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August 6

Italy America assistance

When Italy was in lockdown for Covid 19 how many american doctors came in Italy with US Army to help their colleagues in Italy? There were doctors from some european countries but how many came from USA with USAF help? --2.226.12.134 (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This US charity "said that it would have nearly 70 doctors, nurses, technicians, and other specialists working at the weekend" (21 March 2020). I haven't found any direct intervention by the US military personnel, but "more than 15,000 kilograms of supplies, including KN-95 masks, surgical gowns and COVID-19 test kits" were airlifted in by a USAF Hercules aircraft. [1] (30 May). Alansplodge (talk) 19:38, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why do so many Muslim countries hate Israel so much?

A reasonable question with some on-topic answers, which degenerated.

Vast majority of Muslim-majority countries do not recognize Israel as a sovereign state. Some of the countries that do including Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan have tense relationship with Israel while the overwhelming majority of their respective citizens openly hate Israel. This unique situation would make much more sense if it were only the Arab world but countries like Indonesia and Malaysia also have held the same anti-Israel positions ever since the very beginning even though Jews never had much of a presence in them. Interestingly, many of these countries have expressed support for China's Xinjiang re-education camp in one way or another. On the other hand, Azerbaijan and Central Asia do not have this problem with Israel. Is this just pure anti-semitic bigotry? Is there an explanation to this peculiar situation? StellarHalo (talk) 15:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All members of a religion tend to display solidarity when some of their number are "oppressed" by members of another religion - this is a natural human trait. Most if not all Muslim-majority countries, Arab or not, have a very small Jewish presence. I'm surprised that any country can support China's repression of its Muslim minority. 2A00:23C5:C70B:500:71AC:5E8B:9BE1:A27E (talk) 17:24, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Why Muslim nations remain silent as China sends ethnic minorities to re-education camps". --Lambiam 21:07, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As the victims of Israeli actions are Muslims and Arabs it makes sense that those who identify as such pay more attention and wish for the horrors to end. It is important to note that other groups also pay more attention due to their greater ability to identify with victims of Israeli aggression, these groups include the Irish due to their suffering with the British, non-white South Africans due to their history of apartheid, and to some extent African Americans and the LGBT community due to discrimination against them. Apart from Eastern Europeans who have shifted to the far-right like Israel, groups that suffered injustice themselves want to see Israel leave their neighbours in peace. As for the anti-semitic claim, that's just something the pro-occupation lobby says to silence critics. Of 19 (talk) 04:50, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hamas' charter openly says it seeks the destruction/extermination of Israel. It launches warheads at cities. Palestinian Authority acts moderate on one side of the mouth and on the other side of the mouth names streets after anyone who kills random civilian Jews and pays the bombers' families many times the average wage. They won't leave Israel in peace. They have suffered tens of 9/11s per captita. If the median MP of Eastern European countries (what happened to judging individuals by character like the great MLK instead of using the evil and bad of an ethnicity to view them all?) is right-wing to far-right being under Soviet occupation and the people who remember the Nazi terror dieing off has something to do with it. If the Soviets had left them alone perhaps for assurances of not joining either bloc and they followed Sweden's model then the evil Eastern Europeans would have fewer rightists. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:12, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The vast majority of Palestinians just want to live a peaceful normal live, like most people everywhere else. They are not seeking anyone's destruction. People in Gaza are as much prisoners of Hamas as of Israeli hawks (who need each other to remain in power). --Lambiam 22:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why did Fatah lose the Gaza election then? Why did ~~~80(?)~~ 84 percent of respondents in a survey by Palestinians support that war crime where the dude mass shot a Jewish school including kids and killed many civilians and all the little Jews huddled in complete terror pushing the door the terrorist was pushing? I'll look up a source cause the exact number was so high it surprised even me. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:42, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

84 percent. Holy mother fuck, I wanted to say ~82 percent but thought, nah it can't be. Nope, 84 percent. 8 students shot dead by the way, 11 wounded, AK-47. Mercaz HaRav massacre. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:50, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

People were fed up with the ineffectiveness and incompetence of Fatah, which was made worse by continued widespread corruption of the Palestinian National Authority controlled by Fatah. Hamas promised to drain the swamp and the voters fell for it. Once in power, they soon proved not to be any better. --Lambiam 03:23, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The lede of Hamas Charter: The Hamas Covenant or Hamas Charter, formally known in English as the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement, was originally issued on 18 August 1988 [...] A new charter was issued by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal on 1 May 2017 in Doha.[2] [...] The charter states that "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories,[3] and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.[4][5] It emphasizes the importance of jihad, stating in article 13, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors." [etc.]. What happened to voting for fascists for any reason makes you a fascist? Also why'd 84% support AK-47ing teenagers in a yeshiva? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:41, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This has no longer anything to do with the original question. The Reference Desk is not a high-school debating club. For the issue you raise, see this (archived) article: Angela Stephens (March 2, 2006). "Most Palestinians Believe Hamas Should Change its Position on Eliminating Israel". WorldPublicOpinion.org, and note this paragraph, "However, new polling following the election indicates that two-thirds of Palestinians believe Hamas should change its policy of rejecting Israel's right to exist. Most also support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Post-election polls indicate that Hamas' victory is due largely to Palestinians' desire to end corruption in government rather than support for the organization's political platform.". --Lambiam 22:42, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What's the best you can find from on or after the 84% poll date? A million Palestinians live in Gaza remember and the others' "hearts and minds" were probably more influenced by Hamas propaganda after they won, or Fatah polarizing to not become less popular than Hamas. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:32, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's also quite ironic that since Ashkenazi Jews are Eastern European and Semitic then characterizing Israelis and E. Europeans as one circle of a Venn diagram of the world's evils would be a Hitler-approved message. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:49, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Like many of these things, the tangled roots of this are in the history. You might start with the Balfour Declaration and then move on to 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, 1947-1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Six-Day War etc, etc. Alansplodge (talk) 17:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Given the relatively young age of the average Middle Easterner, official government-sponsored hate campaigns deserve a mention. DOR (HK) (talk) 01:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

True, but Palestinian refugees discusses some unresolved issues. Alansplodge (talk) 11:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No one talks about the Jewish refugees pogromed out of Arabian countries when the Brits left Israel. It was a long time ago but so were the Palestinians who mostly left Israel expecting quick destruction (not forced out of). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See also Whataboutism and Moral equivalence. --Lambiam 12:20, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So let the Jewish refugees move back to the countries they were pogromed out of at almost exactly the same time and the Palestinians move back to Israel. Not desired by either Jewish refugees' pre-'47 neighbors or the ex-refugees themselves? Well too bad, karma's a bitch. If right before Jew immigration (except not occupied by Constantinople this time, nor being serfs of Ottoman Empire landlords who live in Damascus) is the Make Palestine Great Again time then wouldn't that mean the planet's countries need to become whatever 1800s people (don't know decade) would've voted for in free elections? So German refugees can move back to Prussia and end the occupation, Polish refugees can end the Ukrainian occupation, like this for hundreds of peoples and unless Hamas' Make Everything Great Again time coincides with their own irredentists will want a different "this was the only when everything was good era, anything younger is occupation, anything more is before occupation became wrong and should be reversed, bOrDeRs ChAnGe AlL tHe TiMe" hundreds of new countries will form and borders will squiggle everywhere which will totally be respected and not lead to many new wars. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:42, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See further Straw man and Non sequitur. --Lambiam 22:42, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Will Jewish refugees' former countrymen accept them back? Why should one of history's most persecuted minorities let themselves be outvoted from their only country by those who haven't lived there in 72 years when even the small part of the million Jews who want to go back are too disgusting to accept? How is that a straw man? If you want to destroy the Jewish sanctuary with numerical superiority at least accept a few Jewish refugees back, it's only fair. All these new voters would probably be smart enough to boil the Jewish frog too, it looks much better than forcing all Jews to leave ASAP or in a year. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:19, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What SMW doesn't want to see is how the creation of a settler state in Paletine is intimately linked to the latter stage of European colonialism. Most border disputes between European countries have either been settled (like Germany-Poland) or been reduced to a historical anecdote (like Olivenza or Gibraltar). And most of the territories outside of the European spheres were de-colonized, giving way to new republics in Africa and Asia. But where European colonialism installed permanent settler regimes (Palestine and South Africa), this caused a conflict that intertwined anti-colonial nationalism and the Cold War politics, becoming a creed of unity (South Africa in the case of the OAU, Palestine in the case of the Arab States), closely enmeshed with the identities of Third World republican nationalism. --Soman (talk) 23:49, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Don't tell me Jews have white privilege when half of them were genocided by Europeans 3 years before Israel and anyone else they could catch were enslaved on rations calculated to cause extermination through work in 1 year, that's ridiculous. Some of them aren't even white, they're Black or Chinese, Israeli Jews come in all colors. In fact lots of them today are genetically indistinguishable from Arabs as they're both Semites and some Israelis have lived with Arabs for a hundred generations and there were times when relations weren't bad. South Africans literally enslaved people, trekked into uncolonized land to avoid British slavery bans (this is why border points away from Cape Town) and apartheided them despite a lack of a severe or even minor terrorism problem, not morally equivalent. They were far-right in other ways Israel is not too, like being paranoidly afraid of communism, which in the end never hurt them, ludicrous expansionism not needed for defensible borders, trying to overthrow Angola which was not needed for defense, their TV etc. Israelis only expand when the borders are indefensible, when Egypt demilitarized Sinai Israel left. When peacekeepers demilitarized South Lebanon Israel left. Their country was almost destroyed on minute 1 remember, and '67. Europeans and non-Europeans have bullied the shit out of Jews for thousands of years, they're our worst modern genocide, one of the most persecuted peoples in recent memory, just let them have their tiny little ceasefire line and tiny little settlements (which are only on hills and distances good to kill Israelis proper from) and leave them the fuck alone. Why is antisemitism suddenly good when non-Europeans do it? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:19, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt whether Muslims outside the Arab world were widely mobilized against Israel until after the 6-day war of 1967, and especially the Dome of the Rock pulpit-burning incident of 1969. The OIC was basically founded for the specific purpose of telling lies about the pulpit-burning incident (member states claiming relentlessly that the Israeli government was involved, though the Israeli government was not involved), and has continued this inglorious tradition of bias down to the present, refusing to condemn Darfur atrocities and Xinjiang Uighur camps. Israel wasn't kicked out of the Asian Football Confederation until 1974... AnonMoos (talk) 01:03, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Let's keep this discussion on track and respectful. This started out as a legitimate question, with some thoughtful answers, but due to the controversial topic area, it has the potential to go off the rails, and there are some hints of it starting on that path. Although some guidelines that deal primarily with article Talk pages may not apply here, nevertheless there are guidelines and policy about user behavior (such as WP:CIVIL) that apply everywhere, and probably especially so in sanctionable, contentious topic areas like the Arab-Israeli conflict.. The Wikipedia policy WP:NOTADVOCACY does apply imho, and WP:NOTFORUM could be used to collapse or remove this discussion. Please remain respectful, direct your comments towards answering the user's original question or contributing positively to the discussion, resist the temptation to get involved in a general debate about the topic, and please do not use this discussion as a soapbox for a particular point of view. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The 'discussion' should be hatted, since it is based on a question that assumes a falsehood, or a misdirected query. Some readers might look in the meantime at Arab Peace Initiative, which Israel for two decades has refused to formally respond to.Nishidani (talk) 13:28, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nishidani -- the Arab Peace Initiative never went much of anywhere because 1) The attitude of the Saudis was that they deserved great credit and lavish high praise for no longer calling for kicking the Jews out of the middle east (which had basically been the Saudi position from the 1940s to just a few years before). However, in 2002 the Israeli people and government were not in a mood such that they were inclined to give them any such great credit and lavish high praise. 2) If you examine the details of the Arab Peace Initiative, it's actually a recycled generic 1980s-style peace plan, which had little relevance to the specific situation and issues which existed in 2002. In short, the Arab Peace Initiative is only impressive if the alternative is calling for the Jews to be thrown into the sea. In other contexts, in which that's not the main alternative, it's not too impressive. AnonMoos (talk) 15:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Let's go back to the original question. I'd StellarHalo's post can be divided into a few statements and 2 questions (my commentary added in [brackets]);

