the renovation of a palace. The segment in question dealt with a shop in London which specialised in these kinds of luxurious and very standard traditional patterns (imagine, say, Burberry Tartan then take it up a few notches in quality and down a notch in gaudiness) kept in production unchanged for generations (believe since at least the 18th century) to service noble estates. The fabric proprietor showed rolls of the different cloths, specifically one in red and gold, explaining the exclusive tradition. I do believe the fabrics were produced in the Low Countries. The word standard keeps coming to mind, but whatever it was it was a common English word being used in a very specific sense and it wasn't a word I am familiar with like print or bolt from every-day seamstressing. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you contact a GLAM information professional at a museum of science and technology. If you lived in NSW or Australia, I'd suggest the Powerhouse Museum. Asking to speak to their curator of fabrics might be the best way forward. Seems to be] the context you're dealing with, but I'm not able to find the concept of a standard beyond the idea of the "pattern" in a Jacquard. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:21, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I think the Met is a great idea. μηδείς (talk) 10:38, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Roman math

How did the Ancient Roman use Roman numerals to do bookkeeping and calculate volumes, curves for arches and water flumes and other structures like the Coliseums or did they bring in Arabs or Greeks who had better tools to make such calculations? --DeeperQA (talk) 07:53, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't answer your question directly, but there are ways of doing multiplication. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 08:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Romans used the abacus to do calculations.
Sleigh (talk) 08:49, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Using various forms of abacus, which are ideally suited to Roman numerals. Note that these are not like the toy abacuses you see for children today, which are good for nothing but basic counting and tallies: these abacuses have units, 5s, 10s, 50s, etc, and can be used to calculate complicated problems very quickly, once you're trained. There was a long-running dispute between whether the Roman-numeral based abacus method, or the Arabic-numeral based algebraist method, was better, with dualing calculations. In the end, Europe went with Arabic numerals and written calculation. Note that this wasn't an obvious choice: a portable abacus can be more convenient than a sandtray for writing calculations in, and both methods can be done mentally to an extent. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 08:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Note that Arabic numerals as we known them only date from around the 9th century AD, so they wouldn't be much use for the Romans. Greek numerals may seem slightly simpler than Roman numerals, but they still don't use positional values or zero in writing large integers, meaning modern math isn't much easier. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Which Romans? Byzantium Fifelfoo (talk) 09:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe the golden age of Colosseum (sic for amphitheatres I guess) and aqueduct building was over before byzantine times. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Two excellent sources on Roman technology that I'm aware of, that are easily accessible in English online, are works by Vitruvius and Pliny the Elder. The former, an engineer by trade, is probably more likely to give you the kind of information you're looking for. Our article is a good one and includes lots [too many, perhaps] of links to external sites where you can read his books. Pliny, who famously died in the eruption at Pompeii, an event recorded by his nephew, the arguably more famous Pliny the Younger, was more interested in nature, but as an admiral and a scientist recorded a fair bit about technology in passing, from what I remember. --Dweller (talk) 09:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget Frontinus, who wrote the fascinating work De aquaeductu on the state of the aqueducts of Rome. The Latin text of the book can be read here and the English translation here. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

---

By the way, astronomers in the Roman empire used a sexagesimal (base-60) notation system, which was closer to being a place-value or positional system than any other numerical notation system in use around the Mediterranean at that time. Not sure whether engineers would have used it (and accountants definitely wouldn't have). AnonMoos (talk) 11:53, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Why did Republicans block Obama jobs bill?

Is there much truth in Obama's assertion that "...they'll have a hard time explaining why they voted no on this bill - other than the fact that I proposed it"? (source: BBC News, 12 October 2011 01:15 GMT) Astronaut (talk) 10:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Note to answerers: Please avoid having just a debate over this. Please back up any answers with references. Thanks in advance. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:49, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Look up Jim DeMint's infamous "Waterloo" policy (which oddly is not mentioned on the Jim DeMint article), and peruse this article by Mike Lofgren for the underlying basic general reasons... AnonMoos (talk) 11:59, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

This question is political showboating that should be deleted. The fact is that there is a Democratic majority in the Senate and it is they who did not pass the bill. μηδείς (talk) 12:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

As the Senate rules require a vote of at least 60 senators to allow a bill to even reach the point of discussion, and it would have required several Republican senators to reach that number of votes, it is, in fact, correct to state that the Republicans blocked the bill. --LarryMac | Talk 12:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

News articles on the topic list reasons given by Republicans - e.g. [[21] and [[22]. The primary argument given is that it is very similar to the 2009 stimulus package, which did not meet all its targets, and the Republicans argue that it was a failure. You may agree or disagree with this line of argument, but they do not appear to have any trouble giving the explanation, so I would contend that Obama's specific assertion given above is incorrect. Warofdreams talk 12:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

(EC) I'm not from the US but as I understand it while some (2 according to the source) Democratic senators may not have supported the bill, it was a moot point because they needed 60 votes to overide a filibuster and there is not a Democractic 60 vote majority (supermajority) in the Senate so it was in the power of Republicans to filibuster the bill in the Senate and they did so (or technically 2 Democracts and all 47 Republicans). Reading the source above and other US sources [23] [24] [25] seems to reaffirm my view.

Not mentioned in the source, but as I understand it, technically the Democrats in the senate could use the 'nuclear option', as they can change the rules with only a simple majority so can remove the requirement for a 60 vote majority to overide a filibuster. But so far neither party has considered it a wise move as it raises serious issues which go beyond any single bill. Is this what you're referring to? If so, solely blaming the Democractic majority for refusing to change a long standing tradition which was way beyond the jobs bill seems a bit flawed, particularly at this early stage in the process where it seems likely it'll be even more controversial. To be fair, it seems they did make minor use of what can be called the nuclear option recently, which was itself fairly controversial [26] [27] [28] even though it seems to be of limited consequence in itself and mainly about stopping a different kind of filibuster, using amendments to make a point a delay a bill briefly. But if anything, that just seems to re-affirm the view that the nuclear option is indeed a nuclear option.

Of course as I'm said I'm not from the US, so if I'm wrong I welcome sourced corrections.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The majority decides whether a cloture vote is held. The politically safe failed cloture vote was brought intentionally by the Democrat leadership, knowing that it would fail, so that Republicans could be described as "do nothing". But it is reported that had the cloture vote passed, enough Democrats who voted for cloture would have voted against the bill itself to prevent its passing. "Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., had said earlier that although he intended to vote in favor of ending the Republican filibuster, he did not intend to support the bill if it reached a final vote." [29] μηδείς (talk) 18:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Nowhere did your article report that "had the cloture vote passed, enough Democrats who voted for cloture would have voted against the bill itself to prevent its passing". Please don't cite sources to support your statements if the sources do not, in fact, support your statements. --140.180.26.155 (talk) 20:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. The source does say Jim Webb would not have supported the bill, and since the motion to end cloture was 50-49 a naïve reasoning may lead one to believe this means it would have failed. However per the BusinessWeek source as well as simple math, there was still one missing vote which was a Democratic senator. The Fox News source does not say this missing senator would have opposed the bill nor does it say any other senator who supported the cloture vote would have opposed the bill. Therefore without any evidence to the contrary we can only assume the tally would have been 50-50 if the cloture vote had passed which I believe means VP Joe Biden gets to cast the deciding vote, and there's no evidence to suggest they would have voted against. In other words, no evidence has been presented which demonstrates the bill would have failed, if the cloture has passed.

In any case, AFAIK no evidence has been presented here to suggest the reason for the Republican voting against cloture was because they believe the bill would have failed (so it was a waste of time or whatever). Or to put it a different way, as things stand, there's no evidence to suggest the senate Democrats have any hope of passing the bill even if all 53 come together, sing Kumbaya and reach complete unanimity to pass it.

In the end, all this speculation is just plain silly. You can't say the Democrats are at fault, for what may or may not have happened if the Republicans (and 2 Democrats) had did something they did not do and were never going to do anyway. Even if evidence does emerge it would have failed, the original statement "it is they who did not pass the bill" is clearly wrong, "they" never got the opportunity to "not pass" the bill because of something the Republicans and 2 Democrats did. Now if the Republicans had supported cloture, and the bill had failed, μηδείς would have a point, but that's not what happened.

Edit: Just noticed the BusinessWeek (actually AP) source which I provided earlier, but not the FoxNews source μηδείς provided, says Joe Lieberman opposed the measure although it doesn't explicitly say he would have vote against it. This does suggest it may have failed 49-51 but as I said above such speculation is silly. We can't be sure what would have happened if something else had happened which didn't happen. I also note even if the bill had come to vote and failed, the most accurate summation would not be 'they who did not pass the bill', but 'all Republicans and 4 Democrats (or 3 + 1 independent who supports them) who did not pass the bill' (or whatever the tally was). And just to be clear, I'm not arguing that stopping the bill was wrong, simply pointing out what we actually know, and what actually happened.

