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March 6

Chavez death international reaction

So far, Argentina, Cuba and Ecuador have proclaimed 3 days of national mourning, and even the president of Bolivia Evo Morales broke down in tears.Sometime in modern history, the death of some president provoke such a international reaction, including national mourning in several different countries?. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CubanEkoMember (talk • contribs) 03:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

JFK ? Not mourned quite so much in Cuba, though. StuRat (talk) 03:03, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Yitzhak Rabin might work as well. As for non-assassinated leaders, maybe Ronald Reagan (just a guess). Futurist110 (talk) 04:23, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

After the death of Kim Jong-il, Cuba declared official mourning. --PlanetEditor (talk) 04:38, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

When Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared while swimming in the surf in 1967, we started inventing rumours. They haven't stopped yet. HiLo48 (talk) 04:54, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Don't forget the swimming pool named after him! [1] Nick-D (talk) 10:40, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

It would speak very poorly of a sitting head of state if his death goes unnoticed in the international arena. The death may or may not generate political changes, but international people sending their condolences, that's for sure. Cambalachero (talk) 12:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

For us, here in Cuba and Latin America(including head of state), Hugo Chavez was and always will be more than just a president, is a symbol of broterhood between our countries and people, and specially the cuban people has Chavez like his own son, and our pain is much more than just a formal condolence message, you know that, Cristina Fernandez was a close friend of Chavez. CubanEkoMember (talk) 12:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem with places like Cuba, Venezuela, and any number of other countries, is that cults of personality inevitably come to an end, and then there's the risk of a period of chaos. In countries with a "system" in place, there's less risk of that chaos occurring. The presidency is merely a "job", held for a limited amount of time, while the "system" keeps going. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:39, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

How can we know you are telling the truth? According to Internet in Cuba you have reasons to be weary about what you say. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I would say that it's actually that the Castros are weary, and the citizens are wary. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:52, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

While I can sympathize with his socialist and anti-colonial leanings, his anti-democratic/authoritarian leanings, as demonstrated by his participating in a (failed) military coup, ending the independence of the courts, and shutting down opposition media outlets, I can't abide. Had he stayed in power, he might have managed to establish a dictatorship. Hopefully, with him gone, democracy can be restored. I hope the same for Cuba, after the Castro brothers die. StuRat (talk) 21:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd be curious to know if there's ever been a Communist-oriented government that wasn't a dictatorship. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, Chávez hasn't made it onto our list in the Dictator article, possibly because he has submitted himself to four presidential elections and two referenda. He came close to losing the last election, so there must be a some element of fairness about them. In answer to your question, the administration of Salvador Allende comes to mind, and who knows where the Prague Spring might have led? Alansplodge (talk) 22:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Communist is a bit strong for Chavez. After all, it's not like he prohibited the private ownership of property. I'd call him socialist, and there are some fairly socialist strong democracies, such as the Nordic nations.

But now I have to fulfill Godwin's Law by pointing out the comparison with Hitler. Both led an unsuccessful coup, both were later elected, both then set about dismantling democracy, both had unsavory dictators as friends, and both hated Jews. StuRat (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I've just looked at the Wikipedia article that you linked to, and note that "...once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress", with which sentiment I wholeheartedly concur. I bid you all goodnight. Alansplodge (talk) 23:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Fact, fact, highly sketchy, yeah I'd agree, super mega highly sketchy.

Are there any savory dictators?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Certainly, if properly cooked and seasoned. StuRat (talk) 23:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Dictators are often at their most savory after they've been shot. Like Mussolini and his pals, who were no longer empowered, but hung around with their appreciative subjects for a while. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the system itself is a dictatorship, the dictatorship of the capital, where the people like you say just play a minor role,just a merely job imposed by capital logic.I'm not wary or anything of that, maybe here in Cuba we have some censorship, excessive control on some internet conections and other issues that need solutions and open debate, and we're working on it Cuba has changed a lot in last years, but i'm free to say whatever i want as you can see, i'm not afraid that's stupid...the death of Castros will not stop the way Cuba is: a socialist and martian country.Now note that 11 countries have proclaimed national mourning, is a record i'm sure, it seems like the dictator is popular.CubanEkoMember (talk) 01:07, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

History demonstrates that Communism, or extreme socialism, is an unsustainable system, and eventually it works its way back towards capitalism. Once the Castros are gone, the inch-by-inch changes in liberating Cuba might accelerate. I say "might" because no one knows how their next leader will operate. The Castros dug a deep hole for their country when they allowed the USSR to build missile bases there (not that they had any real choice in the matter), and they've paid the price ever since. Once the Castros are gone, hopefully the punishing sanctions will be eased, and then Cuba will have a chance to prosper again. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Communism ended about 75 years after it started in Russia, and about 40 years after it started in China (although they retain the dictatorship, and Russian democracy is somewhat suspect, too). So, based on those examples, I'd expect communism to be on it's last legs in Cuba by now. I believe there's actually quite a bit of capitalism right now, where waiters who cater to foreign tourists make far more money than doctors working for the government, under the old communist system. Such bizarre inequities can't last long, or all doctors will quit to become waiters. Ironically, if the US drops it's sanctions, the rush of US tourists might just push over the house of cards. StuRat (talk) 03:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Other countries supposedly mourning the loss of Chavez reminds me of the old saw that when a mob boss dies, all the rival mob bosses send big bouquets to the funeral. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:04, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Cuba is My Favorite Martian country. Edison (talk) 03:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Communism doesn't worked because never existed,a communist society was never reached through the history. Cuba is a socialist state, but his economy and society is not even a true socialist one, is more, what we call a transition to socialism, that combines planned-economy with market tools.Communism is a very long-term objetive and is based in the finite character of capitalism.CubanEkoMember (talk) 23:15, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Classless society did exist, classless society does exist. A socialist country can never establish a classless society because the cause of social oppression is civilization, not capitalism. --PlanetEditor (talk) 01:54, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not talking about Primitive Communism, despite communism is based on Primitive Community and share some features is not the same.Communism only could exist in a society after Capitalism, after capitalist relations of production were used or existed and productive forces are developed enough,indeed, the main contradiction of capitalism is that developing of productive forces surpass the obsolescence of capitalist relations of production and this lead to a rupture.So,Hadza people are not a communist society, is a form of Primitive Communism society, hunters-gathers.Yeah, that's right,Capitalism is not the cause of social opression, this came from old civilizations, and capitalism continues this with social opression evolving to a new status, Communism is an utopia that born in this context, and express the necessity to introduce a much more fair system, might be or not Communism.CubanEkoMember (talk) 04:08, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Problems

Disregard

[2] , [3] , [4] . First of all, this is English Wikipedia. Please write your comments in English. I don't speak Russian. I would like to ask you to read the WP:NFCC|non-free content criteria and in particular WP:NFCC#1|criterion 1. Files like :File:Doc balt flot1.jpg are not permitted because someone else can draw a freely licensed map of the same area. There are already freely licensed maps of all parts of the world. For example,Openstreetmap can be used for this purpose. Photos like :File:SMX-25 - Diving frigate.JPG are not permitted because it seems that vehicles of the same model still exist. It is possible to take other photos of the same vehicle model and publish those photos under a free licence. For example, see WP:NFC#UUI §1 which says that you can't upload unfree photos of buildings which still exist. Stefan2 16:05, 5 March 2013 (UTC) File:Подземоход Требелева.jpg ? Podzemohod Trebeleva was tested in the Urals, Mount Grace, in 1946. Trebelev intended to use his podzemohod in various fields: digging tunnels for urban communication, exploration, mining, etc. However, the design proved to be unreliable, and the project was abandoned. - Now it does not exist. File:SMX-25 - Diving frigate.JPG - it does not exist at all. It is only on paper. SMX-25 a gunship project of the 21st century, a hybrid of surface ship and submarine. it seems that vehicles of the same model still exist. - there is no such ships. How can redraw what does not exist outside the project on paper? File:Doc balt flot1.jpg - It is not a geographical map, it is map of the military facilities. This is the result of several experts to repeat that an outsider can not. Vyacheslav84 (talk) 04:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

It's very hard to read all that and get a question out of it. Please state your question in one short sentence. StuRat (talk) 05:43, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I think what happened is that OP posted File:SMX-25 - Diving frigate.JPG with a non-free fair-use tag, and then User:Stefan2 disputed the fair-use claim by invoking Wikipedia:CSD#F7. They're currently resolving this on Stefan2's talk page. In any case this matter does not belong on the RD at all. Dncsky (talk) 05:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

How to pronounce "bethsaida"

trying to memorize part in play, have not been able to satisfactory pronounce, bethsaida — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.164.76 (talk) 06:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I added a header for you.Dncsky (talk) 07:22, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Using the IPA pronunciation given at Bethsaida, the best simple transliteration I could give you is "beth-say-ee-duh" the last vowel sound isn't actually the u sound, but rather a Schwa you can see a few examples at Schwa#Description. Ryan Vesey 07:27, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps: beth-sah-he-dah? Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

What nationality are you playing in the play? That might affect things. Also, is it important to the audience's understanding that all the actors say it similarly, so they don't get confused? In which case, you should get consensus from the relevant other actors. --Dweller (talk) 11:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Right, I was in a childrens theatre back in the day where the directors acted as well. They always used accents and whatnot without having any of the other actors use an accent so it was incongruous with the rest of the play. Ryan Vesey 15:59, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

maybe a weird question

idea derrived from a legal copy of a copyrighted work is not covered by copyright. how about idea derrived from a pirated copy? please answer without using other's statement typed in exact manner.121.97.111.151 (talk) 13:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Ideas are not copyrighted, period. The source of the idea is irrelevant. One can suffer a fine for possessing, creating or distributing illegal copies, but not for deriving ideas from them. - Lindert (talk) 13:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

As long as they don't rip off too much of the source and try to claim it as their own. "Ah, my Lord / Doo lang doo lang doo lang / My sweet Lord / Doo lang doo lang..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:57, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd caution against saying that you can't get in trouble for deriving ideas from a copyrighted work. If you're sufficiently inspired and create another work, it could very well be considered an unauthorized derivative work. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes the line between an uncopyrightable idea and the copyrightable expression of that idea isn't always entirely clear cut. The OP must know this since it's been explained to them at least once in the 5 or so times they've asked highly similar questions about this area (or ranted about the unfairness). The OP's specific question here appears to be whether there's something unique about ideas derived from sources viewed without permission of the copyright holder when it comes to their protection by copyright. The answer here is no, it's the same as we've explained to them every single other time they asked or ranted, ideas themselves can't be copyrighted. Nil Einne (talk) 16:24, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

supreme court opinions

do supreme court justices write their own opinions with their own two hands or can clerks write it for them per their instructions, as is common with other similar opinions?

has a supreme court ever produced 9 written opinions for a decision? (regardless of its vote). 91.120.48.242 (talk) 13:20, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Which one of these many Supreme Courts were you thinking of? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Too lame for words
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
we've had this discussion before, you are quite aware that America is the default standard and only when other countries are involved do they need to be specified. μηδείς (talk) 18:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC) Your imperialism stops at your national borders, and a good thing too. AlexTiefling (talk) 19:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC) As compared with Britain, whose didn't, but effectively does now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

How justices write their opinions depends on the justice. Clerks are generally very involved in the process of opinion writing, but the extent, especially on the SC, is highly dependent on the individual. Here is an article on some of the recent justices. Shadowjams (talk) 23:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, the question is about the united states. Could you express whether there are any referenced cases where instead of a single unanimous opinion everyone signs on, or a single opinion and dissenting opinion a divided court signs on, there are as many opinions as possible because the justices don't fully agree with the appointed majority opinion writer and/or minority opinion writer (regardless of their votes)? Basically, I know there are cases where there are three opinions: a majority opinion for example and two differing opposing opinions. Are there cases where there are more total written opinions for 1 decision? (i.e. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9)? Thanks. 91.120.48.242 (talk) 07:49, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The line would be are there any non per curiam 9-0 opinions since 1938 or thereabouts... the answer is yes... i know of a few but I can't name them off the top of my head. Hopefully someone else will answer you here, although I suspect if you google for the phrase I just used you'd find them. Protip: most come out of the 9th circuit. Shadowjams (talk) 12:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Apparently the majority of SCOTUS opinions are 9-0. http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/SB_votesplit_053112.pdf Shadowjams (talk) 12:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Guys, correct me if I'm wrong but can't there be two written opinions even in a 9-0 vote? A majority opinion and a justice differing on at least some points of it? Therefore my question can have a response from any of those columns! The question is what is the most number of textual written opinions (regardless of the vote) that justices have produced? The minimum is two: any decision that is not unanimous must have at least one supporting and one opposing decision. But it also could have two minority/opposing/dissenting opinions (raising the number of written opinions for that case to 3), or for any other reason and regardless of the vote there could be 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 opinions. The only posssibility that does not exist is any more than 9 opinions, since one justice cannot write two opinions for the same case. So out of the possible 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, or 9 differing opinions I know that the number "3" exists: does 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 exist? (Meaning this many justices chose to write an opinion.) 91.120.48.242 (talk) 14:39, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

"Majority" opinions are those in which the judges (SCOTUS or otherwise) all agree that it's the majority opinion. "Plurality" opinions are those where judges agree in decision, but write separate opinions, usually because they disagree on some central point. Shadowjams (talk) 19:39, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

% of UK people who know who the Prime Minister is

Hello, I am trying to find information about what percentage of the UK population know the name of the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Chancellor of the Exchequer, etc. Someone told me only 50% of the population know who the PM is, but I can't find any evidence or surveys for this quite remarkable statistic. Can anybody help? 86.26.225.187 (talk) 15:34, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

A companion question could be, what percentage think that it matters, i.e. that it has any direct effect on them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:35, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd be interested in the same percentages with the US. Without checking, I'm thinking it's David Cameron, but wasn't some type of a coalition formed since no party got a simple majority? What happens to the leader of the other party in the coalition, is there a vice PM position? I'd assume that the percentage of US citizens who care about who the PM is would be less than 10%. Ryan Vesey 16:05, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The leader of the other party in the coalition is Nick Clegg, who is the Deputy Prime Minister. --TammyMoet (talk) 16:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

...though that's not an automatic appointment in such (rare) circumstances, but came about as a result of the Coalition agreement. There are details of some results for the US here, showing how things have changed over time. I can't find any similar results for the UK. (There's a story (can't find links) that "who is the Prime Minister?" used to be a question used to test elderly patients for dementia, but it started to become useless when Margaret Thatcher had been PM for a while, because everyone knew who she was.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:01, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Not quite what you asked for, but one polling company did a survey in 2008 asking whether people would be able to recognise some potential leadership challengers to Gordon Brown if they saw them in the street. [5] 79% claimed they would be able to recognise then-Justice Secretary Jack Straw. Hut 8.5 17:31, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There's something similar from 2010 here. They showed pictures of politicians to people and asked them to pick a name from a list. 96% of people identified David Cameron. Hut 8.5 18:49, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but many of the main characters in the cabinet after the 1997 election were at very-nearly-approaching Margaret Thatcher recognition, in a way that I think only David Cameron (and possibly Nick Clegg) now approach. Jack Straw is one of them. A lot of this is personality and publicity based, rather than a general rule about how many people recognise deputy prime ministers in general, and so on. I'd be surprised if most people (more than 50%) could identify anyone in the current cabinet beyond Cameron and Clegg. 86.140.54.54 (talk) 19:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I found this 2003 report which says that "47% of respondents could not name the deputy prime minister (John Prescott at that time). This ignorance rose to 73% among the 16-to-24 age group." Alansplodge (talk) 17:34, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as the question about Americans recognizing the British PM: [6]. A surprising 54%. That's misleading though because the poll was in 2006 and the PM was Tony Blair, which had a lot of visibility during the Iraq War, so that would explain the high figure. Shadowjams (talk) 22:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Paternalistic bureaucracy

Resolved

A friend of mine recently got a company car, which he thought was a nice perk, until he heard the catch. The company would monitor his entire driving performance, including telling him off if he braked too hard. All of this information would be captured by computer, relayed to a central server, and analysed for driving errors or abnormalities. This kind of paternalism seems very common nowadays, from the group conversation that followed. Nearly everyone seems annoyed at it. It is clear enough that the company is covering itself against lawsuits, and it is expected that there will be some bureaucracy in such situations. But since very few people seem to like this kind of invasion, how did it get this bad? Have any politicians tried to tackle the problem, apart from a few extreme libertarians? The mainstream opinion seems to resent the intrusion, so why does the mainstream of politics not respond? I know it's hard to answer "why" questions here, but any references or knowledge about public debates would be interesting, eg. documentaries about the nature and causes of the problem, and what conclusions came from such documentaries. IBE (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm confused why you think this solely has to do with lawsuits. It seems to me there are many reasons why a company may want to monitor their employees driving and lawsuits is only one of them. Nil Einne (talk) 19:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I suggested lawsuits precisely because I myself cannot think of any other reasons for this interest. Can you tell me, briefly, just three other reasons? I can imagine in a far fetched way that they might be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but I would find the effort rather extreme, and the involvement is unwanted on the part of this employee. Hence, I would find benevolence to be a somewhat strange explanation in this case. IBE (talk) 19:59, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Well no one ever said anything about benevolence, mostly it will be about financial cost (direct and indirect), but lawsuits are only one factor.

If the company is paying for fuel, then driving style will affect fuel consumption. This may not be a concern if there's only a few cars involved with minimal driving but likely would if there are a lot of vehicles. (In the case of say a delivery, trucking or bus company, the savings can probably be quite substantial, there's even an advert about it from the government's EECA Energywise here in NZ that I've seen before and funnily enough the main page has something about driving economically [7]. I presume 'company car' doesn't mean a van, truck or bus, but such a company may put the same things in their company cars to avoid perceptions of unfairness.) Poor driving will also likely increase maintenance costs for the vehicle.

Poor driving can lead to accidents. Presuming the employee isn't completely responsible for the car, in many cases, the company may either have insurance to cover these or has sufficient reserves that they feel they don't need it. But either way, more frequent accidents will likely lead to higher costs. In fact, the insurance company may be willing to lower premiums if the company has a programme in place to monitor and improve driving. You may try to argue that technically if there are no lawsuits they don't actually have to pay anything even if their employee is totally at fault for the accident. But concentrating at the lawsuit bit misses the point that in the real world most of the time, the company don't even want to hear the word 'lawsuit'. If it's clear the employee is at fault, they will often pay (or their insurance will pay) without getting the courts involved. (Of course if a lawsuit does arise or there is a dispute, the data may be useful in assessing who is correct.)

There may also be criminal charges to contend with, rarely will these involve the company directly (although the PR and downtime may come up) but there may be a minor risk of the employee saying their poor driving was encouraged by the company. In addition, accidents and some forms of poor driving when the employee is working (and for some accidents and poor driving even when they're not) will often mean downtime for the employee and possibly other employees who will have to go to help. These may mean dissatisfied customers/clients, partners or suppliers and other performance failures on the part of the company. Besides that, accidents or simply poor driving (including tickets) may lead to bad PR if the company is identified. Somewhat related but for some companies poor driving may put contracts at risk.

In addition, if there is a substantial amount of driving involved, reasonable performance in that task may be a key job criteria. Even if you have some evidence that the employee is not up to scratch, e.g. their fuel usage is a lot higher, they show up later then expected, (probably not for your friend's case but the cars mileage is a lot higher then expected), having more info (and a well developed policy) will help in managing that. Yes that means reducing the risk of and from a lawsuit if you fire the employee but a company will often also be interested in improving the performance if they can since it may cost less then finding another employee even without a lawsuit (and then there are the cases where it's not worth firing but the better would help).

You can also come up with other random reasons. E.g. if it's a small private company, perhaps the owners have moral reasons (i.e. even if it didn't reduce costs including the risk of bad PR) for wanting their employees to drive well, particularly with company cars. Perhaps the owner's child was killed by a speeding driver.

I have no idea how much of this is likely to apply to your friends case since I know too few details. But note again what I said earlier about delivery vehicles, trucks and buses may also apply in other cases. E.g. if there are non assigned company cars which get regular usage, they may want the monitoring and for reasons of perception etc may put the same thing in company cars provided to managers rarely used on company business.

P.S. So this isn't complete OR a simple search will find sources discussing or offering fleet monitoring and a quick look suggests these mention what I mentioned. [8] [9] [10].

P.P.S. Somewhat related the privacy commissioner of Canada discusses some possible reasons for GPS tracking of vehicles [11] [12] [13].

