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September 22

Origin of meme

What is the origin of the following meme?

But we ain't got no X. We don't need no X. I don't have to show you any stinking X. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:48, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See stinking badges. Nyttend (talk) 01:52, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. I was aware of the meme, but I had no idea that it was badges in the original. Making Deor's recent comment, already sweet, sublime. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:10, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My favorite is the simple addition of two "r"s, e.g. this page. Nyttend (talk) 03:19, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That is just a borrowing of Trinidad Silva's shtick from UHF. Matt Deres (talk) 11:58, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Matt, the "shtick" in "UHF" was actually a much-later parody of the original. --Thomprod (talk) 15:20, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, duh. It wouldn't be a parody if there wasn't an earlier original. I'm just saying that the "badgers" version came from UHF, not that hockey page. Matt Deres (talk) 15:51, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd only seen it in a Wisconsin Badgers context, which is a natural "progression" from badges; I began wondering about and looking for badgers versions months ago, and your link here is the first time I've ever heard of UHF. Nyttend (talk) 21:46, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just revisited Alfonso Bedoya's delivery. Thanks for bringing this up, and whoever hasn't seen the film yet, put it on your list! ---Sluzzelin talk 21:49, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Scholastic v. original in Harry Potter

Same situation as the first section of Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 August 15.

Right after the beginning of the third chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, we're told that Dudley's headed for "Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings" and that Harry's destination is "Stonewall High, the local public school". What are the corresponding descriptions in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? Dudley going to an Independent school (United Kingdom) doesn't sound hugely out of place, but Harry going to a Public school (United Kingdom) is obviously not in the original. Nyttend (talk) 11:17, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Stonewall is "the local comprehensive" in Philosopher's Stone, and it doesn't actually specify what type of school Smeltings is (although the subsequent description makes it clear that it's an old-fashioned Public school - "independent" or "private" school covers a wide range of fee-paying schools, but public school refers specifically to the traditional type with term-time boarding, houses, boater hats and fagging.) Smurrayinchester 12:13, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And I've just found this fairly comprehensive list of the differences between the two versions. Smurrayinchester 12:17, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Great find, Smurrayinchester. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 21:47, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ritual Impurities in the Kalash Culture

When were rituals of purification introduced to the Kalash culture? Was it before the people of Israel came with the bible and Leviticus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.248.245.194 (talk) 13:08, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Kalash people live no where near Israel or anywhere in the Levant. They live in the northwestern region of Pakistan. Are you thinking of a different cultural group? --Jayron32 13:12, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I Know they did not live near each other, I was just wondering if there was any group that established rituals for purification before the people of isreal. Kalash culture was just the only group I could find that looked to have these rules of purification before the people of israel did. I hope my question makes more sense now. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.248.245.194 (talk) 13:18, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Thanks for the clarification. Leviticus was written probably no earlier than the 600s BCE, though the traditions and rituals it details among the Ancient Hebrews likely predate it by some number of centuries. Wikipedia's article on Animal sacrifice covers some of the practices in general, while Korban covers the specific history and practice of the tradition in Judaism. Ritual purification also has some background, though it does not date the rituals of the Kalash peoples. --Jayron32 13:58, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note that your Q contains the assumption that the idea that something can be unclean and needs to be purified must have spread from one culture to another. This is not the case, as they might well independently arrive at the same conclusion. For example, if the water they drink contains sewage effluent, it is likely to cause disease, but if they boil it first, it can be said to be purified, and less likely to cause disease. Any primitive civilization may discover this, but explaining it, prior to germ theory, may well lead to a religious explanation, that the "evil" has been driven out by the heat. They may then develop other ritual purification steps, which may or may not correspond with actually making the items safer to use. For example, Jewish practices forbidding consumption of pork may have developed to avoid trichinosis, but the practice of not mixing milk and meat during cooking doesn't seem to have any purpose beyond the religious one. StuRat (talk) 14:20, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The term is trans-cultural diffusion or, when working directly in athropology, just diffusionism. It has an interesting history in the social sciences (some additional material here) where researchers have alternately promulgated and rejected its importance. Whether a particular cultural trait has diffused or not (and in which direction) is often very difficult to know - and therefore is also sometimes very hotly debated. Matt Deres (talk) 15:59, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting article; it seems to share a lot with the concept of memetics. --Jayron32 16:19, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It does. You could even argue that diffusion relates to memetics in the same way that evolution relates to genetics. Matt Deres (talk) 13:25, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer is that there is insufficient historical information to date the origins of Kalash ritual purification. It is not even clear that there was a Kalash people at the time of Leviticus; the Kalash themselves are said to claim origin from the army of Alexander the Great, although some historians argue against this. John M Baker (talk) 17:11, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Direct cultural lineage exclusively from the army of Alexander would be preposterous, but Greek cultural influence is likely, given the long history of Greek cultural connections, i.e. the Indo-Greek Kingdom, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, etc. However, the point is well taken regarding the lack of direct cultural coherence back that far. Many, if not most, modern cultural groups are rarely more than a few centuries old. Finding some that can trace a cultural legacy, with a coherent language, traditions, etc. back 3 millennia is very rare. --Jayron32 18:10, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question about usa presidential voting.

I know that wikipedia has this page:
United States presidential election

But as a non USA user I am having an hard time to understand some part of it.
My question is, does people of an state X vote on who they want and then the winner on this state X get "points" based on the amount of Representatives and senators this state X has, and after that all usa states points are found and the one with most points wins
or

people of state X vote on who they want and then the Representatives and senators of this state pick whateaver the hell they want, but usually using his state votes as a guide (because he wanted and not because he is forced to vote on his state winner), and then one candidade with most points (most senators and representatives voted on) wins

