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May 20

Are thumbnails in search engines fair dealing in Canada?

Based on Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation and Perfect 10 v. Google, it seems that the reproduction of low resolution image thumbnails for use in an image search engine is fair use in the United States. However, fair dealing in Canada gives exception to copyright infringement only for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review, or news reporting. Unlike the United States fair use exception, the list of purposes in Canada's fair dealing exception is treated as exhaustive. Even the proposed bill C-11 would only introduce three additional exceptional purposes (education, parody, and satire).

So, how is Google's use of thumbnails in image search legal in Canada? I'm not asking for legal advice; I'm asking for pointers to any case law that establishes this, or any jurisdictional principles that allow this. Sancho 00:27, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It may not be legal. Perfect 10 has a lawsuit against Google in Canada: [1] RudolfRed (talk) 00:49, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Charles Giraud

Which one is the actual painting by Charles Giraud? I am guessing the one on the right, but then where does the left one come from and who painted it and when?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:02, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe they both are? The uploader of the other one has been only sporadically active, but maybe you could get his attention. Meanwhile, just where is the painting, and does its owner have it posted somewhere online? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:09, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I know where the uploader got it (the left one) from; a google image search from a genealogical website, as simple as that, but I don't know it origins before that. The actual one is in the Musée de Tahiti et des Îles in Tahiti.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 07:41, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The portrait at the left, by Giraud, circa 1840, is in the musée du quai Branly (Paris, France), but it is not exhibited. You can see here (in French), its notice. — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:01, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Which is the original then? Who is the other by then? Was it a copy? And who exactly was Charles Giraud and when was he in Tahiti.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems that both were painted by Sébastien Charles Giraud. The left one is in the storeroom of the musée du quai Branly and the right one is exhibited in the musée de Tahiti et des îles. For the right one you can refer to this article (click on"download this pdf file"). Sébastien Charles Giraud was a painter and a drawer ; he took part to the French military expedition to Tahiti in 1846. Very few data on on the French WP, more here (in French) — AldoSyrt (talk) 13:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Is the one on the right supposed to appear masculine? Plasmic Physics (talk) 12:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I personally think the left one looks Europeanized.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:28, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Appropriate amount of wine to give neighbours

Around the world, how much wine (or another gift if for example in an Islamic country) would someone typically give their neigbours for letting them borrow their Flymo? Egg Centric 18:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

One bottle ? (Less than one bottle would require that they drink it at that time, which might not be convenient, while more than one makes it seem more like a commercial transaction than a gift.) StuRat (talk) 18:38, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree, if you're giving someone wine as a casual "thank you" gift, then it should almost always be one bottle. It's a token gesture, really, so anything else would seem a bit weird. What you can vary is the frequency with which you give them wine. You could give them one bottle a year, or you could give them a bottle every time you use it (although that would seem very generous to me). You need to be careful to make sure you don't give them cheaper wine than they buy for themselves, or they'll actually feel worse off because they have to drink poorer quality wine than they would otherwise have done (the fact that they didn't pay for it won't really be relevant). There is no need for it to be significantly more expensive than they usually buy, though - as I say, it's just a token.

I probably wouldn't give my neighbours a thank you gift for something like that, though - I would just expect to return the favour at some later date (perhaps I have a hedge trimmer they'll need, or a step ladder, or I can help them carry their new bed up the stairs, etc. - there are plenty of favours neighbours can do for each other). Another option is to offer to mow their lawn for them while you have their mower out. --Tango (talk) 11:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Appropriate amount of wine to give neighbours part 2

While I'm having the reference desk to my thinking for me, how much wine (or another gift if for example in an Islamic country) would someone typically give their neigbours when they've been invited to their daughters' 21st birthday party (when as a guest of the neighbour, not the daughter)? How much wine if their neigbour lets them borrow their daughter? Egg Centric 18:58, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

To question 1, a standard size (1/5 gallon or 750 mL) bottle of wine is a nice gift. For the second question, I'm not sure what you mean by "borrow their daughter". Most modern societies don't consider people to be chattel, and people don't "own" their children to be loaned out for "use" by others. Daughters are not posessions like lawnmowers and chainsaws are, to be loaned to neighbors. --Jayron32 19:08, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I am bemused that powertools were the first comparison you reached for though Jayron. Shadowjams (talk) 20:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Not really, given the nature of the previous question... V85 (talk) 16:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

"How much for the little girl?" Are the daughters fraternal or identical twins, by the way? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:52, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The standard gift when invited to a party is a bottle of wine. That's appropriate in almost every situation. I understand that you shouldn't do that in France, though, since it's considered an insult on the host's choice of wine (that may not be true, but it's what I've heard). --Tango (talk) 11:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

It's sort of true. If a neighbour does you a favour, "a drink" is the standard recompense, and a bottle of nice wine would be appreciated. For a formal dinner party, flowers are the standard offering. If I took wine instead I might say "I had some of the Chateau X left, and I know you like it. Don't feel the need to open it this evening." Would be interested to read any further comments from French users. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

According to John 2:6–10 and firkin, approximately 4770 L of wine (range 3816 L – 5724 L). I advise checking what they're drinking already to make sure that the wine you bring is of a higher quality. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest two bottles... one for your hosts (the parents) and one for the Birthday girl (the daughter). Blueboar (talk) 12:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

No, that's incorrect, you shouldn't use the 'wine firkin' for John 2:6–10, because it's translated from Greek 'μετρητης', which is about 40 L, so the total is about 6 * 2.5 * 40 = 600 L; Still enough for about 6000 glasses of wine though (but wine in antiquity was generally less strong than today).

Damn you King James translators! Once again you condemn me with your lack of metrification! Still 800 bottles of wine is a lot. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The "borrowing" of the daughter cuts against social mores to a degree that we should consider intolerable consequently I recommend removing this question from the Reference desk. Bus stop (talk) 19:04, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely, which is why it should be left publicly visible to that the person who suggested it can be made to be ashamed of it. Hiding the intolerableness of it does no good, we need to all know exactly the kind of person the OP is. --Jayron32 19:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe that the OP is making a joke at our expense, in the style of Ali G or Borat - a supposition based on a brief glance at their homepage. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Egg Centric. Alansplodge (talk) 20:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The majority of the question is entirely sincere. The bit about the daughter is so obviously a joke I refuse to accept it's at anyone's "expense" if they took it seriously, there was not the slightest thought in my mind that anyone would. Egg Centric 11:30, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was a normal neighbourly request. As in "I know you're all busy preparing for the birthday party, but could we borrow your daughter for half an hour? The dishwasher's leaking again, and she's the only person around here who knows how to fix it." Itsmejudith (talk) 11:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

If that is what the person meant, I would say that the renumeration shouldn't be given to the neighbours, but rather directly to the daughter directly. As it might be inappropriate to give the neighbours' daughter wine as a thank-you, I'd say give something else. V85 (talk) 19:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Fourteenth century English Parliament

In the article The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards it seems to indicate that parliament took place every two years. Would that be correct for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries? How often was parliament in King Richard II's time and King Edward III's time?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:07, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

List of Parliaments of England gives a complete list. Executive summary: during that time period parliaments met on average about once a year, but not on any sort of regular schedule. Looie496 (talk) 23:23, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I do believe that answers my question. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:32, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

May 21

Froggy (brand)

So if so many stations use this brand across so many different companies, then why is there not a trademark violation in place? Let alone a copyright violation for the logo. This article isn't very clear. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be assuming that these companies are using the logo without permission. You may be right, but it seems a bit unlikely in the litigious United States. I haven't found any evidence either way. --ColinFine (talk) 08:49, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The registered service mark is owned by Forever of PA, Inc., according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and our article says that the branding "is particularly common among country stations currently or formerly owned by Forever Broadcasting or Forever Communications and Keymarketradio LLC." I see no reason to suppose that any of these stations fail to have a proper license for the mark. John M Baker (talk) 13:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Islam in Canada

Recently, I read the Islam in America article and it was interesting to see the pie graph showing the demographics of Muslims in America. How much percentage of Muslims are South Asians in Canada? How much percentage of Muslims are Arabs in Canada? How much percentage of Muslims are Southeast Asian (meaning Malaysian and Indonesian)? How much percentage of Muslims are West Asians (meaning Turks and Iranians)? and how much percentage of Muslims are Black Canadians? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.104.130 (talk) 14:23, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

We have an article entitled Islam in Canada, but it's a bit sketchy. According to this article [2], based on 2001 Census figures, "85.8% of the Muslim population (in Canada) consider themselves a visible minority. Unlike Muslim migration to European nations, the group is quite ethnically diverse. Of this population, 36.7% are South Asian, 21.1% are Arab, 14.0% are West Asian, and 14.2% are part of other minority groups (not including the small percentage Chinese, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Korean or Japanese Muslims). 14.2% of the Canadian Muslim population do not consider themselves visible minorities. This group could partially reflect the number of converts to the tradition." --Xuxl (talk) 14:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Why is religion not taxed in America

What is the rationale behind it? ScienceApe (talk) 17:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Religious non-profit organizations are treated the same as non-religious non-profit organizations. The article 501(c) organization covers the part of the tax code which deals with non-profits. While religuous organizations are specifically named, they are named alongside numerous other organizations which are non-religious. Religious organizations are not given unique or special treatment in this regard. --Jayron32 18:16, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

^Basically that. I also find the titling of this section interesting, as if religion were a tangible object with monetary value of some sort, rather than the abstract concept that it is. But I digress... Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 18:50, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The only religion which gets extra-special tax treatment significantly beyond ordinary charitable exemptions at the federal level is Scientology (see Sklar v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, nothing too much about it on Wikipedia)... AnonMoos (talk) 19:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

What? No, Scientology doesn't get any special tax "treatment." The case you cited only draws reference to the IRS's policy on Scientology. That's hardly even the question presented. Shadowjams (talk) 04:37, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Scientologists can fully deduct (on their tax returns) payments to the church for services rendered as if they were pure charitable contributions, while those of all other religions can't. That sure sounds like "special tax treatment" to me... AnonMoos (talk) 05:05, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It appeared to me that the Court was saying that, if the Scientology practice were to come before them, they would strike it down. However it was not the issue they were deciding, so they didn't (possibly relevant is rule of real cases?). It's not clear to me who would have standing to bring such a case, though, which seems to imply that they found a problem (discriminatory treatment between religions not justified by a compelling government interest) for which they had no remedy. --Trovatore (talk) 00:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

My reading is related, but I don't agree on the last point. Rather, it seems the court was saying they would likely strike down the treatment but they needed a similar case where the preferential treatment was shown. The problem was in this case, it wasn't because the services for which the plaintiffs couldn't receive tax deductions weren't similar to the scientology ones were people can receive tax deductions (or to be blunt, it seems the court is saying in the scientology case people are paying for complete bullshit whereas the plaintiff were paying for something useful combined with a bit of bullshit). Nil Einne (talk) 15:27, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Churches that qualify as nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations (which would be most) are just as exempt. Where are you reading something to the contrary? Shadowjams (talk) 22:48, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you claiming that quid-pro-quo payments for services rendered etc. can always be deducted as charitable contributions, if the payment was made to a non-profit organization? I really don't think that's the case under U.S. federal law (you even have to subtract the value of your NPR tote bag from the pledge you made to your public radio station, if you want to list your pledge as a charitable contribution on your tax return)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:41, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm fed up arguing with your with nonsequiter-shape-shifting arguments. Under what provision of the IRS code (IRC) do you think there was some unfair advantage? Name the decision or code. Shadowjams (talk) 08:36, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Whatever, dude -- I've consistently pointed out that according to IRS policy interpretations, Scientologists are allowed to deduct on their tax returns quid-pro-quo payments (in return for services or value received) to the Scientology organization as if they were pure charitable contributions, whereas those of all other religions (and public radio pledge donors who receive an NPR tote bag) can't. The IRS-Scientology settlement agreement was revealed by the Wall Street Journal in late 1997, and is available in many places on-line (including here), but has never been acknowledged or explained by the IRS itself... AnonMoos (talk) 14:27, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I wonder which countries, if any, DO "tax religion"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:28, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