Nil Einne (talk) 21:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Short summary, based on the references: for meeting legal responsibilities under OHS legislation (the pdf from Victoria, Australia), employee productivity (for workers in the field taking a detour to their favourite bar), customer service (eg. when exactly will your taxi arrive?), and vehicle maintenance. I can see that I didn't give detail in the question, but most of these do not seem to apply, and as stated, things like excessive braking are covered, so it seems to be either safety or maintenance. The person is not out in the field on sales calls. From the conversation, it also didn't sound like maintenance was the issue. So a large part of it is either indemnity against lawsuits, or a similar legal issue of meeting OHS regulations. This is what I am primarily interested in, since this kind of paternalism seems widespread. From what I have found in conversation, such surveillance is rather unpopular, to put it mildly. IBE (talk) 22:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

The person may not be involved in any of those, but as I said if other people using company vehicles are then it's possible perhaps even likely the company may want to introduce such monitoring to all their cars to avoid perceptions of unfairness etc. Having one policy for the bosses and one policy for the 'plebs' is likely to be even more controversial then simply applying the policy to everyone. BTW, I wouldn't exactly trust a conversation with someone who is obviously aggrieved with the policy to accurately represent (or possible even know) the reasons for the policy. Also, excessive braking is one factor which will increase fuel consumption. Excessive braking may mean things like tail-gating etc which beyond being a safety issue, could easily be a PR issue as I mentioned. PR risk is less likely if the car isn't clearly identified as belonging to the company, but it's still some risk which most companies will prefer to avoid (whether or not it's worth monitoring may be a different issue). Nil Einne (talk) 06:47, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Who owns the car? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:15, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

A company car is always owned by the company. I am not disputing whether it is actually legal for them or not (ie. legal for the company to collect the data). I am curious about the fact that (or my impression that) this kind of paternalism is highly unpopular, yet the government seems to allow it. The government could, for example, tone down the laws relating to personal injury, or OHS, whenever it is clearly the employee who has endangered himself, without anyone else in the workplace being put at risk. I understand that in driving, other road users are involved, but this is generally a police matter, not a workplace safety matter. Companies don't generally focus heavily on things their employees do to others, since those things are left to the authorities. Furthermore, we are not talking about just obeying road rules, but monitoring of all sorts of things like braking. IBE (talk) 22:25, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, a company car could be leased from another company, but as you imply, the company is responsible for the car, and it certainly seems it's within their rights to manage their fleet as they see fit. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Which isn't the point of the question, but anyways, it is not legal under all circumstances, as Nil Einne's refs show. There are legal limits, when it comes down to managing the people more than the cars. IBE (talk) 23:16, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There may be legal limits, but there's no constitutional right to drive someone else's car any old way you want to. They might be concerned about liabilities, they might also be concerned about excessive wear-and-tear on the car, or even about their drivers driving unsafely (as in drunken). Someone who fights the rules too much might find themselves having the car taken away from them. This may not be exactly the same thing, but it's a bit like people who gripe when a company asserts its right to read employee e-mails. The common ground is that if you misuse company property, you can be held accountable for it some way or another. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Pst... Bugs.... he's in Australia. Shadowjams (talk) 03:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if Australians have a constitutional right to drive someone else's car. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:16, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

No, we don't. We have a different rule here - "You Toucha My Car I Breaka You Face". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

That works too. Presumably that's the car's owner talking - i.e., the company. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:55, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Jack, what's a matter you, eh? Gotta no respect. As far as the constitution goes, we don't have a bill of rights or anything like that, so yes, it did sound US-centric, but I got the gist. The Australian constitution is in fact pretty boring, and just concerns having regular elections. The Australian version of the Gettysburg Address would go something like "Five score years and then some ago, our nation was founded on the principle that we should have elections, that they should be about every three years or so, and that we should take the piss out of ourselves more than anyone else on earth". IBE (talk) 15:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

And that's a fine example of auto-piss removal. But in case you haven't read it in a little while, the Australian Constitution is about a whole lot more than just elections. As for boring, what did you expect? Maybe a joke every second paragraph ("By the way, did you hear about the actress and the bishop? ...")? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I knew I was exaggerating a little, although as a young chap when we had the big referendum on the monarchy, or on what we thought of James Blundell or something, I was rather surprised at how sparse the constitution was. IBE (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

One point you seem to be missing is stuff like 'excessive braking' may indicate poor behaviour on the road like tail-gating (at least one of the refs I provided mentioned this if it isn't obvious) therefore it is easily a 'road rule' issue and unless the company wants to install camera etc and monitor these, ultimately all they will have is computer algorithms indicating poor driving behaviour which may amongst other things, violate road rules. I'm not sure I understand your point about 'Companies don't generally focus heavily on things their employees do to others, since those things are left to the authorities'. I don't know what your experience is or about companies in Australia in particular, but most companies have quite an interest in ensuring their employees behaviour towards others while working is good, way more then simply not being a legal violation because of the PR implication (including customer/client, partner or supplier perceptions) and possible other risks like downtime for that employee and others who have to help deal with it. If the behaviour is so bad as to be a legal violation, that sort of behaviour will often be way beyond what the company regards as acceptable. In other words, leaving it up to the authorities is not something the company wants to do since a lot of the time, if it reaches the authorities, it's reached a level definitely not acceptable. When the person isn't working for the company, usually if it doesn't relate to something that may affect their jobs, companies are usually wouldn't care so much about that their employees may do, unless the person is going to be linked to the company. Nil Einne (talk) 06:47, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes this kind of paternalism is obnoxious, yes it's awful, and I bet you more than just "extreme libertarians" are against it. But trade your liberty for safety and this is the path. Shadowjams (talk) 03:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

In the USA, Progressive Insurance has actually been advertising some kind of tracking gizmo that's supposed to get you lower rates if you drive safely. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

At the end of the day, it's not the employee's right. Nor are they forced to accept the car against their will. It's theirs to use on whatever terms and conditions the employer specifies. If they don't like that, they can drive their own car, and can do so any way they like. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 03:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. The fact an employer thought not only this was a good idea, but that most prospective employees would see it as worth it, is what bothers me. Shadowjams (talk) 05:33, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Was the employee told up front, or did he find it out through the grapevine? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I presume it was specified somewhere in the contract or the employee was clearly informed of it, otherwise in a country like Australia I think there's a risk of it being seen as violating the employees privacy and in particular, using any data obtained from it in managing the employee suspect. (One of the refs I provided about GPS tracking mentions something similar for that case in Canada). Nil Einne (talk) 06:47, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point bubs. The notion that most employees would accept such an agreement is disturbing. The idea that asking to reveal your basic movements is acceptable should be worrying... similarly with Progressive's tracking service. Shadowjams (talk) 10:16, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It's YOU that's missing the point. The employee does not own the car, the company does. If you're worried about being tracked while driving someone else's car, then maybe you shouldn't be driving it. Allowing someone to track your personal car, or not, is your choice, since you own that car. Again, if you don't want to be tracked, don't drive something that has a tracking device. Just like with your office PC - don't got to websites that the company doesn't approve of. If it's your own PC, that's different. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:50, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

By the same argument, nobody forces you to eat at Ye Olde Burger Bar, so if they serve their burgers with a side of hepatitis, it's caveat emptor. Similarly, you are free to chose a hospital, so we should not force hospitals to use properly sterile equipment and procedures. And you don't have to work at BigCompany, so it's no problem if they install cameras in the toilets and showers, and publish the videos to entertain the board and potential customers. Or maybe we do accept that property rights are subject to potential limits, just like all other rights. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:03, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

If they tell you that their burgers are made from horsemeat, or that their equipment is not sterile then you can make an informed choice. Likewise, if the company tells you that their cars are tracked and that your email and internet are subject to monitoring, then you can make an informed choice. Not that the two groups of ideas have anything to do with each other. In your examples, you're a consumer, i.e. the buying public. Using your company's property is totally different. You're an employee, and you are subject to the company's rules. There can certainly be legal restrictions on those rules, such as disallowing restroom cameras, although I could imagine that if security is a high priority, that might be allowed. And there are laws protecting consumers, hence the brouhaha about horsemeat in European burgers. But the notion of "privacy" when using company-owned equipment like cars and computers is a bogus argument. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:26, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, so far I quite agree with Shadowjams and Stephan, and as usual, I have confirmed that, on matters of opinion, I am always right ;) But we are still missing the point of the question. I am under the impression that most people side with me that monitoring your braking is a bit much, and they don't like this sort of thing. For me, it could make my driving worse, not better, because the "back seat driver" would always be there, just he would be sitting behind a desk in the back seat, with a title like "Health and Safety inspector". The feeling of being nagged would get a bit much, and affect my decisions, even if only slightly. Since it is apparent that a part of the reason is still very clearly the legal framework, I am still curious as to why governments have done nothing about it, and not put more of the onus on the individual. As mentioned in the question, there are ways of providing references (Nil Einne has gone some way towards this, in the last line of his/her second post). If people can't reference this, I don't mind people giving the debate a good flog, but I'd be interested in the actual topic, of the government's response regarding paternalistic laws. I accept some of this paternalism, but it seems to go much further than most people would like, which in a democracy suggests pressure groups etc. may be controlling things. IBE (talk) 16:04, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of "references", there's your totally unreferenced comment, "It is clear enough that the company is covering itself against lawsuits." Clear? It's not clear at all. What's your basis for that claim? Lawsuits by who? What makes you think it isn't about trying to keep their drivers safe and keep the insurance and repair costs down? And what makes you think it's any of the government's business how a private company manages their own vehicle fleet? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh dear, well I don't know quite where I've bothered you so, but I acknowledged Nil Einne's work in providing references, and my last post shows a stepdown from my previous position. As I said, part of it, from those interesting references, is clearly the legal framework. That is wider than just lawsuits, and encompasses OHS legislation. That means companies must meet certain legal obligations, which can exist in the absence of personal injury lawsuits. It is still the legal framework, under jurisdictional/ parliamentary control. So the premise of the question is still true enough for it to remain relevant. Sorry to have bothered you. IBE (talk) 18:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Gentlemen, this is the war room, you can't fight in the war room. Shadowjams (talk) 18:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

That cracked me up ;) and for those who don't get the reference, you really need to stay in more. A good point to put "resolved" on it, but I don't mean to stop all further contributions. I just mean from here, only add something if it's really big, like a huge doco you saw that I can watch online, on the exact topic, etc etc. I'll still check back, I'm just putting resolved since it looks like too much of a political topic, and I don't mean to inflame anyone. We had a spirited discussion, and I enjoyed reading the posts; I was just trying to bring it back to the exact topic since it was my primary interest. IBE (talk) 19:29, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The core question was, "Why doesn't the government more closely regulate how companies manage their own property?" and the answer is, "Why should they?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:39, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I can see I was unclear. My apologies to everyone. But I did eventually state what I was referring to: "The government could, for example, tone down the laws relating to personal injury, or OHS, whenever it is clearly the employee who has endangered himself, without anyone else in the workplace being put at risk." That was from roughly my fourth post, but I did state it. I never said they should make any particular laws directly against companies monitoring driving behaviour. I only suggested they could make laws to change the injury lawsuits that could arise. I was not campaigning for it, just curious to know what's going on. I didn't realise it was so unclear at the beginning, because there was a bit too much else in the thread, so I didn't get that was the primary problem. Sorry for the confusion. IBE (talk) 00:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I should add that I find it slightly amusing that I put "resolved" at the top, and only after that, finally worked out my own question ;) IBE (talk) 01:10, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It went from re-solved to solved. Go figure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:08, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Nietzsche one of the best philosophers?

I always find the Nietzsche's works to be poetic than analytic. I do not know what made Nietzsche surpass Heidegger and Moore in the top 10 philosophers. I am not saying that Nietzsche is not as good as Moore or Heidegger, but is not that Nietzsche criticized some of the key elements in analytic philosophy? He said that logic is just an evolutionary product. Why did he say this? And, why do we consider him as one of the best thinkers despite of this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.15.149 (talk) 18:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Your question seems to be more of an invitation to discussion than a request for references. The best source is Nietzsche himself. I think it's in Beyond Good and Evil that he discusses "the history of an illusion" where he criticizes the systematizers through Kant, and rejects them. (I have to apologize, I haven't read him in 10 years and my books of his are in storage, so others should correct me, please.) Nietzsche is perhaps the most brilliant writer I have ever read, and The Antichrist, regardless of one's opinion (I largely agree) is simply a tour-de-force. Unlike, say, Kant, he's a writer who's far better simply to read than any commentary written on him. μηδείς (talk) 20:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

While Nietzsche is just peachy,

I also have high regard for Kierkegaard. StuRat (talk) 02:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya 'bout the raising of the wrist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:09, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Socrates himself was permanently pissed... --Jayron32 03:56, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Italy and Netherlands census Muslim population by cities

I was wondering if there was a website that shows and allows you to download an excel spreadsheet that shows you which cities has the most Muslim populations in numbers and in percentage in Italy and Netherlands? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.230.50 (talk) 18:45, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

• If anyone does, it'll likely be Eurostat. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Biblical hermeneutics...

I am wondering if there is such a thing on secular biblical hermeneutics, where secular people without a faith commitment study the Bible academically in a public university somewhere in the United States, and because some secularists find the work personally moving, inspirational, and thought-provoking - making them sink deeply in contemplation - and attempting to apply what they've gained into a modern-day context, thereby influencing how they behave in society. Is there such a thing for secularists? If a secularist wants to hear opinions on the significance of scripture in modern times, then where would the secularist go, and who shall the secularist consult? Is there such a thing like a "secular pastor" or someone who is an expert on the Bible and how it may be relevant in modern times? 140.254.226.228 (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Chaplain, perhaps? From my understanding of the article, there are secular chaplains, who, I think, tend to people's spiritual needs. 140.254.226.228 (talk) 21:42, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Many universities have religious studies departments, which sounds like what you're talking about. thx1138 (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

From what I know of religious studies departments, they seem to view religions as a psychological, sociological, and anthropological phenomenon. I think they study religions rather than applying religious texts to modern-day times, which would presumably be done by pastors and priests. 140.254.226.228 (talk) 21:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

[[14]] seems to direct to academic journals on biblical criticism. However, the websites seem to be down. Usually in academic journals, people may write on Discussion to reflect on how the research is relevant or significant for further research or to society, and of course, that do not presuppose any theistic belief or deny such supernatural beliefs. Is biblical studies a complete science like anatomy, or is this an ongoing field of study? If this is an ongoing field of study, I wonder how do these academics study the Bible and forge a new understanding of scripture, which involves theological and practical implications. 140.254.226.228 (talk) 22:21, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

There are Christian atheists and philologists, who study the bible, although the latter not to apply the knowledge in their private lives. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:41, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Ducks

Does Wikipedia have an article on raising ducks? Wakeenahh (talk) 22:33, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

No, but you may find information on how to raise ducks here. 140.254.226.228 (talk) 22:37, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

And the Ref Desk also has a resident bird expert, although his specialty is sea gulls. He is User:Kurt Shaped Box. So, you could leave him a note on his talk page: User talk:Kurt Shaped Box. StuRat (talk) 22:46, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I found an article on Poultry Farming that covers the subject. Wakeenahh (talk) 23:10, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

As the OP has demonstrated, the easiest way to raise a duck is to become one. Looie496 (talk) 06:30, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

A way to fight inflation whenever stimulus money is pumped into the economy?

When there’s a lot of inorganic money being printed by the U.S, known as stimulus, in order to pay down debts and deficits, alleviate or stop a recession, or do whatever Bernanke is doing, can inflation be alleviated or even prevented if the dollar where to be backed up by more gold like for example, by putting more gold into places where the country's gold is stored like in Fort Knox? Or will this not help fight inflation while stimulus happens? If it would be effective in alleviating or stopping inflation, would adding more gold to back up the dollar be too costly to do so anyway if the goal was to pay down a U.S debt? Willminator (talk) 23:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Inflation is caused more by an increase in the velocity of money rather than the simple amount of money. The U.S. has been effectively printing huge amounts of money, several trillions of dollars since 2008, without any increase in inflation, interest rates, or the employment ratio, mostly because it's all being soaked up by corporate profits which are sitting in banks that don't lend because they get interest on excess reserves, or in tax havens waiting for another repatriation holiday which will never come. My opinion is that the only non-double dip recession way out is improved wealth taxation but that's not popular in the House of Representatives this Congress. 71.215.70.112 (talk) 00:14, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Which is of course, a leftist and Keynesian analysis. Check out the Chicago school of economics, the Austrian school of economics, and hard currency theory. μηδείς (talk) 02:01, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, by all means, check those guys out!

• "demand can be satisfied in far greater quantity, much more quickly, much more reversibly, and without the danger of a fiscal collapse and inflation down the road, if the Fed and Treasury were simply to expand their operations of issuing treasury debt and money in exchange for high-quality private debt" -- Professor John Cochrane of the Chicago School, describing the post-stimulus status quo;
• "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief. The whole intellectual edifice...collapsed." And a few years later, "Is the answer to complex modern-day finance that we return to the simpler banking practices of a half century ago? That may not be possible if we wish to maintain today’s levels of productivity and standards of living." Alan Greenspan the leading Austrian economist, flip flopping and also describing the status quo.

Do those leftist Keynesians have it all wrong, with their far more accurate forecasts? Sometimes when two parties disagree, one is right and the other is wrong, because truth exists and is reflected in observations. 71.215.90.134 (talk) 02:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as backing up all our money with gold, I fear the US has far too much currency and far too little gold to do that now. Perhaps after a currency collapse, the meager gold reserves the US has could be used to back a new currency. StuRat (talk) 02:39, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

What could possibly go wrong? Not that you'll find any of those concerns in Wikipedia's hard currency article. Wikipedia articles on these subjects exist primarily in the Libertarian universe where all taxes are theft and nobody needs to depend on courts to enforce contracts and laws or on governments to protect society from plagues of any kind. 71.215.90.134 (talk) 02:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Curious point: the US broad money supply (M2) has consistently increased at a faster pace than inflation. Perhaps Milton Friedman got it wrong ?

In the 1960s and the 2000s the average inflation rate (2.3% p.a.) and the velocity of money (60.1 – 61.3) were close enough to exact to make no difference. The money supply (M2), however rose an average of 3.7% a year in the 1960s, and 12.1% p.a. in the 2000s.

Those two decades were the ones with the fastest money velocity in the past 50 years, and the ones with the slowest growth in inflation. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

M2 includes a large proportion of time deposits, which you don't want to count in velocity when they are being reinvested because they're still just sitting in the bank, as far from the real economy as possible. M2 also doesn't include money market funds which are how most institutions held cash before 2008. Use MZM velocity instead to predict inflation. 70.59.15.208 (talk) 11:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

BEMBE BEACH , ANNAPOLIS MD, USA

I wanted to know why the Beach in Annapolis-MD was named after Bembe as Bembe Beach, Bembe beach road, was there Bembe people from Africa settled there as slaves or what?...Because Bembe is a tribe or a group of people in Africa - Congo D.R. If possible you can create an article about it... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.18.172.70 (talk) 23:32, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I've looked through some public domain Gazetteers available on Google Books: [15] and [16] from 1852 and 1904 respectively, and there is no place by that name, nor any similar name, in those Gazetteers. So the name is at least newer than 1904. It is possible the name is from someone's personal name (like a prominent local citizen); many place names take after individual people. --Jayron32 02:23, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

March 7

All notable philosophers = Mathematical geniuses?