Most contemporary Muslim-majority states do not have diplomatic relations with the State of Israel. Some do. - [The quick answer, I'd say, is that religious affiliation of population shouldn't be overemphasized in world politics. That said, I think it is possible to say that the Palestine question occupies a central function in contemporary Islamic political identity, and the Muslim-majority states in Central Asia are also states that generally do not align with an Islamic political project. The question why Palestine, and not Kashmir, Xinjiang or Northern Cyprus, occupies this central function is a separate question, see below]
In Muslim-majority states the 'overwhelming majority of their respective citizens openly hate Israel' - [I'd say that the factual accuracy of the statement is questionable, unless 'hate' is construed in an extremely broad sense. But in any case, and this is also implied by StellarHalo's post, the situation isn't uniform across all Muslim-majority states]
Some countries have taken 'anti-Israel stance' from 'beginning' in spite not having a history of significant Jewish population - [I'd say this point leads to two points - 1) Yes, there is no causality between the stance of Muslim-majority countries on the Palestine question and domestic antisemitism in the individual countries. 2) Whilst we can talk of an OIC position on Palestine or an Arab League position on Palestine, there are also national, regional and local dynamics at play. The Palestine question have very different dynamics even in the two South East Asian countries mentioned. In Malaysia, the Palestine question plays a key role in Malay national identity. Malay nationalists (or chauvinists) draw a parallel between Malaya and Palestine under British colonial rule, and argues that the British sought to change the demographics by Jewish immigration to Palestine and Chinese immigration to Malaya. Palestine is used as a cautionary tale of what will happen if non-Malays become the demographic majority and is used as a rallying cry to preserve Malay dominance of the state. In Indonesia, in sharp contrast to neighbouring Malaysia, a new state was built by leftist-nationalist coalition, who had a recent past of militant confrontation with Dutch colonialism (unlike the Malay elites who came to rule Malaysia) and espoused a progressive, secular and modernist outlook. Clearly the new Indonesian Republic wanted to do away with Arabic cultural influence (like the script) and create a new national identity. But on the Palestine question Indonesia (and other many other states at the time) were strongly concerned over the plan for Partition of Palestine by UN, fearing that their own nation-building projects could be subject to the same treatment in the future. As the Cold War took shape, Indonesia was one of the key organizers of the Non-Aligned Movement, in which they aligned with the Arab republics. Now, what happened on Indonesian-Palestinian relations after the 1965 coup is a bit outside of my area of knowledge, but a speculation would be that Suharto had little interest to anger the Islamic hardliners who he had used to attack the Communist Party. In brief, there are a lot of complexities in how positions have developed, but antisemitism is hardly the explanation.]
Some Muslim-majority countries have even expressed support for Chinese policy in Xinjiang - [Yes, many governments of Muslim-majority states have publicly voiced support for Chinese policies on Xinjiang. Islamic solidarity, as a political project clearly has its limits and for the most part governments act on their own interests rather on basis of religious affiliation. The position that the Islamic polity should take the side of Muslims in conflict with non-Muslims regardless of context is only upheld by fringe elements and extremists. Two points can be made: 1) Palestine occupies a central function in contemporary Arab and Muslim imagination, in a way no other disputed territory does. We can debate in depth on the causes, but I think it's safe to say that antisemitism isn't a factor. On the contrary, chauvinism towards Chinese people is probably more prominent in many Muslim-majority countries, but such prejudices doesn't translate into foreign policy. 2) That's not to say that feeling of Islamic solidarity are non-existent. During the Bosnia war, the plight of Bosnian Muslims evoked support across the Muslim world. The Rohingya situation has had strong repercussions on public opinion in countries like Pakistan, etc, etc.]
[In regards to the two questions to the end of StellarHalo's question - is antisemitism the explanation? and is there an explanation?, I think it can be safely argued that antisemitism cannot be used as explanation. I'd also say that no, there isn't a single straightforward answer to all of the question, there are many different processes in play. I think that the dynamics of anti-colonialism, combined with the deep-rooted feeling of betrayal against the Arabs by the Western powers, provide a good starting point to study the issue, but its not the whole story.]
[Talking about colonialism and anti-colonialism here isn't only about pointing the the historical roots of why states developed their foreign policy positions and alliance building projects. On a people-to-people basis, there appears to be a link between indignation and perceptions on correlation of forces. In a conflict between two equal parties, a bystander may feel that the two are equally responsible and accountable. But if there is a clear discrepancy in power, the violence used by the stronger party is perceived as unjust. My Lai is often used as a reference point, disproportionate use of violence by the strongest military superpower in the world against a peasant population in the Third World, captured in harrowing photos brought immediate world-wide condemnation. Another more recent point would be to ask why the killing of George Floyd evoked worldwide protests, including from the African Union, whilst the killings of hundreds of demonstrators in an African country few weeks later passed unnoticed. In regards to Palestine, the disproportional nature of the conflict is glaring: the State of Israel possesses one of most advanced military forces in the world, the Palestinians resist with light weaponry, rockets without guiding systems (most of them home-made), rocks, graffiti and flags. I'd say that in terms of people-to-people solidarity with Palestine, kinship factors, the idea that the people of Palestine are part of a Arab or Muslim brethren may be important, but the indignation over the violence against the Palestinian people clearly transcends religious and ethnic lines. To feel indignation over children being imprisoned, the plight of children suffering weeks of constant bombardment, the pain of young amputees having been shot when throwing rocks, etc, etc, is essentially a human reaction.] --Soman (talk) 14:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Launching well over a thousand dozen unguided bombs at cities is not resistance, it is a crime against humanity, an antisemitic one at that. Don't make excuses for war criminals and racist fascists. Why do you people always just say X Palestinian children being imprisoned now and nothing else and draw a tiny little kawaii girl silhouette holding balloons, do you realize that is propaganda? Only those who already sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis would be influenced by such low-quality "arguments". Are you seriously implying that little girls well under 10 is an important demographic in Jew thug prison? I don't want to know how many children are imprisoned, I want to know what they did and if their sentence seems proportionate. When you say children you probably mean "minor" and almost completely males heavily skewed to old stoning soldiers. Heck, if I believed I'd get 72 virgins for suicide bombing a Jew or even seriously trying and couldn't get girls horny teen me might've done that too. I doubt the high school guys shot for slinging rocks at Israeli defenders were shot by anyone observing their rules of engagement, maybe they were bad apples (we all know how every military has atrocity personalities), maybe they were drafted pussies who don't belong there, maybe enablers let it slide cause baseballs and cricket balls have killed people and sling rocks are much heavier, harder and denser and probably faster, do you have any evidence there are shoot at slinger orders? And you ignore the normal human reaction to little kids amputated by rockets of course, you never talk about the Jews killed and maimed by terrorists who couldn't possibly have judged if they "deserve it" (not that they would be unbiased if they could) or the kids suffering so many rocket raid sirens which unlike IDF bombs actually are intended for kids, or Jews in general. The nearest town to Gaza has huge percents of kids with PTSD. If they stop doing that shit then trying to proportionately harm terrorists through their human shields will stop. You are aware that Hamas tries to get civilians to die on the terrorists' roofs with propaganda or coercion right? The terrorists would die too but everyone gets 72 virgins (and a straight male-like sex drive if you're gay or female and a patience for 72 virgin men I guess) and civilian deaths make Hamas nut in their pants for the propaganda value so it's all good. They try to fire a small missile at an empty corner just outside shrapnel range of people to get them to leave, I don't know if that always works though. While IDF warns apartments before bombing terrorists Hamas lies saying don't flee cause you're just as unsafe in the street. Bullshit. They tell them they make lots of fake warning calls. Fake news. Hamas openly builds rockets in hospitals and schools and launches them from random strangers' places and run without warning them instead of hiding on farms. They hope some computer calculates the trajectory from radar and bombs the source so they can claim Jews are killing civilians in cold blood. Or you could've just lived with the Jews in peace like Switzerland. You prefer conflict till the Jews can't trust you anymore I guess. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"IDF" is apparently an abbreviation for "Israeli Defence Forces". 2A00:23A8:4241:2200:A9F1:662C:72C:4906 (talk) 13:06, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This has unfortunately, perhaps even predictably, gone off the rails. Collapsing per WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:NOTFORUM. You can try continuing this at, or even moving this entire discussion to your user talk page, but even there there are limits. It's too bad it turned out like this. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:20, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Gin with onions

Is it true that New Zealanders drink gin with onions? I once saw this in a bar in Auckland, but I thought it was a joke. Thanks. 86.190.108.60 (talk) 19:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many people drink Gin with onion. It's a standard cocktail called a "Gibson", and is sometimes considered a variation of a Martini. See Gibson (cocktail). It is not particularly associated with New Zealand as far as I know, and it dates to the U.S. in the turn of the 20th century. --Jayron 32 19:21, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, that's like a Cocktail onion or summat? I'm sure this was the ordinary kind. But then it was some kinda swanky American-style cocktail bar on Ponsonby, I think. 86.190.108.60 (talk) 19:31, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mixology is a continuously evolving art form and I would not be surprised if some bars used other forms of onion in their Gibsons rather than pearl onions, such as onion slices or something like that. That seems like a small variation, and one should consider any gin cocktail garnished with an onion of any sort to be a variation of a Gibson. --Jayron 32 19:36, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you kindly, Mr Jayron. I had no idea. Kiwis do have their own cocktails, some of which are made with real Kiwis.... [2]. 86.190.108.60 (talk) 19:52, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Inspired perhaps by Australia's famous Koala Tea of Mercy? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.160.95 (talk) 04:20, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 7

Which historical countries have had the highest relative prisoner population?

