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April 9

Nisan and Nissan

The Jewish month Nisan should not be confused with the Japanese automobile brand Nissan. My question: Since when are Nissan automobiles sold in Israel? --84.62.204.235 (talk) 09:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Not everyone who comes to wikipedia is an exprt at spelin. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:09, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Nissan did not export cars during to Israel for many years (see [1]). Not sure when they began. --Soman (talk) 11:25, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The official web page of Nissan Israel: [2]. --84.62.204.235 (talk) 14:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Not to be confused with nissan.com, which is, BTW, Jewish, and had serious legal trouble with Nissan, the car maker. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 23:13, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Like the kind of problem Popeyes had for awhile. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The Nisan article claims that "Nissan" is an alternate spelling, which if true could be the answer to the OP's question. Far as I know, the month is pronounced NYE-san, as opposed to the car company NEE-sahn, but I can't confirm that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Nisan is also the name of a month in the Arabic and Turkish calendars, and is pronounced exactly like the automobile company in both cases.--Xuxl (talk) 09:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Nisan-the-month is also pronounced, in Hebrew or by people familiar with Hebrew at least, as "nee-sahn". Ratzd'mishukribo (talk) 17:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

There may be people who pronounce the month /naɪsæn/, just as there are people who say /aɪræk/, but that's not how it's pronounced in Hebrew or any variety of English I'm familiar with. --ColinFine (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Why is the page de:Nissan (Monat) protected from creation? --84.62.204.235 (talk) 18:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

According to the deletion log, that page is salted due to "mischief". Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 19:10, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia has articles about all the Hebrew months, including de:Nisan (Monat). One would think that de:Nissan (Monat) would be a useful redirect. You would be best served to contact the German Wikipedia admin who most recently deleted the article in question and request that it be unsalted to become a redirect, but it is wholly up to them and we have no say about it. Edison (talk) 19:24, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

What about Acura Mazda (Ahura Mazda)? --84.62.204.235 (talk) 10:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

North Korean satellite launch

North Korea is about to launch a rocket that they say will launch a peaceful satellite, but which Western countries claim is a disguised missile test. If North Korea says that they will just launch a peaceful satellite, why can't they prove it? Why can't they have talks with the West and show them some hard evidence? I'm not accusing North Korea of being at fault, but if they somehow prove that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, why can't they explain in detail in such a way that the West will no longer be suspicious? And why does North Korea frequently turn down Western demands (such as stopping their nuclear program) in the first place? Couldn't they have peaceful negotiations that would benefit both sides? I know they used to have talks, but they broke down. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:23, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

North Korea doesn't have an interest in proving their launch is peaceful. A large part of their foreign policy is in deliberately scaring the shit out of its perceived enemies, and part of that is remaining very mysterious. It is better if others literally don't know one way or the other, from the North Korea's point of view. --Jayron32 12:59, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Narutolovehinata5 -- Even if the satellite itself is 100% peaceful, much of the same missile technology to launch a satellite is similar to the missile technology for an ICBM. There's also the unfortunate legacy of NKorea's previous so-called "satellite launch", where NKorea claimed to have launched a satellite, but no one else was able to provide any corroboration that there was any actual satellite (certainly not orbiting), and it was suspected that the whole thing was an excuse to fire a long-distance missile across Japan... AnonMoos (talk) 14:10, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Now that the launch has taken place, it seems that pretty much the same thing happened again... AnonMoos (talk) 02:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

North Korea has allowed foreign journalists to visit the launch site [3]. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 14:30, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Satellite rockets are dual-use technology. If you can put a small satellite into space, you can put an atomic bomb into another country. That's the issue — they are testing long-range rockets. It's not that people are afraid of the North Korean satellite by itself. The list of satellite launch-capable countries reflects this pretty well — there are a few exceptions (Japan, Iran) but basically every country that can launch a satellite either has or has had in the past nuclear weapons capability.

As for the North Korean strategy, they believe, probably rightly, that the end goal of cooperating with the West is the downfall of their regime, or, at the very least, a lack of "bargaining room" at the table. (If they gave up their nuclear program completely, it's not like the US would suddenly be happy with them. Then the issue would just change to something else about North Korea that the US is unhappy with.) Instead they play a game of cooperating a little to get things they want (e.g. food, supplies), then the talks "break down", they they do something "bad" (shell the border, detonate a nuclear bomb, drop out of the NPT, etc.), then the talks "resume" and they begin cooperating again, get more things they want, and they cycle repeats. It's a rational strategy for a state in their position to play, if they can get away with it, and it has worked very well for them over the past 30 years or so. The problem for the West is that while we may not want to play this game (and every diplomat involved in North Korea already knows it is a game), the alternatives are even worse — all-out war (which would likely be very costly for South Korea and perhaps Japan), or North Korea doing even "worse" things as part of its attempt to get the West to come back to the table and give it things it wants. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:34, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

And why does North Korea frequently turn down Western demands (such as stopping their nuclear program) in the first place?

Because they quaintly believe in their right to self-defense. They observe the beneficence the West has recently showered on Iraq, Vietnam, Lebanon, Libya, Afghanistan and many others and perhaps soon enough, Syria and Iran. And of course they do not forget the enormous death and destruction of the Korean War. So they prefer not to be bombed. Having nuclear weapons is decent insurance against this.

Couldn't they have peaceful negotiations that would benefit both sides?

"The West" is not interested.John Z (talk) 19:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

North Korean behavior is a little bit more complicated than you let on. It is not a principled refusal to cooperate based on self-defense — it is a game of cooperating, reneging, cooperating, reneging. I think my description above is a bit closer to the truth in terms of the behavior and the likely motivation behind it. The North Koreans are desperately dependent on foreign aid, and this is why they keep coming "back to the table" and talking with the US et al. in the first place. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:38, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

An additional problem is one of trajectories. Most of the reasonable satellite launch trajectories from the Korean peninsula take the vehicle over Japan - many of them crossing Japanese territory while still below the Kármán line, and thus entering Japanese airspace. Given the unhappy history and frosty present between the two countries, the Japanese aren't enamoured of this prospect. In particular, it's difficult for Japanese radar to distinguish the early phase between a trajectory that puts a satellite into orbit and one that drops something on Tokyo; as a corollary of that, it's difficult for North Korea to definitively show that it isn't trying to drop stuff on Japan. The same issue seems to be part of the motivation for Russia locating the new Vostochny Cosmodrome in what seems like a sub-optimal position. If they'd put it in a coastal site east of Vladivostok they'd have nicer weather, a slightly more equatorial location, and proximity to the aviation centres around Vladivostok. But many launches from there would go over Hokkaido at a fairly low altitude, again risking misunderstandings with Japan. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:46, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

BNP and Amami League foreign policy

Which countries does Bangladesh have good and warm relationships with when Bangladesh Nationalist Party was in power, regardless which years it was? Which countries does Bangladesh have good and warm relationships with when Awami League was in power, regardless which years it was? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.152.37 (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I think this issue is less relevant today than during the Cold War years. I wouldn't expect any major differences. --Soman (talk) 15:03, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The timing then does matter though. in the 70's before islamisation with secular govts and a schism wiht pak it was obviously not in that line. But theres an increasing Islamist element there that believes in some variation of the ulema, which is ironic as the partition of pakistan is reason enough that youll never hav a caliphate across the muslim world (then you add sudan/darfur and you get mre conifirmation). But see Foreign relations of Bangladesh and the relations pages templateLihaas (talk) 10:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Battle of Hong Kong 1941

Please can anyone find a reference for the number of British and Commonwealth troops that were captured at the end of the Battle of Hong Kong on 25 December 1941? I can only find this, which gives a figure of 6,500. There must be something more authoratative out there. Alansplodge (talk) 14:54, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

According to World War II Database and this official statement in the Canadian House of Commons the numbers of prisoners taken were: 5072 British, 1689 Canadian, 3829 Indian and 357 others. That adds up to 10947. --Antiquary (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Perfect! Many thanks. Alansplodge (talk) 21:15, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Jehovah's Witnesses

In what ways has the Jehovah's Witnesses contributed to American culture? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kdk0770 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, the Jackson family were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses by their mother, Katherine Jackson. The Jacksons had a huge impact on American culture. Category:American Jehovah's Witnesses also has some links to follow. I suspect that category is somewhat underpopulated, but it will give you a start. --Jayron32 18:35, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Of course, those are just people that contributed something and happen to be Jehovah's Witnesses. They aren't contributions of the faith. I'm not sure the faith itself has particularly contributed to American culture, other than in the form of jokes about them knocking on doors. --Tango (talk) 18:39, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

What a confusing comment... If the people who are Jehovah's Witnessess don't count, then who does? Houseplants? Pets? I am quite confused as to how the faith itself can influence American culture if not through the people that practice it. Indeed, if there were not people who were Jehovah's Witnesses, then it wouldn't exist. I am baffled by this comment... --Jayron32 18:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

The point is that the influence that the Jackson family has had on American culture is not directly related to the Jehovah's Witnesses' faith. Similarly, it would be strange to say that Christianity has influenced science by the invention of the reflecting telescope, just because Isaac Newton, its inventor, was a Christian. In fact, this telescope is not related to Christianity at all, so it really is Newton, not Christianity that contributed to science in this way. On the other hand, there are genuine influences of Christianity and Judaism on American culture, e.g. Christian holidays and the seven-day week. -- Lindert (talk) 19:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

(Edit Conflict: how interesting that both Lindert and I chose parallels from Astronomy) I am somewhat in agreement with Tango, but the OP's wording is grammatically a little ambiguous.

If the OP meant (as I read it) "What has/have the Jehovah's Witnesses contributed . . . ?" as a cultural or intellectual group from its particular beliefs and practices, then Tango may be broadly right, though there may well be factors originating from the movement that neither Tango nor I are aware of – perhaps now-common phrases or word usages that we don't realise originated in JW texts, for example.

If however the OP meant "What have Jehovah's Witnesses contributed . . . ?" referring merely to individuals who happen to be Jehovah's Witnesses, then your example of the Jacksons, and various others, would be valid, but the question itself would be less significant. Michael Jackson (for example) has indeed and obviously contributed a great deal to contemporary music and dance, but none of it appears to stem directly from him being a Jehovah's Witness, a fact that most people would probably be oblivious to. As a parallel, the astronomer Jocelyn Bell Burnell has made significant contributions to her academic discipline, but her personal religious background as a Quaker has not in itself contributed to those scientific achievements (though it is clearly significant to her activities within the Quaker movement itself). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.34 (talk) 19:26, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

As far as that goes, Michael himself left the Witnesses in '87. I thought I remembered that he had been "disfellowshipped" (excommunicated), but our MJ article doesn't seem to mention that. --Trovatore (talk) 20:59, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

In what ways is this not a homework question? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

One could say that their contribution to American culture has been to make a lot of other sects look mainstream. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:50, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Not just sects. It's common for all sorts of weirdos, religious or otherise, to make themselves look mainstream by pointing at Jehovah's Witnesses and saying "Look at those weirdos." Someone has to be at the extreme on every issue. Jehovah's Witnesses are there more often than most others. HiLo48 (talk) 00:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Ya think? Compared to Scientology, say? The Witnesses are pretty gentle and reasonable in most situations. It's true that their beliefs occasionally have dramatic consequences for an adherent who needs a blood transfusion, but most people don't need blood transfusions. --Trovatore (talk) 00:32, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I happen to live near a school run by the Scientologists. Most of the people round here don't even know that to be the case, because it's not promoted as such, and the people involved seem so sensible and reasonable in most ways. I still think they're nutters though. HiLo48 (talk) 00:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The JW's like the Scientologists because by comparison, the JW's themselves look mainstream. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

When talking about sects, bear in mind that all Christian religions are sects, not just the ones we typically like to point fingers at. Catholicism, Methodism, Anglicanism, Christadelphianism, Seventh-Day Adventism, and all the rest - they're all sects of Christianity. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 01:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

In common usage, people often use "denomination" to refer to groups they more or less approve of, "sect" for groups that they feel more distant from, and "cult" for groups that they condemn... -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

---

Collectively and as a group, they served as the catalyst for the rather important and influential West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, but otherwise I don't know that they've been influential, as a group, on mainstream U.S. culture, and some of their practices -- such as banning blood transfusions, and their former penchant for publicly setting apocalyptic dates, and then elaborately explaining it away when nothing seemed to happen -- have been controversial. Speaking personally as a linguist who has done some work on Biblical Hebrew, I find it a little difficult to take too seriously a group which has a blatant Hebrew error in their name... AnonMoos (talk) 00:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

You mean the little detail that there's no such word as "Jehovah"? Hush, don't tell them - they'll be very disappointed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't see that as a very deep criticism of their views, frankly. It's a little more telling than it might otherwise be, because of the fact that they make a big deal of God having a name and them using that name. But God has a name and we use it, except, OK, maybe our accent could use work is not so terribly different. --Trovatore (talk) 01:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not an "accent" problem, it's that the vowels of one word were inserted into the consonants of a completely different word, due to a fundamental misunderstanding (about 500 years ago) by Christians of the Jewish scribal practice of Q're Perpetuum. Already by the early 19th century, Christian Hebraists knew enough to correct this error, but due to inertia it has still continued on in some contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 01:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't see any fundamental difference. I wasn't using "accent" as a precise term, just saying, OK, they got the pronunciation a little wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 01:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Adding together the vowels of one word with the consonants of a different and unrelated word (analogous to combining the vowels of "yesterday" with the consonants of "tomorrow" to come up with a form like "temerray") goes some way beyond what is commonly called "getting the pronunciation a little wrong"... AnonMoos (talk) 02:12, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

From a linguistic point of view, maybe. I still don't think it's a very deep criticism of their views, which don't have much to do with linguistics. --Trovatore (talk) 02:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not a profound criticism of the group as a whole, and it has nothing to say as to whether the group, or many of its members, have many positive sterling qualifies. Nevertheless, if you're a linguist who has done some work on Biblical Hebrew, it's a blatant flashing-neon warning sign that historical authenticity and/or devotion to sound Biblical scholarship are probably somewhat lacking... AnonMoos (talk) 15:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Kdk0770, see Jehovah's Witnesses Official Media Web Site: Contributions to the Community.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Iran and nuclear weapons

The Wikipedia article Iran and weapons of mass destruction says that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa that "production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons". Given this, why are the US and Israel so worried about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons? Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 21:56, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Because Iran has a pattern of evading and obstructing inspection by the IAEA, and possibly also because of intelligence from the CIA/Mossad. -- Lindert (talk) 22:19, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

This is not entirely true. Whether Iran has or hasn't been fulfilling its NPT obligations depends on a rather legalistic question (whether they've acceded to the Additional Protocol). They are probably the most inspected country on the planet right now and their nuclear facilities are crawling with IAEA cameras. Sorting out the fact from spin with regards to Iran's compliance or non-compliance is a non-trivial effort made more difficult by the amount of completely ignorant spin that passes as news on the issue. (Incidentally, the CIA has concluded, repeatedly, that Iran is not actively working towards a nuclear weapon.) --Mr.98 (talk) 01:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Some of their nuclear facilities that they've publicly declared (i.e. far from all of them) are crawling with cameras, and U.S. intelligence has concluded that the Iranian leadership hasn't made a decision to make a bomb, but that they have carefully structured their nuclear program to give themselves maximum future flexibility, so that if they do decide in future to build a bomb, many necessary preliminary steps will have already been completed... AnonMoos (talk) 01:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

This is what the Additional Protocol hinges on — it defines when you have to declare something to the IAEA and puts it at a very early moment. Iran says, "we aren't parties to it, so we don't have to declare things until they are actually operating." Their uninspected plants are not yet operational. So it's not clear they violated anything at all. And setting up a flexible civilian program is not, again, against the NPT, which actually enshrines many dual-use technologies as long as they are inspected. Iran is not, in this sense, doing anything differently than Brazil has been doing for a long time. I'm not claiming that Iran is not hedging its bets (it would be stupid not to), but I'm pointing out that a huge amount of the coverage here is just politically convenient spin with quite a lot left out. Iran has been very careful to live within the letter of the law (as it sees it). --Mr.98 (talk) 11:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I really couldn't say whether structuring their nuclear program so that the time needed to build a bomb would be minimized, if in future they do decide to build a bomb, is a technical violation of any legalistic document -- however, it has significantly contributed to creating international antagonism towards Iran. The difference between Brazil and Iran is that no-one thinks that Brazil wants to nuke the Jews. (If the Iranians don't actually want to nuke the Jews, then they should padlock Ahmadinajad's yap firmly shut, because every time Ahmadinajad opens and closes his jaws and flaps his gums, he manages to convince yet more people that his ambition is to nuke the Jews...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 15:16, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Nobody who actually does intelligence analysis thinks that Ahmadinajad really has any plans to nuke Israel unprovoked. Most of Ahmadinajad's more inflammatory statements are poorly translated (his famous "wipe Israel off the map" is really a lot less exciting when correctly translated). The guy is a jerk, to be sure, but that's not a reason to turn off our own brains. Most countries with any kind of civilian nuclear program today have explored the possibility of developing nuclear arms and have set their enrichment/reprocessing systems up to be potentially dual-use (Brazil and Japan stick out as obvious culprits here). There is a world of difference between doing that and actually building a bomb. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Much of what you say has some degree of validity, but you seem to be avoiding dealing with the fairly obvious fact that in the case of Iran several aggravating factors coincide in a way which is not really true for any other country which has signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israelis might not be all that reassured when they remember that Iran killed 85 Jews in Argentina unprovoked, apparently for no other reason than that they find killing Jews to be fun... AnonMoos (talk) 00:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Except that they can't remember that, because it is not known who did that bombing.John Z (talk) 09:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Because nuclear weapons are a huge issue. Iran has rockets that could reach Israel and break it in two with an atomic bomb, almost literally. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 22:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Likewise, Israel has rockets that could reach Iran and break it in two with an atomic bomb, almost literally. But our policies on NPOV will always allow us to describe the situation fairly, I hope. HiLo48 (talk) 00:16, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what governmental agencies would say about the point the OP raised, but maybe they don't think that Iran will completely obey the Supreme Ayatollah or that the fatwa might be overturned. --23:57, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Any given fatwa is not necessarily binding on Shia Muslims (in the case of Iran). Look at the opening of Fatwā. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 00:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The question of whether there are or aren't religious prohibitions against Iran producing or using nuclear weapons is one that has been dissected in some detail by intelligence analysts (the best overview is here). The short version is that it's not clear, and there are a lot of detailed technicalities where religious prohibitions are concerned. But in any case, realpolitik and/or history suggests that moral/religious reasons are usually trumped by larger political forces. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

