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= September 3 =
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= October 6 =
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= October 7 =
== Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha ==
== types of espresso drinks ==
Did [[Nazi propaganda]] ever exploit the fact that the [[House of Windsor]] had historical German connections (for example [[King George V]] changed the name of the royal house from the German [[Saxe-Coburg and Gotha]] to the English Windsor due to anti-German sentiment during the [[First World War]])? [[Special:Contributions/79.30.127.225|79.30.127.225]] ([[User talk:79.30.127.225|talk]]) 08:02, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
There is a type of espresso drink made by the usual method, but the barrista yanks the receiving cup off the machine halfway through the normal volume of flow. Frequently this would be ordered as a double, probably to provide adequate volume (the normal volume of a single). I think the intent is to have a better-tasting result, based on the idea that the first part of the flow tastes better than the latter. Does anyone know what this is called? I used to get requests for it 25 years ago when I worked in a cafe'. Thanks for your help!
:The Windsors weren't the only. The Belgian royals were also of the house Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (their first king was an uncle of Victoria) and also changed name in response to WW1. The [[Wilhelmina of the Netherlands|Dutch queen]] was the widow of [[Duke Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin|a German nobleman]] and [[Juliana of the Netherlands|their daughter]] had married [[Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld|another]], who took an active role against the Germans in WW2 (He was also a member of the Nazi party for a while. He later claimed that was purely opportunistic. An opportunist he was for sure). German nobles could be found in royal houses all over Europe. German nobility and Nazis didn't get along very well. [[User:PiusImpavidus|PiusImpavidus]] ([[User talk:PiusImpavidus|talk]]) 09:30, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
[[User:71.236.231.238|71.236.231.238]] 00:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
::An amazing range of West-European royalty (including the House of Windsor) has its dynastic roots in the Saxon [[House of Wettin]]. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 13:38, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
:Part of the Nazi ideology was "Germans good, non-Germans bad". I don't know if the Nazi propaganda ever used the historical German connection to paint a positive image of the British Empire in the period before 1939, but it would have been useless for the vilification that ensued when Hitler decided that Britain was an enemy that had to be destroyed (see [[Nazi propaganda and the United Kingdom]]). ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 13:48, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
::Hitler was known to despise royalty, but fawned over the [[Duke of Windsor]] during the duke's [[Edward_VIII#1937_tour_of_Germany|1937 tour of Germany]]. It is widely suspected that Hitler intended to reinstate Edward as a puppet monarch if Britain had been defeated; one possible reason that Churchill packed him off to the Bahamas for the duration. [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 16:04, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
See [[Ristretto]].
== Bullets in The Red Baron's aircraft ==
[[Manfred von Richthofen]] was killed by a single bullet. But is anything known about how many bullets had hit and (probably only slightly) damaged his aircraft in those last seconds? --[[User:KnightMove|KnightMove]] ([[User talk:KnightMove|talk]]) 15:50, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Thank you very much!
:I couldn't find anything, except that the aircraft was quickly stripped for souvenirs as soon as the identity of the pilot was known. Considering the number of people who claimed to be shooting at him, it seems likely to me that there were several, but we'll probably never know. [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 16:27, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
== Average age of goverments, based on goverment form ==
::Thanks, there really seems no option to do more. --[[User:KnightMove|KnightMove]] ([[User talk:KnightMove|talk]]) 09:27, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
== Who are the sci-fi authors and editors? ==
Think I read something about how long different goverment forms survives on average, but didn't manage to find back to it. I'm wondering how long do different goverment forms survive on average? That is how old is the average democracy, autocracy, monarchy, junta, etc, when it's changed to a different goverment type? And more genereally: are some goverment forms more "stable" than others? And by how much? I think maybe democracies are most stable, but I dont have the numbers.
Featured on the cover commemorating the second anniversary of [[Galaxy Science Fiction]] magazine? [[File:Galaxy_195210.jpg|thumb|October 1952 cover of Galaxy]] --[[User:Amble|Amble]] ([[User talk:Amble|talk]]) 16:19, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Wondering because if:
<br>1) democracies are more stable than others, and new goverments are just as likely to be democratic as something else.
<br>2) democracies never or almost never go to war against each other
<br>3) democracies never or almost never suffer famine
:The magazine had an explainer on the inside cover. It's actually a wrap-around with more authors on the back cover. On the front are (from top-left) [[Damon Knight]], [[Robert Guinn]], [[Joan De Mario]], [[Charles J. Robot]], [[H.L. Gold]], [[Ray Bradbury]], [[W.I. Van der Poel]], [[John Anderson]], [[Bug Eye]] and [[Poul Anderson]] in the bottom-right. [[User:Simonm223|Simonm223]] ([[User talk:Simonm223|talk]]) 16:40, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
Then:
<br>1) someday every country will be democratic
<br>2) we will have world peace
<br>3) and no hunger
:You can see the whole wrap-around cover, and the key, at [https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1952-10/mode/2up Archive.org]. It was the top Google result for galaxy science fiction october 1952. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 16:41, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
By calculating creation/upheaval of democracies it would then be possible to calculate apporximatly when world peace will happen. So when do we have world peace I guess is my real question? :)
::I should mention that "Robert Guinn" is Robert M. Guinn, the magazine's publisher, not the politician Robert H. Guinn that the link above points to. [[User:Tevildo|Tevildo]] ([[User talk:Tevildo|talk]]) 00:07, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
--[[User:Kristod|Kristod]] 01:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:YouNice, thinkthank theyou U.S.both! hasAdded noto hunger?!the image's description. --[[User:ClarityfiendAmble|Amble]] ([[User talk:Amble|Clarityfiendtalk]]) 0217:1215, 7 October 20062025 (UTC)
::You're damn right. Compare tables for starvation rates in the United States and in other countries. —
:::Hunger in the sence of famine. --[[User:Kristod|Kristod]] 10:36, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mac_Davis X] '''['''<nowiki></nowiki>'''[[User:Mac Davis|<span style="font-family:Times;color:navy;"><em><font color=#006600>Mac Davis</font></em></span>]]] <small>(<font color=#6688AA>[[User:Mac_Davis/Desk|SUPERDESK]]</font>|<font color=#666666>[[User_talk:Mac_Davis/Improvement|Help me improve]]</font></small>)'''10:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:Democracies go to war with eachother. The [[Kargil War]] was between democratically elected governments, I believe. Plus, those ancient Greek city-states had elected governments that fought eachother, If I recall correctly. And I'd bet that, on average, juntas have the shortest lifespan, with [[Burma]] (and yes, I called it Burma) being an exception. [[User talk:Picaroon9288|Picaroon9288]] 02:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
::Charles J. Robot is the "guy" holding the cake, so I think the redlink is unwarranted since his writing was considered too mechanical. Bugeye, on the other hand, received a glowing review from [[Marvin the Martian]] for his masterpiece, "[[A Martian Odyssey|A Terran Odyssey]]". [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] ([[User talk:Clarityfiend|talk]]) 22:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
::There is also the case of the [[War of 1812]], between the more-or-less democratically elected governments of the US and the UK, or the cases in which the United States overthrew or helped overthrow democratic governments, as in [[Iran]] in 1953, [[Guatemala]] in 1954, and in [[Chile]] in 1973. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I've uploaded the full cover and key.
:Lebanon and Israel are both democracies. [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 03:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:::<gallery>
File:Galaxy 1952-10 cover.webp|Cover
::World Peace? Next week sometime, I think. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 03:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
File:Galaxy 1952-10 cover - key.webp|Key
::Israel and Lebanon are both democracies, but as far I understand it, the war was against Hezbollah, not Lebanon. I don't think any Lebanese soldier participated in the fighting.[[User:Evilbu|Evilbu]] 15:08, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
</gallery>
:::Hezbollah is an official, legal, democratically-elected participant in the democratically-elected government of Lebanon. [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 01:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::"Evelyn Paige" is [https://fancyclopedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Paige Evelyn Paige Gold], assistant editor at Galaxy (and H. L. Gold's mother and carer); "W. I. Van der Poel" is [https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/van_der_poel_w_i Washington Irving Van der Poel, Jr.], artistic editor at Galaxy. We don't seem to have articles on either. [[User:Marnanel|Marnanel]] ([[User talk:Marnanel|talk]])
== How to make a Chinese-style gravestone in the USA? ==
:There's an article on [[Democratic peace theory]]... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 14:54, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Is this (making a Chinese-style gravestone) even possible in the USA? Or does it have to be manufactured in China, then imported to the US? Or maybe manufactured in California or Hawaii (with a lot of Asians), then imported to other states? Another question is, can one buy a plot of farmland just to plant a gravestone on it? Or is the farmland zoned as a farmland and must be used as farmland? What about buying a plot of religious property (which may not come with property tax) and modifying it and using it as a big mausoleum to store family urns, and because the building is so big, the property may be open for other families so that other families may place their own family urns inside the building and treat the building as a private place of reverence, contemplation, respect, honor, gratitude; and most of the time the building would be left empty (not locked, because you never know if a random person needs to come in in an emergency and ask for good luck) except for Qingming Festival when people may feel compelled to visit the dead? [[Special:Contributions/164.107.181.45|164.107.181.45]] ([[User talk:164.107.181.45|talk]]) 17:45, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
:I would like to point out that-even if the theory that democratic countries never go to war with each other is true- there could still be war. Think of Spain, France (with Corsica).. and yes : Belgium. Who says everyone within that country is happy with its structure?[[User:Evilbu|Evilbu]] 15:08, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:When you say "Chinese-style", do you mean Chinese characters/[[logogram]]s? Lots of American companies advertise that they can do it for you. Why would it be a problem when they can inscribe pictures as well? Also, it seems it wouldn't be economical to source it out, especially considering the shipping cost for heavy, single items. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] ([[User talk:Clarityfiend|talk]]) 22:16, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
::[[Civil war]]? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 15:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
::I think the OP means the style of engravings. On American gravestones, there will usually be the person's name, birth date, death date. On Chinese gravestones, there will be the dead person's name, the dead person's wife (who may be still living), the dead person's sons and daughters, the dead person's sons' wives, the dead person's daughters' husbands, the dead person's grandchildren through the sons, the dead person's grandchildren through the daughters. I suppose, if the person had known of a great-grandchild and then died, then the great-grandchild would also be added. The American custom seems to be a manifestation of American individualism, focusing on the individual person's birth, death and everything in between; the Chinese custom seems to be a manifestation of Chinese familial collectivism, focusing on the dead person's relationship to descendants. No matter which side you are on, Chinese or American, people will talk about what the dead person did in their life and will pass down family lore. [[User:Yrotarobal|Yrotarobal]] ([[User talk:Yrotarobal|talk]]) 00:17, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:::The laws on burying someone on private property vary widely from state to state in the U.S., and even within states. See [https://www.trigard.com/blog/can-you-bury-a-loved-ones-remains-on-personal-property/ here]. You will have to check with local authorities and likely seek legal guidance if you wish to proceed. [[User:Xuxl|Xuxl]] ([[User talk:Xuxl|talk]]) 15:01, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:I don’t think there are any restrictions on gravestones in the United States. For restrictions on burial locations, see the link that Xuxl provided. Farmland typically is not subject to any zoning rules, but would still be subject to state-level restrictions on gravesites. Religious property is typically owned by a congregation or other religious community, so simply buying religious property for this purpose may not be a satisfactory solution. [[User:John M Baker|John M Baker]] ([[User talk:John M Baker|talk]]) 06:44, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
::Perhaps it is possible to classify a family's traditional cultural practices as religion, and it just so happens that other Chinese families have similar familial-cultural practices too so they may also use the same building. There you have it, a 'congregation'. The outdoor graveyard and indoor mausoleum are a big part of it. From an outsider's perspective, the whole thing looks like an [[ancestral shrine]] dedicated to several lineages that are different from each other but at the same time related in the same civilization. [[User:Yrotarobal|Yrotarobal]] ([[User talk:Yrotarobal|talk]]) 15:38, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
== Mrs Bridges's sole ==
:::There must be a long list of democratic countries that have experienced famine and gone to war (the US was of course the first example given, but it is by no means the only one). But you seem to assume that 'once a democracy always a democracy'. Now democracies probably have a pretty strong staying power, but don't let that lull you into too strong a feeling of safety. Don't forget Hitler came to power by democratic means. In a democracy, if the people want war and denial of basic rights they will have it. Just look at what is happening right now. They think the state will only misuse its powers against other people. That's what they thought in Germany in the 1930's too. When they realised they had given away too many of their rights it was too late. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
In the ''Whither Shall I Wander?'' episode of ''[[Upstairs, Downstairs (1971 TV series)|Upstairs, Downstairs]]'', [[Mrs Bridges]] is upset that the food she has prepared for luncheon will be served on a tray in the morning room, instead of properly at table in the dining room. It's a fish dish, something like "sole du gleary". Allowing for Mrs Bridges's pronunciation, can anyone say what it was? Thank you, [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 21:35, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
::::Thanks for this astute observation, Dirk. I think that all three of Kristod's assumptions about democracy are doubtful, including especially the assumption that democracies are stable. In fact, historically, democracies in general have been very unstable. When democracies fail to contain public unrest, or when they hamper military or other elites in the pursuit of some agenda, they tend to fall, often in [[coup|coups]]. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Is that episode on Youtube or some similar site? ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 22:53, 7 October 2025 (UTC)
::[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaAMXbRn4eE Here]. The term is enunciated first [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaAMXbRn4eE&t=746s at 12:26] and again [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaAMXbRn4eE&t=839s at 13:59]. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 00:33, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:::Cold [[consommé]] (a variety of soup). [[User:Tevildo|Tevildo]] ([[User talk:Tevildo|talk]]) 00:51, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::The OP is not asking about that phrase, which comes earlier in the clip and is perfectly clear. --[[User:Viennese Waltz|Viennese Waltz]] 11:55, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::::I cannot reconcile /ˌkəʊld ˈkɒnsəˌmeɪ/ with what I hear, which is closer to /ˈsəʊl də ˈklɪɹi/. Also, we know from the preceding dialogue that this is a fish dish, so a name like “sole de ...” would be fitting – but none of the several common dishes with a name fitting this pattern has a final component sounding like /ˈklɪɹi/. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 09:28, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::I cannot watch the clip, as ITV won't let people in Britain watch it, but I remember a cold consommé was also mentioned, to be eaten by a different character than the sole. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 13:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::[[Sole meunière]]? <span class="nowrap">[[User:Verbarson|-- Verbarson ]] <sup>[[User talk:Verbarson|talk]]</sup><sub>[[Special:Contributions/Verbarson|edits]]</sub></span> 11:42, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::::::No, it definitely was not sole meuniere. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 13:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:This is [[Adolphe Dugléré#Recipes and garnishes|sole Dugléré]]. --[[User:Viennese Waltz|Viennese Waltz]] 11:56, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::Thank you, that must be it. I don't think I'd ever heard of it before. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 13:14, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
= October 8 =
:Historically, the least-stable form of government is a junta or other power-sharing dictatorship, while the most stable are kingdoms and other hereditary governments. Elective democracies tend to fall somewhere in the middle of things. --[[User:Serie|Serie]] 23:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== Bourdieu "Forms of Capital" in French ==
'''Clarification'''<br> I do not believe "world peace" will happen soon or even at all. The question was maybe a bit to controversial to get a reasonable answer (but did encourage debate...). I do not either believe that democracies are "unstoppable", contrarily, they change quite often ([[2006 Thailand coup d'état|Thailand coup]]), but some of the oldest continuous governments are democracies (US, UK). And I think the numbers would be quite interesting. For the hunger and the war, ok that is quite controversial. Let's just say it would happen to a lesser degree:
*Compare hunger in communist China with the more democratic India, for instance [[Amartya Sen]][http://folk.uio.no/danbanik/NYTarticle2003.htm] has written some books on this.
*Wars between democracies so far are few and mostly borderline cases. [[List of possible exceptions to democratic peace theory]] for a full discussion.
*Civil war is of course possible in democracies to, but again there is less large scale violent conflict and [[genocide]] in democratic countries (Russian [[gulags]] and [[Pol Pot]] come to mind)
I'm looking for the original French version of this famous sociological article by Pierre Bourdieu. Every single source/reference online only lists the English translation, including French-language sources (such as [https://web.girona.cat/documents/20147/259442/capital_social_revista.pdf this] publication by the Canadian government and [https://constellation.uqac.ca/id/eprint/2569/1/030327579.pdf this] thesis by a UQAC master's student); the citation is always of a translation of the work by that was published in some edition of ''The Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education''. I can't even find where the original was published, and searches through the Internet Archive as well as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France have turned up empty. Does anyone know why this might be, or know somewhere I could borrow/purchase/otherwise access the original?
I'd like any sources to the statistics of what percentage of new governments are democracies, and how long they on average last versus other forms of governments. I think maybe it would be possible to calculate a rough estimate on the eventual democracy/non-democracy ratio. This would be quite unscientific, even if these number were possible to find, they would still change with time and technology (for instance [[monarchies]] dominated the world 200 years ago, but not any more).
--[[User:Kristod(fugues)|Kristod(fugues)]] 08([[User talk:46,(fugues)|talk]]) 11:45, 8 October 20062025 (UTC)
: Our article on M.Bourdieu has [[Pierre Bourdieu#Selected publications|a table]] stating that the original was an article in German, 'Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kapital' published in ''Soziale Ungleichheiten'' (Special Volume 2 of the German sociological review ''Soziale Welt'') in 1983. That's out of print, but the article is available for Springer subscribers in [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-531-18944-4_15 this handbook]. [[User_talk:M.R.Forrester|Matt's talk]] 14:19, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::The numbers on democracies v non-democracies change on the basis of broad-brush ideological factors, and so are difficult to draw inferences from. Over the 20th century, the ratio of democracies changed as follows: the breakup of European empires (up); the [[Great Depression]] and the rise of [[Fascism]] (down); the end of African and Asian [[colonialism]] (up); the gradual establishment of [[one-party state]]s in those newly free colonies (down); and the fall of the [[Berlin Wall]] and the [[Francis Fukayama|End of History]] (up). So we can't calculate an eventual democracy ratio without predicting big future changes like that, which is very difficult indeed. [[Freedom House]] has a historical database of which countries are 'free', though I have severe problems with their POV. [[User:Hornplease|Hornplease]] 10:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::I mean Bourdieu was French and never wrote anything else in German, so I think it's evident that this article wasn't originally in German. Incidentally, the title "Forms of Capital" actually comes up again later in the table as being a translation of part of ''Sociologie générale – 2. Cours au collège de France'', a sort of edited anthology of transcriptions of Bourdieu's lectures, but I can't find any other information about this work or its translations that would confirm this. The translated version certainly does not read as though it is a translation or summation of a lecture, and is never cited as such. [[User:(fugues)|(fugues)]] ([[User talk:(fugues)|talk]]) 19:24, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:::The German version states, "{{serif|Originalbeitrag, übersetzt von Reinhard Kreckel.}}"<sup>[https://scienceblogs.de/geograffitico/wp-content/blogs.dir/70/files/2012/07/i-719cb63515c8dfe9704e8e7d8971dae4-bourdieukapital.pdf]</sup> I think this implies two things. One: yes, the original was not in German but presumably in French. Two: this French original was not published. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 21:02, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::::How curious. I think it's still sort of unclear, so I might keep searching. Thanks for your help. [[User:(fugues)|(fugues)]] ([[User talk:(fugues)|talk]]) 17:20, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::It is very likely that [[:de:Reinhard Kreckel|Reinhard Kreckel]] knew Bourdieu's theory of capital from his 1979 article [https://www.persee.fr/doc/arss_0335-5322_1979_num_30_1_2654 "Les trois états du capital culturel"] and asked him directly and personally for a contribution to be included in the collection of articles that would form ''Soziale Ungleichheiten''. And, also very likely, Bourdieu agreed on the condition that he could write in French and that Kreckel would take care of the translation. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 20:37, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
== Putin's desk set ==
==Sarah Vaughan==
What '''style''' of jazz did [[Sarah Vaughan]] do? Keep the answer simple i.e. 'swing'.
In a lot of official photos in which [[Vladimir Putin]] is showed in his office, a desk set with writing items that look like they are made of some kind of green stone and with a golden eagle perched on top of it often appears. Do we have some information about it? Is it a unique art piece or some prestigious furniture from some luxury brand? Thank you! [[Special:Contributions/195.62.160.60|195.62.160.60]] ([[User talk:195.62.160.60|talk]]) 12:42, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
: This sounds like homework. [[User:John Riemann Soong|John Riemann Soong]] 01:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:You too can look like the world's second-most-powerful psychopath, [https://pegasus-leaders.com/product/luxury-desk-set-eagle-malachite-6/ for only £6440!]. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 14:21, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::Oh look. It comes complete with a handy "stress ball", in the shape of [[:File:Earth globe stress ball.jpg|planet earth]]... [[User:Martinevans123|Martinevans123]] ([[User talk:Martinevans123|talk]]) 14:27, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:::As soon as you mentioned green stone, I figured it must be [[malachite]]. [[User:Xuxl|Xuxl]] ([[User talk:Xuxl|talk]]) 15:05, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::::{{small|Ah yeah, green. You sure it's not [[Man and Superman|Kryptonite]]??}} [[User:Martinevans123|Martinevans123]] ([[User talk:Martinevans123|talk]]) 15:22, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
:A good photo of his custom desk organizer is in [https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/vladimir-putin-considering-freezing-russian-bank-accounts-and-food-cards/ar-BB1rqby9 this MSN news article]. [[Special:Contributions/4.17.97.234|4.17.97.234]] ([[User talk:4.17.97.234|talk]]) 14:58, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
::The [https://i0.wp.com/pegasus-leaders.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/661908-5-desk-set-eagle.jpg?fit=1000%2C1000&ssl=1 rear view] of the £ 6,440 luxury desk set "Eagle" (malachite) matches what Putin displays on his desk. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 19:55, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
== False balance ==
::I really doubt some teacher asked of her students "what style of jazz did Sarah Vaughan do?" This may be related to a musical biography of Sarah Vaughan, but I don't believe it is a homework assignment in itself. [[User:Hyenaste|Hyenaste]] <sup>[[User_talk:Hyenaste|(tell)]]</sup> 01:42, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
The [[false balance]] article is currently tagged because it is missing sources. A while back I looked into this and had great difficulty finding a good book or paper to use. Can anyone make some suggestions? I would like to add sources and remove the tag. [[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] ([[User talk:Viriditas|talk]]) 17:47, 8 October 2025 (UTC)
::: Why else would a simple answer be wanted? What use would that be? I could envision this as part of a fill in the blank question. [[User:John Riemann Soong|John Riemann Soong]] 02:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:A cousin to [[WP:UNDUE]]? ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 12:16, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
:The article has 32 references. Have you asked the user who inserted the template why she thinks that more are needed? --[[User:Wrongfilter|Wrongfilter]] ([[User talk:Wrongfilter|talk]]) 12:50, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
::A generic {{tl|Refimprove}} without any {{tl|citation needed}}'s is hardly ever helpful. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 20:00, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
:::Agreed, but I previously tried to find a good book, textbook, scholarly paper, whatever, on media bias and could not find one. Can anyone recommend a standard text? [[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] ([[User talk:Viriditas|talk]]) 20:50, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
::::A less anemic definition of ''false balance'' than that currently in the article was given in 2012 by [[Margaret Sullivan (journalist)|Margaret Sullivan]], the then public editor of ''The New York Times'':<sup>[http://www.charleswarner.us/articles/NYT-Sullivan-Voting.doc]</sup>
:::::{{serif|Simply put, false balance is the journalistic practice of giving equal weight to both sides of a story, regardless of an established truth on one side.}}
::::There are several scholarly papers, many of which focus on the effect of bothsidesism with respect to a specific issue, mostly climate change. Here are some links to more general ones:
::::*[https://books.google.com/books?id=_eGEDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT213&hl=en "Fact-checking, false balance, and 'fake news'"]
::::*[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17512786.2019.1658538 "Best Practices for Journalistic Balance: Gatekeeping, Imbalance and the Fake News Era"]
::::*[https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003083108-6/post-truth-false-balance-virtuous-gatekeeping-natascha-rietdijk-alfred-archer "Post-Truth, False Balance, and Virtuous Gatekeeping"]
::::*[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.70025 "The False Balance Effect: Exploring Partition Dependence as a Potential Explanation"]
::::*[https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lcrp.70004 "Fore! Does forewarning inoculate people against the false balance effect?"]
:::: ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 18:14, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::I used to be a fan of reading old books. I remember in the 1980s there were loads of books about media bias, and now I can't find any at all. [[User:Viriditas|Viriditas]] ([[User talk:Viriditas|talk]]) 22:00, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
::::::[[Media bias]] may be related to the problem of maintaining a false balance, but is IMO essentially a different issue – you can find bias in media on both sides of the left–right soectrum, whereas false balance mainly festers on the centre-to-right half of this spectrum. Some books discussing media bias:
::::::*[https://archive.org/details/LiberalMediaBias/ ''Liberal Media Bias'']
::::::*[https://books.google.com/books?id=8VAeAAAAQBAJ&hl=en ''Media Bias?: A Comparative Study of Time, Newsweek, the National Review, and the Progressive, 1975-2000'']
::::::*[https://archive.org/details/miniatureguidefo0000paul_p7o7 ''The Thinker's Guide for Conscientious Citizens on How to Detect Media Bias & Propaganda in National and World News'']
::::::*[https://books.google.com/books?id=rq5_AgAAQBAJ&&hl=en ''Media Bias in Reporting Social Research?: The Case of Reviewing Ethnic Inequalities in Education'']
::::::*[https://archive.org/details/andthatswayitisn00boze ''And That's The Way It Is(n't): A Reference Guide to Media Bias'']
::::::*[https://books.google.com/books?id=2COfBQAAQBAJ&hl=en ''The Partisan Press: A History of Media Bias in the United States'']
:::::: ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 08:29, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
= October 9 =
::::Oh, dont be so cynical, if you're goin to be like that about things just about everything on here could be homework. Its perfectly reasonable for someone to wonder what sort of style of jazz a song is, and if that song is by Sarah Vaughan so be it. We do not need a backstory. And anyway the rule is we dont do peoples homework for them, i.e. if posted with homework we dont do it, not that we dont help people with homework, i.e. if they have done all they can, then used wikipedia as a resource, then come to the refdesk if the article is not adequate, then we do help. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 20:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
== Gaza peace plan ==
:::Maybe the OP seeks a short phrase to describe her taste in music? Even if it was a fill-in-the-blank question, the no homework policy is intended to discourage users from asking lengthly homework questions, like ''Describe the impact of [[Sarah Vaughan]]'s vocal style on the jazz movements of the 1950's. How do modern artists also affect their respective genres of music?'' rather than fill-in-the-blank trivia. [[User:Hyenaste|Hyenaste]] <sup>[[User_talk:Hyenaste|(tell)]]</sup> 03:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Thoughts on my [https://imgur.com/a/FqWsWRA Gaza peace plan]? Brown for a new Palestinian state, Blue goes to Greece. I’m thinking that this will make Palestine the wealthiest nation of all time in terms of GDP per capita. (Note: I’m aware that ECR applies for contentious topics; I hope it doesn’t extend into the RD space). Thank you [[Special:Contributions/85.131.184.138|85.131.184.138]] ([[User talk:85.131.184.138|talk]]) 07:12, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
:IT IS NOT HOMEWORK. I just can't seem to find out what kind of style she does (if it was homework, it would already be due).
:The ref desks are not supposed to be a debating society. ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 12:16, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
:If you think Egypt, Jordan and Saudi-Arabia would agree to cede substantial parts of their territories to this new state, in the case of Jordan including [[Aqaba|its only coastal city]], I fear you are mistaken. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 18:21, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
== 'Scalpel' of ''The Church Family Newspaper'' ==
== Death penalty ==
I am trying to find out who wrote under the nom de plume "Scalpel" in ''The Church Family Newspaper'' in about 1900. An example column, from 16th November 1900, is [https://x.com/militaryhistori/status/1976254367993827604/photo/1 here]. Thank you, [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 21:33, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
I always hear that there are prisoners who are murders.Criminals who murders another person goes straight to the death penalty or has life in prison. How does that work? How does one decide if it should be life in prison or death? For example a man explained and admitted/caught that he killed a man like he was getting a glass of milk from the frigde, like it no big deal and he gets life in prison.
::It appears to be Constance Roth. <ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cutter |first1=Nat |last2=Fensham |first2=Rachel |last3=Sumner |first3=Tyne Daile |title=The Slipperiness of Name: Biography and Gender in Australian Cultural Databases |journal=Gender & History |date=March 2025 |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=411–428 |doi=10.1111/1468-0424.12699}}</ref>
::A. Constance Roth to be exact in the naming. Seemed to be a cartoonist, journalist and artist who taught life drawing.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kerr |first1=Joan |title=A. Constance Roth b. 14 May 1859 |url=https://www.daao.org.au/bio/a-constance-roth/ |website=Design and Art Austrialia Online |access-date=10 October 2025 |___location=Paddington, New South Wales, Australia |language=en |date=1995}}</ref>
:Wikimedia Commons has several [[commons:Category:Constance Roth|photographs of Constance Roth]]. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 19:12, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
::Interesting, very, but no mention of ''The Church Family Newspaper'', and she appears to have been in South Africa in 1900, while the speech reported on was at [[St James's Hall]] in London. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 19:24, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
:::Yip. '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px black; font-family:Papyrus">[[User:scope_creep|<span style="color:#3399ff">scope_creep</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:scope_creep#top|Talk]]</sup></span>''' 19:31, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
{{reflist-talk}}
:Depends on the nature of the offence and the laws of that particular country. Suggest you read Wikipedia's article on the [[death penalty]].--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 08:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
== Where is a list of quotes which seem too good to not be apocryphal but are genuine? ==
Thanks. [[User:Apokrif|Apokrif]] ([[User talk:Apokrif|talk]]) 22:51, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
Thank you for your help
:This was too difficult for me to find, because of the popurarity of two other things that are closely similar to what you're asking for: a list of quotes that are apocryphal, and a list of quotes that are good. There is a [[q:Talk:Misquotations|Wikiquote talk page for their list of misquotations]], there may be some mismisquotations mentioned there. [[User:Card_Zero|<span style=" background-color:#fffff0; border:1px #995; border-style:dotted solid solid dotted;"> Card Zero </span>]] [[User_talk:Card_Zero|(talk)]] 14:16, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
==French distrust==
Where does the distrust of the French in the US and UK come from? — [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mac_Davis X] '''['''<nowiki></nowiki>'''[[User:Mac Davis|<span style="font-family:Times;color:navy;"><em><font color=#006600>Mac Davis</font></em></span>]]] <small>(<font color=#6688AA>[[User:Mac_Davis/Desk|SUPERDESK]]</font>|<font color=#666666>[[User_talk:Mac_Davis/Improvement|Help me improve]]</font></small>)'''10:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
= October 10 =
*[http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=french+perfidy&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 French perfidy] - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 10:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
==Juffermans surname==
Hi. Does anybody have any information on the surname Juffermans. I was planing to create a surname article but can't find a single thing on that surname. I've found several Juffermans folk, all dutch so I know its from there but I can't find anything else. '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px black; font-family:Papyrus">[[User:scope_creep|<span style="color:#3399ff">scope_creep</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:scope_creep#top|Talk]]</sup></span>''' 13:19, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
:It appears to be a patronymic derived from the nickname(?) Jufferman, which literally means "maiden man". Compare the German surname [http://www.namenforschung.net/id/name/77156/1 Jungfermann,] and see [https://www.cbgfamilienamen.nl/nfb/detail_naam.php?info=component&component=s&nfd_naam=Wens&gba_lcnaam=&operator=eq&taal= here] for a discussion of genitive -s in Dutch surnames. [[User:Zacwill|Zacwill]] ([[User talk:Zacwill|talk]]) 16:58, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
::Undoubtedly Dutch. The nickname Jufferman could refer to a man living close to or even sharing a home with an unmarried woman (possibly his sister, otherwise it would likely be inappropriate to share a home). According to [https://www.cbgfamilienamen.nl/nfb/detail_naam.php?info=kaart2007&t=rel&zw=cs&gba_naam=Juffermans&nfd_naam=Juffermans&operator=eq&taal=#kaartweergave this], in 2007 there were 567 people (0.0035% of the population) with that name living in the Netherlands, 43 of those in the municipality Oestgeest (a place near Leiden), accounting for 0.2% of the people living there, both the highest number and highest concentration. Most others lived in the same area. So it's not a very common name, mostly found in the far west of the country. [[User:PiusImpavidus|PiusImpavidus]] ([[User talk:PiusImpavidus|talk]]) 17:51, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
:::Given the strong concentration,<sup>[https://nl.geneanet.org/familienamen/JUFFERMANS]</sup> it is very plausible that the Dutch surname originated with a single individual, not more than a few generations ago. This might have been someone migrating from Germany with the name ''Jungfermann'', which got adapted to Dutch. This seems to be confirmed by this genealogical record: [https://www.genealogieonline.nl/database-bergsmit/I38646.php "Johan Casper JUFFERMANS (1698-1758)"]. The German name could originally have referred to a commoner who was married to a gentlewoman. Onfortunately, this is all highly [[WP:original research|original research]]. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 18:57, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
::::Speculation, but plausible. Family names in the Netherlands were legally fixed in 1811 (or 1795 for the parts annexed by France then), but de facto had been mostly fixed (apart from spelling) for some time already. Assuming between 2 and 3 generations are alive simultaneously, you can go from a single individual to 567 people in 10 or 11 generations if we assume about 1.7 sons per man. All could easily be male-line descendants of a single 18th century man. [[User:PiusImpavidus|PiusImpavidus]] ([[User talk:PiusImpavidus|talk]]) 10:47, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::It would be interesting to deep dive on it to trace to root, maybe as far back as the 16-17th century or even earlier e.g. 10th century. However, it looks as though there is enough for a micro article and the begininng of a list. That is ideal. '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px black; font-family:Papyrus">[[User:scope_creep|<span style="color:#3399ff">scope_creep</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:scope_creep#top|Talk]]</sup></span>''' 22:01, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::Just saw the genealogy record. '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px black; font-family:Papyrus">[[User:scope_creep|<span style="color:#3399ff">scope_creep</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:scope_creep#top|Talk]]</sup></span>''' 22:21, 11 October 2025 (UTC)
= October 12 =
*There are articles on [[Francophobia]] and [[anti-French sentiment in the United States]]... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 14:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
== Norman and George Lincoln Rockwell ==
The most recent incident was when the French campaigned for Israel to stop their fight against terrorists ([[Hezbollah]]) in Lebanon, with the promise of a robust UN peacekeeping force in it's place. Then, they only initially volunteered a pathetic token force as their own contribution. From the US, it would appear that they are working in support of Hezbollah. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
<ins>Are Norman and George Lincoln Rockwell related?</ins> There is an ostensibly reliable source claiming an extraordinary fact which I cannot corroborate. A book review in [[Holocaust and Genocide Studies]] by [[Alan L. Berger]] claims that the famous American painter [[Norman Rockwell]] was the uncle of infamous American Nazi [[George Lincoln Rockwell]] (emph. mine):<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berger |first=Alan L. |date=2003 |title=American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party, and: Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke's Louisiana (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/8/article/43124 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=180–185 |issn=1476-7937}}</ref>
Before that it was the French opposing the unilateral invasion of Iraq. Damn these French, always trying to prevent wars! [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 21:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
{{Quote|It is not surprising that [George Lincoln] Rockwell, a proponent of authoritarian leadership, had an aversion to authority. His inability to control his temper cost him many positions. He failed in advertising, illustration ('''Norman Rockwell was his uncle'''), and public relations.}}
I cannot find any other source which claims this, and this book explicitly denies any relation:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ingram |first=Scott |url=http://archive.org/details/symbolofamerican0000ingr |title=Symbol of America, Norman Rockwell |date=1982 |publisher=Huntingdon Valley, PA : Lynell Marketing |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-9607932-0-4 |page=220}}</ref>
{{Quote|Norman Rockwell became increasingly concerned that he not be identified with George Lincoln Rockwell, who was the head of the American Nazi Party. Obviously, the two individuals were unrelated, and were not remotely part of the same family. Norman Rockwell, a strong advocate of human rights, abhored {{sic}} the political views of George Lincoln Rockwell, and missed no occasion to say so.}}
{{Rlt}} ―<span style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 1px; border-radius: 5px;">[[User:Howardcorn33|<b>Howard</b>]] • [[User talk:Howardcorn33|🌽<sup>33</sup>]]</span> 11:46, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
:And ''before that'', there was [[Philippe Pétain]], opposing any war between France and Germany. You're right! Damn those French for always trying to prevent wars! [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 23:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:You can see that [[Norman Rockwell]] and [[George Lovejoy Rockwell]] (father of George Lincoln) have different parents. The book [https://archive.org/details/americanfuehrerg00fred/mode/1up ''American Fuehrer''] doesn't contain any mention of Norman Rockwell. The only uncle of George mentioned there is one Roscoe Smith. Alan L. Berger got it wrong somehow. [[User:Card_Zero|<span style=" background-color:#fffff0; border:1px #995; border-style:dotted solid solid dotted;"> Card Zero </span>]] [[User_talk:Card_Zero|(talk)]] 15:11, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
::There is a long, long history of rivalry, warfare and mutual mistrust between the UK and France, which really only came to an end in the early part of the last century, when Germany began to be preceived as the greater threat. The rapid collapse of French resistance in 1940 and the subsequent hostility between the Vichy authorities and the British government created a new mood of resentment. This was compounded after the war by General de Gaulle's distrust of the 'special relationship' between the UK and the US, which caused him to veto British entry into the European Union. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 23:46, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:@[[User:Howardcorn33|Howardcorn33]] While I was reading this review for the [[American Fuehrer]] article, I honestly assumed that this was a joke. I think it's just a joke about career similarity, since Rockwell was also an illustrator. Even doing original research, they have no common paternal relatives back 500 years. [[User:PARAKANYAA|PARAKANYAA]] ([[User talk:PARAKANYAA|talk]]) 20:44, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
:::He also called for Quebec independence from Canada. On Canadian soil. [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 01:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
== Rick Rescorla name ==
::::Ssssshhhh .... Canada is not the US. Better run before a bunch of Canadians jump on your neck. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:23, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
[[Rick Rescorla]] says in the introduction that his name was Richard Cyril Rescorla, and in the infobox that his birth name was Cyril Richard Rescorla. Google searching for <"rick rescola" name change> finds only irrelevant results, so I'm unclear if he changed his name at some point or if the article is wrong at one point. I'm leaning toward an error, since the article says nothing about him changing his name; can anyone find anything solid to help? [[User:Nyttend|Nyttend]] ([[User talk:Nyttend|talk]]) 18:33, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::Not at all, Zoe is right. DeGaulle was a prick when he came up here to Montréal. "Vive La France, Vive Le Québec, Vive Le Québec LIBRE!!!!" Oh shut up Chuck. Leave your brown French nose where it belongs. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 01:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:In the U.S. Army Register of 1967 he is listed as {{mono|RESCORLA CYRIL}}.<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=GmlKUNr-yL0C&pg=PA1062&dq=Rescorla+Cyril&hl=en]</sup> In a 1970 book on firefights in Vietnam, published by the Office of the Chief of Military History, U.S. Army, he is named as {{serif|2d Lt. Cyril R. Rescorla}}.<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=VR9wAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA26&dq=%222d+Lt.+Cyril+R.+Rescorla%22&hl=en]</sup> More than a few book sources describing his actions on 9/11 give his name as {{serif|Cyril Richard “Rick” Rescorla}}.<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=L8HSEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA369&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=wiusCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA29&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=kQXHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT232&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=jts_BgAAQBAJ&pg=PT195&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=Gs84EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1991&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=cQjcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA78&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=dzQPEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA52&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=qpyyDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA64&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=qENCbkwNXcAC&pg=PA306&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=iO9Aa8s8jV0C&pg=PA6&dq=%22Cyril+Richard+Rick+Rescorla%22&hl=en]</sup> This abundance of sources does not mean much; they are quite possibly based on ultimately a single source.
:::::::Read the question again. It's about the UK and the US, not Canada. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 06:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:However, he appears as {{serif|Richard C. Rescorla}} in 1973 in the role of "Criminal Justice Planner" at the Office of Community Affairs and Planning of Oklahoma<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=500vAQAAIAAJ&hl=en]</sup> and in 1980 as co-author of a book entitled ''Foundations of Criminal Justice''.<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=500vAQAAIAAJ&hl=en]</sup> He is further listed in 1983 as {{serif|Rescorla, Richard C.}} as being promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=nCldb2tSaWgC&pg=PA1796&dq=%22Rescorla,+Richard+C.%22&hl=en]</sup> and in 1988 as {{mono|RICHARD C RESCOLA}} as being promoted to the rank of colonel.<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=MFq3KM4xPGQC&pg=PA208&dq=%22Richard+C+Rescorla%22&hl=en]</sup> Then he is also named as {{serif|Richard C. Rescorla}} as the bank systems senior security specialist of Bank Administration Institute,<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=mPgbAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Richard+C.+Rescorla%22&hl=en]</sup> as the author of an article in ''The Magazine of Bank Administration'',<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=4x8pAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Richard+C.+Rescorla%22&hl=en]</sup> and as the director of security of the Continental Bank of Chicago,<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=1Ec9AQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Richard+C.+Rescorla%22&hl=en][https://books.google.com/books?id=eI8WAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Richard+C.+Rescorla%22&hl=en]</sup>
:Could he have changed his name between 1970 and 1973? ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 20:52, 12 October 2025 (UTC)
::I can't speak to Rescorla himself, but it is not uncommon for people to use different versions and arrangements of their forenames in different contexts, or come to prefer one over another over time (I myself have used in everyday life three different shorter versions of my full name).
::This is particularly true of writers, sometimes to make distinctions between different kinds of works (e.g. [[Iain Banks]] aka Iain M. Banks), and sometimes to give the impression of being two (or more) different writers (for an extreme example, see [[Lionel Fanthorpe#Badger Books|Robert Lionel Fanthorpe]]). Another motivation might be to distinguish themself from someone else with the same name in the same or a similar field to avoid confusion, such as David/'Davie' Jones who, to avoid confusion with [[Davy Jones (musician)|Davy Jones]] of [[The Monkees]] adopted the name [[David Bowie]]. In many jurisdictions, such adaptions and adoptions do not require a formal legal change of name, so long as no tax evasion or other fraud is intended.
::Regarding Rescorla himself, I can offer one piece of background information (from personal knowledge, a reference might have to be sought). In the '''British military''' section of his article it is stated that:
:::<small>"In 1956, at age 16, Rescorla left Hayle to join the army. At the time, Britain practiced conscription (known as National Service), which required every young man to serve for two years in the Armed Forces. Rescorla, however, chose instead to volunteer. This required him to serve three years as the conditions for volunteers were considered to be better than those of conscripted soldiers."</small>
::A further motivation would be that conscripts had to join whatever type of regiment or corps the Army recruiting officer assigned them to, often an infantry regiment, but volunteers could choose which they joined. My own father, a bank clerk, volunteered in 1956 a few months before he was due to be conscripted for exactly this reason, enabling him to join the Royal Army Pay Corp. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} [[Special:Contributions/90.193.153.108|90.193.153.108]] ([[User talk:90.193.153.108|talk]]) 12:40, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:Findmypast has a Cyril Rescorla born in 1939, Registration District Penzance, Registration Quarter 3 (March-May), no middle name given, mother's maiden name Rescorla. Volume 5C, page 360. There's no Richard Rescorla born around then. Just because it says Cyril on your birth certificate doesn't mean that anyone ever calls you it, and it's quite possible to grow up not knowing what name your birth was registered under until you need to apply for a passport. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 12:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:Our article says he became known as Rick after moving to the USA. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 12:54, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:Hmm. Not entirely convinced that the Daniel Hill work used in our article is a reliable source. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 13:00, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:In '63 and '65 British newspapers carry reports of him in the US Army as Richard Rescorla, in '63 he praises US Army discipline, in '65 he praises British and is boasting about how many Communists he's killed. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 13:09, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:He was Cyril Richard for his Bronze Star 31 December 1965, Richard Cyril for his Silver Star 10 February 1966. Richard Cyril on his Petition for Naturalization in 1966, on which he says he entered the USA under the name of Cyril Rescorla. See documents [https://docsteach.org/activity/rick-rescorla-a-life-of-service-and-sacrifice/ here]. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 13:19, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
= October 13 =
::::::::It also, if I'm not incorrect, seems to involve France a bit too, ''n'est ce pas?'' :) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 09:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== UK military ==
:::::::::Oui, la perception des Francais dans les États Unis et le Royaume Uni. Pas dans Canada. (Excuse my French.) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 06:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
If you're a working class graduate of UK secondary school with a good but not especially outstanding academic record, and join the [[Royal Logistic Corps]] as a new recruit at age 18 and don't get into too much trouble in the Corps, about how long does it typically take to get promoted to Corporal? I'm reading a story about such a guy and his promotion from Lance Corporal came through after something like 6 years in the service. I had thought advancement through these relatively low ranks was normally much faster. Thanks. [[Special:Contributions/2601:644:8581:75B0:AA40:3E7D:E46E:5699|2601:644:8581:75B0:AA40:3E7D:E46E:5699]] ([[User talk:2601:644:8581:75B0:AA40:3E7D:E46E:5699|talk]]) 01:59, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
::::::::::Well, excuse ''my'' French but "You've got no fucking idea what you're talking about"! :-) Ok sorry, I just couldn't help it. I'm not sure if it's the same in Europe, but in NA when someone is about to swear, they often preface it by saying: "Excuse my French". I've never really understood how that's originated. ''En tous cas, Zoe a introduit le Canada et le Québec. Je pense que j'ai eu le droit de repondre.'' [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 06:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:Passing over the minor point that UK students do not ''graduate'' from secondary school; my answer to your question is: that would depend entirely on the individual and their motivation and ability (or lack of it) to pass necessary further training courses, and their ability to command others. My father volunteered to a similar Corps and made Lance Corporal in a few months, others were/are never so promoted; it's not automatic based on service time. That being said, I (FWIW) would have thought 6 years to be slower than average, but details of such matters, though probably not a military secret, are not readily announced or easily found.
::::::That was a follow-on to ''There is a long, long history of rivalry, warfare and mutual mistrust between the UK and France''. [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 21:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:The numbers in the Army's rank structure are 'pyramidal', so only a proportion of each rank can be promoted to the next, and in fact 'over-promotion' leading to too many at higher ranks in proportion to the ones below them is an ongoing potential problem, with some soldiers arguably 'meriting' promotion but being blocked from it. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} [[Special:Contributions/90.193.153.108|90.193.153.108]] ([[User talk:90.193.153.108|talk]]) 13:11, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
::What term is used for successfully completing secondary school in the UK, then? --[[User:Khajidha]] ([[User talk:Khajidha|talk]]) ([[Special:Contributions/Khajidha|contributions]]) 17:49, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:::You leave school. There's no successfully or unsuccessfully about it. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 19:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
::::What do you mean "there's no successfully or unsuccessfully"? You will really need to explain this to me, as it makes no sense to me. --[[User:Khajidha]] ([[User talk:Khajidha|talk]]) ([[Special:Contributions/Khajidha|contributions]]) 20:26, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::When you reach [[school-leaving age]] you leave school. You may go into work, or onto VIth Form (which may be at the same school or elsewhere) or other [[tertiary education]]. It doesn't make sense to talk of "successfully or unsuccessfully". You may have done well in your [[GCSE]]s or [[National 5]]s (there is not a single educational system for the UK), or you may not, but we don't use the language that you use. For the case in your original question, the recruit had presumably been to some kind of [[tertiary education]] between leaving school at 16 and signing up at 18. They would have done [[A level]]s or [[Advanced Higher]]s (or predecessors) or some kind of technical or vocational qualifications. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 20:36, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::::To clarify, recent legislation means that you can still leave school at 16, but you have to stay in full-time education (usually at a [[sixth form college]]) or training (e.g. an apprenticeship or vocational college course) until you are 18. [https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school] The British Army still recruits at 16, but gets around this by inducting 16 and 17 year-olds into the [[Army Foundation College]]. [https://jobs.army.mod.uk/how-to-join/training/junior-soldier-training/] [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 14:09, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
Thanks all. I'd say the guy in the story was likely an above average but not exceptional performer in the RLC. He liked the army, considered it his home, was described as a smart and sensible kid, and was motivated to do well. He might, though, have hit some disciplinary snags early on, like getting into bar brawls. At one point he has some regret about being in the RLC instead of a "teeth" (combat) unit.<p>Sorry about the misunderstanding about secondary school, but in any case he completed his GCSE's and A-levels just before joining the service. [[Special:Contributions/2601:644:8581:75B0:560:AAF0:E2ED:F2A1|2601:644:8581:75B0:560:AAF0:E2ED:F2A1]] ([[User talk:2601:644:8581:75B0:560:AAF0:E2ED:F2A1|talk]]) 05:49, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
:There is not much of a problem with distrusting the french in the UK, though some of their mannerisms and things cause an above normal level of people to think they're assholes, I think when push came to shove, people would trust them. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 20:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Having 7 GCSEs at grades 9-4 and 2 A-levels make you eligable for officer training. [https://www.youthemployment.org.uk/careers-hub-job-role/army-officer/] Most young people entering as ordinary soldiers are much less qualified. [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 10:54, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
::Interesting. I don't know how many GCSE's he had. But he disappointed his foster parents by not wanting to become an officer:
:::He was nineteen at that point, and the Army was a way to get as far from where he started as humanly possible. He’d considered the French Foreign Legion, even, but decided that was going a bit far. Joining up without a degree made sure they wouldn’t try and make him be an officer: the idea of taking any kind of leadership role made him feel uneasy. Reading between the lines of the things Richard and Terri had said, it was that that was the real disappointment to them. Raising an officer was one thing - not a good thing, Terri being a pacifist - but raising a squaddy? That offended their poor little middle-class sensibilities. Harry, though, was common . He knew that deep down inside himself.
::So maybe he could have gotten officer training if he had sought to pursue it, but either way, he liked being where he was. [[Special:Contributions/2601:644:8581:75B0:8134:3D0:DA8E:D90|2601:644:8581:75B0:8134:3D0:DA8E:D90]] ([[User talk:2601:644:8581:75B0:8134:3D0:DA8E:D90|talk]]) 03:29, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
:::Fair point. Soldiers wishing to learn a trade can enrole in an [https://jobs.army.mod.uk/regular-army/what-you-get/apprenticeships/ Army apprenticeship]. [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 12:03, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
== Breakdown of US elections by race/ethnicity and gender ==
:Regarding the UK and France, people seem to have forgotten about the [[Auld Alliance]] which ran for about 2 and half centuries. [[User:Bwithh|Bwithh]] 22:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Here is a [https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/ breakdown of US election] by voters into six main groups of male/female × White/Black/Hispanic. Do such breakdowns also exist for other US presidential elections? My main interest are 2008, 2012 and 2024. --[[User:KnightMove|KnightMove]] ([[User talk:KnightMove|talk]]) 05:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
::This reminds me of a funny story I once heard. At one point the French requested of the British if they would allow them to erect a statue of [[Charles deGaulle]] somewhere in London, with his the words "Vive la France!", for which he was so proud of saying, written under it. The Brits were perfectly ok with it, but requested that they in turn be permitted to erect a statue of [[Sir Winston Churchill]] somewhere in Paris, with his famous "We Shall Never Surrender!" quote written underneath. For some inexplicable reason, the whole plan was shelved. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 21:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== [[Demographics of Burkina Faso]] ==
== Answer these questions ==
We have the population pyramid from 2020. [[File:Burkina_Faso_single_age_population_pyramid_2020.png|thumb|right|Burkina Faso's population pyramid]].
Why is there a larger number of people born in the years 2001 and 2002 (those displayed as being 19 and 18 years old), compared to before and after? [[User:Icek~enwiki|Icek~enwiki]] ([[User talk:Icek~enwiki|talk]]) 15:32, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
*1.Name of Muslim women belongs to Iran recently visited space.
:I don't understand that diagram. Can you please explain it to me? ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 17:12, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
*2.Name of person recently won the noble prize in Physics belongs to America
:Those aren't births. The horizontal bars represent how much of the current population was born in each year. The earlier years are smaller because more of the people born in those years have died. The number of living individuals born in each year (generally) goes down as you go further back in time. I'm not sure about the difference between those two birth years and later dates. --[[User:Khajidha]] ([[User talk:Khajidha|talk]]) ([[Special:Contributions/Khajidha|contributions]]) 17:47, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
*4.Next Hockey Cricket and Footbal world cups will held in which countries
::The blips don't appear in the other graphs on the page. This suggests (younger) people are lying about their age in order to get a job or married or a drivers's license or something. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> [[User:Abductive|<span style="color: teal;">'''Abductive'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Abductive|reasoning]])</span> 19:19, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
*5.Name of first noble prize winner form Asia
[[File:Burkina-Faso-Demography.png|140px|right|This graph]]
*7.Name of Thai General who took over the powers in Thailand
:::Other graphs on which page? ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 07:28, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
*8.Name the Planet recently discovered which replaced Pluto
::::[[Demographics of Burkina Faso]] <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> [[User:Abductive|<span style="color: teal;">'''Abductive'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Abductive|reasoning]])</span> 02:48, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
*9.Name Richest person of world
:A spike in birth rate? A sudden drop in child mortality, followed by a sudden drop in birth rate? An error in statistics, causing 15% of the 18–19 year olds to be counted double? [[User:PiusImpavidus|PiusImpavidus]] ([[User talk:PiusImpavidus|talk]]) 19:24, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
*10.The powerful candidate for next UN secretary general belongs to China name
::The data on which the diagram is based can be found [https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/pop?dashboard_page=country&COUNTRY_YR_ANIM=2025&CCODE=BF&popPages=BYAGE&menu=popViz&CCODE_SINGLE=BF&subnat_map_admin=ADM1&POP_YEARS=2020&quickReports=OVW&ageGroup=1Y here]. The numbers in the 18 and 19-year groups are indeed higher than the older and younger groups. The spike was already there in 2010 among the 8 and 9 year olds. An official document from Burkina Faso (2022) is [https://www.insd.bf/sites/default/files/2024-02/TBD%202022_VF_2023.pdf here (pdf)]. The pyramid on page 10 (Graphique 1.1) shows nothing unusual, but it is for 5-year groups. --[[User:Wrongfilter|Wrongfilter]] ([[User talk:Wrongfilter|talk]]) 20:41, 13 October 2025 (UTC)
*11.When National security council was established in Pakistan
:::I'm not sure that the tables for 2010 at census.gov are really independent data. You can also select 2030 and see the same spike among 28 and 29 year olds. This may be just an extrapolation from the 2020 data. --[[User:Amble|Amble]] ([[User talk:Amble|talk]]) 00:09, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
*12.Macmohan line is boundry between.........and ...........
::::It's possible that some change to tax laws incentivized parents to lie about their childrens' ages in order to access education or some other resources. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> [[User:Abductive|<span style="color: teal;">'''Abductive'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Abductive|reasoning]])</span> 05:43, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
*13.International litracy day is celebrated on............
::::The data are certainly extrapolated; the question is what is the anchor point, are the data based on an actual census and when did that census take place? I looked at 2010 under the assumption (which may right or wrong) that data are forward extrapolated but not backwards; I wanted to check whether there was a particular year when the spikes appear. It seems to me that an error is quite likely. In the end we need to know more about where the US Census get their data from. --[[User:Wrongfilter|Wrongfilter]] ([[User talk:Wrongfilter|talk]]) 08:28, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
*14.Name the Chinese Ambassader to UN
:The answer may lie in [[Burkina Faso#Demographics]]:
*15............ is called land of rivers
::"Hundreds of thousands of Burkinabè migrate regularly to Ivory Coast and Ghana, mainly for seasonal agricultural work. These flows of workers are affected by external events; the September 2002 coup attempt in Ivory Coast and the ensuing fighting meant that hundreds of thousands of Burkinabè returned to Burkina Faso."
*16.Who is Pakistan's Ambassader to UN
:The implication is that substantial numbers in 2002 would have been born in Burkina Faso who would in an undisrupted year have been born in Ivory Coast and Ghana; exactly how this effects the Burkinabè demographics figures would depend on how censuses and birth registrations are conducted in the region, and how the graph's data were sourced. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} [[Special:Contributions/90.193.153.108|90.193.153.108]] ([[User talk:90.193.153.108|talk]]) 07:22, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
::If this is the explanation, one would expect to see a comparably-sized dip in the 18/19-year cohorts in the [[:File:Côte d'Ivoire single age population pyramid 2020.png|2020 Côte d'Ivoire population pyramid]], but nothing out of the ordinary is apparent there. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 07:51, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
:::Not necessarily. If Côte d'Ivoire doesn't count children born to migrants, then the births by people from Burkina Faso won't show up in any year, so it would not make a difference. It depends on the methodology of the census in both countries.[[Special:Contributions/91.221.58.22|91.221.58.22]] ([[User talk:91.221.58.22|talk]]) 11:14, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
::::Also, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana's combined population is about three times the size of Burkina Faso's, so any effects on their populations, even if accounted for in their collected data, would appear proportionally less significant. And in Côte d'Ivoire's pyramid, the relevant years are in the middle of a relative though shallow dip between peaks at ages 12 and 30, so other factors are doubtless also in play. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} [[Special:Contributions/90.193.153.108|90.193.153.108]] ([[User talk:90.193.153.108|talk]]) 13:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
{{clear}}
Thank you all for your replies. The connection to the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire seems plausible. [[User:Icek~enwiki|Icek~enwiki]] ([[User talk:Icek~enwiki|talk]]) 20:45, 14 October 2025 (UTC)
thanks
:I'm thinking of removing the graph as flawed [[WP:OR]], it is very clearly not from migrants and most likely a error in a spreadsheet. <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> [[User:Abductive|<span style="color: teal;">'''Abductive'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Abductive|reasoning]])</span> 02:50, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
::If the blip is due to an error, the spreadsheet contains at least four errors, all somehow in close proximity: male 18-year cohort, male 19-year cohort, female 18-year cohort, female 19-year cohort. How likely is that? Since the data allegedly comes from the US Census Bureau International Data Base, it shouldn't be too difficult to check this. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 21:38, 15 October 2025 (UTC)
::::[https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/idb/#/pop?dashboard_page=country&COUNTRY_YR_ANIM=2025&CCODE=BF&popPages=BYAGE&menu=popViz&CCODE_SINGLE=BF&subnat_map_admin=ADM1&POP_YEARS=2020&quickReports=OVW&ageGroup=1Y That link again.] --[[User:Wrongfilter|Wrongfilter]] ([[User talk:Wrongfilter|talk]]) 09:09, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::The blip is indeed present in the source, the data provided by the US Census Bureau International Data Base. In no way can this anomaly be explained as resulting from a copy–paste error. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 18:01, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
:::If you use Excel a lot, you may experience a drag and paste error; "Do you want to replace contents of destination cells?" <span style="font-family: Cambria;"> [[User:Abductive|<span style="color: teal;">'''Abductive'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Abductive|reasoning]])</span> 08:57, 16 October 2025 (UTC)
= October 17 =
:This would appear to be a quiz. ''Do your own homework!'' (Try searching at Wikipedia and Google etc. for a start...) By the way, which were questions 3 and 6? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 10:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
== Medieval ==
Can word "medieval" be used to describe US history? Is there such a thing as "medieval US"?--[[User:40bus|40bus]] ([[User talk:40bus|talk]]) 22:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)
:No. "Medieval" in English refers to a period of European history (the [[Middle Ages]]) which is not applicable beyond Europe and its periphery. American history prior to European contact is traditionally referred to as "[[Pre-Columbian era|pre-Columbian]]" and only occasionally further subdivided. [[User:Eluchil404|Eluchil404]] ([[User talk:Eluchil404|talk]]) 03:53, 18 October 2025 (UTC)
::As [[Middle Ages (disambiguation)]] says,
::The term [i.e., ''medieval''] is also used to refer to periods in nations outside of Europe having similarities in social and military development, such as seen in:
:::*{{section link|History of Japan|Feudal Japan}}
:::*[[Medieval history of Sri Lanka]]
:::*[[Medieval India]]
::but I've never seen it applied to the U.S. in any serious context. [[User:Deor|Deor]] ([[User talk:Deor|talk]]) 14:24, 18 October 2025 (UTC)
::: But its application to Asian societies is highly contentious. [[User:Ghirlandajo|Ghirla]]<sup>[[User_talk:Ghirlandajo|-трёп-]]</sup> 12:11, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
:::: Can also the terms "Stone Age", "Bronze Age" and "Iron Age" be applied to Americas? --[[User:40bus|40bus]] ([[User talk:40bus|talk]]) 06:10, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
:::::No, or at least they never are. See [[Periodization of pre-Columbian Peru]] and [[Mesoamerican chronology]] etc for the terms used. Before European contact, neither bronze nor iron became the usual material for tools, weapons etc, though there was some use, of [[Telluric iron]] by Inuit for example. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 13:51, 21 October 2025 (UTC)
= October 18 =
Well, some thoughts, but check the answers.<br>
1.Name of Muslim women belongs to Iran recently visited space.
:: [[Anousheh Ansari]]
2.Name of person recently won the Nobel prize in Physics belongs to America
:: [[John Mather]] and [[George Smoot]]
4.Next Hockey Cricket and Football world cups will held in which countries
:: perhaps someone who cares will answer
5.Name of first Nobel prize winner from Asia
::probably [[Rabindranath Tagore]] in 1913
::The first Asian scientist to win the Nobel prize was [[Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman]], 1930
7.Name of Thai General who took over the powers in Thailand
::[[Sondhi Boonyaratkalin]]
8.Name the Planet recently discovered which replaced Pluto
::nothing replaced [[Pluto]]; Pluto became a [[dwarf planet]], and so did [[Ceres]] and [[Eris]]. Of these, only Eris was recently discovered (2005).
9.Name Richest person of world
::[[William Gates III]], according to [[Forbe's Magazine]]
10.The powerful candidate for next UN secretary general belongs to China name
::[[Ban Ki Moon]] is the Secruity Council's nominee; he is Korean, not Chinese. China had pushed hard for an Asian; tradition dictates that the Secretary General not be from any of the five veto-holding security council members, so a Chinese candidate would be unlikely.
11.When National security council was established in Pakistan
::[[National Security Council of Pakistan]] 2004
12.Macmohan line is boundry between.........and ...........
::[[India]] and [[China]]
13.International literacy day is celebrated on............
::[[8 September]]
14.Name the Chinese Ambassador to UN
::[[Yingfan Wang]]?, [[Liu Zhenmin]]?
15............ is called land of rivers
::[[India]], but so are other places, historical and present: Nairi, Jotbath, Kerala....
16.Who is Pakistan's Ambassador to UN
::[[Munir Akram]]?
== Uniforms to shame people for masturbating ==
<br> - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 10:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
On page 10 of his 1980 book [https://archive.org/details/isbn_0398039259/page/10/mode/1up "The sexual victimology of youth"], LeRoy G. Schultz has this to say about attempts to stop people masturbating in the 1800s:
:The next [[IIHF]] [[Ice Hockey World Championship]] will be held in Russia in 2007, if that's what you mean... but by grouping it with cricket and football, perhaps you mean field hockey, in which case our [[Hockey World Cup]] article doesn't say. It's not until 2010 so maybe they haven't picked a country yet. The 2010 [[FIFA World Cup]] will be in South Africa, and the next [[Cricket World Cup]] will be in 2007 in "the West Indies" in general, not one specific country. [[User:Adam Bishop|Adam Bishop]] 15:42, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:Other methods consisted of immersing the child or his organs in ice water, dressing the child caught masturbating in uniforms that told the community about it, placing bells on the hands, strapping hands to bedsides, handcuffs, over-exercising the child, child-battery, a wide range of guilt or trauma induction methods, and carrying a picture of one’s mother.
== About france ==
For most of these remedies, Schultz gives citations. But the part about using uniforms for shaming has none, and I can't find references to it anywhere else. Does anyone know where he might have gotten this idea? [[User:Northunder|Northunder]] ([[User talk:Northunder|talk]]) 05:22, 18 October 2025 (UTC)
#Which Place in France is Known as little Venice?
#The players of french football team wear a little emblem on their Jersey,What is it?
#Who decreed that January 1 shud be the start of the new year?
:There is a mention [https://books.google.com/books?id=-RZy-l3nHfoC&pg=PA417&dq=%22required+to+wear+uniforms%22&hl=en here] whose specificity regarding [[Lomaland]] will presumably lead to further sources. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 12:11, 18 October 2025 (UTC)
:Please sign your questions, with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>.
::[https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/plnu-slumber-party2.pdf This article] mentions "reports of students of the Raja Yoga Academy sleeping in straitjackets", which may be the uniforms alluded to. [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 21:17, 18 October 2025 (UTC)
:#Don't know
:#[[France national football team]]
:#[[Gregorian calendar]] (what's that got to do with France?)
= October 19 =
:--[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 12:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
== Does [[Keir Starmer]] look like [[Hendrik Verwoerd]]? ==
::Despite popular belief Gregory didn't decree that [[January 1]] was the beginning of the new year in 1582. I think Nunh=huh is right that whoever asked the question is looking for Napoleon, but as a point of reference Julius Caesar did declare January 1 to be New Year's Day back in 45 BC, just after he conquered Gaul. --[[User:70.72.19.133|70.72.19.133]] 14:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Does the current Prime Minister of the UK visually resemble the "Architect of Apartheid". I know that one is pro-immigration and the other is pro-segregation. [[Special:Contributions/2A0A:EF40:127F:CA01:A071:31C0:A6D8:83A4|2A0A:EF40:127F:CA01:A071:31C0:A6D8:83A4]] ([[User talk:2A0A:EF40:127F:CA01:A071:31C0:A6D8:83A4|talk]]) 15:25, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
1. Colmar; 2. the Coq Gaulois (Gallic rooster); 3: well, most recently, Napoleon I when he abolished the Revolutionary Calendar, which had a year that started in September. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 12:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:Nobody says they look similar, so far as I can find. They both are mentioned in ''Censorship : A World Encyclopedia'' (2015), but Starmer appears there in his former role as a barrister, defending two members of Greenpeace who distributed a leaflet entitled ''What’s Wrong with McDonald’s: Everything they Don’t Want you to Know.'' [[User:Card_Zero|<span style=" background-color:#fffff0; border:1px #995; border-style:dotted solid solid dotted;"> Card Zero </span>]] [[User_talk:Card_Zero|(talk)]] 16:03, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
== Article Search ==
:They might have similar hair styles. You could take the Verwoerd pic and draw glasses on it, and see if they look any more alike. To me, Starmer looks more like [[Fred Barnes (journalist)|Fred Barnes]]. ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 17:10, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
Several years ago Good Housekeeping published an article on what one should read to be considered "well read." It gave book titled to be read over 10 or so years. Can you help me with the article?
:No, but I bet someone on the [http://www.ivillage.com/messageboards/goodhousekeeping Good Housekeeping Messageboards] can. Try posting your question there. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 19:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
::The clues used to recognise faces vary from greatly person to person, so that someone can see sometimes a similarity that others cannot. See [[face perception]]. [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 18:48, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
::Please, please do not rely on Good Housekeeping or any other such source to determine for you what it is to be 'well-read'. This is not a recipe, for goodness sake. To be truly 'well-read' is to be beyond any such guidance or manipulation. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 23:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
::Huh. When I saw the lead pic of Starmer, I immediately thought of [[Colin Firth]] in the first ''[[Kingsman: The Secret Service|Kingsman]]'' movie. YMMV, obviously. [[User:Matt Deres|Matt Deres]] ([[User talk:Matt Deres|talk]]) 20:38, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
:::Oh, good grief, there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that what being "well-read" means is determined by others, or in accepting guidance from them towards the goal of becoming well-read one's self. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 23:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:No, they look nothing like each other, except they both have rather long faces. Calling Starmer "pro-immigration" is rather wierd. [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 21:32, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
::The question could contain a hidden agenda. ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 00:10, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
:::If so, it's not obvious to ''this'' Brit, so let's not try to mindread the Brit OP and just assume it was an innocent observation. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} [[Special:Contributions/94.1.208.246|94.1.208.246]] ([[User talk:94.1.208.246|talk]]) 15:51, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
::::Actually, Hendrik Verwoerd looks like a combination of Kier Starmer and [[Nigel Farage]]. [[Special:Contributions/2A0A:EF40:127F:CA01:65EB:FC10:A6A:9FF7|2A0A:EF40:127F:CA01:65EB:FC10:A6A:9FF7]] ([[User talk:2A0A:EF40:127F:CA01:65EB:FC10:A6A:9FF7|talk]]) 18:19, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
:::I rarely say it, but this Brit thinks Bugs is right. Calling Starmer "pro-immigration" is indeed suggestive of a (poorly) hidden agenda. [[User:DuncanHill|DuncanHill]] ([[User talk:DuncanHill|talk]]) 19:01, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
== Help making sense of a ship's service history ==
::::Regardless of whether or not Good Housekeeping is a source of enlightenment or not, here's a list of must-read literature I picked up many years ago:
Hi all,<br>
*Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Presently, I am working on the article {{USCGC|Dione}} and am attempting to track down her service history in the commercial market, from 1964 until when she was last reported in 1992 (https://books.google.com/books?id=Y36QAgAAQBAJ). Unfortunately, this task has turned into what feels like an impossible one. Each time I find a new mention, it's under a different company, or another name, or dates conflict, etc.<br>
*The Aenid
Known facts:
*Age of Reason
* Operated under the names Dione, Big Trouble, Delta I, and Al Rashid (https://books.google.com/books?id=01OjHke_r4YC&q=%E2%80%9CDione%E2%80%9D+%E2%80%9Cwpc-107%E2%80%9D).
*Alice's adventures in Wonderland and Through the Lookingglass
* Carried the US official number 297193 and the call sign WD4627 (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Merchant_Vessels_of_the_United_States_in/j_EjAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Al+Rashid%22+%22SABIK%22&pg=PA63&printsec=frontcover)
*All quiet on the Western Front
I've thrown together a rough timeline, with sources, in hopes of someone being able to help me try and make sense of this.
*The American
* February 1964: Sold by US Coast Guard (https://www.history.uscg.mil/Browse-by-Topic/Assets/Water/All/Article/2457405/dione-1934/)
*Andersonville
* Prior to 1967, owned by the Palmer Decker Boat Company (https://books.google.com/books?id=ZdgjAQAAIAAJ). PDBC was dissolved in 1967 (https://www.newspapers.com/image/1033745774/).
*Animal Farm
* 1969, owned by Sabik Inc and named ''Delta I''. Caught fire 1969 (https://www.newspapers.com/image/213006514/) and was rebuilt 1970, chartered to Mideast Trading Company (https://www.newspapers.com/image/327663110).
*Anna Karenina
But things get really confusing..
*Arrowsmith
* A 1970 USCG registry says she was owned by Delta Boats Inc. as ''Delta I'' (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Merchant_Vessels_of_the_United_States/KbUCDWysENMC?hl=en&gbpv=1)
*Babbit
* March 1971, owned by Big Trouble Inc. and named ''Big Trouble'' (https://www.newspapers.com/image/854230005/)
*Bell Jar
* A 1969 USCG document (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Merchant_Vessels_of_the_United_States/WEYfAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1) lists her as being named ''Big Trouble'' and owned by Big Trouble Inc.
*Beowolf
* A 1970 USCG document lists her name as being changed from ''Delta I'' to ''Al Rashid'', all the while owned by Sabik (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Merchant_Vessels_of_the_United_States/fMwZjhAO4KIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Al%20Rashid).
*The Bible
* A 1976 document lists her names in order: ''Dione'', ''Big Trouble'', ''Delta I'', and ''Al Rashid'' (https://books.google.com/books?id=01OjHke_r4YC&q=%E2%80%9CDione%E2%80%9D+%E2%80%9Cwpc-107%E2%80%9D#v=snippet&q=%E2%80%9CDione%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%9Cwpc-107%E2%80%9D&f=false).
*Big Sky
* 1971, she was once again owned by Sabik but under the name ''Al Rashid'' (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Merchant_Vessels_of_the_United_States/Rt0jAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0). I cannot find any more conflicting information after this; it looks like this is where it calms down.
