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April 25

belly button

Hi i was just wondering, how come some people's navels r ticklish? im wondering this because some people claim it hurts when u poke them there.Jwking (talk) 04:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I fail to see how this fits under "humanities" but anyway... I would venture a SWAG that the belly button probably has quite a few nerves in the general vicinity due to the fact that the umbilical cord attaches there during gestation. With all those nerves, ticklishness and pain are no surprise. Dismas|^(talk) 04:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Humanities = "traits of human nature" (OED)? Anyway it seems to me there is a significant difference between tickling someone and poking them in the belly button. Trust and friendship normally precede such acts of intimacy, otherwise people who are happily ticklish with their loved ones may well experience discomfort on being poked by you.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

If it hurts, you're overdoing things. My guess is someone will likely deck you, so take notice when they're being polite and only saying that it hurts. Julia Rossi (talk) 07:44, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Study abroad scholarships

A while ago I heard about a monastery in Europe where scholars can apply to live for a year. If you get it you get room and board and can work on whatever you want in peace for a year (sort of like a Rhodes Scholarship or Fulbright I guess). Any idea where/what this program is?

Another similar but unconnected question: Are there any scholarships to live/study in Jerusalem (non religious scholarships that is)? Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 06:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Until someone who knows arrives, and since the categories for monasteries, Greece, Spain, Belgium etc sub cats Cistercian, Benedictine etc are an infinity, I'd get in touch with leading music schools or go to an arts portal for the answers to musician in residence type leads. Fellowship gets better hits than scholarship as you've probably found since scholarship+monastery are a dyad of their own. Good luck, Julia Rossi (talk) 08:19, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

This website might be of help. WikiJedits (talk) 13:00, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't there a religious establishment in Britain that does the same thing? Scholars had to sign up to relatively few rules, but one of them was not to write anything that would undermine the Church of England - -that counts out a lot of people! BrainyBabe (talk) 08:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Erasmus in Spain

was the work of the humanist Erasmus greeted with as much initial enthsiasim in Spain as it was in northern Europe? Was it perhaps seen as a challenge to Catholic orthodxy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.42.98.155 (talk) 08:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

There were certainly some who welcomed the work of Erasmus but the general reception was muted. The clergy were particularly resentful of his attacks on the mendicant friars. Under pressure from the religious orders, the Grand Inquisitor, Alonso Manrique de Lara, held a debate in Valladolid in March 1527 to decide if Erasmus' writings were heretical or not. The conference was suspended without decision, which was taken for a victory for the Erasmians. The following December King Charles wrote to him, assuring him that his honour and reputation 'would always be held in great esteem'

It was not to be. In 1559, the year following the death of Charles, some sixteen of Erasmus' publications were placed on the first Spanish-produced Index of forbidden books, including the Enchiridion. By this time the Inquisition had a hold on most aspects of Spanish intellectual life. The reaction against Erasmus, and Humanism in general, was one of the features of the ideological crisis that beset Spain in the second half of the sixteenth century. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I read this as "Erasmus in Spam", wrote he was very unwelcome indeed , then saw my mistake,*facepalm* ..hotclaws 11:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Red Hat society?

What is the Red Hat society? What are their aims? What do they stand for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quidom (talk • contribs) 09:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

They are a sinister organisation attempting to infiltrate Western society in order to ensure its collapse by undermining it from within... No, wait, that's another sort of red... Here is the Red Hat Society's own web page. SaundersW (talk) 12:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

and the Wikipedia article: Red Hat Society WikiJedits (talk) 12:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Not to be confused with The Red-Headed League. --Major Bonkers (talk) 17:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

And here I thought they were a political front for propagation of Red Hat Linux. Corvus cornix_talk 17:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Socializing across social classes

How do different social classes socialize? For example, in America different social classes meet through sport activities (like baseball) or a pub but perhaps go to different colleges and restaurants. I would like to learn more systematically how it works (especially in America and Europe). 217.168.1.182 (talk) 11:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

We can't say there's a system, people get to know each other all over the place, on trains, at work, goodness knows where. Supermarkets and libraries can be full of those moments of possibility. Xn4 22:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I do believe there is some sort of system. Libraries are inherently public and open, so different people get to know each other there. Fine restaurants and first-class trains on the other hand are not open. 217.168.3.246 (talk) 23:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Returning to fox hunting, if I may, that is where I have met the greatest cross-section of people from different classes and backgrounds. In my experience not an awful lot of socialising goes on in libraries...or in supermarkets! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

What kind of classes do you find in fox hunting? I expected only to find upper-middle class ãnd upward. 217.168.3.246 (talk) 00:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary. Please glance over the points made in the fox-hunting thread above. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

← Social class is such a fluid concept, I don't see how we can generalize in this way. People meet in all different ways, for different purposes. -- Kesh (talk) 01:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Partly because in the UK one of the things that goes into what class someone is is how they socialise. It is indeed a fluid concept. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 02:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

For those who go to church, churches are often places to meet people from a wide range of backgrounds. If someone lives in an area with a good comprehensive schooling system and few desirable private schools, school can be a place for mixing across class barriers. The Post Office queue is another. If the young members of the higher middle classes take menial holiday jobs that can also be a time of mixing with difference classes, although not necessarily representative slices of the various classes.

If fox hunting is where Clio has met the greatest cross-section of people from different classes and backgrounds, I think that says more about Clio's life than about fox hunting itself. Seriously, if the impression she has given in her answers and user page is accurate, I would regard her comment above as accurate but not necessarily indicating that fox hunting attracts a wide range of classes and backgrounds. She went to a private boarding school, I doubt she's taken menial holiday jobs, and it sounds like her churchy experience is generally high Anglican to anglo-Catholic. Universities, particularly the sort of university I imagine Clio is at, tend not to carry the full range of classes in a representative manner (I was shocked when I started at the number of people I met who went to what I think of as 'weird schools'. Rarely do I meet a fellow product of a state comprehensive). Where else is Clio going to meet people who aren't like her? And thus we see the relevance of the original question.

I'm afraid I've just realised this has come across as a little personal and attack-y. I really don't mean it like that, but as a way of understanding what has been said in this thread and approaching an answer to the question (for the UK). But I'm tired, and so possibly not exercising good judgement. Feel free to delete anything about Clio from this post. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 01:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ha-ha-ha! I certainly went to a weird school, that much is true! [1] We are the best, so screw the rest! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Answering your question: "Where else is Clio going to meet people who aren't like her?" In the Wikipedia Ref. Desk.? 217.168.1.161 (talk) 23:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Well indeed. And if we all met up over drinks (or possibly tea and cake) to discuss what was up in our lives, I'm sure it would be fascinating. I'm not sure how well our current activities approximate socialising :) But in other ways we are all quite similar here on the desks, all sharing a love of learning for its own sake. But that isn't linked too strongly to social class. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 00:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I recommend Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour (Hodder and Stoughton, 2004) by social anthropologist Kate Fox. BrainyBabe (talk) 09:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Buying drugs, the classes really mix there.I'm being serious....hotclaws 11:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Not in South Ken, Hotclaws, not in my experience, anyway! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Philosophy

I am trying to establish which philospher ( Descartes ???) indicated that the mind is similar to a blank piece of paper and that all experiences are imprinted onto the mind. In other words, the mind obtains it's thoughts through the element of experience. I read the article some time ago and cannot recall who the philospher was---can anyone assist me? Thank you in advance.--96.245.70.110 (talk) 12:33, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

According to tabula rasa (which may have been the article you read) it was Aristotle. SaundersW (talk) 12:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You might also want to take a look at John Locke. Deor (talk) 13:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, apparently I and Lord Foppington edited at the same time. Read his comment below. Deor (talk) 13:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Great minds Deor... Yours, Lord Foppington (talk) 13:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It is sometimes (wrongly) attributed as a creation of John Locke. If the OP was think about modern philosophers like Descartes then perhaps it was he who was being thought of... tabula rasa is more central to Lockean empiricism and ideas of rights than it was to Aristole's philosophy. See An Essay Concerning Human Understanding for more on this, it's a great read too if you're inclined! Yours, Lord Foppington (talk) 13:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Stalin's blindness

Why was Stalin so reluctant to believe, in the face of all of the evidence, that Hitler was about to launch an attack on the Soviet Union in 1941? John Spencer (talk) 13:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Stalin himself was not reluctant to belive that Hitler would invade the USSR, for he only signed away a partioned Poland to give himself time to build up the Army. He was reluctant to belive however that the invasion was imminent since he was mistrustful of England and The USA. He also did not listen to his front lines when they were first attack and was said to have run around the Kremlin telling nobody to do anything. Stalin was paranoid and possibly schizophrenic, he and Hitler had two such differing ideologies that the conflict was inevitable but Stalin beleived he was always in control. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quidom (talk • contribs) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

John, I should like to make it clear that the outset-though I suspect you are as aware of this as I am-that the suggestion that Stalin was 'possibly schizophrenic' is absolute rubbish. As a politician, and as a tactician, he took a highly rational view of events, subjecting everything to precise calculations. He assumed that Hitler took the same rational and calculating view; and therein was his greatest error.

You see, Hitler was, unlike Stalin, a dilettante dictator and a dreamer. But Stalin imbued in him all of his own calculating qualities. After all, a successful invasion of the Soviet Union, with its sprawling frontier and vast army, would require at least a two to one advantage for the attacker, which Hitler did not have. More than that, why would he embark on a two-front war, the very thing that had contributed to the destruction of Germany in the First World War? Why, moreover, would he begin an invasion in mid-summer, which gave him only a few weeks of combat weather? He simply could not entertain the idea that Hitler could undertake an assault against the grain of all military sense. He misjudged Hitler; it's as simple as that. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Didn't Stalin know about Hitler's astrologer? Julia Rossi (talk) 07:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

That's a myth, Julia; Hitler did not have an astrologer. He was altogether contemptuous of the practice, and astrologers were among one of the many groups persecuted during the Third Reich. There were, however, some among the leadership prepared to take the practice seriously, either for political ends or out of simple superstition. Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Hess were most notable amongst the latter. The man who came closest to being the 'court' astrologer was Karl Ernst Krafft, who was arrested in May 1941 following Hess's flight to Scotland, when Hitler, in his fury, ordered a fresh purge of occultists and astrologers of all kinds. Goebbels joked at this time that it was odd that not one amongst the group was able to predict what was about to happen to them! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

It was tongue-in-cheek for his "unpredictability" but also a bonus to have the facts on the myth. Thanks, Clio! Julia Rossi (talk) 23:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Julia; your irony escaped me. I thought it was a genuine question. I shall have to stop being so literal-minded! Clio the Muse (talk) 03:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Christianity and the dead in the middle ages

Hi. I expect some of you have been watching the fascinating series on BBC 4 on aspects of medieval thought and experience. I've become particularly interested in the impact of Christianity, especially in relation to death and the fear of death. I think it possible to say, on the basis of my limited understanding, that Christianity at this time was in many respects a cult of death? It was also based, it might be said, on an ever present struggle between good and evil? Is this a reasonable view? 86.153.161.63 (talk) 13:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes and no.

In my paltry understanding, Christianity is and always has been a cult of both death and life. The Bible has many lessons on how to live well, but ultimately it is a book for those preparing to die. The central event in the Christian mythos is of course the death of Christ, who met his end, as Nietzsche says, in "exemplary" fashion. Despite the great shame and suffering in cruxifiction, he went to the cross unflinching, dignified, with (near) total acceptance of the proceedings. You may contrast this with a common criminal denying his actions, cursing his persecutors, and in general doing a lot of gnashing and wailing. Jesus may have met his end, but he did so with dignity and grace, which is the best I presume he could have managed back in 0 A.D. Vranak (talk) 17:47, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

One thing to keep in mind is that pre-Industrial life was a more tenuous existence than today: everyone living in Medieval times, both the wealthy & powerful & the poor & humble, were well aware that Famine, War & Pestilence were always lurking just around the corner. Death was constantly in mind, & the culture of the time reflected this. (Consider the trope of "The Wheel of Fortune".) The emphasis of Christianity was hope not death -- despite the morbid obsessions of many martyrs' Vitae -- that despite material setback or loss there was a better existence for those who lived a moral life. (Which I admit oversimplifies the message.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

A few words on hope:

Hope. Pandora brought the jar with the evils and opened it. It was the gods' gift to man, on the outside a beautiful, enticing gift, called the "lucky jar." Then all the evils, those lively, winged beings, flew out of it. Since that time, they roam around and do harm to men by day and night. One single evil had not yet slipped out of the jar. As Zeus had wished, Pandora slammed the top down and it remained inside. So now man has the lucky jar in his house forever and thinks the world of the treasure. It is at his service; he reaches for it when he fancies it. For he does not know that that jar which Pandora brought was the jar of evils, and he takes the remaining evil for the greatest worldly good--it is hope, for Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment. — Nietzsche

Vranak (talk) 20:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the BBC series is excellent! Anyway, death, as you must be aware, had a powerful immediacy in the Medieval consciousness, and contemporary Christianity reflected this in a manner of ways. Death was both a threat and, though it seems odd to say so, the dead a living presence. There is no better illustration of this than in one of the most common folk tales of the era-the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead. This tells of three men, wealthy and well-dressed; three men in the noon of life. Entering a forest they come across three rotting cadavers, who chide their living counter-parts for their vanity and complacency, saying:

Such as you are so were we

Such as we are so will you be.

This encounter was to be found on wall-paintings throughout Medieval Europe. Here is an example from Charlwood in Surrey - 5k. It's an allegory, yes, but it is firmly based on the belief that the dead did roam the land. William of Newburgh, the twelfth century English chronicler, found it difficult to keep up with the numerous stories of the walking dead: "One would not easily believe that corpses come out of their graves were there not so many cases supported by such ample testimony."

So, the boundaries between the two worlds, that of the living and that of the dead, were fluid and porous. They were constantly being crossed by hordes of spiritual beings-the angels on one side, the demons on the other, locked together in combat over the souls of the living; and this is where the Church was at its most important. It offered the only defence against the abyss, guiding the living through the uncertainties, all of the traps of life. As for the struggle between good and evil Orderic Vitalis, a monk writing about 1100, was to describe monasteries as castles built against Satan, one "where the cowled champions engage in ceaseless combat." Clio the Muse (talk) 01:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Other tropes are Memento mori and Danse Macabre. Another example is that people "celebrated" (in the sense of keeping in their memory) death dates, not birth dates. Psalters created for a particular person would include all the major feast days, but also dates on which family members had died. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

What is MAOISM?

I have read the article, wishing to know what would make Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought a distinct form of communism. While I came away with the idea that perhaps Deng Xaiopingism might be said to be a pragmatic form communism, I still don't really know what makes Maoism special. I pray the Muses here might enlighten me. --Czmtzc (talk) 13:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Speaking as a layman, it really seems to be a cult of personality (insert guitar riff here). While other communist nations are primarily based on Marxism and Leninism, the Chinese had their own cultural icon to influence their interpretation of communism. -- Kesh (talk) 22:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Czmtzc, I've attached below a slightly amended answer I give to a similar question last October. I think it covers all you are looking for. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The text you should look for, if you are looking for a text, is The Political Thought of Mao Tse-Tung by Stuart Schram. It was Mao's belief that there was a specifically Chinese road to socialism, though in pursuit of that road he effectively turned the classic doctrines of Marxist materialism inside out, with quite disastrous consequences for China and the Chinese people.

You see, in terms of economic development and industrial resources, China of the mid-twentieth century was about as far removed from that stage of advanced historical development that Karl Marx had believed to be the essential precursor of a successful revolution. Short of many natural resources it possessed one thing in abundance-people. And it was people who were to be the raw material in Mao's great experiment. Now, though Lenin had always stressed that there was a subjective element to the whole revolutionary process, that it was an act of political consciousness, Mao took this subjectivity to what might be described as an anti-materialist extreme. Distrustful of experts and obstacles, distrustful of bureaucracy, he placed his greatest intellectual emphasis on achieving goals by an 'act of faith' alone; that even the most difficult things were not beyond the power of will. In other words, it was the will of the people, the power of the masses, that would enable the Chinese to catch up with the Soviets and the advanced industrial powers of the west.

This, in essence, is the key to the Great Leap Forward. By this Mao hoped that steel production would increase if the energy and will of the whole nation could simply be directed towards that particular end, regardless of technical and practical objections. Revolutionary zeal would be enough. Of course it was not. The steel that was produced was of poor quality and the neglect of other areas of the economy, agriculture in particular, was to create one of the worst man-made famines in the whole course of Chinese history. Despite this Mao did not abandon his belief in revolutionary spontaneity, which was to emerge once again, with equally disastrous consequences, in the Cultural Revolution.

In thinking of the deleterious effects of these forms of anti-materialist and, it might be said, anti-Marxist voluntarism you might also wish to consider the actions of Pol Pot, Mao's greatest and most murderous disciple. Clio the Muse 23:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Saying that Maoism is the Chinese flavour of Communism doesn't seem entirely accurate, considering how influential the ideology has been outside of East Asia. Groups as diverse as the Party of Labour of Albania, the Shining Path of Peru, and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defence in the United States have all been influenced by Mao Zedong Thought... He must have been saying something universal. 89.213.79.245 (talk) 17:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

One could make exactly the same observation about Leninism or Stalinism. It does not make the doctrine any less original, or the imitators any less barbarous, a point I was under the impression I had made in reference to Pol Pot. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

On the question of why many groups outside China have turned to the Maoist variety of Marxism-Leninism, the answer is mainly in the third-worldism of the Maoists. As stated above, Marxism (i.e. historical materialism) traditionally postulated that societies move through stages from feudalism to capitalism and only then on to socialism. The Maoists broke with this idea to say that less-developed countries could move directly to socialism. (Guevarism was a similar tendency.) Hence revolutionary movements in India (the Naxalites, in Nepal, and other places were more attracted to Chinese than to Soviet communism, especially when the Chinese were actively courting those movements and promoting the notion of people's war and the Soviets were pursuing peaceful coexistence.Itsmejudith (talk) 20:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Population of Palestine prior to the Arab/Muslim Conquest of 640

Would anybody know what the population of Palestine (roughly today's Israel, Gaza and West Bank) was just prior to the Arab/Muslim conquest of 640, as well as its composition in terms of Jews, Arabs, Christians, Romans and others? 70.51.23.55 (talk) 18:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

'Palestine' was part of Roman provinces named Judea and Arabia, and contained a predominantly Jewish population, with a sifnificant Christian minority, but this was 200AD. By 640 it was part of the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium. This would have left it changed very little, however it was this area which was weakened so much by the Seluciad Roman wars earlier in the century which left it practically undefended, leaving it susceptible to a Muslim attack. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quidom (talk • contribs) 22:15, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You forgot about the Plague of Justinian, which struck circa 540. One of the regions it ravaged was Palestine. -- llywrch (talk) 22:29, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. But to be clear, should I take it then that prior to the Arab/Muslim conquest of 640, Palestine was populated predominatntly by Jews? If so, would you have any rough idea of the proportions of the different groups at the time.

Also, the expulsion of the Jews from ancient Israel, renamed Palestine, is for the most part attributed to the Romans, long before the Arab conquest. Would anyone have an estimate as to what proportion of Jews had already been expelled by the Romans by 640 compared to how many remained and were later expelled by the Arabs? 70.51.23.55 (talk) 00:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that you will ever get precise figures, 70.51, though I should point out that the Jewish population of Palestine had declined steadily as a result of the various Jewish-Roman Wars, particularly from the Bar Kokhba Revolt in the second century AD onwards. The proportion that remained came under serious threat in the wake of the seventh-century Revolt against Heraclius. By the time of the Arab conquest it seems likely that the majority of people living in Palestine were Christian, Monophysite probably. You should also have a look at the Jewish Diaspora. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I poked into my library, & found a possible reference on population for this period -- J.C. Russell, "Late Ancient and Early Medieval Population", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 48 Part 3 (1958), pp. 88+ As for the form of Christianity in this area, don't underestimate the presence of Jerusalem, & other significant religious sites: there was enough interest from Constantinople & parts of Europe to encourage through money & favoritism the existence of a significant Orthodox/Catholic community. (I also would not be surprised if there still sizable pockets of pre-Nicean Christian groups, such as Ebionites.) -- llywrch (talk) 04:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at our article Palestine, particularly Early_demographics, which incompletely cites this paper by Sergio DellaPergola,"Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications" (PDF). see [2] for earlier version wi his email. Some of DellaPergola's publications listed at his university site [3] could be useful. Roberto Bachi Population of Israel, 1974 and Population Trends of World Jewry Jerusalem: Hebrew U., 1976 are (the?) standard works on the historical demography of Israel/Palestine, used along with a few others by SdP for his table used in Palestine. Don't have Bachi's books but there's also this book, America and the Founding of Israel: An Investigation of the Morality of America's Role, Fr. John W. Mulhall, (Christian, somewhat pro-Arab POV, but with an account based on Italian/Israeli demographer Bachi.) It's on the web [4] and particularly [5] section IV and V, except unfortunately for the notes, which IIRC go into more detail on this. Have the book but can't find it at the moment. The area had a Jewish majority until ca. 300 or earlier, the Romans didn't expel all Jews by any means. There was a slow, partially economic migration largely to Mesopotamia and conversions/intermarriage with Christians. Another group which was important then was the Samaritans numbering perhaps in the hundreds of thousands, but which repeatedly revolted unsuccessfully against the Romans/Byzatines, sometimes along with the Jews, and had a more serious demographic catastrophe. Mulhall: "During the sixth century Christians became the majority in Palestine. Arabs moved into it from surrounding areas" So "By 638 Palestine was perhaps only one-tenth Jewish." The not too numerous Arab conquerors didn't do much expelling; many saw them as a lighter hand than the Byzantines; they revoked the prohibition against Jews going to Jerusalem generally in force before. Estimates of the 100AD population vary widely, centering about 2.5- 3 million, while the population around 4-500 AD before wars and revolts was the highest it had been before the 20th century.John Z (talk) 05:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm mostly trying to make some sense of the Palestinian position that in returning to Palestine, Jews are in some way "stealing" Palestinian land. If Palestinians are Arabs, and if Arabs originate from the Arabian peninsula and only conquered Palestine in 640, I just don't understand how and why the Palestinian people have any logical basis with which to entirely reject the return of Jews to Palestine. Palestine being a land that only fell within Arab "Palestinian" hands due to a conquest that occurred only several centuries after most Jews were expelled by the Romans from a territory before there even existed a Palestinian people. But I suppose I'm just making trouble here by asking a question that actually challenges this great RefDesk's well established bias, and for that I apologize. A good pun would seem to be in order here, unfortunately I possess no doctorate in puns. 76.69.249.230 (talk) 03:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Frederick and Adolph

Frederick the great was one of Adolph Hitler's personal heroes, even having Thomas carlyle's biography of the Prussian king read to him in the final days of the Third Reich. But how close does he really correspond to the qualities hitler imbued in him of a german national hero? While I'm here is there any more information on the fate of Menzel's portrait of the king, last seen in Hitler's bunker in 1945? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.3.103 (talk) 18:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Frederick the Great was Adolph von Menzel's favourite historical subject, and Himmler gave Hitler one of Menzel's many portraits, Frederick the Great on a Trip, for the Fuehrer's 49th birthday in 1938. I can't tell you what happened to it, but it's less interesting than what happened to the remains of Frederick himself. After spending the Second World War in an underground mine for protection, they were liberated by the US Army in 1945, then travelled to Burg Hohenzollern, and in 1991 were finally buried (for the first time in accordance with Frederick's Will) with his greyhounds on a terrace at Sanssouci, "ohne Prunk, ohne Pomp, und bei Nacht". Xn4 22:09, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, to begin with, Frederick is better seen as a Prussian rather than a German hero. He was also a rationalist, an admirer of the French (it upset him to see them so easily routed at Rossbach), one who despised native German culture, thinking it impossible to create any worthwhile literature in the language. More than that, he was almost certainly a homosexual. So, not all that close to the Hitler ideal!

On your second question, 81.156, Hitler left instructions for Hans Baur, his pilot, to smuggle Menzel's portrait to a 'safe place in Bavaria.' Baur's attempt to break out of the Bunker failed. The fate of the painting is uncertain, but it was most likely destroyed at that time. Either that or it is hanging on the wall of some cottage deep in the Russian steppe! Clio the Muse (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Argument to the best explanation

What does Bertrand Russell mean by this exactly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jet Eldridge (talk • contribs) 18:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

You will find a discussion of this in his 1912 The Problems of Philosophy. It's his response to the sceptic argument, which says we can claim no knowledge beyond sense experience, to even think that physical objects exist at all. It goes further than that; for as Russell points out, from a pure sceptical perspective we ought not to think that there are other perceivers beyond ourselves. After all, if we cannot refute scepticism about objects, how are we to refute scepticism about other minds?