There are tithes and there is zakat. Where religion is compulsory these payments are compulsory. The questions whether they are taxes. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:32, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

The American tax exemption for religion grew out of the British common law tax exemption for religion. (All of this vastly predates the idea of NGOs.) This article contains a good overview if you want the real historical data. See also Walz v. Tax Commission. The basic issue is the separation of Church and state—if you can tax something, you can destroy it. It is less of an entanglement to not tax them than to tax them. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:51, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

As we've seen in American politics, religionists tend to argue that the separation of church and state should only be in one direction. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Not always. The record is a bit more mixed. Some of the key separation of church and state rulings have come from religious groups. It really just comes down to whether they happen to feel threatened by the state. Some of the key church/state rulings have come from when the Mormons were feeling more vulnerable. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:58, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Some history might help... During the colonial era, most of the American colonies had an established religion... ie a specific denomination was "officially" supported by the government (for example: the Established Church in Virgina was the Anglican Church, while Connecticut established the Congregational Church). The government paid for this support by having a church tax.

When, after the revolution, the US Constitution was amended to do away with established churches - the government could no longer choose which denomination to support. Instead of the government collecting a church tax, and then spending that money to pay for one specific denomination... the citizen could now (effectively) pay their church tax directly to the denomination of their choice. Blueboar (talk) 12:23, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, taxing religion is generally taken to be prohibited by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Looie496 (talk) 18:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I've understood "no law respecting an establishment of religion" to be there only to prohibit an "official US church" of some denomination being "established," not to protect all churches from government interference such as taxes on receipts or property tax. Edison (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

You're right, the "establishment" part doesn't protect churches from anything. However, the sentence continues ...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..., which certainly does protect churches to some extent. It's imaginable that the Supreme Court could hold that this clause protects churches from all taxation ("the power to tax is the power to destroy") but I don't know that it has held this. In any case we have an article on the Free Exercise Clause. --Trovatore (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Hearsay/OR but someone in the c.1990s once told me that in Colombia, there's a system whereby a portion of your taxes (or a per capita allowance maybe) goes to the religious body of your choice. Not so much a tax on religion, but a direct funding by the state of religion from taxes. An interesting system. I have no reason to doubt that they were telling the truth, but my memory may be flawed and/or the system may have changed. --Dweller (talk) 09:56, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Sweden has a system identical to the one you describe. If you're listed as a member of one of ten recognised religious organisations, the Swedish Tax Agency collects a percentage of your income and gives to them. It appears as a special box on your income tax return. Gabbe (talk) 10:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia article Church tax (the German version has been the most famous). AnonMoos (talk) 18:36, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Coenraad "van" Bos

I searched Wikipedia for the pianist Coenraad V. Bos. There seems to be no such page here. This pianist's full name is Coenraad Valentyn Bos (so-spelled). He was usually listed on album covers and record labels as "Coenraad V. Bos" (note the capital V). EMI acknowledged such an error in a little insert in their LP reissue of the recordings of the Hugo Wolf Society (RLS 759, seven LPs): "The name of the pianist on sides ... is COENRAAD VALENTYN BOS." There are many links that included the spurious particle "van" because that's how the name was referenced at the linked site. Perhaps a new Wiki page should contain the actual or customarily used name "Coenraad V. Bos" and note that many references (in print and online!) often cite the name incorrectly in one way or other. Hope this helps. Oldgermanprof (talk) 20:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

My usual source for musical biographies, Grove's Dictionary, lists him as "BOS, Coenraad van", but I have a superseded edition. He gets called "Coenraad Bos", with or without the "Valentyn", here and elsewhere, so the "van" seems to be known to be spurious now. There's a redlink for Coenraad V. Bos at List of classical pianists (recorded), and he's mentioned in at least 6 other articles but unlinked, so there's definitely no article on him yet. He may be on various editors' to-do lists. I might just get in first. Watch this space. Thanks. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:31, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems the error originated very early on, as even a journal from 1903 uses 'Coenraad van Bos': link (see 4th line of last paragraph). -Lindert (talk) 20:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Article now started. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 23:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

And redirect now created; such a systematic error means that it's a likely search target. Nyttend (talk) 03:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

May 22

Lieutenant governor (Canada)

Why are lieutenant governors considered personal representatives of the monarch? I would have expected them to represent the Queen of Canada rather than representing Catherine Middleton's grandmother-in-law. Nyttend (talk) 03:04, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Catherine Middleton's grandmother-in-law is not only Queen of the UK, but also Queen of Canada, Queen of Australia, Queen of Jamaica and the monarch of all the other Commonwealth realms across the globe. Obviously, a monarch of all these Commonwealth realms cannot be everywhere around the world at once, or literally live in a plane constantly jetting across the globe (or, in the case of those monarchs whose reign was before the invention of the airplane, constantly living at sea), so you have local guys like lieutenant governors in Canada that are available to carry out some of her constitutional and ceremonial duties for her on her behalf. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:58, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Hesperus is Phosphorus? --Trovatore (talk) 08:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

This official website seems very clear that they do represent the Queen of Canada. Do you have any evidence that this is incorrect? Warofdreams talk 09:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The article itself says that they're personal representatives. Doesn't that wording mean that they represent the person who happens to be the Queen of Canada, rather than the office of Queen of Canada? Perhaps our article needs to be reworded. Nyttend (talk) 12:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It also talk about "... newly installed lieutenant governors will, at some point in the first year of their mandate, be invited to a personal audience with the monarch". Is there any other type? Mass audience, perhaps? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 13:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the idea, as you may be alluding to is that they get to sit down one-to-one with Liz. Or at least she gets to sit.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:10, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

One on one behind closed doors (sounds a bit naughty, doesn't it) is what I was thinking, but how is "personal audience with the monarch" significantly different from just "audience with the monarch"? Nobody reading the latter form of words would imagine there'd be anyone there other than the LG and the monarch, would they? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Maybe they mean "private audience". But even then, nobody would think an audience with the Queen would take place on the stands at Wembley or Wimbledon, so "private" is pretty much redundant. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's redundant - keep in mind that there's different levels of "public". It doesn't automatically mean in front of a group of thousands with simultaneous live telecast. Given that this is royalty, I would imagine "public" in this context would properly refer to "public court". That is, the meeting is private in that it's not in front of the associated stewards, chancellors, chamberlains, constables, marshalls, etc. which make up the royal court. (Yes, these days such official court proceedings rarely happen, but this is the monarchy, so you have to make great allowances for historical precedence.) So "private" in the sense of "the Queen, the governor, and perhaps a few select people which HRH invites, but not the standard list of royal hangers-on which typically would be expected to be present for meetings (or would have 500 years ago)." The other sense of private being used here might be a contrast to "public record". That is, the Queen and the governor get a little tête-à-tête, without their topics of discussion being recorded in the official record of the Royal court. -- 140.142.20.101 (talk) 19:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I take the "personal" to mean not that they represent the person who happens to be queen, but that they are a person representing the monarch, when a living person is required; as opposed to The Crown in the form of judiciary, legislature etc. I have no evidence for this though. --ColinFine (talk) 14:10, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's what it means. A lieutenant-governor is an individual person tasked with the constitutional and ceremonial duties of the sovereign, which is why he or she is called a "personal representative", as opposed to the theoretical "Her Majesty the Queen in Right of (jurisdiction)" that all government business is handled under. If Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, happens to be in town at the time a bill comes up for Royal Assent, it would be appropriate for her to be asked to give Assent herself. However, as the Queen is no fool and usually visits Canada during the hot, sunny summer when Parliament and the provincial legislatures are not in session, this doesn't often arise. --NellieBly (talk) 21:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

She was in Ottawa for the Constitution Act 1982, where it was symbolically appropriate for her to be there...but I can't think of any other occasion like that. Has she ever assented to anything else in person? That would be interesting. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Royal Assent says: In Canada, the traditional ceremony for granting Assent in Parliament was regularly used until the 21st-century, long after it had been discontinued in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms. One result, conceived as part of a string of royal duties intended to demonstrate Canada's status as an independent kingdom, was that King George VI personally assented to nine bills of the Canadian Parliament during the 1939 royal tour of Canada—85 years after his great-grandmother Queen Victoria had last granted Royal Assent personally in the United Kingdom.

In Australia, certain bills have been reserved for QEII's personal assent when she was visiting; the Flags Act 1953 and the Royal Styles and Titles Act 1953 (see p. 4) were such cases. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Were the commonwealth realms technically neocolonies?

Commonwealth realms are countries which share the same monarch as the UK (mostly former British colonies except for Papua New Guinea which was a merger of two other colonies) but are independent, sovereign nations. In Australia for example. I read that, until 1986 with the passage of the Australia Act, the UK could be involved in Australian politics, or that the last court of appeal in Australia was the Privy Council. Especially in the case of the latter, this was the case for other countries as well, even those that were no longer commonwealth realms until recent times. Does this mean that the commonwealth realms were technically neocolonies? Although it appears to have been more out of tradition, was there a time that the commonwealth realms were essentially neocolonies, although not at present? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 06:08, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

They were actual colonies once, there's nothing "neo-" about them. After they became independent realms, the British government by convention did not intervene in local politics despite any technical or constitutional power to do so. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

What's a "neocolony"? I've heard of neocolonialism. It's generally a criticism rather than a term that would be applied by proponents, so probably a better name would be cryptocolonialism, as it seems to mean something like "colonialism that doesn't want to call itself that". But I've never heard of a neocolony. Here, let's see if they turn up blue, neocolony or neocolonialism or cryptocolonialism. --Trovatore (talk) 08:38, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow, the neocolonialism article has serious POV problems; someone should address those. --Trovatore (talk) 08:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

A neocolony is a country that is experiencing neocolonialism. What I meant is that technically, were they still somewhat self-governing colonies? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The concept of neocolonialism was developed by Kwame Nkrumah. He was broadly a supporter of the Commonwealth, and saw it as a useful organisation of independent states. There's not going to be one single correct answer to this question, as there have been multiple subsequent definitions of neo-colonialism, but the only work which I can find describing Australia as a neo-colony is this one, which claims that it is a view held by most of the Australian left, but then attacks that supposed position. It doesn't discuss this in terms of the Commonwealth, but rather focuses on economic ties. There is much more considering whether Australia itself is a neocolonial power. Warofdreams talk 09:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