*Billy Budd
I've done some research on some of these companies. Delta Boats Inc. was formerly named Big Trouble Inc., but the name was changed in 1969 (https://coraweb.sos.la.gov/CommercialSearch/CommercialSearchDetails.aspx?CharterID=122571_8871FBB4A2). The 1969 document would line up with ''Big Trouble'' being owned by the company but the company (and ship) was still known as Big Trouble in 1971?? (https://www.newspapers.com/image/854230005/)<br>
*Brave New World
Is there any chance that someone could try and clear up confusion here or shed some light on this? Greatly sorry for the sheer number of links here, just not everything is cited in the article and I wanted to make it clear where I'm getting my info from. Pinging @[[User:GGOTCC|GGOTCC]] as he's been somewhat trying to help me understand all this over on Discord. [[User:PhoenixCaelestis|PhoenixCaelestis]] ([[User talk:PhoenixCaelestis|Talk]] · [[Special:Contributions/PhoenixCaelestis|Contributions]]) 23:59, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
*Brothers Karamozov
*Caine Mutiny
*Call of the Wild
*Candide
*Canterbury Tales
*The Castle
*Catch-22
*Catcher in the Rye
*The Chosen
*Complete Stories of Edgar Allen Poe
*Color Purple
*A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
*Count of Monte Cristo
*Crime and Punishment
*Cry, the Beloved Country
*Daisy Miller
*Darkness at Noon
*David Copperfield
*Death Comes for the Archbishop
*A Death in the Family
*The Dollmaker
*Don Quixote De La Mancha
*Dracula
*Dune
*Emma
*Ethan Fromme
*Fahrenheit 451
*A Farewell to Arms
*Farewell to Manzanar
*Fathers and Sons
*The Fixer
*Flowers for Algernon (David & Lisa)
*For Whom the Bell Tolls
*Frankenstein
*French Lieutenant's Woman
*Germinal
*Giant
*Giants in the Earth
*Go Tell it on the Mountain
*Gone with the Wind
*Good Earth
*Grapes of Wrath
*Great Expectations
*Great Gatsby
*Great Short Works of Joseph Conrad
*Geeen Mansions
*Grendel
*Gulliver's Travels
*Heart is a Lonely Hunter
*Hiroshima
*Hobbit
*House of Seven Gables
*Hunchback of Notre Dame
*I Heard the Owl Call My Name
*I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
*The Iliad
*In this Sign
*Invisible Man
*Ivanhoe
*Jane Eyre
*The Jungle
*Jungle Books
*Kidnapped
*The King Must Die
*Kristen Lavransdatter
*Last of the Mohicans
*Little Women
*Look Homeward Angel
*Lord Jim
*Lord of the Flies
*Lord of the Rings (toke a spliff or two)
*Madame Bovary
*Magic Mountain
*Main Street
*Mayor of Casterbridge
*Metamorphosis
*Mill on the Floss
*Les Miserables
*Moby Dick
*Moll of Flanders
*Le Morte D'Arthur
*Mutiny on the Bounty
*My Antonia
*Native Son
*The Natural
*Nausea
*1984
*Nectar in a Sieve
*Northwest Passage
*The Odyssey
*Of Human Bondage
*Of Mice and Men
*Old Man and the Sea
*Oliver Twist
*On the Beach
*The Once and Future King
*One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
*One Hundred Years of Solitude
*The Oxbow Incident
*Painted Bird
*Pearl
*Le Pere Goriot
*The Picture of Dorian Grey
*Pilgrim's Progress
*The Plague
*Portrait of a Lady
*Portraid of the Artist as a Young Man
*Power and the Glory
*Pride and Predjudice
*Quo Vadis
*Rabbit Run
*Rebecca
*The Red and the Black
*Red Badge of Courage
*Red Pony
*Return of the Native
*Robinson Crusoe
*Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry
*Saturday Night Fever
*Scarlet Letter
*Separate Piece
*Shane
*Sherlock Holmes, the Complete Stories
*Siddartha
*Silas Marner
*Sister Carrie
*Slaughterhouse-Five
*Song of Roland
*Sons and Lovers
*Sound and the Fury
*Star Wars
*Stranger
*Sun Also Rises
*Tale of Two Cities
*Three Musketeers
*Time Machine
*The Tin Drum
*To Kill a Mockingbird
*To The Lighthouse
*Tom Jones
*Treasure Island
*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
*Turn of the Screw
*20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
*U.S.A.
*Ugly American
*Uncle Tom's Cabin
*Vanity Fair
*Walkabout
*War and Peace
*Wind, Sand, and Stars
*Winesburg, Ohio
*Women in Love
*Wuthering Heights
*The Yearling
*You Can't Go Home Again
*Zorba the Greek
= October 20 =
::Ah, yes; the perfect list for the aspiring autodidact of today. It must have taken ''so much time and effort'' to compile; I'm impressed. Now, get going. Questions will be asked. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== [[Iliad]] question about slavery, religious human sacrifice ==
Geez, that was a huge list. I've only read about a fifth of them. [[192.168.1.1]] 8:55PM, 7 Rocktober 2006 (PST)
In Homer's Iliad, there is plenty of mention of the Greeks owning slaves and making human sacrifices Is it mentioned as done by the Trojans? I haven't noticed any. Maybe Homer was trying to say the Trojans were more ethical [[User:Richard L. Peterson|Rich]] ([[User talk:Richard L. Peterson|talk]]) 02:51, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
:Have you read Star Wars? What was it like? [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 06:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:If it was Homer's purpose to sing the honour of the Trojans, he made [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pJ-BOwkHaE an exception for Paris.] ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 09:13, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
:I haven't even heard of most of those titles. And Star Wars is a must read? That has to be a joke. Of course that is all matter of taste and anyone who would take this list seriously and starts reading all the books should think about getting a mind of their own. That said, I ''do'' recommend reading 'Brave new world' and '1984' in tandem. It's a great comparison. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:35, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Virgil imagines that the Trojans held slaves, as he has them give a slave-woman, Pholoë, as a prize to Aeneas.<sup>[https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.491.xml]</sup> He obviously knew the ''Iliad'' well and would not have wanted to contradict it, so the ''Iliad'' does apparently not imply that the Trojans held no slaves. ​‑‑[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 09:39, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
:Also, all the above are novels it seems. What about some works of science? 'The origin of species' is a classic. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:I don't think Homer would have considered slave ownership to be unethical - it was pretty much universal in the ancient world. If God almighty hadn't figured out that slavery was evil at about the same time, I don't think we can expect some Greek poet to have more insight. [[User:Chuntuk|Chuntuk]] ([[User talk:Chuntuk|talk]]) 13:41, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
:[[Andromache]], Hector's wife, has house-slaves [https://archive.org/details/iliad-balboa/iliad-balboa-volume-2_2020-08-26/page/549/mode/1up?q=slaves in book 22]. The word is [[wikt:δμῳῇσιν]], a plural of δμῳή (dmōiḗ), female slave. [[User:Card_Zero|<span style=" background-color:#fffff0; border:1px #995; border-style:dotted solid solid dotted;"> Card Zero </span>]] [[User_talk:Card_Zero|(talk)]] 15:00, 20 October 2025 (UTC)
= October 22 =
::Yes, all are works of fiction: the list comes from the local public library system here, and is a list of all those works of literature you should have read in school but didn't. That's why it doesn't contain any non-fiction or scientific works. I do have a list of recommended books on the history of science somewhere, I think. (Oh, and yeah, I slipped a couple ringers in there too... I wouldn't seriously ask anyone to read The Aenid. It was late when I typed it, and I'd been sipping a nice single-malt Scotch.) -- [[192.168.1.1]] 9:45, 8 Rocktober 2006 (PST)
:::Why not the ''[[Aeneid]]''? I personally think it should be required reading for any educated person. At least more so than most of the books on this list. It was extremely influential (especially among poets) and will add greatly to one's appreciation of later literature — Dante's [[Divine Comedy]] in particular, another work that is conspicuous in its absence from this list. --[[User:D Monack|dm]] <sup>[[User talk:D Monack|(''talk'')]]</sup> 05:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== Oil Painting by Alexandre Jacobs ==
When I search for Alexandre Jacobs, the result is Marius Jacobs. I am searching for the painter. I am wondering what an oil painting by him would be worth.
Leslie
:Any work of art is worth only what someone is prepared to pay for it. Since your Alexandre Jacobs seems not to be well known, it would be best to take the painting along to specialist.--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 18:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
== Name this song & artist ==
I'm trying to remember the artist in this song. It has a male singer during the chorus singing in a somewhat high-pitched voice to start something along the lines of "hold me close love, its all me, its all me... gotta ask yourself one question, where are you now?"... [[User:Croat Canuck|Croat Canuck]] <i><font size="1"><font color="blue">[[User talk:Croat Canuck|Go Leafs Go]]</font></font></i> 18:54, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
isn't that the song with which James blunt broke through?dont remember the exact name [[User:Graendal|Graendal]] 17:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::That would be [[Wisemen (song)]]. High-pitched voice, hah. [[User:Hornplease|Hornplease]] 10:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Nostalgia Collection ==
I posted this on miscel. earlier but didn't get what I wanted. I am looking for an audio or video file containing famous quotes or scenes from history, movies, and/or television. For example an audio file with "No, I am your father," "To infinity and beyond," and "E.T. phone home." I just want the most famous scenes from the most famous movies and TV shows all in one place. Or perhaps small clips of famous music. Thanks! <font style="background:#7FFF00">[[User:Reywas92|'''Reywas92''']]</font><sup><font style="background:#00ff7f">[[User talk:Reywas92|'''Talk''']]</font></sup> 20:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
== Deletion of New Artist Stub 'Lee Woods' [[User:Artmaid|Artmaid]] 20:36, 7 October 2006 (UTC)Artmaid ==
I've returned from holiday to find my first contribution to Wikipedia deleted by User 'SiGarb'. The article was about Plymouth born (UK) artist Lee Woods and the reason cited by 'SiGarb' was the absence of any reference to a critical review in a national newspaper of this artist which, it seems, would alone justify inclusion in Wikipedia.
I have a background as a lecturer in art history at undergraduate and post-graduate level, with a particular interest in artists of the 20th century, specifically those from the South West of England area; (St.Ives school, Newlyn School etc). Lee Woods is generally acknowledged as one of the most significant 'popular' artists currently hailing from this area of the UK and is one of the founder members of the new 'folk-art revival' movement which has been sweeping the UK since the early 1990's. I avoided the inclusion of such primary research (which I intend to include in a book I'm having published next year), however, all of the remaining information contained in the article is already very much in the public ___domain. The widespread nature of Lee's 'genetic zoo' series for example can be verified simply by searching the terms 'lee woods' and 'genetic zoo' together in google, or any other search engine. Prints and posters of his work are on sale from Vladivostock to Vancouver! As for the only other piece of information which might be percieved to be 'contentious' and need substantiation (the mass media coverage of the first genetic zoo exhibtion) one only need do a simple search of the reuters and associated press database for the date given in the article to verify the plethora of articles that this exhibition generated across the world.
The whole point of artists like Lee Woods and other members of the 'folk art revival' is that they are often self-taught, POPULAR artists, who paint and sell direct to their public and therefore frequently do not register on the established, public-subsidied art radar! They would not be the original, cult, folk-artists that they are if they received 'high-art' critique in national newspapers!
My Question is, how is wikipedia ever going to become an authoritative source of information if the submissions of interested academics like myself are so easily and speedily deleted by people of unquantifiable background knowledge, apparently limited ability to research and who are able to invoke/ invent apparently arbitrary and -in my opinion -ill-informed inclusion criteria? I have tried to contact the user 'SiGarb' in order to put these questions but he/she has chosen not to give a valid email address. How can this article be re-instated? If it can't be, I see absolutely no point wasting my time making future contributions.
Yours [[User:Artmaid|Artmaid]] 20:36, 7 October 2006 (UTC)Artmaid
:The reference desk is the wrong place to deal with this sort of issue. Try [[Wikipedia:Deletion review]]. —[[User:Keenan Pepper|Keenan Pepper]] 21:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:BTW, I agree that the speedy deletion was out of order, and I can make the deleted text available to you if you'd like. —[[User:Keenan Pepper|Keenan Pepper]] 22:06, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
:Hello, ArtMaid. I suspect the problem was that you were not around to argue the case. I have several times proposed articles for deletion, even on subjects I am not knowledgeable on, on the basis that the article as it stood did not give sufficient reasons to continue to exist. I'm not sure that deletion has resulted even once - what it has done is stimulated discussion and, hopefully, caused the articles to be improved. People do not usually reveal email addresses on Wikipedia: the way to contact SiGarb is by posting on his talk page [[User talk:SiGarb]]. --[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 17:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
== Conjoined twin autobiography ==
Has a member of an unseparated pair of [[conjoined twins]] ever published an autobiography (or diary or journal or whatever)? —[[User:Keenan Pepper|Keenan Pepper]] 22:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Would you count ''A Few particulars concerning Chang-Eng, the united Siamese brothers : published under their own direction.'', New York : J.M. Elliott, 1838? - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 22:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC) - And Daisy and Violet Hilton wrote an autobiography in 1942. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 22:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
== If the Germans had won WWII and the Final Solution had been completed ==
Do you think there would now be peace in the Middle East and worldwide, in terms of Islamic terrorism? Just playing devil's advocate here. {{unsigned2|23:35, 7 October 2006|84.65.142.31}}
:No. What effect would a German conquest of Europe and elimination of the European Jewry have on Sunni vs Shiite violence? Moderate Sunni vs Islamist Sunni violence? Muslim vs Christian violence? It would have no effect on such things. And all of these conflicts have created Islamic terrorism; therefore, the world would still have Islamic terrorism, even if there was no Israel. [[User talk:Picaroon9288|Picaroon9288]] 00:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::The Nazis would then move on to killing all the Muslims. They had no objection to killing off anyone who gave them trouble (even if only in their fevered minds). [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 03:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::But would they really turn on their [[puppet|good friend]], the [[Mohammad Amin al-Husayni|Grand Mufti]]? (Actually, I expect so.) [[User talk:Picaroon9288|Picaroon9288]] 03:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
No big deal. So many Native American tribes were eliminated from this planet. Life goes on. Nothing is the end of the world. -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 03:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm sure to the Native American tribes that were "eliminated", there certainly was an "end of the world". I'm not sure what you're trying to say with that statement. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 03:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:: If Hitler made it, in a few years, people would visit Berlin as if nothing had ever happend. They would not be unlike people who visit today's New York, Boston, Los Angeles ... . History is written by the winner. -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 03:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::True. It depends on whether you think that Hitler and those who followed after him would have continued to be as ruthless as they had been during the war, and after his death reflect on the atrocities that had been committed during his reign. Free society is not an inevitable precipitate. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 06:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:World peace in terms of terrorism (islamic or otherwise)? Terrorism is negligible compared to the destructive power of wars. Don't believe the hype. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Terrorism has been practiced since the 19th century by dissident groups too weak to field an army to achive their aims. The Germans called the European [[Resistance]] movements terrorism. It is not purely a muslim invention or phenomenon, and while it was [[Irgun|used]] by jews in the formation of Israel before they had an army, it wasnt invented by them either. So if you imagine a history as radically different as one in which Germany won WWII, you can spin any story you want about which group that might be today's terrorists in an alternate universe. [[User:Alteripse|alteripse]] 14:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Although I have to agree with Alteripse, I would like to point out that guerilla warfare is a form of terrorism and has been and still is one of the more ffective techniques. [[User:Graendal|Graendal]] 17:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:The term "terrorism" has always been extremely difficult to define. Many, like alterprise, assert that the [[Irgun]] was a terrorist organization. To me, I define "terrorism" as the ''gratuitous killing'' of innocent civilians. I just can't equate the Irgun's retaliations against Arab attacks and its attack on the British "military, police and civil headquarters" at the King David Hotel, with the attacks on the ''entirely civilian'' WTC on 9/11. Note that I'm not quite sure if I'd regard the attack on the Pentagon as "terrorism", as the Pentagon, being the headquarters of the US military, is a ''bona fide'' military target. An attack on a ''bona fide'' military target is to me an act of war, not of terrorism. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 22:05, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::The person who asked this question seems to assume that the root cause of unrest in the Middle East and Islamist terrorism is the existence of the Jewish state of Israel. If this were all or most of the cause, the questioner might be right that the Middle East would be at peace. But I would suggest that a leading cause of unrest and Islamism in the Middle East is the effort by western nations, and particularly the US and the UK, to control the region's oil and oil wealth, which has required repeated military intervention, sometimes with Israel serving as a US surrogate. Now, let's suppose that Hitler had conquered the Soviet Union and forced the UK to surrender and pledge neutrality or join the Axis. His next move would likely have been to take over the countries under French, British, or Italian influence or control that then covered most of North Africa and the Middle East, in order to secure their oil supply. He would probably also move to bring Iran under his control. This would have put Germany into conflict with Muslim (and perhaps Islamist) resistance and into conflict with the US and his erstwhile ally Japan. Or suppose that Hitler had somehow subdued the US as well. Germany would still face conflict with the Islamists and Arab and Iranian nationalists, as well as Japan, which would want to break the German stranglehold on oil supplies. It is hard to imagine Hitler agreeing to share Middle Eastern oil with Japan freely. Although he agreed to partition Poland with the Soviets, this was tactical and not a long-term commitment. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Another point: To be successful with the Final Solution, meaning eliminating all Jews, Hitler would have had to conquer most of the Muslim world, at least from Morocco eastward into Persia, a region of the world where thousands of Jews lived. How would Islamic Salafists and other fundamentalists have reacted to Christian/pagan/infidel Nazis conquering the Muslim world? Not with flowers and kisses. [[User:D Monack|dm]] <sup>[[User talk:D Monack|(''talk'')]]</sup> 05:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
He could have just asked,most of the Muslim countries would destroy their own Jews for him.There was no need for him to conquer any of Muslim countries,because they hate Jews more then he did.
:Um, yes. Sure. Good to know that even after the Holocaust, casual racism is still cool. [[User:EamonnPKeane|EamonnPKeane]] 21:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 8=
== Phone Q ==
On my cell phone, there is an option for a 2 second hard pause and a 5 second soft...what do these mean? Thanks, [[User:ChowderInopa|ChowderInopa]] 00:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:A pause tells your phone to wait when dialling a stored number, rather than sending off all of the numbers in one continuous stream. It's useful for dialling phone extensions, or for navigating phone trees if there's something you usually do frequently. For instance, you can store a friend's work number as 123-4567p#890 (where the p is a 5 second soft pause) and you'll dial their main switchboard (123-4567), wait for the automated system to pick up and say "Hello, welcome to XYZ Corp. If you know the extension of the party you wish to call, press pound now.", then press pound and dial your friend's extension (890). Normally, a hard pause requires you to press a button to continue, whereas a soft pause just waits the number of seconds indicated and then goes ahead. --[[User:ByeByeBaby|ByeByeBaby]] 04:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
"Thank you for calling the Last National Bank. Warning, our menu system has just been changed..."
"Beep !"
"You have selected to donate all your assets held with the bank to St. Periwinkle's Home for Wayward Hedgehogs. That transfer is now complete. Thank you. Have a nice day." :-) [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
== Your Characterization of the Oxford Philosopher J.L. Austin's work ==
I believe that your characterizations of [[J. L. Austin|Austin]]'s ''How To Do Things With Words''
is very misleading. All of the terms which Austin introduced are germane only
because Austin projected extant speech situations and all possible (especially educational) speech situations in ''How To Do Things With Words''. If you formulated your posting in consideration of Professor Searle's publications you err. Parliaments, Congresional functions,
concerted and cooperative endeavors (note the well-organized intelligence work on
the Normandy Invasion.. he was fluent in nine languages ...if I remember correctly too)
I went cover to cover on Collegiate dictionaries and lived with the O.E.D itself
when I did my graduate paper on ''How To Do Things With Words''.
Austin wasn't throwing the baby out with the bathwater when he featured the much vaunted
Illocutionary Act.
I do not wish to wedge my comprehension of ''How To Do Things With Words'' here. Suffice
it to say Austin craced the crib of the reality of speech in the world. Searle
shows no appreciation of the universality of ''How To Do Things With Words''.
I look forward to any questions or probes on this from your quite valuable and
much honored work at Wikipedia. Oh I did get copyright usage clearance on
''How To Do Things With Words''.. (many years ago when doing the graduate research
thesis work on this.
Robert J. Myers, (street address removed to prevent mail bombs) [email address removed to stop spamming] thank you for the time here.
:It is not quite clear what "your characterizations" refers to and in what way they are deemed misleading. There are references to ''How To Do Things With Words'' in our articles [[Carlo Penco]], [[Illocutionary act]], [[J. L. Austin]], [[Jacques Derrida]], [[Logical argument]], [[Meaning (linguistics)]], [[Performative]], [[Performativity]], [[Philosophy of language]], [[Pragmatics]], and [[Speech act]]. Is it claimed somewhere that Austin introduced germane terms (germane to what?) for the wrong reasons, or that he performed ejection on infants in state of ablution? Could you be more specific? --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 05:20, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::There is only one article on Wikipedia that includes the word "germane" and a reference to J L Austin: [[Analytic Philosophy#Ordinary language philosophy]]. Note the cleanup tag. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 05:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Mr Myers, you are addressing your comments to Wikipedians at large (or rather, those who look at the Reference Desk), most of whom have probably never looked at [[J. L. Austin]], much less contributed to it. Please improve the article yourself, or if you think discussion is required, a posting to the article's talk page [[Talk:J. L. Austin]] will engage the people who are most interested in the topic. --[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 17:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
==No age limit for drinking alcohol in Australia==
Is it true that there is NO AGE LIMIT to consuming alcohol in Australia.
I was told that there are alcohol laws in Australia but they only talk about buying/selling alcohol and road laws. Anyone of any age can consume any amount of alcohol provided they are not doing it on public land.
Is it true? If so I'm flying down to down under for a very alcoholic holiday.
:No it is not. The age limit for legal drinking in Austalia is 18. See [[Legal drinking age]]. You might, however, want to book a trip to [[Armenia]], [[Azerbaijan]], [[China]], [[Nigeria]], [[Portugal]], Soviet [[Georgian SSR|Georgia]], [[Thailand]] or [[Vietnam]]. See [http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj//LegalDrinkingAge.html here]--[[User:Deepujoseph|thunderboltz]]<sup><font color="green">[[user_talk:Deepujoseph|(Deepu)]]</font></sup> 07:31, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::Soviet Georgia? You're assuming he has a time machine? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Doesn't he? Too bad then. In present day Georgia, you can drink, but not buy alcohol legally. --[[User:Deepujoseph|thunderboltz]]<sup><font color="green">[[user_talk:Deepujoseph|(Deepu)]]</font></sup> 08:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Na. Na. Na. You are wrong. '''Minors can legally drink alcohol in Australia.''' To paraphase:
:Laws Relating to Minors
:There are several provisions in the Liquor Licensing Act which protect minors, primarily in Part 7. The Licensing Court can take disciplinary action against a licensee who breaches the Act and can fine or reprimand the licensee, change the licence conditions, suspend or revoke the licence.
:Under section 107 of the Act, a licensee is guilty of an offence if they employ a minor to sell, supply, or to serve liquor on the premises, unless the minor is a child of the licensee or responsible person and is aged 16 years or more, who is resident on the premises, otherwise licensing authority approval is required.
:Where can a minor legally drink alcohol?*
::1. At their own home or someone else's - regardless of whether an adult legal guardian or spouse is present.
::2. In public places that are neither licensed premises, regulated premises nor dry areas (e.g. a family barbecue in a public area such as a park) provided they are in the company of an adult legal guardian or spouse.
:Where can a minor NOT legally drink alcohol?*
::1. In regulated premises including licensed premises (e.g. a restaurant, hotel, premises with a limited licence or reception centre) - a minor may be present at these venues (before midnight, or before 9.00 p.m. at premises with an entertainment venue licence), but may not buy or drink alcohol.
::2. In a public place unless in the company of an adult legal guardian or spouse.
:In summary, minors:
::* can consume alcohol provided it is not in a public place or regulated premises
::* can consume alcohol in a public place under the supervision of an adult legal guardian or spouse provided that it is not a dry area, regulated premises or in or near to prescribed entertainment such as a dance
::* can generally be on licensed premises before midnight (before 9.00 p.m. in an entertainment venue) but cannot obtain or consume alcohol
::* are not allowed in areas of licensed premises declared out of bounds to minors, or in gaming areas
::* are not allowed on licensed premises between the hours of midnight and 5.00 a.m. unless in a designated dining area, a bedroom or an area approved for minors
:Examples:
::1. If at the clubrooms, a football coach gives the team some beers to celebrate a win, and some of the team are under 18, that is an offence (supplying liquor to a minor in regulated premises, section 110 & 114 of the Act). However, it would not be illegal for the coach to invite the team to his home for drinks.
::2. At a wedding reception held in a licensed restaurant, a hotel, a wedding reception centre or public hall, it is illegal if a minor drinks a toast containing alcohol to the bride and groom (selling/supplying alcohol to minors, sections 110 & 114 of the Act).
:URL: http://www.dassa.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=124
:URL: http://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/main1.cfm?categoryid=3&topicid=252&infopageid=517
:URL: http://www.health.vic.gov.au/drugs/alcohol/youth/law.htm
:If you go through the expense of flying to Australia, don't waste your time there being drunk all the time. Like the people who visit Amsterdam, are stoned all the time and can't remember a thing of the city or its people. Being drunk or stoned can be nice, but visiting another coutry and broadening your horizons will in ht eend be much more rewarding. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::If you are American kids, you may think that "Cool! Aussie kids can legally drink alcohol in the comfort of their own home. They must be living in '''paradise'''." Please think again. The reality is quite different.
::If you drink alcohol in your home without your parent's permission, you will get a whack from your dad for stealing his alcohol. If you insists on your legal right to drink, he will tell you to do it outside his property.
::If you are outside your home, you have two problems.
::1. If you drink on public land, the police will arrest you.
::2. Eh? You do not have any alcohol. And it is illegal for anyone to sell alcohol to minors.
::So you go to your friend's house right? Opps, same problem. Your friend's parents will NOT let your drink their alcohol. So you sit there in your friend's house while your friend is drinking alcohol but you can't. Your friend's parent will not give you alcohol for fear of "Giving alcohol to a minor". They are happy to provide their own children with alcohol, just not to you. [[User:Ohanian|Ohanian]] 10:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The situation is much the same in the UK. We have an age limit for drinking alcohol - of five years [[http://www.channel4.com/health/microsites/A/addiction/alcandlaw.html]]. In practice I was lucky to get more than a sip of sherry at Christmas and then only when I was about 12 years old! -- [[User:Chris Q|Chris Q]] 12:15, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== Why is it called mizuhiki (water pulling)? history? process? ==
I know that mizuhiki is the Japanese art of knot tying using several strands of wire-like paper that has been covered with tiny ribbons of metallic foil & that it is used widely for decorating gifts. What I don't understand is why it is called literally "water pulling". Does this have to do with the process by which the paper strands are made? Is it describing the process of tying the knots using the material or is it just arbitrary? The last possibility seems unlikely in light of words like "origami" (literally 'folding paper') & "kirigami" (literally 'cutting paper'). I would also like to know more about the history of mizuhiki & the process by which the strands are made. Please help me answer these questions. Thanks.
:jaWiki isn't very helpful on this. It basically says that mizuhiki originated as a type of gift in the days of [[Ononoimoko]], but not where the actual name comes from. Try asking the jaWiki users on chatsubo. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 17:04, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Metallic blue ribbon may look like water. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Yes, but I don't think they had that in the 7th century CE! [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 09:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== women having sex ==
when women have sex, I assume their breasts become enlarged. What I want to know is that whether their nipples also enlarge? I also would like to know whether breasts harden while in erection or remain soft. Since I am 23 years and no experience in touching a women, I am interested in asking this.
Thankyou
:You will be disappointed to learn that there's no significant change in breast size regardless of level of excitement. In the nipples, you may expect a change, generally a hardening and constriction rather than enlargement, analagous to "gooseflesh" in the rest of the skin - the same change that occurs in response to a cold environment. Men's nipples do pretty much the same thing, so it shouldn't be that far outside your realm of experience. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 09:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::Maybe you were thinking of the [[pupil]]... ;) The [[clitoris]] gets somewhat of an erection though... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 11:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
for some reason, our [[sexual arousal]] article has "increase in breast size". that article may be in need of some fact-checking. [[User:Dbachmann|dab]] <small>[[User_talk:Dbachmann|('''ᛏ''')]]</small> 14:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:It's a pity that personal research is banned... ;) —[[User:Dbmag9|<span style="font-variant:small-caps">D</span>]]<font color="green">[[User:Dbmag9/Esperanza|<span style="font-variant:small-caps">a</span>]]</font>[[User:Dbmag9|<span style="font-variant:small-caps">niel</span>]] [[User talk:Dbmag9|(‽)]] 14:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::You'd need to have performed enough field research for sufficient statistical data. Could you honestly claim that? ;) [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 15:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::As a 14-year-old male, I'd have to say... no. ;) —[[User:Dbmag9|<span style="font-variant:small-caps">D</span>]]<font color="green">[[User:Dbmag9/Esperanza|<span style="font-variant:small-caps">a</span>]]</font>[[User:Dbmag9|<span style="font-variant:small-caps">niel</span>]] [[User talk:Dbmag9|(‽)]] 17:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::::In studies they use heat vision to see that blood flow increases to the chest and pelvis during arousal (as well as the lips, face and neck). I would assume the increase in blood flow would cause a small increase in size. Though the change would probably be less that what is normally experienced during the course of a menstrual cycle and definitely much less that the changes that the breasts go through during pregnancy. [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 18:33, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Actually the size of a womens breasts do increase when they aroused but the degree in which they grow differs per individual case and how far they are aroused. in some cases they may swell up by approx. 25%. oh and I could claim that wakuran. as a 17-year old male with a lot of holidays :) though actual measuring didn't really occur to me at those times . I get my intel from a book i once read about breasts.(NO NOT THE PLAYBOY BUT AN ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC ONE! *mumbles* damn those boilogy teachers*mumbles*) it is even possible for women to climax through only touching the breasts in the right way. but every women has their own thrills.[[User:Graendal|Graendal]] 08:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::What scientific book would that be? Can you link to any other sources? Boilogy sounds like fun too, but I don't see what that has to do with boobs. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 09:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::: Well, Biology hereabouts also has the subject of the human body, as for the book it was simply called ''breasts'' and in it there were lots of close-ups, explanations etc. etc. the book was in dutch though. and through personal experience I can confirm the growth and climax of the breasts. [[User:Graendal|Graendal]] 15:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== Nazi Germany military achievements ==
I used to be quite impressed with Germany conquering all of Europe (and then even having the 'spares' to fight in Africa). Later I learned that they didn't quite conquer all of Europe. And last week I did some more reading and I now get the impression they didn't achieve much at all. Here's how I understand it now:
*[[Vichy]] (southern France), [[Italy]], [[Bulgaria]], [[Romania]], [[Hungary]], [[Slovakia]] and [[Finland]] were allies (of sorts - not entirely fair on the Finns).
*[[Turkey]], [[Spain]], [[Portugal]], [[Switzerland]], [[Ireland]] and [[Sweden]] were neutral
*[[Austria]] welcomed the German armies
*[[Czechia]] was prettty much handed to the Germans by the international community (not too sure about that one)
*[[Norway]], [[Denmark]], the [[Netherlands]] and [[Belgium]] thought they could remain neutral, didn't mobilise and were therefore easy conquests (also because they're small countries)
*The invasion of the [[USSR]] was a complete disaster
*The [[UK]] was never even invaded
Which leaves Northern [[France]], which had an outdated defence system, [[Poland]] and [[Yugoslavia]], which didn't have much of an army (and Poland was simultaneously attacked by the USSR) and [[Greece]]. I am no longer impressed. Actually, it looks rather pathetic for a country that acted like it could conquer half the world. Am I missing something? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 11:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:I think the Blitzkrieg tactics were quite shocking at that time. It seems Hitler more and more got into a state of hubris, but after the failure of the USSR invasion, and US joining the allies, things turned bad for the Nazis rather quickly... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 11:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::That only makes it worse. They ignored the 'gentlemanlike' custom of 'properly' announcing when you attack someone, which gave them an important edge. And still they didn't conquer much - just four countries, none of which put up much of a fight. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 14:12, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::: DirkVDM, I thought of this too when discussing the movie "Der Untergang". In fact, you could even add some more elements to that, weakening their accomplishments :
- they conquered a lot while they were still respecting an agreement with the USSR. Note that in a sense they conquered some parts of Europe "together" with the USSR. There are pictures of Soviet and German soldiers happily chatting.
- they had a pretty big population!
- they had a huge ally in the East : Japan (and Japan sort of had Thailand as an ally as well). While Japan is quite far away, Japan didn't keep lots of USA soldiers busy.~
[[User:Evilbu|Evilbu]] 14:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::::About the German and USSR soldiers happily chatting, I read a short story by a USSR soldier that ever now and then they would stop fighting to have a 'smoking break', sitting donw close to each other. Maybe that is what you saw on those photographs. I'm pretty sure the two armies never fought side by side. They just happened to both attack Poland. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm, although they perhaps didn't conquer much, at least they had huge parts of Europe under their command... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 15:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Dirk, you simply decided to ignore the fact that the German army attacked with '''fewer troops and fewer tanks''' two of the (then) Superpowers (the large [[:British empire]] and France and all its colonies) and crushed them in northern France (and they were prepared and ready for the Germans). You also simply added Vichy as an ally of the Axis, but in fact it was simply a puppet regime under German rule like the puppet-goverments in Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands, etc (besides handing all the French Jews over to the Germans they did almost nothing). The invasion of the Soviet Union ended in a complete disaster, but the initial achievements were considerable (more than a 1 million Russian POW's at the end of the 1st year, and the German armies were mere 50 (even closer?) KMs from Moskou). You have forgotten that almost all of the German European allies were mostly useless (except the Finns, but these were very few) and that the Japanese were simply '''too far away''' to help the Germans, and vice-versa.
Let me put the whole issue in another perspective: How incompetent were the Allies, that it took them '''6 full years''' to crush the Axis powers (and they had to ally themselves with Stalin to pull it off) ?
They could decode almost all the German orders sent through the [[:Enigma machine]] (read:[[:Cryptanalysis of the Enigma]], and in the case of the Japanase it was somthing quite simlar (read [[:JN-25]]. They controlled almost all the Sea trade (despite the best efforts of the German U-boots), with all the resulting war material, and supplies lines (like Petrol and Gas, but also Coal and Iron) and were from the start heavily supported by the USA (despite all initial claims of "neutrality"). They had simply a better technology than the Germans (better Radar, Sonar, planes, the first computers, and they were even making the A-bomb). The "big" German population was around 60 millions (I am not very sure of this figure and am ignorant of the Japanese numbers) while their opponents had how many? 400 million (adding the USA and the USSR), perhaps even more? You are also ignoring that Hitler in order to help the incompetent Mussolini and his secondrate Italian troops from another trashing (the 1st being North Africa), this time from the Greeks, had to quickly invade Yugoslavia and Greece and the Germans did it in only two months despite all British and Greek opposition. Put all the Allied countries (counting the population, and please notice the war production figures) next to your list and then ask something smart. Notice that everything seems very predictable, simple, and easy to an amateur, but solely in hindsight. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Actually, reading about Vichy started me thinking. It seems they had a government that was of the same mind as the nazis. This is where the word collaboration came from. Of course, this is why the Germans didn't need to push through in France. The French themselves were doing their job for them. And about the UK, like I said, they never conquered that. They didn't even try. And they won some battles in the USSR, but lost all that in the same year, with the campaign never conquering any of its major goals (Leningrad, Stalingrad and Moscow), so that wasn't much of a military success. Quite the opposite. The goal of war is to conquer and hold, so you can reap the harvest of your investment. That their allies weren't much of a help is not relevant to what I meant. They never conquered those countries. The only serious opponents they conquered were Northern France and, to a lesser extent, Greece (who put up a bit of a fight because they had help from the Brits).
:You ''do'' seem to have a good point concerning the achievements of the Allies. But as I understand it, the principal goal of the military conquests was economic, through the [[Arbeitseinsatz]]. This assured that they could manufacture loads of weapons on the spot (in stead of importing them from across the Atlantic). And they were pretty good at inventing new technology too, such as the V1 and 2 and the nuclear bomb, although they never managed to finish it. (The USSR used Germans to develop it further, just like the US used a German to develop their space rockets.)
:The Germans also invented the Blitzkrieg, thus totally changing the way wars were fought. Part of the lack of success of the allies lay in the supply lines becoming too long, a problem the Germans also suffered from. The distance from Stalingrad (the furthest the Germans came) to Berlin is about 2500 km. The USSR army covered that distance in less than a year. That is roughly 10 km per day on average. Pretty fast for an advancing army. The Germans had done it in stages, but did the last push in less time. Come to think if it, the achievements in terms of speed were pretty impressive on both sides, considering they had to invent this type of warfare as they went. The western Allies were doing a worse job of it, though.
:But my point is that the Germans didn't do all that much impressive stuff militarily, espcially considering they had all these advantages. Such as not even needign to conquer many countries because they had no desire to fight them and even partly fought at their side. It seems the lack of opposition to the Germans was caused at least partly because nazism and similar ideologies were pretty popular at the time, probably largely as a reaction to the rise of socialism and especially communism. That is also why the pope never really condemned the Germans. He didn't like Hitler, but he hated the commies even more and Hitler was helping him in that respect. Another case of one extreme leading to the opposite extreme. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 19:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::That's what happens when you have an idiot at the helm, somebody who thinks he's right all the time, considers dissent to be traitorous, and won't admit he can make mistakes. Wait a sec... [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 19:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Please tell me you're not serious, Clarity, please. Right or left, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, if you actually believe there's shred of reality in that comparison, well, you've basically just destroyed all that remains of your reputation. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 21:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::He didn't make any comparison at all. If, despite that, you see a similarity to someone else, then therre must be some truth in it. :) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The first part seems to me to be a fairly accurate description of Bush. And yes, I do believe there is a "shred of reality" there. The two have the serious character flaws I listed in common. I forgot to mention his willingness to distort the truth for his own ends (dozens of Nobel laureates have condemned the Bush administration's politicization of science; the WMD's; Saddam's "connection" to al-Quaida). Show me where I'm wrong.
::::Although, come to think of it, he's so incompetent, he's more like [[Mussolini]] than [[Hitler]]. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 00:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::I know many (most!) people here who aren't fans of Bush, and I respect their views. At the very worst, from what I've heard here so far, Bush may be an incompetent moron. Or worse, that he's a greedy oilman who ran for president only to enrich his family (and friends') fortune. I find these accusations ridiculous, but I'm offended by none of them.
:::::But none of them would EVER compare Bush to Hitler, as you have. Bush=Hitler has got to be the most disgusting comment I've ever heard here on Wikipedia, EVER. I've lost family to Hitler. Bush, even if you consider him an idiot (which is your prerogative), is no Hitler. Your comment is disgusting. Please don't backtrack and compare him "more to Mussolini". Even Bush=Mussolini is a disgusting remark. It's ok not to like Bush, but remember, it wasn't ok not to like Hitler or Mussolini! Your comments are disgusting to myself and the memory of the family that I lost.
:::::Have ''you'' lost family to Bush's gas chambers? Have any of ''your'' family been cooked in any of Bush's ovens? Be a man and apologize. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 04:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::I was not trying to equate Bush with Hitler. That would be stupid. If I gave you that impression, certainly I apologize. I was merely pointing out that they share certain personality flaws. If I had noted that [[Charlie Chaplin]] had the same moustache, would that mean that I think the comedian and the dictator were equally bad? Please do not put words in my mouth. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 05:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::"I was not trying to equate Bush with Hitler. That would be stupid. If I gave you that impression, certainly I apologize". Apology accepted. I'm not one to hold grudges. :-) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 09:15, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Loomis, you're not suggesting no-one lost their families to Bush? In Iraq alone over 100 000 dead. Surely, they had family? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Given: if A then B; if B then C
::::::Correct conclusion: if A then C
::::::Faulty conclusion: if C then A
::::::Bush's conclusion: if C then D [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 17:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::Every premature death is a tragedy of equal proportion. Yet not every premature death is the result of the same degree of inhumanity. As I've said below, yes, innocent civilians are dying in Iraq due to the war (yet mostly by anti-US insurgents). Would the same number of innocent civilians be killed without the war? Hard to say, but probably less. I believe that during Saddam's reign at least a good half a million or more were killed (my figures may be wrong, I'm not sure if that takes into account the Iranians, the Kuwaitis and/or the Kurds). In any case, as I said below with regards to Clinton in Serbia as well, Bush never ''wished'' these folks to die. As moronic as you believe he is, do you actually believe that he's actually evil enough to ''wish'' the death of innocent Iraqis? Hitler not only ''wished'' the Jews of Europe to be killed, but he ''METICULOUSLY PLANNED FOR IT''. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 14:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Well all those countries that are allies, they're not goin to invade them just to prove a point to you are they, plus they reached stalingrad on the USSR campaign, given the huge expanse of russia, thats a loooong way. I mean the area they invaded was about the size of sweden, and the casualties they inflicted were horrendous, the article says somwhere around 2million people were killed in stalingrad, and the axis only suffered 750,000 people killed or wounded. So i think it is fair to say a lot of those casualties were russian. And since you pointed out a lot of these invasion were submissive or walkthroughs, what are the germans meant to do? Demand they fight in order for the germans to be looked back on as having invaded europe. The countries military might is not only reflected in the countries it managed to forcefully invade, but in any which the country weilds any power due to military might (i.e. its allies were allies because they thought germany would win, because of its huge armies, and the countries that didnt resist, in order to minimise casualties, due to the inevitable loss, thos are all victories because of the countries military might. ) [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 20:16, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Dirk, read [[Machiavelli]]. The object is to avoid combat, whenever possible, to preserve your fighting force, by conquering with treaties and intimidation. Any country which tried to fight all the other countries in the world would be guaranteed to fail, so a more subtle approach to world conquest is needed. One exception was when only the US had atomic bombs. It could have conquered the world, had it been sufficiently evil, in that short period. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:35, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::Hold on, I'm not saying they should have waged more war (that would be silly). All I mean is that I got the impression the military achievement wasn't as great as I thought it was and was now wondering if I got that right. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::About the ability of the US to conquer the world with nuclear bombs. The two it dropped on Japan was pretty much it and no facilities to make many more fast. Mass production would have been out of the question. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The US had 4 years until the Soviets got the bomb (by espionage from the US). This was more than enough time to mass produce enough bombs to defeat them, then move on to the rest of the world, if this had been the US goal. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 00:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, consider that the economy of Germany was in ruins, and it suffered from massive reparation payments and hyperinflation prior to the Nazi era. They also had restrictions on the size of their military placed on them by the WW1 victors. Given these limitations, it's amazing they could conquer anything. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:42, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Of course, starting at the very latest, on August 2nd, 1934, the date Hitler became "[[Fuhrer]]", until September 1, 1939, the day WWII broke out, Hitler had just over 5 years to violate the [[Treaty of Versailles]]. Thanks to the gullibility and blindness of guys like [[Ramsay MacDonald|MacDonald]], [[Stanley Baldwin|Baldwin]] and [[Neville Chamberlain|Chamberlain]], and despite the rantings of some pudgy, drunk back-bencher MP from Kent, some war-mongering, WWI has-been fool, Hitler managed to make good use of those 5 years to rebuild the German military to the point where it was just about able to conquer Europe, and in doing so, take the lives of 50 million. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 23:16, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Part of my point is that they ''didn't'' conquer all of Europe. And, as StuRat pointed out, they ''couldn't'' have. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::Some of the above contributors might actually benefit from doing a spot of reading on the subject, instead of speculating in such an endless and uninformed fashion. In 1939 Germany went to war with Poland and France, whose combined military force was at least twice the size of her own army. If the French had gone on the offensive Hitler could conceivably have found himself in serious trouble, having only five or six divisions in the west to face almost one hundred in the French army, with the addition later in the year of ten British divisions. The Poles-who incidentally were not attacked simultaneously by the Soviet Union-put up a strong fight, but were overwhelmed by the Nazi Blitzkrieg, most of their air force being destroyed on the ground in the initial days. The Norwegian campaign was a considerable gamble on the German side, because of the overwhelming Allied naval superiority, but one that nontheless paid off. The greatest gamble of all was the attack in the west, because the French army was still considered to be the best of its day and because-unlike the Poles-they could more than match the Germans in both armour and air power. The problem was the French were locked into a defensive mentality, and failed to anticipate the audacity of the German battle plan, which allowed them to slice across the north of the country in an advance to the sea. The French armour was also used in penny packages, rather than concentrated in the German fashion. The speed of the German advance, and the success in overwhelming all opposition, was an astonishing contrast to the campaign of 1914. France was forced to agree to an early armistice, while badly mauled British forces were forced off the continent. Incidentally, the Germans did not just conquer northern France but were well on the way to overwhelming the whole country by the time the armistice was signed. The conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece were also rapid and overwhelming, so much so that even Stalin was badly unsettled. But the greatest successes of the Wermacht came in the early months of the war against Russia. In terms of numbers alone the Soviets were superior in every military department, but by the end of September 1941 the Germans had won several huge enveloping battles that no other nation on earth could have survived. Those who are interested may care to examine the Battle of Kiev, in which the Germans took over 600,000 prisoners alone. The problem for Hitler was that, unlike his other opponents, Russia had both the space to absorb the impact of the Blitzkrieg and, more important, the reserves to make good its terrible losses. Even so, by the close of 1941, Germany and its allies controlled virtually all of continental Europe; quite an achievment for a power that in 1933 had only a 100000 man army, no aircraft and no tanks.
::To conclude on a different point, I do not quite understand the intention of some of the last contributor's remarks, obviously directed at Winston Churchill. I assume some irony was intended?[[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:You assume correctly. I'm obviously a GREAT fan of Sir Winnie, the "old fool". I'd only hope more would learn from his "foolishness" today. I'm sure many regard me as a "fool" for my beliefs, but I'll stick to'em. What interests me about you, WHITE guard, is your unabashed pride concerning the military achievements of Nazi Germany. Curious. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 01:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::Thank you for that clarification: I share your folly. To rush to my defence, I take no pride whatsoever in German military achievments. I do take some pride-if that's the right word-in achieving historical accuracy, and some of the remarks above are hopelessly ill-informed. And please do not try to read the wrong message into my ''nom de guerre''. I admire the work of Mikhail Bulgakov. Beyond that I will not go. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Fair enough! Don't bother rushing to your defence. My inference was likely offensive enough! Just watch my posts. I tend to be a bit of a hot-head. But when I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And I admit that my inference was quite wrong here. I apologize for that.
:But you've got me interested. You say that you share my folly. I'm just curious as to what exactly you mean by that. All the best. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 03:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::I really do admire Winston Churchill-the old fool. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 04:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Thanks for the input, White Guard. About France, I didn't know the Germans faced such superior forces there. I suppose their succes indeed resulted largely from the unanounced (!) Blitzkrieg and other innovations in warfare (did you mean that they used more bombs in stead of bullets?). So it was more cunning than brute force (or rather the combination). But the invasion of the USSR wasn't much of a military success. Like I said, the goal of an invasion is to keep what you gain, and they didn't do that, so ultimaltely it was a failure (and an obvious and therefore stupid one, so they weren't so clever there, but I believe that was specifically Hitler's doing).
:So I have to adapt my assumptions a bit. France was stronger than I thought and only became a partial ally when they were losing (although I already said that that was one of the bigger achievements). And Norway wasn't as easy either because of the international forces there (much like with Greece). And Germany wasn't as powerful as one might think based on its size. But other than that what I said still stands, or doesn't it? I mean, are my assumptions about the various countries correct? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:07, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) was a strategy developed by the Germans, allowing them to use limited resources to maximum effect. It means using air, artillery tanks and infantry in close support and to maximum effect, with attacks focused at a particular point-''Schwerepunkt'', in German. Holes are then punched through enemy defences, and units left to the rear of the attack enveloped and destroyed. It relies upon mobility as the key element, by-passing and avoiding heavily defended positions. Tanks, moreover, are deployed in heavy concentrations, rather than widely spread as a secondary support for the infantry. Have a look at the page on [[Blitzkrieg]] for further information on the subject. The point is that most armies in 1939-40, particularly the French, were looking for a repeat of 1914, and were thus completely unable to deal with German tactics. In attacking France the Wehrmacht advanced through the Belgian Ardennes, thought to be impassible to tanks, then concentrated their attacks on Sedan before advancing westwrds to the sea, cutting off the BEF and northern French forces from the main French army in the south. The invasion of the USSR was a short-term success but a long term failure for the reasons I have given: the Russians had both reserves of space and reserves of manpower which no other country had, and Blitzkrieg was never intended for 'long-haul' warfare. However, this should not deflect from the simple fact that by the autumn of 1941 the country was on its knees; and if it had not been for Zukhov and the Siberian divisions it may very well have gone under. The conquest of Norway was in fact far easier than might have been anticipated; and that of Greece was a 'walk-over', despite the British presence. Germany was immensley powerful in 1939; and few armies today would be willing to take on the range of tasks faced by the Wehrmacht between 1939 and 1941. As far as your assessments of the various countries is concerned you are partly wrong in both detail and interpretation. The neutral countries certainly hoped not to be attacked, but they were still fully mobilised. Austria strictly speaking only 'welcomed' the Germans after her government, diplomatically isolated, was forced to give way to Hitler's demands under threat of force. The Sudetenland was handed to the Germans by the 'international community', as you put it, but not the rest of the Czech territory. After Hitler occupied Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939 the British extended a diplomatic guarantee to Poland, hoping to arrest further German expansion. Northern France should not be separated from Vichy France. The whole of France was defeated by the Germans. Poland was not 'attacked' by the Soviet Union until 17 September, by which time most of its army had been destroyed by the Germans. On paper the Yugoslavs had an impressive army, as did the Greeks. Both were destroyed in a matter of days. And as I have suggested above you may wish to look at the details of the Battle of Kiev to get some insight to German successes in the east. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::The Germans were clever in obtaining Austria and Czechoslovakia without fighting. They obtained the Skoda Arms works in Czechoslovakia along with soldiers from the surrendered countries, thereby multiplying their military capabilities. Much of their army was conscripts and volunteers from the conquered countries. The last SS soldiers defending Berlin were foreign. The beaches assaulted on D-Day were defended by non-German troops in some cases. Russia had as allies their brutal winter weather and the vast geography of the country, along with a philosophy that did not shirk at losing lives to hold ground as in Stalingrad. Hitler's maniacal "Victory or Deat-No Retreat" orders and his strategic brainstorms handicapped the professional generals of the Wehrmacht. The Russians could relocate factories to the far East out of reach of German bombers. At the same time, they were at peace with Japan (until the American A bombs came along)so they did not have to fight both Axis superpowers. If Hitler could have waited , say 5 years to launch the war, he would have had a navy to fight with Instead of pocket battleships and subs, he would have the carriers and battleships which were in the pipeline. But he might have also faced US atomic bombing. There were probably several reasons he felt he had to to go to war before the nation was fully prepared. I am sure he would have been brutal (like 19th century Europe was: read how Belgium treated the Congo) in using slave labor in former European colonies to ship raw materials to plants for war preparations.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 17:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I'm not sure five years would be enough time to build a navy to challenge the USN. According to [[Kriegsmarine]], he had only one full and five auxiliary carriers under construction. That was far less than the Japanese, and they got whupped. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 18:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::USN? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::Afaik, the Netherlands were barely mobilised (or is that just an excuse we are told here in the Netherlands?)and Denmark didn't have much of an army to speak of. And all those wannabe neutral countries in the North West are small countries (Norway has a small population). Still, the combination of these and all the other conquered countries adds up, I suppose. But the big fish were the UK (not conquered), Spain (neutral), Italy (ally), Turkey (neutral), France and especially the USSR. Concerning the USSR 'if only' and 'they came close' just don't count. They never consolidated what they conquered. And France surrendered when they were only halfway. Whether this was because of the enormous military blow the French recieved or the willingness to collaborate (or a combination, more likely) I don't know.
::So, if I may add that up, the greatest military nazi achievements were diplomacy (of sorts - although that was nothing new), the speed at which Northern France was conquered (which was totally new) and the sum of all the other conquered countries (and holding them). Is that about right? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::''Halfway'' with no Allied armies in the rest of France to speak off. And 'if only' and 'they came close' ''just don't count''. Sure, Right.
:::The greatest military achievement of Nazi Germany was the new use of tanks and airplanes. The effective combination of everything: Infantry, Tanks (concentrated in their own Tank divisons), Artilary, and Air force. It changed the whole concept of war; as before (not always, but almost all the time) armies tried to engage each other and to "slug it out". With the arrival of the machinegun and massive artilary these tactics were completly outdated, but fiercely clung on by traditional old generals during WWI (of both sides). Despite some battles which showed their potential Tanks were mostly dispersed, and supported the Infantry.
:::It was the same in the Naval warfare: the arrival of the submarine undermined the value of the battleship, the old warhorse of the Sea.
:::[[:Heinz Guderian]] and [[:Erwin Rommel]] (who had studied the books written by British generals, and developed many aspects of the Blitzkrieg, always defending the potential of the Tank gainst the Old Guard) and other fine young Geman generals offered a complete novel way of fighting. ''Never engage a heavily entrenched army, attack the soft spot, break through the enemy lines, and surround them cutting their supply lines. They must surrender eventually because they will lack their vital supplies. They might counter-attack, but then they will have to leave their entrenchments, and will engage you on your chosen ground. Avoid hard Urban combat as Tanks will always be vulnerable to properly equipped Infantry. City = enormous Trench''. Tanks no longer suported the Infantry, it was the other way around: ''Infantry supported the Tanks.'' All these tactics were tried and refined by German officers in the [[:Spanish civil war]]. Hitler liked his new Generals and this whole concept; it was bold, effective, and quick. Initially the allies (with all their traditonal generals and their whole "these traditional tacticts which served us soo well in the WWI" attitude were easy opponents. But they did something which Hitler did not: '''They learned and adapted themselves quickly'''. (copying the Germans, but also developing their own tactics). In the end Hitler was too obsessed in conquering and entrenching his troops inside of cities like Stalingrad and Leningrad; these were not the tactics of the Blitzkrieg anymore. He also micromanaged way too many things (he was the only person who could send some Tank divisions to reinforce Rommel at the 1st day of Normandy, but he was sleeping and noone had the guts to wake him...the rest is history.) and didn't allowed his generals to follow their own plans. Eisenhower and Churhill were the opposite: they choose their generals and told them the big target but then they gave them a relativly loose leash.
:::Dirk, this was really a great achievement. You seem to be obsessed with the whole issue of territory and always return to the same conclusion: ''They could not hold large territories .'' What do you want? '''The Nazis lost the World War II! Of course they did't held their conquests.''' You are ignoring the '''massive opposition''' and most importantly: the shere '''speed''' of the conquests. A couple of '''weeks''' for the '''whole of France'''. You can't compare this with the [[:Gallic Wars|conquest of Gaul]] by Ceasar (widely recognized as a military strategist of the highest caliber). Ceasar took '''years''' to achieve it. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 14:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Like Flamarande I too am perplexed by Dirk's continuing contention, which seems to be that Nazi Germany lost the war, so it 'could not have amounted to much'. The point is that large-scale wars of conquest have been generally unsuccessful throughout modern history, where they have involved nation states, unlike the ancient wars against tribal regions. Consider Napoleon: he too subdued much of Europe but he too ultimately failed. So should we conclude that Napoleon 'did not amount to much'? And as far as consolidation is concerned, where today is the Roman Empire? Quite frankly this whole line of argument is becoming absurd. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::All I was saying is that the notion I had most of my life that Germany conquered all of Europe (with some help from the Italians) was completely wrong. Compared to that, what they conquered isn't much, whic is not to say they didn't achieve anything. I just wanted to check if I got it straight about what they ''did'' achieve. I suppose I should have worded my remarks a little differntly. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Btw, another misconception I used to have is that the German defeat was largely due to Operation Overlord (and that that was a US thing). Only later did I learn that the eastern front was at least as important if not more important and only last week did I read that [[Operation Bagration]] was the biggest military campaign mankind has ever ammassed. I had never even heard of it! [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::In that case you might want to have a closer look at the whole campaign on the Eastern front and, in partcular, the [[Battle of Kursk]], to date still the largest tank battle in all of history. It may be an uncomfortable idea for British and American people, but even before Overlord the Germans were in full-scale retreat in the east. To put things in perspective, in the spring of 1943, just before the Kursk operation, the Germans deployed close on 200 hundred divisions in Russia. To this you have to add another 30 or so provided by their various allies. In contrast the British and Americans were faced in Tunisia-the only point of contact with the Axis at the time-roughly 25 German and Italian divisions. Try to find a map of German occupied Europe on the eve of the Battle of Stalingrad in the late summer of 1942. That would probably give you the best idea of the German 'achievment'. Incidentally, the Italians were less of a help and more of a hindrance.[[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 23:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Jean Stretchers ==
In the 1950's there was a tool used to place inside wet, laundered jeans that kept the jeans from stretching and formed a crease down the jeans leg as they dried on the form. Are these still available anywhere?
:Googling "pants stretcher" provides many links like [http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/jump.jsp?itemID=7092&itemType=PRODUCT&searchid=inceptor this]. --[[User:Hydnjo|hydnjo]] [[User talk:Hydnjo|talk]] 15:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
== World War One ==
Why was the "race for the sea" inconclusive in the First World War?
--[[User:Dabc|Dabc]] 14:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
*[[Race to the Sea]] explains it pretty well. Neither side was able to outflank the other side and gain an offensive advantage. Hence, stalemate. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 15:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your response. Does anyone know what the balance of power was like at the time, on the western front? --[[User:Dabc|Dabc]] 17:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Balance of power is a political term. By late 1914 the balance of forces was roughly equal, in terms of the number of divisions deployed-hence the stalemate. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== law ==
Hi i am looking for information on supreme law in the united kingdom and i am having a bit of trouble with finding anything. I was just wondering whether you could give me some information on supreme law and whether the government is the supreme law maker? Thankyou very much and i hope to hear from you soon!!
:That's an ENORMOUS question! For starters I'd check out the articles on the [[UK Constitution]], [[Constitutional convention]], and [[A.V. Dicey]]. That should give you a good start. Once you're done, feel free to come back and ask any more particular questions you may have. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 15:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:In Britain, Parliament is considered of ultimate sovereignty. It is the only body capable of enacting laws. Governments - made up of the largest party in terms of seats in Parliament - propose legislation, but it must be ratified by Parliament. There is no written British constitution which specifically lays this out, but the [[UK Constitution|uncodified constitution]] is made up of convention, common & statute law and "works of authority." See the [[Constitution of the United Kingdom]] and [[Parliamentary sovereignty]] articles. This is a very complex topic, and I'd personally suggest a standard Government & Politics textbook like Coxall & Robbins "Contemporary British Politics," or "Politics UK" by Jones, Kavanagh, Moran & Norton. [[User:JF Mephisto|JF Mephisto]] 16:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Not forgetting that there's no such thing as "United Kingdom law". There's [[English law]] (including Wales), [[Scots law]], and [[Northern Ireland law]]. [[European Union law]] takes precedence over local laws, but normally has to be incorporated into local law (usually by means of Statutory Instruments) in order to take effect. Most laws are passed by the UK Parliament, but the Scottish Parliament can also pass laws, as indeed can the General Synod of the Church of England for church-related matters. From next year the [[Welsh National Assembly]] will be able to pass laws, subject to veto by the UK Parliament. -- [[User:Arwel_Parry|Arwel]] ([[User talk:Arwel_Parry|talk]]) 18:09, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::Although I have to disagree with Mephisto on some of the subtleties of his/her take on UK Constitutional Law, this very topic was discussed just recently [[Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive/Humanities/2006_September_22#United_Kingdom_Royalty|here]] on September 22, so I won't go over it all once again. Although I would suggest looking it over, it was an interesting discussion.
::However, I feel that I ''must'' take issue with Arwel's comment that "there's no such thing as "United Kingdom law"". There certainly is! Though many powers have been or soon will be devolved to the Parliaments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the Parliament at Westminster in London is certainly more than a parliament for England alone. First off, it's made up of representatives from not only England, but from all of the UK. The Scots, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish all send MPs to London. But more importantly, the UK Parliament routinely passes laws that affect all of the United Kingdom, not simply England. Laws that come to mind would be laws concerning British citizenship, laws involving British monetary and fiscal policy, laws concerning international affairs, etc... Yes, certain powers involving more local matters are being devolved unto the respective Parliaments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but the UK is still one sovereign unitary state, with only one "sovereign" Parliament, in London. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 20:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::What specifically is your disagreement with my take on the UK Constitution (I think it would be misleading to refer to "constitutional law", as the British constitution isn't made up simply of law but also [[constitutional convention (political custom)|convention]] and [[Works of authority in the British constitution|works of authority]])? I think it's pretty pertinent, as the person above is requesting help and it would be advisable to make it as unmuddled as possible. "Contemporary British Politics: Third Edition," Coxall & Robbins, 1998, states that the main characteristics of the UK Constitution are unitary government (a state that despite some [[constituent country]] powers is fundamentally unitary and not federal) and parliamentary sovereignty (the idea that Parliament's powers are fundamentally unlimited and supreme). It states that the main sources of the [[uncodified constitution]] are common and statute law, convention, the law and custom of Parliament, works of authority and more recently European Union law. Are you in disagreement with the broad thrust of this description of the UK Constitution, and, if so, in what way? [[User:JF Mephisto|JF Mephisto]] 23:57, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::My disagreement with you was very subtle compared to my disagreement with Arwell. By that I mean that I think that s/he was REALLY wrong, compared to some subtle disagreements I may have with you. I agree with everything you've said above, ''except'' the part that Common and Statute Law form part of the UK Constitution. There are basically three "levels" of law in any Constitutional Democracy: Constitutional Law, "Regular" Law, and Regulatory or Administrative Law. The third is irrelevant to this discussion so I'll ignore it. What we're left with is 1) Constitutional Law and 2) "Regular" (i.e. Statute and Common) Law.
::My main point of disagreement is the characterization of "Constitutional law" as being derived from "Statute and Common Law". Rather, with regards to "Statute Law", UK "Constitutional Law" is that very "Over-Arching" principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty. After all, what is it that gives those buildings at Westminster permission to pass Statutory Law? In the US, Article I of the Constitution grants that law unto Congress. Likewise, in the UK, that law is "granted" by the unwritten law of the UK Constitution. In other words, while I see ordinary "Statute Law" as "Regular Law", that over-arching principle that gives Parliament its sovereign authority to pass such law in the first place is what I'd call "Constitutional Law".
::Likewise, I can't see UK Constitutional Law as being derived in any way from "Common Law". Rather, with regards to "Common Law" there is that "Over-Arching" principle of ''[[Stare Decisis]]''. After all, what is it that compels the courts to pay any respect at all to precedent? I'd say that ''Stare Decisis'' is a major component of UK Constitutional Law. The Common Law, on the other hand, like Statute Law, is, to me, subordinate to that "Over-Arching" Constitutional principle of ''Stare Decisis''.
::In sum, the way I'd put it is that UK Constitutional Law is composed (amongst other things) of Parliamentary Sovereignty and ''Stare Decisis''. These are the "Over-Arching", "Unwritten" principles of UK Constitutional Law. Statute and Common Law are merely the "regular" law that is permitted by the Supreme, Constitutional Law of the UK. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 01:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Err, just throwing it in, but there's also all [[European Convention on Human Rights|this]].[[User:Hornplease|Hornplease]] 10:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Is [[neopaganism]] really a religion? ==
I wonder if so-called neopagans really ascribe to a religion per se or just take part in ancient rituals (or what they believe are ancient rituals) because they think they are cool. I mean, do they really ''believe'' in the existence of Odin, or whatever, the same way Christians believe (or are supposed to believe) in God and Jesus or Zoroastrians believe in Ahura Mazda? -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] 15:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:I would have thought believing in the efficacy of those rituals means it counts as religion, in the generally accepted use of the term. Most definitions of [[religion]] are quite broad.--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 17:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::Do all Christians believe in god the same way? Do some of them think of an old man with a beard, do others think in more general terms, "god is love"? I think it would depend on the pagan. Everyone has different beliefs. [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 18:26, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Some neopagans probably do just think it is cool, certainly half the [[Goth|Goths]] wearing pentagrams just see it as a fashion accessory, the same as those who wear crosses and crucifixes. On the other hand some definitely do believe in it as a religion. God calls to many people in different ways. [[David Frawley]] has an interesting section on neopagans in his book "How I became a Hindu". -- [[User:Chris Q|Chris Q]] 07:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== <s>Ban of veil in UK</s> Jack Straw's remarks about the veil ==
Why is so much row created on the ban of veils in Britain? It is against the practice of religious freedom.
It clearly goes against the principles of Democracy.
The females from the west are allowed to bare all in the sun in places like Dubai & Middle East, they are allowed even to wear skirts in workplaces.
There is racism in the west against the browns & blacks. Is it double standards??
Whats the purpose behind lobbying against the use of veil?
[kj_venus]
:Veils are not barred in the United Kingdom. I don't know where you got that impression from. A Cabinet minister, [[Jack Straw]], simply stated that he did not like women wearing the full face veil in his constituency office, and that he thought that the full face veil was a visible sign of seperation and not helpful towards harmonious commnunity relations. Other members of the Cabinet, such as [[John Prescott]], disagreed. Furthermore, requesting the removal of a face veil is not racism - the portion of the Muslim community that wear the full face veil do not constitute a race (and most British Muslims do not wear full face veils). The purpose of opposing the use of a full face veil is because it is considered necessary in most cultures to see the facial expressions of the person one is talking to, and to oppose visible signs of seperation. [[User:JF Mephisto|JF Mephisto]] 16:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
The fact that it is considered necessary in most cultures to see the facial expressions of the person one is talking to, and to oppose visible signs of seperation is obvious.Places like Dubai & others are progressing and accepting the western culture and insane ways of life.
The tolerance is there for every culture to sustain. The same thing is not followed in the west. There is abuse of freedom in the west. Many students from the arab world & east face diifficulties in european universties including racist remarks. While the east tolerates all acts of sexual freedom & vulgarity of the west.
There is no mutual reciprocity in that respect.[kj_venus]
:I think Jack Straw's statement is unfortunate, because some people will assume that his opinion somehow represents official policy - as in the original title of this item. Nobody has said whether Muslim women are '''allowed''' to wear the veil - one minister has said that he prefers that people who come to consult him do not hide their faces.
:I think your comments about 'reciprocity' are misguided. Everywhere, some people mistruct and mistreat strangers, some people do not tolerate strangers' ways, and some strangers are not willing to respect local sensibilities.
:Please sign your postings with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>.--[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 18:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
The problem with the veil is that it makes identification impossible. For example, there have been cases in the US where these women wanted their driver's license (the primary form of identification in the US) photos to be taken wearing a veil, which would make it absolutely useless for identification. To accept this would mean to give up on being able to identify anyone, which would cause a massive security hole. Male terrorists have been known to dress as veiled women to bypass security. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Check your facts, [kj_venus], "females from the west" have to cover their hair in many Moslem countries, let alone "baring all" sunbathing. Perhaps you refer to what goes on behind a wall in a Western enclave? Moslems are allowed to build mosques in the west, but Christian churches are forbidden in many moslem countries. No reciprocity asa Pope Benedicat has demanded.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 17:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== plodweaver ==
''Question moved to [[WP:RD/L|language desk]]''
== Question about the movie [[Bend it like Beckham]] ==
Does anybody know what neighbourhood of London the movie took place in? [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 20:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and if anybody knows how to fix titles and redirects, the BiLB entries on WP are totally f****d up. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 20:16, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:[[Hounslow]], I believe. [[User:Natgoo|Natgoo]] 22:13, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::Woo Hoo, thank you! [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 00:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Nice movie, by the way. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== Question about Germany ==
·I know that Hitler,Goebels,Himmler,Romel,Gering and other killed them selves.My question is:What is the highest Nazi offical that didnt commit suicide?I doubt that it was Albert Speer,because he was just a minister,but it might be him?
Thank you very much
:My best guess would be [[Adolph Eichmann]]. Also, quite a few were executed at [[Nuremberg Trials|Nuremberg]], so among those may be someone who outranked Eichmann, but I doubt it. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 20:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:I would go with [[Wilhelm Canaris]]. [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 21:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you both very much.Eichmann was in the rank of Colonel and Canaris was Admiral,so it was probably Canaris.
I dont want to be boring,but just another question,because it seems like you know quite a lot about this subject:So if we take out those who commited suicide and those who got killed(like Eichmann,Ribentrop,Canaris...) who was the highest official that died in a natural way? (I believe that there were many,but I wonder who was the highest...I thought it was Hess,but he killed him self in the prison,so it wasnt him.)
::Don't worry about being boring, these are important questions. By highest Nazi official I assumed you meant most prominent. Of course an admiral outranks a colonel, but I was going with most prominent and influential over highest ranking (I'm embarrassed to even say it by I've never even heard of Canaris). As for the next question, I'd say Josef Mengele, who drowned accidentally in 1979. He's certainly, once again, the most "prominent" Nazi (though I'm not sure of his actual "rank") to die in a (somewhat) natural way (neither homicide nor suicide). [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 21:33, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
::[[Karl Donitz]] was officially president of Germany at the time of the Nazi surrender; he served 10 years in prison and died in 1980. [[Rudolf Hess]] was number 2 in the Nazi party before fleeing to England; he died in prison in 1987. Foreign Minister [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] was hanged in 1946, as were [[Alfred Rosenberg]] and [[Julius Streicher]]. [[Hans Lammers]], Hitler's chief of staff, died in 1962. [[Hans Frank]] and [[Wilhelm Frick]], Nazi chiefs in Poland and Bohemia & Moravia, respectively, were hanged. So-called Justice Minister [[Franz Schlegelberger]] lived until 1970. Economics Minister [[Walther Funk]] lived until 1960. -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] 21:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Great,thats about it.As for Mengele,he died in kind of natural way,but not quite.Hess would be number one choice,but he commited suicide in 1987(or he was killed,as his family claims).
But,anyway,it surely is Karl Dönitz,I cant believe that I forgot him as a leader,thats probably because he wasnt so prominent as others mentioned,but it was surely him.
So having listed almost all top Nazis,it seems like none of them escaped one or another form of punishment(being killed,suicide,prison sentence,or strange deaths like Mengele and Hess).
Correct me if Im wrong,but it seems like thats the case??
Anyway,once again,thank you very much,searching for all of this would take me days,so thanks to everyone.
:Doenitz wasn't a Nazi, and many of the other military officials might not have been either. They just happened to be in the military while the Nazis were in power (although of course they must have supported them, otherwise they wouldn't have remained so long, but Doenitz was never a party member). [[User:Adam Bishop|Adam Bishop]] 22:12, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::No problem. I'd say it was a pleasure, but that would sound kind of weird.:) Still, it's a fascinating topic and a great question to ask.
::I'd just like to add a comment though. To me, Hitler's suicide (and the suicides of all the rest) were the ''furthest'' thing from the punishment they deserved. To me, I see Hitler's suicide as one of the gravest of injustices. Unlike Eichmann, who got what he deserved, (that being seeing scores of Holocaust survivors recount his attrocities in front of his face, and in front of the world,) Hitler never faced that sort of justice. He never faced the shame of the world. He died at a time and in a method of his own choosing, without ever having to face his accusers. To me, that's one of the worst injustices of WWII. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 22:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::It certainly wasn't justice but to call injustice? I see Hitler's suicide as a proof of his utter cowardice and irresponsability (of not having the balls of facing the consequences of his orders and actions). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 19:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::A good reason not to join the army. You can never know what idiot you might have to serve. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::As if in real wartime you have any reasonable choice, but to join the army. It is called a [[:draft]] you know? [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 16:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::If you live in a country that might do that, you might think about emigrating. Ok, not usuallly a reasonable ooption. :) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Hitler should have been subjected to an incredibly long and boring trial like Saddam's. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 17:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Saddams' trial in which two of his laywers were murdered, the first judge resigned, and the second judge was removed by the "American puppets" because he was "too nice" to the accused? The Nuremberg trials were more or less fair, but Saddam's trial is a bloody nightmare. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Saddams trial is a poor excuse for USA to get him killed(or as they call it "executed",like its not the same thing).No wonder that death penatly still exsits only in USA,China,Muslim countries and Lukashenkos Belorus.Another pathetic excuse for a trial was Milosevic trial,which ended in his death after four years of trial,as a result of Hagues refuse to let him get the medical care.Another example is Vojisav Seselj,who is at Hague tribunal for more then 3 and a half years,but the trail didnt started just yet!?!
:If I could make a comment about Mengele - he has become very well-known outside of Germany, but he was in no way AT ALL a prominent or important Nazi. He was just one camp doctor out of hundreds. He was also only one of hundreds of thousands of men and women who actively and willingly contributed to the Nazi killing and torture machine.
:I think this is important to say because so many of us forget (or have never been taught) that hundreds of thousands of people actively and willingly worked to create the horrors of the Holocaust. It's nice to think that only a few like Mengele were really 'bad people', but in reality Mengele's cruelty and evil were not unusual. There were hundreds of camps - '''hundreds'''. Each had on average a dozen or more doctors. Each doctor had assistants. Each camp had hundreds of guards. They were almost ALL were as cruel as Mengele in their own way. Anybody who wasn't cruel was sent to do other work, plain and simple.
:We know so much about Mengele not because he did things that other doctors didn't or because he was more cruel than the others; we know about him because he worked at Auschwitz. Auschwitz was an enormous work camp, and many of its inmates survived to tell their stories. The same (or equally cruel) horrors went on at Sobibor, Mathausen, Chelmno, and a hundred other camps, but few if any victims from those camps survived to testify.