We simply do not believe anything the leadership of Iran says. Considering some of their absurd statements, like those questioning the existence of the Holocaust, this should come as no surprise. StuRat (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh please, yes iran is solely at fault for everything...most stuff here here is opinionated pov and this is not a forum for discussion, its for research. to give a balanced (as a few responders here have done) perspective there are also partisan lobby groups and the military-industrial complex Not to mention the IAEA that is politicised. Under the old leadership Iran were NOT moving in that direction (and the US national intelligence reports), under the new leadership which is backed by those who were peeved with el baradei, the report suddenly changes. Further, and we dont believe the words of israel's regime either, not to mention the absurd claim of not having nukes, where are the international monitors at natanz (As with pak and with india, not just israel). its pure politics ar work. Also not to forget the Vela incidentLihaas (talk) 10:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what questioning the Holocaust has to do with a possible nuclear program. Those are fairly different factual domains — it's somewhat akin to doubting anything the US says because many high-placed Americans in recent years (including all of the major presidential candidates of a given party) espouse a belief in Creationism (which is a political position as much as anything else — ditto Iranian leadership's position on the Holocaust). A critic might point out that American leadership, among its many absurd statements over the years, has actually been quite wrong about identifying foreign WMD programs, which is actually the factual domain in question. Nonetheless, I do disagree with the poster immediately above me — you cannot throw out all intelligence information. Sifting through what has been released, though, even by the Israelis, leads one to the conclusion that very little has changed in the Iranian nuclear outlook since 2003, and that much of the recent hype is just hype. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

And we also have recent experience with NK and Pakistan, both of which swore they weren't developing nuclear weapons, when they were. The same is true of Israel, but, of course, they are in a very different position. Iran is not under threat of invasion from all it's neighbors, after all (Iraq was a threat under Saddam, but the US eliminated that threat). StuRat (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Iran probably rightly feels that it is under threat of invasion from the United States. The situations with North Korea and Pakistan are quite different from Iran's. North Korean had an on-again off-again nuclear program that went back quite a long time. Pakistan's is even older (it dates from the early 1970s) and nobody really believed they weren't trying to acquire nuclear weapons (the US "certified" them as being good non-proliferators but even at the time everyone knew that was just political). The thing is, StuRat, going by analogy to other states in an intellectually honest way means you have to include all of the times that states claimed they weren't doing something, and actually weren't (Iraq comes to mind). The fact that Iran says they aren't working towards a weapon is not evidence that they are working towards a weapon. That all states routinely lie is not evidence that any specific statement is a lie. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

No, it's a reason we should ignore such statements from national leaders, which is what this question asked about. To paraphrase, they asked it we can just take their word for it that they aren't after a nuclear weapon. The answer, heck no. Iran couldn't possibly think there's any threat of invasion from the US, as it's a much larger nation than either Iraq and Afghanistan, and the US military and budget are seriously overtaxed (as are all but the rich US citizens). Bombing is another story, though, but working on nuclear weapons makes this more likely, not less. StuRat (talk) 20:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, fair enough on the first part. As to whether they have reasons to fear US or US-led coalitions invading, I don't see why they wouldn't take the lesson from Iraq as being, "don't trust the US to not invade, even if it's not apparently in their own interest." (And I might note that there is no better way to guarantee Iran going for a covert nuclear program than bombing their declared, inspected program.) --Mr.98 (talk) 20:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I've purposely avoided this question but have to agree on the last point. Even for many non-American, non Iranians it's not uncommon to believe there's a risk some US leader may decide to invade Iran. It wasn't that long ago you had someone calling them the axis of evil and willing to go to war against another country based on the flimsiest of evidence (which everyone involved seemed to know). For the likely somewhat paranoid Iranian leadership, it's hard to imagine they don't think there's a risk. As for whether working on nuclear weapons makes bombing more or less likely, that's questionable. Once you are successful, you have a real deterret to such actions, justified or not. Even if you do make an attack more likely in the short term, you may consider it better in the long term. Nil Einne (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Economic theories as political views

I am always interested in discussing my political views and reading about other political views. When I am reading into them I am bombarded by terms like Austrian economics, neoliberalism, classialc liberalism, and others that I understand as being related to economic and social theories. Why do economic theories express the way things ought to be? They're theories, not political positions. Someone could think tha Keynesian economics is true in that a country will maximize its wealth by having some amount of regulation and then do a 180° and support a laissez-faire system because they want to have as much freedom as possible. Why do theories and philosophies imply political views? --Melab±1 ☎ 23:53, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Trovatore Melab, which countries support laissez-faire system? --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 01:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why you're asking me. In any case, as far as I know, there aren't any, though some get closer than others. --Trovatore (talk) 02:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Oops, I mistakenly typed your name. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 02:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

This isn't actually directly responsive to your question, but you've hit on a sore point with me on the classical liberalism article, which describes classical liberalism as a descriptive economic theory (and an extremely specific one, dating to about a 20-year period). I think that's a serious flaw in the article. My understanding of classical liberalism is that it's what used to be called just liberalism before T. H. Green and his cohort of "reform liberals" messed everything up. --Trovatore (talk) 00:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Unlike Austrian economics, which is really politics disguised as economics, Keynesian economics does not directly imply political views. It does predict that certain approaches will succeed and others will fail, so it can be used to support political views, but its direct aim is to predict the relationship between policy and the behavior of an economy, not to judge that relationship. Looie496 (talk) 01:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Keynsianism's descriptive function of the modern state is, when Keynsianism is instrumentalised by modern states, a justification of the state formation. Correspondingly with Keynsianism's instrumentalisation in relation to capital. Descriptive norms generally aren't. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

See also Political economy --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 01:48, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The distribution of labour and sustenance, the organisation of production, and the control of the organisation of production are intensely political. Methods of analysing these relationships contain within them political declarations about potential orderings of such relationships. Claiming, for example, that the structure of value in a capitalist economy subsists on labour power is a very large political claim about whether those who supply labour power should tolerate capitalism. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I think, however, that the solution to problems economists hypothetically try to provide should not, themselves, be political, at least in the abstract. In the concrete, however, economics is clearly a soft science and lots of things that happen in the world, economically, are not unlike the weather: small, unforseen perterbations to the system produce wildly unpredictable results. The problem is that economists make contradictory statements which each side maintains are The Gospel Truth. That provides easy fodder for politicians to subvert for their own personal gain. One political party finds an economist which says "A", and their opponents can easily find an economist which says "not-A". It becomes dogmatic and without actual evidenciary support in the form of actual reproducable results, something that real sciences kinda run on. Politicians can then use economic theories to merely maintain their own power, without actually improving the lives of their constituents. Economics is a study ready-made for political subversion, as clearly happened in cases like the Soviet Union, where a power-hungry dictatorial class convinced poor people that they had an economic plan to make their lives better, and then brutally oppressed them for over half a century while doing little except coalece power and privilege for their own personal gain. At least the capitalists are honest about their greed... --Jayron32 05:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

As an aside: Austrian Economics is certainly highly politically charged, but I think calling it "politics disguised as economics" would be taking it a bit far. Block and Hoppe, et al. are purely economic about it for the most part. Rothbard and a few others put the political spin on it that basically represents its public face today. Evanh2008 (talk) (contribs) 05:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Austrian economics is based on ethics. Economics is all about human beings, and it is ethics that determines exactly how human beings should act. Economics is not possible without analyzing the underlying ethics. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 05:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

All of these things about the humanities makes it so confusing to me. Before this year, I considered English/literature and philosophy or logic and philosophy to be separate disciplines. While reading a book and then discussing it in class will go over the philosophy that is transmitted through the theme, it always focused on how this was done (this is what I thought). Then social theories are thrown into the mix. Take Marxism. Before my junior year, I always saw it as a political position. Its Wikipedia article called it a social theory and I learned that it held that (in my own words) a tendency existed for the lower class to revolt and eventually settle into an ideal communist (ideal as in without a government, not to say that I support it). Hypothetically, Karl Marx could have thought that this was what societies tried (as if a society has intent) to evolve into and the same time he could have supported capitalism. Next, I learn that psychology is some how connected to philosophy. All this blurring started when my English was assigned one year to pick a fictional character and prove they were of a certain philosophy. An example was Patrick Jane from The Mentalist. He is a sophist because he constructed arguments to prove his point. I saw these as behaviors not philosophies. --Melab±1 ☎ 21:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I can think of a few ways economic theory and politics can be linked:

1) Your economic theory drives your politics. For example, if you believe free markets can solve any problem, then you will be against any regulation of those markets.

2) Your politics drives your economic theory. For example, if you are against any regulation (perhaps because you own a business), you will choose an economic theory that says free markets can solve any problem.

3) You invent whatever economic theory is needed to justify your politics. For example, if your goal is to take money from the poor and give it to the rich, then you come up with something like trickle-down economics to try to convince everyone that cutting taxes on the rich and benefits to the poor is really the best way to help the poor. StuRat (talk) 06:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I would agree in the sense that it is easy to come up with theories, and there is a natural draw to holding a consistent set of beliefs (to avoid [[cognitive dissonance), including in political economy. I'm not sure there's anything special about it though. Trickle-down economics, like any other theory, was hypothesised because someone thought it was true, no more, no less. In political economy, some theories rise, others fall, just as with any scientific theory. The difference with, say, the theory of gravity, is that the evidence is so compelling that virtually everyone comes round to believing in it soon enough. Evidence for or against political-economic arguments is far patchier by comparison, and hence mutually exclusive theories survive far longer than they otherwise might. To answer the OP then, I would argue that it's really just the amount of overlap between the axioms of economics and politics that results in the evident cross-pollination of ideas. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 12:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

How do you know they really believed in it, versus just using it as a propaganda tool ? (I suppose it could be like communism in that respect, in that Marx appeared to be a true believer, but by the time we got to Stalin, it was just a tool of oppression.) StuRat (talk) 19:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Internal consciousness in these situations is a might bit more complicated than you make it out. Stalin's pet theorists derived a reading of Marx more hackneyed than even Lenin's reading to justify the oppression of man by man; but, they appeared to do this without requiring cognitive dissonance (any more than Reagan required in claiming that the market freed people). Partly this can be explained through class interest (obviously leaving Stalin as problematic for "stratum" type orthotrots). But we can go a little further. Stalin bothered to have two works commissioned under his name while he ruled, "Short Course" and "On Linguistics." Neither displays a dialectical understanding of social relationships, the second is relatively naked in its apologetics for Soviet nationalities policy. But yet Stalin bothered to have these commissioned. ……… In comparison, Soviet economics was heartily interesting. Input-output tables, throughput, feedback. The sociology of industry was relatively poor, but then again the holy-of-holies in the Soviet-style production process was the alienation and disempowerment of the class at plant levels. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

April 10

"Purple prose"

What is it that distinguishes purple prose from good descriptive writing? I was reading Gatsby (awesome btw) and it seems to me that Fitzgerald employs a lot of the wonderfully florid descriptions that are often denounced as "purple prose"; where is the line drawn, exactly? 24.92.85.35 (talk) 02:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If you like it, it isn't purple prose. There is no other line to be drawn. This is one of those "eye of the beholder" things. --Jayron32 05:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

What invention will North Koreans need to start their own regime change?

Social Media was invented a little before the Arab Spring came along. That was the invention the Arabs needed in order to enact pro-democracy rebellions.

However, North Koreans do not have access to the worldwide Internet. They just have the Kwangmyong intranet. What new inventions would the North Koreans need in order to start Arab Spring-style rebellions to get their moribund, brutal regime to finally dissolve?

(I have a feeling that it might be worldwide wi-fi, or at least South Korean Wi-fi signals that can permeate hundreds of miles inland from just a few emitters. but wouldn't feel too sure because they probably don't even have wi-fi receptors.)

Of the inventions you imagine could start a North Korean spring, and bring down the last Stalinist bastion on Earth, why haven't they been invented yet? What would it take for the inventions to come to fruition, and how much could they cost to be made practical enough for these purposes? --Tergigress (talk) 05:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Your description of revolutions as technologically determined would be disputed by most scholars who seriously interrogate revolutions. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, one of the criticisms of calling the Arab Spring the "Facebook Revolution" is that it undermines the root causes of the revolts. At best, social networking on the internet has had an ancillary effect on the ability of the revolutionaries to organize, but the cause of the revolutions has very little to do with technology. There have been successful revolutions in the past which clearly had little to do with technology, and much more to do with the society in which they occured. --Jayron32 05:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is a communications technology solution. When you have a brutal dictatorship with that kind of military, and the willingness to use it, probably right up to nuking their own people, you can't overcome that with protests, no matter how well organized.

Perhaps some form a defensive technology which would make NK no longer a threat to their neighbors might work, though, as the rest of the world could then ignore NK until starvation started to affect the military. If "Star Wars" actually worked, that would make all the difference. StuRat (talk) 05:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Only if the North Koreans were using ICBMs as their delivery mechanism. "Star Wars" doesn't work against nuclear smuggling. It wouldn't even have worked against intermediate range missiles. I also think you underestimate how little the world is interested in even another conventional war on the Korean peninsula — it would be a very bloody affair. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe NK would attack SK if they didn't have a nuclear threat behind it. After all, that would put them at risk of nuclear attack (and I don't see China coming to their defense again, in such a case). StuRat (talk) 20:45, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I have long thought that what regime change in North Korea most needs is an extremely skilled group of Exit counsellors who would be able to take on a nation-state-slash-cult. Has anyone done any work in debunking the "cult of Kim"? Perhaps via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty type-broadcasting?

Yes, it has been tried but see Radio jamming in Korea. Rmhermen (talk) 13:31, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

That said, if the experience in Myanmar is any guide, smashing the cult is not enough. You need the cult-destruction to reach the levels of those who wield the guns on behalf of the regime (or at least some of them), or such regimes will simply use brute force to crush any inserrection by the no-longer-deluded masses. The 2011–2012 Syrian uprising might be an interesting case-study in such long-standing regimes coming under threat. 58.111.224.202 (talk) 06:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, you either need the leadership to decide to change, or the military supporting it must revolt. The latter is possible, if conditions get so bad in NK that the military starts to suffer. Of course, if the military did revolt, there's no reason to think they would establish democracy. More likely they would just install another dictator, but hopefully one which was less confrontational, perhaps more like the leadership of China. StuRat (talk) 17:20, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

This was a very interesting discussion. Thelastmedic (talk) 17:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Pornography, which is to say, efforts to ban it. A War on Drugs of any variety will destroy the government of any nation, given enough time. (Though as we see in the U.S., it can take quite a while) Wnt (talk) 20:59, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

UK History - the high notes

Hello chaps, I am designing a frieze depicting a timeline of what I might best describe as UK-centric world events, for displaying on the walls of schoolrooms and children's bedrooms. Space will be limited so I was wondering what would you consider the most notable events in the UK and the world that would merit inclusion?

I was thinking of beginning at 55BC and running to 2000AD. By UK-centric I mean that the birth of Christ and Muhammad would likely be included, the French and US revolutions perhaps, but Shakespeare and Dickens would get a place rather than Voltaire and Twain.

So what are the absolute must-haves for a British child's historical education?