One reason why Australia is not considered through world-systems theory as a neo-colony, is that Australian capital operates on an equal footing with metropolitan capital; and, that unlike in other states, the exploitation of primary industry has been historically used to fund much higher standards of living than in other export oriented primary production countries. Coded phrases are used in Australian political life to describe this, such as "Riding on the Sheep's back" or the "Minerals boom." As noted, Australia is an imperialist bastard in its own right: Free East Timor? I'll take two thanks. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Alright. Thank you, Fifelfoo; and thank you, Fifelfoo. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Apart from some coat-racking in the end of the section "Neocolonialism as economic dominance", the article neocolonialism doesn't have any POV problems. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I seriously disagree. It appears to have swallowed the Marxist line whole. I understand that this does not strike you personally as incorrect, but it is still very non-neutral. --Trovatore (talk) 00:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

"It appears to have swallowed the Marxist line whole." It is an article about a concept developed by Marxists, used in Marxist contexts. The article consistently discusses neocolonialism as a concept, "Those leaders closest to France (particularly during the Cold War) are presented in this critique as agents of continued French control in Africa." and not as an actuality, despite various theories of dependency being dominant in the scholarly literature. If the article has a POV, it is that despite the preponderance of scholarship, it describes neocolonialism as a scholarly concept, rather than as an actuality. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I find that it describes it as an actuality, when it should not. --Trovatore (talk) 02:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Paens to the methodology underpinning neocolonialism such as (doi:10.1080/03050628308434601) are indicative of where the preponderance of scholarly opinion lies; while you're free to believe what you like in your personal life, in writing articles we WEIGHT on such a basis, and this is the basis of NPOV, not the absence of points of view, but the presentation of what the appropriate scholarly or professional consensus is. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not an expert in the field and am not nearly as familiar with the literature as you are. However, put bluntly, I don't really trust you. Not that I think you're being intentionally dishonest; I don't. I think you sincerely believe that stuff, and it colors your evaluation of which sources are more reliable. --Trovatore (talk) 03:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

No worries. If you want to read up on competing viewpoints, IIRC the other major theories of state relations are realism and idealism, but neither engages to the same extent with the economic interdependence of states. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Neo-colony isn't in the OED, but it seems pretty well attested on Google Books. I'll add it to Wiktionary. Warofdreams talk 09:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

As to the Privy Council: at least from the mid-20th century onwards, the Privy Council has served the independent Commonwealth realsm more like a centralised adjudication service than an instrument of colonial oppression. The independence of the judiciary in the United Kingdom, general respect for the changed constitutional arrangements between the realms, and the evolution of the coersive empire to the consensual association that the Commonwealth is today has contributed to this change.

In any case, any lingering influence which Britain might have had over the colonies in any form is derivative from the previous colonial relationship, there was no point where Britain attempted to re-assert colonial-like influence over the realms which it had previously given up. It seems quite a stretch to call it neo-colonialism. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Certainly in the early days of Canada, there were a fair number of conflicts over foreign policy, generally involving relations with the US, as foreign policy was run from London. Generally Canada got screwed.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:12, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

In the early days, yes, the same things happened with all of the former colonies of the UK as they progressed from colonies to self-governing dominions to fully independent states. Today, however, I see no practical evidence that the various Commonwealth states are under any practical control of any UK institution. They are fully sovereign, fully independent states. --Jayron32 17:52, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Medieval means of publication

In The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards apparently it was "nailed" to the middle of the doors of Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral as a placard. Was this the normal means of publication in these times? Do we have more details of this means of publication in some article?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 14:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Luther's The Ninety-Five Theses were famously supposed to have been nailed to a church door, and apparently a manifesto in the name of Jacopone da Todi was nailed to church doors in Rome, and a copy was left at the high altar of St Peter's. Banns of marriage were traditionally posted on church doors, although I'm not clear when that practice dates from, and whether it's connected with the tradition of holding marriages at church doors. Warofdreams talk 15:16, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

For a side question, didn't continuously nailing things to a door damage the door to the point where it splintered ? Or did they accommodate this with cork or some other soft wood, in an early version of the bulletin board ? StuRat (talk) 16:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

They used heavy, good quality seasoned oak for their church doors. Answers.com [3] says they were nailed together and many have lasted until today. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess you haven't seen the door of a cathedral. They tend to be about 8 feet high, 6 feet wide, and a foot thick. Looie496 (talk) 18:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The overall dimensions don't matter if they always nail it in the same place. I'd expect that place to turn to mush after centuries of nailing. StuRat (talk) 19:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Doors would probably be replaced for other reasons. Does any medieval cathedral still have its original doors? Adam Bishop (talk) 03:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The north door at Durham Cathedral

There are many hundreds of medieval church doors in England; as Looie496 says, they were built to last. The most famous is the north door at Durham Cathedral because of its remarkable sanctuary knocker. Alansplodge (talk) 14:56, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The famous knocker

I walked through that door yesterday! --ColinFine (talk) 22:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Neat! I know Nantes Cathedral has some extremely old-looking doors but I honestly have no idea if they are original. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I have seen official documents from US county governments , presently in their files, which have holes and ink washed down the page from being nailed to doors or outdoor noticeboards in the 1850's, so the custom is just not an ancient one. I suppose the file copy somehow shows that due notice was given of a tax sale or whatever, but it seems like anyone could have ripped it off and destroyed it. Edison (talk) 18:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It's called constructive notice. You are doing a legally-defiined due diligence to notify the affected person. Usually, you print it in the newspaper a few times too. It's all what the law says.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Were the "documents" of the fourteenth century made of paper (as we pretty much know of printer paper today) or did they consist more of the linen material?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 20:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Vellum, parchment... --TammyMoet (talk) 21:05, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

O.K., now I get it. Would it have the appearance of a type of "linen"?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 21:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

This of constructive notice would be the means of notifying people affected (e.g. parliament) when nailed to key churches in the fourteenth century. It is then the publication (broadcaster) or the deliverer method to notify certain key people about a document?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:29, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Another question is how many people in mediaeval times actually were literate. Depending on who your target audience was, nailing a document to a door might not be the most effective form of mass communication. Hiring a man to shout your message out from the roof tops might have been a more efficient way of getting your message out to the masses. V85 (talk) 03:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It would be effective since the church was the central point of any settlement, whether village or city. Everyone would see it, and there would definitely be someone there who could read it, no matter the overall literacy rate. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It may be "normal" to post notices in a public spot (like the doors of a medieval church, or in a modern context, say on a bulletin board at the town hall), but remember that this was also (in modern terms) a publicity stunt. They were trying to draw attention to their cause, so it wasn't just a normal display of information. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:40, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Stephen Justice, Writing and Revolution explains how the activists in the "Peasants Revolt" in England (1381) used written documents in English. Writing in English (rather than Latin) was an innovative practice, and it strikes me as remarkably similar to the way groups use social media for organising protests today. Not everyone had access, but enough people did for it to be effective. They posted "bills" on church doors, and then had them read aloud to public gatherings. And when someone made a speech, people wrote it up and posted it in public. So they were using oral and written communication together. On the physical qualities of oak doors, the oak goes rock hard over time rather than soft. Lots of medieval church doors are extant, see them on Google images, marvel at the amount of complex ironwork in them. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

That should be useful for Doug, since the Lollards are connected to the Peasants' Revolt. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

There were town criers and heralds.—Wavelength (talk) 15:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Although town criers would have only done the bidding of the Aldermen and heralds were (and are still) strictly for royal news only. These were not channels of communication for ordinary folk. Alansplodge (talk) 18:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Smokey (the) Bear and US federal law

According to Smokey Bear, during the original bear's lifetime, federal law (16 U.S.C. 580 (p-2); 18 U.S.C. 711) prohibited the existence of another Smokey, which led to problems for a California zoo that named its fire-scarred bear "Smokey". I don't know how to search the US Code, so I can't figure it out — what kind of rights did the Forest Service own over Smokey? Trademark would seem to make sense, but I'm looking at a dead-tree NPS document from 1970 claiming that the Forest Service was demanding the zoo change the bear's name "solely to protect its copyright and interest in Smokey the Bear". I can't understand how they could own copyright purely over the name of a non-fictional creature, especially since the related fictional concept is PD-USGov — unless, of course, the relevant portions of the US Code made an exception here. Further complicating things is the rights status of the images at the Smokey article; except for one that was created by a Wikipedian, all of the images featuring Smokey bear some sort of PD-USGov license template. Nyttend (talk) 16:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The U.S. government can own copyrights. For instance, if they hired an advertising firm to create Smokey with the contract including a tranfer of copyright to the Forest Service. Rmhermen (talk) 00:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I know, but what does this specific law say? Unless it made a specific exception in this case, I can't see how they could copyright a name. Nyttend (talk) 02:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You can search the US Code here [4] I had a hard time finding the right part of 16 USC 580, but 18 USC 711 law says: Whoever, except as authorized under rules and regulations issued by the Secretary of Agriculture after consultation with the Association of State Foresters and the Advertising Council, knowingly and for profit manufactures, reproduces, or uses the character “Smokey Bear”, originated by the Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the Association of State Foresters and the Advertising Council for use in public information concerning the prevention of forest fires, or any facsimile thereof, or the name “Smokey Bear” shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Reviews of work of historian Antony Polonsky

I'm looking for reviews of books by Antony Polonsky, in search of a more rounded appreciation of his work. Thus far I have found: M. Berkowitz, Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies, UCL [5]; Tony Kushner, The Jewish Chronicle [6]; Jeffrey Veidilinger, H-Net, Humanities & Social Sciences Online [7] and Timothy Snyder, The Wall Street Journal [8]. Guidance to to reviews, either in academic journals or mainstream press, would be welcome. Mick gold (talk) 16:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Scholarly reviews of historical books occur in scholarly journals. They are poorly indexed, and may appear up to 2 to 3 years after a book's first publication. Apart from journals known to review many works (American Historical Review), or sources dedicated to reviews (H-net reviews), you'd be looking at reviews in topical journals. Honestly there's no good way to do this except looking through the reviews in all time relevant topical journals, due to the poor indexation. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

A search in Google Scholar or something like Mendeley turns up a few reviews. Warofdreams talk 09:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Can a US state unilaterally secede?