I know that the "land of the free" has the highest relative and absolute prisoner population in the world. However, I'd like to understand if it's a new development for other countries to release their prisoners, or if they didn't have as many as in the USA to begin with. Specifically, I know that 17th-19th century Britain had a need for penal colonies and both Russia and the USSR sent much of their undesirable population to Siberia. How do such countries compare to the US today? What were common historical incarceration rates and which were the highest known in history? —Naddruf (talk ~ contribs) 16:45, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This again. Look, a country such as North Korea, where citizens are not allowed to leave, are de facto prisons. The entire population is effectively incarcerated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:59, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Prison has existed since Roman times as a means of punishment for crimes, but it has not been the primary means of such punishment. Housing prisoners was primarily about detaining them prior to a trial or punishment. Once a sentence was carried out, which was often some form of torture (beating, mutilation, humiliation) or fine (which was often paid by some form of indentured servitude), a person was released back to live their lives. By the colonial period, penal transportation became a common way to punish people. The idea that the primary penalty for crimes would be to lock people in cells for a set term is relatively recent, probably not until the 19th century that such a usage became the standard. The Wikipedia article titled Prison goes into some of this, and has several good explicit references, such as Discipline and Punish, which I've not read, but looks like it is a good read for someone researching this area. --Jayron 32 17:09, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Transportation in Britain was only a more humane alternative to the Bloody Code, a system which allowed the death penalty for the most trivial offences, such as pickpocketing goods worth a shilling (5 new pence or the equivalent of about £30 today), cutting down a tree without permission or "spoiling a fish pond". The height of this system was the Black Act 1723, ostensibly against thieves who blackened their faces to avoid recognition. Hanging everyone kept a regular throughput in the prison system. Alansplodge (talk) 19:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Did anyone ever commit a minor crime just to get a free trip to Australia? There's lots of cons (like joining cons) but the going rate for going to America for free was 7 years as an indentured servant so there's probably a few. How many old pence did a trip to Australia cost? (were there any tourists? Not being transportated, just there to say they've been on every* continent or for the novelty of seeing a continent where they just drop off non-capital crims and say do what you want, you can't swim back so don't bother. The back is interesting to see too, probably no convicts but both the front and back of Australia should've been worthy of a spot on a bucket list of world travel buffs willing to rough it a bit, if only for no other reason than cause there's no way to see the back without crossing the front) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:18, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know about early tourism to Australia, but following that lead and getting back to the original question, the First Fleet that brought British people there delivered 753 convicts and their children as part of a total initial population of 1030. That's around 73% prisoners. But there's a few provisos. This wasn't the country of Australia. It was the British Colony of New South Wales. Then there's the small issue that there were maybe a million people there already, whose ancestors had been there for maybe 70,000 years. HiLo48 (talk) 06:27, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Second Fleet had a prisoner mortality rate of 40%, and the prisoners were kept in chains below deck for the whole voyage (between 158 and 306 days depending on the ship) and few of the survivors were able to walk when they arrived. So not much of a pleasure cruise. Alansplodge (talk) 16:57, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I always thought the sentence was just a weird way of saying exile, sounds like the real punishment actually was the transportation. Can't make too many moon a bobby or something to farm Australia I suppose, gotta keep those transportation costs down. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:01, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Exile and penal transportation are two different things. Exile is from somewhere, and transportation is to somewhere. Exile is "We don't care where you go, just GTFO", while transportation was taking people to a specific place to enact a specific sentence. --Jayron 32 19:06, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, if you survived the journey, you still had to do hard labour until your sentence expired. The sunny weather in Australia isn't such a bonus if you have to break rocks all day. Alansplodge (talk) 20:18, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not just breaking rocks. Sometimes building with them. And the results could be rewarding. HiLo48 (talk) 04:53, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone interested in this topic, I strongly recommend the book The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, that goes into details about both the 18th century penal system in England, and the development of Australia as a vast penal colony. Xuxl (talk) 13:24, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And just in case anyone's wondering, having a convict ancestor is considered a badge of honour in Australia today. HiLo48 (talk) 22:36, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some are later arriving at the party than others. When my late Mum first discovered we had a convict ancestor, it was revealed to the rest of the family on a strictly "for your ears only" basis, in case of "what people might think". This was as late as the early-mid 1990s. I remember it was after 1988, because our ancestor had a Bicentennial commemoration stone erected in his honour that year, something of which my family were completely unaware at the time. He served his time, then made a name for himself as a pioneer of the Mittagong district, south of Sydney. Despite this public recognition, we still had to keep our connection to him hush-hush until Mum learned how to mellow out. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:48, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The penultimate line in Robert Ludlum's "The Holcroft Covenant"

What does it mean that the Tinamou was killed "by the Tinamou"? As far as any reader can tell Noel was NOT the Tinamou! And yet he is the one who killed the Tinamou at the end. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jassiken (talk • contribs) 21:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I proffer this only as a suggested interpretation, not a definitive one: others may also be argued. "The Tinamou" is a myth: no single person is the Tinamou, instead Projekt Sonnenkinder eliminates those it wants killed by feeding them false, confusing information until one of them comes to believes another of them is the Tinamou and kills them. Thus Noel Holcroft himself has, by killing someone the Projekt wanted dead, unwittingly functioned as the Tinamou. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.217.210.84 (talk) 08:01, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense. The protagonist is confused throughout (and so is the reader). I wonder how the film dealt with this., or did it? --Lambiam 22:26, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 8

Very large index fund investment

There are a bunch of scandals related to CalPERS, the pension fund for California state employees, with around $400 billion in its portfolio. Most recently its CIO abruptly quit[3] for the proverbial "family reasons" after some credible claims of improprieties. My question: what if they just drop the whole pretense of being active investors, (figuratively) call up e-Trade, and say the want to plop $400B into index funds? Could the funds themselves absorb that large a deposit without becoming distorted? Any other issues? According to the ancient A Random Walk Down Wall Street their expected return should be about as good as anything else you can do, so I've never understood the point of doing anything else if that's your investment goal. Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 01:20, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I know with insurance companies, by regulation they’re required to keep a certain amount in reserve and uninvested in order to maintain solvency. I believe they’re slow limited in the kinds of investments they can make, like how volatile the investments are or perhaps a minimum market cap before investing, just to ensure the bottom is less likely to fall out from under them in a panic and keep them from, say, dumping everything into Bitcoin. The same is certainly true of pension funds. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 02:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, ok, but there is a huge CalPERS investment staff and a ton of intrigue about their steering investment money to their money manager cronies etc. Obviously they have to follow the law, but I'm asking whether they can do that in the rather obvious ways that a regular person with some modest savings could also do, e.g. "talk to Chuck" or use a robo advisor. Apparently Jeffrey Epstein did something like that (pitched himself as a wizard, but actually just parked his clients' billions in a basic mix of index funds rather than crazy gambles like Madoff, so they did fine and never suspected). It makes me think that the "hot shots" are trading on either insider info or dumb luck. I'm not especially smart about this stuff myself though. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 04:43, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I really don’t know. I might not be understanding your question entirely. But for me the key research question would be to look into what the regulations on investment are for pension funds—whether just in California or in general. I suspect, but am not certain, that not only the amount the fund may invest is regulated but the kinds of investments probably are, as well as how they must diversify their investments. The key in regulation of funds is almost always geared towards solvency first, then anything else. Because the main thing the state wants to prevent is the fund from bouncing checks to beneficiaries. The amount of social harm and panic that causes is orders of magnitude worse than a run-of-the-mill clout scandal. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 16:01, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The amount of money CALPERS has to (and, "must") invest would move markets if it were concentrated in one financial product (say, a tech fund), or even just with one financial adviser. More, concentration raises risks very sharply: imagine a COVID-type event in tech, or a financial adviser named Bernie Madoff. People responsible for other people's retirement funds don't like unnecessary risks. DOR (HK) (talk) 17:11, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

CalPERS itself is an investment fund; there's little need to pay other investment companies like Vanguard money to do what CalPERS can do itself. A mutual fund is just a vehicle for people to pool their money (hence the "mutual" part) and invest. Now, if CalPERS management thought, say, Vanguard was really good at efficiently managing their funds, they could hire Vanguard to manage CalPERS's money for them. They wouldn't go open an account on Vanguard's website and wire in $400 billion.

On a slight tangent, CalPERS can invest in many ways that a standard U.S. mutual fund can't. Stock mutual funds are only legally allowed to "buy and hold" stocks listed on public exchanges. Accredited investors can do lots of other things: borrow money and invest it (buying on margin), short stocks, invest in derivatives and less-liquid things like real estate, etc. Pension funds sometimes just buy companies outright, or take large stakes. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 18:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you're interested in the performance of "index funds" versus "actively managed investments", you may be interested in SPIVA. It attempts to systemically rate the "actively-managed" sector against the passive "benchmarks" they aspire to beat/outperform.

From the little I've read on the topic, it seems that when dealing with the large cap section of the stock market, very few "active managers" consistantly outperform the index. Large-cap stocks are heavily-researched and heavily-traded, so the end result is a reasonably efficient market. The price is generally a reasonable reflection of the stock's value, and its risk/return potential. Significant "mis-pricing" is rare.

However, when it comes to small cap stocks, the picture can be very different. Small-caps are by nature higher-risk - there is often a lot less known about a small company than a large one. Ergo, good research, and smart stock-picking, can potentially significantly improve investment outcomes.