FreeMorpheme (talk) 11:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

My high school English teacher used to say, the most important date in British history is 1066 AD, the conquest of William the Conqueror. I'd say the discovery of America is quite important, the invention of the printing press, the Roman conquest of Britain (but you figured that already, considering the 55 BC starting date) and the the formation of the United Kingdom through the Acts of Union 1707. Obviously, WW2 is a highly significant event, possibly the crusades, and there are of course many more but I don't know how selective the timeline should be. - Lindert (talk) 11:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Stonehenge, Norman conquests, Gaelic origins, with rOme perhaps add Hadrian's wall, William Wallace, crusaders, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Rennaissance and shakespeare et al, english civil war, cromwell, guy fawkes (perhaps as in the bonfire to kill 2 birds with 1 stone), the british empire and her jewel as in india but also africa, the world wars with churchil et al, possibly thatcher but thats recentism, Empress victoria of india (longest monarch), to include australia perhaps add Gallipoli) of course cricket is the prime sport. Weve now got politics, culture, military...would need some economy. The british bank, in general or the stock exchange. OOhh! Oxford and Cambridge (the rowing races perhaps to get both in). Perhaps get the classic british humour with Sir Humphrey Appleby and/or Jim Hacker btw- discovery of america is not british.Lihaas (talk) 11:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If we are looking at world-impact events rather than, say, the English Civil War: Magna Carta, the agrarian and industrial revolutions, voyage of the Beagle/Darwin, abolition of slavery, longitude, Waterloo, NHS & Welfare State, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_inventions_and_discoveries , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_inventions_and_discoveries , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_inventions_and_discoveries , and depending on poltical considerations which/if to include: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_inventions_and_discoveries

Why reinvent the wheel? British History Timeline --TammyMoet (talk) 13:18, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Personally I'd include the fall of the Roman Empire (the famous communication that basically said to the Roman colonies "you're on your own"), the reign of Alfred the Great (first king to produce a set of laws in English), Norman Conquest, Magna Carta, Black Death, end of the Wars of the Roses: then in the middle of the 17th century you've got quite a lot to put in - regicide, Commonwealth, Restoration, Plague, Great Fire of London, Glorious Revolution. I'll leave it to others to bring it more up to date. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:22, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If you're designing something to represent 2000 years of history, try not to fall into the recentist trap of devoting 10% of the space to 90% of the period covered. You may find it tricky to cover some of the early post-Roman centuries, but there's a heck of a lot of fascinating material you could use for the rest. Just remember, time passed since 1900 is about one twentieth of the period you're looking at. And if you're interested in this being educational for kids, the stuff that's not in living memory arguably has more value. --Dweller (talk) 13:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't believe that no one has mentioned the Spanish Armada incident. Deor (talk) 14:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The history of science is extremely important to the development of British society, and there is a lot of it. You could choose from, William of Ockham, Isaac Newton, Edmond Halley, Robert Hooke, the ancient universities, the Royal Society, Charles Darwin, James Clerk Maxwell, Joseph Lister, the Industrial Revolution, and many others. Depending on the intended audience, it might be a good idea to try and include some local history - I was a little annoyed to learn as an adult that the area I grew up in (like most places, probably) was the setting for various important historical events that I had never even heard of. It would be a good idea to mention as wide a variety of historical figures as possible - you don't want to give the impression that all important people are white, male, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle-aged and upper-class (in the context of science, you could mention Srinivasa Ramanujan, Caroline Herschel, Alan Turing, and Mary Seacole, who are all very interesting and important people with strong connections to the UK). 130.88.99.231 (talk) 15:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The fact is that in the history of the UK, nearly all important people were indeed white, male, Christian and upper-class. To pretend otherwise is simply a distortion of history. - Lindert (talk) 15:41, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

That's a very strong statement - there are a huge number of important British historical figures who were female or working- or middle-class. I doubt the goal here is to be representative of history (if that is even meaningful), but instead to be engaging and educational, and I suspect that showing a parade of respectable middle-aged white men who had important political roles, but otherwise had unremarkable lives, is a good way of turning off your audience. I also fail to see how discussing some women or members of ethnic minorities would be more a 'distortion of history' than concentrating on military history, or politics, or science and technology, or local history, or indeed British history, which have all been suggested in this thread. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 16:11, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget the English Reformation and the Scottish Reformation. The Reformation was the proximate cause of the Spanish Armada, the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution and the 1745 Rebellion. Without it, it is unlikely that there would have been any Pilgrim Fathers. It's sometimes cited as a pre-condition for the Industrial Revolution too.[4] Alansplodge (talk) 17:38, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If you want to offer a break from ruling-class faces and some insight into social history, you might include figures such as Wat Tyler, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour prime minister, or Aneurin Bevan, founder of the National Health Service. Marco polo (talk) 17:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Alansplodge that the English Reformation was the catalyst for many world-changing events which followed including the founding of the English colony at Jamestown. The influence of Anne Boleyn cannot be underestimated.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 18:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

How about the invention of the Light bulb in 1878? Oh wait-- you said British history. Edison (talk) 19:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm being dense, but was that supposed to be a joke? According to the article you linked to, the first incandescent light bulb was created in 1802 by Humphrey Davy, a Brit. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 19:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

But you'll never get anyone named Edison to accept that. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 19:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Its a joke because there have long been disputes over the "true inventor" of the practical carbon filament incandescent lightbulb. Davy in 1802, and predecessors Volta circa 1800 or Priestley in the 1770's (with a Leyden jar) made wire or carbon glow with electricity but it burned out quickly. This was replicated all through the 19th century. Swan came up with a quick-to-fail low vacuum light bulb in the 1860's, then he and Edison independently invented practical high vacuum bulbs about the same time circa 1878. They pooled patents and started Ediswan in the UK, while Edison's US company became GE. Edison (talk) 19:25, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

ALso weve forgotten Henry's schism with rome and the foundation of the church of england...at the same time lets not forget that britains' history didnt just pop out suddenly with the christian era. there is an oft-neglected pre-christian history. No europe si not borne of the christian eta as idiotic politicians liek to rant.Lihaas (talk) 19:42, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

"Henry's schism" is generally called the English Reformation, which Alansplodge has already brought into the discussion above. I agree that the pre-Christianised era and the (protracted and complex) transition from Paganism(s) is important: however, the key events or processes largely took place during the era we call "The Dark Ages" precisely because, unfortunately, we have very few historical records of events in the British Isles (and some other places) from those times. One which was arguably important to, or at least best symbolises, the determination of the nature of the Christianity we wound up with was the Synod of Whitby, which (unfortunately from my less-than-impartial Neopagan viewpoint) resulted in the Roman rather than the Celtic church becoming dominant.

More generally, the migrations and of various Germanic peoples (among them the Angelcynn) and/or cultures to the the hitherto predominently Celtic British Isles over the 5th to llth centuries CE are fundamentally important, but perhaps difficult to represent in the sort of "timeline" the OP envisages: history is a complex multi-dimensional network of interacting factors (I might say the World's Wyrd is intricately woven), and isolating out that of a particular region as a one-dimensional succession is bound to introduce distortions, but "lies to children" are often a regrettable but necessary expedient. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.16 (talk) 22:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oh look 50KB of Kings and Other Bad Things. I'd suggest economic history (Economy of England in the Middle Ages) to Wat Tyler, and after Wat Tyler economic, social and radical history. British Histories, like most histories, is a continuous process at the attempt to subjugate the labouring class, with a slight frosting of dead rich white men. Of course, you could try our sequence of Bishops—a kind of dead rich white man whose form of male white Catholic oppression differs significantly from the blood on the Corporate Special Constable's truncheon or the charcoal guilt on the hands of Elizabeth for the women she burnt alive. Sources suitable for children include the series by Tony Robinson, Wikipedia's Bishop's series, and the folk culture of England series of featured articles. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:45, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Fifelfoo, I believe you are confusing Elizabeth with her half-sister Mary.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:15, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I assure you that I verified that the Virgin Queen burnt women before stating it. Isabel Cockie for one. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You could apply a neat thematic to this that works across the period: successful and failed invasions that have massive significance in the country's history: Romans, Vikings, Normans, Armada, Nazi. They're each separated by c.500 years. --Dweller (talk) 09:06, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, the last Viking invasion of England was in 1066, three days before the Norman one. You missed Napoleon, who blew all the cash from the Louisiana Purchase on an invasion fleet and a nice dock for it at Bolougne. Alansplodge (talk) 23:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Viking raids on Britain began in the eighth century. I discounted Napoleon's effort because it had less impact on British life and history and because it's so close in time to the Nazi invasion (see my point above about recentism). All POV, but then deciding what to include/exclude in this project will be inherently POV. --Dweller (talk) 09:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The Battle of Trafalgar was essentially an anti-invasion measure, "which established British naval supremacy for more than 100 years"[5]. Alansplodge (talk) 22:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

If you're planning a UK-centric project, why not stick to the UK only? If you want to show the impact of Christianity or Islam (or other religions) on the UK, there are British, rather than middle-eastern, aspects you could show. --Dweller (talk) 09:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Looks like I may need a bigger house to fit this frieze on the wall FreeMorpheme (talk) 20:10, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Value of company internal titles

Does it really matter for future employment which internal title (vice-president of, junior or senior, you name it) you had at previous companies? MangoNr1 (talk) 12:32, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Depends on what you're doing with respect to the title.

There is an article in this weeks Economist about "panflation" and this subject is included in there, a pperceived promotion through title change can be cheaper than actually increasing financial reward.

ALR (talk) 12:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe/depends. Companies generally want to know your duties and responsibilities, not the job title. Job titles vary a lot, particularly in fields like high-tech and new media; however in other areas (academia, teaching, military, civil service, medicine, etc) job naming is more consistent and hence of more interest. However, people judge on all kinds of things, and being a director or vice-president may make you stand out more than an assistant manager, and having a ridiculous title might count against you. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:18, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

In my experience, a job title that clearly relates to the job title you're applying for, is often an advantage in the first round of shortlisting when there are a lot of candidates to wade through. This is clearly not ideal, but many non HR people loathe recruitment, especially so when they receive dozens or hundreds of applications they need to sift, and they have a demanding job to get back to. --Dweller (talk) 15:01, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Bill clinton scandal ussr issue

I don't want to sound stupid but did the right-wing media ever say that Monica Lewinsky did this scandal as a revenge for USSR dissolution? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.43.51 (talk) 15:23, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it, but I could be surprised. I doubt it because if she had, it wouldn't have made much sense for her to lie in the Paula Jones case and try to persuade another to do the same. She'd have grabbed the opportunity. It's also not very clear why making the American president look ridiculous would in any way avenge the dissolution of the USSR. Nor is it clear why anyone would think Clinton was responsible for that more than internal Soviet forces. Although I get the tenuous connection between Lewinsky and the USSR. There's enough understandable conspiracy here without the need for an additional nonsensical conspiracy theory. --Dweller (talk) 15:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

If there was a conspiracy, it was probably that Linda Tripp sold out her "friend" in order to be able to sell her story to the tabloids and/or become the latest right-wing cause celèbre / flavor of the month. By the way, Lee Harvey Oswald had far more connections to the Soviet Union than Monica Lewinsky, yet the Soviets always seem to be relegated to the third or fourth tier in JFK assassination conspiracy theories... AnonMoos (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Which is ironic, because the immediate assumption by most Americans was that "the Commies" were behind it - either USSR or Cuba, or both. LBJ, to his dying day, was not convinced that Oswald was acting alone and without direct foreign influence. But if the USSR was behind it, that would have been an international incident of epic proportions. So it was in the Warren Commission's best interest to focus on Oswald himself. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

And by so doing they made themselves a laughing stock. LBJ was right to doubt the commission's report. Not that it was necessarily the USSR behind it, but for Oswald to have acted alone, without any other human beings being involved, was always unbelievable. Lots of people who had crucial evidence supporting the involvement of other parties were never called to give their evidence. If you decide the outcome in advance, it's easy to then choose the evidence that supports that outcome, and you just ignore or discredit the rest. Sir Humphrey would have been proud. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 19:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Jack, you should post this over on Talk:Lee Harvey Oswald where my voice echoing your beliefs is but a tiny cry in the wilderness of "Oswald acted alone". I have visited the TSBD and nobody can or ever will convince me that he acted alone although I do believe he was involved.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

"We are not alone", Jeanne. Thanks for your support, but I won't go there because I know that canvassing of editors' personal views, however sane they may be, is not what talk pages are for. Or even here, for that matteer. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 07:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not canvassing which is why I used small print.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:24, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I was, but I've stopped now. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 08:14, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Oswald knew how to use a rifle, and he had 6 to 8 seconds to fire the second and third shots. Digital enhancement of the films indicates there was no gunman on the grassy knoll. It's possible for him to have done it himself. The conspiracists' core claim is that he couldn't have. But he indeed could have. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

A bunch of people on the Internet will solve this once and for all, no doubt. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It's always worked before. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The evidence shows that it was indeed possible for Oswald to have done the whole thing himself. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:25, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I have been looking in vain in the Monica Lewinsky article for a tenous connection between Lewinsky and the USSR, but have yet to find anything. What am I missing? --Saddhiyama (talk) 19:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

You're not missing anything. There was no conspiracy with Lewinsky and the Russians to bring down Clinton. RudolfRed (talk) 21:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, the person who brought up the "tenuous connection" didn't think there was a conspiracy either, so that remark hardly seems responsive. I'm curious too; what was this alleged connection? The name "Lewinsky" sounds like it could be Russian (or Polish), though the article says her father came from German Jewish stock (but that she has Russian ancestry on her mom's side). So that's the only thing I can think of. I don't think I'd describe that as a connection with the USSR, even adding the word "tenuous". Is there anything else? --Trovatore (talk) 08:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The mother's side connection. Tenuous is what I called it and tenuous is what it is. --Dweller (talk) 08:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If the right-wingers were trying to tie Monica to the Russkies, they didn't get much publicity for it. As a practical matter, the USSR dissolved under Reagan and Bush. Trying to get "revenge" against the president who succeeded those guys would be a bizarre idea. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Sindhi and Gujarati language similarities

Is there similarities between Sindhi and Gujarati languages like vocabulary or are they completely different because Mohd. Ali Jinnah of Pakistan spoke Gujarati with Gandhi and yet he was Sindhi? I am confused about these two languages. Please help me understand. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.43.51 (talk) 15:28, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

It's probably better to ask this question at the Language desk. - Lindert (talk) 15:33, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

They are closely related. According to Gujarati language, they split at the third of the four successive splits listed there. I am not familiar enough with either to discuss the similarities and differences though. That article also says (though only in the caption of a picture, and not referenced as far as I can see) that Jinnah was Gujarati and had Gujarati as a mother tongue, though he was not born or raised in Gujarat. --ColinFine (talk) 18:34, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Jinnah was not SIndhi he was Gujarati. And you cant be "born and raised Gujurati" as it is conventionally known because that implies (wrongfully) Hindu Gujurati. There are not single Gujurati traditions to follow as the multitude of religions have their own traditions. To bebred Gujurati is quite simply speaking the language, etc...eating the foot...Lihaas (talk) 19:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Nobody but you has used the phrase "born and raised Gujarati", Lihaas. --ColinFine (talk) 20:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah sorry, theres no "i" at the end of your sentence...nevertheless it is a common misconception (in India anyways)Lihaas (talk) 08:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Freedom in the World 2012

As you may know, Freedom House published the "Freedom in the World" report every year. The ratings of the countries are based on the aggregate scores data. Last year, Freedom House changed his website. In the old website, there was an excel spreadsheet in which there was the aggragate scores data for each country for the years 2003-2011. However, in the new website, I can't find the aggregate scores data of Freedom in the World 2012. I tried to search in the Freedom in the World 2012, but I didn't find anything. Can someone find that data? Here is the website of Freedom House: http://www.freedomhouse.org/ Here is the Freedom in the World 2012 page: http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2012 87.68.29.73 (talk) 17:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Indicies of this nature frequently change, as new data or weightings are used. That generally will render year-by-year comparisons less accurate. DOR (HK) (talk) 06:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Polygamy two types

Doesn't polygamy come into two categories like having all 4 wives at the same time and having 4 wives at different times like 1st wife in 2 years and 2 years with 2nd wife and etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.43.51 (talk) 20:26, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I've heard the later called serial monogamy. Also note that polygyny is a man having multiple wives at once, and polyandry is a woman having multiple husbands at once. StuRat (talk) 20:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is covered a bit in the article Polygamy in North America which notes a practice sometimes known as "serial bigamy", which is a bit of legal fiction whereby a man legally divorces his previous wife before marrying the next. Socially, the family still lives together as a polygamous family: one man, his several wives, and their children, for legal reasons he is only officially married to the last one, but functionally this works exactly as though he were married to all of his wives at the same time.--Jayron32 02:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a legal fiction - divorce is divorce, with the ordinary legal implications. There seems to be a double standard that it's illegal "polygamy" to do this if a man is a Mormon who has a legal wife and sleeps around on the side, but routine and permissible adultery if he's just the ordinary breed of dog. I think there are rather unrelated side-issues that feed into this - for example, the "single mothers" obtaining public assistance while living as part of a household, which annoys some people. Wnt (talk) 02:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be just benefits fraud?Anonymous.translator (talk) 03:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

April 11

Is it ethical for a doctor to lie about Homeopathy even it helps the patient?

There is an ethics section in Homeopathy, which is mostly about not giving patients evidence-based treatments but insisting on prescribing homeopathy instead. There is more in Placebo. Both zoom in on how unethical it is (or isn't) to prescribe a non-working substance. Personally, if I would find out my doctor is prescribing placebos to me, I'd get another one immediately. For a close relative though, some homeopathic drug really helped (after all evidence-based medications didn't), probably for being a working placebo and the physical symptoms having a psychological cause. So my question is: should a doctor feel bad after prescribing a placebo for having lied to the patient, or should he feel bad for not prescribing a placebo because the patient might have been cured if he would have? Joepnl (talk) 00:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It's a hard question. In 2008, a study reported that half of all doctors prescribe placebos on a regular basis. The placebo effect is real, so it isn't an entirely neutral thing. The American Medical Association apparently doesn't consider it ethical, but they are hardly the be-all and end-all of medical ethics. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, the demise of (most) placebos is credited to 1960s principles of autonomy, which I strongly favor. There is no doubt in my mind that the doctor is supposed to be my employee and do as I see fit; I hire him for his advice, not for deception.