Russell offers the 'argument to the best explanation' as a way through this difficulty. It is simpler, he argues, to adopt the hypothesis that, first, there really are physical objects, and, second, that our perception corresponds to them in a reliable way. Clio the Muse (talk) 02:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like Inference to the best explanation. Llamabr (talk) 17:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

German Army - World War II

I was reading my father's WWII memoirs and came across the word "Fbak" which is used in the context of a German Army Unit in Greece in 1943. Can anyone tell me what the "Fbak" was? I have Googled it and got nowhere. Custodi (talk) 21:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

That'd be Flak, anti-aircraft guns. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:38, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, but I don't think that is correct. I will give the entire quote from the memoirs, which indicates a Unit of the German Army, perhaps Supply or Administrative. Saturday, September 11, 1943 "The Germans have arrived here to sequester our materiel. Several FBAK officers and military staff arrived in the morning to requisition our automatic weapons, the Fiat 1100, the Guzzi, and all the SPAs except one so that we could haul provisions." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Custodi (talk • contribs) 18:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Genealogy of Lucien Wolf

What is the genealogy of Lucien Wolf (born 1857 in London; died 1930)? What is his parents names? What is his Jewish name? I doubt Lucien Wolf (i.e., "Light Wolf") is his birth name. Thank you. Shearzar (talk) 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Lucien Wolf was his real name. He was the son of Edward Wolf, a London pipe manufacturer, and his wife Céline (born Redlich). Wolf's father was a Bohemian Jew who came to England after the trials and tribulations of 1848, his mother Viennese. Xn4 22:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Please provide reference. My google and yahoo searches did not verify your information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shearzar (talk • contribs) 03:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC) Shearzar (talk) 03:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Conjecture regarding this individual's Hebrew given name: "Lucien" may be a vernacular rendition of "Meir" (מאיר; who gives light), or otherwise any Hebrew or even Yiddish name with the initial letter L. -- Deborahjay (talk) 06:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Try this search[6] Julia Rossi (talk) 07:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

My search of the reference you provide does not mention Lucien Wolf's parents by name. 24.126.255.229 (talk) 15:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC) 24.126.255.229 (talk) 15:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

No trouble, Shearzar, see the article Wolf, Lucien (1857–1930), journalist and lobbyist by Mark Levene in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) and Levene's Jews and the new Europe: the diplomacy of Lucien Wolf, 1914–1919 (1992). Levene's sources include Lucien Wolf: a memoir by Cecil Roth in Essays in Jewish history by Lucien Wolf, ed. Roth (1934), pp. 1–34, and Lucien Wolf: a life, by David Mowschowitch, which is the draft of a biography of Wolf by one of his advisors, now in the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York (Mowschowitch collection). Xn4 10:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Since I am not a paying subscriber to the Online Oxford reference you directed me, I am still unable to verify the names of Lucien Wolf's parents. If it is a historical fact that Lucien Wolf's parent's names are Edward and Celine (born Redlich), please edit the Wikipedia article about Lucien Wolf to include those facts and provide references that can be substantiated by others. Thank you. 24.126.255.229 (talk) 15:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)24.126.255.229 (talk) 15:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The Online Jewish Encyclopedia article about Lucien Wolf (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=240&letter=W) does not mention his parents names. Shearzar (talk) 16:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I've edited the Lucien Wolf article and added the references to Levene. I can't add the Roth and Mowschowitch ones, as I have only Levene's citations of them. Xn4 19:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Jobs in Rural Areas

What would be a job that I could do on my own land? I have lots of forest and I'm in a rural area. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 23:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Lumberjack. --Major Bonkers (talk) 08:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Clear the land and plant crops? Dismas|^(talk) 13:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Carbon off-setting? Get guilt-ridden jet-setters to pay you money in return for not cutting down any of your trees. 89.213.79.245 (talk) 17:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Make charcoal. --Karenjc 19:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Forest preservation has it's attractions – you could connect with special interest (birds etc) and wildlife groups to see if your forest has special features – you could use these to invite others as visitors to appreciate them and charge entry fees. If you're interested in any area yourself, you can arrange guided tours, put special markers around, create walks – or make a wildly "hazardous" mini golf course; a camping ground? Artists' camps? Musicians' camps? Look into small business advice bureaus online. Julia Rossi (talk) 23:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Green graves,I remember an organisation once that allowed people to be buried without coffins by trees or with a sapling over them.The pagan rite of your choice could be held there.hotclaws 11:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Manage the woodland by coppicing and run workshops for people to learn about coppicing. They cut your wood, they pay to do it. You could have a team of working horses to shift the wood and also charge people to learn about managing working horses. Do all the other things mentioned as well. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you think you might get away with a nudist colony? --Major Bonkers (talk) 17:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Green woodworking [7]? See pole lathe and bodging. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

April 26

North Korean Opinion on Chinese Socialism since 1980s

Does anyone have quotes or speeches from the North Korean government, or Kim Jong Il, or Kim IL Sung expressing their opinion on Chinese socialism and the market reforms? Do they consider China socialist? --Gary123 (talk) 00:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Jong-il briefly discusses the issue in this speech, in which he proclaimed to Hu Jintao, "Touring various special economic zones making a great contribution to the socialist modernization drive with Chinese characteristics, we were more deeply moved by the Chinese people’s enterprising and persevering efforts and fruits born by them." --Bowlhover (talk) 01:59, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Southern star

For those who are confused by the following, this question refers to Advance Australia Fair. Gwinva (talk) 21:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

What is the "glorious southern star" that McCormick's 1879 lyrics refer to? Sirius? --Bowlhover (talk) 01:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Sirius is just as prominent in the Northern Hemisphere and not unique to the South. The Southern Cross and the two pointers, especially the very bright Alpha Centauri (one of the closest stars to Earth), are more likely as they are only visible in the south. Our Australian flag article says "The Southern Cross (or Crux) is one of the most distinctive constellations visible in the Southern Hemisphere and has been used to represent Australia and New Zealand since the early days of British settlement." However this 1879 lyric predates Federation and the current flag by two decades. New Zealand's national anthem has a "triple star" reference that is also unexplained. My guess is the stars in both aren't literal but are metaphors, despite AAF's lyrics being more of a simile (the country will "shine like our glorious southern star"). Perhaps "glorious southern constellation" was too difficult a rhyme. I'd say that perhaps the lyrics of both country's anthems have as much astronomical veracity as thay do artistic merit. What really baffles me is who Joyce is and why we are all enjoined to ring her in the first line Mhicaoidh (talk) 04:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Mhicaoidh, I'll never hear that the same way again. ; ) Julia Rossi (talk) 07:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

something to do with the eckcent I think : ) Mhicaoidh (talk) 07:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Presumably those who are old and married can't ring her (just the young and free). Gwinva (talk) 21:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I know nothing about the lyrical issues, but as to the astronomical one: Sirius is at declination -17° (to the nearest whole degree). It is therefore visible on a clear night at any time on any night (what is called circumpolar) from latitude south of 17°S; and some of the time from latitude 17°S to 73°N, with the amount of visibility decreasing as you go north. Alpha Centauri is at declination -61°; therefore it is circumpolar only south of latitude 61°S, and visible some of the time from 61°S to 29°N. Although Sirius is a southerly star for those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, Alpha Centuari is a much more southerly one. --Anonymous, at about 44°N, 00:37 UTC, April 27, 2008.

Interesting to note the current revised updated etc official version has a verse starting "Beneath our radiant Southern Cross..." Mhicaoidh (talk) 06:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Anynomous: that is not exactly true. For a circumpolar star, the complementary angle of the observer's latitude plus the complementary angle of the declination must be less than 90 degrees. The minimum altitude of a star is reached when the observer is opposite to it. At the time of minimum altitude, the observer sees the star across the south pole. If there is more than 90 degrees of latitudal distance between the star and the observer, the former cannot be seen.

Sirius, then, can only be circumpolar south of 73 degrees S (90-17). Alpha Centauri can only be circumpolar south of 29 degrees (90-61). The further south in declination a star is, the further north an observer on Earth can be for it to still be circumpolar. --Bowlhover (talk) 18:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

• Damn, you're right. Thanks for the correction. I should have drawn myself a diagram of the sky before posting, instead of one of the Earth; it's much easier to think about it that way. --Anonymous, 07:10 UTC, April 28.

By the way, why is there no mention at Advance Australia Fair of the traditional lyrics Brittannia then shall surely know,/Beyond wide ocean's roll,/Her sons in fair Australia's land/Still keep a British soul.? Republican POV pushing, perhaps?! Gwinva (talk) 21:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Since this seems to have been part of the original lyrics, I've added it to the article. --Bowlhover (talk) 23:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The "traditional lyrics" mentioned by Gwinva were not part of the original lyrics. They were a modification by Professor Stuart Blackie of Edinburgh.[8] The original wording was as shown in verse 4 at Advance Australia Fair#Original. To Bowlhover, you didn't add those words to the article. You duplicated verse 4 of the original lyrics as verse 5, which never existed, and changed the reference from the original 1879 lyrics to the 1900-1909 version. I've reverted the changes so the article is, once again, correct. The "Blackie" version is not shown in the article.

Addressing the original question, my grandfather corresponded with Peter Dodds McCormick, the composer of Advance Australia Fair. The original correspondence is now held in the National Library of Australia.[9] Although the correspondence doesn't mention what the "southern star" was, I remember being told as a child that Amicus had said that it referred to the Southern Cross, not an individual star.

Thanks, and sorry for the mistake. --Bowlhover (talk) 05:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Problem of Poverty

When and why did poverty cease to be a natural condition and become a social problem? Miranda Angel (talk) 04:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm…good question. I would guess that it came largely with industrialization and the urbanization that ensued. Poverty in rural societies can often be blamed on natural phenomena like crop failures, the weather, and so on. And the feudal system which upheld it was regarded as being divinely ordained from time immemorial. But when vast numbers of peasants began to move to the cities and work in factories, the exploitation of man by man became transparently obvious, and the new classes of capitalist and entrepreneur did not have the reinforcement of long centuries of tradition. Thus, the 19th Century saw new formulations of political theories which stressed the nature of social classes. Some of these philosopher economists called for a revolution (like Karl Marx) and others just wanted society to take on a more responsible and Christian approach to the newly dispossessed in the large slums of the city. It should be added however, that all three of the main monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – exhorted the faithful to charity towards the indigent, the orphaned and widowed, and the sick. Traditionally, these religions did not see such problems as essentially “social”, that is, typical of a class or social structure, and symptomatic of man’s oppression of man. Nevertheless, when such secular interpretations of society began to prevail, they gained considerable force from the altruism of these spiritual beliefs. Thus, the Christian Church had great influence in the abolition of slavery, and in the institution of welfare state ideals of social democracy.

If you wanted a “best fit” date, I would opt for somewhere about the 1870s, after the Paris Commune, the inauguration of the Working Men Unions, and the publication of Das Capital. Myles325a (talk) 06:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

When peasants did something about it? See Popular revolt in late medieval Europe, (addn) then, Peasant revolts for dates and Crisis of the Late Middle Ages. cheers, Julia Rossi (talk) 07:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

See also Origins of the Poor Law system. That just deals with England though; provisions for doing *something* with the poor (giving them free food, rounding them up and having them watch chariot races all day, or whatever) go back to at least ancient Rome. As long as there has been urban civilization, the poor have existed as a social problem. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know just how well Tacitus's famous comment about "bread & circuses" fits the definition of a poverty program. On one hand, its intent was not to stamp out poverty -- the bread dole & the entertainments were available to both rich & poor Romans alike -- but to keep an idle populace too busy to riot over the latest political scandal. On the other, in order to get a token for the bread dole, one had to deal with a government apparatus that operated through political influence and patronage: the average citizen needed the help of a patron in order to get this token, & if one had that kind of connection, she/he wasn't poor. The need for connections also meant the quite real possibility of abuse, so that some had more tokens than they were entitled to.

That said, Helping the poor because they were poor was not a new idea to the audience of the Christian gospels; empathy has been part of humanity as long as history has been recorded. I'm not sure anyone has looked at the history of the perception of poverty; it's only been within the last few generations that "real" historians have looked beyond the affairs of court, battlefield, and cathedrals. -- llywrch (talk) 20:33, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The answer is actually remarkably simple when you think about it, and when "poverty" is viewed more prosaically, for example as the near-fatal lack of food. Sometime in the nineteenth century communication and agricultural productivity had grown such that the world in general could always feed itself - if it wanted to. The extreme case is illustrative: prior to that period famine might occur because of a shortage of food due to climatic conditions, and an inability to transfer sufficient foodstuffs to the area in time. After that period, famine became a purchasing power problem, and thus depended strongly on the social and political system in place. The classic example is famine in India, where Amartya Sen has won the Nobel in economics for demonstrating that devastating famine in British India - especially in the 1890s, but also the horrific 1942 famine, which came because of wartime restrictions on food import and transportation - were not problems of production, but problems of distribution. A standard and well-accepted corollary is that famine since the mid-19th has only been found in oppressed societies. Cf India and China over the past 50 years.

Basically, there was once a time when extreme, life-threatening poverty was something nobody, even visionary ethicists in Tiberius' reign, could believe would never be with us. Sometime in the past few generations it has become possible to believe that the persistence of such poverty is a product of our social structure rather than mechanistic necessity. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Insert - hang on; the 1942 Indian famine was, fairly obviously, caused by the loss of Burma to the invading Japanese, it acting as a 'bread basket' to India. The lack of famine since Indian independence almost certainly has more to do with the 'Green revolution' than exceptionally sagacious politicians. --Major Bonkers (talk) 17:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Economists disagree with that on most counts. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The answer, Miranda, is that ceased to be a 'natural condition' when it became a matter of intellectual debate and then a subject of social policy. And the debate on the 'mischievous ambiguity of the word poor' really takes shape in the period between the late 1700s to the publication in England of the Poor Law Report. It was Edmund Burke who was among the first to raise the issue when he objected to the 'political canting language' of the expression 'labouring poor', thus highlighting the confusion between those who worked for their living, and were thus properly labouring people, and those who could not work, and were thus dependant on charity. For him the word 'poor' should really only be used in reference to the latter.

It was a standard later taken up by the poor law reformers, who aimed to end this ancient confusion for good and all. Pauperism and poverty would never be perceived in the same terms again. Both those who supported the Poor Law Amendment Act and those who opposed it, from Dickens to Disraeli, met in a battle where poverty, and all the things associated with poverty, were brought ever more directly into the public consciousness. In future it was no longer a case of the poor always being with us, but the manner in which they are with us. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the days of the week

Today is a Saturday because yesterday was a Friday. Yesterday was a Friday because the day before was a Thursday - and so on backward through the centuries. But at some point, the system must have had an arbitrary starting point - someone must have decided that some day was a Monday and future days would follow that order. When did this happen, and has the sequence ever been broken? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pyroclastic (talk • contribs) 06:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

calendar is a useful article to read along with days of the week. There have been and continue to be a wide variety of calendars in use around the world, the dominant one reflecting the hegemony of that century's (or millenium's) particular dominant culture . The continuity of our Western one has been "broken" from time to time through calendar reform and you would find gregorian calendar interesting Mhicaoidh (talk) 06:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Can vegans use bone china?

I never thought about it before, but recently read that up to 45% of the mass of fine bone china is ground ox bone, which is mixed with clay and other compounds. As vegans do not use dairy, honey, silk, or leather, I was wondering if they avoided such other products as crockery made from bone ash, with the ox of course being an especially holy animal in many parts of the world. And where does all that ox bone come from anyway? Google sources seem rather reticent on this. And why ox bone, when surely cow and sheep bones would be much more plentiful? Myles325a (talk) 06:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You've started something now, Myles. Speaking as a member of the food chain, would a vegan shake hands, ride horses, or maybe it's only "products" that count? Julia Rossi (talk) 06:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Shaking hands would definitely be fine; it's between consenting agents. Riding horses is probably not very vegan—using animals as beasts of burden and all. Anyway, it's clearly not an issue of just "products"—Veganism is meant to be a holistic philosophy, an approach to life. As for bone china, the answer sounds like no to me—they won't wear leather shoes, they sure won't like pottery made of bones. --75.36.41.18 (talk) 07:11, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

OP myles325 back here. Of course, we could just look up a Vegan website, but that would be cheating wouldn't it? Myles325a (talk) 03:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Moving companies sell lists of new addresses to marketers?

In a recent Popular Science article [10], it is mentioned that "moving companies sell lists of new addresses to marketers". How prevalent is this in the United States and elsewhere around the world? --203.10.47.15 (talk) 06:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

In the USA, the official government post office change-of-address process is funded and run by junk mail companies (famous Direct Marketing Association quote: "there is no such thing as junk mail, only junk people"), so there hardly seems any need for movers to get in on it. --Sean 16:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Women in American Politics

American women got the vote in 1920 but made almost no progress in breaking into political life in the period before World War 2. What were the reasons for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Watt (talk • contribs) 07:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

And they still haven't made much progress. Would be interested in the answers. WikiJedits (talk) 19:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The answer is really to be found, Linda, in the structures that support access to political life. Women may have got the vote in 1920 but there was still considerable residual prejudice and discrimination towards them in those very areas and professions, particularly the legal profession, which generally act as the ante-chamber to a political career. Although many women did in fact run for office in the United States in the inter-war period they most often lacked the backing of the major parties. If they did achieve such backing they often had oppose incumbents. Failing in such contests, as they most often did, made their re-endorsement all but impossible. The best most women could hope for from the major parties was to be adopted as auxiliaries, a kind of reserve army of political labour!

Times have changed a little, I think it only fair to add. In this regard I have to say that I am impressed always by the way history works, by her delightful and delicious sense of irony. It had to come that one day a woman would be a candidate for the most senior office in the land. It had to come one day that a black man would also become a candidate for the most senior office in the land. But for the Democrats to put forward a woman and a black man at the same time, now that really is something! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for that very interesting answer. Do you mind if I ask which of the two you support? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda Watt (talk • contribs) 05:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm English, Linda, and thus not allowed to make a choice over such matters! I can tell you who I support for Mayor of London, though. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Mugabe and Zimbabwe

I'm trying to make sense of what's happening at present in Zimbabwe. It would he helpful if one of you could recommend same background reading. I also have a number of general question that someone could perhaps help me with. What is it Mugabe wants? Why have elections at all if he simply refuses to give up power? Is there no possibility that he could be removed, either by an internal coup, or by external pressure? By what process has he brought Zimbabwe to its knees? I'm sorry, I know this is a lot to ask for. It's probably all a reflection on my mental confusion. Light on the darkness would be welcome! ZZT9 (talk) 11:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately our ZANU article shows clear signs of tendentious editing, so I cannot recommend it. When the first elections were held after the end of Rhodesia, Mugabe, who had emerged from the Rhodesian Bush War a hero to most Africans and many across the third world, became Prime Minister, and took a series of steps to placate the white minority, and protect their economic interests. Over time, however, a combination of emigration, absentee landlordism, declines in agricultural productivity, and bad economic policy caused the fact that a vast part of the wealth and land of the country remained in white hands to become a political problem that could not be avoided. Mugabe himself may have always intended a one-party state, though this is disputed by scholars; it seems certain that by the mid-1990s he did. The most relevant fact: he's had a hard life, and is 84 or something. He's almost certainly senile. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, here's an effort from Britannica that is several times better than anything we have at the moment. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The two most recent publications that may be of use to you, ZZT9, are Mugabe: Power, Plunder and the Struggle for Zimbabwe by Martin Meredith and The Day After Mugabe: Prospects for Change in Zimbabwe, a collection of papers edited by Guguletho Moyo and Mark Ashurst.

There is surely no fable more appropriate to the fate of Zimbabwe under the moronic Mugabe than that of The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs. In April 1980, as the country celebrated its independence, Mugabe was told by Julius Nyerere, President of nearby Tanzania, that he had inherited a jewel and that he should keep it that way. Well, he has cut the throat of the goose and thrown away the jewel; for what he wanted above all was power and then more power. It did not really matter how this was attained, even if it meant the wholesale destruction of a prosperous farming sector by 'war veterans'; even if it means forever dwelling on the supposed crimes of the colonial past, as the rest of Africa moves on and forward.

He will not be removed internally because the forces behind him, particularly those responsible for the Matabeleland Massacre, fear the future too much. He will not be removed by external pressure because Thabo Mbeki and the like have not sufficient determination to stand up to him, pandering to his old myths and illusions. In the end Mugabe seems to have proved one point and one point only-Ian Smith may have been right after all. Clio the Muse (talk) 02:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Smith right? About what?

You're quite wrong about the prosperity of the farming sector, actually. It had already begun to collapse in the mid 1990s. Few postcolonial nations can preserve agricultural productivity without extensive land reform, anyway. India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana: all have had to go through it. The only difference in Zimbabwe is that land ownership is divided along racial lines - the crimes of the colonial past are still very much in their present. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

ZZT9, I've adapted an answer I gave to a question on Western Imperialism, which appeared here last March. I think this might put things in a more general perspective for you. Regards. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Sub-Saharan Africa is a huge place, and there are indeed tragic examples where colonial history has had the direst of consequences, economically and politically: Mozambique and Angola spring to mind, countries all but destroyed by war and civil war. However, Africa is also a great continent, with a great and energetic people, badly served by its politicians. How long are we to forward the excuse of colonialism as a justification-and it has become a justification-for backwardness and the sheer failure of potential?

Take the example, if you will, of the Republic of Ireland, which had an experience of colonialism far older and of land expropriation far more severe than the least fortunate of the African colonies. Although free for almost a hundred years now it was dominated for decades after independence by a reactionary Church hierarchy. Despite this, its transformation over the past twenty years or so into one of the most dynamic of European economies and societies is especially worthy of note, particularly when the country possesses little in the way of natural resources. I wish I could see similar signs of renaissance and resurgence in Africa; but I can not.

There is a word in Swahili which explains the plight of Africa far better than outdated notions of imperialism: it is WaBenzi, meaning boss or, better still, big shot. The WaBenzi, the undeclared tribe which crosses all borders, is, in my estimation, by far the greatest of Africa's misfortunes. Take the example of Malawi. In 2000, following the death of Hastings Banda, the former dictatorial president, the British government increased aid to the country by some £20 million. The WaBenzi promptly celebrated by spending almost £2 million, yes, £2 million, on a fleet of 39 S-class Mercedes, in a country where the roads are hardly fit for carts. Take one more example. In 2002 Mwai Kibaki came to power in Kenya on an anti-corruption platform, announcing that Corruption will now cease as a way of life in Kenya. The very fist law passed by the new Parliament was to increase politicians' salaries by over 170%, to about £65,000pa ($125,000). Beyond this, each MP was awarded a package of allowances, including a grant of £23,600 to buy a duty free car, all in a country where the average per capita income is £210 ($406) per annum.

I could go on like this, but it's really too depressing. You will find all of the details of these examples and more in How African leaders spend our money, an article by Aidan Hartley, published in the London edition of The Spectator in June 2005. I have visited several African countries, and I love the people and the place. But we have to stop making excuses for failure, to stop draping history around the necks of Africans as a catch-all explanation for their perceived shortcomings. If Africa is to move forward we need to understand the real causes of failure; and these are far closer to home.

Much too much is made of the deleterious effects of imperialism in explaining the failure of many modern African states. India, Malaysia, and Singapore were all under British control, but this has not hampered the development of modern economies and mature political structures. In Africa imperialism has become a crutch, intended to explain and excuse failure. In many countries corruption has become the dominant mode of political exchange. Imperialism did not destroy Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe did. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Clio's analysis is indeed similar to several that have appeared in various sources over the past few years. While there is much truth in the stories of great corruption and even more in the tragic effects of AIDS, there are essential errors in most such comparisons, however; in the specific case of Zimbabwe, the problem is, as I said, one of the structure of land ownership. The relevant comparison should be not Ireland - in which vast tracts of the best land were no longer in the hands of frequently absentee Anglo-Irish landowners but Pakistan, where feudal overlords supported by the Raj were left control of their land in 1947, and as a consequence Pakistan has not been able to democratize and is, indeed, more corrupt than Zimbabwe. (A pattern replicated in miniature across the states of India, and indeed Malaysia and Indonesia.) And Clio's point about the Irish miracle is also true in this respect: if Europe were to admit Zimbabwe into the EU, what a miracle of growth would result! A fair price for their agricultural exports, and a destination for their unemployed and European capital... much as happened in Ireland throughout the 1980s.

More generally, it has been understood since Robert Bates' landmark study of African trading boards in the 1980s that the structures of imperialism persist and continue to stifle growth in sub-Saharan countries. In Zimbabwe it is land tenure and in West Africa the monopolistic cronyism of the great oil and coffee companies. This argument has been effectively expanded by the Turkish economist Daron Acemoglu in work that won him the John Bates Clark Medal: as well as such things can ever be demonstrated, he has shown that in places where the occupiers set up "extractive" economic and political institutions, growth has been disappointing; in places where they set up "supportive" institutions, growth has been good. This conclusion is broadly true, regardless of the location of the colony or the identity of the occupier. So it is, indeed, the case that the numbers indicate that the cold undead hand of imperialism stifles the best hopes of these people.

That does not mean that the arguments such as those in the Spectator will go away any time soon. It has always been a source of amusement to me that those who most subscribe to the persistence of institutions at home, and indeed sometimes revere them, are quickest to deny that institutions abroad have any real effect. --Relata refero (disp.) 23:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

A good war?

I need some help preparing for a school debate. The motion is Was the Second World War A Good War? I will be arguing against. If you can please help me with some details, arguments against the justice and effectivness of the British war effort. Was Churchill really all that he is made out to be? Please be as precise as possible. I love this page, I love how much some people seem to know. Yours sincerely, John Fitzgerald. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.161.146 (talk) 11:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear. Very difficult to argue that a war fought to defend your homeland from the Nazis wasn't a pretty decent war. Best to try something they aren't expecting. Reframe it in terms of the "world" part. Did, when Britain went to war, it have the right to declare war on behalf of the entire Empire and expose Australia to danger and India to revolt? --Relata refero (disp.) 13:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, Britain didn't declare war in 1939 on behalf of the whole Empire, as it was able to do in 1914. Canada, South Africa and New Zealand all made their own declarations of war, while in Australia Menzies somehow persuaded the Australians to go to war as a matter of imperial duty without actually declaring war. The lawyers had to cover up for this, later on. Xn4 13:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Tut, really? I knew there was some disputation in Australia, but I assumed it was because the G-G had happily informed everyone that they were off to defend Singapore tomorrow, pack a toothbrush. Turns out it was Menzies. The Menzies Virtual Museum says "Prime Minister Menzies declares that Australia is at war with Germany. This reflects the attitude of the majority of Australians who considered that Britain's declaration of war on Germany automatically committed Australia to the conflict in their desire to provide traditional support for Britain", which sounds to me like protesting too much. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The exact text of Menzies' speech is "Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war." Schmindependent. Anyway, still holds for India. Focus on that, and Roosevelt's commonly expressed view that Churchill's rabid imperialism was eating into the justice of the war effort. Your best shot. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

On the main issue, we've debated it before on this reference desk, and I remember putting the case that the Second World War certainly didn't achieve any of the war aims the British set out with, such as the defence of brave little Poland. By the end of the War, the Allies were able to persuade themselves that the Germans and the Japanese had been so wicked that it had been necessary to crush them, whatever the initial aims... the trouble with this is (1) that the worst wickednesses of the Axis powers were made possible by the War: hard to believe, for instance, that what we call the Holocaust could have happened under peace-time conditions; and (2) that Stalin and his thugs were no better than Hitler and his thugs, and leaving much of central and Eastern Europe under the domination of one or the other came to much the same thing. Churchill certainly took that view. you can also make the case that the British defeats in the Far East (in particular, the Battle of Singapore) led to an earlier end for the Empire than would otherwise have been the case, and that with more time the independence of India and Pakistan could have been more peaceful (there, you get into deep waters). Appeasement was an essential policy for buying time. With the benefit of hindsight, it's at least arguable that averting the War entirely, with such concessions as could have been bought, would have turned out better in the end. Xn4 13:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I second the "Oh, dear." You want specifics, but that is too much like doing your homework for you for me. I can suggest a tack: Great Britain capitulates under the Blitz. GB gets good terms, even better than the French got, because Hitler is scared to death of crossing the Channel, and Britain knows it. Germany gets to concentrate on the Bolsheviks and takes them out of the picture but gets seriously mauled doing it. Britain rises up against a weakened Germany (who still have no navy to speak of aside from the U-boats and who have lost their Fuhrer to assassination) when the US comes in, as they would have had to eventually, especially with Winston in Washington playing the gadfly the whole time. The Nazis capitulate because their now-sane leadership, perhaps headed by Doenitz, see that the light at the end of the tunnel is a train. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The barest assessment of World War II I've heard goes something like this: "If we didn't win, we'd all be speaking German now." My response is, what's wrong with speaking German? It seems to suit the Germans perfectly well. People cannot readily conceive of a radical change in their lives so they presume the status quo must be preferable. This is folly. "Man will even get used to the gallows." Vranak (talk) 14:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The way to win this argument either way is to be the one to define what "good" means. You could argue that it was avoidable. You could argue that bad things happened to the world because of it (Cold War, Berlin Wall). "Good" is such a vague word. Make it mean what you need it to mean. "If 'good' means "brought peace to the world", then WWII was not a good war because..." "If 'good' means "it was a war which we had no choice but to fight", then WWII was not good because we should have seen what was coming and stopped it before it got out of hand, etc. etc. Wrad (talk) 15:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You could also argue point of view. WWII was a great war for Communism. China, Russia, Eastern Europe...to them it was a good war. To the Jews was it a good war? If you asked anyone from that time period, I doubt they'd say "Oh, that was such a wonderful time to live! It was such a good war. Everyone loved it! We all cried when it was over because we just couldn't bear to see it go." Yeah right. Wrad (talk) 15:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's much doubt that the Allies fought (on the whole) a decent war, if war can be decent. The question John Fitzgerald has to debate is whether it was a Good War, and that's rather different. Xn4 15:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course. They won and they were defending themselves. That makes it as good as it can be. Still, though, if you want to argue the "good" point, get control of the word's meaning within the debate, and you've won. Wrad (talk) 17:11, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Bombing of Dresden in World War II What is a good war? -- Ironmandius (talk) 16:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Right. That's what Wrad said. I was wondering that myself: what is a good war? I answered myself, "A good war is one that is in the best interests of the country in question." Was WWII worth the expenditure of life and treasure it cost the UK in terms of the outcome? Was there another way to achieve an equivalent result, or was there a different conceivable outcome undesirable on the face of it that would have yet been preferable to the slaughter and destruction the war wrought in Britain and its empire? I want in on this debate, dammit. --Milkbreath (talk) 17:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The bottom line here is that human deaths in the millions are not regarded as acceptable, even tolerable to today's PC society. One is usually too many -- the international response to the execution of Saddam Hussein was widely condemnatory. Laymen who take a non-historical look back at the past judge things by today's standards of right and wrong, good and bad. In the 40s, knowledge of the concentration camps was limited. If it wasn't, can we presume the average citizen of an Allied nation would have cared? We would like to think so, but who knows... Vranak (talk) 18:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Nien, ist war nicht ein gutten strum. -Arch dude (talk) 18:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The concept the OP is debating seems more closely allied to the ancient concept of the Just War -- our article on this is useful. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:58, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The argument "WWII was NOT a Good War" does not necessarily imply that the expansion of the Third Reich and its barbarity - after they had occurred - should not have been countered by military measures. As such, it qualifies as a Just war (see Brainy Babe above).