Unfortunately for big mutual funds, investing in small-caps is not always practical. Given that they have billions to invest, they might as well buy the small-cap firm outright. Some do exactly this. This can have negative side effects; at this point, the fund ceases to be an "investor" in the firm, but is now the full-fledged owner, with all the risks (and rewards) that this entails. Eliyohub (talk) 15:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why do large stonks sometimes overshoot when they crash? Brief inefficiency? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know for sure, but see our article on Flash crashes for a possible explanation. (People have apparently made millions by fooling high-frequency trading bots, for example). Eliyohub (talk) 17:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

cheerleaders in the medical field

I saw this video [4] on YouTube. It made me wonder how many former NBA cheerleaders also now work in the medical field. I need help finding some as part of a project for Inside Edition. If anyone out there could help me, I'd really appreciate it, please. Thank you.142.255.72.126 (talk) 05:44, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not the NBA, but this list (of unknown reliability) gives NFL cheerleaders who became doctors. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:32, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 9

Economic effects of CFA franc on former French colonies in sub-saharan Africa?

Whenever discussions on Françafrique come up, the currency CFA franc always get mentioned especially 20 years after the original franc got replaced by the euro. I have seen quite a significant amount of people asserting that CFA franc has caused former French colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa to continue be economically reliant/dependent on France ever since they achieved independence. Is this true? If it is true, then how does it work exactly? StellarHalo (talk) 03:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A lot has been written about this, although mostly in French. There is no consensus among economists. The main problem is that level of trade between African countries is abnormally low, but that's not just a question of currency as it also plagues countries that do not use the CFA Franc. Another issue is that having an artificially strong currency has advantages, but it also encourages all imports and discourages local production. Here are a few recent articles in English: [5], [6], [7]. Xuxl (talk) 13:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One of the central objections is the colonial nature of the two currencies. They are managed by France, which means that neither allows the regions on question to manage their own monetary policy. There are social and political implications beyond the economic ones for living in a place where another country's government has complete control over your monetary policy and currency. Any argument in favor of the arrangement carries quite a bit of paternalism which feels out of time going into the third decade of the twenty-first century.--Jayron 32 16:02, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is almost certainly no single answer to why CFA economies have not done well. And, within each of the CFA groups (West African CFA and Central African CFA) there are decidedly mixed results. To avoid exchange rate issues, I looked at caloric intake, and in the first group, Mali, Benin, Guinea-Bissau, and Niger did far, far better than Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo. In the Central African group, Gabon is the standout winner, CAR and Chad big losers, Congo poor and Cameroon little changed over the period 1961-latest data. A badly corrupt long-term leader or a civil war can ruin the results much, much more thoroughly than a mismanaged exchange rate. DOR (HK) (talk) 18:05, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How likely is future Euro use? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:14, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In Africa ? ? That’s not likely as weaker European economies struggle to remain in the Euro Zone. DOR (HK) (talk) 00:56, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 10

Nordic perfection?

Recently, after quite some thorough, profound investigation in what have until lately been regarded as universally applicable aesthetic and beauty standards (cf. e. g. here) – and particularly those within the scope of modern-day Western culture –, and pertaining comparative studying of faces generally to be deemed highly attractive in the universal context as well as within the aforesaid specific cultural sphere, I have come to a conclusion I had already assumed / suspected long beforehand (– and in this I may be very much mistaken!):

In my "final" and – please do believe me! – very carefully considered judgement, it has come to my attention that faces displaying what are considered to be Nordic (or partly also referred to as Nordid) features appear to meet crucial aesthetic concepts – such as facial symmetry, and the "classic modern canon" of facially attractive traits (such as well-proportioned, relatively high-built facial structure, straight and narrow nose, prominent chin (especially in men), well-defined jawline, high cheekbones, rather upright, evenly curved forehead, [meso]dolichocephaly – to a degree and rate otherwise possibly unparalleled or apparently – if at all on a comparable scale – only met by a significantly smaller rate in any other Caucasian phenotype that can be legitimately subsumed to a certain set of determinable ethnically characteristic, recurrent physical properties (e. g. perhaps Mediterranids, which are, however, said to have once migrated towards norther Europe and thus might have influenced the Nordic phenotype). (With good reason, I explicitly do not want to apply the obsolete and – also apart from that – highly controversial, strongly (and rightly so!) contested term "race" per se here.)

As an example in terms of the mentioned criterion of degree (meaning an extraordinary quality of fulfilling aesthetical standards), I would like to present this photograph. Note: Warning: This image might be considered NSFW – although it, in fact, "only" shows a male face. (Also, I beg to apologize for the fact that the image is taken from an image stock repository, and I was not able to find a version without the annoying web-page labelling.)

I was uncapable of finding an image of a non-Nordic Caucasian person – i. e. one of at least both dark [brown or black] eye and hair color – with facial features (apart from fair eye and hair color) as virtually "flawless", that is as stunningly symmetrical, well-proportioned, clearly and finely chiselled, and with such a seemingly flawless skin condition as in the selected photograph. However, of course I am more than fully aware of the fact that, generally speaking, aesthetics and beauty are to be considered highly subjective.

Now please do by no means misunderstand this inquiry as a racist one! In particular, I neither intend to advocate nor approve of any politically extremist, supremacist, elitist, or segregationist ideologies whatsoever – like Nordicism, for instance – in any way. This inquiry is meant as a self-critical (!) reflection, and invitation for comments exclusively on the subject of modern facial, physical aesthetics. Besides, I myself do resemble the phenotype in question not in the slightest, in other words neither the one of the given examplary picture nor the [Hallstatt (?)] "Nordid" type in general.

Hence, my question remains: Am I possibly mistaken by my findings, that is to say simply "blinded" by the shine of blue eyes and blond hair, omitting the fact that the common [Western] canon of beauty is otherwise met indeed on a comparable level (degree) and in a similar rate in dark-eyed and -haired Caucasian populations as well? And, in addition, if my conclusion does actually not prove wrong (which I would find hard to believe, though), could this be the actual explanation for the fact that there are still obviously far more light-eyed and blond celebrities fancied as the ultimate, paramount desirable [Western] icons of attractiveness ("sex symbols"), especially including [super]models and actors?--Hildeoc (talk) 19:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Physical attractiveness. Alansplodge (talk) 20:27, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This whole topic area is so rife with the possibility of degenerating into exactly what you claimed it wasn't, that I wonder what you intend by even raising this question here. On the one hand, Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED, but on the other, with a background topic area of comparative physical standards of beauty among different races, your actual question is, "Am I... 'blinded' by the shine of blue eyes and blond hair?" I would point out that your question appears to be outside the scope of this page, which calls for:

Specific questions, that are likely to produce reliable sources, and states that:
We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.

Assuming good faith once, I'll respond to your question:

Yes, you are blinded by it. Please follow the recommendations at the top of this page next time, before posing your question. Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot: Thank you, first of all, for your response to my issue. Perhaps it will help you to learn about my personal background, which is also somewhat the "background" of this thread: I am a male 27-year-old social sciences student from Germany, and I have a not-German family background on both of my parents' sides: My father is a born New Yorker of Ukranian Jewish descent (now living in Paris), while my mother was born in Poland (having an ethnic German background though). As you can perchance imagine, I have experienced several incidents of Anti-Semitism chiefly at fairly conservative Catholic schools, but also at university due to my typical Jewish appearance (large hooknose, dark eyes and hair) and name (that is both surname and first name). Thus, maybe my perception of Nordic superiority in terms of aesthetics is after all – amongst other things – to some degree also the outcome of a certain inferiority complex of mine, which may has – at least partly – been incured by the "traumatic" experiences referred to above, and a continuous intellectual dealing of mine with the relevant historical backgrounds as well as current social phenomena associated to that topic – perhaps inferring that the [stereo]typical Jewish-Armenoid phenotype – particularly in males – can in some ways be regarded somewhat as an ugly "opposite" or "mockery" of what Nordic beauty, meaning physical shapeliness, elegance and hence attractiveness represent, and that is, in fact, not only in women but also in men (as featured in an examplary manner within the linked images). (To take things to extremes, this could probably serve as a kind of "caricatural escalation" of a representation of Judaeo-Semitic-Armenoid phenotypical homeliness …)--Hildeoc (talk) 10:36, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no such thing as "universal" beauty. You are attracted to whatever you are attracted to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:34, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Baseball Bugs: I'm sorry, but apparently there does seem to be something alike. Beauty is thus obviously not [only] in the eye of the beholder.--Hildeoc (talk) 20:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Are you going to let self-styled experts dictate to you what beauty is? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Anyhow, by way of a reference, The “preference” paradox: Disclosing racial preferences in attraction is considered racist even by people who overtly claim it is not, from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Alansplodge (talk) 21:37, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you're attracted (or not) to a particular race, no amount of pseudo-intellectual shaming is going to change that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:41, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer if Scandinavian women face-shape attractiveness distribution was more like other whites, especially Jews. If only they could equal Jewish women for "best face distribution on Earth" then they could also tie them for "most beautiful women on Earth". When I'm blinded by blue-eyed blondes they're usually less Nordic like Germans or Slavs. You know that mid-20th century Nazi Sonja Henie from Norway? She's ridiculously hot though. Anywhere from Bangladesh and Russia to Iceland and Arctic Finnoscandinavia to the Muslim belt is a zone of high attractive female percentage in my book. What do you think of that? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:18, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sagittarian Milky Way: Thank you very much for your openness towards the issue of my inquiry – which is certainly a highly delicate one! – and sharing your opinion – including your personal preferences and inclinations. For the Jewish women please see my reply to Mathglot above explaining my personal background and motivation for this inquiry. Apart from that, I find your "ideal" of female beauty expressed in this context very interesting. As far as Sonja Henie is concerned, I would say that she would actually not be my personal cup of tea, since I find her facial features and stature too round and doll-like, as a matter of fact. Also, I am not quite sure if she would fully meet universal beauty standards as definable by what has been termed the "science of beauty" (cf. hereto e. g. Nancy Etcoff's pertinent work Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty).