Furthermore, I see no reason why the doctor would need to prescribe a placebo under conditions of deception. For every ailment there are many therapies which might work, but are unproven or dubious or disputed, but still, far more rational than infinite-dilution homeopathy. The doctor need merely advise the patient to take one of the many real herbal supplements sold daily on store shelves around the country, things which really might have beneficial effects on many major organ systems, and which in any case as foods should do little harm, at least when selected by a reasonably well-informed physician. He should of course explain the limited nature of the evidence supporting the herb, but leave it to the patient to decide whether it provides some relief. Wnt (talk) 02:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I would consider the question of "just" placebos and the question of homeopathy separately. The latter implies a causal mechanism that reaches far beyond the specific treatment and can lead to a lot of other nonsense as well. I have had a doctor prescribe what I assume to be placebos to me under the heading of "natural supplements." These have been for various medical conditions which are chronic, non-life threatening, but somewhat irritating. (If you haven't had these sorts of things, just wait. Life is full of irritating conditions that there aren't any medical treatments for. You get more of them over time.) In some of the cases I've looked them up and found that the natural supplements have no visible effect different than placebo and I assume that my doctor is aware as well, but in the lack of other options (or when the medical options are more extreme than are warranted for the conditions), I can see why he said to just give it a try. In some cases I've actually found them to work "good enough", even when I basically know they are a placebo. So I don't know. Homeopathy is pure, unadulterated rubbish, though, and I don't consider that to be quite the same ethical situation. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:48, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If the natural supplement works by placebo effect alone, and the same is true of the homeopathy treatment, what's the diff ? StuRat (talk) 04:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Case A, incurable disease: homoeopathy and natural supplement have the same effects.

Case B, curable disease: only real medication have real effects.

If doctors prescribe homoeopathy in Case A and the patient recovers, they might not seek professional medical help when they encounter Case B but instead turn to some online "experts" on a homoeopathy forum.Anonymous.translator (talk) 09:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

That's what I was saying, anyway. Homeopathy is not a one-off deal. It's a quack ideology. Natural supplements may or may not effective in any given case, but they're still within the standard realm of believing in truly bioactive answers to a medical question. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Consider also that the doctor may not know that what he is prescribing is a placebo: this happens in medical trials. As for Mr.98's point about natural supplements, I had a rheumatologist tell me to take glucosamine and chondroitin supplements for my rheumatoid arthritis as there were studies that showed that these supplements worked. Fast forwards a few years and I read studies that showed that the effect of these supplements were no more than placebo. Who is right? Did the supplements work because the doctor believed that they worked, or because I believed that they worked, or because they actually did have an effect? Placebo is a very slippery concept and causes no end of problems for medical trials. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure a saw a study recently which said placebos were just as effective when the patient was told it was a placebo but that it would be good for them and they should take them according to the directions. Dmcq (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Tammy, do you have a link to those studies which show glucosamine and chondroitin do not reduce pain from arthritis? They are still touted as beneficial to reduce joint pain. Edison (talk) 15:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It's difficult now to put my finger on it, but this one looks familiar. I'm actually taking them for an unrelated condition and have not noticed any improvement in my joint pains. I'll keep looking. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC) Ah yes found it, the next one on the list. Current NICE guidance is not to prescribe or recommend the supplement in the UK. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Both I and my brother had the same experience; that those helped, at first, but any benefit quickly faded. The body appears to develop a tolerance to it, at which point it no longer serves any purpose. StuRat (talk) 17:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

A patient might come in and tell the doctor he feels "tired and run down." A physical exam and tests of blood and urine show no problems. The doctor prescribes a "vitamin shot," to be repeated every weak. The patient thereby gets vitamins he could get by eating food, or by taking a vitamin supplement by mouth, but at an annual cost of hundreds of dollars. See "Take 50 of these, fork over some cash, and call me in the morning," Spy Magazine, 1989. Edison (talk) 15:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If a patient complains about being "run down", I'd first check them for tire tread marks. :-) StuRat (talk) 01:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks all for the confusing message :) Joepnl (talk) 20:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there really evidence that a known placebo is ineffective? Taking a placebo, after all, has consequences. Once, twice, maybe three times a day a person might drink an extra glass of water. Daily he thinks about his condition, perhaps becoming desensitized to it by doing so? Maybe he takes extra care with lifestyle precautions?

Gratuitous anecdote: I remember that when I was around 10 or so I had a plantar wart, a sort of hole in the bottom of the foot that my father had suffered dozens of during his own childhood and nearly faced surgery for before being treated effectively with purple dye placebo. Neither he nor I knew that was a placebo until some time later, but somehow I independently became convinced that "mental therapy" would work on it, and acting on this I dutifully put the scum from a bar of soap into the hole each day, watching a thick pitch-black ooze bubble up from the wound; after repeating this a few times until no more came, I then on several occasions would concentrate to increase the bloodflow to the area by relaxing relevant arteries, until I could see the redness and feel the pulse around the hole. Which very quickly healed up and went away. Now much of this could, inadvertently, be accomplished by a placebo, but my feeling hasn't changed from way back then - that deliberate mental effort and changes in behavior are more powerful than inadvertent placebo effect. Wnt (talk) 15:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Similar experience here. In my case, going barefoot seemed to dry out the skin and kill them off, although using a power drill on the bastards gave me some satisfaction (don't try this at home !). StuRat (talk) 16:52, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Where does money come from?

How is it originally distributed and how is this process made fair? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.252.84.107 (talk) 06:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Why do you assume that money had an original distribution, or that any element of the economic process is "fair"? Fifelfoo (talk) 07:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I assume it started as the simple bartering for items of gold or other valueble metals. Travelling merchants would have bartered using gold or items with a high value to weight ratio to ensure that the costs of travelling does not exceed the profits generated from trading. Coins are just the right size for this and are a natural consequence. Eventually, gold and such became a little bit rare, and people started to write IOUs, sign, and stamp them coins made from lesser metals. Now there is no reason why you can't do the same, but keep in mind: it is illegal to forge the goverments signiture onto a coin. Paper money is a much later invension, but it came around for the same reason. When the government ran out of coins altogether, they started writing IOUs on paper and signing it. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:22, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

In short, the concept of money was created by travelling merchants. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and money was never distributed, money was introduced through the bartering system. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Your assumptions don't correlate well with economic history, see Marco's discussion of accounts money in hydrologically oriented bureaucratic archaic societies if you mean "tokenised exchange conduits." Fifelfoo (talk) 23:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I presume you've accessed the relevant article Money for the answer to the first part? --TammyMoet (talk) 09:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Fractional reserve banking and links therefrom is relevant here. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I didn't read a single article on it, I just thought about it. That is why I assumed. Plasmic Physics (talk) 09:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

This is an extremely poor way to touch on historical topics. History is more complicated than what you might think. The history of finance is pretty interesting, but it isn't what you've described up there (the invention — and adoption — of coined money, paper money, credit, banks, etc. is much more complicated than people just thinking it is a nice idea, or just because gold and silver were rare). When addressing historical questions, please refrain from just making stuff up and listing it as fact, just because it makes sense to you. (Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money is a nice place to start.) --Mr.98 (talk) 13:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Money has never been fairly distributed. The earliest forms of money were commodity money. Money inevitably develops in any society where processes of exchange involve a degree of complexity or geographical distance that makes barter impractical. Different forms of money have emerged independently in a number of societies through history. The earliest that we know about were in Sumer, but that's just because the Sumerians were the first to leave written records. Very likely forms of money existed during earlier prehistoric periods. Marco polo (talk) 18:43, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

@ Mr.98: It is a good thing then that I added the disclaimer of "I assume." Plasmic Physics (talk) 21:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

That is indeed a good thing, as far as it goes. But better not to air one's assumptions here; the OP was after factual information, not anyone's assumptions. Oftentimes, actual history is far stranger than what we assume "must have happened". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Can a comrade with more history of finance than I have lend a hand on why in the articles for the Tribune Marx discusses the discount rate on Consols, bonds or notes of hand rather than the rate of interest? I can observe that the rate of discount corresponds highly to what I'd conceive of as a rate of interest, but I want someone to help out by explaining the minutae. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's somewhat a difference between European & Anglo-American usage and banking, but not unimportant. Discount rates & interest rates are the same thing (or inverse). But the European / old-fashioned "discount rate" is a better conceptualization of, fits better with how banking and money really work. As our article explains the "discount" usage is used in American banking in the Fed's "discount window" - the reserve lending the Fed does collateralized by the securities (bonds, commercial paper) that banks hold, "discounting" these less liquid, less mature bank assets at some rate the Fed decides on, to immediately acquire ready money, reserves, in order to satisfy reserve requirements. BTW, the above answers to the OP & much of wiki still get things, get history backwards, like Plasma, because they rely on (recent) economists & their textbooks, who indeed write history & economics by "just making stuff up and listing it as fact" without doing any research or thinking, unlike anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists, historians and numismatists.John Z (talk) 03:21, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Money is created by magic and misdirection. See Bitcoin, Million Dollar Homepage, and Magic: The Gathering for examples in which money emerges from nothing. Wnt (talk) 02:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

cloves

can we make cloves by nano technology? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aryan Suman1993 (talk • contribs) 08:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Cloves? as in the the spice? And using what type of nanotechnology? Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:34, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure that you know what the concept nanotechnology entails? Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

No. Nanotechnology in food production is largely confined to packaging, and while there are potential uses in agriculture, food processing, and food supplementation (additives/fortification), these don't extend to actually producing foodstuffs.[6][7][8] --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

What about genetic engineering, does that not include the manipulation at the nanoscale? Plasmic Physics (talk) 10:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I suppose the OP tried to say gloves. MangoNr1 (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

In that case the answer is, yes we can but unfortunately they are too small to keep anyone's hands warm or safe from chemicals. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 18:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I suppose the OP tried to say gloves with a layer of some nano-technological developed material. MangoNr1 (talk) 03:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

universe

with the help of nano technology,can we know more about the universe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aryan Suman1993 (talk • contribs) 08:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

What part of the universe? (The universe by definition includes anything and everything.) Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If you mean anything and everything then yes, particle accelerators help us explore particle physics. Plasmic Physics (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It is a question for Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science, not Humanities. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 13:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Common civil law interaction

Dear refdesk. In The USA, Louisana operates under the civil code (from France), within a federal structure of the Common law (from England). In Canada, Quebec has the same situation. I was wondering, have the different starting principles of these ever created problems/conflict when federal law is applied in the constituent part? (e.g. where the principle of one code would assume something as legal, where the principle of the other would assume it was not). Do the laws have any problems interacting that they wouldn't if it was common/common or civil/civil? If this isnt a problem would it be more of one the other way round (for a common law component of a civil law oriented federation)? Thankyouverymuch for thoughts. 82.33.230.34 (talk) 09:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about Canada, but in the USA the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land. So if a common law precedent is found to be in conflict with the US Constitution, it could be nullified. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:37, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

This is an issue for all states, not just Louisiana because there can be conflicts of laws without getting into the whole civil law versus common law issue. In the U.S. the States are allowed to have whatever laws they like as long as they don't violate the constitution or conflict with valid Federal law. If there is conflict, then the federal law always wins. See the Supremacy Clause for more on that. Rabuve (talk) 16:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that the only laws that apply at the U.S. Federal level are actual codes enacted by the U.S. Congress, and precedents connected to those codes. English common law precedents apply only in jurisdictions that recognize them, which include U.S. states other than Louisiana, but I think not in Federal courts. So I think there is no conflict between the Louisiana and Federal legal systems. I think the same applies to Canada and Quebec. Marco polo (talk) 18:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, in the U.S. the Federal Courts apply not only federal law but the law of the state in which it resides. See Rules of Decision Act for details. The only case in which they don't is if the law is merely procedural, or if doing so conflicts with federal statute. Rabuve (talk) 19:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

In practice all legal systems are a blend of civil and common laws, the point becomes which is the overarching framework within which the other operates.

In the US the overarching framework is a common law model with many elements of civil law. This sets the limits within which the predominantly civil system within that state exists.

ALR (talk) 22:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

¶ See Louisiana Civil Code and Quebec law, which explain some of the differences with the English common-law traditions of surrounding states and provinces. I know very little of the Dominion–province interaction in Canada (although the powers of the Supreme Court of Canada over the provinces, unlike those of the U.S. Supreme Court over the states, can be limited by an explicit provincial notwithstanding clause under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). However, the United States Bill of Rights explicitly provides in the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution that

“ In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. ”

This applied originally only to civil suits under Federal (rather than state) law, but many although not all of the U.S. Bill of Rights' limits on the federal government have been extended to the states by application of the Supremacy Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, (most notably the second sentence in Section 1: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") The jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court and of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (sitting in New Orleans), as well as of the United States District Courts in Louisiana must be rich in precedents and case law about just this kind of conflict. Were I a Louisiana lawyer or constitutional scholar, I could say more, but I'm not. ¶ One of the most commonly-seen practical differences between common-law and civil-law principles (which is often observed by the U.S. Treasury Department and federal courts in applying the federal Internal Revenue Code) is in the treatment of marital property: in many states formerly part of the Louisiana Purchase or of the Mexican Cession, the assets acquired after marriage are considered community property equally shared by the spouses, while they are treated differently in states following common law traditions. The Internal Revenue Service in determining federal taxes will make a similar distinction based on a taxpayer's residence. [A contrast can be seen in the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (1996), which forbids the U.S. government from recognizing any same-sex marriage or civil union that might be binding under state law. This greatly complicates tax returns for such couples in Massachusetts; they have to compute their state and federal taxes under completely different rules.] —— Shakescene (talk) 06:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

U.S POW's

Are there any public statements (or even private journal entries) made by American pow's in WWII Japan, who survived the atomic bombings, made against the dropping of the atomic bombs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.146.124.35 (talk) 11:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

There might be, especially by those wanted to be POW's for much longer instead of being liberated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

There were no POW-camps in Hiroshima. Joe Kieyoomia, who was a POW in Nagasaki, said that he was protected by the concrete walls of his cell. Since he was liberated 3 days after the bombing, it might be that he is even pro-atomic bombs. MangoNr1 (talk) 12:45, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

There were Allied POWs in Hiroshima despite there not being a camp. Many actually suffered from radiation poisoning. See here. There were Allied POWs killed at Nagasaki as well. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Apparently there were a number of POW camps in the Hiroshima Prefecture, as the inmates were used as forced-labour in the shipyards and mines. Reference is here. The account of a British POW who was blown off his feet by the Hiroshima bomb's shock wave is here. I can't imagine that they would have had much sympathy for the Japanese. Alansplodge (talk) 22:04, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we should assume one way or the other. I haven't found anything that said they felt one way or the other. One need not have much sympathy for the Japanese to not like the morality or ethics of the atomic bombings or firebombings — one can still draw the distinction between the Japanese military and the Japanese civilians. One of the best-known critics of the firebombing policy against Germany was Kurt Vonnegut, who was a witness to it firsthand as a POW. I think it is silly to assume, in the absence of evidence, that POWs would necessarily have one position or the other on the use of the atomic bombs. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I would imagine that an allied POW in Japan wouldn't suffer too many moral scruples about an act which resulted in their liberation.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's unlikely that very many would have been critical immediately, as they would have been elated at being freed. On reflection, some of them might have had concerns. But were it not for the bombings, countless more Allied lives would have been lost. The moral issue is not the specific types of bombs, it's war itself... tempered by the fact that the Japanese attacked us first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Bugs, you're taking for granted something which is an area of huge historical debate. This is unbecoming of a Ref Desker, as I assume you are aware of the fact that this debate exists. The question of whether the bombs were needed, whether surrender would have happened without them, whether they actually caused surrender, how many "lives were saved", whether Pearl Harbor "justifies" them in any way, and so forth, have all been hotly debated by both experts and lay folk since 1945 and there is, as of the moment, no clear consensus amongst people who actually study the topic. The question of whether the atomic bombs are themselves uniquely immoral has similarly been debated. Whether you yourself take a strong position in this debate is not really at issue here because this is not a debate forum. It is entirely possible that any given individual POW would have a variety of opinions on this topic, and it is ridiculous to assume that just because they were likely maltreated by individual Japanese that this would necessarily give them simple opinions on this topic. In the absence of evidence, we should resist the urge to presume especially about controversial topics. There are plenty of examples from history of people who, despite being victimized or persecuted or what have you, ending up with complicated moral positions with respects to their victimizers, persecutors, and so on. Vonnegut is one prominent example but there are many others. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The elements of the controversy are presented well in Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My remark "I can't imagine that they would have had much sympathy for the Japanese", was based on conversations I've had with a number of British veterans of the war with Japan, one an ex-POW. Without exception they despised Japan and the Japanese. However, you are correct that this is does not represent objective evidence. The British observer at the Nagasaki bombing, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, became a noted pacifist. Alansplodge (talk) 20:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Wilfred Burchett's reporting was also highly controversial; he was the first Western journalist to arrive on the scene. Some of his reporting was suppressed by the Americans as being inimical to their cause. Burchett was very left leaning (he had Communist sympathies and was branded a virtual Communist at the height of the Cold War), which tended to colour his whole career. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

How does/did Instagram make money?

