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April 30

Military brat (U.S. subculture)

The lead section of today's Featured Article, Military brat (U.S. subculture), says: "Military brats typically have a love for their country, and have been raised in a culture that emphasizes loyalty, honesty, discipline, and responsibility. Sometimes these values are so strong that they cease to be virtues and become weaknesses." I have no access to the reference for this assertion, and I'm not a social scientist. I would like to know what constitutes a weakness, and what those weaknesses are in this particular case. Aecis^Brievenbus 01:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Excessive patriotism can give way to jingoism. An overly-developed sense of discipline can lead to a lack of empathy for others with weaker constitutions (children, say). It seems like a flimsy statement to not have a reference, but these are some things that came to mind. --TotoBaggins 01:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a really bizarre statement, but the FAC people have been haywire for a while now. ("We don't know what any of them say, but they must have footnotes, whether to legitimate things or not.") In fact, children have a tendency to adopt and then reject the atmosphere of their parents' cultures, no matter the job. The "preacher's son" is the wildest. The "military brat" is the most anti-military, etc. In other words, it's the old, old story of differentiation of ego. When a child adopts his or her parents' ideology, the child will do so without the life experiences and nuances of the parents (if any), and so they tend to be the same, only moreso. This is the case with the child of the religious, the child of the intellectual, the child of the soldier, etc. Then, when the child begins to experience ego differentiation (i.e. "teen rebellion"), the more constraining the previous expectations had been, the more noticeably or violently the child reacts. So far as I have seen, this is not unique to the children of soldiers. Then again, I only have life experience to draw upon, and not a footnote to a website. Geogre 02:25, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

However, what is (nearly) unique to this case is that not only does the child have parent(s) in the military, but all the child's friends also have the same, and the teacher is provided by the military, etc. The uniformity of the culture is unusual, perhaps being mirrored in children raised in communes. StuRat 04:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

In particular, I was concerned about the following quote violating wikipedia's suggestion of Avoiding weasel words: ``Many are typically highly educated, outgoing and patriotic, and they have been raised in a culture that emphasizes loyalty, honesty, discipline, and responsibility. Many struggle to develop and maintain deep lasting relationships, feeling like outsiders to U.S. civilian culture.Llamabr 11:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I removed what I thought was least defensible in the lead (namely, the sentence quoted in the original question here). The material below is quite unbalanced, but at least gives (eventually and slightly) a more nuanced view. Wareh 13:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Newspaper question

When did the practise of printing a big edition one day a week start? Why is it Saturday in Canada and Sunday in the US? What is it in other countries? Clarityfiend 02:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It's usually Saturday in Australia. The Weekend Australian is published on Saturdays but the title acknowledges it's meant to keep the reader happy for the whole weekend. Most Sunday papers have inserts that increase their bulk too, but I literally put 50% of my Saturday paper straight into the recycling. JackofOz 03:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It's meant to provide more "entertainment" when readers presumably are off work on the weekends. Note that expanded comics, crossword puzzles, etc., are often included. StuRat 03:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It's usually Sunday in Brazil (if anyone cares). A.Z. 04:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure Clarityfiend cares; he did ask about other countries. -- JackofOz 04:52, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Just remembered an interesting fact: the Sunday newspaper can be bought already on Saturday afternoon here. I don't know how it is in other countries. The newspapers on other days of the week are impressed on the same day that they are sold. Is is like that in all countries? (added later: I just saw StuRat's comment below... Now I wonder if they sell the papers on Saturday with or without the part containing the news) A.Z. 06:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

There are both Saturday and Sunday newspapers, each containing that day's news, which are still delivered on the proper day. Only the "non-news" portion of the Sunday paper is often delivered a day early (but the dates on them still say Sunday). Specifically, I think the non-news parts of the Sunday paper are delivered to the paper boys on Saturday morning, and they may opt to deliver that portion early or leave it for the Sunday paper. Most opt to deliver those right away. StuRat 15:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette used to deliver the entire "Sunday" paper on Saturday to some areas. This "Sunday" paper contained only feature stories, with no daily news. Other parts of the delivery area received a regular Sunday paper with both feature stories and daily news from Saturday. I don't know if they still do this. -- Mwalcoff 02:14, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, in the US, even though the big paper is officially on Sunday, they often deliver the comics, magazines, coupons, ads, etc., on Saturday, instead, making the Saturday paper the biggest. StuRat 05:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

For history: "1861, April 21: Responding to the thirst for Civil War news, major dailies, including The Times, start Sunday Issues." (From The New York Times website. It doesn't say anything about quantity or other parts of the world. ---Sluzzelin talk 05:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It's Saturday in France. According to the fact that most papers sellers are closed on Sunday. -- DLL ^{.. T} 07:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

While in Britain, most national newspapers have a big saturday edition and a semi-independent sunday sister paper with a different staff. Algebraist 10:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

That's mostly the case in Australia, too. JackofOz 00:21, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems clear that it's Saturday here in Canada because the idea of doing business on Sundays was much slower to develop here than in the U.S., so most cities didn't have Sunday papers until relatively recently, if they even do now. The Toronto Star didn't publish on Sunday until 1977, for instance. Hence the "big paper" on Saturday was traditional. --Anonymous, April 30, 2007, 23:17 (UTC).

In Britain, it's the Sunday paper that's the biggest, although the Saturday papers tend to be pretty big too. In fact, the Sunday editions tend to be produced by different teams, and used to (don't know if this is still the case) have a different distribution network. I believe the papers didn't used to produce Sunday editions (once upon a time). In fact, the Sunday papers and the daily papers of the same company are often called 'sister papers' rather than the same newspaper. They also tend to have different names. So the sister paper of The Times is The Sunday Times, the sister paper of The Daily Mail is The Mail on Sunday, the sister paper of The Sun is The News of the World, the sister paper of The Guardian is The Observer. Skittle 16:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Dark Side of the Moon

On Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon, the song Any Colour You Like has a very different sound from any of the other tracks on that album. Are there any other Pink Floyd songs that have the same kind of funky, trippy feel? (I apologize; this question is an opinion question and I know it's not really appropriate for the reference desk.) Jolb

Answering on your talk page since this is opinion. Dismas|^(talk) 05:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

It's hard for me to see what the Humanities desk is for if not for asking about things like the stylistic connections among artists' works. The question is completely appropriate and could obviously be answered by someone in no danger of spewing mere opinion but possessing authoritative knowledge of Pink Floyd's works and styles. Wareh 13:19, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I own every Pink Floyd official release (plus a few more, wink, wink) and have been listening to them my entire adult life. I have been a member of discussion groups about the band and have read books on the band's history. Though any thoughts that I would give on what songs sound "trippy" would be my opinion. I know of no quote from the band members or critics who espoused on this song in particular as it's one of the least written about. And the only time it has been played in concert, that I can think of off the top of my head, is when the band was doing a full Dark Side show. And because of that, I didn't want the editors who feel that the Ref Desk should be devoid of opinion to start chanting "Hammer, Hammer, Hammer..." Dismas|^(talk) 00:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Pax Romana

Could someone explain how the very first sentence of the Pax Romana article could need a cite? Is it the dates that could be called into question? Dismas|^(talk) 08:55, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This question may be better asked at the article's talk page, but the present article has not a single reference, and the editor who added the tag remarks on the talk page: "It is modern, disputed term that is retroactively applied. I wonder who came with it."  --Lambiam^Talk 09:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

At least the person who tagged wrote on the talk page. The term is disputed, but this is partly due to allegations of ethnocentrism. The point in that case is that the term has a huge, huge, huge cultural life, so there is every justification for having an article on it. Of course it's a retroactively applied label. Augustus didn't say, "My fellow Romans, I plan to begin the Pax Romana today. Let's all work together." It's just a label applied a long time ago and discussed for a while. It's very important for Christology for example. Geogre 10:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

How so (the importance of Pax Romana for Christology)?  --Lambiam^Talk 10:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

For one of the prophetic settings of the incarnation, the Messiah must appear in a time of global peace. I cannot recall now which of the Church Fathers first made the point about the "100 years of global peace" of the Pax Romana being coincident with the birth of Jesus, but, of course, as we know and the critics point out, "global peace" did not occur. It was peace in the west, and then only in the sense of peace between nation states. There were plenty of rebellions and civil wars and fully fledged wars in other parts o fhte world. Geogre 11:09, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

"The son of David will come only in a generation that is either altogether righteous or altogether wicked" - see Jewish eschatology Dr Zak 12:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Augustus made much of the fact that there was finally peace (after two generations of uninterrupted civil war). In the Res Gestae he wrote "Our ancestors wanted Janus Quirinus to be closed when throughout the all the rule of the Roman people, by land and sea, peace had been secured through victory. Although before my birth it had been closed twice in all in recorded memory from the founding of the city, the senate voted three times in my principate that it be closed." Well, he is allowed to. The Res Gestae amongst other things report that he rebuilt the bridges of Rome (thirty in all) and fixed the failing water supply. The infrastructure must have been totally in ruins. Dr Zak 12:20, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

In any case it is a mis-use of the citation requested tag. No citation is requested. --24.147.86.187 02:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Flowers offered to God

Please tell me which flowers and leaves are offered to hindu gods and goddesses. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.71.137.235 (talk) 09:09, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

From what I could discover there do not seem to be any specific requirements for what types of flowers and leaves should be offered to the Hindu deities, though I'd imagine that those "traditionally" offered would be ones native to the areas where it has been widely practiced the longest. So apparently they are not picky about the exact type, although I did find something that says not to "sniff" the flowers to be offered, as the smell is all for the gods, and to not use flowers that have fallen to the ground, along with some other helpful tips and hints.[1] Also the Lotus flower seems to be important to Hinduism in general and Vishnu in particular, so he might be partial to those.--Azi Like a Fox 11:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

lotuses?--Lerdthenerd 11:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Marigold blossoms are used extensively for this in Nepal, and I assume India. Many houses have marigolds growing in pots or small gardens to use for daily puja (worship), and you see many people of all walks of life with the flower petals in their hair in the morning on the way to work or school or market. The flower heads are also strung in garlands over doors and window frames for a certain festival but I can't remember which one. You also see what I think are poinsietta blossoms being sold outside temples for offerings, but marigolds are the most common.--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 00:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Every flower Offered to (Hindu)God or Goddess has a reason behind it. e.g. To kill the demon angarsura, Lord Ganesh had to swallow him and his body started burning but to stop the burning even the water from the lotus feet of Lord Vishnu was not enough. Hence, the Devas offered him 21 Dhurvas which calmede his body.

Scottish War of Independence-also a civil war?

Hello Wikipedia. I need an urgent answer to the question why was the Scottish War of Independence also a civil war? SeanScotland 09:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Our article on the Second War of Scottish Independence explains how this war became also a civil war.  --Lambiam^Talk 10:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly the article also refers to, "a civil war within a civil war" occurring. Also worth noting, as the article Civil War alludes to, the definition and application of the term "civil war" is often hotly debated and inconsistently applied; one person's civil war is another's Sectarian strife.--Azi Like a Fox 10:38, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Welcome, SeanScotland. This is a complex issue that goes back to the demise of the Canmore dynasty in the person of Alexander III and his infant grand-daughter, Margaret, Maid of Norway. The death of Margaret in 1290 left no generally accepted successor to the Scottish throne. Unable to solve this deadlock by any internal process, the Scottish political community, fearful of a dynastic war, appealed to Edward I of England to resolve the matter by arbitration. There were thirteen Competitors for the Crown of Scotland in all, but only two of real significance: John Balliol of Galloway and Robert Bruce of Annandale, the grandfather of the future king. At a feudal court held at Berwick-upon-Tweed, then the chief port of Scotland, the matter was decided in favour of John Balliol. The Bruce family accepted this with an ill-grace, keeping alive their claim to be the rightful heirs to the Scottish crown. When war broke out between England and Scotland in 1296 the Bruces, also subjects of the English crown, sided with King Edward, despite their Scottish connections. Though John was duly deposed they were disappointed when Edward refused to recognise their claim.

The Scottish Wars of Independence broke out in 1297, with the Bruces sometimes being on one side, and sometimes the other. However, in 1306 Robert Bruce of Carrick, the grandson of the Competitor, killed John Comyn, a leading rival, and the nephew of the former King John Balliol. Bruce went on to gather a party and have himself crowned king of Scots at Scone. This caused a huge earthquake in Scottish politics: men with Balliol and Comyn associations, who hitherto had been in the forefront of the war of national liberation, now began to side with the English against the Bruce monarchy. Well before his great victory in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn, King Robert had spent time in defeating his domestic enemies in a short, but intense phase of civil war, with victories at the Battle of Inverurie and the Battle of the Pass of Brander. This seemed to settle the matter, though the latent hostility of the Comyns and Balliols-now largely living in English exile-to the Bruce monarchy never entirely went away.

In 1329 the death of Robert Bruce opened up a fresh opportunity. Scotland's king was now the infant David II. John Balliol was long dead, but his son, Edward Balliol, grown to manhood, was ready to renew his claim to Scotland, which he did in 1332 with the support of Edward III of England, winning a remarkable victory at the Battle of Dupplin Moor. Soon after he was crowned king of Scotland, though the Bruce faction, refusing to accept this, began a fresh civil war, that engulfed Scotland in the years to come. Although King David eventually prevailed, the matter did not finally come to an end until 1356, when King Edward Balliol finally resigned all of his regal claims. Clio the Muse 12:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Douglas Haig

Was Douglas Haig a great soldier or a butcher? SeanScotland 09:16, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

To read about various views on this issue, see Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig#Controversy.  --Lambiam^Talk 10:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a matter of abiding controversy, Sean, that I do not suppose will ever be settled one way or the other, though I have a feeling that the pendulum is beginning to swing in Haig's favour. I have long been of the view that only the English could have developed such a negative view of arguably one of the nation's greatest commanders. His contribution in defeating the Germans was widley recognised at the time, by both the people of Britain and a number of foreign observers, including General Pershing. It was several years later when the true extent of the sacrifice involved in winning the Great War began to sink in that a new mood of hostility and revisionism began to emerge. This developed over the years, finding popular expression in John Littlewood's stage production of Oh! What a Lovely War, as well as support in several academic monographs. The whole campaign of vilification seemed to be based on the assumption that Haig sacrificed men unneccesarily; that battles were fought simply for reasons of attrition, and nothing besides; that there was somehow another, less bloody, road to victory that Haig and his collegues did not take. But wars cannot be won without confronting the main enemy army in battle; and this, sad to say, is inevitably a gruesome process. Consider the example of U. S. Grant, who in his campaign from the Wilderness to Petersburg in 1864 and 1865 was arguably responsible for the death of more Americans than any other man in history. At one battle alone, that at Cold Harbour in the early summer of 1864, the Union losses, as a proportion of the total strength of the Army of the Potomac, were as great as some of the battle losses on the western front. Grant could have taken the same road as McLellan, Burnside, Hooker and so many others before him and retreated back to his start line; but he pushed on, to Richmond and victory. Likewise, in the Second World War, Georgy Zhukov, the greatest of all the Soviet commanders, sustained losses at Stalingrad and Kursk quite as dreadful as those at the Somme and Passchendale. What other way was there of defeating the Germans?

