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April 14

Lil Bub and Colonel Meow

Lil Bub is another Internet feline celebrity. She was born with a deformed lower jaw and no teeth. That's why her tongue sticks out. I don't know if she's a squitten or a dwarf cat. (Lil Bub lives in Bloomington, Indiana.) Colonel Meow is also another Internet feline celebrity. He was born with an extra fur gene. That's why he has so much fur. He's also been proclaimed "The World's Angriest Cat". I don't know what to make of the extra fur gene. (Colonel Meow lives in Seattle, Washington.) Who could help me figure those types of things out?142.255.103.121 (talk) 02:41, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you make it clearer what you're asking? You provide some information and ask for help to "figure those types of things out" - what types of things? --ColinFine (talk) 09:04, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

What I'm trying to find out if Lil Bub is a squitten or a dwarf cat. I also don't know what Colonel Meow's extra fur gene is actually called. Those are the types of things I'm trying to figure out.142.255.103.121 (talk) 18:46, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Know Your Meme is a good site for this sort of information. According to the ABC video linked from their article on Colonel Meow, he has a "mysterious medical condition", and according to their article on Lil Bub she suffers from dwarfism; however, her front legs are in proportion to her back legs. Tevildo (talk) 22:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

(Colonel Meow) Mysterious medical condition? (Lil Bub) Front legs proportion to back legs?142.255.103.121 (talk) 00:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Left handers in the North of England, early 20th C

This week I watched Rutherford and Son, performed by Northern Broadsides. This is a play written in 1912 and set in that time in an industrial town in the North of England. During the play two people cut bread, and in this production both of them used their left hands. Now I know that up until much later than this children were routinely forced to write with their right hands, but I don't know how far this extended to other uses of the hands. I thought, watching it, that this was anachronistic, but I may be wrong: neither handedness nor bias against left-handed people covers the history at this level of detail. Has anybody any sources which will tell me whether this was indeed inauthentic or not? --ColinFine (talk) 09:13, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

At a bit of a tangent - it seems to be received wisdom that actors are more likely to be left-handed than in the general population, although I couldn't see much hard evidence on the net. Alansplodge (talk) 14:03, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

If I had a little time, I could look to see if many Edwardian era northern cricketers were left handed batsmen and/or bowlers. Oddly, it's not something Wikipedia currently categorises, but it shouldn't be tremendously difficult to ascertain. One point to mention: the concept I'm aware of is of forcing kids to write left-handed. Did it really extend to performing all activities right-handed? --Dweller (talk) 15:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

That was precisely one of the questions I intended above, Dweller, though I did not explicitly ask it as a question. --ColinFine (talk) 17:56, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

A little out in space and time, but my grandfather, who was born in 1913 in Northern Ireland, was left handed, but was forced to write with his right hand - but he continued to favour his left hand for everything else, and nobody was concerned about that. For all the talk of lefties being considered "sinister" or "cack-handed" in the olden days, I'm pretty sure making kids learn to write right-handed was largely a practical matter. I think we maybe take modern writing utensils for granted a bit. Writing with a nib pen dipped in an inkwell was a messy business. Writing right-handed meant much less chance of leaning your hand in wet ink and ruining what you'd just written. --Nicknack009 (talk) 22:32, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

That's a perspective I hadn't considered. But in case anyone feels the old prejudice against left-handers is dead and buried: When my younger son (now aged 28) was just learning to draw, he showed a strong preference for the left hand. My mother was quite concerned and thought we should do something about it. We thanked her for her advice, then ignored it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Nicknack009, "cack-handed" is a Yorkshire phrase that means "left handed", as also is the description of someone being a "cuddy-wifter". The latter may never have made a dictionary, as with the word "demic" or "demick" that is still commonly used in Lancashire to describe something that is "not right" (as in, "correct"). While some people probably did consider left-handers such as myself as "sinister", the cack-handed term was absolutely synonymous in its time. Of course, nowadays, "cack-handed" basically means clumsy/inept. I'll admit to being the latter, and doubtless some people on en-WP consider me sinister, albeit for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with preferred hand and everything to do with sticking to policy!

My grandfather (b. 1893) was naturally left-handed, was taught to do things right-handed by use of the strap and the ruler, and ended up being ambidextrous. He is the only person I have ever seen who could slice a loaf of bread while simultaneously buttering the round being cut. Obviously, the loaf needed a bit of assistance in sticking to the breadboard.

As for prejudice, it is alive and well. I am currently helping out at an engineering works (the scrap yard across the road is doing very well out of my demics) and, yay, all the lathes are right-handed, ditto the drill-presses, the bandsaws etc. Trying to insert new workpieces in a lathe while it is rotating at 900-1,000 rom using my right hand and across the tool-post is, well, tricky. And, yes, there were attempts to force me to be right-handed at school back in the 1960s/1970s. All of this is anecdotal, sorry: finding WP:RS might be difficult. - Sitush (talk) 00:28, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I would distinguish between "prejudice" and "omitting to make potentially expensive accommodations that may not get used much". There clearly is such a thing as prejudice against the left-handed, but you don't need it to explain why the contracting firm might not have ordered a bunch of duplicate equipment. --Trovatore (talk) 23:40, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

That explains User:Cuddy Wifter. I always wondered what his name meant. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 13:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't find any reference that links "cackhanded" specifically with Yorkshire - it's certainly in common use in London. OED says;; "mid 19th century: from cack, in the sense 'excrement', + hand-ed"[1] (meaning, I imagine, using the hand that you wipe yourself with). Alansplodge (talk) 20:12, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It's a socially unbreakable law in many so-called primitive societies throughout the world that the right hand only is used for eating, the left hand only is used for ass cleaning, and never the twain shall meet. The expression "cack-handed" may be English, but the idea behind it is universal. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:11, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Is there any sort of evidence that Presidents of the United States tend to be more left handed than the general population? RNealK (talk) 22:12, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

As has been said many a time before, Wikipedia has an article on everything! --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 14:53, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Airline food and cultural sensitivies

So there's a bit of a controversy in Australia at the moment because Qantas, the Australian flag carrier, has decided to eliminate pork from flight menus and alcohol from the preparation of meals (but will continue to serve alcohol to accompany the meals) on its flights to Europe, because these flights will now be stopping over in the Middle East instead of in South East Asia (as was previously the case), but perhaps also in deference to its new operational partner Emirates Airlines. A number of other changes will also accompany this - such as menus on flights to Europe now being bilingual in English and Arabic.

I'm curious about what other airlines do in equivalent situations. I know that airlines tend to use the local language / serve the local cuisine of the origin and/or destination countries, since the passengers are most likely to come from those countries. However, the same would seem to be less likely for just a brief stopover on the one flight. If I recall correctly, back when Qantas flights between Australia and Europe stopped over in Asia, the menus were not bilingual English-Chinese or English-Malay. I wonder, therefore, whether Qantas is just adopting a more culturally sensitive approach, or whether the move is more out of eagerness to please their new partner. So, are there other instances of airlines conforming to local inguistic or dietary habits of stopover countries - whether in the Middle East or elsewhere? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

When I flew with Quantas to and from Sydney back in 1997 (give or give a year), one stopover was in Bangkok, and they indeed served (the airline version of) Thai food on board. And it was highly welcome, too, compared to what else they served. I flew with Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong in 2008, but really cannot recall the food (funny how the brain works - back in 1997 that was my second or third flight ever, and now I fly an average of two long-haul flights per year). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:15, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I last flew Qantas between London and Sydney in 2010, and already I cannot recall how "Asian" any of the actual meals were. I flew Cathay Pacific on the same route more recently, and they always had some "Chinese" options and their menus were bilingual, but then they are a Hong Kong airline so it makes sense. (Cathay does not offer a through service with a stopover - when you buy a Europe to Australia ticket, you are buying two seaprate flights to and then from Hong Kong). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:54, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

If the meals are not prepared correctly, see halal and Dhabihah, then not having pork or alcohol isn't going to mean much. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 16:31, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Interesting point. The news reports aren't very clear how strictly they will comply with the rules. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:54, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

@CambridgeBay: muslins, in real life, will avoid pork at any cost. That's like~an American eating a dog. On the other hand, most do not worry that much about other food taboos. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

True but the blood taboo is/can be a sticking point. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The trick to being culturally sensitive is to include choices for all cultures. Thus, including Middle-Eastern preferences like lamb is good, while excluding pork is not as good, and could cause a backlash. They seem to have reached a better compromise on alcohol. Of course, pork isn't all that important to Westerners. However, if they make other changes to show preference for the Middle-Eastern clients, especially the "conservative" ones, at the cost of offending everyone else, then the backlash would be major. For example, banning movies, separating men from women, requiring women to wear the hijab, etc. StuRat (talk) 18:23, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

But I'm not aware of any food tradition that requires pork. Nowadays, I often get the choice of chicken or vegetarian. That also seems to not offend anybody (and while I like a sizzling bloody steak, that's not going to happen in coach, anyways). BTW, a hotel in Singapore I stayed at had turkey "bacon" - that was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:32, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

In some places, Easter pretty much requires a ham. StuRat (talk) 18:40, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

In an aircraft during travel? I seriously doubt this is a frequent use case. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:57, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

You won't get far into a Hawai'ian luau without pork, and Spam is extremely popular on the islands. DOR (HK) (talk) 05:48, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Well given that neither Emirates or Etihad Airways require anything mentioned in StuRat's remark about movies, etc, I doubt that Quantas is going to go that far. While both Emirates and Etihad show women flight attendants conservatively dressed they are no more so than you would expect to see on any airline. However, if you look through the images there are several showing women FA's with no head coverings and short sleeves, not much like traditional Islamic dress. Of course the UAE is a bit more liberal than some of the neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia. Interesting look at Google Images again shows a lot of aircraft and only two FA's. The Saudia site shows only one picture with women FA's and they have head coving and long sleeves making it a little more difficult to tell if that is standard on their flights. By the way here is a link to Emirates dining and the special meals. Note that they say all meals are halal. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 23:11, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

To partly answer your question about languages. Both First Air and Canadian North claim that they are multi-lingual. I know that Canadian provide the safety announcements in all four languages but I'm not sure about First Air, or if either airline always has multi-lingual FA's. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Cultural sensitivities are seldom not commercial sensitivities. If the clients are Arabic, then expect that the product gets adapted to their tastes. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm more culturally sensitive to foreigners spelling our national airline's name incorrectly. It is derived from an acronym. There is no u. And I agree with Osman - unless they think it will improve their profit (in this case increased passengers from the Middle East, or maybe supplier/contractual benefits) or it is forced upon them by regulators, they won't do it. The-Pope (talk) 00:55, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

In some overseas countries, Qantas decided to have an entry at Quantas in the phone book (and presumably electronic versions thereof) because a great many people would look under Qu and not find it. That was bad for business. It works just like a redirect in Wikipedia, and has the same flaw; people find what they're looking for, but don't get re-educated about the correct spelling for the future. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about the u. I guess I had a spare that needed using. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You're forgiven this time. But next time we'll get al-Quaeda onto you. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 08:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

But without the u it ought to be pronounced Kahntas. --Trovatore (talk) 18:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

When the good people of Arkansas, Illinois, Connecticut and New Orleans start pronouncing the names of their places phonetically, you might have a point. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like there are several issues being discussed here. In terms of meals in flights coming from a certain destination (even if it was just a stopover) I believe it's fairly common that at least one meal option will be partially inspired by the local cuisine. Remember that even for just a stopover, the meals will usually come from a catering company from the stopover point and while they don't have to supply something inspired by local cuisine, it does make sense. Note that supplying things which are less common in the local market (like pork) or require special consideration may increase the cost. Of course this doesn't affect incoming flights. In the Qantas case, remember the Emirates alliance [2] including code sharing, I presume on all flights to and from Dubai. While the code sharing flights don't always provide the same options you'd expect in flights from the airline in question, depending on the strength of the alliance which is supposed to 'go beyond codesharing and includes integrated network collaboration with coordinated pricing, sales and scheduling as well as a benefit-sharing mode' it wouldn't be that surprising if the codesharing partner does make some attempts to ensure their codeshare flights have some of the stuff customers from the other airline will expect. Nil Einne (talk) 03:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

how is effectiveness of a questionnaire is measured

I want to test the amount of life skills (such as confidence, communication skills, empathy, decision making, critical thinking etc) present among the people in my locality. To that end I have designed a questionnaire containing multiple choice questions which I feel test the level of life skills. Each option has been assigned a certain number of points. I want to total the number of points as a measure of the life skills of the person answering the questionnaire. However all this is based on my subjective understanding of what option deserves how many points, and that this questionnaire adequately measures life skills in the first place.