It may be argued in this context that Hitler´s´rise to power was far from irresistible, it may be argued that a great many diplomatic / economic measures were missed or severely fumbled by other European powers in deescalating the emerging problem.

I am not a historian (and rather naive, to boot), but I fail to comprehend (inter many alia) why Germany was allowed to embark on a massive program of rearmament. Please correct me if I am wrong, but the Stresa Front, the annexation of Austria or the Munich Agreement seem to be pitiful examples of chances which were poorly handled .

It may be argued that WWII could have been avoided (or could have been a pre-emptive strike against the nascent German Reich), had the actors on the political stage shown more determination. To call an avoidable war which cost the lives of 60 million people a "Bad War" must remain a reasonable argument.

On the other hand, without WWII many on this desk - including me - would not have been conceived and would not have been born. Whether tis alone makes it a Good War, however, is questionable.

--Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

One could argue that it was better to defeat Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo than to let them divide the post-war world into spheres of occupation pending a nuclear WW3 between East and West. But it was a war that began very badly, with appeasement by Chamberlain when Hitler's despotism could have been nipped in the bud by encouraging the anti Hitler plotters in Germany, and that ended badly with the holocaust, terror bombing by firebombs and nukes by the allies and Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, and the failure (like after WW1) to implement the grand pledges of freedom in the postwar world, with the denial of self-determination in the colonies resulting in more decades of conflict. Edison (talk) 19:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I think if I were John Fitzgerald (the OP), I shouldn't introduce the Just War arguments into the debate myself, but hold them in reserve and hope they wouldn't become too central, because it seems to me more arguable that WWII was a just war than that it was a good war. If JF agrees to argue 'good war' by reference to 'just war', then that seems to set hares running. Surely better (as Wrad says) to define 'good' in terms which help the case, which will I think be different from just. Xn4 19:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, John, how wonderful; you have fallen on the right side of the debate; I envy you so much. You can safely ignore the discouraging 'oh dears', the suggestion that your argument will have to be based on dubious grounds. You will understand why by the time I have finished. I assume you know your opponents? Well, if so, you might just drop a hint that you’re having trouble working up an effective rebuttal to notions of a 'just' war, because the chances are that they will fall back on this sophistry as the main prop of their argument! Your strength is to dismiss abstractions, with all of the force you can muster; to focus always on specifics. Demolish them with cases, John, demolish them with examples!

Anyway, put out of your mind the suggestion that we were fighting to defend our homeland from the Nazis; we were not, not by any measure. We declared war on Germany; Germany did not declare on war on us! We declared war for what? For Poland, for the freedom of Poland? I'm now finding it difficult to stop myself from laughing! Xn4 has given you some useful hints. Appeasement was not just a good policy: it was an essential policy. More than that, it would have been far better, in every respect, not to have gone to war in the first place. In July 1940, in what he called his ‘final appeal to reason’, Hitler called for an end to the conflict;

The continuation of this war will only end with the complete destruction of one of the two warring parties...I see no reason that should compel us to continue this war.

He was wrong about one thing: the continuation of the war brought the complete destruction of one of the parties, yes, but it also brought the near destruction of the other. The roller-coaster ride I am about to take you on is based, for the most part, on my reading of Homan Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization by Nicholson Barker, which I have not long finished. If you have the time dip into it. Be ruthless: use the index!

So, was the Second World War a 'good' war, understanding good to mean that it brought some benefit to those who needed help? The answer is not at all obvious, is it? Think of our leadership, think of the adventurism of Churchill, the tyrant of the glittering phrase. Soon after hearing of Hitler's 1940 peace offer Frances Partridge wrote in her diary "It's too tantalising since there's no shadow of a doubt we will reject any such suggestion. Now I suppose Churchill will again tell the world that we are going to die on the hills and the seas, and then we shall proceed to do so." A pretty accurate prediction, don't you think?

The problem with Churchill was that he was the eternal schoolboy caught up in the excitement of the battle, a man with little or no long-term vision; no understanding of the political consequences of fighting on the beaches and the landing grounds, in this place and in that; no understanding of the consequences for his country or its Empire of unrestrained and prolonged conflict. In 1945 he had heaps of moral authority. The trouble is he had almost nothing else; an Adam without the fig-leaf. Oh, sorry, he did have something else: he was also the chief architect of imperial deconstruction, rather ironic when one considers his past history! Break through the circles of his rhetoric and the picture that emerges is not particularly uplifting.

What Churchill was really interested in was not an 'anti-Fascist' crusade; for it is doubtful that he ever really understood the nature of Fascism, a concept altogether too modern; he certainly never saw any fault in Mussolini, or danger in Japan. He wanted a scrap with Germany; that's it. His scrap, moreover, was not, by and large, with German soldiers but with German civilians, waged with the ruthless weapons of blockade and bombardment, bombardment increasingly delivered without any degree of moral restraint. After all, if the Nazis were bad, why should we not be worse? As the civilian populations, swollen by refugees, of Poland, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands faced starvation, Churchill refused to let food aid through the Navy's blockade of Europe. In justification he told Parliament in 1941 that the enemy would use fats to make bombs, potatoes to make fuel and that 'the plastic materials now so largely used in the construction of aircraft are made of milk.' Yes, he did! In October of that year Herbert Hoover asked;

Is the Allied cause any further advanced today because of the starvation of children? Are Hitler’s armies any less victorious than if those children had been saved? Are Britain's children better fed today because these millions of former allied children have been hungry or died? Can you point to one benefit that has been gained from this holocaust?

There is, of course, no answer. Nor is there any answer, when one thinks about it, to the effectiveness, or the desirability, of the bombardment. In 1941 it was estimated that only one in five British bombers was dropping their payload within seventy-five miles of their designated targets. Because of this targets were deliberately selected so that, even if the aircraft missed, there would be a 'bonus' in civilian deaths, and thus the weapons would not be wasted. But even this brought no discernable benefits, either in the dislocation of production or the collapse of morale. So what was needed? Why, more and bigger bombs; more and more dead civilians. Neither Churchill, nor Bomber Harris nor anyone else in the British command seems to have considered just exactly what impact the German Blitz on Britain had.

Be ready for the argument, John, that the war was fought to prevent the persecution of the Jews. It was not. Churchill showed almost no interest in the German persecution. More seriously, the twin weapons of blockade and bombardment impacted most severely on Jewish people; for as rations reduced everywhere they reduced even more severely in the ghettos; as the bombing took hold it was Jewish families who were among the first to be evicted to make way for those whose home had been destroyed. Indeed, the Final Solution itself was in every respect one of the direct consequences of the Second World War. It is inconceivable, in other words, it its absence.

So, we fought to destroy Hitler and lost all perspective in the process. Yes, he was a tyrant. Yes, he was a butcher. But we fought alongside a man who was no less tyrannical, no less of a butcher and, in the end, no less of an anti-Semite. At huge cost, both human and material, we fought to free Poland from Hitler...only to give it to Stalin.

Watch you pacing; breath carefully; take note of your timing, aim slowly, aim carefully. You'll demolish them! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

CLIO I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!!!! J Fitzgerald 12:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by John Fitzgerald II (talk • contribs)

Aww, shucks! Use 'we' if you like, John; it will serve to give your argument greater power and immediacy! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

But please don't say "we" unless you are actually old enough to have been alive at the time! (unless you feel that you contributed by having been present as a twinkle in a forefather's eye) SaundersW (talk) 13:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

How about deaths that occurred because information from the Enigma project could not be released?hotclaws 12:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Economy and voting in Canada

In Canada and its provinces, does the economic cycle affect the outcome of elections? Are particular parties, or the incumbent, more or less likely to be elected during or immediately after a recession? NeonMerlin 11:50, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You could start with Canadian federal election results since 1867 and then compare Economic history of Canada. WikiJedits (talk) 19:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Postage stamp value

I have a few stamps, and I can’t seem to figure out how much they’re worth. They don’t seem to say on it, but don’t look like the first class forever stamps described in Non-denominated postage. I found a picture of one, http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/US/01/08/postagerate.hike.ap/storyvert.stamp.ap.jpg. Can anybody tell me what it’s value is? Thanks! 130.127.186.122 (talk) 12:04, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an American, but from what I can find, the value of this stamp in 2005 was $0.39.[11]. The value of the stamp was raised by $0.02 between then, but that shouldn't matter. Since 1861, the law has been that, if a stamp has no postage price indicated, it is postally worth the purchase price, so that would be $0.39. PeterSymonds | talk 12:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure? In the UK, if a stamp says "1st" or "2nd" on its face, its value always matches the current price of first class or second class postage, as the case may be: so its value can change. Xn4 13:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The picture you link seems to be from this CNN article, the caption to the picture being "New first-class and U.S. non-denominated 39-cent stamp." From the US Postal service site (usps.gov), we can indeed confirm that the stamp is valued at 39 cents (Quick Service Guide 604a, Basic Standards for All Mailing Services, Nondenominated Postage) -- 128.104.112.85 (talk) 16:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The U.S. postal system has had numerous rate increases over the years. Sometimes they expect the rates to go up but do not have final authorization for and determination of the higher rate, so the have left it off the new stamps, creating years of confucion when someone finds some of the non-denominated stamps. They latest move was to makr them "USA First Class Forever"" meaning that even if they cost 41 cents they will carry your 99 cent first class letter a few years later. It also provides a bit of pat-on-the-back affirmation to a country badly needing it. Edison (talk) 19:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

superstition

What does Islam say about superstition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.22 (talk) 14:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

If you accept a priori that there is some difference between religion and superstition then, well, Islam's stand on superstition is strongly disapproving. (If you don't, read that sentence as saying "Islam's stand on other supersitions...".) The great Alberuni, for example, was the first to clearly delineate what was the province of astronomy and what was that of astrology, and explicitly based his refutation of astrology on its lack of rationality, which he believed conflicted with Islamic precepts. The more restrictive schools of Islam view syncretic traditions within Islam, such as the veneration of saints called pirs and the celebration of Milad-un-Nabi, Mohammed's birthday, as "superstition". The word is loaded with negative baggage as Islam itself is portrayed as being born in reaction to the superstition in which the Arabs were sunk during Mohammed's lifetime. Of course, there's also this, which tends to undercut that slightly. --Relata refero (disp.) 15:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Grammatical Revolutionary-War question

I've been deliberating as to whether or not this belongs here or at the Language reference desk, but I figured that this has to do with connotation, not definition.

Q: Why is it that the battles won by the minutemen in the Revolutionary War use the preposition "of," and the battles lost by the minutemen use the preposition "at"? (e.g., Battle at Guilford Court House [lost], Battle of Yorktown [won], Battle at Charleston [lost], Battle of Cowpens [won], Battle of King's Mountain [won], Battle at Savannah [lost], Battle of Vincennes [won], etc.) Does it have to do with some obscure, undefined implication I'm unaware of? Also, now that I've linked them, I could further ask why the battles in which the minutemen were defeated lack articles of their own. --^LaPianísta! 14:51, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The redlinks in your question seems to indicate that Wikipedia uses the "of" construction either way. See Battle of Guilford Court House, Battle of Charleston and Battle of Savannah. APL (talk) 17:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah. So then, a better question would be why my stupid history textbook insists on the opposite. --^LaPianísta! 20:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Precisely because it is a stupid textbook? Clio the Muse (talk) 02:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha, agreed; thanks for your help. ;-) --^LaPianísta! 22:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Violence against women

What does Islam say about violence against women and girls? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.22 (talk) 15:00, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You'd best read Women and Islam for that question. --^LaPianísta! 15:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

"Islam" doesn't have one opinion regarding women (or violence against them in particular). There are a large number of muslims in the world and their values/beliefs vary quite vastly. On the one extreme you have fairly progresive types of belief (see this [12]) and on the other extreme, you have some fundamentalists who practise such things as honour killings (which in some cases are the result of a sexual assault upon the victim).Zain Ebrahim (talk) 16:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

We have more specific articles. Check out Islam and domestic violence, which is not especially great but has useful references for further reading, and Islamic feminism, which includes many names. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Assisted reproductive technology

What does Islam say about A.R.T.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.30.202.22 (talk) 15:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Islam is not a monolithic entity. For these and other questions, it may be best to refer to a few Imams and ask them in person their interpretation. (Is that the correct plural?) Ironmandius (talk) 16:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like [13].

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 17:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, technically it's "a'immat". Adam Bishop (talk) 18:30, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

One position is given in this fatwa. Algebraist 17:41, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You might try Bioethics#Muslim_bioethics for a list of readings to start with. BrainyBabe (talk) 18:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

friend or enemy

Is there a compiled list of things which typically or actually made a ruler of a conquered land a friend or enemy of Rome? 71.100.11.39 (talk) 18:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Foreign rulers were perceived as friendly or hostile to Rome for a number of reasons, which included actual or perceived acts -- or the usual rationalizations that allowed that city to either declare war -- or evade the issue. I mention the later because John Rich makes the interesting observation in his "Fear, greed and glory: the causes of Roman war-making in the middle Republic" (in War and society in the Roman World, ed. John Rich and Graham Shipley [Routledge, 1993]) that despite the Roman's well-deserved reputation for being eager to wage war, that there were occasions when various elites within Rome found good reason not to go to war. One reason being that, the glory for defeating an enemy of Rome might give a political opponent an undesired advantage. So the answer is no. -- llywrch (talk) 19:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Somehow I find it odd that no scholar has ever compiled a list of conditions be they common or atypical under which a decision was made by Rome to execute a conquered ruler or to let a conquered ruler live if for no other reason that as a guide for its governors. For instance, refusing to renounce all but the Sun God as Divine seems to be one of the first conditions that might be put on such a list. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 01:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Such matters are determined by political considerations, and by political considerations only. These will always vary according to circumstances, and cannot be subject to any form of calculus. The Roman Empire expanded by a mixture of pragmatism and opportunism. If it had proceeded in the fashion you suggest I doubt it would have got much beyond the banks of the Tiber. Clio the Muse (talk) 02:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Even political considerations have a tendency to consist of more then one independent variable. I can list a ton of things I need to do and avoid doing to keep my boss happy, all with several variables that must be weighed. Certainly a Roman governor would have a list of things to do and not to do to keep Caesar happy, including who to execute and who not to execute following a military campaign. Even political considerations have rules. For instance, I might want to offer a new client a piece of the bosses' candy but then I might also need to taste test it first to be sure I can recommend it to the client. A political consideration rule might be to forget the candy unless the client is wealthy or forget the candy if the client is overweight. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 05:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are absolutely right, 71.100, but in saying this you are perhaps beginning to understand the impossibility, or impracticality, of producing the kind of historical calculus that you originally set out in search of. Just think: how many governors, how many emperors, how many provinces, over how many hundreds of years? The number of variables one would have to take into consideration would be simply enormous. Yes, I suppose you could set out to accumulate such evidence, as if you were piecing together an explanatory mosaic. I suspect this might very well be a task that would fascinate Jorge Luis Borges, providing a possible theme for one of his inspired 'fictions'; because, at the end of your labours, you may very well discover that you have written a complete history of the Roman Empire! Clio the Muse (talk) 23:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier. 11.139, what you ask is why the tools of analytical political science have not yet been applied to the history of the Roman Empire. Give historians time! They are slow to incorporate tools that have become common in other related fields. Some small, limited efforts have been made to systematize the Roman approach. This might be difficult to do in the long run, partly because our information on the period has crucial gaps - who was a a client of whom? Analysis of the kind you wish to see, and as carried out in a similar context here may never be possible. That does not mean that in the next decade or so, someone will not attempt it. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Logical Atomism

Clio the Muse, please do you know the key to the method of logical atomism in Russell's philosophy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jet Eldridge (talk • contribs) 19:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The reference desk is for public queries. If you wish to address one editor, please write on her talkpage. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Haha, yes it just makes us mediocre contributers to the reference desk feel bad. Yours, Lord Foppington (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

See logical atomism. Gandalf61 (talk) 20:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The key, J E, lies in his assertion that logic is the essence of philosophy, where logic is taken to mean mathematical logic. Its importance is that it provides the means of effecting powerful and philosophically revealing analyses of structures, most particularly, the related structures of propositions and facts. Have a look at Logic as the Essence of Philosophy. Happy reading! Clio the Muse (talk) 02:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Proportion of the world with a high school diploma

 Done

Can Anyone give me an estimate of what percentage of the world has completed secondary education? With a good source of course. --Ybbor^Talk 21:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I deleted my earlier answers, as they were only for current enrollment. This site, from the World Bank, looks like it has the answer. From what I understood from Table Three, it would be 27.8% of adults aged 25 and over. AlexiusHoratius (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much :) --Ybbor^Talk 22:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

April 27

Schooling in America

Does education in the US proceed with first reading, writing and arithmetic (elementary schools) followed by introduction to significant topics with each year going a bit deeper into the topic (grade school) followed by even greater depth, basic expansion and introduction to preparation for a trade or for higher learning (junior high) followed by even greater depth and expansion of trades or preparation for higher learning (high school) followed by even greater depth and specialization of a trade or higher learning (Junior college or tech school) followed by higher learning (college) followed by graduate and post-graduate studies (University) or is there some other basis for year to year progress through the educational system? 71.100.11.39 (talk) 01:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessarily call that the most accurate description. If all you're wondering is whether you have the names right, you generally do (though most schools I know don't differentiate between "elementary" and "grade" school. The notion of progression is there--it could hardly fail to be in any schooling system...I cannot conceive of a real life school system that taught students advanced subjects first and gradually worked down to basic skills like literacy and addition. But your chain of events seems to suggest that one is gradually prepared for a specific trade, and that kind of vocational focus is rare in schools below high school in the U.S. Honestly, even in high school, vocational classes (depending on the school) are at best a small portion of the degree--most of us still hold to the "comprehensive school" model that believes all students should be given a background in a wide spread of subject areas, so as not to limit student career choices post-high school. It is fair to say that junior colleges are more focused on vocational instruction, and that college and beyond continues that instruction, but the system is not quite as carefully constructed and linear as you envision.

If you're wondering how someone "progresses" year to year, generally it's due to age--one year older equals one grade higher. Yes, generally you work on more advanced stuff as each year goes by, but a student can easily take French one year, skip that class for a year or two and then return to the language. Prerequisites (in high school and above) are designed to make sure students take courses that prepare them for more advanced classes before they can enroll in those advanced classes, but in practice it is not at all strange for a student to intentionally, say, take a "tough" junior year followed by an "easy" senior year, merely by adjusting the classes they wish to choose. I'm sure others will have their own perspectives, but that's the way it looks in a reasonably wealthy school district in the Pacific Northwest, according to a high school teacher of history and literature. :-) Yours truly, User:Jwrosenzweig editing as 71.231.197.110 (talk) 06:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The main reason I'm asking is that when statistical results of a study were recently presented to me that at first I was lost owing to the good number of years since I was deep into the subject but now that I have revisited the subject my comprehension seems to be ten fold what it was since I last cracked a book. I know a lot has to do with the new tools the Internet provides along with software like MathCad but it is still like the time in between has allowed me to subconsciously digest the material such that my comprehension can be so much better now. I'm wondering if getting all of the basics down in the 5th grade might not be better for full comprehension in the 10th versus one piece one year and another piece the next year resulting in still incomplete comprehension by the 12th. In other words is there a fixed curriculum for each grade everywhere that builds on the previous year or just haphazard pieces presented in a haphazard fashion just to fill the years. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 06:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

In most school systems, mathematics is taught in a cumulative way, for convenience. It certainly is easier to teach someone advanced statistics if they already know lots about arithmetic and algebra. In theory is is possible to completely change the order of topics so that topics that are usually considered difficult come first and those usually considered easy come afterwards. But it would require a lot of ingenuity on the part of teachers and for most students it would not give any advantages. I think you found your comprehension much better when you came returned to statistics after some years for a combination of reasons. Many adults returning to study find the topics much easier the second time round and wonder why they found them so difficult the first time. As an adult learner you are not under any pressure to compare yourself with others in the class, so you are not pre-programmed to fail. You are more used to reading texts and so you can understand the phrases in the textbook more easily. When it comes to calculations, you can see that they are done for a purpose and not just as an abstract exercise. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Truth

Does the truth have to be honest? For example if someone passed by me while I had my eyes closed. And then someone else came and asked, "did you see anyone pass here?" And I said, no. Is that the truth or honest? 99.226.39.245 (talk) 03:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I cannot follow your logic. If you did not see you did not see! Your truth is relative...and honest. Clio the Muse (talk) 03:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There's the literal question and the implied question. You decided to answer the literal one which, as Clio says, is true for you. You might like our article Casuistry. Julia Rossi (talk) 05:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's say for instance that the person asking the question is a detective. Most likely he would ask "Did anyone pass?" with further questioning if he sensed any deception. In the case of criminal pursuit an answer perceived to be deceptive might result in your being held as an accessory. So, yes, under some circumstances you may not have been completely truthful even though you were quite honest about the facts. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 06:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd argue that this is why the courts (in the U.S. at least) demand that witnesses swear not only to tell "the truth" but "the whole truth". Your answer of "no" is the truth, but not the whole truth--saying "no, I had my eyes closed" would meet that standard, I think. User:Jwrosenzweig editing as 71.231.197.110 (talk) 06:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

This would amount to lying by omission, especially if you knew someone did pass. --Sgt. Salt (talk) 06:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

But it might be the whole truth if 99 had no sensory awareness that anyone had passed by. The above answers seem to assume that even though 99's eyes were closed, he/she was still aware that someone had passed by, maybe because he/she heard them, felt a slight breeze, or smelled something different - or was later told that someone had passed by. None of things may be the case. -- JackofOz (talk) 07:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

99 would probably not be asking the question if 99 were completely unaware that someone had passed when 99's eyes were closed. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 14:22, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The answer is "Yes" or "No"; "I believe so", "I don't think so", or "I don't know" for uncertainties. Vranak (talk) 08:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There are two types of truth. We'll call them absolute and relative. An absolute truth is something which is true regardless of whether people know it or not. For example, it is true that someone walked by you, whether you saw them or not. By this definition, your saying no one passed you is a lie. A relative truth is whatever you think the truth is. Since you didn't see anyone walk by, you can honestly think no one did and honestly say they didn't. It all depends on what your definition is. Wrad (talk) 17:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You may find the concept of Sophism worth researching. Although you may find the Wikipedia article insufficient, it contains references to some more works you may find more useful. -- llywrch (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Alas, there would seem to be far too many lawyers, or would be lawyers, here and not nearly enough philosophers! Clio the Muse (talk) 23:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, my philosophy is that there are absolute truths that you can know about. I know that many philosophies think otherwise, but other people can explain those! Wrad (talk) 23:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Methinks that too many follow the word but not the spirit. FromFoamsToWaves (talk) 23:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Therefore I will try a philosophic evaluation of all answers. I don't know how to defend an "I don't know" response—you don't know if you saw someone? Of course you know if you saw someone or not. Was it a hallucination maybe? If your eyes were closed, the truthful answer is "no". You did not see anyone because you saw nothing. If you say "yes", you are lying. Imagine a follow-up question: were they wearing a red shirt? You can only say "I don't know" because you lied and you didn't actually see the person. HYENASTE 23:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Why are we all assuming that "Yes", "No", or "I don't know" are all that someone can say? "I wouldn't know for sure: my eyes were closed." is a perfectly reasonable answer. If this is a philosophical dilemma in which yes and no are the only responses, then maybe we have to play games with words, but given access to the wider range of reasonable responses, I see no reason why this poses us a challenge. 71.231.197.110 (talk) 05:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Tried that, closed my eyes, fell over, and some passer by tripped over me.--Artjo (talk) 06:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I may just risk a final statement here. I read the question as a philosophical paradox on the nature of truth itself; of truth in its relative and in its absolute form. There are certain truths that can only ever be relative, given the limits of perception. If you did not see you did not see; that's it; that is the only possible answer. What can be seen from the eye of God, or in the eye of another, is quite immaterial. Everything beyond 'I did not see' is verbiage; or in philosophical terms, it is nonsense. Let me make 99.226's question more specific, and then perhaps the lawyers among you will understand. 'Did you see Hannibal ride past on an elephant?' Now, do you still think 'I wouldn't know for sure: my eyes were closed' was a perfectly reasonable answer?! Ah, well, I suppose some of you may very well, but I would simply ask the others to remember always the admonition of Ludwig Wittgenstein-Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. (Or was their really a hippopotamus in Russell's rooms at Cambridge?!) Clio the Muse (talk) 22:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Seems you've departed from your initial answer, Clio. I read it as saying that if 99.226.39.245 said "no", that would be an honest response. Now, you're saying that any response other than "I did not see" would be inappropriate. May I take it that your most recent post is the operative one? -- JackofOz (talk) 16:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Not really; the position remains the same: if you did not see you did not see. What happens beyond the field of your perception is irrelevant. It matters not if you were passed by Hannibal Barca...or Hannibal Lecter! In this particular context 'I did not see' and 'no' are effectively the same; as responses both are true, just as both are honest. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

emperor maro

Hi folks, Titus Flavius Vespasianus became emperor Vespasian of the Flavian dynasty, meanwhile (actually a bit earlier), Publius Vergilius Maro just became Virgil. Does that mean if Virgil had been an emperor instead he would have been emperor Maro of the Vergilian dynasty? t.i.a. 203.221.126.232 (talk) 04:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, three emperors were named "Titus Flavius"; one was Titus Flavius Domitianus (Domitian), and two were Titus Flavius Vespasianus (Vespasian and Titus). We distinguish them so it is less confusing but I don't think contemporaries called them by different names. Virgil was always known as Virgil (well...sometimes he was called Maro, although maybe that is just a medieval thing). Adam Bishop (talk) 04:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It is a trait of the Eighteenth Century too:

'Twas such as these the Rural Maro sung

To the full Roman Court, in all it's height

Of Elegance and Taste. The sacred Plow

Employ'd the Kings and Fathers of Mankind,

In antient Times.

James Thomson, 'Spring' (1728) ll.55-57.