Haig, like all other commanders at the time, began without really knowing what the new warfare, the great battle of men and materials, was really about: heavy prolonged artillery barrages were followed by unsupported and uncordinated assaults on enemy positions, with the inevitable consequences in casualties. However, by 1918, Haig had moved through a sharp learning curve, turning the British Army into one of the best in the world, a remarkable achievment when one considers that the country had little in the way of a military tradition, and in 1914 was only able to field four 'contemptible' divisions in France. In the final offensive of 1918 Haig, in carefully co-ordinating a creeping artillery barrage with measured and discreet infantry attacks, was able to advance in relentless stages against the German positions, covering more ground than the rest of the Allied armies. It was this that broke the back of the German army and assured victory. For further information on this subject I would urge you to read John Terraine's Douglas Haig: the Educated Soldier, which, despite its age, is still the best treatment of the subject. Clio the Muse 12:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

GREAT! Thank you Clio Muse for giving such complete answers to my questions. I have two more. How can an english girl know so much about Scottish history, and how can a girl knows so much about about militry history? SeanScotland 17:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, Sean, this 'girl' knows quite a lot about this, that and some of the other. Clio the Muse 18:47, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I see you are new Sean, stay a while and you'll get used to her :) If you read her user page you'll see she's completing a history PhD, and if you search back in RefDesk archives you will find a lot of thorough and researched answers by Clio. Reading her replies is always educational. Shinhan 18:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Some other reading that you may find interesting is a fairly recent edition of Haig's war diaries and letters, edited by Gary Sheffield and John Bourne. It is, I believe simply titled 'War diaries and letters," and also contains a fair amount of (rather good) scholarly analysis.

On your original question, I think Clio has the right of it, and Haig is perhaps better thought of now than at any point since his death. It might be argued that he was not the best of the British Empire commander (some historians prefer Herbert Plumer, others Arthur Currie), but he was certainly not as inept and unfeeling as has been claimed in the past. Carom 19:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Popish Plot

What was the Popish plot and what effect did it have on the goverment of England. I looked at your page but its not very good. 193.39.159.3 09:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

There are indeed better or in any case more extensive articles than our Popish Plot at the German Wikipedia (Papisten-Verschwörung) and the Japanese Wikipedia (カトリック陰謀事件). If you google ["popish plot" site:en.wikipedia.org], you will find more material, although unfortunately not in well-organized form.  --Lambiam^Talk 10:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

For more information on English Wikipedia, see also Titus_Oates#The_Popish_Plot. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Hello, 193.39. You are far too generous. The Wikipedia page on the Popish Plot is truly dire! You will find some additional leads in the articles on Titus Oates, Charles II and James duke of York, though hardly enough to give a complete answer to your question. The Popish Plot itself was a wave of anti-Catholic hysteria that overtook England from 1678 onwards, but the political roots of the crisis go back several years, and has to be viewed against a background of the growing distrust between Parliament and the Crown. It is also important to understand that for English people of the day Catholicism was not simply a set of religious beliefs: it was, rather, an all-embracing ideology, with strong associations with Continental despotism, represented, above all, in the person of Louis XIV. This would have had little bearing on England but for one thing: in the early 1670s James duke of York, the brother and heir of King Charles, who had no legitimate heirs, was known to have converted to Catholicism. The anxiety this caused led to an ever more vocal opposition to royal policy, from the alliance with the Catholic French against the Protestant Dutch, to Charles' attempts to introduce, by royal prerogative, a measure of toleration for Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. It was a highly unstable political mixture that, by the late 1670s, simply needed one spark to cause a major explosion. This came in 1678 when Titus Oates, in collaboration with a half-mad clergyman by the name of Israel Tonge, started to spread rumours that there was a plot by the Jesuits to kill the king. This story went through various metamorphoses; but in the final version the assassination was conceived as part of a grander strategy to replace Charles with the Catholic James. Nothing may have come of these stories but for the mysterious assassination of Edmund Berry Godfrey, a magistrate who had been appointed to look into the whole affair.

It was this murder that really sparked off all that was to follow. It gave substance to the stories of Oates and Tonge, made all the more credible when it was found that Edward Coleman, secretary of the duke of York, was in treasonable correspondence with the French. England was now gripped by collective hysteria. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, chief among James' enemies, was soon demanding that the Catholic duke be exluded from the succession, thus beginning the Exclusion Crisis. Shaftesbury and his allies, loosly known as the 'Country Party', to distinguish them from the supporters of Charles and James, known as the 'Court Party', formed the Green Ribbon Club, opposed to Catholicism, Absolutism and James in equal measure. Their enemies began to refer to them as Whigs, after a group of extreme Presbyterian rebels in Scotland. The Green Ribbons responded in kind, referring to their enemies in Parliament as Tories, after Irish Catholic bandits. It was on this inauspicious basis that English party politics took shape, which was to be the chief legacy of the Popish Plot. In the end Charles managed to sidestep, though not resolve, the issues that had been raised by dissolving the Oxford Parliament in 1681, bringing the Exclusion Crisis to an end. James duly succeeded to the throne in 1685, held up by a wave of Tory reaction against the Whigs and the murderous excesses of the Popish Plot. But fear of Catholic Absolutism did not go away; and in 1688 sections of the Whig and Tory parties united to remove James from the throne in the so-called Glorious Revolution. Soon after Parliament passed an act outlawing any future Catholic succession, and the Whigs and Tories became a permanent part of the English political landscape. Clio the Muse 11:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Good summary. Clio, you ought to rewrite our PP page. The only caution is the objections raised by George Namier in Politics at the Accession of George III (I think that's the name), where he argued that there were no whigs and tories at all, that it was illegal to have a political party, and therefore there weren't any: there was only the king's ministry. Of course the Namierite hypothesis must now be seriously limited. After all, they called each other Tory and Whig in 1737, so, if they didn't pay dues to a central committee and develop united election strategies, they still knew what they meant and still split along country/city, court/country, high/low church. The usefulness, for me, of the Namierite hypothesis is that it reminds us that the evolution of such things as the Patriot Party from a collection of "whig" and "tory" MP's was more flexible than we might assume. Utgard Loki 12:21, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Utgard Loki. The book you have in mind is, I think, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III by the brilliant Sir Lewis Namier. Actually, what he argues is that the Whigs and Tories were not tightly organised groups, in the sense we understand political parties today, but highly fluid 'alliances' of like-minded individuals, who could concentrate and disperse as the occasion demanded, often in relation to specific issues. Even so, this great political fracture determined the general shape of English politics from the reign of William III onwards. People at the time would have been very well aware that Walpole was a Whig and Bute was a Tory. But the fluidity of the whole structure is fully demonstrated by the career of William Pitt the Younger, a Tory Prime Minister who came from the Whig political tradition, and always thought of himself as an 'independent Whig.' Clio the Muse 19:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I wrote the Patriot Whig article, and it was a revelation to me at the time that such a group came into existence. I'm a naif with the field, but I've been interested for a while in how the "patriot" movements meant what they did in the 30's. Later, with the Pitts, it has a really definable meaning, but it seems to be "anti-Walpole" and "anti-war" in the 30's. This is the period when God Save the King was written, probably by Henry Carey (writer), who seems to be a "patriot" to be an anti-Walpolean. It seems to be an under-discussed era and one that's very hard to stick. Geogre 19:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want information about the Popish Plot, you must have a free google-account, then you find herea lot of e-books -- jlorenz1 02:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC) See also commons:Pictured Cards of the Popish Plot

Catholic churches response to criticisms

so how come catholik cherch iz whore of baby lon lol...

Sorry... I had to do it =P. But I have a serious (!) question. What is the current approach to protestants, in terms of evangelism? Do missionaries have a hierarchy to decide who to convert? I know that many protestants send priests to Catholic Africans/Mexicans, but what about the other way around?--Kirby♥time 12:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

lol :> Perry-mankster 14:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Do these Protestant missionaries try to convert Roman Catholics? They're not supposed to, as most churches regard proselytizing as a thing to avoid. It's quite possible that the protestant missionaries are just spreading the word in general, with their interpretation, and aiming at the non-believer and catching members of other faiths. I would assume that the same would be true of those Roman Catholic orders that have missionary branches. They would not intentionally go after protestant believers, but rather go after non-believers and non-practicing. Utgard Loki 12:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

There are many Protestant churches (in particular the evangelicals) who don't consider Catholics "good Christians". I can remember my grandmother calling Catholics "idol worshippers". Many evangelicals, in particular, consider proselytizing as a good thing, bringing in the deluded into the True Church. Corvus cornix 20:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I remember the Campus Crusade for Christ had more of a problem with me being Catholic than with me being an atheist. Also, as far as I remember, Catholic missions do not really proselytize to Protestants, but they do seem to focus on "natives" in the Americas, even if they are already Catholic. Adam Bishop 15:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

air turbulence

What is the most damaging event in the aviation history caused by air turbulence? Also, where can I find some air turbulence related videos, I searched "you tube" but they are mostly irrelevant. Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.108.217.130 (talk) 18:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

Not a complete answer, but the articles on wind shear and wake turbulence may help you out. - Eron ^Talk 18:23, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

You haven't really defined "damaging" very well, but I presume you equate damaging to loss of life. You may consider looking in Category:Accidents and incidents on commercial airliners and in Category:Accidents and incidents on commercial airliners caused by bad weather, although I wouldn't be enthusiastic about their completeness. In addition, you should definitely look at the above articles, as well as Clear air turbulence. –Pakman044 23:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Antonio's orderal

In Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, if Antonio defended who he thought was Sebastian but was actually Cesario and Cesario denied Antonio, why would Antonio leave a note at the Elephant? I am guessing that Sebastian received Antonio's note, written after Antonio's arrest and before Sebastian arrived at the Elephant. Sebastian was sightseeing at the meanwhile. --Mayfare 19:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• I've never seen a problem with this: I've always assumed that Antonio went to the Elephant for a few hours, and then left, "leaving word" that he was going to range the town to seek Sebastian out, then ran into Cesario and the knights having their swordfight. Is there a reason why that order of events doesn't work for you? AndyJones 20:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Courtship Rituals/Dating in the 70's, 80's

I need to know what people did in the 70's and 80's to go out on dates. I am only 20 years old and do not know what people did back then. What did guys take girls to do? 76.202.62.120 22:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC) Jack

Movies, dances, theatre, skating, skiing, bowling, swimming, long walks, bars, long drives, lectures, concerts, parties, lunches and dinners, picnics, beaches, parks . . . Most of the same things that girls took guys to do and that girls and guys do today, I think, in North America, at any rate. Bielle 22:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Some things never change! There is a page on Youth culture, though it's not a very good introduction to the subject. Jack, why not just ask your people, your mum and dad, I mean? Clio the Muse 22:56, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

You could always watch some of the great romance movies of the time for indications. Say Anything to me implies that guys were fond of holding beatboxes outside of girls' windows, for example, which I'm sure was quite common back in those rowdy times. --24.147.86.187 01:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Personal experience...The movie, Love Story, at a drive-in theatre, if you can't score there::, you've got real problems!

"Beatboxes?" "Rowdy times?" I was there, I thought. I don't recall any of this. Bielle 04:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe meant boomboxes and got mixed up with beatboxing? --Azi Like a Fox 09:07, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• The only element to have changed, really, is the arcade. In the early 1980's, arcades were popular. Dumb guys might be stupid or addicted enough to believe that going to the arcade was a good date activity. Other than that, nothing has changed. How they met and arranged their activities changed considerably (Internet extremely rare, everyone on VAX's and Usenet; cell phones non-existent, txtng utterly unimaginable (still, if you ask me)), but not what folks did. Geogre 10:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Can't say much about the 70's, i was born in 71, but ah the 80's. Very much designer label era - from a scottish POV - and the smallish town i came from you where - generally speaking - either a 'trendy' or a 'casual' - trendy being brogues, DM's suit/sport jackets jeans = "smert lookin'" casual being V expensive labels on your clothes ('stone island being a perfect example)' rare and expensive trainers, but not necessarily a soccer hooligan (although that's what the image portrayed) as for dating you kept much to your own group, and ergo your own pubs, and that's where you meet, 'chatted up' (fantastic terminology!) girls and generally did what all teenagers do and have done since they where 'invented' in the 50's.... Perry-mankster 12:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• I took guys to The Factory where I could get them in for free which impressed them, to see punk bands.hotclaws**== 09:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

copyright status of PRC propaganda posters

Hi there, I posted this question on 'Can I use' (twice) and 'Media copyright questions' and got no response, so I thought I'd try you. I am trying to determine the copyright status of low-res images of political propaganda posters created in the People's Republic of China during the 1950's. This collection of posters and the site's copyright information and attribution policy seem to say that they would fall under GFDL and that {{Attribution}} would apply, but images from the same site, which are currently being used in Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius, Propaganda in the People's Republic of China and other Wikipedia articles are used under {{politicalposter}} as fair use. Any ideas on the actual status of these images? AFAIK the image I am looking to use was created in the mid-1950's, probably from artwork done by some artist working for the PRC and then reproduced extensively, the site consists of low-res scans of posters in the siteowner's collection, which are the images I want to use. Thanks!--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 23:50, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Well low-res doesn't matter if you are not talking about fair use. Neither does the fact that it is scanned in. In the end all that matters is whether or not works created by the PRC in the 1950s fall under any sort of copyright protection, or whether they are in the public domain. I don't know much about the issue except that in recent years China has joined various copyright conferences and as such I'm pretty sure its back works should be considered likely copyrighted unless explicitly indicated otherwise. The fact that a website owner has claimed copyright over them (even to proclaim them released as GFDL) has no legal weight. Scanning something surely does not create a new copyright. --24.147.86.187 01:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually he doesn't claim copyright, he states that he believes they are not copyrighted on the page listed above, he just wants attribution for the scans if they are used, which I believe then we can use here under GDFL. I thing at the time in China copyright was considered 'capitalist,' and things created were for the 'people'. I just don't know if his claim is correct.--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 02:13, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The GFDL is a copyright license. You can't license something under GFDL unless you own the copyright to it. You can't GFDL things in the public domain. So either the site owner implies he/she owns the copyright, or they don't understand the GFDL. Nevermind, I misunderstood what you were asserting. You're saying that attribution is allowed under the GFDL. His desire for attribution does not read to me like a legal requirement so I don't think you have to worry about that compicating things, and of course we can attribute (in a non-binding legal fashion). In any case as he is in any case not the copyright owner he does not really have any standing to set those sorts of terms in a legal sense; it might be polite to comply but there's no legal mechanism backing it up. ... And claims about their assumed ideological approach do not give any indication of what their copyright law would be. In any case intellectual property is at least as much about control as it is about profit, and in the area of control no one excels like a socialist state. --24.147.86.187 02:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Cool and thanks for the replies. The images being used on WP are labeled 'fair use' and I think as low-res scans of political posters that were distributed widely that is probably correct. I wanted to use one on my user page and since fair use images are not allowed there I was looking for another way to label them that would be legal and clear. Since the status is not clear I'll just forego the image on my user page. Thanks for all the replies!--killing sparrows ^(chirp!) 02:34, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

