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January 29

Why are most countries that have capital punishment poor?

For some reason, I associate the death penalty with developed countries, such as the United States, Japan, South Korea and Singapore, but it turns out that they are the exception, and not the rule. Why are most (not almost all, there are many wealthy countries with them, especially in Asia) countries with the death penalty rather poor? Most countries in Africa have the death penalty, and those same countries are the ones that are low in GDP. By contrast, most countries in Europe are stable, have good economies, and are high in GDP, and have abolished it (except Belarus, even Russia has practically abolished it, their moratorium is now indefinite). The United States is the only country on the North American mainland that still actively uses it, it is surrounded by Canada and Mexico, which have both abolished it. Why is this the case? Is it a human rights thing? Does a good economy normally come with good human rights? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really see a pattern at all there. You just listed many rich and poor nations with capital punishment, so what makes you think wealth and capital punishment are in any way related ? StuRat (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's one question there I'd be willing to answer - "Does a good economy normally come with good human rights?" The answer is "Yes". But the question concentrates on just one aspect of human rights, capital punishment, which exists where it exists for complex and diverse reasons. As I understand it, the United States doesn't really have the death penalty, but many of its states do. (Anyone know how many at the moment?) I'm not sure if federal legislation can override the states on this matter. So the question should be why those states still use it. Me? I dunno. HiLo48 (talk) 01:47, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Federal death penalty, too, but it's rarely used. The same is true of the few states which allow it, except Texas, which seems to pride itself on the body count it amasses. StuRat (talk) 01:50, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The United States does have a federal death penalty as well, for things like high treason and a few other crimes, the U.S. federal "death row" is at Terre Haute, Indiana. See Capital punishment by the United States federal government. However, since most capital crimes (usually of the heinous murder type) are violations of state laws, most "death row" prisoners are executed by the states. States handle most normal crime-and-punishment issues within their borders. --Jayron32 01:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the detail fellas. I guess Texas just wants to be the biggest, in everything. HiLo48 (talk) 02:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In theory, I would expect capital punishment to be favored by weak or corrupt governments, because they can't be assured that prisons will actually hold their inmates. Given the choice between letting killers run free or killing them in turn, they might opt for the harsh measure.

That said, it doesn't explain the situation in the U.S., where the prisons are exceptionally unlikely to lose inmates. If extra punishment is desired, why not replace the death penalty with the rape penalty? It's more humane - indeed, one supposes prisoners could opt out at any time (or if they catch HIV, or become unattractive to paying customers...) at which point they'd go back to the regular execution queue. The pay-per-view and DVD highlights would make a fortune. And it's what all the yahoos in the crowd cheer and call for every time someone is sent up. Why let the prisoners decide when and how to dole it out? Wnt (talk) 04:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What?! I am trying to read this in a way where you aren't poking fun at rape; the only other possibility that I see is that you are being serious, which is even worse. Falconus^{p t c} 11:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I was shooting for reductio ad absurdum. If you think this is an offensive proposal, I should add that I first phrased this a little differently back when the U.S. was executing children... Wnt (talk) 01:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is more a cultural and ideological issue than economic one. For example Saudi Arabia is a rich country, but low in human rights issues due to strong belief in Sharia, while the "poor countries" Kyrgyzstan and Nepal abolished death penalty. European developed countries have a high regard for individuality and civil liberties, which African and Asian countries generally lack (I don't know the exact cause). Another issue is political philosophy or worldview; unlike in Asia and Africa, liberalism is the dominant ideology in the Occident. Religion and nationalism plays a strong role in Asian societies compared to Europe. It has been observed, as HiLo48 pointed above, high HDI comes with high regard for human rights, but there are exception like Saudi Arabia. More religious and nationalistic sentiments generally results in "tough on crime" attitude and support for death penalty, while secular, liberal sentiments general results in concern for human rights, civil liberties and prisoner rights. I think the abolition of death penalty in Europe is associated with this secular, liberal outlook. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 11:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You could also look at it from the POV of which religion is dominant. Islam can be very hard-core on punishments, and old testament "Christianity" seems to support the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" case, where the punishment should match the crime. Thus, the appropriate penalty for murder is death. The teachings of Christ, on the other hand, seem to be that we should forgive everyone and let them go, no matter what they did. Of course, this hardly seems practical, and any nation which seriously tried this would soon find itself destroyed by crime, so some compromise is commonly taken, with minimal prison sentences to at least remove the criminals from society for a bit. StuRat (talk) 19:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Use of capital punishment by country. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(E/C)The map used in the Capital punishment article certainly suggests to me that this is more about culture than wealth. Another thing to remember is that the death penalty is something that governments frequently lobby each other over. For example, European institutions like the European Union and Council of Europe have long promoted abolition, leading to countries like Turkey banning capital punishment as a step towards membership of the EU. Looking at the map, I wonder if there have been similar efforts in Latin America, the Pacific, or Southern Africa. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 13:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point about the EU exerting pressures on it's members. If the abolitionist US states were able to do that on the states which retain the death penalty, the abolitionists might prevail in the US, too (hopefully without as much trouble as the last time the abolitionist states tried to exert their will on the rest) StuRat (talk) 18:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Developed countries are - as a rule - based on principles of the liberal enlightenment. As such, there is a strong tendency in such countries to place a high priority on the sanctity of individual rights and freedoms, and resistance to inegalitarian legislation. Depriving someone of their right to life runs against the liberal grain. by contrast, impoverished nations tend to be autocratic (socialist dictatorships, banana republics, juntas or other militaristic regimes, etc.), and autocratic nations usually place the interests of the state and its rulers well ahead of the interests of individual citizens. The US is a peculiar case, because over the last 60 years or so it has been eroding liberal rights in favor of authoritarian principles - basically politicians have been arguing that those who might potentially break the law do not merit the full range of rights and liberties that are supposedly guaranteed to US citizens, and have succeeded in weakening a lot of civil protections.--Ludwigs2 21:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a truly interesting analysis of the US penal system in this week's New Yorker. It's not specifically about capital punishment, but it seems part of a general obsession with ridiculously high levels of punishment coupled with an obsession with procedural formality that is uncoupled from notions of actual justice. Here's the link. Highly-recommended reading for contemplating the particular system of punishment in the US (where, as the author points out, we currently have more African Americans incarcerated than were kept as slaves, and we currently have more people in general incarcerated than Stalin kept in his Gulag — both of which I found to be rather amazing facts). --Mr.98 (talk) 13:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

mostly trolling by LWC. let's not feed.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

We still have the death penalty in most US states because serial child rapist-killers, homocidal psychopaths, mass murderers, and terrorists need to be killed themselves. There is no fixing them or forgiving them ever. Fry em!LuciferWildCat (talk) 00:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Then it's a good thing you've never found the wrong person guilty, isn't it? HiLo48 (talk) 02:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many people confuse vengeance and justice, LWC. No one already in jail "needs" to be killed for any pragmatic reason. --Ludwigs2 03:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

LWC, you do realise that only six states still have the option to electrocute prisoners. In fact if Electric chair is correct then those six are the only places in the world where it can happen. According to Capital punishment in the United States all 34 states with the death penalty have lethal injection as their main means of execution, as does the federal government, Capital punishment by the United States federal government. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 12:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For very poor countries it becomes harder to justify the expense of prison. If the money spend in keeping someone healthy and fed for life in prison could be used to prevent half a dozen people from starving to death then what do you do? -- Q Chris (talk) 13:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Against that, I have seen it argued (but cannot immediately offer references) that the costs of the more rigorous procedures (further appeals, etc. – trials are very expensive) typically followed by legal systems to try to ensure that they don't execute innocent persons, as opposed to the less rigorous ones applied when imprisonment is the maximum sentence, actually outweigh the costs of keeping those prisoners incarcerated (when they can release their mistakes, perhaps with compensation) – short version: it may actually cost more to execute someone than to imprison them for life. I don't know that the argument is valid, but it should be considered. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.38 (talk) 15:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of days ago, reading about the assassination of McKinley, I was struck by how quickly those wheels of justice turned. McKinley was killed in September, and the assassin was fried by Halloween. Nowadays, you go onto death row and sit around for 10, 15, 20 years. You could die of old age before the slip you the Big Mickey. And while there's no guarantee an innocent party will escape being executed, at least the opportunity is theoretically there for righting a wrong conviction. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How to indicate a book title w/out italics or underlining

I am writing a book review for a website that doesn't have advanced editing tools. How does one indicate the name of a book without the use of italics or underlining? Perhaps [example] or <example>? Quotation marks are only for the names of journals. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally you use underscores when indicating italicized or underlined text without the ability to italicize or underline. Herman Melville, _Moby Dick_, etc. You definitely ought not use brackets, which have a separate bibliographical use. You might of course check what others on the website have done previously. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And there's also single quotes ('), double quotes ("), and grave accents (`), so you can use something different for books and journals. StuRat (talk) 01:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Try /italics/ (a hint that some email clients use; it seems more reminiscent of actual italics than [italics] or #italics#, say). 90.202.164.239 (talk) 03:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first / pushes the letters over, but the second / stops them from falling over entirely.--80.99.254.208 (talk) 09:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since some of the above replies seemed to focus on how to hint at italic text, and not how to present book titles, I checked with the Chicago Manual of Style. Here they indicate that using _underscores_ is preferred, although you will see that ALL CAPS can also be acceptable. *Asterisks* can be used if emphasis is needed. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:37, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Israel

"Do you still beat your wife" question
Content which starts hidden Why does the US support Israel's genocide against Palestine? --108.225.115.211 (talk) 01:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply] Your question cannot be answered because it contains what is known as the "fallacy of the complex question". The classic example of this is "When did you stop beating your wife?" I.E. the question presupposes that you were beating your wife, which has not been established as true; and even moreso, the whole question isn't really a question, its an accusation phrased in the form of a question. The asker is accusing the askee of beating his wife, though such a fact has not been established. With your question, you have done exactly the same thing, you've presupposed the existance of a fact (genocide against Palestine) which has not been established. So we cannot answer your question one way or another. If you have another question you'd like to ask about Israel–United States relations which does not contain such a loaded question, we'll try to answer it. --Jayron32 01:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply] Genocide means systematically killing off a group of people. If there was genocide, then the Palestinian population would be going down, not up, as it is. StuRat (talk) 01:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply] Israeli policy includes maximizing civilian deaths in all attacks against Palestine. --108.225.115.211 (talk) 01:35, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply] Again, you've made a statement which you have not established as true. Please provide evidence of these statements you are making, or stop making them. If you are looking for information, please ask a question. If you are looking for affirmation, find it somewhere else. --Jayron32 01:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

loan calculation

I'm stuck in a third-world country but am actually a qualified profesional (in a field I can't use here, but only western cities where I speak the language) with great demand in an expensive western city I worked in recently and have positive feedback from tentative explorations. I don't have a place to live there or any means, and this country is on the brink of civil war and would make it possible for me to scronge together less than a dollar a day.

I've recently been thinking of the fact that the past six months of being here have cost me at least twelve thousand dollars, proably more like fifteen to twenty. (in direct lost wages) not to mention the opportunity costs of growing professionally (I'm just around 30). I've always been somewhat of a loner and don't have much family, but I do see that this situatin is untenable. What sealed the deal is meeting another american here at the embassy, who had a really nice background but was pretty well destroyed by being here too long. this place is the pitts.

I put an exercise to myself: how much money would I borrow if I had to repay it at 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x, or 20x APR payback that I would want to service within working there for one and a half years?

The answer is that counting 4 months to get a job (very conservative, as I normally can get one within 2-4 weeks looking full time, when I am actually there on site) will cost me roughly 1500 dollars to move there and into the cheapest accomodation in the city (this includes flight and deposit on a room), another $600 per month while looking for a job (room, food, misc), meaning betwee $2100 and $3900 depending on 1-4 months of looking for work.

My income then becomes roughly $2000/month (rock bottom, could be 25% - 50% better easily), meaning that continuing to live at the austerity level of $600 per month, I can service $1400 of debt per month (call it 1200 to be a bit more reasonable, build a safety cushion), meaning after 18 months I could service at most $21,600 of debt (which, by the way, something like the amount I lost in the past year due to being stuck in this third world rut while missing job opportunities).

I'm not exactly sure I'm using the right formulas, but given the above set of assumptions (or, indeed, even extending the search for work to 5 or 6 months) it seems to me it would be profitable to take on debt even at 20x APR. (20000%). My question is: how do I do this? I'm an Ameircan citizen and have no problems finding work in any major western city. What are your suggestions for me given this situation. Fundamentally it seems to me a loan shark is a bad idea, but could you explain why? What is the best solution to a situation like this.

Note: I'm also open to any other possibilities that would include me not paying for an airline ticket or initial rent, for example of cruise ship service workers were flown out by the company and put up. I htink this is unlikely, however. Better to work in my own profession. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.99.254.208 (talk) 08:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are an indigent American citizen living in Hungary (didn't know that was part of the third world or on the brink of war) who visits the embassy. I would have thought the embassy would have been able to help you return to the US or does it have something to do with you being on the terrorists lists? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

lol, nice sleuthing (same IP here). I thought it was obvious I was just being lazy with that terrorist watch list remark - I wanted you guys to trawl through ebay instead of doing it myself. I'm not indigent, just too low on cash to move to a city I can work in. I would like you to address the question above at face value, without finding out more about me. Not asking for money or anything like that, just creative solutions which do NOT involve befriending people or being a con artist or anything like that. I will add that the US probably would ship me back if I really required it, but I don't. I'm not that down on my luck, just have an empty bank account and willingness and capability to work in a larger city west of me, where I can get by bus or train and have very high confidence of being able to work immediately, without having housing arranged. I'd like your creative solutions on this front. (Also anything else you could think of e.g.: apply to hostels, asking for accomodation as well; apply to an ocean liner; etc etc. I speak a bunch of languages that aren't useful here and can present OK. I can do anything, just in the wrong location right now and have always been somewhat of a loner. thanks. 188.6.80.222 (talk) 14:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also add that I'm very open-minded and above all would just like to work again, anything that satisfies the latter condition is ok by me (that's legal and ethical). My only large probelm is location ATM (i.e. I can't do a personal interview elsewhere). 188.6.80.222 (talk) 14:48, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you are in Hungary and don't have enough money for the train fare to Vienna, I think that counts as indigent. Who is going to lend you money in your current state, anyway? Time to go to the U.S. embassy for help if you can't make enough money to pay for air fare where you are and no one else can help you out. As for what to do about lodging when you get to the States, if there is really no one to help you, I hate to say it, but you might need to start out in a homeless shelter. If you feel you need an address to get the middle-class job you want, spend a few days doing day labor first to get the money to rent a mailbox somewhere. You might want to get a job, maybe part-time, someplace like a supermarket or coffee shop that will hire anyone who seems sober and literate, as a source of cash while you are looking for your middle-class job (and sleeping at the homeless shelter). Once you get the middle-class job, you might be able to borrow money somewhere, but then you won't really need it. Start out modest by renting a cheap room in a shared apartment while you save up the 3 months of upfront rent you'd need to rent your own place. Marco polo (talk) 02:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I want to thank you again for this advice (as below). I have no problems with housing at the moment and have never lived in a homeless shelter. I woudl not like to. I have a bank account and Internet and telephone access, and ability to work. Can you think of anything that would provide shelter other than a homeless shelter? (i.e. more along the same lines I mentioned: working on a cruise ship, maybe some hoste would let me live there, etc). I have the right to work anywhere in Europe. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 09:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Marco Polo: Vienna is a great idea! It's very close, I can definitely get there, and not very expensive. I speak German as well as most Americans who live in a German-speking country do, and some useful languages even better. This is a good idea. Let me get back to you on the rest of your comment. --80.99.254.208 (talk) 06:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnic Cleansing.