Nil Einne (talk) 21:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the article to which I linked did, when featured on Fox News' front page, indeed originally say that fewer Democrats would have voted in favor of the bill itself than voted for cloture. In any case, all reports about this bill have said dead on arrival and that it would not have been passed even on a Dem majority. No source indicates it had majority support for passage. μηδείς (talk) 22:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

But the Senate is a complicated place — you don't know how many votes until you actually vote on it. Which the Republicans have made clear they don't want to do. So I do think that saying the Republicans have been the ones to stall it is correct. There's no wiggling out of the fact that they've decided to filibuster it rather than put it up to the vote. Presumably enough of them are afraid it could actually get passed that they're unwilling to take the chance. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:21, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Having played the late VP candidate in our high school's mock presidential debate in 1984, I can say I understand the mechanics of the legislature. The point is not that the Republicans "blocked" the bill but that the Democrats brought it up when they knew cloture would fail, regardless of reports that the bill itself would have failed in both the Senate and the House. The proper question here is not why the Republicans "blocked" the bill, but why the Dems brought it up for a vote knowing (see Whip (politics) ) it would fail. The answer is the politically risk-free base-appeasing opportunity to blame the Republicans for not voting for a hugely unpopular bill without having to risk a backlash at its having been passed. μηδείς (talk) 23:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Just as a note I found several sources suggesting there was one more Democrat who said they would have voted against it [30], but again, no real difference to my point. I agree with Mr.98 obviously although the Republican POV (of not wanting to risk it) is understandable. From what I read the other 2 people who said they would vote against it are not facing re-election and either way, anyone can say 'I would have done X' when you know few are going to remember or care (which applies both ways); or as a trick. And most Democrats senators would be laughing at their Republican counterparts if they had let it through only for those who said they would vote against it to turn around and say 'hahahaha, you believed that crap?' and passed it. The Republicans clearly didn't want that so didn't risk it, helped by 2 superflurous Democrats, even though letting a few Democrats help really kill the bill may have been better for them. Then again [31] suggests both Obama and the Republican senate leader want gridlock because they believe it will serve either to improve Democratic numbers on congress or to stop Obama getting re-elected, so perhaps both parties got what they wanted. As I said earlier though, what happened happened, regardless of the reasons or what may have happened in other circumstances. Nil Einne (talk) 23:06, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

At the risk of provoking boring political debate, it should be pointed out that some political pundits have said that this was a bill that no one ever thought would pass. Obama proposed an unpassable jobs bill, it's said, so that he could focus his 2012 presidential campaign against a "do nothing" Congress. What we're seeing now is not a serious attempt to pass legislation, but political theater. Whether or not you agree with this assessment, some folks see it that way. 71.72.156.36 (talk) 00:17, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I noted that above except that I also noted some sources like [32] suggest both Obama and the Republican/minority leader prefer the current state of affairs as they both believe it will serve their purposes. Nil Einne (talk) 03:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

best selling living poets

I can't believe I can't find this easily online. Who are the best selling living poets, and how many books do they sell (on average) each year? Harley Spleet (talk) 10:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Whoever the best selling recording artists are. They don't sell books, they sell CDs or songs on iTunes.
Sleigh (talk) 11:03, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a good question. I'm sorry I don't know the answer, but Sleigh's answer is obviously not what you're looking for. The Nobel Academy obviously distinguishes between songwriting and poems.... Spleet has a very fair question. Shadowjams (talk) 11:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Sleigh's is the exactly correct answer. It's a bizarre sort of elitism that confers the title poet only to obscure artistes whose claim to fame is lack of popular recognition. I would go with Pink Floyd for Dark Side of the Moon or Fleetwood Mac for Rumours given that Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley and most of the Beatles are dead. There's also The Rolling Stones' and their Sympathy for the Devil of course.μηδείς (talk) 12:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If we want to stick to people who self-identify as poets, I think Bob Dylan would feature pretty highly. Warofdreams talk 12:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh come on RD, we can do better than that. It's pretty obvious what kind of writers the OP is looking for, and it's not rock stars. Dark Side of the Moon, Rumours and so on are not books, which seems to have escaped Medeis' notice, and I'm not sure Dylan self-identifies as a poet either. Even if he does, that doesn't settle the issue of whether he should be considered one for the purposes of this question. I don't know the answer, but I would have thought that, in the English-speaking world at least, people like Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage would be up there. I wouldn't count Pam Ayres as a poet either, although Wendy Cope may qualify. --Viennese Waltz 12:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes, when I said Sleigh's answer ("Whoever the best selling recording artists are. They don't sell books, they sell CDs or songs on iTunes") was exactly correct, I obviously overlooked the part about not selling books. μηδείς (talk) 19:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

So, if we're excluding Pam Ayres, we're looking for the best selling unpopular poet whose words aren't set to music, right? Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:29, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yup. And we'd better exclude Julia Donaldson, many of whose books are poems, but for the fact that they're, err, not. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:03, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

There's a useful summary of Dylan's self-identification as a poet, or not, here. Warofdreams talk 12:36, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but his words are meant to be accompanied by music. I'm a huge Dylan fan, and I think his lyrics are wonderfully poetic, but that doesn't make him a poet. Besides, the OP is looking for books, not records and CDs. Maybe Dylan's collected lyrics is a best seller, but it's not his collected poems, is it? --Viennese Waltz 12:57, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned Maya Angelou yet. (Knows little to nothing about any poetry outside of Robert Frost and Flander's Fields ---->) Dismas|^(talk) 13:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I just want to say that I don't think it should matter terribly much whether an individual "self-identifies" as a poet. We all should be competent to evaluate whether or not an individual is a poet on our own. Such an evaluation would obviously focus on the material—not on the person. I don't think the individual in question—in this case Dylan—should be understood to have any special insight into the question being pondered here concerning whether or not the material being evaluated is poetry. Bus stop (talk) 14:54, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I would have expected the "best selling,"(in terms of dollars earned), living poets to be writers of insipid but popular inspirational verse, like the late Helen Steiner Rice, of greeting card fame. Or they might write childrens' poetry, like Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein (both of whom died in the 1990's). I would not expect them to be be poets whose work is admired by critics, but aimed at the highbrow reader. The 30th edition version of Silverstein's "Where the sidewalk ends" is #263 in Amazon sales, and #2 in "children's poetry". As a matter of fact, his poetry books are 7 of the 10 best sellers in children's poetry at present at Amazon. The highest placed living writer of children's poetry is Joyce Sidman, who has published 11 books of poetry since 2000. But then I discovered that at Amazon, in the list of best selling books of poetry Tomas Tranströmer, a living "serious" poet, (whose name I can't help reading as "Thomas Transformer") is the author of 4 of the top 10 books at present, so he sounds like a good bet. If you are looking for total career sales as well, he published new works from 1954 through 2004, so there were lots of opportunities for poetry lovers to purchase his work over the years, besides his work being translated into 50 languages. Poetry in translation seem of dubious interest, in general, at least the old fashioned type which rhymed and scanned. For blank verse, a Google machine translation would probably be as much fun to read as the original in many cases. His "The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems" is presently #135 among all books at Amazon. Edison (talk) 15:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Just to throw a spanner in the works regarding poetry and music, John Betjeman was the English Poet Laureate, but also had his poems set to music (or formed part of musical works) on several occasions. Does that mean he wasn't really a poet? --TammyMoet (talk) 16:51, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Also Jewel published a book of poetry which apparently sold very well but less on its quality as poetry and more on her fame as a singer. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 17:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Speakings of spanners, most if not all of "Shakespeare"'s plays have been the basis of opera libretti, and many of his sonnets have been set as songs. Does that mean he wasn't really a playwright, or a poet? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:30, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

WOW guys. I'd have thought it would have been obvious from my question that I meant poets in the traditional sense (there's an article on wikipedia about it - poet, if you're interested). I can't work out if μηδείς is a massive troll or just wrong all the time, but no, I don't think it's elitist to say that Fleetwood Mac aren't a poet. Let alone the fact that there's four of them (even Wordsworth & Coleridge had separate names when they released Lyrical Ballads!). I guess I could have better phrased my question: How can I find a list of best-selling poetry books written by living people, but I didn't think I'd have to be so specific. Thanks to all the people who have genuinely been helpful, but I'd have expected a bit better from Wikipedia than a load of people squabbling with eachother - it's a bit like arguing with a turing test machine at points. Thanks for the Duffy / Heaney / Armitage / Angelou suggestions - that's helpful. I suspect Transtromer is so high up the list because he's just won the nobel prize for literature, and a load of English-speaking journalists have been urgently brushing up on him so they can write articles. Which sort of leads me on to my question. I know it might be sligtly too much to ask, but if anyone can find a list that answers this (modified) question, I would be very grateful.

