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October 4

Getting Rid Of The Leading Parties

How would it be possible to get rid entirely of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party (and the LibDems)? Would it be possible to sue the Labour Party for putting us into the economic chaos we are in? And then to sue the ConDems for continuing it? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 01:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure! Wage a revolution, then line them up against the wall! It's worked super well in the past to do that sort of thing. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:06, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I just want to clarify: I don't want to be totally flip here, but the idea that you would want to "get rid entirely" of two parties is to me pretty extreme, way beyond "throw them out of office at the next election, and let them wait a few years before trying again." Look, I think that the US Republican Party is responsible for a tremendous amount of domestic and international grief at the moment, and would love it if they were in less of a position to muck things up now, much less have mucked things up in the past. But I'd never want to get rid of them entirely. I disagree with most of their positions, but ousting all opponents from the political sphere is a recipe for madness, as history has shown again and again and again and again. There needs to be, to use a Star Wars aphorism, some balance in the Force. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Surely the problem isn't so much the parties, but the idiots who voted for them, and the slackers who didn't vote for anybody, let alone against them. I could be your next door neighbour. HiLo48 (talk) 02:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Either that or you have some alternative to democracy -- Q Chris (talk) 14:05, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. If you vote for a major party, you're an idiot. But if you don't vote for anyone, you're a slacker. The only vote that gets your tick is a vote for a minor party, i.e. a party that has little or no chance of forming government and therefore little or no chance of making any changes. I certainly hope you don't impart this fantastic philosophy to your students, HiLo48. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I was trying to reflect KageTora's likely perspective. My own views are not necessarily those of the post :-) HiLo48 (talk) 03:06, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

In the last UK general election 35 % of the electorate did not vote. 70 % of them would have been sufficient to give a third party a larger vote than the Conservatives got. In other words, if the "slackers" had wanted to, they could have picked the winner of the election. 188.117.30.209 (talk) 04:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Regarding suing political parties: we do not supply legal advice, consult a solicitor. Regarding how to entirely get rid of a political party, normally this requires that a society no longer has a reason to have such a political party (or political parties in general). While the United Kingdom has a capitalist economy (per Marx's meaning), there will be a space or location for a party claiming to have a pro-capitalist, or capitalist compatible, economically "progressive" stance. Even if illegal, there would be a demand for such a party organisation. If you mean how could the Blair style Labour Party cease being relevant to parliamentary politics and the formation of majorities, look at how the old Labour party ceased being relevant: their electoral base hollowed out due to changes in working class consciousness, and a failure of the Party to remain relevant to an electoral vision of Labourite politics. (Hint: the Winter of Discontent was a decisive turning point for the British left and labourites, towards or against a modern vision of revolution). Similar requirements could be specified for the Liberal Democrats, or the Conservative Party, but I am far less familiar with party specific criticism. For the abolition of parties in general: National Government or, of course, the higher stage of socialism where government itself disappears. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I am an American, so I am not sure if UK citizens have to register for a party or how that happens, but in America it is always possible to be an "unaffiliated voter" or "decline to state" (this is often referred to as being "registered independent" but that is NOT the same thing) If everybody would just do that, your issue would be addressed.Greg Bard (talk) 03:29, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell under the British constitution, political parties are exactly the same as any other formal group of people: they would have to decide to disband themselves. A proposal to do just that has been put forwards by a candidate for leader of the Scottish Tories recently. So if the electorate of the UK wish another party to be elected, then another party would have to be created and gain enough votes. This may well happen. As for suing whoever got us into this mess, may I suggest you look at suing Lehman Brothers, or Sir Fred Goodwin, rather than the politicians who had to do the best they can to get us out of the mess the bankers had got us into? --TammyMoet (talk) 07:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It's extremely rare for anyone in the UK to be able to vote for a political party in any form of election. You vote for an individual who you think will best represent the interests of you and others in your area. If, after the event, you don't think they did represent your interests very well, you call for them to resign and/or you vote for someone different, nominated by a different party or no party at all, next time around. Or, you mount a revolution. Political parties are just aggregations of like-minded people - I would think it's very debatable (I'm not a lawyer) whether they hold any corporate responsibility at all. In answer to Gregbard, no, you certainly do not have to cannot "register" for any party in the UK in any official way, and only a tiny minority of voters are members of any party. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:53, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the education. I certainly agree that the major parties are the problem, because inevitably they end up acting in the interest of the party, rather than the individual citizen. This is because parties are corporations and they further corporatism (even without being conscious of it.), The path is clear. Only elect candidates who profess no allegiance to any party. If you throw them all out via populism, there is no need to depend on any member of a party making a motion to dissolve their organization. Power to the people. Greg Bard (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence for your opinion that "major parties... inevitably... end up acting in the interest of the party, rather than the individual citizen. This is because parties are corporations and they further corporatism..."? The fact is that most people vote for one or other of the major parties in the UK because they are more likely to be able to implement the policies that people support than anyone else. Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

That's why we don't like Proportional representation, even if it would be fairer to minority parties, ... ... and, of course, in the UK, you are at liberty to choose not to vote if that is your preference. You are also at liberty to complain bitterly about whatever government is then formed without your contribution. Are such liberties not permitted in your country, HiLo48? Dbfirs 08:33, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

We don't have the liberty not to vote. But the liberty to complain about the pollies who do get elected - most certainly. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that you still have the second liberty. Derek Hatton's mad militants tried to withdraw it in Liverpool many years ago. I can understand the thinking behind the withdrawal of the first, but I hope it never happens here! Dbfirs 09:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Our founding fathers were of British stock and, like the UK, they didn't consider that voting ought to be compulsory, and so at Federation in 1901 there was nothing in the Constitution about voting being mandatory. It was only in 1924 that the change happened, but again, not on the initiative of either the government or even the opposition. It was a backbench senator from Tasmania who started the ball rolling in a private member's bill. Hardly anyone even spoke to the motion at all, and nobody objected, so it became law virtually overnight, without the slightest fanfare or controversy. The actual voters had no say in the matter. Attempts have been made to overturn the law since then, but all have been resisted with far more energy than was ever expended in putting the law in place in the first place. It is not on the platform of any of the major parties to abolish compulsory voting in Australia. See Electoral system of Australia # Compulsory voting for more details. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 09:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't realise that you'd had the law for so long. I suppose when it has been there for all of living memory, it isn't a big deal for most Australian voters. Dbfirs 15:26, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

We know we're out of step with most of the world on this. Well, some of us know that, anyway. Having a different way is in itself no bad thing. I'd say most Australians are reasonably keen to have a say, and would probably vote most times even if they didn't have to. But maybe that's because it's become so ingrained in our psyches. The 1924 change was inspired by a record low voter turnout in the previous election, but travel and communications are vastly superior now. There are some who vote with resentment; and there are some who refuse to vote on principle, and cop a minor fine. Some of those would vote if only they didn't have to; some still wouldn't. There have been campaigns to get this law changed, but they all seem to fizzle out. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I know Jack knows this, but it's worth clarifying for others that the practical effect of the compulsory voting law is that you must turn up at a polling place, get your name crossed off the electoral roll in use that day, and be handed a ballot paper. At that point you have satisfied the legal requirements. What you then do with the ballot paper is up to you. Many suggestions have been made over the years. HiLo48 (talk) 20:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I don't know that, HiLo. Another quote: "It is commonly but wrongly claimed[8] that it is compulsory only to attend a polling place and have one's name checked against the electoral roll. In fact, Section 245 of the Electoral Act[9] says that "It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election... The Electoral Commissioner must, after polling day at each election, prepare for each Division a list of the names and addresses of the electors who appear to have failed to vote at the election." A voter who has their name crossed off but then refuses a ballot paper or is seen not to put the ballot in the ballot box may be recorded as having not voted.[3]" -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 10:20, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Well if you really want to get rid of all of them, there was this one fellow who had an idea about how to do it. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Tishrei 5772 22:26, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

We Canadians nearly dumped our Conservative Party back in the 1993 federal election (down from 169 seats to 2), but they made a comeback. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:05, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The Scots have been quite successful at getting rid of the Conservative Party, and in the recent elections to the Scottish parliament managed to get rid of a lot of Labour and Lib Dems too, leaving the Scottish National Party by far the largest. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposing to get rid of big parties is a bit like saying you'd like to get rid of any kind of general consensus that emerges, unites people and brings about change - good or bad. I think it's called 'democracy' or something.. 213.120.209.210 (talk) 12:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

People have been wanting to get rid of democracy ever since it was invented. Frustratingly, it endures. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 17:00, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Is not QUAN same as Kwan Yin?

http://www.circlesanctuary.org/circle/articles/pantheon/kuanyin.html

Goddess of fertility (children), compassion, mercy. Many names including "Mary of the Orient." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.74.217.177 (talk) 03:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Our article about her is Guanyin. Her name in Vietnamese is Quan Âm, is that what you mean?--Cam (talk) 03:27, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The traditional (pre-Pinyin) spelling in English is probably Kuan-yin. By the way, in early Buddhism there seem to have been more male manifestations than female, and in strict Buddhist doctrine (as opposed to popular piety), it's not clear to me that the word "Goddess" is really appropriate... AnonMoos (talk) 14:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Depending on your line of thought, Kwan-Yin may be called a bodhisattva, rather than a goddess. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

class warfare

The poor and disabled were granted financial assistance by the State so they could afford unlimited analog telephone service, which the poor and disabled need to maintain communication with hospitals, doctors and other health care and welfare providers. Some Republican legislatures and governorships that sought deregulation, however, did not extend equivalent assistance from analog to digital communications service. State financial assistance therefore appears to be ending under telecommunications deregulation such that the poor and disabled can no longer afford the equivalent digital service. Is this an example of class warfare on the part of Republicans and the rich who desire to privatize as well as deregulate government so they won’t have to pay taxes? --DeeperQA (talk) 05:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

While greed does certainly play a part in trying to avoid paying any taxes, or prevent taxes from going into anything but those that benefit the large-scale corporations directly, I wouldn't quite go as far as to regard it as deliberate, organized, and malevolent attempts by such entities to oppress a social class (except in certain clear-cut cases of bigotry). That way lies conspiracy theories and tinfoil hats. More likely, it's just an intrinsic inability to grasp the big picture. Evident in the way that for most of those kinds of people, "small government" means "bigass military".-- Obsidi♠n Soul 06:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I do disagree Obsidian, there is active class warfare going on, though it's not the poor vs the middle vs the rich, it's more the top 0.001% vs the bottom 99.999% and the bottom don't even realize what's going on. They're too busy watching TV to realize over a third of total new income in the last 30 years goes to the top 1%. The highest income bracket in the "progressive" tax system doesn't even come close to rich people, and the highest tax rate has been massively cut down recently. In 1963 the highest tax rate was 90%, now it's so low that after tax breaks and loopholes those who make $70 million and more per year pay an effective tax rate similar to those who make $70k per year. Wanna run for president to change the system, well everyone can run for president, it only costs $700million to win. You can't mark time or achievements, without active resistance society will regress to virtual serfdom through thousands of small steps. It only makes sense that those with power to change society change society to benefit themselves. While a coal mine owner lobbies successfully against carbon taxes and a tobacco company lobbies against health warnings and taxes on tobacco, and both put out studies which show climate change as false, and tobacco good for the economy (don't have to pay pensions to dead smokers) respectively, ALL businesses lobby on behalf on the corporations and their rich owners for lower corporate taxes and lower capital gains and income taxes for the uber-rich. So yes, cuts to programs for those least advantaged is class warfare. Public awareness (talk) 09:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

But the question here is motivation. The aims of those lobby groups are personal gain rather than malice for the lower social strata. They still do what they can to appease them with empty comforts (like you mentioned, TV), as they do need their services still. They don't make those billions by slaving on their own after all. Keeping the lower 99% stupid and happy is good for business. But yeah, it is rather organized, sadly. The extent of their power is more apparent in the banana republics than in their home countries. Ah dystopia... LOL. Tomorrow: The Sprawl.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 10:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I have to disagree with DeeperQA and Public awareness. Republican legislatures aren't the embodiment of the bourgeoisie's goals, nor are Democrat legislatures, nor are Labour—each demonstrates attempts to hegemonise social power by the bourgeoisie, none are direct representatives as with 19th century bourgeois parties. As such the bourgeoisie proper, Public awareness's 99.999%, shift their support between all the parties in bourgeois parliament, relying on the regular action of electoral backlash to ensure that the then "necessary" Democrat actions get passed, and that later the then "necessary" Republican measures get passed: all legislatures enforce class war upon the working class. For those with a hope for "progressive" Democrats or Labourites, you could do worse than to read RW Connell & TH Irving, Class structure in Australian history who provide an excellent example of how Labor governs: yet again in the interests of the bourgeoisie, but occasionally by repressing the working class by buying it out instead of directly assaulting it. Public awareness' schema of class warfare being simply the bourgeoisie operating through parliament is simplistic to say the least. For a very long time, and certainly since Braverman, workplace based analyses have drawn out the role of non-owning management in the direct and most brutal class warfare: the workplace fight over the managers right to manage versus proletarian self-management. Many believe this indicates that there is a third class position in capitalism, in Poulantzas' crude terms a "new petits bourgeois," in the Ehrenreich's formulation a professional-managerial class. Therefore, for people who follow the actual nature of class conflict in the workplace, there may be conflicts other than bourgeois:proletarian. This finding would indicate that there are differences in interest between the bourgeoisie and their management, such as Veblen's technocratic analysis of the position of engineers in the Fordist factory. —Providing free phones to the poor was part of the class warfare function of the welfare state, in producing "happy healthy workers," removing such access is another part of the cycle of class warfare. Reading Mario Tronti or Sergio Bologna on this ought to help. A good group to read in English is the group Solidarity (UK). The workplace is always the central moment of class struggle, not parliament. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:36, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I was being simplistic, I could write a book on contemporary class warfare. Both parties get the majority of their funding from businesses and the rich, so while the vary slightly, all possible winning parties are pro-rich people. Republicans may take away your cheaper phone service and this is obvious as you once had it, but Democrats will keep away your free post-secondary education, keep health care costly and privately owned, and would never suggest Co-determination. The middle non-owning management is hardly a separate group, they are simply a Sheep dog, the owner controls them just as much as the owner controls the sheep. Of course the influence is not just on government, they actively influence your thoughts - Necessary Illusions... the rich use media to form your image of how society should be, an image that suits them. "The workplace is always the central moment of class struggle, not parliament.", for a revolution yes, but parliament is where the thousand little battle happen, capital gains taxes aren't being slowly cut with input from workers, gifts to the rich happen in parliament. Public awareness (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

An analysis on the basis of "business and the rich" isn't a class analysis. On the point of "the rich" the average Australian income is 2.2 times the minimum waged income, a white collar working class household in Sydney, or a mining family up the Hunter, or a family of firefighters, could easily earn as a household 8 times the minimum waged income. These internal disparities within the working class are greater than the income disparities inside Hungary in the 1950s between income earners and the AVO/AVH political and border police. The Hungarians concretely, and a number of other analysts (including Milovan Djilas) believed the Hungarian situation to be a class distinction. The Australian situation is at best a distinction between different "stratum"—as our Leninist friends describe it—of the working class: the working class in general and the "labour aristocracy". When talking with people, they understand "rich" based on their own situation, sometimes as little as twice their own income makes someone rich subjectively. (A similar case with business, I'd gesture at co-operatives as an example of firms that don't display such rampantly bourgeois behaviour).