Undoubtedly, all prominent philosophers (Machiavelli, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Saul Karl Marx) have high IQ to the point that they have the right to be narcissistic, although none of them is. I think they can answer almost all questions, but despite their high IQ, is it possible that they have some academic or intellectual weaknesses? For example are all notable philosophers mathematical geniuses? or are there some philosophers who hates it or weak at it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.15.149 (talk) 03:30, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Where is your evidence that "all prominent philosophers...have high IQ"? --Jayron32 03:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The only notable philosophers I can think of who might be considered brilliant mathematicians are Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, and Russell. Looie496 (talk) 06:24, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

You don't count Gödel as a philosopher? He wasn't trained as one, of course, and academic philosophers tend to think he made a lot of mistakes, but he was absolutely fundamental to contemporary philosophy of mathematics. Gotlob Frege, Hao Wang, Alan Turing, Willard Van Orman Quine, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Montague surely get somewhere into the mix as well. --Trovatore (talk) 07:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I do not think we need to supply evidences to prove the intelligence of different prominent philosophers. Prominent philosophers are those who are academically and historically recognized. These includes Hobbes, Locke, Nozick, and Rawls. Of course, one reason for their prominence in academic discussions is their intellectual capacity that surpasses most people. Now my question is: , is it possible for them to be weak at some subjects specifically mathematics, despite their philosophical intelligence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.15.149 (talk) 07:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Wittgenstein was more "mathematical crackpot" than "mathematical genius". --Trovatore (talk) 07:46, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It's possible for a great philosopher to be very weak at maths if they have no interest it and never study it. Or perhaps someone alerts them to one aspect of maths, like set theory, then they might read up on that, but still be pretty ignorant about other aspects, like trigonometry. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't construe Trovatore's comment in the direction that Wittgenstein was weak at maths. Being a crackpot means that you have a lot of fringe theories at best, not that you are not good at mainstream theories. OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:43, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Somehow, philosophers like Kierkegaard and Sartre don't strike me as potential mathematical geniuses, but maybe I'm wrong. Some schools of philosophy depend strongly on logic, and have as a result significant kinship with mathematics; others are much more litterary (like existentialism, as the two examples I give above, or even Nietzsche), in which case the links to mathematics are much more tenuous. --Xuxl (talk) 15:06, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Readers ignore the word "said"

I once was told to be careful about using words other than "said" unless I really want to draw attention to it, because readers basically ignore the word said but will get tripped up reading words like "mentioned" or "added." First, is this true? And second, where can I find a reputable source to say this? As you can imagine, this is a difficult query to Google. 64.106.114.172 (talk) 03:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't seem true to me, although words like "alleged" in place of "said" might draw attention to the fact that you don't necessarily believe it. BTW, wouldn't the Language Desk be a better place for this Q ? StuRat (talk) 03:45, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Is this a request for references? Maybe someone can suggest a better forum? The language ref desk is certainly no more relevant than this one. μηδείς (talk) 03:49, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It's more about how people read words than the words themselves, so I opted for this one instead. I'm not opposed to its being moved, however. 64.106.114.172 (talk) 03:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

You can find it lots of places, for example rules 3 and 4 of Elmore Leonard's 10 rules. Looie496 (talk) 06:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, our article on Tom Swiftys might be interesting in this context. Looie496 (talk) 06:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Never let it be said stated, asserted or declared that I would follow such a "rule". Using the same word over and over again seems to me a stylistic faux pas and the sign of a limited writer. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

You should try the exercise of pulling out some fiction book whose style you particularly liked, ideally one with lots of dialog, and look at how the author handled this. I think you'll be surprised. Looie496 (talk) 16:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

A bit of a mixed bag: Pride and Prejudice has a fair amount of "cry"ing and "reply"ing, but Phineas Finn is mostly "say"ing. In the best and worst of times, it starts out more varied, then seems to settle down mostly to "said". I will admit it occurs much more frequently than I'd been aware of. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The search term you need is "dialogue tags". Consensus among contemporary novelists is exactly what you said - the overuse of creative tags is distracting to the reader, while "said" is neutral and therefore creates better flow, letting the reader focus on what the characters are saying. The best writers go beyond by using very few verbal tags at all. Some references: [17], [18], [19], [20]. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 12:30, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Many people use the word "go" in place of any of the traditional options. It's an irregular verb in that it exists only in the present tense, but is still perfectly useful for past tense contexts. Or so someone goes to me. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 17:49, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Agency staff

As used here, what are "agency staff"? Did Mrs Brown have to call people whom Americans would call "temporary employees", e.g. Manpower Inc.? Nyttend (talk) 03:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. StuRat (talk) 03:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Hugo Chavez net worth at death

I'm hearing figures of 2 billion. Is this true? False? Ultimately unknowable? Somewhere in between? Citation battle! Abeg92contribs 04:18, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't see any reliable source claiming that. I would be wary of such information, since a lot of malicious misinformation has always been spread about him, mainly from US sources. 82.0.112.151 (talk) 07:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

off-topic
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Oh, you mean from the people that "infected" him with cancer? Speaking of "misinformation". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC) Misinformation can't be bi-directional? 131.251.133.27 (talk) 13:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC) No question about it, it can be. The point being, last I knew they hadn't even owned up to which type of cancer he had, so how likely are they to provide useful and valid information about his net worth? For one thing, theoretically an extreme socialist should have almost no "net worth", unless he's (gasp!) a hypocrite. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC) In other words, Bugs, you have no factual information on this subject, just opinions. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:08, 7 March 2013 (UTC) Well, our own Hugo Chávez article reiterates that his type of cancer has not been revealed. Feel free to make corrections to that article if your own factual information is better. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC) Who is this mysterious "they" and why do you have to "own up" to types of cancer? is cancer a crime now? And who said he was an "extreme socialist"? It's precisely the sad and sorry attempt to create the "hypocrite" claim that's the issue here. It reminds me of all those Hollywood movies on which apparently ideologically motivated revolutionaries or 'terrorists' all turn out to be thieves motivated by money. Because (gasp!) no one can really be motivated by ideals can they?! Everyone's really a capitalist. It's reassuring to believe that. Paul B (talk) 14:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC) If they are going to accuse the US government of somehow "infecting" him with cancer, then they have to be more open about it. That's where it stops. As for being motivated by "ideals", one of his "ideals" was buddying up to a nation that wants to destroy Israel. So much for "ideals". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC) As I say, who is this mysterious "they"? As for Israel, you seem to be saying that no-one can have ideals that happen to differ from your own. Charming. Paul B (talk) 14:47, 7 March 2013 (UTC) You're right, genocide is charming, no question about it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC) And complacent ranting is not informative. This is the point. We have to acknowledge that even views we disagree with or even deplore can result from ideals: ideals we choose to reject, for sure. It's more comfortable to believe otherwise. Paul B (talk) 14:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC) Calling genocide an "ideal that happens to differ with ours" is not informative either. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

As per 82.0, I see no reliable sources on the matter (the only referenced source is apparently a think tank or lobbying group with virtually no web presence or secondary search results), and lean toward "ultimately unknowable". Chavez can probably be fairly described as being somewhere on the autocrat spectrum, and so how do you divide up the net worth of various nationalized industries? On the other hand, his Chavismo politics should not be confused with an extremist "no personal possessions" style of socialism. For instance, there are good sources for other billionaires in Venezuela, at least two of whom are valued at $4+ billion USD and acknowledged political opponents of Chavez. So we can fairly rule out "hypocrite" as a useful categorization, at least in this regard. — Lomn 14:29, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I like the implication of Bugs' post. Chavez' net worth is in inverse relationship to the extremeness of his views. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Dafydd ap Llywelyn

In the article it says He was for a time recognised as Prince of Wales. Even after re-reading the article I don't understanding what "time" they are referring to. Can I get some dates they are speaking of as him being "recognised" as Prince of Wales? Thanks!--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:41, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's article King of the Britons gives an uncited note that he was so recognized as Prince of Wales by "treaty with England". --Jayron32 13:03, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks like then from around 1220.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:44, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

what benefits does the legal precedent of killing american citizens via drone attacks?

Invitation for a forum-like discussion

The previous version of this question was removed as hypothetical. So, in light of Obama's http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/02/05/justice-department-chilling-drone-white-paper/ "On Monday night, NBC News’s Michael Isikoff published a Justice Department memo justifying the “targeted killings” — without due process — of U.S. citizens who are leaders in al-Qaeda or “associated forces” but are “outside the area of hostile activities,” such as Afghanistan." So, what specific benefits would this precedent have? (I realize it may have many downsides, however this question is about benefits). For example, I could think of the following benefits to the united states government randomly killing random civilian americans on american soil without due process or anything. Besides all the negatives (which isn't what this question is about), some positives might be: - People might work harder, trying to "fit in" to society a bit better so that it would be politically inopportune for the government to just kill them - People might actually live life better knowing it might be their last due to a random government killing without any due process or anything - Perhaps some people would try to avoid this, so security and so forth could be increased for everyone, this would be a benefit to everyone as a house rigged to protect against random killing by the government might also defer petty burglars, who might instead join society as part of the normal workforce - There could be a greater pressure to specify the legal framework and fundamentals of legal theory that makes this "wrong", as perhaps innocent people would probably be killed. so a benefit is that this might bring greater constitutional scrutiny or an amendment to end this. would there be any other benefits? I've just listed a few off of the top of my head. I certainly appreciate that the issue raised has potentially many more negatives than positives. However, I'm just asking about any positives. 91.120.48.242 (talk) 12:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC) This is not a forum to discuss hypothetical issues. This reference desk is designed to get references to help you answer factual questions. -- Fair enough. I made it more specific for references about something that is no longer hypothetical. However the references I receive will therefore be somewhat narrower. Thanks for your help or answers. 91.120.48.242 (talk) 14:33, 7 March 2013 (UTC) You're still looking for a debate. U.S. citizens are not being targeted as such. People making war on America are what's being targeted, and they can't hide behind their citizenship to get away with it. The President's job is to protect us from enemies. If those enemies happen to be Americans, he still has his job to do. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC) In addition, note that US citizens at home are not targeted. Go ahead, booby trap your house, but unless the CIA is absolutely positive that you're working with Al Qaeda and you are training terrorists in some middle eastern country, you have nothing to worry about. Ryan Vesey 14:53, 7 March 2013 (UTC) Many localities are already imposing restrictions on the use of drones in America for a variety of reasons, mostly about privacy rights. That patchwork will probably yield to a blanket set of rules at some point. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:56, 7 March 2013 (UTC) Why would you live better if you knew you might be randomly killed? It might just as easily make you lose any faith in the point of moral behaviour if the state itself engages in random acts of murder. Paul B (talk) 14:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Is biblical studies a complete science?

When I use the term "science", I do not intend to refer to the academic subject science. I mean "science" as a "body of knowledge", like Anatomy, which is regarded as a "complete science". I wonder how fast this field of study re-update itself. 140.254.226.183 (talk) 15:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what a "complete" science is, as science is never "complete" in the sense of "done". I'd be inclined to call any study of religion a Social science. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Then I suggest that you read History of anatomy and skip to the conclusion in which it states "Anatomy is often regarded as being a complete science, in that we know what and where most of the body is and does with little left to discover." From my experience, I have heard of that claim many times, in textbooks too. There is relatively little to discover in Anatomy, because I think the human body is a closed system. I don't think it implies or states that it is closed to more inquiries; it's just that we may already know all the basic parts/components. 140.254.226.183 (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is a rather large carrot for finding new things about the human body. Does anyone envisage this prize ever being discontinued because "there's nothing worth discovering any more"? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:20, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Most research about the human body these days is more along the lines of biochemistry than anatomy. The layout of the various pieces of the body has been fairly well-established for a while. --Carnildo (talk) 02:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

'Science' has never been used to describe subjects, it's used to describe the process - the scientific process. So physics is a science if it uses scientific methods, but me trying to cook the most delicious meal for my customers is also a science, if I use the scientific method. So I make a hyothesis that adding chocolate makes everything taste better, then I go about testing it, and come up with a better hypothesis based on my results. Science is not attributed to subjects, but is a process. Kinkreet^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 15:53, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

That isn't true. We consistently refer to "the sciences" and the scientific method is not used in the social sciences. Ryan Vesey 15:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Adding to that, it's impossible to use the scientific method to History. Historical events are not replicable in the present, and present observations may not be the direct effect of the supposed causes. 140.254.226.183 (talk) 16:03, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not as if you would apply the scientific method to an object. You apply it to a theory or a hypothesis. So, historical theories or hypothesis, can be contrasted somehow with empirical evidence. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:17, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, but evidence in the Humanities uses a great deal of interpretation and reach a logical conclusion by deduction. I don't think it's the same sort of evidence in the Science or maybe how it is handled that is different. 140.254.226.183 (talk) 16:24, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Per the definition put forward by the anatomy reference above, no, Biblical studies is not "complete". Notably, ongoing archaeological efforts continue to inform the field, both by direct historical application and by discoveries of new manuscripts. — Lomn 16:06, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

That comment about anatomy sounds like nonsense. New discoveries are trumpeted every so often, especially at the micro level. --Dweller (talk) 16:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The catch word is "especially at the micro level". 140.254.226.183 (talk) 16:18, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Micro level is still anatomy. --Dweller (talk) 16:47, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's still anatomy. Though, I don't think it really contradicts the quote. I see the quote as an aphorism about anatomy. 140.254.226.183 (talk) 17:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

That's OK, I'm happy to disagree with you. --Dweller (talk) 21:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Anybody care to give links? The main point of this is to actually find something interesting to read in this field. I am still trying to understand Romans. I found an article in the Journal of Biblical Studies, but that was written in the 1940s. I also want something relevant and recent too. Not something that happened 50 years ago or what scholars thought 100 years ago. 140.254.226.183 (talk) 16:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

What exactly is it you are looking for? Is it a commmentary? If so, I've heard that John F. MacArthur writes very good ones. Ryan Vesey 16:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The missing magic word in this discussion is hermeneutics. The question needs to be directed to Biblical hermeneutics. alteripse (talk) 16:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I clicked on Biblical hermeneutics, which led me to Historical-grammatical_method. Heh-heh. I guess I was looking in the wrong area. No wonder I couldn't find what I was looking for. Duuuuhhhhhh... This site, which I discovered while browsing through Wikipedia, talks about archaeology. If I want to look for significance, then I probably have read up on theology. 140.254.226.183 (talk) 17:08, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Textual criticism (and higher criticism) of the Bible is an ongoing field, perhaps just as strong now as it was in the 19th century. The Editio Critica Maior of the New Testament is an ongoing project. For competing theoretical work, see the work of Robinson and Pierpoint, who favour the Majority Text. For the Old Testament, there are the Oxford Hebrew Bible, Biblia Hebraica Quinta, and the Hebrew University Bible projects. For the Septuagint, there is the Göttingen Septuagint. There are many academic journals that deal with Biblical studies in general and textual criticism in particular. For active journals, see Journal of Theological Studies, published by Oxford University; Journal for the Study of the New Testament and Journal for the Study of the Old Testament published by Sage; Vetus Testamentum, Novum Testamentum and Biblical Interpretation by Brill; and New Testament Studies by Cambridge University. All of these are right in the academic mainstream.--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

You might be interesting in reading the recent by James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Eerdmans, 2006) [21]. This is under the so-called New Perspective on Paul. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Stackexchange has an active Biblical Hermeneutics question-and-answer site. --ColinFine (talk) 10:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Does the PRC invoke the Succession of states theory of international law to justify its rule of Tibet?

I’m looking for references to actual PRC government documents or policy statements that specifically mention succession of states. The question came up at the Tibetan sovereignty debate article last summer, and the upshot was that no one found such a reference (which surprised me). Here are sources that I checked where I can’t find mention of the PRC claiming succession of states:

• ”The Making of Modern Tibet” Volumes 1 and 2 and “The Snow Lion and the Dragon” by Melvyn Goldstein.
• ”Dragon in the Land of Snows” by Tsering Shakya.
• ”Demystifying Tibet” by Lee Feigon.
• ”The Making of Modern Tibet” by Tom Grunfeld.
• ”The Historical Status of China’s Tibet” by Wang Jia Wei and Nyima Gyancain.
• “Tibet – Its Ownership and Human Rights Situation” (government white paper referenced in the Tibetan sovereignty debate article).
• “The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics” (pdf) by Elliot Sperling.
• ”The Story of Tibet” by Thomas Laird.
• ”Tibet & Its History” by Hugh M. Richardson.

Here are a few that say the PRC claims succession of states, but provide no reference to the actual claim:

• “The Sino-Tibetan Dialogue: Talk Shop or Path to Resolution?” (pdf) by Renee Kamm p.7.
• “All (Geo-)Politics are Local: the Consequences of the People’s Republic of China’s Military Doctrine of Local War for the East Asia Region” (pdf) Scott David Parker p.7.
  

--Wikimedes (talk) 04:16, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You may find it difficult to find such an exposition, because Chinese sovereignty over Tibet has never, in the 20th century, been seriously challenged at an international level. It also would not make sense for the PRC to invoke the succession of states theory explicitly in relation to Tibet, since its argument (which is well documented), is that Tibet was incorporated into Chinese sovereity in medieval times and has never left it. I guess the succession of states doctrine is implicitly invoked within this argument, in the sense that the PRC claims to have succeeded to the ROC which succeeded the Qing empire which (the PRC, the ROC and the Qing empire all claim or claimed) was sovereign over Tibet.

However, the succession is not generally at issue when discussing the legal status of Tibet - whether the PRC successfully succeeded the ROC does not make much of a difference to the sovereignty of Tibet. The key questions are (1) whether the Qing empire either inherited or acquired sovereignty over Tibet, and (2) whether some time after the fall of the Qing empire Tibet acquired an independent sovereignty. The succession of states bears little relevance on these questions.

The situation is different for Taiwan, as whether the PRC, at law, has succeeded to the sovereignty represented by the ROC is directly determinative of whether Taiwan (at law) is part of the PRC's sovereign territory or not. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:36, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, the PRC's position is more along the lines of "Tibet has always been a part of China" and doesn't bother to get into the legal details of the succession of states theory. You'd be surprised at how often Wikipedia articles claim that the PRC invokes succession of states to justify its rule of Tibet, though. Thank you for another valuable answer.--Wikimedes (talk) 01:36, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Marijuana tax stamp

So evidently one of my friends has a sibling wanted for "possessing marijuana without a tax stamp". Since possession of marijuana is illegal in the first place, what is the purpose of a tax stamp being required? Wouldn't anyone trying to buy such a tax stamp be arrested for possession of marijuana anyway? (Jurisdiction is Kansas.) Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 16:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

First result from Googling the phrase and Kansas turns up this concise explanation. It's either a clever revenue scheme or just another way to throw the book at someone doing illegal activities. My guess is the latter. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:05, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

See Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Gandalf61 (talk) 17:06, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

According to that article, that law has been repealed for 40+ years. So it's not that. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

(EC with all above) Well a simple search finds [22], [23], [24]. If you add Kansas you get [25], [26], [27], [28], [29]. It's possible some of these laws predate marijuana basically being illegal in every state as well as federally but from the Kansas results a number of which discuss the situatuion in other states, it sounds like many of them are new. In terms of the self incrimination bit, well that was what killed Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. However as per the Kansas results, while that has also sometimes been a problem with the new state laws, in some cases including Kansas it has been addressed or at least attempts were made to address it. For example by forbidding sharing of information and allowing it to be done anonymously. Of course it's not abnormal for tax authorities to expect tax even from illegal activities although having a tax which only targets illegal activities is I think fairly rare. Nil Einne (talk)

I wonder what percentage of marijuana dealers pay this tax. Seems to be quite an admission that the War on Drugs is a failure. Another is drug-free school zones. If the war on drugs had worked, neither would be needed. StuRat (talk) 17:26, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Just on the general issue of taxing illegal activities in the U.S. The IRS absolutely expects you to pay proper taxes on illegal activities. See Al Capone for a famous example. He was specifically tried and convicted for not paying taxes on his illegal alcohol smuggling business during prohibition. It turns out it was easier to get evidence of that crime than of the actual illegal activity that produced the money in the first place. IIRC, there were coded books and complex money laundering schemes that made it difficult to proved where the money came from, but the fact that the money could be proven to exist in the first place was all that was needed to prove tax evasion. --Jayron32 17:32, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Per the links I provided, very few. Nil Einne (talk) 17:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Too bad Capone didn't plan better. He could have sold, along with each shipment of booze, a painting with an X on it, and claimed that the payment of thousands of dollars was for the "art", paid taxes on that, and stayed out of prison. StuRat (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Money laundering's no joke. Check out 18 USC 1956 and 18 USC 1957. Shadowjams (talk) 18:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The Al Capone case is of course a famous one, but there are plenty of other cases where someone believed to be involved in organised crime got in trouble for tax violations whether in addition to additional charges or as the sole charges. BTW, one of the reasons I mentioned it earlier is because I believe I've heard of tax authorities providing some degree of unofficial advice to those engaged in criminal activity on how to properly comply with their taxation requirements. Definitely in the case of prostitution in the places where it is illegal but somewhat tolerated but also possibly to the extent of organised crime. Unfortunately I can't provide refs as I couldn't find any, and no I'm not thinking of the silly ACORN 'sting' (or any of the related stings) in the US. Of course it seems clear not many fully comply, particularly in the organised crime case as the cases show. One key reason is likely that they have no desire to give away more of their money then needed, particularly to a government they presumably only have a tenuous relationship with and many may assume the same care they take to avoid getting in to trouble in general will protect them against trouble due to tax violations. And in some cases, tax violations are part of their business (smuggling) anyway. When we're talking about the top level people, they can obviously afford to hire people who could advise them on how to fully comply despite the suspect nature of their business. Of course as I mentioned, these Marijuana tax laws seem somewhat unusual in that in many cases they only apparently apply to criminal behaviour. In other words, unlike the case of general taxation laws which affect those involved in things considered criminal but also apply those not involved in such things. This probably means, amongst other things, self incrimination is less of a concern, e.g. in the US there's no suggestion it generally means you don't have to comply simply that you can avoid giving away details which may indicate a crime Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution#Federal income tax. Nil Einne (talk) 16:56, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Bach , Persian composers

In the book Godel, Escher ,Bach the music of Bach is compared with Godel"s theoreom. I want to know whether classical persian and Indian music composers like Amir Khusrou or Tansen can be treated in same way.Solomon7968 (talk) 17:30, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, any music can be. Afrer all, chose the so-so artist Escher as his visual example. Paul B (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Escher was chosen for his "conceptualism" and congruence with Hofstadter's themes in the book, not for his pure art-for-art's sake reputation... AnonMoos (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

He was chosen because Hofstadter had no taste. But seriously, Bach is not the only composer who wrote fugues, canons etc. I know nothing about Persian music, but playing with the limits of formal structures is common to all musical traditions. In other words it is not a question of the uniqueness of Bach any more than of the execrable Escher. Paul B (talk) 20:51, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

He's getting worse by the post. First "so-so", now "execrable". What's your problem with Escher? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:02, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The same problem many art critics have with him. He's a designer rather than an artist. I only said execrable because I couldn't resist the alliteration. Paul B (talk) 16:19, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Whatever -- Hofstadter found that Drawing Hands deeply resonated with themes in his book, and that other Escher works were both entertaining and thought-provoking, and could be slotted into the book in various ways. He really didn't care about Escher's reputation among professional art critics, nor do most readers of the book (though he did use some Magrittes as well as Escher works). AnonMoos (talk) 03:57, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Not much of a musical theorist, but Bach seems to be noted for composing in a particularly mathematical style. I found Can Mathematical Patterns Be Found in Johann Sebastian Bach's Two-Movement Preludes and Fugues?, A Fractal in Bach's Cello Suite, Music, Mathematics and Bach and pages and pages of similar results. No idea if Persian music falls into the same category. Alansplodge (talk) 22:50, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not so much that he composed "in a particularly mathematical style", but that all musical scores are amenable to mathematical analysis or treatment (which is not the same as saying that the essence of the music itself is so easily captured). The works of some composers are more readily viewed through this prism than those of others, that's all. For my money, there's more mathematics in John Cage's 4'33", which is specified as an exact period of time during which no music is played at all, than anything Bach ever wrote. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