This "specimen" may also give a quite appropriate rendition of what I was referring to above – I haven't come across any representation of the Mediterranean type, for instance, – which seems to have quite a lot in common with the Nordic type in terms of skull and face shape – with a facial structure as well-balanced and defined as elegantly clear-cut and chisseled (note in detail the archetypal statue-like eye shape reminding of statues from Greco-Roman antiquity, the fine, straight, long nose, the remarkably even, i. e. hardly sloping / receding forehead (for a male!), the clear, well-shaped jaw-line, the "perfect" mouth and lips, the discreet ears). Everything in this face appears extremely well-proportioned, -defined and graceful – which is to say, conveying all together an impression probably describable most accurately as being very noble with respect to aesthetics. (I really wish I had a face like that … 😞) This kind of grace is what I have actually kept looking for in other Caucasian types. (In contrast, to my mind, some black African and Asian types, for instance, do show this kind of lean, "plain", smooth, elegant long facial shape in combination with the fine features considered as classic yardsticks of distinct beauty mentioned and depicted above as well – confer e. g. this guy or this one, the latter one displaying blue eyes though, i. e. a Nordic trait once again …)--Hildeoc (talk) 07:47, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well she looks remarkably mundane in some photographs and ridiculously hot in others. Henie is too short for me too but only a few inches, not enough to cause a "short body shape" much. So what kind of "Nordic" female is most goddessy to you? What do you think of Rose DeWitt Bukater being drawn? Now that's a beautiful woman. Too round-faced for you probably. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sagittarian Milky Way: Well, if you're asking me personally, I certainly prefer long, lean faces – like Liv Tyler's, Bar Refaeli's or Judith Rakers' … However, as I've noticed, you find very beautiful women in probably all parts of the world but as far as I can see from real life (though this may be biased, of course, by the fact that I live in a country with a relatively high ratio of people having Nordic traits) and the media, you won't find as handsome (that is apart from light eye and hair color!) men (at least not in such a high rate) as those with Nordic features, at least with light eyes, within the Caucasian population. Regarding the latter aspect, I recently created this thread here.--Hildeoc (talk) 11:05, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Their lips are ugly. Spaniard men are sexy in USA, it doesn't have to be always blond and blue. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:17, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sagittarian Milky Way: Who's lips exactly?--Hildeoc (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All three but Bar Refaeli's lips are least ugly. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Referring to male beauty (see my statement above) of dark-eyed and -haired Caucasian phenotypes, I wonder why you don't see more faces around like this one or that one, for instance …

You do see them cause they sexy (no homo). Inglesias, Zorro, Italian and French lovers, Adrian Brody... Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:06, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sagittarian Milky Way: Adrien Brody – come on, are you serious?! Well, his face is certainly sympathetic, but beautiful, in the classic[al] sense? I mean already his – yep, sorry, but it's simply the painful goddamn truth – Jewish nose is an aesthetic disaster (except you have a certain "exotic nose" fetish (diverging from the – still ruling – classic [Western] beauty standards), which does occur in some women, though probably pretty rarely) – not only because it is grotesquely large, crooked and fleshy at the bottom (like mine), but also distinctly tilting to one side, as can be seen from here. (Sorry, Adrien, but to me, my schnozz (which is not as tilting and also not that "spookily" composed otherwise, and yet still not much better) is already more than reasons enough to dread even attempting to be fooled into believing I may have a chance with any extant real beauty compos mentis – but please believe me when I say I'm totally fine with that for various reasons, so definitely not an incel! @Ian.thomson)
As for the "Mediterranean"-type beaus, they don't really seem to dominate the model and showbiz markets as beacons of aesthetic perfection, do they? (This was of course different 2000 and more years ago, where it were just the fearsome blond and blue-eyed barbarians who were considered unkempt and ugly …) And from my insights (mainly from web research), their features appear to tend to be, in sweeping terms, more coarse (= masculine?), not quite as balanced, elegant, filigree as with the Nordic hunks, who, however, at the same time do not give an impression effeminate or similar. (So, once again: I am certainly not speaking of women here!) Now that cleft is exactly what I'm worrying about and was trying to point at.--Hildeoc (talk) 01:50, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
PS: @Alansplodge, Mathglot, Baseball Bugs, Sagittarian Milky Way, and Ian.thomson: I think the whole thing is really weird: When you google images for terms like "ugly", "ugly person", "incel", "truecel" etc., probably about 99 % of the hits you will get actually show people with dark eyes (and mostly hair, too) although they say that about 10 % of the world population are blue-eyed. Isn't that – from an objective stance – a bit strange, after all?--Hildeoc (talk) 06:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hildeoc: Go watch the video I linked to. Watch all of it. You are putting yourself in an abusive self-relationship with this "research." You're just brainwashing to induce an image dysphoric depression, no matter how much you use the words "research" or "objective." Ian.thomson (talk) 07:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ian.thomson: Thank you for responding. But what exactly do you mean by "brainwashing to induce an image dysphoric depression"? Whom am I brainwashing? Why should I do that? Why "image"? What good would such an "image" do me? And who am I "inducing" it to? I'm sorry but I really can't follow anymore right now. Please assume good faith! The issue of this thread was indeed not supposed to be revolving around myself and my personal situation but about the accountable "facts" on the actual distribution of [outstanding] especially male attractiveness among Caucasian people.

I still find it strange that – now looking at it as it were from the other side of the "aesthetic spectrum" – one also seems to find hardly any people with Nordic traits as abominably unsightly as those of non-Nordic phenotype on the web, and that is to say not only qualitatively (degree) but as well quantitatively (rate) speaking, since in a ratio that apparently differs – at least with regard e. g. to the frequency of blue eyes – from the expectable corresponding proportion within the world's general population (≈9:1) in a significant manner (Sample?).

To sum up: In my view, at least by what Google reveals, the quality and rate of strikingly beautiful [male] physiognomy (by Western, if not universal standards as definable, in fact, by the "Science of Beauty" I'd say we could definitely use an article on this interesting subject here …) with "Nordic faces", and the quality and rate of strikingly unattractive [male] physiognomy with non-Nordic ones appear to be both clearly out of the pertinent demographic relations. But please do feel free to prove the opposite if you still deem my overall impression inaccurate.--Hildeoc (talk) 10:23, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This whole thread is nothing but you looking for reinforcement for the notion that there's some objective and singular standard for human attractiveness, that you admit you're not part of. Your picture searches are anecdotal evidence that completely fails to take into account how Google's software works and ignores academic studies of global populations (which finds that averaged faces are generally preferred, not specific types). You are using themes and ideas that were developed within the Incel as a contagious form of unhealthy thinking. If you are really serious about research, then watch the video I've linked twice now, it really does cut to the root of the ideas you're discussing. Ian.thomson (talk) 10:33, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does any of this research mark those phenotypes as actually originating with Nordic populations, or does it just run with 19th and early 20th century assumptions that it must? Did any of this research happen to be advocated by the Incel community, or did it even come straight from there? (If that's the case, please watch this before going deeper down that rabbit hole). Throw a someone you'd consider archetypally Nordic (I'm gonna say Dolph Lundgren?) to Tanzania, and the women going after him will be the sort who say they're prefer "exotic" over "handsome" men -- this is in line with other animals. Ian.thomson (talk) 08:36, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

USA: President versus Acting president

In the USA, there are some occasions for which we have an "acting president" who takes over for the "real" president. (I think this happened when one of the Bush presidents had to undergo surgery?) Question: when a person is the "acting president", do they have the same exact powers as the "real" president? Or are there some limitations? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if it is the Vice President who becomes "acting president" ... do we then also establish an "acting vice president"? And who is that? And does it continue on, down the line ... Acting Speaker of the House ... etc.? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:28, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Read Acting president of the United States for the three recent examples. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is an acting VP in the event that the VP is temporarily an acting president. The acting president is also still the VP (and President of the Senate#United_States). In the case where a VP becomes president by succession, the now-president nominates a new VP who has to be confirmed by the Senate. The VP office is vacant until a new one is confirmed. I similarly don't think there is an acting Speaker in the situation where the incumbent can't fulfill her duties. A lot of those duties are ceremonial (tapping a gavel at the start of a session etc) so she simply delegates them to another congressmember if she has something else going on at the time. If the Speaker's post became vacant, the House would elect a new Speaker. I don't know if there are special rules for doing that in the middle of a term.

Apparently intrigue over potential succession is a factor in VP choices. I have heard that Trump chose Pence as his VP because Pence was one of the few politicians who didn't seem to want to be president. Similarly, there is organized opposition among Biden's supporters to some of Biden's possible VP choices on the theory that the VP candidate might be angling for the top job. Pro tip: if you run for president, don't pick a VP who sits around sharpening a knife all day ;-). 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 23:55, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no acting Vice President because the Vice President only has two real jobs: 1) To preside over the Senate and cast a tie breaking vote if needed. They basically never preside over the Senate anymore, and tie breaking votes are rare enough as well. See List of tie-breaking votes cast by the vice president of the United States. 2) To be alive in case the President dies or is incapacitated. That is the entire list of roles the Vice President has. The first Vice President, John Adams actually did the job of presiding over the Senate, which he did more out of boredom than anything else, and he lamented the do-nothing nature of the job, writing to Abigail Adams on one occasion that the job was "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." John Nance Garner, FDR's first Veep, said more poignantly of the job "The vice-presidency isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." Until 1967, with the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, there was no mechanism to replace a Vice President, that 18 times there has been a period when the U.S. didn't have a Vice President, either because he died himself or he replaced a dead president, and that includes 14 of the first 29 presidencies, meaning that only slightly less than half of the first 29 presidents had time in office without a Vice President. The concept of an "Acting President" in modern times is just to allow for things like when the sitting president has to go under anesthesia for surgery, and have been mostly inconsequential. It's a pro-forma thing, and doesn't necessitate having to name an acting VP (since the VP has very little meaningful role in the government anyways). --Jayron 32 11:59, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Question: when a person is the "acting president", do they have the same exact powers as the "real" president? Or are there some limitations? The sole limitations on the office of Acting President of which I am aware reside in 3 U.S.C. § 19, and deal with the termination of the office of the Acting President. Specifically, under subsection (c), the Acting President shall no longer serve as Acting President when the cause for his or her taking up the office is resolved. The office of Acting President does not exist in the Constitution, and is wholly a creature of statute. Therefore, the Congress may theoretically impose limitations or restrictions as it wishes... but it is unclear if those would be constitutional. The way I see it, in an Acting President situation, the Constitutional duties of the President reside in the Office of President rather than in the person carrying out those duties. Thus, an Acting President should be able to sign a bill into law, dismiss the heads of non-independent federal agencies, appoint federal judges, act as head of state for treaty purposes, and authorize the release of nuclear weapons, just as a duly-elected President would.