Having just watched the movie 'Escape from Sobibor' that dramatised the largest ever escape by imprisoned death-camp Jews under the NAZI controlled occupation of Europe, it had been my intention to ask here how many generations must pass before such genocidal attacks on other ethnic groups might fade into history. But as a frequent reader of Wikipedia, I chose first to consult the excellent article therein entitled Ethnic Cleansing. And now, having done so, I have arrived at the point whereby I think the Human Race is doomed, not because every ethnic group throughout history has attacked every other group in its midst that did not exactly conform or comply, and not because the attacker wanted to eat the other group to satisfy real hunger, but merely for purposes of domination and control. Maybe mine is a childish philosophy for which I make no apology, but to change the direction of my original question, what would the human race ever have to do to live in a tolerant and harmonic society. Speculation I know, but does education and history and morality and logic and experience hold out no hope for us as a species?62.30.176.76 (talk) 16:06, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a reference desk, not a discussion forum. Please stick to questions that can be answered by supplying facts rather than opinions. Looie496 (talk) 18:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Warfare and ethnic cleansing seem to result from a scarcity of resources relative to population, so keeping world population low, via birth control and, where necessary, sterilization, is the key. Note that the same effects are also seen where animal populations grow beyond the available resources, and they start to attack each other. I envision a world where nobody is able to have children until they can prove they have everything needed to care for them (to be accomplished by some form of reversible sterilization). StuRat (talk) 18:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Who or what would impose such a rule? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, scarcity is not always behind genocide. I'd even dare to say that almost never it is the case. Ideologies are behind it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.26.74.157 (talk) 23:43, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ideologies provide a justification for war. They are rarely the reason for it. --Tango (talk) 00:39, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. In the case of Nazi Germany, they argued that they needed more space, meaning they needed to kill off whoever was using that resource already. StuRat (talk) 05:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Genocide and war aren't quite the same thing... and I'm not sure where the justification/reason bit separate out. The Nazi hatred of the Jews was certainly deeper than ideology. But the ideology did matter, especially with regards to convincing others to at least be ambivalent about the fate of the Jews. It's a complicated dichotomy. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are many excuses and real reasons for war. But that is a different ballpark. Anyway, I still maintain that you need an ideology, that justifies your hatred, for a genocide. Ideology alone won't work, but hatred + ideology can be deadly. In the case of Nazi Germany there was indeed no real reason to murder the Jewish population. Letting them emigrate or even deporting them would have been a more humane alternative, if living together was a problem. 88.26.74.157 (talk) 15:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody was willing to take 6 million Jews, including the British, who controlled Palestine, at the time. StuRat (talk) 01:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me I read a comment from one of the longer-lived Nazis, Albert Speer perhaps, who said that the Jews had ample opportunity to leave, early on, but they wouldn't leave. Therefore, in his mind, it was their own fault that they were killed off. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a contrary opinion, you might check out Steven Pinker's new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature (or many of the reviews of it which are linked to from the article), which argues that actually in the short and long term, violence has declined quite a bit since WWII. It's an interesting idea and statistically works in many cases. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

62, you may be interested in the influential ideas of Peter Kropotkin, who held an optimistic view of human nature. Also, since you are asking what steps might be required to secure a lasting peace, you might like to look up World government. A lot of arguments boil in some way down to land, and who should own it, and who should have access to it. A global state is one suggestion for how to solve these problems. Just for your interest, since of course we can't give an exact answer to a question of this sort. IBE (talk) 05:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you study any social animals, pretty much all of them do this to a degree. If a new male lion takes over a pride, he'll kill any cubs sired by the previous dominant male. Chimpanzees who get into a territorial fight with another group of chimps will slaughter (and sometimes cannibalize) any they catch. It's a way of controlling the gene pool, so that only that dominant animal or group gets to breed, further enforcing their own strength.

With humans, it becomes more complicated for several reasons. First, we're no longer pressured by natural selection, as we influence the environment more than it influences us. Second, we've developed complex social structures that often transcend simple family groups. But, the instinct to protect Our Own from The Other is still there. A person's social group now can encompass political affiliations or philosophical/religious beliefs, and people who are different are a threat. Taken to an extreme, retaliating against that threat means wiping out anyone who disagrees with your stance, aka genocide.

There's no set answer for how to deal with this. Getting all of humanity to adopt a "live and let live" mentality is an utopian ideal, not a practical vision. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My experience in this area is spending a considerable portion of my undergraduate degree on the "Eastern" issues in WWII, reading the Nuremberg evidence, and from editing around analysis of mass mortality in Soviet-style societies on wikipedia. The current theory of mass mortality focuses on the "massacre" as a single unit of analysis. While there have been typologies deployed to sort the "reasons" behind mass killing; these are not fundamentally persuasive. I'd suggest reading some Hannah Arendt. Also, going around and murdering your neighbours is atypical behaviour and becoming rarer (on a historical scale). Enslavement is far more common than murder (see the workcamps in Germany, the slave labour factories, rural enslavement during the second war; also, obviously GuLag, and the American South). There is some evidence that slave labour is generally less productive than free labour, so enslavement is reducing historically. Similarly, forcing your neighbours or people in distant lands into conditions of alienated wage labour is pretty common at the moment, and this is broadly considered to be far less physical brutal than being a peasant or slave in antiquity. Things improve, despite the periodic massacres of males in large European towns. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Aldous Huxley available online

The Gutenberg.org site has released a book by Aldous Huxley. How is the copyright in this case? Could it be that it's out of copyright? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.26.74.157 (talk) 21:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Gutenberg project only uses public domain texts (as defined by US law), with a few copyrighted books that have explicit release by the copyright owners. They are very careful about this, so if they have provided a Huxley book then it has most likely entered into the public domain.

Huxley died in 1963, meaning that all of his books will be over 50 years old in 2013 (the standard for public domain, I think). --Ludwigs2 21:32, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is no one single standard for public domain in the US — this chart is probably the best attempt out there to sum it up — but 50 years after death of the author, or 50 years after publication, are not standards for works entering into the public domain. 50 years after death is the minimum specified by the Berne Convention but is not the maximum, and there are lots of other loopholes. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They seem to have two works of Huxley. One is Crome Yellow, his first book (published 1921), and the other is The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems, which appears to have been published in 1918. Both of those are sufficiently old enough to be in the public domain according to the chart I've linked to above. Generally speaking works published before 1923 are considered public domain in the United States, but there are exceptions and complications like everything in copyright law, and you should not take this as legal advice of any sort. (Note that Huxley was, of course, a British citizen. That complicates things a bit as well. Project Gutenberg is located in the US, which is why US public domain matters the most for what it posts.) --Mr.98 (talk) 22:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's no such a thing as a British citizen, there are British subjects. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 16:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia disagree with you: British_citizen#British_Citizenship_by_descent. 80.58.205.34 (talk) 16:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While SpeakFree is completely wrong on this point (and should have known this if they were linking the article British subject), Huxley would have been a subject rather than a citizen until 1949. After that, he was both a citizen and a subject. If he'd lived until 1983, he would have ceased to be a subject completely, and been both a British citizen and a Commonwealth citizen. 86.166.41.126 (talk) 00:00, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 30

Looking for the wording and source of a Jewish quote/adage/saying

I attended a Bat Mitzvah this weekend for a family friend (first time in a synagogue). Lots of fairly long readings in Hebrew that were incomprehensible to a WASP like me, so I spent some time thumbing through the prayerbook, which was in both English and Hebrew. I ran across a quote that I really liked, and told myself I'd look it up when I got home, but I'm old and my mind is feeble and I've forgotten essentially all of the details.

The gist of the quote was that a society cannot function if every one of it's rules and regulations is followed rigidly, without flexibility or compassion.

I've googled a few word combinations and come up with nothing. Does this ring any bells for anyone? I'd love a pointer to the exact quote and the ultimate source. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I did look through the Shabbat morning service and found nothing. On re-reading I see you were wandering though the services in the prayer book. I will look again. I do recall vaguely similar things, but not exactly; so I shall look. Jewish prayer books can differ considerably, so no guarantees, I fear.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds vaguely like the kind of thing you might find in Ethics of the Fathers, part of the Saturday afternoon service i more traditional/orthodox synagogues, but I couldn't pin it down. Jewish prayer books commonly include prayers for a wide variety of occasions. This does mean that, in addition to Wehwalt's comment, it's hard for us to pin us down. It might help a little if we understood which type of synagogue it was (eg reconstructionist, reform/liberal, conservative/Masorti, traditional, modern orthodox, orthodox) and which country you were in? See Judaism#Jewish_religious_movements --Dweller (talk) 10:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it makes sense that would be useful info. It was definitely a Reform Jewish congregation, and I'm in in the U.S. Also, although I was at a morning service, it could have been anywhere in the prayerbook, I was browsing. Thanks for the interest, I know it might be a long shot. --Floquenbeam (talk) 11:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It reminded me of the congregational response after Unetaneh Tokef, but that's not quite it. There's definitely a High Holiday feel to it to my mind, I need to look through a more concise machzor, rather than my father's ancient volume of Adler. You might want to check this just in case. I also need to look at Ecclesiates.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting to think it may not have been so much a Torah or Talmudic quote (please forgive misuse of terminology if it exists), but a quote of a rabbi/philosopher/sociologist that was part of the "discussion" section (for lack of a better word) underneath each portion of the prayers. I'd hate for you to spend too much time looking through "volumes" of old Jewish texts if it's not really part of a Jewish prayer after all, but a secular adage quoted in one version out of hundreds of different prayer books out there. God, I wish my memory didn't suck. --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a prayer for the government in most prayer books, and I'm suspecting that it's commentary on that. The government doesn't get a heck of a lot of mention in prayer books for various unpleasant reasons (little affection on both sides when most Jewish prayers were composed), but we do throw in a prayer for it after the Torah reading. You might want to ask on the talk page of one of the active people at Talk: Reform Judaism.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it be easier to drop by that synagogue and check the original text? Otherwise, try to search for the origin of flexibility in Jewish law or google "A tree of life" of Louis Jacobs. 88.26.74.157 (talk) 14:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We traveled a bit of a distance to go to the Bat Mitzvah; but I'll try to call the synagogue and ask for the title of the prayerbook they use. When I first asked the question, I thought perhaps this was a well known adage that someone would just know. Thanks for the useful pointers, too, I'll pursue them when I have a chance (this ridiculous job I have insists I stop playing on Wikipedia now and actually do some productive work during the day). --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, they do not value your contributions to Wikipedia enough! But I would first check the synagogue's website, it is very likely to mention what prayer book they use, there are people who consider that important and it may also be there in the context of children's religious education. And if you call (understandably, you don't want to, I would not want to call a church to enquire about part of the service), I would do it on Tuesday; many Jewish clergy get today off because of their weekend commitments. I know you are not going to call and ask to speak with one; all the same it would be good to have in house!--Wehwalt (talk) 15:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I just emailed the rabbi that led the service. Perhaps he lives for this kind of question. And if not, maybe he'll have someone email me the name of the prayerbook. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:31, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They are generally helpful when approached in their professional capacity, though I could tell you stories!--Wehwalt (talk) 18:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Reform Jewish prayer book Gates of Prayer includes inspiring and thoughtful excerpts from Talmud, Maimonides, Chasidic stories, etc. in the front or back if I am not mistaken. Any Reform synagogue should have a copy you could look at. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:19, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This quote sounds like it's about the desecration of shabbat. I'm still looking. Viriditas (talk) 01:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I heard back from the rabbi of that synagogue, and their prayerbook is called "Mishkan T’filah" and is printed by CCAR Press. Not sure if this helps or not. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:36, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Was Galois Welsh?

The French word for Welsh is gallois. I wonder whether the mathematician Évariste Galois had roots in Wales.

Quelle est l'origine du nom de famille d'Évariste Galois? Avait-il d'aïeux gallois?

PaulTanenbaum (talk) 02:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

--Jessica A Bruno 03:37, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the French word "gallois" is equivelent to the English "Celtic". Hence "Astérix le Gaulois" - a cartoon character supposedly who was from Gaul ie pre-Roman France. The French name for Wales is "Pay de Galles" which could be translated as "Land of the Celts". I'll try to find a reliable source. Alansplodge (talk) 09:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Both Welsh and Gaul are from a Germanic word meaning "foreign" or "Roman". Other examples are Wallonie and Wallachia. That Gaul looks like Gallia is a coincidence. (Gaulois is from stem gual- (=wal-) + Latin -ensis; cf. guard- from ward-, guerre from werra etc.) Gal(l)ois looks like a collateral form. The g in Gallia would regularly have become j in French (as in jaune from galbinus, joie from gaudia).

Edit: But to answer your question (which I misread on this Monday morning): yes, that seems quite possible. Iblardi (talk) 09:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Antipodean perspective: is Robert French CJ French? Is Heath Scotland a Scot? Is Hazem El Masri from Egypt? In Western culture, Demonyms as surnames would seem to me something long since past indicative of that person's background. --Shirt58 (talk) 12:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, obviously Galois was born near Paris, but the question was whether his surname indicated Welsh ancestry, not whether he was Welsh himself. Iblardi (talk) 12:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible; many notable French people have backgrounds and surnames from other European counties, c.f. former President Patrice de Mac-Mahon has a name that ~~belies~~ let's us know about his Irish ancestry, Cardinal Mazarin was Neopolitan Italian, and Napoleon was a Corsican (Italian) name as well. The current president has a Hungarian name. It would not be shocking to have a Frenchman with a last name indicating he was from Wales. France has long granted Citizenship (and thus "Frenchness") by Jus soli, thus being French just means one is born subject to the French state. --Jayron32 14:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)Edit: Corrected per below. --Jayron32 00:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oof. It doesn't belie his Irish ancestry. If he has Irish ancestry, it "reveals" it (perhaps "betrays" it, if Irish ancestry is something he would want to conceal for some reason). If he doesn't have Irish ancestry, then maybe it "dissimulates" it or something. The only way it could "belie" his Irish ancestry is if for some reason a true Irishman couldn't have the surname Mac-Mahon. --Trovatore (talk) 21:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So corrected. Thank you for your help. --Jayron32 00:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Once you see correlations between French words that begin with g- and English that begin with w- you can easily see the connection between Galles and Wales. Consider other such pairs: guerre and war, Guillaume and William, etc. --Jayron32 14:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible his family had roots in Brittany, which was of course settled by Celtic refugees from Britain following the Roman withdrawal and early Saxon invasions, and which maintained some cultural links with what came to be Wales. The French Wikipedia might be a better venue to find out whether the surname Galois might have such a background. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.38 (talk) 16:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find any history of the name in the French Wikipedia (though Jayron's point is confirmed there), but perhaps someone more fluent in French could take a look to check if I've missed something. Dbfirs 16:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This map shows the distribution of people with the surname "Galois" between 1891 and 1915. Most seem to be in north and central France, with the highest result in the Nord department. Alansplodge (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This page gives the etymology of the surname Galois, (also Gallais or Galais). Translation - shared between me and Babel Fish: "A name found in the west, especially in Brittany, on which the opinions are divided. A. Dauzat has it originating in Wales. Deshayes (in the Dictionary of Breton Family Names) thinks for his part, that an alternative of Wales is a nickname given to a man of large size. M.T. Morlet leans towards another assumption, bringing Galais closer to "Welshman", a nickname given to a jovial fellow (a meaning of the adjective "Welsh" in old French). It is this last solution which I prefer by far, because the patronyms Galais and Gallais cover a geographical space much vaster than that of only Breton-speaking Brittany." So there you are; he might have had an ancestor who was Welsh, very large or very jolly (or maybe all three!). Whatever, it was a very long time ago, because surnames became compulsory in France in 1539[1]. One would have thought that a Welshman arriving much later than that would have kept his Welsh surname (Jones, Evans etc etc). Alansplodge (talk) 17:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pros and cons of each type personal finance accounts

Whats the pros and cons of having a checking, savings, money market, credit union, etc accounts?

As for me might be switching from my current account (checking and savings combination) to something else. Which I still have to go the bank (properly will be mon) and most likely going to remain there, but with a different service. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mybodymyself (talk • contribs) 03:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We cannot offer financial advice. Please see the general disclaimer. Contact a financial adviser. RudolfRed (talk) 04:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Go to the bank and ask them about the pros and cons of each of their services. They likely have a bank manager who would be happy to discuss their options to you. They're a business like any other and will be happy to discuss this with you. Dismas|^(talk) 04:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But don't trust them to tell you about credit unions, ask a credit union instead. StuRat (talk) 04:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is so basic a question that it hardly constitutes financial advice. The type of account depends on when you need access to the money. A checking (or current) account gives access instantly; a savings account with a specific tenure, say a 90-day certificate of deposit, is designed to pay higher interest in exchange for leaving the money on deposit for a longer period. You may – depending on the terms – be able to get the money back earlier than 90 days, but with a loss of interest. More sophisticated accounts that allow automatic transfers between, say a savings account and a checking account, may require higher minimum deposit rates. A credit union offers similar services, but generally only to members.DOR (HK) (talk) 07:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We have articles! For checking account see Transactional account (they're known as checking accounts in the USA, current accounts in the UK, etc). There's also Savings account, Money market account, and as already mentioned Credit union. As well as differences in interest rates and time to access your money, transactional accounts typically come with checks/cheques and/or debit cards, and may include automatic overdraft facilities that allow you to borrow small amounts of money (in contrast, savings accounts can't normally become overdrawn). But transactional accounts will pay little or no interest, and depending where you live and who you bank with they may have monthly fees. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

--Jessica A Bruno 17:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC) Thank you for all of your answers to my question here. This really applied to the general situation as opposed to my own. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mybodymyself (talk • contribs) 17:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright in UK

What are the copyright rules in UK whereby Alpha puts a copyright notice on a recent photograph on his website and Beta newspapers publishes it? Kittybrewster ☎ 06:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia doesn't give legal advice. But I'm sure you know that already... AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Kittybrewster ☎ 06:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a request for legal advice, but for legal information. A big difference. --Viennese Waltz 08:35, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is not legal advice, but just a comment that some newspapers seem to do whatever they like, and think about the legal consequences later, probably assuming that most people will not have sufficient funds to take them to court. Dbfirs 07:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And if they were to be sued there is no guarantee that the damages would cover the legal costs. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As Rhythmix Music recently found in the UK, copyrighting and trademarking anything does not prevent other people using it. It merely gives you the right to take legal action to protect your prior use. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in terms of general legal information not applicable to any particular situation (consult a lawyer if you want that), the articles on copyright and copyright law in the United Kingdom are helpful. The text of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988 is available online. Legislation is mostly pretty straightforward and easy to read, but don't assume that you understand everything in it; lawyers are trained professionals for a reason. In general, permission must be sought from the holder of copyright to re-publish copyrighted work; in UK law, there are several exceptions to this. Without further detail it would be impossible to comment on the situation you describe, and with further detail it would still be impossible because Wikipedia is not a place to obtain legal advice. --superioridad ^(discusión) 02:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Executive Orders / Large denomination currency

In reading Large denominations of United States currency I felt compelled to try and determine which executive order Richard Nixon issued that mandated the recall/ceased circulation of large denomination Federal Reserve notes. I found a site on archive.gov which seemed like a browsable/searchable archive of executive orders, but couldn't find anything (with a title anyways) that suggested it would be about this topic. I did not find any actual executive order text either (which seems odd for a site claiming to be an archive..).