You're aware, are you, of Bach's canon Quarendo invenietis, which is presented as a mathematical puzzle which must be solved before the music can be played? There are four solutions; I own a recording which covers all four. That's just one example off the top of my head; there are others. I think you must either know very little about Bach, or very little about maths. (Not to diss Cage, mind you; his work is ingenious in its own right.) AlexTiefling (talk) 00:53, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You're right, of course. I know very little about any subject you could possibly name. Some less than others. Particularly the ones I've studied in depth for decades; I know about them least of all. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:28, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I do not know about Persian, but since you also mentioned Indian I googled "mathematics ragas" and came up with Mathematics in carnatic music and A Statistical Analysis of Raga Ahir Bhairav so that at least is evidence that music other than Bach's has been looked at in a similar way. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 01:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

did any large-ish startups get started via kickstarter (instead of a more traditional seed round in exchange for equity)?

did any large-ish startups get started via kickstarter (instead of a more traditional seed round in exchange for equity)? I'm thinking dropbox and the like. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 17:38, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Our article on Kickstarter includes a list of the most-funded projects, which tops out at $10 million for the Pebble watch. I don't know what you consider the threshold for "large-ish", but I will note that the big Kickstarter projects are all money-for-product instead of money-for-equity. Thus, I expect the answer to your question is "no", or at least "not yet". — Lomn 18:26, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

How much dependant is my country on the U.S.?

close trolling by indef blocked user
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Federated States of Micronesia. How much? In what apart from defense? FMicronesian (talk) 18:32, 7 March 2013 (UTC) According to our article Federated States of Micronesia–United States relations, which isn't excellent, the US provides $100 million in funding to the Federated States of Micronesia annually. Ryan Vesey 18:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC) That represents 80% of the government's revenue and about 29% of GDP. Put another way, without that funding, the country's economy would shrink by more than a third, perhaps even more due to multiplier effects. Marco polo (talk) 20:53, 7 March 2013 (UTC) The US is also your largest trading partner. And, even though you said "apart from defense", don't forget all the money that brings in, from US soldiers spending money there to your citizens serving in, and being paid by, the US military. StuRat (talk) 03:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC) From the CIA Factbook: Economic activity consists primarily of subsistence farming and fishing. The islands have few mineral deposits worth exploiting, except for high-grade phosphate. The potential for a tourist industry exists, but the remote location, a lack of adequate facilities, and limited air connections hinder development. Under the original terms of the Compact of Free Association, the US provided $1.3 billion in grant aid during the period 1986-2001; the level of aid has been subsequently reduced. The Amended Compact of Free Association with the US guarantees the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) millions of dollars in annual aid through 2023, and establishes a Trust Fund into which the US and the FSM make annual contributions in order to provide annual payouts to the FSM in perpetuity after 2023. The country's medium-term economic outlook appears fragile due not only to the reduction in US assistance but also to the current slow growth of the private sector. I'd say you need to develop tourism to compensate for reduced US assistance. In particular, you might market vacations to newly rich Chinese, who want a tropical getaway. StuRat (talk) 03:53, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

People who lived before Jesus

What Christianity (e.g. Roman Catholicism) says about people who lived before Jesus' Incarnation in the sense of their ultimate fate? I mean does Jesus's grace and love extend to them also, despite their polytheistic views?--93.174.25.12 (talk) 19:07, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Polytheism didn't suddenly end the day Jesus was born, as any Hindu will confirm. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:11, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I once had a Hindu classmate who was monotheistic. He called his god "God", because he only believed in one god. He put a red dot on his forehead every morning as a way to remind him of God. Sneazy (talk) 19:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

See harrowing of hell. I'm afraid polytheists stay there, unless they convert on seeing Jesus. Paul B (talk) 19:30, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec)See Bosom of Abraham, Limbo of the Fathers and Harrowing of Hell for mainstream (but by no means universal) Christian opinions on the issue. 1 Peter 3:19-20 and 1 Peter 4:6 are the main scriptural starting points. Tevildo (talk) 19:35, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

To answer the OP's question, there were many polytheists at the time of Jesus, in the ancient world. Judaism is known to be the world's first monotheistic religion, and Jesus just happens to be born into it. I am not aware of Jesus's love and grace other than the examples in the gospel accounts, and I am not aware of whether or not Jesus had personal contact with polytheistic pagans other than the Romans who supposedly executed him. I think the OP is conflating Jesus with God. It would make more sense to say that God's grace and love extend to other people, not Jesus's love and grace. No person lives in a vacuum. Jesus was influenced by his society and affected his society. Therefore, I suppose in order to accept "Jesus's love and grace", one must first buy into his worldview or understand Judaism. I can't imagine how a Roman pagan would really care about their salvation. Sneazy (talk) 19:42, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. I think this discussion is about Christian theology and Christian cosmology. Excuse my confusion. I thought it was about actual history. Sneazy (talk) 19:52, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

When I was growing up in a strict Christian sect, I asked this question and was told that such people would be judged as to whether they had lived according to the light they had received. I have no idea whether this is a mainstream Christian idea. --TammyMoet (talk) 20:06, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Not in exactly those terms, but I was told something quite similar growing up. The idea was that the conscience was a kind of God-given moral law that non-Christians (specifically, non-Christians who were not aware of Christianity) were bound to obey as best as possible in order to gain salvation. I have no idea how close this is to mainstream Christian teachings. Despite the teaching of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, I know there is a broad and fascinating range of opinions in Catholic theology on topics like this. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:14, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Fate of the unlearned has the answer. OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:20, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. 93.174.25.12 (talk) 20:48, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

See http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102005137#p23, paragraph 19.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

For one view, that is. That of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Thank you for providing yet another perspective. It's important to recognize that (like anything one could ask along these lines) there is probably no universal Christian belief in these regards, but it is helpful to have all of the myriad different viewpoints so the questioner can have a full picture of the bredth of perspectives. Other interesting perspectives on the matter can be found at Virtuous pagan, which covers the medieval and early modern Christian perspective on the question, as answered by thinkers such as Aquinas and Dante. --Jayron32 21:13, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we should have a standard disclaimer template to use every time Plasmic Physics gives a specifically JW view and claims it's general to all Christians, or the only correct one. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:45, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

For the record: I'm not JW, nor do I claim that my views are general to all Christians, nor do I claim that my views are perfectly correct. Plasmic Physics (talk) 01:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, please note that Wavelength is the editor who generally posts the JW perspective. And yes, I'm disappointed by his continued omission of the minority (and non-orthodox) viewpoint he presents, and I appreciate Jayron's diligence in noting it. — Lomn 16:10, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

However Plasmic Physics does frequently provide their views usually without making it clear these may just be just be their views I presume from a Seventh-day Adventist perspective and often with the implication their views are the correct ones because they come from their interpretation of whatever bible passage and translation they choose. Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

plays at theatres

I wanted to take a friend of mine to the theatre to watch either Cats or Pirates of Penzance, two plays he's wanted to see for a while, but I have no idea where would be showing them. Is there any website that lists what's on at different theatres or something, I tried google but with no luck. I just want anywhere near me and within the next couple of months, but no idea where to look for the information.

86.15.83.223 (talk) 21:55, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

In the UK? (IP geolocates to England) Try a search at this site. Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:08, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, that doesn't mention a couple of places I had already found showing them over the summer, does that mean their versions are unofficial or something? 86.15.83.223 (talk) 23:36, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

When a play or musical play is first written, it is protected by the copyright of its authors. Its authors can decide when and where it can be presented. Cats The Musical was first produced in the West End in 1981, and so is still in this category. A production of Cats is either authorized by its authors (or more usually by those they have designated to do so), or it is unauthorized and can be shut down. Productions are expected to pay royalties to the authors. Once a certain number of years has passed (the exact number of years has been changed over time, and also varies by location), the copyrights lapse and the work falls into the public domain. The Pirates of Penzance is now in the public domain. Anyone may produce it in the theatre, and no one pays royalties to its authors. There can be nothing official or unofficial about a production of Pirates of Penzance.

There is no central registry of productions of plays in the public domain. And even the authors of works such as Cats may not be able to tell you at any moment where all the current authorized productions of their work are. But they should be able to tell you where the class 1, major presentations are. For Cats, [30] might help. - Nunh-huh 01:11, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

An exception might be a school production, where the copyright holders may not see it as real competition, and any attempt to shut it down might be bad publicity, so they let it run. StuRat (talk) 03:42, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Even schools pay for performance rights. They are a substantial expense for high school and local theater productions. Just like music, rights are managed by a small number of specialist rights managements groups who have less interest in negative consequences than individual authors might. Rmhermen (talk) 05:57, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

This is true, but in fact both Cats and The Phantom of the Opera have been made available for school productions. There are schools-only versions of some other shows that are not currently available for amateur productions, notably Les Miserables and (I think) Miss Saigon. There's even one for Avenue Q, with some of the more "adult" content considerably toned down. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 10:43, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Cats (etc.) has been licensed for school performance, but royalties must be paid (and the script must be adhered to). Failing either of these, the authors have the right to shut the performance down, whether they exercise that right or not. And it is sometimes exercised. - Nunh-huh 21:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

But the answer to your original question is no. There are many sites that are local to an area (eg http://www.yorkshire.com/what-to-do/artistic/performing-art), to an organisation (eg http://www.noda.org.uk/events), or to a genre (eg for Gilbert & Sullivan, https://www.gsarchive.net/) but it is unlikely that any of them is complete even within its own domain. It takes substantial work to maintain lists such as these, and it also relies on the producers of each show passing the information on to them. And the financial returns from such a site are pretty well limited to advertising, so they are mostly done as public services, which again does not suggest that they will be well-resources. --ColinFine (talk) 10:47, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

El Gamil (Egypt) fortress?

I have started work on our stub article El Gamil, the home of Port Said's airport and scene of a militarily successful but politically disastrous British airborne assault during the 1956 Suez Crisis. The article's lead states that it is "a fortress" and it appears in Category:Castles in Egypt. However, the only internet references that I can find to a fort or castle at El Gamil seem to have been inspired by Wikipedia. I have found quite detailed accounts of the 1956 combat, when after the capture of the airfield, the fighting continued in a sewage works, a cemetery, a coast guard barracks and a shanty town, but curiously not a fort. Can anyone confirm or deny the existence of a fortification here please? Alansplodge (talk) 21:55, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

To start: I've found two references from the late 19th century. 1895, mention of "Fort Gameel" and "port+said" 1882-85, "if preparations at Fort Gemil threaten Port Said... it will be destroyed". 184.147.116.201 (talk) 01:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, don't know how to fix that second link. It should point to http://books.google.com/books?id=slUoAAAAYAAJ page 252. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 01:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

That spelling, "Fort Gemil", brings more results. Here's another one from the 1880s. "Within eyesight of the town, on the seashore, in the direction of Damietta, stood Fort Gemil, garrisoned by troops variously estimated at numbers ranging from 600 to 2,500..." http://books.google.com/books?id=BqkaZlE7YWsC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=%22fort+gemil%22&source=bl&ots=x4GgUzHwP5&sig=KnZTfEFOTU2f-0UTbqHJrC4qOnw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7kE5UceGC5DE0AGZj4GQDg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22fort%20gemil%22&f=false 184.147.116.201 (talk) 01:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks 184, I tried "Gamil fort" but not "fort Gemil". At least I have something to work on now. Alansplodge (talk) 12:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Happy to help. The trick will be finding out what happened to the fort between 1895 and 1956. Any Arabic-speakers who can access Arabic-language sources here? 184.147.116.201 (talk) 13:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha! I found this page which identifies the fort on Google maps. Using the satellite image option, you can see that it's a rectangular structure on an island to the west of the airport. In 1956, the need was to secure the road to the east into Port Said, so the fort was well away from the fighting. Alansplodge (talk) 18:00, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Hurrah! Love a happy ending. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 00:54, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

Crucifixion

how many allied nations represented at Jesus' crucifiction — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lady65 (talk • contribs) 22:33, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if anyone can answer this, but what do you mean by allied nations? Do you mean people from land that was later owned by nations that became the Allies in the World Wars? IBE (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean the status quo of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre? --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 23:13, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Don't waste your time
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
3. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:20, 7 March 2013 (UTC) Any advance on 3? IBE (talk) 00:17, 8 March 2013 (UTC) That would be the USA, the USSR, and the UK. Or their predecessors. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:51, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

• Is this maybe a bad machine translation? Perhaps Lady65's native language is not English, and something is getting lost here. Crucifixion of Jesus#People present at the crucifixion gives various accounts of the other people present at the Crucifixion of Jesus. They include the two men he was crucified with (known as the Penitent thief and the Impenitent thief) and some of his followers, including the "Disciple whom Jesus loved" (i.e. John the Evangelist), and several women, namely The Three Marys (Jesus' mother, James' mother, and Salome (either Jesus' aunt and/or mother of John the Evangelist) and possibly the Myrrhbearers (Mary Magdalene, Johanna, and Susanna). As far as I know, all of these named individuals were of the Jewish nation; none came from outside Judea. There were some people from outside Judea who would have been present as well, including Simon of Cyrene, the centurion and soldiers who guarded the scene, mocked him on the cross, hung the INRI sign gambled for his clothes, and pierced his side. The centurion and soldiers would have been Romans, but probably not from Italia; I'm pretty sure the eastern legions recruited from the Eastern reaches of the empire, so the centurion and soldiers were likely Greek-speaking. That's just about everyone reported to have been present for some part of the crucifixion event. --Jayron32 02:03, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed about machine translation - perhaps "allies" means disciples. Alansplodge (talk) 09:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

---

There's a list of the nationalities of witnesses of the Pentecost in Acts 2:9-11, but not for the crucifixion... AnonMoos (talk) 03:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Nationality (and even ethnicity) was not a very tightly defined concept in the Roman empire, they were more concerned with citizenship. Roman soldiers were citizens of the Empire but their nationality (as we understand the concept today) could have been from any part of the Empire. Roger (talk) 09:45, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

March 8

Tower of London medieval escape

In the article Dafydd ap Llywelyn it says Gruffydd died trying to escape from the Tower of London by climbing down a knotted sheet, and fell to his death in March 1244. Was this a common type of escape in this time period from the Tower of London? Is there other details in a reference on how Dafydd fell to his death? Did the sheets untie? Did he lose his grip? Did others knock him off the sheets? Was he speared? Or some other reason?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 00:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It was his brother Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Fawr actually. There is some more info there, including an amusing manuscript illustration. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Take all colourful medieval,stories with a ton of salt. I found out here http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sXBdNsDxJ_cC&pg=PA217&dq=gruffydd+tower+london+death&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OZs5UanqLYLfOpCmgegL&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=gruffydd%20tower%20london%20death&f=false that the story comes from the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris. Our article on Paris says that he is "not always reliable". Having said that, the incident would have occurred in Paris's lifetime and it isn't a impossibility. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:11, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I see I made an error and it is actually Gruffydd that fell from the Tower. The book has Matthew showing how the sheet rope broke due to the tremendous weight of Gruffydd. He then broke his neck in the fall and was killed. The Tower looks like a cylinder with a crown on top. Is it likely that there would have been other prisioners held at the same time as Gruffydd?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:55, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

A model of the Tower of London as it appeared after the final period of expansion under Edward I

Wealthy prisoners could afford to pay for a reasonably comfortable apartment, rather than the pokey cells that you see in films. That explains the presence of bedsheets. I would be surprised if records exist to show which tower he was held in and who else was there at the time. The inner curtain wall, built by Henry III and Edward I is punctuated by cylindrical or semi-cylindrical towers, 12 by my count. The tops of many towers were demolished so that they could mount guns during the invasion scare of 1804-5 and the Victorians rebuilt them in the way that they thought looked authentic. Note that whoever drew the medieval picture may well have never seen the Tower of London, probably a monk in a remote abbey somewhere, so it's probably not accurate. Alansplodge (talk) 13:52, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Apparently it was the White Tower. By the way, Ranulf Flambard also escaped from there with a rope, in 1100 (although he survived). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:20, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

So take the round tower pictures with a "ton of salt". Alansplodge (talk) 09:09, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for info. If one were to guess, how many towers would there have been in the complex after Henry III's enhancements in the 13th century?--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:59, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Henry III is responsible for building (but not completing) the inner curtain wall,[31], the second wall from the outside on the model shown right. So it looks like 12 towers, plus the big central keep, the White Tower, which was started by William I. Alansplodge (talk) 18:06, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Alansplodge.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:16, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Female genital mutilation prevalence rates over time in a graph?

Hi. I need a graph of the overall world-wide combined incidence rate of all types of female genital mutilation. Preferably over the past decades, but I'm not sure how feasible that is because I found some tables which might have part of that information in the back of http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/FGM-C_final_10_October.pdf but they are very hard to interpret (e.g. three different years from each country, but not the same years and the rates vary widely by country). Any graph is better than nothing at this point, just to get some idea of the general overall trend. Thanks. 71.212.255.94 (talk) 03:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I found some charts that compare the incidence between women of different ages, would that help?
WHO: Trends in female genital mutilation,
Prevalence of FGM/C Among Younger and Older Women (page 3),
Younger women are less likely to have undergone any form of FGM/C than women in older age groups.
See also this statement by Ethiopian organization KMG: "KMG’s interventions have contributed to changes in attitude on FGM... more and more parents and girls are rejecting the practice – which has contributed to a phenomenal reduction in prevalence levels. According to a survey conducted by UNICEF in 2008; the % levels of those practicing FGM in Kembatta Zone had reduced from 97% in 1999 to 4.7% in 2008 and could have reduced even further as of May 2012."
You might also check out Prevalence of female genital mutilation by country which appears to have a lot of references linked from it. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 13:40, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. So far http://www.prb.org/images08/TrendsInFGMC.gif is the closest I've found, but I wish it had a single time scale. 71.212.255.94 (talk) 19:35, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Can the U.S. President order an ordinary person to do something?

Our son asked: "What if the President came in and told you that you have to eat salads?" This raised an interesting question: can the President in fact order a person that doesn't report to him to do something (or rather, does the person have to obey, like they generally would have to obey a policeman that asks to, say, move from a particular spot)? This question assumes that no law or executive order has been at point issued to any particular effect. Obviously, there are things a President can do that will affect you, e.g., by coming to your house, he'll subject you to high-level security perhaps without your permission, but the question is about a more direct type of communication, e.g., "Mr. Wales, I order you to eat this cupcake!".Knyazhna (talk) 03:41, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

No, the President can't order a particular person to do something. The extent to which he can compel all Americans to do something is questionable. There are some things which can be done by executive order, but they are generally quite limited. Most actions would require the approval of Congress, and perhaps the Supremes. StuRat (talk) 04:06, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

No, he cannot. The President doesn't rule or reign in the U.S., he presides. He does not set law, he cannot enforce his will upon you. That's what having a citizen president means. As John Adams once famously put it, the U.S. has a "government of laws and not of men". The President's duties and obligations are outlined in the U.S. constitution, specifically Article Two of the United States Constitution which does not contain the right to order other citizens around at his whim. Additional commentary by the writers of the Constituion on the scope of the President's powers and duties are in the Federalist Papers, specifically #41-43 which covers the powers of the Federal Government in general, and #67-77 which covers the executive branch and its powers in specific details. --Jayron32 05:08, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I think "whim" is the wrong word. The president may have what appears to be a good reason to him (e.g. national security). Would he still not be able to order? I am sure the founding fathers thought he couldn't, but nowadays is that really true? Ornil (talk) 05:27, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Even in some national security crisis, I don't think the president would have the constitutional backing to order civilians around without the backing of congress. The president can do some things with executive orders, but he cant just walk up to you and start ordering you around. Hope that helps ★★RetroLord★★ 10:46, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not so simple. At the moment, the President could not force you to eat your vegetables... but if Congress passes a law that said "Americans must eat their vegetables"... then the Executive branch could create a "Vegetable Enforcement Agency" to enforce that law. The Constitutionality of that law (or the method of enforcement) would no doubt be challenged, but that is another issue. Blueboar (talk) 14:42, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

If you happened to live in an area that was in rebellion against the United States, the president might be considered to have authority to give orders, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, if he could make the case that it was of military value against the rebellion. That was apparently the theory behind the Emancipation Proclamation anyway.

In my view, that's a "hard cases make bad law" sort of situation. The Proclamation was obviously correct morally, whether it was legal or not. But I wish the take on it were (by coincidence the same as mine), something like of course, slavery is against natural law, so the Proclamation was morally correct, but it was illegal. Good thing it happened, but it's not a precedent. Instead it seems that commentators have been swayed by the fact that it was the right thing to do, into giving assent to the highly dubious constitutional reasoning behind it. That could come back to bite us.