Lord Foppington (talk) 09:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Prison violence

There doesn't seem to be any summary of violence in prisons in Wikipedia... There's an article on prison rape, but nothing on other forms of violence, e.g. murder, and not even a mention in the main article on prisons. I myself do not know anything about the subject, so what's the best way to help? --Sgt. Salt (talk) 06:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The best way, Sgt. Salt, would to do some basic research, if you are so minded, and then either add the information you manage to uncover to the existing prisons article, or perhaps write an independent piece, if you feel this is warranted. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:16, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

When I discovered that the coverage of topics about Ethiopia was unsatisfactory, my solution was to ... research the subject. It's been a long process, & I'm still not finished learning enough to write satisfactory articles (although I'm at the point now where I can seriously think about bringing some of them to FA status like the Battle of Adwa), but it's a useful side-effect of writing for Wikipedia: you learn something, even if they are things you cannot use in a Wikipedia article. (BTW, it appears that no one has written an article about the history of prisons, another subject worth writing about.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I endorse the comments above, Sgt Salt, and add my own encouragement. My major contributions to WP have been to subjects I have looked for and not found, rather than those in which I have an existing expertise or knowledge. It is extremely rewarding and satisfying to produce a well-researched article and, as Llywrch says, you learn all sorts of things along the way. How to go about it? If you feel there is enough information to warrant a separate page, then start with the basic outline, and plug in more information as you come across it. You might prefer to start the article in your own userspace first; then you can tinker away at your own speed, without feeling that the eyes of the world are on you. (See User pages.) It can be moved or copied to mainspace when you are ready. Of course, you can also start directly in mainspace. The main thing is to find good sources. Google searches are quite good, but the majority of stuff on the internet fails WP:Reliable sources, so hunt out journal articles, reference sites and so forth rather than forums and general sites. Visit your library: some of the best and most reliable resources are only available in hardcopy (academics and researchers tend to publish their studies; it's how they make their living). Check out WP:CITE: it is good practice to provide inline citations as you go; good articles require citations, and anything uncited can be challenged or removed later, and it is much harder to go back and prove something you knew you read somewhere... Above all, enjoy it! Forgive me if I've repeated basics you already know. If you need further advice or help, then most regular editors here are happy to help (you can certainly contact me on my talk page). You can also check out related WikiProjects, which offer support, resources, peer reviews, assessment and so forth. Wikipedia:WikiProject Criminal justice seems to be inactive, but Wikipedia:WikiProject Law should be a good starting point. Gwinva (talk) 22:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I'm sure researching something I know next to nothing about would be interesting, but due to limited free time I have to restrict myself to researching points of detail. In fact the dilemma I was facing was that I checked WP to have a quick overview of violence in prisons, but didn't have time to delve into such a broad subject. So I wondered if there was a place to report that kind of blatant omission so that people knowledgeable on the subject or who simply happen to be interested in that topic could know it was missing. It's not so much about this article specifically (since I'm sure I'll find the time to create a stub in the next few weeks anyway) as it is about the other times I felt this way about an article but didn't know exactly where to report it. Of course, I'm aware reporting a problem does not fix it and someone has to do the fixing, but there are certainly benefits to having a list of most glaring defects in WP: prioritizing to fix the most obvious ones first, and having more contributions written by experts who already have a good overview of the subject and already know where to find the right sources. Actually, if there is such a list of "obvious fixes for people who know the subject" I'd be more than willing to help, and I'm certainly not the only one. --Sgt. Salt (talk) 00:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyone??? --Sgt. Salt (talk) 15:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The West Wing

Not directly relevant, but I'm fairly assured in my belief that this is the place where West Wing fans are most likely to surface. For the life of me I can't recognize who http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/4261/vlcsnap3438612jd1.png is. He had the camera trained on him in Tomorrow (The West Wing), so I'm assuming he's important enough for me not to forget - moreover, he looks familar, but just sounds like Babish in my head. AlmostCrimes (talk) 10:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It's the great Aaron Sorkin himself, the creator of the series. Gantpupo (talk) 12:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Richard II, royal power and divine right

I consulted your Richard II of England page for some information on the exact reasons for his fall in 1399, but I'm not much wiser. Not only is the page breathless and ill-organized but my question was not fully answered. It also says that Richard adhered to the 'old' notion of the divine right of kings. Now I'm really confused. I always thought this was something assocaited with the development of absolutism rather than medieval monarchy? Am I wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dogeeee (talk • contribs) 11:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Richard seems to have got on well enough with his uncle John of Gaunt, and John’s son Henry Bolingbroke was his cousin and playmate, but Richard’s attempts to take charge of his kingdom were messy. Henry and his uncle Thomas of Woodstock were both members of the Lords Appellant, who forced the execution of several of Richard’s friends, including his beloved tutor Burley, and as Churchill says, “We must suppose that this treatment produced a marked impression on his mind.” Certainly in 1397, now secure in his authority, he finally began to take revenge on those who had bullied and domineered over him before he reached adulthood, particularly the Lords Appellant. Arundel was beheaded, Warwick was exiled and Gloucester was murdered by Royal agents while under arrest, and Richard used Parliament to rubber-stamp these acts. It all smacked of tyranny.

Thomas Mowbray had been a Lord Appellant too, so when Henry accused Mowbray of treason, Richard may have seen a certain irony in the accusation and its source. He refused to allow a duel of honour between the two and banished them both, apparently with the permission of John of Gaunt. Henry is said to have been outraged by his ten-year banishment, so perhaps he was genuinely loyal to Richard and trying to protect his interests. He certainly wasn’t after a year’s exile and then the loss of his father's estates, confiscated by Richard on John's death, of which Christopher Lee says “And then, it seems, Richard lost his reason.” Going off to Ireland was another dreadful miscalculation – Henry was popular, had powerful support in the North, and was viewed by some as a doubly wronged man. He only had to turn up in Richard's absence, as he promptly did, to become a symbol of resistance against injustice and tyranny. Richard’s overthrow is an example of the power of PR, the fickleness of mobs, and the danger of taking your eye off the ball. -- Karenjc 20:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You are right to be confused by the reference to Richard’s alleged adherence to the 'old ideal' of the Divine Right of Kings because-how can I put this without seeming unkind?-it's complete and utter tosh! Sadly, this is one of the weaknesses of Wikipedia, when seemingly plausible information is incorporated into articles without challenge. The Divine Right of Kings was a feature of the forms of royal absolutism that began to develop in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and is associated in England with the House of Stuart, particularly James I, who might be said to have given the notion intellectual substance in his The Trew Law of Free Monarchies.

The reasons for Richard's downfall are simple enough: he failed to understand the nation and its institutions; he failed to understand the significance of Parliament, and he failed to understand just how exactly an English monarch fitted within the general system of government. He was also lacking in any kind of political skill, making enemies of the most powerful men in the land at a time when he needed real friends, not passing favourites. If I can put it this way, Dogeee, an English Monarch of the high Middle Ages was a little like an early Roman Emperor. He was, in other words, Primus inter pares-first among equals-, at the top of a feudal hierarchy, yes, but dependent, and crucially dependent, on the senior aristocracy and the lower gentry below that. With Richard, arbitrary and unpredictable, the pyramid simply collapsed. It was not that he was unfit for office, rather he simply lacked the suppleness of mind to detect the changing mood of the nation as expressed in Parliament, an institution which had grown in strength over the preceding century, especially during the reign of Edward III, Richard's grandfather. Above all what he completely failed to realise was that Parliament expected to be considered as am essential partner in the nation's business, not just a forum for granting royal taxation.

The immediate cause of Richard’s fall, of course, was that the confiscation Bolingbroke's inheritance had alarmed all of the senior nobility, who could see their own rights threatened by such arbitrary action. Richard was in every way the architect of his own downfall: a politically inept king and a bad manager of men. It had nothing to do with fickleness, with PR...or with mobs! Clio the Muse (talk) 23:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Instruments and instrument players going extinct

Is there any serious study on the lack of musicians working on the manufacture and playing of certain instruments? One can imagine how instruments cease to be played or created every now and then due to lack of interest on the art. Do you guys know anything about this? Any instruments that are nearly extinct you can name? — Kieff | Talk 11:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The dinosaur bone flute is rarely made nowadays,sadlyhotclaws 12:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There is an instrument called the Zither that's always on the verge of dying out and then you get a revival. Various specific types of flutes have become extinct or are on the verge. A saw isn't really an instrument but there are very few people who can really play it well. Harpsichord and Mellotron are not that common, but probably have enough people to keep them going. The nice thing is that unless all knowledge gets lost, instruments can be revived. Look at the Lute that lay dormant for almost a century and then came back into use. --Lisa4edit (talk) 18:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Based on reading the lyre article, many types of lyre are distinct and are played only by small groups. The article also says that we cannot know exactly what the lyre of the classical heroic age was. I infer that many types of lyre have gone extinct and that others are currently on the edge of extinction. -Arch dude (talk) 20:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

My favorite obsolete-but-subject-to-revival instruments are the crumhorn, rackett, and sackbut. Pfly (talk) 06:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Praetorius knew about playing the comb? ! Julia Rossi (talk) 10:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Gosh am I getting that old. Playing comb (wind instrument) used to be as essential a part of growing up as playing spoons (percussion). Well, the slide rule and computers I used are already in the museum. I guess I should not be surprised. --Lisa4edit (talk) 08:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Three life expectancy questions

• 1. Why does Bhutan have a higher male expectancy than a female one? And how did it manage to remain with one ever since the country's initial existence?
• 2. If Andorra has the highest life expectancy, why aren't there/haven't there been many 100-year olds and 110-year olds there?
• 3. Does Georgia (the country) really have one of the highest rates for 100-year olds? It says so in a fact book that I have. 124.176.209.38 (talk) 12:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding 2): life expectancy is measured as an average, therefore 100 year olds are not required for a high life expectancy as long as you have a lot of 70-90 year olds. Regarding 3): this says that the top three for centenarians are the US, Japan, and Canada. Wrad (talk) 17:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

• 1 This https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bt.html#People gives 65.5 for males and 66.4 for females. It states that the first modern census took place on 2005, so an erroneous estimate may have been published elsewhere.
• 2 Average life expectancy and maximum life span are, whilst related, not identical. They certainly differ when the mean is calculated at birth as the mortality rate of infants (inter alia) reduces the average expectancy. If the infant mortality rate is low and few people die prior to their average expectancy this results in there being no or just a few centenarians. Of course, Andorra is quite tiny and the size of an average suburb.
• 3 Georgia has a life expectancy at birth of 77 and an infant mortality rate of 17. The equivalents for Andorra are 84 and 4 (these demographics are superior to the stats from the UK / USA). As far as the Ukraine is concerned, I found some stuff published by the Institute of Gerontology of the Kiev Acadamy. As I can´t read it, I have no idea about the frequency of centenarians. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

1. At birth, there are generally more boys than girls, and more boys than girls die very close to birth (neonatal mortality). If they are counted as born dead, then they are not included in the statistics for calculating life expectancy. In developing countries the rate of death of mothers at or after the birth (peripartum mortality) is higher than in developed countries, which could also reduce the life expectancy for females. SaundersW (talk) 18:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You should also consider whether the culture you are looking at favors male (or female?) children. There are some areas around the world where children are not counted as "alive" until several days, or weeks after birth. Infanticide would then not be counted/reported. Another thing to consider in agricultural societies is whether the farming in that country is a predominantly male or female occupation, or evenly divided amongst the sexes. There are cultures that send women straight back to work in the fields after giving birth. In addition to women dying in childbirth such things can skew statistics. 71.236.23.111 (talk) 00:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Message left on WT:Reliable sources

Copying this here from WT:Reliable sources.

looking for information on tom browning of brownington mo who the town was named after and who left the ground for the brownington baptist church to be build on he was my great grandfather thank youBarbara1st (talk) 13:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Itsmejudith (talk)

If you live in the area and have some time you might try their microfilms http://tacnet.missouri.org/hcl/papers1.html You gave very little information to search for anyone by. E.g. key years might have helped. Have you tried contacting the church? [email protected] ? There is a Brownington Baptist Church that was established in 1882. That it? Was Tom his full name or a shortened form? There are archives for Civil War information, but you are going to need more details to find anything there. Lisa4edit (talk) 20:43, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Chicago

This question is politically themed so please leave it here. Who was Nash refering to with:

"Don't ask Jack to help you 'cause he'll turn the other ear. . ."?

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

According to http://www.4waysite.com/faq/faqsongs.htm, Graham Nash: "The 'Jack' in my song Chicago is Jack Kennedy. Jack is a term used by many English people as a kind of generic word. Although Kennedy had been dead for years, his spirit lives on." In the context of the song, "Jack" could refer to those people for whom the Chicago issue is not "their problem"; the song infers , of course, that no matter how far removed from a problem "Jack" might think he/she is, it is always one's responsibility to stand up, be counted and do one's level best to resolve the issue : hence the refrain "We can change the world" ? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 19:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Birds In Reference To Eyeglasses

What Bird, whether by name or type of species, relate to eyeglasses in any way?––ROS —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.28.208 (talk) 19:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The quite unspectacular zosterops, aka the spectacle bird. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe too obvious and neither a name nor type of species, but some owls look as though they're wearing a pair of glasses. :-) I had a bit more luck with a quick search in German where there are lots of animals that have a prefix "Brillen-" (spectacle) -ente (duck), -pinguin (penguin), -taube (dove), -pelikan (pelican). It's likely there are more. Non of those has anything to do with glasses in English. They also have a bear, a snake, a sheep and a sort of reptile, to name just some I've heard of. I guess "spectacle" just doesn't flow well and "eyeglasses" is too long as a compound and could lead to misunderstandings. --71.236.23.111 (talk) 01:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The Penguin has a monocle...--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Spectacled Warbler (Sylvia conspicillata) and Spectacled Owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata). There's a Spectacled Tern too, but I think it's officially a Grey-Backed Tern these days. -- Karenjc 15:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

And how about the Spectacled Eider [14]?--Eriastrum (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Examples of non-Russian high profile people in Soviet Union

Hello,

in the west, one often thinks of the Soviet Union as a Greater Russia, so it usually comes as a surprise that important people like Stalin and Beriawere no ethnic Russians. I was wondering : what other examples are there? (They don't have to be politicians, nation-wide known military commanders, scientists,... are welcome too) Thanks, Evilbu (talk) 20:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Just now I'm able to give you Brezhnev and Kliment Voroshilov, who I happen to know were Ukranian. Some digging around in our soviet biography articles (the two linked ones give you some good categories) will find you more. User:Krator (t c) 20:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Khrushchev was ethnic Russian, but lived a lot of his early life in Ukraine, and was often identified as being Ukrainian, although he identified as Russian. Corvus cornix_talk 21:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Leon Trotsky came from a Jewish family in the Ukraine, which makes it kind of ironic that under his watch, the Red Army dropped its internationalist pretenses and began to propagandize for the mighty Great Russian people to defend the Motherland. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any such development while Trotsky was Commissar for Defence, Mwalcoff, a position he lost, of course, in early 1925. It would hardly have been advisable considering that one of his best formations was made up of Latvians! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20, according to Orlando Figes, I believe. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Here it is:

Trotsky at once saw the propaganda victory to be won by getting Brusilov to join the Reds. The next day he announced the general's appointment as the Chairman of a Special Conference in command of the Western Front. Printed in Pravda on 7 May [1920], the announcement was typical of the increasingly xenophobic tone of the Bolsheviks' rhetoric. It called on all patriots to join the army and 'defend the Fatherland' from the 'Polish invaders' who were 'trying to tear from us lands that have always belonged to the Russians'. Trotsky claimed that the Poles were driven by 'hatred of Russia and the Russians'. The Red Army journal, Voennoe delo, published a xenophobic article (for which it was later suspended) contrasting the 'innate Jesuitry of the Polacks' with the 'honourable and open spirit of the Great Russian race'. Radek characterized the whole of the civil war as a 'national struggle of liberation against foreign invasion'. The Reds, he said, were 'defending Mother Russia' against the efforts of the Whites and the Allies to 'make it a colony' of the West. 'Soviet Russia', he concluded on a note of warning to the newly independent states, aimed to 'reunite all the Russian lands and defend Russia from colonial exploitation.' It was back to the old imperialism. (A People's Tragedy, p. 699)

Incidentally, Karl Radek, like Trotsky, came from a Jewish Ukrainian family. The fiercest nationalists are always those with an adopted national identity. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Mwalcoff; I should have known it would have been in that war that the Old Russian Adam would have made his reappearance! However, I would dispute that the use of this kind of traditional imagery proved that either Radek or Trotsky had somehow become Russian chauvinists. Both men were firmly international in outlook, as they were to demonstrate time and again. But they were both talented propagandists; and such people always know how to make the best use of the things that move people most. The war with Poland excited Russian national sentiment more than all the battles of the Civil War, fully demonstrated by the open support of Brusilov, a national hero, for the regime. It would have made perfect sense to capitalise upon this general mood as part of a propaganda battle. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Gosh, Evilbu, I could compile a list of dozens of names, but I think I would find the task altogether too tiresome. So, let me confine myself simply to the politicians. Taking a strict definition of ethnicity, as supposed to the location of an individual's birth, a great many of the early Bolshevik leadership were Jewish, from Trotsky to Sverdlov. I think you will find all of the names in the article on Jewish Bolshevism. Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder and first commander of the Cheka, the forerunner of all of the Soviet secret police forces, was Polish, and Anatoly Lunacharsky, the first Commissar for Education, was Ukrainian. Anastas Mikoyan, a senor member of Stalin's coterie, was Armenian, and Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze, another of his close associates, was a fellow Georgian. That's enough, I think, to give you a taste. But it goes on, Evilbu; it goes on! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all the answers. I see Poles, Ukrainians, Armenians and Georgians...but what about the Central Asians?Evilbu (talk) 19:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Few, I imagine you will ever have heard of. People like Dinmukhamed Konayev, from Kazakhstan, tended to have a purely local significance. Clio the Muse (talk) 22:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Master of Hestviken FAMILY TREE

Although Wikipedia has a list of characters for The Master of Hestviken by Sigrid Undset [[15]], I'm trying to find a FAMILY TREE similar to the one for the Potter family of the Harry Potter books [[16]]. Is anyone aware of such a family tree or interested in adding one to Wikipedia? Ubaldofsubiaco (talk) 21:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)Ubaldofsubiaco

You can't count on someone else wanting to do this work. You could compile it yourself but other editors may not think it is a useful addition to the encyclopedia. Suggest it on the talk page for The Master of Hestviken. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:32, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

William Blake illustrations for "Paradise Lost"

I'm soon self-publishing a book about the nature of duelism in Western Theology. On your site, the photographic reproductions of Blake's illustrations for Milton's PARADISE LOST are said to be "in the Public Domain whose copyright has expired." I'm wondering if I'm able to use a couple of these illustrations lawfully in my book, without payment of royalty?

--Goranlut —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goranlut (talk • contribs) 21:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

If something is in the public domain, that means that it can be freely used without payment of royalty, because it is public property. Since the author has been dead for about 180 years, its copyright has expired. bibliomaniac15 Do I have your trust? 04:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Though in some jurisdictions the photographs themselves may be copyrighted. That's not a risk in the United States, if that's where you're publishing. (This comment is not to be construed as legal advice) Algebraist 10:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Reporter's Day

Other then China, which countries have an nationally designated Reporter's day? FromFoamsToWaves (talk) 22:38, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Is this a day on which they lock up reporters? [Judging by this http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11715], countries with similar attitudes to China are Turkmenistan, Cuba, Burma and North Korea. --Relata refero (disp.) 07:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Not really, this is a day on which the reporting profession is celebrated, and according to xinhua, it's a holiday in China. And it's been official and national since 2000. FromFoamsToWaves (talk) 01:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Well! The rank hypocrisy of public virtue in authoritarian regimes never ceases to amaze. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Logic of Coalitions

Why is it that so many European countries have coalitions instead of single parties? If they were led all by one person, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be merged into one party, instead of having many confusing names? FromFoamsToWaves (talk) 23:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The answer to your first question lies in the use of various forms of proportional representation, which rarely, if ever, allow a single party to emerge dominant. Political Parties will come together over matters of mutual interest, though a considerable amount of horse trading is usually involved before a common programme agreed and a government formed.

As far as your second question is concerned, well, there are people, for example, who will define themselves as Liberals and people who will define themselves as Socialists, but there is no reason to suppose that, while they might be prepared to work together, they would readily agree to accept the full incorporation in one party or the other. Differences in ideology and organisation make this impossible, to say nothing of the electoral constituencies they each appeal to. In Germany the liberal Free Democrats have been elastic enough to enter into government with the left-wing Social Democrats, at one point in their post-war career, and the right-wing Christian Democrats at another. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think FromFoams referred to electoral coalitions instead of governing coalitions, such as the Coalition for Bulgaria, National Union Attack or United Democratic Forces. I think three things are important in understanding why these coalitions form: first, Eastern European party systems are still not fully developed and stablized (and it is not sure whether they ever will): splits often occur, new parties are formed, old parties die. Because of the dynamic nature of the party system allegiances often change. So while it may be logical for a party to team up with one party in one election, it may be logical for it to team up with another party in the next election, because of the instability. Second, the electoral system although proportional in nature often there are quite high thresholds, this forces parties to team up, in order to gain seats. Finally, it is important that what is rational or logical from a design perspective, is not necessarily what happens historically. Path dependency can be important factor in explaining why these coalitions exists. Eventhough parties may form a coalitions they may not want to give up their nominal independence, their own organization, ideology and identity.C mon (talk) 20:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

What about the Italian Coalition that won government? FromFoamsToWaves (talk) 01:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

April 28

Fear of reprisal

If I were a member of the current North Vietnamese government would I have anything to fear from John McCain being elected President of the United States? 71.100.11.39 (talk) 00:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"North Vietnam" no longer exists. It's now part of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which includes the entire country. And the U.S. long ago recognized and made peace with the country. So no, I don't think so. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Edison (talk) 03:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

If you were a member of the Vietnamese government, you very well could worry about McCain bringing attention to human rights abuses in your country. However, as President, McCain will have far less power to do anything substantial than he currently has as a member of the Senate. -- kainaw™ 03:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's accurate to say he "will have far less power" as president than as a senator. Presidents generally get wide latitude in setting foreign policy and get to appoint the secretary of state and ambassadors, negotiating treaties, etc. A senator is merely one vote out of a hundred that gets to ratify appointments and treaties. A senator on the foreign relations committee would certainly have more influence than other senators over foreign policy, but still much less than the president. (McCain isn't on that committee.) That said, the status quo policy on Vietnam has wide support and I doubt McCain would change it much as president. A search of John McCain's campaign website shows the only mentions of Vietnam are in relation to his service in the Vietnam War and his time as a POW. No mention of contemporary Vietnam. --D. Monack | talk 17:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

McCain was, in fact, among the first Congressional proponents of normalizing US relations with Vietnam. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 23:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

For those interested, here is the full text of former Pres. Clinton's 1995 speech on relations with Vietnam. Note how he thanked Sen. McCain and a few others who - in Clinton's words - "were able to move beyond the haunting and painful past toward finding common ground for the future". While we are on the topic, here's an NY Times article from 1988 on Sen. McCain's efforts to normalize relations with Vietnam. Overall they make interesting reading. I do wonder if this will be used as a campaign issue this year? - Thanks, Hoshie 08:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

playing in the street

Please note: The responses had been re-ordered by the questioner, and, as a consequence, the thread became confusing. I have put the comments back in chronological order, and changed the indenting as was appropriate. I have changed no text within any comment. ៛ Bielle (talk) 15:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Our town has a law (misdemeanor) against blocking traffic by one or more persons in the street which is the basis for a code enforcement (civil) law that prohibits basketball nets being set up on the curb or in the street. Youth refuse to comply with this law and setup the nets and play in the street anyway. Code enforcement and the police will enforce the law but only under a large amount of pressure. The consequence is not as significant for motor vehicles as it is for bicyclists who the players absolutely refuse to grant the right-of-way, especially if they are burdened with groceries, etc. What steps can a bicyclist use to deal with this effectively on a daily basis if an alternate route is unavailable? (BTW, this is a perfect example how one culture is totally ignorant of the many cases and long history behind the need to have and maintain right-a-ways. PS. I'm not asking for legal advice either although I am looking for a solution that is legal. I already know that I can spend 130 weeks worth of groceries on an attorney to find out where each player lives and file a law suit.) 71.100.11.39 (talk) 00:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I will ignore the aside about what "one culture" does or doesn't understand, and comment only on the basic issue. If a polite "Beep, beep; Excuse me; I'm coming through" doesn't work, then I suggest (as there are likely more of them than you) you get off your bike and walk it through the game, with the same degree of care and courtesy as you would if you were not on a bike. You could also stop to talk to the youths at some time other than when you are trying to pass through an active game, explaining your difficulty, but I would not recommend you bring to that talk either attitude or a legalistic approach. ៛ Bielle (talk) 01:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you considered filing a petition with your city/municipal or county government. It seems there is a need for basketball courts/ community space for juveniles in your neighborhood. If you get all sides of this issue together (cyclists, players, parents, drivers) you might even get a signature list going. Some local governments have open sessions where "the public" can ask questions and request actions. You may even find it on your TV. Your local/district/county representative will also be more receptive to the needs of his/her constituents around election time. Also consider hooking up with bigger groups like the local cycling association, scouts, neighborhood association, urban community projects etc., etc. The more the merrier. If you can find a pot among all the public funds that would pay for the costs that would be a cherry. (There's a lot of money out there that is set aside and doesn't get spent in the right place or on the intended purpose because no one asks for it). Win-lose strategies (right of way) only work if you have the upper hand, otherwise win-win strategies (you get your space, I get mine) have more of a chance of getting you somewhere. Hope this helps.--71.236.23.111 (talk) 02:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that someone in this "one culture" should take personal responsibility and simply walk safely - or worse, drop the passive-aggressive attitude and discuss the problem directly with those who are part of the problem? That isn't how they do it on TV. You are supposed to complain to everyone (except those who can do something about the problem) and eventually explode with hostility one day and drive an SUV through the game at high speed. At least that is how I figure this "one culture" works. -- kainaw™ 03:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

You should not ignore the mention of "one culture" since it is the crux of the problem. What should not be ignored either is your same lack of knowledge and comprehension regarding the need and purpose for designating right of ways. I know of a case where day after day a motorist's right to pass was denied until one day his wife's urgent phone call turned his need to pass into an emergency. Instead of using the right of way which had been provided by the City, namely the street, he was forced to use the yard of the property owner where the net had been placed; destroying in the process, a fence, a hedge, a lawn, and a tree while on the return trip to the hospital with his wife lying in the back seat moaning and his horn blowing nailed a number of defiant players. He was of course arrested at the hospital and eventually released but all this just because the members of a more privative culture decided they owned the street and the right of way was theirs. That's what you can expect when members of a culture with more primitive rules rejects the rules of a more sophisticated culture that have been developed over time from many relevant cases representing both sides of the argument. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 03:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually I have tried that on several occasions at more than one location and invariably you become treated as an intruder or as an invader of the more primitive culture's space. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 03:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the agonizingly careful language, this is beginning to have the smell of a rant about it. ៛ Bielle (talk) 03:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Only in response to your comment and defense of the awareness of how the failure to acknowledge the difference in rules followed by one culture versus another actually plays out. It may very well seem like a rant to someone unwilling to comply with the rules of the more sophisticated culture when it is in reality only a statement that a conflict in the rules exists and the more sophisticated rules are the law of the land, which are being defied and not followed. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 04:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. I just completed as a matter of fact a petition for sidewalks on a street in a different part of the neighborhood. I have also provided a copy of the law to the property owners who leave the nets out on the streets. They know what the law is but remain defiant and demand to have it their way. They do have other places they can play such as in their driveways instead of on the street which is why we suspect that their true motive for playing in traffic is so they can agitate drivers and have a more interesting game. 71.100.11.39 (talk) 10:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It couldn't possibly be that the street offers them more room to play their game, could it? That said, please drop the soapboxing about "more primitive" cultures. It's very difficult to see you as the grieved party when using such inflammatory rhetoric. -- Kesh (talk) 22:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

(Outdent) My advice would be to sit them down and have a talk with them, being careful to explain to them why they are so primitive and you are so sophisticated. I think the problem will probably resolve itself at that point. Recury (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The only things we know for certain are that the basketball players are young and in a different culture to you. So I'm going to assume youth subculture but which of these is it? I see there's nothing on that list dealing with street-basketball playing youth so perhaps you can add to it?

71.236 mentioned the parents, did you try them?

Zain Ebrahim (talk) 15:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

How about a little perspective? Is it really that inconvenient to ride around the children? Is this a residential neighborhood? Give the kids a break. I'm sure you are very by the book, but I've noticed many bicyclists who couldn't care less for the rules, riding on the wrong side of the street, going the wrong way on a one-way street, acting as if stop signs and red lights don't apply to them. All of this leads to little respect toward bicyclists. --Nricardo (talk) 00:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Older art (war based)

Okay this is the only place i can think of that could answer this, i hope i am not placing this in the wrong section! :)

I am looking for some images of some old art, and unfortunately i dont know where it is from or what it is called, consequentially, i cant really search so well for it can i?!