:Mengele was evil and deserved to be convicted, but he wasn't an extremely unusual exception to the rule. Thinking that he was unusually cruel might make people feel better about the human condition, but it isn't fair to the victims of the other torturers and killers. There were myriads of men and women who acted as cruelly as he did. [[User:Charlene.fic|Charlene.fic]] 23:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::A good point. but also note that this is not specifically a German treat. If you look at what happened then from our world it looks incrdible, but if people grow up in a surrounding that considers certain things acceptable then they will find that normal and will in turn find worse things acceptable, which others will interprete as that being normal, so they will start finding even worse things aceptable, etc, in a potentially never ending downward spiral. The atrocities of nazi germany didn't come falling vrom the sky. It developed over decades, with the humiliation of WWI being probably the biggest incentive. But the big lesson is that this can happen anywhere anytime. And some of it is happening right now, with human rights being officially abolished. Bit by bit. Step by step. Give Bush cum sui enough time and you'll be surprised at what we will find acceptable or even normal 30 years from now. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I never studied the issue (concentration camps and the anhilation of the Jews during WWII) to a very high degree, but I think I know the basics of it. You write that there were '''hundreds''' of camps, yet in the Wiki-article [[:List of concentration camps of Nazi Germany]] they are only '''47''' (I know that even 1 was 1 too many). Could you please explain me this big diffrence? Where you exagerating? Is the list lacking any camp? Do you want to correct your statement? [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 12:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes,just look at Guatanamo and the torture of Iraqi and Afganistani people.But,to be honest,it is a German treat,because if you look at the World War I,you will find that Germany also did the worst crimes in it,to.So many thousands civilians got killed just because they were not German.Now its usualy to say it was Hasburg Monarhy,while in fact,all the crimes were commited by Germans...Same Germans that upgraded their cruelty (mixed with the revange for the 1918 defeat) 20 years later.
:Of course, we all know that the Germans are by nature cruel, inhuman, and absolutly war-like. The Germans are different from everbody else. The Germans are guilty of starting WWI and they were the only ones who commited serious warcrimes during that war, also. Are you for real or something? All the main protagonists of WWI are guilty of starting it and commited Warcrimes. Both sides used Gas during [[:WWI]]. At end as Germany had quit the fighting and was negotiating the terms of its defeat the Allies kept their Naval blockade while the German ppl was starving. Isn't that also a Warcrime? The rise of Hitler was immensly facilitated by the harsh terms of the treaty of Versallies and shows us "how do we prepare the next war".
:How about the millions that were killed by order of [[:Stalin]] in the [[:Great Purge]]? The [[:Armenian Genocide]] ordered by the Turkish goverment, the Belgian atrocities in the [[:Congo Free State]], the millions that were killed in the [[:The Killing Fields]] by [[Khmer Rouge]] by order of [[Pol Pot]], Japanese Warcrimes during WWII like the [[:Rape of Nanking]], the Indians which were slaughtered by the American troops at the [[:Wounded Knee Massacre]]? The recent [[Rwandan Genocide]]? Everyone of us is capable of participating in a Warcrime (of every nation, in all armies, from any culture, and following any religion whatsoever); it only depends on the right circumstances, and most importantly, on our leaders. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 12:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)PS: please, SIGN YOUR STATEMENTS
Whatever,all I know is about Germans and my country...They killed more then 500.000. civilians(incuding only woman and children,not man),just in my country 1914-1918.
Off course they started World War I when they attacked my country.They were pretty bad warriors though,since they lost on Kolubara,Cer and Suvobor and their General Oskar Potjorek got expeled from the Army.So they lost couple of battle from such a tiny country as mine.
But in 1915,they came back,this time with Bulgarians and they won.Since our army was forced to flee to Greece,there was no one defending civilians...They hanged,burned and butchedred more then 500.000. just in 1915-1918 time.
Now dont get me started on WW2,when they killed more then 7000 school boys in Kragujevac,IN JUST ONE DAY,as a revange for the killing of 35 Germans.German Army alone cleaned my country of Jews.Before WW2 there was about 50.000. Jews here.After it there was no more then 1000.Not to mention great WW2 concentration camps like BANJICA,JAJCI and so on and so on...
Talking about the 1999. agression and more then 1000. civilians killed,off course Germany was part of that,to.Who can explain this to the parents of 3 year old Milica Rakic,that was killed in her home while being in a bathroom? Who can explain to them that it is not a war crime?
There is not a single country that did so many war crimes during last 100 years as Germany.
[[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 13:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:Look I won't start a fight over "which is the more evil nation in the last 100 years". Hitler with his Nazi regime and the German ppl under their command was without a doubt the most shameful chapter of Human history. But what you are forgetting is the same combination with another country whatsoever would produce similar results. Somebody like Hitler + a fanatical party + a desperate country = a big nightmare. Like Serbia (your comments seem to indicate that you are a Serb, but we can dig in the history of '''any''' nation whatsoever. You only have to dig deep enough) do you really want to start a discussion about Serbian Warcrimes? Begin with the [[:Chetniks]], then carry on to the the more recent (1990's) Serbian concentration camps and Serbian Gang rapes of female prisoners? How about the [[:Srebrenica Massacre]] or the [[:Battle of Vukovar]]? I certainly won't open this Pandora's box, it's not that I am personaly guilty of anything, but I am simply way too wise to fall in that obvious trap. Every nation is guilty of something. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 15:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Chetniks?? Are you kidding me?? Harry Truman,president of USA awarded Draza Mihalovic,the Cetniks leader the golden cross in 1948...TIME magazine had CHETNIKS on their first page as the FIRST EUROPE FREEDOM FIGHTERS...Hollywood movie from 1942. called CHETNIKS was about the fight of Chetniks against Germans and Communists...Cetniks never commited no crimes,and they were not even accused of doing so(except for Communist false charges)...My Grandfather was a Chetnik,and Im extremly proud of it,we are going to the RAVNA GORA every May 13. to comemorate the first uprising in Europe against Germans(13.May 1941)...There are over 100.000. people on it every year,celebrating Chetnik values...Not to mention that Serbian officials are comemorating it to...You can only be jelaous because no other country ever had such a brave and upstanding soldiers like Chetniks were.
:Never commited any warcrimes? Never ever? How about the [[:Bleiburg massacre]] (something I found in 1 min)? Ask you grand-father what he really did if he caught an unarmed and/or surrendering Ustasha or German. Did he give him a fair trail perchance? [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
As for Battle of Vukovar,how can you even list that as a war crime,40 officiers were killed,thats the whole crime,everyone else died in the battle...You can only say that you wish we didnt win,but thats it,we win and now we are considered guilty for it?!?
:"We"? Did I say that? Unlike too many ppl I believe that only the ''ppl responsable for a crime'' (those who gave the orders) should be prosecuted in a '''fair trail''' in a '''proper court of law''' and only if found guilty punished in accordance of their crime. BTW, I didn't write any of these articles. And you don't like if someone ''uses Vulovar against the Serbs'' but you find it ''fair to blame the "modern" Germans for WWII'', a war which just ended in '''1945!''' ''Nothing is forgotten, and nothing is'' '''ever forgiven''', and we must ''blame the children for the crimes of the parents'',hey? Actually I believe that we should remeber the crimes but not use them against ppl who didn't commit them (and most of Germans today were born '''after''' WWII). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
As for Srebrenica,there are no excuses,but thats the only time in history that crimes were commited by someone from my country(but when you talk about Srebrenica,you should forget this:KRAVICE;BRATUNAC;MULJARE and other villages whose people were burned down...more then 2500 people died in the Christamas Day 1992. killed by Muslim forces...Srebrenica was a revenge for 4 years of torture and killings done by Muslims)
:The only time? Right, do you really want me to search for more articles? BTW: If the someone rapes my sister it is somehow allright if I rape his sister in return? '''An eye for an eye''' and all that? Is that true Justice? [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
One more thing,from 8000 people killed in Srebrenica,NONE were woman,NONE were kids below the age of 16(and those are Hague War Crimes Tribunal numbers...)
:So if someone is a ''male civilian over 16'' he is a ''valid military target''? Are you male? How old are you? (don't answer these questions, they are rethorical and I only made them to show that following ''that logic'' you (or your nearest male relative) would have been killed. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
So,how can you even compare that,to what Germans have done...Germans bombed my city 3 times in last century: 1915,1941 and 1999...Every time they killd bunch of civilians...Not to mention all the other crimes in WWI and WWII(and Im talking just about in my country commited by Germans)...How can you even compare that,to Srebrenica,which was a few days event(and like I said A REVENGE,not that it is a good excuse,but its explanation....1914,1915,1916,1917,1918,1941,1942,1943,1944,1945,1999...for all those years of German crime,there is no excuse or no possible explanation...Only that its just the way they do it...German way)
[[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 20:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
HAHAHAHAHA you know so little that it is funnny....BLEIBURG WAS A CRIME COMMITED BY COMMUNIST CROATS ON USTASHA CROATS....Theres no mentioning of Serbs there,how can there be,WHEN MORE THEN 700.000. SERBS CIVILIANS DIED IN JASENOVAC(the biggest concentration camp in Balkans ever).
As for other issues,Im not into arguing,Im just stating that fact that "modern germany"(as you called it) is resposable for the 1999. war crimes,even thought it was Shreder who made those moves.
And your question hehe ,i can ask my grandfather if it will make you happy,but I dont see your point,do you want to say that he would have been wrong if he killed the captured German????????????????????(Mind you,Chetniks were operating strictly in their own homeland)How it is wrong to kill someone who came to you country and is killing your people every day??? How is it wrong,THEY CAME HERE,SO HOW IS IT WRONG TO KILL THEM WHEN THEY ARE AGRESSIORS....Even when they are captured [[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 14:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:And the Germans have kept their nose clean since 1945 (despite your innuendo of 1990's - I honestly don't know what you are talking about. The bombings of Nato? It was a legal military action in order to stop the local war, and as in all wars the innocents are sometimes killed - simply stating a fact). I am not excusing the Germans and blaming somebody (e.g. the Serbs) else here. I am just saying that ''every'' nations military have commited Warcrimes at some point. '''War is Hell!''' Soldiers and officers will be exposed to extremely severe circumstances (like seing your comrades blown to bits in front of your eyes, or finding a fellow soldier's tortured and mutilated corpse left by the enemy). You '''will''' slowly be brutalized and in order to cope and to survive ''you will adapt yourself''. You will turn into a hardened killer and if you are not restrained by your officers you will avenge yourself and your comrades on the nearest "enemy" civilian population (and God helps them if the officers order it). In all wars civilians have been caught by explosions, murdered, raped, and tortured. We can and we must understand how this happens in order to prevent ''as far as possible'' and not cry out: "''The other guys are all a bunch of violent warcriminals. My own ppl is completly innocent off all charges. We NEVER ever hurt an innocent.''". We must establish laws preventing this and enforce them '''as best as possible''' (especialy our own side) so that hopefully at next time (in the next war) the soldiers and their officers think twice. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I mostly agree with you,but one thing you said is off the mark: Nato agression wasnt "legal military action",because it wasnt aproved by the Security Councel of UN(because Russia was against it). So,it wasnt just a bombing,it was an AGRESSION...It wasnt ment to stop the "local war",because it cant be a local war when it is happening in just one country...It was ment to help the Albanian terrorist to get independence of Kosovo...Nato and Al Qaida really did helped them a lot on their way...
So,you cant possibly say that Germans "kept their nose clean",because not in thousend years will 1999. agression be forgotten.By supporting Muslim terrorists on Kosovo(which is part of Serbia),and by bombing INNOCENT CHILDREN("every war has civilians dying" hahaha TELL THAT TO THE PARENTS OF 3 YEARS OLD MILICA RAKIC THAT GERMAN BOMBS KILLED IN HER HOUSE),so by doing that,Germany bombed my City and my Country for the third time in just one century,without declaring a war(similiar like in 1941). No other country did so much wrong to us and killed so many of us like Germany.
But as for other thing you said,as for preventing monsters like Franz Josif,Hitler,Shreder or Clinton to come to power ever again,I agree.
"We must establish laws preventing this and enforce them '''as best as possible''' (especialy our own side) so that hopefully at next time (in the next war) the soldiers and their officers think twice."
[[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 09:36, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Someone recently likened Bush to Hitler, which I believe was a grotesque analogy. But that whole argument was cleared up, and I bear no ill will. Now I'm no Democrat (capital "D"), and obviously no big fan of Clinton, but to mention his name in the same breath as Hitler is equally grotesque. Mentioning the phrase "monsters like Franz Josif, Hitler, Shreder or Clinton" is equally deplorable to equating Bush with Hitler. Though I may disagree with his politics, and though I believe he possesses some serious character flaws, Clinton is ultimately a good man, with only, ultimately, the best of intentions. To equate him in any way to Hitler is disgusting. Yes, innocent civilians were killed in Serbia, and now Iraq. Yet neither Clinton in Serbia, nor Bush in Iraq actually ''wished'' the death of any innocent civilian. Hitler not only ''wished'' the death of innocent civilians, but meticulously ''ARRANGED FOR IT''. Equating Clinton with Hitler is equally deplorable to equating Bush with Hitler. Though I expect, nay, DEMAND an apology for that remark, I doubt I'll get one. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 14:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I will apologise when I hear you apologising for Nato agression,for over 2000 dead civilians,for over 80 dead kids,for 78 days and nights of bombing of innocent people,for THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND(300.000) Serbs that were forced to live Kosovo since Nato Bombing in 1999.,for over 2000 Serb churches burned since 1999. on Kosovo(Let me just mention that some of those churches are as old as 1000 years...Long before USA,UK or Germany as we know it even existed)....When you apologise for that I will apologise for what I said...
One more thing,I dont know where you got that about Bush.I HAVE NEVER SAID SOMETHING LIKE THAT,how can you possibly compare Bush to Clinton???? Clinton was helping Muslim terrorists,he was(alongside Shreder) their biggest helper in Kosovo,he supported their crimes over innocent people,he supported their fight for independence(Independence of Kosovo,which was a serbian land since the beggining of time)!!! I wonder why he didnt support Chechenia Muslim terrorists...Because it was Russia,not Serbia huh....He supported people that made more then 300.000. Serbs leave Kosovo,terrorist animals that burned down more then 2000 churches...
On the other side,Bush is fighting the terrorism...While Clinton and Al Qaida were fighting side by side in Kosovo,Bush is doing everything he can to stop the Muslim beastes all over the world.You cant compare Clinton who bombed EUROPIAN CHRISTIAN country to support muslim terrorists,with Bush who is doing everything he can to stop them(same terrorists that Clintons administration supported so much). If it was up to Clinton,if he was still in office,Kosovo would have been independent already,and Saddam and Talibans would have been in power to this day....
[[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 14:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:Wow! Have I just been accused of being anti-Bush? That's a first! How bizarre! It's also a clear indication that you have no clue what I'm talking about and that it would be fruitless to further respond. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Im glad that you saw that being Anti-Bush is nonsense,and is as same as being Pro-Terror.Im glad I helped you in realizing that. [[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 11:04, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Thank you so, so much XXXXXXX! I really don't know how to repay you. I'd just like to express my infinite gratitude in finally convincing me to be pro-Bush. I've been a Democrat my entire life, but you've finally helped me to see the light. I'm tearing up my Democratic Party membership as we speak! I think I may actually become a Republican! And all due to you! Nobody here, as intelligent as they may be, has ever been able to convince me that Bush is not the awful moron that I always thought him to be. But you have. You definitely have an incredible talent for expressing a truth that so far no one else has been able to. I'm eternally grateful to you. A million thanks. You've truly enlightened me, and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. <small>Huh? What the hell? Can anyone explain this one to me? </small> :--) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Help linking an article ==
Today I found the article about the [[Kanawha County textbook controversy]]. It's quite interesting, but I'm disappointed to see that it isn't really mentioned in any other article (see its [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Whatlinkshere&target=Kanawha_County_textbook_controversy What links here]). Which articles could this be mentioned in, or at least listed under "See also"? [[User:Ikiroid|The ikiroid]] ([[User talk:Ikiroid|talk]]·[[User:Ikiroid/Desk|desk]]·[[User talk:Ikiroid/Help Me Improve|Advise me]]) 21:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
== About great tragedies(in both war and peace) ==
After getting such a great resposes to the other question,i got another one,because I was thinking about this for some time:
Is the Hiroshima bombing the event that took most human lives at the time?My english isnt the best,so I apologise for that,but I think you understand me:Was there any other event that killed more people(I mean in the whole world history,not just WW2).
Thank you
:Are you limiting to events that took place in one instant or events that could have taken many years, suich as [[Black Death]]? --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 22:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Well,I was aiming on events that took place in one day(not neceserly one instant,for example 9/11 attacks would be the example,but it happend in one day time).
::That's a hard question to answer as I'm not sure. While an estimated 80,000 Japanese died ''instantly'' in Hiroshima, I wouldn't at all be surprised if there was a particular day during WWII where more than that were killed, whether they were executed at concentration camps or killed on the battlefield. Remember that 50 million died in WWII. A vast majority of those towards the end.
:::I'm not an expert on the subject but I believe that in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more people actually died after the fact from radiation and what not. [[User:Rentastrawberry|<font face="stop" color="#C41E3A"><b><i>RENTASTRAWBERRY</b></i></font>]] [[User talk:Rentastrawberry|<small><b><sup><font face="goudy old style" color="#C41E3A"><i>FOR LET?</i></font></sup></b></small>]] [[User:Rentastrawberry/Classic Rock Full List|<b><font face="goudy old style" color="#C41E3A"><i>röck</i></font></b>]] 01:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::Of course you never mentioned natural catastrophes. The [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] killed approximately 230,000. Though I'm not sure what portion of that were killed on the actual day of the Tsunami. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 22:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Almost all of them. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 23:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Are you sure Stu? I was figuring that a good portion of the deaths were due to the inevitable diseases that spread in the water supply due to decaying corpses etc. (Sorry to be so gruesome). [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::no they weren't. Diseases were kept well in check by a massive international response. [[User:Rmhermen|Rmhermen]] 00:52, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:More people died in the one-day conventional [[firebombing of Tokyo]] in World War II than died at Hiroshima. [[User:Rmhermen|Rmhermen]] 00:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The [[Death toll]] article also lists the [[Battle of Baghdad (1258)|Sack of Baghdad]] in 1258 with over 90,000 casualties in one day. [[User:Rmhermen|Rmhermen]] 00:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:830,000 died in the [[Shaanxi earthquake]] of 1556. Most probably died on the day of the quake. Nobody's quite sure how many people died in the [[1976 Tangshan earthquake]]; I've seen estimates that top one million, all on the same day, but the official toll is just over 240,000. [[User:Charlene.fic|Charlene.fic]] 23:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== Flaming and regular ==
In my marching band here are many people who help us with our steps and technique etc. The two men who help with the color guard are homosexual. One of them is really "flaming" i.e. he says stuff like "girlfriend" and likes to snap his fingers a lot. The other man, however, you wouldn't think about it twice if you met him. He acts just like any other man out there. I was wondering why some homosexual men are "regular" and others are really open about their sexual preference. [[User:Schyler|schyler]] 22:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
:Whether or not a person is 'flaming' often has very little to do with their sexual preference. Some gay guys, and some straight guys like to act in a very camp manner. Others, both gay and straight, do not. You may want to read [[Metrosexual]] for information on the way many men act. --[[User:Mnemeson|Mnem]][[User:Mnemeson/Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User_Talk:Mnemeson|son]] 22:27, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
::You do not prefer to sleep with men or women, 'regular' is subjective; it is only YOUR opinion that you define what is 'regular' and what is not, and he is not a Flamer; it is in YOUR EYES that you see him as a flamer.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 01:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Well, not really. "Regular" isn't really subjective; it means "conforming to a standard or pattern"[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&defl=en&q=define:regular&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title], and surely you'd agree that people who act in a "flaming" manner do not "conform to the standard" behavior pattern for a male in our society. I think that "regular" is an accurate, if somewhat potentially offensive, way to describe non-"flaming" people. -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 05:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Ja, really. 'Regular' is what you've been socialized to think; everyone has been socialized differently. Also, and especially, some cultures do not see see don't see that behavior as flaming, as irregular, if they even have the term. It is VERY offensive. Please shut up, to put it bluntly. Just do it.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 07:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::No need to bite! What if this is a high school student, or someone with English as a second language? In any case it sounds like they don't know very many gay people closely, so I wouldn't blame them for being a little insensitive with terminology. It seemed like an innocent question to me. --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 09:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::I realize it's offensive, but only because of social stigma against being considered "abnormal," not because it's untrue - very few people, I would imagine, have more experience with "flaming" (there must be a better word for this) people than with "non-flaming," so much so as to make it seem like the "general pattern" for people in society. It really confuses me that "abnormality" has become such an undesirable trait... -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 22:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
It might help you to think of it as a personality difference. You probably know some people who are quiet and shy and others who are outgoing and friendly - these are all normal variations in personality, and most people, shy or outgoing, would probably say that they can't control the way they behave. Likewise, some gay men behave the way you describe, and others don't, just because they're different people. It's an individual thing - homosexuality isn't like a disease, where everyone with the same disease will have the same symptoms. --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 06:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Homosexuality is not a disease.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 07:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::That's what I said. "Homosexuality isn't like a disease": ie. it is not a disease. --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 09:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your ANSWER Grace, about it being a personality trait. That makes sense. On another note, if you aren't going to even try and answer the qustion, don't even press the edit button. [[User:Schyler|schyler]] 14:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Hey, your question was based on false precedents, or IGNORANCE, in the first place.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 01:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I've asked a gay friend of mine about how he got his lisp, and he said he hadn't really thought about it; it was just something he'd picked up along the way because he felt he should act like that (to fit in which a stereotype of what gay men act like, I suppose), and he'd have to work pretty hard to turn it back off. The lisp and swishy affect are almost certainly just a cultural thing. [[User:Grendelkhan|grendel]]|[[User_talk:Grendelkhan|khan]] 14:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 9=
==Are There Any Wikipedia Articles That Discuss The Mistranlastion Of Homosexuality In The Bible?==
Danke schön.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 00:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not sure of your question. "Homosexuality" is never actually mentioned in the Bible ''per se''. All that is discussed is "a man laying with a man as with a woman" being an "abomination". As to what that means, your guess is as good as mine. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 01:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:When you asked this on the [[WP:RD/M|Miscellaneous]] desk [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AReference_desk%2FMiscellaneous&diff=80176249&oldid=80173539 earlier], you were pointed towards [[The Bible and homosexuality]], I'm sure if we have any more they'll be linked to from there. --[[User:Mnemeson|Mnem]][[User:Mnemeson/Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User_Talk:Mnemeson|son]] 01:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::Saying "mistranslation" would probably be labeled as POV or OR. Obviously, God is against the behaviour, not the person. God would not condemn someone for something that they could not change. [[User:BenC7|BenC7]] 05:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::That might be obvious to you and me, but I wouldn't say it's a universal assumption. Just look at the concept of [[predestination]]. Or more recently, [[Fred Phelps]]. [[User:Bhumiya|Bhumiya]] ([[User talk:Bhumiya|said]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bhumiya|done]]) 23:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I have heard that homosexuality has been mistranslated, so condemned so.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 10:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Nonetheless, if the word "homosexuality" appears in any Bible, it's a mistranslation, as there is no such word in the original texts. - [[User:Outerlimits|Outerlimits]] 11:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Some (not myself, but some, mostly those opposed to homosexuality) would say that sexual orientation ''is'' something a person can change, although this seems to go against most of the scientific inquiry into the subject as well as many individual non-heterosexuals' accounts (especially those who have had others try to change their orientation). [[User:CameoAppearance|<i>C</i>ameo<i>A</i>ppearance]] [[User talk:CameoAppearance|<sup>orate</sup>]] 07:33, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I really don't see why it's always the homos that have to be the test subject and asked if they can change their orientation. Heteros are oblivious to it too.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 10:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::When will they ever learn? Forcing "normality" on people didn't work with left-handers. If they believe it's just a question of choice, have they ever wondered why people throughout history would choose to be subject to vilification, discrimination, violence and even murder, if it were in their power to choose something safer? Could a straight person choose to be gay? Could a straight man choose from tomorrow onwards to get involuntary erections at the sight of other men's naked bodies, when previously they had no such effect? Hardly. Why would it be any different the other way around? [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 07:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::I'm not sure Jack. But nice to see some spirit in you! In any case, it's quite known according to the Bible that King David "lay with another man". It's also quite known that Onan, son of Judah, was killed by God on the spot for "spilling his seed". Many interpret that as meaning that masturbation is a sin, punishable by instant death from God. Well, let me just say, if that were true, none of us, including Ben, (I like you Ben, but be honest with yourself!) would be alive today to have this discussion! That's not to say I'm not a religious person who takes the Bible seriously, and who fears God. It's just to say that I, just like anyone else, am mystified by certain of its otherwise "apparent" meanings. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 09:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
It's difficult to mistranslate the words. It's also fairly hard to change their interpretation, but that won't stop anyone trying.
It's not particularly clear from the Bible that King David "lay with another man". What's debated is whether the description of his love for Jonathan exceeding the love between a man a woman means that they had a gay relationship or not.
Onan was not punished for spilling his seed. If you read the text ([http://www.tachash.org/texis/vtx/chumash/+HwwBme8pKRXe+qwwwnFqnZDwDhzmxwww/article.html Gen 38:8 and 9]), you can see he's punished for the reason why he spilled his seed.
I've never heard any preacher of any religion claim that masturbation is a sin "punishable by instant death from God", but I'm sure there's some right-winger out there that could fulfil this shortcoming. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 09:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Of course the story of Onan has been used regularly as a "Biblical" prohibition on masturbation. That other interpretations differ is irrelevant; all that matters is that the Bible provide the raw material from which justification for one's own beliefs can be fashioned. It has ever been thus. - [[User:Outerlimits|Outerlimits]] 11:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::All I know about Onan is that was the name of [[Dorothy Parker]]'s pet bird. She called him that because he had a habit of spilling his seed. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 12:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::That's the best thing I've heard today! To the original poster, I believe [http://www.godlovesfags.com godlovesfags.com] used to be a good resource for this sort of thing - theories about whether the Bible really condemns homosexuality or not. Ah, here we go: [http://www.godlovesfags.com/blog/?page_id=7 this might be what you're looking for]. I have to admit, though, as far as I'm concerned it's all a bit like arguing over how many reindeer Santa has. :) --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 13:48, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Ahem. Santa has exactly 9 reindeer. The Bible says so! And they can all dance on top of a pin. - [[User:Outerlimits|Outerlimits]] 16:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::About BenC7's "Obviously, God is against the behaviour". No one owns God's agenda. You may infer, from someone's acts and fate, that it was punishable : it is your opinion.
::::As we say Gnu's not Unix, whe could say ''God only does''. When we see someone doing something, he does it in the hands of God. As we say that God's name is ineffable, God's thoughts are unthinkable. --[[User:Harvestman|<font color="blue"> DLL </font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Harvestman |<font color="green"> .. T</font>]]</sup> 16:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::: Actually, all of this is beside the point. The question is about mistranslation in the Bible. My first observation is that the Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Strictly speaking, there is no translation in the Bible at all. ;-)
::::: Now, what our questioner probably means is that he or she believes that some English version of the Bible uses the word "homosexual" and that this is a mistranslation of the original. (correct me if that is not the question.)
::::: The word is used by the following translations in 1 Cor. 6:9 -- Contempory English Version, English Standard, Good News Translation, God's Word, International Standard Version, New American Bible, New American Standard Version, New International Version, New King James Bible, the Living Bible and the New Living Bible. In 1 Timothy 1:10, Contempory English Version, English Standard, God's Word, International Standard Version, New American Bible, New American Standard Version, New Jerusalem Bible, the Living Bible and the New Living Bible use it. God's Word also uses it in Jude 7.
::::: The next question, then, is: Do these translations mistranslate the passages? In 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy, The greek words come from the root = ἀρσενοκοῖτ-. The definition of the word in Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker's lexicon is "a male who engages in sexual activity w. a pers. of his own sex, pederast." (<cite>A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature</cite> 3rd ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 135.) This translation, then is correct in substance. (although "male homosexuality") would be a better translation. The Jude passage is more generally immorality.
::::: Since the term is correctly translated, then, no article is likely to address the mistranslation, since there is none. --<b><font style="font-family: Andale Mono IPA" color="navy">[[User:CTSWyneken|CTS]]</font></b><font style="font-family: Andale Mono IPA" color="maroon">Wyneken</font><sup><font style="font-family: Andale Mono IPA" color="maroon">[[User talk:CTSWyneken|(talk)]]</font></sup> 20:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Sorry, you said 'the Jude passage is more generally immorality.'???!!!! I'm confused; what do you mean?[[User:100110100|100110100]] 10:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::: If you think "pederast" and "homosexual" are synonyms, perhaps your opinions about mistranslation are best ignored. "ἀρσενοκοίτης" means "malefucker". What that might mean in terms used today is ambiguous. But it's certainly not precisely identical with "homosexual", either. - [[User:Outerlimits|Outerlimits]] 03:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Yeah, to those who might not know, the fairly clear implication of "homosexual" is that
the person has clear romantic feelings for people of the same sex. Note that the clear distinctions between homosexuals and heterosexuals did not exist in ancient Rome; people would lie with men and women, regardless of their own sex -- it was not considered taboo. The only major limit was perhaps in regards to having sex with children, which was considered immoral.
:::::: The point here is that translators are virtually unanimous in translating the word as homosexual, the lexica support the translation and so to claim a mistranslation here is simply to be out of the mainstream of scholarship. In Wikipedia terms, it is a minor POV to charge all these translators with mistranslation. You cannot change that by simply disparging that opinion or mine.
:::::: How do they come to choose what seems a more generic term? Whether it is to your tastes or not, English translations tend to proceed euphemistically (as when Paul opposes the circumcision party, and he says they might as well finish the job and cut it off completely, the translators do no get as graphic as the New Testament Greek does). Also, until very recent times, homosexuality was defined by Christian Churches as sexual relations between persons of the same sex. In this case, it is clear that 1 Corinithians and 1 Timothy condemn the Graeco-Roman practice of sexual relations between men. Thus the translation. You are free to choose how you wish to label it, but there is little ambiguity here. Paul claims that God forbids homosexual relations in the same breath as he condemns heterosexual relations outside of marriage. That is all I am trying to say. --<b><font style="font-family: Andale Mono IPA" color="navy">[[User:CTSWyneken|CTS]]</font></b><font style="font-family: Andale Mono IPA" color="maroon">Wyneken</font><sup><font style="font-family: Andale Mono IPA" color="maroon">[[User talk:CTSWyneken|(talk)]]</font></sup> 21:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Hence we have the distinction; at that time in particular, when a man lay with another man, it was not part of a romantic relationship: it was for the experience of being with another man. Inasmuch as the passage about Onan can be looked, then, in both ways, so can this: one could argue, then, that the Bible says nothing against homosexual marriage -- the teachings of Jesus could imply that such freedom may be reasonable (because he would have probably treated them in much the same way as he treated the tax collectors and prostitute)s; it wouldn't be a matter of "free love" that it was back then. I don't know for certain just how much everyone is clear on this fact -- you all might be, but sometimes I don't get that same feeling from hearing the "general public" or some politicians. [[User:E Liquere|E Liquere]] 03:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The old Testament sources (in Hebrew) that refer to this subject prohibit as "abomination" homosexual intercourse, not homosexuality or gay love. As with Onan, the ''translation'' of the words is unambiguous. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 07:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:Just to clarify, I never said that the "common" interpretation of the story of [[Onan]] was the correct one. In fact, from my studies, what I believe, (and after all, it's all a matter of opinion,) is that God killed Onan not for "masturbating", as he wasn't "masturbating" at all! What he was doing was practicing what we would call ''[[coitus interruptus]]''; that is, he "withdrew" before ejaculation in order to ''intentionally'' not get his [[levirate]] wife pregnant. Thus his sin wasn't in "masturbating", but rather in disobeying God's commandment to "go forth and multiply". Basically, he was killed because he had no interest in having children with his wife, not because he "literally" ''spilled his seed''.
:When you think about it, ''spilling seed'' is an inevitable act that the most pious of believers cannot avoid. How many million sperm cells is it that are produced by one ejaculation? I forget. But it's millions. And the best one can hope for is that one (or perhaps a few, in the case of twins, triplets, etc. but certainly not ''millions''!) manages to fertilize an egg. As for the rest...only God knows what happens to them. And then there are infirtile couples, like the pious Abraham and Sarah, who, up until she was told by God that she would have a son at the ripe old age of ninety-something, was barren. Of course she had plenty of sex with Abraham beforehand, otherwise how would she know she was barren? Yet sex between infirtile couples is obviously not a sin either, as Abraham wasn't singled out for death for all the "seed" he spilled in his 100+ year lifetime (that's a whole lotta seed!). Similarly, heterosexual couples aren't forbidden from having sex once the female goes through menopause and is no longer able to bear children. Still, (hopefully in a good relationship!) a lot of seed spilling is going on!
:To get back to my original point, (and again, this is purely my take on it,) Onan wasn't killed by God ''at all'' for masturbation. He was killed by God because he deliberately chose to disobey God's commandment to "be fruitful and multiply". Now, what does "multiply" mean? Once you have a couple of kids, have you fulfilled your obligation to (at least try to) "multiply"? I think so. I think it's perfectly fine to call enough enough, and begin to use birth control. And what about before? What if you're young and you have every intention of having kids, but you just don't feel ready yet? I think birth control is ok there too. Ok I went on about it enough, and that wasn't even the original question! Just a clarification of my "Onan" remark. Now it's Jack's turn to pick on me for my lack of concision and focus. :) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 22:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Hi everyone. Thank you all for the awesome insight. So I have a new question. What is the significance of the story of David and Johnathan? Why did the writer include it if homosexuality is bad?[[User:100110100|100110100]] 10:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:David and Jonathon had a deep friendship; that does not mean that they were having a homosexual relationship. There is nothing in Scripture to imply anything of the sort. [[User:BenC7|BenC7]] 06:53, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Actually, I strongly believe they did. See [[David and Jonathon]].[[User:100110100|100110100]] 00:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The link is red. [[User:BenC7|BenC7]] 00:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::That's a typo; see [[David and Jonathan]]. [[User:Ziggurat|<font style="color:#DC2163;">Z</font>iggurat]] 00:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::The romantic section of that article has dubious factual accuracy in places and is argumentitive. [[User:BenC7|BenC7]] 00:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
It's pretty clear to me that the Bible is anti-homosexual. But it's also pro-slavery, pro-genocide, and encouraged parents to murder their kids if they thought God wanted them to, so I would look for a higher moral authority than what people thought (and wrote down) thousands of years ago. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 12:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:The Bible is against homosexual ''behaviour''. I don't know where you get pro-slavery from; God set a rule in effect that anyone who had slaves was to free them after 7 years, and if the slave wished to remain with their master, then the master was to take an awl and drive it through the slave's earlobe into their front door. I don't know that there would have been many slaves wishing to pick that. <br />As for pro-genocide, most killing was done in the context of war, and many times the Israelites were severely outnumbered and outpowered. <br /> As for the Bible "encouraging parents to murder their children if they thought God wanted them to", I assume you are referring to Abraham and Isaac. God ''prevented'' Abraham from sacrificing his son: Just as he was about to do it, an angel appeared and said, "Abraham! Do not lay a hand on the boy, or do anything to him". It was a demonstration of what God would later do in sending his Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. [[User:BenC7|BenC7]] 00:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::It's futile to argue for or against the validity of the Bible. Just look at [http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/ the Skeptic's Annotated Bible]. People who really "believe" in the Bible won't be swayed by that. A text can be interpreted to further any conceivable agenda. A more pertinent question might be why you should appeal to the Bible instead of, say, the Qur'an or the Vedas or the Saddar? 99% of the time, it's because the Bible was the one in your parents' house. In the end, it all comes down to personal preferences anyway. Gay Christians and anti-Gay Christians can both quote scripture in support of their cause. I doubt there is anyone who approaches a text with absolutely no prejudices whatsoever. The vast majority of homophobes who cite Leviticus didn't become homophobes because of Leviticus. They became homophobes because of the environment they grew up in, and only later latched onto the Bible as a means of validating and justifying their personal anxieties. It lends a false sense of timelessness to prejudices that are constantly changing. [[User:Bhumiya|Bhumiya]] ([[User talk:Bhumiya|said]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bhumiya|done]]) 23:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I would have to disagree with every sentence of the above paragraph. You can't assume that people are a product of their environment - I became a Christian when I was 17; no-one else in my family was a Christian at that time, nor are they now, 7 years later. I disagree with homosexual behaviour because the Bible makes it explicitly clear (how could it be more clear, I honsetly wonder), and not because of some preconceived notion of what I want to read.
I appeal to the Bible rather than the Quran etc. because it has the power to change people's lives. It has changed my life, and I know many whose lives it has changed. Also, the Bible has more fulfilled prophecy and historical proofs associated with it than those you have mentioned. [[User:BenC7|BenC7]] 10:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Representations of left as back and right as forward ==
Why is it so ubiquitous to have left represented as 'towards the back/backwards' and right as 'towards the front/forwards' in human (well, Western, at any rate) culture? I'm guessing it has some connection to the fact that most of us are right-handed, but I don't know if this is actually the case. [[User:CameoAppearance|<i>C</i>ameo<i>A</i>ppearance]] [[User talk:CameoAppearance|<sup>orate</sup>]] 06:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Possibly something to do with the fact that most Western languages are read from left to right, too — left is the start/origin, and right is the finish/destination. -- [[User:Vardion|Vardion]] 06:28, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:I am not aware of that. Can you give any examples? All I can think of is the backhand in tennis, which for trighthanded players indeed refers to the left side. But for left handed players it refers to the right side, so even there it doesn't hold true. And in writing one starts at the left, so that is actually the ''front''. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::The first example that comes to mind is browser buttons: 'back' is a left-facing arrow, and 'forward' is a right-facing arrow. [[User:CameoAppearance|<i>C</i>ameo<i>A</i>ppearance]] [[User talk:CameoAppearance|<sup>orate</sup>]] 09:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Aside from the browser buttons, where is it represented in that way? Thinking of politics, other words are 'progressive' (forward) for left, and 'conservative' (holding back) for right. --[[User:Mnemeson|Mnem]][[User:Mnemeson/Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User_Talk:Mnemeson|son]] 10:29, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::There are lots of things, VCRs, tape recorders ; the layout of "before" and "after" pictures; breadcrumb trails in web-site navigation and even the layout of days in the week in calendars. It is also used in graphs (so a rising stock-market has a line that slants from bottom-left to top-right) and the layout of controls on dialogue boxes and physical control panels (where you have to perform operations in order the first ones are normally on the left or above later ones). -- [[User:Chris Q|Chris Q]] 10:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::I would say in regards to tape direction that, relative to the listener or viewer (should the viewer or listener be looking at the tape deck), see that as the direction that the tape was moving. I think that's the case anyway -- maybe it really is the opposite way (tape moves left as it plays). [[User:E Liquere|E Liquere]] 03:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Heh - I'd never really thought of them that way. It's probably writing-related - 'cause we go from left to right, we consider that as time progresses you move towards the right side of the page. Also in calendars, it could just be a simple writing thing - anything written in for the days will go left->right, so if the days went right->left, you'd be constantly changing the direction you were moving your eyes in. --[[User:Mnemeson|Mnem]][[User:Mnemeson/Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User_Talk:Mnemeson|son]] 10:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I'm pretty sure it has to do with the direction of writing/reading. My understanding is that the metaphor is reversed in languages which read from right to left — i.e. left and right have different associations in Israel where Hebrew is predominant. (I think I recall reading this in something by [[George Lakoff]] but I don't remember offhand) Up and down have pretty concrete reasons for being the metaphors than they are (you can actually stack things to have more of them; it is one of the most basic spacio-temporal metaphors for this reason) but there is no reason that left/right have to mean forward/back and I'm pretty sure they don't mean that for all people. --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 15:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== Social Class and Voting Behaviour ==
How significant a factor is social class when addressing long-term voting behaviour?{{unsigned|195.194.86.166}}
::Quite significant, I would say.--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 11:22, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::In which country? --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 11:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::[[Solihull]], presumably.--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 11:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::: Sorry, in the United Kingdom, how important is social class when addressing the issue of long-term voting behaviour? I guess I should've made that clearer
::::::I'm not British, but generally it's very significant. People tend (not always, but generally) to vote for whomever they believe represent their own interests the most, i.e. poor people will vote for candidates stressing welfare, etc, and rich people will vote for candidates who support lower texas for...rich people. If you're hoping someone will write your essay for you, you're out of luck (see the top of the page), but feel free to ask more specific questions. -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 22:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
It's absolutely significant, but not utterly predictive. A simple reading of, say, 1980s politics would have poorer classes voting Labour, wealthier voting Conservative and the middle split between the two big players and the mess that was the Liberal Party and the [[SDP]]. Today, it's more confusing because Labour has headed rightwards, the Liberal Democrats are stronger and in some respects very left wing and smaller parties are attracting more support. Your question is especially hard to answer because the United Kingdom includes devolved political processes in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. And anyway, the picture I paint is too simplistic. People seem to vote for people as much as policies, so a right winger like [[Margaret Thatcher]] attracted much support from natural Labour voters, because she was perceived as a strong leader etc. So, like I say, it's important, but it's not a crystal ball. By the way, you might like to add a section to your essay on [[John Major]]'s ''classless society''(!) --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 07:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Depends on how long-term the behaviour you want to identify is, as well. Do you mean intergenerational? [[User:Hornplease|Hornplease]] 10:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Dweller, can I ask how or why its a significant factor? It befuddles me
:Typically, in the UK, social class and wealth used to be strongly connected. Therefore, lower class families were naturally attracted to socialist policies that they considered would redistribute wealth and be good for them. The opposite was true of wealthier families. Simple (and simplistic) as that. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 10:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Sahara Desert turned to glass ==
I read something a while ago in a novel or comic book with some kind of post-apocalyptic setting, that mentioned the Sahara Desert having turned into a vast sheet of glass as a result of (perhaps) nuclear war. I think that the characters in the book referred to Africa only occasionally, and with a sort of shudder, like "let's not think about what happened to Africa". This image is all that sticks in my mind, and I'd like to know where I got it from. Does it sound familiar to anyone? --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 09:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
although I don't know it i must comment on it! GREAT ! africa, in glass? t may actually be a possibility but not from a nuclear war though (sand would vaporise when hit by nukes and besides, who wants to hit sand?, and if they would aim for the major cities then the climate changes would actually make Africa most likely one of the most fertile places on earth(or what remains of earth after the first anti-matter weapons are used :) )(btw. the anti-matterweapons have reached usable stage. one short anti-matters blast and it's goodbye California and hello moon, im moving in with you.
*Nuclear weapons can turn sand into glass (see [[trinitite]]) but I don't know if any way to turn the entire Sahara desert into glass without having an immense arsenal (larger than than all nations ever have ever had) and being very wasteful about it. --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 15:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Possible suggestions, though none of them mention Africa: Washington State University has a [https://www.wsu.edu/~brians/nuclear/b.htm Nuclear Holocausts Bibliography] mentioning a novel by Adrian Blair, titled ''Cosmic Conquest'', in which "a third of America has been fused into a desert of glass by chain reactions which resulted from a nuclear war of unknown origins". Another title featured on [http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/nuclear/w.htm the same site] is ''Triumph'' by [[Philip Wylie]], where "Park Avenue is a river of molten glass". ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 12:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:On further reflection, I think maybe it was Philip K. Dick's [[The Man in the High Castle]]. Anyone confirm this? --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 13:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
: The site of the first American atomic test (the trinity test) was at Alomogordo, New Mexico. The sand was fused into glass which was first called atomsite and later this was changed to trinitite. Most of this glass has already been scavanged by tourists to the site. You can read more about this [http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/trinity/trinity1.html here]. ---Filll 20:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::Thanks for the info, but I was more curious about the book, or I would have asked at the Science help desk. Is it Philip K. Dick? --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 20:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== Michealangelo ==
I can't seem to find where Michealangelo painted himself in the Sistine Chapel do you have any idea?? Thank you - Sunni
:<s>See [[Sistine_Chapel#Christ_Giving_the_Keys_to_St._Peter]]. Fifth from the right edge (wearing a black cap), according to the article on WP.</s>---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 16:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::That's a self-portrait of Perugino. The self-portrait of [[Michelangelo]] is in "[[The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)|The Last Judgement]]"; his is said to be the face on the flayed skin shown in [[:Image:Last judgement.jpg|this detail]]. A second self-portrait in the same fresco is said to be the figure in the lower left hand corner, looking encouragingly at those rising from their graves. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 16:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Your best reference for Michelangelo studies would be Howard Hibbard's text ''Michelangelo'' (New York: Westview Press, 1974). It is highly acessible. On page 249, the late Professor Hibbard disucsses the Last Judgement Fresco of the Sistene Chapel. Just below Christ on the right, Saint Bartholomew holds some flayed skin that bears the distroted face of Michelangelo. Bartholomen's feast day is associated with the chapel's construction.
Dr. Hibbard's book does not discuss a second self-potrait in the Last Judgement Fresco.
I heard a recent paper last April at the International Undergraduate Symposium in Art History in Portland, Oregon, where a gentleman argued that the depiction of Noah in the earlier Drunkedness of Noah scene on the Sistene Ceiling was also a veiled self-potrait. You may e-mail me at [''email removed to prevent spam''] if you would like to obtain the paper. ">[[User:midnight_coffee|midnight_coffee]]</
== On citizenship and guilt ==
If a person spies against his own country, it is called treason. If against another country, it is called espionage. Both are severely punished. But may it mean that a person without citizenship can be a spy without fear of being accused? I need information on as many countries' laws as it is possible, but especially about the native land of mine, Russia. --[[User:194.85.123.55|194.85.123.55]] 17:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
*Well, I don't know about specific countries, but your logic is a it off. Look at it this way: If a person spies against a country, it is either treason (perhaps) if it is his own country, or espionage if it some other country. There's really only two choices: the country you are a citizen of, or not. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 17:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::In other words, a person without citizenship can still be punished for espionage. They would probably be punished by the country they spied on. I'm not a lawyer, though. --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 20:58, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Perhaps he means a [[stateless person]]. The logic still applies, though. [[User:Hornplease|Hornplease]] 10:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Russian laws don't make a distinction between foreigners and stateless persons. --<font color="FC4339">[[User:Ghirlandajo|Ghirla]]</font> <sup><font color="C98726">[[User_talk:Ghirlandajo|-трёп-]]</font></sup> 11:14, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::It would be my guess that a stateless person could be punished even more severely, because with no legal ties to any given country they could be seen as able to give information on any country to any country without the guilt of treachery. [[User:Russia Moore|Russia Moore]] 04:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Relieving A Superior Of Their Command ==
Under what circumstances is a subordinate allowed to relieve a superior of their command in the army/navy/air force of which you have sufficient knowledge to answer this question? --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 17:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:If requesting medical or legal advice, please consider asking a doctor or lawyer instead. In this case, consult a specialist in military law. I claim no specialized knowledge of this field, but The UCMJ offers the death penalty for refusal to obey lawful orders. http://www.crimesofwar.org/expert/solis.html discusses the legal background of UCMJ in this regard. One who decides a superior's orders are unlawful and relieves him of command is likely to face a real shitstorm, and may not find many friends in the command structure, since officers order soldiers to face certain death sometimes, and unquestioning obedience makes their work easier. No military likes free spirits, barracks lawyers, or rebels. See [[Caine Mutiny]]. Getting a superior relieved because he is cowardly or batshit crazy probably requires the behavior being witnessed by his fellow officers of equal or higher rank and/or by a qualified psychiatrist. As to unlafwul orders, there is supposed to be at least one case of a German soldier refusing to shoot civilians on the grounds that it would violate the rules of war during WWII, and the Nazis doing nothing more to him than transferring him, because they did not want an open airing of their genocide and a conflict between the SS and the Wehrmacht. Refusal to carry out illegal orders is a lesser step than arresting a commanding officer, i.e. mutiny. Requesting orders in writing is the next step below refusal to carry out the orders, because it takes away deniability: the higher ups can't blame "a few bad apples". It will not win any friends either. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 18:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Well, I have knowledge enough of only one service to answer that question: [[Starfleet]]. The chief medical officer of a ship can relieve anyone on the ship (including superiors) of duty if the CMO believes they are medically unfit. For more, see the [http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Chief_medical_officer Chief medical officer] article at [http://www.memory-alpha.org/ Memory Alpha]. [[User:Chuck Carroll|Chuck]] 20:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Gun Control in the US ==
Even with a toll of nine dead in three violent school shootings in one week, the United States is unwilling to consider restrictions on guns openly bought and sold across the country.
Only a few lonely voices have called for controls to be placed on easily available personal weapons – which can include very powerful semi-automatic pistols and rifles.Instead, a Wisconsin lawmaker has proposed arming teachers and school staff in response to the violence.
What’s depressing is how little people are pushing for gun control today.
What is the cost of freedom? Impatience for desires and sheer lack of education? What is the heights of creativity? Is freedom being overdone??
At what age is it legal to possess guns in the US? [kj_venus]
:You can "own" a gun at birth. However, owning a gun and being able to walk around with one is a completely different issue. As for the main questioner, Wikipedia is not a soapbox. You don't really want someone picking through your rather weak argument. That will do nothing more than start a flame war in which nobody will change anyone else's opinion. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 19:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::So you decided to kick this flame war off by insulting his point did you? [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 22:14, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Stop beating around the bush & accept facts. Its just like a Karate instructor is teaching his pupils to use the skills he has acquired only for self-defense purposes.
Its like Spiderman being instructed by his father to learn to use the power only when required.
Owning & possessing are two different issues even in legal terms. No child is taught how to use a gun at young age unless he has some pshychic parents.
[kj_venus].
:There are plenty of such pshychic parents in the USA then, judjing from the news. And I don't why, but I am more afraid of someone with a gun than of someone with knowledge and skill in Karate. Try to defend yourself, or running away, from one and then from the other. There is a BIG diffrence between the two (I am not going to use Spiderman as an argument). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Are you guys talking about psychotic parents? or psychic parents? or something else? [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 01:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::First of all, I've seen numerous cases where a well armed populace actually has lower crime rates than those where guns are not as prevalent. All the stats that I've seen though have been U.S.-centric. They use the idea that if a criminal knows that most everyone they see is not defenseless, then they'll be less likely to carry out a crime.
::Secondly, Spider-man was brought up by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, not his father. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 04:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Yeah, [[Peter Parker]]'s parents [[Richard and Mary Parker]] were agents for [[CIA]], so Ben and May had to raise him after they died on a mission (if you're interested =S) [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 07:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I suggest that you examine the crime rates and figures of Japan. Way lower than the US, and the average Japanese doesn't have a gun. It would be interresting to compare the figures of violent crimes commited with guns in the European Union and in the USA (same population number and more or less same culture). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 12:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::You can do the comparisons in the U.S. - which will avoid much of the cultural bias. I focus on violent crime by city [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_08.html here]. Then, you need to find a somewhat reliable table of gun ownership. That is where I hit a snag. Does anyone have reliable rates of gun ownership city-by-city? --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 13:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::In any case, the Reference Desk is not the place for a philosophical discussion of this nature - the original poster never asked a question. Our article on [[gun politics]] nicely sums up the arguments used by both sides. — [[User:QuantumEleven|Quantum]]<i>[[User_talk:QuantumEleven|Eleven]]</i> 13:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Note that the shooter in the Amish case seemed to be completely normal until the day he flipped out, so nothing short of a total gun ban would have kept a gun out of his hands. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 23:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:Damn Troll! I don't care if you call yourself venus, please SIGN UP so we can know who you are! I can't believe I'm agreeing with this troll, but, I'll say it again: Amendment II of the US constitution should be repealed. Guns should be banned outright. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 06:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Now, if there was some system of government in the U.S. in which the people could elect people to some sort of, say, a Congress that has the capability of amending the Constitution to do such a thing as repeal the second amendment... No, that would be silly. Never mind. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 13:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Kainaw, your remark was obviously sarcasm, but I still don't get it. Are you referring to the [[democratic deficit]] argument about the US system? Or, perhaps, are you implying that I don't understand how constitutional amendments are enacted in the US? I'm confused. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 23:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Actually, I use every chance I get to make comments about Congress. The U.S. press puts as much effort as possible into telling us that the President makes all the laws, makes the budget, sets taxes, everything. I figure that if a few people mentioned Congress now and then, it is possible (but not probable) that a few people would realize that if you want laws to change, you need to focus on who you are voting into Congress at least as much as you worry about who's goofing off in the Oval Office. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 20:17, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::In the US guns have obtained a similar status to cigarettes, the majority know they're bloody stupid things to have, and the source of a lot of suffering of people, but it would be political suicide to try and ban them, because so many people have them, even a lot of those that know their stupid. One of the many failings of democracy, if you aggrevate enough minorities, soon you have aggrevated enough majorities, even if you are doing the right thing, you are forced to do the wrong thing. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 18:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:Not even a total gun ban would have kept a gun out of his hands if he really wanted one (just look at the UK), and even if he didn't have access to a gun, he would just have used a knife instead (again, just look at the UK). People who have no intention of coming out alive (as with the nutball in the Amish case) have nothing to lose and thus have no problem breaking any law in order to get themselves into that situation in the first place. --[[User:Aaron|Aaron]] 18:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Knives are much less effective weapons. You might be able to kill one or two people with a knife at a time, but you can't kill dozens, as they will run away or subdue the attacker. Someone with an assault rifle can kill dozens easily. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 00:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::That is not entirely true. You can shoot dozens of people, but not kill them easily. There are many places in your body that I can make a tiny bullet hole go through without killing you. There are very few places that I put a 2-3 inch blade in and not cause a critical injury. That is why it is very unwise to pull a gun on a person holding a knife unless you are sure you can shoot him multiple times before he reaches you. If you really want to, you can look into use of automatic weapons. I was given a 3-day suspension in high school for laughing when I heard about an idiot that unloaded an AK-47 on a playground. He injured 3 children and a teacher. Not killed - injured. 30-40 rounds (depending on the magazine) and he hit 4 people. He would have done much better with a knife. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 02:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I should have pointed out that I've been shot twice with .22 rounds. It hurts and it can be deadly, but a gun is far from a guaranteed kill. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 03:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I agree that any single shot may very well not kill, but an assault rifle gives you the ability to put hundreds of bullets into dozens of people. If the shooter takes the time to shoot up the fallen (in vital areas), they can kill almost all of them. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 16:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Kainaw, I'm assuming you were shot while in the service, and so you were likely armed yourself. I've got nothing against the military or the police being armed with guns. But we're talking about civilians having guns. If you were, say, an unarmed civilian, or even worse, a young schoolboy having been shot but not killed by a .22, had the shooter decided to finish the job, would you have any chance in hell of stopping him? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 23:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:The "guns dont kill people, people kill people" argument is so critically flawed it angers me when anyone uses it. If a guy walked into a bank with a knife and tried to hold it up, theyd just sit behind their window and laugh at him. Theres no way you could command people with any other weapon the way you can with a gun. Eg, columbine, if they had tried stabbing kids, as soon as they got one kid they would have been overpowered, its not hard to overpower people armed with knives if you have a numerical advatage, however, you can charge as many people as you like at a guy with an uzi, but you'll have to wait till he runs out of bullets to get a chance. So yeh guns dont kill people, people kill people mostly '''with guns'''. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 18:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Yea, "nukes don't kill people, people kill people"...so let's pass a "right to bear nukes" Amendment and give everyone an unlimited supply of nuclear weapons. :-) [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Philc, so, what you are saying is that if a few guys got on an airplane with box cutters and tried to hijack the aircraft, the people would just laugh at them because they aren't carrying guns. Right? --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 00:45, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::No but if two guys went for it with stanely knives (I think thats what you mean by box cutters) it wouldnt take long for the other 200 hundred people on the plane to kick the shit into them. Sure they might take a few lives, and thats why they're not allowed on planes, but theyd wouldnt manage to convince all of the passengers that it is so hopeless that is not worth fighting back, leaving them free to hijack the plane, which is quite easy with a gun. [[User:172.201.152.4|172.201.152.4]] 13:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:You're right Kainaw. The terrorists on 9/11 managed to hijack four planes. Wait a sec...make that three planes...apparently in one of them they indeed ''were'' rushed by a few brave souls, and were stopped from taking control of the plane. Unfortunately it was too late to save the plane and its passengers, but not too late to save the White House. Too bad for the terrorists though. All they had were box cutters, but not even one handgun...even a .22. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Thats just a poor effort. Im sorry, but in a die/die situation, how pathetic do you have to be to sit there and do nothing. This will seem desperately inflammatory to some, so I apologize in advance. But seriously, they should have done something. [[User:172.201.152.4|172.201.152.4]] 13:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:I don't find it inflammatory, just rather ignorant of the facts. You're looking at it with the benefit of hindsight. The passengers on the three highjacked planes ''had no idea'' that it was a "die/die" situation. Nobody knew what was going on. Up to that point all they knew was that teh planes were hijacked, but as of that date, nobody had ever heard of highjacked planes going on suicide missions. They must have just felt it was a "regular" hijack, and that the plane would just land somewhere with the hijackers making a list of demands, just as every other hijacking had gone previously in theit memory. It was only with the benefit of knowledge (through cellphones) that the passengers were aware of what the "real" mission was all about, and that it was indeed a die/die situation, and so they acted with that knowledge. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== What is cultural diversity? ==
I understand that the term cultural diversity is tricky to quantify. And I am not seeking a definition of it in terms of quantification(e.g.no of language spoken on earth). Rather, if we focus on a more micro scale, say, a type of media(film, broadcasting, magazine etc.) in a certain place, how can we decide whether this medium is characterized by diversity or not? In this regard of cultural diversity, what should its definition include other than the "coexistence of different views" ? I would be greatful. Thank you. Paul 02:12 10th oct, 2006 (UTC)
:Well, speaking of media (which is an odd way of measuring cultural diversity IMO), there are several ways IMO. First, I don't think cultural diversity is just the coexistence of different views; I think at the very least it's the coexistence of different views, values and beliefs. Using that definition, a medium (let's say magazines) that either a) caters to a variety of views, values and beliefs; b) acknowledges the existence of different views, values and beliefs; or maybe even c) is consumed by demographics representing different views, values and beliefs. This is just a partial answer, BTW. Hopefully others have more insight. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 20:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Representation is one possibility. There's quite a bit of research on representation of different groups in various media (someone will count the gay and lesbian characters on sitcoms, for example, or the number of photographs of black people in a particular newspaper). Or you could ask, what is the "dominant culture" in your medium, and how is it portrayed relative to other cultures? How often do, say, Australian people appear as major characters in Hollywood movies, and when they appear, what stereotypes are used? This sounds like a Media Studies essay question - if you're not clear about the definition of "cultural diversity", why don't you ask your teacher what they are looking for? --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 21:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you guys. You are right. Its something like an essay question. Actually its a presentation topic, and that's why the lecturer wouldn't say anything because he thinks that he should leave everything to us. What you are suggesting seems to be a textual analysis approach to me. But I am just not sure whether having many people from different culture represented in a medium equate a culturally diversed medium. If that's the case, can I argue that the hollywood film industry is diversed since different movies from different cultures but not only those from hollywood are played, and in those movies people from different culture are represented. Paul 12:36, 11 october 2006 (UTC)
== Upcoming movie ==
Went to the theater and saw a trailer, Some Sin City looking movie about Spartans. The trailer mention it was inspired by some book by Frank Miller. I can't find any information on this movie, and I dont remember its name. I've been looking through upcoming movie lists but still nothing. Can anyone help? [[User:Tutmosis|<small> - Tutmosis</small>]] 18:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Its called "300" and the comic of Frank Miller is loosly based upon the story of [[:Leonidas I]], king of Sparta and the battle of [[:Thermopylae]]. Heres is the official site [http://300themovie.warnerbros.com/]. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 19:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::We have an article about it at [[300 (film)]]. [[User:Adam Bishop|Adam Bishop]] 19:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::: Thank you guys! [[User:Tutmosis|<small> - Tutmosis</small>]] 19:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The teaser trailer is available; and it is bloody amazing. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
== The origins of Frere Jacques ==
In trying to flesh out the Wikipedia article on the nursery rhyme "Frere Jacques", I have run into a few stumbling blocks.
1. What is the real reference (such as authorship) of "La Cle du Caveau a l'usage de tous les Chansonniers francais, Paris, 1811" ?
2. I ran across the following potential discussion that might have relevance to the origin of "Frere Jacques":
The Theory of Hungarian Music, Edward Kilenyi, Musical Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Jan., 1919), pp. 20-39
available from JSTOR:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4631(191901)5%3A1%3C20%3ATTOHM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H
Supposedly at least part of the tune Fra Jacopino is similar to Chanson de Lambert (1650) and another tune (a Hungarian folk tune?). Anyone have access to JSTOR to check this lead out? I will caution you that I am not sure about the rules for use of JSTOR; hopefully this usage is allowed.
Alternatively, anyone know much about Hungarian folk tunes?
*If you leave your e-mail address on my [[User talk:Fastfission|talk page]] I'll just send you the article from JSTOR. I doubt JSTOR cares much about one-time sharing of their articles (in any case the article in question is in the public ___domain so they wouldn't have any real legal case — it'd just be a terms of use issue). --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 03:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== Why a particular order in google? ==
I was just looking for news items on the Amish school shooting. I googled [http://news.google.ca/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-22,GGLD:en&q=%22Charles+Carl+Roberts%22 "Charles Carl Roberts"] and searched News, and the two top items (at present) are both blog entries. How would that happen? [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 21:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Because the Google search algorithm thinks those are the two most relevant news results for your search terms. How Google determines relevance is a mystery, and a highly-guarded trade secret. --[[User:Serie|Serie]] 23:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
:Check out our article on [[PageRank]] to get a general idea of how Google works. The specifics are trade secrets but the basics are known. (Actually, coming back to that question a few hours later, I realize I misread it — I have no idea if PageRank is used for news stories at all.) --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 00:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::Thanks for the replies guys. It's just surprising to me because the news section of google has always seemed very rarified; what passes for a 'news' site seemed to be judged by a very high standard. It's the first time I've ever seen a blog in the list at all, much less so high up in the ranking. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 01:01, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Actually, I've always wondered where they get some of the news sources for Google News. One of the top sources (at least when I click on Google News) is a weekly newspaper in east-central Alberta that serves a town of 300 people. I live in Alberta and I've never heard of the town, let alone the newspaper.
:::I just googled for "school killing", and the Westfield Weekly News right now brings up more stories for me than the Globe and Mail, the Vancouver Province, the Calgary Herald, the Montreal Gazette, and the Ottawa Citizen ''combined''. [[User:Charlene.fic|Charlene.fic]] 01:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== Female mystics and musicians, AD 600 to 1600? ==
Were there any types of female mystics or musicians in any world culture in the middle ages or renaissance? I can think of many examples that were male, but were there any female traditions or co-ed traditions? Also I'm curious what kinds of costumes these personas would have worn, if we have any illustrations or recreations.--[[User:Sonjaaa|Sonjaaa]] 23:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
* Here's one to get you started: [[Hildegard von Bingen]]. The category links at the bottom should prove useful. Best wishes, [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 23:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
*[[Teresa of Ávila]]. [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 03:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
*Our article [[Mysticism]] further mentions [[Andal]] (ஆண்டாள்) (8th century), [[Mirabai]] (मीराबाई) (1498-1547), [[Lalleshwari]] (लल्लेश्वरी) (1320–1392), [[Angela of Foligno]] (c.1248-1309), and [[Margery Kempe]] (c.1373-1438). --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 07:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
*And, of course, [[Joan of Arc]] claimed to talk with God, although he apparently turned down her urgent request for asbestos bloomers. :-) [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 23:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 10=
== Top 22 Terrorists ==
On [[National Public Radio]] today I heard them say that on October 10, 2001, George Bush released a list of the 22 (maybe it was 20 as that would be more of a round number) most wanted terrorists. This made me a bit curious. How many of those that were named have actually been caught or killed? [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 03:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:Well, [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011010-1.html here]'s the list. I'm sure a quick Google news search will establish which have been caught or killed so far. [[User:Ziggurat|<font style="color:#DC2163;">Z</font>iggurat]] 03:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
==United States Civil War ==
Does anyone know how many people purchased exemptions from war service from the United States government during the Civil War? [[User:68.7.88.112|68.7.88.112]] 03:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== Age of Sexual Consent ==
I am trying to find out what the age of sexual consent was, for the state of Alabama, in September of 2000. This is my first time using this website, so my apologies to everyone if I'm going about this incorrectly. Thank you for your time. [[User:Simmons amanda|Have a great day!!]] 03:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:Try www.ageofconsent.com. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 04:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::I have asked a lawyer about www.ageofconsent.com, and he cautioned me that he would not trust it completely. So I would be careful before relying on it.
:::Check here [http://www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeofAlabama/1975/coatoc.htm] it is the current Alabama code on [[statutory rape]], but it looks like the last update was in 2000, so it seems it has not changed since then.
:::Basically if one person is 16 or older and has intercourse with someone who is
:::#under 16 but above 12 '''and'''
:::#more than 2 years younger
:::it is second degree rape, a class B Felony
:::If the first person were over 16 and the second person under 12, then it is first degree rape, a class A felony.
::: Of course [[IANAL]] [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 20:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== The prevelance of female pedophiles? ==
I'm always seeing reports of male pedophilia in newspapers, on news websites and on TV. I've never heard of even one female pedophile. Has there ever been a case of a woman being charged with child sexual abuse? [[User:Pesapluvo|Pesapluvo]] 03:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
: The one thing that I notice as a constant in these affairs is that the news media will invariably paint the younger party as being 'victimized', 'taken advantage of', 'tricked', 'coerced' or the like. Now, I'm not advocating pedophilia by any stretch of the imagination, but this sort of pejorative, one-sided language really does nothing to help the affair. Demonizing a pedophile doesn't help them, and it doesn't help society. Judge not lest the be judged, and all that crap. <end sermon> [[User:Cjwright79|Chris]] 17:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/nyregion/10teacher.html --[[User:Nricardo|Nelson Ricardo]] 03:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Interesting, but the boys were 13 and 17, not quite pre-pubescent, so I don't believe that quite counts as pedophilia. [[User:Pesapluvo|Pesapluvo]] 04:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm sure that's not the only case; I recall hearing about a couple others, but only vaguely. Still, "pedophiles" are rarely looked at as being women as well, I would suppose largely for the same reasons that you don't hear about a "dirty old perverted woman". (A dirty old man? Hell, that's a catchphrase!) [[User:E Liquere|E Liquere]] 04:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::I can remember (but not cite) several cases where a man and woman (or even a teenage boy and girl) were charged together in molesting pre-pubescent children. But in those cases it's always possible one of the couple was acting out of loyalty to the other (or under threat) rather than out of a desire to molest. --[[User:Amcbride|Allen]] 04:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::As to the ages, male pedophiles are often referred to as pedophiles when they prey on 13 year olds. Maybe there is a distinction between the term as far as journalists are concerned vs. lawyers. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 04:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I think among psychiatrists, the reference is mainly to attraction, (not real acting out, such as molestation) and the preferred term for attraction to pubescent [[adolescent]]s is [[ephebophilia]], whereas pedophilia is reserved for attraction to pre-pubescent children. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 07:05, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::But we all know how much actual meaning and legal meaning differ sometimes... [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::What do you mean with ''actual'' meaning? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 18:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::And psychiatrist are not particularly known to engage in legal language. --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 21:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::A lawmaker might very well declare anyone having sex with anyone under 18 or even 21 to be a pedophile, for some political advantage ("his opponent is on the side of pedophiles !") but that has nothing to do with science. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 23:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::::I made a whole rant about this a while back about how I found [[Dominique Swain]] in the remake of [[Lolita]] quite hot. I'll spare you any repetition. In any case, my main point is that I'd only consider one a pedophile if they're attracted to ''pre-pubescent'' children. Once a person is "post-pubescent", that person is, sexually speaking, an adult. It's true that in the early stages of "post-pubescence", the person's mind may be too young to make mature decisions regarding sexual matters, and therefore laws forbidding sex with "post-pubescents" are rational. Yet, I wouldn't describe any person who is attracted to another sexually mature person as a "pedophile". "Pedophilia" is the truly sick attraction to "pre-pubescent" children. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 06:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::::One way to rank "sexual perversions" is if they can result in children or not, since some religious fanatics insist that only sex for reproductive purposes is moral. This would make homosexuality and sex acts other than vaginal intercourse immoral (as well as sex with women past menopause and with the infertile). This view would not make sex with teenagers after puberty immoral, which is why Mormons and many states allowed teenagers (once married) to have sex. Sex with children before the age of puberty can't immediately result in children, although, if the relationship continues past the age of puberty, then children could result. So, using this wacky religious standard, sex with children under the age of puberty isn't quite as bad as other sex acts which can't ever lead to pregnancy. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 23:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
As for the original question, I suspect that female pedophilia is more widespread than we think, it's just not reported, as nobody thinks any harm was done to the "victim", especially if it's a boy. They can't get pregnant, and don't have a broken hymen as a result, and we don't generally consider a boy to be harmed psychologically by having consensual sex, no matter what the age of the woman is. Thus, only a venereal disease would be considered "harm", by many. Female offenders regularly get much lighter sentences, as a result. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 00:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
== hester prynne ==
the page concerning Hester Prynne, the main character in the novel ''The Scarlet Letter'' by Nathaniel Hawthorne, needs much revision. The information that is there is a vast misrepresentation (the phrase "one night stand" is used), and the length of the article isn't close to what it would take to correctly show the complexity of the character Hester Prynne.
:Thank you for your suggestion{{{{#if:notsubsted||subst:}}#if:{{{1|}}}| regarding [[:{{{1}}}]]}}! When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a [[wiki]], so ''anyone'' can edit almost any article by simply following the '''{{MediaWiki:edit}}''' link at the top. You don't even need to [[Special:Userlogin|log in]] (although there are [[Wikipedia:Why create an account?|many reasons why you might want to]]). The Wikipedia community encourages you to [[Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages|be bold in updating pages]]. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out [[Wikipedia:how to edit a page|''how to edit a page'']], or use the [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|sandbox]] to try out your editing skills. [[Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers|New contributors are always welcome]]. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 05:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== Mr Plow episode of Simpsons ==
Does anyone know what opera is Maria Callas singing in in Homer's second commercial from the Simpsons episode "Mr Plow"?
:hmm, it would be the third commerical right? In the first one he does the "My name is Mr. Plow", in the second he raps "I'm Mr Plow and I'm here to say..." The third is done by an ad agency, but I don't remember the song. This [http://www.area51newmexico.com/simpsons/simpsons_plow.html] doesn't list it either. [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 15:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:Wait... the third commercial started out with the snowglobe from Citizen Kane, maybe one of the songs from it? [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033467/soundtrack], didn't see Callas though. [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 15:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:If you are sure it is Callas, you may be able to figure it out by litening to the clips here: [http://www.amazon.com/Very-Best-Maria-Callas/dp/B00005Y1YQ/sr=8-1/qid=1160494574/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0823146-8842531?ie=UTF8] [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 15:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:I recall it as being the aria from Bellini's ''[[Norma (opera)|Norma]]'', but it's been a while. [[User:Natgoo|Natgoo]] 08:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::By "the aria", do you mean ''Casta diva''? [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 09:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Yep, I think so. [[User:Natgoo|Natgoo]] 09:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Was Rudolf Hess murdered? ==
He got arrested,Nazis then declared him insane,he spent more then 45 years in jail,watching his country being burned almost to ashes...
And finaly,after all these years,in 1987 he got a real chance to get free,and they say he killed him self?!? His family claims that he was killed,and you have to admit that it is a little strange that 93 years old man commit suicide,just before he is to be relased.I mean,being 93,he probably wouldnt live more then 10-15 years maximum.Plus he was about to get freed...So,my question is,from the medical,or simple logical stand,is there any possibilty that a man in his condition commit murder?
Thank you [[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 09:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
*45 years in prison does a lot of damage to someone's mental health. It's entirely possible he commited suicide. Whether he was actually murdered, I can't say. I have no proof either way. - [[User:131.211.210.13|131.211.210.13]] 10:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Have you never watched [[The Shawshank Redemption]]? --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 10:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:XXXXXXXX, please read the [[Rudolf Hess]] article. You have his life story seriously confused. While he sat out the rest of the war in a British prison, disowned by his former Nazi friend who called him insane as a matter of public policy, rather than admit anything. He then got returned to Germany after the war and got to watch Germany rebuilt into one of the world's leading economies while imprisoned there. [[User:Rmhermen|Rmhermen]] 16:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Like dweller insinuated, it may have been his deepest horror to return to the outside world...
Still,he was trying to get free for about 47 years,and then when he was just about to get it,he commited suicide? As for Shawshank,that guy that hanged him self,had no family or anything,but Hess had both children,greatchildren and a home. Plus,he was 93,like i said before,he could hardly live more then 10-15 years,so why kill him self at that age?
[[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 20:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not sure of the point of the question. "[H]e spent more then 45 years in jail, watching his country being burned almost to ashes". What country are you talking about? Germany ''thrived'' in the post-war period. In an economical sense, Germany actually ''won'' the war, in the sense that Germany replaced the UK as the strongest economic power in Europe. Is there perhaps some other vision of Germany that yourself and Hess see as having "burned almost to ashes"? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 05:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I rather suspect there is. I recently watched a British TV documentary on Hess at the Nurember Trials. If I say 'more nuts than a fruit cake' I assume people will understand. As for the murder theory, self-respecting neo-Nazis were probably falling over themselves to dispose of the Führer of the Fourth Reich, rather than have the world face the embarrassing reality. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 05:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Hahahaha ,Loomis,when is said burned to ashes,I ment on the year 1945.