Anyway, short answer is no, the president cannot give orders to individuals not serving in the Armed Forces, under ordinary circumstances. --Trovatore (talk) 15:34, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The answer could also be maybe, since all U.S. males 17-44 are members of the "unorganized militia" [32] (except mariners, postmen, shipyard workers, some government employees). If the President could "call up" the unorganized militia to active duty, then as Commander-in-chief he could give them orders. But the unorganized militia would probably need to be called up by a new law from Congress activated a new draft (probably). Some states also make the same people members of the state militia and might perhaps be called up by the state governor and then into federal service, if the state laws allowed. Ex-military members are militia members until 65. Rmhermen (talk) 18:41, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

In my state (Michigan) the governor could theoretically call up any male age 17-60 for "in case of riot, tumult, breach of the peace, resistance of process, or for service in aid of civil authority, whether state or federal, or in time of public danger, disaster, crisis, catastrophe or other public emergency within this state." But whether anyone has ever actually been required to do so, I can't say. Rmhermen (talk) 18:52, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

How many teachers of English as a foreign language are there?

Implicit in my question: all varieties of the English language; in the world, not just wherever I'm from or wherever you are from; people who would self-identify as teachers but not necessarily professional. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.43.33.86 (talk) 05:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

This guy claims (without a reference, unfortunately) that there are 1 billion ESL learners - divide by average class size to give yourself a rough estimate? 184.147.116.201 (talk) 13:52, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The figure sounds kind of too high, even if you take into account that many school systems have English as a foreign language. 14:06, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It's probably on the low side if you just consider all the countries that have English as an offical language - India alone would easily fill a large chunk of the "1 billion". Outside of the Anglosphere itself most European countries have English as a second language at least at high school level and it's also popular in China and Japan. Roger (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I have the notion that only the upper class in India speaks English to any significant extent. Most of them do speak it rather fluently, though almost always as a second language (the figure I've heard for first-language speakers in India is about a quarter mil). Anyway "a large chunk of the 1 billion" seems unlikely to me, but I have no real data. --Trovatore (talk) 17:30, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Trovatore, your notion is not far from the truth, though I think English language knowledge extends somewhat beyond the upper class to include much of the upper middle class, particularly those working in export-oriented sectors and tourism. [OR alert for the following:] Still, I doubt that more than 10% of Indians can carry on a conversation in English. Many lower middle class Indians have a rudimentary knowledge of English, based on my experience traveling independently in southern India. That is, many Indians can manage simple exchanges, like stating numbers in response to "How much?", but probably not much of a real conversation. Marco polo (talk) 18:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I think 1 billion active learners is too high. I believe that there are something like 1 billion non-native speakers of English. (You will find higher numbers in some sources, but those numbers probably include people whose ability to speak English doesn't go much beyond "Hello" "How are you?" "Thank you" and "My name is...".) Not all of them are active learners. That is, many of them use the language without actively studying it any longer. The estimate of 1 billion learners was made by the British Council, part of whose mission is to encourage English language learning. It is clearly in their interest to overestimate the number of learners to justify their budget to the British government. A more realistic figure for active learners would be in the hundreds of millions. Let's say that there are 700 million people currently learning English (maybe 400 million just in China and India). Now, let's say the average English teacher teaches 35 students (in an average of more than one class session, since many teachers would teach multiple classes). That would suggest around 20 million English teachers. Note that many teachers of English in China and perhaps elsewhere themselves have limited speaking ability, so the quality of teaching may not be high. Marco polo (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You'd be surprised just how many of the lower classes in India and Nepal and other countries of that area speak English - even children who have no access to schooling or any form of education. When I was trekking in the Himalayas ten years ago, I met a ten year-old boy in ragged clothing who came up to me and my wife and asked me where I was from. I told him I was from England, and he said, "Oh, wow! I've always wanted to go to England!" Looking out across the mountains, he asked me to show him where it was. He spoke perfect English, but had no idea that the country itself was so far away that it was impossible to see from where we were. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 23:16, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Korean Armistice Agreement

I decided to ask this here because I do not believe people will view the talk page for the article. Multiple news sources say that North Korea won't fulfill it's peace treaties and non-agression pact anymore. I also included a report from two days ago that speculated about them canceling the armistice. My question is if the armistice is one of the treaties cancelled and if it is, can that be conveyed in the article properly? --Thebirdlover (talk) 05:15, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

There is already language in the article about North Korea's rejection of the treaty. That language seems appropriate to the current situation, in which North Korea has rejected the treaty but not yet abrogated it in a sustained way. If a full-fledged war broke out, then the article would need editing to indicate that the treaty was fully defunct. Marco polo (talk) 16:49, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Shooting ended in the Korean Conflict when the Armistice was signed in 1953. If the North says they now repudiate the Armistice, then the Conflict is back on isn't it? Would bombings, shelling, sinking their ships, amphibious landings and other acts of war against the North be in accord with all customs of war? Such actions are presumably not going to happen against the North without military action on their part since Russia and China have UN veto power, but if the North attacked the South, or attacked US bases somewhere with missiles, would retaliation be subject to Russian or Chinese veto, or is there some continuing UN resolution such as United Nations Security Council Resolution 83 from 1950 which would authorize warfare against North Korea? Did Resolution 83 become defunct when the 1953 Armistice was signed? Edison (talk) 18:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Adam Smith

Hi! I was reading our article on Adam Smith, but i'm still not too sure on his political ideals, could anyone here state what his political ideas were or if he came up with any? All I can find as of now is some things about Political Economy, am I missing anything? Thanks ★★RetroLord★★ 10:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

He wrote a whole book on morality, which contains ideas relevant to politics, and a multi-volume book on political economy, which contains a great many opinions on political issues. If you start reading The Wealth of Nations you will see how he has a view on many social issues of his time. In fact the book is largely about social policy. He critiques what he calls "the policy of Europe", especially England, where restrictive government legislation interfered with business, and he thinks, also interfered with people's freedom and ability to find work. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

what are the causes of the rebellion?

WP:DENY
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
what are the causes that led to the rebellion and the rebel alliance? what could the empire have done to prevent this? 91.120.48.242 (talk) 12:52, 8 March 2013 (UTC) Please clarify - which rebellion or empire are you referring to? Please don't tell me you are referring to this. 129.31.212.48 (talk) 13:21, 8 March 2013 (UTC) Are you talking about star wars? If so try reading this: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Alliance_to_Restore_the_Republic. Staecker (talk) 13:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC) It sounds like the OP may be referring to the Syrian civil war. If so, then the article should fill you in on the specifics regarding the outbreak of the uprising. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:31, 8 March 2013 (UTC) I thought that at first, but Syria is hardy an empire. I suspect it's an intentionally silly question. Paul B (talk) 16:11, 8 March 2013 (UTC) We could take the line espoused by some editors, some even in all seriousness, that all questions are assumed to be about the USA unless there's evidence to the contrary. That would mean we're talking about the American Revolution and the British Empire. -- Jack of Oz [Talk] 16:28, 8 March 2013 (UTC) I think that's a view that seems to exist mainly in the imagination of people objecting to it. In any case, when you put rebel alliance together with the empire, I think it's pretty obvious that the question is about Star Wars. There are lots of rebel alliances in real-world history, but they're hardly ever called by that unqualified name. --Trovatore (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC) The general answer to all such questions is that "the rebellion" was either caused by the oppression of the people, or by treasonable conspirators bent on the destruction of society. The empire could have prevented this by liberating the people from oppression or by cracking down on subversives. Paul B (talk) 16:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC) I don't think those two effects are distinct. That is, there are some people who will rebel no matter how fairly they are treated, but, the more unfairly you treat people, the more will rebel. So, then, the key is to "divide and conquer", by being as fair as possible, but also attacking those who rebel no matter what. For example, in the case of the Syrian government, they should have allowed demonstrations, and granted democratic reforms, while using military means to deal with Muslim fundamentalists. But, they didn't do this, they instead attacked everyone, guaranteeing an alliance between those wanting democratic reforms and Muslim fundamentalists, who are now both shared enemies of the government. StuRat (talk) 17:56, 8 March 2013 (UTC) I've invited the OP via talk page to come back and clarify. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 17:19, 8 March 2013 (UTC) This IP's questions have been getting steadily weirder -- this one just plain looks like trolling. Looie496 (talk) 23:12, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Slavery history

I am looking for history in slavery for a social studies report. Richard Daly was a slave. I can not find him.74.215.45.218 (talk) 15:56, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

There are brief references to him here, here and here. No wikipedia article yet, that I can find. I’d recommend visiting a library and asking for books about the Underground Railroad or a Who’s Who in Kentucky/Encyclopedia of Kentucky. 184.147.116.201 (talk) 16:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

How does one maintain one's Christian status?

How does one maintain one's Christian status in order to stay within christendom and not become kicked out of christendom by one's church community? If a particular church rejects a member due to radical difference of beliefs, can that member join a new church? How do church officials recognize the difference between false believers and true believers? If a Christian lacks the ability to guess effectively what the pastor/priest believes in on a particular issue, can this person be excused from becoming banished from the Christian community? Sneazy (talk) 16:17, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "become kicked out of christendom" or "becoming banished from the Christian community". Can you explain what's behind your question? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 16:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Most denominations don't kick people out at all, and those which do typically practice this quite rarely. See excommunication. One exception is polygamous branches of the Mormon church, which must kick out large numbers of men in order to provide the desired ratio of men to women. Of course, being kicked out of one denomination leaves you free to join another. StuRat (talk) 16:27, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Excommunication is a complicated topic, but in general it does not constitute being "kicked out of the church". In Catholic theory at least (I'm not a Catholic but they have the most elaborated and well-explained law on the subject), excommunication is a discipline intended to bring an erring disciple back to the fold. It is never hardly ever? irreversible, though for some particularly grave offenses it can be remitted only by the pope, if I remember correctly. An excommunicate Catholic is not excused from any Catholic obligations, must for example attend Mass, though he is not permitted to take communion. --Trovatore (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Just like there are different levels of bankruptcy, there are also different levels of excommunication, up to and including banishment. StuRat (talk) 17:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

For Catholics there is no such thing as "being kicked out of the Church". Even anathema (which I'm not clear on whether it still exists) is reversible. If I recall correctly, confirmation is considered to make an indelible mark on the soul, which makes you a Catholic forever, even in Hell if it comes to that. --Trovatore (talk) 18:24, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The last thing sounds rather nonsensical. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:23, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why. Sacraments are held to leave a permanent mark on the soul, just as Trovatore says, but are no guarantee of salvation. A Catholic can still end up in Hell, according to Catholic belief. But it's Baptism that makes you a Catholic forever, according to Catholic belief: it tends to be Anglicans that consider Confirmation as the point of irreversibly becoming Catholic ;) 86.128.227.169 (talk) 20:30, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, once in Hell you'll burn till time ends, right? Which is never. Anything else is rather pointless after that. It must be funny to make a distinction between the Catholics and the non-Catholics which are currently roasting on fire in Hell. Also, it always seemed to me that the Sacrament of Confession does guarantee salvation - until you next sin again, and that the Priest is rather unnecessary in the process. Also, question: do confessions done by Priests who abused children count? Wouldn't a "and any sin I may have forgotten, or had been confessed improperly (like to a pedophile priest, which would not be a priest by the time of confession were his crimes known)" clause make sense here? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:08, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

"The just man sins seven times a day, etc". There ain't no such thing as a perfect human being, and that includes priests. It's the intention of the penitent that matters, not whether the priest is personally maculate. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:16, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, there's no such thing as the Christian community, or Christendom. Not really. What there is, is a bewildering multitude of different sects (let's call them churches), all of whom operate autonomously, most of whom claim to be the only true church, and most of whom do not recognise the legitimacy of any of the others (although there may be some degree of recognition of their sacraments such as baptism). There's probably more inter-faith dialogue between the Anglicans and the Jews, or the Catholics and the Muslims, than between most pairs of Christian churches. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 16:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's a bit of a sweeping statement. See for example Churches Together in England. Alansplodge (talk) 17:17, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

So, does that mean Christians from different denominations recognize each other as heretics or false believers? Why can't the sacred book be viewed subjectively like any other literary work? In other words, the implication of a particular passage to support a particular position is subjective, and that one will never know "Truth" but nevertheless enjoys the pursuit of "Truth". Sneazy (talk) 16:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Although there is obviously inter-denominational conflict in some parts of the world, tremendous strides have been made over the last century, and Christians from different churches now routinely work together, respecting each other's differing traditions. See Ecumenism for more details. Alansplodge (talk) 17:17, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec) This is heading for something of a debate, but I can help a little with one thing. Do they regard each other as heretics? Well, the Decree on Ecumenism from the Second Vatican Council altered the Catholic Church's position, and made highly conciliatory overtures towards Protestant Christians. Many of the most committed Evangelical Christians I have met regard most Catholics as not being Christians. They will state it explicitly, but acknowledge that some Catholics are Christians. Liberal Christians will almost certainly differ. Evangelicals don't like the Bible being treated as just another literary work, but it may be explicitly called a "text" in liberal circles. It just depends on the individual. IBE (talk) 17:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Agree with the two posters above, there are in fact many churches that, while believing others to be mistaken on certain points, nevertheless consider them brothers in faith. Sometimes such recognition can be one-sided, e.g. the protestant reformer John Calvin wrote concerning Martin Luther, (who strongly repudiated Calvin's view of the Lord's Supper): "Even if he should call me a devil, I would accord him the honor of acknowledging him to be an eminent servant of God." - Lindert (talk) 17:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec as well) I think that is a gross exaggeration, Jack. Most churches which believe in infant baptism accept most other church's baptisms as valid while most churches which believe in only adult baptism accept most other churches' adult baptisms as valid. Many churches have intercommunion. Our Full communion article has only partial lists while Open communion discusses churches which do not restrict their celebration of the Lord's Supper/communion/Eucharist. Interchurch dialogue is quite common as are multichurch or parachurch organizations. Which is not to say that most churches do not believe that they are the best, most correct, and or that they believe certain others are very wrong. But it is not as grim as you painted it. Rmhermen (talk) 17:37, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

All of this discussion has been about what various groups believe or recognize, but many of the groups themselves don't consider their own recognition to be definitive. See church invisible. From the point of view of Christian theology, the only one who can kick you out of the real Church is God. --Trovatore (talk) 17:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

To partially address the questioner's last question: In some usually independent congregations, the pastor/priest/minister may wield such power. In others, he is responsible to or together with a group of local church leaders. In most other churches, the pastor is responsible to a regional council or bishop and sometimes to higher levels (national, international church bodies). In some churches, there is a "Supreme Leader" (Pope, Patriach, etc.) with final authority. Rmhermen (talk) 18:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I have a friend that I've caught up with after many years. Some years ago, he was banished from his local church because he refused to join in paying the wages of the pastor. That, however, doesn't mean he was thrown out of Christianity, or that he's not now a Christian: he still regards himself as a believer, just not a member of that particular church. Ultimately, whether you are a Christian is between yourself and God, not another human being and you. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Uploading a picture

close trolling by indef blocked user
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I found a small picture of Westley Allan Dodd to put in his article but I can't upload it because I am not an administrator accordin to what it said. Can an administrator upload this picture? It's a TV screenshot from the TV show Most Evil. Thank you. It qualifies under rationale since he was hanged like a pig in 1993. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FMicronesian (talk • contribs) 17:58, 8 March 2013 (UTC) There is no special need to be a administrator to upload pictures. The usual issue is with accounts that are too new (a bar set to limit vandalism). However to upload an image you either must prove it is freely licensed or in the public domain or you must own the rights and freely license them. We usually prefer those images to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons which makes it easier for all language versions of Wikipedia to use the image. English Wikipedia does allow some "fair use" of copyrighted images but the legalities of this are more complex. TV screenshots are almost never freely licensed but copyrighted by the producers of the programming. Rmhermen (talk) 18:10, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Relationship between the Holy Spirit and baptism

In Christian theology, what is the relationship between the Holy Spirit and baptism? Is the Holy Spirit present before, during, after, or throughout the whole baptism? Also, how do you differentiate the Holy Spirit from God? Is the Holy Spirit God or is God the Holy Spirit or is the Holy Spirit a part of God? Also, what does "personal lord and savior" mean? How does Jesus fulfill the role of the "personal lord and savior"? Does the person repent to the Holy Spirit or Jesus? 140.254.121.60 (talk) 20:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It depends a LOT on which denomination you belong to as far as the relationship between the Holy Spirit and baptism. There's no widely agreed upon relationship. In broadest terms, the Holy Spirit is God's presence that exists within people guiding their actions to his will. Since denominations differ greatly on the practice of and theology surrounding the act of Baptism, it is quite hard to draw any broad commonalities. I have been, in my life, a practicing Catholic and a practicing Baptist. The Catholics practice infant baptism and do so because they believe that Baptism is required for getting into Heaven, and thus unbaptized infants could be condemned without said baptism. I'm not sure they have any position of the relation of Baptism to the Holy Spirit, that is I can't find any statements to say whether a person can have the "holy spirit" within them prior to Baptism, whether it comes before or after baptism, or whether such spirit is omnipresent. In the Baptist faith, a person receives the Holy Spirit when they accept Christ as their personal savior (that is, they agree to follow his teachings and recognize him as the son of God and the ultimate sacrifice for their own sins: that's what "personal lord and savior" means: lord as in leader, savior as in one who saves us from hell) and makes a "profession of faith", which is a public statement of the same. Baptists do this before Baptism, that is they don't allow someone to be Baptized (or don't recognize such prior Baptisms) for which the person has not already received the Holy Spirit in their lives. Baptists practice believer's baptism which means the presence of the Holy Spirit and the Profession of Faith happen prior to the Baptism itself. The Holy Spirit is not distinguished from God, it is an aspect of God or a role that God plays. Nearly all Christians today follow "Trinitarian" theology and hold that the Trinity represents three co-equal aspects of God, being God the Father (the God that created the universe), God the Son (being Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. See also Holy Spirit (Christian denominational variations) for more reading. There are a LOT of different perspectives on this, and none is bound to be really universal. --Jayron32 20:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Will the Roman Catholic church baptize a deceased infant? What happens if the infant dies at birth? Will that infant still be baptized, or must the infant be alive to be baptized? What if the mother doesn't know that the pregnancy has been spontaneously aborted? Or maybe, the preterm babies don't count as human and therefore do not qualify to be baptized? Also, why is Jesus the son of God? What does "son" mean? Also, the terms "body of Christ" and "bride of Christ" refer to the Church. However, the former term may imply that Christ is the leader of the Church and the latter may imply that Christ is the husband or bridegroom of the Church? Is this husband-wife relationship equal or is one more dominant than the other? Lastly, why do you capitalize "baptism"? 140.254.121.60 (talk) 20:37, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It used to be the case that an unbaptised infant in the RC church was said to go to "Limbo": this concept was abolished quite recently, and now such infants are said to go straight to heaven. As to Jesus being the son of God, you need to read the story of the Annunciation. --TammyMoet (talk) 20:48, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

For the last question, It's because I'm too Lazy to Pay attention to What I am doing and I randomly Capitalize some words Sometimes. Pay it No Mind. You can read more about various theological interpretations of the phrases you ask about at Bride of Christ and Body of Christ. --Jayron32 21:03, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

[This website] suggests that even Roman Catholics are "born-again". However, the concept of being "born-again" is different for Catholics than for evangelical Protestants. For Catholics, being born-again happens at baptism. For evangelical Protestants, being born-again happens before baptism, which from the Catholic view, would presumably look like the individual has been "baptized twice". So, an infant baptized in the Catholic church would be considered by the church as "born again". 140.254.121.60 (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

As our article on Limbo of the Infants made clear last time I looked, that's not really true Tammy. Limbo used to be a more popular theory, and currently "all babies go to Heaven" is a more popular theory, but neither is Church teaching or ever were. The Church actually very clearly says that we cannot know what happens to unbaptised infants, although we can hope and trust. One of the things that publishing the Catechism of the Catholic Church made very easy was checking which things Catholics say are actually Church teaching, and which are not. The big change, therefore, was that it became easier for Catholics to access the information that Limbo was not an actual doctrine, as opposed to a particularly popular pious belief in their region. But even the old Catholic Encyclopedia article, which predates Vatican II by decades, makes it clear that Limbo of the Infants is only a theory, not a doctrine. 81.156.144.160 (talk) 19:56, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoo 140.254.121.60. Baptism is just a symbolic ritual to suggest that at this point froward, any past sins (“an apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” thing) is in the past and a new start can be had. The Holy sprit in the modern age can be best thought off as sentient awareness blended with life experience and inflection. That only comes when an individual reaches that stage in life when s/he has the intellectual capacity. . . to understand. The disciples ( et. al., of JC of Naz) were no young chickens when they were filled with it. So no, Baptism and the holy spirit have no temporal connection.--Aspro (talk) 21:16, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by "a new start can be had"? Do you mean that the follower of Christ would live a new way of life or follow a new way to cope with life, or do you mean that the follower of Christ is now "perfect"? 140.254.121.60 (talk) 21:20, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Good question. If you look at a really old baptism font you may see inscribed: Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν. To day we can take it as meaning: To all present in this community, present at this baptism... etc., OK, we all know this kid's dad is well known for doing a bit of poaching and is quick to perform a bit of ducking and diving. But is his child (moms were not included in those days) to be tainted with his fathers reputation? No! (emphatic). Therefore, by this act of baptism he can be encourages to follow the road to righteousness ( i.e., not do what his dad does). So it means the former to your question; he is being given the chance to live a new way of life. Americans now (for instance) often employ a psychoanalyst – they speak in modern language that is easier to understand. So, even if they ( the analysts) are are a bit off message (?) , their clients get the support, that religion in a bygone age would have given them.--Aspro (talk) 22:00, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