or

senators and representatives of state X vote on whatever the hell they want, people of state X vote on the candidate they want, if candidate Y wins on this state X, he receive "1 point" for each senator and representative that voted on him. The candidate with most amount of points is the winner? 177.92.128.26 (talk) 16:50, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article you want is Electoral College (United States). Short version: when a US voter votes for a given presidential candidate, they are in fact electing a state elector from that candidate's party. Each state has as many electors as it has Senators and Representatives combined, but the electors are [I]different people[/I] from those elected members, and do not have a legislative role. The District of Columbia has three electors even though it has no other federal representation. In most cases, the electors are assigned on a 'winner takes all' basis - so all 55 of California's electors go to whichever party's candidate has a simple majority of votes in the state. (Nebraska and Maine are the only states to allot electors proportionately, and only then those which correspond to their Representatives, not their Senators.) The 538 electors then vote for the President. The expectation is that they'll vote for their own party's candidate, but there is the possilibity of a faithless elector, and this election may see this happen. So far, this has never affected the final outcome. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:59, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) The most important thing to understand about the United States is the role of Federalism in the United States. There are rules, laws, procedures, and policies of the Federal government of the United States, largely organized by the rules set up under the United States Constitution as well as the laws of the United States Code. Then there are the rules, laws, and policies of the US States, which are determined by various state Constitutions as well as state laws. With regard to elections in the United States, including that of the President, there are multiple layers of rules and regulations about them. Just dealing with the Presidential election for the time being, here are all of the layers that govern it:
  • Article Two of the United States Constitution describes the federal laws for electing the President. All it requires is that each state provide a number of electors who themselves actually vote for and elect the president. These electors are called the Electoral College and it currently has 538 electors. The constitution does not cover how states appoint, nominate, or elect these members of the electoral college, merely that the electors cannot otherwise be officeholders of the U.S. government.
  • Individual states are entirely left to their own devices to decide how to appoint, elect, and direct their electors to vote. Currently, all 50 states use the results of a popular vote to determine and direct how their electors are supposed to vote; that is the normal procedure is that on Election Day (United States), voters select who they want their electors to vote for, and then the state usually requires the electors to support the state's choice in their vote; all but two of the states are winner takes all, meaning that whoever gets the plurality of the votes in that state gets ALL of that state's electors, while the other two (Maine and Nebraska) split their elector's votes. However, ALL 50 states and the District of Columbia do NOT allow their electors free choice in who to vote for, the electors are mandated by state laws in each state to support the popular vote. That being said, those laws do not actually prevent electors from voting on their own, so-called faithless electors have not caused any election to deviate from the expected result, however their votes have never been nullified or thrown out, meaning that despite the state laws being on the books preventing it, faithless electors votes are still legally binding regarding the results of the Electoral College.
So, that's the system: there are 538 electors who actually vote for the President. Federal law only established the existence of those electors, the states decide who they are, and how they vote, currently the expectation (and state law usually demands) that they vote in accordance to the popular vote on election day. --Jayron32 17:13, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, all 50 states use the results of a popular vote to determine and direct how their electors are supposed to vote....However, ALL 50 states and the District of Columbia do NOT allow their electors free choice in who to vote for, the electors are mandated by state laws in each state to support the popular vote. No, sorry, you're confused. The popular vote does not constrain the electors; rather, it determines which electors are appointed.
It's not that Virginia has thirteen electors already chosen, waiting around to see how Virginia voters tell them to vote. Rather, there will be a slate of thirteen electors pledged to Clinton, thirteen pledged to Trump, thirteen pledged to Johnson, etc. Depending on how Virginia voters vote, one of these slates will be appointed. Then the electors will (most likely) vote for the candidate they promised to vote for.
According to faithless elector, in 21 states, there is no law saying that a given elector must vote for the candidate to whom he/she is pledged. The article doesn't seem to have the current list, unfortunately; someone should check the refs. In the other 29 states and DC, there is such a law, but it is not clear that it is enforceable. --Trovatore (talk) 19:09, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In practice, of course, you can say it doesn't make that much difference — either way, the normal course of events is for the candidate who wins the popular vote in a given state to take the electoral votes from that state. But I've seen this misconception before, and it brings up the wrong image, that of an elector who has to say, "you know, I really prefer Kang, but the people of my state voted for Kodos, so I guess I have to vote for Kodos". It's not like that. If the people vote for Kodos, then the elector will be one who has supported Kodos from the beginning. --Trovatore (talk) 19:27, 22 September 2016 (UTC) [reply]
Thank you for your clarifications. --Jayron32 01:46, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your gracious response! --Trovatore (talk) 19:50, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Art Print by Laufer

I am seeking the name of an artist of a print I bought. The print is number 8 of a limited edition of 10; it is a pen and ink drawing of a san pan or junk, with a Camus quotation, "What Gives Value To Travel Is Fear" (the quote is unattributed). It is signed Laufer 1994. Any idea whom the artist might be? 71.28.205.150 (talk) 23:48, 22 September 2016 (UTC) 71.28.205.150 (talk) 23:48, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Susan Laufer? -- Susan seems unlikely, but there are also other Laufers 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:C961:7672:AF60:8B17 (talk) 16:51, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) There is also the husband and wife artists Sigmund Laufer and Miriam Laufer. and artist Milia Laufer. --Jayron32 16:53, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sigmund has done paintings with boats and pen & ink drawings:[1] His style is quite recognizable. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:C961:7672:AF60:8B17 (talk) 17:01, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

September 23

New York and World's Largest City

Is New York the world's largest city?

Innkin (talk) 00:15, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See "World's largest cities". —Wavelength (talk) 00:17, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
According to that article, the city with the largest population in the city proper is Shanghai, whereas Tokyo is the city with the largest population in the urban area, and also the one with the largest population in the metro area. New York is 25th in terms of population of the city proper, seventh in terms of population of the urban area, and 15th in terms of population of the metro area. However, according to list of largest cities by area, which seems to be somewhat in dispute, it has the second-largest urban area, after London. --Trovatore (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That latter list has a good deal of weakness, omitting many large-by-area cities; the city of Yakutat in southcentral Alaska has an area of 24,509 km2, much bigger than the first entry on the list, while the city of Honolulu in Hawaii (being coterminus with Honolulu County) has an area of 5,510 km2, which is between the fifth and sixth current entries on the list. And that totally ignores cities in the People's Republic of China; Hulunbuir, for example, is a prefecture-level city with an area of 263,953 km2 — almost thirty times the area of London, the largest place on this list. Nyttend (talk) 00:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Honolulu and Yakutat may be examples where the "urban area" is actually smaller than the city proper. I used to think you should track everything by the city proper, because it seemed to be more exactly defined. And it is more exactly defined, but also more arbitrarily; it's basically only by fiat that the whole island of Oʻahu is part of Honolulu. --Trovatore (talk) 20:19, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It all depends on what you mean by a city. DuncanHill (talk) 00:57, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This claims yes by urban square miles. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:32, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I remember seeing in the 1960s a list of the world's largest metropolitan ares where New York was shown as the largest at about 15 million people. If this was correct then (and it might depend on who was defining the metropolitan area), obviously other metropolitan areas have grown much faster since. I can't think of a way to search online for lists of the world's largest matropolitan areas in past decades, though. Perhaps someone else can. --69.159.61.230 (talk) 05:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See List of largest cities throughout history. Some of the largest cities from history are still major metropolises (Istanbul, Beijing, London, Baghdad), while others have totally vanished (Merv, Ctesiphon, Chang'an). Smurrayinchester 00:28, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Chicago's skyline so tall?