Impeachment of an Acting President would be quite interesting, however. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 20:04, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The issue with that is more practical than anything. The time frame of most presidential actions takes far longer to complete than the time that any Acting President has served in the office. None of them has yet served longer than a day, and the process of say, appointing a federal judge and seeing them through the nomination process takes far longer than that. The Constitutional Amendment in question does allow for a procedure to solve conflicts between the President and Acting President when the Acting President refuses to step down, so yes hypothetically they could serve for no more than a month before Congress can have them forcibly removed (and it can be faster), but most of what they could do can still be blocked and/or undone when he's gone. --Jayron 32 11:16, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Klan bible

[8] KKK leader drove through a crowd of protesters, hitting 3. They found KKK paraphenalia including robes and a Klan bible in his house. I know about KKK robes but I hadn't heard of a Klan bible. I just found the article Kloran: could that be what they meant? Or is there actually a Klan bible saying to kill the [whatever]? The Kloran sounds more like a jargon dictionary than religious doctrine.

It also sounds to me like the guy was seriously undercharged, with misdemeanor assaults rather than terrorism and attempted murder. Is that plausibly due to some kind of Klan sympathy from the court? The prosecutor included a hate crime charge that was dropped because the victims were white, supposedly making the case law confusing. However it would seem like even that is something for an appelate court to figure out. What a crappy case. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 22:59, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They could have meant either the Kloran (which is a "Klan Bible" in the sense of foundational doctrine) or maybe scriptures of Creativity (religion).

And yeah, it's funny how the courts treat the KKK a legitimate organization with any crimes committed by its members as anomalies, but the Black Panther Party is revolutionary for following the same open carry laws as that prevented white people getting arrested at the Bundy standoff and the Unite the Right rally. Or did they get in trouble for feeding kids, even the ones that ain't white? I wonder why the KKK and the alt-right get off while people protesting police brutality against black people get shot in the face with rubber-coated metal bullets? Ian.thomson (talk) 23:20, 10 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Members of the KKK swore to uphold American values and Christian morality" according to our article, so perhaps it was an actual Bible? See THE BIBLE & THE KLAN - THE KKK IS INCREASINGLY TURNING TO SCRIPTURE TO LEGITIMIZE ITS MESSAGE OF RACIAL HATRED Alansplodge (talk) 16:58, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is probably a regular KJV Bible that is published with an additional first page that has some Klan symbolism/artwork and blank spaces where the name of the member and the date of his joining can be recorded.

“Organizational bibles” like this are issued by many fraternal groups in the US (with their own symbolism/artwork) - and since the Klan does like to portray itself as “just another fraternal group”, it wouldn’t surprise me if they did so as well. Blueboar (talk) 17:32, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Several news sources put "Klan bible" between scare quotes, suggesting that this was not a Christian Bible. Others report that police found "Klan literature", without being more specific. --Lambiam 10:09, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many sources identify the Klan bible with the Kloran: [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. --Lambiam 10:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Funny how Klansmen and child fantasy (genre) fans both like exotic names. And spkelling in kways that make grammar Nazis want to klaw their eyes out. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:22, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 11

Question about Wikipedia

Not sure where to post this; so I will post here. Is there some way to find out which Wikipedia article (or articles) have remained "stable" the longest, without any edits? For example: the article Name of article here was edited on April 17, 2000, ... and the next edit was on September 4, 2019 ... i.e., 19 intervening years with no edits. Something like that. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:20, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Special:AncientPages. That only gives you the pages which were last edited a long time ago. It doesn't cover pages which were not edited for a long time, but have since been edited.-gadfium 05:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles might also be of interest to you.-gadfium 05:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One can do a database query to find the articles with the least recent edits, but that is almost meaningless, because there are constantly robotic mass editing sprees that make inconsequential changes to 10000's of articles (renaming a category mentioned in the article is an example). It is not trivial to distinguish those edits from meaningful edits or even edits made by humans. So it is hard to say which articles were least recently edited by a human. The wiki software even throws away some metadata that could help tell, 30 days after the edit. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 00:55, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

List of Donald Trump's altruistic deeds? (Still empty?) Clarityfiend (talk) 02:20, 12 August 2020 (UTC) [reply]

Gem family, solicitors, of Birmingham, England

This source:

Anon. (1812). The Trial, at Large, of William Booth, and His Associates, George Scot, the Three Yates's, John Barrows, and Elizabeth Childlow, for Forgery, Coining, &c. at The Stafford Summer Assizes, 1812 . Wolverhampton: Gower and Smart – via Wikisource.

has a "T .Gem" of Birmingham as a solicitor in the 1812 trial of William Booth (forger). Is that the father, or anther relative, of Harry Gem, a Birmingham solicitor born in 1819? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Harry’s father William Gem had twin sisters: Helen Maria and Mary born in 1795" The Harry Gem Project - Harry’s Aunt Helen.

However, Aston - Pearl Button Makers by John Houghton mentions "April 4, 1791, Thomas Gem, the solicitor to the committee for the protection of the button trade". So maybe an uncle or cousin? Alansplodge (talk) 13:31, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Seems likely, I have another source giving Booth's solicitor as "Thos. Gem" Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:31, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I guessed that "T" was Thomas, my next guess would have been Tobias but that seemed much less likely. If the younger Gem had had a close relative called Thomas, it would explain why he was known as Harry and not Tommy. Alansplodge (talk) 16:49, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[On further thought] Or maybe a grandfather? We need some input from a genealogist... Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:09, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mugshot

Did New York police took mugshot in 1870s? If they did where can I find them? TIA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Horus1927 (talk • contribs) 15:18, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Our relevant article is mug shot. Regarding New York, the linked article in the New York Times states,

Some experts say that the first photographs used for law enforcement were probably taken of prisoners in Belgium in 1843 and 1844, possibly so that the prisoners could be identified if they committed other crimes after being released. By 1857 the New York police had adopted the practice, opening a gallery so that the public could come in to see the daguerreotypes of what Mr. Michaelson calls “hookers, stooges, grifters and goons.”

See the article in question here, it may give you some useful leads. Eliyohub (talk) 16:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NYC Municipal Archives Collections - Browse NYPD & Criminal Prosecution but seems to be from 1915 onwards. Alansplodge (talk) 19:44, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Stark's expedition to measure seawater gold

The story of Fritz Haber's attempt to collect gold from seawater is well known. There were other little known groups as well. From Walter Stark's thesis paper I learned that his supervisor Prof. Emil Baur was active on the topic for 30 years^[1] ^[2]! During WW2 Stark was doctoral student of ETH-Zurich and went on a expedition to measure seawater gold. I am fascinated that 22 year old Stark was traveling around in ships to measure seawater gold. Such expeditions must have been costly and some company must have sponsored it. Does anyone know about this expedition? Or any other Swiss projects to collect gold from seawater? Horus1927 15:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Executive orders in practice - limited to those binding by law?

My question is about executive orders. Note that this question is not limited to the current POTUS (Trump). I'm also curious about how Presidents past made use of executive orders.

Now: Executive orders have the binding force of law in two circumstances:

When the order invokes a power directly given to the President by the constitution (e.g. the President's powers as commander-in-chief of the military, or his powers to commute or pardon Federal criminals). OR
When the order invokes a discretion granted to the President in legislation. (delegated legislation)

Okay. So my question is this: in practice, do Presidents limit the issuing of executive orders to these two categories? Or, do they ever issue executive orders which fall outside these two areas (and thus do not have the binding power of law)?

If the answer is the latter, what is the point in making an order that the person or agency to whom it is directed has no duty to obey? Is it simply a case of the President's wishes having influence, even if legally, they are not binding?

A "secondary" question, I suppose, is, have Presidents varied in the frequency of their use of these sorts of executive orders (in areas where they do not have binding power)? Eliyohub (talk) 15:40, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The rule of thumb, in both parties, is “it is far easier to ask forgiveness, than to ask permission.” Issue the order; see how much push-back arises. Trust your own cabinet-secretary-in-charge of the issue to loyally strive to Do The Boss’ Bidding. Rinse, and repeat. DOR (HK) (talk) 01:08, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's exceptionally rare, and perhaps unheard of, for a President to issue an executive order that directly and deliberately contravenes a statute or Supreme Court ruling. Occasionally, there will be executive orders that implement some policy through prosecutorial discretion (such as the DACA system) despite the outcome contravening the statute it purports to administrate. More often, an "illegal" or "unconstitutional" executive action is one that reasonable minds could debate, but some politician gives interviews and claims it's an affront to democracy or violates the President's oath to administrate the laws. Even those executive orders that are patently a reaction to a court ruling are themselves usually good faith efforts both to comply with the ruling and to achieve the executive's political goals. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 05:11, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I can't parse your opening sentence. For something to be "exceptionally rare", there must be at least one instance. But then you say it's "perhaps unheard of". So, has there been a case you can cite, or not? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 16:43, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly at least exceptionally rare, and it may not have happened before. This is what I mean. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 17:11, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The executive orders of at least the two most recent presidents have been complained about by the opposition, and court cases have resulted. It's really a question of whatever the president can "get away with". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:59, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Meh. I don't look it as them trying to get away with anything. I look at it as trying to achieve political goals with what's available through creative lawyering when a legislative answer is unavailable. The systematic use of prosecutorial discretion to implement DACA, for instance, is rather genius, even if it's unquestionably contrary to the statute it's purportedly enforcing. For most people, whether those executive actions are legitimate more often turns on whether they support their political goals than an overriding belief in legislative supremacy (of course, there are exceptions). 199.66.69.67 (talk) 16:32, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Either way, it's the same thing. Either they accomplish what they wanted to, or the courts (or even Congress!) can put the brakes on it. In the case of the two most recent guys, they acted because Congress wouldn't. And in some cases it worked, and in others it didn't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:24, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why do Southern U.S. schools start so early?

Are they still 180 days nationwide? (not sure if half days are half or one for the purposes of making up snow days to reach 180 and stuff) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:10, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

https://heavy.com/news/2017/08/why-does-the-south-start-school-earlier-sooner-than-the-north-united-states-first-day-of-school-date-time/ --Khajidha (talk) 21:58, 11 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 12

Subtitle of the Smyth Report

Our article Smyth Report states: The subtitle of the report is A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes.. However, the cover of the 1945 Princeton edition (pictured in the article) appears to have a different subtitle. What am I missing? --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 01:14, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Puzzledvegetable: It looks like the lede is referring to the original wording of the report. See Smyth_Report#Publication. RudolfRed (talk) 01:49, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Did later editions all use the new subtitle, or was that unique to the Princeton edition? --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 13:06, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Atomic Energy. A general Account of the Development Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Smyth, H D. Published by His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO), London, 1945.