As an aside: For the anoraks and geeks out there, did you notice that that Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν is a palindrome? Really neat, because it goes both ways, which in this context is very fitting. You can't turn it around to suggest anything else. These medieval people where really very smart IMHO. They would have not problem in getting a plumb job in to-days advertising industry.--Aspro (talk) 22:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Ah, so the Bible is all marketing hype. That explains a lot. HiLo48 (talk) 23:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Baptism is fairly clearly not "just a symbolic ritual" for many (possibly most) Christians - see Baptism#Meaning and effects. For Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Lutherans and Anglicans, among others, it is a sacrament. The exact understanding of what a sacrament is varies from denomination to demonination - the article provides more information - but for these groups baptism is not merely symbolic. With regard to the OP's question, there is a fairly explicit link between the Holy Spirit and baptism in Catholicism - see Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit or have a read of the section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which deals with baptism [33] and includes, among other statements The different effects of Baptism are signified by the perceptible elements of the sacramental rite. Immersion in water symbolizes not only death and purification, but also regeneration and renewal. Thus the two principal effects are purification from sins and new birth in the Holy Spirit. and The fruit of Baptism, or baptismal grace, is a rich reality that includes forgiveness of original sin and all personal sins, birth into the new life by which man becomes an adoptive son of the Father, a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit. (my emphasis). Valiantis (talk) 23:55, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that the best way to explain Baptism, from the point of view of the Baptists (as I tried to explain above) is that it is the act which makes inner conversion real. It completes the event. It isn't the baptism that brings about salvation, it's the acceptance of Jesus as one's lord and savior that does that, but that doesn't make the subsequent Baptism symbolic or unnecessary. The spirit of James Chapter 2 explains it well: Man is saved by faith, but faith without works is dead. So the faith and the works are necessary. In the case of Baptism, the acceptance of Christ and the Baptism are both necessary, the inner conversion validates the subsequent Baptism, and the Baptism seals the conversion, much as a "signature" seals a "contract". Again, depending on your denomination YMMV and there are different understandings, but as Valiantis notes nearly all major denominations hold Baptism as a vital sacrament or event, and not symbolic in any way, but meaningful; though different denominations will give different rationales for its importance. --Jayron32 00:23, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a very good way of saying it Jayron32. When I suggested it was 'just' symbolic I meant the it is the formulaic ceremony -is just that. It is a structure or ritual that everybody knows. As  Ryan Vesey say's below, you can use tape water, (or you can even bring back a bottle of that open sewer that is still called the Jordan River to use in your babies baptism)(but boil it for 15 minutes). It doesn't matter, as I think you will agree. It is understanding the meaning behind-the -ritual that carries the purpose. But the act of baptism itself, is just an formulaic act. I agree: Train some chimpanzees to follow through with the same mannerisms and it would not be a Christen baptism. So, I'm not disagreeing with you, other than wording we are using to try to sum things up into very few words. It is a "contract" between parents, priest, vicars and the local community of friends and neighbors. It it the parents solemnly "contracting " before witnesses , to pass over to the church absolute authority over their child. Perhaps, not what John-the-Baptist originally had in mind - but thats another topic.--Aspro (talk) 19:43, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

• As has been made clear above, baptism is very different depending on the denomination. I was baptised Lutheran, but I don't really know how they treat it, they do take part in infant baptists. I was raised Methodist. Methodism, for one, makes it clear that baptism by water is unnecessary. My pastor makes a point at each baptism of showing that we use tap water, not any special sort of water. It is generally done to infants, but adults who wish to be baptized by water can do so. When an infant is baptized in a Methodist church, both the Church and the infant's parents/relatives/godparents agree to raise him or her in Christianity. Later in life, Methodists go through confirmation. At the end of confirmation classes, we make a public confession of our faith. This is essentially analogous to the Baptist conception of baptism. Ryan Vesey 23:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not been explicitly mentioned yet, so I'd just like to mention the relevant Dominical statement, John 3:5: "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." As we can see from the above discussion, there is no universal interpretation of this passage. Tevildo (talk) 00:39, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

March 9

Nootka Crisis

So I've read through the Nootka Crisis article and I understand it, but it leads me to a broader question. How relevant was the Pacific Northwest at the time, internationally? Was the Nootka Crisis really well known at the time be the general population of England, Spain, or even the US, who also apparently has stakes in the area (insofar as the general population has any knowledge of international events)? Mingmingla (talk) 03:38, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The US didn't exist at the buildup to the crisis, and had the Revolutionary War to worry about during much of that period, then the formation of a new government. So, what was happening clear on the opposite side of the continent wouldn't have been much of a concern, except perhaps for it's potential to draw British forces away. StuRat (talk) 04:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the Pacific Northwest was very relevant at the time, in terms of international politics in Europe or the brand new United States. There is a story (can't find a ref quickly offhand) that when the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, learned of the crisis at Nootka, he had no idea where this "Nootka" was. Being from the Pacific Northwest and interested in its early history, I've read a lot on this topic, and it seems to me that most people in Europe (and the US, such as it was at the time) had little to no knowledge of the Pacific Northwest, with a few exceptions. The region was of strategic interest to the Spanish and Russian Empires. The Spanish king and the Russian czar had many other things to worry about, and the details of expanding imperial control over the PNW was largely left to the Viceroy of New Spain and the Russian fur trading companies (later the Russian companies would be put under direct imperial control, but were not at the time of the Nootka Crisis). British and American (US) interest was mostly restricted to a small group of merchants interested in tapping the fur trade opportunities, word of which had spread only a few years earlier. Before the Nootka Crisis the Pacific Northwest was little known or cared about by most people. Except that the PNW was still believed to potentially have a Northwest Passage—an ocean link between the north Pacific and the Atlantic (perhaps by way of Hudson Bay). Even after the crisis a number of serious naval expeditions were sent to the region to search for such a passage. Spain and Britain were particularly interested in determining whether such a passage existed. If it did, it would be of tremendous strategic importance and both Britain and Spain were very eager to find it first, even as the possibility of its existence grew smaller and smaller.

News about the Spanish-British clash at Nootka Sound reached Europe in 1790 and sparked a major war mobilization. In England at least the event certainly became well known and used as a rallying cry for a general war with Spain. The whole thing was resolved peacefully and soon overshadowed by the Napoleonic Wars, but for a brief time the Nootka Crisis was common knowledge in England. I'm not sure what the average Spaniard knew or thought about it, although people must have known it had something to do with the impending war with England, I would think. In the US it was probably not widely known or cared about, except among the sea trade oriented companies of New England, New York, Philadelphia, etc. The emerging "North West Trade", and its links to the China Trade, was one of the few economically positive things during the general depression following the Revolutionary War. And the fact that Britain and Spain were caught up in war mongering made it easier for the Americans to take over the trading opportunities on the Pacific Northwest coast. Still, it was probably little known or cared about by Americans outside the sea trading companies. It was, however, of interest to the US government, especially people like Thomas Jefferson. The American takeover of the Northwest coast trade after the Nootka Crisis, along with things like Robert Gray's "discovery" of the Columbia River, laid the foundation for American claims to the Pacific Northwest and work to further those claims, such as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The Nootka Crisis and its resolution also became an important milestone in the international laws regarding imperial claims, and thus was known to people interested in such things. In short, it put an end to the notion that an imperial power could claim land simply de jure or "by prior discovery" (as Spain's claims to the Pacific Northwest were largely based on); rather, de jure claims had to be backed up with de facto settlements, land purchases, actual occupation, etc. Having lost the stand-off over the Nootka Crisis, Spain was forced to abandon its claims of the entire coast north to Alaska, ultimately accepting a boundary not too far north of its northernmost de facto occupation at San Francisco (actually Spain made a pretty good deal with the US, getting the boundary set at 42 degrees north, quite a bit north of San Francisco—in exchange for losses elsewhere). If I understand right, the Nootka Crisis was fairly well known in England not just as an excuse for war with Spain, but for its role in opening up the vast territories claimed but unoccupied by Spain. The ramifications of this change in what constituted a "legal" imperial claim was quite important for not just Britain and Spain, but all imperial powers (including the US). Thus it was certainly well known to people interested in such things, but not to the general public so much. In England the Nootka Crisis was big news for a couple years, when it nearly led to war with Spain. But political changes in Europe quickly overshadowed it. Before the crisis was even fully resolved Britain and Spain had become allies

Finally, the events at Nootka were important to the subjects of British North America (ie, Canada), to the point where Nootka Sound was incorporated into Canada's unofficial anthem, The Maple Leaf Forever. Pfly (talk) 10:12, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

In my A Level history course in the 1970s, which covered British and European history from 1750 to 1950, the Nootka Crisis wasn't mentioned at all (in fact I had never heard of it until a couple of minutes ago). We covered many seemingly inconsequential colonial disputes, such as the War of Jenkin's Ear, the Dispoilation of the Begums of Oudh and the Don Pacifico Affair, but not Nootka. If it was well known then, it seems to be almost entirely forgotten now. Alansplodge (talk) 14:14, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Embalming heads of state for display

So apparently Venezuela's gonna put Hugo Chavez's body on display for eternity, just like Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Ferdinand Marcos and the Kims of North Korea. However, one thing that I noticed is that, in many of the cases where the bodies of heads of state were embalmed and put on display, this was against their wishes (for example, Lenin wanted to be buried in St. Petersburg, Mao and Ho Chi Minh wanted to be cremated, while Marcos' family wants him to be buried in the National Cemetery). However, some of those who had their bodies embalmed may have wanted it (like maybe Stalin, although he was later buried, and maybe the Kims, although I'm not sure).

So this is actually a set of questions regarding a similar topic:

1. Did Hugo Chavez ever state that he wanted his body to be put on display, or what he wanted people to do with his body after his death?

2. Did Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il request that their bodies be put on display at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun?

3. Did Stalin request to have his body be put next to Lenin?

4. In the cases of Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh, why did their Communist government decide to put their bodies on display despite being against their wishes?

5. Aside from the former leader of Bulgaria (whose mausoleum was later demolished), who are other notable examples of heads of state/government whose bodies were put on display in a mausoleum?

6. Why is this practice especially common among dictatorships? Does it have anything to do with cults of personality?

Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

6) Yes, with the cult of personality they are revered as if they were gods. So, just like we would probably do something special with Jesus's remains, if we ever managed to find them, so do they. This also gets to item 4, where the government does it to remind people that they are the successors to a "god". Since those governments frequently don't have legitimacy by having won votes, they have to find it in other ways. StuRat (talk) 04:31, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Hence the interest in alleged relics connected with Jesus, and especially with the Turin Shroud. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:38, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

6. No. Nothing to do with socialism. (It's a shame you conflated that with cult of personality.) HiLo48 (talk) 04:42, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes I'm perfectly aware that not all "socialist" countries are what the west normally calls "socialist" (for example, Scandinavian countries tend to have socialist governments and yet have good standards of living). I'm even aware of the fact that North Korea is actually "Juche" and not exactly communist. What I meant to say is that the practice is especially common among "communist" states (which are actually not yet communist, only socialist). I did not mean that socialism = cult of personality (Mussolini's Italy was anti-socialist, but he had a cult of personality) In response, I've edited my original question. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 05:04, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Cool. It's not easy finding universally accepted, one or two word labels for different ideologies, is it? HiLo48 (talk) 05:10, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

While Mussolini indeed had a cult of personality, the people eventually got wise to him, and he and his pals were shot and then hung by their heels in a public place. Unfortunately, too many Commie countries don't display such wisdom. We can probably expect Castro to be put in a glass case also, once he croaks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:38, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

To answer question 4, i suspect it is for propaganda reasons. People like Lenin were regarded as national heroes, and by being able to do a sort of 'pilgrimage' to visit the grave of a national hero is good for morale purposes. ★★RetroLord★★ 05:20, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

And for question 2, I doubt they had much say in the matter. The administration that takes over will decide what is best for propaganda purposes in places such as North Korea, and since the final wishes of these leaders aren't usually released, I doubt we will ever know for sure. ★★RetroLord★★ 05:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Juan Perón kept his embalmed wife Eva at the dinner table. See Eva Perón#Final resting place. Just to add to the list. Don't cry for me Argentina, indeed. --Jayron32 05:58, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Catholic churches in Bavaria and their bells

What's the point of having the bells toll 24 hours a day, every quarter of an hour? Such huge noise pollution disturbs the sleep of... well, almost the entire population without sound-proof windows and walls. Are the people there OK with that? --Immerhin (talk) 11:29, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

See de:Glockengeläut for more info. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 13:52, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I grew up with that, London suburbs, and the sound of trains. You get used to it all and miss it when it's gone. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:57, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The original point was that before mass-production, clocks and watches were for rich people, everybody else relied on public clocks. Now it's a tradition that most people (presumably) want to continue. If you really don't like the sound of bells, you could always buy a house out of earshot. Alansplodge (talk) 18:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not that loud, and usually just one chime stroke per quarter hour. As Judith said, many people like it. When I lived in Bavaria some 15 years ago, there was much resentment among the population towards city people who moved to villages and then sued the churches to stop the chimes. — Sebastian 18:49, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

@Alansplodge: It's not a matter of personal preference towards the beauty of the sound of the bells. It's that humans need sleep to survive and the bells significantly reduce the quality of the process. --Immerhin (talk) 18:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think it is a matter of preference, because if enough people petitioned the town council about the issue, there are probably statutory powers available to silence the bells. The fact that this hasn't happened suggests to me that most people, as Judith and Sebastian say, have grown accustomed to, or actually rather like the bells. One person's "huge noise pollution" is another person's heritage and birthright. Alansplodge (talk) 20:08, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I rather doubt —and that is not too strong a word— that someone may end up liking not being able to sleep properly. And how can that constitute someone's "heritage and birthright" is simply beyond me. But I guess people can be stupid in many ways. --Immerhin (talk) 21:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Your assumption is that the bells interfere with everybody's sleep. There is ample anecdotal evidence, and I'm sure reliable evidence can be found, that generally people get used to the noises which frequently occur in their environment, so that the noises cease to affect their sleep. Indeed there is also anecdotal evidence that people's sleep can come to depend on such noises, and suffers if the noises are silenced. --ColinFine (talk) 22:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

See Effects of noise from non-traffic-related ambient sources on sleep: Review of the literature of 1990-2010 "Furthermore, the national inventory study of 1998 from the Netherlands was the only study displaying small detrimental effects on sleep emitted from bell and recycling (ie bottle bank) noise." Alansplodge (talk) 23:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

If you manage to develop such a huge resistance to random ringing —very hard to believe— that you are able to sleep through the constant chiming and calls to prayer or whatever rituals are being summoned, then you won't be able to be woken up by an alarm clock or a fire alarm any more, for example. --Immerhin (talk) 07:51, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry that's rubbish. What happens is that you filter out the noises that you have come to expect to occur, and wake up when you hear something unexpected. I used to live next to the East Coast Main Line and became very adept at sleeping through the noise of both local and intercity trains, but the noise of track maintenance trains would keep me awake. And I never (unfortunately) slept through an alarm. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:52, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to all who answered. From the answers of two people here it is pretty clear that the reason why they do this is that most people are too stupid to realize they're not sleeping properly and when they forget what a good night sleep was they think they "got used to it". --Immerhin (talk) 18:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeees, the stupidity of the common people, that must be it. Eeeexcellent. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Do those bells help people remember their passwords so they don't need four accounts? If so I'm all for it. Nil Einne (talk) 19:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Forgotten passwords can be quickly reset. That is what most people who forget their passwords do. Some choose a different solution, one that requires them to relinquish their very identity. Some do this multiple times, and become the Sybils of Wikipedia. Some of these people are trolls. Others are just extraordinarily forgetful, but still manage to find it within themselves to comment on others who are "too stupid to realize they're not sleeping properly". The world is full of amazing things. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:40, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

An issue not confined to Bavaria - see Couple demand church bells are silenced at night about a couple who bought a house next to an English village church. Their "plea has not gone down well with many of her neighbours in the East Sussex village. They say the chimes are a treasured part of village life." Alansplodge (talk) 22:51, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Stephen Harper's foreign policy

Why has he turned Canada's foreign policy so anti-Islam and warmongering? He has just said that "Islamicism" and "Islamic terrorism" is the biggest threat facing Canada today. Is it because he's Conservative or why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.178.173.79 (talk) 19:05, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Looking at short-term military threats, he seems to have a point. There have been numerous terrorist attacks attempted in Canada, or from Canada to the US, by Islamic militants. In contrast, what would be their next biggest military threat ? That North Korea tries to nuke California and misses, hitting them ? Now, if you consider non-military and long-term threats, you might come up with bigger potential problems, like China dominating the Pacific. And potential threats to the rest of the world, like global warming and peak oil, may actually benefit Canada. StuRat (talk) 20:56, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that does seem to be a pretty good take on it. Canada has so few enemies that a threat doesn't have to be very big to be the biggest one. One could conceivably bring up Quebec separatism, but that seems to have been absorbed almost entirely into the political process — I haven't heard of any violence related to it in quite a long time. --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

NO. "global warming...may actually benefit Canada" is simply wrong, according to the IPCC reports, Climate_change_in_Canada, and the Arctic_Climate_Impact_Assessment. These documents cover the loss of biodiversity, negative impacts on the economy and energy use/production, and positive feedbacks to global warming. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:19, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Take a look at Canada-Iran_relations, as you can see from the article Iran isn't exactly friendly to Canada nor her citizen. Plus Canada is one of U.S' closest ally and there are lot of bad history between U.S and Iran. Royor (talk) 22:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Our deep cover mole is doing his best to shift our involvement in a certain event south of the border. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Iran? And what can Iran possibly do to Canada, besides screaming "I don't like you!" really loudly? Islam is certainly a major threat to the Middle East, but it's simply delusional to think that Islamic terrorists pose much of a threat to Canada, where it's killed precisely 0 people. See rally 'round the flag effect. The biggest Islamic threat to Canada are the barbaric values that some Muslims bring to Canada, but Canadian Muslims are much more enlightened in this regard than those of most European countries: [34]. Since McGuinty prohibited the use of religious tribunals to settle family disputes in 2005 after someone advocated a Sharia-based tribunal, there's been very little trouble from Muslims. The occasional story of a father killing her daughter for being too Western are the extreme exception, not the rule. --140.180.243.114 (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Baha'is in Iran

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hi, I am from Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia and I was thinking of traveling to Iran. I've been learning the Persian language for a while and I'm interested in its history but I am a Baha'i and some have told me that I better stay away from Iran. How true is that? FMicronesian (talk) 19:17, 9 March 2013 (UTC) See "Bahá'í Faith in Iran" and "voy:Iran#People" and http://www.experttravelanswers.com. —Wavelength (talk) 20:24, 9 March 2013 (UTC) You should check what your NSA (National Spiritual Assembly) has to say on the matter. In Australia, the NSA has discouraged travel to Iran, for reasons that I do not know exactly. I have been told there is no danger to the traveller, but it could cause other problems (I don't know exactly what). In Australia, they certainly don't forbid it. I am not trying to tell you what to do, but merely suggesting that it would be wise to find out what your institutions have to say. Yes, it is hard learning Persian, I agree - even though I have dozens of people to practice on, well, they all speak English. You might get exactly the same in Iran, though, for all I know - everyone practising their English on you. IBE (talk) 22:42, 9 March 2013 (UTC) Iran is a dangerous place for Baha'is at the moment. I'm telling you from inside Iran. --Omidinist (talk) 05:25, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

China in the 18th century

In the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote:

"China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in the world. It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travellers in the present times."

"The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations of Europe. In the neighbourhood of Canton many hundred, it is commonly said, many thousand families have no habitation on the land, but live constantly in little fishing boats upon the rivers and the canals. The subsistence which they find there is so scanty that they are eager to fish up the nastiest garbage thrown overboard from any European ship. Any carrion, the carcase of a dead dog or cat, for example, though half putrid and stinking, is as welcome to them as the most wholesome food to the people of other countries."