--Broadside Perceptor (talk) 19:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Have you read Secession in the United States? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the article said that it is currently unknown. I'd like to know whether that's correct or not. --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 21:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It's rather legally ill-defined. However, as a practical matter, they would be able to secede if the US gov didn't send in troops to prevent it, and I can't see that happening these days. StuRat (talk) 19:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I would expect them to use economic sanctions, rather than military action. I doubt any US state could survive long without trading with the rest of the US (not without a massive drop in standard of living, anyway). --Tango (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Depending on the state, the US might not be able to withstand the loss of trade either. For example, if California seceded, food prices would skyrocket from a trade embargo. StuRat (talk) 22:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

If California seceded, and the US took no military action but basically just "let it happen", they would still immediately cut off all federal aid. Already being strapped for cash, the state would become very unpleasant to live in, very quickly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

At least in 2005, California provided 1$ of federal income tax for each 69c received in federal spending.[9] California is a very rich state - they just don't want to pay taxes to the level needed to maintain the services they do want. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 01:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

That 31¢ might go long way to filling the gap. And, if the US wanted to maintain it's military bases and labs in CA, they would then presumably need to pay rent to CA, as well. StuRat (talk) 01:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it is settled law. Per Texas v. White, "the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were "absolutely null"." So it shall be written, so it shall be done. --Jayron32 20:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 21:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

However, by seceding, you are declaring yourself no longer subject to US law, so it's pretty irrelevant what the courts say. --Tango (talk) 22:07, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. If we assume that secession can't occur unless it is legal, then the US must still be part of Britain, right ? StuRat (talk) 22:33, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It became legal by virtue of the peace treaty signed between the two nations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Yep, and if a state seceded now, I suspect eventually we'd have a treaty between it and the US legalizing it all. But, even if it Britain had never formally recognized the US, it still wouldn't change the facts on the ground, and the same would be true if a US state seceded. StuRat (talk) 01:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Jayron32, so the Congress basically declared that seccession was illegal and that it never happened in Texas v. White. So technically all history book about Southern seccession are illegal.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

"So technically all history book about Southern seccession are illegal." — ???. The Southern secession attempt was illegal. History books talking about it are not. Even books that argue it was legal are not illegal. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Laws have a history of saying things that are, well, just not so. See My favourite silly law. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Funny. I'd be interested to know if there are any actual examples of that law having been applied? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the legislators just dreamt that up one day when there wasn't much else happening. No, it must have been the Commissioner of Taxation, a public servant, who advised the government he and his staff couldn't do their jobs properly (collecting revenue for the government) without such a power. I can't imagine they'd have argued for such an apparently weird power but never used it. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Presumably if the taxman were to say "I deem that you earned one billion Australian dollars last year, so your tax bill is AUD 435,273,412; pay up please", there would be some sort of recourse? --Trovatore (talk) 00:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Fortunately, it's applicable only in limited circumstances, viz. "For the purpose of making a declaration under this Subdivision", i.e., whatever subdivision of A New Tax System (Goods and Services) Act 1999 that s.165-55 falls under. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 01:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This is rather like the principles of equity "That which should have happened is deemed to have happened" - at first blush it look slike a get-out clause "I should have paid, so I am deemed to have paid and hence owe nothing." The actuality is rather different, more like "You should have written a lease, therefore you are deemed to have written a lease, and therefore the law treats a lease has existing." Rich Farmbrough, 00:44, 24 May 2012 (UTC).

Texas v. White stated that "Texas (and the rest of the Confederacy) never left the Union during the Civil War, because a state cannot unilaterally secede from the United States." So a law basically said secession never happened that what I was talking about. I agreed it is a weird law and weird ruling; the case wasn't even about a state wanting to secede.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 01:04, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, it didn't say it never factually happened. It said it never legally happened. That's not so weird. On the actual facts, of course, people who had bought the bonds (even second-hand) got totally hosed by the ruling, in favor of what looks like a totally unmerited windfall for the State of Texas. I find it interesting that Texas v White is almost always referred to in this "no, you can't secede" context, and the equity of the actual result is hardly ever discussed. --Trovatore (talk) 01:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Not as hosed as the folks who invested in confederate money. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

That's different. When a company in which you own stock, goes bankrupt, you expect to lose your entire investment. You don't expect to have to give back everything you bought from the company, to its new owners.

A cartoon version of the outcome is: The State of Texas sold the bonds note: US Treasury bonds, not Texas bonds or Confederate bonds, but it was in rebellion so it didn't have the right to, so if you have these bonds, you have to give them to the State of Texas. --Trovatore (talk) 02:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Another aspect of all this is the many Native American tribes that "disowned" their treaty obligations to the US and made new treaties with the Confederacy during the war—such as the Creeks, Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, and others like the Wichita and Comanche. The Confederate treaties were more generous than what had been promised in earlier treaties with the US—understandably because the Confederacy desperately needed alliances with these tribes. The US never recognized the validity of any of these treaties because the Confederacy was never considered sovereign. Pfly (talk) 03:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

That seems like a middle case, somewhere in between the currency and the bonds. On the one hand, it could be construed as the tribes having "bought" something from the Confederacy (land, maybe? I'm not familiar with the details.) But any obligations agreed to by the Confederacy would of course not be binding on the United States. And certainly it doesn't have the stark WTF aspect of Texas v White, where the State of Texas is claiming that it is owed something, on the basis of the bad acts of the State of Texas. --Trovatore (talk) 03:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It's interesting that the Southern states (a) never left the Union and (b) were required to apply for readmission to the Union. —Tamfang (talk) 06:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think there was another court case where, under a law entitling members of state militias during the Civil War to receive pensions, those in the Confederate state's militias sued to get their benefits, on the basis that they were still a part of the US at the time. I believe they lost, however. StuRat (talk) 06:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The bottom line is that the courts had to walk a fine line to avoid any legal recognition of the CSA. The south was in rebellion, but their rebellion was unconstitutional. As per the courts. And I notice they did leave a loophole. Surely a state can secede if the other states approve. No problem there. In the case of the south, they didn't seek permission, they simply did it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Confirm some data about states with death penalty for apostasy

According to the attached map, only the countries mentioned in Apostasy#Countries have death penalty for apostasy. However, the article mentions these states as examples, and I wonder if it's a full list – perhaps other countries have such death penalty as well, that the map doesn't mention? Could you please check if this data is indeed comprehensive?

Thanks, 89.139.173.74 (talk) 19:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The best place to make requests, inquiries or suggestions about this is probably Talk:Apostasy. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not provide legal opinions (see WP:NOLEGAL). If you're planning to apostasize, please consult legal counsel first. Gabbe (talk) 09:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wow, those are some extraordinarily misleading replies. First of all, the OP came to the right venue, as article talk pages are only for improvement of the articles, not general discussion of the subject. Secondly this is in no way a question about legal advice, but simply a query about which countries have death penalty for apostasy, nothing more nothing less. I am sorry I can't help the OP with answering the questions as it is not my field of knowledge, and Google search turns up all kinds of unrelated stuff, but I hope someone will be able to answer the question. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:46, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It might be in Amnesty International country reports. They carry quite a lot of detail about executions. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't have time for a thorough fact check, but a quick bit of research suggests that the map is accurate. The death penalty for apostasy is a unique feature of some versions of Sharia. (While European states once killed people found out of compliance with the official version of Christianity, that practice ended during the early modern period.) To my knowledge, no other legal tradition today prescribes that penalty. So the penalty will exist only for apostates from Islam and only in countries where Islam is established as the state religion. The map shows most such countries. I did not confirm that every country shown on the map has this penalty, but I checked the countries not shown on the map where Islam is the state religion, namely Oman and Morocco, and neither of those two has a death penalty for apostasy. (Apostates do face other legal sanctions in both countries.) Note on the map that Nigeria is shown in a lighter color than the other countries. That is because the death penalty applies only in Nigerian states that follow Sharia. Marco polo (talk) 15:27, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I do doubt whether Egypt should be included in the map. According to the book Citizenship in the Arab World, by Gianluca Paolo Parolin, Egyptian law "does not prescribe the death penalty for apostasy". (The author does go on to say that according to some, citizens should take the right into their own hands and kill the apostate, for which they cannot be punished.) As the book is from 2009, I do not know whether this situation has changed since the 'Arab Spring' change of power, but barring any evidence that it has been made a capital offense, I think it should be removed. The picture's description uses as a source Apostasy#Countries, and that page cites the this editorial as evidence Egypt has the death penalty for apostates, but that article is from 2007 and seems less reliable than the book I cited above. - Lindert (talk) 16:15, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

May 23

SITTING REPUBLICAN US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

WHO AND HOW MANY JEWISH SITTING REPUBLICAN US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ARE THERE..??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.81.70.93 (talk) 02:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Please don't use all capital letters in your posts. It's harder to read, and is considered to be shouting on the Internet. HiLo48 (talk) 02:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

A little simple Googling will tell you as much as you're ever likely to want to know. The only Jewish member of the current Republican caucus in either the House or the Senate is Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives and thus second within the House Republican Conference after the Speaker of the House, John Boehner of Ohio. The two independent Senators, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, are also both Jewish (there are currently no independent members of the House of Representatives). For lists of current and recent Jewish members of both chambers, see: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/jewcongtoc.html For a list of every current member by religious affiliation see http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Issues/Government/relig-affil-pdf%20updated%202-24-11.pdf For a statistical overview, see: http://www.pewforum.org/Government/Faith-on-the-Hill--The-Religious-Composition-of-the-112th-Congress.aspx —— Shakescene (talk) 05:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Communism on totalitarianism and authoritarianism

Yes I once asked a similar question to this one, but this one is slightly different. Think of it as a follow-up question. The question is basically "is it encouraged?" rather than "why?" Anyway, I've noticed that virtually all "communist" countries (as in socialist one-party countries run by a communist party on a path to communism) eventually become dictatorships with little to no freedom of speech/religion/press etc. and frequently cults of personality. However, I did not notice any part in the articles on Communism, Marxism and Marxism-Leninism which encourage no freedom of speech or press, or cults of personality, although state atheism was encouraged by Marx. But IIRC, Marx wanted some democracy in order to implement certain socialist policies. Does this mean that the road to communism was actually supposed to be a more democratic one instead of totalitarian one? And was there anything in Marx's works that encouraged totalitarianism, authoritarianism or dictatorships? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 03:16, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, communism basically doesn't work, in that there's no incentive to work. The people soon figure out that this is the cause of their economic problems. So, if people could vote for change, they would. Thus, the only way to maintain communism is to take away people's ability to vote. StuRat (talk) 04:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Added a tag to your dubious statement once again. --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 23:43, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

And I removed it again. You are not allowed to edit the talk page contributions of others. That tag is for articles, not here. If you disagree with anything I said, add your own comments, don't edit mine. StuRat (talk) 02:38, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

See News from Nowhere on the incentive to work. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