Before they were bought out. Maybe this is quickly answerable by googling it myself. Please, oh please, resist the urge to tell me "See [whatever link here] (you idiot)." I was just curious but I would really appreciate if a human would boil down their business model into a short sentence understandable by a seven year old. Please, if you are able to, without redirecting me, tell me, when a human downloaded and used this free app six months ago, how the usage of this app enable one dollar to make its way into Instagram's coffers and from whom did that dollar come? That's all. Can you do that please in one sentence that comes from you? Please, one short sentence that answers this exact question of Instagram's business model before they got bought that is not a redirect. Thanks. 20.137.18.53 (talk) 13:04, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

They had no ads and no pro features for a fee. I'd say that they were just expecting to be bought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MangoNr1 (talk • contribs) 13:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's a redirect for you [9] which confirms what MangoNr1 says. --Viennese Waltz 13:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Having lots of users is, at various times, considered a business asset. (Literally. You list it on your list of assets when valuing the company.) The idea is that someday, someone will want lots of users, and just "buy" them by buying the service. Time will tell whether it actually will work out in this situation; I suspect this, along with the overly high FB valuation, is just the end of the next tech bubble. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

... a business model sometimes derided as the Underpants Gnomes strategy. In fairness Facebook does have about $1B/yr revenue (ref), but that's rather low if one estimates their "value" as $50B or more (ref). Others also suspect a bubble. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if in their terms of service they reserved the right to say "Hey, Joe Blow takes a lot of pictures of airplanes, let's sell his contact information to Airplanes Weekly Magazine and never let him know it was because of us that he started getting solicitations from them." I don't expect anyone would actually look through the old TOS and actually answer me on this. 20.137.18.53 (talk) 13:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Bingo! "By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the Instagram Services, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels, except Content not shared publicly ("private") will not be distributed outside the Instagram Services." [10] Althought I suspect this is just a very minor factor in its $1 billion evaluation. Anonymous.translator (talk) 16:12, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't say they can sell the information privately (everything they say they can do with regards to other parties must be done "publicly"). That says they can store it and use it on their servers and display it on their site if it is not set to be private — standard boilerplate for a site that takes other's intellectual property and does stuff with it. I'm not a lawyer but the TOS doesn't currently say they can do things like that. (They can change the TOS, of course, but they have to inform the users of that first.) --Mr.98 (talk) 16:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

These links [11][12][13] support my claims. Please feel free to instantiate yours. Anonymous.translator (talk) 16:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Posting links doesn't mean they say what you claim they do. None of those are about the Instagram TOS (the first one references it but doesn't pay any specific attention to it). They are not the same, legally. What you want to watch out for in a TOS is whether they can share/sell the data to "partners" and things like that. If they just say, "we can store the stuff and use it in our website and display is publicly" that's not so bad. The whole "irrevocable license" thing just means "you can't sue us for copyright infringement when you upload stuff to our site." --Mr.98 (talk) 19:08, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I thought legalese that effectively says "we can change the terms of this agreement immediately without notice" was common. 20.137.18.53 (talk) 19:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It is. Personally I'm not of the belief that you can rely on TOS's for any of your rights. I'm not arguing that the TOS is great, I'm just pointing out that it doesn't say what others think it does. It's no guarantee against anything. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The first link specifically discusses the Instagram TOS as an example and even links to it. The other two links discuss the phrase "...a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content..." which is taken verbatim from the Instagram TOS. If you search that particular phrase you will find dozens of amateur photographers discussing the legal ramification of that phrase. Amateur photographers aren't exactly legal scholars but then again no lawyer will risk his license over a pro bono blog post. I see what you mean about the partners disclaimer, but what's the difference between ACME paying Instagram to use a photo versus ACME paying Instagram to "publicly display" the photo on ACME.com? Even without the partner disclaimer Instagram can still profit from user photo by "displaying" for paying third parties. Since you don't seem to have any references to add and neither of us are lawyers then we can only agree to disagree.Anonymous.translator (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The use of "publicly" implies that they are not giving exclusive licenses out and the lack of discussing partners is significant. Again, your links don't add up to what you're saying they do. They don't have anything to do with selling contact information of users or anything like that. None of what is in that statement implies that Instagram can re-license the material to third parties. It gives Instagram a huge amount of leeway to use the images for their own purposes, but it would be a stretch to thing that the TOS was saying that they could arbitrarily sell them or use the information elsewhere. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Most aps do not get millions of users (there are lots of aps out there). How does "number of users" of a free ap with no advertisements add up in dollars when valuing the ap? Say I wrote an ap which was useful or amusing, and soon it had been downloaded free and was in use by 10,000 people. While using it, they incidentally provide me with knowledge of their location, and there preferences in some product for which they spend tens of dollars a week. But I get zero revenue. Would a potential purchaser value the users at $28 each as the Instagram purchase implies (from the link [14] provided by Viennese Waltz), or what? Edison (talk) 15:02, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's a fixed number on it (these sorts of things are not yet common enough to establish a rule, and I don't think this particular sale should be taken as some kind of standard occurrence in the tech industry — if it was, there'd be a lot less reporting on it!). I suspect that "number of users" breaks down much more precisely on real valuations — e.g. how many repeat users, user visitation frequency, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Examples of Vikings in Artwork Contemporary to the Time

I'm looking for some examples of drawings, painting, etc of the Vikings that were produced around the time that the Vikings existed. Details of the helmets are the primary source of interest. --188.220.46.47 (talk) 13:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Bayeux tapestry has some (no idea if Viking helmets are included at any useful level of detail, though)... AnonMoos (talk) 14:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Search for "oseberg tapestry". But first search for "viking helmet history"; if they wore horned helmets at all,they were ceremonial, as opposed to hard leather skullcaps worn for general use. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 14:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

All three armies contesting England at the time were, at least in part, culturally Norse, although only Harald Hardrada came directly from the Nordic area. Unfortunately, for this purpose, the tapestry doesn't depict the Battle of Stamford Bridge. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The Lewis chessmen, which were made in Norway in the 12th century, depict knights and foot soldiers with the plain "bullet" type metal helm. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:50, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Also included in the Lewis find are a couple of berserkers. One has the same bullet helmet, but another is this guy, who isn't wearing a helm. While it looks to me like he's wearing a mail coif, he may just be going into battle with nothing more than a headband and a bad attitude (I can't find a proper description of him to clarify that). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:02, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You described it pretty well, I think. I had a good chuckle over that :) IBE (talk) 17:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The chessman's headgear looks like the leather skullcap mentioned by Jpgordon. As for the forces shown in the Bayeux tapestry, I don't think it's right to call them Vikings or even really culturally Norse. The Norman forces were made up of people who spoke French and whose families had been living in France for close to 100 years. The English forces were a mix of straightforward Anglo-Saxons and people with Danish heritage of varying recentness. Even the actual Norse forces of Harald came from a kingdom that had already been Christianized and exposed to cultural influences from Christian western Europe. These people were several generations removed from the pagan "Vikings" of the 8th to the 10th centuries. So I don't think that the Bayeux tapestry is a good source for the appearance of "Vikings". This page, though has a contemporary image of actual Norse invaders from the "Viking" heyday. Marco polo (talk) 18:18, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

When doing searches, you might want to look for "Northmen", as this was a common term for Vikings at the time. StuRat (talk) 17:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Please clarify your request. Are you looking for contemporary depictions of North Germanic peoples as a whole or are you looking specifically for vikings; i.e. the well-traveled, trade-and-marauding-focused warrior class among the North Germanic peoples during the Viking Age? If the prior, there's a huge amount of material to pull from, if the latter, basically any depiction of a "Northern Warrior" during the Viking Age will do, and there's plenty of that around. :bloodofox: (talk) 18:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

From our Viking#Horned Helmet article: "Apart from two or three representations of (ritual) helmets – with protrusions that may be either stylised ravens, snakes or horns – no depiction of Viking Age warriors' helmets, and no preserved helmet, has horns. In fact, the formal close-quarters style of Viking combat (either in shield walls or aboard "ship islands") would have made horned helmets cumbersome and hazardous to the warrior's own side."

A quick Google found this 11th century carving from Sweden. Alansplodge (talk) 22:35, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I presume that this was a response to the original poster and not to me? Anyway, our Wikipedia article does a fair job of explaining the situation regarding horned helmets in Northern Europe. That said and although it is just prior to the Viking Age, the original poster may be interested in some of the spectacular Vendel era helmets that have been unearthed. Just do a Google image search for "Vendel helmet". :bloodofox: (talk) 02:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

But I have it from a highly reliable source that they had horns ! :-) StuRat (talk) 22:41, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Also this. Although in my example, the horns on the helmet are flat and harmless (much like the team itself). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sutton Hoo helmet. Scholars think it may be late Roman/Sassanid-influenced in appearance, but 8th century Viking helmets may have looked similar

As intimated in the quotation provided by Alansplodge above, some examples of actual helmets of the period survive. Here's an image of one from the Norwegian (bokmål)‬ Wikipedia, for instance. Deor (talk) 00:51, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

That helmet comes from Sutton Hoo, which we English folk are pretty sure is English. Alansplodge (talk) 12:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The file description, as well as our article Viking Age arms and armour (which contains a different image of the same helmet), says that it comes from Gjermundbu in Norway. Deor (talk) 14:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Bloomin' cheek! It's definitely ours! You can come and see it in the British Museum if you don't believe me. Actually, if you click on the image it says "Photo of the Sutton hoo helmet temporally located in room 1 of the British museum." Sutton Hoo is in Suffolk in East Anglia.[15] Alansplodge (talk) 19:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I think we're talking about different helmets. The one I linked above is obviously not the same as the Sutton Hoo (yes, I know where it is) helmet pictured in this thread, which I was not referring to. Deor (talk) 20:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

D'oh! Humble apologies; you're quite right. Alansplodge (talk) 20:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

One of the finest examples I can think of is depicted on the cover of The Anglo-Saxons, by James Campbell. It's a stone relief, probably 8th century, probably from a sarcophagus. The spectacular bronze Sutton Hoo helmet, held in the British Museum, looks to me extremely similar, but Campbell mentions that scholars believe it to be late Roman/Sassanid. --Dweller (talk) 10:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, just to be clear to readers, the famous Sutton Hoo helmet, while also Germanic, shouldn't be confused with Viking Age artifacts. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Irish language in Dublin

When did the Irish language disappear in Dublin? --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 19:36, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Presumably earlier than in most other places, since it was more continuously under English rule (see The Pale)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:49, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't necessarily follow. History of Dublin says "by the 16th century, English accounts complain that Irish Gaelic was starting to rival English as the everyday language of the Pale", and history of the Irish language says "Queen Elizabeth I encouraged the use of Irish even in the Pale with a view to promoting the reformed religion". Neither of them seems to answer the question, though. --ColinFine (talk) 22:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

In fact, Irish has never disappeared in Dublin. It has long been the chief city of Ireland, and, as such, it has attracted people from Irish-speaking regions, who have brought their language with them. Of course, during the 19th century, the Irish-speaking population of the country shrank dramatically, and by the early 20th century Irish was spoken in a very small fraction of Dublin households. Still, the language did not disappear completely. Even today, some Dublin households speak Irish, either because they are rooted in the Gaeltacht or because they have chosen to adopt the language. Marco polo (talk) 01:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

When I lived in Dublin, the only Dubliners who could speak Irish were those taught to do so in school, and it must be pointed out that not everyone whose only language has been English for generations (as is the case in Dublin) become proficient in Irish - a difficult language to learn. Most "Dubs" could neither speak nor understand Irish.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems that the Irish language is still used in Dublin, as our article Streets_and_squares_in_Dublin#Street_signage shows dual language signs. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:36, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's also used on all official documents but as I said before it's spoken by few people in Dublin. Not once did I ever hear it being spoken by people in the streets. As a matter of fact, my ex-husband, who actually was a fluent Irish speaker despite being a Dub, used it as a joke on bus conductors and drivers, all of whom would look on in total bafflement, not being able to understand a word. Yet, the destinations on all the buses were in Irish!!!.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I once spent a holiday in one of the Gaeltacht areas and only heard two people speaking Gaelic. A lot of Irish can't seem to manage more than "céad mile fáilte". It's quite different to Wales, where in great swathes of the country, everybody speaks Welsh first and English when they have to. Even there, in the big cities, nobody speaks Welsh and they haven't done for centuries, although it's taught at school; but they still have biliingual signs. Alansplodge (talk) 12:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

This Irish man's experience may be of use:

There is something absurd and rather tragic about setting out on a journey around a country, knowing that if you speak the language of that country you will not be understood. It is even more absurd when the country is your native one and you are speaking its native language.... Today, a quarter of the population [of Ireland] claim they speak it regularly. I have always suspected this figure and to test its accuracy I decided to travel around the country speaking only Irish to see how I would get on.

I chose Dublin as a starting point, confident in the knowledge that in a city of 1.2 million people I was bound to find at least a few Irish speakers. I went first to the Ordnance Survey Office to get a map of the country. (As a semi-state organisation it has a duty to provide certain services in Irish.) "Would you speak English maybe?" the sales assistant said to me. I replied in Irish. "Would you speak English?!" he repeated impatiently. I tried explaining once again what I was looking for. "Do you speak English?" he asked in a cold, threatening tone. "Sea," I said, nodding meekly. "Well, can you speak English to me now?" I told him as simply as I could that I was trying to get by with Irish.

"I'm not talking to you any more," he said. "Go away."

I really needed a map for the journey ahead; it would be hard enough to get by without having to ask for directions constantly. I tried addressing the man one last time, using the simplest schoolroom Irish that he must have learned during the 10 years of compulsory Irish that every schoolchild undergoes, but he covered his ears, and I was left with no choice but to leave.

"Where are all the Gaelic speakers?" by Manchán Magan. The Guardian, 5 January 2007 There may have been a book as well. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Americans

Is it true that Americans clap at the end of movies and when airplanes land? 176.14.152.144 (talk) 22:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I've definitely been on planes where people applauded the landing. I've always thought it was a little silly. I hadn't noticed it being specifically Americans doing it, though. --Tango (talk) 23:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The few times I have experienced air travel clapping were at the ends of particularly bumpy or severely delayed flights. I think the last time I have observed this was on a domestic flight in Cambodia. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 00:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've never seen airplane clapping on a domestic (American) flight. I've very rarely seen clapping in movie theaters (exceptions being premieres or special events like film festivals). So I would probably answer both of those as "almost never", assuming my experience (many flights, many movies, in many different parts of the country) is representative. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The only time I've seen people clap at the end of a movie is after premieres of big name franchise movies when there are a lot of hardcore fans in the theater. Examples include the Star Wars and Star Trek movies. Dismas|^(talk) 23:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Clapping tends to happen at the end of a certain sort of emotional film — not the Ang Lee sort, but a different kind. I'm not sure exactly how to characterize them. They could generally be called chick flicks, but probably a subgenre of that. --Trovatore (talk) 00:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

In both of these cases I don't think it is wholehearted or unrestrained clapping. Those clapping under such circumstances tend to have accompanying silly giggling and/or sheepish smiles. I think there is the understanding that clapping is not really called for under these circumstances. Nevertheless there is experienced the need to comment on the significance of the shared experience. Thus there is a unique form of clapping that is self-conscious of its semi-impropriety. Bus stop (talk) 00:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've been in movie theaters and airplanes where the audience applauded. It's unusual, but it does happen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've lived on the U.S. West Coast and East Coast among other places. I spent my first 27 years in the Northeast. I never heard an audience clap in a cinema. When I moved to the West Coast, it happened fairly often. Since I've moved back to the Northeast, I virtually never hear an audience clap. I think it is a West Coast thing. As for airplanes, I've heard applause after a few difficult landings, but I think I've heard it in Europe as well as in the United States. It doesn't happen after an ordinary landing. Marco polo (talk) 01:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

After a difficult plane landing the expression is one of shared relief. After a good movie it is shared delight. It is unlikely the pilots hear the applause. And it is unlikely the filmmaker is present (to hear the applause). Applause under certain circumstances is odd. It is not to convey appreciation to those responsible for providing something deemed valuable or special. Under the circumstance of an aircraft landing or the completion of a movie, the applause is an expression to one another of the common feeling of the shared experience. Bus stop (talk) 01:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Good summary. The flight attendants can hear the applause even if the cockpit crew can't. But in a movie, it's not like the folks on-screen are going to hear it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak for American's, but the pattern is pretty clear among Norwegians. On charter flights with package tourists to sunny holiday destinations, there is always an applause after landing. On commercial flights, it never happens. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 05:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I live in Italy where the people often clap at funerals as the coffin is being carried out of the church. I personally find this custom to be bizarre and disrespectful to the deceased.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Giving the benefit of the doubt, I would imagine they're applauding the person, not his demise. When a basketball player fouls out after a great game, the spectators usually clap; it doesn't mean they're glad to see him leave the game. You can find an analogy here if you really want to. --Trovatore (talk) 06:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

In sports in America, a player from either team who has been injured or is taken out after an exceptional game will often elicit polite applause. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, they are applauding the person, not clapping at his demise. It's just that I personally find it disconcerting and disrespectful.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, since you're not Italian yourself you're not really entitled to hold that view. If the Italians do it for their own people, then by definition it can't be disrespectful. --Viennese Waltz 07:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I think you totally misread her. I read her as quite clearly saying how it makes her feel about a custom she doesn't disrespect. It's why she said "I personally find this custom to be bizarre and disrespectful to the deceased." If you're a guy and guys kiss you on both cheeks in the country where you live, just because they're your friends, you would probably say you persoally find this custom uncomfortable and intrusive. It's just a personal feeling, it doesn't mean that these people are intrusive or presumptuous or disrespectful of you. I think the way she wrote this made it quite clear that it's just how it made her feel about it.--80.99.254.208 (talk) 09:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Except "disrespectful" is not a feeling. What Jeanne probably means is that she would never applaud at a funeral, because she would feel she was being disrespectful. That's perfectly understandable.