My question is as to how effectiveness of a questionnaire can be determined. Is there some way, my (or any one person's) subjective-ness can be removed, and the point system determined so that life skills are correctly measured?

Thanks--Shahab (talk) 14:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

In the terminology of experimental psychology, you are interested in knowing the test validity of your questionnaire. You believe that it has face validity; you want to know whether it has content validity and construct validity. I'm not sure whether our articles will be helpful to you, but at least the terminology might give you something to search for. Looie496 (talk) 15:33, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Since the problematic part is how you weight each of the responses, I suggest that you skip this. Just report the raw findings. For example, you could say "While 94% of respondents claim to be able to drive a car, only 78% claim to know how to use a computer, and only 47% have successfully received a mortgage loan from a bank". StuRat (talk) 18:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Your questionnaire results will be skewed when your repondants don't answer some questions.
Sleigh (talk) 05:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

"A full 68% of respondents replied positively to the question if they would take a short survey!" - maybe a bit obvious, but what has happened was e.g. calling people on private land lines during working hours to ask about employment rates (surprisingly low ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:21, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Israeli Jews and the Holocaust

I was recently wondering about this question: which percentage of Israeli Jews had relatives who were killed in the Holocaust? After all, many Jews immigrated to Israel from countries where the Holocaust was either much less widespread ("rump Romania," France, et cetera) or from countries where the Holocaust did not occur at all (Bulgaria, Morocco, Iraq, Ethiopia, et cetera). I know that many Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews intermarried in Israel over time, though. Does anyone have any data in regards to answering this question of mine? Thank you very much. Futurist110 (talk) 23:07, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what you have in mind when you say "less widespread." I believe 1/4 of them died then. That would imply that most families had a victim among them. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:26, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

By "less widespread," I mean having less casualties as a percentage of the total pre-World War II Jewish population. In regards to France, native French Jews had a death toll even lower than that--I think 10% to 15% (as stated in the Wikipedia article on Vichy France, "Whatever the Vichy government's intent initially or subsequently, the numerical outcome was that less than 15% of French Jews, vs. nearly twice that proportion of non-citizen Jews residing in France, died."). While some native French Jewish families would have had a victim among them, some native French Jewish families might have escaped the Holocaust completely intact. Also, "rump Romania" (Romania within its late 1940/early 1941 borders) would be a good example of this. Romania did not deport Jews in "rump Romania" to the Nazi death camps, and generally (with a few exceptions, such as the Iasi pogrom) did not kill them. Futurist110 (talk) 00:47, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, strictly speaking, we are all related. When the Nazis killed a Jew (or a Gay, or a Gypsy, or even a communist), they killed a relative of you and me and Genghis Khan, not to mention our MRCA. To get a meaningful answer, you must define a cut-off for what counts as a "relative". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 05:28, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

As for various definitions of relatives, I don't particularly care too much which definitions of relatives polls, surveys, et cetera use for this. I am interested in data with any definition of relatives. Maybe a good definition would be known relatives (meaning knowing one's exact relation to someone else). Futurist110 (talk) 07:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Searching in Hebrew, I only found statistics for the number of Holocaust survivors in Israel, but nothing on the number of their relatives. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) (formerly R——bo) 15:20, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I am also interested in what you found. I wonder what definition of Holocaust survivors they used, though. Futurist110 (talk) 21:49, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I found the clearest enumeration at the Hebrew Wikipedia: he:ניצולי השואה - though I'm not sure what definition of "Holocaust survivor" they used. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) (formerly R——bo) 23:32, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer. Futurist110 (talk) 06:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

April 15

microeconomics solution to private suit problem of guantanamo

I saw this analysis of why guantanamo prisonners wouldn't be released:

"If the prisoners are ever released without being charged or tried (which won't happen because there's no evidence), they can each file a civil suit against the U.S. Government, each worth potentially hundreds of millions. I think this plays a role as well."

And the agreement by someone, "It's the equivalent of keeping the neighbor's daughter in your basement because letting her out would get you into 'so much trouble'."

I think this analysis is correct. What is the correct resolution (how to align incentives)?

Should the value of the suit just go up incrementally, from 100M to 200M to 1Billion per prisoners after 20 years without a trial? Then nobody would wait twenty years.

Or, how would we get this analysis to be "true" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.120.48.242 (talk) 10:33, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The solution is to make sure that your court system agrees that enemy combatants have no legal standing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:37, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Very funny, but it doesn't address the broader question. Why would the the kidnapper wake up one morning and say, "Today I will turn myself in" when doing nothing will "delay the inevitable"? Where is the incentive at the margin? 91.120.48.242 (talk) 14:23, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The incentive is the conceit that they conclude they can "get away with it". Look at the Rutgers basketball and Penn State football situations, for example. You've got some actual dollar figures to work with there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

They could do that anyway even from Guantanamo as they can have access to lawyers, plus many have been released after spending a long time there, so the hypothesis doesn't stand up. Dmcq (talk) 14:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Dmcq, that is a very good point actually. Do you have any thoughts on what separates those who have been released from those in permanent non-charged limbo? i.e. what puts them in a different category? According to the above theory, for example, the main thing that would get someone released is absolutely no interest in legal action afterward (or maybe a lack of adequate legal representation, or a bad "story" that doesn't make high-powered lawyers want to help them sue, whatever).

Also returning to the incentive to keep committing crimes, do you think this is a real effect, even if not in the gitmo case? What do you think is a solution? For example, take Lance Armstrong. Every one of his tour de france wins would be asterisked, he would lose all endorsements and his reputation. why would he ever do anything other than "postpone" coming clean?

Doesn't this lead to only external factors causing people to come clean? *even if* they're inevitable? Another example is Madoff: he had investment from charities that were only allowed to spend 5% of their endowment every year. So, he could be sure they wouldn't make a run on him and just inflate his fictional account statements to them. Of course the crash was inevitable. But it came when the financial crisis caused too many legitimate withdrawals from the rest of his customer base, and he became insolvent. The question is: given the knowledge that something is inevitable, how would we get people to stop acruing whatever utility they see in every day until that inevitable moment? (plus of course a non-zero chance that they get away with it forever or at least until their death)? 91.120.48.242 (talk) 14:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Guantanamo prisoner talks about the whole subject. The main thing that seems to be stopping the release of another bunch is that nobody wants them and America won't admit them. You'll not stop a criminal wth threats of higher and higher future punishment if it never is today, and lots of the heads of these financial institutions are little better than psychos and think they will get away with things forever. And they do too, more fool the rest of us when the worst they get is a golden handshake. Dmcq (talk) 15:12, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The Constitution gives Congress the power to set jurisdiction for Federal Courts. They could simply pass a law saying the Federal Courts have no standing in civil suits brought by foreign combatants for treatment at overseas military facilities. I believe the issue was brought up early in the war, but don't remember what the outcome was. μηδείς (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The issue of being sued can be deal with without too much trouble. Any law can be patched. But there is a Catch 22 in the Guantanamo issue: you don't want to release a terrorist, but you also don't want to release an innocent person to a country that won't recognize his innocence and might torture him. You also don't want to release an innocent who might turn into a terrorist. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, nothing but personal opinions
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Personally I agree with the European Court of Human Rights about Abu Qatada, and America should never have stuck those people in Guantanamo if it wasn't going to take responsibility for their human rights. Dmcq (talk) 11:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC) What do you mean "you also don't want to release an innocent who might turn into a terrorist"? 91.120.48.242 (talk) 10:54, 16 April 2013 (UTC) People like you who ask questions about the system? Dmcq (talk) 11:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Maybe the members of the European Court of Human Rights could adopt the Guantanamites and bring them into their homes to live. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Europeans are living with the problems they have. What I was saying is that America should do the same rather than ignoring what they say their country is based on "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.". Dmcq (talk) 17:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Europeans should mind their own business. As regards the Declaration, it is not a legal document. Should the Guantanamites have been considered POW's instead of whatever they're considered to be now? Maybe. Which country's army were they a part of? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Well perhaps Superman is right then [3]]. I'm sorry that it has got to such a stage that you can dismiss such values so easily. Dmcq (talk) 22:27, 16 April 2013 (UTC) The Declaration of Independence is, of course, a legal document, although not part of the law code of the US. But that's entirely besides the point. The 35 words express a very good idea, and the basic principles of the declaration should not be ignored, in particular not for short-term political expediency. It's not primarily a legal question, but a moral question. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC) I take issue with the hypocritical attitude of Europeans who presume to tell us how to run our affairs, and look down upon us, but aren't willing to shoulder any of the burdens. When they express willingness to take care of the Gitmites, then they can talk. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:54, 16 April 2013 (UTC) So if the inmates are treated according to the founding principles of the US (not to mention the general humanitarian principles of the Enlightenment) depends on the actions (or lack of same) of an uninvolved third party? Or, alternatively, you're pissed off at Europeans, and as a result, the Gitmos get it? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Well, maybe we should just return them to their home countries' armies. Which would be... Who? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC) Well, maybe we should hold proper legal trials with all the bells and whistles to determine who among them was part of an army, who was an "illegal combatant", and who was just a guy with a roughly similar name who fell victim to an illiterate CIA operative making a typo, or who was sold by the war chief next valley who wanted to take over his garden for a new poppy plantation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC) The real problem then comes over what to do about people like Abu Qatada who is under restrictive bail conditions in London, i.e. you can't convict them or deport them but you're pretty certain they don't have your best interests at heart. Dmcq (talk) 07:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC) Not having my (or our) best interest at heart sounds very much like a thought crime to me. I think that classification makes it quite easy to handle in our system. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:04, 17 April 2013 (UTC) Prisoners of war are in a different situation than civilian criminals. Once al-Qaeda surrenders, they can have their imprisoned soldiers back. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:20, 17 April 2013 (UTC) What POWs? Yes, POWs can be taken under other circumstances then civilians. To compensate, they enjoy certain rights and protections. I sure appreciate that you want al-Qaeda to get their "imprisoned soldiers" back. But I'm less concerned with the well-being of al-Qaeda as with that of the prisoners, especially (but not exclusively) those that have been taken in by accident, or by randomly being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and to a speedy and public trial have been recognized as basic rights for all humans. Even bad ones. Even more those who we think are "bad", or some government claims are "bad". As with free speech, where there is little need to protect popular opinions, there is little need to protect the rights of people who all agree are hunky-dory. We have explicit rights to protect those under suspicion and prejudice. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Flat tax question

Resolved

This is quoted from the "administration and enforcement" subsection of the "tax effects" section of the article on flat tax:

"Under a pure flat tax without deductions, every tax period a company would make a single payment to the government covering the taxes on the employees and the taxes on the company profit. For example, suppose that in a given year, ACME earns a profit of 3 million, spends 2 million in wages, and spends 1 million on other expenses the IRS deems to be taxable income, such as stock options, bonuses, and certain executive privileges. Given a flat rate of 15%, ACME would then owe the IRS (3M + 2M + 1M) × 0.15 = 900,000. This payment would, in one fell swoop, settle the tax liabilities of ACME's employees as well as the corporate taxes owed by ACME. Most employees throughout the economy would never need to interact with the IRS, as all tax owed on wages, interest, dividends, royalties, etc. would be withheld at the source. The main exceptions would be employees with incomes from personal ventures. The Economist claims that such a system would reduce the number of entities required to file returns from about 130 million individuals, households, and businesses, as at present, to a mere 8 million businesses and self-employed."

If the ACME company earns 3M and spends 3M, then it generates no perceived revenue. How then could they come up with the 0.9M for tax? 64.251.40.254 (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

They said 3 million in profit, not earnings. The difference is that the profit is the excess earnings above their costs. As to charging them wages paid and other business expenses, yes, this is double taxation, but that also happens now, in that the company is taxed and then the money they pay their employees is taxed again. This would just move the double taxation completely onto the employer.