Rephrased question: I was recently having a conversation with a friend about living poets, and whether they can make a living from book sales alone. He suggested that it was very unlikely that anyone is making a living solely from publishing books of poetry, and that poets often have other jobs (bank clerk, librarian, giving poetry workshops, etc). Is there a list anywhere that shows the bestselling poetry books from, say, 2010 (although I'll accept a partial 2011 list)? nb: I'm using the word 'poet' in a traditional sense - I don't think Betjeman becomes any less of a poet when he's set to music, but I don't reckon you can put the collected works of Lennon & Mc Cartney down on paper and call them poets - as they're foremost musicians. Not 100% sure about the exact cross-over: both Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith were successful poets before they became successful musicians - I'd accept a hypothetical book by either of them, but not collected lyrics, for the sake of this question.

Sorry for being so picky - I had no idea this would become such a protracted discussion! Harley Spleet (talk) 21:36, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

No need for an apology but if you specifically meant by book sales you could have said by book sales. Not only should you mean what you say, but you should say what you mean. (Lewis Carroll?) μηδείς (talk) 22:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The OP did specifically say book sales. It's true that they didn't anticipate that everyone would immediately say, "but book sales are not important!", but I hardly blame the OP for that. They did say what they meant; the Ref Deskers seemed to decide that what they said was wrong, in their pedantic fashion, and decided to answer the question how they wanted it answered, not the OP. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for being a voice of sanity and succinctly describing what happens all too often on the internet. Shadowjams (talk) 03:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

If he had said "How many books does the best selling poet sell each year" he would have gotten a different answer. I do believe there is something going on when the first thing to occur independently to the first two respondents is "song lyrics." Even the answers that don't address what the OP meant to say strike me as interesting. I myself have bought Plath, Yeats, Keats, Blake, Frost, and Shakespeare as well as Bloom and Paglia on poets. Unfortunately, they are all dead excpet the last who is a critic not an artist. μηδείς (talk) 23:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me? What is the difference between "How many books does the best selling poet sell each year" and what he wrote? If he'd written that, you would just have put "But the best selling poets don't sell books! They sell CDs!" and then gone off on your Pink Floyd/Fleetwood Mac riff. What is "going on" here is that you are not answering the question. --Viennese Waltz 07:28, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

This is rather getting off the point, but that is most certainly different to the question asked at the top of this section. It's same difference as between "how many bananas do the best-selling poets sell each year", and "who are the best selling living poets, and how many bananas do they sell each year?". The "and" makes it two different questions, which can have different answers. Warofdreams talk 08:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. All the original question makes clear is that the OP assumed we would understand that "best selling" was about books. That turned out to not be the case, but it wasn't a crazy assumption, and if you read the question for what it is (and not as an opportunity to be pedantic), it's clear that's what the OP was asking about. Your example is irrelevant because there is no reason to assume "best selling" and "bananas" have anything to do with each other. If you replace "poet" with "writer" or "novelist" or " essayist" then it becomes indisputable that the assumption is that "best selling" relates to books. Anyway, once again, the Ref Deskers not only have decided that pedantry is the best way to answer questions, they've managed to make the entire thread about their pedantry, rather than about the answers to the questions. I wonder if this is our local idiocy, the way that Yahoo! Answers always devolves into "no way my mum told me so lol" sorts of answers. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

That's not the way that any of the first few contributors to the thread read the question, so it's hardly indisputable! Warofdreams talk 11:52, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

This isn't the whole story, but the Amazon Best Sellers in Poetry is probably a useful resource in probing this question, at least at the moment. (Unfortunately it's based on what's best selling just this minute, so Tomas Transtromer is heavily overrepresented since he just won the Nobel Prize in Literature.) It's also telling that almost none of them are living. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Post office at Harlem, Texas

At http://lifeonthebrazosriver.com/Harlem,Texas.htm

the page says that there was a post office at Harlem, TX (address of a state prison farm) from 1888 to August 31, 1907.

Now I can't use that page as an RS. But it could be useful in helping find something that is an RS that can be used.

What RSes could be used to back up this info? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 11:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

A directory or gazetteer of the area, from that period, would be likely to list the post office, and be a reliable source demonstrating that it existed. Of course, it wouldn't show that it was notable. Warofdreams talk 12:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not trying to start an article on it or anything. I just want to see if Jester State Prison Farm ever had a post office. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:30, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

http://www.hallettsvillelibrary.org/microfilm_holdings.pdf says that the Halletsville, TX library has "Wheat, Postmasters and Post Offices of Texas 1846 – 1930" - wouldn't a library in a big Texas city have something like this too? WhisperToMe (talk) 15:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Try Clarence Wharton, Wharton's History of Fort Bend County and S. A. McMillan, comp., The Book of Fort Bend County. They're referenced from http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/acj01, but that article itself doesn't mention a post office. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 23:21, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I just found that the Wheat book is online. A search on it comes up with http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txpost/fortbend.html, which says that there was a post office in Harlem from 1888 to 1907. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 23:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Cool! Thank you very much :) WhisperToMe (talk) 02:35, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Wehrmacht veterans

Do Wehrmacht veterans recieve veterans' benefits in modern Germany? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 13:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, although those found guilty of criminal activity, including war crimes, could be denied a pension. Here is an English source on this question. Marco polo (talk) 13:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, criminals could get their pension denied, but Germany tried to persecute its own war criminals as little as possible, so not many indeed went unpaid. Wikiweek (talk) 14:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If I may disagree with Wikiweek... Denazification was a much more complicated issue than just Germany (If you recall there were two German states after the second world war, or even more correctly four Occupied Zones) refusing to persecute war criminals. Even states that had much more radical approaches often have no clear-cut positive results of their actions. See Pursuit_of_Nazi_collaborators for examples. History, especially this part, is still a very muddy business, see, for example, the impact that Günter Grass' revelations about his past had. --Abracus (talk) 16:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it was not just Germany or both German states. But the allies denazified, persecuted and prosecuted, as much as they could. Both German states had their problems. The West German government had more shortcomings as many thought before. From Adenauer's Germany and the Nazi Past by Norbert Frei:

the West German side of de-Nazification and the profound contrast to measures taken by the Allies. The latter tried to promote extensive purges, whereas 
the new West German regime showed far greater leniency, especially through the amnesty laws of 1949 and 1954, and by trying to reduce the number of suspected 
war criminals singled out for trials." Wikiweek (talk) 21:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I believe both Wikiweek and Abracus meant prosecute, not persecute. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily, "persecute" makes sense in Wikiweek's post at least. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

For all of West Germany's Denazification flaws, they pale in comparison to East Germany, where the Nazis more or less easily transitioned into being the Stasi. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

What about Austrian and Sudeten Wehrmacht members? Do/did they receive veterans' benefits in their home countries? The Mark of the Beast (talk) 23:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Right, the OP asked for Wehrmacht (German military) veterans, not for war criminals or Nazi supporters which are different topics. Remember that military service was compulsory, hence all available men of the appropriate age were drafted. They received during their military service time an allowance of - e.g. in Germany 50 Reichspfennig (0.5 Reichsmark) - a day, which was just enough to buy some tobacco. After a couple of years in service, perhaps wounded several times, they became war prisoners with very little pocket money or were forced to labor camps. This was the common fate of all men in Middle Europe, independent of the nationality. Most men spent six to ten years (1939 thru 1949) in military service and as prisoners of war (some men were released only in 1955). In the social security system of many European countries (not just Germany) this time was reckoned as public duty and gave some financial benefits in the social security. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 09:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

@Pp.paul: no, war criminals are not a different topic. It's obvious that Wehrmacht veterans got a pension. The question is if even Wehrmacht veterans who committed war crimes had a right to a pension in their capacity as Wehrmacht veterans or merely the old-age pension like everyone else? And to what degree war criminals who served in the Wehrmacht got a pension as Wehrmacht veterans. Indeed, West Germany could deny payment to war criminals, but was not forced to investigate applicants, so many got pensions, even if they committed crimes. Quest09 (talk) 14:07, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Soldier's wages, veterans' benefits or pensions are probably paid in states who have paid soldiers. Conscription in Germany (up to 1 July 2011) and other European states forced every man into the army. Hence there was no need to pay soldiers, and no need for benefits or special pensions for soldiers, just the "old-age pension like everybody else" for the recruits (draftees) and a pension for the officers (volunteers). Does this help? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 15:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it doesn't help at all. It's simply not on topic. Conscription in Germany is relevant for the period between 1956 up to 2011. There is nothing there about Wehrpflicht veterans. Quest09 (talk) 16:17, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that some state, even one with conscription, didn't have any professional soldiers. Modern armies are simply too complex to be left completely at the hand of the poorly trained conscripted soldiers. The drafts were (and still might be applied again) simply a form of completing the army. 88.11.244.183 (talk) 16:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree - conscription does not mean the summary rejection of all volunteers for not being conscripted. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 19:52, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Number related to US veterans' affairs