So my question(s) are:

Is there a full text archive of executive orders that is searchable/viewable online?
Does anyone know the exact executive order Nixon made that dealt with the more specific issue of recalling/discontinuing large denomination United States currency?

Thanks! —Locke Cole • t • c 08:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know it was in 1969. I looked for 1969 executive orders much as you did in connection with Murray Chotiner, I only found them in print. I do not know if Nixon's action was accomplished by executive order or some other means. The executive orders, as I recall, were in the Public Papers of the Presidents series.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Federal Reserve is an independent agency, not part of the executive branch, so the president cannot issue an executive order to it. Looie496 (talk) 18:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He could order the Treasury Department not to print any more large denomination currency, and to destroy existing stock.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Wehwalt, I'll look for that. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 23:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is Transnistria communist?

The flag and emblem of the partially-unrecognized state of the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic, more commonly known as Transnistria, has the Hammer and sickle on its flag and emblem, but is it (still) a communist country? The article makes no mention of it, although it is likely, considering it was part of the former Soviet Union. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem like it. From the article: "PMR has a multi-party system and a unicameral parliament named the Supreme Council. Its legislature has 43 members elected by Single-member district plurality.[57] The president is elected to a five year term by popular vote." The governing party Renewal is described as "pro-business" (whatever that means), and the economy of Transnistria is mixed. As far as I am aware of all the countries formerly part of the Soviet Union and the Warzaw Pact only Belarus has retained what can be described as a Soviet Union-style government system. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The president is Yevgeny Shevchuk who considers himself a social democrat. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If so, then why would they continue to have a communist symbol, no the communist symbol on their flag and emblem? All the other former communist countries erased most of the communist symbolism on their national symbols. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 10:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read Flag of Transnistria? It appears to be connected with the complex mix of nationalities and nationalisms in the region - Transnistrians generally opposed Moldovan independence and want to be more closely associated with Russia, hence having a flag that relates to the days when Transnistria was part of the Russian-dominated USSR. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:53, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As regards "the former communist countries erased the communist symbols", have you looked at an Aeroflot aircraft lately? The flags of Vladimir and Bryansk? 78.149.252.90 (talk) 17:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Percentage of HIV-positive people among homosexuals

What is the % of HIV-positive people among homosexuals and among heterosexuals in the US and Canada? --Broadside Perceptor (talk) 13:45, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about homosexual and heterosexual men in Africa? 188.6.79.116 (talk) 13:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See HIV/AIDS in Canada, HIV/AIDS in the United States and AIDS pandemic.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:12, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that the rate is very low among homosexual women (lesbians). Please also note that not all of humanity fits into one of the two categories you offer - the world contains people who are bisexual for example, and even asexual. See the Kinsey scale. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Scissors and Superglue

I reember when I was younger a story about this girl who's been left on her own for the day. She's greeted at the door by one salesperson who I think sells her a giant pair of scissors or shears which wrecks the furniture. Either the same or another salesman comes by later and she is able to purchase some super glue to fix everything. Does anyone know which story this was? Simply south...... having large explosions for 5 years 15:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say I've ever heard of it, but it does sound like a variation on the theme of The Cat in the Hat. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:36, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oooo, I know the story. Was that the same story in which she was terribly naughty and her parents can't work out how to stop her, and then this happens? I forget. Part of me wonders if it was in one of the collections like "Naughty Stories" and "Naughtier Stories" which came out in the 90s. Another part of me half-wonders if it was one of Enid Blyton's short stories. I shall have to have a look for my copies. 86.166.41.126 (talk) 20:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not in "Naughty Stories", but it's very much that sort of thing. I can't find my copy of "Even Naughtier Stories", and nowhere seems to want to give me a contents list for that book, so I cannot say whether it is in there or not. Also, all my relevant Enid Blyton books seem to have gone walkabout. Who would have possibly borrowed Naughty Amelia Jane and similar? 86.166.41.126 (talk) 21:09, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

French universities alumni muslim leaders

Which Muslim leaders of the Francophonie nations Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Syria, Comoros, Djibouti, Niger, Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Guinea and Burkina Faso are alumnae of which universities in France? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.104.175 (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Abdoulaye Wade, President of Senegal, studied at the Université de Grenoble and the Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon[2][3][4]. You should be able to answer most of this yourself: look at the WP page for each of the countries, e.g. Morocco, and it'll tell you the heads of state and/or government, generally in the box at the top right of the page. Then click on the names and they'll take you to e.g. Mohammed VI of Morocco and you'll find he studied in Morocco, so you don't want him. Not all articles carry this information, so you may have to look on French Wikipedia, e.g. [5] and if necessary use Google translate, or Google the name (consider adding any missing information to the relevant Wikipedia article). If you repeat this process for every nation, you will find the answer to your question. If there's genuinely someone you can't find info about, ask here and someone might be able to help, but don't expect us to do work you could do yourself. --Colapeninsula (talk) 17:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Mohammed VI's article mentions he obtained his PhD from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. --Xuxl (talk) 10:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The question is a bit odd. What you ask for are presidents (Prime Ministers?) of Muslim-majority countries? These are not necessarily 'Muslim leaders' as such. Syria is by no means a clear-cut part of the Francophonie community. And the president there isn't a Muslim. In Francophone West Africa many politicians studied in France, such as the Guinean president Conde. However, military leaders (such as presidents having seized power in coups) are an exeption. The Burkina Faso president is a Roman Catholic who has not studied in France. --Soman (talk) 17:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Current event: Woman in Bebee, AR who fished $1M winning scratch ticket out of trash bin

When's the next court date in the case of Sharon Jones (the woman who pulled the ticket from the trash & claimed the winnings) vs. Lisa Petriches (the store owner who claims there was a sign saying 'do not take' on the trash bin at the time the ticket was taken)? That's the only objective question I care to have answered or spoken about. What's the next court date? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 17:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This link at ABC News says the next court date has not been set. RudolfRed (talk) 03:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Novels with Character Legend/Key

Resolved

– – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 17:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't remember what this is called, and there is a Wiki article on it somewhere (though not listed in literary technique—and perhaps it's not a technique?): A novel opens up with a legend, or a list, of characters who each represent a real-life person. I thought it was called something like ________ clé or something similar, but I've actually been struggling to find it for a while now. Also, should it be added to the list of literary techniques in the aforementioned article? (Perhaps it already is and I missed it!) Thanks – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 17:33, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dramatis personæ. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Roman à clef -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:37, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Roman à clef was what I was looking for. Thanks! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 17:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It should be noted that most "key novels" doesn't contain a list of characters containing the key to which real persons the fictional characters represents. Some literary historians may construct such lists later on, but most authors in this genre certainly doesn't make it so easy for the reader to identify the characters. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, thank you. I was kind of wondering about that, in a vague way: like, what would be the point in making it so easy or obvious for the reader? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 18:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What are “autonomous sketches?” re: Hieronymous Bosch article

The article on Hieronymous Bosch contains the term, “autonomous sketches,” which i don’t remember hearing in the many art history classes that I took years ago. Perhaps it came into use after I graduated. Googling gave me a few other examples of its usage, in context, but nothing that explains its meaning. I do know the general definition of autonomous, of course, but this term has me stumped.

It seems to me that if a person who’s aced as many art history classes as I have doesn’t know the term, then it needs to be defined within in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Got.Book.Learnin (talk • contribs) 17:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be a bad translation of the idea of "self-portait"? There's a possibility that the en.wikipedia article contains some text which was machine translated from another source, Google Translate often produces weird results like that... --Jayron32 17:54, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An autonomous sketch is a sketch that is not created with the purpose of preparing for a larger work (it stands alone, or is autonomous). For more, see this. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 18:34, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well found! (I had a quick search and didn't find an explanation.) "Autonomous" doesn't sound quite right in this context, but I cant think of a better adjective (other than the hyphenated "stand-alone").

Who painted this picture?

I have seen this painting of Jesus with the Crown of Thorns quite a few times but I haven't been able to discover who the painter was. Can anyone help? Thank you.--Britannicus (talk) 19:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They are more modern variations of Guido Reni's Ecce Homo. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much :)--Britannicus (talk) 17:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

January 31

Biblical calendar

I have unsuccessfully tried to find information about the time reckoning at the time of Genesis 1 Did Adam have a calendar or who determined the years of the life span of the time from Adam to Noah? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.191.190 (talk) 00:36, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Longevity_myths#Hebrew_Bible and Patriarchs (Bible) each have a little bit, but it basically boils down to the idea that we are uncertain about why such long ages are given. Common explanations include

Mistranslation (usually of month for year)
Miscopying of an early, now lost, source, possibly even down to changes during the years of oral tradition
Deliberate exaggeration to give greater "importance" to semi-mythic figures

Speaking as someone interested in factual history and evidence, there isn't really any hard evidence for any of these, or indeed, any other speculative explanation. Speaking as a Christian, I have faith that the Bible is true, but I also don't necessarily understand how it is true, and from a theological perspective I am OK with not knowing everything God knows, when I'm dead I can figure that out. But speaking purely from a historical perspective, there isn't a good explanation at all, so I'm not sure you're going to be able to get one definitively. Since the ancient Levant was mostly contested back-and-forth by Fertile Crescent empires and Egypt for most of the time period covering the Patriarchs, the specific calendars in use by the Writers may have been either the Babylonian calendar or the Egyptian calendar. --Jayron32 00:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is liable to sound very vague, but a religious friend once said to me that the specific ages given for those Biblical figures somehow connect with numerology, i.e. with the "numerical value" of their names. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not, even necessarily a mustard seed's grain of truth; it's just something I have sometimes puzzled over (though not enough to have looked into it). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Biblical numerology is a fairly "out there" fringe belief that not a lot of theologians of any mainstream Biblical religion seriously ascribes to. The reality is likely a lot more mundane, as I cited above. --Jayron32 03:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It gets a certain play among some religious Jews, as Chaim Potok displayed well in The Chosen.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It gets play mainly from the Kabbalah tradition, which the Wikipedia article accurately describes as "esoteric". Kabbalah gets a lot of press because it became trendy for Hollywood types to study it a few years back, but it has never represented a serious, mainstream, common tradition withing Judaism; it's always been a fringe belief system. --Jayron32 17:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not even Genesis itself claims that Adam was the one who determined all those lifespans. Instead, the author himself, likely writing during or shortly after the Babylonian exile (and during Persian rule), is the one claiming that people lived for X, Y, or Z years. The long ages can't be explained by mistranslation of "month" for "year" because as Genesis progresses, lifespans gradually decline to the actual human lifespan. This fits in very well with the book's theme of a "good" creation that gradually got corrupted, eventually leaving God to purge almost all life in Noah's flood. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 01:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Surely if you assume Adam was a historical person, you have a fair amount of faith, so why can't God just tell Moses/whoever all the details? I mean, if you believe in Adam, you believe in God, right? Or if you take it as a culturally significant myth, conversely, then surely there is no literal significance to the lifespans. Just a thought. 130.95.106.139 (talk) 10:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The key of a piece of music

Hello. I have perfect pitch - you can play a note and I can tell what it is without any external reference. I also have training as an amateur musician so I can read and play music (piano). However, how do you tell what key a piece of music is in solely by listening? I have been told (by someone without pp) that those of us with perfect pitch should be able to do this "naturally" but apparently not. When I read music I can look at the key signature and accidentals but when I just listen there is no distinction made between the key's natural sharps and flats and accidentals; moreover I might forget what sharps/flats i already heard. I suppose I could get around this by transcribing the music as I hear it but this seems like an awful lot of effort; isn't there any other way? 123.84.14.72 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Being as how I like music but the technical side is pretty much alien to me, I'd also be interested if someone can answer that. There must be something technical going on that defines what "letter key" a composition is in, beyond where the sharps and flats go - because "Do-Re-Mi" sounds the same no matter which particular letter note you start with, as long as you keep the full and half pitch "steps" consistent in the scale. The only difference to my ears is that it's fairly obvious when something is in a minor key, as it has a distinctively different sound than something in a major key does (i.e. "Do-Re-Mi" will sound different in a minor key than a major key, as the half-steps occur in different places than in a major key). One of the more amusing examples of that was on a Billy Joel special once, in which he demonstrated that his song "Pressure", which is in a minor key, will sound like a polka if you play it in a major key instead. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would say there is no reason to think people with perfect pitch should "naturally" be able to determine the key of a piece of music. Two articles of relevance here are Key (music) and Tonic (music). There are many different kinds of music, and some pieces are more obviously in a given key than others. A lot of music shifts from key to key so frequently it is hard to say what the key is. On the other hand, some music is "too simple" and could be said to be in several keys. If we limit ourselves to so-called Common practice period music, especially earlier stuff like Bach or Beethoven, most pieces at least begin and end in the key they are said to be in as a whole, even if they usually modulate to other, often remote keys in between. In these cases the question might boil down to whether you can tell what pitch of a regular triad chord is the tonic. I'm thinking of something like Beethoven's Third Symphony, which begins with two big E flat major chords, followed by arpeggiated E flat major chords. Of course, not all music by Beethoven or Bach begins so clearly. Also, Beethoven modulates away from E flat major fairly quickly, and spends a lot of time in various distant keys. If you're listening to a bit from the middle of the work there's no particular reason why you'd be able to tell the whole work was "in E flat major". (I'd say more, but have to go!) Pfly (talk) 01:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In a lot of western music such as classical, folk tunes and pop songs in major keys, you can often determine the key of the piece by the last note (or chord.) For example, if a major piece of music resolved on an F chord or the note F, it would most likely be in the key of F - meaning it had one flat (B-flat.) So you could listen for the end of the piece, and by knowing what key it is in, you would know the sharps or flats in that key signature. In most pieces, the accidentals are there for the melody (or harmony, if the piece has more than one part), and you shouldn't use them to determine the actual key of the piece. As usual with music, there are many pieces where this isn't true, but you might try some familiar folk songs, holiday carols or classic pop songs in major keys and see if you can work out the key of the piece when it is being played.--Romantic Mollusk (talk) 01:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When we read that so-and-so piece is in "A major", say, we have to regard that as no more than a general guide to the overall musical flavour of the work. In Bach's time, a suite usually consisted of half a dozen movements all in the same key, and so it was very obvious what the key of the work was; but composers soon abandoned that approach. A classical/romantic symphony, concerto or sonata has 3 or 4 movements. The first movement probably starts in the named key (but not always), and usually ends in the named key (but not always). In between, it might meander through a range of keys, major or minor, related or unrelated, and if you picked a section at random, you might happen to find yourself in E-flat minor rather than A major. That's just the first movement. The remaining movements might have little or no connection to the official "A major" of the symphony as a whole (some works in the "tragic" key of C minor end up in a triumphal D major). So, if you were given an unfamiliar score and were asked to examine it and state what key it was in (or for those with perfect pitch, asked to listen to it and then state what key it's in - your issue), there could be more than one valid answer. One well-known example is Mahler's 7th Symphony; depending on which reference work you believe, it could be in about 5 different keys. Are any of them right? More to the point, are any of them wrong? Spending any time arguing the toss is to miss the point of the music - in the worst way possible. Don't try to read these key labels too literally, because they cease to have any meaning when treated that way. It's like drama - a play might be tragic in its overall import, but can still have various comic moments. Do those moments fail to produce smiles on the faces of the audience just because the play is classified as a tragedy? I don't think so. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:39, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My personal method for determining what key a piece is in is only applicable if someone is playing rhythm guitar in it: I've memorised the particular sounds made by playing the chords and see if they occur in the piece. Once I've identified a chord, I then see if I can hear the IV and V chords (where I is the key the song is in), and identify the key that way. It's probably completely unique to me but it works... --TammyMoet (talk) 12:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't the EU just abuse their fiat currency?