It's also a pet peeve of mine when they say "flat tax" (a fixed amount) but really mean "flat rate tax" (a fixed percentage). We do have flat taxes, like garbage disposal fees ($300 a year here), so they really need to be precise in their use of the language. StuRat (talk) 18:17, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Thankee! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

StuRat -- a tax which is a fixed amount for each person assessed is known as a "head tax" (or sometimes a "poll tax"), so in practice "flat tax" isn't very ambiguous... AnonMoos (talk) 13:51, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe where you are, but our $300 a year garbage collection fee has never been called either. StuRat (talk) 19:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're suggesting, Stu. It's called a "garbage disposal/collection fee", which seems pretty clear, but are you suggesting they change the name to "flat tax"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:56, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

That's like asking why we consider a cat to be a mammal instead of just calling it a cat. If we are to classify the garbage collection fee, it's a flat tax. StuRat (talk) 07:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see that analogy at all, Stu. I wasn't taking issue with anything, just asking for clarification of just what it is you're suggesting. So far, I'm none the wiser. This would be the perfect place to put your campaign for "precision in the use of language" into practical effect. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 12:00, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Photos

How it came that this archive photo with distinct borders (sourced to NLA) appears to be cropped compared to another version, which has more details? Did Frank Hurley take two shots or is the latter photoshopped? Brandmeister^talk 19:23, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It looks like one of them must be photoshopped. It isn't just the cropping, the cloud formations are completely different, and the sun is in a different place, but the poses of the people are precisely identical. It looks to me like the highlights in our version are not quite consistent with the sun position, so that's the more suspicious. Hmmm. Looie496 (talk) 19:42, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that's really interesting. I'm almost sure the Commons photo is the one that's altered, because the clouds in that one partially obscure features seen in the other one in a way that would be easy to do but very hard to undo. Since the photo is in the public domain, we can upload the other image you found to Commons. That leaves the question of how an altered photo ended up in the digital collection of the National Library of Australia in the first place. -- BenRG 21:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It's possible that Hurley himself altered the photo. What we now call "photoshopping" existed before photoshop, so we'd need to check the publication history of the Commons version. Paul B (talk) 21:38, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's one of his composites. See here [4]. In other words both are equally "original". One is a print from the negative used for the main portion of the "artistic" version, the Commons version is the composite constructed and published by Hurley himself. i suggest that the fact that it's a combination-print should be noted in the file. Paul B (talk) 21:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

In those days creating a more dramatic image at the time of creating a print was a common practice, though some photographers did it more than others. Frank Hurley was definitely a master of the art. He did cop some criticism for it, but his images are great. HiLo48 (talk) 21:59, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

April 16

Funerals

Can a person unaffiliated with a church request a funeral for a deceased loved one? Or must that person seek church membership first before the church would conduct a funerary service on behalf of the deceased person? Sneazy (talk) 01:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

You'll need to be a little more specific, given there are officially 15,472 denominations of Christian church, and many of them have independent ministries. You can try calling around, you know. μηδείς (talk) 01:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. It's too embarrassing. I am going to take it as a no. Being non-religious stinks. Well, I suppose a non-religious person could hold free-style ceremony or a cultural-based ceremony. Sneazy (talk) 02:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Contact your local funeral home. If you've got the money, they'll accommodate you, I'm sure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

In Canada, a funeral home will normally provide (for a fee, of course) a religious service in almost any denomination you can name, and a non-denominational service as well. The churches/synagogues/mosques I know are used by members first and, in some cases, by others (for a fee) where the priest/minister/rabbi decides that it would be appropriate to do so. Bielle (talk) 02:40, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Was the deceased a member of a church? That might count for something. Mingmingla (talk) 02:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I was not stopped from giving my sister's eulogy in a Catholic church because I was an atheist, and they didn't stop her from being buried there because she was not amember of the congregation. If this question is anything but trolling (which is what this seems) you really need to contact a local church, and not some random person on the internet. μηδείς (talk) 03:10, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The possibility exists that the OP has had no prior exposure to, or experience with, funeral situations. If so, he's got some useful answers now. Everybody can get buried, religious or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, I am just asking, because a thought popped into my head of how my maternal grandfather was buried. My mother mentioned that he was cremated, and his ashes were put in a jar or urn or something that stored the burnt remains of a deceased human body. And I believe that my mother kept the container in her childhood house, or at least her relatives kept it. She never mentioned that there was a burial ground. My paternal grandfather was buried, I think, in a rural area, where he had a gravestone. Not sure if he had a funeral. In any case, my ancestors are not Christian, not American, and not Westerners. Since I live in the West, I would expect that my folks would be buried with a Western-style funeral and burial. Since Western society is heavily influenced by Christianity, it sounds reasonable to ask whether or not a non-Christian would be allowed to have a Christian/Western funeral. Sneazy (talk) 03:50, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

It's really going to depend on what denomination you talk to and even then, it can depend on which representative (priest/rabbi/etc) that you talk to. When my parents were married (granted this was ~60 years ago), every Catholic priest refused to marry them since my dad wasn't Catholic. That is until one finally agreed. Funerals can be the same way. As far as where the ashes go, that depends on the wishes of the deceased or the family. And the laws of the state/country. Many people have their ashes scattered. A friend of mine has her brother's ashes in a cardboard box. Given your lack of detail in this hypothetical question, we can't really give you much of a definite answer. Dismas|^(talk) 04:00, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, call a funeral home and see what the options are. Plenty of Christians nowadays do cremations, and memorial parks often have a section dedicated to cremation urns for those who don't want them in their home for whatever reason. Also, plenty of non-Christians have "western-style" funerals. Now, let me explain something about cremation: the process vaporizes everything except the bones, which are then finely-ground and placed in an appropriate container. They're not really "ashes" as such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:01, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry. Bad translation of "ashes". It's "骨灰", which translates literally as "bone ash". Sneazy (talk) 04:06, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

They are the same thing, "骨灰" is the Chinese for what in English are referred to as the "ashes". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:43, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

In the UK the procedure normally follows something like this, depending on where the death takes place: you choose an undertaker to remove the body from wherever it is (at home or in hospital etc). The undertaker then carries out a basic embalming so that people can view the body and say goodbye to it. The undertaker will also discuss the funeral with the next of kin or whoever is arranging it to see what options are available. In the UK it is completely possible to have a non-religious or humanist funeral and whatever ceremony goes with disposal of the remains. It is also possible to pay in advance for your funeral. It's what my father did when he paid for my mother's funeral and I'd recommend it to anyone. You can get exactly what you want then. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:31, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

If the original poster is looking for information on non-religious funerals, anywhere in the world, there is some more information and links at Humanist officiant. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

From reading the article on Humanist officiant, one may draw the conclusion that humanist officiants perform baby namings (similar to christenings), weddings, and funerals, and may infer that they host other ceremonies as well (like coming-of-age ceremony, similar to the bar/bat mitzvah or confirmation ceremony). I suspect that the culture of the so-called "Humanist" ceremony is really Western/Christian, but I suppose ethnic funerals are accomodated, allowing the funeral attendants to wear white instead of black to symbolize the death.

I once had a Mexican-American classmate who got married in Las Vegas with his wife. He was an atheist, though his sort of atheism was closer to nontheism than explicit denial of the gods. He might have had a Vegas wedding officiant. Sneazy (talk) 13:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Humanist funeral officiants, in my experience, carry out a very wide range of ceremonies, and would normally follow the wishes of the family or friends in charge of making the arrangements, rather than seeking to impose any rules or ideology on the ceremony - except that most would balk at including any explicitly religious content such as spoken prayers or hymn singing. The clothing that humanist officiants wear is often designed to be unobtrusive, so that the emphasis is on remembering the deceased rather than thinking about what interesting clothes the officiant is wearing - so, in the UK, a standard suit is normal (for men). Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I organised a humanist funeral in England. Agree with what Gmyrtle says. We had a woman officiant. I can't remember what she wore; nothing in any way distinctive. The family had very free choice as to who would speak, when, what music, everything really. You do not even have to do that; you can organise it all yourself. I know it is hard when you are grieving, but you can start from scratch. The basics is that the funeral parlour will collect the remains and cremate or bury them. You do not have to have any ceremony at all. But you probably do want to have some kind of ceremony, then what? People speaking, music playing, small but significant things that would have meant something to the dead person or mean something to the family. Talking about it, organising it, is cathartic. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:10, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The mother of a friend of mine died last year. She was close to 90, had no friends left, and only 2 children and about 5 grandkids. She had arranged for her entire body to be donated to medical research, so there was no funeral or cremation. Under the circumstances, it was decided there was no call even for any sort of memorial service. They just said farewell at the hospital, and that was that. I like the neatness of that approach. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

In the UK at least, once "medical science" has had their way with the body, they will contact the relatives and ask them to collect what remains for disposal. So it's possible that your friend will have an unwelcome phone call in a few months (or maybe years) time. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Time will tell, I guess, but it's been almost 12 months and I've heard nothing like this. The very strong impression I got was that the mother's body was gone, totally gone, forever, as far as her family is concerned. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk]

Tammy - actual practice may depend on the establishment involved, but the Body Donation FAQS at the UK Human Tissue Authority website says "Medical schools will usually arrange for donated bodies to be cremated, unless the family requests the return of the body for a private burial or cremation". Gandalf61 (talk) 14:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting, but does not preclude a phone call from the school to the family. I understand that donation to science only occurs through a will,i.e. a family can't just decide to give the deceased to a medical school if the person dies intestate. It's not the end-all practice some people think it is. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:03, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Norwegian Saint Harald

Who is this Norwegian Saint Harald the supposed father of Gunnhildr Sveinsdóttir?--The Emperor's New Spy (talk) 03:36, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The only major Norwegian Harald I can find who's life overlapped significantly with her is Harald Hardrada, though a) I don't think he was canonized and b) his a bit too young to have been her father. --Jayron32 04:15, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Possibly Harald Bluetooth, who is credited with bringing Christianity to Denmark? Although she's not listed as his child in our article. See also http://www.bartleby.com/210/11/017.html Rojomoke (talk) 04:41, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

He was never canonised either, though. There is only 7 known Norwegian saints, none of them named Harald. Could it be a misspelling of Hallvard? --Saddhiyama (talk) 11:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Saint Eric was never canonised either, but that doesn't stop people calling him "saint". Gabbe (talk) 09:34, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

That is true, but that particular appellation has a well-established tradition in Swedish historiography, something which doesn't exist in the case of Harald Bluetooth (or any "Sankt Harald" for that matter). --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:11, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The article seems to be a translation of an older version of the Swedish article sv:Gunhild (svensk drottning), but the supposition about "Sankt Harald" and quite a lot else in that article was deleted a few months ago - perhaps due to lack of references. Sussexonian (talk) 19:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Contemporary celebrations of Independence Day

...marked by grilling meat outdoors in a public or private space: which countries share this custom besides Israel and the U.S.A.? -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:48, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course! On Heritage_Day_(South_Africa) we braai loads of meat. Regional_variations_of_barbecue#South_Africa Although generally we don't need much of a reason.196.214.78.114 (talk) 10:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Canada too, since Canada Day is also at the beginning of July. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Any summer holiday gettogether in an Anglo country is going to feature outdoor cooking--it's simply too hot to cook a big meal indoors. Goes for labor and memorial days in the US--and has nothing to do with Independence as such. μηδείς (talk) 21:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

True. Victoria Day in Canada is often considered to be the start of summer, and there is a variously-named holiday in August, so we usually barbecue on those days too. But if it's summer and you have a barbecue, then ideally you barbecue every day! Adam Bishop (talk) 10:10, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Australia Day is in the southern summer (26 January), and often involves a grilling of meats as well. It's not an independence day, it commemorates the first White settlement/colony. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 12:53, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Nobody could possibly nominate a date for our independence without fear of being contradicted. It occurred not on any particular date but over a period of time, the boundaries of which are equally ill-defined. We are a constitutionally fuzzy nation. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:54, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Graduate vs post-graduate

In Australian terms; what is the difference between a graduate and a post-graduate?114.75.62.217 (talk) 10:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

A graduate (n.) is a person who has gained a tertiary degree. Post-graduate is most usually used as an adjective to describe the higher studies a graduate is now studying, such as for a Masters or Doctorate. We might say he is undertaking post-graduate research at the ANU School of Inconsequential Studies; but we do not say he is a post-graduate. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 10:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Not sure I'd agree with the last sentence - the post-grad societies/ guilds at the various unis are typically called the "Something University Post-graduate Students Association", or SUPSA. I can't say exactly whether I've heard "a post-graduate" or not, but it would just be short for "post-graduate student", and I think it would be fairly normal Australian English. IBE (talk) 12:25, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Then you're agreeing with me that it's used only adjectivally. "Post-graduate students" is a perfect example of that, and any expression that omits the noun is simply an abbreviation (like "start up" or "non profit", which are short for "start up company" and "non profit organisation"). -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:47, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Jack, I agree that "postgraduate" used as a noun sounds odd, but a Google search for "a postgraduate at" turns up a few results, many of them even quite official university sites. It seems therefore that the use of "postgraduate" as a noun meaning "a postgraduate student" exists, even if it is less common than the usage of "undergraduate" in the same way. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:13, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, in British English "postgraduate" (or "postgrad") is often used as a noun to mean a postgraduate student. 111.192.161.147 (talk) 05:32, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