Working in an archive, I've come across a series of papers (produced in the early 1970s) related to different US military veterans. Most of these letters include numbers in close physical proximity to the names of the different veterans; the numbers are typically of the format letter-space-numeral-numeral-space-numeral-numeral-numeral-space-numeral-numeral-numeral; e.g. they often appear as "C 99 999 999 John Doe". Are these VA file numbers for the named individuals, or are they something else? Nyttend backup (talk) 13:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Does the article Service number (United States Armed Forces) help? --Jayron32 14:03, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, thanks; I've never heard of service numbers before. Nyttend backup (talk) 14:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Milan Kantor married Anne Murdoch

They had five children. incl Michael (married Sylvia), Julie and Eve (married Mark Wootton). What are the names of the two others? Kittybrewster ☎ 14:40, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

One of them was named Tom Kantor (1965-2001). I haven't been able to find the name of the fifth child.--Cam (talk) 15:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Apparently he was a middle brother which means that we are hunting a male. Did he have a wife or children? Kittybrewster ☎ 15:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Map of the caves Balankancha

Hello! For the Russian Wikipedia need a map\scheme Balankanche cave, but the license and copyright permission. Even better with the right to free distribution. Please help. Странник27 (talk) 15:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If you have some source data, you can request that a map be created for you at Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Map workshop. --Jayron32 18:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Cost of Canada Post to tax payers

Does Canada Post receive any funding or subsidy from the government of Canada? Does Canada Post still have to pay tax on its earnings like any other corporation?

I can't find anything on the WP article nor google searches. I can find its profits every year, but I'm not sure how much of those profits are subsidies. 142.150.237.60 (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Based on what I can deduce from sources such as this annual report, Canada Post does not receive any direct subsidies from the government of Canada, and it pays taxes on its earnings like other corporations. What I don't know is whether there are provisions in Canada's tax code that offer unique benefits to Canada Post. In a few recent years, Canada Post has had a negative tax liability. That is, it received a net tax refund in those years. However, in every recent year, Canada Post has had positive net income (or profit), after taxes. In years when Canada Post has had a net tax refund, that profit has exceeded its net tax refund, so the profit was not entirely due to the refund. Since Canada Post is a crown corporation wholly owned by the government, any profit it earns is in effect income for the Canadian government in addition to any tax payments made by Canada Post. Of course, a substantial part of any profit may be reinvested in the business. However, Canada Post apparently has no net cost to taxpayers. In fact, Canada Post appears to contribute to the government's income, thereby reducing the need for taxes. Marco polo (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the help. That answers my question perfectly.142.150.237.62 (talk) 22:56, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Extent of the Hopi / Navajo Nation Reservation in Arizona

the difference is on the right side

I have found conflicting maps of the location of the Hopi and Navajo Nation maps and would like some clarification. Some maps look like this, showing a small Hopi Exclave west of the main reservation:

But others look like this: Map without Hopi Exclave

Which is correct? --CGPGrey (talk) 16:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

That is the Hopi enclave of Moenkopi, Arizona, near Tuba City. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 17:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Income inequality in the US after 2008?

Why do all the graphs on Income inequality in the United States end before 2008? Dualus (talk) 18:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Two possiblities I can think of:

1. 2008 was the last year that the data actually has been published for
2. There is more recent data which exists, but no volunteer has updated the article and its graphics with that data.

Those are the best answers I can think of. --Jayron32 18:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I found the data for 08/09/10, here under "H-1 all races" (3rd down). I don't really know how to update or make images/graphs, but hopefully someone here will. Apparently the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, now how about that. Public awareness (talk) 19:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

But that is not even possible under a progressive president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is it? μηδείς (talk) 04:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

In the US there are three branches of government, and Donald Trump is more progressive than the president. The Senate is full of Blue Dog Democrats and won't pass anything without 60% of States where North Dakota and California are treated as equals. And the Supreme Court just recently gave foreign donors and anonymous shell corporations the right to spend whatever they want on political campaigns. The Peace Prize is normally awarded by helping to reduce the combat death rate, not total lifespan. Dualus (talk) 17:31, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

If you click on the image with the old graph in Wikipedia, it will bring you to the image information page, which will tell you who created the graph. If you contact that user on his/her user talk page, and provide them with the new data, perhaps they would be willing to create a new graphic for the article. --Jayron32 20:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, I'm trying to do it myself. I'm trying without success to install gnuplot, there's no executable....ugh. Public awareness (talk) 20:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Illustration workshop.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:33, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Israeli political prisoners

How many political prisoners does Israel have? --70.248.222.85 (talk) 22:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

This question might intersect with Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#Prisioners_numbers, or not; depending on your definition of political prisoners, perhaps. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:40, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Since nobody can agree who qualifies as a political prisoner (see the article Political prisoner) I doubt there is any universally-agreed answer. Can you be more precise as to your definition - do you mean people convicted in connection with terrorism or political violence, or people imprisoned purely for their beliefs (prisoners of conscience, insofar as that's a meaningful category), people detained for non-violent protest (albeit maybe jailed for contempt of court, trespass, property damage, etc), or some other definition (e.g. people detained without trial)? --Colapeninsula (talk) 23:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

October 13

Burma or Myanmar?

Which is correct, Burma or Myanmar? --70.248.222.85 (talk) 01:25, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Either. Both. Neither. Depends on the context. See Names of Burma. Pfly (talk) 01:31, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

There have also been huge discussions between Wikipedia editors. See Talk:Burma/Myanmar. PrimeHunter (talk) 05:06, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Having visited the country under each of these names, I can tell you (OR) that I vastly perfer Burma. DOR (HK) (talk) 09:15, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Rote learning

Has it been scientifically established that rote learning has certain advantages in developing the brain which learning by understanding does not? In many religious traditions too, rote learning is emphasized. Are there some advantages, besides just being able to repeat the information learned, something which develop as a by-product in the background without a person being aware of it while he/she is engaged in rote learning. Thanks-Shahab (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

All I can say is that rote learning has its place when addressing bare arbitrary (or conventional) facts, such as the list of names of British monarchs, American presidents, and Catholic popes. Nothing about Pope John Paul II would have told you that his successor would choose the name Benedict XVI. These brute facts serve as the material substance out of which, or, better, the circumstances from within which our conceptual analysis of the world arises. There is a comprehensible trend behind such things as the evolution in time of the British constitution. The import of the Abdication of Edward VIII makes sense only if you know both the brute fact learnt by rote and the relevant concepts and historical trends. For the importance of conceptual understanding, rather than rote memorisation of concretes, I would direct you to Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and the radical contingency of Stephen Jay Gould's punctuated equilibrium. μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Let's define "rote learning" as memorisation of factual information by repetition. Usually it's chunks of text, poems, lists, paradigms, numbers etc rather than one-off facts (as in Medeis' example of Abdication of Edward VII). Usually by repetition aloud in class.

I agree with Medeis that facts and understanding go together in historical knowledge. A teacher might get a class to chant: "In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety-Two, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue". Rhyme is a great aid to memorisation. But if that isn't backed up with the story of how he thought he was going to India and ended up elsewhere, the rhyme, recalled in later life, is of no use at all.

It seems that there is a claim going around that the memorisation of the Qur'an is particularly good for children's subsequent learning. I don't think there is much research into that yet. It would seem logical that doing a lot of rote learning in childhood makes you better at memorisation later on. But there is also the opportunity cost to consider. Is an hour memorising Qur'anic verses better spent than an hour learning physics? That probably depends on what skills and knowledge are valued in the society the child is entering.

There are bound to be positive spin-offs from so much concentrated learning effort, but we don't really know what they are, whether they are the same for everyone, or whether they are more beneficial than if the same time had been spent on learning something else, with a different method. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I would, as an historian and a teacher, just object to using history as the great example of rote learning. Knowing "the facts" (names and dates) does not make one a student of history or give one a historical understanding. It just means one can take tests on facts, or spew out facts. I'm heavily against rote memorization as a method of teaching history, because the students inevitably forget most of it anyway, and you can't do anything with the facts alone, so they slip away. If you actually work with the facts, you tend to memorize them quite quickly anyway. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:44, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

This is actually a big deal in maths teaching. On the one hand, rote learning (and blindly learning methods), by itself, doesn't let you solve real-world problems or problems outside the standard form found in your textbook, and if you don't understand the methods you cannot decide which is appropriate when, or spot when you've misremembered a step and produced a nonsense answer, and you certainly cannot synthesize a new method to solve a new problem. On the other hand, if you don't memorise any facts and methods, it takes you much longer to solve problems, even if you understand completely how to do so. I know I wasted a lot of time solving problems from first principles because I couldn't remember specific methods to solve them. And one of the big problems that many less mathematically inclined children face with maths is that they don't trust their recollection: they don't trust the answer popping into their head when someone asks them, "what's 3 times 5?", and teaching them to trust that ability and give instant answers can significantly improve their learning. Even the very mathematically capable can spend a lot longer solving a problem if they didn't learn their times tables, even with a calculator: I know being forced to memorise the square numbers up to 20² made a big difference when I started on more interesting calculus and force-balancing problems. On top of that, for most people to make use of maths in their daily lives requires them to have memorised a lot of standard mathematical facts and methods: it is no good understanding how addition and subtraction and the decimal number system work, when faced with making change, if you haven't memorised a lot of number pairs and short-cut methods: you will still be working it out 10 minutes later.