As far as the debate on new classes—Andy Anderson makes the case quite concretely in his The Enemy is Middle Class about the managerial section of British society in the late 1970s and early 1980s. "The owner controls [management] just as much as the owner controls the sheep," is a somewhat fatalistic metaphor given that the aim of most class analysis is to note the points for working class self-emancipation. As far as instances of "biting the hand," we can point to Veblen's analysis of the class distinction (interest in throughput maximisation versus interest in value maximisation) and note the overengineering of civil projects in the 1940s-1960s (Snowy Hydro and Melbourne's Sewer System come to mind, I've read the pamphlet advocating engineering over profit in relation to the sewer system issued by leading professional engineers). We could also point to the authors of core free software projects, such as the linux kernel; and the fact that corporate sponsorship of engineering is being conducted. There is, of course, the vast areas of independent competence controlled by medical professionals, and the difference between, for example, drug culture pushed by bourgeois institutions, versus the much more immediate corruption of the Deep sleep therapy projects, or the lobotomy therapy movement. And, of course, there's Djilas' analysis of the Soviet elite as being non-value maximising. All quite pertinent when I've never been directly repressed by a bourgeois in my working life, but only by their non-owning employees. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:05, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, some Australians are richer than others, and some Australians' jobs are to manage other Australians, but this does not mean there are two groups, two classes. All non-owners ride the same subway, go to the same bars, and go to the same theaters to see movies, their children go to the same schools, though many can not afford university, their children mix, date, and marry. The very rich own helicopters and jets, drink 200 year old cognac at exclusive bars, and have true home theaters. The rich were educated at Harvard, their children will go to Harvard, their children will likely marry the children of fellow rich people. The poor class has opinions on issues and vote, the rich create the issues, control the breadth of the debate, and use their wealth to influence the poor on how to feel about the issue. I don't know what a "fatalistic metaphor" is but here's another one; I own a nail, I own a hammer, I use the hammer to beat the nail into place, the nail resents the hammer, stupid nail. Public awareness (talk) 05:07, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

And the petits bourgeois and small capitalists drink at the same pubs. But yet there is a class difference. Class is about the relations of production not the standard of living or culture. This isn't about rich and poor, but about who does what and how at work. This isn't about rich and poor, but about worker, boss and owner. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Well maybe during Marx's time, but a manager today is just as much a wage slave as any other worker in my mind and the only active class warfare going on, where a group clearly tries to make their position better than if there was a veil of ignorance, is the richest 0.1% against everyone else. Public awareness (talk) 07:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Or perhaps as recently as the 1920s wrt Veblen's analysis of the engineers. Or the 1940s to 1960s wrt the Johnston-Forrest tendency's analysis of US production. Or the 1950s wrt Djilas' analysis of the nomenklatura. Or the Autonomist analysis of the 1950s-1980s. Or the Socialisme ou Barbarie / Solidarity (UK) analysis of the 1950s-1980s. Or Andy Anderson's analysis of Britain in the 1980s. Or the post-Fordist workplace analyses of the 1980s-2010s. Workplace sociology emphasises the fact that local bastards fuck us workers over. This has been concretely reinforced in my working life, in part through industrial injuries as a result of local management. The very real class war I've experienced has been over working through lunch fifteen minutes late on a daily basis, bad machines, and workflows resulting in crippling permanent injuries, stress, the "power to hire and fire" as the still apt IWW analysis states. All of these contests have been about non-owning management at very local levels. Once, at a summit protest I viewed a helicopter landing members of the bourgeoisie at a casino. In day to day life, from the Prices and Incomes Accord to the bastard who gave me RSI when I was 19, it has been non-owning management who have fucked me in their own class interest. While there are critical analyses that deal with non-owning management as fundamentally aligned with the bourgeoisie on a non-class (hegemonic) basis, such as Erik Olan Wright these tend away from relations of production and towards Weberian class-as-stratum, and thus lose their predictive power about revolution. (Leninist shibboleths which avoid proof in practice have been discarded here). Discounting the actual productive terrain as experienced is what left many Leninists isolated from the actual environment of production in the 1940s and 1950s, correspondingly, the relationships of work are what transformed many Leninists (both CP and Trotskyite) towards the workers control position in Fordism. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You should get a job as a manager. You would realize it's the same as other work; you have things to do and you get a part of the wealth you created back just like anyother job. You had a shitty manager, but that manager was merely a man working for someone with capital to get a job done. You need to see it is the man at the very top alone who creates the system. To complain that managers are keeping you down is a kin to complaining that a police officer is holding you down for enforcing the law. The cop doesn't make the laws he enforces, he's just a cog in the machine controlled by a few people at the top. Public awareness (talk) 09:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

If you're willing to produce an apologia for the police then I'm afraid I'll have to stop participating this discussion, as our moral systems are incompatible. I'd recommend reading some IWW history, particularly Melvyn Dubofsky's, if you want to understand why I'm no longer able to continue this discussion with you. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I realized that awhile ago, you're very closedminded. I hope you think on that and know I'm not trying to insult you, just letting you know. Public awareness (talk) 20:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

If you want to talk about income disparities as a key determining factor in the structure of contemporary society, feel free to do so. It doesn't relate particularly well to the two hundred year discourse on social class, and the already established technical meanings embedded in the terminology mean that if you want to use social class to talk about income inequality then you're going to be facing a long series of definitional discussions at the front of the argument. If you want to theorise in terms of income disparity, the Gini coefficient is often used here; but, arguments revolving around income disparity rarely lead to a conclusion that those in control of social wealth ought to be displaced from their position. Moreover, most people who believe that those who control the social wealth ought to be displaced, tend to discuss this in terms of social class as relations of production. There is a dense a cohesive body of ideas that discuss the relationships between production, class and social revolution; the two best known and most influential segments of this literature are the Marxist and anarchist literatures. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:41, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Fordism is a useful idea here, the kind of capitalism when workers are provided with stuff that helps them be good consumers. Now that period has gone and the welfare state is rolled back. Fifelfoo, if you have a minute, could you cast your eyes over that article and see if you can suggest any improvements? Since you are interested in the area. Cheers. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

There is one further point to consider: analog telephone services were expensive in the past, its digital version are affordable for even the poorest. On the top of that, some places even offer free access to internet, so everyone who wants to be connected, also will be connected. Wikiweek (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The idea behind deregulation is to do away with State control over rates. The problem is that phones are a necessity. Telecommunications companies can charge whatever they agree with each other to charge. All State assistance does is to compensate the poor for government charges like taxes and fees to lower their costs. Before deregulation corporations could not take advantage of State assistance and charge the poor more. Under deregulation they can. This is the logic for not providing State assistance to the poor under deregulation. The problem now is that the poor can not afford a phone under deregulation, much less internet and TV, without sacrificing proper nutrition, education, living conditions, etc. Under deregulation there is no reason for Telecommunications industry be concerned about the poor or maybe even the economy since they have control over a necesity rather than the State. --DeeperQA (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Though currently regulation is still in place which makes "agree[ing] with each other [what] to charge" illegal, Conspiracy (civil). Though the rich are trying and succeeding at getting the poor to hate these types of laws too. Public awareness (talk) 21:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Not in the State of Florida which was deregulated in July. --DeeperQA (talk) 22:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It's federal law, not state. If you could prove 2 or more telecommunication companies came together to price-fix you can sue and win big. Public awareness (talk) 22:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

You're kidding right? All you have to do is to look at cellphone coverage maps to realize telecommunications corporations are cooperating for the purpose of fixing prices. Look up Wimax and FTE and you will find a great many more that just two corporations buying up licenses to spread costs and then to share segments to create a network they all share - for fixed prices. No chance of being one of the crowd and offering lower prices as in conventional corporate competition. Additional service make possible high levels of service and equipment the rich can enjoy but not basic unlimited service which the poor and disabled need but which is not offered at a price they can afford. --DeeperQA (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Anti-trust, anti-competetive, and price-fixing laws do change by industry, so read up, collect data and see if there is evidence of collusion. Price fixing isn't rare as the benefits are huge and businesses believe they can get away with it without people realizing. Public awareness (talk) 07:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The Time Travellers Novel

Are there any other Doctor Who books similar to The Time Travellers by Simon Guerrier, by that I mean an alternate timeline/universe that is created/erased by time travel. Scotius (talk) 10:39, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't answer your question because I haven't read any Doctor Who books, but the plot reminds me of Asimov's The End of Eternity. Dbfirs 06:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Grand Boubou

Do men in Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Mali wear the Grand Boubou? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.29.34.189 (talk) 15:29, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Islamic men in those countries do during formal occasions. There are female versions of the Boubou in Mali as well. -- kainaw™ 15:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

What country has killed the most people?

Not sure if this can be answered, but I'm gona throw it out there anyway. ScienceApe (talk) 17:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

China? The Great leap forward killed upwards of 40 million Hot Stop talk-contribs 18:01, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It may be possible to answer if reworded. A country cannot kill anyone. The government body of a country can institute a law or policy that may directly or indirectly lead to a person's death. So, you want to know which government body has been responsible for the deaths of the most people, right? Then, you need to define responsibility. If a government doesn't require earthquake-resistant housing and thousands of people die in an earthquake, is the government body responsible? Perhaps you want to refine it to be which government body directly ordered the death of the most people - avoiding endless discussion of what government could or should have done to prevent deaths (ie: there was a lot the Chinese government could have done to prevent deaths in the Great Leap Forward). -- kainaw™ 18:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

This could easily degenerate into debate, since it is not at all clear how to assign responsibility for deaths that occurred in the various Cold War proxy wars or their aftermath, such as the Cambodian genocide. Another issue is whether European colonial powers can be blamed for the likely tens of millions of deaths of indigenous Americans after the arrival of Europeans due to the spread of diseases to which they had no resistance. Apart from these issues, the government of China is a strong contender, as is that of Germany, if you consider civilians and military personnel it killed during the two world wars (including the Holocaust), plus deaths it caused in earlier wars such as the Franco-Prussian War or the Herero and Namaqua genocide and other colonial wars. Note that few demographic specialists accept numbers killed during the Great Leap Forward much higher than 30 million, and the number may have been as low as 16 million, though of course that is still horrific. Marco polo (talk) 18:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

You may be able to find useful information at List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll. —Akrabbim^talk 18:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Even if you try to fudge the factors, China is going to be hard to beat. If for nothing else, because they have had a large percentage of the world's population for so long. Googlemeister (talk) 18:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

That in itself means nothing. Their culture could have abhorred killing. By your reasoning, China is automatically the world beater in any field of activity you care to name, but that is demonstrably not the case. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, if their culture abhorred killing. But their culture did not. You have Qin's wars of unification, the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Wu Hu uprising, and the Goguryeo–Sui Wars, the An Lushan Rebellion (Which killed an estimated 36 million in the 8th century). All of these examples involved China inflicting 100,000 or more casualties, and none of these examples are in the last 1200 years. If you want to argue that the Chinese empires became pacifists then and stayed that way for more then a millennium, go ahead, but it is not reality. Googlemeister (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

But you've changed your tune now. You said "if for nothing else", which means that the sole thing that is considered is the population, and all other evidence is set aside. Now, you're bringing in that other evidence, the evidence that you previously said didn't matter because the population alone told the story. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:20, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

First, you need to stop putting words in my mouth. I said China was a good candidate for that reason, not that they were guaranteed to be at the top. Statistically speaking, if you are around more people, more people are going to be negatively impacted by you. You bring up the straw man argument that the Chinese are all pacifists, but since when has that been true of any large scale culture? Googlemeister (talk) 13:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

We're discussing the exact words you used. Maybe we have different understandings of what "if for nothing else" means. I don't disagree with the proposition that the Chinese have had a massive negative impact, probably more than any other culture. That's because (a) large scale cultures always have negative impacts, and (b) they've had more people than any other country for a long time. You can't ignore the first part of the argument and pretend it is solely about their numbers. But that is precisely what you do when you say "If for nothing else, because they have had a large percentage of the world's population for so long". But my initial refutation of this was clumsily worded too, so I guess we're square now. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:56, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

If we count all deaths of the WWI and WWII as provoked by Germany, then it's difficult to top this number. Otherwise, Germany is still the top killer by some millions. Wikiweek (talk) 20:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I would still go with China... simply becuase it has been around for thousands of years longer than any other country in the world, and has thus had more time to kill people. Even if more people are killed on an annual basis in other countries, the ones killed in China add up over time. Blueboar (talk) 22:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Killing million of people is not that common as you might believe. Neither were the technical means there not the ideology to justify it. Quest09 (talk) 23:49, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

China is an area not a nation, the PRC is 62 years old and to say it is the heir of China would make the Republic of China quite mad at you. Whether you include famines or not, I would say the British Empire certainly is one of the top nations for killing the most people. There were numerous major farmines in areas they ruled, like Ireland and India. Their contributions to the deadly colonizations of the Americas, Africa, the middle east, and South Asia adds up fast. England is almost 1100 years old and has fought countless wars and battles. While some could be seen as not their fault as they were not the aggressor, they certainly were the aggressor in many wars, List of wars involving England, Military history of the United Kingdom, and you can add a few tens of thousands for Capital punishment in the United Kingdom. Public awareness (talk) 01:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You'd have to determine the British culpability for the famines, though. They were not responsible for potato blight. They could, arguably, have done better in famine relief. THe question is how much beter (or worse) would any of the famine areas have been absent the British - that gets you the marginal causation amount. All of that doesn't seem directly comparible with, for instance, Stalin' gulags. Ditto "the deadly colonizations of the Americas" which, IIRC, the Spanish had heavy involvement in. Ton what extent are they responsible for the spread of disease, in a time when understanding of disease vectors was for the mpost part completely absent. So, good try, but ultimately, a fail. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Strike and apologize. Public awareness (talk) 20:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

OK... if you want to get technical... I will amend my answer to "Imperial China". But my point still stands... simple scales of time, population, and size all argue in favor of it killing far more people than any other nation. Blueboar (talk) 02:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Get out the soapbox. This is a vague and ill-defined debate generator, and not at all an appropriate question for the Reference Desk. Prepare for extensive pointless nationalistic debate and ranting. The thread should be collapsed and the farce ended. Edison (talk) 04:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You also unilaterally collapsed my question about American exceptionalism, although that time, you offered no justification whatsoever. That question did not become a "debate generator" or lead to "extensive pointless nationalistic debate and ranting". This question also has not become a "debate generator", nor has it led to "extensive pointless nationalistic debate and ranting". The only pointless ranting here is your own attempt to shut down legitimate questions. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Another reason it's almost impossible to answer: most of the deaths in wars before the 20th century were due to disease (although some of these diseases resulted from infected battlefield wounds); most of the deaths caused by Mao and Stalin were due to famine/starvation/cold rather than direct killing; many of the deaths in the Nazi concentration camps were due to disease and starvation. Were these deaths inflicted by nature or humans? Similarly, is the USA responsible for the millions dying needlessly of famine and treatable diseases in Africa? Only if you restrict this question to people who were deliberately and directly killed could you get a meaningful answer. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:41, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Some more questions:

• Germany starts WWII, the Allies storm into Germany, and a German citizen is killed by them (it's war, after all). Who's to blame for that death? The Allies, who fired the gun, or Germany, for starting it all?
• What about armies with soldiers of many nationalities, or military alliances? Do we count all deaths for the country in command? Do we count soldier by soldier? Because if all the deaths caused by the Axis were attributed to Germany, then that would mean that the other Axis did not kill anyone
• What about the soldiers killed by their own military leaders, for things such as treason, mutiny or desertion? Do we count them as if the country killed them?
• What about prisoners or captured people who commit suicide to avoid capture or interrogation? Do they count as killed? Because the army may had not killed them but just kept them prisoners (or not, but after the suicide the point is moot) Cambalachero (talk) 19:17, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Steve Jobs's Free Tuition, Room, and Board

According to this, Jobs went to Reed College and, upon it being discovered that he had paid no tuition nor could he afford to, he went to the Dean of students and persuaded him to let Mr. Jobs attend without paying at all. I am very curious whether the Dean paid the amounts due himself, or if he just made the bills go away with a discretionary flick of his pen (is it within a Dean's discretion to flat-out give free room and board and tuition to a person lucky enough to be persuasive and charismatic?). The fact that he dropped out after only one semester is immaterial. One semester of free tuition, room, and board is not nothing, quite the opposite. 20.137.18.53 (talk) 18:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Colleges typically can offer scholarships for promising students. It's probably within a Dean's power to arrange for a special scholarship occasionally, if not directly, then by pulling some strings. It probably was even easier in the mid 70s, when Jobs went to college. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Just by my gut feeling I'm inclined to agree with the statement "It probably was even easier in the mid 70s, when Jobs went to college." But what are the actual reasons you hypothesize that big exceptions like this only get rarer and harder to get? I don't see why bureaucracies then would be less purely packed with people who don't give a shit about greatly giving to someone else without receiving something equal or greater in value than they are today.198.228.194.67 (talk) 20:41, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The bureaucrats are just as heartless, but now they're terrified of being sued because they did a favor for a promising student but that student was White/Black/Green/Jewish/Muslim/Little-Endian and not for my son/daughter who is a terrible student but is deserving for some reason that will get the court to take the case even if it's fairly obvious I'll lose. The school doesn't want the bad publicity or the legal headaches, so it's very much "by the book." SDY (talk) 22:33, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

. This is a Reference Desk. Please do not guess. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

As someone who knows quite a few people who have been on the financial aid/admissions side of things... SDY's conversation is not how it works. At all. - -Mr.98 (talk) 01:37, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Mr98, since you have a few good sources more credible than my gut, I'd love to hear if they have more evidence-based estimates on the change in likelihood of someone being able to walk into the Dean of Students' office (who they don't already know), befriend them, and get them to give you an all-free semester in the mid-70s vs today, and if that likelihood has gone down, mostly because of what?198.228.195.4 (talk) 13:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It would probably depend a lot on the institution, but I don't actually see it as impossible. As for likely, I don't know how likely it was in the 1970s either. Let's take for granted that Jobs was an exceptional person and that some of that was probably clear even then. Deans have considerable sway in general — one of their main roles is "fixing" things of this nature, even today.