May 1

Lessons of the wars

I have another question for Clio the Muse, or anyone else who knows the answer. What military lessons did England learn from the wars in Scotland and how were these applied? SeanScotland 05:37, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Focus, specifically, Sean, on the Battle of Dupplin Moor, a seminal contest in the Anglo-Scottish wars. At the beginning of the war the English army's main offensive weapon was heavy feudal cavalry, with infantry appearing as something of an afterthought. But the charge of the knights against the Scottish infantry schiltrons had shown how disastrous this tactic was when confronted by compact ranks of enemy spearmen, standing in a good defensive position. In the years that followed things began to change, and in 1322 Andrew Harclay, had demonstrated the value of dismounted archers with wings of supporting infantry fighting against knights at the Battle of Boroughbridge. In a more fully developed form, Edward Balliol had used wings of archers to create a cross-fire, cutting down the Scottish infantry charge at Dupplin. Edward III later employed these tactics on an even greater scale, and to a more devastating effect against the French at the Battle of Crecy at the outset of the Hundred Years War. For a good bit of the following century the English were able to dominate the battlefields of Europe, with great wedges of long-bowmen destroying the advance of enemy knights, no matter how heavily armoured. Clio the Muse 05:59, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Far be it from me to argue with Clio, but I believe the English got the idea of the longbowmen from campaigns in Wales, and the Welsh provided longbow troops from the time of Edward I, who also introduced compulsory archery practice. I am sure they learned the tactics of using them in Scotland too though.137.138.46.155 07:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Please argue with me, 137; I love being argued with! Yes, you are quite right: the English did indeed learn the use of the longbow from the wars in Wales, and a great many of the best archers at both Crecy and Agincourt were Welsh. You will find longbowmen in English armies sent to Scotland as early as the Battle of Falkirk in 1298, though there was still a predominance of Continental cross-bowmen in the army of Edward I. The point is that it took the English a number of years to learn the effective use of bowmen as an independent arm, as opposed to an auxiliary for the support of cavalry. This comes in the battles I have mentioned above, first Boroughbridge, then Dupplin, and finally, in the most developed form, at Crecy. Clio the Muse 07:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't really arguing, I was seeking clarification. Thanks for that. 137.138.46.155 14:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Bears in Britain

Bear baiting used to be popular. Beowulf, the eponymous hero of England's national epic poem is often interpreted as a kenning for bear. And the crest of Warwick involved a bear. Were these bears imported? Known about from the continent? Or were bears, like wolves once native to the British Isles?137.138.46.155 07:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

According to List_of_extinct_animals_of_the_British_Isles, the answer to your last question is yes (though the date of disappearance seems unclear). ---Sluzzelin talk 08:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Bears, like wolves, were indeed once native to the British Isles. I know that the last wolf was shot in the early part of the seventeenth century, and I suspect that bears were gone long before then. I would imagine their range would have declined significantly, from Roman times onwards, with the steady disappearance of much of the natural woodland. By the Middle Ages bears, according to this site [2] were being imported for baiting. It's possible that some were also bred in domestic 'bear farms.' Clio the Muse 08:11, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Caution about Beowulf: first, the story is told of a European nation (Denmark, most likely), and the hero is very much European. The story came over with the Anglo-Saxons from Jutland. Additionally, the "bear" in question did not have to be ursus, exactly. Finally, he appears to be an adaptation of another Norse hero who literally changed into a bear. Therefore, he's no indication of bears in the British Isles in 780 AD. Geogre 10:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Per a few sources, bears became extinct in Britain in the early Middle Ages. Marco polo 13:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey Marco! Not in any way, shape or form doubting you, but could you provide a few of these sources, in case anyone reading this wants the details? Skittle 16:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. I know Beowulf wasn't set in England I was just saying that bears were obviously known well enough to be in such an important poem. But anyway thanks for all the info, how about we re-introduce bears like they have suggested with wolves?137.138.46.155 13:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it can result in unexpected diplomatic consequences, though you might be safe with Britain being surrounded by the sea. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps somebody can start campaigning for the return of elephants as well! --LarryMac 16:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Stalin-was there an alternative?

Hi, I've just started a course on modern Russian history and I would appreciate some help with my first assignment. The question is 'In the political struggles in Soviet Russia in the 1920s was there a realistic alternative to Stalin?'. I've looked at all the relevant Wikipedia pages (I think?), but I'm still not quite sure how to go about this. Was there an alternative to Stalin? Could this have been Bukharin? All comments welcome. Fred said right 10:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Stalin was one of many people vying for power at the time. Trotsky, Bukharin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Kirov, etc. Basically just look at all the people who Stalin saw as principle political enemies and had purged, and you'll have possible alternatives to Stalin. As for "realistic," it depends on how you argue it. I don't see any a priori reason to assume Stalin is the only "realistic" answer; to me that sounds like a post hoc decision based on what ended up happening, though as with most things in history there was a lot of contigency at the time. --24.147.86.187 12:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This reminds me of the many hours I spent grappling with twentieth century Russian history as an undergraduate, particularly the political struggles of the 1920s, my very favourite period, when, beneath the outward calm of the long summer of the New Economic Policy, some of the most intense and dramatic contests were being fought out within the ranks of the Communist Party. Never warming to the brilliant, but mercurial Leon Trotsky, my own personal favourite, by far, was 'the darling of the party' Nikolai Bukharin. I think I can hazard a fair guess that the professor who has set your assignment has taken the theme from Stephen Cohen's book Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: a Political Biography, 1888-1938. Consider this from the introduction to the Oxford paperback edition:

Just as there are is no historical inevitability, there are always historical alternatives. And yet when I began work on this book in the mid-1960s, the writing of Soviet history in the west as well as in the USSR, was based largely on the axiom that there had been no alternative to Stalinism. Both Western and Soviet historians adhered, though in different ways and for different reasons, to variations of this axiom. Either Stalin's policies, from the forcible collectivization of the peasantry in 1929-33 to the twenty-one year system of mass terror and prison camps, had grown inevitably from the nature of the Bolshevik Party and its revolution, or they had been necessary for the modernization of a backward peasant society. Western and Soviet scholars were captives of a historigraphy without alternatives even though the idea of a non-Stalinist alternative actually had a long tradition in Communist politics. (Oxford paperback ed., 1980 p, xv)

Cohen goes on to explore this question at length in his introduction and the rest of the book; so, your first task is to get hold of a copy at the earliest opportunity. It's a good argument and, in a sense, Bukharin and the Right Opposition was, indeed, the only real alternative to Stalin, not Trotsky, Zinoviev and the others in the Left Opposition, commonly assumed by Isaac Deutscher and others to be the antithesis of the Stalinist path. Why? Because the policies of collectivisation and industrialisation being argued for by Trotsky and his allies in the 1920s were the very things that Stalin implemented in the 1930s. Bukharin's 'socialism at a snail's pace' and co-operation with the independent peasantry, which Stalin adhered to in the mid-1920s for opportunistic reasons, did represent a real alternative, in political and economic terms, to the interpretation of Marxism most favoured by Leninism. What you now have to ask yourself is would this path have been practicable; would it have been possible for Soviet Russia, in other words, to have continued to operate the NEP system to the eve of the Second World War? Even before the introduction of mass collectivisation, grain deliveries to the state were beginning to drop significantly, which placed the Soviet economy as a whole in a high degree of risk. Beyond that one has to consider the political hostility of the so-called kulaks to the whole Soviet system. The emphasis of the Five Year Plans, especially the second, was on military investment, which enabled the Soviets, in the end, to counter German aggression. Would this have been possible if Russia's capital programme was still moving at a snail's pace on the eve of Barbarossa?. Anyway, some food for thought. Get a hold of Cohen's book and also Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Taken together, these should provide sufficient information for you to produce a superb answer to your question. The very best of luck. Clio the Muse 14:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Fred said right 05:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Trotsky's book on Stalin

How useful as a historical guide is Trotsky's book about Stalin? Fred said right 10:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, you have to take it as a primary source, a voice of a participant and an actor, not as the work of an independent historian (which would even then need evaluation). --24.147.86.187 12:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It is a political polemic. As a work of history it has done more to obscure the real Stalin than possibly any other book on the subject. Stalin was not the 'grey blur' and the bureaucrat depicted by Trotsky, but one of the most talented of the Soviet leaders, intelligent, personable and very well-read. As a political operator, moreover, his skills were considerably in excess of the distant and senatorial Trotsky. Trotsky's greatest failure in the struggles of the 1920s was to underestimate the abilities of his chief rival. He continued to do this when he wrote Stalin. It has some value as an eye-witness account of the political struggles in Soviet Russia, before and after the death of Lenin. It has no value whatsoever in providing any meaningful understanding of Stalin, either as a man or as a politician. Clio the Muse 14:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Fred, I've just recently finished reading an advance review copy of Simon Sebag Montefiore's new book Young Stalin. You could do no better than read this for a considerably more accurate depiction of Stalin's character, intellect and personality than that presented by Trotsky. It's scheduled for publication this week, I think. Clio the Muse 09:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Event Management

What are the internal and external factors that need to be considered when staging an event such as a carnival eg Mardi Graz Parade?? Please help! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.169.249.243 (talk) 10:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

Well, you have almost a year until the next Mardi Gras comes around. Event planning is neither a thorough nor especially professional article, but it does list some of the factors to be considered by an event planner. Perhaps you can get some ideas there for a starting point. Bielle 22:43, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

We also have an article Event management. Budget and liability are some key concepts. Don't forget to take out insurance. The easiest may be to consult your course notes.  --Lambiam^Talk 08:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Global (international) financial centres

Hello, I'm writing a diploma "International financial centres". The point is that I can't find information about the present situation of such centres,their comparison with each other and so on...I will be very glad if somebody can help me!!! Elena —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.117.85.87 (talk) 11:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

I typed "International Financial Centres" into Google, and received 54,000 options. For "International Financial Centers", the number was only 21,500. Perhaps that would be a good place to start. Bielle 22:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Lincoln/ habeas corpus

Would Lincoln have been impeached for suspending habeas corpus, had he not been assassinated?--Llamabr 13:47, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It is unlikely. In the United States presidential election, 1864 only 24 out of 36 states were allowed to cast electoral votes, due to the nonparticipation by the Confederate States. While Lincoln had received a mere 39.9% of the popular votes and 180 out of 303 electoral votes cast in 1860, he received 55% of the popular votes and 212 out of 233 electoral votes cast in the United States presidential election, 1864. The Southern Democrats, who would likely have supported impeachment, were not represented in the 39th United States Congress and so could not have voted for impeachment in the House of Representatives, which had 136 Republicans out of 193. The Senate had 39 Republicans out of 54 members. The Copperheads (politics) faction of Northern Democrats were strongly anti-war and anti-Lincoln, and a newspaper published by one of their supporters said Lincoln was a "worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed since the days of Nero." Lincoln had asserted powers not explicitly granted him in the Constitution, suspended the right of habeas corpus, and imprisoned 18,000 U.S. citizens without any recourse to the courts. He also spent money without congressional authorization. Most of his actions were later supported by the federal courts and by congress. In ex parte Milligan, however, the Supreme Court in 1865 upheld the suspension of habeas corpus, but repudiated the use of military tribunals to try citizens in areas under control of the U.S. government and where the courts were functioning. Lincoln in 1864 had used military tribunals to try northern Copperheads, and the tribunals had sentenced them to hang. The court also ruled that the federal government, during suspension of habeas corpus, could hold citizens, but could not try them and not execute them. In summary, the political base was not there to impeach or convict Lincoln during his first two terms. In some alternative universe where he was not assassinated, and perhaps where he was elected to a third term, when the southern states had rejoined congress, or if he had applied his non-punitive policies toward the defeated southern states as Johnson did, and had run afoul of the Radical Republican as Johnson did, his position vis a vis impeachment might have been weaker. Impeachment of Andrew Johnson shows that the radical republicans were willing to impeach a president for attempting to remove Stanton as Secretary of War. There is no guarantee that Lincoln would have been secure had he survuved and attempted the same. Edison 14:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Press censorship and suspension of habeas corpus were both protested in the South much more loudly when they occurred (for a much shorter period of time) than when they were instituted in the North. "Why" is a hard question to answer, but it could well be that the Northern populace felt more vulnerable to internal dissent than the Southern populace did, and consequently agreed with these abridgments of basic rights under the banner of exigency and public safety. Whenever such things have been tried in the west, the popular mood is fear (incl. the internment of the Japanese after Pearl Harbor). Utgard Loki 15:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I concur that he wouldn't have been impeached. Two Presidents have been impeached (both acquited) and one was on the fast-track to impeachment (and likely would have been convicted). But it takes an incredible amount of political will combined with really bad "high crimes and other misdemeanors" (not even a big Radical Republican majority could remove Andrew Johnson in the vote for the verdict at the end of the trial). This isn't to say that Lincoln didn't do some constitutionally questionable acts (such as throwing the entire Maryland legislature into jail); I just don't think this was a primary concern. Plus Congress at the time would have been more concerned with the operation of the war. –Pakman044 01:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Chávez/Venezuela and the IMF/World Bank

If Chávez takes Venezuela out of the World Bank and the IMF, what effect (negative or positive) could this have on the personal financial situation of the population, especially the Venezuelan middle class? Thankyou in advance for any info.--AlexSuricata 14:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

It's mostly a symbolic act - Venezuela does not have debts with the World Bank or IMF anymore - so I doubt it will have much effect. Skarioffszky 14:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The International Monetary Fund helps to guarantee the financial stability of member states. If Venezuela withdrew from the IMF, international investors would almost certainly lose faith in Venezuela as a place to invest money. This is already happening with Venezuela's moves toward nationalizing the petroleum sector. Venezuela would almost certainly have a much harder time obtaining credit on global markets, which would make it difficult for the country to maintain its infrastructure, including the vital petroleum infrastructure. Internally, it would have a choice between raising interest rates to keep the money supply from outgrowing the economy, which would slow economic growth and cause unemployment to rise, or allowing the money supply to balloon, causing hyperinflation and a complete collapse of the Venezuelan bolívar, which would destroy domestic savings, already reduced by recent inflation. The former course (high interest rates) allowed Argentina to stabilize economically and to bring back foreign investors even though Argentina repudiated some of its debt in violation of IMF requirements. If Venezuela pursued that course, it might be able to attract credit, investment, and trade even outside of the IMF. However, it would be a surprise if Chávez followed Argentina's course, as it would throw much of his political base out of jobs. If Venezuela instead slid into hyperinflation, the living standards of the middle class would fall, and their domestic savings would be wiped out. (Foreign exchange controls would also be likely to cut off access to offshore dollar savings.) This could lead to an exodus of the upper middle class to places like Miami. (Lest you think that my dire predictions are influenced by my POV, I am actually quite sympathetic to Chávez's social goals.) (edited) Marco polo 16:02, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

United States healthcare vs. British healthcare

Considering that free healthcare means higher taxes, does the average US taxpayer or the average British taxpayer get cheaper healthcare? Vitriol 17:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The easiest and clearest way to measure this is total healthcare spending per person from all sources, public or private. According to the first Powerpoint presentation linked here, in 2003 US healthcare spending per person was $5,635. In the same year, UK healthcare spending per person was $2,231. I cannot find a source at the moment, but I believe that public spending on health care per capita is similar in the United States and in typical European countries. However, public spending covers only a fraction of the US population because of the higher cost of healthcare in the United States. Most Americans see little benefit from public health care spending. In addition to a healthcare-related tax burden similar to that of the UK taxpayer, most Americans (or their employers) have to spend thousands of additional dollars of their own money per year on private health insurance. Despite this great expense, according to this source, about 16% of Americans have no health coverage at all. These people face bankruptcy if they have a health emergency. If they have no assets, they will get free care, but only after waiting outside an emergency room. (However, there has been a trend of hospitals eliminating money-losing emergency rooms.) Marco polo 17:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, much of the difference in cost between the United States and the UK is accounted for the layers of bureaucracy employed by private healthcare providers in the US to maximize profits or minimize costs. Another part of the difference is accounted for by higher prices paid for pharmaceuticals, because the British government negotiates big bulk discounts for its national healthcare system, whereas US healthcare providers generally do not. Marco polo 17:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• An additional factor is the question of whether or not "cost" is monetary and whether the "money" is recirculating or not, and how. Let's suppose that all governmental organizations experience waste at a 15-17% rate and that corporations were capable of eliminating waste altogether (which is silly, of course). Is the corporation's profit going to exceed the waste percentage of the non-profit governmental source? Is the corporation's profit going to recirculate freely in the economy, and how? Is that profit available for reallocation in emergencies (sudden increase in costs due to an epidemic, etc.)? These things all added together get nearer to 'cost' in health care, and this is in addition to other public policy concerns. Utgard Loki 18:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

As previously discussed on the Reference Desk, American governments spend more per capita on healthcare than governments in other countries, even though most Americans don't have government health insurance. So we pay all the taxes the other countries pay for healthcare, then pay more out-of-pocket beyond that. The difference is other countries work harder to keep healthcare costs down through "rationing," drug price controls, etc. -- Mwalcoff 00:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hegemony

Why was hegemony not considered generally good as a concept for worldwide use?--Doug ^talk 18:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

What evidence is there that hegemony has been dismissed as a "bad concept" as opposed to just being impractical? Our article suggests several modern cases or rough equivalents, as well as several historical ones. — Lomn 18:32, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

You are correct and I should rephrase my question: Why was hegemony not considered generally practical as a concept for worldwide use? --Doug ^talk 18:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I still think you're asking a loaded question. Your phrasing presupposes that some group debated imposing hegemony versus, say, the UN, or global anarchy, and elected for anarchy (or the UN). Why would hegemony be practical, implementable, or good in the first place? Also, the use of "was" makes the question a little vague: how far in the past are we talking about?