The problem comes when it becomes politically and ideologically charged: rote-learning becomes 'traditional', 'no nonsense', 'back to basics', 'empty learning', and understanding becomes 'progressive', 'hippie', 'true maths', 'all shall have prizes'. And I have sympathy with both views, because either method alone is worthless: politicians make speeches about one or the other, but children need to have both. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 14:13, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

One of the most interesting things raised above is it isn't enough to memorise information, you have to then be able to operationalise the information in context. I suspect that children who learn their tables easily and then apply them in calculations have used many more strategies than simple repetition and practice. As said, you need not just to have "3 fives: 15" come into your head, but to be able to trust it. You need to know that if you needed to, you would have a means of double-checking. "Is that right? five plus five, 10 plus five, yes, 15" or "half of 3, 1 and a half, 10 times that, yes 15" or "half-way between 10 and 20, yes, 15". People use a lot of different mental methods in arithemetic. I agree with Mr 98 about history, too. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

In my experience, there's rote learning and there's rote learning. Multiplication tables, which I agree must be known by heart if one expects to get anywhere in maths, are learned by rote but at the same time, one is systematically applying them, doing exercises with their help. The same goes for learning irregular conjugations in foreign languages, etc. - and if one doesn't get practice, the memorized stuff can be almost useless. I could give you the list of German prepositions that take the dative case if you woke me up in the middle of the night, wouldn't miss a beat. But if I try to speak German, the list in my head does not work for me, or at best, it works very clumsily. Another thing I know by rote are the prophets of the Old Testament in the order in which they are conventionally printed. Again, that information is in my head but inaccessible except if I recite the list mentally. I can't tell you whether Obadiah comes before Nahum or the other way round without starting from the beginning. That is not to say memorizing such lists couldn't have its uses. But it's one thing to learn things by rote with application and another to just memorize lists or texts.

Incidentally, Bertrand Russell, in an essay arguing against the use of Euclid as a textbook, says that there were schools in the 19th Century where the boys were taught "geometry" by making them learn Euclid by rote. That is, just the text of The Elements, without using actual rulers and compasses. It's difficult now to imagine how anyone ever thought that was a good idea. But if someone thinks teaching religious texts by rote makes good priests or theologians, well...--Rallette (talk) 15:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I have done some searching and can't find any research supporting the idea that rote learning has value in itself. Rote learning does not appear to train the mind in ways that are useful in other areas of learning. On the other hand, rote learning does have value as a way of building up an arsenal of facts or examples that may be used for some purpose other than rote learning. So, for example, memorizing multiplication tables may help a person do mathematical calculations or even use a calculator more efficiently. Memorizing the Quran may help a person learn Classical Arabic. Learning Classical Arabic in this way may make it easier for a person to learn other languages later on. However, there is no evidence that memorizing the Quran, especially if no effort is made to understand the meaning of the language, will help a person learn anything else. (Of course, one may believe that learning the Quran, even without understanding it, may have spiritual or religious value, but there is no way to test that sort of thing scientifically.) Marco polo (talk) 15:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

There are lots and lots of studies on rote learning in mathematics, in particular, because of the whole "new math" debates that has been going on for a long while. I'm not sure there is an unambiguous "winner" though at this point. For a personal anecdote, I was enrolled in one of those "conceptual" math courses that de-emphasized rote learning, when I was in high school, some time back now. The result was that I was quite good at ferreting out concepts and logical things... but I'm lousy at actually doing the calculations, and struggle quite a bit if I don't have a calculator handy to do all of the grunt work for me (I have difficulty calculating even a 15% tip in my head). That's just one anecdote, but I think in my personal case I would have been a bit better served by actually doing some repetitive, but useful, math, more so than focusing on the concepts, which were nice and fun, but neither instilled any great mathematical understanding in me, nor gave me the practical quantitative skills that would have been more useful later in life (when one does not use trigonometry on a daily basis, but would like to be able to quickly tally up numbers here and there). But this is a personal, anecdotal account. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

There are situations where there is no underlying meaning to the knowledge, it's simply right or wrong. Conjugations of verbs (as I was reminded when I butchered Spanish in my visit to Ecuador this year) are something where there's not a lot of room for interpretation and rote learning is the practical way to teach it. Another example from my vestry days, the services in the Book of Common Prayer are another piece of rote learning. The order of the alphabet can really only be taught by rote. I'm guessing most speakers of English know that song, but maybe it's just an American thing? Boxing the compass is fortunately something we've dispensed with, but I for one never eat soggy waffles. SDY (talk) 16:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Two things:

• in traditional societies, rote learning was in fact the best method of preserving complex information over generations. Prior to the printing press (which allowed text to be set in a durable material and replicated precisely), transcription of written texts had a relatively high error rate, either from mistakes (such as misspellings or word substitutions) or from changes in conventional semantics over time.
• Rote learning has a certain intrinsic value for base tasks (there's no effective way to learn, say, multiplication tables or the capitals of nations except by simple repetition). but rote learning also has some important secondary psychological aspects:
  • it teaches intellectual discipline, which is later necessary to learn more complex ideas
  • it engrains certain concepts which are foundational to higher cognition. e.g. memorizing that 1+1=2 or 2*2=4 simultaneously forces a recognition of mathematical invariance - 1+1 always equals 2 - a concept without which calculus could not possibly make sense. The same is true of rote religious training (which happens in every religion, not just Islam - consider Sunday school and rosaries), in that it implicitly teaches certain moral precepts which the faith hopes will be built upon in adult life. --Ludwigs2 17:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, although that it occurred is memorised by school children, the Abdication of Edward VIII was given as a complex historical event which could only be fully understood based on prior rote learning of the British Monarchs, and such concepts as the sacramental nature of coronation. Regarding history as an example of rote learning, my point is that certain things are simply bare facts and must be learnt as such. Whether actual repeated out-loud recitation of lists or just repeated exposure is the best way of learning these facts is an empirical matter. But you simply cannot derive the sequence Mary>Elizabeth>James from first principles. It is simply contingent fact. The same applies for things like evolutionary biology. The fact that there was a species called T. rex is simply a contingent fact that has to be memorised. It can't be derived from first principles.

As for multiplication tables, what four times six produces can be derived from first principles. One simply draws four rows of six dots each and then counts the number of dots in total. The proper method of teaching multiplication tables is to show the row and column method, to teach the trends (such as adding the digits of multiples of nine gives a sum of nine) and requiring a child, when he gives a mistaken answer, to go to the board and draw the rows of dots and count them. Repetition is necessary, but only to automatise knowledge which the student can derive by applied thought. Mere repetition without showing the child how to derive the results from first principles leads to crippling the child's conceptual faculty, in this case teaching him that mathematics is something you can't understand but just have to memorise. He will eventually agree that mathematics is something one can't understand.

There are serious advantages to memorizing the actual table instead of just knowing the first principle, though. For another math example, even if I can figure out the integral of y=2x+3 by drawing an infinite number of rectangles, it really helps to know by rote how to do the integral without having to do several minutes worth of calculations (technically you would spend infinite time doing so if you didn't apply some shorcuts). Less steps means less opportunities for error. Maybe not perfect from a "wisdom and enlightenment" education standpoint but from the standpoint of "your bridge fell down" rote learning has a place. SDY (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Once the principle of what multiplication is, the summing of units in a set number of rows and columns, has been learnt, and the child has comprehended how to figure out the result if he does not remember it by rote, then of course the process has to be practised by repetition until it becomes automatised. Automisation is the precondition of further abstraction, for which see Rand, mentioned above. But if you teach the answers to multiplication without teaching what multiplication is and how to do it if you have to, you are mentally crippling the child. μηδείς (talk) 01:43, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

If you want to get properly into this, I would strongly recommend exploring the actual published literature on pedagogy, child development, education and learning: Ayn Rand really doesn't cut it as a source for anything other than what Ayn Rand said. This is not to say that Ayn Rand is wrong in any specific thing said, but that she is not a good source for facts. I say this because I suspect that you love to understand things, and there is a lot of solid research in this area that has produced lovely, solid results and lovely, solid suggestions about good, evidence-based practice. You might want to start with things like Inside the Black Box, read about learning strategies (which you will be teaching to the children by how you teach them anything else), look at the impact of a teacher's understanding of maths, this hugely influential article on [relational understanding and instrumental understanding (read it: you'll be glad you did), and the entertaining Children's understanding of mathematics. This should give you access to a lot of related work, should you want to look further, and then you can reference someone other than Ayn Rand when you want to cite a source.