But in terms of real sources. The biggest change in the situation between now and then is that the cost per student of higher education is much, much higher than it was in the 1970s. In 1976 (just to pick a year I could find easy numbers for), a semester's tuition at Reed was $1,940, and room and board would have been $775. That's around $10,400 in present currency. By contrast, a semester at Reed today costs $21,270 with room and board adding another $5,525. So that's a real increase in price of 250% in what it means for a university to give a student a free pass for a semester (and, as various scary graphs attest, the rise in tuition across the board is potentially even more elsewhere, other than Reed). If your gut perception is that university belts have been tightening since the 1970s, this is my understanding of things as well. The reasons for this are many-folded, but my understanding is that the universities lost a considerable amount of government funding starting in the 1970s, and that ended up driving a lot of other trends as well.

Still, a relatively rich university (which Reed is) has within its means to grant a few students exceptions without worrying about it much. They are not, I am fairly sure, worried about being sued by other students — they are allowed to give scholarships to whomever they please. One student does not a trend make, and without a trend there is no conceivable legal redress.

So, again, I think I would conclude with the following: there might be some chance that this sort of situation was "more likely" in the 1970s, if only because the costs of tuition were lower then. But even then I think the Jobs situation was exceptional then, and would be exceptional now. Not impossible, but exceptional. You would have to be a pretty clever kid to sweet talk a dean into an on-the-spot need-based fellowship. But I'm sure it has happened before and since, now and then. I've met a few kids who would probably have been slick enough to pull it off during my time in higher education. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

can a supplier cancel a booked event to give the venue to another party

46.7.86.248 (talk) 21:27, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there a written contract? Has any money exchanged hands to reserve the venue? Blueboar (talk) 21:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

You probably want to know if it's legal. Unfortunately, the RD does not provide legal advise. It's impossible to know without reading the contract and knowing in what jurisdiction you are. 88.14.195.104 (talk) 21:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The question is, can the reservation contract be assigned to a third party. Unless it says it can't, then it probably can, but how about asking the venue instead of the reference desk? 69.171.160.19 (talk) 07:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

This has happened many times - sometimes in famous situations such as when the Super Bowl was moved and some automotive conference had to be bumped. -- kainaw™ 13:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

What are the historical reasons that make the Bronx to be one of NYC's outer boroughs like Queens, Brooklyn, & Staten Island?

Let me summarize what I understand from reading history. Before 1874, NYC covered only Manhattan Island. In 1844, the West Bronx was annexed to NYC, and then all the areas east of the Bronx River were annexed to NYC in 1895. The Bronx first assumed a distinct legal identity when it became a borough of Greater New York in 1898. What became the Bronx in 1898 was annexed to New York City before the other "outer boroughs," and was seen as an integral part of New York City. In the late 19th century, many people in the area listed their address as "City" after their street address. The Bronx was part of New York County from 1898 to 1914. In January 1, 1914, the Bronx County that we know today was created. By the way, I also learned that the Manhattan street grid was extended to the Bronx. So historically speaking, why is the Bronx part of the outer boroughs despite the fact that it was part of the historical, original NYC? When and why did people start considering the Bronx to be one of the 4 outer boroughs? Willminator (talk) 21:32, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

"Outer Borough" is not an official term, it's mostly a geographic usage (although there is a cultural snobbery side to it as well)... Geographically, Manhattan is more or less in the center of New York City, so you travel in to Manhattan, and out to The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Blueboar (talk) 22:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Willminator, if you're looking for a good geographic history of NYC, then this category at commons: [1] has a lot of cool maps that may help tell the story. --Jayron32 22:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

First, political boundaries don't always define people's mental maps. I think even during the brief period when what is now western Bronx was part of New York City and other outer boroughs were not, that the island of Manhattan, or maybe Manhattan south of 59th Street, retained a certain special status as the "real" city. Since there were no boroughs, it was not an "outer borough", but it was certainly an outlying district. Second, only the western Bronx was part of New York City before 1898, and it had previously been part of Westchester County. With the annexation of the eastern Bronx from Westchester in 1898, western Bronx was reunited with a region with which it had deeper historical ties than Manhattan, and with which it shared the status of being across the Harlem River from Manhattan. These two parts, combined in the borough of the Bronx, then shared the status of an outer borough. Marco polo (talk) 00:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's a reference to the Bronx as an "outer borough" in 1912: [2]. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:11, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Got something of an RFC to come here. Not sure why though. :p I think BlueBoar and Marco Polo covered it quite well. Most of us think of Manhattan as being the actual city proper. Usually, when people from the NY metropolitain area say the City, they are referring to Manhattan. It is the center of commerce and culture. The other boroughs are mostly residential (and to some extent suburban, except for BX) with a few things here and there to see. No offence to my bros in Queens or the good people in Brooklyn (Staten Island, eh, and Bronx, eh). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 7 Tishrei 5772 21:07, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Take it as a compliment that people out here need you _Edit: [always]. :-) Willminator (talk) 21:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

October 5

Who has the lowest net worth in America? In the world?

Who has the lowest net worth in America? In the world? I realize definitive answers won't be possible. --NilsTycho (talk) 02:29, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit: For clarification, I am thinking of individuals with a negative net worth. Bernie Madoff is a good guess, as suggested below, but I can't find his current net worth. --NilsTycho (talk) 00:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

A naked homeless person would be your answer for the US. I would imagine quite a few people in so-called Fourth World countries have the same low net worth. Other than these I can't imagine what answer you are looking for. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 7 Tishrei 5772 02:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

(ec) If negative one million dollars is "lower" than negative five hundred thousand dollars, then I expect it's someone quite well off. Very hard to accumulate large negative net worth unless you're rich. --Trovatore (talk) 02:33, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The working class. →Στc. 02:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't see how the working class would have a lower net worth then the non-working class... Besides, working class is a loaded term. Doctors work, and are well compensated for it, but are not considered working class. Does that make them part of the parasite stomping on the head of the common comrades class? Googlemeister (talk) 18:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I think quite a lot of politicians are worthless, but maybe that's not what you had in mind. HiLo48 (talk) 02:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to guess someone in prison who has been ordered to pay millions of dollars of restitution. 69.171.160.19 (talk) 03:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict with 69.171) Read net worth: total assets minus total liabilities. Trovatore is exactly right - it's going to be someone who's "rich", but has massive liabilities. Or maybe someone who had a huge judgement handed against them, one that they'll never realistically pay off (or likely both). Mark Madoff, the late son of Bernard Madoff, apparently owed 22 million USD when he killed himself, but I'm sure there are people with much larger liabilities out there. Buddy431 (talk) 03:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Yep, so ignore the thing I said. Is there a list of people by personal debt? :p Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 7 Tishrei 5772 03:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that a homeless bum who lives in the woods eating grubs and roots, has far more "net worth" than someone who is millions of dollars/Euros/Yen/Pesos/Rubles/Drachma in debt. Edison (talk) 04:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, I have an idea. The OP did say who, and he didn't specify he wanted one person. Isn't the level of debt related to student loans approaching 1 trillion USD in the US? If so, there's your answer, the college student population has the lowest net worth! (minus myself of course) Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 7 Tishrei 5772 05:01, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Wouldn't the population in the US with the lowest net worth be the population of everyone with a net worth below zero (or including zero)? Nil Einne (talk) 12:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, good point; basically everyone with debt that is greater than their assets. What about in the World? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 7 Tishrei 5772 19:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Presuming we mean an individual, Donald Trump evidently once had a $900 million personal debt (see the article). I'm not sure (and the ref isn't clear to me at least) if this excluded his assests (in other words whether his net worth was -$900 million) and I don't know if we should be looking for something to this level of magnitude or he was a special case. Nil Einne (talk) 12:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Its interesting that a lot of people with the lowest net worth will have a much higher standard of living than your penniless bum with zero net worth or even people with a moderate to average positive net worth. -- Q Chris (talk) 13:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

It is a common fallacy that debt is necessarily a bad thing. Clever use of debt can be the means of generating more revenue. You have to have considerable resources before you can actually get on the level of taking on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Reminds me of an old saying: "Owe the bank a thousand dollars, and you will be in trouble if you default ... owe the bank a million dollars, and the bank will be in trouble if you default." The amounts may need to be updated, but the concept is the same. Blueboar (talk) 14:02, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I might just note that having large personal debts does not necessarily mean one is so hopeless. In the US, most debts can be resolved by declaring bankruptcy. A more refined approach would look at debts that cannot be written off in that way — like student loans, for example, which are magically exempt from this requirement. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Having a low net worth isn't that bad because you can always play country music backwards and get back your wife and your dog and your pickup truck. Bus stop (talk) 15:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

It would be someone with the greatest criminal and civil liability not dischargeable in bankruptcy. Perhaps Bernard Madoff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.38.31.81 (talk) 16:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Just because a debt can be discharged in bankruptcy doesn't mean that it doesn't count against your net worth. And having large negative net worth doesn't mean that you're insolvent or that you're even considering bankruptcy. --Trovatore (talk) 18:25, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

If Madoff is a valuable answer for the USA, maybe Jérôme Kerviel is for the world ($6.7 billon dollars) Pleclown (talk) 15:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The United States national debt is 15,000,000,000,00 which, divided by 300,000,000 citizens gives you a debt of $50,000n per U.S citizen. Next? μηδείς (talk) 00:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Japan: $67,000. Singapore: $65,000. Greece: $42,000. Belgium: $38,000. Italy: $34,000. Canada: $32,000. Germany: $30,000. United States: $29,000. The United States only has the largest public debt if you measure it in absolute dollars. If you measure it as a fraction of economy size, it's below the world average, and far below the average for industrialized countries. --Carnildo (talk) 01:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Suitable References for a page documenting a sculptor

Hi there, I'm currently creating http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Egan and, whilst the subject is an influential artist in the field I'm having trouble supplying Reliable Sources - in that the artist appears to be quite reclusive and does not give many interviews. I'd appreciate any suggestions re what refs may be acceptable. Michael.j.lacey (talk) 09:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Exhibition reviews in legitimate publications (newspapers, art magazines, art history journals, etc, or their websites); features or interviews in similar publications (interviews with other artists may be used to justify judgments of the artist's work); exhibition catalogues; articles in academic journals; small amounts of uncontroversial information may also be taken from the websites of the artist or their dealers, or even from Facebook etc, provided there are also other reliable sources cited. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Average processing fee for credit cards?

In light of Bank Of America's enactment of a monthly fee on debit cards, it is widely reported that the average debit card transaction costs the retailer 44 cents. How much does the average credit card transaction cost? Thanks. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 13:14, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

It depends greatly on the merchant system. There is usually a fixed fee per transaction (around 25 cents). Then, there is a percentage of the transaction on top of that (anywhere from 0.5% to 5% - and it can be different for AmEx or Discover). To make it more complicated, those who don't run a lot of transactions are often charged a minimum monthly fee while those who do a lot of transactions are often given a discount. Therefore, it is very difficult to calculate the average. -- kainaw™ 13:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Is that right? I heard that in the UK there is not a fixed transaction fee for debit cards (unlike credit cards), which is why they are suitable for small transactions. Many shops you won't be able to use a credit card for purchases of under £1, and often under £5 - and I think the cards themselves have a minimum limit of 50p, whereas debit cards are allowed. -- Q Chris (talk) 14:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The laws in the UK may be vastly different than those of the US. The OP used the word "cents" which would suggest that they are from a country that uses cents and not pence. Normally, when unspecified, the OPs are from the US. Therefore kainaw's answer is likely accurate for the OP since he talks about US law. And for the sake of completeness, the OP's IP geolocates to New York. Dismas|^(talk) 14:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

See also Interchange fee. --LarryMac | Talk 14:57, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Interchange fee is what you want to see, but I just want to say that the processing fee (not subsidized in any way) for debit cards is $0.00825 in Canada, the total transaction fee takes into account more such as having to own the processing machine and the profit cut the processor demands, and is closer to $0.50. [3] Public awareness (talk) 20:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Is this how disparity in income should be viewed?

I have an income at the poverty level of $10,980 per year while the average income is $49,500 per year. I pay 10% of my income to ride the bus every day while someone with average income pays the same. The percent of the average income is 2.2%. in terms of disparity the same purchases are 4.54 times more difficult for me. --DeeperQA (talk) 14:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You may find the article Economic inequality to be interesting. One thing I must note, is that it isn't as simple as comparing relative amounts, percents, or fractions of income with regard to quantifying something like "difficulty" with regards to monetary outlay. Someone who has an income of, say, $1,000,000 per year can lose 10% of their income without a significant change in lifestyle, and more importantly, without significant effect on their well-being. Someone who has an income of $10,000 per year who loses 10% of their income is in serious real danger. People often look at raw percents as a measure of fairness; i.e. people who propose a straight flat tax of some arbitrary percent, as a way of being purely fair (i.e. everyone gives the same fraction of their income); which ignores the fact that the same fraction of income applied to different amounts of income has different effects (a relatively small percentage loss of income to someone at the poverty limit can be devastating, while a larger percentage from someone who is so wealthy they could live comfortably without any further income for the rest of their lives would have less impact on their survival ability). --Jayron32 15:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

This is essentially the concept of marginal utility. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Flat taxes are highly regressive because of this. This is similar to lendors using flat fees to get around usury laws. Public awareness (talk) 21:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Labourism, a predominantly 20th century phenomena, viewed income disparity as a failure of workers to access a normatively established bundle of goods—for example primary school education, milk for children, health care for birthing mothers, piped water, sanitary sewer systems, buildings with certain volumes. This was also tied to a growing consumer economy, and imperialist access to social profits. This is a very different view to the marginalist view. Marxist and anarchist views throughout the 20th century viewed income disparity as a tactical accommodation in what amounted to Gramsci's war of position; for a highly developed Marxist theory of income tactics in capitalism, see Trotsky's conception of the transitional demand: basically demanding unachievable incomes as a stepping stone to demanding control of production. In practice, many labourite trade unions effectively followed Trotsky's position, but retreated to incomes that capitalists were willing to award—this meant that in Fordism which we've talked about above, actual incomes depended on the strategic position of workers in capitalist production (Automotive workers often got much more than female office typists), the union power of the workers bargaining, and the political "militance" or willingness to fight of unionists. For the labourite position, insufficient income is a moral outrage. Social Catholicism seems to share a lot with the labourite position, and liberation theology seems like the normative moral position of Catholicism taken to the final conclusion. To the revolutionary position, insufficient income is a constant of capitalism. Other major 20th century alternate views of income on the left include the cooperative movement's attempts to supplement incomes outside of the market (quite often by increasing the _quality_ of goods consumed at the same price, so bread that's actually worth eating, for example); or the working classes' development of black, grey or non-market incomes, such as growing your own vegetables or part time prostitution. Access to cooperatives or grey/black/non-market income supplements varies with political climate. The expected bundle of consumer goods that income represents has changed so dramatically over the 20th century that some goods, such as not dying from throwing your festering sewage into the street (ie: paying for the saniman to take your shit away), aren't even considered by many Western workers—this makes talking about income even more difficult. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Wiki editors rescinding copyright license grant

The Italian Wikipedia blanking has reminded me of something I've wondered about for a long time. The text below the box into which I am typing this says, "By clicking the 'Save Page' button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL." However, the Wikimedia Foundation gives me nothing of value in return for this "irrevocable" license grant, so there is no consideration of a contract, so in most cases such an agreement would not be binding. Is there any legal reason that I or anyone else can not rescind such a grant? Is there any case law on this point? 69.171.160.204 (talk) 15:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The only circumstances in which it's non-binding, that I'm aware of, is if the contributor is a minor. Please don't tell the children :-) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:28, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The foundation gives you the use of its facilities into which you place your contribution - the server and the mediawiki softwware user interface. Arguably these are consideration, though IINAL etc. You also consent to the agreement by pressing the save page button, so it might be a little difficult to rescind it. INteresting question, nevertheless. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

That is offered to contributors and non-contributors alike, so it can not be construed as consideration. 64.134.156.47 (talk) 17:42, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Editing facilities are used only by contributors. Shades of the hotelier's wife argument in your riposte...it's not what is offered, it is what is taken. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I utterly lack the legal knowledge to contribute meaningfully, but might the answer be found in the case law on EULAs and Terms of service? Because that seems more pertinent to the contract question than the fact that what you are releasing are copyright rights. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:18, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You are assuming it is a contract. It is not. You are agreeing to grant a license with certain terms, not agreeing to a contract. The word agree is not synonymous with contract. Here, it means "I consent." EULAs don't apply. The EULA is a contract law answer to copyright. The EULA does not fall under copyright law but provides the same function by operation of contract law. The license agreement uses copyright law rather than avoids it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.38.31.81 (talk) 16:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Contract law normally would apply to uncompensated license grants but in the U.S., Congress has specified other terms in statute: "In the US, termination of copyright licenses is governed by Section 203 of the Copyright Code, which allows for termination 35 to 40 years after a license is granted. In Rano v. Sipa Press the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that because of section 203, nonexclusive copyright licenses of unspecified duration cannot be terminated before this 35 year date.... However, other courts have vehemently disagreed with Rano v. Sipa [so] copyright licenses with unspecified durations may or may not be terminable at will."[4] So the answer in this case is, yes, everyone can rescind the grant of their license, 35 to 40 years after they press "save page" when no consideration has changed hands. 64.134.156.47 (talk) 17:40, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

That is quite interesting and is probably the most correct answer here. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia commenced operations in 2002 or so, right? We can start worrying about it in 2035, maybe 2030. My hunch is there's not going to be any practical way that this is going to matter, except maybe helping a few lawyers cover some billable hours. --Trovatore (talk) 20:51, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You aren't entering into a contract with anyone. You are licensing the stuff you type. Consideration isn't a factor. Anyway, this question is close enough to a legal advice question that you should just address it to the Wikimedia Foundation, which has actual lawyers who know all about this. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually it's exactly a contract. What other kind of one person "agreement" do you envision? The author gives a nonexclusive license, subject to all the GPL etc terms, to reuse the work. The OP has actually a very interesting point about § 203... it's something I've thought about myself somewhat... I don't have a good answer. This is something that's the ample subject of a law review article. I think it's actually been done, but I don't have the resources to find that source right now. You should look for it though.