But she didn't say it like that: she said she "finds [the Italian] custom disrespectful to the deceased", which on face value appears to be a fairly serious negative judgment of a longstanding cultural practice, and one that happens to be done as a mark of great respect, exactly the opposite of how Jeanne experiences it. Customs are tricky things; in the West, it's considered extremely rude to burp after a meal; in the Middle East, it's considered extremely rude NOT to burp after a meal. If you went there and started accusing them all of being pigs because they all burp, you'd be imposing your own cultural perceptions on a culture that doesn't share them and to which they would be totally irrelevant.

It is not open to visitors to "find" another culture's custom to be anything other than what that culture says it is. But I give Jeanne the benefit of the doubt here, because I doubt she meant it the way she wrote it. Lesson: imprecise language = hot water. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 12:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

She doesn't need the benefit of the doubt because she didn't say "I find" but said "I personally find" and first used the word 'bizarre'. Obviously nothing can be bizarre inside the culture where it is the norm. It is 100% clear that she was talking about her subjective reaction to it. "I personally find the French habit of eating snails to be bizarre and repulsive" does not mean that eating snails is repulsive. It is a misreading to read the sentence that way, because of "I personally" and because the first word used is bizarre, automatically showing that it is an outsider's, rather than an objective or critical, view. 84.1.177.43 (talk) 12:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

My reaction is what the US military call "culture shock". So what if I find aspects of Italian culture bizarre such as clapping at funerals and guys living at home with mamma until they marry (even if this joyous event doesn't occur until their 40s). My neighbour finds my habit of kissing my beautiful gold cat Tony repulsive judging by the face she makes whenever she happens to see me do it. Again culture shock. It doesn't bother me when people criticise my foreign habits as I'm very arrogant so prefer mine to theirs.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not necessarily just American, though it may be more common there. In the UK, I heard people clap at The Simpsons Movie and (I think) The Dark Knight, and in Germany people seem to applaud just about every film (though most of the films I go to are advance screenings of films in English, before the German dub is released, which obviously draws a very different crowd to a normal film). Smurrayinchester 12:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Is it true that people applaud when a serviceman in uniform boards a plane in the United States? --Viennese Waltz 07:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Viennese Waltz, I'm entitled to hold whatever view I want (Italy is a democracy, after all), just as Italians are allowed to criticise American customs-which they do frequently. Most people feel more comforatable with their own customs-it's human nature. As for US servicemen, I only saw people clapping at the airport when they were returning from missions such as Desert Storm.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

VW can be a little dictator at times. And I'd have to agree that applauding at a funeral seems bizarre to an American such as I. However, there's no accounting for cultural customs that have developed over time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:18, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, but the only unusual reaction at the end of a film that I've ever experienced, was when I went to see Schindler's List in an art-house cinema in the London suburbs. As the film ended, instead of the usual scramble for the exit, the whole audience sat silently through all of the credits. Only when the house lights came up was the spell broken. Alansplodge (talk) 12:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually I once witnessed clapping during the old Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca. It was being shown at a film festival in Los Angeles back in the late 1970s. When Joan Fontaine told Judith Anderson "I am Lady de Winter", the entire cinema erupted in thunderous applause.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Jeanne! Spoiler warning! Ah well, I was probably never going to watch that anyway. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to toss my own UK experiences into the stew: similarly to Orange Suede Sofa, the only time I've witnessed (and participated) in applause at an aeroplane landing was after touchdown in gale-force winds at Glasgow International Airport. There was applause after an independent cinema's screening of Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams I attended in the Historic Dockyard, Portsmouth recently, but it was in response to an announcement of how much money the special showing had raised to keep the cinema going; I don't recall another public cinematic occasion, but I recall several at SF and Manga Conventions over the past 30 years. Close in spirit was at the close of the first Nov 1975 broadcast, on Top of the Pops, of Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' video, when the entirety of a large, packed university hall of residence common room paused for a moment, then spontaneously rose in a standing ovation. Truly a defining cultural moment. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.34 (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've only ever heard applause on an airplane when flying in Europe. I actually thought this was a stereotype of Europeans (or at least French), not Americans (I have absolutely never heard applause on a flight in North America). Adam Bishop (talk) 19:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Only time I've ever witnessed applause on landing was in Russia - we were told by our guide it was a Russian thing. Certainly never seen it on western European flights --Saalstin (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It is rare for Americans to clap at the end of movies, in my experience. When it happens, it's a few people. A couple of times I have been in a theater where a lot of Americans clapped, but it was definitely less than half the theatre. As for airplane landings, I've been on a couple of flights where it was very bumpy or windy and passengers were nervous and there was some applause at the end of the landing. Robot Mandate (talk) 01:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

April 12

Witchcraft

After i read this article. I think this article has a vague description about history of witchcraft. Like when the word "witch" was first mentioned? Since when people started to think bad things about witch? Since when people started to think witch associated with devil? What was the original reasons for that? It wouldn't make any sense that suddenly people started to think "witch" is anti-Christianity. I think the article is missing a major info about witch. Well I posted here for 2 reasons. Part of it is i also curious about the answers i asked above. And part of it is perhaps someone with better knowledge about witch can improve the article to satisfy more readers.65.128.159.236 (talk) 02:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

If you want some good books, start with John Putnam Demos who is a bit of an expert on the topic, I've read his book Entertaining Satan which was about the witchcraft scare in 17th century New England, but he's also written several other books, which cover the topic in other eras and locations. --Jayron32 02:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Current reasoning against wiccan witchcraft from a Christian view point would include that it is in direct opposition to Christianity by surplanting dependence on the Christian God with dependence on Mother Earth. It is equivalent to worshiping the creation over the Creator. Plasmic Physics (talk) 03:20, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The OED says the Old English form "wicca"/"wicce" has its first use for a man c.890 AD and for a woman c.1000 AD; in other words a very old word in English. "wicche" is used for a man c.1225 "Ich hit am þat spec þurh simunes muð þe wicche" (Juliana) and for a woman "wychche" in 1290 AD "Faste ȝe schulle þe wychche binde,‥And smitez of hire heued a-non" (St Kath). If you look at the article witchcraft and related articles like European witchcraft and Witch trials in the Early Modern period have a lot of information on the persecution of witches: Charlemagne called for witches to be executed in 789 (he obviously wasn't speaking English); the Canon Episcopi of circa 900 AD said witchcraft was heretical; but at the time church authorities were more interested in combatting heresy than witches; but fear of witches began in the 14th century and grew worse in the 15th. --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I've had a look at the article, and it's quite well written: perhaps the OED dates given by Colapeninsula could be included. However, it's possible that the language used is at a high level and people without a grasp of English at that level may not find what they are looking for. So maybe Colapeninsula's information could go some way to answering the OP's question. ISTR there's a simple English version of Wikipedia? --TammyMoet (talk) 08:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, here it is [16]. The witchcraft article is here but it's not very good. --Viennese Waltz 08:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Be aware that the term "hag" and its Old English predecessor "hægtesse" also means "witch", and that the concept of a witch or hag, meaning a person with strange powers or a supernatural being, goes way back into prehistory. --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean the English word "witch" or the concept? The Old Testament speaks about it, and even the keenest bible critic would acknowledge it's a pretty old source. --Dweller (talk) 10:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

what generic alternatives are there to the Nikon rear cap type F?

I bought an old vintage Nikkor-S.C. 50 mm f/1.4 (for only 70 dollars!) but it didn't come with a rear lens cap. There are a lot of 52 mm front lens caps, but are rear caps more specialised for a particular type of lens? There's an "original and genuine" rear lens cap for the lens that's selling on Ebay for $16, but I'd prefer to have a cheap Chinese generic. 216.197.66.61 (talk) 02:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Because the mount is a standard fitting, any rear lens cap for the mount should work. I've used generic lens caps with other cameras and never had a problem. You should be able to find something on EBay very quickly. --Colapeninsula (talk) 08:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

If the OP can physically visit any camera shop/store that sells second hand equipment (probably the large majority of them), most have a basket or bin of assorted second hand items such as lens caps that are generally very cheap. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.34 (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Graduate unemployment

This article is entirely about China. I would like to know some information about the UK and US. Specifically

1. percentage of unemployed with PhDs
2. which PhD subjects are common among unemployed people?
3. which master's degree holders have highest unemployment rate? I've heard degrees in women's studies, literary criticism, folklore, sociology, popular culture studies, etc. are common among graduate unemployed people. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 04:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You might want to specify whether you mean people who can't get a job in their chosen field, or those who can't get any job at all. StuRat (talk) 05:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The first one, people who can't get a job in their chosen field. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 05:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's kind of an unfair comparison: how can you say when philosophers are not employed in their field? A philosopher could become many things, and claim that there is a relationship to his academic field. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 02:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by philosopher? A degree in philosophy does not make one philosopher. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 02:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Right, like a degree in woman studies does not make you a woman. Anyway, officially a degree allows you to call yourself what this degree states that you are. MangoNr1 (talk) 03:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know of any degree that says you "are" something. They generally use language like "has attained ..." or "has met the requirements of ...". All you "are" by virtue of a degree is is a Bachelor/Master/Doctor of whatever. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 10:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you, what I said is just the way of expression. In Germany, at least, you normally can call yourself whatever you want: philosopher, journalist, you name it (there are some restrictions). Protected are the degrees: Dipl. Philo. and so on. That doesn't mean that if you have a degree in philosophy, you won't be called a philosopher and call yourself a philosopher, even if some people might dispute your level. MangoNr1 (talk) 21:01, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Doctrines or beliefs unique to the Jehovah's Witnesses

Which beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses are unique to them alone and are not supported/followed by other groups, whether Christian or not? I think their stake hypothesis (where they believe that Jesus was executed on a torture stake) is unique to them, but what about their other beliefs? Are there any other groups, Christian or not, religious or not, who believe that, for example, having blood transfusions is considered eating blood? This would exclude their governing structure, since governing structures of different Christian groups would differ from denomination to denomination. I did read the article on their beliefs and practices, but it was not implied which ones were unique to them or not. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 06:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, their insistence that "Jehovah" is the actual name of God is pretty much unique, as it's been debunked by Biblical scholars. Their refusal to serve their country, in any way shape or form, is rather unique by today's standards. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It's rather unfortunate that the JW's latched on to a form of the Tetragrammaton which was already known by competent scholars to be incorrect at the time they adopted it -- however, the JW's have the excuse that "Jehovah" was very mainstream among Christians from the 16th century to the early 20th century (with a number of uses continuing by inertia even today). Another group, the Sacred Name Movement, has adopted forms of the Tetragrammaton which are neither countenanced by Biblical/Hebrew scholarship, nor have ever prevailed in common usage... AnonMoos (talk) 11:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

What, JWs refuse to do anything that would benefit their neighbors? Or by "serving their country" you mean serving their government? I wasn't aware that they refuse to take government jobs, but if so, good on them. —Tamfang (talk) 18:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree with your two examples, and I think the belief that some of the 'Kyrios' in the New Testament were really 'YHWH' in some original version of the text, while others were not, is unique to them. I wondered if their belief that Jesus was Michael the Archangel was unique to them, but I see that Seventh Day Adventists do too. Must just be an Adventist thing. 109.155.32.233 (talk) 11:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Jehovah's Witnesses have many beliefs that are different from mainstream and historical Christianity, however many of these are shared in part by other related groups, such as the Christadelphians, Dawn Bible Students Association, Worldwide Church of God and other movements and splinter groups originating in the Millerite movement and/or influenced by Charles Taze Russell. Only an expert in all these denominations could say which doctrines are absolutely unique. One remarkable historical claim they make is the Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 607 BC rather than the scholarly date of 586/587 BC, which is to my knowledge generally rejected outside of the Witnesses (this date is important to their interpretation of biblical prophecy). - Lindert (talk) 11:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

But do those other groups believe in the stake hypothesis and blood transfusion beliefs? And do they refuse to vote or serve in the military like the Witnesses? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 11:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

About the torture stake, I don't know, although at Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion you can find that historically there has been discussion about this and at least some non-Witness theologians have accepted an upright stake as the instrument of Jesus' capital punishment. The Restored Church of God rejects blood transfusions, i.e. they believe it to be against God's intention, although they do not forcibly prohibit its members to abide by this (see [17]). The Christadelphians reject serving in the military and any involvement in politics (see [18]). There might be other movements that share these, I don't know. - Lindert (talk) 11:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

But we surely are not looking for beliefs that no individual outside the group has ever believed? In that case, nothing could be admitted because every idea has surely been thought before. The Witnesses can indeed dig up a handful of non-Witness writers over the history of Christianity who have argued for an upright stake in place of a cross, but these writers cannot be said to have represented the beliefs of their sect, or indeed any significant group of people until the Jehovah's Witnesses came along. 86.140.54.3 (talk) 15:01, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

That is true in the case of the upright stake. I am not aware of any denominations that hold to that belief, but what I meant was that since the idea predated the Witnesses, there might be other groups who have adopted this; in other words, it is not a belief originating in the Witnesses movement, unlike afaik the 607 BC doctrine. - Lindert (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The blood transfusion ban was apparently adopted in 1944 (Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions#History_of_doctrine), so groups which split off before then are unlikely to share it. To other Christians, it sounds like an attempt to be "more Jewish than the Jews", without much real clarity as to why only that one single Pentateuchal prohibition is interpreted in such a manner... AnonMoos (talk) 11:56, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The Witnesses' stance on this is not only based on the Pentateuch, they also frequently use Acts 15:29 to affirm their doctrine. - Lindert (talk) 12:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Why hasn't anyone sued Amazon for dumping?

Apple and book publishers tried to create a cartel, but two wrong don't make one right. Selling at a loss in order to create a monopoly is illegal and can be challenged, can't it? Obviously it won't be easy to prove, but there aren't many reasons for selling below cost, are there? 66.108.223.179 (talk) 13:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Is a 10 dollar book really below cost? You can get a physical paperback cheaper and ebooks don't have the same overhead. I doubt they were selling at a loss and honestly, I don't even know if selling cheap is illegal. 70.90.87.73 (talk) 14:14, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Apparently $10 is quite a bit below cost. This article on CNET summarizes it well, but really there have been dozens of articles written by people inside and out of the industry who claim that Amazon's practices were, at best, unethical, if not illegal. How much weight you want to give their opinions should probably be influenced by what you figure their own perspectives and prejudices are. Having read a few of those articles and not having any personal stake in the matter, it does seem that the Apple approach is more fair and overall better for the authors and publishers, while Amazon's is best for Amazon. YMMV, of course. Matt Deres (talk) 17:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Loss leaders are very common. What laws are people claiming they violate in this situation? --Tango (talk) 19:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Probably "dumping" or something similar. RudolfRed (talk) 21:19, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

"Dumping" is a foreign-exchange issue. I have never heard of a corporation being charged with dumping, per se.

It might be possible to bring somewhat analogous antitrust actions against a corporation that tries to bankrupt its competitors, with the aim of raising prices once it had a monopoly position. However, from my very vague understanding of American antitrust law, I don't believe the interests of other suppliers are relevant to such an action, only the interests of consumers. --Trovatore (talk) 00:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

A loss leader is intended to increases purchases of other, often disparate, items. Amazon is generating losses in hopes of future profits. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 14:20, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

For an operation the size of Amazon, the marginal cost of producing an ebook is effectively equal to the author's per-unit royalty (plus per-unit royalties for anyone else who's managed to negotiate a cut). The actual production costs are so close to zero as makes no difference. Assuming the sale price is higher than the author's royalties, you can't tell if the ebook has been sold below cost until it's no longer for sale, at which point you know how many units you're amortizing the up-front and operational costs over. It's not like a Playstation 3 where you can look at the price of the parts going into the factory, look at the sale price of the product coming out, and say that they're losing money on every unit sold. --Carnildo (talk) 00:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think Amazon produces many e-books itself. Publishing companies do that and then charge Amazon a per-unit price. When people say Amazon are selling e-books at a loss, I think they mean they are selling them for less than they are paying the publisher. Amazon's fixed costs don't relate to specific books, so there isn't really anything to amortise. --Tango (talk) 11:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

See Sherman Antitrust Act for the US law regarding monopolies. Robot Mandate (talk) 01:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Two Dardan Gashi's or one?