Is Smith's description of 18th century China accurate? Did Europe really progress, in 500 years, from being incomparably poorer than China to incomparably richer? Or is Smith just saying that inequality was far worse in China, not that China's upper ranks were also not doing well? --140.180.243.114 (talk) 20:30, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Europe did have more economic growth in the 500 years previous to his book than China did. However, I also detect a bit of cultural bias in his comments. For example, living on a house boat is not inherently worse than living in a fixed structure. And eating cats and dogs is not inherently less healthy than the meats Europeans tend to eat. In his own time, the Irish were increasingly forced to subsist on mainly potatoes, which was quite unhealthy, especially when the Irish Potato Famine later hit. StuRat (talk) 20:42, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

140.180.243.114 -- There's an interesting layman's introduction to late 18th-century China in the book The World in 1800 by Olivier Bernier (ISBN 0-471-30371-2). I don't know that China was so much poorer than England, but one thing that was true was that productivity-per-worker was more or less stagnant in China, while England was just starting on a period of rapidly rising productivity per worker... AnonMoos (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

One thing to keep in mind regarding China in the 1700s was that it was profoundly affected by the trans-Pacific silver trade driven by central and South American silver; the trade had profound economic, cultural, and social effects on China, which is not to place a normative value on whether China was better or worse than it was during Marco Polo's life; or that China hadn't economically progressed as much as England or other parts of Europe, but it is profoundly inaccurate on Smith's part to assert that China hadn't drastically changed in those 500 years. The changes my have been different than those in Europe, but they were no less profound. The book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created as a very well written section on how profoundly the shifting tides of the world economy affected China. I highly recommend it as a refutation of Smith's thesis. --Jayron32 20:59, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

These questions are discussed in detail by the economic historians Kenneth Pomeranz (The Great Divergence) and Robert Allen. Pomeranz and Allen disagree about why the industrial revolution occurred in England rather than in China, but they agree that standards of living in China were comparable to those in Britain, possibly somewhat higher. Both take the Lower Yangtze as the main point of comparison, but the Pearl River Delta was also highly developed in the 18th century. Smith didn't have access to the same data; his argument is that gross inequality impedes economic development, which is still often argued today. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:04, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The 18th century is often regarded as a fairly crucial turning point in China's economic history. Unprecedented population growth driven by trade surpluses and general prosperity was one of the factors which paved the way towards poverty once global economic climates changed around the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:40, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Have Muslims, especially jihadists, ever been sceptical of Korans given by non-Muslims?

Like the ones given to them in Guantanamo and prisons. Do they ever get to keep Korans they brought in, after them being checked for contraband probably? Do they check the ones they're given out of distrust/paranoia? How far have they gone with this? Of course they know that anyone who's memorized it will know if a Koran has been altered. And it's only the length of the New Testament, they probably know the jihadist verses very well and the text rhymes, right? They would know that potential "Koran massagers" would be very likely to be discovered causing Islamic outrage to gain only a tiny iota of moderation. Though after seeing Tea Partiers I wonder if captured Islamists all have enough logic? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:33, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

You'll get paranoid people everywhere and I'm sure there's enough paranoid jihadists who know the Koran by heart who would spot any problems. What's the point of this question? Why would anyone want to tamper with their copies of the Koran never mind that it would be spotted pretty quickly? What made you think this was a worthwhile question to ask? Dmcq (talk) 00:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

That last sentence could apply to the preponderance of questions asked by the OP at the reference desk. --Jayron32 00:14, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

And to the preponderance of questions asked by anyone, ever, about anything. I can only link to curiosity and hope some people understand. --140.180.243.114 (talk) 00:34, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

No, some people ask questions because they seek answers. Others ask questions merely as a pretext to stir up trouble. --Jayron32 05:29, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sagittarian Milky Way -- Some Muslims think that any version of the Qur'an other than its traditional Arabic-language form is at best an informal crib, and definitely not something which is reliable or authoritative on its own. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. If anything, the late 19th /early 20th Qur'an translations into English (Marmaduke Pickthall etc.) are Islamic-favorable, smoothing over what some see as problematic verses... AnonMoos (talk) 01:00, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry if I like to talk irreverent sometimes. I just want to know how much they check them before they really get down to using it. Maybe they could tell if they notice them page turning idiosyncratically and then reading normally and acting more reverant, or if they usually read/chant it aloud (I don't know) but don't at first, something like that. I don't believe Koran or care really if their copies are irregular - well I don't want bloodshed, but there won't be any as I don't believe anyone tried it. But jihadists were brainwashed to believe that the West is the devil incarnate. If I were in their shoes, they almost killed me and then they gave me a Koran I'd be suspicious as to what the heck they were doing. I might feel a bit like Soviet POWs getting Nazi-provided Communist Manifestos or Nazi POWs getting copies of Mein Kampf. Maybe they gave me a sneakily softened one only 99.93% as violent as the original, and hoped I didn't notice? Or a blatently abridged one with all the jihad verses removed? Some psychological tactic I don't understand?

AnonMoos, many can read Arabic, right? Translation wouldn't be a problem for them. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:27, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

If they already know Arabic, they don't have to translate. And it can be very difficult to truly capture the essence of a written work when translating it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:22, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. Translation issues wouldn't be a problem cause they don't need to do it. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 06:47, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Just because one is able to read a language doesn't mean one gets the same message from what's written as another person. Otherwise there wouldn't be the spectacle of one lot of Muslims chopping off peoples heads and another lot saying how peaceable and non-violent they are. Dmcq (talk) 10:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

March 10

NDE greatest proof that there is an afterlife?

Most seculars who experienced this left their skeptic positions. I do not know if they also believe in a personal God now. Are there any recent accounts, researches, studies that affirm or deny the existence of afterlife? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Atienza (talk • contribs) 09:52, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Assuming you're refering to the Christian religion, there is no proof outside of Scripture. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:58, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Correction. There is no proof at all. It always has been and always will be entirely a question of faith and belief - or lack thereof. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 11:15, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Not so much a correction, as it is an addendum. Potential proof within Sripture depends on the interpretation of the refered text. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:03, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

My point is that no text, no matter how sacred it may be regarded, can be "proof" of the afterlife, if all it does is assert there is one. If one happens to believe the Scripture, then one will probably believe in the afterlife. Not believing in the Scripture doesn't necessarily mean that one doesn't believe in the afterlife - or does believe, for that matter. If it's proof we're talking about - and it is (see the OP's heading) - the Scripture has no standing. Mind you, the lack of proof - and there will always be lack of proof, no matter how hard people look for it - doesn't mean there isn't an afterlife. Many people who go looking for the proof do so to prove there isn't an afterlife (the "I told you so" effect), but they'll never do this, because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Many others look for a proof to prove there really is an afterlife - but they're doomed to failure too. If you want to believe in the afterlife, it's simple: just believe in it. If we had scientific proof, belief would be irrelevant. But as I said above, it's all about belief and faith. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:28, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

"If we had scientific proof, belief would be irrelevant." No, if we had scientific proof, belief would be justified, as opposed to a personal fantasy. Your absence of evidence claim is fallacious--we have no evidence that goblins don't exist either, but no rational person would believe they do. --140.180.249.27 (talk) 15:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Then you have no real concept of belief or faith. Religious faith is about believing something one has been told (in sacred texts or wherever) but without any independent evidence it's any more than a fairy tale. The whole point of religious faith is that all you have to go on is what you've been told is the word of God or someone who speaks on his behalf. People are able to make distinctions between the existence of goblins and unicorns on the one hand, and matters such as the existence of God, his creation of the universe, the life and works of Jesus, the afterlife, the existence of Heaven and Hell, reincarnation, the transmigration of souls etc on the other hand. None of these have any scientific evidence, but they're still treated very differently by millions of rational people. Why do you find this so hard? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:05, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

"Religious faith is about believing something one has been told (in sacred texts or wherever) but without any independent evidence it's any more than a fairy tale."

Exactly. That's the very definition of credulity. "None of these have any scientific evidence, but they're still treated very differently" is the epitome of special pleading.

I don't want to continue this debate, but I do want to point out one thing to the OP (not to Jack). What purpose do you want your beliefs to serve? Do you want them to make you feel good about yourself, or to approximate objective reality as closely as possible? If the former, then by all means, believe in God, the afterlife, heaven, NDEs, etc. Use faith when it tells you what you want to hear. Maybe throw in young Earth creationism and geocentrism for good measure. If, on the other hand, you want your beliefs to approximate objective reality, you have to exercise intellectual discipline. This means, at a minimum, assigning the same level of plausibility to beliefs with the same amount of supporting evidence. It is not valid to choose between beliefs on the grounds that one of them makes you feel better, because the Universe has no obligation to make you feel good, and is in fact guaranteed to kill you in a possibly slow and painful way.

Now for the afterlife question. No, there is no evidence of an afterlife, and plenty of evidence that such a thing is impossible. For instance, consciousness is completely tied to the brain. Infants and children do not have well-developed brains, and thus don't have a well-developed intellect. Patients with brain damage have mental disabilities corresponding to the area of damage, like Henry Molaison, who could not develop additional long-term memory, or "Dr. P", who who could not recognize faces. Patients with severe concussion slip into a coma in which the cerebral cortex is inactive, and after they awake, they have no recollection of anything that happened during the coma.

So if the brain is the seat of consciousness--in the sense that a well-developed brain has a well-developed intellect, that selective damage to the brain impairs selective abilities, that temporary cessation of cerebral cortex activity leads to temporary unconsciousness--then the logical conclusion is that permanent destruction of the brain leads to permanent loss of consciousness. Analogously, if you hack your computer to pieces and completely destroy its CPU, the CPU will stop computing. Do you believe that computation could continue after the CPU is destroyed, even though there's no logical way for this to happen, and plenty of reasons why it shouldn't? If not, then in order for your beliefs to be logically consistent, you can't believe in an afterlife, because the same amount of evidence exists for both beliefs (namely, zero). --140.180.249.27 (talk) 20:31, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

That exemplifies my earlier comment - "you have no real concept of belief or faith" and you are enslaved to notions of logic. Many highly esteemed scientists and mathematicians still believe in God and his supposedly impossible powers, and are devoutly religious, but you seem to know better. Where does it say that religious questions are commensurate with scientific or logical analysis? Nowhere, that's where. That doesn't make them invalid. Science does not have all the answers, and never will. It is a profound arrogance to think otherwise. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

As you indicate, if it could be proven, there would be no debate. Religion serves many purposes, and some will say that no one's belief system is a monopoly on the truth, as the true nature of God is largely unknown to humankind. But faith and hope help believers keep going. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:16, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Religious faith does have independent evidence, although, it is only credible to those who already have faith. It comes in the form of personal experience, such as in increase in improbable fortuitous events.

The problem with the above proof of impossibility, is first of all, it is a very limited interpretation of Scripture, secondly God can't be put in a box like that. He can break whichever physical law He needs to do whatever is neccesary. Afterlife is beyond the physical sciences. Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Also secular doesn't mean what you think it does. One can be in favour of secularism and still be a Christian (or other theist). --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what "NDE" means, but the book The Physics of Immortality by Frank J. Tipler explores possible physics arguments for a kind of "afterlife"... AnonMoos (talk) 11:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Frank Tipler did some good work in general relativity early in his career, but he's widely regarded as a crackpot now. See this article in Discover Magazine. The author applied the crackpot index to it. At least 40 points! --140.180.249.27 (talk) 18:25, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Near death experience.
122.106.184.68 (talk) 11:18, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

... or even Near-death experience. Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:43, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that NDEs are the greatest evidence that there is an afterlife. Note that this doesn't mean this is very strong evidence, just that it is pretty much the only evidence we have, even if there are other explanations for NDEs. (Religions/scriptural writings really don't count as evidence at all, especially since they all disagree with one another.) StuRat (talk) 11:28, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

That's not evidense either, as it depends on popular opinion. There is no source that can confirm that a NDE is anything more than a hallucination. Plasmic Physics (talk) 13:08, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

If you're interested in skeptical, scientific approaches to NDEs, this is a wonderful, gentle, devastating write-up by Oliver Sacks, the neurologist. Paradoxically, as Sacks points out, NDEs have led many people away from faith as well. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:18, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

A NDE is evidence of the afterlife only if my dream of going to the Moon is evidence that I actually went to the Moon. (And no, I was not one of the Apollo astronauts.) --140.180.249.27 (talk) 18:29, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

There's enough consistency among the many NDE anecdotes to indicate that NDE's tend to be real phenomena - "real" in the sense that they can be observed or envisioned or dreamed by many who are near death. That doesn't prove there's an afterlife - it just proves that NDE's have reasonably consistent descriptions. It could just as easily be the mind's way of making dying "feel better". But it doesn't prove there isn't an afterlife, either. Jack has it right. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:13, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, there is a one easy experiment you can run that will definitively prove whether there is (or is not) an afterlife... die (fully and completely... no wishy-washy "near death" half-measures). Of course, it is an experiment you can only run once (so I strongly suggest you wait until the end of your life to run it)... and unfortunately only one person will be convinced that the results of the experiment are conclusive. But that one person will definitely and definitively know the answer, one way or the other. Blueboar (talk) 22:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Ironically, that's only true if there is one. If there ain't, then there's no mind present to perceive its absence. i kan reed (talk) 13:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeh, but if you're fading to black, you'll have a clue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:32, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

Why is it that there's disrespect for Island nations?

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I am from Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia and I'm tired and angry when reading the newspapers on United Nations General Assembly votes in which my country always support the U.S. and Israel. And the comments say that we're not independent and that we are a colony of the U.S. Why such disrespect? Why don't people respect the independence of Pacific Island nations? FMicronesian (talk) 12:40, 10 March 2013 (UTC) The first step is start to respect yourself like a sovereign nation, and don't follow US everywhere he goes, but if your government decide by his own to support US, because truly believe is a good cause, is also a sovereign choose.In the votation against the embargo Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and others nations always support US, but Cuban people have no resentments we know your country have his reasons to support US.CubanEkoMember (talk) 15:54, 10 March 2013 (UTC) This question has been repeatedly posted by blocked User:Timothyhere and his various socks such as the recently indeffed User:Kotjap. See talk for diffs. μηδείς (talk) 16:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Chardal vs religious Zionist

What is the difference between Chardali and Religious Zionist in terms of activities and personality or characteristics?--Donmust90 (talk) 16:11, 10 March 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

A quick search on Google for [Chardali Religious Zionist] brings me to this website, which, in someone's opinion, Chardali is a far right-wing group. Sneazy (talk) 16:24, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The Chardali are, by definition, Religious Zionists ("Dali") with leanings toward the charedim; though I am not sure how that answers the question. הסרפד (call me Hasirpad) (formerly R——bo) 17:21, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

To expand on Hasirpad's reply, above: the Hebrew Wikipedia page for the term gives the acronym as composed of CHAR'D + L standing for Charedi Leumi, literally "Nationalist Charedi." They are (a) religious-fundamentalist Torah-observant (Haredi, sometimes called "ultra-Orthodox") and (b) support "Eretz Israel Hashlemah" (nationalist, possibly though not by definition extremist). The Religious Zionists (Hebrew: dati leumi; literally "national religious") are nicknamed "crocheted kippah" (Hebrew: kippa s'rugah). They are a notable presence in the IDF and many serve as officers. Chardal, incidentally, means "mustard" in Hebrew. -- Deborahjay (talk) 21:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

What philosophical school promotes the literary form of investigation over formal language investigation?

The answers to my previous question had revealed that not all philosophical schools adhere to mathematical methods. Mathematics cannot be used to answer all philosophical queries, especially if the questions are about influence and character. I have heard of different intellectuals who have philosophized in a literary way. Of course, their philosophical investigations promote the use of natural language than formal language. The first philosopher that comes into my mind is Nietzsche. He, being a poet, did not promote or conceptualize mathematical ideas. He is greatly connected to existentialism, but I do not know if existentialism favors the use of natural language over formal language. I do not also know what existentialism says about mathematics.

Ordinary language philosophy and the "linguistic-turn" are products of logico-analytic movement. They are used in the philosophy of logic and mathematics, thus it is not a "literary form of investigation" that I described. There are so many philosophical schools that we have today, but which among them is more literary and less or not dependent to mathematics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Atienza (talk • contribs) 17:49, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

You may be interested in Eastern philosophy. From the time of the Ancient Greeks, Western philosophy has tended to be influenced by mathematics and logic, as far as I am aware. This is true of the analytic philosophers like Russell, but also to an extent, of the system builders, like Schopenhauer. It is less true of Eastern philosophy, as far as I understand it. IBE (talk) 18:00, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Generally speaking one talks today about the divide between analytic philosophy (e.g. stuff that looks like math) and continental philosophy (e.g. stuff that doesn't have math, but is not necessarily "ordinary language," unless your ordinary language is really quite convoluted). These generalized approaches are separate from "schools," which are a level below these broad genre distinctions. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:16, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

There's a quote I've seen several times that goes something like the principal dispute between the so-called analytic and continental traditions in philosophy is whether the task of being vague is to be accomplished in natural language or in a formal system. I can't find the exact quote right now — can anyone help? --Trovatore (talk) 00:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

IBE seems to be right. Eastern philosophy is less analytic compared to the western philosophy. The continental and analytic traditions are both western, thus they share the same method, which is math and logic. They have different approaches, but they have the same content. Mr. 98, I am intrigued by your response. Can you explain this further? -> (e.g. stuff that doesn't have math, but is not necessarily "ordinary language," unless your ordinary language is really quite convoluted). These generalized approaches are separate from "schools," which are a level below these broad genre distinctions.--Joshua Atienza (talk

Continental philosophers frequently speak in their own jargon, and it is deliberately non-formal. So they create words that are not only not "ordinary language" (e.g. épistémè), in the sense that they have specialized meanings, but sometimes they even create words that they argue are deliberately undefinable (e.g. différance). If you try and dive into The Order of Things or Of Grammatology you'll find them to be pretty non-ordinary in terms of its use of language, but not at all analytical in the sense of looking like math or formal logic. I really do not know if analytic philosophy and continental philosophy have the same content — they seem very much different worlds to me, concerned with different problems and entirely different ideas about the method of philosophy, its goals, its purpose. I do not think that Foucault's ideas about what philosophy was meant to do were at all the same as Whitehead's.

As for the distinction between schools and genres, all I meant is that many of those listed under "analytic philosophers" or "continental philosophers" have very different schools of thought, despite talking in more or less the same "languages." --Mr.98 (talk) 14:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

So far, I agree with Mr. 98. I wrote my post to get the ball rolling, and to see whether anyone would refute me - hence the wording, "You may be interested in" rather than "Let's answer this definitively". My info was dimly remembered from Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy, but I thought I might never find it - it is presumably from the last paragraph of the section on Pythagoras, though there may be other references. I am well aware this is long before the rise of continental philosophy, so it may be no longer true. There may be a sense in which continental philosophy is fundamentally Western, and derived from logical method, but I would be curious to know what. I wouldn't retract my previous post, but it is rather incomplete, and I regard (what little I know of) continental philosophy as radically different from, say, Wittgenstein and Russell, or for that matter, Daniel Dennett or W. V. O. Quine. And don't take anything I say on philosophy with more than a pinch of salt, since I dabble, and read the bits that interest me. IBE (talk) 00:15, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

ePublishing

Not sure if this is the correct desk to ask, but here goes. I wonder if anyone has had any good / bad experience of "united p.c. publisher" (www.united-pc.eu) as I would like to publish my book that way.85.211.205.123 (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Generally, something like Writer Beware is recognized as a useful independent perspective on publishers. The main question that comes to mind in this particular case is one of intent: what are you looking for in a publisher? If you just want an ebook on Amazon and the like, you can do that yourself, with no publisher required. If you have a niche product that you want available physically but not necessarily for mass sale, a print-on-demand house may be appropriate. If you want a book on shelves at your local bookstore, make sure you work with a publisher that you can find on the shelf in the relevant section at said bookstore (that's the easiest way to determine which publishers are sufficently "real", for lack of a better succinct term). Also do things like stick "[publisher's name here] reviews" into your favorite search engine; the first result returned by Google suggests that United PC is probably classified as a vanity press. Finally, for any book that you hope to make money on, always keep in mind Yog's Law: "money should flow toward the author". — Lomn 02:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, most useful.85.211.205.123 (talk) 13:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Are there no Chinese Papabili?