• "Totalitarian" and "authoritarian" are concepts created by US political scientists in the 1950s and 1960s to justify the US government's support of some anti-democratic societies, while opposing other anti-democratic societies. They are not a useful lens through which to view the actuality of the soviet-style societies.
• Marxism has a democratic heritage. Marx supported the people against existing states in positive politics, and in his theoretical works hypothesised that the labour process would produce a new collective democratic working class identity. This mirrors the condition of a large proportion of the revolutionary socialist movement of Marx's time. Revolutionary socialists viewed democracy as a good thing, and a more ideal way to manage society and the economy. The majority of Marxists maintained this position, though, during the First World War major splits emerged in the Socialist movement, as many socialist parties supported the war whereas many politically active workers did not support the war.
• Marx's political conceptions did include conceptions that were criticised as anti-democratic. The chief critique was that advanced by Bukharin of Marx's attitude towards the state. My lingering suspicious is that Bukharin viewed the state as a bourgeois state apparatus, whereas Marx viewed the state in his writing as the tool of one classes' oppression of other classes.
• Towards the end of the first world war, Russia went through a series of revolutions. The most significant revolutionary moment was the growth of workplace councils during 1917. As Simon Pirani notes, these councils were stifled by the war economy and by the central role played in government by the RSDLP(b). The RSDLP(b) had attacked other socialist parties in the constituent assembly, a bourgeois parliament. They also attacked other revolutionary soviet parties and groups, such as the (pathetically ineffective) Moscow anarchists, the Left SRs, or the Makhnovist movement. With the working class crushed in the factories by starvation and Bolshevik power, in the Red Army by attrition and Bolshevik power, and in the country-side by the destruction of socialist revolutionary movements (by the Bolshevik party), chaos, and kulakisation, working class democracy became ineffective, being replaced by Bolshevik functionaries organised in a hierarchical manner with extremely limited capacity for dissent. Soviet style societies rapidly disconnected from the democratic heritage of Marxism.
• Some other European revolutions in the late 1910s also suffered from anti-democratic tendencies, such as the centralising impulse of the Social Democratic and Syndicalist Hungarian revolution (inspired by Bolshevism). Others, such as the German or Italian revolutions, or the British shop-stewards committees maintained workers' democracy. As can be seen from the "ultra-left" debates (cf: Left wing communism, an infantile disorder), the Bolsheviks had to cement control over the international revolutionary socialist movement by attacking (surprise!) Marxists who favoured workers democracy like the AAUD or KAPD or early British communist party. But as the Hungarian revolution shows, factors other than Leninism lead to anti-democratic practices—isolation from a large working class movement, the substitution of leadership for membership, and centralisation. Strangely, these were factors behind the anti-democratic tendencies in the all-party Soviets of the Soviet Union (and show in the Left SR's anti-democratic politics as well as the Bolsheviks—the Left SRs weren't Marxists by the way).
• By 1930 the 3rd International had become committed to a Bolshevik attitude towards politics, the subordination of the working class, and anti-democratic practices within most Parties. This wasn't helped by the number of revolutions where long term war was a fundamental component (China, Vietnam); or, where Bolshevik politics were forced by occupation, political attacks on socialists and centrists, and coup d'etats (Central Europe). In addition, the attacks on democratising movements in Soviet-style societies by the Soviet Union ensured that any tendency towards democracy by sending tanks over the border.
• By 1930 criticisms of Bolshevism as anti-democratic from within the workers' movement had been developed by Social Democrats, revolutionary Social Democrats varying from ultra-lefts through "right"ists, anarchists, revolutionary labourites, etc. The most commonly known criticisms of the anti-worker attitude of the Soviet Union come from Trotskyists of various varieties. Amusingly, many of the criticisms of the Soviet Union as anti-democratic have come from parties that are themselves anti-democratic!
• "The road to communism" isn't a path established by political parties of bourgeois intellectuals, whether Radical, Anarchist, Social Democratic or Leninist. The road to communism is the path taken by the working class. The natural institutions of the working class, built out of solidarity, are democratic and mass institutions (the union, the cooperative store, the democratic political party branch). This seems to be related to the actual labour process under capitalism as formative of the worker as a collective apparatus, a "social worker." Marx's intentions don't come into whether communism ought to be an extension of existing workers' democracy or not, nor do Lenin's substitutionalism. The structure of the soviet-style societies reflected their inception in bloody brutality, the crushing of revolutionary working class movements, and the maintenance of power by a limited network of Bolshevik functionaries. This is as related to communism as the Absolutist State of Louis XIV is related to capitalism. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This topic is highly contentious and has been widely debated since the 19th century. There are many different replies from all sorts of different perspectives, and the answer you'll get will likely depend on whom you're asking. One relatively popular book on the topic is The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek, in which he argues that state control over the economy (whether "communist" or otherwise) is a slippery slope inevitably leading towards a totalitarian state. Gabbe (talk) 08:40, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

And of course it should be mentioned that Hayek is on the other end of the political spectrum than Marx, and as such is as ideologically loaded as communists and marxists. --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

StuRats comment is a tired old POV interpretation based on the western media (how can an educated encyclopaedia hold that view?). Also see the governments of West Bengal since the last 40 years. Democratic Comm. govts...and even if the PARTY lost the last election, the new party won on a platform that was more communist (communal ownership vs. privatisation) than the official communists.Lihaas (talk) 23:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

You must have noticed the total lack of successful communist nations in the world today (China is now as capitalist as anyone). It's not just bad luck, it just doesn't work. At best it works on a very small scale, where everyone knows everyone else, and they can expel anyone from the commune who doesn't pull their own weight. StuRat (talk) 02:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Frank Zappa said it this way: "Communism doesn't work, because people like to own stuff." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:21, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Zappa didn't understand the distinction between private property and personal property. Depending on the form of socialism/communism, you probably can't own a factory, a village, an island, a mountain. You can own clothing, furniture, means of transport, sports equipment, books, paintings etc. And the "no incentive to work" idea is muddled. As the OP understood, the Marxist idea is that societies first make a transition to socialism, where the principle is "from each according to their labour, to each according to their work". The incentive to work is that you have a contract of employment, and if you break your contract you lose pay and may be sacked. Then after a transition to communism, the principle is "from each according to their labour, to each according to their need". The idea there is that people actually want to fill up their days with fulfilling activity. William Morris, in his utopian novel, started with the example of someone who liked to ferry people across the Thames in a rowing boat. In his day there was a craze for rich young men to exert themselves rowing up and down the Thames, carrying no-one who needed to go anywhere. The USSR and China didn't turn to authoritarianism because they had tried the utopian ideal and it failed. They never tried the utopian ideal. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The risk of being fired inspires people to do the minimum amount of work they can to get by. Incentives like promotions, raises, etc., are needed to get them to do more than the bare minimum. And I don't think most people enjoy their work to the extent that they would choose to do it for thousands of hours each year, for their whole life, without compensation. StuRat (talk) 17:29, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

You might want to look up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. According to that theory, what drives people isn't money alone. Money is only that useful (unless you have insane quantities of it). For most people, money is spent to get housing (whether you're paying down a mortgage or renting), buying food, clothes and other essentials. If you are lucky, you might be able to afford a holiday to an exotic location every now and then. However, there are other things that trigger people's willingness to work, such as their work being appreciated by others, good work mates and self-realisation. Now, you would argue, self-realisation you've covered in your comment about 'promotions', but that really is a tired cliché. Many jobs are dead end jobs, that don't really lead to anywhere: Office cleaner, burger flipper, receptionist, none of these are likely to get you that fat promotion you want so badly, regardless of how hard you work. V85 (talk) 18:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

most forms of socialism have some kind of wage differential, I.e. promotions, raises. The Soviet system certainly did. But the differential factor could be fixed at maximum x5, x10 rather than the present x100 (between the VCR of a university and a cleaner, for example).Itsmejudith (talk) 19:41, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

But even at a 5X differential, you're still going to have a poor "working class" and a relatively rich "ruling class". So, this doesn't qualify as communism, to me. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

"...was there anything in Marx's works that encouraged totalitarianism, authoritarianism or dictatorships?"

• From the Communist Manifesto (p.26 of the pdf) "The proletariat will use its political supremacy ... to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State....Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production...."
• From Critique of the Gotha Program: "Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing, but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."[10]--Wikimedes (talk) 11:47, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

See dictatorship of the proletariat as well for some further clarification of that term. It doesn't necessarily mean a dictatorship, but practical applications have tended to make it, well, a dictatorship. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:16, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

And once you have a dictatorship, you're not likely to find it willing to voluntarily give up power in favor of democracy. StuRat (talk) 17:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

No kidding. I always get a laugh when a communism apologist comes along and tries to argue that Americans aren't free either. Well, there's one sure way to tell how free a country is. It's whether you're allowed to leave. I also laugh when I hear that the USA supposedly incarcerates more people than any country. Wrong. If you're living in a country where you're not allowed to leave, then the entire country is incarcerated. That condition describes any communist nation you'd care to name. Because those benevolent governments knew full well that if people were allowed to leave, there would be a ginormous mass exodus. And that would tend to show up the country's leaders. Can't have that! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:13, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

StuRat, if you can't be bothered reading even the lede of the article you were referred to, don't bother pressing save page. "The use of the term "dictatorship" does not refer to the Classical Roman concept of the dictatura (the governance of a state by a small group with no democratic process), but instead to the Marxist concept of dictatorship (that an entire societal class holds political and economic control, within a democratic system)." Fifelfoo (talk) 23:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

It's always useful to issue personal attacks in front of the OP. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

That may be the theory, but it wasn't the reality. An entire class of people can't rule directly. So you got somebody like Stalin ruling "on their behalf". Of course, once people like him grabbed power, they had no intention of ever giving it up. StuRat (talk) 04:37, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

To the individual, of course, it doesn't really matter whether he is constrained by a single tyrant, a small oligarchy, or an entire class. --Trovatore (talk) 04:42, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Except that it's easier to shoot a single tyrant. StuRat (talk) 04:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

There is that. --Trovatore (talk) 05:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

All of these critiques are equally applicable to "liberal" democracy. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Not really. To democracy, yes, but not to liberal democracy, which specifically implies freedom for the individual. Of course a liberal democracy can take away the individual's freedom via the democratic process, but it then ceases to be liberal. --Trovatore (talk) 17:27, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

"Totalitarian" and "authoritarian" are concepts created by US political scientists in the 1950s and 1960s to justify the US government's support of some anti-democratic societies, while opposing other anti-democratic societies." -- That's a really bizarre claim to make --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 10:01, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

They don't appear previous to this, they don't appear emergent in British scholarship, and they're certainly not categories present in labourist, social democratic, anarchist nor Marxist work. Read more history and philosophy of social science. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:46, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

TM, I think Fifelfoo is talking about the supposed distinction between "totalitarian" and "authoritarian", (the former being taken to be really bad, the latter, bad but not as bad). I think that probably is a justified criticism of US policy in the time frame referenced. That's a different matter from "totalitarian/authoritarian" as a concept including regimes from both the so-called-right and so-called-left, which definitely appears in Hayek (though I don't know what word he used), and he was certainly not American. --Trovatore (talk) 17:48, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

London Partnership Register

Ken Livingstone, then Mayor of London, introduced the London Partnership Register in 2001. it had no legal force, but paved the way for civil partnerships, and was discontinued when the Civil Partnership Act 2004 came into force. It was open to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Does anyone know how many partnerships were registered under this scheme (and the breakdown by male, female, and opposite-sex)? --rossb (talk) 09:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

998 partnerships were registered: [11]. Warofdreams talk 10:41, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for this. But I wonder if anyone knows the gender breakdown?--rossb (talk) 23:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I did a quick search but couldn't find anything except for a mention of the first heterosexual couple in 2001. You could always ask the City of London or whatever authority this was under.

I'm not sure why you want to know, but perhaps examples from elsewhere would also be interesting. For example, Civil union in New Zealand as the article says are available to both same sex and opposite sex couples in NZ (but marriage unfortunately remains unavailable to same sex couples). Using [12] shows from the start (April 2005) until March 2012 there were 1244 female couples, 951 male couples, 543+7 (7 transfers from marriage) opposite-sex couples registering for them for a total of 2745 civil unions. Which works out to be 45.3%, 34.6%, 19.8%+0.3% respectively. The statistics on the female/male split are interesting albeit some would argue not surprising. Despite all the complainers often concentrating on male couples, there were more females.

Note AFAIK, civil unions in NZ provide all legal rights and responsibilities as marriages except when it comes to adoption. (Other countries may not recognise NZ civil unions in the same way, but that isn't really the fault of NZ.) However even many couples without a marriage or civil union are in nearly the same boat, as it's mostly the same for anyone in a de facto relationship (generally most relationships as a couple living together for more then 3 years) [13] [14] [15], the key difference perhaps being without a clear document, someone could challenge the right to make medical decisions or whatever and you would likely have to wait until it's sorted in court. (But still, it's likely some couples don't bother not seeing a reason.)

Nil Einne (talk) 14:18, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Stage Combat in the 18. Century

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am looking for a book of the 18. century about stage combat. Thank you for your help.