I'm a little disappointed here about all the wildly wrong answers given here in the upmost of confident tones. Shadowjams (talk) 10:13, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah, there's plenty of consideration. See consideration for more about that. Shadowjams (talk) 10:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I struck my inaccurate stuff above; I was in haste; my apologies. I will strive to provide references in the future, which we are all supposed to be doing anyway, not only because this is a reference desk and references help the querents research their topic further; but because finding references reduces mistaken answers and hasty answers in the first place. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Bonds and rates

Hi everyone,

I have a question on government bonds and interest rates: essentially, I want to understand how the two are tied together. For example, on the one hand the bank of england is maintaining a low interest rate of 0.5%, and on the other hand you have government bonds of all different maturities, prices and yields. I guess in some sense the yield is effectively the interest rate you get for putting your money in the government bond, so then in effect these yields are the interest rates the government has to pay to borrow money, right? So then what does the rate of 0.5% refer to, is it just some 'recommended rate' at which banks are expected to lend within the UK? Because obviously there's also Euribor and LIBOR, so what's the point of the 'low rate' maintained by the BoE (or equivalently the fed) to encourage borrowing? Is this something like the rate at which the central bank lends out money to other banks? I gather that a rise in the 'interest rate' will make the yields on bonds less attractive (e.g. if 10Y yields were 2% and then the interest rate shot up to 5%, the price of the bond should drop correspondingly). Could anyone explain how interest rates and bond rates are related to me or give me some general context on how this all works? (I use England as an example but obviously it could equivalently be the Fed or elsewhere.)

Thanks a lot! 86.26.13.2 (talk) 17:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Most of what you wrote is correct. The current yield is the interest rate that you get for putting your money in the bond, yes; but more relevant is the yield to maturity, which also counts the fact that when the bond matures in 30 years (or 10 years, or 6 months, or whatever) then the government pays the bond owner the amount that was originally put in. I recommend The Bond Book by Annette Thau for a very readable and thorough treatment of bonds for the layman. (It was written before the current financial disaster, so a lot of the material about GNMA bonds and the like is a little dated.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:43, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll be sure to track the book down! So the rate quoted in (say) the FT is the current yield, rather than the YTM? And do all the movements of these rates tend to track one another? e.g., if the BoE puts the rate up from 0.5% to 1%, would you expect a) the yield on government bonds to go up? b) the interest rate of something like a retail bank account (despite the fact these are obviously set by the banks themselves) to go up? Because if the yield to maturity discounts the final sum of money paid back (the bond value) at the interest rate set by the government, then that yield is only accurate in theory if the investor was otherwise able to keep their money and receive that amount of interest, right? By which I mean, if you discount the final payout of e.g. £100 by a factor of 1/1+r for say a 1Y bond, then that assumes you could have otherwise basically invested your £100 risk-free for a year to receive £100(1+r) back at the end. However, is that 'r' going to be 0.5% when the yield to maturity is calculated? Because from the sound of the comment below, that r is only the interest rate a bank would pay to borrow from the central bank and would have nothing to do with e.g. an individual investor. Hope that makes sense! Thanks :) 86.26.13.2 (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The 0.5% value is the rate that the BoE charges to some banks when it lends them money. The bond rates are the rates that you get when you lend money to the English government. Looie496 (talk) 21:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course, there is no English government since England doesn't have its own government. The Bank of England, despite its name, sets interbank lending rates for the entire United Kingdom, whose British government is the main issuer of government bonds in England and other parts of the United Kingdom. Marco polo (talk) 17:45, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Police vehicle pursuits

Where in the world do police vehicle pursuits occur most often. What state in the US do vehicle pursuits occur most often and where in Ireland are police vehicle pursuits most common. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.134.16 (talk) 18:11, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

They seem pretty common in California. I suspect that it is the state that has the most car chases, but could not tell you which county in Ireland would. Googlemeister (talk) 18:15, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Statistics agencies seem to only keep records of crimes (I don't think being chased is yet a crime?) so having this info available would depend on all the police forces making the stats available. For Ireland, the Garda has research unit that you could email and ask. 184.147.120.196 (talk) 22:48, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Being chased is a crime in a way. It's usually called "resisting arrest" and that is a crime in every US jurisdiction that I know of. You could find stats for that maybe but I doubt very many departments break it down for statistical purposes between simply running from the cops and getting caught up in a car chase. Dismas|^(talk) 23:00, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Being chased is definitely crime, Resisting arrest. Statistics are definitely kept on car chase in the developed world. I to imagine California has the most car chases. It is the most populous state and it contains LA which is a highly populated metro area where there is little public transportation and most people (including those who the police like to stop) drive cars. LA was known for its televised car chases (from news helicopters) particularly in the late 90s and early 2000s. I have no idea about Ireland, but high population and vehicle ownership are the key factors. The other factor is police procedure. Car chases are very dangerous not only for those involved but also other road users. Situations where innocent people are killed as a result of car chases, especially when the suspect was not dangerous, have led to changes in procedure where not everyone who runs is chased. These procedures very from place to place and I don't have any details. --Daniel 23:08, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't answer the original poster's question, but because California is being discussed in the above two paragraphs, I have to write to contradict them. In California, being chased by a police car and not stopping is not resisting arrest. All it is is "failure to yield", which is a mere traffic violation. The word seemed to have spread after the OJ Simpson "slow speed pursuit" because when chases became entertainment on the live news shows, one would see the aerial shot of the police car or two with lights and sirens on, following a car which was carefully stopping completely at every stop sign and travelling at just below the speed limit, because the driver knew that his only crime so far was a failure to yield, and he didn't want to pile on any more offenses like not stopping at a red light. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It's actually usually called eluding an officer or something similar. Resisting arrest has a very different set of elements, in many cases. But yes, running from the law is pretty universally a crime, whether on foot, or in a car, or over a series of decades. As per which state is the worst... who knows... California, namely Los Angeles seems to have an inordinate amount of these but maybe that's cause the LAPD loves its helicopters, or maybe the LA News media is sensationalized (imagine) or maybe it's because LA has a unique culture of... whatever. Who knows. Depending on how you cook the statistics I'm sure one could find any state with a lot of driving pursuits. Shadowjams (talk) 10:05, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

NFL numbers with "O"

Looking at the Chief's roster, I noticed that some numbers have the letter O following them. It could be a database or programming error. If not, is there some significance of the O after the number? -- kainaw™ 19:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

It may be either a) a glitch or b) signify that the player is "Out". The NFL uses a standard code on official injury reports: P= Probable, Q= Questionable, D= Doubtful, O= Out (see this page for the usage). Perhaps the roster is tagging those players which have an injury status of "out". --Jayron32 19:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, but it also has some people on the practice squad listed that way as well, and it seems unlikely that every single other player on the active roster is fully healthy... They also forgot to give Steve Maneri his number 68. Googlemeister (talk) 19:31, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

During the preseason, teams often give the same number out for two players (especially linemen). So 71o means that he's the offensive player 71, whereas 71d would mean defensive. See these preseason rosters They must've forgot to take out the 'o' after the other 71 was cut or assigned a new number. Hot Stop talk-contribs 19:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

changeover to non-profit

Is changeover of public utilities to non-profit corporations the best or easiest way to prevent the Occupy Wall Street movement from turning violent? --DeeperQA (talk) 20:21, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

"Best" is a matter of opinion. Easiest is also based on your point of view. If you simply want to stop a group from turning violent, nerve gas is a very very easy method to ensure they don't do anything violent. It isn't an ethical way to do it, but it is easy. -- kainaw™ 20:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Where will all the money to buy the stock from the shareholders come from, so the shares can be turned over to the non-profit? Jc3s5h (talk) 20:29, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Investors are perfectly entitled and invited to retain their stock since some feel that the failure to disclose amount of markup to a buyer is the equivalent of retail theft. --DeeperQA (talk) 21:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Also note that the "movement" doesn't have any clear agenda and doesn't have any form of exit strategy. It is absorbing media attention while it can. When the media attention dies out, there will be nothing much left to do. If an agenda does appear at some point in time, then an exit strategy of ending the movement when the action items are met can be produced. With an exit strategy, the movement can truly end. -- kainaw™ 20:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

No. The banks are seen as central villains by this movement, not the electric companies. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Telecommunications have been deregulated in Florida by a Republican Governor and Republican controlled legislature. What will most likely follow is the same heuristic greed as banks only using public necessities like banks use debit cards and cash. --DeeperQA (talk) 21:33, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

It is a cycle. Privately held services are considered greedy bastards and the service is taken over by the government. Then, government run services waste resources and provide terrible service. To get good service, the service is deregulated. Then, the privately held services are considered greedy bastards and the service is taken over by the government. Then, government run services waste resources and provide terrible services. To get good service, the service is deregulated... -- kainaw™ 23:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't even understand how that makes sense to consumers. A private corporation with no competition may trim allegedly wasteful spending, but there would be no incentive to pass that along to the customers. They'd trim it specifically to give it to the share-holders. APL (talk) 09:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Duh! Your mistake is assuming that humans operate on intelligence. Even hedgehogs are smart enough to know that most of what humans do is purely idiotic: Government is pocketing our tax money with utilities. Make it private. The company is pocketing our tax money with utilities. Make it government. Then there are many other common ones: I am tired of paying taxes for poor schools. Make a lottery. Now I'm paying three times as much on losing lottery tickets and the schools still suck. There are ones that can even trick the hedgehogs if they aren't paying attention: Let's cut property tax and replace it with increased sales tax. The poor people who don't own property rejoice at the idea of cutting taxes! Idiots. -- kainaw™ 13:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Completely irrelevant to your original question. If the primary concern of the movement is banks then there no reason to think changing public utilities to non-profits is going to make a big difference to the movement, in particular stop them turning violent, regardless of what happened in Florida and what may happen there in the (likely fairly distant in comparison) future. If you are here to continue to rant about what's happening in Florida please do it elsewhere. Nil Einne (talk) 06:30, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Is it really a movement if it goes nowhere? Googlemeister (talk) 20:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Brownian -- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Some people think it's not necessarily going nowhere. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:45, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The discourse of protest as "violence" has a long and disreputable history, based on the constructions of working class behaviour as inherently violent. E.P. Thompson's observations on the radical nature of the London Mob in the Making of the English Working Class, the construction of "physical force Chartism" as violence, and (for anyone who's protested in their life), the nature of policing of protests where the State clearly instigates violence in unprovoked manners ought to put the lie to "violent protest" (See the Ombudsman's report into police violence at the Melbourne World Economic Forum protests, policing on the Third Day morning for one of my own experiences, from an eye witness perspective we were beaten from above while complying with police instruction within the time limits they set). Getting caught up in a media discourse on "violence" is stupid politics. A variety of publications on direct action, the inheritor of the "physical force" perspective, give decent instructions on how to democratically control tactics. As far as violence as strategy, see Foco, Symbionese Liberation Army, and Red Army Faction for concrete reasons why violence isn't strategy, for the theoretical perspective on why violence is stupid strategy see the famous Australian pamphlet You can't blow up a social relationship which is a succinct account. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:31, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The occupy Wall Street movement is a pretty long-lasting protest, but I'd be really astonished if the government could socialize a utility before it eventually disbands. It's just barely more plausible that the utility company could buy itself out and become non-profit in that same time period. Even if by some miracle that did happen, the Occupy Wall Street crowd would probably (correctly) see it as a distraction from their main goal. APL (talk) 09:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

"They're all so smart these days"

I've noticed that old people who see their descendants often say that the children and young people are "very bright/smart/clever, but then they all are, these days, aren't they?". Do we have records of this being something that old people have always said, or is it something we only know happens now?

I mean this in the way that we have centuries of old people saying that young people are less disciplined, or less well-behaved, or that colours are less bright and tastes less powerful. Do we have such cases of old people down the centuries saying that all young people are clever these days? 86.163.1.168 (talk) 22:14, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any specific examples of what you are asking for, but I do have a thought. Technology is creating rapidly changing lifestyles. Young people are very good at adapting to change. Older people are less skilled at adapting and the very old find it nearly impossible, my 93 year old grandma (while perfectly intelligent) really cannot be taught to use a computer and struggles to even conceptualize the internet. To the elderly, a young person picking up an iPhone and intuitively knowing how to use this strange device is an impressive feat. In the past change was slower. I imagine in hunter gatherer cultures were their is virtually no change from generation to generation this idea of the new generation being brilliant doesn't come up very often. --Daniel 22:58, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm in my sixties. I teach Information Technology to high school kids. They're nowhere near as smart as they think they are. HiLo48 (talk) 23:41, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Then someone is not doing a very good job. :D Public awareness (talk) 00:48, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Daniel, though there is a bit more to it. Average intelligence has actually noticeably risen over the last century, many believe this is due to better diets especially during childhood and due to increased access to education materials. See Flynn effect. Public awareness (talk) 00:48, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the first well known "young clever clogs" to be significantly influential was Alcibiades. He had the advantage of both aristocratic background and of being adopted by the mighty statesman Pericles, as well as being both a student and a romantic interest of Socrates (who also supposedly saved his life in battle). By his late 20's he was working aggressively to overturn agreements made with the Spartans, reportedly because he was "offended that the Spartans had negotiated that treaty through Nicias and Laches, overlooking him on account of his youth", according to our article. Nicias would've been in his late 40's at the time, and Alcibiades was able to out-manoeuvre and embarrass him in the Athenian Assembly - certainly a clear indication that the democracy did not defer to more experienced politicians if a bright spark was mouthy enough. (And Alcibiades had a reputation for being unruly).

Established Athenian society certainly did chatter disapprovingly about the youthful cleverness of Alcibiades and men like him, in fact one element of the charges against Socrates was "corrupting the young", a phrase undoubtedly chosen with Alcibiades in mind. The important aspects here were not so much technology (hoplite weaponry and triremes were not much different in 421 B.C. to sixty years earlier, although tactics had developed), but philosophical and rhetorical finesse and astute handling of politics in an age where strategic and diplomatic relations were becoming increasingly complex. Alcibiades was later able to manipulate the Spartans too, and then the Persians, and then get himself reinstated as an Athenian general even after having previously defected to the Spartans, before he finally got too old to keep up with his own webs of intrigue, and was assassinated in his mid-forties. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:11, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the OP meant in general, not certain cases, "old people...saying that all young people are clever these days" Public awareness (talk) 09:04, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

From my own observations, the current generation is full of moronic, sex-crazed bespoiled people with neither morals nor manners, who constantly swear and dress like slobs. You'd be hard-pressed to find the select few do not have those qualities. It is a generation I am sure nobody would envy living in. →Στc. 06:33, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I hope you are only saying that mockingly, I mean that's what the voters for Joseph McCarthy sounded like. Elvis shaking his hips, girls wearing pants, children using the word "damn", boys not tucking in their shirts!