Why can't the EU just print their way out of their current crisis by say setting an upper bound for interest rates for Eurozone government bonds? (Through the ECB simply buying limitless bonds at that rate.) At that point they'd no longer be asking China to bail them out, but demanding massive Chinese investments, as the cost of retaining access to the Eurozone market. If the rest of the world doesn't soak up the excess EU debt at that point then the Euro would fall until Europe's balance of payments got back into balance.

They don't have quite the free ride the United States has, as Oil is priced in US dollars, but they can do quite a bit to get out of their current trap without gnawing their own leg off. Hcobb (talk) 02:07, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the thing about "oil priced in U.S. dollars" is overrated. It's just the number, not the cost. Some of these stories seem to match my impression that the dollar price changes with the value of the dollar. Wnt (talk) 02:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're not the first person to argue along these lines, Hcobb, but the ECB says its mandate doesn't allow it to buy government bonds directly. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hcobb -- Part of the problem is that a large segment of the German public was somewhat strongly opposed to getting rid of the Deutschmark in the first place, and the Euro was imposed on them by German political elites accompanied by solemn assurances that the Germany would never be called upon to bail out other countries, and that the only interventionist role of the European Central bank would be to fight inflation, etc. Now those people feel that the terms of the basic bargain according to which they grudgingly tolerated the Euro have been flagrantly violated. An inflationary policy would be good for southern Eurozone economies, but would be against the immediate short-term interests of the German economy, and would enrage German public opinion. AnonMoos (talk) 05:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AS per our article "The primary objective of the European Central Bank is to maintain price stability within the Eurozone, which is the same as keeping inflation low. The Governing Council defined price stability as inflation (Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices) of around 2%. Unlike, for example, the United States Federal Reserve Bank, the ECB has only one primary objective with other objectives subordinate to it." The ECB does nothing but target inflation.124.171.93.137 (talk) 08:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That being said, they've been doing a lot of "printing money" over the last few months. One problem with Eurobond bonds is that they become for all intents and purposes German bonds, and Germany is understandably peeved about that.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The massive differences in yields between government bonds of different eurozone countries makes it clear that they aren't "for all intents and purposes German bonds". If the market felt that Germany was essentially guaranteeing the bonds of other Eurozone countries, the yields would all be at most equal to the German yields. --Tango (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That argument is based on a faulty assumption (misunderstanding?), since "Eurobonds" don't exist currently. Germany doesn't yet guarantee the bonds of other Eurozone countries, they're only pressured by some to do so in the future. If they did, the yields would certainly be much closer to those of Germany (and the other AAA's) than they are currently.--Roentgenium111 (talk) 22:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How would that look?! It would be far, far worse for the reputation of the ECB and Europe that simply letting countries (part) default - though that is still a fairly drastic action itself. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 22:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Old comic strip

I got this image from the book "The Comics" by Brian Walker. Unfortunately he says almost nothing about it in the book beyond reprinting it. My question is: why does this American advertising comic strip for Grape-Nuts Flakes seem to have a Nazi stewardess in it? And thank you for not informing me that in 1934 the Nazis hadn't yet passed the Nuremburg laws, or that other organizations in history wore red arm bands with a white logo. I'm aware. But her uniform looks pretty damn ss-ish beyond just her arm band.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21762720@N04/6794229053/lightbox/

Thedoorhinge (talk) 06:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/history-of-flight-attendant_n_813373.html#s227918&title=19331936 Nanonic (talk) 07:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reading between the lines, they probably didn't want to plug a particular airline, so they just alluded to it by drawing that kind of nondescript armband. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting cartoon strip. I wasn't aware that Nazis wore berets and yellow coats. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks nanonic. I didn't mention the berets or the color of the coats. Thedoorhinge (talk) 07:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You did mention the color of the armband, and it's not red. It's more of an orange-ish color. It's a different color from the red letters used in the ad in the lower right, and more like the airline seat, which is also that kind of darkish orange. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This clip doesn't show armbands that I can see,[6] but it does mention that stews were also registered nurses, so maybe that was a hint at a Red Cross band. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A beret and a yellow coat was the uniform of Deutsche Luft Hansa (the predecessor of modern Lufthansa) until fairly recently, so it may well be intended to be a swastika armband. (The 1960s version of the uniform is particularly unappealing.) As you say, at this point the Nazis weren't considered "the bad guys"; a recognizably German uniform was probably used to make it clear it was a long-haul (and therefore glamorous and expensive) flight. 78.149.240.205 (talk) 08:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

it's worth remembering that from the late 19th century to the mid 20th century (the end of the Franco-Prussian war to the end of WW II), Germany was arguably the most culturally and technologically advanced nation on the planet. The old-school German military (the Reichswehr, predecessor to the Wehrmacht) would have been seen as a powerful and respectable force, and commercial entities that wanted to inspire confidence would have copied their style (much the way that modern airlines and modern cruise ships use uniforms that are variations on American Air Force and Navy uniforms). Add that the first commercial airline was German (flying Zeppelins, of all things), and it doesn't surprise me at all that early American airlines copied copied German-style uniforms.

Also, note that Nazi uniforms were merely variations on regular army uniforms which had been around since before the rise of the Nazi party - in fact, the brownshirts of the early Nazi party got their name because they adopted the brown summer uniforms of the army to display their political affiliation. The SS went with black rather than lighter regular army shades, and they liked bling, but the style of uniform wasn't much different, so calling it 'Nazi' is incorrect. They were merely German-style. --Ludwigs2 09:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In 1934, Hitler and the Nazis were controversial. Their anti-Jewish stance was winning them few friends, but they hadn't actually done much yet in that department. They were getting a lot of attention on how they were dealing with the Depression, and were getting some praise for that. In other words, a political cartoonist would not put a Nazi in a cartoon to evoke evil because they were not yet clearly associated in the public eye with that. Also keep in mind that casual anti-Semitism was far more acceptable in 1934 than today.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This sort of thing happens time and time again - the 'good guys' turning out to be bad guys all along and ex-enemies becoming best buds. Here is a cartoon of the early 80s showing the courageous Taliban fighting those horrible Ruskies - Cucumber Mike (talk) 12:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is not an analogous situation. Plenty of people outside of Germany — even inside of Germany — recognized that Hitler was a nut and a warmonger in the early 1930s, when he had just consolidated power, effectively made a dictatorship, and so on. He was virulently anti-Semitic even then, he was virulently expansionist even then. He was a minority candidate who had electioneered his way into power with the help of violent thugs. Don't overestimate the "everyone thought Hitler was great" angle. Around 30% of the Germans thought Hitler was great and the rest of them were far more neutral on the subject if not oppositional. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not arguing that the situations are completely the same, but I would argue that they are analogous in some ways. Whilst it's true that Hitler was fairly obviously a nasty piece of work from the start, many in Western Europe felt that he was 'someone they could do business with', and a better alternative than Communism. There was a great fear of Marxism, Bolshevism, Communism and Socialism throughout the upper classes for most of the early (and, indeed later) 20th Century. The Nazis were, to some, potentially better than the alternative. The same thing applied to the US support of the Taliban against the Russians. Neither case was explicit support of the particular views of Nazism or the Taliban, but there was certainly a feeling of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 17:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just don't see it. Support for mujahadeen was classic case of "the enemy of my enemy is a friend." Hitler is more complicated on all fronts than that. Reducing it to that obscures more than it enlightens. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The common thread between the Nazis and the Mujahadeen was indeed their opposition to Communism in general, and the Soviet Union in particular. America-firsters such as Charles Lindbergh thought that Hitler was the lesser of two evils compared with Stalin - and considering how things went post-War, he had a point. His stance cost Lindbergh a lot of public good will, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't suppose you'd like to tell us how things would have gone post-war if Hitler had won? AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are excellent books of science fiction that do. But I concur with Bugs--Hitler was seen as disagreeable and his followers worse. That being said, there were foreign hopes that he would "smarten up" Germany and get their economy cracking and their government stable. Which he did, kinda. At the time, no one could solve the Depression and what the major nations were doing to try was something of intense and personal interest.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just point out that fashions that we now associate with Nazis were very much of their times. The long trench coat and organization armband were not uniquely Nazi during the 1930s. Marco polo (talk) 15:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This story notes that until the post-war era, almost all stewardess' uniforms resembled a military style. → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ 18:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

David Stuart (Michigan politician) : cause of military career brutal end in 1863 ?

Hello Learned Humanitarians ! "I don't believe my eyes" (as we say here ) : no answer to my 25/01/2012 question ! Allow me to ask it again...

It seems that before and during the Vicksburg Campaign D. Stuart has been faithfull to Sherman and Grant rather to John A. McClernand. He resigned from the Union Army in April, 1863.

Are there any proofs that D. Stuart's nomination as brig.gen. was refused by the US Senate because McClernand's friends vetoed against it ?

Thanks ++++ beforehand for your answers (maybe a book : "Meyers, Christopher C. « The Meanest Man in the West: John A. McClernand and the Civil War Era. » Ph. D. Diss., The Florida State University, 1996. can help; it is perfectly unavailable here...) Arapaima (talk) 08:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm one of the wikipedians who works most on political history, and I have no idea. This is the sort of thing that either someone knows, or that is going to take exacting research into no-doubt-incomplete records. Regarding the dissertation, I would suggest you ask here, the WikiProject for Florida State University, you are very likely to find an eager Seminole there willing to help you out.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)::Thanks a lot Wehwalt Arapaima (talk) 10:11, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Analogue to sadism

Since sadism means gaining sexual pleasure from inflicting pain, I'm wondering about its natural analogue, gaining sexual pleasure from watching others suffer. Such a person would presumably seek out photos of war, torture, genocide, or other brutalities and view them as pornography. Is there a term for such a sexual preference? How common is it, compared to S&M? --140.180.15.97 (talk) 09:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not purely sexual, but there is schadenfreude.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Schadenfreude is very common. It is the reason why people with low income feel happy to see a billionaire getting arrested (for any reason) or a large corporation going bankrupt. The psychology of the London rioters was also related to it. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 12:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would suppose that gaining sexual pleasure from inflicting pain and gaining sexual pleasure from watching others being inflicted pain is just various degrees of sadism. Just av guess, though. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(to OP) Sadism is not always gaining sexual pleasure from inflicting pain, it means gaining pleasure (not necessarily sexual in nature) by inflicting pain. What you are saying is called sadomasochism. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 12:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It always made me curious whether human beings are instinctively sadist. Why children gain pleasure from bullying other children or torturing pet/animals? Why adult humans gain pleasure from bullying and torturing others? Why police gain pleasure by humiliating civilians? Is sadism a human instinct? --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 13:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sadism, no. However, humans are social animals which involves complex heirarchies of dominance and obedience. Our instinct is to define our social group and then defend those individuals from other social groups. This often entails violence. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What you're talking about would probably be categorized as sadism too, just with voyeuristic overtones. It's the enjoyment of suffering that defines a sadist; the infliction of it is merely a gratification method. --Ludwigs2 21:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting. Every article about sadism I've read focuses almost solely on the infliction of pain, whereas I'd expect watching people in pain is much more common (because you don't need to find a willing partner, or restrain an unwilling partner against her will).

Well, with sexuality in general, voyeurism lacks the immediacy and immersion of participation. Some people are drawn to voyeurism as a form of neurosis, others turn to it because they lack other sexual outlets, but as a rule it would be less satisfying. I don't see why sadism would be any different. And with matters of sexuality people are not well-construed as rational actors; if someone chooses to use voyeuristic media rather than seek out a partner it's much more likely to be the result of some emotional inhibition than of cost/benefit reasoning.

as to why the articles you've read focus on the infliction of pain… what kind of articles are you reading? Popular press articles tend to focus on the overt act because causing someone pain breaks a lot of social taboos. Sexuality studies, however, tend to focus on the emotional component: Sadism aims for an emotional release just like any other form of sexuality, they are just jumping through some odd and different hoops to get there. Popular press also tends to confuse deviant and sociopathic forms of the behavior (deviant SM is a form of mutual relationship, while sociopathic sadism involves victimization). --Ludwigs2 01:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Schadenfreude is not exactly what I'm looking for. As I understand it, the person with schadenfreude usually views the victim as "bad", or somehow deserving of his pain. That wouldn't make someone get pleasure out of watching a random stranger being worked to death in a concentration camp (assuming she's not clearly Jewish, or of any other ethnicity that the person doesn't approve of). Also, sadists and masochists usually don't view their victims as bad. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 21:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would believe this to be a form of Voyeurism, after all, if you are not taking part in it, but just watching it, then that's what it is. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So voyeuristic sadism or sadistic voyeurism. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Central bank money printing

The EU currency question got me to think: When a modern central bank like the ECB, the Fed or the Bank of England is printing new money (within its own regulatory limits, and I am not talking about replacing old bank notes, I am talking about the real "new money" creation which sometimes happen), I assume it first goes into the central bank currency reserve to start with, but then how are they allowed to use it? I know they are sometimes allowed to lend it, but lending means that the money comes back at some point in the future, so does the reserve keeps growing for ever? In Zimbabwe some of it was going into Mugabe's private accounts, some to the government, but what about modern countries with proper rules about this? Are they allowed to hand it over to the governements' treasury (with no requirement to pay back) to help with spending on a new project, or to help with paying back some debt? I am quite confused, they seem to have their hands very tied up and cannot do the above, from what I read, but then why would they ever print "new" money if they can't use it in one of the above ways? Apparently they are allowed to use it to buy foreign currency as well, but I don't how that foreign currency gets spent either. Thanks a lot in advance for your help. --Lgriot (talk) 10:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the articles on Monetary policy, Money supply and Quantitative easing will answer some of your questions? 130.88.73.65 (talk) 11:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The first 2 don't answer the simple question "what do they do do with the newly created money?". The 3rd one does, hoevever, basically there is no money printing anymore, only QE: "A central bank buys financial assets to inject a pre-determined quantity of money into the economy."

That I understand, and it explains further down that the central does not remain a shareholder, it does instead sell back those bonds and shares. The question that I cannot find and answer for is the following: do they destroy the money that was originally created for the QE, or does it remain in the central bank reserves? Or, since it is all electronic now, it actually doesn't matter? --Lgriot (talk) 13:19, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For the UK and other developed economies, "printing new money" is a metaphor. Almost all of the money supply is in the form of bank loans and deposits; only about 2-3% is in the form of coins and bank notes (think of the value of the cash in your wallet versus the total value of the savings and loans that make up the rest of your financial assets). When the Bank of England wants to increase or decrease the money supply, it doesn't literally print or destroy bank notes - instead, it electronically credits or debits banks' central reserve accounts. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The situation in Zimbabwe was that the government and central bank were increasing the money supply much faster than the economy was growing. This inevitably results in price inflation, as the value of money drops. In the case of western central banks at present, they are buying financial assets from financial institutions in an effort to bolster those institution's reserves in order to spur them to lend money, thereby increasing the money supply. The problem is that western developed-world financial institutions are writing off existing debts as fast as, or faster than, they are making new loans, with the result that the money supply is stable or declining. This creates deflationary pressures (which however are being counteracted somewhat by inflationary pressures in the developing world). Marco polo (talk) 15:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok thanks gandalf I think we are nearly there: so when it buys on he markets and later on sells back whatever financial instrument it bought, there is no formal process of creating or destroying money, since it's is electronic and they are the central bank, everyone assumes that they ar have an infinite amount of cash to spend anyway, so there is no decision to create or destroy the money, even simply through the signature of a paper from the head of the central bank? The money is already "assumed to exist"? --Lgriot (talk) 22:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, it is all done electronically, but there is still a formal process behind it. A price is agreed, the ownership of the securities is transferred, and the counterparty's reserve account is credited or debited with the agreed proceeds or cost. Each of these central bank transactions adds money to the money supply or removes money from it - just because it is not physcial notes and coins does not mean that it is not money. And the trading department of a central bank will have been given very clear policy targets for the net amount of money that they should aim to add to or remove from the money supply - this is very carefully controlled by the policy making functions within the central bank, and the trading department definitely does not have an "infinite amount of cash to spend". Gandalf61 (talk) 09:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Different central banks function in different ways, but the Reserve Bank of New Zealand controls money supply in a relatively simple way. The gist of it is that the Reserve Bank sets the Official Cash Rate. Any bank can borrow unlimited finds at a quarter of a point above the OCR, or deposit unlimited funds at a quarter of a point below the OCR. When the OCR is low, that means that borrowing is cheap, and banks will therefore borrow a lot of money and do things with it, so the money supply will increase quickly. When the OCR is high, borrowing is expensive, so it will not happen as much, and so the money supply will increase slowly. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand does effectively have an "infinite amount of cash". --superioridad ^(discusión) 02:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty much all national central banks operate the same way, like New Zealand's. Central banks have effectively an infinite amount of "ready money" cash, but they are in theory only allowed to buy certain things with it, like government bonds, which have roughly the same cash value & security. Otherwise they are engaging in fiscal operations (or corruption at worst), not monetary operations. So they can control short term (and even long-term) rates as superiority said, which is their primary task. But what they can't do is control the money supply. There was a short period in the 80s when under the influence of Monetarism, the Fed did try to directly control the "money supply" but it was given up as unworkable, and now it doesn't even publish some money supply stats like M3. The theory that there will be more borrowing & "loose money" & a growing money supply when rates are low does have some validity, but much less than assumed by those who take it as an unquestionable axiom. Every few generations, after the basically sound economics textbooks produced by the prior great crisis have been replaced with recycled, dressed-up ancient garbage, central bankers indoctrinated by the garbage rediscover they can't push on a string.