Kind Regards--188.62.157.252 (talk) 12:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Does the Wikipedia article titled Stage combat help any? --Jayron32 19:18, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Jayron32. I have seen the article, but I need a book from the 17. or 18. century about stage fencing and combat. Kind regards.--188.62.157.252 (talk) 19:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The absolute oldest book on stage combat I could find was Le théâtre héroïque by Letainturier-Fradin, Gabriel, published in the early twentieth century. You can find a copy of that here. Hope that helps. eldamorie (talk) 20:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It would appear that until the late 19th/early 20th century, stage combat was more or less taken directly from fencing manuals, so if you're looking for books on techniques used in stage combat at the time, you might want to check out fencing manuals instead. eldamorie (talk) 14:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd also point out that the work I linked to above does include a fairly decent history of stage combat from the time of Cyrus I. eldamorie (talk) 15:00, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed for it being actual stage combat from the time of Cyrus I, though. That seems highly dubious. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:22, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

US federal prisoners before federal prisons

According to Federal Bureau of Prisons, the first federal prisons were authorised in 1891. Imagine that I rob a post office or commit some other federal crime, and I'm convicted of the crime in 1890. What happens to me — am I put in the nearest state prison, or is there some other sort of detention facility where I'll be sent, such as a prison ship? Nyttend (talk) 14:38, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This paper says federal prisoners were kept in state prisons or county jails on a contract basis, due to the low number of federal prisoners. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't Yuma Territorial Prison a federal prison? Or was it run by the territorial government? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 23:06, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Football statistics and copyright

Does anyone know whether NFL stats are considered public domain or if they are copyrighted? 198.185.18.207 (talk) 14:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This kind of question is best asked at WP:MCQ, which deals with copyright issues exclusively. I don't think your question is specific enough — are you asking if you can create a list of each player's statistics, or are you asking if you can copy a page of statistics wholesale? The numbers themselves are not copyrighted (it's not someone's creative work to say that Player A ran for 99 yards and that Player B made five tackles), but the way of listing them potentially is. If this doesn't make sense, read Idea–expression divide. Nyttend (talk) 16:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

More specifically, I'm asking if it's fair use and/or public domain to create my own list of NFL stats from scratch (of course, getting the actual data from other sources, but only taking a selection of data and manually typing it into my own database that I constructed entirely on my own) and posting the stats in my own format on a website generating ad revenue. 198.185.18.207 (talk) 18:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Before doing anything of this sort, you should definately contact a lawyer who works in this area. They can advise you on the proper way to go about this. Being legal and being unsuable are two different things, and the fact that you could legally do something doesn't prevent the NFL from attempting to shut you down. Having a lawyer ahead of time review what you plan to do and help you set it up could save you trouble down the road. --Jayron32 18:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

See Idea–expression divide. A fact is an idea, and cannot be copyrighted. The specific presentation of facts can be. So, for example, the fact that Tim Tebow threw for 100 yards some week, and the same week Tom Brady threw for 350 yards are not copyrightable ideas. However, if another website has a table of the QB statistics for each week, and you copy that entire table, verbatim (or even copy a substantial portion of the table), you are copying an expression. IANAL, but you have to be very specific on what information you wish to use or how you wish to use it, and I agree, you need to ask this question at WP:MCQ with a specific, detailed plan for what you plan to do. --Jayron32 16:59, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually I doubt that there is any copyrightable interest in the collection of NFL statistics for a week, at least in the United States. See sweat of the brow, a copyright doctrine rejected in the US in Feist v. Rural. Of course I'm not an expert and no one should rely on this. --Trovatore (talk) 22:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

But what about WWE results? They are definitely the result of a creative process, not "just data" ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:54, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Nope, just like an original description of the plot of a book is not covered by copyright, the results of wrestling matches as reported in truly original language, are not covered by copyright on the original work. I can write a synopsis of the plot of the Hunger Games, and that synopsis does not violate the copyright of the author because the ideas contained within the book are not copyrightable, just the words used to express those ideas. Likewise, I can report the results of a rasslin match without violating the copyright held by the scriptwriters who coreographed that rasslin match. --Jayron32 18:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe she was making a joke revolving around the fact that wrestling matches are scripted, like a violent play, rather than simply allowing the competitors to fight it out and let the chips fall as they may. 198.185.18.207 (talk) 18:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and I was making it clear that the idea-expression divide covers the results of scripted rasslin matches as well as unscripted football games. --Jayron32 18:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

OP didn't say in what country he or she intended to publish or reproduce the transformed data - in most countries there is no copyright or indeed intellectual property right in the data per se, but there may well be database rights, or copyright protection for effort of gathering or arrnagement. Even though "sweat of the brow" has been rejected in a number of countries, it has also found some degree of acceptance in other countries. If the OP is really concerned about copyright, because as he or she says it is intended to be a commercial publication, then he or she really should consult a lawyer. In many countries, publication of web content is regarded as occurring in the place where it is downloaded and displayed on a screen, not where it was uploaded, so if OP puts an intellectual-property-right-infringing piece of material on the internet, he or she is potentially opening himself or herself up to litigation in many places around the world. If you are worried, find a lawyer. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:55, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Does anybody but Americans care about American football statistics? ;-) The OP's IP resolves to the US in any case. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:02, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, it's not altogether impossible. American football has a small but apparently not completely negligible worldwide following. For example the European Football League plays American football (which I might not have guessed, just hearing the name). There seem to be quite a few teams and games; how many fans, I haven't yet managed to find out. --Trovatore (talk) 05:34, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

If the "idea" of a book's plot is not copyrightable — well, some Hollywood lawsuits I've heard of don't make sense. —Tamfang (talk) 18:37, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

"Find a lawyer, nobody knows" warnings aside, Jayron's answers on this are reliable. If you are compiling your own statistics, it is definitely safe. Even if you are taking other statistics, as long as there is no creativity involved (e.g. there isn't some kind of "secret sauce" algorithm involved in generating them, or they aren't entirely subjective) then there should be no copyright issues in the United States. The fact that somebody threw a ball a certain distance or scored a number of points is not copyrightable under the US copyright code. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:02, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Not sure you read all of my post above Mr.98. Just to spell it out - the OP could be sued in Australia, for example, for data he or she uploads in the US, if the data infringes intellectual property rights protected under Australian law and someone in Australia accessed that website in Australia, even if the data does not infringe intellectual property rights under US law. And nobody is saying it can't infringe intellectual property rights under US law (Blueboar's confident statement below notwithstanding). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:20, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I read it, but I think it's a somewhat silly concern. The OP is talking about data that is explicitly generated in the United States and appears to live well outside of Australian jurisdiction. Show me a single example of something even remotely similar happening with US sports statistics and I'll acknowledge that it's a realistic possibility, but until then, I will conclude that it is not worth worrying about. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:49, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

A word of caution here... I agree that compiling your own statistics is OK from a copyright perspective... but, it can sometimes be a form of Original Research (whether the statistic is OK or not depends on the nature of the statistic, and what conclusions you draw from it). Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

That only pertains if the OP is trying to post them on Wikipedia, which they have not at all indicated (the goal is to "[post] the stats in my own format on a website generating ad revenue"). --Mr.98 (talk) 22:49, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Please help a struggling uncle!

Hi, my nephew asked me yesterday why many fire departments paint their fire engines red. I've looked online and can't find out why! He didn't settle for my answer of "because pink fire engines would look silly". Help! -- role^player 18:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This page says: "Traditionally, red is the emergency service colour, particularly for fire brigades. Often red has been combined with white in a two colour design. The belief was that the superior reflectivity of white would increase vehicle visibility and offset the poor performance of the red colour panels, especially in low light. In fact, the two colours did the opposite... The red is difficult to perceive and the white merges with the surrounding background. This combination distorts perception and slows the sensory process, thus increasing reaction times.". So it seems originally it was meant to be a visible colour, although apparently it is not the most visible, but now the red colour has "strong cultural associations with the fire service" as our article on Emergency vehicle lighting says, and thus it has been kept. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:52, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It's notable that airport fire engines are at least as likely to be yellow or greenish-yellow than red (judging from Google image searches for "airport fire engine", "airport fire appliance" and the like). There doesn't seem to be any reason that this is better, just as Saddhiyama notes, that's what people are used to (some of those yellows are fluorescent, but one can make fluorescent red too). Commons has commons:Category:Fire engines by color which gives numbers (obviously a very unscientific sampling) with red the clear leader and yellow a very weak second, but a few odd ones like gray and blue engines. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:40, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Greenish-yellow is used because it contrasts with almost everything in an urban environment. --Carnildo (talk) 02:19, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

These colour associations can be traced back to the middle ages... See Barber's pole--Aspro (talk) 19:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

There are also, of course, lots of emergency vehicles that have more sophisticated patterns, like this one. These surely do make the vehicle more visible (unlike, it seems, just the colour). But a lot of the appearance of a fire appliance is just to say "this is a fire appliance". At least in the UK most emergency vehicles say "FIRE ENGINE" or whatever (in mirror writing on the front) which is mostly redundant given their character, but which I guess helps clarify matters in a few situations - few other vehicles (like cars, vans, or busses) have "this is a bus" written on them. Given that there are very few pink vehicles on the road, if recognition is the goal, then probably fire engines really should be pink with green spots. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:55, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This forum discusses yellow and pink fire appliances in Coventry in the 1960s and 70s. You can see a YouTube video of a 1965 yellow one here. I dimly recall one experiment with yellow fire engines (maybe in the 1980s?) being abandoned because nobody recognized what they were, they expected fire engines to be red. Also in the UK, we used to have old Civil Defence fire engines that were brought out for the Army to use whenever the Fire Brigade Union went on strike. They were painted in military khaki and were known as Green Goddesses. Youtube video here. I understand they've all been sold off to museums and collectors. Some research here: Why Lime-Yellow Fire Trucks Are Safer Than Red. Alansplodge (talk) 21:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Grampian Fire and Rescue Service have white fire engines; they give much better visibility under lighting. I believe they're the only force in the UK not to use red. Grampian were also the first UK force to change their uniform colour from blue to mustard, to make chemical spills on them more visible. Dalliance (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I imagine when you say "under lighting" you mean under low pressure sodium-vapor lamps specifically (as that's the predominant street lighting technology used in the UK). I can certainly see how ordinary red paint would appear nearly black under low-pressure sodium's baleful pall. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I went to google images, and when I simply put [fire engines] I got primarily red ones. However, if you google [orange fire engines] or [yellow fire engines] or [green fire engines] or [blue fire engines] or [purple fire engines] or any other basic color you'd care to name, you can see there is a variety. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Just a guess here... One reason that fire engines might be traditionally painted red is that fire is traditionally thought of as being red - for example, flames in heraldry are often red. Blueboar (talk) 22:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I would think that's a given. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

May 24

Chen Guangcheng vs. Chengguan

I recently read this article in the BBC about the Chengguan. Given Chen Guangcheng's previous difficulties with local law enforcement, I was wondering if there is some relationship between the similar looking names. Or is this just a coincidence?--Wikimedes (talk) 11:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

"Chengguan" is transcribed from (城管 chéngguǎn), and "Chen Guangcheng" comes from (陈光诚 chén guāngchéng). So despite their similarities as transliterated, these are five different Chinese characters. A cursory inspection of the Wiktionary entries for the respective characters seems to imply they are all unrelated. And while the "chen/cheng" have the second tone, the "guan" and "guang" differ in tones. Gabbe (talk) 12:48, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The pronunciation is distinct: "Guan" and "Guang" are pronounced quite differently. "Guan" is like "Goo-Anne" rolled into one syllable, while "Guang" is like "Goo-On" rolled into one syllable.