Obviously teaching rote facts and methods is not sufficient, but it is also crippling to avoid teaching any rote facts and methods: as I said, you need both. This actually has most impact on the less mathematically able, and those from social groups with a lower educational attainment, because those of us with enormous working memories and almost instinctive understanding of maths can get around a lot of problems by very quickly following inefficient methods, and children from social groups with higher educational attainment will already get drilled in basic facts, how to learn facts, and quickly recalling them when required.

Teaching understanding is very very important, and I push for it across the entire ability range, but rote learning, knowing how to learn things, having experience of learning things, having experience of recalling things, and knowing that you are capable of it? These are hugely important too, and they are most important for the children who will most struggle with the conceptual approach. Learning is not linear, it is not quite true that (as Piaget has it) we learn one principle and then progress to the next. Most of the children who will rush to understand the underlying concepts and visualisations of multiplication (and it's not really enough to see it as only one) will be the same children who have already been drilled in the rote facts, by their parents, just as the children who will rush to understand addition and subtraction will be those who have already been drilled in Number bonds, which are often introduced as a sort of counting-on without any mention made of 'adding'. And once they have encountered the underlying concepts, their recall and understanding of the memorised facts will likely improve because learning is more like a spiral, or a complicated system of connections, and these children will leap further and further ahead of their unfortunate classmates whose parents didn't gift them with a set of memorised facts before they met the underlying principles. You don't teach a child the underlying physics before they learn to walk, but anyone can run better if a well-informed coach explains the principles involved. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 15:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Ayn Rand writes about what she writes about? Oh, my. Did not know that. Interesting you also badmouth Piaget, whom I would recommend if you want to study all aspects of child learning in depth. The OP seemed to be interested in automization compared with concept formation. Rand's monograph addresses those matters directly for a lay audience from an epistemological standpoint. True, you have to look elsewhere if you want statistical studies and scholarly work that avoids making any explanatory claims.

Does rote learning include learning how to write? I have a kid in Kindergarten and the teacher works hard on getting the kids to learn to write, and write clearly. At their age this mainly involves knowing how to hold pencils/pens/etc and draw the letter (and number) shapes clearly. She combines the rote aspect with lots of other non-rote, more understanding-base stuff, but still, there's a basic muscle memory aspect to writing letters clearly. Mental understanding of how to do it can't replace lots of repetitive practice, can it? Or is there is distinction between rote learning and gaining muscle memory via repitition and memorization? Pfly (talk) 04:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, repetitive practice is vital for the mechanical physical skill of writing. Consider that it is no good explaining the physics of bicycle riding. You just have to get on the seat and do it. μηδείς (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, I didn't know about the new math thing. It sounds similar to a more recent "fad" of reform mathematics, described on the Math wars page. My still-evolving understanding is that reform mathematics tends to turn out crappy math skills, but various hybrid curricula do better. Pfly (talk) 04:25, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, also, since a lot of this thread has focused on math, I think the best overall approach would be one that is able, somehow, to take into account the different natural abilities of different kids and "leverage" then (to use a word a hate). For example I've always been terrible with numbers and rote math learning. I simply have trouble remembering raw number patterns. I can't even remember phone numbers half the time, or my own PIN numbers. So forced rote learning of multiplication tables and the like quickly got me shuffled off into remedial math levels and a dropping out as early as I could. On the other hand, some people, like my wife, are excellent at remembering number patterns, and enjoy playing with it, and do well with rote style teaching, which can lead to being able to more quickly grasp and work through complex problems when larger conceptual issues are in place as well. So she became a math major while I avoided it like the plague. Later, I found I loved math when it was a tool being used for an interesting reason (music and electronic synthesis being my route in, which can rapidly lead to calculus Fourier transforms, and various wave stuff). So in her case a mix of rote and comprehension teaching worked great, while for me the rote aspect resulted in bad grades and bad teachers and a deep hatred of math, until I finally realized, long out of school, it can be used for cool stuff. If math curricula, from a young age (my math hatred goes back to at least 3rd grade), could somehow identify which students would do well with which approaches, that would be a good thing, I think. Pfly (talk) 04:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

One final thing. The OP wrote "In many religious traditions too, rote learning is emphasized. Are there some advantages, besides just being able to repeat the information learned, something which develop as a by-product in the background without a person being aware of it while he/she is engaged in rote learning." While I don't have a scientific study to point to, I think this idea is basically sound, and applies to my example of writing to write letters clearly. As I understand it is something emphasized in various sports and performance arts (like playing the piano)—first you have to gain a level of basic muscle memory that allows rapid relatively "unthinking" response, then you can hone that in various ways. There's always the risk that muscle memory becomes a crutch though. With piano playing, an example would be the ability to play a piece from memory, except that if you get stuck you have to start over from the start and can't recover. Good piano playing requires a mix of muscle memory and intellectual understanding of a piece's form. If you know you got stuck at a place where an A major key is modulating to a D minor key, and what that means in terms of notes, you'll be much more likely to recover in the moment than if you only know the piece via muscle memory. But if you only understand the piece intellectually without muscle memory, you probably won't be able to play it at all. The same basic idea goes for fencing (the sword dueling sport), which I've long enjoyed. It is an extremely fast paced sport. You absolutely need muscle memory deeply engrained to the point of instinctive reaction. But you also need to analyze your opponent, looking for weaknesses, and developing strategies on-the-fly for taking advantage of them. And vice-verse, realizing when your opponent is doing exactly that and taking counter-measures. The balance between instinctive muscle memory and millsecond-fast readjustments to those instincts is one of the most enjoyable aspects of fencing. I think a lot of these kind of things can to applicable to religious rituals as well. To be religiously mindful and open the rituals must be in "muscle memory", but if they are carried out robotically the point is entirely missed. Pfly (talk) 04:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Sanzomon's hat

The character Sanzomon is based on Sanzo from Journey to the West. It wears a hat with several chinese characters on it, which can be seen here, here, and here. From what I've been able to find, it appears that this hat may be called a "five-part crown", and the symbols would be references to the Five Dhyani Buddhas. Can anyone tell me the correct name of this hat, and what the symbols are/are a reference to? Please message me at my wikia talk page if you have any answers. Thanks!192.249.47.196 (talk) 18:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

French Rwanda Burundi Zaire French not Dutch

Why Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo) decided to choose French as its official language despite the Belgians were Dutch speaking? Who meaning the leaders of these nations made French as official languages? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.16.163 (talk) 18:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

French is an official language of Belgium (spoken by 40% of the population) as well as Dutch (see Languages of Belgium). There is a suggestion on a forum here that "The Belgian Congo had two official languages : French and Dutch. This means cities, streets, etc, always carried two names ( Leopoldville – Leopoldstad, etc…), but in reality French was by far the most used language in the Belgian Congo." The same would no doubt have applied to Ruanda-Urundi, and the reason is presumably that French is much more widely spoken than Dutch both globally and in other parts of Africa. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

At the time when the Belgians created the colonies that became these African nations, during the late 19th and early 20th century, French was the sole official language of Belgium. This was the case because French was the language of the Belgian ruling class. The political system of Belgium gave extra votes to voters based on their wealth, and most of the wealth was held by the French-speaking bourgeoisie. In Belgium, French was the language of education and status, whereas the common people spoke the "regional languages" of Walloon and Flemish. The status of French was boosted by the fact that French-speaking southern Belgium was first to industrialize and until the mid-20th century was the most prosperous part of the country. Even those whose native language was Flemish/Dutch learned French in school and had to use French professionally if they wanted to pursue a career. This began to change during the 1920s and 1930s when Belgium did away with weighting votes by wealth and Flemish was recognized as the language of government in the Flemish-speaking regions. It was not until the 1960s that the national government became fully bilingual. Of course, by that time, Belgium's colonies were gaining independence after a long period during which French was their primary official language. The use of French in neighboring former French colonies was a further argument in favor of French as an official language in these newly independent countries. Marco polo (talk) 19:28, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Belgium is officially tri-lingual, since there's a German dialect spoken in east Wallonia. In my days in the London insurance market, I used to have to fill in Belgian tax forms, which came with each question in three languages, one on top of the other, in tiny writing. I understand that the King of Belgium has to make his coronation oath in three languages too. But as you say, it was French only for official purposes until fairly recently. Alansplodge (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

But Belgium was not tri-lingual during the colonial period. It seems, from Language legislation in Belgium, that German was recognized only in 1962. --Soman (talk) 08:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that's what I said - if not, it's what I meant! Alansplodge (talk) 11:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. Just pointing out that Belgium went from being mono- then bi- to trilingual officially. The latter period of Belgian rule over Congo, Belgium was officially bilingual, but trilingualism came afterwards. --Soman (talk) 12:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed and no offence taken. Alansplodge (talk) 13:32, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Notably, Dutch also failed to establish itself in Indonesia as a colonial language (although many Dutch loan words are found in Bahasa Indonesia). This section gives some insight: Dutch_language#Belgian_Africa. --Soman (talk) 06:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Look Japan

Apparently Look Japan's last issue was in April 2004.