The Dardan Gashi article states that he wrote Im Dienst des Diktators. The Dardan Gashi in the Wikipedia article is described as a Kosovar politician, yet all of my sources (msnbc.com, csmonitor.com, and Playboy November 2010) describe the Dardan Gashi who coauthored Im Dienst des Diktators as being a "Austrian journalist", and those sources don't mention anything about this about coauthor being involved in Kosovo politics. Are Dardan Gashi the Kosovar politician and Dardan Gashi the Austrian journalist one and the same person as the Wikipedia article currently claims, or are they two separate individuals and the Wikipedia article is mistaken? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Amazon appears to be listing them as two separate individuals: [19], [20]. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I believe Amazon to be mistaken. The co-author of the book on Albania is Ingrid Steiner (an Austrian journalist for the Kurier newspaper), the co-author of the book "Im Dienst ..." is Ms Ingrid Steiner-Gashi (presumable Dardan Gashi´s wife). Both books have been produced by Vienna based publishing houses. An Austrian news periodical decribes D Gashi (now - since middle 2011 - minister for Environment and Town Planning, previously - around mid 2010 - deputy minister for Integration; both data from the Kosovo gvt website) as having been a Viennese journalist. The de:WP has an article on the subject of the book "Im Dienst ...", Kim Jong Ryul, a North Korean politician who seems to have "defected" from NK. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:29, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

PS: I just realised that you are the author on the en:WP article on this book. Sorry to point out the obvious. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 17:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Church of England history & Dissent

This year is the 350th anniversary of an event which affects the whole English-speaking world, and I want to understand it better. In 1662 was the Great Ejection, when about 2000 English ministers followed their consciences and refused to support the increasing control of the state over religion. They got kicked out of their parishes, and thus we see reified non-Conformism versus the power of the established church. So, how many ministers stayed in what became the Church of England? How many parishes were there in England at that time? Were all of the ejected ministers at the head of a parish? Or maybe there were there a lot of ordained not-quite-ministers? I don't know what they'd be called - curates perhaps. Or half-trained seminarians? How many of the ejected ministers emigrated, and how many went where? (The American colonies, obviously, but where else? Switzerland? Scotland?) Di many of them leave ministry all together? (I know about the Dissenting academies.) What was the population of England in the 1660s, for that matter? For any profession to lose 2000 principled, trained leaders would be quite a blow, no matter how necessary its higher-ups considered the purge. I'm trying to fit the pieces together as to just how significant this was. BrainyBabe (talk) 14:50, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You may wish to peruse our article History of the Puritans from 1649. It seems that many of those who left the Church became the founders of the non-Conformist denominations we have today. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The preamble to Historic Parishes of England and Wales: an Electronic Map of Boundaries before 1850 gives a number (if I'm reading it correctly) of 18,233. It also says that "the map of these ecclesiastical parishes was essentially complete by the fifteenth century... and that boundaries remained essentially unchanged until a number of reforms from the mid-nineteenth century".

The Parson (a Vicar (Anglicanism) or Rector) of a parish, would, if there were sufficient income, employ a Curate (an assistant minister) to do some or all of the work for him. It would have been the parson that would have decided whether or not to accept directions on the type of services that were said in his church, and it was (I believe) his job that was on the line. The Benefice of a parish (often called a "living") was difficult to come by and often only obtainable by having the right family connections. I strongly suspect that there was a long queue of overworked and impoverished curates only too willing to jump into their shoes. Alansplodge (talk) 18:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

"By 1660, the population of England and Wales exceeded five million." Alansplodge (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As to what became of the ejectees, the standard work is by Edmund Calamy, and is called A Continuation of the Account of the Ministers, Lecturers, Masters and Fellows of Colleges, and and Schoolmasters, who were Ejected and Silenced after the Restoration in 1660, by or before the Act for Uniformity, which you may read online. He certainly had an eye for a snappy title. Alansplodge (talk) 19:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to fine-tune BrainyBabe's TammyMoet's contribution; if our Great Ejection article is correct, those ejected became English Presbyterians and Congregationalists (in 1972 merged into the United Reformed Church). Baptists had already left the CofE and the Methodists were still a century in the future. This is why the recent Service of Reconciliation was between the CofE and the URC. As you say, an important event, but one among many in the complicated evolution of Protestantism. Alansplodge (talk) 19:15, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You might enjoy Vicar of Bray / The Vicar of Bray (song)... AnonMoos (talk) 20:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Even more complicated than I had imagined....BrainyBabe (talk) 21:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Switzerland of the East

How is Bangladesh the "Switzerland of the east"? -- 15:04, 12 April 2012‎ 65.95.106.79

Perhaps because Bangladesh maintains a policy of neutrality in its foreign relations? The opening paragraph of the article I linked states that "the country has stressed its principle of friendship towards all, malice towards none in dictating its diplomacy. As a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, Bangladesh has tended to not take sides with major powers." 24.92.85.35 (talk) 15:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You've never had really great Bangladeshi fondue? Doesn't Bangladesh make the greatest pocket knives? --Jayron32 18:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Who made that comparison? It's likely to strike many people as rather inept, since Switzerland has achieved considerable prosperity and control over its own fate partly by steering clear of military entanglements over the last 150 years or more; it's hard to see that Bangladesh is truly analogous in most respects... AnonMoos (talk) 19:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

In England, anywhere with nice hills (no matter how modest) gets called "Little Switzerland" [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] and many more... Alansplodge (talk) 21:54, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

There is "the Switzerland of America" (Uruguay), "the Switzerland of the Middle East" (Libano, even if nowadays it's out of shape), "the Switzerland of Africa" (Guinea) and even the "the Switzerland of Oceania" (New Zealand). Honestly, I don't know when people started to use this expression, but it makes not much sense to me. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 00:59, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

It's part of a broader practice of naming places after other places, such as Saint Petersburg (Russia, not Florida), which was one of a number of "Venices of the ..." (North in this case). Then there are things like "the Paris end of Collins Street, Melbourne" (I've never dared ask what the other end should be likened to). -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 01:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

"And you know how they say Tulsa is the Paris of Oklahoma?" --Chandler Bing

From the article Lebanon, Lebanon was known in its heyday as the "Switzerland of the East". --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 01:26, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Google search does not show such a label for Bangladesh. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 01:27, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Singapure is said to be the Switzerland of Asia. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 01:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the Switzerland of the web-sites. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 01:43, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

We're said to be the 5th most visited site on the net (no idea how true that still is, but it must have been true at some stage). Going by Tourism#Most-visited countries by international tourist arrivals, Wikipedia would have to be the Italy of the Internet.

But if you don’t like that idea, we could attract more visitors and one day become the Spain of Cyberspace, or the China of the Cosmos, or the USA of the Usersphere, or even one day the France of Freeware. Yes, great things lie ahead.  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 04:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Handel and Bach

Hello again. I was wasting time on Youtube listening to Baroque music and interestingly it seems that most recordings of Handel's music (on youtube and otherwise) are recorded in original Baroque pitch, whereas nearly all of Bach is recording in modern A440 pitch (I know this because I have perfect pitch). Why is this? Thanks. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 15:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

We have an article on Historically informed performance, but it doesn't say why Handel would be favoured above Bach for this sort of treatment. I can only say that as a teenager, I was entranced by a recreation of the first performance of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks and played it over and over (most of my friends were listening to Slade or Genesis for some reason). When I heard a recording by a modern orchestra, I was distinctly underwhelmed. Perhaps it's just something about Handel's music. Someone better qualified needs to comment. Alansplodge (talk) 21:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

My music teacher would have probably said in answer to this question as simply: The Well-Tempered Clavier. --Aspro (talk) 21:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As all ways, Wikipedia has an article about Well temperament. See!!! When I was always looking out the windows during you're mind numbing music lessons, I “was listening” and “absorbing” what what little useful music history and theory you could squeeze in between your tirades of absolute bunkum. --Aspro (talk) 22:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Any temperament can be based on any pitch. —Tamfang (talk) 07:46, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

The question has to do with concert pitch. I'm not sure how temperament or period instruments relate to it. I mean, temperaments are about the relation of pitches to one another, not the overall reference pitch, right? I can imagine period instruments might influence the concert pitch used for a performance, but I'm not sure they do. Our pages don't seem to say anything about it. Does the use of period instruments influence the choice of concert pitch for a performance? Does "historically informed performance" include adjusting the concert pitch? Finally, there are plenty of Bach recordings done on period instruments and plenty of Handel recordings on modern instruments. I'm not sure if Handel's music is more often played at a lower concert pitch. Could it just be a coincidence of what you've happened to hear? Pfly (talk) 23:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It relates because the new frequency spacing 'between notes' is an important watershed. It enabled Bach to employ techniques that are to day taken for granted but on the old scale was just impossible. Sure, Handel's composition can be played on modern instruments but they don't reproduce the original sound that Handel himself heard. Those, wanting to reproduce Handles music (as he himself expected it to be heard), are naturally inclined to use the old scale when the have the means do do so. Believe-it-or -not there are musicians that go to great length to reproduce what they hope is the original sound for those people that wish to enjoy what the compositions originally sounded like when they were first composed.--Aspro (talk) 20:47, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

What we need here, is an editor that plays jazz and the has tried to play on one of these old styled tuned keyboards. I think it would sound awful.--Aspro (talk) 21:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I was under the impression that Bach used well temperament for some solo keyboard music but not otherwise. Most non-keyboard instruments were not so easy to adjust to different temperaments, I thought. Most of Bach's music was intended for various meantone temperaments, just like Handel's, I thought. But in any case, it still isn't clear to me how temperaments influence concert pitch. Also, the original question mentions "original Baroque pitch", but I thought there was no standard concert pitch back then. Pfly (talk) 02:52, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, thinking a bit more, I'd be interested to know which temperaments were in general use in the late Baroque era and whether composers had much control over how musicians chose them, especially for ensemble and orchestral music. I mean, most music did not indicate what temperament to use, apart from Bach's famous Well tempered clavier. Did Bach and Handel (and others like Vivaldi) actually have much say in what tuning was used? Obviously they were constrained by the built-in tunings of various pipe organs, but what about, say, string ensembles? Is this a topic we know much about, or is it largely guesswork? Our Werckmeister temperament, for example, says it has become a popular tuning for Bach's music "in recent years". Our Quarter-comma meantone page says it was commonly used into the 17th century, before Bach and Handel's time. So what temperaments were commonly used in their time? Anyone know? Pfly (talk) 03:22, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak on temperment but when one mentions "Baroque pitch" today it generally refers to A415 (and French pitch to the even more jarring A392). However your point that there was no "standard" concert pitch back then is very valid and is noted, but it still doesn't explain why Handel seems to be tuned more often to what we call "Baroque pitch" than Bach. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 04:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me it depends on instruments. I don't listen Handel much, but I don't know any pianists play Bach on piano with A415. In other words, if the keyboard is piano, the performance would be A440. Some conductors/musicians like Ton Koopman, Gustav Leonhardt, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, etc prefer to use period instruments and play A415. Oda Mari (talk) 06:39, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's death conspiracy

Was there any conspiracy that Pakistan or India CIA or involved with the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's death like Pakistan funded the assassins as a revenge for losing East Pakistan; India was in it because they believe he would encourage West Bengalis to separate from India and CIA was in it because he was Russian puppet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.106.79 (talk) 16:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Can someone explain the super high capital gains tax on the savings bonds I cashed?

I'm a poor college student. Let me say that I know little to nothing about financial terms but I do know what transactions I made. In 2011 I made about $1,500 from working. I pay for my tuition via financial aid from the state and savings bonds my parents purchased nearly 20 years ago - we're doing it the right way, I have no debt, am taking out no loans, etc. We've been planning this for virtually my entire life. I cashed probably $15,000 worth of EE bonds in 2011 - which cost my parents about $7,000 back in the day, right? Now my tax guy (a CPA who has been doing my family's taxes for decades) tells me I have to pay about $3,000 in taxes. Remember that this is twice as much as I even earned from working in 2011. And he took so long doing it that now I have 3 days to come up with twice as much money as I earned in an entire year. The money from the bonds is all gone on my tuition. So how are savings bonds even a good deal when about half of the value they earn has to be paid back in taxes? Is this guy screwing me over or is this just the nature of cashing big bonds? Wouldn't it make more sense to apply the tax the moment they're cashed, since now I'm being taxed on money I no longer have? NIRVANA2764 (talk) 16:58, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for your situation, but 1) we can't tell you whether your accountant is right without seeing all of the numbers, 2) even if we could see all of the numbers we couldn't offer an opinion because we are not qualified to give legal or financial advice, 3) what would be more convenient for you (tax withholding at the point of redemption) is no doubt inconvenient for someone with more power, which is why it isn't done. If your tax guy can't come up with a viable way out of this, it may be time to talk to a different tax accountant. I believe that you can arrange to pay off this kind of tax liability in installments, with an added cost of interest and perhaps a penalty or fee, but, as I've said, I am not qualified to offer advice. In any case, it looks as though you are now unfortunately facing some kind of debt, unless your parents can bail you out. If I may offer some advice, I'd suggest finding more paid work if possible. I worked about 20 hours per week when I went through college a quarter of a century ago (and full time during the summer break). At the time, that translated to an income of around $5-6,000 a year. Adjusting for inflation, you should be able to make $10-15,000 or so if you can find some kind of job (even low-paid). I did not have tons of free time, but I did manage to do rather well in school despite my non-academic workload. Marco polo (talk) 17:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Form 4868 can be used to get an automatic extension of the filing deadline until October. The specific rules should be examined closely to be sure it is applicable in any particular situation. --LarryMac | Talk 19:35, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You can get the automatic extension automatically, but you still owe the taxes on April 17th. If you don't pay them until later, you have the failure-to-pay penalty (unless you pay 90% of them by April 17th, which doesn't sound likely here). It's something like 1% of the total tax owed per month, so for the OP's situation it would be something like $180 for the full six months (1% * 3000 * 6). (I am not a tax lawyer, but I did this exact thing last year.) --Mr.98 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I was trying to stay far away from any specific advice, which is why I said to examine the rules. It seems that part of the reason for filing an extension would be to find a preparer who is able to correctly figure the amount owed (of anything), which is probably much less than $3000. There may even be a refund, not a liability. --LarryMac | Talk 16:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

While Marco Polo is correct that we don't have the full story, I'm sorry, I just don't believe that you could have a $3000 tax liability on $16,500 in total income, even taking the cost basis of the bonds to be zero and considering them as ordinary income. Even counting Minnesota taxes, which I imagine are high. Either there's something you're not telling us, or something is very strange. (It's a little more plausible if you can be claimed as a dependent on someone else's return, limiting your access to the standard deduction.) I would look carefully over the return before you file it, and see if you can find the mistake. --Trovatore (talk) 02:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Capital gains are not taxed like regular income. They have a flat tax that you pay regardless of what your AGI was. This is a benefit if you earn a lot (like Obama and Romney) and a curse if you earn little. You might consider seeing a different accountant for a second opinion. I dunno what your tax situation is, but my effective tax rate on my investments is the same as Romney's and every other person in the US: 15%. My salary raises that up a bit. Your effective tax rate is a lot higher, so you might consider a different tax person. Call a local stock broker and ask for a referral to a tax guy so you are certain that you are getting someone with brokerage account tax experience. 24.38.31.81 (talk) 16:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I have heard at least one other person make this "flat tax" claim, but I believe it is incorrect. Certainly it does not match the information given in the table in our article on capital gains tax in the United States. --Trovatore (talk) 17:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Ranking of metropolitan populations of biggest cites as percentage of state/province population?

Is there such data? For example, Montreal's metro population is ~3.5 million out of ~7.9 million, which seems unusually high, at least compared to other provinces or American states. Baring the micro-nations, of course. 96.21.250.92 (talk) 22:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about it being unusual. According to the metro numbers compared to state/provincial numbers, Metro Vancouver has a higher percentage of British Columbia, as does: Seattle to Washington, Portland to Oregon, Winnipeg to Manitoba, Boston to Massachusetts, and probably a lot more. Having said that, it would be an interesting list to look at. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mingmingla (talk • contribs) 23:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You can see List of largest cities and second largest cities by country, but you might need to research the figures by yourself.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Australian cities contain large proportions of populations of the states where they're located. I'm in Melbourne (pop. 4 million), in the state of Victoria (pop. 5.5 million). Similar ratios would be found for Sydney in NSW, Adelaide in SA, and Perth in WA. This country has a lot of bush, but we don't live there. HiLo48 (talk) 01:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Speak for yourself, HiLo. I'm a Maffradite.  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 03:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know of an exhaustive list, but it occurs to me that the Providence metropolitan area includes the entire state of Rhode Island (the map on that page is a bit confusing—why is the town of Westerly not highlighted?). Also, the definition of metropolitan areas in the United States is fairly crude, being done on a full county basis. So the Seattle metropolitan area, for example, includes vast, totally uninhabited mountain areas. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is technically part of metropolitan Seattle, as is Mount Rainier National Park, which just seems weird. Pfly (talk) 02:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, in New England, metropolitan areas are not defined by entire counties but by towns. (See New England town and New England metropolitan area.) That's why Westerly is not included in the Providence MSA even though the rest of its county is. The reason for this difference is that in most of the United States, the lowest-level category of jurisdiction that covers every part of a state is the county. Most states have unincorporated but sometimes densely populated areas within a metropolitan agglomeration that are subject only to a county government. This is not the case in New England. Every part of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut falls within a town. Every part of the northern New England states with a substantial population falls within a town. (There are some areas of the northern New England states that are not part of towns, but they are very thinly populated areas, so nonmetropolitan, and nonetheless are divided into townships that amount to administrative subdivisions for Census purposes.) Marco polo (talk) 16:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah ha! If that is true, about the Providence metropolitan area, our page ought to be edited, as the text claims it covers the entirety of Rhode Island, but the map does not agree. On the other hand, this map [28] shows all of the state as part of Providence metro, so I don't know. Pfly (talk) 03:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

April 13

US Arson Statistics?