And yes, the meanings are completely different. Mr Chen's given name is composed of characters which mean "light" and "honesty", or possibly "bright" and "earnestness". They are words of positive connotation. Like many Chinese names, they are not meant to convey some coherent message, just positive sentiments. His surname is, of course, just family name. When used as an ordinary character, it means either "to display" or "old".

"Chengguan" is composed of characters which individually mean "city, city wall or walled city" and "control or administer". More importantly, it is an abbreviation of the full name, which is detailed in the article you linked to. The characters themselves are neutral, but nowadays the word has a decidedly negative connotation in China.

In any case, I think it would be a bit of a stretch to link someone's persecution at the hands of the authorities with any similarity between their name and an unrelated insitution of authority - if a soldier called "Tim Judge" was demoted by his superiors, would there be any link between that and the similarity between his name and the name given to judicial authorities? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 14:00, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that covers it. It looks like it's just a coincidental bit of irony, maybe good for a bad pun, but nothing more.--Wikimedes (talk) 19:44, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it can even count as coincidental. In Chinese, even true homophones--two characters that sound exactly the same but look different and have different meanings--are extremely common. As pointed out above, 城 and 陈 are not only not homophones, they sound completely different. --140.180.5.169 (talk) 21:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

What the point of a 0% investment?

What do you earn if you buy one of those gov bonds at 0%? Do you just put 100€ in and get 100€ back after the deadline? No inflation adjustment? And why would that be better than simply putting money into a safe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.15.243 (talk) 17:45, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, safes get broken into. More to the point, institutional investors, the kind that invest 1,000,000,000€ at a time, need something to do with that money. They can't leave it lying in safes, and there isn't enough specie or hard currency or even precious metals for them to keep their money in. Government bonds are the safest investment around, so they still get bought, because as bad as it is, it is still better than the alternative. --Jayron32 17:59, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Are you talking about Zero-coupon bonds. --Aspro (talk) 18:04, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain what bonds you are talking about? If Aspro is right, and you are talking about zero-coupon bonds, then the explanation is simple - you put less than €100 in at the start and your return comes from the difference between the price and the redemption amount. The zero-coupon bit just means you don't get any interest payments during the term of the bond. If you mean bonds with a 0% yield (or even negative yield) then those are available sometimes at the moment because people are actually willing to pay the government to look after their money. That's because people don't have much confidence in other places to invest their money and, as Jayron says, they have to invest it somewhere because there just isn't enough cash available to stick it all under the mattress. --Tango (talk) 20:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Treasury bills are 0% coupon bills, but they're not at 0% yield even right now: [16]. Shadowjams (talk) 21:24, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

But if it is the German Treeasury bonds (2-year ones), they are at 0% yield right now! -- Vmenkov (talk) 03:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

When banks go bust, there's no guarantee you'll get your deposit back (particularly if you've deposited millions; most countries will repay small deposits). So putting it in bonds is more secure (although with Greece defaulting, and worries about other nations, maybe not 100% secure). --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, the greatest risk on German treasury bonds is quantitative easing, or other measures which effectively "print money" and diminish the value of the euro.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:13, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Hypothetical voting system

I don't know if this kind of voting system has ever been used, or even hypothesized: Suppose there are two candidates for an office, Fred and Barney. In the voting booth, a machine dispenses ballots alternately labeled "Fred" and "Barney", so that every odd-numbered voter receives a Fred ballot and every even-numbered voter receives a Barney ballot. The voter can either assent to the candidate by putting the ballot in a box, or he can veto the candidate by destroying the ballot. Any ballot not put in the box is counted as a veto. When everyone has voted, the surviving ballots are added up to determine the winner of the election. (Of course, this method could be generalized to any number of candidates.) This system is very simple from the voter's perspective, and would eliminate the problem of spoiled ballots. But what drawbacks or unexpected effects would the system engender? What kind of candidate would particularly benefit or suffer from the system? LANTZY^TALK 20:18, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

No, this system could not be generalised to any number of candidates. I could see it potentially working for two candidates, as you are voting for your candidate either way: If I vote for Barney, or against Fred, in the end, it's a vote for Barney. But, if I vote against Lisa, that's not a vote for Barney; it's a third of a vote for Barney, a third of a vote for Fred and a third of a vote for Anna. As you add more and more candidates, the system becomes less reliable to provide an accurate image of whom the people actually want (the most), since the only choice they get, is a random choice of voting either for or against a given candidate. To some extent, this could be mitigated by people counting spaces in the line, and thereby ending up with the space for their candidate, but such a system would break down, once the least favoured candidate runs out of voters.

In the end though, it seems like a rather complicated system to eradicate what, to me, seems a rather minor problem - spoiled ballots. A problem which I don't even think your proposal would solve: People will want to choose their candidate. If I want to vote for Barney, but get a Lisa ballot, can I strike out Lisa and write Barney instead? My guess is that such a ballot would be deemed spoilt in your system. In fact, by introducing this system, you would potentially change the electoral outcome. With four candidates, no candidate could receive more than 25% of the votes, granted that all the people who receive their ballot also submit it. So, even if one candidate had 50% support in the population, the maximum amount of votes he could get would be 25% of the votes 'cast'. Granted that if one candidate had that much support, many would discard other ballots, the final tally might be something like 30-35% of the votes cast (i.e. votes submitted and not vetoed). The outcome for an election with more than two candidates could potentially be very unreliable, since each voter is forced to vote yes or no only to a single candidate of a pool consisting of more than 2.

Yes, you're system would require less counting at the end of the day, and so you'd save a little bit of labour, but I don't think that would be weighed up for, by the fact that you are providing a system that seems more difficult (explain to people that they can either submit or reject the ballot they got), people queue up strategically (imagine the stress, the anger, frustration and haggling over spots in the queue that would result)... I even think that the main premise of this type of ballot, psychologically, is a bit weird: Potentially half of the supporters of any candidate (in a two-horse race) would be forced to vote against somebody. Although technically it's the same as voting for the other guy, it seems a lot less appealing. V85 (talk) 20:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(ec)If there are only two candidates, the system could work, but with three or more, people are unable to cast their vote on the candidate they prefer. If candidates A,B and C participate, and I support candidate A, but receive a B-ballot, this means my destroying the ballot counts only as a vote against B, which equally favors A and C. - Lindert (talk) 20:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

He's trying to solve the problem of miscounted ballots, either because the dot wasn't filled in, or the chad wasn't punched out, or otherwise ambiguous ballots. I can envision simpler solutions... like you get two slips with a unique, unpredictable, identifier on them and you put the one you want to vote for into the box. Then the machine tallies them and if the same person put in more than one slip, it doesn't count their vote. Simple, brightline, hard to cheat.

I also don't think it's impossible to make his system work for multiple candidates, but it increases the complexity (you need more boxes).

If you're interested there's a lot more elegant and complicated mathematical solutions to voting issues like this: cryptographic voting. Or, incentivize people to make their vote count by making clear, unambiguous rules about what counts and what doesn't. Shadowjams (talk) 20:51, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all the replies. I was hoping that this method would create a lot of problems, and you haven't disappointed me. LANTZY^TALK 23:15, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

What happens if I get a Fred ballot, tear it in half and put it in the box? Is it a vote for Fred, a vote for Barney (a veto of Fred because I tore the ballot) or a spoilt ballot and it counts for neither? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the issue here is that you're trying to solve the problem of spoiled ballots, when they really aren't a problem. Often, they are an intentional protest vote. Sometimes, they are an accidentally ambiguous vote, but not often enough to be a problem is most elections (there were some issues in Florida a few years back, but that's the only example I'm aware of). The other type of spoilt ballot is one which identifies the voter, so is void as a precaution against attempts to buy votes (you can't buy votes unless you have a way to know whether the person voted for you or not - forced anonymity is therefore quite effective at stopping vote buying) - those will need to counted as spoilt in any voting system. --Tango (talk) 11:49, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

During the United States Senate election in Minnesota, 2008 recount, the public got to see a good deal of spoiled or ambiguous ballots. While some of them were just silly, some of them seemed to be legitimate protest votes. Spoiling your ballot is a good way to express dissatisfaction - if you just don't vote, the politicians will think you just don't care. If you spoil your ballot, you let them know that you're ticked off. I for one think that the lizard people would make a good senator. More on topic, what the recount also illustrated was that no matter how simple you make your voting system, people will still find ways to screw it up, even unintentionally. At least the "fill in the bubble" method is pretty well recognized. No one would be familiar with a "submit this vote if you want to" method. Buddy431 (talk) 05:06, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me one way to get a better idea of the depth of the problem would be to include a 'none of these candidates' or even just a 'no vote' as a better way for people to protest which will be recorded seperately as some places do. Of course some people will still protest by spoiling but the number should be fewer, particularly in the first case or where the protest vote has a possible implication (I believe in some jurisdictions if the protest vote 'wins', it has an effect). Of course in places where you actually have to write (tick, number etc) or fill in something, you can and some jurisdictions do make a distinction between a blank ballot and a spoilt ballot, but I guess this wouldn't work if you use chads. Although even when you use a pen, there will always be a few ambigious cases, e.g. where there's a small mark, was it an accident i.e. it's a blank ballot or intentional i.e. a spoilt ballot. So it would seem making a distinction between all three would be useful. Someone who marks 'none of the above' is very likely a protest vote. Someone who doesn't fill in anything is either a protest vote or simply confused/incompetent. Someone who spoils the vote is most likely incompete/confused although could also be protesting.

Of course having a decent system for recounts helps. It also seems you should have a resonable threshold for error and concentrate on whether you can be resonably sure of the voter preference rather then rigirously following the rules. E.g. here in NZ it seems to me they have a resonable threshold, see this [17] judicial recount. Some interesting points from there, it seems some voters were either shy or unaware they could have their ballots replace if they screwed up, but where there was a clear preference these were accepted. Similarly even tho you're supposed to use ticks, dots were accepted but not when the same voter elsewhere used a tick since it could have been simply an accident. Adding a heart or writing the current PM's name (incorrectly spelled) on your vote in addition to the tick was also fine.

Malaysia where the electoral system has other problems uses or used a stricter standard I believe. At least over 15 years ago when I was reading the guide my teacher had for counting votes, I seem to recall if you wrote idiot (or something similar) next to a candidates name but ticked another candidate it would be discounted. (While I don't see any mention of this there, it seems it would likely be counted in NZ.)