Do you know if there are any articles discussing the closing of Look Japan, or if the April 2004 issue says "we are closing - goodbye" ?

Thanks,

WhisperToMe (talk) 18:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

China

1. Who was the first European to actually succeed in reaching China (or India) by going west? 2. Since an accurate way of determining longitude wasn't available until the 18th century, how did Europeans know how far the New World was from Asia? In fact, how did they even know how far it was from Europe? --140.180.26.155 (talk) 20:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

The answer to your first question may be Martín de Rada, though of course Ferdinand Magellan sailed west across the Pacific earlier. Marco polo (talk) 20:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

As for your second question, Europeans had a rough idea of the distance based on sailing time and extrapolations from the circumference of the Earth, which had been calculated to a low degree of precision. Precise measurement of longitude and distance was not possible, however, until John Harrison invented the chronometer in the mid-18th century. Marco polo (talk) 21:03, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Legal question re: illegal camping in U.S. national parks

I've been trying to understand what exactly constitutes "camping without a permit" in U.S. national parks.

I've found the following two statutes:

36CFR2.10 AND § 1.4 What terms do I need to know?

The latter defines camping as:

"Camping means the erecting of a tent or shelter of natural or synthetic material, preparing a sleeping bag or other bedding material for use, parking of a motor vehicle, motor home or trailer, or mooring of a vessel for the apparent purpose of overnight occupancy."

Does this mean that as long as I am not caught actually erecting a tent, or laying out my sleeping bag, that they cannot charge me with illegal camping? That is, suppose I'm walking in a remote area on a hiking trail where I'm quite obviously camping without a permit(i.e. I'm carrying a large pack and camping gear and look like I've been living in the woods for a week), but I've got all of my gear in my pack. If I am adamant that I'm not actually camping (of course, I'll kindly cite the above-cited legal definition of "camping" for them) and am just carrying the equipment "for exercise", they couldn't fine me for illegal camping, right? That is, legally, they would have to actually catch me at a campsite to give me a ticket. Am I understanding this correctly? If not, could someone please explain where I could find more information on this.

Thanks in advance! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.211.30.204 (talk) 23:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

We cannot offer legal advice. Please see the legal disclaimer. Contact a lawyer.

As a general principle, the police do not need to catch you in the act of committing a crime to charge you with it, they merely need to have probable cause to believe that you have committed the crime. Once charges have been filed, it is up to the court system to determine if you have committed the crime beyond reasonable doubt. If you want to get more specific than this, consult a lawyer. --Carnildo (talk) 01:53, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Lots of national parks have additional restrictions on camping, especially for very popular areas and/or wilderness areas. Much of Mount Rainier National Park for example, is wilderness, and backcountry camping not only requires a permit but must be in designated camping areas. In short, for any given park it is likely there are more than the two statues you cited that apply. Pfly (talk) 02:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, permits for backcountry camping are usually done in place for good reasons, worth following. If unrestricted camping was allowed in popular places like The Enchantments (not a national park, but a national forest, still very very popular), the landscape would rapidly be degraded. The rather strict lottery-based permits used there were put in place because the place was getting trashed. Pfly (talk) 03:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The sad part about this is that the OP is looking to get around the rules. The rules are there to try to preserve these popular national parks as much as possible. Disrespecting the rules is the same as disrespecting the park itself. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:30, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

October 14

Economics: Could venture capital boost the American green energy sector?

Hi. Venture capital is often awarded to new businesses, and green tech is often considered an emerging sector, but could it work in the current global marketplace? Thanks. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 00:13, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

It's hard to say. Per Wind power#Cost trends, wind power is currently growing so fast that it no longer seems to be utilizing subsidies, tax credit exchanges, or anything other than ordinary bank financing. And the developing world is growing much faster than the US. If you put those facts together, under ordinary financial conditions, any investor should be able to purchase a mutual fund or American depository receipts allowing taking advantage of such rapid growth rates. However, in the current investment climate, corporations try to produce derivatives which allow them to capture all the possible profits from an investment, precluding individual investors. Thank goodness they've learned how to outspend individuals during campaign season, or they might lose their advantage. Dualus (talk) 01:13, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Venture capital is not "awarded" but invested with expectation of return. Businessmen will invest in green in any technology if they think it will produce products which people will buy because they expect to benefit from it. μηδείς (talk) 01:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

One of the interesting things about capital in our society is that it is legally treated as private property. Unless restricted by contracts or law, owners of capital can do with them as they wish. Medeis notes one of the key limiting factors: the impression that a rate of return above market average is achievable when factoring risk in. Despite the methodological beliefs of a number of economists, and the methodological assumptions of another bunch of economists who want to get on with their discipline, not all capitalists act so as to seek the maximum rate of return. So yes, venture capital could choose to invest specifically in marketisable green energy; but choosing to do so when it isn't the most profitable sector seeking capital would be foolish if their aim is to maximise returns. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Christian denomination in Europe

So far, I know that France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal are dominantly Roman Catholic and Netherlands, U.K., Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland are dominantly Protestants. What about other nations in Europe? Which are Roman Catholic? Which are Protestants? and Which are Orthodox? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.229.206 (talk) 02:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

See: File:Prevailing world religions map.png... this map should help. Blueboar (talk) 02:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

For proper balance it's only fair to mention File:Irreligion map.png as well - many countries in Europe, particularly northern Europe, are now predominantly non-religious. Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:42, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Try Christianity in Europe. Flamarande (talk) 13:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

That irreligion map contradicts the religion in china article. China is too dark on the map. It should be 40 to 60%, not 93%. The colors seem arbitrary and the whole thing needs a citation. Anyway, it's not relevant to the question as irreligion is not a "Christian denomination in Europe." Turkey is predominantely Armenian Orthodox as far as Christianity goes as 60% of Christians in that country follow that faith. They account for .08% of the population. There are far many more Christians in Sweden than in Turkey, although according to the Religion in Sweden article, there appears to be a great deal of variation among what sociologists believe. Why the authors of these maps pick the highest number even without a scholarly consensus to back it up is not clear. 24.38.31.81 (talk) 19:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Afrikaans speakers in South Africa

Although I often find surprising information on WP, it's rare for me to find something that apparently reveals my ignorance quite as much as this map. I'm surprised at two things - the high proportions speaking Afrikaans in the west of the country, and the low proportions in the east, including rural areas that I had always thought of as having historically quite high proportions of white Afrikaans-speaking settlers. The map suggests that it shows proportions of the total population - not just the ethnically "white" population. Firstly, is the map accurate; and, if so, what has led to the very sharp division between east and west of which I was previously unaware? Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

It is not just the whites that speak Afrikaans at home, Afrikaans is also the mother tongue of the majority of the coloured population. Compare the map above with this map: File:South Africa 2001 Coloured population proportion map.svg. --Soman (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Afrikaans-speaking Coloured people form a majority only in western South Africa. This is so because this was the first part of the country settled by Europeans. Prior to European settlement, it was sparsely settled by non-agrarian Khoisan peoples, since the climate of the west, with its summer drought, would not support the crops on which the Bantu peoples of the east depended. Over the first two centuries of European settlement, a Dutch-speaking land-owning elite came to depend on a much larger mixed-race working class, the ancestors of today's Coloured peoples. This working class consisted of the descendants of the original Khoisan population mixed with other groups imported from Madagascar or Asia as laborers. In addition, white masters often fathered children through (mutually consenting or forcible) sexual relations with female workers. These children became part of the Coloured community. Over these centuries, the Dutch of the white masters evolved, partly by acquiring vocabulary from the original languages of the working class, into Afrikaans, which became the common language of the Western Cape. It was only after the Great Trek of the mid-19th century that Afrikaans-speaking whites moved into what became eastern South Africa. Coloured people largely did not take part in the Great Trek but remained the majority population of the Western Cape. What is now eastern South Africa was and is heavily populated by speakers of Bantu languages, who have always formed a majority in this region. Therefore, the Afrikaans of the white population has never been a majority language in eastern South Africa except in the small and segregated enclaves where whites formed a majority. Marco polo (talk) 14:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

1940 version of "Wake Up America"

I'm trying to find a copy of the 1940 version of "Wake Up America" by James Montgomery Flagg. In that one, Uncle Sam is urging viewers to become aware of war overseas. Where can I find a copy? Anyone know?24.90.204.234 (talk) 07:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Imperial Roman politics

So, this site is full of pages of detailed information of political offices in Rome during the empire, but what there is not much of is information on politics outside of the city. I asked some time ago regarding a book I have been writing, where one character has entered a political career in a town some way north of Rome itself (having had to go into hiding to escape dangerous criminals, hence why he cannot move back to the city just yet) and I recieved a few responses that were of some help. Since then, though, I have moved on a couple of chapters, and I think now he may well have not only moved up the cursus honorum in his town, but also be looking, perhaps unrealistically, even further up. I am wondering in particular whether there would have been any sort of regional government below the level of the provincial governors.