Thinking in terms of printing & shredding money, notes & bonds etc is a good idea. Going electronic doesn't change anything, but can make it easier to confuse yourself, IMHO. Zimbabwe, like all other cases of hyperinflation, e.g. Weimar, was primarily caused by decreasing supply - money chasing fewer goods - rather than the government getting up one day & deciding to hyperinflate. To answer your third question for the USA, Fed "profits" are remitted to the Treasury Department, which is the sensible thing to do. John Z (talk) 00:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Scotland

Has Scotland lost or gained any territory after the Acts of Union 1707?
Sleigh (talk) 13:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm aware, the only disputed territory was Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was confirmed as being under English juristriction by the 1707 act, although apparently not technically part of either England or Scotland until 1972. See Berwick-upon-Tweed#Support for Reunification with Scotland. The whole thing has been the subject of much silly disputation, including whether Berwick has been at war with Russia since 1853 - see Berwick-upon-Tweed#Culture. Since then, the barren outcrop of Rockall (31 metres x 25 metres) in the middle of the North Atlantic has been annexed by HMS Vidal in 1955 in the name of the Queen. The Island of Rockall Act 1972 declared it a part of Inverness-shire. However, this is all disputed by Denmark, Iceland and the Republic of Ireland who would all like it for themselves. Alansplodge (talk) 14:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anglo-Scottish border says the Scottish Adjacent Waters Boundaries Order 1999 adjusted the marine border with England, though the land border has remained unchanged since 1482. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Coastal geomorphological processes of erosion and deposition, together with processes of subsidence and uplift have resulted in losses and gains, respectively, to Scotland's territory since 1707. This map shows that much of Scotland's coast has been rising at a rate of around 1 mm per year, or about one foot since 1707. More significant are the processes of erosion and deposition, whose general trend is shown by the map on page 13 of to british geomorphology.pdf this publication. As a result of these processes, Scotland has been losing land at sites such as Fife Ness, St Abb's Head, and Duncansby Head, while it has been gaining land at places such as Cramond, Mugdrum Island, Findhorn Bay, and Auchencairn. Marco polo (talk) 15:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Scottish colonization of the Americas mentions Darien, Georgia, which was settled by Scots in 1736. I don't know whether that would have been considered Scottish territory (or if such a distinction was made)? 130.88.99.231 (talk) 17:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In 1707, Scotland ceased to be a sovereign state, and instead became a constituent nation as part of the United Kingdom. Thus, the colony would have been British territory rather than strictly Scottish territory. --Jayron32 18:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Run by a Scottish King and a number of Scottish monarchs afterwards, so strictly speaking, they gained territory, then lost it, gained it again, a few times. Two Scottish Prime Ministers in recent years, even. Then their recent move to independence (which I am not against in any way whatsoever - they'll do a decent job of it) will gain back their lands, albeit tilting as it it (gain a bit, you lose some). KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 04:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In 1707? Anne would have been quite surprised to learn she was a King, and considering she, her father and mother were all born in England, I'm not sure she considered herself very Scottish, excepting in the "Oh yeah, my ancestors were Scottish" (technically, one Grandparent, her grandfather was born there). Anne was raised partly in the Court of England and partly in France; I'm not sure she ever spent any significant time in Scotland at all prior to becoming Queen. Since the Act of Union, noting that a Prime Minister of the UK is Scottish is not terribly interesting; it certainly isn't any moreso than noting that a President of the U.S. is from Texas. Also, the borders of Scotland have been fixed for over 500 years or so (excepting the odd dispute), so it hasn't gained territory or lost it in half a millenium. --Jayron32 06:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I was under the impression that King James I didn't go by the name of Anne, and that he went by the name of King James I of the United Kingdom, rather than King James VI of Scotland. Anyway, it would seem we are talking after 1707. Strike that. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 08:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He was King of Scots as James VI from 1567, and King of England and Ireland as James I from 1603. The United Kingdom didn't come into existence till 1707. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 11:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There was still a legal distinction between Scottish and English territory after the Acts of Union (they are still separate legal jurisdictions) - but I have no idea how that applied to the colonies, if at all. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 15:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Though the U.K. is technically a unitary state, it is somewhat "pseudo-federalist" in the sense that there are devolved powers which allow the Scottish to have thier own legal system and laws distinct, in some ways, from England and Wales, and likewise from Northern Ireland. In the case of Scotland, some of those "devolved powers" technically predate the Acts of Union, but in terms of legal supremacy, they are still "devolved" in the sense that only the Parliament of the United Kingdom is supreme, and Scotland enjoys its limited autonomy at the pleasure of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. British Colonies were given a legal status somewhat akin to Territories of the United States in modern times, or to someplace like the Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine during the German Empire. They exist outside of any of the other subnational territories, and are administered directly by the national government. That a colony, settled after 1707, had settlers which came from Scotland doesn't mean that they were administerred by Scotland itself in any sense. They were administerred by Great Britain as British colonies. --Jayron32 18:32, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Scottish politicians appear to consider that Scotland has gained much territory since this act. The extension of Territorial waters means that all that black stuff out there is Scotland's oil. Yet that might not be what the OP meant.--Aspro (talk) 21:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most extreme outlier case of patent success in recent history

Only considering cases in the past 50 years, if the metric is [dollars earned in license fees or dollars in profit from sales of the invention] / [net worth prior to patent] for a US patent issued to an individual inventor and not assigned to any company for which the inventor worked (i.e., it (the IP) was all his/hers), who is the person with the highest verifiable value of this metric? In other less-precise words, who increased their wealth by the highest percentage with a patent? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 18:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Normally a patent exists to grant you a monopoly. In exchange, you are incentivized in various ways 1) to perform work (R&D) that might only result in a commodity, however useful. But if no one does it, it doesn't exist. 2) in order to share your findings, instead of keeping it a trade secret. So, this is why patents exist (in theory), the second point is relevant when you consider the short (20 year or so) patent lifespan.

Now, if we want to get to what is really behind your question, which is about dollars earned, do you really care if it was indeed the patent which acted as the reason for the monopoly? There are many other reasons: both natural monopolies; state-granted monopolies; and anti-competitive behavior. I would say, look at Microsoft for the most successful use of a monopoly. Close second are monopolies like latin american telephone networks and things like Russian state-granted oil monopolies. If what is really behind the question whether you could easily personally produce a patent that you could then go on to massively exploit, I think you will find that your personal leverage is very great as a software engineer, and that copyright protection will be sufficient. Indeed, why do you require a patent as opposed to asking the same question of copyrights, which are also state-granted monopolies, however not on a method? If you told us more for the reasons behind the question we could help you either learn more, or dominate the world faster/better/cheaper/more easily/more surely. 78.92.81.13 (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All of 78's lecturing and editorializing is inappropriate. The querent's question is straightforward and simple. I nominate Chester Carlson, who was lifted from poverty to wealth, eventually. His article states that he personally earned about 1/60th of a cent for every Xerox copy ever made, and as the article makes clear, he only scraped by, financially, for many years. (I don't know what portion of his income was earned in the past 50 years, though.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The OP's restriction to "the last 50 years" is disappointing, since the second half of the 19th century is when so many interesting things were invented and patented. Chester Carlson, noted by Comet Tuttle, did not patent the basic Xerox process in the last 50 years, since the article on him implies a 1948 patent, about 64 years ago. Life now versus life in 1962? Some areas of technological innovation wherein lucrative patent successes might be found, for the OP's specified time interval: Phones now have Touch-tone instead of rotary dial, and cellular instead of a land line. Calculators are digital push-button versus Marchant rotary mechanical calculators, electromechanical adding machines or sliderules . PCs and keyboards have replaced punchcard stations or punched papertape consoles used in 1962 to input commands and data to computers, Word processing software on PCs has replaced manual, electric, or Selectric typewriters. Emails have replaced Telegrams and cables messages. LED flashlights are better than flashlights with 2 D cells and a PR2 bulb. Alkaline batteries have largely replaced carbon-zinc batteries. Nailguns have largely replaced hammers and nails for house construction. Fuel injection controlled by a computer and electronic ignition has replaced the carburetor, vacuum advance, and distributor in autos. In industrial control systems, SCADA (Supervisory control and data acquisition) has replaced vacuum-tube or reed relay supervisory control and telemetry. Digital photography has replaced film cameras and photofinishing. Video on solid-state camcorders or camera phones has replaced videotape recorders, which replaced the 8mm home movies or 16 mm industrial filming of 1962. Digital typesetting has replaced Linotype for creating newspapers. TV arrives via cable rather than broadcast, in high definition rather than the 1941 US standard and its color addition, NTSC (never twice same color). The picture from the TV or computer monitor is a flat panel solid state display rather than a glass CRT. Integrated circuits have largely replaced discrete components in electronics, and solid state electronics has replaced the vacuum tubes still common in TVs and radios of 1962. 90% efficient furnaces have replaced lower efficiency furnaces of 1962. Incandescent lights are being replaced by compact fluorescents and LED bulbs. Digital downloads of music replace CDs which replaced 1962's vinyl 33 1/3 RPM discs or cassettes or reel-to-reel, The end result is largely the same, but it is achieved more cleanly and efficiently. The companies made a gazillion dollars selling all these new gadgets to individuals, government and business. Perhaps the inventors sometimes shared in the profits. Offhand I do not know in how many cases the innovations were by paid employees in the labs of giant industrial firms rather than independent inventors, who mortgaged their houses and borrowed from friends and relatives to perfect and patent the gizmo, then licensed it to industry or marketed it themselves. It would be unlikely for a basement tinkerer to develop something like a better form of insulin, or some improved form of integrated circuit technology. Even in the glory days of solitary inventors in the 19th century, Thomas Edison had quite the little invention factory going when he invented the practical lightbulb and the phonograph, and they did not hike his personal wealth all that much, because of the cost of perfecting the invention and getting it into production, along with patent infringement by competitors and litigation expenses. Edison (talk) 05:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A somewhat famous case is Joe Hrudka, who invented a better gasket while tinkering on his car in the early 1970s and turned his simple invention into an auto parts empire (Mr. Gasket). I see both are red links, but they're worthy of an article. --Xuxl (talk) 09:37, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And Xuxl is worthy of a user page. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:46, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Ernő Rubik - I have really no idea how welathy he was before (looks quite middle class from the scant details provided) nor how much he earnt from the Rubik's cube - but he has potential. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 10:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While I hate to rain on the parade, I feel it necessary to acknowledge that the OP's metric breaks down for inventors with small, zero, or negative personal net worths; it's also going to be quite 'noisy' for individuals with small net worth. Let's say that Alice, Bob, and Carol each create an invention that makes a million dollars. Further, Alice's net worth started out at $1000, Bob's was just $100, and Carol's just $50. All three started and finished in what are, honestly, nearly indistinguishable financial positions, but Alice's 'score' using the OP's ratio method is 1000, Bob's is 10,000, and Carol's is 20,000.

Was Bob really ten times more 'successful' as an inventor than Alice? If Alice paid her $900 rent the day after getting the patent instead of the day before, would she then have been just as successful as Bob? Later, Bob discovers that Carol owned a television which she could have sold for $50—should we cut Carol's score in half? Finally, Bob and Carol calculated their respective net worths after obtaining their patents. Alice, on the other hand, had just a thousand dollars to her name before patenting her invention. After filing fees and intellectual property lawyers and so forth all got their cuts, she was actually $4000 in the red on her line of credit; her score is now -2,500. Should we count the score before or after patenting? Is a negative score good or bad? And how does one rank a small negative score—it could be the result of limited revenue (bad) or massive personal debt ('good' for the purposes of this discussion).

The garage tinkerer who mortgages his house, sells his personal items, and maxes out his credit cards is a staple of the independent inventor myth. While the dramatized movie version tends to exaggerate, I would be shocked if there weren't more than a few inventors who had negative personal net worths when they acquired their patents. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

20th century inventors a bit before the OPs time frame who independently advanced technology and patented something important, then got screwed over by by big companies, would include Philo Farnsworth, who developed the first practical all electronic TV system. RCA offered him $100,000 for the invention in 1931 if he would become their employee, but he refused. In 1939, RCA agreed to pay a $1 million license fee. Like many inventors, Farnsworth did not get rich from this because he always spent every penny on experimentation. Edison (talk) 16:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One huge patent success story within the last 50 years is Robert Kearns, who patented an (obvious) invention, the intermittent windshield wiper activator. The big car companies refused to license the invention and installed it on cars anyway. He sued and won $30 million from Chrysler. Ford gave him a $10.1 million settlement. A similar case in the last 50 years is Peter Roberts (inventor), who at age 18 invented a pushbutton quick release feature for socket wrenches. He sold rights to the invention to Sears for $10,000. Later he sued to get more money and there was interminable litigation, which enriched some lawyers. At one point he was awarded all profits from all socket wrenches sold by Sears, even though they were selling many wrenches even before the feature was added. In the end, he wound up with a judgement for $1 million. It looks like big companies prefer to spend millions on litigation rather than paying inventors a reasonable licensing fee for their invention. One tactic is to claim they are not interested in the invention, then start using it, and claim that it was obvious or that similar devices had previously been patented, and purchase those patents for similar but useless devices. Edison (talk) 15:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unclear why you think these stories only make big companies look bad. You admit yourself that Kearns's windshield wiper was arguably obvious (which would make it non-patentable), and that Roberts sued for more money (including a cut of socket wrenches he had no role in) after he already had a paid settlement with Sears. Admittedly, he argued that Sears was deceptive. If anything, your examples make the whole patent system seem flawed. Superm401 - Talk 19:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I (the OP) was thinking of Larry Page and his patent for "Method for node ranking in a linked database" #6285999. On the actual patent, it says the assignee is The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. I wonder how he got them to let go of their rights and let the company Google reap the financial rewards, or does Stanford get money from Google (which is obviously using the patent that has not yet expired by a long shot) because of their being the assignee on this patent? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 16:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Google article mentions that the patent rights are Stanford's, but, surprisingly, does not mention that Stanford got 1.8 million shares of Google stock in exchange for what is presumably an exclusive on the rights you mention, gaining Stanford about $336 million as of 2005. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some timeline of inventions year by year in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are at [7] . Many well known inventions were in the labs of big industry in that period, so outside the OPs criteria. The computer mouse, patented by Douglas Englebart (US #3,541,541) in 1970 looks like a possibility, since he had his own company at the time. The ATM in 1969 looks like a possibility, since some individual inventors are named. I question the OPs implication that an inventor who worked for a big company would not increase his net worth as much in the rewards he got as a valued employee, as if he had invented something in his parents' garage and then got rich from license fees or profits from his direct sales, since startup costs are a killer (build a factory, set up a marketing organization) while big companies infringe the patent and you are in litigation for years, paying your sole-practitioner attorney to fight the big company's army of lawyers, who bury you in a trainload of documents purporting to show that your invention was obvious, or that prior patents covered the same ground. Edison (talk) 16:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Wiki article Douglas Engelbart says he did not get rich from the mouse patent. Edison (talk) 17:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As Edison says above, a third way to make money is by court settlements and a fourth way is by selling the patent to a business.
Sleigh (talk) 19:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 1