Incase you believed your own words, were the previous generations better? Nuclear weapons, Slavery, Religion, War, Climate Change, Pollution, Colonialism, Genocide, Chastity belt, KKK. Public awareness (talk) 09:04, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course there are spoiled, sex-crazed, cursing, poorly dressed, and ill-mannered morons in my generation, just as there are in your generation (I can say that confidently without a clue about how old you are), but I have to say that it has not been particularly challenging for me to find very kind, responsible people to hang out with. Now as for envy, we are coming into adulthood into a broken society with massive debt and monstrous degradation of the environment (largely not our fault... Well, we haven't had much time to exacerbate the issue yet anyway), coupled with the tremendous stress that comes from living in such a rapidly changing world. You probably have a point there; I can't imagine many would envy living in our generation. Falconus^{p t c} 10:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Not sure why you included "Chastity belt" in there, since historically this seems to have been used mainly by a quite small number of wealthy Renaissance (not medieval) merchants to enforce fidelity on their often much-younger wives. It really was not a major social problem at any period of history... AnonMoos (talk) 10:31, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Unless you were a much younger wife? NB, the legal age of marriage was 12 for girls in European middle ages and renaissance. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It was major if it happened to you -- but it only happened to a very tiny minority of the population... AnonMoos (talk) 13:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Like dowry bride burnings today, which is seen as a social problem. Arguably it is the same social problem. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:25, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to diminish the seriousness of it, but wearing a Renaissance chastity belt did not leave a wife incapacitated for her ordinary duties, and to judge from contemporary caricatures they were often singularly ineffective in their main intended purpose (if the wife had a little gumption and resourcefulness). I was not questioning whether they would be unpleasant to wear (though usually not actively harmful), I was questioning why something that only affected a minuscule percentage of the population was grouped together with "Genocide", "Slavery", and "KKK"... AnonMoos (talk) 23:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I was just painting a picture, not the particulars, but what they stand for, chastity belt (can also stop masturbation) was to show sexual repression, the opposite of "sex-crazed". Public awareness (talk) 02:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The majority of Victorian anti-masturbation devices could not be worn under ordinary clothes, and were more aids to help prevent youth from succumbing to nightly temptations and/or involuntary "nocturnal emissions", rather than being chastity belts as we would think of them. I'm sure that in some cases chastity belts have been used to inflict mental cruelty and/or somewhat low-level but chronic physical discomfort, but historically they were a very minor phenomenon, and so looked out of place in your list of major problems... AnonMoos (talk) 05:46, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with the premise of the question. Most older people seem to complain that the younger generation is not as good as their own. A few historical examples: Socrates allegedly said that "“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”. The 17th century Japanese Bushido handbook, Hagakure includes a lengthy diatribe on how young men were becoming more effeminate, lazy and disrespectful. Orlando Gibbons wrote (also in the 17th century) "Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes! More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise." In the UK today, there is a widespread belief that improving exam results only prove that the exams are getting easier[5][6]. Alansplodge (talk) 12:27, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

As Daniel has pointed out, technology change is the most significant factor. If you think the younger generation is dumb it may be because they don't know how to do math with a pencil and paper or "in their head". If you think the younger generation is smart it is because they are whizz kids with computers. Yada yada. Interestingly, it is grandparents that may have given a boost to human development. As this article points out, grandparents only became common around 30,000 years ago. "This surge in the number of seniors may have been a driving force for the explosion of new tool types and art forms that occurred in Europe at around the same time."[7] Bus stop (talk) 03:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Ya, I can't do math in my head to save my life. :( My gf only got herself doing it again through very hard work. Yes, Prof. Allison Brooks talked about the importance of grandmothers on early human development (by which I mean; when kids are young, not early hominins) and that being a reason for women living long past the point at which they can reproduce. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 9 Tishrei 5772 05:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm 21 (22 next month!), and even I know that my generation is filled with people who are none too bright and nihilistic (case in point, my little sister). I think that things like Facebook and Twitter (where people can share the most boring details of their humdrum lives) are to blame. Out of curiosity, when did like start being used as frequently as it is today? (Annoying fun-fact: Israeli kids use the Hebrew word for like as much as American kids do and in the same context; though the maturity imparted to them by military service usually fixes that). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 9 Tishrei 5772 05:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

So, from this it sounds like my suspicions were right: while complaints from old people that young people in general are more decadent/corrupt/uneducated/undisciplined/disrespectful/lazy/selfish than in the past have been recorded throughout history as generally things that old people say, the phenomenon of old people saying that young people in general are cleverer than in the past is only something recent. Which would be indicative of the change over the last few generations being genuinely different in some way(s) to the change over previous generations.

Hmmm, I'd hoped for some sobering historical perspective: this has been less reassuring than I'd hoped. Thanks to those who answered the question asked. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 14:10, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if the current generation is smarter--although the Flynn effect would seem to suggest that it is--but today's children have definitely been brought up in a more compassionate world. Note that the accusations of "moronic, sex-crazed bespoiled people with neither morals nor manners, who constantly swear and dress like slobs" as well as "none too bright and nihilistic", even if they were true, are very minor accusations compared to the adjectives this generation can justifiably use to describe older generations. Examples: racist, sexist, xenophobic, war-hawks, cruel, inhumane, uncompassionate, greedy, myopic (for ruining the environment), prudish, self-righteous, arrogant. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 18:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, there you go. While previous generations fought wars for independence, to end slavery, to defeat the Racist Nazis and the Japanese Empire, freed Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union, ended legal discrimination against blacks, women and homosexuals, this generation is free to stand on its own total lack of accomplishment and libel the accomplishments of those coming before it. See useful idiot. μηδείς (talk) 18:39, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Previous generations may have fought wars of independence, but Arab Spring youth fought several wars of independence (albeit independence from dictators, not other countries) in the span of half a year. Previous generations may have ended slavery, defeated the Nazis, the Japanese, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, but they also created and/or supported slavery, Nazis, the Japanese Empire, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union in the first place. I'm surprised that you even brought up discrimination, because today's youth are much less discriminatory than even a generation ago, ESPECIALLY against homosexuals. See Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#Generational_differences. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 22:18, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

140, I don't know either, and I doubt we can measure it in a reliable way to give a satisfying answer. But it does seem to be true that something is different between the generations, in a different way to the usual generation gap throughout human history. The pejoratives used against young people today are the same pejoratives used against their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, ad infinitum, so is either a constant trend (unlikely) or just old people being scared grouches: the praise is not, and so seem to reflect an actual difference. What that difference is, I wouldn't venture to guess. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 19:56, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes, 140.180.16.144. Well, unfortunately it was the conservative Rehnquist court of 2003, composed entirely of geezers all born before 1945, which voted 6-3 in Lawrence v. Texas to overthrow sodomy laws as such, even after that progressive Clinton's support for DADT. Them damn Republican bigots of the older generation! How unfortunate that when I came out at 16 in the early Eighties that my conservative strictly church-going Catholic family didn't disown me. Or you might have a case. Let us all grovel at the feet of the tweens of today and their accomplishment of not having been brought up by people who were brought up by people who were brought up by bigots. But don't let me challenge the narrativeμηδείς (talk) 04:55, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It's clear that you're trying to discredit what you perceive to be my viewpoints by taking random guesses at my age, political views, religious views, and nationality. I responded to the OP's comment that the current generation might be different by offering one way they are different: they've been brought up in a more compassionate world, and are much less likely to be bigoted. Your comments have been completely irrelevant to either my point or the OP's questions. --140.180.16.144 (talk) 00:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Recommendations solicited

I'm looking for articles or books about the question of how life emerged from inert matter. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Abiogenesis is what you are searching for. Ask in the Science RD things like this next time. Quest09 (talk) 22:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm more concerned about the philosophical rather than scientific aspects. Thanks for your answer, but next time, leave your patronizing attitude at the door. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Abiogenesis has references to other articles and a lengthy further reading section. Talk Origins also has some relevant material; though their bibliography is rather short. --Colapeninsula (talk) 22:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Clarityfiend - your question read entirely as a scientific one to me. I don't how you can think a normal reader could get anything else out of it. There was nothing patronising in Quest09's reply. I think an apology is due. HiLo48 (talk) 23:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, I agree with HiLo48. @Clarityfiend: Complain in some talk page about things like this next time. Quest09 (talk) 00:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I guess an apology is in order. Mea culpa. However, I'm not exactly a newbie here. That should have indicated the query wasn't misplaced. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

What level of philosophical aspects? Carl Sagan or deeper? --Mr.98 (talk) 01:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

A lot of "pure" scientists were jealous of Sagan because he was better at explaining things than they were. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:57, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not dogging Sagan. It's a question of whether he wants philosophy with a lower-case or capital P, really. The academic discipline of Philosophy is a very different beast that Carl Sagan's approach to philosophy. I prefer Sagan, personally. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Jolly good. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:56, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not really sure, but probably Sagan-ish. It's for my dad. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:19, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe The Mind of God by Paul Davies?? I think if abiogenesis isn't what you are after, the only remaining questions would concern self-awareness, which is a whole other topic. It's been emotional (talk) 03:37, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how this question may have a "philosophical" approach. You possibly want a popular science approach (like Carl Sagan, which is simplified but of quality). Or maybe you just want some philosophical approach to consciousness, but the process itself is a science topic. Wikiweek (talk) 13:11, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You may be surprised, but there is a huge amount of seemingly science topics done in the humanities — philosophy of biology being perhaps the most relevant here. Much of it is decidedly non-popular. See also evolutionary ethics, science and technology studies and on and on and on. There are plenty of "big questions" to go around. Many folks who you probably categorize as in the "scientist" category on issues like this (like Daniel Dennett) are often self-categorized as philosophers. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the original question is a bit misleading. Just because something is not alive does not mean it is inert. The sun is very much not alive in any conventional sense, but it is certainly not inert, either. For a scientific perspective on a popular science level, I found the first few chapters of Nick Lane's Life ascending to be a very interesting and very plausible view on the beginning of life. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Per Mr. 98 — it's not an amazingly common discipline, but here at Indiana University Bloomington we have an entire Department of the History and Philosophy of Science, and they're definitely on the humanities side. Nyttend (talk) 05:20, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

October 6

Abraham Lincoln and African American colonization policy

There is debate when Abraham Lincoln actually gave up his colonization plan of the Freedmen. The common assumption is that Lincoln gave up this policy in 1863. Did President Lincoln ever give up on his colonization program for African American Freedmen? Here is a source: Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement Cmguy777 (talk) 03:17, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that Lincoln toyed with the idea at various times in his life from the 1840s on, without ever really having any great confidence or high hopes that it would turn out to be feasible on the massive scale which would be needed to have a real impact... AnonMoos (talk) 10:27, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

My concern was President Lincoln's actual policy. He did have an colonization policy effective in his administration. The question is how extensive was this "emigration" policy during and after 1863. Cmguy777 (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Lincoln was certainly influenced by the fact that his political hero Henry Clay was a strong advocate of colonization, and he tended to think that it would be be a good idea if practically workable -- but he also tended to have significant doubts about whether it was in fact practically workable. What Wikipedia has is at American_Colonization_Society#Lincoln_and_the_ACS and Abraham_Lincoln_on_slavery#Colonization. There were some general favorable public statements, and certain small-scale experiments (mostly unsuccessful, it seems), but a truly serious colonization plan would have tied up significant elements of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. merchant shipping for years, so that large areas of Africa or Central America could have been made somewhat safe for the immigration of U.S. blacks, who would then be transported in their hundreds of thousands along with necessary farming implements, etc. What evidence is there that Lincoln was preparing the U.S. public for this, or that anyone in the U.S. government was seriously planning for it? AnonMoos (talk) 05:19, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

That depends how "serious" is defined in terms of governmental colonization. Obviously President Lincoln was serious concerning colonization, since African Americans were colonized by President Lincoln. The real question behind colonization whether Lincoln had views that blacks and whites could not live together. This was Thomas Jefferson's, the arch southern conservative's point of view. Lincoln was from the South. Remember Lincoln never intended to free the slaves. Colonization is controversial because the Great Emancipator wanted to get blacks out of the country that he may have believed was just for whites. Lincoln's colonization policy was based on humanitarianism towards African Americans and his views in limited suffrage for African Americans. Lincoln, as far as I know never advocated that all blacks be given citizenship and voting rights. Cmguy777 (talk) 05:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

As has been discussed here before, saying "Lincoln was from the South" as a simple blanket statement could have rather misleading implications. Lincoln left Kentucky (an "upper south" or "border" state) as a small child, and had extended family ties in the upper south, and saw the workings of slavery up close on a number of occasions -- but neither he nor any members of his immediate family were ever slave-owners, and the large-scale Lower South type of cotton plantation which is often associated with the image of the antebellum U.S. South would have been quite remote from their daily lives. Lincoln hated slavery, and was willing to say so very publicly on a number of occasions from 1837 on, which strongly differentiates him from Thomas Jefferson. Lincoln thought that blacks had natural rights, and that their interests needed to be considered and slavery slowly phased out, but he was far from enthusiastic about granting full political and social equality to them, or opening the door to the dreaded "amalgamation" -- which placed him into the moderate progressive (NOT "conservative") camp in the context of the United States in the 1840s-1850s. It's useless to blame Lincoln for not being a thoroughly-consistent immediatist abolitionist or racial-equality advocate, because he never claimed to be any of those things, and someone who held such views would have had no realistic chance to be elected president of the U.S. in 1860. Meanwhile, a truly serious colonization policy (as opposed to rhetoric which was not backed up by anything except tentative small-scale experiments) would have involved using the U.S. military to clear a huge empire in the tropics, and elaborate logistical preparations for transporting about 4 million U.S. Blacks to this empire... AnonMoos (talk) 11:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Lincoln was a civil rights President in the 19th Century. Lincoln married into a slave holding family and received profit from the sale of his father-in-laws slaves after his father-in-law died. He had ties to Kentucky, even while he was President. I am not here to argue concerning Lincoln's general view of slavery. My question is whether Lincoln gave up on his emigration policy, minor or major by 1865. I can't find any evidence that he did and if he had remained President would he have launched a full scale emigration policy. Cmguy777 (talk) 01:50, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what would be considered basic justice today was a radical position in the 1840s-1850s, and though Lincoln was publicly hostile to slavery, he wasn't a radical (until he was eventually led to it by the logic of what was needed to win the war). Meanwhile, I don't know that anybody in the U.S. government was seriously planning to create a mega-Liberia, and not having any intention to create a mega-Liberia meant that there was not much realistic possibility of colonization being carried out on the scale that would be needed to significantly diminish the black population in the U.S. AnonMoos (talk) 04:39, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

President Johnson, Lincoln's predecesor, as far as I know never attempted to start a colonization plan, and he was much more conservative then President Lincoln. That would mean Lincoln believed in colonization, but just did not find the application of the program practical. Cmguy777 (talk) 21:38, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Legal action for using a name?

No, not a request for legal advice. Read the final section of the "Production" section of "The Principal and the Pauper", an episode of The Simpsons — one of the show's writers gave a character the name of an obscure insurance adjuster, and when the adjuster learned that his name had been used and contacted the writer, the writer feared legal action, although none ended up happening. How could anyone possibly have grounds for legal action just because his/her name was used in a TV show and not in reference to him/her? Nyttend (talk) 10:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Defamation. That's why fictional presentations often include the disclaimer that any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:56, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

See also the second group of responses at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 July 10#novel characters, as well as The Girl in a Swing#Characters. Deor (talk) 11:16, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I never heard that story, but in a later Simpsons episode, Homer changes his name to Max Power after seeing a Homer Simpson on a tv show (the episode is Homer to the Max). Our article doesn't say if the two incidents are related though. Hot Stop talk-contribs 16:45, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Likely, the suit would be for invasion of privacy: misappropriation of name or likeness and violation of right to publicity. Defamation would not likely occur unless the plaintiff could show the utterance of an untrue statement that tended to have the effect of deameaning that person's reputation or character. To see how this works, see Johnny Carson v. Here's Johnny Portable Toilets Inc., 698 F.2d 831 (6th Cir. 1983)[8]. Most law school tort classes do not get to privacy and defamation torts, but they could appear on most states' bar exams. Tom Waits successfully sued Fritos for using a singer with a similar voice as his and Crispin Glover sued Universal for putting make-up on Jeffrey Weissman to make him look exactly like him. Gx872op (talk) 16:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

There's probably a personality rights issue lurking here too. Neutrality^talk 09:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Steve Jobs great mistakes???