What I would like then is either a rough outline of the political system as it would have been out in this town, such that I can then conduct more detailed research on whichever points seem most relevant at the time, or to be directed to another website that has a more detailed description of such matters.

I feel I should say, this is only to be a minor point in the book, so I felt I did not need much in the way of in depth research, just for a couple of lines to drop in at one point, if anyone feels like telling me I should have studied the subject a lot more before writing the book.

148.197.81.179 (talk) 08:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

What period of the Empire, and how far north of Rome? (Still in Italy, or somewhere else?) I guess for any random provincial city, there would be a local curia, and curiales and decurions, but there wasn't really a cursus honorum outside of Rome, because the cursus was for higher offices in Rome itself. There would be a provincial governor appointed from Rome, so it's not like a local person ever rose through the ranks to govern the province. But it's hard to say exactly, without knowing the place and time period. (Sorry, I can't seem to find your previous question.) Adam Bishop (talk) 09:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The current chapter is set during 250, in the crisis of the third century, at a time when it seems to have calmed down a little, for a few months. I was thinking of a town quite close to Rome itself, perhaps only fifty or a hundred miles away. 148.197.81.179 (talk) 10:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, well, that's a little bit simpler, since Italy wasn't exactly a province like the others, it was under the direct control of the emperor. For a town that close to Rome, the emperor's chief deputy was the urban prefect of Rome itself (for anything further away, it was the pretorian prefect). Your town (a municipium) would also have a council (a curia, essentially a mini-Senate), probably run by the wealthiest local landowners, although sometimes every adult male was obliged to serve on the council whether they wanted to or not (members of the council were called decuriones). They could collect taxes and pass local legislation and deal with local legal questions and disputes, make sure wills were propertly executed, liberate slaves, build houses and roads, that sort of thing. Serious crimes, though, were punished by the prefect, and of course taxes went to Rome. The prefect was also responsible for distribution of food. It's not that much different from a modern British, Canadian, or American town, or maybe a medieval English town near London, for example. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Cities in the Roman Empire were generally administered by various Duumviri, each of which had different functions. The "duumviri iure dicundo" were in charge of legal administration (police, law, courts, etc.), while the duumviri aedile were in charge of infrastructure and finances. Cities in the Empire were of two types; municipia, the lower class, were cities which had been absorbed by the Empire but not settled specifically by it; while Colonia, the higher class, had been founded and settled by the Empire specifically. This subdivision was, AFAIK, mostly relevent in the outer Roman provinces, which were under control of Roman governors of various titles. Within Italy itself, which was administerred directly by the Emperor, things may have worked a bit differently. However, if you want to use an authentic-sounding roman title of a city administrator, "duumviri iure dicundo" or something like that may work for you. --Jayron32 13:04, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course, the singular form would be duumvir iure dicundo. Marco polo (talk) 14:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Shonuff. --Jayron32 14:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

But that's a very early title (you can even tell by the archaic spelling of "dicundo"). It no longer existed by the time period the OP is asking about. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Poor people

The productive contribution of an individual poor person towards economic progress of the world is far less than the contribution of an individual rich person. Then why poor people are considered equal to riches? --Jigjig555 (talk) 12:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Two thoughts. First, your underlying assumption is wrong. A poor person may make a very much greater contribution than a rich person. Clearly, they do not have the spending capacity of a rich person, but that's not the only measure of a contribution. Secondly, the economic contribution that is made by a person to the economy is not the only measure of that person; from all sorts of other perspectives, people are people and should be treated as equals. Given that income does not corrolate well with "contribution to society / economy", then using wealth as a measure of worth is facile. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Poor people are by definition unequal to the rich, that is what makes them poor. In the West, poor people are nominally considered equals under the law, but that has a tendency to not bear out in practice. --Daniel 16:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The general attitude is that all people are created equal, but do not necessarily remain equal. If equality was maintained, removing rights from one person and not another would not be acceptable. -- kainaw™ 18:06, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

See http://www.coeinc.org/Articles/HousewifeWorth.pdf.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Irreligious society

Has there ever been a human society, that we know of, where the majority of the population was not religious at all? 114.75.60.48 (talk) 13:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes - large parts of the world now. See File:Irreligion map.png, and Irreligion by country. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Depends on how you define "not religious at all" (which, I suppose, depends on how you define "religious"). Do you mean the majority are outright atheists, or do you mean something else? Blueboar (talk) 13:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

North Korea? The USSR? Depends on if you consider certain political ideologies to be religious. Googlemeister (talk) 13:50, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The Gallup poll - on which the map I linked to is based - asked the question "Is religion an important part of your daily life?". Majorities answered "no" in Sweden (88%), Denmark (82%), China (82%) and over 30 other countries, including (for example) the UK (76%), France (74%), Japan (72%), Australia (67%), Canada (61%), Russia (59%), Germany (59%) and Israel (54%). Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

This is why we need clearer definitions (and why polls can be misleading)... I certainly consider myself "religious", and yet I would have answered that poll with a "No" (My religion is not an important part of my daily life... I go for weeks without thinking about it). Blueboar (talk) 14:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Albania was officially 100% atheist for several decades... AnonMoos (talk) 14:03, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Thankyou. This is all very helpful. I suppose the definition of "religious" in this case would be that if somebody feels they're religious, they are. And if they feel they're not religious, they're not. 114.75.60.48 (talk) 15:52, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Here are some more interesting maps, for comparison. This one was based strict atheism: "I agree that there isn't any sort of God, spirit, or life force". I can't tell if any countries are above 50%, but lots of European countries hover around it: [33]. For a less strict definition of religiousness that includes both atheists and agnostics, see [34]. There are definitely countries over 70% on this map. --140.180.26.155 (talk) 17:57, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Debt in communism

Has personal debt existed at all in communist societies states like the GDR or USSR? Quest09 (talk) 14:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Those socities still had money, and so people could still get into personal debt. --Jayron32 14:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

In fact, you don't even need money. In a barter society, you are in debt as long as you receive something and have not yet given whatever it is you promised in exchange. Blueboar (talk) 14:53, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Did the USSR have a formal bankruptcy system? 207.108.46.201 (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Neither of those countries had Communist societies. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:01, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, they had communist states and not communist societies. Quest09 (talk) 18:04, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The first bankruptcy courts were not established in Russian until the 1990s.[35] I'm not sure what other mechanisms (penalties, etc.) would have existed for someone with large debts in the USSR. I'm not even sure whether there were opportunities to take out significant (and legal) loans in the USSR. I've poked around in a few books on the Soviet economy but it's quite foreign in its structure (all discussion of loans are about loans taken out by the state, in the form of bonds, not about individuals). --Mr.98 (talk) 17:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that there was a way for individuals to amass debts that could lead to bankruptcy. First of all, there were no credit cards. I don't think that banks made unsecured personal loans. State banks apparently did make home-building loans per this source, but these were secured loans, and if the borrower failed to meet the repayment terms, the bank could simply repossess the building or materials. If individuals wanted to purchase expensive goods, such as automobiles or appliances, they had to save for them. Individuals might make informal loans to one another, but it's hard to imagine someone being able to amass a large debt to other private individuals. If that somehow happened, and the debtor was unable to repay those loans, I would think that the debtor could be prosecuted for theft. Marco polo (talk) 19:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Are UK Magistrates (JP's) gazetted?

I am searching for a reference that shows when Francis Alfred Broad became a justice of the peace (JP). According to The Tottenham & Edmonton Weekly Herald, Friday 6 January 1956, page 7, he was appointed a justice of the peace for Middlesex in 1933. I have searched The London Gazette without success. Are JP's gazetted? If so, where? --Senra (Talk) 16:14, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

There would be a record at the Lord Lieutenant's office as they are keeper of the rolls. Egg Centric 16:41, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Useful thank you, but no joy. I read the Lord Lieutenants record's history and found it interesting. I suspect that off-line catalogue would contain what I need but it would require a trip to London which is financially out of the question for me. I still suspect such appointments are gazetted somewhere. I also searched The Times using "Frank Broad" and "Francis Broad" between 1932 and 1934 without success. Still, thank you for your input --Senra (Talk) 18:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)