300 Spartans in a battle to the death (not the really famous guys)

So I randomized myself to Battle of the 300 Champions. Fascinating. Are there any other examples of battles where the two sides agreed to put up a subset of their soldiers to fight it out? I'm ruling out jousting tournaments. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:14, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hah. I see Battle of Champions, though that's not what I'd really call a battle per se: 12 Gunns vs 24 Keiths (the sneaks). Clarityfiend (talk) 07:20, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Combat of the Thirty is a famous medieval example - Dumelow (talk) 08:24, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

David against Goliath is a classic example. Cheers ⌘ _hugarheimur 10:31, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A real champion. 41.165.67.114 (talk) 12:14, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See also Single combat. --Jayron 32 11:08, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The FIFA World Cup? Joking aside see also History of sport. 41.165.67.114 (talk) 12:10, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Spartans did not choose to put up a subset of their soldiers to fight, but rather they had a prior engagement and chose to not fight, or to prioritize that over helping the Hellenistic consortium of which they were not a part (in part because it was formed to counter their strength). They were however shamed into sending a small subset of their elderly and infirm. These ended up being "The 300" that we know of. This is a very brief summary of what Herodetus discusses in his second volume. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.53.187.190 (talk) 09:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's commonplace for football clubs to field their second team when an important fixture is coming up for which they wish their first team to be fresh. Similar considerations lead to cricket teams putting in a nightwatchman when a wicket falls near close of play. 2A00:23A8:4241:2200:B52D:3FF6:B83:EAB9 (talk) 14:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If a US state constitutional provision gets declared unconstitutional but a US state refuses to formally expunge this provision from its constitution, can it permanently remain there but simply always be unenforceable?

If a US state constitutional provision gets declared unconstitutional but a US state refuses to formally expunge this provision from its constitution, can this unconstitutional US state constitutional provision permanently remain there but simply always be unenforceable? Or can the US federal judiciary also require US states to formally expunge unconstitutional provisions from their constitutions? Futurist110 (talk) 17:43, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As with unconstitutional statutes, the unconstitutional provision does not per se need to be formally removed. But in many cases it can be necessary for state government to function, such as after Reynolds v. Sims invalidated many state constitutional structures where seats in the upper house were apportioned equally between counties rather than apportionment according to population. And there's some argument for leaving "unconstitutional" provisions in place when the state disagrees with the ruling as, after all, the federal constitution or Supreme Court case law may change, and readopting the provision may prove more difficult at that uncertain future point. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 18:08, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(EC) The vast majority of state laws being ruled unconstitutional are statutes and not constitutional provisions, but in either case the overturned laws are simply considered void and unenforceable. Since constitutions are not rewritten that frequently, I don't expect that appropriate legislative bodies will rush to rewrite them, but all courts will know that the provisions in question are no longer valid, as this is a rare enough occurrence. See this list of overturned state laws from Justia. [14] The second most recent constitutional provision to be overturned is number 771 on that list, regarding the right of women specifically to be exempted from jury duty in Missouri, back in 1979. Yet it still seems to be part of the Missouri Constitution (Section 22(b)) [15]. I looked up the most recent case (777) concerning the power of juries in Louisiana, and the provision still seems to appear in the state constitution (article 17) [16]. So it doesn't look like there is a rush to actually strike out the offending provisions, even if they have been declared unconstitutional. But, I am not a constitutional lawyer (or even a plain one). Xuxl (talk) 18:33, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of laws still on the books which are effectively null and void. There are also provisions in the US Constitution which are no longer operative, but they're still there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:27, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Futurist is asking about the specific fact pattern where a federally-invalidated state constitutional provision must be repealed or amended, which is actually a thornier question than you might think. Reynolds v. Sims, as I mentioned above, is probably the most (in)famous example of federal courts dictating the contents of state constitutions, and it was absolutely necessary (though not strictly mandated as far as I know) that the invalid apportionment provisions of the various state constitutions be amended. That said, I'm sure the various states in the wake of Reynolds did not amend their constitutions overnight, and that some transitional period was achieved such that the courts wouldn't use an injunction to prohibit the relevant state upper houses from meeting.

Put briefly, I would say that most cases where the constitutional provision concerns a fundamental structural component of state government, such as the number of houses or seats in the state legislature, manner that legislators are elected, or the basic system of apportionment of legislative districts, amendment is imperative. In virtually any other case that I can think of, severability would at least make the state remain functional while the federally-unconstitutional text remained in the state constitution, and in the case of things like enumerated rights (which many states are notorious for larding up their constitutions with) there might be virtually no impact whatsoever from the relevant provision remaining in the constitution but not being enforced, and I can see little reason why a federal court would compel a state to change it. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 21:58, 12 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When it comes to gubernatorial qualifications and/or state legislative qualifications, severability is good enough, right? So, there's no crucial need for a formal amendment eliminating any unconstitutional state gubernatorial qualifications and/or state legislative qualifications, correct? Futurist110 (talk) 00:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably. Though as with anything legal, the better answer is "it depends". If you're talking about, say, a qualification that prohibits anyone of a certain race or religion from holding the office, then I'd say it's "good enough" for constitutional purposes that the provision is simply ignored after being struck down. Other remedial actions might be necessary, such as adding someone to a ballot who had been denied ballot access because of that provision. That said, I'm sure someone more creative than me could come up with a qualification provision that wouldn't be severable from the rest of the constitutional structure. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 00:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I was also thinking of a qualification that prohibits naturalized US citizens from, say, being state governors or being state legislators. Futurist110 (talk) 01:59, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Probably the same outcome. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 02:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Anyway, if it's acceptable to nullify US state constitutional provisions in regards to this by implication (so that instead of having state constitutional text settle a question, the judiciary will settle this question using vague US federal constitutional text instead--since the relevant state constitutional text will not actually be repealed and thus we could have a long period where a state constitution states one thing but reality is quite another), why can't the same work in regards to nullifying US federal constitutional provisions? For instance, using the 5th and/or 14th Amendments to the US Constitutions to implicitly nullify the natural-born citizen requirement for the US Presidency? I mean, this requirement can be severed from the rest of the US constitutional text without too much problems, no? In contrast to, say, the Electoral College, whose elimination (using the very same 5th and/or 14th Amendments) would create a crisis since it's crucial to the functioning of the US Constitution. (Yes, there is the lex specialis canon, but there is also the lex posterior canon, and one of course has discretion in choosing between different canons.) Futurist110 (talk) 02:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(←) Well first off, constitutional provisions are typically read in order to complement one another where possible and avoid overruling/repealing by implication. This is partly why the 21st Amendment explicitly says that the 18th Amendment is repealed, rather than saying something like "the commerce in alcohol shall be permitted by law". The same does not hold true between federal and state constitutions, since federal law is supreme under the Supremacy Clause. Also, sidenote, the 14th Amendment is completely irrelevant to the federal constitution—it applies to the states, not the federal government (though generally speaking 14th Amendment equal protection is just the application of 5th Amendment equal protection jurisprudence to the states, thus 14th Amendment decisions typically also result in 5th Amendment decisions). But again, constitutional interpretation likely prevents an implicit repealing of the natural-born-citizen clause, not only because of the aforementioned issue but also because I find it doubtful that the original public meaning of the 5th Amendment in 1791 would nullify the natural-born-citizen clause. It's just a bridge too far, even inasmuch as we tend to find new rights (e.g., to abortion) within equal protection, the key to those is that their "discovery" does not require the ellipsis of unrepealed constitutional text. That said, if you're aware of a constitutional decision that found a state natural-born-citizen requirement unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, you might at least have the beginnings of a law review article there. I believe a productive related question would be to ask whether there is any discussion or thought on whether the 19th Amendment was unnecessary because 5th and 14th Amendment equal protection would require granting women the right to vote. I haven't looked into that question, but it'd probably be my first step.

All that said, I should note that I don't pretend to even remotely understand equal protection jurisprudence. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 03:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Technically speaking, though, one actually could view later parts of the constitution as being superior to early parts of the constitution, as per the lax posterior/later-in-time rule. Alternatively, one could adopt an approach in regards to US state law where, in spite of the US Constitution being superior to US state constitutions, the US Constitution should only strike down US state constitutional provisions when either the US constitutional text is clear or the history behind the US constitutional text is clear. (Eric Segall appears to adopt such an approach for both statutes and state constitutional provisions as far as I can tell.) As for the 14th Amendment, it depends on how exactly one looks at it. If one looks at it from the perspective of state action, the 14th A might be a better fit than the 5th A in regards to implicitly repealing the natural-born citizen requirement since the NBC requirement cannot be said to be the result of federal state action; how exactly could it when the current US federal government didn't actually exist back at the time when the NBC requirement was written? One could certainly view the NBC requirement as well as the US Constitution in general as being the result of state-level state action, however; after all, AFAIK, it was US state governments who called the 1787 US Constitutional Convention into being and who subsequently ratified the constitution that this convention wrote, both of which could be viewed as being state-level state action. The 14th Amendment is the one that applies to state-level state action--not the 5th Amendment. As for original public meaning, not all SCOTUS Justices actually follow it; Earl Warren certainly didn't--well, not consistently, at least! As for a law review article, if you'll look at our natural-born citizen clause article, you'll see that, in 2006, Paul A. Clark actually did write a law review article about this topic. As for the 15th, 19th, and 26th Amendments, Yes, one could view them as being redundant and unnecessary from a living constitutionalist perspective. The 15th A could have been accomplished by judicial fiat from a living constitutionalist perspective whereas the 19th A and the 26th A could have both been accomplished by statute from a living constitutionalist perspective (the 14th Amendment does not penalize US states for denying the suffrage to women or to people under age 21, but nevertheless a living constitutionalist could argue that the 14th Amendment gives the US Congress the authority to extend the franchise by statute, as 4.5 SCOTUS Justices actually did in the 1970 Oregon v. Mitchell SCOTUS case). Futurist110 (talk) 05:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Regrettably, I don't understand what you're getting at now. All I can say is that there's absolutely no indication that the original public meaning of the 5th Amendment contemplates repealing or eliminating the federal Constitution's natural-born-citizen clause, just as there's absolutely no indication that the same contemplates repealing or eliminating the federal Constitution's scheme for apportioning federal Senate seats. And the 14th Amendment is irrelevant to that analysis because it applies only to the states, not the federal government or federal Constitution. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 07:33, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and to look at the same situation I describe above related to apportionment issues and Equal Protection, note that the rationale under Reynolds v. Sims, which prohibits an apportionment scheme where each county in a state gets an equal number of seats in the state upper house, is well understood to have no application to the federal Constitution, which has an analogous apportionment scheme for the Senate (where each of the several States receives an equal number of seats). I see no reason why the natural-born-citizen clause should be any different. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 04:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that because the states have some sovereignty and collectively created the federal government while counties have no existence separate from the states and can be split or merged by the state without regard to the wishes of those in the counties? --Khajidha (talk) 13:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One thing to remember as well, with all of this, is that the U.S. has significant common law and case law tradition (inheriting such from British tradition), and does not have a strong Civil law system. What this means in practice is that a much greater emphasis is placed on the interpretation of legal text in courts of law in setting legal precedent (i.e. stare decicis) rather than on the text itself. What this means for many issues in U.S. law is that, unless and until a court case exists which puts a law to the test, it is difficult to say what a law means. The classic example is the "natural-born citizen clause" for the President, which has never been further elaborated on, and which has never stood test in a court of law. Without a court deciding whether or not the commonly understood meaning of "natural-born" (which is to say citizen since birth), it is still an open question as to what the words "natural-born" actually mean. --Jayron 32 12:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My own state's constitution has several bits that have been rendered inoperative: Constitution of North Carolina#Infeasible provisions--Khajidha (talk) 13:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For those who may wish to look it up, the doctrine is stare decisis. 2A00:23A8:4241:2200:B52D:3FF6:B83:EAB9 (talk) 14:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 13