In a slightly different context, a "graduate" diploma (or other) course is one which is regarded as being undergraduate level (i.e. at the level of a bachelor's degree) but which is undertaken after completing an undergraduate degree, while a "postgraduate" diploma (or other) course is one which is regarded as being above undergraduate level (i.e. at the level of a master's or higher degree). An exapmle of the former is a graduate diploma in teaching, which is a "top-up" of undergraduate training in teaching for someone who already has a bachelor's degree but not in teaching. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

A post-graduate is a graduate who has been mailed, in a large crate, to a location where he hopes to get a job. Don't forget the air holes ! StuRat (talk) 19:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

DRC olympic/paralympic delegation: asylum

Hi, in september the olympic/paralympic delegation from DRC applied for political asylum in the UK (including for example Dedeline Mibamba Kimbata). Last friday or saturday I watched Al Jazeera and they said their applications (or at least some of them, I am not sure) habe been accepted. But I cannot find any source in the internet (such that I could update the corresponding articles). Any idea? --Chricho ∀ (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not finding anything with those keywords [5] on Al Jazeera English. There are recent reports onthe UN's campaign against war rape, or perhaps the piece you saw was on Odette Sefuko? (Who is not an Olympian.) Do you speak Arabic? You could try searching http://www.aljazeera.net as well. 184.147.130.16 (talk) 19:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

No, it was Al Jazeera English. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 13:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

North Korea

Is it possible for North Korea to destroy South if a war is started? --Yoglti (talk) 14:41, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

They certainly have the ability, if unopposed, to do so. The question is how soon the US and other allies would counter-attack, in order to prevent the destruction of SK. The US has thousands of troops there. That's not enough to stop NK, but does serve as a "trip wire", ensuring a rapid US response from other bases and fleets in the region. StuRat (talk) 19:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you have any sources for that statement? By "unopposed", I suppose you mean opposed only by South Korea, and not literally unopposed by anybody? It's highly unlikely that North Korea, with a $12 billion GDP and weapons that are decades out of date, can defeat a technologically advanced enemy with a trillion-dollar economy. Our article on the Korean People's Army mentions this: "Although the North Korean military once enjoyed a startling advantage against its counterpart in South Korea, its relative isolation and economic plight starting from the 1980s has now tipped the balance of military power into the hands of the better-equipped South Korean military." --140.180.241.109 (talk) 06:46, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

NK spends a much higher portion of their GDP on the military, and pays the soldiers less, so they are able to get more for less. Their military is significantly larger. Add to this the advantage of a surprise attack. And technology is more important over long distances, like if they tried to hit the US. SK, on the other hand, they can hit just fine with basic mortars. Then there's NK's nuclear weapons. At that range they could either put them on missiles or deliver them by plane. StuRat (talk) 07:25, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, do you have any sources for your statements? Republic of Korea Army is of comparable size to North Korea's army (500K vs. 900K), and every source I've seen suggests that South Korea has an enormous economic and technological advantage. List of countries by military expenditures says that South Korea spends 32 billion dollars per year on its military, which is 2-3 times the entire GDP of North Korea. North Korea is also at least years away from being able to mount a nuclear bomb on a missile: [6] --140.180.254.78 (talk) 15:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

You may be interested in the articles Korean People's Army and Republic of Korea Armed Forces. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:32, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

One should note that the North really has no intention to "destroy" the South. They have the intention of "unification." I don't want to make it sound like that would be a good thing for the South, but it is not really what I would call "destroy." They want to occupy it. This is a very different stance than their position on Japan or the United States, for example. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:26, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

However, if they can't occupy it, destroying it might be a secondary goal. StuRat (talk) 07:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I've never seen anything from their rhetoric to suggest that this is at all part of their mindset. Reunification is a major feature in their ideology, and they see it as inevitable. Destroying it would not aid that. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Some news reports have quoted specialists that say that they have acquired enough material to make only 6 nuclear warheads. So North Korea could detroy 6 major cities in East Asia. If these 6 cities are the 6 largest South Korean cities, it would be a major part of the population, but not everyone. --Lgriot (talk) 09:16, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It is really unknown how much nuclear material they have and how much they use per warhead. There are varying estimates. It is not clear under what circumstances they would use them, though, and it should be noted that none of the weapons they have tested so far can completely destroy a city of any size. (They could do a lot of damage, don't get me wrong. Killing 100,000 people in Seoul would be no picnic, but it would be less than 1% of the city's population.) --Mr.98 (talk) 11:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I do believe nuclear weapons and the long range missile tech is only to scare off distant nations, not the South Koreans as the North has enough artillery power (old but still very effective) to level Seoul within minutes. As stated by others, the North has never wanted to destroy the South but to reunite with them. 70.48.213.165 (talk) 21:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Nazi officer angled cap in photos

Often when you see a formal photo of a German (Nazi) officer, their cap is always arranged at a jaunty angle (like here). What was this called (the act of wearing the cap like so)? Is this a part of uniform regulations, or was it just done "for fashion"? Is wearing the cap at an angle only common to the Nazi era, or have other armed forces encouraged or required their offices to wear their caps at an angle too? Thanks everyone!! 59.167.253.199 (talk) 15:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• It's called swag. In all reality, I haven't been able to find much, I found one person on yahoo answers that said it was to give the appearance that they were "battle hardened" since hats would lose their shape through fighting, others stated it was for comfort due to the design of the hat, unfortunately, I didn't find anything reliable. Ryan Vesey 17:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• It would also make them look taller. Short people and those seeking to convey a sense of authority (like Popes or Abraham Lincoln), often wear tall hats. I get the feeling this guy was short (unless he is seated), since the pic seems to have been taken from slightly above and I see the bottom of the windowsill, and no ceiling, behind him. StuRat (talk) 19:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the British armed forces (used to?) wear their Field service caps like this - see these pictures of Home Guard volunteers. I also seem to remember a scene from Dad's Army in which Mainwaring shouts at someone (Wilson?) for wearing their cap straight on their head - he said it made them look like they were in the Girl Guides or some such. I'm not finding a reference right at the minute, although our Side Cap article [[7]] that the Royal Canadian Air Force wear theirs "on the right side of the head, centred front and back, with the front edge of the cap 2.5 cm (1 in.) above the right eyebrow." - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:37, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

It is not even restricted to uniform caps, civilians (which of course in those times all wore hats) did it as well at times. Look at the infobox picture of Robert Johnson for example. I think it is a general fashion trend of the period, rather than a special German military thing. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:28, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

In Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall, Spike Milligan drew a series of cartoons illustrating the angles at which British soldiers wore their steel helmets to try to look fashionable. On parade, helmets had to be worn straight.[8] The field service cap however, was intended to be worn at an angle; like this. Alansplodge (talk) 12:35, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty and his cap in 1916

And I've just remembered Admiral Beatty, whose angled cap was a trade mark in the previous war. The term "rakish angle"[9] usually described it. Alansplodge (talk) 16:57, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

One of the songs in Robin and the Seven Hoods is called "Style", and it includes the statement, "A hat isn't a hat unless it's tilted." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it is a fashion thing, but it could also have a practical use. If you look at this picture of Tom Mix you'll notice that his giant hat obscures his face in the photo, by throwing a shadow on it. By tilting the hat, you get a better picture, there is more light on the face of the person whose picture you're taking. In the picture of Beatty you can see it as well: the right side of his face is fine, but the left side of his face is in the dark, due to his cap casting its shadow on it.

Another reason, is of course that it allows a person to wear a hat that is a bit too small for their head. V85 (talk) 11:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Owls

There are many references to owls in literature, but why does the phrase 'as tight as an owl' mean drunk/toasted/inebriated?114.75.56.255 (talk) 19:26, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Apparently they do get drunk [10]. The expression is quite old. See Malle Babbe. Paul B (talk) 20:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

A lot of animals can be affected by gorging on over-ripe fermenting berries, but I don't think it happens too often in nature... AnonMoos (talk) 21:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Cassell's dictionary of slang has a definition for "drunk as a boiled owl," which it dates to the late 18th century. It also has "boiled-owlish" dated to the 19th century, meaning "having a washed out complexion and staring eyes due to being overworked" (paraphrasing). Routledge dictionary of modern American slang and unconventional English also has "drunk as a boiled owl," which it dates to the mid-19th century. Someone at this forum thread quotes Partridge as saying there are so "many bizarre expressions for drunkenness (including comparisons to animals) that I wonder if they're deliberately made up to be impenetrable," but I can't figure out for sure what Partridge the person is quoting, unless they mean this one. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 23:07, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Eric Partridge, no doubt. My edition of his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English dates "drunk as a boiled owl" to the early 1880s; and after defining it as "extremely drunk", he adds "Why?" Deor (talk) 01:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The London Budget of Wit from 1817 includes this explanation: "As drunk as an owl, as drunk as a sow, as drunk as a beggar, as drunk as the devil, as drunk as a lord. These are the principlal comparisons of drunkenness, and the explanation is as follows:—a man is as drunk as an owl, when he cannot see; he is as drunk as a beggar, when he is very impudent; he is as drunk as the devil, when he is inclined to mischief; and as drunk as a lord, when he is every thing that is bad.". Looie496 (talk) 23:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Nice find! --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 13:18, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Old English legal joke:

Defendant: I don't know what happened - I was as drunk as a judge.

Judge: Don't you mean "as drunk as a lord"?

Defendant: Yes my lord!

Boom, boom! Alansplodge (talk) 15:12, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

A good example of the risks of testifying on your own behalf. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Crucifixion in late imperial Rome

Did the late Roman empire, after it became officially Christian, continue to crucify people? 188.220.7.9 (talk) 20:12, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Our article on Crucifixion says "Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished crucifixion in the Roman Empire in 337 out of veneration for Jesus Christ, its most famous victim." - Cucumber Mike (talk) 20:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Adolf Berger's Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law also says Constantine abolished it, which makes sense. Unfortunately he doesn't cite any particular law. As far as I can tell the Corpus Iuris Civilis doesn't include any law from Constantine about this. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:27, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, apparently Sozomen says so ("He [Constantine] took away by law the crucifixion customary among the Romans, from the usage of the courts"). Adam Bishop (talk) 21:42, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

April 17

ethnic minorities supporting right-wing parties

In Israel, Likud party gets its support from minority Jews, namely Sephardi and Mizrahi. Is Israel the only nation in the world that has right-wing parties that gets its support from minority communities?--Donmust90 (talk) 04:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

In the U.S., many Cuban-Americans support the righter of the two major American parties, the Republican Party, because the Republican party is seen as taking a harder stance against the Castro regime than the lefter of the two parties, the Democratic Party. Since most Cuban Americans are Cuban Americans because they don't like Castro (else, they'd be Cuban Cubans still), the fact that (Historically) the Republicans were seen as more anti-Castro has led to a long relationship between the Republican Party and Cuban Americans (Cuban American#Political_beliefs covers some of this) Other Hispanic-American groups tend to lean more towards the Democratic party because the Democratic Party has been historically more lenient on open immigration, and the largest groups of Hispanic Americans, by far, come from Mexico ancestrally. Hispanic and Latino Americans#Political trends is actually better referenced than the above Cuban article is with regard to the political leanings of various Hispanic and Latino groups. It should also be noted that these are trends and not monolithic facts: there are members of every ethnic group which support either American party, so while one can draw very broad generalizations, in the specific one finds people from every conceivable ethnic and racial background in every American political party. Of course, I'll leave it to others to comment on other countries, as I am not as familiar with politics outside of my home country. --Jayron32 04:29, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

In the US, recent immigrant minorities also tend to be more socially conservative, so opposed to abortion, divorce, free condoms, etc. However, in most cases, this is overwhelmed by the open hostility towards them emanating from the (conservative) Republican Party. StuRat (talk) 07:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

What in the world are you talking about, Stu? Please name one party plank or news item that supports such a silly claim. μηδείς (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Here's a top Republican strategist saying as much: [11]. Here they are restoring anti-immigrant language to the platform (which Mitt Romney had removed in an attempt to gain Hispanic votes): [12]. And here's Herman Cain, a Republican primary candidate for President in 2012, advocate using lethal methods against illegal immigrants: [13]. StuRat (talk) 16:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

A strategist says "has sounded"? You declare open hostility as a categorical fact and the best you can come up with is a political strategist advocating outreach? μηδείς (talk) 19:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It is also worth noting that many Mexican-Americans and other Hispanics/Latinos are more liberal on economic policy and more likely to support a welfare state and a larger social safety net (the Democrats are the more economically liberal party in the U.S.).