They have half the metro population of New York and a third the city population but have been neck and neck with New York since about 1990 (for now) (1990 2001 (pre-9/11) 2014)

Sure Chicago invented the skyscraper but they fell behind HARD: (1899 1913 1933 1968). New York's 1913 top 3 could kick Chicago's 1968 top 3's ass. But 6 years later Chicago had the tallest building on Earth and three New York-scale buildings which were like 2-3 times the height of anything Chicago had 6 years before: ([2]). They basically went from having a 1913 New York-grade skyline to a 1990 New York-grade skyline in 22 years. Why'd they do that when they weren't a peer for like 80 years? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:13, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Chicago's skyline is tall because the people who commissioned, designed and built buildings chose to make them that tall. You may also want to read Chicago school (architecture) for more information. But there is no great law of physics nor holy commandment as to why it is so. It was the decisions of people that made it so. --Jayron32 01:43, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies to StuRat first, and to others who had to read this second. My behavior in this closed section is unacceptable. It does not help the reader, and really serves no purpose. Again, apologies. Carry on. --Jayron32 14:37, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
You're just guessing that there isn't an underlying reason. There are many possibilities, such as competition between two or more groups, government subsidies, lax building codes that make construction cheaper, etc. I don't know if any of these is the case, but I won't state that there is no underlying reason without proof. StuRat (talk) 02:26, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See null hypothesis. Come back if any words in that article don't make sense to you. --Jayron32 02:51, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you are stating that there is no reason, that's not supported by any evidence you provided. If you are stating that there MIGHT not be a reason, that isn't very useful. Is your link supposed to show there's no reason or that there is a reason ? Commit to something, then support it. StuRat (talk) 13:10, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Stu, you dig yourself a bigger hole with every response you make. Either you're not intelligent enough to realize the difference between refusing to assert that anything can be known (known as holding the null hypothesis) and making unverifiable claims (which is what you do every day) or you're deliberately twisting words in a desperate and hopeless attempt to justify your own ineptitude here. I never said I could prove there is no reason. I said one must not accept any reason for which there is no proof. Those are completely different concepts. I don't expect you to understand any of this, as your history here shows you utterly incapable of doing so. I merely wish to flag, for other readers, that your own responses here are completely unreliable (being unreferenced) and thus, not worth considering. Any day now, you could change that forever by simply changing your behavior so you provided useful reading material for our question askers. But you'll never do that, will you, because that would be too much like right. You're just content to continue to invent your own answers and then attack people who actually provide links to useful articles. It's never going to stop, is it? You're never actually going to become a better person are you? Are you entirely incapable of growth and improvement, or are you deliberately refusing to improve? Which is it? --Jayron32 14:15, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(I'm sick of refuting your baseless accusation, so I will just repeat myself from your last rep.) For half-remembered bullshit answers, we only need to look at your current false info you provided on the US Electoral College here: [3]. I can provide many more such BS answers, from you, if one is not enough. As for my referenced answers, here's one: [4], and I can provide many more. And you are never going to stop accusing others of the exact behavior you engage in, are you ? StuRat (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2016 (UTC) [reply]
Okay, let's sharpen the question. Is there an underlying reason favoring the development of particularly tall buildings in Chicago? --69.159.61.230 (talk) 05:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article Early skyscrapers may give some insights. One (though not the only) reason for building skyscrapers is obviously to provide the maximum possible useable (and therefore rentable or sellable) space (usually office rather than residential) in the preferred location: if the amount of available land suitable for erecting such a building is limited, the building necessarily has to be narrower and to have more floors in order to provide the same total square footage.
Reasons for restrictions on the footprint size of buildings will vary depending on the particular location: they might be
  • legal, such as the permitted maximum sizes of the building lots, which may be restricted by local regulations;
  • historical, as earlier buildings or building lots were naturally small by modern standards, and the current owners of existing lots are unwilling to sell them (wanting instead to build their own tall buildings on them);
  • geological, as very large buildings need their foundations to rest on bedrock, which may may be unfeasibly deep in places – the latter contributed to (though was not the predominent factor) the distribution of skyscrapers on Manhattan Island, for example. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 08:59, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure we all did read it, Jayron, and I myself didn't attempt to address the question of aesthetic preference precisely because you had thus already done so, and begun by saying "One (though not the only) reason . . . . But aesthetics aside, people decide to do things for reasons, and where large sums of money are involved they are usually financial reasons. Yes, things are done because people decide to do them – that's logically : the Chicago school decided to develop the technology of building skyscrapers, but they must have had motivations for doing so. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 06:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for "why did Chicago fall behind and then catch up", History of Chicago has a lot of information. Skyscraper building in Chicago started in the late 19th century after Great Chicago Fire when the city was very merchantile. In the early 20th century, it became a more industrial, blue-collar city (hence a slow down in office space needed, especially with the Great Depression), and then reverted to commerce when industry left in the 1950s. The article also mentions that the city has quite swampy ground, which limits building sizes and requires the use of the steel frames and other lightweight designs. Presumably that's a factor in the rise of the Chicago schools of Architecture that Jayron32 linked. Smurrayinchester 13:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is rank speculation, but FWIW I'll note that the Chicago River wraps around three sides of Chicago's downtown area, perhaps creating a small but psychologically significant barrier, or perhaps simply escalating the property values due to the scenic aspect. If I understand it correctly, the higher the property value the taller the buildings tend to be. Wnt (talk) 17:38, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