His Nazi goverment was burn to ashes,so to speak,so I ment if he was going to kill himself,he would have probably done it in 1945,rather then in 1987 {{unsigned|XXXXXXX}}
:Postwar, he considered himself the heir to Hitler and Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich. If he'd been sane, by the time he hit 90+ he would have realised that any life he'd have outside would be pretty sad and meaningless. But there's substantial evidence that he was insane and sadly there is a strong connection between people with mental health problems and suicide and looking for rhyme and reason isn't necessarily going to bear fruit. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 09:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
If he did indeed commit suicide, I imagine that the motivation for it would have been fear of the public's attitude towards him. A former Nazi walking about in the open during the 1990s? I doubt he would last a week before being murdered. [[User:Pesapluvo|Pesapluvo]] 02:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Albert Speer lived well into 1980s and he was never even close to getting killed.As a matter a fact he became somewhat of a celeb.
And Dweller,I dont think that Hess really considered himself the new Fuhrer,I think it were German Neo Nazis who considered him to be the new Fuhrer(because there is not a single written document by himself that is saying how he felt after World War 2).So,we can only speculate if he considered himself a Fuhrer,but I really doubt it,not even his son mentions it in a very long writing about his father. [[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 11:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:According to the BBC documentary this week, Hess did write about being the new Fuhrer. I guess you'd need to argue with their researcher, rather than me. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 11:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I dont argue,its possible,I just wanted to say that its not avalible on the internet,or at least not on languages that I understand,thats all...I would be very greatfull if you or anyone else can provide me the links to those writings,because I would really like to see it.Thanks anyway.
[[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 12:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
== gandhian ideology ==
tell me something about gandhian ideology
:{{refq|Gandhism}}--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 13:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::In fairness, a search on "ghandian ideology" turns up nothing. Perhaps the user ''did'' search. It's often hard to find things (either on Wikipedia, or on the internet at large) if you don't know the right words to search for. [[User:Chuck Carroll|Chuck]] 21:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::"'''Gandhian''' ideology" does turn up a number of links (many of them not very relevant) and Gandhism appears in the middle of the first page. It would have helped if Wikipedia search could suggest alternate spellings like google :) [[User:Tintin1107|Tintin]] ([[User_talk:Tintin1107|talk]]) 04:05, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== movie review ==
review of lage raho munnabhai
:{{refq|Lage Raho Munnabhai}}--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 13:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== are car prices increasing or decreasing ==
I just want to know whether car and other prices like that of SUVs are increasing year by year or decreasing year by year. This is for a research conducted by me. Can anyone talso tell about how many percent has the car prices increased/decreased in the last 6 years from 2001 to 2006.
My research: Whether cost of living inching upward or downward. Already I have found that computer products pricing are decreasing and food prices are increasing.
Thankyou
:Which country are you referring too? It could depend on where you live (although I think the costs for living generally has increased...) [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 15:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
over the average prices do increase though there is no real percentage to go by but inflation is the closest thing around. Inflation is used in economics as to how much prices rose. I suggest looking up your country's balance for the second question, as for the first question; the prices of cars have actually been quite still(not considering inflation) with a slight increase, but when considering inflation they actually have dropped minorly (from european continental view). as a comment to your research: Computer prices have indeed been decreasing but that is because the hausse is gone which drove them up like a soapbubble which then bursted(stock exchange market). food prices are actually the most influenced area by inflation. that would be my suck-thumb(first idea, made up on the spot,derived from dutch proverb) explanation. [[User:Graendal|Graendal]] 19:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:Taken in mind that the power of general computers have been exponentially increasing quite rapidly, the prices have indeed decreased quite rapidly in actual money value... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 11:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Vestica Veca ==
Kako se u originalu, na engleskom, zvala glavni junak crtanog filma koji je prikazivan u Jugoslaviji tamo pocetkom sedamdesetih?
**********
:Maybe try asking your question at the [[:hr:|Croation language Wikipedia]] (Hrvatski). (At least, I suppose that's written in Croation...) [[User:Philbert2.71828|Philbert<sup><tt>2.71828</tt></sup>]] 16:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::When written in the Latin alphabet, it'd seem Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian is nearly identical... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 17:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Lol lol There is no "Bosnian" language,it is called SERBIAN language...And it was asked in Serbian...
:Well, at least there's a Wikipedia article about [[Bosnian language]]. Not interested in any further arguments, here. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 20:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
From those "2.7million speakers" I doubt that more then few thousend know they speek "Bosnian"...
A ti,sto te uopste koji kurac zanima Vestica Veca hehehe
[[User:XXXXXXX|XXXXXXX]] 20:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:What, exactly, does this mean? | [[User:AndonicO|AndonicO]] 12:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:: The post above by XXXX reads "What the fuck do you care about Veštica Veca lol". Except that the profanity used was "dick" rather than "fuck" but I think this is better than literal translation.
:: Original question asked for the original (english) name of the cartoon character "Veštica Veca". Veštica means Witch. Original name is probably very different as it seems that "Veca" was added to rhyme with Veštica rather than as a straight translation of original name (which is a common form of editing for cultural reasons). It would help if OP could describe the cartoon he is thinking about.
:: ALso, I have removed the email address to detract spam. [[User:Shinhan|Shinhan]] 10:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== XM, Sirius, and MTV ==
In USA,
*1) Does XM and sirius broadcast full new songs or do they broadcast only one minute clips of songs?
*2) Does MTV full new songs or do they broadcast only one minute clips of songs?
*3) Does local FM channels full new songs or do they broadcast only one minute clips of songs?
I heard that some media in USA only show clips of songs. What media is it?
:MTV Nordic airs full videos, anyway, probably the US version, too... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 14:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::All of the above broadcast the full song, unless it has been edited for content (MTV/ FM radio) or length (some 30 minute epic ballad). The only places that play song snippets are places that are trying to get you to buy the song like amazon.com. [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 15:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::To be more complete, I guess you do see just a clip of some videos on certain shows like those on MTV that count down the top 10 or whatever videos. [[User:Nowimnthing|Nowimnthing]] 20:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== sherman's march to the sea ==
trying to find what plantation's were raided during march to sea it would be the southern group that would have been the raiders "name of family would have been the huston plantation.
any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you
bob jones
:See [[Sherman's March to the Sea]]. But Wikipedia does not get that specific. Try a local historical society for the county where the plantation was. The County Court Clerk for the county could direct you to the local historical society if there is one. Sherman burned many of the county courthouses as well in 1864, so many older records were destroyed. Good luck.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 23:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
== The Maki Maki language ==
Where is maki maki spoken? I see that maki is one type of Japanese egg roll, and also Maki-maki is the name of the deity on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Does anyone know where maki maki is spoken? --[[User:Filll|Filll]] 17:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:There is no language known as "maki maki" according to [http://www.ethnologue.com/home.asp Ethnologue.com], the most thorough catalog of languages I know. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 18:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::The bigger question is, when will there be a Maki Maki Wikiwiki?[[User:Edison|Edison]] 13:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Is it possible that maki maki is related to "taki taki" a slang term for Sranan, one of the languages in Suriname? --[[User:Filll|Filll]] 14:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Political science/ Micheal Manning I.E.M.P model ==
How is Ideology,economic,millitary,and political simmular and how different.
:I suspect that you mean [[Michael Mann (sociologist)|the sociologist Michael Mann]], not Manning. Certainly Mann is the originator of the IEMP model of social power. But your question is far too broad for me to answer here, without writing a whole essay. Try reading the first chapter of Mann's ''Sources of Social Power'', volume 1. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 16:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== political sicence/federalisum ==
what are the pros and cons of federalisum.
Thank you
shentell o'neal
:{{refq|Federalism}} --[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 19:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I would consider whether you are referring to Federalism in the United States as conceived by the framers of the Constitution. This issue is discussed in the Federalist Papers, written by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Urban commercial interests favored the proposed constitution while agrarian rural states feared a strong central government. The debates in the state conventions that ratified the Constitution are illuminating. Present day federalism is addressed by analyzing Supreme Court decisions dealing with the Interstate Commerce Clause and federalism from the New Deal. Chief Justice Rehnquist refined this area of law considerably. There aren't easy pro and cons from my understanding. So much depends on where you live, what the time period is, what your social status is, etc.--jhussock 10/14/06 7:00 p.m. UTC
== How do I see the answer to my question? ==
On or about October 2, 2006, I asked here in what key did Victoria originally write his motet O Magnum Mysterium? Several days later I returned and edited the question as suggested above in the hopes of getting closer to an answer. The instructions above clearly state it might take seven days to get an answer. Here I am, on day eight from the original post, and just a few days from the suggested edit, and the question seems to have been deleted, moved, or floated off the top of the list. Should I have expected that? If so, it might have been made more clear. What I should like to know is, can I still see the response, and if so, how? Thank you very much. [[User:BillWhite|BillWhite]] 18:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:To answer my own question, on October 10 October, 2006, HappyCamper made a "massive archival of the humanities reference desk, leaving ~4-5 days of questions". The archived material can still be viewed in the History. [[User:BillWhite|BillWhite]] 18:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:See [[Wikipedia:Reference desk archive]] (or the "Archive" link at the top of this page). Specifically, your question is at [[Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive/Humanities/2006_October_2#In_what_key_did_Victoria_originally_write_his_.22O_Magnum_Mysterium.22.3F]]. Unfortunately, it looks like the discussion ended with only one outsider comment, which often happens when no one with specific knowedge of the topic is around. -- [[User:Consumed Crustacean|Consumed Crustacean]] ([[User talk:Consumed Crustacean|talk]]) 18:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::Maybe you could ask to jeff.covey (at) pobox.com who published the piece in mutopiaproject.org. --[[User:193.56.241.75|193.56.241.75]] 06:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Medieval Christian heretics? ==
Are there any offshoots of Christianity or any other European religion between AD 600 and 1600 that believed in anything like:
*Spiritual authority comes from within, as opposed to from the church hierarchy or from an outside God (or basically God comes from within each of us)
*Women's rights
*Sexual liberalism
*There is no "sin" or punishment, we must learn from our mistakes and take our own responsibilities and gain wisdom after our own experimentation or experiences, but still pacifist and basic values like "don't hurt others"
*Music or merrymaking or altered states of consciousness
--[[User:Sonjaaa|Sonjaaa]] 18:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:There were certainly groups, including many of the early [[Protestantism|Protestants]] toward the end of your period, who believed in the first item in your list. Earlier groups who believed in that first item included the [[Hussite|Hussites]], [[Lollardry|Lollards]], and probably the [[Catharism|Cathars]]. The Cathars also allowed women to assume roles of religious leadership. As for sexual liberalism and altered states of consciousness, I can't find evidence of groups during your period that believed in those. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 18:49, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::Try also [[Paulicians]], [[Bogomils]], [[Cathars]], [[Waldensians]], [[Brethren of the Free Spirit]]...they were medieval heresies, although they probably didn't believe any or all of the things you listed. It's a start, and you may find more sects by following the links and categories from there. It's unfortunate that we don't have a specific medieval heresy article. There were some 17th century groups in England that may have believed some of those things, if I remember correctly, like the [[Levellers]] and the [[Diggers (True Levellers)|Diggers]], which are a little out of your time range, but their roots are in the middle ages. [[User:Adam Bishop|Adam Bishop]] 18:51, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Don't leave out the [[Gnostics]].[[User:Edison|Edison]] 23:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The [[Beguine]]s were mostly a women's spiritual movement within Christianity during the high middle ages. They didn't practice sexual liberation or the other points specified, though. [[Hildegard of Bingen]] was an abbess, mystic, and composer - almost the earliest composer known by name in Western music (she was not a Beguine). Also in terms of music, look up the fourteenth century [[Ars Nova]] movement. Neither Bingen nor the Ars Nova movement were ever deemed heretical, but the Beguines went through a period of persecution during the fourteenth century before being rehabilitated. '''[[User:Durova|<font color="blue">Durova</font>]]''' 06:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Alliteratively speaking, one might say that Bingen didn't [[Begin the Beguine|Begin the Beguines]]. :) [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 09:01, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
A traditional name for such practices justified in quasi-religious terms was [[Antinomianism]]. The old ''Catholic Encyclopedia'' has [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01564b.htm an article from one traditional point of view]... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 09:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Also have a look at the [[Anabaptists]].[[User:Hornplease|Hornplease]] 10:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::The fourth one is the one you are least likely to find represented. The concept of 'sin' (though not necessarily punishment) is fairly fundamental to Christianity. [[Universalism]] may give you some clues there. [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 17:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Concept of playboy/playgirl ==
What exactly is the whole idea/purpose behind a playboy/playgirl? How creative is that? [kj_venus]
:The idea/purpose? It hasn't changed, even though both are commonly called "players" or "playaz" now. How creative? It isn't. There has never been creativity to it. Read Shakespeare and you'll see the same player schemes were being used then that are being used today. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 20:03, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
How does one differentiate beteween shakespeare's playboy and the present trend of Hugh Hefner's? His business is dwindling! Why is the playboy mag of the US being promoted to an excessive extent? What are the vital stats associated with readership? [kj_venus]
:The magazine is suffering because nobody needs to buy a magazine when the Internet offers porn for free. That has little to do with the lifestyle of a playboy. Also, it is not Hugh Hefner's business. His daughter took over the company long ago. See [[Playboy]]. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 20:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::This is the same vehemently "anti-porn" troll who's been trying to make some sort of point for the last few weeks. I still don't get the point. Porn is a cheap thrill. Too cheap for me. But in a free country with freedom of expression, I feel it must be tolerated. The alternative, what I keep calling "sexual repression" is exponentially worse. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 05:24, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Probably, I don't think the problem is porn itself. Banning it seems as pointless as banning alcohol. The market would only go underground. Also, it's unclear whether the question was about the magazines or the lifestyle... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 10:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::I just realized I haven't answered the question. To be frank, the whole "idea/purpose" behind Playboy/Playgirl is to offer photographs of nude women/men, to sexually titilate its readership. But Playboy/Playgirl is actually a relatively tasteful version of pornography. Remember that many of the greatest artists throughout history were known for their renditions of the naked human body. In this sense, I would qualify "Playboy" (though I'm not as familiar with "playgirl") as the mere 20th century version (not that I'm comparing them in quality) of the works of [[Michelangelo]].
::If you're talking about harder porn, well, the "idea/purpose" behind it is quite frankly to give its readership/viewership inspiration for masturbation. It's that simple. Now what in particular is your REAL question? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 05:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Prior to Hugh Hefner's foray into publishing, open sexuality was associated with radical left politics. Hefner's magazine associated it with the traditionally lax mores of prosperous men, which made it more palatable to middle America. '''[[User:Durova|<font color="blue">Durova</font>]]''' 05:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Stop the nonsenese loomis. Accept the fact that u may be a porn-addict too.Porn is the creation of sick minds, out of lack of preoccupation of the mind ,wavered minds conceive some nonsense that deprives all romance in any sort of relationship, lack of family values.
:I think you've totally misunderstood my argument. I've got nothing against [[Gary Sinise]], though I believe you've misspelled his name. In fact I believe Sinise is an excellent actor, so I'm definitely not "non-senese". In fact, I suppose you'd be accurate in calling me, according to your spelling, rather "pro-senese". [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Oh, and by the way, do me a favour and PLEASE get yourself a girlfriend/boyfriend! Perhaps that might mitigate to a great degree your obvious sexual frustration. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
You dont have to indicate that i am sexually freustrated. I will go after a gal only when desired. Thats none of your business. But, my stance is firm and Porn is the manifestation of sick minds
*but at least we porn lovers can spell ([[User:Hotclaws**==|hotclaws**==]] 18:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC))
:: The questions asks about ''a'' playboy/playgirl. A playboy is a man who basically "goes around" with a number of women. A Lady's Man, if you will. They may or may not "cheat" on the others, as there usually is not "real" relationship there. Or at least that is my old-fashioned take on the term :P -[[User:Russia Moore|Russia Moore]] 01:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== WWII : First soldiers on German soil, first Russian soldier in Korea ==
Hello,
I have been searching through the internet but I'm not able to find this.
1.What was the first time an allied soldier (USSR of from the West?) set foot on German soil during the Second War? Where did he cross the border (or she, you never know)
It must have been of major psychological importance, because for the first time, German troops were not fighting to hold on to their conquered territory anymore, but to protect their own country.
Now this question might be difficult (do you consider Austria a part of Germany etc....).
2. When did the first USSR soldier set foot on Korean soil? Is it correct to say that all of present day North Korea was "liberated" by the Soviets between the start of [[Operation August Storm]] and the end of the second World War?
Thank you very much,
[[User:Evilbu|Evilbu]] 21:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:[[Battle of Aachen]] says that was the first German city invaded, October 1944. "Sept. 11 (1944) Invasion of Germany" is found at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/wwtwo-timeline.html with no details. The first allied soldier on German soil in WW II was probably a prisoner of war, a spy or a traitor somewhat earlier. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 23:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, no. The first Allied troops to enter German territory in WWII were the French during the abortive [[Saar Offensive]] of September 1939. Soviet troops entered northern Korea in September 1945. It was taken from the Japanese, who had occupied the peninsula since 1910. Whether it was 'liberated' or not is another matter altogether.[[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:Depends on what you call Germany. [[East Prussia]] is no longer part of Germany, but it ''was'' before the war, and I suppose that's what counts. This was conquered by the USSR in [[Operation Bagration]]. Neither article says when they first set foot there, but the maps suggest it was on 19 August at the latest. But it was probably in late July.
:Btw, I don't think anyone bothered to keep track of who entered Germany first. It was such a major push to get to Berlin and secure as much territory as fast as possible that that detail was probably pretty irrelevant.
:An interresting anecdote here is that my mother, who lived in [[Heerlen]], near the German border, was surpised to see the US army arrive from the East, from Germany. Don't know the date for that, though. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:: Operation Bagration did not get to Eastern Prussia. Unless both maps I have are wrong the offensive stopped a little short of the borders. AFAIK the Soviet forces entered Eastern Prussia only in January 1945. -- [[User:Grafikm_fr|<font color="Blue">'''Grafikm'''</font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Grafikm_fr|'''<font color="red">(AutoGRAF)</font>''']]</sup> 13:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The Wikipedia maps show the southeastern point included in the territory covered. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:21, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
: Wow, are you telling me that the USSR didn't have to fight one bit for its control over North Korea, that they gained control AFTER the end of the war?[[User:Evilbu|Evilbu]] 08:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:: Unless you don't count the elimination of the whole Quantung Army... -- [[User:Grafikm_fr|<font color="Blue">'''Grafikm'''</font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Grafikm_fr|'''<font color="red">(AutoGRAF)</font>''']]</sup> 13:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== President of the United States election ==
Could someone explain to a poor ignorant Briton what happens (in the US) when someone elected to one position then gets elected to a more senior position? (e.g., a senator/representative/state governor being elected president or vice-president.) Would the original position be kept? Can someone be simultaneously a senator and president? And, if they cease to hold the original office, would there be a by-election to fill the vacancy?
Thanks, [[User:Sam Korn|Sam Korn]] <sup>[[User talk:Sam Korn|(smoddy)]]</sup> 21:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:No, they can't be both. They take on the role of the new office. Quite often, though not as a rule, the person will resign from the first position in order to concentrate on the election of the new position. They often use the reasoning that it's better for the people they represent that they resign from their original post since their full concentration wouldn't necessarily be on their old job. Whether that's true or if they're just trying to get those voters to think that the person is dedicated and such is up to you to decide. And as far as the coverage of the old job, I'm not sure. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 21:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::As for senate vacancies, they are filled according to state law, either by special election or gubernatorial appointment, usually depending on the time remaining in the term. This is in accordance with the 17th amendment to the Constitution: "When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct." (Prior to this amendment, passed in 1913, senators were chosen by the state legislatures). House vacancies are always filled by special election. Temporary appointments are not possible for a vacant House seat. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 22:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the help. Is it therefore just convention that the former office is renounced, or is there a constitutional requirement somewhere? Thanks, [[User:Sam Korn|Sam Korn]] <sup>[[User talk:Sam Korn|(smoddy)]]</sup> 22:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I think it's just convention. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:29, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I don't think there is an explicit Constitutional requirement, but the dogma of separation of powers would guarantee that it would never be possible for a person to serve in more than one of the three branches of government at one time. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 22:33, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
::::At which point in time? When running, it's convention, and by no means universally observed (e.g. Kerry retains his Senate seat because he didn't resign it to run for President). Once elected or appointed to an office however, Article 1 section 6 kicks on - "no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office." --[[User:Mnemeson|Mnem]][[User:Mnemeson/Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User_Talk:Mnemeson|son]] 22:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::When Senators run for President, most often they do it in a year when they are not up for re-election, They can do this because they are elected to a 6 year term. So a Senator elected this year could safely run for president in 2008, but in 2012 he would have to choose in most cases. Joe Liberman's state allowed him to run for both offices simultaneously (Vice President and Senator) in 2000, so he did not have to make the hard choice Barry Goldwater did in 1964, when he abandoned a safe senate seat to run a quixotic race for President.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 23:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
*[[Article One of the United States Constitution]], Section 6, states, ''no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.'' Does that apply to this question? Or does "office under the United States" mean something else? --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 00:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::I suspect something else; in context, it's related to ensuring that legislators not personally profit by appointing themselves to office. It's the separation of powers that guarantees no senator/presidents. Though of course there's no telling ''how'' any of these words mightspecifically be interpreted/distorted/construed by a judge if it came before him... but though the means by which the decision would be made is in question, the decision, I think, is not. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 12:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Short answer... members of Congress may not hold any other office. In 1960, when Senators John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson became President and Vice President, they resigned their Senatorial seats. That's the legal part.
All the rest of the previous answers have been dealing with politics and customs. Elections take place in November; terms of office begin the following January. By resigning his Senatorial seat immediately after being elected President, the candidate allows the Governor of his home state to appoint a temporary replacement. This replacement will have seniority over incoming freshman Senators, which is a slight advantage to the home state.
Kennedy's Senate term extended beyond January, 1961, so his seat was not up for election in November, 1960. Johnson's seat was up. So he ran for both Vice President and re-election as Senator. Having won the Vice Presidency, he resigned the Senate seat. Had he lost (he ''did'' win Senatorial re-election), he, like Kennedy, would have remained in the Senate. [[User:B00P|B00P]] 18:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== social order ==
how can social order be maintain?
Surely you meant, how can pecking order be maintain?
:Through whatever means possible. --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 00:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Fair or foul. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:Social order is maintained through government, luck, and skill. You might consider clarifying your question. It is almost as vague as "What is the meaning of life?" --[[User:AstoVidatu|AstoVidatu]] 00:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Social order is more than a matter of government. It involves the acceptance by society as a whole of a set of norms and of a power structure. A power structure and government are not sufficient without societal acceptance, as we can see in Iraq. The acceptance need not be heartfelt or enthusiastic, it can be based on fear, but it must be in place for social order to exist. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 01:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Social order is maintain by [[Social cohesion]]. Social cohesion is form when everyone (or most people) is looking after everyone else's interest. If group A (muslims) does not look after the interest of group B (infidels) or vice versa then there is a lack of social cohesion. This implies the existances of common values (or shared values) and common behavior norms. If one group wants to behave the way of X while another group wants to behave the way of Y and X & Y are incompatible, then you have an ideological conflict. Social cohesian is maintain by having a common/shared (non-violent) method of resolving such conflicts that all members of the society will accept it's decision. The actual method is irrelevant, what is importance is for all members of the society to accept the legitimacy of the method (in other words a common dispute resolution method). [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 01:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I agree with this argument. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 19:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:In addition to the essentially [[sociology|sociological]] answers above, you could have a look at [[political philosophy]]. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 22:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 11=
== Tony Toni Tone ==
A freind of mine is a big fan of Tony Toni Tone and wants to get a copy of what he believes is their first album. There is a song and in this song is a line something like "just like chocolate she's so sweet" He thought that was the name of the song. I've been looking and cannot find on any of the albums including Who, their first album any song with that title. By any chance would anybody there know what song includes the line "just like chocolate she's so sweet" and which album that song first appeared in? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely,
Andrew J. LaTeer
:It's from a song called "Baby Doll" which can be found on [http://www.amazon.com/Tony-Toni-Tone-Hits/dp/B000001EY3/sr=1-1/qid=1160541254/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-5907912-4834340?ie=UTF8&s=music this] album. --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 04:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Louisiana purchase benefit? ==
When an American citizen applies for dual citizenship in France, normally there are rules including having lived in France for five years. I heard if you were born in one of the states in the Louisiana Purchase, this is waived. Is this true, and where exactly does it say this?
:I would strongly doubt that. In any case, actual French influence or control over most of the area was rather minimal... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 09:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Our article on [[French nationality law]] says that the five year waiting period can be waived for "citizens of French speaking countries", so I can see where this comes from. However, a citizen of the United States is unlikely to be judged to be from a French-speaking country, and even if you could convince them to take Louisiana itself, not the USA, as your "country", I doubt there are enough French-speakers left there to convince them. (And the other Louisiana Purchase states would be even less likely — like AnonMoos says, there wasn't much influence there).
::I believe the citizenship laws have been tightened somewhat in recent times, so I suppose it could once have been possible. I doubt they'd have deliberately opened the door to people from the Louisiana Purchase, but I guess they could have accidentaly created the possibility — if they had laws to assist French people returning home from the former colonies (eg the [[pied-noir|pieds-noirs]]), some people may have figured that Louisiana should logically count too, even if the law was actually intended for the colonies that obtained independence in the mid 20th century. Just speculation, of course. -- [[User:Vardion|Vardion]] 09:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Poison gas in WW2 ==
Why was it not used on the same scale as WWI? I mean to say in combat against the Allies, not in the [[Final Solution]]. --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 01:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:According to [[Chemical warfare]], the Germans were afraid of retaliation. [[Hitler]] was gassed in World War I, so that may have influenced his decision. Also, WWII was much more fluid than WWI; waiting for the wind to blow in the right direction works better in the trenches. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 03:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Hmmmmm...Hitler was gassed in WWI...might have influenced his decisions...you may be onto [[Zyklon B|something]] there! [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 05:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::While we may never understand Hitler, it's quite clear he did have emotions. For example, he was a vegetarian and felt it cruel to animals to eat meat. Although he commited despicable acts against those he felt were sub-humans, there's no reason to assume he wouldn't have felt less willing to use gas on those he felt were humans because of his experience [[User:Nil Einne|Nil Einne]] 11:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a vague recollection that it was used by the Nazis on the Eastern front. Anyone got any sources? --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 07:55, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:The only thing I could find was this [http://www.historynet.com/magazines/world_war_2/3027436.html?page=1&c=y] and it was a ship of the Allies carrying lethal gas who got hit by the Luftwaffe. Gas was used in the German extermination camps, but apparently not in battle. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 10:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Seriously (as opposed to my above post), I doubt that Hitler avoided something "out of fear of retaliation". It just doesn't go with his mentality. Perhaps there's a better explanation for it. For example, Hitler seemed to have the choice of having his scientists pursue either nuclear technology, or rocket technology (although he had enough scientists to explore both, so it still confounds me). In any case he seemed to strongly favour pursuing rocket technology, and was really on his way to developing missiles that could reach England from the continent (in fact I believe some early ones actually did). As for nuclear technology, thank God he was such an anti-semite that he actually seemed to have dismissed the whole idea as "Jewish Science", (after all, it was all ultimately based on Einstein's work,) not worthy of being explored. As to the original question, why he didn't use poison gas in warfare, he probably had his reasons. It was mentioned that he may have used it on the Eastern front. But, say, in the [[Battle of Britain]], perhaps he felt it wasn't a proper way to conduct warfare against a fellow Aryan people. I don't really know. It's tough to get into the mind of a madman. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 13:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::My understanding is that Hitler did pursue nuclear weapons and rocket technology and jet aircraft and decryption and radar studies and other technical areas and made huge advances in all of these. After all, when the war ended they were pursuing a rocket that would be capable of reaching the US. They had produced the world's first jet aircraft. They had tapped the submarine cable between the UK and the US and decrypted the traffic on the cable. They had serious radar capabilities. They had refined a large amount of uranium, some of which probably found its way into the bombs used against Japan by the US when it was confiscated by the allies. They were taking advantage of the heavy water facility in Norway, until Allied actions [http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/mcnair41/41naz.htm destroyed it]. The head of the German atomic program, Werner Heisenberg had stated that the only way to make an atomic bomb was to turn the entire country into a chemical plant, and when he toured the US and saw the extent of the effort, he noted that the US ''had'' turned the entire country into a chemical plant to produce an atomic bomb. There are some reports that Heisenberg had overestimated the amount of fissionable material by orders of magnitude that was required, but I personally find this hard to believe. This just does not sound reasonable to me. I think that it was a fairly close call. I think that either Germany or Japan might have managed to produce an atomic bomb before the US, if the timing of various events was just slightly different. --[[User:Filll|Filll]] 15:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Neither Germany or Japan had the will or could afford the resources required to build an atomic bomb. Take a look at the [[Manhattan Project]]. "At one point Oak Ridge plants were consuming 1/7th of all the electrical power being produced in the USA." Also, Oak Ridge became "the fifth largest city" in Tennessee, and it wasn't the only facility. In the middle of a war, only the US was rich enough. Plus it didn't help that the Nazis drove away a lot of their leading scientists before the war started. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 16:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The article says Heisenberg calculated it would take 130 tons of uranium. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 16:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Being a physicist, I know what Heisenberg's capabilities were. It is very hard to believe that Heisenberg would have made such a large mistake, but of course it is still possible even for someone of Heisenberg's talents. I do agree that it took a substantial effort to produce the bombs that the US did. However, some of the production details and techniques remain classified and it is a bit difficult to make the blanket statement that it would have been impossible for Japan or Germany to do it. Germany had a head start, in some ways. Germany had some incredibly gifted scientists involved in the project. The scientists involved in the Manhattan Project were doing it under the impression that Germany might be able to produce an atomic weapon first. The Allies did not act as though they were certain that Germany or Japan could not produce at atomic bomb during the war, including multiple attacks on the heavy water facility and other facilities controlled by the Nazis, and capturing uranium being shipped to Japan from Germany in May of 1945 on the submarine [[Unterseeboot 234]] (U-234). In spite of speculation, I would be surprised if the details about this cargo had been declassified; it is not public knowledge how much of the uranium was unprocessed and how much of it was processed.--[[User:Filll|Filll]] 18:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Let's not forget Heisenberg's (unsubstantiated) claim that he deliberately sabotaged the Nazi bomb program. Also, I didn't say that it was impossible, just that the Axis powers had too many other competing demands on their resources. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 20:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The claim that the Germans or Japanese couldn't have afforded to build a nuclear weapon is misguided. The US had ''two'' largely separate programs to make fissile material; the uranium enrichment process and the plutonium production and extraction process. If the US had abandoned uranium enrichment and concentrated on plutonium, they could have got the job done for a fraction of the cost. it was just that the imperative for getting a weapon as soon as possible was so great that both technologies were pursued, essentially regardless of cost.
:::Alternatively, it was captured Germans who built the Soviet Union's centrifuge uranium enrichment technology in the immediate postwar period. If they had done the same for Nazi Germany, the Nazis could probably have gotten the bomb that way at a reasonably affordable cost. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 01:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Loomis, according to our article on [[Nerve agents]], Hitler totally avoided it "out of fear of retaliation". Long story short, (there's a good quote in the history section), Hitler knew that the Allies had far greater ability to produce both mustard gas and nerve agents (like [[Sarin]]) in large part because of their greater access to petroleum. What he didn't know was that the Allies didn't know how to make the more toxic nerve agents -- the details had been released in technical journals and patents before the war, but the Allies hadn't noticed, and in fact the Nazis could have used them, if not with impunity (surely the Allies would have figured it out after the gases were used in combat), then at least to advantage. --[[User:ByeByeBaby|ByeByeBaby]] 16:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I've also read books that have called the gas mask schemes in countries such as the UK the "greatest victory of WWII". He knew that the countries were already highly prepared, and so much of the effectiveness of gas (the fear and the mass casualties) would be massively reduced. [[User:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#5500BB">La</span>]][[WP:EA|'''''<span style="color:green">ï</span>''''']][[User talk:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#5500BB">ka</span>]] 17:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
To summarize the above, Hitler did a "cost/benefit analysis", and saw that escalating to chemical weapons wouldn't give him any advantage, as the Allies would have used them as soon as he did. The effect on the morale of his troops and civilian populations might have suffered from gas attacks, as well. As for the Nazis getting the bomb, Hitler correctly figured out that the war would be over before an atomic bomb could be developed by Germany, so those resources would be best used elsewhere. Hitler was generally an idiot in military matters, but managed to get those two decisions right. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 23:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm surprised it wasn't considered for the [[Battle of Stalingrad]]. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 23:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Not only way posion gas used by the Japanese biological agents were also released. To this day there are several court cases pending in Japan, Chineese citizens who have been harmed by left over canisters are suing to recoop the cost of the life long after effects of their exposure. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changde_chemical_weapon_attack
http://campcatatonia.org/article/1351/poison-gas-island
As for why it wasn't used in the same way, on the same scale and with the same openess, Also the 1925 Geneva Protocol Prohibited the use of "asphyxiating gas, or any other kind of gas, liquids, substances or similar materials" it was signed by 16 countries. Japan like the US signed but did not ratify till the 70's. On a related note there has been some allegations that the US used chemical weapons in some of the island hoping campaigns. I haven't researched those claims though.
== economics ==
what are the constraints to monetary policy implementation in less developed economies
:Generally, the constraints are that nobody has any. --[[User:Aaron|Aaron]] 18:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Our article on [[monetary policy]] has a small section on developing countries. You might also get some clues from [[International Monetary Fund]]. Beyond that, a textbook on the subject might be helpful. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 20:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Those are good suggestions, but I'd go with the textbook that was assigned for the course. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 21:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::A little expansion on what Aaron said. Money makes money. That's how capitalism works. If left unchecked, it will make the rich richer and the poor (at least by comparison) poorer. Nationally, socialism provides some compensation in more civilised countries (finding the right mix between the two is a major political tightrope walk). Internationally, rich countries tend to give poor countries little more than breadcrumbs. Some nice example of what would happen if they would make that more substantial are [[Ireland]], [[Portugal]] and [[Greece]]. For the free market to work properly it has to be completely open (the first goal of the EU) and all sides need to have somewhat equal starting positions. The latter is done in the EU and jus see what happened to the economies of those three countries. Of course the rich countries have to bleed a bit in the beginning, but after a while they will also start to profit from the increased wealth of those trade partners. Another major factor is political stability and the EU is using economically open borders as a carrot (in stead of a stick) to change the stabuility of countries outside the EU (eg in the Middle East). It's a bit complicated, with many sorts of agreements, bu [[European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument#European Neighbourhood Policy]] gives a bit of an overview and [[European Union Association Agreement]] is more specifically about what I mean. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Dirk's response is about development and trade policy, not about monetary policy, or the regulation of a nation's currency and [[money supply]]. If you look at the article on money supply, you will see that it is something very different from wealth. With regard to monetary policy in developing economies, I am not qualified to say much. This is a very specialized topic that is not well covered in Wikipedia. I can say that central bankers in developing countries (who determine monetary policy, albeit under heavy pressure from the IMF in developing countries) face some particular challenges, particularly their dependence on foreign investors, who may flee and cause the currency to plummet and interest rates to soar whenever there is the least shift away from risk in global financial markets. Also, much financial activity takes place outside the formal economy, which makes it more difficult for developing-country central bankers to control [[liquidity]] and the supply of credit. And with that, I have reached my limit on this topic, which is outside my area of expertise, and suggest that you turn to a reliable textbook. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 16:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Isn't lack of money a major constraint to monetary policy implementation? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== name this swedish film ==
I'm trying to recall the name of this Swedish film I saw a while back. An elderly man narrates the story to a girl, perhaps she is imaginary. The story is of a married couple with a young daughter where the wife has an affair with the husband's best friend, about the passion of the affair and the tragedies of the aftermath. Spoiler: the husband eventually commits suicide. He tries to get the daughter to join him, but she backs out in the end.
I thought maybe [[Liv Ullman]] played the girl and [[Max von Sydow]] played the elderly man, but I couldn't find a movie matching that description in their filmographies. Can you help me? [[User:Ziggurism|Ziggurism]]
*[[The Passion of Anna]], perhaps? --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 18:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
*[[Trolösa]] (Faithless). But that has Erland Josephson and not Max von Sydow, and Liv Ullman is the director. The confusion is understandable though, since they're all Bergman veterans, and Bergman himself was the screenwriter. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 04:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Yes, that's the one. Thanks blue
== Sir Joshua Reynolds ==
Hello I have A picture that is titled " The Strawberry Girl" and signed by Sir Joshua Reynoldi. At least it looks like an "i" at the end. The closest I can come to it is Sir Joshua Reynolds. I am very curious about the picture, any info I can get would be greatly appreciated.
:Is [http://www.abcgallery.com/R/reynolds/reynolds216.html this] the picture? [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 17:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
== Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start? ==
please discuss, im interested in German history, and would like to know if the Weimar Republic was as intensely disorganized as people perceive it to be
: The Weimar Republic was doomed because it didn't '''do it's own homework'''. [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 17:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Well what are you on about? Im only interested, you big bully. Anyway, you ent much of a librarian if you dont help, and its not homework its independant study, and im allowed to use resources
:::Have a look at WP's articles on [[Weimar Republic]] and [[Dolchstosslegende]] for starters. This is a huge topic, and I don't know how you can measure the intensity of the WR's disorganization objectively in order to compare it with people's (including historians') perceptions. Moreover, even if DJ Clayworth's advice sounded a bit harsh , there's no need for personal attacks.---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 19:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::: Can i just say if he hadnt discredited the legitimacy of my question, i wouldn't have been so angry
:::::The Weimar Republic may have had its weaknesses, and perhaps it should have been improved upon or even replaced. Nonetheless I can't see any of its flaws as playing any significant role in paving the way to the [[Third Reich]]. If it was flawed, but if the people were steadfastly dedicated to a free and democratic society, they would just keep trying and trying again until they finally came up with something that worked. The French are a great example (though I can't believe I'm actually about to pay the French a compliment!) Since the revolution they went through four failed constitutions, (as well as the restoration of the monarchy, Napoléon's system, the [[Vichy Regime]] etc.) but they kept at it until 1958 when they finally developed the [[French Fifth Republic|Fifth Republic]], which seems to have finally proven to stand the test of time (though I have heard some talk of a "Sixth Republic", but I'm not sure at all how serious it is). In any case, if the Weimar Republic was flawed, a society dedicated to anything similar to the French concepts of ''Liberté, Égalité, Fratérnité'' would simply try and try again until they come up with something that works. Yet given the circumstances, and the mentality, bitterness and distress of the German people at the time, even if 1930's Germany had a constitution tailored perfectly to its needs and as rock solid in its durability as the US Constitution, I doubt Hitler would have all that much trouble navigating his way through it and still winding up ''Führer'', with all the circumstances that it entailed. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 20:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Evidence for how weak the German commitment to democracy was at the time can be found when the Nazi's burnt down the [[Reichstag]] building, and blamed it on the communists. Rather than meet somewhere else, the Reichstag just disbanded. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::DJ's response justified him calling him a bully, there is no indication that this is homework, and hes not even asking as to do it for him. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 21:37, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Thanks for your support Philc, I appreciate it
:::::I too agree that DJ made a mistake in assuming that the questioner was asking for us to do his/her homework. To me this didn't at all seem like a homework question. However, as I've said so, so, SO! many times, we all make mistakes, and some of us, (your's truly is MOST guilty of it!) are hot-headed reactionaries, who jump to conclusions before getting the full story. So while you're right, "anonymous questioner" (''please'' get an account and sign your posts!) that DJ made a mistake, I've made similar mistakes too many times to count. DJ should be forgiven for this one, just like the rest of us, s/he's only human. Please. When it comes to minor stuff like this, I say forgive and forget. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 22:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Such mistakes should be avoided by committing to the principle that "do your own homework" is never an appropriate response on this page. It's not helpful, and it's rude. It's certainly an inappropriate response at any reference desk, even a metaphorical one. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 22:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Haha! Loomis! I know what your talking about!! But yeh I'm sure DJ is forgiven by all parties, but generally that response is pretty unuseful. All is well though. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 22:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
When I see ''obvious'' homework questions, I try my best to be as subtle, and (hopefully) witty about it. I don't think I've ever uttered the phrase: "Do your own homework!" Rather, check out my response a bit higher up to a questioner who was asking an oh-so-obvious homework question under the heading "economics". [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 23:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
*"Can i just say if he hadnt discredited the legitimacy of my question, i wouldn't have been so angry" — the question is perfectly legitimate, but when it is clear you haven't bothered to read any of the relevant articles first, and are just fishing for a thesis, we perceive that as being pretty rude. We are people who like to help but we don't have infinite amounts of time either. If you can't be bothered to articulate a question which shows you have already consulted the most easily accessible resources (type in "Weimar Republic" in the Search box at your left and hit "Go") I don't think you can expect anyone else to be terribly interested in taking the time to help you answer it. I'm always happy to help but I won't write your essay or your thesis for you. --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 00:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Fastfission, I have read the article, and there isn't any heading called weaknesses, thus i went to the reference desk, and im not '''expecting''' anybody to do my article for me, rather get help on how to navigate [[WIkipedia]], get some information for my essay and cite the source as wikipedia, simple
::::This is a big question and one that is not that simple to answer, as there are so many imponderables involved. The first and most important point to consider is that German democracy was born out of defeat, and was always tarnished by this association. To make matters worse economic and political problems brought the young republic close to collapse, with the steady growth in political extermism-both on the right and the left-up to 1923, the year the French occupied the Ruhr when Germany defaulted on reparation payments. However, from the beginning of 1924 things began to change. The [[Dawes Plan]] stabilised the question of reparations, inflation was brought to and end, and German economic recovery fueled by American loans. Weimar now enterd a period of political calmness, noted by the growth in political moderation and in the decline of parties like the Nazis and the Communists, unremittingly hostile to the settlement of 1919. The apogee of this period came with the formation of Hermann Müller's Grand Coalition, following the Reichstag elections of 1928, in which the Nazis won only 12 seats. If things had gone like this on the Republic may very well have stabilised, and Adolf Hitler may have become no more than a footnote in history. It was not to be. In 1929 Wall Street crashed and the German economy crashed with it. American loans dried up and unemployment rose to the millions. In the Reichstag elections of September 1930 the Nazis, hitherto little more than a lunatic fringe, rose from 12 to 107 seats. In the summer of 1932 they became the largest party, by which time there were more political groups opposed to Weimar than those in support. The rest is history. As one British historian put it "In France the Republic is the form of government that divides people least; in Germany it is the form that divides them most" [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Seems I owe the questioner an apology here. Sorry. We get a lot of homework questions and "discuss" quite frequently indicates that it is one. Anyway. I'm glad you got some good answers. [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 21:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
*Apology accepted, and I'm sorry too for being such a bad sport and over-reacting
== Swadesh lists ==
I was wondering about the existence of printable versions of the swadesh lists found in both Wikipedia and in Wiktionary. Thanks.
:Should I take it that the old "cut-and-paste-to-Word/Excel" method doesn't work for some reason? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 21:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:In what sense isn't it printable? Control-P should do the trick, shouldn't it? There is also a 'printable version' link to the left of each article. If you want only the list itself, just copy it to an application that gives you the print options you like. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:26, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The font for the printable version is too big.
:For a too big font, most browsers, as Internet Explorer or Firefox, offer a "print preview" where you can reduce the size of the page. Does that help ?
:Personnally, I would have that list of mere short words in columns. Copy in a word processor and choose 'columns (five or six should do).
:But maybe we have tools here to do the job . I'm looking at help pages. --[[User:Harvestman|<font color="blue"> DLL </font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Harvestman |<font color="green"> .. T</font>]]</sup> 21:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Almost done - see Talk:Swadesh list. --[[User:Harvestman|<font color="blue"> DLL </font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Harvestman |<font color="green"> .. T</font>]]</sup> 23:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
== "Convicted pedophile" ==
My question is law related, but you'll be glad to know that it's ''not'' legal advice. Newspapers and opinion columnists sometimes refer to an individual as a "convicted pedophile". My instinct is that this is wrong, because pedophilia is not a crime per se in most jurisdictions. One can be a convicted child sex offender or something of the sort, but feeling attracted to children isn't a crime in itself as long as one doesn't possess illegal porn or abuse children. Am I right? Is there ever any grounds for using the phrase "convicted pedophile"? Also, while I'm on the subject, a friend tells me that in the UK "pedophile" means someone with a foot fetish, whereas the other kind is spelled "paedophile" and pronounced with a long E. Can anyone from the UK confirm this? --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 20:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:You're right. The term should be "convicted sex offender". If you want to be more specific, I believe "convicted ''[[pederast]]''", would be a far better description than "convicted ''[[pedophile]]''" is. However it would still be an imperfect one, as for some reason the definition of ''pederasty'' seems to be restricted only to sexual relations between men and young boys. Still I think it would be a more appropriate term, as it's a description one who's actually ''performed'' a sexual offence related to children, rather than a ''pedophile'', who is, as your correct in saying, merely one who has sexual desires for children, without necessarily acting on them or harming children in any way. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 20:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::Because a sex offender can be someone who assaulted an adult, it should be "convicted child sex offender". This came up in an argument on the Patriot Act article. A man was convicted of 100 counts of possessing child pornography and on trial on one count of child sexual abuse (awaiting trial for two others). So, what do you call him. Unfortunately, the main person in the argument was an idiot and I hadn't learned my lesson at that time: "Never argue with an idiot. They will lower you to their level and win by experience every time." --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 20:59, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::If it's important to specify that the offences were against children as distinct from adults, you might use the term "convicted ''child'' sex offender". But in general, a person convicted of sex offences is correctly called a "convicted sex offender", regardless of the age of the victim. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 21:23, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Agreed, but do you agree with myself and the questioner that the term ''pedophile'' in "convicted ''pedophile''" is something of a misnomer? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 21:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:I agree that the original meaning of "pedophile" did not imply anything taboo or illegal, but I think it has come to mean anyone who commits any sexual offence against any young person. "Pederast" is becoming outdated; and as you point out, its technical meaning was restricted to goings on between men and boys, so it had no application where women and/or girls were involved. It could not be used as a generic term, whereas "pedophile" can. That's my take on the matter. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 23:19, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Correct. Note that the term "child sex offender" could mean a child who has committed a sexual offense. There are also many cases where two people under the age of 18 have sex, and in many jurisdictions they are both "children guilty of sexual offenses against children". [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::How lawyerly of you, Stu, to offer such imaginative semantic interpretations of the phrase "child sex offender". :) I suppose, in a twisted grammatical sense, you can stretch it even further. A "child sex offender" can be someone who acts offensively toward the idea of "child sex". For example, if I were to see two children having sex, and if I were to berate them for it, that would make me a "child sex offender", no? Ok...so that one's a bit of a stretch. Time for bed. :-) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 22:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
*I think this discussion is particularly relevant to the continued discussions about the [[PNVD]] in the Netherlands. The suffix -philia means "a liking of". Liking children doesn't neccesarily result in sexual abuse. They should only be punished if the act out their fantasies. The leader of that party admits to abuse because it's too long ago for him to be prosecuted, but appears not all the party members actually did anything illegal. There should definitely be a distinction made between pedophile and sex offender. Sorry for ranting. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:*That's not a rant in my book. I agree with what you say, except it's a question of where the law draws the line. It's one thing to say ''"Oh, I only look at pictures of naked young boys/girls, but I would never touch them physically"'', but can the law, or politicians, afford to take such risks? Once upon a time, the mere possession of pedophilic pictures was not illegal, just as pictures of somebody murdering somebody is still not illegal afaik, while the act itself is. But times have changed, the churches' dirty work has been exposed, and the law now takes a much dimmer view in many places of pictures of sexualised children. There is a not unreasonable view that a salacious interest in such material could well lead to sexual activity, so better to nip it in the bud. I wouldn't want to be the government spokesman who had to answer to the parent of an abused child, for allowing people to own pedophilic material on the basis that "there's no harm in just having pictures". [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 12:17, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::*The danger in the US is that anyone who attempts to develop a pic of their kid in the tub gets arrested and must register as a "child sex offender", leaving those who actually kidnap and rape children hidden in a massive pool of "child sex offenders". Thus, for fear of being labeled "pro-child sex offender", the politicians make the situation far more dangerous for kids. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 16:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
A pedophile is also a manifestation of mental sickness. When there are signs of abuse in the family history, this tendency develops as a consequence of lack of proper upbringing & an appropriate mindset or as a consequence of lack of education and high exposure to pornographic material.[kjvenus]
:"'''The Reference desk is not a soapbox'''". --[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 23:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:To answer the final part of your question: yes, here in the UK the usual spelling is "paedophile", with the first syllable pronounced with a long E. (It's pronounced like that here even when the American spelling is used, actually.) However, the volume of American media in Britain means that the US spelling is pretty much universally understood to mean the same thing. Anyone saying "I'm a pedophile" when they meant "I'm a foot fetishist" would be in for a very rough time indeed. [[User:Loganberry|Loganberry]] ([[User talk:Loganberry|Talk]]) 23:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
== Edexcel ==
Is there any way in which A-Level students can obtain past papers and mark schemes from the Edexcel - Uk exam board - website. I rele need too look at some tests for my revision and seeing as our teacher only has a couple, was wondering if any of you guys knew how to access some old tests. Thanks! [[User:Ahadland1234|Ahadland]] 21:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:What is the particular topic of the past papers you're looking for? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 22:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
*Its for a GCE (AS (Advanced Subsidiary)) course in english literature
:[http://www.edexcel.org.uk/subjects/] here is an index of all Edexcel subjects, under each is a list of all of the courses in that subject, on each course there are past papers, mark schemes, examiner reports, unit tests, specifications, and various other documents of use. Hope this helps. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 23:01, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 12=
== Islamic Naval Technology ==
Did the islamic nations during the late 15th and early 16th centuries have ships that could cross the Atlantic?
:The north Atlantic is notoriously stormy, and most of the seacoasts bordering on Islamic nations were in the Mediterranean and Indian oceans. They had ships that could probably have made a crossing in certain circumstances, but they didn't really have a habit of building ships that were reliably well-adapted to Atlantic conditions. [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 02:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:: Well, hmm. I'm not sure you can say that Columbus's caravels were significantly better than the contemporary Arabic designs though. It wasn't until after Columbus that ships were designed which could do the crossing safely and reliably. Columbus is probably as good a spot as any in history to mark where European shipbuilding surpassed Arabic. The Europeans were certainly inferior in 1400 and superior by 1600. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 04:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Well, disagree. The advances in ship building which would allow consistent inter-continental travel had already happened by the time Columbus set sail. The major obstacle to be overcome was not stormy North Atlantic weather, but distance, and uncertainty. Mediterranean sailors had earlier been introduced to the [[lateen]] sail from Arab [[dhow]]s, they found improvements in hull, rudder and keel in nothern [[square rigged]] [[cog (ship)|cogs]]. Columbus' fleet were [[barque]]s, square rigged fore and main masts (increased sail area and reduced crew requirement), lateen mizen (manuverability for exploring costal waters).[[User:EricR|EricR]] 07:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Apparently the Ottoman Empire was planning such an undertaking—American would be named [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0279(198107%2F09)101%3A3%3C323%3AORTTDO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6|''Vilayet Antilia'']. [[User:EricR|EricR]] 03:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:What kind of navy did Morocco have? And southern Spanish Moors? They had to be able to communicate across the Mediterranean, could their ships have made it across the Atlantic? They were galleys, though, not sailing ships, weren't they? [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 02:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Morocco and Moorish Spain were part of the [[Ottoman Empire]] and so any naval forces based in Morocco would be subject to orders from Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire's naval policy, though, appears to have been directed at protecting Muslim trading vessels in the Mediterranean from pirate attack, and occasionally fighting rival naval forces from Europe, eg: [[Battle of Lepanto]]. It's probable that Arab vessels could have reached North America, except for one obstacle: ''they had no motive''. Remember that European ships were not looking for America, neither the Europeans nor the Arabs knew that America existed. The Europeans were looking for a quick route to Japan, to boost spice trading. The Ottoman Empire had no motive for crossing the Atlantic, as Arab trading routes already reached India and the Far East with no need to sail out into the unknown waters of the Atlantic. So in a nutshell, yes Arab vessels could probably have reached America, but they would have had absolutely no motive for doing so. This sounds suspiciously like research for a piece of alternative history in which the New World is colonised by Muslims... am I right? [[User:Rusty2005|Rusty2005]] 12:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Communication aided by seeing a face ==
Does anyone know of any studies done that show that communication is easier if one can see the other person's face? Many thanks, --[[User:86.142.195.245|86.142.195.245]] 06:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
*I don't know of any specific studies, but it's clearly through. When you see someone's face, you can see their eyes and facial expression which often tells more about what they mean than words themselves. You also see this a lot in discussions on Wikipedia. Without talking to someone face to face, it's easy to misinterpret what someone means. -[[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:*Here's a case in point. If I could see Mgm's face, I might have some hope of interpreting what he meant by "it's clearly through". Without those non-verbal cues, I must sadly admit defeat. :-)
:*[[Neuro-linguistic programming]] and related modalities utilise knowledge of facial gestures, eye movements and non-verbal auditory cues to study what goes on when people are communicating with each other. To the extent of their visual and auditory acuity, people innately detect and respond to these non-verbal behaviours, in many cases without realising they're doing so. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 12:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Actually, "Neuro-linguistic Programming" is the name of a specific New-Age type group or organization, and actual neuro-linguists feel that what they do has extremely little in common with the doctrines of the "NLP" group. [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 15:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
==PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE REFERENCE DESK==
If you haven't been paying attention to [[Wikipedia talk:Reference desk]], you may not know that a few users are close to finishing a proposal (with a bot, now in testing and very close to completion) which, if approved by consensus, will be a major change for the Reference Desk.
Please read the preamble [[User_talk:Freshgavin/Sandbox/Reference_desk#Preamble to opinion tally|here]], and I would appreciate if you signed your name after the preamble outlining how you feel about what we are thinking.
This notice has been temporarily announced on all of the current desks. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 06:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:For convenience, I propose any reactions to this anouncement be limited to [[Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#PROPOSED_CHANGES_TO_THE_REFERENCE_DESK]]. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Caps key stuck?--[[User:Martianlostinspace|martianlostinspace]] 13:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== Why does the word "Nazi" appear so often in this reference desk? ==
Can't find a single day without that word.
:Just a couple guesses...
:#They were a group that made a significant (to put it lightly) impact on the world.
:#People reel at the shear numbers of people that were killed for no reason other than their god or what they looked like.
:#Even given the above point, people still to this day believe that the [[Final Solution]] is the best solution.
:#The expansion of the Third Reich into other lands was something that hadn't been seen to that scale in, I'm guessing here since I suck at history, hundreds of years.
:But that's just of the top of my head... [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 09:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::In the Western world, the [[Swastika]] and portraits of Hitler have become the most powerful icons epitomizing modern evil and tyranny. In Germany, it is illegal to publicly display the Swastika, [[Prince Harry]] created a scandal when wearing a Pseudo-Nazi uniform to a party, and so forth. Taboos are attractive to all sorts of people, be it out of curiosity, for provocation's sake, or to morally disqualify another person's point of view. See [[Godwin's Law]] too, for the last example.---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 11:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Just try searching this page for 'communis', 'liber', 'democra' or 'iraq'. This is the humanities ref desk, so there are bound to be many questions about politics. Especially the ones that people have questions anout. :) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 09:03, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::If it weren't for a few historic events that could have gone either way such as Einstein's exile in the US and that the bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the US into WWII, we'd all probably be speaking German now (presuming we weren't found to be within an 'undesireable' class of people). That historic near miss, probably to a greater extent than the US's major losses in Vietnam, creates [[cognitive dissonance]] for superpowers such as the [[US]] and [[Europe]] which we deal with in various ways such as defining Nazis as inhuman (when in fact most were political opportunists or just people who didn't think too much about the larger effects of decisions they and their government make--not unlike the citizens in most countries today). I think the vast amount of [[Alternate history | alternate histories]] focused on 'what if the Nazis won?' and efforts to paint Nazi's as 'inhumanly evil' are ways that we attempt to resolve this cognitive dissonance. The [[Man In the High Castle]] is my personal favorite. [[User:Antonrojo|Antonrojo]] 13:26, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
== North Korea's legal system ==
Besides North Korea what governments have legal systems that are based on pre-World War II German legal system that allowed and even accommodated the formation and existence of a dictatorship? [[User:Adaptron|Adaptron]] 09:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:I don't really know much about the NK legal system and the article doesn't help very much. But as far as I can tell, their dictatorship as was Germany's didn't actually have that much to do with the legal system. Didn't Hitler largely dismantle the courts anyway and make up his own ones? Which is not to say legal systems can't be used to help dictatorships of course. In Singapore for example which is a dictatorship of sorts (although obviously not of the NK or Germany kind), the courts have been extensively used to hinder opposition politicians [[User:Nil Einne|Nil Einne]] 11:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::The main point here is the lack of checks and balances which modern legal/political systems incorporate. Dictatorship for any purpose is still dictatorship although a benevolent dictatorship with the goal of making everyone rich could possibly have merit except to those who's religion perhaps forbids wealth. [[User:Adaptron|Adaptron]] 11:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
* Germany's legal system '''today''' is essentially the same as it was pre-war. Hitler's coming to power had nothing to do with the ''court system'' - it had to do with the weak Weimar constitution and ''parliamentary system''. The same legal system is used in most North European countries. The political show-trials of Nazi Germany, like those lead by the notorious [[Roland Freisler]], were conducted in a completely seperate court system called the [[Volksgerichtshof]] (People's Court), which Hitler set up once he'd gained total power. (Exersise for the reader: Why did Hitler need to set up a new court system if the old one was easily corruptible?) The US court system '''would not have stopped Hitler'''. What would have stopped him is that the US constitution is not as easy to change as the Weimar one, but more importantly, does not have its state-of-emergency laws. The Weimar constitution did ''not'' accomodate dictatorship. It just didn't do enough to stop it. Anyway, this is all a moot point when it comes to the DPRK - it was created as a dictatorship from the start. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 22:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:: And I highly doubt that North Korea's legal system has any resemblence to the German legal system past or present. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 22:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
You might want to check various references such as the CIA Fact Book before reaching such erroneous conclusions. Nothing starts from scratch. Everything starts with a model. Pre-WWII German legal system was that model for the DPRK legal system in place today which served in no capacity to stop the formation of the DPRK. Even China has become wary of ulterior motives the law might allow hence its demand that UN sanctions against NK can not be used as a pretext for invasion or war - an opportunity either not provided by the historical German legal system or not taken advantage of by any opposition. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 17:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Next war-time use of NUCLEAR weapons most likely to happen ==
I know it´s horrible, but some friends and I have been discussing the probable next use of nuclear weapons in a war-time context, can anyone say the MOST LIKELY (by military strategy experts etc.) CONSIDERED possibility of the next nuclear strike in history? We are arguing about:
1) North Korea on South Korea,
2) USA on North Korea,
3) Iran on Israel,
4) Pakistan on India,
5) India on Pakistan. (I think nº 4, although perhaps nº 1).
Is it one of these or are others considered distinct possibilities and which are they please? --Joel--
:I would go on USA against some other target using small tactical "bunker busting" weapons on the grounds of war against terror -- [[User:Chris Q|Chris Q]] 12:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Planners consider many different scenarios including alien occupied rocks from outer space but while so doing look very hard for alternatives WMD such as massive numbers of plasma jet type cluster bombs (billions) to eliminate an invading army such as the million man NK army long before it can cross the DMZ. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 12:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::This is completely speculative, but the US has already declared its intention to use "tactical" nuclear weapons "if necessary". I agree with Chris Q that the US is the most likely origin of the next use of nukes. As for the likely destination, Iran comes to mind. Another scenario is that the US gives tactical nukes to Israel, who deploy them against Iran in "preemptive self-defense". I don't see India or Pakistan using nukes against each other because each knows that it would receive a response in kind. I also don't see North Korea attacking South Korea. South Korea is one of NK's main sources of support at this point. I don't think that that NK would fire except in the event of US military aggression, and in that event, I think the most likely target would be Japan. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 14:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::::You are forgetting that North Korea has already stated its [[Casus Belli]] is any further sanctions and "rilements" by the US. North Korea is either blowing smoke or is actually stupid enough to take any military or other action except to back off doing the things that caused the sanctions to be put on them in the first place. If North Korea uses a nuclear weapon for any reason including defense of its illicit operation as a major illegal drug producer and exporter, counterfeiter and God knows what other crimes then the US might not be the only country that will turn North Korea into glass. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 16:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Here's a scenario I see:
1) Inspections of all ships leaving North Korea are put in place (either by the UN or a non-UN coalition of the US, Japan, etc.) to prevent North Korea from selling nuclear weapons to anyone who is willing to pay (as they have done with all their other weapons systems). [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
2) North Korea calls this an act of war and declares war on South Korea in return (technically, North Korea remains at war with South Korea, the US, and much of the world since the Korean War). Since they have a substantial military advantage in conventional weapons and troops, especially considering the US deployment in Iraq, this means they will soon defeat South Korea and capture the tens of thousands of American troops there. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:This is pure speculation. Their advantage lies in numbers but what about technology and simple experience? You are also forgetting that America would surely send reinforcements (imposing the draft, thereby recruting soldiers by the millions) and the possiblity of its allies fearfull of a strong North Korea also sending military aid. Many of them might disagree with the current administration but forced to choose between the US and North Korea they will choose the first one. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Yes, any statement about what may happen in the future, is, of course, speculation. North Korean troops are so close to the capital of South Korea that the war would be largely over before the US could institute a draft, train new troops, and deploy them. Unless, of course, nuclear weapons were used. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::And the SKtroops and the UStroops are completly unready for the loss of Seoul (they can't be ready for something everyone can predict) and must give it up if they lose that city. Somehow they have forgotten all the lessons of the last [[:Korean War]] (in which Seoul was captured by the NKtroops). Since is the capture or destruction of Seoul vital for a Korean campaign? It's certainly a major step, but the troops in SK are there to mantain viable landing points (like the [[:Pusan Perimeter]]) for the arriving reinforcements . [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The US just considers use of nuclear weapons against NK to be preferable to the destruction or capture of [[Seoul]]. In war, killing millions of enemy civilians to save millions of allied civilians is justified. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:29, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Sure, because at the last time NK captured Seoul the Americans imediatly retaliated with Nuclear weapons (or they will do it now because they have grown dummer). Sorry, but recent history shows exactly the opposite: the loss of Seoul is expected, everyone is ready for it, and the war will continue. I really hope that you are not part of the American security council. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::General [[Douglas MacArthur]] wanted to do just that, and was fired by President [[Harry Truman]], to prevent a wider war with China. In retrospect, that would have avoided the current situation, since China lacked nuclear weapons at the time. Under the current crisis, there is no reason to think that China would support NK militarily. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::I think that MacArtuhr was bit senile at that point and that Truman was right. There is no reason to think that China will ever agree with a preemptive Nuclear strike against NK. If China is willing to go to war with the US because of the current Nk is difficult to answer though. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 08:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::::Many people agreed with MacArthur at the time. In retrospect, it appears that he may have been right. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::::Right in wanting to risk entering a war with China? [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::::::Yes, and in being at least willing to use the threat of nuclear weapons to get the Chinese to stop supporting NK (then, not now). [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
3) Rather than let this happen, the US is willing to use nuclear weapons against North Korea. Perhaps only one, to demonstrate their willingness, at first. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Speculation (see Nr2) and not supported by facts. The US had a somewhat similar scenario in Vietnam (prisoners and all) and they didn't use the Nuclear weapons either. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I don't see any similarity with Vietnam. The US just withdrew and let the North have the South. I don't see that happening in Korea, unless South Korea gets some truly idiotic politicians who ask the US to leave. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The similarity is that even if the US is defeated in Korea by conventional warfare (something I doubt) they would not retaliate with Nuclear weapons (they were defeated in Vietnam and still they didn't use the Nukes). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 08:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::You keep lumping "defeat" all into one category. Voluntarily withdrawing is in no way comparable to having all your troops (tens of thousands) captured by the enemy. The first is acceptable in the minds of the US public, while the second is so unacceptable as to justify using nuclear weapons, in the minds of the US public. Vietnam was also a proxy war between the Soviet Union backing the North and the US backing the South, with the risk that any escalation could change the cold war into a hot war. The current crisis is not a superpower conflict, as nobody is going to come to NK's aid. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
4) North Korea then reacts by firing a nuclear weapon at Japan or South Korea on a short range missile. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Speculation (see Nr2). If this happened the entire world would turn against North Korea. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::It is now, except for probably [[Fidel Castro]], [[Hugo Chavez]] and a few other nuts. North Korea doesn't care what the world thinks. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::NK doens't care what the world thinks, agreed. It does care if most of the world declares and then wages war against it. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 08:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The UN won't even declare war against a country it could easily defeat, like Rwanda or Sudan, to prevent the genocides in those countries. So, it sure isn't going to declare war on a country with strong conventional forces and nuclear weapons. NK has nothing to worry about from anyone other than the US and maybe China. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::It may shook you, but the UN is completly dependent on the national goverments and does not posses any troops of its own. As noone is willing to send troops to save African ppl (because the life of one white trooper is worthier than 10000 black Africans in the minds of jaded population who will vote accordingly). The Un is mostly a gathering place where every nation can say its peace of mind and the real power is in the hand of the security council.
5) The US then responds with the total nuclear annihilation of North Korea, using high altitude detonations to limit fallout risks to neighboring nations. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Speculation (see Nr2 and Nr4). What for? You can bomb a country into the stone-age whithout using Nuclear weapons. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Not quickly enough to destroy their missile launch capability. Also, NK has sophisticated antiaircraft defenses, so only missiles could be used against them. This would dramatically reduce the portion of the US arsenal that could be used against NK. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The only way I see around this is if China and South Korea actually put total economic sanctions on North Korea, now, instead of propping up the economy, which might finally convince North Korea to give up it's nuclear weapons. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:All past sanctions couldn't convince them until now, and now they would change their minds because of what? Their ppl is starving and the whole country is (as far as we know) allready a "wasteland", and the regime hasn't changed its mind. Where is the allmighty diffrence? [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::The diff is that both China and South Korea were actively working against the sanctions, which made them totally ineffective. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::So the ppl will starve even faster and the NK will use this in their propaganda. You can imagine the rest... China and South Korea will eventually donate food again for "pure humanitarian reasons". [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 08:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Well, if inspections of ships are put in place, and as long as no neighbors (China or South Korea) go and buy the donated food back from NK, then they can't get cash from selling it to buy more weapons. They will then be forced to either let the starving eat the food or destroy it (so they can use their starving citizens for propaganda). [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps another way out is if China invades North Korea and installs a puppet regime. While most of the world would normally object to this, eliminating the extreme danger posed by the current North Korean dictatorship would ensure that there would be very little criticism, and no punitive actions, taken against China. Perhaps they could promise [[Kim Jung Il]] that he won't be executed as long as he doesn't use nuclear weapons against China. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Why would China invade North Korea? What would they gain? As long as North Korea doesn't use the nuclear Bomb noone is going to invade it. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::If North Korea keeps it's nuclear weapons, then Japan and South Korea will need nuclear weapons to defend themselves. Once they have nuclear weapons, Taiwan (which China hates with a passion) will likely get them, too, as will perhaps most of Asia. The net result of this is to greatly reduce China's status as the sole nuclear power in Eastern Asia and ultimately poses a substantial threat to China. Unlike conventional weapons, even a small country, like Taiwan, can pose a significant military threat once armed with nuclear weapons. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::That exactly is why these two (small) countries are allied with the US, so that the US Nuclear weapons defend them from any Nuclear aggression. That's the whole point of alliances, they don't need any Nbombs they only need to keep the alliance with the USA. That's why the big ones are keen to keep the lid on Nuclear profiliration. They don't want to oppress the other countries, they fear that a small country really uses a nuclear bomb against them or against an ally. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Once North Korea has nuclear weapons that can reach the US, then the US nuclear deterrent against NK attacking South Korea or Japan will no longer be credible. Why would Japan believe the US would nuke NK if they were attacked, knowing that the US would risk a nuclear attack if they did. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::So if someone uses the NBomb against your ally, you (the US) won't do a thing, because you are too afraid that they use the Nbombs against you? Sorry, that's nonsense. '''You will use your weapons or you will lose all your allies''' (and believe me you want to keep them, to have their strengh at your side). Have you ever studied the [[:Cold War]]? Soviet Nuclear weapons could reach American soil anytime and that didn't stop the US from protecting Western Europe. You might say much about the USA but they aren't cowards. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::The US positioned nuclear weapons in Europe, so Europe could defend itself, rather than rely on US ICBMs to defend them (even so, both the UK and France developed nuclear weapons, apparently not trusting the US to defend it). That's another option, placing US nukes in Japan and South Korea, but China wouldn't like that, either. Hence it is in their interest to wipe out NK before it's able to put nuclear weapons on a missile. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::Something noone (not even the Chinese) knows for sure if they allready have done it or not, and I think noone wants to risk it to find it out..
The first step to end the nuke crisis is to disarm the US. Then the world can lobby effectively for disarmament.There have to be effective rationale behind this big brother attitude.[kjvenus]
:The only way to disarm the US is to take back Pearl Harbor. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 16:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:The last two comments are simply narrow-minded. No nation allready possesing the Nuclear bomb is going to disarm them. No nation is going to invade (or bomb the crap out of them) them '''unless''' they use it. Ergo, they won't use it. '''M'''utual '''A'''ssured '''D'''estruction, the great reason for peace. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::It wouldn't be MAD in the case of North Korea, at least not at this point. They don't have the speed, the stockpile, nor the delivery system to strike back if someone did nuke them -- if they did it first, they'd at most get one city damaged before everyone falls on them. It would more than likely be stupid to nuke them though, especially considering the possible environmental impact to the whole peninsula, as well as the political/moral issues with killing innocent civilians. -- [[User:Consumed Crustacean|Consumed Crustacean]] ([[User talk:Consumed Crustacean|talk]]) 17:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Nothing is narrowminded. There is a serious problem with the Attitude. The US invaded Irag on grounds of it possessing weapons of Mass destruction. And today it has become a mess. The US is not shouldering its responsibility of having wrecked that havoc. Will The US challenge the stance of N Korea? Will it keep sending troops trying to impose its foolish freedom & democracy? Why is it not giving freedom to every country to enter the Nuke Zone?
Let every country acquire that power & then sign the Mutual Assured Destruction for peace & harmony! [kj_venus]
:Unfortunately North Korea is not rational. Why? North Korea has the same buried in concrete mindset that Germany did prior to the end of World War II. North Korea sees itself in the same stubborn way as Germany did before it was defeated militarily. It is a mindset that only North Korea can change without suffering military defeat. The only option the rest of the World has depends upon what North Korea does. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 17:37, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I really like that everyone is such a specialist about the NKregime. Do you base all your conclusions on something other than than the TV? Because if you have some real info and not mere speculation you might consider joining the CIA. Face it, we don't know almost nothing about the NKregime and all our conclusions about it are mere speculations and nothing else. The WOMD excuse was a lie from the start for the public (i.e. the American ppl). It wasn't the real reason. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 19:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
(I sigh and I wonder how I get into these arguments. Then I remember that I like politics (mainly international) ). You want the truth? You really want the real truth? It is most likely that Nothing is going to happen! So the NK has the Bomb, right?
Congratulations, they have the Bomb. Nobody is going to invade them now. Why? Because '''if someone does invade NK they might use the Bomb, and noone is willing to take that chance'''. Not the US , China, or Russia, etc.
:The US wouldn't invade, no, but they might very well drop bombs, that doesn't require nearly the resources of an invasion and occupation force. China might invade, as they have the troops to get the job done and are close enough to have the element of surprise on their side (US satellites would show troops gathering on the border, but would likely keep silent). Russia has nothing to do with this crisis. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::It isn't a question of resources, it is a matter of retaliation. If the US bombs NK they would surely retaliate, propably with nukes, and their missiles have a wide range. Ergo, the Us won't risk it. China could surprise NK but would they be quick enough to prevent the launch of the missiles? I somehow doubt that the Chinese are willing to take that chance. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 09:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::There is no evidence that NK can even put a nuke on a short range missile yet, much less on a long range missile capable of hitting the US. Also, their one long range missile test failed and it appears that their one nuclear weapons test may have failed, too. So, the risk to the US is minimal now, but will be severe in a few years. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I actually agree with you there, their nuclear capacities (number of nukes) and the range of their missiles is an icognito. They just might be a overblown paper tiger. But I doubt that anyone is willing to take that chance. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
They have the bomb. Congratulations. They most likely won't use it on someone. Why? Because if they use it against someone the chances are way too high that all major countries (i.e. those who also have the bomb) '''will retaliate against them'''. Even if somehow they don't (and if that happens they would lose an enormous amount of Face - something which really matters in politics and worth preserving at all costs) retaliate against you, you will not gain absolutly nothing except fearful hatred from everyone. Use the bomb on a country and then conquer it. You have gained a nuclear wasteland, now please hold it. Good luck.