The art depicts (i think) characters at war, or characters in general in such a way as it tells a story. It is sort of cave painting style in this manner because it tells something with pictures, but it definately seems to be way past that era, possibly done on paper or some form of fabric.

The art commonly has text above in a thick sort of calligraphy. The language i dont know, but it could be an old form of english, whereas the letter V is standing for a modern U or such. Im not certain about that though.

It is POSSIBLE that the type of text or the language in which it is written could be somewhat common in images of a catholic origin. I'm not sure.....

I have described what i am looking for to the best of my ability. I will add more if i think of it, but does anyone have an idea what i may be speaking of?

137.81.113.204 (talk) 01:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

137, I'm not absolutely sure what it is that you are looking for, but it occurs to me that the Bayeux Tapestry depicts a story of politics and war in very much in the manner you describe. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

This is pretty much exactly it! Is there a name given to depictions LIKE this one, so that i may find more of the same style? At least i know its language and location now and one instance of it! THANKS! 137.81.113.204 (talk) 01:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I cannot say if there is a specific name given to this art form, but for another in very much the same style there is the Overlord embroidery. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Intereesting range of dates, the events are 1066 and 1944... but both about normandy.... HM! Thank you very much Clio! :) 137.81.113.204 (talk) 01:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There are other embroideries of this kind: for example the Hastings embroidery [17] and the Plymouth tapestry [18] and the New World tapestry. SaundersW (talk) 14:04, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Is Islam sometimes considered an Eastern religion?

Is Islam sometimes considered an Eastern religion? Islam has more followers in the Eastern countries like Indonesia, Pakistan, and India. It look like an Eastern religion to me because of followers in the Eastern world and It's Middle Eastern culture. Jet (talk) 04:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

If by "eastern religion" you mean the ones that are lumped together like Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Shinto, etc, then no, not at all. Islam is lumped together in another group with Christianity and Judaism, the "Abrahamic religions". Adam Bishop (talk) 08:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

No. Christianity is popular in Australia, which is very far east. That doesn't make it an eastern religion. Paragon12321 (talk) 20:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Why do some people in the Middle East don't know Western culture?

I was chatting online with a Muslim missionary on Friday night. The missionary is in Saudi Arabia. I told him, about the leis and other Western cultures. He doesn't know that because Islamic culture does not include Western culture. Jet (talk) 04:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

What are the leis? And why is this surprising? Most westerners don't know anything about Islam. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

...or Hinduism, or Buddhism. Slightly more confusing: Saudia Arabia has Islam as a state religion and 100% of the population are Muslims. What would be the task of a missionary in this country? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I think most westerners don't know much about LEIS, either, despite its being a product of their own culture. Algebraist 10:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you talking about Hawaiian leis? These aren't really a part of Western culture, though most Westerners know about it, if only through The Brady Bunch. --D. Monack | talk 17:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Most Westerners have only a passing knowledge of the Brady Bunch. I, personally was aware of the floral reefs, but didn't know they were known as leis - however, I doubt the OP was refering to those. 89.213.79.245 (talk) 17:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No More Heroes Any More

In criticising Thomas Carlyle's great man theory of history Herbert Spencer said that an individual is the creation of a series of complex influences and long before he can remake his society, his society must make him. Does this mean that the actions of any given historical figure are only of passing relevance, and that things would have happened in much the same way, even if he had never existed? Count Fosco (talk) 10:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose what he was saying was that to attribute the great changes throughout history to individuals is to ignore the processes that shaped those individuals. It could be interpreted as meaning that if it wasn't for Napolean, someone else would have have done what he did, or it could be interpreted as saying that Napolean is only important insofar as he is a figurehead for the numerous social and political movements that made him into the Napolean we know and lead to the actions that made him famous. I'm just speculating here, I have only a passing knowledge of the great man theory.--Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 15:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Spencer's view is similar to Marx's: "Man makes his own history but not in the conditions of his own choosing"; "the educator must himself be educated". (Sexist language the fault of the translator!) The "great man" view was very prevalent in the 19th century, when schools saw it as their role to hold up models to be emulated, hence the need for writers to critique it. I think these critiques can be taken in a strong sense or a weak one. In a strong sense, people's actions hardly matter at all, and social forces account for everything. But if we take them in a weaker sense, we must take into account that the "great" person's character was formed by social influences, but once that character is formed, the person's actions can have a decisive effect at certain historical junctures. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

And if you want a novel written with no other purpose in mind than to critique the "great man" view of history, pick up War and Peace. --Relata refero (disp.) 18:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Herbert Spencer is, of course, reacting to Thomas Carlyle's statement to the effect that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men" by pushing the pendulum in the other direction. The reaction is understandable, and the corrective necessary. There are few modern historians who take Carlyle's inflated accounts of Robespierre or Napoleon seriously, just as few have any patience with his over-ripe and flowery prose.

The unfortunate thing is that pendulum has remained for too long at the other extreme, held in position by those who followed in the steps of Ferdinand Braudel, E P Thompson and the like. The altogether tiresome 'history from below school' has become just that-tiresome! In my experience academics are, once again, beginning to pay close attention to the actions and decisions taken by key players at key moments in time. What, for instance, if Constantine the Great, had been killed at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, would the history of the Roman Empire have proceeded along the same lines; would we now, perhaps, be investigating Christianity as just another vanished cult along with Mithraism? What shape would the modern world have if Mohammed-or Lenin-had never been born? Is it possible to imagine that the history of Europe would have taken the same course in the middle of the last century if Adolf Hitler had never emerged from the doss-houses of Vienna, or if Soso Dzhugashvili had become an Orthodox priest?

Count Fosco, you might wish to have a look at Ian Kershaw's Fateful Choices, which touches on some of these themes. And I can assure you that it is far, far easier to get students interested in the sex-life of Henry VIII, or Charles II, than it is in crop rotation and trade patterns! Make room always for the big ideas...and for the great people. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Tibet

please what is long source of present difficulty with china and tibet? Sreykor (talk) 12:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow that's a difficult question. Have a look at Tibet. To simplify, Tibet has (sort of) always been a part of China. To quote the article: "no nation has ever recognized Tibet as independent". Tibet is obviously a Buddhist region, and as China is a communist state it is committed to atheism. So there's a bit of conflict there. When the Republic of China formed in 1912, the Dalai Lama declared Tibetan seperation from the new state, which was treated as de facto independence until 1950. In the late 1940s, as the Communist Party gained power in China, there was immense internal pressure to reclaim Tibet as a part of China, resulting in an invasion. The Chinese communists saw Tibet as a backward region that was stuck with a heirarchical feudal system and which refused to modernise. Much of the conflict comes from the two opposing political systems. Tibet is ruled by the Dalai Lama under the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, while China is ruled by (at present) Hu Jintao under the teachings of communism and ba rong ba chi. China sees itself as having a claim on Tibet as part of the People's Republic of China, while many Tibetans want at least greater autonomy, if not independence. The current Dalai Lama does not make claims that Tibet should be independent, but does want greater autonomy and a respect for Tibetan traditions and culture. These cultures and traditions are often antithetical to the Chinese communist tenets of government, especially the elevation of the Dalai Lama to near-godly status. Recently, due to the emigration of Tibetans and the resulting Western trend for new age mysticism, often combining elements of Buddhism, Tibet has become an issue in Western countries, which has increased scrutiny on Chinese activites there. As China is a known abuser of human rights, the cause of Tibet is championed around the world, to the dissatisfaction of many Chinese nationals and expatriates who take the view that Tibet is indeed a part of mainland China. Much of the problem goes back into the 13th century when China was controlled by the Mongol empire, and then later when China was unifed under the Qing dynasty. Tibet has been a part of China for a long time, but it has generally been left alone by the various governments that have ruled it, as it has little strategic value and few natural resources. The current incarnation of the Chinese government, however, dislike the idea of a region operating under medieval religious traditions and as such have attepted to reintegrate Tibet into mainland China. This has exacerbated the problems in the region, helping no-one and creating the modern situation. I hope that helps. --Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 14:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Next time I see a contribution here appended with the formulae 'I hope that helps', which seems to appear ad nauseam, I may very well scream out loud! Or, better still, I shall conclude my own with 'I really do not care if this helps or not, but I have spoken! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow! It would be pretty neat if you could similarly summarise all the other current world events that we should know about! ----Seans Potato Business 18:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Tibet has (sort of) always been a part of China. And Hungary and Serbia have (sort of) always been a part of Turkey; Hawaii has (sort of) always been part of the United States; Sinkiang has (sort of) always been part of China; Afghanistan has (sort of) always been part of Greece... --Wetman (talk) 19:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC).

I suppose that's a fair point, although none of those situations (apart from Xinjiang) could claim equivalance with that in Tibet. I was attempting to summarise the complexities of the issue for the OP. I admitted that I was simplifying vastly, but Tibet has been a part of China for hundreds of years and continues to be so today. The history of the formation of the various Asian states is long and complex, and I was simply trying to get across the point that Tibet has been a part of China for as long as the current incarnation of China has existed. The current problems in Tibet don't really go back further than that, so I saw no need to go into the politics of over a millenium ago. I wasn't trying to give an exhaustive answer, but I felt that I covered the overwhelming majority of the issues, gave links to some informative articles and tried to not take sides on the issue. If you disagree with what I wrote, I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but the fact that Tibet has (sort of) been a part of China since its unification is a major factor in the troubles there today. The Tibetans aren't happy with being a part of China and China is not willing to relinquish a territory that has been a part of it for hundreds of years. As I admitted, this is an oversimplifaction, but it illustrates the facts well and the articles I linked to should have more thorough explantions. --Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 00:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Syrekor, China and Tibet existed together for many centuries in what might be thought of as a symbiotic partnership, where each derived positive benefits from the other. Tibet is a poor country with few natural resources. What was important, it might be said, was its spiritual power, not its material wealth. It was this that the Tibetans used in their exchanges with their more powerful neighbour to the east; passing on something of their spiritual knowledge-and magic-in return for protection and other forms of support. It was a mutually-beneficial relationship that went back to the time of the Mongols.

In 1244 the Mongols, who had conquered much of China, reached an agreement with the powerful Buddhist religious order of Tibet. In return for access to some of the more esoteric branches of Tibetan knowledge, the Mongols appointed the monks to rule the area on their behalf. It was the beginnings of the patron/priest relationship. Even Kublai Khan's chief spiritual advisor was a Tibetan Buddhist, famed for his alleged magical powers. The relationship between the Mongols and the Tibetans deepened over time. It was Altan Khan, a later Mongol ruler, who is though to have bestowed the title of Dalai Lama on the Tibetan holy man who converted his people to Buddhism. The fifth Dalai Lama was even to call on Mongol troops to defeat his internal enemies. And thus the partnership was established, one of equals. And for as long as the rulers of China coveted Tibet's spiritual wealth, then it remained for all practical purposes as an independent nation. From the Mongols to the Manchus, Lhasa was the spiritual centre of the Chinese world.

But Tibet's unique spiritual heritage, the tradition of Lamaism itself, was accompanied by growing political weakness. The whole structure, the balance between spiritual wealth and earthly power, was threatened as external forces came into play in the nineteenth century, when Britain and Russia began to struggle for influence in Central Asia in the so-called Great Game. When the British invaded Tibet in 1903, forcing the then Dalai Lama to take refuge in China two things became clear: Tibet was incapable of defending itself and its weakness was a threat to the security of the Chinese state. It was from this point that the ancient symbiosis began to degenerate. The Chinese managed to re-impose their control of the area but were driven out by the Tibetans themselves after the onset of the Revolution of 1911.

When the Communists came to power in 1949, ending decades of anarchy and civil war, the old spiritual bond between Tibet and China was gone forever. All that remained was a security threat. Mao Zedong, fearful that Tibet would fall under the control of the western powers during the Cold War, invaded and occupied the country in the early 1950s. The Chinese arrived no longer as protectors but as nationalists, determined to continue with the creation of an integrated and unified state. It was against this background that Tibetan cultural identity was seen not as an asset but as a threat. The Mountain Kingdom of the Spirit was simply no longer needed. Clio the Muse (talk) 00:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Someone I know wrote an article for his university's student newspaper ([19]) that explains some of the background, although he focuses mainly on the events around the Qing dynasty. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 06:43, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Wittgenstein at Cambridge

I believe that when Wittgenstein taught at Cambridge he had a ferocious reputation. Seemingly only Alan Turing ever had the courage to contradict him. Are there any details on his teaching method, his approach to students and the nature of his dispute with Turing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jet Eldridge (talk • contribs) 12:55, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

"Back in Cambridge in 1939, (Turing) attended lectures by Ludwig Wittgenstein about the foundations of mathematics. The two argued and disagreed vehemently, with Turing defending formalism and Wittgenstein arguing that mathematics is overvalued and does not discover any absolute truths." Jenseits aller Gewissheit - Die Begegnung zwischen Alan Turing und Ludwig Wittgenstein, ISBN 3-85218-203-4 [20] SaundersW (talk) 16:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC) The book to hunt for is Wittgenstein's Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, Cambridge, 1939

Ludwig Wittgenstein, ed Cora Diamond, which has been assembled from notes taken by R. G. Bosanquet, Norman Malcolm, Rush Rhees, and Yorick Smythies. SaundersW (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There are still stories circulating in Cambridge about Wittgenstein's time. There was a bizarre, almost Monty-Python like quality to his lectures. His students were obliged to bring along deck-chairs, on which they all sat in absolute silence while the professor remained immersed in thought. Every so often this silence would be punctuated as Wittgenstein, in the midst of deep labours, would deliver some idea! He would on occasions turn on one of his students and start a rigorous intellectual interrogation, a process that has been likened to being under examination by the Spanish Inquisition.

He had the capacity, by sheer strength of his intellect, and his relentlessness in pursuit of a point, to reduce his audience to a state of terror. You are right, Jet, that the only person with sufficient courage to stand up to him was Alan Turing. Wittgenstein maintained in one of his lectures that a system-such as logic or mathematics-could remain valid even if it contained a contradiction. Turing rejected this, saying there was no pint in building a bridge with mathematics that contained a hidden contradiction, otherwise the structure might collapse. Wittgenstein responded by saying that such empirical considerations had no place in logic, but Turing persisted. How I would love to have been present! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Can I vote anywhere? Does my opinion mean anything?

As a British student (23), studying in the Netherlands, the only tax that I pay being on goods that I buy and my (paltry) income in the Netherlands, do I have any right to vote in any political elections or even write to any MPs in either country?

You can vote in European parliament elections in the Netherlands (and in the UK, as far as I can see). It's possible you can also vote in other elections there (EU citizens can vote in UK local elections, for example); I don't know. You can also vote in national (but not local) British elections: see here. Algebraist 19:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

You need to have lived in the Netherlands for five years in order to eligible to vote in the municipal elections. Without a Dutch passport you can't vote in the general election. You can vote for either the Dutch or UK European Parliament candidates. You are free to write or sign petitions to Dutch MPs or to attend meetings. You can even become a member of one of the political parties and have influence on the selection of candidates and the writing of the election manifesto. But you can't vote in general elections. C mon (talk) 19:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't that five-year requirement conflict with EU treaties? As far as I know EU citizens have a general right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal elections in the member state they reside in. 84.239.133.86 (talk) 15:18, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Algebraist's link doesn't work, for me at least, but here's a link to the website of the British consulate in the Hague where you can read about how to register to vote in British elections in the Netherlands. — Kpalion^(talk) 19:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! I have to get a British expatriate to sign as a witness. By 'witness' does that mean they have to observe me signing the form, or can I sign it and send it to them? --Seans Potato Business 20:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

De Beauvoir and Genet

Sartre was fascinated by Jean Genet, even writing a book about him. Do we know if Simone de Beauvoir had the same high estimation of the thief/homosexual/poet/author.Steerforth (talk) 18:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Sartre and Beauvoir met Genet in 1944, in the last months of the occupation of France, and both became his friends at a time when the Maquis and the Resistance of the Left were embracing not just sabotage but also all kinds of criminalty to fight the Germans. A few years later, in 1948, Genet was facing a life sentence for ordinary crime, and Beauvoir joined Sartre, Gide, Claudel, Cocteau and others in their successful efforts to get him a pardon from Vincent Auriol, the French President. But her admiration didn't go to such extremes as Sartre's. Genet was so horrified by Sartre's book about him, by the way, that he tried to burn it. Oddly enough, Genet died the day after Beauvoir - Jacques Chirac linked the two and said "The end of an era". Xn4 22:28, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I would go a little further than Xn4: de Beauvoir developed a pronounced dislike for Genet. She described him as the "bitchy queen, fairy, gossip" who was also the "thief, juvenile delinquent, bastard and protégé of Sartre." She was particularly uncomfortable when he insisted on giving lurid descriptions of his homosexual encounters and when he told of violent robberies, She says that when she worked her way through the proofs of Saint Genet she felt both 'repulsion and violation.' Clio the Muse (talk) 01:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I can never catch you out, Clio, can I?Steerforth (talk) 16:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That's why she's a Muse. Vranak (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You can keep trying, Steerforth! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

A play about amputees in garbage cans

I've been trying to remember the title and author of an Absurdist play that I'm sure I've heard of, in which the only characters are two homeless men with no limbs sitting in garbage cans. I thought it might be by Samuel Beckett, but apparently not, or if so I can't find it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.233.85.171 (talk) 20:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Could be Beckett's Endgame, there's a man and a woman in garbage cans, but they're not the only characters in the play and they do have limbs (well, arms at least). --Richardrj ^{talk email} 20:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I am reaonably sure that you are referring to Beckett´s "Endgame". Negg and Nell, the two characters in the rubbish bins, are without legs and the protagonist, Hamm, is paralyzed in a wheelchair. The only mobile character is Clov, a sort of reversed Godot. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Tailoring question about shirts

There is a thing on the back of shirts sometimes, usually western shirts, or outdoors-style where there is what I would only describe as an extra flap of material. It covers the upper back, but stops usually about 40-50% down the back in a hemmed, but open flap. This piece of material is on top of material that would be on a normal shirt I think. I'm looking for what it's called, searching is hard since I can't get many good terms... :) - cohesion 20:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't really answer your specifics, but there's a western style yoke, for shirts, found on jeans as well[21]. The one you mean is on the Driza-Bone western duster as a weather run-off and on the shirt, it could be a variation of the yoke or a double of it. Julia Rossi (talk) 22:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It is an open-style yoke or vented back (probably because most guys think a yoke is a driving wheel for an airplane), commonly found on outdoor clothing. It usually covers a mesh material for ventilation. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is a picture under the name of a vented back. SaundersW (talk) 10:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, thanks! It has mesh underneath? Crazy. :) - cohesion 12:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes- they are quite comfortable in the summer. They will probably become more popular with global warming.  :) --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

According to What's What, edited by Reginald Bragonier, Jr and David Fisher (Ballantine Books, 1981), on page 196, the piece at the back of a trench coat which is (OR in this opinion) the likely precursor to the design of the shirt, is called a "storm shield" at the back and a "storm patch" where it appears at the front. The epaulet (the tab across the top of the shoulder, usually with a botton at the outside end) covers the seam at the top of the shoulder where "storm guard" and "storm patch" meet) thus (OR again) keeping the rain from dripping through the seam. I believe the shirt style to have been just a copy of the coat. And it is a wicked bit to iron in a shirt! ៛ Bielle (talk) 16:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Search for two phrases

I'm thinking of two different phrases, and blanking on what they are... The first means something along the lines of "illusion of reality" and refers to, well, the illusion of reality in fiction: plays, novels, films, etc. One could break this phrase by, say, breaking the fourth wall, by showing that it's not real after all, but "fourth wall" isn't the phrase I'm looking for. I feel like this is an obvious phrase that I just can't place.

The other one I'm less sure about, an example of it would be the point at which robots become conscious or as conscious as humans and can think. I guess this is mostly a science fiction phrase, but I have a feeling it's not just. Another example might be animals becoming fully conscious (ie thinking for themselves, having non-basic "intelligence"), or a theory that universes themselves could become conscious. Any ideas? --zafiroblue05 | Talk 22:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

suspension of disbelief, technological singularity --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 22:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

A different answer for the first one is "verisimilitude". On the second, I've read a lot of SF and I can't think of an expression that refers specifically to the point at which a being becomes conscious or intelligent; I don't think the above answer hits it. Words like "awakening" are sometimes used. --Anonymous, 22:45 UTC, April 28, 2008.

Virtual reality what you were looking for? The other one may be Artificial intelligence or Strong AI. Self awareness or Sentience are also good candidates. An extension of Gaia philosophy would be your last thought. Have a look through the philosophy topics. --Lisa4edit (talk) 22:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

For the first, maybe immersion? SaundersW (talk) 10:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Some science fiction uses the term wikt:uplifted when something like an animal or other non-sentient becomes intelligent due to external forces. - cohesion 12:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Vernor Vinge made singularity a popular term, while uplifted was first used by David Brin. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:07, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

As I recall, the term used by David Mitchell in Cloud Atlas is "ascended".SaundersW (talk) 21:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

See Biological uplift and associated articles. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

ShareAlike copyright question.

I have a question about the ShareAlike license: say that there is a song that's been licensed under CC-BY-SA, and I want to use that song in my movie. Will my entire movie have to be ShareAlike-licensed?

I'm fairly certain that the answer is no: no reasonable person could think that a 90 minute movie is a "derivative work" of a 45-second clip of a song contained within it. I mean, that's silly. It's obviously a different thing if I'm making a music video or something, but the fact is that if I just use it on my soundtrack, I'm not making a derivative. I'm just distributing it along with my movie.

That's certainly how Wikipedia works, isn't it? I mean, we're free to include ShareAlike images in articles, without resorting to fair use, but the articles aren't necessarily licensed under ShareAlike (which of course they can't be, since that would be a violation of the GFDL, and the previous editors copyright). Isn't this the same situation as with my movie? --Oskar 22:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, if you want to use the 45 seconds, you have to license your entire thing CC-BY-SA. (Copyleft is not really about total freedom; it's about an alternative regime of copyright protections that works differently.) That's the whole point of SA -- to keep people from using the work in things that are licensed otherwise. And yes, any new work you make using a copyrighted work is considered a derivative work. It doesn't matter how brief or how tiny it is in the context of the movie, unless it falls under fair use (which requires taking other things into consideration as well). But yes, your movie would be considered a derivative work if you wanted to use copyrighted (even if it is "copyleft") material in it, by definition. All "derivative work" means in this (legal) context is that it is a work based on or derived from previously existing works.

Wikipedia falls under the CC category of "Collections" (see 1.b), which means that it is a work made up of individually licensed works, easily distinguishable from one another (the text is GFDL, but the images are all differently licensed and are easily labeled as such. In general a movie wouldn't fall under this category (an exception would be a movie that was nothing but a bunch of discrete film clips in a row, each labeled with their copyright status and not overlapping with one another); your described use would not fall under this category. --69.110.41.71 (talk) 07:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course you're always free to contact the copyright holder and come to some sort of arrangement with them which allows you to use the work under a different license. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

April 29

Why is my ethnicity (Thai, Thai American) classified as Other Asian and not a separate category like Chinese, Filipino, Cambodian, Laotian, etc?

Why is my ethnicity (Thai, Thai American) classified as "Other Asian" and not a separate category like Chinese, Filipino, Cambodian, Laotian, etc? I was taking a state examination and there an ethnicity boy of the test scantron. I has those ethnicities mention except Thai. The State of California Department of Education do this? I don't mean to defame the department. I know the Thai, Cambodian, and Laotian ethnicities are similar. I know that Thai American is a minority group. I think classifying Thai as "Other Asian" is similar to racism. Why they do it and what should I do? Jet (talk) 00:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC

I believe that they list those questions according to the most common answers given. Apparently there were too few Thais last time they asked to give it its own category. I wouldn't call it racism at all, just simple numbers. Wrad (talk) 00:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. There are literally hundreds of separate Asian ethnicities living in California. They may not all be as numerous as the Thais, but they all can't practically be named. For that matter, "Chinese" is a catchall term. A Cantonese or Uighur person might ask why he is being lumped in with all those other Chinese. A better question might be, "What right does the California Dept. of Education have to ask such a question?" I never answer bureaucrats' questions about my ethnicity or religion as a matter of principle. --D. Monack | talk 01:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Be happy you didn't have to check a box "Indian" and then have to explain "No, no not from India." Used to happen all the time and not to immigrants either! --71.236.23.111 (talk) 03:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

To answer your question, D Monack, I'd say that there's almost an unlimited right to ask questions. But not an unlimited right to always expect answers. -- JackofOz (talk) 16:19, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

art terminology

I was reading a book on ancient Rome, and there was a picture of a sculpture, and the caption described "Augustus on the left." It was clear that Augustus was on my right, but his left. When describing paintings and sculptures using left/right terminology, I thought it was conventional to refer to the viewer's left and right, not the people as depicted in the artwork. What of this?? I searched "art terminology" on wikipedia, but found nothing. thanks in advance. 203.221.126.206 (talk) 03:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

When you are looking at a painting, it is essentially a two-dimensional representation, and you are generally supposed to view it from head on (not to enter into any discussion of anamorphosis. Left and right can refer unambiguously to your left and your right. However a sculpture, other than a relief, is essentially a three-dimensional object that can be seen from any direction, and right and left can become ambiguous. In general you see a picture of a sculpture in a book, which then returns the case to two dimensions, but the writer may not have been thinking of the pictorial representation when composing the caption. My suspicion, though, is that the original wording was "on his left" but was edited incorrectly at some point. Or just possibly that the photo was printed reversed, which happens. SaundersW (talk) 08:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

church loyalty

Hi, I was reading After the Black Death by George Huppert, and it described the position of the Christian Churches in Medieval/ early modern society, saying they effectively had a marginal role in the lives of ordinary people. I want to be careful that no one misinterprets me here, because it does not claim Christianity was irrelevant politically. It's a work of social history, and the section on religion focuses on the laity, and goes to some lengths to illustrate their degree of skepticism, disinterest and occasionally heresy. I'll quote a couple of sentences:

In spite of pressure from the authorities - and in spite of the efforts made by presumably zealous clergymen - the mass of the population kept resisting indoctrination. This was true of Lutheran Saxony as well as of Catholic Bavaria - and it was true in the cities as well as in the countryside.