I've lost track of who wrote this, but it may be worth pointing out that the Democrats are the "more economically liberal" party only in a sense of the word "liberal" that's peculiar to the States. In the more classical sense of the word, the Republicans tend to be more economically liberal (that is, in favor of the free market). I emphasize the word "tend" because this is certainly not uniformly true — there are plenty of economically interventionist Republicans and a fair number of reasonably market-friendly Democrats. --Trovatore (talk) 15:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I got Cuban-Americans supporting Republican Party but what other ethnic groups like Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Iranians and Colombians? Do they support Republican Party and if they do, why?--Donmust90 (talk) 15:18, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

In various ridings Jason Kenney successfully obtained support from ethnic minorities for the Conservative Party of Canada, which is the newest major right-wing party in Canada, and which currently forms the government. Much has been written on this topic. Kenney has even been invited for consultations by right-wingers in the UK and the USA on how to court ethnic minorities for their support. A lot of the success is commonly attributed to the following: telling members of ethnic minorities openly that they are being intentionally targeted for their support; not using "token" strategies like assigning members of the ethnic minority for a position just to gain that minority's support; and expressing respect for some traditional values of minority groups and saying how these align with social conservatism. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 06:38, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Right, though I was speaking with some fellow Canadians of South Asian origin the other day who had supported Kenney and they say if they ever see that man ever again... lets just say they hate him for the things he has done post election. Recent immigrants to Canada do seems to support the right-wing conservatives more than average as most come from nations much more socially conservative than Canada. Many immigrants are more religious than average, more likely to deny evolution and global warming, be against gay rights, and hold other conservative viewpoints. 70.48.213.165 (talk) 14:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Although I (as a Canadian) agree with your general point, and think it's disturbing that Canada is letting these people in, do you have evidence that recent immigrants are more likely to deny global warming? As far as I know, that's associated with the right wing only in the US; in most other countries, including Canada, it's associated with lunacy. The Conservative Party is also not planning to hamper gay or abortion rights--Harper has repeatedly said that he won't reopen the abortion debate, indicating acceptance of fully legal abortion. In general, the Conservative Party is not socially conservative by American standards, or most recent immigrants' standards. --140.180.254.78 (talk) 15:26, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

On global warming denial, my only evidence is from speaking with them, though one can look at the international stats on global warming awareness by nation to see that awareness is lower in most nations than Canada. While you are right that the cons may be more liberal than most nations where immigrants come from, they are still the least liberal party in Canada. 70.48.213.165 (talk) 21:58, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Some German Jews donated money to Hitler in 1932, and possibly supported (or at least didn't mind) him back then. George W. Bush won the Muslim vote in 2000, and Republican Presidential candidates won the Asian-American vote in 1992 and 1996. Futurist110 (talk) 07:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm interested in the data that led the OP to believe that the Likud "gets its support from minority Jews, namely Sephardi and Mizrahi". The most prominent Likud politicians, eg the three men who have become Prime Minister, were all either born in eastern Europe, or the son of someone who was born in eastern Europe, the hallmark of Ashkenazim. --Dweller (talk) 08:15, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Dweller -- I don't know who supports the Likud nowadays, but it's often been said that support from immigrants from Arab countries made the difference in putting the Likud in power in the pivotal election of 1977... AnonMoos (talk) 22:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The Swedish People's Party of Finland is one of the most extreme cases in Europe, a mainstream right-wing/liberal party, that continously gathers almost all Swedish-minority votes. --Soman (talk) 12:41, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

OP Donmust90 posits in this query that Israelis of "Sephardi and Mizrachi" origin support the Likud party because they're a minority?It has been explained on this page repeatedly (including by me) that the basic issues in Israeli electoral politics are (first) security and (then) economics. The Mizrachi population tends to support the Likud party's hard-line ("hawkish") foreign and domestic security platform. This also explains why there's little Mizrachi support for a dovish party, e.g. Meretz. (It's also been explained here, repeatedly, that identification as "Sephardi" is largely archaic and cultural, and not a factor in present-day electoral politics.) The support of Mizrachis for the Likud on economic grounds is similar to working-class USAians regardless of ethnicity supporting the Republican Party whose platform favors the wealthy.In Israel, we call claims like Donmust90's the "ethnic spectre" and it is roundly condemned. How about giving it a rest here? -- Deborahjay (talk) 13:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I wonder whether there is any "majority Jews" in Israel or if the whole Jewish population is composed by minorities, some bigger than the others, but none reaching 50% +. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:06, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The Basque people are a minority in Spain, and the Basque Nationalist Party gets a lot of their votes. Not sure if that's what you meant, though. Gabbe (talk) 19:05, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

That party likes to glory in the Basque. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I am mixing up two myths about Aphrodite: please help:?

Myth 1 The magical girdle of Aphrodite had the power to inspire the passion of desire. Hera, in her role as the goddess of marriage, occasionally borrowed it from Aphrodite to reunite quarreling spouses in love and to inspire the bridal contests of suitors. Myth 2 Hephaestus, suspecting his wife of cheating on him, made a chain-net trap, which he set up on the bed. When Aphrodite and Ares were in a compromising position on the bed, the trap was sprung, and they couldn't break out of it. He then went and showed them off in front of all the other gods, until he was persuaded to let them go in exchange for Ares paying a fine Are those to myths related to Hephaestus and do the chain-net made of Adamant or girdle have anything to do with each other? Please clarify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Venustar84 (talk • contribs) 05:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Hephaestus, was supposed to have made all sorts of things including those, I can't see why the two should be especially connected otherwise. Dmcq (talk) 08:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Someone just blogged this to me: the girdle might be a throwback to Aprodite as the Sumerian Inanna as a mother-goddess and the other is a cautionary tale on the evils of adultery: After the adulterous couple were discovered and the male gods summoned (the female gods found the whole thing indelicate and stayed away), Hephaestus at first demanded the return of his bride-price from Zeus, who disclaimed any responsibility. Finally, Poseidon intervened on behalf of Ares, guaranteeing that the latter would pay an equivalent fine - which, of course, he never did.

But I have a another question: Wasn't another use of the girdle was as a kind of celestial shield. When King Anchises unwisely boasted of having slept with the goddess, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at him, but Aphrodite interposed her girdle and saved his life. When did this happen? And was the girdle or net were either of then made of bronze, gold, or Adamant? Venustar84 (talk) 16:49, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

By the way, not sure how useful linking to the Wikipedia article "girdle" is, since before the 20th century, the word "girdle" was mainly just a fancy-sounding synonym for "belt"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Those nutty ancient Greeks had a belt fetish? Go figure. I note in that article where someone missed a chance: The one picture could have been labeled "Wemale females". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Not sure about "belt fetish", since the belts worn by women were often just a tied strip of cloth. However, as a first step in undressing, removing it could acquire symbolic significance (λῦσε δὲ παρθενίην ζώνην in Homer's Odyssey, etc.). AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Depends how strong that "girdle" was. Like if she went from an hourglass shape to a beach ball shape. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:27, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure the cloth belts could be tied a little tightly at times, but corsetry as such simply didn't exist in ancient Greece. When nineteenth-century authors used the word "girdle", they were trying to be lofty and quasi-poetic, but the intended effect can fall flat if it now calls to mind a 1950s elasticized concoction. By the way, according to Liddell and Scott, originally in ancient Greek a woman's belt was a ζωνη, while a man's belt was a ζωστηρ. AnonMoos (talk) 03:47, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Countries With Forced Organ Donation

Have there ever been any countries which forced, say, criminals to donate organs to their victims? I'm not talking about the eye for an eye principle, since that principles advocates hurting criminals without helping the victims, while I am talking about hurting criminals in order to help their victims. And Yes, this is a serious question. Futurist110 (talk) 07:11, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

In China those convicted of the death penalty have had their organs harvested without their (or their relatives) permission, and there have been allegations that this happened on a large scale in Kosovo for "disappeared" people. See "Organ transplantation in the People's Republic of China" and "Organ theft in Kosovo". But in neither of those cases were the organs harvested for the purpose of being given to the victims. Other than that, I doubt any country has ever had a policy of punishing perpetrators by making them forfeit body parts for the purpose of being implanted in their victims. Gabbe (talk) 09:10, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

To further clarify why I think this is unlikely: Matching organs is actually quite tricky. Among other things, donors and recipients have to have similar blood types, the donors has to be relatively healthy in order to have viable organs, and so on. That's why I think situations were it would have been even feasible for the perpetrator to give organs to his or her victims are pretty rare. Gabbe (talk) 09:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

In the future, governments will make forced organ donation the penalty for everything from violent crime to traffic violations. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The matching problem isn't so bad if you use daisy chain transplants. In the future hopefully the problem will go away with replacement organs being made artificially from the patients own cells. Dmcq (talk) 11:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Although that solution seems to be a long way from general availability; they're still at the rat stage.[14] Alansplodge (talk) 12:24, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean after the prisoners die, killing the prisoners to harvest their organs, or forcing criminals to donate "spare" organs while still alive? --140.180.254.78 (talk) 15:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Any of that would work for this question. Also, by "victims," I generally mean a situation where a criminal stabs someone and this other individual needs a new kidney or something along those lines. Futurist110 (talk) 02:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I think after they're executed but who knows? The article Organ transplantation in the People's Republic of China discusses the practice. Dmcq (talk) 17:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Parable vs. fable

The Wiki articles on parable and fable seem to have similar wording in the introduction. As a matter of fact, they note that the only difference between a parable and fable is that a parable deals with humans, while a fable deals with everything else. But in structure and purpose, they are the same. So, what happens in a story if a character transforms from an inanimate object into an animate object or if a character transforms from a human to an animal and vice versa, and the transformation is an integral part of the story and moral/lesson? Sneazy (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Please stop using the Reference desks for whimsical questions that you know perfectly well can't be answered. They may seem funny to you but to us they're just boring. Looie496 (talk) 18:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, yeah. I can't answer them. Which is why I use the reference desks. I would have used the Know-It-Now service at my public library, but they mostly provide references to databases that I already have access to. Which is why I typically use databases to do my own research. If I make up a question with an easy answer that anybody can look up on the Internet or in a database, then I wouldn't have to ask them in the first place, would I? For example, there was one time when I asked a librarian on the Internet about "what is a tabernacle and what do you put in it?" because I thought the Wikipedia article was useless. I couldn't really figure out what the picture was pointing to. The librarian pointed to the Catholic encyclopedia and even then I completely missed the part about the Blessed Sacrament, because I didn't know that the term was a devotional term for the Eucharist until that time. Sometimes, it's little things like this that stumble me. Funny, but I swear I saw a young man put a piece of paper inside the tabernacle! It's not bread and wine either! A mystery!Sneazy (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

@Looie: you are wrong on this one, the question can be answered. That's a Cross-genre work. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Tabernacles have also, historically, been used to store precious things that needed to be kept safe. Famously (or as famous as something can be that nearly nobody apparently knows) the encyclical Mit brennender Sorge was hidden in several tabernacles, in the run up to the Palm Sunday where it was read in churches across Germany, because the priests knew they had to keep it secret and safe until the day. 86.161.209.128 (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd call it a farable, but that's just me. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Metamorphoses? Adam Bishop (talk) 21:19, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Great Lakes sustainability

A little hypothetical that will help with my homework. Say a new independent country was formed of the Great Lakes Basin. If the country decided to be isolationist and stopped all trade with other countries, what raw materials, natural resources, food resources, and perhaps metals would the country be limited to? (If there's too many to list, a website containing them would be great). Could it sustain itself without exporting or importing? Thanks! 50.101.202.180 (talk) 23:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean to ask could it sustain itself as an industrial nation without exporting or importing? Because I’m pretty sure the Alonquians made do pretty much just with what was there. They could as an industrial nation of course, too, but perhaps not particularly competitively. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:58, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Excepting that the rust belt is concentrated on the Great Lakes, so there's at least hypothetically the infrastructure for manufacturing. There's also lots of coal, iron, copper, forests, etc. in the greater Great Lakes area, food resources as well. It would likely be fairly self-sustaining, assuming they could make the economics of firing up their industries again work (that is, the economic pressures that have caused all of the manufacturing jobs to leave may still be there even in a Great Lakes nation state). --Jayron32 00:52, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