Recently, reading the German press (welt.de) I obviously came across an article about Steve Jobs, but about his great mistakes (!). What is the point of focusing on his mistakes when he has recently died? Is Steve Job not specially liked there or something? Wikiweek (talk) 13:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you certain the article was written AFTER he died? Even if it was, Steve Jobs is considered by many people to be a religious leader. As with any religious leader, there is a strong interest in making him human by showing his mistakes. -- kainaw™ 13:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it looks like the article was written before (it requires some research), but published at the home page after his death, and due to his death. Wikiweek (talk) 13:46, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Normally, many news are written anticipating some event like a death, and normally published after it, but not always. There are a good number of cases when famous people were declared dead too soon. Quest09 (talk) 13:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I read the article (or maybe a similar one) which was a front-page link on a high traffic website like CNN. I did not at all see the article as disrespectful, but as inspirational: "Look, Steve Jobs made this list of mistakes, but he kept driving onward on his goals and dreams and in the end he triumphed." Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

He's been compared to Thomas Edison, and Edison made plenty of mistakes. Nobody's perfect. Apple made just one mistake - dumping Steve Jobs. They eventually fixed that one. And it remains to be seen whether Apple finds another visionary, or if it falls into the hands of beancounters and eventually gets swallowed up by another company. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Apple has made many mistakes over time. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Their more fundamental mistake is their whole "closed" approach to OS and hardware. Of course here by "mistake" I mean more "something I don't like" rather than "something not good for their stock price"; it's quite possible that it has been good for their stock price.

While we're at it, I don't like their user interface either. --Trovatore (talk) 18:31, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I admit that Bash is an acquired taste, but all the tcsh goodness is only one chsh away... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:47, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Things did get somewhat better with OS X. Now when I have to help my mom with her mac, at least I can get a terminal and use command-line tools. But I just don't like the graphical part of the interface. Sure, it's pretty, but I can never find the app I'm looking for, and when I do find it, I have to first bring it into focus on one part of the screen, and then use the menu commands in a completely different part. --Trovatore (talk) 18:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You are wrong. The Mac OS UI is far superior to the Windows UI. Not a matter of opinion, one of fact. --Viennese Waltz 19:03, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem with making a dogmatic statement such as your ""Not a matter of opinion, one of fact", VW, is that anyone with any sense reading it will grok that you just do not have a clue. It's simply self-defeating tosh. The "superiority" of a UI is always going to have reference to the context and circumstances of use and will for that reason always be a value judgement. So. Sorry about that. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:45, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Who said anything about Windows? --Trovatore (talk) 19:07, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Sigh. All right, I'll rephrase for your benefit. You are still wrong; it is not hard to find an app in the Mac OS GUI. I don't know what you mean about different parts of the screen. --Viennese Waltz 19:11, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It is easy for you. That does not mean it is easy for anyone else. For me, if I want to surf the web, I type lynx, press enter. There it is. If I want to open my text editor, I type nan, press enter. There it is. If I want to check my email, I type pin, press tab, press enter. There it is. That is very easy to me. All that wiggling around with the mouse is hard and confusing and I don't like it one bit. Because of my work, I have to sit in front of a computer about 10 hours a day. I probably use a mouse about 5 minutes of the day. So, I really despise the Mac UI. If you can make it easy to press a single key and give me a command prompt, I'd be happy with it. -- kainaw™ 19:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You're not comparing like with like. You can't compare a GUI with a command line interface, nor can you denounce the Mac GUI for not being command line without simultaneously denouncing the Windows GUI. As hinted at above, what I'm interested in is comparing the Mac GUI with the Windows GUI. --Viennese Waltz 19:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

But, nobody mentioned Windows. A person who obviously uses the command prompt stated that he didn't like using the Mac GUI. You jumped in to denounce Windows with no apparent provocation. Now, you state that your sole reason to complain is to denounce Windows. In my opinion, that is no different than suddenly jumping in here and complaining that lima beans taste terrible so they should be removed from school lunches! It is off topic and unwarranted - even if it is entirely true. -- kainaw™ 19:35, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that Trovatore's point was to compare Mac OS with command prompt, though. I hope he comes back to clarify his position, but the words "I don't like their user interface" (italics mine) sound pretty much like a criticism of the Mac's version of GUI, not of GUIs in general. As for "off topic", I like going off topic. --Viennese Waltz 19:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

VW, when someone says they don't like something because they find it hard to use, telling them they're wrong is the worst possible response. No matter how easy you may find it, the fact is they find it hard, or did at the time of writing. Saying they're wrong is just like telling them they're lying, or that the experience that are actually having is the wrong experience, and a whole part of their life is the wrong life. Explain to to your heart's content; definitely show them a better way of approaching it or of thinking about it - but please never deny another person's experience. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:23, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed while this behaviour isn't in anyway unique to those who prefer Macs, it does seem to be a common experience whenever anyone criticises Macs (or anything Apple) and is one of the things which gives Mac (and Apple product) users a bad reputation. Nil Einne (talk) 20:38, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

It's too bad the Apple products, with all their push-button and mouse stuff, don't include an insurance policy to cover the arthritic fingers that stuff is going to eventually cause. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:25, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

(Because of the context, maybe I should clarify: I'm not remotely a fan of Macintosh. I am, however, a fan of Steve Jobs.) --Trovatore (talk) 18:33, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

We learn from our mistakes, especially our own.
Sleigh (talk) 23:56, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I want to thank my parents, especially my mother and my father.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 00:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Kainaw that lima beans taste horrible and should be removed from school lunches. μηδείς (talk) 15:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that school lunches should taste better, but also, be healthier. Comments? Public awareness (talk) 03:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Was Steve Jobs responsible for apples at school lunches? --Jayron32 04:17, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Shuddup and eat your veggies!-- Obsidi♠n Soul 13:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ethics regarding publicly traded corporations

Has anything serious (i.e. not activist ramblings) been written on the concept of a conflict of interest in publicly traded companies on the prioritization of shareholders and consumers? They're both "customers" in a broad sense. The impression I've gotten over the years is that shareholder interests are always placed above consumer interests, but is this an intentional choice taught in business schools? Again, I'm looking for what are, in essence WP:RS type documents - I'm not writing an article, but I don't want a debate, just useful resources. SDY (talk) 15:13, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Shareholders must be prioritized over consumers because every corporate board of directors (who appoints the CEO and thus controls the company) has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders. This is a matter of law. They owe no such duty to consumers at all; so this isn't just an arbitrary choice to teach in business school. That said, I remember a quote which I haven't found yet from, I think, an IBM executive, summarizing: "Shareholder satisfaction and customer satisfaction are the twin goals of any manager." (While searching for the quote, I did find this paper that contrasted the two philosophies.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that paper is exactly the kind of discussion I was looking for. I'm not sure I agree with it 100%, but it raises the right kinds of questions and brings up the right kinds of ideas. SDY (talk) 06:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Note that while there may be no fiduciary duty to their consumers, many companies do have legal obligations to existing consumers (i.e. people who have purchased their products or services). Nil Einne (talk) 16:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Shareholders are not "customers" in any sense. Shareholders are the owners of the company. Wikiant (talk) 17:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

If the consumers aren't happy, then they won't buy from the company, and ultimately that will make the shareholders unhappy too. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:49, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

If your dog's not happy, it will chew up your furniture, and ultimately that will make you unhappy too. That doesn't make you a dog. Wikiant (talk) 18:02, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, your comment was indented under mine, so I assumed you were making a counterargument. Wikiant (talk) 19:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I am confused, is the dog supposed to be customers, the furniture the company and the human the shareholders? Googlemeister (talk) 19:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

See Corporate social responsibility Public awareness (talk) 18:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Also useful might be business ethics and stakeholder; both have references you could follow up. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:38, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Image identification

Can anybody make out the numbers of this image? It's not always from left to right since a similiar image has number 1 in the center. Also can anybody identified who the No. 2 figure.

With 20/20 vision, I cannot make out anything but three smugges in the first photo, and for the second photo it appears to me to go 1,1,3. Perhaps someone out there has a good photo englarging program? Public awareness (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the source image (linked to from the image page) and zoomed in, and the leftmost one sort of looks like a "1", but I cannot make out the other two. The source image is a pretty crappily compressed JPEG image; unfortunately they didn't choose to scan it at a higher resolution or use better JPEG compression or use a format like PNG that doesn't use lossy compression. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:17, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Going to the original source image, the numbers are unreadable. Has the OP looked for this image elsewhere on the internet? Maybe someone would have scanned it larger. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's a version of your picture which appears to have the actual names, and not simply numbers, below them. Maybe your eyes are good enough to see which of those names looks like Keohoua femme du chef Kairoua. 20.137.18.53 (talk) 19:40, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

This slightly sharper version of the above makes it look like the one in the center is Keohoua, to me (the first letter of that one looks the same as the first letter of the one on the right, who I assume we're both assuming is Kamahamarou because of the word length/frequency). Also available from that website is the same image in an Ichabod Crane variation. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Country Where Speeding Ticket Fine Amount Depends on How Much You Make

I heard on NPR one time about a very rich business owner getting a speeding ticket somewhere in Europe where the law was such that the fine for speeding tickets was proportional to one's income, and that this guy's ticket was the monetary equivalent of almost $200,000 US. Who can find a source where I can read more about this? 20.137.18.53 (talk) 19:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Finland. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 19:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You would think that would make the cops more susceptible to instances where they might take a bribe. I mean in the US, you can often talk your way out for free, let alone if you offered $10,000 (not that anyone would since I can't imagine a pure speeding fine to exceed $1,000). Googlemeister (talk) 19:49, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Finland is also frequently found at the top of least-corrupted country lists, so that's not usually a problem either. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 19:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Even in the United States, offering a bribe to a cop is a very risky business. If your cop happens to be honest (and many if not most cops in the United States are), you could find yourself facing prosecution for the attempt at bribery. Marco polo (talk) 20:33, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Obviously it is not worth the risk for a couple hundred bucks, but if you were looking at $200,000 it would probably be a much higher return to risk ratio. Googlemeister (talk) 20:42, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Though if that's the scaled fine for speeding, I wonder what the scaled charge for bribery would be? ;-) --Mr.98 (talk) 22:35, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Presumably you talk in euphemisms, like asking the cop, "Can we take care of it here?" If he says Yes, then he's willing to take a bribe. If he says No, then you have to do it the normal way. Note that I'm talking hypothetically here. I still say the safer way is to have your driver do your driving for you, just in case. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:41, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Oddly, the one time I got pulled over in Indiana, the cop showed me his credit card accepting machine in the cop car and wanted to know if I wanted to take care of it there. I probably looked at him funny for the use of this time honored phrase that Bugs quoted, and declined to take care of it there. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Switzerland too I was actually going to ask a question about these progressive fines myself today, funny, though my question was different so I will make my own section in a bit. Public awareness (talk) 20:35, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe they would get around it by having their chauffers do their speeding for them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:42, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

That wouldn't work on a Harley... Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You may be interested in the income related fine and suspended sentence of the man convicted for the killing of Kirsty MacColl in a boat accident. μηδείς (talk) 23:48, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe the fines for traffic violations in Germany depend on your income as well... the idea is to make the penalty for breaking the traffic laws hurt, so you don't do it again. If you earn a million Euros a year, a 200 Euro fine won't really hurt. A 100,000 Euro fine might. More than one, and you will definitely feel the pinch. Blueboar (talk) 00:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

In Germany, it depends. If you commit a crime when driving (like drunk driving, and surpassing some speed threshold) you get maybe 90 days jail or 90 days salary (whatever you want). Obviously, most people will choose the monetary fine. Wikiweek (talk) 10:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I'm so late, but of course, we have an article on this. And it's not just for traffic violations, it's the basic system of determining the size of a fine in Finnish law.--Rallette (talk) 06:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there a minimum fine? I mean if you are currently unemployed, you have no income, but you could be living off of savings for a while. I wouldn't expect they let you off for free. Googlemeister (talk) 13:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you replying to Wikiweek or Rallette? Your indenting is confusing. Anyway if it's the later, um did you read the article? It says "The minimum amount of a day-fine is 6 euros" and a bunch of other things like "For speeding in traffic, however, the fine is at least as high as the petty fine, i.e. €115" Nil Einne (talk) 14:57, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

In nations without proportional fines, it's just another way of saying the rich are beyond the law. That is, they don't ever receive a significant fine, so can do as they like on the roads, without fear of consequences. On the other end, a poor person might not be able to pay the fine and increase in insurance, may lose their car as a result, and thus the job they can no longer get to, their home, and perhaps custody of their kids, as well. StuRat (talk) 16:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I am sure you can imagine the holes in that argument for yourself, StuRat. μηδείς (talk) 00:56, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, let's see:

1) Passing a progressive fine would be difficult, due to opposition from the rich, which wield disproportionate political power. Direct democracy might be needed to fix this, as it removes representatives who can be bought. Perhaps a "Proposition" might be the way to do an end-run around them, in the US.

2) This would encourage police to target the rich to get their money. The cure for this is to remove the longstanding conflict of interest whereby the police benefit (indirectly) from fines they collect. The fines could be donated to an out-of-state charity, instead. Since the police are sure to object to this loss of revenue, another "Proposition" is needed.

3) Establishing people's incomes would be difficult. Income tax forms could be used for most people, so they could send in a copy with their fine. StuRat (talk) 17:00, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

S. N. Haleole

S. N. Hale'ole was a Hawaiian historian that lived from 1819 to 1865. Does anybody know what his two initials stand for?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 19:33, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

A very thorough internet search has failed to turn up anything. Every reference to him only uses the S N initials. The only biography that I could read online is in the introduction to the 1918 translation of his "Laieikawai" which bluntly calls him plain "Haleole". I can only suggest that you try to get sight of a copy of "Na Kukui Pio 'Ole: The Inextinguishable Torches: Biographies of Three Early Native Hawaiian Scholars, Davida Malo, S.N. Hale'ole and S.M. Kamakau" by Malcolm Naca Chun. Alansplodge (talk) 22:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Business dealings-Ancient Rome

So, writing a book, and part of it is set in a company that runs trade ships in and out of Ostia, near Rome. Now, this business is mostly normal, typical, however, they are up to something else as well, something perhaps slightly illegal. One of my major characters happens to be an accountant there, and he comes across something whilst checking the accounts, something that seems very wrong. When he takes it to his boss, though, he is told it is none of his business, and just to leave it alone. And the plot follows on from there.

However, trouble is, I do not know precisely all the details of how such a company would function, what they would or would not be allowed to do, and so have no ideas at all what it is they could be doing that so upsets this accountant. So, I wondered if anyone here had any suggestions of illicit business activities this company could be operating. (If it makes any difference, the story is set in 250AD, in the time of Decius Augustus).

148.197.80.214 (talk) 20:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

• Modern companies form slowly as a new kind of institution between 1600 and 1850. Our page Roman commerce and this page and its bibliography ought to help. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:02, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

If it's a shipping company, the obvious crime they could be committing is smuggling. I imagine a number of things were contraband, but one I know of is weapons. The Romans had superior weapons and depended on other armies not having them. If you could somehow skim off the top of some shipments of military equipment, you could make good money smuggling them to outside armies. APL (talk) 23:13, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

What you need to do is research, read a few books and articles on the subject. You might start here [9], [10] and the most promising looking I found Seaborne Commerce of Ancient Rome: Studies in Archaeology and History (American Academy in Rome: Memoirs). As a visual artist myself who sometimes does historical illustrations, it helps to immerse yourself in the subject a little, helps you to add little details that can bring life to a scene. Heiro 23:24, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

A few others Merchant vessels and maritime commerce in Roman times, The Maritime World of Ancient Rome Heiro 23:29, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The article on Decius should generate a few ideas -- smuggling Christians or Christian stuff is an obvious possibility. Looie496 (talk) 23:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that you need to do a fair bit of research. I think you will find that "companies" as such did not exist. There were certainly shipping enterprises, but they tended to be proprietorships, perhaps with a small number of wealthy investors participating at arm's length. Your accountant's boss would likely be the proprietor, the wealthy merchant who owned several ships, financed their construction or purchase and their voyages, and claimed the profits (though his investors might be entitled to a share of the profits). Marco polo (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Forced abortion

Fetal homicide laws in the United States

  "Homicide" or "murder".

  Other crime against fetus.

  Depends on age of fetus.

  Assaulting mother.

If you beat up a pregnant woman (<3 months), and she loses her baby, what is that legally? Murder? Or is it like any injure? Quest09 (talk) 23:49, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Depends on the jurisdiction. See feticide for a partial summary. --Trovatore (talk) 23:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Unborn Victims of Violence Act, though this law is also putting pregnant women themselves in jail for murder if they do drugs, attempt suicide, or anything else which might affect the outcome of a pregnancy. [11] Also, Born alive rule. Public awareness (talk) 03:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Article 153, section 1 of the Penal Code (Dz.U.97.88.553) says that "who, by using violence against a pregnant woman and/or in another way without her consent terminates her pregnancy, or through violence, unlawful threat and/or deception leads a pregnant woman to terminate her pregnancy, is subject to a penalty of deprivation of freedom from 6 months to 8 years" (my translation). The prison term for an unqualified murder ranges from 8 years to life. — Kpalion^(talk) 21:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

October 7

What about the bottom 10%?