Lead, follow, or get out of the way

Apparently, Mitt Romney just used the phrase in his victory speech in the Florida primary. He cited Thomas Paine as the source, but I can find no definitive source to confirm the pamphleteer as the originator. We do know that Lee Iaccoca said it in a commercial when he ran Chrysler. Can anybody provide credible documentation for who might have first uttered the phrase?—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 02:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest Google Books reference is to a 1966 article by a BYU professor. Another source attributes it to George Patton. The earliest news article using the quote in Google's archives is from the 1970s. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 03:08, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I heard a snippet of Romney saying that, on the radio this evening. For what it's worth he said something like "supposedly said by Thomas Paine", or words to that effect. Pfly (talk) 03:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm skeptical that the idiom "get out of the way" dates that far back, and Google is turning up nothing. Anyone have any idea how old it is? Antandrus (talk) 03:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I take that back: Paine himself used it at least once. Antandrus (talk) 03:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately Google seems to disallow viewing of that book for me, and seeing it is a collected edition you are referring to, could you please provide the title of the original work in which the phrase be found? It would be interesting to see which book Romney had read or would refer to in this way. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's on page 27 of The writings of Thomas Paine, vol 1, 1774-1779. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1894. The piece in question is entitled "New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great". (Once again it only uses the idiom "get out of the way"; nothing about leading or following.) Antandrus (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dumb question from a Brit. What is Mitt Romney doing quoting a radical like Paine anyway? Does he have the faintest clue what Paine stood for? "The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun". :p AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He's most famous for "Give me liberty or give me death", which is a far better catch-phrase than the quote you cited. :) It's worth pointing out that Paine eventually went back to England. I guess he got more liberty here than he could stand. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Um, I'd check your facts, Bugs... AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, you're right, I had him confused with Patrick Henry. All them radicals look alike. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

cough, cough. I think he meant to say These are the times to try men's souls. --Jayron32 06:17, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And he probably didn't mean to suggest that Paine went back to England - at least when he was alive. ;-) AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Except that Paine did go back to England. He spent a few years in London (after leaving the U.S. over some political dispute) before moving on to France, where he became a supporter of their revolution as well. He eventually returned to the U.S. and died there, but he did, in fact, live in London for a time after the American Revolution. --Jayron32 06:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, yes. As you say, Paine returned to England for a time, though I doubt very much (given his support for the French revolution) that he did this because "he got more liberty here [America] than he could stand". In any case, my original point stands. Romney quoting Paine has got to be evidence for just how little understanding there is in contemporary U.S. political discourse of what the 'founding fathers' thought they were founding... AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:29, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's s rather sweeping generalisation. All it's evidence of is that one man, Mitt Romney, may have little understanding of what you said. But you'd need somewhat more than one quote to even come to that conclusion. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At least Mitt (or his staff) got the quote right. As compared with Bachmann, whose team thought the Battle of Lexington and Concord occurred in Concord NH rather than Concord MA. Then there's Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere story. And our glorious founding fathers include Thomas Jefferson, who is held in high esteem among most mainstream politicians of both parties. A quote can be good regardless of its source. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Really? Perhaps he took the intercontinental railroad to NH from one of the other fifty-six states?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the United States, Thomas Paine is associated with Common Sense almost exclusively, which most children have to read at least part of in their American history education. He is considered one of the Founding Fathers and is thus wrapped up in a dull blanket of warmth and love which obscures most of his real opinions and the fact that he disagreed with a lot of the other "Founding Fathers." Invoking Paine is equivalent to invoking any of the Fathers in most people's minds — they know he was involved in the Revolution and thus must be a good guy to invoke. "You should vote for whomever is quoting me" — Ben Franklin. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My answer is the following: Beware of thinkers whose minds function only when they are fuelled by a quotation. - Emile Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations. Just replace 'thinkers' with 'politicians' (you're well advised to remember that one when you watch populist and pitiful speeches of ambitious politicians - of whatever country you live in.) Flamarande (talk) 23:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, anyway, I'm guessing nobody else has, so far, had any better luck than I at either substantiating or disproving the attribution of the quote to Paine.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 23:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Boyle by Johann Kerseboom

Four questions:

What type of chair is Boyle sitting upon?
What does the pillar in the background represent?
What is he pointing at?
What book is on the table?

Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 13:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no expertise here, but I'd suggest he's not pointing at anything - just assuming what was deemed a suitable pose for an erudite gentleman. (It does look a little like he's demonstrating Fleming's Right-hand rule, but at the time this was painted, it hadn't been invented yet - and wouldn't be for more than a century!) And if the book isn't easily identifiable, I'd suggest it's there to represent learning and academia generically. --Dweller (talk) 14:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the pillar isn't the thing that's the allegory, but the curtain which is pulled back, as if to say Boyle drew back the curtain and allowed us to see what had previously been hidden. --TammyMoet (talk) 14:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This gesture in paintings almost always indicates that the painting was one of a pair, and that there's a pendant painting of his wife or colleague somewhere, making the same gesture at him. 78.147.136.64 (talk) 19:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like he is pointing at the book that possibly contains one of his written works or an important work of one of his predecessors in the field. Some of his own works did contain etchings, and it can be seen that it is an illustrated work, so it could very well be one of his own books. It is a quite common gesture on paintings from that period, that the persons depicted point or holds objects signifying that persons achievements (learning, scholarship and science in this case). It looks like he is actually narrating the contents of the book to the specator. The chair is just a fancy high-backed baroque chair. The idea stated above, that he has pulled away the veil of ignorance to reveal the foundation of the world sounds about right. --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Slavery: How did a slave owner pay for his slave?

A slave in the 18 th. and early 19th. Century was expensive, about $20,000 in today's money. How did a purchaser of a slave pay for the slave? Did he borrow the money, finance the purchase, or was there means of purchase? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.138.114.55 (talk) 13:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He sold the products of the other slaves. They paid for themselves, really. That's what happens when someone can be owned. --78.92.81.13 (talk) 13:58, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You could mortgage a slave. Jefferson did this, often. I believe all of his slaves were mortgaged at his death. A local bank might give you financing too. You have to remember, antebellum southern farmers were no different than any others, that is, accumulate debts against the harvest and hope prices are good. Most slaves were not on huge plantations, either. Obviously there were risks in slaveowning as well as profits; it was a large and risky capital investment, one often insured against loss (death, runaway).--Wehwalt (talk) 14:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A wealthy relative might loan the money to buy slaves. A banker or other wealthy person might make a personal loan. On a plantation or a farm, the slaves might be more valuable than all the personal property , the house, or even the land. Edison (talk) 15:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that in fact most slaves were on large plantations. Most slaveowners were not plantation owners, but the obverse was not true. The owner of a large and successful plantation might have had a treasury of coins with which to pay for slaves or other large purchases. According to this site, the highest value coins widely circulating in colonial Virginia were French or Spanish coins known as pistoles and worth about 18 shillings of English money. For a slave selling for £60 (an average amount), or 1200 shillings, a buyer could hand over a pouch containing around 66 gold pistoles. More commonly, according to this site, large purchases were settled in pounds of tobacco, with 240 pounds of tobacco per pound of English money. So a £60 slave would have cost 14,400 pounds of tobacco. According to this source an acre in Georgia yielded about 480 pounds of tobacco in 1919, before the widespread introduction of chemical fertilizer or horseless mechanization. Assuming half that yield for colonial Virginia, or 240 pounds per acre, a slave would have cost the equivalent of a year's yield from 60 acres of tobacco. Marco polo (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Marco, that may be true of Virginia; it was less true in the Trans-Mississippi.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You mean Trans-Appalachia, I'm guessing? (yikes, that article needs some help!) Pfly (talk) 16:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I meant Trans-Mississippi, which is what the states and territories west of same were commonly called then. Although it was also true of the northwestern counties of Virginia, which contributed to them winding up with the Union.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmmm, 66 pistoles, if they're the same as the older Louis d'or weight, is 66*6.75 = 405 grams of gold, now worth $56*405 = $22600. The flue-cured tobacco price is $1.68 per pound in one recent instance.^[8] so 14400 pounds = $24192. So I'm sorely tempted to say that, in modern terms, based on Marco polo's informative comments, an average slave cost about $23000. Which actually doesn't surprise me, because the one common thing that turns up when looking at slave deals in modern societies is that they're amazingly cheap, considering. Wnt (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This website I spent about 10 seconds Googling puts the average price of a new car at also about $23000. Not sure what this implies, but it's probably something. Thedoorhinge (talk) 06:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't sound that cheap to me, from a purely business perspective. Remember, you had to pay for their food and lodgings (and you had to feed and house your slaves reasonably well or they wouldn't be fit to work). If you take the average unskilled wage at the time (about $1 a day, according to some quick Googling, but I couldn't find any particularly reliable sources - please feel free to correct me if you can find one), the cost of living (say, $0.50 a day, based on a little googling and a lot of guessing), and assuming 300 working days a year (365 minus Sundays, minus the odd sick day, etc, and mostly to make it a round number) gives you about $150 a year in production by a slave. If we assume a slave has 20 years of working life (a guess) and interest rates of 8% p.a. (more Googling), that works out to a capital value of about $1,500 (or £330, based on an exchange rate of £1=$4.50, which I got from more Googling). So, having actually done the calculation, I've proven you right: £60 is cheap! My calculation is extremely sensitive to the assumptions, though. Increase cost of living to $0.60 a day, and the value comes down to £260. Increase the interest rate to 9% and it comes to £300. Decrease the working lifetime to 15 years and it comes to £270. Combine all three and it comes to £215. It's entirely possible my assumptions are far enough off that £60 is the "fair" value. (Of course, these days we rather frown upon things like putting an actuarial value of a person's life, but at the time it was just considered business and this is the way they would have thought.) --Tango (talk) 19:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One of the guests on Who do you think you are? was appalled to learn that one of his ancestors was a slave owning plantation owner in the Caribbean. He was even more appalled (almost to tears) to learn that he first received some slaves from his father as a 4th birthday present. Astronaut (talk) 16:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For reference, that was Ainsley Harriott (ref., with video). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if the irony crossed his mind, that if not for his slave-owning white ancestor, he himself would not exist. The past "is what it is." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't access the video, but how reliable is this? I can't imagine a slave being trusted with a 4-year-old, nor can I imagine a 4-year-old getting a 200,000 dollar gift. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 03:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the programme, and the original documents were shown referencing the purchase of slaves as a gift for the son. The past is a different country: they do things differently there. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's really just a case of rich people transferring assets to minor children. I'm sure then, as now, that the assets owned by a minor are legally controlled by their parent until they reach majority. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Many farmers owned a few slaves such as women to serve as cook/washerwoman/maid/child minder, and men to work as field hands, alongside the farmer and his sons. The white folks lived in the farmhouse, which might be of log construction and not at all reminiscent of Scarlett O'Hara's Tara, while the slaves lived in a small and crude cabin. The farmer acted as his own "overseer." Edison (talk) 17:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To get back to the original question, a new plantation owner could obtain the backing of a wealthy investor[9] (in the linked case, a bishop), or get a loan from a merchant bank[10]. Pretty much the same as if you were starting a business today. Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of people who have mysteriously disappeared and then later have been found/their remains have been recovered

This question is in relation to the list of people who disappeared mysteriously - I understand a question was already asked about whether people could name examples of people who were once considered disappeared but were later found, but does anyone know of a comprehensive (or even uncomprehensive) list of people who were once considered disappeared but were later found, alive or dead? Black-Velvet 15:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Steve Fosset springs to mind. Although he wasn't missing for years it took quite a while before he was located (not much of him remained though). S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 16:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The "findings" are sometimes wishful thinking. Searchers often find something like a small bone on an island in the Pacific and announce without any proof that they have "found Amelia Earhart." (Or maybe the bone was from a turtle ). Or someone spills the beans that Judge Crater's body was buried under the boardwalk at Coney Island, only after the area had been dug up and any possible remains destroyed. Edison (talk) 17:09, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or more often they themselves make no such claim but the media add a catchy headline like "Earhart mystery solved?", which then becomes "Earhart mystery solved" in the minds of some readers. When talking about it, it's much easier to say "Hey, did you hear they've found Amelia Earhart" than to say "Hey, did you hear they've found a tiny fragment of bone on a remote Pacific atoll that, after exhaustive testing, might have a minutely small chance of maybe perhaps possibly being from Amelia Earhart". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the people in List of premature obituaries fit your requirements. E.g. Anthony John Allen, Graham Cardwell. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The list also links to Faked death, which has its own list. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can think of two, off the top of my head: Aimee Semple McPherson and Agatha Christie. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 21:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Chandra Levy was eventually found.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are quite a lot of kidnap victims who are found alive years later - Natascha Kampusch and Steven Stayner are probably the most famous. 78.147.136.64 (talk) 03:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bill Barilko disappeared...he was on a fishing trip. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Martin Bormann is another example - he was thought to have escaped in 1945 and was tried in his absence at Nuremberg, but in 1972 his remains were discovered in Berlin not far from the bunker exit. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:01, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

George Mallory is a pretty good example. He died as a result of a fall while trying to climb Everest, and his body lay there, in the open, patiently awaiting discovery, which came 75 years later. His climbing partner, Irvine, has yet to be found. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you can ever get anything close to a comprehensive list, although it depends what you mean by 'considered disappeared'. For example, in the George Mallory case, I think it quick became obvious he was probably dead even if his body took a long time to be uncovered. Are you including these? If so, it's not that uncommon that someone will uncover a remains which turns out to be some long lost tramper or something (occasionally a murder victim). And speaking of murder victims, there are plenty who's body or remains is not found that soon, and there may be insufficient evidence they are dead (like sufficient blood) but where it may be suspected they are dead. In these cases someone does usually know where they are. Most of these aren't even notable although off the top of my head the murder committed by Hans Reiser and the Death of Caylee Anthony are examples of cases where it took a while for the body or remains to be found. Nil Einne (talk) 14:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

pie charts of language use in europe

Someone deleted the previous incarnation of this question. (See logs). I am looking for:

1) (easier, it must exist, I'm sure) a pie chart that would show the percentage of users of each language (as their native language) in Europe, as a percentage of all people in Europe.

I'm pretty sure this must be out there as an existing image, I just can't find it.

2) (Trickier, might not exist) not as easy but maybe there is a pie chart that has some indication of GDP represented in Europe by at least the major languages (English, German, French) as a percent of Europe's total GDP? I'm not 100% sure an image like this would exist.

Thank you if anyone is able to find something like that or has ever seen it. I'm not sure what software creates pie charts but I would think this already exists somewhere, the data is easy to find. 78.92.81.13 (talk) 18:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's unlikely that you will find a ready-made pie chart for 1) and even less likely that you will find one for 2), but you can collect the data and generate one yourself, using this source for detailed population data by country, and MS Excel's chart generator. Now, not every country collects statistics on language use, and you may have to rely on estimates from other sources, but for certain countries such as Belgium, it's possible to come up with a rough estimate based on geography. Where languages fall within political regions (which isn't always the case), you can use this table for regional GDP within the EU. Marco polo (talk) 18:50, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, a complicating factor is the use of non-European languages such as Arabic and Turkish by immigrant groups. As I've said, not every country is good at gathering data about such groups. Marco polo (talk) 18:54, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Wolfram Alpha not utterly incapable of converting human language requests for data in a given format into the desired output? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 18:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Every person in the world has one native language. Some people outside of Europe migrated to Europe and are now European citizens or residents. The pie charts would need to include almost every extant language in the world except Esperanto and other constructed languages.
Sleigh (talk) 19:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is Canadian French and French the same language? Is Portuguese a dialect of Spanish?
Sleigh (talk) 19:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A language is a dialect with an army and navy. --Jayron32 19:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why exclude Native Esperanto speakers? --rossb (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Wolfram Alpha not utterly incapable ... - the triple negative has thrown me into a vortex of confusion. What actually are you asking? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Wolfram Alpha can do it, right?" spoken with little confidence. :) 20.137.18.53 (talk) 20:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Simple-speak is always best when dealing with simpletons like me. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nay, that's wrong! "Can't Wolfram Alpha do it?" is the right number of negatives, which makes a huge difference. ;) Wnt (talk) 21:35, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

clarification

VERY GOOD POINTS GUYS!!! (OP HERE). But as you can see from question 2, I'm really interested in countries more than actual individual people, since on a daily basis they're in their host country, where everything is printed in that language (for the most part), their workplace language would be that language (for the most part), etc! Thus for (1) and even for (2) I wouldn't mind seeing a chart that counted as "English" EVERY current inhabitant of the UK, "French" for EVERY current inhabitant of France, etc! I do realize the numbers will be distorted for hte reasons you've cited, but it would still be a useful indicator for me!!! --78.92.81.13 (talk) 11:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you're in Hungary, which (along with Portugal) is one of only two countries in the EU with no linguistic minority. (The raw data is on page 7 of this report). I think you may have an incomplete view of how linguistic boundaries relate to national borders. While Europe has some monoglot countries (of which the UK is certainly not one), most countries contain a number of linguistic groups, and assuming that every inhabitant of a country speaks the same language is going to give a wildly distorted result (Belgium, Latvia and Cyprus, for instance, each have extremely large linguistic minorities). 78.147.136.64 (talk) 18:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ok, but any chance of the pie? 78.92.81.13 (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

British laws that aren't enforced

What British laws that are not arcane are known to not be enforced? I'm not planning to break them, I'm just curious. I know some senior police officers have made comments implying that possession of cannabis isn't truly illegal anymore as far as they are concerned. Are there other laws like this or truly not enforced at all? Preferably ones that aren't tiny and technical, but I'll take any. Thanks. 130.88.172.34 (talk) 20:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't seem to find any with my (very shaky) google skills. But it might be interesting to note that until the August 2011 amendment to the Digital Economy Act - it was illegal to copy the contents (performed a 'format-shift') of a CD or DVD that you legitimately owned onto another device (iPod, MP3 player, PC etc). Nanonic (talk) 21:44, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect all laws are capable of being enforced in particular circumstances (though maybe there's some that the police aren't confident would stand up to a challenge under the Human Rights Act, etc). Speeding (in a car) apparently isn't generally prosecuted if you're only slightly over (e.g. 34 in a 30 mph limit), according to police guidelines, see e.g. [11][12], but there are stories of people being prosecuted for less. --Colapeninsula (talk) 22:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the old guideline of "10% + 3mph" was abandoned when more accurate speed measurements became possible. 34 in a 30 mph limit would now be prosecuted in some circumstances, and anything over 79 mph will often attract at least a fixed penalty even on the motorway. Dbfirs 22:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you'll be pursued for setting your chimney on fire, yet it is both a summary and an indictable offense. Then there's stuff like sale of game by persons not licensed to kill or sell game, or private individuals etc buying game from persons not licensed dealers, predicated under the Game Act 1831, which is probably not much applied. Wearing a political uniform, outlawed under the Public Order Act 1936, seems pretty much to have gone by the board. Pedal cycles without brakes or reflectors probably don't arouse interest anymore. There are more. But like anything, if you get too much in the face of your local constabulary, they'll have you for any and all of these if they can. Oh. Assaults to prevent sale of corn, from the Offences Against The Person Act 1861; still on the books. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note also that a lot of people come to grief thinking "this law is unenforced". Your cannabis example springs to mind; despite the number of people who think it's been decriminalized, if a cop sees you smoking a joint you're highly likely to pay an unwanted visit to your local police cells. Unlike some countries, Britain has no provision for desuetude other than in the very specific case of Scottish feudal laws that weren't formally repealed during the Act of Union, and even the most obscure law can be enforced if you come across a police officer having a bad day. (It's worth noting that most of the laws people hold up as obsolete, like "it is legal to shoot a Welshman in Chester after midnight", either never existed or have been long since repealed.) Some traffic laws, particularly regarding cyclists, are generally ignored, but I can't think of one that's never enforced. The "political uniform" one Tagisimon cites above isn't enforced very often because the fascist groups it was aimed at are well aware of it, but it's why the BNP and their ilk no longer wear black shirts.78.147.136.64 (talk) 22:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone, those examples are excellent and the point about the Welshman and so on is very true, it's what I was trying to refer to with my arcane comment. This is perfect for my purposes (which are evenly split between personal interest and a possible conversation in a university lecture coming up). 130.88.172.34 (talk) 23:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the law on selling refreshments to police officers is ever enforced. I can't see the police arresting someone for selling them or their colleagues food. See Pc banned from buying snack. -- Q Chris (talk) 11:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Talk about entrapment.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why would the Buffett rule raise only $50 billion in taxes?