NK has the bomb. Congratulations. Can they eat it? Will the bomb turn their entire shi*ty country into something better? Oh, they can threaten to use it and some countries will supply '''some''' food to the NK ppl but they won't supply plenty of food. Just enough to satisfy the regime. Just enough to prolong the agony of the NKppl. Just enough to keep the peace.
NK has the bomb. Congratulations. Can they sell it? Oh, There are many countries and organizations interrested in buying them. But can NK really risk to sell them? If they sell to the wrong buyer, this buyer might use a Bomb. If they use them, who do think is going to suffer the '''inevitable retaliatons'''? The buyer, sure, but '''also''' the NK. The Taliban regime was not truly guilty for the two towers, the Al-quaeda was, but boy did they also get a beating. Kadaffi learnt that leason, do you think the NK's are dummer than Kadaffi?
Nk has the bomb. Congratulations. '''The old Soviet Union and Communism also had the bomb'''. Did the bomb save either them on the long run? No, it didn't, did it? Economics and agriculture, simple as that. The NKppl will endure the current regime until someone of the same regime reforms the system from the inside like Gorbachew. Or their own military make a coup, which is about the same but a bit more risky. Noone from the outside is going to anything at all. Perhaps offer some bribes, give some food, and give some well-meaning or threatnining statements. Everybody is just going to wait paitiently for the inevitable: either the regime changes from the inside, the military makes a coup, or the NKppl starves to death. Noone is too concerned with the last and simply don't care much either way as there is nothing they can do about it. '''If NK uses the Bomb it will be wiped out of the map and that will be the end of it.''' If they don't use it, noone is going to bother them at all. So '''let us learn something from history for a change, and treat the NK like we did the old Soviet Union.''' Don't get frightnend because a lying politician tells you the world is going to end tomorrow. Tha lying politician wants to frighten you, so that you vote for him, is that truly so hard to understand?
How stupid do you think the NKregime really is? Do you really believe that they are completly mad or something? If they were, the NK military would have made a coup allready. '''Noone rational wants to die'''. Do you believe this is somehow diffrent in NK? ''Are they different from everybody else? Don't they fear Death, perhaps? Don't they love their children, wifes, and family? Do they really want to turn their own country into a Nuclear wasteland?'' '''That's why MAD worked, works, and will work in the forseable future.'''
The members of the regime don't wanna die and the military there don't wanna die also. If someone mad enough to use the bomb reaches to power the frightened military will seriously consider making a coup because they don't wanna die in the Nuclear Holocaust. The regime knows this and the military knows this also. They know it '''exactly because of WWII''' and rest assured they don't want to repeat the mistakes of Hitler and his regime. Why? '''Because they don't wanna die like Hitler and his henchmen, that's why'''. They don't want to follow someone into certain death.
The NK has the bomb, so what? There are more countries who have the Bomb and noone is (relativly) too frightened.
Only a completly mad person would use the bomb today. That, or a truly desperate one, like desperate because "''another country has invaded "my" country and as I am going to die anyway, I will take many with me''." So noone is going to force them into a tight spot with no exits, noone is going to invade them. And even if everything fails and someone really unleashes the Nuclear holocaust, relax, ''there is nothing we can do about it now''. If you really want to ensure the survival of humanity as a whole, then keep your nerve, give a fair chance to the other side, vote for the wiser candidate, support a future world goverment, and support the expansion of Humanity into space (all the eggs in one basket, etc). If you really believe in something "above" then you might pray for peace, but as I don't believe that HE exists, I won't vouch for the results, LOL. '''We have lived with the Bomb since 1945''' and I fear we will live with it in the forseable future. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 19:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC) As always this is mainly an educated guess, and if it turns out that I was mistaken you can collect my radioactive ashes and say to my remains: "Sadly, you were wrong."
:If we allow countries governed by crazies to get and keep nukes, like NK and Iran, it's just a matter of time before they use them. Better to risk a small war now than to wait until they have thousands of ICBMs and can each destroy the world. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Most likely it will be a country with nuclear arms that has a history of aggression. The US seems like an obvious choice, but somehow I don't think they will go that far because it will make the US look too bad and the effect will be too limited to be worth it. People may think that the US don't give a shit about what the world thinks about them, but that is not entriely true. It ''does'' hold true for a rogue state like Israel, though. So that's my best bet. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 09:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Risk a '''Nuclear war''' to prevent a Nuclear war. Righ, sure. I hope the politicians in the USA show the sense they had during the Cold War. Stu, you are simply grasping at straws: you begin with one mighty argument (e.g. The war will be over if the Nk's capture Seoul, and as it is s close to the border...) and I explain why you are wrong (the US and Sktropops lost Seoul during the Korean War and still they kept on fighting) . Instead of accepting it, you grasp another argument and I demonstrate again that you are wrong. You are ignoring the following fact: '''Noone is willing to risk a full-scale Nuclear War'''. Therefore they will threaten and will impose whatever sanctions they like. Noone is going to invade Nk and risk taking a Nuke in retaliation. Noone is going to bomb NK, first because the necessary info on the targets is probably too meager and noone is willing to risk taking a Nuke in return. Everybody is just going to sit tight, do their best to contain NK, and patiently wait for an eventual internal change. It worked during the Cold War and the stakes were far higher. Why wouldn't it work now? Because the NK's are "completly crazy and have an allmighty Deathwish?" That's the same crap we were told about the Communists in the Soviet Union and China 1980's. "The Communists don't care if they die by the millions, they don't believe in God so they aren't afraid to go to Hell." Guess what? The NK's are ppl too, and they also want to live. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 09:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Having a small war to prevent a much larger war is a frequently used method, most recently employed against Serbia. Had they been unchallenged in Bosnia and Kosovo, they would have gone on to conquer the rest of the former Yugoslavia, then moved on to Albania and the other Balkan states. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:35, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::You are avoiding the point. '''Noone is willing to risk a full-scale Nuclear War'''. Serbia doesn't (and didn't) have any Nuclear weapons so your comparision is moot (and you knew it). Would NATO have intervened if Serbia had had Nuclear weapons? I somehow doubt it. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::That's my point exactly. A war now would NOT be a full scale nuclear war, as NK doesn't seem yet to be capable of properly detonating a nuclear device or of putting one in a missle. The longer we wait, however, the more likely a full scale nuclear war becomes, if NK is allowed to continue to develop nuclear weapons and missile technology, and sell both the devices and the technology to the highest bidder. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 18:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
I will support Dirvd opinions. The US supports Israel to an excessive extent. [kj_venus]
:Of course you will. Especially the absolutely absurd, ridiculous notion of Israel being a "rogue state". In what sense is Israel a "rogue state"? How does Israel pose a threat to anyone? If Israel were a "true" rogue state, why wouldn't it take it's overwhelmingly sophisticated army and vast arsenal of nukes to expand its territory and invade and conquer every one of neighbours? Why? Because Israel has no expansionist ambitions. That's why. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 08:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Do you live in some parallel world where Israel is not expansionist and poses no threat to anyone? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::They only invade Palestine or their neighbors when they are threatened by terrorism or military action from those places. They also leave as soon as they believe the threat to be reduced. That's not expansionism, that's self-defense. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 18:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Those other places tend to disagree, which is why they attack in the first place. It's a feud. And feuds tend to be hard to end because either side will look at a differnt point in history as a reference to what is the 'normal situation' that needs to be restored. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 05:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
How about nuking Mexico? Seriously, this is pie-in-the-sky. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 12:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Legal tender status of Jersey coinage in the UK ==
After being presented with a [[Jersey]] coin whilst doing my shopping (in mainland UK) this afternoon, and requesting it was switched, the sales assistant assured me it was legal tender in the UK. I know that's not the case, and the [[Sterling Area]] article confirms this. However, since the [[Jersey pound]] is not a separate currency, just a re-issue of coins denominated in [[pound sterling]], for what reason, exactly, is it not legal tender in the UK (in a similar way to French-designed [[Euro coin]]s are exactly the same currency and accepted exactly the same as German-designed Euro coins)? What would a good comeback have been?! Many thanks, <sub>└</sub><sup>'''[[User:UkPaolo| UkPaolo]]'''</sup>/<sub>''[[User Talk:UkPaolo|talk]]''</sub><sup>┐</sup> 12:34, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:A good comeback? How about take back this filthy foreign lucre, bignose. As far as I know Channel Isles, Gibraltar even Scottish notes are not legal tender in England due to differing tax systems [http://www.24carat.co.uk/legaltenderframe.html] The main problem is that shops accumulate these coins and they need to be exchanged like all other foreign currencies which costs a small percentage. The best way for the shops to not loose money is to diffuse the coins amongst the populous where the plebs will either take them out of circulation themselves or at least put them in somebody else's slot machines. <small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 15:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Perhaps that's the best way not to lose money. But the best way not to loose money...glue it all together ? :-) [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Gah I'm such a pleb I've already corrected defuse and diffuse but I am a homophonaphobe. <small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 15:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::: Among the populous what? --[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 23:18, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
== "Homophobia" ==
I realize that this question is partially a linguistic one, but as it pertains to a larger degree about sociology, psychology and sexuality, I feel it's more appropriate to ask it here.
I've always had an issue with the term "homophobia" as basically meaning "gay-bashing" or "bigotry towards homosexuals", for two reasons. First, etymologically speaking, it's a rather terrible misnomer. "Homo" is Greek for "sameness", and "phobia" is Greek for fear, therefore, the term "homophobia" would seem to apply to some sort of "fear of sameness", and not at all to bigotry. The other reason I don't like it is because it sort of "sanitizes" this kind of bigotry, by referring to it as a "phobia". A "phobia" is a psychological condition of sorts, and as it almost never refers to a ''rational'' fear, but rather to an ''irrational'' one, has little to do with hatred. For example, while an [[claustrophobic]] may have an irrational "fear" about using an elevator (lift), s/he has no particular ''hatred'' towards elevators, and in most cases, would most likely wish s/he didn't have that fear. "Homophobia", as used in the English language just doesn't seem to be any sort of "phobia" at all, in the proper sense of the word.
In any case, just as they say "you can't fight city hall", you can't fight against a term that's been adopted by millions of English speakers, no matter how nonsensical it may seem from an etymological perspective.
My question, therefore is this: Should one, who, while not being bigoted, prejudiced, disrepectful, discriminatory towards, or unnaccepting of homosexuals, and while bearing no ill-will towards or hatred of homosexuls, yet who, nonetheless, can't help but be utterly revolted at the very idea of sexual intimacy between two males, be described as a homophobe? If not, what would be the proper term for that?
I'd be grateful for any possible views as to how to answer this question, as well as any related comments concerning the term "homophobia". Thanks! [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 13:28, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:The only way to change meaning of a word in the U.S. is through mass media. For example, "metrosexual" is a common word now - not because anyone knows the definition of the root origins of the word. They just saw it on South Park and adopted it as the cool word of the day. So, if you want a definition of a person who is happy to hang around with gay men, but disgusted by gay sex, you have to get your new word into the media. However, it has to be a cool word. If it is stupid, like "manorexic" (a male anorexic), you'll be lucky to get a sound bite on late night CNN. For me, the word I'd like to change is "child" in phrases like "child sexual abuse". It refers to teenagers as well as children. I feel teenage sexual abuse, teenage pornography, and all of that should be marked as "teen", not "child". I am simply not much offended by an 18 year old boy having sex with a 17 year old girl. I am highly offended if he has sex with a 7 year old girl. Both are "child" sexual abuse. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 13:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::There are other examples of -phobias used for a dislike, rather than a fear, let alone a clinical disorder. [[Phobia#Terms_indicating_prejudice_or_class_discrimination]] lists some of them. I can't think of a word that distiniguishes the aesthetically based sexual revulsion you described. If it doesn't have to fit a discomfort toward gay sex specifically, [[sexual repression|sexually repressed]] or [[prude]] might fit the category.---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 14:17, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
The word "homophobia" goes well with the absurd "[[gay panic defense]]", where heterosexuals are supposedly so terrified of homosexuals that they react as if their life is in danger, so that, in their diseased minds, they attack the homosexual out of self-defense. Also, other fears of living things, like clowns or cats, could result in the person attacking what they perceive as a danger. However, you're correct in saying that many people dislike homosexuality but don't take any action based on this dislike. Thus, the term differs from others, like "racist", which do not imply that any action was taken against the race in question. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I think that "homophobia" is an imprecise term. I do think that it can refer to personal revulsion, even when that revulsion is not accompanied by harmful or discriminatory actions. I think that it is analogous to "racism." That said, I agree with Loomis that the term is an etymological misnomer. However, it is the word generally in use to express a broad range of meanings. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 16:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you 100%, Kainaw, about the fact that we're in desperate need of a distinction between sexually immature pre-pubescent children, and sexually mature (albeit not necessarily psychologically mature) post-pubescent minors. I've tried to argue that point at least a couple of times here at the RefDesk. It's not that I approve of adults having sexual relations with adolescents, and I definitely disapprove of "teen porn", it's just that I don't find it "sick" for a heterosexual adult male, for example, to be sexually attracted to a 17 year old girl. And if the adult male in question is within a certain age range of the minor, say two or three years, I really don't see all that much inappropriate for a 20-21 year year old guy having a sexual relationship with his 17 year old girlfriend. On the other hand, sexual attraction towards pre-pubescent children is clearly sick.
But this kind of nicely dovetails with my problem with the word "homophobia". Aside from the etymological problem, much more importantly it only leads to the lumping together of otherwise decent guys/girls having the same feelings about homosexuality as those expressed above (ok, I'll quit with the pretense, me!) with all those bigots and gay bashers. The two just aren't the same. It just came to me, but perhaps great example is the fact that I, along with, I would imagine, most other people, just find the image of my parents having sex with each other as completely revolting! Of course I love them no less for it, I'd just rather not think about it! And of course I'd be a total hypocrite for disapproving of it, as otherwise, had they not had a sexual relationship, I'd never exist!
Similarly, labelling ''all'' adults who are sexually attracted to minors as "pedophiles', and if they act upon their feelings, as "child sex offenders", regardless of the age of the minor, in the same way unfairly lumps together those truly sick individuals who are attracted to and abuse children, with those other rather healthy individuals who are attracted to sexually mature adult minors.
Let me be clear though, I definitely would ''not'' approve of a 32 year old man having sex with a girl half his age. That would be, to say the very least, extremely improper. All I'm saying is that whatever sexual attraction he may have for her, it's a far cry from pedophilia.
As for Kainaw's suggestion that I attempt to coin a term for a decent, accepting person who is nonetheless revolted by the idea of homosexual sex between men, I originally felt that the idea of little-old-me actually accomplishing something like that was astronomically tiny to none. But then I thought about how much wiki is growing day by day into more and more of an institution in pop-culture (I've happened upon no less than half a dozen articles about it in various newspapers, magazines, etc.) that I figured, what the hell? Might as well give it a try. What do I have to lose? Just imagine the thought of little-old-me coining a term that has the potential to one day make it into standard English lexicon!
The problem is, I can't really think of a more proper term to differentiate gay-bashing bigots from regular guys who are just really turned off by the very idea of homosexual intimacy.
What I can say is that the "phobia" part of the term should be replaced by the far more approprite "mis", derived from the Greek ''misos'', meaning "hatred", as in the terms [[misogyny]], [[misandry]] and [[misanthropy]]. It's the homosexuality part that's giving me trouble. I can't seem to think of a preferably monosyllabic, greek derived word for homosexuality. But I haven't checked a dictionary yet, so I might get lucky and find something suitable. Any suggestions? Lets make it a group effort. That way one day we can ''all'' have our tiny little spot in the history of the English language!
But still, I'm not deluded. It's probably just a pipe dream. Thanks to everyone so far, but I'd appreciate as many thoughts as possible on any aspect being discussed here. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 18:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Checked the dictionary. How does "misomophile" sound? Catchy? Mark my words, people! One day you'll find that word in the Oxford English Dictionary! <small>Yeah right...who'm I kidding...</small> :-) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 21:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Probably not quite euphonious enough to catch on, but best of luck. Btw, is "astronomically tiny" at all related to "microscopically huge"? :) [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 23:25, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Since it is probably difficult to redefine a word - how did "gay" get redefined? - you can make up a word to define a person who is not afraid of gays, does not hate gays, does not mind interacting with gays, but has a disgust towards gay sex. Something like phallanalphobia. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 21:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:You may appreciate this article: [http://web.archive.org/web/20040722135506/http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire200405140857.asp Here to Stay]. [[User:Jade Knight|The Jade Knight]] 05:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, homophobia derives not from "homo" sameness or "homo" man, but rather homo as a short form of homosexual. Homosexophobia might be better, but it's a bit unwieldy. Others have expressed its supposed inability to cover bigotry, instead from a -phobia, meaning fear. But there are terms like Francophobia, Sinophobia, which do cover bigotry against the groups mentioned (French and Chinese). Two alternatives to the adjective homophobic might be "anti-gay", "gay hating", "gay bashing". to the noun homophobia there is [[heterosexism]], which seems to be rather a combo of heterosex and -ism, and [[anti-homosexualism]], and "straight supremacism".
== Marketing ==
1) What are the major differences of environmental scanning under domestic marketing and international marketing?
:Read the top of the page and you will see '''Do your own homework.''' At the very least, reword the question and don't put the number in front. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 15:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I'll get on it right away. How many words are required and what's the deadline? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 08:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Flag Desecration Act ==
My college professor said that there is another way to accomplish the banning of flag desecration by one of the branches of government other than Congress. What is this act and what branch of government can do this?
Kari Ruf
:I won't be an ass and ask you "Which country's congress are you talking about"? The Congress of the Philippines, The Congress of the Republic of Peru, The National Congress of Brazil, The National Congress of Ecuador, The Congress of the United States? Obviously you're referring to the US Congress. But try to remember that we're not all Americans here.
:I suppose, it maaaay be possible for the President, (the executive branch,) pursuant to his power granted by Article II, Section 3 of the US Constitution to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed", may ''possibly'', in conjunction with title 4, Chapter 1, §3 (Use of flag for advertising purposes; mutilation of flag) of the [[United States Flag Code]], issue an "[[executive order]]" banning the desecration of the flag. But that's just a spur-of-the-moment-wild guess. I really don't know a whole lot about the intricacies of the US constition. But please, as a special favour, come back to me and tell me what your professor thinks of that guess. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 23:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 23:22, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:My guess would be the Judicial branch to declare the act of desecrating the flag unconstitutional, even though that would be unconstitutional in itself. Still, that's probably the easiest way to go about that. [[User:Pckeffer|Pckeffer]]
::I think you've misunderstood the question, Pckeffer. The Supreme Court has already struck down the portion of the law that bans the desecration of the flag, as being a violation of the First Ammendment. It's now legal to burn the American flag. What I ''believe'' the questioner was asking was how some branch other than the legislative can constitutionally ''reinstate'' a law banning the desecration of the flag. But then again, I could be the one that misunderstood the question. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 01:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The effects of an executive order are limited to the executive branch of the government or where otherwise authorized by Congress. The president can ban flag-burning in government buildings, but he can't ban flag-burning by individuals. I'm sure your professor is referring to the idea of the Supreme Court reversing its previous decision and allowing the ban on flag-burning. -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] 01:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::(Groan) Awwww, don't tell me it was a trick question and I that overthought it! Of course the Supreme Court can reverse its previous position. But that just seemed too obvious. If that's the answer your professor was looking for, well, then, that was a pretty nasty trick s/he pulled. :-) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 01:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Now wait a sec, that doesn't seem right either. Yes, it's true that the US Supreme Court can reverse its decisions, and yes, it's true that the US courts have the power of [[judicial review]]. But that only seems to allow them to strike-down unconstitutional law. Once the law is stricken down, it's gone forever. While they can reverse their decision by striking down a law as unconstitutional after having previously upheld it as constitutional, (as they had done by upholding [[separate but equal]] legislation in [[Plessy v. Ferguson]], and then reversing that decision by striking down the "separate-but-equal" principle in similar legislation, in [[Brown v. Board of Education]]) I can't see how they can do the opposite. I'm pretty sure they can't "un-strike-down" law they had previously stricken down. I believe what would be required would be for congress to re-enact the previously stricken down legislation, have it challenged in court, and ''this time'' have the court decide that they hold it to be constitutional. But that would require action by Congress, which is out of the question according to your professor.
:::::Mwalcoff, you said "[t]he effects of an executive order are limited to the executive branch of the government or where otherwise authorized by Congress". Well Congress apparently authorized restrictions on mutilation of the flag in the [[United States Flag Code]] I cited above. But I admit, that doesn't seem right either, as it would seem to allow the President to issue an executive order which has been determined by the courts to be in violation of the [[Bill of Rights]]. I'm stumped. But please Kari! I'm really curious, and I'd really appreciate it if you came back to me with your prof's "REAL" answer! [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 04:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::When the courts "strike down" a law, it doesn't go anywhere. It stays on the books, unenforceable, until it's repealed. Alabama's state constitution still says blacks and whites must go to separate schools. The flag code has never been repealed. If I were to be arrested for burning a flag, it's likely the court would throw out the case right away. But it's theoretically possible that the court could ignore precedent and convict me, and the Supreme Court could rule against me on my appeal.
::::::You are right that executive orders, like all laws, must not violate the Constitution. In addition, the Constitution limits just how much authority Congress can grant the president. So if Congress were to pass a statute to permit the president to ban flag-burning everywhere, that statute would be unconstitutional. As I said before, the president could issue an order regarding protocol for handling the flag on government property, but he couldn't issue an order telling a private citizen what he or she can do with the flag in his or her house. -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] 05:40, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::As I said, I'm no US Constitutional Law expert. I seem to have been applying my understanding of Canadian Constitutional Law and the Canadian variation of Judicial Review to that of the US. There appear to be some subtle differences. In Canada, when a law is struck down as unconstitutional, it is deemed to be "of no force or effect". I hadn't realized that the same was not true with American Judicial Review. In Canada, a law that is deemed by the courts to be "of no force or effect" is pretty much dead. Should a lower court encounter the law, it's not a mere matter of following precedent, which is so often ignored or worked around, but far more powerfully, it becomes a matter of of enforcing a law that the Supreme Court of Canada has deemed to be "of no force or effect". Therefore, no court can legally reconsider the constitutionality of the law. The law is dead. Apparently, unlike the US Supreme Court, while the Supreme Court of Canada may have the power to "kill" a law, it apparently does not have the power to bring it back to life. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 08:22, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Holiday ==
What is the Day of the Race, which falls on October 12th 2006?
:"Día de la Raza" seems to be a Latin American equivalent of [[Columbus Day]]. From the Columbus Day [[Talk:Columbus_Day|talk page]]:
:"According to Spanish Wikipedia, this date is official at least in 4 Hispanic American countries:
:Uruguay,as "Día de las Américas", since 1915.
:Venezuela, as "Día de la Raza" from 1921 to 2002, when President Hugo Chávez change :the name to "Día de la Resistencia Indígena".
:Chile, as "Dia de la Raza" from 1923 to 2000. President Ricardo Lagos renamed it as "Día del Descubrimiento de Dos Mundos".
:Mexico, since 1928 as "Día de la Raza"." ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 16:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
== Universities in Vermont ==
Hi guys, can anyone tell me about universities and/or colleges or technical schools in Vermont?...and make special emphasis on the 'hyspanic friendly' ones?.
and also,about possible scholarships for non-residents and non-sport players?. (specifically for computer software engineering, but it can be for anything) before american wikipedians start hating me for asking about scholarships in their country, I have to say I'm just wondering.
--[[User:Cosmic girl|Cosmic girl]] 16:44, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
* Scan the articles in [[:Category:Universities and colleges in Vermont]] and its subcategories...? Regards, [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 17:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I live not far from [[Vermont]], and while I don't know about specific scholarships, I have some sense of the geographic and academic landscape. Vermont is a small and mostly rural state. It has long, cold, and snowy winters, which are great if you like to ski, but maybe not so great otherwise. Because it is a small state, most of its colleges and universities are small. Many probably do not have computer software engineering programs. The largest college or university is certainly the University of Vermont, located in Vermont's largest city, Burlington, which has a population of about 39,000. On the other hand, a well-endowed college such as Middlebury College, may have more money for scholarships. As for "Hispanic-friendly," if that is important to you, I wonder why you would choose Vermont. Vermont has the lowest Hispanic population of any state, numbering fewer than 7,000 total. It has the second-lowest percentage of Hispanics of any state. You could probably fit every Hispanic student in any of the state's colleges or universities in a single room. Vermont has a reputation for being liberal and progressive, so you probably won't find too much outright prejudice as a Hispanic person. On the other hand, you will not have many fellow Hispanic students. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 18:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I live in Vermont, work for a technology company which is the state's [[IBM|largest private employer]], and my wife just graduated from [[University of Vermont|UVM]] last year. With that said, I don't think that you'd have any issue at all finding a college or university that has a software engineering degree program. Middlebury College is probably the least likely to have one though as it's more of a [[liberal arts]] college from what I gather. I haven't spent much time talking with anyone who went to Middlebury, so that's why I'm a bit shakey on that one. I would say your best bets are UVM, [[Vermont Technical College]], or [[Champlain College]]. All three work closely with IBM to educate employees. In fact, if you were to get even just an entry level job with IBM, they would basically send you to school for whatever you want in the software field. That's what I'll be doing and I know many other people who have gone to school "on IBM's dime". So that might aleviate your concerns about getting a scholarship. That way all you have to do is get a job! :-) Oh, and don't worry about having a harder time getting a job because you aren't a U.S. citizen. There are many employees that I work with who aren't U.S. citizens. As well as some who have become naturalized citizens while working there. As Marco polo said though, Vermont is one of the least diverse states in the country as far as ethnicity is concerned. There isn't a lot of bias or prejudice though, especially in the [[Burlington, Vermont|Burlington]] area. I could go on, but I won't here unless you have further questions since I think I covered what you asked about. If you want to talk more about Vermont, I'd be happy to try and answer any questions you may have. Just leave a message on my talk page. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 22:41, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
thank u guys. =)--[[User:Cosmic girl|Cosmic girl]] 00:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
== TV sets ==
When I was a kid, TV's were part of a big piece of furniture. What happened?[[User:66.213.33.2|66.213.33.2]] 17:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:What do you mean? That they're less stylish now, or smaller, or something? The trend is towards making them blend in with the rest of the room, rather than standing out as a huge box in the middle of it. -- [[User:Consumed Crustacean|Consumed Crustacean]] ([[User talk:Consumed Crustacean|talk]]) 17:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Let me expand on my question: Until about 1970, a TV was part of a piece of wood (or fake wood) furniture. It was a long console, with legs. On the console were speakers and big knobs. I don't think any such TV is for sale today. What happened to the idea of the TV as a piece of furniture? [[User:66.213.33.2|66.213.33.2]] 18:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Furntiure styles have changed, sheek silver objects are fashionable, fake wood is not. And you can put tvs in tv cabinets, which I think may be what you are reffering too, as I have never seen a wooden TV. TVs still have speakers, but technology outdated the need for knobs etc. So just because the wold has moved since the 70s doesnt mean that a televisions status has changed. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 18:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I'm know I'm really showing my age here, but Phil, I don't think you have the same image of "wooden TVs" as the questioner does. They aren't the type you can put into a cabinet, but were actually, stand-alone pieces of furniture. It's hard to describe. Just think of a coffee table, standing on four legs, only somewhat higher and with a somewhat smaller surface. Underneath, there would be a TV screen. I'll try to find a pic for you. (Sorry Marco...I hadn't scrolled down to realize that you said basically the same thing). [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:I don't think TV's were ever considered furniture. They probably needed the room for all the clunky parts. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 20:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::TVs certainly were considered furniture. I remember exactly the object that the person asking the question is talking about. It was was not a TV cabinet. The TV screen was encased in a wooden frame and could not be separated from that frame without using tools. Perhaps I am the only person posting here born before 1970. Lol. My guess is that when they were first introduced in the late 1940s and 1950s, TVs were unfamiliar objects. Marketers wanted people to feel comfortable putting them in living rooms. Before TVs existed, living rooms were formal rooms where the family kept their best furniture. Sometimes living rooms were used only for company on special occasions. For the TV to fit into that environment, it had to look like the other elements of that environment: formal, wooden furniture. Since the 1960s, the concept of the living room has changed, and the TV has become a familiar object. Therefore, it no longer needs wooden casing. In fact, the wooden casing would look out of place in a modern living room, where wood has largely given way to metal, plastic, and synthetic fabrics. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 20:16, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Prior to TVs, radios and phonographs were also sometimes built-in to a large piece of wooden furniture. The problem with this, as I see it, is that the electrical device is likely to need replacement before the furniture. This means either the furniture must be thrown out, or continue to be used as furniture, even though the electrical device inside is either broken or obsolete. So, all in all, it seems to make more sense to purchase electronic devices and furniture separately. Another issue is the weight, which can be so great as to require a moving crew, while the separate items could be moved (with some difficulty) by the consumer. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:True, StuRat, the manufactures of these beautifully antiquated devices recognized the potentially fatal techno-flaw that the electrical devices within the "wooden box" would wear out before the structure itself. However, some brilliant mind in their marketing division was also savvy enough to realize the lucrative benefits of breaking apart the mechanism, only to remarket the pieces into two seperate, but necessary purchases (the television + the entertainment unit/stand/etc.) Unfortunately, for the original inquirer and the remaining handful who miss the old style television sets (myself included), I regret to inform you, that although many of the morphing newer technologies that have surfaced on the market (cellphones with mp3/blah/blah/camera/blah/blah) there is nothing to support a reintro retro-style consolidation of the those two (tv + furniture)items again. But you must admit,it isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're into minimalistic design...and, it's got to be more environmentally friendly...i mean, at least now when a TV goes bad, the plastic parts that enclose the electronic equip. can be recycled, right?
Also, the ratio of prices has changed. It used to be that the TV costed so much, and wooden furniture was so cheap, that encasing a TV in wood would only increase the price by 10%. Now, however, TVs are so cheap and furniture is so expensive that you might triple the cost of a TV by encasing it in a nice wooden cabinet. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:[http://www.opacity.us/images/db/3/8/0000000364.jpg Here] is a good example of a television of the past that was designed as a piece of furniture. It's also a good example of the inevitable fate of such television sets. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 05:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Why is it still called a "set" when it is one appliance with one on-off switch, one power cord, and one case? I do not have a microwave set, a radio set, or a computer set. 1942 was about the last year (in the U.S) that people bought a shortwave/FM radio to pick up the sound and a separate video receiver, constituting a "set." If you hate TV and refuse to allow one in your house, I suppose you own the null set: <math>\emptyset \subseteq A</math>.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 13:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::And if you take the innards out of your TV, do you have an empty set ? [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
== Soviet recognition of Irish Republic ==
According to some Wikipedia articles [[British Isles (terminology)]], [[Irish Republic]] and [[Imperial Crown of Russia]], Lenin's Russia was the only country to recognize the Irish republic. However i cant find any other sources mentioning this. Only answers.com mentions it and it cites wikipedia. can anyone find a source or should these sections be deleted? [[User:Kenneth Hynes|Ken]] 18:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Just so you know, answers.com is essentially a mirror of Wikipedia, so Wikipedia is still the only place you've found this putative fact. - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 19:04, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
: Bowyer Bell's ''"The Secret Army: The IRA"'' mentions (footnote #11, p38, 3rd ed) "The only result of the diplomatic campaign was recognition by Soviet Russia, felt to be a mixed blessing by many of the more pious members of Sinn Féin.". But O'Connor in "Communists, Russia, and the IRA, 1920-1923" (The Historical Journal, 46, 1, 2003, p115-131) says that a recognition treaty was drafted, but ''"While the Russians were keen on a treaty in 1920, President Éamon de Valera hesitated, apprehensive about the impact on the bigger prize of winning recognition from the USA. When he finally decided to send McCartan to Moscow, the Soviets had gone cold on ties with the republic, for fear of jeopardizing trade negotiations with Britain."''. (McCartan being their envoy to Russia). So it seems it didn't actually happen in the end. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 23:23, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:: Ah, but looking at the [[Irish Republic]] article, it's not quite wrong either - as it seems to base its claim on the fact that they loaned money to Russia. The O'Conner article does confirm that much. I guess you could consider that an informal kind of recognition. But it should at least be clarified. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 16:34, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Irish Republic didn’t come along until at least 1937, maybe 49. In 1921, all they had was Irish Free State. [[User:Martianlostinspace|martianlostinspace]] 13:25, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Read the article, Your mixing up the [[Irish Republic]] and the [[Republic of Ireland]] [[User:Kenneth Hynes|Ken]] 22:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== Developing Nuclear Weapons ==
1. I'm wondering why a country needs to develop nuclear weapons over 50 years after their first use. Couldn't they have stolen the relevant designs in this time? What could be so complicated about developing a nuclear weapon? In a movie I saw, the radioactive material was blown down to critical mass using a coating of regular explosive - isn't that how it's done?
2. If nuclear power was more widely adopted, how long would it take to deplete the earth's supply of suitable material? In the event of a failure to develop other sources of energy before the depletion of fossil fuels, would countries turn to dismanteling their weapons for more radioactive ore?
3. How likely is North Korea likely to launch missiles at the US and if it does, what other countries are likely to suffer casualties? Should I be worried or will the politicians take care of it? Wont missile defense systems destroy any undesirable missiles on route? --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 18:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Not very, largely because North Korea would be obliterated by the US counter-strike (the US some 10,000 nuclear weapons). Other than North Korea, the closest countries (China, South Korea, and Japan) would suffer the most from fallout. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:03, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Yes but is the fact that both parties would suffer enough to stop it from happening? And when I asked about other casualties, I meant would other countries become involved (e.g. UK)? --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 19:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Possibly Japan and South Korea would also be attacked by North Korea. China might also attack North Korea and set up a puppet regime there. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:02, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:You want your bomb to definately not be in danger of exploding under normal conditions, and to definately explode when recquired. This recquires more than just coating it with explosives, you have to understand the physics of it in order to be sure it will work etc. Modern Hydrothermic Nuclear weapons use standard atomic weapons to force hydrigen isotopes (probably dueterium and tritium) together which creates a far far larger explosion (in the region of tens of thousands times larger than hiroshima). This is more complex than coating a lump of uranium in nitroglycerene or something.
:Also there are the political reasons, if you show that you have the capability to build and develop your own, its shows a far more advanced military, than one that can just steal and copy plans, as it means they also have the capability to develop further weapons, possibly leading to an arms race. And testing them is necesary to prove you have them. E.g. if Zimbabwe just announced it had nuclear weapons, people would just say prove it. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 18:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:PS, why do people insist on posting above replies that were there before theirs (sturat) [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 19:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::In this case I had an edit conflict, so put my comment where I originally wrote it to go. In many other cases, I have a short answer, so put that in front of some long, rambling answer or non-answer (since, after reading all that, the reader will likely have forgotten the original question). [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:40, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
If you are really worried of a Nuclear War you might consider moving to [[:Antartica]], as that place is propably not a entry in the targetlist's (you will have to worry about freezing to death and skincancer though). You can also build a Nuclear [[bomb shelter]] in your backyard and practice [[:Duck and cover]] alot, to give yourself a better chance of survival. Either way, the politicians won't save you from Nuclear missiles allready airborne ("Should I be worried or will the politicians take care of it?"). LOL [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 20:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:I was hoping the politicians would take care of it ''before'' the missiles get airborne... --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 14:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
* Well to give my best answers 1) Mostly fissionable material. Exact schematics are probably hard to come by, but it's quite possible the DPRK could have aquired them at some point in the past when they were on better terms with China or the USSR. 2) Not nearly long enough. It would also be a desperate measure, since it's exponentially more expensive to refine fissionable material to a weapon-grade level than a power-plant level. 3) North Korea probably can't hit the mainland US at the moment. South Korea and Japan aren't so lucky. But the whole nuke issue and missile defenses is rather moot. Practically ''all'' of South Korea, with a dense population of 50 million is within range of conventional artillery from the North Korean border. A border which is completely stacked with camoflaged and fortified artillery, some of which may have chemical or biological shells. An attack from either side, nukes or no, is still likely to generate casualties numbered in millions even if the conflict is quickly resolved. When two people are holding guns to eachother's heads, does it really matter if it's a .45 or 'just' a 9mm? --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 22:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I'd strongly disagree with your answer too 2, firstly I fail to see how there can be an exponential increase, with only to data points (weapons grade and power plant grade) also nuclear power is more than enough considering how much uranium there is in the world, and that we need a couple of kilos every year to put a coal power station that burns millions of tonnes (and for the record, produces more radioactive waste, in the form of carbon isotope emmissions) Nuclear power is the only viable solution to our energy needs, and cracking fusion will once and for all solve our needs considering 98% of the universe is made up of nuclear fission fuel. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 22:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::: Although I didn't mean 'exponentially' in the strict mathematical sense, there are a ''lot'' more than just two data points. (Duh.) What I'm talking about is that the amount of refinement required does ''not'' increase linearly with the required concentration of the heavy isotope. The 90% level you need for a bomb does not require 30x the work it takes to get the 3% level you need for a power plant. (At least double that, I think) As for the rest of your answer, maybe you need to go back and read closer. (I'm not saying that we're going to run out of fissionable material soon.) But the universe sure as hell isn't 98% ''fissionable'' material. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 23:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Gutted, what a gay typo, I meant fusion, I have changed it, 98% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, which is fusionable. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:Articles you should read: [[nuclear weapon]], [[nuclear weapon design]], [[nuclear proliferation]], [[nuclear power]]. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 01:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
== HM Prison Service ==
I was wondering if criminals in the UK are used to perform unpaid labour? If not, would this not enable some self-suffiency of the prison system so we wouldn't be forced to keep releasing criminals early and giving such short sentences for horrendous crimes? --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 19:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not clear who you mean by the 'we' who are 'forced to keep releasing criminals early and giving such short sentences for horrendous crimes'. The US and UK, just for instance, have some of the highest incarceration rates in the world. And 'used to perform unpaid labour' is a pretty obvious euphemism for 'slavery'. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 19:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Laws against involuntary servitude do not apply to convicts according the the US constitution. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 22:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Absolutely correct. According to s.1 of the 13th Ammendment, (the one that finally banned slavery) involuntary servitude is prohibited ''"...except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted..."'' Just curious though, what does "HM" mean in this context? [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::"HM" in this context means "[[Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom|Her Majesty's]]...". --[[User:Canley|Canley]] 01:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::The US Constitution is not the last word in the definition of slavery. The fact that the 13th amendment excludes convicts from its prohibition of forced labour doesn't mean that such labour is not slavery. And even if it did, that wouldn't apply anywhere else in the world. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 10:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
There are several problems such a system would create:
1) What do you do to prisoners who refuse to comply ?
2) This free source of labor undercuts the workers who were currently doing the job. For example, if you use prisoners to build roads, then whoever was being used to build roads loses their job.
3) This introduces corruption by leaving prison wardens in charge of a valuable resource (free labor), frequently with little oversight to prevent them from selling it to the highest bidder and pocketing the cash.
4) The cost of imprisonment is currently a limitation on the number of prisoners that can be kept incarcerated (as you had noted). Without this limit politicians wanting to seem "tough on crime" are likely to pass mandatory life imprisonment for minor crimes, like possession of tiny quantities of marijuana or parents with a pic of their kid in the bathtub. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Re question 1) see [[Cool Hand Luke]] and the rhetorical statement "What we got here--is a failure to COMMUNICATE." The resulting consequences would motivate the recalcitrant prisoner to comply.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 04:13, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:See [[The Shawshank Redemption]] for an example of number three. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 13:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== Barking dogs ==
Why do dogs bark at and chase bicycles? Is it canine neurosis oe what? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 22:17, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:It's more than likely caused by the fact that they're hunters and something that moves quickly could be thought of as prey. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 22:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::But barking at prey seems counter intuative. Barking at an enemy yes but not at prey. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 23:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::I notice a great variation in the responses of the dogs that I meet as I cycle along the canal towpath in the morning. Some are highly exciteable (and usually held firmly by their owners until I have passed); others are completely uninterested, and don't even look up from whatever they are sniffing. I tend to assume that the 'barkers' are distressed; but I don't actually know. --[[User:ColinFine|ColinFine]] 23:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not suggesting that this is the answer, but as a point of comparison, my dog barks at people she likes. The more she likes a person, the more she barks at her/him. Unfortunately, rather than being flattered, most of the objects of her affection feel threatened. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 23:50, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
::Some dogs are instinctive herders, and a bike may seem like a large ungulate in need of direction.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 23:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
:Please don't take this harshly, Anchoress, but your dog is weird. :-) Seriously, it may not be about hunting prey, but rather protecting the dog's territory and "pack" (its master and his/her family). Dogs very often bark when the postman comes, as they see him/her as a stranger "invading" its territory and "threatening its pack". Perhaps they continue chasing and barking in a sort of "go away and don't come back!" sort of way. But I'm no animal psychologist, so my guess is probably way out in left-field. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The difficulty with protecting the pack against territory invasion is that I know dogs that bark while behind a privacy fence at just the sound of a bicycle riding down the road and in many cases if you stop riding and get off the bicycle and stnd your ground the dog with stop baking and maybe even lie down. Its only when you try to move that the dog will getup and start barking again. Could dogs simply be control freaks? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 08:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::No harm no foul, lol. Seriously, she ''is'' weird. She also submissive pees for lesbians. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 00:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Your dog is not only weird but probably gay. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 08:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::"in many cases if you stop riding and get off the bicycle and stnd your ground the dog with stop baking" Dog biscuits?[[User:Edison|Edison]] 13:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Having some along might help with a timely escape. On the other hand... hummm... maybe the dog is more interested in making you part of his/her pack. In any event several hits with a sprayer filed with HN3 may permanently discourage chasing in only a few days. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 17:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
On a trip around the block to test a new odometer I passed a house with a large Germany Sheppard in the yard. There was an elderly lady on the front stoop. The dog looked up when it heard the noise from the sensor being misaligned but went back to sniffing the ground. On the second pass I was busy monitoring the display but heard the lady make a comment to the dog. It apparently may have been headed for me. Consequently I now assume that whatever a dog does is merely a reflection of the mind set of its owner. Owners who do not regard other people as dog food don't let there dogs bark at and chase other people and the dog knows better than to do it. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 12:56, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== 2 Questions ==
1) I'm looking for information on class structure during Elizabethan times. I would appreciate any sources for information, but not straight answers. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethan article seems to lack any sort of similar information.
2) Out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know of any seemingly meaningless or effectless laws involving immigration into the United States, such as 'no spitting on the sidewalk in Lincoln Nebraska'?
P.S. I know I suck at html, so sue me.
:I don't get the connection between an ordinance against spitting in Lincoln, Nebraska, and immigration. I'm probably missing something. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 00:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::The questioner wants to know if there are any immigration laws that we (in modern times) think are silly. If you lived in Lincoln 200 years ago and everyone was spitting their tobacco juice on the dirt sidewalk making the town a sticky and muddy mess, you wouldn't think the law was silly at all. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 00:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Maybe so, but I'm with Loomis on this. What does that have to do with immigration? Is the OP talking about newly arrived immigrants being subject to deportation if they spit on the sidewalk in Lincoln Nebraska? Why would a law prohibiting public expectoration not apply to the general populace, not just immigrants? Or are there different sanctions against native-born people? What am I missing here? [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 02:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::I think the questioner typed immigration when he meant legislation. Kainaw provided the correct answer (which is quite interesting!). [[User:Hyenaste|Hyenaste]] <sup>[[User_talk:Hyenaste|(tell)]]</sup> 02:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I kinda doubt that. That would turn "laws involving immigration into the United States" into ''"laws involving legislation into the US"'', which has no meaning for me. No, the writer seems to have a very good command of English, and has worded his question carefully. I think I understand it now. A law about immigration to the USA that happened to include a provision prohibiting spitting on a Nebraska sidewalk would indeed be a meaningless and ineffective law. He's asking if we know of any examples of such crazy laws. I know a few crazy laws, but none of them are laws about immigration to the US. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 02:52, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Or possibly he meant stupid laws concerning immigration, then provided an example of an unrelated stupid law for clarification. [[User:Hyenaste|Hyenaste]] <sup>[[User_talk:Hyenaste|(tell)]]</sup> 02:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I think that's probably it. Unfortunately I can't think of any. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 04:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Okay, I will attempt and fail to tackle the question on Elizabethan class structure. Here is what you do: Go to your local public library and get a recent annotated copy of the works of Shakespeare, with a chapter or two of academic discussion in the front of the book, or a book on the times of Shakespeare or the Elizabethan period. Skim the academic discussion until you get to the part about class. See what your book has to say about it. That's a start. But, more importantly, check its references to other sources, which should be listed in the bibliography in the back. Those sources will offer more detailed information on class in that period. You may find some of the sources in your local public library, but you might have to go to a university library. If you are in the United States, public universities (state universities) will usually give you access to their collection, but not borrowing privileges. But they do have copy machines. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:24, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Hyenaste is correct, but I don't want Shakespeare's fictional, bourgeois terms of class relations. Something more realistic instead.
=October 13=
== flute music term? ==
What is the musical term to describe when an instrument like a flute flickers alternating between two notes very fast as a musical effect?--[[User:Sonjaaa|Sonjaaa]] 03:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:A [[Trill (music)|trill]]. -- [[User:Consumed Crustacean|Consumed Crustacean]] ([[User talk:Consumed Crustacean|talk]]) 03:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::On many instrument a trill can be achieved by movement of valves or keys, or simply by movement of the lips and variation of the air pressure (lip trill).[[User:Edison|Edison]] 04:17, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Don't forget, there are a few random alternations that no-one really uses these days - like mondents. The general name for things like this are ornaments. Normally they write ''tr'' with a big wavy line.--[[User:Martianlostinspace|martianlostinspace]] 13:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Don't forget, there are a few random alternations that no-one really uses these days - like mondents. The general name for things like this are ornaments. Normally they write ''tr'' with a big wavy line.--[[User:Martianlostinspace|martianlostinspace]] 13:20, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
mordent, not 'mondent' - and that's something different. - coolsnak3
== What is Marriage?==
I have a question. What is Marriage?
According to the article on Marriage, it says that
:A marriage is a relationship between or among individuals, usually recognized by civil authority and/or bound by the religious beliefs of the participants.
But it is ridiculus because it means that I'm married to own my sister! I have a relationship with my sister (the relationship is that she is my sister). My relationship with my sister is recognised by the civil authority (The authority recognised her as my sister).
So I must be married to my sister! What about my boss? I must be married to my boss too! <small>—The preceding [[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|unsigned]] comment was added by [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] ([[User talk:202.168.50.40|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/202.168.50.40|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->
:That first sentence isn't meant to be a definition, just a true statement that characterizes marriage. Read a little further and you'll see there's a whole section on "Definitions". —[[User:Keenan Pepper|Keenan Pepper]] 05:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::The article says marriage is '''a''' relationship, not '''any''' relationship. -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] 05:42, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
If the first sentense is not meant to be a definition then it should clearly state:
:In a marriage, there exists a relationship between or among individuals, usually recognized by civil authority and/or bound by the religious beliefs of the participants.
:In the 'cat' article, the first sentence doesn't have to be a water-tight definition of cats, just a description that tells you roughly what they are. If I say 'A cat is a land mammal with 4 legs' that doesn't mean a dog is a cat. [[User:Skittle|Skittle]] 13:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::We are dealing with the art of understatements and must not. It should be clearly said something ''discriminating'' in an encyclopedia (if a child asks, where is the true answer ?), things like :
::*Marriage is ... to help and love one another and to bear and raise children together if they are desired.
::*A cat is ... furry and kept in houses to avoid mice or for company. --[[User:Harvestman|<font color="blue"> DLL </font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Harvestman |<font color="green"> .. T</font>]]</sup> 19:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh the romantics. [[Marriage]] is a legal deal and little else. Marriage is mainly a legal contract. Both interrested sides of the deal (the spouse and the wife) proclaim (and/or sign a proper document) their agreement (aka [[Marriage vows]]) to enter a life-long relationship (you can justly compare to a fusion of two firms). This is witnessed by the guests (in particular the bestman and the best ...) and properly registered by an official of the goverment (and/or religious representative). The financial questions are settled. If later the parties decide to split up (divorce - which is a recission of contract), the jointly gained assets (the kids and/or the properties) are sometimes subject to fierce legal battles (compare it to legal battles between two firms). Divorces are an ugly affair with one side blaming the other (naturallly, as it was a breach of contract). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 21:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:Any study on early marriage will reveal that marriage has existed long before such legal ramifications; originally, marriage was a social thing, not a legal one. [[User:Jade Knight|The Jade Knight]] 05:29, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Yes, but those social constructs usually had similar roles in those societies to the social construct we call "law" does today. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 00:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
For a fairly exhaustive list of definitions type "define:marriage" at the Google web prompt. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 12:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:This question reminds me of a great Simpsons joke: "What is a wedding? Well, [[Websters Dictionary|Websters]] defines a wedding as 'the process of removing weeds from ones garden'." [[User:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#CC1111">La</span>]][[WP:EA|'''''<span style="color:green">ï</span>''''']][[User talk:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#CC1111">ka</span>]] 14:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== I've Seen Art History, But Where's Fashion History (Or Maybe Costume History?) And Literature History? ==
Danke.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 07:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:We seem to be missing coverage of non-Western fashion history, but we do have [[History of Western fashion]] and [[History of literature]]. --[[User:Amcbride|Allen]] 12:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Thanks, but, what I meant is that there's Art History, but not Fashion History or Literature History. There is Art History in university, but not Fashion History or Literature History; in other words, you can take Art History, but not Fashion History or Literature History. For example, I'm taking Art History 101 and Art History 102 concurrently, but I haven't found any junior Fashion History or Literature History courses, or (in other words) 100level Fashion History or LIterature History courses.[[User:100110100|100110100]] 00:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::You aren't looking very hard if you can't find any Literature History courses; for instance, looking [http://www.registrar.ualberta.ca/pdfcal/06-07calendarpdf/221Coursese_h.pdf at this random course list], we see ENGL 112 - English Literature in Historical Perspective, ENGL 320 - Old English Language and Literature, ENGL 340 - Early Modern Literature and Culture: 17th Century Texts, and so on. The vast majority of the courses offered by an English department are describable as "history of literature", whether considering a certain historic period, a certain type of literature, a certain element or style, or a certain region. Often, history of literature courses are also offered as advanced options in foreign language programs, such as FRANC 326 - Littérature française du XVIIIe siècle (French literature of the 18th century). As far as fashion history goes, this may be covered a little bit in the art department, or the drama department (for costuming purposes), but it's mostly centred at institutions that specialize in the practical designing arts, such as [[Parsons The New School for Design]], which has a department dedicated to the History of Decorative Arts. --[[User:ByeByeBaby|ByeByeBaby]] 03:05, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Another thought: Hitorical costumers do tend to try to make costumes accurate. I'm pretty sure that most schools with fashion or costuming courses would offer something on the subject. Also, Humanities courses tend to cover History/Events, Philosophy, Architecture, Arts, and Literature. Each subject is shown in relation to the other subjects. A Humanities course usually gives not a definite literature history, but it does discuss some development of the art. [[User:Russia Moore|Russia Moore]] 04:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Minimum wage ==
Isn't it pretty evident that when congress increases its own salary but refuses to increase the minimum wage if only to increase it to cover inflation that the congress is dominated by republicans? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 07:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:Which country are you talking about? 09:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::It sounds like the USA to me. 20:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Republicans claim that the richest people in America are all Democrats. Yet even though Republicans lobbied to establish that corporations be regarded as individuals they do not include corporations in this list. If they did Republican owner(stock holder)/management dominated corporations would far exceed in wealth, either in terms of income or in terms of assets, what Democrats represent. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 09:00, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Reunification ==
If Korea were to opt for reunification instead of war how would the differences in their economic, social, political and legal systems be resolved? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 07:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:Which, of course, is not to say those are the only two options. Just in case someone wondered. :) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 09:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:There is no single answer to this. It would depend entirely on the circumstances under which unification took place and would probably involve some negotiation. If the North Korean government just collapsed, South Korea would develop policies for extending its existing systems into North Korea. If there were a military coup in North Korea, and the new military government wanted unification, the terms would be negotiated. There is, of course, a precedent for this in [[German reunification]]. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 16:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Since it does not appear that the former Soviet Union sucked North Korea dry as it did East Germany do you think reunification would not have as great an economic impact on South Korea (and consequuently the US) as it did (and still does) on West Germany? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 18:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::It wasn't the Soviet Union that destroyed the prosperity of East Germany, it was communism, which has had the same effect on North Korea. It's economy is 1/24th the size of South Korea and would be a severe economic drain. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Why don't communists wake up and realize that they can have even more advantages with free enterprize and taxes? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 23:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Most of them have (in Russia and China, for example). NK remains one of the few places with rigid communism and almost no free market activity. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 05:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Because free enterprise would involve a degree of freedom (of movement, ownership, etc.) that the control freaks in North Korea find frightening and threatening. Also, North Korea's elites are comfortable with things as they are. Why take a risky step? [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:::It would be a bazillion times worse. At least East Germany could feed itself. And West Germany could afford the costs of reunification better than South Korea. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 01:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::So then peaceful reunification is out of the question? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 07:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Much would depend upon how threatened China would feel by such a step. Without Beijing's support, North Korea would collapse. It should also be realised that the costs of reunification would be significantly defrayed by the reduction in military expenses that the two Koreas have in facing each other. [[User:B00P|B00P]] 09:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Then can anyone list the differences in common ground which prevent peaceful reunification? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 11:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:*South Korean gov cares about it's people, whereas NK doesn't care if they all starve, as long as it stays in power. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 18:16, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::If the NK gov cares only about staying in power and not about people is there any way to use staying in power as leverage by the rest of the world to obtain disarmament and peaceful reunification or will such effort only result in escalation of arms to prevent peaceful reunification or at least reunification of a form that is acceptable by the World? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 12:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I don't see how they stay in power after reunification. They seem to be paranoid about a US attack. While a US attack is possible, it would be in response to what they are doing. If they hadn't built nukes, the US would have continued to completely ignore them, much as was the case in Cuba, after they gave up their Soviet-provided nukes. A peace treaty bringing the Korean War to a formal end and having everyone promise not to attack NK might help, but I'm not sure that would be enough to convince NK to give up it's nukes. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 18:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I have thought of a possible deal among the various parties that would defuse the Korean crisis. As usual, the stumbling block would be the U.S., or at least its current leadership. My assumption is that China backs North Korea mainly because it is a pawn in a power conflict with the U.S. and because it serves as a buffer between Chinese and U.S. forces. What if the U.S. and China agreed to withdraw from the Korean peninsula simultaneously while South Korea committed itself to neutrality and to non-nuclear status? China would agree to shift its support for the North Korean regime to support for the reintegration of the Koreas. China would also agree to provide North Korea's top leadership with a comfortable retirement in China to get them to go along. In return, South Korea would commit to neutrality, to managing reunification in a way (also agreed upon with China) that would create livelihoods for North Koreans in North Korea and minimize the refugee flow. This would have to include an amnesty and income support for North Korean officials not offered a golden Chinese exile. South Korea would agree to take possession of and eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons infrastructure. The United States would agree to withdraw its troops from the Korean peninsula and to end military ties with reunited Korea. Everybody would gain: China and the U.S. would both gain from defusing a dangerous crisis and from ending a nonproductive waste of resources on needlessly supporting their pawns. The U.S. would gain by being able to redeploy military resources where they are needed to defend more urgent U.S. interests. China would gain from the removal of the U.S. threat close by and from the economic expansion of a near neighbor. South Korea would gain tremendously, both politically and in the opening up of ground for an investment boom and the harnessing of cheap labor that would vastly increase Korean economic competitiveness. North Korea's leadership would gain a peaceful and secure retirement. While they would lose power, China would make it clear that they had no choice about that. North Korea's people would gain rising living standards. Even Japan would gain from the removal of a dangerous threat on its doorstep. What stands in the way, in my view, is that the current leadership in the U.S. are committed to a mission of world domination and are violently opposed to what they would see as a loss of "imperial territory." They would never voluntarily agree to a withdrawal from South Korea. But a change of leadership in the U.S. might make such a deal possible. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Your wrong there, the US would very much like to pull it's troops out of SK, especially as they are needed elsewhere. They only remain because the US (and South Korea, when they are thinking soundly) believes that those troops are the only thing preventing North Korea from invading. Not because the US troops there could themselves repel an invasion, but because such an attack on US troops would force the US to go to war. As for your solution, China would likely lose by having to absorb millions of NK refugees, who would like to escape now, but are prevented from doing so by the NK regime. Same for SK and Japan. The NK leaders would not accept the offer unless they were given a similar sized population that they could terrorize and control, this power is their main goal. The US would definitely win in your plan, however, by removing a grave threat, allowing US troops to be redeployed, and opening up a new market in NK. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 13:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::StuRat, I don't think that I am demonstrably wrong. I think that we disagree. I don't think that the Bush administration wants to pull its troops out of anywhere or do anything that would entail a rollback of the American empire. As for the refugee problem, it could be prevented by a careful transition plan. I wasn't suggesting that the top NK leadership would voluntarily agree to a golden exile, though probably some of the leadership could be bought off, by both China and South Korea, enough to make the position of recalcitrants tenuous. I was saying that China could make it clear to the recalcitrants, as their options diminished, that the alternative to a golden exile would be worse. But the US is not yet ready to get out of the way. By the way, I live in the US and have been watching its operations from the inside for many years. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 22:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::I don't understand what you are saying. If US troops aren't in SK solely to prevent a NK invasion, why exactly do you think they are there ? SK isn't a puppet state of the US, after all. They have free elections and many of the elected politicians are actually quite hostile to the US. So, if it's your contention that the US troops are somehow there to control the SK population, then they are a miserable failure, aren't they ? [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 03:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
And going by the continuing influence of Rev. Moon in American and Washington DC politics it looks like American troops are the puppets of SK rather than the other way around. Perhaps the real barrier to reunification is the issue of freedom of religion more so than anything else. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 16:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
==monuments==
what are the ways to protect the famous monuments?
:Of which country? Each has their own laws and procedures. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 11:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Looks like India. [[User:Skittle|Skittle]] 13:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Containing the [[Taliban]] might help protect monuments in Afghanistan, [[Buddhas of Bamiyan|if there are any left]]. --[[User:Amcbride|Allen]] 12:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The laws that exist in each country are tools. You might check with a local lawyer. If the laws are not sufficient, then it is a political matter. If you can organize enough citizens, preferably influential ones, in support of preservation, then the government will tend to do what is necessary. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 16:54, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Protect them from what ? Terrorists ? Tourists ? Acid rain ? Flooding ? [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
And what kinds of monuments? Statues, buildings, nature reserves? In general, wealth means you can sustain something that is not potentially economically useful (anymore). [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Some cities and towns (such as St Andrews, Scotland) have organizations run either privately or by the government dedicated to preservation: http://www.standrewspreservationtrust.co.uk/ [[User:Russia Moore|Russia Moore]] 04:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Brazil ==
What is the percent of money that Brazil vests in the economies of foreign countries? I need to know the specific countries and how much is invested in each country's economy. Also, what parts of Brazil's economy is vested abroad? Why are these parts vested abroad? What is the impact of Brazil's domestic and foreign policies on her economy?
:Brazillians are important in the swimsuit industry.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 13:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:If you can read Portuguese, you will find lots of relevant statistics at these two sites: [http://www.ibge.gov.br/] [http://www.bcb.gov.br/] [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 17:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
== Never Knows Best ==
Within the [[anime]] [[OVA]] [[FLCL]], what is the meaning/significance (if any) of the phrase "Never Knows Best"? --[[User:Ppk01|Ppk01]] 14:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:It sounds like the reverse of someone who "always knows best" (always makes the correct decisions). So, it would be a person who is always wrong. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
== indian American woman ==
indian American woman are all hot. Do most of them like to have sex. is ther any indian American woman age 18- 28 who would want to have sex with, a recent law graduate who is 25 and white?
*No. At least, not with ones who ask dumb questions like this. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 15:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:*Seems like a troll, anyway, I think racial factors wouldn't be the niggest problems in this case... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 18:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::* [[Freudian Slip]] if I ever saw one! [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 19:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:::*Whooops, sorry... Seems I was typing too fast... @_@ [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 00:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
U r a sex addict. Crazy I have to say dude!!
:What happened to your Jo Swinson crush? is it over? --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 01:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Which "Indians" are you refering to? Biker babes, American Indians or India Indians? Indian (India) general practioners can prescribe a definite medical cure. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 11:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:A cure for what? @_@ (Horniness in combination with ignorance?) [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 12:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::A cure for any such feeling toward them. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 14:55, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I guess it would be easiest if he just learned when to shut up... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 17:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Why do some people sneeze when they look at the Sun? ==
I know quite a few people who sneeze whenever they look at the Sun, or come out into a really sunny environment. Why does this happen? Thanks, --[[User:86.142.195.245|86.142.195.245]] 15:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
*See [[Photic sneeze reflex]]. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 15:18, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:This is a [[Wikipedia:Reference_desk/faq#Sneezing_at_the_Sun|faq]]. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Jewish mob ==
[[Meyer Lansky]]. In the 1940's 50's and 60's what if any criminal organization was meyer Lanksy head of?
:Pick the link to see for yourself. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 18:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::He was head of the Meyer Lansky criminal organization. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 07:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
=== jewish mob2 ===
Is their still a Jewish mob?
:<''racist garbage removed'' - [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 04:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)>
::If personal attacks were allowed here, that would have certainly received one. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 02:18, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I believe that at least on several occasions I found myself gathered together with many other Jews, thus forming a "Jewish mob". I don't know of any substantial number of Jews gathered together at the present time, so I'd say that at present, there are no Jewish mobs. However, Jewish mobs may return, for example, if there is some sort of Jewish festival that gathers together enough Jews together to form a "mob". [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 08:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
We've have the Israeli Mafia here in Johannesburg. They were allegedly implicated in a number of ''hits'' a couple of years back. --[[User:Jcw69|Jcw69]] 11:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Tell me more about this "Israeli Mafia". I'm curious. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 05:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Not much is known about the Israeli Mafia. If I knew more about it I’d properly be dead now. I first got to hear about them when I went on a photographic shoot with two Jewish photographers in a street in Parktown, Johannesburg. While on the shoot a Mercedes drove up with an Israeli in his late 50s. After he demanded to know what we were doing and left, the one photographer warned to the other that the driver was part of the Israeli Mafia. Here is two news links from Nov 2003 [http://iafrica.com/news/sa/76395.htm Israeli crime bodies in SA] [http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/crime1justice/0,2172,68877,00.html Police confirms presence of Israeli mafia] --[[User:Jcw69|Jcw69]] 16:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== US Presidents who have been killed ==
Can anybody tell me which four United States presidents have been killed and under what circumstances. If possible, could someone also tell me what provoked the killing, i.e. dislike of foreign policy. Thanks 15:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Lincoln killed immediatly after civil war by John Wilks Booth a confederate sympathizer as part of a conspiracy to bring downn the Government.
Garfield, Killed by Charles Julius Guiteau, a deranged polital activist who was upset becuase his requests for a diplomatic post were ignored.
McKinley killed by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in order to full fill a dream where he killed a prominent figure in order to promote anarchism.
Kennedy, killed by Lee Harvey Oswald a ex Marine who claimed to be a Marxist. Why he killed Kennedy is debated. Many believe he was a lone wolf who killed Kennedy for attention. Others believe he was acting as part of conspiracy. People who believe Oswald was acting under orders greatly disgree on who he was working for. Some believe he was working for the mafia. Others believe him to have been a secret agent serving rightist forces ie the CIA anti Castro dissidents. Still other believe he was a Soviet agent.
:See [[President of the United States]] for answers to your questions. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 15:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
::Then there was Warren G. Harding, who died after being fed some questionable oysters during a trip to Alaska, developed food poisoning, then supposedly had a heart attack. The Teapot Dome and other scandals of corrupt people in his administration were just unfolding when he passed away. There was speculation he had been poisoned. No autopsy was done.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 15:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Icons in Russia ==
what does it mean to be russian? what would russian people say is characteristic of their country and its people? what are some icons, symbols, buildings, paintings or images (etc.) that capture this "russianess"?
:Are you asking about the [[Culture of Russia]]? --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 19:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
not so much the russian culure, but more of what do russian people identify with as part of their russian lives/identity? or what icons and symbols (etc.) do russians believe to be important to society? essentially, what does it mean to be a russian? i hope that makes sense!
::What does it mean to be any nation or part of a nation? The Russians are no different in this regard from all other such communities on the earth. The essential elements are, of course, a common language, culture, history and religion. Even those who no longer believe in Orthodox Christianity would, I imagine, accept the vital contribution it made through history to the formation of the Russian national character. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
[[Onion domes]], [[St. Petersberg]], the [[Kremlin]], [[Matryoshka doll]]s, [[Eastern Orthodox Church]], [[Faberge egg]]s, [[Tchaikovsky]], [[Boris Pasternak]], etc. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 05:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
[[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]], [[caviar]], [[Marc Chagall]], [[Sputnik]], [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]]. [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 03:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
[[Pravda (concept)|The concept of pravda]], [[autocracy|benevolent and personal autocracy]], [[Mir (concept)|the concept of mir]], Moscow as the [[Third Rome]], and the duality of being both of the West and of the East have historically been ''ideas'' central to Russian self-identity. Is that more of what you are looking for? -[[User:Fsotrain09|Fsotrain]]<sup>[[User talk:Fsotrain09|09]]</sup> 03:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::St Petersburg is an interesting case. It's not even a Russian name, but an anglicised German name. The Russians call it "Sankt Peterburg", which is pure German. (Btw, the ending is ''-burg'', meaning 'city', not ''-berg'', meaning 'mountain'.) The name was Russianised into Petrograd, and then became Leningrad. When the USSR collapsed and Leningrad was no longer appropriate, it seemed an extremely odd choice to revert to a German name, particularly considering the events of WWI and WW2. I can understand why Petrograd, with its Bolshevik associations, was unacceptable, but I would have thought that a German name, ''any'' German name, would have been just as unacceptable, and surely they could have found a good Russian name for this quintessentially Russian city. But 54% is a majority, so that's democracy for you. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 02:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::BTW ''Burg'' normally means ''castle'' or ''fortress'', and not ''city'' at all. ''Stadt'' means ''city''. Curiously a ''citizen'' is a ''Bürger''. German is a difficult language. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Part of the reason is that the name restores the city to a time when it was beautiful European gem, not the gritty industrial city it became under the Soviet Union. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 12:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Merely giving it its old name could never have achieved that. It was actually more Dutch than German, my bad - but it was changed to Petrograd during WW1 because it ''sounded'' too German, at a time when Russia was at war with Germany. Given that extreme sensitivity, I can't believe that in 1991 they had already forgotten about the [[Siege of Leningrad]], in which around 650,000 Russians died at the hands of the Germans. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 13:15, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::They haven't forgotten the siege or any of the many Warcrimes commited by German troops during WWII. They have simply (largely) forgiven them, and aren't blaming modern Germany for it. As for ''your assumption'' what is unacceptable in Russia or not, I guess the Russians are simply more pragmatic than you are. Live the present, forgive for the sake of the future, but always rememeber and honour the past. In Israel the music of Wagner is largely unaccetable and whose loss is it? The Germans? or the Israelis? [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
== Point Spread Format ==
I'm not sure about this, so I want to ask. The following is a current point spread on USA Today:
Kansas City 37.5o-110
Pittsburg -7 105
As I understand it, this means that if you bet the total of both scores is over 37.5, you get $110 for every $100 you bet. If you bet on Kansas City, you win $105 per $100 if their score +7 is higher than the Pittsburg score. If you bet on Pittsburg, you with $105 per $100 if their score -7 is higher than the Kansas City score. Is that correct? Basically, it doesn't indicate which team the "-7" refers to. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 19:57, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:Kainaw, you got that backwards: the book's juice is usually 10%, so you bet $110 to win $100. Kainaw, you got that backwards: the book's juice is usually 10%, so you bet $110 to win $100. The team with the minus is the favorite. —[[User:Wayward|Wayward]] <small><sup><font color="#6BA800">[[User talk:Wayward|Talk]]</font></sup></small> 23:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:Would you be my bookie? I could bet the same amount on Pittsburg and on KC and collect unless Pittsburg won by exactly 7, in which case I'd just get my money back! [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 02:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::So, what about the question: Who does the "-7" refer to? Is it the team on top or on bottom? --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 19:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
== Right to life founders ==
who were the founders of right to life?
Probably President Nixon he was the first president to run on a right to life platform.
*What makes you think Nixon ran on a "right to life" platform? The strongest statement he ever made about it seems to have been, "I do not support unrestricted abortion policies" -- followed immediately by "I have a basic faith that the American people themselves will make sound judgments regarding family size and frequency of births, judgments that are conducive both to the public interest and to personal family goals--and I believe in the right of married couples to make these judgments for themselves." --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 02:26, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Founders? The anti-abortion position is at least as old as medical science developed the means to induce an abortion...decades, if not centuries before Nixon. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 07:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Organised opposition to abortion seems to have started in response to legal liberalisation, though - [[Right to Life Australia]] was formed after the 1969 decision in [[R v Davidson]], and the [[National Right to Life Committee]] was formed after [[Roe v Wade]] in 1973. [[History of abortion]] is an interesting read. If the OP is asking about the founders of the National Right to Life Committee, try [http://www.nrlc.org/contact.html emailing them and asking]. [[User:Natgoo|Natgoo]] 08:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Help! ==
Why hasn't the Beatles movie Help! ever been released on DVD in the U.S.? Is there some legal problem? I've been looking for it on Ebay, but the copies for sale appear to be just that - copies from VHS or TV. Thanks[[User:66.213.33.2|66.213.33.2]] 21:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:The phrasing of the question makes it sound like it has been released on DVD in UK or somewhere else(?). In that case, you could just import a copy? Btw, I wouldn't mind watching the movie as a copy from VHS, it's not like the movie has any stunning cinematic qualities that would get lost with lower quality... =S [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 00:47, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:According to some of the listings of the available DVD on [http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-Help-Richard-Lester/dp/6304708491 Amazon.com], it ''was'' released on DVD in the US, but is now out of print. I wonder why it's so expensive? [[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 04:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== LAPD ==
What is the mandatory retirement age for members of the LAPD?
:Why don't you contact the public affairs office of the LAPD and ask? They probably have a department set up to answer this type of question from fiction writers...--[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 00:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== fire marshal in NY ==
Are NyC fire marshals current members of the fire department?
*Yes. --[[User:Aaron|Aaron]] 22:26, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Computer addiction ==
What would be reccommendable for people suffering from computer addiction as a means of helping them to cut down on their addiction?--[[User:Rouge Rosado|<font color="Darkred">'''Rouge Rosado'''</font>]] [[User talk:Rouge Rosado|<font color="Red">''Oui?''</font>]] 21:49, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
:Throwing their computer out a window? [[User:Wooty|Wooty]] 00:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Remove half the keys from the keyboard, flip the mouse buttons in the OS, and switch them to an old, crappy, ball mouse. Toss in a benchmarking program running constantly in the background to eat up CPU time. That should drive anyone away from the box. -- [[User:Consumed Crustacean|Consumed Crustacean]] ([[User talk:Consumed Crustacean|talk]]) 00:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Ask for help from somebody else in the house. Schedule a specific time when you can use the comp, and have that other person take possession of the computer, or some critical component like the keyboard, the rest of the time. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 04:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Separate the things the computer does from the things your head can do then only sit in front of the computer when its time to do something your head can’t do. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 11:31, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Restrict them to a Teletype terminal with a 300 baud acoustic modem. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 15:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:::.- -. -.. / .-. . ... - .-. .. -.-. - / - .... . .. .-. / -.-. --- -- -- ..- -. .. -.-. .- - .. --- -. / - --- / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . ..--.. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 17:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
*File an [[Wikipedia:Requests for Arbitration|RFAr]] against them. By the time Arbcom gets through with them, they'll never want to go anywhere near a computer ever again. --[[User:Aaron|Aaron]] 22:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 14=
== An american failure... ==
Hi, I'm gonna ask again, since no one answered the last time I asked...Here it goes:
What was the name of the expedition which was gonna explore the northern polar areas, but was literarly burdened by it's own weigth - you see, they used a snowcat/armoured wagon that was much too heavy for the snow, and it eventually sunk through. I believe the snowcat still lies there today (possible Greenland or the outer areas of The Northern Pole)
--[[User:Petteroes|Petteroes]] 01:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Could it have been [[John Franklin]]'s last Artic expedition? Quoting from the article: "McClintock also found several bodies and an astonishing amount of abandoned equipment, and heard more details from the Inuit about the expedition's disastrous end. ¶ There are several things that contributed to the loss of the Franklin expedition. Franklin was culturally conservative, observing wasteful rituals in inappropriate locales; for example, he and his men carried silver plates, crystal decanters, and many extraneous personal effects with them. They attempted to haul much of this heavy gear along with them even after abandoning the ships." However, Franklin was not American but British, so I don't know if this may be what you're looking for. Franklin was not leading an Expotition to the North Pole but an expedition to chart the [[Northwest Passage]]. They got stranded in the ice near [[King William Island]], which is in the present [[Nunavut]] Territory. --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 14:30, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::A Swedish polar expedition that met similar failure is described in the [[WP:FA|FA]] [[S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897]]. After the balloon descended the explorers towed heavy gear across the ice until they died of trichinosis from contaminated polar bear meat. '''[[User:Durova|<font color="blue">Durova</font>]]''' 05:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== Sonic Youth's DAYDREAM NATION ==
On one of Sonic Youth's albums, Daydream Nation, there is a song listed as "Silver Rocket." What is this song about?