what is the capital of northern cyprus when it is in europe

We need to get some information about this, please guide us . — Preceding unsigned comment added by SaimaBukhari (talk • contribs) 05:07, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How often does it move in and out of Europe? And why? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 05:19, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See Northern Cyprus - the state is officially recognized by Turkey, but not (at present) by other European nations. This, however, may change. Its capital is North Nicosia. Tevildo (talk) 07:03, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • You might also want to see Northern Cyprus and the European Union, which I think is what you mean by "when it is in Europe". On paper, the territory of Northern Cyprus is part of the EU, and Turkish Cypriots are counted when allocating seats in the European Parliment. However, Northern Cyprus is recognized by the EU as not being under Cypriot control, and therefore exempt from EU regulations. The EU don't recognize the Northern Cypriot government, and there is currently no chance of it becoming an EU member. Instead, the plan is (or at least, was) for Northern Cyprus to reunify with the Republic of Cyprus as a federal state, of which the capital would simply be Nicosia. This is the plan supported by Turkish Cypriots, but has been blocked by Greek Cypriots (see Annan Plan for Cyprus). Smurrayinchester 07:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How does the poor live in New York City?

I checked out on Google Maps in Street View one of the residential areas in Brooklyn. I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn before, but seeing old houses helps me visualize the scene. I looked up on Google for the townhouse's price, and I was shocked. The random townhouse was worth a million dollars. Only wealthy capitalists can afford it. Where does the poor live? How many grocery stores stocked with fruits and vegetables would be nearby? Do people always take the subway or bike or walk? 64.134.39.172 (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A million dollars? That's normal actually. Townhouses in Manhattan average $6 million (the crimey third like Harlem is part of the average) and go up to $53 million at least. 18 x 58 ft Brooklyn lawn in the ghetto: $65,000. If you're looking north of the bridge like the picture in the article then that's near or at the most hipster part of the entire city. It's so hip some can't even afford to live there anymore (that is the later stages of gentrification, which hip Manhattan neighborhoods entered earlier. Artsy people aren't all well off of course).
Brooklyn's poor generally live in apartment buildings (might be divided townhouses), government housing projects (typically post-war) or attached or barely detached houses or possibly fancier places if they've lived there for decades ("rent grandfathering"). The allowable increase barely covers inflation so you can see poor and gentrifiers renting identical value units of the same building and the apartment's magic juju can be transferred to children and grandchildren when you move out but not distanter relations like nieces. Now if you've lived there since 1 July 1971 (uncommon), make under $200K use it as your primary residence AND the building's pre-1947 (super common) then you're full blown rent controlled. In a working class area the townhouses you looked at might be divided into several apartments per floor. These apartments are about $1K per month for 1 or 2 rooms plus your own kitchen and bathroom. Public housing is 30% of income and up to several tens of floors but the ceiling's so low that I can touch the ceiling with a bent elbow and I'm shorter than average. A guy about 6'4" or 6'5" would have to duck at every door. The floors are thin. That's how you know it's public housing, you wouldn't believe how small the roof-window gap looks if you knew a story was more like 2 meters than the usual 3. They ripped up neighborhoods and replaced them with swaths of cookie cutter subsidized high-rises and actually ended up accelerating the criminalizing and impoverishing of the area that the public housing was supposed to help. The one time I visited I saw a bullet hole and that one was safer than Bklyn projects. If you want to see what poor Brooklynites neighborhoods look like see Brownsville, Crown Heights (1991 race riot), East New York, Canarsie, parts of Bed-Stuy, East Flatbush - or like Sunset Park and a few others for examples that are safe and working class. Those areas except the last one went way downhill during the 1950s to 60s or 70s. There was white flight (they weren't making new Americans anymore to replace the upwardly mobile, (Immigration Act of 1921 and '24), suburbs became popular, veterans got cheap mortgages and college, crack cocaine became epidemic...) 1993 murder rates were 1 per 120 people per decade in Brownsville for example. A few working class Irish areas of Brooklyn like the book still exist but they're diversifying, gentrifying or aging like Florida. Or they're areas of detached homes in the swampy edge of Brooklyn that are much less built-up than Williamsburg. If you just want to see the buildings a lot of the ones in the book's setting should still exist. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
People take the subway when they want to pay ~$2.50 one way and walk when they don't. A lot of things are usually within walking distance. Maybe the neighborhoods so bad that pregnant women got sodomized on the roof (at least in the 80s) have a problem with food scarcity but I don't know as I've never lived anywhere ghetto enough to not have a "real" supermarket within a half mile walk. I've lived in poor areas with plenty of supermarkets. Maybe food deserts are more of a problem in other cities because almost every city in the country is less dense than New York. The supermarkets get more expensive before they disappear. Because too many people shoplift I think. And they have to save some on top of that to pay the security guard. Some people bike but it's not big like the Netherlands. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See gentrification. StuRat (talk) 01:08, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
[banned user comment]
What de Blasio? I don't know if this is a thing. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:42, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Is the term "tradesman's entrance" even used in American English? It sounds more like British. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:54, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds a century out-of-date. However, rich people are unlikely to use the same entrance as blue-collar workers because they would live in different buildings. An exception is that some building ordinances require that new developments for the rich include a few units for the poor people who were displaced. Actually having signs that say "Poor People's Entrance" would be unacceptable, but they might manage it so that the units occupied by poor people have a separate entrance, and people could only use the entrance leading to their unit. A common variation on this is where the penthouse suite is only accessible by whoever occupies it. This can be accomplished by a key used in the elevator, or a secret code entered there, or, in some cases, a separate elevator.
As for businesses, they quite often have a separate entrances for employees and customers. StuRat (talk) 01:10, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Religious fundamentalism