Friendly fire between Americans or Hessians during the American Revolution

Are there any recorded instances of American to American or Hessian to Hessian friendly fire during the American Revolution due to the fact that they both wore blue? Their uniforms weren't identical, but in the heat of battle, at a distance, shrouded in smoke from black powder muskets, I can see this happening relatively often. I'm not sure, however, because the American blue uniform was far from standardized, and if I understand correctly, was only worn by officers, for the most part. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 01:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:Puzzledvegetable, I assume you mean friendly fire between the British and the Hessians? The Germans were fighting against the Americans. Rojomoke (talk) 04:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I actually assumed he meant of Americans shooting at Americans thinking they were shooting at Hessians, and Hessians shooting at Hessians thinking they were shooting at Americans. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 05:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

List of friendly fire incidents#American Revolutionary War has two events for that conflict. At the Battle of Germantown, two Continental brigades opened fire on each other, the main problem seems to have been fog and the confused nature of the battle rather than poor uniform recognition; although there were Hessians present, I can't find anything to suggest that it was the cause of the mistake. At the Battle of Guilford Court House, British artillery fired into a melee which was obscured by black powder smoke, hitting some of their own troops as well as the enemy.

Note that uniform colour was not an invariable guide in early modern warfare, the Gardes Suisses of the French Royal Army wore red coats in the Seven Years' War against the British, and in the Napoleonic Wars, both the French and Prussians wore blue; although admittedly this did cause Napoleon to briefly believe that the Prussians arriving on the field of Waterloo were his expected French reinforcements. Alansplodge (talk) 13:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, in that conflict there were plenty of Americans who were fighting Americans on purpose. Who was the more patriotic is still a matter of viewpoint. Alansplodge (talk) 13:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is that list intended to be a comprehensive list of all friendly fire incidents in the American Revolution, or were there more? I find it hard to believe that it only happened twice, but maybe I'm stuck with a 21st century notion of how wars are fought. I guess when you're fighting in lines position is more an identifier than uniform color. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 14:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. A quick Google suggested that these were the best known, but a bit more digging has found that James Abercrombie (British Army officer, born 1732) was probably shot by friendly fire at the Battle of Bunker Hill, shot from behind at close range, although Americans tend to believe he was picked off by one Salem Poor. The British light company involved had already been stopped from firing on their own grenadiers. [17]. This article mentions British on British friendly fire at the Battle of Stony Point which was fought at night.

This article records a "friendly fire incident involving two American scouting parties. A detachment of scouts from Lt. Col. Daniel Brodhead’s Pennsylvania rifle battalions which returned to White Plains early this morning reported capturing thirty-four Loyalists and one regular soldier and killing fourteen of the enemy near the British lines. Unfortunately, the riflemen also mistook some of “the Delaware Blues for the enemy,” and six riflemen and nine of Col. John Haslet’s Delaware “Blues” were killed in the ensuing firefight between the two friendly parties". This was also in the dark, so I doubt that uniform colour would be discernable. Alansplodge (talk) 14:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's all I could find. Alansplodge (talk) 14:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Quote source

I'm looking for both the full version, and source, of the following quote-snippet:

"space ... the silent and implacable co-editor".

I read it in a 1997 newspaper review of The Oxford Book of New Zealand Short Stories, edited by Vincent O'Sullivan.

The reviewer may have been quoting the editor's own words from a preface or introduction. I say this because the reviewer writes: "The editor ... has hundreds of writers and thousands of stories to choose from, with only "space .... co-editor" as his enemy."

Or it may have come from an unrelated source. My searches have produced no results. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:04, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What O'Sullivan says in the book is this:

Space is always the silent and implacable co - editor of any collection . I regret having to leave out many stories I admire and like . Those I have included make their own case . Vincent O ' Sullivan August , 1992

Margaret Christensen, on p. 304 of The Book Review Digest (H W Wilson Company, 1996), remarks on the comment, but there is no suggestion that it is not the author's own words. 2A00:23A8:4241:2200:B52D:3FF6:B83:EAB9 (talk) 14:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Vice President of Kamala Harris

Hi,

Who will be the vice president if Biden is elected and resigns? 2001:EE0:4161:9A7:7DA6:9F8A:93B3:1E2F (talk) 03:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not known. Harris would have to nominate someone. See Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution#Section 2: Vice presidential vacancy. 199.66.69.67 (talk) 03:56, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The nominee would have to be approved by a majority vote of both houses of Congress. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:12, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A relatively recent example is the nomination and subsequent approval by Congress of Nelson Rockefeller, when Gerald Ford's accession to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation in 1974 had left the office of vice president vacant; see Presidency of Gerald Ford#Vice presidency. --Lambiam 08:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

He's one of only two examples because the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed only a few years before it needed to be invoked. Before 1967, if there was a vacancy in the VP position, it just stayed open until the next election. I cover this above section titled "USA: President versus Acting president", where I explain that the VP was usually (and still basically is) a job without a meaningful roles, so it was not usually seen as terribly vital to fill it. At one point in history, almost half of all Presidents had served significant time without a VP. Since 1967, there's a procedure to fill the job. --Jayron 32 12:25, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ford is unique in US history... he was the only President who achieved the position purely by appointment instead of election. Blueboar (talk) 12:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, he got appointed VP because of the resignation of Nixon's first VP, Spiro Agnew, over a corruption scandal. Thus the clause in the 25th amendment was invoked twice in less than a year. --Jayron 32 12:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is Boris putting children at risk?

Previous discussion: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 August 1#Is Boris putting children at risk?

On 23 June 2009 the head teacher of Newington Green primary school wrote to parents and carers. In the top right hand corner of the letter is what appears at first sight to be a picture of the coronavirus, but a closer look reveals it to be children holding hands in a ring around a black disc. She begins:

"This letter is to update you on the 'Swine Flu' situation.

"The Health Protection Agency has provided advice to the school. As there have been a significant number of people with flu-like illness in London recently it is likely that transmission of the virus has already occurred in the community. Therefore there would be no added public health benefit from closing the school.

"Please be assured that most children will have a mild illness similar to normal seasonal flu, and will recover. If you are concerned about your child, please contact your GP for advise [sic].

"It is very important that your child stays at home if they have flu-like symptoms. Your child should not attend school and not mix with others outside the home if they have symptoms. Those who do not have symptoms of flu can undertake their normal activities outside home as normal. If your child has already had symptoms of flu but is now well, there is no need to take any action for you or your family."

The scientific advice then, as now, is that if infection has not spread throughout the community it is vital that schools remain closed. Bearing in mind that this time, if infection does spread through the community it's game over, why does Boris insist on opening them? 2A00:23A8:4241:2200:B52D:3FF6:B83:EAB9 (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[1] ttps://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/handle/20.500.11850/134234

[2] ttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hlca.19420250614/abstract

[1]

[2]

@@ Line 387: / Line 387: @@
 :::::Ford is unique in US history... he was the only President who achieved the position purely by appointment instead of election. [[User:Blueboar|Blueboar]] ([[User talk:Blueboar|talk]]) 12:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 ::::::Indeed, he got appointed VP because of the resignation of Nixon's first VP, [[Spiro Agnew]], over a corruption scandal.  Thus the clause in the 25th amendment was invoked twice in less than a year.  --[[User:Jayron32|<span style="color:#009">Jayron</span>]][[User talk:Jayron32|<b style="color:#090">''32''</b>]] 12:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
+== Is Boris putting children at risk? ==
+Previous discussion: [[Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 August 1#Is Boris putting children at risk?]]
+On 23 June 2009 the head teacher of Newington Green primary school wrote to parents and carers.   In the top right hand corner of the letter is what appears at first sight to be a picture of the coronavirus, but a closer look reveals it to be children holding hands in a ring around a black disc.   She begins:
+"This letter is to update you on the 'Swine Flu' situation.
+"The Health Protection Agency has provided advice to the school.   As there have been a significant number of people with flu-like illness in London recently it is likely that transmission of the virus has already occurred in the community.   Therefore there would be no added public health benefit from closing the school.
+"Please be assured that most children will have a mild illness similar to normal seasonal flu, and will recover.   If you are concerned about  your child, please contact your GP for advise [sic].
+"It is very important that your child stays at home if they have flu-like symptoms.   Your child should not attend school and not mix with others outside the home if they have symptoms.   Those who do not have symptoms of flu can undertake their normal activities outside home as normal.   If your child has already had symptoms of flu but is now well, there is no need to take any action for you or your family."
+The scientific advice then, as now, is that if infection has not spread throughout the community it is vital that schools remain closed.   Bearing in mind that this time, if infection does spread through the community it's game over, why does Boris insist on opening them? [[Special:Contributions/2A00:23A8:4241:2200:B52D:3FF6:B83:EAB9|2A00:23A8:4241:2200:B52D:3FF6:B83:EAB9]] ([[User talk:2A00:23A8:4241:2200:B52D:3FF6:B83:EAB9|talk]]) 15:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)