:Looking at the lyrics [http://www.xs4all.nl/~bigron/sonic/sylddnat.html#02 here], they don't strike me as being ''about'' anything much, in the sense of describing something particular or trying to send a message. What they do - like so many of SY's lyrics - is convey a mood through a loose collection of images. In this case, I'd guess the mood they were going for is being a teenager, going to gigs, chasing girls/boys, playing in bands. A bit like [[Smells like teen spirit]]. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 12:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
A Silver Rocket is a type of dildo, if that helps. --[[User:81.111.18.84|81.111.18.84]] 12:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Hmm. ''Daydream Nation'' was released in 1988. The earliest dated reference I can find to 'Silver Rocket' as a name for a dildo is from 2005, [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=silver+rocket here]. So, I suspect that the dildo is named after the song (as are the [http://www.silverrocket.org/ night at The Garage in London] and the [http://www.silver-rocket.org/ Czech record label]), not vice versa. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 15:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== US inciting Sunni-Shi’ite strife in Iraq ==
Making Sunnis and Shi'ites suspicious of one another ... is the policy of the Americans in Iraq.What is the US policy in Iraq? Is it really granting freedom & democracy or imposing age old colonial tenet of divide & rule??? Where is freedom?? [kj_venus]
:That's not a question. It's a "soapbox" satement, and a ridiculous one at that. Please remove it. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 07:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::It definitely looks soapboxy, but it is constructed as a genuine question. Does the US implement a policy of [[divide and rule]]? That policy has been used so often in history that I wouldn't be surprised if it were implemented here too, so it's not a ridiculous question. Go remove yourself. :) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Irrespective of the questioneer's intentions, there is a bit of a bite to this question, or rather the denial of the assumption. Did the US know that the situation in Iraq was such that a bloody civil war would break out? If so, then they deliberately plunged the country into chaos and the intention of divide and rule sounds very plausible. If not then they're a bunch of idiots who don't know how to handle the powers they have. A car driver who causes a terrible accident is likely to have his car confiscated. By analogy, the US should be disarmed. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 11:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::To believe this, you would have to assume that (a) the Bush administration is competent, (b) has a coherent Iraq policy and (c) derives some benefit from dividing the country. So far, I see little sign of the first two and the last makes absolutely no sense. P.S. Did the Sunnis and Shi'ites trust each other in the first place? [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 15:36, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
While I don't think the US wants a civil war in Iraq, as that makes it ungovernable, there is one possible benefit to the West. The current Muslim hatred directed at the West in the form of terrorist training schools throughout the Muslim world would be instead directed at the opposing sect, if a giant Sunni/Shiite war erupted. Eventually (probably after hundreds of millions died), they might realize that suicide bombings don't accomplish anything but kill a lot of people. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 17:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
The potential civil war in [[Palestine]] between [[Hamas]] and [[Fatah]] may similarly benefit Israel by deflecting Muslim hatred and suicide bombers away from it. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 18:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
The USA (and the West in general) is not interrested in any war in the Middle East because that would endanger the supply of oil. To the contrary, the US are interrested in keeping a relative peace in this region. Even a small localized war can easily grow and engulf the whole region. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 18:44, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:The Bush team had a lot of knowledgeable and experienced people, both in foreign policy and in energy policy. It is hard to believe that they are unaware of [[Hubbert peak theory]], which posits that oil supplies are finite and may be about to decline. If this is a concern of theirs, it could make sense to keep Iraq politically divided and in a state of unrest that can be used to justify occupation. This would tend to keep the oil in the ground but under US control until the time of shortages, when the US military will have access to that oil. Keeping Iraq divided and weak would also remove a potential enemy of Israel. However, this is just one possible interpretation of events, and I don't claim to know what really motivates U.S. policy in Iraq. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 20:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::The Iraq invasion was about Bush seeking revenge for Saddam's attempt to kill his father. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 00:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I'm not a fan of Bush and even I can see that's ridiculous. There were numerous reasons Iraq was chosen for invasion but revenge for an alleged attempt by Saddam to kill Bush sr. isn't one of them. In fact, it's so patently outrageous I await your evidence to support your theory. It will be interesting to read. - [[User:Pyro19|Pyro19]] 04:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::The only "smoking gun" evidence you could find is if Bush admitted it, and he won't, of course. However, there is plenty of evidence that Bush and Cheney wanted to find an excuse to invade Iraq before 9-11 and then immediately after 9-11 looked for a way to use it to justify the Iraq invasion. I saw an interesting PBS documentary called something like "Cheney: The Dark Side", which talked about colon Powell and others trying to prevent the Iraq invasion. The original position of the administration is that they ONLY wanted to invade Iraq. Powell and others were finally able to get them agree to at least invade Afghanistan first, where [[al Queda]] and [[bin Laden]] were located, at the time. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 18:00, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::So you have no evidence. Okay. - [[User:Pyro19|Pyro19]] 15:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Power corrupts and too much power in the hands of one person will make that person use it for his own agenda. Examples abound in human history. StuRat intended to citcise Bush. I criticise the system that allowed him (or anyone else) to get into a position with the power to do what he does. Note that a big part of this is that the US is the size it is, which is also the reason I am very sceptical about European integration going far beyond trade. Another problem is the fact that any country gives it's top dog, however elected (or not) too much power. The combination of these two things makes it very desirable for the US to become a parliamentary democracy (because splitting the country up would be even harder). [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:25, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
No One is supportive of Bush & his policies, instead kerry wud have been a much better run for the post of the US president. The Iraq mess is one example of abuse of power & N.Korea , What will the US do ? Will it extend support to China & other places in Asia? Also Hugo Chavez also has criticised the policies of the Bush administration for lacking foresight. How many more countries can take up the courage to challenge the might of the Big Brother? Even the rate at which engineers and other graduates turn out in the US have fallen compared to places like China. The US is having its own way in everything & it cant keep abusing power & freedom, when freedom is just impatience for materialistic desires.
[kjvenus]
== video game music ==
Hi
I am looking for any music from the playstation one video game G DARIUS,or any sites to download from.
Have already tried VGMUSIC, BEARSHARE and KAZAAR any help greatly appreciated.—Logan
:Learn about [[Portable Sound Format|PSF]] files and where to get them. You're likely to find that game's music in one of the several PSF archives out there. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 16:34, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Major causes of death as percentage of the population ==
What are and have been the major causes of death as percentage of the population (of a country or maybe an ethnic group or such), due to anything, so conflicts or natural disasters or ongoing events. Some examples are the Vietnam war (5-10% of the Vietnamese dead), WWII in Poland (16%), cars (close to 1% worldwide, but is it especially bad in one country?), the bubonic plague (40% in Constantinopel in 541), the holocaust (Jews, but also, say, gypsies, possibly per country) or terrorism? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
*Carthage, 146BC, 100% either dead or enslaved? --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 08:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
*I'll add to the list the Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan, during the [[Hernán Cortés]] invasion. I've heard in TV documentaries (sorry for the bad reference) that about 90% of a city of more than half a million inhabitants died due to rubella, which was brought by the Spaniards. --[[User:GTubio|GTubio]] 09:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
*90% of the [[Eora]] population dying of smallpox after English colonisation? [[User:Natgoo|Natgoo]] 09:37, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::The only AD event I can think of is the rule of the [[Khmer Rouge]]. Up to one third of the population was killed off. That's about 2-3 million. --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 01:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::During the [[War of the Triple Alliance]] in Paraguay, around 60% of the country's population was killed. [[User:Warofdreams|Warofdreams]] ''[[User talk:Warofdreams|talk]]'' 03:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::WW2 accounted for the death of 3.17% of the population of all of the involved countries (a total death toll of 63,000,000), 13% of the population of russia, 10% of germany, and the battle of stalingrad, accounted for 2million deaths (~200% of the current population of the city). [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 18:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
* Surely disease has done most to control human numbers...? Regards, [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 13:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Why does Wikipedia apply "Jewish-American/British Jew etc" and Jewish hyphenations with nationalities? ==
I don't understand this. That's like putting Irish Catholic and Irish Protestant categories. I am of the mind that religion transcends ethnicity, even in Jewish cases (Barry Goldwater & Madeleine Albright were/are both of Ashkenazi/German Jewish origins, but became Episcopalians/English Protestant Christians). Israeli hyphenations should be the only categories (Natalie Portman is a good example), otherwise I think this is some sort of Jewish identification thing for paranoid anti-Semites to look up and confirm their suspicions or something. I think it would be ridiculous to have categories for Christians and Muslims (or any non-Abrahamic faith) as well, even if [[NNDB]] does it. I think that the religious component belongs merely with the biographic articles, in detailing the religious orientation of individuals. BTW, I am religious and not trying to secularize this or anything. I'm a Christian Gentile and recall the New Testament says there is no difference between Jew or Gentile in Christ. Obviously, that was about Judeans/Israelites/Hebrews (Semites, as contrasted with Greek or Roman Japhetites) and not about Jews or Judaism as a religious community in this day and age or as it has been from the Expulsion to the creation of Israel. I think it is patently unfair to Jews to have them scrutinized with categorizes like this. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 10:35, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Many communities in New York City are based on extrememly minor differences but which serve to divide one group from another regardless. In terms of classification/identification in the natural or in the man-made world it a very common and sometime necessary state. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 12:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't answer the issue in any way. Thanks for wasting my time. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 12:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:In answer to your question rather than your diatribe the same answer still applies. Sometime one must use a hyphen to distinquish between a 12 volt car battery and a 12 volt lantern battery or suffer the result of the failure to do so by getting the two mixed up. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 15:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
You are a troll. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 15:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
<''personal attack removed'' - [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 18:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)>. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 17:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Please see Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:No personal attacks|no personal attacks]] policy. Comment on ''content'', not on the contributor; personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks may lead to [[Wikipedia:Blocking policy|blocks]] for disruption. Please [[Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot|stay cool]] and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you. <!-- Template:No personal attacks (npa2) --> [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 18:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Calling someone a troll is a personal attack. Failing to remove it as well provides evidence of a double standard. Besides [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] is the one with the history of personal attack... [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 20:52, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
I still await a serious reply. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 04:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Yeah, the response is that the day all the Jewish categories will be deleted from Wikipedia is the day when the Irish-American, Catholic-American, and for good measure African-American categories will be deleted. (In any case, I think the response and "discussion" over at [[Talk:American Jews]] is quite sufficient) [[User:Jack O'Lantern|Mad Jack]] 05:18, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I'll try a serious response. In my experience the notations that someone is Jewish usually come from two distinct sets of editors: Jewish people and anti-semites. In both cases the aim is to raise awareness, but toward different ends. The comparison to Christians and Muslims is an inexact parallel because "Jewishness" has ethnic and cultural dimensions that Christianity and Islam don't share. While the mention of the New Testament would be relevant to Christians, people who are Jewish by faith as well as heritage aren't obligated to agree with what the New Testament says. There are many ways to debate around the margins of Jewish identity. '''[[User:Durova|<font color="blue">Durova</font>]]''' 05:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Hinduism is an ethnic religion as well. Just think--India and Hinduism, the Indus River all have the same name and identity (c.f. Jews and Judaism). Semites can become Christians...Gentiles (Japhetics) can become Jews. I think it has more to do with the social atmosphere--as you say, between Jews and anti-Semites. Thank you Durova, for what response shall open a doorway to normalizing Jewish identity alongside the other Abrahamic faiths. If you can do this, then perhaps Wikipedia will lead the way to destigmatizing the Jews. For myself, I am part Jewish as a Christian (I consider my religion more progressive). Even if I were maternally descended from a mother who practiced Judaism (or her family did), I would not automatically consider myself Jewish. That's the thing. Baptism and Christening are important rites for me. Aside from that, if I were Ashkenazi, I would see myself as German ethnically (literal interpretation) and Jewish religiously. I don't see how that is hard to fathom, unless we want to send the Jews back into ghettoes and recreate that sort of "ethnic background" once more. As it is, we have Israel to consider and not the old customs of hiding Jews in the seedy parts of the city. Jews deserve the same respect I feel I am entitled to. Japheth's descendents, as Christians, are living in the tents of Shem and expanding where the Jewish Semites left off. Of course, this is the general rule. There are Japhetic people not Christian, just as there are Semitic people not Jewish. There are Jewish Japhetics and Christian Semitics. Of course, there is the other issue of Hamites and Muslims--but that is more of the same subject discussed. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 09:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:I don't think Hinduism and India is precisely the same thing. The Hinduistic religion is largely connected to the country and culture, but Hindu isn't in itself an ethnicity. That parallel is actually closer to the connection between Japan and [[Shintoism]]. Close connection to the culture it was formed it, but not in itself a marker of ethnicity. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 16:06, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::Hasbro, I appreciate that you have the best of intentions. However I believe that you're quite mistaken in one major area. You seem to believe that it's the anti-semites and the anti-semites only who consider Jews to be not simply members of a religious group, but members of an ethnic group as well. It's true that "Nazi" style anti-semitism was purely ethnic, and hardly religious. A Jew in Nazi Germany could convert to Christianity, yet the Nazis would consider him no less a Jew. On the other hand, the brand of anti-semitism that exists in the middle east among Muslim Arabs is quite the opposite. For example the PLO national covenant says something along the lines of "Judaism is indeed a religion, yet there does not exist a Jewish "people"" (ie ethnicity). In other words, while the Nazis regarded our religion as rather irrelevant, but recognized, and had rather extreme beliefs about our "ethnic" identity, anti-semitism in the Arab world works in quite the opposite way: They all out deny the existence of a Jewish Nation (i.e. ethnicity). According to them, Judaism is merely a religion and nothing else.
::As for the Jewish position, we believe ourselves to be BOTH. We're BOTH a nation, as well as a religious group. An "Ashkenazi" Jew is not merely an ethnic German who practices the Jewish faith, but an ethnic Jew who happens to have dwelled in Eastern Europe. At the same time, a "Sephardic" (Hebrew for "Spanish") Jew is not merely a Spaniard who happens to practice the Jewish faith, but rather an ethnic Jew who happens to follow the traditions of those other ethnic Jews who happen to have dwelled in areas such as Spain and North Africa.
::As for the original argument, I've got no problem with biographical articles noting this or that celebrity's Jewish background. I actually like it. You know, we're not in hiding anymore. Those days are over. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 05:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand your point on new anti-semitism, but my point is that the duality is not always important. The person above you has info on other examples. What if we called Japanese Americans, Shinto Americans instead? I would hardly consider Harrison Ford to be "Jewish American". Harrison Ford, to me, is an Irish American. That explains his "Anglo" looks and his Democratic party affiliation just like most Irish Catholics as they usually have been (c.f. the Kennedys), but Jewishness doesn't really fit him at all. What about me? I consider my Mediterranean ancestors to not make myself today a "Semitic" or "Black" person, but that was just a natural ancient expanse of Noah's Gentile son in that area and before modern technology made it possible to transplant societies or cultures further from the Cradle of Humanity/Civilization etc. I consider Christian to be a quasi-ethnic/racial term for Gentiles descended from Japheth, because obviously, who gets criticized for Christian imperialism but those of the Graeco-Roman (European) persuasion? Where was the original spread of Christianity by the Apostles, except those areas considered to be the old core of the ancient "Indo-European" diaspora and from which they spread out further. By the way, Germans and Ashkenazi mean just about the same to me. I do not consider them to be racially different and certainly not politically, economically or socially different. They are however, quite different from the "Anglosphere standard". When I think of Henry (Heinrich) Kissinger, I think of a German just as much as Adolf Hitler. Yiddish speakers remind me of Prussia--that old and defunct German state. In much the same way, I don't think it is possible to differentiate Sephardim from Spaniards unless getting into nitty gritty social register conventions and how they worship. I classify them the same. It's an extremely hard sell for me, to say that [[Alyson Hannigan]] or [[Laura Prepon]] is different in any way from [[Nikki Cox]]. Gwyneth Paltrow looks German/Polish to me. How would one tell otherwise?
My main point is, that I don't think that it makes sense to hybridize religious and ethnic terms and make a proper distinction on nationality. Religious categories (Jews, Christians) fit for the Kingdom of Heaven, not the Realm of Caesar (Israelis, Greeks).
[[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 09:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::A great deal of Japanese aren't Shinto, but Buddhist and even Christian. The vast majority of American Jews are (unfortunately!) Democrats. None of Noah's sons were "Gentiles", as Judaism hadn't existed in the time of Noah. Later on, ''some'' of Shem's descendants became Jews, meaning that ''all'' the other Shemites, Japhetics and Hammites became known as "Gentiles". Germans and Ashkenazi may mean the same to you, but they certainly don't to me. I'm an ashkenazi Jew, yet going back centuries, my ancestors dwelled in the Russian Empire. Yiddish may be a Germanic language, but it thrived mainly in Slavic countries, not Germanic ones. Most Sephardim I know immigrated from Morrocco and other North African and Middle Eastern countries, not Spain, and for the most part dwelt among Arab Muslims, not Christian Spaniards. Hasbro, though once again, you seem to have the best of intentions, I've never seen so many factual innacuracies clustered together in one post. And I only pointed out the most glaring of them. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 19:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:As a digression, in Sweden "[[bosniak]]s" are often referred to as "muslims", equally confusing... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 15:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Loomis, the Yiddish speakers were part of German expansionism in the East, just as Morrocan Sephardim are totally historically connected to Moorish rule in Spain. Why you would try to make cognitive dissonance about this is beyond me, but these are sophist or casuist replies. Yes, I do have good intentions and you have yet to refute the argument distinguishing the differences between citizens of God (Jews, Christians, Muslims) with citizens of Caesar (Israelis, Greeks, Egyptians). It is strange to say one is half Italian, half Jewish as [[Rachel Bilson]]'s article suggests. For [[Alyson Hannigan]]'s article, it says that while her father is Irish, her mother's last name is Posner. That means she is half Irish, half Ashkenazi (German). I'm being technically and literally correct, at the face value of the issue. She is not half Jewish, no more than I could be half Episcopalian and half Methodist or half Catholic and half Orthodox. You are applying specious logic here, with generalized approaches that do not fit the actual situations.
The crux of the matter is, that I could not be half Amish, half English. That is illogical, but informal and improper common descriptions among the Amish community. Just the same, it is nonapplicable to the Jewish community. Long-standing custom of inaccurate depictions, nonwithstanding. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 21:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:I completely agree with Loomis' first response here. And the problem with all of Hasbro's arguments is that they consist entirely of his own opinions on what "Jewish", "Ashkenazi", etc. is or is not, and that these opinions do no match what reliable sources as well as Wikipedia say about "Jewish". Every single reputable source says the "Ashkenazi" are a distinct ethnic group - distinct that is from ethnic Germans, Russians, etc. (while these sources do not say that the Amish are an ethnic group) Hasbro, of course, has every right to believe that that's not the case and the "Ashkenazi" are not an ethnic group, but what could Hasbro's beliefs, which are in the tiniest minority, have to do with Wikipedia or Wikipedia's content? Wikipedia goes by what sources say, not by what users say or think. Therefore I find this discussion entirely pointless. If Hasbro aims to convince me or Loomis or anyone else that "Jewish" is not an ethnicity, I suppose he could spend his time trying (though I'm afraid that I am a lost cause in that department), but the point is that Wikipedia reports what reliable sources say, and reliable sources fully acknowledge that the Jews - yes, today's modern day Ashkenazi and Sephards - are a distinct ethnic group. Since that's the case, they are an ethnic group for Wikipedia purposes. Harrison Ford, for example, who you brought up above, says he feels "Irish as a person and Jewish as an actor" (Harrison Ford is actually only 1/4 Irish, btw, but never mind). Rachel Bilson says she is "half Italian and half Jewish". You may believe these people are incorrect when they imply that Jewish is their ethnicity, but that belief has nothing to do with Wikipedia's content and little to do with discussion on Wikipedia. [[User:Jack O'Lantern|Mad Jack]] 21:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
If you are right, then you can tell me where I would reach my local Ashkenazi or Jewish consulate, for a visa or passport issued from those nations. The simple fact is, that is a fantasy reality invented by identity politics. In all likelihood, Rachel Bilson is half German--of the Jewish religion, which is the Ashkenazi community and a subculture. You tell me where to find the Semitic embassy and I'll agree with you. As it is, I am American and it doesn't matter if my ancestors were from England before that, France before that and the fallen city of Troy, back into prehistory. If I wanted to really stir up nonsense, I could say that I'm an African-European American because of probable Egyptian ancestors way back when. More responsible editing should be emphasized in Wikipedia biographies, rather than this socialist/balkanist presentation of people who are really just one type of person and not multiple personalities. Loomis, sorry to be the one to say that you are merely American and of Jewish religion. Your ancestors probably arrived after the founding of this nation and you see fit to live as though this is Yugoslavia in America. There is no Black embassy, because there is no Black nation. Niger and Nigeria sound close. These cultural terms have no legal framework. You are not Jewish and I am not Christian in the temporal world. Our souls are citizens of God, not Caesar. That means the only diplomatically recieved ethnicities are those which are nationalities and can be found in the United Nations or even unrecognized members such as rogue states where the people are a nation and not a religion. Your religious beliefs can't replace legal truth. I am not a citizen or national of Christianity any more than you are of Judaism, because neither is a country. Judea was a country a long, long time ago and so was Troy. That I may be a heir to the Trojans does not mean that I am Trojan, any more than you being a heir to the Maccabees or the line of David would make you a Judean. If you truly want the closest experience to that, become an Israeli citizen and you will bring a belief to life, more or less as a restored reality. I wish all the best to Israel and the new Israelites, but it is obviously not the same condition as the early Imperial Roman era.
What matters most is legal identification and diplomatic recognition. Where is Jewish in the ancestry for American censuses? Most American Jews usually mark German as their heritage. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 10:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:This might be a bad time to enter, but an "ethnic group" clearly doesn't need to have it's own recognized nation, as you seem to believe, just look at the [[Kurds]], the [[Sami]], the [[Basque]] etc... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 13:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::And: ''Most American Jews usually mark German as their heritage'' -- oh, really? I'd love to see some evidence for that. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 14:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Are not most immigrant American Jews of Ashkenazi descent, from Germanic and Slavic (those countries with historical influxes of Teutons) nations? That contrasts with the colonial American Jews of mostly Sephardi descent. In most cases, Jews made famous in Hollywood or Broadway are Ashkenazim. Why not go on and say that these people are Ashkenazim, instead of "Jewish"? "Jewish" doesn't really specify the ethnic component of the person, as Ashkenazi/Sephardi/Mizrahi does. I really don't think that religious beliefs about ethnicity are represented in legal courts, even if the Jews themselves hold such traditions. What matters most is the legal, recognized ethnic heritage. Rosenberg is an Ashkenazi name, not a "Jewish" name. One might say that Yiddish fits for linguistic reasons as well, as opposed to Ladino. Rosenberg is not a Hebrew name. Why don't you split hairs properly and matter-of-factly? Judaism is not a nation of the Earth, but of Heaven. Therefore, use Earthly terms for yourself and your people. There are to be no double standards. It is not more appropriate for you to identify ethnically as Jewish than me as ethnically Christian. My soul belongs to God in Heaven and I identify with Him through my Christian status, just as you through your Jewish status (or Muslim, or Buddhist, or Shinto, or Hindu). We identify with temporal rulers and nations through other terms, like American, Israeli, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese. You anachronistically apply "Jewish" as a resident of a country that died under the shackles of Roma and only now do we see Israel being rebuilt, even if your RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY has lived isolated and preserved traditions outside of Israel/Judea all this time. That's a goddamned long time to be a hyphenated, "rootless cosmopolitan" and no physical trace of the parent nation that spawned said people. In fact, that is a backwards way of looking at it. You are no more or less a modern day Judean than I am a modern day Trojan. The facts speak for themselves. Our ancestors have changed and become other things from their historical roots. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 15:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Again, you continue with your own opinions, which have little to do with Wikipedia, etc. There's no local "Ashkenazi consulate" where you can get a passport, but there is a general state of Israel that accepts any sub-ethnicity of "Jewish" - Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and grants citizenship to those who are at least 1/4 of one of those - similar to how the Italian government grants citizenship to those who are 1/4 Italian. In my response above, I was going outside of the conversation and asking... "What's the point of this discussion?", siince Wikipedia goes by what sources say, and not by what users say. And like I told you before, I have no interest in discussing whether "Jewish" is an ethnicity or not, only looking up a reliable source and seeing that it is. [[User:Jack O'Lantern|Mad Jack]] 16:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
There are competing sources and different perceptions, so ALL must be duly represented--especially the two major viewpoints. I have always been informed, that Jews can be of any race. That means, this is a religion, not an ethnicity. I also know that some view it differently. You are taking a combative and arrogant stance on every ethnic and religious category out there. I tell you to back off now. You just want to fight and win. This isn't what Wikipedia is about. Your brash attacks have inspired me to fire off insults that I will not type here. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 16:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:"all must be duly represented" -- no, it doesn't work that way. See [[WP:NPOV#Undue weight]]: ''NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each...We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention as a majority view, and views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views.'' --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 16:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
To sum up your statement, that means you can prove that Jewishness is not seen by a majority or significant minority as transferable between different ethnic/national/racial backgrounds and that Jewishness is identical to Judeans? Please, I'd love to see you try and prove that. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 09:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a waste of my fucking time, a charlatanous contrivance of NPOV and accuracy as things are in the REAL WORLD! Thanks a lot for spitting trash out your faces and nothing credible to work with. Thanks to all you "pros", for being such "cons". Good bye, ill reputable network of sources. [[User:Hasbro|Hasbro]] 13:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:I hadn't been following this discussion for some time, but just came back to give it a look. Apparently, Hasbro, the only "factually correct" one here, has not only erased my Jewish Nationality, but now he apparently believes my "true" Nationality to be American! S/he's even apparently got my whole family history figured out about how and when they immigrated to the US. That's news to me, ''eh'' ! Is this is an example of your more accurate "fact-finding", ''eh'' ? Talk ''aboot'' being an ill-reputable source, ''eh'' ? :--) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 14:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I revert to my original comments. In both natural and man-made affairs everything tends to grow and deversify over time including religions and religious beliefs until and unless an end point is reached. Hyphenation is necessary to maintain a concise link between the root and the latest diversity and to identify all those in between. Besides hasbro is an idiot. [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 16:28, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
==Sex in Disney==
There is a Disney's story that contains an explicit sexual citation? --[[User:Vess|Vess]] 13:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:What kind of stary? Movie? Comic? Could you give more info? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 14:09, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
My question regards all production of Disney. --[[User:Vess|Vess]] 14:13, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:DO you mean the nude photo in [[The Rescuers]]? [[User:Rmhermen|Rmhermen]] 21:48, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Isn't that only on the laserdisc copy? --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 01:49, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:There's the [[Who Framed Roger Rabbit#Controversies, Easter eggs and deleted sections|2-frame shot]] of [[Jessica Rabbit]]'s [[crotch]] in the [[live-action/animated film]] [[Who Framed Roger Rabbit]], produced by [[The Walt Disney Company|Disney]] subsidiary [[Touchstone Pictures|Touchstone]] and [[Amblin Entertainment]]. --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 12:42, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::From the article [[Down and Out in Beverly Hills]]
Released by Touchstone Pictures, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, Down and Out in Beverly Hills
has the distinction of being the first R-rated film ever released by Disney. The R rating is due to profanity
as well as a brief scene showing a topless woman having sex, another first for Disney.
However, countless R-rated films have since received distribution by the Disney Company, under subsidiaries
such as Touchstone, Miramax Films and Hollywood Pictures.
Walt Disney Pictures, the flagship family-oriented brand, has yet to release a film with
a rating stronger than PG-13.
[[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 22:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
----
This has been currently in the news: http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2006/10/minnie-mouses-paris-sex-tape-hits-web.php -- [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 18:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Althouhgh that is clearly an unofficial release... ;) By the way, the movie could be watched [http://www.dailymotion.com/flash/flvplayer.swf?rev=1160445799&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymotion.com%2Fget%2F11%2F320x240%2Fflv%2F814752.flv%3Fkey%3D3746ca35b3b698ad08940ba7fc95df921273e63%26log%3D1%26log_blog_key%3D7dpzczaLaMNyr3pXa%26log_referer%3D&previewURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymotion.com%2Fmedia%2Fdyn%2Fpreview%2F320x240%2F814752.jpg%3F20061010161250&autoStart=0&estatEnabled=1&estatClient=players_dm&estatSection=blog here] (or click on the link found at [http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,907155,00.html this page])
. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 22:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== Springed Seat Thing ==
You can get this kind of springed seat cushion thing that helps old people get out of their seat. Does anyone know what it's called or where I can find it. My google searches have proved fruitless. --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 14:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
[[image:ejectionseat.jpg|thumb|left|100px]]:An [[Ejector seat]] would do the job.
<br clear=all>
:Are you thinking of hydraulic pump or electric-power assist/assisted [[wheelchair]]s? [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 16:49, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
A [[lift chair]] slowly raises via an electric motor to help the person up. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 17:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:No, I'm thinking of a springed seat thing that I saw in the [[Betterware]] catelogue. It uses springs to provide a constant upward force which when combined with the struggle of an old person to get out of a chair, leads to the desired outcome. --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 13:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
== what's so special about humans? ==
topic? [[User:205.188.117.12|205.188.117.12]] 14:41, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:They taste delicious. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 16:31, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Only some have [[good taste]]. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 17:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
They have the ability to use [[symbolic logic]]. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 17:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Most of them don't. [[User:Chl|Chl]] 19:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Anatomically, humans are only different than most relatively intelligent mammals in their [[thumb|opposable thumbs]] and [[bipedalism]], and some mammals have achieved one or the other. Of course, the [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|mice]] are pan-dimensional creatures of an amazing degree of intelligence. [[User:AMP'd|AMP'd]] 18:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::Don't forget the [[So long and thanks for all the fish|dolphins]]! [[User:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#BBBB00">La</span>]][[WP:EA|'''''<span style="color:green">ï</span>''''']][[User talk:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#BBBB00">ka</span>]] 19:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:[[chimpanzee]]s and [[bonobo]]s have opposable thumbs and are bipedal. [[User:Zoe]]|[[User talk:Zoe|(talk)]] 18:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
::But chimps don't go strutting around on their hindlegs 24/7. We humans can't walk on our knuckles. [[User:AMP'd|AMP'd]] 19:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I think I know a few exceptions who do walk on their knuckles. ;) '''[[User:Durova|<font color="blue">Durova</font>]]''' 05:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
See [[philosophical anthropology]]. These days, most philosophers would probably answer: [[language]]. [[User:Chl|Chl]] 19:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:They don't make chlorophyll. [[User:B00P|B00P]] 22:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Language is something most animals have. Of course their language is primitive compared to ours, but only if ''we'' make the comparison, by ''our'' standards. I have always been surprised at this desire to pin what's special about humans down to one specific capacity. What makes us what we are is the combination of all of our abilities (and disabilities for that matter). Many animals are known for being good at one specific thing. We are good at loads of things. So I suppose the size of our brain relative to our body size, especially the neocortex, giving us the ability to make plans better than any other animal can is an important one. But you'd have to add to that the fact that we have our hands free to execute our plans and build tools. Plus our ability to cooperate, for which we need a sophisticated language, for which we need the right kind of larynx. And thus one can probably continue adding things that may not be specific to us but that ''do'' make a unique combination that makes us what we are. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 07:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::Animals have communication systems -- the difference between those systems and human language is so large that it obscures more than it clarifies to insist on calling them by the same word... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 16:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Humans are the only animal capable of teaching their children mathematics.
*For which they were ejected from the Garden. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 15:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::They were expelled from the mythological garden because they disobeyed God's command ("don't eat the apple for this tree") and learned to distinguish right from wrong, and grew ashamed of their nakedness ("and covered themselves"). In their defense it can be argued that being unable to know right or wrong they were unaware they were doing something wrong. God is a bad teacher and a worse parent. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Sometimes I doubt whether the bible was written to be interpreted literally, to begin with. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 18:09, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::About Adam and Eve - no good and wrong problem, A&E were just told not to touch that bloody delicious tree. But the book does not tell if they knew the price. If so, it was their choice.
::::Human is special in that he slowly gives to animals capacities he refused to them before. That evolution is quite strange, but it keeps some cohesion with good science principles ... Soon they'll receive a soul and the right to vote. I'm ''not'' talking about women. --[[User:Harvestman|<font color="blue"> DLL </font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Harvestman |<font color="green"> .. T</font>]]</sup> 19:45, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Humans are the only animals who can care about their own mortality and the passage of time.
:Elephants, for some reason, seem to have some sort of understanding of mortality. They tend to have this almost ritualistic dedication to the bones of their dead. As for chimps having opposable thumbs, yes, they may have very crude ones, but they're certainly no match to humans when it comes to manual dexterity. Even if one had the mental capacity and the musical talent for it, try to imagine a chimp playing Chopin. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 04:41, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:How on Earth can you know that? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 05:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::The Elephants or the Chimps, Dirk? Or perhaps you were referring to some previous post. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 19:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Look at the indentation. I was reacing to the anon before you. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
* Define "special". Then define what you use to define "special". You'll probably then have a reasonable idea of your answer to the question. (Then stop, otherwise your risk of catching philosophy will be too great.) Regards, [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 13:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== medical malpractice ==
If a patient does not take medicine and sues a Dr. for malpractice how will her not taking the medicine affect the case?
:That depends on how relevant the meds are to the malpractice. If you go in for an appendectomy and they amputate a leg instead, I wouldn't think it would matter. On the other hand, if the doc prescribes antibiotics to treat an infection, and you don't take them, and the infection subsequently spreads, then you don't have a case at all. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 17:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
== Jamaican reggae artists search ==
What are some jamaican reggae artists that mostly feature beats with a lot of bass? I'm talking about more music you would hear in a nightclub opposite the relaxing, smooth [[Bob Marley]] music. [[User:Tutmosis|<small> - Tutmosis</small>]] 19:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:Eh, do you mean [[Dancehall music]]? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 21:38, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:: Not sure but I will check that out, thanks. [[User:Tutmosis|<small> - Tutmosis</small>]] 01:49, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
== Art feedback. ==
I've done some life drawings, and I'd like to get some feedback on them. Is there a place on the internet where I can post the drawings and have people comment on them and give me constructive criticism? Like a livejournal community or something? [[User:69.173.119.165|69.173.119.165]] 23:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
:You could check out [[deviantART]] for instance, an online community for all kinds of artists (often popular with subcultures, such as [[anime]]/[[manga]], [[furry]] and [[goth subculture|goth]] art, for instance). I think it requires registration, though, and you'd probably need to spend some time there on making a name for yourself. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 12:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 15=
== Soccer question ==
:Hi, I need some help as to the most up-to-date [[Manchester United F.C.|Manchester United]] jersey. I think it says AIG on the front, but I'm not sure. Also, will they be changing it anytime soon (apprx. 6 months)? | [[User:AndonicO|AndonicO]] 00:25, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::AIG have been sponsoring them since the summer. Most clubs change their home shirts every two years, and never less than one year, so it will probably be current until mid-2008. See [http://www.kitbag.com/stores/kitbag_4_5/football/manutd/default.aspx here] for pics. The red one is the home shirt and the white one is the away shirt. <font face="Tahoma">[[User:Slumgum|'''sʟυмɢυм''']]<small> •[[User talk:Slumgum| т ]]•[[Special:Contributions/Slumgum| c ]]</small></font> 11:22, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::If it's Manchester United you're interested in, you'll need to learn to call the sport "[[Association football|football]]". (<small>That might be the closest I've ever come to trolling. Sorry. Couldn't help myself.</small>) --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 14:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Communist China ==
I was taught that farmers were paid the same no matter how hard they worked. Wouldn't it have failed in the first minute?!!!?!???[[User:100110100|100110100]] 01:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::You might care to have a look at the history of agriculture in Mao's China, with particular reference to the [[Great Leap Forward]]. Sometimes people worked for food alone, when they could get it. It was often a choice not between prosperity or poverty, success or failure, but life or death. It's as stark as that. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:58, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Who taught you this 100110100? --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 02:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::My Grade 6 Social teacher. Sorry, Social Studies teacher. Why?[[User:100110100|100110100]]
While money is the best way to motivate people in the long run, it's not the only way. Some worked because they felt it was there duty to the community, some out of patriotism to the state or loyalty to Mao, and others worked to avoid criticism or possible punishment. Consider students who do school work despite the lack of any pay. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 02:33, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::The Amana Colonies were started by dissident Lutherans in the early 1700s, who had their own prophets and lived communally (like communists but without the Marxism). They moved to America in the 1800s and to Iowa, where they founded Amana appliances and several other businesses. But in 1931, after all that time, they decided that the communal living (becides stifling individuality) overly rewarded lazy slugs, so they had a vote and reorganized as a stock company. When I heard that, many years ago, I decided it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union went much the same way, and lo and behold. Red China is a workers' paradise in name only, with rich capitalists and rich party bosses using the Red Army to keep the peasants in line. Probably a matter of time before they adandon the pretense of a Marxist egalitarian society as well.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 02:40, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Pretence of Marxist egalitarian society? My goodness: ''have you been'' to China recently? That old fig leaf went a long time ago! And it isn't just party bosses and rich capitalist who are the beneficiaries of the New China: it has one of the fastest growing and moneyed middle-classes in the world. Go to Shanghai-you'll be amazed. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 03:12, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I really do not understand the philosophical underpinnings of present day mainland China. Is it a 'worker's paradise" or a capitalist paradise of social Darwinism? We see on TV the rich and the poor. What is the philosophical basis of the class stratified society? There are workers inside China who seem to be much like illegal aliens in the U.S.A. who come here from Mexico. The Chinese workers are displaced farmers who move to the cities illegally and do construction work. China does not provide free public education or affordable health care. What excuse does their government present for existing and for trampling on individual liberty?[[User:Edison|Edison]] 05:39, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Edison, you are right to be puzzled; but the real key here is that hypocrisy was always a part of twentieth century Communist systems; they have always said one thing and done the other. Have a look at the Stalin Constitution of 1936, the most perfect declaration of human liberty ever conceived, then have a look at real life in the Soviet Union of the day. At the moment China has a booming economy and that's all most Chinese people care about, not the obvious absence of political liberty. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 05:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Hypocrisy is not quite unique to 20th century communist systems. And that's a huge understatement. One of the most common criticisms of people in democracies is that the people they elected don't do what they promised before the elections. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::::Excuse me? Did I ''say'' that it was unique to Communism? And, for goodness sake, what do you mean by a 'huge understatement'? Do try to express yourself clearly. Now I'm quite happy to agree with your contention that people in democracies often accuse their politicians of telling lies. If they do this in Communist countries they either end up in prison or concentration camps. That is the difference between freedom and tyranny. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 23:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::::Easy, easy. You tend to get way too worked up about things. I merely made a loose remark that you shouldn't read too much into. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 05:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
So my teacher was wrong and a liar?[[User:100110100|100110100]] 03:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I don't understand. What was your teacher wrong about? Chinese farmers may indeed have been 'paid the same', even if that was only a bowl of rice[[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 05:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Someone can be wrong without being a liar. One does not necessarily have to include the other. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 03:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::That's half right. Being a liar ''does'' necessarily mean being wrong, but being wrong does ''not'' necessarily mean being a liar. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 11:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I thought it was mostly a matter of subsistence farming, which would mean there was no such thing as payment in the first place. This was pretty much the state of China before the revolution, and you can't change a system that has been in place for milennia overnight. They tried, though, which was the biggest problem. That's always the problem with revolutions. They might be needed to change a system, but the ones who are capable of making a revolution succeed, either the military or blind idealists who can mobilise the people, are not generally the ones who can run a country well. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:The majority of Chinese remain subsistence farmers or poor workers. That has not changed. What has changed, however, is the Chinese government's attitude towards this majority. While they used to at least attempt to help the poor (although Mao was highly incompetent at it, as in the [[Great Leap Forward]]), now they are on the side of the rich industrialists. So, the poor have the rich against them, the government against them, and no right to unionize. Thus, their situation will continue to deteriorate until something changes, quite possibly a second communist revolution, forcing out the current fake communists and putting real communists back into power. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 17:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::Only it will probably fail like in Soviet Russia? --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 20:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::No, not necessarily. The Chinese Communist party is much more intellectually subtle that the Soviet version, which effectively ruined the national economy. In China economic prosperity has been gained at the price of freedom. Most Chinese people can clearly live with that. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 23:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I think that reasoning would necessitate the claim that Soviet Russia was ruled by real communists, something which indeed could be argued. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 22:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::I would call the communists in the early days of the Soviet Union and China "real communists", in the sense that they did actively try to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor. Now, however, the Chinese "communists" do just the reverse, they work to take wealth from the poor (such as in the form of land for crops) and give it to the rich. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 17:17, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The real communists certainly wouldn't agree. They called it [[state socialism]]. Real communism isn't practicable. It requires people to be nice to each other, take only what they need, leaving the rest to the others, and that is asking a bit too much. And there are more flaws. But you guys seem to have a different notion of what 'real communism' means and I'm curious what that is.
::::White Guard, if the Soviets had an economy to ruin, they built it up in the first place. They took Russia from a dirt poor mediaeval society to the first space faring nation in a mere four decades (despite the devastating blow of WWII and without any foreign trade or help to speak of). That has to be the biggest economic achievement of the 20th century. That achievement was, however, largely a result of the opportunities that the tzars had not taken, namely to industrialise in western fashion (including the atrocities that came with it by the way - so much for the 'real communism' that was supposed to get rid of those). But after a while the system turned out to be too rigid and they had to change it. Not that they did ''that'' in the best possible way, but that's a different matter. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 05:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Actually the Russia economy was westernising rapidly under the last Tsar: it took the Soviets ten years to reach GDP levels achieved by Russia in 1914. Anyway, I was thinking specifically of the last stages of the Soviet system, a corrupt, centralized economy unable to respond to consumer demand. Gorbachev's liberalisation merely made matters worse. The Chinese, in contrast, have freed the enterprising spirit of their people with astonishing results, in a way not seen in Russia since the days of NEP. China may be Communist in doctrine; it's Capitalist in practice. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 07:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::They liked the idea of an uncriticizable one-party system so much that they kept it, though... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 15:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::After WWI, it's no surpirse that it took them 10 years to get the economy back to the same level. But that only makes the achievement even more impressive (they had to recuperate from two world wars). Also, what you say doesn't say anything about what that level was. People didn't revolt (againa and again) for no reason. People are usually not willing to risk their lives unless there is a stron incentive. And hunger is one of the strongest incentives. Note that they stopped revolting after the tzars were gone. It's a very crude form of democracy, but an indication that, if not good, things were at least better. For the rest, we seem to agree largely on the later USSR, so at least that's something. :) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Homosexuality and evolutionary psychology ==
I have read in several places that homosexuality is hypothesized to have an evolutionary function, producing adults who could contribute more to the community in other ways than parenting. Wouldn't this purpose be better served by [[asexuality]] or [[autosexuality]], which would save time on courtship? [[User:NeonMerlin|<span style="background-color:#000000;color:#00ff00;text-decoration:underline overline"><span style="color:#ff0000">Neon</span></span>]][[User talk:NeonMerlin|<span style="background-color:#00ff00;color:#ff0000;text-decoration:underline overline"><span style="color:#000000">Merlin</span></span>]] 03:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:That's not quite a factual question, but I'd assume so if it was true. I've heard other theories that said homosexuality evolved from superpopulation, so it would supposedly kick in to keep the population stable. I find both theories hard to believe. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 05:25, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::Personally, I'd say that homosexuality in itself isn't counter-evolutionary. It's lacking the ability to reproduce, that is. Considering bisexuality is fairly prevalent, if we'd see it as a genetic trait, the parents would pass it on to their children, and there's no reason to see it should have disappeared. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 12:43, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
One must consider the social purpose of sex to see a purpose in homosexuality. If sex is used to cement social relationships which are necessary for any social species to survive, then homosexuality is a normal variation which still serves that purpose. [[Bonobo#Sexual_social_behavior|Bonobos]] are a great example of this process in action. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 17:07, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
You may also want to be careful of any evolutionary explanation that relies on "group selection", which appears in your explanation. A perfectly fine counter-explanation would be that homosexuality is just a naturally occurring random variation that has found a social role in some cultures/societies. As to [[User:Wakuran]]'s claim that homosexuality is not counter-evolutionary, I disagree. Any feature that decreases either/both the sexual and natural fitness of an organism is not evolutionarily beneficial. Since homosexual sex cannot create offspring, then (of course we're assuming homosexuality has a primarily genetic basis) there can be no way to spread the genes. This is quite ironic if you look at the conservative Christian position of reforming homosexuals into upstanding heterosexuals, as they would be essentially allowing the genes for homosexuality to spread throughout the population. Another explanation off the top of my head (which is mostly meant to show how gene expression does not just require certain genes but also environmental triggers) could be that homosexuality is largely produced by the lack or overabundance of a certain chemical/nutrient in the womb. Homosexuality then would serve a display function, it would be displaying the organism did not develop properly and therefore their genes may not be worth reproducing.--[[User:152.2.62.69|152.2.62.69]] 18:08, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:No, it's the absence of reproductive sex that's counter-evolutionary, not homosexuality in itself, whether referring to sexual attraction or action. (You might claim that homosexuality necessitates the absence of reproductive sex, although I actually doubt that it's necessary the case.) [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 21:10, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::The arguments of 152.2.62.69 (whom I shall call 152 for short) are flawed. 152 argues, "Since homosexual sex cannot create offspring, then (of course we're assuming homosexuality has a primarily genetic basis) there can be no way to spread the genes." However, this is not true if a tendency toward homosexuality is controlled by recessive genes, or if a genetic tendency finds expression in behavior only under certain circumstances (for example, in high-birth-order sons). In these scenarios, individuals who manifest heterosexual behavior may carry genes that program a tendency toward homosexual behavior. Now, such genes could confer an evolutionary advantage to the individuals carrying them if it meant that those individuals, and their offspring, enjoyed the material support of a nonreproductive family member. Under either of these scenarios, homosexual individuals do, in effect, help to perpetuate their genes. They just do so through nieces and nephews rather than sons and daughters.
::As for 152's argument about a negative "display function" for homosexuality, it does not make sense on careful examination. First of all, the judgment that an individual who exhibited homosexuality "did not develop properly" is a culturally conditioned one, and there is no reason assume that such a judgment is or was made in all human cultures. In fact, the ethnographic evidence suggests otherwise. (See, for example, [[Two-Spirit]].) Second, for this "display function" to impair the reproductive chance of a mother who bore a homosexual child in a society that devalued homosexuality, the child's homosexuality would have to manifest during the mother's reproductive life. However, if a mother bore such a child at the age of 20, she would be well into her 30s, and nearing the end of her reproductive life, before her child's homosexuality would be likely to manifest. Therefore, it is unlikely that homosexuality serves a negative "display function." [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 01:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Another way homosexuality could be passed on (if it is a genetic effect) would be by mitochondrial DNA, which is directly passed on by mothers to their offspring without recombination. If homosexual sons help their mothers raise their (younger) siblings they could improve their siblings fitness that way and increase the likelihood of exactly that mitochondrial DNA to be further passed on. [[User:Lukas.S|Lukas]] 01:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::To support this thought, note that some other social species have members which can't possibly reproduce, such as sterile female worker bees. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 12:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::These ideas are plausible, but if Lukas's hypothesis is correct, then homosexuality would not be a genetic "defect," but just another genetic feature that contributes to the adaptive advantages of the community and the species. There is lots of genetic diversity within and among human communities. It may be that homosexuality is part of that diversity. Being a minority trait does not make it a defect. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 19:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::A good comparison might be with the sickle cell gene. At first, it appears to just be a defect, but it has a hidden advantage (it provides a partial immunity to malaria), which compensates for the disadvantage. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 04:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::"effect" not "defect". I intended that as a neutral word. The sterile worker bees (and ants) are definitely a good example. [[User:Lukas.S|Lukas]] 05:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== The end of the world as we know it ==
I recently read in one of the daily papers (in the UK) an article about what would happen if Mankind were somehow spontaneously removed from the Earth (Strangely the details of this don't seem to be relevant). The article focused on the amount of time it would take for the Earth to recover from Mankinds effect and featured a time scale stating what would happen within the first few days, i.e all power stations stopping after x? hours and the subsequent cessation of light pollution etc. The timescale continued through to detail how long it would take endangered species to recover and even for roads to become overgrown and buildings to collapse. In the longer term the article dealt with pollution and chemical waste etc.
Does anyone know any more details about the article/know whether it is credible and, if it was research based, where I could find out more?
Many thanks for your help and apologies if I posted this in the wrong section![[User:Scrivens|Scrivens]] 17:44, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:Heh, I found the [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,351113,00.jpg picture] but not the article itself. [[User:Hyenaste|Hyenaste]] <sup>[[User_talk:Hyenaste|(tell)]]</sup> 21:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The original news articles seem to be based on the publication of a [[thought experiment]]; [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19225731.100-imagine-earth-without-people.html Imagine Earth without people]; in the [[New Scientist]]. The paper doesn't seem to have published academically (with Peer Review etc), but NS tends to be a pretty reputable magazine/journal, ignoring the fact that they did a big piece about a perpetual motion drive without mentioning that it defied the laws of [[conservation of momentum]]. [[User:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#BB0055">La</span>]][[WP:EA|'''''<span style="color:green">ï</span>''''']][[User talk:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#BB0055">ka</span>]] 15:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Most concrete buildings gone within 1000 years? Surely, the concrete buildings we make are stronger than what the Romans did and many (most?) of their major structures are still standing. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 06:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::No, our buildings are not made to last for thousands of years, as the Roman buildings were. I believe we use fast-setting concrete which isn't nearly as durable as what the Romans used. Rather than being "gone", I would expect all evidence of our civilization to be buried under sediment in a millennium. We also use steel extensively, which rusts away in no time, once the paint or other protective covering wears off. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 11:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::So, basically, if we were to dissapear, for the next few millennia, (did I spell that right?), animals would be living in our buildings? But, what if we don't dissapear yet, we could develop new materiels and/or construction techniques (carbon frames in the walls perhaps) for buildings, which would then last longer. | [[User:AndonicO|AndonicO]] 12:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Our buildings would collapse in just a few decades without maintenance. Note that we are fully capable of making buildings that would last thousands of years, now, if we chose to do so. There just isn't any financial justification for spending that kind of money when our only interest is in quarterly profits and yearly dividends. The ancient Egyptians had a much longer-term perspective than we did, so built things to last. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 03:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Progress means change and if you build things to last forever, they get in the way (eg wrong cabling for new techniques). The victorians built like that and that hindered further progress of England. Ironically, building with the notion that it will be an everlasting empire actually helped in its downfall. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but there is an element of truth in it. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::Buildings could be made to better support new technology, however, by having "access ports" (holes precut in the walls and plugged), to allow for future technology, like fiber optic lines, hydrogen gas, or whatever the future brings. Buildings which are built in such a way that nothing can be easily added (with wet plaster walls, for example), are far less friendly to new technology. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 20:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Fascinating stuff. For a less scientific, but beautifully crafted version, read [[Day of the Triffids]]. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 10:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== American Dreams ==
What is the exact purpose behind the American Dreams? Is it a world of Illusion & impatience for desires? Is it that the western culture promotes materialistic desires
What is the heights of creativity? [kj_venus]
:Read our article [[American dream]]. It seems to be the case, indeed, that [[capitalism]], an aspect of [[Western culture]], promotes [[Economic materialism|materialism]]. But I heard from an Indian software engineer who returned to India (from the U.S.) that she found India to be far more materialistic than the U.S. I suspect it has much to do with the values of an emerging [[middle class]]. I don't see the link to [[creativity]]. --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 21:13, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::One very important "American Dream" that became a reality was a little something called [[Wikipedia]]. It was invented by an American and is based in Tampa Bay, Florida, AMERICA. You seem to be quite enchanted by this "American Dream" yourself. Is Wikipedia a world of "illusion"? Absolutely not! It's an incredible educational tool about the REAL world. Is it about "impatience"? Perhaps! I suppose you can say that I love Wikipedia because I'm too impatient to leaf through tomes of books to learn about something I'm curious about. Is it about the promotion of "materialistic desires"? I can't see how. I'm just sitting right here typing about a subject that fascinates me (Wikipedia) rather than running out to make an extra buck to buy some flashy car or any other "material" possession. To me, a Westerner, Wikipedia, a Western invention, has nothing to do with materialism and all to do with intellectual exploration. I'd say one of the "heights" of creativity is the "American" invention of Wikipedia. However if your understanding of creativity is going to see the same ballet or opera for the hundredth time, then by all means, log off and go buy a ticket. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 04:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Bravo! Hurrah for Loomis! Encore, encore! In other words, well put; an exellent point. I think America is getting bad "press"; of all the people I know, not many are materialistic, just a couple. Obviously, we all want something (which, if taken literally, makes us materialistic), but not in an exaggerated manner. | [[User:AndonicO|AndonicO]] 12:41, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Its based in america, why does that keep coming up, if I put some servers to my page in china, does that mean I'm an adamant communist? [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 18:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Comparing the American dreams to the materialistic attitudes of the growing indian middle class is absolutely foolish.
It shows the mental competence of the working class Indians both in & around the globe. America simply offers a chance to shoot in the air & court success. Otherwise Freedom is simply over done.Its a world of illusion and chasing it sometimes doesnt yield the desired consequences. Its purely impatience for desires. People who are wealthty to support their existence and easily chase such dreams where people are not grounded to face the real challenges of life. [kj_venus]
== French wars ==
I remember a scene from the DVD version of [[Apocalypse Now]] where a one of the french plantation owners is telling Cpt. Willard how the French have lost every recent war. That's true, but what I want to know is this: Have the French lost more wars then they have one? When I say lost I mean like they either flat out lost or it was a phyrric victory.
<br>Lost:
*Vietnam war
*WWI
*WWII
*Franco-Prussian war
*Algerian war of independence
*Seven Years war
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 22:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
::France lost WWI? That's news to me. The losses were high (German losses were higher) but it was still a victory. Also it is not strictly true that WWII was lost; the French were ultimately on the winning side, being one of the four powers involved in the division of Germany in 1945. Also on a technical point the Algerian War was not so much lost as abandoned by De Gaulle in 1962. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 23:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Notice how I also said "When I say lost I mean like they either flat out lost or it was a phyrric victory." The definition of a phyrric victory is "a victory which comes at devastating cost to the victor." The fact that France was completely occupied for several years in WWII and had their populace terrorized by the Gestapo and friends makes it a phyrric victory. When you think about it France didn't gain anything from the war. Same deal with WWI only there's no Gestapo friends and only part of France is occupied. In Algeria, the French would have inevitably lost even if they had stayed. --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 00:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I do indeed know what a pyhrric victory is-a victory that comes close to a defeat, not, I think, an apt description of the outcome of the Great War. It is even less apt for the Second World War, because France emerged among the victors, however that was achieved. What France 'gained' from WWII was her freedom, no little thing, I think. It's debatable if the Algerian War would have been lost if De Gaulle had committed more resources, as he had previously promised. But if you already know all the answers why did you put the question? [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::: I'd also characteriz/se a victory that might be relatively easy but that subsequently saddles the victors with great problems as pyrrhic. Maybe that characteriz/ses the whole Nazi campaign from [[Operation Barbarossa]] onward... Regards, [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 02:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Afaik, France didn't lose all ''that'' much, especially compared to Germany, Poland, the USSR and the UK (which was up to it's neck in debts). Of course one always loses something in a war, irrespective of whether one is on the winning or losing side, and what France lost was probably not exceptional in that sense. They surrendered pretty quickly and the Germans never even had to fight over the southern half ([[Vichy France]]), so that probably emerged relatively unscathed. I'm not sure, though. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 06:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Dark Side, your def of a "loss" would mean most wars would have losers on both sides and few, if any, victors, including WW1 and WW2. Perhaps that's a healthy way to look at war, but it's not the normal way. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 11:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
*Yeah. By those rules, really, the only country in the 20thC to have won any of the major wars is the US, having played the games almost completely on other countries' soil. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 16:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Israel won most of its wars - depends on whether you consider them "major" or not. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 17:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Returning to the original question, since the time of Napoleon (1800's) the French haven't gained any major war (and thinking on it Nappy also lost at the end) against any major opponent '''unless''' they were allied with another major country (e.g. UK). Franco-Prussian war: ended with the Germans proclaiming their new emperor in Versailles. WWI: the French army nearly munitined because they were sick of being wasted by their incompetent generals and only won it with help of the British and the Americans. WWII? The less we speak of it the better. Vietnam and Argelia: (former colonies who fought the French army for their independence) the same. Hitler himself said something like this: ''The French ? Hard and strong soldiers,... lousy officers.'' [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 17:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::I really have to say a word or two in favour of ''La belle France'' and its military prowess. Major opponents? Well they beat the Austrians in 1859, still considered one of the leading powers in Europe at the time, more or less single-handed. Also people in the Anglo-Saxon world tend to have a very distorted picture of the Crimean War-the Light Brigade and all that-but there were in fact many more French than British or Turkish troops fighting against the Russians. I won't mention all of the colonial wars fought and won because these were obviously not against 'major powers'; but the record in this regard is at least equal to that of the British. But if the colonial victories are to be excluded, so too should the colonial defeats, and that includes Vietnam. As for WWI there were many more French than British or American troops on the Western Front in 1918. So, if we take all of the wars fought after 1815 then the only outright ''defeat'' was the Franco-Prussian War. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 23:19, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html [[User:Joneleth|Joneleth]] 01:16, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The above website is a badly informed anti-French diatribe, best treated with contempt. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
They won the [[Hundred Years' War]], eventually, and the some of the [[Italian Wars]]. [[Franco-Dutch War]]? [[French Revolutionary Wars|Wars of the First and Second Coalition]]? France has a history before Napoleon. [[User:Adam Bishop|Adam Bishop]] 12:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Well for those that dont know albinoblacksheep.com content, the above link is a humorous reference not a factlist. [[User:Joneleth|Joneleth]] 13:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
* '''[[Military history of France]]''' [[User:Bwithh|Bwithh]] 00:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Unknown German soldier ==
Dear Sir/Madam,
I was sent this picture by e-mail by a friend, who does not unfortunately know the source himself. I was seeking the identity of the tall German soldier in the following picture: http://i9.tinypic.com/3zaufy8.jpg
He was supposedly captured at Cap Griz Nez.
Sincerely,
[[User:Matt714|Matt714]] 23:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
:I think you have probably set yourself an impossible task. He's just an ordinary soldier, a lance-corporal, I think. The photo was no doubt taken because he was unusually tall (or the British soldier is unusually small!) [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:: British or German Army archive website...? Regards, [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 03:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 16=
== In the future, will [[Che Guevara]] be venerated as a Christlike figure? ==
Just been thinking about the 'cult of Che' that seems to exist these days. Some might say that Guevara was a good, kind, honest and noble man of moral integrity who preached a doctrine of freedom for all mankind and for this, he died a martyr's death at the hands of evil men. Already the line between fact and myth is becoming blurred. Do you think that one day, perhaps hundreds of years from now, people will see Che as a Christ/messiah figure, worship his image and claim he was sent to earth by God himself? The guy even looked a bit like Jesus, come to think of it.
I'm not trying to make a political point here - the idea just popped into my head when I realized just how much some people are into this guy, without even knowing that much about his life, or having constructed some sort of fairytale around him. --[[User:84.65.109.37|84.65.109.37]] 01:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Do a bit more research. You might come to understand a little better the suffering he imposed on the Cuban people, especially when he was Minister for Economics. The future? Who knows. Even Pontius Pilate is a saint for some. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:45, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::If Che is remembered in 100 years it will be for his travels in South America and the people he met and ideas he picked up there, or for his part in the Cuban Revolution or for his betrayal and martyr-like death in Columbia. But it will most certainly not be for his role as minister for economics. Can you imagine ''anyone'' being worshipped for their role as a ''minister''? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 06:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Evita. Well, close as, anyway. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 07:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Che may look cool on a t-shirt, but he didn't write down any deep thoughts (afaik) or do any awesome deeds. He stopped Batista's army at [[Santa Clara, Cuba|Santa Clara]] (or rather he was in charge of that), but that's just a major part in an successful military campaign. Quite the opposite of what one would expect of a messiah. He may have preached peace but he practised war (for a better alternative, check out Ghandi). His wartime diary may be an exciting read (especialy the beginning reads like an adventure novel), but not quite the bible. Of course, Jesus didn't do any writing either, but he had his disciples to do that for him, and I don't see anyone doing that for el Che. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 06:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I believe he executed POWs, not exactly something to be worshipped for. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 10:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Yeh and jesus killed pigs, beat up people in the temple, and chopped down trees, but there not the bits we remember him for. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Yup, Stu and White look at it the wrong way around. There isn't a single worshipped person who hasn't done somehting wrong. To get noticed you have to stick your neck out and if yo do that you unaboidably make mistakes. Also, any worshippers will probably ingore or even deny them. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Technically, I think it was God that burnt the fig tree. Jesus just asked him to... ;) If he cut down tress, I believe it was because he was a carpenter, i.e. [[The Lumberjack Song|he was a lumberjack so that's okay]]. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 13:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Tattoo History ==
Could anyone direct me to some detailed information regarding tattoo history in Germany? I'm looking for very early tattoo designs, say from Roman times. In any case, before Captain Cook came back from the Polynesian Islands. But any information on early tattoo history would be useful.
Thanks in advance.
--[[User:24.18.236.29|24.18.236.29]] 03:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
*Hmm, that's a very specific timeframe and so it's unlikely you'll find much on the subject. Tattooing is one of those things which historians don't tend to write about, especially in societies where tattooing is widespread. Written accounts of tattooing in Western writing didn't really appear until the late 1700's, when explorers from the Pacific wrote about natives' tattoos, which were a curiosity to Europeans, as tattooing in Europe was almost unheard of between the Roman Empire and the nineteenth century. Finding drawings of tattoo designs (or "flashes" as they are known in the trade) from ancient Germany is probably nigh-on impossible. The Romans, as I'm sure you are aware, had a rather low opinion of tribes living outside their Empire and so it's highly unlikely that any Roman writers chronicled such practices, and even less likely that any records have survived. Besides, as far as I'm aware, European tribes in Roman times did not use tattooing, they used [[woad]].
As far as early tattoo history is concerned, the [[tattoo]] page has a fair bit of background. We know that tattooing was practiced in Ancient Egypt, as drawings of dancers often show hieroglyphic symbols and pictures tattooed onto dancers' bodies. The history of tattooing in East Asia is far better-recorded than anywhere else in the world, it shouldn't be too hard to find some reference works on that. As for Europe, tattooing doesn't seem to have been that common. There's a verse somewhere in the Old Testament which explicity forbades tattooing; so it must have existed amongst the Jewish people when the Old Testament was written, but that verse more or less put a ban on an already-rare practice in Europe. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that tattooing started to gain popularity in Europe again. One thing you could do is take a trip along to a good local tattoo parlour, they usually have stacks of tattoo magazines and some of the more upmarket ones often have articles about tattooing history, I remember reading an article last time I was getting tattooed about tattooing in Roman-era Scotland. It's worth a try! [[User:Rusty2005|Rusty2005]] 12:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== movie sex scenes ==
do actors really have sex when filming a sex scene in a movie?
: Sometimes, apparently. See [[List of mainstream films with unsimulated sex]]. Regards, [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 03:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
For mainstream films usually not. For porno, often but not always.
:If you can't see that it's real sex, it's hardly porn, is it? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 06:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::No, on the contrary, it is softly porn. --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 14:29, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::A rule of thumb would be: if it is softcore, they're acting it out. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 15:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
I have no clues but do the actors & actresses really engage in sex while film shoot?
:How is that different from the original question? It has already been answered above. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 01:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::But apparently this time we get no clues. [[User:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="white" style="background:blue"> freshofftheufo</font>]][[User_talk:Freshgavin|<font size="-2" color="blue">ΓΛĿЌ </font>]] 08:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== [[127th Street Ensemble]] ==
How real is the so-called "famous 127th Street Ensemble"? Aside from Wikipedia-derived information, google reveals virtually nothing about this famous ensemble, except in connection with [[Tupac Shakur]]. In any event, there's info on the page about the founder being a winner of a Noble [sic] Prize, but the name is not listed at the [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/all/ official list]. Sounds like a load of hoo-hah to me. But what do I know? Can someone else take a look? –[[User:Rholton|RHolton]][[User talk:Rholton|<b><font size="3">≡</font></b>]]– 03:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:I've had a look, and I agree. The only potential truths (AFAICT) are that the ensemble exists(ed) and that Tupac was part of it - and that information elsewhere on the internet may have been sourced here. The rest of the article is bunkum - it refers to a non-existent 'Noble' laureate who [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=127th_Street_Ensemble&diff=prev&oldid=81689735 changed his name sometime between May and now], and Compton and Beverly Hills (when the troupe was/is apparently in Harlem). Is a hoax banner in order? I've left a message for [[User:Itapp]] on his talk page. [[User:Natgoo|Natgoo]] 17:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
== Cara Hyder ==
Would every one not agree that Cara Hyder of springfield Mass is pretty?
:How romantic of you. Unfortunately the RefDesk is not for anonymous love letters. Still, it's cute, so I'd suggest to the rest of you guys to allow this one just this once. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 05:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Hard to tell, without seeing a photo of her... --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 13:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Are you our good old friend Ben Gurion?[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities&diff=next&oldid=40965294] I can't help noticing that you inquired about her before.[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities&diff=prev&oldid=58369693] Have you found her in the meantime? --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 14:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
==Historical Whitewash==
Here is a hard question.
Are there any historical whitewash that is currently still not reveal to the public as a historical whitewash?
The only one I could come up with is
* Emperor Hirohito was a puppet of the Military Generals during WWII.
[[User:211.28.178.86|211.28.178.86]] 08:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
*Japanese atrocities during WW2 are covered up by the Japanese educational system. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 09:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
*The Turkish genocide of Armenians is actively covered up by the Turkish government to this day. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 09:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:*The schedule for the washing in the White house shall be available soon on the net (secondary source please!) --[[User:Harvestman|<font color="blue"> DLL </font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Harvestman |<font color="green"> .. T</font>]]</sup> 18:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
== Were Saints Gervaise and Protasus Cro-Magnons? ==
This is what JBS Haldane claims in his essay 'God-Makers' - says they were dug up by another saint, Ambrose, in Roman times, in a kind of impromptu paleontological dig. Is Haldane just pulling our legs here? [[User:Adambrowne666|Adambrowne666]] 11:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Of course. [[User:Alteripse|alteripse]] 21:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Oh. [[User:Adambrowne666|Adambrowne666]] 00:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== religion ==
[[User:65.43.135.46|65.43.135.46]] 13:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)Sign yoWhat do the lettters I N R I mean above the head of Jesus on the cross ?
:{{refq|INRI}}. --[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 13:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
==Brazilian Children's Television==
Is the Brazilian children's television star Eliana Michaelichen Bezerra or Eliana Primavera? Or someone else? I notice that there are a HUGE number of Brazilian children's hostesses--[[User:Filll|Filll]] 14:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:As far as I can tell, "''[http://www.submarino.com.br/cds_productdetails.asp?Query=ProductPage&ProdTypeId=2&ProdId=69264&franq=100464 Primavera]''" is the name of one of her children albums, so the second person you mentioned doesn't exist (well, at least in this context). ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 15:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
== Support in an Experiment - Urgent ==
Hi,
My name is Tal and I am a student in the International School of Amsterdam (ISA).
I am in 10th grade and am working on my project, the Personal Project. For it I am studying mind manupilation, brainwash ect. I have invented "the podies fractionation" as a major enviromental issue and am trying to sell this to my schoolmates.
In school I am running presentations and hanging posters, donation boxes and will have events to raise awarness of these podies.
I wanted to create an article on Wikipedia so that IF someone from my class would try to look for it on Google or something, they would find it here.
It has been deleted due to "nonsense and vandalization".
I would like to request that you return that article, its for a project.
As soon as it is done, at the end of the year (or in a few months, I still dont know) I will ask a moderater to get rid of it.
Please consider this as supporing my project.
Thank you,
Tal{{signed|Tjehuda}}
:Sorry but Wikipedia is not for this kind of thing. It was quite right that your article be deleted. If you want to have something online about your fake issue, you could always create a fake website. --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 16:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:You're asking in the wrong place. This is the reference desk, and no-one here has any special influence over deletion. You could try following the [[WP:UNDEL|undeletion procedure]], but to be honest, I think it's a lost cause. [[WP:NOT|Wikipedia is not]], amongst other things, a means for you to trick your classmates. Incidentally: what are you planning to do with the contents of the donation boxes? Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 16:18, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:I foresee a great future for you in politics or business. Of course, there's a good chance you'll get expelled for your unethical and possibly criminal (due to the "donations") behavior. Have you cleared this with your teacher? If so, he or she may get fired as well. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 17:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Don't worry, Tal - you won't get expelled and your teacher won't get fired. As Richardrj suggests, you should make a fake website. If you do, the best way to make sure Google notices it quickly is to notify them here [http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl]. [[User:Adambrowne666|Adambrowne666]] 20:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::You might want to read up on [[fraud]]. Expulsion is probably a stretch, but a teacher who condoned this could and should be fired. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 21:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Can [[Dihydrogen Monoxide]] (DHMO) contribute to podies fractionation? --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 02:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Every serial killer in history had recently consumed DHMO, and yet we pump it into our public schools and nurseries by the gallon! [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 14:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Did the Jews really kill Jesus? ==
Hey, I know that this is a really controversial topic but I have a reason for asking it. I'm a Jew and everytime me and my mates have an argument, they jokingly tell me that 'the Jews killed Jesus', and I really want to prove them wrong. I know they're only messing, but, what evidence is there - other than Biblical scriptures which lets face it, is hardly reliable - to suggest that the Jews were behind Jesus's death, given that there is hardly any proof which guarantees the man's existence.
[[User:Ahadland1234|Ahadland]] 15:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
*Why not just tell them to read their friggin' New Testament, which makes it quite clear that the Romans did the killing. Jews didn't use crucifixion, Romans did. Or just tell them to fuck off; saves time. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 16:01, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Jesus and all his apostles and disciples considered themselves Jewish anyway (he was even crucified under the sign "King of the Jews"). It wasn't until the church began accepting [[gentile]]s and removing the restrictions of [[kosher]] some time later that the Christian sect of Judaism split into Christianity. [[User:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#BB0055">La</span>]][[WP:EA|'''''<span style="color:green">ï</span>''''']][[User talk:Smurrayinchester|<span style="color:#BB0055">ka</span>]] 16:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Technically, the Jews did not kill Jesus, the Romans did; however, the Pharisees, who, according to the Bible were corrupt, did the plotting. As for the part where it says the Jews took the blame for Jesus' crucifiction from Pontius Pilate, they were being bribed to say that by said Pharisees. I once saw the Catholic Network, EWTN, giving a program hosted by a Jew, who was explaining Judaism and saying that Jesus was Jewish. [[Pope John Paul II]] loved Jews by the way, he didn't have a grudge against them for their having killed Jesus, because they didn't do it. | [[User:AndonicO|AndonicO]] 17:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::"The Jews took the blame for Jesus' crucifiction"...now THERE'S a Freudian slip if I've ever seen one! :--) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 03:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Remember the historical context. Israel and Judah were occupied in the Roman province of Palestine. The Romans allowed local religious law and practice, although they tended to insist that there be veneration of the emporer cult (which led to muliple revolts in Palestine). Israel's king was Herod Aggrippa, who had been raised in Rome and was a non-observant Jew. The chief paranoia of the Romans was revolt, and the Jewish expectation of a Messiah bothered them, because it spoke of a victorious king. The Pharisees were a messianic group, and they were in charge of the Temple administration. Therefore, they were the leaders of the church party, while Herod was official leader of the civil administration. However, there was a Roman governor over the province. Therefore, if you committed a crime in Israel, you went to Herod. If in Palestine, to Pilate.
:The Pharisees expected the Messiah. The various Zealotes groups also did. (The Saducees did not, I gather, though I haven't read up on them as much.) Jesus's preaching alarmed the Pharisees because He was being proclaimed the Messiah, and yet He spoke only of a coming of the Kingdom in the heart, not in the temporal state. The Zealotes were opposed, and so were the Pharisees. The charge of performing miracles on the sabbath was presented before the Temple court, but when they wanted a death sentence, they had to come up with something that would interest the secular authorities. Therefore, the claim of being the Messiah would interest Herod, as they would say that Jesus claimed to be a more rightful king than him. Jesus was taken to Herod, and Herod did not find cause, so Jesus was sent to Pilate. The charge was, basically, insurrection. If Jesus claimed to be the king of Jews, then He was claiming to be the real ruler and against Rome.