Can Catholics be Christian fundamentalists? Or is this term reserved for a particular type of Christianity? 64.134.39.172 (talk) 20:23, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Christian Fundamentalism and Traditionalist Catholic. The answer is "Possibly yes, depending on how one defines 'fundamentalist'." Tevildo (talk) 20:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue that they were, during the Crusades and Inquisition. But to do so today would mean they would either need a fundamentalist Pope or to go against the will of the Pope, in which case they might be excommunicated. StuRat (talk) 01:05, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is true to some extent, but the Pope does allow some leeway - for example, the Society of Saint Pius X, which explicitly denies the validity of Vatican II, is tolerated (although its rulings are ignored, and some members were temporarily excommunicated for overstepping the boundaries). Smurrayinchester 04:44, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
opus dei could be considered fundamentalists certainly. An interesting political position is ultramontanism AugusteBlanqui (talk) 20:59, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

September 24

Brusilov Expedition casualties

In 1912, Georgy Brusilov took the Svyataya Anna into the Northern Sea Route. Two came back, but how many left? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:43, September 24, 2016 (UTC)

ru: says 24 [1, last paragraph]. 14 left to try to reach land on skis, sleds and canoes (leaving 10 behind on the ship), then of those, 3 returned back to the ship. The last crew thus was 13 people. Of the 13 on the ship, all perished, of the 11, all but two perished Asmrulz (talk) 01:21, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good stuff, thanks! InedibleHulk (talk) 02:17, September 24, 2016 (UTC)

Indian elections 1952

In the Indian elections of 1952, the Communist Party of India (CPI) got 3.29% of the vote, but the Socialist Party got 10% of the vote, so why was the CPI the 'second party' in the election? 210.246.35.96 (talk) 07:42, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I assume you're referring to Indian general election, 1951–52. The Results section of that article gives the percentages you quote, but CPI won 16 seats against the Socialist Party's 12, so CPI was the second party in terms of seats won (not counting "Independents", who won 37). The discrepancy could be because CPI stood in fewer constituencies (perhaps those where it was strongest), or just because its voters were more concentrated in particular constituencies. There was a similar effect in the United Kingdom general election, 2015, where the Scottish National Party (standing only in Scotland) won 56 seats with 4.7% of the national vote, while the Liberal Democrats (standing nationwide) won 8 seats on 7.9%. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:02, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers for that, cleared it right up. 210.246.35.96 (talk) 10:16, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ross Perot "stood" nationwide and won 0 of 538 "seats" on 19%. Woodrow Wilson won 435 of 531 on 41.8%. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:35, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but since Ross is only 5'5", nobody could tell that he was standing. StuRat (talk) 21:51, 25 September 2016 (UTC) [reply]
He was short? Wawa wewa, an unintentional pun. The only major candidates under 5'6" were the 4th President (5'4") and a Lincoln opponent (5'4"). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:43, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For an overview, see first-past-the-post voting. Alansplodge (talk) 16:51, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Does a contract have to be witnessed

In English law, is a contract valid even if the signatures are not witnessed by an independent third party? ie, only the signatories to the contract witness it being signed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBigSpike (talk • contribs) 12:26, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This explicitly says that witnesses are not required, but I'm not sure is it qualifies as a reliable source. This stops short of explicitly saying it is required, but implies it. The owner of that page is apparently a paralegal and they provide a link to ask questions. Consult a professional if you're asking in regards to an actual situation you're facing. Matt Deres (talk) 13:58, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
[ec] First, please note that we can't give legal advice here. If you have a question about the legal effects of a particular document, you should contact an appropriate professional. That being said, see Contract and Deed. In English law, a contract is valid if (a) both parties intend to create legal relations, and (b) there's an exchange of consideration. In general, contracts don't have to be in writing to be legally binding: for example, if you buy a Mars bar at the newsagents, you don't have to sign anything for the contract to come into existence - you have to pay the money and the newsagent has to give you the chocolate without any paperwork being created. However, certain contracts (particularly guarantees and transactions involving real property) have to be in writing (see Statute of Frauds), and certain legal documents (particularly wills) do have to be witnessed. Tevildo (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Standard English designations of the Ming and Qing emperors

Today's DYK brought me here: I've noticed English uses a peculiar turn of phrase to designate emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasty namely "The XYZ Emperor" (for example "The Shunzhi Emperor", with determinative "The" before the name and the word "Emperor" coming after the name) instead of the more common "Emperor XYZ". Where does that come from? At first I wondered if it wasn't because the era name was used to refer to emperors of those dynasties, but, first of all, that's probably not even true, as Emperor Meiji of Japan is never called "The Meiji Emperor", and besides, the question would still remain why that sort of designation is only used in English for Ming and Qing dynasty emperors and not for other dynasties? Also, is it peculiar to English, at least among European languages, or are there other European languages where that's also done? I know it's not done in French and I don't think it's done in German either. Basemetal 18:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Check Emperor of China#Styles, names and forms of address. For most pre-Ming emperor the posthumous name is used. The Qing and Ming emperors used only one era name for their entire reign (previous dynasties' emperor often used more than one era name). That seems to be the standard that explains Emperor Gaozu of Han vs Hongwu Emperor (who used Gao as one of his many posthumous names). I'm not sure why Japan is different. China has had so many emperors and dynasty where posthumous names are recycled and recycled and the Qing and Ming emperors have the distinction of bearing their own distinct era names which are not applied to other emperors. Japan has had only one dynasty and when they recycle posthumous names they just call the Emepeor Go-XYZ.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 19:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"The Meiji Emperor" is sometimes used - example: http://www.jref.com/articles/emperor-meiji.25/ Iapetus (talk) 12:02, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Guard in black helmets

Who were those guys in black helmets? Here they are shown in red uniforms with gold epaulettes. Italian military of the time? Thanks.--93.174.25.12 (talk) 20:32, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Noble Guard (abolished in 1970). ---Sluzzelin talk 20:39, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]