Anyway, that aside, our article notes that opinions are divided as to whether or not the US' present status as sole hyperpower constitutes hegemony, with the divide appearing to coincide with whether or not the US is in fact a practical hyperpower. The core question of global hegemony is whether or not political entity X can dictate policy arbitrarily to all other political entities. If it can, then your question as phrased has merit. If it can't, then hegemony isn't just impractical but impossible, regardless of how it's considered. — Lomn 19:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hegemony or Survival (ISBN 0-8050-7400-7), by Noam Chomsky discusses the effects of global hegemony as a political policy. It may offer some insight to your query. Rockpocket 00:22, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

the concept of justice

Have any anthropologists, sociologists or other researchers ever discovered a social group which does not have any notion of justice or fairness? In general, people talk as though the idea is innate and universal - I wonder whether that is true. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.211.173.88 (talk) 18:06, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

You might find this National Geographic article interesting: Monkeys Show Sense Of Fairness. --TotoBaggins 18:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This isn't really an authoritative answer to your question; however, just about anyone who has raised children from birth can attest that they grasp basic ideas of fairness extremely early. Not that they will act in a fair/just manner without being taught, but even very young children can and do judge whether others are treating them fairly. And that is certainly suggestive. Tugbug 20:20, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This group, according to some ;P (Although I really should know better, I couldn't resist. Sorry) Rockpocket 07:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Touring at London

How many people go to London yearly to visit the tourist attractions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.11.72.39 (talk) 21:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

Per The Guardian, over 15 million visitors from overseas alone in 2005. The article does not give numbers for domestic visitors, but presumably they are similar or even higher. Marco polo 21:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Well worth the trip, too. See the Royal Institution and Faraday's first transformer, the British Museum, the BBC, and the Transport Museum, not to mention the Cabinet War Rooms and 221B Baker Street (tho renumbered). Edison 05:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Retailing and Immersive environments

I've noticed how there's been a trend in retailing recently, where shops have created fully immersive environments. For example, the Abercrombie and Fitch store, has no windows, and the second you step inside, the door, you're hit with loud music, a strong smell of cologne, and low lighting levels, like a sort of sensory overload. My question is, what other store, around the world, offer this sort of immersive environments? --Richy 22:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

You raise a good point, and I suppose I could go threw my head of all the stores I know of (here in the UK) which have this kind of environment... but, sufficive to say, the majority do. However, I would also question whether or not this is a recent phenomenon... were not the Fora of the Roman Empire, or the Middle Eastern Bazaars or any other number of commercial enterprises just as immersive? 194.80.32.12 00:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wars of the Roses

What were the political causes of the Wars of the Roses and what was the outcome? Was Richard III the last Englishman to occupy the throne? Janesimon 23:44, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Depends. What's your definition of an "Englishman"? Lewis 00:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You will find most of the answers you are looking for, Jane, on the Wars of the Roses page. In short, this is the name given much later to a series of dynastic wars that embraced England in the period from 1455 to 1485. It should be stressed that this was not, in any sense, continuous warfare, but short periods of hostilities, which punctuated long phases of political calm. The wars are generally accepted to have come to a conclusion in 1485, with the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, followed by the accession to the throne of Henry VII, the first of the Tudor monarchs, though, in fact, embers continued to burn for quite a while afterwards.

The causes date back to the deposition of Richard II in 1399 by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, subsequently crowned as King Henry IV. Though a popular move at the time, in view of Richard's poor standing among the higher nobility, Bolingbroke, in terms of the laws of primogeniture, was not the most senior in the line of descent from Edward III. The descendants of Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence had a superior claim, which, during the reign of Henry V, passed to Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. Although Henry IV had faced various challenges to the legitimacy of the Lancastrian succession, his son, the great warrior king, managed to sweep away all opposition by his successful renewal of the war with France. If matters had gone on like this, and if Henry had lived into old age, all former disputes may have been forgotten. But his early death in 1422, followed by the succession of the infant Henry VI once again introduced an element of uncertainty. If Henry had grown up to be the same kind of man as his father the throne is likely to have been secure; but he did not. He was to be one of the weakest, most ill-fitted men ever to occupy the English throne, who seems to have inherited something of the mental instability that afflicted his French grandfather, Charles VI. Henry was effectively pushed to the sidlines as England was torn apart by factions, led by Richard of York, on the one hand, and Edmund Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset on the other. Richard was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, but his claim to the throne passed to his son, who emerged as Edward IV in 1461, the first of England's Yorkist kings. By 1471 the Lancastrain claim was all but extingushed, following the death of Henry VI and his son Edward. Prince of Wales. It was kept barely alive in the person of Henry Tudor, Duke of Richmond, by right of the descent of his mother Lady Margaret Beaufort from Edward III.

In the end the Yorkist cause failed because of the ambition of Richard III, who deposed, and very probably murdered, his young nephew Edward V, thus alienating a large section of Yorkist opinion, and opening the way for Henry Tudor. The Plantagenet dynasty died at Bosworth, which was to be the main political outcome of the wars. It also laid the basis for the Tudor absolutism of the following century.

I'm not quite sure of the implications of your second question. I take this to mean that because the throne was occupied in succession by a Welsh, a Scottish and a German dynasty, then you believe that the Plantagenets were the last of the 'native' English royals? But, you really have to ask yourself, who exactly were the Plantagenets? The answer, of course, is that they were of Norman and French origin. By this argument, then, the last English king has to be Harold Godwinson, killed at Hastings in 1066! You see how absurd this can get. Henry Tudor's Welsh blood was highly etiolated. Even the Scottish James VI had quite a bit of English blood in his veins, and his grandsons, Charles II and James II were more French than anything else. And so it goes on! English monarchs, like their European counterparts, have always been of mixed origin; so tell that to the purists! Clio the Muse 00:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Clio. Do you think it possible that Richard may not have murdered his nephews? Janesimon 07:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

There are certainly some people who think so, those who believe the Princes in the Tower somehow survived throughout the reign of Richard, only to meet their deaths at the time of Henry VII, on no compelling evidence, it has to be said. I have never found this to be a plausible thesis. The very existence of Edward V and Richard, duke of York was a serious political threat to the continuing stability of Richard's rule, and Medieval monarchs were never reluctant to dispose of rivals, no matter how young. Besides, anyone who has worked their way through close rolls, pipe rolls and exchequer rolls will tell you just how detailed Medieval records can be, right down to matters of minor importance, like laundry bills, small cash grants from the royal purse and other such trivial matters. Edward and Richard, as important figures, are mentioned a number of times. By July 1483, as far as the record is concerned, they cease to exist, receiving no further mention whatsoever. So, although the matter can never be proved one way or the other, it seems likely, on the balance of probability, that they were murdered sometime that summer. In 1485, when rumours of their deaths were turning opinion in favour of Henry Tudor, Richard only had to produce the Princes to destroy the whole Lancastrian campaign. He did not. Clio the Muse 07:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The Englishman comment hasn't really been addressed. But it's impossible to answer. I'm not sure how "English" even dear old Richard considered himself. Certainly, his Kingdom amounted to more than just England. Wales had been conquered by Edward I, who also had designs on Scotland (and possibly Norway, for his son). Whilst King John had lost Normandy, Richard may well have considered himself Norman, rather than "English" (ie Anglo-Saxon) and furthermore, there were still considerable assets on continental Europe, and would be until Bloody Mary finally lost Calais. Linguistically, I can't recall at what date English court (Exchequer etc) records began to be written in English, but I think it post-dates Richard. I bet Clio knows... --Dweller 14:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

She knows what's what, she does. Clio the Muse 22:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The precedence of Lionel's issue vs Lancaster is an interesting question. This was the second time since the Conquest that a claim to the throne was made by virtue of a female descent (the first was Henry II). It may be significant that Lionel's daughter Philippa inherited her mother's title (Countess of Ulster) but not her father's (Duke of Clarence). —Tamfang 07:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

May 2

An evolutionary view on good and correct democracy

Imagine a prehistorical tribe, village, band, society ... where people are:

• each one has a vote; each one is encouraged to vote; each vote is equal;
• no discrimination as to gender, age, race, religion, skill/education level, look, sexual preference, wealth ...
• every person is treated as an individual with all reasonable freedom and liberty;
• friendly to the environment and other tribes as well;
• farmers and labors are well paid; ...

If political correctness is really good for the society as a whole, then I expect a group of people having these modern virtues would turned out to be a winner in the long human history (think of evolution). A group of people having limited amounts of correctness could improve their correctness by trial and error. Moreover, politically incorrect societies could have been elminated by the pressure of evolution ...

It didn't seem to be the case, did it? -- Toytoy 01:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me start, then. "Is good to society" doesn't mean "allows you to survive". A.Z. 01:09, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

You are defining "good" here as "evolutionarily fit," which is not the same thing as "good" in a moral or ethical sense at all (a simple parasite is often more "fit" than the most wonderfully developed and intelligent mammal). It is no argument of those who prefer democracy that it would necessarily win out over all other options, especially not at different times in human history. If you give a dysfunctional society a lot of resources and good circumstances it will triumph over a generally more long-term stable and intelligently arranged society which happens to be ailing in the short-term (ergo the Vandals could sack Rome even though they had not the technology, the culture, the social complexity, or the long-term resources of the Romans, because Rome was in a bad spot at the time. That doesn't mean that primitive tribal militarism is a "better" long-term social solution than Roman republicanism). --24.147.86.187 01:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Then again, it doesn't mean that it isn't. A.Z. 01:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The word "winner" here is also used in the sense of "the ones who survided".

If you define "good" as "what allows you to survive" and "winners" as "the ones who survived", then I would expect your conclusion to be true.

Anyway, you can always consider "good" the high moral standards and define "winners" as "those who could resist being immoral." A.Z. 01:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

What you describe is one method in which to attain stability in a society, and it's really the societies and governments that attain and hold on to that stability that are the big winners, until they have some kind of ecological disaster or get conquered by someone else. In a certain sense, whether your ideal society survives will be more scaled by geographical factors than anything else. It doesn't really matter if everyone is happy with each other if it stops raining for fifty years. –Pakman044 01:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Let's take a look at the countries that are "winners" in the Human Development Index:

1. Norway
2. Iceland
3. Australia
4. Ireland
5. Sweden
6. Canada
7. Japan
8. USA
9. Netherlands
10. Switzerland

What do those countries have in common? They're all liberal democracies. All except Japan and perhaps Switzerland could be considered progressive on women's rights issues. All of them except most of the USA and perhaps Japan can be considered progressive on gay rights. All have active environmental movements. All of them try to get along with other "tribes." Only the United States and maybe Australia have a above average income inequality. So it seems that what you consider "political correctness" does produce "winners." -- Mwalcoff 02:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"All except Japan and perhaps Switzerland could be considered progressive on women's rights issues" - tell that to the women in Ireland who have to travel to the UK to get abortions. No, I'm Spartacus 13:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I heard about the perfection of democracy over and over. It sounds like with some pot training, democracy shall root in a society, possibly, any society. I am skeptical. I assume democracy requires external resources to compensate for elevated loss, with or without corruption. If your voters make a truly bad and stupid decision (THEY GOOF ALL THE TIME), the government has to secure some resources overseas to ensure the short-term survival of the country. -- Toytoy 02:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the mistake being made is not that those top ten are democracies, but rather that they are republics. Republics are much more superior than direct democracies.--Kirby♥time 02:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I hate to correct you, but as political scientists use the words nowadays, "republics" are any country without a monarch. They may or may not be democracies. Democracies are countries where the "people rule," whether or not they are republics. Here's a chart that should help you understand:

	Republics	Monarchies
Democratic	Italy, USA	Canada, Netherlands
Not democratic	Cuba, Turkmenistan	Saudi Arabia, Nepal

Mwalcoff 04:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Australia is not yet a republic but many people would like it to become one. JackofOz 04:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

One thing to think about is that each of your countries is in a nontropical, and more or less nonarid climate. All of those countries also happen to be colocated nicely with an ocean, so it's easier to have commerce (this airplane thing hasn't been around forever). Sure there are similarly situated countries that aren't so successful without your attributes, but the attributes you mention may correlate with the fact that these countries don't have to worry so much about the next famine or the next conquering country, and instead can devote their time on social issues. –Pakman044 03:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Original Poster. I think you are greatly misunderstanding the processes and mechanisms of Evolution. I also do not understand your use of the term politically correct in this context. Unit of selection might be a helpful article in understanding various debates about whether natural selection acts primarily at the level of the group, the gene or somewhere inbetween. Also, bear in mind, history does have examples of relatively peaceful and egalitarian groups being killed, enslaved, or displaced by outside groups due to advantages in resources or cultural differences, such as emphasis on conquest; to name just two possible reasons among many. You might find Sociobiology to be pertinent and interesting, and also Evolutionarily stable strategy and whether your hypothetical population would necessarily qualify. Finally, if you're interested in winners and losers in "the long human history" and the distal and proximal causes thereof, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel could help shed light on the subject. -- Azi Like a Fox 05:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Dear original poster, I think your view of pre-historic societies is idealized and on some accounts wrong and bias-towards modernity:

Imagine a prehistorical tribe, village, band, society (I think here is where your problem begins, you should imagine how it was but reconstruct it, on basis of existing primitive societies)... where people are:

• each one has a vote; each one is encouraged to vote; each vote is equal; (in many primitive societies there is no voting, the village elder(s) decide)
• no discrimination as to gender, (there is a strong division between the sexes in primitive societies) age (village elderly decide, it is an ageist society), race, (primitive societies have only one race) religion, (and one religion) skill/education level (education is very modern as well), look, sexual preference, (the very concept of homosexuality is modern) wealth
• every person is treated as an individual with all reasonable freedom and liberty (the very concept of individualism is modern and European and not recognized in societies like Japan and China, furthermore in these small societies there is no individual freedom and only social control);
• friendly to the environment (actually there is significant debate whether modern technology isn't better for the environment then primitive farming, if everyone would farm and hunt the planet could sustain a much lower number of humans than is sustainable with modern technology) and other tribes as well (cannibalism, war etc. is very common amongst primitive societies);
• farmers and labors are well paid (money/getting paid is a very modern concept); ...