:When Pilate had Jesus crucified, the "INRI" sign was an indication of the crime. You can read it either as a straight legal sentence: "Jesus of Nazareth (claims to be) King of the Jews" or as mocking the Jews themselves: "Jesus of Nazareth (is what the) King of the Jews (looks like)." In either case, His fellow Jews were the ones who had reason to want the death sentence, but the Romans, of course, did the killing. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 17:41, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Well they did, they were responsible for his death. So I dont see why you'd want to prove them wrong, when they are esentially (without being perdantic), right. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
*They did according to what? A book written by people with bias, people looking for a scapegoat.Wheres the proof, then I'll gladly say to my friends your right we did kill Jesus. So either they have proof - proper proof, not a book written by people with an agenda - or they stop saying it. ''[unsigned]''
*:There is as much evidence to prove that the jews were responsible for jesus's death as there is for his existence, so really, either,
*:#he didnt exist
*:#he did and he was crucified by pontius pilot, by order of an unruly mass of jews.
*:The book has no agenda against jews, it was written by jews. Anyway, purely through probability he was probably killed by a jew, as a majority of israelites were jews. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 20:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
: Don't you notice that the problem is the word ''we''? So, a group of corrupt priests playing politicians plotted an intrigue to get a guy killed who seemed to threaten their authority. They happened to be Jews, but acted as corrupt leaders have acted all the world over in all times. Only they used their propaganda power over the masses to make a lot of inhabitants of Jerusalem stage a demonstration to show support for the death sentence. So, who is guilty for the death of Jesus? Pilate, because he did not wash his hands sufficiently? Yes. The Phariseers because they plotted the intrigue? Yes, too. The Jerusalem demontrants because the supported it. Not really. The whole Jewish community of that time? No, most people probably did not even know about it. And since when is it considered fair to blame a people for the misdeeds of any corrupt leaders they might be unfortunatly have? The Jews as a whole are guilty? What a ridiculous idea. Only the deranged minds of medieval Europe could come up with something like this. Ok, I take back the "deranged mind". That was not deranged. It was a masterpiece of evil propaganda. An even more potent masterpiece than the [[blood libel]] or the [[Protocols of the Elders of Zion]], because it did not even need to resort to clear lies but just to presented the facts in such a cleverly biased way.
: To add about the "independent proof". Well, yes, you may say that the [[gospel]]s were written by a non-neutral party. But remember that the evangelists wrote them in order to convince fellow Jews to join there sect of Jewish-religion-with-ascended-Messiah. They did not want to blame them, and nothing in the text of the gospels sounds that way. And assuming that Jesus did live, and that he did die in Jerusalem from the hands of other men, it is likely that it was due to the action of somebody present in Jerusalem, and the people there were mainly Jews and a few Romans. On the other hands, the gospels were written from hearsay (None of the evangelists has met Jesus.), and they are reporting here an intrigue, and if you presented this kind of evidence in a court, the judge would just laugh. [[User:Sanders muc|Simon A.]] 18:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
"They did '''not''' want to blame them, and '''nothing''' in the text of the gospels '''sounds that way'''." So sure you are. How about this noble passage of the bible: '''"All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!"''' in Matthew 27:11-26 [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2027:11-26;&version=31;]. I suggest you read your bible with more care, and not forget the more controversial aspects of it. I will grant you that that most of the New Testament defends peace but not all of it. I even believe and defend that Christianity is a largely peaceful religion (and more peaceful than most - My own personal opinion - I like Christianity). But that doesn't mean that all of Christianity was/is always peaceful. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 18:59, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
: Flamarande: Now, I wonder why you jump so angrily on this one sentence which was rather unsubstantial to my argument. I admit that I have not read ''my'' gospels careful for I feel no longer as a Christian since a very long time, and I admit that in such arguments, I like to just rely at my recollection of stuff I learned in school long ago. The more interesting question would be whether I am right with the following way of imagining the whole thing: The early Christian communities were a minority and were looked at as we today look at [[sect]]s. People might have considered them as either harmless wackos (the majority, I imagine) or dangerous wackos (the Pharisees probably). But I'd say that they were obviuosly harmess because they were powerless, and only later, from [[Constantine]] onwards, Chrstians has the power to be unpeaceful. Now, as my personal opinion about Christianity is not as positive as yours (I doubt that it is "largely peaceful", way to many wars have been waged in the alleged name of the Christian god, and the idea that this is unjustified is quite recent, and did not exacly come from within the religion.) I'd like to blame medieval Christianity for all this stuff, and not already Matthew's wording. But this, of course, is more a matter of taste. [[User:Sanders muc|Simon A.]] 14:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
'''This is one of the greatest whitewash in history!!!''' It goes like this:
# Jesus was a violent jewish terrorist who wanted to kill Romans (kinda like Osama today)
# Romans caught Jesus and executed him.
# The "christians" then a wacko jewish cult, had lost the support of the Jews and is rapidly losing its own members
# So the "christians" took on a different tactics and targeted the Romans for their new members recruitment drive
# So they whitewash history by portraying Jesus as a peaceful man and the JEWS as the christ killer. The new Roman members would love this!!!
It is not strange that Pilate who need no reason to kill anyone who disrespect the rule of the Roman Authorities would listen to the useless political banter of the Pharisees. Saying that "you are a messiah" would get you killed by the Romans even if the jewish religious authorities totally supported you.
Matthew chapter 10 (Does this not sounds like the words of Osama bin Ladin)
34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 For I have come to set men at variance: a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 And a man's enemies will be those of his household.
37 He who loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me;
38 And he who does not take his cross (How the hell did Jesus knows about the cross? He has not been crucified yet!!!) and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
39 He who finds his soul-life shall lose it, and he who loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.
'''In summary, the Romans killed a terrorist (Jesus) but in order to sell Christianity to the Roman Public, the christians had to whitewash history.'''
[[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 21:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:The "christians" didnt emerge until long after jesus death, he and all of his followers were jews. And had no intention of breaking away into their own religion. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 21:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::That's why I put them in quotes. "christians" means Jesus fanatics. [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 22:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Do you want me to go through the new testament finding all the quotes of peace and love etc. Seeing as that would no doubt amount to over a thousand quotations, and you have found a measily 7 that could be interpreted to mean the contrary. Its pretty obvious what Jesus's intentions were. He obviously was not an extremist terrorist involved in a huge cover up, see [[occams razor]], for why pretty much all conspiracy theories are crap. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 22:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Do you not know the meaning of the word '''whitewash'''. Of course, you would find tons of quotes of love and peace in the New Testaments. That's what whitewash means. [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 22:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::Well if they whitewashed it why the hell did they put these quotes youve found in there!? You've obviously misenterprated them, whoever is right. The simple fact is your deluded, and every post you make, i have to completely rethink wether you're actually serious, or taking the piss. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 22:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::Ask yourself this question. "Apart from Christian sources, are there other historical sources about Jesus that states that Jesus was a man of peace?" [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 23:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::Are there any sources anywhere at all that state that Jesus was a man of war? I know of none (but then I never claim to know everything). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 23:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::::Yes, the [[Koran]] of Islam mentions jesus as a miracle worker sent by allah. A man of peace to do allahs work. So unless you feel like severely complicating yor theory youd better be quiet. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:But if this was a murder mystery I would be very suspicious of some of his last words: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" spoken in RP King's English of course.<small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 01:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually the last words of Jesus are quite unsure. Were they:
* "'''Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'''" Last words according to Luke 23:46 : "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." (KJV)
* or "'''It is finished.'''" Last words according to John 19:30 : "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit." (KJV)
*or even "'''Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani?'''" (God, God, why have you forsaken me?) The last recorded words prior to his death in the books of Mark and Matthew. (Mark 15:34 & Matthew 27:46) [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 01:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
People, I don't mean to be rude, but I think we're straying away from the topic here. The question is '''What ''evidence'' is there to support the claim that the Jews killed Jesus?''' Could somebody please help me find some unbiased evidence that supports these claims? And if there is none, could you answer my question: '''Why do these claims still exist?''' Were people looking for a scapegoat or something ridiculous. Because, I don't know about you but, one claim that has ended in thousand of years of persecution and even genocide, is a little daft, particularly if no such claim can be proven. Am I right?
[[User:Ahadland1234|Ahadland]] 09:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
09:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:It is rather difficult not to stray off topic when faced with an unanswerable question. There is a lot of evidence for all sorts of opinions about Jesus but none of it unbiased. Quite a few people do not even believe Jesus existed and to them questions of his death as as significant as whether Voldermort killed Harry Potter's parents. Such questions are bound up with faith, it often doesn't matter if the claims are provable only that they are believable. Also it is not so much the case that one claim has caused so much agony, as the other way round, so much agony has been ascribed to one claim. People do terrible things but they like to have some kind of reason for what they do, however flimsy. Whoever killed him can be thought of helping him fulfil his destiny and of course an important part of Jesus' teachings were about forgiveness. And if you want facts to disprove what people say to you, all you really need is that fact that, however much in jest, they are relying on 2000 year old rumour and bigotry. <small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 15:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Look, If you believe the bible about Jesus' existence, why question other parts of it. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Although we believe the Bible, we do not accept responsibility for killing Jesus because some book said we did. It is illogical and irresponsible for everyone to put the blame of Jesus' death on the Jews given that there is no '''irrefutable''' evidence to support the claims. Surely any reasonable Jewish person - such as myself - would see a right to defend themselves here?
:::''Although we believe the Bible'' and ''some book'', you cant downplay and uplay the same thing in the same sentence. If you believe the bible you believe it, and if you dont you dont. You cant claim the existence of jesus as irrefutable, and then discredit the only record of his existence. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 20:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::You're missing the point, Phil. First off, the Romans were in charge, so "the Jews" weren't in ''any'' sort of position to make ''any'' orders. It was ''the Roman authorities of the day'' that had exclusive authority to carry out any crucifixion. Yes, ''certain'' Jews wanted Jesus dead, and did their best to convince certain Romans such as Pontius Pilate to order the crucifixion. Certain other Jews, his apostles in particular, obviously didn't want him killed, just as, I would imagine, certain other Romans.
::::Now what is the modern day collectivity that best describes the decendents of the ancient Romans? (The ancient Romans being not simply the citizens of the city of Rome, but rather the citizens of a larger area that had Rome as its capital)? The Italians of course. Since the Romans bore ''at least'' as much responsibility as the Jews in Jesus' crucifixion,(and I don't think anyone really disputes that,) it would therefore seem just as appropriate to say that the Italians killed Christ.
::::But who would go around saying that the Italians killed Christ? Yes, certain ancient Italians killed Christ, but should the whole nation be identified as having killed Christ? Did, for example, "the Greeks" kill Socrates? Did "the Hindus" kill Ghandi?
::::In any case, I know you meant no harm Phil. And I'm sure you weren't taking into account the real problem, that is, that the basis of so much of the suffering of Jews throughout history was predicated on the whole "the Jews killed Jesus" idea. I'll always maintain that you're a decent, good guy. :-) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 01:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
* If you look at the issue from a spiritual/theological view point ''all of humanity'' killed Jesus. Now, if we look at this further who truly cares who forced Christ up [[Golgotha]], because he rose up three days later. -- [[User:Sapphire|Sapphire]] 01:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Surely it would be more appropriate to look at it from a '''realistic''' point of view? Given that we're on about why people perceive it to be the fault of the [[Jew]]s
::From my point of view, it was jews that killed him, but completely seperate from the jewish faith, and no modern jews should be heald responsible, but also the people who killed him were israelis, middle eastern, part of the roman empire, probably mostly men, from the northern hemisphere, from a meditarranean country, etc. I have no Idea why people remeber the jewish part more than any other, as none of it has any bearing on the modern day at all. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
==Sex in Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse==
There is a sex citation in a Donald Duck's or Mickey Mouse's story (or cartoon)? --[[User:Vess|Vess]] 16:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)--[[User:Vess|Vess]] 16:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:I doubt it, it's a kid's show remember. | [[User:AndonicO|AndonicO]] 17:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::If you refer to some explicit reference to the sexual act, I doubt it has found its way into any officially released works by Disney. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 17:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
There's a "Sex in Disney" discussion directly above, under October 14th... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 22:54, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:For cartoon sex, try [[Fritz the Cat]]. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 03:28, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::God, that brings back memories ... good ones, too. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 11:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I'm afraid to ask... :-) [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 16:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== cloaked in glory ==
The term cloaked in glory was from a novel written by 3 West Point Cadets describing a day in the life of a cadet. Fictional character's last name was Peeps, I believe. The other cadets were referred to as "wife" and "wife2" I can't find title. Thank you very much
<e-mail removed>
That's not where the phrase came from--Google it--but more info is needed to identify the book. -[[User:THB|THB]] 23:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== lawyers ==
how did [[Shakespeare]] feel about [[lawyers]]?--[[User:64.12.116.72|64.12.116.72]] 17:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:You seem to be referring to the famous Sakespearian quote which went along the lines of "First thing we do, is kill all the Lawyers"...or something like that. Unfortunately my knowledge of Shakespeare is not what it should be, and as such I can't recall which play it's from. However, what I do know is that that quote has often been misinterpreted as meaning that Shakespeare had a negative view towards lawyers. From what I understand, this is a common misconception. Apparently, this line was spoken by one of the ''villains'' in the play who apparently desired to provoke some sort of state of anarchy or chaos. In the mind of that villain, killing all the lawyers would be the obvious first step. My apologies for my only vague familiarity with the whole thing. Perhaps another editor can fill in the blanks, as well as confirm that I've got the whole thing straight. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 19:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" - Dick the Butcher, [[Henry VI, part 2]], Act IV, Scene II. Dick is a comic minor character, and a follower of the popular revolutionary [[Jack Cade]]. The remark is part of a long list of increasingly absurd suggestions about the utopia which will follow the revolution. So essentially, Loomis is right. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 20:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:::A tiny bit more can be found under [[Lawyer_joke#Anecdotal_history]]. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 23:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Well, the "kill all the lawyers" bit is undermined inside the play, but Shakespeare's general attitude toward lawyers was not favorable, nor very unusual. In general, lawyers are presented as pettifoggers and contracts as straightjackets. This view was commonplace. About one hundred years later, [[John Arbuthnot]] would sum up public sentiment on law by entitling one of his John Bull pamphlets, ''Law Is a Bottomless Pit.'' The general objection was that legal proceedings were scholastic, that they could go on for years and years. Additionally, in a highly Christian nation, the idea that one could argue either side for a fee was automatically compromising to the character. Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Christopher Marlowe similarly expressed hostility to the "endless" law and ethics of lawyers. This is not to say that they didn't, of course, love the lawyers on their own sides. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 14:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Religious freedom ==
In the UK , a british airways employee was not allowed to display the cross openly, it being a sign of religion. Why is there such remarks stifling the religious freedom? And the Muslims are not allowed to wear the veil?
Whats the cause for all such disputes? WHere is the freedom of expression?[kjvenus]
Religion equals trouble. More religion equals more trouble. [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 22:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Apparently the dispute was over a BA uniform rule that jewellery can only be worn under, not over, clothes. She was told to tuck it in and took unpaid leave rather than comply. BA say she hasn't been suspended.[http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1923458,00.html] One might consider the rule to be a bit on the pernickety side, but on the other hand she seems to be a fundamentalist attention-seeker exploiting the current controversy about Muslim headgear. --[[User:Nicknack009|Nicknack009]] 22:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:So far as I'm aware, there's no law against Muslims wearing any degree of veil in the UK...? [[User:David Kernow|David Kernow]] <span style="font-size:90%;">([[User talk:David Kernow|talk]])</span> 01:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Religion is the [[Fast Food]] for the mind. Cheap to acquire, easy to understand and totally delicious. I love religion and so should you. The idea that my freedom to consume the intellectual Fast Food of my choice should be limited is an affront to my dignity as an intellectual consumer.[[User:Ohanian|Ohanian]] 07:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:I agree that religion equals trouble. But I also want others to leave me my beliefs, so I should not interfere with theirs. A big problem here is that when people talk about muslim veils (for example) they talk about ''muslim'' veils, not about veils in general. In some German state a law was passed that teachers were not allowed to wear a religious headdress. Everyone understood that this was aimed at muslims. It took a court ruling to determine that this also applied to nuns. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Religion is trouble but one needs faith to fight impatience. Each individual has the right to practice one's faith on a constant basis and without any external intervention. Faith is a must to fight impatience and racism. [kjvenus]
:Thank you so much, Ohanian. In think I understand 1,000,000 times better religion with your true words (last time I went to a fast food six months ago it was with the kids). --[[User:Harvestman|<font color="blue"> DLL </font>]] <sup>[[User talk:Harvestman |<font color="green"> .. T</font>]]</sup> 18:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:I don't completely agree abouit "intervention", basic general religious freedom should be given, but I think that in most cases the legal system should be held as more important than religious freedom if there's colliding interests. Of course that would require a certain amount of democratic freedom in the political system, to begin with. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 22:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== How does one go about initiating a romantic relationship with a celebrity? ==
I mean, how do people who get to go out with celebrities get to meet them in the first place? There is a woman I see on TV almost on a daily basis (an actress) that I really do fancy but I have no idea how to get in contact with her. I just want to be able to write her a letter telling her that I'm her #1 fan and about how much I love her but I can't even seem to find an address to write to. She's single at the moment and I'd be heartbroken to read in the papers that she's paired off with another man before I get the chance to tell her how I really feel. It's like people on TV are surrounded by a wall of steel or something. Please help! --[[User:BobTheBull|BobTheBull]] 22:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:Maybe she trying to protect her privacy, and by the sounds of things, people like you make it necessary. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 22:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
::Another ''numero uno'' fan. It must be every actresses' worst nighmare. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 00:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I am going to assume that you are a decent, rational person.
1) As she doesn't know you, you must ask yourself why ''she'' would want to go out with ''you.''
2) You must also ask yourself how she would be able to distinguish ''you'' from a psycho stalker.
Now, to answer your question. "How does one go about initiating a romantic relationship with a celebrity?" Simple: become a celebrity yourself. '''''After''''' you have achieved something notable (''and praiseworthy'') in Business, the Arts, Science, Public Service, Sports, or whatever, and have moved into the same social circles as your inamorata, and you have at least one mutual acquaintance, you'll have no trouble at all. 'Til then, stay the hell away from someone who doesn't know you from a hole in the wall. [[User:B00P|B00P]] 04:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Furthermore, actors and the characters they play (which sometimes includes their "public persona") often do not resemble each other all that closely. While I don't claim to know "celebrities" as such, I have a number of acquaintances who know a semi-famous Australian writer and sometime actor. In her writings, she comes across as super-extraverted and completely outrageous. In person, she is apparently ''much'' shyer than you would expect. The woman of your dreams may have little to do with the reality. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 07:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:The best way is to be a celebrity yourself. Otherwise, if celebrity is the license for the meeting, there is absolutely no chance. I have known celebrities, and they don't appreciate the fact that everyone seems to think they know them, and therefore they get very mistrustful of anyone who either has nothing to gain (either very wealthy or already famous) or no knowledge of their celebrity (a banker who never listens to music, a person in a foreign nation). Psychologically, it is absolutely, 100%, guaranteed to be toxic if someone wants to meet you because of your fame. It's going to be poison for the lover and the loved. It's a bad idea, a bad practice, and a hopeless thought, because the predicate is either need or illusion. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 14:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
This sign of mental sickness is called as celebrity obsession. The best way to relieve urself from this stickiness to one female is to try to deviate ones attention from the mediaworld and try to be an actor oneself. As per Shakespear every person is an actor in real life. U feel u r depressed by the constant media attention that is gripping her on a constant basis. U r developing an obsession that u find it difficult to extricate urself Its like a quicksand and it blocks ur mind. Rid urself of it and outgrow that sickness.
== Is there a "God of Sound"? ==
I was wondering, is there any specific "God of Sound" in any mythology? I'm not talking about gods of music, but sound in general. Gods about particular senses would be pretty cool to know as well. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 23:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
:[[Echo (mythology)|Echo]] is a possibility. [[User:pschemp|pschemp]] | [[User talk:pschemp|talk]] 02:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Echo... Not a god, but that's a good one. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 05:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::[[Apollo]] was the god of music. [[User:AMP'd|AMP'd]] 02:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Like I said in the original question, I'm '''not''' looking for gods of music. Thanks anyway. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 05:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::[[Saraswathi]], a goddess of knowledge and music and speech. [[Shiva]] sometimes carries his [[damaru]] or [[damru]] (two different articles in WP), a drum representing the primeval sound of the universe. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 03:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Hmm, no, I'm looking for more specific things. The ideal case for me would be a god that is attributed to noise, hearing and sounds. A god that was attributed to the sounds of a thunder alone would work, but not a god of thunders in general (because other concepts - fire, energy, light - would be with it). The damaru\damru concept is a pretty good one, though. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 05:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
How about [[Palongawhoya]] from a [[Hopi mythology|Hopi]] tale of creation:
<blockquote>Next, Sotuknang goes to Tokpela, the First World, and creates Spider Woman, "who was to remain on that earth." In her turn, Spider Woman takes some earth, mixes it with her saliva, and forms twin spirit beings. Each twin is assigned a specific role. The first spirit being solidifies the earth substance into the great mountains and the more pliable lowlands, and the second spirit being, named Echo, is placed in charge of sound. The whole universe becomes an instrument for carrying messages to and from the Creator. Finally, the twin spirit beings take up their permanent positions at the north and south poles, ensuring the orderly movement of the earth mass.</blockquote>{{cite book |last=MacDonald |first=Andrew |coauthors=Gina MacDonald, Mary Ann Sheridan |year=2000 |title=Shape-Shifting: Images of Native Americans in Recent Popular Fiction |pages=p. 41}}
[[Carl Jung|Jung]] also connects "God of Sound" to creation from a schizophrenic's poetry:
<blockquote><pre>When the Eternal first made Sound
A myriad ears sprang out to hear,
And throughout all the Universe
There rolled an echo deep and clear:
All glory to the God of Sound!</pre></blockquote>{{cite book |last=Hinkle |first=Beatrice M. |coauthors=C.G. Jung |year=1916 |title=Psychology of the Unconscious |pages=p. 53}}
...or maybe he does, "The reader wilt recall that in the preceding chapter the following chain of synonyms was adduced: the singer-God of sound—singing morning star—creator—God of Light—sun—fire—God of Love." (p. 95) There's also [[Orpheus]], tho not a god. [[User:EricR|EricR]] 06:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:: check out nada yoga, shabda yoga and bhava yoga - yogas concerned with sound at following website : //www.yoga-sampoorna.org/english/voies_nada.htm
=October 17=
== Matthew 27:11-26 ==
"All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" Matthew 27:11-26
Is this the reason of Jews sufferings all these centuries? Another question,if there were no Jews,would there be a World War 2? And,if there were no Jews,would there be a war in the middle east?
Thank you {{unsigned|User:212.200.202.238}}
:: There would, of course, be paradise on earth. Why don't you just trot along and read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Suited to people of your intellectual level, and guaranteed to confirm all of your fantasies and nightmares. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]]
:I am not an authority on the bible or the Jewish faith so I will skip the first part. As for WW2, the Jews were most certainly not the main reason the war started. Germany's pride had been badly mangled during and after WW1 and they were seeking a way to restore it. Along come Hitler and his Nazis friends promising a new golden age for Germany. Germany becomes more aggressive (annexing the German speaking parts of Czechoslovakia and anschluss with Austria) and ends up launching a blitzkrieg on Poland. The rest is history. As for the Middle East, I would say there would not be peace because the different denominations of Islam (Sunni & Shi'ite) would be killing each other (as in modern day Iraq). --[[User:The Dark Side|The Dark Side]] 00:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::We can also ask ourselves: "If there weren't any humans at all would there be any wars or suffering?" or "If the entire Humanity had only one faith, and belonged to the same race, spoke the same language, etc would they live in peace? Everything has been used to justify war and massacres. Religion race, political inclinations, nationalities. So to make it perfectly clear: ''Even if there weren't any Jews at all in this entire planet we would still have fought each other for diffrent reasons, pretexts, and excuses.'' [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 00:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
And you want proof of a '''whitewash'''? This is the very proof of a whitewash! How very convenient that the JEWS instead of the Romans are responsible for the death of "A man of peace". Too convenient! [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 00:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Of course, you will never convince a Christian that Jesus was a terrorist anymore than you will convince a Muslim that the Prophet Muhammad was a terrorist. In their hearts (by this I meant the heart of the followers), he shall always be "A man of peace". [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 01:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:It isn't a whitewash, it is simple politics. After a few decades the Christians aren't really interrested in converting Jews anymore for the real power is in the hand of the Romans. How do you convince a Roman to listen to your Christian message and to convert to your Christian faith? Do you tell him a story of a criminal who was convicted to die by Roman justice? No, you proclaim that the Poncio Pilate was decived and pressured by the Jews. But none of this whitewashes Jesus in anyway. This does not prove that he was a violent rebel, or that he preached violence. This isn't any proof of what you seek. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 01:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::I don't quite understand where the last points are coming from, or what they are meant to achieve. However, I would ask all editors not to be drawn too far into this debate-the original question gives all the appearance of having been placed by an anti-Semite. It's best treated with condescension and contempt. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 01:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Ignore all trolls. [[User:pschemp|pschemp]] | [[User talk:pschemp|talk]] 02:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::QUOTE How do you convince a Roman to listen to your Christian message and to convert to your Christian faith? Do you tell him a story of a criminal who was convicted to die by Roman justice? No, you proclaim that the Poncio Pilate was decived and pressured by the Jews. UNQUOTE. '''Dude, that's the very definition of a whitewash!''' [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 02:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
'''Whitewash''' is the covering up of an unpleasant TRUTH with a nice sweet noble LIE. [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 02:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:You are simplyfying the whole issue. If you believe in the New Testament Jesus was innocent and the reasons for his trial are purely political and nothing else. If you don't accept the New Testament you can't charge him with anything at all, because you don't have ''any other sources'' who accuse him of anything at all (you can't even prove that he existed or not unless you accept that the New Testament is based upon some Historical person). Therefore you can't simply accuse him of being a violent person.
:And before you repeat that this is somehow proves a Christian whitewash: You have to provide '''proof''' of a whitewash and not simply proclaim there was one. That is the diffrence between the truth (truth which is always ''as far as we know'') and slander (wanton accusation whithout any shred of evidence) and you are defending the second one (at least in my opinion). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 02:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Extra ordinary claims requires extra ordinary proof. Christians make the claim that "Jews are responsible for the death of Christ." so the burden of proof lies on the Christians. We cannot accept that as true merely because Christians proclaimed it so.
:: This is what the Christians claimed to be the TRUTH
::"All the people answered, "Let his blood be on us and on our children!" Matthew 27:11-26
:: So show us the proof. Merely saying it over and over again and again DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE!
:: You see how clever the Christians are! They twist the burden of proof unto the skeptics! Where as they go around making extra ordinary claims as if it is GOD'S OWN TRUTH. Then they demand that the skeptics proof that there is a whitewash. Duh! Hell, if that's the way they want to play the game, I want to be a christian too! [[User:202.168.50.40|202.168.50.40]] 03:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
User blocked for trolling and wasting other editor's time. We've got better things to do. [[User:pschemp|pschemp]] | [[User talk:pschemp|talk]] 04:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
*''' The Reference desk is not a soapbox. If further debate regarding a particular answer is needed, please move the discussion to the appropriate talk page.''' Thanks![[User:Edison|Edison]] 04:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Sadly, that is what it has become, and it has played right into the hands of the individual who placed this question in the first place. I tried to draw attention to the obvious malevolence here, but this has been effectively ignored by the 'Jewish' wind-bag, on the one hand, and the 'Christian' wind-bag on the other, fighting some pointless and perverse war. I thought there were limits to stupidity-clearly not. [[User:White Guard|White Guard]] 05:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::The problem is that (the subject of) religion is highly subjective. People who post questions here wants to know the answer to their question. BUT on such a subjective subject, different religious beliefs have different "truths". Furthermore as there is no objective way of determining the truth, it will quickly degenerate into an ugly soap-box arguement. This is why religion is different from science. [[User:Ohanian|Ohanian]] 07:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Only The Dark Side answered my questions.Others simply accused me of being anti/semite in a real american way of simplefying things.My questions> if there were no Jews,would have there been a WW2 and if there were no Jews,would there been a war in the Middle East...
I did not said that its one way or the other,I just asked the question! If you ask me,I am a Serb,and if there were no Serbs,then Gavrilo Princip wouldnt had killed Franz Ferdinand and WW1 wouldnt even take place.My question was simply,if Jews werent existing,would there be another reason for the wars I mentioned or not... That was all I ment to ask,Im not a antisemite or something,read the question again,just because your an american,that doesnt mean you shouldnt think.And my question was simply @what if@ kind of question,it wasnt an accusation or anything.If thats too delicate to your american midns,then delete the question,I wont mind,it will answer mz question for itself.
:Never mind anything else, study your own history. [[Gavrilo Princip]]'s actions were a pretext, or a last straw, not the ''cause'' of WWI. If the Serbs had never existed, WWI would have been caused by something else. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 12:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
This kind of discussion is exactly why Wikipedia needs better control over who gets to edit articles here. The vast majority of open source projects do not allow any random nutcase to screw up the project. They have designated trusted committers and then people can make suggestions/improvements to the code which can then be committed to the source base. The obvious mistake here is to allow any person to edit the "source" without being sure of what that persons motives for editing in the first place are. The idea that anyone can contribute directly to the article and "be bold" seems very attractive but it is a trap. Just a matter of time before Wikipedia realizes what open source programmers have known for years. Cynical? yes, but true... [[User:MartinDK|MartinDK]] 14:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:I think that's an overreaction. Yes, anons constitute the majority of vandals and unhelpful users/trolls, but generally the damage they do is very minor and easily dealt with (as it was here). Would ridding ourselves of what is really just a minor inconvenience be worth denying the project of all the helpful anon contributions, as well as making Wikipedia seem much less accessible? I think not. -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 22:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Take a good look at the WW2 articles and tell me if you truly feel that anon users contribute to Wikipedia in a constructive way and tell me if you think that requirering people sign up really keeps the white supremacists, neo-nazis and trolls in general from screwing up the project. [[User:MartinDK|MartinDK]] 07:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:: The only real definition of truth is something which is unchanging so if you can think of anything that this applies to then you have God and whatever comes after that is only subjective discussion. All is illusion and mind games from one philosophical point of view.....
== UNO ==
Q:how many countries are the member of UNO and which country recently expelled from the UNO????
:See [[United Nations]] and its related articles. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 06:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== politics in Niger ==
my name is morten marthinsen and i am a student at California state
University, Los Angeles. I am a student in TVF and are doing a documentary on
a person from Niger (Isofou Idrissa). One of the angles i am doing in this
documentary is a political one, and i was wondering if it is possible to get
some video clips or photos of some of the main individuals in Niger politics
today?is there any possible way you can help me with this?Sincerely Morten Marthinsen
::See [[Politics of Niger]] and the associated links off of it. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 06:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:WP has a picture of [[Tandja Mamadou]] on his page, and a different portrait in the [[Niger]] article. Prime Minister [[Hama Amadou]]'s article links to a BBC page showing his image. I suggest looking at the other links from the Niger article, or trying news-sites, such as BBC or [http://allafrica.com/ allafrica.com]. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 06:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Making a [[lasagne]] ==
Hi RD, would [[feta cheese]] or some feta-esque sauce make as a decent cheese in a beef [[lasagne]]. Anyone tried feta lasagne? Thanks. --[[User:Sophiebristow|Sophiebristow]] 08:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Of course the best answer lies in your kitchen. Just try it. Of course the feta won't melt and it will taste different, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I put feta in my spinach curry and it's delicious. Somehting I came up with. Experiment and you may come up with loads of other tasty combinations (and even more horrible ones, but, hey, that's life). [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Feta's really salty in comparison to most cheeses, particularly the [[mozzarella]] and [[ricotta]] commonly associated with lasagna, so you may want to use less feta than other cheeses, and not add any salt to the beef. I think a little bit of feta would be a nice addition to a lasagna (particularly a spinach-heavy vegetarian one), but I'd worry that an all-feta lasagna could be a little much. --[[User:ByeByeBaby|ByeByeBaby]] 15:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== Lamp Post Planet ==
Many years ago i read a book in which the main character somehow ends up on a very small planet, inhabited by one man, and a lamp post, who's lamp the man lit every day. I think the main character commented that this was better than some other planets he had visited, as it at least had some kind of purpose. Does anyone have any idea what ths=is book could be? Thanks in advance --[[User:Fountainmon|Fountainmon]] 10:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Part of the [[Little Prince]] by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 10:54, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== The root cause of Anti-semitism ==
Hey, I was just wondering if there was any catalyst for anti-semitism. Is it because the jews are 'successful', because they [allegedly] killed Jesus. Or is it because they're an easy target who are always forced to take the blame because they are so small a minority they can't defend themselves? Help, I really don't understand it. [[User:Ahadland1234|Ahadland]] 10:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:You might want to check out the articles [[anti-semitism]] and [[History of anti-Semitism]]; there is a lengthly discussion of the causes there. [[User:Batmanand|Batmanand]] | [[User talk:Batmanand|Talk]] 11:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::I'd just like to say that it really warms my heart, Ahadland, when you tell us that you "really don't understand it". If only more people were like you... I tip my hat to you. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 15:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
*Loomis, much as I'm flattered by your statements, I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that because I don't understand anti-semitism there is no reason for it to exist? Or is there something I'm missing? [[User:Ahadland1234|Ahadland]] 16:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::That's a good question. I wouldn't say there's no pathological reason for it to exist, just no reason for good, decent, healthy people to exhibit it. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 03:10, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I just realized that you're the same questioner who mentioned above that s/he ''was'' Jewish. Given the perspective I just realized you were asking from, I'm now feeling that my comments were rather silly. :-) [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 03:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I would call anti-Semitism a special case of [[xenophobia]]. Since Jews were frequently found in small numbers, and dressed differently (orthodox Jews, anyway), this made them an obvious target for [[scapegoat]]ing. A large minority that blends in with the population is harder target. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not sure I entirely agree, Stu. There's an aspect to anti-semitism that seems to rely on rather the opposite. With the obvious exception of Hassidic Jews, as you seem to be referring to, Jews are a rather ''invisible'' minority. To most people who aren't rather attentive to the mild Jewish "lilt" in my speach, with my pale white skin and green eyes, I usually pass for a Gentile. I believe that the fact that we come in almost all colours, shapes and sizes leads to that ''other'' type of racism, that being the fear of some sort of "hidden" society with sinister motives. After all, no one ever speaks of a global "Black" conspiracy or a global "Asian" consipracy. But your explanation has its merit too. [[User:Loomis51|Loomis]] 03:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I read a persuasive book (irritatingly, I've forgotten its name) some years back that systematically demolished all of the standard answers to this question, by showing societies where the Jews have exhibited the opposite of the stereotypical circumstances/traits, yet still been persecuted, i.e. Jews have been persecuted in societies where they were poor, powerless, the majority, integrated/assimilated, thorougly irreligious and, finally, surrounded by people who would be quite unbothered if Jesus had actually been stoned by the [[Sanhedrin]]. The author's conclusion was that misunderstanding of the concept of the "[[Chosen people]]" was the root problem, which then attracts false justification, xenophobia and racism as its bedfellows. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 15:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Two other examples of such diaspora are Gypsies and Chinese. Gypsies occupy the other end financially, but despite the fact that they try to entertain people and in the process adopt some of the local culture (especially the music), they possibly get harrassed even more (which is often ignored, which makes it even worse). The Chinese diaspora is a bit like the Jews in that they are also often very succesfull and stick to their own culture. Actually, they adapt even less. Yet, people don't seem to mind them quite as much as Jews and Gypsies. They've seen some xenophobia, but not quite to the same extent, I believe. So being successfull and not adapting are not the decisive factors it seems. i must admit that this haas puzzled me for some time and I don't see an answer to this. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 19:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::That's because you are unaware that in some Asian countries Chinese are targeted for their wealth by the crazy mob, as the [[Jakarta Riots of May 1998]] showed. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 00:15, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I think the book Dweller mentions is ''Why the Jews?'' by [[Dennis Prager]] and [[Joseph Telushkin]]. There have actually been several different types of anti-Semitism, all with a different motive. Ancient Greek anti-Semitism was about power struggles in the Roman Empire; traditional European anti-Semitism was about religion; Nazi anti-Semitism was a twisted offshoot of 19th-century nationalism and pseudoscientific racism; contemporary Muslim anti-Semitism stems from [[irridentism]]. But each has built on what's come before. Both the Nazis and today's Jew-haters in the Muslim world use ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'', which was originally a work of czarist Russian Orthodox anti-Semitism. It's a lot easier to be a racist when someone's already written the literature for you. -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] 02:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::: There's also the [[Dönme]] or Sabbateans in Turkey, a historic Jewish/Islamic sect. They seem to have increasingly been turned into a brand new kind of anti-semitic conpsiracy theory - not only are Jews running secretly running things, but Jews posing as Muslims. Which is convenient if you can't find any real Jews (or even real Dönmne) to blame things on. And Stalin managed to reinvent Russian anti-semitism in a new form where Jews were to be persecuted as "Cosmopolitans" of questionably loyalty to Russia. (Particularily ironic given that Marx was jewish and for all intents and purposes a "cosmopolitan" as well). --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 03:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Famarande, I am totally aware of that. I'm Dutch, so Indonesia is part of my national history and I visited (and therefore studied) the country. It happened before, during the independence struggle, because the Chinese were seen as collaborators. But in Europe, afaik, no serious prosecution of Chinese has ever taken place. What's more, people don't see them in a particularly bad light. So what's the difference between Jews and Chinese, given the fact that the reasons often given for prosecuting the Jews also apply to the Chinese? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::::There weren't any Chinese in Europe during the Middle Ages, they came quite recently (it sounds obvious but remember that most of the Anti-Jewish bullshit comes from that age). They didn't lend money, therefore avoiding a reputation of "miserly bankers" like the Jews (and bankers are always despised), something which made the Jews an easy target. Radical mediaveal preachers didn't use Chinese as scape-goats as there weren't any around. They were lucky to appear in Europe in a relativly civilized age in which there was allready a established scape-goat, namely the Jews. And by the way the Chinese were severly harrased and prosecuted, just not in Europe (there were certainly some ocasions) but in the West Coast of the USA. You have to read [[Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)]], [[Chinese Massacre of 1871]] and [[Yellow Peril]] and search for other similar articles. And don't forget European colonialism in China (with all the resulting massacres). [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 12:09, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Pictures of women ==
I'm going to be writing something and one of the characters will be a woman ~22 y.o. She won't be the stereotypical beauty queen, still beautiful, but not stereotypical skinny to "average" weight chick. I'm thinking of someone who may be described as "Rubenesque". Big breasts, big hips, but not really "fat". Though because of pop culture's pervasiveness, I'm having a hard time thinking of any famous examples that I can use as examples both to help me write about the person (I think having a few pictures in my head would help) as well as describing the character to my audience. So, can anyone provide me with some examples? Links to pictures would be great if they may be hard to find by my own with Google's help. And if their physical measurements are known, that would be a plus as well. Thanks!! [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 12:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:What a pleasant task! Have a look at [[plus-size model]] and [[:Category:Plus-size models]]. The first name that came to my mind when I read your question was [[Sophie Dahl]]. --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 12:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::There is also [[Mae West]]. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 12:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Click on the external link [[Miroslava Vavrinec|here]], it might help. | [[User:AndonicO|AndonicO]] 13:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::[[Mata Hari]]? --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 13:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::For comics, you could check out [[Jaime Hernandez]]' comics about [http://homepage.mac.com/evilsickboy//love/misc/jaime2.jpg Maggie Chascarillo] (Had a hard time finding good images, and also [[Robert Crumb]]'s stuff, (although some people are put off by certain sexual sadistic tendencies of his). [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 13:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::I'd say Crumb was more of a misogynist than a sadist, myself. --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 14:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::[[Ethel Merman]], [[Sophie Tucker]] and [[Hattie McDaniel]] come to mind. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 14:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::[[Theda Bara]] comes to mind.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 15:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
A couple of contemporary pop stars - [[Kelly Osbourne]] and [[Charlotte Church]] - a former child star who put on some weight recently and took a lot of crap from the media about it. Maybe also [[Kate Winslet]] circa ''Titanic''? --[[User:The Famous Movie Director|Grace]] 01:55, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::::Back to the classics: [[Lillian Russell]], [[Calamity Jane]], [[Marjorie Main]] see [www.geocities.com/ellen_poulsen/Marjorie],[[Margaret Dumont]] at [http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://users.pandora.be/mx/bscapds2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://users.pandora.be/mx/review5.htm&h=200&w=267&sz=13&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=bmQ3znzqUsp0iM:&tbnh=85&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMargaret%2BDumont%26start%3D18%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN], and [[Shirley Booth]] at [http://www.stinalisa.com/shirleybooth.jpg].[[User:Edison|Edison]] 04:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you all!! I really appreciate it! If anyone happens to think of any more, I'd like to read more names but this should give me a good starting place. [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 07:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== You may help answer this ==
I want to know if my perception of a change in advertising over the last 40 years is correct. In 1966, a magazine or TV ad for an anti-itch medicine would probably say, in big bold letters: "Stops the itch!" Today the ad would say something like: "Some studies tend to suggest that this product may, in some people, temporarily help to reduce minor and transitory itching." Is this change the result of excessive litigation? What especially bugs me is that no product today is advertised as actually doing or curing anything. Every product only "helps" toward a goal. For example, a cough medicine "helps to reduce coughs." So what is the afflicted person to do? Take the medicine, but also drink hot tea and consult a specialist? Is the "helps" qualifier used to fend off the lawyers? [[User:66.213.33.2|66.213.33.2]] 18:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I havent got an answer to your question but i agree that adverts now are Sh*t
:I agree that there's been such a change, but I think it's good. It was really false advertising before, when they kept claiming they could do things they couldn't really do. For example, wrinkle creams use to claim they "eliminated wrinkles", when they don't, they just fill the wrinkles in with grease. They now tell the truth and say "may help to temporarily reduce the appearance of wrinkles". [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::The article on [[tobacco packaging warning signs]] shows a more absolute language, depending on which country you live in.---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 21:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Now they sell a homeopathic remedy consisting of, basically, water, and make no claims of medical effectiveness at all, just by saying '''"HEAD ON!APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD! HEAD ON!APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD! HEAD ON!APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD! HEAD ON!APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!"''' And apparently they sell lots of it.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 04:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::And we, sadly, [[HeadOn|can't stop writing about it]]. --[[User:Aaron|Aaron]] 04:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Europe ==
How come on this map: ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/WTOmap_currentstatus.png ) of WTO members does it appear to say that [[French Guiana]], which is in South America, is a European community? --[[User:84.64.46.61|84.64.46.61]] 18:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Err, because it's owned by [[France]] (hence "'''Frence'''" in the name). Therefore it is, along with its "mother" nation, part of the European Communities. -- [[User:Consumed Crustacean|Consumed Crustacean]] ([[User talk:Consumed Crustacean|talk]]) 19:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Yer but just because its owned by France doesnt meen its a European nation....does it? Was Hong Kong a European nation before 1997?
:Well, Hong Kong was a member of the British Commonwealth, but that, or [[French Guiana]] being a member of the EU, don't make them European, no. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:32, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Hong Kong was expected to returned to China, therefore there was no interrest by anyone in making that territory a "part" of the EU. [[User:Flamarande|Flamarande]] 19:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::The [[European Community]] is a treaty organisation, not a geographical label. So French Guiana can be a member, as a dependency of France, without being in [[Europe]] the place. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 20:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Our article makes clear that [[French Guiana]] is not merely 'owned' by France, it is part of France, an overseas [[Département]] in the same way as [[Réunion]]. [[Hong Kong]] was not European, but it wasn't part of the [[United Kingdom]]. French Guiana is just another part of France, in exactly the same way as [[Manche]], or [[Loire]]. If the French capital were located there, you could raise the very interesting question over whether or not France should be considered European, but as the overwhelming majority of the French state, as well as its entire polity, is within [[Europe]], France is considered European. Therefore, even the non-european tentacles are a part of all European things of which France is also a part. --[[User:Mnemeson|Mnem]][[User:Mnemeson/Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User_Talk:Mnemeson|son]] 21:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
* All French overseas ''départements'' are indeed part of the EU (albeit not part of ''Europe''). If you look at the back of a Euro banknote (with the map on it), you'll see French Guiana to the right of the 'O' in 'EURO'. The status varies though: The Dutch "ABC islands" are not part of the EU at all, while the Falkland Islands have a special status, where some EU legislation applies and some does not. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 23:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
** France has always had a policy of making certain of its overseas possessions part of France, a policy not generally followed by other European countries that had imperial ambitions. Spain's territories on the North African coast are part of Spain, but in Northern Europe it is much less common: Denmark formerly had Greenland as part of its territory, but gave it independence some years ago. The Faroe Islands are formally part of Denmark but in practice self-governing. The United Kingdom has the loosest association with its overseas territories - the Isle of Man and Channel Islands are not considered part of the UK, but instead as 'Crown Dependencies' which are not represented in the UK Parliament. [[User:Fys|Fys]]. “[[User:Fys|Ta]] [[Special:Contributions/Fys|fys]] [[User talk:Fys|aym]]”. 15:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Nuclear War ==
What would happen if there was a war on the scale of world war 2, for example, but everyone used nucleur weapons. Wouldnt everything just get destroyed, i meen if a nucleur bom was dropped on say london or paris or berlin thats like 8, 9, 10 million people just dead and a city abolished.--[[User:84.64.46.61|84.64.46.61]] 19:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:[[Mutual assured destruction]], etc. The links in the '''See also''' section in that article might also be of interest to you. -- [[User:Consumed Crustacean|Consumed Crustacean]] ([[User talk:Consumed Crustacean|talk]]) 19:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:I don't know about the different modern nuclear weapons, but greater London is huge conglomerate. I don't think there is a single bomb that would kill everyone. Actually, I wonder if there would be any place on earth where a single bomb could kill a million people. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 20:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Hmm. The [[Trident missile]] has a yield of up to 3.8 Megatons. The [http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Nuke.html Nuclear weapon effects calculator] gives an inner air-blast radius for that yield of 4.3 kilometres. Nearly 100% of people less than that distance from ground zero will be killed in the first few seconds after the blast. 4.3km radius gives an area of approximately 60km<sup>2</sup>. The population density of [[Paris]], for instance, is around [[List of selected cities by population density|25,000]]/km<sup>2</sup>. That gives likely number of immediate deaths = 1,500,000, i.e. one-and-a-half million people. And that’s before we even start counting people killed by building-collapse in the 11.2km radius zone of widespread destruction, or the people who will later die of [[burns]] and [[radiation poisoning]]. So, I’d say that there are many, many places in the world in which a single bomb would kill (many more than) a million people. [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 21:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::And just for interest's sake (and no so much because it's a ''practical'' threat), [[Tsar Bomba]] was at least 50 megatons. Drive one of those up on a truck and, err, yeah. [[User:24.76.102.248|24.76.102.248]] 22:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:Widespread nuclear war would also pose the danger of a [[nuclear winter]]. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::Per TV docudramas, the atomic scientists who developed the WW2 atomic bomb really wanted to drop it on the Germans, who had harmed their relatives, and had severe misgivings about dropping it on the Japanese. The question is, does anyone know if they had developed the atom bomb before Germany surrendered, would the atomic bomb have been dropped it Berlin to basically decapitate the Reich, or would it have been dropped on other cities like the firebombing of Dresden, or on army groups, or what? The U.S. did not wish to decapitate the Japanese Empire, because we needed the Emperor to tell them to lay down their arms. In the Iraq War, repeated attempts were made to bomb Saddam and company, without success, and the army was basically ignored rather than trying to get a formal surrender. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 04:57, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Our article on the [[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] talks a little about the targetting decisions there. It seems to indicate that choosing specific targets was done fairly late in the game.
:::As for what the Allies would have done if they had had the bomb in time to use against Germany, who knows. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 05:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I heard that the allies used the bomb against Japan because they were weak, had no allies, and wanted to make their powerful weapon known to the Russians. It would have been too risky to attempt a bombing in Europe, even against the Germans. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 13:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::The Germans were already defeated when the bomb was ready - the Germans having allies (who were also already defeated) had nothing to do with the bombing decision. Impressing the Russians probably did have something to do with it though. [[User:Rmhermen|Rmhermen]] 17:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::You heard wrong. The casualty estimates for [[Operation Downfall]], the invasion of Japan, were mind-boggling - hundreds of thousands, if not millions for the Americans alone. That's the main reason they were dropped. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 02:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== how do people survive on $1 per day? ==
Many of the world's people live on $1/day or less. $1 is defined as the value of the goods and services consumed if they were purchased in the US. How do people live on this? What would a typical "basket" of goods consist of that would cost $1, and just barely sustain a human life? [[User:The Mad Echidna|The Mad Echidna]] 20:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:See, for example, the [[Consumer price index]]. Costs of living differ markedly around the world. Yes, $1 a day is bad. But it is livable on, at least in some parts of the world (for the simple reason that there are more people living on it than there are starving). [[User:Batmanand|Batmanand]] | [[User talk:Batmanand|Talk]] 21:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::Sorry, Batmanand, you've misunderstood. The [[World Bank]]'s one-dollar-a-day poverty measure isn't a literal dollar, it's the amount that a dollar would have bought in the US in 1993. So, the questioner's implication is right: living at this level is appalling, barely sustainable poverty. See further [[Poverty]] and [[Global justice]]. Cheers, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 21:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Ah OK fair enough. Didn't realise that... So I suppose my question still stands: how come there are so many more people living on <$1 a day than there are starving? [[User:Batmanand|Batmanand]] | [[User talk:Batmanand|Talk]] 21:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Because rice and corn mush are cheap. The problem the poorest peole have is paying for some kind of fuel to cook it. -[[User:THB|THB]] 22:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Here are some reasons:
*Food and other basic items are much cheaper when purchased in those countries, directly from the producer, than they are in the US after going through a chain of distributors, wholesalers and retailers.
*Much of the economy of many of those countries is based on barter, so nobody needs any cash.
*People in those countries largely produce their own food and other basic equipment. This used to be the case in the US, as well. For example, reading the [[Little House]] books by [[Laura Ingalls Wilder]], you will note that they made most of their own clothes, grew their own food, and built their own house. Anything "store bought" was a real luxury. So, if you rarely buy things from stores, you don't need much money.
[[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, this should answer all your questions: [http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0706/p01s05-woaf.html What it's like to live on $1 a day] -[[User:THB|THB]] 23:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I ate for $1 per day in 1972. Buy basic groceries, cook them. Very little meat. Add the cost of living adjustment and that would be about $4.56 in 2005 per http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi and did not include shelter, clothes, transportation, medical, entertainment, etc. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 05:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:To put what StuRat said differently, one way to appear rich is to put a price tag on everything, which is done in the West. If the land the Dayak in Borneo live on would be regarded as theirs and priced, they would be rich. Same for the houses they build and basically anything they do. Humans got by quite well on absolutely no money at all for most their existence and many people have only barely started making the transition to a money economy (in stead of just remembering what you owe people and what they owe you). [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
The poverty of people under the $1/day limit does not have anything to do with how much cash they have available. It consists in the fact that many of their most basic needs - for nutritious food, safe drinking water, shelter, medical help - are not being met. They therefore have an average life-expectancy around half that in the 'developed west': see for instance [[Malawi]], [http://www.os-connect.com/pop/p1.asp?whichpage=7&pagesize=20&sort=Country here]. A measure of this fact about resources is useful for comparative purposes, even though price is obviously not a measure of all value. Nostalgia about pre-money economies and ''Little House on the Prarie'' is not really to the point. The global poor are not, for the most part, living a happy existence as noble savages. They are dying in their millions of starvation and easily preventable disease. Yours, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 13:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:I disagree. Life expectancy was also much lower 100-200 years ago in the ''now'' developed world, for many of the same reasons. It's comparing the developed world to the undeveloped world that's not helpful, as it's a case of apples and oranges. The only way to have a world where everyone lives in a 2000 square foot house, and has two cars, is to kill off most of the world's population, as there simply aren't the natural resources on the planet to support the entire population in such a manner. Birth control and sterilization for the developing world may help to control the population in some areas, and allow for the meager resources in such places to be distributed among fewer people (so that each gets more). [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Seconded, Sam. The way people live on $1 per day is:
#Do almost nothing except work and eat.
#Eat a minimal amount of food - an amount that would be considered unacceptably low in the West.
And not all those people are farmers. [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 17:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Sure, people in poor countries are poor by western standards, and more often underfed, but it's not like it's all misery. They actually tend to appear happier than mot westerners. Of course that is more to do with social contact, but to get to the point I wnated to make, one doesn't have to have the material wealth westerners are used to to be happy. As long as the basics are covered (water, food, shelter from the elements and social contact), there's nothing but your own mind to stop you from being happy. Of course that doesn't mean they don't deserve a larger slice of the pie. Oh, and apropos 'shelter form the elements', a large part of a western wage is spent on housing and heating. Most poor countries are in the tropics, where there is less or no need for that. Actually, I once wondered if the cold in Europe (last ice age) forced us to work so hard to survive we didn't know when to stop and overshot the target. Just a consideration, fwiw. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 19:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::Happiness is how well you do in relation to your expectations. In poor countries, the expectations are low, so getting a pair of shoes is a source of pride and celebration far beyond what it is in the West. The same was true in the West a few centuries ago. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Comparisons between wealth and poverty are not 'a case of apples and oranges'; they are comparisons between human beings, some of whom are very poor, and others of whom could help them. StuRat's background assumption seems to be that the rich have nothing to do with those poor people or their situation (I'm guessing that on the basis of his/her remark about 'meagre resources in such places', as though that were the cause of poverty). But this assumption is false: rich and poor are part of a global system which distributes resources and opportunities unequally, and in my view [[Global justice|unjustly]]. And the claim that poor people 'actually tend to appear happier than most westerners' is sheer romantic nonsense. Yours, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 07:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:No, it's based on personal experience. I have travelled through third world countries for a total of about two years. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 09:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::The remark at the end of my last post was unnecessary, and I apologise. I restate my position more calmly below. [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 09:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Another way to look at it is how populations are controlled. There are really only two ways to limit population growth, reduced birth rate, due to birth control, or increased death rates, due to starvation, disease, war, etc. If a population fails to control population the first way, it is doomed to suffer from the second method. No country can support an infinite population, so it WILL be limited in some way. The populations of developing nations simply increase uncontrolled until they hit the limit that country can support. Note that those limits fluctuate quite a bit, due to drought, etc., so you may see a large death toll in certain years and very little in other years. If, however, those countries would limit their population (via birth control) to the lower level, which can be supported even during drought, then they wouldn't have this regular problem every time the rains don't come. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm going to have another go at this. 1,200 million people live on less per day than what $1 would have bought in the US in 1993. Largely as a result of that extreme poverty, 18 million of them die prematurely every year: that's one-third of all human deaths, 50,000 every day, of whom 34,000 are children under the age of five. (Thomas Pogge, ''World Poverty and Human Rights'' (Polity, 2002), p. 2.) DirkvdM and StuRat appear to be claiming that life for these people is not so bad. Worse, StuRat is claiming that we - the wealthy - have no responsibilities to the poor. What would we think of the person who noticed a child drowning in a shallow pond, but walked on past instead of helping? What, therefore, should we think of the person who knows the facts I've just described, but doesn't do anything about them? Yours, [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 09:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::I would like to help the world's poor. Unfortunately, if you just do things to increase the food supply to feed the current population, we will soon have 10X the population, and thus 10X the problem we have now. Unfortunately, the two things that are really needed to help the poor are considered thoroughly unacceptable:
::*Overthrow dictators who steal/destroy their wealth, like [[Robert Mugabe]], and install a government that looks after their interests.
::*Reduce populations to a stable level that can be supported, using methods similar to those used during China's [[One child policy]]. Notice that some of those methods are quite onerous. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 12:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:Sure, population growth is a problem, but who is suggesting just increasing the food supply? I would argue for using our vast resources to provide for the basic needs of the poor, which include but are certainly not limited to food: importantly, they also include education, especially for women, which is one major way of decreasing the birth rate.[http://www.ungei.org/] But this isn't what we were discussing. I've argued: 1. that the state of the global poor is disastrous, and a result of a global system which we help to sustain; and 2. that there is a moral requirement on the rich to do something about this disaster, because we can and because we are implicated in it. You've disagreed with 1 and implied that you disagree with 2. Are you now withdrawing these claims, or have I misunderstood you? [[User:Sam Clark|Sam Clark]] 13:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Reiher pass ==
Hi, I was reading of the Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Nice article, I was there as a teen. Before Japan occupied the Marshalls the Germans did. At Mili Atoll is a pass called "Reihers Pass". I am doing reserch on the origin of that name "Reihers Pass". If you have any info. or leads would be greatly appreciated.
Yours truely
Henry Reiher
:As you might well be aware of, "Reiher" is German for [[heron]]. A number of herons (including [[egrets]]) live on reefs and atolls, there's also [[Heron Island]] in the Southwest Pacific. It could conceivably be named after a person named Reiher too, but I found no evidence for this. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 21:32, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
: Well, these islands and most of that area of the Pacific, were formerly a German colony, forming part of [[German New Guinea]]. So there's no big surprize that there are German names around there. Some still have German names (E.g. the Bismarck Archipelago). Sluzzelin's explanation seems reasonable. Unless there was some reason to believe otherwise, I'd first assume it was named after the bird. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 23:12, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
== [[William Henry Harrison]]'s Political Ideas... ==
Does anyone know what he was going to do in office if he didn't die so early? Or did he already do something? -[[User:MF14|MF14]]
This is from the article about him:
:The untimely death of Harrison was a disappointment to [[Whig Party (United States)|Whigs]], who hoped to pass a revenue tariff and enact measures to support [[Henry Clay|Henry Clay's]] [[American System (economic plan)|American System]]. [[John Tyler]], Harrison's successor, crushed the Whig agenda, leaving himself without a party.
-[[User:THB|THB]] 22:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
John Stewart on The Daily Show this evening told his first William Henry Harrison joke in the 10 years of the show (the only President not mentioned): "Why did William Henry Harrison wear a Marie Antoinette headpiece to the political convention that nominated him? Because he thought it was the '''WIG''' party nominating him.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 05:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Actually, it was [[Zachary Taylor]] who hadn't been mentioned. But the WIG joke works equally well. --[[User:ByeByeBaby|ByeByeBaby]] 14:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Alright thanks for the info. It was helpful. -[[User:MF14|MF14]]
==[[Seungman Rhee]]==
Seek info about Sigmund Rhee before President of Korea. Believe he was sponsored and supported by an American family living in Hawaii.
# = – — … ° ≈ ≠ ± − × ÷ ← → & warren avenson:[[User:24.18.55.149|24.18.55.149]] 23:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Try the spelling in the title and [http://www.kimsoft.com/2000/rhee.htm here]. -[[User:THB|THB]] 23:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
:The president of South Korea was Jewish? Oy veh! [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 04:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 18=
== Money Terms ==
How much is the Canadian Dollar to Dirham in the United Arab Emirates? Can someone please let me know. Thank-You.[[User:Jk31213|Jk31213]] 00:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:1 [[Canadian Dollar|CAD]] = 3.22982 [[United Arab Emirates dirham|AED]], and 1 AED = 0.30985 CAD, according to [http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic Oanda's converter] per Wednesday, October 18, 2006. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 00:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::For future reference, you can also Google this: [http://www.google.com/search?q=1+cad+in+aed by typing "1 CAD in AED"] in the Google search box. Even cooler, when you don't know the abbreviation, you can Google for [http://www.google.com/search?q=1+canadian+money+in+united+arab+emirates+money "1 Canadian money in United Arab Emirates money"] and get the result. (You can replace the 1 with any amount you want, including the [http://www.google.com/search?q=0.98+US+dollars+per+gallon+in+swedish+money+per+litre results of other calculations or conversions]). --[[User:ByeByeBaby|ByeByeBaby]] 14:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Evaluating a legal career==
where can i look for info on lawyer and how much u make and how many years it takes to become a lawyer
:The details of the job and the required training vary from country to country. You can find more information at the Wikipedia article [[lawyer]]. If you are in the United States, [http://www.salary.com/ Salary.com] has typical salaries. Note that legal work generally involves a lot of writing. You may need to pay more attention to grammar and punctuation. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
See [[Legal education]]. In the U.S. you need an undergraduate degree (B.S., or B.A.) and a good score on the [[LSAT]] ([[Law School]] Admission Test. Then you apply to law schools. If your spelling and grammar improve enough, you get admitted to law school and study hard for 3 years, with lots of classes using the [[Socratic method]]. You learn about [[Contracts]], torts, civil and criminal and constitutional law, tax law, legal writing, and many other interesting courses. You may take a job with a law firm as an intern after your second year and get paid to do little legal tasks. In your senior year, you do lots of interviews with law firms. If you get a job, and that is difficult because there are more law graduates than there are good jobs, then you go to work in the area which interests you: business law, patent law, tax law, criminal law, bankruptcy, etc. You are expected to work all the time and have very high billable hours, in a several-year effort to become a partner. If you don't make partner, you might be kept as a hired hand "associate" or you might be asked to leave. If you become a partner, then you may get "points" which are a portion of the money made by the associates. You might go into politics or become a judge. A "rainmaker" is someone like a former Senator or Governor, who brings in high paying clients rather than doing lots of work. They make very big bucks. Sometimes lawyers over age 70 are forced to retire and become "of counsel." The pay can be very high - hundreds of thousands of dollars for senior partners in big firms- or comfortable- $50,000 to $100,000, for prosecutors, lawyers in small firms or private practice or associates. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 05:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== "B" ==
Hi,
Just wondering if someone might please be able to help me decipher a legal abbreviation. I can't seem to find it anywhere.
I'm reading ancient English cases, and the judges' titles are not annotated "LJ" "J" or "P" like im used to.
I've found Martin, B ; Channel, B and Bramwell, B. I think the "B" stands for Baron - but I was hoping somebody could perhaps clarify this?
Maybe this could be added to the common meanings of "B" page.
Thanks kindly,
Suzanne
*How ancient? Are we talking 19th century, so it would be [[Baron Bramwell]]? Or older than that? (Reminds me of the adage, "In America, 100 years is a long time. In Britain, 100 miles is a long way.")--[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 01:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
* Yes, it's "Baron" as in "Baron of the [[Court of Exchequer]]". But not Baron as in the peerage. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 02:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== So "snuck" is a word now? ==
Why, dear god, why!?
[[User:71.107.40.149|71.107.40.149]] 01:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:I suppose it snuck by and has become standard usage now.---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 01:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Per [http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19981221] it arose in the USA in the 19th century, and is regarded as uneducated lower class speech. Few other words have such a sound pattern in their conjugation as "I sneak in," "I snuck in yesterday," "I have snuck in many times." Standard English is "I sneak in," "I sneaked in yesterday," "I have sneaked in many times before." [[User:Edison|Edison]] 05:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:If you read your link all the way through you see it snuck is standard American English - not "uneducated lower class speech". [[User:Rmhermen|Rmhermen]] 06:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::It also says "snuck" is still considered humorous and nonstandard British English. Any comments from the rest of the English speaking world? The only people I would expect to say "He snuck in late" I would also expect to say "He clumb in the window."[[User:Edison|Edison]] 21:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Why? sing - sung, sneak - snuck, ran - run. "Sneaked" sounds forced and jarring to me. Like saying "He flied across the ocean, but sneaked across the border." YMMV, though. [[User:Matt Deres|Matt Deres]] 01:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::Are you suggesting there is a difference? :) [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Why not? --[[User:Ptcamn|Ptcamn]] 12:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Zaidis ==
Where are the Shi'a sect, Zaidi, found?
:In Yemen (plus Zaidi Wasitis in Pakistan, India, and Iraq) according to the article on [[Zaidi]].---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 03:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
==Singing Frere Jacques==
Does anyone ever sing this as a round with 8 parts?--[[User:Filll|Filll]] 05:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:''Anyone ... ever?'' Well, probably. However, it is difficult enough to distinguish all the voices in 4-part, so 8-part would give a rather muddled effect. It wouldn't be worth doing. [[User:B00P|B00P]] 05:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::<s>The [[dominant seventh]] would clash with the [[tonic (music)|tonic]] chord on the offbeats. It wouldn't just sound muddled, it would sound dissonant.</s> ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 06:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::Oops, sorry, that would be a 16-part round. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 06:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:It would take some more coordination, but it would sound exactly the same because every fourth part consists of two identical phrases.
aabbccdd
aabbccdd
aabbccdd
aabbccdd
aabbccdd
aabbccdd
aabbccdd
aabbccdd
:In the middle section, still only four parts are sung at the same time. The people who sing them are just divided differently. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 08:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Auction Date ==
Where in a legal document would a lawyer record the date of an auction? [[User:PerfectStorm|P]]<font color="green">[[User:PerfectStorm/Esperanza|e]]</font>[[User:PerfectStorm|rfectStorm]] <sup> <font color="darkblue">[[User talk:PerfectStorm|''(Hello! Hallo! Bonjour! Holla!)'']]</font></sup> 09:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Do you have a specific type of legal document in mind? What is wrong with recording it right where it applies, such as "This auction, which took place on '''January 29, 2006''', was attended by my client as well as Messrs. CROOK and FRAUD."? --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 10:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Shiny Shoes ==
Some shoes have a greater propensity towards shinyness than others. What kind of shoe materials produce the maximum shine? Is a shinier shoe something employers look for? --[[User:Username132|Username132]] ([[User talk:Username132|talk]]) 13:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:For a job as a coffin bearer: perhaps. For a job as a DJ, farm hand, construction worker, or life guard: probably not. For most white-collar jobs: Make sure your clothes (and you) are clean, whole, well groomed, not extravagant, etcetera, but do not go completely overboard. If your prospective employers are sorry for not bringing their sunglasses for protection against the blinding shine of your shoes, it might not have the desired effect. --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 13:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Oh, and a [[lacquer]] coating gives a high shine. --[[User:Lambiam|Lambiam]][[User talk:Lambiam|<small><sup>Talk</sup></small>]] 13:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:[[Patent leather]] is the usual shiny shoe material. <small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 13:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Chlorofram (sp?) shoes have a mirror-like shine, but you do not polish them. They just come that way. --[[User:Kainaw|Kainaw]] <small><sup>[[User_talk:Kainaw|(talk)]]</sup></small> 19:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::[[Chloroform]] shoes would be great so people would be anesthetized while I stomped and kicked them. I had a pair of '''[[Corfam]]''' shoes decades ago. They never got broken in, so I had to wrap gauze around my toes to prevent blisters from the rubbing any time I wore them. But they did shine! They stopped making them in 1971. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 21:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::[[Cordovan]] leather isn't as shiny as patent leather, but it is significantly shinier than regular leather. (At least that's what [[Mr. Ed]] told me.) -[[User:THB|THB]] 02:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Buddhism and War ==
In many wars in mankind's history, religion was used or abused to justify its cause. Even though most followers of, say, the Christian religion and Islam emphasize the imperative of peace in their faith, one cannot deny that appealing to the religious feelings of the masses have helped many leaders convince people to go for war. What I mean is that one may doubt that e.g. the organizers of the crusades really believed that freeing Jerusalem is their God's wish but the majority of soldiers participating in the crusades certainly did. Now, Buddhists like to praise the fact that the Buddha's teaching on peace is so clear that it is much harder to manipulate Buddhists's religious feelings into supporting a war, and in fact, it is often claimed, that no major war has ever been justified as being necessary to fulfil commands of the Buddhist faith. Is my inclination to believe this due to the fact that there is truth to it or just due to my European lack of knowledge about Asian history? [[User:Sanders muc|Simon A.]] 14:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
*Dunno about "commands of the faith". But take a look at [http://www.darkzen.com/Articles/zenholy.htm] for the relationship between Japanese militarism and Zen. [[D. T. Suzuki]], for example, wrote "religion should, first of all, seek to preserve the existence of the state". --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 15:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::I would like to add that there were no ''holy wars'' among any of the Dharmic religions.--[[User:Nidhishsinghal|nids]][[User_talk:Nidhishsinghal|(♂)]] 15:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::There's a quote from Bertrand Russell--I'd look it up, but I'm at work--where he says that of all the major religions, Buddhism is his favorite because it has caused the least amount of human suffering through wars. (That's probably not it exactly.) Japan's state religion at the time of the Second World War was [[Shintoism]]; that article has a section emphasizing its difference from Buddhism. [[User:Antandrus|Antandrus ]] [[User_talk:Antandrus|(talk)]] 15:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::::True, but read the article I pointed to. --[[User:Jpgordon|jpgordon]]<sup><small>[[User talk:Jpgordon|∇∆∇∆]]</small></sup> 19:53, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::I did; thanks. It was disturbing as hell. I suspect that no religion is immune from its followers distorting its scriptures to meanings opposite those originally intended, when their minds are sufficiently contaminated with hatred. [[Jonathan Swift]] has some good things to say on this matter. [[User:Antandrus|Antandrus ]] [[User_talk:Antandrus|(talk)]] 00:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
: jpgordon: Thanks for the link, a very interesting read. I would habe said that the problem of the monotheistic relgions is that thay assign absolute authority to their one god and so give a charismatic priest the opportunity to present his wishes as divine command. It seems that one can do the same without even having a god, if only people believe enough in the unquestionable authority of their teachers/priests/leaders. But still, Dharmic regligions seem to be at least way more immune, if Japan's "Black Zen" are the only case. This brings me to a follow-up question: Can anybody tell me whether Buddhism plays a significant role in the current conflicts in [[Sri Lanka]]? [[User:Sanders muc|Simon A.]] 21:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:: Yes, it does. The Tamil minority isn't Buddhist and there's a strong Sinhalese-Buddhist-nationalist movement. While Buddhism does condemn war, it also condemns caste systems. And both Japan and Sri Lanka have had caste systems. So I wouldn't say buddhists seem any less prone to religious hypocrisy than the rest. Nor would I say that buddhist societies seem any less violent in general; Just look at Cambodia's recent history. But it's true that I don't know any "internal" war in Buddhism, Theravada vs. Mahayana or similar, comparable to the Catholic-Protestant or Sunni-Shia wars. But OTOH, despite the rhetoric, do you think any of the kings involved in the Thirty Years War believed their own rhetoric? I think they all knew quite well it was nothing but a big land-grab under religious pretexts. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 09:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::: Of course, they didn't believ it. The aim of my question rather aimed at which religions install in the masses' minds a good basis to be used for war propaganda. As I stated initially, I do think that most soldiers in the crusade (appart from their supreme commanders) believed in the divine oriogin of the task. For the [[30 years war]], I am less sure. Weren't most of these soldiers [[mercenary|mercenaries]]? But that's leaving the track of the discussion. --- Your mentioning of the [[caste]] system is interesting, I was not aware that they had one in Sri Lanka. And please elaborate on Cambodia. Weren't the Buddhists just victims of the [[Khmer Rouge]] as nearly everybody else? [[User:Sanders muc|Simon A.]] 14:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== shaka ==
[[User:165.146.65.79|165.146.65.79]] 14:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)charlotte
what is some intresting early history of the zulu kingdom
See [[Shaka#Shaka's social and military revolution]] --[[User:Jcw69|Jcw69]] 15:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Ballad of Three Black Crows and a Slain Horse ==
When I was a child (60yrs ago), my English grandfather (born in 1878) used to sing a little ballad about 3 black crows and a dead horse. It went something like :
There were 3 crows upon a tree,
They were as black as crows can be,
( something, something )
Said one crow unto his mate,
It's been ( ??? ) since I have ate.
( something, something )
I know a horse that has been slain,
He lies there still on yonder plain.
( something, something )
We'll perch ourselves on his jawbone
and pick his eyes out one by one.
Can ANYONE identify a tome where a printed version of this song can be found?
:It is probably a variant of [[The Three Ravens]]. [http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/C026.html Here] is a list of variants, some of which include crows. <small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 15:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC) [http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=9564 This] page has lots of different versions take a squiz at "Billy Magee Magar!". <small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 15:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::MeltBanana is absolutely right. It was first printed by [[Thomas Ravenscroft]] in the early 17th century. I know one good modern recording by Custer LaRue and the [[Baltimore Consort]] (let's see if that link turns blue). It's a very famous tune and ballad with many variants. Oh, and for a printed version, get a copy of the Child Ballads. I also have a version in a 1940s ''Fireside Folk Song Book'' that includes music. [[User:Antandrus|Antandrus ]] [[User_talk:Antandrus|(talk)]] 15:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:The wonders of the Internet. [http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/melismata/mel35small.html here's] an image of a page from the 1631 tome with sheet music and the following lyrics (edited for brevity). You may also find useful a [http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/modern/3rav.pdf PDF of the same song, reprinted] and a [http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft/modern/3RAVENS.MID MIDI file] of the melody:
There were three ravens, sat on a tree
They were as black as they might be
The one of them said to his mate
"Where shall we our breakfast take?"