Will a Federal Discount Card providing up to a 50% off retail, utility and tax charges now be possible, acceptable or necessary or are there other known means to compensate those living at or below the poverty line who have suffered doubling and tripling of prices from deregulation and privatization of State and County services by Republican Governors and legislatures backed by corporate greed? --DeeperQA (talk) 01:27, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

This Federal Discount Card is a thing of your own invention? There are, as a moment's thought would prove, many other ways in which such compensation could be given, were the legislature inclined to do so. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Its a logical method - much better than standing on a street corner, checking names and handing out $1,000 bills. While the State legislature or County Commission is controlled by corporate greed the American Congress is always ready, willing and able to lend the poor a helping hand. --DeeperQA (talk) 04:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

• (PS.To be fair Verizon is giving temporary discounts of as much as $50 off its regular $90 FIOS charge for 15/5 Internet and voice to coax subscribers to move from analog POTS and DSL to digital FIOS by also stating that subscriber can always return to analog POTS and DSL within the 2 year discount period if they are dissatisfied with FIOS, even though Verizon's motive for the discount is to phaseout analog POTS and DSL entirely whereas the motive for Congress in issuing a Federal Dicount Card is to prevent riot.) --DeeperQA (talk) 05:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're in America. Food stamps and Medicaid are essentially a version of what you mention. Your proposal would almost certainly be constitutional, in some form, under the Taxing and Spending Clause. Feasibly possible to pass in this political climate? Not really. NW (Talk) 02:40, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes they are but perhaps more complimentary to a surtax, which the Congress is considering, in order to get the intended results versus trying only to generate a "we-are-doing-something" atmosphere. --DeeperQA (talk) 04:19, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Please don't use the Reference Desk as a WP:SOAPBOX to talk about your personal proposals. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree, DeeperQA, you are bringing up more and more similar questions daily, this is not a forum for discussion, it's suppose to be a place where you ask for references. Public awareness (talk) 06:25, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

You right it is a place to ask for references. I have been commenting on articles in the news and forget sometimes that the articles here have their own talk pages. In that regard what articles here cover the 5% on millionaire proposal before Congress right now and the $5 debit card proposal by Bank of America? --DeeperQA (talk) 06:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Article talk pages are equally inappropriate for commentary unrelated to improving the article. Also see WP:NOTFORUM. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

IMHO the question might well change the perspective of the article just as pointing out that a $5 charge for a previously free debit card sounds like replacing Coke Classic with the New Coke or splitting up original Netflix service and charging 150% for both cost Netflix over 1 million subscribers. Do you prefer edit wars in articles or discussions to avoid them on the talk page? WP:There are no rules. --DeeperQA (talk) 07:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I will rephrase the question: Would the "pay in proportion to what you earn" as discussed here provide a superior option? --DeeperQA (talk) 07:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

In the same sense that a progressive tax system is "fair". Googlemeister (talk) 14:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

In the US poor people (and fraudsters with only cash income) commonly get food stamps, commodities, low cost housing or housing vouchers, "scholarships" allowing their children free or reduced cost YMCA memberships, and subsidized or free school lunches. There are real estate tax breaks in many localities for senior citizens. The OP's "50% off card" would presumably require a merchant or utility to sell his goods for half of the regular price (I would assume it would not apply to sale items). Food stamps, by contrast, can be used for sale or discount items. In many cases, this card would require the merchant or utility to sell below cost. If many of the customers of a given store used this card, the merchant or utility would certainly be forced out of business. Fraud via straw purchases would be rampant, if there was no limit on the amount of goods that could be purchased. If Granny is poor and gets the card, then Sonny could take Granny to the appliance store and get his new bigscreen TV for half price, with a straw purchase by Granny. If Granny gets a set amount of foodstamps each month, there is less possibility of fraud. Edison (talk) 15:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The discount card would operate more or less identical to food stamps but include other items besides food as the primary difference. A discount card is simply a way to assure immediate and desperate relief at the bottom for the poor just as creating jobs is seen as a simple way to assure immediate and desperate relief for the middle class that would entail perhaps a 5% tax on assets. --DeeperQA (talk) 02:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

DeeperQA: This is not a proper way to use this page. This is a reference desk, the purpose of which is to ask for help in finding sources, or perhaps for objective answers to relatively straightforward questions. This is not the venue to hold subjective debates about class war in America. Gabbe (talk) 16:56, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you should not blame the OP for the question and debate but the members who provide their own opinions rather than citing references with supporting comments? --DeeperQA (talk) 02:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Purchasing a small kasher handwritten Torah scroll for personal use

I'm quite frankly not sure who or where one would ask about this, so I'll ask in Ref Desk (always a good spot imo). Where could one purchase a small (say about 1-2 feet tall) hand-written kasher (written on parchment made from the skin of a kasher animal) torah scroll that they could use for personal use (say Simchat Torah and also display)? I know they sell little electrically copied ones, [12] but I want something more authentic. And, if someone happens to find out where, could they be so kind as to tell the cost? (I'll assume they're not cheap) Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 9 Tishrei 5772 05:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll tell you if you use the correct English term, "kosher", from now on. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Flinders does seem to be exhibiting pointy behaviour. Not done, old chap. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:17, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

This appears to be one option [13] (rather pricey for new ones), but I wonder about ones produced in Israel. Can someone with better Hebrew skills than mine maybe locate such a service or two? It also looks like by small I meant 8 inches tall for the actual scroll (the other bits are taller :p) Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 9 Tishrei 5772 06:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing that their main market is institutional buyers, not individuals. Get ten guys together pooling their money and it's not so bad. Interestingly, they use the "o." SDY (talk) 06:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

It appears that some of the smaller Torot [14] are advertised for both communities (by which I would guess they mean Jewish community centers and possibly other groups), as well as private homes, though it's too late to call about those (they also don't have the measurements sadly enough). I wonder if they sell such tiny ones in Israel that can be imported. I think many of the sites for those would probably be in Hebrew. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 9 Tishrei 5772 06:33, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Da yau have samething against the letter "o"? Googlemeister (talk) 13:18, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

It interferes with his sense of self-righteousness. --Jayron32 14:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there a Userbox for the user pages of editors who insist on spelling non-Latin-alphabet words in a transliteration other than the commonly used one? Then other editors could take a quick look at someone's user page and understand why he was using odd spellings on talk pages. Like if someone pointedly asked question at the Reference Desk about "Peiping," "Bombay," or "Mahomet." Many words in English were originated in other languages with different alphabets, and many words which came from the precursors of modern English were once spelled differently (. This would save volunteers on Ref Desk from doing Google Book searches or other research with spellings which are not used in references which might contain the information the OP says he wants. Or the editor could just refrain from trolling in the form of using idiosyncratic spellings. Edison (talk) 15:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

May I suggest that if SWMFP wants to use the original spelling he should also be using Hebrew characters? He should probably also be using Anglo-Saxon rather than the degraded Modern English.μηδείς (talk) 15:27, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

dolls for sale

I'm interested in buying two Precious Moments, Inc. Native American vinyl dolls. Where can I find a legitimate place to do so?24.90.204.234 (talk) 05:14, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Well they have a shop on their official website which is linked in that article you linked. [15] You can also buy them at American Greetings from what I know. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 9 Tishrei 5772 05:17, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Ebay has a few. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I checked their website. They don't have what I want. Ebay mainly has the porcelain versions. The American Greetings website only sells eCards and printables.24.90.204.234 (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried here? (which I found in a quick Google search, by the way)--TammyMoet (talk) 12:03, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

iPhone 4s online order taking rollout

Is the purpose of syncing the online order taking rollout of the iPhone to a specific time to test the capacity of the ICload to handle a massive amount of simultaneous transactions or events? --DeeperQA (talk) 05:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

This is definitely a question for the Computing RefDesk. Also, I don't know anything about Apple products, so I can't actually answer your question. Sorry. :( Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 9 Tishrei 5772 05:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

No. It's to increase the excitement of being one of the first, even though in this case the user is being one of the first to order, rather than being one of the first to hold the device, or unbox it, or whatever. If you think about it a bit, taking these orders is very important for Apple financially; more so than any client's use of the servers. A test takes place to see if the server system fails, and obviously it would be awful for Apple if there were a big server failure on zero day. Comet Tuttle (talk) 05:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

It is exciting but also disappointing - Apple answers the phone and say it can understand a sentence so I ask: "How do I buy a new iPhone 4S?" I hear computer keyboard in the background and eventually Apple says its sorry that due to heavy call volume... call back later. --DeeperQA (talk) 06:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Fraternal lodge regalia? What's in this picture?

http://images.wikia.com/happymeal/images/f/fd/Fratlodge.jpg

http://images.wikia.com/happymeal/images/9/98/Fratlodge2.jpg

Can anyone identify the outfits on these fellows, as being from a particular type of fraternal lodge, or something similar? The photo is from what now is called the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario, Canada, but is currently unidentified. -- Zanimum (talk) 14:22, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Definitely not the Masons... my first thought was either the Grange, or the Orange Order. But the logo isn't right for either of those either. Granted, It is hard to make out the logo given the resolution of the photos... but it seems seem to be a red and white rose side by side (possibly with a thorn at the top)... so it could be some sort of Anglo-Scottish patriotic society. Blueboar (talk) 15:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. This is actually from an archives, where I work as a reprographics specialist one day a week. We're planning to post it on our Flickr, but we don't have an ID yet, so it's solely a picture of 200-300 men and boys in front of a barn, for the time being. Not remembering right now if this image was from one of the glass negatives, or from a print, but the people in the original... their heads are about 2 mm tall in the first image. Not sure how much more detail I'll be able to extract, if I do a new scan. (We're also a few miles away from the storage facility, which is under renovation, and we're understaffed, so it's not as easy as I'd like.) The photo was taken by Ernest Alfred Parsons, so it's possible that they're an Anglo-Scottish patriotic society, as you suggest. We have a bit of a biography about him, but nothing that relates to organizations he was in.

Anyone else want to take a shot at it, please? -- Zanimum (talk) 16:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

One more suggestion... contact The National Heritage Museum in Lexington Mass (the website is: [16] ... it has contact info)... they specialize in the history of Fraternal Orders (Masons, Odd Fellows, Elks, Knights of Columbus, Grange, etc) and the Fraternalism movement in general. They may recognize the regalia, or at least give you some additional suggestions for your own research. Blueboar (talk) 01:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

(US) Prohibition (against alcohol)

The recent Ken Burns series Prohibition inspired these questions:

1) He said "Prior to prohibition, female alcoholism was non-existent". I can't believe that. So, what was the actual rate before, during, and after Prohibition ?

2) The passing of the 18th Amendment is portrayed as a failure of representative democracy, with "representatives" voting for it even though they drank themselves (as did the majority of their constituents), out of fear of being targeted for "immorality" by dry forces. So, what percentage of the popular vote would have been for Prohibition ? Is it less than the 2/3 or 3/4 required to pass an Amendment ?

3) The enforcers seemed to feel free to not only destroy any seized alcoholic beverages, but also the barrels, trucks, etc., used to transport it. Was this legal ? StuRat (talk) 16:52, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Would they have even accurately have recorded rates of female alcoholism, before Prohibition? It seems like something families would keep hush-hush. -- Zanimum (talk) 16:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

On #2, from an article abstract:

Prevalence estimates of women alcoholics first appeared in the late nineteenth century; and between 1884 and 1912, data on some 24,200 institutionalized alcoholics produced male-female patient ratios ranging from 3:1 to 9:1. These estimates, however, suffered from some of the same difficulties inherent in modern prevalence figures: "Hidden alcoholism" and a lack of treatment facilities caused the data to under-report women, while patient sex ratios varied by socioeconomic status. These data problems are largely unresolved, and securing reliable prevalence information on women alcoholics remains a frustrating matter for both the social historian and the modern alcohol researcher.

So it was hardly "non-existent", given that you had a pretty strong presence of women in treatment centers, and that number is clearly a low-ball estimate. This article discusses a number of more qualitative factors involved as well. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, 98, but you seem to have confused your number 1 and number 2. StuRat (talk) 21:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Regarding #3, if they seize the property the government then ends up with it. What are they going to do with it? Governments seizing property and then using it for themselves has an awkward connotation: it begs the question of whether the seizure took place because the government wanted the object, not because of a violation of the law. Destroying it makes it clear that the government's objective is enforcement, not theft. Out of curiosity, I know that drug busts still have similar consequences (i.e. if you're using a car to smuggle illicit drugs in NY, they take your car as well). Do they auction off the property and use the proceeds to pay for the defendant's legal expenses? SDY (talk) 22:04, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Here in the US, I believe they auction it off and keep the money (not personally, but it goes into the general fund), so this certainly is a conflict of interest, and one must wonder if a city low on funds and about to lay off cops might find that those cops tend to plant drugs on out-of-state vehicles (whose occupants presumably can't vote for a new mayor or police chief to clean up the corruption). But I believe there are specific drug forfeiture laws which apply, now. My question is whether such laws existed during Prohibition or if the cops just did as they pleased. StuRat (talk) 22:09, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Our article on this is Asset forfeiture. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any mention of the Prohibition era there. StuRat (talk) 00:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

As far as a "failure of democracy" is concerned, yes and no. As far as how many voters would have supported it, what is "it"? At least according to the documentary (one of Burns' better works), most Americans believed that what was being targeted -- "intoxicating liquors" -- referred to hard liquor; the assumption seemed to be that beer and wine would remain legal. So it's hard to tell what percentage of the population would have voted in favor of total prohibition (as opposed to partial prohibition), since the populace was never asked (and polling was very much in its infancy.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:19, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Note that I said "failure of representative democracy", not "failure of democracy" in general. That is, if the margin of people who supported total Prohibition was less than what would be needed to pass a Constitutional Amendment (if, in fact, those Amendments were passed based on popular vote), then direct democracy would presumably have avoided this foolish mistake. I'm trying to establish whether this is the case, or not. I can't believe that such a major change in American life passed without anyone having done a survey. StuRat (talk) 16:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

As I said, opinion polling was in its infancy; how would such a survey have been done? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:51, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Door-to-door, by phone, by letter, etc. A simple count of "for" and "against" letters to a newspaper would give some indication. StuRat (talk) 17:05, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

How about the simple count of votes "for" and "against" "dry" political candidates? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 18:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The US is not a direct democracy it is a constitutional republic, thus it does not matter what the people think on an issue, the elected officials can make any decision they wish on a matter. Public awareness (talk) 18:52, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Irrelevant to my Q. StuRat (talk) 22:30, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Strategic -Culture Fit in MNC (software of the mind) -articles

HI, I am a Research Scholar, searching out for the information on the Topic, "Software of the Mind"- Strategic-Culture Fit in Multinational Corporations of various countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sheela Reddy (talk • contribs) 18:34, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like a topic, but more like a rather obscure title. If you can decipher that into an actual topic, then maybe we can help. The "Software of the mind" part sounds like it's talking about human intelligence, while "Strategic-Culture Fit in Multinational Corporations of various countries" sounds like maybe it's talking about companies which alter their products to fit different cultures. I don't see how the two are directly related, do you ? StuRat (talk) 21:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused as to what exactly you are asking, but (if I have understood your question properly) you might like to look at the work of Geert Hofstede around culture in multinational corporations. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:01, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Marx and morality of wages and profit

In Capital I, p.61, Marx wrote that "[Adolf Wagner] foists me on the idea that "the surplus-value produced by the labourers alone improperly remains with the capitalist entrepeneurs"... In fact, I say the direct opposite: namely that at a certain point commodity production necessarily becomes 'capitalist' commodity production and that according to the law of value governing the latter, the "surplus-value" is necessarily the capitalist's and not the labourer's." (my emphasis)

What? I've only just begun to browse through his material, but this contradicts everything any modern marxist has ever said to me - if I'm reading it right, that is. What I read here (and it is echoed a few other places), if I am to translate it into what I easily understand, is that the entrepeneur, having facilitated for the efficient production of the commodity, properly owns some of the profit. That's the word he uses here, and it's as normative as they come: It is PROPER of the entrepeneur to retain profit. Now, Marx repeatedly says that -part- of the surplus-value is unpaid labour, and that this is immoral. What I want to know is, does he ever get any more specific with regards to how much profit is moral to keep?