All in all, there is no reason to believe modernity is worse (in a normative sense) than prehistorical societies consider: science, art, medicine, literacy, education, democracy, individual freedom, free time, recreation, things that primitive societies cannot offer you. C mon 09:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi C mon. As I understood the original question the OP was not trying to argue that premodern societies necessarily had those traits listed. Rather they seemed to be trying to ask why, if those traits are considered so "good", did no premodern societies having such traits, or at least their precursors, achieve long-term historical "success" by virtue of those traits? Or, if these traits are so "good" than why did they not confer an adaptive advantage which led to their increase and spread and that of those possessing them? Also, I'd be interested in this debate concerning the enviromental merits of modern technology versus pre-industrial agricultural practices. Seems to me the number of humans the planet currently "sustains", in large part due to modern agricultural practice and technology, pose significant enviromental problems now and in the not so distant future. Finally, not to take away from the many contributions of modernity and without making any value judgements about it versus "primitive" societies, I have to say that, in a purely descriptive sense, the fact that humanity now has an unprecedented capability for damage and destruction to itself and the environment is kind of frightening. Guess you have to take the bad with the good though. :) --Azi Like a Fox 11:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

This whole question is founded on the false premise that what works in a modern, advanced, progessive, successful society will work in a primative village Nil Einne 21:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

C Mon, you sid that in primitive societies, there was cannibalism. Care to provide any evidence of that, as the vast majority of anthropologists conclude that humans have never actively performed cannibalism, and that it was merely libel.--Kirby♥time 19:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Nazis vs. Jews

How many countries were invaded by the Nazis because of the jews population? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.64.137.205 (talk) 01:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

None. Clio the Muse 01:59, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

More precisely, the countries that the Nazis did invade (including France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia) were invaded because Hitler wanted to rule the world. See also WWII, Third Reich, and Nazi Party. - AMP'd 02:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The answer I gave, in terms of the question posed, is as precise as it is possible to get. Your information, AMP'd is correct, but supplementary to the basic point. Besides, I think that what you will find is that Hitler specifically aimed at attaining Lebensraum in eastern Europe, a long-term goal set out in Mein Kampf and his unpublished book on foreign policy. He would have avoided war in western Europe if he could, including war with the French. I have never come across any statement by him, to the effect that he 'wanted to rule the world', though he undoubtedly wanted Germany to achieve a paramount position in international affairs. But if you have a source for his alleged desire for world conquest I would be pleased to see it. Clio the Muse 02:15, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

(I will not go the way of Loomis and squabble with the Muse) Can we agree that Hitler was a bad man who wanted power, specifically control over much of the civilized world? - AMP'd 02:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Wise choice, AMP'd! Ok I'll shut up now. Lewis 10:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

That depends on what you mean by control and civilised world I guess. I would say no he may have been a bad man and he may have wanted power and control but I don't know if it's accurate to say he wanted control over much of the civilised world Nil Einne 21:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"bad man who wanted power"...redundancy?--Kirby♥time 02:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

He was a man; he was bad; he wanted power. Yes, I think we can agree on that as a minimum! Clio the Muse 05:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

But you mean that he was a bad human being? A.Z. 06:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm presuming what kirby is saying is either that all bad men want power or that all men who want power are bad... Nil Einne 21:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Power does corrupt. - AMP'd 01:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC) I love how we hijack a question into these discussions.

At least it's said to tend to.  :) JackofOz 03:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that power corrupts people that much. It just looks like that because everyday corruption of people who are not powerful goes by unnoticed, and, when corrupt people become powerful, their corruption starts making a big difference in the lives of others. Thus the saying that power corrupts, which I'd change to: power unveils corruption. Also, good people don't want power as an end, they want power as a mean to make things better. Anyone who just wants power for the sake of it is bad. A.Z. 06:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with A.Z. Some very good people, had they not accumulated the power they had, could never have accomplished all the good that they did. I'm thinking of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, the Dalai Lama, and so many more that just don't spring to mind at the moment. Of course for some of the above, Gandhi and King in particular, the old "chicken and egg" argument could apply, i.e., they did not do good because they had accumulated power, rather they accumulated power because they did good. As for Lincoln, I realize that many skeptics exist who would argue that his "goodness" is greatly overstated. He merely issued the Emancipation Proclamation and engaged the South in civil war for political means completely divorced from anything to do with abolitionism.

Yet I feel compelled to deal with one particular example individually, not simply due to my extreme admiration of the man, but for the sake of this argument, due to the fact that his behaviour would seem to disprove the argument that power inevitably corrupts, and that the desire for power is invariably a sign of evil. In addition, the "chicken and egg" argument has no application, as this man only possessed and excercized power when it was legally granted to him, and once it was legally removed, he no longer had the ability to excercize it. This man is of course Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.

From June 4th, 1929 to his appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty on September 5th, 1939, Churchill was but a powerless backbencher, ruthlessly heckled as a senile old warmongering drunk for his incessant and some would say obsessive ranting about the dangers of Nazism and Hitler. Even within his own party, he was an outsider. Were it not for the undying support of his remarkably sensible Tory constituents in county Kent, his fellow Conservatives would surely have thrown him out of caucus and revoked his party membership.

Yet upon being invited back into Cabinet in September 1939, and later upon being summoned to Buckingham Palace on May 10th, 1940, at approximately 6 P.M., when he graciously accepted King George VI's request that he become His Highness' Prime Minister, he excercized his power both judicially and selflessly, putting the interests King and country (and indeed the free world!) before his own, and without any trace of corruption. Churchill openly admits to the satisfaction he derived in finally being bestowed the power to conduct Britain's war efforts: "But I cannot conceal from the reader of this truthful account that as I went to bed at about 3 A.M., I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene...[my] warnings over the last six months years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or for want of preparation of it."

Yet on July 5th, 1945, mere months after the war in Europe officially came to an end on May 8th VE Day, and with Japan yet to mark the official end of the war by surrendering several weaks later on August 14th, the UK electorate threw Churchill out of power, effective July 27th. With remarkable magnanimity, Churchill did not display the slightest bit of resentment. In fact he seemed to display an odd sense of satisfaction about the whole thing. Though I can't seem to find the direct quote, his approximate words were: "The English People are tired, and understandably so. They have chosen to dismiss me of my duties, and so I shall do, satisfied in the fact that I have done my proper duties for King and country."

No, power does not inevitably corrupt, nor is desire for power invariably a sign of evil. Lewis 15:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The phrase is "absolute power corrupts absolutely". I do not know of any example in history in which a person with absolute power was not deemed corrupt by someone else. I mentioned it to a coworker just now and he immediatedly piped up that Jesus has absolute power from God. However, he was deemed at a minimum to be corrupt (among other things) and put to death. It may well be the view of others than the person himself, but I thought I'd point out that it isn't "power". It is "absolute power". --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

"Also aber rathe ich euch, meine Freunde: misstraut Allen, in welchen der Trieb, zu strafen, mächtig ist! Das ist Volk schlechter Art und Abkunft; aus ihren Gesichtern blickt der Henker und der Spürhund. Misstraut allen Denen, die viel von ihrer Gerechtigkeit reden! Wahrlich, ihren Seelen fehlt es nicht nur an Honig. Und wenn sie sich selber 'die Guten und Gerechten' nennen, so vergesst nicht, dass ihnen zum Pharisäer Nichts fehlt als — Macht!"

• Translation:"But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound. Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking. And when they call themselves 'the good and just,' forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but- power!"

-Thus Spake Zarathustra

--Kirby♥time 19:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

And the world itself is the will to power, and nothing besides! And you yourself are the will to power-and nothing besides! Clio the Muse 20:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Telugu calender

Hi I need 1979 Free Telugu calendar Please help me how can i get it Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.104.24.38 (talk) 03:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Elizabeth And The Occult

Is it accurate to say that Elizabeth's court was influenced by occult philosophers ? [3]

Has anyone ever heard of Francesco Giorgi and Paolo Sarpi ? Were they from Venice ?

Can the play The Jew of Malta be interpreted in a political way ?

It has been said that Robert Fludd was a co-author of the King James Version. [4] Why is that ?

Frances Yates, who is a historian, has researched on this topic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.157.234.249 (talk) 03:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

On looking at this my nose started to tingle with the stale scents of 'conspiracy theory'. I got as far as reading the first paragraph of the linked essay, to discover that Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, and Aldous Huxley, the novelist, were both Satanists, and that fascism and communism were invented by the British Foreign Office under Lord Palmerston (yes, that's right, Palmerston!) to know that it was conspiracy theory of the most laughable kind. Clio the Muse 05:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure that David Ike has written about the above clio, and if he says it's so, well it must be =P Perry-mankster 09:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

What? No John Dee? I thought he was the very heart of all conspiracies of the Jacobean era. Geogre 10:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

No, he wasn't - Edward Kelly wouldn't let him into the inner circle :-)User:EABlair

According to the links, Robert Fludd was Dee's disciple, so there you go. And I love this: the prime satanic evil that Venice really is. Corvus cornix 21:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

dow jones and co.

why make a $5 billion bid on a company with a market cap of closer to ~$3 billion?? Why not just do something like $3.5 billion or $4 billion

or better yet, why not slowly accumulate stock and then do a rush at the end to get up to 51%? That's got to save money, even though the stock will be increasing as you accumulate and at the rush, it probably wouldn't hit the $56.9 mark. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.199.5.80 (talk) 04:16, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

• Because that company owns The Wall Street Journal and you're starting Fox Business, and because that company owns newswires and other competing products that you'd like to control. Geogre 10:37, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. If that were so, its market cap would simply be higher to start with.

It's all in the Securities Regulations. I'm mostly familiar with the Ontario Regulations, but I don't think they're really any different in substance from the SEC Regs. One a person accumulates 10% of a trading company's shares, it must issue a public declaration of intention, i.e., whether it intends to go further towards attaining control or just stop there. 20% (not 50%) is somewhat arbitrarily considered a controlling interest. That's because in a widely held corporation only about 20% ownership is required for all practical terms to control it, as more likely than not, the remaining 80% is held by unassociated persons, most of whom don't bother to vote, and even if they did, they don't act in concert.

Once a person reaches the 20% threshold, s/he/it must issue a takeover bid in order to accumulate any more. That's why you tend to see so many persons with 19.9999% ownership in a company. This requirement is for fairness, as once one accumulates over 20%, one gets closer and closer into gaining de facto control of the company. De facto control entails the paying of what's called a "control premium". What that means is that those shares that change a person's position from being a de facto non-controling entity, into a de facto controling entity carry with them a premium, or in other words, have a greater value than their market price. (Which also, by the way, explains the extra bit the acquiring company is willing to pay over the company's market cap).

The 20% triggering of a takeover bid is a requirement to ensure that the remaining 80% of shareholders would share equally in the control premium paid, as they would all be required to get the same offer. Were it not for that, as you say, some 30% would be lucky enough to profit from the control premium, while the remaining 49% would essentially be screwed, as their shares would no longer be required for control. But that's only the extremely abridged version! I'm sure I'm skipping over a whole lot of detail, I just hope I'm not leaving you more confused than you were to start! Lewis 10:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

ok, well that answers one question, thank you! But I wasn't very clear on my other question about the actual bid itself. So fine, they want to take over the company by buying up stock, perhaps to the 20% marker. So why a 5 billion bid when the company just the other day only had a market cap of 3.1 billion? Of course after the bid, the stock shot so that now the market cap is ~4.7 billion, closer to the 5 billion bid. Why would the bid be so much more than the market cap of the stock? Why not just do a 3.5 billion bid?

Legal signature

An untimely unfair situation. Anyways, two years ago, I started signing my name in Arabic, mirroring my stepfather. Yesterday, I finished the last day of in-car Driver's Ed. at school, and on one of my certificates, I was required to sign my name. But they said it had to be in cursive and written exactly as it appeared on my birth certificate, and it couldn't be in Arabic! I protested and pleaded but to no avail. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the signature on one's Learner's Permit/Driver's License is their legal signature! Meanwhile, my stepfather has his name signed in Arabic on his Driver's License. Now why could he do that, but not me? When can I change license to reflect my now-abandoned Arabic signature?--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 05:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll start by assuming you're in the United States (otherwise this is worthless). I'll further note that local State laws are different. So as to the cursive, I have never heard of a requirement that a legal signature be in cursive. In fact, for many people who are illiterate, they can make a mark that will act as their legal signature (see Signature#Function and types of signatures). Now your second issue is more complex. Reading between the lines here, I get the feeling that whoever wanted your signature, felt that the spelling in Arabic was different than that of your birth certificate. And whether that's acceptable can fluctuate wildly between jurisdictions. In general, if someone wants you to sign your legal name, it must be exactly equivalent to what's on your birth certificate, unless a court order so modifies it. This being said, if your Arabic name is so different than your Latin-spelled name that it is construed as a name change, getting name changes are simple matters. You file a few documents with your county courthouse, and they will issue a court order changing your name (a person once changed his name to Trout Fishing in America). Now whether you can change your name to a character set that contains non-Roman characters is a matter of local law, so you'll need to talk to a legal professional about that. I do wish you the best of luck with this; it'll take a little work, but it isn't nearly as complicated as I've made it out to be. –Pakman044 05:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The late Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands was born as "Bernhard Leopold Friedrich Eberhard Julius Kurt Karl Gottfried Peter Graf zur Lippe-Biesterfeld", and his legal name as a Dutch citizen became "Bernhard Leopold Frederik Everhard Julius Coert Karel Godfried Pieter van Lippe-Biesterfeld". Does that imply that if he had rented a car (or more likely a plane) in the US, and was asked to sign using his legal name, he would have been required to sign thusly (cursive or not)?  --Lambiam^Talk 07:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

What about Pedro de Alcántara Gastão João Maria Filipe Lourenço Humberto Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga de Orléans e Bragança, the living great grandson of Pedro de Alcântara João Carlos Leopoldo Salvador Bibiano Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocádio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga de Bragança e Habsburgo, By the Grace of God and Unanimous Acclamation of the People, Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil? A.Z. 08:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Every autograph-seeker's worst nightmare. -- Azi Like a Fox 08:20, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

No I'd assume that whatever was equivalent to his first and last name would be acceptable (that's generally what is required for a lega. Of course that's extremely US-centric, but that's how this place works. What would be good to find is if there are any statutory definitions of signatures and legal names, but finding that out is incredibly difficult. This is definitely approaching the point where the answer to any of these questions will hinge almost completely on what variation of law an individual State will use. –Pakman044 09:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Many people have signatures that are completely illegible. It seems irrelevant to me whether the illegible signature is based on a cursive version of the Latin alphabet, a person's non-alpabetic "personal mark", or the Arabic alphabet. I would contact a lawyer about this, if you are so inclined and can afford one. Otherwise, I would ask your department of motor vehicles for a copy of the laws and regulations governing signatures on licenses. I doubt that Arabic is prohibited or that Latin cursive is mandated. Even if Latin cursive is mandated, I might request that a new license be issued because the original person would not let you use your usual signature, and then try signing the license with your Arabic signature, and tell them that is how you sign your name as shown on the birth certificate. There cannot be any requirement that the signature is legible, since so many people's are not. But if you want to be certain, hire a lawyer. (Incidentally, the laws and regulations might have changed since your grandfather's day, and/or his birth certificate may in fact have been in Arabic.) Marco polo 15:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I still can't get past the requirement that it be "written exactly as it appeared on my birth certificate". How is that possible, even in Latin cursive? Who signs their own Birth Certificate? I realize my question is an incredibly silly one. I only ask it to point out that there must have been some serious miscommunication going on between the OP and the bureaucrat in question. Either that or the bureaucrat in question is a serious dolt, which actually wouldn't surprise me all that much. My apologies to all the bureaucrats who may be reading this. Lewis 00:08, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Au contraire, mon ami. That's a very apt question. The penny never dropped into my head that nobody signs their own BC. On the issue itself, how can any requirement to sign one's signature exactly as it appears on any official document be fulfilled? Who ever signs their signature exactly the same way twice? I certainly don't. JackofOz 03:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Our article on Louis Antoine Jullien doesn't give this information, but according to the world's most reputable musical encyclopedist Nicolas Slonimsky, Jullien's full name was:

• Louis George Maurice Adolphe Roch Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noé Jean Lucien Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas Pierre Arbon Pierre-Maurel Barthélemi Artus Alphonse Bertrand Dieudonné Emanuel Josué Vincent Luc Michel Jules-de-la-plane Jules-Bazin Julio César Jullien.