"Down in yonder green field
There lies a knight under his shield.
His hounds, they lie at his feet
So well they can their master keep.
His hawks, they fly so eagerly
There's no fowl dare him come nie.
Down there comes a fallow doe
As great with yound as she might go.
She lifts up his bloody head
And kissed his wounds that were so red
She got him up upon her back
And carried him to earthen lake.
She buried him before the prime
She was dead herself ere even-song time.
God send every gentleman
Such hawks, such hounds and such a Le-man
(transcript ends)
:[[User:Dpotter|dpotter]] 21:46, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Another version, [http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiTHRERAV5;ttTHRERAV5.html recorded here] is even closer to yours:
Three black crows sat on a tree
Ca beelya geelya gaw ye
And they were black as crows could be
Ca beelya geelya gaw ye
One black crow says unto his mate
What shall we do for something to eat?
An old red horse in yonder lane
Who very lately has been slain
We'll pick his eyes out one by one
And pick the meat from off his bones
:This version notes that it was collected by Creighton and Senior from William Nelson, Nova Scotia, 1950
:[[User:Dpotter|dpotter]] 21:52, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::What does "Ca beelya geelya gaw ye" mean? Is it a Celtic language? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 22:49, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Borat ==
Bogdangiusca who is an admin wrote that Borat was not filmed in Kazhakstan but
rather Romania. Just from having seen the previews, I had a strong feeling it
was filmed in Romania, especially because he drives a Dacia. Anyway it just
looked like Romania. I was wondering where in Romania it was filmed? Bucuresti?
Brasov? Somewhere else?
Having spent 2 years in Bistrita and Baicoi, and having been an American actor in a
(small, cut) role, I was curious. Do you know where in Romania it was filmed?
Tony
:IMDB he says [[Moroieni]], Romania <small><font color="#000000">[[User:MeltBanana|MeltBanana]]</font></small> 16:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Number of entrepreneurs per 100 working people ==
I want data regarding how many people are entrepreneurs and how many are non-entrepreneurs/workers in percentage (or per 1000 people or per 10 people) for a few countries. And I would like to know especially for USA and Brazil. I think many tables might be there deep under Internet but I am not able to find them by googling through yahoo search.
Please throw me a few good links if possible. Incase you would tell me the numbers for a few countries, thats also fine.
Thanks
*Try the Global Entreprenuership Monitor's reports. Their main report for 2005 can be found [http://www.gemconsortium.org/category_list.asp?cid=174 here]. There are many data charts in this report. In a quick browse through, the most appropriate table I could find is Table 2 ("Prevalence Rates of Entrepreneurial Activity Across Countries 2005") on page 18 of the report (page 19 of the pdf file). This compares a variety of countries, including the US and Brazil, for different kinds of entreprenurial activity. This is expressed as a series of percentages - I strongly recommend that you read the report's notes on the methodology used so that you feel comfortable with what the percentages mean exactly. Other GEM reports, including some on Brazil specifically, can be found found through [http://www.gemconsortium.org/category_list.asp this page]. Hope that helps. Good luck with your project. [[User:Bwithh|Bwithh]] 21:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Question about the Holocaust ==
Hey everybody, my knowledge of the Holocaust is OK, but there are still a few of its concepts that I don't understand, so I thought I thought I'd annoy you with my questions
1) Why didn't the average guy in the street speak out against the Nazi regime, surely the majority of people would have thought that the persecution '''had''' to stop and would have spoken out against it?
2) Why was Hitler so prejudiced against anybody who didn't conform to aryan standards? Surely if he wanted to purge the world of all non-aryans he would have ended up in a concentration camp himself?
3) Why did the SS carry out the murders? Why were they also so willing to torture victims? Surely some of the moral fibers would have told them that they '''shouldn't''' be doing what they were doing? Because, I mean if enough of them said, excuse my language, "up yours Hitler, we're not killing the Jews" who would have challenged them? Nobody, so I was wondering did they get a kick out of torturing people or something?
4) Lastly, is the question that confuses me the most; Fair enough, the Nazi regime sought to murder people who did not conform to their standards. So, rather than torture prisoners for years, why not just immediately gas them. Did they dehumanize their victims or something so that they would embrace their deaths when they were killed and they would therefore be easier to force into the gas chambers?
I apologise that this is such a loaded question.
[[User:Ahadland1234|Ahadland]] 18:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
18:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not a historian, but as far as I have understood it, Nazi ruled a lot by fear. Political critics were persecuted, oppressed and killed. Also, according to Nazi ideology, jews were a sub-human parasite, which it was morally just to remove from earth. I don't know how widespread the torture was, but jews were used as a cheap labor force (only given enough food to sustain themselves) if they would have been gassed directly, the responsible would have wasted a source of economical saving (needing to pay German workers money that was required for the military industry). Nazism and fascism was extremely dehumanizing. Please fill in and correct mistakes. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 18:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:About speaking out against the nazis, although extremely risky, it ''was'' done. Two examples I can think of is loads of Danes starting to wear david stars when the Jews were forced to and the [[february strike]] in the Netherlands. But then, what good does that do? Saying "You're being very naughty!" Wow, that will have had the nazis trembling. It was really just for morale. What really helped was hiding Jews and other prosecuted people, which a fair amount of very brave people did and going into hiding to escape the [[arbeitseinsatz]], which even more people did (including my father, who, like a lot of other people, lived in the [[Biesbosch]] for some time). [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 19:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
If you study genocide, you will likely come to some disturbing conclusions:
*A much larger percentage of the population than you would think would like to torture and murder people, including children, for fun, if they could be assured that they would get away with it. Perhaps 1% of the population.
*A much larger percentage of the population than you would think would encourage the torture and murder of people, including children, if they would derive some advantage from it, like power or money. Perhaps 10% of the population.
*A much larger percentage of the population than you would think would go along with the torture and murder of people, including children, if there was some negative consequence to them for speaking out against it. Perhaps 80% of the population.
*The small number of people left who are willing to speak out are insufficient to change things.
[[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 19:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::Here are answers to each of your questions:
::1. People were afraid. Many were also in denial about the extent of persecution, especially since it did not touch most families directly. People were not well organized, outside of the Nazi Party, because the Nazi Party had outlawed and repressed oppositional organizations. Individuals were afraid to stand up to the Nazis. They feared that they would be dragged off to concentration camps, too, if they spoke up. Finally, there was some degree of support for Nazi policies because some percentage of the German population shared Nazi views.
::2. I can't really answer this. It requires getting inside the head of Adolf Hitler. His ideas were not entirely consistent. He and his regime were particularly hostile to certain social categories in varying degrees. Their most intense hatred was directed toward Jews, and this grew out of historical German and European [[anti-semitism]].
::3. Some members of the SS probably did have sadistic tendencies and took pleasure in their horrific activities. Also, the fear factor operated in the SS as well. Many of the leadership believed in the principles behind the "final solution," and any rank-and-file who disagreed would have been afraid to speak up for fear that they would be the recipients of SS maltreatment, with which they were themselves all familiar.
::4. Wakuran is correct that the Germans faced a labor shortage and wanted to make use of the labor of able-bodied prisoners before dispensing with them. Also the [[Final Solution]], or the genocide policy, was not adopted until 1942. Before that date, Jews were mostly herded into ghettos, though hundreds of thousands had been killed by death squads or in mass pogroms. From the time they came into power, doctrinaire Nazis did view Jews as subhuman and as somehow guilty for Germany's international "humiliation" after World War I. When social norms encourage brutal treatment of a stigmatized class, the class often suffers greatly, and this is what happened to Jews under Nazi rule before 1942.
::[[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 19:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::(After edit conflict:) I also agree with everything StuRat says, though of course we aren't certain about the percentages in each category. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]]
:::You had an edit conflict with yourself? [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 09:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
: It's hard to answer these questions in a few paragraphs. People have written whole books about it. One book that I found very interesting is ''[[Eichmann in Jerusalem]]'' by [[Hannah Arendt]]. Contrary to what the title may make you think, Arendt talks not only about [[Adolf Eichmann]] and his trial, but explains a lot about the circumstances, focusing very much on the questions you ask. If you are interested in the matter you may find the book a most intriguing read. [[User:Sanders muc|Simon A.]] 21:34, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
::The Jews shipped to the camps were inspected on arrival and those judged unfit for hard labor were often gassed immediately. The fit ones were often sent to labor camps to build things needed for the war or for needs of the public. They were fed a starvation diet so they got thin and weak and eventually died. They were thus effectively forced to live off their own body fat and tissues, and did not consume as much agricultural product as a normal hired laborer would require. In addition there was torture because of...sadism? evil? government policy? to prevent any hope and discourage escape attempts via severe reprisals? to encourage the others to work harder?[[User:Edison|Edison]] 22:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:I recommend reading [[Christopher Browning]]'s ''Ordinary Men'', which is a wonderfully clear exposition on how the Germans organized their killing machine which seems to be your #3 question. Most of your questions seem to stem from a lack of consideration of how humans work in groups — human history is nothing if not dominated by the way a few people with weapons can dominate huge groups of those without them. --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 01:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
* 1) Speaking out would quickly land you in prison, at best. What are you going to do? A) "Take arms against a sea of troubles" so to speak, and risk being killed or ending up in a camp yourself. or B) Decide to believe what the regime is telling you, that the camps aren't so bad after all, and everyone is better off this way? Sorry, but people are always better at self-deception than moral integrity. 2) Emotions aren't rational. There's no use discussing it, really. (But there's no reason to make Hitler out to be more extreme than he was.) 3) With the exception of the psychopaths, the SS needed to be trained to murder people. It's not only possible to condition people to do that, by dehumanizing their victims. Indeed, it's entirely necessary to do so and it's happened in every genocide before and since. The Holocaust was not a singular event perpetrated by a singular kind of people. As much as we'd like otherwise, it's human behaviour. That does not mean it can't be stopped. But it means we need to recognize the fact that it could happen to us, too. And that if we fail to do so, we've taken the first step towards repeating that mistake, and missed the valuable lesson history has for us here. I suggest reading about the [[Milgram experiment]], for instance. 4) Most victims of the Holocaust ''were'' killed immediately (gas or bullet), a large proportion of them were not killed in the camps. As for the rest, they were used for labour, with many being worked to death. Relatively few were subject to the infamous torture and experiments. I think part of this confusion is due to Auschwitz - that was where the torture went on, and it was also a combined labor and death camp. The rest were either extermination camps (where people were executed immediagely) or labor camps. A large number of victims - maybe up to half, even - were not killed in the camps at all. --[[User:BluePlatypus|BluePlatypus]] 08:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:I agree with just about everything that has been said so far, which is rather striking given the subject. But if there is such good insight in that part of history, then why do so few people realise that we've started to repeat that history? Then, it was the Jews, now it's the terrorists, an ideal target. You can't pinpoint them, yet they are still very tangible through occasional bombings that get blown up by the media (excuse the pun). And, oh horror, you can't pinpoint them, but still they are all around. So people are all too willing to give up the rights of terrorists, unawares that, given the fact that terrorists are such a vaguely defined group, anyone can be branded a terrorist, including themselves. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 09:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::I think you fairly miss the point of a distinction between "Jews" and "terrorists". The former is a category of people based on nothing other than their culture and their birth. The latter is a category relating to decisions made by people in respect to their conduct towards others — in a strict sense a terrorist is someone who would use threats of violence or violence itself to achieve political or cultural ends. It is not a "vaguely defined group" at all, in principle. Obviously in practice the term gets thrown around fairly liberally by scaremongers, and the question of ''who'' is a terrorist becomes a major legal issue, but whereas people who are legitimately Jews have no actual strikes against them, the people who are legitimately terrorists have made conscious decisions to do harm to others. That's a big difference. And there was really no great difficulty for Hitler and the Nazis to find and eliminate and even define what "Jews" were, not in the same way that "terrorism" can be hard to pinpoint. The Nazis knew who they wanted to kill and this is why they were so efficient at it in comparison to the "war on terror". I think the comparisons are bad and actually fairly offensive, and I say this as someone who does ''not'' support the "war on terror" as it is outlined by Republican ideologues in the slightest. --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 20:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
* By torture I was referring to the events prior to the '''Final Solution'''. Events such as forcing Jews to scrub the streets with acid, or forcing women into brothels, or making the Jews go into a park and force them to eat grass and climb trees behaving like birds. The question was referring to why '''these''' acts of cruelty were carried out. I was not referring explicitly to the cruelty in the concentration camps. Thanks
:Another point is that people back then were often indoctrinated from infancy to believe that the absolutely positively worst thing you could ever do was to question authority, even a tiny bit. Worse than murder, worse than baby rape, worse than torture. If an authority told you that something was so, you believed it and you'd die for it. (This isn't just in Germany; even in democracies people were very often indoctrinated into the idea that the government, the church, or whatever other authority was around Knew Better Than They Did. Basic to this principle is that you didn't speak up, you didn't make a fuss (horrors - making a fuss!) and you never, ever expressed an opinion that wasn't in line with what everyone else believed. That was "calling them liars", "contradicting them", etc. and was again worse than being a child molester. I'm not talking Nazi laws here; I'm talking about the mentality of people back then. --[[User:Charlene.fic|Charlene.fic]] 18:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::You overestimate the effects of "indoctrination" as well as the history of Germany. It is far more complicated than saying people were taught "not to question authority" or to "disagree" — the Weimar period was full of political and social disagreement, people were not scared to death of disagreeing until the people who had power started prosecuting disagreement with violence. --[[User:Fastfission|Fastfission]] 20:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== to what extent did Weimar Germany experience a golden age c1924 -29? ==
it is often said that the weimar republic experienced a golden age, how was this the case?
:If you read [[Weimar Republic]], you will see that this was the (only) portion of the republic's history when the German economy was strong. It was also a time of artistic creativity and achievement. Check out [[Bauhaus]], [[Bertolt Brecht]], and [[German Expressionism]]. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 19:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== Hazard management strategies ==
I'm writing an essay on hazard management strategies. What recent hazard (ie. hurricane katrina? ) would be a good example to argue for or against that 'management should focus on reducing the effects rather than managing the causes'?
Basically most hazards will show that there is little you can do to manage the causes (ie. seeding hurricanes does little) but wondering if there any other examples that illustrate this point or argue against it.
:Hazard or risk management is a very broad subject. The strategies very much depend on the situation at hand. Within my own field (I work with financial risk and modelling such risk) the typical approach is to limit the effect by being able to spot the signs of future problems. With regard to Katrina there was little to do when it came to preventing the actual hurricane but through forecasting and preemptive efforts on the ground the effects could be adressed. basically I think you need to read up on risk management and then find a good commonly known example. katrina seems to be a good candidate for such an example although people are probably going to have a lot of opinions on this exact hurricane and the efforts made to reduce the effects so think about that as well. [[User:MartinDK|MartinDK]] 21:21, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Disasters that can't be completely avoided:
*Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, meteor strikes (although we are fairly close to being able to prevent those).
Disasters that can sometimes be completely avoided (although the price may be too high, in many cases):
*Fires, floods, war, avalanches, landslides.
[[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 21:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
== A certain Jewish ritual, not static at all, all men ==
The academic year has started again, so less evilbu on the reference desk, but still some:).
Seriously : I had a question about a certain Jewish ritual. (Questions about Jews in particular seem to be quite popular right now?)
I saw it very briefly on television.
It involved a group of Jewish (young) men (like between 20 and 30 years old). I wouldn't exactly call it a dance, but it wasn't static either. It's possible one of the men plays a different role, as if he is the central character (maybe this person is celebrated) and the others move around him.
Or maybe this was just a group of Jewish men having fun not doing anything specifically Jewish. But I'd doubt that.
Please don't think I'm trying to take a cheap shot at Jewish ways, it's really not the point of my question, I've just been wondering about this for quite some time.
Thank you very much,
[[User:Evilbu|Evilbu]] 23:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:It sounds a bit like a [[hora]] dance at a wedding. Among very Orthodox Jews, men and women celebrate separately. -- [[User:Mwalcoff|Mwalcoff]] 00:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== University California Berkeley and Affirmative Action ==
Hello all!
According to UC Berkeley's website, they have specific plans for the implementation of Affirmative Action. To my knowledge, AA was banned from use in hiring and admissions in the UC system in the mid-90s, and Prop. 209 baned it statewide in 1996. So my question is: Is UCB using "affirmative action" to mean the active search for/recrutment of minorities, or did they find some loophole in 209, OR has 209 been overturned/altered but affirmative action remains unpopular? I am utterly confused.
(This is the link that started the confusion: [http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/seads/plan/StaffAAP.pdf])
Thanks in advance!
~[[User:Russia Moore|Russia Moore]] 23:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:Russia, I was at UC Berkeley during most of the 1990s. Affirmative action, in the sense of preferences for underrepresented groups, did not end until Proposition 209 went into effect in 1997. UC was strongly opposed to Proposition 209 and did not end any affirmative action programs until absolutely required to do so.
:However, affirmative action survives (in a very limited way) in the area of hiring, because UC also has to comply with Federal guidelines requiring affirmative action plans. Because of Proposition 209, those plans cannot involve preferences for any ethnic or racial group. As you suspect, "affirmative action" here means no more than recruiting from pools of underrepresented groups. Here is a document from UC Santa Cruz explaining how this works: [http://www2.ucsc.edu/eeo-aa/Post209.html]
:[[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 00:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! I was looking through the document I linked to a bit more carefully and that's what it appeared to be, but there was nothing directly talking about the changes or anything of that sort. [[User:Russia Moore|Russia Moore]] 01:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Chinese monarchism? ==
Considering that the Chinese monarchy was abolished relatively recently, it's surprising that there never seemed to be any movement to restore it. I suppose the existence of two distinct, antagonistic republican ideologies might have left little room for monarchism, but it's odd that some sort of vague "Imperial sentiment" never played a major role in post-1911 Chinese politics. Did such views perhaps become associated with the Japanese and thus universally fall out of favor? Is there any political organization currently advocating the restoration of the Chinese Empire in some form? Thanks! [[User:Bhumiya|Bhumiya]] ([[User talk:Bhumiya|said]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bhumiya|done]]) 23:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
:I think that the last imperial dynasty, the [[Qing dynasty]], left a bad taste with most Chinese. Not least, this was because the Qing royalty emphasized that they were not ethnically Chinese and implemented policies that disadvantaged the vast ethnic Chinese (Han) majority, who were barred from the highest military and government positions. The Qing also looked down on the Han. At the same time, the Qing presided over the weakening and stagnation of China militarily, economically, and technologically, and allowed China to fall under the domination of Western powers. By the time of their fall in 1912, the dynasty had little or no popular support. So there would not have been a movement for their restoration. Rather, there was a desire among Chinese to modernize, at least so as to be able to stand up to Western or Japanese aggressors. This was a goal espoused, in different ways, by the Nationalists and the Communists. Monarchy, I think, was associated in the minds of many Chinese with backwardness and stagnation, the last thing that most Chinese wanted for their nation. That said, I think that analogies can be made between Chinese Communist political practice and imperial rule. So that, in some ways, the imperial tradition carries on. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 01:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:: At least in 1917, a warlord named Zhang Xun ([[:zh:張勳]]) tried to reestablish the monarchy but failed. In 1932, the Japanese Empire restored Emperor [[Puyi]] in Manchuria. -- [[User:Toytoy|Toytoy]] 02:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:They already have the equivalent. The Communist party works just like an aristocracy. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 02:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
The last monarchy in China had a rather dismal record of submission to foreign powers, so left a very poor opinion of monarchies with the Chinese. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 03:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
See [[Mandate of heaven]] -- the Chinese traditionally didn't have a lasting attachment to one dynastic line, the way that Japanese did... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] 10:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Men date in heaven ? I would have thought God would have frowned on that kind of thing. :-) [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 03:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
=October 19=
== Theology ==
What formal traing will I need to become a theologian? {{unsigned|68.116.162.102}}
:It depends what theology you are wanting to study. For Christian theology, you would need at least a theological degree (i.e., Bible college). [[User:BenC7|BenC7]] 09:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::And it also very much depends on where you live. Here in [[Switzerland]], for instance, you'd need to have a secondary education degree called [[Matura]] in order to study theology at an university. [[User:Sandstein|Sandstein]] 13:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Definitely not a Bible College! Sheesh. First, everyone can be a theologian with simply studying the doctrines and scriptures of their theologies. To be called a theologian as a ''profession,'' you need to get an advanced degree, most likely, and that would require a university associated with a particular church, or at least a particular religion. However, the term as a label for a profession comes from what you do, not how you trained. If you publish peer reviewed works or chuch approved works of theology, you're a theologian. It's just that you normally require quite a bit of education to not repeat things that have been said scores of times already, and you can get that in a school or by very disciplined and extensive reading. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 15:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
You should clarify whether you want to become a minister (or priest), who serves a church or parish, in which case you need to determine what denomination you feel called to, and apply to a [[seminary]] of that faith, or if you with to perhaps become a faculty member at such a school, or in a [[theology]] department of a college. A minister should probably have a great deal of religious [[faith]] and should practice what he preaches. Theologians, on the other hand, are not necessarily religiously devout and full of unquestioning faith, unless they are in evangelical seminaries. They may be more like scientists, as they analyze the scriptures more like [[archeologists]], using such tools as [[Biblical criticism]]. Some theologians are [[athiest]]s or [[agnostic]]s, which would be more problematic for a minister. Ministers may confess to being troubled by doubts, but see these occasional doubts as a test, snares laid by the [[Devil in Christianity|Devil]]. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 16:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== prison and sex ==
While in prison I had sex with men, yet I don't feel gay; how could that be? {{unsigned|68.116.162.102}}
:How do you know you don't feel gay? -[[User:THB|THB]] 02:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:This question forms an...interesting contrast with your previous one... -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 02:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::You don't have to be gay to have sex with a person of the same sex as you. See [[Men who have sex with men]]. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 04:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Elmer makes an interesting observation, but I'm not certain that I detect any dissonance betwixt the questions; one gathers that a good part of one's formal training to be a [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]] [[Catholic priest|priest]] from his being a celibate straight man who occasionally gets it on with boys. :) Of course, that sometimes leads one to prison, where the whole circle begins once again... On a more substantive note, one might see, in addition to the MWHSWM page, [[prison sexuality]], perhaps toward the proposition that one's having sex with an individual of the same gender ought to be viewed as other-than-[[homosexual]] where the former is wholly unable—for considerable stretches, at least—to seek out other pursuits (such that, assuming arguendo that there exist sexual needs that one cannot healthfully satifsy him/herself, we could construe the prison sex as tending toward the homosexual only avolitionally). [[User:Jahiegel|Joe]] 05:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
*You are gay when you generally feel attracted to people of the same sex as you. You can have sex someone without being attracted to them. Many men can be aroused by other man without actually feeling attracted to them. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Since we don't know the cultural background of the person who asked the question, we need to recognize that the word "gay" can describe identity rather than sexual orientation. Many men, especially outside of western culture where the concept "gay" does not exist as such, may engage in sex with other men, and even feel varying degrees of attraction to other men, without considering themselves gay. Many of these same men will go on to have a primarily heterosexual erotic life; others are primarily homosexual. As Joe points out, it is not unusual for men who identify as "straight" in the United States to have sex with other men while in prison (or even out of prison).
::Also, note that the person asking the question said that he wants to be a theologian, not a Catholic priest. It seems wrong to make fun of this person just because he had sex with other men in prison and now wants to study theology. In my opinion, experience of life in prison and sexual relations with a person of the same sex and/or of the opposite sex all provide potentially valuable perspectives on the human condition. There is no reason why a person with these experiences might not have an interest in spiritual matters and even bring something valuable to the study of theology. [[User:Marco polo|Marco polo]] 15:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Homosexuality is a state of mind & can be cured only with constant practice of faith. There are many who dont have a proper family support and get impatient for desires. Since the concerned person was in jail for a long time one can imagine the state of loneliness which could have possibly gripped him and could have lured him to such lewd insane acts. People who either dont have enough money or who dont have a proper family support depict such signs of sexual behavior even if it isnt a part of their sexual orientation. There are many inmates and even navy people fall prey to such signs of mental sicknesses that is reflected in the media world on a constant basis. Spirituality is the only panacea for such states of mind. With the lack of constant preoccupation of the mind, feelings grip the mind. Educational background of the concerned person has also to be taken into consideration.
[kjvenus]
:Christianity is a state of mind & can be cured only by constant practice of logic. There are many who don't have a proper family support and accept unreasonable ideas. Since the concerned person was in jail for a long time one can imagine the state of loneliness which could have possibly gripped him and could have lured him to such an insane religion. People who either don't have enough money or who don't have a proper family support manifest such signs of irrationality even if it isn't a sign of their innate mental imbalance. There are many inmates and even navy people who fall prey to the religious proselytizing that is reflected in the media world on a constant basis. Rationality is the only panacea for such states of mind. With the lack of constant preoccupation of the mind, feelings grip the mind. Educational background of the concerned person has also to be taken into consideration. - [[User:Cure the Curate|Cure the Curate]] 17:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:[kjvenus] appears to be muslim (?), but still... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 02:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::Well, I was mirroring his remarks, which related to the apparently Christian questioner. [kjvenus] should feel free to substitute "Islam" for "Christianity", though, if he feels left out. - [[User:Cure the Curate|Cure the Curate]] 06:55, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Are we going to be able to roll back the damage? ==
Let's pretend for a moment that you are like me and you
#Believe that many of the bills passed by this administration are among the most disgusting laws passed in this country, including the laws pertaining to the removal of habeas corpus and the allowal of torture
#Hope, probably very unrealistically, that the Democrats will take both of the houses this November and maybe even the presidency in '08
How much of what has been done by the Republicans could be reversed by a willing Democratic congress? Would reversing a law be as simple as abolishing it or writing a new law? Or do these laws come with provisions that require them to remain in law? How much of the damage caused by the GOP (not counting, unfortunately, the loss of human life and the billions spent on war) could, in a perfect scenario, be reversed by the Democrats?
Thanks for any input,
-Sam
:Well, you have to understand that many of these bills (such as the [[PATRIOT Act]], which passed 98-1, with only good ol' [[Russ Feingold]] voting nay) had strong support from both parties. I think it'd be fair to say that a Democrat-controlled government would propose and pass fewer of these bills, but unfortunately a lot of the already-passed stuff has enough support that it's unlikely to be repealed. -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 02:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
As for your question, only a Constitutional Amendment would require a supermajority to repeal. Since those are all normal laws, they can be repealed by a simple majority. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 02:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:However, StuRat, Bush could veto any bills that he doesn't like, and that ''would'' require a supermajority to overcome (and that's not going to happen). Looking at the previous history of such things, it tends to take some time to unwind the damage done. There will be commissions of enquiry, and so on, and recommendations will be made, and it will gradually percolate its way through the legislative process. This process will be speeded up considerably if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008. Throw in that the constitutionality of a lot of this stuff will be subject to challenge. It will be a slow process, but eventually the good ship America will right itself. Until the next time it elects a bunch of [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/opinion/17stein.html?ei=5090&en=c5709a9fc1e31b3f&ex=1318737600&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all ignorant] GOP warmongers, that is. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 02:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:You seem to think this is about the US, but the question didn't state that. [[User:DirkvdM|DirkvdM]] 09:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Sheesh - Democrats; Republicans; [[GOP]]; presidency in 2008; 2 houses; elections in November; words like ''administration'' and ''congress'' rather than ''government'' or ''parliament'' - what other country could possibly fit all those clues, Dirk? Hmm? [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 12:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::While JackofOz is obviously correct, it's true that I should have specified the US instead of "this country." Thanks for everyone's replies. --Sam
::::Agreed. While obvious to anyone in the US that you are talking about their country, it may not be obvious to everyone outside the US, some of whom aren't familiar with all those terms. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::People should certainly state up front which country they're talking about. But that wasn't the only point Dirk was making. ''"You seem to think .. but"'' suggests it would be wrong to come to the conclusion that Sam was necessarily talking about the US. I challenged that statement because the US is the only possible fit. [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 20:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Music ==
Greetings, all.
I'm a musician, and I've been making music for about 7 years now. I've been told that the music I create sounds very much like what you would normally expect to hear on the soundtrack of a video game. At first, this really annoyed me, because I thought what I had written sounded a lot like dance/club music, or maybe even hip-hop. However, I have a friend who is really into video game music, and he said I should try getting my music in video games.
So, how does one go about getting their music on soundtracks for video games? Are there video game music record labels? Any information is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
[[User:72.228.54.222|72.228.54.222]] 03:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Slightly off topic, but the only video-game composers I know are Dan Wentz and Emmett Plant. I think there are two interviews of Dan Wentz on the web right now. Dan Wentz started by getting introduced to one of the presidents of Parallax Software, and Emmett Plant got involved through contributing to open-source games. --'''[[User:Kjoonlee|Kjoon]]'''[[User talk:Kjoonlee|lee]] 07:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::See also [[Nobuo Uematsu]]. Heck, see all of [[:Category:Computer and video game music composers]]. [[User:Grendelkhan|grendel]]|[[User_talk:Grendelkhan|khan]] 14:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm not sure if it's possible, but you can contact Microsoft Gaming Studios [http://mgsjobs.com/home.html|here]. | [[User:AndonicO|<font color="Black">'''A'''</font><font color="DarkSlateGray">ndonic</font><font color="Black">'''O'''</font>]] 12:15, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Commercial games are put together by studios like [[Electronic Arts]]; it's a multinational business. Game development is more studio-oriented than films are, so there are a lot more people on staff involved in game production than the ad-hoc nature of the film industry. Basically, I expect to get hired you're going to need to put together a demo that shows your best stuff. Obviously, it's best if your showreel includes actual games. To get this kind of experience, you might like to get involved with the [[mod (computer game)|mod]] community and see if you can include your music in a high-standard mod (game modification). That way, you can not only show your compositional ability, you can show your ability to integrate with an actual game. Failing that, demonstrating the ability to provide an appropriate score to a short film would be good. Anything to show that you're not only a good musician, but you can write music to set the required mood and ambience. --[[User:Robert Merkel|Robert Merkel]] 14:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Republicanism in Japan? ==
With all of the problems over letting females taking the throne and the birth of Prince Hisahito, is there a movement for Japan to become a republic like there is Australia, Canada, or NZ? Or am I correct to assume this is all taboo and a western idea? I've searched here and google and came up empty. - Thanks, ''[[User:Hoshie|Hos]]'''''[[User_talk:Hoshie|hie]]''' 06:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Well, Japan's monarchy isn't much like the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand system. It is closer to being a religious institution than a political one, and it's much more closely identified with the culture. The [[Communist Party of Japan]] used to strongly oppose the monarchy, but they now support the retention of the Emperor as a figurehead. Both the LDP and the DPJ are generally favorable to the monarchy. Of course, in Japanese politics, personal cliques carry a lot of influence. It is possible that within a single party, one clique may support the monarchy and another may oppose it. I don't doubt that the DPJ and other left-leaning parties contain republican or quasi-republican elements. Hell, for all I know, there may be minor republican factions within the LDP. But none of these is very influential. [[User:Bhumiya|Bhumiya]] ([[User talk:Bhumiya|said]]/[[Special:Contributions/Bhumiya|done]]) 07:43, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Waiting time ==
When I go out to a restaurant, I don't normally bother with a starter. Let's say I haven't ordered anything complicated and the place is not particularly busy. How long is it reasonable to wait after placing my order before asking when my meal will arrive? I start getting restless after about 20 minutes. --[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 08:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::At the very least, I might try to the catch the waiter's eye and put a question mark on my face after 20 minutes. It's customary to inform guests (on the menu or when receiving the order) when a meal is going to take 30 minutes or longer to prepare. I see absolutely no problem in politely asking when your meal will arrive. For sure, some waiters (especially where I live) might give you an offended look, and try to guilt and punish you for your ridiculous impatience. (I"'m only human. I've only got two hands." is an absurd response when you think about it.) But the few passive-aggressive waiters aside, why shouldn't you ask? You've got your own schedule, and these days people expect faster food from non-fast-food restaurants too.---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 09:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:It depends how many people there are in your party. I'd say if you're alone, you could ask in ~20 minutes; 2 people, ~25 minutes, ~ 3-6 people, 30 minutes. It also depends on what restuarant you're in. However, if you've been waiting for, say, 25 minutes, chances are, you will be getting your meal in the next few minutes. I believe it was my great grandmother who used to say "Patience is the mother of Science" (it rhymes in Spanish). | [[User:AndonicO|<font color="Black">'''A'''</font><font color="DarkSlateGray">ndonic</font><font color="Black">'''O'''</font>]] 12:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
{{refq|20 minutes}}. --[[User:193.56.241.75|193.56.241.75]] 12:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Was that intended to be helpful? [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 12:48, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Well it was Quite Interesting that there are now fast newspapers as well as fast food, but I'm not really inspired to partake of either.--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 14:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I suggest eating at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You can generally seat yourself, grab a plate, and go get your food immediately. Try to find one where you can get your own plates, silverware, and drinks, so you aren't dependent on any snail waiters. They may still make you wait to pay, but they get nervous that people will walk out without paying so don't typically make you wait long to pay. Don't ever go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant where they bring you the food. The common technique is to just take longer and longer for each subsequent food delivery until you leave in disgust. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 14:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Under the conditions you state, however long it takes to prepare your food plus three minutes on the front end for the waiter to submit the order and three minutes on the back end for serving. So twenty minutes would be reasonable for fairly simple food that is partially cooked in advanced or something like a hamburger.
:This is why a lot of restaurants serve bread or [[amuse-bouche]]s while you wait and ask that you order [[soufflé]]s at the beginning of the meal instead of near the end. Some chinese restaurants used to require 24H notice for [[Peking Duck]].-[[User:THB|THB]] 16:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
==Alonzo de Santa Cruz==
Doing a cursory search of the internet, I find what I suspect are at least 3 different people named Alonzo de Santa Cruz or Alonso de Santa Cruz who lived in the mid 1500s, including one who was a map maker and one who was the son of HRE Charles V.<br>
1. Do you agree that all these references in the literature cannot be the same person?<br>
2. Is there any good bibliographic informaion on the cartographer (apparently the son of Charles the V wrote a somewhat scandalous biography of his father)<br>
3. Are Alonso and Alonzo just alternative spellings of the same name, or are they two different names?
--[[User:Filll|Filll]] 13:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Alonzo is english and Alonso is spanish and they are equivalent and sometimes used for the same person. z & s are closely related linguistically.
:The article on [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor]] lists his children. None of them are named Alonz(s)o. His only son, [[Phillip II of Spain]], was way too busy to be a cartographer.
:[http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonso_de_Santa_Cruz Alon '''s''' o de Santa Cruz] was a spanish ''historian'' who was born somewhat earlier than [[Alonzo de Santa Cruz|Alon '''z''' o de Santa Cruz]], the spanish ''cartographer.'' You might find them with the s's and z's reversed sometimes. Hope this helps. -[[User:THB|THB]] 17:24, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Our article on Charles V doesn't list all his children, only some of them. Felipe II wasn't his only son. He had three other legitimate sons, two Fernandos and one Juan, who died as infants, and an illegitimate son who survived to adulthood, Don Juan of Austria, by his mistress Barbara Blomberg. He did not, as far as I can determine, have any sons named Alonzo. [http://www.genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00000361&tree=LEO] - <span style="font-family: cursive">[[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]]</span> 17:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
[http://www.opwest.org/Archive/2003/200303_OriqueThesis/200303_06_OriqueThesis.htm Here ]is one of the articles that suggests that Charles V had a son named Alonso who wrote a biography about him--[[User:Filll|Filll]] 18:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::"Philip’s removed 3 chapters of Alonzo de Santa Cruz’s five volume biography about his father Charles V (Charles I, Spain)...."
:I understand it to mean that Phillip, the son of Charles, censored three chapters of a book that Alonzo wrote about ''Phillip's'' father, Charles. The sentence that states this is somewhat ungrammatical and confusing. -[[User:THB|THB]] 18:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Oh, and just to be clear, Charles I is the same person as Charles V, because he was Charles of both Spain & the Holy Roller Empire. -[[User:THB|THB]] 18:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Interesting THB. I had never considered that since I found the statement in so many places but of course they probably cut and pasted the same material from each other. I still wonder if it is the same Alonso as the cartographer.--[[User:Filll|Filll]] 18:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Judging by the dates and the rest of the text, yes, it is. It's been very intereting researching all of this. Good luck with whatever you're doing. -[[User:THB|THB]] 19:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== who wins cards or mets? ASAP ==
? ASAP --[[User:Weaseljenkins|Weaseljenkins]] 14:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Please do us the courtesy to state your question clearly, preferably in English. [[User:Sandstein|Sandstein]] 15:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
*Mets but the Tigers will take them in he World Series([[User:Hotclaws**==|hotclaws**==]] 15:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC))
::[[Methylated spirits|Meths]] is bad for your health. Play cards instead. --[[User:Dweller|Dweller]] 16:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Curiously, if you watch the live coverage of the series you will know ''exactly'' as soon as it is possible to know. [[User:DJ Clayworth|DJ Clayworth]] 17:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::That's not so curious. That's the way these things work pretty much 100% of the time. :) [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] 20:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Too Drunk to remember. ==
If somebody is accused of a crime, say sexual assault, but they cant remember the night in question, what would be their standing. This is purely for interest, I'm not looking for legal advise. [[User:Kenneth Hynes|Ken]] 15:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
If requesting medical or legal advice, please consider asking a doctor or lawyer instead. That said, and noting that I am not a lawyer (nor have I played one on television)(but I've watched [[Law and Order]]). "I don't remember" sounds like a refusal to be responsible for the consequences of one's actions, and does not make a very good impression. A defendant saying he was drunk, or took drugs, or sniffed glue would seem no defense at all, although it is an explanation, and might even be part of the prosecution case. I suppose I would be more imressed with that defense, as a juror, if the accused could prove someone had administered to him, without his knowledge and against his will, some drug which affected his mental state, (like rohypnol) or he had a disease (like psychomotor epilepsy or a brain tumor or diabetes) or injury (like a [[concussion]]) or mental condition (see [[insanity defense]]) which made it impossible for him to control his actions or remember his behavior. That would support some defense of diminished responsibility. Personally, it would be a nightmare or Kafka- or Hitchcock-esque proportions to be accused of something and have no memory of the time in question, and be able to say only "It doesnt sound like something I would do." I would not be inclined to take the stand with such a defense, and would hope my lawyer would knock down the prosecution case, try to get any incriminating evidence excluded, attack the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses, try to establish that maybe the crime never took place, or someone else did it, or it was consensual, or establish an [[alibi]], or look for a [[plea bargain]] or offer to rat out someone accused of a worse crime in exchange for time served and community service.[[User:Edison|Edison]] 16:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Somebody who gets so drunk they can't remember their own actions, and presumably can't control their own actions, is so dangerous they should be locked up, in any event. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 16:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Whether someone remembers their crime or not is irrelevant, as far as the law is concerned. After all, they could always ''claim'' not to remember. However, [[automatism (case law)|automatism]] has been used successfully as a defence.--[[User:Shantavira|Shantavira]] 16:59, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::It might be relevant in establishing ''intent'' and thus with what crime one is charged. All other things equal, being drunk isn't going to affect a sexual assault charge unless it makes the criminal more repugnant to judge or jury. What would be Kafka-esque would be if you were innocent of any crime and were taken to an off-shore military base and secretly held in a cage without charges or recourse. -[[User:THB|THB]] 17:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::When did getting drunk become a danger to society!? Best if you dont voice these opinions at your local! hehe. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 17:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
: Would people asking about legal matter please state the country whose laws they are iterested i? Out of pure spite I tell you about German law now: Someone is deemed unable to be guilty of a deed if his reason was incapcitated due to illness, debility, drunkenness or the like such that he was unable to understand the wrongfulness of his act or act accoring to his understanding. On the other hand, it is a crime to drink so much that you bring yourself into a state where you are unable to understand that something is a crime and then commit a crime. So, if you kill somebody while being drunk, you'll be sentenced not for manslaughter but for drunkenness resulting in manslaughter, but the latter carries a maximum penality of only 5 years in prison (or less, if the actual crime you did has a lower penality) as opposed to 10 years for manslaughter. A standard question that always arises in this context is whether a drunnk alcoholic is unable to understand what he is doing, for it is well known that alcholics can still think more or less clearly at a blood alcohol levels that would let ordinary people lie nunder the table. Details left out as IANAL. See [[:de:Vollrausch]] for them. [[User:Sanders muc|Simon A.]] 22:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
==Logic==
I feel that there are an exceedingly high number of logic-related articles, and I'm not sure that they are all distinct entities deserving of their own articles. I am an undergraduate taking a logic course, and I've looked through so many articles that I'm not even sure which article corresponds to the class I'm taking. I have a feeling that a few merges or redirects are in order, though if someone could verify that these each are distinct and recognized entities, I would be just as happy. Could somebody help me out? Here are a few examples: [[Formal logic]], [[Traditional logic]], [[Symbolic logic]], [[modal logic]], [[predicate logic]], [[term logic]], [[propositional logic]], etc. [[User:Adambiswanger1|AdamBiswanger1]] 16:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Did you start with [[Logic]]? -[[User:THB|THB]] 16:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::[[Spock]] would find your [[feelings]] illogical. [[User:Edison|Edison]] 16:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:What you're noticing is that the various traditions in Logic training in universities have left us with multiple terms that may or may not reflect subtle or inconsequential differences. Because Logic was a standard part of the [[trivium]], the various Renaissance to 19th century faculties developed strains of thought that might not be in dialog. Add to that the confusion from our peer editors, and you can get overlap, redundancy, and insufficient explanation. My own experience has been with the [[rhetoric]] articles. Samuel Butler said, "All a rhetorician's rules/ Teach only to name his tools," but the various cornerstone figures in Rhetoric will use different terms for the same things, and then various neo-Aristotelians coined new terms for phenomena in Romance and Germanic languages, so we end up with a mess. (E.g. [[fallacy]] and [[list of logical fallacies]] argue with each other.) It would take an expert with a lot of time and luck to find all the outlyers and get them merged with preservation of notable histories. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 17:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Thanks for giving a thoughtful answer. The other user's comment seems to suggest that there is no confusion/ambiguity/overlap within these articles, as his investigation of the matter probably consisted of typing in "logic" in the search window and being so keen as to notice a brief definition of the above branches. End of story, right? Anyway, I think the best solution here would be to include sections within each article distinguishing the given type of logic from the next. You can't write an article on France until you prove that it's not Germany. But, as you noted, this seems like a job for an [[Citizendium|expert]]. [[User:Adambiswanger1|AdamBiswanger1]] 20:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Additionally, I think we have that old "systemic bias" business here. For most Europeans and colonial groups, "logic" derives from the Classical world. Therefore, it starts with Aristotle. However, "logic" and logic are not the same thing. Orderly thought needs no one to classify it. The classification, codification, and explanation of the types and methods of orderly thought isn't even, necessarily, "logic." For people coming from the Classical education, Aristotle "invents" logic, even though he wasn't the first person to try to come up with thinking/speaking manuals or systems. He invents it largely because he is in a democracy and because he believed in a form of [[idealism]], where such things as concepts have reality that dictate, eternally, specific combinatorial principles. People coming along later and trying to strip away that idealism will also come up with a "logic," and they will state, largely, the same rules, but they will do so in a way that is more, they believe, pure. Others will note that those endeavors are still susceptible to linguistic contamination, and they'll come up with other "logics," etc. The basic laws of the [[syllogism]] won't change much, but each revolution has to cast those rules in new ways as the syllogism occupies a different position in the scheme. I couldn't begin to survey all the logic revolutions and tease out which ones are window dressing. My suggestion would simply be that all of our authors and editors try to think of each other branch of logic/rhetoric and be sure to put a large "See also" list. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 00:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Sorry, I did not mean to imply that at all. I asked, "Did you '''start with''' [[logic]]?" because there is a good section in that article that starts teasing apart the tangle. -[[User:THB|THB]] 22:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
And if you were going to classify logic what might your first and most significant question be? [[User:71.100.6.152|71.100.6.152]] 00:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:"What IS logic?" -[[User:THB|THB]] 00:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Celebrity adoption spree ==
Why is there so much row created over Madonna adopting an African boy?
It seems like majority of celebs are trying to garner support & media attention by such acts of Benevolence in their attempt to ameliorate the poor. Such stray acts of kindness can by no means be compared to the Nobel Peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus in his efforts to solve poverty in Bangladesh.
There can be no specific yardstick that the adopted child can be tomorrow turn out to be the person with the appropriate educational background & upbringing. The media world is abuzz with the adoption spree of the celebs.
[kjvenus]
:To answer your first question (and only question it seems)... From the [[Madonna (entertainer)|Madonna]] article: ''"The adoption has raised public controversy about whether special treatment was given to Madonna because of her celebrity status, considering Malawian law normally requires one year of residence for adopting parents."'' [[User:Dismas|Dismas]]|[[User talk:Dismas|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 17:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Maybe because of stuff like [http://www.enterteinment.org/popstar/madonna_02.jpg this] and being a good mother mixing like oil and water? -[[User:THB|THB]] 17:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I'm confused: she's a bad mother because she's openly sexual? I rarely hear anybody saying that men who are sexual are bad fathers. Why must women be sexless (or pretend to be sexless in public merely to make other people comfortable) in order to be "acceptable" in this world? --[[User:Charlene.fic|Charlene.fic]] 17:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::::I agree, you're confused. -[[User:THB|THB]] 18:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::But she took these photographs long before she was pregnant, anyway. So to be a good mother, you must lack a sexual history? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 18:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::To the contrary, the vast majority of mothers have a sexual history of having intercourse at least ''once''. However, I assume Madonna is a virgin and has no sexual history ''at all'', and that's why she adopted in the first place. -[[User:THB|THB]] 18:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::::::I thought she was just [[Like a Virgin (song)|''like'' a virgin]]... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 18:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::::::::Yes, for the very first time. But not after that. -[[User:THB|THB]]
I think the issue is slavery. She wants a kid, so she goes to Africa and essentially buys one. She might be able to adopt a kid thru the normal process, which takes a long time and a lot of paperwork, but instead she just throws money at them and, in return, they throw out all the rules and sell her whichever kid she wants. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 22:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Apparently they lined up twelve young boys in a row for her to choose one to take home on her private jet. For what that private jet cost for that trip she could have funded every orphanage in Malawi for a year. -[[User:THB|THB]] 22:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
*There's no adoption spree, because of Madonna, people just pay more attention to the ones that are already happening. Slavery shouldn't be an issue. Surely the kid isn't going to be forced to work as a slave? Get those definitions straight. I also heard someone who was stuck in the Dutch adoption machine complain how easy it was for Madonna to adopt someone when they had to face tests and meetings for years. The difference is they are childless, while Madonna already proved she can take care of her existing children. I'm not entirely sure it can be called trafficking either. Did she pay the authorities or the father directly to get the kid? There's nothing wrong with giving money to charity at the same time you adopt someone. The two don't need to be related. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:*They are related. She pays them money, and they sell her a kid. They might as well slap a price tag on each kid's forehead ("Wow, buy one get one free on these twins !"). [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 12:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
* What happens when she gets bored with it? A little African boy is not just for Christmas.([[User:Hotclaws**==|hotclaws**==]] 13:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC))
== Ngelle Gorbitu School in Ethiopia ==
Would anyone be able to give me more information on the ___location of Ngelle Gorbitu School in Ethiopia? E.g. What city it is near? [http://www2.marksandspencer.com/foodmagazine/insidestory/fairtrade/index.shtml link (the "Our contribution" paragraph]. Thank you! --[[User:Telescope|Stacey]] 17:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Try googling "negele gorbitu". Marks & Spencer may be generous but they aren't going to win any spelling bees. -[[User:THB|THB]] 17:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:: Still doesn't say :( Just the south of Ethiopia --[[User:Telescope|Stacey]] 11:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Some kind of soundtrack in my head ==
Hi!
I've had this piano-theme stuck inside my head, and I can't figure out where it comes from.
I think it's from a movie, at least it sounds like it could be a soundtrack.
I recorded a soundsample that is pretty close to what I hear in my mind. It is available here:
[http://hem.passagen.se/razze666/Piano.mp3 SOUND FILE IN MP3 FORMAT]
Something went wrong to the mp3 when exporting it, you will see what I mean.
However, it's only the first two beats I hear in my head, the rest I just did for fun, but it could be close.
//Rasmus
:Oh, I should have known better than to listen to it, especially since it was ONLY THE FIRST TWO NOTES that you have in your head. Now what YOU wrote is in MY head. -[[User:THB|THB]] 19:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, not notes, beats. In terms of seconds maybe the three first seconds or so, but I wouldn't be suprised if the original song continued the way mine did. Hope someone will recognize it.
:Well, I hope so, too, because it's still in me bleedin' head. -[[User:THB|THB]] 20:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Reminds me a bit of the musics from ''[[Amélie]]'', but it's not it. I'm pretty damn sure I have this music you speak of in my computer, I'm trying to get my thoughts to converge to it. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 21:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
That must be it! I saw that movie about two weeks ago. Must get the soundtrack now so I can listen to the song. Thanks for the help!
:I do have a music in here that sounds EXACTLY like the first 3 seconds of your recording, but I'm thinking it is from a video game soundtrack, not a movie. But if you did see ''Amélie'' a few weeks ago, well, then it must be it. It's a GREAT soundtrack, and it really gets to you. Try listening to a few samples here: [http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B00005O6PA Amélie soundtrack page on Amazon]. Anyway, good luck! ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 21:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Just cause I'm curious, which video game soundtrack? [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 21:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::I don't know it yet. I'm going mad here trying to find it among the 300 different game soundtracks I have. As far as I can remember, those notes come in the end of a fast paced music, and they repeat twice. ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 22:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
'''I've found it!''' The exact same notes play in the song ''[[Das Modell (single)|The Model]]''. I have over 20 versions of it in here. I've been listening to several [[chiptune]] versions of it lately (like one by [[David Whittaker]]), so is no wonder I thought it was a game soundtrack. And yeah, there you go. ''The Model''. If the version you heard was purely a piano version, then I must have it too! It's a great tune, and a piano can make anything greater. :) ☢ [[User:Kieff|<span style="letter-spacing:1px"><span style="font-size:110%">Ҡ</span>''i''∊''<span style="vertical-align:-0.2em;font-size:110%">ff</span>''</span>]]<span style="font-size:120%">⌇</span>[[User_talk:Kieff|<span style="font-size:110%">↯</span>]] 01:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:Nice. [[Kraftwerk]] is great! They don't even need pianos... ;) [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 01:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I remember how The Model used to be my favourite song as a little kid, and I agree it's very similar to the sound clip I made. However, I think the fast part of the song "Comptine d'Un Autre Été" from the ''[[Amélie]]'' soundtrack was the song that got stuck in my mind. And then my brain translated it to something else. Thanks for the help everybody!
== Nazi Germany Vandalism ==
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question, but I have recently noticed that the entire page on Nazi Germany in Wikipedia has been erased and has been replaced by the words "F*ck Germany!". I am quite disappointed that someone would do this but I'm not sure wether I should leave the matter alone and let someone else fix it or tell someone (let alone the fact I don't know who to tell). What I'm really asking is this, is this the proper place to bring up such a problem to the Wikipedia community?
:No, such problems rarely need to be brought up at all, as I have no doubt, that it has already been fixed. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 21:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:(Edit conflict) You could revert it yourself just by resaving an earlier edit... But blatant vandalism like this tend to be fixed rather quickly, anyway... [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 21:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:No, it's not the right place, to report vandalism, see: [[Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism]]. Of course, you're welcome to fix it and to warn the vandal by putting a vandal template on his talkpage--anyone can edit Wikipedia. -[[User:THB|THB]] 21:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:I'm a little disappointed that it actually took 18 minutes to fix that vandalism - usually we're quite a bit quicker than that. -- [[User:Arwel_Parry|Arwel]] ([[User talk:Arwel_Parry|talk]]) 14:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== [[Ritchie Blackmore]] ==
How come whenever I put in something extra on Wikipedia, it goes right back the way it was like five minutes later? Seriously, the information I put on there is true, you know. YOU as in whoever is doing this to me.[[User:Jk31213|Jk31213]] 22:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Because with this addition:
::"one of the most respected and influential english [[guitarist]]s in the history of [[rock]] music"
:you violated three policies: [[Wikipedia:NPOV]], [[Wikipedia:Cite sources]], and [[Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words]]. Try inserting a factual statement with footnotes and no weasel words and it should stick. For instance, "According to Rolling Stone editor Mitchie Whiteless, Ritchie Blackmore influenced the use of flutes in the music of the Purple Pumpkins. (give ref)
::::-[[User:THB|THB]] 22:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== female rapists ==
Are their any reported cases on a woman raping men?
Are their any reported cases of women raping other women?{{unsigned|68.116.162.102}}
:Dont know but it is true to say that only like 3% of sexual assualts on men are reported, as men find it much harder coming ot terms with it, and admitting to other people that someone did this to them. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 22:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Most certainly "yes" to both. Try [[Rape by gender]] and [[Statutory rape#Sex differences in statutory rape]]. -[[User:THB|THB]] 23:12, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Definitely. Rape is not about sex. It's about control and violence, and there have been women rapists, most assuredly. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 00:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:::It's worth noting that whether or not it's rape varies by country - in the [[United Kingdom]], women are legally incapable of committing rape, because rape has to be performed with a human [[penis]] in British law. Sexual assault, on the other hand, can be, and is, performed by women, on both women and men. --[[User:Mnemeson|Mnem]][[User:Mnemeson/Esperanza|<font color="green">e</font>]][[User_Talk:Mnemeson|son]] 01:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:::How many rapists pull out before ejaculation and then leave? None if they can help it. Or how many otherwise-non-sexual violent assaults include ejaculation at the end? Rape is about sex; violence and control are secondary. [[User:Zafiroblue05|zafiroblue05]] | [[User talk:Zafiroblue05|Talk]] 02:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::That is incorrect. Many rapists do not ejaculate. Some do not even get erect. As for whether "end in ejaculation," there have been instances of orgasmic murder in serial killers. You are simply wrong and should read up on [[rape]]. For most rapists, the sexual act is itself a part of the dominance and hatred of the victim's sex. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 11:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== oral sex ==
When having oral sex how does the woman get pleasure?{{unsigned|68.116.162.102}}
:Are you referring to [[fellatio]], [[cunnilingus]], or [[anilingus]]? Please sign your posts by putting a dash and four tildes after your message. -[[User:THB|THB]] 23:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Assuming you're talking about [[fellatio]], "not only are the sexual organs sensitive and well supplied with nerve endings, the same is true of the mouth/throat cavity, tongue, and lips, so enjoyment of oral sex is not necessarily limited to half of the involved party." [[User:Shadow1|<font color="olive">Shadow1</font>]] [[User talk:Shadow1|(talk)]] 23:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Oh, I was waiting for clarification, like "When two women are having anilingus," before answering. Otherwise there are just too many answers. -[[User:THB|THB]] 23:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
== Blacks and crime, intelligence - political correctness ==
Its pretty obvious that negros are prone to violence and are intellectually inferior to other races. Why don't biologists/anthropogists do more research on such racial differences
:Much research has been done into racial differences, hopefully enough to prove onece and for all the obviously false and inflammatory assertions above. [[User:Philc_0780|<font color="Green">Philc</font>]] <sub>[[User talk:Philc_0780|T]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc 0780/Esperanza|E]]</sup><sub>[[Special:contributions/Philc_0780|C]]</sub><sup>[[User:Philc_0780/Improve me|I]]</sup> 23:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::"Negro" is like "potato": when it's plural it has an "E": "Negroes" and "Potatoes". People don't research it because the concept of "[[Race]]" has been discredited. However, for some reason, there is still plenty of "[[Racism]]" around. -[[User:THB|THB]] 23:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:::It's not true to say that the concept of race has been discredited. Read [[Race#Current disagreement across disciplines|this section]] in the article you linked to. --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 08:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:::On the offchance that you're not a troll and are actually interested in this subject, you might want to take a look at [[Race and intelligence]]. -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 23:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
:Anonymous user, your [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wesley_Snipes&diff=prev&oldid=82516391 previous] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wesley_Snipes&diff=prev&oldid=82516590 edits] suggest that you are indeed trolling (either that, or you're just a hopeless racist). Either way, please, don't abuse this desk for inflammatory questions based on false premises. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 23:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
::Well, of course he's a troll. Need you ask? I deleted his first message and apparently this is his way of asking it in a [[politically correct]] manner. -[[User:THB|THB]]
=October 20=
== Need information about translated novels of French author Nicolas des Escuteaux ==
There is a novel written by the French author Nicolas des Escuteaux in 1605 titled 'Les amours de Lydiam et Floriande'. I am looking to obtain that novel, since I bare the name of Lydiam, for I would love to read it. But I can't find it anywhere, not in French, English nor Spanish. If you could please help me with any information, I would truly appreciate it.
Thank you for your time.
Lydiam.
:Apparently it is not offered over the internet. It probably has not been reprinted in quite some time.
:Possible further research:
:Post your question on the french Wikipedia and see if someone there can help.
:Inquire [http://www.bnf.fr/ here]. It might even end up turning into a nice little trip to Paris or Montpelier.
:I hope someone else here can help. -[[User:THB|THB]]
:According to the card catalogue at the BNF, there are original manuscripts in Paris and Tours. Surely there are reproductions available that you could check out or photocopy, or they could do it for you, for a research fee. -[[User:THB|THB]] 03:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Where to find cost of food statistics for Rep. of Korea? ==
I'm working on a school project and I've been on the internet for 3 hours trying to figure this out. Where can I find the cost of food (groceries) in S. Korea? For example, cost of 1 pound of ground beef, 1lb of sugar, i unit peanut butter, 1 dozen eggs, etc. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!
Here are some figures:
small bottle of water W500.00
litre of petrol W1,500.00
souvenir t-shirt W5,000.00
movie ticket W7,000.00
movie ticket W7,000.00
local newspaper W700.00
half litre of beer W1,000.00
litre of bottled water W1,100.00
loaf of bread W1,600.00
street snack (Tteobokki) W2,000.00
food court lunch W6,000.00
and you might have better luck posting your question [http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/categories.cfm?catid=19 here]. -[[User:THB|THB]] 02:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, remember they eat different food than you do. They may not buy ground beef or peanut butter, or buy eggs by the dozen. Check out [[Cuisine of Korea]]. And sign your questions!!! -[[User:THB|THB]] 02:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:An interesting fact is that 90% of all peanut butter is consumed in the US. The rest probably doesn't go to South Korea. | [[User:AndonicO|<font color="Black">'''A'''</font><font color="DarkSlateGray">ndonic</font><font color="Black">'''O'''</font>]] 12:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Bradford Connection ==
Are William Bradford Gov of Plymouth Colony and William Bradford the printer related?
If so how...need proof, please...
:See: [[William Bradford]]. The printer is not related as all the generations are accounted for there. They are all well-known figures, and if you read their articles you can see where they were born, lived, and died. Also look at the birth and death dates.
:And sign your questions!!! -[[User:THB|THB]] 02:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== science fiction books ==
I'm looking for some good scifi to read. I liked the foundation series, the ringworld series, the rama series, the odyssey series, that kind of thing. Does anybody have any suggestions for some really good scifi? I'm not interested in the star wars and star trek books. Also if you could make multiple suggestions that would be great because my access to books is kind of limited right now and I might not have it (I'm stuck with the couple thousand fiction ebooks I have on CD) --[[User:Froth|froth]]<sup>'''[[User_talk:Froth|<small>T</small>]] [[Special:Contributions/Froth|<small>C</small>]]'''</sup> 02:48, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Have you tried [[List of science fiction novels]]? I imagine you've read all the "old" stuff, [[Ray Bradbury]], [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]], [[Arthur C. Clarke]], [[Jules Verne]], etc. -[[User:THB|THB]] 03:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:Ray Bradbury is laughable, Burroughs is OK, Clarke is good but I've read almost all of his stuff, and IMO verne just isn't that good. Thanks for the list, but do you have any suggestions for particularly good ones? I see 1984 and brave new world on the list, those are hardly science fiction --[[User:Froth|froth]]<sup>'''[[User_talk:Froth|<small>T</small>]] [[Special:Contributions/Froth|<small>C</small>]]'''</sup> 04:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, since it sounds like you're broke, try Project Gutenberg. -[[User:THB|THB]] 03:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:As their online catalog is a bit thin, you can jump right to [http://www.gutenberg.org/author/H_Beam_Piper H. Beam Piper] or [http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Andre_Norton Andre Norton], for some classic SF. [http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Cory_Doctorow Cory Doctorow] has released some more recent stuff there as well. [[User:Grendelkhan|grendel]]|[[User_talk:Grendelkhan|khan]] 15:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::I'm generally not a huge fan of scifi, but I love [[Robert Heinlein]], especially [[Tunnel in the Sky]], [[Stranger in a Strange Land]], and [[The Moon is a Harsh Mistress]]. -[[User:Elmer Clark|Elmer Clark]] 04:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:::Heinlein looks fascinating. Turns out I have 101 stories/books by him on disk! I'll start with Tunnel in the Sky, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Starship Troopers... some of his work seems a little far out though... the incest erotica especially o_O --[[User:Froth|froth]]<sup>'''[[User_talk:Froth|<small>T</small>]] [[Special:Contributions/Froth|<small>C</small>]]'''</sup> 06:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::::Geez, Louise! You've read science fiction and only now got to Heinlein!? I recommend [[The Puppet Masters]] (ignore the lousy movie adaptation), [[Double Star]], [[Orphans of the Sky]], heck all his early stuff. [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 06:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:My personal hero is [[Stanisław Lem]]. Everything he wrote is worth reading, imho. ---[[User:Sluzzelin|Sluzzelin]] 04:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:You seem to like [[Hard science fiction]]. Why not check out the list of authors there? I don't know that I agree that [[C.J. Cherryh]] belongs in that category, but you might like her [[Alliance-Union universe]], starting with [[Downbelow Station]] (the article is incomplete). [[Vernor Vinge]]'s books would probably appeal to you, e.g. [[The Peace War]], [[Marooned in Realtime]] and [[A Fire Upon the Deep]]. And of course, there's the entire [[Cyberpunk]] genre, e.g. [[Neuromancer]]. Finally, have you read [[Joe Haldeman]]'s [[The Forever War]]? [[User:Clarityfiend|Clarityfiend]] 06:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
*Let's not forget [[Isaac Asimov]]. http://www.dragonpage.com provides a podcast featuring interviews with SF and fantasy author and they have an extensive library on their site. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
*The ''[[Dune]]'' series is moderately well written (remarkable for the genre, really), although not that science fiction-y and more about OPEC than future worlds. [[Roger Zelazny]]'s ''Amber'' series is entertaining fantasy. You might consider [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''Neverwhere'' science fiction or fantasy. ''Little/Big'' is sort of fantasy/contemporary. Don't forget, of course, the really wonderful ''[[A Canticle for Leibowitz]],'' and all of the Philip K. Dick stuff (which varies from well written to hash). [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 11:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
* Ursula K. LeGuin,Sherri S. Tepper,John Varley,Harlan Ellison Neil Stephenson,Bruce Stirling,Larry Niven ,George R.R. Martin,should all be read.Also graphic novels are some of the best SF around.([[User:Hotclaws**==|hotclaws**==]] 13:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC))
:I second [[A Fire Upon the Deep]] and [[A Deepness in the Sky]]; also try [[The Difference Engine]] for something a bit more historical. I'm in the process of reading David Brin's Uplift trilogy ([[Sundiver]], [[Startide Rising]], [[The Uplift War]]), and enjoying it. [[The Left Hand of Darkness]] is an oldie but goodie. I liked [[The Postman]]; please don't go see the movie, which was painful. Philip K. Dick's short stories are available collected in five volumes now; some of them are dreck, but some ("The Golden Man", "The Electric Ant") are very, very good. Oh, heck, just look at the [[Hugo Award for Best Novel|Hugos]] and [[Nebula Award for Best Novel|Nebulas]] to see what's considered the best of current SF. [[User:Grendelkhan|grendel]]|[[User_talk:Grendelkhan|khan]] 15:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Jo Swinson ==
What does [[Jo Swinson]] look like in her underwear?
{{unsigned|68.116.162.102}}
:From what I can see, your question borders on [[pedophilia]], MP or not. And sign your posts!!! -[[User:THB|THB]]
No it does not. Jo is is a 26 year old woman; not by any stretch of the imagination a child. Furthermore, she is one year older than I am! Bengurion.
:She looks quite young for her age. -[[User:THB|THB]] 04:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::Still nothing to do with paedophilia, though. Bengurion, please stop bothering us with your silly questions. --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 08:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
*This particular troll posts every few weeks wanting dates with the lady, fresh fantasies about her, etc. Best not to feed or water him/her. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 11:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== the sauna ==
Is it pedophila if a priest takes nude [[sauna]]s with teenage boys?{{unsigned|68.116.162.102}}
:Not unless the priest is [[Sexual attraction|sexually attracted]] to the youngsters. And sign your posts!!! A dash and four [[tilde]]s. That's all it takes!!! -[[User:THB|THB]] 04:21, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
*Pedophilia is a [[sexual orientation]] not something someone does. It's probably not a good idea anyway, but it will only be a real problem if he commits some sexual act or forces those boys to do so. - [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm]]|[[User talk:MacGyverMagic|<sup>(talk)</sup>]] 10:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
*As MGM says, pedophilia is an orientation. Pederasty is an act. If there is no pederasty, the priest's personal desires are probably irrelevant unless there is some form of harassment. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 11:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:*Pederasty and pedophilia is not completely the same thing. Pederasty is a relationship between an adolescent boy and a male, pedophilia is a sexual attraction to a prepubescent child of eitehr sex. [[User:Wakuran|惑乱 分からん]] 15:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Nudity in commercials? ==
This hit me after reading the previous topic. There is this commercial that airs on TV for some baby product. There is a naked female toddler in the commercial. Is this child pornography? --[[User:Wirbelwind|Wirbelwind]] 04:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:As long as it doesn't show her genatalia and it's not sexual, then it should be fine --[[User:Froth|froth]]<sup>'''[[User_talk:Froth|<small>T</small>]] [[Special:Contributions/Froth|<small>C</small>]]'''</sup> 04:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
::There is certainly no '''intent to sexually arouse''' in such a commercial, so it would not be [[pornography]]. However, there are those who would be sexually aroused nonetheless. -[[User:THB|THB]] 04:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Bewitched ==
Is bewiched not an allegory for interracial marriages?
{{unsigned|68.116.162.102}}
:No, but "[[Bewitched]]" might be seen as one if you choose to see it that way. And sign your posts, por favor!!! -[[User:THB|THB]] 04:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
==United Nations Delegates==
In the near future I'm going to be representing a country at the [[UCLA]] [[MUN]] conference, and I needed to know if UN delegates represent the countries president or their "congress" because for the country I represent the president is one political party and "congress" is mainly composed of the opposite party. [[User:Rentastrawberry|<font face="stop" color="#C41E3A"><b><i>RENTASTRAWBERRY</b></i></font>]] [[User talk:Rentastrawberry|<small><b><sup><font face="goudy old style" color="#C41E3A"><i>FOR LET?</i></font></sup></b></small>]] [[User:Rentastrawberry/Classic Rock Full List|<b><font face="goudy old style" color="#C41E3A"><i>röck</i></font></b>]] 04:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:As an [[ambassador]] to the [[UN]], you represent the interests of your [[country]] as a whole, and her people, at least in theory. In practice, you espouse the policies of whichever has the power to appoint (and unappoint) ambassadors in your particular country. -[[User:THB|THB]] 04:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
:Where the nation's parliamentary body and executive differ, the ambassador will usually take silence or great caution, unless the two bodies are in an actual power struggle, and then she or he will act in accord with the body that sets foreign policy (which is usually the executive). For example, John Bolton is at wide variance with the majority in the US Congress, but foreign policy is the president's job, and so he expresses the president's views (and his own) quite a bit. [[User:Geogre|Geogre]] 11:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
==Song Name==
I was wondering if anyone new the name of the song played in the movie Appollo 13 where the announcer was commenting on the loss of the crew men of Apollo 1. Thanks! --Visiting guy
:I haven't seen the film, but it will probably be one of the songs listed [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112384/soundtrack here], which might help. Is it a song with a lyric? If so, what are some of the words? --[[User:Richardrj|Richardrj]] [[User talk:Richardrj|<sup>talk </sup>]][[Special:Emailuser/Richardrj|<sup>email</sup>]] 08:56, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Bush approval ratings in NYC ==
Are approval rating polls ever done by city? I've found state-wide ones but I'd like to see an NYC specific poll... --[[User:Tothebarricades.tk|Tothebarricades]] 07:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Administrative law judges ==
Are the Judges of the U.S. Immigration court Administrative law judges?
==Guerilla New Network & libel==
from the Guerrilla News Network (gnn.tv) editor:
We've been under attack from a deranged group of netizens who continually post misinformation about our organization on Wikipedia and other places on the web. How do we keep libelous information from continually being posted on Wiki without monitoring it 24/7? We just don't have the time or money to be able to keep correcting our entry.
Anthony Lappe
Editor, GNN.tv
anthony@gnn.tv
==Allegations surrounding George W. Bush's sexuality==
I am gay, and I've seen these allegations before. [http://mindprod.com/politics/bushismsgay.html This site] seems to be obsessed with using seeming coincidences and circumstantial evidence to prove he is a homosexual. I personally, as a leftist, abhor the idea of Bush being gay, not because of him being gay, but him himself. I hate the man.
So here I am asking the well read well researched who know a bit more than the rest of us about George W. Bush to give me the straight (pun ''intended'') facts on Bush's sexuality.
The article starts out emphasizing his use of the word "fabulous". So what? Man uses the word fabulous=gay?
One of the odd things I find is that the writer claims to be gay himself, but includes the alleged pedophilic tendencies of some people who have been close politically to Mr. Bush, as further evidence he is gay. This enrages me, as if pedophilia and homosexuality are in the least bit comparable?
Then it has allegations about his supposed homosexuality during college, which look doubtful. Allegations about Victor Ashe and him. Allegations he went, under the knowledge and advice of his mother Barbara, to become straight through an ex-gay ministry, but the date of his going there is listed as 1976, while the ministry was founded in 1986. Could be a typo, but still..
Another thing, the [[Jeff Gannon|Gannon]]/Guckert scandal. The website claims, with no conclusive evidence, that Gannon had a sexual relationship with Bush or at least someone in the White House. However, Gannon has since come out as gay so I don't know if he has any need to keep any scandalous secrets hidden. Also, since Gannon is bald, numerous photographs of Mr. Bush with his hand on bald men's heads, have been used to imply that this is some sort of 'bald head fetish' of his, and they tie this to his alleged sexual relationship with Gannon.
Some suspiciously Photoshop-like images of him in near-kiss positions with Karl Rove, the Saudi King, Lieberman. I don't think Bush really kissed or tried to kiss Lieberman, it looked more like a whisper into his ear. Other pics of him with Putin and Blair meant to allege he is in relationships with or both of those two.
The [[Franklin Coverup Scandal]] conspiracy theory, which the people who love to talk about it can't seem to make up their mind about whether to call it a homosexual ring or a pedophile ring, sometimes they just call it both! The ring, which is alleged to have involved Bush Sr, has not been proven to be true, or at least proven to be true in regards to Bush Sr and Reagan having sex with "callboys".
Not to mention that he uses Abu Ghraib to argue that Bush is gay as well! Most Abu Ghraib incidents involved "pile ups", nudity, forced oral sex to other prisoners, as a way to humiliate the prisoners. There was also murder and extreme torture. there was some male-to-male rape, but there's also male to male rape in U.S. prisons, and the men who do them are usually straight men who in the absence of women, force their way sexually into other men. I think this would be the case here. Also there were plenty, if not more, male-to-female rapes but leave it to this guy to call it "gay S&M".
At the very least, Bush could be a bisexual, but I think it's safe to say that this website is damn not credible at all and Bush is most likely heterosexual. I simply can not believe the author of that outrageous webpage would be gay. Anyway, if you read through it, of course believing everything he says, the conclusion he wants everyone to make is that not only is Bush gay, but everyone he associates with! Rumours and gossip are thrown in as fact. Cheney must be gay, and so is his wife, she's a lesbian, so together they must've spawned Mary! It's that kind of ridiculousness that gets thrown about.
This post wasn't defending Bush from allegations of homosexuality, it was, to put it with some wit, defending homosexuality from Bush.
:I agree that it's all total nonesense. However, I'm sure there have been many gay men who were truly evil (the one who shot the fashion guru comes to mind). This does not reflect negatively on homosexuality any more than truly evil straight men reflects poorly on heterosexuality. [[User:StuRat|StuRat]] 15:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== Mystery or Mystary? ==
[[Evanescence]] released a promo EP in January of 2003; the article is at [[Mystary EP]], which states that it was purposely misspelled. However, in adding an album box, I added an image, and noticed that it was spelled "Mystery" on the cover. I've never actually seen a copy of the album, so I don't have any hard, canonical evidence here. What's a good way to settle this? [[User:Grendelkhan|grendel]]|[[User_talk:Grendelkhan|khan]] 14:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
== plagerism in the family ==
guy has family guys producers been sued for the cutaways based on others work?
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