The wealthy in the U.S. hold a large chunk of the wealth (see we are the 99%). The wealthy in the U.S. famously pay very little in taxes. So why is the Buffett rule predicted to raise only $50 billion in yearly tax revenue?^[13] United States income tax is a trillion dollars yearly, and I'd be expecting to see something closer to half of half of that from the Buffett rule. Wnt (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't confuse political rhetoric with reality. No politician who can do math really believes that the rich do not already pay a lot in taxes. If you believe that the wealthy in the US actually "pay very little in taxes", you've been duped. If you believe that rich company owners usually pay a smaller tax rate than their secretaries, you've been purposefully duped.

In reality, the rich pay a huge chuck of the taxes in the US. Almost everyone making above $500,000 already pays a higher effective percentage in taxes than the rest of us. (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/chart-of-the-day-do-the-rich-really-pay-less-in-taxes/245531/) Buffett, who's not rich but mega-rich, is an exception because he's so rich he can afford not to pay himself a salary. Buffett himself has said that the "Buffett rule" would apply to very few people. The "Buffett rule" is not a serious proposal to raise a lot of revenue; it's meant as a distraction. 24.210.254.97 (talk) 22:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say it's a distraction. It's simply populism. --Tango (talk) 22:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, in the scary, 1890s sense of the word.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If you think Warren Buffett is some kind of scary anti-capitalist fundamentalist out to destroy American industry, you don't need the reference desk, you need psychiatric help. --Colapeninsula (talk) 22:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I heard of this one politician who had the totally crazy idea to set the capital gains rate at the same level as ordinary wages. He must have been some kind of socialist! --Mr.98 (talk) 00:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notice that even according to the graph in 24.210's link, the US tax code is only progressive up to incomes of 4 million. For the ultra-rich who earn more than that, it becomes regressive. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 23:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't fully grok the USian tax regie, but there are comments in the Atlantic article to which 24.210 links suggesting that the graph ignores payroll tax, and amounts to GOP shilling. Who knows. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:52, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't say the Buffett rule is populism, exactly. It's throwing a bone to the economically illiterate, to create the illusion of doing something important while not really doing much at all. Faux-populism, perhaps? 24.210.254.97 (talk) 22:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't lambast it like that - $50 billion is more than the entire NIH budget. And 30% is much less than maximum tax rates from pre-1980s. It was just less revenue than what I'd hoped for. Wnt (talk) 23:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, $50 billion is real money, but as one wag put it: "With the Buffett Rule in effect, the deficit in fiscal year 2011 would have been $1,240,000,000,000 instead of $1,280,000,000,000." It's a few drops in the bucket, meant to distract us from the real challenges of fiscal reform, which politicians would rather not discuss honestly during campaign season. 24.210.254.97 (talk) 23:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the rest of you, but $50b is a whole lot of money. Something is better than nothing. It might be a drop in the bucket, but the bucket still needs drops to be filled. Mingmingla (talk) 23:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it is not true that the rich in the United States "pay very little" in taxes. Even when they are taxed at a low rate, the vast incomes of the superrich ensure that they collectively pay billions. What the Buffett rule is designed to rectify is the advantage enjoyed by some very rich people — such as Romney and Buffett — whose income comes mainly from investments rather than salary. For the very wealthy, much of their income comes in the form of capital gains, which in the United States is taxed at just 15%, whereas the highest marginal tax rate on earned income is 35%. The marginal tax rate even on middle-class earned incomes is 25%-33%. This can result in a lower tax rate for very wealthy people than middle class people, but the number of wealthy people in this category is rather small, and the additional 20% or so of the incomes of this small number of individuals "only" amounts to tens of billions of dollars. While this additional revenue will not balance the U.S. budget by itself, it can be seen as a matter of fairness. Marco polo (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And there are principles involved beyond fairness. Taxing the middle class more than the very wealthy, when the marginal utility is quite different for the two, is a recipe to guarantee that the rich stay rich and those who are not rich don't become rich. It's the opposite of a progressive tax system and is not insubstantially related to the issues with income inequality in the United States over the last 30 years or so. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Income inequality issues and deficit issues are not the same thing. Don't confuse them. They have overlaps — stringent deficit cutting measures can affect many sectors of the economy negatively, which can increase income inquality, for example — but this isn't one of them. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OP didn't bring up any deficit issues though.99.245.35.136 (talk) 01:12, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It may be besides the point or even POINT or POV or whatever, but it should be noted that anyone willing to pay more taxes is free to do so. Here's all the information you need. It's kind of weird that all the people whining to be taxed more somehow didn't know they can easily make donations to the United States without someone telling them to do so. Personally I'd like the super rich to spend their money on causes they like to spend it on better (like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does) and I simply don't believe they think government would do a better job spending it. But if they do, "Gifts to the United States" is the perfect solution. Joepnl (talk) 01:38, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. It is entirely besides the point. The solution to "the rich should be taxed more" is not "it is possible to volunteer to pay more tax". --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Name one person whose sole complaint is that they're not being taxed enough, and not that rich people in general are not being taxed enough. --140.180.15.97 (talk) 06:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I thought one of Bill Gates' complaints was that he isn't being taxed enough. He obviously will have other complaints, like "I think streetlights should be more yellowish instead of white" or even "I think other wealthy people should get taxed more", but the very complaint not being taxed enough himself can easily be addressed. But I guess you assume that Gates wants to be taxed more if and only if other rich people get taxed more, too. Unless he doesn't say so in a reliable source I don't think we should jump to conclusions. Joepnl (talk) 00:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since you're the one making the claim, surely you should be providing the ^{[citation needed]}.... It's very easy to demonstrate that Bill Gates thinks there rich should probably pay more tax [14] [15] [16] [17]. (I can't help wondering if you're getting confused with Warren Buffet who's statements could be naïvely intepreted in the way you've done. If this is the case, I think this even more supports the idea you need to provide references to what you're saying and not just mention random poorly remembered stuff in hot political issues on the reference desk.) Nil Einne (talk) 02:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 2

Passing bad checks

Is passing bad checks a Federal offense? What could be the penalties?--Christie the puppy lover (talk) 00:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In which federation? The USA? You may find Cheque fraud useful, although it doesn't seem to mention the laws of any specific countries. There is a limit to how much help we can be in answering this question without violating our policy on not giving legal advice - if you are asking out of anything more than idle curiosity, I suggest you speak to a lawyer. --Tango (talk) 00:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Almost certainly yes, but unless there was large amounts involved or there was federal involvement in some way, the feds would let the state prosecute.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:18, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wehwalt, please, please cite references here on the Reference Desk. They help the querent research further, and they reduce errors like the error you made in your response. Passing a bad check, like most crimes in the United States, is a state offense. There are some exceptions, like if the bad check is sent through the US Mail, in which case the crime of mail fraud is also committed, and in a case where the same act breaks both a state and a Federal law, the matter is taken up in the Federal courts, normally. Here's a site listing penalties, both civil and criminal, by state. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am correct in my answer. Most check fraud cases contain some element which could make it a federal offense. In practice, the Feds are content to leave most such to the states.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On what basis do you say "I am correct in my answer ... In practice ..."? Are you a justice of the Supreme Court? If so have you consulted your other fellow justices? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a lawyer, who routinely looks at statutes. Federal jurisdiction has grown so, that I suspect if the Feds were sufficiently motivated, they could try any bad check case due to jurisdiction over the mails and interstate commerce. That being said, the feds will leave most such to the states so they don't have to deal with it and for reasons of comity.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Still not supplying references. Please start. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some exceptions which make it (US) federal include passing it at a post office or military base. Dru of Id (talk) 08:21, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Socialist place names in and around the People's Republic of Fife

I saw the play Gagarin Way, and one of the characters in it talks about the working-class and communist history of the part of Scotland that the play is set in. Gagarin Way is a real street, named after Yuri Gagarin. Are there any/many other "red"-themed place names in Fife or elsewhere in Scotland? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Superiority (talk • contribs) 01:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a bit of a stretch to describe Gagarin Way as "red-themed." Surely it was named for him as being the first person in space, with no thought whatever as to the politics of his country. If Alan Shepard had beat him, would you describe "Shepard Way" as "capitalist-themed" or even "American-themed"? (The poster [and former Fife resident] previously known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.78.57 (talk) 05:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ruskie. — Kpalion^(talk) 10:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a 'Stalin Avenue' in Chatham: [18] but it's right next to Churchill Avenue, Roosevelt Avenue and Montgomery Avenue. Hull has a Leningrad Road but it's amongst a load of other streets named after cities on the Baltic. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes, though. OK, a wartime ally and all that, but Stalin, really? Does it intersect Pol Pot Place? --Trovatore (talk) 08:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe that commemorates the siege rather than the actual city? There is a Boulevard Stalingrad in Nantes, but that is named for the battle, as are many other streets. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the rue de Leningrad in Paris was formerly named rue de Berlin. I can think of a reason for changing the name... -- Arwel Parry (talk) 18:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to the French Wiki the present name of this street (since 1991) is rue de Saint-Pétersbourg, and formerly rue de Léningrad from 1945 to 1991, rue de Pétrograd from 1914 to 1945 and initially rue de Saint-Pétersbourg (1828 — 1914) — AldoSyrt (talk) 07:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about ACTA?

I'm interested in your answers to the questions I posted at the link above. Especially the legal and political ramifications. The Transhumanist 02:38, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Did India issue a military medal for Operation Polo (capture of Hyderabad) in 1948?

I'm trying to find a military medal for Operation Polo, if one was actually issued. It was a very short (5 days) but significant campaign by the Indian military, and generally every such conflict has a commemorative medal of some sort attached. Thanks for any help you can provide. The Masked Booby (talk) 06:53, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You might do better asking one of our editors active in military history matters, such as User: Ed!.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find anything on Google. Alansplodge (talk) 00:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Speculative detective

I want to write an article about a detective in Speculative fiction (eg Isaac Asimov). But we need resources, consider these phenomena. Thank you in advance. Странник27 (talk) 09:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of fictional science fiction and fantasy detectives? (A bit redundant to say fictional in the title.) Clarityfiend (talk) 10:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bored SF writers aren't above appropriating a real-life detective and dropping him into a story.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:49, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I need the name of the source, considering this phenomenon, and not the list of works. Странник27 (talk) 13:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you tell us a little more what you are looking for, Странник27? I am not sure I fully understand.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:38, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2 - Template:К удалению - Must be saved by removing. Странник27 (talk) 14:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see from Google Translate you are looking for the genres Occult detective fiction, science fiction detective fiction, fantasy detective fiction and supernatural detective fiction? After googling the terms (I must admit to never having heard of either of them before), it does seem to be very difficult finding any reliable secondary sources for those genres. It seems mostly to be blogs and discussion forums. I guess the definition of those genres is still so new that there haven't been much in the way of scholarly sources on the subject. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's Lord Darcy (character), set in an alternate history. I don't know what sort of references you're looking for. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The most prominent ones, Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel of Asimov's works (though if you ask me, he should have left off after the second one, or possibly the first) you are aware of. There are a number of books which discuss Asimov's works, you may be able to find secondary sources.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Il Salone dei Cinquecento, the Hall of Five Hundred does not seem to exist?

I dont know how to edit wiki and Im scared to try. I cant find nything on The Great Hall of Five Hundred. Il Salone dei Cinquecento. It is located in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. I know the Leonard o Di Vinci worked on the paintings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Anghiari_(painting) Is there nay way someone could creat an article for this? I would really love see more about the wall on Wiki than outside sources.

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.27.36 (talk) 12:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The fastest way is for you. WP:WIZ is how we make it easiest. Or go to WP:RA which will allow you to request it but it may take a long time.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It should be easy enough to translate the short Italian article. (Or the Dutch version maybe.) Adam Bishop (talk) 12:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First biography

Who is the first known Homo sapiens whose biography doesn't involve anything magical or supernatural? (someone of this category I guess?)--80.28.202.253 (talk) 12:50, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We get this question a lot! Here are some answers from a similar question that was asked last year (which in turn points to a similar question from 2008, which points to one from 2006). Adam Bishop (talk) 13:00, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The two questions are slightly different: there are lots of historical figures we're certain existed but whose biographies were still supernatural/magical (as recently as the 18th century, Kings in Britain and France believed that their touch cured scrofula, and held massive touchings for sufferers, and even Kim Jong-Il's biography claims his birth was heralded by a double rainbow, a talking swallow and a new star in the heavens). The god kings of countries like Egypt and Babylon, usually your best bet for earliest historical figure, would be ruled out, as is anyone for whom our main source of knowledge is myth (such as the kings of Athens). I was going to suggest Homer, but apparently he was believed to be divinely inspired (and we're not actually sure whether he was a real person, or a name given to multiple separate authors). Smurrayinchester 18:24, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

South Sudan independence referendum

What was the wording of the South Sudan referendum question? It's not included in Southern Sudanese independence referendum, 2011 and I can't find it online. -86.143.74.161 (talk) 14:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The exact ballet was this I believe: [19] 99.245.35.136 (talk) 15:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

State leaders who were tortured to death

Please mention the names of state leaders who were tortured to death. Some names I know are Samuel Doe, Mohammad Najibullah, and Gaddafi. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 15:54, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gadaffi was shot to death. --Saddhiyama (talk) 15:59, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gaddafi was captured alive, severely beaten and then shot. As can be seen in this video, people are dragging him shouting "Allah-hu-Akbar" and his cloth is wet in blood. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 16:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need to distinguish between torture (which is almost always the act of an organized group, like a government or a revolutionary force) and brutality (which is often just the action of a mob). Gaddafi had a brutal death, but he wasn't explicitly tortured; state leaders are rarely tortured because they are usually at the head of the organization inflicting torture, or heavily protected from other organized groups that torture. --Ludwigs2 17:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Supernova, what do you mean by "tortured to death" — tortured until they died of the torture, or tortured substantially before they were killed otherwise? Saddhiyama has a good point. Nyttend (talk) 18:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The second, tortured substantially before being killed. Actually I can't find any other example from modern history, maybe examples can be found from ancient and medieval history. There is a category Category:Executed heads of state and List of former heads of regimes who were sentenced to death. But that is generally a normal execution after a trial. Even Mussolini's body was hung upside down after being shot. I am trying to find examples where they were tortured/severely beaten before being killed. --SupernovaExplosion (talk) 18:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Going back quite a bit, the Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes lost his throne while he was being held prisoner by the Turks in 1071. When he was released, his opponents had him blinded (a Byzantine custom for retired Emperors) in such a brutal way that he died a few weeks later. Maybe not deliberately tortured to death though. Alansplodge (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The deaths of some of the Russian royal family after the revolution were rather brutal, but they weren't really tortured. I think the Tsar himself was just shot. I think you'll find that is quite common - once you have the head of state under your control, you just kill them quickly and efficiently. You might be a bit rough with some minor members of the old regime, but there isn't much point torturing anyone. You've already won, you don't need any information out of them, you don't need to scare their followers, etc., so why bother with torture? --Tango (talk) 19:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One of the most colorful stories would be that of the third-century Roman emperor Valerian, who after being captured by the Persians, was used as a human footstool, and then after Shapur grew weary of using him that way had him flayed alive, stuffing his skin with straw and keeping him as a trophy of Persian might versus Rome. It was generally a bad idea to be captured in Persia if you were a Roman emperor. Antandrus (talk) 19:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lactantius isn't always considered a trustworthy source... 92.80.37.236 (talk) 22:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story". Alansplodge (talk) 09:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Old Mortality

I'm working on a project to research post-Glorious Revolution perspectives on the Covenanter movement from 1660 to 1688 (when adherents were being persecuted, more or less vigourously) held by those who saw themselves as heirs of the Covenanters (e.g. Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland). Part of what I'm seeking is publications by non-"heirs" that discuss the writings (or monuments, such as the grave inscription for Margaret Willson of Wigtown) of the "heirs" about this period, and someone recently suggested that I consider Sir Walter Scott's Old Mortality. Having never encountered this book before, I'm curious — does Scott demonstrate evidence of having examined accounts that were written by people who saw themselves as Covenanter heirs? Or does he simply set his book in the period without discussing the perspectives of the "heirs"? Nyttend (talk) 18:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Scott's point-of-view of the Romantic movement of the C19 might not be the most accurate view of the history of later Stuart Scotland.--Wetman (talk) 18:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC).[reply]

I understand; I'm not trying to use him as a source for what actually happened. I'm only interested in using him as an example of what later writers thought of "Covenanter heirs", if he discusses them at all. Nyttend (talk) 19:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ryuichi Sakamoto translate lyrics

Moved to WP:RD/L. Nyttend (talk) 23:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 3

Indian names used by Muslims

Which surnames of India, whether it is Gujarati, Oriya, Marathi, or Punjabi is used by Muslims only like Patel, Chaudhuri, etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.229.76 (talk) 04:39, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which districts of India Muslims?