As for evidence, the book gives mainly anecdotes, primarily from rural communities, and apparently mostly from historical "ethnographies" of village life by the likes of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. I'm willing to assume the picture is reasonably accurate (feel free to dispute this), so it would appear that sometime in the modern era, after say the French Revolution, it seems the Churches made great headway against this apathy. Perhaps they never achieved the levels of indoctrination they wished for, since the main problem presented by Huppert was simply ignorance of Church doctrine (for example about the Trinity), which may have remained all throughout Christian history. Yet it would appear that there was a rise in respect for Christianity the last couple of centuries, and a big increase in its social profile. If indeed this is true, when did it start, and how did it happen? Thanks in ad. 203.221.126.206 (talk) 04:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that this varies by country. England and the United States, for example, gained an emphasis on personal piety, and thus 'indoctrination' as you call it, from the 18th century Great Awakening. Serious religion, up to then, may have been largely for the middle classes. However, as far as I know the Great Awakening did not spread outside English-speaking countries, so I am at a loss as to what happened in Bavaria and Saxony, or elsewhere in Catholic Christendom. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I find the quote quite intriguing, particularly the reference to "indoctrination" and "resisting", which implies the priests were trying to force an unquestioning belief upon an unwilling populace. If I might answer in an equally general manner, that is nonsense. The church had great influence, but it also inspired intelligent and willing response. Socially, the church was important even – especially – amongst the lowest members. People were baptised, married, and buried by the church; the village church (and precincts) was the site of markets, law courts, council meetings and so forth. Throughout much of Europe, parishes formed administrative entities, which regulated much of everyday life (much as local councils do now). Miracle plays, feast days and other religious activites formed much of the social life. Sermons and teaching were given in the vernacular, offering a form of education for all; churches and religious establishments also provided formal education. Undoubtedly, much of this probably occurred on a secular level; much of it was probably received as that. But faith was not exclusive to the priestly classes, and not all priests were faithful. For every tale of a ambitious money-grubbing priest, there's one of a devout and generous priest. People from all classes paid lip-service to the church's teachings, and carried on their merry way; people from all classes lived out a deep faith. Much as people do today. Huppert can present many cases of individuals who were left unmoved by the teaching of the church. But that is selective; there are a wealth of sources showing the devout and intelligent belief of other individuals. I would be surprised indeed to discover that there has been a rise in Christianity's respect and social profile in the past couple of centuries. Let's not confuse modes of expression, and doctrinal differences, with depth of belief and faith in the central tenets. Gwinva (talk) 00:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Pastoral care might be a useful place to start. Especially in the later middle ages, the local parish priest was supposed to be well-trained to minister to his flock, including answering their questions about theology and correcting them when they seemed to be slipping into heresy or apostasy. There was probably a school in the local church, too. In a big parish the priest had subordinates to help him out, and the bishop would check up on him occasionally (and punish him if he wasn't doing a good job). You mentioned Ladurie, so presumably you are familiar with the Fournier Register - if things got too out of hand the Inquisition might need to be called in, as in, apparently, formerly Cathar districts. Gwinva is right that belief was devout and intelligent; there are many examples to give, but one early example that comes to mind is Amalric I of Jerusalem, who doubted the Resurrection, and had a reasonable and philosophical discussion about it with William of Tyre. I suppose you could say that all this focus on keeping everyone well-informed of official doctrine may have influenced the reform movements of the Middle Ages and the Reformation itself later; if they are being preached to in the vernacular, and can read all kinds of religious literature in the vernacular, why can't they read the Bible in the vernacular too? And if everyone learns about official doctrine, wouldn't that lead to more people questioning it? Adam Bishop (talk) 04:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.210.170.49 (talk)

On second thought, that article sucks. But, judging by the number of my colleagues who are working on the subject, there must be lots of books about medieval pastoral care, or there will be in a few years! Adam Bishop (talk) 06:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

roman citizenship

Yet another question from me - I always ask them in batches of about three. In the Roman empire (including the republic) Roman citizens were afforded protection throughout the realm. When this came up, and someone claimed in a legal case that he was a citizen, how was this proven? Did they have records (say from their censuses) that were sufficiently accurate to determine the matter, or did they have to take witnesses and investigate the claim in detail before the case could proceed? I know they took censuses, but it sounds like they relied on people simply reporting who was in their household, so it seems like they would have been easy enough to dodge, eg. if a Roman patriarch wanted to "donate" the gift of citizenship to friends he had made in a province (or sell it for that matter). thanx 203.221.126.206 (talk) 04:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That's an interesting question; the most famous example of claiming civis Romanus sum was, of course, Saint Paul. I suspect (only) that the answer to your question is that the issue simply didn't arise; in the Roman Empire, as in the British, all were considered 'Roman' to the extent that they had equality before the law. --Major Bonkers (talk) 16:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course there was always the iron ring of citizenship, ehich was given to all children at birth or manumition of slaves. Maybe they just asked the accused to show them how he put his toga on. That would have been hard. All Citizens were registered at birth in Rome. Most citizens woul dhave travelled the empire in groups or just lived with the ex-pat community. This would probably have been enough.Or maybe just the proper roman accent and behavior were good enough checks. Quidom (talk) 17:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

As Major Bonkers writes, this is an interesting question because the experts themselves don't fully know -- although there are numerous clues & theories. Keep in mind that the number & importance of Roman citizenship varied greatly over the existence of the Empire: under the Principate it was an important matter with a number of important privileges, but as time passed it became less important until the moment during the Severan dynasty when almost all non-slave inhabitants of the Empire became citizens (which is mentioned in a by-the-way fashion, just one more step Caracalla took to increase tax revenue). Further, keep in mind how facts were established in legal cases: because most communities were small & intimate, everyone knew who were Roman citizens & who were not.

Of course, some people moved or changed in status, so one could not depend on community memory to keep the facts straight. So one needed proof that one had undergone one of the steps needed to become s Roman citizen: these included military service, being a decurion of specific towns, being the freedman of a citizen, & inheriting this rank from one's father. In the case of veterans, there are surviving examples of documents, known as diplomas, which attest to the fact the person named is a Roman citizen. Being manumitted -- that is, released from slavery -- was a significant act, which required a formal ceremony before witnesses & entitled the freedman (who was, however, not completely free, but still owed a degree of dependence to his formal master) to wear specific garments (IIRC, these garments included a cap). In other cases, the proof would be less formal, & one would likely to have needed to supply various proofs of citizenship. I would expect that a Roman citizen travelling to a new town would, at the least, carry with him a letter of introduction to one or more notables at his destination who would help him prove his rightful rank -- as well as possess an articulate knowledge of the rights of Roman citizenship.

Now the case of Paul is interesting, not only because it is one of the few attested cases of how the Empire handled the issue of citizenship, but because when presented with this problem many of the Imperial officials preferred to do nothing about it. While citizenship meant that a person could not be executed, it did not keep the official from imprisoning this individual while he "reviewed the case" -- i.e., did nothing. So Paul was imprisoned by one governor, while the next one parolled him, actually had someone study the facts of his case, only to decide that it might be too politically risky to decide on his fate, & sent him to Rome with a request for instructions. (Apparently, although Paul had acquired a reputation for being a troublemaker, his citizenship was known by enough people that the usual solution for such people -- summary execution -- would have been a career-limiting action.)

To answer the last part of the OP's questions, doubtlessly the grant of citizenship was abused, & doubtlessly there were individuals who passed themselves off as Roman citizens who were not. Corruption, favoritism & deception are not modern crimes. ;) -- llywrch (talk) 17:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Social consensus

From a sociological perspective, how is it possible to be remain an active part of society while actively challenging social consensus ? Can being a heretic have occasional benefits ?

For example, the vast majority of the West clearly favors a woman's right to an abortion. How can one dare call himself Western if he/she is pro-life ? Is such a position taboo ?

Can there be any moral equivalence between Western and non-Western societies ? It is as Montesquieu said in his Lettres persanes : Comment peut-on être persan ?

Does society have any obligations towards itself ? For example, can a society survive on the long term if it does not have babies and/or accepts things like active euthanasia ? In East Germany and Russia, demographers predict a vast population decline because of a legacy of agressive statism.

69.157.234.29 (talk) 05:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The key is to not succumb to rudeness. Either responding to rudeness with rudeness, or initiating rudeness out of your own frustration. As long as you are polite, you can say or do anything you please. Vranak (talk) 17:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

1. "Heresy" (in a loose sense of the word) can have positive benefits. See Martin Luther King, Jr. for the most obvious example. A majority of people in the US disagreed with integration, and his willingness to stand up against injustice is a major factor in the civil rights movement.
2. It's quite possible to be against societal norms while still being a contributing member of that society. Again, see the civil rights movement as well as the anti-war protests of the 60's.
3. Being pro-abortion is no more "Western" than being anti-abortion, and the reverse is also true. Such positions may be taboo within certain communities, but are not on the whole anymore.
4. How do you define "moral equivalence" in the first place?
5. Society can survive while allowing abortion and euthanasia, so long as the use of those methods does not exceed necessary population growth. -- Kesh (talk) 22:26, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Unknown artists

Looking for information on unknown artists :- T.Monlimen or Montimen . Pier scene with sail and steamer , possibly about 1890-1910 S.McKinley . Seascape with sail vessel and steamer . Looks more modern 1930's to 1970's M.Burns 1981 . Old sailing vessel Turakina which belonged to the New Zealand Shipping Co Thanks A. —Preceding unsigned comment added by R.r.macgregor (talk • contribs) 08:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

why the sudden change of topic captain?

hallo people, why the sudden change of topic? or should i say context? the poor fellow ended up not knowing the name of the song!! captain i guess you were out of line when you shifted the discussion from music to synagogues.41.220.120.202 (talk) 10:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)davis i am referring to the April 23rd question about the classical music. captain!!!!! help the dude!!!! he dint ask about temples!!!! its not that i am pissed, i am just putting myself in his shoes.He must have felt down don't you think captain!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.120.202 (talk) 10:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

To comment on a thread, click the little "edit" button next to the thread. Then, your comment will be connected to it. Putting a little rant here is of interest to nobody. It does nothing more than demonstrate a lack of understanding about using the reference desk. -- kainaw™ 12:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, your rant is without merit on all counts. Temples were asked about, and the song title was provided. — Lomn 13:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Fashion in Greece and Rome

Did the ancients have a sense of fashion?Julia Agrippina (talk) 10:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Green t-shirt (talk) 12:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You might want to look at Culture of Ancient Rome and toga.WikiJedits (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

They were late-comers, check out this http://www.egyptologyonline.com/dress.htm And if you're talking jewlry, beads and bangles are among the oldest things found in archeological digs. --Lisa4edit (talk) 13:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Understanding fashion in the widest sense, Julia, yes, they did. There is a lovely passage from Plutarch about Alcibiades, the Athenian politician, worth quoting at length;

All his statecraft and eloquence and lofty purpose and cleverness was attended with great luxuriousness of life, with wanton drunkenness and lewdness, and with effeminacy in dress-he would trail long purple robes through the agora...He also had a golden shield made for himself and decorated not with ancestral insignia but with the likeness of Eros wielding a thunderbolt. The reputable men of the city looked on all these things with loathing and indignation, and they feared his contemptuous and lawless spirit.

Now, there's a guy who really wanted to stand out!

Obviously Alcibiades is making an extravagant personal statement, the mirror, perhaps, of his extravagant political style. But there were also group trends that excited comment among the more conservative Athenians. Here the most prominent were the young men who copied the styles of Sparta, with long beards and short cloaks, taken as a sign of their estrangement from the city's democratic culture. It was Aristophanes who coined the term 'Laconomania' for this phenomenon, describing its adherents in The Birds as 'long-haired, hungry, dirty and acting like Socrates by carrying the Spartan cane.'

Changing trends in fashion, political or otherwise, were really nothing new in Athens. Before the outbreak of the Persian Wars men who started to adopt more elaborate hairstyles. Thucydides describes one of these, in which the hair was tied behind the head in a knot called a chignon, and then fastened with a clasp of golden grasshoppers. This and other stylistic changes were influenced by the fashions of the Persian east. Not surprisingly all such affectations were abandoned as 'effeminate' in the wake of the ensuing wars.

The Greeks were no different from other cultures in following the trends set by political icons. Just as the toothbrush moustache became commonplace in the Third Reich, so the fashion-conscious Greek male followed the clean-shaven look of Alexander the Great. Indeed, Alexander was so significant here that he set the trend in the whole of the Greek world for at least half a millennium after his death. I think this was probably due to the fact that he was the first ruler to recognise the link between personal image and propaganda, restricting and controlling artistic representations of himself with great care, in sculpture, in paintings and on coins.

Te Roman sense of fashion was even more refined than that of the Greeks. While the Greek made distinctions in dress primarily on the basis of gender, the Romans introduced a dress code which allowed determination's to be made of an individuals status and function. Concepts of 'correct dress', and proper grooming, lay at the very centre of Roman culture. Both dress and manner of speech were thought to reflect a person's moral character. Seneca, tutor to the Emperor Nero, writes:

The truly great man speaks informally and easily; whatever he says, he speaks with more assurance than pains. You are familiar with the carefully coiffed young men, with their gleaming beards and hair-everything from a box; you can never hope for anything strong or solid from them.

When Cicero wanted to be particularly cutting about public figures he held in distaste he focused on perceived idiosyncrasies of style. He was at his most acidy in his descriptions of Gabinus and Piso, the Consuls for the year 58BC. He describes Gabinus 'dripping with unguents', with his hair artificially waved. And as for Piso;

Great Gods! How repulsively he walked, how fierce, how terrible to look at! You would say that you saw one of those bearded men of old, a very exemplum of the ancient regime, an image of antiquity, a pillar of the state. He was clothed harshly in our common purple, which was nearly black, with his hair so shaggy that at Capua, where he held the office of a duumvir in order to add another title to the wax portrait image he would leave for posterity, he looked as if he were ready to carry off the street of perfumers and hairdressers on his locks.

It was always dangerous for a Roman in public life to depart from the strict standards of 'Republican virtue', for this was invariably taken as a sign of frivolity or effeminacy. But the fact that such criticism appears regularly over prolonged periods of time shows that there were many prepared to challenge convention by making small personal fashion statements. Designs themselves were fairly consistent, so innovations in material and colouring were the most obvious ways of individualising dress or capturing a popular trend. Pliny noted this, criticising such innovations as 'sheer vanity.'

Women, too, were as fashion conscious as the men, with hairstyle being the main way of expressing personal preferences. Ovid noted "It is impossible to enumerate all the different styles: each day adds more adornments." This was another trend that unsettled the censorious Seneca, as he makes clear in his tribute to his mother, Helvia;

You-unlike so many others-never succumbed to immorality, the worst evil of the century; jewels and pearls did not bend you...The bad example of lesser women-dangerous even for the virtuous-did not lead you to stray from the old-fashioned, strict upbringing you received at home...You never polluted yourself with makeup, and never wore a dress that covered about as much on as it did off. Your only ornament, the kind of beauty that time does not tarnish, is the great honour of modesty.

So, yes, there was fashion, even if Seneca disapproved! Clio the Muse (talk) 23:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Remember also Suetonius on Caesar: "It is said that he was particular in his dress, for he wore the toga with fringes about the wrists, and always had it girded about him, but rather loosely." Fringes, of course, meant that he was dissociating himself from the traditionalists, the party of Sulla. Somewhere or the other I seem to recall that he was mocked by his troops for his finickiness in dress, but I'm dashed if I can remember where.

Oh, and ickle Augustus used walnut shells to burn off the hair on his legs.

If the ancients hadn't had a eye on fashion, Tyre would never have grown rich. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Youth in Ancient Rome

Teenage Crime in Greece and Rome

Did they have a 'hoodie' problem? Julia Agrippina (talk) 10:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

'Hoodie' is used as a pejorative term in the UK for a young person who engages in antisocial behavior (or who is perceived to be the kind of person who would behave antisocially). — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I seem to recall reading that a hooded top was so frequently seen on the Britons Romans encountered that they termed it a 'brittani' or some such. So, assuming that is true, there were hoodies. And given that Britain was quite troublesome at times, no doubt they had a hoodie problem :) Certainly hooded tops are not a completely new idea. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 15:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

"The ploughman wears a hooded cloak, a rainproof woollen garment typical of Britain and Gaul." [22] Looking at various things, looks like it was called a birrus. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Julia. Our article on Ancient Rome gives you some information on family structure. Fathers were considered to have absolute power over their children, so I wouldn't be surprised if teenage rebellion was a feature of social life. Googling gets you several links on the coming of age ceremony for boys, which would have been in the teenage years. Crime was very common in Rome, a large city, but I don't know if there was any parcticular focus on youth crime. As for children, boys were sent to school, though girls were not, so at least children were considered to need educating. We also have an article on the Roman school. If you can search the archives of this desk, I think I remember a discussion here within the last couple of months about the attitudes of past civilizations towards children. I think the consensus was that the idea that children were treated or thought of any differently in the past than today was a fallacy. Hope all this helps you, WikiJedits (talk) 12:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Found the previous discussion; read it here WikiJedits (talk) 13:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a good mosaic of a Briton wearing a Birrus Brittanicus at Chedworth Roman Villa. It came to be known as this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quidom (talk • contribs) 17:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Juvenal delinquency is an old problem. Socrates was accused of encouraging it, & condemned to death. And in later centuries there was the upper-crust Mohocks of London. Considering that an effective urban police force only came into existence with the Bow Street Runners -- order in ancient Rome was kept by a combination of slave watchmen, the Urban Cohort, & when necessary the Pretorian Guard: effective for coping with riots & other emergencies, but of minimal use with identifying thieves and murderers -- I would be surprised if there weren't street gangs in ancient Rome. -- llywrch (talk) 18:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

We now have a birrus stub article, thanks to 79.66.99.37 and Quidom. Quidom, if you have a reference for the mosaic, could you drop by the stub and put it in? Thanks WikiJedits (talk) 19:38, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Julia, the Classical world never, of course, identified juvenile crime as a distinct issue, which makes the whole thing quite difficult to investigate, but it is possible to build up a limited and partial picture by sifting through the evidence. In Athens, for example, Demosthenes describes the case of a young man called Ariston, a victim of an unprovoked assault while walking home at night through the agora. He subsequently accused one Konon and his son Ktnesis, with whom he had served in the military. Ktnesis and his brother were seemingly in the habit of getting drunk at lunchtime, and then amusing themselves by pouring the contents of chamber pots over the heads of the personal slaves of their fellow soldiers!

The Athenians, and other Greek communities, had laws against 'the mistreatment of parents', which suggests that the practice was widespread. In Aristophanes Clouds Pheidippides even argues that if fathers beat their sons then why should sons not be allowed to beat their fathers?

There is very little in the way of evidence to suggest that the casual public vandalism, a feature of contemporary youth crime, was a general problem, apart, that is, from one tantalising little detail concerning the actions of the Hermokopidal or 'Herm-mutilators' in 415BC. A Herm, from the God Hermes, was a stone pillar surmounted by a head. The only other feature was a prominent phallus. The Hermokopidal were those who went around removing these cocks! This crime, though, had a clear political purpose, intending to frustrate a planned Athenian expedition to Sicily. Hermes was the God of travelers, so the destruction of his statues would be taken as a bad omen. Sadly for Athens the message was not heeded.

In Sparta the 'hoodies' might be said to have been used in the service of the state. Youths between seventeen and nineteen were obliged to serve in an organisation known as the krupteia, which, among other things, was expected to terrorise the helots, thus ensuring that they were kept in place.

The Romans placed a particularly strict interpretation on notions of filial obedience, though again theatrical depictions suggest, perhaps, that all was not quite what it seems. Plautus makes use of the stereotype of the spendthrift young man in his plays. In Pseudolus there is the figure of Calidorus, who is prepared to cheat his father and mother in order to purchase the freedom of a prostitute called Phoenicium. When encouraged by the pimp Ballo to steal from his father he says that filial duty forbids this, to which Ballo responds "OK, then, just snuggle up to filial duty at night, instead of Phoenicium."

The nearest evidence we have to gang culture in the Roman world is with the circus factions, those who followed the four main chariot colours. These faction, most often made up of young men, were responsible on occasions for fairly serious public order incidents, including one notorious incident in Constantinople.

I should also mention that high-born Roman youths were more or less a law unto themselves, wandering the streets at night without restraint, beating up passers-by, assaulting women and smashing shops, Even the Emperor Nero was a member of one such gang in his youth. Perhaps even Saint Augustine himself was a hoodie, for in the Confessions he describes as a sixteen-year old how he stole some pears from a neighbours garden while he was part of a company of 'lewd young fellows';

And this we did, because we would go whither we should not...It was foul, yet I loved it, I loved to undo myself, I loved mine own fault, not that for which I committed the fault, but even the very fault itself...Alone, I would never have committed the theft...but even because when one cries: 'Let us go, let us do this or that', then 'tis a shame not to be shameless.

Give that Saint an ASBO! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:41, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Not a criminal per se, but definitely a stroppy teenager, a rebel with a cause, was Pancras of Rome who died at 14 as a Christian martyr. He could be considered anti-social; he certainly objected to the requirements of his society. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Remember also that young ruffians had a major role to play in the fall of the Republic - particularly those that supported Publius Clodius Pulcher, burnt down the Senate house. I can't remember whether they also chased Cicero through the Forum, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking. Some of them were aristocrats, of course: Catullus' poetry incorporates the street slang he learnt running with this lot. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Childhood in ancient Rome

How did they view children?Julia Agrippina (talk) 10:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

As pests. Green t-shirt (talk) 12:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought they viewed children as a continuous wave of electromagnetic radiation reflected and/or re-emitted by the children and then collected in specialized cone and rod cells embedded inside the retina which caused electronic signals to be interpreted by the brain as children. -- kainaw™ 12:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Kainaw, you've done something few others have. You made me laugh. Green t-shirt (talk) 12:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

http://oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/education/projects/webunits/greecerome/Romeroles1.html This might give you some clues. --Lisa4edit (talk) 13:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Worth pointing out that Green t-shirt has now been blocked. --Major Bonkers (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

No, that's an old block notice, it seems. It expired after one week, so he's back to his old tricks. Time for another block, perhaps. -- Kesh (talk) 22:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I see he responds well, though, to strict references! Ha-ha-ha! Clio the Muse (talk) 01:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Past perceptions of children was something I touched on at length in a discussion on Medieval parents. I will repeat the point that I made on that occasion: there is absolutely no reason to suppose that Roman parents were any less caring and attentive towards their children than their modern equivalent. We have the evidence of funery monuments recording in detail the accidental deaths if children aged seven and under, some with heart-breaking precision. The very mention of these accidents serves to emphasise the sense of bereavement. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Remote

What is the furthest land point from inhabited places? How far away is it from the nearest inhabited place? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 12:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The South Pole?69.156.127.241 (talk) 12:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) : Have a look at Extreme_points_of_the_World. it depends what you mean by inhabited. The poles are a quick pick but the South is constantly occupied now. May be the North pole as its all ice sheet not continent ( no oil!). Otherwise an island in one of the southern oceans, Indian, Southern or South Pacific. Or a point in a desert, probably in North Africa. We have infested the planet to a degree that anytime, anywhere one of us is passing through and "inhabiting" it. If you find a desert island that doesnt have a reality tv show on it let us know! Mhicaoidh (talk) 12:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

umm I said South Atlantic too didn't I ?: Tristan da Cunha is the remotest point but thats still inhabited... and sadly maybe least inhabited might be the best we can do. Even high points like Everest are pretty much occupied a lot of the time. Now this is what I like about Wikipedia: try Hayy ibn Yaqdhan Mhicaoidh (talk) 12:46, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

just thinking... remoteness may not necessarily be a matter of distance but, as I feel, dislocation from the tyranny of time. One may well ask oneself , as a test of distance, what time is it here? The South Pole runs , amazingly for our American hegemonists, on New Zealand time, although when you look at the globe you will realise that since all time zones coincide there, then time can't be nailed down. So I would define uninhabitation and remoteness in terms of a number of factors: not just people, distance but also unimportance of time zone Mhicaoidh (talk) 13:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Antarctica says the continent has no permanent residents, so you could consider it to be uninhabited, and calculate the furthest point from settlements on the southern islands. However, some of the research stations are permanently staffed, so take your pick as to whether they are uninhabited or not. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 18:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Trying to find a certain Rev. Jesse Jackson speech

I've been told that Cirrus's Time's Running Out uses samples from a certain Jesse Jackson's speech, and I do seem to vaguely remember it. But I can't find the speech in question. Does anyone know? (follow the link to listen) 189.15.70.185 (talk) 13:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't listen to the link (not practical on dialup), but Jackson has delivered just one truly famous speech, apparently entitled "You Do Not Stand Alone". (text) That's the speech with the famous catch phrase "Keep Hope Alive", which has been sampled before, as the wikilink shows. Perhaps that's it. —Kevin Myers 02:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Presidental election

What happens if there are two democratic presidental runners, and neither one of them recieves enough deleget votes to run for president? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.85.210.203 (talk) 13:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Which country are you talking about? Different countries have different constitutional arrangements for such an eventuality. Malcolm XIV (talk) 13:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The United States —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.85.210.203 (talk) 14:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You do not need any delegates of any kind to run for President. For example, Ross Perot didn't have any delegates (Democrat or Republican). As for choosing an official Democrat to run for President, the Democrat party will ensure that they back somebody. -- kainaw™ 14:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The Democratic party rules say: "Balloting will continue until a nominee is selected." They do it in rounds called ballots. The rules (http://s3.amazonaws.com/apache.3cdn.net/f4225987fd9e438ef7_fqm6bev2k.pdf) state that "All delegates pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them." But also says "Delegates may vote for the candidate of their choice." They vote in rounds if no one gets the majority they have another round. As you can see in Democratic National Convention under History there were conventions that had to do quite a few rounds before they were done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lisa4edit (talk • contribs) 15:33, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

This is called a brokered convention.--droptone (talk) 11:50, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Fawr

Hi everybody! I have a question: how do we know for sure (i.e. where do I have to look) that Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Fawr was a son of Tangwystl Goch? The wikipedia articles about him and his father assess this fact without any reference... Thank you very much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.147.187.61 (talk) 14:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

At his name. "Ap Llywelyn Fawr" is Welsh for "son of Llywelyn Fawr". If he were the son of Tangwystl Goch, he would be known as "Gruffydd ap Tangwystl Goch". -- llywrch (talk) 18:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Oops. I had a feeling I was going to make a mistake like that. :-( -- llywrch (talk) 03:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Tangwystl Goch would be his mother, llywrch. 62.147.187.61, Google Scholar gave up some hits for her, but you'd need to be on a library account to read them. You could also try finding if any of the Welsh Chronicles are online in searchable form and see if there is a reference to her. Best luck, WikiJedits (talk) 18:42, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The principal early sources for Gruffudd ap Llywelyn are Brut y tywysogyon ('The chronicle of the princes') and Matthew Paris's Chronica majora. Xn4 22:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Scottish coat of arms

Do we (here a wikipedia) have a picture of the scottish coat of arms (as used today)!?! I have seen this and this already. I would prefer one with out the supporters. Just the 'shield' so to speak! The English equivalent is this. Thanks so much for any help! --Cameron (t|p|c) 14:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

James VI's version of the Shield of Arms isn't quite the one Queen Elizabeth uses, but you could swap the top right corner for an enlarged copy of the three leopards.

James I and VI

The banner of arms, known as the Royal Standard, is also in the project (right).

Royal Standard - Scottish version

There are a lot more shields at Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, but not exactly the one you want.

I don't think anyone has contributed the modern Royal Shield for Scotland, since it is most often seen (as far as I can guess) as a coat of arms with the supporters, and as the Royal Standard.

By the way, the image you linked, the one with the supporters: Image:Scottish_royal_coat_of_arms.svg is a vector image, so you could download it and use a program like Inkscape to cut out the shield. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 21:40, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Iris Murdoch and existentialism

When did Iris Murdoch turn against existentialism?Steerforth (talk) 16:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

According to Peter J. Conradi's Iris Murdoch: The Saint and the Artist, very quickly after becoming interested in it. Murdoch met Sartre and had a 'flirtation' with existentialism, but she found that it "neither swam nor drowned" - it was too priggish, too long-faced, for her. Xn4 22:08, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

From the same book I note that she accused both Sartre and Camus of lacking in 'mystery'. In a 1957 Spectator review she went a step further, saying that the appeal of existentialism was its 'dramatic, solipsistic, romantic and anti-social exaltation of the individual.' As an intellectual technique or way of thinking, at least in its materialist and atheistic form, it was increasingly far removed from the central theme of her novels; namely what it is to be good. Clio the Muse (talk) 01:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Antisocial behavior in U.K.