To the contrary, there were extensive trade networks around the Great Lakes in pre-Columbian times. The Hopewell interaction sphere went from the Great Lakes far to the south and west, and Upper Peninsula copper has been found all over the place. Perhaps pre-Columbian peoples could have made do pretty much just with what was there, but they didn't. Nyttend (talk) 01:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much meaning mostly, and made do meaning sustaining life. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Contrary to what? --Jayron32 03:47, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Contrary to Reisio's portrayal of peoples of the Great Lakes basin existing without exporting or importing, when the region was a vibrant trade center long before Columbus. Nyttend (talk) 03:52, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah. Since you threaded it in response to me, it confused me. --Jayron32 05:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Way too many to list. Virtually the entirety of Michigan is in the Great Lakes Basin, and around 1/3 of each of Ontario (which forms the largest part of the basin), New York, Wisconsin and Ohio are in the basin. If you just go to Michigan's Department of Natural Resources and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development websites, and Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Ministry of Food and Agriculture websites, you will be able to look up listings of natural resources. Sources of: natural gas, oil, forestry products, iron, copper, cobalt, chromium, molybdenum, nickel, coal, uranium, hydro-electric power ... the list is endless. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:15, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to look at it in reverse. That is, what would such a nation lack ? Certainly tropical foods would be lacking. I don't think many airplanes are made there now, although Willow Run made large quantities during WW2. Electronics might also be scarce, at least until sufficient factories could be set up to mass produce them. StuRat (talk) 07:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

They would have the materials and facilities to produce lots and lots of cars, and would soon run out of people to sell them to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Very few places produce large aircraft nowadays, but Ontario still has a number of small aircraft manufacturers, and the de Havilland Aircraft Company was based in Toronto until a couple of decades ago, so manufacturing mid-sized aircraft is not an impossibility (leaving the economics of such production aside). But most sophisticated manufacturing these days depends on a global supply chain, so if any country practices strict economic isolationism (Autarky), it is at a distinct disadvantage. --Xuxl (talk) 09:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes. The OP postulates isolationism, so there would be no reason to manufacture airplanes, except maybe small ones for local flights. The US used to be almost entirely self-sufficient, but that was then. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

You would need more than small planes with numerous large cities in the new state and considering that western Minnesota is as far from eastern New York as London from Athens. Any rail transit would have to go around the lakes through Chicago to the south or along the Canadian shore which adds to the travel distance. There are rail crossings at the Detroit, St. Clair and St. Marys rivers but not at Straits of Mackinaw or across any of the lakes. Only one 1950s era ferry is still running which could handle train cars. Rmhermen (talk) 16:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Another fruitful line of inquiry could be to google people attempting to follow The 100-Mile Diet in the region. I think I read about a couple in Ontario who were aghast to discover this meant they would have no salt. 67.22.236.216 (talk) 14:05, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a large salt mine under Detroit and Windsor. You need to look at something more like a 500-mile diet. Rmhermen (talk) 15:21, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

If you consider only the drainage basin area and not all area of the states that border the lakes, you would have a shortage of oil and coal. You might be ok with natural gas but would have no fresh uranium supplies. There would be a huge excess of iron and nickel and possibly copper. There would probably be a shortage of wheat, no matter how agriculture was rearranged. No tropical fruit but no shortage of blueberries or cherries. Good supplies of apples and grapes. Rmhermen (talk) 15:37, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the responses. I have thought about the problem of low oil deposits, though I watched a documentary a few months ago about synthetic oils made of algae (I think Wikipedia has a page on it.) Considering the new country would have five whole lakes, is it possible for them to use the algae to synthesize their own oil, or would they need another species of algae not native to the Lakes? 50.101.202.180 (talk) 23:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

April 18

Why do some middle-Easterners not consider themself being white

I thought Middle-Eastern or Arab peoples are white, but when I talk to some Arab peoples from Western Asia, they don't think they are white. Some people who are Israeli thinks they are not white. Can people from Western Asia consider themselves as Some Other Race. From this article, they said most people consider themselves as Some Other Races are Morroccan, South African, Belizean. Do some people from West Asias, like Pakistanis, or Israelis call themself as "Some other Race".--69.226.42.134 (talk) 00:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

There’s white the color (which some people define very strictly! :p), white as in European, white as in German or Iranian, white as in the privileged “normal”/“majority” (including not particularly persecuted) light skinned people. My guess is that the people you’ve asked don’t identify as particularly European, privileged, unpersecuted, or bland. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You are what you think you are. Race is a socio-cultural construct, and the only person who can reliably answer what their race is is the person themselves. If someone doesn't identify with what they believe a white person to be, then they aren't a white person. If they identify with another group, such as Arabic, and they consider that group to be distinct from white, well, then, you aren't in any position to tell them that they can't do that. It's about the relationships between individuals and the groups the identify with, not whatever arbitrary classification scheme you wish to impose from the outside. See Race (human classification) for the complex nature of race. Different cultures don't even agree on what makes up races, and have different ways of dividing up populations on racial lines; but ultimately, it's still not up to you to decide if someone is or isn't white. It's up to them and their relationship to the culture they identify with. --Jayron32 00:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, come one, Jayron. There's not a single sane person on earth who would not understand the claim that indigenous Koreans are more racially similar to Japanese, and Belgians to Dutchmen, and Rwandans to Ugandans, than any of those groups are to the others, or contest it's truth. That's not socially constructed. That being said, the OP's question is provocative. μηδείς (talk) 01:40, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Some possible reasons might be:

• They have different cultures, languages, and sometimes religions than Whites of European descent.
• Their skin color is sometimes a little darker than that of many Whites of European descent.
• They do not feel like they fit into "White society" that much.

Keep in mind that initially, in the late 19th/early 20th century Arabs petitioned the government to mark them as White since back then it means avoiding discrimination and whatnot. However, since legal racism essentially became abolished in the U.S. since that point, some Arabs and other Middle Easterners now want the U.S. govt. to add a new Middle Eastern racial category. As Jayron said, race is a socio-cultural concept, not a scientific one, and thus it is (often) based on people's opinions. Futurist110 (talk) 02:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Arabs and other relatively dark-skinned folks around the Mediterranean are traditionally considered to be Caucasian. The fact that they would likely never be mistaken for Scandinavians indicates how broad the Caucasian umbrella is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ironically, even many people from places like Armenia and Georgia - which is where the Caucasus is, and whence the term derives - would look sufficiently "eastern" to many people for them to not regard them as Caucasians. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:56, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Definitely slippery slopes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:06, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

@Jayron: I disagree that you are only what you think you are. Belonging to a group, which is always a social construct, also implies that people in the group have to accept you. I could not say that I am Chinese, no matter how often I eat Chinese and claim that you are what you eat. Both Chinese and others won't recognize me as such. I would rather say that, in society, you are what others think you are. If aristocrats consider you a baron, you are one. If all agree that you have a posh accent, you have one. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:50, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree. In Australia, the judicial criteria for whether someone is an Aboriginal has been expressed as "lineage, group identity, and self identity": i.e. it is an assessment based on whether someone has some blood lineage, whether the group accepts them as oen of them, and whether they self-identify as one of the group. I think these three elements are generally applicable when talking about a person's ethnic identity. Self-identity is determinative only for that person alone. All three elements are relevant for external identity. Some groups might be so inclusive to make that second element trivial (e.g. one of the melting-pot "nations"), but others would not be. Similarly, other groups might have such varied blood lineages that the first element might be trivial, but others would not be. I suspect Jayron belongs a group which has a very inclusive group identity not based on blood lineage at all, which is why he/she is used to a group identity concept which focuses on self identity. The same is not generally true of other racial/ethnic groupings. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Essentially, we are discussing the difference between self-identification and external-identification, and noting the simple fact that these two forms of identification do not always agree with each other. I might self-identify as being "White", while someone else might externally-identify me as being "not White". In fact, both of us might be correct... depending on what each of us means when we use the word "White". We need to remember that the concept of "race" is not used consistently around the world. To some people, the word "race" means something closer to "nationality" than "color". Europeans used to think this way... There was once a time when Europeans talked about the "English race" vs the "French race". In that context, the word is more a cultural term than an ethnic one. I suspect that those who self-identify as "Arab" or "Iranian" and do not self-identify as "White" are using the (to a Westerner, obsolete) cultural understanding of their race. What they mean when they say "I am not White" is: "I am not European". Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Walnut Grove Shelby Farms PD

Looking for anyone familiar with metro Memphis, Tennessee. Is there a place known as "Walnut Grove Shelby Farms PD" (or anything related) in this area? It shows up on Google Maps (view the region at low resolution, and it's the only city name in southwestern Tennessee), and a Google text search finds four million results, but they're all autogenerated directories: "Used car dealers in Walnut Grove - Shelby Farms PD", "Salvation army thrift store in Walnut Grove - Shelby Farms PD", etc. I don't have a printed map of the area handy, and while the GNIS reveals a populated place named Shelby Farms (U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: 1303556), its only hits for Walnut Grove in the area are U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: a lake and U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: a dam. I'm definitely not finding anything in which the two names appear in conjunction with each other, and the mass of autogenerated pages makes it impossible to find topics that mention the place normally, aside from forums like this page that simply remark about Memphis being replaced by WGSF-PD. Nyttend (talk) 01:04, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Possibly to do with an aborted planned development of the Shelby Farms area (now a park) near Walnut Grove road in Memphis. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

When did the Middle Ages end?

Did it end with the fall of the Byzantium Empire, i.e. in the year 1453 AD? --Yoglti (talk) 04:05, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Like so many other periods in history, there's no hard-and-fast date. The name "Middle Ages" arose in the succeeding Renaissance ("re-birth"), as Renaissance thinkers saw their time as being distinct from the previous era, which was in the decrepit middle between the glorious classical period and their glorious period of rebirth. Basically, we can say that the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, but the Renaissance doesn't have a clear starting date, and Renaissance ideas and practices became important at different times in different places. Nyttend (talk) 04:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sure, why not... The transition between the middle ages and the early modern period in European history occurred during the second half of the 15th century. 1453 and the fall of Constantinople to the Turks makes a nice "headline" event during that period. There wasn't a magic day when everyone woke up and realized the changed ages, but broadly speaking the end of the middle ages occured between 1450-1500. Within that 50 year timespan, the Crusades came to an end, the Reconquista was completed, Columbus had sailed to America and Vasco da Gama to India, moveable type printing became widespread, Ivan III of Russia stopped paying tribute to the Mongol Hordes, etc. etc. So basically all of the stuff that made the middle ages the middle ages (Mongol conquests, expansion of Islam, the Crusades) was coming to an end, and all of the stuff that made the Early modern period, well, modern (Exploration, printing, formation of major nation states from petty kingdoms) was in high gear. --Jayron32 04:34, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Our article explains that the usual cut-off dates differ for different places. At university, a professor of medieval English history told me with a wink that the convention to end the period in 1450 for England was to avoid having to teach the horrendously complex Wars of the Roses to undergraduates. The tutors of early modern history took a similar view, starting their period, conveniently, with the war-ending victory of Henry VII of England in 1485. NB our contentiously-titled article on Middle Ages states that in English history, the medieval period ends with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. That's a more logical approach, although, like I say, less pragmatic for medievalist tutors! --Dweller (talk) 09:13, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• Going for 1492 are the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the discovery of the New World. μηδείς (talk) 17:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Note that Muslim expansion in Europe was nowhere near done by 1453 or 1500; read Ottoman wars in Europe and Growth of the Ottoman Empire. Nyttend (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Ottoman expansion into Europe post 1500 was quite different than the expansions of Islam during the Caliphate. The Ottoman growth was more political than religious; with a few exceptions (Bosnia, Thrace) there was not any widespread religious conversion among the Balkan peoples as a result of the Ottoman conquests. Now, it was complex. There were Ottoman policies such as Devşirme, which did overtly seek to selectively convert Christian boys into Islam from a young age, but on the bulk, the Ottoman millet system allowed the preservation of various local faiths. This is in stark contrast to the pre-Ottoman Caliphate, which had religious conversion as its primary focus. The Ottoman policies, which nominally gave lip service to conversion, didn't actively seek to convert Christian peoples the way the earlier Islamic states did. See Spread_of_Islam#Balkans which explains how the Ottoman Empire did not as actively spread Islam during its conquests as the earlier Islamic Caliphate did. In summation, while one Islamic state did expand its borders during the Early Modern period, Islam itself did not expand during this period; it had (in Europe at least) largely stopped expanding by the 1500s or so. --Jayron32 04:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know who was the first to use the term. Quoting from Late middle ages: Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodization in his History of the Florentine People (1442).[4] Although this statement is referenced I cannot find it in a similar reference http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2958221/BruniHistoryHJ.pdf?sequence=4. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 23:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Nominations by the President-elect of the United States