September 25

Church House, Westminster

Why are the Church's main offices of England (to use an archaic possessive) located in London, not Canterbury? I would have assumed that they'd be geographically connected with the offices of the Primate of All England, not located at the political capital. The article doesn't mention why a London location was picked. Nyttend (talk) 01:13, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Archbishop of Canterbury's official residence is Lambeth Palace a few minutes' walk away. The 26 Lords Spiritual sit in the House of Lords, and BOTH Parliament and the Prime Minister have roles in the governance of the Church. The offices of the Church Commissioners were formerly at No 1 Millbank (but they now share Church House). Also, if you are the Bishop of Carlisle or Durham, it's easier to get a train to London than having to change termini for another journey to Canterbury. I don't have references for any of this, but they seem to be compelling reasons. Note that meetings of the General Synod of the Church of England alternates between Church House and York (actually the University of York). Alansplodge (talk) 11:19, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This page lists the Archbishop's staff, some of whom are based at Lambeth, some at Church House and others at Coventry Cathedral, but none at Canterbury. Note that some of these are connected with the Archbishops' role in the wider Anglican Communion rather than just the Church of England. Alansplodge (talk) 11:25, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

European Organisations

With Brexit waiting in the wings, some people make the hyperbolic assertion that the UK is "leaving" or "turning its back" on "Europe". Of course, as well as the EU and its subsidiary organisations, the UK is a member of many other European organisations and bodies whether socio-political (e.g. the Council of Europe), legal (e.g. the European Court of Human Rights), scientific (e.g. CERN), economic (e.g. the European Travel Commission), etc., on which membership of the EU has little or no bearing.

I would like to see (or easily compile) a reasonably comprehensive list of all such "European" bodies, a list of the subset of these of which the UK will remain a member despite Brexit, and perhaps a list of bodies that the UK could join or re-join (e.g. the European Free Trade Association). I can't find a Wikipedia article or think of any other references or search terms which would help in this. Possibly someone somewhere has already compiled such lists or discussed the topic. Any suggestions?

[FWIW: I voted for the UK to remain a member of the EEC in 1975, after 20 years came to believe that continued membership was detrimental to the economies of both the EU and the UK and began to vote where possible to encourage a referendum, and voted "Leave" this year. To head off any kneejerk accusations of xenophobia, I believe the UK needs continued substantial immigration for demographic and economic reasons.] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 12:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No decisions have yet been made on this issue - see Brexit#Consequences of withdrawal. For the list of (the more important) institutions involved, see International organisations in Europe - this article has a handy clickable Euler diagram (which includes Kazakhstan, for reasons which are not obvious).
The important question from my POV - Are we going to re-legalize incandescent lightbulbs and creosote? Probably not <sadfase>. Tevildo (talk) 14:05, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that second link, Tevildo – it's pertinent and useful, but of course it only shows selected organisations, and quite a small number at that. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 06:07, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Part of Kazakhstan is in Europe. I thought a Brit would know that. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Part of it is indeed west of the Ural River, which counts as being "in Europe" by one (important) definition. And I freely admit to not knowing that until now. It's tempting to begin a long personal reminiscence about Geography Lessons in the late 1960's, but I'll restrain myself to stating that it was the Soviet Union back then, and the boundaries of that nation's constituent states was not on our curriculum. Tevildo (talk) 15:06, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, sometimes I forget Kazakhstan, Ukraine and stuff weren't countries recently. For me they've always existed. [5] Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:33, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth the only time I saw a globe with the Soviet Union (I was 6) it didn't show the constituent states. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:09, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Australia (not a typo for Austria) is now in the Eurovision Song Contest. Israel has been in it since 1973. Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and, wait for it, Morocco, have all participated. Pretty soon, the entire world will be in Europe. Except the UK, of course. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:06, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
While the Eurovision Song Contest is something I would quite like the UK to withdraw from, the European Broadcasting Union is indeed a good example of a non-EU European organisation. Thanks, Jack of Oz. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk)
The first European Games were in Azerbaijan. In the south of Caucasus watershed part of the country, not the small bit north of the watershed. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:43, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
While NATO isn't exclusively European (although members outside of Europe are largely of European descent), it's a critical military alliance for Europe. StuRat (talk) 16:13, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, StuRat. My initial wording implies exclusively European bodies, because I wanted to exclude purely world-wide ones, but significantly part-European ones like NATO are certainly relevant. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 06:11, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Quite true, Smurrayinchester, and we can't predict future political developments beyond saying that Brexit will very likely happen. However, I only want to address the issue of what European bodies Brexit will not require the UK to leave/give up/not join. [FWIW, I suspect UK withdrawal from the European Court of Human Rights and its parent Council of Europe (co-founded by the UK and not, of course, EU bodies) will prove too unpopular to be politically feasible.] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 06:14, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question About Judges and Insurance

If an insurance contract ends up in court and the judge who is overseeing this case believes that the (total) payout specified in this insurance contract is excessive (for instance, a total payout of $1,000,000 for a broken vase which was only worth $1,000), could this judge impose a cap/limit on the (total) payout in this insurance contract?

Any thoughts on this?

Indeed, isn't the purpose of insurance to return a person to his/her previous financial state (as opposed to allowing a person to enrich himself/herself) in the event that he/she experiences a loss? Futurist110 (talk) 20:14, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Equity (law) for the basic concept. Unjust enrichment may also be useful. Of course, the powers of a judge will depend on jurisdiction. Tevildo (talk) 20:45, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt any insurance company would write a policy that required them to pay 1,000,000 for a vase that is only worth 1,000. At least not intentionally (and they would be quick to claim fraud if they were mislead as to the actual value) Blueboar (talk) 21:12, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's usually the other way round, court cases tend to be about insurers paying too little. As an insurer's livelihood depends on them receiving more money than they pay out, they go to great lengths to make sure that no claim is overpaid. The limits of a claim are specified in the policy document that both parties have agreed to, and if it went to court, the policy clauses would be the basis for the judge's decision provided they were within the law. I have a dim recollection that if an insured party deliberately overstates the value of an item by say 50%, then the insurer is entitled to pay out the actual value less 50%. There's a name for that which is eluding me at present, my Chartered Insurance Institute exams were a very long time ago, and I didn't do very well then. Alansplodge (talk) 22:32, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My Chartered Insurance Institute examinations were also a very long time ago (sorry to brag, but the local Institute invited me to a meeting to collect an award for the best paper submitted although I didn't bother) and the word Alansplodge is looking for is "fraud". Insurance is a contract of indemnity. The sum insured is only the maximum the insurer will pay out. 79.73.128.100 (talk) 08:26, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not strictly fraud, as (currently) a policy can be avoided for a material misrepresentation even if the representation was not dishonest. The Insurance Act 2015 will change this, so only actual fraud will be sufficient (of itself) to be grounds for avoidance. This article may prove informative (if not exactly interesting). Of course, for reliable advice about insurance or any other legal issue, one should contact an appropriate professional. Tevildo (talk) 18:16, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