It seems his father was a bandmaster, who named his son after every male member of the band. I wonder how he would have got on.  :) JackofOz 03:22, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

My grandfather signs all legal documents with his own ligature, no matter what language the legal document is (be it Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Urdu or English, all of which he has done). Signatures do not have to be in any language or in any script. They just have to be something that is identifiable. This restriction on your driver's license signature is ridiculous. But I have an idea: just write it in Arabic script, and just act nonchalant, and if they ask about it, just say "what are you talking about? This is written in English!" Given that most signatures are essentially a strange mess of lines, ask them to prove that it isn't written in English. --Kirby♥time 19:00, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

What does a 2/3 majority for overriding vetoes mean?

I have a wonderfully silly question that I should be able to answer for myself, but I'm not really sure about. When the U.S. President vetoes a bill, the Constitution states that to override it, each chamber must override it by 2/3 vote of each chamber. This is commonly interpreted as 2/3 of those "present and voting". So does "present and voting" just mean those who vote yea and nay, or does it also include those who vote "present"? Thanks! –Pakman044 05:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC) means those who are physically there and don't abstain

You can vote "present" on a veto vote and not have that throw off the quorum, I'm pretty sure. --24.147.86.187 12:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the quorum isn't related to how many are voting, but rather how many Senators are in the chamber when a Senator notes the absence of a quorum (no disappearing quorum here!). But as to the question, I did find an answer: "Under the precedents, Senators have voted "Present," which really is not a vote...." (Riddick's Senate Procedure at 1411). So I presume, even though the explanation was for another procedure, it only means yeas and nays. –Pakman044 17:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Most sources that I have seen refer only to 2/3 of senators present. (See for example this source.) The expression "present and voting" seems to mean "both those who vote yea or nay and those who are merely present". So I think that, in an override situation, voting "present" is tantamount to voting "nay". Marco polo 18:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Another page has mentioned that in parliamentary procedure that "present" votes are equivalent to abstentions, and thus the person isn't "present and voting". I wish I could find a really close vote in Congress where this would make a difference, but the closer the vote, the less likely people will be absent voting present. –Pakman044 04:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Virginity statistics

Out of curiosity… what percentage of adults in the United states are estimated to be virgins? — 64.178.98.18 07:21, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

That is a difficult stat to calculate, but lets assume the vast majority of the virgins in the US are those that are young. Grunbaum JA et al. (2003) reports that 53 percent of U.S. high school students reported never having had sexual intercourse. This holds up relatively consistently between different ethnic groups and each sex. It even seems to hold up pretty well across grades (which is strange, because one might expect a significantly smaller percentage of seniors would be virgins than juniors, but that doesn't appear to be the case). I can't find any stats for sexual behaviour in elementary or junior high schools, but I would imagine its safe to imagine the proportion of virgins is high. So, what are the raw numbers: In 2000, there were:

• 19 Million aged under 5 (estimated % virgins = 100)
• 20 Million aged 5-9 (estimated % virgins = 100)
• 20 Million aged 10-14 (estimated % virgins = 90?)
• 20 Million aged 15-19 (estimated % virgins = 53)

Do the math and you have an estimated 67 million teenage-and-younger virgins. If you then add in the college students (apparently 1/3 of all undergrads are virgins, poor bastards) that gives you another 10 million or so. From age 25 upwards the proportions diminish rapidly. So say there are somewhere around 80 million virgins out of a population of 281.4 million (in 2000). That gives you a rough estimate of 28% of the population. Rockpocket 08:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The question was specifically about adults – a concept that is somewhat hard to define precisely.  --Lambiam^Talk 08:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Other then the difficulty defining adults, there is also the difficult defining virginity. Nil Einne 21:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

So work with the stats above and make the cutoff 18. Be sure and allow for some beyond college age. Might also check for the Kinsey Report or more modern versions of same. Edison 03:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The English restoration

what were the factors leading to the fall of the protectorate and commonwealth and the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.39.159.3 (talk) 10:13, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Click on English Restoration and Richard Cromwell and/or Interregnum. I don't know if we have a good article on Rump Parliament, but that would be important, too. After you have read those articles, let us know what questions you still have. Geogre 10:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've had a look at all of those pages, Geogre, and to be perfectly frank, they seem at best to skate along the surface, missing some of the deeper issues entirely. To understand the whole problem it is essential to go right back to the nature and outcome of the English Revolution, which began as a struggle against arbitrary power and absolutism, and ended in establishing forms of rule far more arbitrary and absolute than even the most whimsical exercise of the royal prerogative during the height of Charles I's personal rule in the 1630s. The real problem thrown up by the struggle with the king was that Parliament could win a war, but it could not win a peace. The execution of the king in January 1649 was a thrust at the Gordian Knot, a way of trying to end a constitutional impasse. But it only solved one problem by creating others. The execution of the king had only been obtained by purging Parliament of a large part of its membership; and what was left, the Rump, had to be held up by Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army. The Commonwealth of England, which replaced the monarchy with rule by a Council of State, was a narrow, self-interested oligarchy, with little in the way of real legal or moral authority. It survived only at the discretion of Cromwell and the New Model Army; and when Cromwell lost patience the Rule of the Rump came to an end in 1653. The Parliament of Saints that followed failed to solve the constitutional problem, and England then underwent what might be called the first Restoration, when Cromwell was appointed Lord Protector, king in all but name.

Although Cromwell continued to look for parliamentary solutions to the problem of the constitution, the Protectorate was a military dictatorship, with forms of rule that were only ever paralleled by Continental despotism. In 1657 it was even proposed the political uncertainty be ended by offering the crown to Cromwell, who hesitated, Caesar-style, for some weeks, before rejecting the offer, largely because of republican sentiment in the army, the real source of his power. Cromwell continued to rule with enhanced, semi-regal powers, and England was placed under a burden of ruinous military taxation, that must have made Charles I's Ship Money tax seem positively benign.

Only Cromwell was able to hold the obvious tensions between military and civilian rule together. Following his death in September 1658, he was succeeded by Richard Cromwell, for no better reason than he was the son of his father. Richard, though not entirely without talent, had no power base in either Parliament or the Army, and he was sent packing in the spring of 1659. The Commonwealth was restored; but torn by tensions between soldiers and politicians, it too began to unravel. The only way out was to restore England's ancient constitutional order, and that meant bringing Charles II home from exile. The mood in favour of the king became irresistable after George Monck, the commander of the New Model Army in Scotland, declared for the monarchy, some months after bringing his troops south to London. Clio the Muse 12:10, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Non-reductive Materialism

I am a university student studying the Philosophy of Mind. I understand the issues pretty well, but a puzzled by one thing. Many philosophers would seel to solve the Mind-body problem by appealing to a "non-reductive materialism" of some kind. What do they mean by this? How can materialism be non-reductive? Surely materialism (or perhaps physicialism, but the two are often interchangeable) means that, ultimately, the Mind is, in some way, the brain; and this is surely reductive? (Obviously, there are issues with multiple realisability, but they we can reformulate our thesis by talking about a population's particular physiology, in the spirit of Lewis' Mad Pain and Martian Pain). What do others have to say on the subject? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Batmanand (talk • contribs) 11:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Congratulations if you understand the issues. The following is my possibly defective take on this. The fact that the Earth has the shape of a ball can be "reduced to" (that is, understood to follow from) established laws and principles of physics, such as the law of gravitation. The fact that Italy has the shape of a boot cannot similarly be reduced to any laws of natural science. This viewpoint does not imply a belief in a "higher" or "extra-natural" explanation or purpose for the shape, and is entirely compatible with the belief that the land mass called Italy is subject to the laws of nature like any other natural thing. However, it is hard to argue that the bootshapedness of Italy is objective reality if the descriptive categories of reality are confined to the province of physics, chemistry, cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, and such. The notions that are relevant to psychology (or at least to what most people would consider adequate psychological theories) likewise involve notions that do not fit the province of the "hard" sciences. While philosophers are hung up on conundrums like the mind-body problem, the same could be said for many notions in less soft sciences, such as comparative anatomy (in which the human species has Italy-shaped lower extremities).  --Lambiam^Talk 12:33, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure Lambiam is quite on what those philosophers mean when they say "reductionism". The Churchland's (Paul and his wife, whom I can't remember the name of) advocate a radical form of reductive (also called eliminative) materialism, here is the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on the issue. Basically radical reductive accounts make the claim that all the sciences operate on a system of supervience (I believe this is the correct term). So advocates of RM claim that eventually our understanding of psychological issues will be replaced with a much more precise understanding provided by neuroscience. Just as chemistry is (mostly) at the root of issues in biology (cells are made up of individual atoms, compounds and the like), and physics is at the root of chemistry, a more detailed conception of the human mind will come from neuroscience (they would also claim that theoretically we could understand the human mind based on physics but whether that is practical isn't clear to me, or them I suppose). Based on a brief scanning of the first page of Lewis' paper, it seems he wants to make the claim that if you reduce our perception of pain to the specific interaction of certain types of electrical signals and our brains, then how can you account for the madman and the Martian who feel pain similar to ours but it does not seem likely that they have the same electrical signals (certainly the Martian does not). If you have any further questions, just ask.--droptone 05:43, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, how is the boot shape of Italy not reducable to physical processes, at some ultimate level? Maybe we cannot ever have that much knowledge of physics, maybe it is computationally an impossible calculation, but that is no metaphysical contradiction in saying that the boot shape of Italy is reducable to physics. Secondly, with regards to Lewis, if you read further in the paper, he talks about populations and exceptions; ie that we call the madman not in pain because, in the normal human population, he is not in the functional state defined as pain. The Martian is in pain, because in the normal Martian population, he is what their functional state of pain. Hence the Lewis account allows for multiple realisability, without the ridiculous liberalism of some accounts - that was my point. My basic question remains, though. Is it not the case that physicalism is inherently reductive (and hence that so-called "non-reductive physicalism" is incoherent)? If not, why not? (I understand that, for example, Davidson's anomalous monism is supposedly non-reductive, so if someone could explain that one to me that might answer my question). Batmanand | Talk 11:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

You can't explain or even understand the shape by only referring to physical processes. The very notion of shape is a human abstraction not inherent in any physical principle. If we can reduce our understanding of psychological issues to an understanding provided by neuroscience (and much more precise to boot), then surely we can reduce the latter to anatomy and biochemistry, which can be reduced to molecular chemistry, which can be reduced to physics, which can be reduced to QCD, which can be reduced to differential equations. So finally, we will obtain the unsurpassable ultimate understanding of psychological issues by explaining them as the solutions of differential equations.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I made no claims about the shape of Italy and its reducible status. I merely pointed out that philosophers do not argue over whether geology can be reduced to physics. That is uncontroversial. Whether mental processes can be reduced to neuroscience (or ultimately physics) is controversial. So if you argue over the implications of reductive materialism in terms of the shape of Italy, you are missing the actual philosophical debate. But that choice is yours.--droptone 19:23, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Russia in 1900

For a history project i have to figure out certain things that happened in Russia during in the year 1900. I would like to know a certain part of my project that i don't really understand, the first part is:

Make sure you include in your project the following aspects of Russian life: Society-classes and their status.

There are other parts to my project but this is the only part i don't get, my teacher tried explaining it to me but he made no sense at all.

Thank you Duck away 12:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is it that you do not understand, Duck away? Is it the concept of social class? By 1900 Russia was undergoing a rapid industrialisation, with attendant growth in the urban working class, concentrated places like in St. Petersburg and Moscow. But by far the largest proportion of the population of the Empire was the rural peasantry, living in conditions not much better than they had under serfdom. You will find some leads to what you are looking for in the page on the Russian Revolution of 1905, but if you could try to be a little more specific I will see if I can provide you with some additional information. Clio the Muse 12:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) For a start, you could read our article Social class. The article Russian serfdom gives background information about a class that was particularly relevant to Imperial Russia. Although serfdom was officially abolished in 1861, the effects persisted into the 20th century. Study further the section on society in Imperial Russia. If you have further questions, please come back here.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Class refers to large-scale generalization about the social and economic levels in society. For example in current US society upper-class refers to people with a lot of money, usually with some sort of managerial or professional position; middle-class refers to people who are economically comfortable, probably own their own house, and probably work some sort of regular day job; lower-class refers to people with lesser means, probably rent their homes, probably do unskilled labor of some sort or another. Obviously each of these categories can be blurred and complicated but that's the basic idea. When asked about the social classes of Russia at 1900, you are being asked what sorts of large economic or political groups were there. Hint: Russia around 1900 had a relatively small upper-class which was extremely wealthy and politically powerful, and almost everyone else was in a massive impoverished formerly-serf lower class, to generalize quite a bit. --140.247.250.12 21:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Abdoulaye Wade

How does his name pronounced in Senegal? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.178.88.75 (talk) 13:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

In general, this type of question gets better answers at the Language reference desk. Skarioffszky 14:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Apparently the pronunciation is "ahb doo LYE eh WAHD" (IPA: ab du 'lai e wa:d). Marco polo 14:49, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Buddhist relics ?

Hi everyone

Is it posible that the Buddha bones change to Buddhist relics ?

Why the normal people's bone did not change to the Buddhist relics ?