The United States Constitution gives only the sitting President of the United States the authority to appoint members to certain positions, such as Cabinet posts. However, the Constitution also requires that the President obtain the advice and consent of the United States Senate. This becomes tricky when one considers modern politics and confirmation procedure. Senate Committees will certainly want the chance to question a nominee (c.f. Chuck Hagel), but once a President-elect takes office on January 20, they will understandably want to hit the ground running with as much of the Cabinet filled as possible. And as such, many Cabinet positions are confirmed by the Senate on or immediately after the incoming President takes the Oath of Office. How exactly does one reconcile this? Is there a provision of the US Code that allows the President-elect to make provisional nominations, or does the outgoing President make the nominations to the Senate as a matter of courtesy? Is the confirmation process started once the President-elect announces his or her choice even though the nomination hasn't officially been submitted to the Senate? Or is there some other process? NW (Talk) 04:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Many presidents have a slate of nominees they are prepared to turn over to the Senate as soon as they officially take office, often it is one of their first acts. See Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet, which shows that with the exception of the Secretary of Defense (who didn't require confirmation, as Obama retained Bush appointee Robert Gates in that position), most of the nominees were confirmed during the first week or so of his term, which seems about right given the time necessary for the Senate to at least give a token vetting and formal questioning period as is common. Here are the dates of confirmation of his first cabinet

Dept	Nominee	Confirmation
State	Hillary Clinton	January 21, 2009
Treasury	Tim Geitner	January 26, 2009
Defense	Robert Gates	Retained position
Attorney General	Eric Holder	February 2, 2009
Interior	Ken Salazar	January 21, 2009
Agriculture	Tom Vilsack	January 20, 2009
Commerce	Gary Locke	March 24, 2009
Labor	Hilda Solis	February 24, 2009
Health & Human Services	Kathleen Sebelius	March 2, 2009
Housing & Urban Development	Shaun Donovan	January 27, 2009
Transportation	Ray LaHood	January 23, 2009
Energy	Stephen Chu	January 20, 2009
Education	Arne Duncan	January 21, 2009
Veteran's Affairs	Eric Shinseki	January 20, 2009
Homeland Security	Janet Napolitano	January 21, 2009

With very few exceptions, all of these nominees had been announced ahead of time by President-Elect Obama before he took office, basically in late Nov-early Dec 2008. All of those that were confirmed in the first 8 days or so; several were confirmed by unanimous voice vote with no discussion (pretty much all of those confirmed on Jan 20-21). The ones confirmed in February and March were not Obama's first choice; his initial choices had to withdraw themselves for consideration during the confirmation process (Gary Locke was actually his third nominee for Commerce. Bill Richardson, his first choice, got caught up in a financial scandal and Judd Gregg, his second choice, refused to leave the Senate to accept the nomination. Likewise, Kathleen Sebelius was a late nominee to make up for the withdrawn nomination of Tom Daschle). --Jayron32 05:09, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. It didn't even really occur to me that the modern Senate would consider consenting to nominations without even a minimal amount of questioning. I imagine then that Stephen Chu was confirmed as Secretary of Energy without having to appear before the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources? I would be astonished if the Senate actually met in more than a pro forma session on Inauguration Day. NW (Talk) 05:54, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Being a Democratic Senate, and essentially filibuster-proof at that point, they probably wanted to get the ball rolling. Now the Dem majority in the Senate is smaller, and the GOP has been stonewalling nearly everything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't quite filibuster-proof, given the Judd Gregg situation (he declined the nomination for Commerce Secretary because, as a Republican from a state with a Democratic governor, he would have lost that crucial 40th Republican seat to a Democrat, and THUS made the Senate filibuster-proof). However, when a new President is elected, it is NOT common for the Senate to stonewall his nominations, even if the Senate is controlled by a different party. There's a sort of "honeymoon effect" for any new President (which is why the "100 days" standard is so important in trying to get new legislation through) and the first slate of Cabinet nominations tends to sail through in most cases. --Jayron32 13:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Confirmations of Barack Obama's Cabinet#Hillary Clinton says "Confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began on January 13, 2009, a week before the Obama inauguration; two days later, the committee voted 16–1 to approve Clinton." So apparently the President-elect's must have some power here to nominate folks so that it can be put on the Committee calendar. NW (Talk) 20:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, there you go. --Jayron32 20:15, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The president elect's pre-inaguration nominations and the Senate's deliberations on them, dates back to 1953. The hearings are "informal", and there's no constitutional authority for the president-elect to formally nominate anyone. As a practical matter though, the hearings on January 20 are proforma (Stephen Hess, ed. G. Calvin MacKenzie, Innocent until nominated: the breakdown of the presidential appointments process, ISBN 0815754019, page 114). As a matter of tradition the Senate usually confirms cabinet nominees with little trouble; it's the other posts that are more of an issue. Btw, that book goes through most presidents and their appointments in detail, if you're interested.

However not every appointment is immediate. The average time for top appointment for Clinton was 8.5 months. (Encyclopedia of the American Presidency, Michael A. Genovese, page 404). Shadowjams (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Rejection of the label "Feudalism"

Does anyone know the argument presented by Elizabeth A. R. Brown to reject the label "feudalism"? --Yoglti (talk) 06:08, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The article you linked to sums it up well. The argument is it's a fairly useless term, being so ambiguous. Question arise such as does it refer to military or agrarian responsibilities, or a hierarchy, or a type of society? The nature of "feudalism" varies wildly across territories, even fluctuating within kingdoms, and certainly across time, and it ignores sections of society that may or may not have feudal elements, such as whatever artisan/middle classes existed, and, if you want to argue that that's just a small section of society, just how the often very powerful clergy fit in is a real mess, culminating in the role of the Pope, who was also a prince in his own right for much of the period in question, and local bishops who may have been landowners, too. Arguments against the problem include that it's just a shorthand label and no-one is really confused by it, unless an author is making a specific point about either a military or agrarian responsibility, in which case the context should probably make it fairly clear anyway. --Dweller (talk) 09:01, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

If you sign up for a free JSTOR account, you can read her article (linked from our article). That journal should also be available in any university library, if you have access to one. And it's only 25 pages! Of course then you should also read Susan Reynold's book Fiefs and Vassals...) Adam Bishop (talk) 09:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Na nā akua e hoʻolaʻa i keia pae ʻāina nei!

The subject line is a quote in Hawai'ian from a discussion regarding Hawai'ian independence. I think it may refer to something in the Constitution or it is a phrase that embodies a certain defiance. I read it here: http://maoliworld.com/group/thehawaiiindependent/forum/topics/where-is-god-bless-hawaii?xg_source=activity/ref>

You will need to scroll down a little to find it. I searched the engines and never really nailed it down. I hope this doesn't waste your time. Best regards, Ted Cottingham — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.20.139 (talk) 07:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The Language Ref Desk is the normal place to ask for translations. StuRat (talk) 07:30, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

France Election Question

Is it simply a coincidence that the French areas near the borders with other countries in 2002 were less likely to vote for Chirac and the UMP, or is there something more to it? Why is the French Socialist Party so strong in areas near the French border with Spain, while the National Front is stronger in areas near the French border with Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy? Futurist110 (talk) 07:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

That map makes it look much more simple than it is. French regional voting patterns are quite complicated and changeable. The Left does well in deprived urban areas and the Right does well in well-off smart suburbs. Most of the territory of France is countryside, but most French people live in towns and cities. So it would make more sense to display the results in the form of an equal-area cartogram, where areas on the map are proportionate to the number of people living in them. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:12, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, compare this map to the results of the French legislative election, 2002, which is much different, and to the French legislative election, 2012 and the French presidential election, 2012, which are both even more different. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:52, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Question about 23rd century

According to 23rd_century#Other_predictions, world population will be 10 billion. On the other hand, life expectancy will be around 100. When population increases, food become scarce, with resources being depleted. It is likely there will be no petroleum in 23rd century, Peak coal will happen long before. So it is more likely industrial civilization will fall. There will be food shortage, fall of healthcare industry. How this correlate with increased lifespan? Did the UN ignore peak oil and peak coal while making this prediction? --Yoglti (talk) 11:30, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't answer your question, but these things are notoriously unreliable. In my life time I've been told that the world would run out of food in the 1970s, that we would run out of oil in 1984 and that civilisation would be snuffed out by the next ice age round about now. Alansplodge (talk) 12:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Why would there be food shortage? At 10 billion, global food production would have to be increased by a mere 40% compared to the present, which should not pose much of a problem, especially with new technologies. Fossil fuels may be depleted by then, but we could easily produce enough energy/fuel through a combination of solar and nuclear power to make up for that. Healthcare could well become more affordable when more tasks will be automated. However, as Alansplodge pointed out, there are far too many uncertainties to make accurate predictions possible, especially for such a distant futute. - Lindert (talk) 12:39, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, see Demographic-economic paradox. The data shows that as people become more stable in terms of their food and economic situation, and as their life expectancy increases, their fecundity decreases. That is, people in more advanced, stable, and well of countries have less children than those in poorer, less stable, and more destitute countries. The decrease in children more than offsets the increased lifespan, so if the model is built on the dominant demographic models (known as the Demographic transition model), then if the prediction in the 23rd century is widespread peace, security, and wealth then we would expect the population of the world to plateau or even decrease slightly, as based on the models. The idea behind the "demographic transition" model is that birth and death rates both go down in good times. That's because insecurity and poverty tends to lead to increases in births, as more dying children encourages parents to want to have more children, as children in such societies tend to be an economic or social asset (children can work on the family farm, more children living to adulthood makes one's village more populous and stronger, etc.) In advanced societies, where child mortality rates are very low, there isn't as much need to have lots of children (since you don't need "extras" in case a few die, to be so crude), and children in advanced societies tend to be an economic liability (since now they don't work young, there's no inherent advantage of a growing population, communities are less insular, and you have to pay to clothe, educate, and feed those children for a long time, there are economic pressures to have less, rather than more children). In the phase that is called the "demographic transition", there's a time period where death rates drop before birth rates do, that is, as a population becomes healthier and more stable and more economically advanced, they don't instantly stop having large families. It takes a few generations for the birth rates to drop in response to the socioeconomic changes, so there's a time period of about a century or so when population skyrockets. However, according to these models, when a society or nation reaches a certain point, the birth rates drop precipitously and then the population plateaus. The 23rd century predictions aren't thus necessarily based on a grim, dystopian future where some Malthusian catastrophe has reduced humanity to fighting over scarce resources, (remember, Malthus lived during a time of demographic transition, when his own society's population was booming, and he had no way to predict how economic prosperity would actual work to help it plateau). Instead, we could arrive at such a plateau as a result of the trends noted at the Demographic-economic paradox article, that is worldwide peace and prosperity could result in the population plateauing by the 23rd century. Another good concept to read up on is the Post-scarcity economy, which is sort of the antithetical idea to Thomas Malthus. --Jayron32 12:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

So the negative population growth of Russia, was it a result of fall of USSR? --Yoglti (talk) 13:11, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily; as there is more than one way to skin a cat. Negative population growth can also result from catastrophic illness or famine (i.e. see what the black death did to populations of Europe in the 14th century). The issue is that negative population growth is not only a result of such events, and that there is widespread evidence that good, stable economies and high standards of living also lead to less population growth, as plainly evidenced by the actual data. Countries like Germany and Japan aren't experiencing low or negative population growth because people are sick or because they are fighting over limited resources. Certainly, you can also get negative population growth because of that as well; but the current models don't necessarily predict that future plateaus in population would be a result of such things, but rather of the sort of economic prosperity that one sees in places like Germany itself tends to depress population growth overall. --Jayron32 13:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The Limits to growth model is a famous example of trying to apply [now relatively] modern modelling techniques to Malthus, but Ester Boserup's theory, which boils down to 'necessity is the mother of invention' parallels real life quite well. One such often-cited example is miracle rice, which I'm surprised to see is a redlink. --Dweller (talk) 14:10, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: When population increases, food become scarce, with resources being depleted. Not necessarily. A lot depends on what happens to the technology of food/resource production as the population increases. Improvements in food technology may mean larger crop yields and/or the ability to bring more land under cultivation... alternative sources of energy may reduce or even replace our reliance on fossil fuels... etc. All of which would mean we could sustain a significantly larger world population in the 23rd Century. Blueboar (talk) 14:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

International Rice Research Institute... -- AnonMoos (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The dramatic global population increase since the 17th century cannot be explained without reference to a dramatic increase in the consumption of fossil fuels. If the supply of fossil fuels shrinks dramatically during the 21st century, as peak oil theory predicts, some other energy source would be needed to sustain populations at current or greater-than-current levels. The two kinds of energy sources usually put forward as replacements are renewables and nuclear energy. Whether those energy sources have a realistic chance of replacing fossil fuels is controversial, with experts taking both sides of the argument. Here is a pessimistic argument on renewables. I have never seen an optimistic argument that refutes all of the points in the pessimistic argument, and each of the points in the pessimistic argument is fairly devastating. As for nuclear, here is a strong argument that economically recoverable nuclear energy supplies are likely to begin declining by 2050 or so. Finally, remember that technology is not an energy source. Technologies harness energy sources. The vast majority of technological innovation during the modern era has involved new ways of harnessing existing energy sources. While solar energy is an existing, abundant energy source, no technology yet devised can harness it without an infrastructure that itself requires large amounts of energy for its construction and maintenance. The energy return on energy invested is quite low, so it produces little net energy. It is not inconceivable that a more efficient technology for harvesting solar energy will be invented. Agriculture is of course an efficient solar technology, but it requires water and/or land also needed to feed a large global population. We cannot predict with confidence that anyone can or will invent an efficient solar energy-harvesting technology that does not also threaten global food supplies.