I am working on the article for Grundy County, Tennessee which has a reputation for arson, but I would like to know if the reputation is deserved, or if it's just typical rural stuff. So I found [29] which lists arson as an offense, but once I try to dig into the database, arson is not among the searchable offenses. Perhaps arsons per capita within jurisdictions would be a meaningful and obtainable measure. How can I find this sort of arson data? -- ke4roh (talk) 00:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This might be what you're after. It shows arson numbers down to county/city agency level. Dalliance (talk) 11:38, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Understanding Wikipedia from a philosophical, sociological, politico-economic... viewpoint

I would like to read everything related to Wikipedia from a... let's say philosophico-sociological viewpoint. Articles, essays, papers, books... Like the article Community of Wikipedia. Thanks. --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 00:36, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

See Democratization of knowledge. See [30][31]. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 01:06, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

For a more specific and academic article, see Academic studies about Wikipedia. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 01:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

That article is about technical studies on Wikipedia, and has nothing to do with philosophy. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 01:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

No it's not just about technical studies. There are many social science studies there. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 02:03, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Great. Thanks, guys. Let's see if anyone comes up with something else. --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 12:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

TP question

I am sorry to ask a crude question, but I know of no way of finding out other than here. What percentages of people wipe after defecating while sitting, and what percentage wipe after having stood up? Let's restrict the question to America and Europe, I suppose, if it matters. Robot Mandate (talk) 01:38, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if you are aware, but some people do not wipe at all. 186.206.247.208 (talk) 02:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

We have an article on this topic Anal cleansing. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 02:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

And there's a site dedicated to toilet habits, including your question, and much more: [[32]]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.206.247.208 (talk) 02:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Anonymity

This will only be a short question. In news reports, sometimes they use anonymous sources. That's fine, but the problem is, why about 3/4 of anonymous sources do not mention exactly why they want to be anonymous? It would be fine if the reason is plain obvious (if they are talking about a sensitive topic like North Korea or Syria), but sometimes, for example, in a news story promoting a certain beauty-care product. In that, a spokesperson talks about all the good effects of the brand, but requests anonymity for reasons that are neither mentioned nor implied. Why would this happen? Wouldn't it be logical for the person to at least acknowledge the reason for his/her anonymity if the reason for anonymity has nothing to do with the overall topic? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. I would suspect that the reporter/news organization was paid to promote that brand. StuRat (talk) 03:38, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

There are laws against that in most countries, as far as I know. While it wouldn't surprise me if a few reporters break those laws, I doubt it is commonplace. --Tango (talk) 11:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

One of the most common reasons is that the source hasn't been authorised by their employer to speak to the press. If someone is speaking as an offical spokesperson, then they aren't anonymous. You may not know the individual's name (probably more because the reporter didn't think it relevant than because the individual requested it), but they aren't speaking as an individual. They are speaking on behalf of the company and you know the company's name. --Tango (talk) 11:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

In Britain, it's widely acknowledged that "an close friend" or "an insider", used anonymously, inevitably means someone invented for the sake of a story. Smurrayinchester 11:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I've never personally seen an anonymous source cited in a story for beauty-care products. It seems like a stretch to me, for something passing as real journalism. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:29, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if there is a link online, but it was a story on The Philippine Star for the Belo Medical Group. All I can remember was that it ended with the words "said a spokesperson who spoke on condition of anonymity". The spokesperson in question was talking about the products they had IIRC. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 14:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe this was a whistleblower? Often aggrieved persons will go to the press with a story, which they give permission for the press to use on condition that their identity is kept secret. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:37, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

No, he/she wasn't a whistleblower. The spokesperson in question was actually talking about their latest products, almost as if he/she was promoting them. I tried searching The Philippine Star's website but I could not find the story. It wasn't a press release either since there was something that said "by [Author]". Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Infomercial. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:04, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I hope that wasn't one of those fake newscasts we get in the US. They pretend to be a legit news organization, and do "interviews", which, not surprisingly, end up endorsing the product. StuRat (talk) 21:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

It often seems like anonymous sources are a method for a company or any other organization to get information out there that the organization doesn't want to "officially" acknowledge. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:11, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Happiness and pain

Why is it that we get used to feeling good very quickly but never get used to pain? Money is tight (talk) 02:34, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

You premise is wrong. How do you say we get used to feeling good very quickly? --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 02:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

And why do you say we never get used to pain? Dismas|^(talk) 02:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Well I read that almost all celebrity/very rich people find life is like plastic (e.g. marriage to divorce in a few weeks), and everytime I feel happy it gets boring very quickly. About pain, ok maybe I should say "I" instead of "we" as I have no evidence on other people about pain. I have a particular personal issue that cannot be resolved and I can never get used to living with it, and recent financial stress just makes me want to collapse. Money is tight (talk) 02:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I really don't believe anyone ever gets bored of being happy. You might get bored of the things that temporarily made you happy. --Trovatore (talk) 02:59, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

We get used both to good and to bad things: habituation is the psychological term to this. Just try a cold shower (literally) and you'll see that it's not that dramatic. MangoNr1 (talk) 03:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Hedonic treadmill, more specifically. 166.190.165.92 (talk) 05:20, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, happiness depends on worldview, it will depend what makes you happy. If you are fond of money, money will make you happy, and lack of money will make you sad. If you are religious conservative, sex will make you feel disgusted, if you are liberal, lack of sexual activity will depress you. If you are Marxist by personal conviction, money or lack of it will not matter to you. In fact to a Marxist, lack of money is sign of purity and good, while abundance of money is evil. If you strongly believe in a philosophy, only advancing that belief will make you happy. We sometimes accept small personal loses in return for what we believe is greater good. Even a philosopher like Ayn Rand, who advocated rational self-interest, accepted temporary monetary loss when she refused to remove the John Galt quote from Atlas Shrugged. Her publisher demanded she should remove the quote because it was too long and publishing the book with this quote will not make profit, despite this she refused to remove the quote because she believed in a greater goal - spread of her ideas. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 05:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

PS: To illustrate the point, I will give examples of soldiers. In a war, soldiers don't feel bad about their death or loss of body parts, instead they become happy in case of personal damage, imagining "I have sacrificed myself for defending my country, I'm great!!!" So to a soldier, being dead or wounded in the battlefield is the catalyst for happiness. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 05:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

If only the reality came even close to that fairyland view of the feelings of soldiers on the battle field. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 10:10, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about the American soldiers who fought in Iraq, but the Japaneses pilots who led Kamikaze attacks viewed the deed as heroic. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 13:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

But they didn't have an awful lot of time to become used to it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.78.26 (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

People often confuse happiness with contentment, which is why so many spouses cheat on the other despite having what is assumed to be a "happy" marriage. In reality they have passed the phase of giddy happiness and reached the plateau of smug contentment which can lead to boredom.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Freud, in Civilization and Its Discontents, argues that pleasure is a fleeting sensation caused by the transition between two states of being, and that our appreciation of happiness is conditioned by our temperament and constitution. Unhappiness and pain, however, can be permanent states — neutral unhappiness is the baseline state, and it is easy to be perpetually depressed or perpetually in pain. So for Freud, one of the great tragedies about being human is that it is impossible to sustain perpetual happiness, but it is possible to be perpetually unhappy or in pain. So we are on the whole doomed to being pretty unhappy most of the time, for better or worse. I'm not a Freudian but I always found that to be an interesting argument, one which I found true to my own life (one which has had much happiness, to be sure), in any case. (Sorry for a lack of direct quotes — it has been a very long time since I've read that book and searching around briefly on the web didn't turn up the exact phrasing I was looking for, but I did feel correct in my interpretation of the book). --Mr.98 (talk) 12:18, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Based on my personal experience, the state of a Feelin Groovy-type of blissful happiness is impossible to sustain due to the realities of everyday life which must needs interfere and alter that state.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:25, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Right on. I never agreed much with his politics when he was in power (although he's massively mellowed out these days), but Malcolm Fraser never said a truer word than "Life wasn't meant to be easy". And M. Scott Peck was spot on with his opening sentence of The Road Less Traveled - "Life is hard". We can attain temporary happiness and feelings of satisfaction by achieving things that were hard to do, not easy to do. We can overcome the odds through struggle and persistence. But having got to the top of the mountain, it's downhill from there, for a while, until we reach the next goal. The idea of being eternally "happy" is so much bunkum. Happiness should never be a goal in its own right, but a by-product of achieving other goals. Nobody ever had an obituary written about them, in which their most notable achievement was "he spent his life being happy". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Ah but what a lovely obituary that would be. If only..... Happiness alas, is like a rainbow: Brilliant at first and marvelous to behold; only to gradually lose its intensity over time, then dissipate forever into nothingness, leaving but a beautiful memory behind.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:13, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

But like the rainbow, it reappears from time to time. You get it, then you lose it; you get it again, then you lose it again; and so on forever. We enjoy it hugely while it lasts, but it doesn't last. Maybe it's best that way. Would anyone like to be in a permanent state of orgasm? I think that would very quickly drive people crazy, not in a good way, and there'd be mass suicides. Also, how about being in that permanent orgasmic state without doing whatever it is that's normally required to produce that state? Well, the "pursuit of happiness" is like that in the minds of many people. They amass untold wealth or power, or consume massive quantities of drugs, but they all still have just as many fears and anxieties and woes as everybody else. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 09:40, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

To get back to the original question, the state of feeling pain is the natural way of telling us that something is wrong, and so getting used to pain would represent a potential threat to our physical wellbeing. We don't get used to pain because pain tells us that we need to do something about whatever is causing the pain. We get used to feeling good because it's the default state, and any deviation from feeling good tells us that the equilibrium needs to be restored. See also Homeostasis. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Conscription in Canada

Does anyone have a source citing when conscription (mandatory military service) officially ended in Canada? I've been scouring the internet and coming up with nothing except that they had conscription at one point and no longer do. It must have been ended in some specific year. Thanks for any information! 128.239.47.179 (talk) 04:20, 13 April 2012 (UTC)allnighter

As far as I can tell, Canada only every had two brief periods of military conscription, during World War I and during World War II. The Conscription Crisis of 1917 caused some political turmoil in Canada, which had an all-volunteer military to that point. The Conscription Crisis of 1944 wasn't much of a crisis, as less than 2500 Canadians were "drafted". Other than those two conscriptions, Canada has not ever had compulsory military service. So, strictly speaking, the last conscription happened in 1944. That was also the second conscription ever, so its not like Canada had a tradition of compulsory military service. --Jayron32 04:35, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

So, it would have ended then in 1945. Thanks so much! 128.239.47.179 (talk) 05:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)allnighter

From my cursory reading, I'd expect that 1945 is not correct. The article discusses "a one-time levy of 17,000 NRMA conscripts for overseas service in November 1944," so the conscription process would have ended in that year. If, on the other hand, you want to talk about when those mandatory terms of service ended, I'd bet that many didn't expire until at least 1946 (that was certainly the case for many US draftees). Note also that the Conscription Crisis was specific to "overseas military service"; the National Resources Mobilization Act made provisions for conscription within Canada as early as 1940 and may have persisted beyond the scope of overseas conscription. — Lomn 14:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

White Light/Black Rain

Is this film aimed primarily towards an American audience? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.146.124.35 (talk) 19:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Also is HBO more aimed at American audiences than Japanese audiences? Does HBO have more American viewers than Japanese viewers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.146.124.35 (talk) 19:24, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

HBO is an American network. As far as I know, it doesn't have anything to do with Japan. (According to that article, it does broadcast in at least 150 other countries, so Japan is probably one of them, but that's it.) --Tango (talk) 21:12, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

...at least until Sony gets around to buying them. StuRat (talk) 21:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

garden of pure ideas

i would like to create a garden of pure ideas owned by themselves or whoever thought of them ,as companies. it would be an alternative to tech incubators that are just about moneys instead of the ideas. I already have an an amazon ec2 cluster set up and know all the web technologies such as: https://www.google.com/search?q=full+stack+web+technology

thoughts? 188.157.185.167 (talk) 21:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

You’re there already. All you need to do now, is broadcast you're unique selling proposition to pull the punters in.--Aspro (talk) 22:08, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

East title

Dhaka University is known as "Oxford of the East". How is it the "Oxford of the East"? Also, which universities of the East are "Havard of the East", "Yale of the East", "Cornell of the East", "Princeton of the East" and "Cambridge of the East"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.154.23 (talk) 22:02, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This is related to the above question about "Switzerland of the East". We really ought to have an article on these sorts of namings. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:04, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

There is a related discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 99#Wikipedia, a wiki.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:27, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm reminded of when Lucy was lazing by Schroeder's piano as he played, and then she said something like "Oh Schroeder, you're so good. You're the Beethoven of music". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to try and answer the question, perhaps because Dhaka University is the oldest university in Bangladesh, and Oxford is the oldest in the UK. (I had just finished typing this when I found Oxford of the East which goes along with my explanation. It's nice to be right sometimes.) Alansplodge (talk) 23:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Office in the EU repronsible for media freedom

What office of the EU represents the rights of media to freedom of speech within EU member states if such office exists.--132.239.90.154 (talk) 23:29, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Viviane Reding is the vice-president in charge of justice, fundamental rights and citizenship[33], which includes freedom of speech and expression. (There's also the Information Science and Media Directorate-General, which doesn't deal principally with guaranteeing freedom of speech: its areas of interest include regulation, technological research, and increasing access to information technology; this page summarises EU media policies, with programs for plurality, regulation (including child protection), heritage, media literacy, funding media production, and online distribution.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 23:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

April 14

Women on Facebook

I'm not sure if this should be here of the Computing reference desk but here it goes. Is there any psychological reason why on Facebook girls seem to be more active than boys? For example, on my homepage most, if not almost all of the statuses and pictures are by girls, and they seem to be more likely to have more than a thousand friends on Facebook than boys. I also have a lot of male friends but they don't post as often as my female friends. Why is this the case? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 03:13, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

There's plenty of research in the educational area that shows that females are more verbally inclined than males. And in the teenage years (when Facebook is BIG) they are significantly more advanced in verbal skills than males. All that suggests that "playing" on Facebook may be more attractive to them than males, who tend to prefer shoot-em-up type games. As a high school teacher I'm throwing some of my own OR in there, but your observations agree with mine anyway. HiLo48 (talk) 03:22, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

You don't know my youngest son! Whilst my daughter is fairly active, my son surpasses her in the sheer amount of time he spends on Facebook.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 08:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Women tend to be more social than men. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 09:39, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Where was this video filmed?

I'm wondering where this was filmed. It looks like some sort of debate cross-examination type thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lixYEZ9M_dU&feature=endscreen&NR=1

--128.54.178.202 (talk) 07:37, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

This page states that it is from the local Boston TV debate show of the 70s, 'The Advocates'. This particular episode was filmed in 1978. I can't find any information immediately on the venue used, but I suspect somewhere in the Boston area, maybe even MIT itself, or more likely in some TV studio. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 08:18, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Why do Muslims think that God is dead?

There is a word for a creature who will never generate another intentional message. You know that you can instantly reject any new message from an author if and only if that author is dead. While we may in the future discover previous writings of William Shakespeare, he will not be writing any more new plays.

So when we have the very last words from any creature, then we say that creature is dead. The reports of the death of Mark Twain are not an exaggeration.

If and only if the Koran is the final and unchanging word of Allah, then Allah must be dead.

Why do Muslims worship a God that they think is dead? (Allah: 13.something billion BC to 632 AD, R.I.P.) Hcobb (talk) 08:26, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Find us just one, independent, reliable source that says Muslims think their god is dead. Without that this reads like provocative nonsense. (Your original research and synthesis don't count.) HiLo48 (talk) 08:30, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Quran#Significance_in_Islam: and view the Quran as God's final revelation to humanity.

Where else are somebody's last words not equivalent to their being dead? Is there a single counter-example please? Hcobb (talk) 08:42, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it's pretty creative to reach that conclusion on the basis of a snippet of information.

Tawhid has some detail on the nature of Deity in Islam.

ALR (talk) 08:49, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Hcobb -- The philosophy of Occasionalism says that God is constantly intervening in the universe from moment to moment, so that nothing in the world can be the cause or effect of anything else in the world, but rather everything is directly caused by God. This philosophy was prevalent for a number of centuries in the Muslim world (some have said to the detriment of the development of science there), and sure doesn't sound like "God is dead" theorizing to me... AnonMoos (talk) 09:27, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Mormons do believe (I think) that God was once a man. Never heard about Muslim thinking that Allah is dead however. We Catholics believe that God was alive, God is alive, and God will remain alive and to my knowledge, Jews and Muslims do as well. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 09:33, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

According to Death of God, there are some Christian theologians and at least one rabbi who believe so. --Michael Fleischhacker (talk) 09:42, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

See this verse of the Qur'an. Two out of the three translations say that Allah answers prayers (the other translation just says he listens to them, but I expect there are other verses where that translation does mention 2-way communication with him). The Qur'an may be intended as the last sacred text to be revealed, but it isn't a belief of Islam that Allah no longer communicates with his creation. --Tango (talk) 09:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Jane Austen: an Aspie???

Why is Jane Austen often included on lists of people specolated to have had Asperger's? Did she get the facial expressions wrong in her novels? Wiwaxia (talk) 09:52, 14 April 2012 (UTC)