In the end, it appears to me that Marx says profit, within reason for the labourer, is entirely alright prior to the social revolution, ie as long as there are capitalists. However, Eduard Bernstein never seems to meet him on this point in The Preconditions for Socialism - as I'm almost sure he would.

Could any of you possibly help shed some light on the issue? I thank you in advance! 129.241.165.147 (talk) 20:43, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

We have an article on surplus value that talks about this and might help. Marx's problem was that the laborer was providing more than he was being paid for, and that the difference between costs to the employer and benefits to the employer (the difference being the "surplus value") was essentially theft. Since the laborer cannot make money without the employer, they are nominally stuck with any terms the employer gives them. This doesn't hold as much water as Marx might like since the employer is also dependent on the laborer, the employer has to pay something even if the laborer's only option is a take it or leave it. SDY (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Marx isn't a moralist—Marx is a social constructivist when it comes to moral theories: all society exists in the context of its material base. For Marx, within capitalism, capitalism justifies its moral order by being the natural order of culture in capitalism. The point Marx is making here, is that in Feudal societies, extracting profit from workers was viewed as usury or unjust, whereas in capitalism, such as extraction is viewed as moral. The morality is socially contingent. Marx never gets specific about how much surplus value it is moral to keep in capitalism, as Marx's Capital is a revolutionary manual (see Harry Cleaver's Reading Capital Politically for this). Every category Marx presents: wage labour, the length of the working day, surplus value, is contestable—why? Marx thinks that the whole edifice of capital can be dismantled. As Marx shows in the contest over the length of the working day, each of these categories is contingent upon social power. So with enough social power, the surplus value extracted can be reduced. A key example here is social democracy such as the Labour governments in Britain after the war. They had sufficient social power to tax surplus value production and divest it as social goods. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:48, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The error underlying Marx work on surplus value and profit is that value is objective. The labor theory of value is based on the assumption that value is objective because value, in Marx' world, is determined by the amount of labor that goes into production. If this were true, then an apple pie would be as valuable as (and command the same price as) a mud pie assuming the same amount of labor went into the production of each. Objective value also gives rise to the "markets as exploitation" argument since every transaction is a zero-sum game: if you pay $12 for something that has an objective value of $10, you lose and the seller wins. In fact, value is subjective. Suppose you value a car so much that you'd be willing to part with $20,000 to obtain the car, and a seller values the same car so much that he'd not be willing to part with it for less than $10,000. If the two of you agree on a sale price of $16,000, then you both win -- you get a car worth (to you) $20,000 for a price of $16,000, and the seller sells a car worth (to him) $10,000 for a price of $16,000. Wikiant (talk) 13:07, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest you actually read Marx. His labour theory of value has nothing in common with the absurdity you just presented. Marx stipulates that the labour power engaged in producing value is exerted labour power in an abstract social form performed at the socially average productivity rate. It is in Volume 1 and it is clearly presented. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:00, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Dwindling nationalism?

So one can find many examples of sharp rises in nationalism throughout history (Québec in the 1960s, Scotland a bit later, the Basque country in the 1930s...) but I can't think of a clear example of fervent —separatist— nationalist sentiment shrinking or disappearing in modern history. Can anyone think of a strong separatist sentiment become marginal again after a few years, decades or maybe centuries? --Belchman (talk) 21:56, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The State of Jefferson almost got going for a while. Then WWII happened and people had other things to think about. It's not a separatist movement in the usual sense, but it is one example. SDY (talk) 22:10, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure how strong these all were, and their current level of interest, but perhaps, Riograndense Republic,Confederate States of America, Free Aceh Movement, Hawaiian sovereignty movement, and Sri Lankan Civil War. Belgium seems to be losing its nationalism, which was of course strong when it fought for its independence in the 1830s, Partition of Belgium. To go back a bit further in time, you may try looking to see in any of the Indian states which formed India had seperatist sentiments at the time, but are now gone, and same could go for Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, which all unified from multiple states. Public awareness (talk) 22:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, Republic of Yucatán & Boer Wars, and you may want to check out this list, List of former sovereign states. But when reading the list remember that many of the nations that did split from their mother nation were not always because of popular setiment, but could have been splits due to crown inheritence problems in monarch states or a few individuals trying to pull a Coup d'état on a province of a nation and trying to get independence. Public awareness (talk) 22:37, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

What about every nationalist movement you mentioned? Quebec, Scotland, and the Basque country are not separate states today, despite the rising nationalist periods you mentioned; nationalist sentiment has dwindled in each of those places now compared to various times in the past. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:39, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I think separatism can increase rapidly, but only slowly reduces. StuRat (talk) 00:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Khalistani separatism dwindled quite rapidly in the 1990s. --Soman (talk) 08:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Texas Nationalism saw a surge during the year before the most recent election for governor. I haven't heard much about it since then. This particular movement sees peaks and valleys every decade-and-a-half-or-so. Schyler (exquirere bonum ipsum) 18:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Many regions in Europe have at times an active separatist movement: Bavaria in Germany, Andalusia in Spai, Bretagne in France, South Tirol in Italy. They come and go, sometimes after several decades. Quest09 (talk) 20:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Andalusia has never had anything remotely resembling a separatist movement. They do have a strong regional identity though —but their Spanish identity is equally strong. --Belchman (talk) 23:58, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

To an American, the southern United States are the obvious example. Lots of southerners still feel a strong sense of regional identity, but not many want to secede from the USA any more. Looie496 (talk) 23:10, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Also see Biafra and Katanga. Losing a civil war tends to do that. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

October 8

Gun fights between members of the Provisional IRA and loyalist paramilitaries

Did the republican and the loyalist paramilitaries ever fight a direct gun fight or something resembling a regular battle? --Belchman (talk) 19:58, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes. See Battle_of_St_Matthew's. Quest09 (talk) 21:24, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Ulster Protestants and Scotland

Why do Protestants living in Northern Ireland fanatically self-identify as British while separatism in their mother country Scotland is so popular? --Belchman (talk) 20:20, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

"fanatically" is a matter of opinion. They identify as British because they are indeed British and agree that this is the right status quo, with Northern Ireland being a part of the UK. Otherwise they will call themselves Irish.

Separatism might be popular or not depending on how violent you are. People sympathize more with non-violent separatists. Quest09 (talk) 21:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I used the wrong word. Probably "fiercely" would be more appropriate. I meant that they're apparently very proud of their British identity. --Belchman (talk) 23:30, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

It would be a mistake to think that Presbyterians in Ireland were always Unionists or supporters of the (Episcopalian) Protestant Ascendancy. The Society of United Irishmen article would be worth reading in this regard. Angus McLellan (Talk) 21:35, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

As an English Briton, it seems from this side of the water as though the Ulster Unionists cling to their British identity as a way of preventing themselves from being sidelined in a mainly Catholic and republican (ie anti-monarchist) island. To us, they seem to act in a very un-British way - marching through the streets under a forest of Union Jacks behind a fife and drum band is something that few English people would do. It is also astonishing to me that anyone calling themselves a Loyalist would consider throwing bricks at the Queen's police officers, but that has happened with depressing regularity during the Ulster "marching season". If there was an easy answer to the Irish conundrum, I expect it would have been found by now. Alansplodge (talk) 22:54, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

_Provisional_ Irish Republican Army

Why is the Provisional IRA called "Provisional"? The article on the PIRA says something about a "Provisional" Army Council but other than that, what's the reason? --Belchman (talk) 23:38, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The original IRA broke up in 1969; the group that followed the original leadership became the Official Irish Republican Army, while the other group had to "scrape together" a leadership council, so became the "Provisional" IRA. The "Official" and "Provisional" appleations were originally rejected by both groups, who both considered themselves the legitimate successors to the original Irish Republican Army (1922–1969), they both just called themselves the "IRA". Historians and media came to differentiate the groups between those that remained with the original leadership and ideology (The Officials) and those that formed from the new leadership (The Provisionals). You can get the sense of this history at all three articles. --Jayron32 00:52, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

October 9

Do Canadians do anything?

Why is Canada mentioned so rarely in the American media? Canada is the world's 10th wealthiest country, one of America's neighbors, its biggest trading partner, and its biggest supplier of energy. It's the closest thing to an economic and financial powerhouse within several thousand kilometers, yet I very rarely hear any mention of Canada in American news. Why is this the case? --140.180.16.144 (talk) 00:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Because in Canada you don't have shootings like in Columbine, millions being evicted, bombing of third nations and an active pop culture industry. Honestly, to report something there must be something to report. Is there a Canadian Paris Hilton?. Add on the top of that that Americans really don't care much about foreign affairs. Wikiweek (talk) 00:26, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

"Is there a Canadian <that woman whose name I refuse ever to utter>?" - No other country would dare produce such a creature. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:19, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Because the USA pretends that everything revolves around themselves. →Στc. 00:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

On what basis is the OP making the claim that Canada is underrepresented in the American media? Could the answer be "it isn't being underrepresented" or "before we can answer your question, could you at least present some evidence before making outrageous and unproven statements?" Answering a question which is itself completely wrong doesn't make any sense. Before we answer the question, can we at least fact-check the premise? Have you stopped beating your wife? I'm not absolutely saying that the OP is incorrect, but we also cannot assume that they are without evidence... --Jayron32 00:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Mass media has no duty to equally represent news, their business is only to attract viewers which they sell to advertisers. Sooo, what gets coverage in the media is based on what gets viewers, see Missing white woman syndrome for a well known major distortion. Public awareness (talk) 01:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Could you please stop putting words into my mouth? I never claimed Canada was "underrepresented". In fact, I never claimed anything aside from easily-verifiable facts--that Canada is the world's tenth largest economy, that it's a U.S. neighbor, and so on. My question, for those who couldn't be bothered to read it, was "why is Canada mentioned so rarely in the American media?" That's my personal impression, and you're free to disagree with it. In addition, my not-entirely-serious title was "do Canadians do anything?" suggests that one reason is that Canada has minimal impact on the world, aka that it's NOT underrepresented.

Even if I was claiming that Canada is underrepresented--which I wasn't--I feel sorry for you for considering such a statement outrageous. If you're so insulted by a neutral and non-judgmental statement, why are you on Wikipedia in the first place, and how do you deal with edit wars? --140.180.16.144 (talk) 01:03, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Jayron32 meant anything personal by it, and it is very easy to connect "underrepresented" and "mentioned so rarely". Please try to keep your tone calm, even if someone was being a jerk, it's best to keep calm. Public awareness (talk) 01:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Disagree with your premise, and like Jayron I agree you have asked a complex question. Mentioned rarely? A Google News search for just the last 24 hours comes up with stories in the Washington Post, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, and hundreds of other smaller outlets; stories include the Keystone Pipeline, the Canadian dollar vs other world currencies, a falling satellite (German), labor data, a jobs boost (in Canada, not in the US), and other things. Plenty of coverage. Antandrus (talk) 01:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Americans were grateful for Canadian efforts to rescue American diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis.

The last actual news out of Canada was their helping to smuggle a bunch of our hostages out of Iran. The operation is known as Yo, Canada!. But plenty of things happen in the US that are news in Canada, like premier Danny Williams flying to the US for heart surgery [17] while his compatriots wait months and die before being allowed to use either of the two MRI's rationed per province under their free national healthcare system. But what does any of this have to do with the reference desk? μηδείς (talk) 01:21, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

If you claim an event that happened over 30 years ago (!) was the last actual news out of Canada, that doesn't say much for your interest in references. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

You, know, Jack, it was your claim that I was "in hot water" in the last thread without specifying what it was that I was in hot water for that reminded me of my total lack of respect for you as a racist ni99er joke maker with no sense of irony or self awareness, and, in contrast to myself and others here, very little to say on topics, and all too much to say on personality. Now, if you want to post some news out of Canada that matters to you, feel free. I stand by my assertion that the resscue of the Iranian-held US hostages is the biggest story in the US regarding Canada for the last 35 years if not more. I provided links. What have you provided? But if you intend to continue with these WP:personal attacks I'll simply provide links to your racist nonsense, and maybe file an RfC, but otherwise ignore you. Stick to the topics. No one is impressed by your baseless opinions and personal insults. μηδείς (talk) 03:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Because Canada is a peaceful, prosperous, democratic country that's always more or less friendly to the United States. Mexico is known for drug wars, assassinations and millions of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S., so of course it's going to be in the news a lot. Europe has a debt crisis that could wreck the world economy. The Middle East is full of conflict and revolution. But Canada? Do you think it really makes a difference to American viewers who wins the election in Ontario? It's not as if it could lead to a war or communist takeover or something. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:38, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Study strategies for history

What are some helpful strategies for studying history at a pre-college level? What approach should the student take when studying a topic, e.g. a historic culture or historical period? What would be helpful for the student to pay attention to or keep in mind?

For test taking, are there general categories that history questions can be put into? If the answer is yes, what would be some strategies for dealing with the different types of questions?

Any help will be much appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.148.216 (talk) 00:38, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's memorization of facts, like dates, for which flash cards are good. For the more detailed understanding of the relationships between different historical forces, perhaps doing study questions is best. If the test is all multiple choice, true/false, matching and fill in the blank, then it's likely to be mostly about facts. If it's an essay, then it's more about historic forces (although you should sprinkle a few facts in, too). StuRat (talk) 01:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I knew my world history 1400-1900 and all world cities by age 16 by playing video games like Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun and Europa Universalis II. But thats just a personal thing and it doesn't teach specifics of actual battles, but if you asked me I could draw you a detailed map of Europe during any period during those centuries. Details come easier once you know the big picture I think, I mean, what's the point of knowing all about the Battle of Austerlitz if you don't know the map of Europe and who the great powers were at the time. And of course the main benefit is that it's passive learning that's enjoyable. Public awareness (talk) 01:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

The difficulty of pre-college history is that it is really an area dominated by history buffs rather than historians. Hence the emphasis is on memorization and (frankly) trivia, rather than deep historical understanding, period awareness, or historical empathy. (I say this as an historian, one who hated history before college.)

My recommendations, as an historian and a teacher, follow:

1. Visualization helps a lot. Going through lists of vocabulary and dates doesn't work well for most people. (If it does for you, you probably wouldn't have asked.) When I need to learn about something, I try to find out what it looked like, because I find I can remember images a lot better than words. (This is not a new, or original, observation — see Art of memory.) So if I've got to memorize something about a person, I find out what he or she looked like. I can usually remember the visual later, and work backwards to other facts from there.

2. History has a form and a structure on which the facts hang. Focus on the "skeleton" of history first — big movements, big changes, big shifts. Learn the big picture first and primarily. Focus on the major movements. Once you know those, filling in the little details — the exact proclamations, battles, books, what have you — comes a lot easier. If you focus on the details (as the buffs would do it), you will miss the big picture. If you have lost the big picture, you will easily commit stupid gaffes like putting the wrong ideas in the wrong century and things of that nature. If you know the big picture, you can often work backwards to infer the probable details, as well. In any case, once you have a scaffold of a big picture, the little facts — the specific years and dates — are a lot easier to "hang" onto them. It saves you from memorizing what feels like a lot of unconnected things — find the connections first, then work backwards for the details.

3. Writing will teaching you more than reading. Reading is important! But writing is what makes us really learn things. If you spend time reading and understanding something and then re-writing it in your own words, or with your own conclusions, and really put thought into what you write (not just parroting a book), you will really understand it better. It forces you to synthesize rather than memorize. It keeps the information from just going in one ear and out the other. Neurologically it probably involves creating a new little network of memories connected to other parts of the brain, I don't know. But if I write something down, I generally know it for a huge amount of time, and deeply. If I just read it, I can forget it within a week.

I don't know if these will help with you, but they do reflect my own approach to this, and I've done this for a long time now. I'm not any better at memorizing things than the average person — probably worse. I was horrible with flash cards and high school history. People are often very impressed with how many facts and dates I remember now — but that's not because I sat down with the idea of memorizing them, it's because I've worked to set up a framework in my head that holds it all together, and keeps the really important things fresh and interesting to me. Whether this approach will work in a buff-like atmosphere, I don't know. I'd love to believe it would, but I don't know. It's a more worthwhile way to approach the study of history, though, in my opinion. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:28, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm a historian, but unlike Mr.98, I'm not (yet) a teacher. Mr.98's advice is excellent. I'd just like to point out that some high school syllabus (NSW HSC, for example) is focused on real history. Here Mr.98's point 2 is even more important, the story, theory, structure and process of history is the key. As an aside, the UK university system publishes some quite nice 100 page primers aimed at final year high school / first year university students. These combine narrative, major analyses, documents and questions together. If you can get your hand on text books that combine primary and secondary source analysis, with guided theoretical questions, and the narrative you'll have something worth (perhaps even exciting) enough to read. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:53, 9 October 2011 (UTC)