It is very possible that net energy supplies will decline, and perhaps decline rapidly, during the mid- to late 21st century. Since existing economies and food production regimes are highly energy-intensive, a difficult and perhaps catastrophic adjustment would ensue. Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed showed that many civilizational collapses have resulted from ecological challenges, particularly a decline in a society's ability to meet its material needs for food and shelter, coupled with denial on the part of elites and the prevailing culture of risks to the society's material base. Peak energy is a serious risk, even if the risk is not total, and denial of this risk is certainly widespread in our culture. We may hope that we somehow escape civilizational collapse and a likely sharp population decline, but the UN's projection of a population of 10 billion in the 23rd century is at least as doubtful as a prediction of a sharp population decline by that date. Marco polo (talk) 18:31, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's just the Malthusian argument with fossil fuels substituted for food, but as yet, there's no evidence that the Malthusian argument works for any commodity. Predicting the end of the world is good business, but it doesn't make it right. Looking backwards, not one Malthusian catastrophe has ever come to fruition, despite the fact that according to Malthus, we should be eating our own young as a food source by now. The same could be said to be true of the energy argument. If we keep on our current trajectory, then we're fucked. The problem is that the "If" conditions never hold true, or at least have not since we've been predicting the impending doom of the human race. We don't keep on the current trajectory because economic changes lead to technological changes that lead to drastic changes in that trajectory, indeed if one looks at any bit of history at all, one should have enough intelligence and imagination to note that the world does not remain static, and that's likely to hold true for the forseeable future, which means that we can't base the future trajectory of energy usage based on current usages. If we go back 200 years instead of forward 200 years, we find a world that didn't have coal, oil, nuclear, solar, hydroelectric, etc. And yet, somehow even though the past 200 years had such drastic and (to people 200 years ago) inconceivable changes, we're supposed to somehow believe that the next 200 years will have no such changes? Please. Incidentally, if you're really hell-bent on predicting the impending doom of humanity, energy is decidedly not the way to do it, as there is are ways out of the fossil fuel conundrum. You poo-poo solar power, but once the economics become feasible, at least that's an out. We do have a realistic Malthusian problem in the form of phosphorus shortages, which is a far more likely problem if you are in the business of predicting the end of the world, phosphorus is the way to go. Not as sexy as the energy issue, but has a far more realistic likelyhood of creating the doom scenario you seem to crave. In the future, I'd recommend changing your eschatalogical tactics to focus on the impending phosphorus problem, since we don't have any possible replacement for phosphorus when we run out. Again, not sexy, but more likely a problem. --Jayron32 22:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Which is pretty much what Boserup's theory said. But more entertainingly written. Her words (lifted from our article) are less colourful, but more succinct: "The power of ingenuity would always outmatch that of demand" --Dweller (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd have thought 10 billion would be quite easy to sustain in the 23rd century. As to power there's lots available from sunlight the wind and sea and nuclear even without doing all this fracking, and food can be produced from the deserts for instance under greenhouses. Those models are devised by people who do try and take the best advice and try and be a bit conservative over what's possible. The big problem I see is whether the population will actually settle to that, will there be wars which destroy part of the infrastructure or ideologies which promote ignorance and stupidity. And anyway I think the population is already far too high because of the destruction of the natural world.

However much more worryingly population growth has a figure of 10 billion by the middle of this century which seems altogether possible and would not be so easily sustained as we very probably won't have good enough infrastructure. Dmcq (talk) 09:32, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Stephen Harper anti-Islam

close invitation to debate and borderline BLP violation
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I have noticed that Stephen Harper ever since became Prime Minister in 2006, he has become hypocritical in terms of homosexual rights and becoming Islamophobic. When I mean hypocritical in terms of homosexuals' rights, I mean he supports their human rights but not their marriage and yet he said that he won't go to Francophonie and Commonwealth summits or conferences that is hosted by a country known for its poor human rights records towards homosexuals, and most of them are Muslim nations and relating to Islam, he is becoming Islamophobic such as wanting Muslim women to remove their niqab to get citizenship and as well as to identify themselves in order to vote in the election. I have also noticed that he is anti-Islamic towards Sunni Muslim population because he went to Ahmadi place of worship to announce the office of religious freedom instead of a Sunni Muslim mosque because Ahmadis are persecuted for their belief and not to mention he said Islam "is best" after giving Honorary citizenship to Agha Khan. Also, he supports a backbencher's bill that will get rid of dual citizenship of people who commits terrorism and it targets the Muslim and Arab Canadians who are already or recent immigrated to Canada. If you say that Stephen Harper is not Islamophobe, then please tell me why? I am interested. --Donmust90 (talk) 15:59, 18 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90 Sorry, you haven't asked a question that can be answered here, just an invitation to a general debate. I hope contributors won't be drawn into this. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:13, 18 April 2013 (UTC) Agreed. μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Aliyah

Hi, I'm an adherent of the Jewish faith and as such I believe I qualify to apply for Israeli citizenship under their Aliyah programme. My question is if I had a spouse who came from a country where you can't visit Israel, for example Lebanon, would this affect my being able to become an Israeli. Also would my spouse be eligible to apply for citizenship or do the rules still apply? Thanks, Andrew —Preceding undated comment added 17:47, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

The usual place to ask this kind of question is at your nearest Israeli embassy/consulate or by seeking information on an Israeli government website. The nearest I found is the Ministry of Interior (Israel). Unfortunatly, their website is all in Hebrew, so I can't investigate further. Astronaut (talk) 18:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

And now I've found some information in English: The Israeli government's Making Aliyah portal. Astronaut (talk) 18:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks very much --Andrew 18:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I doubt that being "an adherent of the Jewish faith" is enough to emigrate to Israel. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:07, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• Actually it is. "The Law of Return is legislation enacted by Israel in 1950, that gives all Jews, persons of Jewish ancestry, and spouses of Jews the right to immigrate to and settle in Israel and obtain citizenship, and obliges the Israeli government to facilitate their immigration." The issue for me is that Lebanese people are unable to enter Israel, and my spouse is Lebanese --Andrew 19:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Couldn't your spouse simply give up his/her Lebanese citizenship before immigrating to Israel? After all, didn't some Israeli Jews previously live in enemy countries before they immigrated to Israel? Futurist110 (talk) 19:55, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• That is an option but she still has family in Lebanon which makes it a difficult decision for her --Andrew 20:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

(e/c) That's not a suggestion a reference desk has any right to be making. We're here to find information, not come up with novel ideas that involve people relinquishing their citizenship, or changing their sex, religion, political allegiances, profession or whatever. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:19, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I presume you saying your wife can't visit Israel because of restrictions imposed by the Lebanese, rather than the Israelis (which appears to be a myth anyway). This is a rather timely question. See this very recent post from LonelyPlanet "Israel no longer stamps passports", but note that doesn't apply at sea ports or land crossings.

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 21:43, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Nigeria population

Why does Nigeria have such a large population despite being faily average in terms of size? Pass a Method talk 23:06, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Nigeria's not that high on the list in terms of absolute population density: List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density. If you notice, most of them are islands or otherwise geographically constrained states (Vatican being small politically; Hong Kong, etc.). Nigeria's 72 on that list. It's after Switzerland.

But density can mean a lot of things. Do you include water bodies? How about mountains, or deserts, or otherwise inhospitable land? List of countries by real population density based on food growing capacity is an attempt at answering that question (aka Physiological density). I'm sure there are others. Nigeria might appear small relative to more Northern or Southern countries because it's close to the equator so typical map projections enlarge the size of those countries. Nigeria's relatively large coming in at 32 on list of land area. Most of the other larger countries in Africa have huge swaths of desert that are sparely inhabited. It's than Turkey or France.

Demographics of Nigeria is probably our best attempt to answer this; like any question of this nature, it's extremely complicated and the best you can do at first is get a feel for the context, then focus on specifics. If I had to add one specific (and I'm mostly guessing) is the Niger Delta is a fertile area and has been a population center. Shadowjams (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

But it is by far the largest in Africa. Pass a Method talk 00:31, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably a simple partial answer is that Nigeria is one of the largest countries in Africa without large areas of desert, sahel, or tropical rainforest... AnonMoos (talk) 01:15, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I think your premise is not as strong as you think. Rwanda has a far higher population density, so does Bahrain. If you consider arable land then lots of African countries have higher population densities. Nigeria has a large population but it's also a large country, and much of it is arable, unlike many of the other larger African nations. Shadowjams (talk) 01:53, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Leadership

Can anyone learn to be a leader? Is it exclusively an acquired skill or are there some people who's traits are incompatible with the skills to be a good leader? Clover345 (talk) 23:38, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

There are definitely people whose traits are incompatible with leadership -- for example, people who are so lacking in self-confidence that they can never be persuaded to express an opinion. Looie496 (talk) 01:42, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Read Dale Carnegie's works, and you may find that it helps with your poise and confidence, and in developing leaderships skills. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:25, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I recommend the book Leadership: A Very Short Introduction (ISBN 978-0-19-956991-5), which discusses this question. Gabbe (talk) 08:25, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

We have an article on Leadership. Dmcq (talk) 09:19, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

There are an enormous amount of business books on Leadership and Wikipedia has a huge amount of articles within the category Category:Leadership too. I personally think anybody can be taught to lead but that some have a 'natural' comfort and confidence in being a leader whilst others would require significant training to be seen as a leader. ny156uk (talk) 09:20, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

April 19

Kilmanton or Kilmainham Ireland

My ancestor fought at Walcheren, in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo from 1809 - 1815. According to War Office, he was listed as a Kilmanton man. From information in Medical Journals of the period, it seems that there was a hospital in Ireland, where seriously ill or wounded soldiers were taken to recuperate.

Unfortunately, I can find no other information on this, and I am writing the history of my ancestor and am trying to find out as much as I can about his life in the forces under Wellington.

Any help concerning this medical facility would be very much appreciated. 202.165.86.32 (talk) 09:31, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I would imagine that he was taken to the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. The building's still there, albeit in use as a museum of modern art,but I live only a few miles away, so if you need any specific information from on-site, feel free to drop me a line here or on my talk page and I'll take a stroll across Phoenix Park for you. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 10:20, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

By the way, the records of the hospital are held by The National Archives (United Kingdom), since Ireland was part of the UK during the 19th century. In particular, you might find useful information in WO118 - Registers of in- and out-patients - and WO119 - Pensioners' discharge documents. Also relating to the hospital is T1/3850 - a record of correspondence. For more information about accessing the records, contact the National Archives, Kew. I believe there are also records available through findmypast.ie, but I don't have a subscription to verify this. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 10:40, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Age of Enlightenment and Renaissance

What is the difference between Age of Enlightenment and Renaissance? --Yoglti (talk) 10:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

About 300 years? Seriously, though, you'll have to make your question more focussed if you want sensible answers. As the articles you have linked to tell you, they are names given to two intellectual and artistic movements prevalent in Europe and places influenced by Europe. What kind of differences are you asking about? --ColinFine (talk) 10:55, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Why Age of Enlightenment is viewed as something distinct from the Renaissance. Why it is not considered a continuation of the Renaissance? --Yoglti (talk) 11:04, 19 April 2013 (UTC)