An earlier question about problems with "hoodies" got me thinking about British politicians current obsession with "antisocial behaviour". I'm an American and not sure what they're talking about. Are they referring to teenagers being obnoxious in public or is this some Orwellian euphemism for actual crime? Where does the recent hand wringing about it come from? --D. Monack | talk 18:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

There is some history etc in our article on Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. Nanonic (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

That article and related ones are somewhat informative, but I'm still unclear on some things. The definition of harassment, alarm or distress that can lead to an ASBO seems incredibly vague. What kind of actions typically lead to such an order? If I'm running down the sidewalk quickly and someone is "alarmed" that I might fall and hurt myself, can I be hit by a anti-social behavior order? If I see someone else doing the same thing and shout, "Watch where you're going, jackass!" and the other person is distressed or alarmed, can I likewise fall under an ASBO? How would my behavior typically be restricted by such an order? --D. Monack | talk 20:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, what was the impetus behind the asbo provisions of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998? Was there the perception that harassment and vandalism were out of control and needed a special remedy? The whole issue has the whiff of moral panic to me. --D. Monack | talk 20:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Moral panic is reasonably close to the mark, D Monack. ASBOs were introduced by politicians who wished to be seen "doing something" about the perceived problems of bored and obnoxious teenagers and nuisance neighbours, which are a regular theme in some sections of the British media. ASBOs were taken up relatively slowly at first - just 466 between 1998 and 2002, but up to 9853 by 2005 [23], as their true potential became apparent. The beauty of an ASBO, you see, is that you can use it to criminalise behaviour which is not in itself criminal. Just so long as someone accepts that harrassment, alarm or distress may be caused in some way to someone, almost anything may become ASBO-able. In addition to the examples in the article, see here [24] and here [25] for a couple of interesting cases. Your running-about-on-the-sidewalk example is no sillier than some, honestly it isn't. Then, if the person repeats the behaviour again (trampolining, feeding pigeons, swearing because they have Tourette's syndrome, whatever), you can whip out the ASBO and - hey presto! - they have a criminal record for breaching it. People can be evicted from social housing if convicted of breaching ASBOs, and if you are evicted because of your own actions you can be dubbed "intentionally homeless", which absolves the local authority from the duty to rehouse you, thus handily moving the problem elsewhere.

The effectiveness of ASBOs in dealing with genuinely obnoxious, disruptive and anti-social individuals - of any age - can be gauged by the high level of breaches, the view of them by some as a badge of honour[26] and the increasing popularity of Asbo as a dog's name. -- Karenjc 21:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[After edit conflict]

The ASBO system is, indeed, hopelessly vague. It's important to understand that these Orders can be made against behaviour which is not actually a crime, and that they can order the person concerned not to do things which are likewise not a crime, and yet that breaking such an order, once made, is a crime. Alas, the existence of this approach to 'antisocial behaviour', whether by young villains or by anyone else, means that the primary responsibility for doing something no longer falls unambiguously on the police and leads to many UK forces abandoning the old-fashioned method of detecting actual crimes against the person and prosecuting those responsible. You ask "Was there the perception that harassment and vandalism were out of control and needed a special remedy?" Yes, there was, but there was also the reality that they were out of control in many places. Why? - partly because of a general break-down in youth discipline (many secondary schools in the UK are disaster areas for this) but also partly because in recent years the British police have generally been focussed by their political masters on meeting a range of 'crime-reduction' targets, and (what a surprise!) 'anti-social behaviour' doesn't normally feature in the targets set. No great surprise, then, that the police aim their resources into the areas covered by the targets set for them: it would be remarkable if they did anything else. Xn4 21:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Trampolining? Feeding pigeons? It really has gone too far, hasn't it? Thanks for the updates. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 21:48, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

My take on the whole "anti-social behaviour" thing is, as Karenjc and Xn4 said, it is used to retroactively criminalise legal behaviour. The introduction of the ASBO has probably lead to the prosecution of numerous offenders who were previously unable to be stopped, but it has also resulted in numerous laughably extreme cases. The ASBO system furthers the anti-establishment sentiments that are often prevalent among young people by criminalising behaviour simply becuase it is seen as threatening. The threat no longer has to exist in order to be considered wortthy of acting upon. It's worth remembering that the ASBO system has probably eased the lives of some people in the UK, but has furthered an "us vs them" mentality between inner-city youths and the police. It may be worth noting that many of the so called "newspapers" in the UK that are so mocking of the ASBO played a significant part in creating the mentality that has lead to the inception of the ASBO. I suppose if an ASBO has prevented your neighbour from playing Dolly Parton at all hours the you'd be quite in favour of them, but some of them have been a bit ridiculous. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 02:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

police state much? --Nricardo (talk) 02:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh but that can't be because we're a great free country. That only happens elsewhere or in the past. Breakfast at Twilight for all I think. 79.66.99.37 (talk) 03:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Closer to a nanny state, I think 13:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk • contribs)

Economic Stimulus

(not asking for advice, asking for fact.

If a couple's income is too high to qualify for their $1,200, and they have children under 17, will they still get $300 per child? Most articles I've read don't really clarify on it. 24.6.46.92 (talk) 22:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You might want to mention what country or other jurisdiction you're talking about. --Anon, 01:13 UTC, April 30, 2008.

This is obviously H.R. 5140, the Economic Stimulus Act 2008 - commonly called the Bush Tax Refund so we can all blame Bush for it even though it was heavily written, amended, and then voted on by Congress. Couples get $1,200 if they filed a gross income of less than $75,000. Those eligible for the $1,200 will get an additional $300 per child claimed on their taxes. See this for a good description of the bill without all the legalspeak. -- kainaw™ 02:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.irs.gov/app/espc/ --Nricardo (talk) 02:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Asking this question on the Language Desk is like asking a pig for eggs. It should be on the Miscellaneous Desk!--ChokinBako (talk) 22:27, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

April 30

Sculpture identification

File:IMG00252.jpg

My mother-in-law bought the sculpture pictured here at a department store (Liverpool) in Mexico City. She's wondering what culture this comes from. The best I can offer is that it looks like something African, but I can't do any better than that. Any thoughts? Donald Hosek (talk) 03:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

A casting rather than a carving, yes? A pewter-like alloy? This is not an ethnological object, I'd think, but a modernist artist's sculpture.--Wetman (talk) 03:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a rip-off of Giacometti to me. Malcolm XIV (talk) 08:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

School of Giacometti would be my choice as well. Your mother-in-law certainly has - uh - peculiar taste; but you probably knew that already! --Major Bonkers (talk) 16:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

What your mother-in-law bought, Donald, is a modern reproduction of an Etruscan votive statuette from the 4th or 3rd century BC. The original was found at the shrine of Diana near Nemi, on the Alban Hills south of Rome; it is now at the Louvre. – If you haven't yet waded into these waters, discovering the wonders of Etruscan bronzes, terracottas and mural paintings is a truly fascinating experience :-) Best regards, Ev (talk) 17:47, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, Ev!--Wetman (talk) 19:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is there so many questions about WW2 Germany here?

They lost the war,after all...How come that people are more interested in a losing side,rather then in Russia,USA or UK? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.216.101.61 (talk) 04:00, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

People in the West are fascinated with the Nazis. It's the common cultural barometer for evil, something pretty much everyone agrees was the ultimate horror, and as a result it becomes inherently fascinating, like the idea of sin itself. Plus, the fact that it was wiped out in 1945, unlike the other countries you've mentioned, gives it a little more historical specificity—it's a story that has a definite beginning and an ending. --69.110.41.71 (talk) 04:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I've wondered that too. My suggestion is that the history syllabus in the UK concentrates particularly heavily on this period. The other thing I wonder about is why so few people who pose a question post a 'thank you' when it's answered! --Major Bonkers (talk) 08:35, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd go partly with that, but also there is a fascination with Nazi Germany because Germany was very much a Country Like Us full of People Like Us, and yet that happened. Russia was a very different place, so events there seem less 'shocking'. The USA, not a lot really happened compared to elsewhere. The UK? There's quite a lot a stuff about the home front, and people do tend to be interested in the Blitz, the preparations for invasion, the Enigma code, evacuation, etc. But it tends to prompt fewer questions of "How could that happen?". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.66.99.37 (talk) 11:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Saying "thank you" effectively curtails further answers which could add more information. --Sean 12:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That's true of course, Sean, but when I look at some of the lengthy and detailed answers given by the Wiki-lovelies who regularly post on this page, a bit of common courtesy wouldn't go amiss either! --Major Bonkers (talk) 14:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, thank you for clarifying your position. :) --Sean 17:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

You say that "thank you" curtails further responses as though it's a matter of fact. I disagree. Why should gratitude for an earlier post hinder a future one? If someone has something to add they should add it. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 20:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

← A more interesting question is, "Why don't more people research/ask questions about World War 1?" WW1 is more of a dark stain on Western behavior, while WW2 lets us "feel good" about stopping an obviously destructive regime. -- Kesh (talk) 23:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

My .02004 CAD -- I think most Nazi Germany questions stem from a single question that might be the greatest puzzle of all time: How could it happen? How could a democratic, civilized country, the land that gave us Goethe and Beethoven and Kepler, descend into a barbarity unsurpassed in human history? What are the lessons to be learned? What does it say, if anything, about humanity in general? How much responsibility for the fate of Hitler's victims lies with collaborators or with perfidious Western governments? Were the evil deeds of Nazi Germany really unique, or were they foreshadowed by other atrocities now mostly forgotten? There are so many questions and so few satisfactory answers. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

No, no, thank you, Sean! Thinking about this a bit more, and a propos various threads on my Talk page, I suggest that it might be because when we visit a European country about which we don't know very much, we rather instinctively turn to what we do know about, which tends to be what that country or people did in the War; we confuse history with geography. The most extreme example of this occurred on my first visit to Poland; I was sitting in the BA cattle class, and got talking to my neighbour who was a Pole. Was it my first visit to Poland - Yes - Oh; well you'll find that the way that Polish people begin a conversation - like the English mutter, 'funny weather we're having' - is to ask, 'Who do you hate more, the Russians or the Germans?' Sure enough, after I cleared the airport, my driver spent the next hour telling me in great detail just how badly the Germans had behaved during the war. I also notice quite a lot of commentary on the Austrians, for example, draws attention to the fact that they were never de-Nazified at the end of the war. And who doesn't, in thinking about Japan, turn to the fact that they behaved quite disgracefully during the war and never had the decency to apologise for it subsequently?

A lot of our attitudes are well-concealed; I know people who wouldn't buy German or Japanese cars, for example, although both of them have subsequently died; and certainly in continental Europe you tend to find quite a lot of latent dislike of the Germans, amongst the older generation, based on the wartime occupation (at least in my experience). --Major Bonkers (talk) 12:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I've always assumed that our fascination (using "our" in the sense of White, middle-class people living in the First World) with WW II is that it was the major event in our family's lives -- well, at least for those who were directly involved, & their children (my father was in the 10th Mountain Division). We grew up hearing stories about it -- where they were when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, when FDR died, anecdotes about the service, about life at home, etc. My father was in Italy, for example, & his most vivid memory about Venice was not the architecture, but the size of the rats. (He didn't talk about his experience in combat until a few years ago, after "Saving Private Ryan" came out, although somehow I knew his division was planned to be part of Operation Olympic.) My mother would reminisce about rationing (lipstick was available only in the color black) & weaving through the barbed wire when she went to the beach. (As if the Japanese were about stage a seaborne landing on the Oregon coast. ;) Of course, this made us curious about what WW II was like for "the other side", as well as our allies.

On the other hand, WW I is ancient history for my generation, something we learned about in school -- & probably the same for those younger than me. Although one of my grandfathers was involved in that conflict, he died 9 years before I was born. The only person I remember meeting who was a WW I veteran was one of my stepmother's relatives, & I never thought to ask him about it. (FWIW, he served in the German army & I wished I could have heard some of his stories.) -- llywrch (talk) 16:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

History of England

Please summarise the history of England in one approx. 500 word-long paragraph. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.8.173 (talk) 06:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

England is a country which you'll find out more about if you click on the link. Write what and where it is. On that page you'll find a link to the History of England which is the topic of this essay. We will begin with a look prehistoric time. Stonehenge which you will learn about on the linked page was erected then. You should select 2 or 3 facts for your readers.

A nice introductory sentence will bring us to the Roman Empire. The Romans ruled England for as many years as you will learn back on the History of England page. In the years mentioned a few paragraphs down the Roman Emperor mentioned there invaded Britannia, which is England and Wales.

In the next paragraph you'll find what happened then, which you should tell in 1 or 2 sentences about settlers. Although the Anglo Saxons faced an event you'll mention in 495 They expanded again starting with a century mentioned in that piece and continuing for the number of centuries a bit of adding will give you. ...(178 words) Continue paragraph by paragraph By the time you have reached the end of that page your essay will be done and will probably have at least 500 words. Trim a couple of less important details if that's too much.--Lisa4edit (talk) 08:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

There's a bit more to Britannia than England and Wales, but with only five hundred words to play with I think I should leave out the Britanno-Roman and earlier periods. England really begins with the arrival in Britain of the English, even if that was less of an event than we (I mean the English) like to think. Xn4 10:23, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Not possiblehotclaws 11:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Stone Henge, Romans, Henry VIII, The Beatles. A few people died in between. Thats all you need to knowIiidonkeyiii (talk) 12:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're looking for the "plot summary" section of 1066 and all that. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:39, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it's mean of you not to give this person an actual answer to his homework, so here is my suggestion:

The History of England begins with the arrival of the Engles, a peaceful tribe from what is now northern Germany. They arrived in England to find it almost unoccupied, the warring tribes that had previously occupied the island having killed each other off in a series of wars. In 1066 William the Conqueror, the last Roman emperor, conquered the island. When the Roman Empire fell he continued to rule in England, until succeeded by his sons Arthur and Alfred the Great. England later became a great sea power by having faster ships than anyone else, meaning that they got to all the good colonies first, and thus ruled India, Africa, America and Australia. In the 1500s the other countries started to rebel against the Pope (this was called the Reformation) but didn't know what to do when they had got rid of him. England had the great idea of getting the king to replace the Pope, meaning you only had to pay one person to rule. Then the other countries got jealous of England's success and sent an Armada to destroy all their fast ships, but Francis Drake beat them back by loading bowling balls into his ship's cannon. In the 1600s England showed the Indians how to make a drink from their tea bushes (the Indians hadn't known what to do with them before). Because of this the Indians let the English rule over them. But in the 1700s the Americans decided they didn't like tea, so they became independent so they could drink coffee instead. Those Americans who liked tea moved to Canada. In the 1800s people were inventing machines for everything, but the English didn't like this so they had the Industrial Revolution and got rid of them all. This made England the nicest place to live and everyone started to visit there. England then invented the parliament, which meant that people talked about their problems instead of fighting about them. Everyone copied this idea and that made a great contribution to world peace. In the early twentieth century Germany attacked England in order to make them buy more machines (the Germans were very good at making machines) but they weren't successful. They tried again a few years later but all the other countries joined in to stop them.

I'm note sure that's exactly 500 words, but feel free to hand it in anyway. DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

This should be OK. Just cut it down to the bare essentials to make it 500 words.--ChokinBako (talk) 22:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Much better than anything I could have added. DJ Clayworth (talk) 22:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ha-ha-ha! The history of England in 500 words? This surely must be a joke?! Ah, well, what about Angles came and then the Normans; Planted Gents and Wars of Roses, followed then by quiet Reposes. Then the Stuarts and Cromwell after, rise and fall and quiet disaster. A Revolution then, free and Glorious, and then the Germans, quiet notorious. Another Revolution, dark and satanic, but Parliament emerged, so no need for panic. Wars for freedom end the process. So it was that English history (England itself) came to a . Oh, to hell with this. Here is an altogether better summary:

This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth,

Renowned for their deeds as far from home,

For Christian service and true chivalry,

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,

Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son,

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,

Like to a tenement or pelting farm:

England, bound in with the triumphant sea

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:

That England, that was wont to conquer others,

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,

How happy then were my ensuing death! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

500 words? Why do you need so many? This from Max Hastings' Nemesis (hardback ed., p.385):

In Rangoon Jail, a Gurkha subadar invited by the Japanese to compose an essay on the British simply wrote in block capitals: 'THE BRITISH ALWAYS HAVE BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE FINEST RACE IN THE WORLD.' He was sent to solitary confinement. --Major Bonkers (talk) 11:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Hitler and astrology

Is there any evidence that Hitler's astrological beliefs influenced decisions he took and perhaps contributed to his down fall? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yes, I believe it (talk • contribs) 08:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

See Nazi occultism. Apparently the one who was most interested in astrology was Himmler. --69.110.41.71 (talk) 09:00, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I touched on this not so long ago. Here is what I said, slightly modified;

Hitler did not have an astrologer. He was altogether contemptuous of the practice, and astrologers were among one of the many groups persecuted during the Third Reich. There were, however, some among the leadership prepared to take the practice seriously, either for political ends or out of simple superstition. Heinrich Himmler and Rudolf Hess were most notable amongst the latter. The man who came closest to being the 'court' astrologer was Karl Ernst Krafft, who was arrested in May 1941 following Hess's flight to Scotland, when Hitler, in his fury, ordered a fresh purge of occultists and astrologers of all kinds. Goebbels joked at this time that it was odd that not one amongst the group was able to predict what was about to happen to them! Clio the Muse (talk) 22:30, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations

How well does the first stand up against the second? Jet Eldridge (talk) 13:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

The first is genius; the second is, well, philosophy! Sorry; I'm being glib, J T, though my remark contains an essential truth. Compared with the Tractatus, Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein's only other published book, is altogether quite disappointing. Gone is the daring and lucidity of his little intellectual squib. In its place comes a plodding analysis of particular sensations and the meaning of words: there is no such thing as philosophy; only philosophising. It's as if Socrates had decided to join the Sophists! The blend of logic and mysticism that made up the Tractatus has been replaced by somewhat pedantic process of unraveling words from knots of misapplied meaning. The long western tradition of thought and revelation through thought has ended in a form of linguistic hair-splitting. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

I dunno. I've always been impressed with the argument from the PI that the problem of other minds is solved by the existence of pain: although pain is the most subjective experience one can feel, all of us understand what the word "pain" means. That has interesting implications. -- llywrch (talk) 16:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Physicalism in philosphy of mind

Hi guys. I study philosophy, and I'm particularly interested in philosophy of mind. I'm wondering if there are any good, rational reasons to think that physicalism is false. From everything I've read and know, it seems incredibly likely that the mind=the brain, and most of the arguments that propose something different rest on either a current lack of knowledge about the brain or an unneccessary seperation into both mind and brain. So, are there any good reasons to think that physicalism is false? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 14:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Most things can be explained or rebutted if you group all arguments you can't deal with as "a current lack of knowledge". We can, and do, push these boundaries. But it is also possible that reality is ultimately not "knowable". The mind=the brain works just on the same level that e.g. Newtonian physics work for falling apples. Until you dig deeper and find that you have this quantity "time" in there. Next you have direction. Then there is the problem of what this "apple" thing actually is. Every element of the concept of an apple falling reaches an unexplained/unexplainable element once you dissect it far enough. That's where physics, metaphysics and philosophy meet. The concepts turn cyclical because our idea of what "the brain" is, is created in "our mind". If you explain that everything that exists is just a thought in some higher being's mind, or the collective minds of all possible universes then physicalism arguments fall apart just as fast as vice versa. You might enjoy reading some ideas by physicist John Archibald Wheeler. I think at some point it all comes down to at what point you go with what you believe to be true facts and forget about the rest. (And eat the apple.:-) Lisa4edit --71.236.23.111 (talk) 19:48, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me that the inventors of Physicalism are creating a problem where none exists. Does anyone lose sleep over its tenets? Do you? Vranak (talk)

Well, actually people (like Rene Descartes) have lost a lot of sleep over the closely related mind-body dichotomy problem. Our article on dualism (philosophy of mind) summarizes some of the arguments for and against.--Eriastrum (talk) 21:34, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Michael, before I begin I would like to ask you a question. Are you really a philosophy student or just a student of philosophy?! I feel sure that you will understand the difference. If you are indeed a philosophy student, as opposed to a dilettante (like me!), then you must surely be aware of the critiques of Physicalism? Are you, perhaps, just setting an intellectual trap? Well, if so, I am about to fall into it, head first!

The essential problem is, even if one accepts the empirical argument for Physicalism, there are still too many philosophical barriers to accepting the complete theory. For example, how can mind and brain be taken to mean the same thing, when the meaning of the words is completely different? If mind was brain they would mean the same thing; but as we have known what mind is for centuries without knowing it is mind, it follows that this is impossible. In other words, by saying that mental state is identical with brain does not mean that 'brain' and 'mental' are the same thing. Put this another way: lightening is identical with electrical discharge but this does not mean that 'lightening' and 'electrical discharge' mean the same thing. In simple semantic terms we have to distinguish here between the extension and intension of a noun. Lightning and electrical discharge do not have the same intension; they do have the same extension. So it is with mind and body.

However, there are objections even more fundamental than this. The starting point here is that existence of irreducible mental properties, things which simply cannot be explained in physical terms. What it is like to have a mind is not part of physics, but it is an essential part of the mental. How, then, does Physicalism account for consciousness? For if mind is no more than matter, how can mental processes exist, as matter can only have physical properties?

Perhaps I can anticipate your objection here? You might, after all, take the same approach as Paul Churchland, and deny that there are any mental properties, or qualia, as this is occasionally termed? But this is simply an arbitrary foreclosure, an act of faith, if you prefer, not a matter of argument or proof. How can one possibly be convinced by those who argue that there is no such thing as an inner mental life, when so much of what we are, of what we believe, and how we act, comes from this?

The only alternative is to admit that there are indeed irreducible mental properties while still holding to the claim that the mind is brain. Mental features are then merely the way the brain appears to us as a kind of by-product. But here the Physicalists move on to even weaker ground. We know, or we feel, that we act in accordance with conscious thoughts. It is the decisions each and every one of us takes that result in actions. But Physicalism only serves to undermine this. After all, if brain processes cause action, then making a decision has nothing to do with it. John Searle put it like this: it is as though the froth on the sea was to think, 'gee, pulling these waves back and forth is really hard work', where froth is to consciousness what sea is to brain. In this model of things consciousness is no more than an epiphenomenon, which sits, so to speak, above the brain, without causing any of what is going on.

Here the main objection has to be that such epiphenomenalism serves to undermine all our concepts of freedom. Yes, there are some who do indeed maintain that we are not free. Fair enough; but if consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon then why does it exist at all? Why should this complex process have evolved in the way it has if it has no part to play in our lives? Is there any determinist so narrow as to allow no place at all for consciousness?

Yes, the link between mind and brain is not just close; it's intimate. Yes, there can indeed be no thought without brain activity. But, no, mind is not identical with brain. Now, Michael, tell me: how deep have I fallen?! Clio the Muse (talk) 00:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• Michael, perhaps you're approaching this the wrong way. If whatever you have read - Descartes on the pineal gland, or Locke dividing the everything into God, Knowledge, and Matter - doesn't somehow strike you as persuasive on a deeper level, you are not alone. I recall reading a recent study (by the Chronicle of Higher Education, IIRC) that showed that a large proportion of grad students in philosophy find most of the classical modern philosophers similarly unpersuasive. My suggestion is that you read those authors who have tried to account for our sensations of feeling as if we have free will or an independent mind, but do not ignore all that we have learnt of the brain and mind since Descartes was writing (and the language developed two separate words!). For many of these philosophers, the challenge is reconciling what we know about brain activity with what we feel about the mind; most manage to come up with fairly substantive theories, many based on neurology, and others on evolutionary psychology, as to why we sometimes instinctively insist upon the independence of the mind. I'd suggest Harry Frankfurt, Daniel Dennett and Robert Kane. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your answers guys. To answer your question, Clio, I am indeed a philosophy student, and although I'm vaguely aware of the critiques/arguments, I don't study philosophy of mind. I was reading an interview with the aforementioned Churchlands about their eliminativist position and I felt although they were a little extreme, they raised interesting questions about our folk psychology understanding of the mind-brain problem, and how our lack of knowledge of the brain means we are curently unable to explain mental processes, but that this does not mean we will not be able to in the future. I don't know a huge amount about the subject, and all the reading I've done seems to be about highly technical and semantic disticntions between brain activity and thought. So I was just wondering if there are any empirically grounded arguments against physicalism. Again, thank you all for your answers. Michael Clarke, Esq. (talk) 13:27, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I think its fair to say there are no empirically grounded arguments against physicalism, if we share the generally accepted definition of "empirical". Duncan MacDougall (doctor) died too soon. For a detailed discussion of such problems, Peter Carruthers (philosopher) has an interesting few chapters in some of his books, particularly The Nature of the Mind. Here is a sample chapter that might help you gauge whether its worth requesting on interlibrary loan, though it isn't the chapter which discusses empirical arguments for dualism, which is considerably clearer than this one. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

How to obtain an equipment trust certificate

What is the process from begining to end on how to finance an airplane using an equipment trust certicate? What documents does it involve and where do i get these documents?

Thank you,

Namllips00 (talk) 16:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Theoretical and Critical Significance of Post-Structuralism today?

What is so important about post-structuralism in today's contemporary culture? Thanks in advance —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.169.32 (talk) 16:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you read our article post-structuralism and followed some of its links? Your question is very broad and vague. Perhaps if you asked some more specific, focused questions, we would be able to give you some answers.--Eriastrum (talk) 22:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

121, I completely agree with Eriastrum, though I would go one step further: your questions is not just vague, it's impossibly vague. I would be pleased to help if you would only try to make things altogether more specific. Clio the Muse (talk) 23:18, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Of course its impossibly vague, its about poststructuralism. --Relata refero (disp.) 08:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Now, now, play nice. -- Kesh (talk) 20:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Landreneau, France Is it ancient history, or exists today?

I have a resident living in the same disabled home as I am, that when speaking to her about our Acadian 'Grand Derangement', when we were exiled from France, went to Nova Scotia, only to be kicked out again, before we settled in lower Louisiana, she told me something surprising. Her family, is not of Acadian ancestry, but her family, did come from France many years ago. The town, Landreneau, was where they lived, and for some unknown reason, the WHOLE COMMUNITY, was also exiled out of France. She says that all the different families, dropped their normal last names, and used Landreneau,instead.

This was done as a connection, and form of protest, for their being evicted from France. And she well remembers her father's anger, when he others around him, tried getting him to add an X at the end of Landreneau. He believed, it would break the connection to his home land and town, if it was done that way, so he refused. An area monthly magazine, some years back, ran an article on this town in France, and she had saved the issue, but simply can't find it any more.I contacted them, and hope to hear back, and to get some info on this situation. But using the pc, I simply CAN NOT GET ANY INFO, OR ON MAPS, FIND Landreneau, France.Did it indeed, ever exist? And if so, what name was given to it, to replace the Landreneau name? It's sort of strange, that I have had absolutely no luck, getting any hits, on this place, and really believe, that it's name was replaced by something else, so many years ago.

Does anyone, have any clue, to this matter, and can direct me to find out what the history of this place, really is? Thank you. Ffman21 (talk) 21:28, 30 April 2008 (UTC)ffman21

http://maps.google.fr/ didn't have Landreneau but there's a Landerneau in the Bretagne. Given that there have been spelling changes, that might be it. --Lisa4edit (talk) 00:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

We have an article, Landerneau, not much help, though. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

As for the expulsion, Ffman, does the lady in question perhaps have a Protestant ancestry? Clio the Muse (talk) 00:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

That may be one possible reason but if it is indeed that town google shows, then Breton language gives clues to another. French authorities tried to stamp out "non-French" cultures in France. Maybe even both reasons applied. Lisa4edit (talk) 07:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

If, indeed, they were Calvinists / Huguenots, then there is an article on it for information on the background. However, Luisiana was originally a part of New France where Protestatnts were prevented from settling. This would make Huguenot roots of this name unlikely.

As for the Breton hypothesis, I have never heard anything about a forced emigration of Bretons. Also, the Breton name is Landerne, which casts some doubt on this theory, as well. The French article on the place is somewhat longer, but does not seem to refer to some exodus (my barely remembered French may have missed a clue).