Which districts of India have significant Muslim population like Murshidabad district of West Bengal? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.229.76 (talk) 04:46, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See Template:Indian_Muslim - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Baptist Children

Hi folks, I hope you can help me with this: if I am describing someone who attended a Baptist church with his family when he was a child, should I say he was A. "raised as a Baptist" or B. "he was raised Baptist". I tend to hear B. used a lot, but primarily in colloquial speech (though, where I live, there are a lot more people who say they were raised Catholic than Baptist) but I'm not sure which would be preferred in Featured Article quality prose (which is what I'm shooting for here). Or is this one of those things where both are acceptable? Mark Arsten (talk) 04:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would go with A on the philosophy that if you know a phrasing is likely to cause comment at FAC, and unless you feel really strongly about it, go with the more conventional phrasing, which is A. B I think I would expect to see in speech.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

B is never correct, imo. The adjective (Baptist, Catholic, etc) applies to the relevant Church and things associated with it, such as Baptist teachings, Baptist practices etc. However, an individual is not "Baptist", but "a Baptist", meaning "a member of the Baptist Church", just like "a Rotarian" is "a member of Rotary". We don't say that so and so is "Rotarian". In any case, either of your options is preferable to the silly expression "He was born (a) Baptist". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 07:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I read B as using "Baptist" as an adverb, rather than an adjective. That is, it's describing how he was raised (with Baptist ideology). Thus I would tend toward interpreting A as a simple statement of membership (while he was being raised, he was a member of/attended a Baptist church), and B as more of a statement of ideological association (while he was being raised, he held/believed in/was indoctrinated with the values/ideals of the Baptist church). I might be splitting hairs here, though. -- 140.142.20.101 (talk) 19:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Would you say someone was "raised Jewish" or "raised a Jew"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, well, thanks for setting me straight on this. In the article we have it "as a Baptist" so I will be sure not to change it. It just struck me as a bit odd since I am so used to hearing it the other way. I guess this is one of those times where you just can't trust the Huffington Post style guide! Mark Arsten (talk) 08:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Criminal politicians

What has been the percentage number of MPs in jail in recent years compared to the average for the general population? If Chris Huhne is jailed will that effect the result? Spinning Spark 10:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

a) I have no idea, but to clarify - do you mean just for Britain, for all countries with a Westminster system, or for all countries with elected governments? b) Yes, whatever the percentage is, it will increase.Colonel Tom 10:34, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not being clear, I meant for the UK, I thought the link to Huhne would imply that, although answers for other countries would be interesting also. I know that jailing Huhne would increase the statistic (by one), but what I was after is would it cause a change from less politicians are jailed than the general population to more politicians are jailed. Perfectly possible that this strange result could come about given the small number of MPs and the consequently large percentage change that one would make. To be even more specific, I am looking for person-years in jail per 1000 population over a ten or twenty year period. Spinning Spark 12:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Depends a bit. Most MPs who ended up in jail did so over the expenses scandal, and by the time they were sentenced they'd been voted out, kicked out or resigned. If we're going for people arrested for crimes committed while they were MPs, even if they weren't MPs at the time they were jailed, then Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine, Margaret Moran and Eric Illsley. Illsley is the only one who was still an MP at the time he was found guilty. Before that, Jonathan Aitken was jailed in 1999 for perjury committed while he was an MP. Jeffrey Archer was also jailed in 2001, but though he had been an MP, he wasn't at the time he committed the crime. Those are all the recent cases. From the 2005-2010 parliament, which had 646 MPs in it, 5 were jailed (so far), which is 0.77% of the population of politicians. If Hulne is jailed, that'll rise to 0.92% (if Denis MacShane is also jailed, that'd push it to over 1%). Over the whole decade, that number will be smaller. I can't find the exact numbers, but I'd guess there have been about 1200 MPs between 2001 and 2010, so that's a rough figure of something like 0.4%. According to our article United Kingdom prison population, the percentage of the UK population in jail as a whole is 0.14%. So yes, in recent years, MPs make a disproportionate number of our prison population. Smurrayinchester 13:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Edit Just realised I made a mistake, and Margaret Moran hasn't been jailed - she was deemed psychiatrically unfit for trial and the case was adjourned. That's 4 out of 646, not 5, which is 0.62% Smurrayinchester 16:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Were all four of those imprisoned at the same time, however? If not, you'd really need to compare it to the proportion of the population imprisoned at any point between 2005-2010, which is probably comfortably more than 0.14% Shimgray | talk | 21:05, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Romney/Bush, but not as we know it

So there is significant speculation that Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination and possibly make Jeb Bush his running mate. My question isn't about that, the reference desk isn't a crystal ball etc. My questions are about the (much less speculated) idea that Romney might make George W. Bush his running mate. My questions are this:

1. Is he allowed to do this? Is there any restriction on placing former Presidents as a VP candidate on the ticket?

2. Has this ever happened?

3. Say he is allowed, and it does happen. The Romney/Bush ticket wins the election, but then Romney dies in office. What happens? George W. has already been President twice, so he can't be again. Does he have to resign? Or is he simply skipped in the order of succession, and the Speaker of the House leapfrogs him into the hot seat? Or is the answer that because of this scenario he can't be a VP candidate at all, in which case we could have stopped at question 1. Or is this a hitherto unforeseen scenario that allows a president to serve many terms (doubtful)?

Many thanks everyone,

86.166.191.40 (talk) 13:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On a side note: this story of George W. Bush as VP is a known urban legend. 212.170.181.95 (talk) 13:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be a somewhat open question. See Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution#Interaction_with_the_Twelfth_Amendment. On face value, it would be legal, as the 22nd only restricts election to the office, not some other way of becoming president, and thus the 12th does not apply. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:42, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting. I liked to jokingly speculate in the past how a certain President was put in place so a certain vice-president could take over after just over 2 years so they could serve for the maximum (nearly) 10 years, but the president got so popular the first term that had to be abandonded, then so unpopular the second term, the VP didn't want to take over. If this suggestion is correct it seems this complicated scenario isn't necessary. The US's Putin-esque president can be President for life by having a bunch of dummy presidents to be elected president for a day before stepping down. Actually may be to keep things simple the president can take his oath of office then announce he's stepping down. Nil Einne (talk) 14:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He wouldn't even have to go that far. He becomes President at noon on January 20; the swearing-in is to enable him to execute the duties of the office, but if he had no intention of executing any of the duties, he could just skip that step. At 12:01 pm he could announce he'd changed his mind about the whole thing and the person who'd been VP for the past minute will now be sworn in as president instead. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC) [reply]

The Democrats would certainly challenge the certificates signed by the Bush electors on the ground they designated an ineligible person. This would happen in the joint session for the counting. I imagine that unlike in 2001, they would find a senator and a representative to make the challenge (no senator was willing in 2001). If they were voided, then the choice would devolve on the Senate per the Constitution. It would never reach the courts, it is a political question. (yes, there would be many court cases filed, but I doubt they would get anywhere). It would be a tremendous distraction throughout the campaign. And to my mind, the plain language of the 12th and 22nd Amendments rules this out. It would cost the Republicans votes among their base. This would never happen. And no former president has ever run for vice president since the 22nd Amendment became effective, though there was talk about a Reagan/Ford ticket in 1980.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Another reason this would never happen is that it's hard to imagine a presidential candidate--with all the ego that implies--ever upstaging themself in this manner. Meelar (talk) 17:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I think that Romney would recognize that the Bush name would be a liability on the ticket. There have already been two Bushes who ushered in nasty recessions, and the name does not have the best associations for most of the public. Marco polo (talk) 18:35, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the Democrats would love a Bush on the ticket. Any Bush. The name association is still so unpleasant with liberals and moderates. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Legally this can happen. To serve as Vice-president one must meet all the requirements to be president. Though George W. Bush is not eligible to be elected president, he can serve ~~two~~ additional years. Therefore, if Romney is elected, then dies, Bush can serve ~~for two years until he himself must resign~~. The same scenario can apply to Bill Clinton.--William S. Saturn (talk) 19:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that is correct. There is no requirement that a president cannot have served 15 or even 20 years to be president. The rule is that he cannot be elected to become president if he has already been elected twice, or if he has served at least 1.5 terms. Note the difference between "serves" and "is elected". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't think so, William. If you read the texts of the two amendments, you could make a case for it being constitutional, or unconstitutional; my own interpretation is that according to the precise wording, it would be legal, but it probably violates the intent. But there's no way to interpret things in such a way that it would be OK, but that Bush would have to resign halfway thru the third term. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A similar scenario: A former 2-term President becomes Speaker of the House, and the President and Vice-president are incapacitated. Does the order of succession skip the Speaker? In this case, it seems to me that he would clearly become President again, as he would not be violating either amendment. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. The Presidential Succession Act says the relevant provisions "shall apply only to such officers as are eligible to the office of President under the Constitution. " That doesn't answer that many questions. If I recall discussion of this point when Kissinger was SecState, the papers said he would not be eligible. Remember, for part of that time there was no VP (twice) and so he was putatively fourth in line.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The same thing would apply if the Speaker of the House were not a natural-born US citizen. They could be eligible for the Speakership, but not for the Presidency. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 20:43, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's the thing. They couldn't succeed to the Presidency if they met one of the criteria in the Constitution that excludes you from being President, but in this case (unlike Kissinger) they would only meet the criteria that excludes you from being elected President. I suppose it's possible the 22nd Amendment could be read in such a way that it prevents the ex-President being elected Vice-President, but I don't see how it could prevent him from being elected a Representative, and then chosen to be Speaker. And once he's Speaker, in the scenario I describe, I don't see what provision would prevent him from succeeding to the Presidency. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I stand corrected. It seems he can serve indefinitely as long as someone else is elected.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's capable of interpretation either way. And there's the added complication of the 25th Amendment. What if there's a vacancy in the vice presidency? Can the President nominate Bush or Clinton, and can they take office if confirmed by the 2/3 vote of each house?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Say Biden's ticker gives out and Obama says "I'm nominating Clinton for Vice President—no, not you, Hillary!" That is, to fill out the remainder of Biden's term if confirmed by Congress, not for election to a new term. Set it in 2014.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:04, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing the issue here.--William S. Saturn (talk) 21:08, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If Americans are so in love with the idea of a single, written constitution, why have they written such a bad one? It's ridiculously vague and open to a wide variety of interpretations (and not just on this topic). Were there not lawyers involved in the drafting of the original document and the various amendments that should have known how to write an unambiguous legal document? --Tango (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Founders intentionally made the constitution vague: it was intended as a skeleton document, a baseline from which other laws could be based as need and changing times required. in fact, the move towards constitutional literalism (which has been a big thing over the past 20 years or so) is deeply antithetical to the wishes of the founders, who would have been the first to assert that they did not have the wisdom to dictate what people 200 years in the future would need or want.

this is the tricky part of establishing a lasting democratic state:the goal is to protect the principles that lie behind the written text, which means that sometimes the written text needs to change or be reinterpreted in order to conform the the same principles in changing times. But it can't be too malleable, otherwise it will be reinterpreted or changed in ways that defeat its underlying principles. it's always a rough line to ride. --Ludwigs2 22:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well said... that's the tricky part of writing Wikipedia's policy as well. Blueboar (talk) 00:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO the tricky part of establishing a lasting democratic state is basic education and food. A Democracy has to rest upon educated and informed citizens and not text written upon pieces of paper which can be endlessly reinterpreted by lawyers, politicians, intellectuals and fools. It is well-informed citizens who will demand rights protected by fair laws for everybody and who will vote wisely. Well-informed citizens will know what is wrong and what is right. They will be outraged and will go to the barricades if their government goes against the rights and freedoms of the citizenry and of citizens of other nations. Have not no doubt: the true enemies of democracy are Ignorance, which largely rests upon lack of education and Disinformation supported by selective censorship. Ignorant disinformed masses will be easily manipulated into voting poorly, no matter if their national constitution is the finest creation of the ages (no comments about the quality of the US constitution which was written in 1787 - a fine document of its time).

And food. A democracy is worth absolutely nothing if the masses lack food. A starving people is a desperate people. A desperate people will support anyone with an easy solution, no matter the price.

That's the true reason why dictatorships censor and manipulate information. They are afraid of their own citizens and want to narrow their minds. Without truly having access to the whole information those can't decide wisely, can they? Flamarande (talk) 01:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bear in mind also that there weren't a ton of precedents for establishing a working democracy at the time, even an incomplete and hideously flawed one like the US circa 1787. The constitution is essentially an alpha or early beta version, you'd expect a few bugs (mine personal bete noir is the Senate). Meelar (talk) 00:58, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Which melody is this?

Dear colleagues,

Does anyone know the name of this meloday in that documentary:

here at 4:07 minutes
here at 10:03 minutes. (both is the same)

The meloday itsself can be heard shortly, then it turns to the background as the speaker begins to talk.

Thanks for help, Jerchel (talk) 18:10, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recognize it, but it sounds like part of a string quartet. Looie496 (talk) 18:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not one of the pieces listed in the credits (end of part 8, 5:24) unless it's a part of Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible that I don't recognize (I don't think it is). Usually they list everything in the credits. I think it was composed for the documentary, since the music under the closing credits clearly was. Perhaps someone else will recognize it if I'm wrong. Antandrus (talk) 20:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Style issue

When a person's name uses the lower case 'de' (e.g. Eamon de Valera or Reginald de Veulle), what is the MoS format when the first name is dropped re: capitalising the 'de'?

Appears that if is starts a sentence it is capitalised - e.g. "De Valera was a leader of Ireland's struggle for independence..." but if mid-sentence, lower case is used e.g. "To strengthen his position against the opposition in the Dáil and Seanad, de Valera called a snap election...".

However, on Thomas de Quincey the surname is nearly always capitalised to De Quincey, e.g. "In 1800, De Quincey, aged fifteen...".

Just interested in the correct format for style. Londonclanger (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant style guide is Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters, but it doesn't give an answer to this question. There is a lot of (rather heated) discussion about the guide, including proper nouns, on the talk page. You could ask there, but having skimmed a bit of the discussion, I would advise staying well clear! --Tango (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We used to have far more detailed advice somewhere. It's complicated; for example the Dutch and Flemish treatments are slightly different for both "de" and Van (Dutch) - contrast with von. But, yes, always a capital at the start of a sentence, and then see what sources do. Typically all mid-sentence uses will be consiistent, but I think that doesn't work for all languages. Johnbod (talk) 23:18, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Pope Urban VI

According to our article Pope Urban VI moved from Perugia with thousands of troops in August 1388 to Rome. How many thousands?--LordGorval (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

February 4

Where does Apple have its cash?

According to this article, Apple has about $97.6 billion. I didn't see in the article in exactly what format those holdings are. Is it most likely a corporate money market account? A business savings account? Bars of gold in a heavily-guarded underground fortress in a classified location? :) 69.243.220.115 (talk) 00:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]