How science can explain the Buddhist relics ?

thank 203.170.226.253 13:18, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Relic" is a religious designation, not a physical one. All sorts of things can be relics of all sorts of religions. The question of whether a given relic is "legitimate" in that it goes back to the purported source is case by case. However, physical sciences usually do not have a great deal of trouble explaining the strange preservation of human remains, although, again, that's case by case. There have been some spectacularly strange preservations of non-reliquary subjects, e.g. Bog people. Utgard Loki 13:36, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah met a coo

Does anyone know where these lines come from:

"As ah wis walkin doon the road, Ah met a coo — A BULL B'Goad!"?

A google search brings up people crediting William McGonagall, but a search of a McGonagall site shows this not to be the case. Lurker 15:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

• Sounds like a "Punch" cartoon captionhotclaws**== 11:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Stuart Davis painting

I absolutely cannot find a reproduction -- a print or poster -- of Stuart Davis's famous 1940 painting, "Report from Rockport." I have searched all the web sites and googled endlessly and have contacted the MOMA and other museums. I am beginning to think that for some reason -- legal?? -- a reproduction of this artwork cannot be made. Can anyone give me any help? 129.64.71.72 15:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

If the copyright holder does not want this work to be reproduced in printed form, then there is indeed a legal barrier. Did you try to contact the Met? The painting appears to be in their collection.[5] The text on the page states: "©Estate of Stuart Davis/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY", so you could also contact VAGA for more information (info@vagarights·com). While the museum store has two sketchbooks by Davis on sale, I saw no reproductions of any of his paintings there.  --Lambiam^Talk 19:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Soviet space program

From an AP article about medical issues of going to Mars:

"NASA's three major tragedies resulting in 17 deaths -- Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia -- were caused by technical rather than medical problems. NASA never has had to abort a mission because of health problems, though the Soviet Union had three such episodes."

My question is, what were these three Soviet episodes? Dismas|^(talk) 18:46, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Have you looked at the space disaster article? –Pakman044 19:38, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I should have figured that we'd have them enumerated somewhere... sorry for taking up your time. Dismas|^(talk) 19:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Was the union a good thing?

Tomorrow Scots will vote in their parliamentary elections. The Scottish Nationalists seem likely to do well which may mean independence from England at some future point. The question arises was the union a good thing or not for Scotland? SeanScotland 21:02, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, it is important to note that not every vote for the SNP is a vote for Scottish independence. Indeed, the future of any independent Scotland is far from the front of many Scots' minds, the SNP gets its votes by campaigning on day-to-day, bread-and-butter issues.

Secondly, I would personally say that the Union was one of the greatest political successes of all time. But, at the risk of breaking Reference Desk guidelines, I will try to stick to definite facts. If Scotland had been independent from 1707 to the present day then Scottish merchants would not have had access to the markets that the British (or, in this case, English) Empire opened. That means that economic development in Scotland would be greatly stunted.

Also, it would be fair to assume that an independent Scotland would occassionally have interests opposed to England's. And many of these conflicts could easily erupt into War. Indeed, without the Union, poor Scotland would probably become England's whipping boy - if anything went wrong, the Westminster government would blame the Scots and give them a 'good thrashing' in order to encourage jingoism amongst the English.

Both nations regarded it as truth in 1707 that neither was capable of destroying the other, and so, perpetual peace was in their best interests. And the Union has, more or less, provided that. Conversely, I find it difficult to think of anything that would have made independence a good idea for 18th Century Scotland... 194.80.32.12 21:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me begin by making my own views clear: I, too, think the union between Scotland and England, the three hundredth anniversary of which has just passed with scarcely a mention, was, and is, a good thing for both nations. The Union, in other words, was so much greater than the sum of its parts, and there are so many things that sprang from it that it is difficult to know where to begin. The Northern Enlightenment was the brightest sun of Union, with great Scottish intellectuals like David Hume and Adam Smith making a unique contribution to the wider English speaking world. Would the Industrial Revolution, which allowed Britain to dominate the world, have come in the shape and form it did without full political and commercial union? Is it possible to envisage the British Empire without the contribution made by the Scots, the Welsh and the English to that great joint-enterprise?

Might I suggest, Sean, that you have a look at the May edition of the BBC History Magazine, where you will find an essay by Eric Evans entitled Who Gained Most When Scotland and England Joined in 1707?, which deals with the issue you have raised here. Seemingly The Scotsman newspaper carried out a poll in February of this year, in which 76% of the respondents believed that the Act of Union had been a 'bad thing'. So, along the lines of 'What have the Romans ever done for us?', here are some of the real facts. First, and most important, the Union solved an immediate political problem over the royal succession, which could, as User 194 suggests, have had devastating repercussions if it had been left hanging at the death of Queen Anne. Scotland, moreover, had by 1707 barely recovered from the economic disaster of the Darien Scheme, which robbed the country of most of its available capital. Union, by removing the security threat, and opening up England's colonial markets to Scottish trade, allowed the economy to recover and flourish. It was from this free-trade union that the city of Glasgow marks its beginning as a great commercial centre, which, in little over a century, grew to rival Liverpool in its trade with the Americas. Before the Union Scotland, in economic terms, was at least a century behind England. Although at first some of the benefits were slow to appear, by the end of the century the gap between the two nations had virtually disappeared.

What have the Romans ever done for us? Well, quite a lot actually, if you consider peace, enlightenment, prosperity and enterprise to be important. But least it be though a shade too patronising for an English woman to detail the benefits of 1707 for the benighted, and unappreciative Scots, let's look at the picture from the other side. England, too, gained security from the Union, especially important in view of the fact that the country was about to enter a new Hundred Year's War with France. The risks that an unfriendly Scotland could present were fully demonstrated by the Jacobite Rebellions, especially that of 1745-46. England, moreover, gained enormously from Scottish ingenuity and expertise, which, in all possibility, would have been stunted by continuing political divisions. There was a lot of resentment in England over undue Scottish influence in London after the Union-one only has to think of John Wilkes and his infamous issue number 45 of The North Britain-but Scottish politicians, engineers, inventors and entrepreneurs, from James Watt onwards, were to have a lasting and positive impact on England's economy and society.

Yes, the Union was a good thing; yes, it achieved more than if the partners had gone their different ways; yes, it would be sad to see it die. As well as the article I have suggested you might also be interested in Linda Colley's book Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, which explores all of these matters at length. Clio the Muse 23:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

As a brief counterpoint to that very comprehensive overview: in the early 1970s, a time when Scottish Nationalism was rampant, the (British) government commissioned report to study the consequences of Scottish indepedence on ownership and control over the UK's North Sea resources. The economists found that "for the first time since the Act Of Union was passed, it can now be credibly argued that Scotland's economic advantage lies in its repeal" and that an "independent Scotland could be transformed by oil revenues and become a leading power in Europe." Of course, this would have depended on Scotland having full control of the fields in its national waters, and managing them correctly (and anyone with any experience of scottish politics knows that a piss up in a brewery is the only thing they can manage with any success). Nevertheless, it does stand as an interesting counter-argument against the Unionist claims that Scotland would be financially crippled by independence (See the Barnett formula and It's Scotland's oil for more detail.) Rockpocket 00:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

declartion of aboroth

Hi: Im Ed. Can you tell me the year the declartion of aborth in Scotland was declared? was It In the 1300?

Thanks Ed —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.72.98.85 (talk) 21:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

The Declaration of Arbroath dates to April 1320, Ed. Clio the Muse 22:01, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The Job of Court Judges

What do judges say while they're in court. Like,how exactly do they go about the —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Redheadamh (talk • contribs) 23:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

They say all sorts of fascinating things, such as Lewis 23:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Our article Judge may give you an impression, but the details depend strongly on the legal system in force and the kind of cases the court is handling (civil cases, criminal cases, or others). Note that, confusingly, the term "civil law" has two unrelated meanings that apply to either dimension. If you watch TV court cases, which are almost all about criminal cases under common law, you may get the impression that the main task of judges is to say "Order in this court" and "Objection overruled", but really a major task is to preside over the court session and keep the legal proceedings moving in orderly fashion.  --Lambiam^Talk 12:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Your question seems to have been cut off mid-utterance. Assuming your point of reference is Anglo-American Jurisprudence, see also Trier of fact, Bench trial and Court order along with the links provided by Lambiam. dr.ef.tymac 17:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

May 3

Famous Greeks

What were the achievements of these famous Greeks? a)Aeschylus b)Alcibiades c)Alexander the Great d)Archimedes e)Aristophanes f)Aristotle g)Cleisthenes h)Draco i)Euripedes j)Homer k)Herodotus l)Hippocrates m)Myron n)Pericles o)Pesistratus p)Pheidias q)Philip of Macedon r)Plato s)Pythagoras t)Sappho u)Socrates v)Solon w)Sophocles x)Thucydides

If you going to refer them in each article of them, please tell me which says what and which word starts, that way I will understand what you mean. Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.64.53.151 (talk) 01:13, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

You are looking for an awful lot of information. All you really have to do is to type each of your names into the search box to find out what it is that you want to know about these individuals. However, I have now linked all the names on your list to make it easier for you. Clio the Muse 07:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me just add that there remains to be dispute about the ethnicity of Philip of MACEDON as well as Alexander. Although the concept of exactly who was or wasn't Greek is somewhat muddeled by the fact that the Greeks had colonies all over the Mediteranean, for example Herodotus was born in modern day Turkey. I doubt that most residents of say, Thebes would have regarded Alexander as being "Greek". I would love to respond in more depth but I have homework of my own to do. Gradvmedusa 07:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Since the notion of ancient Greece is a socio-historical construct, it is not clear what it means to say that the ancient Macedonians were not "technically Greek". I don't think the present residents of Thebes would agree that the Macedonians were not Greek, and I'm sure Philip himself would not have agreed that he was not Greek, technically or otherwise. Quoting from our article Ancient Macedonians:

Whether the ancient Macedonians were an ethnically Greek people themselves continues to be debated by historians, linguists, and lay people. However, the Macedonian Royal family known as the Argead dynasty claimed Greek descent, and Macedonians were admitted to the Olympic games, an athletic event that only people of Greek origin were allowed to participate. After the 4th Century BCE, the ancient Macedonians were universally considered to be Greek by their contemporaries.

Aww man...did anyone get the Thebes reference?Gradvmedusa 19:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Linguists likewise can't agree on whether the ancient Macedonian language was a Greek dialect or not, but in any case, by the time of Philip II of Macedon, the Macedonians spoke the Attic dialect of Greek, just like the Athenians. The name Philippos is pure Greek.  --Lambiam^Talk 11:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, "Helene" was a term that the Greeks used to denote a sort of pan-Helenic identity. Given that Alexander was taught by Aristotle, met Diogenes, etc., and given that Herodotus himself had used the term "Greek" for people that sniffy sorts would have rejected (Spartans, Boetians, etc.), there was Greek, and then there was Greek. Alexander certainly saw himself as Greek. Perhaps this is like the Normen who had only been "French" for a generation before they were out exporting French culture. Utgard Loki 12:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Many of these people's achievements are eponymous: Pythagorean theorem, Plato's Republic, Hippocratic Oath, Archimedes' principle, Homer's Odyssey, the Socratic method and Sapphism. OK, the last one was a joke, but you get the idea... Laïka 17:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, Sapphism, yes, indeed. That would be the female equivalent of Sophoclism? Clio the Muse 18:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Ancient Greek Society

What were the social, economic and political role for members of the Greek society: a)Women b)Men c)Children (girls) d)Children (boys) e)Slaves —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.64.53.151 (talk) 01:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

To answer both questions, have you looked at the relevant Wikipedia articles on those topics? I mean let's see, Draco, first legislator of ancient Athens, gave them their first written constitution. I had no idea about that until thirty seconds ago. I am sure the other answers are just as easy to find. - Eron ^Talk 01:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Final exam/paper time huh? Well it depends on what time period you are talking about, not to mention WHERE in Greece. For example, the roles of women in Sparta and Athens were different, not to mention the role of women in say Mycenaean Greece Vs. Greece after Alexander. Try to narrow it down for us a little bit please. Gradvmedusa 07:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, but according to Solon's Timocratic system, there were men, men, men and, erm, men. --Dweller 10:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Department of Defense Dependents Schools

Do children attending DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependents Schools) naturally learn the language of the host country? For example, a child in a Japanese DoDDS learns Japanese. This means without taking the language courses offered by the school.--The Dark Side 02:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I would say the answer is no, I knew a lot of so called "military brats" in high school and though some of them spoke foreign languages it was not usually a result of prior schooling overseas. For one thing members of the US military tend to move around a lot, secondly it does not generally appear to be a requirement to study the lanaguage of the host country in DoDDS schools. See link titlehttp://www.heid-hs.eu.dodea.edu/academics.htm they appear to offer classes in several languages other then English, not just German, secondly only 2 years of a language are required for graduation, hardly enough to achieve fluency. Gradvmedusa 07:54, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

How does one post NPR interview to a Wikipedia site?

Shortly after the death of philosopher James Rachels, I was interviewed on the local NPR station and gave an overview of the life of my former professor. Is it possible to post this short piece (plays on Real Player) on the James Rachels page in Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rachels pence@uab.edu Greg PencePence 02:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The actual interview might be copyright NPR; surely you can paraphrase your own remarks and add them to the page (in a form that might better satisfy Wikipedia standards than quoted interview text would). AnonMoos 02:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I gather you want to post the audio. Wiki is developing a site to handle such media, it is subject to copyright restrictions, as is the photo media and text. try Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ to see about the upload ;) DDB 06:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If it appeared on NPR then it is likely available through NPR's website. Just post the link to it to the page in Wikipedia, that doesn't violate any copyrights. --140.247.240.166 18:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible philosophical term

Perhaps this is vague, but I was wondering if there is a term for the phenomenon whereby the later stages of spiritual/psychological/philosophical developent come to resemble the primary stages of that development. An example would be the idea in Zen Buddhism that, for a beginning student, mountains are mountains; for an adept, moutains are no longer mountains; and for a master, mountains are once again mountains. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 167.206.19.11 (talk) 05:08, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Madrasah and Schooling

I understand that Madrasah is Arabic for school. F J Gladman referred to "Bell's Madras System" of schooling which he said was invented by President of the Military Male Orphan Asylum, Egmore, near Madras. Bell's system is said to have been invented between 1789 and 1797, during Bell's incumbency. The school system used students as teachers and assistant teachers, some of the boys aged as little as 7, others as old as 14. The system allowed a thousand students to be taught with a single headmaster, and it was considered a worthy innovation in the nineteenth century. Bell died in 1832 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

I am trying to find out who Bell was and if the system is different from traditional Indian Madrasah, as might appear in Pakistan. Gladman was writing this in his School Work book, published in 1886. DDB 05:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

A similar system, outlined by Gladman is the Lancaster System, named after Joseph Lancaster born 1778. The Lancaster system was adopted by the British and Foreign School Society which was Gladman's employer. found some refs .. DDB 05:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

The Bell-Lancaster method is a name for the same system developed independently by Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster. If the designation "Madras system" is derived from the place name Madras, there is probably no connection with the Arabic word madrasah; see Chennai#Name. My understanding, for example from the information found on this page, is that Bell's development of the system was a genuine innovation, introduced against strong opposition from the assistants in the Asylum, and therefore presumably essentially different from traditional Indian schools. For Indian madrasahs in the sense of Islam school, see Madrasahs in India.  --Lambiam^Talk 11:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Natural Born Citizen With Deported Parents

I'm trying to determine what would be most likely to happen in the following circumstances. First, a child a is born to legal temporary residents of the United States. That child is now a citizen. Later, both his parents are deported back to their country due to failure to maintain their legal immigration status. The child is not yet 18 years old- let's say 16. Let's say that the parents own a house and other goods. Can they transfer their property to him and can he continue to live as an emancipated minor, or is there some hidden issue I haven't yet discovered is my search? This is merely a thought question- there are no actual details to go with this. DeepSkyFrontier 06:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm assuming that the child was born in the United States, or otherwise he could not be a natural born citizen. See birthright citizenship in the United States of America and US nationality law.