Sorry if this is not of any help. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to you all. You've given me a start on this. I gave her what was added over night, and she's amazed, and a bit embarrassed, that she know's so little of her ancestry, back in France. I found Googling JUST Landreneau, and leaving the France part off, gave me much more. Found a travel site, France This Way, that sends out monthly lit. on what France has to offer visitors, and I sent them a message, asking for any info on Landreneau, and the why of it. Also, asked if they could point me in the direction of getting the entire story on Landreneau. I hope to hear back from them. As to our heritage here in Louisiana, yes, we bought it from Napolean, calling it the Louisiana Purchase, and if you ever see a map of the ORIGINAL Louisiana superimposed, it covered more area, than Alaska does. But they broke it into many different states, thus shrinking us in size. I really have no memory, learning on the purchase, of any religious troubles, but it would hardly surprise me, if they did. Searching for Landreneau, and getting contacts, like from you all, is making me feel interested, in learning about her past. She seemed really thrilled when I filled her in this morning, and she hopes, as I do, that this is just the beginning. Thank you, folks. And add things, as you think of it. It's appreciated.Ffman21 (talk) 17:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ffman21 (talk • contribs) 17:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I did some poking around, and I wish I had an approximate date for the expulsion you mention. I found an article that goes into detail about a little revolt in Finistère in 1902 during the implementation of the 1901 French Law on Associations (which disappointingly redirects to Voluntary association). The author mentions royalist tendencies even that late in Landerneau, which might well have caused people problems there somewhat earlier, non? The 1902 foment had to do with an attempt by Republican France to unify and homogenize the country, with secular schooling and the abolition of the Breton language. --Milkbreath (talk) 18:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Credit default swap

Has there ever been a CDS (or similar instrument) that included a clause protecting the buyer against downgrades in the reference entity's credit rating? I know that you could possibly proxy this with a future or an option but I'm looking for an instrument that specifically allows for migrations. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 22:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

May 1

Flags

If the United Kingdom changes it's flag (eg if Northern Ireland is removed) would countries like Australia, New Zealand change their flags accordingly? What about Hawaii?--Shniken1 (talk) 03:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Simple: each country would do whatever its government felt like. --Anonymous, 05:37 UTC, May 1.

'Northern Ireland' isn't in the Union flag; the cross of St. Patrick is (St. Patrick being the patron saint of Ireland); see: Union flag#Since 1801. In the unlikely event of Northern Ireland removing itself from the Union, theoretically the St. Patrick's cross might be removed from the flag but, on the basis that at least some people living in Northern Ireland would still remain British subjects, there would be no great hurry to remove the cross.

The flag itself commemorates the Union as a whole; the constituent parts of the Union - England, Wales, Scotland, and (Northern) Ireland - all have their own flags although <deep sigh> the Ulster banner, representing Northern Ireland, is in some sort of official limbo (the article has been the subject of prolonged edit-warring), and the Welsh dragon or cross of St. David is not represented at all on the Union flag (perhaps because either the pattern wouldn't fit or because Wales is a principality rather than a kingdom). --Major Bonkers (talk) 09:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The non-presence of the Welsh flag is a result of history: while England was united with Scotland and Ireland by Acts of Union, Wales was incorporated into England by conquest. Thus unlike the other parts of the UK, England and Wales share a single legal system and flag. Algebraist 10:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't tell anybody where I come from that we share a flag. We are liable to burn down your holiday home. AndyJones (talk) 17:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

price of oil and value of dollar

What is the relationship between the price of oil and the value of the dollar? Is part of the increase in oil due to the decline of the dollar? What does this mean for those buying oil in other currencies, such as the euro? --Halcatalyst (talk) 04:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Not directly, but indirectly, very likely. Consider the following: The price for a barrel of crude is quoted in dollars. If the value of the dollar falls it has less purchasing power in other countries. If e.g. a sheik wants a boat from France he'll have to sell more oil to pay for that boat or raise the price per barrel. If said sheik invests his hard earned oil dollars in the same currency, then his interest or dividend payments also will buy him fewer goods abroad. Same result. A large portion of the oil price is actually what the oil companies add on. They also buy a lot of their ships, materials, personnel etc. abroad. Guess what, if they have to pay more dollars for them they'll raise their prices. Oil companies are owned by stockholders. Stockholders outside of the US want to buy the same things in their countries as before. They'll ask the company to increase their dividend payouts or they'll sell all their stock and the stock-price of the company will fall. So the company will have to make more profit to pay higher dividends. The price goes up. The oil company will also have borrowed money from banks and investors in other countries. The interest will probably have to be paid in the local currency of that country, i.e. cost more dollars. You know what they'll do to cover the cost increase. Oil companies also build refineries in foreign countries and operate businesses there. They have to pay for materials and wages (and taxes) in the local currency = costs increase with a weaker dollar. Even if our oil company were all local and have non of these costs, their competitor may have their headquarters abroad and need to make more dollars to earn the same amount of Euro. They would be forced to raise their prices. Our oil company would then see that they could make more profit if they raised their prices, too, although they are not forced to. This is a very simplistic view, though. The real market is a lot more complicated. There are things like futures and forwards that distort things. Forex trading also changes the picture. For those who buy oil in other currencies, they get more oil for their Euros because the crude is priced in dollars, until our sheik increases the price. The consumers buy from the oil companies. Although they now get more dollars for what they make in Euros, they also have to pay more Euros for their local organization. It's more likely that they will keep their prices stable or raise them than lower them. Only if there are enough local competitors that sell at lower prices would the oil companies lower their prices. Although the companies in Euroland pay the same or less Euros for their oil, the things that they export to the US are more expensive for consumers there. US consumers will buy fewer of those products. The Euroland companies also get fewer Euros for all their Dollar investments. They'll probably react by raising their prices on the domestic market. The Euroland consumers will want to buy a lot of products from the US because they are cheaper. The companies will pay for the goods in Dollars, but earn Euros. There will be a trade deficit. That affects the value of the Euro to the dollar. Off to the next round. (The real game is a whole lot more convoluted, though) --Lisa4edit (talk) 08:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

campaign finance

These three questions are posted together since they address essentially the same topic of campaign finance.

1. It makes sense that if the government squelches campaign contributions it has the same effect on voters as squelching does on listener's of audio, i.e., the results are clipped and therefore distorted. As such the voter can not have (a conspiracy?) a clear picture as to whom the candidate truly represents from the list of campaign contributors and the amount each contributes. For this reason shouldn't campaign contributions not be squelched?
2. Publications which are not promoted, featured or advertised often have poor readership, although some may have high readership as the result of only "word of mouth." Are multi-million dollar campaign expenditures and contributions really necessary?
3. Candidates may have to spend a lot more to convince me I should spend my time and energy going to the poles to vote for them. What if I could vote online instead of fighting traffic and standing in line? Wouldn't a virtual pole reduce the amount of advertising required to get me to go to a real world pole? --Taxa 05:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Re 3) There is already trouble with electronic voting machines that don't print out a receipt. What would keep a crook from stealing the election. You'd have to make sure that each vote is cast by an actual person of voting age and that person is who they claim to be and you'd have to make sure that that person only casts one vote. Even if you checked social security numbers or passport numbers, what would keep people from casting a vote for s.o. else. How would you keep bright hackers or a malicious big company mogul from cracking the system and faking the results? If you do register ID then a malicious government could later single out voters for the opposition and toss them into prison or worse. "It's hard to make things foolproof because fools are so ingenious." --Lisa4edit (talk) 06:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• How do you know you can trust the people at the real world poles and the manual system currently in use? What checks and balances against corruption and fraud are there now? Creating a top notch online pole would present the very opportunity necessary to incorporate such checks and balances so that no one has to worry about corruption or fraud.
• Tokens are often used as a way to assure only one vote per voter, the person voting is not under aged, the person is who they claim to be, that no one else can cast a vote in their place. If you check online forums such as SMF you will find extensive polling and voting mechanisms which are secure and which do not even use tokens.
• What keeps the rich from using starvation, withholding of medical care and forced exposure to the elements to kill off the poor? --Taxa 08:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Paper ballots can be and often are recounted. There are representatives from both parties present when votes are counted, but still there will always be some degree of cheating. If the losing (or winning) party thinks that there has been an accidental or intentional miscount they can request a recount of the votes. I'm not sure about your top-notch system and how you would ensure that that could not be tampered with. Starting from the progamers and company that develops it down to the individual voters there are more opportunities for holes than in a sieve. If the internet were safe no one would need virus protection software. Are you going to distribute retina scanners or fingerprint readers along with those tokens? Otherwise what's keeping the husband from voting for his wife. The teenager from voting for his parents or his grandma. The postmaster from voting for everyone in the village? Organized crooks from collecting the real token and sending out fake ones? The rich will starve the poor and withhold medical care no matter how votes are cast. Lisa4edit (talk) 08:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

BTW polls not poles :-}Lisa4edit (talk) 08:16, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• If that were true, "...the rich would live and the poor would die...", Joan Baez.
• "Poles" and "polls" are used interchangeably. Some prefer to use "pole" when speaking of a long term periodic and legally binding vote or the place for casting your vote where your security concerns are justified and "poll" when speaking of frequent and not legally binding opinion. Hence, voter pole and opinion poll. My question is about changing the voter pole from off line to online.
• Current off line voting methods do not include or require retina scanners, fingerprint readers, or DNA testing.
• If you have a bank account are you afraid to access it online? --Taxa 10:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Pole and poll are not used interchangeably. Buy a bloody dictionary. Malcolm XIV (talk) 10:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe Poles, where irregularities in elections are connected to the bipolar disorder, which, I think, affects all areas in between the two Poles? Mind you, these two Poles have to stand all year long in the freezing weather and turn the little handles which poke out of the ice to ensure that terrestrial rotation is maintained. The aforementioned Polar Disorder has also been connected to global warming, however, I seem to digress, as per the hypothesis of Bipolar Chaos Theory. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 09:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The very kind of comment we have come to expect from something that rhymes with poll. Adaptron (talk) 10:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

If that were true, ...the rich would live and the poor would die At least 25,000 people would agree with that statement every day (2003 figures) If you'd just like the US reference try statistics for things like relative income and murder rate, infant mortality, insufficient health-care, alcoholism etc. "Poles" must be some regional variety. Current off line voting methods include a picture ID that a person can associate with a reasonable likeness of the face you are wearing. (Although if you look like your driver's license photo you may not be fit to vote :-) A PC camera photo/video of you would not be a sufficient online equivalent because you can feed video data from a file instead and there would be no way of telling. I get a bank statement from my bank and if they withdraw money from my account that I don't have a record of they'll have to remove the charge. We installed secret ballots for a reason. If you introduce a method for linking the person of the voter to the vote they cast for online voting you do away with that. Lisa4edit (talk) 13:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

• 25,000 dying of starvation is not good nor is any statistical correlation of income to murder rate, infant mortality, insufficient health-care, alcoholism etc. but that is a far cry from genocide of the poor. The Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation, to mention one (and there are many more), the UN, the World Bank and many other "rich" people and organizations considered rich by anyone's standard are working hard to help the foodless and the homeless.
• "Poles" is not regional or universal, but used nonetheless in connection with places where citizens go to select a candidate to hold office, versus an exit "poll" taken by a newspaper or TV station to get a rough idea of which candidate faired best.
• You are confusing voter registration with voting. Voter registration is where you jump through all the hoops to prove you are you. Online voting is where you give your token to one candidate or the other and where they return the tokens to the Election board for verification. Only the computer connects the registered voter, the token and the candidate and to the best of my knowledge has no use for a bribe, since they have pretty much everything they want anyway. ;) You are not worried about the computer cutting off your electricity if you don't vote for the candidate of its choice, now are you? ;) --Taxa 14:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Once again, Google is not the arbiter of correct spelling. "Poles" is incorrect in this context. Look in a dictionary.

Almost all of the Google hits on your link relate to Polish people voting; the rest are simple spelling mistakes. If "poles" were an acceptable variation for "polls", I would expect to see it used in this context on the website of a reputable newspaper or similar publication. I don't. Malcolm XIV (talk) 19:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and it's fared best, not faired best. Although you'll probably say that's a legitimate variant as well. Malcolm XIV (talk) 19:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. What we refer to your concern in engineering as, is dithering. --Taxa 21:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Soviet military thinking

Futher to my past questions on diplomacy and strategy in the inter-war period I would now like to focus a little more specifically on Soviet military thinking. What I need to know is why the Red Army was so ill-prepared for the German attack in 1941? I'm thinking here in terms of strategic planning. What themes had Soviet military specialists pursued in the inter-war period? Was their decision-making so politically circumscribed that they were effectively unable to respond to German battle-field innovations? Clio, in the light of our previous discussions, I imagine you have a view about this? John Spencer (talk) 08:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Look at the Russia page. They had a "little" civil war inbetween WWI and WWII. "The Allied powers launched a military intervention in support of anti-Communist forces and both the Bolsheviks and White movement carried out campaigns of deportations and executions against each other, known respectively as the Red Terror and White Terror. At the end of the Civil War, the economy and infrastructure were devastated." They had only 18 years to organize a new government, a new economic system, restore an economy that had just been through 2 consecutive wars and revamp and reorganize their military into the Red Army. Considering that they managed quite well I think. --Lisa4edit (talk) 08:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Stalin had purged the Russian officer corps; the Russians also got a bloody nose in the Polish-Soviet War. I suspect that part of the answer is that the Eastern European steppe favoured mobile warfare; the Poles and the Russians were making the slow transition from equine to mechanical cavalry, whereas the Germans were already fully mechanised and had honed their tactics during the invasions of Poland and France. --Major Bonkers (talk) 10:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The actual performance of the Red Army is not that bad when you consider that their tactic was a fighting scorched earth withdrawal to a final bulwark around their major cities (especially Moscow, Leningrad). After a time the Germans could not take their attritional losses as well as the Russians could because the Russians had a greater population (think cannon fodder). I am not a dog (talk) 13:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

As Major Bonkers points out, all the people who actually knew anything about tactics were shot in the Great Purge. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

True, but there were three other factors in play: (1) the officers who knew how to fight a war were replaced by incompetents who were more skilled at staying alive & getting promoted under Stalin than their actual jobs; (2) the primary military tactic the Soviets used was a massed assault, supported with massive artillery bombardment when available (the scenes at the opening of the movie "Enemy at the Gates", where boxcars of conscripts, only one in four of whom is given a rifle, are forced by machinegun-toting NKVD comissars to charge into German lines says it all); (3) the not unworkable strategy that if the Soviet army fell back far enough, the steppes & the Russian Winter would destroy any invader (which is what happened to Napoleon in the previous century). -- llywrch (talk) 17:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Pigs in the mud

Hello. I'm trying to remember a specific piece of literature, where the author states something like he would rather be an unknowing pig wallowing in the mud than a human, who must suffer from knowledge gained but unwanted. It's a British literature piece. Thanks. 69.16.88.103 (talk) 08:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

It’s unlikely, but you’re not referring to the “doctrine of swine” controversy over Utilitarianism, are you? Jeremy Bentham’s take on utilitarianism (that actions are intrinsically nonmorally good or bad according to the extent to which they promote pleasure or pain) was condemned by others, notably Thomas Carlyle, as a “doctrine of swine”, because if mere pleasure was the true end of human life, with no nobler goal, then the lives and pleasures of a pig and human are of equal worth. John Stuart Mill’s defence of utilitarianism involved distinguishing between quantity and quality of pleasure – we are capable of taking pleasure in all kinds of “higher” things a pig can’t, so a state of unhappy awareness may be better than one of blissful ignorance. “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.” This contradicts the quote you’re looking for, though. -- Karenjc 15:11, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Animal Farm? Mad031683 (talk) 18:52, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Surprises in history

I like learning about historical events that show contact between distant peoples that I did not imagine was possible. Some examples are Battle of Wayna Daga and Indo-Greek Kingdom. Does anything else spring to mind?

Lotsofissues 09:41, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Most of the British Empire? The current excitement in Afghanistan being either the Forth (if you treat it as a continuous campaign) or Forth and Fifth (if you split out the 2001 invasion and subsequent campaigns) Anglo-Afghan Wars. On a personal note, I don't suppose that this (or these) wars will have any more lasting effects than their predecessors; we go in, knock a few heads together, go back home, and five or six years later it's anarchy again. Do you notice that we've been fighting the Afghans for longer than Nazi Germany? You might also enjoy the Kingdom of Sarawak. --Major Bonkers (talk) 10:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

PS: from Max Hastings' Nemesis (hardback ed., p.88); the British raised two divisions from Britain's African colonies to fight in Burma during the Second World War. Some units were officered by Poles who had been encouraged by Churchill to emigrate to West Africa. Most of these Poles spoke the same pidgin English as their men.

As an aside, non-Christian African soldiers swore an oath of loyalty over a bayonet rather than a bible and, according to Col. Derek Horsford: During the advance into the Kabaw valley, I found some of our chaps crouching behind a bush, watching a party of West African soldiers bathing. The Gurkhas were gazing fascinated, uttering exclamations of unwilling awe, at what they perceived as the extravagant dimensions of their black comrades' private parts. --Major Bonkers (talk) 12:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Looking beyond the more famous empires, there were some wonderfully unlikely European colonies, such as the settlement of the Danish East India Company at Tranquebar on the Coromandel Coast, begun in 1620. Part of the history of this settlement is its seizure from the Danes by the British in 1801.

In the realm of fiction, there's the successful invasion of the United States by Grand Fenwick in about 1955. Xn4 10:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Sino-Roman relations is pretty interesting. I would not suggest Franco-Mongol alliance as a good Wikipedia article, but the historical relations between the West and the Mongols is an interesting topic. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The Indo-Greeks dominated the north-west of India for centuries, of course, and the lingering effects of their art and calendar can be seen in India and Pakistan today. The Saka emperors sent gifts that were the wonder of Rome in Augustus' day: there's a coin or two somewhere that shows a tiger cub named for one of Augustus' beloved grandchildren I think. Here is a seminar report on these fun trade links. Note particularly the Roman mosaics in a villa outside Cochin and the fascinating statue of a Roman Buddhist. (In armour?!?) --Relata refero (disp.) 13:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The Gauls of Asia are also interesting. And from a recent story in the New York Times: On first making landfall in southern Maine, Gosnold’s ship, the Concord, was greeted by a canoe rigged with a mast and sails, so that it was at first mistaken for a European fishing vessel. The Indians onboard “spake diverse Christian words,” one of the Englishmen wrote, “and seemed to understand much more than we.” It turned out they had been trading for years with Basque fishermen. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

There are lots of dark spots in African history that are not only fascinating, but desperately need Wikipedia articles. For example, the Genoese had a trading post on the upper Nile in Nobatia -- how many more of these distant Italian outposts existed? Then there is the matter of Chinese-African trade. (Richard Pankhurst has a written a wonderful chapter on the subject in his An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia -- as well on other aspects of pre-1800 East Africa.) Then there is the narrative of the behavior of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean over the first few generations -- they were always eager for a fight, & sacked many different ports on the African & Asian coasts. (Estêvão da Gama's raid on the Ottoman fleet at Suez deserves a better treatment than I have been able to give it.) Mention of the Red Sea reminds me of the antics of Raynald of Chatillon in 1104. And a last suggestion would be the Roman campaign against Yemen: Wikipedia seems to have only the briefest of mentions of this in Sabeans. -- llywrch (talk) 17:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I was surprised to read that the Vikings ranged as far south as the Mediterranean, reaching Turkey by navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe. That meeting would have surprised me. DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Not so far distant, but I still find the Battle of Prague (1648) where the Czech capital was attacked by Swedes, pretty odd. SaundersW (talk) 20:55, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Laundry poem

I'm trying to identify a poem I heard read on the radio about 5 years ago, as part of an interview of which I only caught a fragment. The poet was female and I have an idea it might have been Jackie Kay or Carol Ann Duffy, or perhaps a contemporary with a similar poetic voice. The poem was fairly short, and the subject was a woman standing at her washing line, collecting freshly dried laundry, gathering sheets protectively into her arms and holding them to her as one would hold a child. The poet stated that her inspiration was her reaction to the death of James Bulger. I didn't chase the poem for a while, and by the time I did I was unable to get details of the programme or its content from the radio station. Googling and desultory bookshop browsing have drawn a blank so far. I'd be very grateful for any help in pinpointing it. Thanks. -- Karenjc 09:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you may be mixing two poems together here. I confess that my knowledge of either Kay or Duffy is weak but I know that Jackie Kay wrote a poem titled 'Pork Pies' in her book 'Other Lives' which alludes (quite heavily) to the Bulger case.

As to the poem about washing nothing springs to mind, hopefully someone else can be more helpful! Yours, Lord Foppington (talk) 18:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

is migration good for development?

I've studying several texts on the subject and i as just wondering what people's views are. I should specify: is migration good for the development of sender countries or receiver countries? can it be good for both?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.96.161.104 (talk) 10:21, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

An extremely complicated question and the basis of much current research. The simple answer is that it depends on the kind of migration.

Highly-skilled migrants are unquestionably beneficial to the host economies. This is why H1-B visas are so important to the United States, and the political barriers to increasing those visas is one of the reasons why the City of London is overtaking Wall Street as a financial centre. Most countries are aware of this, and that is why points-based immigration systems are common across the English-speaking world - except the US - and in many countries of the European Union.

The loss of highly-skilled migrants has traditionally been considered a negative for the economies they lose. In the 1960s they called this the brain drain, though that terminology has come under attack. There are reasons for this: massive emigration, such as South Africa has witnessed in recent years, and India witnesses in the medical and scientific professions, weaken crucial parts of the sending economy, and in some cases, such as certain Latin American nations, the entire social infrastructure.

Recent studies have moderated this outlook by focusing on the fact that a significant proportion of such migrants eventually return, with skills and capital they have picked up abroad. This was particularly evident in Eastern europe through the 1990s. Google Oded - Stark for papers that analyse this phenomenon.

The problematic nature of this question has led to some economists arguing for an "emigration tax", especially from countries where education is subsidised. The Economist ran a cover story some time ago on the "global war for talent", I think.

Blue-collar migrants, which form the majority of economic migrants, are more intensively studied, and less can be said for certain. Most major econometric studies reveal that they are a net benefit for the economy as a whole, though they can negatively impact the wages of those in blue-collar professions. Some studies suggest that even for those whose wages are directly impacted, the second-order effect of reduced prices through cheaper labor is in itself enough to raise standards of living all round. There are major dissenters to this influencing policy. George Borjas of Harvard (I hope thats a bluelink) for example has made a career arguing that recent Hispanic immigrants to the US are "lower quality" than those that came earlier (he's a Miami Cuban) so that empirical analysis based on historical figures that suggest large net gains won't be a proper guide to the future.

Do such emigrants benefit the countries they leave behind? Yes and no. Kerala in India is one of the most highly developed parts of the third world, and the money that keeps it going is almost entirely from blue-collar emigrants working in the Persian Gulf. Here again, things must be moderated: some studies of Nicaragua suggest that remittances of this sort are being used as a crutch, rather than to increase growth all round. Also, recent figures (from last week!) show such remittances from the US to Central America are dropping, which is terrible news for Guatemala and Chihuahua province. --Relata refero (disp.) 13:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[Edit conflict] See this newspaper report, which links to recent House of Lords inquiry on the subject: Limit immigration, warns House of Lords.

The typical canard about immigration is that the brightest and best of the donor nation emigrate leaving the stupid and idle behind; I have heard this said of the Scots by the English, and it is apparently said of the British by the Americans [ref: Bicheno, Hugh (2006) Razor's Edge Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London. p.89], although all is not lost as long as we still have Clio! Niall Ferguson in his book Empire, argues that the greatest exports of Britain during the Empire were capital and people. See also the article: Brain drain.

In my own view, immigration can have a number of perverse effects; (1) In Britain, because our healthcare system is essentially a public monopoly funded out of general taxation, the politicians who run it try to keep its costs down by recruiting nurses and doctors from abroad on the basis that immigrants will accept a lower salary for the consolation of British citizenship; thus the third world is stripped of healthcare professionals. (2) Because any citizen of the European Union has a right to live and work in any other country, London, which is a de facto capital of Europe, attracts huge numbers of immigrants such that Nicholas Sarkozy and Donald Tusk, now respectively Presidents of France and Poland, campaigned prior to their elections in London. London was claimed to be the sixth-largest French city as measured by French population. (3) You get distorted immigration patterns throughout Europe; I'm told that Holland allows immigration from Somalia, but then insists that immigrants learn Dutch. They simply move to other, neighbouring, countries. (4) With the ideology of multiculturalism, which allows the immigrant communities not to integrate, you get ghettos of black and white areas, including schools. More dangerously, it has been alleged that this lack of integration has led to the development of muslim extremism, particularly in Britain (eg. 7 July 2005 London bombings), the Netherlands (cf. the murder of Theo van Gogh) and Denmark (cf. the Mohammed cartoons).

See also: Migration Watch website --Major Bonkers (talk) 13:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The brightest and best of the donor nation emigrate leaving the stupid and idle behind: the educational attainment of even working-class immigrants are almost universally higher than the average in the countries they're leaving behind, so the numbers suggest it isn't really a lie. This does not necessarily apply to political refugees: nobody who has spent a winter in Massachusetts will ever suppose the Pilgrim Fathers were particularly smart. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I've always found it a rather interesting question at what point "immigrants" (arguably the vast majority of US Americans) cease to be such and become locals. The answer seems to vary with country and ethnicity. Lisa4edit (talk) 13:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC) Another little aspect comes to mind in that regard is that neither the "out of Africa" movement (although disputed among some anthropologists) nor the migration period nor any other migration that comes to mind has had any demonstratable long term ruinous local effect. The only possible example to the opposite I could think of would be the "settlement" of America and most of the "current Americans" would probably disagree with that view. Lisa4edit (talk) 14:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I was only obeying orders

How far were ordinary soldiers involved in the crimes of the Third Reich? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.161.140 (talk) 17:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to be more specific. Soldiers in combat have harmed civilians both before & after WW II, more often from negligence or accident than malicious intent. (The tools of their trade are lethal & destructive.) On the other hand I am reminded of the comment by Bill Mauldin, that although he & his fellow soliders were told that they were fighting the Nazis, the only time they saw Nazis was when the Germans threw some SS units into the front lines. -- llywrch (talk) 18:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

By 'crimes', I suspect this question means in particular genocide and the German mass killings of prisoners of war and civilians, contrary to the Geneva Conventions. There used to be a myth that the Wehrmacht had little to do with any of it, and that the villains were nearly all in Einsatzgruppen of the SS and the Waffen-SS, but this has been exploded. Some of the best witnesses are the Wehrmacht military chaplains, who reported the regular army at work on mass killings in Poland, Byelorussia, the Ukraine, Yugoslavia and elsewhere. See, for instance, Omer Bartov's The Eastern Front 1941-1945: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (1985) and Doris L. Bergen's 'Between God and Hitler' in Bartov & Mack's In God's Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century (2001). Xn4 18:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Murdered Hebrew prophets

Which of the Judaic prophet is Jesus referring to when he says to the Pharisees, "are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets."[27]?--71.108.5.203 (talk) 17:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, he is referring to all of the Judaic Prophets who were killed by their own people, no specific one. Wrad (talk) 17:40, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I have one so far.

1. "Zechariah son of Berekiah"[28] =Zechariah ben Jehoiada--71.108.5.203 (talk) 17:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

woman warrior who dyed herself blue

what was the name of that female warrior who dyed herself blue before entering battle? i cant remember if she was a celt or a pict or french and i also cant remember if it was ancient or if it was as recent as the french revolution. i've seen a painting of her but its very fuzzy in my memory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.81.72.232 (talk) 20:26, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

According to myth, it was Boudica, Queen of the Mycenae, who painted herself with woad. I emphasise, according to myth, and point you to the article. SaundersW (talk) 20:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

No, not Mycenae, Iceni. Otherwise correct! --Major Bonkers (talk) 20:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)