I have read Roman Catholicism in China and searched for "Chinese papabile" on the interweb. The best I get is Tagle from the Philippines. Are there no Chinese papabili? -- 22:04, 10 March 2013‎ Medeis

PRC Catholics are not officially allowed to respect the authority of the pope, and there are perpetual tussles between the Vatican and the PRC government over bishops' appointments, so that's not a particularly favorable environment... AnonMoos (talk) 23:47, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, all male catholics are eligible. But in this case, according to the predictions I've seen in various media have no Chinese cardinals are likely candidates. But stranger things have happened... Mingmingla (talk) 00:08, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

What drove the question was the effect of picking a pope from behind the Iron Curtain. But I don't see where we even have a list of Chinese bishops loyal to the pope, which surprises me. μηδείς (talk) 01:25, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Been there, done that. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I am not quite sure what you mean by that comment, CF, unless you are suggesting I or our readers might not realize KW was from Poland under Soviet hegemony? μηδείς (talk) 03:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

If you already knew, why were you pondering the effect of picking a second pope from there? You're getting more opaque by the minute. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:40, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

You seem to have been confused by the fact that "the effect of picking a pope from behind the Iron Curtain" is a tenseless phrase. I was referring to the effect picking John Paul II had, not the effect picking someone from behind the now non-existent curtain would have. μηδείς (talk) 20:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

The JPII article leaves me with the impression that the Polish government was rather more tolerant of the Catholic hierarchy than the Chinese government is, it presumably being understood that they wouldn't involve themselves in politics. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:59, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

While all male Catholics are eligible to become Pope... it is highly unlikely that the conclave will choose anyone who is not a "Cardinal elector". According to our article Cardinal electors for the papal conclave, 2013, there is one Cardinal elector from China (John Tong Hon, Bishop of Hong Kong). So, to answer the question... there is at least one Chinese Papabili. He is probably a long shot candidate... but you never know how the Spirit of God will move the electors once they get behind closed doors. Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

But being a "long shot" is the very antithesis of papabile. Papabili are those who are generally considered more likely to be elected, not less likely. The papabili are a small sub-set of all cardinal electors, who in turn are a minuscule sub-set of the technically eligible people (all adult Catholic males in good standing). See List of papabili in the 2013 papal conclave. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

State Judaism

What are the countries that had of have Judaism as the state religion? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 22:14, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I can think of at least four. But you really need to give a definition of Judaism and of state religion and give us a time range. μηδείς (talk) 22:40, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Which four? Mingmingla (talk) 00:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, if I don't know what four Medeis is thinking of, but I can think of the ancient historical Israel, the two kingdoms that formed from it (the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judea) and the modern state of Israel. There was also the Khazar Khanate, which had a Jewish ruling class. --Jayron32 01:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Exactly, but the OP hasn't told us what he is actually asking for, hence it's difficult to say whether the original Israel and the Israel separate from Judah count as one (as I did) or two kingdoms. There are also the petty Roman states which recognized Judaism, even if it wasn't the state religion per se, the Maccabean period, and so forth. And does modern rabbinical Judaism count as the same as the Solomonic temple religion? All very vague. Credit for pointing out the Khazar Khanate, of course. μηδείς (talk) 01:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

If by "ancient historical Israel" you mean the United Monarchy, there's no convincing historical evidence to indicate it ever existed. On the other hand, the Hasmonean dynasty ruled over a territory similar to modern Israel. --140.180.249.27 (talk) 01:24, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, it it at least debatable in how far modern Rabbinic Judaism (which evolved only after the Second Temple was destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem) is the same as the religion of Saul, David and Solomon. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:56, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and even more so, that of the traditionally-cited "founder" of the religion, Abraham. But note that the same issue would apply for most religions that have survived even one millennium, never mind several. Would Jesus recognise much of the rite associated with any branch of Christianity? --Dweller (talk) 12:25, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Then we have the issue of what constitutes a "state religion"?... are we talking about a state that limits voting rights to those who are members of a specific religion and disallows those who are not members from serving in Government (As, for example, happened in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries... the Test Act limited the vote to Anglicans, and banned non-Anglicans from serving in Government)... if we use that definition then we would have to exclude the modern Israel (which does allow non-jews to vote and serve in Government). Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Fortunately, we have an article explaining what "state religion" means - it does not mean (only) a state which limits voting rights. Unfortunately, whether Israel can be described as having a "state religion" is not clear-cut - as the article explains. Warofdreams talk 15:12, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a trivial distinction that doesn't matter for anything except modern Israel. Democracy is a modern Western idea, not an ancient Jewish one. --140.180.249.27 (talk) 15:15, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

The modern State of Israel was created as a homeland for the Jewish people, organized by the nationalist political movement called Zionism. There is freedom of religion according to Israel's Declaration of Independence and bolstered by subsequent laws (in the absence of a Constitution). By tradition and statute, the country follows the Hebrew calendar with its holidays, and observes the Jewish Sabbath as the weekly day of rest. (Adherents of other religions manage with this as in the U.S.A. that observes the Christian calendar and holidays even though there is "separation of Church and State.") Note that the only form of Judaism recognized in Israel is Halakhic, i.e. according to Orthodox rabbinic law. This affects personal status (marriage, divorce, and burial with some exceptions); e.g. only Orthodox marriage ceremonies are performed, though foreign civil marriages are recognized. So there's not a one-to-one correspondence between the Jewish religion and Jewish national identity in Israel as well as elsewhere. == Deborahjay (talk) 17:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

March 11

Papal conclave secrecy

Just want something to be clarified. I looked up the article for papal conclave, but failed to find any exactly related information, so here it goes. Historically, what is the reason why papal conclaves are so secretive, to the point of even putting jammers to prevent electronic devices from working? From what I have read, the purpose why the cardinals were locked in a certain place (hence the term conclave) was to force a quick decision on a new pope and prevent deadlocks, although in recent times it is said that this is done so so that the Holy Spirit enlightens them with a proper choice. However, this doesn't (fully) explain why there is so much secrecy regarding the process, although they may be related. So again, my question is: what is the official or historical reason behind the secrecy in papal conclaves? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 13:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Historically, it is to avoid outside pressures to be brought to bear on the process. The pope used to have significant worldly power, and elections were very much factional. See The Borgias for a very much dramatised, but not totally unreasonable picture. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:09, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

One of my favorite sections of Chateaubriand's memoirs is his telling of how, when Ambassador of France in Rome, he decided to influence the outcome of the conclave of 1829 which elected Pope Pius VIII, because he felt that one of the favorites was inimical to France's interests (and felt is the right word; he had no formal instructions or solid information to go on). He used one of the late-arriving French cardinals as his agent of influence within the conclave. --Xuxl (talk) 15:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

There was a lot of information about this and other conclave related subjects in this month's BBC History Magazine Podcast - the 'Papal Election Special'. You can download it from http://www.historyextra.com/podcasts - it's the 7th March episode. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:21, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

It should also be noted that historically, the election of a new pope was HIGHLY political as his power extended to all of Western Christendom, so many of the powers of Europe had a strong and direct interest in who was elected pope. The secrecy of the conclave itself developed over many centuries when it was a Big Deal. Consider all of the various antipopes, the Avignon papacy, the Investiture Controversy, and the Western Schism for just some of the various historical precedents that led to the current practices. --Jayron32 22:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

jewish law

is there a jewish law that forbids usage of private wear? how about one's bought from a second hand shop? It is because one is not sure whether what he buys is ceremonially clean or unclean so there is some sort of uncertainty in second hand wears. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.97.111.151 (talk) 13:18, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what "private wear" means. Do you mean "underwear"? --Dweller (talk) 13:30, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

See Shatnez. There is a prohibition on mixing certain fibers, nothing to do with cleanliness. Shatnez is observed by those adherents to Judaism who strictly obey the laws stated in Halacha. -- Deborahjay (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

And shatnez applies to all types of clothes, new or secondhand, under or over garments. --Dweller (talk) 14:21, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Question about the Canada's Prime Minister

does Stephen Harper wear glasses or not? I've seen him multiple times with and without glasses. Thanks! reply please!. 186.130.66.144 (talk) 13:58, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

When he made a state visit to the Philippines late last year, it seemed that he always wore glasses. Obviously, if someone wears glasses, even occasionally, then that person does wear glasses. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:16, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

A lot was made about the fact that Harper started always wearing the glasses in public around 2010 or so. He apparently does not need them all the time, but likes the "serious and intellectual" look they give him. See this article [35] for example. --Xuxl (talk) 14:51, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

OP, if you've "seen him multiple times with and without glasses", then you already know that he sometimes wears them and sometimes doesn't, and that is all you need to know. Surely you know that there are millions of people who wear glasses but only for certain functions, such as reading, driving, watching TV etc. Trying to box them into "always wears glasses" or "never wears glasses", as your question implies, is futile. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

One could raise the same question about Tina Fey and many others I'm sure. Some folks only need them for certain tasks, others may wear contact lenses from time to time instead of wearing glasses. Harper's comments about Chavez may have been a bit short-sighted, but that's not really got to do with glasses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:45, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Why was Venezuela mad at Canada, at Harper for his remarks?

on the death of Hugo Chavez? What I read is that he sent condolences and looked forward to work with a more democratic and prosperous Venezuela, yet Venezuela slammed him for his remarks. What did he say to be slammed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.130.66.144 (talk) 15:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Siderail
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Because he "showed them up". They aren't keen on admitting that Chavez was a repressive dictator. And if the Canadian P.M. actually did say that, it wasn't very smart. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC) Bugs, if you aren't even aware if the event in question happened, could you please not present an answer that makes it sound like you have any insight into this whatsoever? Or maybe add a qualifier to the front of such answers like, "I am really just guessing wildly here, since I really don't know anything about the question, but..." --Mr.98 (talk) 15:47, 11 March 2013 (UTC) According to the link, what the Canada P.M. said was even worse than what the OP said. My comment stands, and yours is of no value to this discussion. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:15, 11 March 2013 (UTC) No, your comment is the irrelevant and obnoxious one. The OP's source (given below) actually answers the question perfectly well by itself (so I'm not sure why he asked it). The Venezuelans took exception to Harper's comments, perceiving them to be "insensitive and impertinent". --Viennese Waltz 16:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC) Yes, it was a stupid thing for the Canada P.M. to say, even if it was factually on the mark. Meanwhile, you have joined 98 in making useless personal attacks here. Nice going. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:02, 11 March 2013 (UTC) No one turns to this page to read moronic insults and rejoinders like this. "You're stupid." "NO YOU'RE STUPID" Etc. It is like listening to children fighting in the back of a stationwagon during a cross-country drive. Please take it to a talk page somewhere else. 75.34.24.145 (talk) 18:30, 11 March 2013 (UTC) Insulting other editors in front of the OP is bad form, and 98 and VW know that, they just don't care. Nor do you, apparently. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC) The complaint was aimed primarily at them, not you, but you seem to feel the need to get in a "final jab." Learn to just let it go, without even the "Nor do you, apparently." 75.34.24.145 (talk) 19:03, 11 March 2013 (UTC) Well, I'm not a mind-reader. Regardless, taking shots at other editors in front of the OP is bad form. My user talk page is open to anyone who feels the urge to say something to me. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Here's the source so I don't stir up arguments [36] 186.130.66.144 (talk) 15:53, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Venezuelans, or the probable majority of Venezuelans who are/were Chavez supporters, were angry at the Canadian prime minister for his implicit denigration of the recently dead Chavez during a period of mourning. Harper implied that Chavez was opposed to freedom, democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights. The truth or lack thereof of Harper's implications are not relevant to the original question. Harper's remarks broke the convention that one should not speak ill of the dead, especially during a period of mourning. Hence, the Venezuelan government, led by Chavez supporters, accused Harper of insensitivity. Marco polo (talk) 18:12, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

As the citation indicates, Venezuela is in denial about how the Chavez regime has damaged their economy. However, he was their guy, and Harper's comments were inflammatory, while Obama's comments were much more diplomatic. Speaking as an American, it's nice to have commies yelling at Canada, for once, instead of us. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's try a slightly more objective version of the statement: Venezuela's government publicly disagrees with Harper's characterization of Chavez, the nature of Venezuela's political process, and the general prosperity of the country. Is there a certain element of defending your own against an outsider's criticism? Sure, but that sort of reaction isn't unique to Venezuela. And determining an objective "yes/no" statement for things like "x damaged the economy" is tricky. Venezuela is, for instance, rated as "high" development on the HDI, slightly above average for Latin America. — Lomn 19:18, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

...and, of course, Venezuela is not communist. --140.180.249.27 (talk) 19:21, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

differences between wahhabis and Salafis

What are the differences between wahhabis and salafis?--Donmust90 (talk) 15:58, 11 March 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

Google it. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:54, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

One difference is that most Wahhabis don't like to be called "Wahhabis", while most Salafis are fine with being called "Salafis"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:31, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

God's Kingdom and Jesus

What is this "God's Kingdom" or "Kingdom of God"? What is it supposed to do? Does it refer to the messianic age that is supposed to come in the future or Kingdom Come? And why did Jesus cause political instability to the point that he was arrested and crucified? How did the significance of his death come about? 75.185.79.52 (talk) 18:57, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

That's a serious megillah. Start with Jesus of Nazareth and read all about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:01, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's probably beyond the scope of the Ref Desk to answer comprehensively (even setting aside the problems of differing interpretations). I'll suggest, though, articles like kingdom of God, crucifixion of Jesus, and history of Christian theology as additional basic reading. — Lomn 19:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

The perspective of the Kingdom of God held by Jehovah's Witnesses is explained at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200002615. Other editors may wish to provide other perspectives.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:19, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Are you a Jehovah's Witness, or do you just happen to know more about this denomination to the exclusion of other denominations? 75.185.79.52 (talk) 20:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

My spiritual status is undisclosed, and the limits of my knowledge are undisclosed.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Or "unlimited". :) If the OP truly doesn't understand this stuff, in a way it doesn't matter what denomination he starts with. Christianity is Christianity. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:59, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that's a very supportable statement. Regardless, though, I appreciate the disclaimer from Wavelength. — Lomn 21:16, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm no fan of the JW's, but there's no evidence that any specific interpretation of the Bible is more "right" than another. The OP asked what the "Kingdom of God" is supposed to be, and pretty much any Christian denomination, including the JW's, should have the general concept covered, as it's a core premise to all of Christendom. The OP's other questions should be answered in the various links already posted. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:22, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I should clarify: the "Christianity is Christianity" statement is what I find highly suspect; there is certainly not a universal agreement within the various groups claiming the label "Christian" as to which groups are legitimately "Christian". Without veering into who is "right", it's worth noting that the Jehovah's Witnesses are a nontrinitarian branch, and that the major trinitarian branches (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant) all reject nontrinitarianism as heresy. Particularly, the major trinitarian groups accept one another's baptisms and reject nontrinitarian baptisms; in like context, the Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept the validity of trinitarian baptisms. As such, I'm rather strongly of the opinion that they should be viewed as separate schools of theology. — Lomn 21:41, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

That may be true, but it doesn't mean they aren't all Christian. To claim that non-trinitarian Christian sects aren't Christian (what are they if they aren't?) is the textbook definition of the No True Scotsman fallacy; Christians are people who follow the teachings of Christ. None of the particular groups that does so owns a monopoly on the word "Christian", and while one group may not official "recognize" the validity of the theology of another group; that doesn't mean that both groups don't get to legimately use the word "Christian" to describe themselves, or that we shouldn't respect that self-designation. Wavelength's contributions to these discussions are valuable and welcome; and double appreciated when he identifies which perspective he is giving, if only because there are so many, and it would be remiss of us to omit any major perspective in trying to answer these questions. Of course, we can't provide answers for all of the various denominations and sects, but the more we can, with reliable sources and links, the more complete an answer we can give. --Jayron32 22:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that trying to objectively define who is and who is not "Christian" is a giant mess that I don't want to get into here, and it is not my intent to advocate for that here. However, I do think it's reasonable to note that many of the major Christian subgroups operate internally in such a way as to claim that they do not recognize other subgroups as Christian. Trinitarian vs nontrinitarian is a fairly major divide, but I could also point to our article on full communion, noting that the official position of the Catholic Church is that the Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Churches are themselves theologically flawed (and the Protestants substantially more so than the Orthodox), and so it's also reasonable to consider the source of theology within those divisions. I find the trinitarian / Jehovah's Witnesses gap, though, to be noteworthy in that it is (1) functionally universal and (2) bidirectional (that is, I don't see this as a case of the larger group unilaterally trying to bully the smaller out). The net result is that, contrary to Bugs' comments, the interested reader should not go in assuming that the various perspectives are without substantive distinctions. — Lomn 22:52, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec)The core beliefs of Christianity, the true "fundamentals", are faith in the resurrection of Jesus; hope that we also can attain resurrection; and love of God and our fellow humans. That's what Christianity is about: faith, hope and love. I know this to be true because Jesus said it, and He should know. The arguments about the Trinity, about how Jesus was crucified, about trying to figure out what heaven is really like; and about baptism, communion, and any number of other rituals, are what divide denominations. But they don't matter. Those folks are all Christian if they have those core beliefs. That's why I say "Christianity is Christianity". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I have read that the width of the hat brim is what divides the Amish communities. 75.185.79.52 (talk) 22:39, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Bugs, your argument might be more compelling if you'd provide references. — Lomn 22:52, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

What, that the Resurrection is central to Christian faith? If you think that's not the case, I don't know what to tell you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:23, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• The "Kingdom of God" is used in many Christian denominations to refer to the "end times" after the Apocalypse and the Second Coming of Jesus. The field of theology dealing with this is Christian eschatology. It is a gigantic can of worms, however, to get into what the Kingdom of God is supposed to be like, and it depends on what parts of the Bible you read, and what meaning you can extract from it. Consider:
  • Many of the Parables of Jesus are begun "The Kingdom of God is like..." see Mark 4, Mark 10, Luke 13 etc for just a few examples of Jesus use of the phrase. Read the synoptic gospels and the phrase appears numerous times, often with Jesus explaining what the Kingdom of God will be like, or how people should behave if they want access to it.
  • Any other biblical descriptions of the end times are usually very confusing and hard to follow, and such parts of the bible are usually some of the most contentious, usually the source of some of the greatest interdenominational differences. The major apocalyptic writings are usually cited as the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation in the new testament, so if you want to know what the Bible says on the matter, please read those, but the stuff that's in there is symbolically dense, and it isn't always readily apparent what the writers of those works meant. It is not easy reading. Generally, most cursory studies of those books in the churches I have gone to focus on the "easy stuff" (i.e. Daniel and the Lion's Den, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Daniel, or the Letters to the Seven churches of Asia from Revelation) and it's rare that a sermon or sunday school lesson delves into some of the harder stuff from Revelation. Which is not to say that it isn't studied, it's just that it's not really easy to get into for the neophyte believer or casual bible reader. Anyone interested should read it, and should also read a variety of commentaries on it, if only to get a grasp on how much diversity of opinion there is on the apocalypse. --Jayron32 22:04, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Where can a person find a Christian eschatologist? What does that person do for a living? Can a person become an amateur eschatologist? How might an eschatologist contribute to society, especially to a multi-religious community? 75.185.79.52 (talk) 23:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Such a person would be a theologian who specialized in eschatology. I don't have any specific recommendations, but I have no doubt that there are theologians and other religious scholars that specify in this subdiscipline. Assuming questions like "how might an eschatologist contribute to society" are a snide attempt to make some sort of commentary on such scholars, scholars of eschatology serve the same purpose as any other scholar of a similar sort: to research various perspectives on a topic and to draw conclusions based on that research. --Jayron32 23:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Here is a Google search which may lead you to some such scholars. I don't want to recommend any in particular, as I don't, off hand, know of the reputations of any of them, and given the large diversity of strongly held beliefs on this field of theology, likely no person working in the field is universally regarded as non-controversial. --Jayron32 23:13, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I suppose this field of research is limited within academia or the church, whereas a person who studies art history is limited to academia. 75.185.79.52 (talk) 23:32, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

"Tacitus Trap" in Chinese/Western political science?

The China Daily says:[37]

Publius Gornelius Tacitus (56-117 A.D.), a historian and a senator of the Roman Empire, said neither good nor bad policies would please the governed if the government is unwelcome, which was later called "Tacitus Trap" in political studies.

"Tacitus Trap" warns any leaders in power that when a government loses credibility, whether it tells the truth or a lie, to do good or bad, will be considered a lie, or to do bad.

But I cannot find any references to this idea, under the name of "Tacitus Trap" at least, in any other sources. Who has written about this concept in political science? 198.151.130.150 (talk) 22:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

• The only references I can find to such a "Tacitus Trap" are the China Daily reference you cite, and further references to it. It doesn't appear to be a terminology which is common in scholarship. Based on your description of it, it sounds like something Tacitus may have written in Agricola, which deals with contrasts between just governance and despotism in Roman-occupied Britain. --Jayron32 22:43, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
  • The Chinese term, "塔西佗陷阱" (Taxituo Xianjing) gets 355,000 results on Google. I can't read Chinese, so I've been using Google Translate. I've found a Baidu Baike entry[38], a People's Daily commentary[39], one website which asserts that the idea is famous in western political science[40], and meta-posts skeptically reflecting on the term itself.[41][42] It would help to have a native speaker sort through this. 198.151.130.150 (talk) 23:22, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Historical battles

In alot of historical films/TV, especially classical, enemy leaders are seen meeting each other either on neutral ground or sometimes even on one or the others camp/territory. Did this kind of thing actually happen in real history? If so, what was its purpose? Clover345 (talk) 23:24, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Technical term is "parley"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

See [parley]] (which is only mildly helpful). It's basically an opportunity for the two (or more) sides to reach some sort of compromise and thus avoid battle/war. The Munich Agreement of WWII is a more modern example. Gwinva (talk) 00:35, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Who are the historical enemies of Venezuela?

After the death of Hugo Chavez, Nicolás Maduro claimed that the "historical enemies of Venezuela" were behind the cancer of the former. Which are these exactly? OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:55, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

This is a list of allies and enemies of Venezuela. 75.185.79.52 (talk) 00:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Shas Chardal or religious zionist party

I am confused. Is Shas party a Chardali or Religious Zionist or both?--Donmust90 (talk) 00:00, 12 March 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

Google it. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Donmust90, you probably know the answer to your previous question here. Chardali is a religious zionist organization, according to the answerers for that other question. So, this question is like asking "Is Shas party a religious zionist or religious zionist?", or in other words, circular. 75.185.79.52 (talk) 00:14, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Crime fiction set in Birmingham, England

Is there any crime fiction novels that are set in Birmingham?--Donmust90 (talk) 00:28, 12 March 2013 (UTC)Donmust90