Whether he is emancipated or not is an issue for a State court to decide however. See emancipation. If he is not emancipated (and I wouldn't wager too highly on emancipation), then he would not have reached majority yet, and all of his property would be held by his legal guardian. I would assume though that they can transfer though otherwise; I don't think that deportation would change their ability to assign their property unless the government seized it for some other reason. –Pakman044 08:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

German novel

Help! This is driving me nuts! I'm trying to remember the name of a novel I read years ago. It's set in Berlin sometime in the 1920s, and deals with the adventures and mishaps of a man just released from prison. I can not be any more specific than that, sorry. 86.131.250.174 08:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this may very well be Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Doblin. The anti-hero in question is the unforgettable Franz Biberkopf. Clio the Muse 08:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

YES, that's it! I could kiss you, Clio the Muse. Thanks so much. 86.131.250.174 08:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Self denying ordinance

Please explain the purpose of the self-denying ordinance. Why was Oliver Cromell exluded? 80.176.147.202 10:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Have you read our cunningly named article, Self-denying Ordinance? --Dweller 10:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Dweller, that page, like so many other Wikipedia articles on English history, proceeds by a mixture of truth, half-truth and error. There is no proper context or background; it seems to suggest that the measure was moved in Parliament by Sir Harry Vane the Younger, when in fact it was Zouch Tate, MP for Northampton; and, most serious of all, it says that Cromwell was exempted from the terms of the Ordinance, when he was not.

To understand the significance of the Self-Denying Ordinance it is important to understand the nature of the Parliamentary rebellion itself. Parliament began its war against the king not in a spirit of revolution, but to preserve what it saw as the elements of the ancient constitution. The Great Rebellion was thus, it might be said, a reaction against novel forms of royal absolutism. As such, it proceeded at the outset in a wholly conservative direction, with command of the main Parliamentary armies being given, in accordance with well-established practice, to aristocrats like Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester. Manchester was given charge of the Eastern Association, where Cromwell served under him as a cavalry officer. However, as the war proceeded, it was clear that Essex and Manchester were at best half-hearted in pursuing the fight against the royalists, an attitude that became ever more apparent as the struggle became more radical. The growing rift between the Lords and the Commons finally came to a point of crisis when the fruits of the great victory at Marston Moor were allowed to slip away at the disappointing Second Battle of Newbury. It was after this that the political tensions between Cromwell and Manchester could no longer be contained by the established forms of command. Manchester's whole attitude to the war was expressed at this time in his famous quote-If we beat the king 99 times he is still king, and so will his posterity be after him; but if the king beat us once, we shall all be hanged, and our posterity be made slaves.

The Self-Denying Ordinace, placed before Parliament in December 1644, was intended to end attitudes like this, by terminating the traditional command structure of the army. It was coupled with an ordinance for the formation of the New Model Army, which aimed at ending county formations, like the Eastern Association, by establishing a nationally recruited army, offensive rather than defensive in purpose. Unable to hold a command in the army and remain in Parliament, Essex and Manchester had no choice but to resign. Cromwell, who sat in the House of Commons, also had to resign his command, but was ordered to remain in place by the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the executive authority that was responsible for the overall conduct of the war, unwilling to dispense with a soldier of his talents. Although he could not be appointed to command the New Model Army, a position which was given to Sir Thomas Fairfax, his commission as Lieutenant-General of Cavalry was renewed for a series of forty day periods until 1647, when it was put on a permanent footing. Clio the Muse 12:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

is today a normal working day in NJ, U.S.A?

Hi! Is today a normal working day in New Jersey? I am a little bit worried, that I used the wrong words in a private email sent to a work-email-address, because I do not have an answer yet... But I can wait until tomorrow - I just wanted ask somebody to cross-check my theory (3rd May#Liturgical_feast_days says something about catholic feast day (is that like a holiday?))... :-) Thx. Bye. --Homer Landskirty 14:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

See http://www.state.nj.us/nj/about/facts/holidays.html - today is not listed. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Thx. --Homer Landskirty 15:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Family Trusts

Hi, as of now I am the only participant covering Canada in the Taxation WikiProject not wikilinking it on purpose, so this won't see as I am trying to recruit new members, I just want some answers, so I can try to make an article.

I am asking this question because the article Tax shelter provides no information, in relation to the law enforced by the Canadian Revenue Agency. Now I am no law expert, but I can try interpreting provisions of laws, as it is in english, lol. I have done some pre-eliminary research.

From Googling I found out that the government website http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en includes all the Federal Laws of Canada, except the Income Tax Act and Income Tax Regulations.

The government website states The Income Tax Regulations are not included on the Justice Laws Web site. A version of the Regulations, current to August 31, 2004, is available from CanLII at [6] and [The Income Tax Regulations are not included on the Justice Laws Web site. A version of the Regulations, current to August 31, 2004, is available from CanLII] at [7]. However, when I create the article I will need the latest version of the act to try and interpret it. The 2006 Government's Budjet implemented many reforms to the Income Tax Act. Whereas, the versions provided above are out dated?

I am sure you have all heard of Family Trusts being used as a tax shelter by small companies owned by a single person. The way it works (I hope I am right?) is like this: the owner of the company, incorporates the company. The owner then incorporates a family tust? The company then gives out dividents to the family trust. In an example lets consider the family is 3 people, as thats the average people in families in Canada (I hope I am right?), and the family trust income is $85,000 (considering 80% of business go bankurupt after the first year). It then decides to give dividents of $28,000 (round figure for simplicities sake), to each memeber of the family. Now lets consider in our example the 3 member family is all over the age of 18 (I don't want to get into stuff like child care included in the budget etc.)

I now try a new strategy of researching information from the Internet, I go to the cra's website and all I could find there is tax forms for people to fill out!

Income Trusts can also be called Family Trusts? (I think?), so dividents are not taxable? If it is not which provision of The Income Tax Act states that?

Do they have to disclose the dividents to CRA? If so which forms do they have to download from the CRA's website? And in which line of the form do they dislose that income?

If the answer is it is taxable, then what are the tax brackets alloted to them? Are they mixed with say a family member who works at McDonalds (for simplicities sake) and earns a certain amount of working income in which they pay EI and CPP, and the McDonals has to pay another EI amount which is equal to the amount paid by the worker?

Anyways, I will much appreciate responses given, but please also state the source of the information, or if you just know it state (from my head).

I hope to fill in the blank spots in the Wikipedia's collection of articles, while following WP:NOT.

disclaimer: follow any information in this subsection, (which means if somebody replies here dont be stupid), and use the information at your own risk.

Finally, before stating goodbyes and my gratefulness, I would like to include a quote from Mark Van Doren, poet: The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

This is Goingempty from the Taxation WikiProject.

--Goingempty 10:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

A page of links to publications of the Canada Revenue Agency on the subject of trusts can be found here.

If a trust pays a dividend to an individual, then the individual would need to declare that as income on their individual (in Canada, Form T1) income tax return. Some dividends are taxable, some are not, but as far as I know (and I am not a tax specialist) all must be declared. An individual's total tax payable is based on their total taxable income. This income can come from a variety of sources: employment income, dividends, investment income, interest, etc. It's all rolled together and the total amount is taxed. (See the General Income Tax and Benefit Guide for more information.)

Trusts may also earn income themselves; trusts are required to file a form T3 trust income tax and information return. Trusts may also be required to pay tax on their income. If an individual owns a trust and that trust earns income, that income can be reported on the T3 and not on the individual's T1, in which case it would be taxed separately.

That is far from a complete answer but I hope it clears a few things up. If not, let me know and I'll try again. - Eron ^Talk 15:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The amendment taxing income trusts has not yet passed, so if you want to read the actual text, you have to go to the Parliament of Canada web site and look for the bill, which turns out to be Bill C-33. This should be a direct link to the page about the bill. Apparently it has only had first reading, so select "First Reading Version" to see the text. The subpage for "entire document" does not work for me, but I can select individual sections and read those... an extremely tedious task unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Obviously the text may be amended before it actually passes, or conceivably it might not pass at all. --Anonymous, April 18, 2007, 02:12 (UTC).

I'll add that rather than trying to interpret the law, as contained in the Income Tax Act and the various regulations issued thereunder, you'd probably do better to refer to the various publications put out by CRA to explain the Act and the regulations. Acts and regulations can be hellishly difficult to decipher, and I say that as someone who does it (in another area of government) for a living. Publications like the General Income Tax and Benefit Guide are specifically written to interpret and explain the law for the layman. They are not always 100% up-to-date, but in the case of CRA they do tend to be published and republished annually to keep up with changes to the tax laws - as they have been passed, and not just proposed - and so they should be more than sufficient for your purposes. - Eron ^Talk 02:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

In fact, CRA publications do sometimes refer to provisions in "proposed" legislation. I assume this is done in preference to delaying the publication when they are reasonably sure that the law will be passed and it will affect the upcoming tax season. I've never heard of a case where they did this and then it didn't pass. --Anon, April 18, 08:51 (UTC).

Very true, thanks for the clarification - Eron ^Talk 11:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The T3 Trust Guide 2006, is very informative. I can't believe I missed that. Thnx Eron. I have made some text in your answer green, I hope you don't mind. Eron if you would please assist me here: so which line in the T1 form should the individual file (in our example $28,000)? --Goingempty 02:59, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It depends. The trust will issue a form T3 to every individual who receives payment from the trust. There are different types of income from trusts; these are reported in different boxes of the T3 (see here for details.) Depending on the type of trust income, the individual could report it on various different lines of the T1 - line 120 for dividends from taxable Canadian corporations, line 121 for interest and other investment income, line 127 for taxable capital gains, etc. The T1 guide gives specific instructions like "Enter on line 120 the taxable amount of all dividends from taxable Canadian corporations [reported on ] ... boxes 32 and 50 on T3 slips." There isn't a single answer, as trusts earn all sorts of income and pay all sorts of income, all of which may be subject to different tax treatments. - Eron ^Talk 11:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Bringing back the archived question. Formatted my question, for ease of reading. The green sentences are the sum of my curiosity. --Goingempty 15:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

You may be missing a significant point: so far as I know, with some considerable personal involvement with family trusts, taxes must be paid. The choices are whether the taxes will be paid on income, on captial gains or on dividends and whether they will be paid in the trust or in the hands of the individual, or both. The advantage to the individual receiving dividends or capital gains from the Trust, rather than income, is that dividends and capital gains are taxed, generally speaking, at a lesser rate than income, and for that reason, are often a preferable way of getting money out of a trust. Bielle 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

dividends and capital gains are taxed, generally speaking, at a lesser rate than income. Whats the rate? --Goingempty 20:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I knew I was likely to get thumped for giving a simplified answer. I really don't want to look at those $%%&**($# forms again, having just finished them for another year. The rate of tax, for income and capital gains and dividends is actually the same. (I know that's not what I said above, but hold on.) The rate is your marginal rate (See third paragraph of Tax rate.) of income tax, and, depending on your personal situation, can vary from 0 to something like 49%. However, up to a maximum limit, only half of your captial gains are taxed at that rate. (If you had taken that capital gain as income, you would pay tax on the full amount.) The first half is not taxable. Dividends are divided between eligible and non-eligible and grossed up either by 125% or 145%, respectively, after which there are dividend tax credits to be deducted. Only on this net amount, is tax payable, and at your marginal rate. Now you know everything I know. Bielle 22:25, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

ancient cities II

A little while ago I asked about where I might find information about cities that existed it the past. tHe answer I got from that directed me to a few lists, but I actually need to know about a lot more cities. Is there any way I can do that as cheep as possible. The only idea I have had so far is to look up wikipedia articles on various cities and see how old they are. But this will take me a ridiculously long time. Does anyone have any easier suggestions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.159.131.91 (talk) 17:40, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

How many cities do you need and how old do they need to be?  --Lambiam^Talk 19:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Can you define what you're searching for more precisely ? For example, do you want cities that have been continuously occupied since their inception (like Rome) ? Do you want abandoned cities that archeologists have dug up (like Pompeii) or only think they may have found (like Troy) or can't find at all, but still believe existed ? StuRat 19:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

You need a historical atlas. --Wetman 22:34, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Midwest Migrant Workers in the Mid 20th Century

The Talk Radio hosts are making much of Senator Clinton's comments about Hispanic agricultural migrant workers in the Chicago/Midwest area "50 years ago. There is an expression of doubt that there were any significant numbers of such workers in the 50's and 60's. Can anyone provide credible information one way or the other. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.2.58.161 (talk) 17:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

The Bracero Program certainly brought migrant agricultural workers to the Midwest in the 50s and 60s. Here is a research report on this topic. About halfway through, citing additional sources, the report refers to the impact of the program on the Midwest. Marco polo 18:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This census table shows a dramatic (10-fold) expansion of the Hispanic population between 1940 and 1970, which suggests a large influx of Hispanics during that period. At least some of this was surely agricultural labor. Similar tables for individual states are listed here. Marco polo 19:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

News agency costs

Does anybody know how much a news agency licence costs? How much money has a newspaper or a TV channel to pay for it? --141.35.20.90 18:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of there being any license required to sell newspapers (in most places, a least). The license fee for TV channels would depend on the country. StuRat 19:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I get the feeling he is asking about license fees for running stories of a wire service such as AP or Reuters. Gradvmedusa 19:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly suspect that the price would depend upon the size of the audience. For a broadcaster with a strong signal in the New York area, the price is surely much higher than for a college radio station with a weak signal in Laramie, Wyoming. Marco polo 20:05, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Henry V and the Hundred Year War

Why did Henry V renew the war with France? Was he solely in pursuit of his claim to the throne, or were there other factors? What were the factors leading to the defeat of England after Henry's death? Janesimon 20:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

How much money is spent each month?

I'm trying to determine if the concept of creating a fund based on the unclaimed value of the planet, loaning this fund to governments proportional to their populations and paying the interest directly to all adult humans, while funding the U.N. is sustainable. Six quadrillion dollars at 1.3% would pay everyone a monthly dividend of a thousand dollars. Would individuals spending six trillion more dollars a month worldwide be a sustainable utility to the world economy? I'm not sure why anyone would resist getting another thousand dollars a month. Corporate boards would not be acting in the best interest of their stockholders by rejecting access to a new market worth six trillion dollars a month. So, if there is already significantly more than six trillion dollars spent in all transactions in the world in a month, it may be sustainable to spend six trillion more. If there is a place where this informaton exists it is beyond me and my daughters dial-up connection, Thank you.Stephenstillwell 22:27, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Economics

Hi - I am going to start preparting for UPSC exams of India. Would anyone be knowing what books I need to refer for Economics ? Is there a list of books from UPSC commission ?

Thanks, Vishal