September 26

Cause of death of Liliuokalani

Can someone help me find the cause of death for Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani in 1917? Wikipedia has said for a long time that it was complications after a stroke and this has tainted almost all recent web and published sources so I am not sure anymore if it is true or not true. I'm looking at a few newspaper sources and many don't say and some just accredit it to old age. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 08:26, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Have you checked "Helena G. Allen, The Betrayal of Liliuokalani: Last Queen of Hawaii 1838-1917, ISBN 0935180893 "? That is one of the references mentioned in our earlier article so I presume predates it [6]. Nil Einne (talk) 12:10, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This Biographical Dictionary of Notable American Women [7] dated 1971 mentions her ( I could not read whether they do apologize or anything about including her notwithstanding her birth and statutes - but America is also a region of sorts.. ) They do mention a "severe stroke". --Askedonty (talk) 12:46, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(Multiple EC) Looking at the other references/sources mentioned in our early article, the claim she died from a stroke was also mentioned in the earliest available version that I could find of this ref [8]. It's from 1997 so the claim definitely doesn't originate with us. Unfortunately that page no longer exists at least at that URL so I'm not sure if anyone who wrote it would be easy to get in touch with and it doesn't list sources. The other reference [9] doesn't seem to mention the claim. I also found this [10] for the Lili‘uokalani Trust which also mentions the claim. That specific page seems to have only existed since 2014 but I found this earlier page from 2003 [11] which also makes the claim. While it does minorly postdates our article, and the working older version I can find doesn't mention the claim [12], I find it fairly unlikely they would have been influenced by our article in about 2 months in 2003. (Also their whole website seemed to undergo a major revision around this time and I expect but can't be sure that the new page which mentions the stroke actually predates our article.) Since they still exist and given their nature, you could always contact them and ask what their source is if the book doesn't pan out. Finally [13] while postdating our article by a few years, does include 2 refs which predate it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:49, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the ECs, Nil. I take it you must have started editing your own answer quite some time before I did. --Askedonty (talk) 13:01, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My second response was basically a followup to the first response and so I basically wrote it from my first response to I posted it except for a brief period where I went to check something unrelated in real life. (Actually I searched for other sources and found the PDF and website before my first response but didn't explore them since neither predated our article. So I decided to go back and find exactly when the claim in our article originated first, finding at the same time it included 3 refs and the book seemed important enough to post quickly and I knew exploring the histories of the various websites would take a while. It didn't help there was a period of confusion where I thought I'd read the second online ref from our article mentioning her cause of death but it doesn't seem to have ever done so which wouldn't be surprising since it's only a brief page about genealogies. I think I confused myself with one of the other refs somehow.) Nil Einne (talk) 13:12, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you're still not sure, if you're working on a genealogy project you could probably receive a copy of her death certificate from the Hawaii government fairly easily since it's been over 75 years [14] [15]. If you do so, remember to include her full legal names etc. It's possible it's available online somwhere, but I couldn't find it and from my experience looking before and looking here, you tend to get a lot of paid stuff which may or may not have what you want where it's hard to work out if they actually do. Nil Einne (talk) 13:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aleppo vs. Vietnam, etc.

There is a lot of news about the barbarity of the Syrian regime in attacking Aleppo, e.g. [16]. How do these attacks compare to the carpet bombing of previous conflicts?

My impression - which may be false - is that the Aleppo attacks are actually quite "humanitarian" by comparison to those of the Vietnam War. I see our article on carpet bombing credits the change to Protocol I (1977), which I note the United States still hasn't signed. Is the position of U.S. diplomats like Kerry that these attacks were war crimes all along, including in Vietnam (which given his history you'd think was possible, but I don't know...)? Or were they war crimes since some parts of Protocol I came to be "customary international law", whatever that is, whenever that happened? Or are they war crimes for Syria, because that state signed the protocol, and not for the US, because it did not? Wnt (talk) 16:52, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I must admit the business in Syria reminds me of nothing so much as the Spanish civil war with Aleppo corresponding to Guernica. Except Guernica was only bombed for one day. And I'm getting the feeling more and more that they'd be better off with a tyrant in charge rather than all the bloodshed. There was intense bitterness in Spain for years but Franco eventually died. And to war crimes if it was possible to take them before the court they'd be convicted and signing or not signing would make no difference to that. But I don't see that happening. Dmcq (talk) 17:05, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, Bombing of Guernica was 1600 dead in a town of 7000 with about 10000 people in it at the time; the article gives a lame explanation of it being a legitimate military target but there is also description of a Luftwaffe doctrine of "terror bombing", which we redirect to "strategic bombing", as the U.S. called it in Vietnam. About as many people (1600) were killed in the Christmas 1972 attack on Hanoi [17] but that was a much larger city, if that matters. In Aleppo 90 and 100 people were killed in the preceding two days out of about 250,000 people in the rebel-held section. [18] What all these statistics mean or matter in a moral argument, I cannot r compared eally say at this point. Wnt (talk) 17:24, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry by comparison I didn't know you meant numbers killed and percentages. Dmcq (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Dmcq: I don't, really. But it's all I can think of how to measure. Wnt (talk) 22:11, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jayron32: I may have something of that general perspective already. In the meanwhile, I should recommend against Google Chrome RLZ tracking spyware. It inserts the "non-unique" identifier that you downloaded some kind of Google Chrome (their documentation doesn't explain the "C" code, which must be something newer than 2012) in the US on the 500th week since February 3, 2003, i.e. sometime early in September 2012, not directly from google but via someone tracking a package with the code 'LDJZ'. [19] These codes are supposedly not unique but if I search them on the Web they are pretty sparse - you can search just the first part "1C1LDJZ" and there's some guy talking about nude beaches in Atlantic City who downloaded it on Week 597, somebody in the Columbian government who wrote up some reports who downloaded it on week 570, etc. If you ever post one of these tracking links from a named account folks will be able to look up your Secret Wiki Identity. I don't know if the codes change on update or not - if they do, this would also reveal a specific vulnerability for hackers. I would generally suggest a dislike for a company whose slogan is "Don't Be Evil"; an origin in a supposedly friendly nonprofit like Mozilla seems like a bare minimum for a browser. Wnt (talk) 22:09, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's quite interesting. I was thinking of the conflicts in terms of the political structures in that the Spanish civil war was another civil war involving a dictator who was helped by a ruthless outside power to bomb the citizens in a town. Wnt was thinking in terms of the numbers of people killed even if no dictator or particular town or other structural similarity was involved. Jayron equates all people in conflicts to each other so I guess they equate all parties to World War II, the US, UK, Germany and Russia, and Japan and Columbian drugs lords and ISIS etc etc without any distinction. Dmcq (talk) 22:43, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the problem with going by "political structures" is that it seems like it can easily reduce to saying "what the bad guys do is a war crime, what the good guys do is not." Though maybe there's a fundamental truth to that; there often is a right side in war and it is not clear that the concept of purely procedural war crimes doesn't depend on a moral relativism that is philosophically unjustifiable. But I am more skeptical that a right side exists in the Middle East; I distrust even their best efforts at democracy. So I find myself standing further from that way of looking at it than I might in some other region, I suppose. Wnt (talk) 02:49, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
One important factor is that precision bombing wasn't really an option until recently, so massive civilian casualties were inevitable with any bombing campaign. StuRat (talk) 23:39, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jus soli