Nil Einne (talk) 06:13, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Kennedy assassination book(s)

As a regular Wikipedian I hesitate to ask this question with its potential to open up a dramafest, but I don't know anyone who I trust more than us. I recently had occasion to visit the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza and coincidentally (really) read Steven King's 11/22/63 and have a close relative ask me whether or not I thought Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole shooter in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. It's a subject I've never been particularly interested in until this alignment of constellations took place, but now my curiosity is piqued. It's not piqued enough, however, to read more than one or two books on the subject. Here's the question: Is there one — exactly one — book on the subject that is generally considered by neutral evaluators to give an even-handed examination and evaluation of all of the major theories? Failing that, are there two — exactly two — books, one which even-handedly presents the conspiracy position(s) and one which even-handedly presents and evaluates the non-conspiracy position? Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:22, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're looking for one book that purports to go over the whole shebang in laborious detail, Vincent Bugliosi has recently written Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and tries to do just that. Here's the NY Times review (and another); here's an HNN interview with Bugliosi about it. If you Google around you can find others, which might convince you as to whether this is the book for you or not. It sounds terribly tedious to me, but perhaps for reasons that will appeal to you. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:52, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

How about the Warren Commission report? RudolfRed (talk) 22:54, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely zero people think the Warren Commission report does a great job of it, not even the people who think Oswald did it alone. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

The Warren Commission was scared to death of finding something that would implicate a foreign nation in the killing. As regards books, I don't know, but some of the TV specials have been interesting in explaining that Oswald indeed could have acted alone. There are endless conspiracy theories, but most of them are built on the premise that he couldn't have done it all by himself. But there's sufficient evidence to indicate that he could have done it by himself. That doesn't mean he did, but the facts allow for a single-shooter theory to stand up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:43, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Relative popularity of "Simon" in the UK and USA during the 20th century

I have an impression that the name "Simon" is more popular in the UK than in the US. I want to verify or refute this impression with hard data. For the United States, there is this useful resource, but I can't find an equivalent for the UK. LANTZY^TALK 22:49, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I've got the figures for 2010. I don't know if the ONS have other years, or how far they go back. -- role^player 22:55, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Yup, they do here, although it does involve spreadsheet files, alas. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 22:58, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

(added) There is an XLS file that covers the 20th Century on a ten-year basis, starting with 1904, listed on the second page of that link I added above. Not as user-frendly as the US Social Secuity site. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 23:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC

Responsible parents try to give their kids names that aren't too likely to be made fun of. "Simon Says", or worse yet, "Simple Simon"? No. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:03, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. Builds character. Shadowjams (talk) 23:14, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

"...And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him... Bill! or George! Any damn thing but Sue! I still hate that name!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks, Flowerpotman. That spreadsheet definitely confirms my intuition. In the UK during the 1950s, "Simon" suddenly vaulted from obscurity to 54th place, moved up to 13th place in the 60s, and peaked at 8th place in the 70s before petering out in the 80s and 90s. In the USA, "Simon" has never been higher than 240th place. And during the name's peak of popularity in the UK, it was languishing around 500th place in the USA. In other words, it was most popular in the UK precisely when it was least popular in the USA. I wonder what accounts for this huge discrepancy. LANTZY^TALK 23:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

You say "Simon" was "Peter"ing out? Hmmm... ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Simon and Laura is not much remembered now, but it was a popular and successful film at its time (1955). I'm sure it spawned more than a few Simons. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Simon Dee was a groovy dude in the UK in the 1960s, I wonder if he made the name fashionable. There's also a Simon (one of the nice kids) in Lord of the Flies ("by the early 1960s was required reading in many schools and colleges") - maybe a more literary origin. My memory matches the stats quoted above. There were none at all in the school I went to (we were all born in the late 1950s), but 10 years later there were lots of little Simons. Alansplodge (talk) 02:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Then there's Paul Simon. Even though that was his last name, I bet more kids were named Simon as a result, at least more than were named Garfunkel. :-) 04:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd have thought it increased due to Simon Templar#The Saint book series, radio, films... Dru of Id (talk) 02:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

May 25

"backcharge wealth-getting fee"

This is apparently the charge or fee or tax for attaining an asset, such as a house, which must be paid, regardless of whether the person in question makes money on the asset or loses money on it. What is the proper legal word for this fee or charge? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide more context, please? Such as: Where did you see that? What country is this in? RudolfRed (talk) 19:15, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Stamp duty.
Sleigh (talk) 23:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Huh ? There was no mention of stamps in this question. Sounds more like a sales tax, to me. If the tax is exclusively on high-end purchases, this could also be called a luxury tax. StuRat (talk) 02:32, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Stamp duty is levied on documents, like a contract for buying a house.
Sleigh (talk) 02:37, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Note also, as the article says stamp duty doesn't necessarily mean physical stamps are used nowadays (so it may no longer formally be called stamp duty, but it's still the same thing so discussed in our article). Nil Einne (talk) 04:47, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Legal aspects of Etan Patz's case

Does the Statute of limitation apply? Apparently the murderer was charged with second-degree murder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.9.106.109 (talk) 23:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Most US states have no statute of limitation on murder. If you're asking why it's second degree, I think that's a peculiarity of New York law, which reserves the first degree of murder for murder of a peace officer or some such. At least that's my impression from watching Law & Order; maybe a New York lawyer can chime in and make things more precise. --Trovatore (talk) 23:22, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Both questions are interesting. I thought statute of limitation was void only on first degree murder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.9.106.109 (talk) 23:24, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

This is very much state-by-state. We need someone who knows specifically about New York. --Trovatore (talk) 23:50, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Google turned up this page,[18] which has a bunch of legalese about homicide laws in New York. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

There are very few things that are outside the statute of limitations, but homicide and treason are the obvious exceptions. It's the same in many states. I don't know about New York. Lest we get into some debate about statutes of limitation, generally the statutes "tolls" for victims that are "incompetent", which would mean that the time people are minors/insane/unable-to-act-for-themselves the time is suspended, and there are exceptions for specific types of evidence like DNA based evidence in some states. Shadowjams (talk) 00:44, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The section you want to read if you really want to get into it is 18 U.S.C. 3281-3301. That's federal, not New York, of course. Read 18 U.S.C. § 3294 for something kinda interesting. Shadowjams (talk) 00:49, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

For New York, a simple search finds [19] [20] which suggest there is no limitation for any form of murder or other class A felony. However I emphasise it can get complicated, per [21] [22] [23] [24] and the earlier sources, it seems clear the statute for rape has been extended but it sounds like this extension only applied to cases for which it hadn't run out. (There is of course the general acceptance you shouldn't criminalise things which hadn't been before or similarly extend punishments retrospectively since it's unfair, but this isn't really the same thing since the actions were already crimes and the punishments aren't really changed. So it may be the statute was sometimes extended retrospectively. In DNA cases in particular, I presume it often was since it sounds like one of the reasons was because DNA wasn't available at the time.)

Personally I doubt there was ever a limitation for murder, but if there was it could mean the 'no limitation' doesn't apply. However I think we can assume the prosecutor isn't totally incompetent nor is the defence attorney, so we have some of the best evidence that either no limitations apply to the second degree murder charge here or if they do, they are longer then the 33 years or so since the murder.

There could be other complications, e.g. I believe it's common an accidental killing during the commission of a kidnapping (or often other felony) is a murder. If it wasn't the same thing 33 years ago in New York, then this may make a murder charge difficult if the killing wasn't intentional.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:30, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your research. Constitutionally, statues of limitation are subject to the ex post facto clause, and so what was in place at the time is relevant at the time of the indictment. Shadowjams (talk) 06:36, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

"an accidental killing during the commission ... is a murder.": Felony murder rule -- 71.35.105.132 (talk) 19:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Franco-Tahitian War and the Leeward Island Wars

How come so little attention is paid toward this bloody period of French history? The first war occured in the 1840s and the latter in the 1880s in the Society Islands of French Polynesia between France and the four native kingdoms there. Are the natives resentful of continued colonial rule? --KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

So little attention is because it was long ago and far away (unless you happen to live there). StuRat (talk) 02:36, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Middle Class Indians & Immigration to America

Hi. Let's suppose the American and Canadian government relax their immigration policies for Indian citizens in India. How many middle class Indian citizens could pay the immigration application fees and then buy one-way flight tickets to come to North America today? 99.245.12.186 (talk) 23:36, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

For any reasonable definition of "middle-class", the answer would surely be "all of them", so numerically it would be equal to the number of whatever definition of "middle-class Indians" you're using. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.211 (talk) 09:53, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Note however to the OP, the fact they could pay it doesn't mean they will, it's unlikely all Indians in any resonable definition of middle class want to immigrate to North America. Nil Einne (talk) 14:34, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

CAN IT POSSIBLE

IF A PERSON CAN SIT ABOVE THE WATER HOW CAN IT POSSIBLE? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Narayan sss (talk • contribs) 03:09, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

If you mean floating high in the water, this can happen if the water is denser, due to an unusually high concentration of salts, such as in the Dead Sea. StuRat (talk) 03:21, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Please expand your question. Who is sitting above what water? In what circumstances? --ColinFine (talk) 10:08, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

You could use one of these. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 13:52, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Or one of these. Nyttend (talk) 17:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Treason in the USA

I watched Twelve Angry Men the other night, and it's prompted this question. At the beginning of the film, the judge says "Murder is the most serious charge tried in our criminal courts." There are three possibilities I can think of: Treason is considered a less serious crime than murder in the USA (which isn't the case in England), treason is not tried in the criminal courts (is it tried before the Senate, perhaps?), although this isn't mentioned in the Treason article, or the line from the film is just incorrect. I suspect the third possibility is the most likely, but I'd be interested in knowing for certain. Tevildo (talk) 14:55, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

They both carry the death penalty, and treason prosecutions are rare, so as a practical matter, the judge is correct. Also, the judge, who is a state court judge (I haven't seen the movie in years, but as I recall there was nothing to bring it under federal jurisdiction) might be using "our criminal courts" to say "this state's criminal courts". Treason is a federal offense, defined in the Constitution (there are some state treason statutes, but I've never heard of one being used)--Wehwalt (talk) 15:04, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

As to "treason is not tried in the criminal courts" - we can look at the (sparse) recent cases. The last two Americans to be charged with treason were Tomoya Kawakita and Adam Yahiye Gadahn. Kawakita was tried and convicted in 1948 in the Federal Court in Los Angeles (ref), by a civilian judge and jury (Time Magazine report), then appealed to the 9th District and the Supremes - all a normal civilian criminal procedure for a federal crime. In 2006 (or maybe 2005) Gadahn was indicted by the same court, but hasn't been tried (again, that's ordinary criminal procedure). Most other Americans who've been accused of "treason" have formally been tried for crimes like espionage instead (e.g. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the judge in whose case described their actions as "treason", but the charge was "espionage"). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:24, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Not sure who you are replying to, but my point was that treason is not tried in state court, and that is a state judge speaking. It's narrowly correct.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:38, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

If I had been replying to you, I'd have indented it to indicate that. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:15, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I was admittedly thinking about the Rosenbergs - their trial was just a couple of years before the film was made, so they would have been a contemporary counter-example to the statement; their crime, although not formally treason, was described as "more serious than murder", although this might just have been prosecutorial hyperbole. However, the "state v federal" explanation sounds plausible. Presumably the Rosenbergs were tried in a federal court? The article doesn't say so explicitly at the moment. Tevildo (talk) 15:41, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The Rosenbergs, I believe, were tried under the Espionage Act of 1917. And yes, they were tried in Federal court.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

That's treason against the United States. It's possible to be tried for treason against a state. Nyttend (talk) 17:21, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but that was at a time when states were very jealous of their rights, and there were few federal criminal laws which applied outside of federal reservations such as DC, territories, etc. The Virginia statute's still on the books, although they no longer hang you for it. That being said, they would almost certainly find a more useful statute to try someone under if, say, he tried to reclaim Alexandria for the District of Columbia or something.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:49, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

purely leveraged financial instrument

If someone assigns probability 1 to a 10x increase in price, is there a financial instrument that lets them gain MORE than investing purely in call options (for example, they would face a loss at anything less than the 10x increase). Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.3.160.86 (talk) 17:23, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

You didn't say what the time frame is. If you had a guaranteed 1000% rate of return in a year, and you could convince others, they would love to get in on it, and give you a hefty commission on it (especially if you only charged your fee if it performed as you promised). You could earn far more this way than investing your own money. StuRat (talk) 17:40, 26 May 2012 (UTC)