Our article on jus soli states that: "the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excludes children born to foreign diplomats and children born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory."

  1. Are children of tourists who were not born in their country's embassy not excluded?
  2. Are children of illegal aliens not excluded?

46.198.195.80 (talk) 18:42, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes on question 1, per [20] with the caveat that a child raised outside of the U.S. must wait until their 21st birthday to claim their birthright citizenship. Yes on question 2, per [21], with no qualifications; if the family lives in the U.S., even in an undocumented state, the child is a U.S. citizen from birth and can begin voting and exercising other citizenship rights as soon as they are legally available to other citizens. --Jayron32 19:06, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, Jayron's "yes" means yes, they are not excluded. --Trovatore (talk) 18:59, 26 September 2016 (UTC) [reply]
Neither group 1. nor 2. are excluded. Jus soli in the USA is associated with permissive citizenship rights meaning that a person does not relinquish any jus sanguinis or jus matrimonii right to a non-US citizenship unless they voluntarily seek Naturalization. Illegal immigrants in 2010 were parents of 5.5 million children, 4.5 million of whom were born in the U.S. and are [consequently] citizens, see Illegal immigration to the United States. AllBestFaith (talk) 19:14, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's worth noting that neither question has been addressed by the US Supreme Court. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:20, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Only insofar as it has no bearing, since the U.S. Supreme Court does not, itself, make laws. It did, however, decide United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which is at least tangentially related. --Jayron32 21:30, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's the case I was thinking of. I bring this up because there are contemporary arguments to render children in both cases 1 and 2 non-citizens. Since there is neither an amendment nor a Supreme Court precedent explicitly dealing with either situation, such cases are governed by statute and regulation, which could conceivably change in the future, though I have to simultaneously note that essentially all movement in this area for two centuries has been toward greater inclusion. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:38, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism from Wikipedia

Have there been any interesting cases of plagiarism from Wikipedia? I've been editing on Wikipedia since 2008 and I've noticed a lot of my words and bits and pieces from articles I've contributed are found in book such as The Real History Of Hawaii: From Origins To The End Of The Monarchy for example where they are recited verbatim.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:44, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See this discussion.—Wavelength (talk) 21:19, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See these reports.
—Wavelength (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2016 (UTC) and 23:31, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The article I wrote on angel dusting has been used by a South African cosmetics firm in their ads. StuRat (talk) 23:34, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My favorite was one I found about "glucojasinogen" - see my description at Talk:Diabetic neuropathy. Then again, I'll spoil it. Somebody wrote some utter nonsense about diabetic neuropathy being related to this nonsense term, complete with a reference to "intrapectine nerves" between the arms and legs. Wikipedians dutifully polished this turd for something like seven years, marginally improving the grammar. Meanwhile, the statement turned up in two different articles in (apparent) scientific journals (I strongly suspect the pre-paid model of open publishing is at fault here; it is clear we have not yet exhausted all the dumb ways to pay for publishing), each of which had plagiarized parts of the Wikipedia article word for word. So it was actually indexed in NCBI. What makes it so funny is that the authors clearly committed "strong plagiarism" - no petty offense of simply borrowing the words to avoid the labor of shuffling them around, but a willingness to swallow the text whole, on blind faith that it meant something, without being willing to put in any effort to figure out just what. In my opinion this was, simply, the greatest triumph of Wikipedia vandalism ever done, and we owe the unsung hero a debt of gratitude for lifting the curtain and showing us a bit of the sheer ridiculousness of the world. I do feel guilty for having spoiled it, and yet, without someone coming in to harvest, we would never have had the chance for admiration. Wnt (talk) 02:57, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Neo-nazis and conservatives

Do neo-nazis consider themselves to be conservative?Uncle dan is home (talk) 22:30, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't seem to have the answer. Neo-Nazism in general is described as being part of Far-right politics, and it does have some overlaps with conservatism (pro-Christianity, anti-immigration, and anti-communism). But do individual neo-nazis consider themselves conservative? I tried looking through some Wikipedia biographies of notable neo-nazis, but I haven't found any who self-labeled as anything other than Nazis or other far-right ideologies. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:20, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to read up on the alt-right, which seems to be the link between the two. StuRat (talk) 02:22, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Neo-Nazism in general is described as being part of Far-right politics". True, but I'm not sure why. The original Nazism was of course National Socialism, and Socialism is generally described as being leftist and is typically not pro-religion. Something would depend on how similar Neo-Nazis consider themselves to be to the original Nazis.

September 27

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